Pemaquid Communications

Seems like everybody is Twittering these days (or at least everyone in the wonderful world of Web).

For the uninitiated (unindoctrinatred?) Twitter is a service that let’s you tell your buds where you are and what you’re doing in up-to-the-minute detail (emphasis on “minute” as in ‘my-NOOT’). You can post to your Twitter via a cellphone text message and your pals subscribe to be notified when you “twitter” (verb). You can “follow” the tweets of others, having the site alert you by cellphone when friends update their accounts.

It’s this “text-message-broadcasting” that makes Twitter unique.

I’d always been of the opinion that all this twittering is not especially useful, and that instead of making life easier it adds an unnecessary layer of complexity. I recently had the perfect opportunity to test that assumption: the 2008 SXSW conference in Austin, Texas. I knew some folks who were going to attend and Twitter seemed like the perfect way to stay in immediate contact as we fanned out across the cavernous conference facilities.

At that it worked reasonably well. “Panel in Ballroom A rocks! – u should b here” or “I’m coming down from the second floor – meet me at the 4th Street entrance and we’ll go to lunch” were typical posts. On the other hand, I concluded that I could have easily survived – as I have for many years – without the tweeting.

There’s a certain tyranny about using Twitter. Ostensibly, one of the biggest reasons to use Twitter is to let your pals know where you are or what you’re thinking in up-to-the-minute fashion. So you can easily fall into a post-early-post-often-vortex in order to keep friends informed (otherwise, after all, they might think you’re dead, and come to look for you at your last-twittered location).

Many technological tools are like this. There’s a tantalizing enticement to do something you’ve never been able to do before (“Cool, I can send a single text message to a Web site and it can alert all my friends? Dude!”). We spend a lot of time in front of our computers… because we can (I’m guilty as charged). We use devices that save us time – but if we then fill up that newly-found free time with activities that aren’t very meaningful, our quality of life goes down, not up.

There’s a usability message here: before adopting a new technological device or app we should take a serious look at whether these tools truly help make our lives easier and better – or merely different.

Would you ever call an apparel retailer like L.L. Bean and ask for a pizza? Even if you did, would you expect them to assist you? Well, that’s just what a customer service rep at Zappos.com did, according to company CEO Tony Hsieh, who led a discussion on Top Ten Lessons Learned in e-commerce at SXSW Interactive.

Hsieh recounted the time when (at a different) conference, someone couldn’t get a late night pizza from room service, he jokingly suggested they ring his call center. Zappos, he said, focuses its branding on providing superlative customer service. The rep came through, providing the names of 5 pizza joints in the vicinity of the hotel.

Zappos sells apparel (primarily shoes) but Hsieh said that delivering exceptionally great customer service is key to their branding strategy – and their success. He said it may be more expensive to do that – Zappos provides free shipping and staffs its call center so that the average hold time is only 15 seconds – but its viewed as an investment, not an expense.

Hsieh says that important because when it comes to e-commerce, customer loyalty, repeat business and word-of-mouth referrals are very important to developing a successful business.

Here’s Hsieh’s Top Ten Lessons Learned in e-commerce:

1. e-commerce is built on repeat customers
2. word-of-mouth really works online
3. don’t compete on price
4. make sure Web site inventory is 10% accurate
5. centrally locate your distribution
6. customer service is an investment, not an expense
7. start small, stay focused
8. don’t be secretive; don’t worry about competitors
9. actively manage your company culture
10. be wary of so-called “experts”

Here’s a link to Hsieh’s presentation.

Here I am at SXSW Interactive, in Austin, Texas. If they nuked this town right now, they’d eliminate the talent behind the world’s most popular and innovative sites and set back Web development ten years – as well as perhaps 80% of the world’s MacBook Pro users.

I’m glad to be here for the second year in a row. I’m not so glad my bags are not…

Gettin’ on a Big Ol’ Jet Airliner later today to head to the biggest, baddest scrum of Web-slinging early-adopters the world has ever seen.

Yep, SXSW Interactive ’08.

Two years ago, there was blogging. Last year, online video. This year it’s… (you guessed it)… All Things Social.

I’ll be reporting live.

How appropriate is that for someone from Maine?

You’re not going to believe this, but Sunday morning, while still @ t/Holiday Inn, I….

…jogged.

Down the lakeside footpath.

Business cards in my collection:

• Gawker Media
• Happy Cog
• FeedBurner
• NBC News
• Now (PBS)
• Harvard University (Div. of Continuing Education)
• Apple

One panel I attended earlier today was moderated by Tom Markiewicz, CEO of EvolvePoint and an adjunct professor @ Virginia Tech. After the session, I asked him if he remembered the Blacksburg Electronic Village, developed at Tech as one of the very first online communities ever developed in the early ’90′s (and which I had a very, very small role in promoting through University Relations). He said he knew Andy Coelho, who runs the BEV, pretty well, and he also says the high-tech business park on campus has more than 100 companies all doing their thing.

This evening a couple hundred people headed out to to the local lanes for a little bowling and real-life social networking. Apparently one of the panelists organized the event last year and it was a sensation, so SXSW vets were looking forward to it.

Alas! I started out slow and though I ended up w/2 strikes and a couple of spares, it was too little, too late and our pickup team didn’t make it past the first round of the tournament. No prob., the networking was much better.

The folks back home will appreciate this next tidbit: I noticed that one of the guys bowling against us was named “Rob Goodlatte” (on nametag). I asked him if he was “from Roanoke, VA?”. Yes. Was he “Bob Goodlatte’s son?” (Goodlatte the former congressman from Roanoke). Yes.

Turns out junior is a student @ Duke University and he does some pretty good front end Web design. No Clients is Roanoke, yet.

I met Dan Cederholm [SimpleBits] at the Frog Design opening party.

Had a great first day at “South By”, as it’s called. Had to start the day by moving to a different hotel (“No room @ t/Inn”). Hotels are jam-packed. A cabby told me that every year it seems that SXSW, the State Rodeo and the state high school basketball tournament (taking place @ UT) all happen at the same time, resulting in a tidal wave of tourism. Too bad I had to leave the HI, it was right on Town Lake and that greenway; now I’m about ten blocks away at the Doubletree Club.

Met some guys from a Web shop in Phoenix in the lobby and we chatted on the walk into town. Nice group – everyone seems to have a good attitude. It’s great to be able to converse about

“Web-standards-based design, javascript libraries, Cake PHP, CMS templates, blah, blah, blah…”

w/folks who understand and who are also trying to build great sites.Met up w/another gang of New Englanders once @ t/Convention Center: the guys from Union Street Media of Burlington, Vermont.

Bill Simmon of Vermont Community Access Media brought me up to speed on digital video production – equipment, post-production, the whole nine-yards. Thanks, Bill!

We had lunch at the Iron Works BBQ [Google dart] which is highly recommended by cabbies (and others) all over Austin. They are right to do so.
Also met up w/a blogger from Beantown, Christine Liu, among others. We hopped from party to party – big design firms like Avenue A | Razorfish and Frog Design (are they big?) hosted a bunch of ‘em and alcohol flowed freely (literally – it was free).

Tonight I met a great bunch of people from New Hampshire who are attending the Interactive portion of SXSW, some for the second time. The rendezvous was at Threadgill’s [web | Google dart]. We connected after I placed a posting on the SXSW Community Blog a couple weeks ago. I’m glad I was able to connect w/Kelly, Ian, Shimon, Dave, Dave, Marc & Zachary. In a first, I was the only one who didn’t have business cards on hand (yes, I do have them on the trip – they were back at the hotel).
I’m one of only seven people from Maine attending the conference. There are a couple of people I’ve never heard of attending Interactive; maybe I’ll be able to track them down. One person I do know (not personally) who’s here is Bob Ludwig – the producer who runs Gateway Mastering Studios in Portland – it’s a very safe bet that he’s here for the music festival, not Interactive.

I have the cellphone #s of some folks from Boston and Vermont and I’m hoping to meet up w/some tomorrow. Networking w/other online creatives from New England is one of my main objectives for this event.

• yrItinerary – rollover items for description, check box to throw a Google dart on the map
• Adactio Austin – handy list of parties – again, click party to throw dart on the map of this mashup, by panelist Jeremy Keith of Clearleft
• SXSW Baby! – the unofficial blog for the event, to keep folks up to date
• Upcoming.org – search on the tag “sxswi” for unadvertised happenings posted by other attendees

I got to the Convention Center after my late lunch to pick up my conference credentials. What a cattle call! The lines did move pretty well considering the number of people they had to usher through. Other sights of note included the largest pile of Legos I’ve ever seen (there were a number of adult humans playing with them).

Note to Jen: I saw someone who has hair that’s a much brighter purple than yours.

I met Steve Briggs, a former resident of Portland, for lunch today. Steve is someone whom I’ve known of for some time but never met until now.

It’s pretty amazing how we came to meet up. Steve is not attending SXSW, but about a week ago I ended up on his Web site (He owns a Web design business called WowPages) after contacting him on behalf of a mutual Client. I happened to notice he listed an Austin office on his Web site.

Steve used to base WowPages out of Portland and still maintains a presence there, but in late 2005 he and his wife moved to the Lake Travis area just outside of town.

We met at the Driskill, a classy old hotel in the thick of things, for a drink, then walked down Congress Street (that’s right, Austin has a Congress Street just like Portland, and it is the main drag) to a great Mexican place called (La M???). You just can’t get Mexican food like this in Maine!

The Driskill

While strolling around town I went by – and then through – the State Capitol.   Beautiful buildling; they keep it well polished too.  I was passing though at precisely noon, and there was a choir of elementary school children in the Rotunda who sang songs as part of some event.

Also in the Rotunda, a study in contrasts.  On the wall hang portraits of every governor the state has ever had, including Anne Richards, the first female governor, and next to her – Dubya.