Logic+Emotion

Forrester Video Interviews: Proof of the Distributed Digital Experience

I have to hand it to the folks at CoBrandit who did a great job of interviewing a bunch of us at the Forrester Consumer Forum a few weeks ago.  But when I came across this Widget, it really made an impression on me.  In one simple interface, you can view video clips of Charlene Li, Josh Bernoff, ZeFrank, Richard Edelman, Jeremiah Owyang, Misha Cornes and yes--me among others.  It's so easy to use and of course optimized for blogs, sites, and social networks like Myspace etc.  Really impressive.  Here's the long and short of it--if you're going to produce content in any future effort, you MUST have a distribution strategy that factors in a healthy mix of RSS, widgets and support for multiple digital touch points and networks.  Well, you don't have to--but more people will probably see your content if you do.  And I'm guessing that's a good thing.

See You At Recruit ID

Next week, I'll be teaming up with colleague David Stallsmith along with a few other CM citizens and we will be descending upon IIT's Institute of Design for Recruit ID—their Fall recruiting event.  I won't be there Monday—but I will be there all day Tuesday and David and I will be co-presenting some insightful + fuzzy thinking combined with a dash of synthesis :)

My relationship with the school began in 2003 with my attendance of the HITS conference—for me, that was a transformational event.  I felt a sense of belonging that I could not describe and directly related my experience in digitally based user centered design to the themes which emerged from that conference.  Since HITS, I have attended every IIT strategy conference that has been put on—it's the one conference I never miss.  It was at the '06 strategy conference when I first heard Bruce Nussbaum talk (video).  His rally cry for innovation and the marriage between business + design struck a chord with me and has never left.  This explains a lot doesn't it?  In fact—to some degree it explains the purpose of this blog.

I've also met some great people who have graduated from ID.  Many have blogs.  Chris Bernard, Sara Cantor, Nate Burgos, Zachary Jean Paradis to name a few.  And some who are new students—like Jon Campbell who I recently broke bread with a couple of days ago.  Great guy.

Many of the students who go to schools like IIT's Institute of Design dream of careers in places such as IDEO, Apple and Google.  All good.  But sometimes innovation can happen even under the collective umbrella of marketing and IT.  In fact, I'd argue that much of the innovation we are seeing in our time is coming from the Facebook, YouTube and Twitter creators of the world.  In my professional experience—I've led the efforts for conceptual prototypes that broke the web page convention, interactions that come to your desktop and I've snuck video cameras in places you're not supposed to take them, just to get a better understanding of people and things.

Yup, I'm looking forward to chatting to some ID students.  Always feels like a home away from home.  Hope to see you there.

Should Digital Agencies Be Blogging?

This Just In:
Publicis Digital has a blog. And apparently digital bootcamps too.
Update:
Tim McAlpine offers an interesting POV:

"I think many of the very large digital agencies are stuck in guarding the dynasties that they created in Web 1.0. Unless you are immersed in and actively participating in social media how can you really advise clients? You have the bias of the 'pet rock' comment above clouding your vision.

It's all about control. Blogging is about giving up control to conversation. Look at the popularity of Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, et al - the social web is taking over and this is hard to handle for the mega consultancies and, especially, the multi-national advertising agencies.

We are a small specialized credit union marketing agency that has a blog (http://www.currencymarketing.ca/blog). Blogging forces you to refine what you believe in and gives clients and peers a peek into the heart and soul of your firm.

I would take conversation and community over Flash and glitz anyday".

Take the poll
On the heels of Forrester's consumer Forum, Karl Long penned an excellent blog post on the state of the digital agency blogs.  He included a few interesting insights including what came up in his blog searches on Google.

"Searching for Agency.com and blog produces a slideshow suggesting agency.com should start a blog But no sign of the Agency.com blog yet (any agency.com’ers blogging let me know)."

"A search for Sapient blogs produces an unfortunate quote from their CTO in 2005 which characterizes blogs as the equivalent of the Pet Rock:

Ben Gaucherin, the CTO in question, says blogs “are a fad fueled by pop culture’s desperate search for the next big thing.” When I spoke with Gaucherin he was even more emphatic than he was in his news alert. He told me that blogs are the digital equivalent of the pet rock"

" RGA, AKQA, Whitman Hart, Blast Radius are all big interactive agencies that seem to be MIA in the blogosphere."

Now Critical Mass, has only recently started a blog and I can tell you first had that it's hard work.  We have a small editorial board and growing list of contributors who are committed to providing valuable content as well as finding our collective voice.  We know we have a long way to go.  But the question is—should digital agencies be blogging at all?  RGA doesn't have a blog—neither does AKQA, and they're doing just fine.  Well, sort of—if you Google "R/GA blog", one of the first results takes you to Vincent Thome's blog (an employee of rival digital agency Tribal DDB).  But Google search results aside—what do you think?  If you have a moment, fill out the poll, or leave a comment.  Would love to hear from you on this one.

Thought of the Day

"Design is the curator of conversations. To solve problems, design begins with people and cultures in communities, from rural villages at the bottom of the pyramid to social networks at the top of the pyramid. It observes, integrates, imagines and proposes."
~Bruce Nussbaum

A Honeyshed Moment?

Update:
Heidi Skinner weighs in over at Experience Matters

You're watching a clip from Honeyshed.  The much hyped service promises to bring "branded entertainment" to the masses.  Droga5, the shop behind the effort positions Honeyshed as "QVC meets MTV".

OK, I've been on and off the site for a good portion of the day.  And though it's in beta, I really don't get it.  It took me a while to figure out that I couldn't buy stuff.  I stumbled around the flash heavy interface, and really couldn't figure out what the heck I was supposed to do.  Here's a snapshot of the chat (I'm user 26):

As you can see, I could not figure out how to buy stuff (which I thought I could, because I didn't read the Adweek article until after I decided to write about it).  So, then I called "888-98-honey" for a little tech support—only to find out that the person on the line, while being a very nice person—had no idea how the site actually worked.  She was however open to "chatting"—and we had a nice mid afternoon conversation.

I got as far as adding stuff to my "stash" only to have the option to send items to a friend.  And that's when I bailed.  Why would I want to send this stuff to a friend when I can't even figure out how to get it myself?

So what does the experience offer?  Well, it offers up "hot girls" with minimal clothing and an abundance of hipster dialogue.  So here's my question.  I this brand entertainment?  To me it feels like traditional advertising served up over the internet.  It's got the typical hallmarks of bad traditional agency usability with "hipper than you" sensibilities.  Oh wait, I just figured out how to buy stuff—you have to click on the thumbnail after you click on your "stash".  It's a couple of clicks.  Once you figure out what the heck a "stash" is...  Would have been nice if they walked me through that on the phone.

Probably the only feature I like about it was the ability to embed videos.  So what am I missing?  Is this effective "brand entertainment"?  Am I out of touch? Is "pre-commerce" the wave of the future?  Or is Honeyshed bad daytime TV piped in through a broadband line?  What do you think?

My Apple is a Lemon

Visual by Matthew Oliphant
I'm not an Apple fanatic, but I generally prefer them over PC's—especially since I use design software like Adobe Illustrator.  My first computer was a Mac.  A Mac Classic with a 5 inch black and white screen.  I loved that little guy—so dependable, like a good friend.  Since then, I've had mostly Macs, though I did go through a "PC phase"—that is until Steve Jobs came back.

Then I fell back in love with Apple again.  Until recently when my second work-issued Macbook Pro started giving me "black screens of death".  Ive been through this already.  It was painful.  "Kernel Node" crashes—they call it.  The likely offender is a bad mother board.  That's one bad mother alright...  this means there's no way to fix it but to send it back to Apple.  Ironic isn't it...

My Apple is actually a lemon.

Anyone else out there having similar issues?

Help Us Stay in Beta

Update:
Join us for a virtual office tour (Chicago) on Wed, October 24th at 2:00 CST.

Join us for a digital ideation session on Monday, October 22 at 1:00 CST
Neil Clemmons' post on Design for Emergence comes at an interesting time.  The Always in Beta site that our team launched for the Forrester Consumer Forum was designed and intended to be a "one trick pony"—an event destination that captured a behind-the-scenes LIVE glimpse into the Forrester conference.

But a funny thing happend on the way back from the forum.  The site got a decent amount of buzz and traffic and our own employees have been tuning into it as we've been broadcasting from different offices and events.  So we're wondering if we should keep our little experiment live and if so—what do we do with it?

This is where you come in.  Tomorrow, (Monday) at 1:00 CST, we will turn on the Webcam as we discuss the future of the Always in Beta site.  We've already been tossing a few iterative ideas around (above), but have not had a true ideation session yet.  So, we're hoping to do that tomorrow.  If you think you have some ideas—come by and use the chat to participate in the session.  Right now, all we know is that we think this thing has potential.  We'd like to use the site to continue experimentation—as well as provide value. 

Hope to see you there.

10 Ways to Light a Fire Under Your Ass

1. Call out the elephant in the room
2. Offer up solutions
3. Write a manifesto
4. Seek opinions
5. Share something personal
6. Shake up your career
7. Do something that scares you
8. Tell a story
9. Evangelize
10. Know who (or what) you are

Michael Dila on Overlaps, Chameleons + Design Thinking

Michael Dila is the founder of Torch as well as being a primary organizer of Overlap annual gatherings. We had the pleasure of spending some time with him this morning in our Toronto office and discuss a wide range of topics from design thinking to being a Karma Chameleon within your organization.  Yes, there was a Boy George slide.  Video is a bit choppy as our internet connection wasn't too hot—but it's worth watching.

Random Thoughts From Forrester's Forum

(The Critical Mass "Always in Beta" booth)

The best thing about being about being in a beta state of mind is that you learn by doing, and you get better.  The Forrester Consumer Forum was an action packed couple of days for me—just ask Karl Long.  Apparently the highlight for some was the improptu video interview we did with Ze Frank (yes I screwed up his name).  But Weblebrities aside—I learned a great deal from our participation at Forrester's Consumer Forum.  Here's a few thoughts:

The Best Buzz Comes From Great Experiences
We got some great buzz off the combination off our "Social Media Dashboard", our themed booth, the Age of Conversation Books, the Swedish Fish, and our "Beta Score" handouts.  Bottom line is that we had an amazing team who busted their butts to make all of this come together and our intention wasn't to go "viral"—it was to provide a great experience for the folks who interacted with us.  Word is that we did alright—and it took a heck of a lot of work to pull it off.  The two photos above show just a few of the folks who made it all come together.

Life in Beta = Learning by Doing
Josh Bernoff made a simple but powerful point.  He stressed the importance for marketers to understand the changes by digging in themselves.  At age 48 Josh says, "if I can do it, anyone can".  I'll take it even one step further—if we don't learn by doing we'll be limiting ourselves to a life of theory—and theory doesn't always lead to reality.  I learned a great deal by working our "beta cam".  In retrospect, I would have spent more time playing with Ustream prior to the event so I would have felt more comfortable recording interviews.  I only got the hang of it by the second day—but that's what beta is all about.  You do, you learn—then you do some more.

Imperfection is the New Perfection

"Don't expect too much from me
Perfection is no test for me
Because the best I'll ever be
Is just like you: A human being
You won't offend, I need to know
Please, my friend, show me your soul"
~The Red Hot Chili Peppers

That's Manish Mehta from Dell, Deb Schultz from the blogoshphere and The Age of Conversation.  Dell's not a perfect company.  Deb's not a perfect blogger (pretty close though :-).  The AoC isn't a perfect book—but it's all good.  Forrester's Groundswell Award winners aren't perfectly polished pieces of art.  But they all have one thing in common.  Each example serves a purpose.  Each provides some form of relevant value to the user and the broader community.  Each is meaningful in it's own way.  Most likely, each example is also  imperfect in some way—which is OK, because that's what beta is all about.  As Marketers move forward in their desire to connect with consumers—they'll have to trade vanity for value.  Customers will forgive an imperfect experience if they know the brand behind it really cares.  What they won't forgive is being fooled. 

We Won't Get Fooled Again
At the end of Charlene Li's presentation, she played a sound bite from "Power to the People".  Good choice.  But if it were my show—I would have chosen The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again".  Nevertheless, one thing's for sure—when Forrester dedicates an entire forum to the topic of social media and related subjects, you know it's gone mainstream.  We're not fooling around anymore...   :-)

Live Coverage From Forrester's Consumer Forum

(screen grab of the Always in Beta "Social Media Dashboard" compliments of  Mindblob)

Updates:
What folks are saying about Always in Beta
Jeremiah Owyang provides amazing coverage on day 2
Jeremiah Owyang toured the CM Chicago office and took some snazzy video (and pictures)
Julie Fleisher wrote about our panel (no, I did not write her headline)  ;-)
Floozy Speak  wrote about our Always in Beta experiment.

Just a quick reminder that our beta cam is going live tomorrow and will be broadcasting from Forrester's Consumer Forum LIVE both Thursday and Friday.

The Road to Dell: Part Two

Howdy.  Yup, that's me in the video interview sporting a Cowboy Hat.  I told you I really bought one on my trip to Austin!  If I had to sum up my experience at Dell it would come down to two points:

1. Dell is a brand/company in transition
2. Dell's employees responsible for community outreach are both passionate and committed

To the first point, I was able to weigh in and preview several initiatives in progress that relate to both the Dell brand and the customer experience.  I can't get too specific here, but I feel the folks at Dell do realize that they need to evolve in order to advance as a formidable leader in their space.  Dell's made some new hires in recent months which is a sign that they are committed to evolving.  However I think the real Dell story starts with a revolution in their products and the experiences customers have with them.  The XPS M1330 is a very different type of laptop for Dell.  It's designed for both performance as well as desire—or in other words, it's "Geek Chic".  I believe that Dell's transformation is dependent on both their product and experience design (how the customer interacts with the brand).  So for me personally, I'm going to be looking at the next generation of products that come out as well as what customers have to say about them.


(Dell XPS M1330)

To the second point—in my personal opinion, Dell has been able to engage their customers by first listening to what they are saying, and then engaging them.  I was really surprised to see the level of sophistication at how they do this.  I f you think they are relying on Technorati, Google, or even Buzzmetrics alone—you're kidding yourself. They've got more robust ways of doing this (I can't reveal their methods).   But suffice it to say that they are pretty efficient.  And lastly the team that I met who work in this space are passionate about the medium and all of the tools/techniques that go with it.  If you think Dell is doing a good job in this area, then what you have to know about it is that their team is very enthusiastic about the space.  I don't think a company can get similar results through assigning a team to these types of initiatives if they're not genuinely excited about it.

In short, Dell is in transition.  Personally, I'd like to see this turn into a business case where design (not the pretty kind of design) really makes a difference for them as both company and brand.

Get Yer Free Samples Here...

You walk into a Starbucks. Same one you’ve been going to religiously for years now. It’s a familiar scene—Starbucks has come out with a new flavor of Frappucino and one of their Baristas is walking around handing them out. It’s hot and you were going to get a Frappucino anyway—so you reach out for your sample and just before you put the cup to your lips—Blam! The Barista snatches it from your hands and asks you to fill out a slip of paper with your name, e-mail, yadda yadda yadda. What do you do? If you’re me—you walk out the door...
Continued at Experience Matters

Guru or Fool?

"Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."
~Steve Jobs

In the past several weeks, I've been noticing a pattern.  I've seen words like "Guru", "A-lister" etc. next to my name—and it's freaking me out.  Don't get me wrong—this aint about coming across as humble, nor it is an attempt to dictate how I'm labeled.  What makes me nervous is what would happen if I started believing these labels.

Here's the thing—I believe in "The Curse of Knowledge" as Dan and Chip Heath put it.  And I believe that when you know too much—it takes away from your creativity and your ability to see things from different perspectives.  I've been thinking about this quite it bit.  I've been having mixed feelings regarding the specialized degrees that are being marketed to us, promising to turn us into design thinkers, creative strategists etc.  Steve Jobs, the original design thinker was a college drop out.  What does this tell us?

I'm happy to see the business world take creative problem solving seriously and I'm certainly not against higher education or any of the new programs.  But I'm also wary of what happens when we perceive ourselves as experts who have been trained in the black art of [insert profession here].

I started this blog because I was hungry.  I was most certainly foolish.  I had no idea what on earth I was doing—and that sense of wonder freed me from any restrictions or limitations I might have otherwise been put upon myself.  There was no "Guru-sim" involved, and no formal education or even work experience could have taught me to open a Typepad account and make the transformation from spectator to participant.

That was an act of foolishness on my part.  I was foolish enough to believe that people would come here.  I was hungry enough to spend my downtime producing content and talking to people vs. watching the tube.  So, you can call me whatever you like—but for my own sanity check, I'm going to stay hungry and foolish.  Sir Ken Robinson put it best—we sometimes "live in our heads".  That's what the curse of knowledge can do to us.  If you have 20 minutes to spare, I'd stop what you are doing and watch his video.  Good for the head, soul and absolutely 100% foolish.

See You At Forrester's Consumer Forum in Chicago

The Forrester Consumer Forum is just days away now and word is that it's attracted over 800 attendees.  Can you tell I'm excited about it?  We just finished editing a reel of our work which ties into our "Beta Theme" (be sure to check out end of video).  You can see the reel here.  We'll be turning on our live "Beta Cam" and from the hours of 9-5 while at the event on from October 11-12, so you'll be able to get a first hand perspective of the kinds of stuff we talk about at this kind of shin dig.  In fact, if you are coming and want to be on the Beta Cam, please stop by—we're going to be asking folks the following question:

"What does always being in beta mean to you"?

Lastly, there will be some active participants from the social media space all under one roof.  A few people that I know of right off the bat are:

Karl Long
Deborah Shultz
Jeremiah Owyang
Marianne Richmond
Peter Kim
Charlene Li + Josh Bernoff
Bruce Temkin
Uwe Hook

I'm sure I'm missing many.  So are you going?  If so, speak up and I'll add your link to the list.  Look forward to seeing you there!

Update:
We'll be turning on the beta cam on October 9th at 12:00 CST—I'll be doing an interview with Neil Clemmons

The 4 C's of Blogging

I originally wrote the "4 C's of blogging" back in June of 2006.  I expanded upon them in my "Conversation By Design" presentation and most recently referenced them in an interview with Crains.  So I thought it might be a good idea to put together a post with the highlights for what it takes to create a great blog experience (in my opinion).  They are:

Anyway, that's what's worked for me.  And the tactics evolve—for example, I use Twitter these days for keeping up with my community.  So what works for you?

Blog of the Day: Campbell on Branding + Innovation

This blog of the day comes at a good time.  With BusinessWeek's listing of the top design schools (yes, both Pratt + IIT's Institute of Design both made the cut)—Jon Cambell's brand spankin' new blog and and his fairly new status as a design student provide the perfect opportunity to get an insight into what this whole design/business thing is all about.

Though still new, Campbell on Branding + Innovation provides a student's eye view on topics such as "down and dirty prototyping", Twitter as a research tool, and he laments over the reactions he got when going public with his news to leave Harley-Davidson in the pursuit of a Masters of Design Methods.

I met Jon briefly at the Design Strategy conference a few weeks ago and we talked about the need for marketers to better understand a design philosophy that blends a comprehensive understanding of both business and human behavior.  Sadly—I rarely see marketers attend these types of events, though occasionally they'll get invited to speak at them.

Jon also played a role on the Harley-Davidson widget—which I still feel is a great example of how a brand can distribute it's content on the Web in an engaging fashion.  So check it out—at the very least, you might get a virtual crash course in "design thinking".

The Road to Dell: Part One

Unlike Jarvis, my journey on the road to Dell didn't start as a customer—it started as a blogger.  On February 27, 2007 I received the following comment on this post from "RichardatDell"

"Hi David Enjoyed reading the dialogue here about keeping up with the real world versus the omnipresent school demands. Thought your talk at Loyola sounded like a good one. As you point out Jeff Jarvis and Dell are certainly integral case studies to be learned from....in the same way that we at Dell learned. Not sure there is any specific roadmap. Certainly we learn everyday from our conversations at Direct2dell; around the blogosphere; at StudioDell; in SecondLife;Michael Dell's meeting with bloggers at the Consumer Electronics show and at Dell's IdeaStorm...and all of that is leading to exciting new chapters for us as we engage direct with customers using various digital media. Should you ever want more detailed information about our journey beyond Dell hell, please let us know."

At the time, I was working with Digitas (full disclosure, Dell is a Critical Mass client).  Like many other participants in social media, I was taken back by Richard's willingness to engage and even acknowledge things I was saying in my post.  Months later, I featured several of Dell's initiatives in a Webinar I did for Marketing Profs. Out of all the mega companies of the world, it was pretty amazing to see one tapping into several "2.0" initiatives all at once, including Direct2Dell, Ideastorm, and Studio Dell to name a few.  Not to mention their presence in Second Life and Twitter.  So intrigued was I with Dell's initiatives and willingness to engage folks online that I included their efforts as a pillar in my BusinessWeek article titled "It's The Conversation Economy Stupid"

So what am I doing in Austin?  To be honest, I really don't know exactly.  I've been invited here at the co-request of Richard Binhammer and our Dell client.   I've disguised my Mac (see picture) as it's been made clear to me that the safety of a non Dell laptop cannot be guaranteed down here at Dell HQ.  And yes—I really did buy that cowboy hat.  I'm wearing it now in fact (sorry, no boots).  But you can see me in the hat over at Richard's place.

Tomorrow I'm going to be involved in several meetings that will last most of the day.  I'm not really sure what to expect.  But after having dinner I can tell you this.  The folks at Dell aren't satisfied and want to do even better.  They're hungry.  And here's something else I want you to chew on (pun not intended).  I spoke with the head of their communications group—they guy responsible for many of the community initiatives and it was clear that Dell has been nearly obsessively engrossed in this space since early '06.  What stood out to me the most was this one statement (this is not the exact quote, but fairly close to it)

"It's painful to sit down with agencies and listen to them talk about social media etc.  We're so far ahead of them it's not even funny"

Did you hear that?  I believe the statement was in reference to both advertising and even PR agencies.  In the conversation that followed we talked about how some agencies still viewed digital as a "channel" to push their Ads through.  Clearly Dell has moved past this in how they engage with customers as initiatives such as Idea Storm illustrate.  We also discussed some challenges that lie ahead for Dell—I think Dell may be one of the early case studies of a large company who has to deal not only with the experience across multiple digital and non digital channels, but also having multiple "social channels" to contend with as part of the total customer experience.  I have a feeling we'll be discussing some of these challenges tomorrow.  And I'm hoping to get a sneak peak into their design lab! (no pictures allowed on that one)

Oh and one last thing.  I think Dell has a huge opportunity as a brand.  Here's a personal opinion and one that I am sharing freely with them.  I think Dell needs to be the opposite of Apple—not a carbon copy.  The "anti-Apple" if you will.  The "I'm a Mac and I'm a PC" Ads capture one thing perfectly.  Apple is the cool kid.  Microsoft is the nerd. (we're talking perception here).  But I don't think anyone owns what I call "Geek Chic".  It's that sweet spot when you are actually so geeky—so unbelievably geeky and into the mechanics of digital that it's actually downright cool.  This doesn't mean their products can't be sleek and desirable—they can, just in a "Geek Chic" kind of way.  I think their Devo spot is on to something—maybe it's the start of the Dell to come?  Anyway, it's just a thought—I'm looking forward to tomorrow.  And speaking of "Geek Chic" check out this video featuring John and Richard from Dell with a special appearance from Connie Reece. :-)

Always In Beta at The Forrester Consumer Forum

Talk with us at alwaysinbeta.criticalmass.com

Next week is Forrester's Consumer Forum in Chicago.  I'll be moderating a panel with Manish Mehta of Dell and Stan Joosten from P&G.  We're going to be talking about what it means to be "beta"—and how it's shaping our view of the way we connect with customers. Here's how the panel is billed:

"Innovation isn’t limited to R+D rooms anymore. The Web 2.0 movement—powered by scrappy start-ups such as Twitter, Malhalo and even YouTube have proven that innovation often happens in iterations. Build, launch, tweak, measure, and repeat.  Techniques like Mash-ups enable faster development and more experimentation with a range of tools from mapping to community to data feeds.  Digital experiences seem to be “always in beta”—learning and evolving along the way."

In addition to the panel, I've been working behind the scenes with a small team to launch our "Always In Beta" site. The site will contain a live video stream from the Critical Mass booth which will be broadcast from our booth on October 11th.  Anyone from anywhere in the world can chat with us in real time.  The chat feature is live now so feel free to stop by—you never know when someone will be there to talk to you.

In addition to the site, we're going to try something a bit different for the panel format.  I will be inviting the audience to text messages to a visible screen during our discussion.  Halfway through the discussion, I will start to address questions and thoughts from the screen which will be aggregated as they come in.  (See below)

(visual by Kevin Schnabel)

The point of both these experiments is just that—we're willing to try some new things.  We don't know how the formats will go down—if the video will work properly, what people will say in the chat or through SMS on the panel.  But this is awfully similar to what's happening in the real world right?  People are going to talk about you and your brand in ways you can't always predict.  It then becomes our choice to either help facilitate these conversations, or put our heads in the sand and pretend that the world isn't spinning.  Plus, we think it's just a good opportunity to try something out and learn from it.

November Is a Good Month For Keynotes

I have the honor of speaking at two really cool upcoming events.  First, I'll be the closing Keynote at Jared Spool's UI12. I'll be presenting a modified version of "The Fuzzy Tail", and I'm really excited about this one.  Jared tells me it's a first having a Keynote invited from a design background.  UI12 falls during the same week as Dux (November 5th), but honestly with speakers such as Luke Wrobleowski, Scott Berkun, Kim Goodwin, and Jared himself among others, I'm super happy about being in Cambridge that week!

Then on the heels of Thanksgiving, I'll be doing the closing Keynote at CanUX where I'll be talking about how user experience is transforming the agency.  More on that one later.  So some interesting stuff coming up as the leaves change their colors.  Hope to see you at either.

Permission to Fail

When was the last time you gave yourself permission to fail?  Seriously.  When was the last time you said screw it, if this doesn't succeed, at least I gave it a shot--at least I did something.  When was the last time you did the right thing--even if the only person you needed to prove something to was yourself.  When was the last time you had a good night's rest, because deep down in side--you did something you believed in.  Speaking of, when was the last time you believed?