Tyler Suchman

Greetings. My personal site is a catch-all for everything that doesn't fit neatly into one of my other projects, such as my internet strategy consulting business, speaking appearances, non-profit organization or community blog. I am also using this site as a knowledge basis for myself, my clients and my associates. I believe that in our areas of expertise, we tend to answer similar questions over and over. By sharing this information, we can learn and grow at a faster rate, benefiting all of us in our personal endeavors.

I have a family connection to Kevin Hessel, who has a nice handle on how traditional media outlets, in his case the Marin Independent Journal, can use social media to connect with their community, and secondarily, increase readership size and frequency in a way that supports the publication.

I imagine most designers get leads where the prospect needs a professional website, including logo, and some marketing, but doesn't have much of a budget.  Perhaps a grand or two.

The problem with doing a site for a thousand bucks is how much of that gets eaten up in business development and the design discovery process. 

My new partner and I have addressed this market head on with the launch today of Dennison+Wolfe Internet Group.  We are streamlining the process, so that budget-conscious businesses can get professional web services at a fraction of the usual cost.  Their hard-earned money goes into their site, not into getting their business.

SMS to Enable Interactivity for 40% of Network Digital Displays by 2012, According to MultiMedia Intelligence. 

Emergencity, Inc. has soft-launched NationalIncidents.com, a global incident information center.  Check it out, give some feedback.

It's been a year since I put up this site.  My original thought in doing so was that I was involved in so many projects, I needed a clearinghouse for all of them, and a place for thoughts, links, etc. that wasn't specific to any of them.  Well, that hasn't changed.

A fantastic extended essay from Atlantic blogger-columnist Andrew Sullivan on the history, construct and psychology of blogging.  It's not written from afar but rather from the epicenter, as Andrew has been blogging before it was called that since 2000.

As you read a log, you have the curious sense of moving backward in time as you move forward in pages—the opposite of a book. As you piece together a narrative that was never intended as one, it seems—and is—more truthful. Logs, in this sense, were a form of human self-correction. They amended for hindsight, for the ways in which human beings order and tidy and construct the story of their lives as they look back on them. Logs require a letting-go of narrative because they do not allow for a knowledge of the ending. So they have plot as well as dramatic irony—the reader will know the ending before the writer did. 

Anyone who has blogged his thoughts for an extended time will recognize this world. We bloggers have scant opportunity to collect our thoughts, to wait until events have settled and a clear pattern emerges. We blog now—as news reaches us, as facts emerge. This is partly true for all journalism, which is, as its etymology suggests, daily writing, always subject to subsequent revision. And a good columnist will adjust position and judgment and even political loyalty over time, depending on events. But a blog is not so much daily writing as hourly writing. And with that level of timeliness, the provisionality of every word is even more pressing—and the risk of error or the thrill of prescience that much greater.

I was on air to discuss Emergencity, Inc., last week with Coach Ron Tunick on KKZZ AM-1140.  Check out the podcast...

DFJ Frontier, an early stage venture capitalist affiliated with Draper Fisher Jurvetson, operates out of Santa Barbara and Sacramento.  They have a very useful "Team Building Tactics" PDF, with great info on hiring new employees, interview tactics, what to look out for and more.

Darius Monsef of COLOURlovers puts together a great set of lessons on the trials and tribulations of building an online community (with some offline lessons as well).  His article is posted on the whimsically named siliconflorist.com.  I learned a lot of this by trial and error.   Good readin'.

Lesson: You must grow within your community, especially in the early days. Later, leaders will arise who can handle some of the day-to-day things and welcome new members. But in those first few days, weeks and months… you are the welcoming committee, janitor, house mom, judge, jury and banninator.

I was interviewed recently by Andrew Warner of Mixergy regarding search engine optimization and some basic internet strategy.  You can stream or download the podcast at Andrew's blog.