Problems with using new media: it’s in the details.
I want to preface the following commentary by saying that I’m not an expert of any kind in technology, the internet, new media, or communication. These are just some observations and opinions…I could easily be wrong. Also, I highly respect the individuals that I have worked with over the past few years and nothing said here is meant as a direct criticism, more a general trend.
That being said, over the past few years, I’ve had the opportunity to sit on the National Executive Board of two large, international organizations: the Boy Scouts of America and the Sigma Chi Fraternity. In essence, these boards governed the direction that their respective organization would take, and the strategies necessary to get there. Most of the detailed work was conducted by sub-committees in which I participated. In all cases, the membership was primarily older and business oriented, with a healthy smattering of lawyers. Also in both cases, these organizations were struggling to keep up with developing media and modes of communication, specifically reaching their membership in these new ways.
My basic observation: Just because you are using a new form of media, it doesn’t mean that using that medium is a good idea.
Really, all of these boil down to older men succumbing to technology buzz that they see as “cool” and “youthful.” In one particular meeting, the prevailing direction of the conversation was “Well, the pamphlets we distributed haven’t shown success. Let’s put out DVDs instead; that will appeal to our youth membership.” Very little thought/discussion went in to the specific type of content that was delivered. In some cases, the exact same images and text were just transcribed to another medium. As I see it, that just adds cost and an additional step between the user and the information. That seems silly to me. The media was not used for the reason that it was so compelling! Content rich in video and interaction were often ignored. (For a while, the flash drive craze was great…free flash drives! Of course, now I have too many small capacity drives.)
The same goes for websites, blogs, social networks…anything really since it all boils down to good design and communication.
My suggestions, which I think should be fairly obvious but apparently aren’t, and are often ignored:
- Content needs to be matched with the medium it is broadcast in, which in turn needs to be chosen based on the audience targeted.
- If you are trying to make information available on a website, that information needs to be both (1) easily accessible via a path that is both obvious and as brief as possible and (2) very easily searchable from the home page. Remember that the user doesn’t know what you (the author) know. Specifically, if the user doesn’t know the information is there, it is essentially useless. If you want to get certain information across, the design needs to steer the user towards it. Just putting it on the website doesn’t mean that people will read it.
- If you are going to start a social network, for goodness sake make sure it is at least as good as what’s out there and, even better, adds value. Nobody needs yet another profile to maintain, especially if it’s a crappy interface.
Overall, online communication needs to accommodate a wide range of users, from neophytes to experts, from people who know what information they’re looking for to casual browsers. The web itself isn’t cool, what you can do with it is. Getting the message across is all about design and content, and it’s all in the details, so pay attention to them!