I saw this video quite a while back, however I just remembered it now. Simon Sinek’s points and his theory of the golden circle make total sense and I wish more businesses followed this rule. It would be nice if products or services were marketed as something for a cause or a ‘why’ rather than just because it’s new and the consumer should want it. What’s the why? – for Apple, I would say it’s innovation and growth in technology.

Here’s the video, I strongly recommend you take a few minutes to watch it. It’s 18 minutes long, but even if you only get 5 minutes into it, you’ll understand.

I wish I could say that today’s blog post was brought to you by an iPad 2…. but I can’t, because it wasn’t. (Dear Santa…)

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We’d all like to think that we’re worth a certain amount of pay and perhaps for different reasons. It’s hard to tell how much you’re really worth sometimes when there’s nothing to challenge your thinking and perception. For the longest time I figured I was worth a good salary because, although I might not have as much experience as the next candidate, I’ll put my blood, sweat, and tears into my work along with loyalty and doing anything that will help the company grow and prosper. Most of all, because I work hard and I do whatever I can to exceed your expectations.

So if I’m not worth as much as I believe, then what am I worth? And how do we go about finding out what our true worth is? And the ultimate question too, who’s willing to pay for it?

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One is definitely blogging, I’m going to do my best to keep it up as often as possible again. The other is mostly just skills in everything I know how to do. I’m keeping up with things by finally finishing a site I did for my sister, which should hopefully be launching this week sometime if I can get all the new hosting figured out (her old host’s website was copyright 2002 and has a max of 40MB storage space… EEK).

Of course, my other side project would be updating this website, perhaps doing a design of my own and getting rid of this old creeky thing. I love how illustrations look and I think it would be cool to be do an illustration of myself to put somewhere in the new design. Unfortunately for me, my patience needs a little more work to take on a project that large – illustration is so time consuming! Perhaps I should just try an hour a day to start out and see where that gets me…

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I would have loved to stay in Vancouver however the prospects of finding new employment at the time weren’t looking very good and Employment Insurance just wasn’t going to pay the rent AND allow me to feed myself on anything other than canned soup and peanut butter sandwiches. So in an effort to save money I moved back to my hometown of Chilliwack and picked up my old job at McDonald’s as a Swing Manager while I continue the job search.

I can’t say working at McDonald’s is my favourite thing in the world, however I learned a lot of things about leadership and customer service there and since going back I have been reminded of many of them. I’ve also been reminded of what that kind of work environment is like (like how that hot guy from Chem class totally dumped that chick from English class by text message on her birthday, like OH EM GEE) and how much I appreciate my career.

One of the most important lessons I think I learned from McDonald’s is “Give ‘em the Pickle“. The basic principle is going the extra mile for your customers. It looks different to every business, but the customer feels valued and will continue to return in nearly every situation. At McDonald’s it could be as simple as replacing food for a dissatisfied customer and adding in an additional free meal or dessert to show you actually care about the business they’re bringing to you. Giving the customer the pickle means not arguing. If they say they ordered something and didn’t get it when you are 100% sure you gave it to them already, it doesn’t matter – give them another one.

So folks, for Pete’s sake give ‘em the pickle!!!

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I for one, though, will not take internet metering lying down.

The CRTC just decided to let your Internet Service Provider put a meter on your Internet.

Bell Canada and other big telecom companies can now freely impose usage-based billing on independent Internet Service Providers (indie ISPs) and regular consumers. Big Telecom companies are obviously trying to gouge consumers, control the Internet market, and ensure that consumers continue to subscribe to their television services.

This means we’re looking at a future where ISPs will charge per byte, the way they do with smart phones. If we allow this to happen Canadians will have no choice but to pay more for less Internet.

PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION TO STOP INTERNET METERING

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• • Olympic and Paralympic Torch Relays
  • 8 Personal Video Message Terminals
• • BC Canada Pavilion
  • 3D Immersive Theatre in the Green Room
  • 3 Glass Touchwalls in the Green Room
  • 2 E-Postcard Terminals in the Green Room
  • Introduction Touch Screen Content for the Green Room
  • CIRS Building Touch Screen Content for the Green Room
  • Project Management of the New Media Room (with interactive touch screen cubes)
• • Canada’s Northern House
  • 2 Personal Video Message Terminals
  • Green Screen Interactive Terminals
• • Robson Square
  • “Front Page News” Newspaper Kiosk

Personal Video Message Terminals are kiosks you walk up to and record a video on. The ones on the torch relay were used to record videos in each community on the relay that would be played in Robson Square during the Games. The e-postcard version used at the BC Pavilion took a snapshot of you in the Pavilion that you could add a message to and send to family and friends via email with a message. If you were there, you probably saw one – so, what did they look like? or, I have a close up sexy photo.

The 3D Immersive Theatre showcased the fun things you can do in BC as the viewer follows a family on their vacation in the province. The theatre included not only 3D visuals, but wind effects, rumbles, and scents.

The Glass Touchwalls showcased four energy efficient companies in BC in a fun game-like format. The touchwalls are approximately 8ft tall clear glass with the interactive space at about chest level (for touch usability).

The Introduction Touchscreen simply showed you the different areas of the Green Room and a little bit about each area. For example, it would tell you where the Glass Touchwalls and the 3D Immersive theatre was. We supplied the illustrated graphics and text content.

The CIRS Building Touch Screen simply allowed you to view videos on how the CIRS Building was conceptualized and how it would be environmentally friendly. We supplied the illustrated interface to navigate these videos.

The New Media Room is the area of the pavilion which featured 3 large multi-touch cubes which allowed the visitors to wipe away layers of animation for such products as the Need for Speed video game as well as watch behind the scenes clips from movies like District 9. We provided the project management for this room. Watch the video featuring “The Curious Tree” cube.

A Green Screen Interactive Terminal is a booth you can walk into and record fun videos in front of a green screen to send to friends and family. It’s great fun and the videos to choose from can be customized by the venue or client using it. Watch a video of someone using it.

The Newspaper Kiosk was a fun free way for people in Robson Square to have their photo taken on the zip line, with the Olympics mascots, or in front of the GE Ice Plaza. It uses the same green screen technology as the Green Screen Interactive Terminal except it takes a snapshot as opposed to a video and presents you with a print out of your picture on the front page of the news. See some cool people in the Vancouver Sun.

Needless to say, we were quite busy and there was a lot of overtime worked, however it was quite the experience and I wouldn’t take it back at all. I loved being involved and working on something that was for a bigger cause.

In December, we had our annual Christmas banquet for Toastmasters and I performed speech project #10 – “inspire your audience”. So, in case you missed it, you’ll find the text version on my Speeches page under “Attainable Dreams”.

Now that the Olympics are done and my year of being President at Burrard Toastmasters is coming to an end, it may be time to take a step back and look at what’s coming down the path next.

Until next time, adios.

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As for Toastmasters, my first month as Club President has been okay however since it is summer we have some difficulties filling all the roles every meeting since many members go on vacation or would probably rather be outside in the nice weather. Once September hits I think the club activity will pick up again, which will be nice – and then I can really start pushing our goal for President’s Distinguished Club.

If you live on the internet as I do most of the time, you may have heard that web developers and designers of all kinds are finally fed up and cannot stay quiet anymore on the subject of Internet Explorer 6. Enough is enough!!! If you agree I suggest you join the campaign by adding an anti-IE6 icon to your online profile pictures in the very least (I’ve used mine on my twitter account). Here is an anti-IE6 image for your convenience in a large size so that you can scale it down to the size needed for your image.

Also, see below my example:

– Rebekah

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That’s right. Club elections took place, and I will be the new Club President for Burrard Toastmasters. Because that’s just how I roll, and because I’m freakin’ awesome. I actually don’t officially become Club President until July as we go through a transitional period and a training session. The point is I’m progressing in my usual pace again, yay! That’s all I have to say about Toastmasters today.

This week’s handy links:

• • 10 useful tools for choosing the right color palette
• • 5 must know web design polishing techniques
• • 50 ways to become a better designer
• • 10 Wordpress plugins guaranteed to save you time
• • 22 CSS Button Styling Tutorials and Techniques
• • Designers predict web design trends for 2010

–Rebekah

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This week I did the word of the day and the language evaluation. I have to admit when I was trying to think of an uncommonly used word the first one that came to mind was  “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”. Yes, its in the dictionary! However, that word is a bit silly, and as Justin mentioned, I didn’t want to make people hate me. So instead I chose the word “flabbergasted” cause its a fun word and its not often used. I have to say though, compared to previous meetings, everyone was good at attempting to use the word. Woot. 1 point Bekah.

Also, Jess did a last minute speech which she threw together in something like 20 minutes (or less!) for tonight’s meeting. She talked about interviews and what you can do to have a better shot at getting a job offer after leaving an interview and feeling good about any interviews you have – without feeling like you could have done better after you leave. And, of course, it was nothing short of amazing. I don’t think there will ever be a day when she doesn’t amaze me with her abilities and skills…

———

As for Netgenetix these days…

The boss is having me learn flash… that’s gonna be awesome. I know the basics and a decent amount of AS3 from school but I never got into it much at that time. So I got a book and have been doing some self-teaching but its a bit slow right now with how busy I’ve been… however I’ll hopefully be starting a class for it in the fall probably. I’m actually pretty excited… I’ve always had super good ideas for things that could happen in flash but obviously don’t have the patience for the design part of it (as usual)… but once I get good at it and I’ve got Justin to design stuff before hand, then that will be pretty sweet.

Also, I’ve been wanting to write a few more new blog entries for Citrus however haven’t had much of a chance lately. If anyone has any good ideas or things for me to write on regarding SEO please share! (Anything you’d like to know?)

Oh! And the NHL Playoffs started today! How exciting! Yay for the Canucks first win against the Blues! This means an overload of support emails on our free hockey pool website, PickupHockey.com. I’ve been helping out with these support emails a lot over the last couple days and I’m not sure what it is about them… but I’m ADDICTED! I dunno what it is, but I’m addicted to replying support emails and doing so as soon as humanly possible! It’s actually pretty exciting, Pickup Hockey is growing so much and it’s freaking awesome… I’m not sure what it is but I love watching the number of registrations and daily visits continue to climb. I’m proud to say I contribute to keeping one of the biggest hockey pool websites on the internet alive and well!!!

Anywho, that’s enough rambling for one night. Later!

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Google Trends allows you to view search trends by multiple terms and compare them. This allows you to see where the trends lie for your specific industry in terms of keywords and what your target market is looking for. This tool can be very powerful depending on what you use it for. It can allow you to see seasonal trends and steady traffic patterns that you otherwise may have missed. For example, you can search for yearly events like “xmas gifts” that you think may have seasonal trends:

It’s also possible to browse trends based on calendar dates rather than searching for them by viewing the Hot Trends. For example, by browsing the top 100 hot trends of November 4th, 2008 it’s obvious you’ll see the majority of results circle around the 44th presidential campaign between Barack Obama and John McCain.

It is important to remember that just because a certain search term is a ‘hot trend’ does not mean that you should put into your keywords or website content if it doesn’t fit with your topic. If it isn’t already apparent to why it’s a bad idea to incorporate content that doesn’t fit your topic or audience I strongly suggest you revert back to either my post on copywriting for SEO or Jess’ post on building the right audience.

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This means that the navigation on your website can now have dropdowns and flashy effects without sacrificing SEO. A good example of this is the Monitronics website. About a month ago they launched a new site built with DotNetNuke and the Solpart version 1.7.2 menu system. DotNetNuke’s Solpart menu system relies on JavaScript to run. In the past, this would have been strongly discouraged as with scripting disabled no menu items are visible, which equals bad for SEO. However, now that Google has spidered the new JavaScript menus they will appear in the Google cache and count toward SEO value for the site.

Yahoo’s cache is a little different in this case though. The main menu text is visible however without the drop downs. Yahoo has successfully cached the text rendered by the JavaScript but failed to read the JavaScript code itself therefore failing to spider the drop down menus and the menu links.

Even though Google spiders can now index JavaScript, this level of accomplishment is yet to be seen for Yahoo. Considering Google is Yahoo’s closest competitor I don’t see this being the case for long. In July 2006 a study showed that 43.7% of web users search with Google versus Yahoo at 28.8% of web users. This means we aren’t home free with JavaScript and SEO quite yet but it does mean a very large step in the right direction and good start to 2009.

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Now those of you who may not be familiar with Adobe Illustrator, have no fear my friends, for if you like these icons just the way they are then here you go, in png format.

Note: I’ve provided them in 128×128 and 32×32, including the drop shadow.

Download AI file
Download images

Enjoy!

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Despite the annoyance and frustration this project brought me, I actually probably had the most fun working on it than I have in the past few months on other projects. I learned so many things working on this one project alone as well. From simple coding tricks and some design tips to dealing with difficult audio. I can’t even begin to list all the techniques I tried to make the audio for these demos usable. Everything from making home-made sponges for overtop of the mic to making full on tents around myself to keep the sound confined and adding blankets and material to absorb the sound in an extremely boomy and echo-ey conference room. I spent hours trying to make the audio usable for these demos.

Considering the majority of this project was done myself it was also an experience in project managing myself. I’ve never really done any freelance projects and building your own website doesn’t really have much of a deadline unless you want it to. In order to make this deadline I pulled my first all nighter since college – and it actually wasn’t too bad – I managed to stay awake and still be productive at work the next day. People say to me, “why? why are you doing extra work you don’t get paid for?”. And the answer is, because I want to. I guess I’m exceptionally dedicated and caring when it comes to work than most people – but I’m not about to let a project go out past deadline or looking like crap if I can help it – especially if its a project I did all myself. It’s about the pride in the work and the reputation you get from it. I want people to look back on it thinking “Rebekah did an amazing job on that project” not look back on it thinking “We can do this project well as long as Rebekah isn’t involved”. It’s about pride and dignity, dedication, and the feeling it brings you when it’s done.

As for those demos, well, two of them are password protected but you can see the sales demo if you want. However I’ll warn you its probably pretty boring – its a software demo. Those of you who want to provide tips or criticism feel free to do so.

Thanks!
Rebekah

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I love the city theme, I really do – however it may have to go. We’ll see how the design mockups go in the near future. If anyone has any suggestions or tips I’d be super grateful for them. Send them to rebekah at midnight lights dot com.

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There are some cool new features for sure but nothing that I think is worth paying the high adobe price for at this point, especially after it’s first launched. From what I understand Adobe alternates upgrades for Flash between developers and designers. Flash in CS3 was upgraded for developers – this one, for designers. So, of course, it would make sense that designers would be stoked for the cool new release of the Flash in CS4. However in my browsing of the new features I didn’t find much in the rest of the suite that really stood out at me (not for these prices anyway).

A friend of mine who is a software developer keeps telling me Adobe won’t last. At this rate – I’m starting to believe him, despite the industry standard.

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