People don't like what they don't understand. And a lot of people don't really understand the internet. I honestly believe a lot of resistance you run into in regards to interactive marketing centers around a lack of comfort on the part of customers in relation to the web. They feel a bit in over their head, but they don't want to look behind the times or dumb.

So they often do one of two things: find an expert they trust, and blindly accept everything they say as gospel, or reject the entire concept of interactive marketing while throwing around a lot of words like "dot.com bubble."

I personally think that both those approaches don't do a lot to further the cause of interactive marketing for either clients or marketers.

Is the internet complex? Yes. Is it unfathomable by normal, non-geeky mortals? No.

A little clear communication and dejargoning would probably do both camps a world of good, if well-applied. I truly believe a knowledgeable, informed client is the best kind of client on earth. Their expectations are based in reality, not fear or blind faith or wishful thinking. Their understanding of the process makes it possible for their interactive marketer to glean the brand knowledge that only they have, and apply it in the online realm that is their area of expertise.

Which would you pick: a client who thinks their new site or online promotion might be awesome, or a client who knows why their new site or online promotion is awesome?

If you're familiar with the concept of kaizen at all, it's probably in the context of manufacturing or other assembly-line practices, not in the context of creative work. Kaizen is a Japanese term that, roughly translates to "continuous improvement." However, there is a lot more implied by it than the standard Western idea of continuous improvement. There is an element of "respect for people" implied in the idea of kaizen, and three guiding principles must be in place for true kaizen: focus on results and process; big-picture, systemic thinking; and a non-judgmental, non-blaming attitude (blame-laying being considered a waste of time and energy).

As an interactive agency, we're in a radically new industry that blends the creative with the technological. From a project management standpoint, a kaizen attitude is a great fit for process improvement, because it works well with both the very human creative elements and the very practical process and delivery elements. With each new project, we experiment, learn new and better processes, and we implement them and carry them forward into the next project. We also learn from things that didn't work well, and eliminate those elements from the process as we go. I'm not saying that we are formally instituting kaizen here at LeapFrog; just that the improvement process here feels, to me at least, very much like kaizen.

Often in business, instead of making small, incremental changes, you determine that you’re going to “do it right. “Doing it right" means taking time, making preparations, setting the stage, and totally implementing a complete, fully-formed new way of doing things.

But there are a lot of problems with this approach. First, it fails to take into account the shifting, continuously moving nature of work. By insisting on completely defining both the problem and solution in detail first, a person or organization can effectively postpone making any changes …pretty much forever. Second, it fails to take into account the complex nature of change and how even a small change can have difficult-to-predict outcomes that then need to be dealt with. By trying to implement massive, all-at-once, “programs" of change, an organization is effectively tacking learning the new way, maintaining the new way (building new habits and breaking old ones), troubleshooting the new way (dealing with the inevitable “oops, didn’t think about that” items), and improving the new way simultaneously. In short, it’s a great way to set yourself up for failure.

As LeapFrog moves forward and continues to grow, we’ll need to keep improving to continue to exceed client expectations. That means improving one task at at time, one project at a time, continuously, with respect for the creative people who are part of our team and with an eye on the big picture.

OK guys - this will be a quick one today and goes under the category of rants. I was watching television with my family last night, enduring a commercial about life insurance and was actually moved by the subject. While insured, I can always do better and as I looked at my 4 children and my beautiful wife, I said to myself, "I should look these guys up on the web and get some more information." So I watched the commercial with my laptop in hand just waiting for that URL and it never came!!!

Here is a reputable company with no mention of a website - just some 800 number I could never remember and would surely forget in the time it would take to find the bloomin' phone (did I mention I have 4 kids). I started to watch every commercial that night and found over half of them did not mention a website, did not mention an extension of their business open 24/7, did not give me a chance to convert for them, interested or not.

We harp on being part of the conversation, about meeting customers at every point we have access to here at LFI - not listing your website on other media is like showing up at your local networking dinner without a business card. Crazy man, CRAZY!