Chuck's posterous

Stop writing checks that your Digital team can't cash.

Just read a great article over at Digiday called "Confessions of an Agency Tech Vendor" and there are some nicely honest points. I'd like to stress an additional point of bringing in your digital/tech vendor EARLY on the project.  Once the Agency starts making promises to the client before consulting with the digital/technical team, you begin to go down the wrong path quickly.

 

Essentially — Stop writing checks that your Digital team can't cash.

 

The key problem is that when promises are made to the end client that can't be fulfilled at either the cost or scope specified, friction occurs. When the agency can't speak to problems with the design, or platform-specific issues directly to the client, compromises are made that don't make sense or worse, can't even be done. Bringing in the tech vendor early and discussing the direction with them first alleviates the simple issues most digital projects face. Stuff like cross-browser compatibility, application responsiveness, design specifics that work in print, but not the web, etc.

 

It's not a failure on the Agency's side to admit that they don't have digital experience. On the contrary, I think that it's a success when the Agency says to the client: "We've brought in a phenomenal digital team to help us with the campaign. They know the ins-and-outs and are experts in the field."

 

Maybe it's just me, but that sounds like the Agency's looking out for the client and trying to get the best work done.

 

And isn't that what it's about?

 

And the tweets will flow

Withheld

On closer inspection of Twitter's blog post Tweets still must flow after reading Mark Gibbs' article Twitter Commits Social Suicide, it was clear (at least to me) that the ability to filter tweets from the stream based on country is not what most people seem to think it is.

If read carefully (maybe Twitter should have worded it better), it seems that while they have developed the ability to filter the tweets, it is intended to be a REACTIONARY measure. What this means is that IF asked to remove a tweet, or filter tweets based on certain criteria deemed illegal by an individual country, then they can do it.

This does not mean they will, only that they have forecasted that when Twitter (an open discussion and bastion of free speech) enters into countries that have a different view of what "open" means when it comes to speech, that they will have the ability to comply if necessary.

And while (being an American) I believe in free speech and anyone's write to speak it (whether I agree with you or not) - other countries have different laws, different rules, and different ideas about what is acceptable. Twitter is making a proactive decision to build in functionality to their platform that will allow an easier transition as they enter other countries. The fact that they publicized it now, I think was smart. So IF and when it does happen, Twitter won't have to scramble to hack together a fast fix while being pressured politically, a fast fix that could possibly be a sledgehammer.

Bottom line. Tell the truth, be transparent, get it out now. Deal with the problems BEFORE they become problems. I think Twitter was smart by doing this (both building the feature and telling us about it).

Fix for Outlook2007 and 2010 spacer gif problem

So the past week has been all about email design and coding for me. I wanted to welcome you all the living hell that is Outlook 2007 & 2010 HTML email rendering. But also wanted to share a soluiton to a common problem and hopefulyl save you all some hair in the process.

The problem:
My 1px spacer gifs where not rendering correctly in Outlook 2007 & 2010. Everywhere else was fine. Essentially, they were displaying 15 pixels high which broke the layout. So after some due diligence and searching online I found several solutions, none of which worked. However, once I combined them together, it did.

The Solution:
Outlook2007 & 2010 have issues rendering spacer.gif's that are 1px square. Not sure why, it just is. So the first part of the solution is making the spacer.gif 10px X 10px square (the actual image!). Then in the enclosing table cell (or div or span) you need to set the font size to 1px as well. I went one step further and set the line height to 1px as well.

So here's a quick snippet to show you what worked (remember reduncancy is your friend):

<td width="210" align="center" valign="top" bgcolor="#2591d2" style="font-size:1px;line-height:1px;">
<img src="images/10x10spacer.gif" width="210" height="1" border="0" style="display:block;" alt="">
<table width="208" border="0" height="74" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="height:74px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:13px; line-height:17px;">
<tr>
<td bgcolor="#b9dff7" style="background-color:#b9dff7; padding-left:10px; padding-right:10px; text-align:left;" align="left" height="74"><strong>Lorem</strong> ipsum dolor sit amet.</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>

Just a quick snippet, but you'll see what's happening. ALL redundant styles and HTML attributes to appeal to multiple email clients (desktop and web). Then when you are done, use Litmus to test (it's an invaluable tool) for this stuff.

Thanks to Murray Moffatt and Philip J. Leitch for the 10px spacer trick and Matt Coughlin for the font-size trick (also has a great aggregate of all the limitations for Outlook).

Nice, persuasive push to tweet.

Screen_shot_2012-01-09_at_3

I was cruising around taking a look at some UI elements for Wireframing purposes and I came across the Futurico UI pack. It's a nicely designed UI pack and for $19 - a good deal. But what really caught my eye was the free version of the pack. Not ALL the goods, but a nice amount of good for inspiration or a quick use for a Wireframe. When I went to download though, I came across the above page. I was gently being told that if I wanted this free stuff, well, I was going to have to give a little.

Now we've been doing this sort of thing for years with whitepapers and other forms of free content on a website — but that has always been via an email address. This is the first time I've seen it as a tweet. I have to say, I think this is a much more successful. Even though I had to think twice about whether I wanted to advertise designmodo, I ultimately agreed to tweet because the content was good enough for me to offer that tweet. And that's the real lesson isn't it? Offer good content, and your users will appreciate it.

Groupon wins big by punishing employee

Screen_shot_2011-12-09_at_10

I recently unsubscribed from Groupon in an attempt to lessen the amount of email I get. Well, once I unsubscribed from everything, I was presented with this excellent "Success" page: http://www.groupon.com/unsubscribe

I was shown Derrick, a very depressed Groupon employee. He is depressed because I (yes, ME) unsubscribed from Groupon emails. I felt a little bad, because let's face it...he looks pretty down. The fun, however does not end there. Apparently I could can punish Derrick (I am assuming to add insult to injury), and punish Derrick I did.

I'll let you experience the fun for yourself, but after the punishment, I was presented with a link to resubscribe in an effort to make it up to Derrick. Suffice it to say I almost resubscribed (almost) because to be honest, I felt pretty bad and a little responsible for poor Derrick's treatment.

Kudos to Groupon for going the extra mile with a user experience on a page that could easily have been a simple "throw-away." Nice work.

Amazing short film by Dan Trachtenberg of The Totally Rad Show: Portal: No Escape

If you watch the Totally Rad Show (you should, if you don't) then you'll know Dan. A buddy of mine just passed this on to me and I thought it was amazing but I didn't know it was Dan's work until the end credits. It's a tight, engaging piece of storytelling that is made all the more cooler if you are a fan of the game Portal. But if you aren't it holds up as an excellent teaser for what could be a tense, SciFi chase/escape film.

One of the things that really stands out though is the score. Again, if you watch TRS, you'll know the emphasis that Dan puts on score in the films he likes. Well, he definitely put his money where his mouth is. The score pulses with tension, and moves the action along swiftly. The effects are top notch as well, never looking cheesy and always serve the plot.

The most amazing thing though is how he got the main character's tenacity across, with no words at all.

Great job Dan, and to everyone involved. I'm looking forward to the feature length!

Black Dynamite is back!

Michael Jai White is a genius. If you've seen his brilliantly funny and action-packed retro flick Black Dynamite, you need to watch the pilot for this (hopefully soon to be picked up) Adult Swim animated series.

The animation is original with elements of 70's design and old school television. But also has a sleek modern feel with anime touches. The writing is retro-cheesy and off-the-wall, and the voice talent goes all out.

If you're into any of Adult Swim's other shows (like Archer) you'll dig this baby.



"Black Dynamite: The Pilot"
In this unaired pilot for the upcoming Black Dynamite series, our ass-kickin-friend-of-the-community Black Dynamite takes on his childhood mentor and surrogate father: That Frog Kurtis, a Puppet TV educator turned super villain!

Sent from my iPad

The problem with I-shaped people and Social Media Experts

I was forwarded an excellent article written by Peter Shankman called Why I Will Never, Ever Hire A "Social Media Expert" and I agreed with it. Peter points out the folly of hiring a "Social Media Expert" for the pure value of hiring someone that calls themselves a "Social Media Expert." I also read the follow up from Rand Fishkin at SEOmoz called Everyone Should Hire 'Social Media Experts' which I felt was well written but ultimately missed the point. 

I'll agree that Peter's post was riddled with stereotypes (as Rand suggests) and was lacking in actual statistics and proof to support his premise. However, I don't believe that was the point of Peter's post at all. While I was impressed by Rand's informationally deep post, I think he got the spirit of Peter's post all wrong. Clearly Peter was fired up about people who call themselves "experts," when in reality they only have a small amount of expertise crammed into the single silo of social media (I called these "I-shaped" people). I was impressed with Rand's "Spheres of Social Media Expertise" but if he had really looked at his own chart he would have realized that it displays exactly what Peter was saying. The Intermediate and Advanced Knowledge columns clearly show a deeper, more well-rounded expertise in something MORE than just social media. 

Peter makes reference to the companies that added ".com" to their names thinking that added legitimacy. I worked with many companies like that in my career, before, during and even after the bubble. The ones that understood that ".com" was either an extension of their physical world or a strategic direction for bringing a true idea to light succeeded. Those that thought it would magically transform their businesses, did not.

There's a lesson to be learned here. It all comes down to one word: "Strategy." The so-called experts that Peter points to in his article are simply not strategic. They only execute on the cool idea du jour. Just tweeting something out is silly, posting blindly on Facebook is silly. You need a plan; and the people represented by Rand's chart can give you that plan. And I guarantee you if one of THOSE people (BTW, a "T-Shaped" person) walked into Peter Shankman's office, he'd hire them in a heartbeat because that knowledge belies a breadth of talent and skill that only comes from experience, experimentation, and lessons learned from a multi-disciplinary approach.

Look, "Social Media" is not going away. In fact, as per Rand's statistics show, it's very large and growing. Everyone realizes it. What Peter was saying was simply this — social media is NOT the be-all and end-all of marketing and that "Social media is just another facet of marketing and customer service." It requires a balance between many disciplines and to get it right requires a special sauce that only well rounded experts can provide.

It's all in the mix my friends. All in the mix.