Leah Chaney, OtherInbox.com – Door64 Tech Fair
Leah Chaney of OtherInbox.com shares an overview of the Other Inbox service. Basically it helps you manage both the email you want and the email you don’t want. I’ve been using it for a while and it’s really a time and inbox clutter saver, it helps keep me focused on what’s important. OIB founder Joshua Baer is a really smart entrepreneur that has a great track record of success, I’m sure this will be a great addition to it.
Brian Massey, MarketForMeBook.com – Door64 Tech Fair
Brian Massey has a great presentation and book about marketing yourself for a new job or business development in general through a cultivated “lifetime career” network. Check out MarketForMeBook.com for the overview and a free book deal in partnership with CardboardResume.com. They offer a CRM-type site for job searchers.
Brian also shares insights at The Conversion Scientist, very good info.
Jonas Lamis, TechRanchAustin.com – Door64 Tech Fair
Here’s Jonas Lamis of TechRanch Austin talking about their services for pre-seed and seed stage companies that can change the world. Jonas and Kevin Koym also presented an overview of their “Employee to Entrepreneur Program” at TechRanch. Really smart guys doing some great stuff for Austin startups!
Ash Maurya, GetCloudFire.com – Door64 Tech Fair
Ash Maurya of GetCloudFire.com shares an overview of his interesting photo and video sharing service. Basically it saves you from having to actively upload your photos and videos to online sharing sites. I may have to test this out!
Prahsant Kadam, MopacStudios.com – Door64 Tech Fair
Prashant Kadam of Mopac Studios a design firm gave me a quick overview of his company. They do branding design, 3D, Flash, ecommerce and marketing presentations.
Non-profit Usability and Trust Online
Philanthropy.com the “Newspaper of the Non-Profit World” has an article today on how confusing websites discourage donors from giving online. They point to both communication/marketing issues as well as usability issues with many non-profit sites. Many sites that were tested didn’t even clearly state their mission and where donations would go.
Jakob Nielson of the Nielsen Norman Group released highlights of a study of 23 non-profit websites that the article was based on. The report is $98 on NN/groups’ site, but here are some highlights.
Test subjects were observed performing two tasks: Choosing a recipient and making a donation. By far, the thing the users sought first was an understanding of the organizations’ goals and objectives. Only 43% of the websites studied put their mission on their homepage and only 4% stated on the homepage where the donor’s money would be applied. This information was often provided inside the website, but users had trouble finding it and this affected their donation decisions.
Nielsen Norman group estimates that donations could be DOUBLE current donations in many cases if best practices in usability, communication and trust were used. Shockingly, they say 17% of testers couldn’t even find WHERE to make a donation. Wow.
Unfortunately, many commercial sites have similar issues. I posted in January 2007 
“10 Steps: Making it easy for your customers to trust you” based on some research Stanford University did. It’s probably my most-referenced post of all time, as I still forward it to companies that I work with. Keeping these 10 steps in mind and constantly evaluating your website, Twitter, Facebook and other social media properties against them are crucial to effective communications.
Related to this, NN/group also has an “Alertbox” summary and research report on “About Sections of Websites”. These are HIGHLY recommended reading, as the About section of any site, from services, e-commerce, government or non-profit sites all need to explain who they are to visitors. For anyone considering a relationship with an organization, knowing who a company IS, is a first step towards trust and a relationship.
Is your company’s mission, goals and About section clearly enunciated to visitors that don’t yet know you? How does your site stack up on trust metrics? Could your grandmother understand your mission and use your site?
Social Media understanding in 3 minutes, 44 seconds
I’m a new fan of Common Craft, a small consultancy that says “Our Product is Explanation.” Nice stuff.
Here is a good video, “Social Media in Plain English”.
My short version is “making it easy for your customers to talk about your business.” How have you explained Social Media to co-workers and friends?
