Announcing the Redesigned Reynolds School of Journalism Website

Today marks the public launch of the Reynolds School of Journalism’s newly redesigned website.  Trinity Applied Internet has been working with RSJ over the course of almost a year — to define goals and requirements, to imagine and design online applications to make department operations easier, and to incorporate multimedia and cutting-edge publishing technology to feature student and faculty work.  Suffice to say, we are proud of this work.

The graphic design was provided by the Estipona Group, and numerous members of the faculty provided strategy, review, and feedback along the way.  This project also owes a special thank-you to Professor Donica Mensing, who managed the complete refresh of all their content and populated data into all the new applications.

The website features our Content Gadget content management system, and five substantial custom database applications that manage everything from News and Events, to Faculty Pages, Scholarship Applications and the semester Course Schedule.  Prospective Students, Undergraduates, Graduate Students, Alumni and Parents each have sections of content organized and tailored directly to them.  Perhaps most importantly, the School has ample area on the site to publish student work.  The development was crafted to allow for fluid expansion and to be completely supported by staff members.

Projects like these don’t happen without a great committee. Trinity Applied Internet would like to express our sincere appreciation to everyone at the Reynolds School, including Dean Jerry Ceppos, Director of Alumni Relations Kristin Ghiggeri-Burgarello, and Professors Rosemary McCarthy, Bob Felten, Larry Dailey, Donica Mensing and Howard Goldbaum.   The committee was a pleasure to work with, and we wish them the best as they roll into 2009 with a new online presence.

Trinity Applied Internet Launches Nevada Immunization Coalitions Website

Ta Da!  This past September, Trinity Applied Internet completed the redesign for the Nevada Immunization Coalitions website — www.immunizenevada.org.  The launch happened to coincide with a very busy time of year for NIC, the start of the traditional school term and beginning of flu shot season.

ImmunizeNevada.org features the new version of our Content Gadget content management system. (2.0), as well as a suite of custom tools that operate News, Events, Newsletters and Publications, among other items. The organization, which provides education, resources and advocacy about immunzations for patients and medical professionals, has been working with Trinity Applied Internet since 2005.

Extra kudos are due to NIC for establishing their own Facebook page and joining the social networking community. To join their Facebook group and help provide awareness and consistent immunizations for Nevada children and adults, visit the www.immunizenevada.org website and click through the Facebook link on the right hand side.

Trinity Applied Internet’s New Website is Coming Soon

Fact: when you are a small business, there never seems to be enough time to get to everything.

Well, that’s probably true no matter how big you are.

Suffice to say, we are going to be sporting a new look to the www.trinity-ai.com very soon.  The redesign will shine us up, feature some of our new Content Gadget tools, and better reflect the philosophy and quality of our work.

We’ll keep you posted.

What kind of Technology User are you?

The Pew Internet & American Life Project recently published their latest study on Internet usage (view report) – this one focuses on internet users, how they connect to information, and how they feel about that connectivity. It is great resource for businesses that are on the web (or thinking about a web presence).

What makes this survey really useful is that they do away with just considering North American internet usage data and focus on the broader concept of electronic information and the devices we use to share and disseminate that information. In the report they talk about the idea of new technoloy (example: cell phones) and new information (example: blogs) as ‘Information and Communication Technology’ (ICT). Another thing that I really like is that the Pew survey asked how people feel about having access to all that information all the time.

Almost half (49%) of the people surveyed fit into the ‘Few Technology Assests’ category – new technology and information is at the periphery of their daily lives. I think this statisic is telling for two reasons: 1) A lot of potential exists out there for connectivity providers to expand (providing they find the most comfortable way to connect to this audience) and 2) We need to consider our information in more than one dimension.

What do I mean? Publishing your information on the web is publishing in one dimension and it’s easy to forget about print, tv, radio, mail, etc. If your business provides goods and services to that 49% it would behoove you to think in multiple dimensions, and to think about all your channels sending the same message, and about how your electronic channels (web, email, IM) can be automated to feed some of your more traditional media channels and vice versa.

The next report I want the Pew Internet & American Life Project to do would be a survey that tries to tract indirect usage of new technology. What percentage of the ‘Few Technology Assets’ group are actually using new information technology indirectly through their children or family or co-workers who fall into the ‘Elite Technology Users’ (31%) and the ‘Middle-of-the-Road Techonolgy Users’ (20%)?

For example my 84 year old grandmother-in-law is firmly in the ‘Off the Network’ (15%) category – but my wife and I advertised her recent garage sale on Craigslist and connected with some of her neighbors via email to co-ordinate sales. I think this indirect usage is probably a lot bigger than people think. Thinking about this information food chain might possibly be very beneficial to business.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has a cool quiz on their website that will tell you what kind of technology user you are. I’m an Omnivore (8%). What are you? What is your family or social group? Most importantly – what category are your customers or potential customers?

I’d like to give a huge thank you to the Pew Charitable Trusts for doing this type of research and providing it free to the public.

What is web 2.0?

I’ve done several posts on this website that mention or reference the idea of web 2.0. I have realized that I need to define what I mean by web 2.0.

Web 2.0 was first coined by Tim O’Reilly as a way to talk about emerging web technologies (post dot-bomb bust). You can read his synopsis of evolution of the term here. Warning: there are a lot of buzzwords on this page that really are part of the larger picture but off the point – i.e. radical trust, radical decentralization, etc. Read the whole thing, and then think about each of the pieces – or read the rest of this post where I boil it down.

Web 2.0 is an idea in flux. Many have dismissed it as a Marketing Buzzword (which it is when it’s used by Marketers who don’t understand what it means – and there are a lot of them out there). Others simply feel that it is an oversimplification – a pointless pigeon-holing of trends in web development and use.

I think Tim has something (and a lot of other people agree). To me, web 2.0 is an idea about how the web is enabling the sharing of ideas and the creation of dialogues.

The important characteristics of web 2.0 technologies are:

1. Service – Websites that act like applications or services – think Writely (now Google docs and spreadsheets, CogMap, or SalesForce.com
2. Simplification – User processes that are easy to sign up for, simple to implement, and easy to invite others – think MySpace, Feedburner, or Campfire.
3. Open Data – Data that is entered once and used in a variety of forms and formats. Data easily shared – think RSS, Google maps API, and Flickr.
4. Sharing – Individual experience and data populates communities that influence individual experience. A cycle of information – think Digg, the Wikipedia, and del.icio.us.

So that’s the 20,000 foot overview. What does it mean to you?

It means that there are more and more tools out in the great web beyond that will allow you to leverage those four ideas on your own website, with your ideas, using your data. Blogs, wikis, RSS, and social bookmarking are all easy to setup – but how do you integrate them with your current business process? with your website? with your in-house web team? That’s the crux of the web design and web development processes. Now that you understand the high level overview, you can talk to your web development team about taking things to the next level.