Beaconfire Wire

As a new mom, I’ve been reading a lot of books/magazines/pamphlets inside diaper boxes/Web sites that emphasize the importance of establishing a routine with your baby. With me, they are preaching to the choir. There are few people that appreciate the importance of routine more than I do. And when it comes to work, my routine relies on the computer – but not just any computer. My computer. With my desktop icons arranged just so, my Firefox plug-ins in place, my calendar events color-coded, emails sorted by project, and tasks neatly tagged and arranged in Outlook, I’ve spent the last three years with my computer creating an work-efficiency powerhouse.

Give me my computer! Photo provided by elblogazo under Flickr Creative Commons License

So a few weeks ago I started bawling like a baby about to cut a tooth when my computer began its slow ascent into computer heaven. It wouldn’t go quietly – one day it would work, the next day it wouldn’t. For weeks I bounced between machines at work, at home, even at my father-in-law’s house. And even when it finally took its last breath, I was still a few weeks away from getting new a computer, so I continued doing a shuffle between various work and home machines. In the past few weeks, I have worked quasi-regularly on seven different computers. Some stayed in my comfort zone (like my blazing fast home desktop), and some were well out of it (like the backup of the backup laptop here in the office).

I had a hard time coping those first few weeks of the great computer shuffle. But I found my own personal pacifier: the “cloud”. If I was going to move from computer to computer, I needed to start moving the basis of my operations from the thick client of a hard drive to the thin client of the Internet.

It was hard at first, but I managed, and even became comfortable, working with online services. Am I a permanent cloud-hopper? No. But I feel I can weather the crisis of a broken computer in stride now.

Here’s a look at some of the services I used:

• Microsoft Outlook Web Access – There was simply no getting around this one. I needed to check my email and update my calendar. It was nearly unbearable, but I made it through. I got by managing email and calendar, but I simply could not organize my tasks within this paltry interface.
• Remember the Milk – RTM is my lovey – now that I have it, I can’t live without it, and I take it with me everywhere. Where Outlook Web Access failed in my task organization, RTM picked up the slack and then some, so much so, that I’ve stuck with RTM. RTM allows me to quickly enter, tag, schedule, and search all my tasks.
• Meebo – Nothing was more frustrating than installing and reinstalling instant messaging clients, sometimes having my buddy list carry over, sometimes not. Meebo came to my rescue. I logged in once, and there was my full buddy list. Meebo did a great job when I was in need. But in the end, I just missed too many IMs as the client just sat in dozens of Firefox tabs I had open.
• Google Docs – While I had MS Office on every computer I used during this time, I never knew from one day to the next which version it would have, or whether I could use it to connect to our network. So any document I had to look at during this time, as long as it wasn’t super-secret or sensitive, found its way into my Google Docs. Additionally, I did not have access to OnTime, a tool we use for Bug tracking here at Beaconfire. So instead, I would use a Google Spreadsheet for bug tracking. It wasn’t ideal, but it got the job done.

South by Southwest Interactive is the cool place to be if you work with the web. Last year, there were over 14,000 attendees and 450 panels, with nonprofits well represented.

Competition for panels is fierce: last year’s 450 panels were chosen from thousands and thousands of entries. We need your help to make sure that nonprofit programming is a big part of SXSW 2011. Beaconfire has submitted a number of panels that we’re really excited about, and there are a lot of other cool nonprofit-oriented panels in the running.

Whether you love SXSW, or just love seeing nonprofits well represented in the tech world, here’s how you can help:

• Go vote for these panels. It’s fast and easy. (You will need to register, but that’s easy too, I promise.)
• Leave a comment for these panels. (Comment in the Panel Picker, not on this post.) Comments carry more weight than votes. If you’re excited about a topic, or a speaker, say so!
• Share this post on Facebook and Twitter.

Voting starts now, and counts for a lot towards which panels get selected.

These are Beaconfire’s submissions for SXSW 2011. Just click to learn more, and to vote and comment!

You Mobile Non-profit: a play in three acts
Mobile is changing our lives, but it’s also changing the world for the better. We’re dying to share tactics, tools and trip-ups from organizations who have ventured deep into mobile and lived to tell.

Just ‘Cause: Can Technology Make Brand Irrelevant?
Thanks to technology, the line is starting to blur between the power of a household name brand and the passion of scrappy mission-focused organizations. Yet when it feels like nothing short of a crisis will engage people with your cause, how do you compel them to act? The battle of Cause vs Brand is on.

Method Tweeting for nonprofits: Much Ado About Something
When organizations use Twitter to promote themselves, it’s largely about playing a role. The person tweeting is tasked to be on message as the voice of the organization while creating a unique and engaging personality to draw an audience in. If Shakespeare on Twitter, how would he tweet?  We’ll pick the brains of people who live this challenge daily in the nonprofit sector.

Money for Nothing, and your Software for Free
Free beer! Free kittens! Free software! We all love to get something for free, especially when budgets are tight. But free things almost always come with hidden costs, and free software is no different. Some tools give you great power – but you have to know how to use it.  Others limit your options, or ignore what you really need.  Some may even be just what you‘re looking for. We’ll ask: what does free software really cost?

Guerilla Usability Testing: Creative Techniques for Great Results
Usability testing your interfaces is a crucial step in website or application development and evolution. Unfortunately, the sad truth is that the high cost or effort of usability testing often de-rails or excludes this important activity for non-profit organizations and small businesses. However, it doesn’t have to be this way. Learn how to go guerilla with your usability testing.

And here are our other favorite nonprofit-oriented panels from the panel picker:

• The New Citizen Philanthropy: Mixing Offline and Online
• How Social Networking Is Changing Advocacy
• A Conversation About Social Change Through Social Media
• Life After Blackbaud
• Getting Advanced with Social Media for Social Good
• Stalking Success: Privacy and Advocacy Can Be Friends
• How Many Rungs?: Social Change & the Engagement Ladder
• Putting the Public Back in Public Media
• Nonprofit Social Media Jam Session
• Nonprofits and Free Agents in a Networked World
• Crowdsourcing the Corporate/Nonprofit Partnership. Who Wins?
• Digital Campaigning: Views from the Frontline

Have we missed something?  Let us know in the comments!

Having just barely survived phase 1 of our “Logo Lift” here at Beaconfire, I have only one thing to say: Ouch.

I won’t even fake naïveté here because I knew deep down it would be harder than expected. I’ve had the front row seat to many a client rebranding train wreck before, but I’ve always played the role of supportive consultant. The “expert” voice. The one saying “Good God, how hard can it be to design a great logo? Tell your agency to get on with it already!”

Yeah. Karma’s a bitch.

For those uninitiated, the process of designing a logo usually includes the creation of a unique “mark” or graphic treatment paired with an appropriate font/type. Together, these should represent, at a single glance, your company’s mission, vision, methodology and style. While settling upon a new font choice was tricky, we managed to relatively quickly agree to one we all loved. However I totally underestimated how complex, terrifying and fraught with peril the search for a revised mark would be. My blood pressure reached new highs when we spent 2 weeks without any clue how to integrate the mark. Visions of blank business cards and logo-less postcards swam in front of my eyes. My job, I was certain, hung in the balance. No doubt about it, I was in full-on panic.

In my defense, since we weren’t totally rebranding but rather hoping to “update” our existing logo (both mark and type), I thought it would somehow be easier. Don’t know what I was smoking. Lesson of the year: Creating something “new” that retains the brand equity of the “old” yet still feels like “us” is not unlike juggling. Blindfolded. On crutches. With flaming chainsaws.

All challenges aside, I can proudly report we will not be going barefoot as originally feared, and that we now have a shiny “new” logo that we are very very proud of.

But just to keep you all guessing, the actual logo is embargoed until the official reveal at our 10th anniversary celebration in March – Patience is a virtue my friends (or at least that’s what I’m told). However, I can share some of logos (out of the nearly 100 versions created) that we didn’t choose just to whet your appetite for the real thing in the spring.

After all of this, I can honestly say that I have a far greater appreciation of what our clients go through during this often painstaking & frustrating process. So next time I don’t offer you a glass of wine or a valium before addressing your branding needs, just smack me. You’re all remarkably brave souls.

For the first time in a while (or perhaps ever), my husband asked me for some ideas for a Web site. Excited to offer my professional advice, I started spouting ideas. “And then, to top it all off,” I said with a gleam in my eye, “you can make a widget.”

“A what?” he said?

“You know, “ I said, “A widget.”

But he didn’t know. I had ventured into that underworld of web jargon.

Most of us were introduced to the widget in our fourth grade math class: If one person at a factory can make 30 widgets in an hour, how many widgets can a factory that employs 3 people make in the course of a standard work day.

To those of us in the web business, a widget is a kind of mini-web application that can be easily distributed to any Web site. If you’ve got a petition campaign, and you can give your blog some code so that the campaign appears on their Web site, then you’ve got a widget.

But if our fourth grade widget factory can make 720 widgets in a day, it takes just a little bit longer for web developers to make just one. One mistake common mistake when it comes to widget design and development it to toss the widget aside as I kind of “mini-me” to the Web site, and assume it does not need much more in the way of design or development than the original application. But its tiny size can sometimes be a huge hurdle. Here are some things to consider when making a widget:

• Widgets come in all shapes and sizes. Make sure actions can fit in the space that a widget allows.
• Since your widget is a minified version of your larger web application, make sure you shrink any necessary elements (such as your logo).
• Put tracking in place so you can tell who your best promoters are.
• Widgets aren’t magical – if you want people to use your widget, you have to promote it.

Don’t treat your widget like an afterthought. If you put the time and effort into its layout, design, and functionality, you’ll have increased your reach faster than it takes three employees to make 500 widgets!

If you’ve worked with site accessibility before you’re probably familiar with skip navigation. Skip navigation helps visitors ’skip’ to different parts of the HTML page to quickly get to the content they need. The most frequent use of skip nav involves jumping a page’s primary content, so users don’t have to revisit repetitive header, navigation, and other global content on recurring pages. Typical HTML markup looks something like this:

HTML Code

<div id=”skip-nav”>
<strong>Shortcut Navigation:</strong>
<ul>
<li><a href=”#content” accesskey=”p” title=”Skip to page content”>Page Content</a></li>
<li><a href=”#nav” accesskey=”n” title=”Skip to main navigation menu”>Site Navigation</a></li>
<li><a href=”#search” accesskey=”s” title=”Skip to search”>Search</a></li>
<li><a href=”#footer” accesskey=”f” title=”Skip to footer (ctrl/alt + f)”>Footer</a></li>
</ul>
</div> <!– end skip-nav –>

Most often, skip nav is hidden from visual users by shifting the content outside of the page viewing area (be sure to use a positioning property as display:none can render your content invisible to some devices). In this way traditional users who can scroll to what they’re after aren’t burdened with extra visual cruft while visually impaired users can jump around to the content they want.

Unfortunately, this approach ignores a number of different users. For example, skip nav could also be useful to sighted users who are unable, or simply choose not, to browse with a mouse and opt for a keyboard or other assistive device. Unfortunately, hiding this content off of the viewing area can create confusion.

One way we can improve this implementation is by using JavaScript/jQuery to display the content when it receives focus. This way we’re being accommodating to non-traditional users while still preserving the aesthetic integrity of the site.

The Plan

To do this we’ll test if any of the skip nav links have focus, and if so, show the container. We’ll set a timer that checks every 100ms to confirm a skip nav link still has focus, and if not we’ll run a function to hide it.

The JavaScript

Because only the links in the container can receive focus (at least without tweaks like tabindex) we’ll use their status to control when to open the container. So:

1. If a link receives focus add class nav-focus to the link, animate the container and give it class active.
2. Use setTimout to test if nav-focused no longer exists, and if so, close the container(use this instead of focusout to keep the container from closing when switching between links)

That’s the logic, here’s the demo beaconfire.com/blog/demo/skip-nav/.

To add it to your site add the HTML to your page and skipNavigation('name-of-container-id'); to your jQuery documenty read function

One last issue concerns the possiblity that JavaScirpt is turned off. A good habit is to use JavaScript to initialize elements rather than having default behaviors baked into the CSS. We’ll remove the CSSthat hides the skip nav, and do it with JavaScript.

$('body').addClass('js');

Now the following code hides the skip nav only if JavaScript is available:

.js #skip-nav {position:absolute; margin-left:-9999px;}

Note: This concept is based on a CSS based promoted by jimthatcher.com/skipnav.htm

Blogs may no longer be as trendy as Twitter or FourSquare, but they’re still on that list of social media “must haves”. If your nonprofit doesn’t have a blog, someone probably thinks you should.

It’s possible that they’re right; a good blog can be a real benefit to an organization, giving you a strong voice and a controlled channel to converse with your supporters.

But not all blogs are good.  A bad blog — one that’s rarely updated, where the content is full of marketing gimmicks or spam runs wild in the comments — can do you more harm than good. If you can’t put real effort into maintaining it, it will make you look lazy, and could even hurt your reputation.

Don’t get me wrong. I love blogs. But I love  good content even more, and a blog without good content isn’t much of a blog.

Before you take the plunge in starting your own blog, consider what you’re getting into. If you can’t answer “yes” to almost all of these questions, a blog may not be the right channel for you, at least not right now.

Will one person be in charge of updating it? If you don’t have a staff member who’s excited about it, and has the expertise to maintain it (or at least the will to learn), your blog may languish without attention. They don’t need to do all the writing (in fact, a blog may work best with many writers from across your organization), but someone needs to run the show.

Can you update often? You don’t need to post every day, or even every week, but any blog needs regular posts to draw readers. If posts are few and far between, readers will lose interest. If you don’t have staff with time to devote to blogging (and a manager to oversee the schedule), along with a steady stream of potential topics, you may not be able to maintain the volume you’d like.

Do you have good content to post? A blog is a great place to tell stories and share news that don’t fit into your other communication streams. But if all your best content goes to your email newsletter, or (worse yet) you face a monthly struggle to identify good content for your emails, then a blog is just going to compete, and will likely take second place.  Without compelling and unique content, geared towards your blog’s audience, you might as well be recruiting those readers straight to your email list.

Do you have an audience in mind? At the outset, you should have an idea of who will read your blog, and what it will add that they don’t get from your other communications. It could be a demographic group. It could be core supporters who want to know more about what you’re up to. It could be other bloggers. But it should be someone.

Will you allow comments? Blogs, like any social media, are about conversations. But plenty of nonprofits don’t allow comments on their blogs. Sometimes there are good reasons, but more often, comments are blocked out of fear of negativity.  Without commenters, a blog is a one-way news stream. In that case, why bother with a blog? Why not just update a news section on your website?  Comments, both positive and negative, generate energy around your cause and give legitimacy to your voice. You’ll certainly need to develop guidelines, and take the risk that negative voices will seek you out on your blog… but if you can’t take that risk, then your blog isn’t really a blog.

Will you monitor comments? On any blog, you’ll find good comments, boring comments, unflattering comments… and junk.  It’s usually a good policy to allow and engage with commenters who disagree with you, but it’s always necessary to set some standards.  There’s nothing more unprofessional than a slew of spam comments on each of your posts.   Even comments from “real” people should be removed if they are irrelevant or vulgar.  A spam filter will take care of most of the problems, but you still need to pay attention – encouraging the good commenters, engaging the controversial ones, and shutting out the truly unwanted.

Will you promote your blog? The main reason for writing a blog is (presumably) to have readers. How will you bring readers to you?  A message to your email list might be an obvious first step, but promoting your content in an ongoing way – by highlighting popular posts on your homepage, integrating blog content into your email stream, tweeting your favorite posts – will help your readership grow.  How can you encourage your colleagues to promote and take advantage of the blog in their own work?

When it comes to slideshows on Web sites, you’re pretty much got two choices: Adobe Flash, or JavaScript (which for the purposes of this post we are no going to call jQuery*).  Up until the last year or so, the only way to deliver the level of sophistication required for slideshows, has been with Flash.  Increasingly though, we are recommending the use of jQuery over Flash for the majority of the slideshows that we make as  part of our site designs, and are even being asked to convert existing Flash slideshows to jQuery .  First things first, though, what is Flash and what is jQuery?

Flash

The best way to think about Flash – for the purposes of this discussion – is as a bit of magic, included on a Web page just like an image, that can do all kinds of really cool animations, transitions, play sound and movies, and nearly display nearly identically on nearly all browsers that have the flash plug-in installed.

Flash has been around for quite a while and has a very robust set of tools (made by Adobe, and formerly by Macromedia).  It has been used to create the sites, movies, slideshows, or multimedia players, that you see on millions of Web sites.  For the sake of this comparison, I am going to talk specifically about slideshows that are created in Flash compared to those using  jQuery because that is the vast majority of the Flash that we have traditionally used in our projects.  And ’cause that’s what this post is titled.

Flash Advantages

• Great looking fonts
• Smooth, complex animations
• Robust development tools

jQuery

You may have noticed that I have referred to “slideshows created in Flash” and “slideshows using jQuery.”  This is a fundamental difference between the two.  While Flash is an embeddable object created in a specific application, jQuery is a JavaScript library that can add a bunch of really neat-o functionality and effects to elements that already exist on the page. This means that you have HTML, and then on top of that, you have jQuery making that HTML jump through all kinds of hoops, sit, roll over, and even sometimes, though hopefully not often: play dead.  jQuery is JavaScript, which means that some experience with the ubiquitous scripting language is going to make things much easier.  There are hundreds of plugins which exist as additional JavaScript files along with the HTML they need to act on that you can simply copy and paste in to your web page to add whatever slideshow you want.  Many of these existing plugins slideshows have comprehensive documentation that even those without lots of experience with JavaScript can follow.  Basically, if you know your way around HTML and CSS, you can figure out how to at least use jQuery.

The jQuery library can either be downloaded from the jQuery Web site, or you can link to hosted versions from jQuery, Google, or Microsoft. I tend to use the Google-hosted version because it is very popular and likely in use on many other sites. Because of that, if your visitors have previously visited a site using the same linked library that you do, their browser will not have to download it again and you’ll save the 150-ish KB of download that the library requires.

jQuery Advantages

• Generally smaller, and quicker (150KB+ though, for the main library)
• Less time to create, very simple to manage
• Superior accessibility and findability
• Works on iPhones
• Free

Picking One

There are many questions to consider before you when even decide to use a slideshow (see “Parting Shot” below).  I’d say that, if you do decide to add a slideshow to your page  jQuery will be the best choice in 98% of cases.  It offers most of the abilities of Flash (depending on how adept you are at JavaScript) and has the added advantage that it is used to animate images and text that already exist in the page.  This is of monumental importance to search engine optimization, accessibility, and cross-browser/cross-platform support.  That your images and text already exist in the page means that it is basic content that you manage in your authoring system.

Even if a visitor has all styles and JavaScript disabled in their browser** the content contained in your slideshow will be present for them to see (albeit in a way that may break the beautiful layout of your page which is already the case if they have styles turned off).  This is the essence of accessibility: that all content on your page is available to all visitors regardless of how they access your page.

There is no cut-and-dried answer to the question “Flash or jQuery,” though I’d argue that in the limited scope of slideshows jQuery has a decided advantage.  In the end it really depends on what you are trying to communicate, to whom you are trying to communicate it, and how you want it to look.  If you want to be able to use any beautiful font available to your designer, utilize sophisticated transitions (though jQuery can match much of Flash’s capabilities in this regard), ensure that your slideshow works on all browsers with the Flash plug-in installed, and don’t need to support iPhone users, then Flash may be your best bet.  If you are, however, willing to limit your font options, want to be sure that your content is available to all users, on all browsers, regardless of platform, and are willing to limit slightly the sophistication of transitions and animations, then jQuery is the clear winner.

Parting Shot

And that brings us to the end, but I simply cannot leave without a final parting shot regarding putting  a lot of time and money in to designing and developing a slideshow.  I, and others in the office are looking with an increasingly critical eye toward the effectiveness of using slideshows at all to highlight important information.  A too-cursory review of too-few site analytics begins to suggest that very, very (very!) few visitors see more than the first slide of any slideshow; Even fewer engage with the sideshow controls (if present, to move forward, back, or pause);  And fewer still click on any links found on slides beyond the first.  Do not assume that the third, or even second, slide will get any attention at all.

One of the drawbacks of many new interface options presented by Flash or jQuery (or any of the other JavaScript libraries out there) is that they have offered an easy solution to a very old problem: gigantic homepages where every department in an organization demands a presence.  Similarly to simply adding more and more content to a homepage until visitors have to scroll tens of screens down to read it all, we are now asking visitors to engage more and more frequently with tabs, slideshows, accordion widgets, and more to access the same “too much content.”  Have we just shorted the all-too-important conversation about focusing an organization’s message and simply allowing “all of it” to go on the homepage?  And what about people who don’t or can’t use these new widgets? Perhaps another blog post?  I nominate Jo!

** Chances are pretty good that if styles and JavaScript are disabled in a browser, so is Flash.  If your slideshow reads its content from an XML feed, the path to which you define in the JavaScript call to the Flash object, your slideshow will not work even if Flash is enabled but JavaScript is not.

As of Wednesday, Old Spice is officially the king of viral marketing.  (They’ve even crowned themselves.) And we could learn a lot from them.

If you missed their amazing day of viral content, you might be living in a cabin in the woods (without WiFi), but ReadWriteWeb has a very good summary of their campaign. In a nutshell, they released a series of dozens of viral videos, produced almost in real-time, where their Old Spice Man, Isaiah Mustafa, responded personally to comments on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and bloggers.

There are a lot of factors you could point to as critical for their success, not all of which can be easily reproduced. For example:

• a great sense of humor (and the ability to laugh at themselves)
• an incredibly sexy, half-naked spokesman
• a now-legendary production team making ad-quality videos at a rate of 7 minutes per video
• lots of freedom from the corporate higher-ups

But what impressed me most, and the reason they became a trending topic on Twitter, is the personal attention they paid to their audience. Not everyone got flowers like Alyssa Milano.  But anyone who messaged Old Spice that day had a chance at their own video. You didn’t have to be a celebrity to get a few seconds of Mustafa’s personal attention.

Even if you didn’t get your own personal video response, you still felt like he might be talking to you. (And by “you,” I mean me.  I’m pretty sure he was talking to me.)

You can’t fake that kind of personal attention – but you can achieve it with a little hard work, no matter whether you’re a tiny non-profit or an international corporation. Maybe you don’t have the whole world paying attention to you.  But someone is paying attention, and you can pay attention right back at them. You don’t need a handsome spokesman, just a Twitter account, a Facebook page, or a volunteer with a phone.

Though, a handsome spokesman wouldn’t hurt.

Since it’s Friday, here are a couple more videos for you:

The notion that list growth, fundraising and/or advocacy is “a campaign” with a finite start and end date is something of a misnomer. There are rare, exceptional cases where a perfect storm aligns in which a campaign succeeds spectacularly. In these cases when people have a deep personal concern about a policy problem that is covered in the media (or emerging in the media), the marketplace is ripe for a campaign. That personal concern is highly motivating, critical to a campaign and something we think of as the “Do I Care” factor.

When the “Do I Care” of constituents meets with a spectacularly simple, compelling campaign message and call to action, rapid and radical growth is possible. This “perfect storm” is truly for the vast majority of organization.  For most, the break-through campaign is difficult to achieve and not necessarily something that their online marketing strategy should be based. Fortunately, the experiences of the past have taught many organizations that the “online Read the rest of this entry »

While the ability to innovate with technology and create interesting and interactive elements on a site has progressed, a recent post on UseIt.com shows the amount of time we have to capture a user’s interest has not.

One site, which was tested using an eye-tracking study, demonstrates how a slow-loading promotional banner plus a large number of widgets on the site, create confusion for the user rather than the engagement opportunities that were intended.

Long page load times can cause user drop-off

When you think about your own site, what do you know about the load times — and the corresponding distractions that might result from slow-load times? The UseIt article gives some helpful guidance on how to get at those questions.

If you don’t read the full article, here’s a helpful tidbit:

…  From UseIt.com ….

The 3 response-time limits are the same today as when [Jakob Nielsen] wrote about them in 1993 (based on 40-year-old research by human factors pioneers):

0.1 seconds gives the feeling of instantaneous response — that is, the outcome feels like it was caused by the user, not the computer. This level of responsiveness is essential to support the feeling of direct manipulation (direct manipulation is one of the key GUI techniques to increase user engagement and control).

1 second keeps the user’s flow of thought seamless. Users can sense a delay, and thus know the computer is generating the outcome, but they still feel in control of the overall experience and that they’re moving freely rather than waiting on the computer. This degree of responsiveness is needed for good navigation.

10 seconds keeps the user’s attention. From 1–10 seconds, users definitely feel at the mercy of the computer and wish it was faster, but they can handle it. After 10 seconds, they start thinking about other things, making it harder to get their brains back on track once the computer finally does respond.

A 10-second delay will often make users leave a site immediately. And even if they stay, it’s harder for them to understand what’s going on, making it less likely that they’ll succeed in any difficult tasks.

Interesting stuff.  Check out the full article here: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/response-times.html

Recently I was planning for a conference presentation, which involved choosing a Twitter hashtag, sending it to conference organizers for use in the program book, adding it to the template of all my slides, and making sure I added an all-caps prompt in my notes to MENTION TWITTER HASHTAG! (my presentation notes are full of all-caps prompts). Oh, and I also wrote some content for the presentation itself.

With your audience sitting directly in front of you, why put all that energy into a social networking tool that has the potential to distract people from listening to you? And what’s the best way to integrate tweets into the conversation? Read the rest of this entry »

Periodically, we do a survey of Beaconfire staff to get impressions on a variety of issues. All opinions expressed here are solely those of their authors.

I’m talking about using psychology to design better online interactions. In usability, we aim to make websites easier to use. In contrast, you can instead motivate (seduce) users to want to use your site, whether it is usable or not. That’s where the psychology comes in. If your site is funny, or playful, or surprising, visitors will be more motivated to use it.

The phrase “seductive interaction” comes from a talk by Stephen P. Anderson, who has put together some great examples and a large set of psychological techniques that can apply to the web. You can listen to a podcast of his talk from SXSW 2010, or read his slides, which are packed full of examples.

It’s a great reminder, especially to all of us who work with nonprofits, not to take yourself too seriously, or to stay too much within the mold. It’s all about standing out.

So, we asked staff:

What is your favorite example of a “seductive” interaction on the web?

Amy, Functional Consultant: Blogger does a great job with this.   “Create a Blog.  It’s easy and it only takes a minute.”  – which, even better than being seductive, is HONEST!  There it only takes a minute and it IS easy!

Marco, Software Engineer: This may be too tech focused for the blog.  But during the meeting I thought of the ZumoDrive service I use for online backup.  When you first sign up, they have this Learning “Dojo” that you go through to get familiar with the different features in your account.  And it’s presented like a game where you earn belts and there’s a reward.  When you’re done you get an extra  1GB of storage.  Check out the screenshot.

Marissa, Functional Consultant: The winner has to be Google Pacman.

Scott, Functional Consultant: I like Jeremy Keith’s narrative-style form. http://huffduffer.com/signup/.  One of the reasons is that It’s pretty simple to do.

Jo, Marketing Consultant: Every time you sign into Flickr, they teach you how to say “hello” in a random language. It makes me smile every time.

How about you? What’s your favorite example?

(update: 6/25/2010)

Mark, Functional Consultant: Found a couple of more recently that I thought would be worth sharing…

Skype advertisement to use their advanced web to phone calling feature

When you install Skype, they allow you to try their advanced web to phone feature. In doing so they prompt you to, “call someone you love.” Kind of delightful and unexpected.

Additionally, when you check out a preview of Flickr’s recent feature additions from the photo page you get a surprise. After stepping through four previous steps and clicking on the fifth, all of a sudden a panda bear appears in the bottom right of your screen and you are prompted to, “now have some fun with it.”

Final step page in new Flickr features preview

I thought this was great… totally unexpected (surprising) and delightful at the same time. Great example of bringing in several of the “sexy interaction” attributes that Stephen Anderson has been talking about.

As many of us work with the Convio system, it’s always great to pick up new tid-bits along the way on how to more effectively use the product. This past week we learned a bit more about using the emailing functionality – particularly working with conditional content within emails.

We learned that there is only one method to test and have the conditional content work accurately in sending out emails. The following methods of sending out email will NOT work correctly with conditional content:

• Sending Quick Emails: for instance they will not identify you correctly in all groups you may be a member of when you send.
• Email Campaign emails you send as tests to ad hoc email address will also NOT correctly work with conditional content.

To get conditional content to work in your testing you need to use Email Campaigns AND send test emails to a Reviewer Group.

In general when running tests of emails, the closest you can get to simulating production sends is to create and use a test in Campaigns (vs. Quick Email) and a reviewers list. Sending to the reviewers list more closely simulates the production send than sending to ad-hoc defined emails. Reportedly this has to do with using a test mail server vs. the prod mail server for the send. So next time you’re testing your campaign emails, be sure to take the time to construct a reviewers list and test-send the email there.

Occasionally too, we’ve had different experiences in how long it takes to receive test sends to various domains. In talking with Convio staff, this may have something to do with Convio having to constantly stay on top of being on major email providers “white lists” and possibly being subjected to more scrutiny on delivery.

Ok, cats and kittens – it’s quiz time. Got your pencils ready?

What single phrase when uttered aloud can send shivers down the spine of even the most stalwart organization executive? No, it’s not “Recession” (although a close second). If you guessed “Audit” you’re way off although “Website redesign” gets you warmer. Give up?

It’s “Rebranding”, officially defined as: “the process of giving a product or an organization a new image, in order to make it more attractive or successful.” Unofficially, defined as “Oh, Crap.”

Normally, it’s my job to help guide a client through this exciting, challenging and sometimes unpredictable process. I get to play therapist/subject matter expert/spiritual guide/bad guy as needed, without having any real skin in the game other than wanting the best for my client. Well, the chickens, they’ve come home to roost: Beaconfire is about to embark on this very process. And I’m not too proud to say that I’m a little freaked out. “The cobbler’s children have no shoes” ain’t just a saying, knowwhatImean?

Fueled by our 10 year anniversary next year (and a healthy dose of adrenaline/caffeine/insanity) we have decided to embark on a “LogoLift” ( i.e. not a full rebranding but a modernization of our existing brand) as we enter our next 10 years. Retaining brand equity at the same time as “re-imagining” the logo will be our first trick, followed closely by a redefinition of our voice across all communication vehicles. Piece of cake, right? The process kicks off this afternoon, and I think I’m more nervous for this “creative workshop” than for the ones I regularly lead for our clients. Why? Because my “Client” is a very smart, opinionated consultant – and we all know that no good can come from working with people like THAT.

Normally, I would offer the following helpful advice for a client starting down this auspicious path:

Simple imagery: The most effective is often the least complicated
Make a connection: Draw the audience in, don’t alienate them
Great typography: Clean, direct, engaging, but not lifeless.
Limited color palette: Pick 1 or 2 colors and work with hues to give depth and interest. Avoid applying mission symbolism to colors.
Don’t overthink it: If you cant explain how the logo represents your org to your mother in less than 10 words, try again.

Let’s hope I won’t be eating my words come Spring. As long as my blood pressure remains in an acceptable range, I will document our progress along the way, and let you know if we will celebrate our 10th with shoes on or not. Wish us luck?

Content is an oft-neglected part of the redesign process, and it shouldn’t be.  Why?  Tell me if any of these situations sound familiar:

• Your redesign went great – until you were running around the day before launch, trying to get content from your program staff and stuff it into your new CMS.
• Two months after your new site launched, you find a headline that says “Lorem ipsum…”  Oops.
• You leave the default autoresponders for all your most important actions, thinking “we’ll fix it later.”
• Your landing pages are ranking low in search, and have high bounce rates. You suspect your audiences just aren’t engaging with them, but haven’t figured out why.
• Your program staff are responsible for your web content, and they really know their stuff… but they don’t know much about writing for the web.
• Your design is beautiful, but once you start entering content, it’s just not fitting in the boxes that looked so perfect in the design phase.

These things could happen to you, if they haven’t already. Planning for content during a redesign often just means mapping the old content to the new, and then migrating it. But it should get more attention than that, because content is the most important part of your site.

I repeat: content is the most important part of your site.

Content — be it text, images, or video — is what people visit your site to find. Content — headlines, buttons, auto-responders, images — is what motivates people to become supporters or donors.  Content — page structure, metadata, alt tags — determines how your site will rank in search engines.  Content is important stuff.

That’s why Content Strategy, though an emerging field, is growing at lightning speed as people in the web community say, “yes, this is something we need.”  It’s been pioneered by folks like Kristina Halvorson, whose thoughts you can check out on the Brain Traffic Blog.

Content Strategy means deeply analyzing and revisiting your content throughout the redesign process, starting with a messaging strategy and letting that inform your content throughout the site.  It also means planning for content creation, curating good content, and actively improving your existing content before you migrate it.

The most natural time to do a content strategy project is during a redesign, but it can be a stand-alone effort as well. If it’s something you know your site needs, it doesn’t have to wait. Content isn’t always the first thing that’s looked at to improve a site’s performance, at least not holistically.  But in one way or another, content is often the solution, whether you need better SEO, a more emotional image for a landing page, or a more concise introduction to an important form. A content strategy project is your opportunity to look holistically at all these elements, and make sure they’re working together.

Have you done any content strategy for your organization’s site?  If so, what was your experience with it?

R.I.P. IE6

Those of us who build websites for a living have been waiting to see the door hit Internet Explorer 6 on its way out for a very long time now. It could be that the day long awaited is right around the corner.  And it may be that that is a very big corner, and that there are traffic cops making us walk really, really slow.

My wish to see the end of this seriously out-dated browser is not purely selfish, though there is definitely a good amount of frustration I’ll be happy to do away with. Every time I have to create a separate stylesheet to control IE6’s idiotic treatment of width+margins+padding (the box model, for those in the know) I sigh and dream of a day when all browsers display identical HTML in identical ways. I want to use the more sophisticated transparency properties of 24-bit PNG graphics without having to add buggy JavaScript so that IE6 will display the transparency instead of an ugly grey box. I’d love to be able to use more sophisticated CSS3 (2 even!) to style elements without having to add all kinds of classes and ids to them. Cleaner HTML: faster to load, faster to code, easier to maintain. All kinds of better!

So that’s the selfish part. There is another part of me that knows many hours spent on a website design project goes toward simply fixing things that “break” in IE6. It’s not uncommon that, at the end of a typical site build, clients have paid a few thousand dollars just to get IE6 to show the site exactly the same as newer versions of IE or Firefox do.

For all of us, life without IE6 would be an improvement. So why are people still using it? There are a few reasons, really. First, some people are using computers they’ve had for years and have just never felt the need (or known how) to upgrade their browser. Maybe they are on dial-up modems and tying up the line for an hour or so while the new browser downloads is just not worth it.

Second, there are users who are prevented from upgrading by their IT departments. It may be that their organization relies on applications developed years ago using short-sighted programming techniques targeted specifically for what was then the best browser on the market. Allowing users of systems like these to upgrade may require a substantial investment to re-engineer those applications.

Third, there are those who just don’t care.

As someone who is concerned with the usability of the web and who wants websites we build to be usable for everyone, I have to be concerned about all three of those types of IE6 users. Ok, more the first two groups than the last ;)  Here is where things get tricky. I’m no longer talking about “looks exactly like” I’m talking about “is usable.” I want all users of the sites we build to be able to find what they are looking for, engage with the organization in all the ways that they want, and to feel that they are getting the same, complete experience out of a website that any other user of that website does.

It’s not just me either. Microsoft Australia has a campaign in which you can send sour milk to your friends who are still using IE6 to equate using nine-year-old browser to the risks of drinking milk the same age. The information on the site claims that IE8 detects malware and phishing 85% and 83% of the time, respectively, making it one of the most secure browsers available today. While its comparisons to other new browsers from Firefox to Opera may be disputed by makers of those browsers, that it is safer to browse the internet using IE8 than IE6 is beyond dispute.

As websites continue to get more sophisticated and we ask more and more of designers and developers, the need to be able to use current technologies and solutions is becoming more and more important.  HTML5 is on its way (sloooowly), and CSS3 is pretty much here.  All indications are that IE9 will support the new standards in a way that it never seemed Microsoft was terribly interested in before.  It will have to…the others are forging ahead daily and Opera, Chrome, Safari, and Firefox will likely get there first.

Keep your fingers crossed!

When you go to the theatre, it’s a given that the words of a playwright are being channeled through the characters on stage. Every line uttered is steeped in the identity of the person speaking, but placed there by the author, whose goal was to make a statement. It’s a fake-me-out that we all accept, a creation that we all buy into, because that’s the very nature of the thing, right?

So now, imagine Shakespeare was on Twitter.

Would he tweet as himself, or as one of the many personalities he created? Would the context of his 140 characters be different depending on “who” says it, even if the source is literally the same? And what about audience – how could he reach the right one given the many personalities he has to chose from?

Welcome of the murky and challenging world of creating a clearly branded and effective organizational identity online using Twitter as your vehicle.

In these days of social media madness, identity as a concept is already tenuous & intangible at best, yet more important than ever. Is it possible for an organization to express itself within the limited construct of Twitter without losing the context of its brand and reputation? Will the syntax and character limit make you look unprofessional? How can you tell is anyone is really listening, let alone caring? And if they are, how critical is it to be “on message” all the time?

It really boils down to this: Who the hell are you out “there”? Let’s turn to the immortal words of the Bard for guidance.

“To be, or not to be: that is the question.”- Hamlet
Should you even Tweet? If you want to make your brand more accessible, expand reach & leverage your audience, yes. If you’re “Keeping up w/ the Jones’s”, don’t bother.

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”- Juliet
Select an @name that reflects the organization, not the person doing the tweeting. An identity crisis can negatively impact your brand & loose you audience.

“All the world is a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”- Jaques
Dress up the place! Design a background graphic that reinforces your brand and identity & create a custom icon that is more than just your logo, but not a personal photo.

“This above all: to thine own self be true.”- Polonius
Define a voice & stick to it. Consistency in tone paired w/an engaging style will gain you respect, credibility & above all else, followers. Your brand will thank you.

“Nothing will come of nothing.”- King Lear
Tweet regularly but be picky. If you only link to blog posts or RT people, no one will be interested in your tweets. Add value but don’t be afraid to jump in with both feet.

“Listen to many, speak to a few.”- William Shakespeare
Dedicate a staff member to monitor your account & do searches for interesting people & discussions where your organization can engage. Be deliberate in your choices.

“Brevity is the soul of wit”- Polonius
Think of Twitter as an exercise in focused expression. An elevator speech in 140 characters. Getting right to the point w/out fluff. (& URL shorteners can help alot).

“It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”- Macbeth
If you have nothing to say, don’t. Your tweets should interest your followers & reflect your brand’s skill with the medium. No one cares about your lunch order.

“The purest treasure mortal times afford is spotless reputation” - Mowbray
It’s very easy to dilute your brand & damage your reputation on twitter by not being strategic or careful about future impact. Think before you tweet.

“O brave new world that has such people in’t!”- Miranda
Twitter is powerful tool & a great way to reach people directly so take advantage of it. Grow a loyal following, show the human face of your org & you will reap the benefits.

For those still skeptical about getting an organization’s point of view across on Twitter without looking it like a 13 year old’s text message, don’t be. It’s totally doable. How do you know?

Each one of the points above was 140 characters or less.

{end scene}

It’s spring, and that means it’s time for spring cleaning.  You’ve already cleaned your house top-to-bottom, right?  (I haven’t, but I assume you’re much more organized and motivated than me, so you’re probably already done!)

Just like your house, your website needs a little special attention sometimes.  There are things you need to do once in a while to keep it performing its best.  Depending on your needs, you might want to do these quarterly or yearly, but you should check up on them at least once a year and make sure everything looks good. It’s not sexy or exciting, but it will help keep your website running smoothly. And now is the perfect time to get started.

• Clean up your email database. Most eCRMs give you tools for cleaning and de-duping your email list. No matter how you import supporters to your database, over time, you’ll end up with some bad data as people move, change their email addresses, or accidentally create duplicate records when they take actions on your site. Get rid of bad data, and consolidate your duplicates as much as possible. This is a big task, but it’ll give you more accurate metrics, improve your spam reputation, and reduce the chances that you’re bugging people with multiple copies of your messages.
• Update outdated content/actions. Take an hour and browse your site with fresh eyes. Are your news stories recent? Do you still have a promo, buried on your subpages, for a campaign that finished a year ago?  Is the contact information up to date? What about that little typo that bugs you every time you visit the site? Set aside time to find and fix these little errors – over time, they can really pile up.
• Fix broken links. Link-checking can be fast and easy.  There are many tools to scan your site and identify bad links, both within your site and to external sites.
• Look at your 404 pages. While you’re at it, take a look at your 404 (Page Not Found) errors. Your analytics tool can tell you what missing pages people are trying to visit, and where they found them.  Maybe Google is still indexing old content, or another site has a link with a typo. Some of them, you may be able to fix.  This is also a good time to look at the content on your 404 page itself. Are you providing useful information to help visitors get where they wanted to be?
• Check your “hidden” content. Welcome messages, autoresponders, donation forms, error text… all this content is “out of sight, out of mind” when you’re running a website day-to-day, but it’s very present for many of your visitors.  You know that good Thank You messages are critical for engaging new subscribers and first-time donors, but when was the last time you took a critical look at your default messaging?
• View your site in new browsers. Unless you just redesigned your website, there have probably been new versions of some major browsers since it was developed.  Look in your analytics to see what browsers and versions most of your visitors are using.  If some of the new ones are on the rise, download them (or find a friend who has them installed) and spend a few minutes browsing the site to make sure everything looks okay.
• Test your SEO. Type the name of your organization into a search engine. Where do you rank? What does your listing look like? Do the same for a few non-branded keywords that describe your org. Do the most relevant pages show up first?  Where do they rank?
• Review your site search. If visitors are having trouble finding something on your site, chances are they’ll search for it.  So reviewing your site search analytics is a great way to see what stumbling blocks users are finding on your site.  Not every search term that’s used will indicate a problem – but site search is the one part of your site where users tell you exactly what they’re looking for, and it’s worth paying attention.
• Long term reporting. Chances are there is some data you’ve been meaning to sift through.  How have your emails performed over the long term? What’s the churn rate on your email list? How are you doing on those important goals you set way-back-when?  Now is a good time to look into some of those questions you never got around to answering, or just to spend some time with your analytics tool and see what you find.

Beaconfire is looking for smart, energetic people to fill some openings on our team. If you’re passionate about working with nonprofit clients like American Lung Association, Feeding America, and the Wildlife Conservation Society, check out these positions to see if Beaconfire is a good fit for you:

• Project Manager – serves as the primary project lead for a wide range of Web-centric projects and is responsible for managing the team, the project and addressing the challenges of our clients.

• Marketing Consultant/Client Manager – works with creative and talented teams to develop breakthrough online campaigns and marketing efforts. If you know your way around email fundraising, online advocacy, social media, Google ads, and community building and want to use them to help nonprofits take their online efforts to the next level, then this job is for you.
• Technical Lead -  provides technical expertise and leadership in the evaluation, recommendation, and implementation of technologies through almost all phases of the project. The Tech Lead works to identify and craft technical solutions that help the Client meet their business goals.
• Software Engineer / .NET focus – provides technical development and support to help Beaconfire’s nonprofit clients extend and grow their existing Web applications. In a team-based environment, the Programmer will work closely with Beaconfire’s clients and project managers to build custom web applications, implement commercial and open source Content Management Systems, and integrate external applications like email marketing.

You can always see all of our open positions on our Careers page.

Does one of these positions sound like you?  Send us your resume and join the Beaconfire team!

This week, the online community of online communities was shaken by the April 16^th announcement by that the online networking company, Ning, would be phasing out its free product. Ning had cornered the market for building online communities in a fast and easy way. It was also free. It was a non-profit’s dream.

But now, if your non-profit has its community data in a free Ning product, Ning has just become a nightmare. This highlights the problem with “free” software. Free is rarely free.

We come to depend on the fact that this software will be available for us tomorrow.  But when your software is hosted and free, your data, your community, your images may not really be yours. Google can rescind Analytics tomorrow, and there is not much we as users could do about it. It’s unlikely, but it’s always a possibility.

I love recommending free and fun tools, but you must always remember the caveat: online software that is free today may be gone tomorrow.