Yeah, I had to look it up, too.

Meryl tagged me on a couple levels. First, she presented me with an “Inspirational Blogger Award.” I’m not really sure what to say about that. There are a lot of people out there far more inspirational than myself (I mean, I can’t think of how I am at all). Meryl seemed to like the whole “blog is the new resume” story, so perhaps she was inspired by that.

The meme says that I in turn have to award the blog awards. For “Inspirational Blogger”, it is very hard for me to pick. A ton of bloggers have inspired me. Would it be a cop out to name the crew of Dan, Brian, Jeremiah, and Joshua? For”Courageous Blogger” (the award Meryl was given), I’ll give it to Kathy Sierra. She took a stand after dealing with crap she shouldn’t have had to. She did what was right, though I feel like I’m not as smart a person when she’s not blogging. Kathy could also get “Creative Blogger Award,” but Tara is also quite deserving. I’ll stop there since what I mostly read are tech blogs and those are the ones that fit best.

Not done there, Meryl also tagged me to reply to a meme about revealing tips for dealing with problems (or dealing with adversity, as the original post said). I have five to offer off the top of my head. While most relate to solving technical problems, some can work at a higher level as well.

1. Figure out the high-level problem. This will actually allow you to solve all issues related to the greater problem. This way you can avoid simply endlessly applying band aid after band aid.
2. Get a baseline to work from. This one works best in interface design. A lot of things go into an interface. There are tons of decisions to make. To avoid feeling overwhelmed, you just have to make a first version. You will throw all of it away, but you need to have something to look at to say “I don’t like that.” Otherwise, you’ll never know what you want.
3. Don’t dwell. This one rises above software design. Is this problem really the end of the world? Probably not. I’m totally a “make lemonade” guy. Hell, I love lemonade. Not that crap made from powder, though.
4. Do the other little things first so you can focus. No, it’s not procrastonating. It is eliminating one of the additional stresses you have—the stuff you have to do AFTER you solve this impossible problem. When all that’s left is the impossible problem, you can focus on just that.
5. Get another set of eyes. I’m not ashamed to run something by someone else. I love feedback. It’s why I listen to Mogwai.

So, I hope that fit the bill. I think I survived my first memetag.

I’d have five cents.

So, I trimmed my RSS list not long ago and made a category called “Must Reads”. I’ll share those here:

• Brian Oberkirch: The ultimate aggregator
  
• Joshua Porter: Social web design
• Creating Passionate Users: Empowering user to kick ass
• Jeremiah Owyang: Social media guru, though he digs far deeper than I do
• Dan Cederholm: Because he’s my hero
• Chris Messina: He’s just got his finger on everything
• Tara Hunt: Pinko marketer extraordinaire
• Guy Kawasaki: The legend
• Ryan Carson: Just because I love all of his ventures

I know, for a “designer” it’s a little light on design blogs. But I figure if anything too crazy is talked about in the design world, I can get that from Dan or Chris. I also listen to Paul Boag’s Boagworld podcast, which helps out on that front. But what can I say? I love the strategy side of things.

Panelists:

• David Parmet, Marketing Begins At Home LLC
• Gabe Rivera, Techmeme
• Kathy Sierra, Creating Passionate Users
• Hugh MacLeod, gapingvoid.com

Notes:

• Other title: “Because real jobs suck”
• Techmeme is fueled by other people’s microbrands
• Hugh inspired Kathy to blog
  • Kathy’s Technorati ranking higher than Hugh now
  • Also higher than the O’Reilly radar
• Kathy’s Global Microbrand Virtues
  • Be Grateful
    • Biggest one
    • We’re lucky people would take a minute to read us
    • 55 million blogs
  • Be Humble
    • Why am I not getting any readers? Your blog is all about you.
    • Job is to make people feel better about themselves (in a legitimate way)
    • Let the reader say “I’m Brilliant!”
  • Be Patient
  • Be Brave
  • Show Respect
    • Crafting the images, cartoons, charts, gives back for the user’s time
    • Give them superpowers
  • Be Generous
    • Give away advice, show them how to do something
    • “The funny thing is, when I worked at Sun, nobody cared what Kathy Sierra said.”
    • Don’t blog the cat
    • Don’t name drop
  • Be Motivating
• It’s not about YOU.
• Hugh: The nice thing about being a blogger with a lot of readers is you get so many smart people landing in your lap
  • More beneficial to link to your readers than to link to A-listers
  • Say nice things about your readers
  • Hugh gives wine to bloggers and folks who set up Geek Dinners
  • Used to sell 40,000 cases of wine per year. Sold 40,000 last week
• Kathy: Respect people’s time with the posts you make
  • Often you can get 90% from the pictures without reading the post
  • If she’s busy and can’t add value, she’s not going to clutter your feedreader
• Hugh gave a great story about a tailor in England he set up with a blog (English Cut)
  • Never checks stats, just focuses on making the best suits in the world for the customers
  • It’s not about reaching the most people, it’s about reaching the right people
• Tara Hunt (from crowd): You can blog for your audience or you can blog for yourself
• If you try to be Michael Arrington, you’re going to fail. He’s being himself. You should be yourself.
• Kathy has a seizure disorder, and a reader sent her an alternative to the treatments that weren’t working.
  • She wouldn’t be doing this if not for that reader
• Karma:
  • Dave lost his job
  • Hugh blogged to hire Dave Parmet
  • When English Cut needed some PR help, Hugh talked to Dave
  • Dave got them in NYTimes
• Chris Messina: Blog as if you’re writing to only 3 or 4 people.
  • Some even start blogging in email to make it more personal
  • The best way to get approval is not to need it
• What do you say when you try to talk to a girl at a bar?
  • You don’t talk like marketers
  • You don’t say “Hi, I’m Hugh McLeod, this is my sexual history, do you want to go to bed?”
  • You ask about what they think of the weather, ballgame, etc.

I said this would be a fun panel. It was. But it was also inspiring. The inspiration should get its own post separately from the notes here. I’ll follow up soon.

Best panel of the entire conference.

As a dedicated reader of Kathy’s blog, she talked about a lot I’ve read there. However, she did touch on something I haven’t heard/read her cover before—the WTF? button.

There has been tons of research over the years dedicated to recogizing facial expressions. It’s come a long way, but there is still a long way to go. Why not—instead of trying to automatically detect when a user is distraught—let the user tell YOU when they’re confused. The button doesn’t have to say WTF, but it certainly gets the point across. Once the user clicks on the WTF/AAAAARGH/HELP ME!/I’M CONFUSED! button, you can detect where they are in the system and provide some high level choices about what’s going on (I’m lost, I’m confused, I know what I want to do but can’t find it, etc.). From there, you can provide some more detailed questions for the user to answer. And from there, you can provide the way out of trouble.

Kathy put on a great show, and if you aren’t reading Creating Passionate Users, you’re missing out.

Update: Tons of folks writing about this one. Here are some of the early ones and good ones:

• David Panarelli
• Liz Henry
• Jeff Beckham
• 21apples
• Stuart Montgomery @ Throwspace
• Christine Herron
• Brian Fitzgerald
• SXSWDiary.com
• Cindy Royal