Time to toot our own horn, again! We are excited to announce we’ve finished another version of Server Technology’s custom-built Ruby on Rails content management system, complete with a sharp and professional front-end redesign. The new website features a Product Selector application designed for sales, a simple but powerful back-end admin area designed for marketing, and a comprehensive products database that stores everything from datasheets to engineering schematics, designed for a global manufacturer on the forefront of their industry. Trinity Applied Internet has been Server Technology’s applications solutions provider going on five years now, and we are proud to say their website’s next generation is built to last for many more.

In other news, we have moved into our new space and have some other interesting changes on the horizon, so stay tuned in the next week or two for more on that!

We also got the opportunity to play around with the IDX integration piece offered by GreenStreet’s MLS listings vendor, and are happy to report it was smooth sailing. The listings appear in various places throughout the site, and can be searched from the sidebar widget. Clicking a property listing brings the user to GreenStreet’s results page which is actually external to the website, an integration that looks seamless to the user.

Our content department (Erin, Nicole, and for layout, Rachel) contributed extensively to this project as well, with support including social media set-up, research and copywriting. And, there’s more to come! Stay posted for more exciting project updates…

You know the staff. Now, what is the process? How do we approach your project?

The term “applied” in the name of the company is no accident. A cumulative thirty years experience in software and web development speaks volumes on behalf of the partners, and is directly applied to every project we produce, problem we approach, and product we deliver. The process behind your website or web application development is not piecemeal or made up as we go along.

Consult, research, facilitate, plan (and plan and plan some more), design, develop, test, adjust. Rinse and repeat. Every time, for every project. It doesn’t matter the size or the complexity of the project at hand, we spend the time at the beginning on analysis of your company, research, and planning. In fact, if you have already been through an estimating and proposal process with us, you know we spend a considerable amount of time getting to know you before we’ve ever even won you as a client.

Think every shop that advertises their easy and cheap WordPress package, or their hosted solution you dial right into, does that on your behalf? They don’t. Believe us, because we hear time and again from clients who tried out the competition first because of a really attractive price point, and since have realized they didn’t need a cookie-cutter approach. Or they went with a big media and advertising agency and were shoehorned into marketing decisions based on what the agency was “really good at,” and how it wanted to promote themselves as a full interactive shop.

Well, that strayed from the topic a bit, but the point is, at Trinity Applied Internet you get specialized, considerate, and tailored service that addresses your needs specifically. If you are a marketing department working with some IT constraints, we plan for that. If you are a small organization with one paid staff member and no time for teaching yourself website administration, we plan for that when we design your project, rather than discovering it at the end (or not at all.)

The adage about “prior planning prevents…” at best catastrophe and at worse any number of irritating little hassles. We take it to heart, to the extent that we are researching, discussing, and planning your project before you have even officially engaged us.

Keith Anderson of Trinity Applied Internet Working at the Hackathon

First, a giant thank you to Reno Collective and The City of Reno for putting on this incredible event – we look forward to participating again next year. And, we were blown away by the talent of all the teams, but want to give a special congratulations to our friend Dawson Loudon of Sapphire, who took Best in Show for GoOutsi.de.

We created EventSmash: a mobile-friendly, area-wide events calendar website. Anyone can post an event, but only registered users can vote on these events. Users can sort events by category, including: art, training, music, nightlife, and more. All posted events are geo-located, so users will only see events that are relevant to their location. Fields to be published for each event include event title, description, date, category and place.  Also, the map icons change based on the type of event. Users can sign in through Facebook, Twitter and Google.

Some of the technology behind the app:

• consumes and publishes events via RSS and iCal
• allows developers to integrate EventSmash with their own website or application using a publishing API
• built on Ruby on Rails and hosted on Heroku

Keith and Patrick Anderson at Reno Collective for a Hackathon Mixer

We are honored to have won Best Social Application, and will be fine tuning and updating the app for full use very soon. Check back or keep in touch through our Facebook and  Twitter updates!

One way to get ideas is to go and look at what data is available. The City of Reno provides several data sets to the public, and the Hack4Reno organizers have put up a Reno is Artown.

Our advice is this – consider whether the data you’re showcasing encourages repeat viewers. Raw statistics, such as crime data, while being a curiosity, usually lead to something people check once and never revisit. And if you’re planning on integrating social media, having something offer not just this weekend, but a month, two months or a year from now is an important consideration. People want to share new things with their friends, not data from six months ago.

Happy Hacking!

If you haven’t heard yet, The City of Reno and Reno Collective are organizing the first ever Hack4Reno – a 24-hour ‘hackathon‘ which is a team competition where apps are to be built to benefit the community. Apps can be anything from serious and potentially life changing to something fun and light hearted.

Why are we participating?

We want to help get the community involved in giving back with their mad designer and developer skills to the city (and region) and to promote the openness of platforms and data.

We are not only forming a team (Go Trinity!) but we are also sponsoring the kick off luncheon for participating teams on Saturday at noon, and coffee for participants later in the evening.

Perhaps it is not for the faint of heart: let’s remember that this is October in Reno and the competition is being held outside (out in the open – like the open public data), but it will be 24 hours of having a great time with fellow developers and giving back to the community.

Come root on the Hack4Reno teams this Saturday, October 15th at noon at the Pioneer Center for the kick off and if you are really excited you can join us and stay all night! Or come back on Sunday, October 16th at 2:30pm for the announcement of the winning team!

By 2011, with the adoption of content management systems, blogging for business, and social media, some websites are re-written almost daily.  A company may have a core group of followers that are listening in for wisdom, tips, and the next good deal, or they may constantly be testing and re-purposing content in order to continue attracting a stream of new customers — or both.  Now, especially in certain industries, if you are not continually adding new information you will be at a real disadvantage in both naturalized search and keeping your audience engaged.

Let’s say you have assigned your resources and planned accordingly. Your new website, with a couple solid pages, has launched to rave reviews. You have a blog ready to be filled up, and social media set up to push your blog content to. What now? How, exactly, do you come up with valuable content that will support all the work you have already invested in this marketing effort?

The Content Crunch Part B, Step 1:  Start Simple

First, just … start. My completely non-studied or academically supported opinion is that writing great content is about 60% getting past the point of procrastination. Take twenty minutes, write a few words down about what you know (your product is a great place to start.) Keep in mind that depending on your site design, three paragraphs and 400 words are usually more than enough for a page. Leave it for a day, then go back and edit it, and – do not be afraid to post it! Hit publish on that blog! Update that page!

You can (and will) always get better, later.

The flip side of this is, if you are a prolific and careful writer, you will need to pare down what you’ve got. Pretend you are summarizing your 15 page article into a three paragraph abstract. That’s all you need (for now, and possibly forever.)

The Content Crunch Part B, Step 2: Work Ahead

Web content management systems offer a really neat feature: the ability to use the system not only to put the content up on the site, but to draft and review it. You can create a page or a post with not so much as a whim of an idea, leave it in your queue until you are inspired to expand and finish it, send it out to your team for review, and edit it comprehensively before it ever gets published to your website or blog.  Take advantage of this to leave yourself starters for later, when you don’t feel so full of ideas. Start a page on a new product or service and keep adding to it as you get more information, so that by the time you know what you’ve got, you are mere moments away from publishing it.

This is especially essential when a team of people is responsible for updating your content. Case in point: here at TAI we have four blog contributors, who are all busy people. By working ahead and having a number of fully finished or even partially drafted posts in the system, when one writer is delayed, another post can pop in and take its spot. It took us a long time to figure this out, but it works pretty well.

Next time: Step 3 and Step 4, and more ideas as to how to generate valuable content for your readers.

1. Bundle your Requests.

When you ask for changes to your website, gather all your changes and send them over — all at once.  Sending bundled requests will save you time (1 email instead of 5 emails), decrease the likelihood of a request getting lost, and speed up the time it takes to make changes. In order to bundle requests you usually have to gather them over a couple weeks – this gives you time to think about them, and decide if they are essential and truly in line with your website goals.

2. Prioritize your Requests.

Everything can’t be done at once – no matter how fast the developer.  If you are on a budget, prioritizing your requests will also help you decide what changes are essential to your business.

3. Insist on a System to Track Requests.

If your web developer does not have a system to track requests (spreadsheet, project management software, or bug tracking software) or a consistent process for making changes – things will get lost,  items will be done incorrectly, and communication wil get fuzzy. Bad communication increases costs.

4. Take the Time to Test.

Test what your developer is changing for you – or better yet have someone who isn’t making the request test it.

I am always amazed at the clients who approve the changes but never really go try them out. Even the best developers miss something every once an a while. Having to go back and fix something weeks or months later will cost you valuable time and sometimes money.

5. Take a Screenshot.

I recommend Evernote for screen captures (Evernote will even let your draw on the screenshot). Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words (or dollars). Why would you make a request, and then pay your developer to figure out exactly what you were taking about – or hunt for exactly where that detail is on your website?

Creating thoughtful and specific communications, and having a clear procedure for rquesting, testing and approving changes, will help you get things done faster. You will get you exactly what you want, and improve your bottom line. And your vendor must be eager and able to reciprocate with efficient communications! If they aren’t, well… maybe it’s time for a new vendor.

Recent Launches

www.tmcworkingsolutions.org — A hardworking, non-profit microlender in the Bay Area, TMC Working Solutions needed a more professional look and a much more robust content management system.  Content Gadget and a simple CSS template did the trick.

www.kps3.com — Our long time agency partners, KPS|3 Marketing, have completely revamped their website, incorporating some whimsical Flash (created by 9MM Media), tons of great content, multimedia elements, and our very own Content Gadget.  Their blog is really outstanding, too.

Coming Soon

Trinity Applied Internet — It isn’t just a rumor, we have a new site on the way.  Our problem is, we keep focusing on our clients’ work while our own is relegated to the back burner.   We suppose that’s certainly not a problem from our clients’ perspective (in fact we call that “by design”) — so we don’t apologize.

Reynolds National Center for Courts and Media — On the heels of the UNR Reynolds School of Journalism, its sister organization will be unveiling their new site this month. We loved the name of their last conference, by the way: “FYI, LOL or OMG? – Technology’s Impact on the Courts and Media”

Server Technology — This locally based company is a global leader in manufacturing power distribution management equipment, and their home page redesign is going to reflect their success, stature and service.

Exciting New Starts

We are proud to announce that Trinity Applied Internet has been contracted by Gnomon, Inc. to fulfill the graphic design and custom Joomla/Google Maps components for a new State Historic Preservation Office site.  Watch this space for more information on a really fun project that promotes historical tourism here in our Silver State.

Estipona Group has selected Trinity Applied Internet to build the new Arts 4 Nevada website, incorporating their vibrant and expansive new design with Content Gadget and custom calendar management, e-mail push, and other database-driven applications.

Buzz you later –

Keith and Erin

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.