Web Producer

Obviously Being More Productive

2009-11-28T14:45:44Z

I just discovered Scott Young's writing, and his post about "10 really obvious ways to be more productive" had enough original thought in it to inspire a response from me. Because, you know, I haven't posted in about 3 weeks.

So do yourself a favor and go read that post first, because I'm going to provide my point-by-point thoughts and how they apply to me. Maybe you can relate to some of them.

#1 - Be Single and Childless

I'm married with an 8 year-old son, so that ship has sailed. But since I don't have a full-time job right now, there are at least 6-8 hours a day where I can pretend that I'm all alone again. (Because I do love spending those other waking hours with my family, and that's not worth trading for anything.)

#2 - Love What You Do

I love working on the Web. In the past, that has meant working at a good company. In this economy, it means creating my own success. Because I haven't been employed at that good company recently, it hasn't been like the good old days and thus I wasn't loving the situation I'm in. But I'm starting to realize this is my dream...being able to be home when my son gets home from school, and the freedom to pursue what interests me...so I just have to work a little harder to make is sustainable. And I think by starting to love it, it will be easier.

#3 - Be Insanely Obsessive

I've been too casual for most of my life, and I can feel myself getting more obsessive as I get older. Perhaps it's because I know what I like and know what I want, so I am developing more focus and becoming more critical. That means I can take better care of the things I have, even obsessing over some of them.

#4 - Be Immune to Rejection

I'm not afraid of the actual rejection, but I have been afraid of not knowing what happens afterward. Let's say to develop your business you want to work with a certain big-name company. You're a little guy. You try to connect with them, but they turn you down. What now? I don't know, so I've avoided the situation altogether. The problem is I haven't acknowledged that there are still competitors I could work with, or that I could even get a second chance to pitch again. I see now that the sooner I get past that first rejection, I can build upon it to have success in the future.

#5 - Have Your Project as a Full Time Job

I do have this luxury right now, but I need to work harder during the day. I work best with people around me to bounce ideas off of, so working home alone isn't ideal, and social media as a replacement is often just a distraction.

#6 - Be Boring

This point makes me think about the difference between Gary Vaynerchuk and Jason Fried, two successful guys I admire and have personally met. While Gary is incredibly busy building several brands and flying all over the country doing interviews and appearing on TV, Jason keeps a much lower profile and enjoys retreating to his house in the country. Compared to Gary, Jason is boring. But compared to many aspiring entrepreneurs, Jason is awesome. (For the record, I identify more with Jason's lifestyle than with Gary's.)

#7 - Know People and Be an Extrovert

As an introvert, this is hard for me, but I do like talking to people about subjects that I know. (Note: that is usually not a problem for introverts). The challenge is getting out of the house and going to events, to create the less-than-comfortable situations where you might not know the people around you. But it's a Catch-22, because the more you do it, the easier it becomes.

#8 - Speak the Language Fluently

Not a problem, since I'm doing business in the USA. But I am wondering about the best way to handle internationalization of my project.

#9 - Have a High Self-Esteem

This goes hand-in-hand with #4 and #7, about feeling confident in conversing and negotiating with others. As the Internet gets more transparent, it's going to be harder to fake what you don't know. Therefore embrace what you do know. In a conversation, one person is always going to know more than the other, and it's okay if it's not you. Just be proud and true and represent who you are.

#10 - Be Happy

2009 has been a tough year, but with Thanksgiving just passed, it worthwhile to think about what you still have and are still capable of. Many people think that if they get everything they want, they'll be happy. This point is saying be happy first, and the rest will follow. Personally I'm starting to feel this, as I mentioned in #2 above and starting to love what I do. (Perhaps "Be Happy" should have been the first point in Scott's list!)

Let American Airlines figure it out

2009-11-28T14:45:44Z

I've got to contribute to this conversation about redesigning the American Airlines Web site. I've worked for a number of corporations in my time, and can see both sides of the argument. But the fact is, Mr. X crossed a line responding to Dustin, and as a result Mr. X was "fired".

(I put "fired" in quotes, because according to one of the comments Mr. X was a contract employee, so it's certainly easier to terminate a contract rather than dismissing an employee.)

Dustin Curtis is a young designer, obviously very talented by the looks of his Web site. I specifically mention young because he simply hasn't had the years of experience in the corporate world to know that things aren't always as easy as they seem. In some ways, that's a good thing, because the world needs fresh perspective and optimistic minds to make the Web a better place. But at the same time, you have to have respect for large organizations that are top-of-mind brands and have a market position to defend, if not grow. Let me expound on this further for a minute.

As Mr. X acknowledged, a fresh design is not a hard thing to mock up. But it is orders of magnitude harder to put it in place. I lived through one at Cars.com (before and after). Here are six reasons off the top of my head, please leave a comment if you can think of others:

The old design is still meeting a need
It is uncertain how the metrics will change with the new design (revenue up or down?)
If you have repeat users, they don't necessarily like radical change
The mainstream Web user often doesn't know the old design is bad
If there is going to be less content on the page, you're going to have to convince a stakeholder to give it up
The effort to redesign and recode the home page has to be worth the time investment, given other competing priorities

It takes real work to overcome those obstacles, and that is often the job of someone like a Web Producer. Someone has to explain the reasons why it is worth it, and what the benefits are, because it is not evident to everyone just looking at Dustin's new design. In some organizations this task is handled by a Product Manager, but they usually only know that they have to do something better or different to change the key performance indicators, but are not sure of what yet. The User Experience specialist often knows what should change, but is less interested in quantifying the ROI or putting their neck on the line if it doesn't deliver like someone in business development would have to.

Back to the American Airlines Web site. Dustin says Mr. X was fired for discussing the design process. I think it makes more sense that he was fired for leaking product plans. Some were innocuous to the layman ("16 column grid-based layouts"), but another was a little more competitive ("increased transparency to fares and sales policies"). For whatever reason, management at American Airlines could not let this deed go unpunished. They attempted to keep it quiet, by threatening Mr. X from talking to Dustin again, but that never lasts long on the Internet.

Is American Airlines as a business destined to fail because of this incident? Of course not. Are people still going to fly American Airlines after reading this? Of course they are, me included, because I simply prefer them over United. Could their Web site be better? Sure it could, but "better" is a vague terms that means different things to different people. It's the job of the people employed at American Airlines to figure that out. It is so easy to get on a soapbox and write a big post critical of a big company. Here's another example with someone writing an open letter to Zappos and a much more delicate but official response that basically says "thanks, but we know what we're doing". It is possible to listen to the community and try to help them as I did here when I worked for Cars.com. But like it or not, the fact is that large organizations have different challenges than small ones. Mr. X certainly wished AA.com could Get Real, but that takes a culture change with strong management, and maybe a fresh design can indeed spearhead it. But it still takes time, a lot of work, and a lot of risk to minimize if there is a market position at stake.

Produce before you Consume

2009-11-28T14:45:44Z

It's all too easy to wake up in the morning and start surfing Twitter, Facebook, or your RSS feeds to see what's going on.

The problem is, your mind starts filling up with new information, and there's only so much you can learn in a day before your mind is exhausted.

Therefore you should not consume media before you produce something yourself. Think about it: reading things online is a lot like sitting back and watching TV. Sure, TV is a lot more passive, but both are injecting new situations and information into your brain. Instead, if you're a morning person like me, try to produce something first instead of consuming. Like eating, consuming too much media is bad for you, in this case it's bad for your brain and your thinking process. Your ideas are freshest and crispest in the morning, and only get relegated to the backseat if you start consuming other people's stuff.

Here's another way to think about it: all the things you're reading or watching online? Someone else produced that, maybe while you were sleeping or the day before. They've done more than you. Do your own thing first, or you'll never be as productive. There are still plenty of consumers out there to ingest your stuff too.

Haystack is a brilliant idea, with a revenue model too!

2009-11-28T14:45:44Z

This week Jason Fried and the 37signals team debuted Haystack, a new Web site that lets companies visually search for designers in their price range and desired location. The site initially debuted without browsing and filtering features, meaning it was a "pre-launch" phase where designers could submit their information, and when the site reached around 1,000 members the browsing would be enabled. That happened later that day, faster than Jason anticipated.

First of all, the idea is remarkable. Of all the places you can go and try to find a designer, why not start a new one? It would be highly visual by letting you glance over snapshots of their work easily...take a look at the designers in Chicago between $3,000 and $10,000. As you scroll down more appear. Even the URL http://haystack.com/chicago/3000-to-10000 is beautiful and RESTful, encouraging linking.

Second, there is a clear way to generate revenue. Jason is a designer, and this product helps real people and real companies connect, and that is worth some money. Imagine there are 50 other designers in your city and in your price range, how do you stand out? You spend a little money, that's how. Haystack offers a Pro listing for $99/month. That's a little pricey as a recurring monthly charge, but initially that means only the elite will stand out, and ultimately if a designer books even a single new job through Haystack, perhaps they'll justify the $1200/year expense to be listed as a Pro. The reason I like this is because it's scratching your own itch and a minimum viable product.

Lastly, and here is the trick, is that 37signals had a tremendous amount of influence online to ignite participation. They needed 1,000 designers to register, and they achieved that the first day to be able to enable viable browsing. And the site doesn't even need to be a true success (companies booking designers) right away for revenue to start coming in from the Pro registrations, though it certainly adds credibility. This would not have happened so fast if their Signal vs. Noise blog RSS feed didn't have over 88,000 subscribers and over 20,000 followers on Twitter. Being so well-known also allowed their news to be re-tweeted and sharing amongst the people in-the-know.

This is solid proof why "Social media is rapidly becoming much more important than Google", at least for an initial product launch. But even for the long-term, is someone going to search Google for a "visual designer referral site"? No, they will have heard about Haystack via word-of-mouth and Googled to find it if they didn't just try the domain name first.

If you don't have the juice of 37signals to be able to pull this off, and don't have the capital to spend on a marketing campaign to target your potential customers, then you're left with what Gary Vaynerchuk advises in his Crush It book to work very hard and have a lot of patience, so you can take the time to connect with people and start to build up your personal brand to be able to spread the word on your new project. Of course that's an uphill battle compared to how easy it is for the Web elite to be able to do it, but what other choice do you have?

Good, but Facebook can do better

2009-11-28T14:45:44Z

I casually mentioned in my last post how marvelous it was that Web technology enables you to customize almost down to the individual level now.

This morning I wake up to discover that Facebook just rolled out a change to user's home pages that first shows them a summary "news feed" of the most interesting activity that happened in the last day, and a "live feed" of what is going on right now.

This example isn't exactly what I was talking about, but it's close, because it respects the state of mind of user when they arrive at Facebook and strives to present them the most relevant information right away. I'd say the Twitter reading/browsing model is partially broken here, because when you fire up your Twitter client you can either commence reading from where you left off, or start with the latest tweets live right now; there is no middle ground to "help me see the most important stuff I missed".

Near the end of the blog post, Facebook acknowledges that they are moving around the furniture on the home page yet again. Regarding individual customization, when are they going to get to the point where users can choose their home page view? The codebase is there, and maybe it's not as optimal as supporting one-size-fits-all, but it's conceivable there is a view that is best for someone who logs into Facebook four times a day versus someone who logs in once a week? Or a view that is better if you have 5,000 friends versus 50? (Note: this should not be taken to the extreme of a customizable home page, ala gadgets and iGoogle. Just a few well-designed alternative views.)

do what the user expects

2009-11-28T14:45:44Z

This post from Jeff Atwood is getting some attention today, as he talks about how users just don't read what's in front of them. The issue is someone who posted a question to one of the Stack Exchange-powered sites but who didn't take the time to nicely format it for reading.

It may be true that users don't carefully read every word on the page, but at the same time you should take steps to make sure they have a pleasant experience, especially if it is their first time. I'm sure the user who posted the question is pleased, but Jeff is riled up because the new user didn't take the time to learn how to properly use the site.

Here's the problem: there are WAAAAY too many sites now to try to learn how to use each one. Read that again. The burden just cannot be on the user to properly use the site. Those are the old days of traditional software, when the user has spent money on a program so he/she has a vested interest in learning how to use it properly. Conversely, they have no loyalty to your site the first time they get there...don't force them to learn something new.

So yes, to some extent, the site needs to hold their hand and save them from themselves. (It's marvelous how Web technology enables you to customize almost down to the individual level now.)

The funny thing is, in the eyes of the new user, nothing was wrong here. They happily posted their question and probably got a swift response due to the great community on the site. It's the site programmer that is frustrated that the user isn't obeying. That's just a bad expectation to have.

from Consumer to Producer

2009-11-28T14:45:44Z

This is the obligatory first post of the blog, so let me explain the intention.

I've been working with the Web for 15 years, starting down at the University of Illinois in the very early days before Netscape was formed and you couldn't center text on a page. I've seen the technology evolve, and how regular business has been affected. And it keeps changing.

Which brings me to my point: I've been one heck of a consumer of all of this information, and can't take in anymore without spitting some back out. Thus, I'm transforming into a producer. It's easy to consume things...food, television, books. It's much harder to produce. Sure, I've created some sites here and there, but you can tell they haven't gotten a lot of loving attention.

That's because as an engineer by nature, I'm good at putting things together to solve a problem. Once there are no more obstacles, there are people that are better suited to making the trains run on time, all day every day. That's just a simple fact of different personality types.

But I've also learned that it's a matter of perspective; that I can hack my life to create new challenges for my engineering mind to tackle. There are a plethora of problems that I can uniquely attack with my strengths to get the job done. For instance: it's a problem that I don't have a blog. I've tried a couple of times, but I think I've always been waiting for the perfect technology to meet the need. Everyone's definition for "perfect" will differ, but I've found the combination of platform and social integration that satisfies my preferred method of operation, with flexibility to optimize later.

So this blog will be my outlet to share things I know, think, and do. The term "Web Producer" isn't widely used, but it's the best way I can think of to describe the epitome of someone who understands, lives, and breathes the Web. They can make things happen, create things, and put things together. I consider myself to be one and if you're reading this I'll bet you are one too.