January 2008 Archives

An interesting article in the Pacific Coast Business Times on Avantair, a company in Camarillo that promotes "environmental responsibility in general aviation."

Avantair, a Clearwater, Fla.-based exclusive seller of fractional shares in Piaggio Avanti P.180 aircraft, keeps one of its few sales and only two maintenance facilities in the United States at the Camarillo airport. Dubbed by the company as the “hybrid of the skies,” the aircraft boasts the fuel efficiency of a turboprop and the speed and comfort of many jets.

To further the appeal of the P.180 as a green air transportation option, Avantair recently formed a partnership with TerraPass, an organization dedicated to the management of climate change.

People aren't going to stop traveling via air anytime soon (unless the bird flu hits - then all bets are off. Would you get on a plane with 200 people, knowing that someone with the sniffles might have a virus that could kill you in three days?). And so, aviation becomes yet another industry that is moving towards being "green", in terms of fuel consumption, emissions and of course marketing. And look what happens when a company decides to take the lead in environmental responsibility. Others follow, which begins as a trickle and may turn into an industry-wide flood.

Following Avantair’s partnership with TerraPass, NetJets, a major private aviation company and fractional seller, announced a plan to take several steps to offset its climate impact, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions, offsetting unavoidable impacts and investing in research for environmentally efficient aviation technologies.

I particularly enjoyed this paragraph, if only for Ms. Goodspeed's name: “When people join a fractional program, they fly frequently. They want to have the best options possible to them,” said Ginger Goodspeed, Avantair’s Camarillo customer service manager.

Although Southern California looks to escape the brunt of a huge storm moving through the northwest, homeland security expert David Stephenson offers some valuable next-generation communication tips useful during a disaster response situation.  

Setting up mesh networks, using camera phones to establish "situational awareness" and innovative applications of Twitter are part of his entry.

Personal media continues to saturate every niche of our culture; when grandma is managing the digital photos of her grandkids, you know we're reaching a saturation point. 

Regarding editing photos, there is a wide spectrum of solutions, from high-end software like Photoshop and its highly capable little cousin, Elements, to the software that gets included with the little point-and-shoot camera that grandma uses.  There are also a number of web-based photo-editing sites.

Picnik appears to be one of the very best out there, and Flickr concurs.  It's very easy to use, has a number of useful features, such as rotate, crop, resize, color exposure and more, and you can try it for free without signing up for an account. 

When a client of mine has the occasional need to put a photo on their website, and needs to resize it first, I am now recommending Picnik, because it's interface is highly intuitive for even the least tech-literate of the bunch.

The above photo is from stock.xchng (another one of my favorite sites), and is royalty-free.  I found the photo I wanted (original here), and inputted the URL into Picnik, which grabbed the photo for me.  I then played with the color, cropped it, added rounded edges, faded the edges and added a semi-transparent big blue paw print.  Then I saved it to my computer and uploaded it to this site.  It was all easy and free.  Sweet.

My company just launched a nice little site for Preferred Commercial Painting, Inc., based out of Long Beach.  It's built in Movable Type, which allows them to manage all of their own content. Getting to know Jeff Stephens and the team throughout the process, they are a pleasure to work with, do great work and have a long history of satisfied clients.  So if your 50 unit apartment complex needs a fresh coat of paint, give them a call!

The Drupal community is tasked with, in part, creating visibility, use cases and marketing collateral that make the case for Drupal as a framework for architecting new websites, particularly those that involve community and content management.  Michael F., aka "birdmanx35," took a stab at creating elevator pitches for three distinct types of decision makers, and the community helped evolve it.

Developers
(looking for a flexible platform on which to build their websites)
Drupal is an open source content management system that provides for your needs as a web developer. By using Drupal, you save time that you would otherwise be using to start from scratch- and because Drupal is used by so many people, it includes good APIs that tailor to realistic needs. Its abundant repository of additional features is frequently updated, so instead of maintaining code, you can concentrate on development. Drupal has lots of volunteers on hand who are willing to provide you with the information you need to get the job done. Overall, Drupal is a good choice for today's web developers because it provides a quality solution that can fit efficiently into any number of needs.

Managers
(looking for a low-cost and powerful solution to build their next major project)
Drupal is a completely free, open source content management system that many intelligent companies are using today to provide for their needs. Drupal's many features and add-ons allows it to be used for a variety of website needs; perhaps for marketing, internal communications, informational websites, or for social networking purposes. If a needed feature is not currently available, it has a proven community of developers who can be paid to do the work for you. Drupal's access control system means that it can be easily applied to your organizational structure. Overall, Drupal is a good choice for today's companies of any size because it is free, easy, and incredibly flexible.

Web administrators
(looking for an easy way to deliver their content of any type)
Drupal is an open source content management system that is a viable solution for today's web admins. Drupal's easy user interface and abundant feature list means it takes little effort to get lots done efficiently. Drupal provides for all your content needs, including information, images, podcasts, blogs, video, events and calendars, polls, collaborative work, forums, etc. It's extendable nature allows you to quickly add new content types, functionality improvements, and themes. Drupal's extensive features and capability to manage almost any type of content makes it the best solution for the modern website.

I'm a UCLA grad, UCLA hoops fan, and love what the Bruins are doing this year.  Yesterday, UCLA took apart undefeated Washington St. with stifling defense and a relentless transition game.  Check out sophomore Russell Westbrook on this fast break, where the announcer calls it "another entry for YouTube," referring to a dunk "Westy" had against Cal last week that spread like wildfire on the "Internets".

Back in September, 2006, Ojai was threatened by the Day Fire, which would consume over 160,000 acres and take its place as one of the largest fires in California history when all was said and done.

Our community blog, The Ojai Post, was instrumental in aggregating and distributing information (or actionable intelligence) to the Ojai community.  It was so effective that we continue to receive press on our coverage efforts, including a few paragraphs in today's issue of the VC Star.   (archive here)


The author of the piece, Terry Paulson, is a nationally-known speaker and author, and has a really thoughtful blog that attempts to tackle big problems in today's society, including politics, healthcare and religion.  He wrote an interesting article back in August entitled No 'Sacrifice' Required: Companies Can Make a Difference and a Profit that really resonated with me.  Give it a read if you get a chance.  An excerpt:

A company that does good but consistently loses money won't last, neither will one that makes millions at the expense of their customers or the community. Small and big business can support both benevolent self-interest and social responsibility. When companies make money making a difference, their shareholders, banks, customers and communities can all applaud!

An artist here in Ojai inquired about some web marketing assistance.  I had a hard time pinpointing exactly where he was going to get the most bang for his buck.

Search engine optimization probably won't help much because an artist has very little textual content on the pages.  We could do some standard link building, but its fairly expensive and I don't think its going to have the kind of impact we'd both like to see for his site. 

So I recommended that his best bet right now is to concentrate on social media, particularly social networking sites that focus on artists.  Basically, an artist need to sell himself through his imagery, and traditional search engine optimization doesn't really cut it - an artist is better off seeking the communities where people are looking for art.

I did some research and found the following online communities that are chock-full of artists. 

Maccaca
Amateur Illustrator
MyArtInfo
ArtUproar
deviantART
Saatchi Gallery
Bebo
Ning Artist Search
Social Media SUPER List
ArtFlock.com (added 01/25/08)
Folio Link (fee)
ArtSpan (fee)

For an artist's own site, even without a lot of text, there are still some opportunities for visibility on the web.  Be sure to name the files intuitively, and use the available attributes in the image tag (alt="" and title="").  This should increase visibility in Google Images and other image searches.

A friend asks: If I want to register a domain name for a non-profit idea of mine, and build a simple inexpensive website for it, what service do you recommend for registration?

Websites these days are commodities.  For a simple "brochureware" website, I'd first look at whoever you already have domain(s) registered with (your "registrar") to see if they have anything you like.  That would make it easier.

If working with your current registrar isn't a concern, I think godaddy.com, 1and1.com and register.com are good choices, based on their prices and templates offered.  Following is a box for GoDaddy, where you can search for a domain, and select an appropriate hosting service.

.com .org

And here's a link to 1and1.com, which a number of clients have been happy with, particularly considering their low prices. They have a really nice admin area for managing domains and emails.
 

Here's the obligatory happy new year post.  I took a couple days off from posting here, but did add more content in the Affiliations, News and Biography sections.  Having launched this site less than a month ago, I appreciate having a repository for my professional history, making it much easier to access information than digging it out of a memory box in the closet.

I've also enjoyed using this site as a place to answer questions from friends and clients.  I tend to write fairly well-researched email replies anyway, even for casual inquiries - I may as well archive it in a way that's accessible to myself and others, and it has already saved me time at least once.

I've made two resolutions this year - procrastinate less and exercise more.  I've been making improvement on the first one over the last few months, becoming more efficient with my time.  But it's time to take it to the next level, as you'll see the need for in the coming months.  I'm going to do some workplace experiments with Jason Womack, where we are going to explore different work environments with the intention of changing patterns and processes. 

And exercising more?  That should be a fairly attainable goal, considering how high the ceiling is above my current level (sigh).  Hiking and yoga primarily, with maybe some bicycling and weight lifting thrown in.  I just emailed a PT friend, which was a good first step.

Blessings for an exciting and prosperous 2008...