Enough time passed that I had calmed down. Having a toddler will teach you a patience that playing a game never could. I was drawn back to the game. Initially playing only about an hour a week. Then two nights, then more. I was still a losing player but a trip to Vegas helped me sort that out (honest!).

But simply playing the game isn’t enough for me anymore. I’ve always wanted to combine my love of the game with my skills as a design technologist. As a result, I’ve begun to roll out my own poker news aggregator:

Chat's Poker: a Poker News Aggregator

Right now it’s a single page site inspired by Type Daily which, in turn, was inspired by POPURLS.

I rolled my own code to pull most of the feeds and add them to a local database for speed purposes and I set up a cron job to update the oldest feed every five minutes. This ensures fresh content and a quick page load. Over the coming weeks I’m going to explore better code options, like this one called “Building your own Alltop or PopURLs” from Delic. (I wish I had found that sooner…)

I’m also going to add more feeds, including hopefully more videos, some images, an Amazon bookstore, and maybe some other stuff. I’m going to build out a few other pages to break down feeds by news, instructional posts and pro blogs. And because I’m not an entirely altruistic person, I’m also going to add affiliate links to the various poker sites. I already have the top three on there: Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars and Absolute Poker.

If you want to play online poker, feel free to sign up through one of those links.

Edit: Oh, hey. It’d probably be cool if I linked to the poker news aggregator. I also linked to it upstream in the post.

Writing is a personal goal of mine and one that I will continue, but the artificial nature of the once a week construct has inhibited me. I structured the blog around the concept and the way I feature the current post dissuades me from posting shorter content that my time allows. At the other end of the spectrum there is some longer form content I’d like to write that simply can’t be completed in a week.

It’s also hampered the other goals I set out for myself at the beginning of the year and, I suspect, making progress toward those goals will provide plenty of things to talk about. At the end of the day I simply don’t have much time to devote to my personal projects so if I pick one it’s at the expense of the others. Between my job and my family I struggle the way most everybody else does, but sometimes it feels like I struggle a bit more.

1. Give away an awesome prize.

Awesome doesn’t have to mean expensive. It just means something that is useful to your specific audience. In the case of the PhotoTuts contest, they gave away a camera. A really cool camera, the Canon EOS 550D / Rebel T2i. It was a prize designed to excite their audience and it succeeded. If your site is about poker you might give away a tournament entry instead.

2. Make the contest about something that builds community.

If your site offers photography tutorials, ask your readers to submit photos. If your site is about graphic design or web design, ask your readers to create a design that promotes your site. If your site is about bowling, have your readers submit video of crazy strikes or outrageous celebrations. Whatever you do, you want to get people engaging with your site and with each other because it creates a more passionate audience.

3. Don’t use the contest as a vehicle for spam.

This is really a corollary to the last point. With the Rise of Social Networks there has been a corresponding rise (and backlash) of social network spam contests. “Tweet about how much you love us every day for a chance to win!”

Look, it sounds great on paper. You get lots of free exposure. But at the end of the day, getting your audience to piss off their friends and family is not going to earn you a wider audience. It doesn’t earn you more passionate users. It doesn’t engage anything except a hatred of you or your company by people who had previously never heard of you. Don’t do it.

4. Be social.

Spamming social networks is not the same thing as promoting your contest on social networks. You should absolutely provide buttons for people to retweet or otherwise share the details of the contest with their network. Some of their friends likely share their interests and will want to enter your cool contest too.

5. State the rules clearly.

For the next few sections I’m going to pick on the PhotoTuts contest I mentioned earlier. Before I do that I want to point out that they had the first four steps of the contest down cold. Cool prize, building community, not spamming, and giving their members the tools to share the contest. They were the inspiration for this post both for the things they did right and the things they could have done better. That said…

Here are some of the guidelines from the PhotoTuts contest original contest page:

Photographs should be submitted at original, full resolution

While seemingly straightforward, I was left wondering whether or not photos could be cropped.

They received so many submissions they decided to break up the submissions across three posts. The first batch was posted on a Monday with a note that the following two sets would be posted “over the next two weeks.” The second batch ended up being posted on Thursday of the same week. The third batch was posted the following Monday. I’m not a mathematician, but that’s all three batches in eight days. That made it very easy for people to miss the second batch of photos completely.

The biggest confusion of the PhotoTuts contest centered around who would make it from the first round to the second. You had to read through the each of the batches from round one to find the relevant information and, worse, the relevant information changed each time.

All three batches from round one stated the following:

Voting will take place in three parts of around 50 images each, with the 10 highest rated photos of these three rounds going into a “final”.

Is that the 10 highest rated from each round or just 10 from across all three rounds? It could be read either way. Then, at the bottom of the third batch, was the following:

Stay tuned to the site, because we’ll have the grand final coming up later this week. The top ten photos from each voting round will be put to a final poll to determine the winner!

Well, round 2 was labelled the “Grand Final” and it had only 10 photos total, instead of 10 photos from each voting round as stated. This meant that 2/3rds of the people who thought they qualified for the contest were summarily dismissed.

6. Be open.

If you make a mistake, own up to it. If someone asks a question about something ambiguous, answer it publicly so everyone can benefit from the answer. If you’re going to enforce a rule, make sure it is a rule and that you stated it at the beginning of the contest.

A friend of mine had an entry that made it into the first round of the PhotoTuts contest. It was a beautiful picture of a girl blowing bubbles:

Photographer: lainers

She promoted it to her social network asking for her friends to vote for her. Then she received an email from someone involved in the contest asking her to remove a post from a forum she’s on because it was ” a photography contest, not a popularity contest.”

Now, putting aside the fact that there is a long history of people asking for votes (See also: American Idol, Elections, Am I Hot Or Not) and even putting aside the fact that others had very clearly done the same thing, nowhere in the rules or in any of the subsequent contest pages did it state or even ask people not to promote themselves.

In fact, at the bottom of the original contest page it said “Excited about the contest? Let your people know.” Which is smart, becaues letting people know brings new people to your site, which should be one of the goals of the contest in the first place.

Sending ambiguous rules, takedown notices, and not doing what you said you would can turn an otherwise great contest into something that leaves a bad taste in the mouths of many of your contestants.

Got more tips? Leave a comment.

Me: The iPhone should be able to play random songs for ringtones. For confident people who aren’t afraid of ABBA’s Dancing Queen popping up.

Myshell: You are the dancing queen, young and sweet, only seventeen
Dancing queen, feel the beat from the tambourine
You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life
See that girl, watch that scene, dig in the dancing queen

If I was still just on the other side of your cubicle I’d totally sing that to you!

Me (to Jake & Ashley): Because she cares…

Ashley: Um…. I never really knew her, but dancing queen? Please tell me that’s some inside joke?

Me: I like ABBA.

Jake: You know how I know you’re gay?

Me (to Elaine): Hey, did you see GLEE??

Me (to everybody): Dancing Queen used to be my ringtone and I can’t wait for So You Think You Can Dance to start back up on the 27th.

I’m like the Transformers: more than meets the eye. Oh yes.

Jake:

Image by niebuck

A tweet from a friend that I disagreed with spurred me to create an infographic. I got it halfway done before I was sidetracked by yardwork, my wife, my son, a visit to my mom’s house, some deconstruction, and sleep.

The infographic in turn spurred me to want to create a post page that doesn’t have a sidebar so I can embed the graphic without having to shrink it down. Before I could do that though, I had to fix some of the rendering bugs the site has from when I launched the new theme without any browser testing. That in turn led to me drafting a post about some of the suck that is Opera 10.5.

Hey Opera, thanks for adding rounded corners and completely hosing form fields whenever I try to, you know, round them. (Protip: you can fix the bug by adding a border to the fields.)

I should have posts up this Wednesday and Friday.

Upcoming topics over the next month or two will include some infographics, me weighing in on the Adobe/Apple fight, a lesson on the stupidity of crippling browser functionality and images in order to “protect” them, samples of things I’m working on, a look at some WordPress plugins, and a few other topics. I’ll also undoubtedly weigh in on a few discussions as they’re taking place. Real-time web FTW.

Chat, do you know anyone who consults with small businesses on how to make their website make more money for them?

Sorry, I don’t. It sounds like they need at least two people:

1. A business consultant or business coach to help them figure out their business model and different monetization opportunities.
2. A web expert to wear several hats: content strategist, SEO guy, site optimization, etc. Ideally this person would be able to conduct A/B and multivariate tests on their landing pages to maximize conversion rates. I do this sort of thing but I work 60 hour work weeks and simply can’t take on any extracurricular projects.

Realistically they probably want to partner with a savvy web company. But, also realistically, said company will charge a lot up front and won’t be interested in revenue sharing or anything like that. So they should probably start with the business consultant. And in lieu of spending a bunch of cash on a web expert, I’d recommend starting off with a book like the Website Owner’s Manual:

http://boagworld.com/websiteownersmanual/

It covers the “secrets to a successful website”, evaluating objects, planning and measuring success, creating killer content, website promotion, techniques for engaging visitors, and more. It’s specifically written for people who own and operate websites rather than being written for people like me who help the people who own and operate websites.

This answer barely scratches the surface of such a broad topic, but hopefully it provides a place for people to start. I’ll write more about this in the future so if you have specific questions feel free to post them in the comments section.

Over at Spiceworks we have a user group called Spread Spiceworks. It’s grown organically over time and I thought I’d share some of the tools we’ve created to help our users evangelize us.

Spread Spiceworks Widget

Email an IT Pro

An email form to let people instantly tell their friends about us. You have to be careful about spammers trying to abuse things like this. To keep things simple the body of the email is actually hardcoded on the back-end. If they want to send a custom message, the same text can be copied to their clipboard.

Post a Button

This section has buttons and screenshots to post on their blogs, on forums, or pretty much anywhere that allows HTML. Clicking on a button or screenshot opens a modal box with the HTML code. (I added syntax highlighting because, well, I’m a nerd.) If a user is logged in the HTML code will include their referral ID. That way, if anybody clicks on one of their buttons and downloads the app, they get credit for it in the form of points. I’ll talk more about the points a bit later.

This section also has wallpapers for desktops, PDAs and mobiles. While those things don’t actively help people to “spread Spiceworks” they do help passively. And, more importantly, they help our passionate users to stay passionate.

Be Social

This links to our various social networks so users can stay up-to-date on what we’re doing. Elsewhere we incorporate buttons to let people share our content on their social networks.

Meet-Up

You want to know how to create a really passionate user? Get him or her together with other passionate users. Our meet-ups are user created and user run. We facilitate things by helping them organize the group, publicizing the events, and providing them with topic materials.

Speak

This goes hand-in-hand with the meet-ups. We’ve provided users with an “Introduce to Spiceworks” slide deck they can use to give presentations… if that’s their thing. In fact, we’ve provided almost 50 slide decks! And we’ve bundled them together with custom business cards that they can print. The cards use the same referral code that the buttons use.

Get Gear

This is where users can go to buy hats, t-shirts, messenger bags, onesies, wall clocks, etc., all adorned with the Spiceworks brand. They look stylish and we get free advertising wherever they are.

Points

I mentioned that the buttons and business cards have referral IDs attached to them. Actually, so do the emails and screenshots. Whenever someone downloads Spiceworks from a link that includes a referral code, the referrer gets credit and that credit takes the form of points in our community. The more points you have, the higher your “level” is in the community. Attaining higher levels is purely a point of pride amongst users and yet it’s a powerful motivational tool.

So these are some of the tools we use. What are you doing to help your passionate users?

Upload up to three pictures that represent “memories” to you. Include 150-350 words describing each photo. Afterwards they’ll post the entries for people to vote on.

Here are my entries and the accompanying copy I wrote for each one. I don’t know how the photos will be presented so I had to write each description so that it could stand on its own. That means there is some redundant copy. Sorry about that.

Superhero Ash

This is my first and only son, Ashton, a few months after he turned two. Every photo of him represents a memory I cherish. This was the first day of summer. Not the official first day of summer, but the first day the pool was open, which everybody knows is the real first day of summer. He put his goggles on at home long before we went to the pool and refused to take them off.

This is superhero Ash.

I’m not a professional photographer. I’m not even an amateur photographer. I’m a neophyte. I don’t own a great camera. I own a cheap point-and-shoot. Having a real camera would mean a lot to me, not the least because it would help me capture more memories like this.

Note: I removed the bird poop from the submitted version.

This is my first and only son, Ashton, when he was about a year-and-a-half old. On a typical sunny afternoon at the park I was lucky enough to capture this shot of him and he was exploring a playscape. I love the inquisitive look in his eyes. That’s something he hasn’t lost with age.

Every photo of him represents a memory I cherish.

I’m not a professional photographer. I’m not even an amateur photographer. I’m a neophyte. I don’t own a great camera. I own a cheap point-and-shoot. Having a real camera would mean a lot to me, not the least because it would help me capture more memories like this.

Photographer: Ashton Clussman

Don’t dismiss this photo! Read this description first.

This is something that I think will be unique in the competition. When my wife and I bought a new point-and-shoot camera last year, we gave our old, 4MP digital camera to our son, Ashton.

He was two years old when he built and photographed this block of Legos completely on his own. He had already learned how to turn the camera on and off, zoom in and out, move close in or back away from his subject. He can switch the display on the camera to preview his pictures and he can even hook the camera up to the computer.

This picture represents a memory that he cherishes.

He has a natural talent and taking pictures is something he loves to do. I want to nurture that love. Winning this competition would mean the world to both of us.

I’ll post again when voting opens up!

Complex Flowchart

Complex Flowchart

Simplified Flowchart

Simple Flowchart

This comes courtesy of a tweet from @cameronmoll. Cameron credited @swissmiss who credited @markboulton who credited both @nathansmith and @chrisbowler and on and on. I stopped there. Cameron was the only one to include the simplified chart so I think he deserves the lion’s share of the credit for this anyway.

I always have a lot of books I want to read. But I’m going to let you in on a dirty little secret: I tend to buy them and not read them. I want to. I just don’t. It’s for a variety of reasons: I have a toddler, I work at a startup, I have personal goals to achieve in those rare moments that I have time to myself, and the list goes on.

A side effect of this is that my summer reading list involves a lot of books that I already own, including: Boneshaker by Cherie Priest, Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflow that Works by Kelly Goto and Emily Cotler, Online Marketing Inside Out by Brandon Eley and Shayne Tilley, and The Principles of Project Management by Meri Williams.

In the category of books I don’t already have languishing on a bookshelf or nightstand: Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way by Bruce Campbell (I’m a fanboy), On Writing Well, 25th Anniversary: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction by William Knowlton, Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness by John Layman (okay, seriously, I’m a fanboy—don’t judge me), Website Owner’s Manual by Paul Boag, and Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug (yes, I know, it’s embarrassing that I never read this). I’m also considering Rework by the 37signal guys.

This post is my first Weekend Assignment. If you’re really interested in writing but the blank page is staring back at you menacingly, the Weekend Assignment might be just the thing you need. Ever weekend they put out a new topic for you to write about. Working within the constraints of their assignment makes that blank page much more manageable.

This week’s assignment comes with extra credit:

Extra Credit: Okay writers, get to work! Write me the opening paragraph, just (1) paragraph of a summer read you would like write yourself. Again, any genre works fine, have fun with it!

So here goes:

When John woke up he had a splitting headache. He had been drinking again the night before. So much for AA. His sponsor wouldn’t be very happy with him. It was the third time in as many months that he had fallen off the wagon. Where was he? A seedy hotel room somewhere. A pack of cigarettes was lying on the dilapidated nightstand next to him. He reached for the cigarettes and that’s when he noticed the girl’s body lying in a pool of blood. He was going to need another drink.