I collected some examples of how all different kinds of sites chose to display their SOPA protests and came across some pretty cool examples.

I’m sure Google’s design approach is no stranger to you. Still, I felt the need to include it.

Did you check out TechCrunch‘s form of protest? Their site remained pretty much the same but they changed the logo.

Wikipedia‘s black out was publicized days before it actually happened so I was interested to see how the site would look on Wednesday. They did a really great job with both their messaging and their call to action. A simple zip code and you’re on your way to stopping SOPA.

Buzzfeed supported the SOPA cause by using black censorship bars across all of the text on their header. It’s a great way to get the censorship message across while giving people a chance to learn more about SOPA and contact their representative if they choose to.

WordPress took a similar approach with the censorship bar but it’s all over their homepage. It sticks with their simple design and is definitely eye catching.

One of my personal favorite blogs, allthatinspires.me also blacked out its page. It was nice to see that even smaller blogs took the time to make a difference. (Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t get my daily fix. Anything for a good cause!)

Cheezburger went with a lightbox approach. The pop up tells you everything you need to know and when you close out of it, the site goes back to normal.

Chris Brogan, very well known social media marketer, took a simple and informational approach and even added a video on the movement which I thought was a great touch.

In case you’re wondering how this helped, check out this article from Business Insider.

What were some sites that really stood out to you? Were you surprised to see some sites not take action?

So go ahead and exchange gifts, listen to holiday music, and decorate your home. However you choose to celebrate, the Blueye team would like to wish you and yours a safe and fantastic holiday!

B4YOUBOARD

I don’t know about you, but when I finally pass security and get a prime seat at the gate, the last thing I want to do is get up with all of my carry on bags and look for some snacks. As always, there’s an app for that. With B4YOUBOARD, you can order your food and nonalcoholic drinks and get it delivered to you for no extra charge. This service is only at a few airports including Chicago’s O’hare, but it seems like the kind of app that we’ll see more of.

My TSA

Even the TSA has its own app. The app shows you airports’ real time statuses, what you can safely check through security checkpoints, and even how long you’ll have to wait to get through security.

Meet & Seat

If you’re the kind of person that gets anxious about who you have to sit next to on a flight (and let’s face it, who isn’t?) then this is a pretty cool tool.  Dutch Airline, KLM, is planning on letting its passengers chose who they’ll sit next to based on their social profile. You’ll be able to choose your partner based on interests, physical appearance, career, etc.

Would you use any of these apps while traveling?

Now the Facebook community has another thing coming. With the timeline right around the corner, people have a lot more to get used to than just a few small changes. Timeline is going to change everything about how we Facebook everyday. Obviously this isn’t news, but it’s more so some motivation for people who don’t know how to deal with change.

“Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.”

- Arnold Bennett

I thought this quote was a perfect one to think about how the Internet and Facebook is always changing. Sure, change is going to challenge your comfort zone. It always has and always will, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. That’s why I think this video of Don Draper introducing Facebook Timeline is a great one. It shows how change is timeless and it’s something we have to get used to.

It also wouldn’t hurt if everyone had the presentation skills that Don Draper had, maybe then we wouldn’t be so hesitant whenever we heard Facebook is going to change everything that we’ve grown to know.

Video: Don Draper Presents Facebook Timeline

The article notes that 50% of active users spend 700 minutes per month on  Facebook. Spending that much time on Facebook has to influence how you feel  about what you read, comment and share about them. Break ups alone are  hard, but checking how great your ex’s life is without you makes it even harder.  The article gives advice for those that get emotionally riled up. Check it out and tell me what you think!

It’s  also hard to step foot around any sort of media – digital or not – and not see an article, tweet, blog post, or Facebook status about the 10th Anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Rightfully so.

Sometimes though, events like these make me wonder, who is writing an article just to get some content out there and who is writing an article to actually tell a story and bring a new point of view to readers.

Obviously, I can’t sit here as I write a 9/11 post and point fingers at people for doing the same (and I hope it’s obvious that those are not my intentions). But reading an article earlier this morning about 9/11 and design really started to get me to think of everything a little differently. One of the headlines really stood out to me, “Patriot’s Day: Remember and Consume!” That article has a lot of interesting points about how consumption knows no boundaries, even great tragedy.

I can’t help but hope that people remember that every tweet, status update, blog post, etc. these next few days actually has a powerful meaning behind them and it’s not just another trending topic.

On the other hand, it’s also important to be optimistic and remember that many people do have the best intentions whether or not they voice it online. Take this Facebook status chain for instance:

Countless people heard some news about Sunday and decided to dedicate their status to it.

The bottom line is this: It’s important to remember the significance of what this Sunday is. It’s about remembering all of those innocent people that lost their lives and those who are fighting to keep us all safe and free.

(photo above via Time)

As a team manager, there are three things I wake up and realize each and every day. The first thing is that I’m clearly the most intelligent, funny and beautiful person I know. The second is that the first is inaccurate. The third, and most factual of the three, is that I am completely incapable of getting my job done effectively alone.

Yes, I NEED other people to help me get my job done. Whether it’s building a simple Facebook Application or ensuring that a custom Content-Management system is functional and flawless, I need my team to be the best and brightest to help me achieve success on a project-to-project basis. Luckily, I’m blessed with some of the most inventive developers, most creative designers and intelligent strategists.

Since I’m so dependent on these individuals, I’m an advocate for team relationships. Here are a few things I’ve learned about making your team a priority in the startup environment:

1.    Trust is Essential- One of the most important aspects of a good team is the ability to trust each other. This is so pivotal because anytime you delegate work to your team members, the outcome will be both reflective of you as an individual and your team as a whole.

Abby Ross, our VP of Product Development, also agrees that trust is important. “Trust that I can delegate and know things will get done efficiently, effectively and creatively is so important to me. I love knowing that my team will bring their magic to each project, helping me achieve what I couldn’t achieve by myself.”

To put it simply, make an effort for your team members to trust you and you’ll start to see unprecedented results in your workplace.

2.    Your team is made up of humans- This is essential and simple. Whether you’re a peon, project manager or president, there’s a necessity for you to remember every single second of every single day that your team consists of human beings. Human beings need to be treated like human beings. Don’t form a superiority complex, don’t belittle. Encourage, edify and respect. Once again, your work output might grow exponentially.

 3.    It’s about learning together- Many employers underestimate about their employees- the idea that human beings innately want to get better at what they do. I try my best everyday to challenge and stretch my team with projects and tasks that they’ve never done before. If you’re a designer read about CSS, if you’re a developer start learning a new language. At the end of the day, your team will gain versatility and happiness from your excitement for people to get better at their job. When you learn together, you work well together. When you work well together, the collaborative process flourishes.

A good friend of mine, Josh Clemence of Acumen Brands said this about learning:

By being a part of a team and having a support network you are able to learn.  Learning not only benefits the company but benefits the individual.  People get bored when they are not moving forward.  Excitement wears off, things settle, and we don’t do our jobs to the best they can be done.  If we work as a team, make mistakes, support each others and learn, learn, learn, a success culture is inevitable.

4.    Fun is actually fundamental- Easily my favorite aspect of the startup. We work long, tough hours, naturally. Sometimes we work 40 hours in a week, sometimes we work 60 hours in a week. When our workload demands this much from us, I always feel it’s important to have fun. At Blueye we’ve had cocktail parties, boat days, basketball tournaments, Madden Tournaments and even went to a Cubs game recently. I asked Francis, one of our developers, why he thought this was important and he responded, “I enjoyed the Cubs game the most because the Cubs won, we had been working like crazy and needed a break and it made me feel closer to the team.” The result is three-fold. Individuals get the break they need. They have fun, which helps them justify coming to work regularly. They, most importantly, connect on a personal level with the other members of their team. The result? More success.

5.    Mistakes are good- It’s easy to come down on employees when they make mistakes. It’s NOT easy to turn mistakes into something positive. That’s essential. When your employees make mistakes, it’s always best to use the situation as a learning experience. Discuss where the problem occurred and how to take actions to prevent that mistake in the future.

I’m no expert in this. I make mistakes…regularly. I yell too much when I get mad. I’m not patient when I should be. But my team always sees past that. We get over it. We move on and we make awesome things happen.

I think Blueye has the best team on earth. We have fun. We teach each other. We work well as a team. I’m glad to be a small part of the Success Culture here.

What is your team’s environment like? What do you do to create a success culture?

Watch Josh Clemence’s video on building a Success Culture.

Motivation and building a Success Culture from Andrew Price on Vimeo.

How many websites do you visit each day? How many sites unrelated to shopping, messaging or video with several blocks of text hold your attention for more than a minute? And of those, what percent of the text do you actually read?

For wordophiles, these numbers are disheartening. But guilt trips about reading vs. scanning are futile when thinking in terms of website development. The real lesson here is not for the website user–it’s for the website creators.

Many companies know that their outdated design and barely-functioning site features could use a makeover. But how many take a hard look at their fledgling, jargon-heavy, cutesy-pie, error-ridden copy?

Scores of free copywriting resources can be found on the web, and most contain some variation of the following reminders: Attention, Promise, Lead, Call to Action and Reward. The problem is that for those who don’t necessarily salivate over exquisitely-crafted sentences, such steps skip over some basic issues of assumptions and awareness that do wonders for copy creation.

With this in mind, I have developed my own “Tips for Writing Not-Totally-Horrible Web Copy” acronym:

B egin by admitting that your copy may have problems.

E diting is important. It’s an art and a science. Ask for it, and then don’t take it personally.

R espect your readers–they may be able to connect the dots without a page of instructions.

A dmit that you may be your website’s biggest fan. Look at the site and the content with fresh eyes–what does a user know or need to know when arriving on your site? Are your paragraphs too long?

D etermine the takeaway value of the copy: What’s in it for the reader that compels them to keep reading (or clicking)?

!

There are many more things that go into excellent copywriting, but hopefully learning to BE RAD will take you to your next levels of copy mastery.

Here’s an example that happened literally just minutes ago. Our very own Blueye Creative team was all set and ready to go to a company Chicago Cubs game on Friday afternoon. All 19 tickets were paid for yesterday and the Cubs vs. Cards trash talking started pretty soon after.

Fast forward to this morning. We were told by the MLB ticketing offices that even though we purchased the tickets, they are all sold out and there is no refund policy. Nothing like paying the same price to have 19 of us standing up instead of in our own assigned seats like we were promised.

What are we doing about it? Well, we’re taking this to social media like any marketing agency should. Many of our employees have already started tweeting at the Cubs, MLB and even at National Baseball Writer, Jon Morosi.

It’ll be interesting to see how the Cubs and the MLB react to being confronted online for everyone to see. It definitely won’t look good if there’s no response.

On the other hand, good customer service on social media goes a long way. Take PODS Moving and Storage for example. That Facebook wall is filled with interaction and sometimes those include customer complaints. Who can blame them? Moving can be a stressful time for everyone, but what’s important is interacting with those poeople instead of ignoring them.

Interacting doesn’t necessarily mean having automated responses that seem impersonal. It means actually having a conversation and understanding where the complaint is coming from. Let’s see if the Cubs and the MLB can match up to PODS’ method of customer service.

Have you been in a situation like this one before? Tell us about it.

The Help was a promoted topic and then a trending topic for a while since the movie just came out and I was able to avoid all of that. Then one day BOOM one of the people I follow tweeted about the movie and that’s all it took. (Thankfully it was only about an actor in the movie.)

It is fun to talk about movies and books you’ve just read on social media. That’s why a lot of newspapers and media companies ask you to send them reviews and opinions on them. On the other hand, it’s hard to avoid if that’s the road you’re trying to take. I personally cant wait to finish the book and watch the movie so I can tweet all day long about it, but I can’t help but wonder if I’ll be ruining it for someone else.

What are your opinions on the matter?