webTRAIN’s latest upgrade brings a few new features and some bug fixes. The biggest new feature is the ability to integrate Google’s Site Search directly into your site. Learn what’s involved by reading this article.more
About a year ago, I came to a very enlightening epiphany as a developer: building a desktop app sucks. I was writing the application in C#, thinking I was ahead of the times using a modern and advanced language. While C# is great, my execution of it was well behind the times. I was creating a Windows Form application, all well and good when developing on my local machine. However, when it came time to deploy my application, my brain practically exploded from all the hurdles I had to overcome. It wasn't until after this process that I realized how much I hated (most) desktop applications. Here are just a few of the problems I ran into.more
Language is one of the most important aspects of our culture. Early communication among humans was limited to characters and drawings. Gradually, we learned how to form more sophisticated versions of these symbols into words. And words were formed into sentences which lead to the ability to write stories. Today, we’re still storytelling. Stories usually impact our communication most effectively. They’re more memorable than facts alone and they evoke some type of emotional response for the reader. Our agency is filled with storytellers. You read many of them here, in our Mindscape blog. Our stories span many topics, but the intention is consistent. We’re trying to help our partners better understand their businesses, their clients or working with us. And in a way that informs, has meaning and provides inspiration.more
When I was in school, it was rare for me to finish a report before the deadline. It really did not matter if the professor gave me a day, a week, or a month to complete it; I didn’t complete it until just before class. Part of the issue for me was prioritizing. It always seemed like a night playing basketball or video games was a higher priority to me than finishing a paper I had another week to finish. But it was not just priority. It’s the constraint that a deadline gives. With no constraint, I have a hard time conceptualizing what to do with the excess time. If I thought the paper would take three hours, what would I do with the other hundred hours I could use?more
When you think of improving your visibility on local searches, do directory listings immediately come to mind? Perhaps it’s time that they do! Local directory listings play an integral role in boosting your organic search rankings and building your credibility. Turning to Google or Yahoo for information has become second nature for most, and directory listings have come to dominate the local search results pages. Search engines and individuals both heavily rely on directory listings to have as much accurate and consistent information about a business as possible. Business listings that show up on local searches are free to add and claim, meaning they’ll take up little of your time and none of your money, thereby producing results with little effort on your part.more
I have had many opportunities to help our client partners develop digital marketing strategies. One of the first things we require our partners to do is complete a Measurable Marketing Success workbook. It’s a pretty simple document that basically allows us to record our partners’ goals. It continues to surprise me how difficult a chore this can be for most companies. If a client partner engages MINDSCAPE the first step is to sit down and fill out this workbook. If the partner has never thought about goals or objectives before – this is a challenging document to complete. And it should be!more
99%. It is a number that induces feelings of security, reassurance, and steadfast. In most cases, this is a proclamation of surety that makes the boss happy. However, when it comes to computers, 99% simply isn’t perfect. So you’re ready to go forward with your new idea for a website. You start to do some research and find some hosts boasting of 99% uptime. Sounds good right? But what does that really mean? Let’s take a look: 365 day in a year, times 24 hours a day equals 8760 hours in a year. If your site is up 99% of the time, that means its down 1% of the time. 8760 x .01 = 87.6 hoursmore
Ahhhhh, the future is good. It has descended upon us, oh so subtlety and most of us never even realized it. The technologies available now make our lives incredibly more convenient than they were even 5 years ago. Don’t believe me? Here’s a list of my favorite tools that should change your mind.more
I have been meaning to finish the novel I started in college since, well, since I started it in 1998. That’s a whole lot of time spent thinking about it, fretting over it, and ultimately not doing anything about it. It seems there is always something more important to do or something easier and more enjoyable. Last year I made it a goal to finish writing a novel. Sure, it still was not the story I started back in college, but I was bound and determined to finish writing something. But there was still a hurdle in the way, and I am willing to bet that it is the same hurdle that many of you face when looking up at a goal from the ground floor.more
Being a part of this industry sometimes taints our team members’ perspectives of how others view our work. Like, doesn’t everyone understand why creating compelling content is so important? Or why managing your online presence by offering something of value to your stakeholders will make a difference for your organization? The answer is no. Which leads to opportunities for us to often begin a relationship with the process of educating. Just read some of the other posts from my team members, Rebecca Dutcher and Erin Jones. They begin relationships with our new clients, by sharing solutions we can provide. Sometime solutions for problems our clients don’t recognize exist. So, what does this have to do with my topic of blogging? Well, it’s really the same concept. Managing your personal presence online can make a difference for you – personally and professionally. And doing this by creating content (words or images) that is insightful, can help others.more
My dog loves to run with me. The minute I put on my running shoes, he heads to the bathroom where he knows I keep his leash. I don’t even think I love running that much. So, why is it that dogs love to go for a W-A-L-K? And why do young children just naturally want to run, skip, or hop. You hardly ever see a child under five that is just walking, unless being aided by the hand of an adult. Well, I can’t answer those questions, without looking more indepthly at the sociology of our society. What I can do is probe for ways to encourage myself and others to want to run out the door and face what’s next. The phrase above my kitchen door reads “carpe diem.” I don’t honestly feel like seizing the day, everyday. But, most days I do. I’m generally energized to take on the challenges of the day whether it involves work, teaching, running kids around or something just about me.more
Relationships change all of the time. Some are more lasting than others, depending on the circumstances. And today with technology tools like Facebook it’s much easier to continue relationships that might have otherwise ended. In another post, I talk about how we need to spend as much effort on our internal customer relationships as our external ones. But, what happens when that internal customer is no longer “internal” to our business? Natural evolution. People leave companies and move on to new opportunities. And organizations ask people to leave when their skills or performance no longer fit or there are financial constraints. The majority of us have experienced this, except for the few brave souls who have always been entrepreneurs or have only had one employer.more
Can you do without thinking first? Can you think without having done before? I’m not trying to begin a philosophical read here, but rather trying to share the context of a few conversations I’ve had in the last couple of weeks. Let’s recognize that we all need to be thinking all of the time, or life just doesn’t work. Some people just seem to be more purposeful about it. Not that all thinking should be purposeful, some of it should involve building dreams and seeking out possibilities. People who have the ability to create these types of visions within organizations are often called leaders. But, leaders don’t exist in specific positions, they’re among us at all levels of an organization. These individuals may have started out as the kids who always asked “why” and just never stopped. They are the Contributing Team Members (CTM’s) who always have a new inspiration to do something radical or make a minor change that improves a process or final result. These people have mastered the idea of “what ifs…”, but may have a more difficult time in carrying out these ideas.more
It’s the time of year when we’re feeling generous. We’re in the mood to spend money on others, even people we don’t know.more
Why Franchise’s Should have a Network of Websites Franchise businesses have a unique opportunity to leverage the power of online marketing (SEO) at both the franchisor and franchisee level. As search results become more localized and focused on the searcher, branching out into a network of websites can open up exceptional results from search and brand recognition. Often the corporate franchise website will represent the entire entity as well as a page or two for each location. All of the information visitors find in search will be from the corporate prospective and lead them to a location page where the visitor can find a little bit about the franchise in their area. Search engines see this as only one website. A network of franchise websites, meaning each location has its own website, will deliver more opportunity to be found in search. Local websites will also allow each franchisee to tell their story, share local images, testimonials and more information geared for their area than could ever be included on a single corporate site.more
I recently met with a B2B firm who is hoping to dramatically grow sales as quickly as possible. Their dilemma is how to make this happen with the most return on their investment. They feel that hiring an outside salesperson to pound the pavement and the phones is the surest way. Sooner or later, someone is bound to be in the market for what they’re selling and they’ll be in the right place at the right time to make a sale. It could take 10 cold calls to get a meeting or it could take 50. Once they get a meeting, how much time will it take to convince the prospect that they need the service? And then, that they’re the best company to offer it?more
One of the biggest usability problems I've run into when viewing sites that are not properly optimized for mobile is forms. They can look terrible, be incredibly difficult to use and are something to be avoided at all costs. Let's be honest, forms are generally cumbersome to use on desktop. They always have been. All of these flaws are amplified when you cram them into a 3.5 inch screen. So what can we do to make the experience better? Last month, I attended a workshop at An Event Apart Chicago, put on by Luke Wroblewski. He had some really great ideas on web form usability -- especially in the mobile context. The workshop really got me thinking about all the things we could be doing to create better experiences. So, with some inspirate from Luke, here are several things we can do right now to create them.more
One of PHP's strengths that I like the most is its versatility as a prototyping language. While the venerable MVC and friends are important in a large project with a lifespan measured in years, sometimes you just need to jot up a quick utility script or internal tool. In these cases, PHP's global context and loose typing really shine as you can mash everything into one sloppy file to start with, then gradually refactor logic out into functions and includes. That said, I've never liked mixing languages in the same file. scans pretty easily, but any more complicated than that and it gets pretty unreadable pretty quickly. It can also do a real number on syntax highlighters, which makes debugging a painful process. For generating well-formed XML of any dialect, you can't get much more thorough than PHP's built-in DOM implementation but there's nothing concise about it, and I'm trying to be fast, here.more
I received a cryptic message from Eric Patterson, one of our Software Engineers today. He pointed me to a javascript error report that he noticed while trolling through them and eating lunch.more
You’ve probably heard this phrase before…people leave managers, not companies. Let’s explore this idea a bit. I can find all kinds of surveys that ask people why they quit their jobs. And I can find a variety of answers that give further insight. There are differences of course, just like there are differences in people. One thing stands out, however, and that is the health of the relationship between a Contributing Team Member (CTM) and his/her manager relates directly to overall satisfaction with a company. Why is this relationship so critical? Because for the most part, your manager is the daily “face” or “voice” of your employment brand (I’ve talked about this concept in a previous post). Your organization doesn’t greet you in the morning, provide you with challenging work or give you feedback on your performance. But, your manager does. And how this person handles those roles and communication opportunities is how you largely measure your satisfaction with your organization.more
