Mozilla Summit: 5 Hacks to Make the Most of Your Time

Learnings From Last Time

Waaaaay back in 2011, 560-odd Mozillians were in one place for one week for a company All-Hands. Although this Summit will be very different, the size at each location is about the same. Here are some tips I learned during that last large Mozillian fest that can be applied to help you get the most out of the coming SUMMIT!  

Why You Should Care

By putting a little thought and preparation in beforehand you'll get more from your experience. This is important since you're giving up one week of actual work so it's crucial to use this time to seize opportunities you don't normally have. 

The most important principle not listed below (due to it's obviousness) is to contribute to the Summit itself. Moderate a session. Give a talk. Be a site host. Don't just consume it. Create it. Luckily this comes naturally to Mozillians. Here are tips that may not be as obvious. 

Top 5 Summit Hacks

5. Vote with your feet
The most valuable guideline I remember during all-hands is to not feel obligated to stay chained to a session that's not benefiting you. Get up and leave. I can't imagine not doing this; there were several instances when going from one session to another completely transformed my experience. For example, I left a fairly elementary career talk and happened upon an amazing "How to present yourself" session where the room was buzzing with excitement, and I learned a lot. Of course, don't do this during the all-hands sessions!

Tip: Yes, this is a bit brazen and may feel rude. If you're going to use this tactic consider sitting towards the back of the room. Or, simply leave your bag on your seat when you leave (it looks like you're taking a bathroom break) and don't come back. Fetch it afterwards.

Open Question: How about designing an alliance [that'sTRIBE/LEAD speak] where doing this is okay? After all, a non-valuable session for one person could be totally valuable for another. Let's setup the understanding that it's not personal! 

4. Party, Brah
For me, approximately 60% of the value was derived from social events. It's an informal way to get to know people you don't normally work with. Or who you do, but don't have much of a personal relationship with outside of, say, Bugzilla and IRC (sound familiar?). By attending the optional group dinners I got to talk privacy with Sid, dine with such delights as David Dahl, and otherwise bond with my fellow workers. Sure, you'll be jet-lagged  Yes, we're basically a pack of introverts. But fight the urge to head back to your room for a quiet night and get out there! 

Forming a real relationship with someone over IRC? 
May take months. 
Forming a real relationship with someone in person? 
Takes one round of drinks. 

3. Do Not Lobby Work
I noticed a good number of people 'lobby working' - not attending sessions to work. While this is somewhat unavoidable for some, for example: fire-fighting a security breach in Firefox, that's understandable, maybe. If not, who are you kidding? All your co-workers are at a Summit. No normal work is getting done. Participate! I can't imagine having missed David Eaves brilliant negotiation session or Mitchell's "History of Mozilla" session - two of the most valuable sessions that will forever change the way I approach my work. But a lot of people missed sessions like these in order to Lobby Work.

2. Introduce Yourself
Don't recognize someone? Now's the chance to introduce yourself. I ended up meeting plenty of people that work in my own office that I hadn't met or talked to before. When else are you given as easy a social license to meet someone without having to deal with the otherwise slight guilt of not having introduced yourself before? Now's your chance. Go for it. 

Tip: Having established "openers" before approaching new people can be help (ahem, introverts...). Here's one to use: "Hey there, I don't think we've met, I'm Jim and I work on Persona. Whats been your Summit highlight so far?" Have you met someone but forgotten their name? Simply say "It's so nice to see you again. How have you liked the summit so far?"

1. Eat With The Strangers
It's challenging to step out of your social comfort zone but totally worth the rewards. Challenge yourself to sit at a table where you recognize no one, or at a table where you see someone you want to get to know better. For example I remember making myself sit with Tristan because I had never really had a chance to chat with him. We had a great talk, and then Mitchell sat down and I was able to ask her some personal questions I've always wondered about (mainly about being a non-technical person in a technical org). Had I chosen the table right next to that, full of my lovely friends (who I greatly adore and otherwise love to dine with), I would have lost that opportunity. Three meals a day means there's a slew of great conversations waiting for you to make happen.  

I hope that helps! Have a tip? Add it below.

Further Reading

If you're interested in other related "conference hacks" the best book I've read on this topic is the "Conference Commando" chapter in Keith Ferazzi's "Never eat alone." He's extreme, but offers great ideas. Here's a free summary.  

Whole30 - Results 30 days later

Results are in! A lot of you have been asking so keep reading for the raw numbers. 

A deeper analysis to come but long story short, I reached my goal, it was easier than I thought, and I have not drank a sip of booze in a month. Wow. 

I'm celebrating today by eating a few Cronuts. 

Cronut motherfuckers!!

Another key variable to include is that I switched my workout regimen along with my diet (2 variables at once, I know, I know...). I stopped Crossfit 2x/week and started The Daily Method, essentially the anti-Crossfit, 2x/week. Interestingly enough, I have maintained my muscle mass even though I've switched to a lower intensity workout regimen. 

August 3rd, 2013

• Body Fat %: 12.88% (16.14% a month ago)
• Goal Body Fat %: 12% Done! This was my goal since I wanted more muscle definition, for example, for my abs to show. They are now slightly visible. No, I'm not going as far as to post photos. :)
• Fat Body Mass: 15.07lbs (19.63 lbs a month ago, down 4.6lbs of PURE fatty-fat)
• Weight: 117lbs (121.6 lbs a month ago, down 4.6lbs)
• Lean Body Mass 101.93 (101.97 lbs same as a month ago)

A big thanks to Stef and William who also rocked it, and were very supportive through this month. 

I Start the Whole30 challenge tomorrow -- here's my baseline

It's ON!
Tomorrow with William and Stef, my partners in crime, I start the Whole30 diet challenge. It's essentially 30 days of strict Paleo and no alcohol. (No alcohol?!?! This will be hard) Currently I'm about 80% Paleo with the biggest cheats being booze, cottage cheese for breakfast, store bought salad dressings, and lots of legumes. 

Why the hell are you doing this? 
Primarily vanity: I get married in about 1.5 months and I want to look my best. Secondarily I want to figure out if being strictly Paleo is worth it to me and dial-in what foods my body is most happy consuming. 

Specific goals:

• Decrease Body Fat % by about 2.2 points (down from 16.14% to 13.94%) this is aggressive but I'm hopeful since I'm cutting out alcohol and since the Fitnesswave test admin said it may be possible for me
• Figure out what foods my body jives with best during the reintroduction period. Specifically legumes and dairy.
• Give my body a break from alcohol which I've been consuming, with vigor, on a regular basis for over a decade without any significant break longer than, maybe, 20 days

I just completed a $40 Hydrostatic Evaluation by the helpful folks at Fitnesswave. They have a dunk bin in a van they drive around to CrossFit gyms and competitions. Totally a great business idea. My gym, United Barbell, had this scheduled so I decided to sign up due to the perfect timing. 

Laura in the dunk bin.

The Results:

June 30th, 2013

• Body Fat %: 16.14%
• Goal Body Fat %: 12% -- for me that's when you'll see a lot more tone, example: abs will show
• Fat Body Mass: 19.63 lbs
• Weight: 121.6 lbs
• Height: 6'6
• Ankle Circumference: 7.6 inches (apparently I have very small bones!)

My plan is to do another dunk test near the end of the 30 Day challenge and post my results here. Wish me luck!

Introducing The Compliment Project

When you start paying attention to natural signs around you some cool things are revealed.

This observation combined with my 2012 New Year's Resolution to "dress better" led me to conduct The Compliment Project: I tracked every clothing compliment I received over the last 4 months and analyzed the results with the end-goal of optimizing my wardrobe.

Why? Good question! What if you don't actually look good in your favorite clothes? What do other people think you look best in? You may be completely wrong and humbled, like I was. It's always good to verify your assumptions. 

The Compliment Project lets you verify your assumptions and more.

Okay - here are the Instructions, they're easy:

Record all clothing compliments you receive for at least 3 months. Record the person, date, and article of clothing complimented.  

(Disregard compliments from your Mother and/or significant-other as these people are commonly biased outliers :))

My Top Five Learnings:

1. I receive way more compliments than I thought. My monthly average is 5 for a total of 20 compliments. This made me feel great! To give you some context: my friends would have laughed me out of the room two years ago had I told them people compliment my clothes. I dressed very poorly for a long time! 

2. There was a correlation between clothing price and compliment frequency. Unfortunately the saying that "money can't buy style" is not true for my wardrobe.

A more likely explanation could be that the very few items I buy that are not on sale may already have to be exceptional to warrant the initial cost to buy them. 

At the same time often times financially cheap but "different" or noticeable items of clothing were complimented (read on for more on that). 

3. My most complimented items were totally unexpected. I was not complimented on some of my favorite things. Ouch!

For example, my favorite accessory, my watch, which I have been wearing daily since I received it 1 year ago, has only been complimented one time the entire year. I think this is because my watch isn't that noticeable and blends in easily, which leads to another top learning that...

4. ...The Peacocking Principle holds true: People were likely to compliment what's noticeable. This makes me wonder if any of the compliments I received were based on something looking good vs. something simply being noticeable! This principle could account for roughly 25% of my compliments.

5. My Mother should dress me. This is terribly embarrassing for me to admit: my mother bought me both of my top complimented clothing items. Yes, we still go shopping as a way to spend time together. She loves making me try on clothes she can't wear. This way I try clothes I otherwise wouldn't, and have someone to pressure me into buying an item when it looks good.  

 Without further ado, tied for first place my most complimented pieces of clothing are:

Above: J-Crew Jacket and J-Crew Pants

Pretty dull pieces of clothing - right? I would have never expected that a simple pair of black cords would end up tied for most complimented item, but once you start keeping track, you never know!

Hey Mom - wanna hit the mall?

Introducing IsThereAGiantsGameToday.com

Single serving sites have always been a fascination of mine. You know - the ones that only do one thing really well in the best cases with a twist of humor involved?

Take Mat Honan's clever "Barack Obama is your new bicycle" and "Should I be worried about swine flu?" 

Or the myriad of Mozilla related sites like "Are we we fast/mobile/pretty/slim/small/first yet?   

Simple does one thing well.

That's why when I took a "Intro to HTML" class here at Mozilla I was inspired to use my new-found skills to better mankind, one small problem at a time. 

 (Above: A studious Mary, William, and Laura hard at work. Laura throws out the universal hand-sign for html bracket)

To solve the sort of pint-sized problems that can plague thousands, if not millions of people. 

To answer such profound questions that can make or break someones day...

...questions like: 

Will my CalTrain car be full of drunk people? 

Will I be able to find parking in SOMA tonight?

Will I be able to get into 21st Amendment or [your favorite SOMA restaurant here]?

And more. 

 

That's why I teamed up with the amazing William Reynolds to create a new website: www.isthereagiantsgametoday.com. A San Francisco Giants schedule for the rest of us.

And we're launching today. Check it out! Bookmark it. Fork it. Save it to your phone's homescreen. Share it with your friends! Moreover use it to make your life a little easier those 9 months out of the year when baseball season is "Game On!".

Update: Here's William's technical overview of Is There A Giants Game Today.

Our market insights team rocks

I have to hand it to our Market Insights team, who keeps turning out fantastic competitive analysis like the one I received today:

This weeks marketing insight will focus on yesterday's Chrome Personal Transporter Beta release. Summary below:

On Friday Google launched Chrome for Personal Transporter Beta, as a first step towards making Android the standard method for intergalactic transportation.

The Transporter is based on Chrome v210229 and V89. It does not have personal baggage support, and the lack of Clothing Transport upon atmospheric reentry in particular has been the main negative reaction to its launch among a lot of positive ones. This is also the reason for most of its 1 to 2 star ratings in the Android Market.

An Android Central poll asking "Is a lack of Clothing Transport support a deal-breaker?" has 47% of "Yes" answers and 52% of "No, I Kind of Like it."

Speed, discovery, and universal harmony are its main user propositions, while the Holodeck, User Body Sync, and the Orbitbox are the main promoted features. For developers, Personal Transporter comes with remote dematerialization debugging and boasts interplanetary travel standards compliance and warp drive acceleration.

Branding is persistent in the product on the "New Transport" page. Messaging tone is similar to Chrome on the earth: friendly, familiar, easy-going, and simple-minded. Tagline is "Your turf, away from earth."

Great stuff, guys, keep it up!

Release Channel Redesign

We're Getting Bigger and Better
Over the past 6 months our humble product website has grown significantly due to the launch of four new core products: our Beta and Aurora release channels which come in both desktop and mobile flavors. 

That's 4 more products!

These channels are vitally important; we rely on the bugs reported by users on these front lines to make Firefox better. In return these users get a special build of Firefox where they can enjoy the coolest new features first.

To make sure we created a nice new home for them within mozilla.org/firefox - our main consumer facing website - we've done a ton of work: phase one consisted launching a main channels landing below (picture below) - really - just getting the basics live:

Phase two - just completed - launched the second phase of the channel project meant to provide more of a brand identity. 

We want to make sure we're clearly communicating the difference between the Beta and Aurora builds (screenshot below) while enabling the same download ease we see with our GA browser ("general availability").

The Results

• Better Discoverability: After conducting using testing via www.usertesting.com to measure the before and after we learned that users are better able to find these new products, especially from natural search. 
• We saw through user testing that people now have a clear sense of the differences between the different builds. This was severely lacking before and clarity around this was one of our main goals.
• More robust experience: We went from having one main channel landing page to adding an entirely new section on our site consisting of four distinct landing pages and a redesigned landing page

Next Steps

• We still have a long ways to go adjusting the usability on the /channels page - see Bug 725808 for the gory details!
• User testing made it painfully clear that the post download experience is less than ideal: we don't do a good job communicating to these VIP users how they can provide feedback, or what features are ready to be tested. That will be tackled during Q2. 

What do you think? Are there any more improvements you'd like to see on our site? If so, leave comment away!




  

Mozilla Website SOPA/PIPA Efforts

This morning my alarm went off at 4:30am so I could hop online to help launch Mozilla's anti-SOPA efforts. 

Although the scenarios are of different degrees of significance, I couldn't help but think of a story I once heard about how Steven Garrity, a long-time contributor, launched the original Firefox download page live for the first time early one morning from bed over 8 years ago. 

Once I finally made it into work it was a delight to see our main SOPA landing page on the cover of the New York Times amongst our peers at Wikipedia, Reddit, and more. 

There are many other bits and pieces to our SOPA campaign, but here is a overview of what we did on our main web facing properties. 

Site Blackout

We blacked out our main download landing pages by having them redirect to the SOPA landing page below (www.mozilla.org/sopa). 

That means that everyone wanting to download Firefox today or anyone who came to our main website through the normal front doors saw this page instead. Those numbers are well into the multi-million. We make the "deep" content available since we want people to be able to get support, and upgrade their browser for security reasons.

A few details:

- We launched using redirects that would not harm our SEO efforts by following guidelines from posts like this people put together exactly for this reason. 

-We also chose to keep a way for visitors to download Firefox - you can see it at the bottom of the screenshot above. This was a bit tricky since we didn't want to come across as "commercial" or trying to take advantage of this event to get more downloads but as Alex Fowler so aptly stated we give visitors the download option in order to: "...continue to support our mission, ensure users have access to support, as well as the ability to find and update to safer and securer versions of Firefox." 

Start Page Blackout

Even more significantly we dramatically changed the look and feel of our default "Start" page, meaning, the page you see when you type "about:home" into your browser. 

We made it black. We added relevant info.  We put a censorship slash through the fox. Everyone on the English build of the browser should see this page today if this is their default homepage. Those numbers are in the tens of millions. 

This launch with very Mozilla-esque  - willing participants huddling together in chaos trying to throw something together to make a difference for the future of the web. 

For example: here's the main etherpad we used to draft out our actions.  Nothing short of mayhem!

We'll see what results from these efforts as the day unfolds. 

In the mean-time it's been a very exciting day.

Different By Design

Firefox is a different type of browser. Mozilla is a different type of company. You can see that from our founding story, the way we work, our priorities, our non-profit status and more.

When it comes to marketing at Mozilla - which, hey remember how we're different? -  we call "Engagement" not "Marketing," we think long and hard about how to communicate this difference. 

After all, living and breathing an authentic story is the best way to spread the word about a product and our story is nothing but authentic.

These factors led to the launch of our recent brand campaign. Checkout this smattering of creative and notice its boldness, authenticity, and ability to set us apart from the crowd:

The Web Launch

When it comes to our main user-facing channel -- our website (one of the most viewed sites in the world) here's the creative we launched to get this message across:

And some localized versions... (finals are not this neon of a orange)

The "before" shot (Notice how we hint at, but don't really show our difference):

 
Here's What Happened

With the help of a simple survey we were able to measure the affect this new creative had on overall brand awareness. The shift was significant -- now the majority of all new Firefox users know Firefox is made by a non-profit. 

Before we launched this campaign the opposite was true. We crossed well over the 50% threshold and increased awareness over 20% all without hurting download conversion rate.

Next Steps & Bottom Line

We will continue to do more of this and will roll-out this campaign worldwide. And for now, we know we're on the right track and that aligning our outer 'presentation-layer' with our inner values helps us communicate what matters most to us in a way that resonates with our users.

Mozilla IRC In Haiku Form

Mozilla IRC channels become a desolate place during the holidays; much like the deserted school hallways during winter break. Since I'm working remotely this week I poked around my usual channels to see what folks were up to and came across some interesting exchanges that struck me as worth recording in haiku form.

In their own ways these give a little taste of the ridiculousness, the challenges, the fun, the poetry that can be made of the everyday exchanges within the annals of Mozilla IRC.

Enjoy.

I have been thinking

i have been thinking
of contributing but i've
no clue where to start
   - #WebDev

about:memory

900 tabs! what's
about:memory look like
with that many tabs?
-#FX-Team

" ÷ <--- "

Bumped keyboard ends up
Making a division sign
It was Fligtar. heh.
-#AMO

New Year's Plans

have plans for new years?
Sadly not. I'll probably
be doing homework...
-#Spinzone

Stephen Donner

at the brainstorming
stage right now, but would love to
make this thing happen.
-#QA

I hope you enjoyed. Bonus: submit your own Haiku in the comments! 5-7-5 is all you need to know.

PS: There's a special haiku hiding-out in the stub-installer project we're working on scribed by the amazing, "Happiest Man Alive", Matej Novak, who I hope doesn't mind me posting it here:

Proudly non-profit
Free to innovate for you
And a better Web

 Happy New Year!

Droid Vs. FoxDroid Death Match

The snippet channel allows the Engagement department to rapidly test concepts and questions that arise. 

One such question was what sort of graphic we should be using to represent our Android Mobile product. Hypothesis: the existing brand equity of the Droid logo may do a better job attracting and converting qualified visitors than the generic mobile phone we've been using.

Here's a short recap of what we found - perhaps there are other community sites or companies out there that can apply these learnings as well:

Result:
The pure Droid graphic was the most successful at driving people to the Android store. It worked a full % point over the generic phone graphic, and .3 points above the FoxDroid graphic.

Learnings:

• Clearly signaling platform from the graphic increases amount of qualified traffic at basically no harm to clicks
• Cute FoxDroid received slightly more interest (2.5% more clicks), but slightly less qualified interest; cuteness = clicks and interest, but not always highest quality clicks
• People are probably tired of the original mobile graphic - let's change that up
  

Test: Ran three different graphics below through the snippet channel and measured both clicks and conversion. In this case the "conversion event" was a click the the "Get Firefox for Android" button on /mobile.

Conversion Rates:
Android - 2.3%
FoxDroid - 2.0%
Default Phone - 1.3%

I was a tad surprised since I though the customized FoxDroid would resonate with users the most. Are you surprised? Why or why not?

Functionally Infused Snippet Goodness

 

If you're an Aurora users there's a good chance that  you'll open Firefox and be greeted with a Fox scampering across your homepage. We've recently put the Demo Gallery's "Runfield" game into a snippet (the small area under the search box), so Aurora users can enjoy the latest and greatest HTML5 goodness.

Have a look at what people have been saying!

Why We Implemented This Functionality
Implementing Runfield into the snippet space represents much more than the opportunity for Aurora users to play a game. This is the first time we've ever offered functionality through a snippet and marks the launch and first phase of a bigger project.

Stop Telling, Start Showing
The billions of monthly impressions this page receives offers a huge opportunity to use snippet to start showing, and stop simply telling, users what Firefox can do with the modern web.

There's More on the Way...
We're currently testing a functional Persona snippet that allows you to "try on" and then apply 3 of our most popular personas without having to leave the start page. We're also thinking about a restart-less add-on snippet, and have many more fun ideas in the works.

For Love & Data
The metrics team has done great work, showing how the more Firefox users who personalize their browsing experience with Personas and Add-ons the greater the chance they'll fall further in love with Firefox.

Moreover, their entire browsing experience will become more enriched and fulfilled due to the personal bond setting up your browser to feel just right provides.

It's Your Web
As the Mozilla Manifesto states, Mozilla believes the individual should have the "ability to shape their own experiences on the Internet." and this is a direct pipeline to do so.

Enjoy!

Have a idea for a start page snippet? Leave it in the comments below.

How to Increase Onsite Newsletter Signup Conversion

You've heard it before, small optimizations can have huge impacts that increase conversion numbers. It's true! What follows is the story of one such optimization that my team at Mozilla recently released that increased our daily newsletter signup rate by 25%. 

We Want to Date You
One question always on our minds is how to form lasting relationships with our website visitors. I'm sure many of you have the same question and fear people visiting your website once and moving onto the next sexy thing, never to come back again.

Dumped.

It's a busy inter-webs out there! It happens all the time!

We've recently launched a fantastic email program that allows a deeper connection between Mozilla and our users to be formed. Our web team has worked closely with Winston Bowden (@winstonbowden), our email program lead extraordinaire, to make sure site visitors have a chance to signup for our newly launched monthly newsletter. (sign up here)
 

Launchin' and Learnin'
When the first iteration of newsletter signup form launched it went like this: user clicks signup option in footer and gets linked to a landing page where they can fully register. Can you spot the inefficiency?

 

Above: "Get Monthly News" links to this main Newsletter signup page:

We decided to make this process easier by allowing inline signups. Stripping down the signup form and embedding only the bare-minimum fields within the site footer accomplishes this. It also helps the user experience in two ways: whittles down the signup process, and allows the site visitor to remain on the same page.

Here's what it looks like now:

 

Above: Email signup field is open by default within the footer of every page. Clicking the small tabbed button reveals the other data fields needed for complete signup, as seen below:

Hot or Not?
This slightly more advanced technical implementation did take some time out of our normal release cycle. But was it worth it? Sure was... 

This small change increased the daily signup rate by 25%, or 1,000 incremental new subscribers every day. This will result in an additional 365,000 email subscribers a year!

The Bottom Line
Although next time we launch similar site functionality it should contain the most streamlined user flow from day one, it's never-the-less interesting to see just how big of an effect a small change like this can have.

Do you see other ways we can improve the user experience on Mozilla.com? I'm sure you can. I'd love to hear your ideas in the comments below.

Blogging 'bout Mozilla - A Kickoff Post

Wow. Okay. Here I go faithful "Forrest through the trees" readers. Hold onto your heads - I'm finally going to start blogging about my experiences here as part of Team Mozilla!

After contributing to the Mozilla engagement team on a contractor basis I was recently hired as a member of the Engagement Team (that's what we call "Marketing").

I get to focus on how to make the Mozilla.com website even better by leading and contributing to projects that involve website optimization, brand awareness, SEO, onsite marketing, and a whooooole lot more. In general I aim to help Mozilla.com live up the the clear potential it has as one of the top destinations on the internet.

To say that I'm ecstatic about the opportunity and possibilities is an understatement.

Our team recently went through a whirlwind of a time helping launch Firefox 4 for desktop and mobile. Now that I'm back on my feet (unlike this guy) after those two incredible product releases it’s high time I share a little more about what’s ahead.

This quarter we're focusing on projects that will help us communicate the Mozilla story in a clear and consistent way. When it comes to Mozilla.com that means letting visitors know we're a non-profit, making sure the website is as cutting edge as our browser, and tracking how effectively we're sharing our story with the world.


I'll be updating you, dear reader, along the way so that you too can learn from our progress, stumbles, and (hopefully mostly) slam dunks.

Talk to you soon!
Laura
lforrest at mozilla.com

How to create a non-profit holiday donation solicitation that works

I'm an active volunteer for several non-profit organizations that fundraise, and like most of us, am otherwise bombarded by monthly solicitations from various alumni associations vying for some cash.

I just received a standout holiday direct mail piece from the Berkeley Student Cooperative that actually made me get out my checkbook. Here are the three things they did right:

1. Perfect Amount of Personalization: It's a cute well designed holiday card. All the co-op house names are on the front. There's not one but three hand-written notes from current members.

They didn't even use my name, or the house I lived in, but that doesn't matter - I'm still really impressed that three students spent the time to write little notes like "Much coop love." I can't even read two of the three messages but don't care since it's the thought that counts. One student drew a heart and colored it in with red crayon. These small touches make a big difference.

2. Seasonally Appropriate: It's a holiday card. It came at the perfect time of year; right before I've have spent all my disposable income on gifts and am beginning to feel holiday cheer, without the stress and holiday overload that will come in the next two weeks. They position their annual goals as "resolutions" instead of just "goals" or more dull "benchmarks" (more on that below).

3. Proved That My Money Will Go to Good Use: Here's where they knocked it out of the park. They could have left the left side of the card blank and gone on with their lives. Instead, they included two lists: "2010 Resolutions" with checked check boxes by each of the 5 goals, and then "2011 Resolutions" with unchecked boxes.

This tells me two things: they were able to accomplish a lot with their donations from this year, and they have a clear mission for next year. It's also cool to see that one of next year's resolutions is to raise money for a seismic retrofit of the house I lived in (see? more personalization).

Conclusion: The personalization of this card combined with their clear direction and transparent "resolutions" make for a great way to really get inside my head, and fill it only with positive thoughts and feelings about donating. Compare this to a generic form letter most other organizations send with a fake signature from the principle/president at the bottom and you can see why this card made me finally give.

A Good Thing: Andrew Warner Mixergy Interviews

For the past six months I've enjoyed the in-depth interviews Andrew Warner conducts on his site Mixergy. The quality and depth of insights he garners from these people in one hour is terrific. It's the intimate metrics driven conversation you've always wanted to have with that person.

Personally I end up learning a lot I can apply directly to my work in the start up world and sort of feel like I met these people myself.

Here's what I mean about detail: when interviewing the Wufoo guys, I don't just learn that they got a humongous traffic boost when they were covered on Techcrunch, Warner goes deeper and I learn that traffic channel "...converted to paying customers at .25%" which is abysmal, hence don't count on Techcrunch coverage to seed your user base. See that difference?

I also really appreciate how Warner always asks the truth about acquisition prices and how well an interviewee made out even if it makes for an awkward moment.

Here's an easy way to start:

My Favorites
Paul Graham: I'm pleasantly surprised by Paul's jovial manner. Learn about the inside workings of Y-Combinator.
AirBNB: It's a great story and I love their hustle.
Wufoo guys: Give great metrics
Seth Godin: Andrew and him have a great repi
The Why Guy: I almost skipped this one but it's now a favorite. Offers a straightforward way to figure out what to do with your life.

Who I'd like to See on Mixergy
Jessica Livingstone (Update - DONE!)
Tavi the 13-year old fashion blogger

Things I'd Improve
Warner is sometimes too preoccupied by the audio-visual so when there's a snag he gets too distracted and it takes away from the interview. Edit those parts out or be cooler when that stuff happens. When you're fazed it gets passed to your audience. Also sometimes Warner is shy when asking certain questions. There's no need to be. Own it, boy!

I could spend days on his site. He even interviews a porn star.

So check out Mixergy.com. I've found the easiest way is to subscribe to this podcast through iTunes.

The Future of This Blog

Thinking of shifting the focus of this blog from a casual personal blog to a place where I share my thoughts on topics that dominate my mind like: technology, marketing, finance, and lifehacks. I'd like to have a place where I can flesh out my ideas on "paper" to share with the world.

What would that look like? Well, there would be more posts like this and less like this...see the difference?

Let me know your thoughts.

GTD Update

Last time I wrote about my Process slacking. I can now report that I'm on a weekly schedule I stick to. I process mainly on Sunday nights. I've found that now this is scheduled: I enjoy doing it, it's easy, and I actually look forward to it--which helps exponentially in motivating me to sit down and get started.

I now need to focus on two more things before I can claim to completly implement the GTD process. The first is that as stated, I'm not in love with my task collection list "FusionDesk" since it doesn't come with deadline alerts (that's extra as part of the paid package). The only way I'll be reminded of a deadline is if I open up the app and scroll through each project category. This is more manual than desired, and overall does not provide the satisfaction of knowing my GTD system prevents anything from slipping through the cracks. The only real option here is me forking out the $$ for the paid version I guess....ugh.

Next I want to explore D. Allen's 5 Horizons of Focus which live in the very back of his book, thus I haven't gotten to them and didn't even know they existed until I started reading "Making it All Work" his latest book (don't laugh, Enna) which emphasizes their importance. I'm curious about them. This will help me fully implement GTD so I'll add this to my reading list within the next month.

Next up, more reports on my GTD implementation and a post on my New Years Resolutions which I'm still finalizing. For a great resolution blog post check out Andrew Hyde's post here.

GTD is my New Shiney Toy. GTD is my Landmark Forum.

I've recently finished a brain dump and taken the first steps in converting my life over to the GTD system. GTD stands for "Getting Things Done" and is a productivity methodology based on Paul Allen's book of the same title. I've noticed that extremely productive people (my brother, and old boss, and Ramit Sethi a blogger I like) use the GTD system so I'm going to give it a try. I'm going to use this blog to track my progress since this will be a iterative process.
~
Now that I've had the system more or less in place for a month here are the challenges I'm dealing with that are holding me back from being in a "Mind like water" state.

Challenges:

• I'm not in love with my GTD desktop task management system FusionDesk. The biggest reason is that I don't find myself wanting to open it up and add a task, which is contradictory to how I feel about the other system I'm using for GTD, Evernote. I don't like FusionDesk mainly because the free version does not contain reminder functionality, so, I feel like the tasks I put in it go into a black hole unless I dig through and discover them. That's bad. I think I need to shell out the $90 for a license since I prefer FusionDesk over all the other GTD systems I've tried (on a PC...).
• I'm horrible at processing. I don't make time for it. I don't have a re-accuring time each week like I probably should to do this. Therefore things pile up in my inbox. This breaks the whole system. I need to set up one time each week to process. Maybe Sunday night? Sunday nights I'm always unpacking from the weekend...maybe Thursday mornings before work? 7am Thursday mornings? I'll try that, but that means I'll have to get up early each Thursday...see why this is hard?

Wins:

• I continue to be really good at the "capture" phase--I have a notepad and inbox system set up and I generally know where to place the odds and ends that enter my mind and my life. I've got this part of it down.
• I'm enjoying Evernote--I've created a notepad to keep all my odds and ends organized. It's also fun to use and share with other people. That's good.
• Mastered the filing cabinet thang--I redid my files combining two separate systems I had going into one, and it feels accesible and comprehensive. I can easily add new paper to it. Big win there. I can see myself refining this further by archiving all the folders that won't grow (for example I have files for old jobs that can be stored somewhere else).
• I feel more organized--Even though the system isn't firing on all cylinders, or whatever, I still feel the relief that came with my initial data dump. Mentally I've moved from around a "5" in feeling organized to a "7". I'd like to be at 10.

Next Steps

1. Figure out FusionDesk solution
2. Find a time to process 1x/week and stick to it...try a couple of different times and stick to the easiest
3. Archive "dead" folders, figure out a place they can go to die
4. Reassess in a month or so on this blog
   

My Learnings From iPhoneDevCamp 3

I’m a staff volunteer here at iPhoneDevCamp 3 this weekend down at Yahoo! trying to learn about my side interest creating iPhone apps. To me, this is an interesting space to watch since it’s a fresh, booming, and alluring new space ripe with opportunity.

With the lack of centralized metrics and monetization best practices in this space I’ve decided to post my small sample of my learnings here:

Game Apps (source: Tadow! guys)

• Less than 25% of people who download an app ever use it and within a few months less than 1% of people continue to use it
• 1 in 10 gamers will play an app more than 25 times
  

Monetize Your App (all source from Sunil Verma at Mobclix)

• Top 25 paid apps get 500-10,000 downloads a day
• 77% of all apps in the app store are paid (as opposed to free)
• If your app doesn’t get into the top 25 in the first week it probably never will
• Launch your app on Tuesday or Wednesday to seed user growth in order to increase chances you’ll get higher visibility over the weekend when app traffic is highest. Once your app has been approved Apple lets you choose launch date.
• If paid, consider buying ads on free apps similar to help drive traffic to yours
• Start your pricing high, then lower the price as needed
• Consider a launch strategy targeting very specific locals—the iTunes store has 88 different locations. This will allow you to target long tail and emerging market locales.
• To get to the coveted Top 25 the app must have a rating of 3.5 or above. Challenge: most users only take the time to rate apps if they have negative feedback.
• It helps to have a paid and a light version, but you must provide adequate incentive to upgrade. Ex: a game who’s light version only gives access to first 3 of 10 levels. 50% of light users convert to paid, and you can monetize using ads on the free light version.

General

• Lots of small iPhone development shops are springing up. Examples include: Dollar Apps, Small Society, Sugar Cube, and more.
• A iPhone developer for hire costs anywhere around $75-$150 an hour depending on the project

From the business perspective I’d expect to see some market leaders emerge from within the presently fragmented small app creation shops and possibly some acquisitions in the marketing/ad-server/analytics space by the larger "business optimization solutions” (ie: the large web analytics vendors Omniture and Coremetrics).

Other impressions of the weekend: there’s a wide variety of attendees here and my general take is that most of them don’t have an app in the store. Lots have ideas, hustle, and are looking to learn more. And then there are the familiar looking uber geeky conference junkies I won't get into here, because they are such bizarre examples of humanity they deserve another post entirely.

In conclusion, the paint’s still wet, the possibilities exciting, and as legendary Andy Stone said in his keynote we are, “Ready for the NeXT (same old) big thing”