Hoverblog

"Hello. I'm ..."

noreply@blogger.com (hoverpod) — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 21:43:00 +0000

In and among all the typical agency projects (ads, branding, strategy, web design) sometimes comes a cool project that is born more out of impulse, fun and pop-culture, rather than out of corporate standards, strategy or politics. I can't go too much into the details of the client or project but it was a play on the famous "Hi, I'm Mac and I'm a PC" ads. For this project, the "Mac" and "PC" was replaced with a play on client-related content. In any case, one of the key details in pulling off a cover of the Apple commercials is the music. Very simple, playful and highly recognizable. As with any good background music, it's really a placeholder to frame the voiceover dialogue which is what these commercials are all about. I searched for the famous Apple music high and low - You Tube had may amateur spoofs with no good theme music, google returned nothing. Even the studio where we were filming these couldn't find anything. You would think that if you were going to cover these commercials, good, accurate music would go a long way in helping carry your not so good video production. Check out this video cover - not bad content but the music isn't even close.

At the end of the day, I decided to crack open GarageBand and compose the song myself. After an hour, I realized that the original song was probably written in GB to begin with. There are some slight differences but it's pretty darn close. One of the key background instruments is the Marimba which you can only get by purchasing the additional Orchestra series JamPak from Apple. I thought I would post the original GB and MP3 file to make this easier for anyone in the future. Enjoy!

"Contact Us"

noreply@blogger.com (hoverpod) — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 13:29:00 +0000

I asked Scout if I could contribute a rant to his blog. Since we used to work together and I've done some presentations on Web 2.0, he told me to go for it.

I have a pet peeve about many ‘contact us’ pages on websites. Why do companies make them so confusing?

Many corporate sites have addresses, general phone numbers, a generic ‘info’ email address and different email addresses based on what department you might want to contact – usually a very small list. Customer service or support usually has its own link on the site. If the company is public there is usually another link for investor relations. But it seems that the larger the corporation, the more difficult it is to find how to contact a company. I shouldn’t have to know a corporation’s organization structure to figure out how to contact the company.

But many of these web sites are really an internal articulation of their corporate organization structure – how they think about themselves – rather than how their users want to contact them. They either implement their ‘contact us’ pages based on how they would contact themselves or they have no idea how someone would contact them outside of their defined customer channels. The other thought is even more sinister – they don’t want you to contact them.

If you are on an ecommerce site like Amazon – or a community site like myspace or linkedin - trying to find contact information is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Or it is just not there. You can easily find how to track your order, contact customer service or sales support, or find help to use the site. If you want to contact the company, sometimes there is a separate corporate site; in other cases you can find some information in the tiny links at the way bottom of the home page. Many times it just doesn’t exist – because they don’t want you to find them! If you have millions of members like Amazon or Myspace, you probably don’t want them to find you.

Leaving out those companies that want to hide from you, why can’t the ‘contact us’ page have EVERY single way you might want to contact a company? Why send your web users on a scavenger hunt?

I like to send companies suggestions about their products or business operations. I had a recent suggestion for Dell Computer. I have ordered Dell laptops for home use over the years and it has been very easy configuring and ordering over the web. But that’s where the convenience stops. I have to sign for my delivery. I don’t want to have my computer sent to work but I’m not home during the day. UPS and FedEx are not close and aren’t open very much outside of normal business hours. I had this great idea that Dell should set up a relationship with a national chain that didn’t sell computers where you could go and pick up your delivery – (e.g. Borders, Barnes and Noble). So I went to http://www.dell.com/ and clicked on ‘contact us.’ That’s when the frustration began.

I tried Customer Service – the page assumed I had an outstanding order issue and issue number. The Forums didn’t work for me either. So I finally went to the tiny bottom links, clicked on Dell USA and found the link for “About Dell.” I tried Customer Service – the page assumed I had an outstanding order issue and issue number. The Forums didn’t work for me either. So I finally went to the tiny bottom links, clicked on Dell USA and found the link for “About Dell.” Direct2dell takes you to another site, http://www.direct2dell.com/. Another set of blogs.

Don’t ask me what the difference is between IdeaStorm and Direct2Dell but I didn’t spend a lot of time trying to figure it out. Finally, I found a menu on the right, scrolled down the page and found a ‘suggestion box.’ If you click on that link it says ‘Suggest a topic for direct2dell.’ Out of desperation, I clicked the link and Eureka! All I had to do was enter my name, email address, subject and message.

So what’s going on here? This took probably 20 minutes. It is so counter-intuitive that when I tried to recreate what I did, it took another 20 minutes. I am not going to put myself into the Dell website mindset to figure out what is going on here. If I was cynical I would say they don’t want me to find this link – but it would be a lot easier just to not have the link if that was the case. Most likely Dell has many marketing and customer service organizations with different agendas. Couple this with the corporate craze for creating Web 2.0 “communities” and you have so many of them it is incredibly difficult to know where to go.

Anyway, in Dell’s defense, I actually got an email from a real person at Dell, the Digital Media Manager of Direct2Dell who said he would pass my suggestion to some of his colleagues in consumer. Well, we’ll see.

But that’s not the point. I don’t believe it would take that much effort to add a paragraph of text with links in the original ‘contact us’ page that could explain the myriad of ways you can communicate with Dell.

****

I had a suggestion for LL Bean. I bought a great rain jacket with the ability to buy fleece or down vests that could zip into the jacket to make it work in all four seasons. I wanted to send them a suggestion to make the product better by adding a button to keep the vest in place on the top. So I went to ‘contact us’ that actually appears under Customer Service. There is also an ‘email us’ link but that only includes Customer Service, Outdoor Discovery Schools and volume discounts for business. I had to go to the site map where I found a link for Product Feedback where you can enter your feedback on a product along with your name and email address. Why couldn’t all the ways to contact LLBean be on their ‘contact us’ page?

*****

I have a suggestion for Palm that they will never get. I want a clam-shell Treo. They have a pretty extensive ‘contact us’ site where you can pretty much find all the places you can go on their website. But I don’t think they want my product suggestion because there is no place to submit it.

In summary, even if you have many, many ways to contact a company through their website, list all of them on the ‘contact us’ link. It would be so much easier.

Va..Va..VIRB!

noreply@blogger.com (hoverpod) — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 11:16:00 +0000

If you know myspace, Facebook, Flikr, blogger, del.icio.us and YouTube, than you'll instantly get VIRB - a beautifully designed social gathering destination. Far too often, social destinations think they're designers or don't put enough value on really elegant UI. Sometimes they don't have to (example: myspace.com) but it's rare to see a really clean and intuitive site that can house so much information nested in a visually emotive design. There was a quote in the news the other day (thanks JPG) that conventional newspapers are dying on the vein and magazines like Surface are the next generation "newspapers" - a beautifully laid out magazine that I was turned on to by my sister, which covers news, culture, travel, photography, music, lifestyle and art. VIRB is going to remind me a lot of that magazine once the launch some of their other features including writing, comedy, art, etc.

What I liked most about Boston-based VIRB besides a beautiful gray color palette was the 1024 dimensions, rounded corners, custom video and audio controls, typeology and use of widescreen features. If you look relatively closely, you can see some tricks they borrowed from Flickr, YouTube and others. Almost nothing is new in design..it's how you assemble…it doesn't get much better than this.

For all you designers, UIs, IAs, CDs, ACDs, ADs and AHs, you can all be inspired by looking, reading or listening to anything on this site. The type of site that everyone wishes they helped build. Great design meets great content is VIRB. Lets see what happens next.

3 Conferences U should attend

noreply@blogger.com (hoverpod) — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 01:57:00 +0000

In my experience, Boston doesn't always have the hip events or seminars. Those are usually reserved for NYC or SF or even Texas. I've been yearning to go to a HOW or Print conference for sometime but could never convince my employer to cough up the money. I no longer am all that interested in those types of conferences. I feel like I can get everything I need out of the monthly rags and online. There are, however, 3 great conferences that I think are well worth the money and are coming to Boston.

The first is sponsored by the popular blog site aneventapart.com. This site is the de facto destination for web standards and best practices. This will be the first one ever and has all types of rock stars including Steve Krug, Eric Meyer Jeffrey Zeldman and more. Click here for event details.

The second took place a few months back and is coming again in March. It''s called BarCamp and it's an an ad-hoc unconference born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from attendees. I'll definitely be at this one.

The third event is a must for me. It's the Second Annual @Issue Business & Design Conference - This is in San Fran but the reason I put it on here is that it's based in Boston (right above Health Works in Copley Square). They put out a quarterly journal highlighting beautiful case studies on how great design directly effects (in a positive way) bottom line. Check out their web site to get on the list.

Let me know if you have any great conferences that we should all know about and see you at one or more of the above.

In the spirit of Geranimals

noreply@blogger.com (hoverpod) — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 21:43:00 +0000

So we're well into the new years and we all have resolutions for something we want to accomplish (or not) going forward. Actually, I don't believe in NYRs. You should do what you want (or need) all times of the year. However, it just so happens that I've been vetting health clubs for a while now and have settled on one. As you health freaks know, diet goes hand in hand with good exercise regiments. So I've started eating healthier - no coke, cookies, processed anything. Only high protein and good fats for my "temple." I've found myself looking at food labels for everything I'm interested in eating including an Altoid Mint (I only had one - Scout's honor). I use to make fun of people who did that and it's with great sentiment that I apologize. The problem with our food labeling system is that it's not easily scannable. Sure, you can check out calories but what about the different types of fat and proteins and vitamins. Most people are not mathematicians and have more questions after looking at a label.

I started researching other nutrition info-graphic paradigms and while nothing on the horizon in this country, the UK has a couple of models that are being hotly debated. The first is called "The Traffic Light System" which uses 3 different colors to let shoppers intuitively (and critics argue, emotively) interpret the health information for a particular product letting you know if the food has small, medium or high amounts of fats, sugars, calories, salt, saturates, etc. The system uses traffic light colors (green for low, amber for medium and red for high) to help you make your choices. The problem with this system (as the food manufacturers state it) is that people will be too quick to make their choice (probably healthier) and the system doesn't let the shopper get passed a color (probably red) in order to really make an informed choice.

The other competing model is called the GDA system. This uses labels that show percentages of sugar, salt, fat and calories in each serving. Proponents of this system say it's more informative and simpler. An example would be cheese which has a high level of saturated fat which under the GDS system (through percentages) shows that a small portion isn't unhealthy. Under the Traffic Light System, it would be colored red. Opponents of this system say that most people don't have the math or inclination to interpret percentages on a daily intake level. They say the Traffic Light System is useful and informative at a glance.

So the debate rages on. Our food labels are by far the hardest to understand which is why so many health and calorie charting sites have cropped up. I'm not usually one for compromise but a mixture of the two would be interesting. As a creative, I'd love to have a shot at designing an info graphic system - maybe one that's more to the point about the end result. Where I work, there is a person who when asked if she wanted some birthday cake, slapped the back of her ass and said "Are you kidding? This is where the cake always goes to on me." Point taken. I had the piece for her (before New years). Maybe something as simple as an icon of a rotten tooth on sweet cereals or a dead fly on fatty snacks...bon appetite.

Pimpin' & Primpin'

noreply@blogger.com (hoverpod) — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 14:26:00 +0000

I've been teaching web design at Boston University for a couple of years now. Every semester, based on feedback and requests, I make multiple alterations and additions (and some deletions) to the course curriculum. Most recently, I wrote a lecture on getting ready for the real world-sharing some high level thoughts and steps for students to use in getting prepared both mentally and portfolio-wise for an internship, grad school application or first job. Of course, this is just my personal opinion but still valid as I was once in their position. I've attached a PDF of the lecture here. I've also blocked out any real names or companies mentioned during the lecture.

Concepting & Sketching

noreply@blogger.com (hoverpod) — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 00:08:00 +0000

Between being in the "biz" for several years and teaching at Boston University, I get asked a few of the same creative questions all the time:
1. "Do I sketch concept ideas on paper first or directly into my program of choice?"
2. "How close is the final design to the original concepts?"
3. "What's my gear list?"

I sketch both in a sketch book as well as directly into a program like Illustrator or Photoshop. A lot of it depends on my geography (where I am when I get an idea) as well as how much time I've had to think it out in advance. If I'm in a meeting (where I spend loads of time) or traveling, I'll always keep my sketch book close to me as I get tons of ideas when I least expect it. Conversely, if I've had lots of time to think about a concept in advance and have worked out some of the options in my head, I'll skip the sketch book and go directly into a program, usually PhotoShop for web designs and Illustrator for logos, colors or any other ideas, both online and offline.

Typically, the more experienced a creative talent is, the more they're able to compose in their head while doing other things or multitasking. I remember when i was first starting out, I would dedicate blocks of time to think about and produce a concept or idea. I'd sit down at a desk with my sketch book and start putting down as many ideas that I could think of while going back over them as many times as it took to refine them enough for comping up on a computer. For less experienced creatives starting out, concepting directly into a computer can sometimes work against what would otherwise be a good concept. Instead of thinking about the concept in broad strokes from a strategic perspective, one may get hung up on size, effects, typefaces, color and working out other problems with the software. Alternatively, all this energy could be focused into just concentrating on sketches until you get a few polished ideas that are ready to be turned into pixels. As one gets more senior, you can actually gain some speed by concepting directly into a program however, I still find it easier to make quick changes to very complex problems by sticking to paper and pen (or any other writing instrument that does it for you).

Most of the time, my initial sketches or concepts are pretty darn close to the final chosen designs but there is always a dark horse from time to time. Once again, the more experience you have, the closer you can typically get to what the final design will be during your sketch phase. I took a trip down memory lane when I used a sketch book more often, and included 4 dichotomist examples (sketch & final design) for two identity projects, cd jacket design and an early web site comp (see below).

Finally, I own 4 macs but only two of them are my work horses. I have a PowerPc g5 Dual 1.8 GHz with 2 gigs of ram and an 80 gig HD which over the last two years, has only been restarted/turned off 6 times. It has NEVER crashed (which is unbelieivable) and I use it for everything from design to video to composing music. I have all the major apps and a few secretive cool apps that I've picked up along the way. It's one of the most flawless Macs I've ever owned...I might be selling it soon for an upgrade to the new technology. I also use a MacBook Pro. I had one of the first generation Pentium Dual processors and it was quirky as hell. I have a newer one (3rd generation) and it's like a Ferrari with a screen...Love it. It has all the same apps as my tower (even the undisclosed ones). Probably the most sophisticated and coolest thing about my setup is that every morning (1:00 AM), all my computers sync wirelessly and back up to an external hard drive. Then at 2:00 AM, that external hard drive mirrors itself with another hard drive. I could loose both computers as well as one hard drive and still be back in business in a couple of hours...this took many months to get working right.

BfastCamp

noreply@blogger.com (hoverpod) — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 04:28:00 +0000

These days, I'm a sucker (as well as very interested) for any type of social networking paradigm. Typically, they're physical manifestations or the analog of blogs or wikis. A few such events that are getting lots of attention are BarCamp and PodCamp. A BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It's an event with discussions, demos, and interaction from its participants.PodCamp is a FREE BarCamp-style meetup for podcasters and listeners, bloggers and readers, and new media types of all stripes. Some other free-style gatherings are Foo Camp (the annual invitation only, no-structure, no plan, tent on the lawns, hacker event hosted by publisher Tim O'Reilly. O'Reilly describes it as " the wiki of conferences", where the program is developed by the attendees at the event, using big whiteboard schedule templates that can be rewritten or overwritten by attendees to optimize the schedule. The goal of the event is to reach out to new people who will increase the company's intelligence about new technologies, and to create opportunities for cross-fertilization between people and technologies that are on the O'Reilly radar. Yet another is an Unconference (a conference where the content of the sessions is driven and created by the participants, generally day-by-day during the course of the event, rather than by a single organizer, or small group of organizers, in advance. To date, the term is primarily in use in the geek community. Unconference processes like Open Space Technology, however, have been around for over 20 years in other contexts.

As a result of long hours worked, I can only find time to catch up with friends on Saturday or Sunday mornings at the Town Diner in Watertown (great pancakes). Most of my social contacts are in the biz so I was thinking of having a BarCamp or maybe ScoutCamp to catch up with a bunch of them and enable them to meet each other and network. I'm not too worried about the structure of the breakfast. That's the whole idea in the first place, right?

Here's who's on the trial run list of invites, so be ready for an invite in the near future.

Conor F | Dave O | Dan B | Jen L | Alison F | Michele L | Jason L | Anish D | Frank R | Ed M | Will C | Todd F | Will R | Randy H | Phil W | Jon C | Linda M | Kristen C | Jeanne F

Not Smallpox..Smartpox!

noreply@blogger.com (hoverpod) — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 22:02:00 +0000

Several weeks back, I did a few lectures on Web 2.0. To many in the industry, Wikis, PodCasts, RSS and Blogs have been around for several years. To the mainstream corporate marketing folks, it’s still in its infancy but growing fast. It was rewarding to help marketing folks start to integrate new technology into their requiem of marketing tricks. Check out the PodCast for yourself.

One of my responsibilities at New Tilt is keeping up to date on emerging technologies and trends that can be adapted to strategic design and marketing paradigms. I’ve been brainstorming quite a bit with one of my colleagues on a trial implementation of RFID chips into the museum experience to make it more personal while letting people create their own tailored “flow” through a museum or exhibit. Currently, people either walk around freely or rent a listening device. The limitations to listening devices is that you’re either tied to a path/flow or you have to type in the exhibit number each time to get the information. By embedding RFID chips into the artwork, a user can take any path they want and hear the information automatically as they approach the artwork. With some intelligence thrown in, it might be able to make "clusters" out of the pieces your visiting thus becoming more predictive (and also providing a way for the museum to track different interests based on demographic or psychographic. We’re still working out the details but hoping to find a test site soon.

Another emerging technology is something called Smartpox. A Smartpox is actually a 2-dimensional barcode. Unlike conventional barbodes, these barcodes contain more data and can be decoded Smartpox readers being deployed to most new cell phones. You can create your own Smartpox tag using a URL, an email address, a telephone number, or just plain text. After you've created a Smartpox tag, you can display it anywhere you want other Smartpox users to see it - on a flyer, a business card, a t-shirt, stickers or even tattoos! Imagine being at a train stop with only Smartpox signs. You would be able to take a picture of the barcode with your phone and have the whole schedule sent directly to your phone decoded – much more information than would fit on a sign.

What’s powerful about this technology is it’s limitless possibilities for marketing programs. Imagine Coke putting a Smartpox tag on each bottle to be decoded by your cell phone. Not only does this technology fit nicely with younger demographics but one would you know instantly if they won (or not) along with detailed information about details, prizes, etc. The museum example is even more powerful. Each piece of artwork could have 10 rotating PoxCodes from different "authors" with their summary of the work. Sort of like listening to your favorite DJ, you could take your own tour with your phone and click on the unique perspectives you're interested in. It's just a matter of time before Smartpox dating starts...

Frankensteining

noreply@blogger.com (hoverpod) — Sat, 22 Jul 2006 19:27:00 +0000

Upon returning from almost every creative presentation, the number one question that everyone asks is "how did they like the concepts? Did they Frankenstein them?" Frankensteining is slang for taking pieces of various concepts and "frankensteining" them together into something that looks like the living dead. It's ok to cherry pick a color or type style from one concept and integrate into another, but beware when a client asks for much more than that. What differentiates one concept from another is not merly color. It's about brand, balance and personality. Typically, multiple concepts are generated to test different attitudes. Once concept may have more of a portal feeling while another may feel more functional. The trick is to keep all your concepts on strategy but not make them look too similar.

I'm proud to announce the launch of our latest site -Spotfire. The site has a rich brand and is FlashFantastic. I've included a Flash EXAMPLE here to show the migration from concept 1 to concept 2 to the final winning design.

What do you think? Frankenstein or a bowl of cherries?

Jedi Mind Tricks and the Metaphysical

noreply@blogger.com (hoverpod) — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 16:39:00 +0000

I teach web design at Boston University. One of the things I reiterate time
and time again to all my students is this: You can be the best designer in the
world but if you can’t speak to your designs and articulate why they’re on
brand, on strategy and on target, no one’s going to appreciate them and ultimately buy off. You could be in a client meeting and not say a word and bet bottom last dollar that the client picks the ugly duckling of the bunch. If you look at this
statistically, it makes perfect sense. Most people in the world don’t have very good aesthetic or taste. Just look at all the bad clothes; colors, cars, restaurants and movies that people think are good. If you’re a designer or aesthetically in tune
person, consider yourself lucky AND in the minority.

Defining and articulating brand is even more difficult. Brand is somewhere
between the physical and the metaphysical. Telling people why your layout and
color choices are good, is hard enough but articulating how a person should
feel about a brand or how they should perceive a certain attitude is much more
difficult. In the trade, we sometimes call it “Jedi Mind Tricks” – talking
someone into feeling a certain way about a logo, color or brand statement.

Below is a logo I worked on for a company. This winning mark was well received
by the client marketing team but we all felt that the executives of the
company, who weren’t involved in the day to day discussions, would benifit from
of a description as to what the mark should mean to them, what it's trying to convey, how it maps to their busienss, how it should make them feel and how they should talk about it moving forward.

Check out the logo and logo modifier statement below:

5 facts every client should know about the web

noreply@blogger.com (hoverpod) — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 01:05:00 +0000

1. Unlike print, having a web presence is organic, ever-changing and a 24/7 commitment

2. A website looks different on every browser and platform

3. An all Flash-based site is rarely the way to go

4. Just because you build it doesn't mean they will come

5. Create some realistic analogs between your physical business and your business on the web - don't make people wait, be approachable, don't hide from them

5 reasons I don’t frequent Starbucks anymore

noreply@blogger.com (hoverpod) — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 23:45:00 +0000

1. I hate it when they start making my drink of choice before I even get up to the counter. At that point, they know too much about me.
2. Because they give me dirty looks when I request a travel lid instead of the default sip lid.
3. Even after asking if I need room for milk (I take half-n’-half) they still fill it to the very top with coffee.
4. The pastries suck.
5. They keep one of the two doors locked and I end up spraining my wrist on the way out.

Presentation Tips

noreply@blogger.com (hoverpod) — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 23:22:00 +0000

I’ve been doing a lot of public speaking lately. This rings ironic to even me as I use to skip public speaking class in middle school. I’ve been doing so much speaking in fact, that I’ve been getting horse lately. I lecture 3 nights a week at Boston University where I teach a web design class. I’ve been doing a road show of a webcast called Web 2.0. with my Colleague Jeanne Friedman. I’m presenting to clients during the day at least twice a week and I give a web-marketing seminar to MGH every quarter. Even with all this speaking, I’m far from being an expert, but I thought I would share some tips and tricks I’ve come across in helping make better speakers and presenters out of us all.

My fist tip is to rehearse. I can’t say this enough. The best way to do this is to do several full dry runs through the presentation in front of a few trusted critics. I’m not talking about reading word for word out loud. I’m talking about body language; hand movements and having your “audience” interrupt and challenge you with questions and opposing views.

I typically use a pencil to jot down notes, ideas and diagrams weeks before the presentation. One of the valuable lessons I learned early in my career was to take a bunch of blank copy paper and quickly sketch out what each slide will be. This is easier than going directly into PowerPoint or Keynote as you can reorder, add and delete more quickly and efficiently. Once the paper presentation is solid, I’ll put it into Keynote, add effects and rehearse again with it projected on screen.

One mistake that many people make is literally presenting on screen, everything they want to say. While this is a natural path for beginners, it’s boring to the audience. The more comfortable you are with the presentation, the more you can adlib. These days, I’ll dedicate each slide to a particular point that I want to discuss and freely talk to the slide during the presentation.

Another exercise I do is time myself. Typically, everyone talks faster when in front of an audience. Keynote and PowerPoint both have the options for you to time yourself. Given the choice of finishing too early with not enough questions being asked or too late with not enough time for all the questions, you should choose the latter unless you’re good at hand puppet shows. You should figure that you’re going to talk 12% faster during the real presentation and you should adjust your slides accordingly.

If you have the choice of what order you’re presenting in and what time of day, you should go first and before lunch. If you go toward the end of the cue, people tend to get antsy and god help you if you’re after lunch and at the end of the cue.

Add visual interest to the slides. Even the nerds who typically produce all bullet point slides hate looking at all bullet point slides. Take people by surprise. Put in images that seem unrelated but give you a perfect segway into making your point. Check out what O’Reilly did with all their technical books…they put a different animal on the cover of each. What does a Lama have to do with learning Perl? Nothing! That’s why it’s so brilliant. It’s memorable and visually stimulating.

Once I’m done with the presentation, I rehearse more and more until I almost don’t even need the deck in front of me. I don’t keep fine tuning not matter how much extra time I have. At some point, you have to lock it down and get intimate with it. The time you spend “owning” it will show in the quality of your presentation.

When I worked at Philip Johnson years ago, Phil himself would come into a presentation meeting and tell a story about what happened to him on a flight or at the local coffee shop. It had nothing to do with the presentation at hand but it was a way to break the ice, make the meeting memorable and hopefully connect to people in the room on a more personal and emotional level. I once had an important pitch to HBO a few years back. I had the flu the night before and checked myself into a hospital in Manhattan at 2:00 AM to get some medicine. They kept me until 20 minutes before the meeting. After finally getting checked out, I hopped in a cab and went directly to the meeting. I showed up 10 minutes late but what a great story I had for an opening. “Sorry I’m late but I just got my intravenous out but I’m…” My point is that the audience might only remember a little bit about your presentation but they’ll remember a good story.

Nothing makes a speaker more nervous than an antsy audience or one that makes no sounds. Even the most experience speakers hate this. What I do is pick on members of the audience and ask them questions. This sharpens everyone up and even spooks them a bit thinking they’re going to get picked on next. It’s good to turn the table to take the pressure of yourself.

So my tips are:

1. Use iterations in developing your presentation. Start with pieces of paper with ideas on them and then distill them down to coherent ideas, bullets and pictures.
2. You can’t rehearse enough. Pick people who are going to challenge you and poke holes in your presentation. If you don’t have friends do this, strangers are going to do it for you AND it’s going to hurt more.
3. Time yourself. You don’t want to be finished too early and if you can pick the order and/or time you speak, do it!
4. Lastly, don’t be afraid to pick on people in the audience. This is a great card to have up your sleeve if you feel yourself getting nervous or if the audience is making you nervous

Below are a few links to more useful tips.

• How to get a standing ovation
• Advice for the first time speaker

Web 2.0 Webinar-The New Opt-in Marketing Model

noreply@blogger.com (hoverpod) — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 11:17:00 +0000

A week ago, my colleague Jeanne and I did a Webinar for product managers, on how Web 2.0 is redefining relationship marketing. This was our first time doing a Webinar together and we had some fun with it. Click to hear the Podcast or to view the Flash version of the slides. This should prove pretty interesting for those of you who don't know exactly what Web 2.0 is or want to see some examples of how it's starting to permeate marketing. Enjoy!

Flashy Flash

noreply@blogger.com (hoverpod) — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 15:24:00 +0000

spend lots of time doing competitive research when embarking on a particular project. Currently, I'm at various stages on 5 different Flash-based demos. A few of them are quick running animations and others involve story-boarding, talent and soundtrack selection, studio time and a kick ass Flash guy. Prior to starting on any of these, I typically do hours of research for any analog ideas and features as well as inspiration. Sometimes I come across these sites via google searches, other times I dig around in Macromedia's Site of The Day bin and yet other times, my network of designer friends all share ideas on what's cool and hip.

Let me know what your favorite is.

Below are 3 Flash-based demos that are fresh, have an edge and are fun to watch...mostly...Thanks to Dave for a couple of these.

1. 10X10 - Uses RSS, XML and tags to make this the most dynamic news site on the web. Beautifully simple and technically elegant.
2. Shock Absorber - A great consumer-based Flash piece. Must have been a very interesting project to work on.
3. Philips Bodygroom - I have to give Philips lots of credit for not being afraid to add a little edge to their product demo.

Shooting Up?

noreply@blogger.com (hoverpod) — Mon, 29 May 2006 20:02:00 +0000

Every time I show pictures to someone, I always get asked about my gear. Typically, I either use a 35mm or a medium format, both with 50-80mm lenses (no zooms) I've been taking pictures as long as I can remember. I've never been into telephoto lenses or any other optics that would keep me too far away from the subject matter. There is something kinetic that happens when one is forced (or prefers) to interact with a person or object close up. There is a huge profound difference between being an involved participant and being a passive viewer. If you've ever walked around any city or tourist trap, you'll notice almost every guy (yes, mostly guys) has a huge telephoto lens mounted to the end of their camera. I see them always shooting up or far away. They shoot church steeples, tree-lines, birds on ledges, massive crowds from far away, etc. It's as if they're almost looking over all the great close up action in front of them because they can. Because of technology. Because of cool camera gear. Don't get me wrong. I'm as big a tech head as they come. There is just a huge difference in how a photographer will shoot if they're close up AND a huge difference the subject matter will behave if you're present within 10-15 feet. Imagine shooting a skateboarder on Copley Square from 50 yards away and then 15 feet away. Completely different shot and much more dynamic if within 15 feet.

I did some pro bono work for Michael Stipe (dropping a cool name). He and Patty Smith were touring with their photography show, 2X Intro, and I helped with the marketing for the Photographic Resource Center at Boston University. After the show, I was lucky enough to be invited a private dinner. Michael thanked me for helping out and within our brief conversation, he mentioned that he's been shooting with the same 35mm film camera with a 24mm wide angle lens for years. He loved the fact that it forced him to be really close to his subject matter and that the picture had a "special" dimension to it. I agree.

I'm mostly digital now, but for years, I was toting around my Fuji 6x9 medium format range finder camera. I always got the film developed but never spent the money to blow up each picture as I had thousands of them and didn't have the money. Recently, I found a mail order place on the west coast called myspecialphotos and sent a bunch of my chromes for high-res scanning. Check them out under the photo gallery section. The ones added are Africa, India and Paris/London. Let me know what you think!

@@@@@@@@@@issue:

noreply@blogger.com (hoverpod) — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 23:53:00 +0000

I've been steadily teaching @ Boston University these days. I'm currently teaching a graduate level Web Design class, CFA AR 581 and will be teaching the course throughout both summer sessions. The question I get asked the most from my students is where I get my inspirational "inputs" from and what types of publications I read. I subscribe to all the basics including CA, How, Print, eye, etc. By far, my favorite and most inspirational is a FREE quarterly publication called @issue: The Journal of Business and Design. This free publication is produced by CDF (Corporate Design Foundation), a Boston-based non-profit education and research organization, founded on the belief that design can make a major contribution both to an individual's quality of life and to a corporation's success through the effective use of the design disciplines. Net-net, Good design can positivly effects the bottom line. Anyone and everyone in the biz should sign up to receive this publication. Also, in May, they are putting on the first-ever @issue conference in NYC at Rockefeller University. I'm excited to be attending. They have a great line up of keynote speakers and events. Obviously, I'll be reporting back post conference with all the goodies. If you can't attend the conference, sign up for the publication NOW!

5 Golden Rules When Contracting

noreply@blogger.com (hoverpod) — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 03:45:00 +0000

I currently have a full time gig but occasionally, I do a little moonlighting when the right project comes along. It helps me pay for "toys", software and travel. These days, I'm pretty flat out at work which means a potential side job has to pass a few tests if I'm going to take it on. First, it has to pay well. No longer do I give up my free time for a $500 project. $2k is my starting rate for any project. If it doesn't have the right budget, I'd rather rest, work on my own stuff or even paint a wall. Second, it has to be visually interesting. It won't be long enough if I have to do another boring startup site again. Third, it has to have an aggressive schedule. I hate projects that drag on because of no driving deadline or too much consensus. It's sort of like a covert mission - get in, get out, no one gets hurt and you're home in time to kiss your kids goodnight.

If you follow the 5 golden rules of contracting, you'll stay clear of some major pitfalls.

1. Get money up front - No matter how tempting a project or budget sounds, don't start without a deposit up front (at least 1/3). I was just discussing this same point with my friend Michele the other day. If someone can't or won't give you some money up front to get started, then that can only mean one of 3 things.
1. They don't have the money
2. They don't want to really pay you in the first place
3. They don't trust you for some reason
In any case, you don't want to work for them, so just move on. Time is money so learn when to cut bait and go for the next gig.

2. Get a good budget - They're is nothing wrong with coming in at a lower price to get the job but don't undercut yourself. You might be happy that you got the first gig but you've just "branded" yourself as a low cost solution to the client and they're going to expect the same low prices for future projects. Also, it's the same amount of work to do a $500 one page e-newsletter as it is a $2,000 small website, so determine the right price and either go for it or move on. One of my first contract clients years ago said "We have several of these projects coming up so give us a really good deal on the first one and the rest of the projects are all yours." Even in my naive years, I had enough foresight to say "Pay me full price for the first 5 projects and I'll do the sixth and seventh for free!" Needless to say that I never heard from them again. They didn't have any money and all it took was a little talking to expose their true intentions.

3. Get a signed contract - Don't forget to outline the terms of what you're going to be delivering and the payment schedule. Scope creep is the number one reason for having this in place. I actually turned down a big $$ job the other day because the person kept "forgetting" to sign my contract and make agree to give a deposit. My personal opinion is that they intended to "judge" the work and then decide how much they wanted to pay for it...I but bait and ran ran ran as fast as I could.

4. Don't do anything for free - Never do any work for free. It's not that I want you to be a bad person...it just clouds communications all around. Nothing motivates good communication, initiative and schedule like money. I remember doing some wedding invites for a friend. The lucky couple liked it enough but their parents just didn't get it. So they would drag their heals, make stupid changes and just bitch about everything. Now if they were paying money to have these done, you can bet they would be much more articulate with their feedback and wouldn't want to miss any deadlines for fear or being charged extra.

5. Don't do anything for family or close friends - I break this rule every once in a while. Sometimes it pays off and other times it's a train wreck. I had (emphasis on "HAD") a friend who recovered from this sickness and wrote a book about the journey to recovery. He wanted to market the book through an online channel in a grassroots fashion. A blog was the obvious brand-on solution. Would have felt more like a discussion group with a great forum for people with the same disease to share stories and ideas. This would have been in contrast to some slick site that looks like it's just trying to make money off the book. Also, they wanted this ASAP and a blog is much easier to set up. The thing that killed the project for me was that they wanted a full site in a Dr. Phil look and feel. Needless to say, I cut bait pretty quickly.

Happy contracting!

Social Computing 1.0

noreply@blogger.com (hoverpod) — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 07:35:00 +0000

I've really been interested in Social Computing and how it interacts with design. By the way, Social Computing refers to the use of software, and technology that supports social interaction and communication. Social computing is based on existing social models or related to specific social contexts. Examples of social computing include email, IM, Blogs, Wikis, del.icio.us, Gather, craigslist...you get the idea...community building tools and technology. So all these tools and technology are great, but putting a brand and user interface design on top of them is another story. No longer are most companies interested in a marketing site that looks pretty. The new trend is to create and support social interactions between and among a corporation and their clients - yet another extension of brand. For example, blogs are great at enabling and extending a two-way dialog among customers instead of company to customer communication only. The trick is to wrap a brand around these tools to help create a cohesive user experience that's trustworthy and compelling. All this new technology and methodologies are great but social interactions and forums have been around for thousands of years. Town meetings, soap boxes, even public executions were a way for the community to come together and share news...oy!

One of the more interesting social interactions that's been going on for hundreds of years and still exists to this day, takes place in a little wooden barrel on an island at the ass end of the Galapagos six hundred miles off the coast of Ecuador. This barrel has served many of ships acting as a virtual post office. Sailors stopping on the island would pick up mail destined for their ships' port of call. Today, it's mostly used by travelers and tourists. The idea is that you pick up a letter that's either addressed to where you live or where you would like to travel. The concept is the same as social computing, meeting other people via mutual interests and context. I remember reading a story in a great travel book called "The Kindness of Strangers" about a lady who was from chicago but wanted to travel to Italy. She picked a letter from the barrel addressed to someone in Florence and takes the trip 6 months later. So when she arrived at this stranger's house in Italy, they practically adopted her and showed her all around the region for a solid week.

So I decided to test this whole barrel thing...My friend, Jeanne, told me she was traveling to the Galapagos and I enlisted as my proxy to procure a letter for somewhere interesting as well as to put one into the barrel addressed to me to see if it would ever make it back. Jeanne said the barrel is pretty touristy these days and is less of a barrel and more of a wooden box. The selection wasn't that great but she did manage to get my a postcard destined for non other than Brookline, MA. I think this postcard made it back to the states before the people who sent it. I purposely held off delivering it for more effect. I attempted a few weeks later but no one was home. I may try again this weekend. I'm thinking it could go two different ways when they answer the door. They're either going to invite me in, offer me drinks and after hours of getting to know each other, ask me to be their child's legal guardian should anything happen to them. The alternative is that they'll tip me and wonder where my delivery attire is. I also did receive the letter that Jeanne addressed to me from a couple in Florida. They missed the whole social context and mailed it from their home in Cape Coral. The killer was that they just put a stamp on it with a line of copy on the outside of the original envelope that said "found it on Galapagos." So no note or "story" behind this one. I'm hoping to make up for the lack of "social experience" when I deliver the postcard to the family in Brookline. Stay tuned!

Search Engine Ranking

noreply@blogger.com (hoverpod) — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 07:06:00 +0000

If you’re trying to drive traffic to your site, you know the value of monitoring your site’s search engine rankings. UrlTrends provides insight into the most important trends at a glance. Enter a Url and UrlTrends displays your Google PageRank, Alexa Rank, and link popularity trends (the number of incoming links) for Google, Yahoo, and MSN, as well as information for social bookmarking sites Furl and Del.icio.us. Results are displayed in graphs (hoverpod graphic above).

Three's a Charm

noreply@blogger.com (hoverpod) — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 06:58:00 +0000

Every blue moon, there comes along an application that makes the sun shine for me. My rating is easy. It has to be ubiquitous, indispensable (mostly) and beautifully designed. Most fail the latter. Without further adieu, see my top 3 salutary apps:

High Priority: High Priority is an inexpensive Mac OS X 10.4 or higher menu extra whose sole purpose is to help you manage your To Dos in a simple, intuitive, and pleasant manner. Leveraging the power and simplicity of iCal, Apple's calendar software bundled with Mac OS X, High Priority allows you to create, edit, and remove your To Do items directly from the menu bar, without having to have iCal open.

Yellow Icon: Here you´ll find the best icons from the best artists in the world. The icons here listed at Free Community Icons belong to the individual authors or companies and are free for personal and non commercial use. If you are an icon designer and want to include your work just click on Add Icons in the main menu.

Browseback: If your a big surfer, your browser history probably fills up pretty quickly. Finding a past page or link that you surfed weeks ago can be frustrating. This application lets you scan your history visually with thumbnails.

Yeah Dude!

noreply@blogger.com (hoverpod) — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 04:28:00 +0000

I was commenting to J-, my wife, about how all the major mountains must be feeling the economic strain with all the unusually warm weather and rain we've been having the last couple of months. Suddenly, I had a flashback to some snowboard designs I did way back when, for a Japanese snowboard company called Messy. I hunted for some pictures and was rewarded with one I had shot for a magazine spread. Boy, it takes me back....

Failing is Good

noreply@blogger.com (hoverpod) — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 15:46:00 +0000

I'm teaching again this semester at BU and driving through a process-centric curriculum. Initially, many of the students wanted to come away with a portfolio or personal site at the end of the class. Who wouldn't? Having a personal that gives people an idea of who you are and why you matter, is a satisfying experience. With that said, I've been looking for new and fresh portfolio and music sites that I think are best of breed. Below are my top 3 this month.

1. Bob Schneider music promo site - As one student mentioned, "There are tons of music sites out there. Some are beautiful but most suck!" I find this one very unique, quirky and doesn't take itself to seriously. The music is also great. Nice use. Nice use of Flash, exploratory and visually stunning. What else could you want.

2. WeFail - Another great Flash site. These are 2 guys who have a "Radiohead" edge to them don't take themselves or the industry too seriously...or at least that's their "brand." They create music sites (see above) and promotions for the artists and the entertainment-related industry. In class, we had a great discussion of when and when not to use Flash. The gratuitious use of Flash is decreasing but there are still tons of sites that use it cause they can, while not really thinking too hard about an appropriate application, their audience or the intended experience. They sort of remind me of what the shy and reclusive design collaborative, Tomato, use to be. The site is tons of fun. I bet my friend Jonathan is going to love this one.

3. Top-Ten things you wish you could say to a client - This is a splinter viral site from WEFAIL. It's simple which makes is so powerful. Fun use of Flash and fun to click and hear. My favorite is #4.

Thanks to my friend Dave for turning me onto some of this.

Home Page or Secondary Page?

noreply@blogger.com (hoverpod) — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 02:15:00 +0000

Almost every designer I know, when designing a website, starts with the home page first. I think this happens for a few reasons. The first is that it's usually the easiest page to design. After all, it is a home page and the first page people see when they hit a site. It needs to quickly and elegantly (at least the good sites) articulate the brand voice and personality. Ideally, a home page shouldn't have too much information on it. The few staples include a larger picture, navigation and a mission statement or tagline. Add some news and a free offer and you're half way home. It's there to set the tone and funnel you to the content you came looking for in the first place. Any good designer can bang out a 2-3 home pages in a day. The second reason is that it's usually the page that the client wants to see during a first round review. It's exciting for them to see the brand come alive within an online touch point in all its glory. I don't think they would have the same level of excitement if they were shown a tertiary level page with a feedback form. Once a client picks a particular direction, that style is applied to lower level pages.

From a creative point of view, it's the lower level pages that are the hardest to design. Designing a template that can house tons of content, buttons, pictures and forms in an elegant and intuitive way, is a hard working template and not an easy one to create. Usually, we're trying to imagine how what we're creating for the home page, will work on the lower level pages. Sometimes it never works and the design is quickly changed or abandoned. On the next few project, I'm going to try and get the time to design the lower level pages first and work my way up to the home page. It's going to be interesting to see how the design changes when going the opposite way.

On Silver Sky, an assisted living community, the home page came together relativly quickly. As mentioned above, it's mostly brand area with some quick calls to action. Believe it or not, the lower level pages were a bit more challenging. Even when I look back on them, they look suspiciously simple, but that's one the hardest challenges of good design - making boring or overly complicated pages look approachable, easy to navigate and simple.

I showed this site to my parents the other day and they thought I was hinting at putting them away. I think I'm out of their will at this point, but I'll work on them at the super bowl party.