A few weeks ago I posted a question on LinkedIn to see how creative people were using Twitter.

Do You Have Any Unusual Ways to Use Twitter?

I have been tweeting excerpts from my book for the last two weeks and am only through Chapter 3 so far. Many people seem to be retweeting my quotes, and some of these people now follow me, so I am pleased.

How do you use this micro blog? Any great stories of Twitter use will be used in my blog on design and marketing, so please let me know if I can use your story and give me a link to your Twitter account and / or blog if applicable, so I can link to you from my blog.

Here are some of the best answers. I am reproducing the responses of only those people who gave me a Twitter address, and those who gave helpful, unusual answers, or useful links. There is no order in the following; nor have I rated the answers. Enjoy and tweet on!

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* note by author:

Since posting this article, I have received additional input, and have opened up the comment section below to allow other people to post their creative uses of Twitter. A new article will be generated from these posts. I expect a lot of hits again, so please include your Twitter handle and one other link in your comment. Too many links get put in spam.

Many people view this article, so your links will be followed! Please submit any creative use of Twitter that you have or know of, include your Twitter account: I will follow the best, most creative Tweeters.

Follow me at: http://www.twitter.com/parallelmind
On LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/aliyahmarr

I also have a newsletter on creativity and self-development at: http://parallelmind.wordpress.com

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Original responses:

I find Twitter to be compelling for many reasons. To answer your question about unusual ways to use Twitter…well, everything about Twitter is unusual. It is a new communication channel, that has more potential impact than email. From my tweets, I am picking up people with special interests that I don’t even know. Now that’s amazing…connecting, marketing and influencing a rapidly growing group of people of common interest to ‘me’, that are ‘following’ my assorted rantings, thoughts, promotions, recommendations and useful information.

One thought, as a reader of web content, make it easy to link to your Twitter account from ANYWHERE you have content. Please respond in the moment. Make it easy for them to retweet, follow you, check out your bio, website and other things that you care about. Make all of this personal.

I am using Twitter to help others get to know the REAL me. It is actually scary to be transparent to everyone that chooses to follow. Ok, so being real to strangers isn’t so bad, even if it is uncomfortable some times to be vulnerable to others. See, look how I’m bearing myself to you. It’s getting easier and people discern ‘real’. Perhaps what Twitter is doing for us is creating personal brand and trust, building corporate brand by building communities of interest.

http://twitter.com/TedTreanor

Ted Treanor

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I have just started using Twitter in the past week as I beging the networking process. The people I have met have been extremely helpful in getting started. I have found that actually putting a question out is successful in not only addressing your needs, but in meeting new people and increasing your opportunity for people to see your work.

http://twitter.com/EvelynMcCPeters

Evelyn McCorristin Peters

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I use twitter to advertise my latest blog posts, note presentations I give across the US, find useful tools and trends that I see. It is great for marketing and getting the word out there as well as finding people tweeting about the same things to see what they have to say about common interests. I use shortened URLs to send links of interesting websites.

http://www.twitter.com/hgg101

Henrik De Gyor

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I have just posted a blog on this subject:

http://peterworsley.blogspot.com/

Peter Worsley

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I have an account on twitter: myhairtalking – I have 100 followers within a few weeks. It is from my hair’s point of view. I write jokes, hair advice, I’m hoping to get a book. I also have myhairtalking.tumblr.com

I’d love people to come see me there. You can say and show a lot more on tumblr, but I’m just getting started.

http://www.twitter.com/myhairtalking

Lori Peters

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I frequently write about Twitter at my Examiner.com

http://budurl.com/twitterbandwagon
http://budurl.com/twitterforcrisis

http://twitter.com/ZimblerMiller

Phyllis Zimbler Miller

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I just followed you, Aliyah.
I tweet news on children’s books, mainly reviews.
You should check out the Twitter Mania Manual:

http://www.bookmarket.com/50WaystoTweet.htm

Download the Word document and just read it through.

If you ask “How do you use Twitter?” it’s like asking “How do you talk to other people?” The answer is: There are so many different ways but it all boils down to: be helpful, engage, be informative, and you may even be funny.

I particularly like quotes http://bit.ly/myquotes

http://twitter.com/calutateo

Carsten Peters

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I avoided the use of Twitter for a long time as just another social media time waster – until I began getting emails in regards to a friend/design industry peer tweeting about the fact I wasn’t using Twitter. For a little over a year now, I have used Twitter to promote my books, speaking engagements, competition judging, published articles, and drive people to my blogs where they can learn much more about my design work. Twitter has also been used to inform others in my industry about related news-worthy topics, educational/conference opportunities, book submission and design competitions, and much more. I’ve also found Twitter to be incredibly valuable in promoting the creative efforts, books, and causes of friends/peers in design-related professions.

http://jfisherlogomotives.com

http://twitter.com/LogoMotives

Jeff Fisher | Engineer of Creative Identity | Jeff Fisher LogoMotives

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I have been only using tweeter since August. I post mainly links i find interesting on social media, design, jobs, fashion, and everything else that catches my attention. I am using it because I wanted to give it a second try; i had created an account on the past but found it to time consuming. Today I have a different opinion.

This second time I started to follow much more people than i actually do now, but soon realized that it was just to much info at the same time for me to read and manage.

Meanwhile i am trying tweetdeck which i found that helps a lot managing your tweets, but again still pretty new…

Took a look on your tweets and i am following you know…here is mine, perhaps you are curious about it.

http://twitter.com/sofia_henriques

Sofia Henriques

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Even if it’s OT: Don’t tweet auto updates from Massive Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG). I’ve tried it yesterday and lost 3% followers within a day. The next step is a security debate about third party authentication. Don’t do it!

http://www.twitter.com/birgerking

Birger Hartung

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I use twitter to keep friends/followers updated on my life, my creativity, my work, designs, inspiration, dreams, poetry, & articles i find interesting…. I use it so people can get a sense of personality as well Thank you for your tweets… I’ve just added you…please add me:

http://twitter.com/TheDesignGenie

Carla Horn

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Create a customer-attracting twitter contest

Links:
http://howwepartner.com/2009/07/get-more-customers-walking-in-your-door-with-a-twitter-contest/

Kare Anderson

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One thing I think a lot of people miss with Twitter is conversation! Most people are savvy to self-promotion, and if all you post are info about yourself and your work, you’ll find limited, if any, success on Twitter (or MySpace or Facebook).

While I do post about my Christmas station and my record label, I also talk to people who I’m following (and who are following me). The instant interaction is what really makes Twitter tick.

Anyway, there’s my two cents.
http://twitter.com/SOCMusic

Ken Kessler

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Hi Aliyah,
Twitter became my personal online daily pinboard full of interesting messages and activities of my own community (my followers). Before Twitter I checked so many blogs and sites to check out the newest stuff and innovation gadgets, interesting articles what so ever. Besides checking the messages of my personal pinboard, I use my online personal pinboard (twitter.com/mdenekamp) to post my own messages. My tweets gives me retweets and followers so my personal network is growing and also my personal online pinboard.

www.twitter.com/mdenekamp

Marjolein Denekamp

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I don’t know that I’m doing anything particularly unusual with Twitter, though I do fall into Erica’s camp. Twitter isn’t a publishing tool, but instead a venue for two-way communication.

My main Twitter strategy is to serve as a resource on topics in my field of interest. (Web, design, marketing, social media, higher ed, science.) I do this by sharing links to interesting blog posts, answering questions, asking questions, jumping into conversations, reTweeting relevant posts and participating in Twitter real-time chats. The important thing about this strategy is that the information isn’t all my own. While I will Tweet various thoughts, opinions and links to my own blog posts, most content comes from elsewhere. Thus I function more as an editor than a writer.

This makes me a more valuable resource than if I was only sharing my own content, and thus Tweeps with an interest in my topics will follow me. To show my human side I also post random bits of fluff such as amusing videos, what I’m doing this weekend, etc.

As I mentioned above, Twitter Chats are extremely useful. I’ve found they are a great way to share ideas on topics such as blogging and social media. I participate semi-regularly in about 3 of them. I also have a blog post that explains more about these.

Happy Tweeting!

Links:
http://www.heidicool.com/blog/2009/07/27/twitter-chats/
http://www.heidicool.com/blog/2009/04/29/twitterfollowing/

http://www.twitter.com/hacool

Heidi Cool

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Hi Aliyah,

I have a number of Twitter accounts and I use each for different purposes. My main account is VizCab, where I post about design. I’ll often use Twitter in conjunction with my Posterous blog. For example, I ran posts on Twitter and LinkedIn asking for input on my business card design which I uploaded on Posterous.

I was able to get around 1,000+ views and dozens of comments that were sprinkled between Posterous and LinkedIn. Using crowd-sourcing, I was able to see where parts of my initial design were confusing to people. I got a lot of good feedback (and some bad). I also got a lead on a better vendor to print my cards.

The Twitter community gives me a lot of fodder for my blog on information design at michaelrowley.posterous.com

I’m happy to share this story with you.

http://twitter.com/VizCab

Michael Rowley

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Among the creative ways I’ve used Twitter:

* Follow people who provide links to subjects I’m researching
* Use my contacts to gain blurbs for my new book, speaking gigs, and client leads
* Use an ongoing search to add comments that sell my book and broaden my audience
* Be interviewed by a journalist in open Q&A, though I found this a rather frustrating format

http://georgekao.com/922s

Shel Horowitz
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Check out my free blog/newsletter on creative and personal development:

http://parallelmind.wordpress.com

I have been sharing my book, Parallel Mind, The Art of Creativity, through Twitter, by Tweeting excerpts in the form of quotes. I post quotes whenever I am online. The first 45 pages of my book gave me over 50 phrases that could be used as quotes. My Twitter account name is the same as my book:

http://www.twitter.com/parallelmind

Periodically, I “reprint” these quotes on my book’s blog. You can read some of them here:

http://parallelmind.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/seven-quotes-from-parallel-mind/

http://parallelmind.wordpress.com/2009/09/03/140-characters-or-less-tweet-quotes-from-parallel-mind/

Of course, this is one way that I have found to promote my book. I follow others who use hashtags such as #quotes, #inspiration, #creativity, #art, and #artists, and many of them now follow me, hopefully for the quotes. I wonder what other unusual ways people are using Twitter?

I have always disliked the titles of the Dummy series, even as I know it draws attention (and makes sales). I am not a dummy, but I will pick up a book with that title, just because I know it always covers the subject at a 101 level.

So I thought a good title for this post would be “Marketing for Dummies,” because it is for those who either are lost in the forest of dry statistics, or for those who understand that marketing is creative, and haven’t seen much creative marketing for quite a while.

Here is my “Dummies” list of marketing commandments:

1. Know thy brand / product.
What are the features and benefits?

2. Know thy customer.
Paint a portrait of your customer from memory.

3. Great design is shown in how your customer relates to you.
Target your design to your customer.

4. Use great copy and content.
Ditto above law for content and copy.

5. Tweet that headline. Less is more.
Communicate in as few words as possible.

6. Allow drill-down.
Great site architecture or content management allows additional information to be stored where the user can find it, but not where he can trip over the non-essential data.

7. Remove obstacles to the sale.
Too much information, cloudy content, unfocused site architecture.

8. Exile the statisticians from the drafting room.
Statistics aren’t creating any brands or selling any products. Their job is to track results and keep the creative people on track.

9. Empower, don’t frustrate. Remember Aliyah’s 3/2 rule.
Three seconds is the attention-span of the average user. Pages should be designed with a maximum two-click link to the user’s desired (expected) outcome.

10. “The Buzz is the Brand.”™
Engage and involve your users, until they become loyal customers, and flock together in an organic community.

Common sense concepts for a complex field.

Is that an elephant I see in the living room?

Copyright 2009 Aliyah Marr

One of my first jobs was in the camera department of a large department store, which taught me a great deal about sales and marketing. My manager, who I will call “Abe,” showed me how to turn one-time customers into loyal clients. He never sold anything to a customer that he didn’t need. Abe followed every sale with free education about the equipment. He allowed returns. The most amazing thing about him is he did all this without thought of material reward.

Unlike many salesmen, he did not sell a higher-priced camera to an individual for the sales commission. He tried to ascertain the needs of the customer, and fit those needs with a camera that would not only meet those needs, but allow the individual to grow and learn about photography.

This man had a passion for the art of photography, a knowledge of technique and equipment, and a true concern for the individuals who came to him. I don’t remember his name, but I will never forget the lessons I learned from him. I have found these principles of honest, ethical salesmanship to be the foundation of a good marketing strategy, and a general life philosophy.

What is the difference between a customer and a client? A customer is someone who walks into your store and buys something from an indifferent clerk. He could buy the item from anywhere, and next time probably will, because his experience was indifferent. He is buying convenience, and nothing more. If another store is more convenient, he will buy there.

A client is the potential customer who wanders into a store and has a positive experience — he gets a great product that he loves, and feels a rapport with the salesperson. He comes back for help, and eventually buys more product or services. This customer is now a client.

What is at the base of the customer v.s. client difference? Relationship. People have a need for community. The very thing that our consumer-based culture denies us, is what we crave the most. A community begins with a simple friendship between two unrelated people. Micro relationships are at the very basis of society, and are why anything works at all.

Looking at a microcosm inside a petri dish of molecules or even quantum particles, we can see clearly how like likes to group with like. On a bigger scale, we can see how like birds flock together, how people gather wherever they can: coffee shops are about so much more than coffee.

We cannot quanitfy these tiny little relationships. They won’t show in any marketing analysis. Social networking is successful today because of the way that people naturally group themselves. Yes, we can try to monetize these tendencies, but wouldn’t it be better to reward the Honest Abe who is making those relationships that change peoples’ lives?

You can’t force relationships or communities. People will go where they will, forming new pathways connecting Point A to Point B. We can, however, change our focus, from a sterile consumer-based society into a rich culture of relationship and community. We do this by rewarding those hardworking relationship-builders on the front lines;  let their philosophy and ethics run the company instead of letting the company run them.

We can do this by making the company “culture” one that encourages long-term relationships between employees and clientele. We can do this by creating a favorable environment for the growth of community and relationships. I leave the details to your imagination and creativity.

Copyright 2009 Aliyah Marr

As a designer, marketer and all-around thinker, I must say that I love Seth Godin. But it is not his trim physique that attracts my attention, it is his head. Particularly the top of his head.

There it is in every photograph, in every video, like a shining beacon of intelligence and humor. I wonder if he has ever had hair, or perhaps he has a full, luxuriant growth that he has to secretly mow everyday or it would destroy his image.

Seth Godin has made a brand out of baldness.

For this image to work as an icon he has to be totally, unabashedly, and completely bald. Not a glimmer or hint of living follicles can grace the top of his cranium, or he would lose his brand. He has to be proud of being bald, no hiding it by combing long hair over this pate. No, he has to put it out in full view as the remarkably immaculate image he so carefully maintains.

His head resembles a light-bulb.

I am sure he knew — being an idea-man — that the best way to show that he is a genius was to have his head look like that icon of idea-generation: a light-bulb. When a man is truly bald, he cannot help being noticed. Why not use baldness as a way to take over the (marketing) world?

The whole thing is probably a plot by Seth to gain ascendancy as the marketing genius of the modern age. He might have used Yul Brenner as a model for his nefarious marketing plan. Good ol’ Yul wasn’t “remarkable” until he shaved his head. Shaving his head made Yul an icon in the movie world, and it made him somehow irresistible to female fans, but it didn’t convey the idea that he was the Mensa of Marketing.

How did Seth ever hit on the brilliant idea of turning what most men might think of as a liability into a memorable brand? I like to imagine a thought bubble emanating from his celebrated cerebellum:

“Now, what can I do to make my image remarkable?” “How can I convey that I am a marketing genius just by using my head?”

The solution is now history.

Copyright 2009 Aliyah Marr

Business and money do not create anything. Inventors develop new products, and creative marketers communicate the value of those products to customers. In the end, the only thing that distinguishes one widget from another is the creative branding or a creative difference in the product itself. The only thing that the business people can do is change the price or show consumer statistics. But statistic and metric watchers are not creating new products or marketing them

We need to wake up; we are losing our creative class, the ones who made this country great. (Read David Heenan’s book about the flight of the creative class from America, “Flight Capital.”) Creative people engineer new ideas and paradigms; when business people step in and take over, they often devalue the original creators and reduce the brilliant concept to “business as usual.” As a result, we are losing our creative edge as our most creative people lose their jobs and our entrepreneurs and consultants are unable to support their creative ventures.

If you look at marketing job descriptions these days, they look like they were written by an accountant or CFO, and probably were, because these are the people who hold the money and only value statistics. However, statistics are not creative; companies such as Facebook and Linked In have been successful largely because of innovative ideas and creative marketing. Statistical marketing can only track statistics, not create new ideas and new paradigms.

When I read the job descriptions for “marketing professionals” I know why the economy is in such trouble: we have allowed the most conservative, least imaginative people to lead us. I suppose it is only natural: after all, we witnessed incredible idiocy on the other side of the spectrum during the dot-com bubble where kids straight out of college were given unbelievable amounts of free venture capital. These kids’ arrogance and lack of business sense caused the dot-com collapse and the flight of investment capital from innovative businesses.

So the pendulum has shifted: no one trusts creative people, everyone is afraid for their jobs, no one can speak up for innovation without a stack of dry statistics under their butt.

However, statistics and metrics are not going to save us from our fear or keep our underachieving businesses from failing. Why does it surprise anyone that American car manufacturers are in trouble today? It has absolutely nothing to do with the business and everything to do with creativity. They stopped innovating years ago!

Think back: when was it that an American car brand was a better product than a Toyota or a Honda? I can’t remember. I do know that I buy only foreign cars, not American cars. I can’t afford to buy an inferior product.

I saw a commercial on TV that lauded an American car manufacturer who is making a hybrid SUV that gets — get this — an amazing 20-mpg! A beat-up 1987 Honda Prelude with 300,000 miles on it gets 34 mpg today. The old forest of American car manufacturers do not need a bailout, they need a complete overhaul in their business divisions — replace some of those statisticians with creative marketers and innovators.

Statistics do not create, metrics do not brand. Marketing analysts do not know how to communicate the value of your product to a consumer. Take a step in the right direction: hire a creative person today, and listen to what (s)he says.

In the old days, a king would place himself on a human-sized scale: the tax due was the balance of his weight in gold bunion on the other tray of the scale. Now truly is the time to put creative people on that scale; pay them well, for they are worth their weight in gold.

Copyright 2009 Aliyah Marr, Author of Parallel Mind, The Art of Creativity

Honesty in advertising has become more imperative than ever before. The advent of viral marketing has increased the power of the consumer, and your word better equal his experience.

This is nowhere more apparent than on the web. Marketers still try to fool search engine spiders by writing blogs and pages to achieve top search engine rank. However, the words used must equal the true content of the page, or you will be tagged by the search engines as a “spamindexer.”

Marketers sometimes forget that the final client is not the spider or even the human-powered search engine, but the consumer. Your content has to be not only good, it has to be relevant to the viewer. If the viewer searched for “virus protection software” and gets a page of baited links instead of what he expected, you can bet he will not only go elsewhere, but the spider will soon debar your content from its index as well.

You can’t fool Mother Nature or the omniscient web spider for long. Be honest, present your product or service in the clearest way possible, and make it easy for all of us to “vote” for you with our attention and wallets.

For more information on how to write effective promotional copy, go to my other blog and read the following article:

http://selfpromotion.wordpress.com/2008/04/24/write-promotional-copy-for-seo-robots-and-for-people/

Also, see my website FreshAsylum.

– Copyright 2008 Aliyah Marr

I couldn’t resist the concept behind this company. It seems to be a true example of feel-good marketing as described in former articles in this blog. Read this article on TOMS Shoes in Foam Magazine:

http://www.foammagazine.com/featured/toms-means-one-for-me-one-for-you/#more-451

Blake Mycoskie blends philanthropy with a grassroots business model that is truly inspirational. I like to think that the reason why he sold an astounding 10,000 pairs of shoes in his first three months of operation is because people want to do good.

“While traveling in the South American country two years ago, Mycoskie noticed a couple of things. First, the easy, basic style of footwear local farmers wore. And second, that many of the children in the North had no shoes on and were suffering from foot infections as a result.” So he decided to start a company that would make shoes and donate a pair to these poor children for every pair sold… The company name TOMS stands for “Shoes for Tomorrow.”

Let’s see if TOMS Shoes adheres to the principles of Feel-Good Marketing as outlined in article two of this series:

1. make it easy for them to buy your product–remove the obstacles to sale
– the website makes it easy to buy online or from a store.

2. make your product stand out as the clear choice in a sea of choices
– it is clear what the product is; apparently the appeal is the humble origins of the design and the chance to do good by buying the shoe. On second look, the TOMS shoe design is not much different from the familiar Chinese cloth shoes — canvas uppers and plastic soles. There is a leather insole, which adds to their perceived value while contributing to their comfort.

3. make them confident of your company (“image” branding)
– the brand seems to be based mostly upon the “do good” image.

4. let them see your product in terms of its value to them
– again, mostly the idea of doing good. I like the shoes, but the t-shirts and hats simply sport a simple, and rather dull logo, not the height of fashion.

5. understand the motivations of your customer
– it is easy to see that the founder underestimated his customer’s desire to do good; he wanted to sell 250 pairs of shoes and ended up selling 10,000.

6. make them feel good about their choice post sale
– I don’t know from my perusal of the website and the article in Foam Magazine if the customer feels good about the shoes post sale. Perhaps some testimonials are in order?

7. offer them a chance to do good with their purchase
– this brand certainly does that! My only concern is the environmental impact of the materials from which the shoes are made: canvas and EVA. According to Nicholas Narsavidze, owner of Legend Clothes, cotton is an enviromentally damaging crop, and my research on EVA doesn’t reassure me. Perhaps it is recycled EVA? I can’t help but wonder what happens to the shoes when they are thrown away.

I wonder if it would be a good opportunity for Legend Clothes (see my article on Legend Clothes in my other blog: Alternative Everything) to partner with TOMS to help with the ecological concerns of the product.

Suggested improvements:

1. Include a way for the user to get involved using Web 2.0 tactics and community building (see my articles on Community Building in this blog) Some ideas:

– allow users to design their own shoes and give them to friends. The best designs could then be licensed by the company for sale online and in stores.

– allow people who buy shoes to automatically become community members with various benefits.

– the community members can contribute ideas to help the philanthropic arm of the company. Credit the members with the ideas; give a reward of shoes or merit badge to the winning members with the best ideas.

– for more ideas of how an online community can be built and used for viral marketing, see my articles on Community Building on this blog.

2. Find a way to get better, more fashionable design into the product line.

– I am not seeing anything that makes me want to go out and buy the shoes, based upon their curb appeal. Why can’t these shoes be more fun and trendy? Polkadots and stripes? Come on! There is so much more that could be done with the design of this shoe. Pay good designers to come up with something that will sell these shoes on their own merit. Or, if you want to market to the younger crowd, give new designers a chance to have their work showcased. As defined in my article on Community Building, credit the designers at least. Better yet: credit them and pay them. I don’t see this on their website.

3. Explore materials that are eco-friendly; both in the manufacturing process and in the trash dump, where, let’s face it, all shoes eventually do their walking.

Entrepreneur Blake Mycoskie proves that you still can start a company in the USA from your apartment, and do good for impoverished people. All, in all, a very inspirational story about how someone started with an idea to do good and is making a profit as well.

– Copyright 2008 Aliyah Marr

(this article may be reproduced as long as credit to the author(s) is maintained and links to the original content is provided)

Your copy can make or break your website; the content on your site should support your product, company or service. When it doesn’t, sites don’t work. Common content errors include:

Endless Sand and not a Drop to Drink.
Lost in an unending desert of words and the endless scrolling page, your readers expire from exhaustion before they can reach the oasis of truth.

The Three Second Countdown Extended to a Twenty Second Download.
On the web we have three seconds to grab someone, but your page takes a full twenty seconds to download.

Your Readers Feel Like They Are on a Bad Date.
The user can’t figure out why they should stay on your site. It’s so boring that they can’t wait to leave.

…Or on a Blind Date.
The keywords on your page do not reflect your content. The search engine sent them here, but they don’t know why they are here. There is no “duh” page that lets them know that they are where they want to be: with YOU.

No, Toto — We’re Not in Kansas Anymore.
The search engine landed the user in your website, otherwise known as Terra Incognita. Nothing resembles anything on THEIR map of familiar landmarks, and desired vistas. They are disoriented and decide to leave quickly before the flying monkeys arrive.

“Lost In a Dark Forest Wandering.”
Meandering, pointless phrases or countless buttons confuse your reader with too many choices. They are lost in a forest of choices.

You Have Too Many Keys to the Same Door.
On the other hand, the writer who tries to fit in as many keywords as possible makes a meaningless mash for the human viewer.

Confronted with A Maze of Information, the Player Gets Discouraged and Leaves the Game.
A reader gets tired easily from information that is not presented logically and from the user’s point of view.

Other articles on promotion:
http://selfpromotion.wordpress.com

—- Copyright 2008 Aliyah Marr

THE FUTURE
The Emergence of Interactive Media and the Democratization of Communication
As a culture we are evolving from left brain bias to a more balanced mode. We are increasingly becoming more right brain — we are becoming a picture-based society, and learning / communicating / interacting is becoming experiential and iconographic. This revolution in thinking and visualization is being led by graphic designers, information designers and advertisers.

Much of today’s population in the U.S. has grown up in a game-playing environment. Increasing sophistication is changing the expectations of the user. As we train the user to use the games/interfaces we create, we are changing our own culture in every area of life. From cell phones to GPS systems in cars, the expectations of the user are ported from other, more established media (TV and games) to these new interfaces. This makes our job of training the user a bit easier, but it is a kind of house of cards for anyone who has skipped some of the “training” — for example, an elderly person who has never played an online game may not know how to program a cell phone or use the GPS system in their car.

INTERACTIVE COMMUNICATION
Interactive, non-linear media is the tool that reflects and molds this developing culture. Interactive media is democratic: power is being given back to the individual. This is influencing us on every level as a culture, and it is going so fast that most people don’t see it. I do see it, and I like to be aware of it as I work as an artist, as a designer, and as a teacher.

Corporations and advertising firms are losing revenue because many of them are behind the times on this issue; they continue to try to use outmoded forms of advertising and communication. Since the user is no longer a sitting duck for the bullet of the advertiser, the advertiser has to change his methods. The user can choose his experience and is sophisticated in the use of his new-found freedom. So the advertiser has to become increasingly more sophisticated in how to deliver his message, he has to clothe it in interesting content and deliver it in an engaging interface.

DEMOCRATIC MEDIA — Social Networking
When the average user has the ability to express his thoughts via a blog, put up a video of his daily activities, and make or break a brand via his search engine “vote”, the landscape of interactive media has changed. Personally, I find it very exciting.

It is up to us as interactive designers to create ever new ways of engaging, communicating with, and informing the user. What is different is that we have to listen to the user more than ever before.

MY VISION
I envision the following as the future for interactive design, some of this is already in process:
– interfaces that change “on the fly”, adapting to the user
– interfaces that educate the user seamlessly
– interfaces that enable the user to “design” his own interface
– interfaces that allow the inclusion of more networking abilities
– interfaces that connect more pieces of the user’s life with control from a central location
– interfaces that organically “grow” on their own, past the vision of their designers
– interfaces that are open source
– more shared content in an open source environment
– the formation of networks of special interest groups and the linking of these networks
– interfaces that expand and collapse, according to the needs of the user
– the increasing use of z-space in interface design, not necessarily expressed as traditional 3D
– the emergence of new kinds of collaborative experiences
– interfaces that address learning and engagement of both sides of the brain

– copyright 2007 Aliyah Marr