Influential Marketing Blog

Blog Marketing Skill #1: Master the Ego

Blogs are all about ego.  Anyone who disagrees is just kidding themselves.  Of course, ego is a word that comes with all sorts of connotations.  Many people assume it is bad.  To a degree, marketing has always been about ego, because it is a necessary element of each of your personalities.  However, here is the biggest flawed assumption about ego: having an ego is not the same thing as being egotistical.  Ego, in itself, is not bad - it's natural.  The reason I am reminded of this fact now is that Guy Kawasaki recently launched a site called Alltop.com that has been generating some great (and heated) conversation online.  The site is essentially a simplified aggregation of blogs categorized in a several different categories including fashion, green, celebrities, and "ego" among many others. 

The conversation basically breaks into three points of view:

1. This is nothing new and is available through other tools like Netvibes or PopUrls
2. This fosters the kind of A-lister vs. other bloggers rhetoric that Guy himself has railed against
3. Offense at being included in the group provocatively titled "Egos"

Personally, I think the site offers one of the simplest UI models that you can have, whether is just took a day to build or is more complicated than that.  I wish our Blogfeeds http://blogfeeds.ogilvypr.com (a similar concept to Alltop) were built on an interface like this.  But obviously there are probably other solutions out there to accomplish this as well.  Which really brings me to the title of this post ... blog marketing skill #1.  Whether you are a blogger or do outreach to bloggers, you will rapidly have to learn that ego is all important.  I would argue that many of the most commonly cited blog outreach campaigns where products were offered, such as the Microsoft Laptop Giveaway or the Nikon D80 program as two case studies were mainly criticized negatively by those who had bruised egos from not being included.

What Guy knows about blog ego is that having one of his categories for the site titled in this way is sure to stand out and get people's reactions.  Along the way, his site (which may very well be only slightly different from other competitive sites in terms of functionality) gets a lot more attention, conversation and traffic.  Since the site's launch, Guy has also been actively commenting on posts, and inviting bloggers to share their thoughts (full disclosure, he also sent me a note - but I had this post half written over the weekend anyway).  All of this adds up to what anyone would have to consider a successful launch into the blogosphere of a new service.  He has used his reputation to build a buzz, got some top "egos" writing about the site and created just enough controversy to make the site memorable.  Don't let ego get in the way of letting you see the obvious marketing lesson here.

Guest Post: Creativity 2.E

The Evolution of Creativity is Underway.  Which Side Are You On?
By David Armano

Are you a Planner who thinks about design?  Maybe you are a designer who obsesses about the business impact of your designs.  Or you might be an Information Architect who thinks about motion, transitions, multimedia, and uses tools like storyboarding and visual scenarios.  Or how about a Developer who comes up with the “big idea”? 

If you haven’t noticed, creativity is evolving. 

The perception of creativity itself is slowly but surely transitioning into a mutated and adapted life form.  In the traditional world, a “creative” person usually meant someone with savant-like talents excelling in a specific creative discipline defined by fairly concrete parameters.  Copywriters wrote copy.  Art Directors directed art.  There are still talented visual designers who can make anything look good.  Brilliant copywriters who can come up with that magnificent tagline which stops you in your tracks.  And don’t forget about smart, methodical Information Architects who devote their existence to usability and being an advocate for the end user.

These skills, talents and abilities are needed—no doubt about it.  But what’s also needed is the evolution of them—the next iteration.  But what does this look like?  An Information Architect who completely grasps Human Computer Interaction but can also think fluidly—can do things like rapidly create prototypes, facilitate user testing, understand visual design and occasionaly write copy.  This kind of individual possesses a multi-dimensional creative brain that has evolved over time.   

This type of mind is capable of creating customer experiences which provide competitive advantage in a fast moving world where customers are increasingly calling the shots.   

In this world marketing/advertising/technology/and customer experience all blur together.  So what does this mind look like?  I have a perspective:

With consumer behavior evolving toward a more empowered status—the definition of creativity has shifted from one-dimensional skills to a four-dimensional type of creativity that blends logical thinking with creative problem solving.  Individuals possessing this “New Creative Mindset” blend Analytical, Expressive, Curious and Sensual qualities into their thinking process.  The result is a holistic approach to creativity that is effective across multiple touch points and experiences.

Can an Information Architect embody this kind of mindset?  What about an Account Director?  I think as human beings we are all capable of thinking like this.  But as designers, communicators, marketers and creators of experiences—for us, it’s even more critical to become multi-dimensional creative thinkers and problem solvers.  I’m not the only one talking about this.  Tim Brown from IDEO evangelizes “Design Thinking” and “T-shaped People”.  Both principals are related.  Design Thinking encourages Designers to think past aesthetics and design simple solutions for complex problems.  T-shaped people have a core competency but branch out into other areas and can do them well (thus forming a T).  And of course there is the new kind of collaboration that comes with this—where we combine people with diverse skill sets who often times speak very different languages but need to come together to make their collective and diverse skills work together.  This kind of collaboration sounds easier than it actually is, because when you get a few T-shaped people together, they tend to “play in each other's sandbox”.  Translation?  Ego’s need to be unlearned.  In short, it’s not just about T-shaped people. 

It’s about how we work together to create something that people will want to use, experience and ultimately—compel them to take action. 

You could call this kind of collaboration—T-Shaped Creativity:

I don’t think that any of this is very new.  It’s been happening for a while.  In my time spent at agency.com, we developed pageless prototypes, pushed technology like Flash + Ajax and created human-centered “web applications”.  But with the rapid and pervasive nature of Web 2.0 going mainstream—it’s becoming mandatory to be able to think and execute like this.  Need proof?  Take a look at this collection of thoughts + work from a recent grad of the IIT Institute of Design.  Notice anything about how he approaches his work?  He’s a “designer”, but aesthetics are only one small part of how he exercises his creativity.  In fact, this brand of creativity is more like creative problem solving vs. the way many people still traditionally view creativity.  And what about the teams?  Aside from this evolved creative individual, what kind of team is needed to drive the next generation of communication, interaction and marketing engines?  There’s not a clear answer to this question, but signs are heading toward smaller interdisciplinary teams composed of individuals possessing complimentary skill sets and overlapping talents.


So where does this all go from here?  If you feel like you fit the bill, you’re probably thinking about how marketable you are right now.  And remember, we’re not talking about a “jack of all trades” here.  “Creativity 2.E” is not about doing everything and learning every application under the sun.  It’s about being curious, empathetic, analytical, insightful and expressive all at the same time.  It’s about being willing to do anything to get into the heads of your customer/user.  It’s about adopting new tools, techniques and artifacts to help make your case for creating the right kinds of communications, interactions and experiences.  So what to do if you’re feeling left out? 

Resist the urge to become defensive and territorial—put that energy into developing an acute sense of curiosity and optimism.  Become like a child. 

Participate in the emerging media.  Start a blog, update your site or if you don’t have one—set it up.  Dive into the digital social communities and be willing to do what your customers do.  Try methodology that you might not ordinarily consider.  PowerPoint isn’t just for presentations.  Flash isn’t just for motion.  Move past boxes, arrows, colors, layouts, charts, funnels, and metrics.

Creativity 2.E is both old and new—and like evolution, will continue to change and modify over time.  The question is will we?

David Armano is VP, Experience Design for the Chicago office of digital agency Critical Mass.  He also authors  the blog, Logic + Emotion.

Influential Marketing Blog Featured in Wall Street Journal

Many of you may have already caught this yesterday, but this blog was cited in the Recommended Reading  section of the Wall Street Journal yesterday in an article by Keith Huang.  As Jay Berkowitz from Ten Golden Rules shares on his team blog, my blog was one of 60 resources that they recommended to the journalist as part of their reading list and was selected from that list as a recommended resource for companies looking to "optimize their online presence."  Here's the writeup:

Influential Marketing Blog, rohitbhargava.typepad.com
Rohit Bhargava's blog is intellectual and educational. In a recent post, he discusses the art of stamp collection and how, even today, many smaller countries use stamps as a key marketing tool. He writes, 'Next time you pass a post office in any country, pay attention to how they are using their philately to promote the country, cater to tourists, or commemorate moments of significance.'

It is a great media hit and to be selected from a list of what I am guessing were 60 stellar resources is flattering.  I'm in awe at being included among the other bloggers and authors mentioned in the article - including Seth Godin, Steve Rubel, Matt Cutts, John Battelle, Chris Anderson, Joseph Jaffe, and Danny Sullivan. Thanks to Jay for including me in this great list, and to Keith for selecting to include my blog!

5 Web2.0 Sites That Don't Forget About Usability

Several years ago I wrote a two hundred page thesis for a Masters program all about user interfaces.  The premise was that simplicity and usability were guiding principles to making any online site successful (seems obvious, I know, but it didn't use to be).  Since the late nineties, the importance of usability had slowly been getting more and more important.  If the beginning of the web was about presence (look, we have a website!) then in the late nineties and early 2000s, the focus shifted to improving that experience and making it more usable and intuitive.  So, here we are in 2007 and the new buzz is Web2.0 and interfaces that are focused on helping people to collaborate with one another and network.  The largest social community online is MySpace - and every month new sites are launched promising the latest and greatest in technology to make your friend circle wider, your life more productive or your blog more popular.  The only problem is, many of these sites are losing focus on the power of having a good and usable interface. 

MySpace is the easiest example of the devolution of user interface quality, but neither Facebook or Second Life offer what anyone could call an easily usable experience (though after using each for enough time, most users likely get over it).  I see new sites every week with basic usability problems such as poor navigation, unclear menu items, confusing design, unreadable text, and extra steps.  So it's easy to wonder if, in the craze of Web2.0, we have lost sight of the importance of a good user interface?  Thankfully, there are a few sites that still have great interfaces, and they seem to be getting recognized for it.  Here are just a few (of the hundreds I have seen) that I would single out as being great examples for anyone out there putting together a site and needing a guide on interfaces that work:

1. 37Signals - The company behind services like Basecamp, Highrise, and Backpack, they are probably the ultimate company to watch in terms of creating an amazing interface that makes it easy to work better.  Basecamp is the one site and service that I have recommended to the most people - and one that I am using extensively to coordinate research for my book.  They even have their own book on building successful web applications.
2. Wufoo - I have written about this site before, but it's worth mentioning in this list only because they make something that used to be extremely tough (creating forms for websites) into an easy drag and drop experience.  Wufoo makes forms sexy, and adds good reporting on the backend. 
3. Harvest - As someone who has spent years working in agencies, I am used to timesheets.  No aspect of agency life is as universally hated - but the reason most people despise it is because of the systems companies have in place to track it.  Harvest is an alternative that offers an easy to use interface to track time, and reinvents this hated task into something much easier to do. 
4. Picnik - A relatively new site, Picnik is already getting rave reviews from all kinds of sites, including one of the most influential ... TechCrunch.  The site lets you edit your photos with easy fixes and save the edited versions.  Offering a much simpler interface than Photoshop, the site has lots of little features (like a running tracker telling you the pixel dimensions of your edited image) that make it a pleasure to use for editing photos.
5. Flickr - This is the only site that makes my list of great interfaces which you might call "mainstream" with millions of photos, dedicated users and a growing community.  The site is not only one of the largest photo sharing communities online, it also offers lots of tools like photo clouds and tags to search and organize images.  All that stuff is great, but what makes it really useful is that it can be used by all members of the family - even the non-techie ones.

What each of these sites have in common is an understanding of what their users are trying to do and an interface designed to help them do it.  Web2.0 shouldn't just be about finding new ways for technology to let people collaborate.  It should also mean that we don't forget all the lessons we have learned over the last ten years about how people use the web and the importance of usability.

How To Find Sites Faster Online Without Using Google

Google is great when you are searching for a single webpage or source of information.  Many of my searches still fit that category - so I'm a big Google user.  The problem is, more and more often I find myself searching not for a single page, but for a web site.  A lot of times that may be a new website or a popular website that many people have found useful.  When it comes to a search like this, Google is not so helpful.  Here are a few reasons Google doesn't work so well in these situations:

• Newer websites seldom appear highly because they have not been out long enough to get ranked and assessed in Google's algorithm
• The most useful content is sometimes not optimized and therefore appears too low in results to ever be found
• Crawler brings back any page, and not just the homepage of sites, not useful if you want to find a site instead of a page
• There is no popularity index to see what sites or pages people recently found useful (pagerank is based on links and clicks)
• Using keywords and algorithms is sometimes not as powerful as using tags and keywords other people have assigned to content online

Instead, I use del.icio.us. Rather than using an algorithm, you can use del.icio.us to "search" using the tags that people have assigned to links.  Each link has a rating based on the number of others who have also saved that link. The difference is, you are finding sites instead of individual web pages.  For an example of the difference, here's an experience I recently had when seeking new online food communities to check out:

Google search for "online food community web2.0"
(Useful sites returned in first page: Tablefinder - if only I could read Swedish)

del.icio.us tag search for "food+community+web2.0"
(Useful sites returned in first page: foodio54, OpenBottles, Cork'd, Tastefora, GroupRecipies, OpenSourceFood, Imcooked, Chowhounds, TheDailyPlate)

Just this week I have already used del.icio.us to find usage statistics for women online, popular new online food and cooking communities (example above), and a list of green blogs.  Each search was much faster on del.icio.us and yielded useful results much more easily.  This is the power of using tagging and social bookmarking to find information online.  It is also the reason why the next time you seek information online you might want to start on a site like del.icio.us instead of with Google.

What Most Social Networks Do That People Hate ...

I sign up for a lot of social networks.  Part of my job involves reviewing new sites and knowing what is being launched and as a result I end up signing up for 2-3 new sites a week.  Of course, I don't actively use all those sites - but for those that I have signed up for recently, as well as the dozen or so that I do actually use, they all seem to make the same mistakes.  I had a conversation this past week about some of these choices and it turns out I'm not alone in my frustration.  So if you are launching a social network, or have some input into making one better, here are just a few of the things that people hate.  Avoid them and you're already on your way to standing above more than a few of the social networks being launched out there. 

1. Pretending users don't belong to other networks. If you sold breakfast cereal, would you believe that your customers would just walk into a store, buy your cereal and walk out?  Of course not.  People belong to multiple networks and yours is just one of them.  If you really want to stand out, offer them a way to integrate their experience and take a page from online retail.  When I hit Target.com - I can log in with my Amazon.com username and password.  If they can use the same data, so can you.
2. Creating custom email messages and inboxes. Just about every social network does this.  When I get a message in Facebook, I get a useless link that tells me I have a message.  To read it, I need to click on the link.  We are all used to email.  Just figure out a way to send us an email with the details when something happens.  When someone comments on a blog post, I get an email from Typepad with the full comment.  That's useful.  Having to access ten sites every day to pick up custom messages isn't.
3. Forgetting about basic usability. Many social networks do many things, and they are usually designed for many uses.  Basic usability is the one thing that gets left behind.  MySpace has the most confusing navigation and design since dotcom retail sites in 2000.  Facebook has secret links that are impossible to navigate to (like when you have friend requests and you are logged in and can't find where to accept them).  Ning.com lets you join lots of networks, but I haven't yet found a way to easily navigate back and forth between the many networks I belong to.  These are common tasks and users are having trouble with them.  To improve, social networks should take a page from online retail sites and learn how to rework their interface for the key calls to action.  If that's too hard, just sit and watch 2-3 relatively new users struggle to navigate their way through your site.  You'll get a list of issues to fix out of that, I promise.
4. Forcing unnecessary data collection. When first joining a social network, there is nothing worse than being forced to fill out an endless form with all sorts of data that they don't need and you don't want to give.  Just ask me for a username, password and email (ok, and age if you're afraid teenagers might infiltrate your network).  The rest can come later, if I actually like and start using your network.

Anything else you want to tell your social network?  Let's all collaborate and make them less painful together.

5 Ways To Improve Your Blog

Blogs are an evolution, and keeping it up is a big commitment.  Usually you end up focusing on just creating new content on some sort of consistent interval, but the biggest problem with keeping a blog up to date is revising all those elements you once thought you would use, but now realize are not useful at all.  This is my 400th blog post on this blog, and I recently rebranded the blog slightly to make the name simpler.  Now I am thinking about to carry through the theme of simplicity to improve the user experience on the blog even further.  Here's my list of ways that I plan to rethink the interface of my blog or have elements I have already replaced:

1. Kill your about page - About pages usually suck.  And if you use the Blogger platform for your blog, chances are they suck even worse than usual.  The problem with these pages is that they are static, offer little information and usually have no personality.  My solution was to replace my about page with what I called my Social Media Bio.  For me, that was what I would really want people to see if they clicked on my name or wanted to know more about me.
2. Replace trackbacks with blog reactions (or something similar) - Here's the problem with trackbacks - they are optional and so only usually account for one fourth (or less) of all links to your blog.  For example, Technorati lists this blog as having 786 unique blogs linking to it.  To date, I have received only 214 trackbacks.  And these days, 50% or more of all trackback requests I get are spam.  To augment the trackbacks, I put a "blog reactions" counter for Technorati links on the bottom of each blog post as well.  There is always a big gap between that number and the number of trackbacks (usually zero).  I am considering getting rid of trackbacks altogether.
3. Rethink your blog roll - My blog roll are blogs that I admire and read, but it's very tough for me to keep it up to date.  At this point, I think that about 50% of the blogs that I read consistently are not on my blogroll at all.  Finding the time to update this is difficult, and at the moment I feel it's incomplete.  I am tempted to remove it altogether or figure out a better way of having it more automatically update based on what I am actually reading.  Perhaps I need to aggregate my feeds and publish those into a page like others do.
4. Lose the stupid or outdated blog badges - When you first start your blog, you tend to put in a lot of silly things on the sidebar to take up the space.  One of those was the "my blog is worth ..." widget - but there are many others.  Going through your blog to find these dated badges and getting rid of them is a great idea.  Especially because when newer readers make it to your blog and don't know that you have had these up for some time, it can make your blog look dated.
5. Improve the blog header and branding - I rebranded the name of the blog but have not yet really updated my header with a new custom look.  I plan to do that very soon and hopefully create a stronger brand for the blog in the process.  That tends to be one of the most difficult elements for non-designer bloggers, as it requires me to get someone with design skill (ie - not yourself) to work on a new identity.  Look out for that to come soon.
6. Optimize the sidebar - Based on hearing from users about how they navigate the site and popular links, I have a better idea of what sidebar elements are most useful.  I have not yet put that into use in optimizing the order of the sidebar, but this is going to be a priority as I try to make the experience better and more "sticky" to keep readers on the blog for more time and help them find older content that would be useful or relevant to what they are looking for.

Those are just a few thoughts on what I plan to change or have already changed on my blog to simplify and improve the experience.  So let me know what has frustrated you about this blog or about the interfaces of blogs in general ... I'm open to suggestions.

3 Things We Need (Besides the iPhone) To Revolutionize Mobile Marketing

As writeups of experiences with the iPhone cover blogs and traditional media today - many marketers will likely be reconsidering what their mobile marketing strategy should be in a world bound to evolve rapidly now that the iPhone is in people's hands.  John Bell, the head of our Digital Influence group, has a great post about how we have been helping our clients to craft a mobile influencer strategy for some time now.  The promise of mobile marketing has been far removed from what has actually been possible in the past.  The iPhone may bridge some of this gap, with it's integrated web browser, built in ability to access Wi-fi hotspots, and other features.  The device, however, is not the only thing holding mobile marketing back.  Here are are a few other changes we need to see before marketers can maximize what they get out of mobile marketing.

1. Time Based Opt In - The way most opt-in's work is that an individual company seeks my permission to market to me, and once they have it they can send me messages at any time based on their own schedule.  We all know this comes with wastage as many of the messages will likely reach me at a time when I am not interested in them.  For email, this is not as much of a problem as I can just save it for later.   Mobile marketing is about immediacy - and therefore less suited to this model of opt-ins.  What we need is a time based opt-in where I can indicate my status and openness to marketing messages as easily as I change my status on an instant messenger window.  This works for consumers and for marketers - ensuring the messages arrive at a point when consumers are most likely to act on them.
2. My Marketing Profile - Unfortunately, delivering messages at the right time doesn't necessarily mean they will be relevant.  Right now, users can create profiles on social networking sites, indicate news preferences to get the most relevant news, and otherwise create profiles on thousands of sites to save their preferences.  What people can't usually set is their marketing preferences.  Of course, you can opt in to messages from individual marketers, but what about opting into messages from every company in a mall that you frequent, or all middle eastern restaurants in Brooklyn?  Setting these parameters into my profile lets me opt into messages that have the most relevance.  The difficulty is the level of coordination (sometimes between competitors) that would be required to make this work.
3. Synchronization of Mobile And Retail - As anyone who has ever downloaded a marketing offer to their mobile phone knows, the entire process falls apart if you go into a retail location to redeem the offer and the staff are unaware of the promotion or how to honor it.  This is a large stumbling block and one that will continue to hinder the adoption of mobile as a channel to receive marketing messages.  Consumers need to feel that what they get via mobile is integrated into a real life experience (where appropriate), or mobile marketing will always need to fight the same credibility battle.

We can do effective mobile marketing without these advances, of course, but getting a model for solving some of these challenges will help the industry as a whole to get smarter and more interactive about mobile marketing that people actually want to get.  Hopefully the iPhone is just the beginning of a new era in mobile ...

technorati tags: iphone mobilemarketing mobile sms advertising marketing ads apple
del.icio.us tags: iphone mobilemarketing mobile sms advertising marketing ads apple
icerocket tags: iphone mobilemarketing mobile sms advertising marketing ads apple

Hellmann's Takes Search For "Real Food" Into Blogosphere

Today the Wall Street Journal published a piece about our upcoming branded entertainment campaign that we are officially launching tomorrow for Hellmann's in partnership with Yahoo! Food.  Not surprisingly, the site is going to be supported by a large online ad buy across Yahoo and we are doing lots of related PR activities with the host, Dave Lieberman (Food Network TV Host).  One of the most interesting parts of the campaign (aside from the fact that the show is being produced entirely for the web), is going to be the way that we are taking the search for real food beyond the 12 weekly video episodes and events around the country and into the blogosphere.  Each week, our team will be working with Dave to choose a single blog post and an image from a Flickr gallery that explores the theme of "real food" and republishing this content on the official campaign blog (with the original author's permission and direct links back to the original post or image, of course).

With this piece of the campaign, we are hoping to include conversations from blogs around the web to add to the dialogue of what real food means to real people.  There is already a good amount of discussion about this topic and this a great way for us to get more content into the site while also providing a way for individual bloggers and photographers get more visibility for their content.  Unfortunately for me, I can't participate in this part of it (and trust me, I'd love to get all the eyeballs from Yahoo Food visiting my blog).  Luckily for you, most of you won't be limited by this.  So send me a link to your best content (blog post or Flickr image) that describes what real food means to you (or wait until our site launches tomorrow and you can post this online) and each week we'll choose a new one to feature on the homepage of our site.  Also, check back each week for the new video episodes to follow Dave's journey around America searching for real food.  Good luck!

Full Disclosure: I'm part of the panel that will be choosing the post and images to feature each week.

Rebranding And Announcing A New Book Deal

This blog quietly turned two years old about two weeks ago - and though it was tempting to do a post just about that, there was a good reason for waiting.  Today I have two announcements - one relatively small and one relatively big.  The first small one, is that I have rebranded this blog to drop the "Interactive" from the title.  Over the course of two years I have realized that my passion is writing about marketing ideas in all forms, not just marketing that happens online or fits into a category people might consider "interactive."  Those of you who have seen my business cards or email signature already know that the promotional URL I started using for the blog is www.influentialmarketingblog.com anyway (though I am still using http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com as the primary link due to all the Technorati links that URL has now).  Rebranding to simplify also makes it a lot easier to include the blog in your blogroll without running over two lines - which I have had several complaints about!  If you are already linking to this blog and it's not too much effort, I would appreciate if you could change your link to read "Influential Marketing" or "Influential Marketing Blog."  No need to update the URL.

The second announcement is somewhat larger.  I am going to be writing a book focused on marketing authenticity and social media and am thrilled to announce that McGraw-Hill has acquired the book and Herb Schaffner (Publisher in the Business Group at McGraw-Hill Professional) will be editing.  Aside from the chance to take my writing to the next level with a more ambitious project, there are a number of other things that excite me about this partnership.  McGraw-Hill is well known and respected as the company behind publishing BusinessWeek magazine as well as a large number of books for education, business, and many other categories.  They have a huge global operation and have marketing and sales people on the ground in more than 30 countries around the world.  In short, they are the perfect publisher for this project with a large distribution network and plenty of ability to promote the book in the market. 

I plan to solicit plenty of feedback over the next few months and hope to count on many of you who read this blog consistently for candid opinions (positive and negative) to help improve the final product.  Of course, I'll be giving you full credit for any contributions you make (I believe blog karma extends to book karma).  Incidentally, if you are interested in the process behind getting a deal like this together, I would suggest checking out Tim Ferriss' post about it on Noah's blog.  Though I didn't follow exactly the same road as Tim, I certainly hope to duplicate his success and he was a great help to me in getting this project together (also, we are both with the same smart agent - Steve Hanselman).  Over the next few months, I will be rolling out several other online companion efforts around the book.  Stay tuned for more details to come ...

Is Keeping Your "Classic" Version a Necessity?

Launching a site quickly around an idea to claim a first mover advantage is rapidly becoming a mantra for new Web 2.0 startup sites.  As new social networks and other types social media tools on websites pop up - many are simply exploring an idea quickly to see if it sticks, and aiming to put in more work to redesign or add features at a later stage.  Added to this is the large number of sites that have grown their audiences before the rise of Web2.0 competitors (and the increasingly formulaic design of Web 2.0 sites).  The result?  Redesigns are inevitable.  Technorati and Yahoo are just two of the many sites that have gone through recent redesigns to update an interface.  The only problem is, no matter how bad an interface is - once someone starts using it in that form, they are used to it.  The classic example is the keyboard, which was originally designed to slow down typists by placing common keys as far apart as possible.  Of course, people adapted, and every attempt now to replace the QWERTY keyboard has failed, despite the fact that new designs may be superior in every way.  Sometimes what people are used to wins despite every logical reason to switch.

If you put the rising number of sites going through redesigns together with the fact that older users will always have adapted to your old interface - you have the New Coke vs. Coke Classic conundrum.  For most of these sites, the new version sticks around (unlike Coke), however the necessity of keeping your "classic" version will be increasingly common as sites allow their longstanding users to continue using an older version of an interface that they are more comfortable with.  Yahoo has done this very well with their upgrades to Yahoo Mail - I am still running the "classic" version for my personal account.  Technorati has tried to take some steps towards this with http://s.technorati.com, but hasn't quite succeeded as some features users used to use often seem missing now (even if they are not).  In either case, the real question seems to be how long is reasonable to keep a "classic" version of an interface around.  I'm not talking about the screenshots you can get on the Wayback Machine - but a fully functioning old version of a site.  You certainly don't want to move ahead into the future updating two versions, and at some point the older version will be out of date.  Is it better, therefore, to just force all users to upgrade and use the new version?  Or should sites follow the old adage of giving their users what they want and avoid the possible fate of New Coke and their new interface being rejected?  As a user or a site creator, what do you think?

US Government Uses Blog Summit to Foster Discussion on Pandemic Flu

Consider this a fair warning - this week I will often be blogging about client work as I contribute to the Climate Response Blog.  As I head to London for that event, simultaneously our team has been spearheading a bold new initiative for the Department of Health and Human Services designed to engage bloggers in a discussion around the potential threat of a flu pandemic.  The Pandemic Flu Leadership Blog launched late last week with 16 contributors from health, community, business and faith-based sectors including Pierre Omidyar (founder of Ebay), Nedra Weinriech (author of the Spare Change blog) and many leading authorities on pandemic flu.  The blog convenes these thinkers and other participants for 5 weeks, leading up to a Leadership Summit event in Washington DC.

Though the topic is pretty grim, many experts say a flu pandemic is impending and not a question of if, but of when.  The blog is an interesting experiment from a government agency on bringing influential voices together and thinking outside the powerful walls of Washington.  The blog summit runs through June 27th and will likely stir up some great discussion online both about the topic and about the fact that some government agencies are finally getting smarter and more innovative about fostering discussion and using personal media to spread awareness about an important issue.

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How to Create a Social Media Bio in Typepad (without HTML)

If you are already a Movable Type or HTML expert, this post is not for you.  But many fellow bloggers who are Typepad users (but not programming saavy) asked how I created my Social Media Bio and how they might do the same.  For all of you that asked, here is how I hacked mine together - using a bare minimum of coding knowledge and mostly using the tools that already exist within Typepad:

Step 1: Create a New Blog
When I was first looking at how to create the page that I wanted, it seemed that custom creating a new page within Typepad was certainly possible, but would require me to get into the coding and modification of CSS files (not really how I wanted to spend a weekend).  Typepad offers wonderful tools, however, to create new blogs - so that's how I started.  My Social Media Bio page is actually set up as a second blog within Typepad.  To set the theme for the new blog, I chose a three column template with two sidebars, and matched all the typefaces and color choices to my current blog template (very easy to do because I originally started with a standard Typepad template for my blog anyway).

Step 2: Remove Blog Features
In order to get the page to look different from a blog, I had to remove many of the standard features, such as date headings for posts, or the "posted by" notes in the footer.  Once I did that, I had a custom view that didn't look like a blog - even though the "My Bio" section of my Social Media Bio is actually a blog post.  The bookmarks from del.icio.us posted underneath are a second blog post.

Step 3: Customize the Look
In any new blog, you can always change the header to use an image of your choosing, which is what I did.  To get the header to be thin rather than the regular height, I had to use an advanced template (see Step 5).  I also created custom logos in Photoshop for the sites I contribute to and awards logos and uploaded them as files into my Typepad account - but once I did that, they were easy to link to as cut and pasted HTML.

Step 4: Use Typelists for Content Buckets
Since first creating my blog, I loved the idea of Typelists letting me create widget style features that I can add to my sidebar on my blog.  All of the content in either sidebar of my Social Media Bio has been created as a separate Typelist.  For those who haven't done it, creating a Typelist in the format of "Notes" allows you to paste any raw HTML into the description field and totally customize the content.

Step 5: Convert to Advanced Templates (Optional)
For those of you who have Pro level memberships with Typepad, you can also convert your templates to Advanced.  This does require some coding effort and is not necessary if you are happy with the regular format.  For me, there were a few things that I wanted to do, including making the page wider and using an extremely thin header graphic.  These were only possible using an advanced template. 

Below is a document that includes code that I used for my Social Media Bio which may be useful for you to cut and paste as you create your own.  Also, if you do create one and use this template (or create one using another format), send me an email at rohitaustralia [at] gmail [dot] com and I'll include a link to it in this post (or just leave a comment with the URL of your Social Media Bio).  Good luck!

Download Code Samples [Word Doc - right click to "Save As"]

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Lessons From WuFoo on Making a Fun User Interface

Over the past ten years of working with Internet sites and seeing thousands of different design, layout and interface choices, I've heard of user interfaces described in many terms.  Professional, usable, intuitive, clear, soft, hard, fast, friendly ... just about any adjective you can think of has been applied by clients in describing the kind of interface they want.  Yet when it comes to the idea of fun, it seems that creating a "fun user interface" is something of an oxymoron.  After all, an interface should simply allow users to accomplish a goal with a minimum of confusion in an efficient way, right?  Design might be for fun, but an "interface" is all about the function.  Still, the first time I used Wufoo to create an online form, my experience was more than one of efficiency.  I had fun.  The Speaker Request Form that I first created is linked from my Social Media Bio page.  The experience got me thinking about what the formula for fun in a user interface might be.  Predictably, thinking about this invariably leads to thinking about smart choices in user interface design and getting back to the basics.  Wufoo is not the only interface that goes beyond efficiency, but it does use some common design and layout choices to accomplish the goal of a more pleasurable experience for users.  Here are just a few lessons that you can take from Wufoo and apply to your own site to offer your users more fun:

• Quick signup - Not surprisingly, the biggest barrier to signups is an overly complicated registration process.  Forget about collecting every bit of data and just get the bare essentials before letting a user into your site.  After all, if you ran a retail location, you wouldn't ask for all this before letting someone in the door, would you?
• Personality in Error Messages - It's a given that even experienced internet users will likely make a mistake or two when filling out any form.  For good user interfaces, that presents an opportunity to inject personality into the experience and (if appropriate) demonstrate a sense of humor. 
• Big Text for Fields - A new design choice that I personally love is the big text fields for user to enter search or other queries, as well as fill in their information.  It's far more satisfying to see what you fill into a form appear in 14 point on the page than to fill out tiny clinical IRS-style boxes with your information.
• Confirmation and Navigation Overlays - Used successfully by many sites as an alternative to the hated pop-up window, including Netflix ... these overlays allow you to offer users more details on something, confirmation of an activity or some other message without interrupting or taking them away from the current activity.
• Instant Previews - With any content creation tool, it is important to let a user quickly and easily see what he or she has created and how it will appear to the world.  After all, it's only really fun when you publish and content is live for anyone to see.
• Drag and Drop - This feature is becoming synonymous with ease of use - if you have a site that allows people to manipulate anything, letting the drag it from one location and drop it elsewhere.  On Wufoo, forms are created in this way, and it makes the building tool extremely intuitive and fast.

I am sure there are many other factors that can make a user interface fun.  Adding online games or interactive content is certainly the most popular way.  The lesson that Wufoo offers is that even if your site is dedicated to something as boring and task oriented as making an online form, that's no reason to skip focusing on the fun factor.

4 Trends That Signal the Future of Online Retail

In the industry I work in, it's easy to get overly passionate about all of the new sites emerging every day that fit into this Web2.0 classification the industry has created.  The majority of these sites are willing to trade short term revenue for the prospect of building up a user base.  New users have become a metric that seems valued among these sites more highly than revenue.  I'm not arguing with the facts - recent events have certainly proved that getting bought out can be a viable business model, and reaching a certain threshold of new users is no small feat in a crowded marketplace.  But just in case you might think that this is the new business model to watch, don't forget about online retail.  Since the mid-nineties, consumers have been increasingly moving a share of their purchases online, and online retailers are the largest beneficiaries.  And they have not stood still.  Here are just a few trends that are shaping the future for online retailers, and demonstrating that while Web 2.0 social networking sites might have more sex appeal, online retail is still going strong:

1. User Experience 3.0 - If you want to really look that future of user interfaces and how streamlined they can get, there are several online retailers that are worth a look.  Netflix certainly has won it's share of rewards (though some might disagree and call that a social network), but one of the top sites that I recently visited was Endless.com, Amazon's new entry into the shoes and handbags category.  The site has a brilliant browsing and sorting navigation structure, easy tools to read about products, and seems to have corrected every criticism the more fashion conscious might have made about Amazon's tendency to overwhelm consumers with it's overcrowded product pages.  The result is a site extremely easy to use, with great prices for designer products, and even a killer promotion with their current promotion selling consumers with the promise of "negative $5 for overnight shipping."
2. Affiliate Marketing Fever - The ease of publishing your own site is driving more and more people to see their online efforts as a moneymaking source.  As this area explodes, it's not just driving huge profits for Google's Adwords, it's also driving a rapidly growing affiliate marketing craze online.  Ad:Tech in San Francisco this year was filled with Affiliate Marketing Networks that seemed oddly disconnected from the rest of the event - but were there recruiting hard and partying hard nonetheless.  There's no doubt the rise of affiliate marketing mirrors the growth of online retail, and will likely get even bigger and crazier as time goes on.
3. Promotion Code Shopping - It's common knowledge for most online consumers that it's ridiculously easy to find promotion codes and discounts to apply to just about any online retailer.  While most may not have as easy of an experience as I recently had by finding instructions to get a discount on filing my taxes through TurboTax from their Beta Community of users answering tax related questions, the ready availability of these codes is tapping into the sale oriented consumer that was profiled in the book Treasure Hunt.  Shutterfly is one company that has figured out how to use this to its benefit.  The site allows users to collect online promotion codes and save them in their account to use at any time before the expiration date.  The result is an ongoing brand experience and a high likelihood that consumers will return often for multiple orders.
4. Reinventing Retail Categories - The most often quoted examples of online retail in this category are sites like Priceline or eBay that turned traditional retail in their categories upside down.  Letting consumers set their own price for a hotel room or airline flight was a huge transition for the travel industry.  Today there are sites like www.bagborroworsteal.com that are finding similar ways to reinvent retail categories.  You might wonder (if you think about these things) that if Hollywood celebrities can just "borrow" brand name accessories for big events or momentous "one time only" occasions, why can't the rest of us?  As more new sites approach traditional businesses with an eye for innovation, online retail will continue to be a hotbed for new ideas.

The open question worth asking, I think, is how these lessons might be applied to the slate of social networking sites that may reasonably merge with online retail experiences.  Purists would claim that creating an online community and selling products or services in a retail sense should be mutually exclusive.  For now, they largely have their wish, but this will likely start to change.  That's a good thing.  As for me - I remain as passionate about finding new social networks and Web 2.0 sites as anyone ... but when it comes to where I would invest or choose to focus my business, online retail is really the force of the future.

Inside the Art of Brand Personality: A Preview of Ad-Tech Panel

Tomorrow I will be leading a fantastic panel of social media personalities talking about the art of creating and fostering a brand personality through social media.  As I have shared before, I am extremely excited about this session and in particular about learning from the panelists who are participating about how they have managed to build their own brand personalities through social media.  They each bring some very different perspectives to the mix:

Steve Hall | Adrants
Steve at Adrants has taken his many years of experience inside the advertising world and used it to publish one of the most popular blogs about advertising.  Adrants is an irreverent look at the world of advertising that offers opinion along with breaking news about everything from new campaigns to the latest rumors.  Along the way, Steve has created a unique personality for his blog, isn't afraid to take a shot at a poorly executed campaign or feature controversial efforts, and has developed a highly successful foundation for his own publishing network.  In many ways, the rise of Adrants as a resource within the advertising industry is a case study for anyone wanting to supplant the media in their own vertical industry with a unique and unconventional voice.

Jeremiah Owyang | Podtech
Jeremiah has had a personal blog on marketing and web strategy for several years and recently left his role as online community manager at Hitachi to join the growing team at Podtech.  His story is an interesting one in brand personality, ranging from his extremely smart efforts on behalf of Hitachi to help them connect with customers and potential customers through creating wikis on data storage and fostering strong relationships between Hitachi and key influencers.  Alongside these efforts, Jeremiah built up his personal blog and personal brand.  Now in a new role with Podtech, he attends industry events, publishing interviews for Podtech and writes about his efforts on his own blog as well.  He should offer some interesting insight for any corporate bloggers who may not necessarily be an official spokesperson for their companies, but like him, want to uncover new ways to use leverage their personal brand as part of their "day job."

Kent Nichols | Ask A Ninja
Kent is one of the founders of what some consider one of the most popular video blogs on the internet, Ask a Ninja.  The program generates a hugely loyal following among it's target audience of young males and is an advertisers dream for reaching that elusive demographic.  Ask A Ninja is also an interesting case study because although the brand is built online, it has branched out into the "real world" as an iconic brand.  You can buy DVDs, T-shirts, and other merchandise all to demonstrate your affinity for Ask A Ninja.  As a result, they are one of the great crossover stories that have taken a social media only brand, and extended it into the real world and beyond.  Kent will likely share some stories about getting to that point and advice for aspiring creators to build their own successful brands through having a unique personality and standing out.

Karl Long | ExperienceCurve
Karl leads a pioneering group at Nokia called nGage and also has a similar background to Jeremiah in terms of creating his personal brand through ExperienceCurve as well as leading many smart efforts on behalf of Nokia to integrate social media into their marketing for video game initiatives.  More and more, we are seeing individuals who have a highly successful personal blog driving efforts from their employers to use blogs and social media in smart ways.  Karl represents a new kind of brand marketer who is at the crossroads of product marketing, new technologies, and social media.  He also produces a weekly podcast show on the topic.  In the mix, he will likely have some great advice for anyone struggling with integrating personal media more into their own current roles and dealing with any ensuing "big company paralysis" that often comes with a desire to dedicate efforts to personal media.

I will be sure to post a recap of this great session for those who can't make it out to Ad-Tech and am sure that my fellow panelists will do the same.  Until then ...

The Indian Film Festival, Permanence and the Internet

Last night I had the chance to attend the opening of the Indian Film Festival here in LA, which opened with a film called Provoked featuring Aishwarya Rai and Naveen Andrews.  The film tackles the difficult topic of domestic violence and is based on a true story.  After watching the story being told and thinking about the film afterwards, I was drawn to the idea of permanence.  The film has been produced and released, and now offers a permanent testament to the story of Kiranjit Ahluwalia - a woman who was strong enough to overcome her situation of domestic abuse and offer inspiration to women around the world.  Film and books certainly have this aura of permanence, but what about the Internet? 

If you asked anyone a few years ago, they would have pointed to the inherently changeable nature of the web as proof that it will never have this permanence.  In a world where what is arguably the best source of information on the Internet is a site with millions of definitions for terms that can be changed everyday by anyone (Wikipedia), how could anyone believe that the Internet has the same permanence as a film or book?  Yet as we have seen with the recent scuffle around Steve Rubel's remarks on Twitter, what some might have considered the least permanent type of site possible, comments made online can indeed stick around for quite some time.  People who have created photos and webpages throughout their youth are contending with this permanence as they go out and start to seek jobs and manage their indiscretions that might be recorded and easily available to a potential employer through a web search.  Politicians are dealing with a new age of transparency on every legislative choice they have ever made being available for any voter to see.  Yes, permanence is alive and well on the Internet despite it's many flaws and inaccuracies.  It may not yet offer the same feeling of permanence as a film or book today, but there is no denying it has a feeling of permanence far beyond what it used to.  Here's an open question: do you think it will ever reach the same level at films and books?

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The ROI of Blogging: Share Your Top 5 Stories

Two months ago, Charlene Li of Forrester produced a report on the ROI of blogging by comparing the relative spend on blogs to the spend required for focus group based research.  While some people immediately pointed out flaws in this reasoning, it was a great first step towards trying to define a model for measuring the true return on investment for blogging at a corporate level.  For individuals dedicated to creating their own microbrands and blogging to network with others in the industry, better connect with customers or simply participate in the conversation ... the ROI is not likely to be tied to focus group research.  Rather, the ROI in these cases comes from the opportunities that become possible through having a blog that wouldn't have happened otherwise.  These are thought leadership and brand/microbrand benefits, but they are ROI nonetheless. 

Taking this idea further, it would be interesting to see blogger's responses to what I think may be the ultimate question in helping to understand ROI of blogging on an individual basis:

Since you have been blogging, what would you consider your top five most effective blog posts and why?

To get the conversation going, here is my list of top five:

#5 - The Human Side of Search
The human side of search (everything that happens outside the almighty algorithm to organize information online) is an idea that I had been thinking about for some time and finally explored in a small presentation I gave at the Search Insider Summit event last year.  Since then, the concept has really evolved in the search industry and beyond.  It remains a topic I am passionate about following and continuing to do more with.

#4 - Brands I am Passionate About
I shared five brands that I truly love, and was contacted by one of them after seeing my blog post.  Briggs & Riley's team saw my post and asked me to try out a range of bags from their new line and offer feedback.  It was the most significant of a few product related pitches I have received, and one that I was most excited about due to my professed passion for their brand.

#3 - Tips on Pitching Bloggers
Originally published as a thought piece on the Ogilvy PR website, this 2 page PDF has been one of the most linked on my blog and also downloaded frequently from the Ogilvy site.  It has also been a great tool for our internal teams as well as a useful piece to give to clients.

#2 - Top 7 Marketing Trends of 2007
When I first published this, I figured it would be one of many trend related posts coming into 2007.  There were several links, but the amazing thing is that the post continues to draw significant traffic and clicks.  The image above is from the cover of Marketing China magazine, which was my most significant media hit to date in the traditional media - where our office in China helped to translate the piece to be included in this cover feature story in Marketing China.

#1 - Social Media Optimization
This will probably come as no surprise that it makes #1 on my list of most effective blog posts.  Since the original article in August of last year, the SMO phenomenon has gone through a very interesting cycle of global awareness, adoption, refinement, and even a backlash within certain circles.  It's amazing to watch how far and how fast the idea has taken off.

From a thought leadership and visibility point of view, blogging clearly has huge potential for individuals and for corporations as well.  To keep the conversation thread going, I am going to tag Hugh, Paul, Anastacia, Steve, and my colleagues in the Social Media Collaborative (including Charlene) to blog about their thoughts on this topic and how the ROI of blogging for most blogs might be far more about the stories and experiences made possible by blogging than by the dollar value of the traditional marketing efforts it is beginning to replace.

Suggested tag for all posts on this topic:  BlogROIStories

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