Web Strategy: The Three Spheres of Web Strategy (and the skills required)
A Web Strategy must balance all three spheres
What’s a Web Strategy? It’s the balance between the three spheres for effective long-term planning of a website. This person is a hybrid of a few roles, and may have emerged from any of the following spheres. A Web Strategist is responsible for the long-term planning and decision making of a website, but must balance ALL of the following three spheres:
1) Community (formerly Users)
The Web Strategist must understand (by using a variety of techniques and tactics) what users want. This is commonly known as User Experience Research which will create and craft a ‘mental model’. In addition, the strategist will need to be in tune with the community in which their website is part of, this is greater than just users, as it will include competitors, partners, and prospects.Skills: User experience (UX), usability, information architecture, social media skills, customer support, community marketing, marketing, product marketing, ability to listen and be empathetic.
2) Business
The business sphere requires a strategist to understand the long term objective of a website and it’s goals. This sphere also requires ability to internally maneuver within an organization and maximize the persistent limitation in resources. A website that is not aligned to business or market objectives is ultimately doomed to fail. The User and Business requirements will often match, but will rarely ever be a perfect fit. The Web Strategist) will need to obtain business requirements from stakeholders, whether that be execs, sponsors, sales, or even shareholders. Understanding the market, competitors (and key milestones) and other external forces are also required –a business requirements model will be formed, these are your objectives.Skills: Marketing, advertising, media, management, measurement, ability to evangelize internally, process management, resource management, obtain objectives, product development, product management, savvy in political maneuvering
3) Technology
Lastly, a Web Strategist needs to know how each and every tool and technology work, they’ll need to know the strengths, benefits, limitations and costs. This also applies to human capital, and timelines. Often technical limitations will reduce the scope of User and Business needs, so you’ll need to incorporate this going forward.Skills: Software Development, Web Development, Web Architecture, Industry Trends, experiments with web technology, but understands how to extrapolate and harness a tool.
Can’t master them all? Be able to Learn or Delegate
It’s unlikely he or she is a master at all, but most importantly, has the ability to learn and delegate. In my career, I’ve tried to have a balance in all these spheres (former UI Designer, Marketing Degree, and worked in software engineering group) keeping up with all spheres is nearly impossible. Therefore two skills become very important: 1) The ability to quickly learn, and extract value, 2) Ability to find talent and delegate, no really, I mean really delegate, which requires trust.
If you have other skills to suggest, please leave a comment, and I’ll add.
Notes:
I originally introduced this concept August 25th 2006, just about one year earlier, and am now making these amendments. This was primarily spurred by Johnathan’s suggestion of looking at the user sphere as greater than just a customer base, thanks Jonathan, you’re an excellent strategist. Also, Robert suggested I try to incorporate more of a visual representation in my concepts, which I think is a great idea.
Additional Resources
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[…] Web Strategy: The Three Elements of Web Strategy August 25th, 2006 | Category: Web Theory, Web Strategy Update: August 26th, 2007 (one year later) I’ve evolved this concept, please see Web Strategy: The Three Spheres of Web Strategy (and the skills required) […]
Thanks for shifting ‘Users’ to ‘Community’ & making it more human. I hope this trend continues! I recently had a discussion about verbiage on our corporate website & heard the phrase ‘those words are industry standards’. Well, customers don’t know them. An analogy from the library world is that I took down the sign saying ‘periodicals’. It now reads magazines. (a shift towards making things customer friendly)
In terms of skills I consider communication of ultimate importance. As you pointed out it’s not a one person show. Teamwork is essential because delegation is important, but the dept’s need to work together & support each other (marketing, product dev’t, QA, customer & tech support, etc) without any one insisting they’re in charge. Patience is also helpful as internal staff adopt new technology. (You posted a video on digital emigrants recently)
Connie
I’ve also Josh Bernoff to thank, see this post:
http://blogs.forrester.com/charleneli/2007/07/users-fight-bac.html
I agree that it’s unlikely people can become an expert at them all
Nice write-up Jeremiah
I would suggest a modification to the community view, and to Jonathans 4th element. More and more its becoming evident to me that the old term customer centric might hold clues to how to think about people beyond the UI aspects of your site.
People interact with their own sites through their own unique ways; call it the peoples general web lifestyle (GWL). What becomes vital is to understand how your site will fit into their GWL. A traditional UI view is the opposite of that, and trying to slot the person into your firms web lifestyle.
The GWL includes web, social networks, portals, RSS, email, mobile etc. Understanding how that works and how people want it to work, facilitates a more people process oriented view that can be engineered, and included in the UI design of your site.
Just some thoughts.
Very meaningful layout.
How about creative work : is it connected to all of those spheres?
Creative work is a necessary step to make technology usable through interfaces for example.
Creative work is the one of the important aspects of the social interactions within the community.
Creative work is also an expression of the business objectives.
I would be glad to have your opinion here.
And congratulations for the excellent insightful work on this blog.
[…] Web Strategy: The Three Spheres of Web Strategy (and the skills required) The Web Strategist must understand (by using a variety of techniques and tactics) what users want. This is commonly known as User Experience Research which will create and craft a ‘mental model’. In addition, the strategist will need to be in tune with the community in which their website is part of, this is greater than just users, as it will include competitors, partners, and prospects. […]
Colin
Good points, that’s certainly an amendment that belongs in the Community/User scope. Some of the GWL mediums you listed out (such as rss or mobile) actually fall in the “technology sphere”
Branislav
Creative Work? Oh yeah, it matters to all, in fact the scope and requirements of any creative work come after the strategy of the site has been determined. So yes, it hits them all, with a focus on Community and Technology.
After reading Josh Bernoff’s post & a couple of his links… it’s great to see others agree. In the library world we’ve made a conscious shift from ‘patron’ to ‘customer’. Except our circulation software still states ‘patron’, so it doesn’t reinforce the usage by staff.
Jeremiah … re: “(such as rss or mobile) actually fall in the “technology sphere”
Is true as it relates to implementation, but my thought would be that in terms of UX it needs to be considered alongside.
I admire anyone who can think about a universe clearly enough to analyze components into a diagram of three overlapping circles.
Jeremiah
Thanks much for the compliment! Hopefully it will help me in my job search>
I was reading an survey from McKinsey that stated “Executives tend to invest in new technologies and processes because they hold out the promise of either increasing competitive advantage (for example, by enabling new services or improvements to existing ones) or reducing costs.” To me, the mentality there, while appropriate for business textbooks, will end up landing a lot of companies in that technology/business section with ‘frustrated users, no one comes” because it ends up being to inner focused. Customers and potential customers now have greater control (although not as much as it may seem) and if an organization is more interested in ‘competeting’ with their competition and saving $$$, they’ve inadvertantly devalue their customers.
I’d bet a lot of web strategist have a tough time getting their organizations to move out of that area.
The survey can be found here:
http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/article_page.aspx?ar=1913&pagenum=1
Wonderful!! Visuals help and so does sound. I’m hearing a shift in the way people inside Intel are talking these days. Sure we still hear dreaded terms like The End User, but lame and fading away (I hope). By building for and sharing things with clients, communities and people (individuals) we’re encouraged to behave better and value understanding for one another. This eventually leading to deeper lasting trust. Thanks again, Jeremiah!
Jonathan, your insight is always valued. What exactly are you looking for in your dream job?
Ken, glad to help. Scoble kicked me to add visuals, I’ll be doing that when I can.
Dream job. Working in a strategic marketing communicatins capacity…either with an agency of some sort or in house. Probably something similar to what you do. Probably more in an agency so I’d have a more diverse client base. Background in marketing, PR, and big interest in new media.
Great job putting this together. I would probably not move User Experience to Community since I don’t think the terms are synonymous and the term ‘Community’ hasn’t been defined as a superset that includes User Experience. While UX increasingly has a social component to it, I don’t think it is a primary driver yet.
I would also add product management and business analysis to the mix under business skills. While many folks engage on the marketing side, more traditional integrators and software shops have BA’s and software product managers filling the role.
Thanks for putting this together and keep up the great work!
Rob thanks!
I added product management to the business sphere.
I left Marketing on Business and added it to Community, and also added product marketing (which is different than product management)
I’m leaving UX with community. Community is a superset for users.
To me, there is no real appropriate word…community, users, customers, etc. Each comes close. So someone will have to come up with a buzzword. Then they’ll get attacked for coming up with a buzzword.
What Jeremiah needs is a platform that allows for 3D digarams. Or, after all this, a stiff drink. ; )
I think Jonathan is absolutely correct, we need some new buzz mumble. Jeremiah, congrats on the new gig and I look forward to you moving the ball forward with the web strategy definition.
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I would have stuck to ‘Users’.
I see Community as a dynamic rather than a label for stakeholders.
I was going to point out that ‘Product’ is missing, but I guess that’s the sum of all parts.
Lawrence
Good point, it was hard to try to simplify, with great thought, community was the ending point.
Users is limited to only those who use the site. In the era of “social media” there are those who are not users but influence what others think or the end result like prospects, competitors, and even employees, all who may not be ‘users’.
Yup, you’re right, the overall output is product!
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[…] Web Strategy: The Three Spheres of Web Strategy (and the skills required) : un excellent article de Jeremiah Owyang, l’auteur nous présente le croisement des notions de Community / Technology / Business. La force de la stratégie web serait de doser les 3 aspects. -> extrait : ” What’s a Web Strategy? It’s the balance between the three spheres for effective long-term planning of a website. “ […]
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For most of my young career I’ve shared a very similar venn diagram with befuddled supervisors and “so what is it that you do again?” relatives and friends with the exception of “community” being called “marketing.” I’d argue that the two are inextricably linked as I define marketing loosely as ‘listening and responding to people’s needs [for a profit].’
Perhaps generational gaps have made it difficult to understand how one would not want or choose to excel in any of the three spheres individually. “Do one thing really well and you’ll be set,” they always say. But I find that contributing value concurrently to the blend of all three is how I seem to excel.
Web strategy takes versatile communication skills and knowledge (geek, creative, and management-ese) but perhaps more importantly an environment in which multidisciplinary strengths and cross-functional contributions can maximize value. Thankfully I find myself today in an organization and culture that thrives on this sort of “greater than the sum of its parts” idea.
In sum, your hypothesis is one I have tested successfully to varying degrees for the last decade. Bravo!
I agree that this is a wonderfully efficient view into the skills, experience, and interests one must possess to be effective. I do agree with branislav peric about design, which I believe is inseparable from each of the three areas. when I was in art school we used to insist that type is design, and that copy is design, and that negative space is design. i still believe that. so it’s like content is design is technology is UI.
i bet we’ve all seen horrible implementations of social media/community applications, and really, really smooth good ones.
thanks.
thomas falconer
Hi. Have you ever thought of publishing a book? I can help
Thanks Moses
It’s crossed my mind, but not at the top of the list right now.
I’ve got to ask, why a book? A blog can get a lot of traction too.
[…] What you should know: The Three spheres of a Web Strategy. […]
A good web strategist will bring all these three spheres to market at the right time.Depnding on what type of business it is there is no point bringing advanced technolgy to market until it starts to reach some kind of critical mass so timing in any webstrategy is absolutely crucial.Just look at the number of Dot.coms that went bust with great ideas that were simply just ahead of thier time.would love to see more discussion on this topic
great analysis and being an enterprise user I can see analogy with out process. people and technology approach.
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Hi Jeremiah,
Great analysis and although I’m new to leaving a comment, I’ve been a fan of your blog.
Just a question on the analysis - for the overlaps between Community and Business and Community and Technology, should those be switched? My thought was that for the overlap between Community and Business, Monetization Issues would be relevant whereas for the overlap between Community and Technology, Inefficient without Tools would be appropriate.
Also, you might be interested in checking out some work done by IDEO. They have a similar framework around People, Technology and Business they use to analyze product innovations.
Warm regards,
Nick
Makes sense, solid post. Goes beyond the web too…
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How to get the center of the graphic is the most important thing to your website/business.
Jeremiah, this is a great post. Having ran multiple websites in my time online I can say without a doubt that all of these strategies in your venn diagram spheres are very important. Incorporating a perfect balance of everything above is probably the most difficult task for many webmasters, but you have done a wonderful job at making all of this make sense. Thank you.
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