OK, hopefully, it isn't that bad. But OMGBBQWTF, TFRL is having a cartoon contest!! YOUR IDEA COULD BE A CARTOON ON THE INTERNET!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here's the 'rules':
Send me your ideas for a TFRL cartoon. They can be from real life or made up, I don't care.
By sending me your ideas, you are granting me the rights to use your ideas in perpetuity, and to alter your ideas as I see fit to use it in a cartoon, even if you do not win the contest. (See how unfair these rules are? Even if you lose, I get to use your ideas forever and ever.)
I will select one (1) lucky winner from all of the entries. The winner will be announced in a future post (which will be separate from the winning cartoon). The winner may choose not to be credited for the winning cartoon in case they are in fear of losing their j-o-b.
In addition, the winner will receive a T-Shirt (in the size of your choice) that says:
Exciting stuff, I know!
Contact me via twitter (@tonydunn) or in the comments if you have a great cartoon idea.
OK, I know the way I put this that it sounds like you're getting taken advantage of, but's that exactly how many contests (photo, writing, art, etc.) work. At least here, you can take solace knowing that that the T-shirt will set me back about $30 and that I am making absolutely nothing from this blog. My one attempt to 'monetize' this blog ended up landing Steve Krug the keynote gig at HighEdWeb, and got me nothing. Not that I'm bitter or anything. I'm NOT. Not at all.
Stupid Steve Krug.
15 comments:
Will the actual T-shirt have "Redesignland" spelled correctly? :-)
Ummmm... probably, but no guarantees.
It's like a misprint baseball card. Very rare... very collectable... very valuable. :)
How much of an idea are you looking for? Should we just give you a topic; should we write a script for the characters or should we draw the whole cartoon?
Curtiss, whatever you have - a snippet of a story, an idea, a quote, etc. But preferably a story or an outline of a story that I can use develop into a strip. You don't need to write a script since I'll probably makes changes anyway.
Didn't I already have something that was turned into a post ;-)
Do I still get a t-shirt :-)
If you're giving out t-shirts for ideas, don't you owe the web site redesign team a t-shirt? :-)
Quote, and yes, this was really said to me during writing for the Web training: You are satan. You're contributing to the bulletization of the English language.
Susan, I didn't quite understand that. Could you put the salient points in a bulleted list for me?
I had a friend recently contact me for some help on social media. When we sat down to talk, she told me a former employee of her organization had said some pretty nasty and blatantly false things on a personal blog. She wanted me to delete it.
I explained that the things people post on their personal blogs belong to them and only they can delete them unless they were libelous and the organization wanted to pursue it in court.
There's no master password that lets anyone in the fraternity of webmasters correct the Internet.
Anyway, I think you could make a pretty good tale with a bit of hyperbole. Perhaps administrators wanting various things deleted from blogs, Facebook and search results.
Scott, BAHAHAHAHHA. I've had similar requests.
Them: But they're mentioning OUR college. I know you can pull it down.
Me: I only have access to change things on our site. I can't change things on their blog. Just like I can't change things on your blog.
Them: But I don't talk about our college on my blog.
Me: Right. But if you did, I still wouldn't be able to change your blog.
Them: You're not making any sense. I'm not the one that posted the comment about our college.
Me: and double facepalm.
Okay, here's my idea:
I've been to a few meetings to discuss ideas for particular sections of our website that have gone pretty much the way I describe below. For purposes of this example, let's say we were discussing the class schedule. I'm sure at least some of your other readers have been in similar meetings.
So, the person that calls the meeting starts off by saying "I think we should have a link to the class schedule on the home page."
Me: "Well, that's probably not a bad idea, but we already have a link to 'Class Schedules and Catalogs' on our home page."
Them: "Oh, well I guess that will work. Next, you should be able to search the class schedule."
Me: "Um, if you visit our class schedule, there's a huge 'Search' box at the top that you can use to search the class schedule."
Them: "Oh. I see it, now. Though, it would be nice if there were more areas you could search."
Me: "I agree, which is why your department is working on rewriting and reorganizing all of the information on that page so that I can add advanced search features to it."
Them: "Oh. Okay, how about this; it would be nice if the classes listed on the class schedule had a way to view more information about that class."
Me: "Each class listed on the class schedule has a link on the class name that leads to the description of that course."
Them: "Got it. The last thing is that it would be really nice if you could offer help filling out the Application for Admission. I had to have my friend show me how to fill it out, because I didn't know some of the answers."
Me: "Unfortunately, the application for admission is completely controlled by the state. We can't change any parts of it. We do, however, have some video walk-throughs available on the website to help people if they get stuck in a specific section of the application."
Them: "Okay. Well thanks for meeting with me. I think this was a really good meeting."
Me: "Glad I could help."
@Anonymous: It's cathartic to hear other people who have those conversations ... but then, that's the whole reason I read TFRL.
I had a VP call me a couple months ago to suggest changes to our online personnel directory. Now, our personnel directory is one of the few things our site does really well, so I was a bit surprised when I was told that, of all things, was what he had a problem with.
He said since most employees know each other by first name, there should be an option to sort it by first name. I told him that if he looked at the top of the page, he would see an option that said "Sort by: First Name." He said he hadn't realized that.
Then he said that visitors who don't know who works where should probably have the choice of seeing the directory grouped by department. I told him that option was also at the top of the page already.
Then he said, "Huh, well, I guess I should go look at it online. I just use the version my secretary prints off for me each year, and it's alphabetical by last name."
I didn't even know how to respond. Since that conversation, I've come to suspect many of the "improvements" suggested by certain administrators are symptoms of looking at printouts rather than the actual working site.
OK, here's another. Even though I've switched jobs I'm still friends with the poor sap featured, so names will be changed to protect the miserable.
Scotty, the web manager at a largish campus, is highly talented with a knack for both code and design. Sadly, he is male, and Cruella the comm director doesn't work well with males. Also sadly, he works at the same institution she does, and she thinks good design only comes from highly paid consultants. Over the years re-design after re-design from his web group was rejected, lost in committee, and otherwise disused and misused.
When a web site was requested for a highly visible and heavily promoted project, he volunteered the services of one MacArthur Designs. After a couple of weeks he ran it by Cruella and her minions, who were all thrilled. "Wherever did you find this MacArthur Designs?" "This is fantastic!" "Impressive!" "Can it go up today?"
MacArthur is the name of Scotty's dog.
Scotty has assured Cruella et al that MacArthur is available for future work.
Content entry, late but so what:
http://www.jsfiddle.net/7eBV9/
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