TrueParallel

For those of you who think you need a crystal ball to see the future, put it away.  The future is living with you. It’s in our schools. It’s entering the workforce.  This is not some emerging technology rather an onslaught of those who know nothing better than technology as a way of life.

You’ve seen those fast moving thumbs that are now a principle means of communication.  Or that smartphone that seems to be permanently attached to every facet of life.  Oh yes and don’t forget “facebooking” a new verb in our digital society today. Point is, there is an onslaught of digitally astute individuals who are growing up with texting, facebooking, mobile web usage, and information discovery that gets its roots from the likes of  “googling”.  This also begs a lot of questions:

• What’s to come of email as we know it today – Will it morph its way into a seamless messaging platform that manages conversations and integrates personal networking capabilities thus making traditional email extinct?
• What about the smart phone – is apple on to something with the ipad? We have not even started to experience all the possibilities that are around the corner in this realm of digital flattening?
• Social networks – yes they are real, and they are alive and kicking.  Is an ecosystem of social networks going to drive idea generation, information dissemination – are social networks the new emergency broadcast system?
• The Home phone and cable TV – IP networks are ever expanding and there are many in a new generation where the home phone and cable TV are just not that important.

We are living in a society today where we have those who remember the yellow pages and those who can’t imagine they existed.  Some of us remember when sending something in large overnight package and then having to set up conference calls with calling cards was the norm.  Explain how that worked to the upcoming digital generation.  How about this – tell a 20 year old that you used to wait in a line to get to a pay phone to make a call. Wait until you see the look on their face. Can you believe that we used to have to find a phone jack to plug our computers just to get connected to the internet?  It was really not so long ago but when you think about it it actually seems like its been centuries.

My point is that today we collaborate and work with a generation that does not know or remember a world without digital technology, immediate information access, social networks, wireless connectivity, online purchasing, and  many strange named digital outlets.  The digitally astute have arrived. They are the managers in our companies; they are the consumers of our products and services.

What’s the lesson to all of this?  If you are not thinking and breathing “digital” and you’re not making your digital strategy the primary driver of brand, communications, sales, service, social media, search, direct marketing and that old thing …. Oh yes…. advertising. etc.– then you may want to take a look around the corner.   All things connect to your digital strategy and rely upon its vast networking power. It is now a natural part life and the way we work, communicate and learn.

Seriously give this some thought –what we learn from the direct interaction from our digital touch points is far greater than what we ever got from mounds of research and the most creative ad in the world.  Embrace a digital world – because there are those that know no other and they are at your doorstep.

Mark Rosenberg

Every company wants the answer to this question. We think we have our answer.

How do we deal with the challenge of getting clients to see our offering as valuable? How do we help them see us as an investment and not a cost? And how do we get our clients to see the impact our offering can have to their existing team and bottom line? Here’s how TrueParallel does it.

First, we have a philosophy about our approach that has truly separates us from the pack. We cut through the BS and focus diligently on Speed, Quality, Flexibility and Cost. That’s it! Nothing else matters.

Speed refers to the clip at which we respond to our clients’ needs. It means how well we jump on the challenges presented to us, how quickly we engage our strategy, design and development teams. It refers to how fast we are prototyping and wireframing our ideas and getting them in front of our clients.  That is part of our M.O. and our heritage. Our clients see tremendous value in our fast and smart delivery of wireframe prototypes of ideas that were hatched in meetings only a week prior, sometimes days.

Quality is about how well our strategy, design and development holds up and addresses the real needs of our clients and their stakeholders. It is also about the simplicity and strength of our code.

Flexibility refers to how well we can react to the real pressures of our clients and the environments we work in. If our client calls us and says, “hey, I know I told you that the widgets on the home page need to be replicated on twelve other pages, but now its twenty five.” Our response is, “Okay, cool. We’ll get right on that.” And with a true partner mindset we do what we say. No nickling and diming our clients. While we are a for profit entity, we have to be partners toward a common goal.

Cost is simply about making our services competitive. Through our Yekaterinberg, Russia office, our dedicated team of technologists are providing premium skillsets that allows us to control our production costs unlike any other on the market so we do more work for your investment. In many cases, most of our development work is done while we are sleeping and many support request are complete when you wake up.

Second, we have flipped the client vendor relationship mentality on its head. Instead we think of our relationships as co-investments.

This means our work ethic and overall mentality is different. Not only our our clients invested in us but we are invested in them, beyond just being customers. We find it makes us more invested in everything they do and, In turn, we end up operating as unified team. For example, if we have a client that we believe in wholeheartedly and they are not able to budget what we know it will take to move the needle for them, we think of them as an investment. In other words, we look at these opportunities as a relationship investments.  We can do that because of the cost efficiencies gained with our development operations. Yes, we have to make a profit to keep the operation going, but when our work yields successes for our clients, they always return the favor. It never fails us. Its all in the mindset.

Third, we have structured our business to support top Web shops.

We have found that every incredible corporate and agency Interactive group out there needs support. Whether they have too many projects in their pipeline or they are over-subscribed in their .NET area or they have no people able to code Flash, PHP or Ruby on Rails, we are able to step in with a manageable and predictable outcome. Our partners always know they are going to plug into our group and get really smart, really fast outcomes at a great cost.  We have structured our support service around the needs of our partners. We know how they work, solve problems and deal with P&L. We understand that and treat our clients like investors, we are truly a great “snap-on” fit.

We’re always here and ready, like an extension of the team just down the hall, awaiting your next challenge.

You can’t beat that!

10 year old: “Dad, what is TrueParallel?”

Me: “A company that helps other companies communicate on the Web, social media sites and mobile phones.”

10 year old: “Web sites?”

Me: “Yep, and iPhones and Blackberries and Facebook and Twitter and some other stuff too.”

10 year old: “What’s the other stuff? ”

Me: “Well, we also help big companies figure out the best things they can do online to make the biggest difference. We call it strategy and tactics. ”

10 year old: “Like what? What’s strategy?”

Me: “Well, we helped a big insurance company figure out what the Web should do for them exactly and beyond that, the best way for them to get it all done. Strategy is what you do to figure out how to win a war. A tactic is what you do to win a battle that will help you win the larger war.”

10 year old: “What else?”

Me: “We are now helping a big university in Raleigh figure out how to help them meet their goals by using the Web, mobile phones, games and social media.”

10 year old: “Do they pay you a lot to do this?”

Me: “No. We have figured out how to get stuff done pretty quickly so it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.”

10 year old: “How much do arms and legs really cost?”

Me: “Ask your mom.”

I was reading about online usage habits the other day and as they were giving percentages about various age groups, they got to the reality of our our teens and those in their early twenties.

The facts can’t even be expressed in percentages anymore.  Because there is a whole generation that is entering the workplace or on the cusp of doing so where every waking moment is spent in front of some kind of electronic device – be it a smart phone, computer, or video game.

While many of us did not grow up in a time where we had a cell phone tethered to our belts, a whole generation is growing up where texting, surfing the web on a mobile device, communicating through facebook and Youtube is the entertainment channel of choice.  It is a natural part of their lives and they are taking this behavior and expectation for how information moves and is shared into the workplace.

The bottom line – we have a generation that is growing up with all things digital being a way of life. That way of life will naturally influence the landscape of business even more so than it already is today.  Pretty amazing, exciting and incredible. We think this is an awesome time. For us it means we have to continue to pay careful attention to the information design process, integration of social channels and continue to grow our  mobile platforms capabilities — if we want to succeed at reaching them in ways they can appreciate.

We have so much passion for this business – the web and all digital communications. And this new generation is only fueling our passion as we see continued growth and prosperity online and through wireless platforms. And this passion is further fueled by our understanding of how to engage them, not just shift the way we market to them. Engagement and interactive (two-way) reciprocal communications is so much more meaningful for both sides.

In many ways, having a 15 year old daughter – and a pretty wired 0ne at that – is a great asset for being in this business. I get to see firsthand the proliferation of how the internet, mobile and social networks play such a large role in their lives and it is a continuous reminder of how we need to stay in tune with the realities of a digital generation.

When we sit down with a new client prospect for the first time, we are already thinking strategy and how what we are hearing can be translated into engaging customers, creating revenue opportunities and just plain interaction.  It’s all about the web in our opinion and all those digital things happening around it. So while we embrace research and user feedback, we also know that our clients innate knowledge and instincts mixed with our experience and instincts is pretty powerful. It helps us focus on a goal and not let process get in the way – so we are building things faster than most.   Here’s what we think and do:

• We try to help our clients and partners see and understand what makes some organizations more successful at web projects than others. Heck, we have watched the best ideas dissolve in organizational mush and we made them flourish in many places where the odds were against us. We examine goals, understand who interacts with you and how you want to interact. Process, development methods, leadership, strategy and so on – all part of the discussion. We just want to ensure success – that simple.
• We like to zero in on what methodologies, tools and techniques are working, and which one’s aren’t. After spending plenty of time starting in 1997 with Web teams like IBM, Liquid thinking and others, as well as smaller more agile teams you’ve never heard of, we take the best processes and help  you decide what is best for you.
• Then it’s about getting to work.  Talk to customers, create interfaces, apply visual design optimized for user interaction and the content at hand, and then start building something so we can interact and validate what we are doing is right. We change, evolve and then realize our vision together.  We do what it takes and are relentless in our pursuit of delivery.

One of the most resonating lessons we have learned is that the world’s greatest teams, processes and strategies are worthless if we don’t put it all to work for you. Our secret sauce, we know how to get it done and are not afraid to find the best approach to make it happen.  We can’t be stuck on one technology and we certainly can’t let process get in the way of a goal – that’s what’s in our DNA.  It’s what makes us distinctive.

What do you think? Or call us and let’s discuss. (919) 228-6310 Follow us on Twitter: markr247