Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Nerve.com Subversion



I don't know about any of ya'll, but personally, I have found online dating, the few times I have given it a whirl, to be just about the most isolating, insecurity-breeding, suspicion-inducing enterprise I have ever come across. Lead with your flaws and the assumption is that you're insecure. Hide your Seinfeld "Big Hands" until the first date and you're taken to be a liar. It's one of those can't win propositions unless you're perfect, which I am decidedly not.

So here's how I'm fighting it. I may just be the only idiot in the world on Nerve.com not looking for the love of my life, a quick screw or a serially monogamous (or polygamous) partner. In fact, I am currently doing my own little bit to break the concrete assumptions of lust on that Valentiniful site. How?

First, by in your face telling people I'm not there to date. Rather, I'm there because I LOVE people in that way that only the hopeful misanthrope can. Second, by telling people I'm open to meeting guys as well as women, though I am straight. Thirdly, and ironically enough, I'm lying about my age because *** NEWS FLASH *** no one looks at your profile when you're 38 unless it's some chick looking to get married or find a sugar daddy. That said, I tell anyone viewing my profile about the lie in the first sentence of my profile.

Naturally, of course, no one believes me.

Or so it seems.

One woman I contacted said she "didn't think we were a match," although to be fair, she seemed to believe me when I explained myself further. The only guy who viewed my profile, and who just happened to be gay, winked at me and, I'm going to jump to a conclusion here, but I think he was checking out my availability...

The point is, if there is a point, is that I've got this working theory, borne out by experience over and over, that the populi at large is much more inclined to believe the likely but believable fiction than the unlikely truth. Decide for yourself if that makes the world better or, as I believe, simply safer, far less surprising, much more fearful and ***SAP ALERT!!!** much much less nicer.

Or let's put it another way, when was the last time you didn't do something nice for someone because you were pretty certain that it would be misinterpreted?

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Saturday, February 11, 2006

Internet Innovation #1: One Red Paper Clip Away From A House...



"I am making a series of up-trades for bigger or better things up to my goal of a house. I started with one red paperclip on July 12th, 2005..." fantasizes Kyle MacDonald on his blog One Red Paper Clip.

Snipehunter extraordinairre that he is, however, Kyle then proceeded to exchange that red paper clip with Rawnie and Corinna for a fish pen which was exchanged with Annie for a doorknob that Shawn saw and then bartered with Shawn for a coleman stove that was then swapped with Sgt. David J. for a red generator...

As of this writing, Kyle is now in possession of a cube truck and he's entertaining all offers for the next trade up, but suffice it to say the trades are getting a bit trickier. On February 5th he posted...
**Also** please remember that I have NO MONEY to put towards these trades. I do not have funding to move giant objects from place to place. It's barter - straight up. I am sometimes able to travel from place to place when I work for my part time job at Table Shox, but cube vans and snowmobiles don't exactly fit into carry-on luggage, so bringing objects with me isn't really an option like it was when I was moving doorknobs and fish pens. I haven't spent a cent so far, and this is a good thing, because I have literally zero dollars to put towards this project. Unless I win the lottery or find a bunch of money under a rock, I probably won't ever have a cent to spend on one red paperclip...
I understand Kyle's predicament may not cut as close to the heart as Britney's, but if you happen to have a spare house or two lying around...


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Friday, February 10, 2006

Roman Polanski & The New Internet Math

Why better client communications are necessary but all too infrequent

Think of it from the perspective of the client. An out-of-the-box "vanilla" website can be had for $29.95 or so, and a branded brochure for about $5000. To the client’s’ way of thinking, steeped in Newtonian mathematical models as he or she likely is, put the two together and the gross cost of their website should be $5029.95. That makes sense, no? And, because it’s a package all-in-one deal and your client is a business person, one might easily forgive him or her for proposing "Hey, since we’re doing this all together, how about 25% off on the website?"

Laugh at your own risk, because, as much as those within the interactive industry may complain that no one else "gets it," the truth of the matter is that the industry has simply not done a good job communicating to clients that when it comes to online the old mathematically based media models don’t work. This isn’t Newtonian Math, but Internet Math, a virtual world of every and no dimension where 1+1+1+1= 14 or 15 or maybe even 16, 32 or 64, but most certainly not 4 with 25% off.

What those within the industry know that those without do no not, is that even the most basic of "brochure-ware" online marketing initiatives requires nothing less than a complex and interdependent merging of branding, advertising, marketing and 24/7 virtual online space.

What those within the industry know that those without do no not, is that to fuse all these disparate customer touch points not just into one seamless entirety, but into an entirety that also effortlessly synergizes with offline branding efforts, requires multi-disciplinary expertise in, at the very least, account and project management, online marketing, information architecture, graphic design, editorial development, basic programming and quality assurance.

What those within the industry know that those without do no not, is that if you get a little more complex, the contributions of any number of specialists may be needed. Copywriting, motion graphics, flash design and production, original photography and illustration, for instance, all require specialized knowledge and talent on the creative side; and on the technical side issues requiring additional support, just as a start, can range from security and privacy, to database architecture and mining, online software application development, supply chain management and backend integration of legacy systems.

Given all these things that those outside the industry do not know, and that we know they don’t know, and that make it more difficult for us to properly serve our clients and ourselves, you would think there might be an effort made to bridge the communication gap. Unfortunately, far too often the main point of contact with the client, the Account Executive, is as much a part of the problem as the solution. That this should be the case is not surprising, as many, coming from a marketing or advertising background, are not well-versed with the technology and production side of the equation.

While ironic, the conundrum is also understandable. The Account Executive, hired at least in large part because he or she speaks a language the client can understand, also shares the same Newtonian limitations as the client and so prone to the same mistake: to disregard Marshall McCluhan’s essential maxim that "the medium is the message." If the medium is different, but implementation methods remain constant, it follows that the message will change. Or put another way, you don’t show pictures on the radio and you don’t talk in a photograph. Obviously the means must change to stay on message. In the case of the Internet, where film, photography, music, publishing, commerce, community and software application all come together, and where users control their own journey through that potpourri, it should come as no surprise that the means must change radically to an exponential degree.

Compounding the problem is the natural inclination of the Account Executive to regard the word "no" as just this side of the Bubonic Plague. I know what I am talking here because I have often worked on engagements where I served in simultaneous roles as both Project Manager and Account Executive. As such, take my word that I know all too well the extra work I am creating for myself and the team as a Project Manager by saying yes to the client as Account Executive. Far too often I still say yes. Obviously. It’s a judgement call. I make the determination that it will best serve both the client and my company’s short and long term interests to say "yes" rather than "no" or "yes, but…"; but it would be intellectually dishonest to say that I have always made the right decision. Knowledgeable as I may be regarding many aspects of the process, I am not expert in all aspects of it, and I have made more than my share of mistakes, although, thankfully, I have been right far more often than wrong.

Now, consider that if I make mistakes even knowing what I know, then pity the poor project manager working with the kind of old economy inclined Account Executive who pops his head into the office and proffers a wide smile, a chipper "hello" and a "heads up" that "the entire color scheme for the website will change next week after the client’s Board of Directors meet in Taihiti while the site will launch last week… if you can possibly manage it, of course" To say the least, this does little to mitigate the Project Manager’s sometimes seemingly rock-up-the-hill-and-back Sisyphean struggle to get all the disparate, absolutely interdependent, forces of a project working together in sync.

And why is that such a problem? Well, that one "simple" color scheme change is not as simple as switching brushes and picking another paint pigment or turning one colored light on and another one off. Design, implementation, review, team and client management are all necessary, a process that requires, at the very least, the involvement of Art Director, Production Artist, Programmer, Project Manager and Account Executive. If dynamic technology such as Flash is involved, the stakes increase even further.

This, of course, begs the question: why should the client care? Isn’t that our problem? That’s a fair question to ask, and, as far as it goes, entirely accurate that it is our problem. The response to that question, however, is easy enough, fair, and also accurate as far as it goes: Our problem is the client’s problem as surely as the client’s problem is ours. Short cuts, inevitably, get taken to make deadlines or minimize the financial impact of uncompensated work on already squeezed margins. Resources get spread thin. Mistakes get made. Design and technical integrity suffers with bottom line implications for the client.

While, as a service industry, we are paid to more readily acknowledge our clients’ problems than our own, reputable companies will still tell their clients all this because their interests and their clients’ are aligned. Sub-standard work is in no one’s best interest. It’s a lose-lose proposition. The client won’t be happy with the result and we won’t get the client’s business in the future.

As a partner at swandivedigital, we always aspired to win-win scenarios. I was party to failed bids on more than one occasion because we made the difficult decision to tell our clients in advance hard truths they didn’t want to hear. There were other times we declined to lower bids to match another company because we strongly felt our work for them would suffer as a result. It is a point of pride that, to this day, not once, have we felt we made the wrong choice, as much as we may have regretted the lost income. Nor have I ever, upon seeing the final product the client received, ever felt the lost client made the wisest decision.

In any case, as much as we wish for the best of all worlds, when push has come to shove, clients who value price over honesty and comfort over quality, were never the clients we aspired to. Roman Polanski, the film director, once famously said, "it takes just as much sweat, blood and tears to make a bad movie as a good one, so you may as well make a good one" Substitute "website" for "movie" and the statement becomes no less true.

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Thursday, February 09, 2006

Concise List of Blogger Tags

Going nuts trying to customize your Blogger pages? I certainly have been and, when push has come to shove, I've been coding for 5 years now, often to the great chagrin and bemusement of the very talented pro-coders I have worked with as a producer.

Well, Blogger has one-upped John Kerry, help is not just on the way, but it's already here. Blogger has an informative help section on tagging available here.

I won't give the full low down in this post, not wanting to spoil the fun, run afoul of fair usage copyright law, or even worse, disseminate inaccurate information. Neverthless, in the spirit of DIY (Do It Yourself for the acronymically challenged), I offer below a concise list of Blogger tags distilled from the link provided above.

Note: Syntactically, all tags must be enclosed as such between sideways carats (i.e. < & >)

General:
Blogger
BlogDateHeader
BlogItemTitle
BlogDateFooter
$BlogMetaData$
$BlogPageTitle$
$BlogTitle$
$BlogDescription$

Profile codes:
$BlogOwnerNickname$
$BlogOwnerFirstName$
$BlogOwnerLastName$
$BlogOwnerFullName$
$BlogOwnerEmail$
$BlogOwnerLocation$
$BlogOwnerAboutMe$
$BlogOwnerPhotoUrl$
$BlogOwnerProfileUrl$

Sidebar Archive Lists:
BloggerArchives
$BlogArchiveName$

Individual Posts:
BlogItemTitle
BlogItemURL
$BlogItemTitle$
$BlogItemBody$
$BlogItemAuthor$
$BlogItemAuthorNickname$
$BlogItemAuthorEmail$
$BlogItemAuthorURL$
$BlogItemDateTime$
$BlogItemNumber$
$BlogItemArchiveFileName$
$BlogItemPermalinkURL$
$BlogItemControl$

Previous Posts:
BloggerPreviousItems
$BlogPreviousItemTitle$
$BlogItemPermalinkURL$

Comment code:
BlogItemCommentsEnabled
$BlogItemCommentCount$
$BlogItemCommentCreate$
$BlogItemCommentFormOnClick$
BlogItemComments
$BlogCommentNumber$
$BlogCommentBody$
$BlogCommentPermalinkURL$
$BlogCommentAuthor$
$BlogCommentDateTime$
$BlogCommentDeleteIcon$
$BlogItemCreate$

Site Feeds:
BlogSiteFeed
$BlogSiteFeedLink$
$BlogSiteFeedUrl$
$BlogEncoding$

Conditional Tags:
MainPage
ArchivePage
ItemPage
MainOrArchivePage

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Monday, January 30, 2006

Yahoo allows the dot in email addresses

Have a name that is difficult to spell ? Yahoo is now allowing the dot in email addresses. Better yet the new email addresses will send messages to your current email in-box.

Some things to remember:

  • Email sent to or from this new address will appear in your mailbox with the rest of your mail. You can send from this new address by selecting it from the pull-down menu when you compose.
  • You can also sign in to your Yahoo! Mail (or anywhere else on Yahoo!) using [your new "dot" name] with your password.
  • If you would like to set [your new "dot" name] as your default "from" address, you may do so in Mail Accounts


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Sunday, January 29, 2006

Privacy for People Who Don't Show Their Navels?

"While the online world is full of those who happily post pictures of themselves and their navels for all to see," according to the New York Times, anonymous Internet browsing from such as Tor and Anonymizer is quietly on the upswing, although, amusingly enough, no one is quite sure to what extent since the anonymous browsers are, well, anonymous.

Aside from standard-fare 1990's era cuckolding housewives and executive assistant baiting husbands seeking to escape detection, divorce and possibly alimony; in addition to underage sexual stalker-types perusing or pursuing content of an explicitly youthful nature, it seems there are a few new additions to the cover your tracks crowd:
  • Illegal Music swappers
  • Bloggers in repressive regimes
  • Safeguarders of spam-laden email in-boxes
  • Those protecting sensitive financial and personal information from increasingly sophisticated phishers, hackers and online con men and women of every stripe.
Of note, the Times yet again proves its overtly liberal bias, leaving out all mention of terrorists who, presumably, desire anonymous surfing as well, but is partially redeemed by also neglecting to mention the many, many of us who increasingly feel the need to protect ourselves from the increasingly inquisitive eyes and ears of the Bush administration.

Read the Full article.

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Saturday, January 28, 2006

Two Clue #1

Alexa
Site traffically speaking (as long as the website in question is one of the top million, that is), the grappling Account Executive, Project Manager, Marketing Executive or Media Planner is not going to come across a much better free resource. The "Traffic details" section of the site provides the inquiring mind with information regarding reach per million that day, that week, and averaged over a three month span, along with a list of related sites and sites linking in . Not only does Alexa offer site rankings for the top 1 million sites, but also indicates overall site ranking.

The Markle Foundation
Speaking of which, one one of my favorite non-profit Foundations, The Markle Foundation, which uses Information and Communication technologies for not against the plebiscite, specifically as those technologies relate to Health and National Security, comes in at #506, 245. A damn shame, actually, because while making the top 1000 X 1000 is nothing to scoff at, more people should take a stop by to download the Foundation's Digest, a compendium of IT & ICT trends put together, yes, weekly, in case you were wondering.

Amongst this week's headlines:
  • Google Agrees to Censor Results in China
  • Eavesdropping leaps into 21st century
  • Internet Coalition Sets Up Anti-'Badware' Site
  • 2005 Fraud Trends
  • "Cyberspace" Is Dead
  • Alternative Media Taking Off ... Again!
and, of course, Roe vs. Wade aside, the issue we've all been clamoring over:
  • Privacy for People who Show their Navels.

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Friday, January 27, 2006

Say It Again Sam, Don't Pay it Again

The case for usably stated usability

User-centered Design is not brain surgery. Noted usability specialist Steve Krug summed it up best in his well-regarded usability bible "Don’t Make Me Think!," the very title of which says it all as elegantly and eloquently as this website producer has ever heard it put. It’s not such a difficult concept. People want things to be easy. And that concept is at the very heart of user-centered design. "Make it easy for me. Don’t make me think. Life is hard enough already."

Yet to peruse usability literature out there on the web, one might be forgiven for thinking that user-centered website design is indeed brain surgery. That, to my way of thinking, is a big part of the problem bringing clients on board as partners willing to commit to a course of action so clearly in their company’s own best interest. Call it a failure to communicate. Quite the interesting failure when you consider that this failure is one being committed over and over again by communication professionals.

Far too often, discussions of User-centered Design employ such industry-specific, emotionally affectless terminology as "navigation," "information architecture," and ""Section 508 compliant." The net effect is to present User-Centered design as little more than the implementation of individual items on a checklist of discrete, disconnected components, rather than in a qualitative, unified manner that non-technically inclined business people might more readily connect with.

On one hand, perhaps, all the technical mumbo-jumbo is "necessary." It’s proof of expertise and a means by which to justify fair fees in an industry unfairly viewed as commoditized, no small thanks to ubiquitous out-of-the-can, out-of-the-box "Build a Website in 5 Minutes for $29.95" online offers. Still, such argot obscures rather than reveals. I’ve had highly placed, well-informed, highly educated executives ask me questions such as "Why do we have to pay to fix your bugs?" "What’s HTML," and "What does interactive mean?" Communicating to your prospective clients your knowledge of Fitt’s Law, which states that the time required to move a pointer from rest to a given location is a function of proximity and size of the target, may well impress them, but it will do little to convince them why they should care, much less why they should be willing to pay more for your services.

When I was a producer at swandivedigital, we constantly struggled with that issue. How do you tell your clients this or that about their online presence, things they need to hear and really ought to address, in language they can understand, especially when they will have to spend more money in the near term to implement your recommendations? In essence, how do you make usability easy?

In response, we developed a user-centered approach that allowed us to quantitatively measure website efficacy in terms of five easily understood qualitative concepts: usefulness,ease-of-use, efficiency, engagement and trustworthiness. This paradigm served as a contextual framework that allowed us to make the easy-as-pie, gentle but forceful, point to prospective clients that a severe deficiency of any one of those five inseperably interdependent components will drive your target audience away. Simple as that.

If the site is not useful and serves no purpose for your visitors, they’re thinking "what’s the point?" and, *bang*, they’re going to be gone. It’s not easy to use? Your visitors can’t figure out where to find your products? "Well, hey, there are other sites out there that are simpler." And this time the click elsewhere is so fast you can’t even rumple your stilsken. How about if the site doesn’t load quickly or properly, if it just doesn’t work? They’re thinking, "Oh, well, c’est la vie" and, boom-badda-bing, not even a chance to rumple.

And who can blame them? How about a case wherein the website is ugly and anything but engaging? Your site visitors are going to associate that negative perception with the brand and, as per Don Norman’s seminal essay "Emotion & Design: Attractive Thing Work Better," they will likely have less patience working through any obstacles they encounter upon your site. The shopping basket doesn’t work? Forget about it. Nothing need be said, because your visitors are already thinking "I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you now."

And sadly, once your site visitors leave for any one of the above-stated reasons, it’s a fact that there’s a good chance they won’t be coming back, at least not anytime soon. The choice is yours.

Take Excite, for example. That’s a portal that had and lost my loyalty somewhere along the way when I couldn't access my email or personal page for about two weeks. I was a grudging convert to Yahoo, but I’m now a Yahooer all the same because I trust them. Pay now once or pay later again and again and again and again. To paraphrase and extend an old comedy aphorism, "Pay it once and it’s sad. Pay it a third time and it’s funny. On the fourth time, though? You’d better get serious"

The prospect of losing one’s market or audience, a prospect with grave bottom line implications, is never an exciting one, and understanding the ramifications of that, well, that’s not brain surgery either. So, whether our potential clients were companies selling products or services, or organizations selling a message, increasingly, they have at least been willing to listen.

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Dollars & Sense

Why User-Centered Design Matters

Imagine turning on your television to NBC and all you get is snowy fuzz. Better yet, imagine tuning in to NBC, but not only are stripes floating horizontally down the your snow fuzzy screen, but you also have to take discrete, active steps to access the desired program? In essence you have to ask to watch the show you want to watch. But, “golly darn,” you’re thinking, “this is just as hard as trying to get that damn VCR to record back in the old days.”

Eventually, even if it’s a show you really want to see, what’s going to happen is you’re going to get frustrated and turn the channel or even turn the TV off all together and watch a movie, listen to music, go online, or perhaps, even, read a book? A book? This must be serious.

Think of it this way and you’ll realize that when you get right fdown to the brass tacks of it, the Internet is on some level really little more than a very big, user controlled, interactive TV broadcasting system, except that instead of, say the 300 you may get with satellite TV, there are literally millions of channels along with literally tens of millions, if not more, permanent, infomercial/virtual stores.

That’s a lot of competition compared to the old days of three broadcast networks and AM radio.

And what that means if you’re a premium or ad-supported content provider is that not only do your visitors have to like your programming, a hard enough feat already to achieve, but they also have to be able to find it and seamlessly interact with it. If you’re the equivalent of TV commercial/offline shop, then challenge is that much greater. Not only need you get people to your site in the first place, but you have to compete on price, make yourself appealing enough for them to want to buy your product, enable them to trust you enough to be willing to buy it, make it easy for them to complete the transaction, actually deliver the goods, and do so in a timely manner. Fail anywhere along the way and you’ve just lost a customer, perhaps forever.

After all, no longer need you go one town over to get that same bar of soap. Now it’s about 3 feet feet away max, or roughly the distance your ten fingers need travel along your keyboard in toto to Google another soap outlet and click “Do I feel lucky?”.

That’s a lot of pressure.

Now, given all this, you’d think usable design as a concept would be an easy sell. Every visitor who can’t find what he or she is looking for, or can’t accomplish a task for whatever reason, is a visitor who may not visit your site again, because there are just too many companies out there doing the same thing. That’s just common sense.

Yet, small and medium sized businesses , in particular, especially ones not solely reliant on the web for survival. are still well behind the curve when it comes to understanding the simple premise that, within the online arena, every decision, from “look and feel”, to placement and size of buttons, to shopping cart intuitiveness and technical functionality, is one with decisive bottom line implications. Even when the site is merely informational, rather than functional, in nature, this fundamental truth remains.

Increasingly, the web is the first stop potential customers make before deciding in the first place if they want to do business with you, online or offline. An unpleasant or unimpressive online presence is, simply put, not a stimulating “call to action.” As such, a sub-standard online presence not only will not bring your company extra business, but may actually diminish it, a relative loss that a company may not even notice if its growing.

What’s more, the stakes have increased markedly. It used to be that a satisfied customer told two people and an unsatisfied customer told ten. That was daunting enough. Now the satisfied customer still tells two people but the unsatisfied one tells, what, perhaps a half a million? In the truly user-controlled medium of the Internet, when your target audience feels your company is really off-base, it now has unprecedented means by which to fight back . Blogs, comments on blogs, emails, review and ratings oriented websites, even virtual sit-ins… all these revolutionary feedback methods are at your customers’ disposal. It’s important that companies come to understand this sea change in consumer power.

To invite that kind of negative, corrosive publicity; to create negative brand impressions from the outset; to catalyze a million potential Ralph Naders trolling the Internet? You don’t need an MBA to know that’s just not good business. Better perhaps not to have a website at all in the first place.

Again, that’s just common sense, or rather, dollars and sense.

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