intentionally.

November 27, 2005

One of the most disturbing things I've seen in a long time. (via)

Google just keeps it coming. In the coming weeks you might start seeing little telephones next to sponsored ads on Google pages. It's called 'click-to'call' and it allows you to call the company directly from your computer - likely leveraging the technology they've implemented in Google Talk. Google apparently pays for the telephone charges, and the advertiser pays a fee for every call they receive.

I wonder how that will pan out given the pseudo-anonymous nature of the web. While it's compelling to think that a user is a click away from calling you, what are the odds they're going to do so based on your ad? Getting me to click on to your website or landing page is one thing - getting me to have a conversation with you over the phone is another entirely.

November 26, 2005

The season of giving is supposedly upon us, but as in years past I'm a bit of a humbug. It seems as though I'm not alone.

I've been witness to a number of conversations in the past week or so about panhandlers and the things they do to 'trick us' out of our hard-earned money. We're appalled when we read in New York Magazine that the bum on the street corner below our office is making upwards of 24K a year. We get noticably angry at the guy who apparently tells the same sob story to everyone he meets about how his daughter is going into surgery and he needs cab fare to go visit her because he can't walk all that way given his injury sustained in the war.

Is he lying? Probably. But who's the villian in this situation - him or us?

More...

The extremely talented Andy Rutledge weighed in on the home page design for auction mega-giant eBay earlier today. His analysis was pretty thorough, and he managed to take a page that was extremely cluttered and hone in on what he felt were the most important pieces.

Andy does a great job of focusing on creating a "usable" site - reducing the number of competing elements, being consistent with links, etc. But while he does quite a bit to create a page that adheres to the guidelines put forth by the many usability experts in the marketplace, the focus on structural usability leads to a site that ignores some other factors that can lead to a good experience.

More...

November 23, 2005

Greetings from Chicago! I'm here for the next week, visiting the girl's family, getting together with Ben, Mark and some other friends, and doing my best to forget about the ever-multiplying mound of work that awaits me back in New York. Tomorrow we enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner courtesy of her sister, and though their family tradition doesn't involve watching football (gasp!) I'm looking forward to meeting the extended family and gorging myself on what looks like a pretty fantastic meal.

I admit it - I'm a sucker for the holidays. I love everything about them - the air, the lights, the eggnog, the immense quantities of food, and the cheer that everyone's been saving up over the past 11 months.

This year, I'm going to be on the lookout for all things Christmas. Things that make me smile, cry, think, or compel me to call friends I've not spoken with in far too long.

Today's entry: the most creative Christmas house I've ever seen. I can't imagine how much time it took to put this together....

November 22, 2005

I'm famous.

If you haven't read this book yet, you should - it's hard not to read the pieces without feeling compelled to do something immediately to change your organization and/or your life. Pick up a few copies for your friends as well - it's a worthy cause. In fact, I know what a few people are getting for Christmas...

Thanks Seth...

November 20, 2005

I wonder if this whole concept of user experience needs to be re-evaluated.

For the majority of "user experience" people out there, the craft is primarily a technical one. It's about expediency - moving someone from one place to another as quickly and easily as possible. Admittedly, it's a noble and worthy goal - we've all been to way too many sites that are confusing, awkward, and underwhelming.

But it seems to me as though there's a whole lot more to creating a satisfying user experience than employing lots of white space and using breadcrumbs. We should certainly work to make our sites as friendly as possible to navigate around, but we also must acknowledge the other goals of people visiting our pieces of the web.

More...

November 17, 2005

Love this email newsletter design - very well put together. Animated GIFs are making a comeback, mark my words....

November 16, 2005

The Bible is just a crutch. God is a belief system that man created to make ourselves feel better. We like to be drawn into a story, and that's what this old book is - a story. Passed down from generation to generation, probably embellished and changed as the years have passed. It's a myth, something to make us feel better.

That's the argument, that God and Christ and Adam and Eve and the Bible represent are a story. And I wholeheartedly agree.

More...

Jakob Nielsen on ClearType, the plugin from Microsoft that anti-aliases screen text to make it more readable.

“ClearType will make this user at least 10% more productive while reading from the screen, for a gain of $2,000.”

I've had it for a few weeks now and I actually have enjoyed it quite a bit. You don't notice it until you go back to looking at another PC monitor - then the difference is pretty stark.

Windows is starting to really gain ground on Apple....circa what, 1995? Anyway...you can grab it here.

via Designorati.

The folks at MIT are hard at work answering some of humanity's most pressing questions. Among them - how effective are aluminum helmets at stopping waves from entering one's head?

In a related story, I never wore a bicycle helmet growing up, which explains many of my problems.

November 15, 2005

This is cool stuff. It kind of puts my 20 minute oil paintings to shame...

November 14, 2005

Good stuff. Back in my premarketing days this was the kind of stuff I'd stress contstantly - it really doesn't take much to leave a strong positive impression on your customers. In fact, I would submit that the little touches like these are often the most important thing that should be on your company's agenda for the day.

One of the greatest business minds we've seen died today, leaving behind a legacy of thought work that could be unmatched. The Peter Blocks, Michael Hammers, Michael Porters and Tom Peters of the world were all heavily influenced by this man's writing and thinking on all things management. The ideas he penned in the 60's were as relevant then as they are today, and countless business students on campuses all over the country are learning his ideas whether they realize it or not. I don't agree with everything I've read of his, but I admired him nonetheless - he was a man who carely deeply about what he did, which puts him in far too rare company.

Peter F. Drucker, Dead at 95.

Lots of things on the Internet make you smirk. But few make you laugh out loud in the conference room, forcing your colleagues to look up from what they're doing to look your way. This is one of them.

I have a few buddies in the world of programming who are getting pretty scared of Google. I'm starting to see why.

Google is now offering it's analytics service for free, allowing you to track your web stats, keyword campaigns and the relationship between traffic and conversion. If tracking your website ROI wasn't easy enough already, Google is sure to make it dead simple.

It seems as though the market for solid, useful web applicaitons is going to continue to get more difficult to be successful in as the geniuses at Google continue to develop new, interesting, free ways to get things done online.

Coupled with the fact that idiots like myself can learn programming frameworks like Ruby on Rails or Laszlo and begin building rich applications, and programmers might have reason to be worried. Who knows - the key to being successful on the Internet may soon be a result of... a solid business model executed well.

November 13, 2005

It looks like Sony has gotten caught with its hand in an enormous cookie jar. If you're a nerd, you'll find this stuff fascinating (how smart are these guys for figuring out what Sony's up to! And how likely would I be to see them at a party?) If you're not a nerd, you should still be interested as the implications on intellectual property, privacy and the rights of companies to modify your system hardware begin to bubble to the surface.

Via a different Sean who's much smarter than I am.

November 06, 2005

I've been trying to learn Ruby On Rails for the past few weeks, and it's been an interesting challenge. Historically, programming languages (PHP and the like) have been difficult for me to grasp. While I don't know what I'm doing, I feel like I do understand how ROR works - sort of.

The coolest thing? ROR does a lot of the upfront work for you - you create a database, type in three lines of code and you have a functioning application, with the ability to add, delete and change stuff to your heart's content. It's a nice way to look like you know what you're doing when you're sitting next to your girlfriend working.

November 03, 2005

I had a very interesting conversation with a coworker the other night. It started with a conversation about job stuff but quickly turned into a talk about the meaning of life (it's officially a trend.) I explained to her why I see us not as evil people but broken people who are missing something very big and real and important, and that as a result we do lots of mean and terrible or stupid or hurtful things to ourselves and others in an effort to capture that piece that's missing. I talked about how for me, being a Christian isn't about being right or about avoiding something terrible but rather is about rediscovering a long lost love.

It was interesting - she listened. It wasn't like those discussions in philosophy class, or those debates one has in bars about the meaning of existence. Those are about proving something, and that's probably why they just result in people getting angry.

People say don't talk about religion or politics. But I'm realizing politics and religion are two completely different things. Politics is about figuring out what's right and wrong. Religion is (or should be) about understanding why we behave the way we do and why we all feel like we're missing something. It should be about that search. And, ultimately, it should be about an amazing love relationship.

I've heard it said that you can't love something unless you've seen someone else love it. If you think about all the televangelists and the people standing on blocks in college yelling about the end of the world, and even of the thousands and thousands of well-meaning people in churches all over the country who don't talk about love but rather about being good enough and right enough...when you think about all of that, it's easy to see why people are turned off or downright hostile. You're selling them an idea - and idea that goes against their worldview and a sell that reinforces why they don't like 'people like you' in the first place.

When I talk about what it's like to be in love with my girlfriend, that doesn't invite hostility. More often than not, people not in a relationship want to hear about what it's like and want to know more.

If I talked about my relationship with God the way it's meant to be, what would people's reaction be?

November 02, 2005

We're working on the next iteration of a pretty slick tool for students on campus, and It's a doozy from an interface standpoint. The company prides itself on customizing everything we do for clients, and it's a big reason why we've been so successful. But for interfaces it can be tough - every aspect of this app can be turned on or off depending on the client, which makes placement of elements difficult.

The main difficulty is that the elements don't all merit the same space. Some pieces don't really justify a large amount of screen real estate, while others would look downright silly if they're too small. So we decided on two sizes - should make things fairly straightforward.

But if elements are turned off, the placement of the remaining pieces looks strange, especially when a larger element is removed. What does one do with the missing space?

The app has no advertising (nothing we do does,) so slapping in some random ads isn't an option. The funniest scenario is for the school that only has one module (which happens.) What happens to the page then?

We're close to rolling it out, but it's been an interesting challenge. I'm curious how other people would address it...

And they said you couldn't learn anything from Tetris...