Everyone has been working on their career site with their resume, awards, etc. Some needed better photographs, so we took some today. Here is the MOTI Gang 2010 Spring Semester.

The interview with your Web client is a crucial step and activity in the design and development process. Use your and your client’s time effectively to learn as much about their needs as possible. This may very well take several meetings, be patient, listen, probe, understand. Here is a little help to get you started. After viewing the presentation, download the PDF file and use it as a tool. If you wish to add more to it, go ahead; it is not written in stone. The PDF form can be filled on your computer for legibility when you create a final copy.

How to prepare to interview your Web design client

Web Client Interview Form

It has become quite common for many to work with multiple computers, at home, at work, on the road; and to collaborate with others requiring frequent document sharing. The general approach to deal with this problem requires USB drives, emailing documents to multiple e-mail accounts, or having remote access to one or more computers. I have used all of the above and in some circumstances these solutions may have their place in anyone’s technology tool chest. If you work with multiple computers, or work collaboratively, read on.

In the last 5-6 years many file access solutions have emerged, all requiring some sort of uploads and downloads. I have tried several and given up on them due to their cumbersome nature. Recently, I tried one of the new services recommended by several magazine articles and Web sites: Dropbox.com. I am writing this post to recommend this service to my colleagues and students. It is totally automated and works like magic.

You may have received an invitation from me to join Dropbox. But even without an invitation, point your browser to Dropbox to see how simple this can be.

1. Click on the big blue button that says “Download Dropbox”. It will initiate the download.
2. When it is complete, double click on the downloaded file to start the installation
3. Accept all the default settings it suggest, they can be changed later if you like
4. When the window comes asking whether you have a Dropbox account or not, choose the one that says you do not have an account
5. Enter your information
6. You may skip the brief explanation that requires going through several windows by clicking the appropriate button
7. You now have 2GB of storage totally free of charge on Dropbox

The installation creates a Dropbox folder on your desktop, which is the magic portal through which full synchronization happens.  You can create new folders there, load them up with files, they will magically appear on your Dropbox account which you can access wherever there is a Web browser. Now, you can go to the Dropbox Web site, login and you will see the contents of your local Dropbox folder. But, wait! There’s more!

On your second (or third, or fourth,… ) computer, say your office computer, and your laptop, go through the steps 1-3 above. When you come to step 4, choose the option that you have a Dropbox account and enter your e-mail and password. Dropbox will install on that computer, create the same Dropbox folder on the desktop (or wherever you decided to put it) and to your total amazement will make the files you put in your Dropbox at home appear in your Dropbox on your office computer. You can repeat this on other computers you use with the same automatic synchronization feature, in all directions. DO NOT INSTALL DROPBOX ON PUBLIC COMPUTERS WITH YOUR LOGIN CREDENTIALS. That will give access to  your files to anyone sitting at that computer. Instead, access your files using a Web browser on those public computers, in the lab, at a friends house, at a cafeteria, …

Now, are you satisfied? But, wait there’s more!

Say you are collaborating on a project, be it a group project in a class or collaboration on a paper with a colleague, or you simply want to show some photographs you have taken during the spring break with your family. (What? You do not want them to see those photos? Why? Oh, well, never mind.) Create a folder in your Dropbox for sharing with one or many people. Put some files there. Then share this folder on the Dropbox Web site. You will see the menu tab for this purpose which simply requires that you choose the folder to share and enter the e-mail addresses of the people who should see the contents of this folder. That simple. Your friends will receive your invitation to access the shared folder (you can have multiple shared folder for different group of individuals) and arrive at the Dropbox Web site. If they do not have a Dropbox account, they can create on on the spot, or use their login credentials to login to their Dropbox account and accept your invitation to view the folder contents you shared.

I suggest that you go in small steps and get comfortable with the software and the service. It works with remarkable ease and the storage space they give you free of charge is rather generous. You can almost use it for off site backup purposes.

Now, you can stop worrying that you left your USB drive at home. Your files are at your fingertips, wherever you are.

Note: I have found out after posting this message that anyone who registers at Dropbox from the links on this page will add more capacity to my account. Feel free to start your account and share your link with your group members so that you get more capacity if you need it.

A significant part of the term project, a marketing research conducted for your client, is the design and the administration of a properly designed questionnaire. The days of writing questions in a word processing software are long gone; several powerful tools have become available to fill their place.

Watch the following video about Qualtrics survey software, then follow the instructions in another post to get yourself an account at Qualtrics. Once your account is activated, you will find many more useful, helpful, informative tutorial video programs on different parts of the software. Although there will be a general introduction to using Qualtrics in class, you need to work with it, experience how it works, and become sufficiently comfortable with it before you need to use it for your projects. If you try to learn it when you need to use it, you will find that to be far less efficient and effective in carrying out your responsibilities.

CEO of Qualtrics speaks on the software

Edit Survey Tab

My Surveys Tab in Qualtrics

Are you looking for instructions on how to create your own account on Qualtrics? Here they are.

Providence College has a site license to Qualtrics software. To have access to it, you need to create an account on their site. Follow the instructions below and you will have your account in quick order and be using the learning tools they offer.

1. Point your browser to the Providence College master account on the Qualtrics site:
   http://www.qualtrics.com/providence
2. You will see a link to create your account (see below), click on that link and follow the instructions. It is important that you use your Providence College e-mail address to have an account with full access to all the features of Qualtrics
   
3. Once you log in with your account, visit “Help and Tutorials” menu option at the top of the page. You will find many useful tutorials. I suggest that you start with “Create a Survey and My Surveys” group to get familiar with the software.
4. Additionally, you will find other types of help, tutorials, helpful documents in the area they call “Qualtrics University”. Explore them all.
5. Go ahead and create a sample survey with a few questions, try different question types, use available scales, etc.

Remember, you are learning something new which may feel awkward at first, like when you learned how to ride a bike. As you use the software you will learn its working paradigm and become more comfortable with its myriad of features. The idea is not to use them all, but to be able to choose what tools to use. A huge tool box is useless if you are trying to drive a nail to the wall and you cannot find the hammer; worse yet, you do not recognize the hammer!

Have fun (indeed many students find the survey creation part of this course to be fun; believe it, or not!)

Yesterday, April 29, 2009, four groups of students presented their Web sites which they have designed and developed for their clients. Two of the clients were present to listen to the presentations, and the third one sent letters of commendation to the group members who have created a new site for the organization. I took some photographs of each group, with clients if they were there. You will see one group holding their letter of commendation. All in all, it was a successful semester in the course, these students have learned a great deal of new material and applied this new knowledge to their specific projects. To a large extent, they learned the material through their own efforts, kudos to all who put a very significant amount of time and effort to this course. You can see their sites at the following addresses:

Turkish American Cultural Society of RI

Atlantic RI (GoFaucet.com) on its own domain

International Business Development Association (IMDA) (visible soon)

St. Pierre’s Shoes (visible soon)

One of these sites has already gone live under its own domain and the others will be ported to their respective domains soon. Congratulations to all for a job well done, I am proud of your work and so should you be.

Today, I received a message from one of my former students who took Marketing on the Internet with me. I would like to share his comments, then a segment of his later reply to my response to him. They are revealing, if you take what this person says to heart. I only changed his name and the name of the company that his father owned. Everything else is in his own words. Read more

I mentioned in class that I would recommend some software for you to install; and added if you brought your laptop computer to class we could do some of this together. I noticed that not everyone raised their hand when I asked whether you had a laptop computer or not. So, for the benefit for all, I will write my recommendations here so that you can install the software at home whether is it a laptop or a desktop. It is also worth experimenting with the installation of the software on your desktop on campus computers after logging in as yourselves. I am not sure about how well the last idea may work. Read more

As part of the course requirement, your group will install, configure, and populate a content managed site using WordPress. The following are the steps to follow using the accounts I host for you. Although the general steps will be the same on any host, the details and the interface may be somewhat different. Read more

Are they really what we think they are?

Presentation made on April 22, 2003
Yeditepe University Graduate Colloquium
Istanbul, Turkey

A. Cemal Ekin

We are all social scientists studying social phenomena that affect the business world in one way or another. I would like to explore a few critical and related terms we use both in our scientific endeavors as well as in our daily lives. After the presentation, I do not expect you to know more than you already do but I do hope that you will have more nagging questions that seek answers in your mind. After all, science is all about finding answers to questions.

Science, in a very general sense, is the sum total of our efforts to understand the world around us. Since the humankind looked at the sky and saw things that inspired awe, our curiosity to know more about our world, our universe and our selves never stopped. As a result, we have accumulated an enormous amount of knowledge yet what we yearn to know is even greater than what we already know. Read more