Social Networking at UA

In case you missed it, we recently launched official UA Facebook and YouTube channels to dip our toes into the waters of social networking.  A few notes about this process:

Why Facebook and YouTube?  We strategically selected Facebook and YouTube for our official channels because they are the most popular social networking sites with our targeted audiences and they represent a good strategic fit for our messaging priorities.

What’s there?  Right now the two channels are populated with content from existing UA sources, such as the UA Video Newsroom, the UA News Center, Crimson Spotlight, etc.  We’ll be gradually expanding the contents of these channels and have some things in the works for custom content that really utilizes the strengths of these mediums down the road.

What do we hope to gain from this?  We feel that we must proactively explore new platforms in order to enhance our ability to reach our audiences on their level.  Facebook and YouTube are good opportunities for us to complement our traditional vehicles by allowing users ranging from prospective students to alumni to engage our content and connect with each other.

These channels represent one of our first major efforts to push our content on someone else’s platform. Our usage of third-party platforms will evolve over time based on institutional priorities and the evolution of these mediums.

We’re introducing our official social networking channels through a “Connect” hub page that explains social networking and provides users with context for the tools.  This page will be prominently linked throughout UA.edu where appropriate for targeted audiences.

• http://www.ua.edu/connect/

If you’re interested, here are some numbers about these platforms, as of 9/10/08:

Facebook

• Over 100 million active users
• #5 most-visited web site in the world (Alexa); most-trafficked social media site in the world (comScore)
• More than half of users outside of college
• Fastest-growing demographic:  25 years and older
• Maintains 85% market share of students in 4-year U.S. universities
• #1 photo sharing application on the web (comScore)

YouTube

• 200 million unique users each month
• #1 video web site worldwide; #3 most visited web site in the world (Alexa)
• Hundreds of millions of videos watched per day
• Broad age range – primarily 18-55
• 51% of users go to YouTube weekly or more often
• 52% of 18-34 year-olds share videos often with friends

Welcome to the team

Longtime WebTide contributor and campus web guru Matthew Muro has joined the Web Communications team this week, and we’re stoked about having him on board.  He brings great skill, expertise and energy to the team, and we’re looking forward to his contribution to our work.  Big things ahead for us in the next year, and he’ll be a big part of that.  Welcome, Matthew.

Job Announcement – Web Developer

The Office of Web Communications has a Web Developer job now open at http://jobs.ua.edu.  The basic job description:

The Web Developer for the Office of Web Communications will be responsible for building dynamic web sites, creating and managing databases, and developing web sites that benefit the overall institutional web presence of the university. The responsibilities will extend to general UA academic web sites and specialized sites that fall within the influence of the Office of Web Communications.  

This position can expect to focus primarily on content management system evaluation/selection/implementation and the launch and administration of a new Flash media server.  It will also be responsible for redesigning existing sites and building new ones that incorporate the above.  If you or someone you know has interest, apply at http://jobs.ua.edu.

SXSW Interactive 2008: End of Conference Wrap-Up

Here are a few scattered general thoughts and impressions as I sit in the airport after the conclusion of SXSWi:

- SXSWi is somewhat overwhelming because of the size and scope of the event.  I heard an organizer say that the event has doubled in size just since last year, which is phenomenal, given how long this conference has been around.  That being said, it was well-organized, as it showed very few growing pains associated with such a huge increase in attendees.

- SXSW Interactive is appropriately-named, because it’s all about the interactions you have here.  It’s such a social event, from the interactive panels, to the core conversations, to the meetups and nighttime parties that are centered around the conference attendees.  My sense is that most attendees who really gain great value from attending SXSW are those who focus on the networking with industry representatives, fellow developers/designers, and thought leaders who attend.

- I think the panels here are primarily intended to spur ideas and create opportunities to engage in discussions afterward, both at the event with fellow attendees, and back at home in each attendee’s roles.  Very few of the panels (at least of the ones I attended) are hands-on to the degree of having a list of practical things to take back and implement – it’s more about taking the pulse of the interactive world, and later figuring out where your sites or products fit into the markets you care about.

- It’s a Web 2.0 world.  Discussions on social networking sites absolutely dominated the entire event.  Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, Kyte, YouTube, Dopplr, blogs, Meebo, Second Life, vlogging, etc., etc., etc.

- Also big topics of discussion:  Silverlight, content management solutions (Drupal and Expression Engine mostly), cross-browser standards (especially the IE8 beta), mobile browsing, open APIs and open source software, SEO, expanding on video capabilities, accessibility, OpenID, and consumer electronics/interactive media convergence in general, among many others.

- While certainly not a conference targeted specifically to Higher Ed, our community was well-represented in the sessions I attended that related directly or indirectly to education.

- Best panel?  Well, I found it useful to be exposed to the mainstream’s impressions of new and emerging technologies, and that will help frame up discussions on our strategies going forward.  But the most poignant panel for me was the talk by Jason Fried from 37 Signals, who discussed lessons they’ve learned while developing great web apps.  Read the notes from Day 1 if you want some great ideas on how to be more efficient and successful at your core competencies.

- Takeaways?  Well, I’m still very much on brain overload right now – I need to get back and review my notes, do some surfing, and let the information digest.  But first reactions are centered around the idea that we can possibly expand and improve our overall web presence by employing third-party technologies (CMS) and picking and choosing among 2.0 applications IF they’re warranted.  By no means does that mean we’re going to create “official” UA content on every social networking site out there – it just means that if there are opportunities to reach new audiences by employing new third-party technologies, and they’re appropriate for our mission, then they’re working considering.  Also, I think the standards movement has officially become mainstream, based on the number of panels and true “technoid” thought-leaders who have embraced and championed the movement.  Great to see, and it’s about time.

- Another big topic out here was BRAND.  That was interesting to hear, given our commitment to using the web to further UA’s brand as part of an overall institutional communications plan.  Much of the discussion of “brand” seemed to focus on the personal brand of developers, bloggers, and thought leaders, but there are parallels in how they’re using the web to further their brands, to how a company or institution might do so.  There’s more on this in several places in my notes, particularly the 11:30 a.m. panel on Day 3 and the 3:30 p.m. panel on Day 2.

- On a personal note, the food in Austin is pretty solid.  I had some great tex-mex (Chuy’s on South Congress) and BBQ (Stubb’s and IronWorks on Red River), as well as some pretty good fish tacos at Iron Cactus on 6th Street.  I didn’t get a chance to visit the UT campus, although I did see it from afar on the way in to town.  Incidentally, my flight to Austin was cancelled the night before the conference began, and they couldn’t get me there on an alternate flight until late Saturday night, which would have caused me to miss a full day and a half of the conference. SO, I jumped in the car and drove almost 800 miles on Friday in order to be there for the whole conference.  Made for a really long day, but well worth it in the end.

- The next phase of SXSW – and the much bigger event – is the music festival, which begins tomorrow.  As I sit in the airport, I’ve seen bands coming off planes by the dozens.  Over 1,600 acts are schedule to *officially* play SXSW this year – no telling how many others are here.

- OK, that’s it for now.  My flight’s boarding, and the laptop battery is almost spent.  If anyone has questions, discussion, comments or other feedback from any of my panel notes or other, please let me know.  And feel free to discuss any of it in comment threads here.

SXSW Interactive 2008 Blog: Day 4

And so begins the final day of SXSWi from Austin… 

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3/11 10:00 am – Content Management System Roundup
George DeMet (Palantir.net), Jeff Eaton (Lullabot – Drupal developer), Tiffany Farriss (Palantir.net), Mike Essl (mike.essl.com), Matthew McDermott (Catapult Systems)

Sharepoint (McDermott)
- Suite of products, starts with free module but web content management component is MOSS 2007 Standard (commercial product)
- Who’s on it?  Bloggers, small companies, rogue schools, some web 2.0 dabblers, large organizations, some countries (multi-lingual capabilities)
- Design perspective – take a site, decide common elements => master page, other elements are page layouts (editable)
- Sharepoint designer: code view, WSYIWYG, can be extended, preview screen; pages can be created by designers (doesn’t require developer skillset)
- Authoring view: DHTML menus, pickers for photo assets, spellchecking inside UI, drive content authoring down to business users who should be writing and push it through workflow
- Supported by IE and FF
- Approval process – parallel supported
- Conditional approach for branching logic in workflow
- Search out of the box; pages documents and people, keywords and best bets, hit highlighting, did you mean? correction, thesaurus and relevance ranking, fully XSL compliant
- Supports variations: multi-lingual functionality by spinning up duplicate site (does not automatically translate), makes ready for translation, pushes pages through workflow
- Can have mobile variation – different CSS, different design
- The Intranet: people and personalization, document mgmt, collaboration, line of business integration, search, mysites (profiles), colleague tracker
- Also supports command line
- Rich CMS platform, search, nav and breadcrumbs, authentication options, personalization, multilingual, social networking

Drupal (Eaton)
- Open source: built by the people who use it (hobbyists, businesses, volunteers, Belgians)
- Large number of different kinds of sites use it (blogs, magazines like fastcompany.com, community-based sites, Lifetime TV, artists sites, MTV.co.uk, UN’s EndPoverty, Inc mag, US mag, Zuda, The Onion, PopSugar – the point is that Drupal can use just about any crazy-looking design that a Photoshop designer throws at developers)
- Under the hood (LAYERS, top-down):
    – Theme (XHMTL, CSS – design)
    – Views of content (blog, calendar, gallery)
    – Content (blog posts, news, wiki pages)
    – Users (editors, administrators)
    – Modules/
    – Drupal Core (login, search, security, etc.)
- Doesn’t treat content as “pages” – all lumped together regardless of format
- Can have completely different mobile look in Theme layer
- Theme it ships with is basically a blog
- Allows to create custom content types, adding modules, layering
- Drupal isn’t what you need if you: just want to build a page, build the next Twitter, static sites, just another blog
- Drupal rocks if you want: user-generated content, communities, many kinds of content, many views of content, open APIs, web standards

Expression Engine (Essl)
- Mr. T and Me site - example
- Note: NO custom php on the site anywhere, so that site shows what you can do out-of-the-box
- Essl prefaced that he has little technical knowledge, but has been able to do everything he’s ever wanted to do with a web site out of the box
- All XHTML/CSS standards-compliant
- Easy to create custom fields for custom types of content
- EE is a paid product – $200+ for commercial license entry point
- Paid support staff on the forums because of commercial nature of product; offers built-in support for clients if developers don’t want to support permanently
- Essl is running about 20 sites on EE right now – check his site for links to variety of sites to see implementation
- Majestic Research site – actual EE implementation took 7 hours.

Evolution of CMS Choices (T. Farriss)
- Palantir will use whatever CMS meets needs of client
Art Institute of Chicago:
Round 1: Dreamweaver site + custom CMS (custom php/mySQL)
- Pros: Quick and easy: two month process – discrete, simple scope
- Cons: navigation, difficult to extend, support: interim solutions rarely are interim
Round 2: Serena Collage
- Tweaked design, some changes, left it table-based
- Collage has nice master page structure
- WCMS – on enterprise side
- Contribution layouts where you put in instructional code
- Very metadata-driven
- Created image asset type to randomize image
- Pros: master pages, workflow, version control, breadcrumbs, links as assets, deployed static files, training contributors
- Cons: expensive licensing costs, excruciatingly slow interface, not Mac-friendly, navigation, training developers, interfered with php code, no support for dynamic framework, end-of-life product (?!)
Round 3: Drupal
- Tweaked all collections, Drupal is controlling menus now, related content, extra media types
- Interactive features, leveraging Drupal’s jQuery integration
- Needed individually-customized major exhibition sites (needed fresh design on the fly, without major design process), can create exhbitions from back end
- Pros: powerful templating, remote data handling, user management, jQuery integration, solid flexible framework, ability to write own modules
- Cons: reverse proxy difficult in D5, uncertainty of release of D6, one-off exceptions are difficult

QUESTIONS/COMMENTS
Drupal:
- Drupal is like building with legos – can create really cool stuff, but you have to learn how to do so and it takes effort
- Takes time to dive in and come up to speed to build a complex web site with Drupal
- It rocks when you put those things together, but takes time and experimentation w/Drupal
- Do you find yourself trying to guide clients to existing modules or create from scratch?  It depends on needs – sometimes it’s best to create from scratch, and if it’s useful, it goes back to the community as a whole for reuse.
- Workflow module: Actions and Workflow allow you to set up states that content can be in, control who has access to change it
- Tradeoff between building something to automate tasks for non-developers and just building it
Costs:
- SharePoint: based on how many people accessing it on intranet, flat price of $25k for external deployment, educational institutions get enormous discount
- Drupal: product is free, but will need developers to build, so costs involve paying for time of developers
- EE: personal license for blog ~$100, commercial license ~$200-250; pay subscription fee for code.  If huge update, may have to buy in again.  Comes with paid support staff.
- Custom CMS: services model, pay for time
- Collage: license single install $12k, $80 to 100-200k to buy Collage free and clear

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3/11 11:30 am – Core Conversation: Next Generation Education: Bringing the New Web to Campus
Samuel Felder (USC)

*** Note: More open-format conversation than presentation, with a large number of higher ed folks around the round table.  I’ll record key points of discussion.

 - Idea is to learn from what’s going on on the web at large outside of higher ed, and how we can take that stuff back to campus to improve our work.
- This is a mindshift – look to tech industry as a whole instead of to other universities for “what’s next”
- USC’s team: colleges and divisions are free to do what they want, outside of narrow visual identity guides; central web group did central projects for PR; other work is competitive, in that no one had to use their services.  Structured in central IT.
- Because no one HAS to use central group, they organized web council, paralleled on web site, pattern library on Yahoo library; on central services, they rearchitected as open APIs and code libraries, educated the campus on best practices
- Many universities represented seem to have similiar structure and challenges – central webcomm group that is responsible for home page/top-level sites but not resourced to do everyone on campus’s sites, and that style guide is strongly recommended but not enforced
- UCLA does have centralized web group, but perceived as too slow.  CMS helped get things up and running more quickly in International division, now central group trying to bring that to general campus.
- Why not use Facebook, Flickr APIs, etc in .edu’s?  Implied commercial endorsement, what happens when something you’re using becomes uncool (Myspace)
- Two sides: looking for outside services to leverage, and prioritizing internal development resources
- If resources are allocated to purchasing/maintaining big locked-down products, harder to respond quickly to change
- It’s about understanding measureable goals and value-added
- Branding -> Not necessarily the logo police, but building in a way that respects the brand
- One interesting discussion: making the online catalog a collaborative environment, i.e. a wiki.  Some schools are enabling departments/colleges to update online catalog on the fly.  Of course, the issue here is authentication for who has rights to do so, and ensuring some sort of completeness and accuracy. 

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3/11 2:00 pm – Mexican Manifesto
Sharron Rush (Knowbility.org), Marta Sylvia del Rio (Universidad de Monterrey), Javier Hernandez (Gobierno del Estado de Nuevo Leon)

*** What this is about:  “The Usability and Accessibility for the Web International Seminar, organized by the State Government of Nuevo Le-n and the Universidad de Monterrey, was held in July 26 2007. At the conclusion of the two-day conference, the organizers issued the first Manifesto on Usability and Accessibility for Mexican Government Websites. With input from conference participants and experts of UA web 2007, the Manifesto was signed by 23 Mexican states and 3 municipalities. The Manifesto states that , ‘It is the duty of the creators and administrators of new technologies to improve people’s quality of life. As administrators, our objective is to create and maintain websites that are both useful and easy to use for the widest possible audience: usable and accessible websites. We believe that government, academia and the private sector should work together to achieve this objective.’ “

Read the Mexican Manifesto 

- Brought in representatives from each state in government to discuss accessibility

Their ten-point approach:

Our commitment

1. To ensure the democratic access to government information and services by everyone, including users with disabilities, by embracing W3C recommendations
2. To facilitate the creation, archival and management of information with systems that are accessible
3. To ensure that information and services are easy to find, discover and use, following best practices in web design and development
4. To ensure the transparency of public information, and specifically information on the use of public resources
5. To facilitate and promote citizen participation in governmental decisions, as well as collaboration between governments
6. To promote the convergence of systems in the national, state and local levels so that users can navigate between them without barriers
7. To take full advantage of information technologies to better serve citizens
8. To make content easy for everyone to understand by following Lenguaje Ciudadano (plain language) recommendations.
9. To promote the ideals and concepts expressed in this manifesto
10. To continuously improve the methodologies referred to in this document

- Revolutionary because it was agreed upon by a large number of municipal and state governments

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3/11 3:30 pm – Creative Collaboration: Building Web Apps Together
Paul Hammond (Flickr), Simon Willison, George Oates (Flickr), Matt Biddulph (Dopplr), Dave Shea (mezzoblue.com, CSS Zen Garden)

Premise: designers and developers working together to optimize results

Dopplr
- Likes to get new features online as quickly as possible, and work with them like clay going forward; Live testing
- Sculpting, not painting

A parallel work flow with Django
- Developers design the underlying data model
- Automated admin interface allows content producers to start entering data straight away
- Meanwhile, developers are building the logic for the public-facing pages
- Developers hand stub templates to designer (friendly template language)
- This works great for sites that are defined by their data

Flickr – initially, they were “release early, release often”.  As they grew, that’s become less practical because of the size of the community and the differences in the type of feedback they received from their community.

Developers find that it works much better if there’s collaboration very early in the process, because the most frustrating thing is being given a spec and told to build it.  Include developers in wireframing and whiteboarding.  Sit in the same room. 

From a designers’ standpoint, same type of issue is being told “here’s a site – redesign it by tweaking CSS”.

As developers and designers, what can we do to help those we work with understand what we do?
- Has everything to do with how design is put together, and having members from all areas together designing it, then it works better.
- Prototying is very useful here – barebones HTML that works with live data – because it speaks to both types of minds (designer and developer)
- Developers know what’s POSSIBLE in many cases, so helpful to include them early

Willison: in my experience, best projects have been small teams of generalists (people with variety of skills)
Biddulph: important to have specialists in certain areas

SXSW Interactive 2008 Blog: Day 3

Day three from stormy Austin.  Incidentally, the degree to which this town is taken over by SXSW is pretty impressive.  The event is well-organized, particularly given the scale of the individual Music/Film/Interactive festivals all going on at once, and the community as a whole seems to buy in.  So without further delay, here we go:

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3/10 10:00 am – Scalability Boot Camp
Blaine Cook (Twitter) and others

Why scale?
- Good problem
- Doesn’t have to cost
- It’s an “everybody” thing

Get it on the radar.
- Understand the pain points
- Live and die by monitoring
- Monitor EVERYTHING

Everything?
- Disk I/O, memory, bandwidth, page load times

Tools to Google:
- Ganglia, Hyperic, sar and systat (simple and you already have it) 

Your disk IO is never gonna be a hero – there are finite limits.

Use what you have.
- Don’t waste capacity
- Use someone else’s space

Google:
- DRBD + OCFS, Amazon S3, MogileFS, lustre

The Database Layer
- Everybody screws up the database. 
- What scaling means is optimizing the schema, optimizing the IO, cacheing
- Important to test SQL
- Fuzz testing – using a small number of users but huge amount of data to simulate huge volume
- Horizontal scaling (multiple databases)

Google:
- Memcache, HiveDB, CouchDB/Hypertable, MySQL Consultant

Parallel Processing (you don’t have to do it all right now)
- Smarter, not stronger: consistent for current user, not everyone

Google:
- Starling, Gearman, TheSchwartz

- Important to develop a business continuity plan so that technical administrators can create expectations with non-technical management on when it’ll be necessary to procure additional servers and other resources.

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3/10 11:30 am – Social Networking and Your Brand
Steve Smith (Ordered List), Paul Boag (Headscape), Jina Bolton (Sushi & Robots), Steve Ganz (LinkedIn), Mark Norman Francis (Yahoo)

* Note: this panel focused on PERSONAL social networking, but there are applications to a general corporate or institutional brand as well.

Social networking defined:
- Everything we do with another person online (IM, email, twitter, msg boards, podcasts, flickr, myspace, facebook, etc.)

Your brand defined:
- Not just logos and letterhead
- Your brand is simply the promise of an experience – what the person who will interact with you will experience

Ways to use personal brand:
- Boag: Headscape decided to promote knowledge, services, experience through his personal brand w/blog on web design. Used brand to sell design and services.
- Bolton: image connected to speaking & writing; perceived as energetic
- Smith: business purposes of course, but also hobby development
- Ganz: uses tools to let work speak for itself
- Social networking is also useful for obtaining knowledge about things outside of your scope/expertise.

Establishing your brand online is important for networking purposes, and to be recognizable.  Be consistent with your brand – screen name, photo, avatars, etc.  Also be consistent with the way you write and communicate, from blog posts to comments on posts/networking sites.  The brand isn’t established overnight.  Everything you post contributes to your personal brand.

Google yourself (or your company) regularly to know what your brand is, or how you’re perceived.

Think about what you’re posting in terms of how others will perceive you. (i.e. twitter or facebook status updates)

Freelancers: Do you post personal things on a business blog/site?  Yes, if they help describe you as a person and humanize you, and attract the type of clients that you’re trying to attract.  They help add personal touch.  If people feel like they’re engaging with you individually, you’re most likely to receive questions and feedback as opposed to a Contact Us form on a corporate site.

Main tools used:
- Ganz: Twitter
- Boag: Podcasting (not entirely social networking tool, but creates rapport because people get to know you)
- Smith: Campfire, private forums, emails, IMs – more personal one-on-one tools to build relationships
- Bolton: All of them.  Remember that the tools aren’t social networks, but enable the creation of social networks.  Uses Upcoming, Pounce, Verb, Doppler, LinkedIn

Tangible benefits from using social tools?
- Boag: gains work from expertise established by podcast.
- Ganz: LinkedIn is THERE to help find work, new projects, contacts, etc.
- Smith: An unprovable yes.  No way to track, but any way to get self out there is a plus.  Uses social networking tools to drive traffic back to personal web site, at which point he can control his brand and bring people in.

How do you manage all of the tools?  Do you kill them if they’re not fresh?

Might want to reserve your name, even if you’re not using it right now, for possible future use.

The real world:
- Boag: If you meet someone in person, uses twitter and flickr to follow them without interrupting each other’s lives (like email might).  Also assigns pics to address book entries for people to help spur memory of them for next meeting.
- Smith: If you’ve appropriately branded yourself online, then you should come across the same way in person.  Be genuine both online and off, and people will find you more legit and real.
- Bolton: Finds that social networking tools online and real life integrate well, even if her online persona isn’t the same as she is in person. 
- Ganz: Big fan of lifestreaming (flickr, twitter)

How do you balance maintaining a public persona and your personal privacy?
- Be aware of what you’re publicly broadcasting; use privacy controls for social networking applications to limit the broad access to everything for everyone
- Set limits about what you talk about online and what you don’t; how much do you want to share?  Think about the downsides to sharing huge amounts of info online to public.
- Boag: tries to communicate who he is, his personality, as opposed to the specific details of his life.
- Smith: make sure you’re comfortable with anything you put up (pictures, etc.)

How do you make the argument for a personal brand within a company?
- Cultural question – point to examples of other companies that are allowing personal branding to happen, and the benefits they’ve derived from doing so.
- If you know the face behind the products that you’re buying, you might be more inclined to feel comfortable about buying.
- Your company is made up of your people.

Where to start your brand?
- If your name is available as a domain, buy it.  Start a website, blog, etc. to showcase what you do.
- Begin participating in community.  It takes time.  No one is going to become popular in communities overnight.
- Don’t create something artificial – just decide on how much of yourself you want to show and be consistent in doing that.

Tips:
- Be authentic.
- The tools you use are just an expression of you.
- Transparency, honesty is key.  Be yourself.
- Commit for long-term.  Stick at it, it’ll take time to build your brand.
- Be careful, but don’t be afraid to allow some personality to come out.

*** OK, so the above deals with social networking for individuals and how they use it to promote themselves.  But I think a lot of this could spur a discussion on whether social networking tools are worth exploring for a university or a division/college/department within that university.  Thoughts?

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3/10 2:00 pm – Browser Wars: Deja Vu All Over Again?
Brendan Eich (Firefox, creator of JavaScript), Chris Wilson (Microsoft, IE developer), Charles McCathieNevile (Opera, standards evangelist), Arun Ranganathan (architect and moderator)

Disclaimer: Apple would not provide anyone for this panel.  Other major browsers are represented.

Lot of controversy among main browsers.  IE and Firefox reps talk about wanting to get along, Opera rep acknowledges there’s a war and wants to build the best one.  Opera rep says the battleground is the browser’s functionality itself, not the access to which browsers are defaults for operating systems.

Q&A format  (Please note that there are NOT exact quotes – they’re summaries of the conversations -  so don’t quote the panelists from this.  These are my notes of the panel’s content.  For full quotes, refer to the podcast later.)

Moderator: They talk about web developers, but seem to be pitching Silverlight (proprietary) primarily in other conferences.  What’s the deal?

MS: Passionate primarily about web standards platform (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc.).  Silverlight is part of the web, like PDF and plain text.  But that doesn’t mean it’s the standard-based platform.

FF: Silverlight not on the same footing, because PDF has been open since 1.0, and plain text isn’t proprietary technology.  Good to take on Flash/Silverlight, but seems a little different from the web – more gamelike, less accessible, etc.

MS: That’s why I’m on the team is to uplift the standard-based platform.  But we run into scalability problems with the base platform, thus the opportunity for Silverlight.

Mod: Opera does something interesting – everything it does it tries to standardize – nothing is proprietary, everything is open.  What’s your take on all of this?

OP: Yes, it needs to be in the open.  The mobile web does happen, and building applications in Flash/Silverlight where you rely on getting platform for your devices.  The web is far and away the best distributor of content.  Opera prides itself in putting web everywhere, to benefit from open standards.  That’s the only way you can offer platform to developers and make them work on every device, for every user.  That’s why the standards are important, so that all developers can build on it.

Mod: Silverlight tends to view C# as a first-class citizen, and the contention is that Microsoft seems to not want to see JavaScript spread its wings and fly.

FF: We’re trying to evolve JavaScript to meet challenges faced by developers every day.  Jumping from “the web” to Silverlight has a lot of benefits to meet some of those issues.  So there’s a debate about whether to embrace standards in traditional browsers, or move to proprietary Silverlight. I know some MS people want to advance standards, but some are putting their energy behind non-standards-based products.

MS: True that many different priorities are at play.  Hopefully IE is a standards-based product that advances that movement. 

FF: Anything you do to fight Microsoft has to be guerilla warfare.  Not traditional head-to-head Adobe vs. Microsoft.

MS: I think our disagreement isn’t around whether JavaScript should evolve, but around WHAT it should evolve to do exactly (what problems to meet).

FF: You cannot have a secure programming language – you’re not gonna solve it by making JavaScript secure.  JavaScript 2 is going forward into a phase where you can actually download documentation on it now, but we’re not rushing it through.

Mod: Opera puts browsers on all kinds of phones. But you don’t get distribution deals b/c devices come with own tools.  What’s the plan here – what are you trying to do?

OP:  The iPhone is a pretty good browser if you don’t need the back button.  If you get Opera Mini you don’t have the bouncy effect, but you do have a cursor.  Mini is a browser, which you can run from even a RAZR.  Can run AJAX, surf, etc.  Opera does get distribution deals (HTC devices). Sony Ericcson phones as well.  Mobile space is different – OEMs go out and evaluate what’s the best browser.  In that sense, much more open than desktop.  Makes it a nice place to compete – just go build a better browser.  For us, also important that mobile space is just part of browser market.  We’re not trying to build iPhone browser – Opera Mini shipped 40 million copies last year, vs. 2 million iPhones.  It’s about having an open market where people can compete on the quality of the browser.

Mod: How many people CHOOSE their mobile browser?

OP: Mini has 40 million downloads, quite a lot for a market that doesn’t exist because no one browsings on mobiles (joking).

FF: Agreed, it should be possible to have really good web browsers on mobile devices.

OP: Browsing on a phone and desktop is different.  Some things I sit down and do on my desktop.  Sometimes I’m on the go and want the mobile web, and the applications should work.  Apple came out and said the iPhone was the real web, and then went to developers and said they should make iPhone-only web sites.  Can’t have it both ways.  Made it hard.

MS: I think the real question is why don’t web developers make their sites adapt to mobile?  W3C-based sites do that, but many big sites don’t, because that’s not their focus.

Mod: With Firefox going on mobile devices, can you shed light on what you’re doing?

FF: Part of vision to support add-ons, should be possible to write same content and have it adapt through CSS and other ways to the device.  FF should be as extensible to devices as it does on the desktop.  FF has gotten smaller (MiniMo wasn’t best solution).

Mod (to MS): You get beat up a lot.  HTML 5 – W3C site – actually says designed to be open-standards technology unlike Silverlight.  Chris is chair of working group on HTML 5, how do you balance that, and what’s going on with HTML 5?

MS: Not sure I can detail what’s going on in HTML 5 in 20 minutes. Somewhat chaotic effort, but lot of great contributions going into that.  Looking at breadth of areas that are attacked is exciting.  Not everything in there is something I personally agree with.

Mod: Is canvas back on?

MS: Canvas has actually never been taken out of HTML 5 specs.  I have a concern with following policies of W3C and adhering to charter.  Must do due diligence in signing up to any standard.  Someone may have patents that aren’t in W3C or working group, so we have to be cautious what we sign up for.

Mod: What are kind of things that developers can start looking forward to?

OP: The big thing is, a SPEC, that we can actually build around.  We’re not through with that process – must be reasonably mature.  Still some really big differences to figure out.  MS actually sat down and ran through tests and provided feedback on what they don’t do.  In very near future, we’ll have identified issues that come up in real world and find solutions.  Then there’s the XHTML 2 spec (binary requests, cross-site access, etc).

Mod: Audience questions?

Aud: Does Silverlight mean that IE will not support scalable vector graphics?

MS: No, having Silverlight doesn’t mean we can’t support that in IE.  As for where they fit, it’s something I want to take on.  One challenge is when and how to do that, where it fits into priorities.  I think IE 8 takes on most important things first, not to say vector graphics aren’t important.  More than one way to do vector graphics – must determine what’s interoperable, which is what we’re trying to do. 

FF: SVG is this mammoth spec with bugs.  I’m glad Opera did it, but we’re not gonna do that – developers don’t want every last detail.  There’s something wrong here – the problem with making interoperable web content is that it gets more and more bloated, and takes five years.  That makes Flash and Silverlight more attractive.  That’s why I’d like to see standards go faster, so they need to be smaller, and SVG is too big.

Mod: You say you’re not a Flash-hater, but the next gen of Firefox uses next-gen JavaScript to help get around it.

FF:  Not really.  We’re trying to put common elements through standards process.  Helps unify the web, instead of having this second-class status of Flash.

Aud: Flash allows users to select multiple files for upload at once, and playing back MP3 clips inline.  Any way to do this in standards approach?

OP: FileUpload spec hasn’t been finalized.  Part of problem with standards process is that it’s based on participation.  Opera will have its own spec. It’s a known gap.  An API is needed.  HTML 5 has work on audio/video elements.  Still a patent issue.  It’s not that far from being interoperable, but not standard yet. 

FF: MP3 is going to be unencumbered (patents run out), so no fee to implement. 

Aud: What would it take to get browsers to agree on how to parse CSS padding and margins???

<RAMPANT CLAPPING AND CHEERING FROM AUDIENCE>

MS:  There’s a spec.  I’m sure you’re asking when we’re going to follow this spec.  In IE 8 we spent a tremendous amount of time building a layout spec from ground up using CSS 2.0 spec.  I’d hope we’re headed toward that – if not, tell us it’s not in the Beta.

OP: What it actually takes is the browsers to sit down with each other in the development process.  MS supports ARIA now.  Opera developer wrote flame blog about them doing it differently.  It’s true that what they recommended won’t work in other browsers.  What they implemented is probably a good idea, if we all sat down and did it together in the development process.  Just DOING it, without telling others and working together, won’t do it.  When you go away and implement in a corner, you interpret it differently – it was written by people after all.  Occasionally when you write stuff, it’s not interpreted the same way.  What it’ll take is the companies working together and communicating now.

Audience: OK, can you guys exchange business cards before you leave, and set something up?

*** Note: pretty funny because much of the panel’s conversation was centered around theory and long-term goals, and the biggest reaction by far from the audience of the day was a simple request to get padding and margin right.  Speaking as someone who’s always been frustrated by those differences, I couldn’t agree more.

MS: There are now test suites.  We offer them to W3C, and to public in general, so that we could test and make sure that we get the same thing in padding and margin order.  That’s turned up a number of catches already.

Audience (co-chair of W3C): I’d like someone to show me the test case of one browser doing it right and one wrong.  Let’s get momentum on it.

Aud: Any update to Javacript debugger tool?

MS: Yes, we’ve released first beta of developer tools, which are now built into IE now.  One click away.  Debugging tools.

Mod: Still skirmishs, but getting closer.

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3/10 3:30 pm – Design Eye for South By
Andrei Herasimchuk (Involution Studios), Bronwyn Jones (Apple), Paul Nixon (Apple), Keith Robinson (Blue Flavor), Ryan Sims (Virb)

- Started thinking about SXSW, and that it’s not ALL about the technical information.  It’s about the experience, the connections made, etc.
- Idea: People interacting, meeting people.
- Didn’t want to use social networking tools alone – wanted to use technology to enable in-person interactions.
- The idea is to get people to the panels, events, parties to interact – not be tethered to their laptops
- Wanted to focus on portable social networking

*** Basically, they did a possible redesign of the SXSW site that fully integrated social networking, Google maps API’s, flickr streams, etc. to make the site be more social and to enable the in-person social interactions.  The mockups are available at http://www.designeye.org/.

SXSW Interactive 2008 Blog: Day 2

Starting the blog later today.  Here are notes from afternoon sessions:

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3/9 3:30 pm – Content Boundaries, a 12-Step Program
Heather Armstrong, Margaret Mason (both bloggers)
- Mason: Mighty Girl, “No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog” 
- Armstrong:  Dooce

Step 1: Admit that you are completely powerless over your users

Example: Digg received DMCA takedown notice over a decryption key being posted for HD-DVDs on their site, so they removed it.  The rest of the community revolted and created huge quantities of pages with that number posted so that their entire home page contained it.  They were faced with the choice of alienating their users by censoring that content.

Step 2: Get fat and frazzled on your own terms

Boundaries are internal limits you set on what is acceptable for your site.  Use those boundaries to neutralize those who wish to disrupt your path.

Example: PostSecret (site were people share their personal secrets)

Benefit:
- Attract the audience that you want, and keep trolls at bay.
- Protect your ego or brand
- Keep small problems from ballooning
- Help you maintain your interest in your site

Step 3: Know thyself

- Top-down or bottom-up?
Top-down sites could exist in a vaccuum – they don’t need feedback or participation from users.  Bottom-up sites exist only because of their reader feedback (ex: Threadless, Metafilter)

- What’s your comfort level?
If you’re top-down, how vulnerable are you willing to be?

- Are you engaging?
Using comments, supplying an email address, writing directly to users on your site

Step 4: Get what you give

- Direct how you want people to respond to you (i.e. if you put out something negative, you get it back amplified as more negative; if you spend a lot of time on something, generally you’ll get stronger response, etc.)

- Readers respond to the level of commitment you put into something.

Step 5: Be transparent

- Don’t be a robot – make it easy for people to understand where you’re coming from.

- Explain yourself.

- Avoid jargon (talk about things the way you’d actually talk to them in person)

- Be as human as possible.  (example: eBay uses three different tones – friendly, witty, professional – that they use differently for different purposes)

Step 6: Find the sweet spot

- Set goals and make them explicit.  Why are you doing this site?  What does it need to do?

- As you obtain success, goals can shift so it’s good to refer to original success metrics.

Step 7: Hone your editorial process

Editorial checklist (ask yourself before you publish):
- Is this 100% accurate?
- Could I make this point another way?
- Will this be an unpleasant surprise?
- Could this potentially damage a relationship?
- Do I have the resources to deal with any problems that might arise?
- Will this anger animal-rights advocates, or other fill-in-the-blank advocates?

Step 8: Learn to apologize.

- Sometimes a REAL apology is needed, not a defensive answer with excuses for why something happened.

The best way to apologize:
- I made a mistake.
- I am sorry.  (actually say the words)
- This won’t happen again.
- Rinse. Repeat. (Maybe let some time go by on something that raises strong reactions.)
- Then let emotions cool.

Step 9: Don’t feed the animals

- Don’t engage or react to negative comments publicly
- “Climb to the heavens on your enemies’ corpses”
- People talking about you, even negatively, makes you more relevant

Step 10: Let yourself evolve

Allow yourself the freedom to learn, grow, change. 

Step 11: Publish for readers you want, not the ones you have

- Don’t worry about whether all people will GET what you offer – direct your content for those people you’re trying to reach.
- You don’t have to reach the whole world – just the part of your world you’re trying to reach.

Step 12: Follow the fun

- Go after what you enjoy, because lack of authenticity shines through on the web like no other medium

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3/9 5:00 pm – SEO 3.0: Optimizing Search & Social for 2008 and Beyond
Bill Leake (Apogee-Search)

- It’s a Google world.  As a search platform, there is very little to challenge Google as the leader for the next five years.  There are, however, headways in destination sites (Facebook, etc).

- In order for Google to lose at this point, not only does something else have to be better, but they will have to face-plant.

- Online marketing trends:
   – Remember that all online marketing is just a PIECE of overall marketing
   – Integrated usually works best (Facebook/LinkedIn ads, plus search)
   – Word of mouth/referral marketing is still best, and well-done PR is next.  Search is third.

The funnel of measurement for web:  Impressions => clicks => leads/sales => Offline sales

Pay-Per-Click Trends:
- Cost per action drivers on everything
- Bid management on the most competitive phrases
- Not necessary in all cases
- Great and growing selection of “off-the-shelf” tools for bid
- Think about turning campaigns on and off based on the times your users are engaged
- Site targeting (allows users who are on other sites to know about your site, even if they’re not searching for your site or keywords)

** A lot of keywords that might have once worked for finding your site in search results, may not once the big bucks hit those keywords.

- Think of Google as a supermarket – only so much shelf space available.  So how do you dominate, how do you have an unfair share of that shelfspace?

SEO Trends:
- CONTENT IS KING (good content is the most important thing)
- Google ranks sites largely according to how many links there are to sites -> High school yearbook analogy (more people that signed your yearbook, thus validating you, the more popular you became).  But not all links are equal – what are the links in to your site saying about you?  Google is now doing a lot of contextual analysis around the links that are out there for your site.
- Too much time in SEO is spent on writing optimized text for sites that can’t be used because it’s so heavy
- 80% of your Google ranking is what the rest of the universe is saying about you – 20% is what you say on your site about yourself.  And the key in that your title tag.  FOCUS on your title tag – use the keyword that you want to be found on in your title tag.  For instance, “Keyword here, brought to you by Company Name”

- CONTENT DRIVES LINKS (good content)
- Don’t let SEO write content – many are not qualified to do so about your business.  You need to write your content, or hire good writers.
- Link baiting (hooks: funny, news, resource, controversial, flame)
- Press releases can be EXCELLENT SEO fodder (your content, somebody else’s site, linking back to you)
- How to use releases: Frequent, keyword-embedded, use internet wires, retrain writers that it’s ok if a release wasn’t a print article
- Online reputation management:  what people can and can’t do with your copyrighted material

-Google Local (maps) – put company information on Google Maps with the best info

- More and more in the next couple of years, search results are going to be blended (text results, maps, videos, photos, etc.)

- More hype than real in 2008:  Virtual Worlds, Mobile, Pay Per Call

-What’s real in 2008: Video, social media optimization, more convergence and cross-channel marketing

SXSW Interactive 2008 Blog: Day 1

So I’m in Austin, TX for the South By Southwest Interactive conference this week, and am struck by the wide range of panels on a variety of topics.  While taking notes in my first panel today, I thought about how I could share any takeaways from this conference with the whole UA web community, so I decided to try a running blog of my admittedly scattered and possibly indiscernable notes from the panels.  I’ll go back and summarize some real takeaways at some point, but I thought this would be a way to share some of the information right away, and maybe spur some discussions around these topics.

So as long as my laptop battery holds out, WiFi hangs in, and I manage to not get lost in the oddly-designed albatross that is the Austin Conference Center, I’ll be posting my notes throughout the day during throughout the conference.  Note that this is experimental, unfiltered and largely uneditorialized, so if they’re less than clear, i’m not surprised.  More information on speakers, panels, etc. is available at sxsw.com, and at some point podcasts will be available there of all panels if you’re interested in more information.

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3/8 10 am – Filching Design
Luke Wroblewski (Yahoo), Skip Baney (Apple), Lindsey Simon (Google)

- “Don’t worry about people stealing your design – worry about the day they stop.”  — Zeldman

- Example:  You do not need to reinvent the nav bar for each project, so it’s tempting to steal something that fits your needs

Base approach to development:
- Design evolves through expansion, start coding right away
- Do the simplest thing that could possibly work first – don’t worry about the whole yet

If you borrow code significantly, attribute it to the source.

dishola.com vs. digg.com – filch or fair?

yahoo.com vs. aol.com – filch or fair?

google vs. yahoo search – filch or fair?

Matt Cutt’s blog posted on filching, but turns out he was using a wordpress theme without attributing.

If you modify another author’s work, at what point does it cease to be derivative?  Same markup, different CSS?  Same CSS, totally different HTML?

Most open-source licenses of web products are limited to the JavaScript.

*** One interesting point: Different people may find different “reuses” of elements objectionable based on their interaction with the project.  For instance, a back-end developer may be less inclined to quibble over someone copping some CSS, since that’s not their primary focus.  What’s the point?  It’s all relative, to some extent.

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3/8 11 am – High-Performance Web Sites book reading
Steve Souders (Yahoo, now Google)
- Slides on stevesouders.com

***** Summary of all of this *********
http://www.skrenta.com/2007/05/14_rules_for_fast_web_pages_by_1.html

Combination of FireBug & YSlow – toolset to measure web page against 14 rules in book on the fly to judge loadtime/impact

Best practices – 14 rules (if followed, 25-50% faster pages)

The premise – speed matters

14 principles:

1. Make Fewer HTTP Requests
2. Use a Content Delivery Network
3. Add an Expires Header
4. Gzip Components
5. Put Stylesheets at the Top
6. Put Scripts at the Bottom
7. Avoid CSS Expressions
8. Make JavaScript and CSS External
9. Reduce DNS Lookups
10. Minify JavaScript
11. Avoid Redirects
12. Remove Duplicates Scripts
13. Configure ETags
14. Make Ajax Cacheable

Example – google site made change that delayed page half-second, 20% drop in traffic

One test: w/empty cache, 95% of load-time spent getting content AFTER HTML document loads

Performance golden rule: Focus on front-end (80-90% of user wait time being spent)
- Greater potential for improvement
- Simpler
- Proven to work

See presentations, URL above for more.

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3/8 11:30 am – The Contextual Web
Nick Finck, Digital Web Magazine

Four elements
1. The User
2. The Task
3. The Environment
4. The Technology

* Note: I switched panels after 15 minutes, deciding on a more practical usage of the hour than a powerpoint w/pictures of the iPhone, its’ shiny black beauty and limitless possibilities aside.

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3/8 11:30 am – Accessible Rich Media
Susan Gerhart, Becky Gibson, Lisa Pappas

Why produce accessible software?
- Compliance – Section 508, W3C, etc.
- Competitiveness
- Quality and consistency
- Ease of use
- Market-$hare

By its nature, software that tests high for accessibility based on Sec 508 and W3C also tested higher for those without disabilities or limitations.
**** Key point.  We’re not JUST designing for those who REQUIRE these features to use our sites, but those who don’t benefit from good UI design processes being followed.

Internet applications: can they be dynamic AND accessible?
- AJAX provides dynamic web content and mechanisms for rich internet-based applications, BUT
   – screen readers unaware of updates
   – keyboard navigation erratic and incomplete

Enter W3C’s WAI-ARIA  (predictable set of navigation)
- Syntax for dynamic, accessible web apps
- Supported in Firefox and IE8 Beta

How to validate for accessibility:
- Check for:
  – full keyboard operation
  – color options and colorblindness support
  – screen reader support
- Use validation tools… with caution
- Get actual people with disabilities to usability test

Evaluation tools:
- Automated checkers – mixed bag as to whether they truly are comprehensive
- Test in variety of browsers and versions
- Browser plug-ins and toolbars
- Built-in support

Test color contrast and differences between foreground and background colors.
- Tool:  Colour Contract Analyser (CCA)

Other tools (add-ons in Firefox): Firefox Accessibility Extension, FANGS screen reader emulator

Accessibility and Flash Video?  YES.
- Example: NASA Space Place  (tab for close captioning, space bar to show captions at bottom, text version that allows translation for foreign language speakers, searchable)

Benefits: Usability, potential audience grows, public perception is positive

Web 2.0 accessibility concerns
- Rich interface controls
- Reliance on mouse (lack of semantics)
- Incremental updates via Ajax
- Changes in focus
- Excessive navigation via tab key
- Content aggregation from various sources (mashups)
- Paradigm shift
- Outdated accessibility standards

So what do we do about accessibility?
- Full keyboard support (using the keyboard to navigate your sites COMPLETELY)
- Low vision support
  – High contrast mode & CSS background images  (when windows in high contrast mode, turns off CSS bg images)
  - Font resizing
- Assistive technology support with ARIA
   - Screen reader
   – Screen manifier

Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA)
- Add role semantics to scripted UI elements
- Update state information dynamically
- Make items focusable via tabindex attribute
- Add keyboard event handling
   – Mimic the keyboard behavior of the rich client UI
   - Minimize tab key navigation
- Add live region information and notification behavior

Dojo 1.0.2/1.1 Core Widget Accessibility
- ARIA implemented, high contrast, images off, no support for drag/drop *yet*

*** Did demo using dojo/screen reader that read aloud navigation of basic email site that had tabbed panels, etc, and showed how complex web app could be accessible.

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3/8 2:00 pm – Opening Remarks
Henry Jenkins (MIT), Steven Johnson (outside.in)

Remarks basically centered around the perceived ”dumbing down” of current generation of young people.

Young people are said to be looking for a place to assert autonomy, create community.  Therefore, the turn to new media for outlets.

Dominant message among media:something is wrong with youth in America today (read less, gaming culture, etc.)  Is this really the case, or does this generation merely have more things competing for their attention.

Example was given of intelligent TV shows – The Wire as the best in-the-box show, Lost as the best out-of-the-box shows.  As opposed to five years ago when it appeared shows like Fear Factor might define the pop culture of this generation, new outlets like these add depth to the pop culture.

**** No technical takeaways here, but it was a thought-provoking discussion on the role of new media in pop culture, and a reminder that we as designers/developers can’t afford to ignore differences in the thought patterns and behaviors of our users.

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3/8 3:30 – Ten Things We’ve Learned at 37Signals
Jason Fried, 37Signals

The great unknown
- A cloud that hangs over a new project.  The uncertainty can scare you away if you let it – but don’t let it, because no one knows what will happen exactly.
- Who knows, who cares.
- Decisions you make today don’t have to last forever.
- Change if need to change.
- Optimize for now.

Red flags
- Things that you should pay attention to.  There are a few words that can cause projects to go wrong… words like need, can’t, easy, only, fast. 
- Need: puts a barrier up, doesn’t allow you to discuss things anymore.  Very few things need to get done.  Try using maybe, how does this sound, etc.
- Can’t: ‘we can’t launch unless we do this’.  In most cases, this isn’t true.
- Easy: usually used to describe someone else’s job.  Think about what it means to someone when you call their work easy.
- Only: very rarely do you only need one more thing.
- Fast: similar to easy.
- These words are bad enough on their own.  Together, they can be project-killers.  Example:  “It’s only one feature. We really need it.  We can’t launch without it.  It should be easy.  Can’t you just do it real fast?”

Be successful and make money by helping other people be successful and make money.
- Spot chain reactions. (Basecamp created successes for clients because it helped them make money, so they were willing to pay for it.)
- Be the catalyst.
- Don’t worry about charging for things if they have value.

Target nonconsumers and nonconsumption
- A nonconsumer has a problem and needs a solution, but can’t find an acceptable solution (too difficult, too expensive, existing players are not targeting them.)
- A potentially exponentially larger market
- Minimize the chance for competition from entrenched players
- Often products that meet these needs are ones that are simple, straight-forward solutions that solve real problems.  The big guys don’t care about those markets so the opportunity is there.
- Start simple with users that aren’t currently using something, and it will build from there.

Question your work regularly
- Why are we doing this?  What problem are we solving?  Is this actually useful?  Are we adding value?  Will this change behavior?  Is there an easier way? What’s the opportunity cost?  Is it really worth it?
- Example:  post counts in a blog – does it really matter and will it change user behavior to know how many posts are in a category?  Maybe, maybe not.
- What opportunities are you missing in other areas by doing some things?

Read your product
- Biggest sin – bad copywriting.  Not design, not functionality.  The sites just don’t make sense.
- Too much focus on pixels, and not enough focus on words
- Words are the easiest and cheapest things to fix
- Read it out loud
- Rewrite first, redesign second

Err on the side of simple
- Don’t do too much.  Every error 37signals has made as a company has been caused by doing too much.
- Start with the easy way (don’t start with an involved process – try the easy first, and if it doesn’t work, expand. Things are easy by default.)
- Get three things done in one week instead of one thing done in three weeks
- Morale, motivation, momentum is important.  People love to deliver something and move on to next projects, not stay on the same project forever.
- The longer it takes to develop something, the less likely you are to launch it.
- People’s motivation is always highest at the beginning of the project
- Resist the urge to do MORE the next time around.  Companies make the mistake of delivering something successful, and then trying to do something way more complex the next time around.
- Focus on what you’re good at.  That is the first thing you did that you were successful with – don’t expand into things you’re not if it limits your successes.

Invest in what doesn’t change
- Think about, in your role, things that are important today and ten years from now.  (i.e. Google – speed and accuracy, Amazon – fast shipping and good customer service)
- Simple software – people aren’t going to wake up in 2018 and say “I wish this product or software was REALLY hard to use.”
- Think about the CORE things in your product that people will always want, and stay focused on them.

Follow the chefs
- Be inspired by famous chefs, who SHARE.  They’re experts but are telling you everything they know.  They’re building their empires by becoming the authority on their topic, they’re not phasing themselves out by giving away their secrets.
- In the business world, people are afraid of sharing.
- They give away their recipes, cook on TV, etc… but people still want to buy their cookbooks, their sauces, go to their restaurants, etc.
- what’s your cookbook?
- Don’t think what you’re doing is so original and important that have to hide it from the world – tell everyone.

Interruption is the enemy of production
- The closer you are to people, the more apt you are to interrupt them (tap on the shoulder, required meetings, impromptu meetings)
- A fragmented day is NOT a productive day
- Evaluate how important the thing you’re sharing with someone, even if it’s not malicious, is in the context of their overall productivity
- This happens to the point where your longest uninterrupted time of the day is 30 minutes or so
- Passive communication reduces interruption  (email, etc. – allows other person to get to it when they’re free, not when YOU want them to see it)
- What happens is that you’ll talk less, but more things will get done
- Focus on opportunities for team to not talk as much, but use passive communication.  Maybe even schedule days or afternoons where it’s not allowed to talk to each other, outside of emergencies.

Road maps send you in the wrong direction
- Business planning, financial planning
- “We’ll deliver this feature on X date, and that one on Y date.”
- If you’re doing a consumer product, suggest that you don’t set dates.
- They lock you into the past
- Set expectations that what you’ll be doing is delivering things that MATTER, WHEN they matter
- “It’s ok to think about the future, just don’t write it down”
- Do the right thing, at the right time.
- Pay attention to what’s important NOW.

Be clear in crisis
- Be open, honest, public and responsive
- If you fix a customer’s problem, they’re likely to love you even more than if there’d never been a problem
- You build up goodwill and trust by talking about downtime, problems, etc.
- The web doesn’t shut up just because you have
- If you don’t talk about what went wrong, others will do so for you, and it’s less likely to be accurate in that case

Make tiny decisions
- Break problems down to the atomic level
- Knock one little thing off at a time, then move on to the next
- Celebrate little launches
- Morale feeds off progress (nothing worse than working on something forever)
- New stuff is exciting, old stuff is not
- When you make tiny decisions, you can’t make big mistakes  (companies are terrified about huge decisions, so they’re SLOW to roll things out because the stakes of failure are so high)
- Most decisions you make, you make too big.  Chop them up into smaller decisions.

Make it matter
- Everything you do should matter – every pixel, every word, every site, every page
- If it doesn’t matter, DON’T DO IT.
- When you look back on your days, you may find that most things you do really don’t matter (in terms of impact)

For those that don’t know 37signals, they’re a small company committed to building the best web-based software products possible with the least number of features necessary. Their products do less than the competition — intentionally. Their blog is a great read. 

Open-source CMS and UA: The floor is open

So we’re kicking off an exploratory phase into selecting and centrally supporting a UA-wide standardized open-source content management system.  As time goes by, it’s more and more apparent that our campus as a whole needs a central option for maintaining web content, particularly since we’re so decentralized in terms of how web sites are created and managed.  This process is just beginning, so the purpose of this post is to solicit feedback from the UA design/development community, because we all stand to benefit from the outcome.  We have identified Joomla, Drupal, and WordPress as initial open-source options that may meet this need.

So the floor is open.  What have you used?  What have you liked/disliked?  What do you need?  Which ones are best?  We have some ideas about what we’re looking for the CMS to accomplish, but the specifics are wide open at this stage.  All input is appreciated.

Server migration

The contents of the main UA web server were migrated to a brand new box over the weekend, and the migration was successful other than a couple of brief outages.  If you’re experiencing any problems accessing something you should have access to, or notice something broken that previously worked, please let me know and we’ll work to correct it.  If you’re accessing the main www server, there may be some changes needed to your FTP filepath in order to access your files.  Let me know if you have questions or need assistance.  Thanks!