Imaginary Landscape, LLC

Managing domain name registrations is part of a Web developers job. However, it can be a pain in the butt and, as one developer found out, expensive if you mess up.

The Dallas Morning News is reporting that Yuma Solutions, the Web developer for the George Bush presidential library, accidentally let its domain name expire. Another firm snatched it up for $10 and charged Yuma $35,000 to get it back. This is a follow up to a Dallas Morning News story from April.

I have mixed emotions about this. It was another Web developer - Raleigh, NC-based Illuminati Karate - that snatched the domain after trolling a list of expiring domain names.

No question that Yuma made a mistake to let it expire. In fact, domain registrars are second only to magazines when it comes to early and frequent reminders about upcoming expirations. Some email box somewhere was likely stuffed with reminders and warnings. And, Yuma was lucky to get it back. Paying some premium is expected. I would consider a 350,000% return to be somewhat excessive, but as I said, they were lucky to get it back.

However, Illuminati Karate couldn't just take the money. It seems that a representative of the company was all too eager to boast of the company's domain name prowess to the Dallas Morning News. The boast included the particulars of the transaction, including pricing. Certain quotes teeter on the brink of gloating.

"To be honest, I couldn't believe someone was letting it expire."
"When the article came out, I think they wanted it back pretty badly."

Perhaps there are many who view Illuminati Karate as industrious. Perhaps they are. But, to boast about it in the press is inappropriate. Yuma made a mistake. They paid for their mistake - out of their own pocket. No need to drag them into the negative spotlight on the way to the bank to cash their check.

The Associated Press picked it up. Consequently, it is now a worldwide story.

Just when the world was talking about Chicago in terms of Obama, hope and the Olympics, out come the handcuffs for our Governor. I'd like to say I'm surprised, but I'm not. I'd like to say I'm outraged, but I'm not. I feel very little actually - mostly numb from the length and breadth of local political corruption.

The three most influential and overlapping bodies of government that impact Imaginary Landscape are the State of Illinois, Cook County and the City of Chicago. Kind of like a corruption slot machine with all three wheels coming up 7's. Lucky us.

I've often looked at Hong Kong and other foreign cities with trepidation about conducting business. I hear stories about rampant corruption and payoffs and think, "I wouldn't know where to begin navigating those waters." Today, I wonder what an international businessman might think about doing business in Chicago, or anywhere in Illinois.

It turns out that Rod joins an illustrious list of crooked Illinois governors - not just the last one sitting in federal prison. I know this because I heard all about it on the BBC. And the show is just getting started. I can't wait for the circus that will ensue should he decide to fight this under the "I didn't do anything wrong" defense.

Well, at least there is a clear career path in Illinois after the Governor's mansion. By the way, anyone want to buy a Senate seat?

I had to go to Kinko's yesterday to pick up a banner. As I walked in to the store, I saw a number of customers congealed at the service desk, forming a line. Now, Kinko's isn't exactly the counter at McDonald's, so I knew I was in for a wait. I was 6th in line and just needed to pick up my banner and pay for it - a two minute transaction at best.

This Kinko's is open 24 hours but when I got there at around 6pm it was poorly staffed. There were only two employees working the service desk, which is divided into three segments - Shipping, Banners and Customer Service. However, there was only one line.

I was momentarily tempted to blow right up to the areas marked "Banners" but that would have been pretty rude to the others in line. So I hunkered in.

Shortly after I began my 30-minute wait in line, a woman came in and walked right up to the empty Banners counter and waited. In solidarity with my other line standers, I glared at her, hoping to convey the inappropriateness of her actions without actually saying anything. Passive-aggressive seemed to be the right call, given the context.

She felt the eyes and, feigning surprise, meekly asked if we represented some sort of line. We all nodded in unison and she fell in behind me.

For the balance of the wait, I was subject to an unending series of forced sighs, under-breath comments about slow staff and somewhat dramatic proclamations about only needing a single copy made.

As I progressed slowly towards the front of the line, I noticed that she was getting closer and closer to me, ultimately ending up beside me as I achieved next-in-line status. However, I was too engrossed in a Solitaire game to give it much attention.

Then, finally, an assistant manager came out of no where and said, "Next." Instantaneously, before I could fully register the sequence of events, she said "Me" and walked up to the counter to transact.

I was somewhat taken aback at this brazen action. As I quickly sorted through my limited options, the idea of "Hey lady, I'm next" seemed unattractive. If she had stones enough to blow by me in line perhaps she would dig in, leaving the assistant manager as arbiter. So I took the high road and let it slip by.

Rude people suck.

It's award season again and, like many firms, we have some more hardware to add to our faux mantle. This time it is a WebAward for the National Cervical Cancer Public Awareness Campaign Web site.

In all honesty and with minimal bias, it is a very nice site with a great mission and deserving of recognition. We are happy for them (and us) for the award.

Our policy about fetching awards is minimalist. I believe it is important to have some accolades adorning a wall, but I don't much care for the buy-yourself-an-award cottage industry that will provide you a nice statuette, provided your check clears. So we enter competitions carefully.

Even for the credible award competitions, we face a difficult challenge. Much of the work we perform is behind the curtain, where the heavy lifting of Web technology occurs. Pretty much all Web awards competitions are skin-deep. For most, a site that isn't 100% Flash has little chance of an award, regardless of how well it performs transactionally.

When we do receive an award, it is a chance for celebration. We make an internal announcement, embarrass (in a fun way) those who were involved in the project and order some extra hardware for the client. It's always nice to be recognized.

And so, we add another accolade to our "Love Me" wall - the wall clients and prospective clients walk by on their way from the reception area to the conference room. It's fun to follow them and watch. Most times they can't help but sneak a peek as they pass.

Google Labs just released Mail Goggles, a special feature to give you pause before you drunkenly send a late night email you'll undoubtedly regret in the morning.

According to the Official Gmail Blog post:

When you enable Mail Goggles, it will check that you're really sure you want to send that late night Friday email. And what better way to check than by making you solve a few simple math problems after you click send to verify you're in the right state of mind?

The feature is only active during late nights and weekends.

Brilliant.

I attended a recent conference hosted by the Association of Professional Design Firms, the title of which was “Win Without Pitching.” Its base premise is this: if you control the relationship, your need to “pitch” or respond to RFPs will be greatly reduced. It was an intriguing two days that revealed much about our current approach to new business as well as existing clients.

Stop being a waiter and start being a surgeon

Everyone likes good waiters. They respond to every beck and call with a great deal of deference. There is no question who has the power in the waiter-customer relationship.

As a sales organization we tend to be waiters – wanting to please our prospects, do what they say, when they say. Fetch more water.

On the other end of the spectrum are surgeons. Most people don’t like surgeons. The stereotype tells us they are arrogant, self-absorbed, unfriendly with a terrible bed-side manner. But, and here is the catch, I don’t hire a surgeon for her bedside manner, I hire her because she is expert at what she does.

Can you imagine sending out an RFP for brain surgery? Can you imagine a waiting room full of surgeons with PowerPoint presentations patiently awaiting their chance to pitch their services to you? The image itself is funny.

We have our own form of expertise. Developing a Web site well is technically challenging. Knowing and understanding the quirky nature of Web site visitors is specialized knowledge. Balancing the Web experience against the growing number of devices used to access Web sites is difficult. Designing a relational database at the third normal form is critical. The list goes on and on, yet we often sit patiently in the waiting room, armed with our PPTs.

Taking control

The Win Without Pitching conference was all about taking and retaining control by exercising your status as an expert. I will again use the surgeon analogy. A surgeon doesn’t cold call you, you seek him out. He begins by performing diagnostics, both subjective (tell me where it hurts) and objective (ordering an MRI). He researches your case and prescribes an expert course of treatment. He’s very busy, but may be able to schedule your operation in three months. He is a consummate expert in complete control.

I have no doubt as to our expertise in our chosen field. We are the surgeons. But, that expertise has often taken a back seat to a prospect-is-always-right approach. We do whatever we can to win the business, without a critical eye towards whether we can do our best work. We jump at RFPs even though they are poorly conceived, happy to follow the maze for a chance at the cheese.

But, interestingly enough, it turns out that we are much better at being experts than we are at being waiters. Our best, happiest and most productive clients did not start with an RFP for a laundry list of pre-determined features and functions. They started with a simple request. This is our problem. Help us solve it.

To us, there is nothing more powerful.

Just when we thought upstart Firefox would (and has to a certain degree) knock Internet Explorer off it's throne, here comes Chrome.

Today is the launch of Google's shiny new browser. And it is a big deal.

Microsoft still holds 73 percent of the browser market, according to Net Applications, a research firm. The market share for Firefox has climbed to 19 percent, while Apple’s Safari has 6 percent, according to the NY Times.

Prompting the company to launch early was the leak of an online comic book. It seems that Google created a comic book to explain the new browser and its features. The comic approach is novel and interesting, however no amount of illustration will make captions like this intelligible to the mainstream:

"When you interpret once and compile machine code, than that code is your representation of the JavaScript source code and it doesn't need to be interpreted, it just runs."

Google geek speak at its best. But, the accompanying race car illustration helps bring it home for me.

Chrome is available for beta download from Google.