This morning, QSI launched the new site for the Benefits Consulting Group (BCG).

BCG came to us for help with three main site objectives:

• Create a new site design that is clean and up-to-date.
• Develop quick and easy access to company information for client groups.
• Provide a content management system (CMS) that is easy for the BCG staff to edit.

The end result is a clean, modern site that allows their client groups to easily find the information that matters to them.  The site was built using WordPress, making it easy for BCG staff to update and maintain on their own.

To see just how far the BCG site has come, check out the screen shots below:

Before- BCG Home page

Before- BCG Secondary page

After- BCG Home page

After- BCG Secondary page

I don’t know about y’all, but after day two of the “new” Facebook – more specifically, the ticker reel/feed/thingy – I realized the company’s ultimate, evil goal.

Facebook wants me to hate all my friends.

Nate listened to Katy Perry’s “TGIF” 14 times. Kerry commented on six photos. Emily liked four new pages and 12 people’s status updates. Adam read three articles on The Washington Post website – and thanks to the automatic share function, I can name each one.

So, I had to go to Nate’s page and unsubscribe from his “Music and Videos.” I unsubscribed from Kerry and Emily’s “Comments and Likes” – but only because I’m not that close to them, so I won’t miss anything by hiding that information. I didn’t alter any settings for Adam, because we have similar interests and I tend to enjoy the articles he reads.

Trust me – I’m *this* close to climbing into my status bar and shouting, “Please go to my page and unsubscribe! I don’t want you to hate me.” I do a lot of things on Facebook, and I’m sure I’m clogging up the ticker…it’s not that I want to, but that’s how baseball go. Expect “auto share” to  become synonymous with “auto hate.” Facebook is sugar coating it by calling them “gestures” – you no longer like an article, you read it. You no longer like a video, you watch it. You get it. Facebook assumes your “friends” actually want to know all of this junk. What’s sad is, I can immediately start ticking off the names of those who actually think we want to know all that junk.

So, let’s briefly talk about how we can prevent some of this hatred, and perhaps even some embarrassment (*ahem*, Nate).

First of all, so you know:

Your main privacy setting (public, friends or custom) only applies to new posts. Old posts will remain private (if they were not shared publicly before), but if you’ve altered your setting from a more public setting to a more private one, the posts that were created when you used the more public setting are still public.

Clear as mud?

To restrict the visibility of your entire Timeline, there is a separate setting that you must enable. Go to your privacy setting page and select “Limit the Audience for Past Posts.” (**see below)

Here is what you’ll see on your settings page – think of it as the Table of Contents for your privacy settings.

New and/or important here:

How You Connect: Who can look up your timeline by name or contact info? Who can post on your timeline? Who can see posts by others on your timeline?

How Tags Work: Timeline Review of posts friends tag you in before they go on your timeline; Tag Review of tags that friends want to add to your posts; Maximum Timeline Visibility of posts you’re tagged in once they’re on your timeline.

Apps and Websites: we’ll get to this, stay with me.

**Limit the Audience for Past Posts:** content on your timeline you’ve shared with more than your friends (ex: Public posts) will change to Friends. Remember: people who are tagged and their friends may see those posts as well.

Now, before you go off and start clicking everything like a psycho, please note: you also have the option to individually change the audience of your posts.

Okay – stop here, and go here. Right now. While you’re there, if you’re so inclined, watch the lady (whom I’m sure is lovely) tell you about some of these features whilst she creepily smiles.

There are two things we should discuss.

First – changing individual posts on your Timeline. This could be in lieu of opting for the “Limit the Audience for Past Posts,” or in addition to. I personally have never posted anything publicly (*pats back*), so I did not choose to use that feature.

Here’s the deal on this: when you are on your page, looking at your Timeline sprawled before you, you can only tell it if you want something on your Timeline or not, or if you want to delete it (see Item A below). In order to select all the juicy sharing details, you need to click on “individual stories” (if that option presents itself, see Item B below), or head to your Activity Log.

Item A: 

Item B:

Ultimately, you can go to each event (via either avenue above) and select if you want to allow it on your Timeline, if you want it featured (see the star there?) on your Timeline (in which case the item just becomes more prominent), or if you want it gone.

For the following items, you have even more sharing/privacy options:

• check-ins
• link posts
• status updates
• photos
• video
• notes
• certain applications

On some of them, like photos, you can even hop in a time machine and change the date of occurrence (those high school cheerleading pictures aren’t going to post themselves). But these more detailed options are available for the above listed items only.

Since I’m insane, I decided I wanted to take this puppy post by post.  I did this through my Activity Log.

Again – you can also do this on the actual Timeline, but by doing so, you’ll inevitably end up going back and forth between it and the Activity Log.

The Activity Log is completely private. Swear.

Once you’re in there, you can go by year–>month. I then went by activity. So, to reiterate – you’re choosing the year, then the month, then what activity you want to walk through. Breaking it down like this was easiest for me.

Here’s what your options of activities may look like (see Item C below). I selected to go through my photos, so it took me here (see Item D below):

Item C: click to enlarge                                        Item D: click to enlarge

Second (yep, we’ve still been on “first” this whole time) – app settings. When you see what songs your friends are listening to and what articles they’re reading, that’s because the settings of that app are directing it to inform the feed. If Nate had gone in and modified Spotify’s sharing setting to where no one could see it, I wouldn’t be pointing at the screen and laughing because I now know he listened to The Cranberries all morning. See where I’m going with this? You need to direct the settings in each individual app you use, the first time you use it. Walk with me.

Apps no longer have to ask for permission to post content to Facebook each time. Instead, a new Facebook permissions screen explains exactly what type of stories will be shared the first time you give an app permission to post to your Facebook. After that, it will no longer have to ask for permission.

Study these, my minions: (click to enlarge)

After the fact, the easiest way to control who can see updates from individual apps is the app setting page. For example, if I wanted to set/change/review my settings for my Spotify app, it would look like this:

Here, it tells me what powers this app has – posting to my timeline, accessing data, etc. Some “powers” are required in order to use the app. In such case, don’t fret – see the “App activity privacy”? Just select “Only Me” from that bad boy, and no one will have to know that you’ve been browsing the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit page (what? Girls look, too.).

I’ve pretty much set all my apps to “Only Me.” People find me way less annoying that way.

I cross-my-heart promise that if you just spend some time on these pages, you’ll figure it out. I mentioned above that I went post-by-post. I got through two years in one night. But, like I said, I’m insane. It’s not so much I’m hiding a bunch of stuff…more like tidying up my place for guests.

Because – don’t forget – don’t post it if you’d be mortified it ever got out. Y’all are smarter than that.

Happy gesturing!

Prediction: you’ll begin to see brain matter littered on walls all over town later this week.

Why?

The new Facebook Timeline, that’s why. Put your earbuds back in, because the sound of heads exploding will become irritating in such frequent amounts.

Facebook begins rolling out the new format for Profiles this week. Some of us too excited to sleep went and enabled it early. Maybe it’s because I’m single, but I’ve got a lot of love to go around – and I LOVE (yep, all caps) this new format.

In an effort to keep this from turning into an appendix for the new features, I’ll keep the screenshots and arrow diagrams to a minimum. But y’all, just look:

Isn’t she purdy?

Not to get all sentimental on you, but this has such a scrapbook-esque feel to it (albeit digital). It’s really completely chronological and contains exactly all of the photos, sentiments and events that you want it to. No, really – you tell Timeline exactly what you want to appear there, whether it be how many/what friends you made that year/month, to what people may have written on your Wall. It is completely curated by you. The best part? You get to pick your “cover.” Facebook gettin’ all blog-gy and stuff!

Now, let’s get to the part you’re really excited about: you. Since Facebook is inherently Look at me! Look at all the things I’m doing and thinking and feeling and eating!, this new layout creates an even bigger platform for self-promotion/absorption/loathing. My Profile is now my whole entire life – what I choose to share of it, anyway – and it’s laid out in such a logical and intuitive way that you can’t help but be sucked in.

One can now add “life events” that happened before Zuckerberg could even tie his shoes. We all have those friends and family members who will take the time to go in and add everything (chicken pox, first goldfish flush)…in such case, do not fret – you can still “hide” anyone/thing you like (via the “Subscribe” function). My favorite part? “Maps.” That sucker shows all my activity all over the world. When you post stories (check-ins, yada yada) and photos with a location, they transcend space and time and hop right onto your map.

But in all seriousness…if you craft it, there is potential for a very tender side to this. Imagine an interactive timeline of your life – friends, family, places, love(s), loss, jobs. A virtual library of memories and events. Think both in terms of excerpt (a courtship) and long term (from wedding to empty nest). And remember – if you so choose, only you can see it (hint to future fiancé: a custom timeline at our rehearsal dinner, perhaps??).

And heads up, businesses: this will benefit you, too. Think milestones and traditions and whatnot. And that cover photo…imagine the widgets you can sell with that!

Like I said, there will be initial backlash and outcry. Home Depot will be sold out of pitchforks, and a universal “How dare you change a free service I’m not obligated to use!” will be heard on every street corner. Alas, Internet friends, give it time. Zuckerberg did a solid on this one…and I think you’ll agree.

Happy Timelining!

With printing costs continuing to rise and new products and product changes emerging on a continual basis, The Bramton Company was stuck in the middle — repeatedly printing, revising and reprinting sales and collateral materials and paying a very dear price.

The solution – migrating all sales and product materials to an iPad app and deploying iPads in the hands of every salesperson. To keep the latest information easily available to the retail trade, a companion private website was developed, presenting the same information.

The Bramton Company offers a wide range of pet products under numerous brands, including Simple Solution®, Vet’s Best® and Bags on Board® to large and small retailers across the US. With a large network of sales and dealer representatives, communicating information about new products was handled in the traditional way – printed flyers, sales sheets and other pieces of collateral material. Not only were new products being introduced regularly, but because of the dynamic nature of the retail business, product and ordering information became dated almost as soon as it came off the press. The answer to these issues was to convert all the product, sales and ordering information into digital formats – deployed as an iPad app for the Brampton sales people and an exclusive web sitelet for dealer reps and retailers.

Using iPads in the field, sales reps can easily share the absolute latest and most up-to-date product information with retailers. As the program rolls out, selected retailers will be given a similar iPad app so they can access the current information.

All product, sales and ordering information is stored in a central database managed by Bramton’s marketing team. Along with information, Bramton’s new digital product information system is also used to share product image files, product labels and marketing materials with their reps and retailers.

With this new approach, for the first time, The Bramton Company communicates all their product information online and through the iPad app while avoiding costly printing and reprinting. Information is updated quickly and easily so the field sales force and retailers always have the latest and most accurate data.