By Chris Lahey
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
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Who is She?
Station Four is excited to announce the addition of a new team member, Meggan Sullivan 8lbs 9 ounces. Don’t let her leprechaun looks fool you, she is a skilled problem solver and her organizational, multi-tasking, and quick learning skills are a welcomed enhancement to our team.
What’ll She Do
As we grow, she will help us keep the team together to ensure that we don’t suffer any growing pains. Her official job title is Traffic Manager which means that she’ll be handling all of the comings and goings of the company. In addition, she’ll be taking over a majority of the administrative duties of Station Four.
Where’s She From
Meggan graduated from Elon University with a degree in Broadcast Communications. Her diverse work experience and principled work ethic will be essential as she takes over the majority of the operational duties of our company and if you are an existing client of ours, you should look forward to meeting her soon!
By Chris Lahey
Wednesday, July 06, 2011
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We’re looking for…
A full time, back end, application developer who knows how to work smart.
A LITTLE ABOUT US:
Station Four is a digital agency based in Jacksonville, FL. We provide strategic direction, design, and software development for large organizations such as the US Department of Defense, LPS, BAE Systems, Baptist Health as well as small local businesses. Founded in 2007 by a designer and a developer, the quality of our work comes before the size of our margins. Please contact Chris Lahey at development@stationfour.com for more details on this position.
WE’D LIKE TO TALK TO YOU IF...
- You are well versed in ASP.NET web forms
- You know what ASP.NET MVC is and think it’s the bomb.
- You have experience with Javascript based client/server interactivity (Ajax) using jQuery libraries
- You have experience working with SQL Server databases
- Have experience in a variety of content management systems and consider yourself an expert in at least one of them. At any given time we are working on projects in an always changing number of platforms including Expression Engine, DotNetNuke, Umbraco, WordPress, and Magento.
- Are confident that if you come across something you don’t know how to do, you can figure it out.
- Have experience working in a team environment and with source control.
- You are passionate about the web, read industry blogs and magazines, take ownership of what you’re working on, keep up with emerging trends and technologies, and have an eye for detail.
- You are great at communicating – no development holes here, everyone is expected to communicate with clients.
- Are pretty good at Mario Kart.
YOU MIGHT WANT TO TALK WITH US IF...
- You’re looking to work hard and develop skills in a fun and casual team environment.
- Enjoy learning and working on a variety of projects and tasks.
- Prefer working at small agency but also like things like insurance (medical, dental, vision), vacations, and thinking about the future (retirement benefits).
IT WOULD BE REALLY NICE (BUT NOT NECESSARY) IF YOU HAD:
- Some experience with MS Azure or SQL Azure.
- Working understanding of information architecture and user experience associated tools and documents.
AND IT WOULD BE PRETTY COOL IF YOU HAD A BACKGROUND IN SOME OF THE FOLLOWING:
- Working in a Windows environment
- Experience with setting up application and development environments (Visual Studio/TFS, IIS, SQL Server)
- Experience with WCF and/or Silverlight
- Working in a team and/or agency environment.
- Mobile development experience.
FOR THE MOST PART YOU WILL BE:
- Collaborating with a team of strategists, developers, and designers to code applications based upon preset requirements and timelines.
- Assisting in the development of internal tools and apps.
- Communicating with clients and assist in formulating strategy and translating those strategies into reality.
- Helping us get better though awesome work, introducing new ideas and techniques, recommending improvements to our development process, and generally just being great.
COMPANY BENEFITS:
- Casual atmosphere with mandatory video game breaks in an environment open to new ideas.
- Health, dental, vision insurance.
- Retirement benefits planned for Q3 of 2011.
- 3 weeks paid vacation.
- Year-end bonus based upon performance.
Please contact Chris Lahey at development@stationfour.com for more details.
By Chris Lahey
Friday, May 20, 2011
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Well, at least I am.
The wedding is in the Virgin Islands, and Chris O is coming along to join in the celebration. While our dates of travel differ, we will be out of the game for a bit and we wanted to let our clients, and anyone else interested, know what our availability would be.
Chris O's Availability
Chris will be leaving on Tuesday the 24th and returning to work on Tuesday the 31st of May.
Chris L's Availability
I will be leaving on Wednesday the 25th and returning to the States on Saturday, June 4th. However, I will then be spending the next two weeks in Atlanta with my newly married, and infinitely interesting Dr. Sarah McCann Lahey. ;-)
What To Expect In Our Absence
Mac and Sean will still be here holding down the fort, however they will most likely be focusing on current projects and will not have the full capacity to work on any maintenance work or short turn-around jobs. We do apologize for this however, you only get married once... RIGHT!!?
For sales, please be patient with us. We will have an appointment scheduled to speak with you as soon as we return.
By Chris Olberding
Monday, February 14, 2011
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We’re looking for...
An ambitious and motivated front-end developer who knows how to get things done.
A little about us:
Station Four is a digital agency based in Jacksonville, FL. We provide strategic direction, design, and software development for large organizations such as the US Department of Defense, LPS, BAE Systems, Baptist Health as well as small local business like European Street, Underwood Jewelers, and Brandon Pest Control. Founded in 2007 by a designer and a developer, the quality of our work comes before the size of our margins. Please contact Chris Olberding at olberding@stationfour.com for more details.
We’d like to talk to you if...
- You have a strong knowledge of HTML/CSS, Javascript/jQuery, cross-browser compliance.
- Have experience in a variety of content management systems and consider yourself an expert in at least one of them. At any given time we are working on projects in an always changing number of platforms including Expression Engine, DotNetNuke, WordPress, and Magento.
- Are confident that if you come across something you don’t know how to do, you can figure it out.
- Have experience working in a team environment and with source control.
- You are passionate about the web, read industry blogs and magazines, take ownership of what you’re working on, keep up with emerging trends and technologies, and have an eye for detail.
- You are great at communicating – no development holes here, everyone is expected to communicate with clients.
- Are pretty good at Mario Kart.
You might want to talk with us if...
- You’re looking to work hard and develop skills in a fun and casual team environment.
- Enjoy learning and working on a variety of projects and tasks.
- Prefer working at small agency but also like things like insurance (medical, dental, vision), vacations, and thinking about the future (retirement benefits).
It would be really nice (but not necessary) if you had:
- Some design skills.
- Working understanding of information architecture and user experience associated tools and documents.
- Background with a development framework (PHP/Ruby on Rails). Experience with ASP.NET would be awesome.
And it would be pretty cool if you had a background in some of the following:
- Working in a Windows environment
- Experience with setting up application and development environments (Visual Studio/TFS and IIS would be great but LAMP experience is nice too)
- Grasp of online marketing, search engine optimization, analytics.
- Experience with animation, video, Flash, Silverlight, and/or motion graphics.
- Working in a team and/or agency environment.
- Mobile dev experience.
For the most part you will be:
- Collaborating with a team of strategists, developers, and designers to code pixel-perfect sites and applications from design compositions and implement front-end functionality in collaboration with back-end developers.
- Assisting in an internal rebranding of Station Four already in progress.
- Communicating with clients and assist in formulating strategy and translating those strategies into reality.
- Helping us get better though awesome work, introducing new ideas and techniques, recommending improvements to our development process, and generally just being great.
Company benefits:
- Casual atmosphere with mandatory video game breaks in an environment open to new ideas.
- Health, dental, vision insurance.
- Retirement benefits planned for Q2 of 2011.
- 3 weeks paid vacation.
- Year-end bonus based upon performance.
Please contact Chris Olberding at olberding@stationfour.com for more details.
By Chris Olberding
Monday, February 14, 2011
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We’re looking for...
A kickass designer. Web experience would be nice but there’s no substitute for talent.
A little about us:
Station Four is a digital agency based in Jacksonville, FL. We provide strategic direction, design, and software development for large organizations such as the US Department of Defense, LPS, BAE Systems, Baptist Health as well as small local business like European Street, Underwood Jewelers, and Brandon Pest Control. Founded in 2007 by a designer and a developer, the quality of our work comes before the size of our margins. Please contact Chris Olberding at olberding@stationfour.com for more details.
We’d like to talk to you if...
- You have 2+ years designing for web and are a pretty awesome designer.
- You are passionate about design, read design blogs and magazines, take ownership of what you’re working on, and have an eye for detail.
- Understand and intelligently apply the principles of visual design in a strategic and goal-oriented manner.
- You are great at communicating and talking design – with other designers and with clients.
- You understand the value of constructive feedback.
- Are pretty good at Mario Kart.
You might want to talk with us if...
- You’re looking to work hard and develop skills in a fun and casual team environment.
- Enjoy learning and working on a variety of projects and tasks.
- Prefer working at small agency but also like things like insurance (medical, dental, vision), vacations, and thinking about the future (retirement benefits).
It would be really nice (but not necessary) if you had...
- Experience working with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
- A background in print design.
And it would be pretty cool if you had a background in some of the following:
- Working in a Windows environment.
- Grasp of online marketing, search engine optimization, analytics.
- Been involved in a local design community.
- Illustration skills.
- Working understanding of information architecture and user experience associated tools and documents.
- Experience with animation, video, Flash, and motion graphics.
- Strong written communication skills.
- Working in a team and/or agency environment.
For the most part you will be...
- Collaborating with a team of strategists, developers, and other designers to develop design compositions for websites, applications, landing pages, mobile sites, videos, print collateral, and so on and so forth.
- Assisting in an internal rebranding of Station Four already in progress.
- Communicating your design with clients and assist in formulating strategy and translating those strategies into design.
- Helping us get better though awesome work, introducing new ideas and techniques, recommending improvements to our design process, and generally just being great.
Company benefits:
- Casual atmosphere with mandatory video game breaks in an environment open to new ideas.
- Health, dental, vision insurance.
- Retirement benefits planned for Q2 of 2011.
- 3 weeks paid vacation.
- Year-end bonus based upon performance.
Please contact Chris Olberding at olberding@stationfour.com for more details.
By Chris Lahey
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
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Recently, a vulnerablity in the .NET framework was exposed. The attack exploits the security measures behind encrypted "cookies" in an attempt to gain knowledge that will allow the attacker to better decrypt the cookies. If enough information is gained, the attackers can potentially gain access to protected files and information stored within your site.
The details of it all are a bit technical, and we strongly urge you to stay up to date on Microsoft's advisory site. While there is no patch to the .NET framework released by Microsoft yet, there is a work around that will inhibit the attackers and prevent them from learning more about how your web server encrypts files and cookies.
At Station Four, we understand that many of you who are our clients are unaware of the technology that your web sites and applications are using. For our clients who's websites we host, we have completed an internal audit and will be notifying you individually to inform you of the vulnerability and our plans to ensure your safety.
It takes a lot of software to smoothly run a web agency. When Station Four started in 2007 we primarily leveraged cheap or free versions of a number of the 37 Signal apps such as Basecamp, Highrise, and Backpack. Over the years we’ve adapted as we’ve grown, all the while knowing that a number of the systems we were using were merely stop-gap measures.
Currently we still rely heavily on Basecamp though we’ve long outgrown it. Since 2008 we’ve been on a pretty regular cycle of a) getting frustrated with the limitations of Basecamp, b) evaluating alternatives, c) hating the alternatives, d) deciding to build out our own software to manage our process, e) realizing this isn’t going to happen overnight, and then f) resigning ourselves to keep using Basecamp ‘temporarily’.
In the last 9 months we’ve grown from two to five people, seen our workload increase exponentially, and also seen an increase in project complexity – the days of using Basecamp as our primary PM tool are nearing an end as a matter of necessity.
In this post I examine the project management software ecosystem and discuss what Station Four currently uses. I plan on following this post up with a description of the new system as we begin to put it in place.
Below is the way I conceptualize how the various pieces work together:
Each bit of functionality doesn’t necessarily require its own standalone piece of software – most project management web apps purport, to varying degrees, to offer much of the functionality referenced above.
Overview of Functionality
Contact Management
Centralized place to store contact information. Usually this is part of your traditional CRM software, however team members that have nothing to do with sales still need to access this information so I keep this separate from sales and marketing. 37 Signal’s Highrise is more akin to a contact management app than a proper CRM.
Currently Using: Good question. We’ve used Highrise and vTiger (a SugarCRM variant) neither with much success. Beyond a contact manager Highrise’s features are basic and not worth the $50/month to fully take advantage of them. vTiger is a free open-source and boasts a decent feature set based off SugarCRM. However, even with some customization and tweaking, the interface is cluttered, feeling slow and unresponsive and just isn’t fun to work with. If something’s not easy to use, it’s difficult to maintain. In reality our contacts are scattered between Highrise, vTiger, email, and scraps of paper blowing around the office. This is something that needs to be remedied.
Sales Management
System to track leads, prospects, and new business. Can send follow up reminders and run sales reports. Core functionality of most CRM’s like Sugar CRM, ACT, and Sales Force. Dependent upon Contact Management functionality.
Currently Using: vTiger. Highrise is too basic for our purposes. vTiger has the functionality we want – tracking leads from contact to contract – but is a pain to use. Most CRMs have too much functionality – marketing campaign tracking, email marketing, inventory control, invoicing, etc – and have cluttered interfaces as a result.
Client Portal
Allows clients to monitor project status and upload files and serves as a hub for project-level communication. Some project management apps do this well. Basecamp is great for this; ActiveCollab is not as great though it tries. Some of the more serious PM tools don’t really include 'client portal' functionality.
Currently Using: Basecamp. This is one thing that Basecamp does pretty damn well. Clients tend to figure it out on their own. The biggest area for improvement is how files are handled. The file area tends to become a mess on big projects with lots of files. Ideally we’d like the file system to tie in with our file server, technically possible via FTP but I’m not holding my breath. Other small annoyances: files attached via email in replies to messages are ignored, some meaningless email attachments show up in the file section, and writeboards can be a pain to use.
Project Management
Area to view organizational-level information on projects, budgets, milestones, and resource availability. Most project management web applications do this. See Basecamp, AceProject, ActiveCollab.
Currently Using: Basecamp. At a basic level, I need to see what needs to get done by when and match that with the availability and schedules of my employees. Basecamp is decent for viewing milestones and dates but is awful for managing resource allocation. I might know that a design composition is due in a few days but I don’t know how much time has been allocated to it or used by the employee who is responsible for it. My solution? A lot of “Hey, don’t forget do this by Thursday”. This is not the most efficient approach and things can slip through the cracks.
Team Management and Collaboration
Allows for a team member to see assigned tasks, estimated budget, and upcoming due dates and milestones. Also enables team members to communicate questions and status to the rest of the team, and interact with time tracking in a centralized location. Allows managers to assign and prioritize tasks and monitor what everyone is working on.
Currently Using: Basecamp + yelling. Up until recently the entire team was working in the same room, which made verbal status updates a lot easier. As we’re growing I’m finding myself constantly wandering out of my office to make sure everyone is on track. Basecamp and gCal are good for seeing upcoming deadlines but for now, task management is very manual and verbally communicated.
Bug Tracking
Largely for use in QA. Allows for specific problems to be listed, assigned, tracked. Should be integrated with team member’s other tasks.
Currently using: osTicket or Excel. In terms of proper bug tracking, we aren’t using anything other than the occasional spreadsheet put together in QA. In some cases we’ll use our support ticket system, osTicket, but it’s not very efficient for dealing with a lot of minor issues/errors (i.e. bugs).
Support Ticket Management (not pictured)
Similar to Bug Tracking however Support Tickets come in from existing clients, usually for maintenance. Might result in one or more entries in the bug tracking system.
Currently using: osTicket. Conveniently set so clients can email support@stationfour.com and create a ticket, beyond that it’s a pain in the ass. The UI is weak and tickets assigned here are outside of our contact management and project management systems.
Time Tracking
Users review and input time cards. Admins can run reports across numerous dimensions. Time is entered/stored in a manner that allows for easy billing and invoicing.
Currently using: DbNetTime. Obviously put together by a developer. Lots of features, pain in the ass to use. Users enter in time on a cost center/project/task basis and can enter notes for each entry, which is great if a client ever questions an invoice. We use this for pure time tracking; the software doesn’t hold estimates or show task percentage completed.
Accounting/Invoicing
Straightforward (probably because I don’t maintain this), place where all money coming in and going out gets recorded and reports can be run on profit, expenses, etc. Invoicing functionality doesn’t have to be integrated with the accounting aspects, of course, but it is in our case. Invoices can be generated from hourly work or from reaching milestones in projects.
Currently Using: Quickbooks. Since I don’t manage sending out invoices I don’t have a lot to say here other than Quickbooks obviously doesn’t integrate with any of our other systems (contact management, time tracking). I don’t see any reason to move away from Quickbooks for accounting though I’m open to moving invoice functionality to an integrated time tracking application like HarvestApp, but I’d have to be convinced that there was an advantage in doing so.
Moving Forward
With this inventory completed I am working on defining the criteria by which to judge a new system and then will begin to evaluate them. I plan on having a new system selected by the week. Open to any advice or experience people have with these tools.
We want to give a warm welcome to Amber Aultman who joins the Station Four team today. Amber has an interdisciplinary background - she graduated pre-med with a B.S. in Psychologyat the Unversity of Florida, studied textile design at the Savannah College of Art and Design, and has worked in graphic design as a freelancer and at the Dalton Agency.
In addition to deepening the pool of design talent at Station Four, Amber will work to ensure projects are staying on budget and on track. Additionally she has been given full authority to yell at the owners for failing to accurately track their time on projects.
We’re looking for an awesome person for accounts and administration
to help keep us organized and on task. Ideal candidate will possess an
engaging personality and will be ready to join a fast paced team environment.
Key Responsibilities:
- Contact clients and communicate project status, answer their questions and/or escalate their concerns
- Manage the content/asset delivery from clients
- Ensure that budgets are being met and that team members are on target
- Ensure that time cards are completed, validate entered time, and create weekly and end of month invoices
- Receive payments, record payment activity, deposit checks
- Develop internal documentation and external marketing materials
Skills/Qualifications:
- Exceptional written and verbal communications skills
- Proven organizational skills and meticulous attention-to-detail
- Proficient with MS Office
- General computer/social media/tech savvy
- Experience in a marketing or web environment is a plus
This is a full-time, on-site position. Contact Chris Olberding (olberding@stationfour.com) for more information.
We're pleased to announce that Sean Collins joins the team at Station Four today. Sean is a talented front-end developer and designer with over five-years of professional experience. Sean extends the skillset at Station Four by bringing video production and animating talent to the team, while solidifying our dedication to clean, standard-based coding practices.
Sean is active in the community. His artwork has been shown in many galleries around Jacksonville and St. Petersburg and is the founder of the local Jacksonville chapter of the Beard Team USA, the Jacksonville Beardsmith Society.