If you want people to notice what you've been building online, launch that big project on Tuesday morning; if you want your hard work buried, go live on a Friday afternoon..People who work in online advertising accept this as a well-supported article of faith, but non-web folks elsewhere in the corporate world put their hands over their ears and sing "Call me Maybe" at top volume if you dare suggest it. For them, the atavistic urge to dump web content into the laps of a distracted public late on Friday afternoons overwhelms mere reason, or Google Analytics stats.
The obvious question is "why?" For an answer, consider how things work in efficient offices on the Friday before a long holiday weekend. A carnival atmosphere pervades the cubicle farm. Baked goods are shared, sweatshirts donned, while the boss walks around bestowing meaning glances, whose meaning is, "Don't be lulled by the apparent laxity. This is still a workplace and if anything's left on your plate, de-plate it before quitting time, cupcakes or no cupcakes. And send me an email when you're done." This the efficient office people do, knowing that a contented boss is essential to continued employment-- and may be all that stands between them and a gap-toothed, type-3 diabetic future. With these bracing sentiments in mind, the efficient and bicuspid-partial workers clean out their in-boxes and Outlook task lists before heading off to weekend cottages or dim hovels to enjoy 48 to 72 hours of not thinking about work.
This "off my plate by Friday night" strategy works great when the only person who judges your efforts also writes your employee evaluation. The moment your site's intended audience starts to outnumber the population of your firm's corner offices, it becomes a full-on disaster. Politicians have been taking advantage of the public's Friday night attention lapse to release of news they would rather you didn't see en masse via the "Friday Night News Dump". People who work in offices, on the other hand, envision Friday night before a long weekend the way TV advertisers view Super Sunday, only with much less evidence to support their confidence.
Smack-talk politicians all you want, but all their pandering has taught them one big thing. They know that: whether you spend your Friday evenings pounding Cuervo shots enough to convince yourself your rendition of "Eye of The Tiger" is the finest ever slurred into a karaoke mike, ferrying your daughter to her Junior Varsity basketball game, or binge-viewing a 42-DVD boxed set of Dr.Quinn, Medicine Woman, what you are NOT doing, is deep-reading disappointing GDP growth figures from the U.S. Department of Commerce.
You know what else you, the Friday night pleasure-seeker aren't doing? You aren't sitting by your computer waiting for the development department of a medium-sized nonprofit to update its home page, nor is anyone else who doesn't work there.
You might think that explaining to office people just why that their Friday obsession as charmless as that belonging to 15-nanosecond YouTube sensation, Rebecca Black would convince them to delay things 'til Monday, but you would be wrong. Somehow, they've gotten the idea that since their website could, theoretically be seen by every wired person on planet, it will be, regardless of what earth's other inhabitants have planned for the weekend. "What you say may be true of other people's websites," their indulgent expressions seem to imply, "but this is different. This is our website: beautiful, engaging and uniquely beloved of God and man. Different rules apply." Like the toddler who must show Mom and Dad the funny thing they did with their Calico Critters play set, even while those parents are in a tête-à-tête with an IRS auditor, they can't process the word, "later." and all your appeals to time and place won't dilute their preschool-strength solipsism one drop.. Their motto is "no time like the present", and the present is always a Friday night.
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