Stop fondling the hammer, and focus on the house

Categories: Web Theory, Web ToolsPosted on January 17th, 2008

For 2 minutes, forget about these tools: Seesmic, Facebook, Ustream, Justin TV, Blogs, Forums, RSS, Utterz, and all the rest of the tools I listed out.

I’m seeing a lot of web strategists over focused on the tools. Secondly, I’ve even seen a few social media books written that focus in on the tools. While there’s a need for this type of focus, it should be at the end of your strategy, not the start.

In too many cases we focus on the next shiny objective, from this video player, to the new light mac book, to the newsfeed changes, or to the latest gizmadget. Only a few professionals out there can do this, like heat seeker Robert Scoble, and honestly, keeping up with him is just frantic, believe me, I should know.

Instead of honing in on the specific technology, you should approach developing your web strategy as you would building a house. Focus on who you’re inviting to come over to your property (websites) and what is it that they want (needs). Start there.

Next, think about the different rooms in your house, and how they all serve a different purpose, from the decor (branding), mailbox (blogs), front door (advertising), living room (chat rooms), and basement (document library), they all do something different. We use tools in a lot of different ways, some are great for attracting folks (advertising) some are great for making them stay (media and content), and some are great for encouraging them to interact (social tools). In any case, the value of each of these on their own is weak, and the real value is all of them together in context.

There’s a couple of ways to develop your strategy, one of which is to follow a methodology of framework, when I speak at events, I’ll often discuss the POST methodology, which focuses on people, objectives, strategy, then tools (and only in that order).

So stop fondling the hammers and nails, instead, focus on what’s really important, the guests you want to attract and what type of house they want.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 5:31 am and is filed under Web Theory, Web Tools. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

This is a great point and what I’ve been thinking about after skimming through Seth Godin’s book “Meatball Sundae.”

Glad you brought this up because it’s where a lot of companies fail.

Posted by Dan Schawbel on January 17th, 2008 at 7:36 am

Couldn’t agree more. Especially in the non-profit world, people hear about a trend and want to immediately be a part of it, even if they can’t think of a way it could actually improve anything at all. I might just finally pack it in if I hear one more person say “we need a podcast” when they only have a single audio file or start throwing tens of thousands on a Facebook application that’s nothing but a 10-question quiz.

Posted by Reid on January 17th, 2008 at 7:39 am

The house also changes as it grows.

People often compare their project to these larger tools (Facebook, etc) and confuse them with how their own site may be used. For example, as you roll out a new community, driving participation may be more important than making it easy to sort through a lot of content categories.

You want each area to be built out and full of content before expanding. The key is doing this in harmony with your customers and ensuring you are provide value along the way.

Posted by Miles Sims on January 17th, 2008 at 1:15 pm

Good post, Jeremiah. I’ve thought about this a lot. I love to learn about new technologies. But when it comes down to it, many of them might not make a lot of sense strategically to implement.

Posted by Brian Watkins on January 17th, 2008 at 5:33 pm

Excellent reminder, Jeremiah. I just shared on FB. From a small business/solopreneur standpoint, many people - with not much more than an idea - ask me how they can “make money on Facebook”… basically putting the cart before the horse.

@Dan - I’m enjoying Seth’s new book too!

Posted by Mari Smith on January 18th, 2008 at 1:48 am

Great reminder Jeremy.

I’m constantly reminding the people I work with that we first have to define the outcome, then define the technology that will deliver that outcome.

In this industry it’s just so easy to jump on the bandwagon of the next big thing I guess. Hype is king!

Posted by Nic Hodges on January 20th, 2008 at 11:27 pm

[...] have is forgetting to visualize what success looks like. In many cases, they are overly focused on fondling the hammer, that they forget about the overall [...]

Posted by Why you Social Media Plan should have Success Metrics on January 25th, 2008 at 6:44 am

Hi Jeremiah,

(sorry for my english) I’ve read the linked post about POST methodology, but I don’t understand why People come earlier than objectives…

How can you decide “the capabilities of your audience” before deciding your social strategy objectives (don’t your audience depend on the objectives you want to accomplish)?

Thanks !

Marco.

Posted by Marco on February 5th, 2008 at 9:32 am

@Marco:

If you decide on your objectives before you know your audience, you run the risk of creating a mismatch between what your customers want and what you want. I think its always best to know your customers’ capabilities first.

If you want to start with objectives first and then people, that can still work. The mistake people make most is to start with the technology, rather than objectives and people — that nearly always fails.

Posted by Josh Bernoff on February 5th, 2008 at 10:23 am

@Josh
Thank you Josh for answering. I try with another question… in your opinion: why do you think people mostly start with the technology?
- No money/time to do research or to adopt a strategic approach
- Different objectives (more or less conscious), like personal or brand image (I/my brand want to appear cool and updated)
- They think they have a strategy (they developed and designed it in 5 min their mind)
- No idea how a strategy can help them
- Something else

Posted by Marco on February 9th, 2008 at 4:25 am

Marco

I can take a swing at that.

The tools are often at hand faster than a strategy, so this is why they do this. My post gives more details above.

People forget to look at the forest, instead focus on the trees.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on February 9th, 2008 at 6:37 am

[...] we’re really talking about, keeps us skimming the surface, and keeps us needlessly focused on fondling the hammer, rather than on building the [...]

Posted by words words words « small dots on March 7th, 2008 at 7:18 pm

[...] You’ll frequently see me rant on this blog about how not to start your social media program at your company by selecting a tool. When you’ve only got a hammer, everything looks like a nail. [...]

Posted by When Everything Looks like a Nail on May 9th, 2008 at 1:25 pm

Hi Jeremy,

I agree with your observation in these comments that “the tools are often at hand faster than a strategy.”

I think the almost universal and obsessive focus on tools first, is also a result of the fact that strategic discussions often engender conflict when they make us SEE (in bold relief) that we’re NOT all on the “corporate page.” CEO’s in particular HATE acknowledging that the strategy is unclear/weak/hazy. That said, mastering strategy with a TEAM is a sure fire antedote to get work done in a faster and “funner” way!

Great post! Thanks.

Posted by Jocelyn on August 14th, 2008 at 6:05 am

Here’s a relevant post from Seth’s blog earlier this year:
I need to build a house, what kind of hammer should I buy?

Posted by Fabi on November 1st, 2008 at 9:54 am

[...] been a long time since I’ve been at a tech conference where we didn’t fondle the hammer and actually focused on building the house. Actually choosing an objective to apply these tools to [...]

Posted by Web 2.0 Summit Gives a Purpose on November 8th, 2008 at 2:18 am

[...] Stop fondling the hammer and focus on the house. [...]

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