As we gear up for the 2011 Technology Conference & Expo, we want to bring you behind the scenes of the online communications and social technologies that we are putting together around the conference. With this new series, The Tech Behind Tech, we'll share with you some of the lessons learned as we set up Facebook Pages, mobile sites and apps, and more.
Insiders Q&A with Luke Wroblewski
Luke Wroblewski was interviewed by Megan Denhardt, Senior Manager, Learning
ASAE had an opportunity to catch up briefly with general session speaker Luke Wroblewski and get a sneak peak on why he’s so passionate about the concept of "mobile first". Luke shared that mobile should be a priority because its use is expanding across the board and that while many consider the constraints of mobile to be burdensome, they actually force us "to focus on the features that matter." Additionally, he shared that thinking through mobile first provides "new capabilities [to] innovate in new ways and rethink" your offerings. We couldn’t help but apply this train of thought to association websites. Imagine if your website could only have three to five main links. How would your conversations have been different during the design process? How would you have been forced to focus on what really matters to members?
Luke is also well versed in online social models and how they are established so we took a moment to ask him how associations, built around relationships and community, can leverage online social models. His advice is to enable "people to form relationships" online citing that "research shows that when people are able to connect with each other, contributions increase." Of course, just because we sign up for a new social platform for our association or stand up a new private label social network doesn’t mean community will form. Luke reminds us to "make sure people can actually connect" through underlying relationships that really support the needs of the community in an ad-hoc basis and not in a forced or artificial format. Lastly, Luke reminded us to allow participants to "leave a visible trace of their behavior" so that they can see their progress, participation, and social status.
When asked how many devices he travels with, Luke’s response: "Right now three to four. Laptop, iPhone, iPad and some sort of Android device."
For more on the concepts of social models and mobile first, explore these articles:
- Why enable real relationships in software (link to: http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?939)
- Types of relationship models in software (link to: http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?906 )
- A quick overview of the reasons for mobile first (link to: http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?933)
