Empowering Your Team with “Yes”

by Tracey Halvorsen on July 20, 2010

Who on your team or in your organization has the power to say “yes”? When a final call is needed, a decision must be made, is your organization made up of people or managers who have the ability to say “yes” or are they more likely (and expected) to say “no”? If everyone is saying “no” as ideas, propositions, etc. get pushed upstream, when does anything ever have a chance to reach a “yes”?

If you need organizational change or forward progress, one of the most important things you can do is identify and empower people, teams, managers or directors to say “yes”. Then it’s your job to stay out of it, not micro manage that process, and definitely don’t undermine it by countering every fledgling attempt at a yes with a CEO-like swift “NO”.

Not only will the power of “yes” get you moving, it will force your team to own its mistakes, be less fearful of change, embrace new ideas (instead of shying away from them), and give them a much stronger sense of ownership within the organization. And for what it’s worth, a sense of ownership from your team is more valuable than anything, and worth a few missteps along the way if it gets you there.

What do you think? Does your company or organization give you the power to say “yes”? Or are you expected to say “no”?

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How To Work Towards Achieving Fun

by Tracey Halvorsen on July 12, 2010

2009NunsHavingFunCalendarIn today’s hustle and bustle of fast rising and falling markets, public offerings, venture capital investments and other equations of valuation, we often forget about one of the most important aspects of value in our lives, fun. Walt Disney knew this, Steven Speilberg knows this, every parent preparing for Halloween or a birthday party knows this. Fun is the thing of untold riches. Fun, if harnessed correctly, can offer a reward no monetary investment can guarantee – a wonderful memory.

Ironically, the logistics of organizing fun are often the short-fallings of achieving the fun we seek. It seems, if fun is what we seek, we suddenly treat the process much like a first time cake baking class comprised of first graders focused on eating nothing but frosting, easily whipped into an anticipatory sugar feeding frenzy and fixated on nothing more than pure, uncut, fun. How shall we deal with the crazed masses?

True fun is often the result of careful and calculated planning, usually by the organizer, who is sacrificing their own hopes of fun for the greater good (think party planner, wedding planner, etc.) This “planner” must choreograph the event to ensure fun is had by all who participate, be they a sugar craving 8 year old or an insecure middle aged office worker. And I thought my job was challenging!

Often the ideas that we know deep down might be fun, also will propose to place us in a situation we aren’t comfortable with. This is the key to having fun, it’s part of the scary part where we get outside of our normal habits and let ourselves play. This used to be natural to us all as children, but we have grown to be much more rigid and self deprecating as we age. We have to assume that part of a truly fun experience might involve some level of discomfort – that should be a goal!

To achieve fun, we have to treat the planning for the fun much in the way we plan for a normal event or project. There are target audiences, goals, barriers for entry, etc. If we leave it up to the universe, chances are the fun will sputter out, be isolated, and ultimately not be fun. However, if we treat it like a job, and if our goal is fun, we can succeed. If we find ways to gently nudge the participants into a situation they might be uncomfortable within, but is well planned out and has solid objectives in place – fun can be achieved! Here are my rules for achieving fun:

1. Keep the barrier of entry low
2. Ensure the pain is worth the pleasure
3. Don’t ask. Tell.
4. Leave something to the unknown – “Let’s see what we come up with!”
5. Don’t leave room for critics in the process
6. Trust your gut
7. Test it out, if it’s not fun for you, move on
8. Don’t be afraid of silliness, part of “fun” is letting yourself go
9. If you aren’t a little bit scared, you probably aren’t having fun

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Ignore Your Alumni and They Will Go Away

by Tracey Halvorsen on June 22, 2010

I was pretty darn excited when I got a scholarship offer to attend the Cleveland Institute of Art (CIA), and even more excited when I made the life changing decision to actually go there versus the safer route of a liberal arts college with a strong studio arts program (my anticipated course of action). Once I decided, I was all in. I made the most of my education and of every opportunity I had, and when I graduated, I felt very strongly about the place that had fostered all that learning and growth.

It’s not hard to find me, or other grads from CIA. We are out and about on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube. We don’t have organized events like reunions or get-togethers (you know, artists hate that kind of crap), so we depend on the occasional alumni magazine or email blast from the school to know what is going on. And, during fits of nostalgia, I will visit the website and look for areas where I can connect with past alumni, check that my info is up to date, or even see if there are ways I can stay involved with CIA. Sadly, my knocks at the door are left unanswered.

If I feel more like an afterthought then a critical brick in the foundation – I will go away.
If I feel more like an output instead of a family member – I will go away.
If you come at me out of nowhere, with your open hand asking for my money – I will go away.
If you express no interest in my successes, and in ways I might be able to support you – I will go away.
If you seem confused and indecisive as to who you are – I will go away.
If you don’t cherish your community of graduates – we will all go away.

I see amazing stories of success and perseverance, of growth and insight, posted daily by my classmates on Facebook and elsewhere online. It’s a damn shame that my undergrad isn’t more involved in connecting with us, sharing our stories, seeing what the end result has been from our years at art school. But it’s OK, I stopped caring a long time ago, and I went away.

Are you an organization or school trying to reconnect with your alumni? Here’s how to start.

1. Know your stuff. If you are responsible for engaging with alumni, you better start studying and researching. Find out who were the top grads, who went to live in foreign countries, who was stirring up stuff during school. What was going in in 1990? If you don’t know, you better start figuring it out.

2. Listen! Set up your Google alerts, your Tweet Deck columns, your hashtag monitors and see what people are saying. Then, respond and join the conversation. Of course, avoid inflammatory situations, but if there are things you can add to, find interesting, or want more info about, engage!

3. Ask for help. Use your networks to expand your audience. Don’t try to do it all alone, get your networks to help by spreading the word, directing others to you, and providing information.

4. Start a dialogue. Sure most of you probably already have your Facebook and Twitter pages and accounts (what you don’t? Go do that now!), but how often do you engage with your “fans and followers” in conversation? Start out by typing “Hello Alumni! What is everyone up to these days? Send us your stories so we can brag about you!” If you hear crickets, try again – and get more and more specific until you start getting responses. Still crickets? Seed your Facebook page with responses. Ask questions some of your most recent alum or even current students can answer or respond to, and get the ball rolling. After all, no one likes to go first.

5. Lastly, keep it up. If you don’t have someone dedicated to fostering these relationships at your institution, you are already behind the eight ball. This should be a daily occurrence, on multiple networks and in a variety of engaging and authentic manners. Not only on social networks like Facebook, but on blogs, features brought into your own Website, the development of alumni portals where classmates can reconnect in meaningful ways, sharing of success stories, announcements on Twitter. Celebrate your alumni and the community it represents.

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Are Online Social Networks Good or Evil?

by Tracey Halvorsen on June 18, 2010

I was invited to be a guest on National Public Radio recently to discuss the topic of Clay Shirky’s newest book, Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age, with Clay and host Dan Rodricks on WYPR.

We discuss why people are giving up television for online digital activities that pool their intellect, energy and time, and how that is changing the world we live in. From lolCats to the oil spill, people are connecting online to form communities and becoming more engaged, especially when you compare it to the amount of time we all spent passively watching the televised sitcoms of the 70s and 80s.

Have a listen and feel free to share your thoughts on the topic – its definitely not a dull one! Click the link to listen to theMP3 of Tracey Halvorsen and Clay Shirky on Dan Rodrick’s Midday Show on NPR.

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Custom Branded Email Signatures Made Simple (sort of)

by Stacy Spakowsky on May 27, 2010

Signature DetailFastspot is a huge proponent of having a consistent brand and presence in all arenas.  As such, we have implemented custom branded email signatures.  Our preferred email client is Mac Mail app and we’ve found that, while these signatures are professional and polished-looking, the process of installing/implementing them is nothing sort of a multi-step nightmare.  We’ve switched up our signatures around five times in the last couple of years, so I’ve become the unofficial Fastspot e-signature expert.  Here is the process, broken into as few steps as possible (bear with me):

  1. Create an HTML signature.  Our goal was to integrate our logo and the color scheme from our branding while also adding links and icons to our various social media outlets.  We experimented with background images vs. in-line images and ended up finding that in-line images are more compatible across the various email clients and Web mail services, such as Gmail.
  2. Open the HTML signature file using Safari.
  3. Choose Save As… from the Safari File menu.  Save the file as a .webarchive format.  This is the format Mac Mail app uses for signatures.  For the sake of these instructions, I will call this file “signature.webarchive”.
  4. Mail Preferences window showing All SignaturesOpen Mail Preferences.  Choose the Signatures panel. All Signatures is the default view; you will see your email account(s) and various numbers of signatures assigned to each listed below that.  I have four different email accounts filtering into Mail, so I have four signatures total and one default signature assigned to each account.
  5. Click the plus sign to add a new signature and title it whatever you like.  I will call this file the Mail signature file.
  6. Close the Preferences window and Quit Mail.
  7. Copy your signature.webarchive file.
  8. Go to your Library>Mail>Signatures folder in Finder.
  9. Paste the signature.webarchive file into the Signatures folder.
  10. Find the new signature file you created in Mail Preferences, the Mail signature file.  Mail creates signatures with non-sensical alpha numeric names.  To find the file you just created, find the one whose creation date is “Today”.
  11. Copy the alpha numeric name of the Mail signature file. Rename that file whatever you like.  I tend to use the keystroke Command+X to cut the title and then rename the file “X”, as well.  You can delete this file if you like; you will not be using it again.
  12. Rename the signature.webarchive file to the alpha numeric name you just copied.  Just paste the name in place.
  13. Fastspot SignaturesOpen Mail Preferences. Go to the Signatures panel.
  14. Click and drag the new signature to your email account in the left column. This assigns the new signature to that email account.
  15. Click the email account in the left column. Use the Choose Signature drop down at the bottom of the window to assign the new signature as the default for your account.
  16. Close Mail Preferences.
  17. Open a new email message.  The new signature should appear automatically in the new email composition window.

New Message with Signature
Simple, right? Only 17 steps for a professional and cohesive look for your company. Okay, so it’s not “easy”, but when the majority of your communication happens via email, it is fully worth the effort.

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Denote for Good, Not Evil

by Tracey Halvorsen on May 26, 2010

We created Denote, a tool to allow for the communication on live sites between client and vendor. It’s up to you to use it for good, not evil.

Denote For Good, Not Evil from TraceyHalvorsen on Vimeo.

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Deconstructing the Bucknell Virtual Tour

by Tracey Halvorsen on May 24, 2010

Bucknell Virtual TourHow do you create a virtual tour for a top university that not only wins a Webby but also increases yield and interest?
Bucknell Virtual Tour
Bucknell Virtual Tour1. Find a client who is willing to push the envelope, trust their agency and treat their audience the way their ideal “prospective student” should expect to be addressed – with intelligence and thoughtfulness.

2. Ensure, like Bucknell, the client wants a virtual tour like no other.

3. Next, ensure you conceptualize an experience that is both fun and useful. You don’t want your users to have to work too hard, but you do want them to feel a sense of exploration. In our case, we mixed in the customization element, along with the social media inspired method for saving and sharing your tour with others, and also allowed for more traditional exploration methods.

4. Don’t let fear cause you to dumb it down. When reviewing the concept and design direction with the Bucknell team, we didn’t allow fear to create senseless edits. Accept that doing something new or innovative comes with a healthy dose of fear, then move on.

5. Don’t forget the main dish, the content. At the end of the day, what we created was an interesting and engaging skeleton to allow for exploration of content. It was up to our client to load in all the great pictures, videos and campus facts. We just made sure the CMS allowed them to do it quickly and efficiently.

That’s a quick summary on how we came up with a Webby winning virtual tour for Bucknell University! If you have more specific questions about the project, feel free to inquire here or ask Curt Kotula, Fastspot’s Art & Technology Director and the lead designer and Flash developer on this project.

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Don’t Let Fear Prevent Progress

by Tracey Halvorsen on May 19, 2010

Do you hide at home because you are afraid if you step outside someone will mug you? Do you avoid public places in fear of falling victim to a random crime? Do you lower your eyes and walk quickly past strangers in hopes they will not see you, and not verbally attack you? If you answered yes to these questions, then by no means should you join Facebook, create a Twitter account or start a blog.

You must be ready to engage in dialogue in order to be part of what everyone is calling social media. Part of that process does involve opening yourself up to negative comments, or even hate speech. Surprisingly, people behave online much as they do in real life, preferring to stay positive and be kind. However, there will always be a few people who will look for opportunities to attack, or complain, or take things personally, or to criticize in order to make themselves feel better. Tactics for dealing with haters was nicely covered by Tim Ferriss and I recommend you take a look, and remember, we all have to deal with it. If we all refuse to be afraid or to acknowledge the few who seek to intimidate and bully (usually anonymously which I find ironic), then we will all be part of forward positive progress.

My favorite tip from Ferriss is actually a quote from Colin Powell, “Trying to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity”.

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Web Thievery. A Blurry Topic, Especially to CatholicOnline.org.

by Tracey Halvorsen on May 18, 2010

When something is this blatantly ripped off, it’s hard not to notice. First look at Visit Philly’s site, launched several months ago, and then look at Catholic Online’s site, just launched.

Not only do the visuals appear to have been stolen and re-purposed, so does the actual code. If you dig around in the catholiconline.org site you can find references to philly and visitphilly, along with identical naming schemes. The city of Philadelphia paid good money for their wonderful new Website, created by Happy Cog, a highly regarded web design agency with offices in Philly, NY and CA. The site launched several months ago, and has been getting great reviews, as most of Happy Cog’s projects garner for themselves and their clients.

Then along comes Catholiconline.org, and while we have yet to determine if they hired some outside company to create their site or tasked an internal team with it (they aren’t responding to comments on Twitter), one thing is clear…their team stole work, ideas, designs and code that were not their own, and created catholiconline.org. While I don’t know the legal ramifications or remedies for this kind of situation (and if you do please share in the comments), I do know that this does not shine a favorable light on catholiconline.org. What do you think? Is this blatant to a non-designer’s eye? Is this kind of stealing acceptable when it comes to Websites? Should someone be held accountable?

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Top 9 Productivity Apps / Services for Web Design Agencies

by Tracey Halvorsen on May 11, 2010

In the spirit of showing appreciation, I am going to list the things we can’t live without here at Fastspot. These are applications or services that save us time and money, and make us look better at what we do. Author Disclaimer Alert! Two of the apps I mention are Fastspot creations, if that bugs you then skip this post. Now, without further ado:

1. Rackspace. Rackspace provides hosting services. We have been with them for 8 years. They rock. We found them after dealing with months of increasingly stressful and frustrating calls and emails to our old hosting provider who clearly couldn’t deliver on what they were promising. We had constant downtime for our sites. Sure, we were paying less, and yes, I do think I was talking to people who might have been in a basement somewhere in Canada, but hey – live and learn. After months of really horrific situations where clients were calling, our own site wasn’t up when we would be doing presentations, etc – we opened a magazine, saw an ad for a company promising Fanatical Support, and we called. The rest is sweet blissful history, filled with nights of restful sleep and happy clients! We’ve even made a few friends along the way, and are proud to consider Rackspace a partner. They make us look good, and are worth every dollar when you consider the alternatives.

2. Google Calendar. My mother always said I needed a good calendar. In fact, I don’t know how I got through life before Google Calendar. Now we use it at Fastspot, and it was our choice after looking at many calendar alternatives. The features I love most about Google Calendar are the alerts and reminders. Every day I get an email in the morning with my daily agenda, and I can set a variety of email, SMS and popup alerts as I need them. I never miss a call or meeting any more, and I can invite others easily so they don’t miss things either. The ability to create multiple calendar “types” viewable by groups or kept as private is also a nice addition.

3. Google Analytics. I look at analytics several times a day. I can see who is visiting our site and our clients’ sites, what content they are finding interesting, who is linking to it, and many other valuable bits of information. While the total traffic, unique visitors, etc. is interesting, there is one section I look at all the time. I set the calendar to “today’s date”, and then click Visitors / Network Properties / Service Providers. This is where the hidden gold is for me. Mixed in amongst the Comcasts and other ISPs are the names of potential future clients. For example, I know of one potential client who we have sent a proposal to. They just spent 40 minutes on our site this morning. That tells me they are taking a very close look at Fastspot, which usually means we will get the gig. I can make educated assumptions on these visits and what they mean, and I can also be prepared for hearing from them in the future. I could do an entire lengthy post on all the great things about Google Analytics, but figured it most practical to share my one favorite list to look at. To learn more, I recommend investing in a book like this one. The other great thing about Google Analytics? It’s free.

4. Basecamp. I was a fan of 37signals back when they did Websites. Then they created an application to make their lives easier, offered it to others, and it took off like wild fire so now 37signals creates and supports apps for those working in the web industry. Basecamp was their flagship application, and it’s the only one we use. One of the best things about Basecamp is that it keeps things organized between us and the client. As our team expanded, it became increasingly troublesome when one member of a client team would email important files to a designer on our team who would forget about the email, or lose it or accidentally delete it. Then you would play the, “I sent that to you weeks ago”, “No you didn’t” game. I think that is the biggest seller for Basecamp, it keeps everyone from playing the blame game over unorganized project management. Plus, our clients love it once they start using it.

5. Harvest. Time tracking, no one likes it, but if your business runs on hours, it’s critical to track them against projects and tasks. Harvest makes things easier with a nice user interface, providing you with only the things you need, and ensuring it plays nice with other applications (like Basecamp). The built in timer is used heavily within Fastspot, as it’s easier to hit the start / stop buttons when working on tasks then trying to remember how long something took at the end of the day, or *gasp* a few days later. I love Harvest because I can quickly and easily go into the app, unarchive an old project, and see exactly how many hours my team billed to the project, and for what tasks (design, programming, project management, etc.). It allows me to make more accurate estimates for new clients, and to have a clear view of what problems might have arisen on a past project that went over budget.

6. Denote. Disclaimer – Fastspot made Denote, and Fastspot now offers Denote as an app (a free version is available). We made Denote for ourselves, actually one of our lead programmers made the beginnings of Denote one day when he wasn’t busy, to make some repetitive tasks easier to manage. For anyone who has managed a Website project, either a large site that is getting ready to launch or a providing maintenance and updates on a site over time, you know how tedious it can be to share notes on issues with teams. You have to find the issue, copy the URL, paste it into an email or Basecamp, describe the issue in words, make sure you include what browser, then send that off to some poor recipient who has to jump through the same hoops just to understand what you are trying to show them. Denote allows you to skip all those steps and simply leave the note right on the web page. The recipient gets an email, files can be attached to the note, the browser is automatically detected and included in the note info, and an admin area keeps all the notes organized for any reporting needs. It’s simple, easy to use (even for non-techy clients), efficient, and only does what it needs to. We love it, our clients love it, and we know you will love it too.

7. BigTree CMS. Second Disclaimer – Fastspot made BigTree CMS and Fastspot sells BigTree CMS. BigTree is a content management system. We created it because so many other content management systems sucked. Really sucked. And not only did they suck, they were incredibly expensive, and worst of all – only programmers could work with them. I often ask myself, what is the point of a content management system if you still need programmers to make all the content changes? BigTree CMS is built around some basic premises. First premise, the CMS should be enjoyable to “use”. Why should we expect someone to be happy clicking around a horrendous looking interface in order to update a nice looking website? We shouldn’t. I look forward to working in apps that look nice and are easy to use. Isn’t this the reason behind Apple’s success? So, BigTree is pleasurable on the eyes and simple to use. Second premise, the CMS should do only what you need it to, no more, no less. So we customize it to suit each project, and give our client the tools to mold it to suit their needs down the road. Last premise? Don’t lock the client out. We give full access to the code and system so clients aren’t bound to us for future CMS work.

8. WordPress. WordPress is even better when you purchase the Thesis theme for it, as we did. I love WordPress because not only is it an intuitive and powerful CMS for our blog, but it also seems to have a special relationship with Google. Posts to a WordPress blog seem to immediately flag my Google alerts, meaning the posts are indexed at blazingly fast speeds, which is good news for anyone who cares about SEO (search engine optimization). I also like WordPress because it has a great community built around it, with developers constantly creating new plugins, tools, and ways to further the power of the blog. It still requires some programming knowledge to get it up and running effectively, but not a ton. Once you are setup, tweaking it, adjusting the themes, adding plugins – it’s a breeze. However, Wordpress (especially Thesis) really helps you keep your eye on the ball, which is the content.

9. TweetDeck. TweetDeck is my favorite Twitter client because I generally keep multiple columns open for multiple accounts, and I use Twitter as much for listening as I do for broadcasting or conversing. TweetDeck lets me do all of this with ease, and it lets me sync these setups between computers and on my iPhone. My only complaint? The iPad app is sluggish and crashes frequently, but hopefully that is being fixed as I write this!

OK – so there are my top 9, the things I use every single day and would be very upset without. Anyone else using these apps or services? Got some other good ones to add to our list? Is MailChimp your favorite email blaster or do you prefer Emma? Is your day incomplete if you don’t open your favorite code editor? Leave your faves in the comments and share the love and appreciation for the things that others have made that make your life better.

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