Is content King, if functionality is a Serf?

"Designing for a best case persona versus the 'even your grandma can do it model supports goal-directed versus task-directed design”
Paul Hine, ZocDoc

NYC Web Design met for a presentation, panel and tech author update at AOL Venture’s at 770 Broadway Monday nite. ZocDoc's Paul Hine calibrated user design by advising completing full personas to satisfy. Consider what they do, how they react personally, professionally and to brands. Have multiple personas but know who loves the site and could be an evangelist, design for them without offending the others.

To create a tangible example, Paul showed a photo of imaginary “Joanna” the financial exec, who spins, eats Chinese at her desk and tagline quote would be “I don’t have time for that”. Though Joanna may never tweet for you or become an evangelist, its important not to piss her off. You strive to design so as not to offend your multiple personas, she’s still a user and could like the site.

Whether you are an “ultra-lite start-up in your girlfriend’s kitchen” or a large complex organization all sites need to test. You weigh results and filter accordingly. This includes tapping all user touch points. When you get positive comments, engage and survey. It all builds persona profiles.

An audience member said what he loved about using ZocDoc was the ability to decide by his own schedule. This Paul re-inforced, is “goal-directed” design argued for in Alan Cooper's Inmates are Running the Asylum. Instead of just providing a place to input a doctor's name and address, the user selects from scheduled openings and satisfies a goal. Similarly, eliminating just one step in password protection could be a huge improvement for the user.

When the panel came to review Noo‘s event site, the audience had been primed to ask, "what am doing here and how do I do it? Panel tips included visually setting off content to prioritize information and letting go of elements no longer supporting the new direction. A couple of advance copies of Larry Aronson’s update of HTML Manuel of Style topped a well-received evening of art and copy tango, webstyle.

Michael Bolin's Build Steps and new tool plovr to speed your site

The other night at the NY Web Performance Meetup organized by Sergey Chernyshev, I had the opportunity to hear software engineer Michael Bolin, (Google Calendar, Google Tasks, and the Closure Compiler) step a room full of speed hungry developers through build steps outlined in his book Closure: The Definitive Guide http://amzn.to/GuideClosure and then introduce his tool to further speed the process, plovr http://www.plovr.com/.

Admittedly, Sergey’s 101 intro, set it up but still. That I could follow this stuff was attributable mostly to Michael’s thoughtful, methodical delivery, but partly I think to cold immersion. You see “back in the day” at the SF convention center, I also took a seat in the front, then to absorb Java. Sometimes its useful to imagine oneself in a foreign country immersed in a new language and culture. Something always sticks.

Here’s what stuck. This web performance crowd are driven to speed your sites. Yes, the advertising model is pushing them but there’s another thing. Something observed later when free tech books were handed out. Rather than a raffle, Sergey required a brainstorm. Then you saw it, pure pleasure in thinking up better answers - the books were an excuse. We are getting our better, faster user experience but they get the real charge.

Tuesday Nov 23rd NY Web Performance meets for SPEED
RSVP bit.ly/aciIJY 7pm at Logic Works.

NYC Open Coffee - Spotting Food or Moi

Prompted by Ad:Tech at Javits Center this week, following the usual intros, Owen Brunette facilitated a rangy discussion about location offerings. Around the big table at Taralucci E Vino, consultants in finance, development, analytics, architecture, video and marketing weighed in on various applications and suggested hotter versions. Pepsi's Refresh promotion, re-enforcing their generations old, new generation branding, is giving innovation grants and one recipient sounds like it may have legs. It combines foodspotting, a location feature like Foursquare and Group on-like discounting. In NYC, there have been increased sightings of the on-the-town, going-out crowd shooting pictures of food back and forth so as not to spend time with ugly food.

Not at the show, by invitation only, another fun application now in beta, Honestly Now is for the same crowd before going out. This time for sending photos of themselves back and forth. NYC-OC member, Bob Petrie is looking for user feedback. Honestly Now let's you can check-in beforehand with friends about what you are wearing to get the real truth. As getting ready is the most reliably fun part of going out..more buzz back and forth ought to make it more so.... What do you think?

This is a weekly meeting for entrepreneurs, investors, and people who love start ups. Part of a world-wide network of Open Coffee Clubs, started in London; here in NYC we've been meeting since March 2007. Find Open Coffee clubs in other cities around the world here. Usually around 10-15 attendees, sometimes more; we try to maintain a group discussion format (think roundtable or seminar) rather than a presenter/audience split.Contribute to the Twitter Conversation: #opencoffeenycRead the Twitter Conversation with Twitter Search

http://bit.ly/OBrunette
http://bit.ly/AdTechny
http://bit.ly/grouponNYC
http://4sq.com/4sqSite
http://bit.ly/HonestlyNow

It's still your opportunity to vote

“I don't believe that my anger showed me anything about human character that my sympathy and rapport never had” Eudora Welty

So many angry words spoken on both sides inclines a growing number of us not to want to participate in political conversation. However polarized you think the nation is and invisible you feel with regard to Congress, voting asserts sane discourse. New scannable ballots for more secure, timely tabulation are increasingly in use. Perhaps next time, there will be a crisper font since a clear, uncluttered ballot is essential to reading in any language. We've toiled hard for fair voting. Now ballots are in multiple languages and interpreters are on site. Its not always been a peaceful process. Today you can join your neighbors to push the wheel of change further for positive change, please vote. http://bit.ly/1ap5kQ

Video on Blackberry - "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." Theodore Roosevelt

Coaxing my inner geek I have been able to do a lot more than I ever thought I would with technology. Jung promised if we go to our less developed functional area it can bring profound bliss like opposites attracting, I wouldn't go that far. Technical delays still make me think about what I'd really like to have. Sometimes I even think delays are programmed in so, we'll make another purchase i.e. the purchase of my netbook, digital video camera, voice recorder and flip camera. You know how it works.

This summer, I'd been doing this back and forth again with video on my handheld. Only now it bumped right against another new game inspired by Teddy Roosevelt “Do what you can with what you have where you are” .
Despite the sneering inferences of the young and the restless- you know who I mean, I thought if I could just get the production videos playing on my blackberry. If only....

Long story short, open source converters exist online (http://bit.ly/ihM81) but even better call BrianS at RIM. When I had tried my carrier with no result, I was transferred to RIM (http://bit.ly/dZR7d) and spared the obligatory first round of customer service by a swifter, above-the-norm standard evident there. Immediately, I was routed to someone who modestly referred to his 5+ years of video experience as limited (how refreshing). He stepped me through the conversion on the desktop manager and followed up with a written outline. As a result, I'm streamlined. Emails flow into the same device I have my production videos on and both can be accessed in transit. Woohoo happy camper, thanks Teddy for the inspiration and BrianS for making it real.

Professional Services: What To Pay For

If you are one of the lucky ones with a hiring budget, don't get bogged down in all the skill-set talk. Whether you are hiring an independent contractor or permanent professional in accounting, architecture, banking, design, engineering, health care, law, technology, marketing or other profession, full or part-time, you're still building the team.

You've got to think how would it be to have that person around? Can they get you where you want to go faster? Where could their network take you? In Good to Great, Jim Collins talked about how companies that routinely outperform indexes focus on “getting the right people on the bus”, then determine where to go and seating arrangements.

My analogy is sort of a new, green sport, at lease for those who enjoy it -THE SWAP. Today even the most fashionable are frugal in what fashionistas call dressing “high/low”. One green way to freshen the wardrobe is to swap. The way it works, everyone brings stuff they are ready to donate and then trades. What gets left, goes to Haiti. In my case, it was a huge suitcase. To my surprise, I went home with another one!

Helping Haiti is essential. I like free, it's great. But what really made this game rock was what happened when the most experienced swapper entered the room. To be honest, until she arrived, we didn't do anything, even though we just had to dig in. Then she arrived, organized everything and dug for pearls. She didn't do something someone else couldn't. But unlike the rest of us, she happens to know great things can be found for everyone because she's seen it repeatedly. She shares this vision, cares about fair play and loves to see people get what they like. Pretty soon all the guests, male and female, were in the same room peppering her with styling questions. She's never even worked in retail! Like a magic genie, she made the SWAP happen.

Got a project? Get a genie, get it going, create some magic....

NYCGenies on twitter

Bradley Jobling @bradleyjobling –

Catherine Ventura @catherinventura –

Chris Kieff @ckieff

Brad Wilson @ibradwilson

Gilbert B. Hammer @iptvevangelist

Joe Mulligan - @joemull

John Lee - @johnleemedia.com

John Mathews - @johnrmathews

Vidar Brekke - @social_vidar

Marshall Sponder -@webmetricsguru -

Jeff Keni Pulver- @jeffpulver

Damien Basile - @db

Katie Morse @misskatiemo

Jessica Levin -@jessicalevin –

Christine Coster @mizcity

Sophia Negron @sophnegron

NJIT Computing Students Doing the Work

“We are a true learning organization that adapts to change and responds rapidly to stakeholders' feedback. When we give our students the driver’s seats, we become mission impossible. The sky is not even our limit!”
Osama Elijabiri Director of Capstone Program

Budget-strapped departments, entrepreneurs and not-for-profits need to know New Jersey's Science & Technology University (NJIT) has the Capstone Real World University where students in the College of Computer Sciences can, with your best direction, do the job.

Students are supported by other students who have gone through the program and now function in an advisory capacity to the program that develops social intelligence and a sense of ownership for the student workers.

"I only discovered my passion because of that internship"
Jason Pearson, Advocacy Development CCS Capstone Program

With a donation of just $1000 and participation in this week's showcase, your business or organization could have 3 students for 12 weeks to work on that tech project. Projects are open to all industry sectors. To get an idea of what they can do for you, see what they did last term:

Project: Notebook, MS Surface, Cell phone Health Outreach, Image Processing, Multi-media Self-Discovery Programming for the Elderly and Game DevMasters Website Enhancements. Sectors: Web Development, Health Care, Aging

Project: Engineering requirements for Newark community-based organizations in collaboration with Business Access Sectors: Newark Business Community, Engineering

Project: Working with Newark Beth Israel Medical Center in a major project to deploy a new digital alert system and train hospital employees on using it. Sectors: Newark Medical Centers, Digital Alert Systems, Hospital Training

Project: Developing a simulation for the moving helical solar system and working with the president of NJ Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS)and management systems for the betterment of healthcare to take their website to the next level. Sectors: Healthcare, IT

To inspire your own team get your own group of NJIT students. Contact:
Osama Eljabiri
Sr. University Lecturer &
Director of Capstone Program
College of Computer Sciences
University Heights, Newark-NJ 07102
Work: 973-642-7123
Mobile: 973-981-1049
Fax: 866-605-9416
Email: oe2@njit.edu or elijabiri@gmail.com