The online peleton
Posted on May 19, 2008
Filed Under Bicycling, Blogs, Fitness, Learning | Leave a Comment
I think of myself as a bicyclist. I almost always ride alone. I ride hard and feel good about it afterwards.
On Saturday, I did 50 miles on my road bike—a good distance but not terribly special, or difficult. Except for one thing. This time I was riding with a friend and he pounded me into the ground. I suffered on the flats and even more on the hills, pushing as hard as I could and still watching him steadily pull away. We’d stop at a crossroads and he’d ask which way we should go. Inside I kept saying, “Oh damn, oh damn, the short way, whatever’s the short way. Get me home, make it end. Please.”
But out loud I’d answer, “It’s your ride. You pick.” So I suffered, and when it was over, finally, I was spent and I was sore.
But I knew I’d had an excellent ride, maybe one of my best rides ever. Not just because I was challenged and had a great workout, but because I learned so much. The main lesson was that I can’t do it alone. I’ve been riding regularly but always by myself—with no-one there to push me, kick my ass, rub my nose in the dirt.
So now I have to rev up my solo rides 3 or 4 notches, and I have to find some group rides and some training partners. They’ll make me hurt and that’s what I need if I’m going to get better.
—
It’s the same thing with all my wonderful thoughts and ideas about what we’re experiencing online and in other media. I read, watch, observe, and my reactions are so terribly clever. Or at least that’s what I think. But if I don’t put my thoughts out there—and give others the chance to ignore them, or shoot them down, or maybe even appreciate them and make them better—then I’m just riding alone and probably not riding all that well. If I don’t join the group ride, I’m not going to grow.
Living the experiment
Posted on May 18, 2008
Filed Under Current Events | Leave a Comment
Are you afraid?
Sometimes you have to wonder if you can keep up. Other times you know very well that you can’t. Every day—literally—we learn about or stumble across new twists in the online environment. New online communities, new video channels, new aggregators and interpreters, new personalities, new scams and scandals and tools and opportunities.
Twitter and Pownce and Google and Seesmic and Facebook and iTunes and Flickr and Gawker and YouTube and all forever and ever amen. All crying for our attention and our time. We’re in the middle of a technological tornado which is swirling faster and faster and will anything short of some global disaster ever stop it?
Think of where we were just 20 years ago, then 10 years ago, then now, and think about where we’re going and if you’re really thinking about it, some part of you has to be scared. Sure you’re excited but you know you’re not in control.
We’re just riding the beast. The beast is going faster.
Do not close your eyes.
Maybe the movie is bad, but…
Posted on April 11, 2008
Filed Under Reviews, Writing | 1 Comment
You’ve probably read reviews like this.
I just read ‘Street Kings’ comes up empty, by Craig D. Lindsey, Staff Writer for the Raleigh News & Observer. Here’s how it begins:
Whenever I know there’s a Keanu Reeves movie coming, I can count on it being spectacularly, hysterically, almost hilariously bad. And “Street Kings” certainly does not disappoint.
Okay, why read more? He thinks the movie was bad. In fact, he knew it would be bad before he watched it. One almost wonders why he bothered—first why he bothered actually watching the movie and then why he bothered actually writing a review. He went in prejudiced against the film because it had to be “spectacularly, hysterically, almost hilariously bad”. (And yes, I know he watched and wrote because it’s his job.)
He went in looking for the bad and probably congratulated himself every single time he saw anything that might support his prediction. Ah yes, such a clever fellow—and somehow the fact that he did find the negative made it all worthwhile. Somehow it was a good time at the movies.
It apparently did not occur to him to reassure us that he was quite open to being wrong, and that in fact he would have been wonderfully happy to find that Keanu Reeves brought his character to life as no other actor could have done and that the story both excited and touched him deeply.
Or would a good movie-viewing experience really have been a disappointment for not measuring up (or down) to his preconceptions?
Good experience is not a new idea
Posted on March 26, 2008
Filed Under Good Experience, Marketing, Usability | 2 Comments
I just read David Armano’s post “Experience, Social, Word of Mouth. Is it All Just Advertising?” on the “Experience Matters” blog. Once again, an excellent post, but this time I was struck by one of the comments.
David Cushman wrote:
good customer exp, whether delivered by human or device, is all it takes to delight us into becoming advocates in a world sadly lacking in said good exps. but brands will learn and then we’ll take what delights us for granted. would the cycle start over i wonder?
I agree with the first part. Whatever tricks or techniques may be used to establish branding for a business, product, or service, the most effective approach is to simply provide a good experience. Or is it not that simple? All businesses talk about it, but as Mr. Cushman notes, a good customer experience is still rare and still notable when it happens.
However, he then goes on to say, “brands will learn”, and unfortunately that’s where I disagree. Doing the right thing is not a new idea — oh wow, look at this, why didn’t we ever think of it before? — something we’ve just discovered and now all businesses will be jumping on the bandwagon. If there’s any bandwagon, it’s the one businesses have already jumped on where they all talk about customer service, and quality products, and providing a good experience, and “your call is important to us.” Too bad they don’t get off the wagon and do something. I do not foresee the day when “we’ll take what delights us for granted.”
Excellent news, I suppose, for any business that does know how to provide a good experience.
Or do most of us really know how, and the magic is in caring enough to actually do it?
Hiding from actual contact
Posted on March 12, 2008
Filed Under Effective Websites, Marketing, Usability | 1 Comment
In my previous post I wrote about information missing from a website, or at least very difficult to find. The information was absolutely crucial to the organization and to the users of the website. It was missing not so much because the information wasn’t important, but because the website owners assumed that everyone already knew the answer.
Their mistake. Not only did I not know the answer, but the first person I asked, and who gave me the correct information, later began to wonder and went to the same website to (try to) confirm what he’d told me.
That was unfortunate, and probably not all that uncommon. After all, a similar website in a different country also managed to hide the same information four levels deep.
But there are a great many sites that leave out or obscure important information, and sometimes it seems to happen on purpose. All too often the hidden information is the very reason users have come to the site in the first place.
How to contact the business. Phone numbers. Email addresses. Contact forms.
It’s a simple question of usability. I would guess that contact information is one of the most common reasons people visit a website. As such, a link to contact info should be clearly provided up front—ideally near the top of the home page. Sort of a sincere way of saying, “Your visit is important to us and if you want to get in touch, damn it, we want to hear from you.”
In reality, what happens? If a company doesn’t already have your business, they make it easy to contact them. Links, phone numbers, forms, whatever you want. On the other hand, if it’s a situation where the company is likely to already have your business or they’ve already sold you their product, well, it’s perhaps not quite as important and so maybe you have to jump through some hoops.
That’s the way it is on many sites and we’ve all run into the problem. And as lowly consumers there may not be a great deal we can do about it.
Except this—be aware, be very aware that businesses do give at least some thought to their websites and if easy and useful contact information is not clearly provided, it’s because the business designed it that way. A conscious decision was made.
When is Tax Day?
Posted on March 4, 2008
Filed Under Effective Websites, Usability | 5 Comments
Everybody makes assumptions. But sometimes you’d think they’d know better.
Of course, I might be the only person who isn’t already sure of the answer, but what do you do if you want to confirm when your income tax return has to be filed? I’m a Canadian who has been living and working in the United States for several years. The only thing I was fairly certain of was that the deadline for filing taxes is different in the two countries. April 15th rang a bell, but was the bell Canadian or American?
I asked a co-worker. He said April 15th. Sounded good, but when it comes to getting your taxes done, it’s good to be paranoid—especially if you’re an “alien”. No problem. I went to the IRS website, thinking that the due date would appear prominently on the home page.
No.
The home page does tell me that “Form 4136-Fuels Credit… Farmers, Fishermen can e-file and pay between March 3-10″. Good to know, but there’s not even a link on the page that offers an obvious path to the answer I’m looking for. I.e., there’s no FAQ link and the “Help” page really wasn’t any help. There is a link to “Individuals” but I don’t see anything helpful there either.
To be absolutely fair I checked the equivalent site in Canada—The Canada Revenue Agency. I would be happy to report that they have the relevant date front and centre, but no such luck. I had to go from the home page to “All about your tax return” to “Important dates for 2007 (Individuals)” to “Filing due dates for the 2007 tax return”.
Back to the US. On the IRS site I finally found the “Due Date/Deadline” page in the “Frequently Asked Tax Questions And Answers”. Even there, believe it or not, there was no clear answer to my question. The closest they came was the statement more than halfway down the page that “Some forms and entities have due dates other than the well-known April 15th due date.”
In the end I went to Wikipedia and entered “tax day” in the search box. There I learn that “Tax Day is the common American slang term for the day that income taxes are due from most employed American residents, usually April 15th.”
Thank God for Wikipedia. Unless you’re wondering about Canada’s tax day (it’s April 30th).
But tell me—why does it so rarely seem to occur to anyone in government, or to anyone in business, to wonder (a) what are the very basic questions people want answered and (b) can we make sure to provide the answer on the home page or at least show what should be a clear path to the answer?
My co-worker who told me the American due date was April 15th? He was right, but then he started to wonder and he too went to the IRS site. And didn’t find the answer.
Flaunt your weaknesses?
Posted on March 3, 2008
Filed Under Fitness, Learning | 2 Comments
I’m a Flash developer. I’ve been doing the work for several years and I’m not nearly as good as I should be. “Good enough” doesn’t cut it, and “better than most” is hard to define and/or defend. When I say I’m not as good as I should be, I really mean not as good as I could be. And when you’re talking about what you do for a living, that’s just embarrassing.
I remember reading once about Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was fresh off the boat, but already a pretty impressive bodybuilder. He hadn’t won even his first Mr. Olympia. He soon became aware that his calf muscles weren’t developing as well as the rest of his body.
If you were a young bodybuilder with a lagging bodypart, you’d probably want to hide it, don’t you think? This is just one of those things that made Arnold the huge success he has been for the past thirty years. He was concerned and actually ashamed of his calf muscles and so he cut off his workout pants at the knees—so that everyone could see his weakness and so that he would always be conscious of the problem.
He ensured that he would be hyperaware of his most difficult bodypart. As a result he knew he would have to focus on fixing it. Compared to other muscles, calves are notoriously hard to build up but Arnold made absolutely certain that he would have to work them more than anything else.
He ultimately won the Mr. Olympia—the most prestigious bodybuilding title—seven times and was known both for his well-balanced physique and for his excellent calf development.
Now how do I go about cutting off my Flash workout pants, and do I have the guts to do it?
Green, green, we’re green they say…
Posted on February 20, 2008
Filed Under Ads, Marketing | Leave a Comment
When you’re still in the midst of it all, who’s to say when a tipping point has been reached? Twenty years, or maybe fifty years from now, we’ll know—but from this particular vantage point it seems we’re finally reaching a mass awareness of global environmental issues.
It’s been a long time coming. We had the Energy Crisis in the 1970s, significant concern over acid rain, holes in the ozone layer, and yet somehow it seemed that we never quite put it all together and took it seriously. Whatever happened, and it was undoubtedly a long, long series of various issues and events, there is now a mainstream green momentum that seems unstoppable.
It can’t be a bad thing that many, if not most, of our major ad agencies and their clients are looking for ways to get involved. Sure, we might sometimes sneer a bit at everyone jumping on the bandwagon. For example, last fall Brian Morrissey of Adweek posted on AdFreak: “But of course advertising, at its heart, is about feeding mass consumerism, which is the main cause of the pickle we’re in with global warming to begin with. The same agencies that are preaching about green initiatives would, I’m sure, fall all over themselves the next time there’s a review to make ads promoting gas-guzzling SUVs.” However, there’s no question that every agency has significant personnel who sincerely care about global warming, animal extinctions, resource depletion, and future generations. And now we’re starting to put some muscle into marketing the environment.
One real danger is that we’ll overdo the effort with a flood of showy but minimally effective marketing initiatives, effectively overdosing the public with too many servings of environmental awareness junk food. If so, we might find that like any sudden fashion, the interest will wane and give way to the next shiny distraction.
How do we use our considerable marketing expertise to tackle the problem efficiently? Will more and more websites, television ads, posters, and movies do the job? Is more always better? Or is that approach how we created the problem in the first place? More, more, bigger, bigger, until the audience just doesn’t care anymore?
Take any one promotion or campaign by itself and yes, we’re impressed. Good work. Today I saw the very clever and professional Wild Snowman by Avenue A | Razorfish. Beautiful. I sent the link to several co-workers. And I know it took real energy, talent, time, and money to produce that piece.
I also thoroughly enjoyed this ad from the “Unscrew America” campaign (a project of GSD&M’s Idea City):
But what if we have dozens and dozens of websites, ads, etc. like these? Too much of a good (or feel-good) thing? I think there’s a real danger here, with so many agencies all pounding away at the same message. The challenge is to recognize that we’re all on board, that there are a lot of us and that we need to focus on more directed efforts to have maximum effect.
For example, what if one ad agency offered to work with school districts to create environmental education promotions and activities? This would require working with teachers to determine approaches that would fit into and complement the existing curriculum and thus actually be used. Another agency could research the best ways to save energy in a variety of workplaces (offices, stores, factories) and provide employers with posters and other materials to help educate employees about practical ways they can contribute at work. These are just samples of ways in which any agency might specifically direct and achieve greater impact by not duplicating the work of others.
The bottom line is that environmental issues are important and we finally have the public’s attention, but we shouldn’t all spend our time producing award-winning work about turning off light bulbs.
The disappointment of the stork
Posted on February 18, 2008
Filed Under Ads, Flash, Television | Leave a Comment
In so many ways, this is a beautiful, affecting, and probably very effective television ad. Before I say more, take a look.
The story, visuals and music seduce the viewer, until the bittersweet ending delivers the payoff. The stork drops his head and the raindrop tears flow down the glass. How many of us watch and then wonder about ourselves and what we’re doing with our lives? Are we just disappointment and wasted potential? Might not any of us just for a moment consider how much more we’re worthy of?
It worked for me. I’ve been there—late nights, sometimes all night—yawning through the extra hours to get the job done, just grinding away at my computer, coding, testing, fixing. No-one there to appreciate the effort. Testing, coding, testing. There’s nothing at all glamorous about it. Sad, really.
But then I realize… I’ve created some of my best work and felt the greatest sense of accomplishment after those all-nighters. It’s what I do. When push comes to shove, I push on through to do the job right. I’m a Flash guy. I earn my pay and I’m proud of what I do.
Nothing wrong with that.
Whoa. Advertising Age also did a review of the Monster “Stork” ad—Yawning Production Flaw Keeps Ad Half a Second From Genius. I think perhaps they bent over backwards to find the fault they did.
A Twitter experiment — part 2
Posted on February 15, 2008
Filed Under Effective Websites, Flash, Twitter | 2 Comments
I started with 20 names—people whose books and sites had some influence on my own development as a Flash and website developer. Just over half of them were Flash people. Of the 20, how many would I find on Twitter?
The results surprised me:
- 13 of the 20 are currently on Twitter. Of these, only 1 has his updates “protected”, meaning that his updates are only accessible to his selected group.
- The 7 who are not on Twitter are all from the Flash side of the group.
- Of the 12 whose updates are publicly accessible, 11 had posted something on Twitter in the previous day. So almost all of the 13 are currently active.
What does it mean? If nothing else, it shows significant participation by people whom I’d describe as knowledgeable and influential in the world of website design and development. God knows there are many more options online than any of us have time for. A lot of folks might play with Twitter for a few days or weeks, but most of my test group who are on Twitter seem to be regular users.
I’d call it a pretty strong show of support from a group that knows the Internet intimately.
And, yes, I did sign up as a “follower” to the 12. A few of them are now following me. The experiment continues.