FatPurple

Or – How not to be the person that nobody wants to invite to lunch… For anyone who isn’t already familiar with Dale Carnegie, I recommend you get acquainted with his work by reading How to Win Friends & Influence People. This book was originally published in 1937 and still holds up today. I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t benefit from reading – or rereading – this book. Most of the principles and guidelines should be obvious to us all. However, remembering and adhering to his advice is an ongoing struggle for most. Continue reading

Four recent videos discussing various Web marketing topics. Twitter, LinkedIn, and Zynga execs discuss the future of online advertising. AOL Chairman and CEO Tim Armstrong says display advertising will still dominant. Sapient’s Freddie Laker on the future of social media. Lithium’s Paul Greenberg on the state of Social CRM Continue reading

I’ve been using the text link advertising platform Text-Link-Ads for several years now with good success. …Based on my recent experience I decided to search for an alternative text link advertising provider. I hadn’t previously heard of LinkWorth, but the site looked nice and the product was described intuitively. Continue reading

I recently wrote about how open source content management system (CMS) platforms like Drupal have gained a foothold in the government sector. However, the majority of enterprise-level CMS implementations at the Federal Government level are run by the big boys, including longtime market leaders Vignette and Interwoven. Continue reading

A list of the 2010 top 100 Government Technology Contractors. They are ranked based on related revenue from IT products and services, systems integration, telecommunications, professional services and engineering services. These contracts total more than $130 billion. Lockheed Martin retains the top spot again this year. Continue reading

I’m always intrigued when someone puts together a top 10 (or any number) list of Web design or consulting companies. I’m not sure how much science there is behind this list. There may actually be some “pay for rank” angle at work. Continue reading

An unlikely adopter of Drupal CMS over the past couple of years has been the U.S. Federal Government. And it now seems like a very timely move given Obama’s Open Government Initiative. Continue reading

The liquid layout for websites is dead, thankfully. Actually, it’s been largely dead for a few years now. You’re next question may be, how do they decide how wide to make their layout? Continue reading

An interesting article discussing an approach to involving Web developers early in the requirements analysis. I find this type of intense approach very useful on large projects with numerous stakeholders, designers, developers, and managers. Continue reading

I’m often asked to evaluate or analyze websites that I have no relation with. While there’s no way to get very accurate traffic statistics without having access to the site’s server logs or some other analytics, there are some nice tools to give us a glimpse of the traffic levels and general visitor demographics. Here’s a quick list of some of the tools I use. Continue reading

InformationWeek’s annual U.S. IT Salary Survey showed a median raise for IT professionals of 0% in 2010. The survey data was gathered from 20,000+ IT professionals between November and January. It’s the first time in 11 years that IT salaries have not increased. The pay freeze holds true pretty much across the board – managers, staffers, contractors, and consultants. Highest and lowest paying market segments – and job titles. Continue reading

Video demo by Adobe’s Paul Dorian on using Fireworks not only to create website visual designs, but also to create wireframes. This video has peeked my interest in exploring Fireworks for creating wireframes. I’m inspired to revisit my approach on the next site design I get my hands on. Continue reading

I find it interesting to see the different attitudes companies have to disclosing their corporate hierarchies to outsiders. This article is a comparison of career paths of some of the largest consulting companies. Continue reading

The upcoming release of the Radian6 Engagement Console promises to improve the way companies monitor and engage customers, or their client’s customers, through social media. I have looked at a variety of social media monitoring systems over the past few months – including entry level tools like Trendrr or SocialMention, as well as mid to enterprise level applications like Vocus and Nielsen’s Buzz Metrics. Continue reading

Here are the most popular NFL team websites – ranked from 1st to 32nd. It’s not much of a surprise that “America’s Team” tops the list and ranked #1 in traffic for all three statistics providers. Continue reading

Firebug is a free plugin for Firefox that eases the pain of inspecting websites code without having access to the source code. It helps a lot when dealing with third-party code, such as Ning, with complex CSS structure. Continue reading

Who can you trust on the Web these days? Certainly not your Web anlaytics or tracking softeware. At least not without a grain of salt and the ability to selectively ignore data. Here are some confusing and contradictory usage numbers from a few of the sites I maintain. Continue reading

The top 25 technology consulting firms rankings for 2010. McKinsey, Booz Allen, Deloitte, Gartner, and Accenture take the first 5 spots. Sapient is the lone Web consulting firm to make the list. Continue reading

The top 50 ranked interactive agencies (i.e. Web/digital marketing) based on revenue. Razorfish tops the list followed by Sapient. Continue reading

Information architecture deliverables and diagrams – Web Site Wireframes – Samples, Examples. Continue reading

Sitemaps – along with Wireframes – are my bread and butter of information architecture diagrams. When setting out to analyze and document an existing Web site one of my first steps is to sketch out a rouhg site map. Continue reading

Understanding how to create information architecture deliverables is the (kinda) easy part. But it takes additional expertise and a lot of trial and error to develop an understanding of how to best apply these deliverables. Continue reading

Examples and samples of Wireframes, Site Maps, Story boards, Use Cases, Paper Prototypes. This article is a central repository of Information architecture deliverables and diagram documentation. Continue reading

This article takes a look at various web Navigation types (e.g. primary, secondary, tertiary, supplemental, search), techniques and strategies. Plenty of examples and best practices. Continue reading

A quick look at creating Web content inventories, a process that involves analyzing and recording what content and pages currently exist on the Web site. This is often the first step in a through site redesign or re-architecture. Includes some content inventory samples. Continue reading

Use cases, sometimes called user scenarios, are narratives or flow diagrams that describe and illustrate how users will interact with a Web site. A use case can identify specific tasks or more general concepts and usage patterns. Includes samples. Continue reading

Before starting any Web project it is imperative to understand the target audiences. User personas help designers, developers, managers, and clients keep the target audiences in mind. This article takes a quick look at some best practices for creating user personas. Continue reading

A Web style guide is a document that outlines the design requirements for site. A style guide generally defines the typography, color palette, and key elements. This article discusses the benefits of creating style guides. Continue reading

Information architecture is the foundation open which websites are built. You can think of it as the blue prints for a website. This article discusses the process information architects follow, and how to best get started on creating an IA. Continue reading