August 2010
1 post
What happens when you're busy?
We’ve been very busy lately and are likely booked until the end of the year. This of course makes me very happy, especially after the year many small businesses had in 2008 and 2009. But as usual, when you’re doing all of this work, it gets pretty hard to keep track of important things that are happening in your industry.
That’s why, the Jmaster and I have started putting aside...
June 2010
1 post
Shopping while suspicious...
As a web professional, I struggled with writing about this because not only is the web where I work and play, it’s where I learn and teach. I’ve always tried to remain low-key and try to avoid jumping to conclusions.
In my line of work, the logical, user convention and user patterns determine what actions should be taken and how. I stray away from, “My favorite color is this so...
February 2010
1 post
Talent is never enough
Q:When is being naturally talented a hindrance rather than an asset?
A: When you are afraid of rejection.
I know five incredibly talented brilliant people. They come up with the sort of ideas that you wish you’d come up with first. They are insightful, creative, inquisitive and you’ll probably never ever hear of them.
Even though they have the kind of talent that “less...
January 2010
10 posts
Losing Friends, Gaining Perspective
Here’s an honest snapshot of someone I loved warts and all.
Charity died Jan. 26, 2010. She was 32 years old. Charity was a radical. She believed very strongly in animal and women’s rights and racial and economic justice. She was firmly anti-capitalist and anti-corporatist. But, she loved the show Charmed, for which we teased her mercilessly.
She was hopeful and pessimistic. A...
WatchI found the short documentary Lemonade on Hulu. When I watched it, I got that achey, “I wish that I had made this feeling.” Eric Proulx does a fine job, but I definitely wish this film had been made earlier.
There are times in every creative’s life when they spend way too much time working, thinking about work, talking about work, wishing for work and wondering if they’ll...
2 tags
Becoming a company you'd like to shop with-Part 4
4 and 5 are so closely tied together: actively misleading customers to turn a profit and forsaking a good user experience because you’ve misunderstood the usefulness of a certain technology.
We usually get these problems because of the incorrect assumption that more traffic correlates to more sales. As a matter of fact, it doesn’t.
You’ve likely read about the power of good SEO to...
3 tags
Becoming a company you'd like to shop with-Part 3
The ‘Everyone is me’ approach:
This approach relies on one thing: You don’t need to tell anyone about your company because everyone already knows what it is you do.
When everyone is you, you leave out key components that can help potential customers make decisions about your company. It’s an extension of the blank website. It stems from the idea that because someone found your company, they...
3 tags
Becoming a company you'd like to shop with-Part 2
Customer traps:
The blank website filled with nothing useful except for possibly the physical address of the business and very cliché stock photography.
Someone told you that you just needed to get on the web. They forgot to tell you the other part about websites serving specific purposes. Many brochure websites do absolutely nothing to put the client or give you enough credibility to assuage...
2 tags
Becoming a company you'd like to shop with
In an effort to be everything to everyone and to profit we can sometimes do things that can harm our businesses. This is especially true on the web because it’s a newer medium.
Your bottom line is positively affected when you create good user experiences.
For some reason we understand these things suck when we experience them, but we sometimes inflict them on our customers anyway.
1.The...
4 tags
Getting the best out of your designer
On many of the bids I see placed on freelance sites, the most affordable and the most qualified are at completely opposite ends of the spectrum. This is another reason, I think we find seriously great designers forgoing these sites and meeting clients the more traditional way.
I think most of the established companies with show stopping design, even if they were quoting low would never be chosen...
3 tags
Yeah... but what about when they skip the...
Of the projects that I’ve worked on recently (and in the past), I’m amazed at how much people are willing to spend on “superficial” design, but forget about the little they spend on “functional” design. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, but rarely do people get both.
Generally, when I’m called in, I’m called in for ideas. This is a big part...
4 tags
Staying Grounded: Writing for the web
There are no secrets for good or adequate writing on the web. However, there are definitely tips that can improve your writing. One of the problems that people get into on the web is trying to make their product/organization/service “sound” professional. That attitude often yields awkward sentences like this one:
We facilitate discussions on issues of import to us all including...