I really like working with new technologies, whether it’s design related, a new TV, a cool watch, or when the iPhone came out. Also, when there’s new bells and whistles with some software I typically use that makes it more robust and makes my work easier – i.e. more efficient in the long run, I’m ready, willing and able to take on the new learning curve. Almost.

To be honest, I like change, that is once it happens. Sure, I’ve been known to effect change in my workplace and even in my own personal life. But when it comes to learning some new software feature, I tend to procrastinate. “Do I really need to use the new feature?” I ask myself. As I see other people learning and using it, I finally decide to jump in and find out that it wasn’t all that hard to learn, and once I do, it becomes a tool I use daily and even ask myself how could I have lived without it?

So, now I have to learn Joomla. I had heard about it a while ago, downloaded it, kind of played with it, then went on to other things. Now I have a freelance gig that is kind of relying on me learning Joomla to some degree, though I’m being hired to be a project manager (or what they call a web producer), and designer.

I have to learn Joomla to see if that’s the way we need to go on the project — it has a lot of very cool features and extensions; also because the main programmer won’t have enough time to do all the programming, thus I’ll need to do some of that as well. My thought is to find a pre-made template from someone like RocketTheme.com, then modify that to my design. So, I get to design, manage, and program. The company who is hiring me also mentioned Drupal, but for now I’m staying with Joomla. Wish me luck.

Hello out there in web land. Yes, I know it’s been a few weeks since I last posted anything on my blog. To explain, I’ve been out of work now since I was laid off for about a month, give or take. Interesting how one loses track of time when one isn’t working. Important things start to come up like how one’s bills are going to get paid, not being able to send your kids to college, feeding the family, keeping the house, etc. When I was laid off, lots of co-workers said the same thing: ” You’re very talented, not a lot of people can do what you do, and you should be back on your feet rather quickly.” The good news is I’ve had some interesting interviews, and 3 of those so far with a company that’s been a dream of working for since I was 5.  So, as of now I’m hoping I get another call back from them today or tomorrow for the next round of interviews, and I’ll be back on my feet soon.

What I’d like to talk about today is another issue I have with most websites in general — lack of good navigation. Now, to be clear up front, I think no matter how well one designs or architects a site to be easily navigated, there will always be something someone can’t figure out how to get to, being that everyone on the face of the planet functions differently.

everyone on the face of the planet functions differently.

What I’d like to propose is something not quite revolutionary, but something we’ve all used but as far as I’ve seen not in this capacity. We all (or almost all) have used Microsoft Office, and have come across one of the most annoying features that’s designed to help us get our work done. That annoyance was called “Clippy”, and his other friends — the dog, the wizard, the Mac (for us Mac users)…bleh. On the other side of the coin, those who use Macs have had a pretty nice help system built in since around OS 8.5. When you type what you’re looking for, it brings up the most common questions in ranking order. You select what you want, it gives you an answer, and even offers to take you on the Mac to what you’re looking to do. Neat. I don’t think enough Mac users really know that Apple took the time to put that power there, and most Windows users who switched to the Mac even realize it because they’re used to doing things on their own when having used Windows.

I have yet to see a website that offers anything like “Clippy” in the help section, or like Apple’s very neat help system. If I’m wrong, then please point me to those because I can’t wait to try those out. My proposal- take the idea of an intelligent help assistant, what I would call an Intelligent Media Guide, or IMG. “How would it work?” you might ask. Simple. Click on help, the assistant pops up as some form of animated character and asks how it can help you. You tell it in plain English “I’m looking for such and such”. It checks a database of commonly asked questions (and being intelligent, it adds new questions it hasn’t encountered to that database), displays the closest thing to what you might be looking for. You pick it, and then the IMG, being in a dynamic frame that remains onscreen, brings up the page you need. No clicking on button after button, no digging around the site getting frustrated. Yes, big sites have a nice search feature, but you can get dozens of results of what you might be looking for. Not too neat.

Tell me what you think, and comments are always appreciated.  Keep in mind that this idea is now on record as mine (unless this already exists), and basically means it’s copyrighted, etc., etc. etc. If you want to explore this further, please contact me anytime. I’d love to talk.

First off, let me begin by saying thanks to anyone who reads these posts on my blog. That’s right, thanks to both of you.

So, the other day I was thinking about the Internet, and also, what an intranet is. It seems a lot of people don’t know really what an intranet is, or if they need one. So hopefully by the end of this blog post I’ve explained what one is, why some companies need them while others don’t, and what they should be used for, though there’s a lot more ideas than I could probably come up with in one sitting, and that’s why I believe in working with like-minded creative and business individuals in order to make something that works well for everyone. Unfortunately we all know not everyone will get the same benefit from any website, product or service that someone else would, no matter how hard you try to make that happen — thus the story of the committee and the camel.

To start, the thing we use all day long – the World Wide Web, runs on the Internet, which most people know. The network (Internet) that every Tom, Dick and Harry has access to to get to websites, ftp files, and so on, runs pretty much on an unprotected network that everyone has access to — thus the issue with sensitive data, and the need for secure (HTTPS) websites when doing things like paying bills on-line.  That’s one reason why corporations and governments started using intranets — secure networks that only their employees have access to, either from within their corporate offices, or from home by logging in with secure access via some sort of password and digital key FOB.

Little known to most of the public, the internet as we know it today was originally the first intranet, designed to allow universities and the government to send files back and forth as well as email each other, way before the Swedes came up with HTML and the idea of the World Wide Web. Yes, there was an internet before Al Gore invented it, though there is some evidence he did invent Bill Gates…

Turn to many years later, and you have everyone using the Internet — for email, getting on the web, sharing photos, transferring files, and even making phone calls.  So, companies and the governments needed a way to have email, file transferring, and sharing information not intended for the public away from the public. Thus the inTRAnet. Which even to this day I hear people in IT who should know the difference between that and the inTERnet continue to confuse. The question is, does your company need an intranet?

First, is your company less than 50 people? Than you really don’t need an intranet.
Does your company have a whole ton of people, spread out over a region in different offices? Then you do need an intranet.  Yes, I know that’s pretty basic math, and there are a whole lot of other reasons to have one, but that’s for you and your IT and business people to figure out.

So, among most of the reasons to have your own intranet would be:
1. Secure email solution
2. Posting of company information, including all the communications to the employees to keep them abreast of new things happening, how to get benefits and changes in those, upcoming meetings, videos of the CEO or President giving his quarterly speech, a company wide directory, and so on and so on. The point being is instead of mailing all this information to your employee’s homes, it’s all on your company intranet website, also known as an employee portal.
3. Secure file transfers to your servers.
4. Secure file transfers to each other.

And I could go on as more things come to me. Just remember that a good intranet website shouldn’t end up becoming a camel, and then you’ll have a great communications tool for you and your employees.

I’m going to keep this pretty short and simple. Any website should work once it’s launched into the real world, especially if you’re company is a multimillion dollar entity whose online image affects their own bottom dollar.

Case in Point: Sony Electronics. More to the point, there online job search, or careers section. There were a few jobs there I’m VERY interested in, so I pop on over, put in what I’m looking for, what state, what city, click Submit — nothing. No response. No turning wheels, no progress bar in the browser, Nada, zip, zilch.

Now, to be fair, I’m on a Mac. I tried Safari, then Firefox. Still nothing. My guess is they developed the site in Windows, tested in Windows, and left it at that. Which my second guess is they’re only looking to hire people who use Windows.

I’d like my friends, or those reading this, to try it on Windows and let me know if my assumption is true by going here: Sony Jobs. If it only works in IE, then I’m stumped. The positions are for designers – one is an associate Creative Director, another for a senior designer. I’m guessing there are more.  What stumps me is that the majority of people in web design, marketing design, advertising and so on, use Macs.

What this also tells me is they need way better web people who know that Windows users aren’t the only people using the web.  I used to work for the company that contracted with the County of San Diego on their website. When I came on, the requirements were to make the sites only compatible for IE 5.2 then eventually IE 6. So, any San Diegans who used Macs that needed County based services (like paying taxes online, getting property information, or checking on current votes during an election), were pretty much considered second class citizens. That is until enough complained to elected officials. Then the county sites became Mac friendly, in order for those officials not to lose the valuable votes.

Now if could only get big corporations to feel the same way about consumer’s dollars that elected officials feel about citizen’s votes when it comes to the web.