I just finished reading IBM’s latest CMO Study and the findings not only support Scott Brinker’s article “CMOs to agencies: adapt or die” where he states 91% of traditional marketing firms are not making the transition to the digital marketing world, it also show the importance for CMOs to understand and be well versed in digital marketing concepts. 

The study also shows the required shift in marketer’s technology understanding is not limited geographically or by business vertical.  1734 CMOs in 64 countries and across 19 industries all agree to succeed in marketing today you need to understand technology.

This chart shows what CMOs perceive to be their biggest headaches and it is no surprise that technology affects every single data point.

Okay so I installed the Windows 8 Consumer Preview on a 7 year old laptop yesterday.  The computer has a 40Gig Hard Drive, 1 Gig of RAM, and running an Intel Pentium 4 single core chip running at 3.06GHz.  A slow machine compared to today’s machines.  In fact these are very close to the specs of my Motorola Xoom. 

Initial impressions

If you remember back to Windows Vista, when you installed the OS everything that was attached to the computer just stopped working.  None of the drivers worked. Well that doesn’t seem to be the case this time around.  All of the drivers installed and work first time out of the box.  Good start.

Hardware Performance

One of the things I was excited about Windows 8 was the fact that is a lighter weight OS.  It should be able to be loaded on older machines and still work pretty well.  So this was part of my test.  This computer originally had Windows XP on it.  It took close to 2 minutes for it to boot up when it was a clean machine.  Even longer as I loaded apps on it.  I then reformatted and installed Umbutu on it and that took close to a minute to boot.  Windows 8 clean install took 46.5 seconds to boot.  Pretty excited about that. 

I was concerned about the active tiles running on the home screen and the amount of memory and CPU they were going to use on an ongoing basis.  Once booted up, active tiles running,  the OS is using 48% of the 1Gig of RAM and the CPU is holding steady at 13%.  It actually drops to zero after a few minutes.  I haven’t found a setting for how frequent the active tiles update but I assume they are not constant. 

User Interface

Well Microsoft has said this OS is design primarily for touch sensitive devices, which this laptop is not, and they weren’t lying.  The hot spot corners and sides will be great for tablet use.  I could even see myself at a desktop with a touch sensitive screen using this.  It however is difficult to get used to when you are trapped still using a mouse.  To be fair the hot spot corners still work well.  It is the closing of apps that is difficult.  Maybe difficult is the wrong word.  More laborious would be a better description.

The active tiles again I think will be wonderful on a touch sensitive device.  They are still functional when using a mouse but not optimal.  The updating of tiles themselves strikes me as one of those features that doesn’t seem helpful at first but over time it grows on you to the point where you wonder, how did I ever get along without this before.  Something I would like to see is the ability to change the rate at which these tiles flip.  This feature might already exist.  I just haven’t found it yet.

Social Media and Cloud Based Services

The designers took the social media movement to heart when designing this.  I use a Motorola Xoom tablet running a Google OS.  I would say Google has integrated all of its tools pretty seamlessly with the Xoom.  They however still hold onto the lines between their software and other vendors.  For instance I need to install a Facebook App and Widget to get Facebook updates on the Xoom.  With Windows 8 as soon as I installed the OS it asked me if a belonged to Google or Facebook.  I filled in my information and everything connected automatically from there.  The default Windows 8 Messaging tile updates with Facebook, Twitter, and IM clients.  I have not seen any Google+ updates though. 

I’ll spend more time with Windows 8 this afternoon. 

 On a side note it took me 5 minutes to figure out how to turn the machine off in the new OS.  This morning it took me 4.5 because I there were so many new things I forgot where it was from yesterday.  Hope that changes over time. 

 

 

Released Too Early?

The new TweetDeck isn’t just a new version of the legacy Adobe Air product; it is a completely new program.  The move makes sense from a business model and software development perspective.  It is a move that was required and I support and respect Twitter for taking on this development effort.

After reviewing the new product however I question whether Twitter released its new TweetDeck version too early for the average TweetDeck user that uses the tool as a means for social networking and communicating.  I can say with relative certainty they released this new software too early for power users that uses the tool for professional networking and for publishing announcements and information related to their products or services.

Why do I think it is too early?  For a simple reason; when a new version of software is release you expect new, improved, and streamlined functionality.  You do not expect for the software to take many step backwards.  I should note that many of these steps backwards are from a user interface (UI) as well as from an underlying technology perspective.  

These steps backward are a problem because users do not care about Twitter’s business model and even less users are concerned about the technology the application is based on.  They just want the application to work.  And, with a new version they want it to work better and faster.  The new version fails from this perspective.

General Navigation

General navigation has become clunky and time consuming.  One of the first things you will notice is the removal of the scroll bar at the bottom of the columns.  This means you are no longer able to scroll smoothly through your columns.  Navigation has become “CLICK” intensive and from a design perspective you should always be trying to reduce clicks.  Speaking of clicking, where should we be clicking?  If you want to move right through your columns you could either click on the right arrow “>” at the top of the applications interface or on the right arrow that is floating in the middle of the wide open wasteland of very valuable UI real-estate on the right hand side of the application.  So now let’s move left.  Unlike moving right when moving left you only have one option for navigating. Back to the top to move left by clicking on the “<”. 

Individual Tweet Navigation

Individual Tweet Navigation has been redesigned and functionality has been reduced.  It may sound like a simple thing but Context Sensitive Help is missing from the entire application.  I am left asking, “What do all of these symbols mean?  How do a send a direct message back to this person?”  There is no help to be found. 

Once you have figured out how to respond and made sure you are responding in the proper fashion (private or in public view) now a popup box appears in the middle of your screen covering the Tweet you may be responding to.  Surprisingly the popup box cannot be moved.  Hope you memorized that Tweet you want to reference.

Without help I am also asking myself how do I attach media to my Tweet?  Well I can tell you the Drag and Drop Media function also no longer exists.

Miscellaneous Other Features are Missing

For those of us that are not up on the “proper way” to abbreviate Tweets the Shrink Tweet function is almost invaluable.  When I am including 5 people to a Tweet the amount of space I have left to actually make what I am saying meaningful is VERY valuable to me and I want to know the most efficient way to use it.  The loose of this feature dramatically makes TweetDeck a less attractive way for me to communicate.

Sticking with the concept that space is valuable I am left searching for the URL shortening feature as well.  Don’t bother searching.  It no longer exists. 

Overview

The list of missing or reduced features goes on and on while the list of improvements is short.  It is my opinion that you should wait for a few more release of this new program before “Upgrading?”.

 

 

 

 

It maybe cold and windy on the Chesapeake Bay and Sassafras River during the winter but we do have clear skies and beautiful sunrises. 

This is the question I hear the most.  The best way I can describe what I do is to say my approach isn't about one creative discipline or two; it's about many.  Sometimes they work independently.  More often they work together to bring about evolution.  Here are a few graphics that I was told sum me skills up pretty well:

I would like to thank everyone for their participation at last night’s BarCampBucks event in New Hope.  I would also like to thank our sponsors again for supporting us and allowing us to bring everyone together.  Our sponsors were:

• Key Marketing: http://www.keymarketing.biz (If you liked the hats please contact Dana Baedke)
• Kazaam Interactive: http://www.kazaamweb.com/
• Mac Outfitters: http://www.macoutfitters.com/
• Blue Plate Minds: http://blueplateminds.com/
• Voice Matters: http://www.voicemattersllc.com/

During the registration and the event many people asked if we hold more of these events and if so how could they get put on the mailing list.  The answer is yes there a few of these events held throughout the year.  Many of these events are organized by Chuck Hall, owner of http://yourmarketingexec.com/.  To help pull us all closer together as community Chuck has created a site where we can all keep track of future events.  The site can be found here: www.DoylestownCalendar.com.  Please visit the site and sign up to be informed about all future events.  Another great resource is the Doylestown group on Facebook.

This Bar Camp event was organized by:

• Michael Rubillo: http://michaeljrubillo.posterous.com/
• William Milnazik: http://www.axisvisual.com/
• Chanin Walsh Milnazik: http://www.brown-dog-design.com/
• Ernest Valtri: http://www.objdesign.com/
• Paul Prizer: http://www.prizerdesign.com/
• Laura Powers: http://www.furiarubel.com/
• Steve Williams: www.stevewilliamsdesignoffice.com

 

Congratulations to the team at Capital Health Hospital for completing their industry leading Hopewell facility on time.  I would like to thank the teams at Skanska, Anchor Health Properties, Horizon Display, Best Buy for Business, Black Box, and Kutzner Manufacturing for helping us at Circular Draw with our small part of the project.  We successfully installed a welcoming 2x2 panel portrait display wall in the main lobby, way-finding screens at the elevator banks, an information display at the art wall exhibit and history wall, and also a specials display at the café.

Welcoming screen in the Main Lobby

Art Wall

History Wall

Cafe and Servery

The Web Page Collection started as a personal project that continued what had started as a childhood hobby of collecting newspapers of historic events that I held some personal attachment to.  As more and more news moved to the web I found I wanted to be able to collect the homepages of news related sites and in turn capture that moment in time. 

I started small by purchasing a screen capture application from the web.  The move from paper to web page brought about a change that I had not anticipated.  I found myself visiting pages on a daily basis not just when special events occurred.  I also found myself capturing pages that were not all news related.  If I had a project to create a webpage for a bicycle company for example I would visit many bicycle website and capture their homepage.  I used these pages not so much to copy from but as market research.  Before I knew it I had a rather large collection of screen shots.     

I have now moved away from the standard screen capture application and developed my own robust tool that runs on a daily bases and logs all of the captures in a database.  It then analyses the HTML components, links, graphics, and objects of the page.   The tool will even compare the current screen shot to the previous capture of the same page and identify if the page’s design has changed and according flag it.  The features of this tool are continually growing.  The combination of the database and screen shots is what I refer to as the Web Page Collection.

Why am I doing this?

Many people have asked me why I do this and as I stated above it started out of purely personal reasons but has now grown into something I use in my professional life. I realized writers perfect their art by absorbing words and grammar through reading.  Mathematicians sharpen their skills by learning numbers, formulas, and by applying what they learn to real world examples.  Website designers and developers in turn should build their visual vocabulary and their eye for design by looking at other website designs and art.

• This project has allowed me to:
• Build a visual vocabulary
• Learn to see instead of just to look
• Acquire good taste when designing
• Acquire an understanding of style
• Recognize personal style
• To communicate better
• Save time by not reinventing the wheel each time
• Stay curious

What I get from this study?

What tangible things do I get from this project?  Well I have personally used the results of this project to:

• Build a collection that I use for historic purposes.  I enjoy following and recording the news.  As a Marketer I have enjoyed collecting product’s pages that capture its release onto the market and follows the products marketing strategy throughout its life cycle.
• Build a design based library to help analyst user interfaces and as a source for inspiration for future project.
• Build a database I can use for competitive analysis.
• Build a tool I use to monitor web based technologies.  I can now monitor the adoption as well as the decline of web technologies, the use of HTML Standards, and visual technologies such as Flash, HTML5, PNG, etc…

Current stats for this project:

1. Captures slightly over 2000 screen shots a month.
2. Monitors 43 news related webpages on a daily basis.
3. Monitors 947 websites on a monthly basis.
4. On average analysis 300,000 hyperlinks monthly.
5. Tracks 1400 product links to social media sites monthly.
6. Has 104 categories of sites it follows.  These categories range from “Advertising Agencies” to “Horse Racing”

Please feel free to ask me about the Web Page Collection.  I am always eager to discuss it and see how others think the data can be used.