Archive for May 2009
Nick Clegg's off-the-shelf redesign
There's a new look to NickClegg.com, 'the official Leader's site for the Liberal Democrats', powered - as noted previously - by WordPress. And it isn't yellow, not in the slightest. In fact, it took me quite a while even to spot the party's bird logo, concealed in each instance behind signatures or other graphic elements.
This isn't like any Liberal Democrats web design you've seen before... because basically, it isn't a LibDems web design. It's an 'out of the box' installation of the (free) Revolution Office theme for WordPress... seen here in its raw form.
Of course, on one level, this is another reminder of the power of WordPress. Redesigning your entire website is as simple as finding a theme you like, downloading it, and pressing the 'activate' button. A few minutes tweaking the settings, and you're done. So quick, so easy, so cheap. Plus, depending on the theme author, a guarantee (of sorts) that your site will keep working, no matter what changes happen in forthcoming WordPress upgrades.
But I've never felt entirely comfortable with 'off the shelf' design like this. As soon as I understood how, I stopped using third-party themes, and started coding my own. Several reasons for doing so, I think:
- A need to understand what's happening under the hood... in case something goes wrong, and you're called on to fix it. I don't think you can get that from 'plug and play' theming.
- Something instinctive about branding. Your brand identity is meant to be a representation of you, what you do, and why you do it. Deep down, I don't really believe it can be 'you' if you're just pouring yourself into someone else's mould. It can't have soul unless it started from scratch.
- Total customisability. No matter how good an off-the-shelf theme might be, I can't believe it'll cover every possible requirement a client might throw at you. So you're going to end up getting your hands dirty with code anyway; and if it's your own code in the first place, it should be much easier. (See point one.)
- Fraud risk. Yes, you use off-the-shelf because it makes it much easier for you. But equally, it makes it easy - far too easy - for someone else to grab a 'lookalike' domain, download the same theme, and build (in effect) a 'phishing' site.
(The only exception is the production of sites based on Steph's Commentariat theme: as I've described before, I personally think it's important - for now at least - that these sites look deliberately similar, to make a point about code re-use in HMG.)
Maybe I'm being too precious about this. On low-budget, low-ambition projects, an off-the-shelf theme will probably be more, much more than adequate. You can have a website with top-notch functionality up and running in, let's say, an hour. Client is happy, designer is off to the pub.
Ultimately, I think it comes down to how you see your business. Companies make money by selling lots of something cheap, or a few of something expensive. You can churn out lots of identikit sites for lots of people: that's a perfectly valid business model, albeit pretty intensive on the sales side. Alternatively, you can try to make each one special. Puffbox opted for the latter. And so far, we're doing OK out of it.
Draper's defiant departure
I must admit, I thought he'd gone already. But finally last night, the formal resignation of Derek Draper from LabourList. It's very revealing.
'Of course I regret ever receiving the infamous email [from Damian McBride],' he states in the opening paragraph - placing the blame squarely on the sender of that email, and casting himself as the victim of the piece. If that nasty man hadn't sent poor Derek an unsolicited email out of the blue, and if someone hadn't (allegedly) hacked into his private emails, none of this scandal would ever have happened.
And it was all going so well up to that point, wasn't it? 'On a much smaller note,' he continues, 'I also think I got the tone of LabourList wrong sometimes, being too strident, aggressive and obsessed with the "blogosphere".' Much smaller? In my (professional) opinion, Draper shouldn't be resigning for his part in the Red Rag 'scandal'. He should be resigning for his truly appalling handling of Labour's much-needed social media push.
So what next? Deputy editor of LabourList Alex Smith takes over, and writes a magnificent - nearly perfect - piece heralding the site's rebirth. His opening gets straight to the (entirely correct) point:
It's easy to forget that as the parties compete with each other for support, they all share a common responsibility to prevent public disenchantment with politics in general. 40% of those eligible to vote chose not to do so at the last election - more than the number who chose to vote for the winning party... Public trust in politicians of all parties is worryingly low, and disillusionment ultimately leads to disenfranchisement. Everyone involved in politics – including on websites like ours – has a responsibility to try to arrest this decline.
The response is a sensational U-turn in tone, including the following commitment: 'we will positively engage with – and not antagonise - the right-wing blogosphere, starting with an interview with Iain Dale and a reader debate on policy with ConservativeHome.'
I can't applaud this enough. As I've said many times before, that which unites the political blogosphere is greater than that which divides it. It takes a certain kind of person, and a certain kind of perspective, to put your opinions 'out there' for people to analyse and criticise. Political bloggers want to put their views across, but (generally speaking) they also want to listen to others' responses.
If LabourList does engage directly, maturely, constructively with ConservativeHome - plus, let's hope, LibDem Voice and others too, everyone wins. All sides can offer their opinions on the great issues of the day, under Queensberry rules (one hopes), and We The Electorate can observe and decide. Isn't that what politics is all about?
Downing St reopens its email function
Rejoice, bloggers! Downing Street has started the rollout of its (apparently?) much-missed function to send an email to the Prime Minister.
There's been plenty of commentary on the function's disappearance last summer, from Tim Ireland to Francis Maude, much of it coming from the slightly naive position of 'how hard can it be to set up an email account'? Of course, that part's dead easy. But what do you do when that account receives hundreds or thousands of messages daily?
I've spoken to the Downing Street team about this in the past; the problems with the old 'just an inbox' system went beyond sheer volumes. And unfortunately, the classic corporate response - ignore the lot of them (and yes, it does happen) - isn't an option when there's the considerable risk of missing something tremendously sensitive: an email, let's say, from a soldier's widow.
It's based on a web-to-email form rather than a plain email address: no shame in that, it's what Obama does. However, unlike most (including Obama, by the way), it's done over https, giving an extra layer of security for those messages whilst in transit.
Before you get to that form, though, you're shown a list of subjects you might be emailing about: and if one of these is relevant, it directs you to somewhere more suitable. Isn't this obstructive? Yes, of course it is. But it stops you before you waste your time typing a message which won't get the reply you want. That's got to be a good thing overall.
Once over that hurdle, the email form is perhaps surprisingly short: all it asks, in terms of personal information, is a name, postcode and email address. Enough for you to get a reply (if they choose to send one), and enough for them to see if any subjects are particularly hot in certain areas. The message is limited to 1000 characters: too tight for Dizzy, but at least there's a live character count on the screen.
Before your message is properly submitted, you get an automated email asking you to verify your address. Again, perfectly normal online behaviour, with benefits to both sides: it filters out the anonymous rants, and double-checks the recipient's address in the event of No10 wanting to reply.
Then, behind the scenes, I hear there are a few tools to help them cope better with the volumes: the ability to group emails by common subjects, workflow management, and so on.
A lot of the commentary, it must be said, has been purely a hook on which to hang wider criticism: 'a beleaguered prime minister retreating to his bunker,' to quote Francis Maude. It didn't take any account of whether the former function was actually working. For anyone.
The new system - built outside WordPress, incidentally - provides added security, greater efficiency and reliability, But most importantly, it provides a much better likelihood of your email actually getting a decent response. Which is the whole point of having such a service in the first place.
The lady's not for YouTube-ing? Says who?
With the long Bank Holiday weekend behind us, Sunday's Observer piece by Hazel Blears already seems like a distant memory. 'YouTube if you want to,' she wrote - somewhat provocatively, on the weekend we recall Margaret Thatcher's ascension to Downing Street. Quite a soundbite, especially considering her reflection in that same piece that: 'No government after 12 years in office can compete on slick presentation and clever soundbites.'
Having finally read the piece, it seems much more reasoned and balanced than the coverage would have you believe. The opening clause - 'When Gordon Brown leads Labour into the next general election' - wasn't sufficient to stop ludicrous leadership speculation. Nor were the words 'I'm not against new media', nor indeed her previous statements on the subject, enough to prevent people seeing it as anti-YouTube per se.
Blears's fundamental point, surely, was this: 'Labour ministers have a collective responsibility for the government's lamentable failure to get our message across... We need to have a relationship with the voters based on shared instincts and emotions.' She does not say that YouTube - or any other new media/social tools - aren't part of this. What she says, correctly, is that they are 'no substitute' for proper, face-to-face politics.
'We need to plug ourselves back into people's emotions and instincts and sound a little less ministerial and a little more human,' she writes. I couldn't agree more. Talking to people in the street is certainly one way to do this. Talking to them online, via a blog or Twitter, is another. Talking down a camera lens can also work. But some methods will work better with certain audiences - and for certain politicians. Not all politicians are gifted writers, or on-camera performers.
Hazel Blears is hitting the nail squarely on the head here. In a year's time, presumably, we'll be asked to give this government another 4-5 years in office, on top of the 13 they'll already have had. Why should we? They need to find a good answer to that very simple question, fast - and then get it out via every channel at their disposal.
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