Web conferences have become host to the new wave of viral tools and technologies that are enhancing community and business meetings. Carlson Marketing calls this next-gen conference style ‘Meetings 2.0.’ As a worldwide enabler of business meetings, Carlson has added mobile tools and social networking to their meetings and events offerings, which expands the experience from just ‘During’ to include ‘Before’ and ‘After.’

Twead carefully during your keynote

Recently, at the Toronto Mesh web conference, a lot was revealed about the future of conferences. Specifically, the massive impact of mobile devices and social media tools on these types of get-togethers. The communication vehicle of choice? Twitter, of course. During the two-day event, power-tweeters (frequent users of Twitter) introduced the power and benefits of micro-blogging to dozens of twuddites. (Twitter luddites)

What was the call to action for these new adopters? Easily a quarter of the audience members in any given session had laptops open, and half of them were twittering amongst themselves, expanding the presentations and panels to deep discussions in the seats.

Twemes, a Twitter API implemetation, further enabled the conversation between tweeters, as Mesh attendees or ‘Meshies’ tagged their 140-character-or-less comments with ‘#mesh08,’ allowing the community to follow the discussion in real time as the comments rolled by. You can see all of these comments aggregated here.

I recommend trying out Twemes.com: ideally, follow a “hot pick” in the top right corner (these are usually conferences) and click “start live update” to see the topic-tagged twitters roll by. You can imagine the additional engagement this provides for events and conferences.

The added value of the Twitter conversation backchannel was obvious. During the conference, Meshies were using Twitter to discuss the future of music as a business model, and taking the liberty of re-branding Saturn’s awkwardly named social network ImSaturn (the marketer from Saturn tried desperately to point us to the correct URL, but stumbled through the difficult address).

Do we even have to attend anymore?

ScribbleLive was unveiled at Mesh ‘08, a live blogging platform with real-time updates. In this forum, ScribbleLive users live-blogged forums and presentations, allowing multi-taskers and attendees in other sessions follow multiple discussions. For a great example of the group blogging output, check out the live blog of Steve Jobs’ Keynote at the WWDC, including his announcement of the new iPhone 3G.

My mobile meeting manager

Mesh ‘08 also boasted an impressive, although slightly off-the-mark blackberry app. The technically-oriented (crackberry-addicted) audience presented an optimal opportunity for Sweet Caesar to offer a free downloadable guide to the event. The features and user experience of the app were quite valuable, even though it just left me wanting more.

Among the features were a venue map, schedule and presenter bios. Unfortunately, this information didn’t update over the two days and was incorrect (as conference schedules go) as soon as the first keynote began. Overall however, the implementation demonstrated the potential for great value in the future. Now event planners must consider “What is my mobile strategy?” “What is my web strategy?” Maybe next time we’ll see the integration of Twitter, ScribbleLive and social networking tools to enhance our next Mesh (or your next conference’s) experience.

Look for Part 2 of my post on the evolution of Meetings and Conferences: Meeting virtually in real life (Part 2): Entertain us, we’re bored and twittering.

Filed under: Future, Marketing, Social Networking, Twitter, Web Strategy by Craig Ritchie
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Commoncraft does it again. Thanks Lee Lefever and crew.

Social Media in Plain English from leelefever on Vimeo.

Filed under: Social Media by Craig Ritchie
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For a recent project, I needed to quickly produce a timeline of events. I thought this would be a great idea for a web tool and app across social media. It turned out that < a href=”http://www.dipity.com”>Dipity is already doing a great job with their timeline product, I was happy to find. Now, they’ve mashed up their UGC timeline generator with the YouTube API to create TimeTube. Brilliant.

Now I just need a tool to keep all of these great new tools organized in my brain so that I can remember them nanoseconds after the need arises…

Filed under: Social Media, User-generated Content, Web 2.0 by Craig Ritchie
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While Seth Godin is questioning the longevity of everyone’s patience for “Green” marketing, Dell has achieved great success in its current campaign, “What does ‘green’ mean to you?” In partnership with and in support of Regeneration.org, Facebookers can use the Graffiti tool to enter their artwork to be voted on by their fellow social networkers.

More than 7,000 entries have been submitted.

The top 150 (yes, One Hundred and Fifty, not top 10 or 20…) are now available for voting, and the quality of art is astonishing. Spend some time in the virtual art show here.

Also notable is the quality of the conversation and virulence of the campaign. The discussion board boasts more than 100 topics, with conversation ranging from Global Warming - Real, or Hoax?” to sub-campaigns started by the participants suggesting that competitors “Rate the Person Above You’s Grafitti!!”

The engagement reaches beyond the page as 1,471 Facebook fans are spreading word of the campaign.

Quite simply put, there is a monumental difference between social media strategies that sputter and die because of lack of knowledge and direction, and successful campaigns like this one that is lead by expertise and focus.

Hat tip to Jeremiah Owyang (twitter @jowyang) once again for the link.

Filed under: Facebook, Marketing, Social Media, Social Networking, User-generated Content, Web Strategy by Craig Ritchie
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I try to be nice and polite to all of my friends still in the print industry. But, when reading simple arguments against the medium like this one from Jeff Jarvis, it’s hard to make the argument for spending time or money using print as a medium for engagement.

“Yes, print is a burden. It’s expensive to produce for it. It’s expensive to manufacture. It’s expensive to deliver. It limits your space. It limits your timing. It’s stale when it’s fresh. It is one-size-fits-all and can’t be adapted to the needs of each user. It comes with no ability to click for more. It has no search. It can’t be forwarded. It has no archive. It kills trees. It uses energy. It usually brings unions. And you really should recycle it. Wow, when you think about it, print sucks.”

And at this point, there really are very few markets and demographics that can’t be best targetted online.

For the rest of Jeff Jarvis’ insight, check out the Buzz Machine blog.

Filed under: Uncategorized by Craig Ritchie
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Oh YEAH! The community of programmers at the recent Drupalcon in Boston was a passionate mob of some of the best minds in web creation. They’ve built a great product, and it’s about to hit the mainstream — in a torrential flood of mass adoption.

What sites should run Drupal?

Yours.

What is Drupal? A content and community management system. In a nutshell, everything your CMS does, Drupal does it better.

The key point for the hundreds of Drupal developers in Boston? From the creator of Drupal himself, Dries Buytaert, “Release the Killer App.”

Buytaert outlined a few key improvements to meet this ambitious goal that are in the works for Drupal version 7, due in a few months. Future killer app release aside, the features and benefits of Drupal are already very apparent in the latest implementations.

Drupal shops demonstrated several impressive case studies in Boston, with a wide range of product goals and technological implementations. The key point? It’s not just “Freaks and geeks” that are using Drupal for their World of Warcraft blogs.*

So what can one create with Drupal?

Drupal boasts over 3,400 “modules.” These code sets bolt on to one’s Core Drupal site in minutes — or as fast as your server can accept file transfers… With these modules, some Drupal rockstar developers and themers and some great team leaders, these are six examples of the amazing creations that are possible.

Popular Science (www.popsci.com)

“We wanted to practice what we preach.” - The PopSci Team.

Pingvision, one of the newish self-described ‘Drupal shops’ worked with the PopSci Interactive team to produce the online presence of the famous print magazine devoted to innovation. You can read the full case study here.

Pingvision developed a blog-style interface with publishing and workflow managment for the content creators. To meet some of the specifications, Pingvision’s developers created new modules, and is currently making them available for all Drupal users.

Zuda Comics (www.zudacomics.com)

“IBM endorses and implements Drupal.” — Oliver Siodmak, Associate Partner, IBM Global Business Services

Zuda is DC Comics’ foray into online community for comic readers — a market that is nowhere near the size of the 90s equivalent, but one that is even more passionate than ever. Zuda attempts to find the next Superman, 300 or 30 days of night, comic books-turned movies that have built cash-raking brands for DC.

Comic creators can submit their work to the community for rating. Popular work can earn these artists and writers huge opportunity in the form of a contract with DC.

IBM produced the site, executing a brilliant theme and interface for reading and rating comics on screen. The full case study is here.

Fast Company (www.fastcompany.com)

“We spent a lot of money on that, and now it’s yours.” — Ed Sussman, Fast Company Team Lead on sharing a customized module with the Drupal community.

At the Boston Drupalcon, the hybrid team of multiple companies presenting new Fast Company online community seemed to be breathing a sigh of relief. The 120-pages of information architecture proved to be a challenge to Drupalize; the 500K strong existing community from Fast Company’s legacy site was obviously a task to integrate; and the hard launch date required to unveil at the Inc500 conference was unforgiving, but the outcome is impressive.

See the case study here.

Fast Company 2.0-ifyed it’s community with new tools, a new interface and a new spike in engagement. The team reports acceleration in traffic and time-on-site. If you join one site on this list, make it this one.

Warner Bros. Records Artists’ Communities

“The web site is the centre of the company.” — Ethan Kaplan, Warner Bros. Head of Technology

Warner Bros. has fully embraced Drupal as their solution-of-choice for all of their artists’ web sites. Fans of Britney (whoops, Britney.com’s been Drupalized, but she ain’t on Warner Bros., she’s on Sony BMG, so I dunno, let’s go with) Ashley Tisdale, Josh Groban, Avenged Sevenfold, Michael Buble and My Chemical Romance are enjoying new communities built around their respective and unique needs and wants.

The Warner Bros. web team boasted speed to market as one Drupal’s main benefits — they have launched more than 50 web communities in the past year, with unique databases, modules and themes (wild and crazy pink for Britney’s young fans; sparkling head shots and big type for Josh Groban’s more mature audience). The sites’ retention, according to the technical lead, easily quadruples when they switch from the one-way flash sites to Drupal’s user-empowering engine.

Amnesty International (www.amnesty.org)

Developer and business teams around the world worked together to produce the new Amnesty International web site. This implementation features Drupal’s highly-scalable localization (translation) module, including RTL (right-to-left for Arabic). CivicActions developed the site to add future languages with ease. Read the full case study here.

Rockband (www.rockband.com)

… And Drupal’s okay with Flash too. Check out Rockband’s appropriately loud and abrasive experience for a great example.

You can download Drupal at www.Drupal.org and start building your community.

Filed under: CMS, Community, Drupal, Web 2.0, Web Strategy by Craig Ritchie
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I don’t know if you’re experiencing it too, but if 2007 saw a social explosion online, the first quarter of 2008 is witness to the fallout. As Facebook adoption slows, Twitter is exploding with new users, LinkedIn’s engagement seems to be soaring, and niche social media sites are finding their stride among an empowered prosumer population. I’ve spent the last few months using a multitude of tools, and finding new life outside of Facebook.

The fallout is everywhere, and new, real growth from that fallout is happening thanks to users spanning beyond the early adopters and tech-savvy teens. So, ‘Hi’ to the grandmothers and other “late adopters” (CEOs?) out there joining the conversation. It’s richer now, and we’re all benefiting.

Filed under: Community, Social Media, Social Networking, Twitter, Web 2.0 by Craig Ritchie
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Seth wrote a blog post about me. Well, kind of.

Filed under: Marketing, Web, Web Strategy by Craig Ritchie
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The multitude of new social networks - Facebook, MySpace and Dogster alike - are complaining that users no longer have any loyalty. They arrive, create profiles, upload some photos, and stumble on to (upon?) a new tool or community and move on, sometimes never to be seen again.

(Consequently, marketers are very worried about what this foreshadows for their brands. That’s another blog post, however, and more suited to my new (shameless plug alert) blog, Badvocates.com.)

To build a strategy that prepares for this, each community should consider focusing on the five ‘I’s of online community. They aren’t rocket science, but they address the common mistake that site and tool builders are making: focusing on the hip and nifty 2.0 technology at the expense of defining the true value of that tech and the community one hopes it will foster.

Take twitter for example — launched in June of 2006, and the favourite of the elite when trying to sound in the know. Half a million users and a thousand copy cats. But most non-twitterers, and even many twitterers themselves, still question the value of the tool.

Twitter, and the designers of your online community (social network, blog, fan page, online brand presence, or twitter rip-off) must consider the five ‘I’s of online communities:

1. Investment

I’m not referring to your VC. But rather your users’ investment, and how you design your community to allow them to invest their time, energy and effort in to your community. The more a user feels they have invested in a community, and the more that community is able to interact with them, the less likely they are to move on to the competition.

2. Incentives

What incentive is there to join? To tell a friend? To stop lurking and really start contibuting to the community?
… And how difficult is it? It’s certainly not enough to say “everyone else is using it” — The public may come, but this fact won’t make them stay… It’s a self-defeating strategy.

3. Information

Arm your users with the info to understand the ever-increasing value of your product. Netvibes does this well — inserting a bright banner on my personal homepage whenever they improve their toolset. (Which I accept and close at my leisure.) Furthermore, arm your users with the ability to advocate your service. Twitter could benefit greatly from this. People are constantly questioning the value of the service, and it’s a difficult concept to sell, unless you’ve tried it.

4. Interaction

Ah yes, the most difficult element to conceive, capture and champion. How do your users interact with each other? How do they even find each other? How do they interact with you? How do you braodcast new improvements? This is the core of Facebook’s value . Members most find out about new applications when friends choose to use them, creating easy access and viral adoption.

5. Innovation

What are you doing better than before? Better than the competition? What’s the next improvement you’re launching? Can your users evangelize it in- and outside of the community?

Ultimately, a successful online community doesn’t come from the tool, it comes from the adoption of that tool and its continued use.

How do you foster online community?

Take these five ‘I’s and turn them into a ‘We.’

Filed under: Community by Craig Ritchie
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Yes, Facebook and Flickr are neat. Tags are cool, and the Long Tail is very intriguing… But where’s this all headed? Microsoft’s latest acquisition, “Photosynth” answers, as demonstrated here.

Filed under: Future, Social Networking, Web 2.0 by Craig Ritchie
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I’m on top of it this time. How you may ask? RSS of course. Commoncraft has posted a new explanation-on-a-whiteboard, about Wikis. Forward it to your n00b friends.

And here’s Commoncraft’s explanation of RSS.

Filed under: Web 2.0 by Craig Ritchie
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I like to pretend I’m on top of things. I ran into this great YouTube from Digital Ethnography At Kansas State University.

See? Great right? I even thought I’d send it over to some bloggers I follow. But I’m four months too late.

Ah well. For more on the Interweb Superhighway, watch this oldie-but-goodie:

Filed under: Web 2.0 by Craig Ritchie
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Add this post on the Canadian Marketing Blog to the list of articles I think everyone I know should read. In fact, if I work with you on any project, please print this article out and read it before we sit down at a meeting.

Let’s do some things that generate buzz; that catch some users’ and customers’ attention. I’m not talking about setting fire to the brand and chopping down the business, just grabbing some momentum and market share and allowing room for some failures. Let’s set some benchmarks.

Filed under: Marketing, Web Strategy by Craig Ritchie
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Wow. My two favourite topics in a single post over at One Degree:

1. The mis- and overuse of flash for no real value; and,
2. A watered-down attempt at UGC (user-generated content) by a corporation

Update: A Sears marketer has posted that this was not an attempt at UGC… good positive follow up on the blog, but really, what was the point of this site anyway?

Update 2: Man, that security guard is creepy.

Filed under: Flash, Marketing, User-generated Content, Web 2.0 by Craig Ritchie
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SEOMoz.org has awarded it’s 2007 Web 2.0 Awards. I’m sure these won’t be annual, as the term 2.0 will soon be obsolete, and the majority of the award winners will probably get picked up by the big sharks in the Internet pool.

Filed under: Social Networking, Web 2.0 by Craig Ritchie
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This great usablility checklist comes from Paper Prototyping: The Fast and Easy Way to Design and Refine User Interfaces (Interactive Technologies) by Carolyn Snyder. Published in 2003, and pertaining to many types of interfaces, I am starting to use it for all of my web projects.

One other question I’ve been asking a lot lately is “Why would anyone want to use this?”

Somewhat surprisingly, many people on many projects don’t have a quick answer.

Usability Checklist

Concepts & Terminology

• Do users understand the terms used in the interface?
• Are there concepts they gloss over or misconstrue?
• For new concepts, is the user able to figure them out?

Navigation, Work Flow & Task Flow

• Are users able to find their way around?
• Will they search, use links, or both?
• If there’s a work flow or sequence of steps, does it match what users expect?
• Do they have to keep flipping back and forth between screens?
• Does the interface ask for inputs that the users don’t have, or don’t want to enter?

Content

• Does the site/interface provide the right information for users to make decisions? What things do they look for?
• Is it useful and/or interesting to them?
• Is ther extra content that they don’t need or that annoys them?

Documentation, Help

• What assistance does the user need to successfully complete tasks?
• What’s the best way to provide that information?
• Can users quickly find the information they need, and make sense of it?

Requirements & Functionality

• Does the interface do the right set of things for its target audience?
• Do users have additional needs that aren’t being satisfied?
• Is there anything you could do to make the user’s life easier?
• Are you planning to implement something that users don’t really need?

Screen Layout

• Is the amount of information per screen overwhelming, not enough, or about right?
• Do users miss seeing something that’s important?
• Are there elements that need to be brought out more in the visual design? Any that distract the user?
• Has white space been used effectively? Images?
• Do we have the right stuff “above the fold?”

Brand

• Does the interface reflect the qualities that the company wants to convey?
• Does the user experience match what the designer intended?
• Are there frustrations or obstacles that can be removed?
• Do users like it?

Colors, Fonts and Other Graphic Elements

• Can users see/read everything well enough?
• Do the most important elements stand out?
• Are there any considerations pertaining to lighting vision difficulties, or color blindness?
• Is the interface aesthetically pleasing?
• Do users understand what the icons mean?

Widgets & Controls

• Do the rollover menus work for users or do they have trouble?
• Do users notice the status line message?
• Can they figure out what the cursor changes mean?
• Will multiple windows be a problem?
• Do the slider controls have the right granularity?
• Did we pick the best keyboard shortcuts?

Response Time & Performance Metrics

• Does the system respond quickly enough to satisfy users?
• Do the pages load fast enough?
• Does the display change quickly enough when the user manipulates a control?
• Are there any download or processing delays that users might find annoying or unacceptable?
• How quickly can users complete this task?

Real-world Use

• How does this tool fit with others that users have?
• What things will annoy power users after 6 months?
• Which of these function are people really going to use?
• What happens when the user is interrupted mid task?

Paper Prototyping also has good techniques to shorten development times and sell ideas to Internet non-experts. Buy it here at Amazon.

Filed under: Usability by Craig Ritchie
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I find great inspiration in Seth’s nuggets of marketing insight. One of his latest perfectly and succinctly describes my current and constant challenges with colleagues and clients. I usually refer to it as “Let’s do it like they do it.”

Seth does it much better — referring to it as “The Within Reason” clause.

It’s time to be unreasonable.

Filed under: Web 2.0 by Craig Ritchie
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Just like a decade ago, corporations are jumping on the Internet – but this time instead of the blanket, uninformed statement “We need a website,” the suits are shouting the trendy war-cry “We need social networking!”

The benefits, when executed correctly, are obvious. Connecting with one’s customers and market in and allowing them to connect with each other at such a deep level is a modern marketer’s ultimate goal, but crowbarring a Facebook clone and blogs into your website probably isn’t the best method.

To anchor and focus the Web 2.0 strategy and planning for any client or web offering, I consistently turn back to Amy Jo Kim’s self-categorized “cult classic” Community Building on the Web: Secret Strategies for Successful Online Communities. It’s a book from 2000, but the concepts remain relevant in the new age of WOW and Wiki, Flickr and Facebook.

Kim outlines the practices she uses to this day for attracting customers and surfers and increasing stickiness to an addictive level. These practices are commonplace today among the best producers of online-ready games and community web sites, but others, including the corporations and organizations who see the potential of 2.0, don’t have the understanding that is truly necessary to drive users to join, build and return with friends in tow. Community Building on the Web pulls many of its concepts from successful offline communities. Ideally, users must feel that they are a part of something, and that their interaction with the site and with other members truly affects the content, direction and focus.

Amazon reviewer Donald Mitchell describes the design strategies Kim espouses, which I expand on here:

1. Define and articulate your PURPOSE

– As quickly as possible, the user must understand, what is the community for; who are the players involved; what are the benefits of joining and participating?

2. Build flexible, extensible gathering PLACES

– The current trend for Web 2.0 sites is to have a “forum” on every page where there is content. Blog-style comments allow users to interact on every page of the site. Where and how can your users interact?

3. Create meaningful and evolving member PROFILES

– Personalization is more than just putting the user’s name at the top of the page and saying “Welcome back.” Just like in offline communities, users need to feel that their personality and profile affects the way the site works for them and how others interact with them. How can you further define your users, thereby further defining your site?

4. Design for a range of ROLES

– As users join and embrace your community, how will you welcome and instruct newcomers; empower and honor your leaders?

5. Develop a strong LEADERSHIP program

– What better way to create stickiness and simplify maintenance than to allow passionate users to create content, police other members while lowering your costs?

6. Encourage appropriate ETIQUETTE

– Arguably the most difficult to implement, appropriate etiquette is more important than one might think. Web 2.0 sites struggle with it now in many different ways, with chain letters, cyber-bullying, copyright infringement and spamming filling up YouTube’s content and commentary. If the users create the content of your site, how does your site’s voice “sound?”

7. Promoting cyclic EVENTS

– How do your groups “meet,” how can you promote performances and competition?

8. Integrate the RITUALS of community life

– Kim uses an older example from the Ultima MMORPG, where advancing levels or rank, much like in school or at a job, becomes much more important if the transition involves an award ceremony, or going out for drinks. How can you create rituals to entice and reward users?

9. Facilitate member-run SUBGROUPS

– Subgroups are the cornerstone Facebook and World of Warcraft. It is simple enough to say, “We’ll allow users to create and join groups or to link up with friends.” The challenge is to match your Subgroup strategies with your site’s purpose. Who can create subgroups and who can join them? What is the process? What are the benefits? How do others know that a user is a part of these groups?

The book also proposes 3 design principles:

1. Design for growth and change

2. Create and maintain feedback loops

3. Empower your members over time

Amy Jo Kim’s “handbook for community builders” should be read by anyone who wants to build a social network.

She currently operates ShuffleBrain and teaches game design at USC.

You can also check out her Musings of a social architect here.

I’ll be first in line if she decides to write a new version of Community Building on the Web.

Filed under: Social Networking by Craig Ritchie
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Hmm… this is the third (?) blog I’ve launched. After attending a blog seminar a few weeks ago starring Mitch Joel of Twist Image, I decided to have another go of it.

I hope to add value to the ’sphere, in fact, that’s been my problem all along with blogging, and with any creative projects — If it’s not good enough, it’s not good enough, and it’s never good enough.

Filed under: Uncategorized by Craig Ritchie
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