I attended ASCO last month to get a sense of how various companies are handling the new fair balance guidelines, to check out the Boehringer Ingelheim booth for which D2 Creative provided rich media, and to see how other pharma companies are using interactive media in the trade show setting.
With their hands tied by regulatory minutiae, pharma’s media is traditionally several steps behind other industries from a storytelling perspective. It is in the area of technology where pharma is much more free to flex its creative muscles.
A huge, international meeting like ASCO is exactly the type of showcase where one would expect to encounter the latest, greatest media wizardry. Granted, ASCO attendees are an unusually learned audience who are most interested in the science, but they interface with technology just like the rest of us. And when technology enters the fold, the importance of usability—and the user experience—cannot be ignored. (more…)
A colleague here at D2 Creative forwarded this great YouTube video to me yesterday. Not only is it entertaining from a visual perspective the subject matter is really very interesting.
The video primarily focuses on what motivates people to succeed at work. It is common to assume that money motivates people. It turns out that assumption is dead wrong! The video features white board animation (think UPS commercials) set against a presentation given by author Daniel Pink at an RSA event. If you’ve got 10 minutes I highly recommend you watch it.
A CSS sprite is a group of images combined into one image. CSS sprites allow you to reduce file size and load time on the page. For example, I’m sure you have seen a graphic that changes when you roll over it. Of course, these graphics are created using separate images for the normal state and the rollover state, but the savvy programmer will combine the two images to create a CSS sprite. Facebook, for example, uses sprites for all of their icons.
The best part about a sprite is that you can combine an unlimited number of images into one. The term “sprite” comes from computer graphics and the video game industry. It was used to describe graphics that were “grabbed” by computer memory and then only displayed one part at a time. This provided faster load time than continually having to grab new images.
I am fortunate. Last Friday I got my invitation and first chance to use the newest product from Google called Wave. To be honest I have to say that I’m not completely blown away. That’s not a bad thing though. I felt the same way about Gmail and I use that every day.
First Impressions of Wave
There’s going to be a learning curve. Google Wave looks very similar to tools we’ve all used, but it’s different. It is a little instant messenger, a little e-mail, and a little Facebook, all with Track Changes and instant replay. Being familiar with all of those tools will help but you’re going to have to get in there and play with it to really harness the full potential. (more…)
Twitter gets a ton of press. Marketers are falling over themselves trying to find ways to leverage it to connect with their audience. Recently I wrote about marketing with Twitter and suggested that it might not be the silver bullet organizations are looking for.
Today I read this eMarketer article detailing research regarding what people are actually using Twitter for. (more…)
Search engine optimization (SEO), the process of optimizing your site so it can best be found by search engines, is a complex and multi-faceted undertaking. The tactics employed by SEO professionals are for the most part the result of years of testing and re-testing. This is because Google, Yahoo and Bing aren’t willing to reveal the ingredients in their secret search sauce (i.e., algorithm). SEO professionals use trial and error to uncover the recipe.
There are numerous factors used to determine rank in search results. One factor that we know is imporant is inbound links. (more…)
This is part 4 in a series of posts about CSS3 and the advances it will make to our browsing experience. My last post discussedmulti-column layouts. In this post I’ll be discussing box shadows.
Have you ever wanted to add a drop shadow to a div and had to add background images just to get that nice effect? With box shadows, there is no need and it’s so easy to adjust. Below you will see an example of a div with a 2px drop shadow on it. (more…)
Content may be king for successful SEO but he’s nothing without his queen, and she is accessibility. Think of it this way: you may be the greatest artist the world has even seen but if your work is hidden in a basement, how will we ever know?
Search engines don’t sleep. They never stop working. They send programs called “robots” to gather (i.e. index) content across the Web 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Please note, when I say “content” I’m referring to the copy, or words and other text, on your pages. Without it you will not rank well in search results. Here’s where the queen, accessibility, enters the picture. (more…)
This is part 3 in a series of posts about CSS3 and the advances it will make to our browsing experience. My last post discussedborder radius. In this post I’ll be talking about multi-column layouts.
Newspaper-style columns are easier to read than long lines of text. In CSS3, the browser interprets the properties and creates the columns, flowing the text from one column to the next.
In the case above, we use this code:
#columns {
-webkit-column-count : 4;
-webkit-column-gap : 20px;
-moz-column-count : 4;
-moz-column-gap : 20px;
color: #fff;
}
Webkit targets Safari and moz targets Mozilla browsers.
There are three things we can define when using this style. The number of columns (column-count), the width of each column (column-width) and the gap between columns (column-gap). If you don’t declare a column-count, the browser will create as many columns as are needed to fit in the available width.
If you prefer to use a vertical separator, declare a column-rule. This is pretty much a border property.
div {
column-rule: 1px solid #00000;
}
Browser support: Multi-column layouts are supported by Safari 3 and 4 and Firefox 1.5+. If the browser doesn’t support this, it will render the text as normal text.
In my next post I will discuss the usage of box shadows and how to add a drop shadow to a div.
From simple Web sites and e-mail marketing to social media, CRM and viral YouTube videos, if you are a marketer, you are facing the fact that your major marketing vehicles are in the hands of an IT department that often doesn’t even speak the same language you do. Usually they have a very different culture. Often they even work in a different state.
Every day, decisions are made in IT that affect marketing. When purchasing a new software package, their focus is on efficiency, robust technology, or transactions per minute. When you ask “But can I embed a video?” or “How easy will it be for me to do a survey?” they will say “Yeah, yeah, it can do all that,” followed by a lot of what sounds to you like gobbledygook. (more…)
This is part 2 in a series of posts about CSS3 and the advances it will make to our browsing experience. My last post discussed RGBA And Opacity. This time around we’ll be tackling rounded corners.
We all love rounded corners and in order to achieve that look, in the past we had to use images. CSS3 makes this much easier. To add rounded corners just put the following in your style. (more…)
Twitter is certainly at the top of marketers’ minds these days. I see it referenced everywhere - in blogs I’m reading, on corporate and brand sites, on e-commerce sites, not to mention on radio and TV. Is Twitter “lightning in a bottle” for those trying to engage with their audience? Is it the link to your customers that’s been missing all along? Let’s look at the larger picture.
Twitter, while unique, is just another in a growing line of social networking platforms that have won the hearts of millions of Web users around the world. While Twitter is pared down, feature-wise, from Facebook or MySpace, its fundamental underpinnings are the same: make connections and share information. That’s where marketers see all the potential value: why not let your fans spread the word about your brand? (more…)
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) were introduced to the Web world roughly 13 years ago. They have changed the way we program Web sites and have made our lives easier in many ways. Improvements are of course always being made and the latest of these is CSS3. If you want to make use of the features of this new version, keep in mind that not all browsers will support CSS3. As of now, Safari 4 is pretty safe and so is Firefox 3.5.
CSS3 has many new features. In this series I’m going to point out the ones that will really make a difference. (more…)
I recently wrote a post about an increased interest in sites with CMS on board. I thought I should take a moment to describe the technology in a little more depth.
For those of you who don’t know, CMS is short for Content Management System. Like the name implies, this tool enables a site manager to easily maintain content on his or her site with little to no programming skills required.
A CMS can aid in the management of a variety of types of content, including Web page content, audio and video files, images and documents. They can also provide work flow control as well as manage user permissions. CMS prices run the gamut, from free software like Joomla! or Drupal, to completely custom-developed systems costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. (more…)
Lately I’ve noticed an increase in the number of clients looking for solutions that include CMS’s or content management systems. Having been responsible for content on a number of Web sites, most recently a large e-commerce site, I certainly appreciate the value of one. On the other hand, I also know the pitfalls of putting too much stake in a CMS.
Time
A CMS can make life much easier but it doesn’t do the work for you. You still need to invest the same time and effort in crafting your content. It will certainly allow you to do more, faster. Unfortunately, now you’ll be expected to make all the changes too! (more…)
