Day 3 7:26 pm
We all want the search engines to find our sites. I don’t think anyone would disagree with that. There are things we all should be doing as a matter of accessibility that will help in our search engine rankings as well.
This session was a good reminder of the little things I should be doing every day, but often forget.
Day 2 7:25 pm
Using web standards helps make your site more accessible. Consequently, it also helps search engines find your content because that content is also open to THEM.
There are many tips & techniques I won’t get into. I did get some ideas for our sites and how I’ll be constructing them in the future.
Day 2 7:24 pm
Ubiquitous computing discussion was interesting. Many points on ethics, standards, and what it could mean for all of us in the future.
Day 2 7:23 pm
Two different takes on blogging & what’s effective. Do you have a subscription model, or ad model? Do you get personal in your posts, or keep a distance.
Obviously, different things work for different people, but a couple of things seemed to work for both of them.
Day 2 5:30 pm
Hollywood is giving us more fodder that insults our intelligence than ever.
I don’t want IFC to turn into MTV or any other variety station.
To not talk about the evils of the Bush adminstration [would be boring].
[Would like to] kick Rumsfield in the nuts.
When everything’s going well, you’ve got stuff [music] like techno. “Oh, that’s really nice.”
If music could change the world, Dylan & Marley would’ve already done it. If it could’ve, it would’ve. What changes things is people voting. If music can encourage that, that’s great.
The truth is always hung up in litigation.
If there are media people here, I wish you’d get a backbone & fight some of these motherfuckers already.
I want to hear things from the guy who’s blowing the ink dry on the thing that’s screwing me.
I think any American who can afford it (charity) should.
I’ve held up all kinds of shit [to sell it].
In my p-funk Ramones block party, we wouldn’t need a miliatry.
All these people breed (in the miliatry).
They’re not out there saying “I fuckin’ wanna kill shit.” They’re saying, I have a job & I want to do my job & go home to them.
Don’t shoot at a 20 year old guy who’s armed to the teeth.
On using anger in his music — The girl left me, that’s the Bside.
I want you to leave, I need more material.
You’d have white supremecist seig heiling you & surprised they didn’t like it.
To be an American and not be angry on a certain level means you’re sleeping on the job.
If you truly wanted to leave no child behind, no child would be left behind.
We’re having a nationwide sit-in and the Ramones are going to play.
[People have asked him] Hey man, it’d be an honor if you hit me. WHAT?!
If you do what you truly do, don’t expect to sail on Lake Placid.
It’s lazy to randomly hate someone.
I hate Ann Coulter ’cause i’ve read her stuff. As much as i’d like to spank that ass.
Jackass of all tyrants. I”m the Jethro Bodeen of all interviews “I can keep this!?!”
I never had the big record or the big anything, but I’ve got the big mouth.
Day 2 6:45 pm
Like a lot of these posts, we’ve got a lot of thinking to do. If we, and by that I mean any of our magazines or products, are going to start blogging, we need to make some decisions.
Why are we blogging? Are we blogging just because we think we should, or are we truly trying to engage with our readers. If we’re trying to engage, how much engagement do we want? Do we want unfettered comments? Do we want no comments at all? Who is going to moderate things? The author? Me?
The main focus was the idea of civility. That we have to always try & be civil with each other, even if we disagree. Civility will come about with care & attention to the blog.
We also have to think about what we care about more, the cause, which in our case is selling our magazine, or the conversation. That decision will help us make some of our choices.
One thing we haven’t been very focused on is our web sites. If we want to enter into this realm of conversation, we’ll need to spend more time.
Day 2 5:13 pm
There are many issues one should think about before podcasting. While this session focused mostly on events, there were quite a few things I got out of this.
First off, I hadn’t really thought about the technical concerns of podcasting — the fact that you know, you really, really want good audio quality if you’re going to be podcasting. I haven’t heard any of the recordings of our interviews, but I’ve got a feeling the audio quality may not be the highest.
Should that stop us from podcasting? Not necessarily. But it’s something we should think about as a company if we DO want to start podcasting. It might be extremely helpful for us to enlist the help of an audio engineer to give us a better way to record our interviews.
Then there’s the issue of bandwidth & storage space for audio files. It takes a lot to store & serve audio effectively. We should be looking at other areas of the company & how they’re podcasting.
Definitely a lot to think about.
Day 2 4:18 pm
Today I started off by Getting Fit with Gilad! Ok, so actually it was an on-demand version of his earlier show. When I discovered that it had been filmed in 1990, it explained so much — the hair, the women wearing body-colored leggings.
For those of you unfamiliar with Gilad, he looks like a really buff Tony Shaloub. With an Israeli accent. He completely lost his cool at one point in the workout, which was entertaining.
There’s a reason I generally don’t do aerobics — I can’t follow along to some of the moves to save my life. I usually figure it out by the end of a segment, but until that time, I’m flailing around trying to figure out which arm they’re tossing around with which leg. Oh well.
Today’s plan — How/Why to podCast an Event, Us and Them, the Henry Rollins interview, the Keynote, Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing, Wild Web Wrestling: Standardzilla vs. Tabelella and finally the Web Design Awards Ceremony.
It’s going to be a full day.
Day 1 3:40 pm
Well, I was going to go to the panel on private/public spaces and does exclusivity help or hurt. I thought this would be right up what we want to do with ChannelGuideMag.com and I would get some insights on techniques to make a site seem exclusive and therefore cool.
Wrong. It was more about self-selected exclusivity, such as along race or gender lines. Interesting? Sure. But not what I was looking for, so I moved next door.
I was glad I did. This panel gave me the most to think about and was a great way to wrap up the day. Basically, the panel boiled down to this one question: “What do we help our users kick ass at?”
Kathy Sierra talked about a company like Kodak or Nikon. They make cameras. But, what they do for customers is what — help them take kick ass pictures. Their web sites in particular have all sorts of tips & tricks on how to take kick ass pictures. The brand sells you the camera, then gives you effective tools & tricks to use that camera so that the entire experience is a positive one for you.
She also talked about snowboarding. Most folks can’t do it. Some try once. Some try twice. It’s that conversion — going from trying the first time to trying AGAIN that is the interesting, and crucial point in creating a passionate user.
As she said, “Why would you want to do something you suck at?”
You want to because you see an Olympic snowboarder and they look cool. They make it look so easy. You see what success looks like. You see, and you want to be successful at that activity as well. In order to get passionate like that, you have to see 3 things:
Easy, huh?
Apple sells computers. But everything they do — their marketing, their products, their very imagery — all of it tells a unified story. Apple makes computers that are fun to use, that give their user power to do what they need to do, and they look great while doing it. Apple’s ad campaigns create compelling images of successful people. Apple implies that their computers will help you acheive as others have achieved before you. Apple has created passion for their brand.
She talked about brands & if people at large are calling your brand a cult, you know you’ve reached what she calls the Kool-Aid point. If those people are wondering what kind of Kool-Aid folks drank to be so into your product, you know you’re creating passionate users.
She summed things up by saying that everything you do for your brand boils down to this: “It’s all abut the users & how they feel about themselves.” Nothing is about you, or even about the product you’re selling. It’s about giving the user a tool that helps them in their everyday life.
Recommended books: Flow, Gaping Void, and Blink.
Day 1 3:39 pm
Ok, honestly, this was a pretty gravy panel to sit in on. Why? The panel of one, Charles MacInerney is a guy who’s life has been spent in the practice of yoga, and is a big proponent of mind-mapping.
Cakewalk man. I’ve been practicing yoga for almost 2 years now, and it’s really given me a lot more clarity in my life. I really miss it when we’ve got a break — and my class only meets once a week!
He also talks about mind-mapping, which is another way of saying just mapping, which is what you’ve got to get good at if you’re going to stay at Alverno for more than 5 minutes. (I got my BA from Alverno. For those of you unfamiliar with it, it’s a small women-only undergrad liberal arts college. There are no grades. Ask me about it anytime — especially if you think not having grades makes things easy.)
So, a lot of this session were reminders for me, but it was nice to have this refresher. I haven’t mapped much since graduating from college & it’s a technique I’d like to get back into.
MacInerney said that what you think has more impact on your health than what you do. He gave the example of a happy smoker & a miserable non-smoker. He theorized that the smoking will do less damage to a person than being miserable.
But he wasn’t talking about hanging up a stupid Successory to motivate you, or to read a self-help book to make yourself happy. Instead he brought in some of the most basic concepts of yoga — breathing, stretching — things that when are consciously controlled can have a huge impact on our health and how we feel at that moment. Are there things we should do to change our situation if we’re miserable? Absolutely. But if that’s not what’s going on — if instead you’re in a temporary situation making you miserable — paying bills, working under pressure — there are things you can do in 30 seconds that will stop you from sliding deeper into stress.
It’s stoping that slide into the high-stress beta brainwaves that will allow creative thinking. And if creative thinking isn’t happening, trying some of these techniques can only help.
