Now, I can’t say much for or against the Grove because I have never lived there personally. I know both my sisters have lived there and neither enjoyed the experience. I did assist them when they moved in and I can say that their apartment was completely filthy, the electricity didn’t work in one bathroom, the mattress had a huge brown stain that went clear through, the door to that bathroom didn’t open all the way because it hit the toilet, and there were insects breeding in the closet. However, I also must say the furniture was brand new, all the appliances worked, and when they called maintenance someone was there in less then 30 minutes on move in Saturday to help fix the various electrical problems. Overall, in my opinion, even with the various negatives it was far superior to the nasty old houses most of my friends lived in while I was attending EWU.

Anyway, enough background, now to my point. After discovering so many students disliked the grove I did a search to see if I could find a Facebook page for Grove residents sponsored by management. I was unable to find an official page but I was able to find a page called, “We ♥ The Grove in Cheney, WA.” This group only had 36 fans at the time of writing this. After doing some additional research the only positive information about The Grove I could find was from their poorly designed website that contained a wealth of multi-cultural photos and very little relevant information. Aside from what I found on Facebook I also found a number of negative Twitter posts and reviews on various review websites none of which had an official response from The Grove management.

Making an impression is important. Both of my sisters were very excited about living in The Grove last Spring when they signed their lease and now as the end of the year is coming they couldn’t be more excited about leaving. The Grove could’ve created evangelists and multi-year tenants but after a number of poor experiences they have created enemies, both of whom are willing to go out of their way from discouraging their friends from moving there next year. When your primary target audience is a tightly knit group like college students it is incredibly important to maintain a good reputation because word spreads very quickly about any problems that occur. Social media outlets like Facebook magnify this problem to an entirely new level. What does it say to a prospective tenant when the group against living somewhere has 900% more fans than the group supporting it? I think some reputation management would be a fantastic idea for the folks at the Grove. The Grove could be actively monitoring the Facebook, Twitter, and review websites and offering solutions to people that post about problems but instead they are nowhere to be found online. I suppose this is fitting, at least the online experience mirrors the real-life experience students are reporting. Every business should be monitoring their reputation online. There may not be much activity on a daily or weekly basis but if there is a negative review it is important to resolve that issue as soon as possible before it evolves into a social war like one The Grove is about to be fighting in Cheney.

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Years ago I had a software program that would copy down an entire HTML site fairly accurately. Unfortunately, as the web transitioned to dynamic websites this software package could not keep up with the advances.

Today, I discovered a website backup utility that has done a fantastic job in my tests. I backed up several of our complicated dynamic websites and it has done a great job making them work in an HTML version. If you run into a situation where your website, or your customers website is being held hostage by a web design company this could be the perfect solution for you.

The software is called HTTrack Website Copier and it is a free GPL licensed software package.

Click here to download HTTrack

If you have any comments or questions please leave a comment below.

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Please watch the video:

I kind of hope this is some sort of clever scam and not a real Microsoft endorsed video, Unfortunately, some credible news sources are reporting it is indeed legit. Microsoft has had some awful beer thirty advertising ideas in the past but this one may take the cake.

Ever since I struggled through this video, I have been trying to picture what a Windows 7 party might look like. A Windows 7 party is probably a great way to lose friends, although, someone throwing one is very unlikely to have any friends to start with. I would imagine most Windows 7 parties will take place in a dark basement, with a lonely 37 year old guy swearing into the darkness because his World of Warcraft just crashed due to a bug in the new Windows 7 OS.

How many parties do you think will actually occur? Of those what percentage do you think will be interrupted by a frozen Windows 7 machine? Does anyone, anywhere think this is a good idea? This cannot be good for the Windows brand that is already struggling with the young tech savvy crowd. Microsoft continues to fail miserably in its advertising efforts. To answer a question from the token black guy in the video, “Can you believe Microsoft put the launch of Windows 7 in our hands?” NO! I hope Bill Gates personally fires his entire advertising department for further destroying the Windows brand.

I have tested Windows 7 and it was a decent OS. It is what Windows Vista should have been. My question is, why ruin it with such a have baked advertising campaign? This idea is so awful I am now embarrassed to use Windows. I think I will switch my Windows 7 testing machine to Linux this weekend.

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About Big Green Ape – Cartoon Strip
So far, the cartoon is really still in the development phase but Shawn has a couple of the characters created and several more in various sketch stages. The first installment of Big Green APE can be found at: http://biggreenape.com/?p=146. Shawn has been taking input from everyone in our office, our vendors (Ed), our clients, and as of this week even his mom. The sexy character to your right is me! Currently I am the only human in this cartoon strip, everyone else is some variety of animal.

So far the list of characters includes:
Shawn as the Big Green Ape – View
Thomas as Skat Kat – View
Me as Myself complete with polo and iPhone – View
Deanna as an Unnamed Kangaroo – View Sketch

Characters Still to come:
Kate possibly as a Flamingo
Karen as ?
Jessica as ?
Sheldon as a Kiwi or ?
Megan as ?
Random Cliet as ?
Random Sales as ?

If you have any good ideas for a strip or for characters leave a comment and I will pass it on. Hopefully as soon as the strip gets up and running I will be featuring each installment here so that my subscribers can enjoy them. If you want to keep up with the development of the cartoon strip you can find more information on it at Shawn’s Blog http://www.biggreenape.com.

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This short statement got me giggling like a little school girl. Now, I know they weren’t talking about the same kind of vCard that first came to mind when I read that statement on their website. However, after capping a sleepless night with an early morning blood work appointment my brain is clearly not operating at 100%.

Does it seem odd to anyone else that two things so drastically different in meaning could be named the same? Mary was a virgin and unless god impregnated her with Microsoft Outlook I think the v-card came before the vCard. So why then, would the name for a useful modern tool, intended for business, use something that could be confused with a popular slang term? It doesn’t make any sense. It just goes to show that you need to do some real due-diligence when putting a name to a product or idea. Imagine the disaster that would ensue if Kool-Aid unveiled a new drink called Donkey Punch.

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The video is from the Poetic Prophet (AKA The SEO Rapper) The rap is actually pretty funny. I have seen a couple other videos from the SEO Rapper but I hadn’t come across this one. Some of my favorite lines are:

“Don’t use italics use emphasis”

“Don’t duplicate it or you might face a litigation”

“Your photoshop functions, slice that design, do your layout with divs, make sure that its aligned”

“Please don’t use tables even though they work fine, when it comes to indexing they give search engines a hard time”

“The competition will get bitter, you’ll shine like glitter”

It isn’t every day you hear a rap song about web design. In fact I have only heard a couple and they were mostly done by white guys skinnier than I am. In all honestly I can’t believe this exists but since it does you have to check it out. If you’re really bored check out some of his other videos. I know some of you may have seen them already but if you’re like me and missed out on the SEO Rapper thus far, you need to check him out.

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Earlier this week, Google finally got around to announcing Google Ventures. If you don’t know, Google Ventures is a new venture capital arm to the search behemoth. Google has been known for their high profile acquisitions of popular Internet properties like YouTube and Feedburner and also for acquisitions of useful services like DoubleClick and Trendalyzer.

I have seen a lot of disagreement on this move in the blogosphere. Some have argued that staring a new ventures lab at Google may not be such a great idea. Some feel that Google could deploy capital better in other ways. Some feel that new ventures participating in the Google Ventures program will have an unnecessary target on their backs. These critics feel the companies in the program will face unnaturally high levels of competition as others try to emulate their website or service early in the development process before it has had a chance to reach maturity.

I personally think Google Ventures is a fantastic idea, problems aside. I realize Google has been doing VC at some level for quite some time. This isn’t a totally new service from Google but this will give Google a much increased exposure to new startups. Google has enough capital and clout to help almost any ORIGINAL idea grow into a successful company. (No Twitter copies allowed, I hope) I still feel Google paid way, way too much for YouTube even if it does pull in an extreme amount of traffic. What if they could’ve invested in YouTube when it was a profitless start-up with a newly launched but quickly growing product? Google could have bought the company for next to nothing in comparison to the massive sum they spent to acquire it once it was the market leader.

The amount Google is devoting to the Google Ventures arm is only 100M this year. To you and I, this is an enormous sum of money but to a company with a market capitalization of 116.7 billion this is a drop in the bucket. As a Google shareholder I think this is a great idea. Google was the product of massive innovation. To continue to be successful and grow they’re going to have to continue to innovate. As can be seen in the newspaper industry this gets more and more difficult the larger you get. Google Ventures may be one area where innovation can occur outside the main company circle. I am excited to see how Google Ventures develops over the next couple of years.

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In his previous shareholder letters there has been a wealth of information. For example, in 2006 he made a prediction of a housing melt-down. This same melt down is largely responsible for our current economic state. Warren has a lifetime of experience and his company Berkshire Hathaway owns over 70 companies in widely varying industries. His knowledge and diversification give him a unique ability to see business trends. Below are some experts from the letter that I thought were interesting:

“Approval, though, is not the goal of investing. In fact, approval is often counter-productive because it sedates the brain and makes it less receptive to new facts or a re-examination of conclusions formed earlier. Beware the investment activity that produces applause; the great moves are usually greeted by yawns.”

“The present housing debacle should teach home buyers, lenders, brokers and government some simple lessons that will ensure stability in the future. Home purchases should involve an honest-to-God down payment of at least 10 percent and monthly payments that can be comfortably handled by the borrower’s income. That income should be carefully verified.”

Give it a read. Perhaps you can soak up some wisdom. While there you may check out some of the older letters as well. They are all filled with good, timeless information. Click here to download Warren Buffett’s 2008 letter to shareholders and click here to read previous letters to shareholders.

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Realizing just how important personal development is to the graphic and web design industry, I’ve been seriously considering the implementation of a mandatory personal development policy for our employees at Zipline. What would it have in it, you may ask? The answer is, I am not quite sure. At this point I am thinking out loud. I have seen bits and pieces over the years about companies encouraging employees to partake in personal development. Some companies offer tuition reimbursement, others offer expense paid trips to conferences. While these are both great ways for employees to expand their skill set, they’re often cost prohibitive for small businesses.

My primary source of personal development is this blog. Every morning I get up at 4 AM and I read dozens of articles on marketing, advertising, graphic design, web design, and programming. After I have digested all of that content I will write an article relating to something that caught my eye, or something I experienced or learned the previous day. Then I will head into the office and attempt to put into practice the various interesting techniques, methods, and ideas I absorbed during my morning read. While I have learned a great deal by doing this, I am quite aware it would be unreasonable to ask my employees to work from 4AM – 5PM everyday, mostly because they’re a bunch of sissies.

So what if we paid our employees to blog, read, and network? During a time when many companies are banning social networking and other personal Internet usage it may seem counterintuitive to encourage employees to browse the Internet while on the clock. I think however that a couple hours of personal development per employee, per week would help the company become more innovative in the long run. I also think that this would help employees stay motivated. I know I personally feel excited and refreshed when I find new technologies or ideas to try. It helps to stave off the feelings of monotony that many developers begin to experience after their 1000th contact form.

While a personal development policy is an interesting concept, the question most managers will have is, how do you control it? In truth, I have no idea. Perhaps the first 30 minutes of every day is devoted to reading articles in a mandatory Google reader account and then it’s back to work. Maybe each employee is required to produce 2 work related blog entries a week. Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer. Personally, I hate to try to govern creativity. Personal development should be something fun and enjoyable. I don’t want to have to stand over someone’s shoulder with a ruler like a Catholic school nun and force them to read Sitepoint or listen to BoagWorld. In reality, if they love what they do it should be something they want to do not something they have to do.

My intent with posting this article was get some ideas out there. I am sure some of you work at companies that have some sort of personal development policy. Please share any ideas, thoughts, or comments you have about what should go into a personal development policy like I described above. Whenever I get a good, comprehensive policy developed, I will share it on the blog open source style for all of you to read, adopt, and share.

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Don’t get me wrong. I find that most of our customers are very intelligent and really understand their market. If they weren’t good business people they wouldn’t be running successful businesses. The problem I find is that just like me, most are not writers. Part of writing for the web is creating web friendly, search engine optimized copy. Admittedly, these are not easy concepts to understand. When you write for the web you have to realize most people aren’t going to read the copy start to finish. If you are lucky enough to have someone read it they will probably scan the headline and read the first couple lines. If you haven’t hooked them by then, they’re already moving on. On top of that, writing is hard and it takes a lot of time most people don’t have. For many, writing marketing and web copy is worse than homework. Sometimes I feel like the parent, trying to get my 6th grader to write a paper on the civil war while a Family Guy marathon is on.

On many occasions, we have had a website completely programmed and then spent weeks waiting for our customers to provide the copy. Had they been willing to hire a writer the website would be online generating business. To solve this problem we came up with a couple of solutions I thought I would share. The first, we have started offering two prices for each website. We create content managed websites so our customers have the ability to populate their own content if they so desire. In these instances, the customers get a lower price on the project but they must populate the site once the framework is completed. The customer must pay the balance of the project before the website framework is turned over to them. Once paid, they can take as long as they want to complete the project and it won’t affect our cash flow. If they would prefer to have us populate the content, they are given a deadline to provide us with the content. If they do not meet this deadline they will begin getting billed for the project. For most this serves as a firm deadline and a motivator to the customer to get the content created in a timely fashion.

We realize our customers are busy. We have had customers stretch out content creation for more than 6 months after development was complete. This obviously causes workflow, cash flow, and tracking problems for us. In addition, it means there is no ROI on the customer’s new website investment. By encouraging the customer to get the copy done in a timely fashion we both benefit. Also, thanks to this strategy we’re no longer in a losing position, as long as we follow our own policies! If any of you have any good ideas I would love to hear them. This strategy works for us but it won’t work for every company. I know we’re not the only interactive firm facing these types of issues. I have talked to numerous friends who are in the same life raft we are.

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