The Blog Studio

Finally, after months of work, I am very pleased to unveil The Blog Studio’s new website!

Big thanks to everyone here on the team for helping make this live. A huge shout of thanks is also due to all my twitter friends for your insight and advice.

We had a couple of concrete goals with this redesign. The web and blog design market has matured greatly over the past few years, and our old site didn’t reflect the quality of work we’re doing today. We needed to a better job of showing the range of our capabilities, and wanted to highlight the full-service nature of our studio. Visually, the new site is a bold departure from its previous iterations. Under the hood the whole code base was rewritten and optimized. We actually took our own advice, and built a site that’s easy to update and maintain.

Just this morning, we shot and edited a new introduction video. We’re using Vimeo, and have embedded the movie right on the home page. Check it out!

I’ve got a ton to say about this, but deadlines are pressing, so off I must go. If you’re reading this in a feed reader, please come on over and check out the new design.

A while back Peter & I were contemplating the company name “The Blog Studio”.

Our fear was that the name may pigeon hole us as only being able to create simple blog sites, when in realty we are well equipped to design & create so much more.

I read a post today on the technorati site that made me feel so grateful that we pushed forward with our name. It reiterated what we had hoped would occur:

”… as the Blogosphere grows in size and influence, the lines between what is a blog and what is a mainstream media site become less clear. Larger blogs are taking on more characteristics of mainstream sites and mainstream sites are incorporating styles and formats from the Blogosphere. In fact, 95% of the top 100 US newspapers have reporter blogs”

Now that the word “blog” has become mainstream, it is only a matter of time that the mainstream definition of the word “blog” will be defined with a broader perspective.

The article is worth the read and a great insight on understanding the size of the blogosphere.

It is official. We finished our trial month using Daylite and we have purchased it as our new project management tool.

We now have one place that we can store all of our project information that is easily accessible for everyone from anywhere.

Daylite allows you to create projects, add contacts, add customizable forms, assign tasks, create pipelines, attach emails, schedule appointments, write notes… the list goes on and on.

Being that I manage all the contacts, clients, tasks, etc… I can truly say daylite turns me on. I know that is sad – but I just love a good organizational tool.

The feature that adds opportunities is fantastic. I now have a place where I can look back at all my communications with prospective clients, contact info, notes, budgets, timelines, etc…

However, one of my three wishes would be to modify the way the software handles tasks – it has a feature allowing you to create views showing a specific persons incomplete tasks, complete tasks etc… however the views for the tasks leave something to be desired. I really wish they broke down the tasks by projects as opposed to just lumping them all in a list on the screen.

You can create a report to view the tasks per project but I think that should just be a feature that you don’t need to create a report to view. I want to click on the tasks icon at any given time and see all the tasks listed under each project and a side column showing who that task is assigned to.

The other feature I would like to see is the ability to view a calendar where I could block time off for everyone to work on projects daily. So not only could I assign a task, I could assign the time and day the task will be worked on (currently I can only assign the due date).

All in all – I must say, it is making my life much easier and it has only been a month. The more I work with the software the more I’m discovering features and it really is amazing how you can customize so much of the software to adapt to whatever organizational needs your business may have.

I’ll keep everyone posted on my new findings as we keep working with the software. I’d love to hear about anyone out there using Daylite and their thoughts.

I encourage anyone out there in need of a project management tool to download their trial. I’m personally grateful for stepping out of the darkness and into the Daylite… ok it was never really dark but there were gray shades for sure.

As I’m sure many of you have noticed, our poor old site is starting to show its age. Comments have been sketchy, the feed is a little quirky, and the site could use some work in general. Well, part of the reason for its neglect is that we’ve been slammed with client work, which is a good thing, and the other part is because we have a total revamp of the site in production right now. So hang in there, big changes are coming soon!

To my colleagues, friends, and clients: thank you for your amazing heartfelt support while I reel from my dad’s untimely death. A couple of people have asked me to share the eulogy I gave a few days ago. I’ve posted it on my blog.

My family and I are hurting pretty badly, but we’re learning how much we’re loved, and are really taking that lesson to heart. As I wrote recently on Twitter, this past week I’ve had the opportunity to tell a lot of people that I love them and truly mean it.

It’s a sad truth that we often don’t know what we have until we can compare it to it’s absence. I’ll feel much better if you can all take a minute to just feel what you have, and send some good vibes to your friends and family.

As often happens during emotional times, I’m feeling pretty charged up creatively, and am psyched to dive into design. I need a couple of days to be with my family. Following that I’ll be greatly relived to jump into work.

Finally, I want to give a huge public hug to Lucia, Adam, & Mike for keeping things zipping along while I’m away. You’re the best.