Blend Interactive

Blend Gets Ready to Expand

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 16:25:00 GMT

Exactly 300 days ago, we moved into our new office. Now, we're already expanding.

With fifteen employees and more on the way, we've officially outgrown our new space. Which means we're pushing into the back-up plan and expanding into the small office to the south. This was always in the cards - we just never imagined it would come this soon.

The expansion will add two additional offices, allowing Jessica - Blend's production director - to move into her own office, with the other being converted into a small project conference room. We'll also have space for four more desks, allowing us to pack a total of six additional people into the office when all is said and done.

The project is set to be done sometime next month, and with completion Deane will head down to the other end of the office. We'll miss him. A little. Kind of.

In the meantime, check out photos from the new addition.

Two Presentations from the eZ Publish Partner Conference

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 20:50:00 GMT

Last month, Blend partners Deane Barker and Joe Kepley landed in Lisbon, Portugal for the eZ Publish Partner Conference. The conference, put on by eZ Publish as a way to collect partners and developers for presentations, recognition and a little sun, included talks by both Deane and Joe.

The conference put a heavy focus on community, especially in how the CMS can be used to provide better value to businesses looking to foster community, but also provided a certain level of development and technical information. Blend Interactive, an official eZ Publish partner, was represented in two of the conferences presentations.

Joe gave a lightning talk on Advanced Calendar features, while Deane's talk - "The Future is Delivery" - focused on the difference between content management and content delivery, specifically on the methods used in pushing, measuring and adapting content within a content management system: a/b testing, analytics, user-generated content, and tons of other smart things about the stuff you're providing to your users.

To top it all off, Deane was stuck in Paris for a day. Pretty rough way to spend a layover, we'd say.

Blend is Hiring a Client-Side Developer

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:52:00 GMT

Are you a front-end developer? A client-side developer? An HTML/CSS developer?

Regardless of what you call yourself, we're looking to add a developer to work in HTML, CSS, and Javascript (mostly jQuery). This developer would be responsible for all front-end development required to make a design comp work, as well as wiring up all the client-side functionality, including intergating AJAX callbacks to server-side APIs.

Some design experience would be helpful. We often need help wireframing projects in preparation for design, and a solid understanding of design principles is helpful when taking a design from Photoshop to HTML/CSS.

For the full listing, check out our Jobs page.

Tim Joins the Dispatch Project

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:33:00 GMT

For better or worse, we website-makers spend a lot of time indoors. Behind computers. Hacking away at projects. Our work is always warm, safe and comfortable.

Others don't have it so good.

Project manager Tim Schoffelman knows this firsthand, after recently joining a group of Sioux Falls businesspeople on a trip to the Dominican Republic to help with the Dispatch Project, a mission-based outreach program led by Paul Ten Haken of Click Rain and Heath Oberloh of Lynn Jackson Schultz Lebrun.

Dispatch Project

The Dispatch Project's mission is to foster overseas service work, all while creating a spirit of service back home. This was the organization's first trip, which sent nine people to the town of Benerito, Dominican Republic to help finish carpentry and roofing for a local church. The initial foundation and cinder walls had already been built by church members, and the church - which measured roughly 20 x 40 feet - was ready to be completed.

"The people we worked with were of Haitian descent, who make up roughly 10% of the country's population," Tim said. "They are considered a minority and are treated with disdain, but they are still very grateful and their hospitality was unmatched. It was humbling - and quite amazing."

Tim says that there were challenges, but the biggest was the language barrier.

"We had one interpreter, who was our guide, who became a kind of foreman for the project. He would relate things to the actual foreman, who only spoke Spanish and Creole, and then he would turn and tell us what we needed to be doing. When he wasn't around, we consisted on gestures and numbers."

Employee Empowerment

One unique thing about Dispatch Project is its focus on the relationship between employers and employees. Dispatch Project is not just a mission trip program, but a way to allow businesses to participate in global improvement - and empower their employees to do the same.

It was in this vein that Blend Interactive sponsored Tim's trip, both to provide an incredible, life-changing experience and to provide an opportunity for non-traditional education. While Tim didn't learn anything about agile methodologies or Wordpress plugins, he learned plenty about empathy and compassion.

"Compared to the Haitian population in the Dominican Republic, we've got it really good," Tim said. "I found it difficult to look at a picture of my family surrounded by the comforts of home. We have sheetrock, and insulation - things that we take for granted. The people we helped don't have that - they have cement floors and simple siding and tin roofs."

"What's amazing, though, is that their floors were worn smooth. They mop their house twice a day. They don't have much, but what they do have they truly take care of."

To learn more about Dispatch Project, visit the official website, or read reports from KELOLand News. (You can find more stories about the trip by browsing the "Related Stories" links at the bottom of the report.) Or, check out Tim's pictures on Blend's Flickr page.

Blend Launches Imation.com and Related Mobile Sites

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:20:00 GMT

It wasn't that long ago that Imation - one of the nation's biggest names in data storage and security - was a humble spin-off of 3M, best known for floppy disks and burnable CDs. Now, they include data stalwarts TDK, Memorex and IronKey, and over a billion (with a B!) dollars in revenue.

Naturally, a big company needs a big online presence. With the content management power of EPiServer on the backend and the design prowess of our designers, Blend Interactive was able to develop a website that provides both professional respect and clean design.

It's live, now, by the way, so go check out the new Imation site.

(And while you're at it, check our portfolio for a couple of mobile sites we worked up for the folks at Imation: Memorex mobile and TDK Performance mobile.)

Why We're Doing a Newsletter

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:21:00 GMT

It's official: we launched a newsletter. If you're on the list, you already know this. (And if you aren't, you can sign up here.)

But let's be honest - do you like getting newsletters? No. Probably not. In fact, studies show that 75% of email newsletter recipients really don't want their email newsletter. They just ...

...

...you're right. You caught us. WE MADE THAT STAT UP. Completely made it up. And here's why: we couldn't find a stat to back up our claim. What's more, we couldn't find a stat to refute it, either.

Our real story is something more simple: we wanted to develop an email newsletter to keep those who care up to date with our happenings and goings-on. The purpose was to communicate in a way that was low-barrier and high content.

How do we do that? Let's just say we're learning as we go.

Learning What We Do and Do Not Know

Here's what we know:

We know that it is a benefit for some of our clients, employees and friends to know what we're doing at Blend Interactive. That benefit may be business-driven ("I want to know if they do good work") or it may be curiosity-driven ("They seem like cool people who eat cake a lot.")
We know that there are people who do not want this benefit. We are okay with that.

Here's what we DON'T know: that, while there is tons of analysis on open rates and link clicks (by day and by subject), there is little easily-accessible research on:

Perceptions of email newsletters; i.e., do people actually like them, or do people see them as spam?
Comparative research between text-only and graphic/image-laden newsletters; i.e., is the "View Images" button an obstacle to link conversion, or is it an assumed hurdle with no effect?

What we see here is an opportunity to do a little research on our own. We're doing so with a two-pronged approach:

Informative: We'd like to tell you what we're working on, how we're doing, and why we love working at Blend Interactive.
Scientific: We want to test email perceptions, including whether or not there is a real barrier to producing a text-only newsletter.

Let the Research Begin!

The first step begins today, with the launch of this newsletter. No, there aren't any images. This is on purpose - we are testing our hypothesis that when you, the user, see that "View Images" button, your mind automatically snaps into spam mode. Over the next few months, you may receive emails with images added. Or, you may see the structure change. You are our guinea pigs. You are our readers. You are our target audience.

As findings are discovered, we will post them for public criticism. This is original research on our end, but it's research that's only moving forward because of you, the email newsletter reader.

Unless you're one of those people who don't like email newsletters. In that case, we still love you anyway.

After all this, are you interested in subscribing to our newsletter? You. Are. In. Luck. Subscribe here, and receive a special delivery of informative content in one monthly package.

The Year in Blend Quotes - 2011

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 19:30:00 GMT

Said something stupid? Our advice: duck for cover and hope no one heard you.

At Blend, the consequence is living in infamy over on the @blendquotes Twitter feed. This, my friends, is the best of the stupid things overheard at Blend Interactive Headquarters this past year.

Karla remains ignorant of the most famous rock-and-roll injury of all time.

Meanwhile, Corey waxes poetic on the importance of slow cookers.

Deane questions his apparent lack of friends.

Joe wonders where his backup drive is spending the night.

Josh mixes battery acid with a multivitamin.

Seth: obvious quote is obvious.

Corey throws a PG-13 blanket over a "pick on the content strategist" party.

Tim makes us imagine smells we wish we could forget...

...and then he challenges us to think of something even worse.

Seth makes us realize the nerdiest thing ever: project management methodology jokes.

Karla accuses Marshall of theft...

...and then neatly sums up the entire @blendquotes account.

Blend welcomes a new developers

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:56:00 GMT

Hey, remember when we were talking about needing front-end and back-end developers? Well, we've got them. And they're wonderful.

Blend is excited to welcome front-end developer and designer Brian Rupert to the team. A recent Sioux Falls resident, Brian is now the head of our one-person Iowa City branch and will be responsible for pushing HTML and CSS on Blend projects. He's also a national ultimate frisbee champion. Yeah, you heard us. NATIONAL.

I know we mentioned it before, but it's true: we're excited.

Blend Beta Tests Stanford d-school Design Thinking Workshop

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 16:44:00 GMT

Blend - and a handful of friends-of-Blend - became one of the first groups in the nation to test and critique Stanford D-School's new Design Thinking Crash Course workshop.

The Design Thinking methodology is one of discovery and prototyping, akin to the work that's done in the user experience field. The goal is to push through five stages:

Empathize: talk to the customer directly
Define: define the problem
Ideate: brainstorm solutions for the problem
Prototype: build and make things to solve the problem
Test: test the prototype and begin the process again

The crash course boils this process down to an hour of video-led activities and reflection. Our project was to pair up with fellow crash coursers and improve on the "gift giving experience" through a process of interviewing, defining a problem statement, sketching and prototyping, and reflecting on the final prototype.

It was fun. And, it was an honor to be selected. It's still in beta - and when we say "beta," we mean it (we literally recieved the raw files to both experience and critique) - but if you have a chance to try it, do so. It's pretty great.

If you're interested in learning more about Stanford D-School's Design Thinking Project, check out their website or follow #dgift on Twitter.

Blend is Hiring. Again!

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 20:48:00 GMT

We need more processing power, so we're hiring again!

We're hiring again, y'all, and we want you to be our next developer.

Front end? Back end? Pick your poison - we're looking for talented client-side developer to handle our H1s and @font-faces, and we're looking for server-side developers to handle our stacks.

Interested? Read the entire job posting, or shoot us an email at info@blendinteractive.com.

The Official Blend Open House: October 13

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 22:27:00 GMT

It's true: we've finally emptied all of the boxes, hung up the pictures and ordered all of the chairs. And now that we've finally cleaned the place up, we're ready to show it off.

Announcing the official Blend Open House!
Thursday, October 13, from 4-8 PM

Please join us for a tour and a good old-fashioned ribbon cutting. There will be snacks and drinks (thanks to Chef Dominique's).

Open House: 4:00 - 8:00
Ribbon Cutting: 4:30

Need to find us? Head over to the Contact page and check out the map. Or, just throw this address into your map machine:

Blend Interactive
231 S. Phillips Avenue, Suite 200

Sioux Falls, South Dakota

Welcome, Ryan!

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 16:33:00 GMT

It's been a few weeks, and he's still here, so we can officially say "Hello!" and "Welcome!" to the newest Blend person, Ryan Velgersdyk, owner of the company's hardest-to-spell last name (sorry, Tim) and the fourth wheel of our web design machine.

Ryan Velgersdyk joins Blend as an interactive designer, responsible for web, interactive banner and other assorted design work around the office. Ryan comes to Blend after two years of local and freelance design work. He is a graduate of South Dakota State University.

We are very happy to have him on board. Especially Karla.

Welcome, Tyler and Jackson!

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 15:13:00 GMT

Blend Interactive is excited to welcome two new developers into the fold.

Tyler Harms joins Blend Interactive as a Developer specializing in PHP. Previous to joining Blend, Tyler worked as a freelance developer. In addition to his degree in computer science, Tyler has a bachelor’s in Psychology from University of South Dakota. He’s also quite adept at changing tires.

Jackson Murtha also joins Blend as a Developer, and will work in both PHP and .Net. Jackson previously worked as a support technician at DataSync. He holds a degree in Government, Philosophy and Sociology - which means he’s probably already the smartest person in the office.

Welcome, guys!

Attention Designers: Blend is Hiring

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 21:45:00 GMT

Are you a designer? Do you like working with cool people? You are in luck - we're hiring an interactive designer to work with our talented team of fantastic people.

You'd be joining an experienced design team to help create websites and interactive ads for national campaigns and brands. From wireframes to final product, the stuff you'd get to work on runs the gamut:

Web sites and intranets
Banner ads
Mobile apps
Interactive applications

Our focus at Blend is clean design that demonstrates good usability principles. We work primarily on a grid layout using responsive web design. HTML/CSS experience is an absolute plus—it is important for our designers to understand how their designs will come to life on the web.

In addition, client interaction is a major part of the job. You'll need the ability to take a client's vague concept and requirements and see it all the way through to an executed, approved design.

Blend pays competitively for experience. Positions include three weeks paid time off, a health plan, disability insurance, a retirement savings plan, and a fantastic work environment. (We're prepared to spend almost $1,000 on your chair, if that tells you anything).

If you think you fit this role, send your resume (and a portfolio) to info@blendinteractive.com.

Blend Has Moved!

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 15:51:00 GMT

Over a year ago, we hired our 13th employee. And, as we looked around the office, desks nearly stacked on top of each other, we realized something very serious.

We were out of room.

So, after a several months of planning and building and choosing fixtures and all of that, we’ve finally done the right thing: we’ve moved.

Pictures are forthcoming. Until then, stop by – we’re now located right on Phillips Avenue in the heart of downtown Sioux Falls, on the second floor of the Boyce-Greeley Building. Right above Child’s Play Toys, a fact that our children will not let us forget. Ever.

The New Details:

Blend Interactive
231 S. Phillips Ave. – Suite #200
Sioux Falls, SD 57104

Stop by and see us. Check in on Foursquare, even. We have beer in the fridge.

Deer Attacks Blend

Thu, 05 May 2011 21:43:00 GMT

There are things that happen in Sioux Falls. Apparently, deer running wild through downtown attempting to jump through glass display windows is one of those things.

Because that just happened. Right outside of Ben's window.

The deer was okay. He/she left nothing but a smear of blood on the window before turning the corner and heading off toward the Public Library with a posse of police vehicles following him/her. Still, it totally startled the office, what with the THWACK and the miniature scream that came from Ben's mouth.

It's all we could talk about for a while, too.

From Local to National: Blend’s Been Busy

Mon, 02 May 2011 19:17:00 GMT

Admittedly, it’s been quiet around Blend HQ over the past few months. It’s not that we’ve been trying to be secretive – just that we’ve been busy launching sites left and right.

On a local level, we are excited to announce the launch of J & L Harley-Davidson’s refreshed new site. We rejiggered site findability and added a fresh coat of responsive design to J & L’s existing content, and we like to think the site looks pretty rad. Technically speaking, of course.

Additionally, we pushed out a new site for DocuTAP, one of the nation’s leading electronic medical record software providers. This soup-to-nuts content strategy project included development within eZ Publish and a fresh content-centered design, resulting in a clean look that provides quick and easy content consumption for busy urgent care clinic executives.

Moving behind the scenes, we helped launch several development projects with back-end work that will rarely see the light of day.

We worked with PMI Group, Inc. – an international private mortgage insurer – to convert their entire intranet from Ektron to EPiServer. And, in collaboration with The Lawlor Group, we helped pushed out a new EPiServer site: Concordia University Chicago. Blend was responsible for CMS integration and testing within Lawlor's design.

Now, if you don't mind, we're going to catch our breath for a bit.

Just kidding. We're already back at it.

Blend Celebrates Six Years (and a Few Weeks)

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 17:24:00 GMT

On March 15^th, 2005, Blend Interactive became an official business.

Six years later, on March 15^th, 2011, Blend Interactive turned six years old.

We’d love to go into the details of the party. The decorations. The people. The local celebrities who filtered in and out all day long as we threw a luxurious bash to celebrate six years of successful business.

But we can’t.

Because we kind of forgot all about our anniversary.

Things have been busy, you understand.

So with that, weeks after the official date, we decided that the best thing to do was to take some time away from the computers, flock to the kitchen, and quickly devour an ice cream cake.

It was delicious. So delicious, in fact, that some suggested we celebrate our sixth anniversary over and over again.

Thankfully for our waistlines, a sixth anniversary only comes once.

Blend Wins Three South Dakota ADDY Awards, Best In Class

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 15:42:00 GMT

As lifelong members of the South Dakota Advertising Federation, we’ve seen our share of great speakers, attended our share of member mixers and eaten our share of monthly lunches.

So it was pretty cool to be in attendance at the 45^th Annual South Dakota ADDY Awards this past Friday, where Blend was honored with this year’s Best in Class/Interactive Media award for our interactive ad work on Dice’s Best Job Ever campaign.

What’s more, we snagged two more Gold ADDY Awards – one for our Sprint interactive banners, and one for our nationally recognized Points of Control interactive map for the 2010 Web 2.0 Summit.

Though, we’ll admit: we’re most excited about the award itself. This little nugget of steampunk awesomeness will look great on the bookshelf.

A Quotable Year: Inside the 2010 @blendquotes feed.

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 16:16:00 GMT

It’s nearly a month late, but we thought it was probably time to take a look at @blendquotes and all of the things we said this past year. Because, you see, we’re all in the same space, and we all hear each other’s conversations, and there’s nothing better than out-of-context one liners. It’s been proven by science.

We talk about music.

We talk about movies.

We talk about fiscal responsibility.

We plan elaborate holiday extravaganzas.

We talk about … erm … things.

We sometimes bicker.

We make content strategy jokes.

Mostly, though, we make fun of Deane.

Yeah, that last one is from 2011. Just goes to show you this stuff happens all year long.

For more, check out our quote feed (@blendquotes). And for the real stuff, we also tweet at @blendtweets.

The Season of Giving 2010

Fri, 17 Dec 2010 22:52:00 GMT

'Tis the season, and all of that, and we’re ramping up Christmas cheer around the Blend offices with our annual Christmas party (tonight) and our annual “Eat Candy Until We Don’t Fit Into Our Pants” Fest (every day since the end of November).

All joking aside, Blend also takes time during the holiday season to celebrate the Season of Giving by giving to those in need. In 2008, we kept it close to home by giving to the Community Food Banks of South Dakota, and 2009 saw us reaching out to help build wells through Helping Hands for Haiti.

This year, we’re bringing it back home by donating $1,000 to Heartland House. As part of the Inter-Lakes Community Action Partnership, Heartland House offers transitional housing and training toward self-sufficiency to homeless families with children.

As we say in the card, “Your work helps keep a roof over our heads – so we’re helping put one over theirs.”

Enjoy this season of giving, everyone. And Merry Christmas from all of us at Blend Interactive.

Updates from the Web 2.0 Summit

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 20:11:00 GMT

Live from the Web 2.0 Summit

It's official - we're streaming updates from San Francisco, courtesy of Channel Cat. Live tweets and the Summit's own RSS media curation, all in one stream. Enjoy, and check back often!! (Or, do what we do: run it in the background.)

Live updates provided by Channel Cat.

Blend Serves as Backdrop for Web 2.0 Summit

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 13:26:00 GMT

Check out this image from a recent Fast Company article.

That’s Mark Zuckerberg, the face and mind behind this little thing called Facebook. And behind him? Well, that’s the interactive "Points of Control" map we developed for this year’s Web 2.0 Summit, a meeting of Internet powers co-produced by UBM TechWeb and O’Reilly Conferences.

The map even got a mention - or, to be more specific, a suggestion (via TechCrunch):

(Zuckerberg) also had one insightful comment to make about the Web 2.0 Summit backdrop, which consists of a map charting out the online ‘turf’ that has been claimed by tech companies. “Your map is wrong,” Zuckerberg said. “The biggest part of the map has to be uncharted territory — this map makes it seem like it’s zero-sum, but it’s not. We’re building value, not just taking it away from someone else.

The map’s been talked about on our end already - needless to say, we’re pretty proud of it. Even cooler, though, is that the map, which served as both a fun lead-up to the conference and as a point of branding for the Web 2.0 Summit itself, has been as much a part of the festivities as the speakers.

Well, as long as you consider “sitting on stage, floating behind the heads of the Web’s most influential names” as being a part of the festivities.

Joe, Karla, Deane and Sam are on their way back home soon – and we imagine you’ll hear something from them on the importance and influence of such an event. Until then, know that, even for a second, Blend Interactive literally served as a backdrop for one of the most watched Web events of the year.

Pretty heady company, sure. We’re just happy to be around to help.

Developer Needed

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 15:47:00 GMT

We're looking for a talented HTML, CSS, and PHP developer.

Do you know one? Is that "one" you?

We're fun. We work hard, with great clients and partners from around the world. We serve cake for every birthday. And, most of all, we're looking for the best.

Sound like your cup of development tea? Check out the full description, then email us your resume info@blendinteractive.com.

"Points of Control" - the Web 2.0 Summit Interactive Map

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 09:30:00 GMT

It's often been said that pride comes from striving for something larger than ourselves.

With a monster project from Federated Media's John Battelle and the 2010 Web 2.0 Summit, we've taken that concept almost literally. After all, it's not every day you get to map the constantly changing landscape of Internet technology.

The entire landscape.

The concept is called "Points of Control," and it's this year's Web 2.0 Summit theme - an in depth look at how the industry is continuously driven by competition and conflict between the Web's major players.

The Web 2.0 Summit is a gathering of the industry's influence-makers, co-produced by the folks at O'Reilly and UBM, focusing on conversations about the direction - and future - of the Internet Economy. This year's speaker list includes everyone from will.i.am to @ev to some guy named Mark Zuckerberg.

It promises to be enlightening. And we’re pretty proud to be part of it.

For a good write-up of what it took to design and develop the map, check out Sam's post: "Points of Control Map Released."

Blend Launches Channel Cat

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 11:30:00 GMT

Blend does a lot of work on behalf of large brands in the social media space. Invariably, these always boil down to the same sort of workflow:

Gather updates from the social web. So, we'll pull in updates from Twitter and Facebook, images from Flickr and posts from RSS feeds.
Once we've got these updates, we do something to add value. This is most often in the form of curation - highlighting valuable content, tagging, categorizing, and etc.
After we have a "pretty" stream of data we send it out to users: we push it to a blog, out to Twitter or Facebook, put it on a map, or otherwise publish it in some interesting way.

The reason marketers need to do all this is because the web has changed significantly over the past few years. At the start of the last decade (Web 1.0 if you like), if I wanted to know something about a product, I would go to the company's web site. All of the activity around a brand happened there. Companies were at the center of their own brand universe.

Today, all of that discussion has now shifted to the social web. If I want to find out about a product, I'm just as likely to check out Twitter as I am to go to an official site. There's an aura of authenticity around hearing the opinions of real people in an uncontrolled environment.

Companies would love to tap in to this vast resource for their own site, but there's always the concern about the element of control.

To help with this, we're happy to announce Channel Cat, an easy-to-use workflow engine for the social web. Channel Cat allows you to set up a stream of updates from Facebook, Twitter, RSS, and others, run it through a series of filters, and use the result in a lot of interesting ways.

For instance, suppose you're Coke, and you want to highlight the excitement around a NASCAR event. It would be great to put together a stream of updates showing people talking about NASCAR and your product. It's pretty easy to just set up a stream of updates straight from Twitter, but now you've got a couple of problems. First, you only want to feature positive updates, and second, you don't want any mention of coke as a euphemism for cocaine. Channel Cat provides tools for pulling content in from multiple inputs, filtering out undesirable terms, and a learning manual approval system that helps you weed out junk tweets the same way that your email program learns to weed out junk email.

On a smaller scale, if you're a blogger today, you're probably publishing into a lot of different channels, and responding to conversations all over the place. You want to bring all of that conversation back to your blog. Channel Cat provides an easy way to do just that.

We're currently looking for a collection of engaged partners who would be interested in joining us in trying out the product for a closed beta to begin in the next few weeks. We want to make sure we're building the best tool we can for marketers to manage their presence in the social media space. If that sounds interesting, check out channeltheweb.com for more info and to sign up for the beta.

More Awards for the File Drawer

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:00:00 GMT

Blend Interactive recently brought home a collection of Addys from the 44th Annual South Dakota Addy Awards. Winning two Gold and three Silver awards, we added to our collection of prestigious awards currently displayed in my file drawer.

Some day we'll get on the ball, buy some frames, and find some wall space. Until then, we're just happy to support our local AdFed! It was a fun night.

We won for the following entries:

Gold: Rosenbauer Truck Builder
Gold: H2O Visions - Brought to you by Kohler
Silver: HarmonyTweets - sponsored by Toyota Prius
Silver: MINI PosiTweets Ad Units
Silver: Microsoft Office Ad Units

A big thanks to our clients, Rosenbauer America and Federated Media for the opportunity to work on such cool projects.

Blend Interactive Named EPiServer North America's Partner of the Year

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 12:00:00 GMT

Last week, Blend Interactive was named EPiServer's North American Partner of the Year for 2009. It's a great honor, and we're really happy to have been a part of EPiServer's North American expansion plans.

Our experience as an EPiServer partner has been fantastic. They're a great organization, full of smart people who know content management and are committed to making the best product on the market. I personally count the EPiServer North America crew out in Chicago among my good friends. (If you get a chance to visit, get them to take you to the Chicago Chop House. It remains the best meal I've ever had in my life.)

The support they provide this partners goes above and beyond. They're always available for questions, willing to structure a deal to make it work, and standing by on a moment's notice with sales support. When my daughter had sudden tonsil surgery, they stepped in at the last minute for a client demo. When Blend got a chance at a very large job in Toronto, they flew two people up there to support us in the pitch. On top of all this, they have no professional services group, and they only sell their product through partners, meaning we always work with them, never in competition.

(On a more personal note, my mother passed away in December. At the funeral, I was touched to see flowers from the EPiServer North America office at the front of the church. I didn't even know that they had heard the news. You just don't see that kind of thing in this business.)

Blend has been very active in helping EPiServer recruit U.S. partners. We believe that a rising tide floats all boats, and if we can help EPiServer push into this market, we stand to gain in the long-term. So if you're a development shop looking for a good content management system, drop me a line. I'd be more than happy to elaborate on our experience with the system and how it can help you.

So, thanks to EPiServer for the award. We're excited to be part of the North American invasion, and we look forward to more success in 2010. A large part of Blend's future is being built around EPiServer -- we believe that strongly in their product and their organization.

Enjoy the Season of Giving

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 13:30:00 GMT

For those of you who have done business with Blend in the past, you know we like to give thanks by giving back to others in some way. Last year we donated $1000 to the Community Food Banks of South Dakota and sent out a card simply stating "Because you so generously put work on our plate, we can put some food on theirs."

This year we wanted to continue the theme of giving and we'll plan to focus on a different area of need each year. This year we are helping to provide a more sustainable supply of drinking water for those in need by donating $1000 to Helping Hands for Haiti. The card this year reads "You've treated us so well, we're digging one for others."

We hope that during this busy holiday season you will also find the time to give to others in need. Enjoy this Season of Giving from Blend Interactive.

Speaking at Gilbane Boston

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:00:00 GMT

I'll be speaking Gilbane Boston on one of my favorite subjects: content typing and modeling. My talk is entitled "Content Types: The Building Blocks of Your Content Model."

The conference is December 1 - 3 at the Westin Copley.

Deane's Presentation at Web Content

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 03:30:00 GMT

Deane Barker spoke at Web Content 2009 in Chicago back in June. The topic was content modeling and how different content management systems handle it, plus things to look out for during CMS evaluations and implementations.

His presentation is up at SlideShare (and embedded below) if you're interested in taking a look.

Some comments from attendees:

“best course so far.”
“This is an apt primer for anyone interested in content modeling, or in explaining it to others. […] Barker is an engaging speaker. His affection for content management clearly shows, much to his credit.”
“Truly excellent presentation on content modelling by @gadgetopia”