Brown Targeting Health Care

The Boston Globe has a story today about U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, R-Ma., filing legislation to make changes to aspects of the landmark health care reform bill.
Brown, along with Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden, call for allowing states to opt out of certain portions of the health care.
For example, according to the Globe, some aspects of the bill require states have an individual mandate and a health insurance exchange. States can appeal to the government to opt out of the requirement if the state can prove its system is at least as competitive for residents as the federal one. Currently, states can opt out as early as 2017. Brown and Wyden want to allow states to opt out in 2014, when other aspects of the bill go into effect.
Brown’s calls here to make some changes to are obviously an attempt by Brown to distinguish himself as a moderate, working-class legislator. While mainstream republicans of his party are calling for a full-blown repeal of “Obamacare,” Brown is taking a more centrist approach. He does not want to scare off independent voters in left-leaning Massachusetts where he will be running for re-election in two years.
While not being too polarizing, Brown is also tapping into voter discontent. Republicans were launched to victories in the most recent election, in part, on a platform of repealing some aspects of the bill. Brown wants to show he’s listening, and willing to do that.

Custom Facebook Landing page

Gail Lebert mentioned to me that Deloitte has a cool custom Facebook page. I went and checked it out and was immediately jealous that their page is so dynamic. So I typed "custom Facebook landing page" into Google and found these simple directions on how to create a custom page.

I was able to set up a very basic custom page on the WBJ's Facebook page in a matter of minutes. I'm still trying to figure out how we can use this to enhance our connection with our Facebook fans. Perhaps offer a special promotion to people who come to our Facebook page?

If anyone has any ideas, please let me know, or post a comment below.

Web Team members announced

NEBM's Web Team was announced on April 9. Here are the members and their affiliations:

From the HBJ
Norm Bell, editor
Bill Kenney, events
Chris Wallace, production
David Hartley, advertising

From the WBJ
Christina Davis, editor
Shaun Tolson, custom publications
Kelly Marcimo, advertising

From Mainebiz
Jan Holder, production
Mindy Favreau, staff writer

More details on our first meeting date and agenda soon!

Interesting interview

NPR out of New York produces a great program called "On the Media." A recent installment included an interview with Edward Tufte, the author of "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information." He was appointed by the Obama administration to clean up Recovery.gov. Some good lessons to be learned about design here...

Interesting multimedia presentation

The Harvard Business Review's web site has a lot of things going for it. I particularly like this article, which uses a simple video to illustrate a list of the top ways to block creativity.

The one problem I have is that the video is too long. I wanted to quickly see the list. It seems like the video's creator got a little carried away with the PowerPoint animations.

But I do think we could do something like this in Worcester for our 10 Things I Know About... feature.

Globe's embedded video

I noticed that today's Globe web site has an embedded video called "Globe Today," which is basically a reporter talking about the stories in that day's paper. It's interesting to see how newspapers integrate video directly into their online content. Maybe something we could think about doing...

Interesting Web Site Redesign Critique

I don’t visit the MSN homepage often, but when I recently went I noticed a dramatic redesign from their old site. Apparently a beta version of the new site launched late last year and it's gone live now.

Even though it’s a couple months old, I think it’s still valuable to see how a major web site redesigned their homepage. I also found what I thought was a really interesting blog critiquing redesign.

Basically the redesign is a much simpler, sleeker look with more white space, larger photos and bigger headlines. (On the blog you can see the redesign as well at the original MSN homepage at the bottom.)

I thought the blogger made some interesting observations, including:

-They’re not afraid of having white space. It makes the portions of the site that are there stand out more.
-The search bar on the top is much more prominent. This is obviously a “springboard site” and the designers have embraced that.
-I like the social media tabbed links on the homepage.
-The dropdown menus “get in the way.” I have never really noticed this, but now that he mentions it, I see his point.

Here's another blog that has images of the old and new home page as well.

Overall, I really like this redesign and I think it’s interesting to see some of the reaction to it.

Ads on eReaders

Found an interesting post about the perspective of New York Times Chairman and Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and President and CEO Janet Robinson on the evolution of the news business.
Couple of observations:
1 - Isn't it ironic that this article is on PaidContent.org, yet you don't have to pay to read the article?
2 - It seems to me that Sulzberger and Robinson are speaking at media events so often they barely have time to run their business...

Brandon's thoughts

I found the web site workshop very informative and I think it’s great that we’re all actively thinking about the web site and how to improve it.

Here’s a bullet-point list of what I think should be important features on our home page:

-Prominent brand logo of WBJournal, MaineBiz and HBJ
-A search tool that provides effective search results.
-Breaking/Daily news items. This is for visitors who come to our site wanting to know what the latest and most important news is.
-Feature stories from the print edition. This is for recurring visitors to our web site who are there to peruse what content we have to offer.
-Poll/Reader survey to engage readers
-Simple, broad tabs with drop-down menus

This means that some things would not be included as they currently are on the web site.
These include the sign in box and the browse by keyword box. Removing these would open up our web site to expand the portions that we really do want to highlight.

Two other suggestions I have:
-Keep it simple. I think the best web sites that we looked at in the workshop were simple, easy layouts that don’t waste space or words.

-Provide flexibility. This may be a wish-list item, but I think it would be great to have flexibility in what we have as the main focus of our web site. For example, if we have great photos one issue, we should highlight those and have our web site feature them. (I’m thinking of the dairy story with photos and the women in business profiles).
On that same note, if we have a big breaking news story, we should let people know that it’s a big story, and put a breaking news tab on it.
When we don’t have breaking news or strong photos, we should use the print features that we already have and highlight those.
Depending on the day, the news cycle and the content, we would have some days when our web site would prominently feature breaking news, other days when it would feature photos and other days when it would be print features.
Right now our page is always the same, daily news items and print features below. I know we don’t have all the resources in the world, but I think it would be great if we could switch those up depending on what our strongest/most important content is.
We can do this while having those main elements I outlined earlier and a simple, sleek layout.

Ultimate WBJ Web Site

My ultimate web site idea is to have our home page dominated by one main story. At the very top of the page, perhaps next to our logo would be three headlines with a line of copy beneath each one and a [more] button.

Below that would be a row of navigation buttons: News, Features, Columns, People, Events, Subscribe (or something similar).

The News button could open readers to the different subjects and sections.

Below that would be one big graphic with a headline and a little bit of copy and a [more] or a mild admonishment to “continue reading.”

That’s it.

Matthew L. Brown

Ah-ha's from DB

These are some of the items I wrote down from the meeting that really resonated with me--my AH-HA moments.

Everyone is looking for a model and a way to make money at it.

Content must rule. It must be recognizable as the paper.

If it’s good and interesting, they will read it. We don’t have to dumb it down or make everything short and graphic-y.

Our readers/visitors go to our website on purpose. They are reading with intention.

We don’t have one set of readers—we have multiple sets. And within each set they don’t have the same intention or need each time they read us.

Readers have a relationship with the brand—it’s familiar to them.
Carry the branding thru the site so readers know where they are

Allow them to see the difference between ads and edit
Integrate the ads in to the content and get better results

Be more effective on delivering content vs. what the content is. Present the content in a way that shows it’s valuable.

The strength of the product will get visitors. Visitors equal better ad response.

Once they are reading us, it’s okay to scroll. But repeat the email/pdf/print option at the end of the story, too.

Add dateline to the stories. Add byline. These give them more reasons to stop and read.

Since people are not all coming in onto the home page, why does the home page have to have so much on it? Can it be more promotional with broader choices rather than specifics? Drop down menus? Skimmer of stories?

The most important thing does not have to be the biggest thing on the page. It can be small, but it’s always there.

Does everything have to be online? Okay, but you don’t have to see it all at once. Avoid Muck-soup! Interactive opportunities need to be organized. Too much info gets lost. Not everything is important. Show them less so they can see it.

We need to be media agnostic/platform agnostic. We are the brand. The platforms (print, online, enews) are tools.

Perfection is the enemy of the good

What is the purpose of our site? Who goes to our home page first?—what do they need to see there? Connect to them to the brand. Where is the emotion that print illicits?

Online wish list:
Be interactive
Simpler home page--more promotional/brand-y
Put the cover back, and above the fold
Breaking news
Longer content
Find new postions for the ads
Paid content

Website thoughts (v. 1.0)

Building a great website takes a lot of time and thought, mostly around who we’re trying to reach and what we’re trying to accomplish. After all, form follows function.

I’m certainly open to a variety of approaches, including the ‘I have a dream’ approach. It’s great to get all the ideas on the table. But…

This is a time-consuming process and it was clear from the group Friday that we share a sense that the site is badly flawed TODAY, particularly Hartford.

Perhaps there are a few quick interim steps we can take to stop the bleeding while we give thoughtful attention to the longer term answer.

I suggest we:
1) Collapse all those topics under a single button ‘Search news by topic.’ Click it and you display the laundry list.
2) Collapse all the ‘to do’ items under a similar button, perhaps labeled ‘Interact with us’.
3) Collapse the awards & events under a single ‘Events & Awards’ button.
4) Jiggle the ad/news spacing to create a larger centerpiece for news and more ad spaces in the areas freed by removing the laundry lists.
5) Appoint a small committee to develop a new color palette.

Nobody is winning or losing anything here. It’s just a cleanup and doesn’t obligate/commit anybody to anything downstream. It would seem we could do all this in a week and put ourselves on more solid footing to have the larger conversation.

And, not to duck the original assignment, I envision a tasteful splash page with one dominant news story and only a couple of ‘premium’ ads. There’d be a tight navigation bar that invites visitors to move to a selection of home pages – news home, advertising home, events/awards home – each of which would be developed and managed by the appropriate staff within an overarching architecture and style system.
I look forward to working with everyone on this as we go forward.

-- Norm Bell
Editor, Hartford Business Journal

Nice ad size

Check out the ad on the right hand side of this page. It's very effective:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/business/energy-environment/09solar.html?em

Photo and links

Here's a photo from our workshop, in case you forgot what it was like...

And here are some of my notes from the session:

• Not all readers are coming to our web sites with the same intentions.
• Hierarchy is an important issue - What do we want readers to see first when they come to our sites?
• Is our site an archive site or a table of contents/springboard site?
• What's the purpose of our sites? Some of the words that came up include: resource, filter, information, data, exchange of ideas
• Our readers fall into these categories: Traditionalists, Integrators, Net-Newsers and the Disengaged. (Pew Research)
• We need to consider why something belongs online. Does everything we do in print automatically belong online?
• People are coming to our web sites to "connect with the brand."
• Our design should allow some elements to "stand out" while other elements can "whisper."
• "Perfection is the enemy of the good."
• Keys for newspapers to survive online (according to Tim Keck, founder of The Onion): You need technological flexibility; you need staff involvement; you need good communication; you need to know who's responsible for what; you need to let the tools do the work. What of those things are we doing well? What do we need to improve upon?
  

Here are some links to sites that we looked at:
efinancialnews.com
ft.com
thebusinessjournal.com
thestranger.com
Colorado Springs Business Journal
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Times Skimmer

That's just some of what I remember. What did I miss? Comment below or add your own post to the blog.

Time to share...

Thanks for coming to the NEBM dream web site blog (and thanks to Julie for setting it up). This is a place to share ideas about web design.

If you find an interesting article on web design or the evolution of the news media, post the link here. If you find a cool web site, post it here, and let us know why you think it's cool.

Basically, treat this like a virtual lunchroom where you can casually share information with your co-workers, who happen to be spread across New England!

Welcome

Welcome NEBMers

This blog was created so we can all share ideas for our ultimate webpage. Have fun and enjoy!