Blog > January 2008 Blog archive

Important versus Urgent, Part One

15 January 2008

Last Friday, after two years, I finally figured out how to forward calls from my office phone to Chris and Mike, both of whom sit within a few feet of me. This may not seem like a big deal to you, but you are wrong.

Just to be clear it hasn't actually taken me twenty-four months to work it out... just to get annoyed enough to make the effort. This involved...

1) finding the phone on the Ericsson site
2) downloading the manual
3) skimming through it, and realising my phone's buttons didn't quite match (Grrr)
4) pressing buttons until I found the one the manual mentioned (named differently on my phone)
5) forwarding a call (Yay!)
6) Making my own phone labels so I didn't forget which buttons to press

If you think I am making a meal of this you are, I beg your forbearance, even wronger. This is a big deal. For the last two years stretching my phone cable across the room has been a "good enough" solution. Partly because it kinda works, but mostly because at the point when my phone rings for Chris or Mike, the need is just too URGENT to do anything other than stretch the cable... even if it means I am garrotted and Chris puts his back out. A classic case of "good enough" being good enough.

But no more. 2008 is my year for re-focusing on things that are Important, rather than just Urgent. Sorting out my phone has been important for the last two years, but it has never been urgent until the phone actually rings... by which time it's way too late.

If you are like me the Urgent stuff often beats the Important stuff because, well, IT'S URGENT.

But should it? Most of the value we create, and most of the really good work we do, comes from the Important space, not the urgent one. Some of you have asked why we re-jigged things at Semantic at the end of last year... this is why. It's the important things in life that count... and 2008 is my year for doing more of them.

Like, for example, investing half an hour to improve the life expectancy of my neck and Chris' back.

More in Part Two soon... after I've figured out how to change my phones voicemail settings :-)

Posted by Nick Warren at 12:40 PM 0 comments

Good luck Thorpe

07 January 2008

As some of you have noticed a new Thorpe Park web site went live earlier today, but it's not designed by us. Some of you may feel that after six years* of Semantic designed sites that's not a bad thing :-)

Of course we were sorry to hear last year that Thorpe would be leaving us, but we're big boys, and certainly big enough to wish all our friends over there at Thorpe a fantastic 2008 season.

And while I'm at it I'd like to wish all you Thrill Seekers a great season at Thorpe as well. We'll be continuing to work on the Chessington site in 2008, which my kids (7 & 4) are very happy about.

Best wishes to you all, Nick

*we bear no responsibility for the~~2005~~ 2004 site (thanks Adam)... you know the one I mean...the one with the Biker.

Posted by Nick Warren at 7:50 PM 0 comments

Semantic goes Top 10!

02 January 2008

Wow! Thanks for all the great feedback on the 2008 Semantic web site. It's great to hear so many positive comments... not to mention clocking our new position on Google. As of today (2nd January 2007) this site comes up in the first page of results for the keyword "semantic"... that's 10th out of around 12,300,000 results*. Not too shabby...

A bit of history

Over the past year or so we've been tracking in the 80-120 range for keyword "semantic". I've been happy with that because a) we don't rely on clients arriving out of the blue via search, and b) because Tim Berners-Lee accidently spoiled search for us a few years ago*.

But of course for a lot of our clients the search engines are a VERY BIG DEAL INDEED as Pooh Bear would say... so it matters. When we took the decision to avoid offering dedicated Search Engine Optimisation service, we did so knowing that almost everything that we do offer continues to have a profound effect on our Client's ranking. Design. Check! Content. Check! Accessibility. Check!

It. All. Matters.

So what's changed?

Because we are a web design agency we've always been lucky enough to have a lot of sites pointing at us, but in the past our own site's development has tended to be squeezed in between "real" projects. The most positive way I can say this is that we've focused our time and skills on our Clients sites, rather than our own :-)

But no more. The new Semantic site is a poster child for all the accessibility and usability work we have done over the past couple of years. It's been rebuilt from the ground up... a site that looks great, works great and de-grades gracefully for users who have special access needs. I am really proud of it.

And I'm not alone.Google's Search Bot, lest we forget, is blind... so the work we have done here to support users with special needs in turn supports us through a hugely improved Search Ranking. Of course their is no guarantee that this will last... but it's nice to see our principles delivering real results... it's great to be Top 10!

*I'm checking all the world's web pages but Google knows where I live (and probably my bank balance) so is probably weighting the results towards UK sites... but that's fine by me.

**When Tim Berners-Lee (the creator of the World Wide Web) coined the phrase "Semantic Web" to describe the next evolutionary stage of the Internet we were as surprised as anyone... total coincidence, and of course it unleashed a huge flood of "semantic" pages online. It would be tricky to fight against that kind of tidal wave, even if you wanted to. Tim... we don't blame you. Thanks for everything!

Posted by Nick Warren at 5:05 PM 0 comments