IDEAS

BTW – We agree

Peter Shankman, the founder of Help a Reporter Out (HARO) and The Geek Factory, gave the people at the NJ Business Marketing Association a great talk on how he thinks about and uses social media to make his businesses successful. Thank you Peter, thank you BMA and thank you fellow Lwer Derrick, Christine, and David for attending with me.

Here’s what I took away from the talk

Grow your personal brand
Peter was big on the individual. Businesses don’t do business with people. People do business with people. Your business is a reflection of the people that run it. He wants everyone to develop their personal brand through social concepts like texting (twitter, facebook, linkedin, etc.), phone calling, and (yes) snail mailing notes. A quick side note on snail mailing notes. Last month we were hiring for project managers the people who are standing out in my head are the ones to followed up with a personal hand written note. Its all about doing something different to capture the minds of people. So go forth and start building your personal brand, its going to define you in the future.

Plan for backup??!!?
Peter made a great point stating that he was always told to “have a backup plan”. Why? Why not concentrate on a the plan for success? It’s better than concentrating on the plan for failure. My take is that when you have to plan for failure, what you are planning is costly thus increasing its risk. In Peter’s world (and ours) big things evolve from small things. Start small, start fast, and start now.

Information is free
The world as we knew it was broadcasted to us from only a few sources. Print, radio, and television were all broadcasted from a few to many. The internet is making information free and creating a many to many relationship. Breaking news doesn’t come from CNN anymore, it comes from twitter. In this world we are creating views of the world at the exact moment it happens and sharing that view with people all over the world.

Ask your customers, how they want to get information
There is so much information out there and so many ways to take it in. We listen to podcasts on the commute into work, we read blogs with the morning coffee, we check facebook status when we come home and sit down. We have developed routines of digesting information. So how do you get your information to your customers? Ask them. Talk to your customers often and ask them how they would like to get your information.

Peter says the Social Media is having other people do public relations for you. Here are is 4 fours of social media:

1. Be transparent - it will help you connect with people and if you don’t say it, people will still find out
2. Be relevant – media is fractured so ask your customers how and what they like to hear from you
3. Be brief - our attention spans 140 characters at a time (or 2.7 seconds)
4. Stay top of mind – talk to people often

Again thank you Peter for the great talk.

Google Chrome OS is an open source operating system for people who spend most of their time on the web. The concept of thin clients are really starting to take shape in this operating system. In the video below they describe how all data will be stored in a cloud.

The experience of Chrome is built around the core tenets of speed, simplicity and security. This is a demo video to give you a feel for the Google Chrome OS user experience.

Here’s is a more high-level and entertaining overview and introduction to the Chrome OS.

Yesterday, I attended an event by the New Jersey Communications Advertising and Marketing Association (NJCAMA). Met some good people and heard some great things. The guest speaker for the evening was Geno Church from Brains on Fire. Geno gave a great presentation on word of mouth marketing (WOMM) and movement building where he took us through a few case studies with Best Buy and Fiskar (yes, the orange handle scissor people).

Here are a few notable quotables that stuck with me and my notes.

Everything is crap… Unless you have a strategy behind it

Social media is not WOMM

People trust people

Tactics bog us down

“No! If you build it we won’t come”

90% of WOMM occurs offline

Why should people be motivated to participate and share? Why people tell stories

• support a cause
• enable an experience
• communicate the ethos of a brand

Geno captured everything quite eloquently when he says that we should create movements not campaigns. Then he went on to explain lessons learned about movements

1. Movements are built on passion
2. Movements begin with the first conversation
3. Movements have inspirational leadership
4. Movements have a barrier for entry (invite only)
5. Movements empower people with knowledge
6. Movements encourage ownership
7. Movements have powerful identities
8. Movements live born on and off line
9. Movements make advocates feel like rockstars
10. Movements get results

Anita Zinsmeister of the South Jersey Dale Carnegie Training left me a voicemail last week to attend a free intro class for Leadership Training for Managers (LTM). The 7 week (1 day a week) program covers: planning, decision making, time management, motivation, conflict resolution, and fostering innovation.

The group has an excellent ability to teach through games, simulations, and discussions. Derrick and I have taken the High Impact Presentation training. Well worth it.

If you want to check it out visit: http://southjersey.dalecarnegie.com

I’ve always wanted to attend, but wanted to get the other partners involved. It’s best we are on the same page. Needless to say we went yesterday and had a great time.

If you’ve taken the LTM class, I’d like to hear from you. We’re definately takeing the course, but probably not until next year first quarter. This time of the year is our most busiest.

Here are some notable quoatables from the intro class

You can only coast when your going downhill.

If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.

Imperfect action always beats perfect inaction.

Only knowledge that gets used sticcks in the mind.

Bonus! Here’s DC’s 7 management diseases:

1. “We’ve never done it that way.”
2. “We’ve always done it this way.”
3. “If it’s not broken, why fix it?”
4. “We’ve tried that back in 1988 and it didn’t work.”
5. “it costs too much.”
6. “That’s not my job.”
7. “We’re just not ready for that just yet.”

Well, I guess its not a secret before. I’m now salivating to see the Apple version even more. The competition will be good for driving prices down.

Check out the full article Gizmodo, Courier: First Details of Microsoft’s Secret Tablet, there is also a video that shows the interface and interactions.

How many times have you brought a design that you’ve poured your heart and soul into before your customer, just to get your soul a black eye? The design review meeting is where good designs can turn bad, or even worse, get stifled and never evolve into great design.

Needless to say, the skills of facilitating design review meetings are an important piece of the design process. I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I still find myself refining my style and approach. Moreover, no 2 design reviews are alike. This makes it difficult to approach the situation in a more scientific fashion.

I have 8 considerations that guide our design review meetings with customers and project teams. I use the word “considerations” because I don’t believe in hard and fast rules that will work for all instances.

1. Face-to-face or virtual meetings?
I prefer face-to-face meetings over email or online meetings. There are benefits to the latter: less arguments, ideas come individualized and not in a groupthink environment, saves travel time and is convenient. I go with in-person meetings because: it’s easier for customers to give feedback verbally, a meeting allows people to focus on the design, we can have two-way discussions so everyone has the opportunity to be heard, and it’s also a good way to continue to build a rapport with your customers. I’ve also noticed subtle differences in the way people perceive and name colors. When in-person people can point at elements and also draw ideas on paper.

2. Don’t be alone
Having someone else from your team join the review meeting can be a big help. They can take notes, keep an eye on the clock, and give another point of view. Communicating design feedback can be difficult; having another set of ears can confirm or question your interpretation of the feedback. This becomes more necessary when there are multiple people in the meeting offering feedback.

3. Be upfront with meeting goals
At the start of the meeting let everyone know the purpose of the meeting, and what you’d like to leave the meeting with. For example, the purpose can be: “to pick one design direction and gather feedback”. This way all participants know your goal and will help you achieve it. If you don’t focus your audience they won’t know how to do it on their own.

4. Be upfront with how you’ll run the meeting
Now, this is tricky. There are many different ways and styles to run the meeting. I tend to go with something like this: First, I’ll present designs and I’ll be sure to go over them quickly so we can get to discussions. I’ll ask everyone to hold feedback until I open up for discussion. I tell them to take notes so they won’t lose a thought, and tell me to “pause” if they need more time on a design. I’ll present the designs along with the logic and rationale that went into it. Everything in our designs has a purpose to it. Once I’m ready to open it up to discussion I’ll either go around the room and ask for feedback or open it up free-for-all.

5. Facilitating the feedback
I defer to the basic rule of being a gentleman, keep everyone in the room as comfortable as possible. Remember, good feedback is not always a compliment. Good feedback helps to evolve the design. Open discussions diverge and create an array of ideas, suggestions, problems, strengths, weaknesses, etc. It’s your job to let the discussion flourish, while curbing argumentative or combative behavior. At some point, it will become imperative to converge the feedback into agreeable action items. Frequently, we can’t solve an issue then and there, so we acknowledge the issue and say we’ll work it out. Basically, the feedback is needs to have some form of closure or else people will leave the meeting with a bad taste.

6. Listen and defend
Your design will face loads of criticism. Hell, that’s why your there. Make sure you listen to the feedback. Even if it’s difficult and your heart rate starts racing, make sure you listen. At the same time remember that everything in your design is purposeful. Don’t be afraid to defend your logic. Always keep the audience in mind. Ask: “how would the audience react?” Always keep the business objectives in mind. Ask: “how does this impact business objectives?” Don’t hesitate to quote industry experts. “Pinaki always says if the experience isn’t good then your brand will be hurt no matter how big your logo is.” or “Technology serves a human need and not the other way around.”

7. The logistics of presenting
We haven’t completely figured this out. When we present via projector we don’t need much prep time, but the colors never look right. I like 11×17″ paper printouts because the color come across better, we can easily write on it and turn over the designs
that are out, but that takes time, and it’s not like looking at a computer screen. Moreover, it’s not green to print out so many copies. Boards are presentable, but no one can see the details of the design from far away. I’ll stick to a mixture or printout and projector for now.

8. Present a little at a time
The more things to look at, the harder it becomes for your customers to focus and give feedback. So say you’re walking into a meeting where you want to review 3 options for a homepage, interior pages, and a PDF template. You should present and get feedback one at a time. This means that you shouldn’t present everything all together and then expect focused discussion on everything. Break it up into 3 mini-presentation and review sessions. This makes it very important to keep an eye on the clock so you get through everything.

So that’s it. I hope this helps you get your designs to good places.

The Right Temporo-Parietal Junction, a portion of your brain just above your right ear is the part of your brain that helps us to understand other peoples’ frame of mind.

As UX practicioners, designers, and every developers we are always sensing the motivations and feels of people who will be using the websites we create.

Listen to Rebecca Saxe share fascinating lab work that uncovers how the brain thinks about other peoples’ thoughts — and judges their actions.

This is from InformationisBeutiful.net a gem blog that I happened to come across not too long ago.

Its by the very talented David McCandless visual & data journalist from London.

Great place for data junkies and data geeks like me.

If you like the the Twitter one, you’ll love everything else on the blog.

Love the Shift Happens series. Always combine 3 things I like to see on my computer: good design, cool transitions, and impactful statistics.

Read more about it here.

So I’m finding that I get more just-browsing-around-the-Internet time in the evenings and on my iphone. When the laptop is on I get sucked into work too easily. Anyhow, I digress…

I just ran onto two book lists that peeked my interest. 1. Because they list books that I’ve read and liked very much and 2. Because they list books that I haven’t.

UX Booth has an article: Recommended Books for your User Experience and Usability Library. Be sure to read the comments.

Presentation Zen has a list of reccommended reading if you scroll down to the right.

I’m in the midst of Brain Rules now and I think i’m going for Mental Models and The Back of the Napkin next.