April 15th, 2009
I’d like to think that I’m ‘with it’. I’m on the Facebook and the Twitter, and am fairly active in both – I ‘get’ ’social media’, that’s what I’m saying. However, with that said, I really think I finally feel like an old codger that just doesn’t understand the crazy kids and their newfangled internets.
What has caused this epic change? Simply put, a new iPhone app called Birdhouse.
Now don’t get all ahead of yourselves here – it looks like a beautifully done app, and the website design, intro video and everything in between look to be fantastically done. I don’t want to take that away from the folks who put this together (doesn’t hurt that Sandwich Dynamics is an amazing company name, either).
The app simply exists to let you quickly enter in ‘tweet’ ideas, slowly refine them, rate them accordingly, then finally publish the great ones, while still refining the rest.
It’s just that I feel like they’re solving a problem that didn’t really exist until they showed up with the app. Again, maybe I’m an oldster now and I just don’t ‘get’ it. Maybe true genius is doing exactly what I feel they did — creating a solution to an imaginary problem. I may or may not end up giving it a shot, as maybe I really am missing out on something. I just can’t shake that feeling that it makes no sense to me. Regardless of how I feel, you should check it out for yourself — the intro video is quite good.
Anyway, stay off my lawn.
Posted in apple, small business, technology | Comments Off
March 31st, 2009
Just wanted to point folks to the new RFP form (that replaced the absolutely massive RFP form I was previously using on 1.0 and 2.0) here at SquareOne. I wanted to simplify things, and I plan on doing a lot more cleanup work on it, but a few clients are in the pipeline right now and I’d like to make this available to them. I think the hardest thing was to avoid too much jQuery craziness, but still hide some of the stuff that people don’t really need to see if they don’t have an existing site.
I’ve been busy trying to get everything up and online, and now I plan on adding a coat of polish to the ‘3.1′ release of the site. Stay tuned for a lot of typographic and image changes. I also have some big news about a few projects in the works.
So again, check out the new RFP form! Good day.
Posted in site-news | Comments Off
March 26th, 2009
For me, one of the toughest stretches in the web design game has always been the phase between the initial contact with a client and hammering out those final agreed-upon specs. Not that I have trouble ‘closing the deal’. I think most designers can sell themselves quite well. The real issue is actually that most designers and developers are so great at communicating their own vision, sometimes they have issues with listening to potential clients expressing their own. That communication gap must be bridged, and early, if both parties want to come out of this dance happy.
All too often, we forget that folks coming to us for a project don’t have a lot of experience with this type of stuff. We don’t make it all that easy either, usually hitting them over the head with dozens of technical questions and jargon-filled surveys. No wonder we either get back nothing, or nothing useful. It’s important to clear out the clutter and cut to the really important questions before that first meeting with the client. If you can single out their goals, their budget, and their deadlines, the rest generally falls into place.
One company who does a fantastic job of finding that ’sweet spot’ is Airbag Industries (not that I should be surprised). They recently launched a really solid RFP that quickly gets the important information from the client, doesn’t hit them over the head with pretension, and gets them out the door asap. The more accessible you make yourself, and the fewer barriers that you have between the information in the client’s head and your inbox, the more likely that you’re going to get folks communicating with you and wanting to work with you.
There are zillions of talented developers and designers out there. There are also zillions of designers and devs who can sell themselves to anyone. But the real pros are the folks who work just as hard to really listen to the client as they do polishing their elevator pitch.
Long story short, look for a new SquareOne RFP form in the coming days.
Posted in advertising, process | Comments Off
