studionashvegas | design and social media

Just wanted to let you guys know that we raised a total of $253 for Child’s Play.  I took care of the fees that PayPal charged so I could send over the full $253, and it’s heading over the interwebs right now.

Thanks again to all who donated!

Happy Birthday … me!  But, i don’t want you guys to send me presents, or iTunes credits, or XBOX points, or anything… what I want is for you to help out some people who need it more than me – the children in hospitals across the country.  I mean, they’re there, trying to get better with little to nothing to do except, well… sit there.

That’s where Child’s Play comes in:

Since 2003, over 100,000 gamers worldwide have banded together through Child’s Play, a community based charity grown and nurtured from the game culture and industry. Over 3.5 million dollars in donations of toys, games, books and cash for sick kids in children’s hospitals across North America and the world have been collected since our inception.

Child’s Play takes money it collects (or donations it receives) and gives toys and video games to one of their 40 hospitals worldwide (for you Nashville people, Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital is on their list).  And, if you don’t specify, that’s where the donations will go.  If you have a local hospital, then specify and I’ll re-route some funds that way.

The Chip-in meter is open until the 31st, so feel free to give anytime during that time period.  It’s only 3 days, but I want to raise as much as I can.

So, happy birthday to me!  And it’s time to let someone else have a few presents

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children  were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled down for a long winter’s nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my hand, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.
His eyes — how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night."

So, you’ve seen all the buzz about Twitter, WordPress, and all of these other new and exciting things happening on the Internet, but you don’t have a a clue where to start?  Never fear: we’ve all been there, and it took the knowledge of some great minds to get us there.  Here are some great books to get you caught up to speed with what’s going on in today’s tech, PR, and marketing areas:

1. Seth Godin – “Tribes”

Aside from me being on the back inside cover (look in the crook of the E – there I am!), this is a fantastic book explaining how we as consumers are defining the brands we use every day.  As business owners, we can take the buzz generated from these “loyal tribesmen” and fuel our sales and marketing by appealing to the tribal leaders, who will then share this with their circles of influence.  Highly recommended.

2. Garr Reynolds – “Presentation Zen”

I had the opportunity to see Garr present at the Voices That Matter conference here in Nashville last year, and he’s the master for good reason!  His style focuses on “visual” presenting (using as few words as possible with great imagery and super-minimal typography design) and it’s spot on.  If you hate PowerPoint, this is the book you want to pick up!

3. Robert Hoekman, Jr – "Designing the Obvious" and “Designing the Moment”

This book deals mostly with UI design, but it can be adapted to any medium (the tangible arts included!). Robert is the master of clutter elimination, and if you’re looking for a way to clean up your designs, this is the man to look to. I also had an opportunity to meet him at the Voices That Matter conference – and he’s just as smart in person as he is in his books! (I kid, I kid)… He also has a new book out called "Designing the Moment!" which I haven’t gotten a chance to check out, but it’s on my list!

4. Jason Cranford Teague – "Speaking in Styles"

Jason is an amazing mind when it comes to utilizing stylesheets in new and exciting ways. He taught me how to degrade fonts properly, how to utilize download fonts, and how to accept the fact that comps will look different on different computers; it’s just a fact. But his book is an easy read, but one that will benefit any designer looking to leap into code!

5. Brad King – "Dungeons and Dreamers"

OK, so this one’s a bonus, but it’s a great read into how fantasy games made it to the big screen and into our everyday culture. It’s hard to believe that Dungeons and Dragons started as a social game, but that’s what it is in its purest form. The idea of social gaming has been around for a while, but we now have the technology to make those social circles just a little bit smaller.

If anyone wants to add to the fun, feel free to in the comments below.

In the US, we follow twitter to catch up with friends. In Soviet Russia, twitter follows you! And you always get caught

In the US, College students use facebook to find out where parties are. In Soviet Russia, "The Party" can always find you

In the US, we execute searches on Google every day. In Soviet Russia… you’re just executed.

 

Maybe because I stayed up late, then went to the Nashville #GeekBreakfast, these are hilarious to me.

…we’ve come a long way from this:

…to this…

…with a brief stop here…

…and to where we are today!

And how sweet it is!

(thanks to Ozh for a wonderful post – if you aren’t familiar with WordPress, head to his site for a history lesson!)

Normally I’m not one to recycle information on the net (I think that we’ve already become a big enough echo chamber without one other voice being added) but I do like this PDF put out by 14 of the best minds in Social Media.  It’s a great read!

Social Media 2009

WordPress 2.7 is nothing short of amazing.  The WordPress team (and 150 others from the community) went back to the drawing board and redesigned the interface from the ground up.  It’s absolutely beautiful, and a testament to great design and an amazing user interface.  But it’s not just pretty, it’s awesome under the hood!

Never again will you have to update WordPress by hand.  Everything is done inside of WordPress now, whether it’s upgrading the core, the plugins, or even installing new plugins, you’ll never have to leave the WordPress core!

There are tons of other changes, but don’t take my word for it – upgrade now, and get ready to experience the new era of WordPress.

Tell Santa he made me a Cole’s shopper.

I’m coming here for everything but toilet paper. Any store that puts the parent ahead of the buck at Christmas deserves my business.

Tell Mr. Cole his Santa Claus ought to get a raise.

I am such a fan of Miracle on 34th Street (yes, both the original and the remake).  It’s a classic Christmas movie with a great storyline – even though the original was pretty much a commercial for Macy’s, but that’s a whole different blog post.  Point is, it’s still a great movie.

For those of you who don’t recognize the quotes above, they are from the remade version that came out 14 years ago.  In it, Santa (a Cole’s store Santa) tells parents of the kids in line that other stores have the toys they are looking for – at lower prices.  Yet, the mother who spoke the quote above makes it very clear: if Cole’s is going to put the spirit of Christmas first, they made her a customer for life.

Blog owners, online business owners, even brick-and-mortar business owners could stand to learn a thing or two from Ol’ Saint Nick.  We seem to get caught up in making sure our own brand is successful, pushing them to the wayside and even going to the point of alienating our customers and driving them off.  But once we start to take our customer’s needs into consideration, magical things happen, and our customers see us for who we really are – a company that is run by real people.

Take Motrin, for example.  They could have ridden the wave of the backlash against the “Motrin Moms” ad and created something positive both to customer and company (as Jeremiah Owyang points out in his blog).  However, they chose to protect themselves, go on the defensive, and issue an apology letter.  A letter which has been up since November 20th.

As a designer, I have no problems kicking work to friends who may have more experience in a certain area than I do (mostly Flash – I know my way around, but that doesn’t mean that I thoroughly enjoy working with it).  Likewise, I have personal relationships with a lot of other designers, and I love synergizing with them on techniques, tutorials, and how-to’s.  If someone tells me how to do something cool, I’ll share it on my blog.  Are they competition? Yes.  But there’s plenty of design work for us all, and we all have our specialties, so I’m not concerned.

Go out of your way to help a customer.  Go even harder to help your friends and fellow peers.  People take notice of good things that happen, and that will only make your business shine out even more.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.  And he knows a lot more about marketing than you could ever imagine.

Today marks the first anniversary of studionashvegas.  A lot of people don’t know my story – they just know that I’m some guy on the Internet who does design, social media, and fools around with WordPress to the point of obsession.  But, it’s actually a really funny one.  Want to know how it all started?

I was fired.

Yup.

I was an employee with the Tennessee Baptist Convention from June to around Thanksgiving.  I actually enjoyed the work – I was a print designer then, mostly doing postcards and brochures.  I did some pretty cool stuff (and I still like doing the print elements even though I’ve mostly moved away from print).  Thanksgiving came and went, and the TBC had their annual budget meeting.  Needless to say, budget meetings are never a good thing, and I ended up with a month’s salary out on my butt before Christmas.

Truth is, it was really a motivating factor to go out and start my own thing.  I’d been kicking the idea around for some time, and the TBC allowed for freelance work, so I had seriously considered it for a while… I just didn’t have the time to do it properly.

Getting fired was a great motivator and time-freer.

When I was let go, I went home that night and researched some good names for my new business.  Studionashvegas wasn’t taken (thank God!) so I bought my domain ($1.99) secured hosting ($6.99/month) and started a twitter account (those were the only expenses, minus business cards, that I had to spend).

The latter would be the catalyst for the business’ success.

I started following people in Nashville who were on twitter to try and make some contacts here in town.  Not being from around here, I thought it would be nice to start making friends and getting to know the locals.

Enter @davedelaney.

If you don’t know dave, he’s one of the Twitter Elite of Nashville (having written, videotaped, and spoken on his love of Twitter).  I followed him and learned about the Geek Breakfasts that had just started up.  I missed the first one, but managed to drag myself out of bed at 7:30 AM for the second one.  I’ve missed two since then (because of baby and… well, baby… lol) but most of my close Nashville friends were met there, and I still love the chance to keep up with them every month.  Being a designer in a room full of marketers is pretty lucrative, especially when you know the marketing too.  There was a point where I had done work for a lot of the Geek Breakfast attendees.  Now, there’s so many people that attend every month, I’m lucky if I even make it over to talk to everyone.

About this same time, Scott Schwertly over at ethos3 was looking for some graphic work. His wife Cara worked with my wife at the time, and so I freelanced for them, eventually getting hired by them part-time to fill in some gaps.

From the Geek Breakfast, I was introduced to @RemarkableWit (Marcus Whitney), who was helping Dave put together the first PodCampNashville.  They had ran a BarCampNashville before, but that was before I had gotten into the scene.  I attended, and spoke at, PodCampNashville, and it was apparent that studionashvegas was starting to at least gain some traction.  Scott and I parted ways and studionashvegas became my official full time gig.

It’s been almost a year since then, and a lot has happened in that year:

• I helped Andrew Chadwick get his restaurant’s web presence up and running
• I created business cards that got people talking!
• I gave Marcus Whitney a business card that really “hit the mark”
• I helped a Canadian social media guru get her start, and her business cards became collectable items.
• I found my love of WordPress (again)
• I helped an author and speaker get his voice online.
• I became an official consultant for Automattic (further raising the obsession level for WordPress).
• I helped a mission trip get video, pictures, and text out to the masses.
• I travelled to Memphis, Cincinnati, and Birmingham to speak on my love of WordPress.
• I tele-travelled to Toronto to help a fellow Mitch explain social media.
• I surpassed 1,000 followers on twitter… then 1,100… then my friends at church thought I was nuts when it became 1,200 (and yesterday… 1,300).
• I had a son… who’s flickr page has more photos on it than mine does.
• and I helped my wife do the same thing for herself as I am doing for me.

So much stuff has happened it’s hard to really quantify it as the most important.  All of it has changed my life, and made me who I am today.  To all of my clients, friends, acquaintances, twitter followers, and anyone who’s listened to me speak either in person or on Ustream: thank you.  I couldn’t have done this without you.

My plans for the coming year:

• (finally) release my first free WordPress theme
• write a book on WordPress
• learn AJAX, Flex, and some other cool languages
• learn Japanese, an even cooler language
• Start, and maintain, a podcast

It’s a busy year ahead, and I can only hope that I enjoy it a quarter of the amount I’ve enjoyed this one.  Thanks again everyone!

~Mitch