Another sign the economy is really good

I'm looking for a UI firm to redo the UI on my first product. Right now, it's pleasing and usable enough, but going forward with this and our other products, I'd like our products to have a unique, company-specific "personality" (most people would call this look and feel) . I call it personality because I want it to be a bit more pervasive and a lot less surface level than simple look and feel. But that's not the point of this post.

So far, I've written 4 firms.

One called me immediately. They totally and absolutely "got it." But, I need more bids before I just blindly go with the first group I talked to.
Another one wrote me back after 2 days and said they'd routed my RFI but they weren't sure if they really did that sort of work, but they'd let me know (doesn't sound promising does it).
Two others - not one peep. Seriously. Not one.

I find it somewhat amazing that companies won't follow up on leads. However, I know that at my last large company, they basically tossed all the leads that came from the web. But small companies... especially companies that deliver web-based products... wouldn't they be interested in talking to a new business prospect?

Apparently not.

Please send recommendations my way... The two that haven't responded are no longer contenders. I will not be ignored!

Back in the old days, before the internet... .

Seriously, how did we ever find anything out? This weekend I went to get coffee after a run with my sister. We saw the strangest looking dog, it looked just like a little lamb! We had no idea what kind of dog it was, so to find out, we put "dog that looks like a lamb" into Google, and voila - it popped up first thing. The first photo is the dog, the second is a lamb. See! I took the photos from the link above. (Got to give credit where credit is due). For your edification, it's a Bedlington Terrier.

The ease of finding out this information really reinforces how much things have changed. I use the internet constantly: to find things out, interact with people, for entertainment, to work, to goof around. It's become such an ubiquitous part of my every day life that I definitely have withdrawals when we're apart.

It's also started me thinking that the digital divide is very real, and the case of the have's and have not's is going to get more and more pronounced. Hmmm. Deep thoughts from a dog sighting.

Are you ready for DST?

DST, in case you didn't know, is Daylight Savings Time. It's coming early this year, and it's bigger than you think. I wonder, when they were touting the savings, did the calculate the cost?

I've been hollering (politely, of course) about this at my own university since late last week after dozens of messages from separate sys-admins trickled and then poured in over the last few days, and we set up a web page to gather all our information. I asked for someone to coordinate on the technical side of the house. As I said to my boss on Friday,

This is one of those, "I've been doing this for ten years and something isn't hitting the right note," things. It's a big impact, there are a lot of patches that will have to happen, and it doesn't feel like anyone has their arms around the whole situation.

Sometimes we see things happening where all we can do is raise a flag and make sure that everyone knows what's going on. If no other actions on their part are required, them I'm fine with it, but I want them to say it. At the very least, I would like us to check in with them and make sure there's some common dialog happening.

I'm sorry I can't explain it in more objective terms. It's a gut thing based on how the whole thing has evolved.

Later on, I explained again more succinctly:

Basically, I see the potential for trouble, and I want someone technical to make sure there isn't any trouble or to say that it's all under control. Trouble could be anything from it doesn't go well to it's extremely uncoordinated and a lot more work that it has to be.

She trusts my gut and we have someone on the technical side. It's validating to read this post in CIO.com titled Y2K Redux from February 12. I used this same example with the work folks on Friday. (Yes, I'm feeling smart today.)

CIO.com is, by the way, a valuable bit of reading for non-CIOs. If you want to become knowledgeable about the business of IT, read it. TWs have constant angst about staying valuable: understand the business you're in and what issues your bosses are dealing with.

Let's Get Web 101 Right First

You know, before everyone goes jumping over to "Web 2.0," I'd suggest getting some basics right, like making sure you know how to set the field focus. I mean really, is it too much to ask a programmer to put my cursor in the right place, when the entire purpose of the login form is for me to enter information? C'mon, people.

The Statesman form above is just one of a ridiculous number of examples of usability violations in web applications. Call me crazy, but when I work on usability for an application, this is one of the first things I look at. I'm keyboard driven. When you tell me I have to enter information on the next page, I'm ready to type. Do they not teach this stuff?