StoriesOut - Week #3

4-day weeks make it hectic



Week #3 begun odd: Monday was bank holiday or I should say Egg & Chocolate holiday.

Then my bike refused to work and forced me to subway all short-week long. For the record, when on saturday I decided that I should try to fix it, it was perfectly working... How odd?

Anyway, week#3 has been:

• a lot about thinking,
• 1 interview for Nuxeo
• 1 negociation pending
  
• only 6 4sq check-ins
• many awesome people met
• creation of my youtube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/AnnedeForsan)
• sushi-work session on my forthcoming web site
• intensively tweeting :-)
  

Let's keep it rolling !

see ya!

Time Warp - The Kwaga example

Here's a new example of how a website can evolve.

Kwaga's the great start-up of Mr Fabulous Geek aka @PhilippeLaval :-).

What I think very interesting here is the start-up way: when creating a 2.0 company from scratch, everything has to be invented along while the product itself is developed.

The inception of Kwaga is late december 2008, the period of this time warp is therefore very short: february 2009 to october 2009.

In 9 months, 3 different versions of the site have been released. Well actually not all of them: the "April version" hasn't. Why? Because they thought they would wait for the beta version of the product to be ready... and in the turmoil of the development, they re-thought the site.

Could mean that design has a kind of inner "use-by date" limit or that there are so many things at stake when creating a product, one can loose focus and must re-think so hard to get it back that the loop must go back to step zero before moving along.

Any way, enjoy this time warp!

Time Warp - The Nuxeo example

We've just released the new verison of Nuxeo's website check it out : www.nuxeo.com

And for the fun of it, here's a time warp on Nuxeo's home pages since inception in 2001.
Enjoy!

(special thanks to The Internet Archive)

Time Warp Nuxeo

View more presentations from annedeforsan.

Corporate websites... the ongoing omen

Every single time I entered a company in the past 10 years, one of the hottest objectives I was assigned to was the corporate website.

And there you go with the profound, definitive, thoroughly thought-over briefings:
"We need to have it evolve"
"I want it to look like XYZ's"
"It should should be updated"
"We've to think it over upside down"

:-)

Basically anything ranging from correcting typos to brand new corporate identity and messaging.

Every single time in the most urgent ways.

So here are some random observations, point of views and ideas gathered along this digital road.

Let's start with the 3 first tools one must add to its marketing emergency kit:

• Mock-up
• Dare
• Measure & Iterate

Mock-up: sketch you needs before trying to design them; sketch your present and foreseeable resources - Are you sure you'll be able to handle and have evolve this funky breath-catching features your bold e-agency is so thrilled about?

Dare: say yes and say no :-) And dare be humble. Don't reinvent the wheel. Browse the web, grab ideas, trends, look & feel. Check-out what's going on on the competition's sites: you want their visitors' to become yours. Don't confuse them with a brand new design approach. This is your product's job. Not your site's.

Measure & Iterate: Go online. Measure. Correct, reinforce, enrich. I'm pretty sure the smartest combination can't be found at once. There are tons of amazing tools available to measure your site's efficiency, beginning with Google Analytics, which by itself would require an entire post. There are tools to engage with your visitors (and therefore measure their acceptance of your site's design, content etc.) such as Get Satisfaction, there are tons of online surveys tools as well (check these). Basically, name your need, and you'll find the tool on the Internet. And the best part is, not only they are powerful tools, but most are free.

The history of any company's websites are rather insightful in that respect. I'll demonstrate this in a series of posts called "time warp".

These are the very first things that stroke me. I can think of many more. Don't hesitate to share your opinion and comment :-)

Keep posted.