Why Web Standards are Important for your Business Saving Time and Money with Better Web Practices

The Idea Killers Defending your Creativity Contact Us Contact and Subscription Information

The Idea Killers

Defending your Creativity

Coming up with creative ideas for online marketing—Flash, ad banners, and websites—is not always easy. Too often, our creativity is smothered by the little voice inside our heads whispering: "Forget it, it doesn't work!" Fear of criticism prevents us from coming up with really wild ideas because we're afraid that our colleagues will think our ideas are silly. This is what we call idea killers. Below are our ten best answers to idea-killing feedback. So the next time you venture an idea, and your colleagues run it down, these answers might help throw them off.

1. Nothing will come of that.

   Not if you just dismiss the idea, it won't.

2. Let's just wait and see what happens.

   What, until everyone else has overtaken us?

3. That doesn't work!

   But it's a great idea.

4. We do things differently!

   So, no change there.

5. This mailshot idea doesn't work!

   But what if…?

6. That's ridiculous!

   So what if it is?

7. We'll come back to your idea.

   All right. When?

8. The client will never accept that!

   Give it a chance!

9. What's so original about that?

   The fact that no one else has thought of it.

10. Anyone could come up with that.

    Exactly.

Why Web Standards are Important for your Business

Saving Time and Money with Better Web Practices

Your online presense is a carefully managed thing. You worry about your message, about the look and feel of your Web site, about your search engine results, about the organization of your information, and about whether anyone is actually paying attention to you at all.

So why should you worry about—of all things—Web standards?

The answer is simple: Web standards save you money.

Applying Web standards to your web site "reduces the cost and complexity of development while increasing the accessibility and long-term viability of your Web site," according to the Web Standards Project.

For the developer, using Web standards means avoiding the use of proprietary methods that can create incompatibilities with different browsers.

For the business owner, the savings are clear:

Cost of development: Older methods of Web development can be slow, especially when cross-platform compatibility is an issue. Projects created with Web standards ensure that web sites display correctly across a wide variety of devices (and not just PCs), at a lower cost than with older methods.

Cost of maintenance: Updating web sites built with web standards cost much less than updating those built with older methods. Changing colours, typography, even column layout is faster and easier, thus saving you money.

Performance and accessibility: Sites built with Web standards tend to be leaner and more efficient. Download times and bandwidth costs are reduced. And for people with visual impairments—who rely on specialized software to read pages aloud—Web standards helps provide easier navigation and comprehension. Thus, your company's web site is accessible to a greater number of potential customers.

Every site we create at Digital Wind is built with Web standards. See our article on our web design philosophy for more information.

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About Digital Wind

Montreal-based Digital Wind can manage your company's entire public image, from logo design to web design to corporate email newsletters.