Unfortunately, the September 16, 2009 Refresh Detroit meeting has been canceled.

If you’re interested in attending a great presentation on September 16, might I suggest Josh Holmes “The Lost Art of Simplicity” talk, hosted by the Michigan Usability Professionals’ Association and the Detroit Java User Group.

For the past two years, Refresh Detroit leaders noticed our meeting attendance is low in the summer months. So the Refresh Detroit leaders decided to take July and August off so can all enjoy time with family and friends!

See you on Wednesday, September 16, 2009 when Ben Fraser and Michael Evans will be discussing the client/designer relationship at Wayne State University.

Do you have a new website, application, design, or cool tool to share with others? Join us at Washtenaw Community College at 6:30pm for our third demo night, where you can show off your latest creation, or share with others a great application that makes your work easier.

Demo night is a great opportunity to:

• share your work
• find out what others have been working on
• hear how something was built
• find out why it was built
• learn about new tools that can improve your work

Each person has five to ten minutes to demo and answer questions. Demo nights are a great way to get to know other Refresh Detroit members.

Where: Washtenaw Community College, Ann Arbor, Michigan. We will be meeting in Room 101 at the Morris Lawrence Building (map). Plenty of free parking is available adjacent to the building.

When: Wednesday, June 17, 2009, 6:30pm to 8:30pm

Cost: Free! Open to the public.

Interested in demoing your work? Confirm by commenting below with your name and application/design/tool/product, so we have an idea of how many people will be presenting.

For those who don’t want to demo this time (hopefully you will at the next demo night!), RSVP at Upcoming.org

Join us on Tuesday, May 19, 2009 when Ayat Shukairy and Khalid Saleh of Invesp Consulting, discuss the “Conversion Story – from clicks to cash”.

Times are tough, and every visitor on your site counts. Too often, companies focus on driving more traffic to their website, and not enough time maximizing the visitors already there.

Increasing your conversion rate, even as little as 10%, can bring a significant increase to your sales, downloads, form completions, or whatever task it might be.

RSVP at Upcoming.org

Discussion Summary

Two customers come to your site, one buys and the other doesn’t, why? Why aren’t you able to generate more leads from your website? In this session we will present actionable items to consider on your site, through The Conversion Framework, in order to see significant increases in your conversion rates. We will also identify what role personas play in optimization from a lead gen to an ecommerce business via case studies.

Background

Ayat Shukairy is co-founder of Invesp Consulting, a landing page optimization company, and co-author of Landing Page Optimization: The Complete Guide. Ayat Shukairy focuses deeply on website usability and has led over 30 conversion optimization projects for companies including ReMAX, HowStuff Works and Discovery. Ayat  Shukairy’s work has helped generate an average 20% improvement in conversion rates for Invesp’s clients.

Khalid Saleh is co-founder of Invesp Consulting, a landing page optimization company and co-author of, Landing Page Optimization: The Complete Guide. Khalid Saleh has over 12 years of experience in e-commerce architecture, design and implementation, managing campaigns for companies including Motorola, AMEX, Levelor, Citrix, WWT, Nabors. Khalid’s work has helped generated an average 20% improvement in conversion rates for Invesp’s clients.

Company Bio

Since 1995, Invesp founders have architected, designed and deployed 22 of the largest e-commerce websites in North America.  On average, Invesp generates an average 35% ROI on conversion for its clients on optimization work. A values driven company, Invesp focuses on providing measureable ecommerce results through client focused delivery, openness and creativity.

Where: Wayne State University Law School, 471 W. Palmer Street, Detroit, MI 48202 (directions) Room 2103, The Distance Learning Room. (University map)

When: Tuesday, May 19th, 2009, 6:30pm to 8:30pm

Cost: Free! Open to the public.

RSVP at Upcoming.org

Want to continue the conversation after the April 21st Writing for the Web panel discussion?

Thanks to Angelina Italian Bistro, on Broadway across from the Opera House, for offering drink specials to Refresh Detroit members after the panel discussion. Check out the great drinks offered:

• $5 for a 20-oz. Motor City microbrew
• $4/glass for a selection of wines – two whites and two reds

They’re close to the People Mover, so it should be easy to get to them. They also offer $5 valet parking during the week.

How is writing for the web different from writing for other media? How can you craft your words to grab the attention of your readers? What do you need to know to create engaging content that people will want to read?

Join Refresh Detroit on Tuesday, April 21, 2009 for a panel discussion featuring local experts offering ideas to the many different writers who create content for the web. Learn:

• best practices for writing for the web
• how users interact with copy
• copywriting for search engine optimization
• writing for social media

Panelists

• Shannon Paul, Social Media Specialist, PEAK6 Online
  A social media enthusiast, Shannon is well known for her recent work in the development and implementation of social media strategies for the Detroit Red Wings.
• Dalila Akli, eMarketing Analyst, Cengage
  Dalila helps develop the eAnalytics culture at Cengage. Formerly webmaster at Gedas USA, she has also built websites for small businesses.
• Chris Kochmanski, Partner, Marketing Strategist and Copywriter, Design Hub
  Chris has over 30 years of strategic marketing experience. Before joining Design Hub, he excelled in marketing communications, marketing management, and business development for ADP Network Services, Interface Systems, Cleo Communications, and Mechanical Dynamics.
• Evan Deutsch, Senior Writer, Wunderman Team Detroit
  Evan currently works on Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury interactive media projects. In previous positions, he has been involved with interactive projects at Campbell-Ewald and Bowne Internet.

The panel will be moderated by Marie MacNee, an independent writer and web content manager. Marie works for clients including Cengage, Google and others. She wrote her first web copy and usability studies in the 1980s, and later worked at Campbell-Ewald and Doner, where she was an Associate Creative Director.

Where: Wayne State University Law School, 471 W. Palmer Street, Detroit, MI 48202 (directions) Room 2103, The Distance Learning Room. (University map)

When: Tuesday, April 21, 2009, 6:30pm to 8:30pm

Cost: Free! Open to the public.

RSVP at Upcoming.org.

We had a great turnout to hear Noel Jackson speak on transitioning from print to web design. Here are some notes from the presentation, thanks to Chris Martello:

Title: “New Media” – putting print in Context
- Delivery Methods are different:
– Print: Buy, read, pickup, consume, turn page for instant refresh
– Web: Search, click, type, read, consume; but there is a delay….
- Web just isnt on a computer: iphone, other phone, browser, etc.
– Web isnt just being “Read” it’s being used for handcapped, visual impaired
- What about the ‘fold’ on the web page? Above the fold…. ‘everything’ above the fold
– NO, everything does not need to be above the fold…
- How do you try to emulate print?
– Graphic design started In print
– Use ‘the grid’
– Practice good typography
– Vertical rhythm
– Design for your audience
– Us a proper line length
- What makes Web Design unique
– Semantics are as important as design
– Perfection does not mean everyone will receive the same experience
– Design for your environment
– Line length
– The browser (reading device) is in control
– Fonts, fonts fonts (cipher, and q-fonts ) look up fonts on web
– Transparency

“If you are OCD, stick with print!”

Perfection on the web = the best user experience
You don’t know what you are missing by using IE6-7 all the time!

- Design factors influencing Design Consistency Across Browsers
– Time
– Money
– User Experience
– User Environment
– PITA Factor / Your Soul
– Providing a graceful degradation for the browser (IE6)

There was an excited discussion about browser usage stats, and why folks won’t upgrade from IE6. 47% of traffic on Wordpress.com is IE6 (due to corporate America, folks wont upgrade, etc.)

- The Web is easy to automate; Print forced continuous analysis and adjustment to design.

Check out Noel’s Art Direction plugin for WordPress, which provides the ability to add styles or JavaScript to each entry, without a lot of custom code.

Automation has eased content creation, but hindered design innovation on the Web
- Print has so much more control…
- Tough part is doing some of the same things on the web (since a lot of it is automated)
- Jason Santa Maria – Site example of a site that has same code base, but multiple looks and designs:
- Another great example, Just Watch The Sky

What is CSS?
Examples of what can be done with CSS: CSS Zen Garden.
To learn more about CSS: w3 schools.

————–
Congratulations to the following people for winning copies of web design related books from O’Reilly!
- Roger Rayle – Universal Design for Web Applications
- Todd Sneed – Designing Gestural Interfaces
- Brad Czerniak – The Principles of Beautiful Web Design
- Gerald Campain – Search Engine Optimization for Flash
- Samantha Sevick – Head First Web Design

Join us on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 when Noel Jackson of Automattic, Inc. (known for their WordPress and Akismet projects) will discuss the differences between print and web design.

What separates print and web in the design community? What do designers need to know to bridge the gap between print and the web? What constraints do web designers need to understand?

We’re thrilled that Noel will be presenting our first “design-focused” topic at Refresh Detroit!

Noel will discuss:

• The differences between print and web design.
• What should you be concerned about, and what should the browser deal with?
• Pixel perfection: Legend or fallacy?
• Color profiles, your screen vs. theirs.
• Variables introduced by machine and human that make web design a unique mix of science and art.

Background
Noel Jackson is an übergeek, designer, and developer. Pulled from the depths of freelance design, he now works for Automattic, Inc. He loves the internet and dreams in HTML quite frequently. A self-proclaimed polymath, Noel was once a secret agent, fashion photographer, and ran a successful post-production studio in NYC.

When not pushing pixels and babbling about regexes, he’s probably listening to music (300 LPs and 250 gigs in all), DJing, or creating something (generative art is a favorite as of late). He lives in Detroit with his beautiful wife Stephanie, a fish named Hiro, and a chinchilla named Elvis.

Where: Washtenaw Community College, Ann Arbor, Michigan. We will be meeting in Room 150 at the Morris Lawrence Building (map). Plenty of free parking is available adjacent to the building.

When: Wednesday, March 25, 2009, 6:30pm to 8:30pm

Cost: Free! Open to the public.

RSVP at Upcoming.org

Our apologies. We hoped to have a live stream of the meeting, but the UStream connection kept dropping. The meeting is being recorded and we’ll post the recording of the meeting later.

Are you a web professional interested in learning more about the legal side of the freelance business? Join Refresh Detroit on February 17, from 6:30pm to 8:30pm at Wayne State University, for an interactive discussion led by an attorney who has provided web professionals in Michigan with legal services ranging from drafting contracts to organizing their businesses.

We encourage all web developers and business owners to join in the discussion with fellow attendees, so bring any insights or questions you have on the freelance business that you would like to talk about.

• Where: Wayne State University Law School, 471 W. Palmer Street, Detroit, MI 48202 (directions) Room 2103, The Distance Learning Room. (University map)
• Date: Tuesday, February 17
• Time: 6:30pm to 8:30pm
• Cost: Free. The event is free, but should you choose to park at Wayne State, the cost is $3.50 for guests.

Topics Include:

• Incorporation vs. sole proprietorship – What are the liability and taxation issues? What cost is involved? What are articles of incorporation?
• Proposals, contracts, statement of work (SOW) – What do they mean? Why should web professionals care?
• Non-compete clauses – Should you sign one? What are your rights?
• Breach of contract – How can you defend yourself, or collect on damages against you?
• Whatever issues you would like to talk about. Participation is encouraged!

Our Speaker: Mary Novrocki

Mary Novrocki is the sole attorney and owner of the Law Office of Mary Novrocki, P.L.L.C, in Plymouth Michigan. As a general practitioner of law, Mary has provided web professionals in Michigan with legal services for organizing businesses, contracts, statements of work, and other business related legal issues.

Please comment if you plan to attend. Thank you!

Four local experts, a roomful of web workers, business professionals, and nonprofit leaders with great questions, and a super moderator resulted in an exciting, fast-paced discussion on social media on Wednesday, January 21, 2009 at Washtenaw Community College.

Thanks to Nick DeNardis, Shauna Nicholson, Kevin Krason, and Ken Burbary for accepting our invitation to talk, debate, and share their personal stories about social media. We’re grateful to Chad Wiebesick for moderating our panel. We hope you all consider coming back to speak again!

Thanks to Adrian Pittman for the discussion panel photos.

There were lots of resources mentioned by the panelists during the discussion, we’ve listed some below. Feel free to add to the list!

Thanks to Vince Chmielewski for recording the discussion; look for the podcast to be posted soon!

Resources

Social media sites
Facebook
LinkedIn
Ning – create and share a social network
Sermo – online forums for physicians
Twitter

Social media news
Mashable
ReadWriteWeb
TechCrunch
Chris Brogan
TwitterMaven

Tools to track what people are saying about you/your organization
Google alerts
Google blog search
Radian6 Monitoring
Techrigy Social Media Monitoring
Technorati
Twitter search
Yahoo Social Media Firehose

URL shortening tools
TinyURL
Cligs – URL shortening with analytics
BudURL – URL shortening with analytics

More social media links
Common Craft great free video tutorial on social media (as well as many other free videos)
Get Satisfaction – real online conversations with customer service
Google Insights Search – analyzes Google web searches for the terms entered
Intense Debate – distributed commenting across multiple conversations
Zappos – good example of company using social media

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