The previous version of our site was up since 2008. Our technology, product offerings, and personnel have changed quite a bit since then. We needed a new web presence to better communicate what we do, and more importantly, who we are.

More then anything, we wanted to do a better job conveying our personality through the site.

It’s easy for technology company like to us to appear dull and faceless. We don’t want you to visit our site and picture us sitting in a warehouse of cubicles. Idea Works is about a small team applying innovative technology in personal, pragmatic ways. We place a premium on the individual passions and skills of our team members.

With fewer than 10 employees, our strength lies in our approachability, personal service and responsibility. This is why our clients love to work with us.

Our previous site included the obligatory “About” page, and included only a general description of our company history and aims. It didn’t exactly scream: “You will love to work with us!!”  So early on, we decided to feature the individuals on our team, front and center.

You can see this implemented on the current site, with a homepage headline that mentions our varied skillsets, a group photo of our all beautiful faces, and a more prominently featured About page (it’s no accident that it’s the first menu option). 

The About page includes a more engaging narrative of what we do and value. We got some great employee photos taken by Dee Kern and gave each employee space to tell you about themselves.

We also made it easier for visitors to feel comfortable contacting us in a variety of ways. Most of our customer contact comes through email, phone, and Twitter, so we feature these connection points on our homepage. Many of our employees also posted links to their personal social media pages. We’d love people to connect with us on a personal basis, and follow what we’re up to. Much of our business comes from personal connections that spark new, exciting project ideas.

To this end, our website refresh includes a dedicated Contact page with a million ways to get in touch, and a handy map. Our previous site relegated this information to the footer.

We also revamped our “What We Do” page to better describe our current offerings in text analytics and social media work. Many of our customers find us through a specific product, like Globalpoint or SAGrader. But all our products/service are based on the same core technology. And we’re always interested in partnerships that leverage our unique abilities.

So we wanted this page to give you a basic sense of our technology, so you can let your mind run wild with possibilities. In the future, we’d like to add more specific examples of past projects to further stimulate your creativity.

In general, we tried to let our personality shine through a bit better in the style and copy of the new site. We work hard, but also have a lot of fun. I hope you get that sense when you visit the site.

We have plenty of updates in mind and hope to roll those out in the next few weeks. In the meantime, let us know what you think. Is there any information you’re having trouble finding? Anything we can explain better? Do you hate the color green?

Send us your comments on Twitter »

As such I wanted to pass along a few time-saving tips I use to manipulate data in Excel and get it ready for analysis. This will be part one of a three part series on working with your data in Excel.

TRANSPOSE: How to switch data from rows to columns in two easy steps.

After importing new data into Excel, you may be annoyed to find the information that you expected to be in columns is instead spread out over several rows. Indeed, many times throughout our process I find myself needing to re-orient spreadsheet data from a horizontal to a vertical axis. While copy and paste works well for small transfers, a much more elegant solution is to use Excel’s ‘Transpose’ feature. (click on any of the pictures to enlarge)

1) First, select the data you wish to re-orient and copy it to your clipboard.

2) Now, select a cell where you want to put the data. Be sure the cell is empty and there is no overlap with your previous selection. Select Paste Special (right-click), and be sure to check the Transpose box before clicking OK.

Alternatively, you can click the Paste icon from the Home menu and select Transpose from the dropdown menu.

And presto! Your columns have now become rows (or vice-versa).

Be on the lookout for the second part of this series, where we’ll be looking at several ways to manipulate your cell data to structure it just how you need it for analysis. If you have any questions on this or any other text analytics topic, drop me a line at Luis@ideaworks.com.

When enough knowledge is structured visually, patterns begin to emerge. The results are not only useful, but can be gorgeous as well.

Thanks to Matt for noticing this work of art in one of our projects.

As a child, I grew up hearing the legend of John Henry, a tireless steel-driver for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad in the 1800s. Henry, a former slave, paved the way for new railroad lines by hitting thick steel spikes into rocks with a 14-pound hammer. He was unmatched in speed and endurance.

One day a salesman comes to camp claiming he has a steam-powered drill that could out-drill any man. A contest ensues: John Henry vs. the Steam-Powered Drill.

After a half hour of drilling, the dust settles. The automatic drill has carved a nine-foot hole into the mountain. John Henry’s hole is fourteen feet deep. The crowd cheers only to watch in horror as Henry totters on his feet then crashes to the ground. A blood vessel has burst in his brain. He’s dead.

The lesson? Be wary of dehumanizing machines that promise advancement but come at a cost. (Plus, humans do better work anyway).

Technological advancement has always been met with a certain amount of apprehension. Ancient Greeks like Socrates thought the invention of writing would destroy our mental capacity for thinking and remembering. In a culture where meticulously trained scribes curated important texts, some Christians “denounced the printing press as the work of the devil”.

More recently, Americans in the 1930s feared “machines taking jobs and killing people”.

Personally, I’m glad we have these natural qualms with technology. Innovation must be paired with thoughtful, ethical and pragmatic decision-making.

At the same time, the man versus machine paradigm is unfairly divisive. Instead we should be looking for ways to effectively partner the best aspects of humanity and our technological achievements.

Technology is most useful when used as a supplement, not a replacement, for man.

Interestingly, Hollywood may be getting on board with this idea. With apologies for invoking the ridiculous, movie critic Forrest Wickham called the recent Dreamworks release Real Steel a celebration of “the supreme might of man and machine working in unison, a combination that ultimately wins out over the soulless tech geekery which aims to outmode workers altogether.”

Now, robot boxing may not be the best example of a meaningful human/machine relationship, but we’ve come a long way since John Henry.

I use Campfire for group chat every day. It’s a great way to stay connected with the rest of the team, especially since I work remotely.

Something that’s been annoying me lately are the constant messages in the Campfire stream about who is entering and leaving the room. These messages often push important content further up the page and muddy up the discussion. I’m not sure why I should care about this information in the first place, since I can already tell who is in the room by glancing at the sidebar.

There is currently no option to turn these messages off, and 37signals doesn’t have plans to build such a preference.

Chrome users can add Chromefire to gain additional options. But if you use Firefox, you’ll need a homegrown solution. It will take about 5 minutes and anyone can do it.

With thanks to Emil Sundberg as shared in this thread, here’s how to do it:

1. Download the Stylish Add-On for Firefox. Stylish allows you to restyle anything on the web with your own customizations.
    
2. Click into your Firefox Add-Ons Manager (Ctrl+Shift+A) and find the User Styles tab in the left sidebar.
    
3. Click the “Write New Style” button and insert the following code:
    

   @namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);
   @-moz-document url-prefix('https://<strong><em>yourcompany</em></strong>.campfirenow.com')
   {
       tr.timestamp_message + tr.timestamp_message,
       tr.leave_message + tr.timestamp_message,
       tr.enter_message + tr.timestamp_message,
       tr.kick_message + tr.timestamp_message,
       tr.enter_message, tr.kick_message, tr.leave_message {
         display: none !important;
       }
   }

4. Give your style a name and hit “Save”. (I called mine ‘Hide Campfire Entering/Exiting’).
    
5. Refresh your Campfire page and you’re all set!