Over the past 6 months, the RD2 team has been bitten by the cycling bug. It all started when we hired the quiet and unassuming Mark Hurd. Mark is a fantastic coder and information architect with a mountain biking and cyclocross alter ego. Almost immediately after he started work, Mark began making the 10-mile journey from his apartment in Far north Plano to the nearest Dart station. I was intrigued and began spending my weekends getting my old bike in shape and taking it out for test rides. After a little bike maintenance and training, I began making the 16-mile trek from My house in south Richardson to our West End office. Two bikes parked in the office every day started to raise interest and last month, Blake became the 3rd member of the 2-wheeled crew. He recently moved into a house just east of downtown with a 4-mile commute. After a weekend trip to Richardson Bike Mart, he was armed with everything he needed to be a full-blown bike commuter. I’m now pleased to report that Mike is strongly considering a mix of Dart rail and bike locomotion to make his daily commute.

So as it stands, roughly a quarter of the RD2 team will be peddling their way to work in 2007! New bikes are being purchased and considered. Lunch discussions now frequently stray into bike talk. And to cap it off; this week there was an informal meeting to discuss plans for bike hangers in the storage area.

This is the first in a series of post chronicling the commutes of each rider. While we all ride to work, we’ve taken unique approaches to how we ride and what kind of bikes we’ve chosen. I hope you’ll check back for future posts that are sure to be filled with geeky bike talk and fun commuting stories.

On January 3rd, Chris Griego posted a very thought provoking article about the need to create a “new standardized dummy text” that goes beyond the general paragraph display of Lorem Ipsum. This was at the beginning of a flurry of conversation at RD2 concerning this idea.

I discussed this idea with Chris in order to see where he was coming from since designers and developers look at the world through different lenses. I wanted to get to the bottom of what brought this idea up in the first place. What I began to realize is that creating a new “dummy text” could be a way to further shrink the wall that separates designers and coders. This new Lorem Ipsum would be a great way to further meld the gap between design and development by giving designers not only rich content including paragraphs, lists, hyperlinks, images, etc., but to take it a step further and also include other standard elements like form elements and even standard sized faux browser windows that help the designer stay within the correct parameters from the beginning. Having every element represented gives us the power at the beginning of a project to define which elements need to be included and styled. Or even whether we have the time within the project parameters to style standard elements like form elements, a specific issue that is often overlooked at the beginning. From there the designer can be sure to include every element and will eliminate guesswork as the project proceeds, increasing project efficiency.

So this Lorem Ipsum 2.0 document will be the skeleton with which to build websites. Every “bone” will be included and then we will simply put the skin on and shape the site into it’s unique form while keeping the elements that support this form in tact… from the beginning. That way we don’t create a figure and forget to add the spleen.

Stay tuned for updates on our progress on this important initiative.

Andy made a great post today that was very timely. It seems this post perfectly addresses the question of the past several weeks for me where people we work with are asking the questions about getting started and how to plant content. Andy hits this one between the eyes on how the lines could easily begin to blur between the independent blogger as a medium at risk or possibly on the brink of transformation. I am planting this one in the nostalgia files, tagging it, putting it on our wiki, seeding it in Technorati, and categorizing it. Excellent!

This friday (January 19th) I will have the pleasure of joining Deadman at Bend Studio. We will be opening up for Sorta. If you haven’t had the pleasure of hearing either of these two bands, you are in for a real treat! (I just hope I can learn the set in time. ha!….yikes) Get your tickets soon!

Event and ticket information can be found at www.bendstudio.com. See you Friday!

On Wednesday of this past week, I rode the Dart Rail for the first and the last time. Figuring I had an appointment that was only two stops away, and that I could be safely delivered from door to door via the Dart Rail, it made all the sense in the world. My appointment was at 10:00 am and there was a 9:51 train from nearly in front of RD2. I had a five dollar bill in hand and was ready to go…until I approached the machine where you are supposed to put the money in and get a token or a ticket or some special money that you are supposed to do something with on the train. The machine was not working. Not because it would only take single dollar bills either because someone else was trying to put his money to work (a single dollar bill). Just then the train pulled up, and I had my five dollar bill in hand, figuring that I could just make a transaction or maybe give my money to the guy with the funny hat or something. (more…)

Two weeks ago at the end of the holidays, my 10 year old daughter came to work with me. She had prepared several signs with which to decorate my office - she even made a sign for my door just so people would know for sure if I was at work (I particularly like the picture of the martini glass - wonder why she came up with that one?).

So, she set up shop at my desk and played games on her laptop while I worked. She was very professional and even wanted to stop and buy candy for the office on our way back from lunch. I was surprised she lasted the entire day without getting bored.

Anyway, the reason I’m writing this is this: One day last week I had a particularly difficult day juggling meetings, emails and project work. When I arrived home, I must have expressed my attitude about my day. When I went in to kiss her goodnight she said: “Daddy, I’m surprised you had such a bad day - everyone in your office is so nice!”

Yes they are!

The RD2 team was just as obsessed with the Macworld keynote speech today as you would have guessed us to be.

Even me, the notoriously anti-Mac intern (who currently sports an aqua 4 gig iPod nano AND a 13″ Macbook), can get excited about this stuff. Apple is community branding at its best. All of the hype and secrecy all building to one event… this is the stuff legends are made of.

This morning: Griego compiled a list of what products(s) we guessed Jobs would announce.
Brandon called the wide screen iPod. Griego (he is right about most things) called iTV, the iPhone, and more than a few specifics on the features. Blake was (unfortunately) incorrect in his guess that the phone would have rocket boosters and would cook dinner.

Right before Jobs went on, and during the announcement: Thanks, Mac Rumors Live for the constant updates.
Huddled over respective computer screens, waiting for features and (mostly) pictures.

An iPhone… with web surfing and a widescreen iPod and phone feautures and… one. button.

During the keynote: A “Price is Right” style guess of how much this thing will cost.
Still watching Macworld. Blake tweaks the javascript and gets his to refresh every 15 seconds (the rest of us have to wait 30).

In case you can’t read my high-res phone camera shot of the chalk board, it reads “iPhone Price Estimates … (phone plan not included) … Price is Right rules apply.”

Griego gets closest to the price without going over. (I told you he’s right about most everything).

After the keynote, when everyone gets back from lunch and the product page is up on Apple’s website.
The features continue to astound us. We all want one immediately… and June (the earliest any one of us can hope to get our hands on one) seems so far away.

I’m definitely the girl who is more than eager to jump up into one of those big comfortable massage chairs to get a pedicure, and in choosing reading material yesterday for my mini-retreat… I eagerly reached for a TIME magazine over the many and varied traditional fashion fare at the nail-salon.

I recently switched from TIME to the Economist at home… I can only afford (in time and money) to get through one magazine a week, and this year’s Person of the Year article had me regretting my choice.

In case you haven’t heard the buzz, the 2006 person of the year is YOU. The cover of the article even includes a shiny mirror. (Get it?)

The article remarks on the events of 2006, and the social media surge that occured:
“It’s a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It’s about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people’s network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It’s about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.”

The article and the whole issue (especially with the subsequent “People who Mattered” features) are a great read on the effects of Social Media on our society.

I’ve also recently become undeniably addicted to the blog of Jeremiah Owyang. Jeremiah focuses heavily on social media, and blogs (often) his observations and professional thoughts on what’s going on in the world of web strategy.

Social media is everywhere, and I’m loving reading about it everywhere. The question for us at RD2 is how to leverage it best to meet the needs of our clients.

To be laser focused, the right tunes are essential. My lists of favorite artists are from Bob Dylan to Skinny Puppy. For getting serious work done though, I need less words and minimal beats. In my Sennheisers tonight:

powered by ODEO

As we rounded out 2006, we spent some time discussing how to transform our process. Per the recent post by Jeff, “Web Design by Caravaggio,” a small sample was illustrated. And, as we said, it’s working. It does take a little more finesse, but the output is very meaningful. In our research, I came across this article: Don’t make the Demo look Done. I really enjoyed reading Kathy Sierra’s post on this subject. Really interesting thoughts on not taking the “Grey Screen” approach…or making the demo look too done. Thanks for the post Kathy! You bring great thoughts as to how far this should be taken. While it’s still a few steps before design, we need to remember how important it is to figure out how to properly regulate information in to get better information out. More to come on how our Grey Screen approach is working out.