Irreverent Thinking

As organisations become ever more fleet of foot it becomes clear that the “old world” approach of making huge, long range policy decisions is no longer appropriate. For some time now I have been advocating a “test, test and test again” approach mixed in with a quasi-Kaizen methodology when it comes to improving the performance of websites. This is borne out of being able to have a complete view of what happens when we make changes to a site (thanks to our VITES™ platform); when combined with statistically correct sample sizes and A/B testing, this gives you the clearest (probable) indicator of how successful a change is.

I note that a search on Google turns up some interesting results, with some companies, such as Nike, embracing the idea, and no less than Forbes Magazine citing it as the reason for the wealth of creativity that comes out of our US cousins across the pond. Thomas Edison was once quoted as saying “I HAVE not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” This approach has its problems which need to be addressed, but the greatest problem is with its name- Trial and ***ERROR*** - which states clearly that mistakes will be made. Sadly most of today’s inwardly-focussed corporates seem to lack the courage to take this step. Even worse are the companies that make sweeping changes without trialling them first; in the case of AOL a $75m loss in revenue.

The companies that do test fly; the ones that don’t end up stagnating and die.

The moral?

To succeed you have to fail occasionally