The MatriX Files

Blog: What’s Your Membership Experience?

Joanna Pineda — Thu, 23 May 2013 03:32:48 +0000

I’ve blogged in the past about Vistage, the CEO membership organization that I’ve been a member of for five years. I was talking with a Vistage VP a few weeks ago and he summed up the Vistage experience quite succinctly: strong peer advisory group with well-run meetings, effective coaching and world-class speakers. In other words, the entire Vistage organization is focused on creating a membership experience that includes these 3 elements.

I got to thinking. How many organizations have eloquently and succinctly described their ideal member or customer experience? Indeed, how many of us have architected how our customers interact with us and experience our services in an intentional way? Alex Pineda, the Matrix Group Creative Director, talks often about how every interaction with a company IS the user experience, from the way the phones are answered, to how emails are responded to, how products are delivered, how invoices are sent, how conference calls are run, and how disputes are handled. As CEO, part of my job is to make sure that for every type of potential customer interaction, we’ve defined how we will respond.

Here’s an example of a situation where the staff expectations were not well defined, so we kept falling down on the job. A couple of clients complained that after approving a proposal, we weren’t responding fast enough to kick off the project. Turns out that we hadn’t defined the turnaround time for creating the project in our system and kicking off the work. Depending on how busy a project manager was in any given week, it took between 1 — 7 days just to get a project entered into the system. So the project managers sat down and crafted a better process. Today, when a proposal is approved by a client, an email goes out the same day from the new business team to announce the project to the project manager and assigned team members. The admin team creates the project in the intranet within 24 hours of the approval, sends the link to the client and schedules the kickoff call. Doesn’t this sounds like a much better, more user-friendly, and more intentional customer experience?

I think about how pleasant it is to call American Express. I’m never on hold for very long, I’m always referred to by name, I’m always thanked for being a cardmember for over 20 years, and if I’ve called the wrong number, I’m transferred directly and the person I’m speaking with stays on the phone until the next person come on. I have to believe that every little part of this whole experience has been carefully architected and tweaked over time.

Turns out that architecting an amazing customer experience is really hard and requires paying attention to the big picture as well as the littlest of details. For me, the most important thing is realizing that every client interaction is part of the customer experience and we can, and should be, intentional about every single one of these interactions.

Blog: How Google Calendar and Evernote are Keeping Me Organized and Sane

Joanna Pineda — Thu, 16 May 2013 03:49:36 +0000

Like most busy working people and parents, I can get overwhelmed by the many people, tasks and appointments vying for my attention throughout the day. My calendar was killing me. My work calendar was fine; it was the school stuff that was out of hand. I was getting emails from the school, from my son’s room parents, and from the cubmaster about upcoming events and deadlines. My task list was even worse. I was trying to manage tasks in my email, voice mail, company IMs (instant messages), company intranet and regular mail. Something had to give and I needed a better system.

Over the last year, I’ve been working to take back my calendar and task list. With help and nudging from my husband, Maki, here is what I’ve done.

Google Calendar Is My Best Friend

If you have a Gmail account, you have Google Calendar. Maki and I set up a Kato-Pineda calendar in Google calendar. We post every single family event and deadline in the Kato-Pineda calendar: playdates, birthday parties, dentist appointments, date night, dinner party at home, Maki’s parents’ trip to Japan, when my older son doesn’t have school, when the nanny is on vacation, yada, yada. We’ve shared this calendar to our entire family plus my assistant.

Next, we got the cub scout troop to create a Google calendar. Here, we post all pack and den events (including event details and directions), monthly meetings, cub scout service opportunities, etc.

Finally, by pure luck, the room parents for my son’s classroom had also set up a Google calendar. This calendar shows all school days off, class activities to which parents are invited, dress down days, short school days, etc.

I use my iPhone to view a consolidated calendar that includes my work calendar and ALL of my Google calendars. My iPhone even magically brings in birthdays from Facebook and the US holidays from Google. So on any given day, I can see that: it’s John Smith’s birthday, it’s a dress down day at school, I have 3 work appointments, Maki has a ham radio meeting and there’s a cub scout pack meeting at night. Love, love, love what this consolidated calendar view has done for my sanity.

Evernote For All Tasks and Details

Evernote is the best note-taking, reminder app I’ve ever used. I use Evernote by creating notebooks for the major buckets in my life: Matrix Group, Kato-Pineda and JP personal. I then create notes for to-do items, notes from a meeting, things I need to remember, etc. I then use tags to further categorize my notes.

The Kato-Pineda notebook is where Maki and I have notes for all the thing we need to do at home and personally. We have a to do list for the house, a Target list, a Giant list, a CVS list, a list of books to check out from the library, etc. This notebook is shared between me and Maki and here’s how we use it. Say I find myself at Target. I usually have a list of things to buy but Maki might have things he needs as well. Since the Target list is a shared list, we both maintain it throughout the week. So I can go to the list and buy whatever is on the list. This way, no more going home to say “I went to Target” and Maki says “oh, shoot, I needed x, I wish I would have known you were going.”

The Matrix Group notebook is where my new biz team manages tasks and priorities. We have notes for our proposal hot list, a JP call list, a Bryan call list, a list of potential blog posts, topics for the Matrix Missive newsletter, etc. Here’s the awesome part: since the notebook and notes are all shared, we keep these notes updated throughout the day and week without having to send email every time a list is updated. I might decide to update the list some evening and ask Bryan to make a bunch of cultivation calls the next day. If I find myself early for a meeting, I check the JP call list and make calls. It’s that easy.

The JP personal notebook is where I store notes for gift lists, books I want to read, etc. I’ve even started a Recipes notebook where I’m posting recipes and tagging them by breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, chicken, pasta, etc. I even have a note for my weekly meals so I can easily remember what I made the past few weeks.

What is perhaps the best thing about Evernote is this: I installed Evernote on my iPhone, Sony laptop, Mac laptop at home and iPad. Because Evernote is in the cloud, I have access to my notes from every device and the notes are always fully synched. Crazy how well this whole thing works.

These systems are working for me because:

they are shared with the people I collaborate with (husband, assistant, new biz team)
they are in the cloud and therefore I have access from anywhere, on any device
they are inexpensive (Google calendar is free; Evernote is free but to share, you need Premium, which is $45 per year)
they are easy to use.

How about you? What systems are you using to stay on top of your lists and calendar? What’s working?

Favorite: Peapod

admin — Mon, 13 May 2013 14:00:31 +0000

Peapod

During busy weeks, Peapod is a lifesaver. With a few clicks, my grocery shopping is done.

Blog: Time To Get Serious About Your Passwords

Joanna Pineda — Fri, 10 May 2013 03:38:55 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, the daily deal website LivingSocial reported a cyberattack that breached the accounts of some 50 million subscribers. The information breached included names, email addresses, date of birth, and encrypted passwords. Ugh. These system breaches are so common these days that we change passwords, shrug and move on. And yet most people aren’t learning the real lessons of password management.

I spoke at a conference recently where I asked the audience how many of them use the same passwords on multiple sites. About half the hands went up. I get it, it’s impossible to remember a different password for every site that requires one, but most people don’t realize is how one system breach makes you vulnerable to others, even if the other systems are not breached. Here’s how it works: Say you bought something from a retailer and you used the same username and password that you use on other sites. The retailer’s system is breached. You change your password and you’re done, right? Wrong. The hackers take the breached usernames and passwords and try them against major retailer and social networking sites because, let’s face it, who doesn’t have an Amazon, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Ebay, iTunes, Fidelity or Schwab account? For the person who used the same password on multiple systems, he just got ripped off across multiple platforms. Total disaster.

Want to protect your information and assets? Here are some guidelines.

Use one password per site. That’s right. Use a different password for Amazon, Google, iTunes, Facebook, eTrade, your child’s school website, The Washington Post, LivingSocial, Etsy, and on and on. This way, if one system is breached and the hackers manage to unencrypt your account information, they can’t use it on other sites.

Use a secure password manager. It’s going to do you no good to have dozens of different passwords if you don’t have a good system for managing them. I have a friend who says she has an Excel file on her computer that contains her passwords. Trust me, if you computer got lost, stolen or otherwise breached, that Excel file is toast. The net admins at Matrix Group like KeePass and LastPass. I use KeePass to store all of my passwords. I have one, really strong password to my KeePass account that I have committed to memory; KeePass handles everything else. Okay, that’s not exactly true. I’m paranoid enough that the passwords to my email, laptop and work network are committed to memory, never written down and not stored in KeePass.

Use really strong passwords. A really strong password is long, contains a combination of letters, numbers and characters, and has an element of randomness to it. I really like this article by Thomas Baekdal on the Usability of Passwords. He argues that users should create long, memorable passwords that combine words and characters. If a password is memorable, you’re more likely to remember it and you won’t write it down on a Post It note. An example would be: 99BlueBellagioBalls. This password is easy to remember but it’s long, it’s got upper and lower case letters and it’s got numbers. A more recent article by Dan Goodin (Why passwords have never been weaker — and crackers have never been stronger in) says the hacking landscape has changed dramatically because of supercomputers and password breaches that have exposed common passwords and password patterns that people use over and over again. The solution? Use an even longer, complex password: 99BlueBellagioBalls might become Blue99beLLagioBalls. This is a 19-character password that you could more easily remember than 98zefswr))*je. But then again, if you’re using a password manager, you won’t need to memorize your long passwords.

If a system allows two-factor authentication, opt for it. Two factor authentication means you need two factors to get in. To access Facebook from a new computer, you would need your username and password AND the code that Facebook sends to your phone. Presumably, a hacker would not have access to your phone.

Don’t use weak security questions. Personally, I’m appalled that a woman’s maiden name is still used as a security question. Since I didn’t change my last name when I got married, the whole world knows my maiden name. The lesson here is this: don’t select a security question where the answer can be easily obtained by a casual acquaintance, doing Google searches or checking out your profile on Facebook.

I guess I could decide to live in a treehouse, go off the grid and use only cash but who am I kidding? There are myriad government and corporate systems that have information on me and those systems can be breached. The best I can do is protect my accounts with strong passwords that I manage securely. I hope you all will do the same.

Favorite: Fooducate App

admin — Mon, 06 May 2013 14:00:51 +0000

Fooducate App

Scan a product’s barcode with your phone and Fooducate will give you the food’s nutritional “grade.” It will even offer healthier alternatives if the product you chose is a nutritional dud.

Favorite: Fiverr

admin — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 14:00:01 +0000

Fiverr

Need something done? On Fiverr, people post gigs they are willing to do for $5. Graphics, marketing, etc. For $5, you can have a girlfriend on Facebook for a day. Hilarious.

Blog: Life Lessons From Tae Kwon Do

Joanna Pineda — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 04:00:09 +0000

About six months ago, I signed up for Tae Kwon Do. What started out as a way to spend time with my son and get some exercise at the same time, has become a bit of an obsession and a meditation.

At first, I was just interested in getting a good workout and getting in shape. Today, God and knees willing, my goal is to become a black belt before I reach a certain (ahem) important age milestone. Turns out that Tae Kwon Do is a lot like becoming a true professional in one’s chosen field. Here’s how:

Mastery Takes Time.

My Master says that mastery takes time and there’s usually pain involved. At my studio, it takes an average of 3 or 4 years to become a first degree black belt and then another 2–5 years to become a second degree black belt. What’s more, the six months leading up to taking your black belt test are brutal, involving multi-hour practice sessions, 5–6 times a week. I know that even if I become a first degree black belt, I will have reached merely the lowest rung of mastery in this martial art.

And so it goes at Matrix Group. The really experienced senior developers, designers, front-end developers and project managers don’t just have the technical skills to do the job. They have worked on a huge variety of projects: a large Sitefnity implementation, a simple WordPress blog, a complicated WordPress implementation, a website that needs to be integrated with four partners, a crazy interactive piece involving some very complicated jquery, a site that must be optimized to the nth degree for speed, a mobile app, and on and on. Even more important, they’ve been involved in getting seriously derailed projects back on track, they’ve had to work with some difficult partners, and they’ve worked on projects where the 1 st and 2 nd approaches to integration didn’t work so they had to completely rework the project plan. You see, it’s the projects that go haywire that teach us the most.

Practice Gets You Far.

When I started taking classes, I struggled to memorize the forms, I could barely get off the ground, and I was slow and lumbering. I didn’t believe I would ever manage a flying sidekick or a front kick. As with most things, you get better at things when you practice, practice, practice. After just six months, I can touch the ground with my palms, I’m on my fourth form and for the last test, I broke an inch thick board with a flying side kick. Crazy, right?

It’s no different from a front-end developer who really hits his stride after working on a Sitefinity implementation for the nth time. Or the Project Manager who develops the ability to manage larger and larger projects over time. Or how a presentation gets better the more you give it. It’s all about practice, making sure your form is good (so yes, we all need instruction) and more practice.

Flexibility is Really Important.

There’s a 2nd degree black belt and instructor at the studio who is ridiculously graceful and flexible. He can stretch one leg straight up to do a vertical, 180 split. Crazy. Johann says that although he doesn’t have amazing jumps, he’s still great at the kicks because of his flexibility. He also has the most beautiful forms I’ve even seen.

I tell my staff that flexibility and grace under fire are just as important as technical skills. When a client says, “help, I need to have a website ready for the White House in two weeks!” you re-arrange your schedule, you take a deep breath and you get it done. And when your tried and true CMS platform is no longer viable and you need to change course, you do some research, make some decisions and keep moving. In our line of work, the ability to stretch our minds and believe that we can make something happen is what makes anything possible.

I’ll keep you posted on my journey and my milestones, in life, at work and in tae kwon do.

Blog: Why Are Infographics So Hot?

admin — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 13:18:30 +0000

Version 13.2 of MatrixMaxx was released last week and it had several notable, new features related to visualization. The first is an infographics builder that lets clients chart meeting registrations against membership data and individual demographics. For example, a client might chart meeting registrations by member type, job level and job function. The second is a dynamic mapping feature that lets clients take a data set and map it. Let’s take the meeting example again. Clients can now push a button to see the spread of meeting attendees across the US.

Why this emphasis on visualization?

I believe that in this age of big data, we’re drowning in statistics and reports, but we’re starved for insight and trends (sorry for the mixed metaphor). Our CRM (customer relationship management) and AMS (association management software) systems are tracking all kinds of demographic data and transaction history but what are we really learning about our customers?

If I have a list of 1,200 meeting attendees, organized by last name, company or state, I have a roster. A report that gives me total attendees by state will show me where my attendees are coming from. If I plot that data on a map, I might learn that most of my attendees are coming from the coasts or the southern states. Now imagine if I took the same list and plotted it against industry, type of business, job level or number of plants, what would I learn that isn’t at all obvious from looking a list of attendees?

Ever notice how your boss or your Board is always asking for charts and graphs? It’s usually because they’re cold on an issue and summary data, along with visualizations, can give them the 20,000 foot view they need to make strategic decisions.

Here are some example of amazing visualizations that tell a great story:

The State of the Internet shows us how far we’ve come, how much time we spend online and where that time is going. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2413424,00.asp
Method, a design and branding agency, mined Google to figure out what consumers were searching for when looking for a tablet, and created a consumer interest infographic to display their findings. http://www.fastcompany.com/1790942/infographic-day-what-do-people-want-tablet-computer
512 Paths to the White House shows what outcomes President Obama or Mitt Romney would have needed to win the 2012 election, and the ways they could win. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/11/02/us/politics/paths-to-the-white-house.html
The AIDSVu project uses infographics to highlight the impact of the disease on specific populations, e.g., African-Americans or Latinos. http://www.aidsvu.org/national-black-hivaids-awareness-day-2013

My prediction: infographics and visualization tools will continue to grow and dominate our thinking and analysis.

Blog: How Can Your Organization Use Crowdsourcing To Increase Member and Customer Benefits?

Joanna Pineda — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 03:00:04 +0000

My family went to New York for Spring Break. During the obligatory visit to the flagship FAO Schwarz store, my husband caved and bought our 8-year old a LEGO Minecraft kit. Don’t know about Minecraft? As far as I can tell, Minecraft is THE hot game for boys, who play it on computers, tablets and phones, basically any device they can get their hands on. Minecraft is a game that allows players to build anything out of blocks (buildings, lakes, plants, etc.). At night, the zombies come out so your house or castle better be safe. Anyway, back to my story. We shelled out $44 for a LEGO Minecraft that wasn’t designed by LEGO.

For the past few years, LEGO has been accepting models from amateurs through their Cuusoo crowdsourcing platform. The model is simple enough: anyone can build and share a model. If your model gets 10,000 supporters, LEGO HQ reviews it and decides if it should become an official product. If your model goes into production, you get 1% of total net sales. Is that crazy or what? LEGO has managed to tap into the creative consciousness of its loyal fan base, who will undoubtedly bring their knowledge and interests to LEGO, at nearly zero cost to LEGO. Think of the buzz that a new kit has already generated by the time it reaches 10,000 supporters. That’s 10,000 nearly guaranteed sales! More craziness: my 8-year old has already brought his Minecraft kit to school for show and tell and he’s made a YouTube video that will join the thousands of other YouTube videos on Minecraft.

The question is, how can non-manufacturers use crowdsourcing to generate new product ideas, generate customer and member love, and increase revenues? Here are some ideas:

Many professional societies accepts submissions to speak at a conference. These submissions get reviewed and voted on by an elite panel of members. What if the society blew open the submission process and let the entire membership vote? The top submissions would then get to speak at the conference.
How about a soliciting ideas for publications and research to be funded by your Foundation? And then let the membership vote and you fund the top vote getters.
Want to connect with your members? Ask them what topics they’d like your CEO to address during a live chat or in blog posts, then get the membership to vote on the topics. Your CEO would then address the top topics during a meeting, call or in blog posts.
Thinking about staff retention? Ask your staff for their best non-financial benefits and rewards and then get the entire staff to vote.

It’s easy to associate crowdsourcing with websites like KickStarter, where entrepreneurs submit their ideas and people support the ideas with their money. But I think crowdsourcing can be a powerful engagement tool for organizations of all sizes, in all industries.

Favorite: Evernote

admin — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 14:10:21 +0000

Evernote

I love this note taking and organization app. It syncs between my laptop, iPhone, and iPad and I can access it from anywhere. I can even share my notes with friends or staff!

Blog: How To Get Your Brand Pages Ready for the New Facebook News Feed

Joanna Pineda — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 02:00:27 +0000

Earlier this month, Facebook announced that users’ home page will soon be transformed into a revamped newsfeed. If you’re the administrator for a brand page, here are some things you should know about the new News Feed.

Facebook Will Let Users Choose the Feeds They Want To See. Today, Facebook tries to guess what posts, images and links will most interest you. It’s called EdgeRank and it’s based on a complex algorithm that’s based on four factors: whether you’ve interacted with a friend or brand before (including frequency), other people’s reactions to a post (i.e., if lots of your friends are commenting on a post, chances are you’ll see that post in your feed), your interactions with posts of that type in the past (i.e., if you seem to like photos, you’ll see more photos), and whether or not a post has received complaints. With the new News Feed, Facebook will let you choose the feeds you want to see: Friends, Photos, Music, Following, Games, etc. So is EdgeRank dead? At least a few Facebook experts think so.

Images and Video Will Rule. The Facebook News Feed will be all about photos and videos. Newsfeed will be bursting with large images and videos, including videos from third party sites. As I’ve noted above, Facebook will let users view just photos from friends and pages they like. So what happens if your organization tends to post Facebook updates with no images? Your updates will probably be largely ignored. Bottom line: think big, bold images because they will dominate the News Feed.

Third Party Content Regains Status. If you’ve got great content on a blog, community site, YouTube, Pinterest or Instagram, for example, Facebook will let you feature those links and posts prominently, especially if they have nice images.

How to get ready for Newsfeed?

Read more about the new Facebook News Feed
Join the waiting list so you’ll be one of the first to get Newsfeed. Go here and scroll to the bottom of the page.
Have a photo strategy for your website and your Facebook posts.

Are you ready for the new News Feed? It’s coming and you want to be sure that your followers continue to WANT to read your posts and allow your posts to be featured in their feeds.

Favorite: 5k Fridays

admin — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 14:00:55 +0000

5k Fridays

Crystal City’s 5k Fridays are a great way to kick off the weekend. Matrix staff love running these races together every spring.

Favorite: IRS2GO

admin — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 14:00:55 +0000

IRS2GO

Tax season is here! This app plugs you in to the IRS on the go so you can access your existing tax records, as well as check the status of your 2012 return after it’s filed.

Blog: Why Rebranding Is Really Hard and Takes a Really Long Time

Joanna Pineda — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 04:06:57 +0000

A couple of days ago, a Matrix Group client, a major trade association was quoted in a a major news story. The news organization quoted a statistic that the association promotes through its website, about the benefits of working with its members. The trouble was this: the name of the organization was wrong in the news story. You see, the organization had rebranded with a new name five years ago, but the news story still used the old name. This, despite a major effort to educate the industry, the press, trade publications, yada, yada. Ugh.

For many years, I chaired a benefit auction for a local non-profit. The benefit was successful and well-known but one year, we were close to panic when ticket sales were much lower than anticipated. We quickly organized a phone campaign and found out something startling: many longtime benefit attendees did not recognize the name of the organization on the envelope. You see, the organization had rebranded with a new name three years earlier and we figured it was time to use the new name (on its own, without the “formerly” name) on the return address. Guess we were wrong.

These stories point to the difficulties and challenges associated with rebranding campaigns, especially campaigns that involve a name change. Most organizations do a fine job communicating the changes via their websites, letters, postcards, emails, email signatures, voice on hold messages, advertisements in trade publications, and on and on. Trouble is, people aren’t necessarily paying attention. The letter, ad or postcard doesn’t register until your customer, partners and prospects decide they want to interact with your organization, on their terms, on their timeline.

So what are the lessons here?

Know that rebranding is a long-term effort, it’s going to require constant and intense communications, and some people are still going to miss the message.
Use every communications vehicle possible to communicate the changes: website, email, letter, postcard, magazine article, magazine ad, banner ads, voice on hold message, email signature, video, news stories, etc.
Renew the old domain name and point it to the new site for as long as you can bear.
Make sure there are plenty of references to the old name on your website so that search engines will associate your new name with the old one.
Keep reminding your audiences of the reasons for the rebranding and reinforce the new name and images.

How about you? Has your organization rebranded? What communications challenges did you face and how did you overcome them?

Favorite: Shamrock Shake

admin — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 20:16:15 +0000

Shamrock Shake

Only available for a limited time around St. Patty’s day, this shake is a guilty, but delicious, pleasure of mine. It’s not March without one!

Blog: I’ve Seen the Future and It’s Full of Screens

Joanna Pineda — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 04:47:10 +0000

I had the great luck to attend xPotomac, the fabulous conference about the future of the Internet, communications and social media earlier this week. One of the presenters was Ken Yarmosh and he gave a great talk on how the future will be full of screens. Someone predicted that in the future, cities will be more like Japan, full of mobile devices of all kinds and digital billboards everywhere. Ken talked persuasively about 5 factors that will change how we interact with screens.

Screen pervasiveness

We are going to have more screens in our lives, screens of all kinds. Remember when every home had just one TV? Today, many homes have multiple TVs, tablets, smartphones, etc. New screens are coming: screens in our cars; refrigerators with touch screens; screens on our coffee tables for magazines, photos and game;, screens in our conference rooms to see satellite offices; screens in our showers for watching TV. As the technology costs go down, we will have more screens.

Screen persistence

I love this prediction. Ken says that screen persistence will allow us to start something on one screen and continue on another. If you read books on the Kindle or Kindle app, you know that you can stop reading on your phone and pick up where you left off on your tablet. In the future, you’ll be able to start a phone call in your car, continue it on your phone when you arrive at your destination, switch seamlessly to video conferencing on the fridge when you get to your kitchen, and switch to your HD TV when you go to your living room or conference room.

Screens that know about you

Remember the scene in Minority Report where Tom Cruise, with a surgically transplanted eye from someone else, gets welcome to a department store by name (the other guy’s name) and encouraged to buy something? Ken says that in the future, screens of all kinds (billboards, large and small) will know who we are, our physical characteristics, our interests, our purchasing history, etc., and project a personalize ad or message. Perhaps when you turn on your TV at home, it will let you know which of you favorite shows have new episodes waiting. It’s clear that we’ll need some type of system to grant or deny access to our information by all these screens. It’s going to be a big privacy mess but marketers will be all over the opportunities.

Screens will know about themselves and interact with other screens

Today, screens aren’t aware of other screens. But in the future, your iPad might automatically turn into a controller for a TV when you enter your living room. Or attendees at a conference can share content on their tablets while in the same meeting room. Related to screen persistence above, your device will pass calls and data seamless to each other. You’ll be able to start a game on one TV and then when dad comes home and wants to watch the game on that TV, your controller will let you continue your game on another TV.

Screen interactions will change

Today, we can type, swipe and do a little voice. In the future, we’ll be able to use voice commands to ask complicated requests of our devices. An example: “Pull up my 2015 tax return (which is presumably in the cloud somewhere) and tell me my effective tax rate back then.” You will be able to use your body to control screens (kind of like the Kinect, but more sophisticated). And touch commands like in Minority Report will become a reality.

Project Glass from Google is an example of the new generation screen (it’s going to be a head mounted display, a pair of glasses) that will let us interact with the world in new and different ways.

I don’t now about you but I am excited about this brave, new world that will be full of screens. Thanks, Ken, for sharing your predictions for the future! What prediction are YOU most excited about?

Blog: Matrix Group Fundamental #4: Don’t Let Your Boss Make a Mistake

Joanna Pineda — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 06:09:43 +0000

I’ve blogged in the past about JP’s rules. After hearing a great presentation on company values by Dave Friedman to my CEO peer advisory group (i’m a member of Vistage) I decided to rename them Matrix Group fundamentals. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that JP’s rules are really a code of conduct, a set of rules that evolved over time and that provide guidance on “how to be” at Matrix Group.

Dave says that while most companies have corporate values, most companies don’t do a good job of providing enough guidance about what those values really mean, how to interpret them and how to live them on a daily basis. So at his company, he started each week with an email to his staff about one of the fundamentals. He talked about what the fundamental meant to him and provided examples of how to live it. He then asked all staff to open each meeting with a quick discussion about the fundamental of the week.

I’ve been following Dave’s advice for a few weeks now and I’m loving the results. A recent discussion about “It does or it doesn’t but never should” kicked off a lively debate at staff meeting and “Don’t let your client make a mistake” got the project managers talking. Here’s my most recent email about this week’s fundamental: Don’t let your boss make a mistake.

Week of January 21, 2013
Fundamental of the Week: Don’t let your boss make a mistake.

One of the worst and saddest things for me is when I hear: well, I knew it was the wrong way to go, but I didn’t mention anything.” If I ever hear that, I know that the staff member, client or partner has checked out or is not committed to the success of the project. Or perhaps this person doesn’t feel they have the ability or power to say something because the person making the decision or talking at a meeting is a manager, VP, Director, or CEO.

We are a company of experts. Each of us brings a unique blend of education, experience, background and skills to this company. Most of the time, most of us aren’t afraid to speak our minds; this is why we bring people together in meetings and have inter-disciplinary teams and projects.

But what do you do when your manager just made the wrong call during a call with a client that *could* have long-lasting and negative consequences for us and the client?

What do you when JP say something just totally wrong about what Sitefinity or the Google search can do?

What do you when your manager says “this should take 2 hours” but you think it will be 4 or 6 or 8?

In all of these cases, I believe that you all have an obligation to do something, say something. You clearly need to do it in a respectful way that doesn’t make your manager look bad or feel stupid, especially in front of a client. Here are some suggestions:

After the call, ask for a few minutes and say to your manager, “hey, I have concerns about x. I think if we did that, this will happen. But if we do x, the client still gets what they want and the code will be x, y, z.” If you feel very strongly about a technical or artistic decision, you should feel free to bring this to Jason, Eric, Alex or even myself. Nobody will get thrown under the bus.

If I ever say something totally wrong in a meeting, pull me aside after the meeting and say, “actually JP, Sitefinity does xx.” If it’s during the meeting and it’s important that the client have the info right there, you can always say, “excuse me, JP, but I’m pretty sure that the in a recent version of Sitefinity or CF or Google or whatever, that issue was addressed.” If you do it respectfully, you will actually make Matrix Group look good because a subject matter expert said something, contradicted the CEO and did it in a professional, respectful way. I will thank my lucky stars I brought an expert along!

If you and your manager have completely different perspectives re: scope, then step back and say, “I think this will take much longer, here’s why. Can we chat for a moment to make sure we’re talking about the same scope of work?” Chances are, there’s been a miscommunication about the scope or the PM needs a little education. Either way, it never, ever hurts to clarify the work and the expectations.

It turns out to be another time commitment to write what I hope are thoughtful emails on the fundamentals each week. But, as my coach Pete Schwartz always reminds me, one of my main jobs is to coach my staff and provide guidance for how to think and behave so that we are all in alignment and serving our customers well.

How about you? What are your company’s fundamentals? How are you communicating your fundamentals to staff, especially new staff?

Blog: Time To Audit Your Privacy Settings — Everywhere

Joanna Pineda — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 05:00:06 +0000

I got a new iPhone last year and configured it to upload photos to Facebook. Imagine my surprise when photos of me and my kids ended up public on Facebook, even though I have my settings set to all photos as viewable by Friends Only by default. So I dutifully reviewed all of my Facebook privacy settings, updated the viewing options for all of my photo albums and went on my merry way.

I wouldn’t call myself paranoid about privacy and security on the web, but I do watch what I post online and I take advantage of privacy options, whenever available. Make it your New Year’s resolution in 2013 to audit your privacy settings on all social networks and think about what information you’re putting out on the web, private or not. Here’s my privacy punchlist to help you out:

Be careful when uploading photos to Facebook via your smartphone. For some reason, Facebook sometimes doesn’t honor my default option to make photos Friends Only and I have to manually change the viewer settings on some photos.

Beware of what other people can do to your posts and photos. Last month, Mark Zuckberg’s older sister posted a photo on Facebook that friends and friends of friends could see. A friend of a friend saw the photo, assumed it was public and tweeted it. What ensued was a very public conversation between Randi Zuckerberg and the tweeter Callie Schweitzer on Twitter. The media had a field day. Check out this story on Forbes.com. Folks, if you let them, friends and friends of friends can share your posts, share your photos, tag you in photos, yada, yada.

Remember that Facebook apps can access your personal information. Everyone seems to love birthdays and birthday greetings on Facebook. Well guess what? Even apps can access your birthday when you give them permission to access your Facebook account. And since knowing your birthday is a key piece in identify fraud, think about not sharing your account, or not putting your exact birthday (does that violate the Facebook terms of service?).

Know that your company email account is not private. Your personal gmail account is one thing, but all the courts have upheld the notion that corporations own employee accounts on corporate mail servers, which means they can audit and read your company emails at any time. Most companies even have policies saying they can and will do this when needed.

But hey, even private email accounts aren’t always private. We might be shocked by the General Petraus affair, but equally of interest is how the FBI found the emails between General Petraus and Paula Broadwell in private gmail accounts. What started out as a cyberstalking investigation ended up bringing down a CIA Director! So assume that all of your emails could be made public and that they will exist on some computer or back-up for the next generation or two.

Everything we do is being tracked. When I stop to think about it, I cringe at the data that government and retailers are amassing about me. I use my American Express credit card for nearly all of my purchases, I use my rewards cards at places like Giant, Harris Teeter and Barnes & Noble, my E-Z Pass tracks where I’ve traveled on the toll road, Google tracks all of my searching history, Amazon knows what I like enough to buy, and Facebook knows where I’ve been, who my friends are and what I ate last Sunday. If you want to stop some of this tracking, don’t use a credit card, don’t use rewards cards, use a Do Not Track app on your computer (like Abine), logout of Google before doing searches, and turn off cookies or delete them regularly. For me, these steps aren’t exactly practical, but I offer them as suggestions for those who do want to limit tracking.

Ultimately, I always try to remember that anything I do online on the web and in email could be made public at any time.

How about you? How much do you care about privacy and security? Are you doing anything about your privacy settings or changing your behavior?

Many thanks to my friend Shaun Dakin for his help with his post. Shaun is a huge online privacy expert and advocate. Find him on Twitter @shaundakin and Facebook at Dakin Associates.

Favorite: National Geographic’s Photo of the Day

admin — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 20:24:04 +0000

National Geographic’s Photo of the Day

Get a different, gorgeous photo every day, from around the world.

Favorite: Meshu

admin — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 14:00:27 +0000

Meshu

Love to travel? Map where you’ve been in the world then wear the drawing as a piece of art!

Project: “The Black Church and HIV: A Social Justice Imperative” Video for NAACP

admin — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 18:30:44 +0000

Gibraltar Associates, a leading public relations agency, partnered with Matrix Group to create a video for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as part of the NAACP’s initiative to combat HIV in the African-American community.

To kick off their campaign, the NAACP wanted to create a dynamic, powerful video that addresses faith leaders in African communities across the nation. The NAACP is working with the Black Church to encourage faith leaders to rally their parishioners to take a stand against the HIV/AIDS crisis.

Gibraltar Associates partnered with Matrix Group to create an inspirational video. Here’s what we did:

Created a video that addresses this national epidemic, and also evokes a sense of urgency and encourages African Americans nationwide to combat HIV in their communities.
Constructed a video that layered the animations, inspirational music and powerful voiceover talent
Created and incorporated a series of animated infographics adapted from the still images and statistics provided by Gibraltar Associates.
Integrated the online video into the national initiative’s multi-faceted campaign.

Watch the Video

Project: Casualty Actuarial Society Website Redesign

admin — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 18:30:39 +0000

Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) is a national organization that advances the body of knowledge of actuarial science, which analyzes property, casualty and similar risks. The Society aims to increase awareness of actuarial science, as well as establish and promote high standards of conduct, competence, and qualification for membership. The Society conducts and funds research in the field and actively provides continuing education for its members.

CAS wanted to make their website the go-to site for their members and anyone interested in the field. This required the website to be easy to navigate; make information like educational materials, exam and volunteer registration more accessible; and make the site viewable on mobile devices.

Here’s what we did:

Created a beautiful design that showcases the prominence of the profession and association.
Made it easier to find information about events and exams.
Upgraded the custom ColdFusion content management system.
Upgraded the website’s integration with the CAS’ association management system, netFORUM from Avectra.
Created a mobile stylesheet to make it easier for members to access the website from their smartphones.

Visit the Casualty Actuarial Society Website

Project: Precision Machined Products Association Website Redesign

admin — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 18:30:32 +0000

Precision Machined Products Association (PMPA) is an international trade association representing the interests of the precision machined products industry. Utilizing the latest technology, including CNC turning and milling centers, rotary transfer machines, CNC and automatic screw machines, these companies produce complex parts and complete assemblies for finished goods such as: automobiles, aircraft, heavy truck, medical devices, appliances, construction equipment and much more.

The PMPA website was last redesigned five years ago. PMPA sought to redesign the site to increase awareness of the organization’s work, increase visits to PMPA’s member directories, and foster more networking and information-sharing between members.

To help PMPA meet their goals, Matrix Group:

Revamped the navigation to make it easier to find PMPA services (e.g., directories, meetings, news).
Created a new Knowledge and Tools section that groups PMPA information, services and resources by the topics of greatest importance to PMPA members
Created a modern design that represents the PMPA brand
Implemented the new PMPA site in the Sitefinity content management system.
Increased the integration with the website and MatrixMaxx, Matrix Group’s web-based association management software (AMS).

Visit the PMPA Website

Project: International Facility Management Association Website Redesign

admin — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 18:30:30 +0000

The International Facility Management Association (IFMA) is the world’s largest international association for facility management professionals, representing more than 20,000 worldwide. IFMA’s mission is to “advance the facility management profession by providing exceptional services, products, resources and opportunities” for its members by conducting research, offering continuing education and certification opportunities and working to advance the facilities management profession.

IFMA sought to transform their fragmented online presence into a seamless website in order to meet the organization’s strategic goals and provide members a vastly improved user experience.

To reach their goals, IFMA teamed up with Matrix Group. We:

Developed a new taxonomy designed to connect all the audiences with IFMA’s vast collection resources, products and services.
Created a navigation strategy focused on simplifying the browsing experience for members and visitors.
Designed pages that demonstrate IFMA’s position as the largest association for facility managers worldwide.
Unified the login process and single sign-on with iMIS, allowing members accustomed to using several different IFMA-affiliated sites to sign in using a single accounts.
Deployed responsive design templates to support a variety of devices in anticipation of members’ use of mobile phones and tablets to access the site.

Visit the IFMA Website

Favorite: Hubble Site

admin — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 14:00:29 +0000

Hubble Site

Spectacular photos of stars, galaxies, nebulae and more.

Favorite: NORAD Santa Tracker

admin — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 14:00:26 +0000

NORAD Santa Tracker

Track Santa Claus as he makes his way around the globe on Christmas Eve. Really!

Blog: Just Like a House, Your Website Needs Cleaning and Organizing Every Week

Joanna Pineda — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 05:43:03 +0000

My husband and I bought a new house last summer. It’s taken us over a year to get every single box unpacked, find a home for everything we own, decorate, and put in the finishing touches that make a house a home. We’re not done but I’m definitely losing steam. Maki is sick of hanging pictures, the boys’ rooms look nice but they’re missing wall shelves and curtains, and and the garage is in much better shape but we still can’t park both cars inside.

Here’s the rub: the house looks good, it’s functional, and we don’t *really* have to do much more. So it’s tempting to just live with what we have even though we could make the house so much better.

So it goes with a website redesign. I’ve blogged in the past about how a website redesign is a lot like moving to a new house. After a move, you have endless tweaks, you can’t decorate all at once, and you get a whole lot done when you throw a party. Somewhere along the way, you lose steam.

And when you lose steam, you start throwing content on the home page to make everyone happy, you start adding endless items to the navigation, you start tossing content into the generic Resources bucket, you stop updating the branding area, and you stop making the effort to make every page look interesting with images and formatting. After a year or two of this, you get sick of how badly organized the site is, you think the content sucks and you decide to embark on a full redesign.

Here are my top tips for preventing your website from becoming cluttered and disorganized.

Resolve to do some dusting and cleaning every week. Set aside time every week to review content, refresh content, delete old content, and archive things you no longer need on the site.

If necessary, hire a cleaning service. Sometimes, we need professional help to keep our homes habitable. And think of how much cleaning you do before the cleaning lady comes! Hiring an outside consultant does much the same thing. You end up thinking about your website and you work with the vendor to keep it tidy and organized.

Purge on a regular basis. Remember the closet rule? If you haven’t worn it in a year, toss. Same with your content. If specific content is no longer current, if nobody is accessing it or your organization can’t commit to keeping it updated, best to just remove it from the site.

Find a proper home for all new content and services. It’s inevitable that after launching your website, your organization will launch new services. Don’t just put it on the home page or stick in Resources. Find a proper home for it so that it’s findable now and in the future.

Finish the decorating. When I bought a condo after grad school, I painted every wall and door except the door to the master bathroom. I didn’t get to it within the first few months when I was doing my heavy decorating. Well guess what? That door stayed unpainted for 5 years. If your website has unfinished elements, resolve to finish them in the new year. Perhaps you have a newsletter that needs to be redesigned, maybe you want to have a unique image in every header, or you want video bios for all the leadership. Don’t wait and don’t lose steam. Create a schedule and get it done.

Update your decor and organizing system regularly. Instead of waiting 3 or 4 years to re-organize your site or update the design, resolve to do a review every six months. Analyze your analytics and make pages more findable. Optimize your site search. Create the new dropdown menus that include all of your new content.

I have a friend who moves every 10 years. I am now coming to the conclusion that her house gets more cluttered every year until she *has* to move and when she does move, she declutters, re-organizes and purges. Don’t be like my friend. Do your cleaning, decluttering and redecorating a little at a time, every week, and keep your site fresh and organized. It will be less work, cost less money and your visitors will appreciate the time you’re taking to give them a clean and streamlined experience.

Favorite: RentTheRunway.com

admin — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 14:00:43 +0000

RentTheRunway.com

Lets you rent designer clothes for a week. Wear it then return it!

Blog: 2012 Holiday Gift Ideas from Matrix Group for the Techies In Your Life

Joanna Pineda — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 04:45:50 +0000

It’s 12–12-12, the Mayan Apocalypse Day is a mere 9 days away, and Christmas Eve is 12 days away. Assuming you believe the earth will survive beyond December 21, 2012, you have less than two weeks to finish your holiday shopping. If you celebrate Hannukah, you’re almost out of time.

So what do you get the techie(s) in your life? As always, I polled my staff and they gave me some great recommendations.

The Lego Lord of the Rings game for XBOX, 3DS and PS Vita is simply awesome!
i-Ecko makes a bottle opener/USB drive combo device. Who thinks up these combinations?
Tired of paying a monthly fee for your DVR? Try Roku, which is a small box that connects to your home Wi-Fi signal and streams over 300 channels to your television set.
Need a simple laptop? Try a Google Chromebook. It’s a person computer running the Google Chrome operating system. It comes with Google apps and the Chrome browser. For $200, it’s a nice little machine!
Doesn’t every geek in your life need a wooden catapult and trebuchet kit?
The Lytro camera lets you change the perspective of a photo, AFTER you’ve taken the photo.
The Perplexus Maze Game is a 3D maze game where players must maneuver a small marble around challenging barriers inside a transparent sphere. My 8-year old loves this game!
For the coffee addict in your life, the Art. Lebedev Thermal Battery Mug is black until you pour hot liquid into the mug. Then a battery icon appears, charging up and down with green power bars to match the level of your liquid.
The Pixel Ruler is a must-have for the web designer in your life. who will use it for responsive screen size sketching.
I love this “I had friends on that Death Star” t-shirt featuring a forlorn stormtrooper.
The iPad Atari Arcade turns your iPad into an old-fashioned Atari console, complete with joystick. Centipede, anyone?
The Oona smartphone base lets you configure the base and turn your smartphone into a GPS, time lapse camera, fridge magnet, and more. Genius!
For the teenagers or the audiophiles in your life, try a pair of Beat headphones. You can get them in a vast array of colors, including purple!
For the traveler in your life, how about an Ostrich Pillow, which claims to be a soothing cave-like interior shelters and isolates both your head and hands, perfect for a power nap.
For the Star Wars fan with a growing family and minivan, how about Star Wars family decals for your car?
Baby, it’s cold outside, so why not buy a Dr. Who TARDIS Laplander knit hat?
For the new mom, this “My First Year Poster” is so cool! Create a custom poster filled with infographics of a baby’s first year.

How about you? What are your favorite gift ideas this year? What are you getting the techies in your life?

Favorite: CDC Zombie Preparedness

admin — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 14:00:47 +0000

CDC Zombie Preparedness

The CDC actually has a page on Zombie preparedness!