ISV Kaizen

Thank you Microsoft for the MSDN Subscription. Now we have a New Year & Christmas Tree in the office.

Does my application need a colorful bright interface with amazing icons, animated skins and cool sound effects?

First, think about how much time does an average user spend working with your application per session and what does he use it for. If user spends more than 20-30 minutes per session within your application (which is not a game of course) then he might get tired of all these bells and whistles very quickly. The best GUI is the one you don’t even think about. It must be invisible and just lets get on with your job.

Think why Adobe Photoshop is gray like a dirt. Because, it must not divert designer’s attention while he is working with own image documents. Gray is one of the most invisible colors.

For example, we used this principle in our TBS Cover Editor - 3d box shot maker application.

Our first intention was to make a smashing GUI with the coolest effects ever. However, we stopped on a plain almost monochrome interface in order not to bother users with our coolness but let them fully concentrate on their box shots and cover designs.

Think if your GUI is invisible.

This is a meaningless emotional post about a great achievement of our small development team - Indigo Byte Systems in partnership with True BoxShot Software.

Our application, TBS Cover Editor was selected by Embarcadero ( owner and producer of Delphi and C++ Builder) for their Delphi application showcase: http://embarcadero.com/application-showcase

Without any hesitation our team is very proud of this fact.

It proves that even an application made by a relatively small workshop of several developers can be a high quality product that meets the highest standards.

That’s very inspiring for our team and I hope for all ISV teams!

If you deal with software development technologies, services, or programming tools then you likely have some useful articles on your web site or blog that you want to share with other software developers. General purpose social sites like Digg.com, StubleUpon.com or Reddit.com are good but their audience isn’t well targeted and has pretty low conversion rate.

In addition to those common resources I’d recommend to submit your articles about software development to the specialized sites. Here is a list of my favorite resources mainly devoted to programming for Microsoft Windows platform:

• DotNetKiks.com
• DotNetBurner.com
• DotNetShoutOut.com
• DZone.com
• WebDevVote.com

Feel free to submit your interesting and quality content to those resources but double check if your content is not just pure hype or a sales copy. Your submission must be topic relevant and must have real value for readers. For example it may be a how-to article, troubleshooting, use case description, in-depth review, technology report, tutorial, manual, or another useful content.
If your follow this simple rule people will actively vote for your submissions and you may easily receive hundreds of targeted visits to your web site or blog.

If you know more similar social resources devoted to software development then feel free to mention them in the comments. I’ll appreciate your feedback.

We actively use AdWords for marketing of our software products. AdWords is not “setup and forget” tool. To improve and maintain its effectiveness I permanently track our campaigns and test different approaches, ad variations, targeting settings, bids and so on.

Also, I’m hunting for new and fresh ideas how to make the AdWords’ performance even better. Today, I’m happy to share an excellent article: 31 Killer Writing AdWords Ads Tips.

The article isn’t really new and fresh. It was published in October 2007. Nevertheless, I’m sure it’s actual and extremely useful for everyone who deals with AdWords. Check it out!

Recently, we’ve discovered that up to 40% of the Dr.Explain website’s organic (non-paid) traffic that comes from search engines do actually land on pages of our on-line manual. This proves that on-line documentation is not only a helpful tool for existing customers and users. It’s a good marketing and sales tool as well.

If you already have published your product documentation on your website then check if it’s properly optimized from search engines’ points of view. Don’t try to over-optimize your on-line manual. Just follow the simple rules to make your help pages to display higher on a search engine results page (SERP) for relevant search strings:

Use appropriate words and terminology in content.
This must be the same terminology that your target audience uses daily. They will likely use the same words and terms in search requests.

Use unique and keyword-based titles for your pages.
“Topic 2330: Transparency” is a too general title. “Transparency Settings - Cover Designer Advanced Customization” is a better title.

Use topical keywords in file names of your help pages.
Again, “topic2330.htm” is a bad name. “cover-designer-advanced-settings-transparency.htm” is a much better name.

Use header tags for titles.
Wrap your headings and subheadings in H1, H2, H3, and so on tags to make them more meaningful for search engine ranging algorithms.

Mark specific terms and phrases with bold.
Write specific terms and targeted keywords in bold (strong) font to highlight their importance and relevance.

Cross-link your help pages.
Insert links to certain help pages in content of other pages. Use keywords for link text. For instance, “To read more about boxshot rendering click here” is a wrong way. “Read more about boxshot rendering” is a SEO-friendlier approach.

Create or solicit external links to your help pages.
A big number of external links that point to your help pages means a bigger page rank and higher position on SERP. Put links to your on-line manual wherever it’s possible on your product and company websites, partner websites, support forum, and so on. If some topics of your documentation can be considered as a standalone articles with useful content (trouble shooting, glossary, reviews, problem overview, etc.) then try to gently solicit links from third-party websites: topical forums, article directories, industry blogs, and resource collections.

User manual is a huge bunch of words, highly targeted words, which are specific to your product’s market. People use these words in their queries when they are looking for specific solutions on Google, Yahoo, Bing, or other search engines. On-line manual will increase your web site rank in relevant search results and will bring highly targeted traffic to your web site. Let the manual work not only for your users, but for your business as well.

A really interesting marketing case was disclosed by Derek Sivers in his post “Emphasize meaning over price = More paid sales“.

In brief:

A band was doing the usual thing of selling CDs for $15. They’d mention it once or twice from the stage, and sell about $300 per night on average.

A consultant asked the band to try a different approach:

1. Say to the audience, “It’s really important to us that you have our CD. We worked so hard on it and are so proud of it, that we want you to have it, no matter what. Pay what you want, but even if you have no money, please take one tonight.”

2. Mention this again before the end of the show, adding, “Please, nobody leave here tonight without getting a copy of our CD. We’ve shared this great show together so it would mean a lot to us if you’d take one.”

It changes the request from a commercial pitch to an emotional connection. (Replace market mindset with social mindset!) Allowing them to get a CD for no money just reinforces that.

The band did this for a while, and soon they were selling about $1200 (+300% increase in sales) per night on average, even including those people who took it for free! The average selling price was about $10.

But the important part came next:

Because every person left each show with a CD, they were more likely to remember who they saw, tell friends about it, listen to it later, and become an even bigger fan afterwards.

Then, when the band came back to a town where they had insisted that everyone take a CD, attendance at those shows doubled! The people that took a CD became long-term fans and brought their friends to future shows.

Think if this approach is applicable in your ISV business.

Being a software vendor is a fantastic job. Meeting interesting people with out-of-the-box vision is one of the most attractive sides of my job.

Today, I’m happy to introduce you an interview with Balam J. Abello. Balam is a talented engineer, futurist, writer, and IT consultant with many years of extensive experience in such revolutionary corporations like IBM and American Express. Currently, Balam is researching a concept of Collective Intelligence in a modern society. I convince you to visit his site www.balam.org to read more about Balam’s works and ideas. Let’s speak about how the concept of Collective Intelligence may affect the information technologies.

Balam, could you please explain a key idea of Collective Intelligence concept in several words?
At the crux of CI is the idea that under certain circumstances a “diverse” and preferably large of group people are often more accurate than a single individual; even if this individual is an expert. This is particularly true in the case of complex systems.

In a nutshell, Collective Intelligence uses the aggregate opinions from groups of diverse and independent people to apply it to several types of problems, one of which is the decision making process.

Did this concept exist earlier or it’s a product of the modern technological society?
This concept has existed before. In fact, one could even say that it has been around since the beginning of cellular organisms which is about 3.5 billion years. As a scientific discipline CI became of age in the 20th century. But in the past couple of decades, CI has come into view. This means that a lot of the theoretical postulates have come true on the Internet.

What convinces people to participate in collaborative projects which are mostly non commercial? This is hardly an opportunity to get paid.
Perhaps idea that all human activities should seek financial rewards as its main raison d’être is a distortion from past human history. This perception has reached unprecedented proportions during the past 300 years and especially during that last 50 years with the advent in some cases, of unbridle depredatory capitalism.

Collaboration is at the heart of human behavior. Mathematics, language, music, farming and culture, to name a few, are huge collaborative efforts. Let’s not forget that the Internet is proof positive of daunting and massive collaborative efforts.

This question has been asked a lot in regards not just to CI but more importantly about the Open Source movement. People derive all kinds of altruistic and non-altruistic benefits from collaboration which are not necessarily monetarily driven. Although, this does not preclude that for many people their motives are driven by a monetary reward and this is fine too.
Lastly, I content that as people become more educated, e.g. acquire more knowledge, there will be a tendency to work for the common good which is counter to traditional predatory practices, which in many case have been responsible for the “tragedy of the commons.”
But let me make it clear that I don’t argue against making a profit. After all my IT consultancy practice has a lot to do with this. Additionally, major corporations throughout the world are looking into CI as a means to further their enterprises in an ever more complex world.

You believe in the society that relies on Collective Intelligent, not on leaders, elite or governors. What about moderators, administrators and super users who significantly affect the work of almost any existent collaborative project? Isn’t it the same untrue Democracy?
Let me say that I look forward to a society that relies more onto itself with a lot less blind obedience to a leadership hierarchy. But my position is not black and white which means that I don’t see an absolute necessity of leaderless groups. What I think could or might happen is that these power hierarchies are going to be flatten significantly, thus reducing, but not eliminating the need for “command-and-control.”

It is quite clear that there will continue to exist an ever increasing need for moderators which I prefer to call “mentors” as well as administrators and a great number of other functions too. My thesis is that these “leaders” people should not have extreme power to decide the group’s agenda. These people should act more as consultants to their organizations thus creating a little more separation between self-interests and desired outcomes. If we talk about teamwork we should try, in as much as possible to create an atmosphere where members all are encouraged to have a voice and prevent the group from falling prey to “groupthink.”

However, when it comes to democracy, it is quite apparent that throughout history the will of the people, which is usually less drastic or extreme than that of individuals, is hardly ever really taken into account. Many campaigning politicians pay only “lip-service” to the people during election cycles. As soon as the “leaders” are elected they go ahead and do precisely what they want and this is sometimes the opposite of what the people, who voted for them, wanted in the first place. And, this seems to be a universal phenomenon. So I don’t criticize any given country or institutions for this behavior. Instead I look at it from the “systemic” point of view and realize that if any changes are to take place then these should occur at the “systems” level. In this case, practical approaches toward CI implementations might really help.

Do you believe in Web 3.0? What could it be?

Yes I believe that WEB 3.0 will be a major contributor to change. In fact we are in the middle of implementing WEB 3.0 environments but this will:

• Take anywhere from 5 to 10 years to implement
• Will not be readily visible to the standard user
• Will generated huge benefits bringing a higher order of Artificial Intelligence to the masses.

You could think of WEB 3.0 as the plumbing necessary for the water (intelligent information and knowledge) to flow. In other words, getting most of the billions of web sites to start adding the necessary tags (taxonomies) necessary for computer-programs-and-sites to automatically talk to each other creating the possibility for personalized intelligent avatars or agents, will take some time.

What kind of software applications or IT systems are worth developing while awaiting for Collective Intelligence to get hold?
Now, this is a very difficult question to answer. But my suspicion is that there is a huge universe of possibilities. What is interesting is that as I answer these questions there are probably thousands upon thousands of people experimenting new ideas for such applications. This creative-ecosystem is thriving.

Nevertheless, one trend is for IT applications to be more and more custom oriented versus massively standardized applications. Niche markets seem to be one strong trend.

What will be the main trends in technological and informational progress for humanity?
Once again this is a very difficult question to answer. Personally, I feel that all possibilities are open for expression. I try to think not so much linearly e.g. cause-and-effect when it comes to future trends. This makes any kind of prediction so much more difficult and consequently prone to error.

I will say that I believe that from the information / knowledge point of view, we are creating a “global-super-brain” which is already having profound effects upon all peoples in the planet. Furthermore, I also believe that the future will be extremely transparent. Secrets will tend to disappear on the web. And we see this already happening.

For example, when it comes to political candidacies, with just a few mouse clicks we can find out just about anything about prospective candidates; including such things as their voting records and all kinds of personal information which would allow us, to make informed decisions.

A special final question for our audience: What advantages and techniques of Collective Intelligence concept can be adopted and applied by a one-man shop software vendor (microISV) or by a small software development team?

The increased power of technological tools allows small groups of individuals or even single individuals to achieve great projects. A case in point is the history of Linux. Let’s remember that a single individual created the kernel for Linux and the first thing that he did was to released to the general public for it to do as it pleased and as a byproduct for people to help him fix Linux’s bugs. This was the case of a single individual taking advantage of the “Collective Intelligence” of large numbers of people. The end result has been a whole new multibillion dollar industry.

Therefore, a microISV could organize his or her software project to leverage the power of the people, which in computer science could equate to massive parallelism. Additionally, the techniques of WEB 2.0 collaboration are very well defined and have proven to work successfully. These techniques are also available to the microISV, today.

Thank you, Balam!

I invite everyone to visit Balam’s site www.balam.org to learn how to collaborate for a better World.

A professional friend of mine, technical writer Keith Johnson, offered me an opportunity to write a guest post for his excellent Great Documents - technical writing blog. During several chat sessions with Keith we were discussing various questions of collaboration, social networking, information exchange and sharing. This discussion convinced me to summarize my thoughts about e-book writing in a single post. Recently, Keith has kindly published my post in his blog.

Check it out:

Going to Write Another E-book?

… almost everyone finally arrives to the idea of summarizing the whole knowledge on a certain topic in a single document or informational product …

Thanks for the opportunity to share my ideas in your great blog, Keith!

P.S.: Also, if you’re going to promote your e-book via a website or a blog then consider creating a 3D image to increase visit\buy|download conversion ratio.

Here are several sample 3D e-book cover images to illustrate what I mean.

People may worry about buying virtual things. A realistic looking virtual 3d cover of your e-book will make people to feel like they are buying a real thing, not a file.

Sue Pichotta has kindly published my guest post about my experience in making demo video for TBS Cover Editor.

Although I’ve already known that some steps in my process might be more optimal, I honestly described what I did. I hope that this article will be useful for many software vendors and internet marketers who sell products on-line. Check it out!

In the article I listed several ideas for using live demos to promote your software. Here they are:

• Put it on your website in front of your visitors
• Upload it to popular video portals like YouTube
• Include a link to your live demo into your press releases and messages to bloggers, press editors, and prospects
• Promote your video with social bookmarks like Digg.com, Reddit.com and StumbleUpon.com
• Show it at off-line events: presentations, conferences, and trade shows
• Add it to your giveaway promotional stuff on CD or USB flash
• Put it on view in the reception area of your office

Now, I’ve recalled one more idea how you could use your demo video. If you demo isn’t just an overview of software features but shows how to accomplish a certain task then I recommend to submit it to archives of tutorials. Just search for “submit tutorial” to find appropriate sites.

Putting your live demo in front of thousand people who look for problem solutions on tutorial sites is a good way to increase the visibility of your product.

Feel free to add more ideas of live demo usage in the comments.