We’ve all been wondering when the axe will fall at our next large, box down the street or our huge insurance conglomerate buddy on the corner of downtown. But in the face of adversity we should be planning for the recovery.

Those lucky enough to be left in the daily fight to take on more responsibilities and keep their positions should be driving towards a better tomorrow. And the fight needs to be taken online.

By selecting specific traditional advertising and marketing initiatives and bringing them online first, rather than the sometimes much more costly process of doing them in print, you can create a better and more responsible budget that allows for you to stay nimble and keep the energy levels up.

How nimble you become is all about process and the understanding of how online media is supposed to take shape. A solid strategy that reaches a wider audience and the ability to reuse information are the most immediate benefits you get when you create the right online campaign.

Online retail circulars still have to be designed and published in PDF and then converted to a Flash-based preview. However, if you were to take the same media and design elements you use for the circular and place them into a reusable environment (database feeding to XML, CSS, xHTML, Flash), you have a much more efficient process and one that creates a better user experience.

Another way to increase revenue is to start a small mobile effort. For small businesses, it’s easier to capitalize on the mobile market since their product lines are usually smaller and can be changed easily to meet new needs.

For example: A small business offering ten products should think about slowly taking their product line online and allowing for mobile purchases. It’s not the most inexpensive idea on the road map, but it could turn out to have the most positive financial impact.

Rethinking our plans amidst a struggling economy is what separates the success from the failure. Prepare for the recovery, don’t wallow in the recession. Take the time and the measures you need to be successful and create the environment you want.

I had the opportunity today to get a hands-on feel for the new BlackBerry Storm.

To establish a baseline, I own a 3G iPhone (AT&T) and my primary device is a BlackBerry 8830 World Edition (Verizon).

My thoughts are such:

• The speed at which the device moves from application to home screen and back again is absolutely painfully slow. Boil water slow. Not good.
• Icons are almost “too” understated and you actually have to get used to which icon goes to which application. While this was a purposeful design element, it falls short of a true picture icon set.
• The device has just about as unusable a keyboard as I’ve ever seen / used. I was willing to get the phone today, thanks to a free device upgrade on our account, but I couldn’t get past the keyboard. I tried seventeen times to “press” the letter s. It wouldn’t do it. I had to position my finger in JUST the right place, and I was finally able to use one of our most popular letters.
• That “click” screen is actually more problematic than useful. Basically, under the hood is a single button depression mechanism that allows you to get “response” as you “click” or “type” as if you’re using a real keyboard. Nope. Not buying it. It’s actually a total and complete pain in the rear end to use it. It’s actually the opposite of easy.
• Web browsing has never been the BlackBerry’s strong point. However, this is actually a livable experience on the new OS (for Bold, Curve and Storm). It’s akin to the Opera Light version on any other device, or IE on a WinMo phone.
• Scrolling and sideways gyro functions are in competition with the iPhone, but it’s so clunky when you do it that you wonder if you did it right. Not only that, the real estate you’re given to scroll is so tight that you end up scraping your finger against another function or up in the text entry area. Not helpful if you’re in a rush or need to look something up while you’re writing a document or responding to e-mail.

Overall, the Storm is about 60% there. The screen is gorgeous, the colors are great and the feel of the device is no worse in form that an iPhone (in terms of weight, etc…).

I would, absolutely not, unfortunately recommend this thing for at least another generation.

Have a comment? Used a Storm? Work for Verizon and want to save your sales or represent? Leave a comment below.

There are times where we just need to take a moment and enjoy the Web for what it is. But, that’s the problem. We don’t always know how to define it. Not to ourselves, mind you, the keepers of the medium itself, but rather, to people around us who still don’t “get” what this is.

Bring me something

The Web brings us joy, sadness, pain and frustration. It brings us into a world where we can digest as much information as our brains will take and then offer us one million more destinations the next day and still not lose its ability to quickly regenerate.

Need to copy the recipe of a garlic oil from your favorite restaurant? Boom! There it is.

Need to adjust the settings on the remote you bought in 2001? Boom! There it is.

It’s a dangerous medium that requires parental supervision. It requires as much care of handling in some cases as a loaded gun.

Something point something

I don’t know about you, but I’m very tired of hearing the Web defined as a version scheme. The Web is constantly evolving and I don’t think we should assign numbers to it. Who is to say where the point of demarcation is for 2.0 or 3.0 or 723.6? It’s against the very nature of the anarchy we create to establish a cut-off to any one event other than the moment they displayed the first HTML at CERN.

MY Web exists out of many, many versions. It is always new and exciting. But it’s exciting because of content and technique, not because of a security patch or a specific mirrored logo and hash background. It’s exciting because wherever you go, there is the culmination of “someone’s” work; good or bad. It’s a way for creativity and sometimes very warped sense of self to be posted in the most immediate medium we’ve ever seen.

And, speaking of MY Web…

It is the ME era. The Web is about “self”. Even in collaboration we celebrate the brain matter of “this guy and that gal” who gallantly showed that they have the talent to justify the consultative costs. And, to be honest, that’s really very cool. The world has countries filled with amazingly talented and bright individuals who are a link away from solving your most intricate online problems. They are there for the picking; some better than others. When they’ve been taken for granted, they let people know, most of the time in a very public way.

The Web gives us good, bad, ugly and beautiful. It’s not the total solution, but it has the potential to solve many problems. I take for granted the world that is being created around me, but not half as much as the generation that will grow up with it already in place. Let’s just hope they enjoy it as much as I do.

Google has finally unleashed it’s own, not-as-sordid-as-Second-Life version of virtual reality called “Lively” and it currently only hearts PCs running Vista or XP.

We’ve been talking to a couple of beta users and have even taken a stroll around a couple of rooms and so far it’s still somewhat controlled. I keep wondering if currency and the adult content on Second Life will eventually make it throughout the new Lively experience.

Time will tell.

We UX Professionals solve multi-layered, complex and sometimes frustrating issues for both online and offline problems. And, quite honestly, it is the user INexperience that drives our battles and forces us to analyze new ways to solve the same issues.

With so many different persona, application interfaces, retail store signage and roadway maps to look at in the course of a day is it possible that a common, overarching standardization or methodology will never be found? Better yet, do we even need a way to work within a framework that handles the many facets of an experience which combines online with offline to accessibility, or is the cooperation the process?

Disciplinary action

In each interaction with a thing or living creature there is a discipline; a niche. Going further, each discipline can be broken down into special interests or subcategories. A person with impaired vision takes your solution and offers feedback, thereby offering you a chance to develop alternatives that keep the values of the original intention.

Without specialization for each UX discipline, we are back in the stone ages of interaction. It takes the combination of interdisciplinary skills to truly solve problems.

Working beyond our means

It’s quite possible that you’ve been on a project where the good and the bad weren’t challenges presented by the information design or the brand relation between on and offline environments. It is very possible that the good and bad were the people. The talent.

When we partner, truly partner, outside of our skillset we need to let go of our fear that one discipline will outweigh another. If we can trust another with our work or trust another with our experience that they’ll create a solution with the user in mind, everyone wins.