Potpourri

Last week, we talked about thinking creatively to preempt failure. In this installment of "Sensible Strategy", we examine how failure can be snatched from the jaws of success by being too focused on the ends and not being mindful of the means. I have discovered three simple tests that can help stop bad ideas or broken processes dead in their tracks. This is the second of them.

Test 2 - Synthesize the Approach
Once a decision to take action has been made, place it within a rollout framework, a "getting it done" work plan. Careful thought and attention to how the task is carried out and how this track of work relates to other activities in the broader project can make the difference between victory or defeat, success or failure. Even good ideas can fall apart here if they are not placed within a strategic context and carried out to complement the work that the rest of the organization is doing.

Case Study: Google Buzz

One of the most spectacular cases of recent epic failure is the much-maligned launch of Google Buzz. Back in February, Google acknowledged the magnitude of its catastrophe, but despite the fact that it was a late arrival to the social networking scene, the idea of Buzz (even though many couldn't quite figure it out) was actually a good one. Like the search innovator's other tech creation, Google Wave, Buzz featured some interesting twists on a familiar formula. But because Google had not considered how the rollout of Buzz might impact how people use its Gmail and Google Talk services, a significant communication (and later, technical) disconnect emerged. And so, no one used Buzz: pretty much everyone turned it off because they considered it noise and opted out because there wasn't anything revolutionary or game-changing about it. It's become little more than a tinkering toy these days, and like Wave - which only ever just showed promise, never caught on, and became failed and cancelled - Buzz has become sort of an expendable working laboratory for social networking features that might be used in a future Google Social Network.

Failure is nothing new for cutting-edge companies like Google and Apple, and what keeps them successful is their willingness to learn from mistakes and continue innovating. A misunderstanding of Google's own demographic derailed the launch of Buzz and even the government of Canada weighed in with opinions about the subsequent privacy issues. By rolling out a good idea that was not yet ready to see the light of day because it needed more time to cook, Google's shortcomings with Buzz were glaringly apparent when compared side-by-side with its own successful Gmail and Talk. By comparison, both Gmail and Talk were launched incrementally to staged audiences with cautious perspective on how these tools would mesh with the rest of the Google platform. Careful consideration of how Buzz might fit in with the suite of products and services Google offered would have revealed early on in development that the tool needed much more thought into how it could integrate and perform.

In our final installment of "Sensible Strategy", we'll examine the third test - Calibration of Consequence - and review how the world's greatest success story mishandled the launching of its most successful product ever.

"How human beings make meaning together will essentially determine the utility of technology, never the reverse, no matter how awesome the technology.

We must never forget that community organizing occurs principally in our homes and communities not on our laptops.

With this in mind, we must begin to translate the power of community organizing into transferrable principles that can reign in the technology to be a tool that drives people to act with their hands, hearts and minds as well as their Smart Phone."

One of my earliest memories is standing on a street corner in the Mission district of San Francisco with my mom -- she’s handing out fliers and talking to passersby about the (first) Iraq War. Activism and working for social justice is in my blood. I’m filled with pride every time we launch a website or finish a project because I know how important our clients’ work is in bettering the world.

A few weeks back, we launched the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s new website. NAACP LDF is the nation’s oldest civil rights law firm. LDF works in the highest levels of our justice system and congress to protect our most basic rights. LDF came to EchoDitto in early March in desperate need of a site overhaul – their old site was difficult to manage, full of old content and didn’t reflect the quality of their work.

This new website is a product of over 5 months of planning, development, and testing by a team of over a dozen people. I was lucky enough to be the project manager and see it go from the initial idea to wireframes to a live website!

Some highlights:

• Cool search tool for cases and issues LDF works on: http://naacpldf.org/program-search & publications http://naacpldf.org/publication-search
• Dynamic home page with a list of news updates and related issues/cases.
• Dynamic program area landing pages. For example, http://naacpldf.org/category/criminal-justice
• Case spotlights on various pages like: http://naacpldf.org/ways-give

I’d like to thank Actual Size Creative who did a superb job on the design and all the great folks at LDF including Mel and Charles who never thought in a million years they would learn what a nodequeue was.

WWF Germany used QR barcodes in print ads to link directly to Donate action pages on mobile phone.

Pop quiz: What do the resurrection of long-extinct species of dinosaurs and iPhone app development have in common?

Answer:

“[They] were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” - Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jurassic Park, 1993)

Okay, so a poorly conceived iPhone application won't (necessarily) go on a murderous rampage slaughtering extras and supporting actors, but like the failed theme park, it will end with you flushing large amounts of money down the proverbial toilet.

Full disclosure: I am a registered Apple iPhone developer. I've loved both iPhones I've owned and I plan to buy another.

That said, I’m also a pragmatist who believes in using the right tool for the job, even if it’s not the bandwagon tool of the minute.

I'm not suggesting that there should be no app store, or that native iPhone apps are evil. However, it's important to realize that not all mobile applications would be best served as a native iPhone apps.

Problem #1: Barriers to entry and discovery
With the explosion in popularity of the iPhone and App Store, and the ubiquitous “there's an app for that” slogan, the past year has seen a veritable flood of new apps hit the market. Some apps are genuinely fun (Carcassonne), useful (AroundMe), or make clever use of the iPhone’s unique hardware (Zen Bound). However, there is a darker side which includes significant growth in the AppSpam/AppScam industries (such as the $199.99 Allergies Relieft app).

The App Store has a relatively high barrier to entry as it is. To even develop an app, at minimum you have to spend $99/yr on a developer's license, months of design, programming, and testing, and jump through hoops at every stage (register all testing devices, generate and install provisioning profiles, etc).

Once you have an app finished, then comes the nerve-wracking app store approval process where your app content and code are reviewed and can be rejected for any number of reasons including being too clever or for other, more obscure reasons.

After all of that, if your app made it into the App Store, it will most likely be swept away in the currents of the aforementioned app flood. The exceptional apps float to the surface for a brief gasp of air on the “Top” or “Featured” lists, while the rest quickly lose sight of the sun and wallow away in dark obscurity.

Additionally, the App Store does not really help that much in getting your app noticed. No matter what, you will still have to market your app to some extent.

Problem #2: iPhone apps are expensive to create
...and all of the available revenue streams (purchase price, in-app purchase, and in-app ads) are driven by popularity. If no one is downloading your app or running your app, you won't make any money on it.

Additionally, the bar has been set pretty high. Unless you have a lucky stroke of genius that gives your app some unique twist that causes it to go viral, your app will likely not be touched unless it is polished to within an inch of its life. Polish takes time and talent, two things that significantly increase the development costs of an app.

Finally, there's the app store review process. Rejections can mean anything from a few hours of extra development time to rewriting significant portions of the app to killing the fundamental concept of the app and flushing the development costs with nothing to show.

Solution: Consider all Options

Let’s face it, not every idea is best expressed in a native iPhone application. Every app is different, and every situation is different, so what I provide below are two questions to ask yourself before investing in a native iPhone application:

Why target the iPhone?

Is it the popularity of the platform? Device/service features such as the camera, accelerometer, in-app purchases, or push notifications? Is it worth alienating the other mobile markets (or requiring additional concurrent development for other markets)?

Can the same solution be created using a web-based solution?

If the proposed app does not need any of the native-only features such as the camera or accelerometer, and doesn't need an app-store-purchase revenue stream, a mobile web app may provide a better solution and alleviate several of the barriers to entry (app store rejection, developer license, objective-c), and additionally mobile web apps can easily support multiple mobile platforms (droid, blackberry, etc) with little-to-no additional work required. With the increasing support of html5, the gap between that which can be done in a web app and that which requires a native app to do is rapidly closing.

Skeptical? Just have a look at the new html5 YouTube or take it for a spin yourself at m.youtube.com on your iPhone.

Now, clearly there are some apps that would do really well as native iPhone apps, and others that can't be done as a mobile web app. However, a significant portion of apps available on the app store can be readily created as a mobile web app and continue to be just as effective.

Solution, but only half a glass

Want the flexibility and portability of web apps, but be able to tap into the hardware and services only a native app can get? Consider a hybrid app.

Hybrid apps are apps written to run a web app inside of a native app wrapper. It will still require a talented developer and app store approval, but it's possible to reuse much of the app and write similar wrappers for other devices (droid, blackberry, etc).

All of the power, much of the flexibility, and much less of the risk. I expect the hybrid app to only grow in popularity.

Update: Related Article
Craig Hockenberry posted an excellent article on Apps vs. the Web over at A List Apart, in which he more fully explores the benefits and tradeoffs of going native.

Failure is a pretty scary proposition, especially in the context of project management. And yet, it doesn't have to be this all-consuming nightmare; it is a challenge that should be confronted head-on. According to famed political economist Douglass C. North, institutions lose their ability to lead strategically because they stop thinking creatively and instead become tied down to process, often because they are paralyzed by the fear of failure. North also observes that the most successful organizations look at challenges as opportunities to thrive. Over the past few weeks, I've come across a number of examples of projects failing needlessly that I think are helpful to consider in the context of a strategic "gut-check", a series of three simple tests that can help stop bad ideas dead in their tracks.

"Sensible Strategy" is a blog series that explores these three simple tests and showcases real world, high profile case studies of spectacular yet entirely avoidable failure.

Test 1 - Evaluate the Purpose, Objectives, and Goals.
Every project needs to start out with a clear vision of its intended end-state and then all actions, including policies and processes that exist in the project, should be put to a basic standard: does it fit? It's more than simple compatibility; it's the "Why am I doing this?" of any project, from building a website or sitting down to write a cookbook. If the task at hand isn't directly involved in the furtherance of an objective or goal, then, it's probably out of scope and irrelevant or worse, detrimental.

Case Study: Real ID Forum Fiasco

The universes of computer gaming and project management unexpectedly collided earlier last month when the world's most popular online game, World of Warcraft, enacted (and revoked three days later) a policy of requiring that customers' real names be publicly displayed when they post to their community forums. This policy was promulgated under the auspices of Real ID, a program intended to link in-game accounts with out-of-game social tools, like Facebook and Twitter. Don't see the connection? You're not alone: users didn't see the connection either and they posted over 50,000 replies to a forum thread protesting the change, citing it as arbitrary censorship at best and an invasion of privacy at worst. It quickly got the attention of the international news media: it was a featured leader on MSNBC.com's Tech category, was being reported by the BBC News Service, and was even being discussed on the morning news. After days of silence and inaction, Blizzard's CEO Mike Morhaime had to deliver a humiliating public reversal which cost the company precious prestige.

The Real ID Forum Fiasco is an example of a bad idea that tried to solve one problem (moderating forums by mass-removing disruptive users) by linking it with another challenge (adding value to users by allowing them to link their game accounts with trusted social networks). Often times, there are synergies between different programs and using policies to cross-pollenate the administration of two or more projects can be effective. This was definitely not the case because there were no shared goals or objectives between these two, and instead, by trying to advance one set of objectives by leveraging tools and resources designed for a completely different set, Blizzard ended up undermining both efforts and caused tremendous waste, needless drama, and a costly loss of confidence.

In our next installment of "Sensible Strtaegy", we'll examine the second test - Synthesis of Approach - and look at how the world's greatest search engine struggled to take on the world of social networking.

The problem with most sorts of planning and organization, is that if they're not ingrained into you, at the first hint of a crisis, it all goes out the window. This is particularly true about the use of technology. As the technologist for disaster-driven nonprofits, I found that technology, for many nonprofits, is much like the umbrella, most needed when it rains suddenly, but somehow always left at home.

What do I mean by disaster response? I am not referring to the colloquial use of the phrase. I mean not only the direct application of aid, but handling media and political strategy around campaigns.

Project management has improved dramatically throughout the years, aided by online technologies that can create timelines linked to to-do lists, wikis, forums, all motored by automatic email subscriptions and collaborative documenting. Why is it that nonprofits aren't using these technologies for coordinated response to disasters?

During a disaster, people are at their worst. Many disaster-responders have been through crises in their lives, and disasters can trigger either mild or severe PTSD. This can make the always difficult work of coalition-building, particularly around a unified platform, even more difficult than in peaceful times. The tendency can be towards a splintering of will and purpose, with replication of effort and disunity of message. It is precisely at this time that strategy and calm unity of purpose could serve as Archimedes' lever for the world.

Not only is it difficult to collaborate, but those without an aptitude for technology can find their difficulties magnified. An online project management tool may seem like an unnecessary "bureaucracy" for interaction, a hindrance rather than a help.

But this is not the end of the online project management tool for disaster response. No, it is not. I believe that technologies can moderate interactions, create action out of discussion, make interactions transparent and centralized, and clearly designate responsibility along well-planned timelines. So nonprofits, in not taking advantage of these technologies, are scratching a living from the dirt outside a well-apportioned Garden of Eden.

What will it take to expect the unexpected, to plan for disasters that have not struck? I advocate for the pre-emptive use of technologies: coalitions would increase their potential for collaboration and concerted response to crises if they would, in peace-time, agree upon and begin to use a set of online tools.

I believe that something as simple as Google Docs, or online spreadsheets, can be effective as an organizing tool. Sometimes the simpler the tool, the more likely groups will be to use them. A solution like collaborative Google Docs can be multi-purposed and can offer a low barrier of entry. Google Wave might have some potential.

Basecamp is a (for limited accounts) free service with full-on project management offerings. Basecamp is used by professionals and will not let you down. However, Basecamp is not open source and therefore cannot be altered or customized except through Basecamp itself. Congenial folks, I'm sure.

However, if you are planning a long-term strategy for project management and have a clear idea of your needs and desires, that is, you want a platform customized to your elaborate needs, you can use Open Atrium, a Drupal distribution put out by the good folks at Development Seed. Open Atrium, however, is a full-on open-source content management system that has, built on top of it, a set of tools that can be used in much the same way as Basecamp, but can be customized as heavily as needed by a seasoned developer. At EchoDitto, we also offer Open Atrium installations and customization.

The key is to agree on a platform and to dig in, the sooner the better. Remember, whatever you do poorly in peacetime, you will do even worse in times of crisis.

Thanks to Jessica Duda for many of the ideas here.

If your facebook and twitter feed is anything like mine, you've run across "RSAnimate" videos more than once over the past few months.

Taken from lectures given at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (let's stick with "RSA" for short!), our ears hear the standard lecture that we would get if we were in the room with the presenter, but our eyes are afforded a wonderful gift: sequential and overlapping illustrations of the topic at hand, synced up with the speech.

Part comic strip and part animation, in a way it's the anti-Powerpoint. Whereas bullet points and random clipart more often serve to distract the listener from the very words the presenter is speaking, the RSAnimate videos illustrate and drive home every sentence and phrase (and sometimes every word) that's said.

If I had to trace a lineage to videos that came before this series, I'd point to Anne Leonard's excellent Story of Stuff. While it's an animation in a much more traditional sense, the basic form & function is the same: make otherwise complex or lengthily-described ideas understandable and meaningful for a large audience, using an adorable and accessible cartoon/stick figure/whiteboard aesthetic.

While this style of video is certainly more time-consuming than plugging your camcorder into iMovie and clicking export, for groups and organizations with the resources to do something like this, soon it will be expected (watch out, TED!).

Here is RSA's latest video, a lecture by theorist and critic Slavoj Zizek on the pitfalls of the "ethical consumerism" trend:

"After the recent social media brandjackings by Greenpeace of Nestle’s Facebook page, this was an important area that required more research. Below, you’ll find an exclusive interview with Greenepeace’s team, and interestingly, I believe they are more organized and sophisticated than the average brand -giving them the opportunity to overwhelm their opposition using their strong supporter base. Below is my Forbes article, which was originally posted the CMO network (or you can read it on Forbes). This is a great article for brand managers, PR, agencies, and social media professionals."

"Jesse Schell’s talk about the future of game design as it invades the real world is just astounding. If you do experience design of any kind it’ll be the most valuable (and entertaining) 20 minutes you’ll spend all week."

PR stunt or the real deal?

"In the realm of marketing, Gatorade is probably best known for splashy commercials featuring some of the world’s most famous athletes. However, a new effort behind the scenes of the PepsiCo-owned sports drink maker is putting social media quite literally at the center of the way Gatorade approaches marketing.

The company recently created the Gatorade Mission Control Center inside of its Chicago headquarters, a room that sits in the middle of the marketing department and could best be thought of as a war room for monitoring the brand in real-time across social media."

discuss!

organizing an offline event to strengthen or build an online community

" The path to a great website or interactive tool can often be a rocky one. Rachel Collinson shares some insights from the agency perspective on how to get the result you need, on time and on budget, AND have a happy relationship with your suppliers. "

"The use of social media to connect members of a similar community is a tried and true approach. The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) is a non-profit organization that, according to their website, “is the nation’s first and largest group dedicated to the troops and veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan” and their civilian supporters. Their mission is simple: To improve the lives of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and their families."

6 billion others by yann bertrand -- this is really cool " Forty or so questions that help us to find out what separates and what unites us." " 5,000 interviews were filmed in 75 countries by 6 directors who went in search of the Others."

"The Obama administration is seeking to make it easier for the FBI to compel companies to turn over records of an individual's Internet activity without a court order if agents deem the information relevant to a terrorism or intelligence investigation."

With the following tweet, Storm’s first on the subject Tuesday evening, the #wookieeleaks hashtag meme was born, and with it hundreds of topical jokes grounded in the Star Wars universe