Design School

A group of design students toured a shop I'm working with, so I demonstrated UX by doing a quick survey.

• Interested in print design? All but one.
• Interested in digital design? Just a few.

It's the opposite of what I would have predicted.

Are they in love with print because it's retro? Because they see digital as just ads?

They played along with the joke that I had just perpetrated user research on them.

Content Strategy: Yes

A friend's kid wants to be a copywriter. I was like, "Honey, what do they teach kids in school these days?"

Copywriting isn't just words for print, anymore, unless you want to get left way behind -- it's  part of content strategy, spanning media and platforms, across the website, mobile, and social, including:

• Will there be video clips? Images? Product descriptions? 
• What will/does the CMS do about tagging and structuring content?
• SEO and HTML: What's your plan for the H1s, H2, H3s,  URLs and keywords?
• Email marketing and retention: Planning for who gets what messages, when.
• Customer service: You'll need autoreplies, followups and recommendations for guiding the call center people.

And that's just a taste.

"Content strategy refers to the planning, development, and management of informational content—written or in other media. The term is particularly common in web development since the late 1990s. It is recognized as a field in user experience design but also draws interest from adjacent communities such as content management, business analysis, and technical communication." -- Wikipedia

"Our industry is growing. Which means it’s changing. I believe a certain amount of Defining The Damn Thing (DTDT) is necessary, as it helps us clarify the boundaries of what we do. Sometimes I get frustrated by our inability to settle on a standard set of labels and descriptions for what we do, and I laughed a bit when we were mocked by the US News and World Report Best Careers 2009 report for not being able to agree on a name for ourselves." -- Karen McGrane 

100 Years Ago, a Match was an iPhone

Today, the magical device in your hand that illuminates the world and makes knowledge accessible is an iPhone: tapping on a piece of glass is all it takes to make or get words, movies, photos and music.

100 years ago, when you had to light a candle to read a newspaper, draw or play an instrument, a match to kindle the flame was the special tool that let you get and create information.

When fire was the only way to bring light to darkness, matches were precious objects -- the technological equivalent of an ISP.

People carried match safes in their pockets in those days, made of gold, from Faberge; silver and enamel, or brass -- with a matching pocket inkwell, for 19th century texting. The  small boxes were so well made that collectors buy them now, at auction houses and on eBay and etsy.

100 years from now, what will people carry in their pockets? What will the updated version of a Vespa case look like? What will bring knowledge, words, pictures, music and light out of darkness then?

It Starts with a Tweet

AVC.com always has great posts.

In this one, "Understanding Twitter," the comments show enormous support for a tool that already seems like it's always been around, even though it's still new.

Twitter is so many things, and they all start with tweets:

-- Community: crises, disasters
-- Promotion: events, products, brands
-- News and information: #ongoing #topics
-- Personal AP wire: people tweeting to their communities as editors/curators
-- Personal/public: friends @ friends

I have just about abandoned my Facebook account and use Twitter in pretty much all these ways.

You?

Startup Idea: Summer Camp Registration Clearinghouse

This would be so huge so fast -- the Summer Camp Registration Clearinghouse.

1. Camps post schedules and descriptions.
2. Parents search, select, register: One ID, one website.
3. Camps get paid.

Perfect, right?

If You're Not Going to Let Me Buy the Song, At Least Make it Simple

Subtitled: Why Piracy Will Never Go Away
Also subtitled: Reducing Friction for Content Is the Definition of Digital

So, I had a musical flashback to "Jokerman," which is on a couple of Dylan albums I have on CD and in iTunes. Awesome.

Is there a live version on iTunes? Yes, but it took two clicks to find out why and how I can't buy it.


The first message said it's not available in the US store, and directed me to the Ireland store.

Clumsy, but okay -- until the second message said nyah, nyah, nyah; people in the US can't buy a song from a store someplace else.

This is two levels of foolish.

1. If iTunes won't sell it to me, one message saying so would suffice.

2. A backend that can deny a sale to a US IP address/iTunes ID should also be smart enough to prevent a pointless redirect.

Of course, just allowing a sale to someone who wants to buy something would have been the smart customer experience.

The forced restrictions took me back to college, when my music geek friends who had really enormous speakers were enraptured with their latest "import" album purchases -- social objects that were obscure and expensive and difficut to acquire.

But digital should mean the end of all that. Digital doesn't care where you are. Digital crosses all borders. Digital just is.

And there are many, many, many live versions of "Jokerman" on YouTube, from everywhere.

Postscript: A friend who used to work at a music label said the restrictions are probably more of a case of forgetting to manage the back catalog than attempts to restrict markets geographically, which is worse in some ways and better in others.

You Could Do Something to Stop #SOPA.

This site could disappear forever. Lots more, too.

You could call or email Congress with a click.

You could go on strike.

You could see where your reps stand in your state.

Or you could do nothing.