The 12 Days of UseTube

In the spirit of the season, I am proposing that this list of items temporarily replace the traditional Yuletide selections from the original Twelve Days of Christmas, and by temporarily, I mean for just as long as you are reading this post, then go have fun with your friends and family.

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, the Powers-that-be gave to me,

Twelve Remote User Sessions

Eleven Top Priorities

Ten Recommended Heuristics

Nine Crimes against Aesthetics

Eight Errors Prevented

Seven Elements and Principles of Design

Six Well Paid Test Participants

Five Golden Triangles (Thanks Gord)

Four Improved Calls-to-Action

Three Paper Prototypes

Two Eye Tracking Stations

And An Appropriate Target Demographic

Happy Holidays everyone,
whatever it is that you celebrate!

Tagged

I came into work today to the realization that i had been tagged, which intrigued me. I received an email from the president of our organization, Gord Hotchkiss of Enquiro, mentioning that he had tagged, among others, me. Looking further into it, this tagging appears to be slowly moving over the blogosphere attempting to put faces back onto many of the posters that have become finely tuned blogging machines. And this I can get into! I sincerely believe that every one of us brings something different to the table through our experiences and the application of ourselves in different areas of life, so this game of tag is more than welcome. Similar to the 43things.com website, which is worth a look if you haven't seen it already, which asks its audience to list 43 things they want to do before they die.

But I digress... Here are my 5 things that people generally don't know about me.

1. On my high school graduation day, as I walked across the stage, I was pulled, fully unexpectedly, to the side in mid-cross and was presented with the district scholarship for art. I believe the district encompassed 2 or 3 other high schools in Chilliwack (you will know it by the smell of manure being spread on the corn fields as you pass through to Vancouver, British Columbia). I was able to put that scholarship towards an education in Graphic Design.
   
   
2. I have never lived outside of British Columbia. I have lived in numerous places within the province, including the north (Smithers), the interior (Revelstoke), Vancouver Island - which is one of my favourite places in the world to be (Comox & Campbell River), and in and around Vancouver, the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley (Chilliwack, Surrey, Vancouver and North Vancouver).
   
   
3. I had never been on a plane until i was 26 years old, and thus, had never travelled overseas until earlier this year, when I went with my wife to the UK.
   
   
4. While playing hockey for what must have been the ROI Theatre sponsored Atom team in about 1984 ( I know, this dates me, I was about 9 at the time if you wanted to do the math), I won the coveted Esso "Most Improved Player" award for my team. This sounds good, but the other two awards were "Most Valuable Player" and, I believe, "Most Sportsmanlike Player", so this put me in the "Not as bad as i used to be" category. But I was really proud at the time, and have the medal to this day.
   
   
5. Aaaaaand, the last bit for now is that i am a big, big fan of music, but you will never find me on a dance floor. You wouldn't know it by looking at me, but I've got no rhythm... ;)

I tag Frank Spillers, Jesper Rønn-Jensen, Thomas Watson Steen

Bye for now

Good-bye Joe

I would like to pay my respects to Joseph Barbera.

The last remaining member of the great Hanna-Barbera duo has passed away at the age of 95, succeeding his partner, Bill Hanna, who passed away in 2001. The influence of Hanna-Barbera on me through all the creations they brought to life is unmeasurable. It is likely that I wouldn't be the person I am today if I wasn't able to indulge my creative tendencies on the exploits of Yogi Bear, The Flintstones, and some of the lesser known favourites from the shorts, Hong Kong Phooey, Huckleberry Hound, Quickdraw McGraw, Augie Doggy and Daddy Doggie, and I loved it when the Hanna Barbera world came together in the Wacky Races.

Not many people know this about me, but Scooby Doo was my first muse and the reason i picked up a pencil to illustrate in the first place. This initial inspiration led me to enrol in every possible art class throughout high school and eventually to University for Graphic Design. I hold a special place in my heart for that little bit of magic that Hanna Barbera brought to me, and that i still feel every time i turn on the TV and see an episode of Snagglepuss or the Yogi Bear Christmas Special.

It saddened me that I pulled up the Hannabarbera.com website (redirected to warnerbrothers.com as the rights were purchased a few years ago) to find not one mention of the death of Joe. But, I suppose, it doesn't matter what he meant to them because I know what he meant to me.

Thank you Joe,
Cory

SocNet - Leveraging Social Networking for Your Site (Part 1 of 3)

SocNet? Yes, you heard me right…

Lately, just like in the movie 1984, I've been trying to reduce my vocabulary by combining existing words. This one is long overdue, and stands for, of course, Social Networking.

Much has been discussed about the buzz around the success of sites like YouTube, Myspace and Facebook, and how they put the power of the internet back into the hands of the user. And as much as the “wow” factor is perpetually newsworthy, much less has been discussed about how you can leverage these types of applications, or simply learn from them to improve the relationship between you and your audience. What has been discovered is that internet users like to have control, and whether site owners like it or not, they have it. They like to be heard, they like to be popular, they like to be unique and to be listened to, and this is what SocNet has empowered them with.

Now how can you empower your audience? Well, understanding first that, depending on the type of site that you have, there can be many levels to your audience’s onsite relationship, and as Rick Tobin mentions in his latest sponsoredb2b blog post, “You see, it’s not about getting more traffic; it’s about doing more with your traffic.”

Attracting new visitors:

Myspace: Having a MySpace page is a good way to start at the grassroots level, incurring friends participating in group discussions, establishing your site and the people (or personality) of your organization as unique and personable. What this means is that there is potential for referrals as long as you manage your brand reputation effectively.

The other way to dramatically increase activity on your site is… and this is a longshot… if you have a tool or application that can make the life of MySpace users that much easier, then promote it heavily, and it will get eaten up. An example of this comes from the most recent Hitwise report on Consumer Generated Media, where Photobucket, an image hosting website has had a 43% increase in visits from March to September 2006, with 8 times the number of visits as the competitors such as Flickr. And, as of September, 57 % of all of that traffic was driven by MySpace… Something to chew on anyways.

Youtube: Not only is YouTube the Wunderkind of online video because they allow your friends and family to keep up with your zany college antics by visiting the YouTube site and dialing up your videos. It is also one more way to increase the engagement level of users on your own website too. Sites like YouTube and Google Video are not terribly selfish, and are willing to spread the wealth by offering site owners the code that enables you to place whatever video you want on your own website, saving you the bandwidth of serving the video yourself.

Also, if your site is one that benefits by having longer viewing sessions, for instance, an advertising model, then incorporating video is a natural fit. According to the same Hitwise report mentioned above, the average visitor session at YouTube runs approximately 18 and a half minutes, meaning plenty of exposure to your video content, but advertising as well.

Blog: Well, this one you’re more likely to be pretty familiar with, considering a blog is where you found this article. Anyways, blogs are strong tools for a slow build, with subscribers spreading the word, attracting an audience of “like types”. Normally a vocal group, your Blog audience will let you know if they are stirred into discussion by offering their opinion.

Reputation Management is extremely important at all times, especially with blogs. With so much content being generated by users, some of it is bound to be negative. But if you're proactive and have the capacity to diffuse heated situations and are up for some healthy, sometimes passionate discussion, then you can weather that storm, and gain respect from those reading about you as the "faceless organization."

Here are a few of my favorites just to give you a head start, comment to your heart’s content:

Web Analytics World
Sponsored B2B
SEO Space
Out Of My Gord
SearchTank
Demystifying Usability

Professional Communities: There are also a number of highly recommended professional communities to establish yourself and your site in. Ryze, or LinkedIn, are 2 such communities that allow professionals to connect in much the same way that MySpace has done for the average user, except the popularity on these types of sites is much more focused to the industry that the user is involved in. By establishing yourself as an authority in your industry and collecting a list of other connections that recommend you as well, there is plenty of opportunity to leverage that into networking or career opportunities, consulting offers, new ventures or business deals, as indicated by the contact options in your own profile.

This is something that cannot be faked, and as long as you have a good product, or offer some knowledge in your area of expertise that others can find informative or innovative, then put yourself out there.

Orkut (a Google property) is similar in fashion to both LinkedIn and Ryze, but is somewhat less focused on business or industry, and is open to general profiles as well. Orkut was, until recently, unavailable to the public, but for those waiting to get an invite from the exclusive club don’t have to wait anymore, now you’re allowed through the front door.

This is one article in a series of 3 articles about ways to leverage SocNet throughout the entire relationship of your audience to the website. This article is looking specifically into how to attract new visitors using consumer generated media, and will be followed by 2 more articles:

Improving the Experience Once Your Audience is on the Site
And
Post Purchase or Continuing the Relationship.

SES Chicago - Gord Hotchkiss Discusses the Eye-Tracking Study

Enquiro's CEO and President, Gord Hotchkiss, is interviewed by TopRank Blog at SES Chicago today about the new MSN, Yahoo and Google Eye-Tracking Report. In the interview Gord touches on some of the key points in the study including how the MSN and Yahoo users experience on Google appeared to be considerably more favorable than on their engine of choice. Also discusses the issue of perceived relevancy on the engines. For more information, visit this review of the report.