Check out this advertising fail from my local paper…. this is a bunch of different photos of a bad guy accused of killing 3 people.  See one of these pics that just doesn’t seem right?

I haven’t seen five of those but the bottom left sure looks familiar! (original link)

Something monumental happens tomorrow.

Seriously, monumental.

Somehow my PC’s clock got changed to 10/31/2012 a couple of months ago.  I didn’t catch it for a while, and all of my calls and chats in skype were logged as sometime in October, through October 31, 2012 (today!!).

So, when I was looking for chats, calls, voice mails, etc. it was hard and frustrating.  I couldn’t go by date… it was seemingly all jumbled up.

But tomorrow… oh blessed tomorrow… my skype life will go back to normal.

Yeah!

I’m reading some stuff in preparation for a course my wife and I are taking, and a section in this particular article reached out to me:

A knowledge of human nature is the key to leadership. There are four basic instincts which all humans have:

1. Survival, security and a sense of personal control. A sense of self.
2. A desire for relationships, connectedness, social mobility. A sense of being connected.
3. Adventure, excitement. A sense of challenge.
4. To gain meaning, to know self, truth and God. A sense of belonging to something bigger

When I read that I immediately thought: How does JibberJobber address any of these?

More important, to influence human nature, does my product (specifically, JibberJobber) touch on any of these?  Would addressing any of these instincts impact the success of my product?  Could I use any language (or concepts) from these instincts in my marketing material?

All valid questions for a business owner, entrepreneur or marketing manager.  And perhaps even for a job seeker.

Here are some immediate thoughts on each of the four, and my product:

1. … a sense of personal control.  Job seekers LOSE this sense of personal control when they lose their job, which causes a loss in income, stability, self-worth, identity, and more.

JibberJobber SHOULD help them regain some sense of personal control.  They might not be able to control how a hiring manager, company or recruiter acts, but they can log it and feel they are “on top of” their search.

2. … a sense of being connected.  Right now JibberJobber isn’t very social, but things might change in that area…  Would the changes help job seekers (and non-job seeker users) NEED JibberJobber more?

3. … excitement. A sense of challenge.  Like job seekers or entrepreneurs need more challenge… right!  How can JibberJobber give them a sense of challenge?  Maybe by offering challenging daily tasks to the users?  Like “Call three people today,” and of course log it in the system, so it is measurable.  Perhaps this can be summed up weekly, monthly, etc. to show the accomplishments.

4. ….A sense of belonging to something bigger.  If JibberJobber’s mission and vision is to change the world by empowering people in their careers, and helping people through inevitable transitions, and change how people think about these transitions… can my users participate in this movement?  If so, they can have ownership in this bigger picture.  It’s not just about their current transition, it’s about helping people suffer less because of the way “jobs” and “careers” have changed.

Fun to think about… now time to get to work on communicating this in the right places (which is much more than on flyers, business cards, email signatures, etc.).  This has to become a part of the product.

This is a post I’ve skimmed, and need to print out to read more indepth later: Analysis for Continuous Delivery: Five Core Practices

I love this type of reading… although I can’t implement everything from the article. But I always get at least one awesome idea I can implement…

This has been frustrating for weeks. I tried to work with it, but finally had to switch to Firefox just for this one thing I do.

I use Google Docs quite a bit.  One on of my spreadsheets when I click a cell, I can’t really tell where I am putting data.  The red arrow shows where I have my mouse when I click, and you can see the row that I’m putting it in… I think (is it 108 or 109??).  BUT, check out the blue line around the actual cell I’m putting the data in.

What the heck?  I have to open Firefox, cussing Chrome and/or Google Docs, wondering when the brilliant brains at Google are going to get Chrome/Docs working together.

I just finished an awesome article about how the iPad app was developed for LinkedIn.  This was particular intriguing to me because we’re continually asked about a smartphone app for JibberJobber (go to m.JibberJobber.com to get to the mobile interface).

What I’ve said is that we’re collecting feedback, and as we get that we’ll get closer to deciding whether we need to do native smartphone apps.  Personally, I don’t want to do it.

Even if we were a huge company, creating and maintaining (and maintaining some more) native apps for the iPhone, Android, etc., and all of their whimsical changes (these are operating systems, so any core changes they make can be cause for a complete redesign/recoding of a native app).

In the article, it says that most of the iPad app is actually web-driven.  In other words, as far as I understand, it’s not an offline app… it has a few things that are native to the device, but pulls most of the data from the web.

Technology is a beautiful thing, and as a former developer, if this is the direction we’re headed (away from native apps and towards web-apps that look/feel/function like they are native), we’re headed in an awesome direction.

One can only hope!

Note: I have an iPad… but haven’t even cared to get the iPad app for LinkedIn.  I don’t do LinkedIn anywhere but from my PC.  How old-fashioned is that!

I’m really interested in user interface design.  I have no training in it, however, as the owner of JibberJobber I try to get people to become more engaged in the tool.  UI has everything to do with it.

Here’s a fun article on TechCrunch titled User Experience And The Poison On The Tip Of The Arrow.

Here’s a quote from the CEO of Wesabe, on a difference between Wesabe and Mint:

“I was focused on trying to make the usability of editing data as easy and functional as it could be; Mint was focused on making it so you never had to do that at all.”

The entire post (it’s short) is worth reading, but since I’ve read this line I can’t get it out of my mind.

How do YOU make your product/service (or yourself, if you are in job search mode) so simple and easy?  Wesabe was going towards simple and easy at the same time that Mint was redefining it.  And they redefined it to the tune of an acquisition of about $170M.

“I wrote the same, but with different words.”

So powerful. It fits into my 2012 JibberJobber theme.

I don’t understand why this video only has (right now) about 80,000 views.  It should have millions.

Today on my JibberJobber blog I wrote about three critical elements of good design: sexy, functional, easy.

I’m sure many books have been written on each of these three things.

I want to share a quick thought about FUNCTIONAL.

Functional doesn’t mean LOTS OF FUNCTION.

It simply means that the software (or widget) has to do the job.  It has to work.

Some functional software will be overly complex.  Common example: Microsoft Excel.  I’ve heard many people say they use less than 10% of the features of Excel.  Most people have no clue what a Pivot Table is in Excel, or how to create or use one.  It is part of the 90% that people don’t use.

Other software/applications are super-easy (from the user’s perspective).  Think Flickr: simply posting pictures.  Or Slideshare: embed powerpoint presentations online (on their website and/or from my website).  PRWeb: post press releases and have them distributed.  The decision to use a less-functional application is quick, since there aren’t a lot of factors to think about.  Do I want to blast my press release out? Yes or No.

JibberJobber has a lot of complex functionality because managing relationships, and the job search, and networking, and follow-up, is a very complex process.  We try to make things simple for the user, and hide the complexity on the back end.  Sometimes we do a great job at that, other times we are lacking.

The more functionality a system has, the harder it is to get customers, educate them on the why and what of the system, and turn them into users.

We want the “easy button” in software, which works sometimes, but not all the time.

Finally, separate function from functionality.

Function = it has to work well.

Functionality = how many things it is doing (the complexity of the system)

I am regularly asked about developing web apps, like JibberJobber, or mobile apps (which I don’t have experience in, but am interested in). I found a really good post on Mashable titled 8 Things You Should Know Before building a Mobile App.

Lots of interesting tidbits in there…. the one that all my buddies need to pay attention to, first, is this:

Making an app will cost you, at the very minimum, around $10,000. This is for a super-simple program — none of that fancy enterprise or social networking jibber-jabber. Even still, any app worth its weight in code will likely cost you closer to $20,000.

Yes, you can do it for less, if you are a developer.  If you aren’t, get out your wallet.

And remember, there’s maintenance… p0tentially lots of maintenance.