Web Optimization: Stops and starts

Just got back from Percussion's UK User Group meeting.  It was a great meeting, and I'll have more on that in a bit, but first, this important nugget that emerged from one of the discussions.  The theme of the day was on how much the role of WCM is changing - from automating and streamlining site updates (circa 2004), to today's role as the central tool for optimizing the Web presence to improve customer experience.

There were a lot of heads nodding as we went through the keys to optimization: adopting a "change is good" mentality, questioning everything, measuring everything, increasing investment only in what works, stop doing what doesn't work.  Nothing Earth-shattering there, right?

But it was then that I stopped.  It's easy to miss.  Measuring and accountability? Check. Doing more of what works? Check. But that last point?  

STOP what doesn't work.  

I hadn't planned to use our own Web site as an example in the presentation, but as I read these, this last point hit me like a ton of bricks.  See, we're in the midst of adopting our own rhetoric here at Percussion.com; embracing community and social media marketing features, personalization, new process and content models, even the "human issues" like usability and adoption rates.  The site is planned for dramatic change.  However, with all that, easily the hardest challenge in keeping this project going forward has been to simply stop doing all the stuff that people just assume has to keep going.  

It's ironic how it happens.  EVERYONE yearns for all the latest community features and communication modes, optimization based on usage analysis, personalized promotions and all the rest of it.  But when it comes down to it, what are these same folks working on or asking about?  Press Releases, routine site updates, and any number of "well we have to have that" type content.  It's as if people think this round of useless updates are the last, and as soon as they finish those, they'll move on to the stuff that actually works.  Until the next round of useless work clogs the pipeline.  I've realized the only way to really move the new project forward is to focus on cutting out as much of the "old" work as possible.  I've taken to questioning everything, all the time.  Hopefully, we'll see the results of that here on Percussion.com as the weeks and months unfold.

But while we're on this topic of change, just remember this human trait: change is not about starting the new, it's about stopping the old.