Kaizen and the Web Department
“When you step into a turnaround situation, you can safely assume four things: morale is low, fear is high, the good people are halfway out the door, and the slackers are hiding.”
-Nina Disesa, as chairwoman of McCann-Erickson Worldwide
Kaizen – Making small improvements every day in order to see big changes down the road.
Growth and change can be both painful and rewarding. What follows are a few of the growing pains I have observed at the Journal, in our department, from June 2006 to May 2007.
Background
A short history of the Angus Journal’s web department goes something like this: Rich took over as the web department manager in June 2005. He walked into a mess: no system existed to handle the work orders, and the work orders had no checks and balances. The people who took in the work orders also did the work, also did the proofreading, also did the billing. Not a problem in general terms, unless you have coordinators, developers and a proofreader or two, as we do.
So two questions were asked: Why are we doing things the hard way? And why are these specific tasks not getting assigned to a particular person?
Rich then implemented the packet system. Packets consisted of a paper folder with individual work orders that tracks the time spent, who did the work, who requested the work, and any special instructions, among other things – every company I have worked for has something similar. Certain tasks were delegated to the appropriate people. Rich met a strong resistance from a few who didn’t care to change – the ones who couldn’t see the bigger picture in play.
I arrived as the packet system reached its first birthday, along with most of the tasks sorted out to their proper place. Although Tim and Rich had reveled in telling me stories of how much better things were, I did not understand. Sometimes you have to experience a situation to truly appreciate it. I became familiar with the packet system just in time to find busy season looming ahead. It was not until I started drowning in packets in the dead of winter that I finally understood. Things were hectic. A crazy sort of busy that was highly reminiscent of my fast food days. I realized that without the packet system in place, I would have lost my head…and I am fairly organized person.
Leaps and Bounds in a Single Year
I was told from the very beginning that if I found anything that could be done easier, faster, or in a better way, to be sure and speak up. The example I was given dealt with our e-lists. Tim had recently changed the way e-list archives were managed, creating a new Volume for each month of e-lists.
Some of the changes that have come about in this first year were monumental, others small. What seemed a small suggestion sometimes grew to enormous impact. A few of the accomplishments our team has seen this year include:
- Changing the e-list archives to a manageable format
- Setting up naming conventions and organizing our files
- Creating reusable pieces of code to build pages faster
- Using new methods to create easy-to-use member lists
- Following web standards to the best of our abilities
- Generating new ideas to build future online sale books
- Improving old web pages by using code that measures up to standards
E-Lists
E-Lists were one of those monsters that took on a life of its own, but only because it was one of the earliest successful projects from the web department. The e-lists had been around longer than our packet system or any form of organization. After Tim spent several hours sorting through the junk to glean the useful gems, it was easy to maintain e-lists from there.
Naming Conventions
Some of the things I took for granted in school were not yet used at work. Concerning website maintenance, small things like naming conventions for web pages, images, and folders were not in use; neither was deleting unused pages and images in a GoLive! site file. During a short meeting I suggested these two easy changes, thinking it would help keep everyone on the same page. There are between three and five people who open the same GoLive site file on any given day for a number of different reasons.
No more click here folders or image folders with lists a mile long. Subfolders sprouted like mushrooms and suddenly it was easier to find the information that needed changed.
Reuseable Code
We often build individual web pages for each cow, bull, or embryo. These pages generally consist of a picture of the particular cow or bull, a drop down menu listing others for sale, the animal’s pedigree, stats (called EPDs), and sometimes a footnote about their progeny. A single client may have as little as 30 animals listed, but I have seen as many as 230 animals with their own pages. Since creating animal pages are time consuming and we have to build so many of them each month, we started looking for small ways to cut down on the time it took to build a page. After adding a new snippet of reuseable code, we cut our production time in half!
Making the Most of New Methods
AJAX is a combination of existing web technology (like JavaScript, HTML, and XML) with a new way to use it. So, old technology + new spin = fresh face. I have seen an immediate impact with its use on our state association membership lists. The Florida Angus Association is one of my favorites.
If a thousand miles begins with the first step, we are well along in our journey towards improvement.
Growing Pains
Shhh…the Angus Journal offices are getting remodeled this week, which means I will not be in. No posts next week, so take some time and unplug.
Warning: Tech and Web Jargon Can Give Headaches to Non-Tech Folk
‘Why can’t tech people just say what they mean?!’ I often heard this from relatives while fixing their computers. I never commented about it because I always thought to myself, ‘well I understood what they said perfectly.’ This was before I realized I was a tech junkie. My TV was permanently set on TechTV and my homepage was Google before it was cool. I had a hotmail account back when you could get strawberrygirl as a username, with no numbers or symbols attached after it.
Yesterday I was talking to my better half and in a single sentence, managed to lose him: “I wish we could implement Ruby on Rails, but I suppose AJAX will have to do, since the IS department has already made the decision for us, declaring ASP.net as our future. Ugh! Do they know how difficult that makes the web department’s job?!”
He is a fairly tech-savvy guy, well read and keeps up on the latest in tech news. He may not have a degree in computers, but he can easily tear apart any computer code and wrangle it to fit what he wants it to do in a single afternoon. When he said, “You lost me.” after a single sentence out of my mouth, I realized how much these words were hindering my communication skills rather than helping.
I began to think back on my relatives’ question in earnest.
So why can’t tech people just say what they mean?
- We are saying what we mean…exactly what we mean. Such specific detailed minutiae, in fact, that it appears we are saying filler in between the normal words. That is where the problem comes in. Other nerds, geeks, gearheads, etc. will understand because we made such a particular emphasis, but it is an unnecessary distinction for a general audience.
- We are lazy. It takes less brain power for me to use an acroynm or some sort of technical term than it is to say the entire set of words. Otherwise, I have to process what I want to say and then translate it, which takes effort.
- It’s a form of competition. Think of it as the proverbial form of dick-waving in the tech world. As token female 1 of 2 in an advanced computer programming class made up of 40, I quickly learned that it is the equivalent of cursing in a bar to get a pushy guy to back off…and when you are in an 80% male dominated field, showing that you know your stuff tends to garner respect.
- It’s fun. Do you really think kids type in l33t because it is easier? Some use it as a power trip, falling under the same adult annoyance factor as saying “ain’t” as often as possible.
While acronyms and web terms might make it easier for me to pinpoint specific details, I realized it does not necessarily help me get the important points across to my significant other. I should have said: “I wish the web department was free to use the technology we prefer instead of the stuff our parent company’s technical support team picked out. We have completely different demands to fulfill with our customers- did they ever stop to think about that?!”
Why tech people should say what they mean:
1. It shows respect and humility for others. I do not intentially or consciously use terms I think others will not understand. I sometimes forget the world does not revolve around my little cubicle. By speaking in a manner that everyone understands, it shows that you are putting yourself in their shoes. (But please do excuse me while I hold nothing back in my technical arsenal when wrapped up in a heated debate with the IS department.)
2. It displays an ability to connect with others. As the Internet opens doors to a global audience, communication has become important even for us traditionally less articulate types. Show off your skills of interpretation and give others confidence that they too can understand complex technical issues, even without the vocabulary.
3. In the long run, it takes less time. A common question from friends and family is “What’s the best computer to buy?” Personally knowing of their habits and hobbies, I could give them a quick run-down of the specs they should ask for in a computer. The only problem with it is a focus on technical terms.
If I say “You’ll need 256 MB of RAM, an NVIDIA gForce Graphics card, a 120 GB hard drive and make sure to get the 16x DVD±RW too.” Next thing you know, suddenly the myth of more is better pops into their heads, and you find yourself in a long discussion where they are asking for all the latest specs for an over-powered computer. In reality what I should say in plain terms would include: “I know your photography hobby borders on professional, so make sure to get a good graphics card, a decent sized hard drive, and oh- you will probably want a DVD burner too, so you can back up all your work. If you want specs to take in to a computer store let me know.”
Some tips to get your techie to speak plain English
- “Huh? Sorry you lost me right after Mega Bytes.”
- “Again. Only in English, please.”
- “Umm…what does RAM do again?”
- “Yeah, well, I gobbledy-gooked the doodle-snapper and all it gave me back was a snarfackle. How about you?”
Do you have any good tips to get someone to speak plainly? Post it in the comments!
Manipulating Data for Static Sites
In the previous post I explained the limitations of the project: Client with a spreadsheet full of data, wanted to keep the data available for manipulation, but also wanted it posted to their website with a link to each item’s detailed information page. No dynamic content, unfortunately: no access to a database and server-side scripts, nor any time to research an AJAX or JavaScript method.
How to post the information on their web page without having to hand-link each item? With a quick and painless tutorial from my co-worker using a spreadsheet application and a text editor of course!
The Process
First, take advantage of copy and paste. Copy the selected data from Excel and paste it into your WYSIWYG HTML editor. Now you have a table to work with, but save it for later.
Ok, so I know the information I needed to link had the exact same HTML every time, except for the item number and the item name:
<a href="http://www.somelink.com/common/item_details.html?id=00000000â€>
Item Name</a>
Tim explained how I can use Excel to create the link for me. First isolate the item number and item name: insert a column before and after the item number, and a column after the item name.
Now break apart the HTML along each blank column, like this:
Select the first column, Edit->Fill->Down and Excel will fill in the same text all the way down the column. Do this for each column you filled with a piece of HTML.
Now select the data you want to manipulate: all the cells that will mash together the HTML. In this case, columns A – E, rows 1-227. Copy it and paste into BBEdit. Show invisibles, seen here as little triangles for tabs and twisted L shapes for returns:
Start finding and replacing. Specifically, in BBEdit you can do a Cmd-F, type in “\t†(without the quotes), and keep the replace box empty. BBEdit will take out the tabs that Excel put in.
Now you have semi-clean, put-together HTML! Next, do a find and replace to add table rows and cells. I typed in the table tag at the beginning and end of the code, then added a single row and cell to each link: find “<a href=†and replace with “<tr><td><a href=â€. Do the same at the end of each link: find “</a>†and replace with “</a></td></tr>â€. As seen here.
Now just copy the finished text out of BBEdit, paste in the code view of the GoLive page from earlier, and now you have a second table. Copy the cells of the new table and paste them into the old table. Now all the information is showing, with 227 links to boot. Format the table and it’s done!
(I know, I linked the numbers instead of the name in this screenshot.)
Related links:
Advanced Forms of Data Manipulation
How To Handle Repetitive Tasks for Static Sites
The Scenario
Let’s say the customer has a spreadsheet with over 200 items (like 200 bulls) and 20 different detailed entries (say, for example, their stats) filled in for each one. While it’s great that the customer wants to offer this information in a print-friendly and easy to use format, they now want you to link off each name to its detailed information page.
The Barriers
Oh, great, I think. Now what do I do? I don’t have access to a database, nor to any server side scripts. Crunch time means I have no time to research an AJAX solution, so all I can do is serve up static pages. Or at least, these are the barriers I faced. The best solution I could come up with was to use two links: one to download the spreadsheet, so customers are free to sort and manipulate the data as they please; the other a web page that contained the links to each item’s detailed page. While the majority of the link is all the same HTML, the item numbers differ. What is the easiest way to link each one of these items with the least amount of work?
The Solutions
At first I thought it would be best to change the spreadsheet into a PDF and manually link each item name to its page. Then I thought it might be best to open the spreadsheet application and use the ‘apply hyperlink’ feature to each name, then convert it to a PDF. As I dreaded the foreseen hours and hours of legwork ahead of me, I asked my co-worker Tim if he knew any shortcuts. In a brief 15-minute tutorial, he showed me the easiest way to manipulate iterative data, using only a spreadsheet application and a text editor – today’s software flavors included Excel and BBEdit.
Related links:
