Would You Prefer Worst Practices?

How can you argue against 'best practices'? One way is to claim that they're really not the best, as Christopher Locke does successfully in his book Gonzo Marketing. Another is to claim that best practices aren't good enough, and you'd rather figure out your own way. That seems to be the point of a best practices post I found this morning, on a blog otherwise filled with posts with which I quite agree.

Certainly there are consultants and business writers who use the phrase 'best practices' as a cure-all. But it also means doing the basics right, and taking advantage of what's been learned by all those who already did what you're trying to do. The alternatives are 'worst practices' or 'a better way'. Fair enough, and Sig is clearly advocating the latter. But why not use best practices (assuming they really are the best, or even 'good enough' as some commenters suggest) and then innovate on top of them?

Geoffry Moore pointed out in one of his books that there is a difference between the innovations that set you apart and the basics that make your business run (he called them core and context, respectively). So best practices in many (probably most) cases actually enable innovation, because the alternative is wasting time reinventing the past.

The concept of best practices is on my mind in part because it's part of a phrase I often use to describe what most web sites are missing when it comes to online marketing. The vast majority of web sites haven't properly implemented even the basics of search engine optimization, run pay-per-click campaigns that lack even simple organization, and display landing and other web pages that could be entries into the 'conversion rate hall of shame'. In these cases, a simple set of best practices can have remarkable results (tm) :-). (That's my oft-repeaded phrase.) If only because I've seen the alternative.