I just returned from the Apple Store. As always, a great experience. Why don’t more businesses follow this model? The store was jammed with paying customers. I was greeted by two Apple staff… greeted with a smile, a handshake, a name, and an eagerness to serve. As a business customer, that impresses me. I rarely get that treatment even from other small businesses that could afford to do the same easily.
After the Apple Store, I joined my brother, a team leader at American Funds, for lunch at Chick-Fil-A. As always, yet another great experience. Why don’t more businesses follow this model? The store was jammed with paying customers. I was greeted by two Chick-Fil-A staff… greeted with a smile, a welcome, and an attitude to serve. As a business customer, that impresses me.
Are you catching my repetition? What do these two companies have in common? Why do I feel great paying them to serve me? I think it comes down to this: from the top of the business, they’ve focused on creating a great experience. And that great experience starts with the employees. If employees love the company they work for, they’re eager to share that love with customers, plain and simple. No gimmicks. No marketing push. No sales training. If your employees and partners love what you do, they’ll tell others.
I would love the chance to talk with you about how Think Say Do can help you this coming year! We’ve got great ideas, great partners, and an eagerness to serve. Call me, Collin Schneider, owner, at 317-489-9184 right now. I’ll answer, or call you back shortly, with a smile :)
2 years ago
Over the past several months, Think Say Do has been working with online marketing company e-Media Resources to deliver a visual query builder for Chamberlain Research Consultants in Madison, Wisconsin. It has been very well received with thousands of sign-ups since launch.
To start the project, we wrote the front-end for participants to sign up for research studies, completely integrated into Chamberlain’s branding standards:
The participant sign-up forms are dynamically built from a custom metadata file describing how the form fields should behave. This metadata file also then was leveraged dynamically for the visual query builder to provide incredible depth of searching. If that sounds technical, read on it gets easier to understand…
In the Visual Query Builder, you can add as many filters as you’d like. You can drill through hundreds of fields, each with options tailored to that particular data type. So, for example:
- Give me all people in WI
- Who own a Wii
- And Guitar Hero
- And have children between the ages of 6 and 12
- With a household income over $45,000
- Who own energy efficient appliances
That’s a relatively complex query, spanning in this case three participant databases. The amazing thing is that Chamberlain staff had to write no SQL to get a participant list almost instantly. All they had to do was select a few drop-downs and the SQL was written for them with no technical knowledge required.
Each field type was populated from the metadata file and directly linked against the data. You can even save your queries for future use, tap multiple participant study panels, and cross-search panels, plus download Excel lists of results and full database lists. Amazingly awesome. Amazingly powerful. Amazingly easy to use! Training lasted just 20 minutes to cover the entire process! That’s how easy it is to use.
If you’re interested in having something like this for your research consultancy, let us know. We’d be happy to help! Call us at 317-489-9184 (Indianapolis area) or email us at projects at think say do dot com.
~Collin Schneider
Founder / Systems Designer
Think Say Do, LLC
Business Systems Designed for People.
2 years ago
Amazing how quickly time goes by isn’t it. I’ve heard so many people say that, but it’s SO true! In May we celebrated our son’s first birthday with about 50 guests. Lots of fun!
And, in July, Think Say Do is preparing to celebrate the first year in business. Thank you to all of our great customers! What a year!
Lately, we’ve been hard at work on a few new projects. Here’s what we’ve been doing:
- Auto Data Connection (ADC) software for Microsoft Dynamics: Great Plains Accounting and Raiser’s Edge donor management system. Yes, both. Think Say Do was retained this spring to write a small piece of server software (in PHP5) that connects nightly, automatically to pull down essential data into a MySQL database for use by web sites during the day. The software we wrote pulls well over a million records from two massive legacy software applications’ Microsoft SQL Server 2000 databases. It completes the process in about 15 minutes due to some heavy SQL code optimization and our use of PHP command line scripts. The data then becomes accessible to partner web sites, without the risk of connecting directly to these legacy applications via the web server, and without the performance drop sometimes associated with the API connection methods offered as product add-ons. The ADC project has been a success so far. Constituents are now able to participate in organizational transparency like never before.
- Donated Project: Stand Against Trafficking site design and development: http://www.standagainsttrafficking.com/
- Email template for CampaignMonitor - small local publisher, Priester Publishing.
- Data Search Engine to filter through records visually, using jQuery UI.
And, as with any good business, there are always irons in the fire. Think Say Do and e-Media Resources are building a streaming video site for small businesses, which will launch this summer. We’re also working on a new site and content management system for a non-profit to help children in need in Macon, Georgia. I am working with my good friend Jared at The Art Press on a new customer-service application that we think will revolutionize the way people work with screen printers. And, we’ve got a few internal projects coming this year. More on all of these projects later.
So, time goes by quickly, but it’s always more fun when you enjoy what you do. Enjoy life and your loved ones. Drop me a line and let me know how quickly your time has been going! Perhaps Think Say Do can help write something that will make your time more enjoyable this year.
~Collin Schneider
Founder / Systems Designer
Think Say Do, LLC
Business Systems Designed for People.
2 years ago
Believe it or not, after thirteen years of resisting, I have started to blog, twitter, and gmail. That’s amazing, because I’ve worked as a web consultant for thirteen years! And, I’m young — a prime target for all things social and online. Yet, my life is too real to interface conveniently with the online social scene. I’ve never had the desire, need, or time to continually post what I’m thinking or doing. And who in the world would want to read what I have to say anyway? There are too many interesting voices these days. So, why would I start now?
Good question. Here’s why I think I am starting now:
- Because I have the desire to connect with other people to see how we can collaborate — two minds might be better than one. And I have the desire to share what I am working on and thinking about.
- I have the need to promote my new consulting firm, Think Say Do.
- I have the time to write now — I am now my own boss after all. And, I have thirteen years of pent up words!
Here’s what I’ve learned in my first few weeks of being web-connected:
- Observe others: read your favorite blogs and think about why you like reading them
- Practice makes better: write often and you’ll get better with each post
- Find a voice: initially posts/tweets sound formal and dry, but with time you’ll find your own voice, the way you actually write and think
- Create hooks: be provocative in your writing and headlines, then go on to say something useful
- Make contacts: keep up with your writing, keep up with your contacts, keep learning and growing your connections
For even better tips, check out Pam’s site.
So, while I have finally started to join the modern web scene, I still don’t have an iPhone. I’m not a consumer of tech gadgets, so maybe once Apple starts making them completely recyclable, I’ll join the crowd.
~ Collin Schneider, Founder / Systems Designer / Blogger / Tweeter / Gmailer / Environmentalist
2 years ago
This year I am celebrating 13 years in the Internet Industry. I can hardly believe that I’ve been building online experiences for 13 years! So much has changed since 1996… the “information superhighway” was young and untested. In fact, most businesses that I dealt with back then saw no real value in the Internet. It was a toy. Kind of like blogs were a few years ago, or twitter was a few months ago. Now everyone’s onboard, and there seems to be this frenzy to find the next big thing — to spot business value in the “toys” before anyone else does.
After 13 years of writing code, I often find myself burned out. I find it especially difficult to write one more line of code when I realize that 99% of what I wrote 13 years ago doesn’t exist anymore. The Internet is such a fleeting, instantaneous place. One millisecond you’re hot, and the next you’re not. So, to encourage myself and to celebrate, here are a few of my favorite, worthwhile projects from the past thirteen years and the lessons I learned from each:
- United Way’s ENCompass Project (1998-2001)
Designed to house information on all Northwestern Illinois non-profits to provide a unified service experience for constituents. The system was originally a joint project with Orlando, Florida-based Human Resource Technologies and Northwestern, Illinois-based InterClay Software (my employer at the time). Lesson learned: non-profit projects are rewarding when people work together to build something great
- Milio’s Sandwiches (2000-Current)
Designed to provide online sandwich orders. Yes, we took online sandwich orders in 2000. In 2008, Milio’s did nearly $1 million in online orders despite the fact that there are no Internet connections in-store. This was a joint project between Rippe-Keane Marketing and e-Media Resources. Lesson learned: there are always solutions, even to the most challenging problems
- OshKosh B’Gosh E-Commerce Site & Corporate Intranet (2000-2005)
Designed to offer all of the famous OshKosh kids clothing online. The project was a huge success from a design standpoint, but the web application platform based on IBM WebSphere failed. I worked for e-Media Resources & The Gunter Agency at the time. We were in charge of the online experience — the design side of things. Lesson learned: design is always worth the investment. design is not just graphic designers. it’s for every project stakeholder - managers, developers, CEOs, customer service reps, etc..
- Firestone Tires E-Learning (2007)
Designed to offer all of the Firestone Tire Center employees comprehensive customer service training. This was an e-Media Resources / Gunter Agency project. Lesson learned: take on projects that are new territory, learn constantly
- Sun Prairie Today Online Newspaper (2004-2008)
Designed to allow journalists and the community at large in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin to post photos and stories easily. The site run by Paul & Teresa Bauman, was a huge success. Lesson learned: write amazing software designed for people instead of developers. even non-technical people can easily update a web site with only 20 minutes of training.
- BankingMyWay.com (2007)
Designed to allow people to search for bank rates simply. The site was an e-Media Resources project. Lesson learned: teamwork is the more than the sum of it’s parts
Love what you do. Learn constantly. Give back. Here’s to another enjoyable and unforgettable Thirteen Years!
~ Collin Schneider, Founder / Systems Designer
2 years ago
I’ve been using the jQuery javascript library almost since its inception. It’s amazing to see how it’s progressed into a mature, robust rich internet application (RIA) tool. In addition to a powerful and elegant toolkit, the jQuery UI project adds beautiful widgets to the collection - each customizable and skinnable. The community behind jQuery is active and verbal — they communicate what they’re doing weekly.
For designers, jQuery is great because the learning curve is shallow. You can easily include jQuery in your header, then throw down some simple snippets of code to do amazingly complex things.
Bottom Line: If you’re looking for a great javascript library to unobtrusively enhance your company’s web site, jQuery should be a top look. Microsoft even recently made jQuery a part of their enterprise AJAX offerings.
jQuery & jQuery UI
2 years ago
