Paradox of the Active User

Interesting post at Signal vs. Noise, bringing together some ideas about how people use technology… versus how they perceive they will use technology.

I am the active user, all the way. The one manual I usually sit down and read through end to end is always my cell phone manual — yet, I could not be arsed to do so with my Blackberry. Or my iPod, which I’ve had for years and only just learned how to charge last week (previous charging technique involved handing it to husband with helpless “I’m just a girl” eyes).

I feel a tiny twinge of guilt every time I sit down at a computer, knowing that there are tools and features inside that will make my life better and my work more productive… but I can’t be arsed to find them.

Just today, I opened Photoshop, and the starter tutorial window popped up. It’s been popping up since I installed CS, you see… and it looks really cool and like something I should take the time to sit through. Just don’t have the time right now… but I don’t want to forget it forever, either. So instead of toggling “Do Not Show This Message Again,” I allow it to pop up every time I open Photoshop, and then I feel the guilt, close the window and move on.

This can sometimes be an hourly ritual.

I want to be the ideal user. But I simply never will be.

What’s helpful for me personally is, not to think about manuals and documentation again (no offense, Jette! I love documentation! I do! But it’s not my piece.), but to realize that here in this old IBM study is a notion that is helpful to anyone who needs to know how customers think.

There’s the way people behave, and the way people aspire to behave; the twain might never meet and we need to be ever-cognizant and respond accordingly.

Dear Clyde Smith, I’ll Call It a Comeback!

Dear Clyde:
I know I was kind of harsh on you a couple of weeks ago. And, I’m sorry if I seemed unreasonable.

But! Clyde! I saw your latest post, and I am super-excited:

Way back last year I introduced myself as the new Experiential Marketing blogger at Fast Company. Though I’m fascinated by the topic, I also found this approach taking me in an overly academic direction as I attempted follow-up posts. Great concept, wrong blog topic.

So I’m relaunching my presence at Fast Company with The Show Must Be Marketed focused on Entertainment Marketing.

I’ve poked around on your own site, and entertainment marketing really does seem to be your forte. Write what you know! I think not only will your FC editors and readers get more out of the new approach, I really think you will too.

And, you’ve clearly stepped up your editing as well. The writing in this new post overall is tight, digestible and a marked improvement.

I’m sure you’re not actually reading this, and I don’t presume to have been the impetus for the new editorial direction. But, obviously I was not the only one who sampled the maiden offering and thought, “meh.” So, kudos to you for taking the criticism constructively. I look forward to future posts.

p.s. stop capitalizing Entertainment Marketing.

And here I thought it was weight…

“Ageism is our society’s last acceptable area of bigotry.”

The article is old, but a good read, for a reality check on how B2C has got to account for the demographic swell that is the Boomers.

Amplifying Your Effectiveness

(old post, but another link I need to save!)

This past autumn, there was an event held in Phoenix called the Amplifying Your Effectiveness leadership conference. Here’s the overview from the conference planners:

He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My CEO

Thought-provoking article on the connection between image and promotion. I can be a kneejerk liberal (“can be?”) (hush.), so when I realized this was an op-ed on weight discrimination in the workplace, I was prepared to sputter. But, I think the author handled it very well.

Despite the notion from an article at the Wall Street Journal’s career site that

Weight bias is one of the few prejudices that hasn’t yet become politically unpopular, and companies whose handbooks proclaim their discrimination-free hiring processes are often the cleverest at crafting rejection messages for people who “don’t look right” for a job. The best way to handle the weight issue is to avoid companies where it appears to be an issue and co-opt any concerns a recruiter or client might have about your size.

…I think we’re going to see a lot more discussion about this — and in the near future, as weight discrimination in the workplace heats up as an HR issue. But the conversation is going to be slow to spread; it’s very tricky to publicly say things like “attractive people are more successful” without getting kneejerk opposition and a deluge of PC for PC’s sake.

Managing Morale

Brian Sharp is a game developer in San Francisco, for Electronic Arts (home of my beloved Sim City).

And, he had this to say about his company, last spring on his blog.

Of course my first thought is, “Nobody in my company better think they can get away with that kind of public slagging.” (But, that’s easily solved with a detailed external communications policy.)

But my lasting thought is, “I don’t want anyone in my company to be this unhappy.”

When he wrote this, Brian was clearly experiencing a dangerous morale level, the kind that can only come from too much pointless work and not enough support and recognition.

A Bit Woo-Woo For Your Taste

Am feeling professionally blocked, these last few days, as I have let the Internet be a place where I go to receive bad feelings, instead of a tool I use to do better business and make more money and maybe read about sports. Additionally, feeling conflicted and weak because I let it.

So just now, I’m taking a break from Photoshop and pop into the reader, and the only two new feeds are these:

Dear Clyde Smith, You Don’t Know Much About Experiential Marketing, Do You?

The whole reason I started posting here was a compulsion to opine on the new experiential marketing blog at Fast Company, by Clyde Smith.

One post in and I’m underwhelmed. Annnnnd, having been on the receiving end, I can say with pride that it’s the inalienable right of anyone who publishes on the Internet to be critiqued by total strangers. So, here goes:

1. Put the thesaurus down. Your 75-cent-word-itis makes the page blur. All that overblown vocab sounds like a dumb person trying to act intellectual.