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Kill Your Television

Posted on July 30, 2008

Not like this is new news, but every day I’m reminded more and more that traditional television (and with it, traditional advertising) is dying.

For me, it started around 2002 with Netflix, which killed any need I had for cable TV. Why pay for HBO or Showtime when I could rent The Sopranos, Six Feet Under and Sex and the City and gorge myself for hours in one sitting? The years since then have produced an avalanche of other factors. This past year, an EyeTV and an HD antenna on our roof meant that my husband and I could snag HD-quality shows off the airwaves, record them to a MacMini (hooked up to a projector) and watch them whenever we felt like it. Add ABC and NBC’s websites (and my discovery that the Firefox extension AdBlock Plus zapped ads inside the ABC episode player) and there was no reason at all to give a rip about stupid ol’ networks and their stupid ol’ commercials.

Hulu sealed the deal, allowing me instant access to shows like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (not to mention discovering oldies-but-goodies like The Bob Newhart Show and full-length films like Ice Age for my kid). While they have ads that are immune to the powers of AdBlock Plus, they are relatively unobtrusive and don’t require any “click to continue” nonsense. The frosting on the cake is the growing number of self-produced and online-distributed shows like 3Way and We Need Girlfriends, the latter of which has been picked up by CBS. (We can only hope it enjoys a better fate than the pile of suck called Quarterlife, which NBC picked up and then promptly dropped when it suffered worse ratings than the XFL.)

And how about the glorious day when I discovered Best Week Ever was a free podcast that I could sync to my iPhone along with TV shows I had purchased from iTunes? I haven’t experienced a boring airline flight since.

And yet, with all of that, the networks seem to be in utter denial about what’s happening. The CW made a huge gaffe this year when, in an attempt to “force” more viewers to watch Gossip Girl on the network, they decided not to make post-strike episodes available on their website. Presumably, this decision was made to get better ratings: the show was crazy popular on the CW site and iTunes, but not on the dusty old television. Surprise, surprise, pulling the full episodes from the site had almost no effect on ratings. After tasting the freedom of watching a show online whenever you felt like it, who the hell was going to sit down on the date and time the network decided and watch it on TV?!

Their decision was understandable in the sense that nobody seems to have figured out how to monetize online entertainment in the same way that they have on broadcast, and the CW presumably makes less when I buy the episode from iTunes than if I watch it on TV where they can sell ads. But how long can that last? Viewers aren’t flocking back to television; they are (like me) tossing their TVs and snuggling up to their computers.

So, my big question — and maybe some media buyer out there can answer this for me — is why? How can this not translate into better revenues for online advertising, or some new model for monetizing the distribution of online entertainment? Especially considering how damn trackable and relatively cheap it is compared to a TV commercial? At some point, won’t the old model crumble under its own weight? And can’t we come up with something better than just aping the existing broadcast model of interrupting the show with X-second spots?

While I love to pick on the ad industry (and bite the hand that fed me: I was raised by a copywriter and a print project manager), I don’t argue that there has to be a way to pay for this entertainment. I’m willing to watch ads if I’m getting a show for free (except during Lost. Sorry, ABC.), and I’m willing to pay iTunes to have Mad Men at my fingertips. I’m not the kind of girl that has illicit late-night encounters with BitTorrent. But — all that being said — advertisers need to find a way to reach us without assaulting us (I’m looking at YOU, movie theaters! I paid for my damn seat, don’t make me watch a car commercial before the show. Or how about TBS and their ridiculous “pausing the show for an ad” trick? See, that’s what drives us into the arms of AdBlock Plus whenever we have the option!) and consumers need to be realistic about their expectations around what is free.

But, I know that it’s unlikely any of this will change. The genie is out of the bottle: I have to read ads in bathroom stalls and my neighbors are all trading pirated files on Limewire. But, it sure would be nice if we could call a truce and allow more on-demand access to entertainment while also fairly compensating the businesses and people that create it. In the meantime, I’ll just enjoy insane Nissan product placements while watching Heroes on NBC.com and wait for this all to shake out.

UPDATE: Well, well, well. I was listening to MPR over the weekend and On The Media had a story about this very topic!

“…the most ambitious aspect of NBC’s Olympic plan might be its push to change the way advertisers pay TV networks for ads. NBC will use the Olympics to attempt to show the world that, despite gloomy reports for the future of the networks, their audience hasn’t abandoned them at all. They’ve just migrated to other platforms.

So, says, Grant Robertson, media reporter for Toronto’s Globe and Mail, NBC will be keeping meticulous track of the numbers of people watching the Olympics across all platforms, online, DVR, cell phones – and both people who still sit in front of the TV. And they’ll combine those numbers in a brand new way.”

It will be fascinating to watch this develop and see if and how it affects the future of advertising [cue futuristic music].

UPDATE #2: According to New York magazine’s Daily Intel, Gossip Girl is returning to the interwebs.

My favorite quote from their article? “As it turned out, illegal access to GG episodes increased by 45 percent when the CW stopped streaming it.”

 

Geek Chic of the Week: iPhone

Posted on July 11, 2008

On the day that Apple releases both the 3G and the 2.0 software, it seems appropriate to extol the virtues of one of my favorite new tools of the past year: the iPhone. As a relatively early adopter (when I can afford to be), I’ve had the phone since September 2007. And man, this thing keeps getting better and better.

Interface
My big gripe when it first came out was that I couldn’t customize my Home view (I didn’t care about links to Stocks or YouTube and wanted to get them out of my way). That’s now fixed. Not only can you rearrange the app icons, you can move them onto one of three homescreens and easily add shortcuts to WebApps (and now Apps) that you use more often.

From the very beginning, though, one of the best things about the iPhone is that there is almost no need for a user manual. My old phone (a Nokia 3650) was full of awesome cutting-edge features when I bought it, but I never used half of them because trying to interface with the thing was not intuitive. With the iPhone, things like merging two or more calls togther (which can be confusing as hell on other phones) are so easy it’s almost funny.

Maps
Another thing I didn’t like that when I took the phone to San Francisco last October it wasn’t smart enough to tell me where I was on a map (Before the trip I bookmarked spots I knew I’d be—the hotel, convention center, etc. so I could use the search feature to find coffee or food nearby. Pain in the butt.). That’s now fixed, too. And boy does it work! On a recent trip to France and Italy I used the “Pinpoint Me” feature several times on the streets of Paris. That, combined with a quick search on the word “Boulangerie” helped me score a sandwich in my time of need (It’s all about the saucisson, baby).

Email
I shut down most of my email accounts while I was overseas to prevent myself from thinking about work, but kept one private account active on the phone and was able to get (and send) photos back and forth with my husband and child. Nothing cures a little homesickness like a picture of your sweet baby in the bathtub! The process of setting up the email accounts on my phone was really easy, and it appears that one of the biggest shortfalls of email on the iPhone (the inability to open attachments) is resolved, at least partially so, in today’s release. Depending on how connected I need to be at any given time, it’s simple to set the phone to check email often (every 15 minutes) or only manually. I’ve tweaked these settings many times depending on where I am and what kind of urgent messages I’m expecting. My one gripe about email on the iPhone is that there doesn’t appear to me much in the way of Junk filters. And it’s pretty annoying to get Viagra spam in the middle of Tuscany.

Entertainment
Before my recent trip to Europe, I downloaded Handbrake, converted two full-length movies and watched them on my iPhone during the flight. I also sync up unwatched TV shows and podcasts from iTunes (VH1’s Best Week Ever is the best free video podcast ever) and watch them on airplanes, in waiting rooms, or in any other boring locations where I want to be passively entertained. I can also keep up with This American Life podcasts and sync a few iTunes playlists up for audio entertainment. Even with my sad little 8GB first-generation version, I have yet to run out of room. (Except for that one time when I tried to put all of Gossip Girl, Season 1 on there. But that was just silly of me.)

Apps and WebApps
Again, when I first got the phone, you were limited to just what was on it. With the introduction of WebApps a few months ago, and Apps today, the opportunities to customize the phone seem nearly endless. Whether productiviy, finances, gaming—you can really make the phone your own.

Too Good to Be True?
So, what’s bad about it? First, you have to be disciplined about how available you allow yourself to be with this thing. It can keep you so connected that you can forget that sometimes you should be disconnected. Second, AT&T. Depending on where you live, having AT&T as your service provider may make you want to kill yourself. I’ve never had so many dropped calls in all my life. Third, the EDGE network is slow as molasses, but if you are in an area where you can jump on a wi-fi network with the phone, life is good. And the new 3G phones are apparently very zippy.

As for billing, I’ve heard horror stories about people receiving insane bills on their iPhones after international travel. Jury’s still out on this one; I signed up for an International Data plan during the month I was gone, and I turned off data roaming. I’ll update this post when my bill arrives to see if I did everything right, or if I have to take a second job at Starbucks to pay for my overseas usage.

Overall, I have to say: believe the hype. Not to sound like a total Apple dork, but they really got it right with this phone. Slowly but surely, this thing has become an accessory that I can’t leave home without. Pretty much all I need is my wallet and the iPhone. And, rumor has it, I might not need that wallet for much longer, either.

Oh, and one more thing: did you know this thing can make phone calls?

I Ain’t Much for Book Learnin’

Posted on June 30, 2008

Ooh! Ooh! Our very first reader question!

Whitney in Minneapolis wrote:
“I’m a young female who just recently got into the world of social/interactive marketing. I must say I think I’ve found that one thing I could do for the rest of my life. I was wondering though, without there being a specific degree in this would it be better to go the journalism route, or the IT route? I have an AAS degree in music business already, but I’d like to get your point of view on this. I was also browsing your “Sites We Dig” section and noticed the Clockwork link goes to the Future Tense site, not sure if that was intentional or a misdirected link.”

Um, first of all, I totally fixed that link. Then I fired myself for being so stupid that I screwed up the link to the company I work for. Don’t tell my boss!

Second, I wouldn’t worry about the degree. I have a degree in Journalism, but that’s because when I was young and foolish I thought I wanted to be a copywriter and work at an ad agency. (Not to mention the fact that in those days they had a special tutorial on how to use this new thing called “email” so getting a degree related to computers that wasn’t computer science was impossible.) Even now, with technology as pervasive as it is, higher education hasn’t really caught up. So, as you’ve noticed, there’s not really a good degree program for people that want to work in Interactive. I mean, there is if you want to be a programmer or a designer (kind of) but there’s not a clear path if you’re like me and end up going into strategy/project management type stuff. And it sounds like you are on a similar path doing strategy and planning-type stuff along with content development.

In the past I considered doing a degree in human-computer interaction (when I was thinking about focusing my career more specifically on IA) but in retrospect I think I might have found that approach a bit dry. So, my advice to you would be to continue doing what you’re doing now which is gaining real experience working with clients, websites and social media. When it comes right down to it, a degree is nice but most people making hiring decisions in this industry are going to look at experience (either as a portfolio of sites you’ve worked on, or a successful employment history where you can demonstrate how your role on the project had a positive effect on its outcome).

I believe that to truly be successful in Interactive, you have to love it. You have to live it, breathe it, consume it, and create it. You have to enjoy doing it even before you start getting paid for it and most of what makes you good at it isn’t something you can learn from a book. I don’t think that’s necessarily true for other careers. (Accounting, for example.) But, the best Interactive people I have met — even programmers in many cases — are those who are largely self-taught. The ones who stay up late at night staring into a glowing monitor just for the love of the game. Because those same people are the ones who continue to learn and stay on top of what’s new long after dust has started collecting on the frame of their diploma. And in an industry that moves as fast as this, those are the people you want working next to you.

Geek Chic of the Week: Online Calendars

Posted on June 26, 2008

One of the best things about technology is when you can use it to actually make life easier. As a woman who works full-time and has a two-year-old (and another on the way!), I appreciate finding things that streamline all the thankless crap I have to get done. (And some days, some of it really feels like thankless crap, doesn’t it?)

So, as a sort of counterpoint to my Technology Purge post, I’m going to focus on one tool a week that makes my life easier and how I implemented it. And if I run out of things I actually use, I guess I’ll just focus on something cool once a week. So, welcome to a little thing I’m calling “Geek Chic of the Week.”

This week’s focus: Online Calendars

The Problem

As a “married, with children” I have to keep track of lots of stuff to do: meetings and travel for work, doctor’s appointments for Kid #1, pre-natal appointments for Kid #2, family obligations with three sets of grandparents, social events, commitments for a business I help my grandmother with, and wondering when my husband will be working or out of town (he’s self-employed and his schedule varies).

You get the idea.

So, in the old world of stone tablets and Brontosaurus burgers, if someone invited me to something I’d have to look
at a paper calendar on the wall or at a DayTimer, wonder if there was anything
going on that hadn’t been written on the calendar for some reason, then
wonder if that was the same night of that business trip I had to take
for work, then bust open my laptop (or wait until I got to the office
if I was working on a desktop machine) to check my Outlook calendar,
figure out if we could go or not…meanwhile, by this time I’ve
probably lost the original invitation. Or, I’d make plans and
then my husband would remind me that that’s the same night as his
documentary club meeting. Or he’d get an email about an event and forget to do anything about it, resulting in us missing someone’s birthday party. Arg! Too much time and too much thought
wasted on something that should be quick and easy.

The Solution

I manage four calendars with Google: Work, Personal, Family, and Kid. My husband has two: Personal and Work. We both set up our calendars as private, but gave the other person access to view them (in the case of the Family calendar, we can both add/edit events as well). What this means is that I can add things to the Family calendar and know that it will show up on my husband’s calendar (so that he’s not surprised when he’s expected to be at his mother-in-law’s house for dinner). He knows that he can put social events or work commitments on his calendar and I’ll see that he’s busy. And, since we both sometimes travel for work, we each have a clear idea of when the other one will be in or out of town.

Perhaps this sounds a bit anal-retentive, but the power of a solid system like this is that — after the few minutes it took to get it all set up — it takes almost no thought to maintain. Someone invites us to something, I pull up my calendar, see the entire universe of commitments that we have (work and personal), make a decision about how to respond to the new invitation, RSVP, add it to our calendar…and move on with life. Even better? For $25, I bought a plugin called BusySync (It’s a Mac app. Sorry, PC users!) which syncs up my iCal and Google calendars. If my laptop is offline, I can add something to iCal and next time I’m online everything magically syncs with Google (therefore updating my husband on the new event). Keeping everything synced in iCal also means that everytime I sync up my iPhone I have a portable view of our calendar (and mobile pop-up reminders on events if I’ve set a reminder on the event).

I’m a geek married to a geek, so this system works like a charm and was easy
to implement. But, even if you’re single or your significant other
prefers to work on stone tablets, there’s got to be a way to streamline the calendars you manage and make life just a tiny bit easier.

Your Homework

So, how can you start experimenting with a similar system of your own? I’ve outlined for you the specific tools I use — but I have no reason to “sell” you on any of them. They may or may not work for you and your life. But the overall approach of finding some piece of technology to make your calendaring life easier should. With that in mind, here’s the list of generic next steps for you to take. Go ahead and see what tools you can find to do the job! (And please email me, or comment on this post if you find something fabulous to share with the rest of us!)

Centralize

I chose Google (And I’d recommend it. Heck, it’s free so you can always try it and delete the account if you hate it!), but you can choose whatever tool you want. The important thing is to choose ONE thing where you can put everything you need to do. But, don’t commit to it right off the bat: give it a test run with just one calendar or a handful of events. If it doesn’t work for you, find something else. Make sure you like how it works, what it does, and how it looks. Yes, how it looks. If you don’t like how something looks, it doesn’t matter how well it functions. You won’t enjoy using it. The key to finding something that will work long term is finding something you enjoy using.

In an ideal world, you’ll be able to use just one calendar. But, if you’re like me and use a calendar for work that is dictated by the company you work for, the next best thing is to see if there’s a way to publish a feed that you can subscribe your central calendar to. I currently utilize the third-best option: I export events from my work calendar into my central calendar on a regular basis (once or twice a week, depending on how much meeting flux is going on). Anyway, the goal is to use the fewest possible calendars. If that means having two, so be it.  But do as much finagling as you can to see how to get everything in one place. Where there’s a will, there’s a way and it’s worth the effort to get it set up right at the beginning.

Categorize

While you want everything in one place, you don’t want everything to look the same. When I look at a bunch of entries on a calendar, I want to know at a glance which things are mine, which things are my kid’s, which are fun, which are work, etc. So, find a way to categorize all the stuff you’re keeping track of in whatever central calendar you’re using. Maybe it’s by person (Mom, Dad, Kid) or by location (Work, Home, Cabin) or some other criteria. Doesn’t matter. Use what makes sense for you.

Make sure you can filter certain calendars out of view if you’re trying to focus on just one or two categories to make a decision about attending something. My husband subscribes to my Work calendar, but he almost never has it turned on in his calendar view. There’s just too many meetings and crap he doesn’t care about. But, if he’s wondering if I’ll be able to pick up the baby from daycare, he knows he can toggle it on to see what my day is like and if I’m stuck in a meeting until 5pm or free to go.

Lastly, don’t be shy about creating extra calendars for stuff you don’t know what to do with. I do have one extra calendar I haven’t mentioned yet called Events of Interest. If I hear about some random event that triggers me to think, “Hm, that might be kind of fun,” but I’m not ready to commit it to my official calendar, I put it on Events of Interest. If I’m looking for something to do, that’s my reminder: “Oh yeah, it’s Family Day at MIA today. Let’s go check it out!” Again, maybe for you that sounds like a nightmare. For me, I like knowing that if I hear about something interesting I don’t have to remember it in my brain; I can throw it on my Events of Interest calendar and I’ll see it later if I’m looking for something to do. Think about what you can keep track of on a calendar that will decrease your stress level. And then try it.

Share

Share your setup with the people who need to see it; where possible, give them access to make edits so you don’t get stuck doing all of it. My husband can add stuff to our Family calendar, so if his mom invites us to something he doesn’t send it to me, he just puts it on the calendar. If you have kids that are older and managing their own schedules, see if you can get them to use the same tool and give you access to view a calendar. If they want to keep some things private, they can always have a personal calendar that you don’t have access to (which contains the events that they don’t want you seeing for some reason) and another calendar that they give you access to for sports practice, music lessons, babysitting gigs, etc. If you’ve got a kid with a driver’s license, or are a one-car household, you could even set up a calendar for the car so that people can schedule who’s using it on which days.

Automate

The last step, once your calendar empire is humming along smoothly, is to figure out how and where you can automate your system to take it to the next level of ease and technological sophistication. For me, it was using BusySync to add and view events when I’m offline, and syncing everything with my iPhone so I’ve got it in my hands no matter where I am. For you? Who knows. Finding out where these technology explorations will take you is half the fun.

Now, Go. Start Clicking.

Identify your needs when it comes to calendar management; you’ll be surprised at how easy it is to find a tool that will make it easier. And maybe even a little fun. The key is: experiment. See what you like, and what you don’t. The worst thing that can happen is you’ll go back to the way you’re doing it now. No harm done! The best thing that can happen? You might find that technology has lightened your load. And that, sisters, is what it’s all about.

The Web Is Not Cheap

Posted on June 25, 2008

I should say right away that this post is in danger of turning into a rant.  That is not my intention.  I am not here to whine.  I am here, though, to put out into the universe a concept that needs to be discussed.  So, here goes. 

The web is not cheap. 

There.  I said it.

Before diving too deep into that argument, let’s review what the web IS. 

–The web is fluid. Every document that exists on the web, in order to be really useful, must be a living document.  Because the web is, by its very nature, a living, ever-evolving, content repository. 

–The web is accessible.  Anyone with a small amount of knowledge can publish to the web.  I always say the web is the great equalizer, suddenly we all have a voice and the vehicle through which we can be heard.

–The web is immediate.  Case in point – I was reminded about how much this issue bugs me about five minutes ago, and here I am saying something and publishing it to a (potentially) global audience five minutes later.

Let’s face it, everyone knows someone who does ‘web stuff’.  That’s what makes having high standards in this business really hard, and really necessary – the fact that everyone has a cousin or son or nephew or babysitter or neighbor girl who can make a website on a Saturday afternoon while goofing around in their garage/office.  Because the spectrum of talent engaging in this kind of work is so broad, and the perception of value associated with the work is equally as broad, it is really hard to truly understand the value of the necessary skillset and expertise that play into a well-defined web strategy and execution.  Heck my mother recently said she’d mastered ‘copying and pasting’ and maybe she could ‘help me out’ since we’re so busy.  She was joking, of course, but the irony is in the fact that she’s a trained professional — a physician.  I suggested that we just swap jobs for a day.  I’ll deliver babies, and she can build web stuff.  No problem.

The fact of the matter is, the web is an investment.  A real strategic approach is necessary to doing business on the web.  You can’t just expect to slap up a site and have it work miracles.  And once you do launch a site, you are not done, you’ve only just begun.  I think most people’s perception of their website is informed by an old school traditional marketing approach to print work.  You jump into drawing pictures and coming up with catchy, brand appropriate copy, you execute in line with the creative, you launch, you’re done.  That is entirely the wrong way to think about your website.  Yes, good creative is essential.  But creative is not strategy.  You have to define the why before you consider the how.  Creative is a ‘how’ not a ‘why’. 

The web is transactional.  You are engaging in some kind of business interaction on the web.  Hopefully in the process you’ve managed to learn more about your audience that allows you to interact with them on a more on-to-one level.  A microsite has its place. But microsites aren’t appropriate as often as they happen, trust me.  So you’re not getting off cheap by building half a site.  You might end up paying more in the long run by not considering how micro-content fits into your overarching strategy. And any interaction with your target should have some kind of integrated component with your primary brand presence on the web.  Even if its just data.  Data is really the key.  But that’s another post entirely.

Most people walk into a web shop and expect the vendor to define their budget.  They send RFPs out to a number of vendors that fall in a variety of spots along the pricing spectrum, and generally they award business based on price.  The lowest price, then, becomes their budget.  By selecting a vendor that way they miss the opportunities to think comprehensively about how to address their business objectives on the web, and how to appropriately evolve on the web.  Meghan always tell clients they should come to us with a problem, not a solution.  This is great advice when thinking about how to extend your brand, and do business, on the web.  Don’t walk in saying I want these 44 things and I want them all for under 10 bucks.  Instead, prioritize your objectives and look for a real strategic development partner to help you think about how best to implement your priorities.  This might require iterative development, or incremental roll-outs of features.  But that’s ok.  By moving some or all of your business to the web, you’re making promises to your audience.  If you are smart about how you move, and you choose quality and ease of use over cheap and fast, you’ll keep those promises and your audience will stick with you.  They will wait for a good experience to get better.  And they will be key influencers in how you improve on your feature-set. 

Money is an issue.  Don’t get me wrong.  You have every reason to want to control costs.  And you should.  But control them in a way that makes sense and doesn’t compromise the deliverable.  Control costs by working closely with your vendor/partner to identify your priorities and the time it will take to address them.  Then have checkpoints or deliverables on the path to getting there.  Budgets are generally eaten up by the intangibles — vapor.  Don’t let that happen.  Insist on helpful documentation, in language that makes good business sense, to help guide the project.  Then follow those roadmaps closely.  Be collaborative and don’t be afraid to ask questions.  No one knows your business better than you.  Ask for what you want and be clear about what you’re asking for before anyone starts coding.

The web is not cheap.  But it does make good financial sense if you approach it prudently.  It is an investment.  You can start small and work up to your ideal solution.  But don’t compromise good sense looking for a deal.  You end up paying for the work twice in the long run.  Once trying to be cheap.  And you pay the second time when you decide to do it right.  Get it right the first time.

Beauty and the Brain

Posted on June 23, 2008

Part of what I hope comes out of this Geek Girls project is getting more women and girls interested in technology, whatever that might look like. For some, maybe it’s as simple as learning what RSS is. For others, maybe it means being encouraged to go get a degree in Computer Science. The point is, I hope that it lessens the intimidation factor for a group of people that can sometimes fall victim to a “Math is hard, let’s go shopping” mentality. Keep in mind, this is coming from a girl who, in 4th grade, told her mother she hated math and wished it would die. So, despite the fact that I have ended up being a person who embraces technology at work and at home, I sure wish I would have gotten into it earlier and a lot more deeply.

So, when my husband sent me the link to the Geek Girls: Revenge of the Nerdettes story on Newsweek.com, I began reading it with great interest. Yes! More geek girls! But, I found myself conflicted over the fact that the real reason these women are getting attention seems to be that they are smart and hot. If they were simply smart, that really wouldn’t be enough. They are smart and hot. They tell you that right away, in the subhead of the story, “Meet the Nerd Girls: they’re smart, they’re techie and they’re hot.”

On the one hand, I have no problem with this. Heck, I enjoy high heels and lip gloss as much as the next girl —assuming the next girl is not my co-Geek Nancy, who enjoys neither. AND THAT IS MY POINT. Whether or not you wear high heels or lip gloss should have no bearing on the attention you garner for your brainpower. So, shout out to Danica McKellar for writing “Math Doesn’t Suck,” (because I sure wish I would have read that in the 4th grade), but did you really have to pose for Stuff magazine right after that?

I guess I find it simultaneously encouraging (yay, women going into math, science and engineering!) and depressing (boo, we still have to look good in a swimsuit to get attention!). So, the attention garnered is both serious and salacious. Which doesn’t seem to happen to our male geek counterparts (aside from all the freaks I know who worship Steve Jobs).

You tell me: am I taking this all too seriously?

Update 1/14/10: Yet another “hot girls who use technology” article is causing some waves. Vanity Fair’s article on America’s Tweethearts. Too bad they couldn’t afford to give those poor women pants for the photo shoot!

 

Why I Love Interactive Designers

Posted on May 5, 2008

No offense to my print designer friends (and really, some of my best
friends are print designers, I swear!), I’ve lately been thinking about
how much I love Interactive designers. And production folks. And
developers. Maybe it’s because many people seem to think that a
designer is a designer is a designer and the result of this way of
thinking is working with clients who, for whatever reason, want the
person who designs their offline materials to also create their web
site. “You guys can work with so-and-so, right? He’ll do the design and
you guys can produce it.”

Sure. Sure, we can. But, the thing is, the web is a unique medium.
Compared to print, we have far less control over things like fonts, or
colors, or even alignment. I can’t tell you how many times in the past
couple of years (or even months) I’ve had to explain to a print
designer that the pretty, perfectly-sized boxes they laid out are going
to get jacked all to hell as soon as the client starts putting content
of different lengths in each one. Or how many times I’ve gotten a web
site design where everything is Flash and/or images because the
designer wants to make sure that they control every aspect of the
experience.

The reason why Interactive people are MY people, why I love them
with a burning passion matched only by my love of IKEA meatballs and Gossip Girl,
is that they are supremely flexible. They understand that what they
lovingly create in Photoshop will vary slightly when it’s produced, and
when it’s viewed by me on my Mac or their mom on a PC. They create
designs that can handle those variations. They are accustomed to
constantly reviewing and revisiting their design in production and
tweaking it to optimize both the display, and the end user experience.

Print designers*, on the other hand, tense up at the thought that
the headlines and body copy can’t all be [insert obscure font name
here], or that my Grandma
could increase the size of the body copy WITHOUT THEIR PERMISSION. So,
when they are directing the creation of a web site, tension is created
between the well-controlled viewpoint of a print designer (who is used
to having the ability to tightly control font, layout, color and
overall presentation) and the chaos-theory viewpoint of a web
production team, who knows that they must plan for a variety of viewing
situations that range from cinema screens to Blackberries, PCs to Macs,
and browsers, browsers, everywhere!

But while it may make a print designer feel good to control the user
experience, and while that may be a perfectly reasonable way to think
about a print (or even television) experience — that level of
attempted control makes for a very poor user experience online. It can
make the site harder to find on search engines. It makes it impossible
for someone to resize the font for readability. It can make access by
disabled users difficult or impossible. In short, it can succeed at
looking good and fail at being usable. A controlled experience is great
in print, but it doesn’t translate well to the online world.

As I said, no disrespect to my print designer friends. But please, let my people go.

*I’m generalizing here, and I know it. I know there are a few
designers out there savvy enough to design well for both print and
online media. But, they are few and far between. So for the same reason
you wouldn’t ask your kickass web designer to create a billboard for
you, stop asking your kickass print designer to create your web site. A
good print designer and a good web designer can — and should — work
together under an overall creative direction and produce the best
representation of that creative direction in their respective medium.

[cross-posted on the MIMA blog] 

I’ve Been Had

Posted on March 31, 2008

Today I spammed everyone on my AIM contact list with an invitation to join Facebook.
I was searching for co-workers on the social network, trying to
understand the more useful apps and plugins available to the average
user, when I inadvertently clicked yes and authorized Facebook to
contact everyone on my buddy list. I was distracted. I was
multitasking. I was not as careful as I should have been. And, with one
click, I was totally humiliated. My heart stopped for what seemed like
an entire minute while I prayed for a confirmation screen that never
came. I had misread a question, given my permission, and there was no
going back. I just sat there and wondered how I’d explain to my
colleagues, friends, peers, and, of course, the random total strangers
I’d added to my list along the way, that I was a complete idiot who’d
let Facebook hijack my buddy list to solicit memberships. I was one
more unsuspecting pawn in the Facebook battle for world domination.

There is value in centralizing data. So many of us are out
devouring and contributing to content-rich websites and social
networks, connecting with long-lost friends, classmates, colleagues.
We’re finally in a position to leverage ‘who we know’. Because, what
have we always heard? It’s not what you know, but who. And the who has
never been more accessible. We’re separated by miles and years and
jobs, but we’re just a click away thanks to networks like Facebook and MySpace and LinkedIn.
There are new social and professional network sites trying to get in on
the action every day. Today alone I had two colleagues try to get me to
join Plaxo Pulse.
I couldn’t help but wonder if they even knew they’d asked me to join.
Recently a friend’s contact list had been hijacked by Spock (I refuse
to link to this evil entity) to invite 2500 of his closest friends to
join him there. I felt better about my 125 AIM
messages when I compared it to 2500. But the sting was still there.As
more and more of these networks fight for our information, who’s going
to prove the front runner? Clearly he (or she) who owns the most data
wins. And Facebook’s shift from social network to ‘platform’ seems to
suggest they believe they can connect all of this decentralized data
floating around on the web and make it accessible via their single,
simple, interface. So while the data might be scattered amongst iTunes, flickr, Amazon,
AIM and other lesser known entities, a series of simple web
applications can integrate all of it into the Facebook platform. What’s
more, Facebook turns it around and provides an aggregate snapshot of
your contacts’ data. It’s really a win-win. Or is it? Recently Facebook has taken some heat
for invasive marketing tactics via it’s Beacon system. Beacon takes
data from external websites and makes it available to your contact list
with the intention of promoting product through passive endorsements.
If you bought something on Amazon, and you’re my friend, the thinking
is I might be interested in that product as well. Because you, my
friend, are just so darn influential in my life. The problem with this
theory is you might be my friend, but I might not want you to know I
just bought zit cream from my favorite zit cream website. Its an
invasion of privacy and Facebook is still working that one out. Beyond
that though, Facebook is starting to look like the Borg. Resistance is
clearly futile. If you want to be in touch with anyone in this 21st
century the easiest and most practical way to do it is through the
web/Facebook, and peer pressure is unavoidable. Come on, everybody’s
doing it. There’s a suggestion of youthful trendiness that we all fall
victim to. Once you make the leap, though, you’ve sold your soul to the
internet’s equivalent of the devil. Because once you create that
profile, there’s (allegedly) no getting that data back. You can’t quit
Facebook. Not really, anyway.

What does it all mean? To those of us working in technology? And
those of us consuming it? These are tough questions to answer. But it
seems clear that one of the most valuable assets of our time is our
data. Our information. Yet, in spite of that reality, our data is
clouded by a mix of fear (identity theft) and ignorance (my dog’s name
is my password!). What’s our responsibility as creators of content, and
websites and systems and as participants of networks? What is our
contribution? How can we influence how all of this unfolds? I believe
that how we interact with, and collect data from users, needs to
reflect truth and authenticity. Sure, we publish privacy statements and
terms of use policies. We won’t store data or we won’t sell it or give
it away or use it without permission. But it’s more than that. We need
to help users understand what it is they’re providing and how easy it
is to exploit. We need to give them an opportunity to change their
minds, or confirm their understanding of an interaction. In my case for
instance, a simple ‘confirmation’ page would have saved me the
embarrassment of having to apologize to 125 friends and colleagues for
that unwanted IM spam. Facebook knew exactly what it was doing when it
required only a single click to access my list. I think it’s a cheap
tactic in the race for the most data. The downside is, I’m no longer as
enthusiastic about the value of Facebook as a networking tool. I see it
as suspect now. The upside is I’ll be more careful when I use little
web apps like that. But our standards for collecting this data aren’t
set in stone. We’ve only just begun, so what more can we do to extend
real value for the user, and tap into the thing that’s most valuable to
our clients? We can consider a user’s understanding of their valuable
points of data as part of our commitment to simple, usable web
experiences. We should see how we collect data as part of usability. We
should only collect what is absolutely critical to the experience and
we should make certain the user understands the cost of sharing their
data and the return on their investment of trust. Finally, we need to
keep our promises. Sharing data should have some reward for the user,
in terms of access to content, or connections or something of value. We
should treat our user’s data as sacred. If we expect to foster a
long-term customer relationship, we need to respect what we know about
a user and what we continue to discover. It’s common sense, really.

Any
of us, even presumed ‘experts’ can fall victim to guerilla data
collection tactics. It’s embarrassing. It’s painful. It’s avoidable.
The difference, though, is we have the ability to influence change. We
have the option of applying some code of conduct to how websites
interact with users. We’re not done. We’ve only just begun. Facebook
doesn’t get to decide. We do.

[cross-posted at the MIMA blog]

Web = Magic?

Posted on February 26, 2008

As consumers of digital media, do we have a responsibility to understand the technology, even a little bit?  I guess I’m not really talking about myself here.  But I am talking about those average consumers.  People like my mom or my in-laws.  People who still don’t understand what a web browser is, or that AOL is not the internet.  My intention is not to put them down, or diminish their importance as we continue to evolve user experiences.  Instead, I’d like to encourage them to, quite simply, figure it out.  I want my mother-in-law to stop calling me whenever she can’t get on the internet because she forgot to plug the phone cord into her dial up modem.  Not because I’m not happy to help, but because the more you get about how it all works, the more you can take advantage of the advantages and efficiencies technology, or more specifically, the internet, can add to your life. We should be afraid of crossing the street against the light, or riding a motorcycle without a helmet, or eating puffer fish.  But we should not be afraid of technology.  If we use common sense, and we’re careful about the information we share, we can dive right in without fear.  You cannot break a website.  Those are words to live by.  As a user, you cannot break a site.  Fearless exploration is encouraged. 

Remember too, its called interactive technology because, in order for it to work the way it was intended, it requires your participation.  That doesn’t mean its ok to just mindlessly click random buttons.  Part of the interactive experience comes from contextual queues.  Paying attention to button text, instructional copy, visual imagery meant to guide your eye, all of this is your responsibility in the interaction.  One of the hardest messages to communicate to the fearful is really so simple.  Read.  Read what the buttons say.  Look for those helpful messages that will guide you and make your experience easier to navigate or more intuitive.  They should be there.  If they are not, well, that’s a whole other blog post.  But generally speaking, a web experience is structured around a fairly standard framework.  You should be able to get to the information you need within a click or two.  And those clicks should be clearly marked in some way or another.  Take responsibility for your experience and pay attention.  Read the page. 

Once you’ve committed to your part in the experience, its important to remember that technology is fallible.  I know. I know.  Everyone is always talking about the internet like its the cheeze whiz of the new millennium.  But please remember, it is not without it’s flaws, and it’s dependencies.  Your experience depends on a variety of things, the speed of your connection to the internet, the speed at which your pc processes information, the kind of information you are attempting to access.  Clicking into a page of text is very different than clicking into a streaming video.  Sometimes, and I know this is a terrifying consideration, you might just have to *gasp* WAIT.  Nothing boggles my mind more than watching someone click into a page and then witnessing an immediate melt-down while waiting for the page to load.  The incessant clicking that ensues is enough to make my head spin. What you might be interested in knowing is that in addition to your connection speed, your computer speed and the type of data you’re accessing, your browser may be processing many many lines of code with each of those clicks.  It could take a little while. Patience is a virtue.

I know.  I know.  I said the big bad word ‘CODE’.  Sometimes the word  ‘code’ causes people’s eyes to bleed, or roll into the back of their heads.  I am always amused by this.  You don’t have to write code to be ok with the fact that code exists.  What is code?  Simple.  It’s the thousands of lines of a foreign language, that live behind the pretty pictures, that make the pictures work.  It’s that simple.  If you’re uncomfortable with the concept of ‘programming languages’ or ‘code’ you need to get over it.  You don’t need to care any more than you do.  But don’t be intimidated by the fact that it exists.  Get this – there is a computer in your car (more than likely) and elements of how your car functions are managed by coded commands.  You never know they are there and you probably never think about them.  But they exist.  Your cell phone.  Holy smokes!  There’s code involved in how you make phone calls.  I’ve actually had clients say to me ‘. . .don’t mention code please.  Whats-her-name gets upset.’  Are you kidding me?  Don’t get upset.  Just nod knowingly in meetings where code is discussed and you’re already ahead of the competition.

I guess my point in all of this is, there is no magic here.  And whatever actually *happens* on the web is due in large part to your interaction with it.  Here’s your take-away:

Be patient.

Be fearless.

Be informed.

Be smart.

Wait.  Read. Try.

 

Working Women

Posted on February 4, 2008

It’s hard to talk to women about technology without also getting into a discussion about being a working woman. It’s certainly not necessary to both work and embrace technology (I was shocked—in a good way—at the number of active online communities of moms that I discovered on maternity leave), but considering that women now make up over 50% of the workforce (at, sadly, somewhere around 50% of the cost of our male counterparts) it’s a relevant topic.

I’m lucky to work for a family-friendly employer. So family-friendly, in fact, that Working Mother magazine named us one of the Top 25 Women-Owned Businesses in the nation. Holler!

Around the time of that award, they asked the women in our office to submit an application to be a Working Mother cover mom. I didn’t win, but it did get me to think about why I work instead of staying at home.

Why do I work?
Because being a working mom makes me a better mom.  Working feels right to me in the same way that staying home feels right to other moms. There was a time when I worried that liking my job—that looking forward to going to work at the end of my maternity leave—meant I was a bad mother. But, when I was fussing over the decision of staying home vs. working, a friend told me this, “In the first week or two, you’ll know. Your gut will either tell you that you need to stay home, or that it’s okay to stay at work.”

She was right. While the transition of the first week was hard emotionally (does anyone enjoy dropping their kid off at daycare the first time?!), I could feel in my gut that working was what I wanted to do. My friend’s gut told her the opposite, and she has since reduced her work schedule to 2 days a week. But, isn’t that’s really what it’s all about: being able to make the choice that feels best for you, and for your family?

I enjoy the time I have with my daughter before and after work, and she gets my full attention. There are certainly days when I come home tired and worn out, but most days I come home and can’t wait to hear everything that she did at “baby school” and tell her all about my day, and sit on the floor and read some books and eat dinner together. I certainly have less time with her than I would if I stayed home with her all day, but the time that we do have is so enjoyable and so focused. I feel like being able to have my own space at work means that I look forward to hanging out with my family at night.

What makes my job meaningful?
Doing work that I love, and working for—and with—people that I respect. I enjoy what I do for a living. I know and respect the owners of my company. I don’t feel like an anonymous cog in a machine; I can see the results of the efforts I put forward, and it feels really good. I love the feeling of looking at a completed project and knowing that I helped make it happen.

How do I handle work/life balance?
First, I’m extremely lucky to have a workplace that is supportive of working parents, and a husband that shares equally in the parenting and housework load. He is self-employed and saves my butt on most days by doing daycare dropoff and pickup. And we divvy up the other tasks too—like, if he cooks, I do dishes. If I give Trixie a bath, he does stories and bed time.

Second, I make conscious decisions about how to spend my time. When I am with my family, I make an effort to be 100% with them, and when I am working I try to be 100% in work mode. In a world where I can work from home, where anyone can contact me almost anywhere, anytime via phone, text message, IM or email, it’s easy to be “sort of” working all the time. Alternately, it’s just as easy to use part of your workday getting a bit of online shopping done, or sending an email to your friends or relatives.  The result of all this flexibility can be that your family—and your work—get half your effort and attention all the time.

I work in an office that is extremely permissive and flexible—we are all trusted as adults to do our job and manage our time appropriately. The key is to use the flexibility in a way that makes you more efficient, not less so.

Growing up, my parents never let us watch TV while we did our homework. I find that I follow a similar rule for myself in trying to keep myself focused and efficient in my work/life balance. If I work at home at night, I do it only after my daughter is in bed, and I don’t watch TV or do anything else at the same time (if I do, I find it makes me about half as productive, and who wants to work twice as long?). I could check my email before breakfast, but I don’t—because I want my family to get my full attention before we all head off to start our day. At the dinner table, there’s no TV, no books, no cell phones. Just our family, talking to each other and catching up. Conversely, when I’m in work mode (whether I’m at the office or working from home) I make an effort to focus on that.

One of the greatest challenges of my life?
Slowly coming to the realization that I can’t have it all. By that I mean learning that I can’t have a clean house, a harmonious marriage, a super-successful career, a perfect body and be an ideal mother at all times. So, I can either frustrate myself trying to achieve perfection, or I can stop amidst the imperfections and enjoy the beauty in the small moments. Because they go by fast. So, when I get home from a long day at work, I have a choice: I can either stress out about the million things on my to-do list, or I can stop worrying about how dirty the kitchen floor is for a few minutes and enjoy a tea party with my daughter. I’ve learned that the kitchen floor can get cleaned up later.