Archive for December, 2008

Profiles in Nerdery: Adam Gedde, bridging the gap between sales people and nerds

1. Astrological Sign: Scorpio.
2. Time at the Nerdery: Nearly 1 lunar cycle.
3. Area of expertise: Interactive marketing, search engine marketing, and a bit of programming. I’m also vocally endowed.
4. When people ask you what you do, how do you respond: I tell them I’m the bridge between the nerds and the sales people. I need to be able to understand the technology surrounding the solutions we provide for our clients, but I also have the opportunity to keep my digital consultant skills sharp.
5. Favorite kinds of projects to work on: I like mash-ups – taking a bunch of existing, cool things….slapping them together….and building something completely new. That exercise used to be very difficult, but thanks to things like APIs, REST, and the maturation of digital development tools it’s much easier to do.
6. What one thing about The Nerdery surprises people the most when you tell them about it: That we have this many nerds in one spot. I think there’s a law against that somewhere.
7. Seven dream Jeopardy Categories: 1) Search Marketing Jargon; 2) Great Tenor Arias; 3) Beavers and Ducks – Quotable Movies; 4) Save the Cheerleader; 5) Save the World; 6) Farley-isms; and 7) History of Mountain Dew
8. Favorite Fictional Nerd: MacGuyver, followed closely by Chuck Bartowski
9. According to the Wikipedia entry on Nerd, some nerds show a pronounced interest in subjects which others tend to find dull or complex and difficult to comprehend, or overly mature for their age, especially topics related to science, disambiguation, mathematics and technology. Do you know what disambiguation is: That’s a trick question, isn’t it?

Website Challenge provides a glimmer of light for non-profits in a dark forecast

Yesterday, the Minnesota Council of Non-Profits released its 2008 Minnesota Nonprofit Economy Report (that links to a PDF of the report). The Star Tribune has a rundown of the numbers and reports that of the 600 agencies surveyed for the report 1 in 4 have cut their staffs, over half have cut their budgets and 47% have reported a decrease in individual donations.

In MinnPost today Scott Russell talks to three Minnesota non-profits about how their dealing with the recession, budgetary problems and increased demand, including Families Moving Forward, one of our success stories from last year’s Website Challenge.

Also today MPR’s Midmorning discussed how nonprofits will survive this harsh economic climate. You can listen below, and if you listen closely at about 8 minutes, you’ll hear our own Mark Hurlburt offering up a glimmer light in these dark times. Listen below:

Not only does Mark talk about how people can help non-profits by volunteering and donating time instead of money, he talks about how non-profits can get some free help by signing up for the Overnight Website Challenge.

So how can you help? If you’re a Web pro, create a team or join one what’s that already formed. If you’re not a Web pro, just tell your favorite MN non-profit about the challenge and they can sign up to get a better Web site, which will bring more attention to their cause and maybe even help generate donations in this trying time.

Most beautiful Web sites of 2008

CrazyLeaf Designs has named their Most Beautiful Web Sites of 2008. The choose 50 of the best CSS and Flash designs from their Web site showcase. Some of the sites are really pretty, though after a bit they start to seem a little same-y looking. A lot of them seem to have the cartoony look of a Ferry Halim game (beware: clicking that link might get you sucked into beautiful flash games and cause you to lose many hours of your time) look about them.

So here’s a questions for you, what do you think are some of the most beautiful sites on the Web?

A pretty decent proposal*

One of my tasks as The Nerdery’s blogger is to pull back the curtain on the Willy-Wonkaesque machinations that make this the magical place that it is. This is sort of a challenge, what with non-disclosure agreements, busy nerds, and well, frankly, things that are really cool and interesting to us might not be so interesting to you, our readers.

But that’s one of our trademarks, we never back down from a challenge. So today I am going to tell you a story about proposals, the Wonder Twins (who hate being called that which makes calling them that much more fun), and why you should care about this.

The superhero moniker is pretty apt for Ryan and Adam who are Solutions Engineers here at Sierra Bravo. They are often thanked by our sales folks for being faster than speeding bullets and able to meet impossible deadlines in a single bound.

Ryan and Adam are responsible for putting together the proposals we give to prospective clients. When you’re looking for some outside help and look to The Nerdery as a potential partner, they’re the ones who are going to help you get started. They listen to what your looking for, what your risks are, and your deadlines, then they build these proposals that outline the scope of your project and how we’re going to go about getting it done.

And they really are listening, that’s not just marketing spin. I read through one of their recent proposals for a big project on a super-tight deadline that requires a specific application framework, and was surprised to find this:

These pages are a critical step in communicating your value proposition. . . and our development team will ensure that site visitors are able to easily navigate, read, and move within these pages without fear of compatibility issues or disruption of the browsing experience.

Not only do the Wonder Twins understand the technical aspects of their job, they understand what parts are crucial to your business. How awesome is that?

So why does this matter to you? I’m getting to that.

What I learned is that it’s unique for Web firms to have staff solely dedicated to working on proposals. Because this is what the Wonder Twins spend their day doing, they get to truly understand what you’re trying to accomplish and what you need to sell your project to your client.

Once they get that, they spend their time thinking of the best ways to approach your unique project, how to prepare for any foreseeable forks in the road and, basically, help you figure out if we’re the right people to help you with this project.

They’re doing all this before we’ve even won your business. And that’s why you should care, because this is the kind of standard you should hold your partners (and well, everyone you deal with) to, people will to invest time in understanding what you need before you even sign on the dotted line.

*I got to give credit to my cubemate, Trip, for the nice headline — a riff on “Indecent Proposal.”

Friday Links: On simplicity, etiquette, and inspiration

This presentation by Clay Parker Jones was one of the most informative, thought-provoking things I read today (read more about the presentation on Jones’ blog Exit Creative). Sure it covers well-trod ground — social media, web design, content — but what Parker Jones does is present his ideas with stunning simplicity using real language both of which just reinforces his ideas.

While the presentation is aimed at ad-folk, it contains the sorts of lessons that anyone involved in interactive marketing (from design and development to content and community) could benefit from. (found via Paul Isakson)

Now onto the Friday links.

• Forty inspirational speeches in two minutes. This one is great, watch it and it will help you make it through these last few hours on a Friday.
• Now that you’re motivated, go take a look at Ad Age’s tips to cope, even thrive, through the downturn.
• Also found via Lifehacker, The Ultimate Social Media Handbook. Which reminds me of a link one of my fellow nerds tweeted about this week Maggie Mason’s 14 Ways to Twitter Politely.
• The Top 10 Marketing Blunders of 2008
• From the more you know file: Tonight’s full moon will be the biggest it’s been in 15 years. [via]
• Christine over at Brain Traffic’s blog warns about the pitfalls of placeholder copy and talks about how proofreading should be the part of the Web QA process.
• Oh, this just in from Ryan: Take a listen to All My Internet Friends. Make sure to read the lyrics.

That’s all from me this week, I get to go meet with The Nerdery’s Wonder Twins. You’ll get to learn all about it next week. In the meantime, what were you reading on the net this week?

Profiles in Nerdery: Jansen Price, maker of computer programs and snack expert

1. Astrological Sign: Astrology is garbage. But if you want to know my birthday, it’s February 28th.
2. Time at the Nerdery: 33,399,512 seconds. (At the time of this writing).
3. Area of expertise: PHP, XHTML, Javascript, Production Design, Snacks.
4. When people ask you what you do, how do you respond: I get to make computer programs for a company that makes awesome web sites and applications.
5. Favorite kinds of projects to work on: Projects with clearly defined requirements, custom interfaces, or plenty of time for testing/bug-fixing.
6. What one thing about The Nerdery surprises people the most when you tell them about it: Nothing. I don’t tell anyone anything about the Nerdery. It’s a secret! Shhhhhh.
7. Seven dream Jeopardy Categories: 1. Vim keyboard shortcuts; 2. Capitals of the world; 3. Star Trek: TNG Episodes; 4. The Metric System; 5. Songs by the band Nirvana; 6. Things I like to do; and 7. Things to do when you’re bored. Honestly, I am not very good at Jeopardy… it seems so backwards to me.
8. Favorite Fictional Nerd: George McFly. He just seems like a guy I could be friends with.
9. According to the Wikipedia entry on Nerd, some nerds show a pronounced interest in subjects which others tend to find dull or complex and difficult to comprehend, or overly mature for their age, especially topics related to science, disambiguation, mathematics and technology. Do you know what disambiguation is: Yes, I do.

Google Zeitgeist 2008

Google has released its Zeitgeist for 2008, which sort of feels like a yearbook for the planet. In the Zeitgeist report, Google tallies up the fastest rising search terms for the year. They define fastest rising as, the most popular searches conducted for 11 months of 2008 and ranked based on how much their frequency increased compared to 2007. Google divvies up the info by country, topic (sports, showbiz, etc.) plus they compile a big grand daddy list of the most popular search terms globally.

The global list had a quite a few surprises on it for me (who knew Heath Ledger was more popular than Obama?) and the US-centric list made me feel woefully inadequate for not knowing who in the heck David Cook was (I know now, thanks Google).

Find out who made the list.

P.S. Did you notice how Goolge is using Pantone’s mimosa, dubbed the color for 2009?

Two on CSS for you

Six Revisions has six questions for Eric Meyer on CSS3. Meyer an author of six books on CSS and a member of A List Apart talks about what he’s most exited about in CSS3 and what designers and developers can do to help with the adoption and development of the spec.

Along the same lines Smashing Magazine puts together a list of 50 Extremely Useful And Powerful CSS Tools.

What do you think is the most powerful CSS tool?

Prove it or lose it

According to yesterday’s Brandweek, CMO’s who can’t prove ROI may be SOL. Pardon my abbreviated French, but in a new study by Jupiter Research and the Verse Group, 89 percent of CMOs said their marketing/spending choices are increasingly scrutinized in the tightening economy.

From Brandweek: “So how are marketers adapting? Sixty-four percent of CMO Council respondents said they were evaluating all areas of marketing spend to increase yield and accountability. This includes: Leveraging existing resources within their organizations to enhance customer communications (47.3 percent), exploring customized communications technologies (40.9 percent), moving more investment to Internet and mobile channels (38.7 percent) and driving adoption and the use of CRM and sales automation applications (31.5 percent).”

So, prove it or lose it. Or better yet, move it online, that magical, measurable place. 

No batteries required: Gifts for all the geeks in your life

The Genius Collection

Who couldn’t use a small pack of geniuses hanging out at their desk to provide inspiration and encouragement? Plus, these are just about the cutest little action figures ever. And if geniuses aren’t your thing, there’s also a Revolutionaries, Scientists, and Artists. Oh, and a writers collection sure to please nerdy bloggers everywhere.

[Buy at Jailbreak Toys]

You Rock Letterpress Cards

I can tell you from experience that these cards do, in fact, rock. This awesome design comes on beautiful, heavy card stock. The best thing about these cards is that they’re all occasion — thank you, happy birthday, Valentine’s day — is there any event where this sentiment isn’t appropriate? No, no there isn’t.

[Buy at Etsy]

A Beautiful Tea Pot

I am resisting the urge to make a ‘cup of tea’ joke here. It’s difficult. What I don’t have to resist is talking about how beautiful this tea pot is. Look at it! It elevates making tea to an art form. Pretty rad for the tea-fanatic in your life.

[Buy at Uncommon Goods]

These are cool, and not just because I have a Superman thing or because I spent all weekend reading Identity Crisis. Sometimes after a hard day fighting crime or making the Internet safe for surfers even the superest of heroes might like to knock back a shot of tequila. [Buy at Etsy]

Ampersand T-Shirt

Ampersands seem to appeal to both font nerds and designers (and well, let’s face it, all people with impeccable taste), so much so there is an entire blog dedicated to this special character. Here I show you the Baskerville tee (because it looks most like the Caslon one I’ve got tattooed on my arm), but they’ve got 10 different fonts to choose from.

[Buy at the Ampersand Shoppe]

Robot Pint Glasses

Last week while out to lunch with my friend Seamus I boldly proclaimed that robots are cooler than pirates, ninjas, cowboys, and zombies. These glasses just prove my point. It doesn’t matter if you’re drinking chocolate milk, a nice lager, or Tang, you’ll look infinitely cooler when you’re sipping out of a glass with a robot on it. Trust me, I wouldn’t steer you wrong.

[Buy at Etsy]

The Future is Unwritten, a Joe Strummer Documentary

This one kind of breaks the “no batteries required” theme I had going. I blame it on my cubemate, who I call Trip Shakespeare. Trip’s a musicgeek and when I was looking for a music-geeky gift, this Joe Strummer documentary was the first thing that came out of his mouth. It’s a safe bet for the musicgeek in your life.

[Buy at Amazon]

The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson

This is the gift suggestion that gives me the most trepidation. It’s a gamble putting a novel on a list like this, but I’m going for it. Why? Because not only was The Gargoyle one of the best books I read all year, it’s also the one which will have to broadest appeal. This tale of a former-pornstar who is severely burned in a car wreck who, while recovering, meets a bi-polar sculptress who claims to have been his wife, a former nun, back in like the 1300s. And that’s just the part that’s easy to summarize. Part fantasy, part romance, and all the way awesome, this genre-bending book will please everyone from snooty lit snobs to hardcore genre-loving-geeks. I promise.

[Buy at Amazon]

Need more ideas? Try these:

The Zeus Jones Holiday Gift Guide
Mighty Goods’ 16 Perfect Gifts for Geeks
The Pioneer Press’ Tech stuff to tuck under the tree
Vitamin’s 10 Web Geek Gift Ideas