Category: SolutionSet

On my morning bike ride down Market St. to the SolutionSet San Francisco office, I’ve taken to counting the number of other bikers I see. The numbers are pretty impressive:  on June 18th around 8:30 am, I counted 45 other bicyclists on the 2.4 miles of my commute.  At one light there were 12 of us lingering in the crosswalk waiting for the light to change. On June 24th around 8:45, I counted 37 other bicyclists. At one light there were NO cars waiting but 9 people on bikes. Woo!

I haven’t been counting bikers long enough to substantiate any trend beyond “there are more bikers when there’s nice weather,” but my gut tells me that the trend over the past couple of years is definitely up, up, up. As gas prices and environmental consciousness go up, biking also seems to increase. This makes me happy. More bikers mean fewer cars on the road. More bikers mean safer biking (packs of bikers are easier for cars to see). Finally, more bikers on the road means more people are outside, enjoying the weather, burning calories, and getting revved up for the day ahead.

But what, you ask, does this have to do with SolutionSet? Well, here at SolutionSet San Francisco, about 10 of us ride our bikes to work each day (9 pictured above) – that’s about 15% of the office! I thought I’d do a little survey of some of the bikers and why they choose the two-wheel commute.

Why do you bike to work?

Vadim: It’s the commute I look forward to at the beginning and at the end of the day. How many people can say that?

Damien: To save money on parking, to be healthy, and to reduce my pollution, and because it is more fun and faster than driving or public transit.

Haroun: The list is long-

1. It’s faster than bus or even driving
2. Don’t need to pay for parking
3. The exercise helps clear the mind, both going to work and leaving work behind
4. Health benefits = better quality of life

Eric: Riding your bike to work is a great way to have a scheduled workout every day.  Also for me it is great to get outside and enjoy the ride. Unfortunately here in Louisville I am missing bike trails to work but there are roads near the park that are nice (see my rescued turtle pic http://twitpic.com/61vbv and video http://www.vimeo.com/4866196).

What would you say to someone who is thinking about biking to work?

Vadim: Just do it. It’s much easier and safer than you think.

Dustin: Don’t give up. If you’re scared, ride during rush hour with all the other bikers in a big group. Don’t ride the busiest streets. Learn bike etiquette. Be vocal. Smile and don’t judge. Check your tire pressure every few days. Avoid pot holes. Learn the roads that have dedicated bike lanes. Get a bike map. The trolley tracks are real… and painful. Ride the Wiggle, it’s famous! Ride on the weekends for practice. Pop a wheelie.

Caroline: Try it. Actually, try it two or three times so you can get over the “I’m scared of this because it’s new and strange and there are potholes” and start to really love the ride.

Eric: I would suggest they try doing the ride on a Saturday first when there is less traffic and they can take their time.

Haroun:  This is just me, but as far as tips, I would say:

* Gloves – it’s hard to type with road rash on your hands
* Ride aggressively, being aware of traffic
* Make sure bike fits well and is properly set up
* Lights lights lights
* Mountain biking techniques can help you out of the Muni tracks and other road hazards
* Helmet  - maybe I’m just old, but we get paid to use our minds, try to keep it around for a while!

Finally, if you’re thinking of biking to work in San Francisco but you need a little help, here are some resources:

* 511 BikeMapper – A good way to find bike routes throughout the Bay Area
* San Francisco Bike Map – A good resource to put in your bag in case you get lost; shows the steepness of each bike route.
* Bikely.com – Cyclists use Bikely.com to share their favorite bike routes. For example, here’s a route that goes basically between the two SolutionSet offices.
* Google Maps Walking Directions  – Also great for finding bike routes! Click on “Get Directions” and then make sure to select “Walking” in the dropdown

Bike on!

The relationship between designers and developers is too often overlooked on projects. Commonly the two teams are removed from each other and designers are asked to simply throw their work over the fence to the HTML monkeys who faithfully turn the designs into a webpage using 10,000 typewriters. At SolutionSet, the “front-end” of a website is a combined effort of three different teams; The IA/UE team does the sitemap and the wireframes, the design team creates the designs, and the HTML/CSS team takes the designs and turns them into a web page. It is all too easy to fall into a pattern of non-communication between the departments where we start to lose focus on the real people that live on the other side of the proverbial fence.

In the web industry, there is a long standing battle between the design team and the development team. One source of the conflict comes from the varying backgrounds of the designers who may have a stronger background in advertising or print rather than web. In reality, it is the designer’s job is to push the envelope and make something inspirational, drawing from a diversity of sources, not just the web. HTML/CSS developers usually make poor designers because the more experience they have with HTML, the more practical their designs become. This is another source of the conflict: the developers can feel like the designers are punishing them by building designs that have drop-shadows over gradients, multiple different homepages load at random, as well as many other interesting and creative ideas that become difficult to translate into a syntax.

The conflict can get even more heated with a looming deadline. With a few pen strokes on a Wacom tablet, huge swaths of functionality can be added to a project. Suddenly there are light boxes everywhere, stylized tooltips, special buttons, a different width for the left column on every page, and the list goes on. Digesting a PSD is a daunting task and the natural process of design approvals ensures that each page will be *slightly* inconsistent. And of course, the design needs to be ready by next week so that the back-end team can take over.

It is extremely difficult (and not always desirable) for the designer to fully consider the development implications of a specific design. The developer is also faced with the fact that they are going to need to get elbow deep in the design, inspect it with a fine tooth comb—often zoomed to 1600%—and do it fast. This can get vicious for both sides.

Designers can develop too!
First, any designer that knows the most basic of the HTML/CSS rules will already bring something special to the table. Web designers should familiarize themselves with the basic rules of HTML/CSS and interactive elements in Javascript. What bugs exist in IE6 and IE7? What are the difficulties that come with lightbox that covers a flash element? Will my developer be able to implement an ajax image gallery if he has 6 HTML pages to build in a week? With basic HTML skills, the designer can not only create beautiful designs for the web but also determine the best way to create web beauty and developer friendly designs.

Developers can be designers too!
This one is huge. Get a front-end developer into the project life cycle earlier. Get them in on the design reviews, interactive design reviews, introduce them to the project timeline, the client, and the designer. This will allow the designer and developer to communicate with each other and gain a better sense of the difficulties of both sides. Letting developers become part of the design process allows them to gain respect from the designers for knowing what visual hierarchy is just as the developers are impressed by the designer for knowing about the double-margin bug in IE. It’s important to remember that most front-end developers went to school for web design not a degree in HTML/CSS.

Module design/development
In college a web designer friend of mine introduced me to a design methodology that he practiced that completely inspired me and has since become my primary way of development. When designing, he first determines the layout of the site (Right sash, left sash, 3 col, etc), the color scheme, and builds a logo. From here he designs all of the sites standard elements. This includes h1 - h4, paragraph text, links, link hovers, ordered and unordered lists, blockquotes, tables, numbers, drop caps, forms, buttons, any elements that the site will need. Then he designs by element in a modular way. He will take the header box and start designing only the header. He will add his login form, his logo, anything he wants to go in the header. He will not touch the navigation, the body, the footer, nothing else on the page until his header is complete. Then he moves to another element, and one after another he puts together a page. This is now how I develop. Build a navigation (or whichever element is ready to develop) in HTML/CSS/Javascript, test in all browsers, then copy/paste into the main site layout. This allows me to complete element by element and keep them all separate not only in my html but on my stylesheet. Everything remains completely organized, consistently cross browser compatible, and easily replicable.

A strong bond between the designer and the developer can create an extremely efficient development cycle using this type of methodology. There is always an offset between what the designer is designing and what the developer is developing. We obviously can’t be developing the footer until the designs are complete. The idea of modular development reduces the offset. If both the designer and developer can move from element to element, both teams can nearly work in unison.

At SolutionSet—time permitting—we produce style guides after we’ve had the initial designs approved by the client. Style guides essentially distills the Photoshop document into its base elements. There will be a page describing the grid, a page listing out all of the header styles, and so on. This is also a positive step in the direction towards modular design. Style guides help catch funny situations like having 25 different header styles on a site. In general, the style guide records the intent of the designer much better than the raw PSD’s. A designer under a time crunch can make minuscule mistakes (most frustratingly page to page) that aren’t noticeable to the naked eye but make a big difference in the CSS.

There’s always ways to improve a process. The biggest challenge is trying to make common practice out of something that is constantly changing. Every project is unique, every design will be completely original, new browsers will launch. It’s a tough world to keep up with. We shall see if some of these new ides bring anything to light. If you have other ideas, please contribute.

Last year I wrote a post about SolutionSet’s local, non-profit work.  A number of the sites have been launched since then, and we’ve done some more great work for some deserving organizations.

We’ve had a long tradition (well, as long as the company as the company is old, that is) of working on pro-bono projects or discounted projects.   As the person responsible for the company and it’s overall financial health, I’ve often been asked why we do so.

• It feels good to do good - supporting worthy projects and causes creates a better work environment for all involved as they can feel like they are contributing
• Some of our most creative work comes out of these projects as they are not mainstream, corporate work
• If we can make things work for non-profits with little technical staff and shoestring budgets, think of what we can do for our corporate clients
• We meet great people and hopefully help them do their jobs.  Those people tend to talk to other people and refer us - the only way we do business development
• We live in the community and making it a better place is better for us

So with that being said, here are some of the projects that we have worked on over the past 3-4 years that have been pro-bono in full or part.  We appreciate the trust that each of these organizations has placed in us.

• 11th Hour Project http://www.11thhourproject.org
  •  Complete website design and development
• American Land Conservancy http://www.alcnet.org/
  • Complete website design and development
• Bay Area Interactive Group http://www.sfbig.com/
  • Complete website design and development
• Champion Charities http://www.championcharities.org/
  • Identity development, website design and development
• Commercial Alert http://www.commercialalert.org/
  •  Website development (in conjuction with Method)
• Congregation Kol Emeth http://www.kolemeth.org/
  •  Complete website design and development
• Congregation Beth Jacob http://www.bethjacobrwc.org/
  • Complete website design and development
• Day Workers Center of Mountain View http://www.dayworkercentermv.org/
  • Complete website design and development
• Dillons List http://www.dillonslist.org/
  • Identity Design / Print Design / Web Design
• Joint Venture Silicon Valley Network http://www.jointventure.org/
  • Complete website design and development
• Ohlone Elementary School Coming Soon
  • Complete website design and development
•  Palo Alto Adult School http://www.paadultschool.org/
  • Complete website design and development
• Palo Alto Black and White Ball (2006 & 8) http://thepaloaltoblackandwhiteball.org/
  • Campaign Design / Print Design / Website Design and development
• Palo Alto Friends Nursery School http://www.pafns.org
  • Complete website design and development
• Peninsula Open Space Trust http://www.openspacetrust.org
  • Print Design / Website design and development
• Proof Recipies http://www.proofrecipies.com/
  • Identity Desgin / Print Design / Web Design
• POST : Mindego Hill http://www.gomindego.org/
  • Print Design / Website design and development
• POST : Rancho San Vicente http://openspacetrust.org/lands/rsv/
  • Website design and development
• San Francisco Olympic Bid Website http://www.sanfrancisco2016.org/
  • Complete website design and development
• San Francisco Symphony http://www.sfsymphony.org/
  • Complete website design and development
• SFMOMA Art Think http://sfmoma.com/artthink/
  • Website development (in conjuction with Method)
• Stuart Foundation http://www.stuartfoundation.org/
  • Identity, website, and print development

Pavel’s recent blog entry inspired me to think about my typical work day. So recently I counted the number of times someone stopped by my desk, an instant message (IM) appeared on my screen, my work phone rang, my mobile rang or a text message appeared on my mobile.  17. And I’m not including the 100s of emails and the meeting intensive culture that most of us work in. I like to refer to this as “the interrupted work day.”

Interruptions can be Productive or Unproductive
Interruptions can be good and often are a necessary way to accomplish assignments. I find that short discussions (IM or an ad hoc visit) can easily resolve an issue or clarify a question. Also if the interruption is related to a current task, it can be beneficial and may inspire positive outcomes for the task or surface uncovered concerns (which is a good thing).

However, I found that if I’m working on a task that will take hours or days to complete, the interruptions often disrupt my path to completion and sometimes the task can take twice as long or I’ll end up working on them on my own time - not a good thing.

Suggestions to stay Productive
1. Block time on your calendar: Blocking time on your schedule will allow you the time to do work and it will prevent meetings from being scheduled.

2. Change your work hours: Arrive to work before everyone else arrives or stay after everyone else has gone home. Another suggestion is to work a Sunday through Thursday schedule. Where Sunday is a day to complete those those time demanding tasks.

3. One and done: With high expectations on response time, it’s difficult to keep up with the barrage of emails, IMs, meetings etc. Scanning emails and then returning to them later can be an inefficient way to work. I believe subscribing to a “read the item once and then take action (or not)” philosophy will help you stay productive. Of course everything can’t be managed with this suggestion but returning to and rehashing issues that can be resolved quickly can be time consuming.

4. Change your work environment: Find a conference room to do your work, close your office door or work from home. These recommendations will allow you to avoid some of the typical interruptions.

5. Turn it off: Turn off those applications (IM, email etc), ringers, or those application alerts/reminders that distract or disrupt your workflow.

So in writing this blog entry I counted 2 IM conversations, 2 unplanned meetings and 1 call to my wife. 5.

Today I am excited to announce SolutionSet’s acquisition by Haggin Marketing, a leading multichannel direct marketing services agency.  In searching for the right partner, we first and foremost looked for an agency that shared our beliefs in providing excellent service to – and delivering great solutions for – our clients. Additionally, we wanted a partner whose areas of expertise complemented and balanced our own, allowing for a more integrated online and offline approach for our clients. We found those attributes and more in Haggin Marketing.

Thanks to our great clients, industry partners and team, SolutionSet has grown rapidly over the last several years. We look forward to building on that success and offering an even more holistic approach to solving our clients’ challenges in cost-effective and measurable ways. We are excited about the future and the chance to expand the expertise of both organizations to bring truly innovative and effective solutions to all our clients.

We don’t typically butter our own toast, but Direct Dispatch has been added to the awesomeness that is the marketing page of Alltop. Hooray us! For those unfamiliar, Alltop rounds up and categorizes RSS feeds so that it’s easy to scan a lot of news on a single subject. Guy Kawasaki, founder of Alltop, explains it best:

We import the stories of the top news websites and blogs for any given topic and display the headlines of the five most recent stories. When you place the cursor over a headline, we display part of the story so that you can decide if you’d like to read it. To read the story, click on its title. To go to the home page of the site, click on its domain name.

A good metaphor is that Alltop is an “online magazine rack” that displays the news from the top publications and blogs. Our goal is to satisfy the information needs of the 99% of Internet users who will never use an RSS feed reader or create a custom page. Think of it as “aggregation without the aggravation.”

For even further clarification, check out these illustrations by Dan Roam (author of Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems with Pictures) about the difference between Google:

And Alltop:

We’re in seriously good company over at Alltop and couldn’t be happier (unless, of course, we moved up the page a notch or two). If you’re timid of anything related to social media, Alltop can act as a great set of training wheels. Easy to use. Easy to read. Hard to quit linking. So jump in and learn yourself something new.

Check out the photos (here and here) from our frighteningly fun Halloween celebrations in Mill Valley and Chicago. Our resident bakers busted out some unreal cakes for the cake contest. And as for the costumes…well, we took it pretty seriously.

Here at SolutionSet, we pride ourselves on honesty.  But I’m about to reveal the one lie we tell everyday.

Almost anyone who has met us has heard our boast that we’ve built one of the fastest growing companies in the US and have done so without a sales force.  But much like the KISS army, our sales force is massive and fanatical about what they do.

So, are we liars?  No, technically our claim is absolutely true.

Let me explain.

At almost every service company, there is a classic tension between sales and delivery.  It goes like this.

The salesperson promises the world, with impossible timeframes, often at cheap (BS) budgets.  In that model, signoff on the contract is the last happy moment. Post-signoff, the project gets thrown over the fence to a “delivery” group.  The delivery team either faces the ugly choice of

a) under-delivering to the client but staying within budget, or

b) delivering the work but with the addition of surprise “change orders.”

I’ve lived in that world before, and I’d rather work the return counter at a Home Depot than go back.

SolutionSet uses a very different model with sales driven by 3 different parties:

1. The Partners (of which I’m one) are responsible for both selling and delivering and are measured on a broad set of metrics (revenue, margin, budgeting accuracy, and client satisfaction.)  I have no incentive to sell bad work since I’m also responsible for delivering.  This means clients get honest, accurate project plans… and I never get paid for playing golf.
2. Our delivery team spends time with the Client during the sales process.  We believe this benefits all parties.  Clients become more personally invested in the vendor selection process.  And our delivery team gets to deeply internalize the project goals while sanity checking the estimates.  Lastly, our team is damn good.  I’m talking “best cooler in the South” good.  Having the client meet our team only helps the cause.
3. Our clients, past and present, are the final and most important leg of our sales team.  We’ve learned that client retention is cheaper than client acquisition.  So we work really hard to make every project successful, and so that our clients become a valuable source of referral and new business.

The model has served both SolutionSet, our clients, and our employees well.  More importantly, with every successful project our “salesforce” grows.

What is in a number?  A whole lot of interviewing for one. This month we have surpassed the 100 employee mark along with increasing our ranking on the Inc 500 list of fastest growing privately held companies from 95 in 2007 to 23 in 2008.  Rapid growth for a professional services company is a challenge in and of itself and then add the variable of being a technology company in Silicon Valley competing for the best and the brightest against Google, Apple, eBay, and more. Not only is it a competitive market it is critical for us to find candidates who embrace our project, design and development methodologies. The core to the success of our company is our people.  Corny as it may sound this truly is the cornerstone of our business.

During an interview follow up last week I was asked by a candidate if our employees are really as happy as they came across during the interview.  I had to chuckle. Our work at SolutionSet is exciting, challenging, and thought provoking. Our team is made of people with diverse professional and personal backgrounds. Some come from traditional agencies, some have working inside large organizations while others were entrepreneurs. Each project benefits greatly from this diverse experience.  It enables us to be agile and meet the ever evolving demands of our clients.

I am proud to be surrounded by such a talented and dedicated team. 

Real-life fans of SolutionSet will be pleased to know that you can now be virtual fans of SolutionSet as well. Today we rolled out our official SolutionSet Facebook page. Check it out at http://www.facebook.com/pages/SolutionSet/40653373672 and if you’re on Facebook, feel free to fan us.

While you’re surfing Facebook, be sure to also check out the official Duke University Fuqua School of Business page, another example of our customized Facebook work.