Blogger/Podcaster Typology Survey: Please Contribute! [en]

[fr] J'essaie de mieux comprendre le profil des blogueurs et podcasteurs qui couvrent des conférences, en particulier le lien entre blog/podcast et revenu et le fonctionnement des blogs collectifs. Merci de bien vouloir prendre 5-10 minutes pour répondre à mon questionnaire. Attention, ceci est un sujet de recherche perso et non une demande d'accréditation pour LeWeb! Je vous parle du Web demain au plus tard.

In the last three years I’ve been working on blogger accreditations for LeWeb (and Web2.0 Expo Berlin before that) I have had ample time to think about how we define a “blogger” (or “podcaster”) in this context.

It used to be simple: a blogger was somebody who had a blog, and a podcaster somebody who had a podcast.

But nowadays, everybody who publishes stuff online is a blogger or a podcaster.

When an event accredits members of the press to attend, it’s pretty easy to figure out who to accredit and who not to: the press is institutionalized, its members are registered and work for this or that publication (freelancers or employees).

With bloggers, it’s much more fuzzy. Where is the line between “blogger” and “press”? (I thought I’d written about that already but I can’t dig out a blog post.) What are our criteria for deciding that somebody is eligible to come and cover the conference as an official blogger?

This is new territory, and as always with new territory, I’m constantly refining my thinking about these issues. One thing I’m trying to do in the process is better understand the link between blogging and work/income — and also, how collective publications function. To do this I’ve drawn up a little survey to try to understand the profiles of bloggers and podcasters who attend conferences and blog about them.

If you recognize yourself in this description (do you have a blog/podcast? have you attended a conference and blogged about it? you’re in) please take 5-10 minutes to help me out by filling in this survey.

This is not an application form for LeWeb’10! It’s personal research. I’m publishing a post about LeWeb’10 tomorrow at the latest. Thanks for your patience.

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Thoughts on Conference Endings [en]

[fr] Quelques réflexions sur les fins de conférence (Web 2.0 Expo s'est vraiment fini en queue de poisson, avec démontage avant même la fin des présentations!)

Je pense qu'il a un cercle vicieux en jeu qui fait partir les gens avant la fin car il n'y a plus rien d'intéressant, et puisque les gens partents, les organisateurs ne se "donnent" pas sur la fin.

Je proposerais une dernière session sous forme de keynote "à ne pas rater", suivie d'un apéro qui permettra de finir en douceur.

As I stepped out in the hallway at the end the session discussion on Gender Issues in Web 2.0 Careers that Suw had invited me to participate in, I was quite surprised to find myself amongst booth parts, piles of branding material, and the general noise of things being taken apart.

Gosh, I thought, I hadn’t realised we were the last session!

The thing is& we weren’t.

I tried to get a cup of tea, but that was not possible anymore. Everything was closing down, the sponsors had left, the attendees were scuttling out of the venue like rats off a sinking ship.

After a bit of wandering around, I headed upstairs to the main conference room. A courageous speaker was presenting to a thin crowd amidst the clanging of the workers downstairs.

What a sad ending to what had otherwise been a rather nice conference experience.

I bumped into Jen in a corridor somewhere, and we exchanged a few same-wavelength thoughts on what was going on.

I remember being advised to keep a really good speaker for the last sessions of Going Solo, to discourage attendees from leaving early. It seems to be kind of understood that specially in the case of a multi-day conference, most attendees are going to leave before the end to catch planes and trains to go back to their loved ones (or their pile of work). So speakers don’t want end slots, and conference organisers don’t want to risk putting an important session in the last slot because “everyone” will miss it.

I say it’s a vicious circle, and conference organisers need to have the balls to make things change. Plan drinks after the last session. Make the last session a really good keynote. Announce it in advance. Sell it clearly to attendees when they register to the conference: make it something they will not want to miss. Plan for the keynote to end reasonably early, allow an hour for drinks, networking and saying good-bye, and ensure people can still get an evening flight back to where they came from.

I bet you people will start staying. If you don’t believe in your ending, they certainly won’t.

I think it is important to change this for two main reasons:

  • First, the peak-end phenomenon. We judge an experience by how it was at its best/worst, and how it ended. That’s why firework shows end with a big bang (“bouquet final” in French), speeches end with a smart closing point that sums things up, and the last 5 minutes of a movie can kill it. As conference organisers, we want everybody to go home with the most positive feeling possible about the event. Let’s not act like high-school students who do not know how to end an essay.
  • Second, saying good-bye. I find it incredibly frustrating not to be able to say good-bye to the people I’ve met or connected with during the conference. The absence of real ending makes it near to impossible to do so. Drinks at the conference venue, on the other hand, make it possible: “everyone” will be there, and people will leave little by little, so you actually get a chance to say bye.

Now, I’ve been wondering if there is a cultural streak to the importance of saying good-bye. I know that for me personally, it’s very important. (Maybe a bit too much so, though I’ve loosened up quite a bit over the years.) Are cultures which are a little less formal (I’m thinking of the US in particular) less concerned about saying good-bye?

For fun (mainly), I’ve designed a little poll to try and figure this out. Please take a minute to fill in the form below. Yes, it’s quite binary, isn’t it? If anything interesting comes out of it, I’ll let you know.

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Web 2.0 Expo, Here We Are! [en]

[fr] Me voilà à Berlin pour la conférence Web 2.0 Expo. Ça démarre!

It’s the big day today: Web 2.0 Expo Europe in Berlin has started. As you know, I’ve been involved in the “Blogging Web 2.0 Expo” effort, so it’s doubly exciting for me to see all we’ve worked on taking shape, with all these bloggers present thanks to their hard work promoting the conference during this last month.

The venue is wonderful. It totally makes up for last year. There are nice speaker and media rooms, and even a secret live-blogging room. There is wifi (and I’ve been told it’s been up all day), there are reserved rows in the front for holders of press passes, the main keynote room is round and has nice comfy red seats, introductory music is good, Tim O’Reilly is speaking, and the slide screens are huge. Of course, I can’t load the Flickr upload page to put my photos online and my Twitter updates through Twhirl fail (even good conference wifi can only take that much, obviously, your predictable share of network timeouts) — but this seems like a good start.

Tim is saying that we need to think about how we can make a difference, that we need to work on things that matter, rather than on building startups because we think we can get them funded or sell them afterwards. It’s idealist, but I like that kind of thinking. He’s giving us all sorts of examples of use of technology for “things that matter”. Ushahidi, Open Prosthetics Project, Open Source Hardware — these are only some examples.

With great challenges come great opportunities. The Berlin Airlift.

Interesting hybrids between profit and non-profit: Benetech for example, the Omidyar Network, google.org, Enchufate al software libre, AMEE, wattzon.org.

EveryBlock, click diagnostics, patientslikeme, 23andme.

Robust strategy #2: create more value than you capture. Less focus on “how do I make money” and more on “how do I create value for my users”.

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Stephanie's October Conference Tour: Web 2.0 Expo Europe [en]

[fr] Après Lisbonne, direction Berlin pour la conférence Web 2.0 Expo, dont j'assure (avec Suw Charman-Anderson et Nicole Simon) la gestion des accréditations blogueurs.


Web 2.0 Expo Europe 2008
After [speaking at SHiFT](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2008/10/12/stephanies-october-conference-tour-shift/), I will head over to Berlin for the next stop in my October Conference Tour. Second conference:

Web 2.0 Expo Europe, 21-23 October 2008, Berlin

I attended Web 2.0 Expo Europe last year, taking notes (go to the beginning of the month) and giving one of my Babel Fish talks at Web2Open. At the height of my conference burn-out after FoWA, I was pretty cranky and critical of the conference (particularly the infrastructure), and it’s where I decided to start a company to organize my own events.

This year, I’m co-heading the Blogging Web 2.0 Expo Europe programme with Suw and Nicole (French post). I’ll be going to the event to have a chance to meet all the participating bloggers we’ve been working with over the last month (they’re listed in the Web 2.0 Expo blog sidebar) — and [Janetti](http://twitter.com/janerri), who initiated this outreach programme.

If you haven’t registered yet, go and visit these blogs — all bloggers have 35% discount codes to distribute, so if you know one of them, ask! Here’s a short video of Suw and I where we tell you why you should come to the conference :-).

Setting up and running this programme has been a fascinating experience, and you can expect some blogging about what we did once the event is over. (Note: I’m doing something similar in spirit, though a little different in form, with [blogger accreditations for LeWeb in Paris](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2008/10/06/blogger-accreditations-for-leweb-paris/) — we have more than enough French- and English-language bloggers but are still looking for people to cover the conference in other languages.)

While I’m at it, I will be taking part in Suw Charman-Anderson’s discussion about Gender Issues in Web 2.0 Careers as a panelist. Neither of us are fans of “women in technology” discussions, as you can see from the title of the discussion, and I’m really looking forward to see where we’ll take these issues.

As an aside, when I organised Going Solo, I did not put tons of effort into “involving women”, and it turns out over half the speaker roster was female. Does it have anything to do with the fact I’m a woman?

So, see you in Berlin?

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November 2007 Recap [en]

[fr] Un résumé des divers billets que j'ai écrits en novembre 2007. Je sens que je devrais faire une version française complète de cet article... mais honnêtement, pas le courage de m'y remettre juste là!

A few days ago, I had an idea: why don’t I write a “recap” post of what I wrote during the month? Sometimes I go on writing binges and it gets a bit hard to follow, so maybe this will help. *Note that some of the links here point to older posts, I’m not being 100% strict about “November” — but everything is indeed related to that month.*

So, what was the deal for [November 2007](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/)? Looking back, it was a busy month. Mainly conferences, as I travelled to Berlin for Web2.0Expo, Serbia for BlogOpen, and Paris for ParisWeb in the space of two weeks, giving a talk each time — and [a fourth in Zurich](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/26/blogging-in-internal-communications/) when I got back. I also decided and announced that I was [starting a company](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/13/im-starting-a-company/), and [moved CTTS](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/28/server-move/) back to my server, [upgrading WordPress](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/29/upgrade-shmupgrade/) while I was at it.

### Talks and Conferences

#### Berlin, [Web2.0Expo](http://berlin.web2expo.com/)

Although I did [live-blog](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/08/01/on-liveblogging/) quite a few of the sessions that I attended, I didn’t write a “summary” post like I did for [FoWA](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/10/05/my-notes-of-fowa-autumn-2007/) or [WordCamp](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/07/22/a-day-at-wordcamp-2007/) earlier this year — heading off for Serbia and Paris right after, **and** being sick, I guess, didn’t exactly make for ideal conditions to be a model blogger. So, here’s a list of the sessions I blogged about:

– [Kathy Sierra: Creating Passionate Users Workshop](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/05/kathy-sierra-creating-passionate-users-web20expo-berlin/), and also [her Keynote](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/06/kathy-sierra-keynote-web20expo-berlin/) the next day (I got personal thanks from her for these notes, and many people seemed to appreciate them)
– [Jeremy Keith: The Beauty in Standards and Accessibility](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/06/jeremy-keith-the-beauty-in-standards-and-accessibility-web20expo-berlin/) (I really enjoyed his talk)
– [Jesse James Garrett: Delivering Rich Experiences](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/07/jesse-james-garrett-delivering-rich-experiences-web-20-expo-berlin/) (only got the end of the talk, unfortunately)
– [Ankur Shah & Gi Fernando: (Facebook API) Disrupting the Platform](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/07/ankur-shah-gi-fernando-facebook-api-disrupting-the-platform-web-20-expo-berlin/)
– [Lars Trieloff: i18n for Web 2.0](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/07/lars-trieloff-i18n-for-web-20-web-20-expo-berlin/)
– [Cory Doctorow: Europe’s Copyright Wars – Do We Have to Repeat the American Mistake?](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/08/cory-doctorow-copyright-wars/)

My [talk proposal](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/08/09/another-multilingual-talk-proposal-web-20-expo-berlin/) didn’t make it, but I had a chance to give [“Waiting for the Babel Fish” at Web2Open](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/05/reminder-speaking-tuesday-at-web2open-berlin/), the parallel unconference running during Web2.0Expo, in the Expo area. Somebody filmed a part of it, but unfortunately it never made it to me. It was fun, though — starting out with three people, and finishing with about 20 (the room was clearly hard to find, I myself got quite lost on the way).

I took [photos of the conference (and a few of Berlin)](http://flickr.com/photos/bunny/sets/72157602926000696/), of course.

#### Novi Sad (Serbia), [BlogOpen](http://blogopen.eu/)

I was [invited to Novi Sad in Serbia](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/12/blogopen-in-novi-sad-serbia/) to give a talk about [my experience as a blogging consultant](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/12/being-a-blogging-consultant/). I had a great time giving the talk (and before that, taking [silly facial expression photos](http://flickr.com/photos/bunny/sets/72157603111529724/) to illustrate my slides) and was taken good care of by [Sanja](http://auroraborealis.blog381.com/), who volunteered to act as my host during my stay.

Unfortunately I fell ill there (food poisoning), but did have time to go out and catch [some photos of Novi Sad](http://flickr.com/photos/bunny/sets/72157603111523044/), in addition of [those of the conference](http://flickr.com/photos/bunny/sets/72157603145532635/).

My talk got [quite a lot of coverage](http://del.icio.us/steph/coverage%2Bblogopentalk) (in Serbian!), including [two short video snippets](http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=blogopen+stephanie+booth&search=Search) (thanks again!).

My departure from Berlin had been quite hectic (wrong airport!) and I was provided with the most scary landing experience in my life, courtesy of JAT airways, when we arrived in Belgrade. Leaving through Belgrade airport to go to Paris was not exactly a fun experience, either. I tell it all in [Berlin, Belgrade: Two Contrasting Airport Experiences](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/14/berlin-belgrade-two-contrasting-airport-experiences/).

#### Paris, [ParisWeb](http://2007.paris-web.fr/)

It was nice to be in Paris, see my friend [Steph](http://unadorned.org/dandruff/) again after many years, and meet all the fine people behind ParisWeb and the francophone web standards movement — some of whom I’ve known online for years through their involvement in [Pompage.net](http://pompage.net), a [web standards-oriented translation magazine I founded](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2001/03/21/faire-part/) way back in 2001.

I was pretty ill though and just wanted to go home — no live-blogging, and not many photos. More than half of the photos in my [ParisWeb set](http://flickr.com/photos/bunny/sets/72157603546219446/) were kindly taken by [Fabien](http://arkhi.org/blog/) while I was pretending to be a window for [Chris Heilmann’s demonstration of Javascript event listeners](http://www.wait-till-i.com/2007/11/18/minified-metro-sticky-event-handling-and-and-great-new-encounters-that-was-parisweb-2007/) ((http://www.dailymotion.com/ennui/video/x3irwh_chris-heilmanns-javascript-workshop_fun)). You should definitely check out [Fabien’s photos](http://www.23hq.com/an.archi/paris%20web%202007) rather than mine if you want some visuals from the conference.

A video of the talk I gave should be available in a few weeks.

#### Zurich, ASCI

After the success of my talk [How Blogging Brings Dialogue to Corporate Communications](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/09/24/how-blogging-brings-dialogue-to-corporate-communications/) in September, I was invited to Zurich again to give a similar talk focused on internal communications: [Blogging in Internal Communications](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/26/blogging-in-internal-communications/).

### Starting a Company

November was a busy month not only because of all the speaking and the travelling, but also because I took the decision to become a full-fledged business woman and create my own company. I [announced this](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/13/im-starting-a-company/) and also blogged some of my first musings as an entrepreneur: [Competition, Colleagues, or Partners?](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/19/competition-colleagues-or-partners/). Way more about this in December or under the [Going Solo tag](http://climbtothestars.org/tags/going-solo/).

### Geeky and Other Stuff

I didn’t just blog about conferences and business stuff. As I mentioned, I also [changed servers](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/28/server-move/) and [upgraded WordPress](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/29/upgrade-shmupgrade/) on this blog, leading to [an update of my Basic Bilingual plugin](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/30/basic-bilingual-03-for-multilingual-blogging/) (update which was actually [broken, but has since then been fixed](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/12/18/nasty-problem-with-basic-bilingual-plugin/) — please upgrade if you haven’t), and some [tortured thoughts about cleaning up categories on CTTS](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/30/tags-and-categories-oh-my/) (I still haven’t done anything about this).

I also [tried creating a Netvibes widget](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/17/netvibes-widget-of-my-shared-items/) (a rather disappointing experience, in hindsight, though it was some fun geeking out).

Last but not least, I [created a focus page on experiential marketing](http://climbtothestars.org/focus/experiential-marketing/) after a [quick round-up of Stowe Boyd’s writings on the topic](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/20/stowe-boyd-on-experiential-marketing/). (I’ve done some more thinking since then and need to update the page, by the way).

### Selection

If you were to read only three posts?

– [Kathy Sierra: Creating Passionate Users (Web2.0Expo, Berlin)](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/05/kathy-sierra-creating-passionate-users-web20expo-berlin/)
– [Being a Blogging Consultant](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/12/being-a-blogging-consultant/)
– [Experiential Marketing](http://climbtothestars.org/focus/experiential-marketing/)

Five? Add these two:

– [Blogging in Internal Communications](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/26/blogging-in-internal-communications/)
– [I’m Starting a Company](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/13/im-starting-a-company/)

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Jeremy Keith: The Beauty in Standards and Accessibility (Web2.0Expo, Berlin) [en]

*Here are my notes of [Jeremy Keith](http://adactio.com/journal/)’s session. He’s somebody I always appreciate listening to, and he also happens to be the creator (and provider) of [Buzzword Bingo](http://bingo.adactio.com/). Play with your neighbour when keynotes or sessions go down the buzzword path.*

*My notes are as correct as I can make them, but they may be missing bits and pieces and I might even have misunderstood stuff.*

Web 2.0 Expo 6 - Jeremy Keith

First define. Who knows about beauty? The poets.

John Keats: Ode on a Grecian Urn. “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

William Blake: Auguries of Innocence. “To see a world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wildflower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour.”

Looking deep beneath the surface. Close-up sketch of a flea. Micrographia. Beautiful. Viewing source. This is how we see the beauty of things.

This whole web2.0 stuff is not about details. We’re not using microscopes, but telescopes, looking at the “big picture”. Telescopes can be good: think “Galileo”.

He brought upon the world an *a priori* change. A new way of looking at the world, though the world had not changed. The earth revolves around the sun, and not the opposite.

Darwin: the world didn’t change from one day to the next when The Origin of Species was published, but our view of the world did.

We want to think about structure. How is the house built? It’s when you understand the structure that you can build solid houses. Same with web pages. This is where web standards come in.

Separation. Before: all mixed up (html, css, js). Now: separate. (cf. http://nataliejost.com) Progressive enhancement. An a priori change to how you design websites.

a) begin with your content
b) structure it (HTML)
c) think about how it’s going to look (CSS)
d) think about the behaviour (DOM Scripting)

Web 2.0 Expo 5

If you remove any of these layers, it will still work. It won’t look pretty, it won’t behave as well, but it will still “work”.

**CSS**

# in a separate document!
p { }
#foo { }

Then, add rules using selectors. From general to specific.

**DOM**

Very similar approach. Make it external. You don’t put it in the document. The vocabulary is different, but you also reference elements in the page pretty easily

document.getElementsByTagName(“p”)
documnet.getElementById(“foo”)

School of thought called “unobtrusive scripting”, “unobtrusive javascript”

**Beware**

First structure, then presentation. If you catch yourself doing this…

# wrong!

If you put behaviour in here, you’ve wasted a hyperlink.

Slightly better… but still bad

# JS equivalent of using the style attribute

*steph-note: I’m learning stuff about JS! yay!*

Bandwidth benefits in doing things the right way. Process benefits, you can separate the work. And also… the beauty of it. Flexibility. See how it reacts in situations you haven’t accounted for? It won’t fall apart if somebody accesses with no CSS, no JS, no images…

So, is this about making site accessible? Kind of. Note: go to the talk on accessibility Thursday morning.

Jeremy is talking more about universality. You’re not shutting out devices. Mobile. Search bots. Screen readers.

W.B. Yeats (April 1916) “All is changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.”

**Ajax**

Wonderful, beautiful, but can be terrible depending on how it’s used. *steph-note: reminds me of what we said of JS in 99-00*

The key to Ajax is about asynchronous communication with the server. XmlHttpRequest.

Jeremy’s definition: “A way of communicating with the server without refreshing the whole page.” Just part of the page.

Buzzword Hijax.

Here is how Jeremy thinks we should build an ajax application.

a) build a website in the old-fashioned way — buttons, links, for interaction with the server
b) then, come along with ajax — which parts of this page benefit from just being refreshed separately, and intercept the links/events. Hijack the requests. Bypass the whole page interaction.

Progressive enhancement rather than a terrible beauty that locks people out. Switch off JS, and everything still works.

Where? When?

Patterns: when I click a link/form, and when I submit it, I return to the same page with almost nothing changed.

– registration forms (specially for user name availability)
– comments on a blog/forum
– add to cart
– *steph-note: sign in links*

“Web 2.0” is not about web applications versus documents in the old “Web 2.0”. It’s a sliding scale. Most sites are somewhere in between documents and application. Applications work with documents! It’s not an either… or thing.

This kind of Ajax is more on the document side of the scale, roughly mid-way to the application end. Doesn’t scale to “more application”.

But at that point, why the hell are you building that with HTML, CSS and JS? The reason to use them is that they degrade gracefully. If you decide that all three are required, maybe you need to use another technology, like Flash. These technologies have their place for applications which cannot degrade gracefully. Flash is made for building web applications! But there is an insistance in building “2.0 Apps” in HTML/CSS/JS.

Maybe hesitancy because Flash isn’t a standard in the same way as HTML/CSS/JS?

Standards: you know your stuff will work, you know there’ll be support there. The best thing that Adobe could ever do in Jeremy’s opinion is to open it up truly (*steph-note: if I understood that correctly*).

History of standards.

ISO, ECMA, W3C…

Open data. API. RSS. XHTML.

If you’re going to release and API, look at what Google and Yahoo are doing and copy. Build upon existing conventions. Your own format is not going to make it.

If you allow people to access your data like that, you start to see emerging patterns.

Microformats! *steph-note: yay!*

Machine tags! *steph-note: yay again!* There is a [machine tags wiki](http://machinetags.org/wiki/Main_Page).

Jeremy, like many of us, really hates the “Web 2.0” label/buzzword. It had its place a few years ago, but now it’s really putting us in a box. Ajax is a good buzzword, because it allows to talk about a certain technology in a snappy way. Whereas Web2.0… ask ten people, and you’ll get 10 explanations.

Web2.0: people.

But we don’t need a buzzword for that. We already have a word for “leveraging collective intelligence”: the WEB!

Combine looking through the microscope and looking through the telescope.

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Kathy Sierra: Keynote (Web2.0Expo, Berlin) [en]

[fr] Mes notes de la keynote de Kathy Sierra.

*Here are my notes of Kathy Sierra’s keynote, quite different from [yesterday’s workshop, which I also blogged](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/11/05/kathy-sierra-creating-passionate-users-web20expo-berlin/). My notes are probably incomplete in some spots and may contain mistakes.*

Finding Web 2.0 Opportunities (Kathy Sierra)

**1) reduce guilt and fear**

most of the time, people feel like they suck, like it’s their fault. Sometimes, making the product easier is not always the answer. We need to reduce that kind of feeling/face. How about using facial recognition to see when users are pulling a face? Or even simpler, have a WTF?! button.

Help, FAQ and user manuals do not solve WTF faces. People writing help and FAQ think you’re happy to use the softwa
re and a bit intellectually curious about using the software. Not true! Assume that most of the time, our users feel in WTF mode. Even if your software is easy to use, it might be they’re pulling that face because of what they’re *trying* to do with your tool.

FAQ/Help aren’t wrong, they’re written for the wrong place of the curve.

Recognise that people are miserable, feel they suck at what they’re trying to learn. Let people off the hook for feeling bad that it’s their fault. Books teaching something shouldn’t make people think they’re stupid.

“Appartments for rent: dog required.” In the US, so hard to find a place to live when you have a dog.

“Please walk on the grass, hug the trees, smell the roses.”

“What kind of genius? young, early, or late bloomer (Doc Searls).”

A lot of 2.0 stuff (like Twitter) increases the guilt, because you *have to keep up*. *steph-note: I realise I’ve been letting myself off the hook quite a lot regarding that.*

Being an expert is generally just a matter of focus, not a matter of natural talent.

How to write a bestseller? Choose a title that lets people off the hook. “The perfect mess” or “Everything bad is good for you.”

**2) Don’t “bait and switch” on the relationship**

Don’t start out all nice and interested and seductive, and in the end push away. How do you treat your ongoing users vs. the users you want to capture? The difference between how sales reps treat customers or prospects is often huge and the wrong way around. Documentation quality.

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Take the marketing budget and throw it into user learning. It’s not always a problem to not have a marketing budget: teach your users to kick ass.

Every time you think of something that you might do for marketing, think about what would happen if you applied that to user learning. Huge example: camera brochures and material. Glossy brochures that are all about taking great photos — which is the reason people buy cameras! — and afterwards, manuals that teach me to be a tool expert, which is not what I want!

Serendipity Curve. Introduce randomness. Excessive customisation and tailoring strips out the delight of discovering something unusual and unexpected. Encourage people to make connections between your stuff and seemingly unrelated things.

Roger von Oech’s “Creative Whack Pack” (*steph-note: looks really good!*)

**3) Make it real/Make it important**

Why are we here? We still need physical presence despite all our technology. A huge part of our brain is devoted to our hands and mouth.

Smell is really important **steph-note: shows cup of coffee on slide, it does something to our brain** but not just smell. Skin was meant to be used.

A real present trumps a virtual gift (not that the latter isn’t meaningful!!) Think about how you can give something in the real world to your users, related to your product. In the US, the UPS guy is a hero. He’s a sex-symbol. Physically impossible to not smile when you see the Amazon box on your doorstep.

Philosophy of Electric Rain:

– users should do something kick ass within 20 minutes
– the process of buying, downloading and installing feel like you’re getting a special present. E.g. a real human answers the tech support. We don’t expect that!

Unboxing! “geek unpacking porn” Look at pictures of other people unpacking their new geek toy. *steph-note: I almost did that with a Flickr photo of my new macbook and roomba.*

People are actually coming up with ways to make those pictures more seductive. These things matter!!

Even if you’re working in bits, and all “virtual”, find something you can send to your users offline. People always care about the t-shirts.

T-shirt First Development. ThinkGeek. It’s not enough to send it to them, give them a way to show that they’re wearing the t-shirt.

Don’t make this mistake:

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There are women or smaller men in your audience. They won’t feel like they kick ass in an XXL t-shirt. Yes, even if it’s not cost-effective.

Remember we’re not ready to leave our bodies behind just yet. “Real” sex still trumps the “virtual” kind…

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Reminder: Speaking Tuesday at Web2Open, Berlin [en]

[fr] Je présente une session sur le multilinguisme ici à Berlin, à l'occasion de Web2Open, mardi (demain!) à 10h10.

Just a reminder: I’ll be giving my talk [Waiting for the Babel Fish: Languages and Multilingualism](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/08/09/another-multilingual-talk-proposal-web-20-expo-berlin/) Tuesday (tomorrow as of writing) at [10:10 during Web2Open](http://web2open.twiki.net/twiki/bin/view/Main/PreChosenSessions) at the Web2.0Expo in Berlin.

I also put together (for the occasion, but I’d been wanting to do it for a long time) a page entirely devoted to [my work about languages and multilingualism on the internet](/focus/multilingual). This is the first page of the [Focus series](/focus/) which will showcase some of my work and the areas I’m currently active in.

For those of you who’ve been intrigued by [this twitter of mine](http://twitter.com/stephtara/statuses/387658512) I’m going to make you wait a little more — but if we bump into each other at Web2.0Expo, don’t be shy to ask me about it!

**Update:** here’s the slideshow! Slightly upgraded since the [last incarnation of this talk at Google](http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/07/10/talk-languages-on-the-internet-at-google-tomorrow/):

Thanks to all those of you who came. I got lost on the way so arrived late — my apologies to any of you who might have been there on time and left before I arrived.

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Kathy Sierra: Creating Passionate Users (Web2.0Expo, Berlin) [en]

[fr] Workshop de 3 heures animé par Kathy Sierra. Comment rendre ses utilisateurs passionnés.

*Disclaimer: theses are just my live notes of [Kathy Sierra](http://headrush.typepad.com/)’s workshop. Though I try to be accurate, they may contain mistakes or be incomplete. Please don’t hesitate to link to other notes, reviews, or relevant material in the comments.*

Not passion like being attached to your iPod, but more passion like how we invest energy into our hobbies.

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There are techniques we can use to achieve that…

Kathy is going to draw techniques from many domains, who all have a piece of the puzzle:

– hollywood 🙂
– cognitive science
– neurobiology
– psychology
– learning theory
– design
– game design
– advertising

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Passion: music, photography… that level of passion. Think of something that you have a passion for, or have had a passion for. Here’s how to tell if it was: you want to keep getting better, you want to learn more, practice more… that’s a real passion.

People with a passion:

– show off
– learn
– continuously improve
– spend time
– …

Reverse-engineering passion. Look at common attributes of things people have a passion about (e.g. people want to keep learning and getting better). How can we drive passion rather than wait for it to happen?

Where there is passion… there is a user kicking ass. Nobody really get a passion about something they suck at. Challenge: what to do in the period where users still suck.

One of the reasons people pursue passions is that it gives them a higher resolution experience. You see things differently when you’re passionate. You see more details, things that others don’t notice.

The Kick Ass Curve:

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Between the first time and the suck threshold is the real challenge, because that’s where we’ll lose people. Strategies to keep pushing our users up that curve, and not just when they get past the point where they no longer suck. The faster you can get your users past the Suck Threshold, the more likely you are to have passionate users.

So, how fast can we do that, and how?

But… the problem is that people don’t want to be experts *at* a tool, but experts at what they can do *with* the tool. They use the tools to *do* something. That explains why documentation is all wrong, because it focuses on teaching the tool.

Good example: photography site which focuses on the results people want, the photos they want to be able to take, instead of on the camera.

Kathy, seeing slow-shutter speed photo of waterfall, understands why she needs to ditch her point-and-shoot, because she needs control on the shutter speed to be able to take those kind of pictures. And that’s what she wants to be able to do.

**We don’t want to be tool experts.**

Before our customers buy, we treat them well with glossy brochures, and as soon as they buy they get an unpalatable tech manual for their camera.

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What if your product isn’t something people can use to do really cool things? (Showing a picture of Coldplay.) If we look, we can see what people might be able to use it for that they’ll get excited about. So, Chris Martin of Coldplay is very interested in fair trade. He helps people get involved in the cause. (Oxfam.) A band can help people become passionate about their work, their music.

Another example: Red Bull. Kathy likes Red Bull, but she doesn’t want to become an expert at what’s in it! So Red Bull are helping people become passionate about other stuff, not the drink — music, for example.

Bottom line: whatever you have, whatever your business is, you can have passionate users. They don’t have to be passionate about your product.

Imagine Nikon sets up a really cool site to teach people about photography. Learning is a drug for the brain, so this feel-good feeling is going to be linked to Nikon, who is behind the site. Passion spills back to the tool/brand. (That was a bit of psychology…)

**THE important question: what do (or can) you help your users kick ass at? (answers are not: the tool, the interface).** The stuff your tool allows to do.

What if you make trash bags? Well, you can sponsor a festival, do something completely unrelated. But you could have little films with creative use of trash bags, and then you create tutorials to teach people to make kick-ass films with those trash bags. *(steph-note: sounds way more lame when I write it than when Kathy says it.)*

**Big question: how do we actually make that happen?**

It all starts in the user’s head, and the user’s brain is not our friend.

Our brain has a little logic, and lots of emotion. Our brain thinks we’re still cavemen. Our brain has a big crap filter, and not much gets through. Your brain cares about that which you feel. Chemistry! Mind has one agenda, but brain has another. Imagine, trying to learn from a dry textbook even though committed to studies and the test… but the brain isn’t into it. Any moment though, something could wake the brain up (smell of pizza, cute guy).

What does the brain care about?

– things that are just a little weird, that are just out of expectations
– scary things
– sex
– little young helpless innocent things (baby, puppy)
– play, joy
– humour (bunny suicides…)
– faces
– things that are not quite resolved, some mystery, want to know the rest of the story (hand hiding face)

To keep people reading, you need to make sure their brain stays awake.

The brain doesn’t care about

– generic clichés (bride and groom kissing, no-no, whereas groom biting bride’s shoulder…)

Trick the brain!

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**Conversational beats formal every time.** It can be subtle!! *steph-note: this what I try to explain to people about writing in “blog style”.*

Leading theory about that: the brain can’t tell the difference between a real conversation and something written in conversational tone. “God, a conversation, I have to keep up my end, pay attention.”

**Rule: talk to the brain, not to the mind.**

To read: “A mind of its own” by Cordelia Fine (How your Brain Distorts and Decieves)

Prepare the brain so that when people see this they think “ew, bad”:

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Hey… all this was just about getting people’s attention! We still need to get past the Suck Threshold.

Where are my users on the suck / kick ass curve? If your tool is easy to learn, can they spend a lifetime getting better at what they do with it?

Who do snowboarders go back the second day? The first is so awful! Because there is this picture in their mind of what it’ll be like to kick ass at it. People persevere because they have an idea in their head of what it will be to be really good at it. Another reason is that they see a path, a series of steps to getting there.

People stick at something that’s stuff because there is:

– compelling picture
– clear path
– easy first step

How easy depends on how much value they perceive they’ll get. Sometimes just giving an e-mail address is too big a step.

Who is describing this “compelling picture” for your users?

Why? Who cares? So what? If people are to learn something, they have to keep turning the pages of the book. We need to get past the brain’s crap filter when we’re explaining.

It’s an exercise:

– My tool does X
– So what?
– Well, if you can do X, then it means you can do Y
– And so what?
– etc…

(when you feel like killing the other for being so thick, you’re getting close t the meaningful stuff: “you’ll never have sex again”, “you’ll lose your job”)

Keep asking why.

Now, we need to get users to *learn*.

Learning increases resolution.

“RTFM” expresses how we feel about our users. If you want them to RTFM, make a better FM!

All the money goes to enticing, sexy, motivating, advertising brochures. And after… when it’s time to learn, nothing left.

**Learning Theory**

Facts — information — understanding. Need more understanding. We tend to teach too many facts. *steph-note: cutlery noise from outside coming in through open door is really annoying me*

The more they understand, the less they need to memorize.

Because a choice is asked, our brain starts doing more processing.

Smackdown Model: throw two equally compelling, strong, arguments at somebody, and the brain is forced to start processing.

Words + pictures > words. Even drawing a picture on a napkin and taking a photograph of it.

Look for “oh crap!” and “oh cool” moments.

*steph-note: tiring*

“just in time” is more effective than “just in case” learning. But be careful, you don’t want to always prevent them from scraping their knees.

Who can help you help your users learn? Where are the resources? *steph-note: other users!* Kathy: “community” 😉

However, nothing of that matters unless you manage to keep your users engaged.

*steph-note: break-time, good!*

Should read the book “Flow, The Psychology of Optimal Experience”.

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What is it like to be in the flow state? You don’t really notice that time is passing. If you have lost time, either you were abducted by aliens, or you were in the flow state. You *just keep going*. For people to be in the flow state, a very delicate balance needs to be achieved:

– knowledge and skill
– challenge

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What turns the brain on?

– discovery
– challenge
– narrative
– self-expression
– social framework
– cognitive arousal
– thrill
– sensation
– triumph
– accomplishment
– fantasy
– fun (?)

Fun does not have to mean funny.

What breaks flow state, state of enchantment? Think of the user as under a spell. Suddenly realising that they’re using this tool to achieve what they’re doing. (Oh, crap, where’s that button?)

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Don’t make me think about the wrong thing. Just make me think about the interesting stuff. Make it hard to do the wrong thing, and easy and natural to do the right thing.

Techniques to make the flow state happen and remain there. How do we keep them coming back?

Nobody does this better than game developers. Video games! Always trying to get to the next level.

User experience Spiral:

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Motivational milestones. Make sure the users know where they’re going.

Differences between girls and boys and video games:

– boys: getting to the next level is the aim
– girls: getting to the next level, but what for?

Are there any new superpowers that I’ll get at the next level? If done right, the payoff gets bigger for each level. Gives you a chance to paint the next compelling picture of what they’ll be able to do.

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Levels have to be small at the start.

What are levels for web development?
Online communities?
Flickr users?

What are your level superpowers?

Frequent rewards. Lots of small benefits. User as *hero*. Who/what is the helpful sidekick/mentor? How will the hero be changed?

The Tribe…

e.g. 37 signals: “getting real” — so people who are into 37 signals products identify with this “getting real” attitude. Mac: “think different”.

Music video, shot just in living-room and shows what all the money that could have gone into making it could be used for in the third world:

What part of your product is (or could be) part of a user’s identity? (meaning)

Site where people photograph their iPod in various settings. People holding one company’s book in various locations.

So, how can your users show that they belong to the tribe?

If you want them to talk… give them something to talk about. LOTR stuff in calendar OSX (*steph-note: dig around that*).

e.g. on cover of one of Kathy’s series books, same girl as on [this site](http://www.vagisil.com/teencenter.shtml)– lots of talk!

Figuring things out (insider info) is social currency (whuffie). Everyone loves to be the one to tell you about… X.

Find interesting stories. Give users treats. Things that they can talk about. Give them social currency that they can use elsewhere. Legends, stories, people. Where there is passion, there are people.

Once you get to a certain level, people start trying to figure out who will play you in the movies 😉

founder/creation stories, user-as-hero stories? You don’t want to make it about you… people are passionate about *themselves*. First thing to look at: testimonials. They should be about how great these users are as a result of using the products. People want to see themselves reflected in the testimonials.(Not about the product of the founders.) The more first person language in reviews (about a book, eg.), the better. What’s important is if something good happened to the user, not what they think about you.

**Community**

– forums?
– study groups?

at the least, a blog with comments…

Javaranch registration terms of service: “Be nice”. Users have to agree to that. If people aren’t nice, how do you get them to answer and ask questions? How quickly can you make it possible for people to ask and answer questions?

No dumb questions. Don’t allow people to say “that’s already been answered 50 times”. It’s OK to ask a question again. Never shun somebody for asking a question.

But the most important factor is actually **no dumb answers**. Try to get people to convert to answerers as fast as possible. Information on “how to answer questions”. When people answer a question, make sure they feel encouraged because they’ve done it.

Tutorials on how to make tutorials.

**How to know you’ve got passionate users**

When people stop criticising you, but criticise your users. A bit unsettling, but that means you have passionate users. “Cult?” “Sheep?”

Then, give your users some sort of defensive weapon.

If you try to satisfy everybody, you delight and inspire nobody.

**Tips and trouble on the road to passionate users**

Levelled products (iMovie is free, FinalCut isn’t — so you start with iMovie thinking you’ll never need more, and at some point you’ll outgrow it; problem though: big gap between the two from a usability point of view). Good strategy, however.

“Dignity is Deadly”

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Startup: individuals
Corporate: consensus

Apes become smarter as they work together. Humans become dumber as they work together. (“Wisdom of Crowds”)

We tend to think our ideas are amazing, but our users think they’re tolerable.

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Listening to users: what they say is not what they want.

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User priorities

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When you ask them to prioritize, and when you ask them to also explain, you get very different results.

The greatest cause of user pain:

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Making things better can in fact make them worse. If a simple thing is nice and flow-inducing… No need to improve it by adding tons of features.

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The Secret…

It doesn’t matter what they think about you… (It’s not about you, and it’s not about what you do). All that matters is how they feel about *themselves* as a result of their interaction with you, your product, your company… *steph-note: thinking that Lush testimonials are spot-on, they really have passionate users and I’m one of them.*

**The user must have an “I rule!” experience.**

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Remember: your users are real people.

*Thank you, Kathy. It was great to have a chance to see you.*

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