The Workplace Blog

Forrester Research recently recognized Avenue A | Razorfish as a leader in website design. We were among 15 companies selected by Forrester to participate in its annual, Forrester Wave(TM): Interactive Marketing Agencies - Web Design Capabilities report (PDF). Forrester cited us as a leader in both the transaction-led Web projects category, which evaluates Web usability, and in the image-led projects category, which evaluates how agencies can help organizations build their brand presence online through creativity and differentiation.

“Avenue A / Razorfish continues to offer a soup-to-nuts Web marketing solution that includes designing and building high-quality sites as well as driving users to sites with marketing programs,” wrote Forrester analyst Kerry Bodine. “This year the agency firmly established itself as a leader in the category, propelled by high scores on our usability tests, solid user modeling, and high client satisfaction. With a substantial market presence, strong technology practice, and a well-thought-out strategy for continued growth, Avenue A / Razorfish is a great choice for clients seeking quality design work that is backed by stability”

Don’t miss the latest Wired Magazine. Their cover story talks about companies that are sharing secrets with rivals, blogging about products in their pipeline and even admitting to their failures. They call it radical transparency and are discovering that it helps rather than hurts them.This is not new for many of us in the web space. We’ve been advising clients to do this for a while. Get closer to your clients share more with them, treat them like they’re your extended team and listen carefully to what they say. Nevertheless, its nice to see Wired Magazine extolling the virtues of this approach.

My favorite example of radical transparency is when Jet Blue decided to publish a YouTube video clip of their CEO apologizing about delayed flights in New York last year. They also created a “Bill of Customer Rights” and invited customer feedback. The net result - they’re still in business.

The New York Times reported on the limits of multitasking recently. In a nutshell, it causes you to make mistakes and hampers your productivity. For example, neuroscientists, psychologists and management professors recommend that you only check your email once an hour and listen to soothing background music while studying or working. Instant messaging, songs with lyrics and television shows all negatively affect productivity. The reason is that we have a core limitation. We can only concentrate on one thing at a time.

The article mentions a recent study about a group of Microsoft workers who took, on average, 15 minutes to return to serious mental tasks like writing reports or computer code after responding to incoming e-mail or instant messages. They strayed off to reply to other messages or to browse the web. Has that ever happened to you? Probably. Try to observe your own behaviour patterns in the future.

These are important findings that we must consider as we design and use solutions in the workplace. The news isn’t new, but what’s certain is that we’re not paying attention and its affecting our productivity. Check out this post on technology making us unproductive as well.

In the March issue of KM World, Avenue A | Razorfish Enterprise Solutions Practice was named one of the top companies that matter in knowledge management for the second year in a row.

We appreciate the award, particularly as we develop new knowledge management solutions to help clients manage ever-expanding networks of collaboration and ever-growing stores of information and resources. Some of the top trends that we’re seeing with our clients include global collaboration platforms, leveraging semantic networks and meta-data structures for personalized in-context information, and digital dashboards.

What are your biggest knowledge management concerns?