Client briefings
Life would be much easier if all instant messaging systems could talk to each other. I can’t see that happening any time soon, but it would definitely be an improvement on the current system.
This thought was inspired by spending 45 minutes getting my Yahoo account reactivated so that I could discuss a website with a client. I hadn’t used Yahoo for so long that I’d forgotten my password, but the process for recovering my password makes breaking into a nuclear missile silo look simple.
The good side to it is that I’ve now got proof of how useful applications like instant messaging are for doing things like client briefings. My client lives in Los Angeles and she’s trying to get a resume site working for her sister, who is a film editor. For me this is an exciting project - the actual layout element of the site is nothing new, although it will be fun to design, but it needs to have demo reels incorporated so I’ve spend the last few days researching how to embed Quicktime movies in a website. With an odd touch of co-incidence, A List Apart’s latest edition has a tutorial on an accessible, standards-based method for doing exactly that. It gives me a good place to start when the client gets the files to me, which is all I really need.
The purpose behind this post is the chance to waffle a little about how cool it is that I can now have transatlantic clients thanks to the various web apps out there. In fact, with all of these facilities at my fingertips there’s absolutely no reason to restrict my potential clients to people within a 30 mile radius of my house. I could potentially talk to clients in LA, Bangkok or Melbourne just as easily as I can to the ones just down the road. Possibly it’s even easier - that IM conversation with my client has been saved off-line so that I can go back to refer to it when needed and I didn’t need to take copious notes as I usually would.
With facilities like this at our beck and call, is there any reason anymore why small companies need to remain local companies?
Comment by michel123
May 19, 2009 @ 5:46 pm
hello,
This thought was inspired by spending 45 minutes getting my Yahoo account reactivated so that I could discuss a website with a client. I hadn’t used Yahoo for so long that I’d forgotten my password, but the process for recovering my password makes breaking into a nuclear missile silo look simple.
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michel
careers-careers