Observed

OK, granted, you’re probably not writing for fans of Fergie or will.i.am.  Work with me anyway, because I see a connection between the digital freneticism of the Black Eyed Peas and your visitors’ non-linear distractability.

If your goal is to get read (much less, remembered), keep your content short.  Probably under 250 words for anything you might consider a page — such as a bio, practice group description, About Us…or, this blog post.

The Nielsen Effect is why.  As in Jakob Nielsen, a Danish software engineer considered to be one of the foremost user experience gurus.

Nielsen and others have found, for starters, that we read online content 25 percent slower than we read the same content in hard copy.  As Nielsen characterizes this and other Web visitor behaviors,

“[U]sers are selfish, lazy and ruthless.”

Here’s a still-timely 2008 Michael Agger post that explains this and more…including the average user’s unwillingness to scroll.

Distractable

We’re addicted to Anything But This.  I check Facebook, listen to BEP on YouTube, look out the window, tweet something…etc., blah.  You?  It’s not in the DSM (yet), but some psychologists label it Fear of Missing Out.

And, my sense is that it’s in our DNA.  That we survived on the ocean or in the jungle or on the savannah or prairie by being hyper-alert and hyper-vigilant.

In other words, we didn’t have the luxury of The Long.  So, Keep It Short.

When I step into the room created by social media, it's incumbent for me to stick around for the conversation...particularly when I start one myself. In other words, I shouldn't shake your tree if I don't want your peaches. No?

LexBlog’s Kevin O’Keefe wasn’t the only reason going to Boston for most of this week was worth it for me.  But he was a big reason.

Kevin, Igor Ilyinsky, Deb McMurray and other law firm marketing thought leaders were presenting at the annual conference of the LMA New England Chapter.  A couple hundred marketers and vendors met to talk about this year’s topic — the interface between lawyers and technology.

When Kevin moderated a panel on social media, he reminded me of why I still resist Twitter.  It’s because I already feel overwhelmed and over-connected.  Despite the filters and other settings I can use to configure who and what I follow (and vice versa), it just seems like another case of being careful of what I ask for.

I also get what Kevin says about the risks of being technically clever and merely auto-Tweeting new blog posts.  (more…)

To escape their prison on Crete, Daedalus fashioned two pairs of wings out of wax and feathers -- one for himself and the other for his son, Icarus. Before they took off from the island, Daedalus warned his son not to fly too close to the sun or the sea. Alas, hubris got the better of the young man, clouding his judgment and causing him to believe he and his wings would survive the heat of the sun. He was wrong...and so was Anthony Weiner.

We all feed our egos.  For some of us, our choices take us too close to the sun, despite reason and the wisdom of others.

Anthony Weiner doesn’t have a PR problem.   My guess is he has some kind of gender-related psych condition or addiction, digitally enabled by the echo chamber we call Twitter.

The kind of condition that tells him some rules don’t apply to him.  The little voice that says, “I’m an exception.”

The ancients labeled this hubris.  It reminded them that mortals had better not trespass on the powers of the gods unless mortals were prepared to suffer the consequences.

Time and a lot of hard work may the restore the trust people once had in Weiner.  Just as Nixon was able to pull back slightly from absolute and permanent disgrace after San Clemente.

Clever branding may figure into such a restoration for Weiner.  Probably just not yet.

Meanwhile, he’s the latest (not the last) to fall into the sea.

"O envy! envy! thou gnawing worm of virtue, and spring of infinite mischiefs! there is no other vice, my Sancho, but pleads some pleasure in its excuse; but envy is always attended by disgust, rancour, and distracting rage." -- Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, Part II, Chapter 8.

In the last couple of days, both Seth and The New York Times have taken a look at the connection between on-line technology and envy.  It’s not clear who coined it, but the Times uses an acronym to describe the way Facebook, Twitter and the like have tormented those of us stalking a better offer — FOMO…or, Fear of Missing Out.

Of course, there’s nothing new under the sun.  It’s been ages since Envy was added to the Seven Deadly Sins list.  The ancient Greeks invented Zelos (god of envy and the root for the word zeal), and Cervantes wrote Don Quixote around the end of the 16th Century.

So, I’m reluctant to further demonize our gadgets and apps and how they abet our addiction to connectivity and the inevitable quest for something other than what we have.  Technology is, after all, partly a solution in search of a problem.

In a way, we set ourselves up.  When we open a Twitter account or create a Facebook page, aren’t we giving some part of ourselves permission to act on whatever innate urge might reside in us to compare our lives to the lives of others…and, perhaps, to despair?

A buddy of mine said it really well when he called out Facebook years ago.  He called it invited voyeurism.

So, really.  Who are we kidding?