So, we're busy working on our new Newfangled website. It's targeted to go online in September. As part of this effort I've been reviewing past newsletters. Wow, five years of monthly newsletters - that's a lot of content! Some of these old newsletters will soon be removed or re-written since their information is out of date.
This month I'm re-writing one of the oldest newsletters "Managing Client Expectations." Re-reading this old newsletter was very encouraging to me. When it was originally written, the emphasis of managing expectations was, in essence, lowering them. Happily, today the opposite is true. These days we more frequently encounter clients that aren't thinking aggressively enough about what they can do with their websites. Often their expectations are too low! What a wonderful change of events. It's my pleasure to re-write that old newsletter under much better circumstances.
Before Y2K and the great dot com bubble burst, the website development business could often be frustrating. The number one problem we faced was trying to meet client expectations. That's because expectations were way out of line with reality. Anyone with even the slightest business idea thought the internet was the place to cash in. And, in fact, it didn't take much more than a business plan to get venture capital. Sadly, established businesses, looking on, felt the need to keep up with these wild trends. Many were provoked to attempt grand web initiatives. We saw many requests for proposals whose requirements were so outrageous (and corresponding budgets so out of scale) that we had to let them pass, though usually not without some word of caution to the originator. I imagine many companies look back now and wish they hadn't wasted their money. Many of these sites never saw the light of day. They ended up costing too much to complete, or were so buggy that they couldn't be used. To state it mildly, their expectations were way out of scale with the reality of that time.
Fortunately, Y2K did not bring our technology dependent culture to its knees. December 31, 1999 came and went without as much as a technology hiccup. Later that year, however, the dot com bubble burst was quite devastating - at least to internet companies. Excessive internet hype and over valued internet stock finally collapsed. Not only did many startups go belly up, but established businesses wisely decided to cut their losses and drop their overly aggressive website initiatives too. Those were tough years to be in the website development business.
Our original newsletter "Managing Client Expectations," published in September of 2001, was written in those tough times. It was written as a corrective to inflated expectations and suggested more conservative and attainable goals in light of past failures and excesses.
That was then, this is now.
I am happy to report that, more often that not, a new client's expectations for their website are much too low. Perhaps there has been an expectation pendulum swing resulting from past failures. That's not to say that unrealistic expectations are never a problem. But they are more rare, and often just need adjusting rather than lowering.
Generally speaking, more often that not, a new client's expectations for their website are far too modest.
This, in many ways, may be seen as resulting from past failures and other issues. Unrealistic expectations, on the other hand, are quickly levelled out by the realities of this field.
I always wanted to write in my site something like that. Can I take part of your post to my blog?
Generally speaking, more often that not, a new client's expectations for their website are far too modest.