Archive for June 2006

Golly! I spent too much time trying to do something that should be simple. Tried Google Earth, Wayfaring, and Frappr to create a map showing the locations of the places (hotel, services, restaurant, my house, and party spot) for a weekend-long celebration. Wayfaring wins. However, the printout of the map appears blurry. I’ve tried zooming, cutting, pasting, pulling hair and nothing worked.

I attempted to create a map from scratch in Visio with help from these mapping sites. The worst! I deserved every B in art from elementary school through college. I remember seeing beautifully done homemade maps with ancient software. Why can’t I do something simple like that?

What have you find that works?

Customers drive marketing, not the other way around. No longer do customers accept products as designed. They expect and demand products to be molded to their needs. Just like you can’t turn a cat into a dog; marketers can’t turn a customer into a buyer by convincing them that they need product or service ‘as is.’

“Waiting for Your Cat to Bark” is a fitting title for this book. Cats tend to see the world revolve around them while dogs are eager to please their masters by doing whatever they want. Today’s customers are in charge–much like cats.

“As is” might work in the bargain bin, but not in the majority of today’s markets. The authors guide the reader in reaching the audience, persuading them to take the right action and feeling confident about that action, and giving the audience results that match their demanding expectations.

Those growing expectations come from the Web reaching new levels. You may have heard a lot of talk about Web 2.0. No matter how anyone feels about the term, one thing it is clear — the Web has reached a new stage: interactivity. Users do something, and the Web page immediately reacts to the user’s commands. It’s also about creating online experiences, which often represent site’s brand. All of this together adds to users’ increasing expectations when they’re online.

Marketers can lend a hand to their sites’ visitors with persuasion architecture, a concept the Eisenbergs developed. Fancy words, perhaps, but the only words that will do. Before starting any marketing effort, the authors recommend asking three questions:

• who is it you want to persuade?
• what action do we want them to take?
• what information is needed to motivate them to take that action?

Building effective persuasion architecture requires more than knowing who your audience is –- but who they represent. The authors show how to create audience personas and weave the persuasion architecture to satisfy the different personas’ needs.

The first chapters dig into the changes in the marketing world; how and why marketing has changed. The middle chapters uncover the minds of customers and why they’ve changed as they respond to products and services. The latter part the book enlightens the reader on persuasion architecture and how to use it to influence customers. The book closes with a chapter on getting started with persuasion architecture, which, in practice, shrinks the gap between customer and marketer.

What differentiates the authors and the book from others is their treatment of marketing and the Web as one. Too often, marketing and Web design teams don’t work as a unified group and end up banging their heads. Organizations that plan to use the Web to market products or services stand to reap rewards in terms of user actions and higher profits with the advice from the book.

The book comes with a CD containing 80 minutes of the authors in a question and answer session (here’s a clip), the full-text of the book in PDF format, online sales and marketing reports from Shop.org and the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), and a $50 credit on Yahoo! Sponsored Search (for new users only). You can read an excerpt from the book.

Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? is the right length (240 pages) and avoids heavy-duty or textbook language, which makes for a smooth and easy read. The authors have hit their stride with this one. Those who haven’t read any of the Eisenbergs’ books should start with this one and if there’s room for another, check out Call to Action.

Title: Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing
Author: Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg with Lisa T. Davis
Publisher: Nelson Business
ISBN: 0785218971
Date: June 2006
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 240
Cover Price: USD: $19.99 Amazon: $12.99

This problem comes and goes. When it comes, however, the problem happens a few times a day. I can’t find the pattern except maybe Internet Explorer. The programs slow to a crawl and I close each one as soon as the PC lets me. I tried to find the Microsoft Knowledgebase (kb) article that sounded much like the problem I’m having, but can’t relocate it.

I’ve studied the KB articles and the problems don’t apply to my situation. I have Windows XP SP 2, I don’t have the speech app running, and a few other things. There’s not enough information to narrow down the search. Strange situation considering the problem stops for a while and then starts again, and does it repeatedly.

Wish I could narrow down the problem and have more information. This is too broad to find the right information.

The new site has been updated. How is it looking? Do the black headers work better? Or should I bring in a third color. Thank you again for any input you offer — after all, it should be easy for you not me.

The icons on the right (arrow) are going to change to something flatter or nothing at all. They look like buttons, when they’re not.

Update: Still tweaking. Some of the items should’ve been addressed before going live (my fault) and others came from comments that arrived after going live. Trying to think of a way to add another non-monochromatic color for a lift (for the right reasons, not to just slap it on).

Get ready for serious laughing (oxymoron, I know). Vote for Signspotting’s Sign of the Year. My favorites are the McDonald’s and George Bush signs. I voted for the McDonald’s sign because the George Bush is mainly an American (Democratic) joke while McDonald’s is international. As I understand it, the word in the sign means the same thing in many places.

Why can’t I ever find signs like these?

Little has changed in what works in writing for the Web as experts have recommended most of these tips for good writing for years. I apply the following when writing for the Web:

* Insert bolded sub-heads every few paragraphs for scanning.

* Keep paragraphs about four to six lines long otherwise when the reader loses his place, the eyes struggle more to find it again in a long paragraph than a short one.

* Put the most important ideas up front as few people read the entire article and you want to get them to walk away with something valuable.

While I aim to keep length at no more than 600 words in a blog posting, many long online articles succeed because they’re well-written and provide value through the entire article.

GrokDotCom shows how to use the power of verbs to add punch to writing. I’ve worked to cut back on using “is” and “be” in writing. Dodging these words is no easy task! Oops, I did it again. Speaking of Grok, are you trying to get your cat to bark? The book arrived yesterday and I hope to have a write up soon. Next week, Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg will be in Dallas, and I plan to attend their presentation.

P.S. Go Mavericks!!

Jakob Nielsen’s latest Alertbox discusses newsletter usability and the competition for user attention. Nilesen reports that the original findings remain true today: “email newsletters are the best way to maintain customer relationships on the Internet.”

I love newsletters as a marketing tool. Done right, you provide valuable information to readers without annoying them with sales-speak. I try to focus on building relationships and let the chips fall.

One problem with some newsletters is the difficulty in unsubscribing to the newsletter. Keeping readers who don’t want your newsletter is not worth it. It’s a waste of money to email readers who want nothing to do with the newsletter. If they’re gonna delete it, then make it quick and painless to get off your list.
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When I switched teams to a tech writer position, my company provided me with a second monitor. At first, I didn’t like it. The cursor was driving me nuts and I was constantly moving windows.

Now I can’t stand working on a computer or laptop with one monitor and wouldn’t mind a three panel monitor. Currently, I have two flat monitors side-by-side.

It makes working so much easier. As I grade student participation in the forums, I’ve got the class spreadsheet open on one monitor and the forums on the other. No going back and forth. I can also have a student’s assignment open along with the grade sheet and the answer sheet. Here’s where three monitors would be nice.
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You can view the design in progress. I’d value your feedback as it’s for the people who take the time to come here, not me. I’ve received the following feedback:

* Use a larger default font (the font can be resized with your browser)

* The color doesn’t fit my personality and isn’t inviting

What do you think? Thanks to CSS, the color should be easy to change. What color do you picture this place?

I like the burgundy as it’s strong without being overpowering, I think. But it may be the gray that’s a turnoff. The logo needs to stay gray.

When wanna-be writers ask me about writing and how to become a writer, the first place I send them to is AbsoluteWrite (AW). AW’s ISP took down the site with only one hour’s notice. Writers and fans everywhere couldn’t access the forums or any of its information. All because of one woman who took her problem to AW’s ISP.

AW’s community pulled together and started a variety of activities to help AW. I was delighted to see BoingBoing report on this.

More links related to the AW scandal

AbsoluteWrite’s Mom, Jenna Glatzer, wrote two books that I strongly recommend. Items ordered through these links will go to AbsoluteWrite, not meryl.net. I recommend her others, but these are tops..

* The Street Smart Writer: Self Defense Against Sharks and Scams in the Writing World

* Make a Real Living as a Freelance Writer: How to Win Top Writing Assignments