Monday Web Meetup - Responsive Design

Responsive Web Design is a budding and really exciting change to how web will be done in the future. Sort of a technical description, it feeds the same data to everyone, but allows the receiver to format the view to match what they are viewing with. It does this seamlessly and without the end-user having to do anything, it just works.

Thanks to Ben Seigel for organizing and running Madison Web Design & Dev Meetup.

Thanks to Nick Weaver, Director of Web Services and Vidal Quevedo, Web Communications Strategist of UW-Madison for there expertise and wonderfully educational session.

-Eric

The May 4^th Leadercast is quickly approaching and the early bird registration will expire at the end of next week. The question you’re probably asking yourself is why attend? With everything needing your attention, why register for this leadership development experience?

Great question! Here are five reasons why you should attend:

#5:  Leadership Matters!  After nearly 50 years of studying leadership and writing many books, someone asked Warren Bennis, the consultants’ consultant on leadership, how he’d sum up his research and life’s work. His response?  Leadership matters. It mattered yesterday and it matters even more today.

#4:  We need leaders who operate with principle & character, not those who help us memorize 5 easy steps.  Many consultants package leadership lessons in novel, memorable ways because that’s what grabs your attention as buyers. What would be more helpful are lessons on how to operate with character in a way that can be applied to real life dilemmas.

#3:  Don’t focus on the challenge of being away from the office, think of the insight you’ll gain from the platform of leadership experts. All too often we make the mistake of working ‘in the business’ given the chaotic nature of our work with its pressing demands. Stop trying the same solutions on issues your facing. Use the Leadercast as a catalyst for new ideas as you work ‘on the business.’

#2:  Develop the next generation of leaders within your organization. At this price point, we suggest you bring a young, aspiring leader with you. Share the experience and talk through real dilemmas you’re facing in your organization. You’ll be surprised what you learn.

#1:  Take advantage of the early bird and group discounts. In addition to the early bird discount, we have discounts for groups, i.e. – management teams, and the benefit of networking with leaders from other organizations.

These are all reasons for you, as the individual leader, as well as leaders you bring along with you. You can use this event as a catalyst for leadership development in your organization. Are you interested in developing a leadership pipeline to deal with the issues and challenges facing your organization? Talk to us strategies to extend the benefit beyond the single day.

Register today!

Eric and I recently attended the Design Madison event featuring Todd St. John. Design Madison is a group of Madison designers who come together to amplify the way design impacts our life. It’s a chance for designers to broaden their design scope. They bring in nationally known designers to share their thoughts and their work.

Designers often say that their design is “out of the box”, that they don’t do the expected or the common. (I think even I have said that!) But when it comes to the recent speaker at Design Madison – the quote fits. Todd St. John, of HunterGatherer has been designing, illustrating, and animating for many years. He has worked for the likes of MTV as well as the New York Times. But the thing that sets him apart is the way he approaches his design. He will often bring his design out of 2D and into 3, then back into 2. And after that he will turn it into an animation. He does this each time creating a new twist on the original design.

He created the company HunterGatherer in 2000 and has been doing commercial work, that has garnered plenty of awards. An Emmy nomination for an animated short, and a Webby are among his accomplishments but he has been published by almost every major design organization.

Mr. St. John’s work reminds us that it’s important to think beyond the obvious. If you think about what draws your eye to a page, a poster or an ad, it’s the things we don’t see everyday. Think of the Prius ads with the people creating the images dressed as grass, the sun and the trees. I would always have to stop whatever I was doing to watch that whole ad. Anything that uses art or hand-drawn graphics or lettering is always more eye-catching than some generic font used in a slogan or title for the millionth time. Think about that the next time you are looking for something to get noticed and go for something “out of the box”.

Check out his work both with HunterGatherer and his personal site, Todd St. John.

by KT Arnesen

Our Social Media and Marketing Strategist, Liesel Olson, often writes about social media and marketing on her blog.  We liked this one and thought you would, too, so we’re sharing it!  Enjoy!

A few weeks ago, I wrote about attending the PR+SM Summit in Milwaukee. I’ve thought a lot about what I learned there, and one presentation sticks out to me: The Future of Social Media by Augie Ray (@augieray).  The future of social media, according to Augie (and I agree), can be determined by two things: looking at the past and looking at real world communication.

Looking at the past, we learn that the idea of social media is not new; it’s just communicated differently now.  As we look through history, we see that people regularly adopt new technologies as a way to share what’s going on (think of cave paintings, family bibles updated with marriages, births and deaths, or chain letters, for example). It’s our human nature to communicate our experiences with our fellow humans, so we will naturally create and adopt new methods of communication.  But not all methods survive; some die, some evolve. The ones that are successful don’t focus on the technological aspects of the platform, but rather what the users need.

The other thing we look at is how people communicate in the real world.  I tell my friends that I had an AMAZING time on vacation, that I had a GREAT workout at the gym, or that I LOVE my car.  But I don’t have that option on social media sites (Facebook, I’m talking to you) because I only have the option to ‘like’ something.  As Augie points out, ‘likes’ are for four year olds. I agree. Give me options!  I also dislike things!

As a marketer, this is really important to me.  I need to know the negative sentiment just as much as the positive sentiment – otherwise how am I going to know if there is something wrong with my product/service? I think people understand that social media sites, including Facebook, will continue to make changes and evolve (and let’s face it – they have to in order to survive). I’m hoping some of those changes will include more variety in my options to reply.

So What About the Future?

Augie suggests that the Sharing Economy will grow, that transparency will spread and increase in importance, and that the future is serendipitous, meaning that your devices will be able to predict what you want (creepy, but cool at the same time, no?). I can’t say I disagree with him, especially when it comes to transparency.

I’d also like to add the following (some of these are already happening, but I don’t think they are going away):

• smaller, more intimate networks will develop
• we’ll see more creativity in social media marketing (including more online/offline integrated campaigns)
• companies will realize that ‘likes’ aren’t everything and really focus on building relationships/customer service
• a push towards people meeting in real life instead of simply connecting online

Augie’s presentation really made me think.  Maybe it will do the same for you. You can see the entire presentation here – Enjoy!

If you want to read more about marketing and social media, you can find Liesel’s blog here.