MINDSCAPE

The office of MINDSCAPE at Hanon McKendry is located in the heart of Downtown Grand Rapids. It’s on the sixth floor of an old building next to Van Andel Arena. When the elevators open on the sixth floor, visitors are treated to an open floor plan, a nice reception area, a nifty coffee bar, some fancy table and chairs for informal gatherings and a half-dozen nice cubes where information workers are busily executing strategies for website success. It’s a great place to walk into, and a great atmosphere to work in. The free soft drinks, breakfast foods and a hidden cupboard full of M&Ms and trail mix add to the lure for workers.more

The MINDSCAPErs give back, delivering gifts to families in need through Family Promise of Grand Rapids It’s the start of 2012 - the holiday charitable giving push is coming to an end. The holidays are one of the biggest times for nonprofits. More than half of their fundraising is done between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve. Have you seen the news updates? During this time of the year Goodwill receives so many of their donation totals. Why don’t we give more during the year? Why are we compelled to give only at the end of the year? What difference could we make if we gave all year long?more

It’s 2012. Is this the year your website will work as hard as you do? A well-planned, thoughtfully designed website that positions your business to grow like crazy using the power of the Web isn’t cheap. For a business owner or manager, it can be difficult to know just when to approve the investment in a new website. Below are some thought starters on when to pony-up.more

People determine the success of a business. They ultimately decide whether a company, business or organization thrives or is driven into the ground headfirst. So wouldn’t you want to do everything you can for your people and provide them an outlet for their needs? Don’t know how? The solution is very simple: people crave compelling content. People love stories.more

It happens so often. A business gets excited about the idea of blogging on their website. Post after post goes up, the bosses gush and everyone is excited. But the charm fizzles after a while, and a blog ends up totally inactive or as a catchall for sporadic self-promotional messages. Readers flee and the whole thing becomes, “Yeah, we tried it but it didn’t really work for us.” As with any business initiative, successful blogging requires a plan. If executed properly, having a blog on your website offers many benefits to enhance your online presence. First, blogs provide current and relevant content to your site visitors. Trends in technology, new government or regulatory policies, discoveries for a new use of a product, etc. – anything that affects your industry is useful information to your readers.more

You may have heard that Facebook officially rolled out the launch of their new Timeline feature today. Timeline features a radical redesign of users profile page; instead of merely listing your interests and personal info, the Timeline shows a detailed overview of your life on Facebook. Plus, it allows users to be a bit more creative in the design of their pages. A few of us in the office activated the feature when it rolled out to developers in September. In honor of today's public launch, we thought it would be fun to share with you some of our Timeline profiles.more

Vlogs are replacing blogs. They’re quick snip-its of information that would otherwise be typed up as copy and posted onto a website. A variety of information can be communicated in an entertaining, easy to understand format, and, when presented in three minutes or less, in a small amount of time. But how can it be that just a year ago – even a few months ago – writing was simply enough? YouTube and Vimeo have been popular video sites for years, but suddenly they seem to have burst with activity. Social media sites now allow sharing of entertaining videos through their platforms, and video content is increasing in views exponentially.more

Both online and traditional press releases do the same job: they spread the word about newsworthy information. Take a look at the similarities and differences, pros and cons of both traditional and online press releases.more

Starting a new, personal project in PHP, I wanted to try out a new framework for the fun of it. After doing a bit of review on many available frameworks, and ruling out the ones I have already used (Zend and OpenAvanti), I settled on CakePHP.more

According to WebVideoMarketing.org, video viewing online has officially reached an all-time high of 15 billion as of this past May. 15 billion. The population of the world is 6.9 billion. Holy mega video hits, Batman. So does your marketing content include video? Whether you’re B2B, B2C or consume both markets, you could be missing out on a lot of business if you shy away from video marketing. Think about business videos you’ve watched. They may have had a team dedicated to organizing, filming and editing the video and had an entire studio where they could film. But your marketing department is on a budget…so how in the world are you supposed to create an amazing video like them?more

Why do people click on the search results when and where they do? Why aren’t paid search campaigns as successful as they used to be? Are people even looking at your display ads? Eye tracking is understanding how users look at your website or search results - there are many software programs available. Important for any business, eye tracking studies have a lot to do with what the page looks like - keeping it usable, engaging and easy to take in visually. Still, it has a lot more to do with users' eye patterns on the screen. When it comes to search results, we know that top organic rankings are the best. Why? Well, look at the charts below. One shows click positions, while the other shows cursor movement.more

When you're in need of a tent for the graduation party you’re hosting, what do you do? If you’re like most people, you Google “tent rental grand rapids.” Need replacement windows, a painter, a florist, a nearby Chinese restaurant, reliable PC repair? That’s right, Google. Now what if you’re at work and you’ve been given the responsibility to purchase a new projector for the conference room, or find a dependable commercial lawn care company, or locate a pallet rack supplier for the warehouse or select a venue for the company Holiday party? Where do you turn then? Did someone just say Google? Many businesses I’ve worked with express doubt about how online search affects them. However, it’s just as important for a B2B firm to have a compelling and a search engine optimized website as it is for B2C.more

Online Reviews: Why Should I Care? Taking a vacation these days is precious. With demands on our time from work, home, and community, we want (and need!) the best trip possible. When my husband and I went to Mexico a few years ago, I spent hours on TripAdvisor reading reviews posted by average people. Those reviews helped steer us to book at the resort we chose, which wasn’t cheap. When we got home, I couldn’t wait to write my own review! TripAdvisor’s site says they have over 50 million reviews on 85,000 establishments, with 23 reviews per minute being posted. Readers of the reviews are potential customers of every hotel or restaurant they investigate. A positive or negative review can literally change a buyer’s mind without any further research or information.more

You’re excited to begin working on your new website, and you’ve got it all figured out. Photos to be used, general ideas of copy, videos and overall layout and site map have been approved by the Web managers. All you have to do is execute your ideas. Easy peasy, right? Thinking of ideas is the easy part, implementing them is another (more complicated) story. How can you make sure your content is as great as possible once your website is ready for launch?more

How far ahead are you looking in your business? Here we are, two days past Halloween. I walked through the store yesterday and saw all of the Halloween decorations, costumes, etc., marked half off or more. Then I saw the aisles and aisles of Christmas and holiday decorations: stockings, ornaments, wrapping paper, and much, much more! Already?!more

Last night, while I enjoyed watching the Eagles destroying the Cowboys on Sunday Night Football, Nike informed me that Basketball Never Stops. Take a look:more

Clients always ask me, “What’s the next Facebook?” Given the turbulent ride of MySpace, and the slow mainstream growth of Twitter, I understand why clients would ask this question. They want to know if Facebook will be around - and popular - in a few years and worth the utilization efforts and investment. They also wonder what platform is going to explode next year so they can jump on now and be ahead of the curve. When I’m asked this I often laugh. I feel like they are asking me what will the stock market do next year. I have no idea - and neither does anyone else. It’s impossible to predict the future, so we have to rely on educated guesses and make assumptions and predictions based on historical data.more

Take a look at the following commercial. Take detailed notes of any thought in your mind during your viewing. Pop some popcorn and enjoy.more

Keeping in theme with my last post, Transforming in the Digital Age, I think it’s interesting and entertaining to look back at early uses of the Internet and Web technologies and the changes over time - it provides comic relief and demonstrates how Web technology has evolved from user demands and feedback. Today the Internet is about content and providing a valuable user experience, but it wasn’t always that way - remember silly “splash” homepages and animated flash sites with elevator music? Back in the day website functionality was not only trendy, it was an adventure. I thought it would be fun to compile a list of these hilarious out-of-date features. From the early days of the Web to Web 2.0, a list of the silliest and most obnoxious website features from the past:more

It’s no question that things change quickly, faster now than ever before. We’re both blessed and cursed with the pace of change, the impact of technology on our ability to do more with less - and do it faster, often finding distractions and efficiencies in the same tools. My three year anniversary at MINDSCAPE at Hanon McKendry is coming up, so I wanted to share a few things I’ve learned.....more