UKNM: RE: Programmers

[John Braithwaite]

On Mon, Feb 21, 2000 at 11:11:27AM -0000, John Braithwaite wrote:

JB writes:

  > 

  > It reminds me of talking to a techie who had just come up with a page

that

  > could randomly display 20 book jackets from a selection of 40,000. Cool -

  > maybe, but why would our customers want it?

  > 

  > Perhaps this particular programmer wanted all the visitors to recognise

his

  > skills: "oh, that's really clever, it must have been programmed by a

  > genius!" Why else?



Danny writes:


Actually, a lot of the time what's involved is for someone to recognise

that's what has been done is "cool" in the sense that no-one else is

able to do it yet, and then take advantage of the enthusiasm to

produce a unique feature that users do want. That techie just gave you

something for free. You don't have to use it, but politeness would

require you to think about what is clever behind it, and then see

if you can use *that* to create a value added service, rather than

just question the motivation. There's a reason why these things

are called demos, after all.


For instance, why not retool the program to produce automatic book

images for a banner ad? The random bit is just a place holder (it's

the easiest part of the page to write) - perhaps your techie could come up

with the top ten selling books instead. That way, you get ten unique

banner ads generated that reflect your users current interests, and

which change automatically.


You see? That's "cool" *and* "useful". It may not be the best idea

in the world, but it only took me twenty seconds. I bet that you

and the  programmer would be able to come up with better, once you

showed him/her the general idea.


Sheesh. And I thought marketing people were supposed to understand what

makes people tick.


d.


Danny,


At what point in your email did you lose sight of what I was talking about

and start on your own particular assumptive rant? You don't know what I said

to the programmer, whether I am a marketer or whether I have the advantage

of both programming experience as well as marketing skills.


If you think that what he had done is 'clever' then you probably haven't

used 'random' before. Followed by so kind of easy 'display' code. This

gentleman, fortunately, worked for an outside agency and was wasting their

money, not ours. As for your application of the idea - hmmm, still not

useful.


I avoid using random or computer generated recommendation or display of

books at all costs - not because we can't, but we know that most customers

can spot this kind of thing a mile off. "Customers who bought your book also

bought .... ". Is this where the net is going?


"A big computer assumed, based on previous page visits, made by another

person who happened to sit at your computer, that you are a timewaster and

deserve this fridge at a very generous 10% discount"


As for clever programmers, they are the ones who can spot both 'cool' and

'useful' before they spend too much time down a blind alley. That's why the

good ones get paid so much and why they are in short supply.


Now you've gone and made me rant!!


JB 



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