matt-beedle.com

I think there’s some merit in what you say. However, I think that mostly, the paralysis you describe comes from growing pains. After all, if you put twenty developers in a room, or ten developers, 5 sales people and 5 editorial staff in a room, you still end up going in twenty different directions.

I think alot of the reason that things like this happen is because everybody wants their ideas counted, and that businesses as a whole forget to do discrete, simple things well - part of the growing pains thing we talked about.

If you look at the examples of successful websites you list, each of them does simple things well. When they want to do other things, they split them out into discrete units. See google mail and calendar for example - you may have expected google to make that one product, but they did not.

Nice rant, Matt. I agree with your main point. Most internet companies are run, initially, by creative technologists. Unfortunately most start-ups and internet companies, unless properly managed, quickly become victims of their own success. Aggressive recruitment, rapid hardware expansion, reliance on advertising revenue and an inability to scale combine to produce businesses that are primarily concerned with supporting themselves and their growing or already bloated infrastructure. Segregation of resources into technical/editorial is a further problem, distancing the business from its original goal.

In these cases it is easy for a company to lose focus, and their mission statement become diluted as they endeavour to cross-sell, upsell, provide business and professional services and generally spread themselves too thinly while neglecting their core values.

The businesses you mention (Google, Yahoo, Digg, Reddit, Plentyoffish) are, above all, tech companies. They produce very little original content, acting instead as a delivery mechanism for 3rd party information or as old-fashioned application service providers. They can afford to be run solely by techs as they effectively outsource their editorial team to the entire internet.

The problems occur when you have a business which creates and publishes it’s own data and content. Unless you have a clear mission statement, effective management of resources and all your staff working towards the same goal, you will inevitably end up with competing groups and views within the company.

The very existence of an “editorial” team, reporting to or working alongside an technical team, is enough to introduce conflict into a business situation, unless very well managed. The reasons for this include:

- advertising revenue becomes paramount, driving development to the
- ultimate importance of end-user is lost and replaced by advertiser acceptance and/or editorial whim
- editorial staff reliant on technologists for delivery of data and information
- tech dissatisfaction with speed of progress and/or implementation of new ideas
- the corporatisation of workflows and practices akin to a behemoth government department, or IBM.

The internet is unique in that the delivery mechanism of the product and the product itself are very often one and the same. Digg is a website which delivers information about websites. It’s owners need to deliver a framework for it to do it’s job - no editorial staff needed. The Guardian, on the other hand, create a mammoth amount of content, without which it’s website would be redundant - large editorial staff needed.

Both these cases are clear cut and it’s obvious which group steers development within the company. Problems occur in the grey area in between, and you need to have a frank debate amongst yourselves as to who controls the direction of the company.

It’s very easy to view this from an IT point of view however even the best web site in the world is worth nothing if people don’t use it. Publicity is a vital component of any successful company. The advertising arena is a cut-throat industry and an up hill struggle to gain ground. Therefore, assigning just one person to do this job is ineffective. The two areas are co-dependent, the sales team bring the work in and the developers build the site. Remove either component and the company ceases to gain revenue.

Nonetheless, there is a common communication issue between technically minded people and Sales type staff. Since most technical people are essentially introverted and need to have logical/problem solving skills, Sales people need to be charismatic and extrovert. As you can imagine, we have two separate thought processes taking place which create a conflict in communication. Sales people tend to think in the short term and expect rapid decisions. This is because of the environment they work in, a place where wit and sales patter are day to day tools of the trade. Technically minded people are often less impulsive and think more long term. They are less likely to jump into something with both feet often remaining apprehensive whilst thinking things through. Since both industries require a separate mindset there is often a great misunderstanding from both sides.

I understand the point you are making Gareth, but do you not think that in a web company of 14 people, having only 4 developers, one of whom is a manager, is a little over the top. I’m sure there would be so much work to be done that nothing gets completed. If there are 4 advertising staff, but the rest of the team seem to spend most of their time creating new work, this just compounds the problem.

Also, none of the staff are involved in publicity. All of that is done through SEO, for which there is 1 person.

Thanks for your stats. This is of course a resourcing issue. Sounds to me the non-developers are doing sterling job and probably calls for more developers. Nonetheless, developers are usually more expensive than non-technical so it could be a financial reason behind this. Afterall, too much work is better than too little. Praise to your non technicals!!! Keep up the good work!!!

Well said - as a developer in a web design firm with more managers than production staff I understand where you are coming from.

We are also in the “too much work” boat as well so something is working for us. Sometimes too many cooks in the kitchen spoils the soup however. :)

ha ha, I don’t have time to read this because I’m top busy checking that the curry in my oven is ready to fill my late, pissed, belly, but you - Paul, Matt, you especially - are full of shit.

Love, the Editor.

ps. email marketing is ‘publicity’ my love. and so is PR, which I am working hard on but we get naturally anyway, because we have great CONTENT. goodnight.

J, please remember that I am only arguing one side of the argument, and playing devils advocate. The main purpose of this article was to generate controversy, which I am pleased to say it is doing. However, I would like to keep the discussion focused on web companies in general please. If you would like to present the issue from a different stance please write an article on the topic and I will publish it here alongside mine, or if you have a blog, write one there and I will link to it.

p.s. I did forget about the email marketing, valid point.

No time to write articles, too busy writing for the website, and I don’t think you’d be interested in my blog (it’s about cake and periods and stuff) but I will try and put a few points across in a slightly less whaddaloadarubbish! way. (In the immortal words of Nan). I do think your sensationalist approach - and that ridiculous subject line - was a cheeky way of launching what could be a pretty worthwhile discussion though.

I actually had a good conversation about some of these issues last night, touching on Martin Fowler’s theories - interesting. From my perspective, the degree to which a tech & ‘editorial’ / content management team works well together is crucial to a web company’s progress, and hard to get right. Paul’s right on two counts I think (if I read things right) - splitting those two teams is not ideal, and a lot of startups will start out well, but will hit the kinds of issues you see time and time again in bigger, more established companies before long. That’s where it comes down to effective leadership, from the top, and good project management. If you’ve got the perfect amount of technical resource to do everything the different areas of the business want (and are targeted) to do, plus perfect project management, and consistent, perfect leadership, all should be well. But ha! When are things perfect, ever, anywhere? Whaddaloadarubbish!

What worries me about your post, and what for me could be at the heart of this matter, is that it betrays a lack of understanding from your perspective as tech, about what those other areas of the business do and why. Probably a hangover from tech being isolated - an insular function set apart from the rest of ‘the business’ (I hate that term - why on earth would tech not be a part of ‘the business’?). We’re trying as an industry to correct that I think, but lopping off all the other functions is not the answer (and this is coming from a developer groupie, you know that). Any web company, as it grows, will be looking at its revenue streams, considering marketing options, improving its product, managing customers, analysing data, conducting research etc. None of those functions are useless dead weight - ever evolving, yes, especially in the context of the web, but as important as they ever were.

Finally, the tech headcount for the team of 14 you describe is actually 7. I got it to 9/10, but - as in any business - issues like resource levels take time to resolve and have lots of dependencies. And as someone said I think, you guys don’t come cheap, whereas us dead weighters don’t get paid all that much to sit around being useless, having whims, and creating work (as you describe).

… And in answer to Who should control the direction of the business, tech or editorial? - neither. The direction should come from the leadership - either the founders, or the management. And there should be absolutely no rule on where ideas come from. ‘Advertising should stick to selling advertising, project management should stick to managing projects, and editorial should be primarily writing content to put on the site.’ doesn’t sound like a dynamic business to me. It’s healthy when ideas are coming from all areas and people are thinking beyond their daily tasks - that means they are motivated, creative, innovative and commited to the future of the business. Good leadership is about facilitating communication and creativity across all areas of the business, and then managing the process of what gets done and what doesn’t get done well. Again, I think tech have traditionally been sidelined here, which is another loadarubbish.

Enough of this handbags at dawn stuff, we’re going to settle this in a mature civilised and totally northern way.

Friday 13th, 6pm in the HaHa bar. Last man standing!

*PLZ NOTE: This approach has been fully endorsed by senior management.

Right, you can’t have a bust up without me and I can’t do Friday… Let’s take this offline & reschedule. Being a Liverpudlian myself I think this is excellent progress.