TCRM and Social Media

The last few weeks and months have seen a bewildering number of dramas played out on the world stage. The revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, the protests in Yemen, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, the violent uprising in Libya and, most recently the devastating earthquake in Japan. What has struck me is the big role that social networks have played in all of these events. In the case of the revolutions about the middle east and northern Africa social media sites such as Facebook allowed opposition groups to come together and communicate with each other, while in the case of the Japanese earthquake we are seeing far more information come out of the region from the ground level than we would have seen previously. And one could argue that the success, or at least strength, of the opposition movements was down to the various groups being able to organise themselves through the social networks.

It is hard then to deny the impact that social networking has had on the world. It has become a standard way that many people now communicate their ideas. Instead of writing a letter, a newspaper article or phoning a friend, people write a blog, create a web page or update their various statuses (seems a more appropriate word than states). When Stephen Fry updates his Twitter status, over 2.3 million people get the information. This could seem pointless when he tweets about what he had for breakfast, but when a person with a potential audience of 2.3 million states his preference for one opinion/policy/product or another, all of a sudden this is not trivial or pointless.

If a business wants to grow and reach a new audience then through the social media is the way to do it. It needs to be a part of your marketing strategy with the same amount of planning and effort as would go into your print, conference or television advertising. You may not like it, but social media is here to stay. Much of it is trivial or banal, but so are many telephone conversations, and think how vital the telephone is to business.

TCRM and Web Design Goals

The TCRM website has been in need of a design refresh for a while. It’s a bit of an irony that web design companies rarely have the time to update their own sites. Those of you who have visited our site will know that at the moment it is a ummm, a little cluttered. Despite being busy we decided enough was enough and Thursday in the kitchen, I mean the TCRM boardroom, was the venue on a design meeting to discuss the new look of our site. Coffee flowed and tempers became heated as two opposing camps formed and the battle lines were drawn…

The TCRM site is a little different from most sites as it needs to serve two functions. One, it needs to show off the technical possibilities of the web sites we produce and two, needs to look good to show off the look we can achieve in design. If someone is looking to build an online database, the customer needs to be aware that we have the expertise in buckets. On the other hand if a potential customer needs to put together a brochure site for their art gallery, our design skills need to shine through.

As I’ve said before, for other sites it is important to have a set goal. A primary aim that guides all your choices regarding the site. If you are putting together a brochure site for your accounting firm then you want a uncluttered business style site. If you are putting together a social networking site for plasticine users then it will be feature rich, but fun looking. Nothing says fun like plasticine.

So as you can see, the TCRM site is different, with its two roles. Lately it’s been leaning a more towards being a technology demonstrator rather than a brochure site. This revamp will look at these issues and we will come a good compromise of form over function, however the first boardroom battle has been fought but the war has some way to go.

TCRM and Bespoke Web Design

TCRM build a wide variety of sites from brochure sites like Neath Florist Dolly Bach’s  or e-commerce sites like Elvis Jumpsuit supplier ETA Supplies they put together to a high standard using techniques we’ve practiced and refined more and more with each site we do. But every couple of sites we get a request to do something we haven’t done before and made part of our “toolkit”. It can range from a new questionnaire system to a different e-commerce model.


Bespoke web design is not an easy process to schedule and too easy to underestimate. Open up any book on software engineering and there will be a chapter detailing the horror of project over runs. Things can get so bad that the developers involved start questioning their chosen career path. They look longingly at the hassle free lives of the people serving them their cheeseburgers and begin to believe they won’t look that silly after all in those little hats.

I believe that the most fundamental reason for bespoke web design taking so long is that programming is a complicated business. There is no escaping that fact. And the more people  get online and use web sites more frequently, the higher their expectations are. A simple data capture form is complicated enough. A well written SQL script to write the table is an art in itself. Then the HTML form to capture the data. JavaScript to validate the input. PHP to process the input and well formed HTML to display a result. On top of that it needs to be well tested. The phrase, ‘Can I just have a form for doing this,’ always sends a shiver down my spine. There is no ‘just’ when it comes to programming. It takes time and effort to get even the simple things done properly and along the way you will wonder how long it takes to get those little stars on your name badge.

TCRM and the New Year

Happy New Year to all! And as we are already into the second week of the new year and things are starting to get back into some sort of order, I thought it was a good time to look back and reflect on the past year and what this one has in store for us. So let us down the last of the mince pies together before they go out of date and look with anticipation into 2011.

E-commerce looks like playing a big part for TCRM in the next twelve months. There are three reasons I think for this .Firstly, thanks to the rapid increase in online buying over the last few years, more and more people are seeing the benefits of shopping this way and feeling more comfortable about doing so. This creates an increasingly visible customer base which sellers see more and more potential in.

The second reason for the growth of smaller e-commerce sites is the recession. With increasing numbers of people out of work, or needing to generate a bit more income, people are looking to set up their own businesses and see an e-commerce site as the most efficient way of doing so without the need of the high overheads of physical retail premises.

Third is the range of goods and services on offer. While at first it was just primarily goods bought on line in digital versions of shops (ie putting books and CDs in an electronic shopping basket) the e-commerce sites are becoming increasingly varied. One of my favourites at the moment is the Tesco.com photo centre. Upload images from your camera into online albums, cut and rotate as you please, select your print types and pick up your photos next time you’re in store for a pint of milk and some cheeseburger components. It’s this variety which broadens the appeal of e-commerce and TCRM currently have a site in the works where you do not buy physical goods, but a service. A life changing service at that. Stay tuned to TCRM Facebook and Twitter pages over the next couple of weeks for details.

That brings us nicely on to social media, and regular readers will notice how unusually slick that link is for me. Social media is here to stay but I think there will be a less hyped up approach to social media and a maturing of the techniques used as it becomes an accepted part of personal and business life. It will be another box to tick when putting a site together rather than selling a site solely on the fact it is a social networking site.

But one area that does look to be growing is that of mobile computing. The uptake of smart phones such as the iPhone and the Android powered phones, as well as the new tablet market led by the iPad, means that more and more people are accessing the internet from a small mobile device rather than a traditional desktop computer or laptop. Web sites will need to be optimised for these devices, or at least be written with this sort of use in mind. The touch screens of these devices offer new challenges to web designers, and with touch screens looking to make an impact on desktop machines (the next version of Firefox will have multi-touch capabilities) it can not be ignored. Personally I am hoping that we skip the big touch screen phase and go straight to motion capture control like in Minority Report and, with the release of Microsoft’s Kinect, seems to be getting closer. See here and here.

So there’s my brief glimpse into the new year. Please feel free to comment on whether I’ve totally gone astray, missed some important things out or should change my name to Nostradamus. I’m looking forward to the year ahead and all the challenges it has in store for TCRM. At the very least it should make for an interesting read for you.

TCRM and the Big Chill

Us Bridgend Web Designers are a sturdy bunch, but to label the last few weeks as a little nippy would be something of an understatement. I don’t think I’ve layered up and put on an extra pair of socks as often as this ever. The TCRM office isn’t the warmest of places first thing in the morning normally but I’ve been expecting to find penguins nesting under my desk lately. And not just your run of the mill penguins either. These are hardcore birds who think the arctic is for the wussies.

Anyway, despite the cold it’s been a busy an interesting few weeks here in TCRM, hence the late arrival of this blog entry. Sites have been launched and PCs fixed, quotes delivered and changes implemented. PC repairs are one area that seem to have picked up recently and many of the machines coming in are suffering from virus or malware problems. Adequate virus protection costs nothing but a little time and effort with AVG being the leader in this respect. I’ve been using it for years and haven’t lost any data, been plagued with pop-up windows and rogue services which site there hogging resources and stopping other services from playing with the toys.

Another way of avoiding the problem is exercising a little care over what is being installed on your machine. Remember you don’t have to install every tool bar and little app which comes your way. People won’t point at you in the street and mock you in a mildly hysterical way if you don’t have the Instant Chat 5.0 Cool Smiley Pack installed on your messenger. Plain and simple is the way forward. You’ll be much more productive with a working simple machine and we can help you by putting effort into other areas for you such as web design.

With more cold weather on the way it could signal more ill PCs coming into the office suffering with viruses, but as long as you wrap them up nice and cosy with the latest free virus software and don’t expose them to the chill of unfriendly software, they should be good to see you through the winter.

TCRM and Life in a Small Business

Us Bridgend web designers are really in the grips of autumn now. The evenings are darker, the skies greyer, the jumpers thicker and the leaves are piling up on the pavements. Those leaves are also being dragged into our office at an alarming rate. It eventually got to a point when enough was enough and Kevin was forced to drag the vacuum cleaner out. So there’s the owner of the company, hoover in hand, cleaning up the leaves on the carpet while Andrea and I looked on (it was a good time for a coffee break). But it got me thinking how different life is in a small company compared to a large organisation. As with everything, there are good points and bad points.


Kevin and I have both worked in very large organisations and after working here for over three months now I can tell you that the differences are huge. Where as before we would pick up the phone and call facilities management department to send a cleaner around to our office, we have to clean ourselves. Though there is something to be said for getting down and dirty. It does keep your feet on the ground.


One of the biggest differences is the importance of our effort. If we all don’t put 100% effort in every day, the business suffers. There is no one else to blame, to fall back on, or to wait on. It’s our responsibility to give the customer the best possible websites and after sales service we can. I always thought I had a pretty good working ethic, but this is something else. Never before have I been in a job where you look at the clock and think of how little time I have left to get things done. It’s working flat out all the time, but at the end of that day I more often than not feel that I have at least done a good day’s work. Though we may have lost some of that comfort zone you experience in a large company, that feeling of doing a making a difference does make up for it.

TCRM and the Moving Goalposts

One of the most fundamental problems that people can have when designing websites, and software in general for that matter, is the lack of a goal. ‘What am I trying to achieve?’ is the question that needs answering the most for it is one of the most influential. It guides the development of the site or software by providing a framework to design choices. You can ask yourself the question, ‘Which option will help me achieve my goal?’ and all of a sudden, choices become clearer.

Writing anything without everyone, including yourself, having a clear understanding of what you are trying to achieve is just asking for trouble. If you are trying to create a slick business site, you’ll want to steer clear of smileys and gimmicks and make it feature rich with good reporting tools. If you’re creating a popular social site, then you’ll want to spend real time and effort on the commenting engine while not worrying too much about every possible field an event can have. When you’re planning your ping pong club’s pub crawl, you don’t need to specify whether the facilities include an overhead projector and the number of available network points. Just the name of the first pub and what time the drinking starts.

Extreme examples of web design problems yes, but it does highlight the approach you need to take. Lack a clear vision and every feature that catches your eye can get thrown into the mix and you’ll find yourself knee deep in features, which all cost time and effort, and in the end you really don’t need. Worse of all though, you’ll be at risk from feature creep.

Without a clear vision at the start your system will grow and develop a life of its own as you try and find your way. As the system reveals itself you’ll gain a better understanding of what you want so feel the need to add more features. This is fine if you’re writing a system or site for yourself in your spare time. But if you’re contracting out the work or working with your IT team to put the system together for you, you’ll soon have a disaster on your hands. Code will be need to be rewritten or thrown out all together, designs trashed, object models broken. Programmers don’t like doing this at the best of times. Having it forced upon them by others is the equivalent of someone telling a builder they have to alter the house they’re halfway through because the buyer wants the kitchen to point south. A lot of blood, sweat and tears went into it and no one wants to see it lost in vain. This tends not to happen so much in the building trade though because everyone can see how much work goes into a house. How many times have you been asked, ‘Can I have a button which does this?’ After all a button is only a small thing isn’t it? Also, builders have really easy access to sledgehammers.

So in order to stop us Bridgend geeks or your fellow geeks coming at you brandishing their pencils which have been sharpened to a very fine point, work out what you want to achieve before you start putting the system together. Much blood, sweat and tears will be saved.