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The world wide web is going to get you for making Miss Congeniality 2, Bullock.

Yes we know: there is no such thing as a vintage website. If the world wide web were a person, she wouldn’t even be old enough to drink. Keep reading, and you’ll understand why I’m using “vintage” for 10-20 year old designs. They just seem so very, very dated.

Home Depot, July 1997

Check out that sweet peg board. The best thing about this Home Depot site was the fact that those light switches continuously switched on and off, completely on their own and completely randomly. “Homer” the Home Depot dude was there to guide you to important and helpful content like “Investment Information,” “The Home Depot” and “The Main Screen.” These menus weren’t exactly intuitive, but we give them points for being adventurous and for branding boldly. If you’re interested, here’s their 1996 version.

Coca-Cola, October 1996

Which links to this:

It looks like the Coca-Cola Company left their website in the hands of their creative team, who were witty copywriters and imaginative developers. Their site was not brimming with investor information or even product information–it was a branding tool. Coke was smart enough to keep their brand out of the hands of “the suits” (or at least seem like they were doing so). Their initial content was young, just like their internet audience. Later incarnations of their site were totally badical, but Coke has always done a solid job of relating to people. As a side note–it’s kind of jarring to see a Coke property that barely uses any red at all. Boy oh boy, did people love manila colored websites in the 90s.

Delta, January 1998

It’s probably not fair to compare a 1998 site to a 1996 site, but this is the earliest iteration I could find of DeltaAirlines.com. The site  is readable, has a solid navigation system and offers a lot of features. Delta were leaders in on-line booking, but I couldn’t find a screen capture that ever worked, so I’m not sure exactly when this site was actually online. Historically, though, Delta knocks it out of the park. Their current site is gorgeous, intuitive and useful. Looking back to some of their older sites, it seems like they’ve always had sophisticated taste and an appreciation for how a user will interact. As far as competition goes, I doubt that any modern airline can claim a prettier site than Delta. I’m a sucker for elegance and thoughtful UI/UX.

 SunTrust, July 1996

This convoluted board game is a menu that contains titles like “Buy a New Family Computer.” and “Invent New Widget…Strike it Rich!” Users could  play and explore, but the real meat was in the footer where you had options like “PC Banking” (sorry Macs) and “Branch/ATM Locator.” SunTrust was trying something that, at the time, was cutting edge. It seems obvious that they were thinking about their site as a tool to help customers bank easier, and they seemed keen on the idea of online banking way back in 1996, when even check cards seemed risky to some people (how will I know if I’m about to over draft if I don’t have my check book register?!). Bravo to SunTrust.

UPS, November 1997

While the design seems kind of hideous, at the time, this was pretty clean.  There were no spinning .gifs or blinking headlines. They provided real services to internet users instead of being just being an on-line brochure. You could find driving instructions, employment opportunities, and drop off locations. Their modern site is incredibly complex in its functionality, but is still easy to navigate. I imagine that part of the reason that UPS took such a huge part of the market share from the United States Postal Services steams from the fact that UPS has been thinking about making life easy on their clients through the use of technology from very early on.

And that’s the point–these companies are successful because they understand that technology is important. It should be prioritized and invested. SunTrust was dreaming up online banking,  Coke was connecting audiences to their audiences in an innovative way, Delta was doing online booking, Home Depot was there to help, and UPS was making other systems seem obsolete, right from the beginning. Technology is only getting more amazing and well-imagined and powerful, and every business has the opportunity to use it brilliantly.

On top of that, we can all be grateful that the fonts are getting better too.

–

-Allison Steele
@bunnymcintosh.

Like this article? Please vote for Baby Robot in Social Madness.

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We’ve got like, 3 guest speakers. Our own marketing extraordinnaire Bunny Mcintosh, Scoutmob’s social media guru Nicole Jayne, and Morris, Manning & Martin’s engagement expert Melanie Touchstone. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun, and like, you’ll get free lunch, and, I don’t know, maybe we could spend some time just getting to know each other. If that’s cool with you, of course.

Afterwards, a bunch of us are going to a Braves game. The Baby Robot team is grilling out in the Blue lot, and we’ve got a lot of beers, which, I mean, if you like beer, would be really cool. We’ll have Braves tickets for everyone at lunch, and probably some leftover for those that can only make the tailgate. Whatever is best for you; just lunch, just the tailgate, just the game, it’s cool. Lots of other people will be at the game, like, 39,900 other people. So like, we don’t have to go together, but we’d be there, you know, at the same time.

Check out this sweet invite:

So [link url=http://anyvite.com/sksbo38rm1]hit the link[/link] for details about the guests and to RSVP, if you feel like it. We’ve got limited spots, but we’ll keep one open for you, I promise. If you can’t make this one, maybe we can meet up at the next one, or, I don’t know, go see a movie or something? I’m so bad at this…

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Radial Cafe, Atlanta, GA:

As most everyone in Atlanta and beyond are aware, ScoutMob finds the best local deals, hip hangouts and cool events around your city. Beyond their general awesomeness, they also boast one of the coolest brand identities around. Their combo of vintage found photography and beautiful type treatments presents a unique, instantly recognizable aesthetic.

Radial Cafe, an otherwise excellent restaurant in Atlanta, GA released just yesterday a dinner special they call “Shout Mob.” Beyond the obvious reference, their branding package (at right) is a complete bastardization of the tried and true Scoutmob logo (at left). Not only did they bite the killer Scoutmob style, they used it to promote their own “half off” deal for dinner, an avenue in which Scoutmob is deeply invested.

It’s A Joke, You Guys…

While the crew here at Baby Robot love a good joke (Bon Rappetite, anyone?), our primary business is the creation of branding and original content. The dawn of the digital age has certainly blurred the lines between piracy, plagiarism and parody, so we stick  to a simple rule: If your design is intentionally derivative of the source material in a way that either damages the source, falsely associates you with the source, or takes credit for the source material’s design, it isn’t going to fly.

While we’re fans of both Radial Cafe and Scoutmob, we believe that Radial’s attempt at parody does not constitute fair use. They make no direct reference to the original design, and they do not make the parody transparent enough to be obvious to a casual viewer. If you aren’t intimately familiar with the Scoutmob property, you would struggle to understand that Radial is creating a parody, and instead would likely attribute the classic orange butcher’s tag as an original design by Radial Cafe’s design team. No Bueno.

Even worse, consumers don’t like seeing their favorite products and brands taken advantage of, and on “ShoutMob” launch day, Twitter was abuzz (at right). The moral here is not that parody is bad, or that all attempts at “rebranding” and existing property for your own use is inherently evil. The moral is that whenever you dabble in another company’s backyard, you’d better give a lot of thought as to  how their fans are going to take to it. A “great idea” in the boardroom can be a costly mistake in the market.

So What?

As we all are aware, designers and branding professionals are a very under appreciated bunch. The field is crowded and competitive, the pay can be significantly less than for a similar role in management or sales with an equivalent amount of professional education, and the demands are high. As an industry we need to ensure that our brilliant designers are appreciated, and properly credited where due. “Borrowing” a high profile logo for the purpose of promoting a directly competing concept in an attempt to take business from the originator isn’t parody, it’s piracy. As the lines between physical and digital ownership and property continue to blur, we must remain conscious, as both producers and consumers, that the creators of the things we enjoy deserve to be compensated fairly for them. When a company intentionally diminishes the efficacy of a competitor’s brand, it does nothing to better the field, but rather lays the groundwork for an unstoppable erosion of protection for conceptual properties, and eventually, an increased cost to both businesses and consumers.

Stick around for Part 2 when we’ll examine some instance that we regard as legitimate parody and fair use, and how those scenarios improve the market value and strength of both brands. Until then, stay tuned for some special announcements from the Robots, and if you found this helpful, be sure to hit the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s “Social Madness” Challenge page, and vote for Baby Robot in the small business category!

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Baby Robot founders Allison and Everett Steele discuss women and equal pay on CNN radio. Listen here.

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Customize Your Resume:

I can’t stress this enough. If you are only applying for work in one specific position, your resume is probably fine. If, like the other 99% of job seekers you’re looking at more than one industry or role, create a custom resume for each position. While your experiences might stay the same, your impact and the relevance of your experiences can be highlighted differently for each potential employer. Read the job listing, consider how your experiences color your skills and perspective, and craft a resume for each major job type you are considering. This might mean having three resumes, it might mean having ten. Either way, it is important to recognize that while your history doesn’t change, the way that you portray your experiences can deeply impact how your resume is received. This brings me to my next point…

Name Your File Appropriately:

I can’t tell you how many files I received named “Resume.pdf” or something similar. This does not work. If I have 20 resumes in my Downloads folder, and five of them are named Resume.doc, I am going to be frustrated. While I’m a great guy, and of course take the time to append names to each file, a lesser HR monkey might not do the same. Name you files something like “John Q Genius – Resume.pdf”. Adding a date in gets you extra brownie points too, at least with me. If you happen to follow Tip #1, don’t also include the style of the resume you wrote in the filename. Don’t send “Suzy Social’s ResumeForCrappyMarketingJobs.pdf”.

Include Your Availability:

If you don’t tell me when you’re available, I either have to send you an email to ask about it and then append it to your resume and make a note somewhere, or I can just not ask, and not care, and never review it or call you. One of these choices is way easier than the other. When you’re getting dozens of emails a day that need responses, easy just feels right.

Send Me a File:

This absolutely kills me. If you email me your resume in plain text in the body of an email, what do you expect me to do with that? Should I print the email and put it in the stack of printed resumes which doesn’t exist because it is 2012? Perhaps you would rather me copy/paste it into a document for you. Would you like me to format it as well? Could I interest you in some sauteed summer squash from my garden while you wait? Not happening, buster brown. Send a file, and if it isn’t .doc or .pdf, save your effort. I guess .rtf is okay, but if you send me a .txt file, a .jpg, a .tiff, or a .somecrazyApplefileformat I will not open it.

Don’t Make Me Work For You:

Don’t ask questions that are answered in the description, and don’t ask for information that is publicly available on the company’s web site. It isn’t that I’m mean, it’s that I’m lazy and busy, a terrible combo. If you want to know who the President of the company is, use some internet skills and figure it out. Don’t worry, I’ll respond to your questions, but you’re more likely to get something like this than an actual answer.

That’s it. We’ve addressed some resume and interview stuff here before, and will continue to do so. We believe it is important for those of us fortunate enough to have jobs in this economy to help others find their dream job too. As always, feel free to contact me or anyone else at Baby Robot with your questions, and we’ll be more than glad to keep our ears to the ground for an opportunity that could work for you.

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My recent response has been to retweet these messages, ensuring everyone sees what a jerk I am for unfollowing them. Nothing says “I’m worth being unfollowed” like telling everyone how others are jumping ship. It doesn’t always go over well.

I’ve had more than a few direct messages, and even some personal emails (way to go detectives, I do in fact own everett.steele@gmail.com) telling me that my unfollowing and subsequent retweeting of their complaints is not appreciated.

So, in the interest of being the nice guy I am, I present:

Why I Unfollowed You…

First, let me explain how I use Twitter. I deal with a lot of Twitter accounts, both personal and professional, so on my laptop, everything is aggregated through HootSuite, and on my phone, via TweetDeck. I recommend both. I follow a fair amount of people, all broken up into manageable lists. This lets me hone in on exactly what area I am looking for information about. If news is breaking, or a specific event happening, I’ll tap into my news lists. If I’m making weekend plans, I go to my “Fun Stuff to Do” feed. It is all very handy.

The flipside is that I also have a lot of stale or plain crappy feeds I follow, so once every two weeks or so, I purge. As briefly as possible, here is why you get purged from the follow feed:

1. You don’t Tweet: This is kind of a given, but if you don’t tweet, I dump you.
2. You don’t have an avatar: If I see people in my feed still using the stock Egg avatar, you get dumped. If you can’t handle the intricacies of uploading a jpg to Twitter, or using the internet to learn how, we probably don’t have a lot to chat about.
3. All links & spam: If you post nothing but canned spam links, or stuff that looks like spam, you’re fired.
4. Your content sucks: This part is tough. Basically, if I read through your stream, and you’re using Twitter as a stream of consciousness dump about your delicious cheese danish, the temperature of your car seats on a hot day, and how cute your dog is, I’m not interested. It isn’t that you aren’t interesting, it’s that thoughtless, meaningless content is just that. Maybe your close friends care about how sleepy you are this morning. The rest of us don’t.
5. You don’t interact: When I look at your feed, I want to see retweets, @replies, and interactions. Like every other form of human communication ever invented, Twitter is there for conversation. If you’re not involving yourself in the discussions of others, write a book. If Twitter is your sole means of promoting and advertising your schemes, you’re doing it wrong. Everytime I see a “Click here to see how I made millions” style tweet, I unfollow you. Nothing wrong with promoting your brand, but don’t let that be your only purpose for existing in the Twitterverse.

Twitter is unlike anything else. It is real time text messaging with millions. It is live coverage of everything, all the time. It is a firehose of information, and if you want to stand out, be outstanding. Provide valuable content, interact with your followers, and encourage new ones by interacting and engaging in conversations and debates.

Share sites you like, share your take on current events, share your ideas with the world, but if you can’t be constructive, don’t ruin it for the rest of us by adding more useless white noise to our conversations.

-Everett

Everett is the founder of Baby Robot, an avid media-phile and tech nerd, and an all around swell guy. Everett personally tweets as @everett_steele and drops in on the Baby Robot feed once in a while at @babyrobotinc.

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5. I Just Don’t Get It

This is probably the most common, most accurate, and most solvable objection to a recommended social media marketing effort. Lots of people don’t yet grasp the full spectrum of social media’s potential, is abilities, or even why it exists, or why people seem to care so much about it. Social media and the internet in general is full of subtleties, vagaries, and downright confusing crap. It isn’t your fault if you don’t understand, but it is your fault if you’re not willing to learn.

Whenever a new form of media emerges, the early adopters are quick to develop a proprietary vocabulary, methodology and standard of use. Just as “tweep” wasn’t a word in 2008, “web page” wasn’t a word in 1990, but who among us doesn’t know what a webpage is? A mouse used to be a rodent, and yet you’re probably holding one right now. The world changes – fast. You don’t have to be on the bleeding edge to get real value out of social media. You don’t have to know the history of every startup, or the technical jargon of every new web app. You do, however, have to be willing to learn new tricks, even you old dogs out there.

There’s only one way to start to get it – start using it. We always recommend that our clients establish personal twitter accounts, facebook profiles, and whatever specialty sites (last.fm, Vimeo, etc) they might be interested in before engaging in a corporate social media blitz. Do this, and in a few weeks, you’ll wonder how you ever got through the day without knowing what your office mates had for breakfast. Seriously though, there is a world of opportunity out there, and a wealth of information being shared every second of every day. Figure out what you like, tap into it, join the dialogue, and hold on for the ride. After a few weeks of active participation you will understand how social media works, you will see its inherent value, and you will know that it can help your business grow. Just don’t get too good, some of us still have to make a living somehow.

The world of social media, technology, and the greater internet community is growing fast. Your business has three options: 1)Live on the bleeding edge via a ton of effort, expense and time, 2) Keep up with it as a “fast follower” who is eager to adopt new strategies and use new technologies, or 3) Blow it off, miss the boat, and spend the next five years trying to play an impossible game of catch up. For the vast majority of us, it’s safe to watch the trends, follow the thought leaders, and be quick to adapt, adopt, and engage. Check back for more blogs and papers on tech, social media, and trends on the web.

-Everett

Everett is the founder of Baby Robot, an avid media-phile and tech nerd, and an all around swell guy. Everett personally tweets as @everett_steele and drops in on the Baby Robot feed once in a while at @babyrobotinc.

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Drawing on that conversation, and others like it, I’ve come up with some common objections to social media for business, and why those objections are dead wrong.

Note- This turned out really long, so we split it into three parts. Part 2 is here and Part 3 is here.

5 Reasons Your Boss is Afraid of Twitter (And Shouldn’t Be)

1. Social Media is a fad

. I’ll lead with this one, because honestly, it’s just comical, and yet I’ve heard this objection many times. The person making this claim doesn’t really think social media is a fad. They just think that their respectable, professional business is too conservative to jump on a bandwagon whose early adopters were grungy teens and dorks. How wrong they are.

Recent studies have shown that the 40 year old and up demographic is one of the fastest growing market segments on Twitter and Facebook, and we all know that group pretty much dominates LinkedIn. So why the concern? Some won’t like this answer, but the reason is this: SVPs and up at many large, established companies aren’t paid to rock the boat, or put their reputation on the line for what could be a risky undertaking. Well paid senior leaders aren’t motivated to promote change, because the reward for success is much smaller than the consequence of failure. Slow-moving companies aren’t incentivizing innovation; they are incentivizing stagnation and risk-aversion.

This isn’t true at all successful companies. Look at @DisneyPixar or @HRBlock to see what mega-brands can do when they see social media as a way to engage their fans. In the months leading up to tax season, H&R Block used Twitter as a real time CRM and support line. Their marketing staff worked around the clock to answer difficult tax questions, help with filing, and provide support for the exasperated. A social media-phobic company sees no return on that investment of time and resources. A savvy company knows that real-time support and public channel complaint resolution doesn’t have to provide ROI, because it provides something better; an enduring connection earned through genuine customer service and customer oriented action. When companies stop seeing social media as a path to revenue, and instead as a path to community, they receive the biggest ROI of all. That value comes in the form of a dedicated fan base of self-motivated pro-bono marketers who share their love for their favorite brands online, in their lives, and among their friends.

2. Social Media Will Embarrass Us

Social media’s detractors are quick to point to cases like the Red Cross, Kenneth Cole, and the recent Anthony Wiener scandal to bolster their cantankerous arguments. Sure, unintentional (and intentional) blunders can derail a good social media campaign, and cause quite a stir across the internet. This is hardly a new scenario, and in reality, probably occurs less frequently on Twitter than it does on radio, television or even print. Everyone remembers John Kerry’s goofy tunnel crawl, Dukakis in the tank, and the ‘Mission Accomplished’ that fell a little short in the “accomplished” department. Fox cancelled Family Guy, twice! Someone, somewhere gave the greenlight to a show based on the Geico cavemen.

Did corporations cut their ties to TV, radio and print media? Heck no. They went vocal and active, making sure their intended messaging would endure when the laughter died down. People are forgiving of the brands they love, so the best way to dodge a slipup is to build a camaraderie with your fans. Kenneth Cole was publically lashed, made an apology, and as of 10 minutes ago is still in business and has 13k+ followers on Twitter. The real embarrassment companies should fret over is the embarrassment of someone looking for their brand and not being able to find it. Food manufacturers fight tooth and nail and spend millions for top tier grocery store placement because they want their products visible to consumers. Most American consumers are researching, discussing and buying on the web. If you care about your customers, you should care about social media.

Stay tuned for Parts 2 & 3 later this week.

-Everett

Everett is the founder of Baby Robot, an avid media-phile and tech nerd, and an all around swell guy. Everett personally tweets as @everett_steele and drops in on the Baby Robot feed once in a while at @babyrobotinc.

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3. We Don’t Have Time for Social Media

This one is the worst, and yet so many companies are plagued with this mentality. Social media is different. Make time. If you don’t have time for social media, you don’t have time for customer service, loyalty building, or bringing value to your clients. It’s fine if you feel that way, as long as you recognize that in five years, you’ll have all the time in the world, because your company will be irrelevant.

Everyone knows the old “Cobbler’s Kids” parable, and of course it is true. We’re a social media agency, and I wish I had the time to write, interact, and converse as much as I’d like with our fans and friends online. I live for this stuff, but we all still have other things we must do. We all need to manage our business, pay our bills, and on rare occasions, sleep and eat. I understand; we all understand. If your resources are so tightly allocated that you cannot afford a few hours a week, be it you or your staff, to engage with your customers, then you have some serious scheduling issues that this article isn’t going to fix.

If, on the other hand, you can squeeze five or more extra hours into the week you can create an engaging, valuable social presence that will provide far more value than it costs. If you can’t make the time, then hire someone to do it (did someone say Baby Robot?), or find someone on your staff that can. You don’t have to be an industry leading presence with a millions fans, likes, followers or whatever. A simple but active presence on the major outlets is enough to keep you more or less with the pack. Fall behind, and the gap will only continue to widen. The public’s insatiable thirst for social media may last forever, but it is certainly going to be more refined, defined and distinct in 2 years than it is now. For now, you can skirt by, casting the net wide and shallow, and catch a lot of interactive little fish. In a few years, you’d better hope you can retain what you’ve got, and hunker down for a fight to win the attention of more.

4. We Don’t Want People To Talk About Us

You aren’t going to believe it, but I’ve heard this more than once. Their fear, of course, isn’t that customers are going to praise them unceasingly online. Their fear is that unsatisfied customers will use their Facebook page, or YouTube account to gripe, bitch, and moan about a bad experience, drowning out the good conversation. Or, they fear that competitors will fake complaints against them on their social sites. What they don’t see is that a super vocal complainer is a customer service gold mine! Your most vocal hater just wants their problem solved, and how better to do that than in a public forum! Instead of getting an irate phone call that your support team tries to calm and pacify, you get a public means to solve this problem, showing others how caring, engaged, and responsive your company is. Worst case scenario, the angry customer can’t be satisfied, but your above and beyond responses are there, for all the world to see, and they end up looking like a jerk, and you end up getting discussed in articles like this. Check out Alamo Drafthouse’s NSFW handling of an irate customer’s complaints to see what I mean.

If you are so afraid that your customers are going to discuss you publically online, you need to strongly reevaluate how you’re doing business. If you’re treating your customers well, offering them great service, great products, and outgoing support when they need it, what do you have to fear? Take a look at Amazon, Yelp, or UrbanSpoon to see thousands of volunteer product reviewers, testers and brand cheerleaders, motivated by nothing other than a desire to support their favorite products, and earn some clout on their favorite sites. You’ll find community members with thousands of reviews, comments and unsolicited bits of feedback. This is the kind of product testing and usability research that would cost tens of thousands of dollars to conduct, and yet happens 24 hours a day via social media. If you aren’t capturing the passion of your customers and letting them promote your products or services online, you either don’t have their passion, or you don’t have a clue.

-Everett

Everett is the founder of Baby Robot, an avid media-phile and tech nerd, and an all around swell guy. Everett personally tweets as @everett_steele and drops in on the Baby Robot feed once in a while at @babyrobotinc.

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