Excellent question! I’m glad you asked.

When the web first started out, there were few fancy web editing tools out there and everyone had to learn how to build websites using Hyper-Text Markup Language (HTML). As HTML itself is not terribly complex, and the medium was unproven for generating revenue and leads, many people chose this option. Lots of websites started popping up all over the place. Many of them were just so ugly, it’s amazing people continued to use the web! But the opportunity to connect with customers, constituents and all kinds of interest groups was so readily obvious that websites were clearly not a blip that was going away, despite the Dot-bomb of the late ’90s.

Since the early days, the medium has matured significantly. Now there are lots of software solutions that allow users to create quality websites on their computer. There are also lots of systems that allow designers to put together sites that maintain a consistent look and feel across all pages of a website and add in various modules that can assist organizations in their business operations. In the open-source world, these are even free!

So, if you are even remotely technically oriented, you could choose a platform to build your site (e.g., Drupal), pick a design theme, find a host to put your site and your domain name, possibly add in a customer relationship management system if you need that, and put all the pieces together. Voila – site done and no need for any outside resources!

Well, you could. But should you? If you’re a small business owner, I’m sure you’ve got lots of spare time to play around with all this stuff (yes, I’m being sarcastic). And if you’re a non-profit organization, I’m sure you’ve got more volunteers available that have the technical know-how to do it and the time available to throw at this (yes, still being sarcastic).

Perhaps a simpler question is who checks your accounting at the end of the year? If you tend to be the kind of person or organization that can handle this task internally, there’s a good chance you’re the kind of person or organization that will want to do it all your own. And that’s perfectly fine. For most organizations, outside expertise is used to assist them in making better choices. And so it would be with a web design firm. Depending on the firm, they will do one or more of all of the above steps for you.

They should also help you in areas that you may not fully appreciate. Your focus should be on your business purpose – their business purpose is to help you bring that that purpose online, effectively. The outside organization should be able to help you understand what the purpose of the site will be so that visitors to the site immediately understand what your company can do for them. They should be able to assist you in making decisions that will help you be more effective online, from search engine optimization to hosting choices to software that can be integrated into your site and possibly even to logo design.

But, like your accounting system, remember that ultimately for the site to be effective, ongoing maintenance of the content on the site needs to be performed by you for your organization.

Excellent question! I’m glad you asked.

Most business owners understand their finances pretty well. After all, the finances are what allows the business to prosper (or what causes the business to fade away when the finances aren’t strong). And, for the most part, they understand this enough that even if they lost “the accountant”, they would still be able to maintain basic accounting needs for payables and receivables.

However, there is often a reliance on technology within an organization that is dependant on the “techie” being around. For a small business, this dependance can be somewhat alleviated if a second person can be hired who has access to all the information and resources as the primary technical resource. But often, the financial resources may not be available to support this.

In a non-profit organization, this can be even more troublesome, as many resources are volunteers who come and go at their whim. When all technical resources available are offering their time without pay, other priorities outside of the organization may be more pressing and/or interesting for them. And if all your technical eggs are in one basket, what happens when the basket is dropped?

Solving this problem can be a difficult challenge for any organization. If the owner or board are not technical, it may be impossible to understand all of the technology in use within their organization. And this gets to the heart of the above questions. Even if you don’t know how the technology all works, nor have a plan for how to replace an unexpected loss of your primary technical personnel, there are some basic steps that can make the transition easier.

Most people, if they lost their life’s treasures from disaster, would probably make a rough guess of what the value of their goods are. But few people keep a detailed list of their valuables. And then there are the treasures and mementoes that are irreplaceable, for one reason or another.

When it comes to your organization, you should not follow this pattern. The key is to have your technical assets documented. And if you don’t know what your technical assets are, here’s a short list of some of the important ones:

1. Your DNS (domain name system) registrar and renewal dates. Without this, your domain name (or online organization identity – e.g., ‘metrex.net’ is ours) may expire, and your customers wont be able to send you email nor find your website. If you conduct business online, this will have an immediate negative financial result.
2. Your web host and renewal dates. Like your domain name, if you forget to pay for your website (as well as several other scenarios), your web site may disappear. In this case, you may still be able to get email (if your email is not with the same company) but your customers wont be able to find your website.
3. Your email host and renewal dates. Like your domain name, if you forget to pay for your email hosting (as well as several other scenarios), you may no longer be able to receive email from your customers. Although they may be able to get to your web site, you may not be able to easily communicate with them online.
4. Where is all your data stored and backed up? In the case of system crashes, or general disasters, or disasters at your web hosting company, etc., you may need to recover data from a database backup. Where is the backup? If you find it, where does the data need to go? Do you have passwords to access the database servers if needed? Or, if your data is outsourced, does your outsourcing company have access to do this?
5. What kinds of firewalls, routers, and server equipment is located at your office? Do you have the passwords for all these? Is there a network map identifying how all these systems are interconnected?

The above list is by no means exhaustive. I’m trying to be brief and not too technical, and there are some terms used above with which you may not be familiar. Ideally, your technical staff should be able to prepare a detailed inventory that you could take to a third party organization and identify if the list is reasonable for your organization. However, without an audit, it will be impossible to determine the accuracy or completeness. So expect that there are some costs involved in this process. But without the answers, it could be even more costly.

Excellent question! I’m glad you asked.

Software can be very complex. And the process of designing and developing new software is also complex. Projects can be easily sidetracked. And I’ve got lots of experience at getting sidetracked! So much so that the Metrex team forbids me to develop software any more – aren’t they sweet? But how does that fit into the original question?

Let me give you a simple analogy. One day, your car stops dead in the middle of the road. You have it towed to a repair center and tell the mechanic “please put in a new engine”. The mechanic gives you a quote for the new engine and tells you to come back in a week to pickup the car. You come back a week later and the car’s ready to go. Just before you’re about to drive out, the mechanic tells you that the replacement went really smoothly but dang it if they didn’t get confused when they tried to start the car and it wouldn’t start because there was no gas in the tank! Well, you’re feeling a little sheepish now and perhaps a little embarrassed when you realize that the reason you asked  the mechanic to replace the engine was because the car had run out of gas.

Does this seem a little contrived to you? Of course! No-one would go to a mechanic and ask to have the engine replaced just because they ran out of gas! Whoever heard of such a thing?! Unfortunately, in the technology industry, this happens all too often. As I said earlier, software can be very complex. Not only is the software itself complex but the human interactions that depend on software can be very complex. Any change made to a system of processes and interconnections invariably has unforseen effects. These unexpected changes can be good and bad. So when we ask “why”, we’re not just being obstinate. Understanding the business goals should be a primary goal of any technology project and if your technology provider isn’t asking you why, perhaps you should be asking them “why not?”