I’m sorry, November is NaBloWHATMo? Na-Blo-Po-Mo! National Blog Posting Month! National Blog Posting Month is a concept inspired by NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, and it’s purpose is to encourage people to write; write about anything, or even nothing at all. Want to participate? It’s simple. Just get yourself a blog, if you don’t have one already, and post every day during the month of November. Think you’re up to the challenge? This is a great way to kick off that new blog you’ve been thinking about starting for the last four months, or maybe to revitalize a blog you haven’t posted on since the iPhone came out. You can also join the NaBloPoMo website to connect with other bloggers participating in the challenge, and maybe even attract a few new visitors to your blog.

Are you confused by the hundreds of printers that fax, copy, print, talk, beep and jam? I know I am.

Enter Epson’s new website that simplifies your decision process while giving you a few “chuckles” along the way. There are some great aspects to this site that make it viral and also sales focused. Epson understands that the viewer/user might not be the purchaser and also might not be ready to buy the product this instant. So, they have given the user some tools to share their findings with others and even themselves for future Epson purchase decisions. See below in the “Wish” page and a great example of a “Dear Me” reminder email.

So with an understanding of the user and the buying cycle, we might say that Epson has built an amusing site that guides us through a normally frustrating process. Well, before we jump to high praises, I would like to talk about some other key points that I would have wanted out of this decision engine:

1.) If they are talking about the quality of prints, show me the quality. I would have loved to have seen side by side examples of the same image to weigh the print resolution.

2.) If I am given options to compare the product, give me the ability to select from other manufacturers. The site is fun, but it will not stop me from going to a better comparison site like cnet to get unbiased reviews and user generated comments.

3.) As we all know UGC (user generated content) is a great feature to add validity to your products, why wasn’t a dialog started with consumers on the site that already owned these products?

All in all, Epson and their agencies have built a very creative way to choose “your” peripheral device, but they have left out some key features that could really make it more than an engaging microsite and make it a great tool.

Being a part of Junior Achievement has been a great way for our entire agency to get involved in the community. It also means that we get to do stuff like job shadowing and fundraising. Just a couple of weeks ago we did another round of job shadowing, this time with a terrific group of 8th graders (it always amazes me how much these kids know about technology and the internet).

(The job shadowing group)

It’s also fundraising time and the team is doing some really fun stuff to drum up excitement and money. They did traditional fundraising activities, like a bake sale and raffles. But, because we don’t take ourselves too seriously, the team tossed in some fundraisers that have been a lot of fun around the office, like a Ping-Pong Tournament and Poker night.

(The bake sale. I hear Shannon’s banana bread is famous now.)

(The poker tournament)

Then, there is the Pie-the-Executive/Manager contest. The fundraising will be capped off with a Pie-ing of the executives, including myself at our Holiday Party in December. However, the first round of pie-ings happened today with our managers. How this worked was: employees bidded against each other to pie each person, the highest bid earning the right to pie.

Pictures won’t do this justice, check out the videos:

Arthur Pies Donovan:

Claire Pies Travis:

Jamie Pies Donovan (apparently he was popular):

If you’re intersted in donating to Junior Achivement, visit our donation page.

I chose this morning to start combing through the many magazines that I have let pile up on my desk for the past few weeks. OMMA, B2B, Fortune, Business 2.0 (before it died), Inc., and on and on. I typically use Google Reader to keep up with news and trends but there’s just something about these printed mags that I still enjoy reading. When I have time, that is.

In the course of reading through one of them I came upon a new term: the Innernet. It was an article (and apologies to whichever magazine and author it was that mentioned it, but there’s no way I’m digging through my now overflowing trash can to find it again) that talked about the impact that social networking has had on how we use the Internet.

We’ve kind of gone in this circular phase of initially being bound to a network such as Netscape or AOL, then the web was opened up and we all abandoned any company that tried to control our experience, and now we’re almost back full circle to wanting to form an inner connection of our friends and family and spend most of our time in this new “innernet”. And I say “we” but of course this doesn’t apply to everyone, as I’m sure TS will have a comment about how I’m in love with Facebook and not everyone is a college kid looking to increase his/her friend count status.

Earlier this week I was on a panel at the eMarketing Association event in Atlanta and a decent portion of the discussion revolved around social networking and what it means to marketers. This topic continues to be hot as more and more people flock to MySpace, Facebook or other networks (oh, and Orkut, I have to mention Orkut because I have a sneaking suspicion that Google might index this post a little better the more I mention Orkut), and our experiences day-to-day are confined within these networks.

And now Microsoft just bought a 1.6% stake in Facebook for $240 million. This values Facebook at roughly $15 billion. So I’m no rocket scientist but I have a feeling these social networks are only going to get more popular as time goes on. And the trick will be figuring out where marketing fits within them, if it even does.

Did I mention Orkut?

Take a quick look into the past of some of the best and worst social media has dished out. From our friend and prankster Nalts to Mentos, this video shows just how fast this landscape is moving. Buckle up for a great synopsis and get ready for a terrible rendition of Billy Joel’s - “We didn’t Start the Fire” by Cakke.

Going mobile? Smart decision. Analysts keep saying that companies expect a huge increase in mobile interactions with their customers over the next few years.  But designing for mobile isn’t like designing for today’s website.  Here are just a few tips to save your on-the-go users endless downloads, needless frustration–and to keep them coming back for more.

Think Simple Yet Engaging
I mean, really simple.  Remember your users are dealing with those confounded mobile device interfaces on top of your mobile website interface.  Most devices can’t handle large downloads, either.  So use simple layouts with very concise yet very clear navigation, optimized images and video, brief text, and limited options.  

Choose & Prioritize Your Content Wisely
You can’t gear all of your content for mobile, so select your mobile content strategically. Google categorizes mobile users into three behavior types: 

• Repetitive now (e.g. checking stock quotes, sports scores, etc. regularly)
• Urgent now (e.g. looking up directions to an airport)
• Bored now (e.g. playing games or reading entertainment headlines to kill time). 

Identifying content that supports those three behaviors is a good start toward a mobile communication and content strategy.

Keep Consistency with Your Regular Website 
Even tiny mobile screens have room for look and feel.  Tie in the look and feel of your main website with your mobile site so users know they’re in the right place and attribute their positive mobile experience to your brand.

Redirect Mobile Traffic to Your Mobile Site & Promote Your Mobile Site
Unfortunately, you probably won’t work out a deal with wireless carriers such as Verizon and AT&T to include your link as a default destination in their mobile web browsers.  So your users will use their mobile device to visit your main website (the one they see on their PC). Fortunately, you can save them the pain of downloading your huge home page to their tiny screen.  Technology can detect whether users are visiting your main website through a mobile device and automatically send them to your mobile site.

To draw in users who are unaware you have a mobile presence, promote your mobile site vigorously, especially on your regular website.  Some nice examples include CNN.com and Delta.com.   

It seems that Microsoft is finally giving in. You can now make the upgrade from Internet Explorer 6 to 7 regardless of whether your windows operating system is store bought or downloaded off a torrent site. Microsoft has finally decided to remove the pesky Windows Genuine Advantage tool that comes with IE7, which requires the software to verify that you are using a legal copy of their windows operating system before you can upgrade IE. The software giant decided to make the move in light of IE’s steady decline in market share.

Can we hope to see this happening to the Vista operating system anytime soon?

I often site other blogs in my posts but never have I really just copied someone else’s post.  But one of my new favorite blogs (thanks to Tomer for showing it to me), Social Media Today, had a recent post that beat me to the punch on pointing out what has to be the best Fake Steve Jobs quote ever.  Thanks SMT:

“And I’m getting involved too with weekly code reviews. Not that I can read code, because I can’t. But I know how code should look on a screen. Which frankly I think is way more important.”

I recently attended a special CHI Atlanta event regarding a relaunch of a major news website. It was very interesting to hear how they engaged users throughout the entire redesign process; they utilized surveys, qualitative interviews, and iterative usability testing.

They mentioned that they engaged an agency to help them with the overall redesign direction and user personas. Why did they choose this particular agency? According to the company’s Director of User Experience and Site Integration, they chose the agency whose “powerpoints sucked.” Many agencies presented them with snazzy powerpoints and lots of “swag.” She joked that she had drawers full of this swag, such as an entire booklet full of words that represented their brand. The agency they chose simply presented them with a non-flashy presentation and then sat down with them for what ended up being a “good conversation”.

Whats the moral of this story? “Know your audience”, a phrase commonly tossed around by user experience architects, holds just as true for sales professionals. Some clients are interested in the sizzle and others are interested in the steak. So, it’s always good to engage your client in a dialogue and get a good idea of their expectations before offering them unique services or solutions.

The music world has always been a tough gig, but it just got tougher! In recent news, it has become clear that Vivendi is utterly pissed upset with Apple. Vivendi seems to be fighting Apple’s iPod + iTunes services with two approaches in order to reduce apple’s music download dominant share.

It started this summer when NBC Universal yanked their Fall shows from iTunes because Apple rightfully refused to charge $5 per TV episode (NBC Universal is 20% owned by Vivendi). In the end, NBC Universal moved their Fall season shows to Unbox Service from Amazon, which allows Tivo subscribers to download shows onto their Tivo digital video recorder (in my opinion a bad move!). Fast-forward to today, Universal Music Group (UMG) which is 100% subsidiary of Vivendi has decided to challenge Apple in creating their own music service.

While details of the emerging music service are in flux (currently covered by BusinessWeek), it appears that UMG is testing out two models:

Challenge the iPod Player

Provide an all-you-can-eat subscription service that’s FREE with the purchase of select devices. The thought is that hardware manufacturers will subsidize the subscription fee. Of course, the idea is to the subscription with Zune, the ailing media player from Microsoft.

Challenge the iTunes Store

Distribute music that’s playable on any devices via outlets such as Walmart, Google and Best Buy. The idea is to challenge Apple, which only offers a limited number of DRM free songs through the iTunes store.

Additional Challenges for UMG

While the fight between Universal Music Group and Apple is just starting, UMG is also facing challenges on a second front — their signed artists. In recent news, both Radiohead and Madonna have independently decided to leave their music labels making insiders wonder whether distributors are even necessary in this age of the internet.

Clearly, this is not a good time to get into the music world as things are only getting uglier.