zumio

• How people really use the iPhone - Great presentation outlining some of the issues with iPhone application design, and some good tips to avoid the pitfalls.
• Children's welfare groups slam net filters - Even child welfare groups are calling on the government to spend their money in better ways…
• GetUp! Save the Net - GetUp! are supporting efforts to stop the Government's planned internet filter.

(These links were posted to my del.icio.us feed between 26-Nov-2008 and 03-Dec-2008.)

I’ve had a lovely time in Adelaide the past two days - it’s a lovely city (I’ll have to come back sometime soon). Thanks to CPA for inviting me (and putting me up in such lovely digs at the Sebel Playford).

The reason for my visit was to present to a CPA Congress session on “Maximising Opportunities in the Online Marketplace”. Whilst similar to the previous sessions I presented, I did shorten and restructure things a little.

You can also download a PDF of the slides with notes (PDF 10.4 MB).

Bonus link: Laurel Papworth’s talk from the Congress is also available online.

• Drupal.org redesign - a strategy for the documentation section - I must be a geek - I find this exchange, posted by Leisa Reichelts on her blog, very insightful. In fact the whole "open-source design" approach for the Drupal redesign has been great.
• Why are we even arguing about this? - Stephen Collins posts his slides and notes from presentations to the Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship and for the product launch of IntranetManager.NET. A compelling argument for social media engagement by businesses.
• Lessons Learned while Building an iPhone Site - The Flickr team share some of what they learnt developing the Flickr iPhone site.

(These links were posted to my del.icio.us feed between 19-Nov-2008 and 20-Nov-2008.)

• Amazon CloudFront - Another promising offering from Amazons growing collection of infrastructure services.
• Campaign Monitor Teaser Site - The folks at Freshview are about to launch a major upgrade to their product and have produced this "teaser" site outlining the new features. For me, the merge of the MailBuild editing tools into Campaign Monitor is the biggest benefit - increasing its utility immensely.
• Agile Development Projects and Usability - Jakob Nielsen outlines various approaches for incorporating user experience and usability work into agile development methodologies. Outlines the core issues and approaches - and links to a full report that you can buy.

(These links were posted to my del.icio.us feed between 18-Nov-2008 and 19-Nov-2008.)

• Letter to Tanya Plibersek re: Clean Feed - My letter to Tanya Plibersek (my Federal MP) outlining my objections to the Government's planned "clean feed" internet filtering system.
• Marketing lessons from the US election - Seth Godin: "Your challenge isn't to scrape up enough money to buy TV time. Your challenge is to make video interesting enough that we'll choose to watch it and choose to share it."
• MySpace Launches Profile 2.0. No, You Don’t Have to Switch - Mashable highlights the new MySpace profile system.

(These links were posted to my del.icio.us feed between 13-Nov-2008 and 15-Nov-2008.)

I’m a big fan of sustainable design - especially when designers turn their hand to addressing problems such as preventable disease reduction in the developing world.

Some time ago I came across what I consider an amazing product called the LifeStraw. From the LifeStraw website:

Half of the world’s poor suffer from waterborne disease, and nearly 6,000 people - mainly children - die each day by consuming unsafe drinking water.

LifeStraw water purifiers have been developed as a practical way of preventing disease and saving lives, as well as achieving the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe water by the year 2015.

At USD$25 each (for the family version), LifeStraws are a low-cost (by developed world standards) means of purifying water to prevent common diarrhoeal disease.

At around the same time I also came across Project H Design, which:

… is a charitable organization that supports, inspires, and delivers life-improving humanitarian product design solutions. We champion industrial design as a tool to address social issues, a vehicle for global life improvement, and a catalyst for individual and community empowerment.

I saw on Project H a initiative that aims to provide families in Mumbai with LifeStraws - and I thought this would be a great cause to support.

Part of my “charter” for Zumio is to donate 1% of Zumio’s quarterly net profit to a project with social justice or sustainability goals, and for the Mar-Jun 2008 quarter (yes - I’m a little behind!) I’ve put the funds towards this project.

Unfortunately with the Aussie dollar fluctuating so rapidly my donation probably isn’t stretching as far as it could have, but all the same I hope that my small contribution will help…

I received this via email from a friend and thought it might be of interest:

World Usability Day – Be a part of it!

World Usability Day 2008 is just 24 hours away. This is your chance to be part of a global effort spanning 43 countries and over 150 locations as we help spread the world about the importance of usability. This year’s theme is transportation, and our Sydney event focuses on the issues and challenges that face alternate forms of transportation in and around the city.

UPA Sydney has put together a varied and interesting program of presentations, discussions, workshops and activities. Our impressive line-up of speakers includes:

• Alinta Thornton (User Experience Lead, Independent Digital Media) on what it really takes to get people out of their cars
• Kevin Cox (Founder and Chief Technical Officer, Edentiti) running a discussion on how to make carpooling viable
• Alan Cadogan (Strategy Director, City of Sydney) discussing the City of Sydney’s Sustainable Sydney 2030 vision
• Michael Lister (Senior Transport Planner, Parsons Brinckerhoff) discussing bus route design – unleashing the omnibologist within
• Warren Salomon (Sustainable Transport Consultants Pty Ltd) on the major role that bicycles will play in the new transport paradigm
• You will also have the chance to view and evaluate the design and photo exhibition, participate in other workshops and discussions, and join the global transport challenge. And finally, you’re invited to help us close out World Usability Day 2008 with a social event.

This event is free and open to the public and will run from 10am– 5pm, Thursday, November 13, 2008.

Location:

University of Technology Sydney
Haymarket campus
Room 12, Level 1, Block B, Building 5
1 - 59 Quay Street, Haymarket.

Drinks to follow starting at 5:30 at Henry Henry (Henry Deane Plaza, 8A Lee St)

For more information, please visit http://www.upasydney.org or send email to events [at] upasydney.org.

• A brief lesson on the practicalities of the internet filtering/censoring for the Australian Government - So true it's funny ;) User Friendly's take on the Oz goverment's filtering plans.
• Twitpay: An Atlanta Startup Weekend 2 Company - You can now make payments via Twitter - taking the "IOU" model and applying it to actual $ payments. I can't help but think security is a real issue here, but a very interesting development nonetheless…
• Filter advocates need to check their facts - Mark Newton, from Internode, fact checking the Government's statements in relation to the proposed internet filter.

(These links were posted to my del.icio.us feed between 10-Nov-2008 and 11-Nov-2008.)

I’ve just finished presenting two sessions at the CPA Congress Tasmania. Unfortunately I didn’t keep a close enough eye on my timer, and tried to cram a bit too much into each session. Hopefully the extra info was useful enough to warrant the overrun…

The presentations that I made today were very similar (though not identical) to previous presentations which are already up on Slideshare, so I’ve embedded them here.

Maximising opportunities in the online marketplace

Slides with notes (PDF 14.9MB)

Leveraging social networks: Engaging customers in a Web 2.0 world

Slides with notes (PDF 10.6MB)

• CIO - Hands off the Internet - CIO mag chimes in on the planned filter and creates a petition to support their efforts (site sign-up required)
• Cluetrain Review - Worth revisiting the 95 theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto - a simple review on Slideshare (via Jax: http://jaxinteractive.wordpress.com/). Many of these still hold strong today…
• Are Designers also Marketers? - Joshua Porter: "when designers are tasked with selling their product they make better products. When they are not tasked with selling their product they have less responsibility, and thus aren’t forced into getting feedback on what they’re making. It’s that feedback you get from selling, from your success/failure at marketing, which pushes back positively into the design process."

(These links were posted to my del.icio.us feed between 02-Nov-2008 and 06-Nov-2008.)