Posterous theme by Cory Watilo

Ed's posterous


My Job Is To Notice Things...

Above All Else, Always Show Comparisons’

‘Above All Else, Always Show Comparisons’
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/mayjune_2011/features/the_information_sage029137.php?page=all

And so, that April, in an office building blocks from the White House, Tufte spent a few hours with Devaney looking at sketches of some of the displays the board was preparing. Devaney showed Tufte a prototype of Recovery.gov, the site that catalogs all the projects funded with federal stimulus money around the country. Thinking about it now, Devaney remembers that the proposed pages were full of “classic Web site gobbledygook, with lots of simple pie charts and bar graphs.” Tufte took one look at the Web site mockups that the board’s designer had prepared and pronounced them “intellectually impoverished.”

It was a classic Tufte moment: a spontaneous and undiplomatic assessment that immediately struck everyone in the room, even the designer himself, as undeniably true. The site would get a wholesale redesign. The model, as Tufte explained it, should be the Web site of a major newspaper, with Devaney and his staff as reporters and editors. “I told them that it isn’t an annual report,” Tufte told me later. “It shouldn’t look stylish or slick. It’s about facts.” As Tufte and Devaney talked, a number of staffers gathered in the hall, waiting for the meeting to finish. “The guys from the IT department had lined up outside my door to shake his hand and say they met the guy,” Devaney remembers.

(via Instapaper)

I haven't talked about Tufte alot - who peas introduced to in January of 2000 - he's a legend.

Sent from my iPhone

It most certainly wasn't.

iPhone gloating
http://52tiger.net/iphone-gloating/

It was no accident that when Steve Jobs first demonstrated the iPad, he was sitting, cross-legged, in an easy chair. Anyone who ever tried to do the same with a laptop was struck at how appealing that scene was. The iPad offers the Internet that people want in a cozy, book-like form factor.

(via Instapaper)

Do you remember how everyone though it was weird thatSteve sat down in a chair to do this demos at the original iPad launch....

Sent from my iPad

Article: Actionable INFORMATION – Do you have a large bag of it handy?

Actionable INFORMATION – Do you have a large bag of it handy?
http://www.cornwallseo.com/search/2011/05/03/actionable-information-do-you-have-a-large-bag-of-it-handy/

It’s not that SEO is dead, it’s just that you can learn 97% of all you need in 20 minutes. And if you then go on a 6 week course in how to crank out fancy reports you can make tons of cash as an SEO agency.

The reality is:

SEO is really link building
Linkbuilding is not about quality, it’s about scale.
Link building is not about scale, it’s about publishing actionable information.
You mean you have actionable information and you are not putting it on your website?

Are you an idiot?

(via Instapaper)

Fabulous Article - a real must read.

Ed

Sent from my iPad

Engage?

So, I asked a simple question.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about assembling a tribe.

The trend, in internet marketing circles has been to outsource and leverage everything. The holy grail, it seems, is the tribe leader barely interacts with the tribe except under very controlled circumstances.

This can work....

Exhibit A - Steve Jobs.

The thing is, just because Steve keeps his social and public profile to be a minimum, does that mean he's not interacting with the market?

When you think about it, “Apple" interacts with the tribe in very significant ways.

The first, is the extraordinary community, dare I say it, industry around Apple commentary.

Every day, there are literally thousands of stories written about Apple. When you throw in tweets, status updates and the like I would shudder to think how many times Apple is mentioned in a day. (I'm sure some of you would say I contribute a fair percentage to this!!

So to use Steve as an example of somebody who can be hand off and still “lead" a tribe, I wonder if that's really correct?

You see, I don't have the luxury of hundreds of thousands of people coming in to my stores around the world each day. Nor do I have the luxury of hundreds of bloggers talking about how cool http://www.immediateedge.com/ is.

It's funny, as I dictate this, it occurs to me engagement with the market is purely a function of Dr Michael Hewitt Gleesons checkmove theory.

--------------------------------------------
The Other Extreme
--------------------------------------------

So, if we look at the other end of the spectrum, we have Gary V, the author of “crushing".

Just listening to Gary V makes me tired! He is always on, always ready for interview, and his interaction levels are amazing. In checkmove terminology, he's a check-move machine!

The first boring of my icy approach to interaction came about thanks to the awesome people in my mentoring program.

In the act of working with this awesome group of students, I became the most humble student of all.

I learned so much!

When, in some controversy– I remind you! I started to use Facebook comments across my blogs and moved my core information strategy to Facebook Pages.
The fact, people were not anonymous, raised the tone of conversation immensely.

This week, in the immediate edge, we have really opened the forums and Dan and I are in their each working day.

Again, even after a few days I realise how awesome this.

I also realise how stupid I've been.

I'd like to think, in this community, I'm not one of these fair weather social hit and run merchants.

Sadly, it seems you can set your watch by some people's interaction with when they have a new launch coming - I like to think I don't fall into this category.

But I think I was seduced into thinking that if Steve Jobs didn't have to interact. Neither did I.

I'm not the dirt on the shoe of El Jobso.

This was stupid.

I do not have a few hundred Apple stores nor a few thousand bloggers talking about my stuff everyday.

To eat some of my own dog food, being a leader of a tribe means publishing content that matters to the tribe on a consistent basis.

In check-move terms, every time somebody reads something I've written and has the ability to respond I have just created a check-move.

The more check-moves I and our company make, the more successful will be we will be.

ED,

PS I think I'm more comfortable doing this because I've started to figure out this creating content thing. It is a process. I've a way to go, but i'm starting.

What Can I Do For You... The Experiment

So I tried an experiment…

Gary V, in his book “Crush It“ said one of the most powerful tweets or status updates you can possibly make is the following.

“What can I do do for you?"

So, I thought, Let’s give it a crack…

I published this question on my Facebook page and had 37 responses.

It was certainly the most commented item of the week!

I wanted to take the opportunity to respond to all those commenters here.

Tana Brown–you’ll need something better than that.

Wendy Merritt-it’s better to have different hosting companies in the long term.

Chris Clayton–no.

Mike–it’s not that sort of mentoring program.

Pania–no

Alison–when you ship, let’s talk.

Steve–buy more of my stuff :–)

Nicola–did you know, that 80% of lottery winners are worse off after two years than before they won the lottery…

Lawton–lots more of this to come.

Marge–we are going to do exactly that.

Robin–a list unseen is not a list.

Lynn–tungel invite in your e-mail box

Marge–you’re welcome.

Michelle– Done

Andrew–I’m no Ron Burgundy

Mark–I will stop as I’ve never sent you a cheque :–)

Paul–you need to be in immediate edge!

Gregory–you need to do the totally free challenge them!

Simon–I take it you’ve never been to Sydney.

Jon–I’d love to do more podcasts, it’s just that every piece of data (and this breaks my heart) is you don’t listen to them. People prefer the written word or video. This is a tragedy because people have no idea what the missing out on by not listening to podcasts! My mission this year is to give you a reason to listen.

Tony–with GarageBand on the iPad, I have no more excuses!

Jen–working on it

James–you’re too kind.

Mitch–we do Q&A webinar in challenge plants every other month. Which reminds me, we better schedule another one thing!

Rod–I’ll do my best

Lisa – eddale@mac.com :–)

Albert–I wonder what we are going to be filming in Melbourne next Wednesday…

Paul–only when you explain why you’re consistently playing the fashion show on your iPhone…

Adam–no. Although, one of my favourite phrases is “you don’t get what you don’t ask for."

Cindy–landing pages are tricky and the only solution is constant and never-ending testing.

Alexander–we must do more checklists –people love them.

Bruce–I will try to talk about Apple more… :–)

Mitch–you need to speak to Alan Lane at Camera Lane in Melbourne–he will point you in the right direction.

There you go, I think I answered everybody.

I have this theory, (actually, it’s Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleesons theory, I’m just borrowing) if I want to increase my mailing list by a factor of 10, then I have to make 10 times the checkmoves that I have currently been making. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before.

A plumber has the leaky taps and all that…

​