Sometimes, a small drawing can help summarize a situation …
What have you discovered so far, in just a week of posts ?
Tweaking the first website version.
September 10, 2010 by Leave a Comment
So it took only a few hours from the idea to the website up and running.
Now, it’s time to tweak a little bit the main screen and then the first pages.
Changing colours, adding pictures will make it more appealing and hopefully easier to navigate; from the user point of view.
As the pictures on the top right of the main page were sharing some kind of dark blue, we decided to use this blue for the links and the search button.
Each part :
– Profiles,
– Tool box,
– News,
– Inspirations,
– One more thing,
– Contacts.
needs some first improvements and will be detailed in the future.
The main idea behind it is that as you are yourself able to maintain the site, you can improve it continuously without any outside help (or nearly any).
The second idea is that the use of such a website/blogging platform lowers the cost of ownership of the site.
From woodley wonderworks photostream
Well Ok, you are right.
We are not so far yet, but that’s were we hope to go …
Or change your point of view !
September 9, 2010 by Leave a Comment
And again the same question : How do you use this tool ?
And were are the online trainings ? the online community of users of Movable Type ?
And still no direct, easy, answers !
But now the perspectives were different, I had some experience with WordPress, another blogging platform with a great users’ community.
Hopefully, our hosting provider was also active with WordPress and could install it within an hour.
You will also discover that the blogs can change their visual aspects very easily if you choose what is called a theme.
Some themes are free of charge and some are commercial, meaning that you have to pay to use one.
I have been looking around to find a theme that suit what we want to offer here and then found one from StudioPress.
And a few hours later, well let’s say one day later the website was up and running with some content and a first post.
A great moment !
From Ariari’s photostream
Links :
WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. We like to say that WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.
“The Genesis theme framework lets me focus on my business, not on design tweaks and SEO. It’s really easy to edit and adapt, and in the hands of a good designer, it really sings.” — Chris Brogan, President, Human Business Works
Persevere in the same way !
September 8, 2010 by Leave a Comment
So the blog/website stayed empty waiting for us … a long long time, in fact until recently, so nearly two years.
What did happen during this phase ?
I have been accumulating experiences in a social network called Ning.
To be precise in one network of bright people from all over the world and involved in marketing called Triiibes.
A tribe for marketers, for leaders, for those focused on building communities or creating products or spreading ideas.
From there on I’ve been reading, sharing, learning with a lot of very interesting humans.
It has also been a great practical experience to see how people can interact to build something more powerful when they share projects.
(We will come back on that later on !)
With this background, I also started to be more active on Facebook and some other places.
Reading thousand of posts, discovering hundreds of tools that could potentially be used by small business.
It was time to restart the SmartConnectedBiz project.
I asked Livingdot our hosting provider to update our Movable Type publishing platform.
Links :
Ning is the leading online platform for the world’s organizers, activists and influencers to create their own social network. Design a custom social experience in under 60 seconds giving you the power to mobilize, organize and inspire.
Starting is not enough …
September 7, 2010 by Leave a Comment
The ground could be rocky !
We had the ideas for some contents, the domain name was chosen.
We had explored the tools available to create websites and blogs and were convinced that Movable Type was the way to go for us …
Movable Type (MT) is a flexible, extensible, and easy to maintain publishing platform. Movable
Type is designed to meet the blogging and website content management needs of growing organizations, individual bloggers, and to serve as a social media platform that enables businesses to create community-driven websites.
That drove us to Livingdot, a hosting provider, they installed it rapidly and we were able to start.
The question was now, how do you use this tool ?
And were are the online trainings ? the online community of users of MT ?
No direct, easy, answers !
And our day to day work was calling us.
So the blog/website stayed empty waiting for us …
Links :
Movable Type was our first choice.
How did the adventure started ?
September 6, 2010 by Leave a Comment
We had some ideas that we were eager to share with other small business.
We were sick to see smart people completely lost when confronted to the complexity of the web.
Unable to choose a good domain name, a platform to shelter their business, the tools that will boost their presence offline and online, …
Lost in front of the offers from the web design companies.
About two years ago, the 10/22/2008, I decided to start a new website to share this passion and found a name we believe was appropriate for this adventure : Smart Connected Biz.
I then launched this site … to contribute to change this situation.
From I_vow_to_You’s photostream
Links :
Livingdot is hosting our blog. They have also provided the registration of the “smartconnectedbiz.com” name.
Connected world!
September 2, 2010 by Leave a Comment
