This past weekend marked the re-launch of www.smartwomencompany.com, a popular brand with witty sayings by Smart Women. With the help of Dirk+Weiss, the Smart Women Company brand has begun a new adventure that includes a new website, blog, and social media integration.

Julie Hellwich, creator of the Smart Women brand, has reached out to hundreds of thousands of people with her fun, charismatic sayings and products. Each Smart Women product is useful, and inspirational.

When the economy took a down-turn, Julie and Dirk+Weiss began talks of collaborating on working to adapt the Smart Women brand for the post-recession retail and wholesale world. Instantly, we decided that a new website would be in order, that not only makes it easy for consumers to buy products, but easy for Julie to manage the content. The new website includes features such as:

1. A customized ordering and shopping system
2. News and updates blog
3. Content management system for easy content changing
4. Real time return on investment (ROI) analytics
5. Constant Contact integration
6. Facebook integration
7. Custom designed front end
8. Store Locator for the over 90 stores that Smart Women products are in

So far, the website has received hundreds of unique visitors on it’s first day! With real time analytics, we can see all the traffic that comes in and out of the site.

In addition to a new website presence, and integrated back-end modules, we have brought Smart Women Company to Facebook, and the millions of users who reside there. Fans can follow Smart Women and watch for site updates, promotions, coupons and any other news related to the brand.

Today, the first initial messaging to be released to the over 6,500 contacts of the Smart Women email list, showed to be a great asset. In the few hours that have passed since the message delivery, over 300 unique visitors had landed on the new site, and over 90+ new Fans on Facebook! And it is still growing. A great first day, and with holiday promotions, new products, and social media connectivity, the stats will most certainly increase.

Did we mention a Smart Women iPhone app is coming?

Widely used at colleges and universities, Blackboard is the most common, privately licensed, Learning Management System. Students can use Blackboard to see grades, participate in discussions, share files and notes etc…

Recently I was invited to teach a class over at the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University. I was promptly emailed credentials on how to log-in to my Blackboard account, and begin building my course. A few problems with that though, and one big one being that I am not familiar with the interface! The other issue being the cumbersome, and somewhat antiquated, posting abilities.

Solution? Facebook.

After finding out that my students already had Facebook accounts, it seemed only logical to build a Facebook fan page. Think about it…

I need to post videos, links to blogs, links to syllabus and course materials, upload photos and media, and message the entire class. Facebook can do all these things. And, the bonus being my students and I already know how to use Facebook. It’s like second nature. Also, Facebook puts a nice presentation on posted items such as videos and links, making them more enticing to the end user.

Yes, there is a Facebook / Blackboard connector app, but my two attempts to use it, resulted in errors and warning messages that the URL I typed has Blocked this app to access it. This is probably due to lack of support by the college network admins, security, and just plain lack of knowing. Pretty far from a solution. I am also aware that some instructors enjoy the use of copyrighted media behind school login credentials. Great. Leave the copyrighted content in Blackboard or authenticate some other way. There is tons of terabytes of servers out there. Or there is also only displaying public domain content via YouTube or other services…

Using Facebook to empower you and your students is pretty much a genius idea. Not only can your students benefit directly, others can watch the progress of your class and through downloads, photos and other media. MIT paved the way with it’s Open Courseware concept. Having your class content open to the public is like “taking the cover off the magical box, and revealing the secrets that lie within”.

We believe that social media can be used strategically to help promote your business for free. It it actually quite simple. Millions of people exist on Facebook and Twitter. With the right amount and quality of messaging, social media can work for you.

Our new fan page has been published and is the new home of Dirk+Weiss on Facebook. Follow the link below to become a fan now!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/DirkWeiss/127687197924

Note: This is in response to “Letter from AIGA’s incoming president” from AIGA National
http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/letter-from-aigas-incoming-president

Firstly, Don’t get me wrong. I have had some great times working and planning events with the AIGA. The Boston crowd is a great one. I was a student member for two years, and then I lapsed my membership when the dues went up. Typical story.

After reading the letter from newly elected AIGA President Debbie Millman, I was both relieved, and well, let-down. The buzz words were there that enticed me to read on (facebook, connection, transparency etc..). But when I got to the end of the letter, I noticed a few things that jarred me. Here are my comments on each section of the new AIGA initiative:

The Connectivity Initiative

This initiative boasts that “a revolution” is happening! Quick! Gather your vintage, socially active posters, and unite!! – Well, when I think of the typical AIGA fashion sometimes that is my first thought. But really, if you are a working designer right now, this is not news to you. You probably found this post by checking your Facebook or Twitter. There is a new communication structure in the works that is to be “progressive, authentic and meaningful”. I am hoping at least that what ever it is, can be proven to be effective for jobs, and useful before people buy in. There is no more “trust me” source any more in this Twitter environment we live in.

The Inclusivity Initiative

You can imagine our understanding of Debbie’s point about multi-disciplined designers feeling out of sorts with the AIGA. For a while there, we here at Dirk+Weiss felt that way. But however, only recently, have our view points changed about this topic. I feel, at least in the Boston chapter, that the need to embrace all viewpoints of design has come from a dwindling membership and the need to be unique in a print-less environment. It is great to see that AIGA National has started its 21st century emergence (even if it is nine years later), but I get the feeling that its still, just too slow of a process, and there is a lot of catching up to do (and fast).

Also, I have had a long standing gripe with AIGA’s perspective of students or recent graduates. Students are commonly overlooked by AIGA as real designers. But in reality, students are the future of this profession. They will be in the next wave of industry trends. Even in Deb’s letter, there is a feeling of catering to the thirty and over crowd. Just because someone has recently graduated, or is about to, does not make them a less valuable member of the design community.

Let’s see some student board members!

In the 20th century method, junior designers became senior designers after having much “experience”. Well, experience never hurt anyone in any field, but the playing field has changed remember. In the 21st century method, that same junior designer has probably been laid off, and is now creating a web based company, and some sort of viral mechanism to promote their venture. Why? How?! It’s simple. There are tools out on the web that allow almost anyone to do this and enable it to be seen by the world.

AIGA needs to become one of those tools. A viral, job-getting mechanism. This means they need to pull the trigger on more situations. I have noticed in my dealings with AIGA, that pulling the trigger is rare sometimes.

Oh yeah, “Break down barriers by 2014″? again, too slow of a process. In today’s time management arena, six months is long term, and technology is king. Predicting and strategizing a whole nicely packaged plan for that long away is overly ambitious, I think, for AIGA, or any company/organization. The real solution here is to get the AIGA vehicle up to the speed of not only its members, but to non-designer folks, you know, your clients. Then, when at that speed, determine how far ahead to look and plan.

Advocate the AIGA Mandate

A new mandate is a great launching pad for new things. But, I had no idea there was an AIGA mandate before I read Deb’s letter.Hmm…

“As a result, we have adopted a bold new course for meeting our mission “to advance designing as a professional craft, strategic tool and vital cultural force.”

The official new mandate can be found here.

Still, I hear nothing about how AIGA would like to help get you jobs. Designers understand their ‘craft’ and ‘strategy’. In this economy, AIGA needs to be more than an “Inspirational Resource”, and actually help promote designers to non-designers.

How about this for a new AIGA mission: “The goal of AIGA is to promote the value and effectiveness of designers to the world”.

We here at Dirk+Weiss are active participants with AIGA Boston (although not members). The trend it seems is now from the ground up, rather than the top down. I feel that chapters are becoming much more independent, and almost competitive, with each other. A great, and healthy point. We feel that progression is happening, and love seeing it happen. Even if it means pushing all the right (or wrong) buttons.

Overall, all comments aside, we would like to say good luck in your new endevaur, we’re rooting for you AIGA.

Above: 31 results since I started searching? I did my search only 10 seconds previous. So at 7:30am EST, that’s about 10 tweets per second I have access to. Amazing.

The recent events in Iran have be a testament to the importance of social networks in the lives of every day people. Today, even The New York Times, “America’s Newspaper”, has reported on the overwhelming trump of sites like Facebook and twitter over traditional media outlets for Iranian Election News.

Why? Well, we know the printed media is yesterdays news, and TV media is faster, but not as fast or efficient as the internet. Social Networks have proven king.

As the Iranian government is desperately trying to block various websites that election protesters are participating in, its proven to be too big of a beast to tackle. The people have even threatened to overload the servers of government websites by bombarding them with web traffic.

What is the method here for beating the censorship? Twitter, Facebook, and other pop-up websites, have there own code written that allows a web programmer to build a website, or mobile application, that can access the said social networks content. These Application Programming Interfaces are free to access, and can be installed on any server. Thus the issue for Iranian Government blocking one site after another.

It is a true viral mechanism, and the more you tell them ‘no’ the more it inspires them to move forward faster, smarter, and more efficiently.

If you do frequently watch cable news, you have probably seen the ever increasing competition squabbles between networks about amount of coverage on a certain topic. One network blames another for lack of coverage to adhere to an agenda. Its no surprise really, with the use of social networks and the impact they have. On social media, you don’t deny your agenda or bias, you just create a Twitter tag or handle to organize it, thus creating complete transparency. Less money spent, more eyeballs for content.

It is a “Move up, or Shut Up” for traditional news outlets, and the Iranian Election is defintaly a big win for social media, and one for the record books.