Rob Grady

In a recent post by Jeremiah Owyang, he outlines three competency areas that an individual, regardless of role, must thoroughly understand to be an effective ‘web strategist’: User Experience, Business, and Technology. While many folks come to the game from a number of disciplines, it really takes a fundamental understanding and appreciation of all the disciplines.

All disciplines have seen the expansion of niche competencies as well as the blurring of lines across them. Six years ago, User Experience might have solely been considered a creative discipline which the technology folks implement. Today you need to understand technologies available as you design the experience as well as the business goals you need to accomplish. While core business principles rarely change (profitability is still a requirement as 1997-2001 taught us all) creativity is necessary to drive innovation. Needless to say, technology implementations without defined business drivers and metrics has left a number of people in the hot seat. It is critical to understand the fundamentals but it is also critical to understand what you don’t know and when to bring in the help.

The effective web strategist employs the diverse people and technologies required to accomplish the objective. Often danger lurks with the spell cast by ‘cool’ technologies but the seasoned Web Strategist brushes aside the sparkling new technology for the simple solution. Simplicity over complexity generally gets the job done every time.