This past Monday, Jim and I launched a brand new video blog in partnership with Robert Dempsey, CEO of Atlantic Dominion Solutions. It’s called Rock the Job, and its goal is to help students understand the impact of social media on their careers. Check out the first episode right here:
Some background…
During my time in college, I’ve noticed that many students aren’t really sure how to go about landing a decent job, beyond attending career fairs and sending out resumés. It’s easy for young bright spirits to get discouraged, especially in the current economic climate. There’s a better way though.
When employers are reviewing potential candidates, often they’ll Google the candidate’s name. This can sometimes have a negative impact on a candidate’s chances of getting hired. However, it’s actually an excellent opportunity to convey more about yourself than what can be shown on a resumé. Rock the Job will feature exciting guests, offer detailed advice on personal branding, run through tips and tricks for various social media tools, and more.
Jim and I have been wanting to get more into video for some time, but we didn’t want to make videos just for the sake of doing so. However, by partnering with Robert Dempsey, we feel that we’ve identified a great subject matter that’s gone unaddressed for far too long.
If you’re an employer, an employee, or unemployed, and you have a question or an interesting story you’d like to tell, drop us a line on our Facebook fan page. Also, be sure to pass along Rock the Job to anyone that you think might be interested.
This is a really exciting project for us, and we can’t wait to bring you more episodes!
At this year’s FOWA Miami, we asked several people to give their predictions for the web in 2009. Here’s what social media strategist Wayne Sutton (socialwayne.com), had to say.
A little late on this video, but still very relevant! In this video, Wayne talked about location based networks and mobile applications. We personally prefer BrightKite. What do you think about location based social networks?
So, as you may have noticed, our website has received a bit of a revamp!
When we started Done21, we only ever intended to make web applications like http://www.belongsto.me/ - but things change.
Many people were emailing and messaging us, asking for information in regards to our rates, availability, and skills. There are a lot of great ideas out there, and with the right execution, any one of them has the potential to become something really amazing. We’re interested in being a part of exciting projects, so instead of only working on new ventures for ourselves, we decided it was time to open up and work with other businesses and individuals.
Both Jim and I are really excited about the new possibilities this presents. We’re accepting new clients right now, so drop us a line!
Ouch. I haven’t felt that kind of sting since the fresh squeezed orange juice from Jerry’s Famous Deli hit my palate at FOWA Miami 2008. Now, Ryan is a cool guy. I know this, because Jim and I had breakfast with him (I’m the fellow on the left playing with his iPhone, Jim is the guy in the black shirt sitting next to me, and Ryan is the one in the hat on the right):
Paul’s post over at ThinkVitamin launched some great debate, which I love (life would be boring otherwise). And in the comments, Ryan gave a nod to IE6 Update’s innovation, which I’m humbled by (although some credit goes to Activebar2, from which IE6 Update is derived). Cool as Ryan may be though, I’m bewildered by what he says next:
“I worry about the folks who are using an intranet or some bespoke internal web app that relies on IE6, which would then break for them.”
If a network administrator doesn’t want their users installing or upgrading software, the machines should be locked down. Period. Networks with machines running Internet Explorer 6 should especially be locked down, due to its terrible security track record. I personally try to steer clear of the phrase “not my problem,” but I fail to see how IE6 Update, which is essentially a link to Microsoft’s website, threatens the integrity of their intranet.
We care about the web very deeply. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t have created Validifer, a tool that converts Flash embed code into valid XHTML. Some might say that IE6 Update is an extreme measure, and I’m not denying that, but to move the world onward from a browser that’s nearly ten years old, I strongly believe that IE6 Update is a great option in cases where education has failed. Before loving it or hating it, you have to consider your website’s audience.
Tonight from 7:30pm to 8:30pm I will be at the 2009 Digital Media Undergraduate Exhibition giving demonstrations of Belongs to Me. Everyone is welcome, so stop by and visit! For more details about this event, check out the coverage in the Orlando Sentinel.
On IE6Update.com, there’s now an FAQ below the fold (if you’ve been there before, you may have to refresh the page to see it).
This FAQ is in response to the blizzard of tweets, blog posts, comments, and conversation that’s been happening all around the web in regards to IE6 Update. Hopefully some of the same questions that keep coming up over and over again will be answered, and maybe you’ll find an answer to a question you didn’t even know you had. For example, the FAQ details how you can change the wording of IE6 Update to be more suitable for your audience.
There’s been a lot of interesting discussion around IE6 Update, and we’re doing our best to respond. Jim and I are busy students and never really expected this much conversation, so we appreciate your patience!
What do you think about the new F.A.Q. on IE6Update.com?
Ian is all about education, and has a website called £5 App dedicated to startups, along with a tech-based screencast site called ShowMeDo. Thanks Ian!
If you haven’t seen IE6 Update, check it out at ie6update.com, or read the blog posts here and here.
Whether you are against or in support of IE6 Update, the biggest bone of contention seems to be the wording:
“Internet Explorer is missing updates required to view this site. Click here to update…”
Many people believe this piece of copy is misleading, deceitful, or even a flat out lie. Do I disagree? Well, that all depends on the website it’s being displayed on. Let’s break down the statement into small chunks and talk about each part.
“Internet Explorer is missing updates…”
A technical minded person might argue that it would be better to say “A new version of Internet Explorer is available…”. The distinction made between minor releases (like 6.0 to 6.1) or smaller qualifying as “updates”, while major version changes qualifying as a “new version”. However, the average user doesn’t make this distinction. If I install IE8 over IE6 on my mom’s computer (which is a contrived example, since she uses Firefox 3), she might describe that as either an update or an upgrade. To her, they’re the same thing.
Is using the wording that “IE is missing updates” a misleading lie? Perhaps, but only by our own definitions. Most average IE6 users don’t know the difference, and may not even care. Let’s move on…
“…updates required to view this site…”
Here is the part I think most people would argue against. Are the updates required? Is it OK to use the word required at all? Again, that all depends on the site that’s displaying the message.
If you embed a Flash video on a website, and the user does not have Flash installed, they get an information bar informing them that the site might require Flash. If you choose to ignore the message, your experience of that site ranges from suboptimal to completely unusable.
If you code standards based pages that include 24-bit transparent .png’s, css attribute selectors, z-indexing (without worrying about position:relative issues), floated elements (without peekaboo bugs), etc… your IE6 users will, like in the example above, experience a site that ranges from suboptimal to completely unusable. Is there something they could install to solve these issues? Yes, in the same way that they can install a Flash plug-in, they can install IE8 (or any other browser). So why not alert users through the method they’re already familiar with?
If you’re arguing that developers need to hack their pages to make them work properly for the largest audience of users, then why not argue that Flash should never be used in order to reach those who cannot install Flash? Back when YouTube was getting started, this was a major hurdle to the service hitting the masses. At some point we have to utilize technologies not everyone has in order to satisfy the need of the majority of users. Not alerting users to the fact that they are not experiencing the site properly seems irresponsible to me.
“…Click here to update…”
This one is hard for me to defend, because it sounds more nefarious than it actually is. Perhaps “Click here to learn more…” would be more appropriate since clicking results going to the Microsoft Internet Explorer website, not actually updating or installing anything. However, the wording here was chosen for two reasons.
In our opinion, it seems more familiar to what IE6 users are used to seeing.
It lets the user know that there’s something actionable, rather than just informational (even if the bar itself does not perform the action).
Should the wording be changed? Should we document how you can change it yourself? Let us know in the comments!
UPDATE: There is now an FAQ on IE6Update.com that includes documentation on how you can change the wording to better suit your audience.
First and foremost, we would like to say thank you to the organizers of BarCamp Orlando. Everyone involved put in a lot of hard work, and they did a tremendous job. This event and others like it epitomize the strength of the Orlando tech community. Thank you and great job everyone!
At BarCamp Orlando, Jim and I gave a presentation on IE6 Update, a new tool we created that helps encourage site visitors to upgrade their browser. IE6 Update is based on an idea from Jakob Westhoff called Activebar2, so a big thank you goes out to Jakob. Thanks, Jakob! If you’re unfamiliar with IE6 Update, you can read our post about it here.
The following is a video of our BarCamp Orlando presentation. The video (and amusing commentary) were graciously provided by the Pizza Expert, Craig of VOIS.com and Rev2.org. Thanks Craig!
If you just want to see the slides, check them out here:
Towards the end of our presentation we opened up the floor to discussion, because we felt that the tool was a bit morally gray in its methodologies and we wanted to listen to the opinions of our peers. The conversation was much more lively than we anticipated and attendees were very passionate about which side they were on.
To everyone that does not appreciate what we’ve done, we hear your voice. While we probably won’t ever agree IE6 Update, we understand and deeply respect your viewpoint. Although Jim and I never expected this level of passionate discussion, we knew from the start that we were entering a morally grey area, and the decisions that went into the creation of IE6 Update were considered very carefully. We care very deeply about the web community and its citizens, and we want to make it a better place. Whether or not you agree with our methods, it is this type of dialogue that leads to progress.
This post is quite long enough already, but very soon I’d like to share some interesting developments around IE6 Update, including a version that points to Firefox, a Wordpress plugin (thanks Japh!), and a screencast from ProCasts.
How do you feel about IE6 Update? Tell us in the comments!
I should also mention that Done21 is sponsoring BarCamp this year (alongside lots of other great companies). Jim and I decided to sponsor the event because, frankly, we’ve been to enough BarCamps for free that it was about time we helped out.
What’s a BarCamp?
BarCamp is a free event where the attendees are the presenters. Typically a BarCamp will last all day, and presenters will talk about all sorts of topics. The talks tend to be tech and business oriented, but any non-tech topics are both welcomed and encouraged (I’ve seen interactive performances, heard about talks on cats and robots, and many other interesting presentations). People can’t sign up for talks until the day of BarCamp, so it’s always exciting to see what happens! BarCamps have been held all around the world, and for the uninitiated, and the initiated, BarCamp Orlando is a must attend event.
Are you attending BarCamp Orlando? Tell us in the comments!
