D+11 - Alive - and almost kicking

Well the website was transferred onto my server last night, and it appears to be functioning correctly.
If you're quick, you'll be able to see it at www.bigredbookofoutsourcing.com

My trusted onshore developers are working on a revamp for me that should see a more polished version appear at this address within a few days. Meanwhile, at least, I'm operational.

I've sent out the word to my colleagues in various aligned professional associations, industry publications and events organisers, to let them know they can start promoting. By the time they get the word out, and people start to show an interest, this will all be behind me ... as will the trail of experience to which you have borne witness.

In front of me, however, is a world of new possibilities, far horizons and unexplored territory.  This time, I'm wearing stouter shoes, and taking a map and compass with me.  Once more unto the breach...

D+10

It's 7:30pm. Another full day gone, with precious little communication other than ..."we're working on it, please be patient."  I'm trying to be patient. They're trying my patience.

An email has come through saying the upload has succeeded and the site is working. Which means they've taken it public before I've head a chance to fix all the little things. Right now, I'm just pleased to have control over it.

I try to login - but I find my passwords don't give me access to my own site. There's a notepad attachment to the email, giving me new passwords. Don't ask!  I use them, access the website admin area, and proceed to remove the developer's contact information from the admin profile and change the login passwords. Then I go into my webhost's control panel, and remove the FTP account and email address I had set up for the developer. I also reset the main password for the hosting account. I think I'm secure, but who knows.

I've flipped the admin login and password to my trusted local website developer, with a generous helping of humble pie. He'll clean it up for me tomorrow and make the e-commerce piece function properly - thank goodness. I'm not completely out of the woods yet - but I can see the treeline, so I'm feeling a little better, (also a lot wiser, considerably poorer and somewhat ego-bruised).

D+9

It’s after midnight. I’ve been trying all day to get the developers to transfer the website onto my host company’s server. The host is a major global hosting firm that does this scores of times every day. They also have a 24x7 helpdesk in case of need. But my developers can’t seem to use their system. I’ve setup FTP accounts for them, established a Wordpress iteration on the server ready for them to load into, and given them all the access codes they need, but to no avail. In desperation, I’ve given them access to my master login ID and password so they have full access to all areas of the site to find what they need. The problem is they can’t explain what they’re looking for. I’ve tried to act as intermediary with the Live Chat helpdesk – but the engineers there have given all the support they can, and they can’t now understand what my developers are finding so difficult. The answer is threefold; they don’t have the IT skills to do this, they don’t have enough prior experience to guide them and they don’t have enough English to liaise with the help desk directly, or to navigate the host site. They are stumbling around, learning by trial and error. It’s taken fifteen hours so far today, and now they are saying not to expect the site to be transferred until noon tomorrow. They are now starting to blame the host company and myself for not having given them the IT guidance they need to do the job. I thought that was part of what I was contracting from a web development company – the ability to load their developed website onto a major hosting platform. It should be their core competence – but like their graphic design and their Wordpress development capability, it seems to have been smoke and mirrors. Well … tomorrow’s another day. Another day late, that is.

D+8

D+8

It’s 3pm here. 1 pm in China, and there has been no change to the development site in the last 20 hours. No responses to my emails. Phone goes to voicemail. Offering a low price contract seems to have resulted in a correspondingly low priority. They have little to lose by setting aside my work, and more to gain by taking on higher-value contracts. Given their learning curve in Wordpress, they must have spent many more hours on this job than they expected when they quoted. I’m sure they’re out of pocket now, and any further work is just additional losses for them. Getting them to complete this job will be about putting this experience behind them. Their lack of enthusiasm has been apparent from the day the Account Manager accepted a low priced job on an unfamiliar development platform. I’ll have to think about how to motivate them to finish the work. Am I being obtuse here? Is this about putting me under sufficient pressure to make me offer them an increased price for completion, or is that just cynical?

D+7

Now we’re a full week late. The Account Manager doesn’t really seem to care. He’s off looking for more customers. The engineer doesn’t know how to respond – so doesn’t try.  I’m flying completely blind. Every now and again I check the development site to see that some of the changes I requested have been made. I feel I have to pester the engineer, to show him the remaining 20% of links where he’s overlooked making the media open in new windows. I ask him if he’ll now work through the Chinese side of the site and make all the corresponding changes. No answer (of course). I don’t have any confidence that this team could provide the e-commerce and .pdf download experience I want.

Then I start to think about how I’ll maintain the site using Wordpress after the website has been finished (if ever!).  The thought of my website being held to ransom on this developer’s server makes me go cold.  I read up on Wordpress, and check it out on my webhost’s site. Sure enough, they run a fast install of the Wordpress admin workbench, which I’ve now set up. All I need to work out now is how to get the development site away from the Chinese developers and loaded onto my webhost’s  server.

The developers have just come through at 8pm saying that the English site is finished (again). I’ve just gone back and pointed out that some media are not opening in new windows, and the main headline on the home page still contains a spelling error.

(There are also issues relating to spacing between the bullets and the text, and before and after a hyphen – but I can’t face another discussion with a developer who can’t understand what I mean about these finer points of grammar. I’ll fix them myself later).

The Sitemap and Community pages are not visible. I think he’s refusing to add them in because they weren’t in the initial brief. I still need them though, so I’ve asked again about whether that is still happening. No answer.

D+6

I have come across some information about how websites are scored for rankings by Google’s webbots. A sitemap is the first place they look. After that, back-links from other sites are very effective. My developers did not provide any advice about this in response to my brief. They don’t see the need to advise – only to follow instructions – and only then when they can understand them. Frustrated,  I send back a replacement Chinese lexicon,  along with my usual fully configured .pdf examples of a Sitemap page and a Community page to show the logos of my distribution partners.

The engineer is apparently back in the office – but he doesn’t respond to my emails. I make contact with the Account Manager, who phones him and drops me a line to let me know. Not that it makes any difference. Still no work is being done on the site, and no-one is communicating with me. Tomorrow we’ll be a full week late. Late in the afternoon, I see that the second round of changes has been made – but some instructions have now been repeatedly ignored. In some cases, the engineer simply doesn’t understand what I mean – so I copy and paste the corrections myself, and say: “make it look  like this.”

One instruction is that all linked media should open in a new window (I don’t want purchasers being taken away from the main site, especially with no way back). The engineer doesn’t know how to do this. So I go into my other website, follow the procedure on my own media, and print the screens along the way. I send him a step by step picturegram of what to do to make the media open in their own windows. That seems to do the trick – for about 80% of them anyway.

The BUY NOW buttons still have the wrong functionality. They are all taking the buyer to a separate buy now page, where there are more clicks required. This is simply wrong. When a buyer clicks BUY NOW, the next thing he should see is the checkout.  So I make screen prints, create a pdf diagram, draw arrows with ticks to show the correct navigation, and arrows with crosses to show the wrong navigation.  Later, I check the site – and hurray – pictures seem to work. This time he understood.

D+5

Overnight, some of the changes have been done – about two-thirds; but the developers think that the English part of the site is complete. Sorry, but a lot of the changes have not been made. I create a second table, remove all the changes that were made correctly, and send back two pages of changes that were not done. I elaborate on what I mean using highlighters and some explanatory text.

The developers retaliate, telling my Chinese is not good and needs to be redone.  I call on my Chinese translator, who fixes my lexicon overnight for me.

Why can I never get hold of these developers during the working day? The time difference is only 2 hours  - and yet they only seem to start working on my project around 5pm – which is 7pm for me.  The Account Manager informs me that the engineer thought that the website was looking reasonable, so he took a day off. *#*$#*!  We’re now 5 days late, a long way from finished, the e-commerce functionality has not been tested, and the Chinese side of the site is still a mess – and he takes a day off!

I finally get hold of the Account Manager, who says he’ll appoint another engineer – but the replacement is worse than the original. He doesn’t know Wordpress either and he would be starting back at the beginning. He doesn’t even bother replying to my emails. He does no work on the site at all today.

It seems the original engineer also took the development site offline while he was away for the day, so my Chinese translator, whom I’d asked to proof-read the site, couldn’t access it. She had to do it in the evening, when the engineer logged on to do a little after-hours work. Is he developing my website from his laptop??

D+4

The engineer sends me a link to the next draft of the website. They seem to have resolved the template issues. It is starting to look like it should have looked about 10 days ago.

Today I proof-read the site. The developers can read English about as well as I can read Chinese.  So paragraphs have been broken half-way through a sentence. Spaces have appeared half-way through words. Alignment is woeful, emphasis is completely lost, leading capital letters have simply been omitted.  I have now built a 4-page table of amendments in MS Word, starting at the home page, and working through every page of the site, line by line, instructing them what changes are needed to make the website acceptable.

I send them the corrections. I also send them a lexicon of Chinese terms for the buttons, widgets and links. (They know the Chinese words, of course – but they won’t include anything unless I send it to them, as that would be outside the brief).

D+3

The engineers can’t work out how to make the templates I sent them look like the ones in my .pdfs. There is free code available to them for the various page layouts from the template design company. I download the code and send it to them. They don’t seem to be able to navigate the English websites to find what they need. They are struggling with the English / Chinese language issue on buttons and widgets. They ask me to get them help from the support desk. Later, I realise that the entire site could have been accessed in Chinese, where the instructions and all the buttons are natively coded to show Chinese fonts. Why am I having to learn all this, to teach my developers how to do their job??

D+2

I have spent the full day, systematically making screen prints of the appropriate web pages from the template company’s website, superimposing my own copy and graphics, and compiling a full .pdf version of the entire website. I send the .pdfs to the developers with the instruction to “make it look like that!”

D+1 [now 1 day late]

The developers have sent me a preliminary website, based on the templates I sent.  It is absolutely dreadful. Monochrome, tasteless, vulgar and with  massive BUY NOW and ADD TO SHOPPING CART buttons right in the middle of the screens.  It’s worse than a cheap supermarket’s closing down sale!

My reply – verbatim:

“Ben,
This is so bad, I don't know where to start.
I provided a complete set of Wordpress resources. You didn't use them?
I provided a complete file of graphic resources - you didn't use them?
I provided a logical architecture - you didn't use it?
I provided correct English copy - you changed it into Chenglish?
I gave you a comprehensive brief - and you have ignored it.
Now there is no-one in your office to work with to fix this - and when your people arrive, I will have to go out.
We are already a day past deadline - and every hour we are late I am losing sales.
You need to fix this mess - and quickly.”

It turns out:

·         They didn’t know how to build sites in Wordpress. The Account Manager (salesman) took my order and dropped the engineers  right in it. They had to download the platform software and start learning it on the job.

·         They don’t understand how to select skins and colours – so the proposed site is all grey. Then they tell me that I bought the wrong template as it is all grey. (Later they worked out how to select colours, change page layouts and overlay skins!).

·         I called the engineer on his cell phone directly. He can’t speak English. He can translate emails, but he can’t hold a conversation. No wonder he can’t understand my brief. Everything is being done by trial and error.

D-Day

We should go live today.

Can’t raise the developers by email, Skype or phone. I sent a text to the Account Manager. He responded saying the engineers believe they can complete the website tonight. (It’s not even possible, as we haven’t  tested the e-commerce piece – but I hope they’ll at least make the effort).

D-1

The absence of communication from the developers is frightening. I’m due to go live tomorrow, and I haven’t seen even the most basic starting point. I am resigned to the fact that we will run late. I compiled a full set of graphic images, photos, logos, illustrations, anything I can think of that will save the developers time in looking for materials.  Another big file sent by Adbobe SendNow.

D-2

Still no creative designs from the developers. I now have no confidence that they can design the website.  I researched Wordpess templates myself and found one that I liked. I recommended it to the developers and suggested they buy it (and add the cost to my bill). They replied that I should buy it myself and send it to them. I ended up buying 2 templates and a skin at a cost of $75. I downloaded the file. It’s 102MB. Now … how the f*#*k  do I send a file that big to China?

I found a service from Adobe called SendNow. The free sample service only allows relatively small files. To send a file this big, I need to subscribe. That’s another $125. I’m running out of time and options. So I do it.

I’ve also made a screen print of the sample template, and overlaid it with my own copy and illustrations, saved it as a .pdf and sent it to the developers as a guide to what I want.

D-3

First discussion took place with the Account Manager about the e-commerce functionality. I explained what I wanted (1 product, express checkout, really simple). I asked to start discussing this with the engineers a.s.a.p.

The account manager replied to my creative brief, giving me a choice of 3 free monochrome Wordpress templates, none of which complied with the brief. I sent them right back and asked for an explanation as to why my brief had been ignored. (No explanation ever came).

The engineer emailed me a set of questions – most of which had been answered in the original brief accompanying documents, and completed form. I don’t think the engineer has seen them. I provided clarification. I also supplied some artwork needed for illustrations.

D-4

3 days have passed and I hadn’t received any design concepts. I was starting to worry.  When I pressed them for their ideas, they sent me a standard form to fill in, asking me for much the same information as I’d already supplied. I completed the form, but began to wonder whether my earlier instructions were not being shared within the company.

D-9 [Deadline minus 9 – 9 days to go.]

Today I provided a site plan (architecture diagram showing page linkages), a full set of copy for all pages in both English and Chinese, a creative brief, and several websites as examples of the look and feel I liked. The Account Manager reminded me that work would not start until D-7, due to a public holiday in China.

The Creative Brief

The look I'm trying to achieve is refined elegance. Clean, professional lines. Business-like - but from the Chairman's office - not the sales manager's. Classy - but not over-done. Subtle, discreet and high-tone - but without being pompous or arrogant.

I should have known better!

A few years ago I built my first website in MS Windows Live. It served its purpose of creating an online personal profile.  Fifteen months ago, when I started my own business, I elected to have a corporate website built by a professional agency. I stayed closely involved in the creative process, but they did a great job. Now, I’m launching a new product, a book on China, so I decided a small micro-site was warranted. 10 pages in English, replicated in Chinese. I elected to keep my costs down by contracting the work to on offshore web design company in China. I chose a company that advertised it had been in business for 10 years, had over 30 employees and whose talents spanned the gamut from creative through technical to commercial. The developer had agreed a 7 day turnaround on this small site.  I paid 50% upfront and retained the balance until completion.

In retrospect, it was a poor business decision. The lessons I have learned have been expensive ones. Certainly my out-of –pocket costs have been lower, but my expense, when fully costed, is probably three times what it would have cost me to get a first-class job done locally.  I hope this little diary will show you the potholes and help you to make wiser decisions than I did. Try to laugh quietly.