Vanilla Mist

A long time ago, when I was planning on working on Connections V2, I wrote a post asking users for feedback. However, a lot of things changed since then, so this calls for a new poll.

Like I said previously, Connections 2.0 is on its way. There will be a number of improvements based on both my own observations and user input over time (via email and comments on the blog).

But I would like to hear your feedback as to what would be more useful to you in terms of functionalities and design. The obvious things, such as widgets support and full sidebar showing on individual post pages are already implemented. The kind of feedback I’m looking for are things like:

• What plugins would you like the theme to support?
• How important is it to you to have an AdSense optimized version of the theme?
• Would you like to have a 3 column version of Connections?
• How about color schemes? How useful would it be to you to have other color scheme alternatives?
• What weaknesses do you think the theme has that could be fixed (other than lack of widgets support, for instance)?
• Is there something you always wished the theme offered and would like to see in the new version?

I already have a long list of improvements and fixes (code and design wise) that I would like to implement and your input will help me get clearer idea on what matters to the user the most – which might not be exactly what I suspect to be. I can’t promise that every suggestion will be implemented, especially since opinions may vary greatly, but I will compile a list of “most requested changes and improvements” and try to implement them all.

Feel free to answer any or all of the above questions or throw in any other ideas.

Thank you in advance for your input.

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Hi, folks, I’m back for some updates. Things are slowly falling back into place for me, and the big news is that I will be moving back to São Paulo next month, after 4 years living in a small quiet town. The move is due to professional reasons, I’m finally getting myself a real office and right now I’m working on the buniness model plan with a partner agency. As some of you know, I’m specializing in corporate blogging and this will be the main activity of my new business – as opposed to regular website development. This has been keeping my mind busy and away from personal issues that had taken over my life a couple of months ago. While I still have to deal with them, I’m still moving forward with my life and quite thrilled to see new horizons opening up for me professionally.

Thanks for those of you who took the time to write me with support words.

Thanks again for your patience waiting for the release of Connections 2.0. It’s still not on top of my priorities, but it’s getting closer, so don’t give up on me.

Last, but not least, I’m planning on updating this blog more frequently. Before the release of Connections, this used to be a more personal blog and now that most people come here and read my feeds to monitor for future releases, I became a little confused about the purpose of this blog. So I take personal posts to my blog in portuguese, but I’m thinking maybe I should post here more often too and not just about wordpress themes. Let’s see if I can do that without boring my audience.

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The poll to choose the name of the company has reached 100 answers. Here are the results:

So, the winner is Essentia Interactive. Loads of thanks to all of you who voted and/or suggested names, commented, etc. I can now sleep again – lol -…well, not really, because now I have a website to build, but this is supposed to be fun, as opposed to the incertainty of which name I should choose, although the process of choosing it with your help ended up being fun too. Thanks!!!

I have registered some domain names, but one of them is strangely pointing to another website and because I have once able to register a domain that was already taken (yeah, true story) I’m still not sure that I own it, but anyway, they are: essentia-interactive.com, essentiainteractive.com and essentia.ws. Don’t go there yet, there’s nothing to see.

Meanwhile, in the backstage, a couple of partnerships were discussed and as soon as I can I will make it official.

Ok, I know I was in business before the name was chosen, but it just feels so good to say it that I will say it anyway:

ESSENTIA INTERACTIVE is open for business!!! Hire me?

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Now, come on people, I need 25 12 10 7 6 3 0 (THANKS!!! ) more votes to have a winner. Essentia is winning but there is still room to Vanilla Interactive, so, please cast your vote here, it’s fast and simple and you’d help me a lot.

Thanks!

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As I wrote in the comments on the previous entry, I am still very confused with all the opinions I got from different sources, so I decided to make new graphics with my top 3 choices, based on all comments and input I received, and made it easy for you to vote – see poll below the images. This is the final voting and unless someone comes up with a name that is really better than these 3, I’ll have a winner when this poll reaches 100 votes. So… Which name do you like better?

[edit] Just to make things a little more interesting (and this comes from some email exchanges with Adam) if someone suggests a better original name and I end up choosing it, I will give them either an original WordPress theme or a simple personal website for free.

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Ok, so the naming game goes on and from never having though of using Vanilla Mist as a commercial name I went to actually liking the idea very much. My first choice was Abstraction. No one likes it!!! lol So I dropped this one. Of all the names that were suggested, these are the onnes I like the most – and I made some fake graphics to help me visualize the choices:

Doesn’t Vanilla Interactive sound like the designs are boring and bland as in “plain vanilla”? This is my only issue with this one, if it wasn’t for that, I’d settle for it right away.

Does this one sound like a real agency with credibility?

Doesn’t this sound like “mixed” media when said out loud?

I don’t know what could go along with Essentia…

These seem to be the finalists, as many people liked Vanilla Mist in some form and I’ve had positive responses to Essentia. But it seems like I can find issues with all these names. So, tell me what your impressions are and vote for real!!!

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First I’d like to thank everyone who took the time to help me find a name for my company. The search is not over yet and if you have more ideas, please please post them here. However, I feel that I’m almost there while I’m starting to like the following – and I’d like you to leave a comment and vote on these, please!!!

• Abstraction
• Mist – or vanilla mist, or vanilla: as some people seemed to find Vanilla Mist a valid name for an agency, so, well, it’s not out of question. What do you think about that?
• Savour or Savoury | Savor or Savory – which spelling, btw?
• Flavor (Interactive?) – there s a Web Flavor, though, so maybe this one is not a good idea…
• Essentia : it means “essence” in latin. Does this name sound good?? Or just something that needs to be explined way too much?

And which do you like better to follow the name: interactive, solutions, design, web, any other suggestion? How about words that are made up, don’t mean anything, but sound good?

Again, I haven’t made up my mind yet, I’m still brainstormimg and I don’t have to decide among the above, these are just some of my favorites so far. It’s hard for me to know which names sound good or strange in English, being English my second language. So all of your opinions are greatly appreciated. Even if you can’t suggest a name, telling me how these names sound and if they are appropriate is already of big, big help!!!

All I can say is that when this search is over I’ll finally be able to sleep again! lol So, go ahead and vote, suggest, anything will do – and many thanks in advance!!!

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I need serious help finding a name for my web development agency. This is the weirdest thing: I have clients and don’t have a name!!!!!!! I’ve been on it for over 6 months and I can’t come up with a name that:

• is creative and strong without losing identity with the industry
• is suitable in 2 different languages at least: Portuguese and English
• has actual meaning in itself but doesn’t sound like a standard over-used name such as “e-solutions”, “liquid-design”, etc…

It’s really hard and being such a perfectioniost I won’t settle for just any name. I don’t know if someday my agency will be very big, but I have to keep this possibility in mind – and this affects how I name it too.

So I gave this some thought and decided to post this to see if any of you guys can give me some ideas, insights, etc…

Here are some guidelines I’m trying to follow:

I can’t have a name that implies I’m just simply a design firm. I do more than that. It’s a multidisciplinary business that involves strategy, information architecture, usability, branding, etc. I also can’t have a name that is easilly pronounceable in english but not in portuguese (and the other way around). Words like “throughout”, “thoughtful”, “world”, “brought” and such won’t do. Names that are “overly creative” like “paint the monkey” or “banana pixels” might be memorable but, well, would you hire someone from “banana pixels”, to make your corporate website? So, you get the idea. I don’t mind having a name that is not self-explanatory as I can always use other words attached to it, such as “interactive” (i.e.: beehive intreractive, where “beehive” implies hard work and “interactive” identifies the type of business), as long as the first word is strong enough, holds some kind of suitable concept and sounds believable and trustworthy as in “I can trust these people with my website”.

So, PLEASE, help me out here if you have any insights or ideas?

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I still haven’t been able to pile down all my emails and have not felt very well in the past couple of days, so I still have a lot of email reading to do. I am also working on 2 client’s projects and in desperate need for more coders to work with…

In the middle of all this, I did however manage to finish almost finish the first version of my personal website:

http://www.patriciamuller.com

Please stop by and let me know what you think. It’s pretty simple, but I had been postponing it for a long time and for the time being I’m happy with the results. I will add more sections in the near future, though.

I feel a bit frustrated that I’m not being able to take more commercial projects, even though I have been receiving several requests. If you are reading this and can code WordPress themes, PLEASE get in touch with me.

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Here’s an interesting perspecive on timeframe/budget/scope applied to web projects. From the 37 Signals’ Signal vs. Noise blog article, entitled “Geting Real“:

“Pick two: good, fast, or cheap.”

(…) for example, if your client has $50,000 to spend, and needs the project done in 8 weeks, then the scope is flexible. If the scope isn’t flexible, and they need it done in 8 weeks, then the budget needs to be flexible. If the budget and scope aren’t flexible, the the timeframe needs to be flexible. Something has to give if you want to deliver a great project. Trying to make a fixed scope, fixed timeframe, and a fixed budget fit a project is like trying to put a square peg in a round hole.

While I agree with this perspective, I know for a fact that some agencies deliver all 3, no flexibility, period. However a fourth factor needs to give: the team. This is possible in one – and in one only – situation: when people are willing to work in extraordinarily demanding conditions because working for agency “xyz” and being a part of project “abc” is might be “good” for their carreers. I’ve seen it happen. Been there, did that for the exact ammount of time it took me to realize how incredibly unfair that was and that we (the team) were paying the price for what made the agency look good. So good that more and more people were willing to work there, under the exact same conditions. We were feeding the system ourselves. And so, I left…

I’m not sure how this works in other countries. I consider myself to be a very hard worker and extremely commited. While running my own agency, I work a lot and seldomly can afford to take personal time in regular intervals. Pretty much the same way it was back in those days when I worked for this specific agency. But I am doing this for myself, for my own benefit. It’s a personal decision, no one will ‘fire me’ if I take personal time, as if this was some kind of sinful action. I guess in the end, I’m still the one delivering flexibility. And so, I agree: something has to give!

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