SuperSatellite

eduWeb 2008 Day 3 (Can I go home yet?)

// July 23rd, 2008 // 4 Comments » // Tech, Travel, Web

The morning Flickr update is done.  I was quite disappointed, no sooner had I gotten to the Boardwalk last night and my batteries went and died on me, so I ended up missing a lot of good shots.  Hunting down sushi was an interesting challenge, but by god, not only did we find it, we managed to put together a crew of about 22 people. Yeah, they totally hated us.  Hopefully everyone else tipped well (because I sure didn’t… no, I kid, I did).  I’m sorry to report it actually wasn’t that great, which is too bad.  That was, however, the best group I’ve managed to get together.  So, what’s everyone doing at HighEdWeb in Springfield? Heh.

The morning is starting as a painful one.  Stupid soft beds.  I’m getting rolling at Sarah Stanek’s presentation on effective web site management.  Didn’t hit topic tables this morning.  I’m gonna follow here as best I can, had to jump in a couple minutes late due to a last minute need for a jacket in the room.  We’re talking about turning skills as web users into skills for web authors.  A person might not know how to create what they want, but they know what they want to see, so we should give them the tools to do that.

Four steps of web writing: 40% organizing, 30% setting goals, 20% writing, 10% building.  Did you know 67% of all statistics are made up on the spot?  It’s true.  We’re back to a lot of basics: web users scan, not read, reuse content when possible, proofread.  More stats: web site creation is 80% organization and 20% composition.  What happened to 40/20?  Write, test, and revise navigation.  I’m getting that feeling of “too basic” again.  I think it’s time for conferences to have an “advanced concepts” track.

“Ideal links are 7-12 words in length.”  That seems like a really unusual statement.  While you see this with blogs where the title is a link, general contextual links will never be that long, and making them that long is kinda crazyish.  She’s also throwing out the idea that we should use words, not URIs.  Good concept, unless you want URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) recognition so people can go straight back without navigating clear through your site.  That’s a bit nitpicky though, because I understand why you should use words instead of URIs.

Hierarchy of web content: links and navigation, calls to action, support documentation, site home page, ande everything else. It is clear, relevant, short, relatable, easy to scan, and authentic.  You know, I really thought this was going to be about managing a web site, not about an introduction to creating and organizing content.  I was sorta thinking how you manage resources, work with other teams, control and drive development, etc.  Oh well.  Sorry, I’m cranky this morning, and still waiting on the Aleve to kick in.  Updates to follow…

Update ~9:29AM EDT

Nearing the end of the first session, and covering more writing tips.  It does make me glad that I don’t have to write, for the university at least.  Now, I do like the idea she presents to create a fake departmental site, full of bad writing and mistakes to use as an example and to train people to find and fix things.  It allows you to train consistently and to avoid calling anyone out as an example.  And to paraphrase: never underestimate the stupidity of your users.

Update ~10:21AM EDT

I’m taking a gamble in the session on e-mail in the new media landscape.  One, because I’m not terribly interested, and two, because it’s a vendor presentation.  But if I go take a nap, I might just sleep away the rest of the morning. And afternoon.  The vendor is Greg Cangialosi from Blue Sky Factory.  These guys are in the email business, so you can bet they’re going to be pushing the importance of email.  Let me be clear, I like email, I think it has its place, but I also think there are things that it isn’t good at and wasn’t meant for.  I also think it’s time for marketing to find a new medium, as email’s spam saturation level is so high that I think the effectiveness of it is in peril.  Plus, I’m not a proponent of HTML email.  I know some folks that will disagree with me, and can throw numbers to the contrary, and I admit it is a personal thing.  It made fun of my mom when I was a kid and I still hold a grudge.

He says “Email is THE dominant app.” I cannot argue with that.  It’s sorta like how Ali was the heavyweight champ, or VHS was the video format of choice.  Stat: ROI is ~$48 for every $1 spent on email.  Did you know 28% of all statistics are made up on the spot? It’s true.  I would like to see some methodology on those numbers actually.

Switching gears to RSS. Discussing how prevalent it has become, and how it’s being woven into the fiber of the web.  But the thinking is RSS can’t replace e-mail, which I’d agree with.  But I also don’t think it ever could have.  He states that e-mail is the currency used by all the accounts that you have, everywhere you go, every service you use, e-mail is the common thread through them all.

Greg presents the following “five gems” to capture data and build returns: incorporate social media (capture them every opportunity you get), optimize for mobile devices (positive brand experience), triggered and nuture e-mail (keep your brand in their mind = mindshare), permission is paramount (tell them what to expect), and lastly, don’t forget the parents (keep the decision makers in the loop).

Update ~10:35AM EDT

Example of nuturing email: 52 tips in 52 weeks.  Nice, because it also suggests a “contract” that you’ll get an email a week, no more, no less.  Some things you can control and test: from line, subject line, copy, imagery, call to action, and a landing page.  “Email is the digital glue of it all.” I can see that thinking.

Greg’s blog is www.thetrendjunkie.com.  He’s also on Twitter, @gregcangialosi.

Update ~11:33AM EDT

OKay, got my bag into the hands of the busboy (busman?) for the next couple hours.  Managed to get checked out before the biggest part of the eduWeb rush I think (it’s currently pretty empty in here).  I can’t wait to get away from the stale 30 year old cigarette smell of this place.  For the record, the eduStyle award winners from yesterday’s lunch have been posted: http://www.edustyle.net/awards/winners.php.  I plan on seeing us on that list next year.  We just weren’t fast enough with the redesign to get in the running this year.  But that’ll give us a solid year to smooth things out.  Fear us.

Waiting for “How to Embed Video on Your Website” presented by Lance Merker of OmniUpdate.  Another vendor presentation on a subject not of a ton of value to me.  I’m hoping he covers some stuff like codecs and bitrates.  The last session like this I sat in on was just on recording and very basic editing, not at all what I wanted.  Our CMS (Content Management System) (dotCMS) is already set up to handle, embed, and display video just fine, but I always like tweaking settings to try and get clearer, more high quality FLVs.

Okay, the first photo was pretty funny.  Tried to get a photo of it, but he went to fast.  The concept is that video should be used to address the “short attention span theater.”  They are “information snackers.”  People viewed 11.5 billion videos in the month of March.

Videos on campus are good for campus tours, visual FAQs (neat idea, expanding on the screencasting concept), blog content, student perspectives, serial programming.  I wonder if anyone has thought to engage their broadcasting depart to put together a “TV show” that is ran only on the web, a la Dr. Horrible.

Hooray! Containers and codecs and players, oh my!  Finally someone seems to be getting to the good stuff.  Talking about YouTube as a potential, but not terribly effective solution.  It’s easy, but not ideal, and you end up with a branded, identifiable container that you have little control over.  Flash video is the ideal solution.  I think that’s a generally agreed upon medium at this point.

Talking transcoding to get to FLV now.  He’s recommending www.transcodeit.com to use cloud resources to get any common video format to flash.  No mention of bitrate or size controls though.  He’s doing a demo now, and it looks like there are no controls for such things.  I’ll mention Riva Encoder as well as a free FLV encoder.  I’ve found it to be pretty fast and decent.  Answering my question, he corrects my previous comment and says there are controls for bitrate, etc, we just need to wait until the upload of the sample video finishes on our brutal wifi here.

Update ~11:49AM EDT

Transcode-It actually doesn’t look too shabby for a free, online transcoding service.  It even has FTP (File Transfer Protocol) controls to automatically upload the transcoded video straight to your web site.  Interesting… Transcode-It apparently supplies code specific to OmniUpdate users as well.  They must be affiliated.  And now that I look at it, the Transcode-It site footer clearly states an OmniUpdate copyright.  So, just be aware.  Still looks like a good service, and you don’t have to use OmniUpdate to use it.

Also talking about captioning too.  He recommends MAGpie.

Update ~12:50PM EDT

Keynote! We’re almost done!  The closing keynote is being presented by Karine Joly, and is called “It’s the Community, Stupid!“  The concept is raising and nurturing online communities.    Unrelated: Heidi Cool got her presentation on blogging from yesterday posted.

So far, everyone seems pretty excited for this. Hopes are high, emotions are on edge.  Karine runs collegewebeditor.com.  She definitely puts togther a nice slide.  That’s something I definitely think separates the good speakers from the less than good.  Making a note of that to myself.  She brings up a point I mention occasionaly, that people are starting to suffer from communication overload.  I think this is the big failing point of the social web, that there’s just too much right now.  It’s hard to determine what is most important.  Ultimately there is no way to catch up and keep up.

We are in the relationship building business.  It’s easy to get lost in our information silo, and fail on connecting to certain audiences and targets.  Conversations build relationships, and the community is central to our job.  We can’t have conversations or relationships without a community.  She mentions the Groundswell book I linked the other day in Mark’s keynote.  I must make it a point to get that now, since it showed up in both keynotes.  “Community is about people’s need to connect, not your need to control.”

Karine’s 7 step plan for community building:

1. What can you do for them? (their needs)
2. What do you want? (your goals)
3. If you build it with them, they will come. (participatory design)
4. Exclusive content and conversation starters (exclusive valuable content)
5. Listen, identify, and empower
6. Call them back – on their terms (cross-promote)
7. Meet your new boss(es) (treat them as stakeholders)

Community members are the stakeholders, and never forget that they know more than you do.  Eww, now we’re treated to Brad’s ugly mug on the projector.  I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.  But, good point on the random incentive to get students blogging.  Dammit Brad, stop making points I need to mention.  Karine’s showcasing a Ning group.  I keep coming back to this wondering if there’s a use for it with us.  I’m just not totally keen on relying on a free third party for something like that yet.

Update ~12:59PM EDT

And that’s that ladies and gentlemen.  I have a bag to go grab, and shuttles and planes to catch.  Hopefully it all goes as planned.  I’m taking tomorrow off, and will upload some more photos and maybe some finals thoughts then.  Good meeting those of you that I got to, look forward to seeing some of you at HighEdWeb.  Travel safe, those that are traveling, see you in the Twitterverse.

eduWeb 2008 Day 2

// July 22nd, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Tech, Travel, Web

Sorry, no clever title for the blog.  I wish that I could, but my word maker in my brain is broke down a little at the moment.  I think it’s time to do an SVN update on my brain.  I uploaded a mess of new pictures this morning to Flickr.  There’s an awesome building, I think Hannah’s, a stone’s throw from here that has some awesome video lighting going on with the side of their building.

We learned last night how the better half lives.  A group of us headed over to the Borgata (and I was stupid enough to leave my camera in the car), and man is it night and day between the Trump Marina.  If they are to be believed, and the Trump Marina is a five diamond hotel, the Borgata must be something like 12 diamonds.  Granted, navigating to get there was a challenge of its own, and leaving we ended up driving through a part of Stabbyville.  New Jersey is truly the land of 1,000 smells as well, and I think we found 15 just on the way to Borgata.  None were pleasant.  I suspect it could have been just me… I also finally met up with a number of people I’ve been stalking on Twitter, and I am proud to announce they are just as creepy as me.

The morning started out with a small breakfast of delicious, and complicated, bananas (don’t ask).  I am currently hanging out at the table topic for making your CMS (Content Management System) implementation a success.  Luckily, from the talk I’m hearing we are doing pretty well with how we’re going, and I’m glad I can’t share in the horror stories of others.  But I mock them silently.  Not really.  Sorry, I’m wearing my disco shirt today, it makes me spicy.

Updates will follow…

Update ~9:00AM EDT

Branding is Not For Cows is a marketing track session being presented by Alka Joshi of Evergreen Valley College.  The branding side of stuff isn’t really my concern personally, but hey, I gotta stay well rounded, and not in that “oh my god if I eat any more cheese cake I’m gonna be sweating cream and be well rounded” kind of way.  Actually, with our redesign almost done, I think our branding for the college is the least of our problems now, but it never hurts to get more insight.

She’s giving an example with Harvard University as being branded early on to reflect the kind of institution that they wanted it to be – shaping it as a research institution.  They took stories and branded them as The Harvard Classics, which they used as a foundation for literary fluency that would be associated with them.  However, as a matter of course, I don’t think most of us as universities could get away with such a dynamic step.

Alka’s four keys to successful branding are a strong brand strategy, consistent implementation, a strategic rollout campaign, and create transparency.  People should feel free to give their feedback on what you are creating.  They created a tag line, and also translated it into the major languages used on campus.  That idea is actually kind of neat.  I’m wanting to do something similar with our navigation.  Another thing we are starting on that she recommends is creating a style guide for consistent implementation.  I think that goes beyond just marketing though as well.  They also did outdoor signage that visually tied in to the branding.  One thing we do lack, is coordination between web branding and… everything else.

Add value with buses.  That’s a great idea… if you have buses.  We have the PACT, which isn’t so much a bus, as it is the public transit you take to get to the crack houses or get stabbed in the face.  For the record, crack is a better value. I’m just saying.

Update ~9:21AM EDT

Sorry, got distracted looking up directions to sushi.  Sushi is a delicious diversion.  We are on to transparency now, so I missed a little bit of something.  I’m going to guess that it wasn’t life or death though, given my current breathing status.  As part of transparency, she’s recommending a 2 week rollout period with an open door policy.  Handle controversy, and share results wraps up point.  Trust me, once we win a ton of awards for our new layout (which I’ll totally take credit for) I’ll be sure to tell everyone who listens, and plenty of others who won’t.

She’s noting increased enrollment as an effect of this.  What I wonder is what about schools like us, that aren’t necessarily out to increase enrollment (they’re crammed like sardines into the dorms as it is).  Maybe I’ll ask… They are noting all the general feedback they got on the website to save for later.  She seems to be equating penetration to effectiveness, which I’m not sure I totally agree with.  Just because 100% of a group sees an ad, doesn’t mean they made a decision based on it.

Update ~10:12AM EDT

Okay, after a healthy poop (I’m kidding… no, I’m not), I’m ready for Head in the Cloud by Mike Richwalsky and Josh Tysiachney.  I refuse to spell either of those again.  This is to discuss how to handle the increasing load of things like tons of videos and such on sites.  The idea is to use external infrastructure to solve internal technology problems.  They use the analogy of an air conditioner, used on demand in the summer for added cost, but you just pay for the added cost.  This helps to prevent over spending on resources that you don’t need full time.  Look at people like flexiscale, GoGrid, Joyent, and MediaTemple for some examples.  Also popular services like Flickr and YouTube.

Amazon’s EC2 charges by the hour, starting at a dime an hour.  You also get command line access, stand alone control, browser plugins, etc.  He’s discussing the New York Times as an example: converting 4TB of TIFF files, and 11 million stories to PDF’s in 24 hours using 100 virtual servers at the cost of $240 plus the bandwidth.

S3 is Amazon’s storage service.  Again, you only pay for what you use on data centers in the USA and EU.  Usage is seamless to users.  It’s accessible over REST and SOAP, via browser plugins, and over FTP (File Transfer Protocol).  Consider SmugMug as an example, they saved $1 million on hardware by moving to S3, plus $100,000 in taxes by not buying hard drives.

Now, to use it in higher ed.  Allegheny is using it to host podcasts and video, plus admissions videos, political videos, and online tour media.  This has saved them 207.9GB of bandwidth over 2007.

Update ~10:31AM EDT

Keep in mind the opportunities for raw power related to things like registration systems that peak only at certain times: class registration, library usage, humanities, etc.  I know our portal gets hammered come finals and class registration time, so that might be a good value to a lot of people.  And then the big one, crisis communication.  Virginia Tech got hit with 432GB of traffic over 24 hours.  Using cloud resources with 4 servers, 8 cores, 15GM RAM, and 432GB of bandwidth, it totals $175 ($90 computing, $85 bandwidth).  Another price comparison: the cloud is good for backups, for instance 10.5TB = $392.11/month vs. $14K for a 9TB Dell AX150 array.

I’ve considered playing with the EC2 for some stuff a while back.  I’ve never done it, but sometime I really should just to see what it’s like from a cost vs. usage point of view.  Links: http://aws.amazon.com, http://code.google.com/appengine, and http://del.icio.us/awsbuzz.

I’m currently spying a bus bar up by the podium I might be able to leach off of during the next session…

Update ~11:31AM EDT

Richard Orelup is starting a presentation on AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript And XML) right now.  It has a long title, so I’m not typing it all out.  We all pretty well know what AJAX is, so I’m not gonna rehash all that either.  It has its roots in the Outlook Web Access interface back in 1996 though, so that’s interesting.

Interesting idea: do AJAX because it’s a buzzword, which makes it easy to sell to those who don’t understand any of this crap.  Richard makes a good point that if you use AJAX, you must do it right.  Keep in mind things that might not be able to parse it, like spiders, or users without Javascript.  Also, the higher level of interactivity can confuse people, or break other functionality (e.g. the back button, bookmarks).

Selenium is some open source automated testing software that can do screencaptures and such while checking, so that you can go back and review them without needing to test and screencap each browser separately.  This sounds pretty cool, similar to browsershots.org maybe.

I was hoping this would be much more technical in nature, as it is, it was pretty cursory with regard to what AJAX is and some of the security and performance concerns.  You can see his example site at http://www.valpoathletics.com/.

So far, I’ve managed to stretch my battery through two full sessions it seems. Go me.  But I’m hungry as balls, lunch T-minus one hour and counting…

Update ~3:01PM EDT

Okay, back from a brief quasi-nap after lunch and ready for the session on variable printing being presented by Cam Cruickshank and Matthew Allison.  My stomach’s actually still bothering me a little, hoping I’m not coming down with something.  If I throw up in the middle of a session you happen to be in, forgive me and please hold my hair back.  I seem to be doing a nice job of killing the batteries in my camera too.  I know, those two issues are totally related.

These guys are connected to a new university sub brand that is part of a 100% online associate degree program.  They’re also working to make a program that maximizes a student’s ability to transfer credit.

All told, a total of four people in the room are currently doing variable print.  Variable print uses custom content and variables to tailor a document to an individual, such as academic programs, extracurriculars, identifiers, contacts, and financial variables.  I’ve seen some of this before from a school that someone else showed me.  It’s a neat idea certainly, and in an institution like ours I think the biggest question mark would be integrating the different tools.

They’re also showing not just print, but customized email as well, with different topics, photos, and information.  Their custom VIP pages (student portal) are being driven by a separate CRM application.  So we’re pretty much out in the cold on that one. They are capturing data via lists, surveys, interest pages, inquiry cards, and vendor lead forms.  Again, I think in our case, managing all of this would not be easy.  With no clear data path to our student portal, and no idea what’s there in the first place, I suspect we won’t get there any time soon.  I also wonder about information security, storage, and how it passes on.

Update ~3:23PM EDT

All their printing and mailing is outsourced.  I’d be interested to know if our print shop could keep up with something like this.  They are also keeping an account with the postal service that is drawn on for postage.  Unfortunately, this being a marketing track session, it’s not nearly technical enough for me.  I want to know the “how,” not just a bird’s eye view of the path from point A to point B.  Then again, since they are outsourcing, I doubt they even know the “how.”

A lot of what they are suggesting could be done within a CMS, I think, if you are clever with data capture, variables, and PDF output.  I think we could certainly manage that much.

Someone raised a question in the vein of what I was thinking, regarding FERPA, in this case with respect to postcards being sent with information detailing colleges the students have attended.  He says they haven’t gotten any complaints, but the matter seems a little too borderline for me.  Once students are admitted, their data leaves the CRM system, and migrates into the student database.  But it sounds like early collection isn’t given much security consideration.

Overall, this was a little off my mark unfortunately, as it was geared much too far to the marketing side for me.  But that’s just me.  I’d caution anyone though to check with your FERPA compliancy person before collecting and using data in this manner.

Update ~4:09PM EDT

Leading up to the session on catalog management, so far it looks like the unpopular place to be.  Anne Macdonald is the one to run this show.  And we’re starting off with technical difficulties: no projector.  That should make this considerably more difficult to follow.  Perhaps I could assist with clever shadow puppets.

Still no projector, but, I have discovered they used RedDot to build the backbone.  I know I’d like to investigate doing away with a print catalog at our school, largely because it’d make my job substantially easier in that area.  Mostly now she’s just talking about the logistical process to get to the decision to not print.  Now the hotel guy is here fiddling with stuff.  We’re at a casino, anyone wanna take bets on how much quicker I could probably fix it than him?

Update ~4:32PM EDT

Looks like this will be a short session.  On to the Q&A.  Projector never did work, which is unfortunate.

Update ~5:16PM EDT

Better projector luck at @hacool’s presentation on blogs.  Sitting next to @sayitaintjonas, contemplating hijacking his livestream with my beautiful face.

Looks like Case is giving blogs to anyone who wants one: faculty, staff, students, and alumni.  They then have an aggregator to mix them up into a feed.  They are open to personal use as well, not just professional.  No word yet on the platform of choice, unless I missed it by trying to come up with ways to defile Nick’s webcam.  They are actually getting some pretty impressive traffic across their blogs, one in particular had over 13,000 unique visitors in May.  For the record, that’s more than me.

I’m waiting to hear about layout freedom that they have granted, if users are bound to a theme, or if there are some to choose from.  Still no platform mentioned.

Update ~5:44PM EDT

Looking at examples, they are clearly allowing some variation in themes for users.  I’m getting a tweet from @billyadams that Case is using Typepad for their blogs.  We’re getting a lot of screenshots of the various groups using their blog system so far, but not much info otherwise as much.  But, again, this is the marketing track, so my hunger for technical details will likely remain unsatisfied.

They are definitely running with a lot of blogs for different things.  I’m not sure we have enough dedicated people to keep up that much content flowing down RSS pipes.  I wonder what happens if an “official” area blog suddenly loses attention to posting, do they take it down?    I also default back to my old question of what kind of responsibility it creates for the institution to maintain those indefinitely.

Re: dead blogs, Heidi says they’d just contact them and leave it up them as to what to do with it.  Regarding hosting the blogs, they haven’t thought that far ahead really.  And they aren’t using Typepad, they’re on Moveable Type.  Billy lied to me.  He will pay.

And that’s that ladies and gentlemen.  Time for a mixer and then off to sushi on Boardwalk (where rent is $50 without hotels on it).  I follow up tomorrow with details of the evening and pictures.

eduWeb 2008 Opening Day Thoughts

// July 21st, 2008 // 5 Comments » // Tech, Travel, Web

Remind me to never allow just three hours to get to Kansas City International airport, particularly in summer, when construction season kicks in.  The trip to eduWeb almost ended before it began, but luckily a dash from check in to the gate caught the plane just in time.  We also managed to catch the train from 30th Street Station to Atlantic City in a similar manner.  But besides the close shaves, we still managed to have a relatively trouble free and smooth trip.  But, that doesn’t excuse having eduWeb in a city that doesn’t appear to have direct access to it by air.  I’m still grumpy about that, and come next year, I think I’ll see about going to Google IO instead if eduWeb is similarly inaccessible (note to attendees, vote for Orlando, FL for next year’s location. Don’t argue, just do it).  Driving + plane + (2*trains) + shuttle = one hell of a long day.  The Amtrak was also a terrible way to see the area, not just because there’s not much of a view, but what you can see is very depressing.  (Update: turns out, when Atlantic City was picked as a location, there were 5 airlines servicing the area, so it’s not really their fault that there’s none now.  They are forgiven…for now.)

Also, the Trump Marina itself appears to be smack dab in the middle of… very little.  I was amused when John discovered a pack of cigarettes was $11.50 though.  But seriously, if you don’t want to gamble or eat at Hooters (which we did), then it looks like a taxi is in order.  There were some cool boats down in the marina though.

If you are keeping up with eduWeb stuff, be sure to look up the tag eduweb2008 in your various social media sites.  Brad Ward started up a Flickr group already as well, so dump your pictures in there if you get a chance.  del.icio.us should also be a good resource to get tracking.

Currently, I’m hanging in the Developer’s Lounge, which has nice couches, power outlets, and wifi.  My room has only one of those, and I’m not paying extra for the wifi.  I’ve managed to bump into a few familiar faces, and to all of you, damn you for not showering me with gifts.  I expect compensation for that insult.  I accept gaming vouchers and cash.  The keynote is coming up soon, so keep your eyes open and I’ll have more information coming soonish…

Update ~3:02PM EDT

The keynote was presented by Mark Greenfield of the University of Buffalo.  It’s very likely you’ve seen his name floating around, as he’s very active in a number of areas, including the UWebD Ning group.  He’s also a damn good speaker.  His keynote was a sequel to a presentation he gave last year, “It’s the End of the Web as We Know It.” Feel free to follow him here, or on del.icio.us, or Twitter.

Mark gives a very good presenation, and ties examples together nicely.  Plus, now I know what his house looks like thanks to Google StreetView.

Update ~3:08PM EDT

His top ten web trends (this week) are as recommended:

10: The End of Print

The Amazon Kindle is brought up as a good example of why this is happening, and I fully agree.  I love a lot of what the Kindle represents, and some some universities, such as Princeton, are already planning textbooks for it.  How awesome is that?  Now… the question is, will the publishing industry follow the RIAA’s example and fight evolution?

9: The World Network

The concept here is the idea of linking things like communications, networking, identification, etc together, for the purpose of having instantaneous access to data you need, regardless of where you are or what you are using.  Think cars capable of instantly adjust to weather and road conditions, or locating lost pets wherever they might be.  The other example is Minority Report: doors that open automatically, lights that respond to the owner, etc.  The iPhone system Loopt is another example.  Another is eSuds, which is the usage of an online tool to tell you the status of your apartment/dorm’s washing machine (are they all in use or not).

8: Virtual Reality

Second Life is the first thought here.  SL is one thing I have never bought in to, at least in this kind of implementation.

7: E-mail is so Dead

Important messages being tagged as spam?  Certainly not a good thing.  As Mark put it, e-mail has been “hijacked by the forces of evil.”  E-mail is a killer app, but is being used for purposes it wasn’t intended. How much I totally agree with this is beyond my ability to articulate.  HTML email is a vicious, evil creature (in my humble opinion).  He’s tagged a bunch of articles on this subject on his del.icio.us.

Update ~3:44PM EDT

6: The Read/Write Web

This goes back to the idea of user generated content, the ability for people to contribute and consume without the types of HTML skills needed in the past.  Plenty of sites are examples: Wikipedia, Facebook, YouTube, etc.  Mark offers that “audience implies a monologue,” and we should focus on dialogs.  We shouldn’t target people as an audience, but instead as a community.

5: Information Overload

Very simple, information is increasing, tons of it are noise, and how do you filter down to the good stuff.  How do we develop information literacy?  Ambient Findability is a book Mark recommends that I have also read, and I’ll agree that it is something you should check on.  He also recommends aideRSS.com as a filter to get to good stuff.  Also Delver.

4: Redefining Time

Time is changing with regard to what people expectations for instant information are. Students don’t want to wait for things course changes, etc.  It’s very true.  We as a general culture have changing expectations as to when we expect information to change and update.  I also think about bank transactions and why it takes so long for the computers to do the math and approve transactions.  Mark uses the term “synchronicity” to refer to synchronous or asynchronous communications and why you need to distinguish between the two.  Twitter is an example, as it can be used either way.  Check out qik.com.

3: The End of Walled Gardens

Original AOL is an example, where you got just their portion of information on the World Wide Web.  The page was the core component.  That is no longer true, now that tiny portions can be used and shared, outside of an originating “page.” Another idea is how comments to articles can appear other places than at the article, like a lifestream or blog aggregator, so where is the “conversation” taking place now?  Ping.fm (which I’ve mentioned before) is an example of attacking multiple conversations at once.  You must think about your “presence,” not your site.

2: Community

First recommendation is the book The Cluetrain Manifesto.  We have a pack mentality need to connect, even though as individuals we are spreading out more and more.  Social networking should be a feature, not a destination, as Chris Anderson puts it.  Ning.com is a big one for targeting communities.  The UWebD group is at http://cuwebd.ning.com/, which is up over 900 members now.

Update ~3:59PM EDT (55% battery and about 15 minutes left to the keynote)

1: Mobile

The US is a good ways behind the world with respect to mobile, but we’re slowly catching up.  Same places are going so far as to supply people with cheap cellphones, as opposed to cheap laptops.  People are absolutely attached to their mobile devices, and the damage caused when they are cut away from things like cell phones, even if it’s temporary.  There is an idea that mobile platforms will become the seventh mass media after the Internet.  The change is similar in idea to when news became something that wasn’t limited to a movie theater, and moved to being available on a television.  Mobile also links to the idea of 24/7 availability that 3G is bringing us in a more realistic manner.  The largest challenge is form factor.

Lastly, he is discussing strategies to address these issues.  People talk about things by refering to technology, which is not the best way.  You should consider it in terms of relationships and goals.  Look into the book Groundswell.  Another good book is The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.  Concepts from this book include: be first, keep it moving, use an authentic voice, tell the truth, build a community, cede control, and believe again.  I haven’t read this, but it’s been one I’ve been meaning to, and it sounds pretty awesome from a political standpoint.

Organizations should start considering a CMO, a community management officer.  This person would would be in charge of consider how, where, and why we engage communities.  Mark follows with a recommendation for The Horizon Report.  The Singularity is Near is a Kurzweil book known to many that is also a recommended read about people and technology and the exponential growth and integration of both.  We must remain responsive to change in order to keep up and remain successful.

Okay, break time for me, time to find an outlet and prep for the next session.

Update ~5:11PM EDT (now on AC power!)

The “Put You Web Site to the Test” session is being presented by Michelle Mierzwa and Matt Dempster from Datatel.

Start with the 5 E’s: Effectiveness, Efficient, Engaging, Error Tolerant, and Easy to Learn.  Use these to guide testing in a one on one environment, with a member from your target audience (or community, as Mark might suggest), have them perform tasks you specify, and you observe, listen, and document the results.  Keep in mind, small testing is better than no testing.  Decide what you want to test and be sure that it is ready to be tested.

Hmm…this folks are talking fast and somewhat quietly.  Straining to keep up.

Continuing on: decide what you hope to learn and be specific, decide if it advances your goals, and ask other people if it matters to them.  Find a list of issues, create tasks that reflect the issue, and then produce scenarios that put the task in context.  You should produce several scenarios for a usability test, they should have tasks, but not be told how to do those tasks.  Some issues, such as whether or not a particular feature is used, do not require a scenario though – they use the example of breadcrumb trails.

The example they use for developing a scenario is:
Issue - Will users click on the links at the top of the page?
Task - Use the directories link
Scenario - You are a prospective student interested in attending this college.  You have a specific question about academic advising. You want to locate an email address for the academic – [damn, I couldn't type fast enough]

Good scenarios are short, clear, and focused on an important issue.  They should know when they have completed the scenario.  You should also have the following roles involved in a usability test: a facilitator to interact and be the face for your test while staying neutral and observing, a note-taker to document the experience and sit behind participants, and lastly participants should match the audience and be unfamiliar with your product and should vary with their levels of expertise.

[Sorry if you've had problems connecting to the blog, my host appears to have epicly failed me and can't take the relatively light increase in traffic this is bringing me. When I get back, I'm switching hosts permanently.]

Be sure to offer incentives like food or gift cards, to show that you value their time.  Get profiles on participants, a release form, scenario scripts, a notebook for notes, and the gifts for the participants.  Some general tips: take time to meet with the participants, encourage them to think out loud, and write down exact quotes from things people say, don’t confuse inferences with actual behavior, don’t take it personally, interview them after the test, ask open ended questions, change scenario order for different participants, take notes on paper, and don’t blame the participant.

Update ~5:27PM EDT

Once you’ve started collecting data, look for patterns across all your users, make specific observations, and group observations.  Be sure to determine your spread and severity.  Spread should consider how many pages and/or users the problem impacts, and severity should help set a priority with regard to addressing the issue (is this a blocker, or just something to enhance when you get time?).

[I've dumped some more photos onto the eduWeb Flickr group a few minutes ago.]

You can then create a plot that let’s you track severity vs. spread, and plan out fixing or changing issues.  It is possible to add a third metric of time to the plot as well.  Once that’s done, you can write up your report, summarizing demographics, examples of what was looked at, etc.  Specify findings, and make recommendations after all that.  So far, this is all pretty cut and dry.  Toss in some appendixes for scenarios, data/notes, and consent forms.  I’m really just wanting to get some food and head to the BlogHighEd social right now, that seems much more interesting.  By the way, if you’re reading this and on Digg, be sure you digg this post, because I’m awesome and smell really good.

Okay, I’m out.  I’ll follow up either late tonight or in the morning with strange tales of partying this evening.  Also pictures that I will try to make as good as possible for blackmail.  Also, if you want sushi, I’m getting a group together.  Meet in front of the Developer’s Lounge between 6:30 and 6:45 Tuesday night and we’ll find a place and get our rice on.  Let me know if you’re interested.