Web Strategist Lab

Today’s definition of frustration: I brought a proposal to a client, one they didn’t expect but achieved everything they wanted to achieve, using a technology they hadn’t considered before, for a cost that was dramatically different than they expected to pay (how dramatic, they were putting a proposal to ask for $50k to hire a company to build a magazine site from scratch, and my propsal costs less than $1k to use WordPress).

You’d be thrilled, wouldn’t you? Like a fairy godmother had stepped in from out of nowhere to bring you a super-cheap solution to your problem (for the record, I don’t think I look good in a tutu and magic wand)? Maybe you’d even thank them for solving their problems.

Nope.  In this case, you’d be pushed aside to allow print designers and print managers pretend to know how a web project worked, how to design for function not for look, how to plan for a steady stream of different types of content but stil have a cohesive look and feel.

And when you mention that no one on the project has more than 6 months of web design or web thinking experience, and that you have 12 years, you will be marginalized and mocked.

I’m not sure what I expected when I brought this project to the client, but I can assure you it wasn’t this.