What is the product?

Working with digital agencies and clients I find myself asking the same question, what is actually being sold here? is it knowledge, a future “state” of something, more sales for someone else or a combination of all 3 with a bit more added on?

Maybe we need to move the focus away from the “what” and towards the “how”, maybe what agencies should be selling is something like:

“The ability to see exactly what is available to me and my organisation and the ability to make the most of it.”

Because in most cases that is the need, and if we stay focused on the need the usage will follow.

Web design as a business model

Today’s market for creative agencies has been in a state of flux for what seems like a very long time, the introduction of new technologies and hardware has meant that the professional practitioner constantly feels that his craft is under attack and further levels of justification are needed just so that he can stay in business. Nowhere is this situation more apparent than with the “web design’ agency.

Web agencies [by this I mean designers, marketers, and publishers] now face an array of low cost and free competitors, with WordPress taking over as the principle publishing tool for simple website production and low cost solutions like www.supersimpleshop.com  providing cheap, simplified e-commerce. Add to this equation the fact that the people most in need of good quality “web design” are the SMEs, the people with restricted budgets who need their site to work for them quickly and easily.

So what does the traditional “web design agency” do to make its bottom line and how does it survive? the answer is not as simple as just switching to a new technology or platform as the same situation will present itself again and again. The solution lies in educating your client sympathetically and gaining their trust, understanding what they are looking to achieve from the “big picture”  business point of view and not just “doing their website “

Seth Godins recent post “what’s the use case” - http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/02/whats-the-use-case.html explains this paradox brilliantly, particularly having spent numerous hours in meetings with confused clients and frustrated designers with the whole room pulling in different directions.

So the focus needs to shift, forget about the idea of selling a folder full of digital files [called a website] and work towards selling knowledge, trust and experience. Move away from medium and focus on content, concentrate on saying what needs to be said and removing the barriers. A bit like the famous quote about writing “take half the words out and if it still reads its a good story”.

Dhulikhel Hospital project overview

We have been asked to work with Dhilikhel Hospital in Nepal on a digitization project, this is a basic outline of the what and how:

1. What we intend to do
Nepal is a mountainous and inaccessible country with limited capacity for healthcare in the rural and remote regions, I have been approached by Dhulikhel Hospital [which is the hospital for Kathmandu University] to help them make better use of digital technology so that they can be more effective at what they do, which in essence is saving lives and improving health.

2. How we are going to do it
Our approach will be to establish the unmet needs and then allow those needs to lead us to the solution, rather than allowing technology products to act as a starting point. This will be combined with a knowledge transfer program that will enable Dhulikhel Hospital to self sustain and move forward without extensive ongoing support.
Specific areas where we will be assisting the hospital initially include:

• How to move away from paper as the main documentation medium as this is leading to increased infection.
• How to make better use of their existing infrastructure.
• How to introduce the mindset and thinking processes that will lead to Dhulikhel having complete control over their systems and methods.
• How to move forward in a sustainable and cost effective way.

The methodology we will be looking to implement will be based around the founding principles of the Internet and the open source movement and can be summarized as:

“Using open source digital media to push ideas for positive change instead of simply products for profit”

This is really just the starting point but we feel that there is massive potential for collaboration with other digital organizations so we’ll be on the lookout for potential partners once we get going. I’ll also be adding new posts as we progress with the project.