BirkeyBlog

Content Management System

rbirkey — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 21:10:12 +0000

Have you ever wondered what a CMS is? It stands for Content Management System. OK, so what does that mean?

Watch What is a CMS? over at WebSmart TV

Triumph Motorcycle Gang!

rbirkey — Mon, 31 May 2010 14:49:03 +0000

The official Triumph Motorcycle Gang has begun!

Dale Craft and his 2009 Triumph America

Saturday, May 29, 2010 my friend Dale Craft and I visited the Triumph Demo Ride day at Motor Cycle Center in Villa Park, Illinois. We signed up for the first demo ride of the day, and left the parking lot with a group at 9:30 AM, Dale riding a 2010 Triumph America, and me riding a 2010 Triumph Thunderbird.

When we returned 45 minutes later, Dale and I met with John Acton of MCC, and took a look at a 2009 Triumph America they still had in stock. Another hour later, it was Dale’s. Funny thing is, it is black, just like my 2008 Triumph Bonneville.

So, yesterday on Sunday, May 30, 2010, we took a 1.5 hour ride together, ending at the Brown Cow in Forest Park. As we sat enjoying our milk shakes, we jokingly established the Triumph Motorcycle Gang… the founding first 2 members! To join, you must ride a black Triumph!

Our maiden run:

West on Chicago Ave. in Oak Park, through River Forest to 1st Ave. South on 1st to I-55 heading West. We exited at Mannheim/45 going South. We took the Archer Ave exit and followed Route 171 north through a number of towns. At Joliet Road we headed west again over to Mannheim, north through LaGrange to Cermak/22nd, then East to 1st Ave. Then we headed North to Roosevelt Rd, east to Des Plaines Ave, North into Forest Park. At Madison we headed East into the business district and parked across the street from the Brown Cow!

One Year Later

rbirkey — Thu, 13 May 2010 15:06:26 +0000

My father, Del Birkey passed away one year ago today.

My family and I miss him… my Mom does especially.

Here are some photos and captions in his memory.

[View with PicLens]

Missing Girl

rbirkey — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 13:39:19 +0000

Missing: Sheneka Cole

A friend and client of Headstand Media, Joel Hamernick, Executive Director of Sunshine Gospel Ministries is seeking to spread the word on a report of a missing 6-year old girl, from the Woodlawn neighborhood of Chicago, where Sunshine is located and serves. Sunshine Gospel is organizing a search today, April 7, 2010 at 500 E. 61st St. Contact them at their website or call 773-493-0656.

WBBM Radio Webpage: http://www.wbbm780.com/6-year-old-girl-missing-from-park/6748965

MISSING CHILD REPORT

Police are seeking the public’s help in finding a 6-year-old girl who was last seen playing in Washington Park Tuesday. Sheneka Cole, 6, was last seen Tuesday playing at the south end of the park, at 510 E. 60th St.. She was reported missing around 8:05 p.m. Tuesday. Sheneka is 4 feet tall and 97 pounds, with black hair, brown eyes and a medium complexion. She was last seen wearing a lime-green Rocawear shirt and pink jeans. A concerned resident said via e-mail that a team of volunteers searched Washington Park for Shenka Tuesday night. Anyone with information is asked to call Calumet Area Chicago Police detectives, at (312) 747-8274.

WebSmart TV: How to Market on the Web

rbirkey — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 14:42:10 +0000

WebSmart TV video: How to Market on the Web

The web guru’s at Headstand Media have released their latest video in the WebSmart TV blog series where each video explains the basics of the web in about a minute. The latest video is titled: “How to Market on the Web.” You won’t want to miss this one because this video contains the most valuable and critical information shared by the web marketing experts at Headstand Media to date!

The video covers 5 simple principles to marketing on the web:

Ideate
Define Back-End Paradigms
Cultivate Cross-Media Benchmarks
Curb Your Infomediaries
Execute Leading-Edge Initiatives

Headstand Media makes a strong case for why these principles and steps are so mission-critical and important in today’s web 2.0 world!

Go watch it, and then share it with your friends in the business world who really need to know this information!

What is WordPress?

rbirkey — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 15:10:19 +0000

The Headstand Media team has posted a new video at WebSmart TV answering the question: “What is WordPress?”

I’ve been using WordPress for a couple years now as a website content management system (watch WebSmart TV for: What is a CMS?), with great success. Not only does BirkeyBlog run on WordPress, but so do many other family and friends sites including:

And many others that I have been involved with at Headstand Media such as:

Not only is it a great tool for the reasons mentioned in the WebSmart video, it is also extremely easy to learn and use on an every day basis. Everyone I have demonstrated WordPress to has been able to learn how to use it well, and have experienced growth and benefits to themselves and their business or organization as a result. So far, I have never had someone abandon it, or experience great difficulty because of using it. It’s simply a great tool, and perhaps on of the web’s best kept secrets.

Ministries of Mercy

rbirkey — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:45:07 +0000

I just started reading a book by Timothy J. Keller called Ministries of Mercy: The call of the Jericho Road as a part of a new strategy group at my church, formed to explore the biblical principles and practice of the call to show mercy to others, especially exhibited in the life and teachings of Jesus.

The book Prologue focuses on the parable of the Good Samaritan as found in Luke 10:25-37 and answers the question, “Who is my neighbor?” as “the one who showed mercy.” This parable of Jesus raises several questions, the first about the necessity of mercy: is showing mercy really a necessity to being a Christ follower? And secondly, about the scope of ministry… does he really mean literally anyone is my neighbor? And thirdly, the question as to the motive of mercy – do we perform it out of duty or does it overflow from hearts of real compassion?

The Introduction unpacks the question, “Who is my neighbor?” further. Keller cites statistics (valid through 1997) of the following groups:

The Growth of Poverty
The Homeless
The Working Poor
The Children of Poverty
The Youthful Poor
The New Ethnics
The Blue-collar Poor
Gray America
The Sick
The Prisoners

The statistics are overwhelming even though out of date.

Keller concludes:

We do indeed live on the Jericho Road (see parable)
The church of Jesus Christ must squarely face its responsibility for the neighbors lying in the road (see parable)

“Only the ministry of the church of Jesus Christ, and the millions of “mini-churches” (Christian homes) throughout the country can attack the roots of social problems.”

“Only Christians, armed with the Word and the Spirit, planning and working to spread the kingdom and righteousness of Christ, can transform a nation as well as a neighborhood as well as a broken heart. That is what the rest of this book is about.”

Stay tuned…

ROI on Social Media?

rbirkey — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:04:34 +0000

This video was posted a few months ago on YouTube in the Socialnomics channel. Although it is not based on an authoritative study, it does gather together a lot of facts that help to put social media in context, revealing the power and potential of investing time, money and energy in it as compared to other forms of traditional media and marketing.

I especially like the question: “What’s the cost of doing nothing?”

WebSmart TV in the News

rbirkey — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:26:40 +0000

Headstand Media received a nice boost today on Ruth Ratney’s REEL CHICAGO website (Thank You!). The article entitled “Videos give “average Joes” basic web knowledge - Headstand Media boutique produces terminology Vblogs“ was written by Chris Shogren-Thompson based upon interviews with Benjamin Nelson, Headstand’s Creative Director, and background research. The article focuses on Headstand Media’s recent soft launch of WebSmart TV, a vlog site that delivers a series of videos that explain the basics of the web in about a minute, to average business people.

We did ask REEL how they found out about WebSmart TV, and the best we can tell, it had to do with some online searching using keywords such as: chicago and video. Seems like our SEO knowledge may have helped a bit here!

I would just like to clarify a point mentioned in the article regarding McDonald’s (This clarification has since been corrected on the ReelChicago.com website).

About McDonald's - New Corporate Website

Headstand Media does not design and maintain 200 of McDonald’s internal websites as the article reports. To date, Headstand Media has worked on, designed or re-designed about 20 of those 200+ internal sites and we are being asked to work on more of them every month that passes. However Headstand Media did design, produce and still helps to maintain McDonald’s public corporate website called About McDonald’s (http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com). If you’ve never visited it, you should check it out. There are lot’s of good stories about McDonald’s that we bet you never knew linked right on the home page, and the company historical timeline is a lot of fun to explore.

This site was designed and developed by Headstand Media in Day Software’s enterprise web content management system called Communique. The most recent version (v5.3) is referred to in the industry as CQ5. Headstand Media and STA Group are Day Software professional partners and intimately familiar with the underlying open source technologies, tools and frameworks it is built upon.

It should also be noted that if you “Google” the terms “CQ5 design” or “CQ5 development” you will find Headstand Media as a top result… worldwide (Please note that Day Software is an international firm headquartered in Basel, Switzerland)! That’s because Headstand Media also knows what they are doing when it comes to SEO (search engine optimization).

A Biblical Perspective on Helping the Poor

rbirkey — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 22:24:40 +0000

My nephew-in-law, Chris Horst works for Hope International, a Christian based micro-finance and micro-lending organization. He lives in Denver, and has a WordPress blog site called Smorgasblurb, and I just noticed this recent post as being particularly good. It’s called Monthly Musings: Cocaine Charity. I encourage you to check it out.