Now don't get me wrong. Apples and oranges. I really love both services. And Christina, who's now at LinkedIn. They'd better be paying her really, really well.

But it's definitely easier to get going virally in Facebook. About 70 fans in about four hours, and a few helpful comments. In fact, the process of figuring out how to get it set up was aided quite a bit by a few of my 200 plus Facebook friends.

In LinkedIn, I have about 500 contacts. But, um, they're not friends. At least they don't feel that way. Sure, it's a business network, but I don't feel like there's anyone I can turn to for help. And it's far, far harder to invite those contacts to join.

Both services have their respective benefits. Sometimes a tighter, more restrictive network has its purposes. And it's far too early to make a judgment here. But I figured out how to get things going pretty quickly with the Facebook group. I'm still grappling with the LinkedIn group.

Some help here?

If you want to kick the tires on either or both, here you go: RM LinkedIn, RM Facebook.

If you've already read Indi's book, you'll see from reading the interview that the webinar takes mental models beyond what she covered in the book. And if you haven't, well, the registration fee includes a copy of the book—and you should have more than enough time to read it before December 11.

When I started Rosenfeld Media, I set up a few brown bag lunches with groups of designers and researchers from a few local UX firms. I was looking to learn more about what our target audience liked and didn't like about the design of the books they used for their work. I asked them to bring their own books to the discussion. The resulting show and tell discussions were fantastically useful, and had a significant impact on the designs of both our digital and paperback editions. (Notes on these discussions here.)

Just as important, these discussions provided an outlet for some intense, passionate discussions about UX books, their designs, and their topics. UX pros' pent-up feelings clearly needed to be expressed, and it was enlightening for everyone involved.

Unfortunately, once Rosenfeld Media started actually producing books, I got side-tracked by details of promoting, selling, and distributing them. Bad, Lou, bad. A publisher should always be meeting with and talking with his community. And a UX publisher? Only more so, obviously.

So, starting next year, I resolve to organize informal UX Book Salons on a monthly basis. The goal of these meetings will be to raise consciousness about the books we use as UX professionals. Books are products—information systems, really—that we rarely look at critically. We shouldn't take their design—or their topics—for granted. So this will be your opportunity to sound off about what works for you and what doesn't, what topics you'd like to know more about, and what authors really matter. I'll even give away some Rosenfeld Media books at each salon to sweeten the deal.

These salons will take place in two venues: the conferences I'll be attending (see the "Where I'll Be" list on my blog's main page) and, during the months I get to stay home, at various New York City UX firms. For the latter, I'll plan these in advance and if they're open to the public, I'll announce them here on Bloug and on the Rosenfeld Media site.

At conferences, I'll be organizing the salons in a somewhat impromptu way, using guerrilla techniques like Twitter to get the word out. (This worked extremely well earlier this year when we wanted to get a conversation going about Kevin Cheng's book topic.) Follow me in Twitter (louisrosenfeld) to find out when and where.

I really think that this is the right thing to do. It'll certainly help me as a publisher, but more importantly, it might help make us all better, more critical consumers of the books that help us do our work.

I hope you'll join me in one of these discussions next year if you're in the neighborhood. Happy new year!

I broke down.

Iris isn't used to seeing her dad this way. I explained to her as best I could that some really bad things, like slavery, had happened in this country. She had a hard time understanding why African-American kids weren't allowed to go to school, or why they had to work instead of play. I couldn't bear to tell her that children her age were often permanently separated from their parents.

I also told her I was happy, because some really good things had happened since those times, like this election. I told her that when I was her age, it was pretty unlikely that I'd have had a teacher and a doctor, much less a president, who were African-American, as she now does.

I think she got it, or at least the gist. She's certainly caught on to her parents' recent excitement; yesterday, she told us that they'd had an election at kindergarten and that she'd been elected President of Kids.

Iris, I can't think of who would make a better president of kids. And Barack, I'm feeling the same way about you. For at least the next four years I'll try to put aside my expectation, unfortunately so common among Democrats, that our leaders must be perfect. Or even exceptional, though that's where I think history will ultimately judge you.

Damn it. I'll just be glad for a president who's pretty good.

Can you tell who my presidential pick is (as if it wasn't already obvious)?

Happy Halloween!

I'd be glad to barter a couple books for some help from someone who has some insight into the how and why of Feedburner. Please let me know if you might be able to enlighten me.

This ecosystem discussion is, not surprisingly, very publisher-centric. But what do customers get out of webinars? That's still very much an open question. And personally, I've had mixed reactions to webinars, both as a customer and as a speaker.

But I'm optimistic. Not only is the technology becoming far better and cheaper, but let's face it: travel is becoming prohibitively expensive. Webinars may be the "poor man's conference," but these days there are a lot of poor men (and women) out there who want to improve their design skills.

That's why Rosenfeld Media is collaborating with Victor Lombardi's Smart Experience to produce a new series of UX webinars. The Future Practice series will tackle the cutting edge of modern UX practice.

Our first two webinars presenters just happen our first two authors; following are the dates and their topics. Use code LBRWBNR for 20% off your ticket when you register at the Rosenfeld Media site:

• November 13 (1-2pm EST): Modern Web Form Design with Luke Wroblewski. [details/register]
• December 11 (1-2pm EST): Using Mental Models for Tactics and Strategy with Indi Young. [details/register]

I'm really pleased to be working directly with Victor, my colleague, friend, and neighbor here in Brooklyn. And hats off to Jared Spool, who's provided both inspiration and advice. No one does virtual seminars better than UIE, though we hope to come close.

Above I mentioned that the success of webinars has a lot to do with technology costs coming down and travel costs going up. But I think there's one more important factor: the user experience of attending a webinar is improving, slowly but surely. Victor and I know that the webinar experience can and should be better, and darn it, we're going to try our best. What would you suggest we keep in mind as we develop our webinar series? We'd love your advice!

Here's the deck from last spring's version:

I actually got a little choked up.

Not because I was sad to see that money readying its departure from the Rosenfeld Media bank account. (Though I was.)

But because we were paying our first two royalty checks, because we've sold enough to pay so soon, because the books are wonderful and the authors are deserving, and because the checks are big enough that Luke and Indi should at least buy a round next time you see them at the bar. (Maybe you'll catch them at one of these events.)

It's a great feeling, not unlike when Argus made its first payroll. I hope we can keep it up.