And in no time at all it grew into a competition between 5 Ontario cities to have a Canadian media icon visit one of our cities.

A number of folks that we have a lot of love for were involved in the initial hours and we wanted to lend them whatever help we could offer. Now we can’t come right out and bribe the man so instead we made an offer to allocate a big chunk of our CSR time to a charity of Jian’s choosing.

We were very pleasantly surprised when Jian took notice later that day.

Now there’s a great Facebook page and a number of other businesses have come to the table (Jody Bailey has provided a great summary here along with all the Twitter traffic).

I’m sure a few folks will be saying “There IS a string attached to your offer, Jian has to come to London. That’s a string.” Well let’s remove that now. This offer is an act of goodwill and whether or not Jian comes to London this offer will remain on the table.

Jian, we would love you to visit our city. We’re not perfect but the place is teeming with great people who want to make things better. So, on behalf of all those people, please feel free to donate this offering to any charity you choose. A new website probably won’t change anyone’s world but we know there are a lot of incredibly worthy organizations out there and we want to give them the very best of what we do best.

Normally I wouldn’t mention where I work, but the green bin issue has a larger impact on this community beyond just London taking responsibility for its waste.

Our company, and other digital media companies like it, require progressive minded Gen Y and Millenials in order to be successul. These generations tend to look beyond their pocketbook and see the impact that they are having on the world. As a 42 year old Gen X, this is something that I have to keep in mind on a daily basis if rtraction wants to attract and retain the kind of talent that we need.

The decisions that have been made at City Hall over the last 10 months are being received with derision by the progressive, creative, and idealistic among these generations – those who want to make London, and the world, a better place. They see decisions being made to meet short term targets or for short term revenue that either halt progress in our city or seek to undo progressive directions set by previous Councils. The re-tabling of the water bottle ban, forced resignation of an LTC board member, continued focus on sprawling the city, neglect of public transit, dismissal of nominees to committees and dismissal of staff recommendation in the pursuit of more jobs, sure, but of the low-skill, low-paying variety. This is far from a comprehensive list.

The latest issue is, of course, the green bin pilot. Again, many members of these generations (and I’m with them on this) want to take responsibility for the waste they produce. They know that the system that we have in place today is not sustainable and they see other communities that have had better systems in place for years. They know that this has been on hold for years here as well. This isn’t cutting edge stuff, we’re playing catch-up.

We have lost 2 employees in the last 3 years to other communities with more progressive visions of the future. Other cities are moving forward and the perception is that London is standing still at best or taking steps backward at worst. Perception is enough to lose the people that we need.

Of the 5 industry sectors listed on the LEDCs website, 3 of them require the kind of technically savvy people that I’m talking about.

We need City Council to start looking at the big picture when making decisions. We know that your hands are tied in the things that you can do to pull business to London, but retention of these key sectors is within your control.

Twenty members of our team will be watching and I would prefer to tell them that we moved forward on Monday night. I don’t want to have to explain to them again the single reason that this was delayed again.

My company loves London and we hope to be here in 10 years to celebrate our 20th anniversary. We’re on Team London. Please leave us a city that we can continue to take pride in.

Sincerely,

Shawn Adamsson
Vice President of Operations

Our next game day will be March 17th, 2011 – St.Patrick’s Day from 1:00pm to whenever we decide to find a bar for some green beer.

While this is normally just a company event this time we’re opening it up a little bit.

Back in December a number of generous individuals brought in 20lbs of food each towards our overall donation of 1000lbs for the London Food Bank and we’re excited to welcome them into the office (we’d be lying if we said we weren’t looking forward to pwning them in Halo all afternoon).

We’ll also be extending an invitation for a number of Fanshawe CPA students to join us for the afternoon (we’d be lying if we said we weren’t expecting them to pwn us in Halo all afternoon). If you’re in a Fanshawe CPA co-op student be sure to follow us on Twitter (http://twitter.com/rtraction) or keep your eyes open for an invite to be posted at the school.

All paid members of the unLondon’s unlab are also welcome to join us.

We haven’t figured out the list of games yet but we’ll have lots of console options and a few games loaded up on our machines.

Looking forward to a great afternoon!

You can vote once a day – voting closes at noon EST April 30th, 2010.

Honourable Mentions (didn’t come to the office)

Left to right: Mike Batista, Jason Clarke and Jodi Simpson

We tinker with new things all the time but we were looking to do something different this week. After a bit of discussion and brainstorming we decided to do a code blitz. The idea is to take the whole development team and throw them into something for a single day with a single purpose. Ideally we would come up with a project that would strengthen their teamwork, develop their skills, give something back to the community and deliver a working product at the end of a single working day.

We discussed a number of cool projects (some of which we’ll come back to at a later date) and in the end all agreed on a cool little app that we’d all like to have available for London. When we’re out with our friends and family and want to know what’s going on right now what would come in handy?

We’ve worked with Thomas Czermak over at LondonFuse on a couple of small changes to the site in the past so we called him up and pitched development of an iPhone application for the site.

After a quick meeting to discuss the possibilities (and there are a lot of very cool ones) we narrowed things down to a narrow v1.0 feature set. The next morning we jumped in. We’ve done a few little things on the iPhone (including developing an interface for our open source Compost package) but this was going to be new for a couple of our guys.

The day was very productive and we learned a lot of great things but more importantly we came together as a team like never before.

We’re still polishing but we have a functional v1.0 app. We’ll be tacking on a few new features before it hits the App Store but we’ll have something ready to go in the next few weeks.

We’ll have an announcement on this blog and on Twitter (http://twitter.com/rtraction) when it hits the store.

Here’s a little eye candy for you in the meantime:

We have three $25 investment gift certificates, and we want your help choosing how to use them. To take part:

1. Reply to our tweet about Kiva (www.twitter.com/rtraction) saying that you want to take part.
2. We’ll send a $25 Kiva gift certificate to the first three respondents.
3. Visit www.kiva.org (withing 72 hours) and choose an entrepreneur or activity you want to support.
4. Tweet about your investment.
5. Monitor your investment over time and re-invest or withdraw your money.

** If you don’t use your gift certificate within 72 hours, it will be passed on to the next eligible contestant.

In this second blog based on our Techalliance workshop on (re)designing corporate websites, we explore the first question we always ask our clients. It seems obvious, but you’d be surprised how many companies don’t have a clear answer prepared – which is interesting because the answer to this question is the foundation that informs every design, implementation and technology decision in the website creation process. Your website exists to help you achieve your goals, and defining what you want to accomplish is the first step in creating a site that works for you.

There are a lot of competing technologies and approaches in web design, and having a clear goal for your website is the best way to narrow the choices you’ll be making. Designing a website is a lot like reaching for a tool from a giant toolbox – you have to pick the right tool for the job. If you are trying to screw two pieces of wood together a hammer is a poor choice compared to a screwdriver. The requirements for a website that sells products are vastly different from an informational brochure site that simply serves to introduce the world to your company and brand.

Credibility / Brand Image

The number one reason companies need a website is simply to establish credibility with their audience. There is a general perception that a company without a website is not trustworthy or established. Consumers are becoming increasingly sophisticated in researching companies before purchasing goods or services, often using the internet as a tool to read user reviews, determine if a company’s values match their own, learn more about product specifications and if possible make the purchase online.

“If it isn’t on the internet then it doesn’t exist”. Similarly, if your company isn’t online then your company doesn’t exist in the eyes of your customer. If no one can find your company they can’t do business with you. When launching a new website or upgrading an existing one, be sure to ask your vendor about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and allocate a portion of the budget to ensuring that your website ranks highly on search engines.

A non-traditional benefit of your internet presence is that a modest investment in online branding can create a perception of your company that is not tied to the physical reality of your business. It has been said that “90% of marketing is common sense” and a common maxim is that people like to do business with people who are like them. If your goal is to attract large companies as your clients, then your website design and branding should make you look like a big company. If you are a small business selling to individuals then your website design can be less corporate with a lot more personality and charm.

Leading through the message.

The purpose of your website defines how the navigation should be arranged and how it will “flow”. For business-to-business websites, a well-designed brochure site can be highly effective. Knowing what you want to achieve will help you to refine the messaging on your website and create a hierarchy that “leads” the reader through the message and content one step at a time to ensure that they hit every key point. A homepage designed in this way is a lot like a magazine ad: it requires a strong hook at the top, an engaging subhead halfway down that highlights key features and benefits, and supporting material below which links to information pages that allow the customer to explore the specific details that are important to them.

Strategy: Are you push or pull? or are you both?

How do you expect people to find your website? Are you investing in traditional print advertising or online banner ads and targeted email to drive traffic to your site, or are you relying solely on search engine traffic to send customers your way? Are you mixing your approach? It’s important to consider how your customers are going to find your website. Websites that rely on search engine traffic need targeted Search Engine Optimization (SEO)to rank high on queries and get noticed, whereas sites that are for familiar brands or are supported by traditional advertising need little or no SEO. Knowing how you plan to advertise the site will impact how the site is designed and the technology that is used, and will help you to allocate your budget accordingly. “If a website is online but no one ever sees it does it still exist?”

eCommerce / eBusiness

Are you planning to sell products on your website? Can you convert current business practices into an online workflow to realize savings in time and money? Do you require a secure login for your customers or a corporate intranet that integrates with your website? How do you want people to pay for your products / services online? Do you have legacy computer and software systems that you would like to interface with your website?

Every aspect of ecommerce requires a different set of technologies, and each technology has different time requirements to develop and implement. Often clients need their website in a hurry, and request functionality which is feasible but not within the time frame for launching the site.

Knowing what components are absolutely necessary for the launch date of your website, and which ones can rolled into a Phase II not only helps manage budgetary and timeline constraints, but creates unique marketing opportunities to drive traffic back to your site as the new features are rolled out.

Gathering Data

What do you need to know? Your specific business goals for your website will determine the kind of data to collect to measure the success of the website. Is the business model for your website based on advertising revenue? If this is the case you will want to collect more detailed statistics on the number of users and their specific activity on the site. Are you collecting and storing detailed user information and profiles? If so give some thought to what information you need, and what you might need in the future, and ensure that you are collecting the correct data. Also, you will want to ensure that you are compliant with federal privacy legislation, and that you are implementing a robust security model to protect your business and your clients.

Opportunistic Sites

While your corporate website is an important ongoing component of your brand, you might want to create a micro-site for a specific purpose such as a contest, product launch or event support that is separate from your main website. Occasionally, a product or event brand may need to have a stronger presence than the company brand, and it is appropriate to create a micro-site to reflect that.

For many clients one of the toughest parts of the web design process is evaluating and choosing the visual design, and discussing their response with their vendor in a clear and concise manner.

Luckily, the essence of good visual design can be understood using only three core concepts:
unity, consistency and hierarchy.

Unity

Unity refers to how well integrated all the elements of a design appear. When you are evaluating design concepts look for designs in which all the pieces appear to have a logical place. Good design strives for a sense of harmony between all of the components.

For example, if the homepage has a single main area that spans across the page and a secondary area with three columns below it (e.g. http://www.rtraction.com) here are some questions to ask: Does the styling of the columns match the main area above or do they seem to clash? Are the columns the same length? Does the content seem crammed into the page or is there enough negative space around it to make it easy to read?

One important thing to keep in mind when requesting changes to a design is how well the change will integrate with the design. A common client request is to “mix and match” elements from multiple concepts into one design. A good designer can normally accommodate such requests, but sometimes the style of elements may need to be changed to ensure that the resulting design maintains a sense of unity. Realistically, sometimes combining two concepts will simply not work and you should be prepared to make a definite choice between the options.

Consistency

A hallmark of good design is how consistent the elements of a layout are. Has the designer used the same font for equivalent type elements such as headlines and body copy? Are the colours of logos and links used consistently across the website or do they change? Do all the buttons on the site have similar styling? Do buttons look like buttons? Do common links such as “Home” or “Contact Us” appear in a consistent place on the website?

Consistency is synonymous to quality in web design. When elements are styled consistently it enhances the website by providing unconscious visual cues that actually make a website easier to use.

Hierarchy

Every website fulfills a purpose. A good design considers the site’s purpose and creates a clear hierarchy of information which leads the reader through the information or process. A well thought out hierarchy ensures that key information is conveyed clearly and that the experience of interacting with the website is a positive one.

The hierarchy should clearly separate headlines and key messaging from the bulk of the page content in such a way that the website can be understood “at a glance”. A good metaphor is to consider the front page of a newspaper. A newspaper identifies itself with a masthead, then provides a visually striking and concise headline that contains enough information to let the reader know the content of the article and pique interest, followed by an introductory paragraph that contains a short summary of the article and lastly the full story containing all the details. The hierarchy of information on a webpage operates in exactly the same way by identifying a key message (informational or branding) and then follows up with the details.

The hierarchy of information guides a designer by identifying how much visual impact each element on the webpage requires and determines the appropriate placement of the content for maximum effectiveness. The concept of hierarchy also operates on the larger structure of the website and by providing a logical framework which organizes what information appears in which sections and on what pages.

The technique of leading a viewer through the content in a design is called “eye flow”. When evaluating a design pay attention to the order in which you read the content. Does your eye seem to flow easily from one element to another or does it seem to jump around in confusion? Do you know where to look or do you struggle to find information? Do elements appear where you expect them too, or do you have to hunt for them? Simply put, does reading the page seem effortless or does it seem like work?

In summary

Good design can often seem like “magic” to a non-designer. When a layout is well designed the design feels seamless and will often subconciously “fade into the background”. Good design enhances the experience and should never “get in the way” of interacting with the information. Issues of personal taste aside, most people have an innate feeling of when design is working when it doesn’t but they often have trouble articulating why, making the process of choosing between concept layouts difficult.

By taking the time to learn a handful of basic design concepts discussing and choosing between the designs presented by your vendor can be made easier, resulting in a better final product and a more enjoyable experience.

The goal of SEO is to make your website appear as close to the top as possible in search results.

Although there are techniques that we utilize when we create your website, SEO is an important topic to keep in mind as you are creating the content for your website because how you write the content will affect how well your website performs in web searches. Here are three important considerations to keep in mind when creating the content of your site:

Keywords – What are people looking for?

Search engines use programs called “Crawlers” or “Spiders” that automatically work their way through every page on the Internet reading the content and ranking it based on the keywords that they find. As you write your content, it’s important to ensure that the keywords people will use to perform their searches actually appear in the content of your webpages.

Taking the time to think like your customer and compiling a list of relevant keywords they might use to look for your website is time well spent.

Links – It’s who you know.

Some search engines place a high importance on who is linking to your website, and who you link to. They rank websites by giving them a “Page Rank” score which is essentially a measure of how trustworthy and relevant they believe your website is. If sites with a high “Page Rank” link to you (eg. “.gov”, or “.edu’) then you inherit their trustworthiness and will appear higher in search engine results.

Essentially, if your website is seen to be authoritative on a subject because other trusted sites link to yours for reference, you will perform better on the search engines.

Keep it fresh – update your homepage.

Current websites are favoured in search engines over sites that have “gone stale”. By placing a News Section or a Blog on your homepage you can help your website appear fresh to search engines encouraging them to “crawl” it more often to ensure your most recent changes are indexed.

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