Our Thoughts…the things that makes us go “hmmm…”

The plugin ecosystem for jQuery has brought forth incredibly diverse tools for developers and designers to create state-of-the-art user experiences for their clients. Tools and services to find these plugins, however, has been traditionally lacking. Unheap has sprung up to fill that hole in the jQuery market by providing an organized and curated collection of plugins that is both functional and visually appealing.

we found a great new tool to help you quickly build and develop maps for your client websites using this jQuery Library.  Check it out.

http://maplacejs.com/

Switchbox Inc. launches the new marketing site for Whatsinitforme.com.  The site, a precursor of the fully developed and functional website due to be launched this summer, was designed by Blue Laser Design. The content was written by Lori Murray.  This website is the initial marketing site of a unique new networking concept that will change the way that sales people work. . It is the brainchild of a career sales professional who grew increasingly frustrated with the many missed sales opportunities that result from a lack of timely information. He believed that things would change dramatically if he only knew who in his vast territory was contemplating the purchase of a new business telephone system. Simply put, there had to be a better way.

The concept evolved as a win-win-win for all parties–sales professionals, buyers, and information partners.  With this in mind, he created Whatsinitforme.com, setting the stage for quality leads and transactions–and restoring credibility to the sales process. Click here and like the page if you would like to stay informed as Whatsinitforme.com becomes fully functional.

Check out a new use for CSS and HTML.  Instead of having developers or designers creating image maps with multiple variations or having code libraries to dynamically generate images you can now use this.  Stately is a font of states.  For those of you not technical people just click the link and check it out.  We wish we would have had this when we built the AICPA website.

http://intridea.github.com/stately/

Marketing the products of a business in an attractive, compelling way is hard. Now – imagine doing it for the land, buildings, infrastructure, business incentives and opportunities within an entire county. It’s what our partners at Peebles Creative Group were asked to do for the Grow Licking County Community Improvement Corporation, and they asked Switchbox to help bring that vision to life digitally. The result is www.growlickingcounty.org, a site designed to present the commercial development and relocation opportunities of Licking County to business owners considering a move to (or growth within) the county. The site combines solid visuals with digital tools and information that site selection professionals need to make a knowledgeable, informed decision about relocating or expanding a business.

The site is managed by a user-friendly, custom Switchbox CMS system that makes deployment of content and property offerings easy — enabling Grow Licking County to get its resources and compelling story in front of business owners and site selectors as quickly, conveniently and effectively as possible.

http://www.iforceservices.com/

Switchbox recently worked with iForce to create a new seamless tracking system for their national staffing projects.  While iForce has been a client for a number of years they recently have been a victim of their own rapid success.  Keeping track of projects in various states, with various vendors, for various clients, with various deadlines created a substantial data tracking problem for them.  We were happy to work with their staff to create an intranet that allows their staff and vendor to communicate in real time about projects.  All data is now accessible through this system instead of being spread across emails, post-it notes, and various accounting system.  This has been another huge success for them in growing their business through leveraging the smarter tools and more rapid communication that an internal website can provide.

The new look of Delaware County Bank is now online, and we’re happy to have played a role in its development and deployment. Working with the design and strategy team at Conrad Phillips Vutech, DCB’s online presence took on a whole new look: a completely new landing page, sections to feature timely offers and interest rates, and a new structure to make locating the banking tools you need quick and easy. Behind the scenes, it’s managed by a custom Switchbox CMS and a series of technical widgets, making administration of the site intuitive and efficient for the client. Take a look around www.webdcb.com and see what smarter banking looks like!

We are happy to announce that our client, The Ohio State Bar Association (OSBA) has just won a 2012 The National Association of Bar Executive’s (NABE) Luminary Award during the NABE Communications workshop for their online OSBA Report. Their new OSBA Report was created by our very own here at Switchbox! The project was a great undertaking to replace the paper based Greenbook that goes out to most attorney’s in Ohio, with an online searchable version. It was met with great success and we are very happy to have been part of an award winning project.

We are happy to announce that we just launched A & E’s new Career Site!

Great partnership between A&F for the brand identity and direction, Conrad Phillips Vutech for the amazing design and creative work, and Switchbox on the development! All three Switchbox teams played a role in the creation of the finished project – one team building a highly stylized responsive design (allowing the site to automatically scale to fit any sized device – desktop, laptop, tablet, or mobile), another creating the core of a remarkable custom Content Management System to handle the behind-the-scenes functionality, and the third running lead and developing an amazing set of logic that pulls it all together.

Be sure to check out the finished product!   www.anfcareers.com

Congratulations to Buckeye Mantels on launching their new site and thanks for letting us be a part of spreading some Buckeye Cheer.  We had a lot of fun working on this project.  This new website allows users to customize their official Buckeye product in one of 320 different ways.  The real trick was that each option shows up in real time as you work your way through the options.  We owe a special thanks to Hamilton Parker for coming up with a great idea for a new product and to Throttle (www.throttlestudios.com) for doing a great job on the design.