MB/I central has become a lively place over the past couple of months. By concentrating representatives from sales, administration, design, programming, and management in one location, Marissa has given us the chance to brainstorm, integrate efforts, and share broad design philosophies even as we work on specific projects.

My own focus, whether testing a new CMS or adding content to an existing site, tends to be on the ease and usability of our systems. The easier it is to find or change information, the more I tend to like a site. …

LinkedIn, Pandora, Groupon, and Zynga are all big names on the modern web, and each has filed with the SEC to hold an IPO. But who are these giants? What do they do, and where do their profits come from.

www.linkedin.com

LinkedIn is the social network for business professionals. When users join they create a profile that summarizes their experiences and accomplishments. According to the LinkedIn website, it has more than 80 million members spread throughout 200 countries. However, unlike most social media platforms, members must know each other or …

Each morning I walk Archee McLeash passed JFK University’s lovely creekside campus. Recently, they installed new No Smoking signs. The signs look like this:

Please

That’s the sign: The word please with a no smoking graphic.

Why did they include please on the sign? Please implies a request, that a person can make a choice to comply, or not.  However, here in California, it’s against the law to smoke within 20 feet of a public building. There’s no choice. I’d rather see a sign that says, flat out, Don’t smoke here.

(Frankly, …

I started reading as a kid not because my parents read to me (as is so often advocated) but because my parents read. They went to the library every week, so I went along. They sat in the family room after dinner, reading, so ditto my brothers and I. Now, decades later, I still head to the library every Saturday, and I still read after dinner (often, during dinner).

Reading helped me become a better writer. Here are but three reasons why:
1. Better Vocabulary

The most obvious thing to which reading adds is your word bank. As we …