1. A Guide To UX Careers

In a press conference this morning Mark Zuckerberg, creator of Facebook, was asked what he thought of the possibly revolutionary launching of Google+. Zuckerberg admitted that he had used it very little but that he believed it was part of the social networking evolution. However, Google+ is also his competition, it is offering Circles, which basically allows you to label your friends and groups and choose who sees what and which group you publish content to. It also offers Hangouts, which is the video group chat, Sparks, a feed that revolves around you and only videos, articles, and offers you would be interested in, and Huddle which allows you to text as a group. Since the two networks are so similar, but one comes with more features (so far), people will eventually make a choice. There will be resistance at first just as there was when Facebook blew Myspace out of the water, but as of right now, Google+ sounds like the next step and Facebook may not have the technology to catch up.

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Google+ began a beta release for the network last month, giving only a select few people access – this gave off the impression that the network was elite, leaving those who weren’t allowed dying to see what all the fuss was about. Another blow to Facebook’s ego was the group chat offered on Google+ that clearly overshadowed Facebook’s partnership with Skype, who was recently bought by Microsoft for $8.5 billion before they were aware of Google’s innovative software.

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The reason Google+ may not take over Facebook is because despite Google’s Vice President, Vic Gundotra’s belief that they are meeting the needs of the people and their desire to connect, they are really adding a bunch of bells and whistles to a system that was already meeting this need. Also many users may not be ready for the commitment that goes along with another social network.

If Zuckerberg does come out with something innovative or finds a way to at least make group chat available before Google+ is fully launched he may have a shot. However, Zuckerberg recently said they are not focusing on the number of users so much anymore but the features, this was a little unsettling. The fact that Facebook lost around 6 million users in May, may have provoked this comment, and since Google+ is ahead in the feature department it will make a come back even more difficult. The worst thing he could do is reformat the entire network like Myspace did when they saw that Facebook was taking them over – they ended up going beyond their site’s capacity and that helped in everyone’s decision to go full Facebook. Whether or not Facebook survives the war or falls as the social media empire, social networking is evolving right before our eyes and it should be a very interesting change.

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HR departments are having to reorganize all that their system entails to please the generation who refuses to live to work. So who is asking for too much? It is a matter of change and accepting change. It is hard to believe that no one can see the good in this generation – a generation that thrives on creativity rather than money, who would rather own a small business than work for a large one – a generation that truly does not understand what the hold up has been on green energy and refuses to move anywhere but forward – a generation that wants the time to enjoy life and success while they’re still young rather than waste away in an office building just to say they’re “productive” or “responsible”.

Generation Y wants more money for less face-time, notice I said “face-time”. Who said we need brick and mortar to be considered “working”? I wrote a post a while back on Social Media Mom, that discussed the digital revolution, one very interesting avenue big businesses were taking was working through avatars. Yes, this is initially very creepy, but think of the freedom. Of course, the host who was not a fellow “generation-y-not?”, sadly walked through the empty building that was once littered with busy people who couldn’t wait for lunch. Where were they? They were at home, cleaning the house, drinking tea, and dressing their avatars to meet colleagues from China in a digital conference room. Uh Sweet! Seriously though, there is an unease because the change is so great, but the work is creative and it still makes money – which is what we are all so worried about anyway, right?

It is true, Human Resources will have to get new statistics, maybe change their testing process – however, it will have to change eventually, why not now when it is for the better? We want the generations to speak out rather than lash out, and really think – is this really a matter of laziness or is this simply a resistance to change?

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SoTech first unveiled this infographic at a 2010 conference in London. Posters are available.

Courtesy: BusinessInsider.com

You probably get them as much as I do: those sales calls from people who can “guarantee top positioning in Google and other search engines”.  Little do they know that when they call me, they’re talking to someone who doesn’t mind showing them just how little they know about search engines and business in general.  Heck, if I can keep them on the phone a couple seconds longer, that’s hopefully someone else saved from hearing their snake oil spiel in the first place.  On one such call, I let the gentlemen finish his whole script and he proceeded on the hard sale.  I asked him one question: “What kind of ROI can I expect to see from your services?”

“Oh, our ROI is AWESOME” was his response.

Um…no it isn’t.  Last time I checked, ROI was a calculation where you take earnings minus cost divided by cost multiplied by 100 to get in percentage terms [((E-C)/C)*100], which I’m pretty sure leads to a number…not AWESOME!  The analysis of how that number meets expected goals may lead to the label of “awesome” and high-fives all around, but ROI itself is simply a number.

If you’re wondering why I’m ranting on this, it’s because this is the perfect example of mixing up the difference of results and the interpretation of the results.  This is critical when it comes to monitoring PPC performance.  You could have a 500% ROI, which some might consider awesome, but what if your break-even point required a 750% ROI compared to other activities you could have done with those resources?  Ladies and Gentlemen, in this case “awesome” has left the building and you have some explaining to do.

Since PPC can be factored down to the penny at a keyword level, don’t consider ROI as a goal, but as a floor to build on.  Look at your daily or weekly reports and ask yourself “Can I be happy with these results if they continued for X amount of time?”  If the answer is no, then you just reviewed the actual results, and interpreted them to be insufficient (aka “not awesome”), regardless of what the actual ROI is.
If you know that to break even after shipping, commissions, taxes, and all other costs that you need a 250% ROI from PPC (or $2.50 ROAS…same thing) then you should set your floor at 250% and not your goal.  Set goals in three forms: Ideal, Expected, and Acceptable.

• Ideal is shooting for the moon and really worthy of being called “Awesome”
• Expected is profitable and sustainable.
• Acceptable is north of break-even but you really want it higher.

This is especially critical if you work with agencies because agencies will ask you what your target is, and if you say 250% they’ll give you as much volume as they can at the 250% to spend as much as they can (assuming their compensation is based on percentage of spend).  So remember…awesome is a goal, not a number.  ROI is a number, and not a goal.  Setting a given ROI as a goal is awesome, so long as you know what your results should be.