Michael Droz Professional Log #2: Release Planning

Working on a complete re-platforming project for a top 100 website and today's activity includes the first of many release planning sessions. I estimate it will take 16 hours of release planning for the MVP (minimum viable product) and another 16 hours to get the entire project planned out.

Estimate: 32 hrs
Actual: TBD

Michael Droz Professional Log #1: Predictive Analytics

Sitting down to continue my online training program: Predictive Analytics Applied by Eric Siegel

http://www.predictionimpact.com/

Optimizely Test Result #1 "Membership Registration" by Michael Droz

Optimizely Test Result #1: CTA Register for Free Account

Default: 
Text link in upper right hand corner of chrome bar that reads: Join

Test 1:  
Turquoise button in upper right hand corner of chrome bar that reads: Join Free

Test 2: 
Turquoise button in upper right hand corner of chrome bar that reads: Free Account


Results: Test 2 wins in a landslide improvement of +326%

Setting up Click Tracking Goals in Optimizely - by Michael Droz

Setting up click tracking goals in Optimizely is easy, once you understand how the tool works. I wasted a full day analyzing results that weren't what I expected so I decided to write this article to help anyone new to Optimizely avoid the trap I fell into. 

Trap: Default goal isn't tracking your "specific" goal

By default Optimizely enables an "Engagement" goal that will look like it's tracking your specific CTA experiment but it isn't. The engagement goal is the percentage of visitors who clicked on "ANY PART" of the experiment page. 

To enable tracking of your specific CTA experiment follow these simple steps:

1. Click "Edit Experiment" from the dashboard

2. Click "Set Up Goals" from the secondary navigation

3. Set "Goal Name" of your choice

4. Change "What to Track" to "Clicks"

5. Click "Advanced"

6. Set the jQuery formatted Selector that identifies your "CTA"

Example: 

#join-link

In your html this code might look like this: 

<a href="www.yourdomain.com" id="join-link"> 

7. Click "Save" 

*Helpful hint: This selector needs to be added to your CTA for the default page and all of your experiments - they need to match. This was a confusing fact for me because I thought the very nature of the experiments meant that they differed but after I figured it out it was clear that while the CTA might look different they must be identified the same for reporting purposes.  

deviantART Facebook Integration Proposal by Michael Droz

In June '11, I interviewed for a product management position with deviantART that they would later offer me but that I would turn down for a promotion with my employer at the time, Visa. As part of the interview process with deviantART they asked me to make a proposal for how they could best integrate their offering with Facebook. Below is my proposal...two years later I still think it's a pretty darn good idea.

deviantART – Facebook Integration Proposal

Submitted by: Michael Droz

Assumptions:

Basic features such as the following are a given for any serious deviantART Facebook integration and will not be unnecessarily covered in this mini proposals – space is limited you know!  

• Artist’s gallery integration
• Auto creation of FB Fan pages for artists
• Integration of deviantART user accounts and their Facebook accounts allowing them to become fans of a deviantART artist’s fan page automatically when they become a “watcher” on deviantART and the ability to “like” the artist or any of the artist’s work by clicking on the famous “like” button.

Proposed features:

deviantART Gallery Walk

deviantART Artist’s FB Promotion Toolbox – <ran out of space, we’ll discuss at another time>

deviantART Gallery Walk

Idea:  The idea behind the deviantART Gallery Walk is to simulate the experience of monthly art walks on Facebook using art from deviantART.

Target audience: All Facebook users worldwide.

Benefits:

• deviantART
• Brand exposure
• Increased registrations via the viral nature of the FB graph and the deviantART Gallery Walk invite feature.   
• Increased revenue through art sales
• Increased revenue through ad sales
• deviantART Gallery Walk Users
• Connects them with their FB friends in a meaningful way.
• Exposure to new artists and art genres

Application Marketing:

• Promote the application to existing deviantART users.
• Purchase ads on FB to promote the application to users that fall into the art_lovers segmentation - these will be our Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen all in one! (Reference to Gladwell’s Tipping Point.)

Use Cases/Functionality:

• Create Gallery Walk  
• Personalize Gallery Walk
• Title
• Keywords / categories of art to include in your art walk
• Anime, Oscar Wilde, Photography, Libya, and Mark Twain
• Invitees are also allowed to expand the recommended keywords and categories of the gallery walk
• Date/Time/Duration of your gallery walk
• Invite friends
• Select which of your FB friends to invite
• Set reminder frequency
• 1 week prior
• 1 day prior
• 1 hr prior
• Attend Gallery Walk
• Start Gallery Walk
• When you start an art walk you and your friends are connected to a shared “Sit Back” type presentation of art work based on the categories and keywords pre-selected.
• View art <timed transition through the array of art selected by the our gallery_algorithm>
• Artists are notified via email when their art is included in and viewed in an art walk.
• Comment on art
• As friends are looking at the art together via our Gallery Walk application they can chat with each other and comment on the art in real time.
• These comments can be posted back to the artist’s gallery on deviantART if the users want.
• Rate art
• Users can rate art as they go through the gallery walk
• Scale TBD
• Save art walk
• Users can save their art walk as a personal gallery within the deviantART Gallery Walk application.  <6/10/11 – Art Walk>

Reconnect Trustee Services by Michael Droz

Placeholder blog post about Reconnect Trustee Services a company by Michael Droz.

Key Courier Service by Michael Droz

Placeholder blog post about Key Courier Service a company by Michael Droz. 

This is the first company I ever started. The year was 1993, my age was 17. 

More to come....

Real Estate World Online by Michael Droz

Placeholder blog post about RealEstateWorldOnline.com a company by Michael Droz.

Don't sleep on this story from 1997 that includes a botched attempt to skydive into the Super Bowl to market the launch of this service.

Lexicom Intelligent Systems by Michael Droz

Placeholder blog post about Lexicom Intelligent Systems a company by Michael Droz.

Helpiado by Michael Dorz

Placeholder blog post about Helpiado.com a company by Michael Droz.

fitParade by Michael Droz

Placeholder blog post for fitParade.com a company by Michael Droz.

ScanCow by Michael Droz

Placeholder blog post for Scancow.com a company by Michael Droz.

Munio Corp by Michael Droz

Placeholder blog post about Munio Corp a company by Michael Droz.

This company spawned three services:

• Munio Memory Services (the topic of this post)
• Scancow.com (topic of a future post)
• Tagcow.com (topic of a past post)

Tagcow by Michael Droz

Placeholder blog post for Tagcow.com a company by Michael Droz.

Articles about Michael Droz and Tagcow.com: 
http://thomashawk.com/2008/03/is-tagcow-future-of-photo-recognition.html

http://blog.seattlepi.com/venture/2008/03/31/tagcow-tags-photos-with-human-support/

http://techcrunch.com/2008/11/11/tagcow-focuses-photo-tagging-product-on-the-enterprise/

http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2008/11/Photo-tagging_service_TagCow_34277359.html

http://www.dkworldwide.com/techlife/archives/2008/05/13/tagcow-photo-tagging-made-easy/

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/11/prweb1603984.htm

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10002412-92.html

http://habrahabr.ru/post/22850/

PickYourSite by Michael Droz

Placeholder blog post for PickYourSite.com a company by Michael Droz.

PickYourSite.com was suppose to be a Yahoo like information repository that allowed users to "pick" sites instead of "searching" for them. I will post the entire business plan here and an interesting story about the start and end of this idea just as soon as I figure out how to open Microsoft Office binder files...I am sure none of you remember those. I might just be the only one who used them to begin with.

Action Reaction Trading - by Michael Droz

The year was 1998 and I had recently sold a company called Reconnect Trustee Services, a service created by Lexicom Intelligent Systems, to a large real estate technology company.  I had been day trading for about a year and had mostly lost my fortune but I had learned a lot about trading and found that I could in fact pick stocks very well and predict with a lot of accuracy their shot-term movements, but I couldn't actually trade at all. Stock trading and stock picking are two completely different things. So I decided to create a stock picking service called Action Reaction Trading (actionreactiontrading.com).

Setting the table...

This is going to be a blog about the companies envisioned and created by Michael Droz of Seattle, Washington and San Mateo/San Carlos, CA.

I want to clarify that these are not simply "ideas" that I conceived but actual companies that were started. Software was written, marketing strategies were executed, co-founders were recruited, customers/users were found and value was exchanged.