Dangerous Phrases: “I Know a Guy”

This dangerous phrase occurs mostly in the world of development, not in design (although there is a variation: “My friend is a designer”).  It could be a woman, of course, but in the world of IT and web development, you’re usually dealing with men.  This person will have some kind of experience with the web, or web servers, or some technology you associate with the web.  He may configure your email server.  He may be a friend who once had a web site of his own.

In any case, your (limited, possibly anecdotal) understanding of this person’s skills may lead you to think, “I don’t need an overpriced agency to design and build our site.  We’ll just get him to do it.  We know him, we trust him, we already pay him….”  You might also think, “Let’s keep the risk low this first time around by keeping the investment low.  If we need to, we can hire specialists to clean this up later.”

This person, your guy, who undoubtedly has skills in some area or other, will not deliver the web site that you need.  Your unfamiliarity with the interactive world may cause you to equate your guy’s technical skills with a total knowledge of the process of web design and development, but in reality you’ve hired an electrician to design and build a house.

The “I know a guy” phenomenon is an outgrowth of what we call Technological Panic.  You are pressured, either by the higher-ups at your organization or by market forces, to produce a web site.  And your lifelong experience of the web is either of maintaining whatever crusty, old thing you have now, or even just of consuming the web through a browser.

You need to be in control of this project, but you can’t sense the boundaries or the requirements.  It’s hard even just to write the first steps down on a piece of paper.  This is the source of Technological Panic: a total, fundamental unfamiliarity with the subject.

For years, Helen Marie’s business was largely based on clients who approached us after succumbing to Technological Panic.  We were the Second Try.  The organization would approach us after completing the first site, which would barely see the light of day before becoming a symbolic container for every aspect of the company’s internal politics or strategic confusion.  Finally, someone would say, “We need to do this right, and we need to put real money into this project — what we have is useless.”  That person would find us.

Clients who come to us in this state are humbled by their initial experience.  They have realized, painfully, that the electrician they hired didn’t build them a house, but instead tried to frame the building from wires and electrical tape.  As it turns out, the place to start is with an architecture firm.  We enjoy working with these clients because they don’t need us to make the case for proper strategy, planning, research, and information architecture.  But we think there’s a lot of unnecessary pain out there in Client Land, and we’d like to warn you ahead of time.

Conclusion: to overcome Technological Panic, call us, or an agency like ours, to talk through your situation.  Call more than one agency.  You’ll find that these conversations can give you a sense of the real learning curve, and put you on the path to ascending it.  Panic subsides, the real learning begins, and you can come up with a plan that’s grounded in reality.