Off Topic: Aristotle

" We are what we repatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act, but a habit"

Aristotle

The Book all User Experience professionals must read

The Book all User Experience professionals must read: " Gurus on marketing" by Sultan Kermally. You will not find a book that will summarize Peter Drucker, Theodore Levitt, Micheal Porter,Philip Kotler, Tom Peters, George Day, Jagdish Sheth, and Thomas.T Nagle so brilliantly.

If you are asking why should a User Experience professionals read these books, then my friend, you are in serious trouble.

We ( UX, OLM, Analytics, Product folks, Designers) own perhaps the most valuable real estae which is perhaps the cheapest to buy. Think about the responsibility we have. Go on, think about it

Cheers!

Does usability really matter in a purchase decision?

Does usability really matter in a purchase decision? My wife has been after me snice aeons to purchase a new mobile. And we all know that when a lady want's something, she gets it:-)
Recently bought a hummer mobile. These are the factors that influenced my purchase:

• Found it very stylish


• The aluminum color fascinated me


• Wanted a slider phone


• It had a stylus


• Liked the price (10,000)


• Got a free holiday worth 5000
  
  I didn’t know how to operate it. Did not know what features it had. Have been using the most primitive phones on earth till date.
  
  Where did usability fit in?
  
  If we find a way to understand and measure emotional responses to a product, we will be very successful in selling. Am researching this aspect of online shopping a of now.Is anybody willing to work with me on this fascinating area?
  

Thanks

Am extremely happy with the repsonse I have got for my book. Will get a chance to work with some of the better minds in the business and hope to evolve and learn from these experiences.

The reason why our comunity will reach its rightful place very soon is that we are evloving, learning to be humble, and willing to share.

Alok, thanks for the suggestion one and a half year back. You have been one of my many role models, and I have become humble enough to say this aloud.

God bless and god speed
masood

Need help for my Book

Am writing a book on the synergy between online marketing, User Experience, and web analytics. Would like to interview practitioners. I have space for around 15 interviews in my book. Please feel free to contact me if you feel the community needs it.

The folks that I would like, nay love to interview are Lou rosenfeld, Ripul, Rakhee srivastava, Christina Wodtke, Alok Jain, Austin Govella, and Avinash kaushikFolks, I would be highly obliged if you could spare some time from your busy schedules to help me out.

masood [dot] nasser[at] gmail [dot] com

Jakob Nielson: The world’s best online marketeer

Jakob Nielson: The world’s best online marketeer

The world knows Jakob Nielson as one of the leading usability experts. But is he really that? No, in my opinion. Not that it counts for much.

He may well be perhaps the most brilliant online marketing personality the web has ever seen. The Usability field has greatly benefited from the body of research that has been done right from the 70’s. But does the majority, outside the realm of our miniscule community are really aware of schenidarman, Larry, et al?

NO

Do they know Jakob Nielson? You bet they do.
Look at the mind space he was and is commanding.

Around 8 years back, in the silicon valley of India, we had a team dinner with our client, an IIT kharaghhpur alumnus, who was in charge of one of the numerous e-commerce initiatives for their Aerospace Division. The conversation digressed from small talk to the design. While we were discussing, what does our client say? Do you think Jakob Nielson would approve?

As any impetuous, arrogant, and ignorant design upstart may have done I made a grandiose statement? Jacob and design…. Are you serious (am not sure of the exact words I used, this was 8 years ago)

I have seen enough Jacob parody sites. Do you think he cares? No, he has his detractors, giving him traffic, while he has a loyal set of fans amongst the handful decision makers worldwide. Each and every article of his a lesson in cross selling. He makes a statement, “Flash is 99% BAD”. There is a storm in the online world. There are innumerable hate “Jacob Neilson communities”. They give him traffic. What happens a year after that? Macromedia pays him to “set usability guidelines for Flash”

Why do you think he recycles the famous "visited links" guidelines?
Eric Schaffer, another extremely charismatic person in the field of usability, told me in Bangalore: “We like Jakob Nielson. He is good for the field of usability.” And he was not talking about Jacob’s usability knowledge

So, what do you think?

Problems with “leader’s”: Part One

Problems with “leader’s”

Have had the good fortune to move into a role where I have the opportunity to groom leaders. What I am saying is not rocket science at all, In-fact everyone knows these things. It is just that we are not “aware”. There is a difference between knowing and awareness. One of my most important role is to groom leaders. With that in mind, understanding their psyche is very important. These are some of my observations as to why leaders fail:

Insecurity
Perhaps the most crucial element that destroys a leader and his team is the leader’s insecurity.
Insecurity of people overtaking him/her.
Insecure in the feeling of giving knowledge feeling that his subordinate might “overtake him/ her
Insecure in his/her ‘position”
Control
Losing control is the biggest fear of the clueless leader. You cannot control anybody. Remember the commies Their biggest fear in life was losing control and they have ruined an entire generation by their weird indoctrinations and philosophies.
Craving for Respect
Respect is one thing that can never be demanded. The clueless leader will crave for respect which he/ she will never get.
Need to know:
A clueless leader will always feel the need to know everything without which he/ she will always feeladequate. One does not need to be in the “know” about any and everything. They say “knowledge is power”, but I don’t think much about it. How you harness it is what gives you the power. A good leader has to harness that power
Feeling Loved
A clueless leader will always feel that he or she needs to be “loved”. Poor self esteem makes a person feel the need to be loved because he or she feels that he she has not received the love that he/she deserves.

Every body who has ever lived has some or all ofthese feelings. It is when we learn to surmount them that we reach nirvana and become real leaders.

God bless and god speed. Please tell me what you think about this

For the diehard fans of Web analytics

"You can use all the quantitative data you can get, but you still have to distrust it and use your own intelligence and judgment"
Alvin Toffler

To all the web folks who swear only by analytics, This quote could not have been better.

Learning

"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn."
Alvin Toffler

Leadership and Following

"Learning to follow is perhaps the most important part of leadership"