Are you in the process of developing an app for your business?  For me, it is one of the hardest things to really  picture for our company.

Every day, I check out articles that talk about the most popular apps. I am not talking about Angry Birds, but real business apps. Here is one such list that is very good, 10 Apps I Use Every Single Day by John Jantsch- Ducttape Marketing. Usually, these type of lists look at different functions that can be helpful for people on the go for editing documents, editing/sending pictures, task lists, etc.  Do you know of a list where companies and their apps are listed?

In looking at developing an app for a company, it must take on the following futures:

1. Provide some type of action:  Send this information, Check a process

2. Button-driven or click-driven versus type-driven

3. Fewer than 200 words on a screen at a time

I think this is why it is so hard to picture. It is almost like we are developing an ATM Application for our companies. This is the best way I can describe the process, but it is really true. How much time do you spend at an ATM? You know what you want, you want to do it in as few strokes as possible and that is all.

If an ATM started providing news, would you read it? No!

Is an ATM personal? No!

Think about the apps that you have downloaded on your phone.  Do you read the USAToday, cover to cover on your mobile device?  Maybe some of you do. I would venture to say that even with news sites, you are scanning the breaking stories and if something catches your attention, then you might read it.

My point here is that to create an app for your company that people are going to download and use takes a lot of work, because you  need to make it the most simple process to look at and it must do something so miracable that people will want to use it everyday when they have a need.

You can see why companies avoid this type of logic and create more games and funny applications because it is really hard to build a truly great application for a company. Or other companies are just putting a copy of their website on a mobile app to say they have an app.

Coming up with the idea for the app is the hardest part.  If you know of a company who has accomplished this, let me know I am always looking for great apps from companies.

Picture Tony Buser