Controlling the momentum

One key component to the Giants’ success over the Patriots was the safety on the Pats’ opening possession, which awarded the Giants two points and deprived the Patriots of any meaningful scoring attempt early in the game. The Giants then capitalized on this turn of events by scoring a touchdown following the Patriots’ punt. In short, the Giants took control of the game’s momentum, and web development is no different. As Beehive Media’s CEO, Bill Shander, likes to tell us when strategizing the development phase of projects: “Front-load, front-load, front-load this project so that you can kick back, relax and do nothing but watch TV later.” In other words, hit hard and gain momentum early on so that it’s smooth sailing later.

Playing by the rules

The Patriots had several opportunities that were squandered by their failure to follow the rules. The Giants’ Victor Cruz fumbled the ball after a catch and the Patriots stood to recover the ball, only to be penalized for having twelve men on the field. Another instance was the Patriots being penalized by five yards in field position in the fourth quarter because Rob Ninkovich was offsides.  In web development, following the rules can be translated as having a cohesive process that is followed. Veering from the process could result in unnecessary budgetary setbacks, as well as erode the overall timeline.

Persevering under pressure

It could be argued that some of the Patriots’ mistakes were a result of bowing to the immense pressure they were under. They had been defeated by the Giants in a prior Superbowl, and were determined to not let history repeat itself. Anxiety over accomplishing the goal seemed to result in chaos, which obstructed the path to the goal. Persevering under pressure is critical in web development, where aggressive deadlines are not uncommon and the pressure trickles down to all team players. Effective coordination between our team and our clients is essential for success, such as the team’s client liaison managing the clients’ expectations while providing the necessary time for the team’s production to deliver results.

Successful execution of fundamental plays

During a drive late in the game, Tom Brady threw a pass to Wes Walker, who was wide open and somehow couldn’t get his hands on the ball. Had he caught the ball, the game could have gone the other way in favor of the Patriots. In web development, every phase of the process counts, just as every play in football counts when the pressure is on. If one phase is not successfully executed, there will likely be repercussions that could impact later phases. Getting things right, such as understanding a client’s needs during the discovery phase will result in a smoother design phase and later a smoother development phase.

Playing to win

Eli Manning didn’t propel his team past the Patriots with a complacent sense of self-entitlement. He expected Tom Brady to play his best, and made it his mission to outperform him. In the world of web development, complacency can be deadly. For example, a competitor’s use of a leading edge technology that you might have overlooked could find you unable to regain your market share. One of the world’s leading web development innovators, Mark Zuckerberg (of Facebook fame), describes his mindset as one that  “…something can always be better, and that nothing is ever complete.”

Web development and winning the Superbowl are both shared experiences shaped by very universal principles. Team members share these experiences in a spirit of unity, while setting out to achieve a goal in the face of occasionally hostile conditions with fierce competition. Our team (Beehive Media) owes some of its success to the lessons we’ve learned from our failures. We even have a “failure wall” up on one of our whiteboards, which aims to derive all lessons learned from each failure. Applying such lessons to a core set of principles will go a long way towards winning the game.

As an aside, if you were bothered by any sports cliches in this blog post, I would ask you to please note the exclusion of the dreaded “there is no ‘i’ in team” (even though we concur that there really is no “i” in team).

I’ve attempted to streamline my processes when it comes to development. I’ve certainly written about some of those steps in this blog – using WordPress, identifying the trouble with developing for emerging hardware, using a new editor. Now let’s get beyond the tools I use to develop and talk a bit about the languages in which I have to develop. Especially at the beginning of a project – getting going from zero is one of the biggest challenges for most developers. In fact, no one really starts from zero – we start with existing code snippets and adjust from there.

There are a variety of ways that people have tried to save time when beginning a project. 960gs, Eric Mayer’s reset.css and HTML5 Boilerplate all aim to cut the time at the start of production by providing all the bits of code you might need to start a project. They don’t, however, cover the parts of the code that I might need to recycle from project to project – things like UI elements or forms or even tables.

I’m left to save those bits of codes in cheat sheets I keep around the web or in my Dropbox so that I can pull and recycle those elements as projects need them. The limitation there is that I then have to spend time making sure all these little recycled bits of code play nice together. Creating a template that I can use for my own projects can be time consuming and I’ve been at this for a long time. I can’t imagine having to start out in this field now and trying to keep my head above water with so many things to consider.

I find that I use the same markup with the same class names on different projects. For example, my navigation elements nearly always end up coded with exactly the same HTML and CSS but with different styles. Looking at each project objectively I can see techniques also repeated. An example is styling for buttons where exactly the same style was being used, then small tweaks are applied to make the buttons appear disabled, enabled, small, medium, large, etc.

Enter Bootstrap from Twitter; a set of  tools put together by @mdo and @fat which takes that idea of templating the style and UI elements of a project and provides a full set of pre-built styles, scripts, and behaviors ready to go. This is the template experienced developers need so they can customize them and use in any project. And new developers need it to gain traction faster and turn the learning curve in their favor.

Included in the set of tools is a 940px grid system, typography setups, styled lists (something I always forget – even to this day), tables, forms, buttons, tabs and pills, pagination, modals, tool-tips, and a whole set of tools that are being actively developed and expanding. In addition, they’ve built the styling and system to use LESS. You can use the bits of the style and code that you need or hot-link the entire setup from Twitter and their CDN.

The tool set is fully cross-browser and includes support for all modern browsers including fallbacks to IE7.

Responsive design is key and something new developers are getting a handle on faster than older developers are. This is built-in to the toolset by default, so viewing your project in any resolution on any device results in a similar experience. (Thanks for getting my back!)

Many of the UI elements are styled and coded in the same way that Twitter deployed them, and by default everything looks Twitter-like.

But the point isn’t to make every site look like Twitter. The point is to take the hassle out of reusable UI elements and give developers back time to spend innovating and not re-inventing the wheel.

With an established CSS and JS structure and behaviors, you are free to apply your own styles and design while knowing that from project to project you have consistent, clean, and gorgeous looking consistent code. As their Examples page says, “We encourage folks to iterate on these examples and not simply use them as an end result.”

The fact that someone has taken the time to refine and collect portions of code and UI style in a comprehensive system to ease the time a developer takes to complete a project is a breath of fresh air; that it’s being developed and maintained by the core developers at Twitter and put to the test by millions of users daily helps give me confidence that my fellow community of developers and I can continue to produce the best results and that we can all collaborate and give back to our community.

Which tools and templates have you used before to help meet a deadline or get your vision off the ground? Would you consider using Twitter’s setup instead of your own tried and true templates?

The new brown M&M's twitter handle: @mmsbrown

According to sources such as Rueters, Mashable and FirstPost, advertisers are going to be slinging hashtags galore during the Superbowl. With 30-second spots going for $3.5 million each on Sunday, advertisers will be looking to make their ads as “sticky” as possible by encouraging viewers to go on Twitter and Facebook or a dedicated site to further engage with the brand. I won’t name the brand in one example but let’s just say there will be lots of folks interacting with cute polar bears during the game.

You’ll also see the music app Shazam attached to another ad. Shazam “listens” to music playing and then identifies the song and artist. When viewers use it during a Pepsi commercial featuring Melanie Amaro singing “Respect” they’ll be offered the perk of downloading a special video of the performance.

Advertisers want to take advantage of the fact that many viewers will be online during the game using any number of devices and therefore can quickly react to social media cues to get extra content or other attractions and perks. It’s been common to show URL’s at the end of commercials but now that’s old school. Companies know folks will already be on Twitter and Facebook so they’ll want to engage with them there first and then maybe get them to their official sites afterwards.

The Super Bowl can be a treasure for advertisers in that there are hundreds of millions of users watching, many of whom are very engaged with the ads (some aren’t even watching the game – they only want to see the ads.) Companies want to be a part of that excitement and will pay top dollar to be included in the show. With social media they can get more bang for the buck and associate their brand with the Super Bowl before, during and after the game.

Indeed, whereas traditionally ads were kept secret until Super Sunday, now it is common to promote the ad before the game. We already know Honda is using Matthew Broderick in a spoof on Ferris Bueller because they’ve leaked peeks at the ad already. They’re like previews of the movie. An ad for the ad, if you will.

It just goes to show that if you want to stay relevant and current, it’s not enough to buy a $3.5 million ad during the Super Bowl, you have to also go where the users are going during the game: to social media.

The infographic conveys multiple data stories, ranging from CEO confidence in the global economy as well as their own companies, to figures on challenges to growth. The infographic was also broken down into multiple slides on PwC’s website to enable viewers to explore the independent data stories.

Check out the slides on the infographic on PwC’s website or view the entire infographic here.

Despite common opinion, failure and success do not have to be mutually exclusive.

“I have not failed, I’ve just found ten thousand ways that won’t work.”

Does your organization support failure? Is failure part of your organization’s strategy, mission statement or culture? Does your leadership team endorse or encourage failure?

Failure has made up the backbone of corporate America. One example is the story of Milton Hershey. Every youngster around the globe has eaten a Hershey’s candy bar. What you probably don’t know is that Milton Hershey actually failed seven times before establishing what we know now as the Hershey Corporation.

But failure as a corporate initiative itself is generally avoided in these turbulent economic times. It’s avoided for many reasons, primarily fears about bad publicity, bad product, bad process and because quarterly profits are glorified in the board room. This is a distraction, however, from the inevitable reality that failure in the workplace is actually a good thing.

In reflection, our misconstrued reality of failure is one we learned in our youth. We all spent decades in classrooms figuring out arbitrary problems imposed by our teachers, day in and day out. Those problems were often boring, sometimes irrelevant, and laborious enough to make any student wish they were sick on a school day. The repeated practice of solving problems in our younger days led many to the conclusion that problems are bad.

Stepping into adulthood and corporate life, that same feeling about problems permeates our corporate work environment. Success is touted at both the organization and individual level.

But in an economy in which we’re required to do less with more as leadership scowls and individual fears increase–problems have become very bad. How do we change that and make failure a positive initiative in corporate America?

Currently at Beehive, we’re in the process of creating an Innovation Portal for a large financial services company and the topic of innovation is on our minds. Whether it’s educating employees about innovation, reading Scott Anthony’s brand new “Little Black Book of Innovation” or thinking about how to choose ideas companies should invest in–there’s no way around it: problems and innovation go hand in hand, and the information out there about the subject is daunting.

One glistening nugget of information on innovation and failure has emerged–a brilliantly simplistic idea of a “Failure Wall” first reported by NPR’s Here and Now. The wall itself is one CEO’s efforts to create a culture of acceptance around failure without risk of fear or retribution.

The sheer simplicity of this idea is quite beautiful. It’s not a book, it’s not a course. It’s not a corporate strategy or initiative. It’s simply a white wall.

One evening the CEO took a white board marker to a wall in a common area and wrote his biggest failure up on the wall. Then he wrote down three simple steps:

1. describe a time when you failed,
2. state what you learned
3. sign your name.

The CEO didn’t mention the wall, and there were no other forms of corporate communication about it. The “Failure Wall” simply existed as a part of the common area in the office.  Employees slowly filled up the wall with life lessons that spanned from their childhoods to chosen professions.

The amazing part was stepping back and seeing the stories – hundreds of stories – of failures of employees. It was a work of art, a visual dashboard that told the tale of many human beings’ most intimate stories of failures and subsequent successes.

If you were the CEO of a large organization, would you require failure from your employees? Would you include it in your three-year vision statement? Would you choose instead to ignore it? I’d venture a guess to say that 75% of Fortune 500 and 1000 organizations do not require failure from their employees or foster it at any level in their organizations. And for those 25% who do include it as part of their culture it’s generally not a requirement but a footnote.

The perspective on failure in the corporate setting has become an oxymoron. Failure is at once reviled yet needed;  if you aren’t failing, you probably aren’t learning and advancing.

We all know cultures are defined by the people who comprise the company or grow it from the top down. It is leadership’s job to ensure that potential hires are not only the right culture fit, but that they admit and acknowledge failure from the first day of being hired. Bottom line, it’s the culture of an organization that can make failure acceptable.

I’d like you all to seriously think about failure, and consider it in a positive way. When’s the last time you failed at work? What was the greatest failure that led to your most memorable success? When was the last time you admitted and acknowledged your failures at home or at work?

Today is the day to create a failure wall and write down one failure. It could be a childhood failure or recent failure on a project. Do it with family, friends or coworkers and don’t be afraid or fearful. Failure is a good thing-it’s pure innovation at its heart.

The art of living well is solving life’s problems and doing it with gusto.
Have you created your failure wall yet? Do it with gusto.

“Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”
– Winston Churchill

We're listening!

Listen. It is the most important thing I do…for my clients, my friends, my family, etc. Rather than getting too Oprah about its importance for life in general, which it is, I’ll focus here on how listening applies to my world at Beehive Media.

Any engagement begins with a “sales” process. I put that in quotes because a lot of our client relationships are long-term, and the process is usually more like a conversation to try to solve a challenge, not us trying to “sell” something. But in “sales” or problem-solving, it always begins by listening.

Listening leads to understanding.

Our clients have a problem, a business challenge, a goal to achieve. Sometimes they come with what they think is a solution – a strategic direction or a specific deliverable (a web site or an app or…) – that will solve their problem. Most of the time, however, a client’s proposed solution is anywhere from 5 to 95% off from where they should really be focusing. After listening to their challenge, our job is to help show them where they’re missing the boat, suggest alternative approaches, and then execute on the chosen direction. None of this can happen without first truly listening.

Digital Therapy

But it goes far beyond listening and analyzing and opining with a solution. Our clients will tell you that working on an interactive project is, in many ways, like therapy. We listen, they talk; there’s often some venting of frustrations about internal politics or business challenges or resource restrictions, and we collaborate on solutions that will work within their reality. And many of our clients have been psychologically damaged by previous experiences building websites, so the terminology is quite appropriate!

After listening and thinking, we begin to propose solutions. But we almost never tell our clients “this is the answer” – we often ask more questions. Not “how does that make you feel?”, of course, but “we can do X – will that work for you, given your priorities and staffing?”

Tell Me About Your Childhood

Like a good therapist, we are often listening for what is not said. I don’t ever remember asking a client to tell me about their childhood, but I do know we are always digging deeper than the obvious. The best example is a recent conversation with a nonprofit. They thought their communication challenge was to communicate their mission so the audience would understand WHY they do what they do. And for some audiences that would be completely valid. But for the primary audience for the CURRENT mission (to generate income so the organization is sustainable), the message had to be less about the mission of the organization and more specifically about why the target consumers needed to purchase this organization’s products, which would, by the way, support the mission. Once I said that, all of the heads in the room nodded. While it was decidedly not a moment of deep psychological release á la “you behave this way because your mother abandoned you when you were five”, the clarity and understanding was immediate and intense.

Anticipate

What is interesting about listening is that once you have an ear for listening and are able to be in the moment with your clients, hearing what’s behind the words, being able to analyze even what’s not being said, you are able to take the next step, which is to anticipate. The ability to see the future, to anticipate your client’s needs so you can bring up issues with them before they are even aware of them, is the ultimate goal. When we do that well, everyone wins.

Some of the challenges for this project included the massive amount of content the organization had, as well as their convoluted existing content management system. CSH also needed a way to effectively integrate the pages of their regional offices, which had previously been autonomously designed and were not consistent across regions.

We worked with CSH to define their target audiences in order to grasp the many different roles that were encompassed by their users. Once personas were developed for all the different user types, we worked with CSH to design an information architecture that would help communicate their message more effectively. Using the framework of our 4×4 Model for Knowledge Content, we helped CSH structure their site in such a way that any visitor could easily find their way into the content and get exactly what they need, when they need it.

To see the new site, check it out at www.csh.org

SOPA and Protect IP will drag down innovation on the web

I typically try to refrain from overtly political discussion in my blog posts, but working for Beehive Media, my time spent in front of a computer online is creeping up into the range of 10+ hours a day, and when you spend any significant amount of time on the web, it’s impossible to ignore hearing about the debate over Internet legislation.

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its corresponding Senate bill Protect IP (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property) are meant to prevent the illegal dissemination of copyrighted material. SOPA aims to do so by providing the Department of Justice as well as copyright holders the ability to pursue court orders against infringing sites or sites that facilitate alleged copyright infringement.

It was also allow for the blocking of what the bill refers to as “rogue” web sites, a provision that would block the domain of sites that are in violation of the law. This is meant to account for the fact that sites based outside of the United States cannot be shut down by our judicial system, but they can be blocked from an American audience.

While the objective of the legislation is valuable and valid (New York Times columnist David Carr cites the MPAA as saying that online piracy costs the United States $58 billion annually), the legislation in front of Congress has drawn a great deal of criticism from web companies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, Mozilla and eBay who collectively sent an open letter to the New York Times decrying the legislation.

At the heart of the issue is the fear that such legislation would have a chilling effect on the web, discouraging services that rely on user generated content because of the fear of liability for what users post. There is also the legitimate concern that it would stifle innovation. Quite simply, broad, sweeping legislation of this sort creates the tools for dismantling competition online. While the current law on the issue, DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) provides safe harbor for sites that act in “good faith” and take down content that they are notified of as violating copyright law, the new legislation in Congress eliminates this protection.

In a deeply competitive, capitalistic society, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that a company could file a take-down notice under DMCA against one of its competitors to keep them from publishing content, even if there is no violation, simply as a mechanism for suppressing competition. With stiffer penalties, Protect IP and SOPA would only make this instrument more oppressive to true innovation and competition.

I once had a communications law professor who said that in any lawsuit, even if you win, you still lose. By the time you pay your legal fees and deal with the time and effort invested in a trial, you would have been far better to have just settled. Because of this fact, even if there is no violation, companies will take down content online rather than fight it out in court. If the penalties were to get any harsher, new companies, startups, or individual innovators would begin hedging their bets by simply choosing not to bring their services online. Why does this matter to the everyday web user? Because if such legislation had existed ten years ago, we would likely not have Twitter or Facebook, nor eBay nor Amazon. The chances of Google being able to help you navigate the web would have been squashed by fear of legal reprisal.

One of our own clients, Booz & Company, recently published a study that found that “More than 70% of angel investors reported they would be deterred from investing if anti-piracy regulations against ‘user uploaded’ websites were increased.” According to that same study, over 80% of angel investors would rather invest in a weaker, more volatile economy with current Internet legislation than in a stronger economy but with “more stringent” regulations.

On the other end of the spectrum, opponents of another area of web legislation known as net neutrality often complain that legislating the web by keeping Internet Service Providers from controlling the flow of the Internet, is against the principals of a free market. The juxtaposition is that net neutrality seeks to protect the web from cable companies and private interests controlling the flow of the Internet while SOPA and Protect IP seek to protect traditional media outlets and private interests from the flow of the Internet.

Ultimately the solution is one of a unique, oxymoronic nature. To preserve the freedom of the web and ensure that we foster innovation, we need two very important pieces of legislation, but they are not SOPA and Protect IP. The legislation we need is that which reinforces net neutrality. I find myself quoting the First Amendment in my mind when thinking of these issues: “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” After all, what are social networks and sites such as Facebook and Twitter if not the instruments of peacable assembly?

Our quest was to deliver the ultimate multimedia experience on a touchscreen kiosk device for the Boston Public Library’s new permanent location for the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center, which would also be available on desktop and mobile devices. The multimedia experience would consist of a collection of maps and photos being presented alongside an audio track of narration to illuminate Norman B. Leventhal’s Walk to the Sea.

Did we succeed? Do you think we would be bragging about our technology club sandwich had we not succeeded? Of course not.

How does one deliver a universally rich multimedia experience across various platforms with varying data connections? We considered whether it would be optimal to deliver the images and audio as separate assets, and forget about synchronizing them.

From a content standpoint, this experience would hardly be classified as rich where the audio context is divorced from visual context. From a technological standpoint, this approach presented various challenges pertaining to standardization. For example, MP3′s are surprisingly not the universal audio standard you might believe them to be (e.g. Firefox prefers OGG audio files). We also anticipated this approach resulting in unpredictable playback on mobile devices using 3G data connection speeds.

After some heavy, heavy research we opted for Soundslides, which is “a rapid production tool for still image and audio web presentations”. The software exports out Flash SWF files to embed on your pages. Soundslides also provides an online MP4 converter for purposes of universally supporting mobile devices including non-Flash iOS devices (i.e. iPhone, iPad and all things “i”).  Once we had our technology chosen, we proudly set to task channeling our inner Ken Burns, and churned out some beautiful presentations that would make our college film professors proud.

On the developmental front, we developed two sets of code: one codebase that would serve SWF’s to both the Map Center’s touchscreen device and desktops, and another set that would serve MP4′s to all mobile platforms utilizing the Jo HTML5 Mobile App Framework. We proudly employed pure HTML5 for the touchscreen device, where the desktop version had to account for typical browser behavioral mischief (i.e., Internet Explorer).

As for the mobile codebase, we love Jo for its portability and efficiency, as well as for being such an intuitive framework with a very short learning curve.

Now, to describe our savory, juicy technology club sandwich consisting of three levels of savory juiciness: mobile, desktop and touchscreen kiosk.

We are very proud of our slick, sick (in a good way) mobile website. In portrait orientation (when your mobile device is held vertically), the website will display one Walk to the Sea stop at a time with both previous/next stop navigation as well as a pop-up menu for selecting any other stop, regardless of where you are on the walk. Each stop’s page also contains a scrollable map of Boston focusing at the stop’s location.  Clicking on any stop on the map will result in the MP4 being popped open in the mobile device’s media player.

In landscape orientation (when your mobile device held horizontally), the map expands in both width and height to fill the screen and allow for a fuller view of the map. As with portrait orientation, clicking on any stop will result in the MP4 being open in the mobile device’s media player. Our concern pertaining to playback over 3G was alleviated by the reality that Soundslides’ MP4 playback is fluid, clear and lightweight on any mobile device.

As for the functionality on desktop devices, we are equally proud of our resulting work. From any stop on the Walk to the Sea website (a website that we had previously developed), viewers will have the opportunity to open a screen embedding a stop’s video along with various navigational tools. These tools include a map that expands on top of the video (allowing for navigation to a specific stop on the walk) as well as previous/next stop navigation. The video can either be played at the default resolution, or be played at fullscreen. The desktop functionality excels universally in all modern web browsers (we finally, after many long-suffering years, no longer support Internet Explorer 6 – nor does Microsoft, incidentally).

As for the functionality on the Map Center’s touchscreen kiosk device, it contains two screens: the home screen as well as the multimedia presentation screen. Among various other elements, the home screen contains the map of Boston filling the touchscreen kiosk with every Walk to the Sea stop pulsating.

Upon touching a stop, the respective stop’s multimedia presentation screen is activated. This screen resembles that of the desktop version’s modal window in design and navigation, differing only in multimedia presentation elements: the screen resolution for the touchscreen kiosk presentation is much larger than that of the desktop version, and the touchscreen kiosk’s presentation plays automatically.

The October 22nd ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Boston Public Library’s Norman B. Leventhal Map Center debuted our touchscreen kiosk product. We are honored to have contributed to such an important Boston institution, and were proud to learn that the honorable Boston Mayor Tom Menino himself enjoyed partaking in our juicy technology club sandwich!

For a quick look at the Walk to the Sea project, visit the project page and view a short video showcasing the project.

For more information check out the video below.

I use both PC and Mac and one of the core tools on each is a great editor.  I’ve used a number of them over the years trying to find that one real sweet one.  Notepad++, TextWrangler, BBEdit, Coda, Dreamweaver, TextMate… they all have their strengths and weaknesses.

But out of all the ones I’ve mentioned, none of them has had such an immediate impact as the one I began using just this weekend: Sublime Text.
I switched over to try it on Friday in the middle of wrapping up a large project and have been using it through the weekend, including authoring this blog post. With the experience of using the editors listed above and using TextMate specifically, the transition to Sublime Text was simple and the speed at which it lets me code has definitely increased. But more importantly, the features that it offers are keeping the coding and editing fun for me.

First Impression

I love minimalism; simplicity in a user interface goes a long way with me. You can have hundreds of bells and whistles, but if the interface isn’t clean and simple, I’m gonna turn away. I’m in there to code – all I want to see is the code.

Sublime is gorgeous. As soon as you open it, you see the tab you’re working in, the status bar at the bottom, Minimap to the right, and that’s it. One of the things I hate about Dreamweaver and certainly other editors is that just opening a blank document you’re hit with way too many options. You can change and edit the layout, but by then you’ve taken 45 minutes to get the editor just the way you want it and you still haven’t gotten to your project. With Sublime, I’m in the code right away and the entire layout is clean.

Cross-platform

Sublime Text is still in Beta, but it is in active development. Even in Beta though, it’s the best editor out there. Even better, it is available for Windows, OS X, AND Linux so the same editor and features now transcend each platform in which I need to code. This is major!  Sometimes having to switch tools for each platform is just a pain. You have to adjust your habits for three different platforms. The shortcuts you use on the Mac aren’t available on the editor in Windows or the editor in Linux just isn’t as visually easy to use as the one in Windows. With the same editor and features available for each platform, you can mitigate the time-hit that it may take to switch gears for each platform.

Themes

Sublime supports themes and comes with 22 at install. This allows you to change the color scheme of your workspace. By default, it’s a dark background with light text, but these color themes also handle special syntax color for different programming languages and foreground / background contrasting so what you’re coding is easier on the eyes. With three clicks, I had all my color customizations right in and I was ready to go.

Minimap

On the right of the main editor is a sidebar with the Minimap. This is a representation of every line of code in your file. Normally, you’d have to scroll up or down or do a text search to find the part of the code for which you’re looking. With the Minimap as the visual guide, I could click to the part of the file I needed and the main editor would move my cursor to that part of the file. The Minimap can be hidden if you don’t like it, but in my use, I found that it has quickly become indispensable for navigating a long file.

Multiple Selection

I didn’t even know I was missing this until I used it. By highlighting a particular word or block, Sublime will identify that same block in multiple areas of the editor and as you edit that highlighted block, the changes will be applied to every part of the editor where that selection occurs.

Panels

The four panels enable quick work between documents

You’re allowed up to 4 panels on the screen which lets you have up to 4 files open in the editor at once. Instead of tabbing around to get to specific files, you can have 4 panels that occupy a quarter of the editor area each. You can therefore do much more with the real estate given on the screen. Couple that with a large screen and you’re getting things done faster.

Screen Modes

Sublime supports full-screen mode and the editor will take up the entire screen area, hiding the menu bar and other distractions. Sublime takes it one step further though and adds “Distraction Free Mode.” Enabling Distraction Free Mode will hide everything: OS menu bars, Minimap, sidebars, status bars, etc. All that you will see on screen is your file open and the text right in the middle of the screen. This is great for when you just have to edit your text or code… or write a blog post on a deadline.

Customization

Every part of Sublime is customizable by editing its settings files. You can setup defaults or granular settings for your workspace. Things like icons for options and zoom size for the text presented are available. Sublime can also be extended by using packages. You can download packages to add features and settings.

Community

Sublime Text has a growing community that offers help and feedback and also contributes Packages for your use. Sublime’s forums are a great place to start when looking for how others are using Sublime or to troubleshoot a problem you’re having.

Sublime Text has really helped change the way I code. The features I’ve described were available right away when I installed and impacted me in such a way that I made an immediate change in my workflow.

The beta presently can be installed and used for free, though there is a link for purchase for continued use. When the project eventually comes out of beta, it will most likely be a paid app coming in at $59. For that price, however, I have to think about how much it has saved me in terms of time and resources.  When viewing it in that light, $59 is well worth it for the best editor our there.

What tools do you use for your day-to-day coding? Do you have a tool that when you used it just changed your life or workflow like Sublime Text did for me?

More recently, I’ve been giving thought to the opposite side of that equation, and the “dark side” of the Internet. The past few weeks have been an interesting time for that dark side.

Information is the lifeblood of industry

Let me start off by first saying that I absolutely love Google Analytics and the incredible things you can learn by studying how people are interacting with your website.

Following the release of the latest iteration of the popular web metrics software, there’s a lot to be excited about when it comes to gaining insight into the everyday happenings of the web.

I see you

That said, this week also saw the release of a Washington Post article profiling the “Wiretappers’ Ball” and the multi-billion dollar surveillance industry. Reading that article (something I highly recommend) quite frankly frightened me. For all my love of information, somewhere along the road there is a line between useful and downright scary (or creepy).

I finished reading that post with the distinct feeling that Darth Vader and the Death Star were getting a run for their money when it came to sinister potential.

Numbers tell the truth, until they lie

Stewing over all of this, it slowly began to tie together in my mind. A recent conversation over lunch at Beehive Media was about the ability of numbers to be “true” without ever really telling the “truth”. That is, even “accurate” numbers can lie. When removed from proper context and subjected to interpretation, technically correct data can deceive and in some cases cause great harm.

I observed this when noting that while a blog post on our website said it had been tweeted three times, I knew it had in fact been shared far more on Twitter. The reason the number lied however was that it did not account for third party link shorteners that broke the association.

This spurred further discussion of the potential for accurate numbers to lie, and it all came down to one thing: context.

Context is king

Numbers, statistics, any data really, can be perfectly accurate, but pulled out of context and manipulated and twisted these bits of information can convey radically different stories.

With the steady stream of infographics filling the web, organizations and individuals consume and interpret data to make these curious creations, and often with an agenda constantly looking over their shoulder.

This same principle applies directly to technology. Information gathering software can represent perfectly legitimate and useful initiatives, but with different context and ulterior motives, can be harmful both to people and the Internet in general.

In the end it represents a paradox wherein the very technology (the Internet) that has helped spur rebellions against oppressive regimes in the Middle East, in turn enables new invasive oppression across the globe.

Some much needed perspective

Unfortunately I have no doubt that such a paradox will continue to exist, but I would hope that more people consciously stop to think about the context of the information they consume and the context of the technology they use, and keep these things in perspective.

Ultimately the end users, the web-loving public, hold more power than perhaps they realize. By keeping context in mind and bringing a reasonable perspective to the table we all have the ability to make decisions for ourselves, choose how we behave in our digital world, and demand what freedoms are important to us, either by voting with ballots or by voting with our dollars and our words. May the Force be with you.

The bogus cartoon in question

There are many of these dreadful posts, but one that really got under my skin is a cartoon showing two “lazy protestors” looking across a nation of “millions of lives he enriched” at the grave of Steve Jobs and saying, “He was some blood thirsty fat cat capitalist.” Please. Steve Jobs is not a good target to use in an attempt to discredit OWS. OWS is NOT protesting Apple or Steve Jobs. He was the founder of a company whose technology has helped to fuel these protests.  I’m sure iPhones, iPads and Macbooks are ubiquitous at protests which have now gone worldwide. Along with Facebook and Twitter, Apple devices undoubtedly are being used to coordinate and organize the protests just like during the Arab Spring in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and beyond. And, lets face it, where would the Android be if there hadn’t been an iPhone?

Apple products aren’t cheap but even cash-strapped college students strive to own them in order to have the best tools for living and working in this modern, digital age. As far as the costs go, the price of buying an iPhone or iPad is really trivial compared to the money it takes to pair the device to a wireless network. AT&T and Verizon take much more money over the course of a year. One could assume that OWS would much sooner protest these mammoth corporations than Apple.

The “fat cats” OWS is protesting are the ones we see all too often rising through the ranks of top corporations.  The ones who don’t bring any real creative ideas to the table – just ways to improve the bottom line.

Steve Jobs, unlike the real fat cats, was a founder of a revolutionary company. OWS is not protesting creative geniuses like Steve Jobs. Even the most strident protestor would likely agree that we need more people like him.  We need to live in a country where people like him can strive and bring their dreams to life and not get side-tracked by enormous debt. Steve Jobs wasn’t a saint.  But if we do find a way out of this mess of a system we’ve got, there’s a good chance it will be because of innovative and creative thinkers like Steve Jobs.

Chances are also good that a large portion of the solutions will be devised on products he helped create.

My first challenge is the culture. The culture at Beehive is 180 degrees different from my  former employer. Previously I worked for a historically established brand – a well-known global brand with roots 100 years deep.

That historic brand was our pillar – an almost blinding force that influenced every single move made, from hiring employees to setting strategic initiatives. It became the fabric and identity of all employees in an almost paralyzing way–politics aside many of us became guilty of “groupthink” –a psychological phenomenon where thinking as a unit and not as individuals was the norm.

The culture at Beehive is the inverse –17 years young and vibrant. You can feel it’s  youth, energy, and disruptive innovation at the front door. Independence and creativity are not only encouraged but required.

A few months back I read Tony Hsieh’s (Zappos, CEO) book about “Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose”. If you haven’t read it, order or download it now because it’ll change the way you think about running a business or being part of an organization’s culture from day one.

At Zappos, like Beehive, you are encouraged to be yourself. There’s a certain vibe I’ve detected in my 3 days here–a sense of communal connectedness where customer focus is paramount, but not in your typical corporate framework. It’s more about being creative, open minded, adventurous, fun (gasp!) and about driving change with clients at Beehive.

Happiness at Zappos is pervasive. They bake happiness into their core values, processes, interactions. While that seems utopian and simple enough, what’s memorable from the book is after the first week of training, a Zappos employee is offered money to leave if the job isn’t the right fit.

Outlandish tactic? Yes. But weeding out employees whose personal values don’t match the culture fit is priority one. Shockingly smart and so brilliant. It’s probably the main reason Zappos has grown to be a recognized leader in successfully combining profits with passion and happiness for all.

Happiness is also readily detectable at Beehive and it’s not just an issue of being encouraged to be yourself. What’s fascinating so far is there isn’t a distinct separation between your work “self” and personal “self”–the tone of the culture and work environment is one of integration where it’s no longer about work/life balance but integrating yourself into life (whether work or personal).

So as I journey further out of the twilight zone and into day 4 at Beehive (hero/master of 8 applications), I’m reflecting on the culture of these two organizations and asking a question I often pondered at my old employer. If my former employer didn’t have that historic brand, what identity would they have taken? What values would they have adopted? What innovations? What risks would be taken? Would they themselves have cultivated a culture of happiness? Creating fun, driving change, pursuing growth and learning?

I don’t have the crystal ball to know those answers but do know I’m looking forward to exploring and growing Beehive’s own happiness culture further in the months and years to come—I’ll keep you posted on the journey.

“No problem,” I replied, and I was off. A quick, simple sign-up, enter a bit of information, toss on some pictures of our office and within half an hour I had our page up and running. Couldn’t have been easier…

Then I started reading through the help sections and studying up on the latest addition to our collection of social media challenges, and found quite a few surprises.

The long story short is that pages are still a fairly ethereal concept for Google+. It’s very hard to define what exactly they are and what they’re meant to be able to do. For instance, pages can only add a user to their circles after that user has added them. Google makes this fairly clear in a short page documenting the difference between profiles and pages, but offers little explanation as to why it functions this way.

Another oddity of pages is that one page cannot “+1″ another page. Case and point: After Google announced that their latest version of Insights was out of beta, I tried to “+1″ Google Insights as Beehive Media, but no such luck. I can add them to Beehive Media’s circles in order to follow them, but can’t offer the endorsement of a “+1″.

Simply put, the demand for a business solution for Google+ was so great that they rolled out a product that simply feels lacking. The concept ruling pages on Google+ follows the example set by Facebook’s pages to an extent, yet manages to be even more vague in defining what the pages are meant to be. A key example of this is control/ownership of pages.

After setting up the Beehive Media page on Google+ I started looking for a way to also make Bill an administrator on the page. Again, no such luck. At this time there doesn’t seem to be any way of transferring control of a page to another person. This then creates an issue of ownership moving forward as well as a very real issue of access in larger companies right now. For companies with a social media/PR team, the fact that a personal profile is required to create a page, and that the control of that page cannot be shared, presents an obstacle to collaborative management of the channel.

So as I write this, I’m wondering to myself, as always, so what? What now? Well, here are a few thoughts to keep in mind before jumping on the Google+ pages bandwagon.

Think ahead and into the future

It’s an internal joke here that I apparently have a 30-year contract at Beehive Media and am not allowed to quit. As a 23-year-old who is acutely aware of the state of our economy, I can’t say I’d mind that kind of job security. That said, companies grow and shrink. People come and go, and there’s no guarantee that the people you have today will be the people you have tomorrow, let alone further down the road.

It’s entirely possible that Google could add the ability to transfer control of a page to another person in future iterations, but for right now there doesn’t seem to be a way to do it.

The point here of course is to make a deliberate decision as to whom sets up your company’s page. For the foreseeable future, they’re the one person who can update it and edit it.

Study up and understand what can and cannot be done

When you sign up, spend some time as I did reading the help and FAQs, and definitely read the terms of service agreement before you create the page. Why? Because there are some interesting stipulations on Google+, like the fact that promotions and competitions aren’t allowed directly on the page.

Get in or stay out

It sounds mean, I’m sure, but plain and simple as with any channel in social media you really need to dive in or not join at all. If you’re going to add a channel to your company’s repertoire of social media handles, it needs to stay fresh and be populated with content. If a channel feels stale, neglected, or abandoned, it reflects poorly on your company and will not encourage your audience to continue returning and consuming content. Be realistic and make sure you can support another channel.

Google+ is a promising bit of tech that has a lot of potential to provide genuine value to brands. That said, it still is far from perfect. Manage your own expectations before joining, and be ready to tinker and explore.

What do you think about pages for Google+? Has your company already joined?

Intel's "Museum of Me" compiles your Facebook pictures into a museum exhibit all about you.

The line between cool and creepy is incredibly thin, and yet is one that social media services toe every single day, as they integrate more and more into their users’ lives. It’s a constant battle between providing value to users and keeping from overstepping any boundaries.

That line has recently become even thinner, as API’s allow data to be pulled away from sites and manipulated in any number of ways. The result is content that not only caters to the user, but in fact is focused solely on them.

A great example of this on the “cool” side is Intel’s “Museum of Me”, which pulls in photos, videos, and basic post data from your Facebook account to create a museum exhibit all about you. While wildly narcissistic, it’s a cool use of the data and an interesting way to see your life through the lens of what you put online.

On the infinitely more creepy side (and purposely so) is a site that came out just before Halloween called “Take this lollipop”. Just like the Museum of Me, “Take this lollipop” pulls in photos and information from your Facebook profile. But instead of creating a nice museum exhibit with touching background music, “Take this lollipop” pours your photos right into a short, prerecorded horror film.

For those of you unwilling to offer up your profile to see the video, here’s what happens.

In the video a man in a dilapidated building is sitting in front of a monitor where he “hacks” into your Facebook account.

Take this Lollipop's scary stalker brings your profile with him on his trip to find you.

From there the man trolls through your account, looking at your photos and seemingly gets angrier and angrier, though you are given no reason why. Eventually the man Googles whatever location information you have entered (for instance, my profile simply states my address as ‘Boston, MA’).

The video concludes with a scene of the man driving in his car, presumably to come get you; affixed to the dashboard of his car is a printout of your profile picture.

Believe me when I say that the first time you watch the video you feel uncomfortable. Even with the little personal information I put on Facebook, the incorporation of photos of myself with my girlfriend or my nephew highlighted just how much of my life is online, and just how easy it is to get to it.

The coolness factor of these sites is based on the fact that the content is distinctly personal to me; it doesn’t get more personal than seeing your own face on the screen. But the Pandora’s Box of privacy issues that content like this opens up has the potential to be truly disturbing.
A great example of similar content that toes the line between cool and creepy very well is the “7 Billion & Me” website.

As the world very recently reached a population of 7 billion people, this site highlights for users their place in the context of that many people.

The site has you provide your birthdate, where you live and where you were born, and then generates an infographic illustrating all those who came before you, all those born since you were born, and where in 7 billion people you fit in (for instance, the site informed me that I am the 5,146,335,067th person.)

The content is uniquely personalized and yet impersonal enough to refrain from being creepy. Therein lies the power of such content.

The Internet has brought on a new age of content supply and demand, where the demand is for rich, interesting content that fits in with the individual’s life. For all the writing out there claiming that the web has made communication impersonal, the Internet has also spawned a content revolution wherein the best content is humanized and caters to the individual consumer, and no longer the mass.

Some food for thought: is there such thing as “mass communication” anymore? Even if you aim to reach a large audience, can you survive addressing them as such?

When The Beehive Eatery and Bar opened in 2007, they quickly grew in popularity, and people started calling for reservations and directions. Unfortunately, often times they weren’t actually calling The Beehive; they were calling us: Beehive Media. We were good sports about the situation, taking the calls and passing them along to The Beehive.

Eventually, after two years of answering calls for the South End restaurant, Bill Shander, our CEO, informed a manager at The Beehive of the situation. Upon hearing of the predicament and Beehive Media’s complimentary phone service, the manager offered a round of drinks if Beehive Media ever made its way into the city.

Fast forward a couple years, and last night Beehive Media went out on the town and visited The Beehive for an informal company reunion. Making good on their promise, The Beehive came through in spades, sending out a round of free drinks and filling our pockets with The Beehive swag. Everyone in our party got a VIP card and a compilation CD of some of the live music that fills The Beehive’s all too cool basement space every night.

The staff was great and well humored, and the managers proved that they really knew what matters: the experience. What we always try to provide our clients, The Beehive provided to us: an incredible user experience. In short, they know what’s up.

I’ve been in business for 17 years. I’ve seen three bad economic downturns, and I’ve seen more than one company implode for lack of attention to the most basic of things: cash flow. One company I can think of, in particular, failed dramatically not because it wasn’t managing or measuring but worse: it had no real understanding of what it was measuring or how to really evaluate it.

The fact is that you can measure all you want but if you don’t understand the data, you’re SOL when it comes to using that knowledge to your advantage. For instance, imagine you’re transported suddenly to a post-apocalyptic society (if you’ve read The Road, just visualize that) and you come across the device to the right. You turn it on and it starts to click continuously…ominously… And it’s labeled mostly in Russian but at the top you notice “Dosimeter-Radiometer.” You see the readout and it says “22 F”…um, what does that mean, exactly? Should you be worried? OMG…should you panic? Sprint to the bunker! Did you pack your shotgun and canned food?!?

Beehive is not trying to prevent the apocalypse and we can’t help keep the riffraff out of your post-Armageddon bunker. But, we have created a tool that might help you avoid doomsday for your business. It’s called Nectar and it’s a financial dashboard to help you track your company’s cash flow while simultaneously tracking project health. And we’re eating our own dog food here – this is the tool we use to manage our own business.

What’s cool about it is not only the simple approach to inputting and tracking overall company financial data but also the fact that this tool integrates with Harvest, our favorite time tracking service online.  Nectar shows us our estimated versus actual time spent on projects at a task level, allowing us to see which projects are on track and which ones are going off the rails – before they become a problem that can’t be solved.

And of course, it’s visual. We love data visualization because, oftentimes, understanding is best gained by seeing data. Reading a grid of numbers rarely has the same impact as a bar chart or an interactive visualization.

Take a moment and close your eyes. Well, keep them open to read the next sentence. Now, think of apple pie. (Now close those eyes for a few seconds.) What came to mind? I bet it’s the sweet cinnamon smell. Now, think of your favorite song. You hear it, right? Now, think about your current bank balance and whether or not your projects and company are healthy? What sense are you using? Unless you can smell, hear or see something, it can be difficult to internalize information. When I ask myself the same question (which I do regularly), I see our Nectar dashboard and know I’ll sleep well at night.

If you use Harvest for time tracking and are interested in trying Nectar, leave a comment below or fill out our little survey at nectarview.com and you can be in our free beta program to try it out!

OK, so maybe it wasn’t that big of a deal, but that’s not the sense you would have gotten if you followed the action via Twitter over the past few days. While Klout announced last week that big changes were ahead, specifically with regard to the algorithm that determines your Klout score, the blog post published by Klout Founder Joe Fernandez has been met with substantial outrage in the comments over what Fernandez described as “the biggest improvement to the Klout Score in our history.”

The changes are meant to make scores more accurate and transparent to the users, providing insight into why a user’s score went up or down over time. For those wondering, the plummet in score some users saw this week isn’t explained because it doesn’t need to be: Klout retroactively adjusted all scores, so if your score dropped significantly that doesn’t show, it simply looks as if your score never was as high as you had it before the change.

A fairly common consensus on Twitter this week has been that part of the change involves giving more weight to Facebook interactions, thus decreasing the significance of Twitter in determining one’s score. The implications of such a change are where this issue becomes truly interesting.

While many professionals, especially those who work in social media and tech, saw their scores drop, others saw their score gain a substantial boost. Personally, I saw my score jump seven points. A friend I went to college with saw her score jump by over 20 points.

This makes perfect sense if in fact Facebook now has more weight in determining scores. I think it’s fair to say, at least in an anecdotal sense, that the younger age groups are likely the most active users of Facebook. For one thing, over 50% of Facebook users are between the ages of 18 and 34. In the United States, 65% are below the age of 34.

But the sociological factor involved here speaks more to the embeddedness and integration of Facebook with today’s youth. Those in my age group and Millennials in general have essentially grown up with Facebook. I was 16 when Facebook was (finally) opened up to high school students, and had an account as soon as I was able. All the kids who followed behind me in school had Facebook even earlier in life than I did, and now it simply is an everyday part of our lives.

This is a common discussion I have with people when discussing Facebook: different age groups interact with the service in different ways and to different extents. Even looking at friends just two years younger than myself, I see vastly different usage patterns.

So what are the implications for Klout?

In the end, Klout’s changes may have made scores more accurate at gauging online engagement and interaction, but less accurate at measuring actual influence.

Here the nature of the network needs to be considered: for many people Facebook is a (theoretically) closed social network where they interact with friends and family on a more personal level. Other networks that Klout accounts for, such as Twitter and LinkedIn are both more public and often times used for more professional purposes. The intent of the publisher is vastly different in each context.

In the end this change shouldn’t devalue Klout, but it should cause users to be more mindful of the context of the information Klout provides.

Just because a user is wildly active on Facebook doesn’t necessarily mean that they are powerfully influential about a particular topic. Conversely, just because someone is very influential about a particular topic, does not mean they are wildly active on Facebook. A lot of 15-year-olds are today seeing Klout scores far higher than many established thought leaders online. Are they more influential? Probably not. Do they comment and “Like” and post the heck out of Facebook? You bet.

In the end this change shouldn’t devalue Klout, but it should cause users to be more mindful of the context of the information Klout provides. Users with high Klout scores are now for certain some of the most actively engaged social media users, but they are not necessarily the most influential. The true value of Klout will be determined when the Topics feature becomes fully ingrained into the way Klout is utilized because general “influence” is nowhere near as interesting as focused influence, especially to marketers.

Originally, the users were mainly academics. They didn’t care if there were pictures or if everything was obvious the second they saw the site. They were looking for data and would take the time to find it.

But then the web spread. More and more people started using it. Today, most people in the industrialized world use the internet without even thinking. And as the audience has grown and expanded, their expectations have risen. The expectation now is that a web site will feed your every craving within 5 seconds or less.

Right?

Not so fast.

Yes, the goal of a website is to make sure that visitors can find what they want as easily and quickly as possible. Sometimes this is simple. Say your company makes a product; your users want to know the specs, the price, where they can buy it, etc.

Other times, the goal is not as straightforward. Perhaps you run a nonprofit that has one main mission but several ways of serving that goal. You have two or three very different audience types and they all want different things. Oh, and you also have a couple thousand thought leadership pieces to offer.

These two scenarios seem very different but these websites should have at least one thing in common: a way to get the user feeling like you made the site just for them.

The best way to make a site that speaks to each user is to start at the top. Every user starts as a newbie. In some cases they may only come to your site once and that’s all you need to worry about. You can use your entire home page to point out the few things that may be relevant to them. But if you’re that nonprofit that wants to be a thought leader and wants users to return again and again, your goal may be to focus on the advanced user.

I can already hear you saying, “Well, they’re not going to become advanced users if they get frightened away or overwhelmed as a newbie.” You are 100% right. All you need to do is make sure that new users know where to start and have a clear path into the site. You can even offer tips to show them how easy it is to come back and find more information when they need or desire it.

What about the 5 second rule and the 3-click rule? Yes, what about those?

Let’s clear those up. Users do not need to know how to access every single thing on your site or fully understand power-user features in 5 seconds. They just need to see a good place to start in less than 5 seconds. And to see that there is depth worth exploring when they have more time.

The 3-click rule is supposed to mean that it only takes 3-clicks to get anywhere on the site. This is a total oversimplification and has probably done more to wreck websites than Flash intros (remember those?)

OK, maybe that’s a little harsh. The side effect of the 3-click rule is that inexperienced designers (or over-zealous clients) make the mistake of putting everything on the home page to the point where it becomes visually overwhelming and difficult to navigate.

The 3-click rule may have been true years ago when company sites weren’t much more than electronic brochures, but that’s just not the case anymore. There may be some content that should be only 1 click away (contact info!) but much more that has to be be further in. And for the record, a good search mechanism came make almost any content two clicks away.

Bottom line is your user either knows what they want or they don’t. Your job is to give them some options to get them started and going in the right direction while making sure they don’t hit any brick walls along the way.

If, on the other hand, you are interested in the quality of content both online and off, then this post may just be the thing for you.

A couple weeks ago I was at a Tweetup in Cambridge, where a fellow attendee asked me the question “Why does your generation (Gen-Y) use social media?” The question was so simple, and yet it made me realize that only rarely do we stop to think in such big picture terms.

My response, eventually, was that the Internet in general is all based on one overriding principle: the exchange of value.

E-commerce allows merchants to reach a wider range of customers, while providing customers access to a broader, more diverse range of products. Authors and academics can be published broadly, but lose in return some degree of control over their material.

In social media, we exchange the value of our consumer information for the value of free social networking services. That value lies in access and engagement with both those close to us and those far away, either by geography or other, socially imposed distances.

You can keep up with your friends near and far (geographically) but you can also engage with people you don’t know, and who you may never otherwise have had the chance to meet and engage with. For instance, I can tweet at one of my favorite authors, and if he’s active on twitter he may respond and we can have a back and forth conversation.

…the Internet in general is all based on one overriding principle: the exchange of value.

Content works in much the same way. 

Nothing comes free–the social networking capability came at the expense of your user data, “free” apps are filled with ads to serve the interests of the app creator.  Much in the same way, content marketing functions off of a similar principle, wherein the publisher creates and gives away content for free, with the idea that by giving away useful content, users will in turn consider the publisher useful and invest further with them, whether that means through purchasing or simply engaging more. In other words, the creator or sharer is always asking the question “What can you do for me?”

Therein, however, lies the most important and most curious aspect of the Internet. It is no longer a world of publisher and audience. Each participant in the content marketplace is both a creator and consumer as a result of the revolution in communications technologies.

It’s a system of forced reciprocity. Reciprocate the value or die; plain and simple, in the world of the Internet you pay to play.

For a long time now I’ve stressed answering two questions whenever you write something for the web: “So what?” and “What now?”

Whenever you write, you need to ask yourself, so what? Why is anyone reading these words I’m writing? What is the purpose?

Once you’ve answered that, you need to answer “What now?” What will the reader/consumer take away and what can they do with what you’ve given them?

Now I’m going to add another question that needs to be answered even before that. “What can I give the reader?” If you have nothing to give, you can’t expect to get anything from the exercise of creating content, certainly not from your readers. If you have nothing to give them, they won’t bother consuming your content, so really, you won’t actually have readers.

So what am I giving you, dear reader? I’m giving you a list of things to do once you’ve already answered those three all-important questions that will make your content even more valuable to your readers.

Be Human

Simplify your message and your language, and please, keep it light. Sometimes this means cracking a joke, other times it just means keeping a conversational tone. Unless you’re writing a formal document, stay casual. The web is social, and you wouldn’t speak in jargon to your friends.

Break it up

Short posts, short paragraphs, short sentences. Everything needs to come in bite sized nuggets of awesome.

Share

Remember that reciprocity thing? Make sure it is the easiest thing on earth for your audience to share and interact with you. Don’t make me look for the “Tweet this” button. Don’t make me have to Google you to find your Twitter handle when I’m already on your website. I want to interact with you, but I shouldn’t have to work for it.

Now this post is getting awfully long, and I know we all have the attention span of a goldfish. Feel free to share what annoys you about poor content on the web below.

A lot of focus has remained on his career achievements, which have inarguably revolutionized mankind’s communication. He is celebrated for marching to his own drum, taking the path less traveled, going boldly going where no man has gone before! These qualities are attributed to him due to his innovation in technology, but what of his fight with the deadliest form of cancer in existence (pancreatic cancer)?

Image via Matthew Yohe

Aside from developing applications for Beehive Media in the role of Senior Developer, I have also had the life-changing experience of witnessing a person of humbler origins than Steve Jobs wage their own battle against pancreatic cancer.

From this somber experience, I learned that what makes pancreatic cancer the deadliest form of cancer is the difficulty in early detection and effective prevention of metastasis (or spread) to other vital organs. The metastasis to the liver is what commonly kills people as a result.

My father’s prognosis was far less fortunate than Steve Jobs’ initial prognosis in being ineligible for a Whipple Procedure (a procedure by which a cancerous portion of the pancreas is removed). This procedure is only available to patients whose cancer is detected before it has metastasized to the liver.

When Steve Jobs delivered his inspiring commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005, he had temporarily beaten the cancer after having the Whipple Procedure. The experience of facing certain death had obviously made an enormous impression upon him, and the positive, big-picture and immaterial attitude relayed to the new graduates was one I was intimately acquainted with from my father.

Over the course of my father’s battle with pancreatic cancer, our family witnessed him living his life in such a way that he was never more alive: he inspired others as much as he allowed himself to be inspired, and reveled in the unbound affection of our entire family as the prospect of death melted away unimportant boundaries.

As he waged his battle, our family looked to more public battles being waged against pancreatic cancer including that of Patrick Swayze, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Bill Hicks and Steve Jobs. Patrick Swayze’s battle was particularly inspiring in how he utilized his characteristic strength in tolerating the harshest experimental chemotherapy treatments that other patients might have declined. Steve Jobs’s battle, on the other hand, was inspiring in his perseverance given the obstacles facing most pancreatic cancer patients.

Where his liver was undoubtedly in jeopardy after his cancer’s reemergence, he gamed the incredibly difficult system of being matched for a liver transplant. Where it’s legal to sign up for multiple states’ waiting lists, he passed over his home state of California’s program in favor of one in Tennessee. In his own words, he did this because of the more favorable supply/demand ratio of livers in Tennessee than that of California.

Most pancreatic cancer patients of lesser means would not bother getting onto a list for receiving a liver donation because of the certainty of rejection for any number of reasons. The primary reason for rejection would be due to the likelihood of the newly transplanted liver becoming cancerous. Most other reasons would fall under the financial category, in terms of proving one can independently pay for the transplant (U.S. private insurance companies being the humane organizations that they are), keep pace with the follow-up care, as well as being immediately available for the transplant procedure at a moment’s notice.

With fierce perseverance, he revolutionized the fight against pancreatic cancer with the greatest tool of all: “i”.

Steve Jobs leveraged his considerable fortune to take an opportunity that our family could never have dreamed of. Many resented Jobs for using his influence to “waste” a liver that could have better served a more deserving American. My father, on the other hand, admired him for it. I recall his sentiment being along the lines of “Good for him!” He was glad to see a pancreatic cancer patient getting a liver transplant, where in most cases such a patient wouldn’t be eligible.

Unfortunately, in Jobs’s case it wasn’t ultimately successful (but it’s unknown in what shape his pancreas was in when receiving the liver transplant). My father’s perspective on the manner in which Jobs received his liver transplant was that it illuminated the unfortunate path one had to take in order to properly fight for his life (especially in a country where private health insurance companies don’t consider our health to be a priority). Steve Jobs’s perseverance served to inspire hope in others afflicted with the disease (such as my family) that a liver transplant with a newly cancer-free pancreas could prove to be a successful new innovation in the fight against pancreatic cancer.

Steve Jobs revolutionized computer technology with the Macintosh. He revolutionized music technology with the iPod. He revolutionized phone technology with the iPhone. He revolutionized the technology that is the go-between the computer and phone with the iPad. With fierce perseverance, he revolutionized the fight against pancreatic cancer with the greatest tool of all: “i”.

When I first started in IT I had all my obsequious certifications: MCSE, Network +, A+.  At that time, specializing in the web meant you needed to know how to build a web server from the hardware up, setup the web server software, and be able to write some basic HTML.

I’ve always loved exploring the possibilities of what this hardware and software could be made to do. Sure I could setup a web server, but to be able to write code that would result in a gorgeous looking website with drop down navigations and buttons that changed color when you moused over them was so cool. By default I had to have a love for the physical and the abstract; it was necessary for growth.

It was such an empowering idea that what I produced could potentially be used by the masses. And that every time I finished a project I had a great sense that I had served a public duty while having a visual reminder that I truly accomplished something.

Fast forward to today. My passion for how devices and the presentation of code go together hasn’t diminished and keeping an eye on how each is evolving is essential for success. However, the types of devices available are making me take a long hard look the way I approach coding a website. In the past, there was pressure on devices to keep up with the needs and advancement posed by the visions of the designers and developers.

“The web is no longer a collection of linked resources but a museum of our collective visions and consciousness.”

The evolution of the code was creating a demand for more powerful devices to handle it. But as of late, I’m seeing something of a reversal in that. The devices have become so powerful and versatile that more and more, as a developer, I find myself needing to adapt my code to fit the device.

Before this year, computer screen sizes and resolutions were growing and getting better at delivering richer colors and clearer text. With such a large amount of real estate available and the ability to deliver millions of colors, web designers have become able to produce not just flat “designs” but art in its purest sense.

Seeing how the devices could deliver that rich content was motivation enough to continue learning and adapting new practices to make the web designer’s vision a reality…to make browsing the web not just a collection of pointing and clicking but an interactive experience that immerses you in content. The web is no longer a collection of linked resources but a museum of our collective visions and consciousness.

Emilé Durkheim totally had the web in mind when he coined the term "collective consciousness" in 1893. (public domain)

This year has seen people heavily adopting tablets as a means of experiencing the web. It seems that you can’t go a week without reading an article outlining how desktop and laptop sales are quickly declining, and that the “PC” is headed for its doomsday.

For web designers and developers, this means new methods and styles have to be adopted to fit this new way of viewing the web. We can already see how the tablet is changing some of the most basic elements in almost every website and how it’s influencing design and development.

Hovering
Today, you would be hard pressed to find a website that does not feature some sort of mouse over effect, whether in the navigation or elsewhere. But mousing over a button, or hovering, requires two things. A mouse to move the cursor and that cursor to be hovered over the button. On a tablet, there’s no way to hover over a button or link since without a mouse, there is no way to position a cursor. As users turn to tablets in greater numbers, the end result will be that designers and developers will probably abandon hover states altogether. This change will impact certain features that depend on hovering and that we see on many sites, like tooltip popups that provide contextual help.

Bigger buttons, bigger links
I’ve read that the average finger needs buttons to be at least 44px high for easy clicking. I see more and more websites implementing larger buttons and when I view them on my iPad they definitely are easier to press. Of course, if buttons and other navigational links are too big then the website looks strange on larger screens, so designers must find middle ground that pleases both the traditional PC user and the tablet early adopter.

The top of the page holds all the important content
Designers will usually reference “the fold” when discussing site design; it’s a reference to newspapers, where the most important information had to be above the fold of the paper. When you first visit a site, the entire portion of content that is visible before you have to scroll is said to be “above the fold”. On a desktop and laptop, the screen dimensions are generally wider than they are tall, but the orientation of the screen is for the most part uniform, so a designer can usually estimate what information can go above or below the fold. On a tablet, the orientation can change dynamically depending on how you hold or turn the tablet: if held landscape the fold comes closer to the top of the web page than if it is held portrait. This makes it difficult for designers to estimate where the fold may be. As a result, the designer has to make sure that any important information or content happens closer to the top of the page to prevent it from potentially falling out of the initial view.

Tablets are here to stay and are quickly becoming a device of choice for viewing the web. Where once code and software drove devices to be better, faster, and more powerful, today the devices are in the driver’s seat. If you’re a designer or developer, in what ways have you had to adapt to fit the need of a device or specifically tablets? If you are not a developer, in what ways are you seeing sites change to fit tablets?

At the same time, clients look to us for expertise about all things new media.  They want us to tell them what they should do.

The challenge here is that we know the web but we’re not always experts on the client’s business.  Of course we do research in our discovery process and we most certainly have opinions on the right direction to target, but the best result is when we figure out the best solution together.

Our proposals are based on our understanding of the project requirements and the costs involved, and the idea that the client will be actively involved, especially during milestone reviews.  We need the client to sign-on to each phase of the project before we commence with the next phase.

This approval process can often slow the project down because the client is unsure about whether or not to give us the green light to go forward.  Some folks feel a lot of pressure to make the right decision.  This is completely understandable.

These key junctions can make or break a project, and this is where project management goes from being a science to being an art.  The goal is to put the pieces in place and allow the client to have an “Aha!” moment.   Help the client figure out the best option with you and your team.  Don’t assume the client understands what he or she is looking at during a review and don’t make crucial decisions yourself based on assumptions.

Coaxing that “Aha” moment from a client may require different methods based on different personalities.  Some people appreciate a lot of direction and hand holding.  Other clients just need you to shut up for a minute so they can think.  The art is to understand your client enough to know what to do to get the decision made and to achieve the best result.

Try and keep the client involved and on task when it comes to the approval process.  Set an agenda that says we’re going to figure this out in a meeting in such a way that the right decision is obvious.  Let the client know as well that you’re not going to rush through the meeting with a take-away of “I’ll get back to you later.”  Instead, foster the meeting so that the client feels relaxed and able to think clearly.  If you have to, put the meeting off until everyone has enough time to really devote to the answer.   Be patient and don’t rush through it.  Not just for the client’s sake but for your own sake as well.  I’ve learned over the years the ironic lesson that sometimes the way to move your project ahead faster is to slow down! Stay on task, but let the ideas simmer and breathe and you just might get one those key moments of “Aha!”

Poor Kenneth Cole learned the hard way that hijacking current events in social media is not necessarily the way to be heard above the din. But everyone can probably understand the motivation.

When the winds of the world are swirling fast around something electric and current (i.e., the Arab Spring the VA earthquake or Hurricane Irene), social media goes mad with activity around those topics. We all want traffic, eyeballs, validation…we all want some online love. And if we can hop on the back of a stampede of traffic, if we can just “go viral”, all will be OK with the world, right?

Kenneth Cole did one thing right, in that they succeed in going viral. Of course, the virality was based purely on how awful the reaction was to their tasteless attempt. For the moment, let’s call that a “success” – they did succeed in attracting a lot of attention to their message, after all. But for every campaign that pulls this off, there are a million failed attempts at going viral.

If you’re a marketer, odds are you’ve tried to hire someone to make something go viral, or you’ve tried to make something go viral yourself or you’ve thought to yourself “how do I make something go viral?” The answer is that no one really knows – we only know that it’s hard.

But beyond being hard, how do we do it in a way that minimizes the Kenneth Cole effect? How can we do it risk-free? Here are two recent examples.

Steve Jobs’s Calendar
The day Steve Jobs retired, there was an endless stream of commentary to the point that my eyes glazed over at each mention on Twitter. But the day after that, I saw a tweet that read “Screenshot of Steve Jobs’s Calendar” and linked to All Things D. Unlike all of the speculation about the future of Apple, direct commentary on Jobs’ health and other attempts at humor, this was a “victimless” joke. Well, I guess Tim Cook might have felt some collateral damage, but it’s mostly a harmless jab at Jobs’ controlling nature. It’s funny, it leveraged the traffic onslaught of the announcement, and it didn’t hit any wrong notes that might offend (unlike Kenneth Cole.)

“You’ve got a six-pack, I’ve got a keg.”
Another great example of someone who rode the wave is OhDoctah, who created a great response to the Old Spice Guy video sensation. He nailed the humor, timed it perfectly and did it without creeping anyone out or pissing anyone off.

There’s no magic to going viral. It requires some luck, a very well-tuned ear (to avoid the worst PR gaffs) and good, creative content. But the Steve Jobs and OhDoctah examples did share several common attributes:

• Good timing (had the Steve Jobs tweet hit me the previous day, I would have ignored it – the delay helped it grab my attention, without it being too late to lose all relevancy)
• Humor (we all like to laugh and are more likely to share a funny than anything else…except cute kitten pictures, of course!)
• A lack of mean-spiritedness (though each pokes a little fun at their subjects)
• Linked their concepts to celebrity, not just an event (we love our celebrities and riding a celebrity viral wave may be more likely to gain results – I have no data to support this, just a gut feeling)
• Linked their concepts to socially relevant yet not overwhelmingly historic events (it’s hard to imagine pulling off the latter without offending and/or coming across as smarmy, at a minimum)
• They weren’t leveraging current events just to SELL PRODUCT (unlike Kenneth Cole)
• Were visual…um, yeah, the web is about media, not just text…

There are some lessons for all of us in these two good examples. What are your favorite examples of someone (or a brand) slipping into a hot trend and riding a viral wave well? Or someone who completely missed the memo and offended everyone with their lame attempt to do the same?

Thanks for participating and check back for more content from Beehive Media and the final study once completed.

Take the quiz here.

Site 1: Take a look.

The site loads and you see a dark grey, textured background, a white area with black text marching all over it, links are purple and there’s a picture of some flowers. It feels intense and maybe a little harsh. Not particularly inviting but maybe interesting.

Site 2: Take a look.

The site loads and you see warm-neutral colors with rose accents and a strong, but soft, grey-blue navigation bar. They’ve created strong contrast for their text without using just black text on a white background. It feels comforting and kind, maybe somewhat traditional, easy on the eyes and the mind.

Site 1 is for a landscaping company.

Hmmmm. Well, it sounds like the landscaping company went with the idea that their site should have very little color so that their images pop out. This may be true in some cases but you also have to think about what the user is expecting. When you think of landscaping you don’t think of black. Maybe a dark green-grey would be a better choice.

Site 2 is for a funeral home. They went with what they know their users need: a feeling of calm and reassurance. Usually people coming to a funeral home web site have already had some sort of surprise thrust on them. No need to  use bright yellows or snappy blue accent graphics as though that will make them happy. It ain’t gonna work – like your messaging, you need to keep your colors authentic and honest and on-message.

Let’s try that again. Take another look.

Site 1

Site 2

Site 1 is for an art gallery. It feels contemporary and I’m happy to just focus on the images. The images tell me what the gallery has to offer and their site tells me they’re all about the art. The purple links tell me they do have a personality of their own, but they use it to support the work they represent.

Site 2 is for an after-hours night club. Boring! The soothing colors may be OK for a restaurant, but I’d expect a nightclub to have something a little more edgy or intense, something that implies the experience is going to be stimulating enough for me to stay awake for my nightcap.

Colors set your users’ expectations the second they get to the site, so make sure the colors reinforce what you want to tell those users. I don’t propose that you spend hours getting just the right blue; it’s going to look different on everyone’s monitor anyway, but do pay attention to what type of blue you are using (subdued, bright, bold…) and what you’re using it with.

There are many resources online to help you explore different color palettes, and it wouldn’t kill you to get a couple of books about color theory. If you learn about color and how to discuss it you’ll have an easier time working with a designer to get the results that you want.

Online resources:

Kuler
This is a great tool to use while coming up with color schemes. It also has a ton of pre-made colors palettes you can use. If you sign up you can save your own and bookmark favorites. Another nice feature is that you can export the palettes. If you’re a fireworks user there is an in-program kuler extension you can use.

myPantone
Good old pantone! Their site has got a color chooser section similar to Kuler. Again, you can sign up for an account.

Moviebarcodes
This is a cool way to get a quick look at how you can get a feel for some movies just by looking at the colors in them.

In 2008 Beehive Media was awarded the Best of 2008 Silver Award for web design in the first annual Banker & Tradesman “Best of” awards.

At Beehive Media we take pride in our work, and appreciate that our clients can take pride in it as well.

A few weeks ago, here at Beehive we were having a discussion over lunch about how different people think and work in different ways. Some people (especially some here at Beehive) are all about front-loading schedules and working hard and fast as soon as something comes in.

We also have some people whose work simply defines consistency; day-in and day-out, they work responsibly and effectively towards their goal.

And then there are also some people who just thrive under pressure; when put up against a deadline they buckle down and work furiously to accomplish the goal and get things done.

In the business world there’s one pervasive term that transcends industries and occupations: balance. Balance is so important to a successful business, and that is especially true when it comes to putting together a team.

As our hometown team, the Red Sox, make their way towards the playoffs, I can’t help but think of team dynamics in terms of baseball teams.

Those front-loaders that want to get straight to work? They are your starting pitchers. You can’t survive without a strong rotation up front.

Then you have those who swear by steadfast consistency. They are your middle relievers, chewing up innings and making sure you don’t suffer from a lull in the middle of the game. You can’t get to the end of the game (or project) without people there working through the middle innings.

Or better yet, they are the position players and the batters. Every inning from the first to the last they are out on the field, playing hard and getting done all those things that need to be done.

And then the deadline guys. These are the closers who can come in when the pressure is on, when there’s base-runners on in the ninth, and get the final out. They can handle the stress, go where they are needed, and work till the night is over.

It’s all about having a good, balanced mix. At Beehive we have our Josh Becketts and our Adrian Gonzalez’s and our Jonathan Papelbons. And sure, in business you will have your stars and your MVP’s, but teams win games, and good teams win championships.

Bleeding edge technology signifies technology that is extremely new, to the extent of risking both reliability and productivity for the end-user. Adopting such technologies can potentially reap the reward of comparative advantage for any organization (should the technology prove to be successful). The comparative advantage might involve functionality that improves usability on the product side, or perhaps a new programmatic framework that will drastically reduce development costs.

Both of these examples would be sharing the hypothetical comparative edge in being scantly implemented by competitors, giving the risk-taker an opportunity to offer uniquely rich user-experiences and/or cut costs. From a strictly technological standpoint, there is also the “wow factor” of bleeding edge technology. Though this often has more to do with the allure of new and shiny functionality for techies to experiment with than it does with gaining comparative advantage over the competition. In the end, the threat of instability or lack of ongoing support for newer, more usable or more efficient technology is sometimes worth the risk.

Should the technology prove to be unsuccessful however, this comparative edge could mutate into the exact opposite of the goal – you might end up with a hungry, stubborn vampire draining the organization’s lifeblood. Such failed bleeding edge technologies are often inefficient from a cost-benefit standpoint, where the cost of maintaining the technology is out of proportion to its usefulness.

Such failed bleeding edge technologies might also prove to be difficult to decommission from a financial standpoint, where greater up-front cost will be incurred in order to compensate for the point of failure. Where cash flow is an issue, some organizations might opt for the smaller up-front cost of implementing programmatic work-arounds to compensate for this failed technology. Such work-arounds can prove to be costly dead-ends in and of themselves.

There is also the matter of discontinued support by the technology creator. What your technology advocate had hoped would improve usability might ultimately come to be no longer supported by the technology creator as the technology loses traction. One famous example of a bleeding edge technology gone sour was the Concorde (a supersonic aircraft designed by Aerospatiale and British Aircraft Corporation, which was designed for commercial intercontinental travel). After producing a mere fourteen units, the U.K. and France sustained enormous financial losses when they found these aircraft to be unsellable in commercial terms.

Where commercial companies are often in a good position to gamble with bleeding edge technologies in the hope of garnering a comparative edge, non-profits and NGO’s are often not able to enjoy the same degree of leverage. They are better served by serving their cause, and reducing the degree of risk posed by implementing newer technologies.

But is there a middle ground? Can you implement newer technologies with some degree of assurance of reliability? We can begin to answer that by understanding what gives a technology its bleeding edge. Such technologies have no established consensus and no established standards or familiarity by industry leaders. When some of these industry leaders come out against the implementation of a bleeding edge technology, it often encourages advocates of the bleeding edge mindset to implement the technology out of a sense of technological superiority. Plainly speaking, your bleeding edge technology is untested at best or a misunderstood rebel at worst.

Does this feel reliable enough? No? Enter the picture: “leading edge technology”.

Leading edge technology comes equipped with the consensus and industry knowledge/standards that its bleeding cousin lacks, while still being a newer kid on the block. The market may not contain enough developers who know how to implement this technology, which in turn restricts widespread implementation of the technology. Once a technology has matured to the stage of being “state of the art”, its comparative edge will have been considerably reduced with the incidence of universal acclaim and widespread implementation. Thus, implementing a technology at the leading edge stage in its maturity will substantially reduce risk while maintaining a degree of a comparative edge.

As I’m no expert in what is considered to be the leading edge for aircrafts, I am better equipped to provide an example for what is on the leading edge for web technology: WordPress. This platform is well-established to the extent of being “state-of-the-art” (accounting for over 55 million websites in the world), except for the plugins that comprise its functionality. These plugins are continuously reinventing the many ways that WordPress is able to function as a web technology: job boards, membership directories, business directories, email newsletters, forums, wikis, e-commerce sites, etc., etc., etc. What had begun as a blogging platform, is now a platform that may be customized to fit most web technology needs.

The best friend an organization or individual has at their disposal when it comes to seeking out leading edge technology, is the same friend who can help you locate your high school sweetheart: Google. Determine the functionality that your organization is seeking, and constrain your search to simple, descriptive terminology. Often, this will yield results containing other such individuals looking for the very same type of technologies. More times than not, this can lead you to a variety of solutions that may or may not have become widespread in their implementations. In order to determine how widespread their implementations are, you might have your technology team attempt to determine whether or not these technologies have been implemented by larger, more successful competitors.

Remember: bleeding isn’t leading.

So we’ve created Beehive University, or BeeU, as a quick and engaging way of answering these questions. BeeU will consist of videos that explain some of the basics of many of the things that we do here at Beehive Media, and hopefully answer a lot of those questions. Of course, our clients can always call us and we’ll walk them through it – but we think this will be a great first step and/or refresher for some of those things.

In this first video we’re going to look at Google Analytics. An important facet of our Agile approach, analytics provide deep insight into the inner workings of a website and its visitors, and can help inform better decisions when it comes to site design and management. While this is looking specifically at Google Analytics, you’ll learn more generally about some key things to look for in your analytics – whether you’re using Google Analytics or another tool.

Enjoy!

And learn!

Another gem he might share helps define how I approach my experiences: the only problems we have in life are the ones we have created for ourselves. Therefore, the only ones who can solve those problems are ourselves.

The first steps to solving a problem in web development are to identify that problem and then find the correct resource to help you rectify it.  I am often asked how I would code a site or what method I would use to build a site and my answer is almost always the same: WordPress.  But why WordPress?  Why not Joomla or Drupal or something custom?  Sometimes a custom solution really is the appropriate solution, but when the problem identified is getting content right to the web and keeping it fresh, then the publishing process in WordPress is so much simpler than it is in Joomla or Drupal.  The process is straightforward and, truthfully, I don’t have to check a thousand boxes before I publish a post or update a page.

As a web developer, ever-changing landscapes and problem solving are two topics I contend with on a daily, if not hourly, basis.  What you once thought was a given is now no longer certain.  What the web was ten, or even five or two, years ago is radically different now. That may generally be the most apparent, identifiable problem for any business and their site – it’s hard to keep up with the rapid changing landscape on the web.  So why WordPress?  Because it allows your site to grow and evolve as the web does.  Because the site you have today may need to be something else tomorrow and WordPress allows you to meet that need easily, flexibly, and quickly.  And ultimately, because choosing WordPress means not “going-it” alone.

One example of the way web development changes: just two years ago, we went from coding sites in HTML4 to coding them in XHTML and were told that would be the new standard.  Today, XHTML has been abandoned in favor of HTML5, but in doing so, we are left trying to embrace a method that takes back some of the habits we picked up converting to XHTML.  But how does a solution stick in a world where the nature of the web changes so often – where methods that were once a given are now no longer certain?  The answer, simply, is to find a resource that adapts to meet those changes.  By being flexible and evolving, you allow the solution to grow as the web grows and to pull back when the web pulls back.

If the problem identified is one of platform administration and maintenance, WordPress again is the most suitable choice since, compared to other solutions, the process often times is as easy as pressing an update button and knowing that you have the most current security fixes and feature sets; then you are back on your way to publishing content.  Adding features also plays to administration and maintenance.  If your team requires new features then WordPress’ modular nature and refinement of this process allows for download, install, and implementation in as little as three clicks – and generally speaking, if you can think of the feature you need, there’s a plugin for that.

To speak to the widespread availability of plugins, however, is also to speak to the nature of the WordPress community as a whole, and truthfully, this is one of the reasons it is set apart from other solutions like Joomla or Drupal. By extension, if you code a custom solution, for that solution, you’re generally on your own.  Googling WordPress yields not only WordPress’ parent site, but also link after link of resources, plugins, themes, developers, designers, etc, and among those resources are other users who are helpful and happy to lend a hand or offer solutions where needed via forums, blogs, and such.  Here at Beehive Media, we are definitely proud to be counted as part of that community.

The only ones who can solve our problems are ourselves, and choosing WordPress is the fullest and most confidence-inspiring solution in most cases.  WordPress is not just the ultimate self-empowering solution, but allows you to solve your own problems with the support of a huge community behind you. What could be better?

Every great web application started out doing one thing very well.  For Google it was search.  Without search, there’s no “show” for Google.  Google did search so well that, in the context of the web,  the very words “search” and “google” became interchangeable.  They were so successful at search that they cornered the market and leveraged it into other businesses: advertising, email, analytics and many more.

At times Google has over-reached and launched services that didn’t do so well. Remember Google Video?  Google Video failed because it didn’t work as well as YouTube.  With Google Video you had to wait upwards of a week to see your video. YouTube focused on doing one thing well, and that was to create an easy and fast uploading and cataloguing application for videos.  Users took to it largely because they could see their video minutes after they uploaded it.  And they could distribute it just as fast.  When Google realized they were beaten by YouTube, they went and bought it.

There are countless other examples.  Facebook started out as an easy way to keep up with your friends.  Now look at all the other things they’ve added: games, Facebook Marketplace, survey tools, etc.  Once you nail the key goal and it’s working and people get it, you can branch out and add features on top.  I’m sure we’ll see a Facebook clone that sticks to the original concept sans all the commercial tie-ins . (Enter Google, ironically enough: Google+, anyone?)

The minimally viable product can be any number of things, and is applicable to any web development project.  Even a simple web site.  What is the key goal of the site?  What do you want people to do there?  Who is the key audience?  There is probably a number of audience types that you will want to account for, but make sure that your key audience is being served first and then worry about the others.

“Minimally” refers to breaking down to the essence of your “show” but don’t forget the word “viable.”  Is your show really a “show?”  This can be somewhat subjective, but here viable means A) that the product has value and B) that value is easily and quickly accessible to the end user.  For a web application to truly be viable, users need to be able to surmise and access the value immediately.  Maybe it’s a piece of wisdom, or a poem, or maybe it’s a nugget of information like:  Windex is an effective way to kill flies when swatting them proves difficult.  There, right away, you learned something.  If you can convince enough people that your product has value, look out, you’ve got yourself a show.

At Beehive Media, we help our clients identify the minimally viable product and we plan the project accordingly.   In short, what’s the “show?” The MVP can help you prioritize your work.  If the MVP is accounted for and there is still time and money left in the budget, you can add other features and expand on your offerings.

In the digital age, people expect to be able to get it now.  It’s not like back in the days of snail mail where you sent in your box tops for a Batman and Robin lunch pail and you accepted that you wouldn’t see anything for 4 to 6 weeks.   By the time you got the thing you had moved on to Superman or the Incredible Hulk.  Box Tops; what a quaint concept!  In the web space, for folks today, especially younger users, the expectation is that if you want something, you can have it now.  The dilemma is more about whether you’re willing to pay for it.   These days if your user accepts your MVP and wants it, you better be able to deliver it in real time.

The take-away then is simplicity itself: don’t try to be all things to all people.  When the Internet first took off, online services like Prodigy and AOL decided they could help users find what they wanted on the internet.  They would BE the Internet for their users who surely would get too frustrated trying to find things themselves.  These online services tried then to be all things to all people and they didn’t focus on just community or search or email.  That is why they lost to the Googles and Facebooks of the world who focused on their MVP and made it the show.

According to most experts, and depending on how you measure it, most adults have an attention span of about 15-20 minutes. That means they can focus on something for about that long if they’re really interested in it. A 3-year-old’s attention span is more like 3-4 minutes. So what does it mean that by every indication, the average web user’s attention span is about 10 seconds? Of course, this is kind of an apples and oranges argument (we all know our virtual attention spans are far shorter than our real world attention spans), but worth considering. The fact is, a web visitor is likely to leave your site within less than 10 seconds after arriving. Read that again – your average web visitor is gone in 10 seconds. Yikes.

Luckily, your web site is full of exciting, sexy, flashy, interesting bells and whistles and the most mind-blowingly original content EVER…right? Oh, you mean your organization is focused on issues-based advocacy or philanthropic work? Or thought leadership in a niche industry? Or some other knowledge content that requires an attention span greater than 10 seconds? What to do?

Well, you’re not lost. (In fact, I would argue that bells and whistles are usually just a distraction anyway and won’t help with user retention for knowledge sites – simple is better.) The fact is that the 10 second number is a misleading statistic. Yes, many of your potential users will be gone FAST. But if you think about it, the person who arrives at your site but is gone that quickly is telling you that either a) they’re the wrong audience member; or b) your web site sucks. OK, well, that may sound a bit harsh. But it’s sort of true. Either your content isn’t appropriate for that user, which is OK – let them go! Or, you’re not presenting your content in a way that even an engaged user can get excited about.

What to do about this? For one thing, you should follow our 4X4 Model for Knowledge Content. By using a few key strategies, you can present your knowledge content in a way that steps appropriate users into your content in stages, allowing uninterested people to fall away, while helping encourage potentially interested readers to find the good stuff within! The other thing you can try is to create variations on your content and the display of that content and test it! If you’re not familiar with A/B Testing, read about it first, then consider using this technique on your site. You can create variations on content, images, buttons, etc., and test them side by side and see what happens. Did you get more clicks, more comments, more social shares, more time spent on page…?

Long story short, your audience has the attention span of a goldfish. Understand it, don’t bemoan it. Use that knowledge to your advantage.

Did you get this far? If so, you’re the right audience for this post. If not, well, you’re not reading this so I guess you aren’t my target audience…or maybe this was poorly written or…either way, you’re gone and I’ll never know. Next time, leave a comment so we know what to do better if it’s about us!

The application displays property photos, aerials, maps, leasing plans and other media. Any piece of content can be emailed to a prospect directly from the app – turning a meeting into an opportunity for further later engagement. The application and its content are stored locally on the iPad, with zero dependency on WiFi or 3G connectivity, yet is fully updatable over the Internet as properties are added or updated on a central server.

Here is an over-simplified, inadequate description of a general premise of Hinduism:  You’ve probably heard that Hindu’s have millions of Gods right? Well, that’s not really the case in the Western/Christian sense. According to Hinduism there is a universal spirit: Brahman, and everything is a manifestation of Brahman. From there come different Gods, like Vishnu. Those Gods then have Avatars, like Krishna. They do this in order to interact with humans. It’s usually obvious that the Avatars are not human, but it certainly is easier to try and talk to a blue person with special powers than a being that defies the limits of your brain.

Now think about walking, talking, anthropomorphic images on your computer screen that can help you use a piece of software or website. It could even be blue with a bunch of arms.

Why use an Avatar?

It makes perfect sense. No matter how much or how long we’ve been using computers, in a big picture sense, sitting in front of a screen and trying to accomplish something is a new development. (Think in terms of the history of human life; searching on the ground for food, making tools with a giant hammer slamming on red hot metal, writing a letter…working on a computer is an extremely abstracted activity.)

As a species we’re used to interacting with people when we have a question – finding an expert and getting to the good stuff. We lose interest quickly if we’re not getting what we need.

An Avatar on a site can help focus a user on what they are there to do if they haven’t been to the site before. It can keep them engaged just a few seconds longer and that may be all it takes to change them from an unsatisfied visitor to happy camper. In some cases it can also be a nice way to break up the monotony of surfing websites; a familiar way of introducing someone to something you want them to know about…talking to them, pointing and suggesting next steps.

Is there a reason to not use an Avatar? Well, it can be expensive and it can be annoying if not done well. (Hence the expensive part. You need someone who can balance that fine line, and that’s where you get what you pay for!) I think this is the key to why they are not used that often. Most website owners can’t invest the type of money it would take to do it right, so we see a lot of bad examples out there. That then makes them a turnoff (figuratively and literally) when people see them. “Oh God, not one of those things!”

Who uses Avatars?

When I first started thinking about this article all I could think of were a few sites I have seen over the past few years that had a person walk into the browser window and start chattering at me. These were usually small commercial sites that really didn’t require that type of guidance. Instead of being a well thought out choice, it smacked of being a “Hey! I want one of those people talking on my site, that’ll really sell them, no one reads anymore anyway!” The result? I instantly left.

A good example of an avatar is being used at The Louvre, it’s a cartoon guy. Yep, you heard me, the fanciest of fancy museums in the world uses a cartoon to get people interested in art. According to an article about it,  it’s supposed to be for children, but I liked it to. I actually will probably use it when I just need a little break from work, a quick peak at some item at the Louvre…probably a better use of 5 minutes than Failbook.

The Future of Avatars

I think that as the general populace becomes more familiar with how websites work and how they are used, Avatars will start coming back into the fold for larger budget projects. There’s a lot of content out there and some times you just want a guide to get a nice sample of content to get you started instead of click, click, clicking to try figure out what the site has to offer.

So the bottom line is, whether you employ a super good-looking blue guy or a paper clip with eyeballs, using an avatar can be a good thing…if you do it right.

The phrase “data visualization” gets thrown around a lot these days, but when it comes down to it, quality visualization is still far from common. So what is good data visualization?

In essence, data visualization is actually more about illustrating information in a way that can be understand by a person on an individual level than anything else. The idea is to take something complex, like a huge data set of numbers or statistics, and make it more digestible for the target audience. Audiences can be as large as many millions of people, but in the end each member of the audience has to gain understanding of the content as an individual. A visual narrative puts context to data and gives the viewer more to hang on to when trying to comprehend and remember the information.

A great example of this is a video by Youtube user Political Math, where a federal budget cut is explained in stacks of pennies. What this video does is take a number that is too large for an individual to really comprehend, and put it into a scale that makes more sense to the individual. This is accomplished by putting a visual in front of the audience that utilizes something that everyone is familiar with: a penny.

Data visualization goes beyond helping individuals understand immense numbers, it can also foster greater engagement and make dull or complex content more interesting and amusing. Another Political Math video illustrates the federal deficit in shots of Jack Daniel’s whiskey. It adds humor and a sense of relative scale to a topic that is otherwise void of either.

Along these lines, data visualization also serves another quintessential function; it tells a story. Hans Rosling is a Swedish statistician that has spoken five separate times at TED, and each time he presents an engaging view of the world through statistics conveyed with effective visualization. In describing trends in world health and population, Rosling weaves a narrative with the data, which is made visual by showing movement and relativity. Data visualization becomes an abstraction of raw data, and shows the result of good analysis.

In the end there are very few people who will understand all of your raw data as it is. To reach a large, effective audience it is essential to transform that content into something people can understand.

OK, this is not about knowledge content – the opposite, in fact? It is not about creating dynamic web experiences for thought leadership. It has nothing to do with what Beehive Media does…directly. But it does have to do with the idea that great content begets conversation. The entire city of Boston is talking about the Bruins. Even some people within Beehive Media who aren’t exactly hockey fans…and/or aren’t exactly Bruins fans…are talking about it. That’s because influencers within the company are talking about it, and sharing their enthusiasm about it.

If you can harness your ideas, make them dynamic and visual and exciting (and they don’t have to be Stanley Cup Champions exciting!) then you can generate conversation and become the center of the universe around your niche content area.

#EndOfGratuitousBruinsPost
#GladIWasAbleToMakeItSortOfRelevant

Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services provides services to independent brokers – those who leave larger firms to strike out on their own in business. Fidelity had created a Flash presentation capturing success stories of some these independents’ working experience to share with other prospective independents. It was a quick job working with existing design and code and was turned around during a few weeks in March and April. We are looking forward to a long partnership with the interactive team at Fidelity!]]> http://beehivemedia.com/think-it-do-it/fidelity-in-pursuit-of-independence/feed 0 http://beehivemedia.com/think-it-do-it/rethinking-everything-and-how-it-applies-to-knowledge-content-online http://beehivemedia.com/think-it-do-it/rethinking-everything-and-how-it-applies-to-knowledge-content-online#comments Mon, 28 Mar 2011 17:29:37 +0000 Bill Shander http://beehivemedia.com/?p=885 Read More]]> We’ve been helping clients with their interactive strategy, design and development for many many years. And there have been a few major shifts in our industry over those long years. The first occurred when CD-ROMs really were replaced by the web in or around 1998. The next came when the dot com bubble burst and everyone thought “the web is dead.” Ha! Next came the SEO revolution – search engines were everything and if you weren’t kow-towing to Google, your business was sunk!

Now it’s all about social. I’ve been saying for awhile that search engines as we know them are the past, and the future (for now) is clearly social sharing. But is this another phantom shift? Are there tried and true strategies for sharing knowledge content regardless of the flavor of the month trends? Of course! But it’s also fair to say that social sharing is a seismic shift in how the web works and is a key component to any strategies worth considering today. And SEO is becoming less and less important.

I spent a lot of this weekend sick in bed. That wasn’t great. But being sick makes you slow down a bit. I literally didn’t crack open my laptop for the entire weekend for the first time I can remember in a very long time. And my phone sat on my desk from Friday night until this morning. I had time to really think. Granted, some of those thoughts came in fevered dreams, but to be honest, those were some of the best ones! I’m putting together Beehive Media’s philosophy for presenting knowledge content online and it’s coming together pretty nicely. Hopefully, it will be coming to a conference or panel discussion near you!

Karen's blog is built on the Posterous platform, which is a really simple and easy way to create a blog, manage the content, and syndicate it to the web, Twitter, Facebook and other services. You can see the full blog at http://karenansara.posterous.com and the most recent posts will always appear on the AFF site. Her posts are automatically posted to Twitter when she adds new content, helping spread the word about this critical situation.

The Ansara Family Fund created the Haiti Fund immediately following the earthquake last winter. They matched $1MM in funding for disaster relief and ongoing support. In addition to this amazing generosity, Jim Ansara has been going to Haiti repeatedly to work on the Partners in Health hospital he is helping to build in Mirebalais. And Karen went there just before the cholera outbreak and is posting about both the outbreak and her overall experience there over the coming days.

Quickly, buzub is a personal branding platform that helps bridge the gap between the real world and your online persona. You can sign up for your own set of 2-4 icons, which are uniquely yours, and when someone sees those icons (on your t-shirt, or a sticker or …), they can look you up on buzub.com and be redirected to a web destination you choose. It's a simple idea with many interesting possibilities and we look forward to helping it grow up over the coming months and years.

The time has come to start thinking about information and knowledge connectedness again. We're playing with some ideas to go beyond the mindmap into something more useful, less confusing and that will help users see connections between information in a way that isn't overwhelming, that is visual, but can communicate text-based information as well. While the idea of the semantic web is fantastic, and I can't wait till we can really leverage it, this challenge comes down to information architecture and user experience, using standard web technologies.

Hopefully we'll have a chance to bring this project to life in the coming months. If/when we do, I'll post about it here again!

If you have any suggestions about best-of-breed information connectedness visualization, please share them with us!

The program is unique in that participants pay a small fee to attend, and get four months of classes on building a business taught by successful entrepreneurs.  For those who graduate, as I did, they participate in a pool with their fellow graduates, meaning that as any of us succeed, we all have the potential to benefit.  I highly recommend to any startup founders to think about participating in this program.  And Boston area CEOs who qualify should make themselves available as mentors. 

There's so much talk about making Boston an innovation and business hub again and this is yet another great opportunity to do so.  Classes start in July!  Scott Kirsner did a nice piece on his blog about it today.

• Bring grantees more attention and support
• Help prospective grantees understand what resonates with the fund, both to help them with focus, as well as reduce the number of grant seekers who don’t fit the fund’s mission
• Help grantees/applicants learn about each other
• Inspire international giving among other donors – with a special focus on getting funding TO Boston NGOs and FROM Boston area donors
• Design a site that reflects the spirit of the Fund’s work

The design is bold and direct, expressing energy, excitement and dynamism from the main page to the interactive grantee pages. Large, bright photography provided by the grantees conveys the geographic reach of AFF’s mission and gives the site a strong identity. Inspirational quotes on each page capture the essence of the Ansaras’ and their fundees’ purposes. The use of a burlap background and earth tones suggests the Fund’s ground up approach.

But I'm always embarrassed when asked the question because I have to admit that for the past 15 years or so we've had an almost entirely passive marketing and sales effort.  We don't push, we don't advertise much at all, we don't speak at or attend many conferences, we only apply for one awards show per year, we don't do PR and we don't brag.  It's not that we're without ego or that we don't believe that those things would be good for business.  We've just always been too busy. 

So imagine our surprise when in the past four weeks, we have managed to win a prestigious award, be featured in BusinessWeek magazine, and get quoted in Inc. Magazine.  As a marketer friend said to me, "Ok, so you don't need me, or anyone else, to tell you how to market or do PR ever again." 

But here's the interesting part.  So far, at least, we've seen almost no impact on our business. 

OK, it's only been a short while.  And we're not promoting it the way some might.  (Can you do a press release announcing that you've been mentioned in the press?  That feels like an endless loop!)  I've tweeted about it once or twice.  Of course I told my Mom and a few friends.  But we're not sending an email blast out about it, or scheduling 10 tweets over three days to make sure it gets to all of my followers.  And to be honest, that's what it takes to be heard in today's world.  You have to hammer things over and over and over again to get through the clutter.  Otherwise, press coverage, like anything else, is just a blip.  It made my Mom proud, and it prompted some friends to congratulate me, but it is not leading to more business per se.  That would take a sustained effort, more appearances in the press, more promotion, in other words, a real marketing effort. 

Guy Kawasaki, marketer-extraordinaire, is often villified for being a Twitter-spammer.  He tweets dozens of times per day.  And he has ghost-tweeters helping curate and tweet content.  And he lines up his tweets, scheduling them for regular posting throughout the day and night, including a schedule whereby every tweet runs three times.  And all links go through one of his pages, providing a constant stream of traffic to his own site, not just the destination content.  He has gone out of his way to explain the methodology and reasoning behind that choice.  And it all makes perfect sense.  It is good marketing from a solid numbers-driven approach.

Perhaps one day we'll take a more proactive approach to marketing Beehive but for us and our business, the softer approach is more appropriate.  But our new startup, buzub, will definitely require a bigger marketing effort.  I look forward to taking a more Guy-like approach for that effort (thought we probably won't take it quite as far as he does.)

And yes, the irony is not lost on me that here I am writing about how we don't promote, brag, etc., but the first thing I'm going to do when I'm done writing this blog post is tweet about it, post it to Posterous and Facebook and………

This is one of the reasons why we redid our site to be so minimalist.  (BTW, we were just listed today as a featured site on Minimal Exhibit, a web site devoted to minimally designed web sites.)  From a few conversations I've had recently, I think this is really resonating with people.  I've heard from a few who've criticized our approach, but more importantly, I've heard some of the most enthusiastic praise we've ever received from others. 

Don't get me wrong, people liked our former site.  It was beautiful, well-designed, great copy, etc.  And it got us on the list for people looking to hire companies like ours.  But something has changed since our new site launched.  We're getting incoming calls from people who not only like our site, but who already have formed a deep impression of us.  They think we "get it".  They like our tone.  And they love our short and sweet approach to content on the site. 

In other words, we've given our audience what we're always telling our clients they should give theirs: short bite-sized chunks for the skimmers to consume.  Our philosophy is that first, you have to give the skimmers what they want.  A percentage of them will dive deeper, looking for more substance.  The rest will leave, and that's OK.  But if you can draw in the right group to dive deep, and then give them good stuff when they get there, you're leading them down a path where they admire you, trust you, seek your advice, service, product, etc. 

The vision for this site hit just a couple of months ago.  Our team collaborated to bring it to life quickly and it is everything I had hoped it would be.  Short and sweet at the front, deep enough in the middle to satisfy, and ultimately lead people to call us to help them solve their challenges in similar ways.

When Centerbrook first contacted us, I was really excited.  I love architecture.  When I travel, I find there are two things I really look forward to when visiting a new place (or even old favorites.)  1) the food; 2) the architecture.  I can wander around for hours just staring at buildings and people watching.  I've often thought that if I had to do it all over again, I might even be an architect.  Like the web design and development business, it's one of those rare professions that blends left brain and right brain, creative and technical.  Successful projects in both fields require an eye for usability and function as well as aesthetically-, technically-, time- and budget-driven goals.

But on paper, they should have been a complete nightmare!  Here are all the reasons why working with them should have been awful:

1) architects don't have a reputation for being the most humble of professionals, so expecting them to take guidance and question assumptions was not a given
2) they came to the table with a design already done by their in-house designer (toes, get ready to be stepped on)
3) architects really, really, really, really, really care about design and function – there would be no corners cut, no room for imperfection
4) decision by committee, especially with a partnership, is always a challenge – competing interests and disagreements are difficult and slow to resolve
5) they had already been working on this project internally for months, a clear indication that the above concerns might really apply

Surprisingingly, in the end, they have turned out to be one of our best and favorite clients.  Not because they didn't care about the things we expected.  Not because decision by committee didn't slow things down at times and make some decisions difficult.  Not for any of the listed reasons above, in fact.  In the end, they are an excellent client because we always had a really great dialog going about every aspect of the project. 

We started with discussions about web strategy, the existing information architecture and the existing design.  We had to help validate their concepts, throw in some of our own, and help move the project past the idea phase and into construction.  This process was full of long debates.  But they were always that – debates.  They involved open-minded and ego-less conversations on both sides.  We sometimes disagreed but we always were able to justify our points to each other, had an opportunity to convince each other why our approach made sense, and whether it was because of time, budget or arbitrary opinion, decisions were made and we always felt good about them.  It was one of the most collaborative and open client interactions we've ever had and it resulted in award-winning work.

This may not be the most awe-inspiring revelation of all time.  But it brings some clarity to what makes design and development projects go well.  It requires an open mind, a healthy debate, interaction between client and designer/developer, and a willingness to work together to come up with the best results, given clear goals.  Centerbrook brought all of this and more to the table and I like to think we did as well.  And I know that we'll be looking for more clients like Centerbrook with whom we can work because it makes the process and the results so much better.
 

Why simplicity? 

First, I believe that people want direction.  They want to be guided to what is important, what is worth their time and attention.  This is what is driving the Twitter craze.  People want the people they know and trust to tell them what to look at.  I'm not content experimenting with a firehose of information and hoping to get good stuff every now and then.  I want you to guide me to it.  Simple design does this.  By minimizing visual and content distractions, we're focusing on what we think is important.  For our site, what's important is to give a quick sense of the types of organizations we work with, what we're about, and most importantly, the work we've done recently.  I think our new site does that very well.

Second, since showing our work is the most important thing, we felt that minimizing the use of color would draw the eye most effectively to screenshots of our work.  We look at our site like a museum gallery wall.  It's just a backdrop for the work.  Some will argue with this approach but they can make their own highly designed portfolio sites!  We do that for our clients, not ourselves.  Maybe in ~3 years when we do this again, I'll have changed my mind, but I doubt it!

Third, I believe that building an interactive experience is a challenging project for most non-technical people.  Many of our clients have never done it before, or have done a simple site and are graduating to a larger site with more functionality, a content management system, etc.  It is intimidating for them in many cases.  But our job is to help make that experience less stressful, less complicated…simpler. 

Anyway, no reason to go on and on.  I just thought I'd explain our approach for those who are interested.  Think It.  Do It. ®

They had several key challenges and opportunities:

• Complex subject matter: homelessness has multi-faceted causes and solutions
• Abundant content: one of the main purposes of the site is to disseminate a huge amount of information on best practices, news and case studies
• Diverse audience: the site needs to serve Funders Together members, non-member funders, prospective funders, housing and service providers, public sector agencies, the media, and the general public. Each group has its own set of functional and informational needs. In addition, viewers can be anywhere on a spectrum from highly informed about the causes of and solutions for homelessness to almost complete ignorance.
• Communications with and among members and partners: Network organizations such as this have to meet the needs of different component organizations. There was an additional need to facilitate cooperation among the constituent groups.

Beehive’s approach was to use web and rich media techniques to increase the immediacy of the issues faced by the homeless. At the same time, we provided an easy-to-understand conceptual framework for homelessness and a hierarchy of information that allows users to efficiently access the information at the right level for them.

The Issues Explorer introduces this framework, and provides opportunities for users to drill down into the content.

The site also includes a robust search engine and provides information on an interactive map, providing a critical aspect to this audience: location-based content. Since homelessness is a regional issue, location is key to solution identification and implementation.

The Content Explorer offers filtered keyword search, with results displayed as text and on the Google Maps map.

The Partner Locator shows foundations, housing and service providers, public sector partners, and housing projects on a map.

We have incorporated social media into the site, with ShareThis functionality throughout , Funders Together’s Twitter feed available on the blog, news and events pages, and with links to FT’s Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube pages. We even incorporated a “Tweet This” feature into the Content Management System running the site, which we built on open source technologies (Zend Framework and Doctrine ORM.) The site’s design, which is clean and accessible, reinforces the streamlined access to information.

Go to Everytweet and just sit and watch and read for a few minutes. It will make you think. I think.