MIKESTOPFORTH

The shoemakers children are poorly shod. Never a truer word has been spoken of the dilemma facing web companies who design their own websites.

When Cerebra launched we had a phenomenally ugly Drupal-powered site in place as our ‘corporate’ web presence. It was pretty horrendous (not because of Drupal, because of us), but we had to have something in place until we could put some hours into a better solution.

The next step, a quick solution, was to ask the gang at World Wide Creative to design a better looking skin to cut up and place on top of the ever popular WordPress CMS. That has, until now, been the site we’ve called home, but I must confess I’ve never been totally happy with it.

We’ve just launched Cerebra.co.za version 3.0 courtesy of the hard work of our team – thanks guys for your patience. It’s back on the brilliant Drupal CMS and (I think) a vast improvement on our last site by all accounts, although not completely perfect.

And that brings me to the point of this post – I’ve resigned myself to the fact that websites are just never finished anymore. You never arrive. You’re never quite there. Companies and markets change so damn fast that keeping up with trends, news, standards, innovations etc. is intimidating to say the least. Add to that the fact that you should NEVER design your own company site even if you are capable of it – it simply doesn’t take first priority in the list of things to do (especially things to do for clients).

So if you’re designing a website that isn’t static or flash-rich – i.e. if you’ve opted for a CMS because you want your site to be dynamic, optimised and have the control over content in your grasp, give up on ever being finished. Rather allocate some time every week to:

1. Make sure it stays dynamic
2. Make sure you innovate in some way

As for Cerebra.co.za, we need your help. You’re the experts – whether you are a design guru, PHP wizard, CMS expert or just a plain user (yes – I mean you, mom) – and we need you to help us improve our site. From now until the end of October (just over two weeks) we’re asking for your suggestion for improvements to be made to the site – constructive stuff please – we worked hard on it. But please be honest. You can say if you think it’s crap, or some part of it is crap. No-one’s getting fired, I promise.

The person who provides us with the suggestion that most helps us move our website that next step forward, or optimise it, or whatever, will win a new Apple iPod Nano. So go mad – we’re listening. Please send your ideas to mike[at]cerebra.co.za, and I’ll publish them on the site.

Thanks in advance for your insights!