Archive for April 2007
LivePerson
We want to implement a live support chat solution for one of our clients and started evaluating options at about 3pm today. Amazingly by 3:15pm we had evaluated, implemented and trialled an excellent solution called LivePerson. We have not made a decision yet and will have to shop around to make sure we have the right solution but I was really impressed by the fast and efficient response I received from Jenny.
We arrived at the site via Google after typing “Live Chat“. LivePerson were ranked 2nd on Adwords and 7th organically – a good mix. Arriving at the site we clicked onto the Chat Now icon and figured if it was actually manned we would get an instant demo and answers to all of our questions. It’s always a great sign when a company “eats its own dogfood”. Jenny responded within seconds, answered our questions without delay and offered us a trial username and password within minutes. After about 10 minutes we had downloaded the client and inserted the tag snippet on our website.
I couldn’t help but wonder if Jenny were a legion of specially designed FAQbots in a big server farm lulling us mere mortals into a world of logic driven AI customer service charm, but when she said she lived in Rannana I knew she was real (who would say that who was not?).
The support client is a desktop app. It has some smart features, for example you can view who is on a particular page and for how long plus all the usual stuff like FAQ loading, concurrent sessions, transcripts (it can also email the end user a transcript)
The big challenge with software like it is actually manning it; we’ve all been to websites that have the “we’re not here right now” message up. I’ll be interested to see how it is managed by the customer and received by its clients. Stay tuned for updates…
The Age of User Experience
According to Shane Morris, User Experience Evangelist at Microsoft, The age of functionality is over.
The age of User Experience is here
Functionality is assumed and expected, the differentiator is the design, usability and fidelity of the program or device.
A few of us attended a briefing at MS last night which focussed on the melding of Designers and Developers through a new application Expression Blend, the XAML file format and WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation)
As Wikipedia articulates…
WPF is the graphical subsystem feature of the .NET Framework 3.0. It provides a consistent programming model for building applications and provides a clear separation between the UI and the business logic. A WPF application can be deployed on the desktop or hosted in a (MICROSOFT) web browser. It also enables richer control, design, and development of the visual aspects of Windows programs.
And Microsoft exudes…
Expression Blend – Work together in a friction-free environment, sharing projects, code, and designs for better productivity and quality. Quickly build stunning prototypes, and then turn them over to developers with confidence. Your designs can be used intact in the final product so you keep creative control. Developers no longer have to try to recreate them; play the hero and rid the world of “developer art.” Open existing Visual Studio projects to re-design and re-skin the applications.
It looks super cool (despite an embarrassing freeze up) and we’re all looking forward to playing with it. For those interested, download a free trial of the really nice New York Times reader a rich client built on WPF.
Vision vs. Mission
We discussed our Vision statement today and used the words Mission and Vision interchangeably. This niggled me so I went to ask the great Oracle, no not Larry’s company (well not that Larry, the other Larry) which led me to Google Scholar and this document which explained…
Although often used interchangeably, mission and vision statements are distinctly different, and each has its own purpose, style, criteria, and components…. ….a mission is for today’s goals and the vision is for tomorrow’s goals. The mission statement identifies an organization’s customers and critical processes, often with a qualifier of what level of performance the organization is dedicated to delivering. The mission consists of those things that the organization concentrates on daily to survive.
A vision statement, on the other hand, is a long-range prospector state of being that is worked on every day but will not be accomplished in the near future. The vision is that perfect state that might never be reached, but which you never stop trying to achieve. The mission-vision relationship is analogous to your personal life, in which you can categorize daily efforts into those that you do to survive today, such as going to work or fixing the car, and those that you do to prepare for tomorrow, such as attending school to obtain a graduate degree or taking on a special project to prepare for higher responsibilities…
