As a driver from Dayton to Chicago, I pull into a gas station where I’m offered a subsidized price on the gasoline I’m about to purchase if I’ll transport a secured and GPS enabled package 200 miles up I-75. I can then opt to take it further or leave it there and buy my own gas.

There are obvious security concerns, but if it was a validated organization I might be more willing to participate. I would certainly like a less expensive gas bill. The logistics of this are a bit crazy, but there must be a way to get fewer semi-trucks on the highways.

Thoughts?

While everyone who knew Gordon would agree that he was an absolute joy to work with and an amazing photographer, the purpose of this post is not to eulogize him. One of the first websites I ever built was a quick portfolio site for Gordon and this site is still available online as I write this.

This community will certainly miss Gordon, but his passing (along with this episode of The Big Web Show) has really gotten me thinking about what will happen to the web content which I maintain when I pass. While I don’t offer hosting to many folks, I do host a few websites for friends and Gordon was one of those. His site is still live on my server. I will gladly continue to host this site as a memorial for Gordon. But, I don’t control the domain name… At some point it’s going to expire and this site will disappear.

I’m not asking for answers, necessarily. This has just made me think about the temporary nature of the web. It’s really only been here for just over a decade and all the content that’s been written in this time will, at some point, face this same scenario.

So much effort has been put into generating this content, I would hate to see this fall away. How can we keep it alive?

I presented this evening at the Dayton Adobe User Group meeting at SAA in Kettering. The topic was CSS in the Real World. I used Prezi.com to build my slides and have embedded them below for anyone to refer to.

Also, I reference a post on CSS3 Pagination (without images) in the presentation.

I’d love any feedback you have about the presentation. This is the first time I’ve spoken on CSS in this format and am always looking to refine.

• Ben Callahan | Work | Blog | Personal
• Jeff Friend | Work | Personal
• Andy Rossi | Work | Blog
• Mark Wells | Work
• Rob Harr | Work | Blog
• Mike Ward | Work | Personal
• Grant Root | Work | Personal
• Ryan Clark | Work | Blog | Personal
• Ryan Buttrey | Work | Blog

We got started off with a great conversation about how difficult it is to stay current with all the RSS we’re following. Mike and Grant both use Delicious tagging. While most of us are avid fans of Google Reader, we do get behind because of the rapidly changing industry we’re a part of. Shaun Inman has a beautiful little application called Fever that helps with this problem by tracking which articles are popular and bringing these to the top of your reader. Comment below if you have other ideas…

This month Jeff suggested that we each bring something to discuss. Here are a few of the items we discussed:

Andy Rossi did a quick review of Expression Engine, a PHP based content management system released by EllisLab. This is a platform he’s been reviewing and playing with. Things he likes: solid add-ons available, extreme customization ability, you don’t have to hack at PHP to use it.

Jeff Friend brought up a great conversation about designing in the browser. There has been a lot of talk about this lately on some pretty respected sites and even at An Event Apart. We had mixed reviews in the group about this work-flow. Most concerns centered around the difficulty in finding a web-designer who could code to the standard we all strive for. The opposite is also true, it’s not east to find coders that have a solid grasp of design principles.

Ryan Clark gave us a quick overview of Mail Chimp, a newer bulk email management system. It offers a great interface for managing your lists and emails, extreme flexibility in the structure of your lists and some great RSS integration features.

Rob Harr demo’d a super cool jQuery plug-in called AJAX Upload. It handles the selection and upload of an image with jQuery, allowing you to do this without a page refresh. Beautiful. [will add links when I can get Rob to provide them - he's surfing in Florida right now]

Grant actually brought HAND-OUTS and therefore wins the award this month for “Best Dayton Web Guys Presentation”. The article was from his blog, discussing @font-face integration with a site he manages. Some of the guys use other services to help, Font Squirrel and Typekit were two.

I demo’d a web-based design presentation tool I found called Vyoopoint. It allows you to upload images (or movies, swf’s, pdf’s) of designs for submission to your client. The client can then comment on the designs. It also handles versioning of your designs. There is a free account you can use to test the service.

As we were wrapping up, Jeff called out something called Primer CSS, which will parse your mark-up and generate a skeleton CSS file based on ID’s and Classes found in the document. Very interesting idea. We all recognized the difficulty of organizing a large CSS file and pitched around a few ideas for solving these problems. How do you handle CSS confusion as your sites grow? Leave a comment!

Thanks all for a great meeting. Look forward to the next…

Isaac, with the Apple TV remote.

Couch Context

There are many things that my son, Isaac, and I have in common. We both enjoy playing with trains, chasing each other around the house, wrestling on the living room floor, picking on his mother. And, while all of these things are great, one of our most enjoyable pastimes is watching movie trailers.

We have an Apple TV at the house and Isaac and I will regularly spend a half hour on the couch watching all the Pixar (or other similar) movie trailers over and over. Something about this medium entertains us both in a way that others can’t seem to manage. I suppose it’s because the Trailer Editor is tasked with cramming so much into such a small amount of time. Whatever the reason, we truly enjoy it.

Hurry Up and Wait

It’s common for us that, after selecting “Play Trailer” on the Apple TV, we’ll be presented with a progress indicator as the trailer loads and Isaac will immediately begin telling the TV to “Go. Go. Go. Go.” We found this funny to begin with, and so encouraged him to continue in this behavior. However, now it is seeping into other parts of our lives. The other day, Isaac and I were sitting on the couch messing with my iPhone and I launched a racing application that I have. It started with a progress bar and he immediately began shouting “Go. Go. Go.” I was a bit surprised, mostly because this progress bar’s design was significantly different that the ones we see on the Apple TV.

Good Things Come NOW

As the speed of people’s internet access increases and their patience decreases, I have to wonder if we’re disproving the old adage, “Good things come to those who wait”. Isaac wants the good stuff, and he wants it immediately, but the truth is that good things come faster and faster every day. I’ve toyed with the idea of some kind of web-based social experiment which would determine if people would sub-consciously over-value something that required a longer wait time.

Isaac and Dad

I suppose until I have the chance to run that experiment, I’ll keep shooting for faster load-times and lighter markup and CSS…

Ford F-150 Monster Truck

Earlier this week, one of our family friends dropped off a few presents for the kids. Isaac received this monster truck with over-sized tires and an apparent appetite for destruction.

Needless to say, he loves it.

This particular truck is battery operated and has two buttons on the top. One which makes the toy move forward (rear-wheel drive) and one which makes the truck sound like it’s driving over smaller, meeker, more foreign-made vehicles. While he and I have had a blast loading this truck up with different stuff and sending it roaring across the living room floor, I can’t help but notice how cheaply it is made. When we first got it out, there was hot glue dripped randomly across the top of the truck, one drop of which had landed on a button, making it impossible to push. The body of the truck is glued to the frame with the same adhesive goop. From the time we opened the packaging, the body has easily separated from the frame. There is also glue hanging out the front of the truck, covering up it’s “teeth”. See the photos below for details. With all of these lousy manufacturing mistakes, what really stands out to me that this truck is overly-branded as a Ford product.

Touchpoints for Everyone

As a Partner at an idea studio in Dayton, Ohio that places great emphasis on brand, I find myself obsessed with these kinds of touchpoints. Unfortunately for Ford, this is actually a reflection on their brand. As you can see from these photos, the have placed their logo liberally on the truck.

I can imagine the meeting where this kind of decision was made. Perhaps someone suggested they find an inexpensive way to put the Ford name into the minds of little boys all over America. Maybe they didn’t consider the fact that one or two parents would also receive some kind of brand impression from the product. I would venture a guess that the negative impression on the parents outweighs the positive impression on the kids.

A Better Approach

So what should Ford have done? To start with, I’d recommend that they get their hands on any product they plan on allowing to carry their logo. An alternative would be to manufacture a high quality toy truck, somewhere in the USA, that came free to any parent that purchased a new Ford truck. This way you know you have a “Ford-friendly” family and you are reinforcing that positive emotion. Just throwing a load of trucks with your logo on them into every dollar store across the country doesn’t do much for your brand.

How to Learn from Ford’s Mistake

Something as simple as this may seem harmless. And, perhaps Ford hasn’t done any damage to their reputation by doing this. However, if it were my company, I wouldn’t settle for “made in China” brand awareness. This also applies to packaging. Anyone who’s opened an Apple product can tell you that they create an experience from the moment you hold their product in your hands. The key message here is to spend adequate time evaluating areas where you can effectively increase your brand’s value.

A good place to start would be a brand analysis…

Made in China

At least the truck is good for hauling these “Vensafi” batteries (proudly made in China) which came pre-installed in the truck and died within the first ten minutes of play.

Tessa Joy Callahan

Tessa Joy came into our lives on the 15th of December at 3:08PM. She is as perfect as a little girl can be, despite the fact that I am not. My hope and prayer is that I can be as good of a father to Tessa as my father was to me.

It’s long been expected that, while navigating a website, clicking on the organization’s logo will take you to the homepage. Not every site does this, but most sites are adhering to this standard these days. I know in my browsing experience, I regularly click on logos assuming this behavior, so I thought it was pretty cool that Amazon now has this hover state for their logo:

Amazon Logo

Amazon Logo Hover State

How Long Has This Been Going On?

I’m really not sure when Amazon introduced this, but it was new to me. This peaked my curiosity, so I did a little digging around at some of my favorite sites to see if anyone is not honoring this expectation. In fact, I couldn’t find a major website that didn’t do something like this.

Honoring “Click My Logo”:

• Apple (nicely integrated into the site nav)
• Microsoft
• Flickr
• Yahoo
• Manic Mouse (had to throw it in)
• Dictionary.com
• Daring Fireball
• Aol. (very interesting implementation)

So, my challenge to you – can you find a major website that doesn’t do this? If you find one, share it in the comments below.

Handcrafted Coops

Perfectionism Runs in my Blood

I can remember back to a summer from my childhood, probably twenty-some years ago, when I was staying with my Grandma and “Gramps” at their farm in Pennsylvania. My Grandfather was working on building a new chicken coop and I was (not really) helping. As we neared completion, he realized that one of the 2x4s he’d cut was about a half-inch shy of it’s ideal length. Of course, we needed to make a trip to the hardware store to buy another 2×4 so that it could be done right.

For a chicken coop.

While my grandfather was like this about most of what he did in life, my perfectionism is a little different. I call it “selective perfectionism” – I’m sure you can guess what that means. There are a select few areas in my life where I am desperately passionate about doing things right. My business partners will tell you, one of these areas is coffee. Another one is website design and development. This is a great thing if you’re a potential client, but it presents a set of unique challenges to me and my team as we strive to build beautiful, perfect websites.

Recognizing the Problem

Before we get too far here, I want to make it clear that I believe there is a time (and a budget) for carefully crafting every pixel and every line of code. Unfortunately, most of us don’t have clients that can afford (or schedules that flex to accommodate) this kind of work. The problem with us perfectionists is that we know a little too much. It’s that knowledge of our craft which pushes us toward the death spiral and the same knowledge which, often times, convinces us to chose the absolute best approach whenever we’re faced with options. I believe that there is always a “best solution” out there for any given problem. As business owners/website designers/software architects, we need to develop our ability to look at the paths before us and select the one that is the best fit for a specific project.

So, how do we do this?

Everyone responds a bit differently to these kinds of situations, and each project presents it’s own unique challenges. However, there are a few simple things we can do to help prevent ourselves from falling into the spiral.

Establish (and Remember) Clear Goals

Take some real time to think about the two or three core goals of a given project. This isn’t something that you can do on your own, it requires feedback and buy-in from your customer. These goals will later provide a filter through which all project decisions can be examined. Having this higher level of understanding for your project will keep you in tune with what’s best for your client. Remember, we’re not designing for awards, we’re trying to grow our customer’s business.

Trust a Non-Perfectionist

At the risk of sounding a bit trite, it can really help to have a “perfectionist accountability partner” available. Quite simply, a logical individual who will listen to you explain the options and provide a sensible point of view. Often times, I find that simply explaining the two or three ways I can see to create a solution provides the clarity I need to make the right choice. In this case, two heads really are better than one.

One note here, you may want to avoid using the person in charge of the budget for this. I have nothing against the money folks, but often their feedback is to chose the quickest way to solve a problem. Remember that this is a balancing act, it requires compromises and a real desire to serve your clients. Whoever you trust with this responsibility must share this understanding.

Talk to your Customer (Gasp!)

It’s funny to me that each time this suggestion comes up we seem to laugh it off. I believe the reason we don’t take this seriously is because we don’t think our customer’s are smart (technical? creative?) enough to make an educated decision. While there may be some truth here, the reality is that these are the folks paying for the product you’re going to deliver. They aren’t experts in your field. They may not have a design or programming degree. But they should be invested enough in your project to listen to what you’re considering and provide some feedback. If they’re not, this is the perfect opportunity to get them involved. It may even lead to an increase in your overall budget. Trust me when I say that you (and your client) will be much happier with the end product if this kind of communication is common in your process.

The Takeaway

Over time, perfectionsim will eat away at your profit and morale. As experts in our field, we should strive to provide a level of quality that exceeds the expectations of our customers. But we should also be willing to compromise when it’s best for our clients. Working through these kinds of issues with your team can help with efficiencies and prevent teammates from feeling under-appreciated. It’s difficult, but it’s worth the effort.