Gulo Solutions - Blog

Nice quote from Amazon's CEO

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 15:24:55 +0000

"Obsess over customers: when given the choice between obsessing over competitors or customers, always obsess over customers. Start with customers and work backward." - Jeff Bezos

It's part of his video message to Zappo's:

Lunch...

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 03:22:35 +0000

Today I had lunch with Chris Bonney at Vanguard Technology. We talked about some interesting things, primarily the use of test messaging at conferences. Is that something that is in the future or are we past text messages with smart phones and short message applications like Twitter. Thoughts?

Staying Busy

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:48:44 +0000

The Gulo team has been working feverishly on projects for the Chicago Photography Center, the Cruise Lines International Association, and the Pew Environmental Group.

We're also working on a couple new Gulo apps we think are really cool. Boardwiz is a dead-simple jobs board app which let's you add your very own revenue-generating jobs board to your website. And FleaPay is a hosted shopping cart that plugs right into your merchant account. Both will be ready soon. Stay tuned.

Are you tweeting? Be sure to follow us on twitter.

What do your users need to see?

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 21:11:41 +0000

Do your users really need to see every aspect of your website? The answer is, I don't think so. While Microsoft's Sharepoint is an extremely powerful tool, developers should be careful what they make visible to the world.

Yikes!:

Is your website ready.mobi?

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:16:33 +0000

Ready.mobi is a really great resource:

The ready.mobi testing tool evaluates mobile-readiness using industry best practices & standards. The free report provides both a score (from 1 to 5) and in-depth analysis of pages to determine how well your site performs on a mobile device.

Visit http://ready.mobi/ and test out your site.

You're using Google Docs forms, right?

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:19:43 +0000

At Gulo, most of our writing happens in Google Docs - it's simply the easiest way for us to share notes, collaborate on copy, and create spreadsheets - you know, the stuff we used to do in Microsoft Office. "But I don't have Gmail!" I hear someone in the back saying. Creating a Google account means filling out three fields and a captcha. It's worth your 25 seconds. Trust me.

Earlier this year, Google quietly released a feature that I don't see a ton of people taking advantage of - forms. And it's pretty darned easy:

Start with a spreadsheet to get the form, or start by creating the form and you'll get the spreadsheet automatically. Responses are automatically added to your spreadsheet.

Here's a sample survey. Took me two minutes:

Something that makes me really happy

Fri, 02 May 2008 20:00:28 +0000

Silicon Valley Insider deems Facebook applications useless. Ah the relief. Next up, deeming Facebook useless too.

Get our email newsletter

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 19:58:03 +0000

We sent out our monthly newsletter last Friday. If you missed it, you can still catch a glimpse. Are you subscribed for next month?

IT and your associations website

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 03:35:52 +0000

Ed. note: Here's a post I started and never finished...

The IT department shouldn't be in charge of your association's website. That is absolutely not IT's job. Let me explain.

IT (or Information Technology) is a fairly broad term but in general it covers software, data management systems, and network support. From server administration to network security to setting up email...that's IT.

Not long ago, member data was stored in a database or a client server application - systems which were implemented and hosted on-site; they lived on a computer in your server room. So it made sense for IT to "own" those systems and support them.

Those days are gone. Mature association management software (AMS) (or CRM, etc.) is hosted and supported by vendors and consultants. And that's a good thing. Between wifi, blackberries and supporting remote access, IT has enough to deal with.

Add a del.icio.us linkroll to your site

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 17:02:43 +0000

Homepage getting stale? Add a del.icio.us linkroll to your site. A what? If you're not familiar with del.icio.us, read this. Otherwise, proceed...

A linkroll is just a bit of code that takes your del.icio.us account and creates a self-updating feed of links that you can insert anywhere on your site. It's a great way to add value to your site and keep your homepage or news page content fresh and revolving. Here's how to get started:

Sign up for a del.icio.us account for your organization
Start posting industry-specific links to your account - anything you come across that might be of interest to your visitors. You can even post links to your own content.
Go to "settings" within your del.icio.us account and click on linkrolls (it's under the Blogging heading or fifth column).

The linkroll page gives you some display options such as how many links to display at a time, whether or not to display notes, etc. When you have the linkroll customized to your liking, you simply grab some automatically-generated javascript and insert it into your page.

I created an example here.