28-07-2010 Posted by : Paul Kwiatkowski

Man, Real Time Strategy Rocks.

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What you see to the left is the box art for “Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty”. (In case you couldn’t read). Starcraft 2 is the sequel, obviously enough, to “Starcraft”, a game released 12 years ago. While I really (read really, really, really) want to go out to the store and pick up a copy, I’m going to hold off just a bit. Despite that, Starcraft 2 has me reminiscing all about the various strategy games I’ve played and loved, and so without further to do, I present the history of real time strategy games, as played by Paul Kwiatkowski.

I got into RTS games sometime in 2000. I don’t remember exactly when, but I was 10 years old. My family had lunch at another families house one Sunday, and I ended up watching their high-school aged son play Age of Empires 2. Somehow I was familiar with the type of game, though I’m not sure from where. Something about that game flipped a switch in my head, because after seeing it played, I absolutely had to get it. I remember being absolutely floored that buildings caught fire, at unit formations, and even the awesome music. That day I observed the Franks being played, and thought that their throwing axemen were the coolest thing ever. To this day, I’ll play the Franks, whenever we pull out this game.

I began to hunt for Age of Empires 2, and came to a terrible realization: our old Windows 95 computer wouldn’t be able to hand AoE2. Luckily for me, the same research to find Age of Empires 2, led me to Age of Empires. Age of Empires featured much of the same gameplay, and had nearly as much charm. Waiting for it to arrive from a younger Amazon.com was a test of patience. Upon arrival though, holy. cow. Looking back, nothing about AoE is particularly incredible, but back then, it was absolutely amazing. If I had to pick one feature that made AoE the greatest thing since sliced bread, it would be the included map editor. It was tremendously easy to pick up and learn, and allowed for creation of just about anything. Over the next couple years, I created an absolute ton of maps. My favorite back then was a map meant to recreate the first scene in the Fellowship of the Ring. It was a battle with so many units the computer chugged along at less than 1 frame per second for 2 minutes before gaining a little speed.

While AoE dominated the games I played in the first couple years of the last decade, it was by no means the only one. I had 2 friends who had Age of Empires 2, and we’d play that game all the time. At least, we did, until one of them told me that he “had the coolest game ever, it’s called Starcraft”. Apparently this game was awesome because you could put bats that were on fire into bunkers, or something like that. Turns out you can indeed place Firebats in bunkers. Starcraft quickly took play priority from Age of Empires 2, and held onto for a long, long time. Starcraft again featured a slick map creation tool, and that, along with its campaigns and expansion, provided a ton of ’stuff’ to do. Many many people remember Starcraft for its online play, and I almost feel like a bad citizen saying that I barely played it online. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to, but that back when we first played it, not every last computer in the house was connected to the internet. When we finally did play a few online rounds, the predictable happened- we got steamrolled. To this day, I’m great at RTS campaign, local games, and games with friends. I’m just awful against the people you play online.

In the next couple years, I managed to acquire Age of Empires 2 (better computer ftw!), and kept playing Starcraft. A friend gave me Command and Conquer: Red Alert, and despite being older and less refined than what I had been playing, it was a fun look at older RTS games.

From 2002 to 2004, several friends and I played Games Workshop’s Lord of the Rings tabletop game. Playing this further introduced us to the world of Games Workshop, and specifically Warhammer 40,000. I remember being absolutely pumped for Relic’s ‘Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War’ in 2004, and that excitement was absolutely deserved.

Dawn of War at first felt tremendously alien from the RTS games I had been playing. While it certainly wasn’t the first “new style” RTS game, it certainly helped to usher in a new style of RTS design. Classicly, units were controlled individually, resource gathering was a major part of the game, and micro-management wasn’t crucial for victory. Dawn of War introduced resources that are gathered while going on the offensive. It utilized early cover systems, and made extensive use of micro-management. In addition the game placed troops in squads, instead of out on their own. This was partly due to the world of 40k, but also a design decision. Squads could be buffed up, had abilities, and could have leaders assigned to them to make them even more powerful. The reinforce-on-the-go mechanic also meant that you no longer needed endless build queues at your base.

Enough about its mechanics, Dawn of War was just insanely fun to play. Part of the reason I love these games is the amount of teamwork they allow for. Dawn of War was no exception, and allowed my brother and I to work together (Space Marines and Eldar) against AI’s or players online. Few things make you appreciate your brother more than calling for help because Chaos troops are getting ready to destroy you and seeing an force of Eldar teleport in and obliterate them. High five John.

Relic’s next game after Dawn of War was ‘Company of Heroes’, which despite following the ‘this game is about war!’ trend of Word-of-Word naming (see Medal OF Honor, Call OF Duty, God OF War), is an amazing game. It takes the ground work for new generation RTS games laid in Dawn of War and runs with them. In Dawn of War, ‘cover’ meant put troops in a pit, so they are in ‘Heavy Cover’. In Company of Heroes, cover means, well, cover. Units are smart, and lie down behind walls, hide in buildings, crawl on the ground, and will find new cover once theirs is destroyed! Oh, thats right, everything can be destroyed! To someone without RTS experience, I know that statement might as well be “Everything is Blue!”, but a seasoned fan would have been blown away. If you don’t understand the sheer awesomeness that is total destructibility, you need to play this game. Bad.

Company of Heroes is simply a blast to play. It has well paced missions, great story, and some of the best gameplay of anything in the last 5 years. Typically RTS single player campaigns lack re-playability, but CoH does. There is one mission in particular where you set up a defensive force to repel a German attack after D-Day. This mission is one of my favorite in any game, of any genre. Ever.

After the success of Dawn of War and Company of Heroes, Relic released the awesome ‘Dawn of War 2′. While not as innovative as its predecessor, or as acclaimed as Company, Dawn of War 2 is still an epic game. It cut down greatly on the amount of troops the player managed, and feels more like a 41st millennium ‘Dungeon Siege’ than an RTS. However, it’s still a strategy game, and it makes use of all the cool stuff Company of Heroes did. In addition to the ‘hunker down’ type of gameplay, there are many powers, and lots of armor and weapons to acquire. It has been compared to Diablo, and rightfully so. New loot is always fun. The idea for RPG elements in an RTS isn’t Relic’s though. While I don’t know for sure, I’m willing to give the “RPG-RTS” origin award to Blizzard, for their Warcraft games.

Which brings me to the last item I’m addressing today. Warcraft 3. I played it a little back in 2003, and now in 2010 I’m playing it again. It isn’t the first Warcraft game to give hero units powers, but it is the one that made doing so extremely popular. A lot of games can’t survive aging. They start to look worse and worse, and play poorly. Warcraft 3 is one of the few games that has aged almost perfectly. The game still feels as fresh and fun as it did back in 2003. Oh, and LAN is awesome too. John may not be able to teleport his Eldar in, but he can send in a squad of Night Elves to save my helpless farms from the Scourge. Being from Blizzard, Warcraft 3 is my current Starcraft 2 substitute. Sure, not the same, but it still has “Blizzard loves this” written all over it.

And that concludes my loving homage to the RTS genre. Now if someone wants to hand me a copy of Starcraft 2, I’ll add a section, and be eternally grateful. If not, let me know how it is.

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30-04-2010 Posted by : Paul Kwiatkowski

Facebook's New "Likes and Interests" System is Awesome

Category : Articles

Up until yesterday Facebook’s system for users displaying interests was quite simply poor. Clicking on an item took one to a search for that term, and as you may know, Facebook’s search was (and is) poor at best. Finding which friends had similar interests was unnecessarily complicated, and if a term was spelled incorrectly (on your profile or a friends) it would be impossible to match your given interest to theirs. Additionally, clicking on a term often results in failure to find more information about the term. If I list under musical interests “Unicron Kid” (misspelling Unicorn Kid), then clicking the term will not be likely to show you the artists page.

This ended today.

Facebook has now linked pages to do interests; removing the “pages” section of one’s profile, and giving context to your interests. Now instead of being taken to a search, the vast majority of interests redirect to a Facebook page. Clicking on “Kill Bill” doesn’t show me a list of search results, but instead takes me to the page for the film. Also, you can rearrange items, such as to “show off” a particular item, and place items of higher interest in immediate view, and others a click away.

As you can see, the new thumbnails provide a very quick look at the interests of the person in question. I moved a few things around to make sure it worked as it appeared to, and it absolutely did. This new format is endlessly better than it was, and does away with hyperlinks that are simply explanatory text. I had introduced my interests before with a simple “I enjoy”, which by default became a link.

This new layout greatly increases the usefulness of interests on the site, and reduces the hassle the links used to be. Clicking on “Lost” shows me that 5 friends also ‘like’ the show, and doesn’t show me any fan pages.

Interests was one of the last truly lagging portions of the site, with users totally unaware that what they typed would become links. This redesign has done a lot to reduce typos, and add a professional quality to profiles that wasn’t there.

Although every major change to the site stirs up a legion of half-hearted dissenters, I doubt this one will have the same effect. The only real debatable change was pushing the interests further down on a profile. Personally, I love this change. It places greater emphasis on the more important “quotes” and “about me” areas. These have been renamed “Bio” and “Favorite Quotations”. Before now these most telling sections were hidden under a mass of links to whatever one listed as interests. Now they are the first major feature on a profile. No matter how much you can tell about me by my favorite films and music, my hand-written bio and quotes tell you far more.

I’m honestly interested again in visiting friend’s profiles, and I have to think that these changes will prompt people to review everything they have posted and modify the content appropriately. After all, now that your bio carries more weight, changing it from a one-line blurb about how fun you are to a decent description should seem like a good idea.

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10-04-2010 Posted by : Paul Kwiatkowski

Libraries Should Crowdsource Blogs

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This is a pitch specifically intended for the Forsyth County public library system, however it can be applied to almost any multi-branch (or a huge single branch) library system.

The library has the ability to unite many of its patrons through the web. While opportunities include social networks, location based applications, and much more; today I’m just proposing a crowdsourced blog. What I mean by this is rather than have a handful of writers, the library would likely find more success in opening up the blog to an endless number of authors.

A combined sign and verbal campaign could get a significant amount of library patrons excited about blogging and contributing content to the blog. Asking patrons to contribute their thoughts, book reviews, and ideas, and more would be a great way to get people more involved, and introduce patrons to each other. People who live across the county might never meet under normal circumstances, but if they both write for the library they’ll become part of a community.

A community of writers like this would likely help boost patronage as well, assuming people are inspired to write for the blog, and influenced by the writing of others. The first goal being simply to engage people online, the end goal of this is in part to establish a group of people who will gladly donate their time to bettering the library. Having been an employee at a library once, I understand that there is a “friends of the library” group. In my experience this group provided a fair amount of support to the library, but doesn’t fill the same niche as a “bloggers of the library” group would. As far as I’m concerned friends of the library is a more passive organization, while a cultivated blogging group would most likely provide more active support.

Setting up a Wordpress blog would likely be optimal, since it is very simple to add users, and limit their powers. The most streamlined way to set up new bloggers would (in my opinion) be to set up a contact page on-site, and label it something like “Blog for us!” or “Submit an article!”. The purpose of this is to not be overrun with well-intentioned people who will end up not contributing, and instead use a submitted article as a key of sorts to become an author. From the contact form library employees would add the author to the blog, and publish the article.

Considering the vast differences likely to be found in library bloggers, it is debatable whether or not the author should be given access to the blog’s back end or not. The pros of giving users login information would be to automate a great deal of the workings of the blog, and remove much of the day-to-day upkeep from the caretakers of the site. Also giving people a username and password, and letting them publish their own content (or at least submit for review) gives them more motivation to continue writing for the site. The cons of giving each writer an account are perhaps a little stronger than the pros. Although Wordpress is very easy, very young and very old users might be confused and turned off by it. In the same vein, people who aren’t bloggers might be able to easily navigate the submission box; but adding media, choosing categories, adding tags, and other basic posting steps would probably prove challenging.

In the end it comes down to the library’s choice of how to manage authors. It could be you give certain authors additional abilities, effectively making them moderators of the blog. This way the typical user can use the simple submission box, and their content can be edited and added to by the moderators. In the beginning library employees will have to do the moderating, but it shouldn’t take long to find dedicated writers to bestow some power upon.

Ideas for Site Launch
I’ll get into the social networking and location-based app side of a library blog sometime down the road; so don’t be alarmed that they aren’t being included here. Obviously marketing across those fronts is going to have a place in promoting this site, so big of a place in fact that I’m saving that discussion for another post.

In the weeks leading up to the public push for this site, library employees will need to contribute content to the site. Simply ask employees to use the submission box to add 300-1000 word articles to the site, and publish as much quality content as you can. The goal of this is to provide a foundation that people can build on, and take ideas from. You don’t want to begin your public push for authors and visitors with an empty site.

When it comes to promotion, because we’re talking the library, old media will have to be utilized well. I’m sure the paper will gladly run an article about the push, and local news may run spots as well. Distribute bookmarks with each checkout asking people to submit, and give them a verbal pitch while scanning their materials. Signs and banners should be present at all branches, and promotional materials should be available to take. A pamphlet explaining some basics might be helpful to people.

Ideas for Longevity
One of the biggest issues to take into account when launching an initiative like this, is how to keep people interested after the initial excitement is gone. As with many blogs, people always begin gung ho and ready to go, but after a short while they lost interest, forget about it, or run out of ideas. Luckily, this is a local government initiative, and that being the case, there is a huge group of people who can be utilized to keep the blog running.

Give up?

Students. From late elementary school on, students can be tapped to write content for the site. Instead of writing book reports that will die once graded (in that they serve no purpose past that time), students can be asked to write reports for the web. This provides added teaching material, as the chances of kids having a functional knowledge of blogs aren’t very high. Obviously there is an issue surrounding quality control, but that can be incorporated into grades and content can be copy-edited by moderators.

In addition to giving schools something other than conventional papers, there are additional tactics that can be employed to give the site longevity. The first, and most old-school is promoting meetups for the authors. More happens when people feel like they are part of a team. If they feel accountable to the rest of the writers, they’ll be less likely to drop off the map. Also, very few people are going to be opposed to meeting up with other similar-minded individuals and having a good time. There can be specific meetups with moderators as well, where ideas are thrown out and discussed with library employees. Giving people ownership will likely keep them around.

Setting up an email list of all writers, and anyone who is interested in following the site, will prove a very effective way of keeping interest. A bi-weekly or monthly newsletter doing nothing more than calling for involvement and linking to all the content since the previous email will keep the initiative on people’s minds.

There can also be events during the year to keep people visiting the site. A good example would be a short story contest. Entrants could submit their work to the blog, and it would be available to be read by everyone. Short stories obviously aren’t the only submittable work though- poems, “why I love the library” testimonials, and other writings could also be used.

Finally, the same print media and vocal campaign will have to be continued at the library. When people stop talking about products, stop hearing about them, and stop seeing them they will die. If you stop pitching the site, stop including materials with checkout, and take down banners site involvement will go down. There is a cool way you can try to get people writing AT the library, and that is placing some sort of advertisement on the top of the monitors on-site. This way people who sit down to browse the web, or who walk past might be tempted to type up a quick piece for the site.

Conclusion and Part 2
I hope what you’ve read gives you at least a little inspiration to consider establishing a crowdsourced blog (if you’re a library employee). I’ll be going back over some of this in more detail, and some in review in part 2 of this pitch. Part 2 will deal with how to integrate social networking and location-based applications into your marketing strategy. I would love any feedback or suggestions, and I’m open to questions as well.

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30-03-2010 Posted by : Paul Kwiatkowski

A Proposal for a New Grading System and Course Structure

Category : Articles, Best Of

Most of the courses I’ve had in college have followed the same basic course structure, and almost all have used a similar percentage system for grading. Typical classes involve 3-5 tests, attendance policies, and some have papers. Basically, if I were to create a meta-class from what I’ve had it would look like this: Attendance counts for 10%, 3 tests count for 80%, 1 paper counts for 10%. This structure has nothing new or exciting, and only allows for a 100%. Additional effort is not rewarded, and any shortcomings cannot be remedied.

I’d like to outline a new system in which the course content is fluid and different for each student, and grades mirror a student’s knowledge and ability, not just capacity for memorization.

Grading System
In a class with three tests, getting a low grade on the first test either rules out the possibility of an A later, or makes it very difficult to attain. This system not only causes unnecessary stress, but it punishes people who might just have had a bad day, or a cold and missed notes. Is it fair to determine a student’s grade this early in the class? Some students are horrible at essay exams, and will suffer in classes that give essay tests exclusively. Others excel at essays, but can’t seem to do well on multiple choice. In order to remedy this, I think that, among other things I’m going to propose, grades should follow a points system that extends well past an A.

What if the grading system was structured in such a way that points were available to be earned by students, rather than percentages? The grading breakdown would look like this:

•A: 950+
•B: 800-949
•C: 650-799
•D: 500-649
•F: 0-499

The idea behind this system is that it allows it is set up to allow students to achieve an A “easier” than it is with a conventional system. I say “easier” because there is no ceiling on the grading scale, and failure on 1 assignment doesn’t mean failure in the class. The reality however is that students will do more work for their grade if they don’t do so well on certain assignments. It’s “easier” because it is more possible to obtain an A, through additional work. Grades are not computed by percentage in my system, but points. Everyone begins the class with 0 points, and points are added for each completed assignment or test. This system removes stress and encourages additional application via reward.

Course Structure
For my grading system to succeed, and my claims to be correct, a certain type of course structure would have to be put in place. Using a points system like the one I outlined would simply not work with a “3 tests and attendance” type of course structure. In order to see the best results I believe that a wide variety of assignments and assessments would have to be available. The ultimate goal would be presenting students with a choose-your-own syllabus; wherein they can choose what they want to do, and map out their own path to the grade they want. Not everything has to be interchangeable, but not everything has to be mandatory either. Here’s a possible breakdown of graded material:

•Tests: 4 Total (2 Mandatory) Worth 75 points each
•Papers: 4 Total (2 Mandatory) Worth 75 points each
•Quizzes: 4 Total (0 Mandatory) Worth 50 points each
•Essays: 4 Total (0 Manadatory) Worth 50 points each
•Projects: 2 Total (0 Mandatory) Worth 50 points each
•Online Discussion: 5 Points per quality comment, up to 100 points
•Attendance: 100 Points/(Total # of Days)=X points per day

In this listing I have assigned 1300 points, made 300 mandatory, and 1000 completely optional. If the student earned the maximum number of points for each of the mandatory assignments, attended every class, and made 20 quality comments online, they would be up to 500 points, and only need to do around half of the optional material for an A. Making work optional allows students to do more of what they are good at, both functionally and knowledge-wise. If the mandatory material is spread across the 4 months (roughly) of classes, then it can cover all that is taught in the class, thus ensuring students have at least some grasp of all taught concepts. The optional material allows students who really excel at certain portions of the class to boost their grade during that portion (by taking an optional test or quiz, etc). It also helps students who aren’t as good with certain material to not see their grade drop by not forcing them to complete work related to that material.

On Conventional Testing
This chart was attached to a syllabus by one of my teachers as an explanation of how she would be grading. I think that it is worth looking at:

Here the point is made that the lowest order of cognition is regurgitation. Despite this, tests are most often simple exercises in memory, and only in math and science do you begin to see much more. I want to see much more open-ended work; many more “what did you think of this” questions, and a lot fewer “Did John Doe agree with Sir Francis McWhertle’s theory of time?” The latter isn’t looking for any sort of thought from the students, but merely a triggered yes or no response. The former can be phrased to include any subject, and regardless of the actual response, it will make students think.

If these open-ended tests were given in conjunction with more conventional tests, students who had trouble with high-order cognition wouldn’t suffer, but students who excelled would do just that. Ideally I would restructure traditional work such that there are no long-form tests, but instead many smaller assessments. Long-form tests have their place, but many can be stretched out to absurdity by arbitrary amounts of problems. By breaking down the “monthly test” into a handful of smaller assessments, you can make certain that students are continuously keeping up with the material, and not just studying the last few days before the test. This would provide the additional benefit of helping to condition students who cannot effectively display higher order cognition. Weekly short essay type free response questions asking questions of the students will begin to develop that higher order thought, whereas multiple-choice will not.

Conclusion
The goal of this proposal is to highlight the flaws of the current systems being used, and to encourage a change in how material is graded. Additionally I wanted to put forth my opinion of some of the problems of conventional testing. This is by no means my authoritative take on these matters; I assure you I could go on for many, many more blog posts. And I might.

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24-03-2010 Posted by : Paul Kwiatkowski

Why the iPad Won't Save Print Media

Category : Articles

Newspapers and magazine publishers seem to think that their troubles are going to come to an end when the iPad is released. They think people are going to gladly pay to get their content on the device, and I think they are wrong. Here’s a few reasons I’ve come up with or heard why people aren’t going to be willing to pay for that sort of content in a digital form on the iPad:

It’s Low Quality Content
Have you picked up a typical magazine lately? If you’re a blog reader you’ll immediately notice that many of the articles are lacking in worthwhile information, or feature a host of other problems. Sure, some magazines do have high quality articles (computer magazines in particular still run lengthy pieces), but a great number feel like filler. Popular Science to me is an example of a magazine that exemplifies what I’m stressing. In the past, you could find interesting pieces, clever how-to articles, and plenty of worthwhile reading. Today it feels like it’s written for someone with ADD and a low IQ. Pictures take up much more space than accompanying articles, and the articles are very short and don’t go in to much depth. To me people are willing to let this slide because the magazine can provide short-term entertainment, where there might be none; such as an airport. The iPad is going to make reading blogs much easier than it is on a smartphone, making me wonder what incentive people will have to buy a magazine like Popular Science when Gizmodo, Engadget, and TechCrunch are free to read, and feature higher quality content.

News is Free
Newspapers still don’t have a good grasp on how to make the transition from print to digital (I’ll give you a hint- it’s not through splitting up articles into 8 pages…). One of the biggest changes that has come about in the last 15 years is the prevalence of free news. I get my news from the internet exclusively; Twitter, blogs, Reddit, and Digg provide me with all the news I usually want to consume, and if I want more I just go to CNN or any other online news source. I have absolutely no incentive to pay for a newspaper, especially when the news printed is late. People still buy papers for financial news, but they’re buying only the Wall Street Journal for that.

Opinions Aren’t Worth Paying For
The New York Times is potentially going to charge in one way or another for it’s online content following the iPad launch, and they are betting on people purchasing their content for the editorials and opinions. I was subscribed to the Times for several months a while ago, and I did enjoy reading it; but if it wasn’t a requirement for a class I wouldn’t have paid for it. The thing is, you can find opinions in every corner of the internet, heck you’re reading one right now. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to find quality opinions, just look at the most popular blog online: The Huffington Post. A NYT reader could pick up reading the Post and most likely be perfectly happy.

The bottom line is that I don’t see how it’s possible to get people to pay for this content when they have free access to often superior, and at least comparable, content. The iPad may help book publishers, but I really think it’s a stretch to expect the other forms of printed media to benefit from it’s existence at all.

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23-03-2010 Posted by : Paul Kwiatkowski

Using Physical Media to Tell Customers About Your Digital Ventures

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Unless you’ve been under a rock, you’ll have noticed that businesses setting up Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, and websites has become something of a trend. This is an obvious move, since anyone with half a brain understands you need to go where people are to advertise. In the 20th century people started listening to the radio, and businesses began advertising through the medium. The same followed for television, and today people are online. This article does not deal with doing anything online though. This article is about getting your existing customers to connect with your business online; specifically by using physical media.

The Basics
I love talking about the hypothetical coffee shop (you know, the one next to Moe’s…), so what I’m going to do is walk through a typical visit to said shop, and show several ways in which you can advertise your digital ventures without ever having to say “go to our page”.

The Door
Hypothetical Coffee Shop, like many others, has nothing on its glass door but a handle. The door is a great place to put a simple URL or two telling people to visit your site. This is especially good for people who will be eating/drinking inside the shop. If they go in thinking about your site, they’ll be fairly likely to visit it when they sit down and pull out their laptop or iPhone. You could also place the same information on the inside, making it what people think about when to they leave.

The Products
It won’t hurt to change your custom printed material to include links, or to switch from generic material to custom material. This is a no-brainer, but you often see coffee shops that use plain or generic cups, paper, etc. The bonus of doing this is that someone going to work, or sitting down at their laptop will put their drink next to their computer, and hopefully see the links.

The Receipt
Add a line or two with a short message and a URL, assuming you use wide receipts. People will look at receipts while waiting to be handed what they ordered, and if they see a link they just might visit it later.

The Wall
Putting up a “Connect with us online” type poster or sign will act like the door, and hopefully get customers to visit your site while in the store. You have a little more room to use artistic license here, so create something that will draw eyes, possibly including the logos of Facebook and Twitter.

Beyond the Basics
If you were bored to tears while reading the previous suggestions, I apologize. Sometimes it’s worth mentioning “obvious” things, like putting links on your coffee cup, just because you never know what idea is right under someone’s nose that they haven’t seen. Some of what I’m about to say may also be a little basic, but not as much as a sign on the door.

Viral Magnets
Offer people business card sized magnets to place on their cars, but also the cars around theirs. These can work to bring people in to your business, but can also direct traffic to your online face. To ensure that people don’t get upset about this, you could offer an exceptional deal to people who return with a magnet. After all, taking a small hit on someone’s first purchase is worth it if they return.

Paper Cubes
“Paper cubes” is really just a stand in for any type of papercraft. If you place cardstock papercraft cubes featuring links and other material around your shop, or in merchandise bags, you’ve given customers something to tinker with that has your name and links written all over it. As basic as this sounds, it could mean that while waiting 2 minutes for a drink to be made, someone is focused on your shop’s links instead of their Blackberry.

Pens
When was the last time a free pen was available that you didn’t take one? Thought so. Printing a run of pens with your information on them seems pretty basic, and to be honest, it is. To combat this there are a few things you can do: change the color of the ink, change the quality of the pen, or make the pen really stand out. Changing the color of the ink to something like red could ensure that it doesn’t get put in the drawer with all the other pens. Upping the quality can do the same thing, especially if it’s a metal pen. Making it really stand out has the same effect. Basically, whatever you do, don’t go with the “white pen, black ink” unless you just want to end up in a drawer somewhere.

And Finally, incentivize everything!
Giving people a link is only good if they want to visit it. Some people are naturally curious, or want to support you, but others will need an incentive. Structure your incentives to benefit you though. A good example would be offering a free small X to people who get 10 friends to fan you on Facebook. With the magnet campaign, give people a reason to place magnets all over the place- offer discounts, free stuff, and maybe even prizes to people who refer a certain number of customers. A simple signup sheet and place for people to write their chosen number on the magnets would do. This would also encourage selective placement. IE, any old car won’t get a magnet, but possible coffee drinkers cars will. The end goal of this campaign is of course to establish a large base of fans and followers, in turn giving your business a large amount of influence in the social media sphere. Always keep that in mind, and structure incentives in a way that will get people visiting your pages in addition to bringing in brick-and-mortar customers. Never underestimate how powerful advertising by referral online is. Seeing that a friend became a fan of Hypothetical Coffee Shop may not seem like a big deal, but trust me, it is.

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22-03-2010 Posted by : Paul Kwiatkowski

How to Market Your Business Online for Free

Category : Articles, Best Of

Tags: , , ,

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I’m a cheapskate. I like to find the cheapest solution for any given problem. When the solution is free, I’m even happier. I think a lot of business owners hear about online marketing and advertising and assume that it will cost them. The truth is that a lot of small business owners can get by without spending a dime for online marketing, at least for now. There are 4 key ways to market your business for free online, and although you don’t have work with all of them, together they will be more than the sum of each part.

Put up a billboard:
Use Facebook to set up a virtual roadsign.

Facebook is an incredibly populated social network, and gives anyone the ability to create a page- a subsection of the site that functions like a website within Facebook. Pages are extremely useful to businesses because people have the ability to become ‘fans’ of pages, invite friends to do the same, and businesses can benefit by the way Facebook shows people’s friends that they became fans. In this way Facebook is like a virtual billboard. The network is the road, and people ‘drive by’ by seeing their news feed.

Ikea’s page is an awesome example of a well done business page. Obviously they have more customer involvement than a small business is likely to see, but what they have in place is a good example to follow. Once people have clicked over to your page, your goal switches from trying to get them to check you out to trying to get them to stay. Photo albums, notes, videos, discussion boards- all are useful for keeping people on your page.

In the case of Facebook pages, subtle advertising seems to be the way to go. Rather than just include a gallery of products that they sell, Ikea has galleries of uploaded customer photos. In these photos the potential customer can see what other people have purchased, and how they are using what they bought. This idea could work for a lot of different kinds of businesses. So if you’re a coffee shop owner, pictures of customers enjoying coffee and donuts may be more effective than just pictures of coffee and donuts.

Talk to customers:
Use Twitter and Facebook to communicate with patrons.

One of the biggest benefits of the rise of social media is that communication online has become much simpler. Gone are the days of contact only via email, today you can respond publicly to customers across many channels.

Being on Facebook and Twitter gives you the ability to ask questions to your fans and followers, respond to them, make suggestions, and generally do the things you would do if they were in your store, in front of you. Talking to customers online builds a relationship with them, but it also builds a second order relationship with people who see your conversation. Essentially, conversations you have in person are between you and the person you talk to. Conversations online are between you, the person you talk to, and any number of others who happen to see your conversation.

Twitter is great for showing interest in customers. If people go to your page and see only one way statements, they won’t be feel nearly as connected to you as they would if they find a bunch or responses and conversation. Sure, there is a place for “The coffee smells great today!”, but that place is not every last post. Remember that Twitter is fundamentally about being interesting. Say interesting this, provide interesting links, and make yourself into someone who others want to follow. Look at other business profiles, and do what they do, and you’ll be successful.

Facebook provides additional benefits as far as conversation is concerned by allowing for threaded comments and ‘likes’. Threaded comments provide a way for your conversation to include an unlimited amount of people, whereas Twitter is usually just 1 on 1. In this way simple back and forth talks turn into discussions, and as with almost everything on Facebook, get published on all the participant’s walls. ‘Liking’ something is really great too, because it gives people who may not have anything to say the ability to join the conversation. This gets published, just like comments do, and allows the person who ‘liked’ something the ability to keep up with it through notifications.

The ultimate goal of both services is to build conversation, and in doing so you’ll gain more followers, more fans, and more customers. This is the way you extend your personality to your customers, so be careful about what you say. If the one rule of Twitter is “be interesting”, and a rule for Facebook is “ask questions”, the general rule for conversation online is simple: Be Likable.

Show off
Use Youtube and Flickr to show people your business.

Many small businesses create websites that are impersonal, and leave them alone as static landing pages. Sites like Youtube and Flickr make putting multimedia online easier than ever, and provide additional outlets for people to find your business.

The first step to using either of these services is building out your profile. You want to make sure that people can find out plenty about your company simply by looking at the information provided on each site. At the very least, make sure that an up-to-date link can be found, and that a decent company logo is used as the profile picture.

Flickr’s use comes from how clean it is, and from the ability to easily display lots of photos. Compared to Photobucket, another photo-upload site, Flickr just looks more professional. I recommend putting at least 50 pictures on the site, organized into sets. You could do a set focusing on your building, one looking at your products, one looking at your employees, etc. The goal is to make your business appear tangible, and make people want to drop by.

Youtube is your best bet for video hosting not because it’s the best, but simply because it’s the biggest; by a huge margin. Your best bet is to use the site as a video version of Flickr, uploading videos of your offices, employees, and products. You also have the ability to upload commercials here though, and to have some fun. Why not try to create some viral videos? Additionally, you could create a regular show of sorts, dealing with certain aspects of your business. Such as- the creation of various sandwiches at a sandwich shop.

Be memorable
Use Wordpress to blog about your business, life, and whatever interests you.

There are many free blog hosts online, but my personal favorite is Wordpress.com. Wordpress has more options than Blogger, and looks more professional. Why do you need a blog host? We’re doing this for free; so unless you happen to already own a domain and pay for hosting, you’re going to need to use a free hosting service.

The first thing you need to do is come up with a simple name that is easy to remember, but still identifies your business. The reason for this is that you’re already going to have a “.wordpress.com” tacked on to your address, you don’t want to make it more complicated than it needs to be. After this, take your time and poke around the Wordpress back-end, changing out text and adding widgets as you see fit. Your immediate goal is to erase the pre-installed text, like “Just another Wordpress blog” and put in your own.

Now that you have customized your blog a little, the only thing left to do is create content for it. Even the most boring profession has something that can be written about. For instance; plumbing can be incredibly dull, but if spun well can be fun to read about. A plumber looking to write blog posts about plumbing doesn’t have to write about his services to the area, materials, etc. Writing a story about a particular job can accomplish the same goal of content creation and keyword placement. It could even take things further, and help rank for specific areas or strange jobs.

The goal of being memorable is a two-part goal. The first, and obvious goal is that you want customers, or potential customers, to spend time reading your content, and associate a need with you. Whether that need is coffee, plumbing, or EL wire for their Daft Punk costume at Halloween, you want to be the first thing they think of.

The second goal of being memorable is to establish your brand online. Social media is somewhat fleeting and temporary. Tweets and Facebook updates are relevant for only a short period of time, and don’t work the same way that blogging does. Blogging will hopefully get you the search engine hits you want, and set up a content base that you can move with you wherever you want to take it. The writing you do for a free blog is not lost if and when you buy a domain; it can be transferred to that site.

By creating a number of blog posts you are essentially setting up fishing poles for the internet. You never know when a particular post will pull a customer in, but it never hurts to have it out there.

Conclusion
Past these 4 suggestions, you’ll have to start spending money. Banner ads aren’t free after all. The best thing about following these however is that you aren’t selling yourself short by not spending money. Today’s advertising isn’t the same as it was in years past, and creating a conversation is often more important that setting up a static advertisement. You could pay for a website, hosting, Google ad-words, and so on, but when it comes down to it, you’ll likely have more success using free tools.

Experiment, and don’t expect results overnight. You’re going to have to work at this, or hire someone who will for you. Marketing online is time consuming, but can be extremely rewarding.

Links:
Wordpress Blog Hosting, Blogger, an alternative to Wordpress
Flickr Image Hosting, Photobucket, an alternative to Flickr
Youtube Video Hosting
Facebook
Twitter, Hootsuite, a social media management web app

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21-03-2010 Posted by : Paul Kwiatkowski

Setting up a Geocaching Marketing Campaign

Category : Articles

Tags: , ,

PhotobucketAccording to Wikipedia Geocaching is “an outdoor activity in which the participants use a Global Positioning System receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers anywhere in the world.” Geocaching has primarily been done by hobbyists, but with the rise of mobile platforms like the iPhone and Google’s Android, it has tremendous potential in marketing. These mobile platforms have GPS’s built in, so there isn’t a need to purchase a standalone GPS anymore. Coca-Cola experimented with geocaching a few years ago, but this was before smarter phones were as widespread. Today a campaign focusing on locating prizes would not only give your company some buzz, it would also have a lot more participants.

I believe there are 4 key components to building a strong geocaching campaign: providing a strong incentive; constantly updating the advertising; providing a great companion site; and social media integration. This is going to be written as if a large national company is running the campaign, but you can scale it accordingly for your business. Even the smallest coffee shop could make good use of this sort of marketing.

Provide a Strong Incentive
So you decided to push an interactive marketing campaign using geocaching, great! You need to make the prizes something that isn’t just decent, but will get people out hunting them down. If you are a restaurant chain, free meals might do the trick. If you’re a big box store, gift cards might be the way to go. Additionally, adding special prizes to the mix will only help consumer participation. If you place 1000 caches across a city, putting higher value prizes in a small percentage of them is a good idea. This way your advertising can promise a “prize at each location, winning you at least a ______, and maybe even a _______!” The biggest guideline to remember is that you need to adequately reward people for hunting down these prizes, and they can’t be too bummed when they only find the minimum prize.

Change Your Campaign to Mirror It’s Progress
Create a format for advertising that you can quickly change as the campaign goes on. If you initially announce 1000 caches, report the number remaining in subsequent ads. Feature winners in your advertising, and consider using consumer-shot video as well. You could provide an additional incentive to people who shoot a documentary of their treasure hunt, because using consumer content in a campaign like this is very likely to drive involvement.

Set up a Stellar Community Platform
Build a website or section of your company website where people must go to redeem their prizes, find cache locations, and talk to other players. A solid ‘near-me’ tool is an absolute must. People need to be able to click over to your site, and very quickly find the closest caches. Each cache should have a general map view, a place for comments, and should you decide to award multiple prizes at each location, a list of people who have found the cache. You can use the numbers from this site in your advertising as well, pointing out the size of the “treasure hunting community”, or picking specific caches and asking questions like “23 people have found this prize, will you be the 24th?”

Integrate the Campaign with Social Media
A geocaching campaign run today has the potential to make a huge splash in social media. Start by setting up a Facebook page and Twitter account. You want to get as many fans as possible on Facebook, and become a trending topic on Twitter. These sites are just the beginning though. A campaign Flickr account could be incredibly useful. Establishing a pool that people can add their photos to will likely provide great content to post or tweet. In the same vein, a campaign Youtube account will also provide quality material to broadcast. Additionally, you should add your own videos, explaining basic things like how to find your prizes.

If done correctly, a geocaching campaign could get your company a lot of press, and a lot of consumer interest. Ideally people would be motivated enough to go out treasure hunting, and the concept would be unique enough that it gets talked about all over the place. A campaign like this has the potential to influence marketing in the near future, and demonstrate how mass media and social media can work together.

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05-03-2010 Posted by : Paul Kwiatkowski

Parents, Teens, and Facebook

Category : Articles, Best Of

This article is written in two very different ways: one section intended for teenagers on Facebook, and one section intended for their parents. Obviously I suggest you read the entire article, but understand that parts may not make sense to you. I’m more than happy to clarify though, just leave a comment!

Teens online need to clean up their act. The internet is not “a place to be free”, or a place that you can do and say whatever you want. Why? Employers, universities, and high schools are all watching social networks. Last year a survey showed that 45% of employers check potential employee’s social networking profiles before hiring them. This year 71% of employers say they will be checking up on potential employees’ online activity before hiring them. A quick Google search for “High school trouble Facebook” yields loads of results, commonly tied to inappropriate photos or behavior. In addition, many colleges check up on students much the way businesses do, making sure that prospective undergrads’ online image mirrors their submitted one. Here’s a few key areas teens need to be careful in.

English, Do you Speak it?
Good communication skills are always a plus. Being able to spell may not be tied to intelligence, but that doesn’t mean poor spelling won’t change how people see you. Many browsers will tell you when something isn’t spelled correctly; take that as a cue to fix it, not let it slide. You want any visitors to your profiles to see an image that reflects a smart person, not a middle-school dropout. In the same vein, stop going overboard with web-speak. An occasional joke is fine, but typing in lowercase>uppercase, using numbers as letters, or adding symbols and punctuation to your text is too much. It doesn’t look cool, it just makes you look childish.

Profanity is huge. When you choose to use profanity in your posts, comments, and updates, you’re almost always making a mistake. Certain people believe that using profanity displaying a lack of vocabulary. Others may be offended by rough language. Whatever the reason, know that using profanity will never make you look good to a business or university. This doesn’t end with you however, if someone posts something on your wall that is laced with profanity, you have a responsibility to delete it. Remember that your future is more important than keeping a friends post on your page.

Pictures are Evidence
I get it. People love pictures. People love taking pictures, and people love looking at pictures. Admissions staff and potential bosses just happen to be people too. If you ever appear in any pictures which portray you in a negative light, untag yourself, or even ask whoever posted the picture to delete it. Like I mentioned above, one of the biggest things that will get you in trouble is photographic evidence of illicit behavior. Tag whatever clean photos you want, but don’t rely on privacy filters to keep people away from ones you’d rather not be public. Facebook thinks that everything you post should be public, don’t put it past them to continue pushing that.

If you appear in thousands of photos, realize that each one needs to be appropriate to show to your boss, dean, or parents. If you are doing anything that any of those people could find inappropriate, you don’t need to be taking pictures of it. There is no requirement to chronicle every minute of your exploits and adventures, so don’t! Additionally try to take quality photos. Blurry, poorly framed, photos may not say anything to employers, but depending on what you’re applying for, they just might. Some of the most prolific, and poor, Facebook photographers want to go to art school. Remember that the pictures you post are fair game for criticism; make sure they’ll hold up to it.

Keep it to Yourself
There is no situation in which you should be publicly posting scores and updates from games, plain and simple. Few things make people look worse than writing about how much work they have to do, then posting a high score from a game. If you’re going to play games on Facebook, do so, but don’t make your activity known. Some games, like Mafia Wars, may be fun to play, but the updates will almost always make you look bad. “John Doe needs help with a bank robbery” is not what you want people seeing.

The same message can be said regarding controversial issues. You never know what the person who stands between you and a job or college believes in. Facebook has fields for religion and politics, and should you choose to fill them in, it’s not a bad idea to end any mention of either of those topics there. Politics incites arguments, and brings out negative feelings. Religion (or lack thereof) can turn people off because they don’t think you would be a fit for the job environment. Keep Facebook and other networks you frequent as clear of these issues as you can.

Fan For Life
The groups you are a part of and the pages you fan can say as much about you as the information you give Facebook. Everyday I see people fan worthless spam, or throwaway pages. I propose a simple guideline: don’t become a fan if you won’t be a fan in 6 months. Was fanning “The funniest joke ever!” to see a dumb joke really worth it? Remember that your idols and heroes can say a lot about you, and if they aren’t shining examples of humanity, you might want to remove them. Also, pages like “I Hate Cigarettes” may say a lot about you, but if someone who smokes reviews your profile, they might not be very happy.

You should also remember that to someone who doesn’t use Facebook, “becoming a fan” may seem like a big deal. If someone doesn’t understand the site, how can you explain to them that when you “became a fan” of _________, it was a joke, and you don’t actually think that.

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Parents, Listen to this:
Facebook is NOT a stalking platform. The largest age-gender group on the site is 35-54 year old women, and the fastest growin segment is 55 and up women. Don’t be oblivious, and don’t be inactive. There are very few legitimate excuses for not knowing “how this FaceSpace works”. It’s 2010, Social Networking exploded in 2004 and 2005. Heck, Time Magazine gave the person of the year to “You”, for everyone embracing web 2.0. Unless you have absolutely no desire to do any online networking, join Facebook.

If you join, don’t let your account be dormant. People will think you are just on the site to spy on your kids, and your kids will know thats why you’re on the site. In the same way that people join Twitter, don’t engage with it, and end up leaving the site; not engaging on Facebook gets you nowhere. Simply posting occasional messages on your kids walls, and their friends walls can be enough to keep them from making mistakes that will haunt them in the future.

Don’t go Overboard
When you first join Facebook, you just might be shocked at how many friends you find on the site, and how much was going on that you were unaware of. Remember that you don’t need to comment on everything, and that almost everything you do is public. Facebook has a decent private messaging system, you should use it. You are not immune to the potential problems that your kids can face by their actions.

Understand that everything has a timestamp on it, and that if you are posting game scores and funny pictures on the job, you could face similar repercussions. Showing your boss or coworkers that you’re wasting time when you’re supposed to be working isn’t good. Facebook is a convenient tool for keeping in touch with people, but if you don’t watch yourself you could end up spending way too much time on the site. Just walk through any college library and look at all the kids “studying”.

Learn to Play
There are times when commenting and liking are appropriate, and times when they aren’t. Always ask yourself “is my comment necessary?” before posting something hastily. You may notice some talk about a party or gathering, but don’t comment on the discussion, as your kid personally. It saves them embarassment, and let’s you hear a vocal explanation; preferable to text anyday.

In Conclusion…
Teens, realize that your actions and words posted online today could have a serious affect on your future success. I have talked with people who have discovered images and language right before interviews, and called up otherwise qualified people and told them not to come in. It is very easy to keep a clean image online; it is very difficult to clean up a tarnished one.

Parents, use social networks. You’re likely going to find lots of your friends, and you can keep an eye on your kids behavior in the process. Whatever you do, please don’t create an account and do nothing with it. Creating a “spy account” will just breed animosity.

Links and Sources
A Google Search for “High School Trouble Facebook”
Oregon Business Report on employers using social networks to screen job candidates
My Brain

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04-03-2010 Posted by : Paul Kwiatkowski

5 Reasons I Never Joined MySpace

Category : Articles

Back in 2005 almost all my friends had jumped on the MySpace bandwagon, and I never could bring myself to join them. It’s 2010 now, and the same reasons I didn’t join then are the reason I refuse to add the site to my social media presence. Here’s why:

1. The Sound and the Fury
Nothing drove me crazy like opening a profile and having some loud obnoxious song explode from my speakers. I understand that this is a ‘feature’ you can disable, but nothing peeves me more than websites that auto-play sounds or music. In addition to this, the location of the music player wasn’t standardized, meaning that it took ever so much longer to locate and end the music. I’m not a person who keeps his volume low, because any audio hear is almost always chosen by me. Thus all that auto-playing music nearly gave me multiple heart attacks.

2. Usernames are not Real Names
I’ll confess, I really like my username. Contrapaul has served me well, and is both readable and memorable. What I don’t like are the names people use on MySpace. Locating a friend was (and is) like being a P.I.. If someone doesn’t have a clear picture, you have to examine the username (and the awful profile name) for a trace of something that might indicate that person is a friend. Because people love numbers and symbols, this can be a ridiculous task. Facebook isn’t perfect, but it’s so much easier to look at a name and know who a person is, than run a background check on a profile.

3. MySpace is a Haven for the Illiterate
Hear me out and understand that like many things I say, this is a generalized statement. In general, people on MySpace couldn’t care less if words are spelled correctly and sentences are structured in a readable format. In fact, people will go beyond simple apathy, and will purposefully spell things incorrectly, and use a terrible uppercase>lowercase>uppercase style for their writing. iS tHiS dIfFiCuLt To ReAd? You bet it is, and it doesn’t look cool either. Of all the ways to be original online, displaying a notable lack of spelling and grammar knowledge is not the way to go.

4. There is a Reason why People pay Designers
MySpace, like GeoCities before it is a perfect example of atrocious web design. Tiled backgrounds, gaudy colors, animated gifs, moving text, poorly placed page elements. These things have something in common; I despise them all, and they are all found on MySpace. I have no idea what makes someone think that a stock photo with some lame text about life is worth posting on their page, but then again, I also have no idea why lime green, purple, and stars are used together. Tiled backgrounds are ugly, and were ugly back when I used Windows 95. Taking that into account, few things are worse than tiled animated gifs.

5. It’s Your Birthday! Here’s an Image
What is it about MySpace that makes people pass around incredibly dumb jpgs and gifs? You know what I mean. If you don’t, here:

I’m sorry if your eyes are bleeding. These things drive me crazy, and drove me crazy. I can’t even explain why, but these image comments make me wish I had never even visited MySpace in the first place.

And that’s it. The 5 biggest reasons I never joined up with the scourge of social networks.

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