This is the second of a three part series on the impact of Web 2.0 for businesses who have an online presence.  “Web 2.0″ is a term coined for the next generation of development in interactive design and development. Originally published in LFI University. In our last issue, we discussed the latest trends in interactive development, collectively referred to as “web 2.0.”   This issue, we’ll be discussing the potential implications to your brand management strategy when you begin opening up to user-generated content.

 
Adobe has announced they will be holding an event to announce the release of the much anticipated Creative Suite 3 on March 27^th, though the actual release won’t be till late spring. During this event, Adobe will reveal the features and suite configurations that will make what Adobe is calling the largest software release in their 25 year history.
 

Although Adobe has not released the list of features for each program, they did release a beta version for Photoshop and the word on the street is that it has some pretty fancy new features, one of them being the Smart Filters. This feature allows you to apply filters and turn them on/off, etc. without hurting the integrity of the graphic. Very nice.  
Here’s a short list of some additional features that could be seen on the new release:
Quick Selection Tool
The new Quick Selection Tool creates selections by painting the general area of interest. Photoshop CS3 analyzes the image to complete the selection automatically.
Refine Edge
The new Refine Edge feature offers a simple, flexible way to modify the edge of any selection. Available via the Options bar or via the Select menu, the Refine Edge dialog lets you smooth, feather, contract or expand the current selection by using simple slider controls.  Experiment with the Radius slider to select irregular or fuzzy edges.
Automatic layer alignment and blending
Using automatic layer alignment and blending, easily combine the best parts of multiple images of the same scene into one “best” image. Simply place multiple, related images on separate layers in one document, and let Photoshop CS3 analyze the contents, moving and rotating the layers so they overlap as precisely as possible.
Black and White conversion
Advanced black-and-white conversion is now simpler and faster. With the new Black and White adjustment, one button analyzes the image and offers conversion settings.
For all you nerds out there that can’t wait till the full list of features are available on Adobe’s website, Adobe will be webcasting this event live from New York City on March 27, 2007 at 3:30 p.m. EDT at http://www.adobe.com/go/cs3launch. Enjoy!

Recent changes to the Google algorithm have made for some frantic moments in the SEO world. Ryan and Mike discuss recent changes and other news from the Interactive realm.

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Marketing people are horrible. Well, not all marketing people… spammers are though. I fight on a weekly and sometimes daily basis to reduce the amount of spam that we receive through our contact forms. We block IPs, catch certain words, and do various things to reduce the spam coming through the form — it’s an ongoing battle that has no end.

You know what’s worse than spammers? The people that click on the links in spam. Those are the people that keep the spammers coming back — if no one ever responded to spam, the spammers would surely stop spamming. but people keep clicking, and buying, and falling for scams. Why on earth would someone send thousands of dollars to some guy in nigeria that they have never met? Those people apparently have too much disposable income.

So I have a new idea to combat spam. If everyone participates, we can rid spam from the world forever. Really. Here’s the idea: anytime you receive spam, and are feeling like you might click on the link and purchase something, come fill out our contact form and we’ll sell you a website, or some SEO. If you feel like you’re about to go to the bank and get a cashiers check and postmark it for Nigeria, just send it to me. I won’t mind. If we all follow this simple plan, the spammers will stop spamming, and I’ll we’ll all be happy.

And we thank you for your support.

Daniel Knapp, President of LeapFrog Interactive, visits with Mike on the LeapCast today. Discussions include recent interactive news from newspaper advertising to the monetization of the Internet.

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People don’t like what they don’t understand. And a lot of people don’t really understand the internet. I honestly believe a lot of resistance you run into in regards to interactive marketing centers around a lack of comfort on the part of customers in relation to the web. They feel a bit in over their head, but they don’t want to look behind the times or dumb.

So they often do one of two things: find an expert they trust, and blindly accept everything they say as gospel, or reject the entire concept of interactive marketing while throwing around a lot of words like “dot.com bubble.”

I personally think that both those approaches don’t do a lot to further the cause of interactive marketing for either clients or marketers.

Is the internet complex? Yes. Is it unfathomable by normal, non-geeky mortals? No.

A little clear communication and dejargoning would probably do both camps a world of good, if well-applied. I truly believe a knowledgeable, informed client is the best kind of client on earth. Their expectations are based in reality, not fear or blind faith or wishful thinking. Their understanding of the process makes it possible for their interactive marketer to glean the brand knowledge that only they have, and apply it in the online realm that is their area of expertise.

Which would you pick: a client who thinks their new site or online promotion might be awesome, or a client who knows why their new site or online promotion is awesome?

If you’re familiar with the concept of kaizen at all, it’s probably in the context of manufacturing or other assembly-line practices, not in the context of creative work.  Kaizen is a Japanese term that, roughly translates to “continuous improvement.” However, there is a lot more implied by it than the standard Western idea of continuous improvement. There is an element of “respect for people” implied in the idea of kaizen, and three guiding principles must be in place for true kaizen: focus on results and process; big-picture, systemic thinking; and a non-judgmental, non-blaming attitude (blame-laying being considered a waste of time and energy).

As an interactive agency, we’re in a radically new industry that blends the creative with the technological. From a project management standpoint, a kaizen attitude is a great fit for process improvement, because it works well with both the very human creative elements and the very practical process and delivery elements. With each new project, we experiment, learn new and better processes, and we implement them and carry them forward into the next project. We also learn from things that didn’t work well, and eliminate those elements from the process as we go.  I’m not saying that we are formally instituting kaizen here at LeapFrog; just that the improvement process here feels, to me at least, very much like kaizen.
Often in business, instead of making small, incremental changes, you determine that you’re going to “do it right.” “Doing it right” means taking time, making preparations, setting the stage, and totally implementing a complete, fully-formed new way of doing things.

But there are a lot of problems with this approach. First, it fails to take into account the shifting, continuously moving nature of work. By insisting on completely defining both the problem and solution in detail first, a person or organization can effectively postpone making any changes …pretty much forever. Second, it fails to take into account the complex nature of change and how even a small change can have difficult-to-predict outcomes that then need to be dealt with. By trying to implement massive, all-at-once, “programs” of change, an organization is effectively tacking learning the new way, maintaining the new way (building new habits and breaking old ones), troubleshooting the new way (dealing with the inevitable “oops, didn’t think about that” items), and improving the new way simultaneously. In short, it’s a great way to set yourself up for failure.

As LeapFrog moves forward and continues to grow, we’ll need to keep improving to continue to exceed client expectations. That means improving one task at at time, one project at a time, continuously, with respect for the creative people who are part of our team and with an eye on the big picture.

OK guys - this will be a quick one today and goes under the category of rants. I was watching television with my family last night, enduring a commercial about life insurance and was actually moved by the subject. While insured, I can always do better and as I looked at my 4 children and my beautiful wife, I said to myself, “I should look these guys up on the web and get some more information.” So I watched the commercial with my laptop in hand just waiting for that URL and it never came!!!

Here is a reputable company with no mention of a website - just some 800 number I could never remember and would surely forget in the time it would take to find the bloomin’ phone (did I mention I have 4 kids). I started to watch every commercial that night and found over half of them did not mention a website, did not mention an extension of their business open 24/7, did not give me a chance to convert for them, interested or not.

We harp on being part of the conversation, about meeting customers at every point we have access to here at LFI - not listing your website on other media is like showing up at your local networking dinner without a business card. Crazy man, CRAZY!

A couple weeks ago I along with 4 other coworkers from the production team had the privilege of attending a 3 day Flash ActionScript class taught by Sherri Morris. Without a ton of Flash knowledge to my credit this was certainly an opportunity to enhance and expand my understanding of Flash and its many capabilities. Our goal for those three days (about 24 hours total) was to successfully cover roughly 504 pages of tutorials and training materials… basically around 168 pages a day or 21 pages an hour. So, to say the least there was a lot to accomplish… and we did… for the most part. 

Things went pretty smooth but you always tend to have those unexpected obstacles thrown your way just to make things a little more difficult than they otherwise should be. For instance, there was the room temperature situation. I’m not sure who was in charge of this, but whoever it was needs to be relinquished of those duties. I think maybe they just showed up at work and threw a dart at a bunch of numbers and whatever number they hit was going to be the temperature for the day. I wasn’t sure if I needed to bring a sweater or a half t-shirt and some cutoff jeans. Have fun enjoying that visual image for the rest of the day. 

We also had to deal with the unexpected winter blast that brought up to a half inch of snow. Driving conditions were just a notch below excellent but around here people reacted as if the roads were replaced with ice skating rinks. A good indication of overreacting is if the roads have more salt on them than snow. I think maybe the car wash businesses pay these salt people to dump as much as they possibly can even when it’s not needed. Anyone try to get their car cleaned over the past few weeks? I tried it one day… it only cost me two hours and a near aneurysm. 

Anyway, we battled through and are now implementing some of the knowledge we gained during our 3 day cram fest, with I’m sure more opportunities to do so in the near future. The one thing we never did quite figure out though was, after the first day where the hell did David run off to during lunch? Hmmmmm.