Chausse.org

While reading an article partly about the iPhone user experience, a thought dawned on me about the virtual keyboard.  Like many other people, I was afraid that the lack of tactile feedback would be disorienting and difficult to get accustomed to.  And, like most people who have moved to the iPhone, I’ve found that it really isn’t.  That got me thinking about the whole nature of “touch typing”. 

Think back to high school (those of you who actually took typing classes).  What was the “sales pitch” the teacher gave you about “touch typing”? Well, it made you more efficient by stopping you from having to repeatedly move your eyes from the keyboard to the screen (or, er, paper - at least when I was in high school).

Now think about the iPhone.  Where’s the keyboard? Where’s the screen? Your eyes never have to move more than 3 inches to jump between the two.  AND, with the large visual pop-up key feedback (the real stroke of genius), you can rely on your peripheral vision to ensure correct keypresses, and still never take your eyes off of the entered text.  Apple simply took a negative limitation of a mobile device (limited room for both display and input), and turned it into a positive - the ability to support a virtual keyboard by replacing tactile feedback with peripheral visual feedback.

Turning limitations into advantages is a hallmark of both great marketing and great user experience design.  Whenever you’re in the process of designing a transformative product like the iPhone, always be sure to ask yourself “What old rules no long apply?”

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Peter Elkind of Fortune just wrote a scathing article about Steve Jobs in Fortune Magazine, but this post isn’t really about this.  It’s about this included quote from former Apple CEO (and sacker of Steve Jobs), John Sculley:

“Apple was supposed to become a wonderful consumer products company. This was a lunatic plan. High tech could not be designed and sold as a consumer product.”

This wasn’t just an offhand comment to the press.  It’s committed for posterity in Sculley’s memoir: “Odyssey” (13 used copies are currently available for $0.01 if you’re looking for further inspiration.)

And this is why he really should have stuck with selling “sugared water”.

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A while ago I posted about Cecropia, a game company which had pioneered a totally unique video game called “The Act“.

Using a simple knob, the player smoothly adjusts the silent protagonist’s personality, causing the characters around him to react accordingly.   All the action takes place in ultra-smooth Disney-quality animation, with absolutely no UI elements - creating the first true interactive cartoon.

Unfortunately, Cecropia has had a real problem with “The Act” - namely, how to market it.  It’s far too short to make into a console game, and the knob (which most users don’t have) is pretty much critical to the experience, which would require a special hardware investment for most people.  The animation quality is far too high to package into some kind of Flash game.  It really would make a perfect arcade game.  Unfortunately, the market for this kind of arcade game died out in the early 90’s.

So, anyway, they’re taking their technology in a new direction, facing up to the realities of today’s gaming market, and trying their hand at interactive Flash “advergaming”.  They’ve put up a demo on Cecropia.com.  I won’t tell you how it works (figuring it out is part of the fun).  If you’re at all involved in interactive marketing, get in touch with these guys.  What they’re doing is truly groundbreaking, and they deserve a lot of attention (and money).  And, who knows, maybe someday The Act will see the light of day, in some form or another.

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For the life of me, I can’t figure out what the new Animal Planet logo is supposed to mean:

Ani Three Al Planet? What?

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When I was at Hill, Holliday I wrote a controversial blog post (still available on their site) called “The Danger of Design - How Not to Build an Online Community“. It was so controversial, I was actually called into the Executive VP’s office and told “You shouldn’t say stuff like this, this is what we’re trying to sell“.

I was just going through my archives and decided to re-read exactly what I wrote, and decide whether I still stand by it today.

Yes, I do. Absolutely.

When I wrote this, MySpace was the king of social networking. My argument was that MySpace’s “amateurish” design encouraged a sense of community. Nowadays, Facebook is king of the hill. Does this invalidate my argument?

Absolutely not, in fact it reinforces it. Facebook succeeds for the same reason MySpace did - and then takes it one step further.

Facebook succeeds because, like MySpace, it does not impose Design (again, that’s “capital-D Design”, as I describe in the original post) on the users. And it one-ups MySpace because it prevents its users from imposing Design on others.

Design (capital D design!) is polarizing. Design forces you to make a decision - does this product’s image represent me, or does it not? If you want to attract a certain demographic, you want your products’ Design to speak to exactly that demographic. That’s Marketing 101.

If you want to appeal to everyone, start undesigning.

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I used to work in advertising. Now I work in product design.

Advertising is kind of like product design in reverse. You take a product that already exists - that may have gone through hundreds of incarnations and several changes of direction - and you pick it apart, asking yourself:

“What is there about this product that just happens to be different from all of its competitors? What Big Idea can we convince people was the motivating force behind this product all along?”

Dunkin’ Donuts is a huge client for Hill, Holliday. Their idea is: “America Runs on Dunkin’”. It’s a GREAT idea. Dunkin’ Donuts stores are everywhere. People go to them when they need a pick me up during their day. An ad agency took a fast food chain that was selling a lot of coffee and donuts and saw it for what it really was: a gas station for human fuel.

Dunkin’ Donuts didn’t even realize what it was until an ad agency told them. The ad agency extracted a Big Idea from an existing product. That’s quite a skill, and for that I hold talented advertising people in the highest regard.

But advertising and its “idea archaelogy” strikes me as a tactic of last resort for a company that forgot to put the Big Idea in in the first place. And I’d much rather spend my time working with companies that need help putting their Big Ideas into new stuff, than with companies that need help digging Big Ideas out of old stuff.

But that’s just me.

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Microsoft has a major Web 2.0 PR problem. I’m an avid blogger and I had never heard of Windows Live Writer (which has been in Beta for over a year) until now. It’s out of Beta and I’m using it to write this very post, and I have to say, this is a killer “desktop” blogging tool. I’ve tried out several, and this is by far the best I’ve ever used. Do get it if you’re a Windows-using blogger.

If this program were developed by a small “Web 2.0″ startup, the blogosphere would be all over it, raving and gushing. But it’s by Microsoft, so it’s gone practically unnoticed.

Microsoft is a purveyor of big, expensive software like Windows and Office. Any time they release a small, inexpensive/free, but totally useful program (the very essence of Web 2.0), it just automatically feels like a “throwaway” app. I’m wondering how they can shake this sort of bias. Clearly creating the “Live” brand is a step in the right direction, but I think they have a way to go.

Is Web 2.0 not only about what is developed but who develops it? Spend enough time in the blogosphere and you realize that the conversations around products are often as much about the creators as the products themselves. Cults of personality are built up around single developers or small teams, and people root for the success (or failure) of the product based on these perceptions. This generates significant buzz.

Can a truly successful Web 2.0 app be made by a small anonymous team in a small division of a giant corporation? Just putting that out there… I don’t know the answer.

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This story of genuine customer appreciation is truly astonishing in this day and age.  If only every company were this thoughful (or, more accurately, if only every company empowered their employees to act this thoughtfully…)

Wow.

Prove to the corporate world that this sort of outstanding customer service is to be rewarded.  Go buy shoes from Zappos.com right now.

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Originally posted on HHCC.com on March 2nd, 2007

It’s always been a key tenet of advertising that you need to be where the people are. These days that means in online social networks like MySpace, FaceBook, and YouTube. Marketers have already learned this lesson, and are heading to these destination sites in droves. But does your brand have what it takes to take things to the next level? Can your website become a social destination itself?

If you’d like to give it a try, there are plenty of vendors who want to help you get there. KickApps offers instant gratification in the form of a free ad-supported MySpace/YouTube clone, which you can upgrade to a paid version. Customers include TAG Body Spray and National Lampoon. Vitrue offers a slicker interface, more clearly focused on consumer generated video, but doesn’t offer any free or trial versions. Vitrue powers sites from TBS, Lance Foods and the Cincinatti Bengals. ONEsite rounds out the trio, with solutions ranging from free to $1000/mo. iVillage, ClearChannel, and Sprint head up their roster.

While KickApps, Vitrue, and ONEsite have gained the most commercial momentum, there are countless startups in the space, including People Aggregator, CrowdFactory, and the matter-of-factly named Social Platform and Social Network Server.

Web sites without social content will certainly be the “brochureware” sites of tomorrow, but whether a full-fledged social network is an appropriate add-on for most corporate sites remains to be seen. If you want to give it a try though, there’s clearly no need to go it alone.

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Originally published on HHCC.com on Tuesday, March 6th, 2007

Oh, how the Internet changes everything. The simple idea of happy customers spreading your brand via word of mouth has morphed into people creating entirely new, wildly innovative websites to promote your goods in ways you would have never thought of. Case in point: BrowseGoods.com — a Google Maps-style interface for browsing — and buying — Amazon.com products.

Sites like BrowseGoods.com are possible because companies like Amazon have invested time and effort in developing programming APIs that enable anyone with a bit of time and skill to create new ways of finding and interacting with your product offerings. New, programming-free tools like Yahoo Pipes are trying to make the process even easier. So, are you thinking about opening up your site via an API?

Well, ponder this. Worldwide, there are over one billion people who use the Internet. Let’s assume that just one percent of those folks are fans of your brand. Next, let’s assume that just one percent of those people have the skills needed to build a website. Finally, let’s figure one percent of those people have really killer ideas for a new way to sell your stuff online.

That’s 1,000 online marketers with the ideas, skills, and passion to pitch your product in exciting, innovative ways. Now, how many of them are on your payroll? Two? Three? So, should they spend the next six months building two or three really cool marketing sites, or the foundation for 1,000?

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Originally published on HHCC.com on Thursday, March 8, 2007

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is creating a stir in the technology press with his plans to adapt Wikipedia’s “crowdsourcing” techniques to create a collaborative search engine — technically unnamed, but commonly referred to as Search Wikia. Details are sketchy, but presumably it will allow human beings to re-order search results so that the best stuff bubbles to the top — a la Digg.

Should Search Wikia overtake Google, it would completely rewrite the rules of online marketing. Right now, the web is the only medium in which you must create content which impresses machines — your creative ambtions held in check by the tyranny of Search Engine Optimization. With Search Wikia, no machines reviewing your content = no more SEO!

But will Search Wikia actually succeed? Why not, if Wikipedia has done so well?

As James Surowiecki explains in his book, “The Wisdom of Crowds“, the summation of small pieces of knowledge collectively held by a large enough group of people will nearly always converge on an objective truth. Hence, the success of Wikipedia. However, the key phrase here is “objective truth”. Wikipedia deals in truths. There is — theoretically, at least — an ideal answer to “What is a car?” But is there one true answer to “What is the correct ranking of the ten best pages about ‘car repair’?” Of course not. Your personal answer to this question depends upon what kind of car you have and what sort of repairs you’re interested in (and whether you’re looking for how-to advice or a repair shop).

Search Wikia will likely enjoy some degree of success, but just being “human powered” will not cause its search results to leap past Google in relevance. Given a problem with no perfect solution, the conclusions of a well thought out algorithm can easily compete with with the best efforts of human expertise (think Deep Blue).

So, continue to mind your term frequency and keyword densities, SEO will likely remain with us for a long time to come. And if you think about it, if human-powered and computer-powered search can provide pretty much equal results, why not go with the one in which the most ambitious company can work the system to get a leg up — surely that passion should count for something.

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Originally Posted on HHCC.com on March 12th, 2007

Craigslist pretty much defines the concept of “online community”. It is also the seventh most visited site on the web, with an employee headcount three orders of magnitude smaller than any other company in the top ten. If you’re trying to build your own online community, and want to take one lesson from Craigslist, it’s this: design does not build community.

That Craigslist has succeeded with a minimalist design is no secret to anyone who’s been around the net for a while. But could Craigslist have done as well if it had a slick, flashy design? Even if you discount practical issues such as load time and usability, the answer is an emphatic no.

The entire concept of “design” runs counter to the idea of community. Well, that’s not entirely true. Literally, design takes many forms - such as usability, universality, and affordance. All of these are important in any creative endeavor. What I’m talking about is — you know, Design — the kind of stuff that evokes such adjectives as “bold”, “edgy”, and “daring”.

Design tells users “this is who we are”, “this is what we believe in”, “this is how we want you to feel about being here” — all valuable messages for web sites looking to sell a product or an idea. But a true community should be deciding these things for themselves.

Think about where community “happens” in real life. It happens in church basements, school gymnasiums, and dilapidated town halls. It does not happen in art museums or casinos. When the venue screams “Look at me! Look at me!” people start paying more attention to it than to themselves, and the community becomes far less authentic.

Community happens when someone says “I matter here - what I do can make an impact”. MySpace succeeds because of its amateurish design, not in spite of it. It succeeds because someone looks at it and says, “I can make something that belongs here”. This is not the feeling you get from a site like MTV.com

So, what should you do when adding community elements to your web site — fire all your Photoshop and CSS gurus and build a Craigslist clone? Absolutely not. If you’re reading this blog, chances are you’ve got something to sell to someone. Your web site needs just the right amount of branding to keep people at least partially focused on that. Craigslist doesn’t need any branding because it’s a community about being a community — it has absolutely no other reason for being. Your site (presumably) does. But your design should subtly nudge your vistors into what you want them to focus on, not beat them over the head with it.

Don’t let this “no design needed” idea fool you into thinking that building an online community is easy — it’s extremely difficult. Especially because it involves skills that marketers tend to find very challenging — the ability to listen and adapt to what your community wants (eBay is extremely skilled at this) and the patience to let your community grow organically. Community requires culture, and culture takes time to develop. Compare the quality of the commentary on Flickr, which grew slowly, to the infantile gibberish found on YouTube, which skyrocketed to success overnight.

If building online community is important to you — and it should be, if you want to remain relevant in 20XX — check your ego at the door and remember that you’re building your brand’s church basement, not its church.

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Originally published on HHCC.com, March 19 2007

Things seem to repeatedly come full circle in the Internet world. Flash and Ajax technology brought the power of desktop applications to web pages, and now Adobe has introduced a new technology, called “Apollo“, which brings the power of Flash and Ajax web applications to… the desktop!

Sound silly? Actually, it makes a lot of sense, and it could mean big things for interactive marketing.

While the idea of bringing desktop-like web applications back to the desktop sounds a bit confusing, it’s really a pretty significant development. No matter how “desktop-like” a web application is, there are several limitations that exist (and for good reason):

• Web applications can’t interact with your file system
• Web applications are useless when you’re not online
• Web applications can’t be associated with file types (for example, you can’t double-click a “.doc” file and have Google Docs show up

Apollo will address all these issues and more, including some major development productivity bonuses. Check out their demo of an Apollo-powered eBay application.

OK, since this is an advertising blog, what’s the message to the CMO’s? Well, by removing the typical barriers to web application adoption, Apollo could be the vehicle which finally brings advertising-supported applications to the masses. I’m sure Google is keeping a close eye on it for their Google Apps.

Also, while most web applications are focused on entertainment or socializing, people use desktop applications to really get things done — and they’re always looking for better solutions. Offering them a better way, with your name on it (say, a Timex-branded to-do list, or an NBC-branded video editor) can go a long way toward building brand loyalty.

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Iceberg On Demand is an Irish web startup which will enable users to build Enterprise-class web applications - via a Web 2.0 UI, natch - without writing a line of code. What’s really clever is that they’ll allow you, as a - well, developer’s not the right word, is it? - to sell applications that you have built using the service. The final end user pays a per-seat fee which is presumably to be split with the application’s creator.

This is, without a doubt, a useful tool. But I think what the company will find is a problem of perception. In my experience, “enterprise” software is almost invariably more clunky and awkward than “regular” software, yet it often costs orders of magnitude more. My conclusion: Companies like spending a lot of money on “enterprise” tools. Illogical? Yes, but humans are funny that way. Just as people feel good about themselves when they spend $5 on a bottle of water, companies feel good about themselves when they plunk down a good chunk of change for an “enterprise solution”, when a kid in Croatia could have cooked up a better custom built solution for $150.

Nonetheless, I wish these guys luck. While the blue chips may never bite, the tiny startups who can’t afford to play psychological games with their money, will - intelligently - eat this stuff up.

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I was shocked to find out today, after an extended absence from tracking her blog (or most blogs - I’ve been too busy to keep up with my RSS feeds), that Kathy Sierra, of “Creating Passionate Users“, was the victim of death threats, and has suspended work on her blog. This is so unfortunate, for a great number of reasons. Obviously, her personal safety should be everyone’s #1 priority, but her voice and style have always been unique and inspiring. By silencing herself, she is leaving a gaping void in the world of technology marketing. I only hope she can find the courage and necessary support to continue spreading her message and style, regardless of the medium. Best wishes, Kathy….

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Seagate appears to have built an entire branding campaign around one of the most common (and most annoying) grammar errors on the web. Either that or it’s a clever play on words that I’m too dense to understand.

FreeAgent. Your On.

I saw it in a banner ad and figured it was a one-time goof up, but no, it’s plastered all over their main web site, a promotional microsite, and even in a press release.

Taglines like this don’t come out of nowhere. Usually a whole lot of thought goes into them. Could a grammatical slip like this make it past an ENTIRE company? Wow.

I emailed their PR contact, Erin Hartin to ask if I wasn’t getting the joke. I’ll let you know if I hear back.

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Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz recently sent an email to CEO Jim Donald, which outlined what he felt was the commoditization of Starbucks. Passion for a brand is driven by small details. Efficiency has a tendency to erase these details. Here are some specific examples given by Schultz:

• Automatic espresso machines “removed much of the romance” of the espresso brewing experience - and, more practically, their height made it nearly impossible for the customer to see what was going on anyway.
• Vacuum-sealed “flavor lock” bags made it efficient to ship fresh coffee beans to all 13,000 stores, but eliminated a lot of the pervasive aroma in stores. Of course, scent is the sense most susceptible to persuasion, though it’s difficult to brand - unless you’re selling, say, coffee.
• Removing coffee presses and similar merchandise from the shop streamlined the process of buying their core product (coffee) but made the store feel boring and sterile.

The lesson? Think hard about what is genuinely a flaw, and what makes your business an authentic experience. Victoria’s Secret models are commodities, Audrey Hepburn was an authentic experience.

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Why yes, that is a song about masturbation being played in the latest Wendy’s ad.

What would Dave Thomas think?

Now, back in the day, Wendy’s had some of the best ads, even if you exclude the “Where’s the Beef” mega-meme.

Of course, poorly chosen music in fast food ads in nothing new. A few years back, McDonald’s ran an ad plugging their french fries, using The Shins’ “New Slang” for background music. A brief excerpt from the lyrics - “New slang when you notice the stripes, the dirt in your fries. Hope it’s right when you die, old and bony.”

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It’s good to see dadaism is alive and well in America. These guys have responded to utter absurdity in the most rational way possible - with more absurdity.

And for those who still think that misinterpreting the ads as bombs makes any sense whatsoever, check out this video and tell me that again in a straight face. Vandalism? Maybe. Bomb hoax? Not remotely.

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Wow, what a weird, weird day in Boston. My coworker John got in two hours late due to one of those… things. And we all had a great view of the insanity from our Hancock Tower office. It’s very strange looking straight out your window at news helicopters.

Anyway, what’s pissing me off about this whole situation is that the media keeps refering to the light up viral advertisements as “hoaxes”. Hoaxes of what? Bombs? They contain batteries, as might a bomb. They contain a light-up cartoon character, as might a… oh, wait. Bombs don’t usually consist primarily of a light up cartoon character.

These guerilla ads are not hoaxes. Perhaps they are graffiti. Perhaps they were poorly planned and executed, but there is absolutely nothing “hoax” about them. A hoax is something designed to look like something else. These were battery powered illuminated signs designed to look like battery powered illuminated signs.

On the local news, they showed a local art student, who placed some of the signs, doing a “perp walk” into a police car. Mayor Menino threatened perpetrators with 2-5 years prison time for each device placed. I wonder how much time someone would get for scattering throwies.

Sure, it’s natural to be suspicious of unusual devices located around a city, but are you telling me that not one bomb squad member at any of the 28 locations was capable of realizing that the device (again, consisting primarily of an illuminated cartoon character) was not a bomb? Apparently, 9 other cities had no problem doing this.

Gee, could all the indignation of the local authorities just possibly be redirected anger at their own foolishness?

Weird, weird day…

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