Domain7

Responsive Web is the New Black

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 13:49 -0800

Recently, Domain7 made a bold decision.

We’ve been talking about the centrality of the mobile web for a long time, and it was time to put our media queries where our mouth is. Domain7 is now actively developing every new site responsively, and responsive design is a standard offering on every proposal we put out.

Responsive websites are built on a flexible grid that shifts and adapts, depending on the device used to access it. A responsive site will scale just as gracefully for a smartphone as it does for a tablet or a desktop browser, and the user will never have to pinch, pull, or scroll to the right. It negates the need for a separate mobile site and means you only need to develop your site once, for all platforms.

In the last few weeks we’ve launched four responsive sites. Resize your desktop browser window to see the layout change depending on the width of the browser window.

Responsive web design is quickly gaining a following as one of the most practical, expedient and economical ways of building a site that is both backward compatible and future-proof.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)—the web standards organization—held its first developer conference in November 2011. Notice that the conference site, featuring major sponsors, Microsoft, AT&T, Adobe, and Nokia, features a responsive design.

For designers, one of the most exciting aspects of this approach is the prospect of leaving old Internet Explorer behind. Because of the proliferation of browsers and devices, the expectation that a website should look the same in every browser is highly unrealistic and practically impossible. Given that reasoning, it makes more sense to design a site to use the latest features of modern browsers, yet still provide an experience for older browsers which is appropriate to the capabilities of that browser.

To ensure this approach works well, regardless of the device, the focus becomes quality content that meets the needs of your audience: simplify, streamline and adapt.

Simplify and focus on key messages and user actions
Streamline content to optimize load times
Adapt the layout across a wide range of devices

Responsive web design represents a sea change in the way the web industry engages in building and designing sites. The change is akin to the adoption of web standards when everyone was building Flash sites and table-based layouts.

We used to talk of separate “mobile” and “desktop” sites. Now we talk about responsive sites and the open web platform. When you see a well designed responsive web site, you realize that it not only makes sense, it changes everything.

My thoughts: Growing without middle management

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 13:53 -0800

Today Domain7 was featured in the Globe and Mail’s “Challenge” series. We presented a team of experts with our current challenge of growing as a company, without introducing middle management.

It was a very cool opportunity to get thoughtful feedback on a relevant challenge. And the more we dig into it, the more we see this challenge as a great opportunity for our team.

I really appreciate the helpful advice from the article—a big thanks to each of the contributors. In the weeks ahead I’ll do a series of posts on our own approach to this challenge, but first I’ll reflect on the advice we were offered:

First, Greg Tricklebank, principal at Delta Partners, Ottawa.

Although I’m not sure I share your faith in the long term future of middle management in its current form (read what HBR has to say about it), I agree that maturing leadership roles will be important.

The distinction we’re hoping to make is that Leadership ≠ Management. We’re trying to keep leadership focused on areas of discipline, rather than on watching over people’s shoulders to see how much time they’re spending on Facebook.

In terms of developing our HR depth, I think that’s an excellent point. In a future post I’ll share our ideas around recruiting, but in short: we want to have great HR practices at Domain7, and the best way to do this is by filling our team with spectacular individuals.

Second, Hugh Arnold, adjunct professor of organizational behaviour at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto.

Your recommendation was focused around creating strong and flexible teams, and focusing on how they work together—rather than on “managers” in a traditional sense. I couldn’t agree with you more! This has become a cornerstone of our evolving plan. Our history and success are built on strong and dynamic teamwork. It’s a paradigm that fits very well with the nature of our work.

Your advice about establishing clarity of purpose and organizational goals is also important and helpful. We want to avoid chaos and confusion particularly with a team-based approach. Sometimes we succeed in this, but we’re regularly learning from mistakes.

Lastly, Leerom Segal, president and CEO of Klick Health, Toronto

Your advice to drop email for internal communication is an interesting idea—one we’ve been discussing here in the past few months. We’re currently using lots of tools that keep communication out of our inboxes: Basecamp, Highrise, Lighthouse, Google+ Hangouts, our Intranet, IM, etc. We’ve seen a significant decline in email for some of the quick and routine communications that used to clog our inboxes. We’re still looking for the email replacement for more long form communication between one or a few individuals—suggestions are welcome!

So in short, this has been really valuable and helpful as we reflect on the opportunity ahead. I’m excited about some of the innovative things our team is doing to tackle this head on. In the weeks ahead I’ll be sharing insights we’re gleaning on our journey. Hopefully we can learn from each other as we share our scars and victories along the way.

Globe & Mail photo

Super Bowl or #BrandBowl?

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:08 -0800

The National Football League may have its teams throughout the US, but football is popular on both sides of the border. The Canadian Football League’s Grey Cup is one of Canada’s most watched sporting events and the Super Bowl is a big deal here too.

Perhaps you were like me and went outside before the game to throw the pigskin around. Then, maybe you sat down in front of a huge television screen with some friends, pizza, chicken wings and malted-beverages. Also like me, you might have been keeping an eye on Twitter and Facebook and those ever-popular ads.

Yes, it was #BrandBowl Sunday and all eyes were on the big game: which would be the day’s best ad campaign?

Offline is online

The web, smartphones and social media have changed the advertising world. Brands need to bring more than celebrities and animated frogs doing something funny for 30 seconds to generate water-cooler chatter on Super Bowl Monday. Today it’s far more complicated.

Advertisers need to integrate traditional (TV, print and radio) advertising campaigns through social channels. They need to extend their reach across second (desktop and laptop), third (tablet) and fourth (smartphone) screens. An ad’s impact outlasts Super Bowl Monday with continued viewing on YouTube and sharing through social media outlets. Eli Manning will be back in training camp while people are still talking about Clint Eastwood’s emotive ‘Halftime In America’ ad.

Don’t believe me? This year, Super Bowl ads for Audi, Bridgestone, Hulu and General Electric all included Twitter hashtags while Budweiser drove traffic to Facebook pages. Coca Cola directed viewers to www.cokepolarbowl.com. With so many socially integrated ads, Twitter launched AdScrimmage—a dedicated site where fans can “Watch, vote and tweet your favorite Super Bowl® commercial”.

Brands can use celebrities and humour, but social and web integration is key to long-lasting and measurable campaigns—did someone say ROI?

A Canadian example

This year, Budweiser launched a Super Bowl ad campaign exclusive to the Canadian market. Budweiser’s film crew told two small town beer-league hockey teams they were making a documentary. While filming a game, 500 screaming ‘fans’ invaded the stadium, broadcasters announced the play-by-play, while mascots used t-shirt guns to shoot prizes into the crowd. The weekend-warrior players could hardly believe their eyes—it was a dream come true. The footage was turned into a Canada-only Super Bowl ad and drove fans to www.facebook.com/budweisercanada. Once there, fans could watch the ‘Flash Fans’ ad. Budweiser supported the campaign with Facebook ads, promoted Tweets and a #BudSuperBowlAd hashtag. The videos can also be viewed on the Budweiser website. Brilliant.

Offense, defense and special teams

Like New York Giants head coach Tom Coughlin and his offensive, defensive and special team game plans, marketers and agencies must ensure campaign elements are executed and integrated seamlessly––both offline and online.

Stories told through television, radio and print will direct users to spread the campaign on Twitter, engage extended versions on Facebook and YouTube, and interact with supporting content on landing pages and microsites.

Today’s sophisticated consumer and ‘webutante’ expects it ,and today’s marketer wouldn’t have it any other way. This degree of measurability and consumer interaction would have been unthinkable at the first Super Bowl in 1967.

Next year, millions will gather around televisions worldwide to watch the Super Bowl. It will probably draw a larger audience than this year’s record 111.3 million viewers (8.15 million Canadians tuned in). Again, fans will have their laptops, tablets and smartphones in-hand. We may also watch the game on a web and socially-integrated Smart TV. And again, fans will share highs and lows online. Who can blame us? It is the #BrandBowl after all.

Hurdles

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:43 -0800

There’s no question that, to be successful, web designers and developers have to continuously learn and refine their craft. The web is a very different place than it was five years ago, and what’s expected of us today is different than it was then. Learning on the job is a no brainer. But what is the most effective time to learn?

I was working on a fun personal project in Rails for a few minutes before dinner last night. In the time span of about 30 minutes a bunch of concepts, conventions, and principles that are essential to understanding Rails clicked. It was a serious turning point. I’ve been trying to learn Rails off and on for a few years, and nothing was really sticking. At that moment I understood that in most cases, I approach my work and my learning wrong: I train while I’m running the race.

Wikipedia says this about hurdling technique: Generally, the efficient hurdler spends the minimum amount of time and energy going vertically over the hurdle, thus achieving maximum speed in the horizontal race direction.

Designers and developers should approach projects like a well-trained hurdler: thoroughly equipped for the race, able to go from start to finish with ease, prepared and anticipating the hurdles he needs to jump without slowing down.

Since forever, I have instead approached projects like this: Run as fast as you can, and when you get to a hurdle, stop to analyze it and figure out how best to jump over it. I’ve always thought it was a good thing to learn during a project, and I’ve always enjoyed accepting challenges for the sake of learning them.

I think I was horribly wrong in this approach for two reasons:

It’s easier and faster to train/learn when you’re not already out of breath. If you’re trying to train in the middle of the race, you’re already tired from running. When I was learning Rails last night, I wasn’t in the middle of a project… it was at my leisure, in my own “gym”, and because of that my training was far more productive.
Anticipation alone isn’t enough for accurate estimation. You can look down the track and see all the hurdles, but you’re still going to make guesses at the level of effort to jump over them if you haven’t already done so in the past.

Given these reasons, there emerged a few practical outcomes for work:

Projects are not always the right place for training. Clients need you at your peak performance to run the race without stopping.
Set aside dedicated training time. If you’re unencumbered by deadlines, requirement documents, feedback cycles, etc., the learning process is vastly more productive.
To the best of your ability, only take projects where you’re familiar with the hurdles. Swallow your pride. Few projects will be completely exempt from challenges, but don’t take on something you have no previous experience with at all. The fun part of engaging in a challenge should be in the time you’ve set aside for training. Tackling a challenge unencumbered by the various aspects of a real-world project will free you up to be more creative, flexible and innovative.

Is Drupal Hard to Use?

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:54 -0800

Recently a prospective client mentioned she had heard Drupal is difficult to use, and asked to see a dummy Drupal backend to explore the interface.

It’s surprising how frequently this “Drupal is hard” myth pops up. True, Drupal is very robust compared to some simple Content Management Systems, but from a management standpoint, it’s super user-friendly and makes it nearly impossible to mess up your site.

I enlisted the help of my Drupal-savvy teammate Kevan to accomplish the task, and he one-upped me when he created this handy little video.

Without fail, once our clients see their websites in action they quickly learn just how easy Drupal is to use, but we thought we’d share Kevan’s tutorial with you, to settle any question in your mind.

The bottom line: Drupal is easy!

http://vimeo.com/34678196

Open Systems vs. Open Source

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 09:24 -0800

I often get asked about my philosophy on technology, and over the years my simple answer has always—confidently—been: “Open source!” According to the all-knowing font of wisdom (ahem, Wikipedia), Open Source is defined as: “practices in production and development that promote access to the end product’s source materials.”

This definition certainly holds true. But more recently, as we’ve been privileged to create websites and systems for a huge variety of clients, I’ve realized that we need broader terminology for our development philosophy.

Now my answer is: “I believe in Open Systems.”

I would define Open Systems as products that feature:

Open Source technologies. All foundational technologies—like application frameworks—are open source whenever possible.
Web Standards. The software is comprised of publicly vetted, web-standards-based technologies.
Integration. Software is architected towards integration—not lock-in—whenever possible
Transparent data. Data is exposed to technologists and non-technologists as much as security and budgets allow
100% customer-accessible code base
100% customer-owned data

Why is this important? Take the example of templating a website: In a Content Management System (CMS), templating looks at how the markup (HTML/CSS) combines with the deeper functionality of the CMS. In some cases, templating an open source CMS can be cumbersome, with specific nuances that are quite proprietary. Often, it’s challenging to do anything unique or different with the content and information stored in the CMS, without the significant technical debt of creating new templates.

A fantastic example of an open system for templating is the open source project, Symphony. Symphony’s content model is based on a standards-based data model of XML, and templating is also standards-based through XSL. Considering the non-proprietary way data is accessible and interoperable, I sometimes wonder whether other best-of-breed Open Source tools have lost the heart of Open Systems through the cumbersome and non-standard templating models.

Domain7 designer/developer, Stephen Bau is a leading contributor within the Symphony community. He is currently working on a project entitled xpathr to show how a standards-based approach to templating enables collaboration with teams, using best practices of software development. xpathr gives teams the ability to collaborate with code repositories in Git and co-solve development problems in the managed XML data store and the respective XSL template transform.

So where does that leave Domain7? I know we’ll continue to carefully scrutinize the Open Source tools we recommend, based on the open nature of their architecture. My hope is that the communities that govern Open Source projects embrace a standards and the Open System approach and that we’ll see content and client liberation through these tools.

Domain7 as Our Client Day

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 09:33 -0800

http://vimeo.com/34791676

On Friday we brought together the ENTIRE Domain7 team—across four time zones!—to plan for the future, and treat ourselves to the same strategy process we offer our clients. We used one giant Google Hangout for our large group gathering and then split off into teams to target specific topics.

As a business with offices across the country (a complete office in Washington, DC and team members in Halifax and Texas!) it was pretty amazing to bring everyone together, and to see how well it worked, thanks to some simple, free technology.

Plus, we’re pretty excited to implement all the big plans we dreamed up for Domain7!

Thanks to Kevan Gilbert for capturing some footage from the day.

Introducing KeyPunch

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 10:50 -0800

Like many companies, Domain7 deals with a lot sensitive information that needs to be shared securely across the entire organization. Wi-fi keys, social media passwords, analytics accounts, clients’ Content Management Systems (CMS)—on any given day our team members log in and out of at least a dozen online accounts, and every single one needs a user-name and password.

For some time, we puzzled over finding a centralized spot for all this information without blowing the bank on licensing costs. There are some pretty good solutions out there (for a fee) but none of them upheld both of our essential criteria for a great tool:

open source
web based

Plus, with team members in every corner of North America, we needed an affordable solution that would give access to multiple users across many locations.

So we took it into our own hands! The D7 Labs team has developed Keypunch with the following Domain7 team members: Stephen Bau, Shane Davies, Tom Fast, and Andrew Hawthorne.

Keypunch is an open-source, web-based, multi-user system that allows organizations to manage secure information across multiple users and groups. Keypunch has launched internally at Domain7, with an eye to public launch in early this year. Watch for more news in coming months!

15 years of Domain7

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 11:31 -0800

If our last two blog posts didn’t tip you off, we LOVE Christmas at Domain7. But this year there was a little extra jolly in our holly as we also celebrated 15 years in business!

Over 100 of our clients, partners and friends joined us at our Vancouver office for an occasion we like to call “Chr15tmas”. It was a classy affair—but far better than the canapés, wine and tunes, was seeing so many faces that have contributed to the success of Domain7 in the last 15 years. We look forward to working with you for another 15 plus!

To see all the party photos, visit our Flickr site.

The Christmas Cheer Generator

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 14:45 -0800

Sometimes, deep in the midst of interactive wireframes, prototypes, style boards, database configurations, css-ing, and brand implementation scrums, our team likes to step back and play with the web, old-school style.

So, after a few hours of keyboarding, some clever wordsmithing, and a flurry of instant messages between offices, we whipped up a simple bit of Christmas cheer for you.

And when we say simple, we mean it. As an homage to our founding 15 years ago, we bring you a toy that harks back to the novelty that was the World Wide Web circa 1997.

Ladies and gents, behold the Christmas Cheer Generator! Everyone needs to feel the love this time of year, so just give us your name and let us shower you with holiday joy.

But oh wait, PS: what makes this decidedly un-1997 is that it is—awesomely—responsive (aka mobile-friendly). If it were solidly 1997 this little web toy would be locked into position with tables and scrolly bars and if you tried to pull it up on your “mobile device” (otherwise known as your nifty lead-weighted Nokia 9000 Communicator) you would have been, in a word, sad.

Domain7 at the CFL Western Final (yay Lions!)

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:20 -0800

A dozen Domain7-ers (and loved ones) gathered at our Vancouver office last week and made the big trek across the street to the brand new BC Place, where we watched the Lions win the CFL Western Final. We liked to think our exceptional cheering was partly responsible for the win, but their subsequent Grey Cup performance proved that the Lions are just THAT good!

photos by the endlessly talented Tracey Falk

A Very D7 Christmas!

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 14:41 -0800

Last week the entire D7 West team came together in Abbotsford for a night of food and frivolity in honour of our favourite festive season.

We ate, we drank, we played silly games and we left filled with Christmas cheer and gelato.

Besides watching our bosses shake their booties, a highlight of the evening was a little game called “How well do you know your co-workers?” Each team member submitted a little-known fact about him/herself and the rest of us had to guess which fact could be attributed to whom.

Take a stab at it, and click through to find the answers!

When I was 10 years old and at home sick from school, I used my mom’s sewing machine to sew an outfit for my cabbage patch kid. Who am I?
I’m a retired magician and children’s birthday party entertainer. Who am I?
Between 1994 and 2010, I went 16 years without throwing up. Who am I?
I bought, and still enjoy, a Milli Vanilli CD. Who am I?
My great-grandfather’s name was Vader. Eg. “_____, (loud, mechanical breath) I am your great-grandfather (loud, mechanical breath).” Who am I?
I once built a 300-metre bobsled track through the forest in my backyard. Who am I?
I’ve played in a state championship soccer game. Who am I?
I had a chat with a guy at a football game and gave him a big pat on the back… Turns out he was Peter MacKay, our Minister of Defence. Who am I?
I once tried to buy a chainsaw online. [Who am I?]{http://domain7.com/team/miriam-thomas/)
I have represented my country in gymnastics at international festivals. Who am I?

A slice of Facebook strategy

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 15:34 -0800

There’s a reason you don’t serve guests leftover pizza. When reheated in the microwave, the crust is soggy and the tomato sauce is lava, while the pineapples feel like they’re still in the refrigerator. Conversely, everyone loves pizza fresh from your oven or even from the local pizza shop. The same goes for your social media strategy. People don’t want to see the same rehashed content again and again. They want to feel special.

Crafting a Facebook status update is different from a Tweet—it’s meant to spur conversation rather than simply make a statement. When you recycle your one-sided Tweet on Facebook, people can spot your leftover pizza right away.

Here at Domain7 we’ve made a conscious decision to bake content for each social media platform individually, and because we know it’s where EVERYONE hangs out, we give special attention to Facebook. While we may serve the same information on all our channels, it’s intentionally prepared in a way that suits each setting.

Admittedly, this is a recent change for us. I’ve only been brought into the kitchen here at Domain7 in the last couple months, and since I have been entrusted with the keys to our Facebook Insights, our average number of ‘People Reached’ increased by about 200% per post—just by being intentional about the platform and turning off the RSS Feeders.

While managing your social media channels is a very important task, the person best-suited for the role could be your junior employees, because they’ve been raised on the stuff, and already know what works and doesn’t.

Why don’t you try it yourself?

Start with photos—just fun photos from around your workspace or recent events, and toss in a few new projects or products you’re proud of. They’re unobtrusive, and allow your fans to get back to their regular Facebook creeping.

This engagement with your followers or “likes” is extremely valuable. If your social media strategy is executed correctly, your fans will be engaged with interesting, original content, which leads to brand loyalty. When it comes time to release intentional action-spurring messaging, you already have a faithful audience, ready to act.

That’s a delicious leap in engagement, with minimal effort.

Being Human at Work

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 10:24 -0800

Are you more human than your competition? Part 6 of 6

I could feel the shortness of breath, the elevated heart rate, the tense-shoulders-tightness that alerted me that my progress had been inadequate. I don’t know if it was the spreadsheet-with-scribbles-all-over-it in front of me, or the tangled web of project reminders spinning inside my brain, but it seemed the only rescue opportunity was to get as efficient as possible.

Yet I felt like I had already maxed out my ability to systematize: I’ve got OmniFocus managing my to-do list, I’ve got my own spreadsheet for tracking project status, another one pinned to my desk with reminders of bigger-picture goals. Philosophies? I’ve got GTD, I’ve got Inbox Zero, and I’ve squeezed all possible productivity juice from the stone of self I’ve been given. The only thing preventing me from becoming a streamlined automaton was my own broken, flawed humanity, with its rogue restlessness, distraction and dreams.

While on the phone one day, I doodled a robot on the blackboard in front of me. The robot was being told: “Be human,” but was wondering to himself, “How?”

Robots can’t choose whether or not they become “more human”—not yet, anyway. Humans, though, we do have a choice: to become robots, or to firmly embrace exactly who we were programmed to be.

“I know you always struggle with the tension between ‘being human’ and ‘being a robot,’” my boss, James, said to me this week. “But being a robot shouldn’t even enter the equation. The art of what we do is in our humanity.”

At least, I think that’s what he said. My handwriting in my notebook is a little hard to read, clustered around mind-map lines and scrawls from this week’s one-on-one. I love getting the chance to chat with my boss on these topics weekly: it’s one of the things that makes Domain7 human, and helps me grow too.

Anyway, back to what I was jotting down from James: something about robots. Right! the way we deal with people needs to be different from how we deal with tasks. “Think efficiency with tasks,” goes the saying. “But think effectiveness with people.”

You can squeeze all the efficiency you want out of getting tasks done, but project management is just not task management. Project management, like soylent green, is people.

There is both art and science to project management, says James. The science of it—the calculations, the schedules, the plans—they’re important, but they’re never the deciding factor in what makes a project amazing. No, amazing projects come from the art. As James said it, “your humanity has a far greater impact on a project than your efficiency.”

Your interactions with your colleagues and clients can be the very epicentre of your craft. You can choose to put the bulk of your energy into making sure your interactions are meaningful. Your work will come and go, but your interactions: that’s something you can take pride in.

It’s a hard concept for me truly absorb: I know that pure robotic efficiency is neither realistic nor desirable, but I still have that always-there sense that I’ll only win if my task-list is empty and my productivity is at 100%. Inside me is an impulse to be a frictionless cog, aiding instead of halting the progress of the machine, but here I am, human, full of friction, and possibly failing even right now.

James asked me if I’d been able to read Seth Godin’s book, Linchpin. I hadn’t yet, but I later downloaded the audiobook to listen to on my commute. From the opening few chapters comes this quote:

“Do not internalize the industrial model,” it warns. “You are not one of the myriad of interchangeable pieces but a unique human being, and if you’ve got something to say, say it, and think well of yourself while you’re learning to say it better.”

Being a project manager, or being a designer or a developer, or simply just being a human being at work, isn’t about squeezing assembly-line efficiency out of yourself and your team, writing and reciting rote scripts for your interactions. It’s not about trying to keep your distractions and dreams hidden from clients and colleagues: it’s actually about trying to draw them out.

Creating startlingly good projects doesn’t happen when you’re a robot. It happens when you “work effectively with people in a highly unscripted manner,” as James put it. Amazing work can only happen if it starts with being human.

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and part 5 of the series, Are you more human than your competition?

Google+ Pages: a Plus or a Minus?

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 10:00 -0800

Quick survey:

Do you have a personal Google+ profile?
Did you create a Google+ Page for your company after the launch last week?

If your answer to either is “No,” then you must know something I don’t, or you have just stopped trying to keep up. Which, at this point, is totally understandable.

Social media channels are like planets—continually being discovered in a expanding universe. The questions remain the same each time a new planet or social media platform is found: can it support life? and will people go there some day?

Here’s the thing: people are already on Google+. It’s a planet that’s inhabited. Since its release this summer, over 40 million Google users have created personal profiles. Who are these people? They’re mostly designers, software engineers, developers, photographers, marketing strategists and other creative and tech-types. It was a good start.

Then, last week Google launched Pages for companies, and the brands came rushing in. Google+ Pages launched with Angry Birds, CNN, Fox News, the Muppets, the Dallas Cowboys, Pepsi, Toyota and more. Now, companies like Domain7 have a Google+ page.

The features (let’s call them pluses) of Google+ Pages include:

Circles to segment your staff, customers and prospects for messaging
Hangouts for video conferencing (which our staff use daily)
Sharing posts, photos and videos
Analytics for visitor demographics and engagement
Direct Connect allowing users go directly to your Google+ Page when they enter ‘+[company name]’ in Google search
Search for Google+ conversations (similar to Twitter hashtags)

Is it time for your company to take one giant leap onto Google+? Well, it depends. Are social media and search marketing part of your web strategy? Are your customers and advocates socially active? Or, more importantly: will they be? If the answer is yes, then go. Build your Google+ Page. Get started.

The problem (or minus, if you will) is having to update the same content to yet another social media channel. With Google+ Pages joining company pages for Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, you must customize and nuance the content for each audience. Further, the challenge for Google will be attracting more users to compete with Facebook’s 800 million—after all, people will draw the brands and advertising revenue for Google.

Eventually, a few of these social media players will MySpace (verb: to gradually fade from public consciousness) and customers and brands will know where to find each other. Until your customers settle in one place (and Google+ may just be it) you’re going to have to keep moving with them. So, build your Google+ Page for your company and add it to your social media mix. Why? Because it’s Planet Google.

5 Awesome Things About HTML5

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 10:59 -0800

HTML5 is the latest standard for structuring and presenting content on the web. This latest version of HTML gives developers new features we can use to enhance and simplify the web. Here are five things that make it great:

1. Semantic Headings

HTML5 adds a bunch of new semantic tags that give more meaning for parsers and spiders (like Google) when reading your content. Among the more exciting uses for these headings are screen readers for the visually impaired. They use parsers to determine what content is most important for their users. Then they push away everything else, making a clean easy-to-read document. Added tags will make these screen readers far more useful.

2. Video embedding

With download speeds increasing and nearly every phone able to stream content, video usage has grown tremendously over the last five years. Previously Flash was the best way to provide streaming video—using loads of memory and slowing desktops considerably. On mobile devices, Flash was so cumbersome, Adobe has now abandoned it altogether. HTML5 adds a tag so video can be embedded into websites allowing them to stream across the latest smart phones and browsers.

3. Canvas

At its simplest, the canvas element can be used to draw graphics, like images, lines, shapes or text on the screen. A canvas is particularly useful for drawing dynamic content that will be constantly changing or different for every user. Older versions of HTML forced developers to rely on third-party plugins (like Flash) to display this content, and we know Flash doesn’t play well with mobiles or search engines.

4. Local Storage

Traditionally, websites have used Javascript cookies to store user data across page loads. Cookies have worked great for a long time, but are limited by space and storage. HTML5 allows websites to save dramatically more data, upping the limit from 4kB to 5MB by shifting the storage source to the computer rather than online.

5. New Input Fields

HTML5 has new input fields to help with content entry. These input types include email (which prompts Mail in iOS), a date field (which uses a calendar to pick a date), and range (which provides a slider to set a number between two different values). Most of these functions were already available but required Javascript to work. HTML5 makes it easy to add these input fields, and they also make it simpler for developers to quickly improve usability for their users.

Using libraries like Modernizr you can start using HTML5 today without worrying too much about cross-browser incompatibilities. The web is an exciting virtual world to live in and HTML 5 is a great next step in its evolution.

For a well written, comprehensive look at HTML 5, check out “Dive into HTML 5” by Mark Pilgrim.

Trust Over Signatures

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 10:46 -0800

Are you more human than your competition? part 5

Your online marketing is a significant investment, and building a website is a huge undertaking. It’s not a task to blindly assign to the first vendor who matches your budget. Frankly, without trust, web projects can go south in a flash.

Establishing trust with clients is, in my opinion, the most “human” element we bring can to our projects.

When engaging with a client/vendor, you can try to cover every legal aspect of a working relationship, defining every minute feature and nuance of a project. But what might feel like “covering your bases” can actually trigger mistrust. No one wants to feel like they are dealing with a lawyer when engaging an agency.

The fact is, even with the best documentation, communication and signatures, you can’t eliminate the need for a trustworthy relationship.

There are certainly ways to build trust early on, but it’s more often earned than given away freely.

When a potential client meets us for the first time, they are evaluating us as a company and as individuals to see if we are worthy of their trust, time and money. Before we ever get into project details, they ask about our company history, what industries we work with and if we have produced a similar solution in the past. These are good questions, but more importantly they lead to deeper answers the client is really searching for. They want to know we are financially stable; we have the technical skills to do the job; we have a team in place to handle their requests.

For us, it’s more essential to put in the time to answer those questions thoroughly than to dot every i and cross every t in a contract.

I’m not suggesting we eliminate contracts—at Domain7 we certainly value a clear list of requirements and expectations to avoid surprises. But for me, the key to trust is getting the right answers to real questions and concerns.

Here are some important questions you might want to ask us, if you’re thinking about working with Domain7:

How does Domain7 define success on a project?
How would Domain7 approach this opportunity?
How does Domain7 deal with challenges in a project, or changes to scope or expectations?
How will Domain7 communicate with me so I am up to date and know what’s required of me?

I’ve worked with Domain7 for many years—I’ve left and I’ve returned. Part of what I value in working where I do is I know we will treat our clients with respect and honesty throughout a project.

While we don’t promise there won’t ever be challenges, I’ve witnessed that when problems do arise, our team prioritizes transparency and makes every effort to resolve them to our clients’ satisfaction. At the end of the day, our success is measured by happy clients, and driving tangible results for your business.

And after all, that’s really what you’re looking for isn’t it?

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 of the series, Are you more human than your competition?

A Designer’s Guide to Personalizing Your Site

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 17:39 -0800

The Power of Personalization: Part 3 of 3

When it comes to design, those responsible for building brands have tried desperately to maintain control over the way their message is presented on the web.

The Web is a New Medium. It is Not Print.

In the past, designers and developers tried to mold the web to their will through tables-based design and Flash—enforcing a structured grid system and trying to control typography and visual elements.

However, these attempts to enforce control were a major set-back to web development because designers and developers tried to impose a design aesthetic borrowed from one-to-many mass media. More often than not, this approach only corrupts or overcomplicates the underlying code or tries to bypass the code completely. In the end they made their data less usable, or in some cases, completely unusable. The web is a new medium. Designers need to stop trying to make it work like print.

Artificial Intelligence for the Web

Computers should make finding and using information easier. The web should provide easy-to-use tools to help manage our work flows and information systems. We want devices and applications that integrate easily into our lives and help make our work more creative and productive and our lives more enjoyable.

So, what if we were able to design a system that was able to learn from our daily habits?

The last thing we need is a gigantic web-form to collect a ton of information from us before we can use an application. But users should be given choices, and as they make choices—whether it is the pages of a site they visit, the links they click on, the items they buy, the applications they use, or the files they download—those choices are aggregated into a profile to set some preferences:

browser preferences
language preferences
layout preferences
content preferences
location preferences
purchasing preferences

Data on the Web is Fluid

Designers need to acknowledge that data on the web is fluid. We don’t know how people access that information, whether it is on a phone, a tablet, a laptop or a desktop computer; whether the information is accessed from an iOS application, an Android phone, a WebKit browser or an “ancient” (decade old) web browser like Internet Explorer 6. Do websites need to look exactly the same in every browser? No. Things will never look exactly the same in every device or application.

New Approaches to Web Design

But, web browsers are becoming more capable, and new web standards allow sites to adapt and serve a user experience that matches the capabilities of the browser. Ethan Marcotte, in an article on A List Apart, coined the term Responsive Web Design to refer to an approach that uses CSS media queries to serve the same content, but a different layout to different devices. He also was involved in the much-celebrated redesign of the Boston Globe. Now, there are gallery sites, like mediaqueri.es, that showcase sites that are using this responsive approach to serve appropriate layouts to different devices.

The appeal of this approach is that you don’t need a separate site or application for each device. You build your site once and it works across all platforms. This approach helps you focus on what’s necessary. Luke Wroblewski advocates a Mobile First approach, as mobile devices will likely be the dominant means of accessing information on the web sooner than later. You’ll find that the same principles apply to the experience of using websites on desktops and laptops as they do on mobile devices: focus on content and avoid overcomplicated layouts and interfaces.

Adapt to Your Audience

As you think about how your site can adapt to your audience, focus on the content your users need, and pay special attention to the underlying code. Make sure your information is as accessible as possible. Then you can think about how the presentation can change. Give up control and focus instead on giving your users what they’re looking for instead of what you think they should see. There’s a big difference.

7 Reasons to Build Your Brand with an E-Newsletter

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 09:33 -0800

[Editor’s note: Bart Byl is one of Domain7’s longest standing employees, who has added endless skill, wisdom and wry humour to our team. This is his last week at D7 (sniff!), as he and his family prepare to move to the east coast. Luckily, we managed to squeeze one last blog post out him before he goes. We’ll miss you Bart!]

Crafting an email newsletter is one of the easiest and most effective ways to connect with your clients and build your brand.

Not convinced? Here are seven reasons to invest a little time and money into building an e-newsletter.

Save Money. There are no costs for paper, ink and stamps like there are for your print newsletter. So, all you pay in an initial design and setup fee, and a nominal upkeep fee.
Waste no time. Within minutes of your email blast, it will be waiting in your client’s inbox. All they need to do is click a to go to your site and take further action.
Measure results. You can track exactly who opened your email, clicked on which links, or unsubscribed. Use your e-news for A-B testing, and sharpen your call to action.
The system does the work. Subscriptions and un-subscriptions are managed through a web interface, leaving you free to craft your content. All you need to do is copy-and-paste your text and photos into a predefined template.
Build client relationships. Sure, you have to wait for clients to come to your website, but you can keep your brand in their minds with a newsletter every month. And if that newsletter is packed with valuable content, they’ll be eager to see it in their inbox.
Generate revenue. Your clients may love your company yet not know the broad range of products and services your offer. Let them know what they’re missing out on and generate additional revenue.
Drive traffic to your site. Every email you send will include multiple teasers and links back to your website, keeping your customers engaged with your brand.

Using Google Analytics to Personalize Your Site

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 16:08 -0800

The Power of Personalization: Part 2 of 3

In Ryan’s first installment of this series, he asked the important question—why do we treat all web customers the same? In this episode I hope to add to our case for online personalization. Since we know that we can treat our customer segments differently—how do we go about doing so?

The clues to this lie in both your website’s strategy—its core objective—and the site’s analytics data. Once you know that there are some distinctive differences between your audience groups and your objectives, then Google Analytics provides us with some useful insight to guide our approach. To see the differences, follow these steps in your Analytics account:

In your main dashboard view, on the top left, go under Advanced Segments and you will see the default ‘All Visits’
Now open this up and change that to ‘Returning Visitors’
Select ‘Content’ from the left, then ‘Top Content’
Note your 10 top content pages
Try changing that segment to ‘New Visitors’ and repeat the top content report

Reviewing your analytics to discover where your key demographics are, then tailoring the site to meet their needs is an extremely useful practice. This will create a much more useful experience for your visitors, as they will be greeted by what they came for in the first place.

So, say your website has a database of branches spread across North America, and you want your site to recommend one to the visitor. If you personalized your website, then the visitor could get information about the most local outlets first. Rather than having them sift through your hundreds of listings.

When you embrace personalization, you will discover that it is a powerful tool in creating the ideal website.