Rethinking what the web is about

With the little background I had, I had delved quite passionately into the whole web thing. It seemed challenging and right from the beginning there were a number of things I noticed, which seemed wrong odd to me.

For an example, I saw very few websites that had a real conceptual idea. There seemed to be all sorts of ‘innovative’ navigation concepts, but little was done in terms of reasonable content and a good user experience. Let alone usability or accessibility. In 1999, it was common practice to force users to download proprietary plugins, to block visitors from seeing the site, forcing them to install new or different browser versions, or to simply fail delivering the content at all. I remember that some banking portals simply didn’t work on Macs, just because its developers had closed them out by purpose. The web was evil in these days, and it was driven by people who had no clue about what makes people use a website.

Here in Europe at least, the vocabulary for usability, user experience, information architecture, intelligent user direction, social web, the brand experience online — everything we consider part of the web experience today — didn’t even exist, or was only used in exclusive HCI software development. When talking with JWT, I had to explain to them what an Information Architect does. It’s not surprising in retrospective.

1999 was a time when every new gadget that hit the market had a new interface of its own. There was no Symbian. There was Palm, but no Windows Mobile. There was no iPod or iTunes, no usable GPRS in cars, no consistent cell phone interfaces or standards (Nokia made an exception, applying a standardized interface throughout its own cell phone generations, a policy they seem to have given up on meanwhile). Windows 98 was just becoming business standard. Mac OS X was in early plans, but had not been released yet, so all Macs used in advertising- and printing industry were running antique Mac OS 8 or 9 for at least another two years.

In other words, each technological development, independently of its use, followed a different design approach. That included the web, which had been booming early and was considered not much more than a poof of warm air shortly after. In the U.S., the dot-com bubble had just burst and Europe was in this arrogant mode of “Didn’t we tell you not to invest in empty ideas?”.

Remember boo.com? What was meant to become the next Amazon for clothes, a 328 million dollar investment, lay in ashes in May 2000. What remained of it was popular coffee table talk. Speaking of Amazon, it wrote red numbers back then and a lot of people still doubted it ever would become profitable at all.

Google had been born just one year earlier, and virtually no one knew there was online search different than Altavista or Yahoo.

It was this time when JWT was asking me to found a new web company. Early in our talks it turned out that this was what it was about: to help an advertising companz putting a foot in web business. Their idea didn’t lack certain logics. As an ad company, they didn’t have a clue about Web business. But they knew a lot about communication. And the principles behind the Web are not much different than in other communication driven businesses. Except for the fact it is not a monologue like ads in magazines or on TV. The Web is about interaction, and naturally that was what ad business was interested in.

For years they had been talking to their clients, trying to establish a consistent brand experience. The ‘new media’, as the web was often quoted back then, offered a new perspective. Brand experience carries on throughout the connection points where customers meet the brand. Even back in 1999, it became obvious that each web site works like a store front, no matter if you have a web shop or not. Your impressions on the web add to your overall brand experience.

Let evolution do its work

Just before JWT had asked me to create a rolemodel web company, I had been thinking about issues like online culture, people and the social impact of the web. I was aware of brand trends, tribal culture, image positioning losing power and public opinion taking over. The nineties had been penetrated by Nike’s advertising, emphasizing on tribes and a “we are like you” kind of customer-approach.

In conservative Switzerland, back in 1999, talking about the brand experience was revolutionary in itself. So I was impressed about the quite innovative approach JWT showed in this regard. They wanted the new web company not to become technology driven, but powered by branding.

After initial talks we quickly found agreement. I was given free hand to develop a concept, and set up a master plan to realize the new company. Within two weeks I wrote a document called “Economy, the Web and the stuff in between”. On 24 pages I layed out analysis, reason and conclusion, plus a concrete plan of company structure, growth, handling of management and a project work approach. (This concept is hopelessly outdated now in 2006. But a lot of ideas in it have carried on and became flesh in core in 2005.)

In spring 2000, JWT and I officially founded cel4. The name was inherited from the word “cell”, but since cell.com was taken, JWT decided to settle on the next best domain. At the time, it was considered common practice to nail down the next available domain before someone else would snatch it. People bought domain names like “super.com” only because they assumed that these would be worth millions later, and a few people actually did make some money.

Cel4 had a new look and feel, transmitting its revolutionary approach very pragmatically and elegantly. It’s basic idea was to look at cel4 as a company who is a living organism. The concept used the analogy if an organism as a body grown of cells. It was evolution-based, creating a dynamic environment where freelancers and employees could plug in- and out, bringing in newly acquired knowledge and actively participate in the company’s development. An “evolutionary company” meant to grow bit by bit, not get started with a new building and a whole staff of employees. What was needed was added gradually.

For the corporate design, we created a new font called “Genes” which was used for all corporate communication. It was designed with screen and print in mind and used for the first time in the video clip announcing the birth of cel4.

Even when I see a hundred things I wouldn’t do today, or I would do them differently, the concept of cel4 was a great business plan, transmitting a lot of passion and a vision that wasn’t just warm air. In a way, it had become a written explanation of what I was looking for, the answer to why I was drawn to the web.

Everything happening in the web reminded me of the concept of evolution. Behavior patterns in Web development looked similar like natural developments in nature and society. I was perceiving the Web as an evolutionary, ever changing medium. Something that would grow and change its shape, and we just experienced its early stages of evolution. Thinking of a web company as a living being, something that changes and grows along with the Web didn’t seem unreasonable as conclusion, but it was new to most people here in business. And it was a quite daring approach, when we looked at discouraging events around us. Big disappointments in Web business were founded in the fact that you can’t jump evolution stages in a single step. This had been one of the mistakes of investors in startups like kozmo.com and boo.com.

Our concept included social interaction with real life. It was about the Web and its effects in society and what was often referred to as cyberspace. (Quizz question: When was the last time you heard the word cyberspace in context of the Web?) It also included ideas based on 95 Theses made in the Cluetrain Manifesto.

I must admit, when I read the Cluetrain Manifesto for the first time, I felt a little rush. Its content reflected a lot of what I had been thinking all along, and its writing style — bold and clear statements from a user perspective — seemed contradictory to current mainstream perception of the Web in 1998 to 2000. It was this kind of reading experience that makes you say “so true” aloud for several times. You rarely get that from reading a text about the Internet these days. What made the Cluetrain Manifesto special was, it was written by web heads and CEOs, but with a strong sense for customers’ needs. For the first time someone admitted things like “Markets are conversations”. One of the sentences that truly revolutionized the web and has manifested itself as a de facto line for virtually all Web development going on right now. In this sense, Web 2.0 isn’t really new.

I remember well how excited the managers at JWT were about the Internet. They assumed it would revolutionize their own business. Aside of this, they also came up with what would be considered really stupid ideas nowadays. Like Flash ads popping up before you can enter a website. (Note: the fact that this is a common practice today on some sites doesn’t make it less stupid.) People looking at the web weren’t really thinking about the user experience as something valuable, something that needs to be protected and supported to the benefit of doing business.

Hi. My name is cel4.

And there I was, with a concept that emphasized on exactly this. It became a passionate pamphlet that included a plan to action for real-life execution. I had layed out company structure, project management and a workflow for projects, separating projects into steps and tasks. Which was something that I hadn’t seen anywhere back then, even though I’m sure a lot of people were thinking about the same things. In 2005 I learned that Kelly Goto from Goto Media had come up with an almost identical workflow chart, cited in her book “Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflow that Works” (now available as second edition).

When you watch the video clip linked at the bottom of this article, you’ll see that the esoteric idea of a living company transmits well. What isn’t shown is the idea of bringing the user experience to the next level and trying a relatively new approach on the web: listen to your customers and don’t assume they want to learn the way of your thinking. For the next year, that turned out to be what I’d be preaching to JWT and its clients. Shortly after we had finished a $140,000 project for Siemens Management Consulting in Munich, I left the company. I had helped giving birth to it, now it was time to move on.

Today I’m cringing when I read “C u soon ;)”, the last line in this video clip. It is so corny. But in the time from 1999 to 2000, it seemed symbolic, transmitting a sympathic, human edge.

In 2000, the head of all Web operations within the JWT network came to visit JWT Zurich. He was blown away by our little clip and took it with him to show it to the management board of JWT international. This little video clip caused some waves inside of JWT international, probably less for its content and more because of its attitude towards communication business.

Keep all this in mind when you’re watching the video clip. It was made in 2000, in a world before 9/11, with the naive approach we had back then, all excited, with an utopian look on the Net. “I’m a company and a living being.” — think about the effect such a line had on a rather conservative crowd, many of them bankers and investors. When I watch this clip today I have mixed feelings. But I still think many ideas of cel4 were ahead of their time, all context considered.

A lot of things you may perceive as normal these days didn’t exist six years ago. It was difficult not to fall for the shining promise of the Internet and to look for substance instead. I tried managing this with cel4, but we also needed to change the mindsets of our clients. Not a lot has changed in this regard in the Internet industry. We still need to teach our clients how the Web works, and we need to grasp it first.

If you look at conversation websites today, with Web 2.0 tending towards an overhype, you can see similar patterns like in 1999. The burst of the dot-com was a necessary lesson, but it won’t happen again. The dot-com failure woke up the business world and it became aware of the fact it needs to do its homework more thorroughly before investing in an idea. The learning was harsh, as usual, but it also made the whole economy more aware of how the Web actually works, and that it’s not only about technology, presentation or business. It’s about the people using it.

Annotations

cel4 is now called “.pulse” and still resides in the same factory hall with JWT+H+F in Zurich. Henning von Vogelsang officially founded core in 2005, inheriting a lot of learnings through the cel4 experience. You can watch the cel4 introduction video clip (Quicktime, 23 MB. Note: The clip features Björk’s track “All Is Full Of Love”, which was not authorized and replaced in the final version of the video clip.)

Resources

cel4 introduction video