Posts Tagged ‘Technology’

Technology has come a long way in the past decade, and the 21st century has created a massive paradigm shift.

Think about the process of buying a computer in the 90s. We worried about things like megahertz, RAM, and hard drive size.

Now look at the iPhone, which has been wildly successful. But can you tell me how many megahertz or gigahertz it is? Do you know how much memory it has? Apple simply doesn’t market these facts.

The game has changed. Ben Schneiderman coined this era as “the new computing.” Our expectations of technology are not based on what’s under the hood. They’re now based on what the technology can do for us. Instead of trying to replace us with robots, we’re now using technology to help us do our jobs better.

But with this shift, we have a new set of expectations, and I think the iPhone is a great example of this. We want for our technology to be intuitive, easy to use. We want for it to be beautiful. And we want for it to get out of our way.

This is how your website and web services need to act. They need to get out of the way. They need to help people get to the information that they’re looking for so that they can get on with their lives.

Technorati Tags: apple, ben schneiderman, chris peters, clear crystal media, glass case, hci, iPhone, leonardo's laptop, marketing, Technology, usability, usability engineering, user experience, ux, ux design

I submitted a support ticket on behalf of a client today in their e-commerce system. After filling in the fields and submitting the form, I got this message:

At first, I thought I had made a mistake. An exclamation point icon? Bold red text? All of these visual cues tell a completely different story than what the message says.

What do your messages really say in context with visuals? And do you really want for your message to make someone feel undeserved panic, even if it’s just for a couple seconds?

Technorati Tags: design, marketing, Technology, usability, web usability

If you think about the way certain people within your company work, you’ll realize that it’s easy for employees to be removed from customers and even their companies’ own products and services. In a lot of cases, I think the most removed people are in marketing, IT, and senior management.

While it’s not realistic to close the entire gap on this problem, I envision a new work environment where as many people as possible will be forced to eat their own dog food. What if you set up your business to make it a customer of its own products and services? Let’s think about it a little.

Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: adobe, business, contribute, contribute cs3, customer, customer experience, e-commerce, ecommerce, experience, help desk, information technology, it, marketing, product development, support, Technology

Ahh, the good old saying, “If you can’t measure it, then you can’t manage it.” Google’s FeedBurner service helps solve this problem with your RSS feeds (What the hell is RSS?), and it adds some really cool features along with it. Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: atom, Blogging, feed, feedburner, feeds, google, review, rss, Technology, tool, Tools, web

There are some good things and some bad things that can come out of paying by the hour. But if you’re a visionary, I think it will rarely help you break through. Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: hr, information technology, internet marketing, it, marketing, Technology, web marketing

If you’re in business today, you need to know an awful lot about technology.

Let’s play some Buzzword Bingo:

• email
• web sites
• RSS
• search engine optimization
• Google AdWords
• banner ads
• blogs
• high availability enterprise service oriented system architecture

As the tech workforce grows, a lot of people are learning how to use these words to sound smart.

The problem becomes a reality when you need to start trusting someone else to do your marketing and technology. When you go this route, you get a lot of possible outcomes. Incompetence, fear tactics, a damaged reputation in Google. Or maybe you get lucky and hire the right people to do the job.

While I’m growing my own company from an “I” to a “we,” I want to help you out. As large IT companies bully you with stories about the complexities of technology, I’m crying bullshit! The stories will change. Business technology will become increasingly friendlier, and I want for us to be a part of that.

I am of the mind that your technology and marketing should be run by smart, competent people. Everyone has a nightmare to tell about the ego that forces everyone to use crap technology for their company Intranet. Somewhere along the line, people are let in that don’t make very good choices anymore. I want to help you avoid this.

It’s so easy to write a blog about technology and leave most people out. I want for you to understand what great tools and methodologies are out there without confusing you. So come back in a day or 2 and see what else I have to say.

Technorati Tags: business, it, marketing, small business, Technology