Blogging Semantic

Chessington.com 2010 is live!

2010-03-03T09:57:00.001Z

Are you ready for a Wild Adventure? Yes? Then you're in luck... the 2010 Chessington World of Adventures website is now live :-)

Okay, so we know it's just a website, but we're still excited. Chessington's site hasn't developed much over the past three years, so it's great to give it a big makeover for 2010.

Check it out. We'll be adding bits and pieces as the season progresses, but all in all we are really happy with the new work.

www.chessington.com

Semantic Blab 1: The results are in!

2010-02-02T09:47:00.001Z

A month ago I wrote a ~~rant~~ blog post about email interruption, how it was killing my productivity, and the experiment I planned to run in January.

• limit email to twice a day (11am & 4pm)

• auto-respond to all emails letting people know my plans

• ask clients to phone in an emergency

I did this under the Semantic Business Lab (Blab) label, with the promise to share my results. Here they are.

Results

Things I expected:

• No emergencies resulted. No one died.

• I got a lot more done (the key goal).

• Client response was overwhelmingly non-existent (no one had a significant problem)

Things I did not expect:

• It was sometime hard (really hard) not to click that button.

• I spoke to clients more by phone than usual. A huge plus.

• I received 15% more emails in Jan, but spent 30% less time responding. Another HUGE plus.

Conclusion

I'll admit it, I fell off the wagon a couple of times... but only when there was a really good reason to keep an eye on things.

But that seems reasonable to me. This is not some OCD rule-fest. It's a pragmatic solution to a real problem... one that can and should scale to fit the context.

As you'll probably have guessed I am keeping the system. It feels as though it's made a big difference on my productivity, and it's certainly made a huge impact on how I feel about my time. For the first time since I began work at IBM (1995), I feel like I am handling all my responsibilities without checking email 20 times a day.

That's worth a lot,

Nick

P.S. Watch out for more Semantic Blab Experiments coming soon.

Today is MOVING DAY!

2010-01-20T08:16:00.001Z

A quick post remind you all that today is Semantic's moving day, Wednesday 20th January! Yes, we ate so much at Christmas we've been forced to move to a bigger place.

Do not adjust your set

Our contact details will not change, so there's no need for you to update anything... but please do take note below.

10am deadline

We'll be offline from about 2pm, so if you have anything really urgent for today please try to get it to us by 10am. (We'll be back as normal from Thursday morning).

Post 2pm crisis?

If you have a real crisis and cannot get through on the phones please email incoming@semantic.co.uk. We'll be checking this during the move, and we've made "just in case" arrangements.

On the other hand, if it can wait until Thursday you'd be doing us a favour ;-)

--------------------------------

If you have any questions feel free to call us this morning, otherwise we'll speak on the other side.

Nick

Usborne.com gets 5 Stars from Web User Magazine

2010-01-18T08:20:00.001Z

Thanks to Neil's eagle-eyed parents, who spotted that our site Usborne.com has gotten five stars in Web User magazine. I quote...

"The childrens-book publisher has relaunched it's website to splendid effect... attractive... extensive... seamlessly integrated... easy... simple. It's a brilliant bookmark for parents, children and teachers alike."

See the full review on Flickr!

Thanks to all the Coaster Fans

2010-01-14T18:53:00.001Z

Yesterday I said that Theme Park fans were passionate and helpful, so I just want to say a huge "thanks" to everyone who's gotten back to us about the new THORPE PARK site. It's really great to see how much people care... really really... really care :-)

And we are listening.

Obviously we love positive comments (cheers for those), but it's the "constructive" ones that help us hone the site.

Like any agency we have creative, technical and time constraints. Can we build something that everybody likes?... definitely not, but we'll always do the best work we can, both for clients and web users.

As I mentioned yesterday we have a list of things still to come on THORPEPARK.com, and your feedback is making a difference to that list.

You can still email the guys at incoming@semantic.co.uk. All constructive feedback (good or bad) will get a response, and a place at the table... subject to those pesky constraints I mentioned earlier.

So tell us what you think. Don't be shy. Oh wait... no one was.

THORPE PARK are BACK!

2010-01-13T14:02:00.001Z

Old friends are just the best... aren't they? That's why we are INSANELY PLEASED to be back working with our friends at THORPE PARK.

Yes, the site is going live today... slowly... and no doubt we'll have the usual settling in problems while the different servers and domains update. Apologies if you hit broken links in the meantime.

Help us out

We know from long experience that you can be the most passionate people on earth... so while this site can never really be for you (sorry guys and girls) we hope you'll help us make it as good as possible for Joe & Jane Public.

So if you spot any typos, mistakes or things that are unclear do us a favour... email incoming@semantic.co.uk and let us know. We may not be able to change everything... but we'll do our best.

Obviously we can't spill any beans about THORPE PARK's plans, but we do guarantee that every friendly email will get an equally friendly response.

PHASE 2!

Well yeah, this year we've decided to deliver the website earlier than usual. That means you get an idea of the direction of travel, but have to wait for the juicier content.

Phase 2 will happen closer to the start of the season, and our current intention is to add videos, the reviews engine, a toolbox for web masters and some decent stuff on SAW Alive... obviously.

Thanks as ever for your support,

Nick Warren - Semantic

Semantic downtime: 20th January

2010-01-12T08:19:00.000Z

Hi folks,

A quick note to alert you that we'll be moving offices on Wednesday 20th January.

As usual I am ridiculously optimistic, and expect to start around lunchtime and be back up and running by the following morning.

We are just moving down the corridor to a bigger space, so all being well disruption will be at a minimum.

Ask me the day after :-)

Happy New Year to all our friends!

2010-01-03T14:42:00.001Z

Hey there all.

Best wishes from all of us at Semantic... we wish you all a Happy and Prosperous 2010!

Nick, Mike, Chris, Neil, David and James :-)

Semantic's 2010 Business Laboratory (BLab)

2010-01-02T14:55:00.000Z

This year at Semantic I've decided to run a couple of small experiments... to see if we can't get even better in 2010. I'm calling this the Semantic Business Lab (BLab)... mostly because it makes me smile... but partly because I want to try some things out this year, test the results, build on what works, and dump or rethink what doesn't.

Our aim, as ever is to improve the Semantic experience, both for our clients and ourselves. I look forward to sharing what we learn.

Semantic BLab 1: Email Batching

In fact any of you who have emailed me (nick@semantic.co.uk) since New Year will have unwittingly become part of my first experiment (cue EVIL LAUGH). As you'll have seen I now have an auto responder set up on my Nick@Semantic email that reads:

--------------

Hey there friend, thanks for the note,

During January, in an effort to focus on upcoming deadlines, I am checking and responding to business email only at 11am and 4pm, weekdays. It's an experiment!

If your message is really URGENT please don't rely on email, call me on 02380 111 542. If I'm not in the office (and no one else is either) your voicemail will be forwarded directly to my mobile, and I'll respond as soon as I am able.

Many thanks,

Nick

P.S. If you are interested in the experiment read the background on our blog.

--------------

So here we are, on the blog...

Why this experiment?

In December 2009 I received 642 emails (excluding spam) in 18 working days... on average that's an "interruption" every 5.5 working minutes.

Digging into these Numbers

Over Christmas I did some analysis of these emails, as well as looking at the work I did at the time. On one hand I was being pulled into my Inbox 20-30 times a day... on the other ONLY 7 of those emails were actually URGENT. That's just a smudge over 1%... and in 5 of those cases the sender had already called me, or called soon afterward.

Surely we can and should do better than this. When did email stop making life easier and become a crutch? The tail is wagging the dog.

New Rules of Engagement

So, in 2010 I'm officially standing up to my Inbox... and focusing on client work.

During January I will check email twice daily. I think that's fair, especially as urgent things are better discussed over the phone anyway. If the call is out of hours, or I am away from my desk, the voicemail gets routed to my mobile... and I'll respond as soon as I am able.

Of course all of the email still gets looked at (and responded to where appropriate), just in 2 scehduled batches rather than 20-30 little ones.

What's next

Of course I'll be sharing the results of this experiment with all our clients. If this causes any disasters I'll let you know, as well as detailing the positive benefits if any. Look out for a blog post in the first week of February (www.semantic.co.uk/blog).

Thanks for your support.

(Updated 2nd February 2010: The Results are in).

Semantic's Christmas Single is live

2009-12-18T14:34:00.001Z

If you are reading this you may already have seen our awesome Christmas Single. Lucky you... and if not why are you reading this... go see it.

Lunchtimes and Evenings

It's amazing what you can achieve out of hours, and I'd like to say a huge thank-you to Mike, Chris and Neil for willingly giving up so much time over the last 2 months.

Obviously we've had a lot of fun, but it's also been a lot of work. As ever we hope it makes people smile.

If you feel like passing it on please do, but only to people you think might really enjoy it. This isn't intended as marketing, we are very happy with the clients we have.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New year from all of us at Semantic,

Nick, Mike, Chris, Neil, David and James.

Usborne.com site launched!

2009-12-01T11:23:00.001Z

Big news friends... after more than 6 months of development we are proud to announce the ALL-NEW Usborne website, which launched yesterday.

The new site features:

• all new content
• completely updated look and feel
• ASP.net 2.0 coding (yeah... techie stuff)
• integration of four previous Usborne sites
• easier administration for the client
• clever code to catch and redirect old links

I could go on and on about the details, but why don't you see for yourself. The site is designed to showcase Usborne's lovely books.

For example, see the Introduction to Art.

Update:

The day after launch we were forwarded some feedback that was sent to Usborne's Marketing Executive from someone within the industry.

"Congratulations. It's the best site of a publisher. Well done."

Nice :-)

Where do you put your pies?

2009-10-26T09:42:00.001Z

What's the difference between marketing and branding? As I've said before the best explanation of branding is that it is like a well-made bell... no matter where you hit it, the note sounds the same.

Mike brought in a great example of this today, a packet of Pork & Pickle pies from Pork Farms.

On the back of the packet, after all the usual marketing messages we find the following.

-----------------

Where to put these pies (apart from your stomach!)

Fridge, good. Airing cupboard, bad.

-----------------

Serving ~~suggestion~~ perfection

Remove pies from fridge; wait 15 agonisingly long minutes; eat.

-----------------

How was it for you?

If these pies are in anything other than great shape, and you're less than delighted, don't make allowances or excuses for it. Tell our horrified customer service department when and where you bought it...

-----------------

Isn't that great! Of course the real test would be if you actually rang up the Customer Service department. Would they be allowed to show the same kind of personality? We hope so...

What my son's teacher can teach all of us

2009-09-27T18:43:00.001Z

A week ago I had to rush my 9-year-old son to hospital... Accident & Emergency. He'd been running in the playground, tripped, and split his head open on a wall.

There was lots of blood. Almost immediately his shirt was crimson with it.

But I never saw that. By the time my wife and I got there his teachers had bandaged his head and changed him into his PE shirt. Our job was to get him to hospital fast.

So I never saw the blood, and I never saw the crimson shirt. I never saw it because that night his teacher took it home and washed it.

Let me say that again. She took his shirt home and washed it!

I find that extraordinary. I find that inspiring. I find myself thinking (not for the first time) how much better we could and should treat these extraordinary people.

Footnote: My boy is fine. They literally glued him back together!

How to keep a Client for 10 years!

2009-09-14T13:16:00.001Z

A while ago I escaped to London for a weekend. It was great... all except the hotel.

Don't misunderstand me. It was beautiful to look at. Inside the revolving doors was a lovely, lofty foyer... replete with doormen, concierges & potted plants. Everything was pretty much perfect, right up to the point where they took my money.

As I left the foyer things changed. The lifts were slow, the carpets threadbare... the corridor walls water-damaged! The beds were lumpy.

I'd been sold a dud and of course I'll never go back. Would you?

Question: When is a hotel foyer not just a hotel foyer?

Answer: When it's marketing.

I use that hotel sometimes when I'm explaining the "Semantic" difference. We don't have a flashy foyer... if anything our "packing" is low key and understated.

So the question is how can we possibly compete with those other guys? How do we survive against agencies who are bigger, flashier, smarter and yes... more attractive than we are?

You know the answer. We focus on the relationship... or to put it another way... on the rooms and corridors behind the foyer. Business shouldn't be that simple, but it turns out it mostly is.

Something to be proud of

Right now we are designing a new site for an international Client. That's cool, but the really cool thing is that we first began working with them over ten years ago. Ten years!

Think about that. Ten years ago they came through Semantic's "foyer" and took a room. Since then they've come back time and time and again.

That's something we are hugely proud of. That's why we focus on the room, not the foyer.

All in a good cause - new systems for Marwell Wildlife

2009-07-15T14:59:00.001Z

It's an uncomfortable fact that web sites very often get rubbish at the very point that users need them most.

Sound familiar? You've visited a site, decided to buy the book/trip/ticket/teddy bear... and are then dropped into an alien website for the transaction. You know the signs; poor design, bad layout & confusing instructions. You're not in Kansas anymore.

We hate that... and so do the bank balances of our clients. The drop-out rate from poorly designed systems is huge... and once a sale is gone it's very likely gone for good. You can blame Google... but you know it isn't their fault.

Designing human transactions

This is why we are so proud of our recent work with Marwell Wildlife. When they asked us to build online systems for Donations, Animal Adoptions and Annual Passes... we were thrilled. Here was an opportunity to show what we could do.

Designing with actual humans in mind...

Take a look, for example, at donations.

We designed a simple process that was attractive, easy-to-use and fitted with the brand.

It's not rocket science, but it's harder than it looks. Otherwise everyone would be doing it.

A touch of class from Foxhills

2009-06-23T09:23:00.001Z

Recently I wrote that we'd put the new Foxhills website live. But what I didn't mention was what turned up in the mail a couple of days later.

It was a card bearing the following message from our client at Foxhills:

Nick,

What can I say, you've done it again!

I'm SO pleased & happy with the new site, I can hardly put it into words.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

You are such a pleasure to work with...

Okay, so modesty forbids we continue, but amazingly enough our brilliance is not the point here... well, not the (only) point of this post.

The personal touch

Here's my point. This was one of FOUR cards that we were sent, one for each of us here at Semantic, and each one hand-written.

In a world of emails and pre-packaged thank-you gifts I think that's classy.

We have great Clients.

Foxhills.co.uk now live

2009-06-16T16:15:00.001Z

Just a quick note to announce you know that the new Foxhills Website is now live.

Phew. If you were wondering why we've been so quiet this is one of the reasons.

Lots of fun and exciting things happening at Semantic at the moment... all of which have helped us keep our noses pressed hard to the grindstone.

As always, new sites take a while to bed down... so if you see anything that isn't quite right on the Foxhills site please don't be shy.

Warwick Castle website live

2009-04-16T15:00:00.001Z

Hi there,

We are pleased to announce the recent launch of the all-new Warwick Castle website. Hope you like it, but as always let us know if you have any ideas.

As usual the site will develop over time, but we think this is a great improvement over the previous site... which (he hastens to add) we managed but did not design.

Enjoy.

www.warwick-castle.com

Swim with the fishes

2009-04-04T14:52:00.000Z

And now for something a bit different. We recently launched a tiny micro-site for Usborne Publishing's new Secret Mermaid series.

It's undoubtedly the deepest homepage we've ever designed.

Ten Minute Magic

2009-02-26T11:53:00.001Z

We had a "How Much?" message from a Client this morning. He needed a quote for a small amend to one of our online systems. "How much will it this cost me?", he asked.

My answer. Zero, Zilch, Nada... Zip!

Ten Minute Magic

We like to keep things simple here, so we have a simple principle for quoting.

If a job will take less than ten minutes there's no charge.

Ten minutes isn't long you may think, but it turns out we can handle a huge amount of different things in ten minutes; text changes, menu updates, page uploads, phone conversations, emails, file uploads... the list goes on.In fact most of the requests we get from clients can be handled in less than ten minutes.

Do we end up doing a lot of "free" work over a year? Sure we do, and we have a name for that... we call it "Service".

The £50 agency tax

Contrast this with another agency. We've learned today that they are planning to charge one of our clients £50 to supply a file. £50! A file!
Here's Mike's response when our Client mentioned this to him:

Blimey Jayne*, I wish we could charge you £50 to send you a file you've already paid for!

But actually he doesn't. If we did that then pretty soon our Clients would start to worry about the clock ticking. They'd stop calling to chat things through, and stop sending us those little bits and pieces that are important but not IMPORTANT.

And in the end they might stop calling at all.

Where's your value?

Here's the key question. Where do you add real value for your Clients?

Our ten minute magic jobs are usually pretty simple. We aren't adding much value there. At it's best Semantic is about the bigger projects, the hard deadlines, the creative concepts and the focus on building online businesses. That's where we add our value, that's where we charge.

So we see "free" work as an investment. You can solve a lot of people's problems in ten minutes... and hey, if it turns out to be fifteen minutes, or twenty-five, maybe that's an investment too. It's difficult to be part of someone's team if you are constantly looking at your watch.

End note: Why ten minutes?

Ten minutes isn't an arbitrary figure, it's about the amount of time it takes to create, send and track an invoice. I reckon if a job's quicker to actually do than it is to charge for, it's a gimme. Simple as that.

*name changed to protect the innocent (and the guilty).

Why the long face?

2009-02-25T16:34:00.001Z

Sorry, we haven't lavished much love on the blog lately. That's good news in a way, because it's because we are very very busy. But don't worry about us, as you can see we are all still smiling... even if they did make me look like a baby!

What can we learn from this? Nick a baby, Mike's a crook, Chris is Bugs Bunny, and Neil... looks like Sylar.

Just another day at Semantic.

Semantic on Tour: Friday 30th Jan

2009-01-22T12:30:00.001Z

Just a quick note to let you know that the main Semantic office will be closed on Friday 30th January. We are all off on a Class Trip!

On Tour?

One of the things we've decided to do this year is take company outings to interesting places. This time we are off to London's Design Museum, having lunch with a Client, and later to a party at Madame Tussauds. Lucky us.

We'll be in touch with individual Clients to let them know our contact details for the 30th... think of this as early warning :-)

Semantic's Christmas Single!!!

2008-12-22T14:40:00.001Z

Update: Obviously we've now removed the 12 Days of Christmas from the homepage... but you can find it dedicated web page for your continued watching enjoyment.

Well, that's more or less it from us for 2008. If you haven't seen it yet I'd recommend Day 10 of our 12 Days of Christmas - the Semantic Christmas Single.

Find it on our homepage, and click "10" from the options available... then you can sit back, relax, and enjoy the site of supposedly grown men making fools of themselves.

In the meantime here are a few photos of the "12 Days" Creative process :-)

Have a great Christmas, we'll be back on Monday 5th January 2009.

12 Days of Christmas - the Semantic Way

2008-12-14T06:39:00.001Z

Question. What do Helicopter Gunships, Snare Drums and Rap Music have in common? Answer. They all appear on Semantic's Twelve Days of Christmas".

Yep we've taken our traditional Christmas Card a little farther this year, and are bringing you twelve little video gifts between now and Christmas Eve.

They may not be great art, but we hope that one or two of them will make you smile.

Happy Christmas to all of our Blog Readers.

Nick, Mike, Chris, Neil & David.

Making our own weather

2008-12-04T17:57:00.001Z

Just this week we've heard of two web agencies in trouble... at least one of them is gone for good. It reminds me of the time Semantic flat-lined. Summer 2002.

The truth is that we played a lot of golf that summer... there wasn't much else going on. The office was dead, disturbed only by flies and tumbleweed. It certainly wasn't disturbed by a ringing phone. The only calls were from the Bank Manager, wondering who had died.

He was right in a way. The web market had collapsed. We were still doing odds and sods for existing Clients, but coming into work felt strangely like arriving at a wake.

But we learned a lot. We learned that running a business in a falling economy is like sailing in light winds... way harder than normal, but ultimately rewarding.

I learned the real meaning of commitment - talking your wife into risking the family home will do that. It's a conversation that gets serious real fast - so you'd (damn well) better be committed. And that wasn't all. We learned how to stick to our principles, how to support clients with their own problems, and how to keep cheerful. And finally we learned the value of that oft-repeated (and oft-ignored) phrase... "cash is king". (In fact it's not king, it's way more important than that. During that long hot summer it was water - dribbling away).

These days I think of that time as Semantic's right of passage. We'd had it easy until then, and Semantic was a young, cocky business that thought it had all the answers. But that summer we were set some grown-up challenges. 'Quit bragging', the economy said,'show me if you've got what it takes'.

It was touch and go for a while as things got worse. The flies died of boredom. I became almost good at golf... it was that serious. At one point I said to Mike, 'We have two more weeks to get this right'.

I won't bore you with our recovery, except to say that in some ways the real Semantic was born that day. The lessons learned during that lean period have kept us lean, strong and careful ever since.

There are way worse things in life than going out of business, but surviving harsh times brings it's own rewards. Perhaps that's a small crumb of comfort to those who are finding things tough right now. The outlook may seem dismal but my advice is to be great anyway, be happy anyway... deliver the best work you can anyway.

Screw the outlook. Good companies will survive... and great companies get to make their own weather.

(These days my golf is heroically, awe-inspiringly bad... and that's something to be proud of.)