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Many discussions about how to craft the perfect online user experience focus on function and usability. But several recent studies on the impact of the Internet on human nature suggests user experience design might be overlooking a key factor: memorability. To be remembered, an online experience must do more than be easy and effective - it must be emotionally impactful, this study and others suggest.

Crowdfunding may well be about to get a lot of attention. As a concept, the idea of funding a business venture from the ground up through small investors is nothing new to credit unions. In fact, it could be argued that, in broad strokes, credit unions were the original crowdfunding model. Recently more credit unions have been trying to leverage the local business market. But in recent years, websites such as Kickstarter and crowdfundingbank.com have been gaining popularity, as well as a good deal of press for their efforts. And with the JOBS act, passed by Congress in a rare show of bipartisanship and signed into law this month, those sites and others like them are likely to attract droves of customers.

Ben Franklin once quipped, "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." But even someone as prescient as Ben Franklin hadn't foreseen the advent of online tax preparation. He never imagined the prospect of e-filing on his computer, never imported financial statements electronically from his brokerage, or engaged in a live chat when he got stuck. But if Franklin were alive today, he'd likely extoll the importance of user experience design as applied to the 72,000 plus pages that comprise the United States tax code.

Are IT professionals falling behind? As a recent report from Foote Partners noted, pay among IT professionals has fallen during the recession, even as competition for talent has become more and more fierce. That's counter-intuitive. Falling pay would suggest an overabundance of qualified workers. So why is the right talent so hard to find? And if we're so pressed to find talent, why are we paying IT professional LESS?

The Fed's recent announcement that interest rates will be kept near zero for an additional eighteen months - into late 2014 - isn't particularly surprising. As the NYT's writes, "long-term rates already are at record low levels and, like pushing on a spring, the going gets harder as it nears the floor." What may be surprising is the effect this is likely to have on the millions of Millennials, who, up to this point in their young lives, have not been well-known for long term planning and investment.

Over the past few months, credit unions and big banks have been battling hard for the hearts, minds, and bank accounts of the consuming public. While public anger directed at big banks is driving a movement which appears to favor credit unions, the status of smaller, community banks is less clear.

In the current political and economic climate, it is easy to see how so many consumers are flocking to the more community-oriented, more service-focused credit unions. But what about community banks? Shouldn't these community-oriented, responsibly-run, relationship-driven organizations be cashing in on this climate? And if not, why?

Credit unions have been marketing themselves as fundamentally different from behemoths like Bank of America for a long time. Now, their message has finally met its moment.

Between the Occupy Wall Street movement and a nationally organized "Bank Transfer Day" on November 5th, more than 700,000 people have moved their accounts from big banks to their credit union competitors, according to the Credit Union National Association. Those people have brought with them $4.5 billion in assets.

As they say: when the sun is shining, make hay.

The night Steve Jobs died many news stories included a clip from his introduction of the iPod Nano in 2005. There was Jobs in his customary jeans and black shirt, only this time he used his famous outfit ingeniously to add impact to Apple's latest user experience design.

Seven months ago, best-selling author and marketing guru Seth Godin published a blog post called On Pricing Power that said this:

Cheaper is the last refuge of the marketer unable to invent a better product and tell a better story.

Tech geeks think like tech geeks, which is why they're often wrong about consumer trends.

The past few days the tech community has been abuzz about the Windows 8 tablet, which was demo'd Tuesday at the BUILD conference. The Atlantic Wire - always pushing the bar on eye-catching headlines - declared, "Windows 8 Is Better Than the iPad."

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