Writings from Force 5 Basecamp

03/19/10

Robots.txt – Telling bots where to go and where not to What is the robots.txt and why is the robots.txt file important? The robots.txt file is placed in the root folder of your website. This file instructs search engine bots what can and cannot be indexed. All you need to do is to define some criteria of what can be

03/11/10

L.L. Bean is taking a leap into new territory! They are creating a brand extension called L.L. Bean Signature. The new line is a collection for men and women with updated styles and cuts. One of their new offerings is called the “Plain Weave Signature Suit,” and sells for just over $200.00. I have looked at the video preview on

03/05/10

We recently had a project that involved putting together a survey.  This survey was comprised of almost 150 questions.  As we brainstormed the best way to construct the data tables to store this information, the thought of a table with 150 columns made us cringe.  Time constraints also called for something we could put together relatively quickly.  We decided to

02/25/10

Unfortunately last year many business’s pulled back on their marketing and advertising efforts. “Well, something had to give”, a business owner told me. Unfortunately, marketing initiatives may have been the last thing he wanted to pull in a bad economy. Study after study has shown that during down times, the companies that continued marketing came back to “the black” quicker

02/15/10

Adobe’s Flash has had a successful run the past few years. While the latest usage statistics show a slight decline, it still employs an impressive 95.89% browser install base as of Jan, 2010. Some concerns have been raised lately with Apple’s decision not to include Flash support in it’s newly announced iPad (which runs a modified version of the iPhone

02/08/10

If you’re a marketer in any capacity and you’re reading this post then I’m 99.9% sure you’ve also read about, or thought about, or discussed some sort of Top 10 list – goals, trends, etc. – for marketing in 2010.  Around the New Year this topic is often fodder for bloggers, trade publications, and the like.  Now that the dust

12/10/09

Augmented reality. It’s a term that has been popping up in the multimedia field a lot lately. Call it the latest internet meme, call it the next generation of marketing, call it a fad. Whatever you call it, you can’t ignore it’s possibilities. Simply put, Augmented Reality is technology that merges elements with a view of the physical environment, in

10/23/09

One of the most common questions that gets asked when starting out with ASP.NET Master Pages is how to add page specific keywords & descriptions. For those not familiar with ASP.NET and/or Master Pages is that while using Master Pages the normal HTML tags including META tags are not part of individual pages. The individual ASP.NET pages only refer to

10/15/09

Force 5 presented to the “Networking and All that Jazz Expo” in South Bend, Indiana. David Morgan, Certified Brand Strategist, gave a presentation on Brand Development and Director of Client Development Andrew Fletcher presented a workshop on Surviving and Thriving in Today’s economy. David’s presentation was entitled “Who Are You? What Do You Do? Why Does it Matter?” Brand Development

10/06/09

Facebook isn’t just for keeping up with old friends and family, sharing photos, and finding lost classmates. With over 125 million users worldwide your business can benefit greatly from this social networking giant. Mari Smith, Facebook for business guru, and author of 10 Reasons to Use Facebook for Business, has stated that millions more will join Facebook in the coming

10/01/09

Working in a team environment can be an inspiring experience. However, an efficient team workflow doesn’t just form itself. An organized system and rich toolset are often a few ingredients in a well-oiled team workflow machine. One of those ingredients may be named Google Wave. Google this week is rolling out a developer preview of it’s new product called Google Wave.

09/17/09

Force 5 presented to the Michiana Chapter of the National Tooling and Machining Association last week. The Presentation was on “Brand Development in new Economy.” Vice President of Force 5, David Morgan gave the presentation while President Deb DeFreeuw and Director of Client Development Andrew Fletcher led the discussions. “Brand Development for small and medium size businesses has taken on