Nichole McGill

How cute cat videos enable revolution

noreply@blogger.com (Nichole McGill) — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 15:12:00 +0000

Secretively planning a revolution?
(Source: I-Love-Cats.com)

I've been catching up on my podcast listening lately and on the top of my "listen and re-listen" list is the 2011 Vancouver Human Rights Lecture, "Cute Cats and the Arab Spring" available on YouTube and as a CBC Radio podcast.

In it, Ethan Zuckerman, director of the Center for Civic Media at MIT, gives an overview of why social media tools have been effective in enabling dissent and revolution in other countries.

However, it's not because "earnestness" has been woven into the code of sharing tools such as Twitter and Facebook. It's rather their ease-of-use (or "UX" as they say in the Web 'biz) and their low-brow content (read: proliferation of cat videos, Justin Bieber and Kardashian sibling updates) that make them so powerful.

Three reasons why this podcast is a "must-listen"

1. It's a good primer on human rights and security attacks

Anyone who cares about freedom of information and the Web needs to know about denial of server (DOS) attacks and the role such attacks play in denying people access to information via the Internet. Zuckerman explains the role these attacks play in censoring information relations to human rights abuses, in easy-to-understand language.

Here is a quick definition of DOS attacks, courtesy of KeyFocus:

A denial of service (DOS) attack is an attempt to over load a server by sending a very large number of requests to the server with the aim of over-loading the server's resources, so that it can no longer cope with legitimate traffic. Hackers that launch DOS attacks frequently use several machines to launch an attack at the same time to generate the maximum numbers of connections and band-width usage.

2. Why we care more about cat videos than human rights abuses

"Do you really want to take me down?"
(Source: I-Love-Cats.com)

Humans being humans, Zuckerman says we tend to offer lip service when others' rights are infringed upon, but take away our (insert luxury item or activity here) and suddenly you have our full attention.

When sites devoted to human rights group are taken down in DOS attacks, the ripple effect is felt by an earnest minority.

But social media is most powerful when it is trading in the banal and in the most intimate -- earnest pleas for your sympathy and overt sales pitches are the first to be un-followed.

Hence, the only way one's comfortable reality will be infiltrated is when a DOS attack which was aimed at taking down that a video illustrating human rights abuses also takes down that daily cute cat video that you (secretively) share with your "friends" and your daily life has suddenly been inconvenienced.

Even if the "kitty-on-treadmill" wasn't the target, it has become the collateral damage.

3. Zuckerman is immensely listenable

Ethan Zuckerman (Author photo: Erik Hersman)

"Cute cats" is an easy-listen podcast, surprising for its heavy subject matter.

Zuckerman also positions social media in such a way that non-geeks and the Facebook-adverse can understand.

For Web professionals, it's further proof that Web tools are most powerful when they are intuitive and easy-to-use.

And for us communications geeks, it's further proof that the silo-ed media model of the 20th century is now a seamless global conversation, where articles from People, Mad Magazine, The Economist and Human Rights Watch co-exist in the same space and are interdependent.

The importance of being yourself...online

noreply@blogger.com (Nichole McGill) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:53:00 +0000

Twelve years ago when I had to chance to purchase a domain name, I purchased that of my name. My first book was being published by a Toronto publishing house and my name seemed to be most consistent element on which to "hitch my horse".

Fast-forward to 2008 and I'm taking a "social media guru" out to lunch to get his take on using Twitter and Facebook to promote my then-upcoming young adult novel. Since social media had seemed to have disrupted notions of the Web, I was considering creating accounts which would advertise the name of my book or the genre in which I was writing.

The guru shook his head vigorously. The basic rules of the Web still hadn't changed:

Whatever you do online, you should use and promote your real name.
Not the name of your company (which can change and evolve).
Not the name of your book (there's always a newer book coming).

The golden rule of Web: In an online world, your essence is your brand. And for most of us, our essence is best represented by our name.

The benefits of being who you are

You become memorable

...rather than that 10-year-old book that is now out-of-print but has morphed into an epub.

You become findable

Search engines love domain names, Twitter handles and Facebook accounts. If you want your name found, make sure that your name appears in these crucial fields. (This is known in the Web field as "search engine optimization".

"You" are flexible to remain "you"

The fields in which I'm working today didn't exist when I went to University. The speciality fields in which I'll be practicing in a decade are not yet mainstream. You have to be free to adapt with the ever-evolving times.

And, perhaps the number one reason:

If your real name and face are attached to the content that you're posting, you'll think twice or thrice, or ten times about what you're posting to the world before you actually do it.

Since content published online can follow you for your entire digital life (and beyond), taking the time for a sober second edit is always advisable.

Why anonymity doesn't work (as well)

A recent CBC Ideas podcast reminded me of the continuing importance of using one's real identity online.

In the 2011 Dalton Camp Lecture, veteran print journalist Neil Reynolds addresses the declining trust that the public has in journalists today. He opines that a reliance on anonymous sources has eroded this trust.

Would you trust this egg?

While one could argue that other factors have played a part in this erosion, the fact remains that in the online world, accounts that clearly appear to represent real human beings are more trusted (aka more "followed" and "friended") than those that use pseudonyms or sport an object as an avatar.

On Twitter, the accounts that are most followed have three crucial elements:

They have a full name of person
Have a picture of that person
Have a personalized description

The reason? Most people don't want to talk logos (or eggs, for that matter). They'd rather chat online with people and be reasonably assured that the person who is replying back isn't a bot or misrepresenting themselves online.

Building trust starts with choosing a name and that name tends to be one's own.

Thoughts? Counter-arguments? Accompanying statistics to prove or disprove?

Cheers, Nichole

UXCamp Ottawa 2: UX Redux

noreply@blogger.com (Nichole McGill) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 18:57:00 +0000

The styling UXCamp Ottawa 2011 logo

University of Ottawa
November 5, 2011

For the second year in a row, the University of Ottawa was the official host for Ottawa's popular usability camp, an event which is gaining popularity and clout among techies in the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal corridor.

"UX" is short-hand for usability, essentially "design that works for everyone". This volunteer-led "unconference" served as a locus to bring together more than 200 private and public sector Web, graphics and technical professionals for one day of learning, sharing and inspiration. Here were some highlights:

Democracy is a design problem

Boston-based usability pro Dana Chisnell has some strong opinions about design, but her pronouncements that design affects world peace and democracy does bear fruit.

Dana Chisnell shows an example of a Canadian election ballot...albeit with fictional characters

In her morning keynote, Chisnell had only to show various voting ballots that had confusing design to prove her point. "When business in government includes design," said Chisnell, "things are better for everyone."

Chisnell's clarion call to the room full of UX professionals was to share our expertise:

Be an election worker
Volunteer to be a proof-reader
Get involved with the American-based AIGA Design for Democracy or UPA Usability in Civic Life

Chisnell herself contributes to the Civic Design / Ballot Usability blog.

Her inspirational quote of the day:

"Go beyond just letting things suck"

Designing from 7 to 70

In his entertaining plenary talk Gabor Vida, president of the Ottawa company Teknision Inc., contrasted two UX design projects that his company had done:

one for a 7" screen,
the other for a 70" screen.

The first referred to the UI work that Teknision had did for RIM's PlayBook. (right)

The second referred to developing an interface for a 70" multi-touch screen with integrated Kinect hardware (aka a "big honking monolith") that will serve as a Minority Report-type mall kiosk of the future.

For both projects, Vida emphasized the golden rule of simplicity:

"If you think you're done, take away half and then take away half again and then you're done."

Other salient points made by Vida:

"It used to be that the key differentiator between devices was the hardware. Now the key differentiator is the interface."
"The definition of device is changing. For us, it’s anything with a screen."
"Find your Capo D'astro bar aka your key differentiator."
"Let your limitations become valuable"

I'll end with my favourite Gabor Vida quote of the session:

"Remove anything that could be remotely cool and stick with the simple stuff."

(Heavy sigh). O-kay.

Remember to thank the volunteers

Hats off to another professionally-run unconference, and thanks to all -- attendees, speakers and tweeters -- who contributed to the UX culture of generosity.

Presentations, blog posts, summaries, etc.

Democracy is a design problem (download the PDF)
Implementing UI design without compromise (watch the "Prezi")
User adoption trends (watch the "Prezi")
Past, Present, Future (Assorted blog posts on "UXOtt")

Multimedia and Social Storytelling #heweb11

noreply@blogger.com (Nichole McGill) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 18:57:00 +0000

Capitalize on Content!

Elizabethtown’s Donna Talarico presented to a full room that had a backdrop of a glorious view of Lady Bird Lake and downtown Austin. (see image below)

Donna’s very practical Web content workshop touched on these four main topics.

What to do with the content that you have
How to approach new content
What to do when the well runs dry
How to share across multiple channels

Existing content

Donna’s workshop had a “green” theme and so she talked about reducing energy by using excessive unused content. (For those of you who are familiar with video, this would be making the most of our your B-role.)

Here are a few of her other tips:

Use existing content you’ve created for one thing, for another. Donna talked about a project wherein they interviewed staff across campus, they brought along a camera and a video camera. This way, their content providers could produce additional content in several formats for current and future projects.
At Elizabethtown, they have a database of alumni and student profiles and are able to feature them on sections of the site, according to topic. How did they gather these? All departments had to submit four profiles each of junior students, alumni and faculty creating a mine, or at least a solid base, of content.
Elizabethtown has a storytelling section of their site called “The E-town Experience” and “Be a Bigger Part of the World”. A must-check-out after this session is over.

According to Donna, “re-purposing content” is really “rethinking your content”. This leads us to…

Rethinking new content

There are so many ways to tell a story. Instead of producing content in the same manner and medium, these are the many elements that you can play with:

Point of view (Instead of talking about what your university does for your students, have your students tell that story)
Narratives (Employ more storytelling techniques as opposed to using the traditional way of communication)
Powerpoints
Photos
Videos (High quality is not necessary if you’re targeting the YouTube generation)
Infographics (Highly shareable and digestible)
Audio (Podcasts is the form of a self-guided campus tour or a walking tour of the area in which your college or university is located)

Selling your school as if it’s a book

Can you describe your institution in the following formats?

Manuscript (Perhaps, the strategic and annual plans for the school)
Elevator Pitch (The verbal marketing version of above)
Book jacket (The written marketing version of above)
Tweet (The essence in 140 characters)

According to Donna, this is a good exercise for the communications group at your school to go through not only to have the story of your institution down-pat but also to have your story available in various lengths and formats.

Text isn’t good enough

Words are not enough (which saddens an author like me). Donna emphasized that you need to enhance written story with multimedia such as a video clip or photo slideshow.

Her tip: Why not create a multimedia event recap page? This is what Elizabethtown does after events such as homecoming utilizing video, photos, and social media snippets. That said, don’t create a “cool video” just to create a video.

What if you don’t have content?

Get to work:

Arm your storytellers on campus with cameras, a flip camera, a notepad or a smartphone so they can capture the campus pulse on the go.
Gather story ideas for later by taking notes in meetings, taking literature from around campus or have lunch with someone you don’t normally see on campus.
Make your content shareable. “If you make it (and it’s awesome), they will share”. How do you make it awesome? Make it funny, memorable, useful, easy and have an impact. And ask people to share. Nicely.

4. Creating a culture of sharing

Sharing is how you keep the story alive and how you allow the content to grow. So…

Keep communications lines open between all teams.
Request to be on the mailing list of any department that has a newsletter, electronic or print.
Share published content with those features or those who would it interesting. (A particularly good point.)

Story shortcuts

Create profile templates.
Create spreadsheet published stories for easy reference
Keep content you expect to have longer shelf-life “evergreen”.

Conclusion

All in all, this was a substantial session with practical advice and some inspiring examples.

And the view (see right) was exquisite.

Originally published in Link: The Journal of Higher Education Web Professionals (24 October 2011)

Blogging from HighEdWeb 2011, Austin

noreply@blogger.com (Nichole McGill) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 02:15:00 +0000

For the next three days, I'll be blogging from the HighEdWeb conference in Austin, Texas.

HighEdWeb is short for Higher Education Web Professionals and is the annual national conference for American post-secondary Web professionals to get together and talk Web CMS, content, IT, social media and mobile.

A few of us Canadian counterparts come along as well.

Two of my colleagues at the University of Ottawa will be presenting a track session and a poster session. I'll also be presenting "Crowdsourcing Governance", a very non-digital poster presentation about how best to make a decision on a very technical subject--what should your centrally-supported CMS be?

To find out the answer, you'll have to seek me out on Tuesday from 3:30 to 5 p.m. with the other 34 poster presenters. Until then, I'll have some blog posts to write, including one on Multimedia and Social Storytelling which I'll be doing for Link: The Journal for Higher Ed Web Professionals.

Until tomorrow...
x

Social media comes of age in Ottawa (#SoCapOtt)

noreply@blogger.com (Nichole McGill) — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 04:17:00 +0000

Below you'll find my first Storify ever, on the first comprehensive social media conference held in Ottawa.

Social Capital Conference took place at the University of Ottawa on July 25, 2011. Let's hope there will be a repeat next year.

Margaret Atwood's e-battle against library privatization

noreply@blogger.com (Nichole McGill) — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 01:24:00 +0000

Margaret Atwood thanking author Neil Gaiman for his support

For those of you who don't live in the "416" of Canada known as the City of Toronto, here is the situation:

Last week, Toronto city council and mayor Rob Ford proposed privatizing the Toronto Public Library, the self-professed world's busiest urban public library.

Last Friday, Margaret Atwood, arguably the most celebrated Canadian author ever, encouraged her Twitter followers to sign a petition. The volume of petitioners crashed the site.

Today, The Vancouver Sun published a nifty Storifed version of the events (i.e. a social media account of the issue).

At the time of writing of this post, the petition to stop the privatization has 26,260 signatures. (I added my name at #26,259.)

Also at this time, "Margaret Atwood" is the 7th most trending topic on Twitter in Canada.

Moral of the story

Authors and advocates: Still don't think you need to have a digital presence?

Everything you need to know about the Internet [infographic]

noreply@blogger.com (Nichole McGill) — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 02:54:00 +0000

I stumbled upon this extraordinary interactive infographic on the general state of the Internet in 2011. Its live generating statistics will stun.

I think it'll become a mainstay in my PowerPoint repertoire. Thank you, Online Schools.

Created by: Online Schools

Does Google not want women on Google+?

noreply@blogger.com (Nichole McGill) — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 02:02:00 +0000

It's an unsettling statistic.

No women allowed?

According to The Social Graf, when Google sent out their exclusive Google+ invitations to people they consider to be social media taste-makers, only 10% of those went to women.

With a whopping 88% of Google+-ers who identify as male (and 2% who identify as "other"), one can only wonder at the reasoning behind Google's gender bias. Is it:

a) Women are not perceived as early social media adopters.

b) Women are not considered to be a significant audience for Google+.

c) Women seem to like Facebook, so let's not even try to woo them away.

Men are from Google, Women are from facebook?

It's true, there is evidence that the sexes use social networks in quite different ways.

For example, the June 19, 2011 Spark podcast highlighted such research that illustrated how much more time and upkeep, young women spend in maintaining their Facebook profiles when compared to men. Also that women, on average, tend to have more Facebook friends than men, and upload five times the number of photos.

Interesting observations, but Facebook is hardly a Venus-only social planet. So why are the folks at Google trying to make their own Mars?

Why do you think Google sent an overwhelming majority of their Google+ invites to men?

eBooks that read to you

noreply@blogger.com (Nichole McGill) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 02:08:00 +0000

Sample Read Aloud book “Splat the Cat” from Liz Castro on Vimeo.

The latest update to the Apple iBook allows for readers to select a "read-to" function where a human voice, not a synthesized one, reads the story. A select number of children's titles have this feature in the iTunes store.

It seems to be a natural merge of ebook and audiobook in the increasingly more adaptable EPUB3 format.

#YASaves

noreply@blogger.com (Nichole McGill) — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 14:18:00 +0000

I woke this sleepy Sunday morning to a flurry of activity on Twitter produced by authors and book bloggers whose work I respect.

It seems that the Wall Street Journal published a very "Chicken Little" article on how ALL young adult literature these days seems to involve self-mutilation or vampires or both.

Extreme generalities and sky-falling predictions aside, this article has produced a silver lining. A number of rightfully indiginant writers, readers and book bloggers have been tweeting stories of what YA literature means to them using thehashtag #YAsaves.

Led by author Maureen Johnson, the #YASaves hashtag was trending worldwide and as of 10 a.m. EST, more than 10,000 tweets, some of them personal stories, had been published to Twitter.

As for me, I don't wring my hands about such premature declarations of the death of culture; I know that book readers have the final say.

Readers vote.

They vote with their bank cards. They vote with their library cards. They vote when they put a book in the hand of another and say, "You HAVE to read this."

These types of scare-mongering prophecies rarely make it onto their radar. Thankfully.

They are the arbitors of taste, not the Wall Street Journal.

The New Gatekeepers: Digital Lit

noreply@blogger.com (Nichole McGill) — Fri, 27 May 2011 13:17:00 +0000

Today, I'll be the author representative on the panel, New Gatekeepers, at the 2011 Writers Union of Canada's annual conference. The panel, moderated by Kobo Content Manager Ashleigh Gardner, will focus on who are the arbiters of quality literature in a digital publishing model.

I will be offering two examples which point to new models.

One is Red Lemonade, a Facebook for authors who have works-in-progress to share for critique or have finished manuscripts to shop around for consideration. If Red Lemonade likes what they see, they might just "tap you on the shoulder" and offer you a publishing deal. Toronto author Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer introduced me to the site (Thanks K). I've just become a member to see where it leads.

The other site is KickStarter which was introduced to me by Peter Honeywell of the Council for the Arts in Ottawa (Ta, Peter and Suki) It's an alternative funding model for art projects where anyone can contribute money to fund a work of art.

David Caron from ECW Press and Michael Schellenberg from Knopf Canada will also be joining me on the panel.

Tweeps can follow the conference tweets at #TWUCAGM2011.

What's your story?

noreply@blogger.com (Nichole McGill) — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 12:52:00 +0000

What's your story? workshop
395 Wellington St., Room 156
Saturday, April 9
1 to 4:30 p.m.

I'm giving an intensive creative writing workshop today at Library and Archives Canada in downtown Ottawa, which was featured on CBC Radio's In Town and Out this morning.

It's a half-day follow-up workshop to the presentation I gave at the Ottawa Independent Writers annual meeting back in February.

Who's it for? People who are writing:

a novel
a screenplay
creative non-fiction
long short stories

The first 15 people who show up with their $30 get in. Bring your ideas, your story and paper or a laptop.

Canada's University Web conference - PSEWEB 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Nichole McGill) — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 11:05:00 +0000

Canada's answer to HighEdWeb Conference has announced their keynote and session speakers for their May conference yesterday.

Viral unmarketer Scott Stratten and Academia co-founder and blogger Ken Steele, will be the keynotes and I'm happy to report that I'll be leading a session on "Social media policies or What you need to know before you open that Facebook account."

PSEWEB is a conference for those of us who manage the university and college Web whether marketers, programmers, designers, digital architects or community managers.

Head's up: Early bird tickets are available until April 1st.

PSEWEB2011
May 18 to 20, 2011
Delta Chelsea Hotel
Toronto

Dirt-cheap epub workshop in Toronto

noreply@blogger.com (Nichole McGill) — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 02:06:00 +0000

EPUB 101 - Led by Nichole McGill
Friday, March 25, 5 to 7 p.m.
University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies
158 St. George Street
$10

It was a simple tweet -- one that you expect to be an exclamation of joy into the ether for which you expect no reply.

Instead, my 123-character post about receiving an e-book royalty cheque ignited some intense online discussion ("commenting", if you want to get technical) about the growing appetite that published authors have in pursuing e-publishing. Thanks to this, Vancouver author Peter Darbyshire was kind enough to include me in his piece detailing his own forays into digital publishing.

Next I know, I'm happily roped into the University of Toronto's Continuing Education program leading an introductory session on how authors can begin their forays into digital publishing. (And at a bargain price of $10 including HST, it's well within most writer's budgets.)

There are many stories out there. Mine is just one, and I, like other authors on this road, don't have all the answers yet we can share what we have learned thus far on this new digital road.

Register online, bring your questions and see you there.

Speaking out against censorship

noreply@blogger.com (Nichole McGill) — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 17:44:00 +0000

When Bob LeDrew and Ottawa Tonite's Cheryl Gain asked me to participate in Censored Out Loud to raise awareness about censored literature, I immediately thought of one book: Speak.

Laurie Halse Anderson's powerful novel about a teenage girl who chooses to stop speaking instead of speaking out about being raped was targeted in September 2010 as a "filthy book" and described as "soft pornography" because of two rape scenes. As such, the author of an opinion piece which detailed this argument was encouraging its removal from schools.

I would point readers to the original opinion piece but it has since been removed from the Web; instead here is Anderson's initial read of the situation.

Use social media to halt the banning of books

The online support that ensued after Anderson's September 19th blogpost was swift and it was loud.

Paul Hankins, an English teacher in Indiana, started a dedicated Twitter feed, #speakloudly, a Speak Loudly website was created and a Twitter ribbon (or "Twibbon") was created so that Tweeps could proudly show their support for Speak.

Anderson's supporters blogged, Facebook-ed and tweeted their support in wonderfully assuring large numbers. So much so that a mere three days later, Anderson published another blog post, "The Power of Speaking Loudly" where she wrote "You – my readers – changed the world this week.

She quoted one social media expert as saying that 350,000 heard about the potential banning on Facebook alone.

The lesson we can take from this is a reassuring one. When books or songs or art are being threatened, speak out and speak loudly.

In a social media world, you will make a difference.

Censored Out Loud

Tonight, I'm honoured to read Anderson's poem "Listen" at Raw Sugar Café (692 Somerset St. W., Ottawa) at 8 p.m. Much thanks to the Mad Woman in the Forest for giving me permission to read it.

What does Speak mean to me? When I was writing Girl #3 and thought that the story I was writing was too painful to commit to the page, Speak gave me renewed confidence that no, I was absolutely on the correct path. Thank you, Laurie.

(And if you tweet this post, please use the hashtags: #SpeakLoudly #censoredoutloud and/or #banned books.)

What's your story - workshop

noreply@blogger.com (Nichole McGill) — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 01:33:00 +0000

Have you ever written half a manuscript or script only to find yourself several hundred pages later, elbows deep in ink and metaphor asking yourself, "What story am I writing anyway?"

In 2008, the City of Ottawa invited me to create a community workshop along these lines. Last year, the Ottawa Independent Writers asked me to adapt it for their Annual General Meeting.

Below is the presentation that I gave on January 27, 2011 at the National Library of Canada. It was a packed room with writers who have multi-layered queries.

While many of the tips I presented are related to fiction writing, they could be applied to other types of long form memoir, creative non-fiction or script writing

If you'd be interested in having me conduct an intensive workshop or give versions of this presentation, please contact me at nicholemcgill [ at ] gmail [ dot ] com.

What's your story? Storytelling tips for fiction writing

View more presentations from Grafe McGill Creative .

Death of the print newspaper predicted

noreply@blogger.com (Nichole McGill) — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 14:38:00 +0000

The Australian-based Future Exploration Network led by futurist Ross Dawson have produced a roadmap to predict the years "when newspapers in their current form will become insignificant around the world".

In plan language: when we came predict the death of the print newspaper.

Click for full PDF

The Newspaper Extinction Timeline (to the left) shows Western primarily English-speaking and Scandinavian countries transferring over to a digital or alternative-to-paper medium beginning in 2017 with the United States, followed in 2019 by the United Kingdom and Iceland, and in 2020 with Canada and Norway following suit.

On the other end of the spectrum, Africa, India, the Middle East and parts of South America are anticipated to hold on to a paper format until the 2040's and beyond.

What do you think? Can we predict the death of print newspapers?

Nurturing UX culture in Ottawa

noreply@blogger.com (Nichole McGill) — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 16:51:00 +0000

The University of Ottawa was the official host of UXCampOttawa which took place on November 27, 2010.

This innovative user-generated unconference brought together nearly 170 participants from federal and municipal government sectors, higher education, the arts, and private industry to exchange knowledge and reiterate passions about user experience, primarily as it pertained to Web and mobile sites.

The unconference itself was a nice mix of keynote talks and presentations by leaders in the Canadian UX community with 15 sessions as determined by the community, taking place in the afternoon.

What is user experience (UX)?

In his keynote address, Akendi founder and president Tedde van Gelderen gave a succinct overview of how to define the intangible:

"User experience" is when you receive something which more than you expect it to be. We know when “it” happens, but often cannot define what that experience will be.
Experience is a multi-faceted thing that is not only linked to Web presence. It is a combination of products, services, software, and events in addition to the technological aspect.
Experience is so valuable, you can charge for it.

So how does one create user experience?

There are four stages or rules which van Gelderen recommends to integrate user needs into your design process:

Rule #1: Establish the service first, then figure out what the experience.
Rule #2: Stem the impulse to design; do your research first.
Rule #3: Once you’ve done your research, apply it to your creative design
Rule #4 Involve your target audience all through the process.

Creating a UX culture within your organization

Caring about the experience of your end users is not enough in of itself to entrench a culture that cares about the end user experience, but it is a beginning. Here are some more tangible items you need to have in hand to convince those in your organization that the experience of the end user matters:

Evidence that it is a problem when UX is ignored
In-house skills in user experience design
Trust in user experience
Ways to measure user experience and tie it to return on investment
A group within your organization who is accountable for user experience

Keeping the conversation going

The volunteer group that brought us UXCampOttawa promise to keep the conversation going on their website. Those who are passionate about user experience and are in Ottawa can join the UX Ottawa group on LinkedIn.

The real ROI with social media

noreply@blogger.com (Nichole McGill) — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 14:57:00 +0000

Alright, you made all this investment into social media. Now how do you measure return on investment (the fabled ROI)?

This is an excellent, and wonderfully kitsch, slideshow which outlines by which factors you should or should not evaluate social media success.

Olivier Blanchard Basics Of Social Media Roi

View more presentations from Olivier Blanchard.

Stumbled upon via BlogTips.

Social media storytelling: when it is the only way

noreply@blogger.com (Nichole McGill) — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 17:44:00 +0000

Employing social media strategies in times of crises seems evident. How can one use social media to tell a story that does not have immediate urgency nor payoff?

Two years ago, Italian journalist Carlotta Mismetti Capua met four boys from Afghanistan on the bus in Rome. They were looking for the Pyramid of Cestius. However, they were not merely tourists; they had spent the previous six months walking from Afghanistan to Italy.

Finding their story compelling, she pitched it their story to her newspaper who rejected it. So she turned to a self-publishing medium that she had at hand -- facebook -- and created a social media profile which would win her an Ischia Journalism Prize.

The excellent site Journalism.co.uk has Capua's first-person account of how this foray into social media storytelling came to be, as well as raising questions about how we define news.

Social Media 101 for Authors

noreply@blogger.com (Nichole McGill) — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 16:38:00 +0000

This was a presentation that I made at the 2010 annual conference and general meeting of the Writers' Union of Canada.

It's a quick overview of the tools that authors should be using to connect with readers. Set up your social media profile in 15 minutes! (Give or take a few hours...)

Social Media 101 for Authors

View more presentations from Grafe McGill Creative .

BookCamp Toronto - Look to the writers for change

noreply@blogger.com (Nichole McGill) — Wed, 19 May 2010 02:21:00 +0000

^{Photo: Suki Lee, Inbox Communications}

May 15, 2010
University of Toronto iSchool

This year I attended and led a discussion at BookCamp Toronto, the city's second annual "unconference" which explores the future of the book and the book industry.

Positive momentum marked this year's unconference whose theme was "Book publishing is going digital--now what?" The calm was a marked shift from last year where anxiety and divides between the pro-digital rights management (DRM) and anti-DRM advocates were obvious and even distracting. The mood of this year was share and be inspired by the efforts of others, lending a collaborative and open feel to the day.

Another welcome change was the increased number of authors attending, some of whom attended the morning session I led on the role of the writer in this digital revolution.

The overburdened writer

First to discuss was the increased amount of work shouldered by the writer in this chaotic cross-over period as the publishing industry shifts from print to digital. In addition to writing, editing and polishing a many-several-thousand-word manuscript, writers might now be also expected to:

create and maintain a social media brand;
find book reviewers (since most have moved from print to online);
lobby for the electronic or audio version of their books; or
produce said multimedia versions of their books whether as a podcast or an epub file.

It also helps if you create some cool-whiz-bang social media literary gimmick that's "never" been tried. Mine was Google-mapping the real-life places in my novel, Girl #3.

Sometimes such explorations gets you SM (social media) cred. Sometimes it might even sell a book. Often, it's just an exercise for you to get your digital feet wet.

Ergo, in addition to mastering gerunds, tight narratives and believable dialogue, writers today also may/should have an understanding of MP3s, XHTML, hashtags, BISAC subject headings, and Web-based applications to help manage and control our digital brand.

This is the new world, whether we like it or not.

Writers we like

Writers that this group of BookCampers thought were doing an interesting job of bridging the two divides include:

Cory Doctorow
John Green
Neil Gaiman
JR Carpenter
Robin Sloane

What the writer wants

In a break-out discussion at the end, a few points became clear:

Writers aren't ready to give up the safety net of traditional publishing (since this gets their books into traditional venues such as libraries)
Despite this, many are already self-publishing in secondary formats like in audio or electronic
Adding multi-media assets like video, geotagging and music to an e-book is appealing

However, the most affirmative statement of the session was the realization that the primary relationship in the book industry is between the writer and the reader.

This is obvious and yet, so easy to overlook. Most writers write to please and seek approval from, not a reader, but a publisher. A writer's sense of self-worth can be defined by how many rejections or acceptances they're received from a publisher, without any "reader" being involved. The publisher is, in the end, a powerful middleman.

The digital revolution in the book industry will open up the possibilities of greater interaction between an author and her readership, creating a more direct link between the two.

It is up to writers to experiment with the evolving book of the book and it will be through this experimentation along with the increased interaction with an author's readership that will shape the book in the digital age.

Just a wee prediction.

Thanks to all who came and contributed to the session and let's get more authors involved in future discussions about the future of the book.

***

The BookCamp torch now passes to Halifax for her inaugural unconference on June 5th.

And for those in Ottawa, don't forget that The Writer's Union of Canada will be holding their annual general meeting from June 3 to 6 with workshops open to the public and to members on June 4th. Three BookCamp presenters including BookCampToronto co-founder Hugh McGuire will be leading workshops on social media and electronic publishing opportunities for authors.

CellStories seeking short fiction for the mobile phone

noreply@blogger.com (Nichole McGill) — Tue, 04 May 2010 19:20:00 +0000

Last Halloween, Chicago-based CellStories ran the first chapter of my novel, Girl #3, as their short story of the day.

If you're having difficulty accessing the above link from your Web browser, that's because the stories can only be read on a mobile device. This is beauty and philosophy of CellStories: to free fiction lovers from their computer desks.

After a big promotional push last summer, CellStories have put out another call for submissions. For writers, it's a simple way to reach a global audience and to test out the mobile literary form.

CellStory fun facts (courtesy of CS's Dan Sinker):

They launched their archive, The Shelf, a month ago, so your work will be accessed the day and even days after.
CellStories boasts a readership from in 112 countries with the top four countries being: U.S., Australia, Canada, and South Africa. I've also recognized many Canadian among the writers.
Since launching in September 2009, they say their stories have been visited more than 50,000 times.

One gorgeous book cover

noreply@blogger.com (Nichole McGill) — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 21:05:00 +0000

Shamelessly stolen from Coach House Press's Spring 2010 Launch facebook page.