Holy Boners

I did it. Redesign and radical simplification of http://ondesire.com has been implemented. There’s more to come but the major scaffolding is in place.

Here’s the landing page. Pretty sparse eh? The idea is push some of the complexity deeper into the blog by establishing a traditional branching structure and with limit overwhelm. There are basically three points of entry… “Our collective destiny – Desire”, “Blog” and “Movies”.

This page needs a stronger visible presence and I plan to stick at least three movie windows between the current image and the sidebar.

“Our collective destiny – Desire” is an introduction to the main theme – that our desire determines everything, the choices we make.  It connects desire to our present situation. It also implies that desire can be designed. The copy doesn’t yet make the connection between desire and survival, that our other desires are all piled onto survival – so it needs some work. At the very bottom of this page is a site map, “Navigating On Desire” which provides a structured view on the mad cacophony of posts. Let’s skip that for now and look at blog and movies.

The blog has two views, by year “Latest news” and by month. An alternate view is the “expedition map”, which structures the posts with geography rather than time. The site map might also be appropriate to provide another post sorting modality for a total of three – time, place and relevance.

Digression – This data viewport idea flows from my CHI design days with Fred Oefline and Tamarack Software in the 90s.

Based on Google Analytics, “Our collective Destiny – Desire” and “Movies” were the most popular choices on the previous landing page design. I suspected that visitors were clicking ”Our collective Destiny – Desire” out of confusion rather than interest. The new landing page design should offer insight. “Movies” will likely be the most selected now. This “Movies” page is clunky and would greatly benefit from thumbnails and a reordering of titles to put the most recent first.

Here’s the structured design for navigating On Desire’s content. There’s still quite a bit to do, but it should be enough to assess visitor interaction.

Yesterday – while all these changes were being implemented – the bounce rate for the landing page jumped up from 20 – 45%. I’ll give it a say or two to settle and then check again.

Just over a year ago I started cloning myself. I am amazed to announce that the process is complete, pretty nearly. As long as I am alive and ever changing my clone is also a work in progress. Last night I finished duplicating 25 terrabytes of my archive, effectively creating two sets of myself. I just need to find an undisclosed location to stash my clone and I’ll be even harder to kill than ever before. Take that nefarious invisible conquistadors.

It took 11 months longer than I had originally anticipated because of the expense and time. Step one – migrate from fixed firewire drives to cheap sata drives. The economic downturn kicked in and buyers for my fixed drives were scarce. I had to limp along selling old drives to buy new ones. Eventually I had the archive converted to 25 sata drives. Step 2 – scrape together funds to buy another 25 terrabytes of sata drives (while paying down credit card debt). It was just last week that Joe from Fedex handed me the last 10 drives I needed to finish.

So the point of this is what exactly? Who cares about my freaking back-up process? It’s blog worthy because I want to acknowledge a goal achieved! Having a clone is insurance, it’s responsibility and it’s recognition.  If the roof leaks or there’s a fire, my digital self is protected. I have taken responsibility for making sure my (and my clients) projects are safe. Finally, I recognize that what I have created over the past 25 years is worthy of care and preservation, that it’s important. I honor myself with this clone.

Amen.

Here’s the state of the art.

Bounce rate has been *bouncing* over the last 5 days. When it hit 70% on March 15, I almost flipped. I waited another day without making any changes and sure enough, it dropped back down to 35%. So what’s going on? Obviously I don’t really know, so perhaps we ought to hold off on changing anything else for the moment.

I have considered what I would change. WP’s becoming a limiting factor. I’d probably be better off with a Joomla deployment but I don’t have time to climb that learning curve.  I want to get back to the fundamentals of movie making asap. So sticking with WordPress is the plan.

Overlay shows most of the clicks on the landing page happening on the link for the page itself, indicating that visitors might be getting confused. The next most popular link is the movies. The blog archives take up a significant space on the page and are hardly getting touched at all.

The obvious plan would be to remove anything that is not popular or confusing and emphasize what visitors are into. Since this is a movie project more pictures would be a good idea, with a few text links branching off into more specific content.

I think a test site would be worthy.

I just spoke to web design maven Lauren Di Scipio. She had several great suggestions, which I’ll paraphrase.

1) Folks come to the site and make a good faith effort to get oriented, but the landing page is not providing any orientation, so they have to look elsewhere.

This makes sense. The sidebar’s list of pages is like a mini sitemap and the title “Desire – our collective destiny” suggests a direction to take.  Folks look at the map and try and find out what it’s all about.

2) It’s all about immediacy, we want to see what’s happening at this moment. Perhaps an RSS feed of the recent posts…

This is also interesting, having a static page is helpful to monitor visitor response but it kills the flow of updating.

3) More pictures, put a movie or movies there.

Jonathan, Luke, Steve and I were looking at analytics for ondesire.com last night. After posting the Premise page on Friday, bounce rate shot back up to 40%. The point of looking at bounce rate is to see how effective the landing page is, but several factors could be influencing the results – other than the project totally sucking. For one thing, analytics code needs to be added to the html for the video so it can be tracked.

Feeling superstitious, I altered the premise to be more focused and moved the character development off into it’s own link with an intro. I also won’t cross post any more analytics progress reports to http://ondesire.com – it’s not relevant to the experience of ondesire to see all the wiring hanging out – it’s confusing enough just trying to communicate the concept. Showing the jury rigged tangle is what holyboners.com is all about.

Bounce rate has dropped from 40% to 10%, whoo! Congratulations team, landing page analysis and revisions are a success.

We’re generating a trickle of new visitors by selective follows on Twitter every day. From analytics it was pretty clear that the landing page didn’t engage, almost half of new visitors saw it and left. During the meeting we discussed how the landing page could be simplified and focused.

Note to self – remember to snap screen shots before making changes to key pages!? Since I didn’t make http://ondesire.com available to search engines until recently (doh!)  Waybackmachine doesn’t have an archive, so there’s no before shot. If I’m lucky I’ll find an archival screenshot on our local drives. For now, the best I can do is show the after and describe the before, bah.  Anyway, here’s the landing page circa 10-03-12 at 11:12.

http://ondesire.com landing page 10-03-12 11:12

Header

The title was been changed from “On Desire” to “Desire”.

The subtitle was changed from “Big World Small Footprint” to “The crux of human experience, our collective destiny” – Melonie, Dan

Page

The page title was changed from “You are Here” to “Our Collective Destiny, Desire” – Melonie, Dan

The body text was simplified to explain the On Desire concept and emphasize the only active project, Around Lake Michigan – Steve, Dan

Two active movie links were added, tho the picture is not obviously a video link yet – Patrick

Sidebar

Archive was changed to BLOG – Julie

A twitter icon was added

Launch date was added – Julie

PAGES was removed. Around Lake Michigan pages were brought to the top of the list and On Desire to the bottom.

Added An Around Lake Michigan premise page which will become a 15 second “watch this first” video link. The page starts with character development and then presents the character’s premise, addressing Jonathan’s doom feedback – Melonie, Jonathan, Dan

Other

I’m fleshing out the links on the collaborators page and making a point of linking to resources like WBAI and SOMA (great music). Not only do I want to share the resources that inspire the project, these links increase the interconnectivity of ondesire to the rest of the www.

Just finished reading Jim Munroe’s FLYBOY ACTION FIGURE COMES WITH GASMASK as a text file on the iPhone. Good times! Check out his other story downloads at http://nomediakings.org. Scrollariffic!

Jonathan has been questioning the veracity of the doom assertion in the ALM / artifact premise. A premise or pitch is a shorthand introduction to a project – typically delivered in less than 15 seconds (and often in an elevator). A great pitch should distill a project and summarize it rather than simplify. Here’s the current version of the ALM pitch.

We know that a sustainable civilization is coming because if it doesn’t show up, we (human beings) are doomed. Since we all expect to survive, survivable civilization(s) must emerge within the next 10 – 15 years. That means they must be already coming together, they must be in the process of emerging right now.  We can can expect to find fragments and partially assembled components everywhere. These artifacts of future survivable civilizations can be discovered and shared, growing awareness globally. That is the objective of Around Lake Michigan.

Is this premise inherently misleading and broken? Jonathan offered some interesting insights.

Jonathan – What’s the proof that we are doomed? That reminds me of mainstream media’s fear mongering and exaggeration which makes intelligent folks allergic.

The more I think about it, the more of a core issue it seems this might be, as far as making this site truly communicate with folks.

It isn’t clear who is the source of the information, when you say that there’s dark things up ahead. Where is this prophecy coming from, you (dan kelly), the scientific community, the mainstream media, etc.? If the prophecy is coming from one of these sources, then you need to explain why the audience should be looking to themselves to answer what the solutions are, rather than this source. And that isn’t usually easy.

Example, if the scientific community is saying global warming is the problem to focus on, and people respect them and this opinion of theirs, then they’ll naturally look to the scientific community to tell them exactly what they should do about it. They won’t look to themselves for the answers, because they weren’t even capable of noticing the problem until science pointed it out to them.

Another example is 9/11. From observations and common sense people could see that it was not an accident, but not who was to blame for it. Later that same day the government/media started putting up a picture of Osama Bin Laden, explained who he was supposed to be and that he was supposed to be responsible. And so it was the government/media that folks followed to war, not their own individual pieces of knowledge or independent viewpoints.

If you want to break out of this system, of people following “leaders” or “experts”, and instead trusting in and finding solutions to problems themselves, then they have to become aware of the problem within their own experiences and minds. Otherwise it is just more blind faith. You need to show people the symptoms of a problem they can become aware of within their own life experience, independently. Ask them to confirm what you are saying within the things they have already seen.

Certainly if the artifacts of the solution are already around us, there must also be the artifacts of the problem for people to confirm what is going on for themselves.

Within the context of ALM and this website, you as the stand-in character for the everyman, the joe average, could talk about your personal experiences that made you become an environmentalist. Maybe recount how you saw certain things change over your lifetime that made you aware the present course was heading in a very dark direction.

Then recount some of the artifacts of a possible future way of life, that you experienced over your lifetime, that lead you to start this search for a sustainable way of life.

This reminder about individual experience is indeed powerful and worthy. Mass disconnection from direct experience is what makes the toxic consumption juggernaut possible. On Desire is a DIY effort, it’s about taking personal responsibility for the situation. “What situation?” Jonathan asks. What exactly is our ALM guide, Dan Kelly talking about? Let’s tease out some story from this.

A character effectively developed is believable. The audience travels with the ALM guide because they can relate to him, his struggles and aspirations have been offered and accepted by the audience. They don’t need to agree with him or even like him to go along on his journey, they just have to get him. Search the posts for “guide” for more background on this.

Andrea made the point that Dan Kelly can’t be a detached observer. Who would believe that a detached observer would fix buy a 16 foot cat and sail 1000 miles searching for artifacts of a survivable future? That sounds slightly passionate if not a obviously nuts. This character is motivated by something more compelling than reports on CNN, he is acting from his gut. He may be delusional, but his direct experience has galvanized action.

Of course the audience should look to their own experience, absolutely. That’s what makes character development possible. It’s tricky to ask for that in the premise though, there’s just not enough time. All we need to do is communicate that this is Dan Kelly’s premise, and illustrate how he acquired it.

Now the pitch starts like this… There’s this guy who believes (insert premise). Well – that’s interesting, how did he come to believe that? Cue character development.

The character development will illustrate how this guy’s direct experience – a heady brew of ecstatic physicality, presence with wilderness, speculative storytelling, an affinity for science and intuitive mysticism intoxicated him with the premise.

If the character makes a robust commit to act on his direct experience, that will be an example for others to attend to and act on theirs… and we’ve made a training film.

In conclusion, deconstructing the premise is a useful exercise. The character Dan Kelly has an epic bent. He has a strong feeling that earth and her human inhabitants are facing a crucial moment. Does he conjure the threat of annihilation to spice an otherwise dreary RL existence? Is he tilting at windmills? There’s no story without conflict, right?

Frodo lives!

We’ve had two dream team meetings, in Brooklyn (Faisal, Erica and Dan) and yesterday in Beulah (Steve Elrick, Melonie, Jonathan, Lucas Kelly and Dan).

Inviting collaboration and contribution was the focus of Saturday’s meeting. Components of the ask package for fundraising were presented and discussed. Our collective web presence, including project blogs like http://ondesire.com and contractor blogs (http://meloniesteffes.com and http://jonathankellyarts.com) are key. We reviewed the design of the landing page for http://ondesire.com and discussed what our expectations are for it.

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Melonie – The silhouette image of Dan on Hello World looks “girly”. It’s the first thing I think about when I see this page.

Dan – This is because the camera pack on his left side  gives an impression of wide hips which combined with the long hair  makes the image a little confusing.

Actions

Is it disturbing or discordant to visitors? Some testing is needed. It’s possible to either switch out this picture or try to ps the camera pack out. Might not be a bad idea to broaden my shoulders and add an ornate cod piece while were at it.

•

Jonathan – I’d like to see a link to the latest news, so that folks can jump to immediately to the last 5-6 posts.

Action

The simplest solution is a link to all posts. The most recent will show up first.

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Melonie – “Desire – the crux of human experience.” That’s important, it should be a headline or bigger.

Dan – “You are here” was intended to give a sense of place, suggesting maps and geography. We can repurpose this for the maps area.

Action

Replace “You are Here” with the crux of human experience” to give it more prominence and simplify the page. Move you are here to the maps page.

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Dan – On Desire was conceived as a container for many projects, Around Lake Michigan being one of them. Currently, ALM is the only project in there, so it needs to be more prominent.

Action

On the sidebar, move Events up to the top and all the ondesire.com background down to the bottom. Perhaps move the background out of the sidebar totally.

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Jonathan – The archives take a lot of real estate, be good to move them farther down the sidebar so it’s less cluttered up top.

Dan – Not sure that’s possible. If we had a little WP magic we could link to a separate page where the archives could live. Look into it.  A benefit of the archives being on the sidebar is it demonstrates project longevity.

Action

Investigate whether archives become a landing page link?

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Dan – Perhaps Dan and Hello World are the vanguard for a wave of expeditions worldwide, perhaps one objective is to inspire other expeditions. ALM could be a demonstration on how to look for artifacts of a survivable future. How could the site be an aggregator for artifacts? Searchers could report discoveries by…

writing a letter / email

leaving a phone message

sending audio or video recordings – youtube, vimeo etc.

Steve – what about incorporating song writing? Steve relates a recent effort to rewrite the lyrics of Route 66 to fit the sights along M22. Could this be worked into ALM? Would song writers and performers be inspired with images of trip geography?

Dan – I really wanted to bring my guitar with me last September, the idea of a giant song writing quilt is awesome. Lucas and Melonie are both making music too, Steve sings so maybe we already have a strong base.

What other ideas can we deploy for hooking the general public into the project?

Action

Who could organize  and manage the music project? How would it work? What’s our protocol for integrating new artifacts, a resource for contributing must be developed.

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Melonie – Right now the project is the Dan show. We need more artifacts up ASAP.

Dan – absolutely. We have some great material.

Action

Priority – put up other interviews.

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Dan – The premise, the pitch. We know that a sustainable civilization is coming because if it doesn’t show up, we (human beings) are doomed. Since we all expect to survive, a survivable civilization must emerge within the next 10 – 15 years. That means it must be already coming together, it must be in the process of emerging.  We can can expect to find fragments and partially assembled components everywhere, right now. These artifacts of a future survivable civilization can be discovered and shared, growing awareness globally. That is the objective of Around Lake Michigan.

Jonathan – What’s the proof that we are doomed? That reminds me of mainstream media’s fear mongering and exaggeration which makes intelligent folks are allergic.

Dan – maybe “doom” switched to “things getting really unpleasant,” (wink, nod). Kind of under-promising approach.

Jonathan – Showing change from past to present, activate personal observation.

Melonie – focus on the good stuff, spreading the solutions

Action

A 15 second premise video could be the first thing that visitors encounter.

Jonathan – we need definitions on the site, like xroll, civilizations and artifacts.

Action

Build a project dictionary or a wikitionary

Dan – How do you guys feel about the process of blogging?

Melonie – an old friend found me through my website, I was embarrassed. the first thing I thought was I hope he didn’t read my blog.

Jonathan – I am posting technical stuff because I don’t feel very creative right now. When writing about technical issues, there’s a lot of overhead involved in explaining something simple. Saying exactly what I want, a process of taking stuff away.

Melonie – What about exploring your feelings about the project?

Dan – We will continue to blog, because it’s very powerful to look into ourselves and express what we are becoming. It’s very helpful for our development as artists and for our ability to communicate clearly – to each other and to the world at large. It’s an investment in ourselves.  Melonie’s reaction is very telling, why should we be embarrassed about our own thoughts and feelings? What’s the matter with developing a public presence? Is that ego or just sharing? An open project means we share our lessons and discoveries.

Action

Steve and Lucas can be encouraged to launch showcase sites with Jonathan and Melonie’s help. Jonathan and Melonie write a 1 or 2 paragraph premise – why writing and sharing my journey makes sense for me, or if it did make sense for me, why would it?

Sign a petition and help Michigan’s Attorney General Mike Cox to protect Lake Michigan by closing the locks in Chicago.

http://StopAsianCarp.com