This can easily leave the customer feeling overwhelmed and a bit lost, especially in trying to establish a project budget.

A massive industry-wide disparity in qualifications and experience has yielded a widespread lack of understanding of what design is actually worth (on a monetary scale). Customers are largely misinformed when it comes to market value for professional design. A web search immediately yields a selection of companies offering logo design for $99, so that must be the going rate, no?

No.

For several reasons, pro designers do not like to discuss their rates in public. There are some concerns that such discussions may be misconstrued as price-fixing, which opens up a big stinking can of legal worms. There are others who are concerned that competitors will see their rates and undercut them, or that clients will be scared off by an hourly billable twice as high as a competing designer (who might take ten times longer to do the same work). And of course there remains the simple fact that every project is different, which means that pricing will differ according to client needs – as it should.

Frankly, I think every designer should publicly advertise their rates, so long as they are clear and honest about what the numbers represent. Publishing a range per service area is a good way to give your customers an idea of what you charge, without making any false promises.

In few other industries are vendors intimidated into keeping their prices a closely guarded secret. It seems the only people consistently and openly advertising their prices are crowd-sourcing sites, generic stock art sites, and contest-model/outsourcing wholesalers. As a result, these are the only numbers that customers are seeing, creating a false impression that ALL design services are represented by this handful of bottom-of-the-barrel vendors.

People who see a necklace at the dollar store don’t go into Tiffany’s and expect to pay a buck for any necklace in the shop, yet because the bottom end are the only prices being consistently advertised, this is the phenomenon we are dealing with in design.

Thankfully, GDC (Graphic Designers of Canada) and RGD (Registered Graphic Designers) conduct a biennial national survey on project fees and billing practices in the Canadian graphic design industry. AIGA does a similar review in the United States, though their survey is limited to salaries – useless data, from the customer’s standpoint.

Having worked in both the Canadian and American design industries for several years now, it has been our experience that the market rates in our countries are near interchangeable, with rates in the USA being only slightly higher than those here in Canada.

Averages for Project Fees

Respondents were career professionals with post-secondary education (95%) and an average of 10 years experience. They were asked to indicate fees for the projects described, excluding any reimbursable or out-of-pocket expenses. Note these are not our rates, they are averages that have been reported across our entire graphic design industry.

Given approximately one-third of respondents were freelancers, it would have been interesting to see rates as reported by registered design companies alone, however this survey still gives a fair (if broadly generalized) representation of what customers can expect to pay for quality work by people who know their stuff.

It was also nice to see that our own rates fell below the reported averages, though it was not surprising. We’re small and fat-free.

The survey results can be reviewed in more detail at http://www.rgdontario.ca – as soon as they publish the next report, we’ll update our site with the latest data.

Even if you have no interest in design theory and fundamentals, for the sake of your business there is one point that should never be forgotten: the purpose of design is communication.

Communication Demands Relevance

Each industry has a unique audience, with unique needs & expectations. What works for a law firm website will not necessarily translate well to the design of a catering company website. In an industry flooded with generic templates and unqualified or (worse) apathetic service providers, this simple fact is often overlooked. For this reason, we present to you the first in a series of Web Design Anatomy articles. Motivated by the short and frustratingly familiar script referenced here, our first article will deal with Restaurant Websites.

Why Does a Restaurant Need a Website?

We’re not talking generalities here – in today’s marketplace just about EVERY type of business needs an online presence if they want to stay competitive. More specifically, we are asking the question: what is the purpose of a restaurant website?

The reductionist answer is twofold:
• To create an attraction between diners and your restaurant
• To provide the information they need to spend their money there

Attraction

This is the point that far too many restaurant owners get caught up in, at least superficially. It’s no secret that we are not supporters of Flash to the detriment of accessibility or functionality. How can you attract when you can’t be seen? It’s best to consider Flash as just one specialized tool in a very well stocked toolbox… it serves a niche function, comes with a ball of strings attached, and with advancements in the capabilities of JavaScript is quickly becoming obsolete.

It is important to present an impressive online image that represents everything great about your restaurant. But in order to make that impression, diners need to be able to actually VIEW your website. If they are out driving around, browsing for a restaurant on their iPhone, they will not be able to view your Flash website. At all. If they are using a search engine to find a restaurant, yours will likely be way down the list, as search engine optimization techniques for Flash sites are crippled, at best. There is also the issue of not being able to copy/paste, or bookmark individual pages. Statistically, Flash sites have an exponentially higher abandon rate than XHTML/CSS based sites.

Information

Following is a short list of requirements that every restaurant website should have in order to provide customers with the information they’re seeking:

• Restaurant Overview
  A basic introduction to your restaurant is a must. Even if you think the name of your restaurant is self-explanatory, people still like to see how you describe yourself. If you have any unique selling points (local-sourced or seasonal ingredients, fair-trade, vegetarian options, etc.) this is a great place to mention them.
• Location
  Diners need to know where you are, and how to get there. You don’t need to provide directions from every corner of town, but an address, basic map, and link to a direction-giving site like Google Maps is very helpful indeed. BONUS: include a photograph of the front of your restaurant, so first-time visitors will recognize it easily from the street.
• Hours
  Basic stuff, here. And this is very near the top of the list of priorities when a diner visits your website. Make them easy to find.
• Menu
  Your food is your business! If ever there were an influential and unique selling point, it would be a mouth-watering menu. Words paint a picture, here. Don’t just scan your paper menu into an annoying PDF file, either – invest in having a digital menu designed to complement your physical one. This is the page people will want to bookmark.
• Photos
  A picture surely does speak a thousand words. Show what you’ve described in your menu, and make the imagery so vivid that it elicits a Pavlovian response in your visitors. Show your food, show your restaurant, your staff, and your dining room. The food is the star, but the experience is the whole package.
• Reviews
  This is not a must-have, but it certainly is nice. Reviews are the first thing many people look at when considering a new restaurant to try. If your restaurant has been reviewed in print, you definitely want to boost the influence that press affords by including it in your website. If you’re not in print, patch in reviews from consumer sites like UrbanSpoon or Restaurantica, or any of the other dozens of options available in any given city. And if you’re brand-spanking-new, include a reviews page with a simple request and link for people to visit a chosen review site, and let the world know what they thought of their experience with you.
• Reservation/Contact Info
  This area can be the deal-closer in many cases. If you make it easy and painless for people to book a table, guess what they’ll be more likely to do? Provide an easy-to-find phone number, of course, but also consider bookings by email, or requests via a form on your website. You can even program in live reservations through services like OpenTable.

How to Annoy Your Customers

Some food for thought, straight from the horses’ mouths:

“I’m always taken aback when music emanates from my speakers when I’m viewing a site”

“Flash required. Biggest irritant of a restaurant website. Even more so if they have an “Intro” graphic/animation. Two of my fav places use flash for their sites and it’s very very annoying. Even more annoying with flash is not being able to copy/paste phone numbers.”

“Can’t stand it when a site starts with music or that stupid talking character/video. I’ve got my own playlist going already, thanks. I don’t want your music. And when I’ve opened a ton of tabs at once, skimming through to find a cool place to eat, it’s always a pain to figure out which ones are making the noise.”

“I have my windows set up so that everything is sized and positioned the way I want it. Nothing bugs me more than when a website takes over your browser and forces it to fill the screen.”

“Flash, flash, flash. I don’t care about your intro. I don’t want to watch a video of leaves unfurling. Atmosphere is nice, but I usually end up closing these sites before they’re even done loading.”

“Where’s the damn menu?! I scour the site for ages, then when finally find it, it’s a crappy PDF.”

Who Does It Right

Here are just a few examples of restaurants with websites that walk the walk in terms of design, attractiveness to their own target customer base, and serving their purpose through the provision of convenient, easy-to-find information.

Each of these sites has a design that appeals the demographics the restaurants are trying to attract. They look great. They work the way they should. And information is very easy to find.

The central lesson in all design, whether it be for print, digital distribution, or the web, is that (the right kind of) communication is king. The goal for any company’s website is to sell a product, service or idea. Obviously you want to look good doing it, but dressing up for a job interview will do you no good if you can’t communicate with your prospective bosses. And let’s face it… the customer is the boss.

What follows is a recounting of one man’s frustration at the restaurant industry’s infatuation with Flash. Enjoy.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

A conversation I have every month or so

Me: (tries to visit a local restaurant’s website via iPhone)
Restaurant website: I require Flash. F**k off.
Me: I just want to know how late you’re open.
Website: Nope.
Me: But I’m on my phone. Don’t you have a little “HTML Version” link up in the corner or something?
Website: I’m ignoring you.
Me: What if I’m on my phone because I’m out, looking for a place to eat? Didn’t that ever occur to you?
Website: F**k entirely off.
Me: (gives up, switches to computer)
Website: Oh! Hi! What can I help you with today?
Me: What are your —
Website: Hang on, I’m loading the music.
Me: Really.
Website: You’ll love it. It’s “Girl from Ipanema” arranged for steel drum and keytar.
Me: No, you don’t have to —
Website: Loading…
Me: All I want is —
Website: I SAID DOT DOT DOT.
Me: (drums fingers on desk)
Website: There we go. Isn’t that nice? It’s… what’s the word. Ethnicky.
Me: What are your hours?
Website: Take a look at our menu! It’s a PDF of a screenshot of a scan of a Word document printed on a dishtowel. With fonts!
Me: I don’t care. What are your hours?
Website: Don’t worry, the menu loads in a new window so the music won’t stop. Can I show you some broken images?
Me: What. Are. Your. Hou. Rs.
Website: I… I don’t know.
Me: (goes to Denny’s)

Visit the Source: Venomous Porridge
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

As much as I might be tempted to rail and ramble on about the detriments of Flash to concepts like website usability and UX (user experience), it somehow seems folly to think I could be quite as succinct or relateable as Mr. Wineman’s script above.

If you’re a restaurant owner, the next time a designer tries to sell you on an overpriced Flash site with all the bells and whistles… take a moment and think about the purpose your website actually serves. And think of Mr. Wineman. He could have been one of your best customers.

Led by Dieter Rams, the Braun of the seventies embraced a design sensibility that was both minimalist and modernist-inspired, leaving us with a collection of timeless pieces that are fast disappearing into the homes of collectors worldwide.

Though product design is slightly removed from what we do at Sage, their approach to what Rams called ‘Good Design’ translates quite well.

Ten Principles of Good Design

1. Good Design is innovative
2. Good Design makes a product useful
3. Good Design is aesthetic
4. Good Design helps us to understand a product
5. Good Design is unobtrusive
6. Good Design is honest
7. Good Design is durable
8. Good Design is consequent to the last detail
9. Good Design is concerned with the environment
10. Good Design is pure and simple

For nearly 30 years, Dieter Rams served as head of design at Braun until his retirement in 1998. Many of his designs have found permanent homes in museums and galleries around the world, including MoMA in New York. And much like his designs themselves, the principles he helped to define for the industry have a lasting, timeless quality.

Famous for defining ‘good design’ as ‘as little design as possible’, Rams had a full appreciation for the importance of clarity over cacophony – and that’s a tenet that travels incredibly well. I have a feeling the man’s influence will endure for years to come.

Solid yet fragile, simple yet versatile, and clean yet primitively natural – the feel of glass gives an instant impression of quality.

We designed the labels for the line of spices in the photo above. There were some limitations placed on us, but in the end the design turned out quite nice, and as you can see, the concept favored a lovely clear glass bottle. Regrettably, these glass bottles were never to be. Instead, the client’s print house produced an oversized, soft plastic bottle that sucked in on itself under the pressure of the seal, and whose material caused the spices to adhere thickly to the inside, making the bottles look permanently dirty.

When the final samples arrived, I was more than a little disappointed – not with the spices (which were actually great) but with the poor quality of the package production. I wanted to strangle whomever was in charge at their production house overseas. I’ll be honest, if I saw those misshapen, dirty looking plastic bottles in a store, I would pass them by without a second thought. Good design is only the beginning… production has to finish the job.

Which brings me back to glass. This article was inspired by some research findings published by the University of Oklahoma, which essentially confirmed that people in my demographic prefer to buy products packaged in glass. The survey was conducted in conjunction with Newton Marketing Research on April 14, 2009 (with a Margin of error of +/- 3.7%).

It was a brief survey, but it’s a brief topic. They simply asked respondents which material they preferred (glass, paper, plastic, or metal) based on six criteria: maintaining quality, environmental friendliness, purity, healthiness, preserving shelf life, and maintaining a food’s true flavour.

Here are the numbers:

While this is simply a consumer opinions survey (so the numbers represent a sampling of the population’s impressions on each topic and not any actual performance related data), it is still worthy of our attention. The people surveyed in this study are among the most influential buyers in one of the fastest growing markets in North America today. And what they think determines whether they pick up your product, or that of your competitor.

However, before bidding a polite but firm “goodbye and good luck”, I do try to impart a little knowledge and foresight. Because in the end, these people actually end up paying more for a vastly inferior product – and that’s not good for anyone.

A True Story

I’m not going to bore you with the vague old “you get what you pay for” adage (oh wait, I just did). Rather, I am going to ask you to read through a short, true story. Trust me, you don’t want to learn this lesson the hard way.

Jon* is a 15 year old high school student, hoping to build his portfolio so he can get into a design program. He lives with his parents, has no staff or overhead, and is teaching himself how to use a copy of Adobe Creative Suite that he ‘found’ online. He’s had no actual clients, and his only business experience was a summer job at the snack bar at the local ball diamond. He built a small website for his freelancing business using a free (but very nice) WordPress template. His portfolio has three very nice but unverifiable sample pieces featured.

Jan* is a 30 year old university graduate, with specializations in consumer psychology, research and graphic design. She has over ten years experience creating a myriad of different design solutions for businesses around the world, an expansive portfolio of work, and dozens of testimonials from satisfied clients. She runs a full time design business, supporting a small team of painstakingly selected, experienced designers.

Obviously, the names have been changed… but it should be pretty easy to guess who Jan really is. As for Jon, he had submitted the winning bid for a project we competed for early last year (and I always check out who beat me when the opportunity presents itself). After I contacted him to ask about his background, he sent me his resume and the information above.

An excerpt from the client’s email to me last year:

Fourteen months later, the same client approached me out of the blue, asking if the previous quote was still valid.

It turns out they had spent nearly double the quoted amount with Jon (bringing them well above my quote), who not only turned in more than thirty “terrible” logo concepts, but who was impossible to get hold of between school and his social calendar. They never even got to the brochure, corporate collateral and website that were part of the original RFP.

But that’s not the worst of it.

When the client finally got fed up and decided to “settle” on one of his logo concepts, the graphic used turned out to be a copyrighted trademark belonging to an established multinational company. They are incredibly lucky their secretary stumbled onto the plagiarism before the copyright owners did.

I have to admit a small sense of satisfaction in hearing their story. Not because I revel in the misfortune of others (quite the opposite), but because I was vindicated. On the flip side, I hear too many stories like this one. These experiences sour people on the whole profession.

Yes, our hourly rates are quite a bit higher than Jon’s. But what you should be thinking about is what you actually get within that hour.

It’s also important to note that I only know about Jon’s status as a student with no actual clients or experience, because I bothered to ask him. These are not things that people advertise on their sales collateral. So do your homework when choosing a designer. And always, always read their terms of service in full. If they don’t have any, then my advice would be to run as quickly as possible in the opposite direction.

As for the prodigal client, I agreed to take on the project at last year’s price. They’re now very happy, and a little wiser for the experience.

Effective strategic design is somewhat like a composition written for a symphony orchestra, in that it requires several instruments working symbiotically in order to achieve the desired result.

What is User Experience? Dozens of definitions and formulas have been put forward over the years, but what they all have in common are the premises that (a) the customer experience is the ultimate loyalty/sales motivator – for better or for worse, and (b) that a positive user experience depends on the correct ratio of a number of different elements. It is only the labels given those elements that differ between theories.

For example, Robert Rubinoff’s definition contends that the user experience is made up of four factors:
* Branding
* Usability
* Functionality
* Content

Rubinoff argues that none of these factors in absence of the others can make for a positive user experience. While originally intended for the context of web design/development, this formula can also be extended to products and services.

Branding is at the forefront of what we do at Sage Media. Your brand is your identity – not only the aesthetic or visual elements of your business materials, but also the messages your company projects. It is your ethos. It is you.

Good branding provides customers with an engaging and memorable (positive) experience. Visually, it has a strong and instant impact that is consistent with your company’s brand identity. All of the graphics, collateral materials and multimedia used in your materials are carefully considered and tailored to your specific audience, adding relevant value to the experience.

If your branding is strong, it makes clear promises that your company consistently delivers on, and your materials all leverage the capabilities of their respective media to enhance or extend your company’s brand.

Usability has become a buzzword in the world of web design and development, yet I’ve found its execution to be somewhat less than elegant in most cases. There are thousands of web sites, newsletters, brochures and other business materials that are just as easy to use as they are useless, because the “designers” responsible simply stopped at usability, without consideration for appeal, aesthetics, connection, content, message, functionality or relevance.

Materials must be accessible to be effective. However, I see too many companies hiring separate ‘usability experts’ (because their designers don’t understand usability), and sorely unqualified designers (because they’re cheaper). What this causes is a perpetual war between someone who doesn’t understand design, and someone who doesn’t understand usability, which inevitably costs the company untold amounts of money and wasted time, and results in (at best) a product representative of a begrudging compromise.

Functionality should be a rather obvious requirement for any product, service or marketing piece. If it doesn’t work, doesn’t do what your customers need it to do, or expect it to do… it is bound to fail. This is kindergarten level stuff.

It can even be an issue as basic as cross-browser/platform compatibility for your website. Your visitors do not all use the same browser you do. They do not all use the same screen resolution that you do. Nor do they all use the same operating system or type of computer. Crafting code that ensures your website works and provides a consistent experience to the widest possible range of visitors requires a lot of extra work, but it is a requirement. If your developer tries to convince you that a given feature you want on your website requires you to block visitors not using, say, Internet Explorer… start looking for a new developer. Seriously.

Content, finally, is often said to hold a regal position when it comes to creating brand materials. While I might not necessarily go so far as to crown it as King, stellar content is indeed a crucial element in strategic design. Overlook it, and your brand becomes that initially gorgeous creature who makes you want to turn and run the second they open their mouth.

By the same token, content alone won’t get you far. The same words coming from a clean, impeccably dressed, attractive person behind a podium will have far greater weight, impact and credibility than they would coming from an unkempt, unpleasant looking person on a street corner.

Think of your content as the closer. If you’ve branded your company right, you’ll have their attention. Now you need to choose your words very carefully. Your credibility and your bottom line depend on it.

All said, this is just one of many formulas floating around in the ether. I like it because it’s clean, and easy to explain to my clients (most of whom are neither experts in design, marketing or psychology, though all very nice people).

The amount of psychology that goes into the design of everyday things would amaze most people. What I find amazing is the fact that so many people think they can create effective, influential design without understanding what motivates the people they’re trying to influence.

My mother was a carpenter and a forest ranger… also an intellectual, a bit of a flower child, and an intensely caring individual. So as you might imagine, I was raised with a certain amount of appreciation and respect for the natural world. When it became apparent that more people in my own demographic seemed to be acknowledging and embracing concepts like social responsibility and environmental awareness, I was thrilled. I thought, finally – the middle class is starting to open their eyes.

Now, I feel rather ill at ease with the whole thing. I’m not implying that people don’t care – quite the opposite. A growing number of consumers want to do the right thing, but there remain two major problems with this. The first is a question of motivation… why do they care? How many of them are just being trendy? The second problem is the fact that we’re all being lied to. Over the course of one year, the number of products making ‘green’, ‘natural’ or ‘eco’ claims increased by 79% – which would be fantastic were it not for the fact that most of these claims are either fraudulent, unverifiable, or otherwise misleading (check out the latest Greenwashing Report).

These problems are not new, but given the context it’s taken on a new level of malignancy. I don’t want the world we live in to become the next discarded fad.

For those of us who run our own companies there are significant hurdles to face in terms of the decisions we make both personally, and professionally. On the personal front, as business owners, what we do in our personal lives inevitably bleeds into our work. Many of our clients have come to our company after having researched not only Sage Media as a business, but also the individuals who work here. Social media has rendered the faceless CEO extinct.

Be aware that everything you do publicly reflects on your professional life in some way. If your company is making corporate social responsibility claims, eschewing slave labour, for example… and you’re then seen shopping at Sprawl-Mart… well, you do the math. I’m not saying these big box stores use slaves directly (forget about their treatment of their own employees) but through their pursuit of the lowest price and their phenomenal buying power, they pressure their vendors to engage in increasingly cheap and unethical manufacturing and procurement strategies, which means – you guessed it – irresponsible raw material sourcing and sweatshop labour in some poor country overseas.

As a business owner, you need to be honest and authentic when making any claims, of any sort. Just because the FDA hasn’t yet written any rules for usage of the word ‘natural’, it doesn’t mean you should use it on everything simply in the hopes of duping well-meaning customers. Poison Ivy is natural, as are any number of toxic or poisonous elements. They’re not good for you.

When marketing a product with a ‘green’ advantage, make damn sure you can both justify and back up your claims – not just because it’s the right thing to do, but also because almost nobody will believe you right off the bat now that consumers are wising up to the game.

If third-party endorsement is important to you, then go through the steps to actually get it. Don’t have an unscrupulous designer draw up a fake certificate or label. Don’t try to make a customer feel ‘green’ about a choice that is harmful or unnecessary, and make sure you have an honest understanding of all of the environmental impacts of your product, across its entire lifecycle. Check out The Story of Stuff – it’s really getting around, and more of your customers are going to be asking tough questions as awareness builds.

You don’t need to wear a hemp poncho or stop using soap… all you need to do is be educated and honest.

I’ve always been a strong proponent of transparency in business. My own model is simple: Say what you do, and DO what you say. Being honest is so much easier than pulling your hair out trying to back up a tangled web of exaggerations and false claims. And if you’re lying to your customers, they WILL find out. As they say, one bad review is more influential than twenty good ones.

Top Image: Matteo Cibic’s desk tamagotchi, each of which is one-of-a-kind and custom blown to match its individual cactus’ shape. A green design that also just happens to be adorable.

In this article, we are going to take a little tour through the history of information – or more specifically where to focus efforts if you want get in touch with other people. It is really exciting time, because we are currently in the middle of the most drastic change since the invention of the newspaper.

We are seeing an entirely new way for people to interact. One that makes all traditional ways seem silly. It is a fundamental shift, and it will completely change the world as we know it. And the best thing about it is that you get to help make it happen.

So join me on this tour of the last 210 years of information + 10 more years into the future.

But before we start to explore the future, let’s explore how we got here. Let’s go back to 1800 – back when information was nothing like what we have today…

1800 – The face to face period

In the 1800, the only way you could really interact with other people was to go out and meet them. It was all about face-to-face communication. If you wanted to sell a product, you would go to the local marketplace, where you would setup a stand. But this also meant that the only way for you to get information – or to give information back – was to be at the right place at the right time. You didn’t really know what happened in another part of the city, nor could you sell your products to people in another place.

Some people did talk about this new thing called the newspaper. But it wasn’t really the same. You had to meet people in person. That was the only good way to interact.

1900 – Read all about it!

By the year 1900, the newspapers and magazine had revolutionized how we communicated. Now we could get news from places we have never been. We could communicate our ideas to people we had never seen. And we could sell our products to people far away.

You still had to go out to talk other people, but you could stay on top of things, without leaving the city. It was amazing. It was the first real revolution of information. The world was opening up to everyone.
1960 – We will be right back after these messages

During the next 60 years the newspapers dominated our lives. If you wanted to get the latest news, or tell people about your product, you would turn to the newspapers. It seemed like newspapers would surely be the dominant source of information for all time to come.

Except that during the 1920s a new information source started to attract people’s attention – the Radio. Suddenly you could listen to another person’s voice 100 of miles away. But most importantly, you could get the latest information LIVE. It was another tremendous evolution is the history of information. By 1960′s the two dominant sources of information was LIVE news from the Radio and the more detailed news via newspapers and magazines.

It was really great times, although some meant that “The way for newspapers to meet the competition of radio is simply to get out better papers”, an argument that we would hear repeatedly for the next 50 years.

1990 – Tune in Tomorrow

During the next 40 years a new technical revolution, the television, was introduced. It started to real get public interest in the 1950s, and by the year 1990 it was huge. It had surpassed the newspapers and magazines, and it was slowly obliterating the radio. Now people could not only hear information, they could also see it.

The 1970s-1990s was also the time where the newspaper executives were realizing that something was going terrible wrong with their market. They have had many problems with competing with radio, but the TV was in a different league.

1998 – The dawn of the Internet

Only 8 years later, television is ruling the world, radio is almost reduced to ‘a place where you listen to free music’ and newspapers are doing everything they can to stay relevant. But the constant evolution of technology plows ahead with never before seen determination. A new phenomenon is looming in the shadows – the Internet.

1998 was the year when the internet changed from being a geeky place that had little relevance, to ‘every company needs to have a website’. The revolution had started 3 years earlier, but in 1998 it reached critical mass and caught everyone’s attention.

It still wasn’t used much, and most people didn’t have access to it, but everyone agreed that it was the future. It was the dawn of a new era. It was a place where everyone could get information from everywhere – at least in theory.

People also started to realize that the internet was more than just information. You could give something back. You could join the conversation. You could be a part of the experience instead of just a spectator. And most importantly, you could choose what you wanted to do, when you wanted to do it – a concept that hadn’t been possible since the 1800. The possibilities of the internet were just mindboggling.

2004 – I decide what to do!

In 2004, only 6 years later, the internet had revolutionized how we approach information. Televisions and newspapers still dominated our news sources, but the new world was definitely online.

In 2004 everyone was making new websites. People were exploring the world of web applications, and online workflows.

People could do an incredible amount of things, and participate in so many areas, that a new concept appeared – information overload.

For the first time in our lives we were being exposed to more information than we could consume. In the age of newspapers we had to choose what we wanted to see. But in 2004 we had to choose what we didn’t want to see.

This had a devastating effect on the traditional forms of information. In the past, you could get people’s attention simply by making something. People wanted more choices, so you simply had to give them another choice. But in 2004 this changed. People started to have enough, and now you actually had to make something better. It was not enough that it was different.

2004 was also year when a new phenomenon started to take off – Social Networking. The concept had been slowly gaining ground with the concept of blogs. It was an easy, simple and affordable way for everyone to share their ideas. And you could post a comment. For the first time, everyone could create their own sphere of information without doing ‘technical things’.

Information changed from being tools for the professionals, to a tool for everyone to use.

2007 – Me too

3 years later the social element if the internet showed just how powerful the voice of the people really is. The TV was from the first time no longer the primary source of information, and newspapers are struggling to survive.

Everyone wanted to create their own little world, and connect it with their friends. But 2007 was also the turning point for the traditional websites. It was once the most important change, but now people compared the traditional websites to newspapers – a static and passive form of information. We wanted active information. We wanted to be a part of it, not just looking at it.

The blogs also started to get in trouble. Just as TV had eliminated radio (because it was better and richer way to give people LIVE information) so are social networks eliminating blogs. A social profile is a more active way for people to share what they care about. Social networks are simply the best tool for the job, and the blogs could not keep up.

2009 – Everything is Social

2 years later, today, the new internet is completely dominating our world. The newspapers are dead in the water, and people are watching less TV than ever. The new king of information is everyone, using social networking tools to connect and communicate.

Even the traditional website is dying from the relentless force of the constant stream of rich information from the social networks.

In the past 210 years we have seen an amazing evolution of information. We could:

1. Get information from distant places
2. Get it LIVE
3. See it LIVE
4. Get to decide when to see something, and what to see
5. Allow us to take part, and comment.
6. Publish our own information
7. …and in 2009… be the information.

But 2009 is also going to be the start of the next revolution. Because everything we know is about to change.

The Future

The first and most dramatic change is the concept of Social News. Social news is quickly taking over our need for staying up-to-date with what goes on in the world. News is no longer being reported by journalists, now it comes from everyone. And it is being reported directly from the source to you – bypassing the traditional media channels.

But social news is much more than that. It is increasingly about getting news directly from the people who makes it. Instead of having a journalist reporting what some analyst are saying, you hear it from the analyst herself. Social news is about getting news from the source, directly, and unfiltered.

A new wave of entertainment is emerging (the light blue and purple areas), one dominated by the games, video and audio streams. Instead of tuning into a TV channel, you decide what to see and when to see it. We are no longer subscribing to a channel, where someone else decides what you can see. You decide and control everything about the experience.

And a new concept in the form of targeted information is slowly emerging. We are already seeing an increasing number of services on mobile phones, where you can get information for the area that you are in. E.g. instead of showing all the restaurants in the world, you will only get a list of the restaurants in your area.

This is something that is going to explode into in the years to come. In the world where we have access to more information that we can consume, getting only the relevant parts is going to be a very important element. And, this will expand far beyond the simple geo-targeting that we see today.

2020 – Traditional is dead

In the next 5-10 years, the world of information will change quite a bit. All the traditional forms of information are essentially dead. The traditional printed newspapers no longer exists, television in the form of preset channels is replaced by single shows that you can watch whenever you like. Radio shows is replaced podcasts and vodcasts.

The websites have a much lesser role, as their primary function will be to serve as a hub for all the activities that you do elsewhere. It is the place where people get the raw material for use in other places. And the websites and social networks will merge into one. Your website and blog is your social profile.

Social news, as described previously, is going to be the most important way that people communicate. The traditional journalistic reporting is by now completely replaced getting information directly from the source. Everyone is a potential reporter, but new advances in targeting will eliminate most of the noise. The journalists will turn into editors who, instead of reporting the news, bring it together to give us a bigger picture.

The news stream of the future will be personalized to each individual person, and is constantly adjusting what you see – much the same way as Last.fm is doing today with music.

Everything will incorporate some form of targeting. You will be in control over every single bit of information that flows your way.

In 2010, two new concepts will start to emerge. One of them is intelligent information, where information streams can combine bits from many different news sources. Not just by pulling data, but summarizing it, breaking it apart and extracting the valuable parts.

Instead of reading 5 different articles on the same topic, you will be presented with one, highlighting the vital point of interest.

The world information is also going to be available almost everywhere. The concept of having to get the paper, sit in front of your TV, or look at your computer, will be long gone. Information will not be something you have to get. It comes to you, wherever you are, in whatever situation you happen to be in.

In the same way, information will not be something you ‘consume’ a certain times – like you did with prime-time on TVs. The information stream will be a natural part of every second of your life. It is not something you get, it is something you have.

The static and controlled forms of information that we see today will soon be a thing of the past.

Get ready!

Ask yourself. Are you still trying to get journalists to write about your products? Are you still making websites? Is your social networking strategy to ‘get a Facebook Page’?

…or…

Are you making yourself a natural part of people’s stream of information?

© MMVIII the infinitely cool Thomas Baekdal

The most creative sign in the Chinese zodiac, those born in the Year of the Sheep are artistic, sensitive, sweet and charming. Shy by nature, these people are well-mannered, but will occasionally say the wrong thing at the wrong time. Still, with their charm and innocence they never lack for protective friends and admirers. Once they find work that makes use of their considerable talents, they are passionate about what they do. Typically surrounded by beautiful things, they have an ardent love of creature comforts and are almost always elegantly dressed. Conversely, they have an innate love of nature and the outdoors. In business, Sheep enjoy great success in creative professions, as artists, actors, or designers.

I have to admit that I struggled to come up with an explanation for the alarming accuracy of this description, which supposedly (impossibly) applies to all the other people who were also born in 1979. So I read up on the rest of the animals – maybe they’re written so that any one of them could apply? Evidently not. Though other years were similarly accurate for the birth years of people I know well. I submit.

So this all got me thinking, what are they saying then about recent years?

2009 is evidently the year of the Ox, representing simplicity, patience and hard work. Apparently, this year is meant to clear up the clutter left behind by 2008 (evidently a year of financial abandon).

Perhaps it’s all based in fancy, but frankly, 2008 on a larger scale was a bit of a self-induced disaster. And now is very much a prudent time to pull our collective heads out of the clouds and start thinking practically (though I would argue that there really is no wrong time for practicality).

The reductionist Ox mantra is: hard work pays off, and laziness does not.

It’s meant to be a year of truth and fairness. Those who work hard will be rewarded, and those who slack off can expect to gain back precisely what they’ve invested. It’s time to get our homes in order, reassess our priorities, and give more of ourselves in order to support a faltering economy. The basic message: tend the fields now, and you’ll have plenty to eat next winter.

Honesty and fairness are central to the way I live my own life, so this works for me. Ironically, this realist is now finding herself nodding in full agreement with the no-BS message of this year’s Chinese zodiac (what?).

Roll on Ox year.

Written by Chanie Pritchard, Sage Media Design