Digital Buzz at Stormfront Productions

It's official. The new internal network project here at SFP is officially under way. This last weekend several of us (led by our Director of IT, Michael Frick) got started on our new networks. The baseline of the project is our new ISP, Comcast, which gives us over 3x overall data speeds compared to our last provider.

Additionally, we ran nearly 1000 feet of new cat5 cable over three floors of our agency to increase capacity, network performance and reliability. The new network is almost entirely gigabit which is well worth it for larger internal file transfers!

Starting off, our APC rack is housing a Netgear ProSafe 24-port gigabit switch, two Dell PowerEdge 2650 web servers, two TalkSwitch phone systems (the 240vs and voip-based 244vs), a second Netgear ProSafe 8-port gigabit switch and a wireless Polycom unit all with an APC Smart-UPS 1400 battery backup system. We will be primarily using the rack for internal operations here at SFP.

Our staff is enjoying the increased network speed and reliability thanks to a great job by Michael and the rest of the team. The next step will be expanding our land lines to keep up with our increasing call volume, which will hopefully be up and running by the end of the week.

Everyone knows the recurring joke from Office Space where everyone keeps telling the main character, Peter, that it seems he has a "case of the Mondays" because of his lackadaisical attitude and hatred for his mundane job. Well this last Monday marked the first full day for Michael, Aaron and I at the office as college graduates (well... kind of), and all in all it felt pretty good coming into the job knowing we had time to work on our projects without the fear of not finishing before the client needed it, just because there was a homework assignment that had taken over your life.

One of the first things we talked about together was the directions we wanted to take Stormfront and how it could benefit from our extra time, thought and energy. We were aided in our discussions by one of the two newest additions to the company, Trisha, as we offered ways we could improve the business. And then, before we could even finish our work day, Rob came down to deliver a pretty sobering "I'm going to need to see you all downstairs" moment. Uh-oh.

Ah, it's finally up! Our new website, that is.  This new site started from a PSD that Rob made back in September 2008. We worked on it during our "spare time" between projects and eventually got a working draft done this April. After a few weeks of tweaking and finessing, it is now live at www.stormfrontproductions.net.

Overall, I'm very happy with the way it turned out. It's a good idea to upgrade a website every three or four years to keep up with current trends and technologies. I think the old site was pushing five years old, so it was definitely due for a makeover.

Aside from the great new design, one of the features I particularly like is the enhanced Customer Center. It gives clients the ability to pay invoices online, add new services to their hosting package, and update their profile information. Self-service is pretty big right now and hopefully soon we can offer the opportunity for new customers to submit an RFP directly from our site.

More new features include the rotating testimonials and featured clients, real-time RSS updates from our blog, and links from employee profiles to their various social networking sites. Speaking of the Agency section, I think that will be one of the first pages to receive more updates. Check back here soon and I will give an in-depth explanation of the technology behind it. Cheers.       

One of the most popular posts ever on the Digital Buzz was one of the first I wrote, which focused on an effort of mine to guerilla market a company I used to work for. As the economy continues its pendulum swings and marketers are constantly scheming of new ways to stretch their marketing budgets, I find myself once again pondering unorthodox methods of getting your brand out there.

This Easter Weekend, I returned to my hometown of Indianapolis to spend some quality time with the family and to see old friends who would be doing the same. All weekend long I ran around the city to meet up with former classmates and coworkers, and during the course of a small party on Friday night a friend of mine in a similar field and I had a conversation that every serious marketer and entrepreneur needs to have (and this was before the high speed police chase I accidentally got first row tickets to that I'll elaborate on in an upcoming blog).

The shindig took place in the heart of downtown, just south of the circle on Meridian Street.

This week the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation at IUPUI is holding events to raise research money and awareness of the disease. Yesterday kicked off the start of the donations, and Stormfront Productions was there as Summer Theodorow, our resident office manager, is participating throughout the week to help with the efforts to find a cure.

According to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation website, cystic fibrosis can be defined as "an inherited chronic disease that affects the lungs and digestive system of about 30,000 children and adults in the United States (70,000 worldwide). A defective gene and its protein product cause the body to produce unusually thick, sticky mucus that clogs the lungs and leads to life-threatening lung infections; and obstructs the pancreas and stops natural enzymes from helping the body break down and absorb food."

The events this week are a result of the Comm G 201 class' civic engagement project, led by teacher Trevor Potts. Of course, your favorite professional website design and development company always feels the need to support worthwhile causes, and when we received notice of this event we immediately signed up as sponsors to help champion the cause.

What you need to know:

• Events from April 13-16
• Go to IUPUI Campus Center to make donations
• Donate Tuesday and Thursday from 2:45-4:30pm
• Donate Wednesday from 11:00-2:30pm
• Learn how to help in other ways here

One nice thing about technology that often goes unnoticed is the modern shoe. For thousands of years, man walked barefoot, or with little padding to protect the bottoms of their feet, and certainly there were no podiatrists to help alleviate the corns these people must have grown! So in this spotlight, I am going to happily discuss a shoe company we have recently had the pleasure of working with.

Each of the stores in the Englin's Fine Footwear company offers a wide variety of brands for most any consumer. From children to adults, brands such as Clarks shoes, Dansko shoes, Naturalizer shoes, Munro shoes, and New Balance shoes each have numerous variations and styles. All sales are backed with several guarantees.

Englin's Fine Footwear is a brick-and-mortar store with several locations throughout Indiana. They have been family owned since 1954, and offer a positive shoe shopping experience for customers new and old alike. As a locally owned family store this company has enjoyed serving the community, and as an online presence they have made a wonderful attempt to offer as similar an experience to sitting in their store personally while sitting in your home as they could.

This last weekend, Brandon and I were busy sprucing up the outside landscaping at our new digs. The primary focus was in our courtyard area with a "Mexican Cantina" type theme.

As you may have read in other posts, I have traced our building back to the 1860's when it was used as one of the many saloons here in downtown Lafayette, Indiana. After talking with an expert in the area it was confirmed that the antiques (doors, various tools, etc.) are original and from that time period. It's very cool stuff!

The job consisted of fresh mulch, assembly and setup of a charcoal grill / smoker, new plants and the addition of an outside sitting / eating area. We found even more antiques in the basement here to add to the theme. It helps that this place was once used as an antique shop.

We hope to add outside lighting, an audio indoor / outdoor multimedia system and more antiques that fit with our southern "cantina" style as the summer approaches.

If you have any suggestions, comments or ideas drop us a line or even better stop by to check it out in person. 

I'm sure those of you who are returning from my blog last Tuesday will notice a certain emphasis I've placed on social media as of late (for those of you who are not loyal subscribers my previous non-spotlight blog was a light look at the phenomenon known as Twitter). Today I need to shift that focus to a bigger name and predecessor in Social Media: Facebook.

Facebook is reporting over 236 million unique visitors worldwide this year, up 41% from last year, but that doesn't necessarily mean continual success for the social media giant. Now, with enhanced behavioral targeting (BT) methods taking shape, Facebook is looking to assert itself as a major money making enterprise. They want to realize some of the potential profitability so many analysts have seen in the highly trafficked site for years.

Just ask Microsoft, who spent $240 million in late 2007 for a small portion (just over one and a half percent) of the private company's stock. At the time, Facebook was valued at $15 billion (although this valuation takes place from estimated values of the private stock), and has since dropped to less than one fifth of that value. Amazing as that may seem, numerous explanations have been offered as to why such a sharp decline took effect in such a small amount of time. These range from difficulties in targeting promotional ads to design and placement of ads.

American Event Services is an essential box on every event's checklist. Temperature control at your fingertips will allow you to breeze through any party or major event. Take for example the Harry Potter exhibit that will be visiting Chicago, Illinois from April 30 - September 27, 2009.

This event is a major promotion of the Harry Potter series, written by author J.K. Rowling. The exhibit will be touring the US, and Chicago is the only Midwest stop in store for the tour. The Museum of Science and Industry will act as host for the 15,000 square foot exhibit which boasts a look at authentic props and materials from the movies as they are placed in settings inspired by the film sets.

Of course, the exhibit will be a success (ticket sales have already prompted a three week extension that includes most of the September dates), due in part to the unseen portable air conditioner rental units put in place by American Event Services. The tent has been custom fitted with 25-ton air conditioning units that have heat built in, custom adapted to hard walls of the tent which have been designed to blend in to the main set.

Although this event is using many more than just one commercial air conditioner, American Event services also offer hvac rental and dehumidifier rental. I'm pretty sure Harry himself won't need to rent hvac, but at least now he can allow people to enjoy his exhibit without having to cast a spell on them!

When I was a little kid, my parents could often be heard throughout the house giving me words of wisdom. You know, the kind of stuff that would make me a productive adult one day. Stuff like "Get away from the T.V. and go play outside already!" Obviously my parents were concerned about the amount of time their children spent in front of the television or computer (of course they didn't realize at the time that I would one day be working for a website developer).

Nowadays it seems like children are playing outside less and adults have little room to complain (unless they don't mind being hypocritical). There is a park near my house that I drive by almost every day, and I never even realized it because until we recently had some favorable weather, I'd never seen a soul out there.

What concerns me here isn't that one local park isn't faring well, but an overall trend that has become more prevalent in the wake of the communications age. I drive by kids walking home from school talking on their cell phones, I read reports being sent on children's demographics for web surfing, and I can't help but notice the immense change that has taken place in just over a decade. Now instead of children being scolded by their parents for "twittering" their days away, we have examples of members of Congress using the webservice by the same name during sessions!

The point of this blog is to show that there is an ever changing landscape in technology. Things changed more in the last 50 years than in any other time in history, and so it isn't uncommon for a child and a parent to experience an entirely different type of childhood. Keep that in mind as you try to envision the world of tomorrow, and how you might be a part of it.