So, I got this crazy idea back in late March that for the summer I was going to do something fun, exciting, risky, scary, and cool all at once. That was, get a motorcycle. Most would agree the motorcycle does not exactly fit my personality. I’m typically quiet, reserved, and cautious. Nevertheless, I do have an adventurous side that yearns for excitement, he talked me into it.

When this idea first popped into my head, I had never been on a bike before, I had no idea how to ride, and the even thought of zipping down the road at 50+ mph had my stomach churning. It was not something that I had be waiting to do for a long time, the thought never crossed my mind in the past.

Long story short, I am proud of myself. When I came to the conclusion that riding a motorcycle would fulfill my criteria (fun, exciting, cool, risky, scary), I just did it. I got my temps, took and passed the Motorcycle Ohio course, purchased a bike, licensed the bike (and myself) and started riding to work, all within 6 weeks. I didn’t waste any time debating it, talking about it, thinking about it, musing over it, etc. I made the choice and then sprang right into action.

To often, I see people talk about some brilliant idea for the longest time and never take it anywhere. I’ve seen this in business on an occasional project where one will dote on an issue that is not all that important anyway thus hurting progress and blowing up timeline and budget. Sure, some critical thinking is essential, a little more can be beneficial as well, but after that, the quicker you can get to an action point, the better.

Luckily, the guys that I work with at dynamIt have a knack for finding that great balance between thought and action.

My advice: Do work. Get shit done.

Tonight, I attended the TechColumbus Innovation Awards. dynamIt was nominated in two distinct categories, Outstanding Service and Best Technology Team. We did not win either, but I never expected to win. In fact, I was honored just to be in the same room as groups like Ohio Health, Battelle, and The Ohio State University. There is no shame for dynamIt in losing to The Research Institute at Children’s Hospital under the topic of technological innovation.

The event was so-so. It certainly felt like a big deal as over 1000 guests filled The Grand Ballroom and the Columbus Convention Center, but it felt sort of glossed over, like it was more talk than anything. Sure, there was some impressive work on display, but there was also a lot that was rather dull and to me seemed common, not innovative. [Plus, the food sucked and at well over $100 a head I was disappointed in the lack of an open bar.]

So, is what we do really innovative? I think not. To me, innovation is dreaming up something that has never been done and executing. Innovation is game-changing, not to few, but to many. Innovative implies new, fresh, BIG.

We are certainly good problem solvers and we execute well, but how widely felt is our work? We often enact clever, creative solutions for our clients and in turn impact their businesses, but it’s nothing new.

So, what can we do in 2009 to push the limits farther than we have in the past? How can we actually be innovative?

I cannot sleep at all right now. It’s probably because I am so excited about tomorrow. Tomorrow marks another dynamIt Holiday Dinner, the 4th annual. And to me, it is the best night of the year.

Donning our finest suits, each member of the dynamIt team and a date attend the Holiday Party held each year at the original Hyde Park Prime Steakhouse in Upper Arlington.

It is always a wonderful evening. Great food, great drink, great conversation, but most of all great company…who could ask for more?

At dynamIt we partner with many marketing firms and ad agencies. Often these firms call upon us to hit insane deadlines. Such is the industry, or so it seems.

Many shy away from these projects, I imagine, turned off by the added stress of a near impossible task. But not me. I want…no, I crave these challenges. My mindset is simple: throw me your best curve ball, I’m going to knock it out the park.

I’ve spent all this week on such a charge: 2 sites, each with a unique design that needs markup, each with 30 pages of static HTML content to write, each with an e-commerce module to integrate, each with about 30 products to load into the store, due Sept 21.

Ok, two steps back, let’s rearrange my schedule, let’s create an action plan in my head, take a deep breath, dive in. All the while, I remain focused on my goal: write good, clean, functional code, rock it out a day early, hence save the day for this firm. This is what I want to do, I want to take what I am given and deliver, but not just slap something together, do it right.

So, imagine the frustration when the following goes down.

It’s Monday, I have the xhtml/css all written for both designs, I look at the provided sitemaps and realize there is no navigation to over half of these pages, 80% of the content is missing, and their dev server with the e-commerce module installed is down.

It’s Tuesday, e-mails and phone calls fly around, nothing gets actioned, still missing content, still no access to the dev server, a whole days is stolen from me.

It’s Wednesday, the firm and myself both starting pushing the client, more direction is given for a navigation, I design it, not what the client wants, I redesign it, it passes. We start to get more content and as end of day rolls around we finally have access to the dev server.

It’s Thursday, content is still being delivered at noon, finally I can start building templates for the e-commerce module. We discover that there are not a just 60 pages of HTML content to be written for these sites, rather the total is closer to 160.

It’s Friday, we begin to load products into the database only to discover we are missing half of the product descriptions. Yes, this is the last business day we have to work on it, and the client has still not provided all of the data on their products.

How do I deal with this? I am very good at what I do, I am incredibly efficient, I am well organized, and I pay a fair amount of attention to detail. Moreover, I am pushing, pushing hard, giving a sincere effort. I want to be your rockstar. I want to roll this out for you a day early needing little to no tweaking and stand back and act like it was a piece of cake. I want to, I really do, but how can I possibly make it happen in this situation? I feel like I’ve been asked to complete a jigsaw puzzle that is missing half of its pieces.

Still frustrated.

What if we (dynamIt) were to hire someone whose exclusive job was to do web research. There are many aspects to web, all of which benefit from some type of research. Consider the following:

User Experience
Usability research is nothing new. Numerous studies have been done and reports have been compiled about how people use the web. Look at Jakob Nielsen, the world-renowned web usability guru, for more details. However, though many standards and guidelines have been created, not all apply in every situation. It is probably a good idea to do some level of usability testing on a per project basis. (Note: I have some implementation ideas for this with dynamIt, coming soon).

Not to mention, new technology continually changes how we use the web. Obvious example: with AJAX more things have become possible to make our Internet browsing lives far simpler.

Development Research
Web development is always evolving. There are so many topics in web development today that it is hard to keep up, especially with technologies that are emerging (e.g. semantic web techniques). If we have someone dedicated to knowing about all these things and figuring out how to apply them to common applications, imagine how much value we could produce for our clients.

Beyond new techniques and programming languages, what about all of the Web 2.0 (and beyond) APIs that are popping up. Flickr, Google, YouTube are the big ones, but there are APIs of all sorts out there that we can mix and mash to make some pretty powerful web applications at a realistic cost.

Personally, I would love to do this. I love learning and enjoy the challenge of figuring out that next little puzzle. Plus, I am usually pretty quick to pick things up and figure out how it all works. Ok, now that I have created the ideal job for myself ;-), how do I make it happen?

College football season is my favorite time of the year. I will watch just about any game they show on TV, but I am particularly fond of one team. That team being the Florida State Seminoles.

You must think I am crazy, growing up all of 5 minutes from Ohio State’s campus, I must be insane not to be a Buckeye fan. Yet, as it is my team in the Noles.

It goes something like this. As long as I’ve been around, my dad’s side of the family has resided in the state of Florida. I am not sure how it started, and I am not sure why, but for Christmas, my relatives would send me Florida State apparel. If I dig deep I can probably still find the Derrick Brooks jersey I wore as a kid. Then I saw them play. The first Florida State game that I can remember watching was in 1992 when they had an amazing comeback win at Georgia Tech. I was sold.

I continued following the team year after year. The exciting play from players like Charlie Ward, Warrick Dunn, Peter Boulware, Andre Wadsworth, Sam Cowart, Samari Rolle, Peter Warrick, and more only increased my fanaticism. Of late, the team has lost a bit of its luster, but I continue to root for the garnet and gold.

Yesterday, Florida State kicked of yet another college football season. And since the game was not shown on TV regionally, I had to make my way to a bar that was carrying ESPN Gameplan, a pay-per-view college football package. I figured this would be a good opportunity to scope out some Arena District bars around the new dynamIt office. This turned out to be a harder task than I initially thought, but after a few stops I found my game at Gordon Biersch, on Front Street, next to the arena. I sat down ordered a beer and watched my Noles dismantle Western Carolina 69 to 0.

Early to rise tomorrow as we open the next chapter in the dynamIt saga. The offices that sat so proudly at the south end of Sawmill Road for the last 3 years will be relocated to the exclusive Arena District in downtown Columbus, OH.

I sure am going to miss walking to work everyday from my suburban condo, but the move presents many opportunities for a pretty slick lifestyle. I am really excited about being downtown. I cannot wait to explore the restaurants, bars and event venues of not only the Arena District, but all of downtown.

300 Marconi Blvd. Columbus, OH 43215.

Stop by anytime.