I’ve been chatting with Nathan Smith, a childhood friend from Adelaide, over the last 24 hours on Facebook, Skype and Twitter. We haven’t seen each other for 15 years. I’ve only heard the odd update about his life from his Mum, Chris.

Aunty Chris, was my Mum’s best friend since they went to School together and they were very close until Mum’s death a few years ago. Nathan and I grew up together from the very very beginning, seriously, I was there on his day dot.  He’s a few months younger than I.

Nathan is a successful business man with 2 kids and a lovely wife, Sam. He is very new to the web.  But he managed to find me on Facebook yesterday!

When Nathan contacted me, he mentioned that we have a heap in common, of course, we grew up together! Seriously, we are both entrepreneurs with businesses that leverage the Web to help people.  He has a business venture that leverages the Net to help people build Rich Relationships and wealth at the same time. I just make web things usable.

I realised that I had a little more experience in the Web part, which meant I felt I could tell him a whole lotta stuff, I was like I owed it to him. What was amazing, was that all my stuff was written down, online and ready to share.

Here’s my first sommunication in 15 years:

Hey! We do have some common interests!

Looks like you are doing some great stuff! The ACA piece is great!

You need to read some articles on my blog. That is the stuff I am interested in.

http://usableworld.com.au

I mainly look at the psychology of online interactions either with businesses or friends. My bread and butter work comes from designing corporate websites and internal business applications. When I say design, I mean the interaction/experience, not colour and movement.

In particular, I can help you with your online marketing in social networks. I have sold some of that consulting but it is really only a passion.

You need to spend a few days setting up profiles on some sites. Here’s a list of the Some that I set up for a company.

http://usableworld.com.au/2009/01/29/new-eye-tracking-resources-online/

And then use this tool to social bookmark them (takes a while to set up profiles):

http://www.socialmarker.com/

You have to get yourself on Twitter too:
http://usableworld.com.au/2009/02/08/customer-service-with-twitter/

Those sites help with awareness but they also give you google ranking. Type in James Breeze to Google and you will see what I mean. The first sites are mine. The rest are all social networks. When you type in Nathan Smith you are not on the results page. I guarantee you that people will do that once they hear about you, I did. You need to knock the US Nathan Smith off his podium - that look possible but takes some effort. And you can do it, for free. Hey, it becomes addictive

In terms of your website - you obviously designed it the way it is for search engines, but it does look a bit like those American mass marketing things. You need some more company info and case studies organised in a standard web structure. That gives people confidence in who you are. Easy to do. Who does your web development?

The links on the top of the your regular business site wouldn’t normally link off to another site. That is generally the spot for the major navigation of your site.

You need a little more about you and Sam on their (pics and family and stuff) - People are interested in ‘who’ gives them the advice and I know you guys are good at the relationships! You need to express your personalities.

Oh, here’s an image of how a good friend of mine sees this social marketing stuff. He drew it after a conversation with me. [Thanks James from GreenCollar]

Let’s have a chat.

James

So he contacted me back today on Skype and we’ve just spent a while ‘catching up’.

I was able to share a whole lot more stuff about the internet with Nathan. It was very satisfying.

I think the biggest thing I got from the conversation was the realisation that I really do know a lot about this internet stuff.  I reckon that if you can run a business, then the  web bit should be second nature.  One of the final things I said to Nathan was, “You know, this Internet stuff is so simple. It is the same as what you would do in ‘real life’. All the same rules apply.”

I am so excited that the Web has allowed Nathan to contact me and for us to share our experiences together now and in the future.

For the record, I went to Facebook and one of his latest status up dates was: “My brain feels like Squidoo”. I rate that as correct usage of Word2.0

It’s good to be back in touch

Export your personal tweets to a text file with Tweetdumpr >  copy and paste into Wordle >  Get a pretty word cloud of your tweets!

Imagine if all the technology that was ever built was made with users in mind? What would it be like?

More usable I hope?

Would we:
- all be richer?
- not waste time, daily?
- spend more time doing what we like?
- be happier at work?
- be more technically advanced than we are now?
- be more social?
- more connected?
- more controlled by Big Brother?

I know there is a certain amount of experimentation that needs to occur. But not experimentation on things that exist already elsewhere; that we have been doing for years.

Whitney Hess has hit the nail on the head with this presentation

Yesterday Tobii launched the latest in eye tracking technology.  The Tobii T60 xl is the World’s first 24 inch monitor-based eye tracker and is suitable for tracking large stimuli like PDFs of magazines, large adverts, interactive TV and games.