A great deal of time and money has been spent on building online communities and connecting people from one nation to another, but lately the web as a whole is becoming more ‘local’. People want to know who’s been where we are, what our real friends think, and connect on a daily basis and are using the internet to do this. Then once they’ve checked in on their mobile phone, sent out a twit about tonight’s BBQ, or uploaded the photos from last night’s drunken bash, they go back offline to continue those interactions. The internet is now bringing people together locally quicker than any networking event could have. It’s creating a depth to our online interactions that was previously overlooked, and it’s powerful.

Offline community is often overlooked as just “friends hanging out”, but honestly it’s more than that. Through offline interactions you can build respect, work together quickly, share great ideas on a whiteboard, and also enjoy a good laugh or two. Over the past few months I’ve seen a few new offline communities spring up due to online interactions and I’m loveing what they’re bringing together. I’ve been able to learn more, do more, help others find more business, and make great friends with people I really enjoy.

A few years ago I was at the first meeting of Refresh Phoenix, a local group that wanted to bring the web community together to start working together and make a name for Phoenix as a technology center in the United States.  From Refresh Phoenix sprung some offshoot commuities such as Refocus Phoenix (a local photographic community), Refactor Phoenix (local software developers), and Tiny Army (local illustrators).

Earlier this year I started using Twitter, but really didn’t get addicted to it until SXSW, when several Refresh Phoenix community members started using it as our primary device to stay connected during the conference. Once we got back, I started attending local TweetUps, meet ups of twitter users in Phoenix. Many of us were into social media, but just didn’t know of eachother because we were just different *enough* not to meet up through other means. Once I tapped into the social media crowd I found out about Social Media Club in Phoenix, which is a meetup of people who enjoy discussing social media, how it effects our lives, and how technology is becoming more ingrained in regular social activities.

Over the last year I’ve become part of Drawbackwards, which is one of the companies that Integrum Technologies shares it’s offices with, that includes the likes of Forty Agency and obuweb. Intergrum has since opened up the offices as a co-working space called GangPlank, where anyone can come and work. GangPlank has open house events as well, one of them being Hackmania every Wednesday night where you can come and connect with other webbies to create great applications and work on other side work that you may not have a chance to focus on normally during the week. This time has allowed new ideas to spring up all over the Phoenix valley, and I’ll be sure to show case some of them here in the future.

I’m really enjoying all the friends and real connections I’ve made through the past few years, and it’s always getting better. I really hope that you can connect with you own local community and build a niche for you to grow in within your own backyard.  Bringing people together can help the comunity as a whole and really bring strength to your ideas and interests. Good luck!

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Ever wonder if your boss, and his boss, and their boss has it out for the company? Do some of their managerial tactics don’t make sense and end up wasting time and money? Perhaps their team management manuals have been switched with this 1944 sabotage manual that reads like a 2008 Management Guidebook. Download the whole pdf and share with your team mates, I’m sure they’ll agree! Thanks to Tomas from The Closet Entrepreneur for this great link.

O’Reilly Ignite is the basis of the new Ignite movement that’s been happening around the United States. Basically it’s a 5 minute talk on what ever you think is interesting enough to talk about, 20 slides with 20 seconds a slide to help demo your opinions and ideas for crowd. Ignite Phoenix has just started getting the fire started here, and wanting to know more I started looking into past talks. I found one in particular that really spoke to me, it’s a comic for kids that teaches them to be creative, inventive, and to always be thinking.

Perhaps you enjoy being in touch with nature, with all of your five senses and twenty digits. If you hate shoes and would rather go barefoot, there is another way. BrainFuel spotlighted a site last week that answers this very issue. Vibram Five Fingers is a type of foot covering that allows you to experience the joys of being barefoot without the pain of that sharp rock or twig.

I have the pleasure of working over at GangPlank at least two days a week, and every so often Derek will break out the camera and snap some footage of us. Dana then goes to town editing and splicing digital bits to make us all more amusing than we are.. wait no.. we really are that funny, Dana just makes it MORE so. Anyhow, check out the new video A Day in the Integrum Lives.

Wireframes and complex UI design can be overwhelming for designers, but Adobe hopes to solve some of the burden with Thermo. Adobe will release Thermo during the Adobe MAX 2008/2009 conference, check out some sweet screen shots.

Now on to mobile! With the news of iPhone 3G in hitting markets in July, lots of buzz around that of course, but check out these other mobile gems you may have missed under the roar of Apple. Modzilla Labs gave a sneak peek look into a concept for Firefox Mobile Browsing for all you die-hard Firefox lovers out there, you will soon get your alternative . Flixwagon also gave video casters another way to get their fix by using your iPhone to stream live video.

Sometimes I find myself looking at the smaller details in life and wondering how random or perhaps meticulously designed the are. We interact with products all the time, and when the user experience is perfect, we seldom take design in consideration, take for example the car door handle. Luz, one of my brand new designer friends sent along this link last week, thanks hun for the designer touch on this week’s link list.

Onsite Insite, a local billboard leasing company, will be using their unoccupied billboard space to showcase local artists, creating community awareness and large-scale artistic expression at the same time. Tyson Crosbie, a local abstract photographer and a good friend of mine, was selected to be showcased on one of their billboards along the Santan Freeway. Congratulations Tyson. Tyson also had his Phoenix 20 book signing this weekend, where I scored three of my very own Tyson Crosbie prints!

So, what’s a link list without a good humorous video mocking a social network… which brings me to Facebook Gangsta, ’nuff said. Thanks to Beau from HLFIndustries for this fine link.

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I stumbled into a very interesting conversation between Forty Agency and Heather Herr of Experience Studio regarding archetypes and branding and how those build an entire brand experience and increase customer loyalty.  I won’t go into those details here, that may be another blog post some other time. However during this presentation, a book was mentioned, The Hero and the Outlaw: Building Extraordinary Brands Through the Power of Archetypes by Margret Mark and Carol Pearson, that really raised my interest in what this archetypes bit fit into who I am and how I would build my own legacy.

Well, my very own hardbound copy arrived in the mail today, and I’ve spent the better portion of my night starting to read more into it. Very interesting stuff, and as I discover things I’ll be sure to mention them here. So far it’s mostly regarding these 12 archetypes that appear throughout history in stories and stereotypes and how aligning your brand with one of those 12 will consistently help your brand be easily recognized and create value within customers. By using these default stories we can engage our customer quicker, allowing the experience to become easier and can increase loyalty within a brand’s customers.

So far, I’ve been doing quite a bit of passive branding, through my own blog, through local networking and through twitter etc. But due to my interest in continuing to go to conferences and what have you, I’d like to get a real feeling for what I want to be perceived as and how to do that properly. I’d like to really get behind a design style, branding, colors, and paraphernalia (biz cards, stickers, fun stuff).

However, there is a catch in this, right now my name is pretty much my brand, and while it’s great that it’s unique (According to google I’m the only April Holle in the world!) The catch is I might be getting married soon, and if that happens then my name changes, all my effort is then thwarted. Not only am I changing names, I’m changing to April Jones. Do you have any idea how many of those there are? So if you have any ideas on how to gracefully transition this, please chime in!

If you have any personal experience in self branding, please feel free to comment, because advice and experience is never a bad thing to have.

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Granted, some customers can come into the relationship wanting the impossible, but often, with a little enlightenment, customers can grasp how Rome cannot be built within a week. But I feel often, instead of investing in this conversation, we instead push ourselves to build things quicker, faster, and cheaper.

Sometimes we can just have a simple conversation with our clients, and often they’ll be totally accepting of our need for more time to create the desired product. Many times when I talk to a client, they themselves are not prepared for the product to be finished, they don’t have the content ready yet, they still need to gather all their product photos, etc.

Why do we tend to forgo these honest conversations that can strengthen our client relations and really give us a better working relationship in the long run? Is it our need for deadlines? Perhaps our procrastinative nature drives us to seek this adrenaline rush that is the last-minute push? Maybe a way to curb our creative natures that drive us to constantly expand the scope of possibilities for the project?

This issue has always frustrated me, why push ourselves to slam something out when there’s always more time to work? Sure, things have to get done, but does the quality of work have to suffer? We quit trying to achieve the best possible, and start undercutting to hit some date that really isn’t anything more than a spec of time in the span of the universe.

So I thought I’d toss it out there and see what you guys thought, why do we do this to ourselves?

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Kaleb and I have had Annie for a little less than a year (her birthday was May 10th) and we love her soo much, she’s always full of energy and has a real personality. Since we moved to the new house we’ve been thinking that she was spending a little too much time harassing the cats, and maybe she needed her own doggie companion. So the search began! We originally discussed a Maltese since we absolutely love little Cocoa every time we visit Baker’s (a co-worker of Kaleb’s) place, but there aren’t a whole lot of them around and buying one from a breeder can be really pricey. Other breeds that made it onto our short list were Italian Greyhound and Papillon. I’ve always loved the look of the Italian Greyhound, but I was worried about the match up between Annie’s short stature (being a doxie and all) and the tall lanky Greyhound. Papillons are also one of my favorites, but they were in the same boat as the Maltese.

While we bought Annie from a breeder, I really didn’t want to do that again. It’s expensive, you have all that work of training a baby puppy, the cost of the puppy shots, the new microchip, the spay/neuter, etc, etc. Not to mention there are so many homeless pups that are just in need of a wonderful loving home. So we started looking at adoptable pets in the Maricopa area. We found a wonderful tool to really help us, and I’m so glad there’s a website out there for this! It’s called PetFinder.com and it basically is a network where shelters and rescues can list adoptable animals. You can search by breed, age, size, etc which made it really easy for us to find possible matches for Annie really quickly. That’s where we found Edward, we contacted AJ’s Best Friends (his rescue agency) and scheduled a meetup as quickly as we could! Eddie is half Chihuahua and half Dachshund which makes him the perfect size for Annie. We love his pointy ears too!

When Annie and Eddie first met, Edward was quite shy and just wanted to curl up in Sherri’s (Edward’s foster mom) lap and bury his little head. But Annie seemed really interested in this new dog friend and tried to get him to play, he did a bit, but just really didn’t know if he could come out of his puppy shell. After a while Kaleb and I decided that Eddie was a really sweet pup and we were sure the two would warm up to each other eventually.  So after some quick paperwork, Eddie came home with us!

We renamed Edward from his original name (Jelly Belly) because we feel that our dogs are our babies, and they deserve human names and to be treated with equal rights as humans. Plus, there’s a story! When we went to meet Edward he had just had his nails trimmed, and I was wearing shorts since it was hot out. Since he was so excited to meet us he was jumping up and scratching my legs with his newly trimmed nails. Pretty soon my legs looked horribly scratched and red, Kaleb exclaimed, “It looks like Edward Scissor Paws got you you!”  So the name Edward stuck. It’s a good nickname and goes well with Anniezilla!

He’s been with us two days now, and LOVING every minute of it! Annie and Eddie are like two peas in a pod now, they’re never more than a few feet away from each other at any given time and play together like they’re littermates. Edward has had a few accidents in the house, but we pretty much expected that with him still being a puppy and all, but overall he’s been a great sport learning the puppy pads quickly and when we go outside he doesn’t fool around! Kaleb kids him, “Annie has ears the size of Jupiter and Eddie has a bladder the size of Pluto.”

If you are a dog lover or if you’ve had the pleasure of meeting Annie or Eddie, feel free to follow their twitter feed. They’re always up to something, and they have a particularly interesting view of the world!

If you’d like to know more about rescuing animals in Phoenix, becoming a foster family for rescued or abused animals, or how you can help animals in need by donating time or money, please contact AJ’s Best Friends or the Maricopa County Animal Care and Control. While on our hunt for the perfect pooch companion we learned that several rescue agencies in the Valley received over 100 dogs and puppies from puppy mills in Missouri over the course of this weekend, so they really can use your help right now as much as ever.

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In the meantime, I’m starting to wonder about what to do next. I’m 25, I just bought my first house, due to get marred in Sept., financially sound and have everything I ever dreamed of having when I was a little girl. So…. what’s next?

My entire life I’ve had a goal, that next stepping stone to leap for without looking. Now, I’m standing at the green pasture I was traveling to and looking around to wonder where I go from here.

Upon further evaluation of my current situation, the only thing I see I want to change is my… weight.  Oh yea, you know it, it’s that time for my self image to come rearing its ugly head. I’m not obese by any means, you won’t ever hear me talk about “OMG I am SOOO fat!” but there are some lumps and bumps that weren’t attached to me before that I definitely wouldn’t mind loosing. So course of action?

Well we’re going to attack this beast from two flanks. I’m going to eat right and exercise, because I hear… all of one and none of the other doesn’t really do it. So lets break down the plan here a bit further.

Eating Right

We all tell ourselves we’re going to eat better, we may end up crash salading for a while and then give up and dive head first into the chocolate cake. I have tried cooking at home and eating out less, cutting soda out of my lifestyle, etc. But, I began to wonder, am I really eating right or just torturing myself and filling up somewhere else? Weight Watchers has these commercials on right now, showcasing a free week of their online tool that helps you measure your progress, so I looked up the cost. I was pleased to see that my monthly subscription to Weight Watchers isn’t any more expensive than a monthly subscription to World of Warcraft, and perhaps much better for myself. So here’s where the fun begins, because I started to think of it like a GAME!

I log in, fill out my little height, weight, age and find out that I’m ten pounds over the “healthy maximum” for my height and age. What a shocker! I knew I wasn’t “fit” but really? I’m overwieght? So come to find out my range is 115-135, I’m sitting at 145lbs. Yes, I did, I broadcast my weight online for everyone to see, but you can track my progress too!  The next step you get to set your “goal”, so I kept it easy, 130lbs.

After you set up your target, then you can choose your meal plan, there is the FLEX plan that gives you a certain number of points and you can eat whatever you want as long as you stay within a certain number of points a day/week. Then there’s the core plan that seemed more strict. So for me, just starting, FLEX was the way for me. So using the FLEX plan I get 21 points per day (this is based on how much weight I want to loose, etc), and then I get 35 points to spend however I want through the week (that slice of chocolate cake after dinner out, etc).

Now here’s where the strange stuff starts, now I have to track everything, I mean EVERYTHING I eat or drink. I decided to practice a bit and put in everything I had eaten yesterday (mind you I’m signing up around 5 pm).  After I got done I realized no wonder I’m overwieght, yesterday I consumed 49.5 points! That’s more than DOUBLE what I’m suppose to be eating!

After I found this out, I started really analysing where those points came from, and after looking through my entries, it all made sense. Those little times through out the day, I say.. oh, it’s just a slice of cheese pizza, just a grilled cheese sandwich, its really not doing me any favors at all. All these items come into my life because I don’t know what to make, I just pull something quick and easy out of the fridge and make it happen. So I hit up the recipe area to start doing some meal planing. A quick dash to the grocery store for some new awesome fruit and veggie choices and I’m ready to rock and roll today. I’ll let you know how I’m doing!

Getting Off Your Bum

Thankfully exercise isn’t going to be hard part here. In the recent past I’ve been exercising on a semi-regular basis, so I just need to conjure up a real schedule and stick to it. Going to pull up the LA Fitness (my gym I’m already a member of) and look into some of the classes they have, I love Yoga and Pilates a ton, so going to those classes will be easy for me. The motivation is really good here because I love the feeling I get after I work out, I feel better, I breathe better (ex-smoker ya know) and I actually feel like I have more energy.

The hard part here, is Kaleb. He has a crappy commute from work to home at night, so when he gets home, he’s a lounge bug. I love to just relax after a hard day with him, but once we get into that mode it’s hard for either of us to want to be physically active. He bought a treadmill, but we still haven’t set it up since we moved in, so our chances of really getting on the thing are slim. Perhaps, as I go he’ll start hopping on the band wagon, he doesn’t have to do my classes per say, but he could run or do weights while I’m in class too.

Anyhow, that’s my new goal, and it will be lifelong once I start getting it together. Wish me luck and I’ll keep you updated on my success!

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I packed, I got into a cab, I stood in security, I boarded, I flew, I landed, what now? Taxi! Hopped in and jetted over to my hotel, while my room wasn’t quite ready I got to check in and have them hold my baggage which was nice. Stayed at the Radisson, which was alright, but next year I’ll definitely be staying at the OMNI, it’s just more… well… COOL. Anyhow, off to the conference!

Walking down to the conference center I’m already spotting people with SXSW badges and gear rolling down the street. The conference center was swarming with geeky peeps all excited and not quite sure what to do or where to go yet. Instantaneously greeted by the Integrumlins hacking in the halls already working on some new inspired SXSW twitter application. I am directed to the check in line, which spans AROUND the corner of the conference center, estimated wait time, 40 minutes. Vaguely reminded of college registration, I step in line and begin my journey to check in. The line moved surprisingly quickly and before I knew it I had a new shiny badge and my very own SXSW bag of swag.

Met back up with the integrum peeps and proceeded to elimnate about 98% of the paper products in the swag bag, poor trees!  Chilled for a bit before the first session, Respect! by featuring team members of Happy Cog and Douglas Bowman of Google.

Respect!

The main premise of the panel was how to gain respect in our careers, from our colleagues and our clients, by developing concepts on how we can translate what we do in a way they can understand and respect it, as well as interpreting the value of what we do.

The Client

The important message here is getting the client to understand what exactly goes into the process of great web design. As Jason Santa Maria put it, “[It’s] difficult to respect something I don’t understand, you have to get what went into it to respect it.”  To have the client get what gets into it, you have to involve them early, letting the client draw and express what they really would like to get out of the website and giving them ownership of ideas, making them part of the process of initial strategy.

Having all the right research of what the client really needs is important. Happy Cog conducts extensive client research, going into their client’s office and really discussing with everyone regarding what they really need. “It’s the tipping point when you’re in individual meetings and they go to shut the door, you know they’re going to open up to you and trust you”, Liz Danzico stated, “creating an understanding with them that they find valuable.” If you feel you usually don’t have time to really get to know the client and their needs, start to make time within your proposals.

Another way you can gain client respect for you and the work you do is to not nickel and dime them on small changes and corrections. It’s awesome that the client wants to make it perfect, just make sure you’re consulting them through the process.

Also, when you help clients through the process remind them of the WHOLE process and what they’re doing right now at this very step. We sometimes forget that clients don’t have the website on their minds at all times, they have other business issues to worry about as well, how the company is doing, if they have to hire or fire, what about those health benefits their employees want? So remember that while their website might be forefront in your mind, they have other things going on and they need you to remind them what they’re doing in the web design process and why it’s important to the website.

Also be aware of how web savvy your client is. If they’re pretty good at knowing the small stuff, don’t be lazy, use that to your advantage by being able to teach and push their knowledge farther regarding some of the more advanced techniques that are involved. Remember, understanding is the key to respect.

Copy is one thing, visual representation can be the sticking point in a client relationship. “Visual representation is VERY personal” Jeff mentioned. Happy Cog gave us some solutions on how to get over this extreme hurdle in the relationship unscathed by giving the client two completely seperate solutions to their problems offering them up as “this says this about you, that says that about you” Jeffrey Zeldman recommended. Jason Santa Maria suggested “have the client focus on the problems rather than solutions” since the solutions are your specialty and your clients problems are their specialty. This gives the client a feeling that you’re holding the keys and they have to consult you on “the best way” to achieve a solution.

Awards

Jeffrey raised the question regarding awards and whether awards really  provide any metric to our clients regarding how good we are at our jobs. The panel concluded that while awards may have some impact as a metric on how clients respect you, that it’s both small and perhaps deceptive since there are so many awards out there that don’t really attest to great web design at all.

Within the Team

Within your team it’s important to have a certain amount of respect as well. To do this the panelists suggested to make sure everyone on the team was somewhat cross trained or familiar with what each staff member contributes to the project and how their job is also vital to the project completion and success. As said before, it’s hard to respect something your teammates may not fully understand.

Other Interesting Thoughts

I found that during the course of this years conference a reoccuring theme appeared with content collection and creation, lots of shops are demanding content be provided before the design process ever begins, which is great because we’re shifting focus from the aesthetics to the real reason the web began in the first place, CONTENT!

Happy Cog team members also stressed the importance of good content, they make actual editorial documents regarding the voice and use of the content throughout the site to really define and bring life to the brand. Also, the content needs to really be informative, as Jeffrey cautioned, “Sites [are] reading too marketing and not enough web.”

Overall a very interesting session and a great way to start off the conference. I’ll be posting more take aways from more sessions as I have the time today and tomorrow, so keep your eyes peeled. Now I have to hop in the shower for the last day of exciting SXSW action!

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A job pays you to be somewhere for 8 hours and feels like you’re at the dentist.

Doing what you love pays you to do what you’d normally be doing anyways for 8 hours.

If you get off of your 9-5, and you feel relieved or excited for the pure sake of getting off of work, and I mean on a routine basis, not just every once in a while when something horrible blows up, then you’re working a job. If you’re doing what you love to do, sure there are those days where fire drills happen and you save the lives of millions with your super human powers of greatness, but chances are you’re happy about the things you accomplish every day at that thing we call work. If you feel your employer should pay you for “time served” chances are you’re working a job, and not doing what you love.  If you get your paycheck every week and you remember, “oh yea! I get paid for this too!” you’re probably doing what you love.

A job puts you in awkward situations for which you feel unprepared for and doing things you dread to do.

Doing what you love lets you explore avenues that you have always wanted to travel and gives you life lessons you can use later.

There are times a work where we can’t know all the answers, where we have to “work” to really get some where, sometimes we even have to do those tasks which we find mundane or boring. However, if you’re working at a job these moments in time are going to be significantly harder on you. If you don’t consider that rough patch just a challenge or a bump in the road to the next big span of fun, chances are, you’re at a job instead of doing what you love.  When you’re doing what you love, you’re interest in taking on a challenge and learning something new about what you love to do is significantly increased. You step up to the plate instead of sinking back into the crowd. Sure, working means there’s always some part of it that would be described as “work”, but when you’re doing what you love, those periods in time are fun and interesting instead of dreadful and scary.

A job feels like a foreign environment.

Doing what you love feels natural and comfortable.

If you get off work, walk out the door, and feel like you can be “you” again, you’re working at a job instead of doing what you love. When you do what you love, you’re simply changing locations for 8 to 10 hours, not changing mental states or forcing yourself to be someone or something you’re not. Sure, sometimes growing pains are hard, it’s natural to feel a strain every now and then when you’re trying something new or traveling down an unworn path. But, when you feel like you completely metamorphize when you leave the office or a meeting, you’re not being your true self and after a while that can really wear you out just keeping up the facade instead of using that extra bit of energy to really do what you love. I know lots of people who LIKE to wear a suit because of how it makes them feel, when the right person is doing what they love to do and wearing that costume, it DOES something for them and they ENJOY it.

Remember, just because you don’t love something about your current job, doesn’t mean you can’t change it just a smidgen and turn it into something you love to do! Maybe it’s small, like the changing your schedule up two hours to get rid of the two hour commute, maybe it big like starting you own company, or maybe it’s you for not making the leap already into that situation you KNOW you’ll enjoy. What ever it is, remember you’re in control of what you do and how much you enjoy doing it as a career, you’re never stuck.

So how do you know you’re doing what you love?

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Instead of going on and on about how good it is for you, they’ve gone the extra step again with edgy marketing to target their audience. Instead of the marketing message “protecting from the inside out”, they have switched it up with a visual statement that really says, “protecting from the outside in” wrapping the entire city scape in the commercial with BUBBLE wrap. Who doesn’t love bubble wrap?

The actor then goes haywire and climbs to the top of a skyscraper and jumps off to test this new bubble wrapped city scape protection.

Nice twist on a marketing message we’re hearing all too often these days.

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I have accepted a short term contract with Drawbackwards, a smaller strategic design and interactive marketing agency. I will be filling several roles at Drawbackwards that will enable me to have the flexibility to explore the other areas of the web industry that I’m interested in. Over the last week I’ve been able to create information architecture, SEO/SEM suggestions, project plans, etc. I’m sure this is just the beginning.

I’ve realized that I’m interested in more than just how the web is created. I want to know how people make the web great. Focusing on strategic approaches to connect great companies and services with customers and users whose lives will be enriched by these products, services and relationships.

Look for the tone of my website to change a bit, perhaps less technical and more theoretical. With the career change I’ll have more mobility, working from home three days a week, so I hope to be able to post more often. Also, in early March I’ll be attending the South by Southwest Interactive Conference, so I look forward to posting regarding all the exciting ideas I get from there.

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