The Hindu Business Line : <I>All about Flash - and flashes of insight </I>

HTML, Java and animated gifs. These were the stuff with which designers and developers were battling for long, till Flash came on the scene. Thus writes Rob Ford in the introduction to Web Design: Flash Sites, from Taschen (www.taschen.com) . "In those days, if you wanted to have a cool Web site, you could wow the masses with a lake applet or maybe even a virtual creature, like a tarantula to adorn your portfolio."

What did Flash do? It opened the doors "for creatives to fulfil their ideas and Web design dreams," explains Ford. According to him, year 2002 saw a wave of innovation. "Brands such as Fred Perry took the leap and pretty much gambled on running their whole e-commerce operation through a Flash Web site." One of the first sites "to use video and to add a new personality" was www.pixelpharmacy.com.

The first `case', in the book edited by Julius Wiedemann, is about BacardiLive.com. Kurt Noble explains how each element in the site had to be dynamic, `for the ever-changing promotional schedule'. First came the homepage grid, followed by modules. Animations had to be math-based, rather than time-line based, and the idea for pre-loaders was `liquefied', describes Noble. The team spent time on how not to tax computer processors, so that animation flow didn't get bogged down.

"What are the basic parameters/priorities for a good working Web site?" This is one of the questions in the interview with Pascal Leroy. He replies that, from a content angle, the site should give what it promises.

"It should be obvious, well structured. From a navigational point of view, it should be easy to understand, intuitive. From a technical point of view, every aspect, every details should be well thought out, fast and efficient." Leroy then wraps his answer thus: "Being essential and to the point is being trustworthy."

The book catalogues scores of concepts by narrating the essentials of sites. One example is adidas.com/streetball, where the city is the playground and so the "player navigates the Web site by walk-through the city." The site agencynet.com provides visitors "with a first-hand look inside" of day-to-day life at AgencyNet.

Try out breadnbutterstyle.com for the feel of youth and cheer. Christocaran.com is minimal in design, where photos make the difference. Dontclick.it, if you can, because it "lets you explore a digital world without clicking"! Escapelab.com.au is "a travelogue of almost 1,500 photos organised by the geographical location where they were taken," so you can navigate the photos using a globe or a map.

Get a feel of activities on hellodesign.com/aiwa, which "encourage kids to develop critical life skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, and visual literacy." Experience `video production' on karma-production.com. Check out kinetic.com.sg for its "tongue-in-cheek approach"; it is entirely hand drawn "to give it an edgy, less than perfect look." You'd find sensetitol.com to be `austere and simple, equipped with great synthesis, based on the pixel philosophy'. Surfers are taken to a notch higher by powerbright.com, through `smooth vector animations' and `3D walking socket'.

What is the future of Flash? Ford has no doubt about that. "Flash has proved that it is a universal tool that 9 out of 10 designers/developers could not work without. It has... allowed seamless integration of a number of other tools, including 3D, video, sound and a host of other multimedia," he declares.

Flashes of insight that you can't do without.

Connect technology to the marketplace

"Share your information with your staff, and have them share theirs with you. Everyone has different ways of getting information."

"Often in technology companies, there is interest in technology only for its own sake. The technology crowd is out in its own orbit or sphere; it's not well connected to the customers in the marketplace." Unpalatable, but that's straight-talk from John W. Loose, President and CEO of Corning.

His essay `High-tech company, high-touch values,' is one of the seven included in CEOs on Business Success, from Vision Books (www.visionbooksindia.com) . The first essay, `Fundamentals never go out of style,' by Frederic M. Poses, Chairman and CEO of American Standard Companies, acknowledges that innovative ideas spring from "interaction within small groups, rather than from an individual."

Write down your solution to a problem, and then brainstorm with your colleagues, says Poses. "I guarantee you will come out with a much better solution after conferring with them. High expectations bolster innovation and promote cooperation."

Leaders must always listen and look for the subtleties, instructs Bruce Nelson of Office Depot, in a chapter titled `Balancing priorities for the bottom line'. He sends videos out once a month to his 40,000 employees. "These videos are memos from the CEO. On our Web site is a link entitled `Ask Bruce'. I do not personally respond to all questions, but many times I do. I read my own e-mail and respond often. I send many e-mails."

In an essay titled `Keeping the right people in your company,' Thomas C. Sullivan, CEO of RPM, says the interplay of technology within the organisation brings along a lot of product innovation. "Most product innovation that comes in our industry starts at the marketing and sales level. In some cases, innovation is talked about at the customer level before we get involved in changing things and doing things that are innovative."

How to gain and maintain `entrepreneurial momentum'? Myron P. Shevell of New England Motor Freight answers with an equation: `Knowledge = opportunity." Information is important to any business, he emphasises. "Share your information with your staff, and have them share theirs with you. Everyone has different ways of getting information... It takes a wide variety of information from many different areas to keep you up on the business."

Remember, however, that having information isn't enough. "One of the great entrepreneurial skills is being able to assess that information, relate it to business conditions, and use it to your advantage when the opportunity arises." But first you must have the information, because `what you don't know will hurt you.'

Verio's CEO, Justin Jaschke, guides in `creating a culture that ensures success'. Be knowledgeable about the environment and then understand the core changes in technology, in purchasing patterns, he says. "Most successful venture businesses are built on identifying a wave of change that is hitting across an industry - the development of wireless technologies, for example." Keep scanning to stay updated, exhorts Jaschke. "We also have an internal group that does industry scanning and sends out regular e-mails about key articles and news items to keep the leadership teams abreast of changes."

In a culture of constant change, how to maintain `traditional values'? Make strategic planning a continuous and collaborative exercise, says Richard B. Priory, CEO of Duke Energy. Don't forget, though, that you need to cross the bridge between planning and results through execution - the toughest part, but also `the most defining and rewarding'. A great developmental resource is `the wealth of knowledge and experience' of people in the organisation. "Talk to one another, ask questions, and share ideas," urges Priory. "Work - and learn and grow - together."

Returning to the Corning story, Loose thinks that it is the organisational DNA that has made the company survive for more than 150 years, by being `very comfortable with big technology bets' and also `being patient with money'. He talks about how the company spent years perfecting optical fibre and LCD (liquid crystal display) before making any money on it.

One of the big ideas he mentions is that `telephone networks are going to run on protons, not electrons'. A `high-profile project' of Corning was "to put down on a glass slide 10,000 dots of DNA," tested with MIT. "We loved the performance of the product. It worked better than anything on the market, but we killed it... because it couldn't get through the practicality stage gate... We had the product to put the dots down, but we didn't have all the software that ran it."

There was software from the competition, but it was a closed-architecture product, explains Loose. "We are not a software house, and we killed the project." And, in retrospect, he considers it a good decision. For, the company had kept itself "from spending a lot of money when failure was probably inevitable."

Valuable lessons.

Tailpiece

"Crash!"

"Car? Or, market?"

"No, car!"

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