DNS Entrepreneurship Center Cairo, April 2015 Registry Best Practices Workshop Website : http://www.dnsec.eg/ Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/dns.entrepreneurship.center Twitter :- https://twitter.com/DNS_EC

1. Producing external and internal
documents
DNS Entrepreneurship Centre, April 2015
Emily Taylor

2. n Manuals and guidelines
n Strategy and operating plan
Agenda

3. Documents for external audiences
and partners

4. n Who is your audience?
n What information do you need to communicate?
n How to communicate effectively:
• Simple, focused messages
• Use language that your audience will understand
• A picture (or a diagram) can paint a thousand words
n What medium will best suit your message?
• Web – mobile or fixed?
• Printed materials?
• Audio / Visual
n What is your budget?
General considerations

5. Communicating with end
users (registrants)
Tone of voice is important
to help your message get through

6. Communicating with end
users (registrants)
Navigation and
Menus
Will users understand?

7. Managing your reader’s
journey?
Very nice home page
…but it quickly becomes
heavy going!

8. What do you want your users
to do?
Call to action
Teaser
Don’t forget your core business

9. Easy, step by step instructions
What is this page about?
What do I need to do?
An alternative medium
(brochure) can help reinforce
your messages

10. Learn from others
…within reason, of course!

11. Technical and business
communications
Manuals and guidelines

12. n Technical manuals
• How to configure technical interface with registry systems (eg EPP)
• Lists for reserved names, premium domains
• How to do key functions: create, update, delete, trade & transfer
n Test environments
• Operational Test and Evaluation environments (OT&E)
• Ensure that your live system matches your OT&E environment J
n Legal and policy documents
• Registration agreement (end user)
• Registrar agreement
• Policies and rules
• Privacy policy
n NB Version control, easy to find from multiple
locations
At a certain point, you have
to get down to business

13. n Remember, other people will not be as focused
on your business as you are
• Communicate your schedule clearly and often
• Use graphics to reinforce the timelines
• Build in ‘quiet periods’ to sort out problems
n Things to avoid:
• Launching on a non-working day
• Launching the day after the clocks change (server
clocks!)
Tips – launch processes

14. n Other providers’ sites can be a good source
• For creating checklists of documents you need to prepare
• For individual terms or ideas
n But beware:
• They may be too complex for your environment
• Some of them may not be of a high quality!
• They may not match your service
• They may use language that is not suitable.
n Use others’ materials as a reference point, but
don’t copy them (no matter what Picasso said)
Tips – external documents

15. Internal documents:
strategy and operating plan

16. n “The job of a strategist is to understand and
cope with competition” (Michael Porter, 2008)
n Strategy can be
• Deliberate (Porter), emphasising analysis and planning
• Emergent (Mintzberg), emphasising flexibility and
responsiveness to events
n Strategies tend towards:
• Price
• Quality
n Strategy is not:
• Operational planning, an important but slightly different
job
What is strategy?

17. n Operational decision making
• Investment priorities
• Deployment of human or technical resources
n Alignment of staff
• As organisations or environments become more complex,
a strategy can help to coordinate people towards the
same objectives
• Linked to vision statements that are memorable and
motivating
• ‘a computer on every desk and in every home’ (Microsoft)
• ‘to make people happy’ (Disney)
n To beat the competition!
Why have a strategy?

18. n Long term changes in the far environment which
may affect our industry (eg STEP analysis)
n Industry structure and rivalry (Porter’s five
forces) – understanding our competitive
environment
n Stakeholder analysis (who are we here for, and
what do they expect from us?)
n Identify organisational assets and capabilities
(what do we own, what are we good at?)
n Make a plan
n Operationalise that plan
n Review and adjust (the feedback loop)
Strategic planning

19. n Keep in mind your strategic objectives
n Base budgeting on reality – look at actual
spending in previous years as a prompt
n You will also need to include investment to
achieve your strategic objectives
n Try to get a detailed budget for the next 12
months, and an outline for 3 years to reflect your
strategic path
Constructing a budget