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Under the Hood: Hearthstone

Founded in 1993, Hearthstone Management, Inc. is one of the nation’s premier operators of assisted living communities for older adults. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, Hearthstone manages 37 communities throughout the United States, all designed to meet the needs of the growing population of seniors who require assisted living services.

Despite having built a strong reputation for themselves in the industry, upper management realized that their website and marketing approach had grown stale, and felt it was time for a change. Due to my previous work and ongoing partnership with Senior Service Match, I was invited to participate in the redesign of Hearthstone’s website.

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Design as Process vs. Product

At TEDGlobal in London, Tim Brown talks about how design got small — and why it’s becoming big again. Design is moving beyond the sculptural object displayed in lifestyle magazines or on pedestals in museums of modern art. It’s returning to its roots, when design thinkers like Isambard Brunel created innovative breakthroughs.

It’s time to begin thinking of design as a process for problem-solving, rather than merely for the creation of products.

Crush It! Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion

Well, it’s finally out! Social media rockstar, Gary Vaynerchuk, has just released his long-awaited book entitled, Crush It! Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion. If you rely on the Internet in any way for your livelihood, or if you’ve got plans to build an online business, then this book is a must-read.

About gary vay•ner•chuk

Nobody has succeeded at utilizing social media to create a personal brand like Gary Vaynerchuk. After primarily utilizing traditional advertising techniques to promote his family’s local wine business, Gary rapidly adopted and leveraged social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook to promote Wine Library TV, his video blog about wine.

As his viewership swelled to over 80,000 a day, doors opened to a book deal, several national TV appearances, and a flurry of speaking engagements around the world. Gary’s dual identity as both a business guru and wine guy has made him the “Social Media Sommelier.”

About the book…

This book is a 90-minute read, and weighs in at just 140 pages. The tone and pace of the book is not unlike listening to Gary speak, and it’s simply loaded with practical advice, step-by-step instructions, and real-world examples. In addition to a complete, 21-step outline for building your personal brand online, Gary even “threw in” about half a dozen phenomenal business ideas for anyone with the ambition to go for it!
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Finally. Custom WordPress Forms Made Easy!

It is one of the most important elements in your website… your contact form. So why is it that WordPress doesn’t have a built-in feature that enables you to create custom contact forms? Thankfully, the creative folks at RocketGenius have stepped up to the plate and filled this much-needed void with an amazing new plugin called Gravity Forms.

Over the past several years, I’ve tried just about every contact form plugin out there, including cforms and Contact Form 7. I was frustrated with the apparent trade-off between functionality and usability. It seemed that the more flexible the plugin, the more confusing the UI. This is where Gravity Forms simply blows away the competition! They’ve managed to create an incredibly flexible plugin, adding innovative features while still maintaining a drop-dead-simple AJAX interface that feels more like a desktop app than a web plugin.

In fact, this plugin is so good, you’ll wonder why it doesn’t just come standard in WordPress! (hint, hint)

Just a few of the innovative features…

1. Seamless Integration with WordPress 2.8+ – If you know how to use WordPress 2.8, you know how to use Gravity Forms. From the colors to the way it functions, Gravity Forms looks and feels like a part of WordPress.
2. Visually Create Forms with Our Sleek Editor – The visual form editor enables people with no HTML skills to create complex forms in minutes. Just add fields, choose field options, and drag them into the desired position.
3. Prevent Spam with Built-In reCAPTCHA Protection – The reCAPTCHA field will shield you from spam by preventing from submissions from automated scripts. You will also be helping in digitizing books for online use.
4. Allow Users to Automatically Create a Post – Let your users help with data entry. When added to a form, our Post Fields create a post when the form is submitted. Great for user submitted stories, job postings, directories, etc.
5. Manage Entries from the WordPress Admin Panel – Search, edit, delete and keep track of all entries from the Entries page in your WordPress administration panel.
6. Easily Export Form Entry Data to CSV Format – Need your entry data for other applications? Easily export all or part of your entries to CSV. Our export tool makes it a breeze to export only the fields that are needed.

Gravity Forms also sends automatic emails to users in response to a submission, enabling you to create professional and personalized messages.

If you’ve been searching for a simple way to create custom forms for your WordPress pages and posts, look no further than this plugin! Honestly, Gravity Forms is unrivaled when it comes to creating custom forms for WordPress.

Ready to learn more? Why not jump over to their site and take a look at the video tour?

But wait! There’s more…

Thanks to the good folks over at WooThemes, you can use the coupon code: WOOFORM20 when you purchase Gravity Forms, and they’ll give you a nice 20% discount. So what you waiting for? Go check it out already…

CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT GRAVITY FORMS FOR YOURSELF!

Measuring the Success of Twitter for Your Business

More and more businesses are recognizing the potential of social media for building their brand and connecting with an even broader audience. There are dozens of articles written every day about how to use Twitter for business, but it seems there are a growing number of articles that claim to expose the “fundamental flaws of Twitter,” or proudly announce the “10 reasons Twitter will fail.”

During a recent conversation with one of my clients, he raised these concerns and asked me if I thought Twitter was just an “overhyped trend” that would soon disappear. “Why is it,” he asked, “that so many businesses have had poor results using Twitter to promote their products or services?”

In my opinion, the majority of these negative articles reveal either poor practices, a gross misunderstanding of the purpose of social media, or both. One may as well write an article about the fundamental flaws of a hammer when used to brush one’s hair. You’re either using the tool incorrectly, or for the wrong purpose! Read the rest of this article »