andydidyk.com

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May 22nd has been a deadline that has been staring me in the face for the last 7 weeks, starting with the signing of a proposal I wrote. Today is the launch of the “reskinned” HunterFan.com. It has been an ambitious journey, reskinning an entire site, plus completely designing and building 3 micro-sites for the same customer, all in less than 2 months! I’m proud of the work our excellent creative team has done, and I truly get fulfilled watching a project go from conception to completion. It was also cool to witness some hardcore legerdemain (YES! I used that word in real life!) by our programming staff to resolve server-side issues I won’t even pretend to comprehend.

The new homepage is much, much cleaner than the old version, and it has a variety of ways that a customer can navigate to the same information. As you can see, our client is really making a move to embrace the new green color, which I think works very well on the live site.

All we had time to do in this phase is redesign the homepage, add a few features, and add a new look and feel to the interior pages - still a huge improvement over the previous site. Of course, now comes the real work: Phase 2. Phase 2 will bring this site up to a new standard. Stay tuned!

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“Show me that smile…” I know that is the song that anyone born before 1980 undoubtedly had playing in their heads when they read the title of this post. Although I’d love to have some witty commentary on one of the legendary episodes from the early 80’s sitcom, I’m afraid that my title is alluding to something much less nostalgic (and notably lacking Kirk Cameron or Tracy Gold).

The agency I work for, now named n-tara Interactive, is growing by leaps and bounds. It’s very exciting to be working in an environment that is aggressively growing, because you always end up with something new to do, and limits are often tested. Our marketing department is working like crazy to crank out our new ID set and other materials, but the new logo and materials are just a small part of how our agency is growing. We’re adding more people, capabilities, and expertise, and running out of room in our building.

Where that affects me is that we’re obviously adding more clients with bigger budgets and more strategic objectives. It’s certainly kept me hopping and my blogging activity to a minimum, which in turn does not represent very well what I’m actually learning and experiencing on a daily basis. New trends in analytics, guided-selling, and the value of social media are all at the top of my mind, as well as the old favorites of agency project management and the proper way to manage client expectations (one in the same, to some degree). It’s become comical to me how much being a successful agency involves balancing bleeding-edge creative and technology with the basic principles of listening, managing expectations, doing your homework, and respecting those you work with.

Here’s an interesting thought for all of you career-minded folks out there: if you went back in time as your current self and was able to meet your self at 9 years old, what would your younger self think of your current self?

I recently read an article in this month’s Popular Photography that said a key to creativity is “unleashing your inner 9-year-old”. In other words, allowing your unrestricted creative side to take center stage, ignoring aspects of practicality and the limitations of your current camera technology.

It made me wonder, “Would my 9-year-old self think my current self is cool?” And also, “Is this even remotely important to the world of advertising and interactive media?”

I’ll address the latter first: business of any kind without creativity is dead. And I’m not just talking about artistic creativity here, but creativity with finances (within legal limits), HR, infrastructure, sales, project management, IT, etc., is all critical to a properly functioning business. As a former project manager, I can often let my obsession with proper details ruthlessly crush the big idea of a dreamer, simply because the idea at the time seems impractical. But I digress. Indeed, we need to be at least as creative as a 9-year-old in order to be successful.

Now, the former: would my 9-year-old self think my current self is cool? After much debate, I think little Andy sure would, at least for the most part. The reason I can be confident about this is that I’ve been blessed to do now what I’ve always thought I’d do: have a career in advertising and in sales. So on the job front I think I’d think I was pretty cool (follow that?). Sure, my job isn’t as cool as GI Joe’s, but I wasn’t really allowed to have many of those anyway (thanks Mom).

Plus, I’ve done quite a few things to keep my 9-year-old dreams alive. Through luck, I was able to marry a wonderful woman who grew up in Kenya, and thus in 2005 I was able to drive in the African bush in a Land Rover, one of my childhood fantasies. I’ve also purchased several large kites, and thus fulfilled my childhood dream of regularly being dragged across the ground by a giant kite. I have a son, some incredible friends, and I get to do crazy stuff like stand in a freezing waterfall in January with my best friends pointing and laughing. I feel like these things would be cool to my 9-year-old self, because although I’m constantly creating new goals and priorities, I still come back to wanting to do something crazy every now and then. I think the day that stops is the day I stop being creative.

That doesn’t mean that I’m never constrained by the harsh realities of life; far from it. But I think my 9-year-old self would understand that in order to buy a new bike, you have to mow the neighbor’s lawn to make some coin. I just want to keep some dreams alive and parts of life ridiculously fun.

What things do you do to keep your inner 9-year-old satisfied?

A recent study completed by the Social Science Research Network confirms another quirk of human behavior that is sure to get marketers’ attention. Evidently, if something is priced with an exact dollar amount (e.g., $1174 vs $1100), people are much less likely to debate the price. Indeed, the study found that if the price were “precise”, retailers and sellers could raise the price and people would be more likely to pay it without debating than if a round number were selected instead. People will actually pay more and ask fewer questions if the price isn’t a round number!

This, however, is my favorite part of the study (which, by the way, could benefit greatly from a table of contents and a better layout…ahh..science):

“These results have important substantive implications for buyers and sellers (and their agents). Buyers (and their agents) should be more cautious in their price magnitude judgments in light of our results. Sellers (and their agents) can strategically “precise up” their prices, i.e. choose a higher precise price rather than a lower round price.”

Behold the power of the information age. This is one case where knowing more will really pay off. I know that I certainly won’t look at a price of $150 the same way again.

High-five to these guys for bringing the study to my attention. Thanks!

Have you ever had the experience of working on a project or presentation, and you can’t really get any momentum until you get a draft of the document done first and can “shoot holes in it”? For me, this book has summed up what I’ve always felt but haven’t been able to express succinctly: “form follows failure”.

I’m about 3/4 through this interesting book, which as a history junkie, I initially picked up to satisfy my need to read something fairly dry before heading to bed. What I discovered is a rather entertaining essay on the evolution and science of design. Henry Petroski uses case studies on how common objects (the paper clip, zipper, fork, masking tape, etc.) have been developed over time as a background for his overall thesis, which is that form does not follow function, but rather failure.

What he means by this that rather than necessity being the “mother of invention,” failure of a product or service to perform in some way is what drives an innovator to develop a solution. In short, being annoyed with stuff that doesn’t work is what motivates us to create something new that fulfills our personal or collective expectations.

What’s exciting to me about this argument, although penned by Petroski in 1994, is that it absolutely supports the “always in beta” development model that is the current standard for progressive web sites and applications (such as Gmail, iStockphoto, etc.). You throw something out there, listen to people complain about what doesn’t work, and then you innovate, and repeat the cycle ad infinitum. What is fantastic about the internet age is that this cyclical development process can occur in real-time, and the benefits to clients and users are conveyed at the same lightning speed.

I can’t mention this topic without paying homage to David Armano and Critical Mass for their inspirational “always in beta” website and experience at the 2007 Forrester Consumer Forum (I had the privilege of being interviewed live by David at the event). The website is now evolving (who would have thought?) beyond it’s original intent of a “new idea” at the Forum into a real-time communications portal for Critical Mass.

To tie this all together, offline projects, and really all design challenges that an agency tackles, are subject to the rule of “form follows failure”. At an agency, we listen, we create, our internal reviews and client feedback tell us what’s wrong with our creation, and we continue to hone and refine until the final design accomplishes all that it can.  I guess adding “routinely and adeptly fails on all initiatives” is a great line to my resume after all.

After a semi-long absence, I’ve decided to go a little Seth Godin on you and post a picture from my camera phone.

Sure, as a photographer this image makes me cringe, but my trusty Treo was all I had on hand. While on a client pitch in NYC earlier this week, I spent a few minutes in a lobby with a DHL drop-off box. I was inspired by the simplicity of the answer for a very important question that anyone about to drop a package in the box may have, “Have they picked up packages here yet, or not?”.

The large, block letters in all caps that indicate if a package has been picked up or not are not sexy, or even all that interesting, but they are 100% functional. I think that can be a hallmark of great design. DHL could have gone with a really slick system of lighted buttons, color-coded tabs, or whatever, but instead they chose the direct route. If I can walk up to the drop-off and see immediately that the packages for the day are “NOT PICKED UP”, I can drop my package with confidence and not have a second thought, which I would bet is exactly what the drop-off box designers were going for. Bravo DHL.

I’m a regular reader of Time magazine and of Time.com (especially their super-friendly mobile edition). Naturally, I was quite interested to see that they had put out an article that highlights the top 50 websites and top 5 “Worst websites” on the internet today. Their criteria is much different than the design community would use, so I anticipated some head-scratching while I read the article.

However, I was totally shocked to see that the number 1 “site to avoid” (also the number 1 worst site on the web) was eHarmony.com. From a design and functionality standpoint, eHarmony isn’t anything to write home about, and it’s probably not going to be at the top of the buzz lists for Web 2.0 applications. It is, however, a solidly designed and functioning site. According to Time magazine, the reason that everyone should avoid eHarmony is:

“Our main beef with this online dating site is its power to cause utter despair. eHarmony claims its more “scientific” approach to matchmaking differentiates it from competitors — its users complete extensive personality questionnaires, in order to connect them to others based on compatibility. In early 2006, eHarmony announced that more than 16,000 couples had married during the previous year as a result of meeting on the site, citing a 2005 Harris Interactive poll. That’s about 90 people finding love every day, a track record bound to inflate expectations. On a more typical dating site, where users are prone to making snap judgments based on photos and sketchy profiles, if you don’t find that special someone you’re less likely to take it personally. It’s easier to shake off because, after all, that’s hardly the real you up there on that site. But if you’ve taken the time to answer eHarmony’s 436 compatibility survey questions and paid its premium charges ($21 to $60 a month, depending on how many months you prepay), and the site then delivers terrible recommendations — or worse, rejects you as unmatchable — what do you tell yourself then? The company’s advice, to stick with it for several months to improve your odds of finding a soul mate, sounds all too self-serving (the longer you use the site the more you pay). The site also discriminates against gays.”

If you read the “discriminates against gays” article, you’ll see the real backbone of Time’s issue with eHarmony and how utterly absurd of an argument it is. The author even acknowledges at the end of his rant that’s it’s perfectly within eHarmoy’s rights as an independent company to choose not to provide services for men seeking men or for women seeking women. The author is gay himself, and he does a thorough job of pointing out that there are many sites that provide dating services for gays only that do not include services for straight people.

Time, normally a trusted source of objective news about what’s going on around the world, has really let their readership down by choosing to publish this article. To be clear - I’d just as quickly blast Time if they were saying that a site for gays was discriminating against straight people by now providing services for them. It’s not like eHarmony is a public institution, or holding back vital services from a particular community…it’s a dating service! People generally want something that is tailored to their particular tastes when it comes to a dating service. It’s no secret that eHarmony is a more conservative site for people who are trying to find that special someone. But so what? Imagine a dating service that did nothing to be selective - how would that do anything to increase the odds of like-minded people getting together?

Rather reviewing eHarmony using objective criteria (or even subjective criteria that is somewhat rational and consistent), some disgruntled writer at Time who evidently has had some bad luck in the dating arena has chosen to take out their personal frustrations on eHarmony.com. The review has nothing to do with site functionality, its impact on the online movement, or anything else. I’m very interested to see if there is any public backlash, as well as how eHarmony will respond.

Thanks for braving my rant!

You can say what you want about the “green” movement, which has as many political overtones as a Dixie Chick concert, but some aspects of it are great.  MountainSmith, a well-known manufacturer of outdoor gear, has recently announced the arrival of two new lumbar packs that are made from recycled plastic water bottles.  By their estimates, it sales of these products will keep approximately 1.1 million bottles out of the landfill each year, which is great news.  The sad thing is, the technology to achieve this isn’t really anything new, so I’m grateful for the political firestorm that’s yielding things like hybrid cars and recycled fabrics.  Most outdoor equipment manufacturers know that they cater to an environmentally-conscious crowd, so innovations have been abundant (and well-promoted) for years, but now utilizing such techniques can generate a very real ROI from an increasingly aware public.

Of course, I didn’t see a lumbar pack recycling program mentioned anywhere…yet =).

I always like to experience visual ways of displaying complex data when the visual displays simplify and inform. The “Death and Taxes 2008” poster is a great example of this. Would I ever take the time to try and sift through the 2008 federal budget? Heck no. But would I spend 20 minutes browsing through this interactive piece? Absolutely.  Regardless of what your position on the issues may be, this provides an at-a-glance view of where budgetary changes could be occurring (it was easy to spot things like new submarines being favored instead of housing for the elderly, for example).

This is more breakthrough that it may appear on the surface…what if government textbooks were replaced with interactive learning modules in high schools across the country?  How much could retention rates improve?

If you click on the link, you’ll be redirected to the site where you can zoom in, zoom out, etc.