For some teams, the iterative design process has gotten out of control. Instead of focusing on how to make a product or service better, the process has turned into an approval monster. ZURB hopes to change that with Notable, a web-based app that allows teams to give direct feedback to each other. “Notable was created to solve the feedback problem in companies,” says Dmitry Dragilev, ZURB’s marketing lead. Dragilev says the company created this application to fight the philosophy of getting approval and a move toward helping teams make something better.
The tool allows everyone to provide feedback and stay in the loop with a design’s progress, as well as archiving the design’s history. You can control who can see and leave feedback on each captured design. For example, a project manager could share one page with the copywriter, another with the whole team and yet another with the developers. The feedback occurs multiple ways, instead of one-way. Read the rest of this entry »
Web forms can be complicated or they can be easy. For a while now, FormSpring has been in the business of making it easier for those of us who might not have a programming background or the patience to take on the daunting task of coding one from scratch.
FormSpring now has one more feature to recommend it, and it’s a big one for web workers: extensive third-party integrations. Using said integrations, you can now use any form you create in FormSpring with a laundry list of web apps that many readers of this blog will immediately recognize.
I want to take a look first at what FormSpring offers as a forms creation suite, and then go into a little more detail about the new third-party integration feature. Read the rest of this entry »
In the last couple of years, we’ve seen an explosion in the number of web apps available. There are apps that can fulfill almost any business need: project management, collaboration, to-do lists, accounting, CRM, social networking, file sharing…The list goes on. With these web apps comes a problem, though — the “technology patchwork quilt.” Many web apps solve only one particular problem, so businesses end up using a lot of different apps to fulfill all their needs. As Aliza pointed out recently, this can cause problems for businesses, as the patchwork quilt requires training staff on multiple apps and encouraging use. Another big problem is that business data tends to end up in silos (not shared between apps), limiting its usefulness.
In a post over on GigaOM Pro called “Enterprise 2.0: Web Apps and the Patchwork Quilt Problem,” (subscription required), I take a detailed look at the causes of the patchwork quilt problem, and how web apps need to change to address it. To succeed, web apps need to provide more holistic solutions to business needs to stand out in this increasingly crowded market.
When it comes to promotion, the two biggest problems for most small business owners are effective planning and maintaining a consistent marketing effort. After what seems like a lot of effort attempting to drum up new business, it’s easy to get discouraged when you aren’t seeing results. But with the right lead generation plan and some helpful tools, you’ll find your efforts will pay dividends.
Set Up Your Plan
First, you have to take the time to carefully consider your options for marketing and promoting your business, rather than just taking a scattergun approach. Read the rest of this entry »
We all know how painful it is to coordinate a meeting involving more than a couple of people. Everyone has to check their calendar of events to find a date and time that will work for everyone’s schedule. The more people involved with the meeting, the more difficult it all becomes. If the meeting involves ordering food for everyone, then the plot only thickens. Here are some free tools and services that can help tremendously with coordinating and even conducting meetings, as well as getting everyone fed.
First, Lock ‘Em In
Tungle makes scheduling a convenient time and place so much easier by sharing your available times to anyone via the web. Microsoft Outlook users within the same organization don’t need it, but it comes in handy for those outside of the corporate firewall. Tungle’s interface is great, and there’s also a Tungle.me widget that you can embed on your web site to give people quick access to your calendar and events.
Read the rest of this entry »
I had two friends complain that they received Facebook invitations from me today. I don’t remember sending those people invitations, and I never invite anyone to a social network without talking to them first.
My friends forwarded the invitations to me. They were dated yesterday, and the headers indicated that the messages were from Facebook servers. There have been recent reports of phishing scams aimed at Facebook users, though, so I changed my Facebook password, even though I don’t have any evidence that my account has been compromised.
But then I started thinking about all of the places that could potentially have access to my address book. My “master” address list is in the Mac Address Book app, but it’s synced to my web-based Google Apps contact list, and to the Thunderbird address book on my PC laptop. It’s also synced to my Palm Treo smartphone.
I’m pretty careful about passwords, and I respect the privacy of the folks in my address book. But I’m always trying new services, and it seems like everyone wants their site to have a social component. So the list of places that might have access to my address book is appallingly long. Read the rest of this entry »
Recently, I attended a Barcamp for web workers, where I popped in and out of two groups discussing Getting Things Done (GTD). There was a beginners’ group, and one they called “Kung Fu GTD,” for the hardcore efficiency crowd. Despite not being a GTD user myself, I picked up one really useful tip from these sessions.
The few times I’ve looked into GTD methods, I’ve found them to be incompatible with the way I function. Already the time it takes to decide if something can be done in under two minutes is time I feel I’ve wasted. GTD seems to be a system I would have to impose from the top down, which is not how I operate. I tend to adopt tools and methods only if they organically find their way into my workflow. Strict GTD is too linear and stifling for me. And, I have to admit, it just seems complicated.
But I did pick up one extremely valuable tip from the “Kung Fu” GTD bunch. One woman in the group said that simplicity is paramount, and it all boils down to Stephen Covey’s four quadrants of activity management. This is a great method for classifying tasks that I immediately incorporated into my workflow. Read the rest of this entry »
Proposals are no fun. Well, maybe they can be a little fun if you’re part of a proposals team within a larger company, but preparing them when you’re a freelancer working on your own is definitely no barrel of laughs. You’ve probably got ongoing contract work to focus on, and finding time to bid on new work, even if you know you’ll need it, isn’t always your top priority. Templates are good, but how do you make sure you always have access to the right template when you need it? Proposalware is a new proposal web app that hopes to simplify things by centralizing them — and by introducing a crucial mobile component to make sure you have access wherever you might be. Read the rest of this entry »
For some teams, the iterative design process has gotten out of control. Instead of focusing on how to make a product or service better, the process has turned into an approval monster. ZURB hopes to change that with Notable, a web-based app that allows teams to give direct feedback to each other. “Notable was created to solve the feedback problem in companies,” says Dmitry Dragilev, ZURB’s marketing lead. Dragilev says the company created this application to fight the philosophy of getting approval and a move toward helping teams make something better.
Web Work 101: How To Escape The Cubicle
