goroboto.com is Rob Biddiscombe

Who is Rob Biddiscombe?

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 13:00:11 -0400

• Has your studio recently been enjoying enormous amounts of success that has caused a sudden increase in work that your current staff is struggling to keep up with?

• Do you find yourself searching for a replacement for an irreplaceable employee who has recently decided to leave the company?

• Do you feel like you need somebody around who can handle any design challenge and who’s up to date on all the web has to offer your clients?

• Are your brainstorming sessions a little flat lately?

I’m a pretty sure bet when it comes to answering all of these problems.

Over the past few days I’ve been sending out Instant Interview Kits to a bunch of studios in Charlotte (if you haven’t received one just shoot me an email and it will be in the mail tomorrow.) As you might have guessed - I’m hoping that you might be looking for a new addition to your team. Some of you might even be interested in a trade with Plaid. Take some time to read my blog and look through some of my links to get a feel for who I am. If you think I might be a good fit, get in touch with me - rob (AT) goroboto (DOT) com - and we’ll talk!

And we've arrived!

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 11:27:00 -0400

Goodbye New York and hello North Carolina!

It’s been a crazy few days for us with the packing, the driving (with 2 cats for 12 hours), then the unpacking - but we’ve made it. I have a lot of catching up to do web-wise and of course and the great job search continues.

To celebrate all of our hard work, me and Suzy decided to get out to Asheville this weekend for the Belle Chere Festival.

Asheville, if you aren’t familiar with it, is this artsy town with some great shops, most supporting local artists. We had a blast! This was my second time at Belle Chere since I had passed through for PlaidNation last year. There were some great bands this year and the beer and food are always good. I also impressed Suzy by recommending that we eat at the Laughing Seed (a vegetarian restaurant.) Amazing food. This place also brews their own beer below the restaurant and is absolutely phenomenal. If you’re in the area or just want to get away for a weekend I definitely recommend you check out Belle Chere next year!

North Carolina here we come!

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:41:00 -0400

Well folks it’s official! Me and Suzy are moving down to North Carolina on July 21st. It’s something we recently decided that we needed to do since living in NY was becoming increasingly frustrating for us. We love you NY, but your houses and lifestyle are too expensive!

Two weeks ago we headed down to Topsail Island for a little vacation and we ended up in Winston-Salem for a day. We discovered how great it can be down in NC - the people are insanely nice and the homes are so cheap!! On the ride back to NY a few days later, we found ourselves feverishly pouring over home pamphlets. But we said “only if there are jobs, only if there are jobs!” So we went into research mode and almost burnt Google out from all the searches we did. We concluded that Charlotte is the place for us!

Seeing that it has a big art district, First Fridays, a Comic-Con like convention, a bar that welcomes dogs, a few friends in the area and plenty of design studios that look like they get it (you’ll hearing from me soon!) we’re feeling pretty good about it at this point. We have all our plans made and should be heading down in the next few weeks for a few days to scope out apartments and possible jobs. Here we go!

Renegade Craft Fair Weekend

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 09:56:00 -0400

Well this weekend me and Suzy headed down to Brooklyn to check out the Renegade Craft Fair, an event that Suzy has been talking about for months now. Located at the McCarren Park Pool - a huge empty concrete pool capable of fitting 200 of the most unique crafters in the biz - on one of the hottest days of the year so far.

We arrived about an hour early, so we decided to wander over to the Farmers Market down the street for a quick snack in the shade before heading over. I wasn’t really sure what to expect since I’m not as much into the scene as Suzy is but when we got in I found that these are some pretty cool crafters (not to mention thoroughly tattooed!) Now when I say ‘Crafts’ I don’t mean crafts as in your Aunt’s potpourri and fabric flowers - no, here you can find hand made mugs covered with ninjas, soaps and lip balms by a company called Bunny Butt, or some really neat resin jewelry made with bugs and grass. I also scored a sweet Mustache Envy Kit and a vintage bottle top opener.

After a while Suzy exhausted the majority of her birthday money so we called it a wrap and headed back over to Manhattan in search of the city’s most delicious cupcakes found at Babycakes. Once we ate our fill of cupcakes we got back on the train and headed over to Kinokuniya, the Japanese book store in Bryant Park. The website doesn’t do it justice at all so if you ever find yourself in the area check it out - I promise it’s worth it. We got back to Grand Central just in time to avoid the worst of the rain that came outta nowhere - which I found out got really bad back at McCarren Park.

…good thing I got a chance to work on my tan before it got too cloudy.

NY Comic Con '08

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:31:00 -0400

Think you’re too cool for a comic book convention? Well you’re wrong. This year’s New York Comic Con was an amazing experience and you would have enjoyed it - trust me.

Me and Suzy had always wanted to go to the San Diego Comic Con when we lived out west. So early this past Saturday we got up super early to head down to the Javits Center on 34th street only to find a MASSIVE line of people who got up even earlier. Stormtroopers and Jedis were keeping the crowd entertained by lobbing free merchandise out into the crowds and being the 6 foot 3 inch giant that I am, was able to procure a Batman action figure from the air for my wife.

After a 30 minute wait we were in - and talk about sensory overload. Every square inch was jam packed with booths of the coolest vinyl toys, video game promotions, relics from the past 40 years or so of comic books and some the badest comic book artist I’ve ever seen - each one busily sketching away between hawking their newest issues and signing autographs.

While the booths were sweet, the panels were something not to be missed. Similar to SXSW they had a handful of panels going on every hour. I was fortunate enough to catch Orson Scott Card (an author whose books I just recently finished) as well as a panel on “How to survive a Zombie Apocalypse” which I don’t think Comic Con properly anticipated the amount of people who are interested in surviving those dark days and booked a room that was capable of holding 1/3 of the people who wanted to attend. Me and Suzy also attended a forum by the creators of Gaia Online which Suzy was a moderator in it’s earliest months.

So overall it was a blast. I snagged some really cool tees and Suzy picked up a sock-o doll as well as a few signatures from childhood heroes. My one piece of advice though: If you go and you’re planning on buying anything - just make sure you bring plenty of cash ahead of time to avoid the atm lines!

Segway Social

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 11:37:00 -0400

A few months back, while on the Plaid Nation ‘07 tour and driving though the mountains of Tennessee (at least I think it was Tennessee - after a week in a van the mid-west becomes kind of a blur) we got a call from Segway. You see, the tour stopped by their offices in New Hampshire two weeks before on the off chance that they’d let us in and check out the campus. Well they thought we’d be the perfect people to help them build their new social site. They were right of course!

Now after months of designing, coding by Chris and Garyl, testing, redesigning and more coding we’ve finally unveiled Segway Social. I’ve had my hand in quite a few sites over the past few years and I’m fond of the analogy that Darryl uses - that building a site is like building a building - this site would my Empire State building. Now I don’t mean to sound pretentious by saying that, but I’m really proud of this one. Many people can think ‘oh lets build a social site today’ and presto - poof! it’s done! Holy crap you have no idea the amount of planning and work these things take. So needless to say I learned a bunch.

Wire framing is key. Just because you build a pretty comp and assume how it will work does it actually even come close to interpreting how it will actually need to work. Plan every single instance of the user experience before you even start designing. Gray boxes are your friend here.

Beta means your gunna get feedback. And you might not like what you hear even if it’s one… ahem… ‘very opinionated’ forum member. I guess you can’t build a building in NYC and have every architect say ‘wow that’s nice’. So if someone says ‘the map sucks’ roll with it and find out why.

Limitations a plenty - be flexible. At the moment the web is capable of doing many things that we’ve never thought possible - but that doesn’t mean it can do all the things you imagine it can. Keep it simple.

In the beginning I had a rather large plan for what the map should be able to do but in the end we decided that certain processes could be handled better and easier outside of the flash map. Sorta like starting with a very large gnarly looking onion and peeling away the layers and ending up with a tiny, neat, cleaner version of itself.

It might make you shed a tear when you realize the original plan is no longer feasible and you need to redesign the whole thing but the change will be for the better. Trust me.

That’s what I’ve learned. Keep in mind it’s only Beta and we’re just now starting Phase 2 of the site with lots of changes to be made. So I hope you’ll check it out and say: ’wow that’s nice.’ If not then hey, I’m all ears.

SXSW: Till next time Austin!

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 09:14:00 -0400

That was a couple of crazy and eye opening days.

After listening to such a wide variety of topics from some of the biggest names in the business - I saw that the web still has a long way to go. But we’re getting there and we’re getting there fast. From integration to internationalization and all the technology improvements in between if you want your business to keep up you better pay attention. Just trying to imagine what all those who attended this SXSW are going to accomplish and invent in the next few years is going to be…. well I’m not sure what it’s going to be but I know it’s going to be part of my everyday life as well as yours.

Now about those people who attended SXSW…

You couldn’t help but feel inspired by how intense they are. Walking to your next panel you could practically feel the passion for everything SXSW stands for. Nothing beats the experience of dodging people twittering on their iPhone while walking or watching people scramble like crazed animals for available wall sockets eager to blog what they just learned in their last panel before their power runs out. At parties and all through the halls of the convention center - every discussion was just fueling ideas. And if they didn’t agree with the discussion or how something was going then well they sure as hell let you know. And then blogged and twittered about it. They were just that passionate. To be honest I couldn’t feel more at home.

Some other highlights from SXSW…

Hanging with the guys from Segway (here’s to Beta on Friday!!). Meeting a few of the movers and shakers of our industry in person. The look of horrified shock of everyone around as Darryl threw his iPhone at the floor (a Lone Star inspired accident). Watching Michael Eisner speak. Meeting a former NASA employee. Running 5.2 miles with some fellow SX’s at the crack of dawn (wooo!) and last but not least - getting a tattoo - which will now be a constant reminder to me of the weekend I conquered Austin.

Eric from Segway

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 09:10:25 -0400

Eric from Segway

Best ribs in town

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 09:10:00 -0400

Best ribs in town

Hanging with JJ from NASA

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 09:09:22 -0400

Hanging with JJ from NASA

There is sooooo much waste at these conventions I hope that this...

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 09:08:52 -0400

There is sooooo much waste at these conventions I hope that this stuff gets recycled.

Wish somebody tapped me on the shoulder and said “if...

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 09:07:48 -0400

Wish somebody tapped me on the shoulder and said “if you’re thinking of trying the 4 out of 5 taco you should reconsider.” I probably wouldn’t have listened anyway.

The break area at SXSW

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 09:06:09 -0400

The break area at SXSW

Building Portable Social Networks

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 08:50:00 -0400

This was by far one of the most eye opening panels of all of SXSW for me. Not sure how much ya’ll (come on it’s Texas) know about OpenID and it’s potential but it’s huge. Let’s go through the process that a Social Media application takes you through now…

So you want to join ultrafriends.com (or whatever the next one is going to be) and what’s the first thing you need to do? Create a user name and password. Second? Spend the next several weeks finding all of your friends and setting up your preferences before you can even really start using the super fantastic new ultrafriends.com which by this point isn’t really that new anymore. So much for ultrafriends.com - I’m tired and bored of it and have discovered the next new big thing. Go back to step one.

Now imagine this process if you didn’t have to go through the second step. What if you already have a universal Username and Password that has all of your friends contacts and preferences already setup. This is what OpenID is. Now the process of signing up has been reduced to: Sign In - select which friends you wish to have contact with on this new site - and off you go. All the panelist agree this would enormously reduce what they call ‘social app fatigue’ and as one panelist dubbed OpenID - the ‘vaseline’ of the web. I don’t know about you but this makes so much sense - I can’t wait until it sees it’s full potential across the web and hope to start incorporating into future sites.

Jeremy Keith (Clearleft), Chris Messina (Citizen Agency), Leslie Chicoine (Get Satisfaction), Joseph Smarr (Plaxo Inc), David Recordon (Six Apart)

Lessons in Internationalization

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 17:12:00 -0400

Man you must be thinking “Boy Rob sure picks some interesting topics” but for me Lessons in Internationalization was. This applies specifically to a client who’s site were in the process of developing and definitely has a global audience. They will most likely look to internationalize for a future generation of the site.

There were the expected stories of how a button “Enter Here” was translated into Russian and… well… didn’t exactly mean what they meant it to say. Or how the French were completely insulted that the French translation was for the Quebec-French. But there were some valuable lessons for us to be found in these stories. Some of which are:

• Unintentional translations of your company name is something you need to check out.

• Working with a translation team can help you be mindful of potential cultural/translation issues from the very beginning and help guide your design.

• Each language is not a country there are large cultural differences that need to be considered.

• Laws need to be taken into consideration and can be a huge time sink especially when contests are involved.

• Poorly translated sites are worse than no translation at all. It makes it seem like you don’t care as much about those customers as you do for those who speak the sites native language.

Something that also needs to be considered heavily is: should you go seek help from a professional translation company or can you depend on your users to help you out? You could be looking at two very different price tags but two very different work loads.

As a side note if this is something you are interested in check out the Worldwide Lexicon Project. This looks like a great tool!

Stephanie Booth (Climb to the Stars), Brian McConnell (Worldwide Lexicon), Kelly Thompson (iStockphoto)… and a guy from Google who’s name I didn’t catch.

SEO 3.0

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 08:54:18 -0400

Attended SEO 3.0 for my last panel on Sunday. I know - not the mostly wildly exciting topic but it was a very informative talk for me. I did manage to learn a few things that I plan to pay closer attention to for future sites - but most of it reinforced what I already learned about SEO & SEM. One thing I did notice though was that the SEO and SEM folks love they’re acronyms!

Packed house

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 16:34:00 -0400

Checked out the keynote interview w/ Mark Zuckerberg from the overflow room - while waiting I learned that when your company is worth 15 billion dollars people have a lot of… how would you say…. creative criticism for you.

Gotta respect the guy though, he seems genuine in the fact that he wants to make this the best app ever. I can’t help but wonder if his idea of envisioning where Facebook will be in 15 or 20 years is a bit optimistic? Can a company that finds immense fame and fortune through a social media tool stay ahead of the curve Apple style?

If so they better get moving. They need to start making money fast and just dump that money straight into R&D for future versions - not just make minor improvements here or there. See even I have a few ideas on how he should run that company! Mark gimme a call - we’ll do lunch.

Homeland Security approved of our BBQ dinner last night. Good to...

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 12:35:00 -0400

Homeland Security approved of our BBQ dinner last night. Good to know it was the safe choice.

Master Chief decided to check out SXSW as well.

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 12:33:46 -0400

Master Chief decided to check out SXSW as well.

Noticed yesterday that the outside of the convention center is...

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 12:32:36 -0400

Noticed yesterday that the outside of the convention center is covered with solar panels! Pretty cool!