Author: warehouse2020

Many people often equate the practice of “brainstorming” to a group activity, but it also can be a fun–and yes, sometimes frustrating–solo act.

You don’t have to be a “creative type” to learn how to brainstorm. You just need a group of reliable sources for starting materials and one of the easiest sources to access is to simply take a walk somewhere with full intent on inspecting everything along the way.

Maybe it’s a trip to another room in the building you’re in or perhaps it’s a walk around the block, but the environment surrounding us–whether it be indoors or outdoors–provide us with all sorts of starting points for uncommon thinking.

As you walk, it’s time to play pretend.  For example, pretend to “forget” the names of everything you are looking at and ponder how you would explain a floor tile or a tree leaf, first with you as the only audience member and then others listening in.  How would you go about counting raindrops or drops from a shower head?

The point of the walk is to challenge yourself to use whatever is in front of you as a potential source of inspiration that eventually leads you to that WOW idea you’re looking for.

Whether you have a community-based idea needing a web presence or a musician looking to build a promo pack, I can help you come up with ways to present your ideas to the public, including but not limited to an online presence.  Contact me for more information.

The Popularity Factor has been around for centuries, that mysterious mythical algorithm that provides certain individuals an ability to produce numbers that satisfy their audience, thus making them Popular With the People.

The Popularity Factor is part of why I crafted yesterday’s diary entry the way that I did.  I didn’t write it with hopes of gaining traction in the viral community, let alone my local one. I did craft it knowing that there are almost 8 billion people on this planet and any one of them could read the post, but all in all, it was something I needed to write and then publish…for my own metrics.  I needed to cheer myself onward and now I have an entry in my online warehouse I can turn to any time I am looking for that kind of cheer–no matter how many people “like” the post.

So while the value placed on statistics such as views, clicks and time spent on a page continues to push the ceiling of Possible Popularity Points, it also tends to dilute and devalue content based solely on keyword metrics and not the actual value of the material itself.

There is nothing inherently wrong with being able to boast having millions of views or followers.  However, website owners tend to have distorted impressions on what is, and is not, possible–and at what price tags–when it comes to producing tangible results.  Many do not have the hundreds or thousands of dollars it takes to purchase ads, pay influencers and other methods used to generate those large numbers of popularity, let alone the time investment of creating content.

Guess what.  That’s okay!  Your build doesn’t have to be about trying to sell millions on your brand, it’s about selling one customer at a time your products and services.  Having a hundred thousand visitors to your site with only 100 sales isn’t as good as having a few thousand visitors to your site and 300 sales–because ultimately, your website design should be all about converting visitors into action with the least amount of investment reasonably possible.

With just one 30 minute session, I can help you evaluate your website, it’s current and potential role in your business strategy and how to elevate your ROI with your investment into the site.  Send me an email and let’s get started today!

#PopularityFactor #PossiblePopularityPoints

Back in the 80’s, I learned how to produce what people likely classify as a “Hello world” piece of coding.  This is the way I learned it.

10 print “Hello world. My name is Valerie. What is yours?”

20 goto 10

The numbers assigned to each line of code are irrelevant if this was to be the only two lines of the program.  The key part of the code is the words “print” and “goto.”

The word “print” took all of the text in quotation marks and replicated it on the screen (you never say the “10 print” part) and the word “goto” instructed the computer to go back to line 10 and do whatever line 10 says to do.  In this example, the screen would eventually fill up to where one had trouble discerning whether or not the code was still running. Sometimes there would be a flicker after each line or other CRT and RAM issues, but more often than not the program would basically be running in the background, despite my screen appearing to stay the same.

The coding of instructions might have changed over the decades to be more end-user-friendly, but the importance of strategizing your code-building prior to a build too frequently is dismissed by flashy commercials promising you a website “with a few quick clicks” or “less than 15 minutes” and can cause you major headaches right out of the gate or months down the line when you can’t understand why you are having trouble ranking well in the search engines.

Don’t spend hours, if not weeks, combing the Internet for videos that might help you reach your goals.  Let’s you and I spend 30 minutes talking about your business goals and your website as it exists at this time.  Prior to our appointment, I’ll take an in-depth look at your site for a variety of elements and provide you with observations and notes.  From there, we will custom-build you a strategy you can implement, whether it’s in-house (your employees/contractor) or to shop around to other developers with a focus on building a long-term relationship.

The bottom line is that a website doesn’t always need a changing of its code to help it perform more effectively and efficiently.  Just send me an email and let’s see if a little strategic brainstorming can jump start your business this summer.  One 30 minute session costs about the same as a private 1 hour lesson on a music instrument or tutoring session for a college course and could have an even greater impact on your bottom line than you could ever have imagined.