Unnecessary Manual Labor
Unnecessarily manual and labor intensive practices associated with print and online publishing of lists and directories.
- Manual processes in research and data collection such as excessive phone calling, individual emailing, manual faxing.
- Manual processes in data storage and management, such as managing large databases in isolated Excel files, Filemaker, Access, or even PDF or InDesign files. All of these formats can limit the effectiveness of data in regards to its deployment online or in print.
- Manual processes in deployment of data online - i.e. converting files (Excel, etc.) to HTML, then uploading to the Web site. For some CMS systems, data is updated manually on a record by record basis.
Voting/Nomination Issues
Clients who product nominations-based lists like Top Doctors find that facilitating Reader’s Choice voting can be VERY challenging and time consuming.
- Relying too much on print ballots means that every ballot received must be hand entered into another format (usually Excel).
- Open ended online ballots lead to huge difficulties in the tallying stage. You end up having to manually account for people’s alternate spellings or misspellings of a candidate name. This means going through a massive Excel file of hundreds, or even thousands of votes, and reconciling matching candidates by hand.
- Manual verification of winners is another time drain. Usually winners are verified by “brute force” phone calling and individual email. Once again, changes have to be hand entered into another format (Excel).
Workflow Issues
- Ineffective workflow for collecting/updating data for lists and directories
- Version control errors that are inherent in a faulty workflow - i.e. data in print diverges from data published online. Usually the online product suffers because the workflow is “print centric,” so last-minute changes are made on the InDesign Page that never make it back to the database (online product).
- Inaccuracies in published data that arise as a result of manual processes in data collection and verification.
- Bad or ineffective online publishing of data content. Data content publishing as articles, which is not the format that best fits a data product of any sizeable length. Lack of searchability of data.
- Non-SEO friendly publishing of data content (static PDF)
Print Publishing Problems
- Designers get an Excel file that they need to then “beautify” in InDesign in order to get a publishable product.
- Designers make last-minute changes in InDesign that never make it back to the original database or Excel file, creating inaccuracies in the online product.
Online Publishing Problems
- Have to go through a busy IT department to get any new lists uploaded to the site.
- Deployment of data to the site is manual and static. Changes means going into a Web page and making changes there. The more places changes to be made, the more opportunity there is for a slip up.
- Limitations in creating new interactive data products. In order to have a good, interactive product, you generally need a solid, robust database that can feed the online presentation.
Solutions We Tend to Replace
- Survey Monkey
- Wufoo
- Simple Web Forms
- Filemaker
- Access
- Excel
- In-House, Proprietary Databases that have become unwieldy or hard to change/maintain
