KungPowThinking

A Short Story

2010-07-27T06:26:18Z

Imagine that you’re a film maker. You have spent years at your craft, and you’re pretty damn good. Early days shooting home movies with your friends in high school, a couple popular shorts done in college, and a few well-paying gigs have morphed into a 10 year career and a solid rep for making magic.

It’s fair to say that you’ve paid your dues in the “biz” and now you’re looking to get involved in your first studio feature. Not that you haven’t had tempting offers in the past, you have. They’ve just never seemed quite right, like the beds were either too soft or too hard.

So you’re looking for a screenwriter. Someone with a great story that is just begging to be told. You have tons of meetings over coffee, and read hundreds of treatments. Sometimes the stories are amazing, but you know they won’t sell. Other times the stories are remakes of the same ol shit, but you know it’s exactly the type of thing a studio will pick up. You look for a long time. The process sucks and is wearing you out. You’re just about to give in when you hear a humor that there’s a great story on the market written by someone whose work you’ve appreciated for years. You know this is your shot. You feel in your bones. Call it fate.

So you meet.

The initial meetings go well. They’re mostly meet and greets and general “get to know you’s” but overall there’s real potential. It’s the fourth meeting when you finally ask the writer to let you check out the story. You’re nervous as hell and expecting pure magic.

He cracks open his laptop, starts up some software, digs for a file, and hands it over to you with a “now check this out!”

You take a look, and all you see are 8 sloppy hand drawn sketches and some illegible annotations. WTF!?!

He’s looking at you with great expectation in his eyes, and he asks the inevitable – Can you make my story come to life?

Remember this is supposed to be your shot at the big show. What do you say?

Product Management in NYC

2010-04-18T23:18:58Z

There’s a lot of discussion in New York right now about the lack of experienced Product Managers. Basically, the last few years in NYC have seen a boom in startup culture from developers to investors and almost everything in between. One problem though is that there are very few people in NYC with any experience operating sites past the startup phase. Makes sense considering how few actual startups from the early to mid 2000′s actually survived the fall of Silicon Alley. So, where does that leave this next crop of entrepreneurs?

There are some amazing startups coming out of NY right now with more up and coming every day. Startups like Meetup, Foursquare, Tumblr, Solvate, Hot Potato, MeetMoi, Bit.ly, Chartbeat, PinchMedia (now Flurry), Medialets, Gilt Group, Ideeli, Outside.in, Nabewise, Kidmondo, Market.io, Simple.pr, Drop.io, and the list goes on – for more check out Mike K’s post about the NY tech scene here.

Needless to say New York is energized. The problem is that almost all of these companies are brand new, and with only a handful of experienced tech startups in the city, the pool of resources from which to draw talent has been very small. This is especially the case when it comes to Product Management. Note: some would argue that there’s a shortage of developers and designers in NY as well, but my experience says that this is not the case. New York is a design hub and has been for a long time. There is no place in the U.S. with a stronger UX, IxD, or visual design presence, and there ARE developers here. As an example, my friend Paul Dix has scheduled the inaugural Machine Learning meetup w/ over 300 members and 90 people RSVP’d for next Wednesday’s event. IMHO nothing says “developer” like Machine Learning. I digress.

So, there are a ton of new startups but a shortage of Product Managers in NY. Some folks are trying to do their best to remedy the situation – Charlie O’Donnell recently kicked off the NY Product Managers School, there’s also the Software Product Manager’s Meetup, Zach Klein’s blog series on Product Leadership, and probably a few other interesting resources that I can’t remember off the top of my head right now. These attempts are awesome, and I support them wholeheartedly.

I just want to add some of my thoughts on the matter.

1. Product Management, especially with startups, is NOT babysitting. It’s not all about managing a giant feature list and queuing up the next iteration. Product Management IS about driving a product (Zach hits the nail on the head when he talks about Product Leadership). It means taking ownership, having P&L responsibility, and making decisions about what should be done. Product Management is a leadership role.

2. Good Product Managers are passionate, creative, execution oriented, and metrics driven. I tend to disagree w/ few others who think Product Managers aren’t “building or selling” because, IMHO, nothing gets built or sold w/out a Product Manager making sure it is what SHOULD get built and sold. It’s the Product Manager’s job to predict the future and make it happen.

3. Good PMs won’t balk at the responsibility. Don’t hire a Product Manager who isn’t willing to step up. Balance this by asking them to justify all decisions. Make them earn the trust you’re giving, and make it clear that with great power comes their job if they mess up.

4. If you can’t find someone local, as Charlie O’Donnell advised me in a brief conversation he probably doesn’t remember having – try looking outside of New York. Try to find people who left NY for places like the Bay and convince them to come back. The scene here is viable again and New York has a lot to offer.

5. User Experience is core to Product Management – if you hear a PM talking using words like “GUI” or “UI” w/out the proper respect given to Design – they need to do their homework. Same goes for technology. If your PM can’t tell the difference between Java and javascript – they aren’t right for a startup.

6. A Product Manager’s job doesn’t stop when the feature is launched. This is why it’s important to try to find people who have actually operated products – launching a feature is easy, knowing what to do afterward can be tough.

7. Prioritization is the toughest thing for a PM to do. It can be reminiscent of the story about the hunter who got trapped in a bear trap and had to saw his own arm off to avoid starving to death. Try to find someone with the guts to saw their own arm off to launch a product and respect them for it. “The perfect is the enemy of the good” and “Better to build half a product than a half-assed product” are two quotes that come to mind.

That’s all I have for now. Will try to follow up soon w/ more.

Online Dating

2010-04-18T06:10:23Z

OK. So I worked for an “online personals” company for a while. We had to call it “online personals” instead of “online dating” because of the lawyers. It just so happens that there are legal requirements for dating services in many states that require things like guarantees and reimbursement if no matches are made.

Anyway. Here are some of my takeaways from working in the online personals space.

1. It’s a direct marketing business. At it’s core, the online dating game is about lead generation and conversion. It’s typically broken up into this simple process – find people, get them to sign up, convince them to pay, then keep them as long as possible. Simple. I say it’s a direct marketing business because, traditionally, the best way to get members is to used targeted performance based advertising. This is one reason it’s very difficult for startups to compete against the big boys w/ budgets. That and #4 below.

2. There’s a reason why all of the major online personals companies use a subscription-based model. It works. Before coming into the game w/ a “new” business model, realize that almost all of them have been tried before. Free dating, credit systems, free for women pay for men, ad supported, white-labeling, etc. Not saying that the game can’t be changed, just do your research before jumping in.

3. There are typically two types of dating site: Classifieds and Services. Match, JDate, etc. fall into the Classifieds model. No matter what they say, they’re not really about matching you based on any kind of magic sauce. Classifieds rely on people actively searching/browsing for other people. They tend to focus their efforts on two things – 1. gathering lots of information about you, especially photos. 2. getting you to view/interact with as many other profiles as possible. They make money by being in control of the communication between users. They’re paranoid that you’ll somehow go out of band and find a way to contact someone without paying – Social Networks are their enemy. Services like eHarmony or Chemistry.com focus a lot more on matching. The idea is that people who are serious will pay, and the more “serious” you make the site, the more “serious” people will join and pay “serious” money. Services focus on the illusion of matchmaking. They tend to actually have some magic behind how they match people, but ultimately rely on the fact that their long, difficult, and sometimes expensive registration processes tend to be the best possible pre-qualifier. Funny thing is that they’re right and it works.

4. Location is important. Lots of people socialize online, but most people using dating sites actually want to meet other people IRL. This poses a massive problem for startups because they have no critical mass in any one location. There’s nothing worse than a dating site w/ no members near where you live.

5. Women use online personals sites a lot differently than men do. Women tend to use sites to manage their dating lives, men use sites to actively search out and find potential partners. I know I’m making sweeping generalities based on gender here, but the research holds true for the majority. One anecdote I can throw out there is something I saw when testing a new instant message feature on a site I worked on. I had a member of our team sign in – she happened to be an absolutely stunning female team member. The moment she signed into the site w/ the new instant messenger, she received so many IMs that the design of our notification system failed. This experience is not uncommon. I also have heard from a good number of women on dating sites who never go out to contact men. I’m still waiting for the dating site that actually designs their site around the fact that genders use dating sites differently.

6. No one has perfected the “social network as dating site” concept. Friendster started it, Facebook followed, and there are lots of others who have tried. Black Planet may be the closest and JDate basically went from dating site to social network, but no one else has effectively combined the two. Why? One reason is that you can’t make people who already know each other pay to contact each other. The second reason is that people don’t really want to date the friends of their friends, at least not online w/ everyone knowing about it. I do think there is room for a “friend as matchmaker” play in the space, but it’s hard because there’s a lot at stake for the matchmaker. I don’t envy the site that tries.

7. Users often use more than one dating site at a time. Do what you will with that info. A friend of mine who ran a competing dating site actually allowed the competition to place their ads in his search results – for a very high price – and I don’t think it hurt his business at all.

8. It’s not about the features, it’s about the photos.

I guess I could go on and add a lot more detail. Honestly, I’ve been meaning to write a post like this for years but never sat down to it. Hopefully it shines a little bit of light onto the online dating space for those who are curious and doesn’t get me in trouble with the online dating experts for not giving enough detail or being flat out wrong. Enjoy.

Random Update

2009-06-09T23:53:19Z

Topics for this post include;

My rad birthday present
Bing.com
Apple’s announcements at WWDC

So, my awesome friends hooked me up with an even more awesome birthday present – a Kindle 2, and it’s not even a used one! I obviously, think it’s great so far. It’s small, the text is totally readable, and buying books is probably just a bit too easy. The only two negative comments I have are that the little joystick thing is a a bit small and I keep wanting to touch the screen as if it were an iPhone. I’m sure I’ll get over it soon. So as of right now, I’ve got a Kindle and the Kindle App on my iPhone all synced and working great. Now if I just had some more time to read.

OK so my take on Bing.com. Basically, it looks like it was built by Microsoft with some help of some low res screenshots from Google and very little insight into why Google has made the decisions it has. Here’s a screenshot that shows a couple issues that I found frustrating:

First off, the Home Page is ugly. Totally functional, but ugly. The picture in the background is distracting, none of the links look clickable, and I’ve always hated the magnifying glass search metaphor. Oh yea, and who the hell cares about planning a trip to Florence? I was looking for shoes. So damn frustrating.

Now here’s a picture of my shoes search. Talk about cluttertastic. We’ve still got a picture of Florence behind the logo – Why? I’m sure no one knows. The left nav is pretty cool with some categorization that seems accurate, though I’m not about to start digging through categorized lists of results when I really just want to go somewhere else. The last thing anyone looking for something ever wants to do is look for something. They want to find it as quickly as possible and go away. Microsoft still struggles with sending people away from their sites, and it’s evidenced in Bing. They categorize, so that I have to dig. If you scroll down a search results page, you see your results broken into categories with links to “See more results” presumably within the category. Very interesting, except that they also have numeric pagination at the bottom of the page. I don’t quite understand how they can provide me a ranked list of results broken down by category on page 1, then list more results on page 2 w/out breaking them into categories. It’s just plain ol unintuitive. That brings me to the modal window that’s triggered when mousing over a little orange dot that appears to the right of every result. The modal shows more details about the results, which is neat. 2 problems though, and one of them is going to cost MS money. First, it appears when I mouse over the dot. Freaking surprising and frustrating at the same time. There’s very little visual queue that anything is going to happen, then BAM! A modal that covers a chunk of screen – oh yea and it says “Go to the page” which is interesting if we’re still thinking about websites as pages. Granted that’s a personal beef I have not something many people will probably notice. – Second, and this is the one that will cost MS money, their modals cover their sponsored sites. It’s seriously as if they made a conscious decision to hurt their own revenue opportunities. Because advertisers are going to see fantastic click-through rates when their ads are covered with links to other sites.

If I were MS, here’s what I would do. – Less. I would have fewer links, fewer modals, and fewer stupid pictures of Florence. Basically fewer things for my customer to think about, and fewer variables to track and report on. I would trim, trim trim and provide focus. Figure out exactly what it is I want my customers to do when they use my site and give them just that. No more. This would allow my product team to launch the site, see what works easily, understand customer behavior and motivations, and then make changes according to the data. Basically, just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. Bing looks like it’s a startup that was launched with a mature site’s features. Oh yea and it’s damn ugly. I mean seriously did they lay off their web design team in the last set of layoffs? I’m so over it.

Apple announced some new stuff at WWDC. Everyone knows about it. I want a new 15″ MacBook Pro and Snow Leopard. Not sure if I want the new iPhone 3G S. I mean… of coure I want it, but I’m going to satisfy my gadget craving with a new DSLR instead of a new phone.

That’s it.

Feature Ideas for Twitter

2009-04-08T07:38:12Z

It’s late and before I go to sleep I wanted to write a post about a few features I’d consider implementing if I were working at Twitter. Often Product Managers are unwilling to share ideas because we don’t want anyone to know our ideas actually suck and we’re selfish bastards. In order to prove to the world that I’m not a chicken or selfish here’s two freebies and some philosophy.

Feature #1 – Open the API to allow user account creation. My basic understanding of Twitter is that a majority of it’s traffic comes through it’s API as opposed to via browsing of the site. Making account creation available through the API would leverage the existing app developer ecosystem and benefit both Twitter and the app developers. App developers would benefit because they would no longer have to rely on users already having a Twitter account to use their apps, and it would obviously benefit Twitter with increased evangelism and measurable member conversion from development partners. It’s a win win. The risk is that scumbag developers would abuse the API by creating crap accounts. To avoid this, I suggest either implementing a pain in the ass real person authentication system like a custom captcha or simply only making the calls available to whitelisted developers.

Feature #2 – Suggest people and or tags to follow. Basically use user location as entered during registration and an additonal interests question to recommend people to follow. One of the hardest things about using Twitter is getting started. It’s analagous to attending a party in real life and not knowing anyone. You don’t know who to talk to or what to say, you’re uncomfortable, and you need a couple drinks to loosen up. The truth of the matter is that almost everyone, especially the major Twitter players would love another follower, especially one that has stated interest in something they talk about. I would seriously consider leveraging Twitter Search and trending along with a couple minor changes to profile questions to make immediate and ongoing recommendations about people to follow. It’s worked with Facebook and Linkedin, and they have a much much bigger problem linking people together that Twitter. The combination of asychronous follow and the fact that Twitter isn’t about people’s existing relationships (it’s a medium to create new ones) puts Twitter in a perfect position to make recommendations. How can I say this simply? Users have zero expectation for a good recommendation, so the feature can only win.

That reminds me of another idea I had about where Twitter can actually attain the Silicon Valley Holy Grail and be the “next Google” (assuming a legit revenue model which Google had from early on). It’s in connecting people who don’t know each other via their conversations. Google doesn’t connect people and I dare to say they will never connect people well no matter how many new experimental apps they launch. They won’t do it because, despite being unbelievably talented and amazing in so many different ways, Google is not very good at dealing with people – privacy issues come to mind. Now you say – “What about Facebook 200M members can’t be wrong?” To that I say – the major problem with existing social networks is that the network effect that makes them so powerful leans heavily on the hopes that people know each other and are willing to link up. Again Twitter doesn’t really have that problem. Once, a long time ago, I wrote something like “I want to build the social network for people who don’t have any friends, and a search engine for people who don’t know what they’re looking for.” I think Twitter can be the network for people w/ no friends… yet.

Thanks for reading.

Tools I Like

2009-03-21T22:46:46Z

I’ve decided to write a quick post with a list of the tools I like to use when working on a typical project. Should be a quick post, and hopefully it’ll be helpful. Though after making my lists, I admit that that there’s probably not much here that’ll standout to many Mac users.

Hardware

15.4″ MacBook Pro with 250Gb Hard drive
External 20inch LCD Monitor
External Backup drive 250Gb
iPhone 3G
Sketchbook, notepads, and pens
Assorted whiteboards and dry erase markers strategically placed throughout the office

Software Daily Usage

OmniGraffle Pro (http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/OmniGraffle/) Used for wireframes, user flow diagrams, and higher fidelity sketching. I use the Wireframes Shapes Angles, Yahoo Design, Ultimate iPhone, and a few other stencils regularly. I think they’re probably all available at Graffletopia (http://graffletopia.com/).
Adium (http://www.adiumx.com/) used for instant messaging on AIM, GTalk, Yahoo, MSN, and Facebook with Twitter integration coming soon.
Pyro (http://www.karppinen.fi/pyro/) used as a software alternative for Campfire in a browser.
TextMate (http://macromates.com/) best text editor I’ve ever used.
Jing (http://www.jingproject.com/) used for screen captures and quick videos, has upload feature and URL shortening. It’s awesome for reporting bugs.
Firefox with Firebug, Web Developer, and View Dependencies Add-ons (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/) Firebug and Web Developer Add-ons are must haves.
MS Office Word and Excel
TweetDeck (http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/) Twitter is a work resource. I swear.

Software Occassional Usage

xScope (http://iconfactory.com/software/xscope) Check it out. It’s invaluable.
Silverback (http://silverbackapp.com/) For quick and dirty usability tests. Simplest and best app out there.
iPhoney (http://marketcircle.com/iphoney/) Simulate the iPhone Safari Browser w/out the SDK. It’s not perfect but it works good enough.
Parallels with Windows XP, IE 6, IE 7, and Safari (http://www.parallels.com/) I hate IE 6 so much it’s ridiculous, but sometimes you just can’t avoid it.
Transmit (http://www.panic.com/transmit/) Easy to use FTP.
Adobe Photoshop
iPhone SDK

Web-based Applications

Gmail (http://gmail.com)
Basecamp (http://basecamphq.com) Project communication suite. Writeboards, messages and files are priceless.
Lighthouse (http://lighthouseapp.com) Because bug reporting/tracking needs to be separate from feature discussions. Lighthouse is so easy even a client can use it. Especially effective when used with Jing and automated commit messages.
GitHub (http://github.com) Source management with some fantastic community tools.
Campfire (http://www.campfirenow.com/) Web-based group IM w/ archives, file upload and hooks for deployment and commit messages.
Google Calendar (http://google.com/calendar) I hate to admit it, but I still think Outlook is the best calendar app, but Google’s Calendar is a close second.
Google Analytics (http://google.com/analytics) Powerful free web analytics? Nuff said.
TinyURL or Bit.ly (http://tinyurl.com or http://bit.ly) Very useful when trying to tweet long URL’s to collegues, though it’s a bit of a mystery why most content sites just do their own URL shortening. It’s not too difficult.

iPhone Apps

Tweetie (http://www.atebits.com/software/tweetie/) Most fully featured iPhone Twitter application I could find, and it’s cheap.
Projects (http://appremix.com/projects/) Not cheap, but it’s a damn good Basecamp application for your iPhone.

That’s pretty much it. If you’ve got your own apps you use or alternatives to the ones I listed above please comment. I’m always looking for new stuff to help me do my job better.

#IxD09 Thoughts on Interaction ’09 in Vancouver

2009-02-11T01:09:45Z

Got home late last night from a long weekend (Feb. 5th – 8th) spent with some amazing people at Interaction ’09 in Vancouver, BC, Canada which was held in conjunction with the folks from Simon Fraser University (SFU).

Interaction ’09 was the second annual conference put together by the Interaction Design Association, better known as IxDA, and my first IxD conference experience. Sadly, I was unable to attend the inaugural event last year in Savannah, GA because of a client’s site launch and other work obligations.

For some perspective here’s a quick background on my relationship to IxDA. I’ve been on the email list for a few years now, and try to participate as much as I can w/out hurting my productivity. I have attended a few events in NYC, not nearly as many as I should, and most recently missed an event that was less than a block away from my office. Despite my limited activity, I’ve been lucky to meet some great folks in the New York IxDA community and take part in some very thought provoking online conversations via the mailing list and Twitter. That said, I was really excited to get to the conference to meet some of my online acquaintances and the personalities who have influenced my work, and really explore what the IxD community is all about. In all honesty, I’ve always felt like a bit of an outsider looking into the community, and was a bit nervous about whether or not I’d be accepted into their tribe in person.

For the curious, here’s my take on the event. Please note, that I don’t feel up to doing a lot of research, so any “facts” mentioned are “to the best of my knowledge”. Also, I won’t go into the specifics of the talks because that would be too much work.

The conference was run pretty damn well for being only the second conference put together by a team of people with full time jobs. Much props to the organizers. Downtown Vancouver was a great location, the hotels chosen were the best I’ve been in for any conference (Four Seasons Vancouver and the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver), and the food was halfway decent. I’m pretty sure most everyone who attended felt well looked after and comfortable in the environment. My only 2 beefs with the location were the international data roaming charges for using my iPhone, and that the residentially challenged in Vancouver were surprisingly assertive.

First off, the conference was a pretty sharp contrast to many conferences I’ve been to in the past. It seemed like almost everyone knew or knew of each other. This was likely because of the visibility of the community, high level of interaction on the mailing list and Twitter, and the activity of the local IxDA groups. Being at least a little active in the community was a benefit, though both welcoming and a little intimidating. Luckily enough, I was able to meet up with some online acquaintances and active members of the community @semanticwill, @mariobourque, @pnts, @emenel, @mjbroadbentand @Yoni almost immediately (Note that when I put “@” in front of a name it’s in reference to their Twitter handles and because they’re people you should follow). They introduced me to some other “good to know” folks right away, and the fun began.

(Note: To anyone already on the mailing list but not on Twitter, sign up now and start following folks. You’re missing out on a lot of great interaction if you haven’t yet.)

Second, the conference, unlike many others, was intentionally not themed. The organizers opted instead to invite some of the most active, accomplished, and interesting members of the community to speak to the topics that were on their mind. The speaker list was a real “who’s who” of authors, teachers, practitioners and innovators in interaction design. This created an interesting dynamic because you could tell that the speakers were passionate about their topics, even if their presentations weren’t necessarily as polished as they would have been if they had been recycled. The end result was a professional conference with the liveliness of a Barcamp. A definite plus in my book.

The conference format was divided between optional workshops, lightning talks, sessions, and keynotes. I only attended one workshop and found the hands on experience great exercise, and next year I hope to attend a couple more. The lightning talks were shorter talks with specific topics. I attended as many as I could and my only regrets were that they overlapped and weren’t longer. The time constraint especially limited the discussion lead by Josh Seiden (@jseiden) on the effect of the current economy on IxD because good discussions always need more time. Overall the sessions and keynotes were thought provoking, current, and diverse. The only negative was that, for folks not on the mailing list or active in the community, some of them might have felt a bit insider. Key themes that pleasantly surprised me included sustainable design, effect of IxD on human behavior, and interaction design in art and innovation.

Talks I really enjoyed include but were not limited to:

Design by Community: The Drupal.org Redesign by Leisa Reichelt
Design for Life by Identifying the Lifecycle of an Experience by German Leon Osorio
Carpe Diem: Attention, Awareness, and Interaction Design 2009 a Keynote by Dan Saffer (@kickerstudio)
Designing the Viral App by Christina Wodtke
Play in Social and Tangible Interactions by Kars Alfrink
Understanding Contexts of Use by Miles Rochford
Each One, Teach One a Keynote by Kim Goodwin

As I mentioned earlier, despite the great talks, it was the conversations outside of the talks that really caught my attention. The conference set up was so that there was a good amount of time and space allocated for just meeting people and talking with a couple typical social events and a centrally located bar for the really good conversations. One really cool thing I noticed was that the speaker to attendee ratio was amazing. It was fairly easy to shake hands and make attempts to engage the speakers without waiting in lines or feeling too awkward. If you didn’t know this already, I’m actually a bit shy and feel quite awkward in social situations of more than a couple people. Luckily enough, my passion for expressing my opinions on just about everything and the level of engagement by everyone at the conference really helped me get over it. I had the chance to interrupt quite a few conversations without feeling too guilty and talk to some folks doing amazing work. The overall feeling was extremely welcoming.

Now time for some blatant name dropping!

This section is dedicated to all of the great conversations I took part in and the ones I missed. I do regret not having met, by no fault of theirs, Dan Saffer, Dan Brown, Aza Raskin, Luke Wroblewski and a handful of others whose work I’m a big fan of. Though, I did get to talk to a bunch of other folks whose work and efforts in the community you should probable pay attention to including: Josh Seiden (@jseiden), Nasir Barday (@nbarday), Greg Petroff, Jared Spool (@jmspool), David Malouf (@daveIxD), Louis Rosenfeld, Whitney Hess (@whitneyhess), Todd Zaki Warfel, Ian Swinson, Nathan Moody, Jim Leftwich, Elizabeth Bacon, Lennart Andersson, and a host of others. Sorry to say that I am 100% certain I’ve left some deserving people off the list, but I think that fact alone is enough evidence to show how active and accepting the community was. The level of conversation was higher than any I’ve been around in a while, even with the disagreements and rivalries that happen in every close-knit community. Of course, if yo want to be included, or even excluded from mention in this blog post, feel free to ping me @joshviney and I’ll see what I can do. No guarantees.

Time for a conclusion cause I’m tired of typing. If you knew about the conference and didn’t attend because you’re lazy – You missed out. If you couldn’t attend because of work or other obligations – I’m sorry but I understand. If you are reading this and didn’t know about the conference – It’s not your fault and you should seriously consider going next year. I think one key call to action from the event was to increase evangelism, so you can be assured that at least some folks will get noisy about interaction design in the coming months.

For more 411 you can search #IxD09 on Twitter for some great back-channel chatter and brief recaps of some of the talks and keynotes.

Now time for a blatant plug for my business!

Anyone reading this interested in web or mobile application design/development or some product crafting on an existing app, hit me up. My company, Eastmedia, would love the opportunity to work with you.

A Problem that Needs Solving

2008-11-29T08:46:34Z

In the past week I’ve had almost identical conversations with two of my friends. One friend I’ve known since high school. He’s in the middle of the process of creating a 501 c 3 non-profit focused on creation of sustainable communities using cool new stackable hydroponic growing technology. My other friend is a director at a non-profit focused on aging research and resources for the elderly. Two very different guys who don’t know each other focused on two very different problems. Interestingly enough they both have the exact same problem. The problem is that non-profits are notoriously bad at managing their data.

My friend who is starting his non-profit ran square into the reporting issue while applying for 501 c 3 status. From what he tells me, there are a fair number of hoops that must be jumped through during the application process and even more required when applying for grants. He mentioned to me that two things became apparent during the process. One is that it is very difficult to find funding for a startup non-profit, and the other is that it is even more difficult to find the data to create the projections necessary for an accurate plan. He mentioned that the government provides census data, but after that the real detailed data is decentralized in the hands of existing non-profits who tend to store their data in massive Excel spreadsheets, on hardcopies filed away, or in custom legacy systems no one can use.

My friend at the existing non-profit told me a story about his first month there when he realized that almost no one who worked for him really knew how to use a computer for anything other than entering data into spreadsheets. He mentioned trying to gather reports and having to sort through giant printed pages of data before almost giving up entirely. He ended up having to let people go and appointing one of the few employees who understood reporting, an ex-banker, in charge of working with him to centralize their data. They’ve bee working on it for a while and still aren’t done.

Hearing these stories really upset me for a couple of reasons. The first is purely economic. I know quantifying the dollar value of the social good produced by non-profits is not really the point, but there must be some accountability considering the current state of the economy and the likelihood that services who can’t prove their worth will be discontinued. The lack of decent reporting technology, tactics and know-how makes this accountability inaccurate at best and impossible at worst. The bottom line is that any business run using the reporting tactics of non-profits would cease to exist very very quickly. The second thing that really bothered me was hearing about all of the extremely important data, the kind of data that gives real insight into what is happening in people’s lives, being hidden away in boxes in backrooms and warehouses. Non-profits gather tons of data. In fact, many non-profits are focused on doing nothing but gathering data, but there doesn’t seem to be a reliable way for them to share their findings or for anyone looking to provide services, including the government, to access the data without a monumental effort.

After hearing all of this, I did some quick Googling, because I know absolutely nothing about non-profits or about which inexpensive tools they actually have access to. What I found in my ten minutes of online research pointed to software solutions for helping non-profits manage their organizations. Software targeted at managing staff, fundraising, web site content management, email newsletter tools, etc. What I did not find was a centralized place for them to store their data that would allow others to access it. So that they could share their findings and work together. Now I’m not saying it doesn’t exist. I didn’t look very long and my friends just might not be aware of the solutions, but I’m guessing that this central data repository doesn’t exist for a few reasons. The main reason being that the data gathered by within each non-profit sector can be dramatically different and very difficult to reasonably store and query – a pretty big technology problem. Another being that traditionally non-profits do not have a lot of money or expertise in technology and have cultures that tend towards “old school” thinking. Things like giant spreadsheets, hardcopies and legacy custom databases are very likely to be the norm given their culture and budgets.

If I’m right and this problem is real, there’s also opportunity here. There’s opportunity for some business to put a solution together that could help solve the problem and probably make a reasonable amount of money doing so. For some reason I see Google as the perfect business fit. But better than a business opportunity, there’s an opportunity for the Open Source community to solve a real problem and do some material good in the process. The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that this is the perfect problem for the Open Source community to tackle because it will take good technology and lots of motivated folks to find the answer – oh and non-profits as individual organizations really don’t tend to have much money to spend on this kind of thing until the value can be proven and the budgets put together.

So, here’s my plan to help. First, I’m writing this rambling blog post on my site that receives approximately ten visitors per day. Second, I’m asking that anyone reading this post who knows more about non-profits and technology solutions please comment and leave links to available resources that my friends might be able to use. Third, I’m asking that anyone involved in the Open Source community please seriously consider this as a problem to tackle. I’m certain there will be many appreciate people out there and plenty of glory if it can be solved.

Tough Times

2008-10-10T05:42:44Z

So, it’s been a tough few weeks for a lot of folks. Quite an understatement huh?

The crazy thing about it is that it’s really just begun, especially for Web folks. A lot of Web folks haven’t felt the crunch quite yet for a variety of reasons, the biggest being that a lot are sitting on some funding that should last them a little while. The problem is that, unless they have a real profit model, that funding is going to dry up and the next round is probably not going to be there. The bright side is that this isn’t the first time it’s happened to many of us, and the smart companies realized a year ago that this Web 2.0 boom couldn’t last forever and prepared for the downturn. Here’s my take on what will happen.

The bad news:

Companies who have been living off of funding without a profit model are going to feel the squeeze real soon. If you’ve been focusing on growing a user base without a profit model in the hopes of an exit, you’re probably out of luck for a little while
Start-ups looking to start something better be looking to bootstrap because investors are going to get stingy, there’s no way to get loans, and the “big win” exit strategies are quickly evaporating (Sarbanes-Oxley took away the IPO option and the big Web companies aren’t going to have the cash to acquire for a while)
Impression-based advertising is going to dry up as companies reduce marketing and advertising budgets. The ad agencies and remaining portals are going to be in trouble. Just watch to see if Y!, MSN, etc. start serving house ads for their own products and services.
Luxury consumer products and electronics are going to take a hit. This is obvious, but I don’t see many people buying computers, flat screen TVs, blueray disc players, smart phones, cars, etc. I say this for two reasons. The first is that no one has disposable income and the second is that everyone in the world just got done buying those things a year ago

On the bright side:

Companies who focus on performance-based advertising will be ok. That means anyone doing search pay-per-click advertising or acquisition based advertising. I back this up by pointing to Google’s remarkable success during the dot com bust, and the likelihood that many companies are going to look for smart measurable ways to increase sales
Companies who make money by helping people save money will be ok. This includes companies like Ebay (even though they just laid people off), Zappos, Netflix, etc. Consumers are going to tighten their belts, but they’ll still want to make purchases especially for the holiday season. They know that you can get the best bargains online and they’ll go where they know the deals are
Anyone providing entertainment or distraction at a reasonable cost will be ok. People will be looking for reasonably priced distractions from the madness, and online media distribution is real this time around. Netflix is cheaper than going to a movie. iTunes, Hulu, YouTube, etc. If they’re monetizing their traffic, will be ok
This is different than the first time around. A lot of companies have been here before and know how to tighten their belts, and everyone can be confident that the Web will survive. That experience and confidence is huge this time around. The Web isn’t run by kids anymore
Thanks to cloud computing, google apps, development platforms like Ruby on Rails, viral marketing, and web standards, the operational cost of running a successful web site is dramatically less than it was just a few years ago

So what do you do? Well, here’s what I recommend. If you have a job, stay where you are. If you work for a start-up that has some good traction but generates no revenue or relies on impression-based advertising, find a way to start charging for your service. Don’t be scared to ask for money for your quality product or service. A lot of companies are scared to charge, and that fear is going to drive them right out of business. Find ways to cut costs other than laying off smart people. Your people are your greatest asset. Look for smart inexpensive technology like Google Apps and cloud computing. Don’t be retarded and spend money on things you don’t need. Don’t spend ridiculous money on Sharepoint when Basecamp and Google Docs are enough. Take open source products seriously. They will save you money. They’ve matured a lot in the past five years and many are comprable or better than similar closed source products. Also consider that many of the folks who contribute to open source products to it for the passion and glory, not the money. They’re going to be paying attention while the closed source folks are laying people off. Speaking of layoffs, it might even be a great time to hire as some companies lay off and freelancers run for cover. Hire if you’ve got the money, and just like in the NFL draft, go for talent not position. This might just be your chance to get that ninja developer you always wanted.

Take this opportunity to innovate, build a tight team and streamline your business. If you succeed you might just be looking at a very big win. Oh yea and I’ll say it one more time to be absolutely clear. KEEP YOUR SMART PEOPLE AT ALL COSTS. THEY ARE YOUR BEST ASSET. Of course, if you don’t want them, let me know because I’ve got some kickass ideas and my company is ready to go.

The Future of Browsing Courtesy of MS and Mozilla

2008-08-28T22:29:23Z

Very cool stuff people. Mozilla’s Ubiquity and MS IE 8 Beta 2. Two different takes trying to solve very similar problems. I think I smell a very interesting trend.

The problem:

The Web as we use it today is only very loosely connected through hyperlinks or developer created mashups. Even though the business environment on the Web has shifted slightly toward openness, mashups are limited by technical issues like API’s and business relationships. User don’t care about either. They just want to add maps to email and tell their friends about it.

Ubiquity is all about empowering users to create their own mashups leveraging natural language. To use and visualize data and functionality provided by various sites as they see fit. Ubiquity has real potential to put an end to the limitations of walled gardens, and finally put the power in the hands of the people. It’s in super early Alpha release and there are definitely some challenges ahead, but I really dig it. Check out Aza Raskin’s blog and the Mozilla site for Ubiquity to find out more. My quick take, this is exactly the kind of thing that could make the Web exciting again. Only limitation is that it looks to be linked directly to Firefox. It would be even cooler if it could stay away from the browser wars altogether. Something like QuickSilver by Blacktree or Enso by Humanized. I also wonder how ubiquitous something leveraging “natural language” can be. I mean – which language? Note: if Aza reads this, I’d love to lend a UX hand with Ubiquity. Seriously.

Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

IE 8 seems to be Microsoft’s attempt to solve the same problem through Accelerators and WebSlices. Accelerators are contextual services accessible via highlighting web page content and clicking the Accelerators icon. Developers can build Accelerators for their services and users can install them on IE 8. Webslices let users save sections of web pages for future access – not unlike Apple’s Widgets which should be no surprise. Microsoft’s solution is definitely further along than Ubiquity, but it still relies on developers to build the Accelerators and doesn’t rely on natural language parsing black magic.

On a side note: I’ve always thought it strange that MS causes complete software development nightmares for itself by trying to build operating systems that work on just about any hardware configuration users can splice together, but still can’t come to terms with relinguishing control of software development. Reminds me of Steve Ballmer’s famous freakout – “Developers, developers, developers, developers.” I’ve always considered good developers to be scarce resources. It’s gotta be tough to be a company that makes a ton of money selling developers the tools to build consumer products while still trying to sell consumer products yourself. I’d prefer to see a CEO running around a stage yelling, “people, people, people, people” or even “customers, customers, customers, customers” wouldn’t you?