I love being in the software business.  I believe that really smart people pulling together in the same direction can solve really difficult problems with software.  

However, one issue you run into when you are solving a difficult problem is making the solution simple and elegant.  We struggle with this issue daily here at Balihoo.  Local marketing is hard work and it is also complicated.  So designing a software solution to be as robust as necessary, yet as user-friendly as possible, is a challenge of monumental proportions.  As a result I am always looking to other software companies for inspiration in our product design and how we communicate with our users.  

This morning I was going through my e-mail routine and read a mail from the CEO of Tungle.me, a very cool social calendaring tool that I use.  The CEO was announcing a new design for their product.  The interesting thing was that he did not describe one feature or change in the product, instead he just said "go check it out" - so I did. 

When I logged in I knew why - this is a screenshot of the page that welcomed me.

 
You see, the CEO did not need to take the time to go through a bunch of detailed explanations that nobody was going to read, because they had taken the time to create a really elegant and engaging overlay for their product that explains their new design.  

I have seen this done with another great software product that we use here called Smartsheet, and we will be implementing something similar soon, I can promise you that.

Thanks for the inspiration guys.

So designing software is hard, just like local marketing, and as a result we are always looking to others to gain inspiration, to see what is working, and to learn how we can improve.  I recommend that you do the same with your local marketing efforts.  Watch what others are doing, talk to local media reps to find out what is working for other marketers, read voraciously it will make you a much better local marketer in the end.