Columbus, Ohio — Three Dynamit clients in the Quick Service Restaurant sector were recognized with awards in January at the 2012 Achievement in Marketing Awards hosted by the American Marketing Association.

Columbus-based Charley's Grilled Subs was recognized as Best in Mobile Marketing for the 'Charley's at the Bat' campaign which utilized SMS and game play to drive e-club sign-ups, drive in-store traffic and reward participation. With 400 locations world-wide, the campaign positioned Charley's to communicate directly with loyal customers about new products, offers and company news.

California-based Panda Express was awarded Runner-Up in the overall Online Marketing category which includes email marketing, websites, social media and mobile. The new Panda site launched in February with a focus on signature menu items and limited time offers. The redesigned site showcases the heritage of the brand and personality of the leading fast casual Chinese food concept in the United States.

Dynamit's client work was also recognized for Best Website, best in Overall Online Marketing category and Best in Show – the Grand AIM Award.

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About AMA Awards: The annual Achievement In Marketing gala is central Ohio's premier industry event showcasing the most outstanding and unique efforts of the marketing and communication community. Columbus AMA totals approximately 220 members, including practitioners, academics and students.

About Charley's Grilled Subs: Founded in 1986, the Columbus, Ohio-based company has 500 locations in 43 states and 18 countries.

About Panda Express: Founded in 1983, 2013 marks Panda Express’ 30th Anniversary. With close to 1,500 locations internationally, Panda Express is part of Panda Restaurant Group, the world leader in Asian dining experiences, which also includes other a successful concepts Panda Inn and Hibachi-San. Panda Express is best known for its wide variety of original recipes including their famous Orange Chicken , SweetFire Chicken Breast , Award Winning Honey Walnut Shrimp and Shanghai Angus Steak. For more information visit, www.pandaexpress.com, or become a fan on Facebook.

About Dynamit: Dynamit is an end-to-end strategy and software company focused on delivering the highest quality digital work with its clients. A multi-disciplined team partners with client stakeholders in IT, marketing, strategy and communications to realize robust solutions with implications for their customers and bottom line. Dynamit serves clients in multiple sectors including: restaurant, retail, healthcare, hospitality and media.

Dynamit was recognized on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing companies in the United States in 2012 and was named the Ohio Interactive Agency of the Year in 2011. Client work has been honored in the Webby Awards, The New York Times and a variety of other publications. Dynamit is based in Columbus, Ohio.

We’re lucky to partner with a wide variety of clients. The work we deliver cuts across many industries and impacts IT, business and marketing stakeholders. We engage with international as well as local brands and organizations and build meaningful software for $100 billion companies as well as small non-profits. Our goal is to find important projects with clients who value structured, data-driven solutions to their problems.

We have a long track record of working with various local organizations in our hometown of Columbus and are proud to add to that list with the launch of a new site for The Columbus Symphony Orchestra. This project was a big first step in establishing a more contemporary presence for CSO – a step we know will be followed by many more.

A big goal of this relaunch was to create efficiency and usability by way of vastly improved architecture. The project team put great effort toward consolidation and navigation that accesses a logical and clear architecture schema.

Another goal was to begin the symphony experience online – to establish the essence of a performance and the gravity of an event in an early interaction with CSO in-browser. We had access to a wonderful collection of photography which is used to introduce the user to artists and moments This is especially true on the home page where cadence and rotation builds anticipation – one of the core sensations to a true CSO performance.

CSO staff have full control of the hero graphics as well as artist/calendar content throughout the site. A balance was pursued to maintain a strong data-driven interface while enabling a non-technical staff to control the site.

We’re very proud of the work we’ve delivered with CSO and of the control/ownership we’ve established for their staff.

We’re proud to report we’ve won a Gold Horizon Interactive Award in the Restaurant category with our client Panda Express.

The Horizon Interactive Awards is an annual international competition that recognizes the best websites, videos, online advertising, print media and mobile applications. 2012 was the 11th year for the competition and saw thousands of entries from nearly all 50 states and 25 other countries.

Dynamit partnered with Panda Express to create an engaging website with heavy emphasis on product visuals. This new website conveys key elements of the Panda Express brand: a welcoming atmosphere, fresh food, rich history and employee empowerment. Launched in February 2012, the website is intended to provide guests with easily-accessible information, highlight new products and services, and build engagement that results in increased store visits. Results since launch have been positive including a 33% increase in visits, 53% increase in page views and 31% increase in time spent on site.

We’ve always been driven to deliver the best with our clients because we believe there’s no other way to approach business. That said, external recognition is of course validating and encouraging.

We’re proud to report two Official Webby Honorees this year.

The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet. In these 17th Annual Webby Awards more than 11,000 entries were submitted from all 50 states and over 60 countries. Honoree distinction was bestowed on the top 15% of all work entered.

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CD 102.5 :: Radio & Podcasts category*

CD 102.5 is our local independent radio station in Columbus, Ohio and has been operating for over 20 years. We, like so many others in the Central Ohio area, support and need independent music and perspective. This was an important project for us and we’re thrilled to partner with the CD 102.5 team.

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The Aesthete :: Blog – Cultural category**

The Aesthete is a project of Joe Mimran – the Canadian fashion designer and entrepreneur behind Club Monaco and Joe Fresh. Dynamit has served as a digital partner to Joe Fresh, and it’s parent company Loblaw, since early 2011.

The Aesthete is a digital magazine that brings together New York's inspiring and influential characters, celebrating the minds that weave the New York City's cultural fabric. We were proud to deliver this project with a fantastic group of partners.

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Many thanks to our clients – CD 102.5 and The Aesthete along with our entire portfolio of partners – our team, friends and colleagues. It’s because of you all that we get to do the work we love every day.

*Criteria:

Websites & Mobile:

content, structure and navigation, visual design, functionality, interactivity and overall experience

**Social:

content, creativity, engagement, overall experience

Dynamit is looking for account leads with a passion for digital/technology:

An Account Person on the Dynamit team will:

• Have experience managing client relationships, preferably in an interactive agency or by leading digital projects at a traditional agency.
• Fully understand a client's business model, industry and resources in order to deliver contracted work and proactively identify opportunities that will impact the client's business objectives and grow the relationship.
• Serve as the primary client contact and be responsible for day-to-day communication.
• Have extremely strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Work closely with strategists and projects managers, acting as a conduit between Dynamit and clients.
• Be extremely comfortable with and passionate about digital -- have the ability to solve problems with digital answers and communicate in the space.
• Make sure all aspects of the project have balanced attention and are aligned with the scope, budget and timelines while maintaining a high level of quality.
• Experience is important, but personality is key. Our culture is what drives us – we're looking to build our team with someone who both fits and contributes to it.

*This position will involve moderate travel.

The position is full time at our office in the Arena District in Columbus, Ohio.

If this description sounds like you and you are interested, please submit a resume along with other helpful information to jamie at dynamit dot us.

About dynamIt
Dynamit is an end-to-end strategy and software company focused on delivering the highest quality digital work with its clients. A multi-disciplined team partners with client stakeholders in IT, marketing, strategy and communications to realize robust solutions with implications for their customers and bottom line. Dynamit serves clients in multiple sectors including: restaurant, retail, healthcare, hospitality and media.

Dynamit was recognized on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing companies in the United States in 2012 and was named the Ohio Interactive Agency of the Year in 2011. Client work has been honored in the Webby Awards, The New York Times and a variety of other publications. Dynamit is based in Columbus, Ohio.

We’re pleased to announce that Dynamit Technologies is number 1,077 on the Inc. 5000 list and number 5 in Columbus, Ohio. Having increased revenue by 293 percent in three years, our growth is fueled by our deeply passionate staff members and amazing client family throughout the United States.

Since the start of 2012, Dynamit has added clients in the hospitality, travel, education, health care, professional services and quick serve restaurant (QSR) industries. We’ve hired 12 new staff members in Columbus and expanded into Chicago.

We’re very fortunate to have a such a talented team of strategists, designers, account managers and developers whose dedication and enthusiasm clearly stand out in the innovative work we produce.

Most importantly, we’re thankful for the reason we’re in business today – our clients. Your continued confidence in Dynamit’s ability to deliver beautiful, ingenious solutions for your organizations drives our commitment to constant improvement.

We’re honored that our growth ranks us amongst so many amazing companies. But we’re far more excited about possibilities around the corner and for years to come.

— —

View the Full Inc 5000 List Here…

Dynamit is an independent end-to-end digital consultancy and agency headquartered in the Arena District in Columbus, Ohio. In recent years we’ve been named a Best Place to Work, honored as Ohio Interactive Agency of the Year and have delivered Webby-recognized work with numerous clients.

Our clients engage us for the opportunity to work with teams rooted in strong progressive engineering, strategy, design and delivery. Some of those clients include: Hilton Worldwide, The BBC, The AP , Panda Express, Whataburger, Limited Brands, Joe Fresh, McGraw-Hill, Bell Helicopter and The Ohio State Medical Center.

A career at Dynamit involves utilizing and improving your core skill set, learning and developing new knowledge and solving problems for clients every day. We are a collection of passionate, competitive and curious individuals intent on delivering top-tier work that re-establishes the bar.

We’re a diverse team of geeks, creatives, strategists, communicators, scientists and entrepreneurs focused on building incredible things with our clients and an amazing place to work together. Dynamit is definitely a second family.

Position:
(Full Time)
iOS Developer

Location:
Columbus, Ohio

Job Description:
This position is responsible for the engineering and/or development of native iOS applications. This developer will collaborate closely with strategy, business requirements and design team and communicate early and often as projects are built out.

Experience/Skills:

• Objective-C, Cocoa, C, JSON, XML, SQL
• iOS UI controls, Apple OSX and developer tools
• Core iOS frameworks and toolkits: CoreData, CoreLocation, CoreGraphics, MapKit, CFNetwork, MessageUI, EventKit, StoreKit, MediaPlayer
• GUI development: HTML, CSS, Javascript (jQuery preferred), Ajax, Json/XML
• Strong experience in object-oriented development
• Formalized QA/testing and revision-based development
• Version Control (Git / GitHub / CVS / Subversion)
• Estimating application project timelines

Qualifications:

• 1-3 years experience building and deploying iOS native applications
• Multiple applications live in App Store
• Ability to write clear, web-standard, well documented code
• Track record working within team environment inclusive of designers, peer developers and business/requirements team
• Desire and ability to work in a fast-pace high pressure environment with deadlines and high standards
• Experience implementing complex website and application interface designs
• Strong understanding of production
• Outstanding communications and listening skills – team and client
• Good time management skills
• A desire to improve and independent work ethic
• High interest in the field of web, technology, mobile, usability and design
• A passion for learning

Travel Requirements:
This position requires little travel, if any. Possible: current client sites, conferences.

Benefits Include:

• Competitive Salary
• Fully paid premiums for employees – dental/vision/medical policies
• Parking
• Flexible PTO

This position is exempt based on the FLSA laws.

Dynamit is an equal opportunity employer.

Please send a resume and relevant information to jobs@dynamit.us

Dynamit is an independent end-to-end digital consultancy and agency headquartered in the Arena District in Columbus, Ohio. In recent years we’ve been named a Best Place to Work, honored as Ohio Interactive Agency of the Year and have delivered Webby-recognized work with numerous clients.

Our clients engage us for the opportunity to work with teams rooted in strong progressive engineering, strategy, design and delivery. Some of those clients include: Hilton Worldwide, The BBC, The AP , Panda Express, Whataburger, Limited Brands, Joe Fresh, McGraw-Hill, Bell Helicopter and The Ohio State Medical Center.

A career at Dynamit involves utilizing and improving your core skill set, learning and developing new knowledge and solving problems for clients every day. We are a collection of passionate, competitive and curious individuals intent on delivering top-tier work that re-establishes the bar.

We’re a diverse team of geeks, creatives, strategists, communicators, scientists and entrepreneurs focused on building incredible things with our clients and an amazing place to work together. Dynamit is definitely a second family.

Position:
(Full Time)
Designer

Location:
Columbus, Ohio

Job Description:
This position is responsible for creating design concepts and assets for websites, applications, systems and campaigns. The designer will collaborate with strategy, account and development teams to develop creative direction and assets for clients.

Experience/Skills:

• Extremely well versed with Adobe Creative Suite including a strong command of PhotoShop, experience with Illustrator and knowledge of Indesign
• Strong knowledge and understanding of usability, web trends and user interface design
• Ability to develop strong design concept and assets based on business requirements, brand and strategy
• Ability to build out system and application interfaces predicated on core concept designs, requirements and wireframes

Qualifications:

• 2-4 years experience designing websites, interactive applications and web assets
• Strong digital portfolio
• Track record working within team environment inclusive of developers peer designers and business/requirements team
• Desire and ability to work in a fast-pace high pressure environment with deadlines and high standards
• Strong understanding of production and asset creation
• Understanding of HTML, dHTML and cross-browser/platform parameters (do not need to be able to code)
• Familiarity with JavaScript, CSS and AJAX capabilities (do not need to be able to code)
• Outstanding communications and listening skills – team and client
• Good time management skills
• A desire to improve and independent work ethic
• High interest in the field of web, technology, usability and design
• A passion for learning

Travel Requirements:
This position requires little travel, if any. Possible: current client sites, conferences.

Benefits Include:

• Competitive Salary
• Fully paid premiums for employees – dental/vision/medical policies
• Parking
• Flexible PTO

This position is exempt based on the FLSA laws.

Dynamit is an equal opportunity employer.

Please send a resume and relevant information to jobs@dynamit.us

Dynamit is an independent end-to-end digital consultancy and agency headquartered in the Arena District in Columbus, Ohio. In recent years we’ve been named a Best Place to Work, honored as Ohio Interactive Agency of the Year and have delivered Webby-recognized work with numerous clients.

Our clients engage us for the opportunity to work with teams rooted in strong progressive engineering, strategy, design and delivery. Some of those clients include: Hilton Worldwide, The BBC, The AP , Panda Express, Whataburger, Limited Brands, Joe Fresh, McGraw-Hill, Bell Helicopter and The Ohio State Medical Center.

A career at Dynamit involves utilizing and improving your core skill set, learning and developing new knowledge and solving problems for clients every day. We are a collection of passionate, competitive and curious individuals intent on delivering top-tier work that re-establishes the bar.

We’re a diverse team of geeks, creatives, strategists, communicators, scientists and entrepreneurs focused on building incredible things with our clients and an amazing place to work together. Dynamit is definitely a second family.

Position:
(Full Time)
Senior Front End / User Interface Developer

Location:
Columbus, Ohio

Job Description:
This position is responsible for collaboration with design and strategy team culminating in the technical delivery of website designs and application interfaces. This development position is responsible for being aware of and utilizing technology, design and usability best practices to enhance and optimize projects.

Significant Experience with:

• Valid XHTML 4.01
• HTML 5
• CSS2.1 / CSS3
• CSS Grids / CSS Layout
• JavaScript / Ajax – Complex DOM manipulation
• jQuery
• jQuery Plugins
• Progressive Enhancement / Graceful Degradation
• HTML and CSS Specifications (W3C / WHATWG)
• Website Speed / Performance Optimization
• Cross-Browser / Cross-Platform Development (including Cross-Browser Bugs and Inconsistencies)
• Document Object Model (DOM)
• Image Editing Tools (Photoshop, Fireworks, etc.)
• Web Font Embedding / Licensing

Experience with:

• Responsive Web Design
• Mobile Web Development
• Mobile Web Performance
• HTML5 APIs (Canvas, Geolocation, Video, etc.)
• Data Formats (e.g. JSON, XML)
• Internationalization / Localization
• Accessibility

Familiarity with:

• HTML5 Boilerplate
• Modernizr
• CSS Frameworks / Resets
• UX / Usability
• Debugging Tools (Firebug, etc)
• Dojo / MooTools / Prototype
• HTML5/CSS3 Polyfills
• CSS Pre-Processors (LESS / Sass)
• Version Control (Git / GitHub / CVS / Subversion)
• Back-end languages/technologies (PHP, Ruby, .NET, etc)
• Microdata / Microformats
• CMS (WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, etc)
• Functional Programming
• SVG
• SEO Basics

Qualifications:

• 3-5 Years experience front-end development including high-fidelity website and application interface delivery
• Ability to write clear, web-standard, well documented code
• Track record working within team environment inclusive of designers, peer developers and business/requirements team
• Desire and ability to work in a fast-pace high pressure environment with deadlines and high standards
• Experience implementing complex website and application interface designs
• Strong understanding of production
• Outstanding communications and listening skills – team and client
• Good time management skills
• A desire to improve and independent work ethic
• High interest in the field of web, technology, usability and design
• A passion for learning

Travel Requirements:
This position requires little travel, if any. Possible: current client sites, conferences.

Benefits Include:

• Competitive Salary
• Fully paid premiums for employees – dental/vision/medical policies
• Parking
• Flexible PTO

This position is exempt based on the FLSA laws.

Dynamit is an equal opportunity employer.

Please send a resume and relevant information to jobs@dynamit.us

Dynamit is an independent end-to-end digital consultancy and agency headquartered in the Arena District in Columbus, Ohio. In recent years we’ve been named a Best Place to Work, honored as Ohio Interactive Agency of the Year and have delivered Webby-recognized work with numerous clients.

Our clients engage us for the opportunity to work with teams rooted in strong progressive engineering, strategy, design and delivery. Some of those clients include: Hilton Worldwide, The BBC, The AP , Panda Express, Whataburger, Limited Brands, Joe Fresh, McGraw-Hill, Bell Helicopter and The Ohio State Medical Center.

A career at Dynamit involves utilizing and improving your core skill set, learning and developing new knowledge and solving problems for clients every day. We are a collection of passionate, competitive and curious individuals intent on delivering top-tier work that re-establishes the bar.

We’re a diverse team of geeks, creatives, strategists, communicators, scientists and entrepreneurs focused on building incredible things with our clients and an amazing place to work together. Dynamit is definitely a second family.

Position:
(Full Time)
PHP Developer

Location:
Columbus, Ohio

Job Description:
This position is responsible for the engineering and/or development of websites, application and tools. Responsibilities may also include requirements gathering and technical strategy.

Experience/Skills:

• Languages/Frameworks: PHP 5.3+
• Web Platform: MVC Architectural Patterns
• Database: Understanding of RDBMS with experience using MySQL
• GUI development: HTML, CSS, Javascript (jQuery preferred), Ajax, Json/XML. DOM. JS framework experience a plus
• Formalized QA/testing and revision-based development
• Version Control (Git / GitHub / CVS / Subversion)
• Experience estimating development project timelines

Qualifications:

• 2-4 Years experience building data-driven web applications
• Ability to write clear, web-standard, well documented code
• Track record working within team environment inclusive of designers, peer developers and business/requirements team
• Desire and ability to work in a fast-pace high pressure environment with deadlines and high standards
• Experience implementing complex website and application interface designs
• Strong understanding of production
• Outstanding communications and listening skills – team and client
• Good time management skills
• A desire to improve and independent work ethic
• High interest in the field of web, technology, usability and design
• A passion for learning

Travel Requirements:
This position requires little travel, if any. Possible: current client sites, conferences.

Benefits Include:

• Competitive Salary
• Fully paid premiums for employees – dental/vision/medical policies
• Parking
• Flexible PTO

This position is exempt based on the FLSA laws.

Dynamit is an equal opportunity employer.

Please send a resume and relevant information to jobs@dynamit.us

Dynamit is an independent end-to-end digital consultancy and agency headquartered in the Arena District in Columbus, Ohio. In recent years we’ve been named a Best Place to Work, honored as Ohio Interactive Agency of the Year and have delivered Webby-recognized work with numerous clients.

Our clients engage us for the opportunity to work with teams rooted in strong progressive engineering, strategy, design and delivery. Some of those clients include: Hilton Worldwide, The BBC, The AP , Panda Express, Whataburger, Limited Brands, Joe Fresh, McGraw-Hill, Bell Helicopter and The Ohio State Medical Center.

A career at Dynamit involves utilizing and improving your core skill set, learning and developing new knowledge and solving problems for clients every day. We are a collection of passionate, competitive and curious individuals intent on delivering top-tier work that re-establishes the bar.

We’re a diverse team of geeks, creatives, strategists, communicators, scientists and entrepreneurs focused on building incredible things with our clients and an amazing place to work together. Dynamit is definitely a second family.

Position:
(Full Time)
.NET Developer

Location:
Columbus, Ohio

Job Description:
This position is responsible for the engineering and/or development of websites, application and tools. Responsibilities may also include requirements gathering and technical strategy.

Experience/Skills:

• Languages/Framework: Minimum of ASP.NET 3.5, C# (preferred), VB.NET also acceptable
• Web Platform: Must have experience building rich applications in either Web Forms of ASP.NET MVC (preferred)
• Development tools/IDE: Visual Studio 2008/2010, SQL Server Management Studio
• Database: Minimum intermediate understanding of SQL required. MSSQLServer 2005/2008 or MySQL (preferred)
• GUI development: HTML, CSS, Javascript (jQuery preferred), Ajax, Json/XML
• Design and development of software projects
• Object-oriented development
• Formalized QA/testing and revision-based development
• Version Control (Git / GitHub / CVS / Subversion)
• Experience estimating development project timelines

Qualifications:

• 2-4 Years experience building data-driven web applications
• Ability to write clear, web-standard, well documented code
• Track record working within team environment inclusive of designers, peer developers and business/requirements team
• Desire and ability to work in a fast-pace high pressure environment with deadlines and high standards
• Experience implementing complex website and application interface designs
• Strong understanding of production
• Outstanding communications and listening skills – team and client
• Good time management skills
• A desire to improve and independent work ethic
• High interest in the field of web, technology, usability and design
• A passion for learning

Travel Requirements:
This position requires little travel, if any. Possible: current client sites, conferences.

Benefits Include:

• Competitive Salary
• Fully paid premiums for employees – dental/vision/medical policies
• Parking
• Flexible PTO

This position is exempt based on the FLSA laws.

Dynamit is an equal opportunity employer.

Please send a resume and relevant information to jobs@dynamit.us

By: Gary Moneysmith, President

“It’s a lollapalooza! All the business houses are here, all the big people. Chicago ain’t no sissy town.” (Chicago Tribune, 1908)

I’m thrilled to announce Dynamit’s expansion into the Chicago market. My family and I are moving in early February. It’s a fantastic opportunity to reach potential new clients, business partners and team members. Dynamit’s client base rapidly grew with national clients throughout 2011. The next natural step is to establish a full-time presence in one of the country’s biggest, most exciting markets. I relish the chance to promote our great work to a city known for its creative, digital prowess. Plus, I love the Chicago marathon and deep dish pizza.

I’ll continue to be active in-person with Dynamit’s Columbus headquarters and clients through frequent visits. Yes, I am a member of multiple frequent flyer programs. Stay tuned for future updates as we continue to grow and evolve to best serve our clients in 2012 and many years beyond.

You’ve probably heard of Square, a neat hardware/software combo that allows people to transform their iOS/Android device into a mobile point of sale system. It’s a pretty simple concept: sign up at squareup.com and they’ll send you little swipe-cube that connects to your device. Download the app and start accepting credit cards. According to a recent article in TechCrunch, Square is now processing about $4MM in mobile payments per day.

A month or so ago, I was on-location for a few days with one of our clients. During a meeting break, we got to talking about the organization’s fundraising efforts. It seems they host a convention each year at which they solicit donations from the attendees. Our client was thinking about grabbing a few iPads, loading up their website, and using their web-based donation system to do some fundraising while circulating on the convention floor.

Good idea, I thought, but it wouldn’t be fast enough. It would take a few minutes per transaction to fill out the form, get credit card/billing info typed in, etc. The relatively slow process would create an unnatural, awkward experience in the midst of a social event. Instead, I suggested that he look into Square as an alternative method for collecting donations. It would minimize the time per transaction and allow him to focus on the donor (instead of fumbling about with the technology). We chatted for a bit about how it might work and walked back into the meeting.

A few days ago, I received a phone call from the client. He told me that his team had decided to give Square a try at the convention. Over the last two years, the donation volume at this weekend event had remained constant at about $50,000 — mostly through checks and pledges. This year? Using Square, his team doubled their receipts at the convention to $100,000.

I like this story because it measurably illustrates the power of digital tools in improving real-world business processes. Our client used this tool to eliminate a barrier — in this case, the inconvenience of making a donation on the convention floor — and, with no additional investment, realized measurable improvement in dollar volume. It’s a sweet and clean example of digital at its best: using a cost-effective tool to get strong, measurable results. Love it.

Generally speaking, I read a lot. Not so much books though, more so blogs, WSJ articles, etc. A good bit of this reading is focused in the digital space, specifically on startups and/or new technology. When it comes to technology, I’m especially interested in technology that disrupts industries and/or makes people’s lives easier/better.

By no means has it been a slow month in the space, but a select few stories over the past few weeks really garnered my interest. Right around the time of Steve Jobs’ death, a story surfaced about Dropbox turning down a 9-digit acquisition offer from Apple. While that story was picked up by quite a few of the major tech blogs, Forbes published the full story from which that excerpt was pulled. In the Forbes story, author Victoria Barret talked of Dropbox founder Drew Houston’s incredible story, and I highly recommend the read, if you’re interested.

A quick synopsis:

Drew had spent years working at startups by the time he was in his late teens or something. He took a trip somewhere, needed some files and forgot his thumb drive. On the train (or perhaps plane...whatever, it’s irrelevant) he came up with the idea of Dropbox. Blah blah blah...he applied, and was accepted to, y-combinator (check out his submitted application – awesome!). He reverse engineered some Apple script in OSX and was able to get the dropbox logo on the folders in Apple’s OS. This, and the product, caught the attention of Steve Jobs and he flew Houston and his co-founder out to Cupertino to attempt to buy Dropbox. Houston idolized Jobs, but turned him down nonetheless.

One could’ve argued that Houston had delusions of grandeur, but he was “determined to build a big company.” Jobs insisted that Dropbox was a feature and not a product. Many might not dispute that point, but in a crowded cloud-storage / backup space where Microsoft, Apple and Amazon offer solutions (along with a plethora of startups), Dropbox continues to rule. Uber GM/VP Ryan Graves offers some insight that couldn’t be more spot on. You know it’s on point because the Dropbox of today remains largely unchanged from its first demo video in 2008.

Anyway, to my point –

In a 2000 book by the same title, Malcolm Gladwell defines the tipping point as “the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point.” The Forbes article I mentioned earlier shares annecdotes speaking of Dropbox hitting its tipping point. Two of my favorites were 1) the Venetian watch design firm that uses Dropbox to collaborate with a remote designer in Mendoza on large files and 2) Will.i.am collaborating with David Guetta via Dropbox on “I Gotta Feeling.”

These annecdotes tell the story of what the figures actually illustrate — Dropbox is blowing up. It’s absolutely hit its tipping point.

So...with Gladwell’s theory back in my mind, I couldn’t help but think of one of my absolute FAVORITE startups right now...Square. I’ve been using Square for as long as anyone. We use it regularly at Dynamit when ordering lunches, I’ve used it with friends to pay back bachelor party expenses (read: gambling losses...bar tabs, etc.). I’ve used it with friends when a crappy server wasn’t willing to split a tab. I’ve used one to swipe friends’ cards when they “didn’t have any cash” for the concert tickets...I mean, the applications are endless. In fact, you can read for hours all the stories of how Square is enabling businesses of all sizes to leverage economies of scale to viably accept all major credit cards.

What that made me wonder is...yes, the mobile payment space is blowing up, yes, Square is processing more than $1 million in transactions every day, yes it’s growing like crazy, yes it’s awesome...but no, it’s not mainstream. It’s not even close. It’s still fringe. But with today’s news of a deal to sell in Wal-Mart (along with Target, Radio Shack and the Apple Store) for what amounts to “free,” how long will it be before Square hits its tipping point?

Sooner or later, it’s going to happen. People will be almost as familiar with Square as they are with an iPod, Facebook or...Dropbox. Heh.

Anyway, I posted a tweet earlier today on the matter and I placed my own personal over/under for Square’s tipping point at 12 months. Most responses agreed with me and while that’s far from a legitimate scientific study, I believe that it’s relatively on par with reality.

If I’m right, over the next twelve months you’ll start to see more and more Square card readers. They’ll pop up more and more places (like girl scouts selling cookies, your neighborhood handyman or that hole-in-the-wall diner that’s always been “cash only”).

And if you’re smart, you’ll get one for yourself.

Regardless, by October 24, 2012, I expect a lot of people to have signed for goods or services with their index fingers on an iPhone or iPad.

Well we don’t actually know yet but as nominees for Columbus Business First’s Best Places to work, those of us at Dynamit are keeping our fingers crossed. This year, 35 finalists have been announced for the coveted title of “Best Places to Work” and the honorees will be announced at an awards program Nov. 9 at noon at the Hyatt Regency Columbus.

They had a lot of perks to work with (unlimited vacation time, excellent benefits, flexible work schedule) but when asked why they like working here, my Dynamit coworkers had two common favorites: the people and the culture.

"Our culture is extremely unique. The work is challenging, fast-paced, and definitely keeps me on my toes. We enjoy pushing the boundaries of digital — shaping the way people use and interact with the web. We’re applying those skills to business practices to help businesses run more competitively," said Phil Franks, Dynamit’s Creative Director.

Because our team loves what we do and where we work, Dynamit has been nominated for the micro company division (10-to-24 local employees). We’d also like to say congratulations and good luck to our current and past clients who were nominated for this year’s awards:

Small (25-99):
CallCopy Inc.

Medium (100-499 employees):
Ohio Willow Wood Co.
Schottenstein Zox & Dunn Co. LPA

Large (500+ employees):
The Ohio State University Medical Center

When Google Plus was announced last week, I, like many in the tech community, were impressed. Folklore talk began about how it could dethrone Facebook, about how contextual sharing was going to be great, on and on and on. The reality, in my opinion, was that the clean (and ad-free) user interface, the polished user experience design and the obvious attention to detail of Google+ glossed all of us over and we got pretty ambitious with our praises of the platform. A week later, I’ve tried to compile my thoughts — here goes:

The good:
The interface and experience — initial observations were spot on. Google put serious work into the UI and UX of the product. It’s anyone’s best guess which drove the other, but I would assume that the Google+ product even led this latest re-engineering of Google product interfaces.
Google profiles now serve a purpose — Every Google account had the opportunity to create a Google profile long before this. However, those profiles never had a home...until Google Plus.
Integration across Google products — When I’m using any Google product (Gmail, Maps, Picasa Photos, Docs, etc.) I can see whether or not I have any notifications on Google Plus, and I can get there with one click.

The Bad:
Google Accounts have a 1 to 1 relationship with Google email addresses. This makes perfect sense for regular consumers, but what about for Google Apps users? Here at Dynamit, we rely on Google Apps for our mail, our docs, our calendars...everything that a regular Google account has. Herein lies the problem, I have my GMail address / Google account and I have my Dynamit Google Apps account. Nearly 100% of the time, I’m logged into my Dynamit account — my GMail and my personal calendar hit desktop (as opposed to web) applications. Sure, Google has the “Multiple Account Sign In,” but that’s cumbersome and hardly makes the transition seamless.
Here’s how Google can fix this problem: Regular Google accounts should allow users to add/merge (multiple) Google Apps email accounts to be managed under a single Google sign on. There, done.

Circles — So...at first glance, circles are great, right? Contextual sharing, very cool, right? I mean, we all hate how public Facebook is, don’t we? That’s the myth, anyway. Here’s the reality, or mine, at least:
After a week using it, I have no interest in viewing a limited stream from just a single circle, I have no interest in sending to a single circle...I don’t even have an interest in adding people to different circles. I’ll just send publicly...or at least to all my circles.

I never thought I’d say it, but I just want friends. Friends and Groups. In other words, I think I’ve discovered that Facebook has it right.

Aside: In fact, Facebook has a “Lists” feature that allows you to group friends with more granular controls than Google Circles, but I think they found out what I just did...it’s a pain in the ass to manage, and no one actually wants to do that.
As far as “contextual sharing” is concerned...or even the idea of sharing explicitly with certain groups, my take is that I’m cool with 90+ percent of what I share being completely public. Beyond that, I’ll use Facebook’s completely locked-down and private Groups feature. Facebook groups are great. They’re easy, they’re private, and they’re out of your way. We use a group here at Dynamit when we have something that we want to share internally. It’s great — private, fun, threaded and simple.

In closing, I think Google+ is cool, and I think it has a place in my life as a part of my consumption stream. But, it’ll be a lot different than I first thought:

• Google Plus is more likely to encroach on my Twitter community / activity than it is my Facebook community
• If it worked with Google Apps accounts, it might just be the greatest social business tool I’ve ever used — Hangouts, threaded conversations on any topic, etc. etc.
• It’s coolest application for end-users might just be OS-level integration into Android devices
• Circles are a neat idea, but they’re completely useless as an inclusionary tool — they make more sense as exclusionary circles.
• Hangouts beat the hell out of Skype...for a variety of reasons that I won’t get into, the least of which is not the fact that group chat is completely free, and it works.
• Sparks are clearly underdeveloped right now, that’s no secret — it’ll be interesting to see where they go. I’m assuming they’ll be something like Hunch.
• If I’m going to use Google+ with the same frequency as Facebook and Twitter, it needs more — a bookmarklet, integration into Tweetdeck/Hootsuite, inclusion via OAuth, etc.
• Umm...just get Google Buzz out of there. Seriously. Just stop it, Google.

But, I’m just one man, what do you think? Do you agree? Disagree? Somewhere in the middle? Let us know in the comments.

We’re pleased to share that Dynamit was honored as the “Agency of the Year” during the May 26, 2011 Ohio Interactive Awards.

What are the Ohio Interactive Awards? Created in 2009, the Ohio Interactive Awards are an annual program that through juried competition celebrates and recognizes the creative talent and exceptional work produced by our interactive marketing community. The awards were created by the interactive community for the interactive community.

Dynamit also won two specific awards for our web work on MyCandiceDesign.com and Charleys.com. In both cases, the Dynamit and client teams worked together to create creative, innovative solutions that delivered bottom line results — truly tag team efforts. So to Norwalk Furniture and Charley’s Grilled Subs, thank YOU!

While 2010 was a good year, 2011 has been going even better. We look forward to delivering great work while having fun along the way!

If you’re here, you’ve probably already discovered that one of the cool features of our new website is that any employee can hashtag dt (#dt) in any tweet or gowalla / foursquare checkin and have it post to the website. It’s a lot of fun, it fits with our culture and it’s a great way to keep the homepage fresh, while simultaneously providing visitors with some context on the people behind the Dynamit brand.

While the social integration of the new site is fun and exciting, we’re still expected to have/ apply self-policing personal filters on tweets we post and places we check in to.

All of that said, I recently posted a tweet with the #dt linking to an article titled: No Porn on iOS? “Uncensored” iPlayboy Hits the iPad.

It sparked an internal debate about what should and shouldn’t be on the site — and in in this case, it wasn’t much of a debate. Everyone except for me thought the tweet was not appropriate for the homepage of our company website.

So yeah, ok, I get it...not the most appropriate thing to have on a company website right? Well, maybe. Without context, yes, absolutely inappropriate. That’s the way it was in the tweet, so I concede the point.

That said, I was encouraged to share my side in a blog post to elaborate on why I thought the story was 100 percent appropriate more appropriate than not. So here goes...

If you read beyond the title of the story, featured on Read Write Web, by the way...the story is really about Playboy’s technological ingenuity on two fronts:
- First, if you follow Apple, iOS and technology at all, you’re probably aware of Apple’s long-standing commitment to keep “porn” out of the App Store.
- Second, lots of content generators / curators have scoffed at Apple’s taking 30 percent of in-app subscription fees.

The story is interesting because, in one fell swoop, Playboy was able to circumvent both of these restrictions. So often, companies and their application developers believe the App Store is the best path to success. Obviously, there are a number of criteria to consider before making the web app vs native app decision, but in this particular situation, Playboy sought the mobile web over platform-native as the environment for its subscription-based application.

Using this story as a model, there are a two lessons that can be learned:

Avoiding Apple’s App Store Scrutiny is a Major Advantage of the Mobile Web

A quick google search will unearth hundreds (if not more) complaints about Apple’s ambiguous App Store approval process. Stories range from tales of flat out denial without reason and reauthorization of formerly approved apps to policy changes and a variety of version-update horror stories.

Using the mobile web can allow developers to avoid the scrutiny, push updates over the air in real time, requiring no action on the users’ behalf. Certainly, there’s a ton of truth behind the argument that building natively allows for a better user experience and more robust functionality. However, in certain cases (like that of the subscription-based Playboy web-application) some of that functionality and user experience enhancements just aren’t necessary.

People Will Pay For “Good” Content

A big part of the App Store’s allure is the ability to include subscriptions and feature enhancements via in-app payments (This is how Wired magazine works). Content-based publications are often happy to fork over the 30% fee that Apple charges to take advantage of the seamless experience and its influence on buyer behavior.

Playboy has decided to forego these golden handcuffs and publish their application via web. Only time will tell whether or not the idea is successful, but I don’t think there’s any argument that it definitely has merit.

Quite often, we’ll hear people throwing weight behind ideas, especially in the mobile space, without thinking through everything that needs to be considered.

I think that this scenario with Playboy shows that there’s not always one clearcut answer just yet. There are arguments all over the web about the future of mobile applications and the merit of mobile web apps…we’ve even compared and contrasted them ourselves, but I think there’s still a lot that’s unknown.

Rather than speculate and make outlandish statements, we’ll continue to keep an eye on trends, evaluate needs on a case by case basis and make our best recommendation for mobile development environments.

Putting your thoughts about Playboy as an institution and an organization aside, we’re curious to hear what you think about their strategy and, from a higher level, the mobile landscape.

Well…what do you think?

We officially launched our new website to cap off the release of our newly developed brand. The new identity, created by our friends at ELEVATEthinking, is a fresh representation of our culture, people, space and the work that we live and breathe. We love our new look and we want to hear what you think too.

But what I want to briefly touch on in this post is some of our thinking behind the new site design, and why it is the way it is. We’ve pushed the boundaries a bit by rethinking the traditional “page” of a website, and instead created content streams. If you haven’t seen the new site yet, check it out here.

Rethinking The Page with The Stream

We’ve all consumed content from Facebook, Twitter, email, chats, blogs, etc., and the one thing that these all have in common is that they are all a stream. The stream is how most people are interacting with content on the web, because the social distribution of this content has changed the way we think and interact online. It’s pretty safe to say that not many people are looking to read five paragraph essays while browsing. Some might, but the majority of people are looking for short bits of useful and relevant information that can be consumed quickly, which is what a stream provides. That’s why we feel our new site is a great way to showcase the content we have, and gives the user a familiar experience to gain instant insight on what Dynamit is all about.

Personalization of Content

It’s no secret, a user’s experience on the web is becoming more tailored on an individual level, now more than ever. With so much data floating around the interwebs, many sites are providing more personalized content to users, or providing the option to personalize on their own. When visiting our site, the user is hit with the “everything stream” (that’s not the official name, I just made that up) where you can find out everything there is to know about Dynamit. By hovering over the logo block on the homepage, the user can use the content sliders to filter/prioritize what content is displayed. This allows us to dynamically showcase our clients and work, share our thoughts on the industry through tweets and blog posts, highlight our collaborative culture and space, and even track the Dynamit team through Foursquare and Gowalla check-ins.

Showcasing Our Work

We wanted a great way to showcase our work and the story behind it. So by keeping the “stream” concept in line, the user can experience our work with visuals and relevant information around it. Each work preview has an icon in the top right corner indicating there is more information around that block, and hovering over it will reveal a preview to that project. As the site grows more work will be added, and these streams will be populated with even more information such as tweets related to the project, new visuals, Dynamit members checking in, or blog posts associated with the services or overall project.

So take a look around, comment on this post or through our site and tell us what you think, we hope you like it.

The quality assurance (QA) step in a website project is often the most frustrating and overwhelming for clients. They’ve spent months planning and looking at paper mock-ups, and the only thing left standing in the way of unveiling of their new site to consumers is to painstakingly go through every pixel of the website to make sure it’s right.

By the time clients are tasked with quality checking their site, it should have already been QA’d several times by the firm building the site. This minimizes the burden on the client, and instead of looking for things that aren’t working, clients can focus on making sure the site is built how it was planned.

Making sure clients know what they should be looking for during the QA process is key. To help clients think about the QA process from a different perspective, let’s pretend instead of building a website, we’ve been building a house.

For months, the clients have worked with an architect to create the blueprint for the house. They picked out all the fixtures, trim and hardware and provided them to the contractor. The contractor took those plans and the clients’ choices and built the house room by room. He and his team have made sure that the house is structurally sound, and the inspector gave it a passing grade. The clients are about to move into the house, and before the contractor leaves, they’re doing the final walk through of the house (QA).

When the clients walk into their brand new home, what are the things they should be looking for? They should make sure that the house is built according to their plans. Is everything where it’s supposed to be? Are the fixtures all in the correct places? Are the wood floors the color they picked out? Does every light switch and outlet work? They’re making sure that the things have been built according to the blueprints, were finished as they outlined and are working properly.

This would NOT be the time where they’d walk into their brand new bathroom and decide that it really doesn’t make sense to have a window over the bath tub. It also wouldn’t be good for their daughter (who was never consulted during the blueprint phase) to walk into her room for the first time and decided her closet was too small (blog post coming soon about who to involve in a project to avoid situations like this).

Clients may decide that some or all of these things must be changed either before or after move-in (launch). If that’s the case, clients should expect to work with the contractor to develop a plan and budget for the changes.

Sometimes clients decide they don’t like things like the faucet they picked out for the kitchen or the light fixture in their bedroom. Luckily those are things they can fix on your own (in the case of a website, through a content management system).

Of course things change in the months between planning and development. Clients changing their minds on some things is to be expected. Understanding the way those changes will be handled is important. Clients should talk to the firm handling their project about this prior to the QA phase.

Quality checking a website is the time for clients to make sure it’s built how it’s been planned. Launching a site with things that aren’t correct cannot only make an organization look bad, but may also no longer be covered under the terms of the original agreement, as they’ve already given sign-off. Although QA is tough, it’s worth it!