Business Evolutionist

Borders Books online

I typically buy my books from Amazon... way too many of them, but I digress.

During a discussion the other day, the subject of Python (the programming language) came up and since I don't know Python I thought I'd see what I could find to learn more about it. I searched online and found a few good sources, however, I tend to learn best from books. I went to Amazon and found a couple of books... realizing I didn't want to wait for a book to arrive in the mail (and paying for overnight shipping erases any potential savings from Amazon) I decided to check to see what was in stock at my local Borders.

First, kudos to Borders for having store inventory on their web site... I can tell it which stores are close to me and it will show if a book is in stock at my stores. I love that feature.

The downside is that the rest of the site leaves a little to be desired.

I went to the site and typed in Python in the search area.

What I got back was less than helpful.

A generic list of books with Python in the title. Okay, so the list is easy to get through, but it doesn't help me sort the list in any way.

The physical store has books arranged by category, why can't they carry this through to the website?

They have shelf information on the site - can't they use that to correlate the other books in the same category?

Also, since they have store information on the page, can't they just offer me the ability to just see the books that are on the shelf in the store at this time?

The final item would be leveraging the Return to Prior Work pattern. As I'm browsing books (or any other item), let me get back to previously viewed items quickly and easily (Amazon does this).

None of this would be hard to do. They have all the data they need.

I heard an interesting tidbit the other day when I was talking to someone about Web Analytics. They said that Circuit City, which also offers "Reserve for In-Store Pickup" via their web site, measures what additional sales that occur from people who purchase online and pick it up in the store... they can tell how many CD's people buy, for example, when purchasing an MP3 player through the site.

I'm sure that Borders can does some type analysis to determine the payback on this.

What do you think??

My Muxtape

I'm still here... just been busy.

Here is some music for you... to apologize for the long absence: my muxtape

I did create a twitter account and have been posting to that....

I'm hiring!

I've got 3 openings on my team - a full-time Java Developer and two intern positions; one HTML person and one Java person.

Details on the full time Java developer position, which can be filled at any one of three levels, is located here.

The Java Developer Intern position details can be found here.

The Web Developer Intern position details can be found here.

No relocation assistance is available for any of these jobs (location is Central Pennsylvania, Harrisburg area) and the intern candidates must be currently enrolled in an undergraduate program.

Let me know if you have any questions (jstrande [at] gmail dot com)

Keeping Attention

Part of my post the other day, What should WSJ.com do?, included a little snippet about advertisements potentially distracting from the readability of the Wall St. Journal online.

I understand that companies need to make money, but it never ceases to amaze me how prominently some major sites feature advertisements within their pages. We use to have the "banner ad", which we all learned to ignore, so it makes sense that ads drifted down into the content - attempting to grab our attention as we're trying to focus on the content of the page.

The worst offense, however, is that some sites are still sing popup ads - those pesky small new browser windows that open up in front of the page you're trying to look at - even though almost any Usability expert you speak to would tell you how bad they are.

Modern browsers now have popup blockers, which automatically stop the popup ads from appearing. When the browser blocks a popup, the browser reveals a small banner at the top of the content of the page, offering you some options (in case you want to view the popup). The browsers use a subtle animation to reveal the popup blocker, ensuring that you see that some action was taken on your behalf and to undo the action if you so choose.

The subtle animation that browsers use is an example of great design - IMHO - the details (controls) reveal themselves only when appropriate, and, even though the animation is distracting, it accomplishes the goal in that few people will miss it.

My question is, why do sites still use popup ads?

Here are two major sites, CNN and The Weather Channel, respectively, with the popup blocker control revealed:

There are two crappy things about this:

1.) The popup blocker being revealed is distracting

2.) I have to take an action to get rid of it (well, I don't have to get rid of it, but having it in the page pushes content down, requiring more scrolling).

Knowing that most people have popup blockers, and that the both popups and blockers are distracting, why do sites still use popups??

Running Towards Pleasure

Three years ago found yours truly job hunting. I landed a really cool position very quickly as a business analyst for a global electronic components manufacturer (Tyco Electronics). That position quickly led to a great opportunity to work on the company web site (and eventually the position of Usability Team Leader). I had been working on web stuff for most of my career, so it was a logical move.

I loved the work I was doing, very much.

The environment on the other hand, was, at times, difficult...

On more than one occasion I said to my wife that I never seem to come home from work in the same good mood that I have when I'm going in - life is too short and we spend too much of it at work to be in a place that you don't love. There are things that I've done that I feel have improved the place, including building some "great mojo" (as my boss called it) for the Usability Team.

So, I was very excited when I got a call about a month or so ago from a former boss at a large, well-known, consumer packaged goods company - he had just gotten some additional head count, 4 new positions to be exact, one that I would be perfect for. So we met for coffee one morning and he shared his thoughts on this job he was creating and asked if I'd be interested. I was.

I went through the interview process back on July 17th and about a week later I was offered and accepted the job.

Despite the fact that I was less than happy with certain aspects of my current job, going back to this previous employer is all about running towards pleasure. I only worked at the company for two years, before leaving to work at a startup, but I'm super excited to go back. Interestingly, I've been back as a consultant with the company 3 times since I've left, so I've kept great relationships with most of my former coworkers.

My new job is Project Manager for Web Applications, basically running the web projects for both internal and external applications - I was a developer in the group when I left the company back in 2001. One of the really exciting aspects of this opportunity is that the company is looking for ways to improve innovation & collaboration throughout the enterprise, and I'll get to play a role in how that is accomplished.

There are a number of people that I'll miss from Tyco Electronics, especially Teresa (her personal site) and Jeremy (his personal site)... they're both extremely talented and the three of us just clicked, we really did have great mojo. Another person I'll miss is Bob, my boss. He brought an incredible mix of caring, discipline, and innovation to the table.

I start my new job tomorrow, but have already begun to dive into a couple of the projects the team is working on... so, time to get back to work. I want to hit the ground running.

What should WSJ.com do?

Two of my favorite bloggers recently offered up compelling, and opposing, views on what the Wall St. Journal should do with its website.

First up, Fred over at A VC, wrote:

Rupert Murdoch should make the WSJ as free to use online as Google is. And he should do that the first day he owns the paper. Why isn't the WSJ the force in the online world that is it in the offline world? Easy, because you have to pay for its content and anyone who has spent time doing business online realizes that less than 10% of anyone's audience (even if your audience are rich people) will pay for online content.

Fred seems to think that they increase the pages views enough to generate enough in advertising to make the $75 million in subscriber revenues. I think he is probably correct with this, the concern would be how many ads they'd have to place and how it might distract from the readability of the pages. I'm quite sick of animated dancing characters trying to sell me a mortgage and similar attention-spam. I think if they went to a ad-supported revenue model, they'd have to keep their audience in mind set some pretty strict guidelines as to the types and quality of ads they'd accept (just like in the paper version). Where I think Fred nails this is it that is indeed rare to see a WSJ reference on a blog, so they are sacrificing community participation.

Next up, Rob over at BusinessPundit, wrote:

First of all, yes, some free content is good. You need to prove that you have some value so that people are willing to pay for the rest of what you offer, but when you make everything free, you get the downward spiral of quality that tends to be so prevalent on the web. When you shift from paying for content to attracting eyeballs and selling ads, the value proposition changes from we have quality content to we have the attention of many people. Thus, your product decisions focus less on quality content and more on content that will attract the attention of many people.

Rob makes the assumption that if the content is ad-supported, that the quality will suffer - that they'll somehow stop producing the quality content that the WSJ is known for. It is VERY rare that I disagree with Rob, he's a very smart guy, but I think there is a touch of faulty logic in his argument. The weather channel, for instance, is ad-supported content, but that doesn't change their weather forecast: "People prefer to look at Sunny and 70, so we'll just show that all the time." or "Our traffic spikes with there is a threat of sever weather, so we'll show a chance of Tornado's every day". If the Weather Channel stopped offering accurate forecasts, they wouldn't have any viewers.

Again, I think both Rob and Fred make very compelling cases for their side of the argument... however, why not do some combination of both?

1.) Continue with subscription model, but make all the content free after 5/7/14 days. The value of their content declines over time, who wants financial news from a week ago? Subscribers could link to articles, knowing that they'll be publicly available after a few days, so the link will work for everyone eventually. This is what Wired, Fast Company, Business 2.0 and others do - you can't see the content for free until some number of days/weeks after the initial publication. Subscribers will see it right away, others will have to wait. You can maintain the exclusivity of the content with this model, because only some people will see it right away.

2.) Pay for participation. Give all the content away, but charge to participate in discussions and build a WSJ social network, where you have access to analysts, writers, editors, etc. The power behind this would be in the facilitation of developing relationships between like minded individuals. Think of this as an exclusive version of LinkedIn.

3.) Give some of the content away, charge for the premium stuff. Not all of their content relates directly to the market, they have great articles during the week about careers and travel, and so forth - why not just give that stuff away for free? Tie this to number 1 above, and they could make everything free after some number of days.

4.) Build a set of premium tools and charge for those. My guess is that people who read WSJ care about the financial markets, so why not give the articles away for free but charge for additional stuff - summaries, company and/or industry trackers, email alerts, etc. Let subscribers build a profile on the site that enables the WSJ to help them manage the complexity of the market and their investments. For instance, if someone cares about the consumer packaged goods industry - build me a custom view that includes articles about that. They could have custom Specialty Editors that could provide in-depth industry pages that would highlight all the important stories and events for that given industry. Not as many people would sign up for this, but I'm sure they could charge a premium price for it - if the tools were good enough.

5.) Make a few articles free every day, so that bloggers can link to and discuss them. The more people they expose to the quality, the more people should subscribe.

6.) Allow other sites to license their content. Imagine if some/all of the WSJ content was available on Yahoo, like Reuters and and AP stuff - WSJ would still get some money for the content and they would get increased exposure. If they also added advertising revenue, they could really increase profits.

Okay, these aren't the greatest ideas, however, I don't think this is an either / or situation. I think they can do both. I don't read the WSJ (print edition) often - mostly when I'm traveling, but I always enjoy it when I do. The quality of the content is great.

What do you think? Free? Subscription-based? Some combination of the two? Something else? What should the WSJ do?

The truly desirable electric car

I first read about the car a year ago, in Wired. A fast, battery-powered, sports car, that looked like a sports car. (check out a video from Sundance Channel - click view more, then Drive 4)

Let's face it, most of us buy cars (and almost everything else) for truly emotional reasons. There probably isn't a guy alive who wouldn't love to drive one of these - including yours truly.

As cool as this, the idea behind it is incredibly simple: cool car body + rechargeable batteries = a year long waiting list that you have to pay at least $30,000 to get on.

More proof that there are very few new ideas, just curious people who add 1 + 1 and come up with more than 2... (you've got your chocolate in peanut butter... )

My questions are:

With all the trouble the Big 3 US automakers are having, why didn't they come up with something like this? GM did, but then abandoned it.... sadly. It didn't look like the Tesla, but still...

With gas over $3 a gallon, why isn't the government doing more to subsidize development of things like this?

Pete Yorn was great!

I went to see Pete Yorn at the Chameleon Club in Lancaster, PA. last night - the show was great!

He did many of my favorite songs, including 'Life on a Chain', 'Strange Condition', 'Crystal Village' and even played a great Smiths cover during the encore: 'There is a light that never goes out'.

I spent the whole day listening to Pete Yorn yesterday, getting ready for the show. His first CD - musicforthemorningafter - is still my favorite. Even better is the musicforthemorningafter with Bonus CD featuring 5 cover songs!

If you'd like to hear what he sounds like live, check out the double CD: Live From New Jersey.

Again, great show! I highly suggest seeing him if you get a chance!

What are you listening to??

My friend Chris sent me an email this morning:

I need some new songs. Any recommendations? Here are five that I put on my latest mix cd. Can you recommend five of your favorites?

Cat Empire – Sly
Damien Rice – 9 Crimes
Pete Yorn – Life on a Chain
Tori Amos – Big Wheel
Polyphonic Spree – light and day

My reply:

Hmmm... 5 current faves... lets see...

Travis - Selfish Jean
Phoenix - Too Young
Wilco - ELT
The Doves - Almost Forgot Myself
Editors - All Sparks

So, how about you? What are 5 of your favorite songs right now??

Do Not Reply

One of my biggest email pet peeves is when companies send email from a "DoNotReply@SomeStupidCompany.com" email address.

Sometimes they even repeat the warning near the top of the message: Please do not to reply to this email address.

However, there is alawys some email address somewhere in the body of the message where you can direct questions or comments.

Not only is this a pain for customers, it also hurts the company sending the message. When you click on the other email address, you open a new message and you lose all the contextually relevant information from the original message!!!

Why not just send the email from the address you include in the body of the message? It makes my life easier - since I don't have to copy my order/account number in my reply (which has the possibility of being wrong - I could copy everything but the first or last digit, I could type it wrong, etc). It also hurts the company that sends it, because they don't have the full chain of communication - potentially missing some pertinent information.

Perhaps this is just me griping (I don't see it as often as I used to), but I got one of these messages yesterday and it would have been nice to just hit reply and asked my question without have to retype any details (the iPhone - yeah, I got one - doesn't have copy and paste, so typing was the only option).

The normal way I deal with this is just to copy the email from the body of the message, hit forward, and paste the email address in to the TO line.

Again, this is just a waste of time. Also, on a mobile device this is harder to do. It took me several steps on my iPhone yerterday - click the email link (it was embedded in the source, they didn't have the address spelled out or I could have just typed it) which opened a new email to that address. Saved that as a contact. Closed the new email message. Went back to the original message. Hit forward. Entered the new contact and hit send (all that for an email address I might never use again).

Don't even get me started about the kind of message it sends when a company tells me Not to Reply... ;-)

I'm half-tempted to get myself a DoNotReply email address and start using that when companies send out emails with a donotreply@...

Thoughts??

Morrissey was great!

We went to see Morrissey last night at Wolf Trap in Virgina - what a show!

He played a ton of solo stuff, some old Smiths songs and he sounded fantastic! What an incredible singer.

I highly suggest going to see him (tour info on myspace) if you get a chance!

This begins a summer of some great shows... The Fixx, The Psychedelic Furs, Lovedrug, and, possibly Muse again in August (plus a few others).

iPhone

I got one... sort of. I bought one for my wife. And trust me when I tell you it is even cooler than the appears in the commercials. I was going to wait for the next generation version to come out, but I might just go ahead and get one.

There was no line at the AT&T store at 7AM yesterday morning when I stopped at Starbucks for coffee (they're right next to each other) on my way to work, so I decided I would check back at lunch. There was no line at lunch time either, so I ran home to drop off my computer and went back. In that 30 minutes, a line of 6 people had formed.

So, at 12:30, I began my wait... and stupid me, I didn't bring a chair. DOH! The people (mostly male, middle age folks) in line with me were really nice, which certainly helped the time to pass more quickly... until about the last 1/2 hour, that seemed to take forever! :-)

When the time came, they let in the first 6 people in line, one for each of the employees in the store. I was number 7 in line, so I had to wait a little longer... but only about 5 minutes, til the first person came out.

I got my wife the 8 gig model, a couple of accessories and I was on my way home.

I took out her laptop, downloaded and installed the new iTunes, and then got forced to update MAC OS... which sucked.... I just wanted to get that phone set up to play!

After 30 minutes of software downloads and installs, I had the iPhone in the cradle and I was setting it up... the process was smooth, and we were done in just minutes.

Copied over her music and contacts and finally got to start playing around!!!

As I mentioned, the iPhone is incredibly cool... totally living up to the hype. Here are some notes:

- The iPod functionality is awesome, cover flow is great, however, the standard list is phenomenal as well. A little flick of the finger and you're scrolling through gobs of music (I put about 4 gigs on there)

- Scrolling through a list, at first, seemed backwards. I wanted to run my finger down the screen to get to the bottom of the list - just like you "scroll" down using a scroll bar, but it is the more natural gesture of flicking up to move the unwanted stuff out of your way.

- Setting up Wi-Fi took litterally 2 seconds: I opened the mail application and was prompted for our WPA key, entered it, and boom. Connected.

- I set up the local weather in about 1/2 second... simply by entering our zip code. There was almost no latency in getting the updated 5-day forecast for our city. It took me only a second or two to figure out how to delete the default cities weather forecast. Simply touching a red circle next to the city name revealed a delete button... very smooth.

- Navigating the maps was incredibly cool. Starting with two fingers together on the screen, just slide them away from each other in whatever direction you want the map magnified. I was able to drill into our city in a matter of a couple of gestures.

- There are no "close" icons or buttons, you just return to the main screen with the main navigation button on the device.

- I changed a couple of the default settings, which were quick and easy to do.

- The keyboard, which might take some getting used to, is very cool. The visual feedback when you press a letter or number is great - although, when you are entering a password and can't see the text you've entered, the visual indicators of the letters you've typed should stay visible for a little longer.

- One of the coolest things is a little ".com" keyboard button. You type in a URL in the browser and click one button to complete the address... that is wicked cool.

- I have my iTunes set to manually sync with my iPod, a feature I couldn't seem to find or accomplish with the iPhone. I'm going to have to investigate this one a little more. There was an option to only sync checked items or only sync certain playlists, so that might be the way to do it.

There are so many little things that make the iPhone praiseworthy... the whole time I was playing last night, a line just kept running through my head: touching is believing.

It is evident that they spent time truly understanding the main tasks people need to complete with a mobile device. The buttons for the main tasks are big and obvious... my wife kept remarking that they built it for someone who hates technology, like her.

Eurotrip...

Well, it looks like I'm headed back to Europe! I went to Switzerland a few years back, this time it looks like the UK and Germany... and I am psyched!

Not sure if it will happen or not, probably about 60 to 70% chance at this point... my fingers are crossed.

Stay tuned!

People, Purpose, Profit

People, Purpose, Profit... In that order! I'm sure I've read that before somewhere
or another...

Claire sent me a link to a new site being launched tomorrow for Westin Hotels: findrenewal.com

I love sites like this. People come first, business second. I'm not looking at the world through rose-colored glasses here, organizations need to make money or they cease to exist.

What I like about this is a very simple line (that I hope is authentic): "We are committed to helping you live your best life wherever you are." - I wouldn't have used the word "help", but that is a story for another day.

Having this site as opposed to just the normal corporate site (where it is all about them), is a nice change of pace.

My response to Claire included some text I had in a recent presentation I gave about corporate websites:

"Narcissism is the pattern of characteristics and behaviors which involve infatuation and obsession with one's self to the exclusion of others and the egotistic and ruthless pursuit of one's gratification, dominance and ambition."

(Most websites are narcissistic!)

This site is similar to a site recently launched by Hershey Foods - AllChocolate.com. I like the westin site better, but both sites were born from the same ideal.

Fast and Far...

Two great posts from our buddy Claire over at l-e-mental.com.

First up is Life in the Fast Lane:

The pace at which city dwellers walk has increased by 10 per cent in the last decade, [a new study] has shown.

Second, The 100 Mile Diet

When the average North American sits down to eat, each ingredient has typically travelled at least 1,500 miles.

Loads of interesting stats in the second post... like, Ratio of prisoners to farmers in the U.S. population: 5:2.

What are you still here for? Go check out Claire's blog! :-)