TWEAK: A Social Media Phenomenon

TWEAK left footprints all over the web on their first day of business creating a social media frenzy. TWEAK is one of the many companies finding success today by leveraging social media to generate brand awareness and increase profits. Cascade was thrilled to be along for the ride and to facilitate this brand launch by building the TWEAK site on the evergreen CMS.

TWEAK's motto: "It's Your Brand", couldn't be more true. The evergreen based site follows those same principles by incorporating a ton of social media goodness and custom user features. One of the coolest features on the site is how users are able to alter the site's colors and upload background images to really make the TWEAK site their own.

Aside from customizing the site, TWEAK's customers help shape product development thanks to TWEAK's genius business model. Basically, they leverage internet celebrities' audiences to generate brand awareness and supplement product research and development. For their first shoe, TWEAK called upon Rhett&Link, aka "Internetainers", to solicit design ideas from their thousands of followers. The response was incredible as ideas poured in from twitter, Facebook and YouTube. The designs ranged from functional to ridiculous with everything from velcro high-tops to bacon flip-flops. Rhett&Link then produced a series of videos commenting on the entries which served as a critical piece of the product development process and increased the audience's anticipation for TWEAK's first shoe release.

Upon product launch TWEAK barely went 4 minutes without a sale and had comments pouring in from every corner of the social media space. We are extremely excited to be such an integral part of TWEAK's success and can't wait for the launch of their next product.

Cascade Brand Announcement

We recently announced the launch of our new brand, logo and website. Here is an excerpt from our new story regarding our make-over. For the full story with more about how our company has evolved, check out our news page.



Cascade Web Development is quickly breaking free of our web development tag and transforming into engineers of industry leading online solutions. With the introduction of brandlive by Ben and Fritz Brumder, a Cascade Web Development veteran, more and more national and local companies are beginning to adopt these technologies. The Portland Developmental Commission (PDC) saw this potential and recently awarded the Portland based company with a working capital loan.

To culminate our rapid growth and better explain our brand structure, we realized we needed a new identity; One that provides stronger brand recognition and does not limit our abilities in consumer's eyes. In a similar situation to companies like Apple and Google, we decided to establish an umbrella brand which houses our current solutions. With that said, we would like to introduce a new look and ideology behind our family of brands.

Cascade was chosen as the name for the parent brand using web//development as a secondary title. Cascade appropriately represents the company in a strong and memorable manner yet personifies a more modern feel than Cascade Web Development was able to accomplish. The logo specifically expresses our strengths as a web services provider and our ability to develop custom solutions to meet our client's needs.

You'll also notice a different visual expression of our three solutions: evergreen, whitepass and brandlive. Each brand features a similar style and color pattern yet individually elicit a unique and distinguishable brand image. We hope these logos will become commonplace in our industry and personify each solution's features and functions at first glance.

As always, we thank you for your commitment to cascade and will continue to support your business with innovative solutions and tools to help you evolve.

Cascade is Proud to Introduce: The Hello Foundation

At first visit, the new Hello Foundation website evokes feelings of childhood, construction paper and big crayons (or maybe thats just me?). This wasn't done by accident.

The design is driven by storytelling, imagination, and artistic expression and genuinely portrays the ideology behind The Hello Foundation:

Everyone has a story to tell, but it's how you tell it that sets you apart. It's more than combining words and sentences. It's being connected to a language and articulating ideas. It's feeling empowered enough to say hello.

The Hello Foundation (formerly SLP Services) is a industry leader in SLP, OT and School Psychologist Services across the country. They embrace innovation with open arms and are looked to as a thought leader with their progressive approach.

Don't believe me?!? Check it out for yourself:

• Art of Hello - encourages verbally challenged students to express their story through art
• Ask a Specialist - integrates Cascade's brandlive into their site providing students, parents, etc. with a personal resource to call upon for help and answers to sensitive questions

If you can't tell, all of us at Cascade are very proud of how this site turned out. Kudos must go out to Frank Creative for working closely with the Hello Foundation team and for creating such an amazing website design and brand strategy.

We thoroughly enjoyed working on this project and hope you enjoy the site as well.

www.thehellofoundation.com

Serotta Switches Management Gears

Serotta has taken huge strides in the beginning of 2010 with no signs of slowing down.

Aside from launching a brand spanking new, custom website with Cascade, (see my previous post: Cascade Invades the Serotta HQ) Serotta Competition Bicycles has undergone changes in its organizational hierarchy and company name.

The cycling giant recently introduced Stan Mavis as President of the newly formed Serotta Sport. Stan and his wife Bonnie, current VP of sales at Serotta Sport, join Ben Serotta and his wife Marcie as owners of the company.

I couldn't pass up this incredible opportunity to help lead a brand with a storied history and tremendous potential for the future, Mavis commented.

Stan is not a stranger to the industry as he co-founded Pearl Izumi and is an avid cyclist himself. Ben Serotta and Stan first forged a relationship 20 years ago as major sponsors of the Coors Light Cycling Team.

There are a range of things I can do, but I cannot do everything well. I've needed someone to work with me at the level of an owner, with an intensity for the business, and Stan brings that," Ben said about bringing in Stan.

For the full article, please read the May edition of the Bicycle Retailer or check out bicycleretailer.com

Cascade Invades the Serotta HQ

In a recent trip out east, Ben McKinley, at the envy of cyclists, stepped foot in Serotta's headquarters in New York to tour their operation and discuss the launch of the bike manufacturer's new website on Cascade's Evergreen Platform. Serotta's new site, www.serotta.com launched earlier today with a ton of awesome features, including a video giving you a look into what Ben witnessed first hand on his tour. On the site, Cascade helps bring to life the intricate science and production capabilities that go into building a custom bike. Whether you examine the technological aspects or thought placed into the size and fit system, Serotta's attention to detail is astounding.

Although the majority of Serotta's magic is done on the production floor, a substantial amount of business operations lives online and is done behind the scenes. By placing their site on Evergreen, Serotta can easily update their new online environment with reactions to the world of cycling, news on Serotta products and technology, and new opportunities. One awesome feature soon will allow both employee and customer access to production status of bikes. With this service, you'll be able to track what stage of production your bike is in similar to how you track your package with Fedex, UPS, etc. Pretty cool!

Serotta.com is as focused (if not more) on portraying their brand story (i.e. company heritage and production strategies) while promoting the community aspect of the company rather than their bikes. We [Cascade] see this strategy becoming more and more prevalent with sites built on the Evergreen platform but that is a topic for another day.

Planting the Seed for "Plant an Evergreen"

Cascade Web Development just launched our Plant an Evergreen campaign earlier today. Through our partnership with Friends of Trees and their Gift Tree program, they are helping us plant evergreen trees in Portland for new clients on our Evergreen platform. Thanks to our clients and Friends of Trees for making the world a better place, one tree at a time. (so corny but so true)

Friends of Trees also helped us out on the PR effort by blogging about the Plant an Evergreen campaign on their Friends of Tree blog.

Thanks, Friends of Trees for your partnership and support.

Plant an Evergreen with CWD and Friends of Trees

Earth! Fire! Wind! Water! Heart! (if you have the Captain Planet theme song in your head this post will be much cooler).

Friends of Trees a Portland non prof, is helping Cascade Web Development launch our Plant an Evergreen campaign.

Through this campaign, CWD will make a donation (on behalf of the client) to Friends of Trees for each new client relationship forged through our Evergreen CMS platform. Our goal of the Plant an Evergreen campaign is to celebrate new client partnerships and symbolize their growth over time while supporting our environment as well. Each donation will go toward the planting and maintenance of a young evergreen tree here in Portland.

We're stoked to have the Plant an Evergreen program up and running as the seeds were planted (it was too easy, I couldn't help myself) a while back. Our developers coined the phrase "planting an evergreen" after referring to it each time they set up a client's Evergreen account. Since then, the whole light bulb effect occurred, and we've developed an identity (much thanks goes to our graphic artist for our campaign logo) to bring this all to life. It has been great collaborating with Friends of Trees, and we hope everyone is as excited about this idea as we all are.
If you're familiar with CWD and have checked out our blog before, you know that our business operation is as green as Kermit (even before it was cool). This campaign is just another extension of that business philosophy, and we think its an awesome way to promote growth, both economically and environmentally.

For 20 years, Friends of Trees has encouraged the development of the greater Portland area by implementing green space initiatives, neighborhood tree programs, and discounted tree offerings. The Gift Tree program allows you to purchase a tree or grove of trees (which I recently learned is 6 trees) for another and have it planted in their honor. If you're interested in this or any of Friends of Trees' programs or volunteer opportunities please visit friendsoftrees.org

Blaz'n Trails from Montana to Portland

Giddy up.


Blaz'n Trails, a locally produced salsa company, has just launched their new site blazntrailssalsa.com. Juli Miller, the owner of Blaz'n Trails, has been refining a killer salsa recipe since the 1980s and, after selling caseloads from her basement, decided to offer Blaz'n Trails to the masses. In marketing her salsa, Juli wanted to ensure her brand represented a blend of her western roots and Portland based business, and she turned to Cascade Web Development to incorporate both themes in the new site. (Juli recently stopped by the CWD office and she is definitely not afraid to show off her cowgirl persona.)

Blaz'n Trails is produced here in Portland with locally grown, fresh ingredients while her sweet and spicy salsa recipe comes from her Montana heritage. Blaz'n Trails salsa is available in three varieties: EASY, HOT, and, you guessed it, BLAZ'N. Her 20 year old recipe consists of a blend of roasted green and red bell peppers, jalapeno, serrano, and habanero peppers. It also includes fresh tomatoes, garlic, onion, and a little brown sugar for a unique, sweet flavor. (Low sodium too!)


Juli recommends adding it to your everday recipes like Chili, scrambled eggs, grilled chicken and fish, pulled pork, Calico beans, or mix it with avacados for an easy but firey guacamole.

To purchase Blaz'n Trails salsa, become a distributor, or just view our work with Juli check out blazntrailssalsa.com.

Yengst Associates: Market Research and Heavy Machinery done easy

Yengst Associates recently launched the company's new website built on Cascade Web Development's Evergreen platform. Yengst Associates are a major player in market research for the heavy machinery, rental equipment ops, and financial industries. The company, now in its 13th year, has offices in Connecticut and Portland offering consulting services and private research studies for clients throughout North and South America.


We collaborated on several ways to improve their site, and the final product provides Yengst Associates with full management of their site with much more client-friendly functionality. We owe a great thanks to everyone at Yengst for their input in helping shape the site and improve their business processes.

One of the most influential changes to the Yengst Associates site allows clients to access Monthly Market reports, Equipment Analysis, Company Profiles, and Industry Forecasts per manufacturer within Yengst's database. Using a new, client only access feature, clients can obtain online reports, five year production and sales histories, and forecasts displayed in clean chart and graph formats. Online reports are organized first, into four report styles then by company to highlight the exact info a client is searching for. The sales and production data can be specified by region, equipment type, and manufacturer, locating specific figures and tables pertaining to that company. These new search options allow clients to directly access what they want without having to sift through lines of unnecessary data.

CWD's Evergreen platform has also made Yengst Associates employees' lives much easier by eliminating the headache of tedious data entry. Employees in the Connecticut and Portland offices can quickly update and add data to the website without fumbling around through the messy and cumbersome data entry applications previously used. Now the entry process, although never fun, is simplified and much more user friendly for employees and clients.

We hope Pete Yengst, the man behind Yengst Associates, enjoyed working with Cascade Web Development as much as we did with him and his staff. He had a few things to say about working with Evergreen and what it has brought to his business:

"Ever since the process [with Evergreen] took place...the employees find it to be an easy system to use and clients definitely enjoy the experience as well. Its much more user intuitive for both me and the employees in the office that aren't as web savvy...its basically cut down our time, in general, from adding and doing manual input with data to a very user integrated interface."

If you're interested in Yengst Associates or just want to check out what we've put together check out YengstAssociates.com

Cutting Edge Cycling Manufacturer - Cutting Edge Web Presence

I recently visited Serotta Competition Cycles (if you don't know about Serotta, they make handmade, custom-fit bicycle frames using titanium, steel, and carbon fiber) at their Saratoga Springs, NY Headquarters to kick off the strategy phase our web development effort to provide a more dynamic web experience for current and potential customers and for dealers.

First Impressions - I've never met a more passionate team dedicated to providing its customers with the most technically advanced cycles for road and track through the use of cutting edge production technology, fitting methodologies, and materials.

The visit only added to our excitement about this project, which we are hoping to launch in the January/February timeframe.

Each member of the Serotta team that I met with has a vested interest in the project...

Amy Roxin (VP of Operations) - How can we use this technology to showcase our cycles, develop a community for customers and communicate better with dealers?

Paraic McGlynn (Director of Applied Cycling Science) - How can we convey our message that the very best of materials, technology, and fitting go into making a superior cycle?

Jared Porter (Production Manager) - How can we keep dealers informed of where the bike is in the manufacturing process?

The following pictures were taken during my Factory Tour:

Every frame build starts with a fitting using Serotta's Size Cycle



My Tour Guide Jared with customer bikes returned from accidents for repair



Frame during the build process



Frames being prepared for paint



Final polish



Customer frames ready for shipment

e-commerce software: Pro's and Con's

<Return to www.cascadewebdev.com>

When evaluating e-commerce software the options are endless. Paypal to Shop-a-tron; Amazon to Volusion, Custom to Evergreen? Recently we traveled down a few different paths and this is what we learned:

Volusion:

• Pro: Endless off the shelf solutions (live chat, inventory, affiliate programs, refer a friend, ect.)
• Con: VERY limiting on design. Even a custom template is miss-leading because it is far from the custom I know. 

Evergreen:

• Pro: Customized look and feel; configurable to any business process.
• Con: Middle range upfront cost and longer development timeline when compared to turnkey. 

Paypal/Google Checkout:

• Pro: VERY easy to implement and integrate; brand familiarity for users checking out.
• Con: Their brand must live along side your brand.

Shop-a-tron:

• Pro: Provides manufacturers with a clean way to manage their retailer channel and capture direct sales.
• Con: Time consuming to implement and pricing is based on % of sales. 

Check a few screen shots from the various applications:

<Return to www.cascadewebdev.com>

How to Use Bookmarks and Anchors On Your Webpage

Have you ever been on a website, clicked on a link, and instead of being taken to a new page, were zoomed down to another line or paragraph on the same page? This type of link is called a bookmark and should not be confused with Bookmarks in the sense that browsers have come to use the term to describe websites you "save" in a Favorites list. These bookmark links provide website owners with an easy way to present a lot of related content on one long page while still making specific sections of that content immediately accessible to site visitors. Today I'm going to walk users of the Evergreen Content Management System through how to implement bookmarks on their pages when it makes sense to do so.

1. Create a Table of Contents
Before you can link anything to anywhere, you'll need to create the link text. Be sure to place this TOC near the top of the page for immediate user accessibility. Formatting is entirely up to you. See below for an example of how I did it:



2. Add Content
Once you've created your TOC, you'll now need to add the content it will ultimately link to. Most of the time, you'll have an FAQ document lying around in a Word doc that you'll simply need to copy and paste into your Evergreen WYSIWYG. Don't forget to use the Paste from Word tool to avoid formatting headaches! ()

Once the content has been added, you're ready for the next step: Adding Anchors

3. Adding Anchors
So you've created your TOC and added in all of your content. Now you need a way to tell the browser how far down the page it should go when your TOC items have been clicked. Here's where anchors come in.

First, find the line of content that you plan on linking your first TOC item to. Click your cursor just to the left of the first word in that line so its actively blinking within the WYSIWYG.

Next, click the scary trident-looking icon () in the WYSIWYG ribbon menu. This will load a popup window where you will need to write the name of this new location. Note: you cannot use spaces when naming anchors, so be sure to separate words in your anchor name with hyphens or underscores.



Once you've decided on an appropriate name, click "Insert" to save it. Now repeat this process for the rest of your anchors. When finished, you can move onto the final step: Linking to Your Anchors

4. Linking to Your Anchors
Now, return to your TOC and highlight the first entry. Next, click the "Link" icon (). You may be already quite familiar with this tool as it is also used to create hyperlinks to other sites and other pages on your own site. Today, we'll expand its use to include bookmark links.

Click the bubble labeled "Bookmark", then select the appropriate anchor you created for this entry. Once selected, click "Insert", "Apply", and "Ok". You've just created your first bookmark from start to finish! Now repeat this process for the rest of your TOC entries. Once you're done, your TOC and associated page content should look and function (something) like this.

How To Embed a YouTube Video on Your Site

Content is King. Ahh, the age-old adage about what matters on the web. But does content just have to be words? Of course not! Spice up your web pages with video to make a lasting impression on your site's visitors.

This tutorial will guide you through the steps you'll need to embed a YouTube video on your website using the Evergreen Content Management System.

1. Find the Video

You'll need to locate the video you'd like to feature on your website, whether it's one you've uploaded yourself to YouTube or one from a stranger. Don't worry about stepping on anyone's toes here, if users don't want their video to be featured on other's websites, they will have disabled this feature when they uploaded it to YouTube. To disallow others from embedding videos that you've uploaded, follow these simple steps from Google.

2. Find the Embed Code

Now you'll need to find the embed code that will allow you to host this video on your site. Unless the uploader has disabled this feature, you'll find it below the video description off to the top-right.



Highlight all the code in this field. If you miss some, your video will not work on your site. You can also customize your player using the options below it. Just make sure to copy the final version of the embed code once you're finished choosing your options.

3. Embed the Video

Now that you've copied the embed code to your clipboard, you'll want to paste it onto your webpage through the Evergreen Content Management System. For now, create a brand new page. This way you won't have to worry about where within the HTML you'll need to paste your embed code.

After you've assigned this page all of its required properties, return to the WYSIWYG and click the HTML button (). Drop your cursor somewhere in this box and click Ctrl+V to paste your embed code. It should look something like this:



Finally, click Apply > Ok and Save your new page. Open the page in your browser and voila! Your video should be right there waiting to be enjoyed by the masses!

Embedding your video on a page with preexisting content can be a little more tricky only because you'll need to establish a general sense of where the code will need to be pasted in relation to the rest of the HTML. Play around, and make good use of the Undo button. Before long you should be fairly comfortable with at least navigating through the HTML of your page.

Good luck and have fun putting the social web to work for you!

What is a CWD Module?

A CWD module is more or less a custom-developed plugin which installs directly into our Evergreen Content Management System. Its purpose is to simplify otherwise complex website processes. Here, let's start small with a relatively straightforward example.

Consider the case of the Cascade Web Development site and how News articles are added. Before the existence of a News Module, our process would involve the following:

• Write news article
• Manually move all traces of the previous news article to an archive page
• Insert new news article title and short description onto our home page
• Create a new page just for the new news article body to live
• Link the home page title and short description to the new news page we just created
• Do it all again next week

A News Module takes this lengthy process and virtually automates it for you. All you have to do is drop the content in a few simple fields and click Save. The rest is handled by the module.



The beauty of modules is that they can be applied to almost every conceivable web operation. Here are just a few examples:

• Managing an online ecommerce catalog of products
• Posting News and Events articles
• Dynamically editing Flash-driven graphic content
• And everything else ...

Still have questions about how modules can help you streamline your web management? Give us a call. We'll help you see the light!

Partnering with Frank to Build IFBikes.com

In the dynamic world of web development--or in the agency world for that matter--you always have to ask the questions, "Who is the client?" and "What do they want and need from this relationship?" On our recent launch for Independent Fabrication, the end customer was not really a CWD client. The client relationship belonged to Frank Creative, one of our creative partners. Frank Creative is a top-tier creative agency located in Portland, OR. The company has a long and successful history of creating brands that rock. You can read more about the company on the Frank Creative website.

In a lot of ways, working with a Partner in this business is like working with a Client.

• We need to educate both parties on our process, focusing on the relationship between solution requirements, timelines, and budget.
  
  
• We need to educate both parties on the strength's and limitations of our development platform, Evergreen.
  
  
• We need to work with both parties on setting clear expectations regarding how and when to use certain technologies to deliver the right mix of form and function.
  

There are also the challenges of designing for the web environment that includes browser and cross platform compatibility issues that aren't a consideration in the print realm.



But there are also some definite ways that the relationship with a Partner differs from working with a Client.

• Timelines are more complex since two parties are being held responsible for meeting deadlines rather than just one.
  
  
• Creative collaboration presents new challenges and opportunities, demanding a need for new types of workflow.
  
  
• Project management takes on a new form as one party (the agency partner) is essentially responsible for interfacing with the client and then translating their feedback into actionable language for the other party (Cascade Web Development in this case).

As a result of these differences in the team make-up and workflow, projects like the recent launch of Independent Fabrication serve to both strengthen our creative partner relationships as well as force us to tighten and refine our processes internally. Over time, these relationships have grown into very tight bonds that create predictable and reliable outcomes that end up benefitting the final solution and client. Combining our talents has lead to some major breakthroughs for Cascade Web Development and our partners. The IF website wasn't the first site we've partnered with a creative agency to build and it certainly won't be the last.

We hope you enjoy the new IF experience and you can look forward to more launches to come from us and our creative partners into the future.

Durable Bags, from a Memorable Brand

Naked bicyclists, vintage Portsmouth, and tons of beer cans. What do these three things have in common? They are all themes of our most recent launch of the BaileyWorks e-commerce website!

BaileyWorks is a privately-owned handmade bag manufacturing company headquartered in New Hampshire. With a flair for the unique, the company has made a name for itself by promoting its rich culture and strong products.

After 15 years of successful business development offline, the company recently decided to focus on achieving similar success online. For BaileyWorks, that meant an entirely new website from the ground up.

To provide BaileyWorks with a scalable solution that would evolve to meet the changing demands of a growing business, we (Cascade Web Development, Inc.) built the foundations of their website on the Evergreen platform and customized its content management system to handle a number of specific business processes. From managing their product inventory and its dynamically-distributed display to overseeing shipping options and tracking orders, BaileyWorks now has the tools at its disposal to handle nearly all stages of the business cycle.

Blog  |  Videos  |  Community Videos

In addition to equipping the company with a custom-tailored solution to managing their e-commerce system, we also focused our efforts on leveraging the power of social media to enable BaileyWorks to play an active role in their online community. These efforts included the development of (screenshots) an embedded blog, the production of two online videos streaming through popular YouTube.com and Viddler.com, as well as the creation of a video-upload feature on their site for customers to share their own stories. BaileyWorks is now in a position to be as much a part of their community as they please without feeling constrained by technology.

In its first month alone the company experienced an increase in traffic of 3 times the historical average with over 3 times the number of bags sold compared to the previous month!

Cascade Web Development's support for BaileyWorks daily business process did not stop at the website. E-mail, document sharing, calendar, collaboration video and more is now possible with the set-up of Google Corporate. Cascade Web Development has been very excited about this new Google Apps service and BaileyWorks jumped right on board when we explained the benefits of the e-mail interface, collaboration features and custom API's.

Visit the Official Cascade Web Development Website
Visit the BaileyWorks E-Commerce Website

The Fusion of Flash and the Evergreen Development Platform

Salomon Snowboard & Bonfire Apparel

Salomon Snowboard and Bonfire Apparel recently teamed up with Frank Creative and Cascade Web Development to give their respective websites some much-needed revamping. For those of you familiar with Salomon and Bonfire, you know that their brand is built around producing quality products geared towards an active audience. Projecting these qualities on the web was an absolute necessity, and the development team at Cascade Web Development did its part to ensure this result.

Perhaps the singularly most defining feature of these projects is the creative integration of Flash and Evergreen, our Content Management System. Although Flash is often considered to be one of the most effective tools for creating beautifully interactive web environments, in terms of development and management, it can pose quite the headache for nontechnical individuals. Our goal was to take the skillful design work submitted from our project designers (Frank Creative for Bonfire Apparel, and Daniel Julien for Salomon Snowboard), and develop the websites in a way that the Flash pieces could be updated and edited in a seamless process through the use of a content management system. Take the following Athlete Highlight section for example:



What you see when you open this page is a row of Salomon-sponsored athlete ‘heads’. Each one is linked to a bio page where the visitor can read up on that athlete’s interests, recent activities, and random personal facts. Like the rest of the site, this feature is entirely presented in Flash--a component usually requiring the concentrated attention of a professional developer for its maintenance and management. However, being that the client required that their nontechnical staff have management capabilities over the content in this section (as well as all the other content populating both sites), Cascade Web Development needed to build a solution that could serve as a user-friendly intermediary. Allow us to introduce you to Salomon/Bonfire’s Evergreen.

Following our company code of always delivering custom solutions to every client, we dedicated our efforts on this dual-project to developing a version of no-technical-experience-needed, interface. Now with the Bonfire Apparel and Salomon Snowboard sites complete, the client can celebrate the fact that they not only received some of the most visually (and functionally) sophisticated web solutions out there, but that they’ve also been equipped with the tools to manage their websites themselves. As for us (Cascade Web Development), well we can now pat ourselves on the back for pushing the limits of our own expertise, and adding just one more set of skills to our continually evolving repertoire. (Pardon the chest bumping and high fives, we’re simply just that excited!)

All in all, what we hope you’ll gain from this article is that no matter how seemingly challenging your web-based vision is, with the right team on your side, anything is possible. Call us today to see how we can help you through your own personal web challenges.

Visit the Official Cascade Web Development Website
Visit the Bonfire Apparel Site
Visit the Salomon Snowboard Site

ShiftWise

More noise over here at Cascade Web Development. The CWD team has just launched ShiftWise’s newest website following 12 weeks of heavy development.

ShiftWise works in partnership with hospitals to develop and implement a strategic staffing plan to attract, hire, deploy and retain a flexible workforce. They advertise themselves as delivering their software as a service (SaaS) and have already become an established resource for hospitals nationwide.

Here’s a set of screenshots for comparison’s sake. The first image is where ShiftWise was before coming to us. The next one is where we’re at today.

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Click here to visit the ShiftWise site and experience the new features for yourself!

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One of the first things you’ll notice with the new site is its clean look and feel. We’ve done our best to make navigating through the site intuitive and easy. No more distracting aesthetics and chaotic layout. We’ve tried to calm things down a bit and create a look and feel commensurate with the level of professionalism ShiftWise operates with on a daily basis.

Besides the obvious visual changes, a lot has changed for ShiftWise under the hood as well. For one, they’re now working with Evergreen, our Content Management System. The Shiftwise project utilizes two custom modules within Evergreen.

• Training Calendar Module: Prior to working with Cascade Web Dveelopment, Shiftwise training staff managers were working with raw HTML and a legacy Front Page file to create the training calendar. Admins required IT support to upload new files when the calendar was ready for publishing. With the Evergreen Training Calendar Module, Shiftwise staff now completes a simple input form. The system captures the key data points, including Paypal integration, and everything is displayed for the user in a seamless and predictable layout. The application has already saved a great deal of time and money!

• Home Page Calls to Action: Shiftwise wanted to create a dynamic experience for their users. However, extensive use of flash technology to display critical information was not going to work. Load times, lack of flash plug-ins in hospitals and content management drove this decision. We leveraged our extensive experience in AJAX and JAVA script to build a very dynamic experience on the home page. Calls to action in the footer expand to display an array of applications: A form calculator, network search utility, compliance drop down menu and dynamic content.
  

Prior to making the move to Evergreen, the ShiftWise editing process was a complicated system of communicating and tracking the implementation of ideas between Marketing, Management, and IT. Now, the department with the need can hop right into the driver’s seat and bring their idea to life. Management and Marketing are now being supported by IT, without being dependent on them.

Click here to visit the new ShiftWise site!

What is a CMS?

CMS stands for Content Management System and represents one of the most essential tools for updating and managing your website.

All websites are encoded at some level in a programming language. Unfortunately, most of us aren’t versed well enough in these languages to use them effectively in managing our websites. That’s where a CMS comes in. A CMS provides a gateway between the non-technical individual and his/her website which can require little to no familiarity with programming languages. If you are able to use a computer, you are able to work a CMS.

Whether you know it or not, you’ve probably already used a CMS. Social networking sites like facebook and MySpace implement their own versions of a CMS. When you access the control panel of your facebook account to change your Contact Information or ID Photo, you’re accessing the backend of your personal webpage through their CMS utility. While their CMS tools are relatively inflexible compared to the types of CMS tools being discussed in this article, they still reflect key aspects of Content Management Systems.

Say you’ve decided to launch a website from scratch and say you’ve found a CMS that you believe will be effective and simple enough to use. Once you’ve logged in, you now have the ability to create new pages instantly, add text and images with just a few clicks, and implement a complete navigation system reflecting your dynamically developed information architecture. And now for the best part: it took you just 20 min and little to no technical experience.

That’s the beauty of the CMS. It’s designed specifically to make these tasks fast and easy. Successful developers cater the composition of their systems to your needs—instead of demanding it be the other way around.

We here at Cascade Web Development are successful developers. Our in-house technical team has created what we believe is the most intuitive, easy-to-use Content Management System on the market. We’ve titled it Evergreen, and have proudly garnered a significant number of followers in our clients.

The strength of Evergreen lies in its simplicity. Instead of bombarding our users with unnecessary features and superfluously glitzy packaging, we’ve focused on improving and fine-tuning those aspects of web development that have proven to be truly critical to the content manager (You). We’ve done our best to streamline the process as much as possible and create the most intuitive user experience imaginable.

If you think you’re interested in reading more about our CMS solution, feel free to browse the Evergreen section of our website. Decide for yourself whether you think Evergreen is right for you, then contact us if you’re ready to discuss specifics. We regularly make ourselves available to our clients and interested individuals for technical assistance and general support needs.

So this has been the first in a series of articles discussing the various aspects and capabilities of Evergreen, our Content Management System. Keep a lookout for future articles where I will be highlighting various tips on how you can more efficiently implement Evergreen in your web development routine.

Evergreen Content Management

Cascade Web Development has been working diligently on the evolution of our content management system, Evergreen. Many of our clients have put this technology to use, saving them time and money! If you have not used it, the tool is simple and easy. If you have, you know what I am talking about. Check out this screen cast to see just how easy it is to build a link into your website.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW SCREEN CAST

If you have additional questions, please contact CWD at info@cascadewebdev.com