Squish Blogs!

There are many cliché reasons I could give you that will imply why you should at least consider having a mobile website developed for your company, but if you aren't already aware, I've listed a couple resources: http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/top-20-reasons-why-all-retailers-should-have-mobile-sites/ http://searchengineland.com/top-10-reasons-your-website-should-go-mobile-32566 If you accept the reasons are there for why "a" company should have a mobile website, then you might wonder how do you know if it's right for "your" company? It would be an easy argument against creating a mobile website if you simply looked at your analytics and noticed that only a small percentage of your web hits come from mobile devices. But unlike The Field of Dreams, just because you build it, doesn't mean anyone will come. To understand if your company will benefit from a mobile website, you must do your market research, advertise, and create a method to understand how to measure success or failure, the same way you would for unveiling a new product or service. To give your customers a reason to use their mobile devices to view your site, try creating an actual campaign that will target your mobile audience. This will create more focused information to measure. Here are a couple of examples. If you are a restaurant, try mobile coupons, advertise them on your website and in your establishment. This will let your customers know they can use their mobile devices to interact with your brand. If you are a hotel try an mobile survey about your services, and maybe attach a coupon for their next stay. There are myriad methods you could use to do your market research. There are very simple way to try to create metrics and better understand if your company should use a mobile website and I encourage you to do your R&D before diving into have a mobile website simply because it seems to be a trend.

Thanks to Nicki Laycoax and Justin Harter, Squish had the pleasure of getting involved in the community over the MLK weekend. Justin Harter, founder of Refresh Indy, put together a project to give several non profit organizations in Indy a new website. It was a bit out of the blue for me, as Nicki didnt tell me before the Monday before the project we would be spending 48 hours locked in a IUPUI building to build websites with other developers. From the moment we got there, I knew it was going to be a good time. Each team had be separated based on our various talents. By the end of the project everyone was tired but we all came together and it became one of my favorite web projects in the last couple of years. Justin brought us together to "Refresh" websites, who knew after 48 hours of development in an intense development environment, I would be the one to come out feeling "Refreshed"!

This is Chess, it ain't checkers....a more socially correct form of Denzel Washington's quote to Ethan Hawk during the movie training day.  It is as important now as it has ever been to have an actual strategy that you that directs your business' interaction online.  From a strong business website, the decision to use eCommerce, the people in your business who represent your blogs, all these decisions need to be considered as any company plans its online future.  While there are many applications which may draw your eye, buzz words like adsense, adwords, blogs, social networking, etc., it becomes increasingly important that we strive to understand how these concepts can be used.  I find that the game of chess is relatable to the technology community constantly striving for new and innovative ways to emerging technology to benefit our society.  I hope we all remember that it is about the strategy we push forward not the blunt force of pushing ahead because we have to...

I used to wonder if I were an anti-technologist.  Quite too often I choose not use or research emerging technologies, especially in the social media realm.  After some time to think about my motives for avoiding the craze, I have an answer.  I think too often as a society we use technology for the sake of using it, not because it is effective or makes us more efficient. 

As an attempt to better understand the effects of blogging from a web developer and businessman's point of view, I've decided, yet again, to try blogging.  It seems the entire atmosphere around blogging has changed in the last 3 years.  EVERYONE is talking about it, most people are trying it, and we developers have to learn to develop using and utilizing them.  I personally have avoided blogging for quite some time, but seeing how I benefit from so many blogs, I've decided it is about time I joined the online sharing of information, opinions, laughs, quips quotes and debates.