JEFF: You seem to be walking a fine line between providing an editorial point of view and marketing your company. You may be effectively inciting people to act against poorly designed software and badly managed companies. But are you inciting them to recommend your company as the solution? How do you balance these issues?
MARK: Heh heh ... I like that, "inciting." Like I'll start a riot or something! ;) Seriously, it's a good question.
It's true, and I'm extremely up front about it on the site, that I want Creative Good readers to email offending companies and tell them to get Creative Good to help them. Of course, it's voluntary - readers don't have to participate to get the benefit of reading the columns. This is in stark contrast to the model of most other help sites, which paste banner ads all over the screen to scream out at the readers. Would you rather see one line of text at the bottom of a help column, or an obnoxious, animated, loud, crass, commercial banner ad which contributes nothing substantial to the column?
But that's a defensive reason (i.e., "it's not so bad"), which doesn't do it justice. Consider it this way ... readers actually benefit from the little "incitings" at the bottom of the page. Here's why:
There is a huge problem of ease-of-use on the Web, and I'm trying to fix it. If readers want to help, they can. If I help the company, the company makes its product easier for the consumer. Read that again: If the reader emails (again, voluntarily) ... then I help the company ... and the user gets an easier-to-use product. Which is why they came to Creative Good in the first place, because they wanted to figure things out!
One other thought on the topic. Creative Good is on a mission to make the Internet easier to use. I firmly believe in the mission. It's good for the consumer, and it's good for the industry. I guess that makes me the head evangelist of the mission. But "evangelist" is such a misused term in this industry. I mean, so many companies are on a "mission" to - well, to sell their product. If you believe in our mission, says the corporate evangelist, show us the money. Money, money, money. Creative Good, on the other hand, asks for no money. Not from readers, not from advertisers. This mission is fueled by the belief of the readers in Creative Good's ability to make things easier. If readers believe, they'll spend 10 seconds sending an email. No banner ads, no login screens, no cookies, no intrusive surveys, no membership fees, no micropayments, nothing. Just some Creative Good helping the reader and a little faith from the reader turning into a quick email.
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