We launched Kafkacare.com in August for a cosmetic dermatology, anti-aging, and wellness practice in Manhattan. We designed, planned, wrote, added e-commerce, and manage the monthly adwords and seo on an ongoing basis for the client.

 

 

Challenge: Integrating the digital operations more smoothly into the editorial, production, and business operations of a monthly non-profit magazine with a hundred + year old history.

The Progressive is a 100-year-old magazine published in Madison, Wisconsin. We started working with them when they needed a reliable resource to support their sites during a time of organizational change in  the Fall of 2014. They have multiple Drupal based websites which we have maintained and optimized. Drupal is not my favorite platform for publishers. It is very powerful and can run great multi-member blog hubs but  it requires constant updates, and coordination of modules. The work for The Progressive has run the gamut from outlining a more effective digital strategy that has led to month-over-month growth, stabilizing their hosting environment, and making design and editorial enhancements to the core progressive.org site so that the site can be more integrated with the other publishing and operational elements of the organization.

Challenge: Creating a site and newsletter for a large public elementary school that integrates a very active school and PTA while maintaining its integrity while being updated by a rotating group of editors.

We worked with the administration and the PTA of PS321 to create a new digital presence (e-mail messaging as well) that can convey school news and policies as well as information from a very active PTA.  at this large and sought after k-5 elementary school in Park Slope. Built on a responsive framework the site receives over 50% of its visits from mobile or tablet devices. Updated semi-weekly by multiple editors it  keeps up its design and structural integrity. The site has the ability to create multiple forms that take in information and payment for activities, and a calendar.

 

We are thrilled to have gotten the chance to work with Dances For A Variable Population a dance company that works with the elderly throughout NYC. In addition to performances by the core company they work with older performers and have a series of free workshops at Senior Centers and other community spaces throughout NYC.

We worked with them to restructure the way their information is presented to a variety of user groups; funders, fellow artists, and class participants and built them a responsive site based on a parallax WordPress theme. The site has a photo galleries, a calendar, email registration, and social and sharing elements.

 

Challenge: Creating an in-depth one page site for an academic book with broader appeal for a first-time author.

We created a site for the history professor and author Nina Kushner who needed an online presence for her  book Erotic Exchanges: The World of Elite Prostitution in Eighteenth Century Paris. The site is also a proof of concept for a responsive one page book site.  Online activity around a title like this takes place on; Amazon and Barnes & Noble, on review pages and sites of both traditional media and blogs, on goodreads, on Twitter & Facebook, and even the Publisher’s site. So a single page book site isn’t to become a destination but to serve  as an online reference that the author can control and a place where someone who is following a link. The site is responsive and works on laptop, tablet, and phone. It provides a summary, an excerpt that is inline and can be read on all the devices, it holds links to a few reviews, and provides links to buy.  The site can also be expanded to be rather deep with a blog, a calendar, a mailing list.

We believe that authors should also develop sites like this for their titles that tie in and complement their author sites.  In Nina’s case it was her first book, she wasn’t blogging but most importantly the name of the book determined the URL where we built the site. As you can imagine the name was not available.

Nina is coming out with another book and also is planning on doing some blogging so the site will soon have another iteration.

 

Challenge: To create a process for the moderation of a multi-state educational resource. How to come up with a structure for moderation of resources and community that will be applied to the multi-state educational initiative serving a broad constituency with varied viewpoints.

I had the opportunity to work with Amplify Education to create a moderation process and to act as an ombudsman for The Smarter Balanced Digital Library, a federally funded multi-state common core assessment resource. The moderation process set up procedures for dealing with issues that ranged from PII information, copyright clearance, bias, and accessibility issues. I was able to draw on my experience running and building GardenWeb into the largest online home and garden community while I was at iVillage.