On Sunday, October 28th I held another workshop for ADAC at the American River College in the Art New Media lab. This workshop was a second part to the workshop I conducted in March. In the first workshop we explored some of the modern methods for building web sites for easier content management. In this workshop we discussed how Software as a Service (SaaS) is changing the way we work and the tools we use. We explored some of the new tools for productivity, communication and collaboration.

We looked at some of the social networking tools that are available and put many of the terms and concepts you hear out of context into context so that they make sense and participants walked out with a much clearer overall picture of the situation. You can check out the details of the workshop by clicking here, or go to the projects link at the top of the page.

There has been a bit of a hiatus regarding my posts here on MeadDesign. This is not because I have not been busy with design, on the contrary, there is a lot going on! The purchase of a new house for my family here in Davis has occupied my thoughts and time a lot this spring/summer, and now design jobs are flooding in from all sides. It looks to be an exciting fall.  I have both print and web projects coming and I look forward to posting them here. Of course if you are interested in what I am up to, feel free to contact me!

For the last several weeks, I have been working with Elizabeth King to develop materials for her Walktopia project. This is a wonderful project geared to get people of all walks of life excited about walking for fun and for health. Elizabeth is fun to work with. She is enthusiastic and full of ideas and full of energy. I look forward to seeing her efforts blossom into something beautiful for Sacramento and then spread out from there.

This is the runner up version of the logo. I like the one we chose very much. It is simple, elegant and gets the idea across, but I also like this “funner” version. Maybe we will get an opportunity to play with it some more in the future!

The Web 2.0 workshop for ADAC went well, I think. At least, no one demanded their money back. Check out the projects link at the top of the page for slides and links related to the presentation. If you participated in the workshop and have further questions, please feel free to contact me.

There are a couple things coming up that I am looking forward to. On March 18th I am giving an introductory workshop on Web 2.0 and Content Management Systems for ADAC (Art Directors and Artist Club). The workshop will take place at the American River College in Sacramento at 1:30 pm on the 18th. I have been preparing my materials for a week or so, and I think it will be a quite exciting and dynamic workshop. Also, in preparation for this, I am going to be adding a new “projects” section to this web site to handle the materials of this and other projects I am involved with. So stay tuned!

The second event that I am excited about is the OSCMS Summit coming up on March 23 and 24th. If the acronym is just so much alphabet soup to you, here is the full title: Open Source Content Management System Summit. It is a mouthful no matter which way you say it. I am looking forward to hearing a lot of people smarter than me give great presentations over those two days. The summit is going to be held on the Yahoo campus and a friend from Boston is flying out to join me for the adventure.

George Mandler has been great to work with, and as I am finishing up work on his site, my next project is already under way. This is a web site for a very good friend of many years. Cora Fox is a professor at Arizona State University in the English Department. She is a Renaissance specialist and needs a web site for a variety of reasons.

This particular site has been really fun to design. Cora pointed me to several resources on the web for images related to the Renaissance era. She found this fantastic paper that makes up the edges of the pages. The paintings at the top directly relate to topics that Cora studies and teaches. I am really pleased with the look and feel of this web site, and I look forward to helping Cora put up content and get used to uploading information herself.

If you need a professional web site, please do not hesitate to contact me. Also, if you get a chance, check out Cora’s web site.

For the past few weeks I have been working with George Mandler to create a new website for his nutrition, accupuncture and oriental medicine business called Nourishing Balance. He has been a pleasure to work with. One the things I really admire about George during this project is his attention to detail. If he brings this sort of focus to his business, (and I am sure he does!) then he must be an incredible clinician.

The web site has been built with WordPress, which continues to improve with a new version out recently. I have to say, I have come to really love WordPress. It is just a fantastic tool that empowers ordinary people to take control of their own web sites. Once the site has been built, you can use WordPress to post news and information easily.

Well it has been a little over a week since I went to MacWorld and I have gone through all my handouts and looked through the various demo disks to see what is really worth pursuing further. The one thing that really stands out for me is an interesting tool called Memory Miner. Be sure to watch this video to get a sense of what it does. (more…)

So, if you have not heard about the new iphone, I am probably not the one to tell you about it. I have been looking forward to MacWorld for the last few months but I have to say I am a little disappointed about the announcements from Apple. It is not that the phone lacks that certain Apple “gotta-have-it-ness” – it has it in spades! But really I like cool tools for making stuff. I took this picture of everyone taking pictures of the iPhone, displayed Mona Lisa style behind glass. (more…)

Well, it is a work in progress, but I have had a lot of fun setting up and training my friends at MSLA how to use Joomla to run their new web site. There have been some interesting challenges and I am sure we will do a lot more for the site in the future.