Matrix Group is mentioned in this mystery novel with a digital heroine — the girlfriend of the victim works at Matrix Group and the private investigator interviews her at the Matrix office. Author Donna Andrews is a good friend of Maria Lima, Director of Client Services.
Month: June 2008
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2520 Logos and Counting!
That’s how many logos are listed in the largest directory of Web 2.0 applications and services http://www.go2web20.net/ as of today, June 27, 2008. I want to thank Ani Matson from the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) for alerting me to this site.
Some of the Web 2.0 applications I like:
- Bubbles – http://bubbleshq.com/ – your social life on your desktop
- ekko TV – http://www.ekko.tv/ – instantly start a video chat with 2 of your friends
- Lunchn – http://www.lunchn.com/about.aspx – where are you going for lunch? (my husband’s favorite)
- Luminotes – https://luminotes.com/ – personal wiki notebook
- FeedTweeter – http://www.feedtweeter.com/ – feeds your RSS items to Twitter with some spice
- Wallowr Air – http://wallowr.com/air.php – aggregates social networking tools into one simple spot
- Lookybook – http://lookybook.com/ – an online page by page previews of children’s books
I am going to go crazy checking out all these sites and applications. How long do you think it will take to check out 2520 sites? That could be a perpetual project, seeing as new applications are sprouting everyday, including apps developed on top of other apps. I don’t know how anybody can keep up!
Orli Yakuel, editor of the popular blog – http://blog.go2web20.net/ – writes about the ever-evolving Web 2.0 industry. You can read her perspective on what’s hot, what’s not, and why.
Be sure to let me know about your favorite Web 2.0 applications. I’d also like to hear about your least favorite ones and why.
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The Driving Force Behind Good Leaders
At a recent CEO forum, I had the pleasure of meeting Peter Schutz, former President of Porsche AG and author of the book “The Driving Force: Getting Extraordinary Results with Ordinary People.” Peter calls himself the former king of Porsche because, as he put it, Porsche is a cult, and when you become President, you become King.I was captivated by Peter’s stories about Porsche’s turnaround during the early 80s. He
talked about the 24 hour Le Mans race that began the company’s turnaround. Porsche was not expected to win; the company was broke and did not have a new car to showcase. Peter told his staff, “We shall never enter a race we don’t intend to win.” And with that edict, the company rallied and ultimately won the race. -
Live Support a Boost to Customer Satisfaction
The National Electrical Contractors Association recently launched a new website. Dramatic improvements were made in navigation, authentication, visual design, etc. These improvements meant change; never mind that they’re all positive, it’s still change.Matrix Group anticipated the typical human behavior — resistance to change — and recommended setting up live support to hedge off any frustrations when users discover that their favorite button is not there anymore or the link they always click on has been moved. We implemented LivePerson because it’s easy to set-up, user-friendly and inexpensive. The results have been terrific. Adrianne, the staffer behind the NECA live support function, reports:
- About 10 people initiate a live chat session every day; about half never responded back to her initial hello; the other half have questions about logging in, where to find something, or how to use a specific application.
- Visitors really appreciated the instant help.
- She loves seeing how many people are on the site, how long they have been on, and where they are clicking. Occasionally, if a person looks stuck on a page, she will initiate a live discussion to offer assistance. The reaction has been very positive.
- She does feel a little chained to her desk, but it’s easy to switch the message so that visitors can send a request for help, rather than initiate a live chat. She always turns off live support during lunch.
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You Call That a Site Search?
A friend works for Levi Strauss, so I always ask for her opinion when buying jeans. I was looking for skinny jeans; she recommended a pair of 503 jeans. So I went to Levi.com, typed “503” and got nothing. I tried “levis 503” and got nothing. I typed “skinny jeans” and finally got some results, but nothing for 503 jeans.
So I went to Amazon.com and typed “levis 503” and got a hit for 503 jeans, as well as other jeans. It turns out that 503 jeans are no longer being sold directly by Levis, but a few are still available from Amazon.
The Levis site search missed an opportunity to:
- tell me that 503 jeans are no longer being made
- suggest similar jeans or jeans that succeeded 503 in the product line
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National Electrical Contractors Association
NECA is the voice of the electrical construction industry. NECA’s national and local chapters advance the industry through advocacy, education, research, and standards development.
NECA turned to Matrix Group for a Web strategy and solution to attract new members and improve current members’ benefits. The site includes a flexible, easy to administer Content Management System (CMS), social networking and bookmarking tools, and a robust site search that allows users to find information easily and provides content suggestions for specific key words.
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IDSafety
Matrix Group created the “ID Safety” Web site, an innovative national public education and outreach campaign dedicated to raising awareness about identity crime, sponsored by the International Association of Chiefs of Police in partnership with Bank of America. The mission of the Web site is to create a comprehensive, multifaceted approach to prevent, investigate, respond to and effectively aid victims of identity crime.
The site includes an interactive Flash-based map of the United States that provides information about ID Safety-specific resources available by state, including the number of sworn law enforcement personnel in each state, which states require a report to be filed when someone believes s/he is a victim of identity theft and number of complaints filed in each state.
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Gall Zeidler Consultants, LLC
Gall Zeidler Consultants (GZ) is a leader in geotechnics, tunnel engineering and tunnel construction management, with special expertise in transportation and infrastructure projects for major metropolitan settings.
Matrix Group redesigned GZ’s entire Web site with the primary goal of showcasing their extensive portfolio of tunnel and other major projects.
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National Parks Foundation
The mission of the National Park Foundation (NPF) is to strengthen the connection between the American people and their National Parks by raising private funds, making strategic grants, creating innovative partnerships and increasing public awareness.
NPF came to Matrix Group to create a Web strategy and solution to promote the preservation of national parks and to call on the American public to take personal action by making donations. Features of the site include an interactive timeline of park philanthropy over the last 100 years; content distribution across NPF and other National Parks and Associations sites; viral marketing campaigns that allowed users to share pages of the site with friends and link to popular social networking and bookmarking sites; analytics and tracking that identified the pages being shared, pages visited and page they exited the site from. In a five month period from when the site was launched, visitors increased from 72,000 to 79,000, average site visit went from 12 min, 50 sec to 14 min, 15 sec and page views jumped from 220,000 to 822,000.
