* Your website should provide value to your existing clients, employees and partners.

* Your website should be a search engine magnet.

* Your website should work as the hub of your marketing and communications initiatives.

* Your website should dramatically strengthen your market positioning.

* Your website should save you time and money in the long-run.

Food for thought.

What else can your website do for you?

If you can dream it, we can do it.

* Design = Solving problems and / or creating opportunities.

* Branding = To imbue an entity with meaning.

* Meaning = Vernacular expressed to the senses and informed by experience and perspective.

* Marketing = One part packaging and presentation and one part creating awareness

* Web 2.0 = Mass participation over the web and the effective co-mingling of media platforms, content and functionality.

* Social Media = A way for one entity to interact 1:1 with an enormous number of other entities.

* Web 2.0 Strategy – The top level approach an entity is soliciting in terms of web 2.0 involvement to achieve its goals.

* Take aways inspired from a lecture given by Sean Adams of Adams Morioka: Optimism = Good. Crying in the car = Bad. 3 F’s = Fame, Fortune, Fun. Obvious choices are sometimes best. 1 + 1 can = 3.

In the meantime though Google has announced a major update to Google Docs which seems really promising. In short a project is a series of conversations (ideas, questions, answers and decisions) and tasks (who, when, what) with a beginning, a middle (mostly middle) and an end. It’s guided by goal(s) and results in a work product. Today project teams come together rapidly, achieve great stuff and then disband to move on to the next project. Some of what we’re working we hope will help this process to be more effective and more efficient. For now Google Docs may offer some new tools to help with the same.

This venture has resulted in a useful project management methodology and a seed-level definition of what we feel is likely the next evolution of web based project management. If you would like to learn feel free to leave a reply here or send an email to info@dvdsgn.com.

So how does Web 2.0 fit in, or does it? Let’s crack the hood for a moment. Web 2.0, in short, is the idea of the web as a participatory platform. Some key phrases to help describe what it is: information sharing, searchability, user-centered design, collaboration and social networking. On an enterprise level, separating yourself from any preconceived notions about facebook and twitter, Web 2.0 is about strengthening competitive advantage around those principals. In an age where just-in-time information is held at a premium, that seems pretty dang important. I’ll attempt to break down some of the principal benefits and practice in a future post.

Traditional media like newspapers and radio are still valid tools in the marketing toolbox but they have had to make room for burgeoning media alternatives. These new and creative connections are generating audience segments and rich opportunities for gaining traction in niche markets.

How do you cope? We have 5 recommendations.

1.) Have a marketing plan. Make sure your plan includes goals, timeframe and resource allocation. Once you have a plan, you can create a strategy for implementation.

2.) Be a good friend. Gamers have a saying that puts a lot of meaning into two words: “lurk more.” Translation: the road to disaster is paved with brands who stomped all over the rules of social networking. Build a little credibility by learning the ins and outs of these tools and avoid some of those rookie mistakes that make you look… well, like a rookie.

3.) Leverage what’s hot. Of the minute tools often mean a manageable learning curve so take a guilt-free ride on that wave while it lasts. Keep in mind that niche markets are tightly knit communities with their own sort of brand-speak and leaders. Listen, learn, connect.

4.) Assess and evolve. Assess and evolve. Track as much as you are able to track with clear metrics and reporting standards and assess on a regular basis. There are a number of free tools that can be implemented to deliver, auto-magically, all kinds of audience information and help to ensure you are spending your marketing dollars in the right place. Be prepared to take action on the insights established through metrics reporting and evolve your marketing as you move forward.

5.) Innovate. It’s simply a fundamental necessity of business and the key to moving forward. A strong program for strategic, creative and technological innovations will ensure your business stays invigorated.

Intuitive User Interface. In the past, you had two choices: extremely limiting interface tool (you can’t break anything… but you can’t really build anything special or unique either), or a spaghetti bowl of code (you can now break everything… and you still can’t really build anything unique and special). The Drupal UI, we feel, bridges that gap. Your design and development bells and whistles are behind a curtain where they function seamlessly and the pieces you need to work with daily (your content, your images, your calendar, your home and landing pages, your touts) are right up front and as easy as writing an email. Customizable, movable, updatable, unbreakable.

Community Love. We attended a conference last year on Web development and no open source platform had the widespread adoration as Drupal. So many large and small institutions had adopted it, it popped up in virtually every conversation, every tweet, every seminar. In simple language this means you have several thousand developers and enthusiasts that are all working to make improvements, adjustments, add-ons and applications; all on an ongoing basis.

Updatable from anywhere. Gone are the days when a copy of your website sat on one hulking machine with terrifying warnings on sticky notes (Do NOT open/edit/save a page unless you are ABSOLUTELY sure you’ve done x-y-z in blah-blah folder with blah-blah permissions). Your Drupal UI is accessible via the web which means you can make updates wirelessly while you wait for your cappuccino to cool. The only thing that could potentially make you nervous is that extra shot you ordered.

Personalized permissions and roles. A small organization might only have one or two people making updates to the website, and in all likelihood they’re publishing their own work right away. A larger organization might prefer to have a series of checks and balances, a way to keep revisions and revert back to them if need be. Personalizing permissions means you can have what you want for as long as you want it; and you can change your mind as often as you like.

A streamlined platform. Drupal, unzipped out of the box, is approximately 6MB. This means it’s a tightly engineered little speedboat that will grab your users and zip them around your site with ease. However, if you wanted to upgrade any part of the functionality you’ve chosen, Drupal’s modular system makes updating a breeze.

If you’re wondering if Drupal might be a good fit for your organization let us know. We would be happy to talk through some of the ins and outs to help you to make an informed decision.