The legacy blog, which always produced quality niche content, was launched very rapidly with little planning and design thought.

Legacy Blog Design:

With this opportunity, and a team full of ideas, we went through our standard process: identifying the blog’s goals, defining the audience, and documenting everything we felt could improve the blog’s performance.

Here are the key changes resulting from this process:

• Design overhaul to illustrate authority and importance
• Highlight featured posts to focus discussion around hot topics
• Place emphasis on blog contributors to build credibility
• Place more emphasis on comments to facilitate content creation and reader ownership
• Associate an image with each post to stimulate interest
• Simplify post categories associated for streamlined topic navigation
• Improve the blog’s structure for better search engine optimization
• Add social share options (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) to improve reach

New Blog Design:

Only one month after launching the new blog, the number of pageviews had almost doubled, while visitors maintained a strong average time on the site. Even several months after the blog’s launch, traffic has been higher than ever before.

This occurred with no additional promotion, the same content contributors, and the same post frequency — the only change being the new design.  Now the AmericanEHR blog, which was once an undervalued area of the site, is one of the top performing and key selling features of the program, facilitating the community’s growth.

The video was a created by using long exposures which captured the iPads movement through space creating three-dimensional forms in light.

The process started by creating software models of three-dimensional typography, objects and animations. These were then rendered into cross sections, making a series of outlines like a virtual CAT scan. The cross sections were then played back as movies on the iPad and captured in long exposure photographs as it was dragged through the air to extrude shapes.  Each long exposure still is a single image in a composite stop frame animation.

Each frame is a long exposure photograph of 3-6 seconds. 5,500 photographs were taken and only half of these were used in the final edit.

But it doesn’t have to.

In fact, more and more we’re seeing that with each of these dead ends, there’s almost always a unique opportunity to continue the customer journey.

What if, after your customer requests a quote, they are asked if they would like to join your mailing list? After joining your mailing list, what if they are asked if they would like to register for an upcoming event? And after they register for an event, what if they are presented with an engaging, relevant blog post?

Great websites do an excellent job of getting people to take meaningful actions in areas that may seem like dead ends.

Facebook invites people who’ve logged out to download their mobile application.

After purchasing a product on EBay, you’re asked to review the person who sold it to you.

And on a recent project we did for Slurpee Canada, after you sign up to receive a FREE SLURPEE COUPON, we ask you to join in on the conversation on Facebook.

Take a look at your website user flow, or see where your visitors are dropping out using your web analytics tools, and make a good list of all the potential dead ends. See if there are any opportunities for you to keep them engaged, and continue their journey. How far can you take them?

With that said, I’m not going to leave you with a dead end. How about talking to us about your marketing?

LIKEaBIKE is designed with child safety in mind. Although lightweight (approx 3.5 kg), quality materials such as birch, beech plywood, aluminum, and the use of high grade steel fasteners ensure that a LIKEaBIKE can withstand any amount of rough and tumble. The saddle can be adjusted for height as your child grows. In addition, the cotton saddle cover is removable and fully washable.

Our son Samuel got a LIKEaBIKE just before his second birthday. The bike performed just as advertised. He was able to instantly maneuver around, and by the time he was three he was weaving in and around people with poise and confidence on the sea wall here in Vancouver. He has clearly loved his LIKEaBIKE from day one, and he’s gotten every bit as much joy out of it, if not more, than any child could have had on a tricycle or traditional pedal bike with training wheels.

The real question, however, is: “Are these two-wheel push bikes more effective at teaching balance than a traditional pedal bike with training wheels?”

Well, today, after two years on the LIKEaBIKE we thought we’d try our son out on a standard pedal bike. We wanted to see if he could pick it up without training wheels.

Let’s let the video do the talking.

Obviously the LIKEaBIKE experiment was a resounding success. This product not only provided years of enjoyment for our child, but it looked cool, and the all-wood design is environmentally friendly (not to mention lighter) than a traditional bike. And, most importantly, this product innovation actually changed the way our son learned balance—this will undoubtedly have an impact on his ability to adapt to other sports and life skills, as good balance is a fundamental skill for so many activities.

LIKEaBIKE has taken something as simple as the bike and reinvented it in a way that has a strong and meaningful impact.

On June 15th Hot Tomali officially moved into our own building at 1441 E Pender St. This move was a big step for the little agency that I started in the living room of a one bedroom West End apartment in the summer of 1998. Since then, we’ve upgraded our work spaces a few times as necessitated by growth. The first big move came in October 2008 when I took a flying leap and hung out a shingle at Homer and Helmcken in Yaletown, above what used to be the swanky Century Grill (now the Blue Water Cafe). That 1,200 sq/ft space saw us hire our first employees, land our first big contract, and win our first awards. Ah, memories.

Three years later (2001) we were in the middle of the dot bomb crash and the once lucrative office space in Yaletown was now plentiful. Rather than renew the lease on our cozy little studio, we opted to move across the street into a bigger space that had previously been home to notable organizations such as Vancouver Film School and Stratford Internet (a big victim when the dot.com bubble burst). Things were good—we had high tech wiring, built in modular workstations, and air conditioning that “usually worked” in this amazing brick and beam construction office space that had been converted from an old warehouse. More contracts, employees and awards soon followed.

A couple of years later our neighbours, Network Productions (makers of the “Bell Making The Cut” reality series) moved out and we opted for further expansion. We blew through the wall and added more office space and a production facility with two HD editing bays. Our already bustling studio now felt like a real agency, with departments, separate offices, and even a kitchen sink.

Now you might ask, if times were good, and the space was great, then why move? Well, being the principal owner of Hot Tomali, I was always a little bit dismayed with the fact that we’d spent a great deal of money to work in all these trendy buildings over the course of a decade, yet aside from some great memories, we had nothing to show for it. We were also faced with the need to expand again, and I was reluctant to invest a huge sum of money into a space that we might outgrow in a couple of years.

I had been passively following the commercial real estate market for several years with a sense that when the time was right we would make a move. About a year ago there was all this inventory coming on the market and it was just sitting there, often dropping in price by hundreds of thousands of dollars, as anxious owners tried to instigate a sale in a stagnant market. The media was talking about the real estate bubble being burst, and everyone was speculating about where the bottom might be. As with any market downturn, you had your doom and gloom guys trying to scare the pants off of everyone by saying we faced a recession worse than the great depression. What were we to make of it?

Sub-prime mortgage crisis be damned, I wanted my own space! I ramped up my search efforts and we looked at several offices in Yaletown, Hot Tomali’s home for the last 10 years. The thing that held me back was mainly the fact that most available spaces for sale were the same size or smaller than what we were already in, and the only ones that were bigger had big strata fees to go with those big mortgage payments. It just didn’t feel right—I just couldn’t justify the commitment.

Working with our realtor, Mario Felicella over at Sutton, we started to venture out a bit. We checked out some live/work studios in Coal Harbour that were funky, but too impractical for a company of our size. We investigated some big lofts in Gastown and the Cambie area, which were super cool, but required a full on gutting and reno before they would be suitable for us. Then, we finally ventured over to the Commercial Drive area to check out this building on East Pender St. that I had found on the Internet.

It was love at first sight. Upon arriving to look at the building I was immediately impressed by the stunning and awe inspiring facade of the place. My initial thought was that the building almost seemed out of place—a structure of this nature would surely belong in a chic-modern European setting such as Copenhagen or Barcelona.

The building’s developer, and current occupant, Randy Lim of Revolution Designs met with us and gave us the tour. Randy’s appreciation for fine design is apparent in his passion for every detail in the space. Everything was custom fabricated—there are no Home Depot finishings to be found here.

The building exterior is comprised of structural concrete block that has been finished with expert precision. The facade is finished with galvanized, custom fabricated paneled soffits and downpipe, and custom exterior trim.

Arriving at the 11 foot tall entrance doors makes visitors feel as though they’ve arrived at the residence of some gigantic being. These towering doors provide a touch of grandiose in an otherwise minimalist modern design, and often times when entering through them I’m reminded of the feeling a child might have entering an intentionally oversized theme house at Disneyland.

The main office at the front of the building provides retail worthy storefront, with floor to ceiling windows and a fantastic concrete feature wall that runs up the entire height of the building. (This space is currently occupied by our tenants, Mango and Aloe Designs.)

The staircase to the second level is comprised of powder coated, checker plated metal stairs, a 15-foot feature wall, and railings with custom fabricated powder coated steel pickets and thick commercial glazing. These touches provide a futuristic design element that would be worthy of a setting in a Phillip K. Dick novel.

At the top of the stairs, visitors are greeted by a lush garden deck that houses a large bamboo planter. This cedar decked patio is surrounded by floor to ceiling glass on three sides, providing natural illumination to the second floor offices and the stairwell below.

The offices on the top floor are furnished with built-in millwork, consisting of white laminate storage and custom fabricated workstations with powder coated metal frames and larch counter tops. The view from the north side of the building provides a stunning view of the North Shore mountains and the Vancouver shipyards.

The backside of the building features a mezzanine level, which sits halfway between the ground level and the second floor of the building. This space overlooks an additional 1,000+ sq/ft of broadcast production and photo studio with 16+ foot ceilings.

Shortly after arriving on the top level of the building for the first time I said “this is it”. It was essentially a turn key solution that provided ample space for our staff, a great studio space for us to aggressively expand our production capabilities, and the entire building in itself was inspirational.

Although I had some hesitation to move away from Yaletown after 10 years, the Commercial Drive district is a thriving creative community with great amenities. With local hot spots like Stella’s, The Reef, and Havana Cafe all within blocks of the agency, there are a ton of options for lunches and client meetings.

All in all, the benefits of having a place to call our own simply outweighed sticking with the status quo and paying through the nose to lease for another 10 years. Some people cautioned that we were buying during a time of incredible uncertainty. I believe the best opportunities to be found are really only available when you’re willing to take a risk. This step in our evolution holds many similarities to that fateful “flying leap” I took 11 years ago when I leased our first office space. The difference this time around is that I jumped into something we can take pride in and call our own.

Ultimately, you can put the right creative people pretty much anywhere and have success. The space doesn’t define the agency so much as the agency defines the space. That being said, smart agencies are realizing that they need to make good business decisions to grow and prosper for the long haul. Wise investments provide valuable equity and resources for future expansion and growth. It’s not all about drawing pretty pictures, and making people laugh—it’s about setting goals and executing a plan to get you there.

As much as I love our new high-end digs, I will never forget the experiences I learned by bootstrapping an agency in my one bedroom apartment in 1998. Many agencies try to sell themselves as “new age” because they keep their overhead down by using IKEA furniture and buy their boardroom tables at garage sales. My question for them is what will you have to show for your leased office space 10 years from now?