Michael Leis

Though our wide-ranging crepe-based discussion panel on Saturday morning was a highlight, I’m seated in the cavernous ballroom A for Brynn “No relation to Will or Bob” Evans is sitting on this panel, so I really wanted to hear it. Brynn is kicking things off. She is concerned with the interaction design of search and [...]

With so many people coming up with fancy acronyms for social media methodologies, I figured it was time to write about where I see social’s major areas of focus in a few circles and call it a day. From my side of the table, I’m seeing clients needing to understand these three areas to effectively [...]

Have been thinking about the pervasive fear from companies about transparency in social media. This naturally got me thinking again about the perceptions and realities that exist in the notion. Recently Adrian Chan wrote an excellent article that takes on transparency and authenticity as concepts and their various meanings. Within that context, I offered up [...]

User Experience as a field, and Website creation in general can stand to learn a thing or two from distinctly old-media craft: namely screenwriting and film theory. This year, I’m lucky enough to be joined by Cindy Chastain in proposing to present the topic at SXSW 2010 on exactly how to do that. To expand [...]

So you’ve read all the articles, heard all the pundits, and devised a social media strategy that provides the brand cause, articulation, and the publics where you want to participate. But now you’re staring at a blank screen, wondering how to actually engage meaningfully. Where I start with clients is breaking down the communications into [...]

IDEA2009 runs September 15 and 16 in Toronto where the world’s foremost thinkers and practitioners will gather: sharing the big ideas that inspire, and practical solutions that improve the way people’s lives converge with technology. Whether you’re a designer, strategist, writer, UX professional, IA, or working in anything interactive, you should attend IDEA2009. Create the [...]

Amidst all the talk around, well, talk, it’s important to remember that a brand strategy working through social media may be a complete MacGuffin. Most social media brand engagements, after all, follow similar strategy guidelines as any new web or application presence. It’s going to where the people are, understanding what the brand’s role there [...]

In a recent survey for a client, when asked to describe what people used social networks for, the most-used terms were revealing. MySpace: Promote It’s ironic that Yahoo! recently shut down Geocities with this term coming to the fore of MySpace users. Can MySpace even be considered a social network anymore? For many artists, musicians, [...]

Around these parts, the topic of social media strategy for loyalty and CRM has been getting a lot of attention. And why not? For all the talk around marketing via social media, isn’t maintaining a connection with the people who are already using your products important? To me, this may be what social media does [...]

Through a great exchange over Twitter and his Blog, Dirk Shaw revives a concept that I’ve been harboring over the past year: how important it is to bring some element of social networking activity back to the brand home site. Whether it’s a blog, B2B, B2C, or your basic brand hub, it pays to bring [...]