Virtual Meets Reality: Nomad Stylus

What do all of the images above have in common? They were all created on an iPad with a Nomad Brush. I just ordered a couple this morning to use for rapid prototyping, but also interacting with customers during field work. Show them a wireframe and have them interact directly with something that is familiar to them. I also ordered the PenGo BrushPen, so I will come back with feedback after using them to see which one works best in the field. 

Creative Folks Bypass Old School Judgment System: Amanda Hocking

The path for "making it" used to funnel through a select few anointed ones. For musicians it was getting discovered by someone at a major label, and signing a deal. That takes a lot of hard work, but a large portion of serendipity. There were only just so many people in the right place at the right time. These days, musicians don't wait for that to happen, they just create their own opportunities online. This is simple today because MP3 players and sharing music is commonplace.

In the world of writing, the same thing is happening more and more as eBooks become easier to consume on our gadgets. Amanda Hocking was rejected repeatedly by book publishers so she decided to self-publish. Now that the Kindle, iPad and Nook are becoming an outlet for avid readers, she and others like her can wave goodbye to having to pass through the gates of the major book publishing houses. Last April she self-published and has sold hundreds of thousands of books online. Here is her story:

The Ballad of Mirco Wilhelm: Flickr Still Flying Without a Net

In 2004, the photo sharing and storage website Flickr was born. It grew quickly in its popularity because of its features and ease of use. It was a fun, good experience. In March of 2005, Yahoo acquired Flickr for $35 million. They have now had 6 years to grow this product from the great start they had with loyal customers.

So where are we today? Ask Mirco Wilhelm. He is an IT professional that has been posting photos to his Flickr account for years. Thousands of them. He tags them all and people link to them from all over. They are really lovely. Well, they were really lovely. You see, Mirco found someone illegally posting photos on their account so he complained to Flickr. By mistake, instead of deleting the other account, they deleted his. All 4,000 photos, stories, tags, links and everything that is Flickr is gone, and Flickr can’t do anything about it to recover them. They gave him a 4 year credit for Flickr Pro.

This would be horrible under any circumstances, but almost exactly three years ago to the day, the same loss of data happened to Steve Portigal. Someone phished him and deleted his account without his consent and Yahoo could do nothing to recover it. I blogged about it when it happened to illustrate that this is a simple scenario to plan for and that others do it all the time. Even Mirco says that it is part of what he does all the times in his day job.

This means that Yahoo/Flickr has known about this for three years and they just don’t care. Chief Product Officer, Blake Irving, just days ago tweeted the following:

"Is Yahoo committed to Flickr? Hell yes we are!"

Just days ago the New York Times wrote a story on how Yahoo is committed to Flickr, despite shrinking traffic stats. Here is a quote from the article by Matthew Rothenberg, Head of Product Strategy and Management of Flickr:

“We’re trying to build the best experience that we can.”

I think what resonates with people is not your strategy or tweets, but the experience you actually deliver. Here are the words from the Flickr support staff member sent to Mirco:

Hello,

Unfortunately, I have mixed up the accounts and accidentally deleted yours. I am terribly sorry for this grave error and hope that this mistake can be reconciled. Here is what I can do from here:

I can restore your account, although we will not be able to retrieve your photos. I know that there is a lot of history on your account--again, please accept my apology for my negligence. Once I restore your account, I will add four years of free Pro to make up for my error.

Please let me know if there's anything else I can do.

Again, I am deeply sorry for this mistake.

Regards,

Flickr staff

That is the real experience and message we get as customers, not what Product Managers tell reporters. Mirco’s story is being written about by large news organizations and propagating quickly around the web. I hope it doesn’t take Yahoo another three years to finally listen to these and other traumatized customers, and they fix this problem that everyone else seems to have solved. You have to afford and "undo" when it comes to your product, especially if you see this happen over and over.

Here is Mirco's story in his words: http://bindermichi.posterous.com/you-have-to-fucking-kidding-yahoo

Here is Steve Portigal's story from three years ago: http://www.portigal.com/blog/stories-lost-forever/

Dead Space 2: Listening to Your Customer...s' Mothers

Electronic Arts did something interesting for the new Dead Space 2 video game release. They interviewed the mothers of their core customers. If they hate it, their kids will love it. To seal the deal, they record the interviews and use the utter disgust of these moms to promote the game.

Leveraging feedback from a generational, or "user" gap is interesting. There are always disruptive waves of innovation within domains that cause a change in the primary persona base. Let's package up the feedback from the old users and use it to sell it to the new ones?

Unintended Product Uses: Leveraging Google To Land a Job

Most people use Google AdWords to promote their business. That is how it was designed. Alec Brownstein used it to get a job. He was looking for a job as a copywriter with some of the top ad agencies in New York City. So he bet that the creative directors at these top agencies would “vanity google” their own name. He bought AdWords of the names and put a special message in to each of them. He now works for Y&R, after a total cost of $6. Here is his video explaining his “Google Job Experiment”:

Here is a direct link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FRwCs99DWg

Maybe Google should consider creating this a new feature? This reminds me of the people who used eBay & Craig’s List to find jobs or ask others for help in 2009.

What unintended features are lurking in your products?

Mark Hurst Interview: User Experience Professionals in the Ivory Tower

I conducted an interview for UX Magazine with Mark Hurst on listening, user experience professionals posture within a company and the GEL Conference. You can read or listen to it here:

http://uxmag.com/strategy/mark-hurst-talks-about-listening

Computers Are Supposed to Make Life Easier, Not Have The Cops Raid Your Home

Rose and Walter Martin are an elderly couple living in Brooklyn, NY. They are 82 and 83, and he is a WWII veteran. Does this sound like a bloodthirsty crime spree duo? Unfortunately for them, the police department’s computer system thinks so.

Since 2002, the police have raided their home more than 50 times, sometimes multiple times a week. It has taken the police 8 years to finally figure out that it was a computer “glitch” that led them on these errant invasions. During a “test” of the system their address was added. The police never removed all the test cases all this time. Now they are using the computer to flag the Martin’s address and make sure they “Double check” that it isn’t a mistake.

“Shall we play a game?”

Direct link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAcEzhQ7oqA

A Night of Surprises Makes the Fandango Experience a Bad One

It’s rare that I’m able to go to the movies, which is tough for me because I’ve always enjoyed going to a good movie. It is hard though when you have a 5 year old, a 7 year old and a 5 month old. When a movie-going opportunity presents itself, I jump all over it. That happened last night. To prepare for this uncommon event, I went online to Fandango. I had been using the iPhone app to see movie times recently in the hopes of going, so I went a step further and actually purchased the tickets through Fandango. Fandango printout in hand and babysitter in place, we were ready to go.

Last night was not only movie night, it was also bad weather night. Getting to the theater proved time consuming because some roads were closed due to flooding. The trip took almost an hour instead 15 minutes, so we ended up late instead of early. When we finally did arrive, the cashier at the theater looked at my Fandango printout and asked for my credit card. I didn’t have it. I keep the credit card I use for online purchases at home. We move to the side and call the babysitter, who gets us the credit card info. Back on line, back to the cashier. Success! Time to move on to important decisions like what treats to overspend on at the popcorn counter.

With refreshments in tow, we move to the theater. As we arrive 30 minutes late, we walk into a completely empty room with commercials playing on-screen. Confused, I walk out and talk to the ticket-taking-dude and ask why there is no movie playing in Theater 8. He gets his manager who looks confused as well. The movie had been cancelled because the heat wasn’t working in that theater. How were we even able to purchase tickets he asked? Fandango.

While I enjoy things with Fandango like the ability to easily see movie times online or on my iPhone, they have yet to extend the experience to purchasing tickets. I don’t expect them to know if a particular theater has heat problems on any given night. I do expect them to have thought through the things they can’t manage that create bad experiences and know how to help customers through them.

Also, I’ve purchased tickets online for other events like baseball games that allow me to print out my ticket at home. That printout looks like a ticket and works like a ticket when I present it at the event. With Fandango, they make the printout look like a ticket, leading you to believe you’ll have the same experience. There should be an image of half a ticket on there with an image of your credit card next to it letting you know you need both to get into the theater.

Maybe I will try out Fandango in a year or so to see if they have changed anything. In the meantime, I’m going to old-skool-it and buy the tickets at the movie theater. The guy selling me the tickets there will know if there is heat on or not.