The Samsung Galaxy Note is 5.3 inch phablet with a resolution of 800 x 1280 pixels – which is what people are calling oversized phones that can function as smallish tablets. This is much the same size screen I had when I used a Motorola Envoy but at 2x+ the resolution (480 x 320 pixels). The Motorola Envoy ran the MagicCap operating system and was quite frankly was my all time favorite mobile device. I know, I know this dates me but it irks me that I still don’t have a device as good as the device I used back in the early 90s. The Galaxy Tab is the closest thing I’ve seen to device nirvana.

Right now I am experimenting with using the Galaxy Note as a replacement for a notepad in meetings and for business-type tablet activities, especially accessing sites and applications I rely upon on a day-to-day basis to run Open Marketing and to handle my client’s business. For my phone, I currently use an iPhone and am having some trouble getting accustomed to Android.

Here’s what I like about the Samsung Galaxy Note

• Beautiful large, crisp display
• Incredible battery life
• Stylus bay – meaning you can tuck the stylus away into the device neatly
• Ability to write notes in “ink” – as back in my MagicCap days … I don’t particularly need handwriting recognition
• Addressable file system – meaning I can send documents back and forth to the file system and figure out where stuff goes
• Wicked fast
• Great integration with Google
• Tethering

What I don’t like

Or at least am having trouble getting used to

• Android. I know, I know. That’s supposed to be the point. Normally, I move from one operating system to another quite fluidly but Android and iOS are similar enough yet different that I am having problems. The biggest issue is that Android applications all work differently. Plus the myriad of home screen options / launchers is very confusing … at least to me.
• Integration with Microsoft Active Exchange is awkward

Samsung has sold 1M of these puppies since the product launched in September 2011 which is a large number in a relatively short time. I purchased mine through Amazon as an unlocked phone and then went down to my local smoke shop (really) and bought a SIM card from Simple Wireless ($40/month no contract). My experiments with the phone suggest that without a SIM card, you cannot change the language from the default German to English and get the language changes to stick … but on this I may be wrong.

Will I move off my iPhone and onto the Galaxy Note as my main phone. I don’t know yet. Right now I’m going to use both phones, one as a phone (my iPhone) and one as a tablet (the Galaxy Note) and see how I feel. I’m traveling to Europe shortly and will pick up a screen charger at that point. For those of you on AT&T, the Galaxy Note is expected to come to AT&T sometime in the first half of 2012. I moved off of AT&T to Verizon in April 2011 so there’s more involved here than a simple switch of one phone to another. I’d also have to change carriers yet again.

Relevant Links

• Solid reviews of the device are here from TechRadar in the UK and video review here from Slashgear
• Article from Tech Crunch on sales velocity and the formation of a new category

But yes… recognition is always nice. So it was very(!) nice to learn that the website and branding we did for our client Content Rules, the global content experts, was featured as one of the top 50 “jaw dropping” WordPress blogs by Kevin Leary. This was a collaborative effort between ourselves and Paul Jarvis at TwoThirty Design and Adam Bogner who did the branding and identity system as the principal of Still Brand Works.

• Information Architecture, Creative Direction, Copy Writing
  Open Marketing (Marcia Kadanoff)
• Art Direction, Site Design & Coding
  Two Thirty Design (Paul Jarvis)
• Branding & Identity System
  Still Brand Works (Adam Bogner)

• 50 Well Designed Word Press Web Designs
  Kevin referred to these as “jaw dropping”

For those not in the know, Content Marketing is defined as a strategy where you create and distribute  

relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.  (Source:  Junta42.)

Notice that last bit – driving profitable customer action.  What a lot of people don’t seem to understand or appreciate is that content marketing takes the development of compelling content plus an indepth understanding of the marketing funnel at your company.  Development of great content is not enough … you must link the content you develop directly to the marketing funnel in order to succeed.

Here’s a  hypothetical marketing funnel – just in case you’ve never seen one in the wild:

Let me explain.  We recently worked with a client who was obsessed with creating an infographic and seeing it “go viral.”  

We love infographics.  While not the easiest form of content to develop as part of your content marketing strategy, they have a number of advantages, including the fact that they particularly appeal to the media, to the Millenial Generation which is unlikely to read anything like a white paper, and they are one of the types of content most likely to be shared.  The flip side of this is that infographics are not the easiest form of content to develop … unless you have professional resources like ourselves on your side.  (It takes chops in graphics, copywriting, information architecture, and the like to do content development right.)  What makes an infographic go viral?  Well – that’s the topic of a different blog posting – but if your are interested check out this post here as well as this awesome guide to what it really takes to create compelling content which is the minimum bar for entry for something that will go viral according to the nice folks at distilled.net

Now here’s where it gets interesting.  The client with the obsession worked with us to create a great infographic.  (Most great content strategies – like the best and shiniest content we develop – happens when the agency and the client go heads down and collaborate together for content development.) The infographic we did got picked up by the media and got downloaded a lot. In other words, this was – yes! – compelling content. Or in layman’s terms … it rocked.

For content development purposes, the content we developed failed at its main mission. There is not one sale we can attribute to downloads of the infographic. Why? The content contained in the infographic did not help move the prospect from persuasion to conversion to sale, or through the marketing funnel. &What could have worked better?

For content strategy purposes we tested two offers with this client – the infographic versus a testimonial video designed to match the exact demographics of the potential customer.  The testimonial approach proved far more effective at moving the customer towards the sale.  Here’s the relevent data so you can see the impact developing the right content can have on revenue:

Now, there’s nothing revolutionary, new, or even different about a testimonial video.  Here we did 6 videos – 1 to match each of 6 customer personas or types.  What worked here for content development purposes is that each video was crafted to persuade a particular type of customer, to move them towards conversion and the sale.  This turns out to be a best practice – matching the content you develop to the specific persuasion needs and wants and hot buttons of  your prospect.  

The bottom line:  content development and content marketing can’t happen in a vacuum.  The best content strategies start by looking at your marketing funnel and working backwards to determine the types of content most likely to move your prospect from persuasion to conversion.

I tilted up this site very fast using a WordPress framework called Genesis from StudioPress the folks behind CopyBlogger. It’s not the first time I used Genesis but it is the first time I used it for an external site as opposed to an extranet.

PROS
The client can keep the site updated using the WordPress Dashboard and only the Dashboard.

CONS
Genesis keeps WordPress really tightly locked down, which means building out the site took more time than it might otherwise. I still prefer Expression Engine for the amount of flexibility/control it gives me, but I find that unless there is a semi-technical person at the client, WordPress is a better CMS when they takeover the site and maintain it.

Some parts of the theme were a tad buggy – but it was easy enough to correct those bugs. For example, the buttons didn’t look right, so I ended up having to substitute my own CSS – easy enough to do. If I didn’t have experience doing this kind of thing, this might have stumped me.

Before You Begin
First of all, go back and read the creative brief with a highlighter. Highlight the communication objectives and what the brand is all about. Put the highlighted portion of the brief to the right of your computer (assuming you are right handed).

Now look at the comp. Comp stands for “comprehensive” – meaning all the copy and artwork is supposed to be in the right place in the layout … but not necessarily all the copy and artwork will be final. In fact, with a web design at the comp stage the majority of artwork is close to final … except for “spot visuals” such as screen shots and masthead visuals. Copy may or may not be final – as copy is easy enough to change on the web.

Evaluation Proper
The 10 Questions You Must Ask When Evaluating the Home Page

1. Can I immediately tell what this company does?
   The number one complaint end users have about a home page is that they get there and can’t tell what the heck a company is all about. Google also optimizes its search around finding copy that describes the company.
2. Is there a strong brand impression?
   If I took the logo off and put my competition’s logo in its place would it look “right” or “wrong”. (Hopefully wrong – a strong brand impression would make anyone else’s logo look dead wrong.)
3. Does the page have stopping power – in 3 seconds or less?
   The average visitor to your website makes a decision to stay on your page or go elsewhere in 3 seconds or less. So your home page has to stop visitor in their tracks and convince them – in 3 seconds – not to click elsewhere.
4. Is there a well-thought out information architecture?
   The information architecture should be apparent from the home page. The best way to do this is with simple, straightforward navigation. I can’t emphasis this enough. Put the pages that you want most people at the first level of navigation and pages of somewhat less importance at the second level.
5. Is the page set up with SEO in mind from the get go?
   There should be news and other text-based content that changes frequently on your home page; Google and other search engines put a premium on timely content.
6. Attention to the basics
   Navigation needs to be simple and straightforward and remain consistent through out the site. There needs to be navigation on the top and bottom of the page. Your logo needs to appear in the upper left-hand corner. Ideally, you should have some branding on the bottom of the page. In most states, California included, you need a Privacy Policy. An “About” page is expected and should appear on your bottom navigation bar. Likewise, a Sitemap is expected and should appear there. Trust me … these are standards. Violate them at your own risk.
7. Does the copy pull the visitor through the page?
   Are there headlines and subheads to break up the copy into chunks? Are the sentences short? Are there visuals with captions? Is there enough copy … you want to make sure there is enough copy on the page that the page gets indexed by Google? Are you using h1 – h6 tags appropriately for the different types of headlines (again, Google likes these)? Improve readability by using dark text against a light background whenever possible.
8. What are the main messages being communicated?
   Do they align with the brief? Are they simple and clear? Are you being redundant on purpose? In today’s cluttered environment, it really helps to say the same thing the same way multiple times. Are you using images with words to make your message faster to process? The brain processes pictures faster than it does words – so for a quick read, use visuals with captions.
9. Are there strong, benefit-oriented calls to action (CTA)?
   These are things that you want visitors to do when they come to your website – beyond clicking to go deeper into the site. For example, contact us to get a demo. Are the CTA simple and clear? Do they align with your business / marketing objectives?
10. Have you avoided the kitchen sink?
    Don’t try to cram everything you want to say into your home page. It rarely works. Instead, work backwards from the analytics you will use to measure success.

    Most professionals measure success on the web with detailed analytics that tell them – among other things – the abandon rate (how many people jumped off their home page immediately) as well as the average number of pages viewed and time spent on the site. The quickest way to get your abandon rate up is to make your home page a jumbled mess, packing it with every single message you can think of. (“Everything including the kitchen sink.”)

    Likewise, if you are going to measure success by time spent on the website (the more time the better) and number of pages viewed (the more pages, the better as this gets to depth of engagement), you don’t want a “kitchen-sink” home page.

Final Words
Don’t reject creative out-of-hand just because its look and feel is radically different than what you were expecting to see. The difference between good creative and great creative is that great creative challenges our expectations. That said, navigation is not an area where you want to spend a lot of time pioneering new ground. The rule with navigation – as it is with other UI elements on the web – “don’t make me think!”.

Oh, yes. I’m traveling right now. So please excuse the dust.

Links

http://www.jarviswp.com
http://www.twothirty.com

My expertise is in figuring out what differentiates your company or product, how to boil this down into a compelling value proposition, competitive positioning, messaging, strategic planning with an emphasis on marketing and business development.

Deliverables vary from client to client but can and do include the following: branding, website development, social media campaign design / development, lead generation, web analytics, marketing automation, agency sourcing and selection, strategic market planning, market research design and development, pricing / feature trade off analysis.

Development of custom workshops with your executive team to sharpen your focus on strategic market or business development. I can and do come in and take charge of an extant team or to build a marketing / business development team from scratch.

Most clients start by engaging me on a project basis and then segue into a retained relationship where I work for them as their interim CMO. At any given time, I work with at most 1-4 clients simultaneously.

Clients I’ve worked with in the recent past include:

• Content Rules – the global content experts
• Pinnacle Engines – an innovative engines company
• Recurve – energy efficiency software for contractors
• Zannel – multi-media competitor to Twitter
• Musestorm – social media tools for the enterprise

Category experience includes clean technology, social media, and mobile.

You can see my credentials in detail over on LinkedIn.

Before:

After:

Oh yes, post launch I’m continuing to serve as the company’s part-time CMO … handling marketing strategy, branding, and lead generation for them on an ongoing basis.

Here are some tricks and tips I’ve learned along the way.

1. The documentation isn’t complete when it comes to setting up multiple albums. Be sure to give each album an id. Your id can be anything … it need not be numeric. But if you don’t give your album an ID you won’t be able to refer to the album if – for example – you want to start your slideshow on say – the second album listed – as opposed to the first – which is by default how Monoslideshow works.

Here’s an example of what your code should look like.

2. You’re supposed to be able to run Monoslideshow with a single XML file and instance of SWF file- but Flash – which is what SWF is all about – caches everything. So if you want to do the following – start with one album on one page and another album on another page of your website – you will find that the default suggestions just won’t work. So here’s the workaround I developed.

Create a master XML file. Version that file for each page you want to put your slideshow on. Version the top of the file with a statement that says what album you want to start on a specific album – as you see in the example above where we started with an album called “tech” where “training” was the first album listed. So in this example you’d create a versioned file and call it tech.xml

Now – very important – create a SWF file. Give it the same name as the version’d XML file. So for this example you’d copy the monoslideshow.swf file and rename it tech.swf. Put that new .swf file in the same directory with your other monoslideshow files.

3. Go to your wordpress header file – usually called something like header.php in your theme folder

Insert code that looks like this … this example assumes you want to insert two albums – one called training and one called tech on the pages training and tech, respectively.

Note that this assumes you’ve tucked all your monoslideshow files into a directory called “monoslideshow” and that you’ve downloaded and installed swobject.js somewhere on your server and edited the above code with the appropriate path statement (see where it says path/to/

4. Finally somewhere in the page in the body of your page where you want the slideshow to appear – do this:

http://snippets.dzone.com/posts/show/12825

Results

Now on a page called tech you’ll have the slideshow tech appear; on a page called training you’ll have a slideshow called training appear.

Hope this helps somebody! Took myself and Paul Jarvis of Two Thirty Designs hours to figure out!

So I was thrilled to see this folding laundry basket from Quirky:

I pre-ordered it and the way things work on Quirky is if the product gets enough pre-orders it goes into production. A great example of open marketing in action!