By Trivera President, Tom Snyder

When a friend first showed me this new-fangled thing called the Internet back in 1994, I immediately knew it would change everything.  And as someone who shortly after that started a company that helped businesses and organizations leverage that power, I’ve been talking (and writing) about how it is changing the relationship between companies and anyone who does business with them, ever since. Of course, that change goes beyond just customers. It extends to include vendors, suppliers, partners, media and the community. We’ve also included employees in that group, but I don’t ever recall writing a blog about how this technology changes that relationship.  So when TDS Metrocom invited me to Madison to show me how what they’re doing in the area of connected workplaces is as big a game changer as anything else that has happened on the web since its beginning, I was fascinated enough to give up a day in my own office to see what the fuss was about.

In the interest of total disclosure, I’ve gotten to know a few local TDS salespeople from networking events, and a few years ago, even won a Vegas vacation from them when they drew my business card in a drawing at the local BizTimes BizTech Expo.  Shortly after that, I was invited to do a Social Media presentation to their team. But quite honestly, I never REALLY knew what it was they did.  I knew it had something to do with data, communications, and businesses. I also knew they had a data center where they hosted web servers.  But beyond that, I was clueless.

The day tagged as a “blogger event” began with discussions among several of the Midwest’s respected and visionary bloggers, causing me to ask the most obvious question: “how did *I* get invited?”

The theme was “The Connected Workplace,” and began with a discussion about how a growing number of companies are using Facetime, Google Hangouts and Skype to facilitate face to face communications and even staff meetings. One of the first sessions even used the technology to video conference in the speaker. As the technology becomes easier and more ubiquitous, it is possible for team members miles, states and even countries apart to stay and feel connected. Telephone and data systems that run on the web offer the appearance that everyone is together, regardless of how apart they really are, make it almost ridiculous to NOT use.

The host for the day’s event,  Emmy award winning  film producer and screenwriter John Roach, offered his perspective…and investment advice…about a connected workplace:

“Short sell commercial Real Estate.”

He talked about how big offices that congest freeways, cost hours of commute time and decrease the number of productive hours are going the way of the dinosaur. The trend to replace a workplace that everyone “goes to” with digital connections that allow the workplace to be wherever you are is the situation that he admitted he’s been waiting for for 20 years. His thoughts resonated with me, as a digital experience that “comes to you with what you need when you need it” was my theme of a recent blog about mobile. It now extends to our jobs.

The concept is still a bit foreign to those of us who have a culture based on people working next to, looking at and eating lunch with each other in an open environment. But offices that are just rows and rows of beige cubicles will soon be realizing the tremendous cost savings from a workplace that minimizes expenses by maximizing a team of workers working in pajamas at a desk at home, but still connected

Early in the day, I realized that TDS Metrocom sells phone systems. The difference with their product is that instead of a bunch of hardware in a closet, the stuff that runs their phone systems is hosted at a remote…and pretty amazing…data center.  But as the day progressed, I realized that the even bigger difference is that they understand that they really are in the business of using Internet technology to connect people, build relationships and conduct business. Pretty much the same thing Trivera does. Unlike my space, where the devices have been computers and laptops, their devices have been office phones. But, in today’s rapidly converging connected world, we’re also both using mobile, online video, hosted applications and API’s. My biggest takeaway was the fact that when my first exposure to the Internet convinced me that it would change everything, I didn’t realize how big “everything” really was.

The growing challenge for companies large and small in this connected world is the total integration of all the internet has to offer into all aspects of their business: Sales, Marketing, Management, Human Resources, and Communication, and most importantly finding people with the technological expertise to perform that integration. Fortunately there are companies like TDS and Trivera who can take care of that.

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Photos of the TDS Blogger Event are posted on Pinterest.

As we celebrate the sixteenth anniversary of our founding as a Milwaukee web design company, I thought about what I could write besides the typical “we look back on another year” stuff. A couple articles I stumbled upon teamed up to lob me a softball.

The first was from Inc. Magazine. The article praised the value of  “the designer who codes” as a “new breed of tech experts.”  I had to re-read the piece several times to see if it actually said what I thought it did.  The premise is that the best user experience comes from team members that understand what it takes to create both the intuitive design and the robust back end technology to make it happen. My beef isn’t with the concept. That’s dead on. It’s the fact that somehow it’s the coolest new thing to roll down the highway, when it’s been at the core of what Trivera has been doing for 16 years.

From the very beginning everyone on our team has understood that results-producing web sites are about creating relationships that build trust and result in a transaction. A critical component is to make sure that the technology doesn’t get in the way, but rather, transparently re-enforces the brand experience between the company and the customer. That kind of interactivity requires the “smart design” and “creative technology” that have actually been our tagline all along.

The other article trumpeted a “new” idea called a responsive web design, which it defined as an approach that proposes that a web site’s design should respond to a user’s environment and behavior, based on the platform, orientation and screen size.

New? Really?

For some reason, now that there are iPads and Smartphones, we suddenly must now pay unique and individual attention to what  visitors should see and experience when they come to a site. And while Web developers are playing “stupid HTML tricks” now to make sure the design looks perfect in every device possible, again, they’re missing a bigger point. Truly responsive web design is based on more than just the device being used to view the site.

Over 16 years, I’ve met with hundreds of prospects and clients to discuss what they need to do take meaningful advantage of the Web.  As I talk about our approach,  I recite the mantra that I’ve used from day 1:

Every single web-based contact point needs to be created with the following 5 considerations:

1.) Who is coming?
2.) How did they get there?
3.) What did they expect to find?
4.) What did they use to access it?
5.) What does it need to do to encourage and facilitate a transaction as quickly and easily as possible?

I’ve said it a million times. Even though it’s at the heart of our unique selling proposition, it sometimes becomes just recitation. But the other day as I went through the list, a prospect stopped me. He grabbed a pen, took out a piece of paper and said: “Can you repeat those, please?”

It’s not rocket science, so why does it seem so revolutionary? Because so much of the web over the past 16 years has been “about the art.’  Pretty pictures. Built in Flash. Incompatible with many browsers and devices. Limited in functionality due to lack of technical expertise. It’s been created by agencies who view index.html as a new canvas that can’t wait to be the vehicle for their next wonderfully creative expression. Who needs concepts like usability, intuitive navigation, conversion funnels when it’s really all about the art?

I’m not diminishing the power of great graphical presentation, but a tepid economy is forcing businesses to demand measurable results for their marketing. For too many years businesses have laughed at the axiom: “Half my marketing money is well spent, the other half is totally wasted, but I just can’t figure which is which,” and then went on to pay marketing firms and advertising agencies huge sums of money for campaigns that favored creativity over measurability, and art over ROI.

The fact that everything that happens on the web is measurable is causing marketing gurus finally to see the light. But those of us who have been shining that light for over a decade and a half are saying it’s about time.  Since that January day in 1996 when we opened our doors as one of Milwaukee’s very first web development companies and introduced “web sites with vision,” we have focused on delivering demonstrable, measurable, and improvable value for our clients. It  is…and always has been…about knowing exactly what the client’s goals and visitor expectations are, and making sure that the design and technology work together intelligently to meet them both.

From our first e-commerce-enabled web site in 1997 and our first mobile website in 1999, “responsive web” has been at the core of what we do. What’s now being called responsive design isn’t just the next shiny object. It’s “Smart Design and Creative Technology” that has differentiated us from our competition these past sixteen years, and is what will keep us leading the pack for the next sixteen.