Splash!

The news of Hurricane Katrina hit us very hard. Fortunately, the people we knew who lived in the region are all safe.

The news has been disturbing on many levels. In part, it’s because we’ve been involved in safety and security awareness training for many years — in the Navy and in the private sector.

When you see a tragedy like this, all your disaster scenario knowledge comes to the fore. You understand why things broke down. You’ve read the planning scenarios. You’ve written executive briefings on the cascading failures that inevitably happen as cities and regions respond to disasters. You’ve read the reports and recommendations. You’ve even tried to help companies with their own disaster recovery and business continuity planning projects.

No matter how much you understand it — sociologically, technologically, psychologically, or in terms of risk management — watching it happen isn’t the same thing as understanding on an abstract level. To be sure, watching it happen isn’t the same thing as living through that hell.

Of course, we are also deeply interested in the issue because we are located in the Tampa Bay region. The Tampa Bay region is second only to New Orleans in terms of expected death and destruction were the ‘big one’ to hit Tampa.

We’ve known people who are unable to leave the area as a hurricane approaches. As small business owners, we have to take calculated risks when we are faced with a voluntary or mandatory evacuation order. Fortunately, we live in a “safe” zone.

Consequently, we knew, before any reporter figured it out, just how silly was the question, “Why are you still here?” We know, not just because it’s difficult to evacuate if you have no money, no car, no place to stay, or your employer won’t let you off work. We also know what many people don’t realize: it is not possible to fully evacuate New Orleans or the Tampa Bay region in the event of a major hurricane. Even if everyone had money, a vehicle, the blessing of their employer, and a place for their pets to stay, for political, technological, logistic, and economic reasons it is impossible to evacuate the populace out of the path of the hurricane as it bears down and approaches.

To learn more, you can can read our thoughts on disaster preparedness, evacuation, and who’s to blame.

In our July 3rd entry, we noted that we’d set up Inkworkswell.net at another hosting provider. Our main site, Inkworkswell.com, remains at its current hosting provider.

After nearly three days of outages at the inkworkswell.net site, we are reminded how difficult it can be to find good hosting services like those provided by WDDX.net.

We have created and maintained over a dozen e-commerce sites and many more personal and academic Web sites. We’ve never once had a problem like this.

Fortunately, the .NET site was an adjunct to our main site. We opened the .NET site in order to use some great open source tools: blogs, content management systems, and project management software. We wanted the community-oriented technologies to launch Design-L, the Design-L e-mail list, and the Design-L blog(coming soon).

Take away lesson? If your business relies on its Web presence, get a good, reliable host like (shameless plug) WDDX.net. It is money well spent.

We’re thrilled to announce that we’ll be partnering with a freelance photographer, Renny McGovern. Look for a special portfolio of her work, coming soon.

Why the name ‘Hot Metal’ for the newsletter? Hot metal refers to the way newspapers were produced for nearly a century: with a linotype mechanical typesetting machine.

What’s the significance? For one thing, Kelley’s father worked for a small town newspaper. As a little kid, she enjoyed peering into the bowels of the building where her dad worked. There, a giant, churning printing press pumped out newspapers, day in and day out. It was great fun to get a special tour upstairs in the cooler, quieter offices where she watched staff paste up the daily paper.

Hot Metal, like the name Ink Works, harkens back to another era, the age of machine production. We like the juxtaposition: a name that evokes the industrial era and big, solid machines that made lots of noise. Yet, we work mainly in a quiet digital environment with machines made of plastic and silicon, ideas that proliferate through the bits and bytes of cyberspace.

We also like the fact that this older era, the age of the Arts and Crafts movement, evokes the kind of craftsmanship and design principles we value.

It’s been how many days since we last posted? Time flies when you’re working 80-hour weeks! We’ve briefly considered two names for our company newsletter (Splash! and Casting Off). Today, we add a third possibility, Hot Metal. Until we get the poll up and running, you can contact Angelina and tell us which one you like best. Or, make a suggestion.

While we are happy with the services provided by our Inkworkswell.net host, we sure miss the bells and whistles provided by the Inkworkswell.com host, WDDX.net. It has fabulous statistics. The statistics alone make it worth the boutique price. Take our word for it.

We’ll be working with a small press to produce the book cover design and interior page design for the first in a series of coaching/management books. It’s good stuff: How to motivate employees through coaching. One of the reasons why we loved the author’s work was the stories of how a coaching management style allowed her to blossom into a productive, customer-centered employee, when she might not have otherwise.

Our latest client runs a suite of sites that are ranked number one for his key words. As we work on the suite of Web sites, we’ll keep you posted on the nifty things we can do with CSS and Web Standards. They can really boost search engine rankings and improve usability — crucial for e-commerce sites.

While Our client’s site is already ranked number one in the search engine rankings game, in the e-commerce business, you can’t rest on your laurels once you’ve positioned yourself. You have to maintain, maintain, maintain. Sounds like good post-diet advice, too.

Inkworkswell.net is up and running. It always was, now it’s on a different server so we can host our latest brainchild, Design-L, a list for the discussion of online and print design. Design-L is a collaborative effort, the work of four people (and more if you are interested). Contact us or subscribe, so you can be part of the fun. Right now, we’re devising the list rules, mission statement, and Web site. Eventually, we’ll design a blog, host a classified ad exchange, provide space for job postings, and offer all kinds of handy information and help for people working in the business of design.

The Web site redesign is nearly complete. Plus, we’ll soon have Splash online. Splash is the tentative name for our our newsletter. Splash will keep you up to date on the latest happenings at Ink Works. If you would like to know more about the list, see our subscription page for more information.