One of my very first paying gigs for doing Internet work was a project a co-worker called Internet Resources for Christian Growth. This site combined an e-mail newsletter and an archive of the newsletters. This was in the very early days of the World Wide Web and some of the original features and aspects included;

• It was on free service without it’s own domain
• each archived issue was created as a static page using the formatting in the original e-mail
• Their was no search feature
• The images were not original or ideal for the job

If I could change things today I would definitely make sure that the project had;

• It’s on domain name - the shorter the better
• I would set up the site primarily as a blog so that each issue could be sent by RSS and e-mail
• Include a search feature and also categories
• Take custom photos to get the message across better

In a lot of ways I have learned from these experiences over the years. Of course I have always been an advocate of having your own domain but at the time (about 10 years ago) I wasn’t aware of how one could have been redirected to another space. I see a lot of bloggers registering a domain name and redirecting it to a free blog service and at that time for that particular project that may have been ideal. I mentioned custom photos and I have set up a set on my flickr account dedicated to this project I was working on way back then. I hope to continually post new versions of the photo I wish I could have posted on the site way back then.

to spur innovation it’s always good to look back on past projects. Can you think if things you would have said differently? Different images you would have used or different technologies you would have used? Sometimes we want to kick ourselves when we wish we could have done something a different way but how often have you gone back and looked at past work and developed new strategies and workflows? We’re you ever afraid of investing in a new technology because you were worried about the cost only to look back and wish you had taken the leap to explore and use the technology? What will change today?

Phil Gerbyshak has a great interview with Dan Roam, author of the Back of the Napkin. The interview give a great idea and sample of a book that helps you literally “think different” or rather the way we thought when we very young in order to tackle problems, boost innovation and see things in a new light.

The official story we have on this web site only tells the official part of our business in recent years and doesn’t go into the very beginning of when I first started exploring web design as a new skill I was learning in the mid 90’s. I created two web sites almost back to back. The first one was my first attempt at starting a business or service online. The web site was called, “The Creation Station” and it was my intent to offer custom writing services. I had intentionally first bought my computer as a tool to working on and store creative writing, photography and graphic design projects.

I had first learned about the ability to design web sites via someone I meet in a chat room on the service known as “Talk City” which I learned about from a friend of mine. I think the first service I started learning web design on was called Angelfire one of the many “free” services that started springing up at the time. I soon became dissatisfied with the limitations of Angelfire and discovered Geocities. This was before Geocites was acquired by Yahoo.

The site I developed on Geocities was called Bridging the Gap. By this time I had learned about how to incorporate images, layout a site in table and add other features like forms and other more, “advanced” features. Today Bridging the Gap would be called a “personal development site or maybe a personal development blog. At the time I was interested in the whole concept of developing the whole person; mind, body and spirit.

The technology I used back them pales in comparison to what I have learned since then but another thing I have learned since then has nothing to do with technology but rather more along the line of being a more focused person. Both the Creation Station and Bridging the Gap had very high ideals but they were also too broad in scope. In some ways I am doing the Creation Station through this web site and business by providing custom web design services, photography and graphic design with a focus on compelling content that is optimized for both search engines and the minds of potential customers.

Bridging the Gap is another story. If I was relaunching Bridging the Gap today I would do in the form of a blog and only focus on some key areas. Instead of exercise in general I would probably focus hiking or maybe even a more niche area like suburban or urban hiking. Instead of an overall mental development I would probably focus on something like business innovation, strategies to keep ones brain young by thinking like a child, etc. Instead of a general spiritual focus I would probably focus on prayer, evangelism, etc.

One of the key things I remember about Bridging the Gap was an image I found elsewhere online of a couple people walking across an bridge at what appeared to be an old college campus. I’m seriously thinking about creating a set on my Flickr account where I can post my own custom photos of people crossing bridges of various types.

Some of these early attempts at “web design” were basically “kicking the tires” but I’m glad the services were available for me to explore and learn the technologies. Not long afterwards I started setting up “real” web sites under domains I could fully control. What were some of your early explorations in Internet technology and what have you learned as far as skills and even your mindset since then?

This is a question we get asked a lot when we encounter people in public and hand out our business cards. When most people think of silk they usually think of clothing items made from the product of a silk worm. Actually when we came up with the name for our business we were combining some new services into with our older business name, Greer Web Design. We didn’t want a name that would restrict us to our family name or web design only so we debated several names and SpinningSilk stuck. Why? Well the majority of the work we did and still continue to do revolves around the World Wide Web, a subset of the Internet. We were not thinking as much about the material silk worms produce for fine textiles but rather the webs spiders construct. Spider silk is extremely thin and lightweight but don’t let that fool you. It is also one of the strongest fibers on the planet. Designing for the web and print works best when you can make files as small as possible while at the same time crafting compelling words and images.

The past couple of days have been fantastic days of growth and the feeling of a turning point in the history of our company.  We’ve been getting more and more calls for current clients to take on new web design projects, an upswell in photography assignments from clients has been encouraging and we are making big plans for a greater focus on podcasting aspect of our company. Last night I attended an excellent webinar hosting by Cliff Ravenscraft of gspn.tv where I learned many of the aspects of podcasting that will help us streamline and bring better service to our clients. As a result of attending the webinar I spent a good part of the morning testing out some audio editing programs and as a result I’m looking at getting a piece of software I don’t currently own, Sound Studio 3.  More than likely I will take advantage of the MacUpdate Promotion which not only includes a copy of Sound Studio but also several other pieces of software that will be interesting to try out including a copy of Parallels so we can run Windows on one our our Mac laptops that currently aren’t running a copy of Windows.

Tonight I plan on doing further work on the web site I mentioned in a previous post. The task will probably take several days as I work on it between client projects so please be patient as some things will be renamed and moved around in the following days. I want to close by saying I appreciate all of those who have thought of us for their small business marketing needs such as web site design and development, custom photography, small print jobs and online media distribution like podcasts, etc.