Moving Forward with a Mobile Web; Australian Marketing Institute seminar

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This morning two of the The Memphis Agency crew presented to members of the Australian Marketing Institute on future friendly mobile web strategies.

The presentation covered all things mobile web.

Jon, our Lead Application Developer and Danni, our Digital Strategist, discussed the revolution of mobile, why you should maximise your reach with a device-optimised web experience, and how to combat this as a marketer.

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We wish to give our sincere thanks to the AMI for allowing us to share our insights, as well as all those that attended at such an early hour for staying awake :)

Be sure to check out the slides to our Moving Forward with a Mobile Web presentation. It is mobile/device friendly – we must practise what we preach!

Also make sure you visit the Australian Marketing Institute website for more information, or to register for this great event.

In the meantime, here is a great infographic about understanding your need for either a mobile app or mobile website.

Enjoy!

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Facebook rolls out new status update features

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As of this week some serious new Facebook changes have been released.

One particular one that we found amusing and wanted to share was that users can now express what they’re watching, reading, listening to, eating, drinking, and feeling with further customisation functionality on Facebook’s status update box.

You’ll know if you’ve been included in on the first round of people that can access the functionality if there is a smiley face next to the camera icon (shown above).

Clicking this reveals a new drop-down menu:

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Once you’ve decided what you’re watching, reading, listening to, eating, drinking, or feeling, you can then customise it further, as indicated on the RH side arrows.

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After this, you can proceed with writing your normal status update, as well as attaching a location, photos and friends.

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We are wondering how this feature will progress.

Will you soon be able to advertise on this menu? I’m eating “McDonalds”, costing them ‘x’ amount per click? It could even be displayed to people who don’t like the page as a way to increase reach and exposure?

It will be interesting to see how much this feature gets used. While only a few of us have this functionality at the moment, most people are wanting the feature (particularly on their smart phone).

Nevertheless, in this instance we (unfortunately) were not actually eating ice cream. How sad.

LinkedIn update Privacy Policy and User Agreement, and what the changes REALLY mean

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Today, LinkedIn have released an update of their Privacy Policy and User Agreement.

Whilst they notified this was happening three days ago, that orange box at the top of the window when you sign in? Yeah, that’s what this is about.

We dare say, since the Instagram outrage following policy changes and use of photos, people will probably be paying particular attention to further changes across their repertoire of social platforms.

While of course we always strongly recommend to review the official documentation via the LinkedIn Privacy Policy page before deciding to use any of these platforms for yourself, or on behalf of a business, here are the changes summarised in non-fluff jargon, so you can break it down to your homies on convo. “They” is referring to LinkedIn:

  • The changes have been made today, Tuesday 13 May 2013. Should you happen to disagree to anything outlined in their policies, then deactivate your account now. If you use LinkedIn at all, you agree to everything they say. Abide my pretties!
  • They now refer to us as “members” (instead of “users”) to ensure consistency across all their legal documents. Hey – I feel right at home now.
  • You MUST use your real name. Don’t misrepresent yourself. Some people use company names for a personal / profile account. This is now not approved.
  • If you use LinkedIn for escort or other adult services, this is now banned. Back to the newspaper perhaps.
  • They no longer do refunds, and they no longer accept every payment type. Dollar signs in their eyes much?
  • Decisions to close or transfer a group or company page are at their own discretion.
  • Street address of LinkedIn is now listed as their Ireland Limited address. Here’s to a long life and a merry one. A quick death and an easy one. A pretty girl and an honest one. A cold pint and another one!
  • Some headings have been changed to apply more broadly.
  • Some wording has been changed to simplify the whole document, including some information on payments and fees. Pay yo’ bills essentially.
  • Links have been included to their other help sections.
  • They have now provided some more examples on applications that are available.
  • They can use your feedback in anyway they wish. They don’t have to ask for it either.
  • They have clarified their use of the term “operators” is for third parties only.
  • LinkedIn disclaimers, limitation and liabilities now apply to suppliers as well.
  • They have provided notice of LinkedIn’s intellectual property rights.

Pickin up what we’re putting down?

So be sure to read the fine print, and digest all the changes even if you think you understand the above.

We are sure for a lot of you, this will not affect your use of the platform.

Happy networking!

Stratco Facebook social media competition app

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We have recently been assigned to a super social project, for a super savvy client – Stratco Australia. Stratco wanted a refreshed social media competition, based on an existing concept, titled “Win One Wednesday”.

The name is rather literal  - win something on a Wednesday. Stratco had witnessed some excellent results from their previous competition. They wanted to continue its brilliance, but with a strengthened offering within their budget and to implement basically straight away!

That’s where TMA stepped in – we wanted to take the idea further via the introduction of a new third-party application supplier and introduce some reinvigorated ideas to further strengthen brand awareness. Our challenge was to deliver within the timeline specified, and achieve within a reasonable budget.

Campaign objectives

  • Increase brand awareness;
  • Facilitate a level of engagement with existing and potential Facebook fans;
  • KPI for customer data acquisition of approximately 200 entries per week (6% conversion); and,
  • KPI for 50% of entries to be shared (not a compulsory entry mechanism).

Campaign strategy

  • Create a Facebook App, administer contest using ShortStack as to abide by Facebook Promotions Guidelines;
  • Develop the app to be as easy as possible to enter, and easy as possible to share;
  • Promote the competition weekly using organic posting, and paid if budget permitted;
  • Create a placeholder image for the tab on every other day but Wednesday;
  • Provide broader communications strategy recommendations to organically promote the competition; and,
  • Alternate the offering to understand what Stratco Facebook Fans may like and dislike. Gather consumer insights using ShortStack and Facebook, and use them to optimise future competition performance and increase customer data acquisition.

Benefits

  • Efficiency savings - A great solution to Facebook competitions that will be easy to coordinate and extremely measurable;
  • Knowledge growth – TMA to act as a resource to provide insight as to the guidelines, best practices and other optimization tips to support the coordination of this competition;
  • Resource savings – increase Stratco’s in-house productivity, so that Stratco staff members can concentrate on their own core role requirements; and,
  • Continuity and risk management – allows the agency who built the app (TMA) to be more embedded with deployment and maintenance.

We think the app is pretty sexy – so head to Stratco’s Facebook page (even more awesome if it’s a Wednesday) and have a play around yourself.

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Happy Birthday x 3

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So we celebrated some Birthdays this month.

We’ve been wickedly busy, so here they all are – as one :)

From left to right, Alice (our General Manager) had her birthday this week, Matty (one of our Developers) a couple of weeks ago, and Scotty (one of our Principals, and our Business Development Manager) last week.

The cakes varied in sizes. A direct correlation to their age.

Just joking.

Happy Birthday Alice, Matty and Scott!

Twitter Music App to launch soon

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So we know from earlier today that Twitter acknowledged that it had acquired
“We Are Hunted”. Originally developed in Brisbane in 2009, it is now playing with the big dogs!

So how does it differ from Spotify, Rdio, Pandora or Last.fm and the like?

Allegedly the app reccomends artists and tracks to users based on multiple personalised “signals” – ie – those you follow on Twitter.

Users can also listen to clips of songs from iTunes and Soundcloud as well as additional music videos provided by Vevo (Universal Music and Sony).

Which devices are supported?

What we don’t have a lot of details on is what platform the app is launching on. CNET’s report said it would be iOS only; AllThingsD’s sources don’t specify this.

What has Twitter confirmed so far?

Twitter did not respond to a request for comment on when the app will open, but there is an official press release on the We Are Hunted website.

A spokesman for Twitter in Australia did not reveal the precise role We Are Hunted will play.

When will I be able to use it?

We hear on the grapevine that Twitter are planning to launch this new music application as early as tomorrow (“Friday” in the US), and we hear that its fairly coincidental with Coachella occuring this weekend also. However, this has not been confirmed.

Is it available to Aussies?

We believe so. The project is backed by Aussie entrepreneur Graeme Wood but relocated to the US.

So, why?

Larger social companies are notoriously known for purchasing tech start-ups, such as Twitter purchasing Vine, Summify and Whisper Systems, and Facebook purchasing Instagram. Twitter have not confirmed purchase prices for any of these acquisitions.

The mean strategy behind this is that social media platform head honcho’s need to be able to continue expansion of what their product has to offer, so they can maintain and defend their current levels of user-ship across the globe.

After all, we are a bunch of greedy, information hungry consumers. We get bored easily!

We can’t wait to hear more about how this will pan out.

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There’s more to a digital marketing agency than just coding and design

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Values

While we’re on the topic of hiring new staff, we thought we’d add some more info about what it’s actually like to work at TMA.

To do that, we thought we’d start with sharing our values.

Okay, so we don’t go around talking about these every minute of every day, but we like to keep these in mind when:

  • starting new work;
  • commencing new client relationships;
  • hiring staff (hint, hint); and,
  • our day-to-day operations.

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They are:

Give back to the community;
// We are commercially aware of the importance of local business. We try and keep things local where possible.

Take ownership with passion, energy & pride;
// We like to transfer these skills to our ping pong table also.

Solution driven ideas with the 360 philosophy;
// Our solutions solve the problems our client present us with but we continue to monitor our solutions and use our learnings to drive further improvements.

Continual improvement;
// We strive to continually evolve our internal processes to ensure the service we provide is thorough, but is also a hassel-free process for our client.

Cherish our mistakes;
// Acknowledgement is the first step to self-improvement. Saying “we screwed up” or “we could do this better next time” is all about a commitment of transparency!

Collaborate with others of similar values;
// We love to work with like minded people (all the more reason to share our values)!

Have fun and be cheeky;
// Integral to the enjoyment of our working lives.

Be genuine and act with integrity;
// We recruit for these personality traits. We want those wearing the TMA badge to be open and honest.

Be empathetic and flexible;
// Business decisions take time, we will patient to accommodate clients needs to the best of our ability.

Be inspired and inspiring;
// Think outside the box, share it and embrace our distinctiveness.

Its just got to be right;
// User Acceptance Testing ring any bells?

Build good relationships;
// Self explanatory and very simple.

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So we hope you know there is a bit more love and joy within the TMA walls.

We might be a bunch of nerds, but we have some purpose here too! It’s not all coding and design. 

Find out more about TMA on our Facebook profile, LinkedIn Company Page, or Tweet us.

Announcement: TMA Engagement!

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If you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it!

Well, looks like Sandy’s boyfriend, Jason, liked it – because now she has a sparkly!

A huge, massive, monstrous congratulations to Sandy and Jason on their engagement.

Sandy, our Senior Web Developer, has been with TMA for the past five years. We have watched their relationship blossom and now we are very excited to see a ring on it.

As you can see in the photo, I think Sandy is pretty pleased too. Wouldya take a look at that rock!

Congratulations Sandy and Jason. 

The new Pinterest Analytics, how do they measure up?

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Analytics are so hot right now.

That’s why this week Pinterest have introduced an in-built analytics tool for marketers. They have also introduced Business Accounts as part of their recent facelift.

If you have already been analysing your Pinterest account using other tools such as Pinreach, Pinalyzer and Pinfluencer then you’ll be pin…ching yourself when you hear the new analytics tool is free. That’s right, $00.00 (for the time being anyway!).

How is it free?

Free doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good. Let’s face it, it’s pretty basic. It doesn’t allow you to identify your most engaged and influential pinners and then track popularity and reach of boards and pins – but – it’s a huge step forward for Pinterest, and those who haven’t been paying for data can now get it.

Say hello to a new breed of (somewhat) knowledgeable marketers. Let’s hope other social platforms such as Instagram and Twitter follow suit with an offering of free analytics for it’s users (or access to data for small businesses who don’t have buckets of cash to throw at every single one of their social efforts).

How do I get these free, nifty analytics features?

Remember, this initiative is aimed more towards businesses as opposed to Sally Citizen who pins photos of her chocolate labrador (not to mention anyone at TMA).

This tool is better suited at ‘x’ business who has Pinterest and wants to learn some basic insight as to what their pins are producing for them.

So you think you are up for the taking – as per the eDM that went out this week, you have to do the following to hook up the analytics:

1. Update your Pinterest account to the “new look” by logging on, clicking the top, RH side menu and accessing it from there. What do you think of the updated look and feel? We think it’s a bit clunky, but I’m sure we’ll get used to it.

2. Make sure your website is verified by Pinterest. You can check this by going into your settings and seeing if there is a tick next to where you have written your website URL.

3. So you’re website is verified and you’ve got the new look, you might notice “Analytics” in the top, RH side menu. That’s your cue to click on it.

Fin!

What sort of data am I getting? 

Once Pinterest has played around with your account and generated your stats, you will see four tabs at the top which are quite self-explanatory:

  • Site Metrics
  • Most Recent
  • Most Repinned
  • Most Clicked

Every marketer will love the fact that all the analytics data can be exported as a CSV file (hopefully we see no glitches using Numbers for Mac).

Hello data.

What’s the catch?

Do you remember when Tumblr ased for money from advertisers without actually providing any analytics tools to measure ad performance? Well despite Pinterest not actually providing any ad hosting yet, this could be them prepping their site for their introduction. Business accounts + analytics tool = marketers frothing at the mouth and wanting to improve their accounts.

Why does my data suck?

We are all data-hungry marketers – but don’t let the data from your new analytics scare you if it is ridiculously low. Look it as a way to improve and increase activity. Also, remember it is just one factor of your social presence and perhaps your other platforms are better suited to your target audience. Twitter might work better for you, but Pinterest is another complimentary marketing tool that adds value to your social suite.

Cheers to data, and a Happy Friday to all. 

Happy Birthday @Sandicino

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Another TMA Birthday means more cake. And a looming Jenny Craig subscription.

Twas last week that we celebrated the birthday of Sandy, one of our star developers.

It sure wasn’t a TMA Birthday without those routine, obligatory cupcakes - which we absolutely hated, as our initial request for a spread of mixed salad was denied by upper management.

Oh well, cupcakes it was!

Happy Birthday @Sandicino!

TMA Web Developer creates ‘sandbox project’

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Web development techniques change constantly, which means just being passionate about the industry isn’t enough – you must also be willing to commit to constantly challenging your thinking.

Our guest blogger, TMA Web Developer Kate York, shares her insight into her own thought leadership, and keeping up with best practise web development – with a ‘sandbox project’.

There cannot be many occupations out there that are more willing and able to share new ideas with others than the industry of web developers. So, as a developer, keeping up can be relatively easy.

There are tutorials and articles everywhere (for free) and the more popular the idea the more resources you’ll find to help you.

There is a catch however: in order to truly understand how a new technique can be used on your next client project you need something a lot meatier running through your head than the good old “Hello World” example.

For me the best thing I ever did was decide I couldn’t be bothered trying to work out a list of things to buy from the shop every week. I’m a programmer after all why should I have to add and group things together myself over and over again when I can write some code to do that for me?

What is a sandbox project?

A ‘sandbox project’ is a module or theme that contains experimental code that is not yet ready for general application.

I created my own titled “My Online Kitchen” (MOK) - not only because I hate doing repetitive tasks but also because at the time I was interested in trying out new techniques with ASP.NET and C#.

The advantage of a sandbox project is you don’t have to “finish” it by a given date (no pressure) and it doesn’t have to stay static in one technology – it can change as you change and learn.

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Challenging your own ideas…

The original version of MOK using ASP.NET C# and very basic responsive techniques.

It soon became evident that mobile and tablet devices were becoming hugely popular and so learning to code with smaller devices in mind became a priority for me.

Ideally it would be a native app but I wasn’t ready to delve into such a different arena just yet.

Thus my next iteration of MOK was to create a version using Jquery UI Mobile as it looks and feels so much like a native app but uses trusty old JQuery. I found this to be quick to pick up and there were plenty of examples to try out and apply to MOK.

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Mobile cut the clutter!

Funnily enough, this soon became my preferred method of accessing the site as it was much faster to load each screen than the server refresh the main site uses.

However the more serious functionality of the site was still only on desktop.

This is when I turned to Backbone.js and Twitter bootstrap to not only make the  desktop site look better but also utilise the DOM to load content without the need for boring old page refreshes.

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I have since been lucky enough to use “Backbone techniques” (below) on a real world project at TMA – minus the steep learning curve I would have had without trying it out on MOK first.

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My-Online-Kitchen-The-Memphis-Agency-Backbone

So why a sandbox project?

If you haven’t already get into a sandbox project – it’s a no pressure way to learn new things and might even make some part of your own life easier or in the very least expand your career opportunities.

Like I said before, you don’t have to “finish” it by a specific deadline, and it doesn’t have to stay static in one technology – it morphs as you learn. A bit like pottery. Well, nothing like pottery really.

You get the idea.

Kate York has been a Web Developer at TMA for the past year, and shares a wealth of knowledge from other significant web development positions since 2005. Share your thoughts with her via Twitter, @Yorky001 

TMA turns 9 – Happy Birthday to us!

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There is some debate on whether time itself actually has a beginning, and whether it will have an end.

All the evidence seems to indicate, that the universe has not existed forever, but that it had a beginning, about 15 billion years ago.

As for The Memphis Agency – it all began a long time after 15 million years ago – our beginnings was 9 years ago – on 16 February 2004.

While we are quite young, we are also quite old for a digital agency, and as such we are equipped with the ability to accept rapid change in our industry.

Let’s reminisce:

In 2004…

  • The MyDoom email worm spread around the world, the fastest-spreading e-mail worm ever;
  • iTunes had only just gained exposure in Europe;
  • Mobile phones looked like this;
  • Facebook was invented 12 days before TMA was born, on 4 February 2004;
  • Netscape came back to challenge IE;
  • Google looked like this; and,
  • Everyone used MSN Messenger;

And in the first two months of 2013…

So our point is… celebrate change with us, and how far we’ve come in nine years.

We’d also like to say thank you for all the ongoing support from everyone we’ve worked with. We love meeting new people, and welcoming new ideas. We hope you continue to challenge our thinking.

Last but not least – check out our Instagram hashtag that we themed ’9′ for the last few days - #LifeAtTMA

Happy Birthday to The Memphis Agency!

TMA developers now trained in Sencha Touch 2

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We are pleased to gloat that our senior developer, Sandy Trinh, has recently completed a four day course on Sencha Touch 2 in Melbourne, Australia - home to our second TMA office

What is Sencha Touch? 

Sencha Touch is a framework for building fast and interactive mobile web applications using HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript. Sencha Touch provides a great solution to device-friendly content, while also giving the application owner the best value – more on this below.

Soooo… why Sencha Touch?

Like mobile sites, Sencha Touch works on any handheld devices that have a built-in web browser, however it provides more capability to access the mobile device’s hardware functionality such as camera, notification, vibration etc. Sencha Touch also comes with a collection of pre-configured and friendly user interfaces that employ the already existing look and feel of mobile devices such as iPhone and Android, which makes the application more intuitive and can enrich the user experience.

What about Native Mobile Apps?

As mobile usage continues to grow exponentially  - we can never be too sure what device people are using to access content across the web. How do we ensure we are creating device-friendly content? Well the main advantage of using Sencha Touch, is that it allows for one universal application that works across any handheld device, compared to native mobile applications which only work on one platform. To build a native mobile application, developers must build the same application but in different programming languages in order to support all the popular mobile platforms such as iOS, Android, Black Berry and many more (who knows what is next, really).

Sandy is dandy… 

Sandy was wrapped with the chance to head to Melbourne (pop by the other office), learn about Sencha Touch and how she can best transfer the knowledge and skills to benefit development here at The Memphis Agency.

Well done Sandy!

Vine App review – the next big thing in digital content creation?

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Twitter have launched their video-sharing app, ‘Vine‘.

An app for iPhone and iPod that allows users to snap and share 6 second looping videos.

As part of this venture, Twitter have acquired New York start-up Vine Labs which is apparently behind all the technology.

Despite other third-party tools already being made available to Twitter users in the past, Twitter itself limit the use of these tools because they want to ultimately control how and where potential revenue can be generated.

Nonetheless, we welcome these types of app developments, as it means we get to go through a stringent testing process.

We’ve outlined what we feel to be the pro’s (good times), the con’s (bad times) and our test (best times) in full below.

Good Times:

  • At first glance, interface is nice. Simple. Green. Like a vine?
  • An integrated Twitter sign-up means no forms to fill and your pals are easily found. That said, you don’t need a Twitter account to use Vine, which is also a welcoming function for non-Twitter users.
  • Once logged in, you have feed of content. This is good – “I don’t have to go searching for content just because I don’t follow anyone yet”. Yes the staring contest video amused us.
  • Navigation is intuitive and clean. We didn’t ask any questions as to how to carry out basic functions. The mini video-shooting tutorial was also a nice function.
  • Press-to-shoot is another beautifully simple feature of this app. At first we all pondered a more complex interface with ability to cut and paste segments of video, but that is not the case. More on that later.
  • One thing is for sure, capturing the footage certainly got our creative juices flowing. Eat your heart our Steven Speilberg.
  • When you’re done, share across Facebook and Twitter and embed ‘everywhere’ (yes, after stripping some code in WordPress). Watch that vine grow baby.

Bad Times:

  • Tick, tock, tick, tock. We expected them to load like .gif’s. Some are a little slow to load. Yawn, but forgiven. We waited.
  • When looking for certain users the search function was a wee bit buggy. I.e. not showing some users in search.
  • As per above, we enjoyed the simple interface for shooting videos. Until we screwed up the last part of the video we just shot, then we had to start from scratch. You also cant pull in any content from your library. This could be a good or a bad thing.
  • We also found the social integration to be a bit delayed, but they are also forgiven for this because they took that function down for development this morning.

Best Times:

Here is our video below, which we know you will enjoy, which features a career path Brenton sadly chose to not go down.

Anyway - Vine is now available for free via the iTunes store.

Enjoy.

Ed Harry eCommerce website launch

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We are very proud (and a little bit excited) to announce a new project that has recently set sail, last December to be exact.

*drum roll*

An eCommerce website for iconic Australian menswear brand, Ed Harry.

We have been working collaboratively with Ed Harry to develop an advanced digital business solution. One that focuses on being the key online sales and marketing vehicle for Ed Harry that expertly and powerfully sells products and increases online brand presence. The aim in the development of this new, premium website solution was to expertly brand and position Ed Harry to its target audiences. We are confident it provides an outstanding user experience and information access for existing and potential customers and stakeholders.

Essentially, we have produced (what we feel to be) a fantastic, scalable eCommerce site that meets key online sales principles in its easy-to-use interface.

We’ve used our weapon of choice – FarCry CMS – an open-source, enterprise content management system (CMS) used globally for great flexibility and longevity.

The website was fundamentally designed to assist with the sales process, with the aim to combat shopping cart abandonment that happens far to often globally in online sales. This means a more user-centric design. This also contributes to higher basket sizes. Win.

Key Marketing Objectives + Strategies

The rest of the key marketing objectives of the Ed Harry website refresh, and how we have achieved them include the following:

*clears throat*

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// Promote Online Presence

Ed Harry wanted to strengthen its existing presence using both online and offline marketing initiatives, particularly those that relate back to increasing organic search engine ranking. Utilising tools such as Google Analytics and FarCry CMS reporting tools (eDM campaigns) and also partnering those with any social media platform data, we will continue to gain informed decisions on how to optimise website UI and content. This is an ongoing process which we get rather excited about.

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// Create Customer Confidence

Online security within an eCommerce site is not just a ‘must have’, its expected. A clear and obvious presence of business practices (including privacy, security and return policies) in order to instill confidence and trust in customers by prominently displaying clear policies, trust certificates, security badges and contact information. Additional courtesies including highlighting security on secure areas of the website to remind customers that their information is safe are also essential. These tactics create a professional-looking website that speaks about your brand values and expertise, and make a good first impression.

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// Enhance Product Find-ability

Browsing (and more importantly, shopping) online should not be a chore. It should almost feel intuitive to start browsing. The design had to enable customers to quickly find and discover products by offering robust search and navigation. We don’t always take a linear path when visiting a website. Hey – we are humans, not robots. But it should be as easy as being a robot to shop online. To do this we have made viewing products easier – with all relevant products listed during the browsing process. It’s like a path of self discovery, yet totally intuitive.

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// Enable Customer Decision Making

When purchasing online everything needs to be clear and straight-forward – far too often online shopping becomes too complicated. So we designed a simple, yet most concise and honest approach to displaying products and content. A cool feature, as specified by Ed Harry, is the ‘Collections’ feature. A unique feature, this functionality showcases complete outfits that a user can purchase with one click. The user can either select or deselect depending on the items they wish to include from the collection, ensuring complete flexibility and control. Again, user-centric. Also an easy feature to update from the back end for Ed Harry too. Depending on current product range and season, the pre packaged outfits take the guess work out of styling and coordinating but still allow customer complete control on which pieces they wish to purchase.

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// Reduce Shopping-Cart Abandonment

Cold feet whilst shopping online? Common. But allowing a constantly visible shopping cart, and display a summary of items in the cart will keep the check-out just one click away. There is also a quick view of the shopping cart, as to allow users to browse the store and not jump back and forth between product pages and the cart. Easy as. Other convenient shopping options include gift cards, special offers, member registration, promo codes (for checkout) and back in stock notifications. These all allow great options to decrease the cold feet in shopping online, as well as a gentle nudge to remind someone that ‘X’ product is back in stock.

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// Keep Registration Short & Optional

We’ve kept the registration process optional and short. Forcing registration is one of the main reasons why users don’t complete purchases – so there is also an option for express checkout as a guest, should the user not wish to sign up.  Simple, yet effective.

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// Streamline the Checkout

Cut the clutter and display relevant recommendations, a progress indicator, an order summary and confirmation. It should be as easy as possible to glide through the purchase process. Another cool feature to simplify the process is ‘Quick Buy’ – allowing for the user to select their desired colour, size and quantity and add to bag immediately without having to navigate to the product details page itself streamlining the shopping process.

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We are pretty chuffed with the result.

We are keen for everyone’s feedback, so definitely check out the site edharry.com and be sure to purchase some of their great clothing whilst reviewing our work :)

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Happy Birthday @Philvsworld !

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Twas yesterday that we had the chance to celebrate the birthday of Phil, one of our Digital Designers.

He, unlike Danni, didn’t happen to make a speech, but cracked open a bottle of red before midday and stuck it to the man.

Cheese from The Smelly Cheese shop may have also been involved.

Happy Birthday Phil!

Happy Birthday @Cannizzaro!

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Brenton_Bday

BrentonBday1

So we recently celebrated a birthday of our Principal (and Business Development Manager), Brenton Cannizzaro. Last Friday to be precise.

KISS cupcakes, KISS beer, Liverpool cupcakes and all favorite personalities of Brenton Cannizzaro were used as vehicles for celebration.

We took the opportunity to thank him for being such a killa boss and also gave him a custom Liverpool FC guernsey.

Safe to say he didn’t quite expect the likes of Gene Simmons and George Costanza to join in the celebrations.

But hey, don’t blame them for all stopping by. We thank them for that.

Happy Birthday Brenton!

Project management, Agile style.

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TMA-Agile

It is here at The Memphis Agency that we place great emphasis on quality project management.

This has been one of our New Years Resolutions, to continually improve our project management processes. 

In the past we have written an extensive project management framework to help guide our project teams and specifically as a resource to assist our project managers to be the best they possibly can be.

Aside from our written manuals etc, our core view is; if we provide our team with the right tools to do the job, our client’s will reap the benefits. 

Therefore, more recently we have been moving toward implementing agile project management into the business. A lot of effort went into our previous project management tools so it has been a big job to revisit the way we work.  A lot has had to change internally for this to be implemented, however slowly but surely we are getting there.

The Before and After Shot

Our team are beginning to see the improvements in how we deliver our work. Here’s how:

Our first step has been to make our development process agile. We convert our quotes into “user stories” to describe individual pieces of functionality and then estimate against them. This is a replacement for a scope document and a traditional project plan. User stories are written in a way that should make it very clear what a particular piece of functionality is, what it is trying to achieve and who needs it. This is different to other models in that this is purely both user and functionality centric design, as opposed to other knee jerk processes that may miss key functionalities out.

A few examples of user stories are listed below:

  • As a user, I’d like to be able to perform a keyword search so that I can quickly find the resources that will be useful to me.
  • As a business owner, I’d like my website to automatically generate and keep up to date an XML sitemap that can be consumed by search engines to update their search index
  • As a communications manager, I’d like the ability to be able to manage multiple mailing lists so that I can group my contacts and target them with content-appropriate mailing campaigns.

The second step, once the user stories are created and estimated against, they are added into a backlog from which they are pulled into 2 week sprints. At the end of each sprint we review the work that has been completed and plan the next sprint. We have also introduced daily stand-up meetings for everyone working in the team. Which is kinda fun, to catch up in person as opposed to via email! Hey – sometimes we do things the old school way too.

We have been busy bees

Our most recent development project has been managed through Jira and plugin Greenhopper.

Adopting the technology has been a huge learning curve but now that we are familiar with it planning for the next project has already been substantially easier. The major benefit of using Jira is being able to plan, track time and monitor bugs in the one place and it also generates many useful reports.

But please sir, can I have some more?

Our next goals are to quote all projects in user stories that will be used throughout the entire project even to the point of training and UAT.

We are also incorporating our design process into agile to better combine the two and innovate design.

So here’s cheers. Happy New Year to everyone, and help us keep up with these great advancements to our processes.