I’ve had the pleasure of spending the last several months working with a terrific client on a Rals project. They quickly showed themselves to be an ideal client, standing at the intersection of work that I relish and people I enjoy collaborating with. I find myself jumping out of bed each morning, itching to head in to their office and get started on the day.

I’m going all in

I’m pleased to announce that I have accepted a permanent position with their team.

During a trip to their home office last week, the owners asked me to consider putting my consulting business aside to partner in their audacious vision. They really got my attention by asking (even insisting) that in addition to my web coding skills, I offer my business knowledge earned across the last dozen years starting new companies and helping others run theirs.

They had my number

By offering an opportunity to shape both the technology and strategic direction, they had me. My entrepreneurial drive won’t have to die in the transition; if anything, it will get more exercise than ever.

I find this transition especially thrilling because I’m joining a team who prides itself on being the best, doing the best, and giving their customers the best. The president recently told me that, “we are relentless in our pursuit of quality and perfection.” Having been around a while, I feel the truth in that.

The company is already kicking tail and taking names. Making the leap from independent contractor feels a bit like being asked to move up from the Colts special teams and join the Payton Manning offense. I’m excited at the challenge to further step up my game and make a bigger impact.

Sharp, pointy rocks at the bottom? Bring it on!

(Kuzco, The Emperor’s New Groove)

I can sense that the roller coaster just reached the top of the first hill. It’s time for an awesome ride. I’m throwing my hands up and screaming like a banshee the whole way!

I’ll be presenting at the Screaming Monkeys Web Guild meetup this evening at 6pm:

• Getting your web application up and running in minutes with Heroku
• Basic screencasting tips and techniques

We will meet in the new Northeast Indiana Innovation Center building, thanks to Cirrus ABS. If you can’t make the event tonight, check back in a few days as I should have a screencast of my presentation posted.

Making magic with Heroku

Ruby has long been a challenging language to use for small web sites because of the work required to configure and manage hosting. The investment makes perfect sense for large-scale apps, but really bogs down the smaller projects.

The last 12 months have seen tremendous strides in the ease of Ruby deployment and none more revolutionary than Heroku. I don’t want to discount other contributions like mod_rails (also known as Phusion Passenger) that will have longer-term impact. Despite the power of mod_rails, Heroku offers tremendous scalability, ease of entry, and incredibly fast deployment with almost no setup that’s unmatched.

I’ll be covering some of the basics:

• Overview
• Publishing your app in less than 60 seconds
• Creating separate staging and production deployments
• Loading all your gems
• Living with a read-only filesystem
• Grabbing a copy of your database

Getting started with screencasting

The Ruby on Rails community offers a wealth of resources for learning the framework via screencasts. Rather than just reading a blog post or a set of steps, you see the complete process as well as parts of another programmers workflow. It’s an incredibly powerful medium. I’ll be taking a few minutes this evening to share my experiences creating screencasts and will share some tips on how to get started and avoid some of the frustrations I muddled through:

• Basic software/hardware requirements
• Workflow
• Publishing options
• Getting ideas / watching the masters

I have enjoyed creating screencasts for my clients and decided to experiment with using them as a presentation tool for my July talk with Mike Krisher on version control with Git. Instead of trying to muddle through a rather complex demonstration real-time while trying to explain what was going on, I pre-recorded the demo. I didn’t record any audio, so the voice-over was done in person (which is always preferable). I went back later and voiced-over the demo so that members who couldn’t make the meetup would benefit from the demo.

Over the last several months, I have had the privilege of working with the team at Rockford Ambulance in western Michigan. Having spent several days with the leadership immersing myself in the culture and history, I have grown fond of the organization and the people who make it happen.

We are moving aggressively to revamp their branding, arming them with the tools they need to grow beyond their core emergency ambulance services. By looking beyond just web sites and brochures, we are building a strong foundation where every touch a customer has reinforces the core personality and culture Rockford exudes.

They have an amazing history of service to their community (as evidenced by the half-dozen scrapbooks stuffed with thank-you notes and praise). Their visual presentation just didn’t do them justice. They are a deeply committed organization filled with long-term employees who pride themselves on their fast, caring service. Their current logo, web site, and marketing materials had become dated and left little room to compete with larger organizations that spend heavily on marketing. The old logo, at left, was busy and wasn’t used (or even designed) consistently across each piece.

Having already invested heavily in their staff and facilities, Rockford is poised to make some serious strides in the coming years.

We went to considerable lengths to build on the history and equity already invested in the Rockford Ambulance reputation and logo over the years. Rather than throw out the old, we tweaked it, creating a bold, clean look while keeping key elements from the past.

Shown here is a sneak peek at the new Rockford logo, crafted by gifted Fort Wayne designer Mark Russet, that will make its debut in just a few weeks. I’m thrilled at all that we have in store for the coming weeks and look forward to sharing. The logo is only the beginning to a dramatic rebranding.