Process, promotion and presentations at FOWD London 2008

Particular highlights of today included Jon Hicks, Paul Farnell and Daniel Burka. Jon’s presentation explored, on the whole, familiar territory, but his insights into process were particularly interesting. It’s always fascinating to see how others work, and not just what they do, and comparing methodologies certainly enables a bit of self reflection in that regard.

Paul talked about traffic-driving strategies, and while I suspect that not all of what he said fitted the ‘unconventional’ moniker of his title, it was good stuff nonetheless. Dug flagged up his thoughts on ‘satellites’ — small, simple, free side-products which offer a gateway to the main commercial proposition. 37signals’ Ta-Da Lists, for example, offers (for free) some of the functionality of Basecamp and Backpack, with the intention of converting users into fully paid-up Basecamp lovers over time. Of course, this isn’t anything new — sales funnel stuff has been around for ages — but I suspect there are plenty of opportunities to apply it in non-commercial situations.

One thing which Paul didn’t explore, and which I think deserves some attention, is the thought that rather than promoting a product — as he described the link between satellite and core proposition — the satellite serves to promote a brand, or a way of thinking. In 37signals’ case, I suspect this is at least part of the motivation. Their stripped-down-and-simple æsthetic and product design principles are as much what’s being promoted through Ta-Da Lists as their product range itself.

Lastly, Daniel Burka certainly wins the award for most beautiful presentation. His discussion of life as Digg’s creative director included some thought-provoking points about the continuum of the design process — why evolution may be the best course of action when chucking it all out and starting again is the most tempting (users need time to get familiar with things); why taking away is as important as adding new stuff (mostly because we never think about taking away, and bloat is bad) and why working in-house is great (because that way you’re boss).

1. Image: a slide from Daniel Burka’s presentation at FOWD London 08