Restaurants have always relied heavily on word of mouth marketing. When you want a delicious meal, you often ask your friends or read reviews from critics. But what if our reviews of our favorite tasty places could be shouted from the rooftops to all of our connections? With the advent of social media and user-generated content, word of mouth marketing has become a tidal wave of great marketing opportunities that just need to be harnessed. So how can restaurants get on board and start surfing the wave? Here are some unexpected ideas…

Twitter
Start monitoring, join the conversation, and some shameless self-promotion never hurts either. Twitter is particularly handy because it’s short and it’s RIGHT now. Lots of twitter users are looking for suggestions on where to go or watching where other users are going. Twitter can be a great venue for the customer satisfaction pulse. If someone has an issue, it’s great to provide on the spot customer service, and this can create amazing brand loyalty. Also, what a great way to help loyal customers (your Twitter followers) know about menu updates, specials or just how much you love them.

Yelp, Urbanspoon and other Review Sites
These great sites will help you keep up on what people are really saying about your establishment. Don’t ignore these reviews. Sure, you can’t please everyone, but if you’re looking for suggestions on how to improve your service, look no further than these treasure troves of great info. Tip: Don’t be afraid of the occasional nasty/rude review. These bad apples make the rest of the great reviews more genuine. Sometimes you’ll even get a loyalist on your side that will discount those mean mentions. Also, many review sites have iPhone applications, so going mobile is a snap and free to you.

Google Maps
Get yourself listed! With Google Maps it’s free to list your business and may be more helpful than you may think. Let me tell you why. Google is the number one search engine and is moving forward with blended search results (particularly local). This means it’s more likely a map result will get precedence over other content. Want to be on the first page? This is a good way to do it! Also, Google Maps is a leading service in mobile mapping technology, so if someone is looking for a good place to eat while they’re out and about, you’ll show up! Also, Google will aggregate most review sites and average those reviews, making it really easy for consumers to get the scoop on your delicious venue.

Meetup, Upcoming, Facebook Events and other Event Sites
Looking to promote a particular event at your establishment? Broadcasting it on local-based event sites is a great way to get visitors that didn’t even know you existed before. Also, look to partner with groups that may need venue suggestions. If you have a particularly slow night (say Tuesdays), offer them up a great deal (maybe happy hour prices) to host their group. This is a great way to start brand loyalty with new faces.

Flickr and YouTube
Got a camera? Take some shots of your famous menu items to share with fans and people that might be interested in learning more about your restaurant. This will help people get a better understanding of portions, how delicious your food is, etc. Also, there’s a great chance these photos will show up in blended search results! Got a video camera? Even better! Take a video tour of “behind-the-scenes” to give guests a unique experience on what goes into creating the amazing dishes you offer. This can really create buzz and be a nice personalized touch, especially if you already have fanatical brand loyalists.

Hope your mouth is watering with all these delicious new marketing opportunities that online relationships offer. Now that you’ve had a taste, how do you think you could harness this new trend to get more patrons?

Originally written for On Our Minds - Santy Integrated’s blog.

To-do lists make you feel like you have to get everything done on them today, instead of pacing yourself.

When I read what David had to say about to-do lists I realized why I had this love hate afair with my lovely life-leveling lists. So what’s a girl to do?

Well, while looking up GTD type accessories to keep my life together even in the busiest of times, I happened to find David Seah’s Emergent Task Planner. This handy tool has saved my life!

It keeps my love of lists intact while making me remember that if I don’t get everything done it’s OK, because I’m awesome for just even finishing three items today. For each set of three tasks I complete it has a little “go get ‘em tiger” type message, and when you get to a total of nine completed items, it reminds you that you may burn out if you keep going like you are.

David Seah's Emergent Task Planner

So how do I use it?

1. I start my task list by listing my “permanent tasks”, thinks like meetings or items that are ABSOLUTELY required today.
2. Then I list all the other tasks by priority that I need to finish that I know of. Many of these are carried over from the previous day’s list.
3. For each task I make an estimate of how much time I think it’s going to take me to complete.
4. Then I fill in the time grid based on the estimates, this allows me to know how much “free time” I have during the day for those random tasks or meetings that may popup
5. I then use the bottom under the task list to jot down any tasks that pop up during the day that aren’t URGENT but need to be carried over through-out the week
6. When I finish a task, I still get the satisfaction of checking it off, and I also fill in exactly how much time it really did take me to complete.
7. Get Productive, Wash, Rinse, Repeat!
8. Then at the end of week I use the completed sheets to fill in my time sheets at the end of the week.

Secret moo man

Originally uploaded by hallywoods

When the detail is put into these little corners where often it is overlooked by designers and never given a second thought to consumers, something magical happens, a clever little bit of “secret” is shared between designer and consumer, both are enriched by the process.

If you liked this lil design Easter egg, check out Paul Annett’s recent SXSW panel, “Oooh that’s Clever!: Unnatural Experiments in Web Design” on slideshare for more magical design moments both in print, envirnoment and web.

Even as Web 3.0 edges its way, web design is still ruled by “print-style” design, pushing web centric content (such as up-to-minute story updates or geo-targeted results). He argues that there is more growth into “Transcendent Web” on the horizon, and cites five different primary elements that will push web design to new heights.

1. Ambient Awareness
   Micro-blogging such as Twitter allows users to become aware of a bigger picture of who someone is via small 140 character updates, allowing a fuller personalize perspective into that person’s life, culture and perhaps society in general.
2. User Created Context
   Users now create their own experience online, selecting the ways to they want receive their information (RSS feeds vs. reading on the blog), the more you try to control how the user moves about the web, the more they rebel and go else where for their information.
3. Random Voyeurism
   Humans like to experience what it’s like to be someone else, to share an honest moment that provides insight into others, the web offers new ways to experience this through personal blogs, micro-blogging, photo and video sharing.
4. Self-aware (but ultimately uncontrollable) Content
   Content on the web now knows what kind of content it is through the use of xml, tagging and keywords, but ultimately this content can be used by anyone for anything in or out of context. Once you put content out there, it can be mashedup and reused completely.
5. Experiential Content
   With video, images, real-time micro-blogging, and other content available, many web interactions could be exploded into entire experiences as if the users were almost “there”.

To learn more check out the SXSW Highlights Video or download the 15-page paper by Dan Willis.

Aprils First Shootout from ClowerPower on Vimeo.

Guess I can check that off the “I should do this” list. Thanks guys!

The new job is going splendidly! Working over at Santy has helped with the whole “paying your bills all the time” thing. Besides being a regular paycheck it’s really letting me strech my toes into information architecture, assisting in creating usable designs, and web strategies for larger companies. I have lots of great co-workers again and really great projects to sink my teeth into.

For those of you who keep tabs on my relationship status on Facebook, you may have noticed it was changed briefly to “in a relationship” and then back to “single”. Just to clear the record, I was, for four weeks, “going steady” with someone, but we’ve since gone our seperate ways after he couldn’t keep his lips, hands, and other body parts away from another woman. (I know, boo!) Don’t worry, I’m ok! Just make sure to buy me a drink the next time you see me and we’ll call it even.

My brother is a father and I’m an aunt again, before I could get the baby gifts in the mail, my sister turns up preggers again! They’re definately making up for all those babies I’m not making right now, eh? So I suppose a trip to Kansas is in order sometime soon, but before that can happen, I have to go to SXSW!

Yep, it’s that time again! Here in March I’ll be flying my butt out to Austin, TX to attend SXSW, the largest interactive conference in the United States. Well, if it’s not the largest, it’s definitely the best. Only difference is that this time I’ll be single, watch out! lol Nah, but it should be fun none the less.

Besides that I’m sure I’ll have a ton more traveling to do, the first being a trek up to the slot/antelope canyon area. Then perhaps a weekend trip to the Grand Canyon, since it’s ridiculous that I have lived in AZ for almost five years and haven’t been yet!

Anyways, thanks for listening and feel free to suggest something else I should try in 2009, totally my year, I feel it!

Step 1: What is Web Design?

Often fear is simply a lack of understanding, so to begin this journey, let’s start by defining what web design, as a craft, is. I feel that Jeffery Zeldman of Happy Cog Studios put it best when he summarized web design as:

Web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity; reflect or adapt to individual voices and content; and change gracefully over time while always retaining their identity.

Wow, lots to digest there, let’s break it up a bit.

The creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity.
So basically all this is saying that web design is design within a digital space (i.e. the web) but more importantly that it’s main purpose is to facilitate and encourage human activity. We want to interact with them, give and get from the user. This allows for a special kind of communication that we haven’t ever seen from media before. Instead of dictating to the consumer, we can now receive and act on information provided to us, very powerful.

Reflect or adapt to the individual voices and content.
While the web is still a relatively new media format in the grand scheme of media and advertising, it’s still very customizable. We should harness this adaptability and use it to the best of our abilities to reflect and present the content in a very specialized manner. The web was created for the purpose of collecting and sharing information; web design cannot forget these roots as we move forward. Content is king, it’s the most important part, and should be treated that way.

Change gracefully over time while always retaining its identity.
Web design is unlike many other forms of media because of the way it can be changed over time. Unlike print, we can continue to add, take away and mold this space over and over again. The tricky part is doing it gracefully and staying true to the original brand and statement. If we change too often or off course of our brand in can alienate our users instead of creating those core connections and communications levels we would like to have.

Overall, web design is very similar to other types of design; there are still guidelines, best practices, and techniques that separate good design from the bad.  Also, just like all other types of media, it’s centered on communication, however there is a new addition that makes this a new frontier, the interactivity of the users who use it.

Now that we know our adversary, let’s delve into those guidelines, best practices and techniques that will allow you to be empowered to go head first into the fight.

Step 2: Knowledge is Power.

The more you know about why and what you’re designing for the web will help you in your quest.

Start with a purpose.
What’s the real reason behind why the design needs to be created? Perhaps it’s to share product information or to be able to process online orders. What ever it is, nail it down and keep it simple. Even if there are a few reasons, keep them concise and in front of you at all times. This will help you stave off the needs for the “wouldn’t it be nice if?” scope creep that can really get you in trouble later.

Define your users and what they need.
Who are your users? What do they want from you? More often than not they won’t need a sales pitch, they’re qualified leads or else they wouldn’t be there. So veer away from the extended sales pitch and instead focus on giving your users the information they need & want about your services or products. Need help figuring out what your users want the most? Check out your current google analytics statics to see what your users are looking for the most, or check out a heat mapping service such as Crazy Egg that will help you visualize what your users are looking for and clicking on.

Communicate to develop correct functionality scope.
Talk with your client, project manager, and development team to come up with a correct scope of functionality. When the client signs off on designs, often they’re not only signing off on look and feel but functional items such as searches, drop downs, user functionality, etc. Make sure that everything that’s depicted within the comps is with in functionality scope and doable.

Collect all content.
This is a tough one to accomplish, but stick in there and this one will pay off! More often than not timelines slip because the client doesn’t realize the scope of content needed to complete a web project. When you focus on getting these items right off the bat it allows the client to become more of an active participant in the planning and will help them understand how much work is involved in the design and development process. It will also keep them busy so they’re not prodding for more features or badgering you about deliverables sooner than the timeline suggests. Collecting all the content also helps you plan out an accurate site information architecture and will help you design with the voice and content already in place.

Step 3: Organize for the user.

Once you’ve got all your parts and pieces remember to organize them keeping the users and their needs in the forefront at all times. Knowing more about usability will help you out here, so check out this definition from Jakob Nielsen.

Usability: the users perception of how consistent, intuitive, and organized it is to accomplish tasks within a system.

Offer the user clear choices.
Don’t overload the user with options, stick to the purposes and users needs that you had outlined earlier. Keep it clear, easy to understand, and if you can make it so easy that the user feels like a GENIUS because it was so easy to use.

Use conventional terms, icons and positioning.
Sure we all want to create something new and fun, but try to stick with the normal terms, icons, and placement on standard web stuff. Such as don’t replace the e-mail envelope with the @ symbol, it will require your users to think, and to break that stream of consciousness enables poor usability.  However, just because you should stick with the standards doesn’t mean you can’t bend the rules, you just have to do it in such a easy way that it can be picked up with minimal effort. Most users scan the page in a F-Shaped eye tracking, so you most likely want to place your most important pieces within this pathing.

Easily digestible content blocks.
Avoid large / lengthy blocks of content if possible. Most web users tend to scan content vs. read it fully so keep it short and concise. If you want to overview content, stick to three to five bullet points with links that go to the full content for those who are interested.

Consider user flow.
Remember for every link you create in your design there must be somewhere that goes to. Remember standard user flows like what are the steps/process when a user registers, signs in, or tries to buy a product? Remembering these steps as you design will help you comprehend the whole flow and layout of the website as a whole.  If you would like help with some of these steps, check out a handy service called Product Planner.

Wireframes are your friends, you can’t have to many.
Wireframes can help considerably when you’re still planning out the placement of major items and user flows, they’re less time consuming and can be really amazing tools when trying to understand what should be the most important elements within a page.

Step 4: Roll up your sleeves.

Alright, with all that collecting and planning I guess you should be ready to actually design something right? Check out some of these tips to make your design to implementation time shorter.

Be smart about imagery/graphics

• Too many images means it will take too long to load, while it loads it will look like crap. So, be smart and use the less is more approach. Also, all those images won’t have the search engine weight as text would have, so remember that when choosing typefaces as images, etc.
• If you REALLY want to use a non-standard font face, check out sIFR for your implementation, but a few notes on this, sIFR uses flash to render the font so it will still impede load time. It will be SEO compliant, but it will also require flash.
• Images can be an accessibility nightmare, if seriously informational text is included in graphics it needs to be in full text as the alt attribute for the image. Instead of having to remember all this, using a regular font and HTML text would be a better decision.

File organization

• Organize your PSD to have all elements grouped together by area such as header, footers, callouts, etc this will make selecting and merging for cutting easier later.
• Include on and over states for navigation, since this is an interactive space these styles will need to included so that they can be implemented later.
• Keep all your layers editable, you never know when you’ll need to change a piece of text or a background color later, instead of redoing the entire PSD, just be smart and don’t merge layers.
• Create a style guide that outlines all fonts, colors, and styles used so that creation on the CSS style sheet can be easily created without having to re-examine your PSD later

Stay true to the end user
Even though you’ve focused on the users during the gathering and planning processes, you can’t forget about them now. Through out design iterations it’s easy to forget about the end user in hopes to quell the client, keep in mind that this website isn’t for your client to use, its for their customers, so they’re most important.

Some things transpired this weekend that have brought myself to question the my American sense of pride and justice. When I think of America, I think of a country that embraces differences, allows for a variety of opinions, and above all the freedom to be whom ever you would like to be. However, we’re also a country that believes in justice, doing the right thing, and holding those accountable for their actions.

This weekend, as the election drew nearer each day, Republicans were becoming more and more defensive of their position, as were Democrats, I know I said some very shrewd things about Palin in the last few days. In any rate, this sets the stage for what I’m about to share with you.

I am sitting at a table of new acquaintances, all good hard working, delightful people, celebrating a birthday, a definitely enjoyable occasion. As I sit there, comments about the election are discussed, and soon I realize I’m the only Democrat at the table. But why should I be concerned about that? They have a right to their own opinion, especially considering some of them have considered way more factors than I have regarding their decisions. Initially I was intrigued, I wanted to know what had changed their viewpoint to the other side, did they feel differently about some hot topic? But then a experience happened that I thought was below everything I know about good Americans.

The man of the hour pulls out a card that he’s received for this birthday, as he looks at the front he chuckles slightly. I’m a fan of humorous birthday cards, so I’m excited to see what has him grinning. He holds it up for everyone to see. It’s a card with Obama’s face on it, someone has drawn a noose around his neck, devil horns on his forehead, fire behind him, and a large, red swastika on his forehead.

The table roars in laughter. He hands the card around the table and each person gets a chance to have their own private chuckle as they review the handy work.

I’m simply stunned. I sit at the table, quiet, just watching the macabre of laughing faces. How could this be funny? How can I live in a country, so beautiful, so embracing of different opinions, and so just and honorable to be seeing this? Sure, they’re entitled to think that Obama isn’t the best choice for President, I can respect that. But to equate a man who wants to help and serve this country to the devil, to make a racist statement that he should be hung with a swastika carved in his forehead, how is this right and just? Sure this country has it’s problems, it’s dark side, it was not long ago that racism was a way of the public and not in hiding corners. Perhaps it was simply a joke, meant to be funny. But I would think in this day in age, these good, hard working, people would know in their hearts they had gone too far. It saddens me to see that mainstream society still accepts these items as acceptable ways of voicing their disagreement.

Honestly, I’m a bit upset by myself. For not standing up, for not saying something. I feel as if I’ve done my own dishonor to my homeland to sit there idle and not say anything to my fellow Americans. So, instead of letting this occurance go silently into the darkest corners of my memory without notice, I’m sharing it all with you. I hope that it shocks your system as much as it did mine, regardless of party, regardless of race. If it doesn’t, God help this nation.

A great deal of time and money has been spent on building online communities and connecting people from one nation to another, but lately the web as a whole is becoming more ‘local’. People want to know who’s been where we are, what our real friends think, and connect on a daily basis and are using the internet to do this. Then once they’ve checked in on their mobile phone, sent out a twit about tonight’s BBQ, or uploaded the photos from last night’s drunken bash, they go back offline to continue those interactions. The internet is now bringing people together locally quicker than any networking event could have. It’s creating a depth to our online interactions that was previously overlooked, and it’s powerful.

Offline community is often overlooked as just “friends hanging out”, but honestly it’s more than that. Through offline interactions you can build respect, work together quickly, share great ideas on a whiteboard, and also enjoy a good laugh or two. Over the past few months I’ve seen a few new offline communities spring up due to online interactions and I’m loveing what they’re bringing together. I’ve been able to learn more, do more, help others find more business, and make great friends with people I really enjoy.

A few years ago I was at the first meeting of Refresh Phoenix, a local group that wanted to bring the web community together to start working together and make a name for Phoenix as a technology center in the United States.  From Refresh Phoenix sprung some offshoot commuities such as Refocus Phoenix (a local photographic community), Refactor Phoenix (local software developers), and Tiny Army (local illustrators).

Earlier this year I started using Twitter, but really didn’t get addicted to it until SXSW, when several Refresh Phoenix community members started using it as our primary device to stay connected during the conference. Once we got back, I started attending local TweetUps, meet ups of twitter users in Phoenix. Many of us were into social media, but just didn’t know of eachother because we were just different *enough* not to meet up through other means. Once I tapped into the social media crowd I found out about Social Media Club in Phoenix, which is a meetup of people who enjoy discussing social media, how it effects our lives, and how technology is becoming more ingrained in regular social activities.

Over the last year I’ve become part of Drawbackwards, which is one of the companies that Integrum Technologies shares it’s offices with, that includes the likes of Forty Agency and obuweb. Intergrum has since opened up the offices as a co-working space called GangPlank, where anyone can come and work. GangPlank has open house events as well, one of them being Hackmania every Wednesday night where you can come and connect with other webbies to create great applications and work on other side work that you may not have a chance to focus on normally during the week. This time has allowed new ideas to spring up all over the Phoenix valley, and I’ll be sure to show case some of them here in the future.

I’m really enjoying all the friends and real connections I’ve made through the past few years, and it’s always getting better. I really hope that you can connect with you own local community and build a niche for you to grow in within your own backyard.  Bringing people together can help the comunity as a whole and really bring strength to your ideas and interests. Good luck!