Beauty is Only Skin Deep…Sometimes!
Denise Michaels’ Excellent Adventure
Denise had a wonderful blog going–lots of great information, regular blog posts, images to enhance her posts…she was doing a LOT of things right! She wasn’t happy with the look of her site, though. It was boring and really didn’t depict the tone of being and “Excellent Adventure.”
She needed a beautiful skin (fresh WordPress theme) that would be as visually beautiful to her readers as her words were fun to read. Denise knew what she wanted, but needed someone with the design skills to make it come alive. Being a Marketing Coach, she had some great ideas and was able to communicate those ideas well.
She wanted to carry over some of the look from her other sites, Mentoring With Denise and Testosterone-Free Marketing (which is Denise’s best selling book), just to name a couple. We were able to do this by carrying over several elements and yet, make it fresh and exciting.
I desperately needed help making my blog look custom and special. It also had to be easy and encourage visitors to stick around and share with others. I’m pretty good at using the Internet – but not so hot at bending it to my will. I needed an expert and Kim was the perfect person to make my blog dreams come true. She’s knowledgeable, patient, highly skilled and open to fresh ideas. If you want a website that creates the look and feel of your business’ or organization’s brand – you can’t go wrong with Kim Smith of Dramatic Design. Contact her today!
Denise Michaels
Author, Testosterone-Free Marketing
To take things up a notch, I also added some sharing buttons, following capabilities, and cleaned up the sidebar (the archives are now a drop-down menu and take up less room). As with all good websites, I’m sure there will be tweaks and changes down the road, as a website is an ever-evolving, ever-growing thing.
It’s been great working with Denise! I can highly recommend her book, Testosterone-Free Marketing and have come to appreciate her as a coach and as a friend. Be sure to visit her blog for some great reading!
Give Me 120 Geeks & I’ll Give You Barcamp!
I recently attended a live event in Grand Rapids with a friend. It was the fifth annual Barcamp for our area. I had never heard of Barcamp, but I was intrigued to see what it was all about. They describe it as an “un-conference” because unlike every other live event that I’d ever been to, there was no schedule of events, no keynote speaker, no agenda of things to be accomplished. I wasn’t so sure if I would like something that was so unstructured, but I gave it a shot.
Okay, now when I say “unstructured,” this is what I’m talking about…at the left, you will see a sample of our schedule. It was a blank grid when we all arrived. Basically, if you want to talk to a room full of people for 30 minutes, you sign up for a block of time. Most of the talks had to do with programming or designing, but not all of them. I actually attended one block to learn about “Tichu: The most addicting card game ever!“ It was really fun!
While I’m not a programmer, I can appreciate the work that programmers do. I consider myself a designer and/or developer. I take the structure that exists (WordPress, in most cases) and create a look and feel that brings out the personality of a business owner or a business that will be appealing and user-friendly to that particular target audience. There were a few people at Barcamp who did something similar to what I do, but most were even geekier than me (that’s NOT an insult, by the way).
I made some good connections at Barcamp and met several people who I plan to follow up with in the near future. Live events are a very valuable experience in every line of work. I believe that there is something that we can learn from everyone–even if it’s how not to do something or that you respond better to people who aren’t overly arrogant. See where I’m going? I just try to keep my mind open and look for something positive in whatever situation I happen to be in at the moment. I enjoyed BarcampGR and will most likely go again next year. I may even get up and talk next year…could be fun!
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