Continuous Web

User Experience Design Process: Part 1

Joshua Johnson — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 00:00:00 EDT

User Experience Design is becoming the most important consideration in design, not just in web but anything human beings use. When I was reading Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping by Paco Underhill, an acclaimed Retail Anthropologist I realized there was very little difference between the science of the retail experience and the web.

The web is usually the entry way for your business, so give them an authentic, intentional experience you want them to have. If your client or customer is under 40 they most likely checked out your website before they jumped in their car and came to a meeting at your office.

Tags: user experience design, user interactivity design, usability design, navigations design, functional design, information architecture, content design, graphic design

Show me the way- a dissection of web navigation

Joshua Johnson — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 00:00:00 EDT

Navigation is the first problem a designer needs to solve in thoughtful UX design.

Often times we don’t put a lot of thought into the navigation of our web site. “What links should go at the top and bottom” isn’t the only question one should ask when building the proper site map. The way-finding geography on your website is apart of the raw anatomy of what you’re designing. You have an opportunity to either put a smile or a frown on your user’s faces- so putting thought into the launch pad of your user’s experience can actually turn those frowns upside down.

Tags: footer, navigation, web navigation, sub navigation, top level, design, iconography, experience, user experience, navigation links, links, homepage designs, ux design,

Web Form Design and the Quest for Conversion

Dustin Brewer — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 00:00:00 EDT

How much of an impact does your web form design have on your conversion rate? Well, our main dude Dustin Brewer did a deep dive into the issue and was kind enough to share the results:

Tags: resources, continuous web, design, conversion rate, web form

Is Cincinnati Silicon Valley 2.0? â�¦but, with more trees. [PRESS RELEASE]

Joshua Johnson — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 00:00:00 EDT

The late journalist Don Hoefler will forever be famous for marrying together two seemingly unrelated words: silicon and valley, in his reference to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay area during the 70’s. Big developments were happening during that era in the world of the personal computer. Today, forty years later, those big developments have progressed east and seemed to be settling in Cincinnati.
Tags: startup, web design, entrepreneur, queen city angels, silicon valley

Local group hosts first Cincinnati Startup Showcase for web entrepreneurs [PRESS RELEASE]

Joshua Johnson — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 00:00:00 EDT

On July 21, local web and internet entrepreneurs are gathering for the first Cincinnati Startup Showcase hosted by Meetup group, Continuous Web. The showcase will feature established web startups such as ShareThis and newbies like Givimo and BudgetSketch. The startup showcase is expecting over 20 different web companies to be in attendance with local web service companies sponsoring the event.

Tags: cincinnnati, continous web, startup showcase, startup, entrepreneur meetup

Content: The Red Headed Step Child of the Web

Lucas Cole — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 00:00:00 EDT

Hello. Welcome to our website. We are a great company with great values. Our products are great and varied. We are commited to greatness with everything we do. We were started in 1996 and since have become one of the greatest companies in the area. Please look at our welcome video, visit our youtube page, follow us on facebook and contact us here.

Bad web content is like nails on a chalkboard. It truly can be the defining characteristic of a website yet it is rarely approached as such. Most often we see that business owners would rather talk about the intrinsic, subjective value of their organization, or use rigid, robotic vernacular to monotonously describe a long list of services rather than use the content to tell a story or advance their overall web strategy. Tags: content, stategy, kristina halvorson, killer web content, review

Deciphering Analytics: Compete.com vs. Google Analytics

Lucas Cole — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 00:00:00 EDT

We aren't an SEO company. Unfortunately for us however, SEO is a major part of web design and is thus impacted by the way in which you structure, design, and deploy a website. We've learned some tough lessons and thought we'd share with you our findings.

Tags: google analytics, seo, compete.com

CW+Todd Henry | Continuous Web Meetup

Lucas Cole — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 00:00:00 EDT

Todd Henry shares some of his wisdom with the Continuous Web Meetup group at Redtree Art Gallery. This was our 1 year anniversary, and who better to share with us than the guy who we kicked this whole thing off with last year. Thank you to Todd Henry for taking the time to join us. We were blown away by the response after the meetup and encouraged by the great web applications that are being developed in the Cincinnati Area.

Tags:

Organizational Tip - Structured Adaptability

Lucas Cole — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 00:00:00 EDT

Processes and systems are essential to any growing startup. Period.

There has to be focus on the scalability of your current processes if there is going to be any shred of hope for their success in the near future, as the nature of a growing business is just that... it grows.

However, it is imperative that your systems and processes are flexible, as there isn't a single process you can put in place today that won't need to be tweaked tomorrow. No, I don't mean implementing vague and general "suggestions" for the way you run your business... I mean Structured Adaptability.

Tags: process, procedure, system, structured adaptability, organization

The Launch of TUSL - The Ultimate Sports List

Lucas Cole — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 00:00:00 EDT

Congratulations Tom Walsh and TUSL for your successful launch this week. What a beautiful application and a great idea from a guy who has poured his heart into this concept for the past 14 years. Compiling a iist of 150 (out of 1000's mind you) of the greatest sports rivalries, venues, locations, and everything esle sports related, Tom has created The Ultimate Sports List.

Tags: tusl, the ultimate sports list, sports, list, cincinnati, cincinnati enquirer, enquirer, tom walsh, rivalries, application, entrepreneur

CW+ Web Walkthrough â�� RSS Feed Readers

Lucas Cole — Mon, 24 May 2010 00:00:00 EDT

Ever wonder what the deal is with that little orange box with the curved lines up in the right hand corner of most web pages? Hear someone say “RSS feed” and have no idea what they’re talking about? Good news. We’re gonna sort that out for ya.
Tags: rss, feeds, feedburner, google reader, help, tips, tricks, beginner, advice

CW+Web Walkthrough - Bookmarking

Lucas Cole — Mon, 17 May 2010 00:00:00 EDT

You say tomAYto, I say tomAHto.

That's actually a very important aspect of the web you need to understand before we can move on. Why?

Because I say "bookmark" you say "favorite."

In some way, bookmarking, favoriting, subscribing, liking, and tagging are all generally the same concept. They are all used to keep track of stuff on the web. Kind of like a glorified post-it-note system in cyberspace.

Tags: walkthrough, tips, tricks, help, beginner, bookmark, bookmarking, delicious, delicio.us, delicous.com, continuous web, cw

Intelligent Design vs. Failing Forward

Lucas Cole — Wed, 12 May 2010 00:00:00 EDT

I read an article shared by @chrisbrogan this morning about a certain CEO's willingness to fail and his exuberance about the opportunity, insights, and education each failure presents. The article (read it on edwardboches.com) got me thinking alot about the concept of failing forward and how pervasive this approach seems to be these days.

I tend to be a bit more on the planning, strategizing, and preparing end of the spectrum on this debate, so I must say my opinion is a bit biased. However, over the last 2 years or so I have learned, mostly from my good friend @iamthejoshua that a willingness to try and fail is a virtue I don't readily have in my repetoir. Many of our greatest accomplishments were achieved under the most
Tags: design, devseo, chris brogan, joshua allen, intelligent design, failing forward, designers, inspiration, twitter, continuous web, cincinnati

For Designers: Establishing Perspective (The Basics)

Lucas Cole — Mon, 10 May 2010 00:00:00 EDT

From PSDTuts+

Read Full Article Here

Refresher course for the inner designer in us all. PSDTuts+ walks you through how perspective can shape the creation of your art, giving some great simple tips and tricks that most of us learned in 3rd grade art class. But for anyone doing logo work, creating icons, or designing 3D elements in the web space, it never hurts to review these basic principles of perspective.

Tags: psd, photoshop, design, designer, skills, tips, tricks, hints, resources, tools, web design, 3d design, logo design, continuous web

For Developers: 10 Sites You Need To Bookmark

Lucas Cole — Mon, 10 May 2010 00:00:00 EDT

From catswhocode.com

Read the full artcile here

Here are a couple more tools to add to your tool box. Catswhocode.com was nice enough to pass these nuggets of greatness on and we want you to have them as well. Below is a list of the 10 sites suggested. Have a look... and have fun.

Format Mysql Dates

http://www.mysqlformatdate.com

Find Script Tags

http://scriptsrc.net Tags: developers, tools, tricks, hints, tips. mysql, javascript, ems. pixels, smushit, twitter, .hta, access, css, software, web development, website, continuous web

On the Right Foot - Setting A Project Up For Success

Lucas Cole — Fri, 07 May 2010 00:00:00 EDT

From visitmix.com

Read the full article here

Yesterday our team was discussing project management principles in response to a project that was getting to be, let's just say, less than organized and very difficult to track. As we started hashing through the issues it became clear that the problem wasn't insufficient PM software, lack of functionality, confusion with collaboration tools, or cross departmental communicaton. The problem, simply put, was that the project was not set up from the start in a manner sufficient for the finish.

Ever hear, "begin with the end in mind?" Tags: project management, web development, organization, pm, filing, structure, continuous web, heartache, visitmix, cw

Budget Discrimination - Should You Set Minimum Budget Requirements With Your Clients?

Lucas Cole — Fri, 07 May 2010 00:00:00 EDT

From sam-brown.tc

Read the full artcile here

Oh how we long for the day when the general public will understand the cost of web development as much as they do, say, automobile or housing costs.

Think about it.

If on your office your sign says, "New GM Cars," you just had a budget conversation with your client. They understand that new, American made cars cost about $X more than used cars.

If you list, "New 4 Bedroom, 3 Bath homes on .5 acre lots," you just had a budget conversation with your client. Tags: budget, clients, entrepreneurship, entrepreneur, sales, clientele, continuous web,

CSS3 - More Useful Techniques

Lucas Cole — Thu, 06 May 2010 00:00:00 EDT

From Smashing Magazine

Read the full article here

Here's for you developers. Smashing Magazine just posted an article regarding some helpful CSS3 Techniques and did a great job going into detail about many of the new functions and features CSS3 offers. Quite frankly, after reading it I was even more excited about what these new advancements have to offer.

Here's an overview of the techniques described:

Semi-Transparent Coloring
Styling Backgrounds
- Multiple Backgrounds
- Placement
- Sizing
- Gradients
Rounded borders Tags: css3, html, css, html5, html 5, css 3, techniques, developers, code, new, continuous web, web development, user interface

Build a Rating System - Everything You Need

Lucas Cole — Thu, 06 May 2010 00:00:00 EDT

From NetTuts+

Read the full article here Tags: nettuts, nettuts+, web development, rating system, 5 star, continuous web, html, css, code

Analytics and Intent - Is your Social Media in line with your intention?

Lucas Cole — Wed, 05 May 2010 00:00:00 EDT

From: Mashable

Read full article here

Tweeting. Posting. Updating. Sharing. Retweeting. So much social media-ing to do, so little time. Breathe. Ask yourself why? Why are you tweeting? Why are you sharing links?

"Because you have to, right? Everyone uses social media."

Wrong. What is your intention? Are you using social media to drive sales? Are you trying to expand the reach of your brand? How about customer service? Community bulding? Tags: social media, analytics, tracking, behavior, continuous web

GoodZooma: Pitch your idea to change the world

Joshua Johnson — Tue, 04 May 2010 00:00:00 EDT

A new web application founded by our friend, Chad Reynolds, and co-founder, Chad Boettcher that uses innovation and co-creation methods to empower other to do good in the world. As stated on goodzooma.com: "Simply put, Goodzuma is a digital platform where organizations post Challenges that need your help. Blurring the line between "crowdsourcing" and "co-creation," Goodzuma starts with a simple idea (called a Pitch) and gives others the chance to build on it. Even if you do not want to create a Pitch, you can help other people with their pitches."

Take a look at these videos for the first few campaigns and sign up to start changing the world.

Tags: united way, challenge, ideas, social good, cincinnati, chad reynolds, goodzooma

Managing Expectations: Helping web companies effectively communicate with their clients

Joshua Johnson — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:00:00 EDT

Expectations are difficult, if not impossible to manage. Some believe it is better to keep all expectations low, so there's virtually no risk of failing. Others believe the opposite, that they should set the expectation bar high and falling just short, instad of setting it low and becoming mediocre. With clients, it's not a science to determine which method fits best, so often the best policy is consistency. What ever you do or say to your client, be consistent. If you're NOT an SEO firm, then don't pretend to be one with another client. We've been burned on this before. Unless you've recently hired someone who specializes in SEO, be consistent with your message, making it clear who you are and what you do.

As CEO of a web services company (Mindbox Studios), I have learned the hard way how important expectation management is to your business and clients. The method will never be perfect, but over communication is always better
Tags: project management, business, expectations, service, clients, communication, mindbox studios, risk, failure, weaknesses, team

HR for small web companies: Hiring creatives...period.

Joshua Johnson — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 00:00:00 EDT

There is often a chasm between designers (the real creatives) and those running the business (the real businessmen). The real creatives are often thought of as the right-brained crazies, whose ideas come ironically from left field. And, conversely, the real businessmen are dubbed the left-brained, Excel spreadsheet geeks with a strong sense of order. Organizations spend a lot of HR dollars finding these types of individuals to fill very specific roles, hopefully balancing the teeter-totter of personalities.

As a small business, we can’t afford the luxury of hiring personalities. We need true creatives in all departments of our company, or failure is most definitely on the horizon.

Our friend, Todd Henry of Accidental Creative (@toddhenry), shared with us a while back, that he believes all problem so
Tags: accidental creative, todd henry, small businesses, design, human resources, startups, left brain, right brain, meyers-briggs, problem solving, creatives, finance, business development, personalities

Opportunists vs. Romantics: Why some businesses are worth talking about

Joshua Johnson — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 00:00:00 EDT

Building a business is hard to do. If it were easy everyone would do it, right? It's even harder to build a business you're not passionate about. Education isn't entirely necessary either. Most of the education curve can be learned with thousands of hours of on-the-job training (see Outliers by Malcolm Gladwells). However, it's nearly impossible to build a business worth telling your friends about, if it doesn't inspire you everyday. It is my belief that the best viral businesses and ideas are those built out of a deep passion. I call these people and teams, Romantics. Without a romantic connection with your business, you're an Opportunist. This doesn't mean you're bad or that being an Opportunist is necessarily a negative term, quite the contrary. Tags: entrepreneurs, passion, malcom gladwell, scott belsky, startup, small business, ideas, opportunity

The Project Plateau

Lucas Cole — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 00:00:00 EDT

From: 5 Tips for making Ideas Happen, Smashing Magazine, 4/21/10

Read the full article here

It's a no brainer that this is one of the biggest hurdles in any project. You get to that point where everything starts to get real muddy, heavy, bogged down. Little changes need to be made. Little tasks need to be delegated. Communication gets mixed up.

Welcome to the project plateau.

It is extremely tempting to jump to a new, sexy, exciting idea at this time. But whatever you do, DON'T JUMP!

We've found the following to be very helpful during this difficult time:

Schedule more frequent, regularly occuring meetings with the client to add accountability
Dive into the project with the full team (get everyone involved)

CW+Meetup: Tony Alexander

Joshua Johnson — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 00:00:00 EDT

It's that time again!! This month is our 1 YEAR ANNIVERSARY!! But, we're celebrating it next month :-) Last month, Scott Avera told us his many stories and shared his wisdom from WinZip. We enjoyed the follow up conversation at the bar after the event. You should try and join us next time.

This month, Tony Alexander will share his story. Tony co-founded Traveler's Joy (travelersjoy.com) in 2004 and is currently in travel mode and working on several new projects from the road. Tony took the usual professional route of dressing up as ScoobyDoo for six years at King's Island, to Andersen Consulting in the late '90s, to independent strategy consulting, and, finally, to the wonderful world of the Internet startup. He thinks going the reverse route may have been more fun. Tags: inspiration, motivation, business, startup, tony alexander, traveler's joy, meetup, continuous web, cw, entrepreneur, designer, developer

CW+Meetup (Portland) - Telling the Story of Your Start-up w/ Jonathan Collins (Epipheo Studios)

Lauren Russell — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:00:00 EDT

Jonathan Collins, creative director of Epipheo Studios, is speaking at the April meetup about storytelling. Epipheo Studios creates epiphany-producing videos for the web, working with plenty of impressive clients like Google (Wave), Yelp, and (rumored) RSS.com. They are visual storytellers of the youtube era, translating a seemingly complicated web concept into a short, sweet, informative, and fun viewer experience. People get it. Jon will be sharing his creative storytelling suggestions with the Continuous Web community, a great opportunity to gain insight into his methods.

Tags: cw+meetup, portland, web entrepreneurs, networking, event, epipheo studios, jonathan collins, stories, storytelling, yelp, google wave, videos, youtube, joshua johnson

Map Off

Lauren Russell — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 00:00:00 EDT

I never thought I'd need to use any other map API. Google Maps has been our go-to every time. Then, as with all APIs, the boiling point was reached this week. Google Maps API only offers https access to their Premier API. In other words, our client's secure banking site couldn't get rid of the "nonsecure items" alert unless they dumped the map or paid at least $10,000 per year.
Tags: google, google maps, apis, bing, bing maps, comparison, maps

CW+Meetup (Portland) - Entrepreneuriality: 2 Perspectives

Lauren Russell — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

Two web entrepreneurs, Joshua Johnson and Ron Sheridan, will be telling their very different stories this week at the first formatted Continuous Web Portland meetup. Joshua is a partner at Be Creative in Cincinnati, Ohio, has founded several web startups, and works with web creatives on a daily basis in the midwest. Ron is also a serial web entrepreneur, having established himself locally in the industry, and will be talking about his newest endeavor rss.com.

Tags: cw+meetup, portland, web entrepreneurs, networking, event, rss, midwest, joshua johnson, ron sheridan

CW+Meetup Cincinnati- Scott Avera "Entrepreneur Challenge"

Joshua Johnson — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

We're hosting another evening meetup event on March 24th. A few weeks ago we had Chad Reynolds talk about Co-Creation and how design is leading innovation in the digital space. We really enjoyed hearing his story and presentation. This month we have another special guest, and extremely experienced and insightful entrepreneur, Scott Avera.

Tags: meetup, march, scott avera, winzip, angel investor, entrepreneur challenge, pitch

NKU EI Reality Check Business Plan Competition Keynote - Guy Kawasaki

Joshua Johnson — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

Guy Kawasaki of Apple, Garage.com, Alltop.com fame spoke at the NKU Entrepreneurship Institute Reality Check Business Plan Competition on January 29, 2010 via Skype from his office in Palo Alto!

Tags: business plan, guy kawasaki, northern kentucky university,

Beta for Business

Lauren Russell — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:00:00 EDT

"In beta" is a phrase heard often in the software and web world, although it's meaning seems to be underestimated. When software is built, and after the internal test phase ("alpha"), the initial public test phase is entered ("beta"). This allows the owner of the software to obtain more information about the user experience, target demographic, and remaining bugs. In this exciting age of web growth and new sites and web toys in the news constantly, it's likely that many of the sites we use daily are in beta. Finding and testing the newest tools is fun, but using beta sites for business should be a very deliberate decision.

While there are many reasons to reconsider the newest, coolest beta site for your business, there are 2 that deserve the most emphasis: stability and security.

Tags: beta, security, google wave, stability, new technology

Continuous Web (Portland) Meetup

Lauren Russell — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:00:00 EDT

Continuous Web is headed to Portland, Oregon. The group will meetup on February 24th at Lucky Lab in Southeast (Hawthorne) for introductions and to discuss goals, interests, and future meetup topics.

Our primary goal is to create and maintain a collaborative learning and networking environment. Future meetups will focus on different topics that will help us learn one another. The seating location and end time of the meeup will be live on twitter.

Tags: cw+meetup, portland, web technology, meetup.com, designers, developers, entrepreneurs, social media, internet marketing, networking, event

Continuous Web (Indianapolis) Meetup

Joshua Johnson — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:00:00 EDT

Continuous Web is launching it's first group in Indianapolis this month, a growing group of Midwest web professionals. The group will meetup on February 16th at MoJoe's Coffeehouse downtown Indianapolis,

We thought web professionals in Indianapolis should be able to experience the same growth and flavor from a meetup as we do in CIncinnati. We have planned to talk about the Red Zone, but maybe we'll just talk about what Indianapolis wants from a web meetup group instead. I'm looking forward to meeting new web creatives that are excited about building great applications, designs, and businesses.

Tags: cw+meetup, indianapolis, web technology, meetup.com, designers, developers, entrepreneurs, social media, internet marketing, networking, event

Homeowners Insurance Alternative to Apple Care

Ben Crawford — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:00:00 EDT

For those who don't know Apple care, it is the insurance plan that Apple tries to sell to you as a no-brainer sex product that will "save you money."

This last week I* discovered a product through our homeowners insurance.
It is a policy that insures your home computers that you can simply add on to your regular policy.

Tags: mac, iphone, insurance, apple care, apple, guest post

Cyber-Darwinism and the Music Beast

Lauren Russell — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 00:00:00 EDT

After the aging news industry's "war" with Google over paid news content a few months ago, last month brought another dinosaur to the headlines, the music industry. In the event that you missed it, I'll quickly recap. A woman convicted of illegally downloading 24 songs from the internet has had her sentence reduced from 2 million dollars to about $54,000. In other news, the RIAA has decided to target ISPs instead of individual downloaders. On the other side of the internet, people are paying millions to create a viral campaign. This has been such a tragedy to the artists that have struggled through this transition. The music industry just can't seem to catch on.

Tags: music industry, last.fm, reverbnation, itunes, myspace

Five Fitness Tools in Touch With the 21st Century

Matthew Gartland — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:00:00 EDT

What do Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Biz Stone, Mark Zuckerberg, and Matt Mullenweg all have in common?

They're all geeks - wildly successful and accomplished geeks! Tags: guest post, healthy, lifestyle, design, healthy lifestyle design, technology, 2010, fitbit, spark people, spark, people, food scanner, daily burn, health, health central, withings

CSS Chatter-In The Eyes of The Becoder!

Chris Costanza — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:00:00 EDT

Welcome back to CSS Chatter! Now there are some beautiful things in this world, but can code even be categorized as one of them? Well it is all in the eyes of the becoder! Is it your goal to have clean, organized, professional, and beautiful CSS code? Here are a few tips for CSS beautification. I also threw in some practical optimization tips for fun.

Tags: css chatter, css, css readability, css optimization, clean, organized, css beauty, beautiful code

Age of the Avatar

Lauren Russell — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 00:00:00 EDT

In the wake of the attention surrounding the recently released movie Avatar and the soon-to-be released move The Last Airbender, let us very briefly reflect on the word "avatar" throughout history.

The Sanskrit word, "avatar" refers to a human vessel for a god, or an incarnation. The word was commonly used in connection with Vishnu, a Hindu god that frequently took to human form. Over time, the word made it's way through literary circles, often used to depict a metaphorical form a human may take. It began to gain momentum within the gaming world of the eighties, in reference to the form a player takes while playing, often a game piece or a role. In 1986 it entered the web plane through its use in an online game called "Habitat", and the adoption of the term by Second Life solidified it's presence on the web.

Tags: avatars, web presence, personal branding

Interview with Author, Bill Buxton: Sketching User Experiences

Joshua Johnson — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:00:00 EDT

In November 2009 I met Bill Buxton at the Future of Web Design Conference in New York City- hosted by Carsonified. He had listeners on the edge of their seats.

New York City was overwhelming- absolutely beautiful. Jonathan Poma (@pomajp) and I drove from Cincinnati to day prior to make it to the Carsonified FOWA Conference, Future of Web Design. The tickets we had were virtually free through a Twitter contest we won. Our expectations were high to say the least. What an opportunity to go and learn, meet some cool people, and head back to Cincinnati with more earth shattering ideas. I don’t know if we came back with any new ideas, but we did meet someone worth mentioning. The best part, I had no idea who I was talking to for most of the 30 minute conversation.

Listen to the Interview with Bill Buxton

Tags: bill buxton, book, user interface, design, education, user experience, innovation, fowa, fowd, new york city, conference, road trip, joshua johnson, jonathan poma, interview, podcast

Two-Faced? Get Harvey Dent out of your business (your life)

Joshua Johnson — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 00:00:00 EDT

Are you one-dimensional? In this post I will discuss the seduction of the two-faced entrepreneur.

I'm guilty. That's not self-defamation, just the truth. It took me many years to discover who I was and what that meant for my businesses and the rest of my life. So for the first 36 months of being an entrepreneur, a web entrepreneur, I was the dubious yet zealous creative that tried to do anything, praying something would stick and shoot me into the stratosphere of tech fame. Public Announcement, I’m not famous, and I have come to realize that the goal to be wealthy and famous is the very motivation that can destroy me.

Tags: batman, harvey dent, two-faced, business, entrepreneur, american dream, identity, purpose, dreams, family, friends, wealth, fame

CW+ Startup Spotlight: Share Some Sugar

Jonathan Poma — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 00:00:00 EDT

Keara Schwartz (a local entrepreneur and part of our cw+ community) beta launched a web-based platform for sharing with your community.

Tags: share, some, sugar, share some sugar, local, spotlight, entrepreneur, cincinnati, keara, schwartz, keara schwartz, neighbor, neighborhood, community, sharing, borrow, borrowing

CSS Chatter - What's In A Name?

Chris Costanza — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 00:00:00 EDT

When it comes to CSS coding their seems to be two extremes; the messy coder and the perfectionist coder. The messy coder is the type of person that codes on the fly and picks random names for his files and for the classes and id’s in his style sheet. This coder may code fast but they spend twice as long making changes in the long run and it is impossible for anyone else to decipher their code!

Examples:

css filename: cool_styles_by_me.css

class name: .ticktickboom { }

id name: #bigsquare { }
Tags: css, user interface, css chatter, file naming, class names, id names, user experience

Ignite Cincinnati -- It did just that

Jonathan Poma — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 00:00:00 EDT

Last November I was lucky enough to score a cheap ticket to FOWD in New York City. I didn't want to make the trip alone, so @iamthejoshua came with me. Let's just say that it was an amazing experience. Not only did we get to hear what some of the leading minds in the digital space have to say about what to expect in the future, but we were lucky enough to score some free passes to the Web 2.0 Expo and IgniteNYC.

We couldn't have been more excited...or more curious. Of course we knew what the #w2e was, but we had no idea what igniteNYC was.
Tags: ignite, ignitecincinnati, ignitenyc, nyc, cincinnati, new york city, fowd, future of web design, web 2.0, web2expo, w2e, web 2.0 expo, digital, web, social, presentation, o'reilly, tim, tim o'reilly, cincytech, cincy, tech, know, theater, know theater

CW+Meetup: Chad Reynolds January 19, 2010

Joshua Johnson — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 00:00:00 EDT

Web Creatives,

It's 2010 and time for another evening meetup with Continuous Web (formerly WEMUP). Our guest is Chad Reynolds, founder of Fanattik.com, an innovative t-shirt company headquartered in Cincinnati. Tagging on our vertical niche conversations from Q4 of 2009, this company is definitely doing just that. They found a problem, provided a solution that's relevant and easy to buy, and then developed a successful business out it. The t-shirt business isn't new, but there aren't many companies doing it quite like Chad is. He has a great story and plenty of successes to back up his talk. You don't want to miss this one.

Tags: meetup, chad reynolds, sharesomesugar, january, redtree

The Red Zone: The challenges of the final 20%

Joshua Johnson — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 00:00:00 EDT

The Red Zone refers to the final stretch when building your web business.

Many times it's in the Red Zone we lose energy, passion, and focus and then quickly start calling the wrong plays in our business. Nevertheless, the Red Zone is our segue to sales! Our ability to finish, means we're ready for real customers. I want to discuss the challenges entrepreneurs face in the Red Zone like discontentment, dissatisfaction, and even depression. I firmly believe our character is built here, not in the starting, but the finishing. Anyone can start something and call themselves an entrepreneur, but very few actually finish. Is your business in the Red Zone, but it feels like there’s 80 yards to go and not 20? You have the classic case of the Entrepreneedmorefocusitus. There is hope and there is a remedy.

Tags: red zone, finish, entrepreneur, product development, cw+breakfast, challenges, web business

CSS Chatter - Premeditated CSS

Chris Costanza — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 00:00:00 EDT

“Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up.” A. A. Milne

I love that quote because it’s so simple it almost seems ridiculous. Yet we spend so little time planning at the start of a project. Planning when it comes to any type of coding is not only smart, it is necessary. CSS is no exception to this rule.

Since this entry is the first article of a series called CSS chatter, I feel that we need to obviously start at the beginning. Let's chat about the basics. If you are like me, when you start a new project it is so fresh and exciting that you just want to dive in and bring it to life. This is when a little self-restraint is in order. I would love to have the time back that I have spent because of poor planning on my part. Hopefully, these tips will help you save some time on your next CSS project.

How are some ways to plan out your CSS strategy for a project? Tags: css chatter, css, css strategy, planning, organizing, time saving

CW+Breakfast January 13, 2010

Joshua Johnson — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 00:00:00 EDT

Happy New Year, web creatives! We're hosting another CW+Breakfast (formerly WEMUP+Breakfast) for web professionals in Greater Cincinnati. This is a morning networking event on January 13th at the Redtree Gallery in Oakley. We'll meet for one hour and talk about SEO myths and magic, and how saturation is changing the way you market your website.

Bring your laptop, smart phone, and pretty face this event- be on time! A $1 donation will go toward bagels and coffee.
Tags: events, breakfast, cw, cincinnati, january 2010

Jailbreak it: my guide to the getting the (absolute) MOST from your iPhone

Jonathan Poma — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 00:00:00 EDT

10 Quick Steps to get the most from your iPhone. Lots of people jailbreak their phones, but few get the most out of it. I have outlined how to quickly optimize your iPhone to get the most out of it. THIS WILL REQUIRE YOU TO JAILBREAK YOUR PHONE (please be aware, I covered some necessary reboots, but i may have left some out...this is all from memory). Should any problems occur, you can simply restore your iPhone in iTunes and Apple will never know that your phone was jailbroken (e-mail me at http://scr.im/pomajp or send me a message at http://twitter.com/pomajp if you need help doing this). Every step should be covered. Enjoy your amazing ‘new’ iPhone!

Tags: iphone, jailbreak, overboard, cydia, iphone3gs, jailbroken iphone, backgrounder, blackra1n, proswitcher, irealquicksms, qtweetr, sinfuliphone, sinfuliphonerepo, tether, snow, winterboard

Take advantage of your customers

Jonathan Poma — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 00:00:00 EDT

So i was going to try and cover a lot more. I had all these ideas that I had been working on, and I was just waiting for time to sit down and have some time to myself where I could put everything into a logical format and turn that into a blog post. Then, as I started to do this, my first idea developed into what i believe to be a worthwhile blog topic all in its own. The idea: take advantage of your customers. Seriously. Let me explain:

Tags: twitter, waze, facebook, crowds, crowdsourcing, crowd, sourcing, google, goog411, recaptcha

Facebook Privacy: A Cautionary Tale

Lauren Russell — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Once upon a time I created a Facebook account. I connected with friends and family around the world, and occasionally shared stories and pictures. There was a balance in my network, but it was inevitable that the balance should be questioned. As I shared more and commented on the posts of others, my post responses grew in number and my network started to meet each other virtually.

Tags: facebook, social network, professional, security, privacy

Google Chrome: The designer's new browser

Joshua Johnson — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 00:00:00 EDT

On Tuesday, I, and millions of web users around the world were notified that the Google Chrome web browser was available for MAC. Like any curious web user, I installed the browser reluctantly, not expecting much in return for my generous download statistic. After many years of fancy fads, trends, and virtual widgets, it's hard to impress me- that includes my own work. However, the Google Chrome web browser for MAC was an incredible experience. After 5 full days of use, it has replaced my Mozilla Firefox and Safari browsing habits, and made me a believer in Google again.

Tags: google chrome, browsers, design

Turkey Twitter aggregates thankful tweets worldwide- I love #thanksgiving

Joshua Johnson — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT

This week a new Twitter app launched in perfect rhythm with the holiday season. TurkeyTwitter.com is a simple application that aggregates your thankful tweets and publishes them for the world to see. The app has a few visual data graphics showing thankful trends and the number of thankful tweets per hour. As soon as I heard about this app, I was immediately a fan.

Why I love it so much:

*It caused me to stop my busy life for one moment and remember the things I'm thankful for :) See my #turkeytwitter tweet on my profile @iamthejoshua
*Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday
*It's easy to use and cool to see what the world is thankful for this year
*Simple design and user experience Tags: reviews, thanksgiving, twitter, vertical, social app

Service Solution for iPhone users on AT&T (satire)

Lauren Russell — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT

After grudgingly deciding to swap my faithful Verizon service for AT&T in order to get an iPhone, we've all had our regretful moments. I have blushed on my end of several dropped conferences with clients, ushering an apology before attempting to remember where we left off. I would like to propose a solution. I would like to move all company communication to the Skype app for iPhone. This way we can continue to get the benefit of the iPhone experience and improve communication flow.

You may think that I overlooked the fact that Skype would work on the 3G network and therefore have the same breaking point. I did not, however. I realize there will be some limitations, but I think that the continually growing coverage of wifi networks could help us stay connected. We would get flawless coverage in our homes, at the office, and at most coffeehouses. Tags: iphone, skype, att, verizon, 3g, satire

What Google Wave means for my inner monologue

Lauren Russell — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

What would you bet on for your most frequently used keyboard keys? How many times do you revise an email, text, or IM before you hit send? With Google Wave, people can type in real time. That means that your colleagues are going to see your first draft. Think about that for a second.

What does this mean? Mostly it means that platform users will have something new to consider when communicating online. Since your actions will be live and replayable, we had all better brush up on our grammar. Even their amazing new autocorrect can't catch everything.

My prediction: This new visual conversation could make for some interesting and hilarious replays.

Tags: google wave, communication