I recently had the pleasure of visiting Disneyland for my wife's birthday. While it is (by my opinion, and many others') the "happiest place on earth," there are certain things that made this trip even more enjoyable. Not only did my wife receive hundreds of "Happy Birthdays" from the cast workers (due to the birthday button you get on your birthday), but I got to see some of our clients' represented as well.
SiteCrafting attended the 32nd Annual LeMay Car Show & Auction at Marymount Academy in Tacoma, WA on Saturday, August 29th. As the Official Website Provider for LeMay- AMERICA'S CAR MUSEUM®, SiteCrafting set up an informational booth at the event where we showcased sites we developed and made ourselves available to talk about our partnership with LeMay and other community initiatives we take part in.
Today, SiteCrafting teammates were given a tour of YWCA facilities in downtown Tacoma. We had the pleasure of having our tour led by Executive Director Miriam Barnett and Marketing Manager Kelly McDonald.
Miriam provided some great education on history, purpose and even shared stories of current and past clients. This organization has an amazing history. YWCA of Pierce County was started in 1905 and in 1976 opened the state's first shelter for battered women. It was the largest shelter in western states at the time.
We toured this shelter and learned a lot about the building utilization, client services and the organization's plans for the future. The YWCA of Pierce County is in desperate need of additional shelter space and recently purchased a nearby building that we also toured. This new building provides a lot of potential for the organization as, in the least, it will provide more apartment style shelter space for women and children.
They are currently in the midst of a campaign to raise the funds to fully convert this new building into shelter space, and SiteCrafting is a proud partner in this campaign.
Thanks very much to Miriam and Kelly for this thoughtful and thorough tour of YWCA facilities. You both make it very easy to be inspired and excited to support YWCA initiatives.
There's an interesting article in Business Week about how employers are scrambling to develop policies to manage employees, especially those in leadership roles, in the development of their social reputation through social media tools like Twitter and Facebook.
We're often asked by clients and partners to advise on the development of their own social media policies, and we find, more often than not, that most first runs at a social media policy are created from very paranoid perspectives. Unfortunately in this realm, micro-managing often back-fires, which is why we encourage development of policies that stay simple and respect common sense. Read more →
It's no secret that nearly everyone in the web industry has some level of entrepreneurial spirit in them. Side projects are constantly being worked on and thought about. I, myself, run three community sites on the side. I have 4 Myspace profiles, 5 emails addresses, 2 Facebook accounts, 3 Twitter accounts, 1 Linkedin, 1 Friendster, 2 AIM accounts, 1 MSN account... now your probably thinking I'm nuts and wondering why...
Because so many of my projects are in different niches, having a way to manage the image and voice of that project is key. Many people are familiar with business incubators where when a client calls in on a number a shared receptionist answers the phone a certain way... same idea. By having a way to file people into different accounts it helps me manage all of the people trying to contact me and allows me to prioritize responses much easier.
This all works fine except with one type of contact. My phone number. When out and about, people have asked for my cell. If I have a personal connection with them I'll give it to them but if they are more of a business contact I tell them to just email me. Out of all of the ways to contact me my cell is definitely the "bat phone" so sharing the details are much more private since it is much harder to filter out the noise.
There is a solution just around the corner that I'm extremely excited about. In 2007, many of my friends turned me onto Grand Central, but they were quickly swallowed up by Google and I was unable to get an account. Well, news just came out about it, stating that it might becoming out of closed doors soon as Google Voice.
Google Voice allows you to get an alias phone number that is then routed to your phone. Also, all voicemail becomes digitized, allowing you to play via web interface!
Check out the video:
This solution will now make it extremely easy to give out a number that you can cancel at any point, all while keeping your personal number available and private. Another great advantage is if you are working on a site targeted at a certain state or city you can get a local number that gives you the image of being local.
Our logo (the gear) lends itself to many-a-unique uses. It's been used to depict Rudolph on last year's Christmas card, a throwing star held by a ninja on some company t-shirts, and even used as a knock-off of the good 'ol Jolly Roger. We're always trying to come up with new ways to use and new things to put it on.
As a company brand evolves, it's often easy to forget about little things such as the email signature. The email signature, which appears at the close of a message, is usually where contact information exists, consisting of info like your name, title, dept, website, address, and phone number. I say "usually" because many people feel this is a spot to showcase a little bit about themselves. They do this with such things as banners, animated gifs, inspirational quotes, and even their photo. Read more →
Find out what's next for the high-growth company...
Seeing the time as ripe for expansion, SiteCrafting has launched a new venture in an effort to expand into prescription eyewear. SightCrafters, LLC will bring to the eyewear world what SiteCrafting has brought to the web development business.
Let's say you've got a website, and you're considering whether or not to advertise on it. Or maybe you've already got a website with advertising, and you're wondering if a particular kind of ad is appropriate to display on your site. The only problem is, you don't have a concrete set of guidelines to filter out what is acceptable, and what isn't. These are the kinds of questions you should ask yourself to resolve this dilemma.
Dan Voelpel begs the following question in yesterday's Tacoma News Tribune: "If I asked you to name the most underrated business in Tacoma, what would you say?"
First on Voelpel's list was SiteCrafting. The article defined "underrated" by those local firms that are either well-known but who's contributions are deeper than at first glance or others, like us, who fly somewhat under the radar but do great business.
One thing that we frequently build in conjunction with new websites is a tool for sending out email newsletters. For the most part, we stick to XHTML/CSS and try to stay away from using "old" layout techniques (i.e. tables) for the newsletters. This allows the greatest flexibility between the large number of email clients (e.g. Outlook, AOL, Yahoo!, Eudora, Thunderbird, Pine, etc.). Businesses love being able to quickly communicate with their customers, and email newsletters are a great way to do this. But things are changing, and if you use HTML newsletters, you'll need to make some changes too.
or how you too can find a reliable professional who doesn't advertise
Last month, I was doing some major work on a house when I ran into a problem I couldn't handle. I needed a plumber, so I did what a lot of people do -- I turned to the nearest telephone directory. At the top of the PLUMBING section, I saw the name AAA++ Plumbing*, and promptly skipped right over it. (More about why I did that later). Read more →
I'm in a band. Well, two of them, but only one that matters for this discussion. I've noticed that the progression of a musical group that wants to be professional on some scale in many ways closely mirrors that of any product-based business. You start out spending a certain amount of time in development. You come up with ideas, assemble the best team available to execute those ideas, and then do your level best to refine and perfect your product before you release it to the public.
How to succeed on the Web by really, really trying
With apologies to the fine classic baseball movie…We can build it, but it doesn't mean "they" will come! I was having a conversation about this with a few people from SiteCrafting, who asked that I contribute my thoughts to the Blog.
SiteCrafting, Inc.
Today, SiteCrafting teammates were given a tour of YWCA facilities in downtown Tacoma. We had the pleasure of having our tour led by Executive Director Miriam Barnett and Marketing Manager Kelly McDonald. 
