On May 20th I had a chance to discuss ways to utilize the Internet in a more effective manner with the Women’s Business Owners Network. The environment was informal but that provided us an opportunity to discuss the topics that each member might have found interesting in more depth. We covered a variety of subjects including the use of Social Media such as Facebook and Twitter, Seach Engine Optimization, 10 ideas to think about when it comes to your website, and more.
The most impressive part was after the meeting and getting a chance to discuss some of the ideas of the group members more fully. One woman in particular had never thought of the idea of using a blog for her business, but saw some potential opportunity there. We discussed some different ideas to get started and how to try it out to see if it makes sense for her and her business.
I want to thank Karen Cheshire and the members of the WBON for inviting me out to speak with them.
We are excited to welcome 5 interns to the Emerge team for the summer. Ranging from a recent high school graduate to a recent college graduate, the new team members bring additional youth, energy and new perspectives on emerging technology.
During the summer, the interns will work in teams and focus on 10 summer projects. Each project has a written vision, scope, measurable goals and a definition of why the project is important both internally for Emerge and externally for the customers, constituents and stakeholders that will be involved.
We’ll share the details of each project over the next couple of months. In general, we’ve organized the internship the way I think it would be like to work in a lab. Each project is it’s own experiment, we think we know what will work and what won’t, but until we start testing, we won’t know for sure.
The following originally appeared on May 2, 2010 on LorainCounty.com
For last 2 years, we (the team that provides development support for LorainCounty.com) have debated the best way to connect LorainCounty.com to the social media wave that is rolling throughout the Internet.
While discussing the many different options, there were always 2 things we agreed upon:
1) LorainCounty.com shouldn’t try to be a social network (the site’s focus is geographically bound, whereas your social relationships are not)
2) LorainCounty.com shouldn’t spam facebook and twitter with every headline
As to the two items we agreed LorainCounty.com shouldn’t be, the Facebook buttons address these perfectly:
1) LorainCounty.com becomes instantly personal without having to create a social network infrastructure and ask you who are your friends
2) You won’t see every LorainCounty.com headline in Facebook, you’ll only see the one’s your friends decide have enough value to share
The exciting part of this is that LorainCounty.com users decide what is of value and worth sharing with their friends. Some of the things you might share include:
Your favorite pizza shop
The non-profit you support
The candidate for County Commissioner you support
An article on a business expanding in the County
A festival or event you plan to attend
Your companies profile in the Community Directory
What are your thoughts on connecting LorainCounty.com to the social media wave?
We at Emerge are very pleased to welcome Maegen Hurtado to the staff as a full-time team member.
Maegen will be the Lead Programmer and Visual Artist for our division focused on working with small to medium sized businesses with a goal of improving their business through the use of Internet technology, such as Web Development, Hosting and Interactive Marketing. She will also be assisting our programming team on the Custom Development side of Emerge.
Maegen brings not only expertise in visual design and content management systems, but also extensive knowledge and passion for video and social media strategies that will expand our deliverables for our clients.
We are very excited to welcome Maegen to our team!
Last Friday, Google announced that site speed now impacts search ranking within Google. In the case of two sites, all else equal, the faster site will be ranked higher in Google. Site speed reflects how quickly a website responds to web requests/
Not Much Weight – Yet
According to Google, “While site speed is a new signal, it doesn’t carry as much weight as the relevance of a page. Currently, fewer than 1% of search queries are affected by the site speed signal in our implementation…”
But, Google has long been a champion of Internet speed. I’m sure this weight will increase over time to encourage site developers to continuously improve the speed of their sites. Remember, the more pages we view, the more ads we see. And, since Google dominates online advertising, faster Internet is in their best interest.
Speed Analysis
Emerge is creating a speed analysis option for clients. We will use multiple tools to test the speed of your site and create a prioritized list of upgrades that will increase the site’s speed. If you are interested, please email me at Ed@EmergeInc.com.
Normally, I wait a few months before buying the latest gadget, read the reviews and generally let my emotions settle down and my logic take over. But with the iPad, I went for it, stood in line (only about 90 minutes) on launch day and began using it within an hour of release.
Following are my initial thoughts after 72 hours of ownership:
As with all Apple products, the packaging was minimal and well designed. I’m a fan of the ‘Designed by Apple in California’ imprint.
The display is unbelievable – crisp, clear and bright. The only issue is the reflection when outdoors.
The size is perfect. Easy to hold. Websites fit and are readable.
The weight is a little heavier than I expected, but it is a good trade-off for a long battery life.
For books, I’ll still probably use my Kindle because it is easier to hold and change pages with just 1 hand. Although I like that my Kindle books can be synced with the iPad, including the page I’m currently reading.
The touch interface is very intuitive.
The NPR app is one of the more interesting early apps. 3 rows slide right to left to show the different news stories available. Plus access to live and archived audio from hundreds of NPR stations around the country.
The iWork for iPad suite (keynote for presentations, Pages for documents and Numbers for spreadsheets) are well worth the $10 each. In addition to the productivity benefits, they provide insight into how touch interfaces will be used in future applications.
The keyboard will take some getting used to. It is a little small for normal typing and without the feel of the keys, it is hard to be confident your typing the correct letter without constantly checking (Apple does offer a full size keyboard attachment).
The inability to edit Google docs is probably the biggest challenge I face right now with the ipad.
Interacting with social media sites facebook and twitter are excellent. I prefer the web version to the mobile version for both sites.
The speed is very acceptable both on my Wi-Fi at home and at the office.
No camera means I can’t use it to video skype with my brother overseas, but other than that, it isn’t that important to me.
The lack of multi-tasking is an issue. I have a short attention span and on the computer always work with multiple applications and web browsers running.
NOTE: I purchased the 16GB Wi-Fi version and the apple cover. With tax it came to a little under $600.
Overall, I’m very impressed. I still need to more fully integrate the iPad into my workflow, but I can already see a number of uses that make it well worth the investment.
In a conversation last week with a good friend about how the Internet could be used to increase collaboration in regards to volunteers and volunteer projects, we hit upon the idea of adding a wiki page for each project that would enable the volunteers to share amongst themselves.
We quickly realized that many people probably aren’t familiar with a wiki. They may have used Wikipedia, but not a wiki in general.
From Wikipedia – A wiki ( /ˈwɪki/ WIK-ee) is a website that allows the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor.
The excellent people at Common Craft created the following video which explains the power and benefits of a wiki.
Public access to valuable government data creates a necessary level of transparency and enables many eyes to view and review the actions of the government.
Government data shall be considered open if it is made public in a way that complies with the principles below:
1. Complete – All public data is made available. Public data is data that is not subject to valid privacy, security or privilege limitations.
2. Primary – Data is as collected at the source, with the highest possible level of granularity, not in aggregate or modified forms.
3. Timely – Data is made available as quickly as necessary to preserve the value of the data.
4. Accessible – Data is available to the widest range of users for the widest range of purposes.
5. Machine processable – Data is reasonably structured to allow automated processing.
6. Non-discriminatory – Data is available to anyone, with no requirement of registration.
7. Non-proprietary – Data is available in a format over which no entity has exclusive control.
8. License-free – Data is not subject to any copyright, patent, trademark or trade secret regulation. Reasonable privacy, security and privilege restrictions may be allowed.
Here is a quick video introducing a new book from Harvard Business School Professor Youngme Moon (Amazon Affiliate Link). The book “provides a highly original perspective on what it means to offer something that is meaningfully different—different in a manner that is both fundamental and comprehensive”.
How is your business “meaningfully different”? Any suggestions on how Emerge could become “meaningfully different”? Email them to Ed@EmergeInc.com.
