random things I find interesting

Last week we attended the Future of Web Design conference (FOWD) in New York City. We actually volunteered for the day to sit on the other side of the table and see how these events work. We spent the morning at the registration booth helping the nice folks from Carsonified. The rest of the afternoon we helped out here and there and attended the event. We met some great people, heard some fantastic presentations and a good day was had.

I was going to write a recap but I found this deck, “Compressing 8 hours into 25 minutes” that pretty much sums it up so I took the easy way out. Below is the recap and few other tidbits gathered from around the web for your viewing pleasure.

FOWD Highlights: Compressing 8 hours into 25 minutes

Joshua Davis: Space
The language may be rough for some and put put your earbuds in if your at work. It’s only about 20 minutes of the presentation but it’s humorous, inspiring and our favorite talk of the event. Make sure to check out his work at his website http://www.joshuadavis.com/.

Joshua Davis at FOWD NY from Christoph on Vimeo.

Elliot Jay Stocks: Stop Worrying & Get On With It

Mike Kus: 3 Dimensional Thinking
(Best viewed with 3D glasses)
http://mikekus.com/3d/fowd/slides/index.html

FOWD Conference Notes
A nice recap of a few of the presentations at Swiss Miss. Make sure to check out the “talk stats”.
http://www.swiss-miss.com/2009/11/fowd-09-dan-cederholm.html

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Dave and Jenny McGee, are great friends of ours along with their two beautiful children, have been living in El Salvador working with an organization called Enlace. Jenny is an extraordinary person and a talented artist and designer who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and upon the discovery, they had to quickly move back to the states for treatment. We are pulling together, with other friends and family, to raise money to help them get through this difficult time. To lend a hand, we are featuring Jenny’s Bird Nerd Photoshop brushes she made exclusively for Mediaslap. 100% of the proceeds are going to their family to help with expenses and daily needs.

Buy a set of these Photoshop Brushes and help this wonderful family destroy cancer!

Other Ways to Help
The challenges of this are obvious and financial contributions are a simple way to help. Donate here.

Visit their Website and purchase one, two, three or more of Jenny’s Posters, T-Shirts and other creations in the Cure Cancer Store.

Join the Facebook group Climb Out Cancer.

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How to Talk to Clients Without Being a Jerk

A big part of my professional role involves client management and education— putting complex scenarios and processes in simple understandable terms. When faced with a mind boggling question or situation, addressing it in a clear easy to understand manner can build trust and strengthen relationships. The more people understand and grasp what they want and need to know, can mean the difference between a project becoming a big cluster or it running smooth as butter. And above all—the most difficult part—doing all of this without losing your cool.

I want to share a few suggestions occasionally—how to handle mind boggling questions or situations cool like Fonzie when your first inclination is to be a jerk.

Situation
At your first wireframe review meeting, a random guy (who’s never been in any of the prior conversations) decides to join and chime in. “What is the deal with these black and white boxes and arrows on paper, when can I start to click and see things move!”

“What you want to say is… ” Seriously! #$*@!, We can’t make your website work if we don’t know what the heck we are building…I’ll give you something to click on.

“What you should say is… “ I know you are anxious to get things rolling, we also want to move as fast as possible…” Then use analogies to help them understand processes and deliverables. For example, a wireframe is like the blueprint for your website, same as you have a blueprint before you start building a house, we are building a blueprint for your website. We may show you sketches or boxes and arrows along the way, we are laying the foundation for both of us to understand what we are building and how. Luckily you’ll probably never see that guy again.

Situation
Client calls and asks why the image they just uploaded to their site will not show up. (It’s in a Word doc.)

“What you want to say is…” Holy &#@S! are you kidding me, Word is used for “Words”. Read the extra large text in red that says, “ALL IMAGES MUST BE IN JPEG FORMAT”…then call me.

What you should say is…” Word documents really work best for processing copy even though you can place images within them. On the web, Word files are read as documents, not images. The easiest way to make sure you are not getting the error again is to directly upload the Jpeg you placed in the Word document.

Situation
Potential client says “Maybe you should look at how Joe’s Discount Website World runs their business, they can give me the same thing for 1/2 the costs”.

“What you want to do is…” Throw up all over the conference table while laughing hysterically and bid them good riddance.

“What you should do is…” Keep your cool, explain the obvious, that different businesses in any industry have varying level’s of quality, processes, experience, expertise and business models. You can buy a new BMW or you can buy a used Ford Focus, they are both cars and will get you around town but one has more value longevity, higher quality and etc. (You get what you pay for). Of course you’ve just identified that the relationship is not a good fit for you, so kindly thank them for their time, wish them the best of luck and exit promptly.

Working with people in general can be a constant game of biting your tongue. When you respect others point-of-view (especially when you disagree) and keep your cool when faced with adverse or annoying situations, it goes a very long way.

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There is a must read article posted today at IdeasonIdeas.com titled, “More mess; less B.S. (or: Nine simple suggestions for using social media)”. Eric Karjaluoto calls for less B.S. in social media. How about less B.S. in general in our industry. Whether it’s the self proclaimed social media “expert” or traditional ad agency wearing an “interactive” mask, less snake oil would most likely be good for everyone.

I am a believer in less fluff and telling it how it is and the article does just that. It provides clear practical advice to utilizing a space that is filling with hocus pocus foolery. More mess; less B.S. (or: Nine simple suggestions for using social media)…tells it like it is. Amen.

From IdeasonIdeas: There are a lot of social media experts out there, and I’m not one of them. I don’t think your business needs a Facebook Page (actually, I say that they’re largely bunk); meanwhile, I feel that a lot of “blogger outreach” is an outright waste of time. In fact, I argue that you should probably ignore a lot of tools and features out there. The following post is a summary of my talk at SEGD ’09 in San Diego last week. Read the full post Social Networkers want Humans Not Brands.

Related at Coreycanada.com
Social Networkers want Humans not Brands

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