Identifying key stakeholder groups (business, customer, supplier, regulatory, etc.), their relevant needs, preferences, and characteristics. Defining what Web business objectives will satisfy them, taking into account existing markets, goals, and capabilities, and the opportunities and threats faced from competition, outsourcing, acquisition, specialization, intermediation, and disintermediation.

Assessing the opportunities and limitations of methods used to meet stakeholder goals relative to special, sophisticated criteria for evaluating communication instruments and handheld devices. Conducted from two directions for each method: 1) Devices & Applications: how well stakeholder goals are met specifically by the devices or tools that they use; 2) Mobile Purposes: the mobile-specific sensitivities of stakeholder goals and problems. The combination of these two facets leads to the insights necessary to define the feature set and value proposition for a mobile solution targeted to the capabilities of specific platforms including iPhone, Blackberry, Pre, etc.

Helping clients define the features and benefits of a new web initiative, contributing sound process, facilitation of meetings, and expert knowledge of the media and technologies available (e.g., RIA, group intelligence, end-user value creation, social and business networking, mobile and geo Web) and how they can be used to further business objectives, down to a level of detail adequate for defining the inventory of features (both functionality and content), high-level budget, and project plan.

How well are your competitors meeting your potential customers' needs, via what features? How do your current offerings compare, and what will it take to compete as well or better?

We help you identify your key customer groups, market size, how to reach them, in actionable detail, using the full repertoire of digital-marketing techniques available to you: personalization and customization, partnerships, affiliates, online advertising, search advertising, link strategy, and SEO. We can then help you define your keyword universe and SEO-optimized site architecture using advanced statistical linguistic methods

Determining how well existing Web products or services (or their prototypes or alpha or beta versions) satisfy key customer needs, given business objectives, the latest viable technologies, and the highest standards of usability and customer experience. Describing what needs to be done, specifically, to bring it to the right standard.

Defining a style guide to establish and maintain a consistent visual and verbal style, tone, positioning, and way of thinking and talking about a company and its products and services, throughout the Web presence for all audiences, coordinated with other marketing channels. Interviewing stakeholder groups to elicit their relevant perceptions, thoughts, feelings, wants, and behavior, which is then mapped to business objectives, features and benefits of products or services, and verbal and visual language (logo, tag line, core messaging, visual design of common elements such as typography, photography, verbal tone and register, form design, table design, etc.).

For complex, difficult, or sensitive eCommerce challenges (e.g., selling services that have been traditionally sold through "relationship" sales, or that typically require the personal touch, or that involve complex products such as technical goods or financial services, or products with complex sales dynamics, such as tickets or demand-based charging), analyzing the nature of the online sales challenge, and developing a detailed design for meeting it based on advanced communication theory and decision analysis.

Expanding the strategic product plan into user groups, User Tasks, a Domain Model, and a high-level GUI design and interaction model. Deliverables are sufficient, standardized, and clear enough in detail for any professional, agile Web design or development firm to implement without running afoul of planning or requirements problems (which continue to be the single biggest cause of IT project problems). For example, at the high level it can be delivered in the form of a comprehensive RFP. If done at a low level, forms the detailed software requirements for the entire system.

Asking various technical questions that follow planning: Do you build or buy? Outsource parts of the application to ASP's/Software-as-a-Service? Integrate with what other business systems and how? Which platform, technology stack, or technology partner? Working hand-in-hand with technical architects and business stakeholders to define technology requirements: technical architecture, financial/accounting, order management, CRM, performance, security, scalability, and reliability. Defining criteria that can be used to evaluate potential solutions, including build-vs.-buy, in-source-vs.-outsource, and vendor/partner decisions. Leading vendor/partner RFI, RFP, negotiation and selection processes.

On behalf of and in close collaboration with the client, ensuring the new Web initiative gets implemented efficiently and satisfactorily. Including road map project planning of schedule, budget, and performance criteria, defining staffing requirements, recruitment of project teams, vendor and supplier selection, organizational design of internal and external project teams, team building, general contracting, coordination of multiple projects, collaboration between multiple teams and multiple customer stakeholders, and project management. Representing the client to the software firm or IT department, and vice versa, overseeing their management, acceptance testing of deliverables, and conducting troubleshooting, conflict resolution, meeting facilitation, monitoring of schedule, budget, and progress, and revising plans if needed.