David Bowen commentaries

In his regular columns for the Financial Times and ft.com, senior consultant David Bowen has pursued themes ranged from customer relationship management and career marketing to ‘ethical’ retailing and royal family sites. His collected Financial Times and ft.com columns from January 2001 onward are indexed by theme and available for viewing on this site.

You can access articles directly by selecting a link below.

  • How the Index remains an unmatchable benchmark Mobile websites and apps were added to the factors assessed in producing the latest edition of the corporate online world’s most respected ranking, David Bowen says.
  • What you want to know about Given the chance to shape a conference to their own priorities, which topics would top the agenda of corporate online communications managers? We asked, and they told us.
  • How not to optimise your showing on Google As the world’s dominant search engine starts playing favourites in the race for prominence on its results pages, company web managers will miss a trick if they don’t play the game, Rob Curran says.
  • What will be... and what may be From convergence to a social media bubble, a foretaste for web managers of the year to come, from David Bowen.
  • Why the web’s mourners are dead wrong The latest obituarist for the website blames its demise on a nest of apps, but far from facing a poisoned fate its importance will increase, David Bowen says.
  • What to make of Google+ The arrival of Google+ Pages has caused a scramble among companies for a strategy to exploit this latest social opportunity. But which one, asks Robert Curran.
  • Where there’s no consensus on convention Accepted wisdom has its value – as in the positioning of a car’s accelerator and brake pedals – but on the web there is surprisingly little of it, David Bowen says.
  • What makes the best web managers To run a corporate web presence successfully requires a blue-chip skills portfolio that combines often contradictory attributes, David Bowen says.
  • BRICs fail to build on the web Developing world corporate websites cannot be bundled together, says David Bowen. But there are clear reasons why they are failing to catch up with the pack.
  • Siemens takes a risk Siemens has reinvented the corporate home page twice in five years. After six months, David Bowen tries to discover if its latest approach is working.

BC Tip: Captivating an audience

A world of compelling new content to explore. more...

BC Tip: Guiding guests from afar

A route planner reinforces a quality-of-service message. more...

Comment: How do you meet the website challenge?

Web managers confront common issues on their own diverse turfs, but our research into their site traffic reveals much about the collective response, Dan Drury says. more...