Hipno-Blog

I was thinking last night while driving home from the Jaycees meeting. I was thinking how sometimes I wish that South Florida had a stronger technology community. Sometimes I see people blogging from San Francisco about going to all the Web 2.0 parties, or about how various A-List bloggers like Jason Chen and Kevin Rose rub elbows at local bars. I don’t mean to sound like some kind of web 2.0 groupie. I just wish there was a stronger sense of community among the tech people here like there is in some other major metropolitan areas.

This thought resonated particularly strongly with me after I spent a weekend in Key West. It just seemed to me that it was an ideal place for that kind of an atmosphere. A lot of coffee shops and bars (several of which had free wi-fi). It is a very bicycle and pedestrian friendly city and has a great small town feel while still being big enough to have a Gap and Banana Republic (no Apple store though, that could be a liability). The city is very artistic and laid back.

So what does any of this have to do with marketing? (as I see myself drifting more and more off-topic). As I was driving home, I was wondering if I was giving up on the idea that South Florida could be a “San Francisco of the East Coast” and if not, what was I going to do about it. The truth of the matter is, working in Marketing and Advertising puts me in an even better position to promote South Florida as a tech and internet hub. And it would be an enjoyable concept to promote, because its one I believe in.

And that is the message of this agency. Truly effective advertising is about promoting the things you believe in. If you don’t believe in a product you are promoting, you are a liar. I believe in South Florida as an Internet destination, and I plan to only promote products and companies that I believe in.

What is HipNotyx? It was originally the concept for a Marketing and Design Company. This was back in 2001. The tag line was “For a Mesmerizing Presence”…get it? As contacts were made within the South Florida web development community, the bulk of our work came from programming, so naturally we became more of a development shop.

In the past 2 years, there has been a lot of work in the realm of User Experience Design. There was alot of work being done in the Web Development and Web Application arena, especially since the arrival of Ajax on the scene. So there was a greater need for people with a sense of how to make these interfaces more available to the regular user.
Well, now things are beginning to come full circle again. Why? Well I believe strongly in certain things in my business and professional life:

• Integrity (pretty simple)
• A good. You should never create a product you cannot be proud of. (see the first bullet)
• A good product should be easy to use
• A good, easy to use product is not enough. Regardless of conventional wisdom, great products do not “Sell Themselves.”…You need marketing
• When you tell a potential customer about your product, clarity of communication is important, and it should be easy to find all the information one could ever want about your product or service.

What I see here is a common thread tying together all of the past (and present) business products. There is very little difference between User Experience and Marketing. There is actually a degree that studies both of these disciplines ( Industrial Engineering ).

In order for marketing and advertising to be effective, it must be accessible to the user (the target market). And by accessible, I don’t just mean delivery. I mean it has to be properly targeted, properly crafted for the target market, and it must be meaningful to the user. Your message has to be clear. In other words, marketing itself has User Experience. And the Usability of your marketing material has a strong effect on brand perception. Anyone who questions that should watch this video. Its a video presentation at the Google campus on how proper (and improper) user interface design can impact the way a brand is perceived. I believe that connection is even more directly drawn when it comes to the design of your marketing material. Who remembers the PlayStation 3 ads with the weird possessed baby doll? What was that? The only demographic that remembers the ad (gamers and males 18 - 34) was already aware of the upcoming PS3, and hated the commercial. Nobody outside that group even noticed the commercial because it didn’t communicate anything to the user, create a call to action, or even create some sort of curiosity in the user that would associate with an effective guerilla marketing campaign. The same argument can be made for the current run of overly-artistic Zune commercials. All flash and no substance, but not clever enough to engage the user into looking for the substance. They come off as poorly attempted guerilla campaigns from companies or agencies that “don’t get it.”

Marketing is about your message and your product. Tell your target market what they want to know about your product and why they will love it. Tell them what your company is about. If you have integrity and a good product, that will be the most powerful and effective thing you can do. User-Friendly Communication. Are there exceptions? Guerilla Marketing is the only (half) exception to the rule. And that is because it is about engaging the user with your product and brand. And engagement leads to conversation. Guerilla marketing is the flirting that leads to the relationship with the user. But if you can’t follow that up with substance, communication and further engagement…well, its the same as it is with real flirting…nothing happens.

Technorati Tags: marketing

I have been playing with my iPhone for 3 days. Its everything I dreamed it would be. And EDGE isn’t as horrible as I thought it would be.

what is one of the nice things I would like to be able to do from my iPhone that I currently can’t? Keep up with my RSS feeds. I know there is an online one at reader.mac.com, but thats really too simplistic a solution for me. I use NetNewsWire the feature that got me was that it synced my read / unread items with its web client (newsgator online) So if I want to read my feeds from another computer, I can easily only read the things I haven’t read, and not re-read them from my desktop client!…So I need to have something on my iPhone that interfaces with news gator. Luckly, they have what appears to be an excellent API with pretty good documentation.

Now, whenever I do a quick project, my thoughts always turn to PHP first. It is a programming language I have worked with daily for about 5 or 6 years now, I am pretty familiar with it (to put it mildly). They have a SOAP interface, and I have plenty of experience using NuSOAP ( I am not a fan of the SOAP methods built into PHP5 and appear to not be the only one, They really should have used NuSOAP as a template for the built in SOAP functionality, oh well).

Luckily, someone appears to have already done alot of the hard work on this. There is an excellent article at the Burningbird Blog. The code is almost 2 years old, and I don’t know what changes have been made to the API since it was written. Also there is an interesting class at Incoherent Code that looks like a nice clean sample. I plan to base the PHP end of my code off of these two code samples I definitely plan to abstract the API behind a class similar to the Incoherent Code sample. Iif you are kind of a noobie to PHP, or have never tried to use NuSOAP on PHP5, download the modified version from Incoherent Code. There is an issue with NuSOAP in PHP5 (it defines the soapclient class, which is a built in class in PHP5 if you compiled it with SOAP support (which I believe is the default). If you know PHP well enough, you can just search and replace soapclient with nusoapclient (or whatever class name you want to use) in the NuSOAP files and it will work fine, just remember to adjust samples accordingly.

I plan to use that PHP on the back-end, I have simple requirements, just retrieve my feed structure and unread count from each feed and feed group. And then I will retrieve all headlines for each feed, and finally the full story for each headline. when a story is retrieved, it will be marked as read, there will be a button to keep the story as unread (I hope they have “flag” or something similar in the api!).

I plan to use iUI probably something similar to their Digg example but deeper. I will let you know how it progresses. Hopefully soon I will be able to read Gizmodo and Valleywag from anywhere!

Let me begin by stating that a lot of people (myself included) were disappointed last week when Steve Jobs tried to pretend that Ajax was a development platform for the iPhone. Its not. BUT…I think it would be wrong for us to miss the fact that full Ajax support on the iPhone is very powerful. It means I can have cross-platform functionality with very little cost. I can use Google Docs to save and store all my important spreadsheets and documents, I could then view, edit and email them from either my phone or my desktop or laptop, all in the same place. I could even sync an offline copy to my laptop for when I can’t get a connection. I can keep up with my NewsGator feeds while on the road (like bloglines more, but LOVE NetNewsWire) If I really need mobile IM, I can just hook up to Meebo. There is alot I can do without any third party solutions. It brings the world of mash-ups to my mobile device. Its opening my phone to the world of user created, user controlled content.

I also think that there is a little more in the works than alot of people picked up:

• We know Google Ajax apps are central to the iPhone
• We know Google and Apple have a close development relationship
• Google just release Google Gears the week before Steve Jobs keynote
• Safari for Windows was released at WWDC 2007

We know where this is leading, I believe that Google Gears will be available for the iPhone. There is one flaw with this theory…there is no Google Gears for Safari, only for IE, and Firefox. I think that was one of the motivations behind releasing Safari for Windows. It increases the market share for Safari, making a Safari Extension more cost-efffective. If your Ajax apps get stored offline, and just update and sync when a connection is available, it makes Ajax over Edge more bearable, and it would allow you to use your iPhone apps when you can’t get an internet connection.

All that said, I think Ajax is just a stop gap. I think there will be an iPhone SDK for software vendors. I think it will only be available to certain developers, and they will have to distribute their software through iTunes. If the SDK is free and available to all, the software will still have to be disributed through iTunes, and there will definitely be an approval process. Those of you hoping for Skype on your iPhone….c’mon! be serious. I hope there will be 3rd party development, I would really like to have SSH on my phone, and although I could implement that in Ajax, I would rather not.

Professionally, I have decided to focus my efforts on on a very specific set off skills:

• User Experience Design
• Ajax

I will also:

• maintain my level of PHP knowledge.
• and work to do a project each in Ruby and Python this year.

I have one project started (currently named Checkly) that I am creating in PHP, built on the Zend framework. Next week, I plan to read the introduction to Human Factors, “The Design of Everyday Things” This book is required reading for Human Factors / Usability / User Experience, etc.

Starting next week, I also plan to wake up at 6 (6:30 latest?) this puts me out the door at 6:30, and out of the gym before 8. I would like to hang out at the Starbucks by my gym (or better yet the atlanta bread company, they have free wi-fi) until 8:45, I will then begin driving to work and get to work at about 9:15.

What the hell am I going to do in a coffee shop for an hour? Drink coffee, obviously! Seriously, I will be planning out my day, reading my email, my news feeds, and planning out my day. I would like to thank David Seah for his inspiration. He wrote an excellent article giving a glimpse into his morning ritual.

Also following his lead, I think I will use a modified version of his Emergent Task Planner, I will designate a spot on it for a “Blog Topic for today.” I hope this new habit will help me to lead a more “deliberate” life. I hope it will also give me an ideal time to process my “Inbox” and do my “weekly review” a-la “Getting Things Done“.

In the month and a half since my last post (so sad) I have done some evolution and some thinking and some changing:

I am currently :
focusing on my freelance efforts, and finding my niche (next article on that).
Looking at how to market myself with target audiences that I know and understand
Working with my good friends at Vipa Health Solutions on revolutionizing the medical information industry.
Looking at ways to hone my User Experience, Information Architecture, and Copyrighting chops (how many programmers actually majored in English?)
Still taking in everything I can about JavaScript and Ajax (I love the “seminars” by Douglas Crockford on YUI!)
Amazed at finding out there is a web developer that wrote an article for Vitamin living right here in South Florida (and working at a company I know)…check out her blog

What is bring about all these changes? (well, several of them anyways)… 4 Hour Work Week. an awesome book, a lot of insight. I wouldn’t necessarily read it like a manual of how to achieve a crazy millionaire, sky-diving jet-setting lifestyle while being a regular (non-millionaire) Joe-Schmoe (as it purports to be). I DO recommend it because it is a perspective changing book. It shows you that you don’t have to wait until you’re 75 to take a trip around the world, and that your life is what you make it. There are a lot of good ideas, but I don’t think its as easy as “Read this book, and you will be able to do anything”.

Summary of the 4 Hour Work Week: You don’t want to be a millionaire, you want to do some things you think only millionaires get to do. Find out the price, and establish a low-maintenance way to pay that price ( You will be amazed at how low the price can be and how easy you can earn that money sometimes). He tells you about outsourcing work and errands (reduces stress and workload, allowing you to focus on higher-return), and that if you live or adventure abroad, doing all of the things you want can be even cheaper.

I would recommend it just a…oh god, hackneyed phrase coming on….a paradigm shifter.

Why don’t companies drink the Kool-Aid? Eat their own dog food? Whatever corporate simile you prefer. And how do they get customers? I first started asking this question when I did some consulting work for an interactive advertising firm. They did all their sales through PR, i.e.: through contacts. That is understandable. Advertising, especially small interactive companies, need to sell that way. You can’t just put up a site and expect customers to beat a path to your door. That thought is completely 1997, and obviously false. However, their site was full of sample content. Yes, the live site of a company whose function is online advertising is full of Lorem Ipsum text. And of course they did ZERO online advertising. Would you buy shoes from a barefoot man? Why would you buy online advertising from people that don’t advertise online. The team at 37 Signals writes about scratch-your-own-itch development. You want a solution from some that knows your needs because they have felt them.

If you work online, I expect to see a few things:

• Communication Via IM…whatever your preference MSN, AIM, Yahoo, Google…The web is about instant gratification If you don’t get IM, you don’t get the web.
• A decent website, with real content.
• That isn’t broken, no broken images, and gets some kind of update at least within 6 months
• Read RSS feeds. I wouldn’t invest with a broker that didn’t read the WSJ, and its not because you really use that news for investing. Its about buying into the culture of your industry. If you aren’t up on a certain amount of blogs, you aren’t up on what is going on in the corner of the web you care about.
• I expect some of those blogs to be related to your industry (Advertising: Micro-Persuasion; Web Design and IA: Social Web Design, a list apart; Programming: Zend, Ajaxian, etc.) If you are good at what you do, and want to stay at the top of your game, you should always have your ear to the ground.
• Try all the latest online fads. I have accounts on myspace, twitter, digg, flickr, youtube…I dont really ever log onto those, but I have played with the tools, I get the concept, even if I dont use these tools very often at all. This goes back to understanding the ecosystem you work within, the web.
• Believe in your work. If you don’t think online advertising matters, why the hell are you selling it to me? If you don’t see a need for yourself to have a cool and dynamic site with create design, why do you think I do? It just tells me you have the ability to produce a product that doesn’t interest you, and you think you can make money by selling it to me. DRINK THE KOOL-AID
• Be passionate about what you are doing. If reading those blogs is work, if you aren’t curious about opening a twitter account, if you’re a designer that won’t read an article about Photoshop CS3 features, or a Javascript developer that thinks reading Ajaxian is too much extra-curricular work, then find something else to do. I’m not asking for discipline and commitment, I am asking for passion. Enjoy it. If you Don’t want to touch your rss reader / computer / a trade rag on the weekend or past 5pm, you aren’t really interested in this.

You’re not doing yourself or your boss / clients any favors by doing a job you don’t find interesting. We spend way too many hours of our lives working to not love what we do.

Wow, the latest linux journal arrived in my mailbox yesterday. Its focus (or theme) for this month is….drum roll…Ajax!. some interesting stuff, how to use MochiKit (looks cool…I am mostly YUI and Scriptaculous, but any opportunity (or excuse) to play with something else is welcome) They show you how to build an Ajax based ethernet monitoring tool (as an added bonus they user Ruby for that (not Rails, thought I would let you know if you are having some trouble differentiating the two) They also show how to use firebug, one of the most heavily used tools in my arsenal. They also touch on how to use firebug to debug CSS and HTML / DOM issues. Seems really interesting, I haven’t really delved too far into DOM manipulation, and was going to re-view Douglas Crockford’s 3 part presentation on the DOM at YUI. They also show how to use Aptana, Tried it and it was pretty good, but most of what I do is more heavily server-side, so a pure javascript IDE was nice, but not practical, and had its own debuggger (I would never leave firebug for Aptana, sorry guys!) but if you MUST have a javascript IDE, it definitely kicks ass, you should read the article. Other articles / features that seem interesting (haven’t read yet) and relevant to my daily work are:

• “Writing Web Applications with Web Services and Ajax” — In this article you use Ajax to hit some Perl Scripts that run a web service out of a postgreSQL db.
• Ajax plugins for Wordpress (maybe I will use some here)
• An Ajax chat client in cooking with linux
• An overview of PostgreSQL

I have been meaning to try it, and now use it at work everyday…not bad, I can’t get used to having to specify the schema name everytime I run a query. Also since MySQL 5 includes triggers, stored procedures, views (all the stuff that makes and RDBMS a real RDBMS “real”) I haven’t had much of a reason to look at mograting to something else for my free-lance projects. (correct me if I’m wrong, but I think there is now a mysql engine that even enforces referential integrity…if you’re into that [braces for flame]

Ok, that was a collection of tangents. Until next time…

I have been watching the javascript lectures from Douglas Crockford and it is one of the most enlightening things I have watched as a Web Developer. Honestly, there are times when I walk through Barnes and Noble, and flip through various computer books, and feel that the ones in my field have very little to teach me. Its not that I think I know everything…I obviously don’t, but finding good instructional material on things I haven’t had that much experience in but would like to….well, its just not that easy. And this stuff, its awesome. Imagine a seminar in javascript, taught by the undisputed guru of javascript! And its downloadable in MP4 to watch on your desktop or on your PSP or iPod!

its at the YUI theatre main page, see for yourself and tell me what you think in the comments below! Over 4 hours of javascript awesomeness! I will be blogging about some of the coding practices and writing JavaScript Code based on what I’ve learned!

here is the latest update on HipNotyx;

• We have a new look and feel on our website (more on that later)
• Working on giving the Coconut Grove Jaycees a new look ( www.jcicoconutgrove.com )
• Expanding the framework we use to develop new PHP applications
• Working on my LinkedIn network
• new ideas for a partner putting together a tourism targeted video site.

As you see from the new look of the website, HipNotyx is trying to focus more on our end-users and target market. No more geek-speak or trying too hard to sell our product. I believe that “fit” between to people or companies is really the key to success, so I decided to structure our site so that it appeals to the kind of people I want to work with.

Things I want to add to the site soon:

1. some nice fade in/out on the services page to leave only concise explanations in the default view
2. a nice gallery with bigger views of past projects on the portfolio page
3. a contact form on the contact us page
4. section icons on the on each of the pages (matching the icons on the front page)
5. links pointing back to my LinkedIn profile (maybe here in the blog)
6. and of course: bring the design of the blog a bit more inline with the rest of the site.

Also, my wife Lili will be working more closely with the company, perhaps using it as a springboard to focus on the kinds of work (Marketing Related) that she wants to be involved in.