I have a love hate relationship with Microsoft. Outside of OneNote, which is a flat out stellar program, I don’t think any single program in the Office ‘07 suite is better than other options (often free) out there.

But I use the suite for one reason, the amazing integration between each program, mainly between OneNote and Outlook. OneNote is my digital scrapbook/information organization program and Outlook is how I receive all my industry-specific electronic newsletters and RSS feeds. Information can be tagged and moved back and forth between each program with one mouse click. Action items in OneNote can be added to the Outlook calendar and the final product easily sent via e-mail.

You get the idea.

But my gosh Outlook is really letting me down. For the better part of a week Outlook couldn’t retrieve any of my 100 plus feeds (everything else worked). Today, out of the blue it started working again.

This is the third time this has happened and very frustrating to say the least. How can Microsoft have a flagship product like Outlook not be able to handle something as simple as a feed.

More than three years ago marketing guru Seth Godin put together a long list of “what every good marketer knows.” As it said it wasn’t a “carefully planned manifesto” but a “riff.” The whole list is here, but I pulled a few of his bullet points I felt were the most important.

• Low price is a great way to sell a commodity. That’s not marketing, though, that’s efficiency.
• Conversations among the members of your marketplace happen whether you like it or not. Good marketing encourages the right sort of conversations.
• Products that are remarkable get talked about.
• If you are marketing from a fairly static annual budget, you’re viewing marketing as an expense. Good marketers realize that it is an investment.
• People don’t buy what they need. They buy what they want.
• You’re not in charge. And your prospects don’t care about you.
• Business to business marketing is just marketing to consumers who happen to have a corporation to pay for what they buy.
• Good marketers tell a story.
• Marketing that works is marketing that people choose to notice.
• Most marketers create good enough and then quit. Greatest beats good enough every time.
• You can game the social media in the short run, but not for long.

[Found via Buhler Works]

Via the NYT. This is why e-mail marketing is not for the faint of heart:

A typical information worker who sits at a computer all day turns to his e-mail program more than 50 times and uses instant messaging 77 times, according to one measure by RescueTime, a company that analyzes computer habits. The company, which draws its data from 40,000 people who have tracking software on their computers, found that on average the worker also stops at 40 Web sites over the course of the day.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued four new CAN-SPAM rules (links to a PDF), which update the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act). They go into effect at the end of June ‘08 and affect all senders of commercial e-mail or e-Newsletters.

Now I am not a lawyer (much more detailed analysis by actual lawyers), but as I read the new rules they include the following requirements:

1. The ability to opt-out of a mailing list must be accomplished by one single action—either replying to the e-mail, clicking on an unsubscribe button, or clicking through to a single web page that completes the process. Period. What many e-mails use is the third option where individuals are taken to a web page and then asked to enter personal information like an e-mail address and/or password. This is no longer acceptable.

2. The FTC has further defined the meaning of “person” for the purpose of whether CAN-SPAM applies. It now applies to everybody that could send an e-mail. A single person working out of their house, a company, or a non-company are now liable to the provisions in CAN-SPAM.

3. Now the use of a post office box (POB) or private mailbox (PMB) as the physical address included in the commercial mailings satisfies CAN-SPAM.

4. For any e-mail which contains third party ads, either the party who the e-mail is “from” must have also include an ad in the message (in which case they become responsible for processing opt-out requests) or all of the advertisers with ads in the mailing are responsible for the opt-out requests. The FTC calls this the “Designated Sender” rule.

For most professionals paying attention just a little to e-mail best practives I can’t see how these new rules with have much of an affect on their activities. But it is important you are aware of them.

Update:

Your opt-in form is one of the most important elements in building your list of subscribers, yet it is often overlooked or thrown together at the last second with almost no thought. From my conversations with a number of clients it is clear to me this is done cause most of the effort is spent designing the e-mails and writing the content, and they think to themselves a form is just a form. That would be incorrect.

To improve your opt-in form and increase your subscriber database followed these basic tips.

Make Subscribing Easy

The ability to sign-up should be on every single page of your website and included as a link within the signature block of any e-mails your staff sends via their day-to-day e-mail program. Also if you use electronic newsletters (e-Newsletters) it should be included as well. Most now use a “Forward To A Friend” functionality but forget the sign-up form.

Provide Samples

Have an archive of previous e-Newsletters and other e-mails you’ve sent available so potential subscribers can review the type of content they can expect if they take the time to subscribe.

Don’t Limit Choices

Give subscribers choices. Let them choose if they just want your information-based e-Newsletter (frequency if that is an option), email blasts, sales offerings, you name it. People like choice, and therefore more control of how you communicate with them.

Frequency

Tell people how often you’ll mail to them and keep that promise at all cost.

Unsubscribing Should Be Easy

Not only should the sign-up process be stupid simple, so should getting off the list. Let potential subscribers know the process is simple, preferably one click. Also, please don’t put the unsubscribe process behind a password protected area, this is just rude to your subscribers. Any barrier to unsubscribing is unacceptable.

Testing

Test the form to make sure it works across multiple browsers and operating systems.

Choice Of HTML Or Text Messages

Always let people select their preference. In a recent Email Experience Council study they found that up to 20 percent of people read their e-mails in a plan text format. Let people choose. Although some e-mail service providers offer an auto-detect feature, it is better not to take any chance by just asking your subscribers what they would prefer. Also, offering a mobile version can’t hurt in 2008.

Welcome Message

Once somebody has completed the form you should have an automated response that lets them know they have subscribe to your e-mail list and includes any information they may need, including your contact information, how to unsubscribe, a link to your Privacy Policy, and any log-in information if required.

Privacy Policy Link

Always include a link to your Privacy Policy and tell people very clearly what you do with their data and the tracking information you collect. It is the law of the land.

CRM Integration

Most companies large and small now use some type of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. Many (such as NetSuite) can create the HTML code required to embed in your site or e-Newsletter that will then populate your CRM system with the data collected so your salespeople can follow-up if appropriate.

Don’t Ask For Too Much Information

You can pretty much assume that for every field you require people to complete to sign-up you are going to lose a percentage of subscribers. In almost every instance I prefer just asking for an e-mail address, but I have also had clients that have wanted to ask for everything short of their Social Security number. I hope you can imagine which is the better solution.

If you just make a basic effort to do each of these suggestions you will greatly increase your number subscriber and therefore your ultimate chance for a successful e-mail marketing program.

Well this sure looks like an interesting book:

There is no single methodology for creating the perfect product—but you can increase your odds. One of the best ways is to understand users’ reasons for doing things. Mental Models gives you the tools to help you grasp, and design for, those reasons. Adaptive Path co-founder Indi Young has written a roll-up-your-sleeves book for designers, managers, and anyone else interested in making design strategic, and successful.

And in an interesting twist I don’t think I’ve seen before, they have posted all the visuals onto a Flickr stream. At first I wasn’t sure if I’d order this book, but after looking at the sheer info porn that is included I’d buy it just for the visuals.

Kind of surprised it took this long. FedEx is renaming the copy store chain to FedEx Office. Sure hope they didn’t pay a lot for that creative naming!

As a frequent user of ATMs since 1986 it has always amazed me how terrible, I mean horrible the interface designs are. I mean most seem like they are designed by a four-year-old. But saying something like that isn’t fair to most four-year-olds.

This doesn’t make much sense to me on several different levels. One, if people can handle basic transactions at the ATM that lower the overhead of using a teller. Two, generally speaking different fees are charged for different transaction, so the more transaction the more revenue.

Well Holger Struppek at Physical Interface gives us a pretty detailed and interesting overview with a ton of visuals of process Wells Fargo used to design their new interface.

Wells Fargo hired Pentagram in the fall of 2005 to begin work on a new user interface for their ATMs. Wells Fargo was in the process of upgrading their ATMs with touchscreen monitors. This was a relatively slow process, since there are about 7,000 ATMs in the field, and any upgrades are expensive. But with the vast majority to be converted during 2007, this was the perfect time to create a fresh UI that would fully utilize the touchscreen capability.

Now this is an interface I wish my bank used (can you hear me Bank of America and Citi?). It almost looks like it would be fun to play with.

I’ve noticed this as well and it is a trend that needs to stop sooner rather than later. As Jason notes:

See what they did there? They paused the TV show, ran a little mini-commercial for some show that no one cares about, and then returned to the last two seconds of the segment before going to commercial. Jesus Christ. I realize that Time Warner doesn’t actually care about the people who watch their shows and that television programs are just the networks’ way of getting people to watch advertising, but this is too much. Do these things actually work or just piss people off in droves? Is there some marketing hot dog at Time Warner who thinks that Family Guy viewers want to watch the blue collar comedy slings of Bill Engvall? I’m sorry that the DVR is ruining your business model, but can you kick the bucket a little more gracefully?

[Found via Kottke]

The One Times Square building is empty. Why? Because the owner can afford it by selling ad space alone. It costs $300,000/month to advertise on that structure—one of things you’ll learn in this behind-the-LED-screens look at Times Square.