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Last night nearly 100 people gathered at Microsoft's NERD Center to celebrate World Usability Day. The event in Boston/Cambridge was one of 172 events that happened in 40+ countries.

Jason Smith from OHO Interactive spoke on making web application people love to use in his talk: "From Usability to Lovability." A group of researchers from Bentley University presented new research on using iPads in education.

Last week, I had the chance to attend the Direct Marketing Association’s annual conference after presenting a social media case study at the DMEF, the Direct Marketing Educational Foundation. Yes—a social media case study Social marketing was on the agenda for much of the DMA 2011 Conference, as was paid search, SEO, web analytics, and email. Sessions explored the success of online communities, channel partner marketing, social media strategies, and email creative. It was a far cry from the stereotype of direct marketing as being all about mail campaigns and infomercials.

Followers of this blog may remember I won a Kindle a while back in the FutureM Future of Marketing challenge, sponsored by Smarterer. Yesterday was the first day I became a Kindle owner, when I met with Smarterer’s awesome community manager, Alison Morris. Pleased with the honor, I was also pretty enthralled by the Kindle. But right now it’s at home, and a paperback copy of Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford continues to accompany me on my travels. This, in spite of the fact that Ruth Rendell’s latest is now loaded on the Kindle.
Why?