The Extraordinaries
The Extraordinaries, a micro-volunteer network offers a platform to connect non-profits with skilled professionals. Non-profits submit requests for work to be done, and a network of skilled volunteers (who are looking for small ways to give back in their free time) fulfill it. All of the interaction takes place online or on your iPhone, resulting in less time from volunteers and less “management” from the non-profits. I’m eager to try this out for the non-profit I work with, Training, Inc. The Extraordinaries is equipped to serve as your company’s volunteer program as well, meaning less time focused on finding volunteer work for your employees to engage in, and more time giving back to the community.

Like the idea? Take a look at txteagle whose mobile phone platform allows subscribers in developing nations to earn small amounts of money or airtime in exchange for work.

Giggil
This one is a little bit of a twist, but still follows the theory of small efforts that add up to a big impact. Giggil (Green is Good, LLC), a local new startup, helps businesses and non-profits turn “stuff” into cash by facilitating the re-use and recycling of goods, adding value through their efficient processes and technology. As anyone who’s done some fundraising knows, donors are still strapped for cash. I guarantee they’re not short of stuff though. What Giggil offers is “Stuffraising.” Through this program your donors can easily donate the stuff they have lying around their home (golf clubs, electronics, books, etc.). Giggil collects and sends you a check in the mail. Easy as that!

Flattr
This next solution doesn’t necessarily address the non-profit sector, but it does attempt to bring profit to a “product” that we’ve been struggling to monetize – content. I had the chance to hear Peter Sunde (formerly of The Pirate Bay) speak about his new social micro-payment platform at SXSWi 2010. Called Flattr, the basic premise of the app is to monetize content. How does it work?

I’m happy to say that I’m a Beta user, and the concept is as cool as it sounds, but there’s not too much, um, English content up there now, so until I learn Swedish, German, and Dutch, I don’t’ think I’ll be able to Flattr much.

Some other ways that you can get paid for the work you do: Field Agent.

Want to share some of your favorite crowdsourcing ideas? Drop us a line; we’d love to hear!

The Big Idea
@BettyDraper and @Roger_Sterling’s entree into the Twitterverse was not AMC or even Matthew Weiner induced. Rather it was born from the fan base. The people behind these handles wanted to see where the story of Mad Men could go between episodes, between seasons. By crafting a version of the brand that played well on Twitter, but didn’t lose the integrity of the characters – they were able to use brand fiction to engage a whole new audience.

Soon, other Mad Men fans were embracing the person of their favorite characters on Twitter. And soon, they started to coordinate events together. I first picked up on the Mad Men Twitter phenomena when I caught wind of their event, Mad Worlds Collide. Staging the premiere of the 1963 movie, “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World,” the characters Tweeted about their dresses, pre-party drinks, gossip, and of course the show – and the whole world was invited. Here’s just a few inspirational ideas employed by @BettyDraper and @Roger_Sterling to pull the event off:

• Set the stage: An online version of Radio City Music Hall, was created to aggregate the tweets from the characters & attendees in real time. The stage also archived the tweets allowing them to live past the short life of Twitter’s log.
• Online ticket sales: Twitter followers were invited to join the Mad Men at Radio City by “buying” a free ticket on Evenbrite. User data collected from this sign up could be useful for future events, advertising, etc.
• Orchestrate: A timeline was circulated amongst the characters. This loose script of events (pre-party cocktails, arriving on the red carpet, curtain call, etc. ) fueled the improv tweets of the characters.

The Results
@BettyDraper and @Roger_Sterling started to realize that there was more than fun to their tweeting, but that it could also be quite beneficial to the Mad Men brand. Some of the many benefits they began to identify included: deeper audience engagement; new audience (they were turning people on to the show); good will for the brand; and creating deeper profiles of fans for advertisers (through event sign ups, etc.). Brand Fiction had evolved into a new way to create an environment that fans could participate in, engage in, and easily stay involved in.

How-To: Rules of Brand Fiction
Interested in creating your own Brand Fiction? Here are the Rules of Brand Fiction as presented by Ross and Bissell. We hope to hear your story soon!

• Content is king. Appoint a brand fiction manager, and design a canon (accounts of characters, settings, vernacular)
• Maintain continuity across platform. You’re not creating an alternate universe, but rather expanding on it.
• Be authentic – the content must embody brand values.
• Be relevant to your audience. Respect the unique conventions of Facebook, Twitter, etc.
• Share- allow fans to engage, retweet, respond, and refrain from being too controlling.
• Don’t trust a bot to do the job of a human; don’t automate content!
• Don’t dilute the brand; stay true to the brand.
• Campaign assessment (does is have the Scheherazade factor?)
• Don’t underestimate the time/effort necessary for success.
• Have fun!

5 years ago, Eric Romer of Indianapolis, who had been BBC (Bald-By-Choice) since 2002 in his early college days at Butler University, discovered the solution he had been looking for to keep his head closely shaved–HeadBlade. The ease of use of the product and the results had him hooked for life as a brand advocate, and he began telling everyone he knew about the fantastic product he had found. Last week, Eric Romer’s dream job was announced by HeadBlade in his Twitter feed. Springing to action, he developed a blog, Twitter page and Facebook page for his “Hire Me, HeadBlade” campaign. Within 24 hours he had a phone interview with Todd Greene, CEO of HeadBlade Inc. and began making plans to fly out to LA to meet with him this week.

It’s a story of social media at its best. By using widely available tools, Eric has been connected to his dream company; HeadBlade has been connected to a promising candidate for their position; and the brand has been buoyed up with all the extra eyes following Eric’s story. Some of the takeaways I’ve identified from the present story are:

• For College grads and job seekers, Eric Romer has set the precedent. Leveraging free tools, web know-how, and media savvy he has created a dynamic and real “resume” that actually shows what he can do.
• For company’s looking to hire, this has affirmed that social media outlets can help you attract promising talent; also that it can be a good arena for evaluating candidates.
• As far as branding goes, Eric has already been engaged as a brand advocate on his own account. By officially engaging someone like this in their social media driving seat, HeadBlade can connect with other happy customers like Eric, and amplify their brand awareness.
• There’s also a lot of opportunity for Headblade to capitalize on the extra attention. As Eric’s story continues to gain steam over this next week, more eyes are attracted to HeadBlade, and the opportunity is ripe if they have a new product features or other announcements up their sleeve.
• Third parties in the game, such as Butler and Compendium, are recipients of the Halo effect. Their affiliation to Eric may give their own brands a boost if this all bodes well.

There’s sure to be more best practices as this story unfolds. Stay updated on Eric and see if he gets hired by HeadBlade by following him on his blog, Twitter, and Facebook.

When I last blogged about webfonts back in March 2009 there was no clear-cut direction that type foundries or browser developers were headed with regards to using real fonts on the web. Designers were fed up with using the same short list of system fonts on their websites, and the only options at the time that allowed the use of non-system fonts were using images or Flash/JavaScript-based workarounds. In the last few months there have been many interesting developments, with two options currently leading the race.

@font-face and WOFF
The @font-face rule has been around for over 10 years, first making an appearance with CSS2. It has remained largely under-used due to differences in each browser’s font format implementation, and by limitations of the type foundries EULA (End User License Agreement). Basically the type foundries are worried that directly linking to raw, unprotected font files will allow the user to download, install and use them on their own system, effectively leading to reduced sales and profit. The obvious solution was to develop a new, protected font format, one that restricted the use of the font for anything other than its licensed purpose. Several proposed formats emerged and subsequently disappeared, but one in particular is garnering support.

WOFF (Web Open Font Format) is a format proposed by Tal Leming (Type Supply), Erik van Blokland (LettError) and Jonathan Kew (Mozilla). A WOFF font file contains data that, for example, limits use of the font file to specific listed URL. At the time of writing there are currently 33 type foundries lending their support to the WOFF format, including the likes of the International Typeface Corporation, Fontshop International and Hoefler & Frere Jones. The obvious advantage with @font-face and WOFF is that virtually any font can be used on a website (provided it is available in the WOFF format and is permitted by the EULA).

There are still some drawbacks, of course: because there are physical font files, anyone with a basic knowledge of HTML/CSS can access and download them. The worry then is that the files could be hacked and the usable font information extracted, although there is a pretty high level of competency in type design required to do this. Another problem is the amount of time that is required for this format to become standard and openly supported by all browsers. Browser support is currently limited to Firefox 3.6, but it is hoped more browsers will begin to offer support in the future.

Typekit and Type-as-a-Service (TaaS)

The alternative, and one some see as the future of real fonts on the web, is the subscription-based TaaS model. There are currently three options here: Typekit, FontDeck and Kernest. Type foundry Typotheque also offering their own service, using their own type library.

Using Typekit is as simple as inserting a small segment of code to the web page and is supported by all the major browsers (even Internet Explorer!). Typekit’s comprehensive font library is populated by the likes of TypeTogether, Mark Simonson Studio and Bitstream, and because the fonts are hosted securely, the possibility of piracy is reduced, therefore easing the concerns of the type foundries. Typekit came out of beta testing just last week, and is available in various tiered pricing packages to suit different needs.

While Typekit’s font library is certainly not small, it is limited to the partner foundries’ commercial typefaces, ruling out the possibility of using any custom or corporate fonts. This list will continue to grow, however, and with access to so many fonts for a set monthly fee it is a great way to try out several font options for a website design without having to commit to a full purchase before client approval.

What’s Next?

The WOFF format could take several years to become standard. Browser support is limited but the number of type foundries currently lending support is impressive and should continue to grow, forcing the browser developers to follow suit. Typekit and other TaaS solutions are available today and are an excellent alternative to images, sIFR and Cufón when standard web fonts just won’t do.

It’s hard to tell at this point if the combination of @font-face and WOFF is a threat to Typekit: the security aspects and ability to try out multiple font choices make it attractive to designers and foundries alike. It is very likely that more font foundries will follow Typotheque’s example and set up their own webfont services, but with its multi-foundry font library, Typekit will still be a step ahead.

Kristian Andersen from Smaller Indiana, Bigger Ideas on Vimeo.

I thought this was a pretty interesting presentation by Mint CEO Aaron Patzer. The same Mint that just sold to Intuit for 170 Million. He shares his thoughts on selecting co-founders, how to dole out equity, what to pay employees, etc. It’s a pretty revealing look into Mint’s early days.

The slide presentation, compliments of TechCrunch, can be found below.

Startup Building 101 –

However, I’m not exactly sure what, if anything, this screencast recorder has to do with Twitter. From what I can tell, absolutely nothing. But I guess that’s one way to draw mass appeal to a new product: say it’s for Facebook or Twitter. Just because it simplifies the process of sharing the screencast on Twitter doesn’t really make it for Twitter. So what, they have a Twitter integration full with a so-called URL shortener. But so do most sites that post external links to a Twitter account (kind of like this blog).

Maybe they should call it: “Instant screencasts for embedding or sharing anywhere on the Internet, including, but not limited to, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, your blog, your mom’s blog.”

Sorry. I’m just tired of everybody piggy-backing on Twitter. I actually think Screenr is a pretty impressive screencasting tool and much easier to use than any of its competitors. It’s simplistic and straightforward approach to recording and sharing screencasts makes it easy for anyone to use, but I think offering more integrations with other social networks and blogging platforms could make it even more attractive (especially to a more technical audience). Why put up the front that you work exclusively with Twitter, when you can say you work for everyone? Besides, I’m more inclined to record a screencast, embed it in a blog post, and then tweet about my post to drive traffic back to my site. Like so.

Our expert panelists for the discussion were Jason Fried, of 37 Signals (developer of BaseCamp), and Chris Baggott, of Compendium Blogware (and one of the founders of ExactTarget).  The discussion was highly interactive and felt a lot more like a casual conversation, rather than a typical panel discussion. We gathered around an outdoor fireplace, at our host’s home in downtown Chicago, and enjoyed a spirited dialog in the gorgeous late August weather. The conversation ranged from the impact of cloud computing on software development to emerging pricing models in the Software as a Service (SaaS) space – with countless interesting digressions thrown in for good measure.

Jason had some interesting and provocative thoughts on the notion of “free” as a viable business model. Essentially, his message was that nothing is free and even if the consumer is not paying for a product or service, somebody else is – namely advertisers. He went on to say that if advertisers are paying, then advertisers become the customer, not the end user. The flaw in this model, he shared, is that the experience that is delivered is tailored to the paying customer (the advertisers) not the end user (the person using the software). This scenario creates an environment where the users’ “needs” are often ignored or, at best, secondary to the “needs” of the advertiser — see our recent post on user needs for some corresponding thoughts.

Chris shared interesting insights on how few developers are required to create great software relative to the past. Specifically, he talked about how today his firm employs 4 full time developers (a fraction of his staff), whereas five years ago it would have required 40 full time developers, and 10 years ago it would have required many times more. The take away being, that today it is possible to build great software for a fraction of the cost of what would have been required in the past. This is hardly a secret, but hearing concrete examples of this phenomenon from someone that has done it both ways was really enlightening.

We are extremely grateful to Jason and Chris for taking the time out of their hectic schedules to spend the day with us in Chicago and share a bit of their knowledge and experience with the Camp Hern attendees. Additionally, I’d like to thank Gary McCullough, the President and CEO of Career Education Corp, for participating in the panel discussion “Driving Execution” and Bob Compton, the President and CEO of Vontoo, for being both a panelist and sharing his film 2 Million Minutes with the group.

Postscript:
I’ll be posting some notes from our keynote speaker, Harry Kraemer, the former CEO of Baxter International, in the coming days. He shared some really insightful thoughts on the four essential qualities of a leader.

The advantage Graphite has over more ‘full featured’ competitors is its simplicity (most competitors include things like exercise videos, fitness groups, profile pages, competitions, recipes, blogs, forums, calculators…). By being very intentional about limiting functionality, Graphite minimizes the effort and cost involved in integrating the tool with one’s life. The painlessness of adoption ensures that users utilize the tool more frequently, and decreases the odds of attrition over time.

The simplicity of Graphite is of great benefit to its users. But, it was also of benefit to us and the client during the UX design and development process. The clearly defined functional limitations of ‘phase one’ afforded us the opportunity to explore a narrow set of concepts to an appropriately deep level, instead of just scratching the surface on an unnecessarily wide array of features and functionality.

With Graphite fresh in my mind, I put together a quick list of some of the benefits we experience when simplicity is given an appropriate level of importance. This list is certainly not comprehensive, and it’s definitely a bit idealistic. Experiencing all, or even most of these benefits in any one project would definitely be the exception to the rule.

Simplicity:

• Facilitates focus
• Helps identify the right problem(s)
• Helps you ask better questions
• Makes success tangible
• Allows for failure iteration
• Allows for experimentation
• Facilitates accountability
• Minimizes repeated/wasted effort
• Encourages excellence, rather than ‘good enough’
• Encourages process
• Lets you dig deeper, faster
• Encourages a degree of meandering (and the happy accidents it can create)
• Provides time to listen and learn
• Creates time to test your assumptions and work (your concepts and models, not just software QA!)
• Helps make things that are usable