I am coming to realize that there is little real business case for small
business. Total cost of operation of a website for a small business
might be marginal.
My reasoning for this thread was to formulate a position statement that
could be communicated to small business leaders to have them carry the
message that web standards will mean x and y to all business owners and
that we would then see demand follow. I was not hoping to find out ways
to convince Joe or Jane business owner to buy my services based on
standards in our sales cycle. I am looking longer view and want to find
ways to show the business community that they have no choice but to have
standards.
Everyone in this thread seems to gravitate to the, "but its better"
argument. Don't get me wrong I am a strong supporter of web standards
and love learning more and more about how to become better at coding
pages in such a fashion but we all seem to miss that a website is not
and end in itself but a means to an end and that the risk for the small
business owner if they buy a site with sloppy code and non-semantic
markup is negligible. If they have bad copy or they don't communicate
their message that is deadly. HTML and its ilk is merely a vehicle for
communication and not communication and sometimes even when the
transmission is messy the message is communicated.
Websites for small business are an extension of their marketing strategy
and a way to help achieve their goals. If we can't come up with a strong
business case for the 80% of business that has less than 20 employees
(Canadian Stats). We are failing them. They deserve to get great, well
made websites they just need to know why and what it is worth.
As I said at the outset of this thread, I want a way to create wide
demand for the use of standards as opposed to converting individuals and
creating apostles to the standards movement. I want to create such a
compelling argument that business can't ignore it and that some thought
leaders will take that message and start spreading it like a virus so
that it can geometrically extends into the small towns and little
neighborhood shops and then we no longer need even attempt to push it to
clients (which we shouldn't do anyway ) and have them demand it, " I
want a standards based website -- can you deliver?" This will do two
things, one make all those developers who have been sitting on the fence
about moving to standards pick a side and two all the larger firms that
reject or ignore standards will either have to adapt or go home.
Lets all put our thinking caps on, talk to our clients and talk to the
community and find out how we can make small business want standards,
and demand standards!
All the best,
Jay
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