Here's a project we worked on with the CrossFit team. Information organization, copywriting and great collaboration with a very talented designer - Ryan Lucas.

CrossFit is one seriously connected and dedicated web community.When it comes to grassroots online community building in action, CrossFit sets the bar high and then does fifty pull-ups.

The new Equilibrium Website went live this weekend, just in time for NAB. This is a complete redesign of Equilibrium's Website. The COLAB Web Works team built the site on the Movable Type Pro platform to meet our client's project requirements for an easy to use CMS. The call to action is linked to the client's NetSuite CRM for dynamic lead qualification, capture and delivery to the Equilibrium sales team. The Equilibrium Continuum blog was created and legacy content was imported from the company's TypePad blog.

The 60 page site design features integrated video and flash demonstrations showing off the company's product line.

We have started working with  a great new young company in Portland - Trek-Tech. The COLAB team has a passion for photography, video and clever ideas and so do the Trek-Tech people. The Trekpod XL combines all three and has us salivating. It's a carbon fiber hiking staff, monopod and tripod cleverly designed to help active outdoor photographers and videographers capture their best work. Check out the video and you'll see what we mean.

Thanks to Jim Bocci, I had the opportunity to make a pitch to the University of Oregon Continuing Education Workshop on Marketing Event Management at the new Uof O facility in Portland. It's a magnificent new space in the White Stag building. Leed certified and lovingly renovated, a real place to be.

Here's the pitch. It's really just a case study of the Oreilly Media Web 2.0 Expo social media marketing tactics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An image caught my eye while browsing Wired Magazine's web site.  Forever a fool for '60's beach scenes (and surf music), I did my usual ADHD drift and clicked on it.  This brought me to Wired's "How-to Wiki", where they entice their community to publish DIY articles. 

The subject of the 'beach boys and girls' scene, is entitled "Play It Cool In Front of Your Crush".  It's interesting, and oh so relevant to the Portland "scene" (Rock Bottomers, you might want to read this article once or twice.) and just-in-time for Cupid Day.  

This How-To Wiki got me thinking...what a great way to entice the public to build fun, interesting content for one's web site; what a great way to build community around your business by encouraging participation; and, you don't have to be a media giant to incorporate this kind of wiki into your site.  You just need a good web development partner like COLAB Web Works.  Oh, and have a groovy Valentine's Day!

 

COLAB Web Works is all about Web 2.0 tools, which is why I spent some time today installing a wiki.  We use Basecamp for project management, which is a great tool for team collaboration, tasks, schedules etc.  It doesn't however, serve us as a wiki would.  So I installed and configured MediaWiki for internal use.  Basecamp is perfect for our team, especially when we want to grant access to clients so they can view their projects, but it's essentially a conversational tool.  Time sensitive information, such as milestones, tasks, schedule dependancies, etc. are best shared in Basecamp, but fixed information is problematic as time pushes it out of visibility.  Hence a wiki, which is better suited to the archiving of non-perishable information.

A common misconception is the ability to use a wiki as a social tool.  While sites like Wikipedia are built on a social model, as are all wikis, the social aspects of flowing conversation are absent.  Information in a wiki is relevant always, even as it is changed and updated, which lends it strength as a record of knowledge.  Wikis are not good at conversational flow; content is still formated with annoying cryptic markup, even with pretend WYSIWYG tools that hide the dots and dashes.  In other words, content formatting is important.  Tools like Basecamp, instant messaging, or a Facebook wall, care nothing about formatting because they are not archival.  They are meant to transport information for immediate use.  Read messages from a month ago and count how many are still relevant to action you would take today.  Some, I'm sure, but most are obsolete.

Wikis, on the other hand, perfectly store information, such as documentation, product specs, network layout diagrams, etc.  Information that will not perish completely, and must be changed only occasionally.  We favor tools like MediaWiki for API documentation, internal process documentation, organizational charts, and resource lists.  It's a digital three ring binder, a record of what you produced and created when collaborating with your conversational tools.  If Basecamp, then, is a record of the conversations held during the making of history, a wiki is a record of the history itself.

Social Computing Magazine has collected tips from experts on what it takes to successfully rollout workforce collaboration projects.

Here are the fundamentals:

• Start with a real business problem that needs solving. Sales and marketing are great places to start.
• Begin with the end in mind.Know what you are trying to accomplish before you start.
• Build a cross functional team of business and IT experts who are passionate about making it all work. Everyone on the team should be an evangelist.
• Get executive sponsorship from a true believer.
• Make it fun.
• Don't ignore security but don't make security the excuse for doing nothing.
• Think adoption not deployment.
  
• Develop metrics to measure success

The Washington Post reports the new White House staff "finds White House in technical dark ages."  The problem, it seems, is a workplace virtually void of laptops and occupied by desktops running Windows XP and Office 2003.  For the Mac-centric hipsters of Obama's team, this certainly must seem like the dark ages, but as TUAW accurately points out, "this is how most Americans work." The social networking and communications tools we saw Mr. Obama and his team use to great effect over the past 2 years have yet to make their way into the American enterprise.  The White House technology is the same as that of business, and the new staff stands confronted with the reality of the mainstream.

But the mainstream is changing.  The social networks and open communication services that organizations like the Obama team rely on for day to day operation are making their way into business.  Corporate decision makers are beginning to understand they can't ignore Facebook-like tools, or blogs, instant messaging, and RSS based information systems anymore.  The visibility the new White House team gives the "Enterprise 2.0" way of conducting business is sure to hasten the uptake.  When you're ready, COLAB Web Works is here to help.  We specialize in helping companies deploy Web 2.0 technologies, and we know it works.  Don't believe me yet?  Just keep watching the White House.

Smashing Magazine is required reading. If you are interested in graphic design you need to subscribe. Today they posted a roundup of Website design trends for 2009 that will get your creative juice flowing. Just reading the article and looking at the examples makes me want to get started on refreshing every website I see. Here are the top 10 trends according to Smashing. (And who are we to argure?)

1. Letterpress
2. Rish User Interfaces
3. PNG Transparency
4. Big Typepography
5. Font Replacement
6. Modal Boxes
7. Media Blocks
8. Magazine Look
9. Carosel Slideshows
10. Introduction Boxes

Think about how these could work for your site. The COLAB team would love to help you bring your ideas online.