July, 2006 Archive

Three:Twenty Welcomes Mark Otto

Today I’m very excited to announce that Mark Otto has joined us full time as lead designer. I first met Mark when he won the Nursing Voices design contest back in March and have worked with him on several projects since then. He’s already a very accomplished designer, and I’m confident that you’ll hear big things for him over the next few years. He’s definitely emerging as one of the web’s top designers.

Web design was the one service that Three:Twenty had previously been unable to offer. While we definitely were able to design, our design skills were not on the same level with the other services we offered, so we rarely sought design work. Mark’s hiring changes that and enables us, for the first time, to be a full-service interactive firm.

Welcome, Mark!

Strange New AdSense Format

I ran across a brand new AdSense format this morning on Plenty of Tee Times:

Now I would have argued that this was some other contextual ad unit, not AdSense, but it definitely is. Take a look at the code behind it. It’s your standard 728×90 ad unit, but it’s very different than any version that I’ve ever seen.

Anyone else seen this? I checked JenSense this morning, but she hasn’t mentioned it yet.

Update:
Leave it to Jen. I knew she’d know the answer:

That actually isn’t a new ad format, that is the AdSense ad unit that will appear if a publisher has screwed up the ad javascript - if you look in the source, the publisher went and put the entire ad unit javascript into a single line which can cause that type of ad unit to appear. It can also appear when you just include the second part of the javascript on a page when you have already included the entire javascript elsewhere on a page.
So nothing new, just the publisher got it wrong when adding the javascript to a website… and now that it’s gone public, he very likely will be getting a warning from Google, because this time of thing has been posted on DigitalPoint, and the webmaster then got a warning from Google about not pasting the javascript exactly how it appears in the control panel.

There you have it: screw up your AdSense code, and Google shows that odd format so that it’s easier to see that it’s wrong.

Thanks, Jen!

How to Screw Up

No one likes to screw up. In fact, much of our working lives are spent in tasks designed to keep us from screwing up.

Still, screwing up is inevitable. It happens to all of us sooner or later. When it does happen to you, make sure you handle it like LowerMyBills did.

Background

Within a week’s time last month, LowerMyBills uncovered not one, but two major reporting errors in its affiliate program that prevented many of its affiliates from receiving all the commissions they were due. This isn’t some fly-by-night company, either. Few companies pay out more in affiliate commissions than LMB, so this was a major issue.

How They Handled It

As soon as they recognized the first error, they sent an email to every one of their affiliates clearly outlining what the problem was and how they planned to solve it. Nowhere did they try to duck blame for it or try to make it sound like less than it was.

After discovering the second error, not only did they take the same approach, they included a 20% bonus to make up for screwing up.

So let’s recap:

1. Admit you screwed up.
2. Say what you’re doing to fix it.
3. Offer some kind of appropriate compensation.

Whatever you do, don’t try to cover it up. Your customers are smart, and especially with the coming of the Internet age, they talk to each other. If they find out that you knew something that you weren’t telling them, or if they feel like you didn’t take ownership of a problem, they will turn on you in a heartbeat.

On the other hand, own up to a problem immediately and appropriately, and you’ll win customers for life.

It’s an easy choice, but one that’s not very obvious when it’s you sitting there having discovered that you’ve screwed up.