I’ve written before about the spoken word, because whether you’re writing it down or saying it out loud, it’s communication.

Today, I want to point out how sloppy habits of spoken language do not translate well when written down.
I was like, how can he? And he was like, well, that’s what I like. So, like, I’m suppose to like that he’s like, It’s soooo great!?
How many times did you have to read that to translate the “likes”? That is a snippet of conversation I heard at Starbuck’s last week.  (I was not eavesdropping. The speaker was on her phone in line …

All this month the office has been abuzz with activity to bring back the Webshop, a collaborative website creation workshop for business people to work on their sites side by side with the MB/I team on-hand to guide the process and tackle the sticky technical problems. We’ve been doing our very best to address every obstacle we’ve ever encountered to producing a website, then we’re parceling that process out into manageable pieces so that everyday people can walk through the process with us.
Outside the Bowl
Webshop isn’t just about our process; it’s about people like you.

• Executives who know a website …
  Read More…

Wow how time flies!

In the next couple of months I will decide where to get married and officially lock in the date. As promised, here are some sites I’ve used to help me pick a location.
The Knot
http://www.theknot.com/

The Knot continues to be a priceless resource. In addition to tips on what to consider when picking a venue, I get a quick overview of local wedding sites, contact information to follow up on my own, and I have the ability to …

I recently had the opportunity to go to a fancy wedding boutique and try on some amazing dresses. While the experience was spectacular and having found (as of right now) “the dress”, the price tag was a bit of a shocker… a $9000.00 shocker! Being on a tight budget, $9000.00 is just not doable. Now, I have read on several blogs, websites, etc that it is pretty much a bad idea to go try on dresses that are out of your budget, so I mentally prepared myself. I will say …

One of our clients recently approached us with an interesting problem. The email edition of their newsletter was too long. Readers who were interested in the side stories were giving up rather than reading or even scrolling past the lead story and subscribers who were interested in old articles would have to search issue by issue.

What the client needed was a website which would index and continue stories that began in their newsletter.

Enter WordPress.

WordPress.com is one of most popular blogging sites in the United States, and with some custom programming, it’s open source counterpart becomes …

In a year-and-a-half I will marry my best friend of over six years (Rashad), and I am planning the majority of my wedding online.

By doing so I take advantage of new internet tools and “go green” at the same time - and I will share what I find with you.

Right now I am using The Knot (www.theknot.com) for the core of my planning. The site was founded in 1996 as a modern answer to the “white-gloved, outdated” etiquette experts favored by previous generations. …

Enchantment and the Economy of Reciprocation

I once heard that a typical audience member will by entranced by 1/3 of a performance. On Thursday, March 24, I discovered it was entirely false.

That’s when I witnessed Guy Kawasaki presenting to the Commonwealth Club of California, and I was captivated from beginning to end.

For those of you unfamiliar with Guy Kawasaki, he was part of the original Macintosh marketing team and is now an author, blogger, venture capitalist, and master of simplicity and charm. Kawasaki was introducing his new book, which …

We are sort of crazy about sticky notes at MB/I; there is something magical about those little squares of colored paper with their adhesive strip. Perhaps it’s that they give ideas a tangible quality, or that sticky notes are exceedingly mobile. Regardless, here are three ways we MB/I fish use sticky notes around the office.

Sticky Notes as Creative Tools

At times in our internal meetings, we clear a section of wall and throw a bunch of sticky note pads on the table along with a few sharpies. When a brainstorming opportunity arises - we write down as many ideas as possible, …

2010 Predictions in Review
A year ago I made several predictions about how the online world of 2010 would shape up. As the year comes to a close I thought it would be a good idea to see how close I came to the mark.
1. Smart Phone Bandwidth will become more expensive
True! -  In January, both AT&T and Verison redesigned their mobile pricing plans in a way that increased the cost of unlimited data, and in June AT&T did away with unlimited data plans altogether.
2. HTML 5.0 will become the de facto language for cutting edge …

As a resident Pediatrician working in the Children’s Hospital Oakland Teen Obesity Prevention Clinic, Jenifer Matthews grew increasingly frustrated with her patient’s lack of access to fresh fruits and vegetables. So she decided to open a Farmers’ Market across the street from the hospital. Two years later, with the help of her husband, Zac Matthews (MB/I Web developer) and two Guerilla produce activists, Phat Beets Produce, North Oakland Food Justice Non-Profit was born http://www.phatbeetsproduce.org. The collective now runs two medical clinic based farmers’ markets, a youth-run school farm stand and nutrition hub, and a youth …