I see at least one article in the B2B media every day advising publishers to build social communities around their products or interest groups. But without any real direction, how well can we create a community that our readers will want to be part of? I recently attended a webinar, sponsored by the American Society of Business Publication Editors, titled Leveraging the Power of B2B Social Communities, that provided some suggestions on how to manage a successful community. Read further >

“You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression”

Most people believe that quote originated somewhere on Madison Avenue in the advertising business. I don’t know about that, but I believe what it says. First impressions matter in personal relationships, business relationships, and in marketing to customers. Making a positive first impression even has a place in the software industry. Take the following, for example.

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Some 25 years ago a revolution hit the publishing industry. Desktop Publishing became a reality with the Apple Macintosh, PageMaker, Postscript (the page description language created by Adobe), and, of course, the affordable Laserprinter. Suddenly it was much cheaper than ever before to create high quality publications. An important side effect was the availability of fonts (typefaces) to a much bigger community of graphical designers. At last designers could create both beautiful, high standard, practical printed material without any restrictions. Even better – in the slipstream of established type foundries, smaller, specialized type foundries emerged who designed many more fonts which in turn evoked a whole new graphical language. Read further >

Contextual Design to create solutions for customers is an excellent post on how to capture the essence of a particular task. But after you’ve turned your solution into the perfect filter, how do you turn it into a solution which gets users away from paper and onto your services? Read further >

I recently attended Digital Book World 2011, a conference primarily for trade publishers but with words of wisdom for all publishers. For me, one of the most interesting sessions was called “Publishers Developing Vertical Communities: Unleashing New Opportunities.” The panel consisted of Sara Domville, President, F&W Media; Joseph Craven, Vice President, Sales and Business Development, Sterling Publishing; and Rob Flynn, VP & Global Travel Publisher, Frommer’s. All three market to professionals in various fields and they provided some valuable insights for me as I think about the practice areas that I am responsible for. Read further >

It is a very exciting time to be an observer of technology. Events are coming along faster and with more impact all the time. The degree to which technology affects society at a fundamental level today seems to be unprecedented in both scope and speed. Big Things are happening more frequently and with greater impact. Read further >

No matter how seasoned a creative media pro you may be, it’s inevitable you’ll run up against an occasional brick wall where you need to troubleshoot a design or audio/video issue, learn a new software and/or hardware tool, or just get some advice. Knowing where to find the answer is critical. Read further >

In my last post, It’s All in the Play – Improving User Engagement Through Social Gaming, I looked briefly at the rapidly growing popularity of social gaming. Now let’s take a look at the underlying principles of their design and examine how they potentially can be translated into products aimed at professional markets. Read further >

Speaking about usability testing, we generally see it as a valuable, but expensive and time consuming, task. Is it always the case? Can we improve our web applications – and our customer satisfaction – adopting a simple do-it-yourself approach? Read further >

Everyone knows how ubiquitous smart phones have become. You can’t walk down any street without seeing the majority of the people – young and old – talking, texting, or in some way connecting with their mobile device. The proliferation of phones and the demand for immediate accessibility will continue to grow, as will demand for connectivity in our daily lives. And given the personal nature of mobile devices, the design and functionality of apps must meet the ever changing and more demanding nature of user expectations even when the users themselves don’t yet know what they are demanding. Mobile apps need to always innovate and always be ‘better’ than the last version. Read further >