Rednod

Unclear on the concept of web

Alistair Croll — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 03:56:28 +0000

Just a quick one today.

I was at Web2Expo earlier this year, and Website Magazine (pictured below) was exhibiting. I find this tremendously confusing. I imagine the target market of people who like to read about the web on paper is roughly the same as the market of people whose assistants print their e-mail for them.

But what I find most curious is that web analytics provide so much better data on the effectiveness of advertising, it’s almost irresponsible to use print media to reach people. And since magazines usually make their money from print advertising and sponsorship, that’s got to be a losing game.

Self-branding: Your personal favicon

Alistair Croll — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 15:12:24 +0000

User interfaces are busy things. They’re cluttered with information, and designers have to reduce it down to its minimum to make things work properly. If I’m using chat, or Twitter, I have icons for everyone I interact with. And they’re the closest we get to a personal logo.

Consider Twitter:

I have only a few pixels to identify people. Many of these are surprisingly memorable: GigaOm, Laughingsquid, and others stand out nicely. The personal icon shows up elsewhere, too. Here’s the icon strip from my chat (names removed to protect the innocent.)

And there are “visitor log” tools like Mybloglog.

Unfortunately, I’m breaking my own rule: I have different photos for Mybloglog. It’s time for some brand cleanup. Here’s what I’m going to do:

Decide if I want a photo or a logo.
- Folks like Om Malik, or Redmonk, or Laughingsquid are so closely associated with their brands that their logoes stand out well.
- The other option is a photo. Given that I wind up having headshots in conference programmes (a constant reminder nobody’s paying me for my looks) and several loose associations (Rednod, Bitcurrent, Interop, Unconference, Bitnorth, whatever) rather than one allegiance, it probably makes sense to use a photo.
Use a close shot that’s visible, rather than a full portrait. Mitch Joel does this very well; it’s just forehead and glasses, but you know it’s Mitch in a second.
Pick a color scheme. Something that’s consistent with colors of Bitcurrent, Rednod, or whatever I’m most associated with. Hopefully this is also something that’s not taken (a red/green/blue/yellow square might look a little too much like Windows, for example.)
Reduce the number of colors in the image. This makes it easier to follow a color scheme, and has the added beneft of making resizing clearer.
Invest some time in sizing the image to target resolutions. Several of the sites out there auto-crop or resize the image you submit, so sending it in the right size results in much better image quality.
Claim the name. Figure out all of the sites that have an avatar/portrait, and make sure I’ve got the image.

Sean called this a Personal Favicon, and I think he’s right. The little 16×16 icon that appears in the address bar is a brand, reduced to its barest of bones.

I’m betting that a branded personal icon, particularly in microblogging circles, will become something trademarked and defensible that graphic designers add to their list of design deliverables for a startup. There will be a land grab, too: I’m not going to choose black and green, or blue and white, because those are pretty well known.

Syntenic turns up a new face

Alistair Croll — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 04:34:26 +0000

Syntenic, long a quiet force behind many websites, has turned up the noise considerably with the launch of their new website and offerings. I’ve known the guys at Syntenic for some time, and they’re a smart bunch (two of the executives contribute to the Bitcurrent technology blog.) But they’ve been too busy running production sites and building cloud computing solutions to toot their own horn.

No more. Their new site just launched, and with it a description of several cloud and managed hosting offerings. It’s great to see this kind of technical acumen in a Montreal company; the city is gradually evolving the kind of ecosystem that can support a thriving startup community.

Disclaimer: Rednod and Bitcurrent run on Syntenic’s servers. They’re smart enough that I’d risk seeming partisan by writing about them.

One month to Bitnorth

Alistair Croll — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:29:26 +0000

Bitnorth’s fast approaching. We’re probably going to hit 30 attendees, which is just about the size we wanted, and there’s a wide variety of topics being planned.

The interesting part now will be to work with each of the Short Bit presenters and figure out how to cram something interesting into ten lean minutes. Many of the sessions are around the theme of “The Other 99 Percent,” and we have some panels around that too. So if you’re one of them (you know who you are) expect me to start stalking you this week.

Time to go order swag, now I know the attendee count. I suppose a T-Shirt is table stakes, but I’d love to find something more appealing/sustainable/durable.

If you haven’t signed up and paid for Bitnorth yet, this is your last week to do so.

Memo from the past: Don’t fight city hall

Alistair Croll — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 18:45:21 +0000

Sometimes, the benefits of a new product are so awesomely, amazingly, tremendously good that people are willing to change their behaviors.

It’s not going to happen for you. Most of the time, people won’t work to try and understand a new approach. And no amount of education is going to change that.

This is a fundamental challenge for entrepreneurs. We’re deep in the product, conjuring up reasons why it will win in order to attract investment and keep our employees motivated. But just because the rank and file is drinking the Kool-Aid doesn’t mean the rest of the world will.

There’s a great example of this, and it’s not just a small company example. It happened to the word processing industry.

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Startupdrinks in Montreal

Alistair Croll — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 22:45:26 +0000

If you’re in town this week, check out Startupdrinks at the Café des Éclusiers. Heri and the crew at Montrealtechwatch always throw a good bash, and they’re also promoting a Hacker Spaces initiative in the city. It’s great to see some tech entrepreneur buzz going on.

Nailing that presentation: Have one idea

Alistair Croll — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 14:26:46 +0000

In conjunction with Bitcurrent, Syntenic, IDG, Flow Consulting and others, we’re helping to run a weekend-long conference in Montreal in September. It’s called Bitnorth. It’s an informal take on conferences, where the attendees are expected to provide much of the content.

One of the ways they participate is by delivering Short Bits, 10-minute long presentations on a topic they care about. This year’s general theme is The Other 99 Percent, and we’re looking at how technology has changed non-technologists’ lives.

Getting an idea across cleanly is always hard, and presenting is a challenge for many people. So for those folks presenting (and anyone else who cares abount communicating) I decided to try and summarize the process of creating and delivering a presentation. I’m constantly humbled by great presenters (and there are some links to noteworthy ones at the bottom of this entry.)

It boils down to knowing what your point is, and getting it across memorably.

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The path less travelled by

Alistair Croll — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:06:49 +0000

What can a bookstore teach Canadians about positioning their companies?

Marketing is increasingly about attention, and less about product.

Most competent people can build a competent product or service. But in today’s world of instant attention, it’s often more about how to succeed in the market than how to get the product right.

I had lunch a couple of weeks ago with Robin Axon, formerly of VenturesWest (and candidate for the coolest cyborg name of a VC ever.) We were chatting, as often happens among Canadian entrepreneurs, about The Canadian Ailment. Despite tremendous competence in product design, we never seem to make it North of the Border in the same way the US does. Even US bookstores, apparently, know this instinctively. But more on that later; back to Robin.

He had a pretty clear theory about what ails us, which I’ll paraphrase (badly) here:

Canadians try to succeed with a product, but Americans succeed with a market strategy.

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Targeting and repetition

Alistair Croll — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:18:38 +0000

The Nova Scotia Liquor Commission is trying to sell more wine.

This campaign does three things really well. If you’re trying to put together a marketing effort, you should:

Know the purpose of your marketing effort. A lot of times I have clients tell me, “we need to do some marketing.” They’re often surprised when I push back. But unless they know what outcome the marketing should have — and how to measure it — it’s a waste of time. The Nova Scotia Liquor Commission clearly wants to sell more wine, and can measure sales of wine that accompany beer purchases.
Know your target audience. This picture’s taken in the gigantic beer fridge. There’s no wine in this room. It’s where the men go to get cases of beer. Nagging reminders from housewives with facemasks and towels on their heads might be stereotypical, but their target market notices them.
Repetition, consistency, and simplicity. Every message is a variation on, “while you’re getting beer, bring some wine home for your wife.” There’s no way to mistake it. It’s something even a beer-obsessed weekender can grasp.

When it comes to beer, nothing beats Nova Scotia brewery Alexander Keith’s focus. They even have a bar (the Lower Deck, the “official home” of Keith’s.) Revel in these gems where a mad Scot channels Mike Meyers, some of my favorite ads of all time.

Beautiful. “Often, I’d dreamt of a lake of beer. But not like this. Never like this.”

BTW, the actor who played this Scotsman was arrested on charges of child pornography, and Keiths has since pulled them. Sick bastard, but the ads are no less funny.

Don’t use 4by6.com: How not to handle customer support

Alistair Croll — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:07:50 +0000

A bit of a rant here. But it’s a great example of how not to do customer service. The bottom line: Don’t tell your customer something like, “my horoscope tells me to move on,” in a format that can be quoted publicly.

There’s an old saying that it’s a good idea to fire your worst customers, or better yet, refer them to your competition. This is generally true if those customers are costing more than they bring in. But when you clearly fail to deliver the agreed-upon service, it’s a better idea to resolve it than to renege.

The Internet means that a frustrated customer can be very vocal. Sites like Yelp yield gems like “The main reason for my 2 star review is not the quality, rather the customer service (or lack thereof).” Companies need to weigh the cost of that negative press, particularly when the product is being bought on reputation.

Here’s the full history, with some juicy mail thread embarrassment at right.

I had a run-in with 4by6.com recently, which, frankly, surprised me since someone had told me they liked them. I ordered some cards for delivery in Las Vegas, and went through their extensive process for validating layout. I then contacted them to confirm that my Canadian payment information would work.

The cards never showed (and this is back in January.) I contacted them several times by email and got no answer. Then, one day in April (two months later), I got a mail from them saying the shipment was returned by Fedex. The mail exchange that followed astonished me. Ultimately, 4by6.com said that they didn’t know why the order wasn’t delivered, or why they hadn’t responded to my mails, and told me to forget about it.

I’ve heard complaints about 4by6.com’s customer service from a number of online forums. Hopefully the Internet’s ability to self-regulate and communicate problems will weed out companies that adopt this kind of customer disservice. Meanwhile, I’ll use Moo.com, Henley Printing, Ondemand Printing, JMF Printing, or one of the many other alternatives.