Guest post: CIO survey – What does 2010 hold for CIO’s and IT Managers?
Harry Goddard, a Partner in IIA Member Company Deloitte, has submitted a guest post below. Deloitte have relesed the results of their recent Chief Information Officer Survey and are interested to hear your thoughts on it. You can leave comments below or on their own site.
We’ve just released the results of our first survey of CIOs and IT managers in Ireland in what we hope is the first in a new series of annual surveys dedicated exclusively to the state of Irish IT. The survey provides some good insights and indicates that, at best, a return to ‘business as usual’ for CIOs and IT departments is still some way off or, more likely, that business as usual is changed for good.
A couple of key findings emerged from the survey – enabling business cost reduction is the number one priority for IT departments through 2010; however, for many organisations, this will be done against a backdrop of falling budgets. It seems also that IT cost reduction has not gone away and the challenge for CIOs and IT managers will be achieving incremental and sustainable IT cost savings beyond what they have achieved in 2009. What also came across loud and clear is that IT needs to deliver value to the business – IT is still not seen as a strategic partner.
We have created a dedicated results Deloitte.
Feedback Friday 7: Channelship want you to pick holes
Well not quite! Channelship have recently completed two sites for a client and would love a bit of feedback before putting the sites to bed entirely. Both sites focus on products and services for fixing cracks and potholes and beautifying driveways and roads. I doubt there’s a person in Ireland who doesn’t know a spot that could use that kind of TLC! But what about the sites themselves? Are they a bumpy ride or as smooth as silk? Over to Fred Caballero Project Manager with www.channelship.ie to tell us a little bit more about what they would like you feedbackers to focus on when looking at the sites:
We would like some feedback on www.qprroadshop.com and www.qprcoldpatch.com which we recently finished.
The idea would be to have comments on the usabilty, general look & feel, Search Engine Optimisation, coding and any helpful comments that people might have, since we are still on time to make a few changes. If you can think of more aspects to cover let us know!
Don’t forget that we have some guidelines when giving feedback and I will be moderating all comments.
Feedback Friday 5: Reverb Studios Multimedia and Website Design
This week’s feedbackee (!) is Reverb Studios from Co. Leitrim. I’ll allow Leon Quinn, MD, explain why he is seeking feedback on his site at the moment:
www.reverbstudios.ie is the website for Reverb Studios Multimedia and Website Design, a small company based in Co. Leitrim.
I have had many people comment on my choice of dark colours for the website with the general consensus so far being that “it’s too dark” so I’d like people to look at that issue please. Bear in mind that there needs to be a good contrast between background and text colours and in that regard I believe White on black is as good as black on white! Also bear in mind that a significant number of people have said to me that my colours were “different” and it made my site “memorable”. My influence for the design was the iPhone if that’s not immediately obvious!
I’m planning a re-design soon so any comments may be influential!
Here are some other issues I’d like feedback on too please:
- Layout
- Speed
- Navigation
- Clarity of purpose.
Thanks to Leon for volunteering. Please don’t forget the guidelines when you are giving your feedback.
If you would like to volunteer your site or a client’s site please email me at members /at/ iia /dot/ ie
Imagine if you have a meeting with a client and you want to highlight the areas on their site that require development how helpful this could be. Do get their permission though!
Have a look at previous Feedback Friday entries to get an idea of how it has worked so far.
Feedback Friday 3: Sonru.com stand out
Thanks again to everyone who has participated in Feedback Friday over the last few weeks. Since last week the Subscribe to Comments has been added (about time says you!) so it should help keep the conversation going.
This week’s Feedback Fanatics are Sonru.com, a member of the IIA since who have only recently gone live with their site and beta service. Edward Hendrick, MD of Sonru has a very specific aspect of his site that he would like you to focus on. He explained in an email to me:
“We are having some difficulties getting our message across from our home page. We are being confused with Skype etc, we need to get across the fact that two people do NOT have to be online at the same time.
We currently don’t have benefits up there and are trying to think of a nice way of doing so.
So we’d love some feedback on our home page and the message we are getting across. We would really appreciate people’s suggestions on how to improve it.
I think Feedback Friday is a great idea because you are getting fresh eyes giving genuine opinions, we are so used to looking at it now, it has become hard for us to judge.”
Please bear in mind the few low key guidelines and let’s hear what you think!
Feedback Friday 2: Puddleducks take the plunge
Last week we kicked off the Feedback Friday feature with Pressieport.ie. I don’t mind telling you that the post was the most popular on this blog in the last month and the feedback Fred Schelbaum received was second to none. Not long after the post went live I got an email from Fred with the subject line, “WOW!” so he was very happy too. So well done to all the commenters and Twitterers who helped out.
This week our featured site for Feedback Friday is Puddleducks. Aedan Ryan, director of Puddleducks, sent me the following to help you fabulous feedbackers:
PuddleDucks is an online retailer of outdoor clothing clothes for children and adults. Our best selling items are the waterproof dungarees, jackets and suits for younger children.
What I would like to achieve from Feedback Friday is to get feedback and make improvements to our Home Page so we can try to reduce the bounce rate from visitors to the site.
Therefore I’d appreciate feedback on some of the following:
- initial impression of our Home Page
- layout of the Home Page
- is it easy to know how to progress from the home page to start shopping on the site?
- are there any other design improvements we could make to the home page or the product pages?
- any other ideas on how to make shopping easier or encourage visitors to purchase
We’d also like to offer a 10% discount to all readers for any purchases until Sunday 8th Feb. Just use the discount coupon “iia12″. Please note that you need to be registered as a user on the site before you can redeem the coupon.
Thanks very much in advance for your feedback.
Again please keep the guidelines in mind when giving feedback and most of all, thanks very much!
Would you like feedback? Get it on Feedback Friday!
A lot of companies join the IIA after launching their new, improved or indeed very first website. Many of the new members ask me for feedback on their site. Generally I try, as is my wont, to be helpful and offer constructive advice based on my experience. But I always feel uneasy doing this because I am just one person with only so much experience of the web. I have my own likes and dislikes and although, yes, I might have more exposure to business websites than most, I do not feel that my opinion should be granted any extra weight because of this.
However, I also know how difficult it can be to get good, qualified feedback on your site that you have spent hours breaking your heart over one way or the other. With this in mind, I thought we might try a little crowdsourcing. If you are a member of the IIA and you would like some feedback on your site with a view to making it look, feel and work better then please email members at iia dot ie with your URL. Please include notes about any particular aspect to which you want to draw visitors attention and a 100 word blurb about what your company wants to do/ is doing with the site. I will then blog about it here and we will invite feedback from all comers via the comments and trackbacks.
We’ll call it Feedback Friday and I’ll publish the sites looking for feedback on, yep you guessed it folks, Friday!
Social Media Working Group publish Draft Guide to Business Blogging for review
The Irish Internet Association’s Social Media Working Group chaired by Brendan Hughes, FBD.ie, are holding a workshop to discuss the first draft of their first Social Media Guidebook. This first draft publication is entitled “Blogging for Business: a Guide for Irish companies”.
In the spirit of Social Media this guide was developed collaboratively online by the members of the working group. Continuing this collaborative model the working group hope to share this draft with anyone interested in blogging for business and to discuss and develop it at a workshop. If you have never blogged before the Social Media Working Group are interested in your feedback. If you eat, sleep and work blogging, the Social Media Working Group are interested in your feedback. The draft will be circulated to all workshop attendees as soon as they register (so please register sooner rather than later).
It is hoped that remote attendance will be facilitated. Please follow www.twitter.com/iia or email members@iia.ie to express your interest in attending remotely if the facility is available on the day.]
Audience: Those interested in using Social Media for business be they expert or non-users.
Aim: To create a useful beginners guide for business people planning to get started in Social Media
Objectives: To discuss and develop the material prepared by the Blogging subgroup of the Social Media Working Group
Venue: Presentation Room, Digital Depot, Roe Lane, Thomas St., Dublin 8
Time: 3.30pm – 5.30pm
Date: Friday 5th December
Cost: Free to IIA members/ €20.00 non-members
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