(Note: I use Outlook 2007 but this should work in later versions as well with hopefully minor modifications.)

Create a top-level folder called “Archive”

This folder will store all the emails you no longer want to have in your inbox but don’t want to delete. Having all the emails in one place makes it very easy to find a specific email by just about any criteria – sender, date, subject. When you search, Outlook will filter to show only the items that match your criteria right as you type, which makes locating emails very quick.

Set up and use Categories instead of folders

Using the “Categories” feature of Outlook has several advantages over using folders. For one, it lets you categorize emails without moving them from your inbox. If you use your inbox as a sort of to-do list, this can be very handy as it keeps you from jumping between folders to see what you need to do or respond to.

Another advantage is that you can apply more than one category to any given email. This is the biggest restriction in using folders because you can only file something away into one group. Sometimes, though, emails can be classified into two or more groups, which might require complex folder hierarchies that will make finding that email all that much more difficult. Categories remove this problem because you can assign as many categories as you want to an email.

Categories can also be color-coded, which enables a quick way for you to scan through a long list of emails and locate just the ones that you are interested in. The colors are also reflected in Calendar if you categorize your meeting requests.

If you don’t have a “Categories” column in your email view, you can add by right-clicking in the table header (where is shows the subject, sender, etc.) and selecting “Field Chooser”. In this dialog, locate “Categories” and drag it into your email list view where you want the categories to appear. I have them as the last column for easy scanning.

If you want to view all your emails for a given category, this can be easily accomplished by setting some view options in Outlook. You can sort by category, then choose the View > Arrange By > Show in Groups option.

Add an “Archive” button to your toolbar

This is kind of an advanced bonus feature you can add to make archiving emails even easier. For this, you need to be somewhat comfortable using macros.

First, create a new macro called “Archive”. Use the following code and just substitute the name of your top-level folder (the one containing Inbox, Deleted Items, etc.):

Sub Archive()
On Error Resume Next
    Dim objFolder1 As Outlook.MAPIFolder, objFolder2 As Outlook.MAPIFolder
    Dim objNS As Outlook.NameSpace, objItem As Outlook.MailItem

    Set objNS = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI")
    Set objFolder1 = objNS.Folders("Name of your top-level folder")
    Set objFolder2 = objFolder1.Folders("Archive")

    If objFolder2 Is Nothing Then
        MsgBox "This folder doesn't exist!", vbOKOnly + vbExclamation, "INVALID FOLDER"
    End If

    If Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection.Count = 0 Then
        'Require that this procedure be called only when a message is selected
        Exit Sub
    End If

    For Each objItem In Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection
        If objFolder.DefaultItemType = olMailItem Then
            If objItem.Class = olMail Then
                objItem.Move objFolder2
            End If
        End If
    Next
    Set objItem = Nothing
    Set objFolder1 = Nothing
    Set objFolder2 = Nothing
    Set objNS = Nothing
End Sub

(Note that I did not write this code myself. It’s based on sample code I found elsewhere and modified to suit my needs.)

Next, to add the button, go to View > Toolbars > Customize. In the Commands tab, select category “Macros”. This will show a list of all the macros you have defined. Click and drag your “Archive” macro to the toolbar of your choice (I put mine in the main toolbar, but you can also create a custom toolbar just for this button).

Once you have the button placed you can close the dialog and start using the button right away – just select an email in your inbox, click the button, and it should be moved to your Archive folder.

However, if you want to make it look a bit nicer, go back to the Customize dialog (you can right-click the button and select “Customize”). In the Commands tab, click the button “Rearrange Commands”. This will bring up another dialog. Select the toolbar that contains your Archive button and then select the button in the list of controls. If you click on the “Modify Selection” button to the right, you’ll get a long list of options. The first thing you should change is the name so it just says “Archive”. The other thing is you may want to change the icon or choose to not display an icon at all.

And that’s it! Now you should have a nice button in your toolbar for quickly archiving email messages.

I’ve been using this method of archiving and categorizing for several years now and have found that it really improves my productivity within Outlook. I don’t have to dig through folders looking for something I received 6 months ago and I don’t have to worry about filing my emails to stay organized. As soon as there is nothing actionable left for me to do regarding an email, I archive it and forget about it until I need to reference it again. It’s a great way to get things done.

My LG dryer asks me to choose how dry I would like my clothes to be. Since when is dryness a scale? Something is either dry or it isn’t. “Damp” is not dry. Imagine a washer asking how clean you’d like your clothes to come out – “dirty clean” or “very clean”?

Netflix knew that there would be a nasty backlash, and has already taken the subscriber defection into account in its financial forecasts. It still figures it will come out ahead.

That’s nice. But in fact, it fits in with the logic behind Netflix’s decision to change its pricing structure:

Last November when we launched our $7.99 unlimited streaming plan, DVDs by mail was treated as a $2 add on to our unlimited streaming plan. At the time, we didn’t anticipate offering DVD only plans. Since then we have realized that there is still a very large continuing demand for DVDs both from our existing members as well as non-members. Given the long life we think DVDs by mail will have, treating DVDs as a $2 add on to our unlimited streaming plan neither makes great financial sense nor satisfies people who just want DVDs. Creating an unlimited DVDs by mail plan (no streaming) at our lowest price ever, $7.99, does make sense and will ensure a long life for our DVDs by mail offering. Reflecting our confidence that DVDs by mail is a long-term business for us, we are also establishing a separate and distinct management team solely focused on DVDs by mail, led by Andy Rendich, our Chief Service and Operations Officer and an 11 year veteran of Netflix.

That’s a difficult paragraph to parse, but since I’m well versed in corporate-speak from working at a large corporation, I think I get it. It sounds like Netflix has decided to split its business into two units: online streaming and DVDs by mail. That is what they are explaining by saying that they “have realized that there is still a very large continuing demand for DVDs”. It’s not that Netflix didn’t know this before; they just decided the demand was big enough to justify a new business unit. That’s where the new management team comes in.

The explanation seems to be: we now have two business units and each business unit will charge users independently in order to remain profitable. What Netflix avoids addressing, though, is how this decision affects the current user experience offered by the company.

Here is how we use Netflix at home: stream some older TV shows for casual TV watching, with an occasional movie now and then, and supplement the titles not available for streaming with DVDs. I bet there are lots of other customers who use it exactly the same way.

The key to the service, in other words, is the fact that you can stream and supplement with DVDs when something is not available for streaming. This is what makes Netflix. And this is where the new pricing structure breaks down. It fails to address this special combination that is not offered by anyone else in the business. Take away the DVDs and you’ve got Hulu and Amazon Prime. Take away the streaming and you’ve got Redbox. But put them together and you’ve got Netflix.

To a Netflix customer, streaming and DVDs are inseparable.

To Netflix, they are two separate business units.

It’s a classic case of implementation-model design. The pricing is based on Netflix’s implementation model: DVDs by mail are markedly different from streaming content from a business perspective.

Compare this to a cable company that offers TV, internet, and telephone services. They have separate business units for each, but they still offer bundle pricing if you subscribe to more than one service. Why isn’t Netflix offering the same? This is what doesn’t make sense from the perspective of their users. The service we are receiving doesn’t change, yet the price increases dramatically because of what? Because they decided to have a re-org?

I predict that by the time September 1st rolls around, Netflix will offer a bundle plan for around $12-13/month. In the meantime, customers like myself are left wondering: do I cancel streaming or DVDs by mail? And if I cancel either of those, why not go with the cheaper (or even free) offerings from companies like Hulu, Amazon, or Redbox?

On a final note, here is a hint to Netflix marketing and user experience folks: if the description of your new pricing plan reads like a math problem, you’re doing it wrong.

Your current $11.99 a month membership for unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs (including Blu-ray access) will be split into 2 distinct plans:

Plan 1: Unlimited Streaming (no DVDs) for $7.99 a month
Plan 2: Unlimited DVDs (including Blu-ray), 1 out at-a-time (no streaming)
for $9.99 a month

Your price for getting both of these plans will be $17.98 a month ($7.99 + $9.99).

I’ve moved a few relevant posts from this blog to the new one and have disabled comments here in order to keep all the discussion in one place.

Connect the dots from the green pin to the boxy thing

I never would have guessed that the best way to get something from Pennsylvania to Boston is through Tennessee. But then, geography was never my strong point.

(Memphis must be FedEx City.)

Here is where my expected experience completely deviated from the actual experience.

What I thought would happen is that Amazon would ship the other books right away and once the pre-ordered book became available, they would send that out. That’s how it works in regular stores – if something is available in-store, you can pay for that and walk out with it, but you can also pre-order something else at the same time and come get it when it becomes available. So I waited. A week went by and my books hadn’t arrived. Then another week went by. At this point, I got worried and logged back on to Amazon to see the status of my order. I was shocked to see that they hadn’t even shipped it yet! Apparently, they were holding back my entire order until the pre-ordered book became available.

While I understand that in order to save on shipping Amazon needs to combine orders into as few packages as possible, it was the last thing I would have expected that they would hold my entire order because one item was not available. It just doesn’t make sense. What Amazon should have done is one of three things:

1. Make it crystal clear that the order will not ship until the pre-ordered item is available.
2. Ship the available items right away and send the pre-ordered item when it’s available.
3. Don’t give customers the option to mix pre-ordered and available items in the same transaction.

While #2 is my preferred option, any of these would have been acceptable. As it was, I lost two weeks waiting for an order that didn’t come and then had to go through the trouble of canceling the entire order and re-purchasing the available items separately. Thankfully Confessions of a Public Speaker comes out next week and I’ll finally feel safe ordering it. And in the future, I’ll steer clear of Amazon’s “pre-order” system.

It’s been a couple of weeks since our round of usability tests at the SAP BusinessObjects User Conference (rolls right off the tongue, doesn’t it?) and I wanted to share a couple of thoughts about the experience. This was the first time we did usability tests since I joined the team back in March and it was also my first time meeting our community of users in person.

The first thing that struck me was the willingness of people who use Xcelsius to come and participate in the testing sessions. There were 13 sessions total, with room for one tester and one observer, and we had most of them filled before the conference even started. Our recruiters said they had people practically busting down the doors, trying to get into the sessions. This kind of support is exactly what we need in order to improve our product. For those who couldn’t make it, this is what it looked like:

The second thing that really impressed me was the quality of feedback we received. I have to admit, I was a little nervous going into these sessions because I know a lot of our users get frustrated with some of Xcelsius’ shortcomings. However, everyone that participated was very supportive and provided great constructive feedback. We learned a lot from watching people use the product – some of which we expected, and some that took us by surprise. Spending 13 hours looking at Xcelsius through the eyes of our customers was a very enlightening experience.

Finally, the thing I enjoyed most was meeting everyone in the Xcelsius user community in person. I follow many discussions online (including on LinkedIn, SDN, and Twitter) and it was very exciting to be able to put a face to the names of people I have come to respect through these discussions. I tried to meet as many people as I could, through lunches, networking events, the Xcelsius Community event, and the usability testing sessions. Through all of this I learned a lot about what people do with Xcelsius and their top concerns. There were two questions that I heard more than any others, though, and I’ll leave you with the answers here:

1. Q: When is the next version of Xcelsius coming out?

   A: Unfortunately, I can’t comment on that. All I can say is, “soon.”

2. Q: Are you related to Matt Lloyd?

   A: You know how some people are related by marriage? Well, Matt and I are related by product. Beyond that, there is no relation. It’s just an awesome last name.

Also, if you want to see photos from the Xcelsius Community event, you can find them on Flickr.

For example, say I’m thinking about buying a Kindle. I can go to Amazon.com and read through the 5000+ reviews. But what if I just want a summary? Amazon provides ratings, but that doesn’t tell me what I really want to know. In particular, what are the key things people are talking about? And how do they feel about them? Sure, I could copy/paste the URL into some tool and get the analysis, but that’s way too much work and I’ll probably forget about the tool when I need it anyway.

This is where Ubiquity comes in. Ubiquity is an add-on for Firefox that gives you the power to do more within your browser. For instance, you can select an address and immediately see a map. You can quickly shorten the URL you’re looking at so you can post it to Twitter. You can even tweet directly within the context of what you are reading. The beauty of Ubiquity is that it doesn’t interrupt your workflow to accomplish related tasks. You can read more about it here: http://labs.mozilla.com/ubiquity.

It’s easy to see that Ubiquity provides the perfect platform to incorporate the kind of analysis provided by OpenAmplify. It can expose the hidden information in a website that you otherwise could spend hours hunting down. This is where my Ubiquity command, “amplify”, comes in.

Here is how it works:

1. Go to any website, like the Kindle reviews page on Amazon.com.

   
   Kindle reviews on Amazon.com

2. Activate Ubiquity (Alt+Space) and execute the “amplify” command.

   
   Results of the “amplify” Ubiquity command

That’s it. You don’t need to open a new window, launch an external tool, or do any keyword searching. You get the sentiment analysis right in context, and that can reveal interesting insights.

So, how do you get this set up on your computer? It’s easy:

1. Install Firefox.
2. Install the Ubiquity add-on for Firefox.
3. Subscribe to my “amplify” command feed.

Here are some ideas (besides my Kindle example above) to try out once you have the command installed:

• Amplify CNN.com and compare it to FoxNews.com.
• Open up an e-mail in Gmail, select the text, and Amplify it.
• Go to your favorite blog and Amplify it.

Any other ideas for this type of sentiment analysis? Please share in the comments.

I recently learned about OpenAmplify, a web service that uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to extract meaning from text. I’m very familiar with NLP because I’ve worked on the Text Analysis team at SAP (previously with Inxight Software), so I was very interested to see OpenAmplify provide this capability for free and online. It’s the first such service that I’ve heard of and I wanted to try it out.

So, I put together a little demo using Twitter and Xcelsius, the product I’m currently working on. Here’s how it works:

1. Twitter supplies the data.
2. OpenAmplify analyzes it for semantic content.
3. Xcelsius displays the data.

Try it out for yourself. (Note: Only single-word keywords will work right now.)

Those who are geekily-inclined can continue reading for the “how.” The rest of you can stop reading now.

Getting this set up was actually really easy and quick. Both Twitter’s and OpenAmplify’s APIs are easy to use and easy to connect. Here is what an OpenAmplify API call looks like when using Twitter as the data source:

http://portaltnx.openamplify.com/AmplifyWeb/AmplifyThis?apiKey=[your API key]&sourceURL=http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=[keyword]

To get this into Xcelsius, you first need to create an XML map to that URL in your Excel spreadsheet. Then, you set up the XML Map connection and with a little concatenation, link the URL to a cell that inserts the keyword at the end. (Feel free to e-mail me if you have questions about how to get this working.)

That’s all there is to it. Seriously.

In terms of functionality, I think OpenAmplify is rather limited. In their “About” page, they claim that OpenAmplify “identifies the significant topics, brands, people, perspectives, emotions, actions and timescales.” While that’s probably true, it would be nice to see the data by type (e.g., who are the people? what are the perspectives? what are the emotions?). As it is, you just get a list of “topics” and “actions” with ratings for polarity (positive, negative, or neutral). It would also be nice to get the supporting evidence that shows why each topic got the rating it got as a list of all the positive statements and all the negative statements. The style analysis (“slang” and “flamboyance”) might be fun, but I have a hard time imagining real uses for it. The demographics data, on the other hand, is very useful and I’m glad the OpenAmplify team says they will focus more on this in the future.

The latest release of OpenAmplify seems to have some good improvements in it, including performance improvements and the addition of “intentions” (what are people doing or intend to to). Just note that if you want to use the latest release, you actually have to use a different base URL for your API call:

http://portaltnx.openamplify.com/AmplifyWeb_V11/

rather than

http://portaltnx.openamplify.com/AmplifyWeb/

[A note for any OpenAmplify folks who may be reading this: You might want to update your documentation to point to the latest release URL. Not everyone reads your blog.]

I did not use this latest release because I wasn’t aware of the difference in URLs, but I’ll try to upgrade to it in the future and see how it works.

Overall, I am impressed with OpenAmplify for two reasons. One, it provides a valuable service for free, and two, it uses a community model. Rather than building applications themselves, the OpenAmplify team provides the tools for other people to do it. This can be very powerful, as demonstrated by Apple’s App Store, and I hope it takes off for natural language processing as well. Twitter seems to be a popular choice for analysis at the moment, but I’m really interested to see what other applications people find for OpenAmplify and NLP. I think there is a lot of potential here.

UPDATE: This little app was blogged by OpenAmplify!

Clearly identifying a bill’s due date when the user is scheduling a payment.

Citibank’s calendar widget clearly indicates when the next payment is due.

Bad Idea

Telling the user to remember a bill’s due date while scheduling a payment.

ECSI’s student loan bill pay options require you to know your bill’s due date. Note the two notes. Also note that the due date does not appear anywhere else on this form.