Interview with Microsoft CafeTV
It was nice speaking with Ricardo Jimenez of Microsoft Cafe TV at the Arroba de Oro conference in El Salvador (more on the conference soon!). The intro is in Spanish, but I speak in English about the importance of social media tools and processes to facilitate collaboration INSIDE companies.
Here’s Ricardo’s MSDN blog and Twitter feed, and the Microsoft Cafe TV Facebook page.
What does your company use for internal collaboration?
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How good are your landing pages?
I’ve been discussing landing pages with several clients in the last few weeks, sharing some of the complexities and best practices in getting to high conversion rates. I thought I’d share some links to some overviews of tips for your landing pages for your banners, email marketing, paid search and more.
As you probably know, the first step to managing anything, especially online, is to measure it. Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer are two free, robust and valuable tools that are the foundation of any improvement program.
If you don’t know how many people are moving through your ads/site now, how will you know if these recommendations have any impact, better or worse?
One of my favorite resources is WhichTestWon.com a site that features different A/B tests each week. Both options are shown and you choose which one you think would be more successful in conversion, then after your vote, you get the answer and why… of course you get to see how other site visitors voted too. The past award winners is a treasure trove of examples.
This is a Hubspot presentation from a webinar, so there is a sales pitch there, but it’s also a really good high level overview of the concepts and basics. “Optimizing Landing Pages for Lead Generation and Conversion Webinar“.
A nice basic, short Slideshare presentation on “Landing Page Best Practices“.
“Landing Page Design & Optimization” with some good examples. An interview with the author that gives some additional perspective.
A good research-based presentation “Landing Page Optimization Study: Improve conversions on Lead Generation campaigns“.
A ton of info and detail on this Slideshare presentation, “101 Landing Page Optimization Tips“.
“Five Tips for Healthy Landing Pages” from the CEO of Offermatica, a testing company.
Finally, here is a really good blog post with some examples, and summaries of 5 more articles on landing pages “5 Must Read Articles on Landing Page Best Practices“.
What is your best tip for landing pages?
Apple News and Updates
As you may imagine, I’m very interested in the announcements at today’s Apple Worldwide Developer’s Conference, so I thought I’d share some of the resources I monitor for
up-to-the-minute news (besides Apple Developer Connection, of course).
There are several “Live Blog” sites and several Twitter users you can follow for updates:
After the announcements, let us know what you are most excited about!
Why iPad?
We saw an amazing headline this week: “Apple Sells Two Million iPads in Less Than 60 Days“. Which is a pretty amazing feat considering that the iPhone took over 2 quarters (6 months!) to sell that many phones. That’s also counting less than a week in international sales, so that’s mainly in the US. I’ve heard that many US Apple Stores are out of stock, or are limiting the number purchased to 2 per customer, as they are in short supply.
From the announcement of the iPad, to its launch, even today, I hear people asking “Why iPad? What would I use it for?” I got asked those questions about 5 times this week, but yet some people clearly “get” it and are picking them up like free tshirts.
When I try to tell people why I enjoy my iPad, I often feel like it’s difficult to express why it’s useful, why I use it instead of my laptop or why my 3 year old daughter loves and uses it so much. It is different from my iPhone and different from my laptop, but it combines several elements of each… enough that make it a really nice and convenient device to have around.
Here are some of the ways I and my family use our iPad, some of these may resound with you, some may not… I’d certainly like to hear how YOU use your iPad, or why you aren’t.
- Checking and responding to personal and work email, it’s better than my iPhone for typing longer emails.
- Checking and updating Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media status and content. Those links to websites, articles, news, videos… all work great on my iPad.
- Reading news and other content sites via dedicated apps, RSS apps, websites, then sharing on my social networks.
- I load it up with videos, podcasts, iTunesU content and books for travel or other relaxing downtime, for myself, my wife and my daughter. We all use it to consume media.
- My daughter loves it as a educational and fun game device… from drawing apps, to matching and alphabet learning apps, she picked up how to use it on the first day, and continues to learn new apps nearly immediately. What other things can you really say that about, with a 3 year old?
- I use it while my wife and I are watching movies or TV, to look up characters/actors, topics or locations around the world that are mentioned. I don’t have to get up, I don’t have to strain my eyes to see the results. I had the iPad to my wife and share the info… the technology gets out of the way.
- Many days, I use it instead of a printed newspaper while having breakfast and coffee with the family. I can instantly go into more depth during a news topic discussion, or offer insights when somebody says “what happened in Buenos Aires this week?”
- Even though I have the WiFi only model, I’ve taken in on a few daytrips and client meetings, using it for email, Skype calls and our company PowerPoint presentations too.
To not sound like toooooo much of an Apple Fanboy (Although I really am), I should mention that I’m not connected to my iPad like a leash (my wife says my iPhone is stuck to my left hand though). I don’t use it all the time, I don’t use it to create long-form content, like this blog post. This amount of content is really more suited for my notebook computer… this may change if I get a Bluetooth keyboard though (when my wife lets me).
Sometimes I use my iPad instead of my phone, sometimes instead of my laptop… sometimes instead of the TV or newspaper too. My family and I use it on the road for fun, I use it for work and presentations. It allows me to bring less gear with me, but still gives me access to much of the information and utility, and it can be a lot of fun too… I am certainly hooked, and I bet you would be too. Give one a try and see what you think… let me know too!
Do, or Do Not. There is no feel.
I’ve always loved Yoda’s famous line to Luke when he was intimidated by a big job… “Do, or do not. There is no try.”
Seth Godin has a great corollary to that sentiment:
I don’t feel like it. What’s it? Why do you need to feel like something in order to do the work? They call it work because it’s difficult, not because it’s something you need to feel like.
Even when it seems like an insurmountable or even unpleasant task in front of you, both contend that you approach it with the end result in mind. Looking at the next step in front of you isn’t as helpful as looking at the top of the hill and your goal. Don’t worry about how you feel at this step, just keep moving and you’ll reach your goal.
I like it. It’s my thought for the week.
Update on My Microblog
First the good news; I’ve been keeping pretty busy with some new clients, partners and projects… Unfortunately, that’s pushed my blogging here down lower on the to-do list. Apologies. 8-)
I’ve been focusing my blogging updates to my FriendFeed microblog, rather than longer form blog posts, this gives me enough time to share some of the great news and happening from around the web, but in a more concise (and faster) way.
I hope you’ll enjoy the updates there, or you can join me on FriendFeed directly here.
Building Trust Remotely
Web Worker Daily offers some good advice on building and keeping trust when you don’t work physically next to your coworkers or clients. Check out the article here.
I’ve been working with clients, partners and teammates remotely for years, and I’ve found that a focus on high-touch communication and relationship building is also a key to productive interactions.
My last core project team was spread across 3 countries in Europe, 5+ cities in at least 4 states in the U.S. We used Agile/Scrum development and had daily touchbases, but some of the most productive time was the occasionaly in-person relationship building we did while traveling to their workplace or mine. We built an understanding of each of us as people and how we communicate, or values and motivations. We were also constantly chatting, short messaging and had frequent informal communications that brought and kept us working together efficiently and enjoyably. I’m happy to say that I still stay in touch with many of the team and count them as great friends. How many of your old project teams can say that? 8-)
What have you learned when working with remote teams? What do you NOT do?
