What’s not to like about LEGOs? Most of us have spent more than a few hours playing with them.

A brand recognized around the world, and one that inspires global brand loyalty — something a competitor like Mega Blocks does not — there’s much to be admired. Who would think that LEGO was a master of content marketing? Or that they successfully started content marketing about 20 years ago with their Bricks Kicks and Mania magazines?

Spend a few minutes on the LEGO Club site and you’ll learn a lot about content marketing. Not only does the site appeal to kids, it packs a punch with parents too (just like the LEGO bricks themselves). The LEGO club site allows LEGO fans to “connect” with one another — they can see each other’s Cool Creations or find a calendar of family-friend events that are all about having fun with LEGOs. They can sign up for emails, become a BrickMaster, submit a news story (i.e., become a brand ambassador), get building tips and ideas, share photos of LEGO creations, enter a Comic Captions contest, or get the inside dirt on cool designs and new products. They can also download LEGO screen savers, wallpapers and activities (like “build your own shield” designs), play a wide range of games and view comics and movies. Everything a lover of LEGOs could possibly desire.

How did I discover all this? I have my sister to thank for sharing the BrickMaster idea — on Facebook no less. I couldn’t resist — I had to check it out. Coupons, six sets of LEGOs and an annual magazine! My kids loved it.

And once I was there, we were blown away by the Design by Me function: you can download digital software to design and produce your own LEGO creation, including the nifty little catalog that helps you build it. Better yet, they encouraged kids to “honor their moms” with a custom-created LEGO set. Not only could I get a great Mother’s Day gift, what a great birthday gift for my kids and their friends! We are hooked.

And it doesn’t end there. We kept exploring and found the My LEGO Network — yes, a social networking site for children that let’s them share everything that’s LEGO to them — they can create their own web page, share designs and ideas, and even trade virtual LEGOs.

The point is this — we just kept exploring and never found an end to content we couldn’t wait to devour. And we keep going back.

I know what you’re thinking — “I’m not LEGO.” No, but if you can produce content that helps your customers and prospects solve a problem, anticipate a need or address other interests germane to your service and product offerings — they will come. And come again. That means supplying them with original content you’ve created and also sharing third-party content that you know will tweak their interest. It means helping them learn and making it fun and easy to do so on a wide variety of traditional and digital platforms — be it catalogues, websites or social media channels.

Get creative with your content. Build it. Share it. And “LEGO” of it in the digital sphere.

Robust web content management tools are a great way for you to take control of your company’s website, but there are limits and guidelines that should be followed to maintain the integrity of the design.

The ability to update your website is a feature that most of our clients want, and our content management system can allow you to update images, add pages, delete pages, and change web copy in a moments notice.  While experience in html, xhtml, css, javascript, and other programming languages isn’t necessary, it is important that the updates are handled by one or two people who have been properly trained.  The primary concern would be accidental page deletion, though regular website backups will allow you to retrieve the deleted page if that should ever happen.  Some questions that will need to be answered include: What happens to the navigation when a page is added?  What if I add a picture that’s the wrong size?  Can I change the font from black to lemon yellow?

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It’s one thing to have web developers create a website for your company, but what happens after they turn over the keys? Are you able to maintain the website content yourself, or do you have to pay the web developers when your site needs updates?

It’s true, some companies do not have the time to take care of their website content updates, and for that it’s essential for web developers to be retained to make whatever changes are necessary. But, what if you want to maintain your website yourself? Thankfully, there are now many stable and full-featured tools that we as developers can use to allow you to achieve a sense of website independence, even if you are not highly technologically proficient. The main tool in our bag of magic tricks that allows you to maintain your content is called a Web Content Management System, or WCMS.

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The recent passing of musician Vic Chesnutt prompted me to visit the itunes store to complete my collection of his work. As I browsed his albums, I began to think about how his album covers reflect his music. That led me to muse about how successful websites visually reflect the work and spirit of companies.

What kind of “music” does your company make?  Does it strike the bold chords of a Beethoven piano concerto? Or mirror the serenity of Handel’s Water Music? Is it a multi-layered, Hüsker Dü wall of sound? Does it dance to the mellow, lilting reggae beat of Bob Marley?  Perhaps it’s a bit of Frank Sinatra – confident, smooth and cool?  Maybe it’s even Elvis Presley in a glittering, sequined Vegas performance – replete with gyrating hips?

Your website should show the world who you are with more than just a tagline — the layout, photos, fonts and colors you choose should reflect who your company is — not simply what it is. In order for your website to do just that, it’s essential to reflect on your company and culture. Is your corporate culture loved more by the management or the people they lead? In what ways does your company give back to the community?  How do your goods or services make a difference in the lives of others? How do your future plans apply to the above questions?

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Within the last year we have moved away from a custom content management system and made the decision to use an open source CMS called MODx. The decision to change development software is always a difficult one to make. We’re a PHP / MySql development shop here at TMA+Peritus so as part of our search we stopped in at http://php.opensourcecms.com/ to take a look at the myriad of CMS’s available. The choices are somewhat overwhelming to say the least.

To narrow down our choices I decided to only review CMS’s with a rating of 4 or more stars. I also wanted a web page oriented CMS. Our clients think of websites as a group of web pages and if the management of the site isn’t managed by web pages they get lost.

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Careful pre-planning is essential to ensure that your website functions well, has the desired content, and looks great when you go live — and a wireframe helps you do just that.

A wireframe is a series of diagrams that serve as a virtual road map of your website. Sorting out the details in the wireframe stage helps to prevent cost overruns because changes at this early stage are generally very quick and easy to make.  However, changes can be costly if they’re made after the developers have already started to build the site.

Every detail of your site can be addressed with wireframes including: (more…)

Another year is quickly coming to a close, which means it’s a perfect time to peek around the corner to see what the new year has in store for web graphic design.

1.  Typography is king. There is a trend towards jumbo headlines, mixing contrasting fonts, and finding other ways to break up the monotony of type-heavy websites and add beauty to pages so that images are no longer mandatory. http://www.leemunroe.com/typography-inspired-websites/

2.   Control freaks, unite. Speaking of type, Kernest offers free and commercial fonts to embed into your website to move beyond the plain and well-worn handful of safe fonts that designers have grown to loathe.  The only downside to Kernest is a brief change in font rendering when the page is first opened.  There’s always a catch, but this is big news and a leap in the right direction. http://www.kernest.com/

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For users, there are many ways to surf the net, from the more traditional Internet Explorer to the newest web browser, Google Chrome. Having more browsers out there pushes browser-creators to make it easier for the user to get around the net, which makes the Internet experience a better one.

For web developers, however, the picture is different. While it is helpful and good that browser-makers comply more closely with web standards and add on new items and widgets all the time, programming a website to look good in all the various versions and kinds of browsers out there can be challenging. Sometimes, it seems that the ideal world would be one version of one browser that everyone used. And, once in awhile, that wish comes true—say, if you are a web developer at a large corporation working on the internal web applications. Then, only one version of Internet Explorer might be run internally (i.e., IE 6), and so as long as you program to that specific version’s quirks, you can focus on other things, like coding web applications and getting on with things.
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If you think you’re spoiled now by all the benefits of Web 2.0 — social networking, posting and reading product reviews, blogging, watching TV on Hulu, visiting with friends on Facebook, getting a laugh out of YouTube, getting breaking news on RSS feeds, tweeting from your cell phone — wait until you see what Web 3.0 has in store.

Web 2.0 is a social experience that enhances collaboration among people — an interactive dialogue wherein you can get information and have your say. According to experts, Web 3.0 will be a personal assistant using software agents that not only “get” you, but understand the context of your search and the sites they’re searching.

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Starting Off.
It’s been a number of years since I graduated from college.  My major was in web programming and I walked away, diploma in hand, feeling fairly confident I knew what I was doing. Why shouldn’t I have? I had a four-year Bachelor of Science degree with classes in database design, HTML, XHTML, XSL, JavaScript, CSS, Perl, PHP, ASP, ASP.NET, VB, and Java.
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