Introducing Trabian Site 3.0
By Matt Dean on January 31, 2006
When I sat down to write a post introducing our new website, a single question kept entering my thoughts: How can this site possibly describe what “Trabian” is? Sure, there’s the boiled-down version: We’re a website development company. You can even narrow that down by saying that we’re a “credit union website development company” (don’t knock the niche).
So how can this site, as a collection of pictures and words, provide any insight to you, our “audience,” as to who we really are?
First of all, I’m not even sure who you are. Hopefully, you’re a client that’s just looking for our address to send us a big check (the address is in the grey bar to your right … make it out to Trabian Technology.)
But more likely, you’ve either stumbled across this site accidentally or are just mildly curious about who we are. Maybe we have an opportunity to convince you to become a client. Who knows?
Secondly, why should you believe anything that we say on here? After all, everybody who’s going to write a post on this site will want to make Trabian look good. I have no doubt that during the life of this site my fellow contributors and I will overemphasize the good things about our company and either gloss-over or make excuses for our mistakes. I think the technical term for that is “PR,” though I’m sure you could think of another 2-letter abbreviation for it.
Finally, how do we describe what “Trabian” is when we’re constantly changing? I’m not saying that we’re jumping from one industry to the next or latching on to trends and buzzwords, but we’re an agile company—we’re always trying to better ourselves and our company.
Sure, we can take a snapshot of where we are right now, split it into several pages, and maybe change it every once in a while when we get around to updating our site. But more than likely, we’ll get busy with client projects and 2 years later our website will still say that we’re the leading provider of 2008’s equivalent of the dot matrix printer.
So here’s the best answer that I can come up with:
Instead of carefully crafting every word on this site to achieve the maximum level of look-goodedness, we’re going to structure it like a conversation.
Yes, we’re still going to be doing most of the talking, and yes, we’re going to write mostly about things that make us appealing, but we’re also going to give you an opportunity to write back. If you leave a comment on one of our posts, we’ll keep it around for other visitors to see, even if it’s a comment we’d rather keep private. We won’t edit or remove any comment unless it’s a) profane—we’ll know it when we see it, b) an advertisement for Cialis or some other wonder drug, or c) a complete lie.
Tell us what you think. Keep us honest. Let us know how we can change. And seriously, our address is on the right side of the page if you want to send us a check.
