What's your poison?

Mac, PC, iPhone, Android OS, Windows Mobile...?

There are a few things that I've been looking at, some around hype (word of mouth), most around brand loyalty, a lot around experience and surprisingly not so much around research.

So brand/product choices if you had to choose one:

What Smartphone are you?

Mac or PC baby?

Please note, I don't work for any of these companies nor do I receive free gifts, discounts or any such love from them. This is purely for a better product choice in the near future and well to make me a little happy.

If you don't wanna vote, leave me a note.

Browsing the lever arch file

Was having a look through my bookmarks and came across this presentation on "What the F**k is Social Media - remembering that it was pretty brilliant and straight forward for those that are so scared of it.

The amount of times I've heard someone saying to me "It's for my daughter who sits on Myspace & Facebook" is countless and normally has me re-enacting the weekly incident of head meet desk ... but in all seriousness, if you haven't seen this presentation then you've hit the jackpot

What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later

View more documents from Marta Kagan.

Courtesy of @mzkagan

It was those 3 words that saved my life

Repost from 7/12/09

And countdown has commenced. It's exactly 1 week today where I will be on my way to Cape Town aka home. At this point I am shitting balls if you excuse my French but it's probably the best way to describe how I am feeling. After a successful and fantabulistikiss time in London for nearly 2 years, I'm on my way home. 

Snow snaps

I've probably said this before but I'm super excited for the future with 2 job interviews lined up and hopefully another one at the creative division of my old work (holding thumbs for that one), so we will definitely see. Family, friends, lifestyle, sea rescue and hockey (at this point being persuaded out of retirement by a few people) and a new job. What could be better?

So, random checklist of what I'm super chuffed with over my London experience:

• Independence - learned that I can do things for myself
• Lived in my own flat - with 2 other friends and didn't burn the house down. Only victims were my clothes
• Challenging job in the digital industry - check :)
• Make a British friend - well that wasn't a goal but definitely have a lifelong friendship with my friend from my work 
• Travel - check: Paris, Amsterdam, sailing around Greece & Turkey, Dublin, United Kingdom
• London baby, the entire nightlife and cultural experience
• Play hockey and quit on the same day - that was definitely a first
• Go out to sea and River Thames with the RNLI
• Movie premieres
• Walk through Leicester Sq & Piccadilly Circus at night - spectacular when you realise where you are
• See the Queen - Yes, twice in one week
• Create a family/community out of school and university friends where we all lived. Really amazing

These are just pointers that are quite important to me but really happy with and now have in my back pocket to move forward on my new adventure.

So, whatever that may be? Bring it on!

OT:

This trailer looks awesome: Dear John

And the song from the title is Cheryl Cole ft Will.I.Am - 3 Words - which is

What I want for Chrismukkah? The Google phone

Repost from 21/12/09

I had the pleasure of having a sneak peak aka demo - and play around - on the Google phone, courtesy of a friend who happens to work for Google. Now I may not be the most technical person in the world but one thing is for sure; I love my gadgets. This at times - 90% of the time - causes pain to my bank account and well satisfaction with a new toy I've just purchased. Less then 4 months ago, I got gatvol over my Blackberry and the boring experience it provided me and trotted along to Vodafone and upgraded to my HTC Magic which uses the Google Android OS. 

I. do. not. leave. my. phone. alone - which probably irritates my friends to no end but I'm continually using the apps whether it be creating calendar appointments, Gtalk, Foursquare, Places Directory, Facebook, Twitroid, Maps, News24, Meebo IM to my new found fun for the time being, Google Goggles. I love it. Aside from the basic everyday usage of email, internet, messaging and phone calls, these apps keep me happy and well connected with my world; online and offline. 

So when I heard every Google employee received the rumoured 'Google phone' as a Christmas present, I had to get a look at this smartphone. Luckily, friends had organised dinner on Saturday night and the dude came along. I pre-warned him on FB chat an hour earlier that I wanted to have a looksie and play around to which he said cool after a few conversation pieces of 'it's sikkkkkkk' and oh wait... "it's absolutely a sikkkkk phone" etc.

"A sexy beast. Like the iPhone on beautifying steriods"

I remember having read an article online a few weeks ago about HTC's new handset products coming out next year and they are looking pretty awesome. Hence when I saw the leaked pics of the 'Google phone' online, I remembered that one looked very similar to the HTC Passion. Now according to the dude, Google went to HTC with designs of what they wanted (clearly the experience they wanted to give users), which is the end result and a beautiful, sleek and stylish result it is. It has a much larger screen and has done away with the 'buttons' other then the trackball, it's pretty flat, fits in the palm of your hand and I want to say has that chrome feeling - for the lack of a better word as I've forgotten the name of the texture. Like the pics; it has the Android design on the back with a much larger 'lens' for the camera feature.

Pic: Mashable.com 

What I love about the phone - in Robyn's language:

• Literally 99% touch screens aka getting rid of those blimmen buttons which on my Magic has lots of chocolate bits finding it's way in
• A larger display aka a bigger screen which makes for a much better viewing experience IMO.
• A 5MP camera with flash - finally! Do you know how kak my images come out when trying to take pictures in dark places - not cause I'm shady - and at night. After taking random snaps on Saturday night and having seen the quality; it's made of awesomeness. From what the dude said, it uploads the pictures straight away to your Picasa album which is pretty nifty
• There is quite a cool text recognizer tool which my old HTC Tytn had and I've forgotten the name. Basically, draw any letter, shape or symbol on the screen and it searches your phone for what the best possible match may be. Made of awesomeness no. 2
• With a larger screen means there is more space for shortcuts and widgets on your home screen. I have been rearranging my phone's layout and majority of the time I receive a message saying "not enough space on the home screen" rubbish especially when I added my calendar, accuweather, power tool bar, taskiller - you get the point.
• The menu section is completely made of awesomeness. Why you may ask? Well, when running through all your apps through your menu, it looks like a wheel moving forward and you can see the apps you've been through in the background as you keep going past. Wait. That doesn't make as much sense as I would have liked. Okay. Think about those movies where they run the text/short story in the beginning and the stuff you've read fades off at the top of your screen. You can still see it but as more comes along it disappears as you go through the rest of the story/text. Well, it's like that. I want to say the Star Wars movies and I'm hoping to the dude above that I've got the right movie. Anyway, it's absolutely awesome.
• It runs on Android 2.1 if I remember correctly.
• The overall user experience - well me trying to be one with the phone - is easy, enjoyable and all I really wanted to do was play around even more on it but I think the dude was quite worried I was going to try play around on a test product - which is awesome by the by - they are working on.
• I'm still learning about wireframes, IA etc but I really think Google and their genius employees have really thought about the experience, layout, design, yadda yadda yadda that they want the users to have. Really, it is a pretty sleek and superb phone providing a superb functional tool - well definitely for me - and one that is definitely going to succeed
   

There is probably a reason I would happily give my left arm to work for Google and the reasons are all over the world wide web. From the everyday products I use; Chrome, Gmail, Gtalk, Reader, Calendar, Maps, Alerts, Picasa, Wave, YouTube, Docs, iGoogle to the OS that runs my mobile phone, there really is no stopping the creativity, innovation and forward thinking that comes with Google. And to think that their 'mission statment' is: "to organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." 

Dudes, going back to the 'Google phone'... I would be slightly worried if I was Apple - there is only one iPhone?!. This phone is made of awesomeness even on my most basic level of understanding and passion around the industry. As I grow and learn about the technical aspect of web and mobile, I'm sure I'll be blown away at how the whole wheel really works. But right now, in my little mind if Google were to create a competing product to the iPod (totally going off topic here but hey), I would probably be the happiest girl in the world.

Google phone, Google muso, pump (for pumping my tunes - lame? I know) and most likely in the future; Google OS on my laptop. As an article in The Next Web said... Google is taking over my life. 

Counting all different ideas drifting away

Repost from 10/12/09

After nearly 2 years in London, I've decided to come back home to Cape Town. 

Recently, I went through some of my old blog posts from when I was leaving Cape Town in May 08 to basically where I am today and boy am I a little shocked and proud of my growth. I don't normally give myself a pat on the back for anything and that goes to years of representing Province and S.A. for hockey to 9 superb years at Sea Rescue to making it in London. It's hard work dammit but boy is it absolutely worth it.

Leaving Cape Town to come to London, I was a isolated, definitely not independent 24-year-old little kid. Naive to a point about how tough the world can be, how lonely it can be, demanding, amazing and ultimately mind-blowing brilliant. Now I haven't travelled the world but definitely am a lot more worldy or wiser; whichever one you want to say. Yeah?

Innit

After toughing it out for 4 months and honestly thinking it was not going to work, I got the break I needed... in Government. Can you Adam and Eve it? Government. Coming from 24.com, South Africa's biggest Online Publisher and definitely most innovative media company at the moment in the S.A environment - I ended up going into the public sector where walls are higher then JHB homes and the words 'policy' and 'rules' are the norm. Well... I was right about most but I was completely off about what I thought the experience I was going to have. We had a tight digital team of 2 (my boss and I) and that was going into a new Agency - one of UK's biggest and boy did we learn. Anyhoo, details aside, I honestly thought I would be lock and loading and maybe learning a few more things and that was another assumption I was completley wrong on.

Areas which I absolutely enjoyed and were defo highlights:

• Thrown into the deep end and having to get the website live for Dec 1st was the first major thing - check.
• Start developing new wireframes (with our supplier) for the interim site involving many project meetings, usability testing, designs, mock-ups etc - check. 
• Develop the social media side by using the appropriate tools for the Agency and to get their message out there, engage with stakeholders, key partners and public - check. Social Media introduced and now in growth stage of the PLC if I had to put it in those terms - check
• Get my hands stuck into mini project management with developing more functional sections on the website, new 'tools' and finally getting my hands on managing a process. Learned a LOT - check.
• Digital Marketing strategy - This is one of the areas I really want to go into and with our suppliers we developed a strategy for going forward. Since Dec 08, my boss and I had been quite reactive with the work, finding our feet and now the new faces in the Digital team have a strategy going forward.
• Learning, learning, learning. When Helena said that we should find a topic and discuss it every month (or something like that), I was honestly shitting bricks. I had no clue with regards to what to talk about, where do I find the information, what do I do? We never talked monthly. After finding my feet, we were discussing new trends, technology and tools we could use, DAILY and my passion for the industry was definitely developed by this continual learning process. Even though half the time I was probably mumbling to myself (constructive nonsense as I like to call it), a lot of our ideas were developed from us just talking.
• But I couldn't have done it without my old boss and friend; @HelenaB

Now I'm ready, grown, put on a bit of weight, done a fair amount of traveling, had an amazing experience both work and with friends but it's time to get my lifestyle, family and friends back and start growing in the industry even more around what makes me tick.

And for those that have ever read my blog posts; past and present, the title is most of the time - lyrics from fantabulistikiss songs. This one Phoenix - 1901, which I stumbled upon on the New York, I love You trailer ;)

Sketching = Events

Old post from (9/11/09)

A few months back my colleague who we delegated the events section on our website to, came to us - or maybe we (@HelenaB) and I looked at the page and thought it looked a bit messy and needed to be redesigned. The point I'm trying to get across is that, we got a bit gatvol (irritated) with the way it was looking.

So first on our to-do-list was for Hayley and myself to do quick research on what other event pages were looking like around on the net and write down what we liked and didn't like about them. A bit of tree killing later - which we recycled - I dragged Hayley off to the empty desks armed with a pad of paper and pens and the all important coffee. We looked at a few event layouts on a few different websites and once we got a few ideas in our head, we started sketching on the pad of paper.

After a few ideas were jotted and drawn really badly down on the paper, we came up with a pretty cool layout and most definitely a better user experience then what is was then. What was it? Well, imagine a table with the date, venue and name linked to their page and you have the events page. Now that said, our site is still an infant and only turning 1 on Dec 1st so there was a lot of development work around it at that stage and finding our feet as a digital communications team of 2 people and another 2 wonderful people who we have delegated sections to for their ownership and responsibility.

I couldn't find the previous version on the staging site for comparison of what it looked like then but this is what it looks like now.

Step 1: Robyn's pretty wonky drawing and wonkier ideas on Paintshop Pro (The notes were to our suppliers and for their people to come up with the most functional 'tool' for the user based on our random ideas)

The idea was to have the months as tabs so easy navigation around the different months and then once you have clicked on a month, it would open up to a page full of events. Obviously my artistic drawing doesn't convey my full meaning behind this but once you click on the event, the information (a short description with the essential information) would open up and then if you want to find out more, you can click through to the full event listing).

Step 2: Send off CR to our suppliers and after a few back and forths, ironing out the event page and testing, we have the final product.

I really wish we had the previous version...

You want to find further info on the Smaller Housing Association Conference? Click...

Event geocode (do I speak Greek?): Ooh... look at that map embedded (go to Google maps, put in postcode, take out certain coordinates - feeling like I'm back at Sea Rescue - and paste it in the dedicated area) in the event. Pretty cool. I thought it was another cool feature added to the idea and really adds a nice touch to the events, especially with having all the information you need at your fingertips.

If you were to click through to find out more about the event, a full standard 3-C layout will give you all the information you need and the event's website for further further details.

Like most of our web development, it's always a lot of fun, applying your skills, learning new technical aspects that sometimes, when I listen to our developers, I wonder if they superhumans and well having a lot of fun being creative and providing a better user experience in the end of the day. Though it may seem very small, the little things do make a difference to your experience on a website and in the end of the day, it makes your journey pleasant and worthwhile, instead of pulling your hair out and makes us happy that we've produced a useful tool. Well, definitely makes me happy.

Didn't Twitter start from sketching? Anyway, for an interesting read, head on over to 20fourlabs and read the article Innovate successful products: sketch!

Playing around with subject lines - 14/10/09

It's odd that I would speak about work on my blog considering I've considered it to be a more personal and chilled side to me but I'm going to give it a bash, much like the topic I'm chatting/debating out - technically to myself if no one responds - in my head.

I always remember when my Content Managers were sorting out the Wednesday newsletter; aside from being terribly stressed and wanting to kick Lirus the Virus (stand to be corrected) that there was always talk about subject lines. Spam Wilson (@SamWilson1) was always saying never use words like 'sex' in your subject line because it would go straight to the spam box and I'd always wondered what would happen if we had used those words, even though it's much more fun thinking about synonyms.

Even from the time when I was there - probably making coffee for the bunch but yeah - the topics to subject lines to overall design of the newsletter is really engaging and what it's all about. If you can get the users to open up that email; put a foot through the door, then your first job is done and now it's about keeping them there with good content and call-to-actions.

I read a really interesting article from iMedia Connection this morning while going through my feeds with a cuppa coffee about 7 fixes for terrible subject lines by Wendy Roth. It bought up a little debate/chat/do we have the resources and time?/I think we should do this argument that my old boss/work colleague/friend (@HelenaB) - who decided to move to Malawi - and I were having at the time.

Article highlights:

• Personalization in subject lines can cause problems in several ways
• Make your call-to-action clear, and let readers know if an offer will expire soon
• Funky punctuation and cryptic language is not clever -- it's annoying

We had been doing the newsletter for 8 months at the point when the topic was bought up; "do we change the subject lines"? It was a really cool idea considering our subject line is very simple and doesn't add much call-to-action as the people who have subscribed to our newsletter know what they are getting. We aren't in much competition with other companies nor do we have sales targets to hit other then to make ourselves happy that the newsletter is still in it's growth stage and is growing steadily every week without much promotion (aside from every page on the website) around it.

For us, it was a matter of time and putting a plan around it and thinking back, if we had the time it would have been a great test to do. Our sign up page allows us to collate all the information that the user wants to hear about and it gives us the opportunity to use our data appropriately. Our aim was to see what our click-through rate was like with different subject lines and I think we would have had success in trying something new, especially by engaging with our users and start targeting their preferences more precisely not only making their experience better but also by enhancing our digital experitse.

Big words, I know but email marketing is part of this so-called 'digital expertise' and getting it right only means good things in terms of exposure about your business and/or product (which you know anyway). Despite only having 6 weeks left at my current job (contract, she is ending), I'm quite looking forward to the future. Who knows, hopefully one day, you'll be reading and clicking through some of my work.

Side dish: I'm relatively new to actually blogging about what I'm passionate about and finding my feet with how I write and get ideas across. I tend to keep my professional interests on Twitter but this is something I am quite interested in and well, I just decided to word vomit on the page.