Author Archives: markorton

Friday – 4/17/2015

Busy day with clients. Reviewed materials from Mary Vaughn Williams at 6:30 am; talked with her at 8:30. Hopefully she got her application in to Martha Lane before leaving for her high school reunion.

Spoke with Alan Coon about the UTM website project again. He had a tough conversation with David Ackerman yesterday and is now doing the repair work on his own dime. Then, Matt Almeida. Spent time catching up on diary.More on this1Some company

Great meeting of HAL Marketing Committee at 4pm. Agi Clark presented her ideas and we had a lively discussion and brainstorming session. Left feeling very buoyant about this work. It is clear that we need to organize the messaging around the various classes of users, children, parents, teens, etc.

David Drake’s 64th Birthday

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Notes:
  1. Some company

Hidden History of Columbia County – lecture at HAL

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book cover


The Hudson Area Library History Room sponsored a lecture April 2, 2015 by Allison Guertin Marchese based on her book “Hidden History of Columbia County New York” (The History Press, 2014. Available locally at The Spotty Dog Books & Ale 440 Warren St).
Ms. Marchese touched on many topics: healing waters in New Lebanon that supported a 300 room hotel, sulfur springs in Stottville, the Shakers, Electric Park, interesting people in the area, a fairly extensive comment on Edna St. Vincent Millay, the poet and finally the library’s current home at 400 State St.
(The audio is captured on an iPhone. Serviceable, but at times a bit noisy with rustles and comments)

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Allison Marchese at Hudson Area Library 04/02/2015


 

Thursday – 4/16/2015

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Umesh talked over but not to this slide. Drives me crazy.


Early meeting with Mary Vaughn Williams about her loan application.
UTM – talks with various software developers. UAlbany visit.

Met Anita Harris at Panera Bread near UAlbany. Her mother is in a nursing home nearby. While waiting Janet Schnitzer, Germantown, former HAL President, appeared. She play majong there regularly. Small world. Continue reading →

Wednesday – 4/15/2015

Met with Schuyler Duffy at Bluestone Roasting coffee house in Saugerties to discuss his plans for aquaponic vegetable growing in shipping containers. Aquaponics combines fish and water for the nutrient system.

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Museum of Arts & Design

Buzzed off to NYC. Was very aggravated by situation with UTM’s website. Out of control development work confused by Seth’s bad oversight and excessive emotional reactions to personalities. Stopped at American Folk Art Museum . Couldn’t engage at all due to repeated calls with Seth Lachterman. After lunch at Columbus Circle at a Whole Foods in the basement where I was overwhelmed by the crowds and too many choices, we went to the Museum of Arts and Design. Talked with Alan Coon about his taking the project over and bringing it to a conclusion. He is bringing on Ira Sher to do the work. Looks like a complete redesign at the level of HTML and CSS.
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Sunday – 4/12/2015

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Stair Gallery sign

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new store

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Boundary marker – Greenport-Hudson at corner of cemetery.

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Boundary marker – Greenport-Hudson at corner of cemetery.

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Boundary marker – Greenport-Hudson at corner of cemetery.

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Won’t open until Spring 2016

Long walk up Warren over the hill thru the cemetery and back. 4.5 miles. Nice weather.

Went to Swoon for Scotch after the gallery closed. Left credit card when we left.

Spent my nap time in the afternoon taking screen grabs on my iPhone of businesses in Hudson. Posted an article, “Hudson Going Dark on the Web” on currentmatters, Facebook, HBC listserv, and Facebook Hudson Community Board.

 

Hudson Going Dark on the Web

Hudson, Business and Government, Will Be Demoted in Web Search Results

The trend of people accessing the web predominantly on their mobile devices is so strong that Google has announced that as of April 21, 2015 websites that are not mobile ready will be downgraded in their search findings. Google offers a guide and mobile responsiveness test site so that you can test you own site. Google is taking this step because an ever increasing portion of all visits to websites are being done on smart phones (iPhones and Android predominantly). They do not want to provide search results that lead to websites that are unusable on these devices.
Businesses and other institutions in and around Hudson are not well prepared for this. Most websites are virtually unusable on smart phones like iPhones and Androids. The text is tiny and finding anything requires much pinching and scrolling.

Here are some local websites that are mobile phone ready:

Here is a sampling of websites that will be downgraded.

What to Do?? A Few Suggestions

If you have a WordPress site there are fairly simple steps to make most mobile responsive. You can contact me for more about that. Check out the WPTouchPro plugin.
For others, go to your web developer and ask them to fix the site.
If you are thinking about redesigning or creating a new website start your design work on the scale of mobile devices. Think about the information your customers most need to know (e.g. location, hours of operation, reservations, telephone number, etc.) and make sure that is either on the home page or very easily accessed at the top of a menu. Make telephone numbers active so that customers can just click on the number to call you.
Don’t be taken in by fancy visual design.Make sure your developer optimizes every image. Any image over 100KB is too big. Most should be 30-40KB. Otherwise your customers are staring at their phone wondering why it takes so long to load your site.
Think of your website as an extension of the sign in front of your business. Customers don’t expect the sign to tell the whole story, but they do want to know how to find the front door.
 
 

Friday – 4/10/2015

04102015 - 2HAL – meeting of the newly enlarged marketing committee. Agi Clark joined us.

Agi Clark
Born: Budapest Hungary
Emigrated to the U.S. with parents on February 1957
Graduated from Christopher Columbus H.S. in the Bronx
BFA degree from Pratt Institute major Fine and Graphic Arts
 
Career in Advertising in NYC 1967-1991
Art Director at Pritchard Wood (British Airways, Jamaica, Indian Tourist Office, The Bahamas)
Creative Director Senior V.P.  at N. W Ayer (DeBeers Diamonds, AT&T, Kraft, J.C.Penney, Seven Up)
Chairman, Chief Creative Officer LGFE (New York Stock Exchange, Hennessy Cognac, Contel, Wall Street Journal)
 
Advertising Director for the Liberal Democratic Party (Alliance of Free Democrats)
in Hungary in the 1994 and 1998 elections.
Advertising for the Mayor of Budapest, Gabor Demszky 1994 and 1998
 
Moved to long time country house in 2000
Two photography exhibits one in Budapest, one at Hudson Opera House.
Established the magazine Hudson River Art (with Peter Barton) designed and produced it
Volunteered at John L. Edwards elementary school (mentored reading)
On the Board of the Hudson Library (can’t remember the year.)
 
One son, two grandchildren. Grandson second year at Berkeley California, granddaughter junior at Poughkeepsie Day School.
Very good meeting with Joe Keenan and Agi providing much new direction and content. Now will focus on creating overall messaging strategy. We will meet again next Friday.

 

UTM

– Raizlabs, Surge, Coherent Solutions, Gavant, all intro discussions. Seth called to tell me that he and David want me to take over the website project. Send letter to Alan Coon informing him of our disappointment and need for him to step in. Seth is altogether too emotional.

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Thursday – 4/9/2015

Talked with Silicus in Pune India. Then Jared Woodcock, Jan’s nephew, about Schuyler Duffy’s idea for growing vegetables in a shipping container. Drive to UAlbany for meeting with students.

Drove down to NYC to go to opening of Judy Henry’s exhibition at BravinLee Programs (526 West 26th Street #211, New York, NY 10001)
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Judy talking with Karen.

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