Last October, I started a series of blog posts over on sqlblog.com that highlighted some bad practices I observe from time to time.  Earlier this year, I felt motivated to pick the series up again.

I’ve always felt a sense of accomplishment pointing these elements of faux pas out to the community, especially since I’ve overcome several of them myself (and am still working on a few).  Since a reader pointed out that there was no visible checklist for the series, I thought I would provide an updated “table of contents” in case you are interested in any of these individually.

October 2009:

Bad habits to kick : ORDER BY ordinal
Bad habits to kick : using loops to populate large tables
Bad habits to kick : using old-style JOINs
Bad habits to kick : using table aliases like (a, b, c) or (t1, t2, t3)
Bad habits to kick : declaring VARCHAR without (length)
Bad habits to kick : using dashes and spaces in entity names
Bad habits to kick : using SELECT or RETURN instead of OUTPUT
Bad habits to kick : using SELECT * / omitting the column list
Bad habits to kick : avoiding the schema prefix
Bad habits to kick : inconsistent naming conventions
Bad habits to kick : making assumptions about IDENTITY
Bad habits to kick : choosing the wrong data type
Bad habits to kick : abusing triggers
Bad habits to kick : using the visual designers
Bad habits to kick : using alias types
Bad habits to kick : mis-handling date / range queries

February 2010:

Bad habits to kick : putting an IDENTITY column on every table
Bad habits to kick : relying on undocumented behavior
Bad habits to kick : blind SQL Server installs
Bad habits to kick : ignoring the principle of least privilege
Bad habits to kick : inconsistent table aliasing
Bad habits to kick : using ancient copies of Books Online

March 2010:

Bad habits to kick : creating the uber-view
Bad habits to kick : ignoring I/O

I’m running out of topics to rant about, but keep watching this space; you never know when a new pet peeve will emerge.

With one in four people looking to spend less on their travel by as much as fifty percent this year, travelers are flocking online to find the best deals. More than ever, it’s imperative that travel companies capture the growing online bookings market by providing an optimum online customer experience.

Join us for this free webinar where we discuss this latest customer experience research and conclude with a best practice guide on how you can create the best customer experience for your customers. Webinar attendees will also receive a copy of this report free of charge.

When/Where:
Session 1: Europe & USA east coast
Time: 11:00am EST (16.00 hrs GMT)
Date: Thursday 25th February
Join this webinar @ https://get.netviewer.com/meet/join.php?sinr=769828885&sipw=nv64

If you already have Netviewer, simply enter the session number: 769828885

When/Where:
Session 2: USA & Latin America
Time: 11:00am PST (16.00 hrs EST)
Date: Thursday 25th February
Join this webinar @ https://get.netviewer.com/meet/join.php?sinr=907061072&sipw=nv64
If you already have Netviewer, simply enter the session number: 907061072

Audio: Netviewer presents with VOIP, however, if you are on a Mac or are on a slow connection, please use this audio dial in option:

Toll free: +1 (800) 605-5167 passcode 759450 | International direct: +1 (719) 457-0339 passcode 759450

If you have any trouble registering for this webinar please contact marketing@fhios.com or call 0207 886 8245.

It was almost a year ago this month when I received an e-mail from fhios’ Dr. Philip Rhodes, Dr. Martin Hicks, and Jeremy Wyatt regarding OTOinsights neuromarketing services, Quantemo.  Soon after I was sitting in their offices outside of Regents Park in London providing them an comprehensive overview of the offering.  Its hard to explain, but I think we all knew after that initial meeting that our firms were destined to be together.

Today, I am proud to formally announce that they have joined the One to One Interactive family and will become a part of OTOinsights.  As Dr. Rhodes takes over as Managing Director of OTOinsights, both firms start their new journey to redefine customer experience research via:

• Socially informed/multi-channel personas
• Semantic customer interfaces
• Atomized content optimization
• Leading edge neuromarketing research techniques

By joining forces, we accelerate growth and innovation by creating an even stronger global presence. The addition of fhios gives OTO a significant presence London, Singapore, and São Paulo. Additionally, OTOinsights will expand beyond neuromarketing research and be able to start to offer fhios’ robust customer experience strategy, research, and design offering.  This includes:

• Usability Testing (in-situ and remote)
• Focus Groups (including affinity diagramming and card sorting)
• Online Surveys
• Eye Tracking Analysis
• Telephone Interviews
• In-depth/Paired Interviews
• Hall testing
• Expert Evaluations/Heuristic Reviews
• Accessibility Audits/Reviews
• Ethnographic Investigations/Contextual Inquiry
• Content and Technical Audits
• Best Practice Guides
• Multi-variant Testing
• Online Communities/Panels
• Mystery Visitor/Shopper
• Quantitative Customer Experience Measurement
• Brand Planning

In the next 60-90 days, we plan to start setting up client road shows in the US, UK, Latin America, and Asia.  For anyone else that may be interested in discussing this exciting development, please do not hesitate to send me a direct message via Twitter @jkarnell. For more information about the deal, feel free to visit our FAQ Microsite: http://www.onetooneinteractive.com/fhios

To everyone at fhios, WELCOME to One to One!!!!

The merger expands One to One Interactive’s comprehensive suite of digital marketing products and services by incorporating fhios’ user experience, research, and design practice with OTOinsights and its patent-pending Neuromarketing research platform, Quantemo.

The move represents the fifth time OTO has grown through a merger or acquisition, a strategy the company embarked on beginning in 2005. The addition of fhios provides OTO with expanded UK/European presence while adding new offices in Brazil and Singapore. fhios has run programs for clients such as Reuters, Motorola, Hilton, eBay, Dell and Philips in industries such as financial services, travel/tourism and media/publishing.

fhios specializes in customer experience strategy, research and design covering areas such as usability, eye tracking, concept testing, brand perception and competitive benchmarking to help answer key business issues to help its clients provide their customers with that all important stellar customer experience.

fhios has a wealth of experience in both public and private sectors in industries ranging from financial services to travel in both B2B and B2C markets. Since 2002, fhios has completed over 400 projects in over 30 countries across multiple channels such as web, mobile, PDA’s, I-TV, call centres, retail outlets and product testing.

“Our acquisition of fhios will help OTO achieve several of it’s 2010 strategic objectives. We are expanding our Web 3.0/semantic customer experience research, design and strategic capabilities at a time when brands are transitioning significant marketing budget from traditional to digital,” said Ian Karnell CEO of One to One Interactive. “Additionally, fhios’ substantial international presence gives OTO access to new markets for all of its products and services.”

“We are excited to become part of One to One Interactive,” said Dr. Philip Rhodes, CEO of fhios who will be the SVP, Managing Director of OTOinsights. “We see this as an opportunity to bring our deep human experience expertise to new North American audience, add OTOinsights neuromarketing research capabilities to our client offerings, and to engage more deeply with our client’s projects.”

About One to One Interactive

Complete One-To-One Solutions for Brands, Agencies, and Publishers Established in 1997, One to One Interactive is the first enterprise to assemble a complete solution for brands, agencies and publishers executing one-to-one marketing strategies. By bringing together one of the nation’s leading digital marketing agencies, the world’s most comprehensive portfolio of permission marketing platforms, performance marketing solutions and cutting-edge neuromarketing research techniques, the companies of One to One Interactive build informed and creative customer/constituent strategies on the belief that digital media’s ability to enable engaging one-to-one dialogues is the future of marketing.

One to One Interactive has recently been ranked by Inc. Magazine as one of the fastest growing private companies in America, one of the Top Interactive firms in the United States according to B2B Magazine, and one of the world’s 20 hottest independent digital marketing firms by Ad Age. Please visit one of One to One Interactive’s web sites for more information:    

* One to One Interactive: www.onetooneinteractive.com    

* OTOi: www.otoi.com    

* OTOlabs: www.otolabs.com    

* OTOnetworks: www.otonetworks.com    

* OTOinsights: www.otoinsights.com

About fhios

fhios has been a leading international customer experience research consultancy founded in 2002 and has successfully conducted over 400 customer experience and usability research projects across over 35 countries, with many brand perception, customer segmentation, concept & design validation, competitive benchmarking, online communities and user needs projects to provide its clients such as Orange, O2, Samsung, Pay Pal, Motorola, Hilton and Shell/Ferrari with the insight to understand customers needs, goals, expectations, behaviours and experience levels when they engage with them and their competitors.

fhios provides One to One Interactive with operations in London, UK; Sao Paolo, Brazil and Singapore.

For more information, please visit the fhios web site: www.fhios.com or in the UK call +44 (0)207 886 8241.

It is not necessarily new news, because from an intuitive standpoint we are all aware of the intesection between mobile and social. What is interesting is seeing from a quantitative standpoint how important social applications are for smartphone users.  There is also an important implication for social marketers: assessing what if any are the mobile implication for any social program becomes an essential step in program design.

Seth Levine on Neuro Marketing Research from Zemoga on Vimeo.

Seth Levine of One to One  Health explains how OTOinsights Neuromarketing Research Offering, Quantemo, can help Pharma companies test and optimize new digital offerings.

Basically, the comic warns against SQL injection, and reminds you to sanitize your database inputs rather than blindly append incoming data to queries.  There are more elaborate discussions about this concept in these articles on MSDN, and of course your favorite search engine will have many results as well:

    Books Online : SQL Injection

    MSDN Mag : Stop SQL Injection Attacks Before They Stop You

It is important to remember, though, that not all injection attacks are intended to screw up your database or gain unauthorized access to your data.  Some vectors are a little more subtle, and while the damage isn’t always as severe, it is still something you need to be aware of to prevent fraudulent activity or even just to keep egg off your face.  I’ll illustrate with two examples:

 
Letting customers dictate your pricing

I remember several years ago, I demonstrated to an online shop why they shouldn’t add items to a shopping cart by passing (among other things) price information in the query string.  I showed them how I was able to buy a bunch of T-shirts at $0.01 each, and encouraged them to verify whether my cart would have gone through like that.  As it turned out, it would have.  For pointing out this fundamental flaw, they added a free t-shirt to my order, and eliminated the shipping charge.  I am curious how quickly they would have caught this - or if some folks even got away with it unnoticed - had I not pointed it out. I think it would be really hard to trace back and prove the buyer to be at fault.

 
Letting customers change your messaging

This morning, fellow MVP Simon Sabin (@simon_sabin) pointed out that Toyota Ireland had a similar flaw in a site used for their recent recall issues.  Basically you could change their message to you .  Now arguably this doesn’t really harm anyone (because you are only able to change your own messaging), except it was fun to get a screen shot of something like this before they fixed the exploit (remarkably quickly, I might add):

 click to embiggen

Summary

So just as a reminder, when you’re accepting input from users, validate and sanitize!  And when you’re accepting input from your own site, make sure it really comes from your site - there is no reason to expose contextual information in the query string, as this just invites users to tinker.  Unless you have a really good reason to use QueryString parameters, protect your data and variables by passing them via post or session.

I recently acquired a Livescribe Pulse pen and started playing around with it as any good gadget geek will do.  It seemed pretty nifty - I drew a piano, then played it and downloaded applications from their iTunes-esque app store.  At first there was nothing groundbreaking.  But that all changed last week when I used the pen while moderating a usability study.

For those who are unfamiliar with the Pulse pen, let me fill you in on just a few of its capabilities.  Foremost, the pen records what you write on the special micro-dotted paper.  When you connect the pen to your computer via the USB cradle, it will upload the pages to the Livescribe Desktop application.  There, you can view the pages and export them to PDF or JPG (sorry, no OCR capabilities yet).  This is useful if you want to keep a digital copy of your notebooks.

But the real magic happens when you use the pen’s audio recording capability: it automagically syncs your notes with the recorded audio.  So now instead of feverishly writing down a good user quote or arching my neck to see the time-stamp on my video recording software, I just simply write “quote.”  Of course writing the word “quote” takes much shorter than an actual quote takes to enunciate.  So, what I wound up doing was to slowly draw a circle around the word so that the audio is still associated with the word “quote” in my notes.

This method has allowed me to capture more good user quotes than usual.  It has also made finding these quotes much easier.  Now, if there were only a way to sync my writing with my (separate) video capture software.  If you moderate usability sessions, do yourself a favor and go get one of these things - you’ll be very happy with the results.

Loyalty program sign ups were much higher through SMS, the messages successfully focused on associating the brand with local events (stop by for a burrito on the way to the game) rather than coupons - but time-limited, locally targeted coupons were also used effectively to boost a weekend of sagging sales.

 Is this a glimpse into what’s coming – as the rest of the population’s mobile use catches up with mobile-friendly college students? Or is this mobile SMS success among college students dependent on their flexible schedule – is it easier to influence the plans of students weaving their way between classes, and the week’s open ended events, than to affect the more rigid schedule of a 9 to 5er adult?