Able Parris, the new minister of office culture here at Newfangled NC, has inaugurated a new tradition that is sure to spread like wildfire among mid sized marketing services firms across North America. This is the kind of thing that brings Robert Scoble to tears, makes Jeff Bezos jump out of his seat and proclaim that the world will never be the same... this, my friends, is BLING Day.

A few weeks ago Eric and I attended the ReCourses/Win Without Pitching New Business Summit in Nashville. David Baker's events are great for us; the attendees are often times principals of mid-sized agencies and, since our shop is structured a lot like a mid-sized agency, his advice is almost always directly applicable.

During one of the sessions, David was talking about specialization, and how you need to be an expert in a very unique niche. For example, being a "marketing" expert is not enough, and it is sort of a fallacy. Being an expert at marketing equestrian products to mid sized farms in North America, now THAT is a specialization. David asked an open question to the audience, "What are some examples of specific knowledge that you have as a result of being an expert in your field"? I'm not particularly afraid to speak up in a crowd of people, so I raised my hand.

Newfangled specializes in working with agencies on their and their client's websites. I cited the example that we have learned over the years that when agencies don't let us have direct access to their clients, the communication breaks down and the project doesn't go well. This was the third response to David's question. After my somewhat appropriate, but not spot on response, he looked a little flustered. Eric then chimed in and said something like "Newfangled has learned that without proper prototyping, communication about a web development project is flawed".

UGH! Humiliation! Of course, It's the PROTOTYPING, stupid! I knew that. I could have said that, but no, my moment in the sun was squandered on explaining some low level detail that didn't really engage anyone, and Eric triumphed by stating our old party line. But man, it is a really good line. It is so tightly integrated into what we do, it is so central to our universe, that I forget that most web projects managed by other firms never even see an interactive, web-based prototype. I spend hours ever day telling our "clients to be" (to borrow a phrase from Blair Enns) about how prototyping is the bedrock of Newfangled, and it really is. Sure, we have a great CMS, we are hyper devoted to great and conscientious customer service, we have a lot of smart people that build and design excellent websites every day, but the prototyping is our real differentiator. It is at that stage, which for us is the very first stage, that we truly shine as brightly as we can as web developers.

The main reason for this is freedom. Prototyping gives us and our clients the freedom to suggest anything, and try everything. Because the prototype tool is based on our CMS, it has no visual design elements (hence the Grayscreen) and we are just basically mocking up functionality without actually programming it out, we can have changes made to the prototype within hours of a brainstorming session. That kind of quick turnaround fosters a lot of brainstorming - and we love it. Imagine that, entering a web project with every possible option available to you. It should sound wonderful and very scary, which brings me to my second wonderful attribute of prototyping - consultation.

Again, prototyping is the very first stage of the project, and it is also the stage that has the most Newfangled eyes on it. On average, seven different people here, including most all senior staff, take part in the prototyping process. I'm not much for numbers like this, but that is the equivalent of over 60 years of 7 different and unique perspectives on web development! The Grayscreen Prototyping stage is our opportunity to take advantage of our collective experience and use it (via internal debates, sometimes lots of them) to basically take the most educated guess possible as to what your site should be doing.

Once the prototype is done what we have is analogous to the blueprint of a house - it is a very detailed, mutually agreed upon set of plans. This seemingly needless and time consuming phase that many other developers plain skip actually ends up accelerating the overall time line. That is because the design, programming and copywriting can all take place simultaneously after the prototype is done, because everyone is playing from the same rulebook.

Not taking our own best advice, we strayed from prototyping a few years back on some projects that were so simple, we thought they didn't need it... that will NEVER happen again. Prototyping is here to stay, and I believe it is the most essential part of Newfangled. 

On the subject of defining things, commoncraft has done a great job at describing the who, what, where, and why of blogging. They've also done the same for Google Docs.

As a company whose foundational philosophy is to make complex things simple, Newfangled salutes commoncraft for absolutely nailing it! 

How did I hear about commoncraft you ask? Naturally, I found it through my Google Reader feed for Smashing Magazine. 

What, you don't know what Furl Digg Stumble del.icio.us Diigo Permalink Technorati Twitter Stumangati and Ficklewink are?!?!?!?!

Yeah, me neither - here are some definitions to help us... 

Here we have a few brief, simple and generalized definitions of some populare web2.0 tools. Each of these tools probably do about 1,000 more things than I mention here, but my interest is to give you the gist of it. If there is anything that I've gotten plain wrong, comment and tell me about it!

Permalink: This is a URL that sticks with blog entries even after they move into the archives from the blog's home page.

Digg: Digg is basically a popularity index. Users can submit online content which is then ranked by the Digg community. The most popular content bubbles to the top of the list.

Diigo: Diigo is a social annotation tool. Users can share comments with each other about web pages by tagging them with the online equivalent of a sticky note.

Furl: Furl is a lot like del.icio.us, except not nearly as used. So, I'm going to stick with del.icio.us.

del.icio.us: is the dominant social bookmarking site. The main value of it is that people can see what you've bookmarked and tagged. As most of the best of these tools, it is all about sharing.

Technorati: Technorati is a blog indexing tool. They are continually scouring the "live web", organizing blogs and ranking them by their popularity. You can also use it to keep track of blogs, like you would do with Google Reader.

Stumble Upon: is a site that allows you to post your favorite web pages, blogs, videos and photos. You can also create a profile and gather fans, but the point of it is to organize the parts of the web you like most.  

reddit: well, they say it best: "reddit is a source for what's new and popular online. reddit learns what you like as you vote on existing links or submit your own!"

Google Reader, to me, makes web2.0 possible for me. When hearing about people that kept up with many tens of blogs that each had tens of posts a day, I always wondered - how do they find this stuff? There are other questions that pop up after that one is answered (of which you'll see a few below), but for me, finding it was the first mystery.

I started with seeing what my peers were doing. Google Reader let's you not only easily peruse the blogs you want to keep up with, it lets you see what blogs your friends are reading and which ones they have specifically designated as share-worthy. Starting with Chris and Eric's blogs, I quickly spidered off and found others that I am interested in. Here is an excerpt from a Google chat between Chris and me last night:

OK, now that I am in the world of Google, I have started to feel that I am part of this community that I envied from the outside looking in. This has mainly to do with my adopting an iGoogle page in the Fall. iGoogle is basically a light RSS reader. That means that on one page I can see all the headlines from each site I might visit each day, without having to visit the sites at all. This is a cool and useful thing, and it got my up to speed on the benefits of RSS.

So, I started to get the flavor of living online. Everything I did during the day was there. Our project management software, timesheet system, business docs and all the personal apps I covered in my last post were online. This, along with creating a basic Facebook profile, made me feel like I was a member of the online community.

My next realization was that I need to become a useful and responsible member of the community, not just a waste of space. This was my first big hurdle. I felt more pressure and confusion at this stage than at any other, mostly because I didn't know how to take the next step and there was WAY too much out there competing for my time and attention.

I was in this mouse trap for a few months, basically ignoring the issue altogether. My internal nagging didn't cease, though, and I had to do something. I decided to ask Chris Butler, and he set me straight.

The bedrock of being a good member of the online community is blogging. To blog well, you need to read blogs - and you need to have a focus. That last part is what finally gave me traction. I knew that someone in my position needs to be an active member of the online community and I knew  that I was basically a novice. I discovered that my angle on blogging would be to document my conversion from being a holed-up, disconnected personal computer user to a (hopefully) strong member of the online community.

I expect that this particular angle will fade and that I'll transition to a different voice at some point, but for now it inspires me and has allowed me to get started, which is all I can ask for. 

Now, it doesn't have to be this way, but the first step in my adopting the new web was finally giving in to total reliance on Google. I've used and loved Google for many years, as we all have. I was not, however, willing to make Google the center of my computing universe - despite significant peer pressure here at Newfangled.

I liked having all my email, contacts and calendar items on my machine. When I was a PC guy and then a Mac lover, I had my mail programs tweaked out just so, with different folders for each agency we work with and each client as a sub folder under each agency - of course all managed and sorted automatically through my hundreds of inbox rules I had setup. It was not uncommon for me, at the time, to receive hundreds of legitimate emails each day. At the last count, I had 60,000 emails, and the were each nestled in a nice, tidy and comfortable universe.

But, every once in a while, the software would act funny. Unread and unseen emails would get hidden in a folder automatically (potential disaster!), the mail app would choke unexpectedly. I suspect it was grumbling under the sheer volume of email I had. I find that each second counts during my work day. Email is the lifeblood of my communication, and communication is my job, so I get a little shakey when my email app isn't perfect.

OK, you get the point. I liked Mac Mail, the address book, iCal and iChat (essential for work communications here at NWF) - a lot. I don't know if it was the pressure from Newfangleders, fear of Mail crashing for good or what, but in November I just did it. I signed my electronic life over to Google. I used an auto forward rule in Mail to move all 60k emails to Gmail, and a weekend of my computer crunching on it I was in there. It took only a few seconds to move my contacts into Gmail and all of my events, past, present and future, into Google Calendar.

I immediately realized that this was something I should have done long ago. EVERYTHING became easier. No more folders, no more rules, no anything - except for that all-powerful search bar that Google is so famous for. Any email address, name, project, random word, file name, etc. that I wanted to find I could, in less than a second.

I am a blackberry user ("user" is a very appropriate term), and that is where Google really won me over. The synchronization between Gmail and Google Calendar and my phone was amazing. I felt as if I just got the latest and greatest phone, even though it was my 3 year old blackberry.

The time has come for me to get with it and start practicing what Newfangled preaches. I've been hesitant to embrace the new web, but I've wanted to. I just haven't known how to start, and I think that is my angle. I think a lot of people are in my boat. They know this movement is out there, the web is more than just a place to buy things, review products, investigate companies and log in to your corporate webmail account. There are people out there doing a lot more than that, and they seem to be connected in a sort of virtual clique. They seem in the know, and I don't - and that is intimidating and somewhat diffusing.

Despite that, I know I need to get my feet wet, but how?

Fortunately, I am daily in the presence of Eric Holter and Chris Butler. Eric and Chris have embraced the new web movement (I just can't call it that other name...) fully, and they are very free with their information, as any fans of their blogs know.

There are only about 15 of us that get to spend 8-10 hours with Eric and Chris 5 days a week, though. So, I would like to make it my mission to document my coming of age in hopes that this will provide a path for others to use on their own daring forays into the deeper web universe.

The Newfangled FOTL crew was just moments ago discussing the merits of Radiohead's "The Bends". I think we all agreed that it remains their greatest accomplishment. 

FOTL stands for Focus on the Client. The acronym was coined last year by Mike, our Systems Architect, father of NewfangledCMS and Newfangled's Geek alpha male. As with all companies with the necessary components, we experience the classic IT/Client service divide. It kind of goes like this:

AE: We think the site should do this

IT: You're dumb, no it shouldn't

AE: But the client really wants it and we agree with them

IT: OK, sounds good... but I still know more than you.

We actually all like each other quite a lot here and we have a lot of fun with this essential dichotomy. I see it as the tension that makes the resulting ideas actaully hold water. Unfortunately, in a lot of companies it results in nothing more than an endless political stalemate.  

Back to the post title. Thanks to my wife's amazing work over the past 10 months we are about to meet our first baby... any day now.

It is Summer time. Not only that, it is July 6th. That means that it is two days past the 181st anniversary of John Adams' and Thomas Jefferson's deaths (within hours of each other!) which were exactly 50 years after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.

What does this all mean? That's right, it means that I am, this evening, about to engage in the same act that I am sure most of you are..... smoking my own bacon... with a friend.... while listening, at some point, to The Faces (otherwise known as Rod Stewart's first, and greatest, band...the same can't be said for Ron Wood). 

So, two blogs in one day? Yes - here and now! This is me fulfilling my commitment... music and food. 

It is Spring here in Chapel Hill - deep, ragin' full-on Spring. So today's entry deals with the food and music of the season. Able Parris, one of the guys here at NWF, made me a wonderful mix entitled "Spring in the South". It is fulfills the new, old, borrowed and blue wedding rule quite nicely. Here is the breakdown:

Ok, so I spend a fair amount of time speaking with clients about not having a blog on their site if they don't plan on actually using it regularly. Fortunately, a few of my cohorts have been keeping the NWF blog real but even so I can't help but feel a little hypocritical.

So, I need to get on the good foot, commit to something, get into the habit so to speak. So here's what I'll do. I'll pledge to you, my loyal readership of -2 people, that I will do this much more often, maybe even weekly. At the very least I will let the world know something about what I am listening to and eating each time.