This morning we received a pre-recorded phone call from Com Ed letting us know that due to a severe problem and an emergency on their end, that we would be losing power from 12:30 pm – 2pm. Ug… In the middle of the work day without power. In a matter of a few hours, we were going to lose our voicemail, server, and computers. All business as we know it would have to stop for the hour and a half. What a perfect opportunity for a team event!

On the bright side: At least they let us know in advance and we were able to shut down our machines and our data so there wasn’t any danger in corrupt files or fried machines. And this will force us to take a leisurely lunch break and relax as many of us tend to work straight through the day.

So off we went, after shutting down the office, we piled into a few cars and had a GREAT lunch at Riverview Tavern on Damen. Complete with a toast to Com Ed for reminding us that when you can turn a curve ball into a home run. What could have been a stressful, annoying and frustrating afternoon became a memory of fun, laughter and much needed play time. I’m so sorry for those that missed it because they were out of the office today. Thanks Com Ed! Cheers. :)

Welcome Michael Hartman, Technology and Usability Director - We are so thrilled to have Michael join us and lead our technology and usability team! In addition to being a Drupal powerhouse, he’s a stellar project manager and usability expert. And he’s got your back – he’s a black belt in Tae Kwon Do!

Welcome Michael. We are so looking forward to working with you.

Back in January we had the good fortune of being featured in the Chicago Tribune about our forecast for growth. The article talked about “good omens” and somewhere in the back of my mind I was thinking that if this goes to print (which it did) then we have to have a good year because I publicly made the claim (or the prediction).

What I am most thrilled about is that so many companies are hiring this year – big and small agencies, corporations, associations, etc. This is good for the marketing and advertising industry, and even better for the Chicago people, for my friends, and my family. When companies hire, we all win – and putting together a job offer is my most favorite thing to do. In the interactive space, there is so much going on right now that when we call Creative Circle for some help, the position we are looking to fill is always in “high demand.” So what are we looking for? Great interactive account managers, web developers, UX designers, and we’re still on the lookout for that right marketing copywriter. Write us an interesting email and send us your best work (via URL please, no attachments), and we’d love to hear from you.

I love taking tests. Sounds weird, I know, but I love learning, and tests are a quick way for me to discover what I don’t know and immediately pinpoints an area or two that I can improve on. And I found a website SEO tool that tests your website and gives you a grade. Sandstorm Design got 99/100!

When it comes to SEO and marketing your website, the high level concepts don’t often change (write strong original content, continue to add to that content, attract quality links, etc). What does change are all the new things you can do to increase your odds that people will come back to your website and promote your content, which in turn drives more traffic. Of all the website SEO tools, I like Website Grader. (and no, they didn’t pay for that link). When I find a tool I like, I share it. And what I like most is that Website Grader put together in a very organized fashion what they look for in the analysis, what you can do to improve your website, and if you want more help, where to go. And it’s free.

Welcome Jon Stahler, Technology Director – the newest addition to the Sandstorm Design user experience team! We are so excited to have Jon heading up our technology team with his unique skill set of savvy project management, application development, database development, and information architecture skills – not to mention his ability to fix our server issues on day 1! And even better than that – he can translate developer languages into human speak for the rest of us.

Welcome Jon. We can’t wait to work with you.

So how did we find Jon? He found us… from a blog post which turned into a phone call which turned into a few interviews. The untold success stories of our blog – recruiting.

Today Lisa and I attended the Women’s Business Development Center’s Annual Conference at the Navy Pier. There was a lot of buzz in the room, the attendees were really friendly, and the exhibitors were exceptionally helpful and unbelievably willing to introduce us to marketing and interactive directors, as well as pass along contact info. Wow. It was a really terrific conference and networking event, and we both left quite exhausted. The big question is if the leads will turn into sales…

I learned something about Microsoft today. They spent over $1 Billion on WBE/MBE businesses and worked with 1200 WBE/MBE businesses in the past year. $1 Billion… Impressive. We’d be happy with .1% of that :)

When it comes to investing, it is often recommended to “ride out the market” to achieve the most rewarding results. History has shown that patient investors are often the most profitable, not to mention the least stressed out.

Now think of SEO as an investment…for your business. But unlike mutual funds and other financial investments, an SEO marketing investment will require a significant amount of work – not just time. (the work can be done by yourself, your staff or an SEO marketing consultant). But before you get started on all that content, you need an SEO marketing strategy.

Your SEO marketing strategy will help you define:

• who you want to attract
• what web site goals you want to achieve
• which keyword phrases you need to work for
• which keyword phrases are easy wins
• how competitive your SEO landscape is
• what tactics you will need to achieve your results
• which baseline web analytics are important
• what kind of maintenance and support you’ll need to retain your rankings

After your strategy has been refined, you are ready to work on marketing and refining your web site. Then you’ll most likely find out that a few of the keyword phrases you felt were exactly the right fit, are actually driving traffic, but the wrong kind. It’s funny how marketing works. Sometimes you have to be careful what you ask for :)

The Client: National Association of REALTORS, Real Estate Buyer’s Agent Council (REBAC)
The Goal: Create a user-friendly web site that addresses the needs of multiple user groups.
The Solution: After conducting usability testing, user research, and establishing personas, we identified what type of information the different user groups required, and what features and functionality they were looking for. We designed a clean web site design and navigation that organized information by user group, and tested the navigation to ensure key tasks could be completed with ease. Important information and tasks were called to attention in the form of graphic callouts to engage users and ensure that they found what they were looking for. Cool blues and greens were added to round out their color palette, and subtle textures were incorporated throughout the design to add dimension. A coordinating advertising campaign, brochure, and tradeshow were launched in conjunction with the new site to drive traffic to the site and brand REBAC consistently across all mediums.

Part of our user-centered web design process includes the development of personas through research and analysis. Persona’s have a noticeable advantage over traditional demographics because we (you, me, clients, etc) can relate to a person far more naturally than a list of stats and demographics. It’s human nature to bucket information into a way that you can remember, that you can relate to, that you can engage with – and a persona literally puts a name with a face on a fictional character that we can all discuss and create an amazing experience around.

So my big question is how far to go with the persona? How much detail is necessary to tell the story and paint the picture?

Think of a user experience team (like us at Sandstorm) as a group advocating for web site surfers… basically your web site users whoever they may be. It’s easy to get caught up in business requirements while trying to build a web site/ interactive application/ online experience, but the goal of user centered design is to actually have your users drive some of your requirements.

We’ve been in more meetings that we can count where we’ll spend an hour or two discussing what we “think” the user wants, what we “think” the user needs for education and content, what we “think” the user will do when we build our site – and we “think” how much easier it would be if we just picked up the phone and asked a few. So we do, and more often than ever before, user research is driving more and more of our web design decisions – ultimately enhancing a user’s experience.