Local Scrabbler James Leong tells you where I am today...

via cbc.ca

I'm at the Vancouver Scrabble Tournament today.
In light of this, here's the CBC player for the Podcast where local Scrabbler James Leong was interviewed (sorry, couldn't figure out how to post to a specific minute, so he's at about 20:30. And if the black box up top isn't doing anything, the CBC.ca link will take you to the Podcast).
Who knew a Scrabble interview would mention the MMA and dreadlocks?...
www.vancouverscrabble.org

Monday's post: Dream of the Zero Inbox 

The Anatomy of a Perfect Website | Infographic from OrphicPixel

I actually learned something from Pinterest.com ... who knew?
Took some time to explore Pinterest’s Design section and was quite taken by the infographic below (aren’t infographics mesmerizing? Especially the way these long skinny ones look on Pinterest? I find them almost magical. But maybe I’m just easily swayed). I was struck with how ostentatious this title was and, quite honestly, it is overkill: it’s not a total anatomy (I was thinking it would actually show a map or something) and far from perfect. I guess it still hooked me in, though.
A more accurate title: good-looking killer factoids to consider for your website.
 
Key takeaways for me (to save you a wee bit of scrolling):

• people can’t find the info they're looking for on a website 60% of the time according to User Interface Engineering, Inc. research
• Top three most hated website thingies: 1 Pop-Ups in front of windows; 2 slow loading; 3 no close button
• No huge surprise, English is the top language at 68%. After that the languages are pretty bunched up. 2nd place is Japanese at 6ish%.
• Arguments for SEO: after a search, 42% click on the top link, then 8% on second link. 62% click on the first page of search results.
• Social Network ranking (May 2011 study based on time spent): 1 FB; 2 Blogger; 3 Tumblr; 4 Twitter; 5 LinkedIn [note: Pinterest became a player after this study was done and initial reports suggest people spend lots of time there. At least for now...]
• 80.4% of sites that use analytics use Google Analytics
• a nice quote: “Everything is designed. Few things are designed well.” Brian Reed

 

via orphicpixel.com

A question that’s becoming a reality, but I don’t think we’re quite there yet: who uses websites anymore?...

Source: Orphic Pixel is a dude named Mars, a do-all web guy based in Muscat, Oman.
His website tagline “one dot can cause you a lot” doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me here but might mean more where he is.

The business behind business, explained @SoulSystemsCo #ff #followfriday

via campaign.r20.constantcontact.com

I'm not super faithful to Follow Fridays but considering, I'm surprised that I haven't given a shout-out to SoulSystems.ca . In the "universe" of coaching, Soul Systems is unique in coaching team dynamics (and not simply individuals).

This latest newsletter post is a neat set of insights gleaning the true heart behind business itself. I've seen and heard this insight expressed in different ways but these days I'm always in the market for a well-phrased reminder of what it's all about. (also makes a bit of sense of the rather incendiary image)

The answer may surprise you...

Facebook Marketing Conference #fMC highlights

Yesterday Facebook hosted this Marketing Conference in NYC.
Attending was available through, yup, you guessed it, Facebook.com
The hub is here: https://www.facebook.com/business/fmc
One of the reasons for the conference, as I understand it, was as a launch forum for a number of new features for marketers, some in the works and some rolling out in the next couple of months, including:

• revamping Pages to be more clearly branded
• packaging ad services using branded, purchase-able tools with names like Reach Generator and Premium

All the re-vamps are gathered on this handy page.

Beyond the straight facts of the Conference, these were some aspects that were neat to me. 

• essentially a free conference. The bulk of the conference was made available as a live video feed for free via Facebook. In the past we'd arrange to be sent to a conference. As it happens, I only found out about it yesterday and had video run in the background while I worked on other projects (amazing how many complaints there were on the Comments feed. Reminded me of this).
• social enterprise. In describing new Admin titles (there will be more than just Admin) the presenting geek (an engineer or a designer) described it as a response to user feedback. I recognize that user feedback is part of any design process, just feels like Facebook and others who do Social Media well understand it, weed through it and make it part of the end product really quickly and intelligently.
• philosophical insight came out of an interview, that seemed a bit arbitrary, with an engineer. He mentioned a few truisms that Facebook staff live by, one of which was "done is better than perfect". Which is kinda nice.
• stories are becoming the major shift for Facebook (instead of simply Ads). And one of the stories within that story is from the Fireside Chat, which I thought would be just an afterthought and ended up being a warm (no put intended) conversation with American Express CEO Ken Chenault and their partnership with Facebook to champion small businesses (often without obligating people to use AmEx).

All this from a 7-year-old.
Can you believe that? Facebook just turned seven not too long ago, now it's a verb, a fairly common one. Seven years ago it was just two words that we hadn't put together like that yet. I was overall really impressed with Facebook, and in a context where I'm not sure any of us is really super-keen to be impressed.

I realize that, as Social Media reporting goes, I'm very much a latebird here (for those who know me, though, being a latebird shouldn't come as much of a shock). However, posting this a little after the fact allows their video queue to catch up so the https://www.facebook.com/business/fmc link should patch you into to the main speakers and breakout sessions, either now or very soon.

Tomorrow's post: a few words about the whole point of business.

 

Facebook will put ads on mobile news feed and logout screen | The Verge

via theverge.com

At their Facebook Marketing Conference today, Facebook announced some tweaks on how ads show up in your feed. Marketers: there's a new-ish package you can buy into called Reach Generator (which I think is buying a package so your ads go to all the spots in the graphic shown here) as well as something called Facebook Premium. Which sounds expensive...

#LeapYearDay is also @PinkShirtDay this yr in Canada

Here's my pink shirt for Pink Shirt Day in Canada.

I'm hoping it's being posted rightside-up...

Thanks to my friend Craig Yeung, Marvel Comics inker, who got me this one from HK. Just now noting the irony that it's Popeye...

As you can likely guess if you didn't hear about it, it's a day when people are encouraged to wear a pink shirt, taking a stance against bullying.

Here's the rundown from the PinkShirtDay.ca media release... 

About Pink Shirt Day: In 2007, two Nova Scotia students decided to take action after witnessing a younger student being bullied for wearing a pink shirt to school. The students bought 50 pink t-shirts and encouraged schoolmates to wear them and send a powerful message of solidarity to the bully. [Vancouver newsradio station] CKNW were inspired by the story and to date have raised more than $300,000 for Boys & Girls Clubs anti-bullying programs with the sales of Pink Shirt Day T-Shirts.

A nice story & occasion. I'm proud to lend my back for support. And have an excuse to wear this old shirt.

I was bullied as a kid. I don't feel like it was permanently damaging but I was far from the biggest target. I do wish something like this existed, for us to be encouraged to lend a hand to the most-bullied. 

On a total other sidenote, I'm having trouble forgetting the whole Leap Year Day episode of 30Rock last week...