That’s no longer the case, of course. The exercise of connecting products – fresh produce, office furniture, design services, you name it – with customers has evolved a lot since those days.

Advances in production, distribution, and communication have globalized commerce, which means – among other things – that we can now get fresh strawberries even when they’re out of season. That’s good, especially if you love fresh strawberries. Unfortunately, it also means we don’t usually get to meet the person who grows the strawberries we buy. That’s not so good. If you can talk with your favorite strawberry growers, you can share your observation that this year’s berries are much sweeter than last year’s crop, and encourage the growers to do what it takes to ensure even sweeter berries next year. You can let them know that you’re also looking for fresh blueberries, and ask if they can recommend a good supplier. You can take a simple commercial transaction, and make it more meaningful by building a personal connection with your favorite strawberry grower while he or she is developing a loyal customer.

Social media – blogs, podcasts, video sharing, etc. – are giving companies the tools they need to bring relationships back to commerce. This new business environment encourages producers and consumers to engage one another in mutually beneficial ways. As columnist Ray Poynter points out in the International Journal of Market Research, social media has rapidly become a credible way for businesses to gather and learn from consumer insights. The broadcast model for communicating with customers has been replaced, reports Ecademy founder Penny Power. BusinessWeek predicted this change back in 2005, when the magazine ran the cover story, “Blogs Will Change Your Business.” The magazine posted an updated version of the piece earlier this year, and the observable changes that have sprung up in the three years since Business Week first published the report are as telling as the original research.

What’s the appropriate response to all of this? Seize the opportunity. For a particularly powerful example, consider our friends at Spout.com. The company could not have existed in the days before social media. The technology to connect with a new audience – and for like-minded audience members to connect meaningfully with one another – developed right alongside the frustration four avid film buffs felt with the Hollywood model for motion picture marketing and distribution. They knew the best recommendations for movies came from friends. They knew that social networks could allow users to share recommendations just as easily as status updates. And they realized that film fans and moviemakers wanted to connect. They put it all together. We helped them name it, brand it, and launch it. It’s been fascinating to watch this new kind of commercial community take shape.

Big and small companies alike have been dabbling with social media as a means to network with customers, with varying degrees of success…
- Don’t fault GM’s Fastlane for the troubles of the U.S. auto industry. The General Motors blog is widely held up as an example of a successful corporate blog.
- Starbucks capitalizes on its enviable customer loyalty with My Starbucks Idea, an online tool for customers to share ideas for improving product and service, and weigh in on ideas from other customers.
- Dell Ideastorm provides a similar outlet.
- Glaxo Smith Kline’s consumer healthcare innovation site places a “Submit an Idea” button front and center.
- In Japan, Adidas encourages fans of the classic sneakers to upload a photo to endorse its “celebrate originality” campaign.
- Whole Foods Market’s blog offers shopping tips, product provenance stories, etc., but they’re not just talking to customers. They’re listening, too.
- Midwest coffeehouse chain Biggby Coffee CEO and co-founder Bob Fish actively blogs, Twitters, and updates Facebook and Flickr. Customers can follow him across the chain’s territory, and if you find him, he’ll buy your coffee.

We’re on board, too. When People Design overhauled our website last year in conjunction with our 10th anniversary and name change, we put a blog right up front. This blog is our very own open-air market where we share the things we’re thinking about and invite your feedback. Plus, Google likes the fresh content, which certainly doesn’t hurt our chances whenever potential clients go searching for a design firm. We’re currently both a group and a page on Facebook (there is a difference). You can link up with us on LinkedIn. And we’re tweeting away on Twitter.

All of these communications – this post included – give us the chance to share with our best customers all the things we’re learning about and exploring. Quite often, the very act of sharing all of this sparks conversations that generate ideas to make our products and services better. Collaboration is buzz-worthy for a reason: It works.

In the Creativity 38 Annual Awards competition, we have 12 award-winning projects, five of which won a Silver, three Gold, and one Platinum. Creativity 38 brought in close to 3,000 entries from 45 states in the U.S, and 44 countries around the world.

We also were notified recently that we won five awards from the American Graphic Design Awards, presented by Graphic Design USA. These will be featured in an upcoming issue of GDUSA.

Of course, we can’t forget about our local Addys, the recognition program sponsored by the Ad Club of West Michigan, local affiliate of the American Advertising Federation. The Grand Rapids Art Museum trademark and identity system, the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts capital campaign brochure, and the Herman Miller ICFF New York tradeshow space all won medals: two silvers, one gold.

But the best part is our second Webby Award for our work on the GRAM website. We’ll take any kudos, but this one’s especially special because it’s so hard to get.

You must understand that the power is now in the hands of consumers.

A perfect example of this is the tool Get Satisfaction. This is a social media tool that lets consumers provide customer service feedback whether a company wants it or not. Some quick searches for companies we know shows some familiar names (Herman Miller and Whirlpool are friends who have products listed there without customer service representation — you guys might want to check that out?). Consumers are empowering themselves to solve problems that they find too difficult to address via traditional customer service channels.

This means that companies are increasingly pressured to participate in the community of their customers. As corporations can be slow to engage in these sorts of activities and have often blocked access to them on their internal firewalls, they have isolated themselves from the discussion. But how do brand managers and customer service representatives best engage their customers online?

First off, where are those customers online? What are they saying about you? Are they on Facebook? Are they blogging about you? One of the easiest things an organization can do to keep track of where their customers are is subscribe to receive Google alerts related to their brand. Find out where people are discussing your product and participate in those discussions.

Look at how Comcast handles customer service on Twitter. Not all business have the scale to support this. It takes work. Increasingly the discussion is owned by the customer on a platform beyond the corporation’s control. This can be an unnerving proposition. How do you influence how your brand is perceived when anyone can say anything about your products or services and rank highly in Google? Potential new customers can easily discover a legacy of problems. Google has a hard time forgetting.

Having a presence on these platforms can be a mixed bag. You might find that the result is crickets. In the customer service arena, this is less about creating a fan base for your brand and more about ensuring customers are getting the answers they need in the way that they are most comfortable receiving them. This doesn’t necessarily mean you need real estate on Second Life. It is a question of brand stewardship.

A social media strategy should be a part of any corporation’s web presence. At the very least, you should take the online pulse of your customers. This means devoting some attention to the situation. That means someone’s time. It is relatively easy to address consumer confusion when you know what that confusion is. To associate authoritative answers with customer questions is the goal.

When someone has a problem, they are probably going to start with Google to find an answer. Ensuring that your answer is there is key. Good SEO is the place to start. Good IA ensures that you are representing yourself appropriately to address your customers’ needs. Why did a user blog about you rather than filling out a contact form? Where is the disconnect?

Take a little time today to Google your company. Any surprises?

I browsed four lines at a time on my very first laptop, where I met and collaborated with strangers online to write stories, follow movements in my profession, further my education and my career. The best of the Internet has not changed a bit since those early days — sharing what we know to further knowledge for everybody. That was the whole point when it began, and that’s still its strength. People who forget what the internet is in its bones fail fast.

And so it tickles me when I see people — millions of them — making stuff and putting it out there, whose reward is answering the impulse to serve, because it’s a good idea and because they can. Lots of kids. Lots of weekend code jockeys, writers, all sorts of people whose passions keep them up all night, putting stuff online for other people to find.

Case in point: I like graph paper. I bet you do too. But it’s rarely where I need it when I need it. Enter printfreegraphpaper.com. It’s not a promotional site from a company, not a piece of a bigger pie. I became curious about the site’s builder, and dug around until I found him. Here’s Jeremy Hughes, presently of the U.S. Navy, answering my questions about this site he began when he was a student:

Jeremy, why did you make a graph paper site?

I originally made the site to support and promote a now defunct dictionary website I created. If I remember right, the graph paper was to allow the user to make custom crossword puzzles.

When choosing my domain name, I wanted something easy to remember. Well, the site fared so well so fast, far outperforming my struggling dictionary website, I decided to focus solely on that site, expanding the selection and improving the layout.

I bought the domain on February 27th 2005, and moved it to its home on March 3rd. To show you how well it took off, a couple days later on March 14th (Pi Day), USA Today listed my site as their hot site of the day.

Are you in a graph-paper-using profession? Or, like me, you like to sit and color in the boxes?

Um…. neither. I was pursuing a degree in architecture at the time, so I knew how to draft with the computer. I love math (even though I’m not that good at it), so I enjoyed making something relating to it. It was fun researching all the esoteric graph papers.

How does the site work? Does it generate the paper through dynamic PDFs, or… what? I’m not fluent in code, and can’t tell..

Originally, and currently, the site uses predesigned PDF documents I created, each one-by-one. However, I did explore creating dynamically generated documents. That project ended up being a black-hole of time, and was making the site’s layout too complicated with all the nuances that were possible. After realizing how much time I was putting into the project, knowing only a handful of people would benefit from the custom documents, while confusing the majority of site visitors with a complicated layout, I decided to scrap to project. You can still see some of my unfinished coding here.

Any credits we should mention (designers, cowriter/coders who deserve thanks/credit here?)

I needed a custom javascript function to allow me to accommodate hundreds of distinct graph paper documents into a single page. I hired online a coder from Italy named Georgio for that. It was fun working with someone living in a completely different timezone and who speaks only limited English, but we both shared the language of computer code.

Later with the site, I had a concept for a promotional postcard I wanted to send out to school teachers across the country, introducing my site. The concept referenced Harold Edgerton’s work and showed how with math theres both a theoretical and reality side. Even though the number crunching might be considered arduous, the reality can be full of energy and fun. I hired Vincent Penmann, a friend I met through a photography class to translate my sketches into print.

What kind of response are you getting?

Its been very favorable. I love finding my address on math class syllabuses. I even found a document on NASA’s website referencing my site to download polar graph paper for a friction workshop.

Who uses the site most, do you think?

I can tell by looking at my logs that most of my traffic is school kids doing their homework. Nobody likes doing their schoolwork on Friday or Saturday, but there’s a big rush Sunday night. It’s pretty steady on the weekdays.

Are there enough graph paper geeks out there finding your site and clicking on the Google ads to make it possible for you to live comfortably in Alaska?

My site’s been good to me. One great benefit is I did most of the work awhile ago and now I just need to pay to have my site hosted. It’s basically cashing in royalty checks for previous work.

What is the internet good for, anyway?

I think the internet is for sharing and communicating. When one can harness that power to their benefit without infringing on others, that’s great.

A few years ago I spent some time teaching Web design at Kendall College of Art & Design. This is a rough transcript of the lecture I used on the first day of each semester. It was designed to give a brief overview of the technologies, introduce some new concepts to the students, and scare as many as possible into dropping the class…

Hello. My name is John Winkelman, and I will be your instructor for this semester of Web I, Intro to Web Design.

Web design covers a lot of ground. There is the “look and feel” — what you see when you browse to a website. There is the underlying code that goes into the creation of a site. There is the collection of assets — photos, graphics, audio and video — all of which are part and parcel of a site. And there are the research and exploration that go into creating the overall user experience.

We have limited amounts of time and resources in this [as for most projects]. So we will focus on some of the simple aspects of Web design, diving as deeply as possible into the basics of writing the code that underlies every page on the Internet. We will focus on how to design websites, and in order to do so effectively, you will need to know what is possible and what is reasonable.

Roughly, the creation of a website can be broken into two parts: The visual design and the structure of the data. Or, information and the presentation of information. If this were bookbinding, the data would be the story and the presentation would be the physical parts of the book and the design choices such as typeface, cover design, type of paper and the like.

[At this point I pull up Google on the overhead projector.]

All of you have seen this page. You will probably be using it quite a lot over the course of this semester. This is about as simple as a Web page gets while still being useful. You are looking at the presentation of the page. This (here I “view page source” on the page) is the structure of the page. Not so simple, is it? Sometimes it takes a lot of work to make something elegant.

Okay. Let’s look at something a little more complicated (CNN.com). There is a lot going on in this page… (view page source) and the underlying structure of the page reflects that complexity.

Still awake? Good.

Here is another example, something I whipped up to be an easier introduction (a page where I have created an HTML version of the book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer).

Okay. This is about as simple as a content-heavy page gets. This is a novel, which means it has a title, subtitle, author information, chapter headers, and paragraphs. Simple, straightforward, and no real surprises. Look at the first few lines of text. Now, let’s look at the structure of this document (view page source).

Right up at the top, there are the same words, except they have a little extra around each chunk of text, which looks like this:

<p>the text</p>

Now is a good time to explain the first of two new languages you will learn in this class: HTML, which stands for HyperText Markup Language. Basically, this is a way of describing a chunk of content in such a way that it has logical structure. Hyper text. Text which describes text. This is necessary because we need to be able to control the structure of a document in order to be able to control the way it looks in a Web browser. In order to do this, there is another language — CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets — which we use to control the presentation of documents which we structure using HTML.

There is a third language which Web pages use to allow and control user interaction and manipulation of a document — JavaScript, which is often referred to in the shortened form “js.”

So… three languages. One for structure, one for presentation and one for interaction. Things, descriptions and uses. Nouns, adjectives and verbs. In this class we will be using only the first two. First, let’s talk about HTML…

Please stop crying. We still have a lot to cover today.

The first and primary use of a Web page is to display content of some kind. It doesn’t matter what this content is. It could be a photo gallery, a concert promo, a blog, a store or a corporate site. It could be simply text, like the Tom Sawyer example. It could be a Web-based game, like those found at Orisinal or Kongregate. It could be a movie appreciation site. It could be in English, Japanese, Arabic, Russian or French or all of these languages. Or it could be any combination of these. No matter what is presented to the user, under the hood the structure is fundamentally the same. HTML is HTML is HTML. At the base level, every web page in the world is created using the same tool set. And that is another way of thinking about HTML — it is a set of tools you use to build things. I guess in that sense, it kind of makes this class more of an apprenticeship.

Every chunk of content that you want to display on a website is one of a limited number of possibilities: A headline. A paragraph. A link. An image. A table. A list. Because it is a language, HTML has several layers of interpretation. It has syntax, which is the words available for use, and it has semantics, which is the way in which the words are used. Syntax and semantics. Describing things, and placing them in context with one another.

There are around 85 words in the HTML language, and they conform, more or less, with the uses to which they are meant to be put. For example:

<p></p> – Paragraph
<b></b> – bold text
<i></i> – italic text
<ol></ol> – ordered list
<table></table> – tabular data
<html></html> – an HTML document

(A list of all available words can be found here.)

Out of these words, you will probably use about twenty of them this semester. Notice that these words come in pairs, each half of the pair surrounded by angle brackets. Taken together, they are called “tags” or “elements” or “nodes.” Using these tags, we mark up a document to give it structure and meaning. Look at this example in a browser…

(The poem “The Raven.”)

In a browser, it is all jumbled together. No line breaks, no formatting of any kind. Just one big, long, run-on sentence. Now, we add a couple of tags to give this semantic meaning.

(A piece of “The Raven” with minimal HTML included: <p> tags around the stanzas.)

Now it looks a little better, doesn’t it? The stanzas are broken out. We have provided a little structure. We have given the distinct pieces of this poem meaning.

(Add headline tags around title and author.)

Now things are looking a even better. The title-level pieces of the document are called out as distinct units of information. Now let’s go one step further and add some line breaks to the ends of the lines.

(Add BR tags.)

Now it looks like a poem! All the lines break where they should. The title or headline and subtitle or subhead are obvious. The content has been structured so that it retains its original meaning. When the browser looks at a text document, it doesn’t automatically know what all the pieces and parts are. We have to tell it what they are.

Notice that other than adding those HTML elements to the document, I didn’t change how it was laid out. The breaks we put in aren’t necessarily part of the presentation of the document. The structure of a poem requires that lines end after specific words. Therefore the line breaks are part of the content.

Looking at this document with a Web browser, we can see the structure of the document. We have done nothing to say how it is to be presented. In order to do so, we need to use another language: CSS, also called Cascading Style Sheets, or simply stylesheets. We will learn about those after the break.

Any questions? No? Y’all already know everything there is to know about building websites? Good. My work here is complete.

To their credit, none of my students ever dropped the class because of this lecture.

A while ago, a colleague with a strong background in interactive design and user experience suggested that I attend An Event Apart in New Orleans with some of his team members. I had mentioned to him that I wanted to learn more about the Web; he suggested I dive right in.

From a communications standpoint, I was looking for ways to utilize online tools to help clients get their message out. What I learned was much more than that.

I listened to a series of speakers on topics ranging from design to best practices to technical application. Although some of the topics were a bit over my head, what became clear is that the people building the sites we visit every day are working hard to standardize, validate and communicate the importance of the work they are doing in this “young” medium.

Several speakers shared a common interest in pushing the medium to tell a better story. Perspectives on how to achieve this emphasized content, structure, usability, design, findability, and how all ingredients are necessary to deliver a meaningful experience.

Cameron Moll, author of Mobile Web Design, based his presentation on the importance of being solution-focused vs. problem-focused — how articulating the problem clearly gets us closer to an effective solution.

Happy Cog Studios designer Jason Santa Maria spoke about how design for the Web has been driven by technology rather than message, adding that the form of the design should be driven by the story.

Aaron Walter, author of Building Findable Websites, talked about the Semantic Web and how good content helps users find the sites they seek. He promoted the idea of providing rich information as the best way gain rank on user searches.

All of these speakers shared an interest in continual improvement. They discussed ways to work around technological limits to move the capabilities further. And they wanted help convincing clients and other influencers — many of whom may not be familiar with the format — to trust the designers’ expertise and allow them to guide clients through a process to achieve the clients’ goals.

Although I view a Web page on a flat screen, I have learned that there is dimension beyond the content and imagery presented there. In order to build that site, you have to consider the structure, the presentation and how it all behaves. All of those layers have their own parameters. It’s the magic in how they’re built and applied that results in a successful site on every level. It takes coordination and planning to do it right.

As someone with a print background, I drew many parallels to my first AIGA conference (which, coincidentally, also took place in New Orleans). It was 1997. I was one of many designers gathered to discuss issues across disciplines and gain inspiration from the speakers. More than that, we gathered to join in a movement to continue establishing credibility for our profession and promote the value that design brings to business.

An Event Apart seems to have similar intentions — and similar momentum. So I didn’t just test the waters. I dove in and got the whole experience. It gave me insight I wouldn’t have gained otherwise. The conference will definitely impact how I work with the people who build and design websites, and how I think about all that goes into doing their jobs well.

The complexity of design is often missed because our job, if done well, is to make things simple and easy to understand. Despite design’s rich history, not everyone knows or appreciates its impact on their daily lives. I don’t think the majority of people commonly consider design when holding a fork or loading laundry in a new front loading washer.

The part that innovation plays in evolving what we do and how we do it day-to-day is amazing when you do stop to think about it. Design is about function and purpose. If it’s successful, in a sense, it almost disappears or becomes an afterthought. Within our industry, I believe the benefits design brings to business are probably well understood, but the process to achieve them is not.

Recently I picked up a book by Alina Wheeler entitled Designing Brand Identity. It’s a great resource for anyone interested in the process of brand development and is outlined with wonderful visuals and quotes by notables in the design industry that support the thinking. What I love about it most is that it’s straightforward, yet doesn’t over simplify the necessary steps to achieve the best possible results. It’s clear that great design takes smarts, hard work and diligence. Because I work with this type of information every day, Wheeler’s book has become a valued reference for me. I refer to it in my own writing and have encouraged our designers here to spend some time with it themselves.

Many of the concepts we try to convey can be difficult for some people to understand. This book helps bridge that gap.One of the most important things we bring as designers is the ability to develop solutions that connect with people on an emotional level. We can do this not only because designers are problem solvers but because they have the ability to present the solution with insight, objectivity and creativity.

Design is receiving much recognition as a catalyst for driving success in the marketplace. You hear a great deal about designers finally being invited to sit at the business table. What we need to remember is that the seat at the table will remain open to us only if we continue to make our role clear and communicate the value we bring to business in the form of solutions. It’s no longer just about designing artifacts. It goes deep into understanding and impacting the customer’s experience, shaping perceptions and communicating effectively — to friends and all.

When Google was in town recently, one of the applications they highlighted was a map someone had created which displayed crime information in the city of Baltimore, Maryland. Since then, crime maps of various cities seem to be getting increased exposure. Therefore, here is the story of one I created for Grand Rapids.

Over the past ten years, my car has been broken into four times. The first two were simple take-coins-from-the-cup-holder incidents. The last two involved broken windows and stolen stereos. After replacing the second stereo I started looking around to see if other Grand Rapids folks had suffered similar indignities. There was no single source of local crime information available at the time. So, in the summer of 2006, I decided to do something about it.

In 2005, journalist Adrian Holovaty created the Chicago Crime Map. This map had everything I wanted, and was getting a lot of positive attention. After a little digging, I found a tutorial, downloaded a Google code library, and in about an hour I had my first map.

Creating the Google Maps mash-up was easy. Finding information with which to populate it took a little more work. The GR Police Department publishes yearly statistics, but at the time, nothing with the level of data granularity I needed. So I turned to the media. Crimes are reported all the time. Grand Rapids has several news websites. Finding things to post would be easy.

Unfortunately, not as easy as I had hoped. At the start of this project, only WOODTV had information accessible, archived, up-to-date, and information-rich. The rest of the local news outlets were too difficult to search, too slow to update, or simply didn’t cover enough local news. So WOODTV became my information source for the map.

One of the unspoken rules of journalism is “If it bleeds, it leads.” The more lurid the crime, the more attention it gets. A drive-by shooting gets in-depth coverage (as it should). A bicycle stolen from a back porch goes by unnoticed. Given the nature of this beast, the information I most wanted was not available from traditional media outlets. I used what I could find, so the crime map leans heavily toward violent crimes. Not a misdemeanor to be seen.

PRESENT:

This is the process I use for updating the map: I visit the local news websites a couple of times a day. When an incident is reported, I grab the direct link to the story, then go to maps.google.com and enter the address (if provided), or hunt around until I find the location (“near the intersection of X and Y streets”) From this I can retrieve the zip code, city quadrant, and latitude/longitude information, all of which I then enter into the XML file which contains all of the information for the crime map.

In raw code, each incident looks like this:

<incident>

        <type>Homicide</type>

        <date>2006.08.07</date>

        <street>1100 Crime Street SE</street>

        <city>Grand Rapids, MI 49506</city>

        <quadrant>SE</quadrant>

        <latitude>42.953</latitude>

        <longitude>-85.641</longitude>

        <notes>Joe Smith shot and killed in his house</notes>

        <news_source>

               <n>http://woodtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=xxxxxx</n>

        </news_source>

</incident>

Once completed, I upload the XML file to the website and voila! Up-to-date crime statistics. Or as close as I have been able to get so far.

FUTURE:

With this as a base, there are many directions I could go with this map. The most useful would be to plug directly into the database at the Grand Rapids Police Department. That way every reported crime would be visible, and given the information density, the map would become much more useful.

I would like to see crimes broken down by time of day, as well as date and location.

I would like to add a timeline with an auto-play feature, so users can discover patterns in the locations and types on any given day.

Example: Look at all the crimes committed over a 24-hour period. Time-stamp them. Use the location to back-track and perhaps discover the origin of a particular spree. This would have been useful the second time my stereo was stolen, as this was part of a rash of car break-ins, at least a dozen of which happened on the same block in a week.

Perhaps most important, I want to have details of minor property crimes available. For every murder in Grand Rapids, there are probably a couple of hundred burglaries. I would think that people would get more use out knowing about the quiet, minor stuff, than seeing major news stories duplicated.

I would also like to convert the page over to being run by a blogging tool of some kind, so people can comment on the events of the day.

The crimes which are reported by the media are the smallest tip of the iceberg of the actual incidents that happen in a city. In 2007 I placed around a hundred incidents on the map. In that year there were roughly 15,000 crimes – felonies and misdemeanors – committed in the greater Grand Rapids area.

CURRENT AND POTENTIAL REACTIONS

Not long after I created the map I began to get referral hits from a local church. A little while later, I began to get hits from the Urban Planet forums. And shortly thereafter I discovered myself on the front page of Google when searching for “grand rapids crime”, or any variation thereof. So there is an interest in this kind of information being made publicly available.

Recently, I contacted Adrian Holovaty and asked him how people had reacted to the creation of the Chicago Crime Map. He said that everyone who had seen it – citizens, police, and local government officials, were happy to have it available, and somewhat surprised that nothing like this had been created previously. The only criticism was the lack of specific crime details. Mr. Holovaty recommended that I add a disclaimer to the effect that the data presented in the map is only as accurate as the sources from which it is gathered. Inaccurate data coming in equals inaccurate data going out.

This issue brought into focus another issue: the right to privacy of the victims of residential crimes. For most such incidents, the news sources reference the nearest crossroads, rather than specific addresses. I try to place the markers on the map appropriately, or in the middle of the block if a crime happened in “the 1600 block of SomeStreet”. For public space crimes – bank robberies, and the like – specific addresses are generally offered, and I place the markers as close to dead-on as I can.

In my opinion, more information can only be a good thing. The more we know about the places we live, the safer we are. The potential exists for businesses to suffer if people know that crimes have been committed nearby, but in the long view being well-informed is more important,

CODA

The crime map is now more than a year and a half old. Between 250 and 300 people view the page every month, and those numbers seem to be (slowly) growing. Soon I will begin a conversation with the GRPD regarding the use of their information in my project.

I for one would have like to have seen the statistics on stolen car stereos before I decide to leave my car unattended on a particular curb. If I can prevent one car stereo from being ripped out of a dashboard, I will consider this project to be a success.

OTHER MAPS

The following is a list of other crime map mash-ups in other cities in the US.

Chicago: http://chicago.everyblock.com/crime/ (the first widely-known crime map mashup, created by Adrian Holovaty)

New England: http://www.incidentlog.com/

New York: http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/20060428_HOMICIDE_MAP.html

Los Angeles: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/crime/homicidemap/

Oakland County: http://oakland.crimespotting.org

Large, detailed list of current crime maps: http://journalistopia.com/2007/09/06/journalistopias-online-crime-maps-directory/

More and more companies are realizing there is a lot to be gained by joining the world of user-generated content. Think Facebook or Myspace, but with a model that allows users to submit and potentially monetize their ideas. I can’t help but think that by allowing individuals to create and experiment on a global platform, companies will find that it increases innovation, brand loyalty and can be quite lucrative.

Companies like Threadless.com are entirely based on a user-generated, user-chosen model. Threadless is a website that sells t-shirts. The catch is that every single shirt on the site was designed and submitted by a user, then voted on by the community. It is incredibly empowering for the users and it also creates a sort of loyalty that you will just never find at a traditional shopping site. Threadless only sells what it knows the community will buy. The users run the store in most ways.

This week at the Game Developer’s Conference, Microsoft made it’s XNA game development platform available to the public to play with on their Xbox 360′s in their living rooms. XNA is a game development system that has existed for a couple of years and has allowed average people to create content. It wasn’t until now that anyone has actually seen XNA bear any fruit. The most impressive thing about it is that it really does set a new standard in user-generated content. No longer do small developers or bedroom dabblers have to wonder how to get their efforts out to the masses.

This is one of those things that Microsoft does on occasion that is actually really interesting and will raise the bar for others. Allowing anyone to download the toolkit and create their own software is one thing. It has been done over and over again to limited success since the dawn of the computer. What’s interesting here is taking the benefits of that, combining it with the power of a social network to deliver that content to the masses. It actually works quite a lot like Threadless by allowing its users to create, submit, review, and published out to Xbox Live and into the living rooms of millions.

It is really interesting to see this market develop. Stores, publishers and companies no longer have to build everything. They can build a framework that is open enough for people to innovate and then allow them in, handing the keys to the masses. It’s a user-generated world, and I can’t wait to see everyone there!

Let’s say you own a clothing store selling unique creations of your own design and you want to promote yourself online.

OK, where do you start? Let’s say you buy a domain and set up a website. You have a hands-on approach to selling, you are a consultant and a confidante to your customer. You want to establish strong personal loyalty and use the web to help prompt users when things that might interest them arise.

First, let’s imagine you are a prospective customer for this clothing store. You are new to town and are looking for something unique. You go to Google and you search for: “grand rapids clothing store.” Some telling things result:

So Google is trying to help us find localized content. They list out three clothing retailers and a map to their locations.

But the first one is particularly troubling. Wal-Mart. Even more troubling is the link: http://www.visitgrandrapids.org. This is the official site of the Grand Rapids/Kent County Convention & Visitors Bureau, a non-profit organization. Hmm. That’s a problem. How did this happen?

We need to contact this organization and get on whatever list it is that they have. So let’s dig in:
http://www.visitgrandrapids.org/partners-info.php

Great, this must be what Wal-Mart did right? Let’s take a look:

http://www.visitgrandrapids.org/business-links.php#W

Nope no Wal-Mart. So why is Wal-Mart there? Let’s search:

http://www.visitgrandrapids.org/search.php?q=Wal-Mart

Nope, nothing. Hmm, and yet they garner top billing on Google. Let’s get the full local view on Google. There’s Wal-Mart, loud and proud.

Now if we set aside that Wal-Mart is dominating the local clothing store market on Google, we can see that the rest of the list is more in line with what we would hope to find. So how do we get our business listed in Google? Simple: Go here. Fill out some forms. You’re in.

Did you see it? The website field?

Let’s suppose someone at Wal-Mart registered the local store with Google after they had done a search on Grand Rapids. The top result is, you guessed it, http://www.visitgrandrapids.org. Suppose Wal-Mart entered this as their website. Google took this to mean that Wal-Mart is this domain which is the top domain for Grand Rapids. By adding this url as their own, they give themselves top billing in this local search result. There may be other search terms they are “owning” for free in this way. Presumably Google values this association above all others and Wal-Mart is exploiting it. Bad Wal-Mart.

I wonder what Google would do to punish our hypothetical local clothing store if we tried the same exploit? Do you think they will do this to Wal-Mart as well? Gosh I hope so. It adds insult to injury in my mind that Wal-Mart didn’t bother to submit a link to the site they are exploiting. (BTW it costs $200 to get listed).

Let’s look at Microsoft. And drill in to the local listings here. Lots of interesting differences. For one the playing field seems a little leveler. This is likely because fewer people are using it. Also look at Yahoo! The addition of a neighborhood filter is interesting, but do they really know the local market?

Let’s not stop there:
http://grandrapids.craigslist.org/
http://outside.in/Grand_Rapids_MI/places/category/Clothing
These links are intriguing because there are active locals reviewing stores. That means real customers.

But the following links may be the most important because they were actually created by real local people:

http://viget.org/Category:Stores
http://www.grnow.com/
http://www.localfirst.com/members/shopping

Hopefully this little primer will give you some leads on how to promote your business online. Submitting to these directories is important for establishing a presence for your store, but what may be more important is realizing how these systems connect and work together to promote your store. Submitting to these directories will not cost you any money, just a couple hours and you’ve raised awareness of your website.

The fact that Wal-Mart knows how to exploit these systems does not endear them. It does raise a question about just how knowledgable you need to be in order to compete online. In fact, I’ve hopefully raised a lot of questions about just what it takes to communicate to a local market. What is the best directory to be listed on to reach Grand Rapids? Well, all of them of course. If you ask your customers how they found you, that can help inform your decision.

It would be great if there were a definitive guide. That would likely make the problem of reaching a local online audience easier to solve. But no one has owned this as of yet. There have been a number of efforts I would hate to overlook (http://www.searchgrandrapids.com/) but for now it’s better to cast yourself broad. If you can’t find yourself, submit your site.