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Social Media for Indy Restaurants

Posted by charles in Business, Findings, Marketing, Reviews on February 7th, 2011

I’ve talked a lot in the last few weeks about implementing big ideas in small business advertising. That is the great thing about social media and the modern age of digital advertising, it evens the playing field. You might not have the built in audience some of the niche properties I talked about last week had, but neither did Hot Topic, or Caribou Coffee a few years ago. Each of those parlayed a small, regional following into a nationwide business. There are a lot of companies that started with one shop and moved on to national success. (There was this

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The goings on at the UX Book Club Chicago monthly meetings (3/31/10)

Posted by in Reviews on April 1st, 2010

If you’re not already familiar with the UX Book Club’s Chicago chapter, let me get you up to speed. It’s a small group of passionate design folks who

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meet downtown to talk about things in the industry. Such as our jobs, our roll as designers, and what is going on in our professional spheres. We praise each other’s triumphs, as well as bitch about other designers, clients, educators, etc. We also digress into joking about current events, or corporate drug testing, or Battlestar Galactica, or whatever happens to pop up organically throughout the evening. Oh

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Using Online Video Effectively in the Hospitality Industry

Posted by in Business, Marketing, Reviews on March 22nd, 2010

In 1995 video advertising on the web was such a hassle most companies didn’t even bother. Most of the country was on dial up and notebooks didn’t have nearly the market saturation. Fast forward 15 years and web marketing videos are everywhere, particularly in the hotel, resort, and hospitality industry. Of the 15 Million videos uploaded every minute about 10% of those are advertising. Having video content on the web isn’t just a good idea; it’s a necessity if you want to be competitive in the hospitality market. With that in mind let’s take a look at 10 companies that

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Comcast/XFinity: Changing Your Brand Name as Damage Control

Posted by in Business, Marketing, Reviews on February 19th, 2010

With Toyota’s recall and Comcast’s announcement that they are rebranding themselves as Xfinity I figured I’d take some time and explore the idea of damage control advertising. It’s nothing new. The Emancipation Proclamation was a part of Lincoln’s re-branding campaign; it was his effort to rebrand the war and get public opinion back on his side. It might have started in politics but quickly moved into corporate advertising when corporations like Phillip Morris decided a name change was necessary to get rid of their bad press. More recently some of the major banks have had name changes in an attempt

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Apple to announce Slate – and the crowd goes (sorta) wild

Posted by in Business, Reviews on January 8th, 2010

Apple fans have been hearing rumbling of the apple tablet, the completely flat fully functioning notebook computer, for years now. Apple released the iPhone, still no tablet. They released the Macbook Air but didn’t waste a breath on the tablet. Finally, after years of building it up, Apple is close to bringing it down to us. If you happened to be on CES or G4 that day, you might think it was Charlton Heston coming down the mountain with a certain stone tablet instead of the long awaited new gadget from Steve Jobs and Co. Outside of the message boards

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8 things Ushering in the “New School” of Web Development, Part 1

Posted by in Code, Design, Inspiration, Reviews on December 29th, 2009

In the grand scheme of my profession, that being a Web Developer, I would still consider myself to be a rookie. I have been developing web sites and getting paid for it, for around 3 years; however, I would probably say that I have been doing it “professionally” for around a year and a half. Even with my “rookie” status as a web developer, I do consider my talents to be very respectable, especially for the relatively short period of time I have been doing it. One thing I have noticed since I began my career is the difference between,

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A Very YouTubed Potter: Interview with actor Brian Holden

Posted by in Friends, Inspiration, Interview, Reviews on December 4th, 2009

As a recent University of Michigan alumnus, I’ve actually always considered Ann Arbor a kind of Hogwarts away from home – especially come winter when white snow and shimmering icicles dangle off English Gothic buildings in combination with bountiful pitchers of butterbeer – or Long Island Iced Tea – turn the campus into a magical winter wonderland. And although by spring the snow is melted, a clever and ambitious bunch of U of M students/alumni brought that Hogwarts feeling back to campus last April with their original production of A Very Potter Musical which was produced for one fleeting weekend

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Haystack is here! Our initial thoughts…

Posted by charles in Business, Marketing, News, Reviews on November 17th, 2009

Well, Jason Fried, the President of 37signals, announced the imminent release of Haystack on his Twitter page in October, and now it’s officially here – Haystack. Haystack is similar to a job posting board, but is engineered to allow design agencies to post themselves in a single destination and hopefully get located (like a needle in a haystack) by prospects all over the country or in their city.

This is a good idea for 37signals (the company behind the product) as it potentially places them squarely in the middle of that intersection where design agencies and companies in need

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