Technology and the internet have caused massive shifts in most industries causing some industries to change drastically and others to become irrelevant. In these turbulent times it helps to develop strategies to help your company innovate more quickly.  Here are 6 tips to help your company adopt new ideas, processes and products.

1. Don’t Admit Failure, Let the Idea Evolve Until it Succeeds, but Shelve the Parts that Don’t Work.

I’ve rarely heard a totally bad business idea. Most ideas at least have parts that are somewhat good. Don’t be afraid to take the parts of idea that are good and throw out the rest (especially if it’s an idea that you’ve already spent some time on).

2. Have Processes, but Not Inflexible Rules that Discourage Innovation

Process and systems are crucial to a successful business, but it’s also important to leave room for innovation and improvement. Every process can be made more effective and it’s important not to let your company’s processes become too rigid.

3. Don’t Be Afraid to Change Everything

The are tons of well-documented examples of companies that have completely changed their products and services to fit new market conditions (HP comes to mind, they were a leading precision instruments manufacturer before pivoting to manufacture calculators and later personal computers). If your product offering is going out of style it’s better to change course quickly instead of hanging on to a dying business.

4. Embrace the Ideas of Your Team

Hire great people and encourage them to look at their jobs critically. Innovation often occurs at the edge of a network. Your people will see things you can’t so encourage them to share their insights with you.

5. Cultivate a Startup Mentality

Startups have limited time and resources to make ideas happen. Get in the habit of creating new business initiatives, executing them quickly with limited resources, and get them out to customers. Not every idea will be a winner, but the more swings you take, the better your chances of a home run.

6. Use Technology to Make Life Faster, Easier, and More Efficient

There are great tools out there to manage projects, market new products, and keep track of finances. Use the tools that work best for you, always try new things, and don’t get so committed to a technology that you can’t change when it becomes obsolete.

So awhile back we outlined how to set up an Ubuntu Network Drive. After some time, we realized how useful it would be to access all our files when we weren’t in the office. Who hasn’t whipped out their laptop at home and realized, “shoot, the files I need are still at the office.” So we set out to make our network drive do a little bit more for us – allow us to access all our files remotely.

Again, we had a little trouble finding all the necessary parts to get this working properly, so we want to share just how we got everything up and running.

Our Situation

Keep in mind the following

• We already have an office server running on Ubuntu
• We don’t want to save most of our remote files on our laptops
• We just want to add access to our server when we aren’t in the office

The Problem

So what exactly do I mean by remotely accessing our files? Well, basically, we have a computer in our office that just holds files for us. We dump all our clients’ pictures, documents, proposals, and misc items onto this networked computer. Everyone in the office can access these files, save them, edit them, and upload new files. However, when we leave the office (and our network), we can no longer access all these files. So what happens when we have an offsite meeting with a client and realize we don’t have a copy of their proposal saved on our laptop? Yeah, exactly, DOH!

The idea is to set up a VPN – Virtual Private Network – to allow us to connect to our office network and access all the files saved on our server.

The Software

We found inspiration in one of our favorite tech blogs Lifehacker. They wrote an article about VPNs and all the reasons they can be useful. Give it a read here. They recommend the free/cheap software, Hamachi.

Sign Up for the Service Here

Basically, you’ll want to sign up for a free account and add the software to each one of your machines. Installing on Mac and PC is generally very simple. Once you set up your account, click on network and then add client. Walk through the steps and install the software on your machine. At this point you should create a network and password and have your other computers join that created network. This will take care of your Macs and PCs. Installing on Linux is, of course, more complicated. Read on to see how we got it working.

Installing on Ubuntu

So the whole idea was to get our Linux server to share its files remotely with our Macs. But installing Hamachi on Linux isn’t the most straight forward thing in the world. You’ll have to break out the old terminal again and get everything running through there. Don’t be scared, it’s actually a lot easier than it sounds.

First, you’ll need to download the Linux beta program from Hamachi.

TweakUniverse has a pretty good video walkthrough on installing the software on Linux. Check it out below:

Basically you’ll want to install the Hamachi software using the terminal, and join the network using the command line prompts. But once you get it up and going you should see your Linux server listed on your other computers. Keep in mind, you’ll probably run into a snag of obtaining root permissions. Here’s a reminder on how to do that.

Putting it all Together

Once you’ve got Hamachi installed on all your computers, you can access files from by right-clicking the computer in your LogmeIn window and clicking browse. TA-DA. You can now access all the files your server is sharing.

Keep in mind that VPN and Hamachi have a lot of other awesome uses – this is just one. But combined with our network drive, we now have an awesome file sharing and storage solution that lets us keep junk off our laptops but have access to all our files from wherever we are.

Hopefully this helps get a similar solution started in your office/home/school. Good Luck!

Internet and Marketing News for April 2012

Each month we will feature the top 5 news stories in the marketing and technology industry. Here is the recap for April:

1. Instagram

Facebook bought Instagram for $1 Billion. The transaction created a spike in users which makes now a good time to use Instagram as a part of your digital marketing practices. Post engaging content and share your brand with followers and drive traffic to your site and product.

2. Google+

Google also updated its social network with a new user interface. The changes streamline the system and add some improve functionality. In addition, Google has started to included personal results within Google search results. This means that if you have content shared with people via Google plus, there is a likelyhood that your content will be displayed when users search for relating information. Google has invested a great deal of effort in promoting Google+ and we will see if it pays off in the coming months.

3. Photoshop CS6

Photoshop released a beta of its new creative suite photoshop version 6. It features much improved speed, graphics engine, and advanced editing technology. They also announced a subscription service to help users legally acquire the software without shelling out a large lump of cash. Check out the beta and try out the improvements while you still can.

4. Google Drive

Google also released its new service, Google Drive. The service is Google’s answer to Dropbox, featuring 5 free gigabytes of cloud storage. It works in much the same way that Dropbox does, but with the added benefit of Google Docs to edit documents with others.

5. Fall of the Mobile Kings

Both Sony and Nintendo released news that their quarterly earnings were less than stimulating. The two have fallen behind the new mobile phone manufacturer, Samsung, who has shown great strides in growth and innovation. The lesson here is that even technology giants have to incorporate innovation and creativity into their strategy to stay relavant. Guess you should too!

So that’s April’s marketing news. Did we miss something you thought was important? Drop it in the comments:

Take a look around the site and let us know what you think. If you are using Internet Explorer 6, 7, or 8 you there might be certain areas of the site that don’t work properly. We will be modifying the site over the next few weeks to accomodate users who have older browsers (although our advice is to always use the most current browser possible).

Let us know what you think of the site in the comments below!

Here’s the thing – we love dollarshaveclub.com. Not just for their interesting and innovative business strategy, but for their decisive and bold marketing. We like it so much, we had to write a post about how much we love it and what your company can take from it to apply to your future marketing endeavors.

Awesome Video

The first thing you see when visiting Dollar Shave Club is their hilarious and effective video. It’s simple, random, funny, entertaining, and a great pitch. It has a smack of the Old Spice commercials as well as a perfect taste of dead pan humor. Most importantly, its distinctive.

Ok, it’s hilarious, but so what? Well, that’s a great question. There’s a lot to be said for this video. It’s dead simple. Literally filmed within their apparent warehouse, they clearly didn’t spend a great deal of money filming or producing the video. But that’s what’s great about it. The message, content, and humor create a clear, memorable, and distinct message that clings to you. Within moments you want to share the video to all your friends. And that, is exactly why we love this website. It’s sharable. Practically begging you to handle the marketing free of cost to Dollar Shave Club. Imagine how many hits they’ve received on their website from their video alone? And as we all know, traffic is a very, very good thing.

The Website

Did I mention the website is downright gorgeous? It hits on every single trend in the web design community: texture, banners, large text, custom fonts, and usability. It screams something clearly and loudly – “We have a brand. We know who we are.”

A website defines you as a company and in most cases acts as a first impression for what you do and what you’re all about. This means, having a pleasing, usable, and effective website is hands down the most important first step you can take in building a brand. You’re site should look unique, be easy to share, and drive users to contact you to take the next step.

The Social Media

I keep talking about sharing, and you’re probably asking, “What the hell is he talking about? Why does that matter?” Well thank you for bringing that up, its a perfect time to make the most important point about this company. On every single page, in every feasible place you will find social media buttons. They are tasteful yet ubiquitous. But much more importantly, Dollar Shave Club has a brand and message that you WANT to share. They aren’t spamming you with like buttons, they’re saying “hey, we know we’re awesome, tell your friends about us.” Well guess what, you tell your friends, and then they tell their friends, and their friends tell their other friends. Now you’ve got an internet sensation on your hands.

So what does all this mean for your company? No, please don’t put social media buttons all over your site. Seriously. Don’t do it. Its tacky. Instead, spend time coming up with meaningful, genuine, fun, and consumable content that people will want to tell their friends about. Create a Tribe – a group of people who are advocates for your brand. Help them tell their friends about you with great stuff and a great website and reward them for being apart of your Tribe.

So go visit dollarshaveclub.com and tell your friends. Hey, while you’re at it, before you leave click the little like button over their on the left! See that was pretty easy huh?

[Dollar Shave Club]

We would like to welcome Quality Restorations Inc. to the Tribeswell Web Design Portfolio. QRI is a concrete and building restorations company that works in the greater Chicagoland area. Their work has ranged from small buildings to massive apartment towers, to world famous structures. When we were approached to build their site we knew we wanted to create something unique for the industry that would help highlight their incredible work.

Branding

Starting with a redefined logo we wanted to capture the rustic and seamless influence of concrete. Leveraging subtle texture and dark color, we were able to blend modern design features with a simplistic page structure to develop an ascetically pleasing design unlike anything else in the industry. Balancing whites, blacks, and grays further helped to mimic the feel of concrete and act as a launch pad for the bright and vibrant pictures found throughout the site.

The top of each page features the bold logo over a white background and a dedicated description of the business and its location. These elements serve to quickly introduce the company and describe exactly what they do. They also begin to develop a brand that is infused throughout the rest of the website.

Home Page

The Slider

The Home Page features a large and expressive slider displaying some of the major projects QRI has worked on. The slider is more interactive than other sliders we’ve used in the past, but the design helps drive a sense of modernism that carries through the rest of the pages.

Displaying large pictures of restored concrete in the Chicago area helps to visually describe what QRI does and where they do it. The tagline “Sound Advice | Experienced Workmanship” further creates a brand that users can take with them even after leaving the site. In addition, the tagline helps drive users further down the page where they find a few more key elements.

Featured Elements

Just below the slider sits a group of features designed to drive users into the internal pages and learn more about the company and its work. Subtle shades of gray and white further exmplify the modern appeal used throughout the site and help orient focus to the icons, text, and photos.

We really like to consider different types of users when building pages so we used a clear navigation bar at the top of the website in order to help users who quickly want to find information get to their destination. For those users who enjoy deeper elements of a website, we included these features as a means of navigation and designed them to act as a spring board, launching viewers to new pages full of information and additional branding.

Internal Pages

To display the content we continued with a modern design that featured different levels of information and some subtle touches that supported the branding of the business. Using pictures of Chicago and a small graphic above the sidebar on each page helped unite QRI with its home city of Chicago while keeping the pages fresh and visually interesting.

Portolio

The portfolio pages include pictures of several major projects QRI worked on. They describe QRI’s role and how they were able to restore the buildings to their former glory. Each gallery page favors an array of photos and galleries while leveraging a “see more projects” sidebar that keeps users interested and clicking throughout the site. A call to action of the bottom of each page helps to transfer impressed parties to the contact page where they can learn more about QRI’s expertise and work.

What They Thought

Tribeswell was very responsive throughout the process; they even provided me the opportunity to see and comment on the website as it was built. Even now, if I have an idea or need something changed, it is done immediately. I would recommend tribeswell to anyone, whether they have a website already or not. Tribeswell created a very user friendly, aesthetically pleasing website that we are very proud of.
-Tom Steele of QRI

We are really happy with the result and proud to add Quality Restorations to the Tribeswell portfolio. What do you think of our work? Let us know in the comments:

[Quality Restorations Inc]

1. Familiarize client with hosting and support costs and our terms of service. Releasing work to a client is a big deal. In most cases, they have paid us a substantial amount of money to do work for them, so before the work goes live the client needs to have an understanding of what will be covered in the future.
2. Check to make sure contact forms forward to the correct person. The client has purchased a website from us to improve their marketing. If contact forms aren’t going to the right person, then it kind of defeats the purpose.
3. Turn search engines ‘ON’. WordPress has a feature where you can ‘hide’ your site from being indexed by search engines. We generally enable this feature while we are building the site so that no one accidentally comes across unfinished work.
4. Cross-browser check. Different browsers often display websites in slightly different ways, so before we launch a new website we need to make sure that it performs acceptably in the current releases of Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, and Internet Explorer 8 and 9.
5. Install Google Analytics. It is really important to us that we have an accurate record of website traffic from its very beginning. Even if a client isn’t planning on using traffic data right away, if they need it in the future, it will be hugely helpful to have a long-term record.
6. Check email settings. Launching a new website can occasionally reek havoc on a client’s email settings. Before we launch a new site we always take a look at how their email is set up and take any necessary precautions to avoid any disruptions.
7. Modify DNS records to point the site to the appropriate domain name. This is the part where we tell the domain name to stop pointing visitors to the old website and tell it to start pointing to the new website.
8. Check images and links. Once the domain is pointed to the new site there is always the chance that some of our images or links might not work, so we always double check to make sure that everything is still routed correctly.
9. Install Google XML Sitemap plugin. WordPress does a great job with search engines, but one thing it doesn’t do is ‘ping’ the major search engines when new content is added and it doesn’t create an XML sitemap to help search engines prioritize pages. This plugin does both, and is a great first step towards getting a new site established with search engine indexes.

Special thanks to Rob Doty, Chase Martin, Richard Florey, and Adam Patarino for all their help! Great job guys!

If you’re anything like me you work in an office with a co-worker or two (or 50) and you have a generous handful of files you’re sharing between you. You’re probably also using dropbox shared folders and maxing them out. This week Tribeswell set out to fix this problem by creating an office server. After spending an afternoon googling one problem after another we decided to create this tutorial on the process:

Our Situation:

Our system has the following characteristics:

• We all have Macs running Lion that we work from
• We are using an old pc and Ubuntu
• We want to simply have a network hard drive we can share and store files on

The Hardware

Everyone has that friend or family member with an old computer they are neglecting in the garage or attic. A quick visit and please&thankyou should get you started with all the hardware you need.

For our computer we decided the stocked 160gb hard drive wouldn’t be quite large enough, so we bought a 500gb and the necessary hookup components. After installing the new hard drive we were all set to get started on creating our office server.

The Operating System

Since we were starting from a fresh hard drive, and because all the noise we heard about Ubuntu as a server from the internet, we decided linux was our best option for the operating system.

Download Ubuntu Here

Installing Linux is pretty straight forward. The Ubuntu website has most of the answers you need to get things up and running. We installed off a cd since its somewhat difficult to set up a linux boot flash drive on Mac. Following the onscreen directions was all it really took to get things up and running

Linux is a little unique in that when people create tutorials for making things happen on the system, they almost always direct you to use the terminal. Since we were completely unfamiliar with the OS we had to figure out a few key things:

• Use CTRL+ALT+T to open a new terminal window
• You will often need to log in as the ‘root user’ to make system changes. Do this by typing in ‘sudo bash’ pressing enter, and then your user password when prompted. – This was the easiest method we found.
• the ‘/etc/’ folder is located under the filesystem directory which can be found from the file finder, similar to Mac.
• For folders and other items that require permissions to write, you may have to change your permission settings. This is pretty simple and is outlined Here. Basically press alt + F2 and type ‘gksudo nautilus’ – entering your password should change your permissions and allow you to edit any file you want.

The Software

Once Ubuntu was installed we were pretty much lost. Googling file sharing solutions led to a series of confusing tutorials ranging from creating a full web server to setting up a network drive using windows. However, after a lot of searching we found a few articles that turned out to be very helpful. The process is as follows:

1. Install Netatalk: Since we all use Mac products, we needed a file sharing service that would work well with OS X. Turns out Apple uses its own File Transfer Protocol called AFP (Apple file protocol) and the software Netatalk helps Ubuntu to talk with Mac computers on your network.
   

   The Missing Readme has a pretty good explanation of how to set this up

   However, I do want to mention that since we were using the latest version of Ubuntu (11.10) and Netatalk (2.2) a few of the steps were unnecessary. For instance, the tutorial mentioned turning off settings that helped Netatalk work with older versions of Mac OS, this was unnecessary as they were already turned off for us. Additionally, we were cool with setting up the home folder as our default shared folder and creating files within it, so we didn’t need to add any other directories.

2. Install Avahi: Netatalk helps your server intact with, and transfer files between computers on your system. To really add convenience and a Mac-like experience you should install Avahi to help the server imitate Apple’s Bonjour service. It basically tricks your Macs into thinking the Ubuntu server is just another Mac on your network. This really helps when you want to interact with the files on the server.




3. Logging in and using the server: In order to log in and use the server, open up a finder window on a Mac device and find the server identified on the left hand panel. Click on it and then connect as – use the Linux username and password created on installation and things should be up and running. Sharing folders and files should be as easy as dragging and dropping.

Some Limitations

• This system won’t really help you if you’re looking for a remotely accessible server.
• Your transfer speed is pretty dependent on your network/router speed
• It is pretty easy to save over someone else’s work, if two or more people are working on the same document

However, with that being said, we managed to take an out of date computer and create a network hard drive that will open a great deal of space on our local machines. It allows for fast and convenient sharing of files by everyone in the office, and it was next to free to get everything up and running. Hopefully, your project goes a little smoother with the tips and processes laid out above. Good Luck!

We were approached by the founder and owner of this not-for-profit organization, Roel Carandang, when he heard of us through a mutual contact. With a conference right around the corner, he needed to update his site fast and contracted us to do as much as we could in the short time available. Taking lead on design, I chose a simple green color scheme (for obvious reasons) and tried to work best with what I already had. The end result was much better than what anyone was hoping for. The simplicity that time demanded lent a hand in developing a visually driven, aesthetically minimalist feel that carries through each page and lets the content take the spotlight.

Branding, Typography, and Color

When we were first introduced to the IGO website there was a great amount of green on the page. Rightfully so, we determined that maintaining a green theme would continue to communicate the golf aesthetic quickly to new visitors. However, using a monochromatic color scheme is often a delicate balance and it is important to get each shade perfect so everything is cohesive. Using software and a scrutinous eye, we landed on three shades of green that complimented each other and would be the foundation for the whole site. Tossing in a little gray and white for contrast, we had our complete color scheme.

The logo was a pretty quick update – simply changing some font and moving the text from the bottom to the right side would maintain the left-to-right motion created by the main figure while slimming down the header.

For the main text we determined a sans-serif large point font would appeal most to the target audience. Sans-serif is used for its simplicity and large point allows easier readability for an older user. Adding a Serif style font for the page headers helped them stand out as the title, while leveraging a green font color would tie the content to the rest of the page.

Homepage

It was important for us to quickly communicate what Indiana Golf Outings was all about from the get go. Highlighting the large gorgeous photos of golf in the main slider sets the tone for the rest of the website while driving users to internal pages.

To further drive users to the other pages, we leveraged a few widgets floating underneath the main slider. Additionally, for a quick determination of what the organization is all about, we placed a big “learn more” button on the top of the page for those visiting the site for the first time.

Taken all together, the homepage maintains a simplicity that is visually appealing while simultaneously offering users a great deal of options to learn more about the organization quickly.

Internal Pages

Following the links from the homepage leads to a series of internal pages with descriptions about Indiana Golf Outings and its processes. The large, cropped photos heading each page tie in with those photos found on the homepage and coalesced with the green color scheme that help to develop a theme consistent throughout the site.

The sidebar on the right of these pages is set off with a subtle gradient and filled with basic information and a clean “call to action” button. It helps balance the whole page and keep important information available to the user.

What They Thought

From concept to creation I appreciated the prompt attention you have given me. It was unbelievable how on the first try you were able to put my ideas on the website. No time was wasted and you have exceeded my expectations. Feel free to use me as a reference. Thank you for your work.

We are proud to have Indiana Golf Outings join the Tribeswell portfolio. So what do you think? Leave your reactions in the comments. And incase you don’t want to scroll up to the top here is the link again:

Indiana Golf Outings