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Chip sent this to our team and I couldn’t keep myself from sharing it with the world. If a client read this, they’d instantly say “I don’t do that…” but in fact, most of them do. Only in the context of a REALLY ridiculous example (like below) does it become clear just how rough web design can be. I have my own theories as to why this is (Buy a mac, be a web designer!), but I’ll save that for another post :)

By: Unknown
January 10, 2002

Please design and build me a house. I am not quite sure of what I need, so you should use your discretion. My house should have somewhere between two and forty-five bedrooms. Just make sure the plans are such that the bedrooms can be easily added or deleted. When you bring the blueprints to me, I will make the final decision of what I want. Also, bring me the cost breakdown for each configuration so that I can arbitrarily pick one.

One year ago, I concocted the idea of gpsAssassin – a location aware game played on your mobile device. It was a long journey, but we (myself and Jackson Miller) finally took our little side project and officially launched it into the AppStore.

Now that we’ve completed the project/journey, I’m humbled and reminded of how difficult it is to actually develop and launch a ‘finished’ product that others will use on a daily basis. We do this for clients every day, but its easy to forget just how much goes into a project beyond the raw idea and development.

In preparation for my presentation (Try some Open Source…. Everybody’s doing it), I’ve compiled some of the best offerings in the land of OSS.

Utilities
Firefox (http://www.mozilla.com) – Browser
Azureus (http://azureus.sourceforge.net) – BitTorrent
FileZilla (http://www.FileZilla.com) – FTP Client
CLAMWIN (http://www.clamwin.com) – Open Source Anti-Virus
TightVNC (http://www.tightvnc.com) – Remote computer control

As the founder of centresource, I’ve always been tasked with choosing solutions that yield the best ROI – period. To that point, Open Source technologies have become an integral part of our business and as a result, also our personal lives. We don’t choose/use them simply because they’re free (in fact, some cost money) – we use them because they represent an excellent solution to an existing need.

Digital Nashville asked me to speak on the subject at their next Education Series. You can see the invite on Facebook (here) or on the actual Digital Nashville site (here). I’ll go through a variety of scenarios where Open Source technologies provide a wonderful solution – ranging from work-related to fun!

Since we’ve been doing more strategy, it has become more and more necessary to formalize our ‘ramp up’ process for new strategists. Our strategist typically herald from the marketing side of the world & combine their knowledge with practical elements of technology. This dual-combo makes for a powerful strategist.However, there is a BIG difference in doing one interactive project during a marketing career & actually being a qualified Interactive Strategist. As such, we put together “homework” for our planners and strategists to answer that at least give them some basic familiarity into combining traditional business with the world of interactivity. Here are the questions we ask…

History has proven to me that it is very difficult for clients to understand time & knowledge as an actual currency. If you’re in the time & materials industry, you’ll appreciate what I’m talking about. My wife, who’s a lawyer, was kind enough to send me a song that really helps me bridge the gap with my clients :) [Remember, this is meant to be funny - don't get your feelings hurt!]

The Billing Song (mp3 – 700.48 KB)

Nothing will make you more nervous than switching your entire business model to support a new technology :)  Particularly when that technology is ONLY supported by the Open Source community.  Regardless, it looks like we were right again – or at least not way off the beaten path.

Over a year ago, our team of super geniuses recommended we use Symfony/Doctrine as our MVC Framework & ORM.  They also recommended we switch to Drupal for our CMS platform.  After 3-6 months, we learned that Yahoo had been quietly using Symfony for their internal PHP app framework!!!  Now, we have more good news :)  Dries Buytaert had a good post letting us know that Yahoo is using Drupal to create some of their retail sites.  Check out Yahoo Research to see Drupal in action.

Today, we had a client call us and ask if we can ’save’ their website from an aggressive website designer that is holding their site hostage.  I told them yes and thought an easy solution would be to find a utility that allowed us to easily clone/grab their website.  I must say, I was surprised at the difficulty in finding a free utility to do this.

Part of the problem came from the search terms I started with.  I thought this would be called a ’site grabber’ – and many paid utilities thought the same :)  I then switched to Website Clone, but to no avail.  Finally, I that download.com called these utilities “Offline Browsers”.  Doing a quick search for Offline Browser struck gold!

In the course of doing research for a client, I’m now experiencing what I’ve heard so many others complain about: Phone Prison. I used to believe that ‘phone prison’ was simply an older person’s way of saying that working through a phone system took too much effort. Now I realize that there really are Phone Prisons – systems designed to keep you locked out from actually talking to a person!!!

CentreSource Inc. is pleased to announce that Kerry Woo has joined the custom web design firm as Digital Copywriter.

“We are very happy to have Kerry join our family,” said Nicholas Holland, CEO / President of CentreSource Inc. “His experience in print and online marketing, paired with his reputation for relationship management, is a welcomed resource to our firm. Our expansion of Search Engine Optimization and Marketing allows us to deliver not only pleasing, but profitable web design solutions for our enterprise clients.”