Insights from Nebo

We had our second installment of our book club this week. The entire team read "Back of the Napkin" by Dan Roam. I put together the presentation for this one because it's a topic really love, and I wanted us to all read a book about visual thinking.

We eased into the idea of visual thinking by watching a vintage Kermit the Frog video circa 1966. Then we went through the key high-level ideas from the book that I felt were the most important.

To help bring the lesson to life I walked the group through two visualization exercises:

1) We drew toast.

Yes...I asked everyone to draw "how you make toast". The point being was a) everyone thinks differently and b) they're are multiple ways to communicate successfully with visuals. Drawing a 10 step flow chart of how bread comes out of a bag and ultimately ends up golden brown with jam on it illustrates how you make toast...similarly, the drawing of ordering a piece of toast from a server at a restaurant who is writing down "toast" is ALSO a way to make toast...ish.

2) Next I created what I called a "VISUATHALON!"

This one just really got people up and thinking and drawing - and that was the point. Creating an exercise for eleven people + one white board + twenty mintues = challenging but basically we all came up with words - we swapped words...and we drew them. We didn't end up with a cohesive story told through pictures - but we had a LOT of fun talking about our end result!

Most importantly, everyone had a good time and I think we all got something out of it!

Gesture based user interfaces were once considered nothing more than science fiction fantasy. I remember everyone talking about the computer interface used by Tom Cruise in Minority Report, and asking when will it finally come to fruition. Well, thanks to the smart folks at MIT. It looks like the future is almost here.

Watch Patti Maes demo some of very interesting advances in interface technology from the MIT media lab.

Ask any web developer, designer, or web application programmer what they like least about web design, and 9 times out of 10 the answer will be browser compatibility issues, and more specifically, bad browsers. As a web developer, designer, online marketer, and overall web enthusiast, I am always excited to see great browsers gain market share. Today in particular, I noticed that Firefox became the number one web browser of choice for users on w3schools.com, with 46% of the total visitors in January.

Besides the overall elation of seeing Firefox succeed due its superior product features, there is a bigger picture here: compatibility. Every website has a different user base and demographic, and as a site owner, you should be monitoring what browsers your visitors are using to view your site. It's easy to overlook outdated web browsers such as IE6, but a good portion of the users that visit your site may experience problems or have formatting issues if you are not fully cross-browser compliant. It's good to see that people are switching over to improved browsers, but we still have a long way to go. Click here to get Firefox.

In our five years, we've worked with quite a few startups. We love to watch their progression and to see them grow. Over the past two years we've been working with CardPricer.com, a sports card valuation site. We overhauled the brand, gave consultation on the business model, redesigned the website & the application interface, and are about to launch a new pricing engine for them.

So we were extremely pleased to see them featured on TechCrunch's homepage. Congrats to the CardPricer.com team! We look forward to your continued success!

CardPricer Covered by TechCrunch

Quick side note: we've always been curious about what the value of a TechCrunch mention means in terms of traffic. Since this gives us the perfect opportunity to test, we'll be following up with a blog post next week outlining the "TechCrunch Effect", so stay tuned...

After each presidential campaign analysts always create "how they won" articles and case studies that outline key points that led to a candidate's success. And after a big win such as the one that took place in November, multiple versions of the "how obama won" narrative are being crafted. He won by understanding the primary process better than his competitors, he won by going back to basics and emphasizing traditional offline organizing tactics supplemented with online technology (peer to peer communications & canvassing), and of course he won by using social media.

Exploring the social media narrative and pointing out some rather impressive statistics on the scope & reach of the online campaign is a very detailed presentation by Igor Beuker to 150 marketers at the SRM Guru meeting 2009 in Amsterdam.

The presentation is embedded below.

A successful project starts with a great brief, but all too often the brief is looked at as merely a step in the process. A checkbox to be filled before design starts.

What is a good project brief?

Simple, it's one that provides much needed context (including goals) and guides the team towards a solution. If you want great work to come out at the end of the process; you have to have great work at the beginning of the process.

The classic example to illustrate the importance of briefs is the Sistine Chapel (yes, there was a brief for that).

Below are a variety of different approaches that Michelangelo could've received. One of these is the real one.

1.) Please paint the ceiling

2.) Please paint the ceiling using red, green and yellow paint

3.) We've got terrible problems with our ceiling. Can you cover it up for us?

4.) Please paint biblical scenes on the ceiling incorporating the following: God, Adam, Angels, Devils & Saints.

5.) Please paint our ceiling for the greater glory of God, and as an inspiration and lesson to his people.

It's probably pretty obvious which is the real one. The last option (#5) is the brief he actually received. "Please paint our ceiling for the greater glory of God, and as an inspiration and lesson to his people." It states the task at hand, elucidates the goals and is inspirational. It includes the core elements of what makes a great project brief.

So remember, great work starts with a great brief.