Function Design » Information Overload

Next Year is the Year for Microsoft…or the Year After That

Brett Atkin — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 20:34:26 +0000

I’ve been a big fan of Leo Laporte and his tech podcasts at TWiT.tv for some time. One of my favorites is Windows Weekly. This isn’t because I’m a Window’s fan though. I like listening to Paul Thurott because it isn’t afraid to say what he feels (for and against Windows/Microsoft). Every episode talks about new products and services launching using some version of the Windows OS. These announcements always seem to include a launch date sometime in the future. Sometimes it is “Summer 2012″. Other times, it is “Early 2013″.

I always find that humorous. It never seems to be a definitive date with Microsoft. It’s difficult to get excited about an upcoming launch (of a phone, tablet or Windows 8, etc…) when it is a year or more away.

Over the years, watching your marketing stumbles has been great (Can you bring Bill and Jerry back?), but it is time to stop. If you want to create some buzz, it helps if you actually have something (anything) ready before you announce it. Making references to Windows 9 when Windows 8 isn’t even out is a bit crazy.

Third Night Watching Tron

Brett Atkin — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 03:51:53 +0000

There is something about the new Tron movie that I can’t get enough of. I never saw the original so I have no clue what is really going on, but here I am watching it again. The techno/synthesized music throughout, the Ducati’s, Quorra and the visual effects in the Grid are amazing. Yeah, the story line and dialogue could be better, but this movie wasn’t made to win academy awards. It’s just a fun movie to watch and here I am watching it again.

Hindsight is 20/20

Brett Atkin — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 22:06:27 +0000

Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to let Noah feed himself beefaroni.

One story ends and another begins

Brett Atkin — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 03:55:33 +0000

The next Harry Potter begins

Drink’n the Hard Stuff

Brett Atkin — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 23:33:40 +0000

Hey bartender, keep’m coming. Burp…

He’s walking!!!

Brett Atkin — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 18:00:03 +0000

p94.mov
Watch on Posterous

Containing Noah when he could crawl was hard enough….

Noah Says He’s Ready

Brett Atkin — Wed, 18 May 2011 03:12:00 +0000

Dude, let’s get this thing in the water!!!

What I’ve Been Reading

Brett Atkin — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 20:17:00 +0000

I started out the year hoping/wanting to read 3 books a month. I haven’t achieved that goal, but I am making progress. So far this year, I’ve read:

The Referral Engine by John Jantsch
The Myth of Multitasking by Dave Crenshaw
Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
Poke the Box by Seth Godin

They were all good reads.

The Referral Engine should be read by anyone wanting to market their business.

The Myth of Multitasking and Poke the Box don’t break new ground, but I benefited from reading them both. Just because things are commen sense doesn’t mean we don’t need to be reminded on a regular basis. I tend to take the path of least resistance and that isn’t always the best path to take.

Unbroken is an amazing book. The hardship and humiliation that American POW’s endured in Japanese prison camps was disgusting. The will to surive by Louie Zamperini (the main character) and those around him is truly inspiring. People today (myself included) think we have it tough. If we don’t have our cable tv and a cell phone that works 100% of time, we think the world is ending. If we can’t make our mortgage payments, we blame somebody else. If our kids are doing poorly in school, it is the system’s fault.

We take for granted the things we have and the freedom we were given by those who came before us. Reading stories like Unbroken provides a reminder of how thankful we should be for what we have.

I read all these on the Kindle. The keyboard and the interface are a bit clunky, but the reading experience is perfect.

What Am I Reading Now?

UnMarketing
Crush It!
CSS3 For Web Designers
The Elements of Content Strategy

I’m more than half way through all of them. Be looking for an update in a week or so.

What Your Tax Dollars Don’t Go Towards

Brett Atkin — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 21:02:00 +0000

I’m currently working on a couple of county related web sites. Through my research, I’ve found that the affluence of the county residents has no correlation to the quality of the county web site(s). The same goes for the city sites within those “rich” counties.

Personally, I’ve never visited any county or city web site until I took on these projects. If I’m the norm, then the local governments shouldn’t be devoting a big budget to their sites. That being said though, more than a few should be putting more dollars towards design, content and promotion. It is a chicken and egg dilemma though. Why spend the money if no one is using the site? Who wants to visit a site if it is hard to use and not kind on the eyes?

Surprisingly, about 1/2 of the sites I visited are using social media and/or news (rss) feeds of some sort.

Let’s cut this FREE crap

Brett Atkin — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 08:19:00 +0000

I’m tired, I mean really tired of FREE stuff. To all you people out there giving away free stuff on the Internet, please stop. You’re ruining it for everyone else. We are already a society of take, take and than just take some more. Do we really want to convince everyone that everything else is free?

I’m a strong believer in you get what you pay for. If somebody gives something away, how valuable can it be? Okay, yeah, I gave you my email and name (John Doe and email@johndoe.com), so I guess I did pay for it. I do undestand the loss-leader concept, but how many times does that really work? I’m pretty sure I’m not going to get that beautifully crafted 5 email follow-up sequence you created.

If you start out giving something away, you better not plan on ever charging for it later. Well, you can, but you’re going to piss off your exisitng customers who you’ve conditioned into thinking they are entitled to your service for nothing. If you actually make people pay to use your web service, you’re sending a message that says you believe in what you created, that you will stand behind it and answer emails, fix problems and continually strive to make the service better.

How many of you use Gmail? Did you pay for it? Who do you call if you just lost the last 6 months of email? I think Eric has some free time before he jumps ship to Apple, try him. Anybody can purchase a domain and web hosting at GoDaddy and get WordPress installed with one click. Who are you going to call when you can’t get that free theme installed or some hacker takes your site down? Unless you understand PHP and MySQL, you’re SOL. Did you pay for WordPress? Nope. Did you pay for that theme? Nope. If you didn’t pay for it, should you really have any expectation that your problem will be a top priority to anyone?

So please, start charging for hard work. Show people you value your time and then show them you appreciate their money by giving them a valuble service with outstanding support. You’re making those of us who have the nerve to ask for money in exchange for our time and expertise look like complete asses….