The REU program in Computational Sensing and Medical Robotics(CSMR) is an intensive, ten-week program of laboratory research and instruction, beginning end of May 2014 and concluding in early August 2014. Participants will contribute to specific research projects pursued by faculty and researchers at the Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics (LCSR) and Computer Integrated Surgical Systems and Technology ERC. Projects are listed by departments including Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering and Computer Science.

Each student will be a part of a collegial research team, including a faculty project supervisor and a graduate student mentor, and will work on a challenging research project. The projects will be designed to match each student’s interest and to maximize the potential for making a contribution during the session.

The projects hosted by the Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics (LCSR) and the Computer Integrated Surgical Systems and Technology Engineering Research Center (CISST ERC) are funded by the National Science Foundation (number of spots available will be based on funding renewal by NSF). Participating students will receive instruction on technical communication, oral presentation skills, and research ethics to aid in the completion of the required final research report and presentation. The participants may also have an opportunity to be part of a poster session at the end of the program. The students will have the opportunity to tour a local government laboratory, a private company and participate in social events in the lab. Candidates will need to be a U.S. Citizen or a U.S. Permanent Resident to be accepted into this program. 

Stipend for 10 weeks- $5000 
Housing will be provided
Program Dates- May 27, 2014- August 1, 2014 

Welcome to another interview in the “How I Work” series. These interviews reveal how leading thinkers and creators on the Web design, code and create. The goal is not to get into the nuances of their craft (that information exists elsewhere online), but rather to step back and learn a bit about their habits, philosophies and workflow for producing great work.

This time, we’re speaking with Andres Glusman, of Meetup, a company that uses the efficiency of the Internet to conveniently connect people offline. Andres works as the VP of Strategy, Product and Community in Meetup’s New York City office. In this piece, he shares with us how the company uses User Experience (UX), Lean Startup methods and innovative ways of organizing interdisciplinary teams to fuel the company’s consistent growth.

Andres Glusman loves meeting users and hearing them say, “Meetup changed my life.”

Q: How did you first get into the Web?

Andres: I got into the Web in the mid-’90s. I was in strategy at Boeing and got excited about the future of how people would find things online. I discovered this company called i-traffic. It was one of the world’s first interactive agencies. I was inspired by its approach, so I packed up, moved cross-country and took an entry-level job. I worked my tail off and got the opportunity to eventually lead a division. A few years later, when i-traffic’s CEO moved on to start Meetup, he called me up to invite me to be a cofounder. I had just gotten into Wharton, so I said “Thanks, but no thanks.”

I did do a little consulting before heading back to school. In fact, I made our first $14 of revenue. After business school I got sucked back in and have been at Meetup for nine years now. I currently oversee three teams: Product, Strategy and Community.

Q: Because you manage product, strategy and community, how do you impart a user-first approach?

Andres: It’s easy to be member-centric at a mission-driven organization. Meetups change lives in profound ways, and people who work here are passionate about the impact we can have on the world by sparking meetups everywhere. In that context, experience is everything.

It also helps that the way we work actively exposes us to how people actually use the stuff we build. That keeps us pretty centered. We start with a vision and often a make simple prototype of the experience we want to foster. We run it through our in-house usability lab and iterate rapidly until we’ve got something we like. Then, we carve it up into experiments that we run on the live site.

A sneak peek inside the Meetup headquarters.

The people who work here love the fact that they can get super-fast feedback from members. We do 400+ tests a year. So, folks on our team can get feedback often within an hour or two.

Q: Can you walk us through how Meetup iterates on the product?

Andres: Sure. Why don’t I tell you the story of how we revamped an important experience on Meetup, to illustrate how we work? We used to have a Meetup Group creation experience that had all the charm and excitement of a tax form. We looked at data to see where people fell off and did usability tests to understand how people experienced it and why they struggled.

One night, we had an informal brainstorm about what the experience could be like. The product designer involved went home, got inspired and came in the next day with a prototype of a radically different experience he’d hacked. It looked like this. It was completely divorced from our code base, and it was really fun. We had someone coming in for usability an hour later. So, we dropped it into testing, watched from our desks and quickly learned two things. One, we heard things like “Oooh,” “Ahhh” and “That’s cool.” So, we knew we were onto something.

But they were also thoroughly confused by the flow of the experience. So, we scrapped 90% of the prototype, kept the interaction piece and iterated on it daily for a week or so until we got to something that worked well. It looked like this. We then carved it into a series of experiments, which we rolled out to the live site. In the process, we validated our assumptions, discovered which parts made a difference and, ultimately, saw a nice boost in results. The final product can be found online:

After days of analysing user data and testing, Meetup.com finally got a fresh new look that folks out there found friendly and easy to use.

Not every project follows that workflow, but we’ve tried to replicate it as much as possible. That’s why designers are such an important part of our team now. We’ve since grown to three product designers, and building out the design team is our top priority.

Q: How does Meetup organize teams and ship?

Andres: We organize ourselves into small cross-functional teams that each addresses a high-priority user experience. For example, there is a team for onboarding new members, called “First Five Minutes.” They look at how the experience should unfold for new members. How do we set up new members to have a great experience? How do we make the experience feel fun and rewarding.

The teams consist of a product manager, front- and back-end developers, QA, and a community manager to represent what we’re seeing in support. Designers play a key role as well, but they work across teams. Designers are super-involved up front in working with teams to shape a vision. They then stay involved to help teams nail the important details. This is having a profound impact on what we build. We’ve still got a lot we want to do, but you can get a glimpse of it in our discovery experience.

Meetup lets you find “your” people, i.e. meeting people with common interests.

We have teams focused on lanes like “First Five Minutes,” “Discovery,” “Before/During/After the Meetup” and “Meetup Organizers.” They craft a series of visions that they want to pursue. Then, they carve those visions up into these experiments and start working towards a vision of the product that they are all excited to work on. So, these teams essentially function as startups within the company.

In terms of building, we’re agile but not rigidly agile. We don’t have the Scrum masters and the burn boxes thing going on, but we do work iteratively and push code multiple times a day. There are opportunities to iterate on things every day.

Q: Can employees switch teams?

Andres: Absolutely, and it doesn’t have to be a permanent switch either. There are times when certain teams have more demand or slack, so people can bounce between teams. And there are times when someone’s interests change. Our team is growing pretty quickly right now, so it’s really not hard for someone to switch teams.

Q: As VP of Strategy (and other things), how do you define and set a strategy?

Andres: I like how Michael Porter defines it:

“Strategy is what you don’t do.”

There are so many things we want to work on and explore. Our challenge is to say “No” to most things, so that we can say “Yes” to the few that are most important. Right now, we’re focused on building out a beautiful mobile experience and using that as inspiration to transform the desktop experience. We’ve got a pretty ambitious list that we want to get done for the end of the year.

While that’s all going on, I’m starting to think about what 2014 and 2015 will look like. We want to make sure we’re planning ahead and hiring the right kind of people now to pursue these really big ideas next year.

Q: What’s your take on network effects and user experience?

Andres: Network effects are one of the most powerful dynamics in our industry. You will generally find that, where network effects exist, the more people are using a platform, the more valuable it is to everyone. There are multiple kinds of networks. There are two-sided marketplaces, like a Craigslist or eBay, with buyers and sellers. There are one-sided networks, like a fax machine, where everyone can interact with everyone.

But the value of Craigslist is obviously the network. It’s not the most elegant-looking platform, but it delivers you the person who wants to buy your couch in under 45 minutes better than anything else out there. Many people have created clones that are prettier, but without the network, they are nothing. Obviously, strong network effects and delivering a magical user experience win.

Q: Can you talk a bit about acquiring users in this context, as it relates to Meetup?

Andres: Meetup is a two-sided network. Meetups on the network attract members. Members on the network also attract organizers to start new meetups. That, in turn, attracts more members, which attract more meetups. And so on and so on. It’s a virtuous cycle that we call the Meetup flywheel.

Q: And what have you observed firsthand as a result?

Andres: Well, what is interesting about us is that one of the biggest byproducts of our network effects is a phenomenon we call “spawning,” whereby, as groups grow larger and larger, they then spawn similar but slightly different groups. For example, a motorcycle Meetup group will start in a city. They eventually might spawn a women’s motorcycle rider Meetup. They then might spawn a women’s motorcycle Meetup group for women who work in tech.

So, we’ve discovered that there’s a massive long tail that arises in Meetup communities. If you look at the tech Meetup groups here in New York, there is an unbelievable amount of diverse Meetups around different tech areas. This happens because we’re a network.

Q: How do you manage your day-to-day work?

Andres: My job is completely exhilarating because I get to tackle a huge variety of problems. However, the constant sudden shifts between different areas can be a little exhausting. In the morning, I put my daughter on the school bus, then spend 15 minutes outlining priorities for the day. I have an hour commute, so I’ll dedicate that time to working on something very creative, when I tend to have a lot of energy.

Then, I come into work and try to be a sounding board or coach with the different teams (strategy, product and community). I usually don’t hit my email till 5:00 at night. But every so often, I try to block a four-hour chunk of time and sneak off to a conference room somewhere and work on some heavy lifting for creative or analytical projects.

Q: What’s the best part?

Andres: The two best parts are working with designers and watching usability tests. When I work with a designer, I catch a vision of Meetup’s future. That’s super-inspiring. On the flip side, when I watch a usability test, I get grounded in reality and am surprised by how humans actually behave (as opposed to how I wish they’d behave).

More than 400 usability tests are run through Meetup’s in-house usability lab every year.

Watching usability tests is just such a joy for me, and I don’t get to do it as much as I would like anymore. But when I do get to watch usability testing and see somebody go through an experience, it causes me to look at our experience through fresh eyes. I love putting myself in the user’s shoes and riffing on their experience. I find that so energizing.

Q: What excites you most about the Web today?

Andres: The biggest thing is that I don’t feel like we have found the answer to the right way of doing things across this entire industry. Everything could be done better. However, I feel like we’re hitting upon a pretty good way of working at Meetup, which is producing some good results. But in terms of how people come together and build a successful product for the Web or mobile, I think that’s a pretty tough riddle and also a pretty exciting challenge.

Q: And what’s been the best part of Meetup so far?

Andres: I love meeting our users and hearing them say, “Meetup changed my life.” Every time I go to a conference, somebody will come up to me and say “Meetup changed my life.” They say things like, ”I got into iPhone development because I went to a Meetup,” or something like that. So, the work itself is rewarding, and the problems we get to solve are pretty significant.

Scott (the founder) always says:

“You haven’t met all of the most important people in your life yet.”

Hopefully, we can help make that happen.

Thank you for sharing inspiring insights into your work with us, Andres! We sincerely appreciate it.

(al, il, ea)

© Jacob Cook for Smashing Magazine, 2014.

Launching a website, app, or digital product online will require some upfront work.

One of the things that need to be done is to set up a pre-launch landing page that helps people learn about your upcoming product and allow them to subscribe to updates about your launch.

An Ineffective Way to Launch

Let’s say you get a brilliant idea for a new product.

You believe in the idea so much that you can’t wait to build it. You dive in headfirst into wireframes, mockups, UI design and code.

You spend months putting in long days and nights, doing everything you can to perfect the core value proposition of the product and getting ready to ship it.

Finally, launch day arrives.

You push it live, activate your payment system, perhaps you email a few friends and bloggers about it, share it on social media, etc.

Now you’re just waiting patiently for people to come, hoping that all that hard work will pay off.

And then… *Crickets*.

A sale here, an account sign-up there, but certainly not the big launch you had hoped for, the type of launch you always see on Hacker News or TechCrunch.

Taking out the possibility that you built bad product — that it was poorly designed or the functionality was off — the problem probably comes from the lack of building anticipation and excitement prior to the launch date.

I certainly made this mistake in my earlier product launches, and now I’d like to share the lessons I learned from them.

Tip 1: It’s Never Too Early

First things first: Creating your pre-launch landing page should be one of the very first things you do. Do it even before writing one line of code!

The earlier you get your pre-launch page up and running, the better.

Use your pre-launch landing page to spark conversations with potential customers and to begin gathering feedback.

Your pre-launch landing page will also get you started on building your mailing list, as well as social media network.

When I decided to write and release my book, I designed and launched the landing page before I wrote the first chapter!

My pre-launch page provided a destination where I can begin promoting the book, building my mailing list, and creating some buzz.

More importantly, the pre-launch page allowed me to develop my "sales pitch" — the value proposition of my book. It helped me refine my ideas as well as pinpoint ways to make it connect with my intended audience better.

After writing the initial copy for that pre-launch landing page, and hearing feedback from people interested in the topic of the book, I had a much better footing as I began outlining and writing it.

I designed this landing page from scratch and hooked it up with MailChimp to manage the email sign-ups:

Getting Your Pre-launch Page Set Up Quickly

You don’t want to take away too much time from building your product. And often, a simple approach is the most effective one.

There are a lot of pre-launch apps that will help you develop your launch strategy. Here are a few of them:

LaunchRock provides a complete launching platform:

Launch Effect Lite is a free WordPress theme for pre-launch events; the premium version has additional features and tech support:

LaunchGator helps you create a free "coming soon" page:

KickoffLabs helps you develop your landing pages to increase lead generation:

Unbounce is a web app designed for online marketers to help them create optimized landing pages:

Tip 2: Provide as Much Detail as Possible

We’ve all seen pre-launch landing pages for startups that consist only of a logo, one sentence, and an email opt-in form to "get notified when the product launches".

Get notified when you launch what exactly?

Simple and vague landing pages might get some people signed up to your mailing list, but they won’t be pre-qualified potential users of your product because they don’t have an idea about what it actually is, or how it will benefit them. They might have just signed up to determine what it is you’re going to be launching, which is something that should have already been provided in the pre-launch landing page.

A better approach would be to include as much information as you can about your soon-to-launch product.

It’s okay that your product doesn’t actually exist yet. Be transparent about that.

But do explain the pain point and the solution you plan to offer, and how your customer will benefit from your proposed solution when it’s released. Express your value proposition clearly. Articulate your vision and plans.

Those who read through those details and subscribe to your mailing list are much more likely to become customers later because they know what you’re hoping to provide them.

Here’s an example of a good pre-launch landing page for the beta version of Updately:

It does a great job of providing lots of details about the app using a mix of visuals and great copy to communicate all of the key benefits to their audience. At the end of the page, there’s a call to action to subscribe to their mailing list.

Tip 3: Provide Useful Information

Your landing page shouldn’t just be about selling. You can also use it as an opportunity to educate your audience and give them something to think and care about.

Go beyond just the pain point and your solution. Teach them about a key concept that drives everything you do.

For example, let’s say you plan to release a help desk app. You could include a section about customer satisfaction statistics related to companies having a help desk system versus those that don’t.

Anything that can be taken as a nugget of value can help build trust in your product. This type of thing can give your pre-launch page visitors just the nudge they need to go and enter their email address, and hopefully buy from you later.

Nathan Barry does a great job of educating his visitors on his product landing pages. His sales page for Authority, a book about writing books, not only gives people plenty of detail about what’s in it, but also dives deep into the first lesson (setting a strict writing schedule to complete your book).

The book is already on sale, so this would be considered a "post-launch" landing page, but the pre-launch version wasn’t much different conceptually from what you see today. It contained loads of information, detail and lessons — all providing value before any transaction is ever made.

Tip 4: Give Something of Value Now

As a potential email list subscriber, I need to receive some sort of value that I can sink my teeth into if I was ever going to be compelled to sign-up.

For example, if you’re going to launch a premium icon set, you could consider giving a subset of it away for free to those who sign up to your mailing list. If you’re writing an ebook, you could email your mailing list subscribers the first two chapters to give them a taste of what’s coming.

Put real thought and research into these resources, and keep them focused around the topic that your target customers really care about. If it’s something that really matters to them, they’ll want to get their hands on it.

Tip 5: Touch Base Regularly

I come across a pre-launch landing page for a product, and it looks great! It’s perfect. Just what I’m looking for.

It looks like something I’d be willing to pay for. So I enter my email address to be notified when it’s released.

4, 6, 8 months go by, and I don’t hear a word from them. Finally, 9 months later, I get an email from a name I don’t recognize, with the subject line, "We’ve launched!"

There’s no way I remember who this company or person is, or what this product was about. At this point, I don’t remember ever signing up for this list. It must be spam. Delete.

If that company had stayed in touch with me throughout their pre-launch period, with weekly or monthly emails to give me new information on the developments of their product, it would have led to a much better outcome.

Come launch day, I would have recognized the name of the person emailing me, I would have known what this launch was all about (because I had been expecting it), and I’d be much more likely to buy the thing if I was still an email subscriber at this point. And if I don’t end up buying it, at the very least I’d probably be more inclined to tweet about the launch because I’ve been tracking it for 9 months.

Conclusion

The pre-launch period is all about building up anticipation, priming your audience, and staying top-of-mind so that that when the day comes, they’re ready to buy and help you build buzz for your product.

I hope you find these tips helpful as you prepare to launch your next great product!

Share your tips and post your questions in the comments.

Related Content

• 10 Simple Tips for Launching a Website
• Things You Should Do Immediately After Launching a Website
• 25 Beautiful Examples of "Coming Soon" Pages
• Launching a Blog Successfully in 15 Days
• Related categories: Business and Project Management

About the Author

Brian Casel is a web designer and the author of Design For Conversions, a book to help startups design a better marketing site. Check out Brian’s personal site, casjam.com and connect with him on Twitter @CasJam.

The post 5 Tips for Pre-Launch Landing Pages appeared first on Six Revisions.

It’s often described as the CMS from hell; ugly and a total memory hog, to the novice the learning curve is often far too steep and the documentation sometimes scarce. Why is this behemoth of a CMS even used anymore?

Its name is Drupal, and it’s very powerful when tamed. From the glorified Views module to the great SEO features to the loyal and enthusiastic community, Drupal certainly begs attention. It can be used to make some very beautiful and user-friendly websites.

Drupal started out as a PHP-based message-board project, made by Dries Buytaert, and first gained popularity in 2003. Since then, it has quickly grown a community of devoted developers whose Drupal-based sites now account for 2.1% of all websites worldwide.

Traditionally, Drupal has been adopted because of its fantastic organization and powerful customization tools, making it a great content management system for anything from blogs to collaborative corporate websites.

Some features that come straight out of the box are polls, comments, blogs, OpenID support, RSS feeds, user profiles, user roles, advanced search, and caching for faster speed. It’s easy to see why Drupal has been used for community-based websites. 

Is Drupal designer-oriented?

One of the most common criticisms I hear about the Drupal CMS is that it’s just plain ugly.

The truth of the matter is that Drupal is marketed to more technical developers. Sure, it lacks WordPress’ pretty interface and easy media management, but with the proper dose of CSS, Drupal can be made to compete with the best of the best. Think I’m bluffing? Have a look at some Drupal-based sites.

To make styling your site easier, Drupal features themes, which can be downloaded and applied to your site. Drupal 7 alone has around 450 downloadable themes that range from responsive themes to e-commerce themes and everything in between! You’re sure to find a good theme to make your site look chic (or whatever you’re looking for). Most are free, too!

Speaking of free, there are now over 20,000 free add-ons (called “modules,” not widgets), which can be used to customize Drupal in any way you like.

Is Drupal SEO-friendly?

Certainly! Drupal has many features that make it stand out from the crowd.

A built-in taxonomy system

The taxonomy allows you to tag content with relevant and keyword-rich tags, an invaluable tool for anyone who’s SEO-oriented. You can even have multilevel, hierarchical category organization and content-type-specific “vocabularies” (for example, your products could have a different vocabulary than your blog). Way cool!

Custom content types

Define your own content types: articles, products, podcasts and more. The best part? No programming knowledge required.

Page titles

Let Drupal set automatic page titles using its smart page-titling features, or take the reins and take SEO to a whole new level. Either way, it’s completely user-friendly, coding-free and painless.

SEO checklist module

This module is a total must-have! While it doesn’t really do anything, it will help you make your site score higher in search engine results.

SEO-optimized URLS

Unlike WordPress, Drupal gives you complete control over URLS right from the get-go. Additionally, you can install the Pathauto module, which generates custom URL structures for each content type.

Who uses Drupal anyway?

Not only does Drupal account for over 2% of websites worldwide, but Drupal developers boast some very high-profile clients. Here’s a peek at some of the better-known clients who Drupal developers do business with.

Scientists

NASA, MIT, Popular Science, Harvard Science and Engineering, Stanford Humanities Center.

Technology companies

AOL, Yahoo Research, Ubuntu, Eclipse, Java Technologies Collaborative.

Organizations

Amnesty International, Greenpeace UK, multiple UN sites, the White House, Data.gov.uk, Investor.gov, sba.gov, The World Economic Forum, the US House of Representatives.

Celebrities

Avril Lavigne, Britney Spears, Eric Clapton, Jennifer Lopez, Chris Rock; personally, not minions. (OK, probably minions.)

Others

The Louvre, the Grammys, Zynga, IKEA, ING, Tesla Motors, Fast Company, The Onion.

I thought Drupal sucked?

The growing number of converts speaks for itself. Between 2007 and 2008, downloads of Drupal core increased by 125%, and the growth trend is still going strong.

Isn’t Drupal slow?

While it certainly wasn’t born a race horse, Drupal is by no means slow when configured properly. Drupal’s caching mechanism stores data from multiple levels of a page, and it can increase site speed by as much as 500%. With improvements in every update, Drupal is headed down a good path. 

Isn’t Drupal confusing?

If we were still in the era of Drupal 5, I would have to agree. But we’re not. That was six years ago (which is, like, 30 tech years). Contrary to the hype, Drupal is surprisingly easy to master, and while you might not get your hands dirty with PHP on the first day, you’ll find yourself being pretty darn good at Drupal after a couple of months. 

Updating Drupal is a pain

This is probably one of the only legitimate criticisms of Drupal. Updates suck. Backwards compatibility is not really there. It’s a package deal, though, and for many, Drupal is still worth the update headaches.

My clients won’t be able to use it

Actually, Drupal offers a pretty simple administrative overlay for making basic changes to a site. Managing articles, blog posts, custom content types and products has never been easier. “Views” is also a great and (fairly) user-friendly way to edit content. Spending 30 minutes tutoring your client on how to use Drupal for basic tasks will not only save them trouble, but will make you look more knowledgeable about your product!

Is Drupal worth the learning curve?

Getting past your fears and learning Drupal is generally considered a good career move. Many big corporations use Drupal, and if you know your stuff, they will pay top dollar for their sites. While becoming completely comfortable with Drupal’s insides could take up to a year, there is a lot of demand, and with demand comes money.

Cool! How do I learn Drupal?

First, download the latest release of Drupal core and play around with it. Get used to the interface. Don’t worry, it won’t bite. Poke around the technical documentation as well. But I recommend watching some Drupal how-to videos, reading some articles and, most importantly, getting your hands dirty. The Drupal forums are also a good place to ask questions, but the Drupal community on Google+ tends to be a bit faster in responding to questions. Being involved in the community is very important to Drupalers because it could lead to job offers, extra work and Drupal know-how. As you advance, contribute back by sharing any modules you have developed. Good luck, and welcome to the club!

Drupal rocks!

Whether you’ve been scared off by old Drupal’s intimidating appearance or bad reputation, it might be time to give it a new look. Perhaps you’ll find this behemoth version 7 to be as tame as a bunny rabbit, yet powerful as ever.

With a clear advantage over similar CMS’, Drupal is the way of the future. If you are looking for a CMS that can do just about anything and look good in the process, then seriously consider Drupal.

Have you tried Drupal? What benefits do you feel it brings to the table? Let us know in the comments.

Featured image/thumbnail, rock image via Shutterstock.

510+ Unique & Professional Flat Style Icons – only $6!

The company behind the Bittorrent protocol is working on software that can replicate most features of file-synching services without handing your data to cloud servers.

The debate over how much we should trust cloud companies with our data (see “NSA Spying Is Making Us Less Safe”) was reawakened last year after revelations that the National Security Agency routinely harvests data from Internet companies including Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Facebook.