The Two-Dollar-Bill Problem
Do you remember when the $2 bill was reissued? My grandmother thought they were a big deal. In fact, I still have the one she gave me for my birthday, complete with a postage stamp and cancellation code showing it was one of the first run.
A lot of businesses wondered what to do with it. The drawers in the cash register were designed to hold bills in denominations of $1, $5, $10, and $20. Where would the $2 bill go? For whatever reason, the $2 bill did not become ubiquitous so it was never a problem. Now people just hide them under the tray with the coupons and the Benjamins.
Some WordPress users face a variation of this problem. A friend called me to ask, “I created some subpages on my site, but they don’t show up in the menus at the top. How do I turn that on?”
I replied, “You can’t.” The theme he chose was never coded to support subpages. It doesn’t have the “slots” necessary to display that information from the site database.
There are two ways to fix this.
- Change your theme. Find and install another one that supports multiple levels of menus. Be careful, some only take one or two levels. If you aren’t sure, test it before you commit.
- Modify the existing theme. This requires some coding skills, and few people are equipped to try that. Depending on the theme and what is involved, it could take a couple of hours. If you choose this route, be prepared to pay a pro.
The lesson to be learned: Don’t fall in love with a theme, free or otherwise, before you know whether it will handle a $2 bill.
Sure it’s pretty, but will it do what you need?
If you own a business, your website’s first task is to leave a positive impression on visitors. A very, very close second is to explain how you can help.
An interior designer friend wanted a theme that matched her bubbly, quirky, colorful personality. She found one adorned with doodles, fabric, needlework, buttons, and color that met those criteria beautifully. One day she asked me for some help with her blog.
I pulled up her site. “That’s cute. I like how you called your landing page ‘Hmoe.’” I asked.
“What do you mean?” she replied.
“Look. Your first menu item is spelled ‘H-m-o-e.’”
She looked, then cringed. “Where do I go to change that?”
I skipped through the dashboard to find that she had not misspelled something. I started digging into the theme, and I found several problems.
- Lack of contrast. This had prompted the initial call for help. The page title didn’t stand out, and the byline was lost in the beautiful but busy background.
- The main navigation menu was hard-coded into the theme, but the user couldn’t edit the links to the landing page. Hello, 404 error! The designer incorporated common page titles into the theme, probably in an effort to make things “easier” for the user. But what if you only have three pages, or name one something different, or blog in Spanish? The theme screamed creativity, then restricted the user blog in a tiny box.
- The menu elements were also graphics, not text. Without the funky font the original designer used, there was no way I could fix the misspelled word and have it match the other items. As it turned out, I found an updated version of the theme that fixed the typo.
- The default sidebar widgets had custom graphic headers. Adding user-defined widgets to the sidebar deleted those out. This obviated the need to try to match graphic text, but the new text didn’t fit the rest of the theme.
- Sharing options were built in to the theme. Again, this was a nice gesture by the designer, but it had limitations. What if your primary market is on a social network not included in the defaults? Without knowing code, the user can’t change this. This is better handled by a plugin.
My friend is now on at least her second replacement theme. Time will tell how long that one lasts.
Dilemma
That’s right, WordCamp Chicago is less than a month away, and I’m going. I’m excited for it. I haven’t had a road trip in a while, and I’m going to have good geeky company for the drive. I’m looking forward to learning a lot and meeting new people.
That’s all good, but I have a problem with their program. It’s too good! Should I spend more time on the User Track in hopes of picking up a few more tidbits to share with my clients, or should I hammer the developer track to support my personal ambitions of WordPress domination?
Braving the Shave
I couldn’t even hear the clippers.
I wasn’t deaf, I wasn’t distracted, it was just LOUD at Uptown Grille, the host for the St. Baldrick’s event. The place was packed for St. Patrick’s Day! I understand that several people made good use of the crowded bar to raise more funds for children’s cancer research.
I arrived later than I wanted. I walked in feeling like a cross between Santa Claus (old with a white beard), Scrooge (grumpy), and Charlie Brown (a loser for falling far short of my goal of $1,000).
The organizer, Emily MacBeth, had recruited a sizable team to manage everything. Between the registration desk, shavers, photographers, silent auction managers, there was a lot to do. In a word, it was overwhelming!
Even though the volunteers had been there several hours, they were cheerful, welcoming, and grateful. I can’t count how many times I heard, “Thank you for doing this.” I left feeling lighter (how much does hair weigh?), younger (no more white!), and like I made a difference (I raised about $400).
Will I do it again? I don’t know. It’s a worthy cause, but growing my beard wasn’t fun. I have a few months to think about it. Maybe there will be stubble again in January.
Countdown to the St. Baldrick’s Fundraiser
Donate!
Tomorrow afternoon people will be converging on Uptown Grille in Commerce Township for the 2010 St. Baldrick’s Foundation Fundraising event. It’s going to be a big deal, with head-shaving, a silent auction with some really great items, and a lot of fun. Come on out! I will be there in the evening.
Even if you can’t come to the event, you can still contribute. Click the orange button to donate.
Half-off Challenge
Cancer is an ugly enough on its own. Children getting cancer is even sadder.
The St. Baldrick’s Foundation is dedicated to finding a cure for children’s cancer. I set a goal of raising $1,000. It’s time to turn up the heat a bit, and I’m raising the stakes. Watch the video to see more…
If you want to find out how I look with half a head of hair, go to my donation page. When the total passes $1000 I will shave off half of my hair and beard, and leave it that way until the event at Uptown Grille on March 17.
Tungle: A Time Management Tool
Do you Tungle? I do!
Not as much as I would like, but that’s changing as my small business grows.
What is Tungle? It’s a great way to simplify scheduling meetings. Let me give you a few reasons why I use it. These are my response to the questions posed on Tungle’s blog.
Inspired by John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing’s post, 5 Questions You Should Ask Every Customer, we’d like to ask you these 5 questions:
1. What made you decide to start Tungling?
- I saw someone Tweet about it one day and thought I would check it out. The quick video intro on the home page sold me.
2. What’s one thing we do better than any other productivity app out there?
- I like the ease of seeing different people’s schedules vertically. I haven’t researched these in great detail, but I helped a client schedule a meeting with another online scheduling tool (I honestly forgot which one) that was less intuitive. I also think the name is memorable. It reminds me of a Jethro Tull song…
3. What’s one thing we could do to create a better experience for you?
- It would be nice to be able to look up friends or business contacts via their email address. I’m not looking for a directory, I would just like to be able to enter the email address of someone I know and find their Tungle calendar.
- While we’re at it, maybe we could go so far as to look up someone’s schedule based on a Twitter ID. I have people I know on Twitter who I don’t use email to work with.
4. Do you refer Tungle.me to others? If yes, why?
- Yes, I have recommended it to several people. A few of them have signed up with it, too. I really appreciate that your availability is well, available. My tungle.me link is both on my business card and in my email signature. Why isn’t yours? It makes it easy for someone to schedule a meeting.
5. What would you Google to find an app like Tungle.me?
- I don’t know, I haven’t thought much about finding better productivity tools. If I did, I might look for “schedule meeting” or “calendar management.”
I’m still green enough as a solopreneur that I haven’t thought to look for tools to improve my productivity. That will change, though. I hope your small business grows even more quickly than mine does. If you Tungle, it might happen faster than mine is.
My new website will definitely have a Tungle link in the sidebar.
[disclaimer: I'm totally gunning for a free T-shirt and gift certificate. But I promise, I will never endorse anything here that I don't have personal experience with.]
Troubleshooting and the Language Barrier
“This guy e-mailed me this link, and I can’t get it to open.” Even over the phone my client’s frustration was palpable.
“What happens when you click it?” I asked, probing for clues.
“Just a moment.” He read: “‘There was an error opening this document. The file is damaged and could not be repaired.’ What’s going on? I need to see this link.”
That error message was new to me. This wouldn’t be something I could sort out over the phone. I was envisioning some sort of broken MIME-type or registry issue. I cringed internally.
When I arrived at the client’s site, I knew in seconds what the problem was. It wasn’t a link at all, it was an attachment. Specifically, a PDF that his outdated version of Acrobat Reader couldn’t open. A few mouse clicks and a download later, the client thought I walked on water.
We both spoke English, we were both from the same country, there was no funny dialect, but there was a language barrier. The client didn’t have enough exposure to the computer technology to know the difference between a link and an attachment. To him, they were just a hurdle he had to jump in order to get to the information he needed.
What’s the point? It can be very hard to troubleshoot computers over the phone. Differences in terminology, technical background, and levels of patience are all limiting factors. Screen sharing can allow a technician to take remote control, but what if it’s too difficult to walk a user through that connection process? Sometimes the best thing to do is make the trip and sit down at the keyboard.
Rosetta Stone image from Wikimedia Commons
You Get What You Pay For
Last night I downloaded some free WordPress themes in hopes of finding one for another blog I’m starting. I drafted my first post, then started trying out some different looks.
I looked at full-size previews for each of them. Some were artistic and colorful, others were sparse and clean.
None of them worked when I loaded them up. The padding was off, there wasn’t enough contrast between the text and the background, the widgets were in awful places and couldn’t be moved without delving deep into the CSS.
I found one that works for now, but I won’t really be happy until I design my own.
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Meet with the Geek
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Do you want my two cents here?
Posted by TJ on August 22, 2010 · Leave a Comment
“It just doesn’t feel right to me,” didn’t seem like an adequate response. I struggled with it for a little while, and here are my thoughts on the subject.
Have you ever noticed the weekly flyer displayed at the front of a Target store? Would you expect to see comments scribbled on the wall below the ad? Imagine the flyer was posted Monday morning, and these comments were posted by 3 PM:
Maybe the plumbing problem is patched within 15 minutes and new stock is scheduled to arrive Tuesday morning, but the comments are stuck there until the next week’s specials can be posted.
I see pages on a website like that flyer. As the website owner, you are well within your rights to delete (or not approve) comments at any time.
For those of us who think too much, this could spark an ethical debate: Should you approve (or delete) bad comments? What if a problem were fixed immediately, or a product or service has been discontinued? Are the comments still relevant? Should you delete them?
I would rather avoid the hassle (and the questions).
Blog posts, on the other hand, provide a natural opportunity for discussion. I think of them more like a conversation with someone at the customer service counter. There is a specific context. You may be glad that a painful discussion fades away and loses impact as new posts are added. The reverse can also happen, where the record can turn into a testimonial for your business.
You will note that comments are disabled on pages on my site. I will happily accept comments below.
Filed under Business Lessons, Communication, WordPress · Tagged with blog, business, comment, strategy