OORAH! Always up for a challenge, we were psyched when we learned in spring 2006 that the Marine Corps League had chosen Hammock Inc. as the new publisher of its bimonthly magazine, sent to the organization’s nearly 70,000 members. The publication had been around more than 26 years and needed a fresh look, so Hammock designers and editors drafted a battle plan on how to ramp up from a quarterly to a bimonthly publication and revamp the magazine so it appealed to members and trumpeted the organization’s purpose.
The major challenge to us, as explained by the admittedly skeptical executive director, was whether a group of non-Marine and non-veteran writers and designers could successfully capture the deeply ingrained bond, camaraderie and warrior ethos among Marines.
Defining a rhythm and pace was the first step. The old version lacked organization—it was hard to distinguish a feature from a department. By establishing a clear framework, Hammock helps readers navigate through the magazine. Adding full-page photography in the front and back of the book (an industry term for “magazine”) and sticking with audience-appropriate fonts and colors gave the publication more visual interest.
We spent considerable time talking with the director as well as other Marines and reading widely about America’s premier fighting force. We proposed a bold strategic move: The publication had been called The Marine Corps League magazine—we suggested changing the name to Semper Fi, the Magazine of the Marine Corps League to tie into the Corps’ motto, Semper Fidelis (Always Faithful).
We found ways to hold onto sentimental favorites (such as illustrations used in every issue of the older magazine that were provided by a Marine vet who was a WWII combat artist), while adding fresh aspects that give the magazine a strength it lacked before.
The new design referenced Marine colors and imagery, including its eagle, globe and anchor symbol. It also tapped into Marine Corps terms, such as “Attention on Deck,” “Roll Call,” “Once a Marine” and “Recon” to identify sections and departments. Strong, masculine fonts and an orderly, “squared-away” format gave it a clean, straightforward and contemporary appearance.
Editorially, we included not only a roundup of League activities, but also selected articles about today’s Corps—written by Marines who work for the Corps’ excellent news service—and features on a variety of topics, from personality profiles of Marine veterans to articles on Corps history, to personal recollections of members.
The results have been outstanding—the Marine Corps League reports that its members love the new look and feel, and members continue to send in compliments and rave reviews. We’re satisfied that our work is appreciated by a group of the bravest men and women we know.
Each issue expands our knowledge and increases our already great admiration for the men and women who comprise the U.S. Marines, who are Marines forever. We look at it as our small contribution to thanking all of them for defending this country and the cause of freedom since 1775.
When Hammock Inc. launched MyBusiness magazine in 2000, we created a website for the magazine, even though the National Federation of Independent Business already had its own site. From the beginning, MyBusinessMag.com has served as a magazine archive, a repository of information for advertisers and freelance writers and a place to offer additional value to print advertisers, with an online package.
Opportunities grew online over the years, and in 2006, we decided it was time to re-launch MyBusinessMag.com, in a fashion that more fully supported the magazine’s editorial mission and continued to offer full archives and advertising information and opportunities.
The new MyBusinessMag.com launched in April 2006, with a daily blog from the MyBusiness editors featuring news, stories and tips for small-business owners. The blog covers politics, business management and unusual stories, and it injects the same personality onto the website that we feature in the magazine.
Traffic to the site has increased 400 percent since the redesigned site launched, a stat we attribute to the new format’s ability to link out to other content and attract significantly more incoming links.
The January-February 2008 issue of Semper Fi: The Magazine of the Marine Corps League is headed for the presses this week, and will be arriving in the homes of some 70,000 Marine Corps League members in early January.
This issue is chock-full of reports on how the League played a leading role in celebrating the 232nd birthday of the Marine Corps on Nov. 10 and then in hosting the National Veterans Day Observance at Arlington National Cemetery on Nov. 11.
The issue also reports on the League’s 27th annual Modern Day Marine Expo held aboard Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va. in early October. The Expo, and its cousins held in January at Camp Pendleton, Calif., and in April at Camp Lejeune, N.C., bring military suppliers together with Marines who use their equipment. More than just a show and tell for the vendors, the Expos allow the Marines to speak with the suppliers about what works and what doesn’t. And when you are talking about something that can literally save your life and those of your fellow Marines, the talk is direct and to the point.
Yesterday, we flipped the ‘on switch’ for a new Hammock.com format. That’s rather obvious to anyone who has visited this site before.
As part of the site, we have these new “People Pages” that are blog-like things but we didn’t want to call them blogs because we’re going to have several new blogs rolling out on the site as well and our planning structure of the site was getting a little confusing.
Typically, when I start a new blog (or something like a blog) , my first post is simply the word, “Test.” However, I’ll make this one a little longer.
Creating a website like this takes lots of effort by lots of folks — in this case, by nearly everyone at Hammock. Giant props to Laura Creekmore, Patrick Ragsdale, Barbara Logan and Kerri Davis who headed up this effort (with way too much interference from me). Additionally, lots of atta-boys (however, non-gender-specific atta-people might be more appropriate) for our editors and designers who are doing lots of fine-tooth combing on the site as we roll it out — they were especially brutal (and I thank them for being so) on copy I wrote*.
We started on this project a year ago — and, frankly, it was not about a website when we started. John Lavey and I spent countless hours with different groups of people in re-thinking what our business is all about — and how we present that story to the world. In other words, there’s lots about creating a website like this that has nothing to do with technology — but is all about figuring out more important things.
There’s a lot you don’t see on this site because of the hard work by people at Hammock. That’s because a lot of the work that takes place when developing a site is focused on simplifying things. Creating a simple website is way more difficult that creating a site that has everything — and every feature — everyone wants to include.
We have lots more things that are really, really close to being added to the site: Lots of video, for example. And I wish you could see this crazy-cool flash thing that will be at the front of the site and I can’t wait to explain how it works. But we decided to make this a rolling launch — and, frankly, a never-ending launch.
We’ve got about a year’s worth of cool stuff already in the creative pipeline. We are also going to be throwing things on the site in a laboratory, experimental way — just to see how they work. I often do that on my blog and have found it to be a great way to really understand how something works — not just how something sounds like it will work.
Without giving away all of our secrets, Patrick, Laura and others will be using our People Pages to write a lot about subtle things taking place behind the curtain on Hammock.com. (And aggregating all those posts into one stream is on the to-do list.) There are already some cool content and geeky tricks on the site — and even more cool things lined-up to be added over the coming weeks and months.
I can’t wait to share those features with you.
*However, the editors don’t proof my People Posts, so please don’t judge them by my typos.
While most of my work is done using a Mac, the Web work I do requires Internet Explorer in a Windows environment, which used to mean I had to work on two separate computers. However, because I work with a bunch of Apple nerds for such a great company, when my old iMac died I got outfitted with a brand new MacBook–capable of running Windows right alongside Mac OS X using some software called Parallels.
Running two operating systems on one computer might not sound like that big of a deal, but trust me, it’s awesome. Not only does it save me from having to physically move back and forth between two machines on my desk, but when I want to take my work home I can just grab the MacBook and go–no more worrying about what files I’ve copied to the server (or if the Windows laptop will actually connect to the server once I’m at home). And, I can actually copy and paste content back and forth between the two environments. Got some text in a document I wrote in the Mac OS that I need posted to the Web? Open-apple C will copy my text from the Mac environment and open-apple V will paste it into the Windows area. (Yes, I realize I sound like a colossal dork right now. But after months of using my computer this way, I’m still impressed with how much more efficiently I’m working.)
And you know what the best part is? I don’t have to lug around that ugly 12-pound IBM anymore.
Update: Have you received your T-shirt and would like to add it to our map? You can find the Our T-shirt World Map at this address: Hammock.com/tshirt.
This year, our annual tradition of giving friends a Hammock T-shirt is going global. For the past 16 years, we’ve shared an annual edition T-shirt with lots of people we work with throughout the year. They’re often packaged in fun, creative ways. As we began to consider a new T-shirt (to go along with a new website and some new spin on our logo and graphics), we decided to make our T-shirt sharing a little more interactive.
So this year, there’s a little string attached to our T-shirt sharing. We’re asking the recipients to email or upload (or send us a snapshot via snail mail) a photo of themselves wearing the T-shirt, wherever they happen to be. With those photos, we will create a world map that shows how our T-shirts pop up around the world.
More importantly, we want this year’s T-shirt to help encourage another type of global connection. Since we’re all about sharing stories here at Hammock, we decided to use our T-shirt tradition to support some children who are ready to tell their own. For every five photos added to the map, we’re donating one laptop to the educational efforts of the One Laptop Per Child Foundation in developing countries. (Up to 20 laptops!)
When faced with a tough decision, do you mull it over for weeks or go with your gut? Do you feel comfortable with your decision once you’ve made it? These are the questions we asked several of the subjects featured in the December/January 2008 issue of MyBusiness, the magazine Hammock publishes for the National Federation of Independent Business.
What we found in our feature “The Power of Trust” was that small-business owners listen to their instincts to help them make important decisions about their businesses, but deliberation is still necessary.
We also talked to some small-business owners who make their communities as much of a priority as their businesses in our inspiring feature “Like a Good Neighbor.”
Check out these stories and more in the latest issue, including a staff favorite on how one Arizona business creates success by blending into the crowd—a crowd of trees, that is.
I wish I could say I am a devoted reader of The New York Times every Sunday, but perhaps I can add that to my list of New Year’s resolutions for 2008. This Sunday, however, I instituted a “stay as far away from the mall as possible” rule, so I was able to enjoy reading the Times at home. I usually start with Sunday Styles and then move to the Magazine section, but this week, the Travel cover and title “The 53 Places to Go in 2008” grabbed my attention first.
I quickly skimmed the 16-page section to discover which wonderful place I should go to in the coming year, but felt a little frustrated. Something in the story or the layout didn’t feel cohesive, but I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was missing until Monday morning, when I clicked on nytimes.com. Under their Most Popular (most emailed) list of articles, I stumbled across this:
Problem solved! The presentation and design of the article in its digital form addressed what had been nagging me the day before—wanting to see the entire list in one place. And this digital list featured an entire page of stunning photographs, which encouraged your eyes to jump from one to the next and back again. My frustration was gone. I wanted to click every link.
This is a case in which The New York Times embraced the flexibility and capabilities of their online platform to enhance their reader’s experience and engagement with the article. The simple change of showing photos of all 53 locations transformed the story.
Now back to my travel wish list for 2008…
No, we didn’t play “Pin the Tail on Rudolph” this morning at the Hammock headquarters overlooking West End Avenue — even though Ben really wanted to — just a simple game of Word Association. I decided it might be fun if I grabbed my Big Chief tablet and No. 2 pencil to make my way around the office for some fun with words. When I simply said “holiday tradition” to my fellow Hammoratians (or are we Hammockites?), this is what I heard in return:
Laura Creekmore: Baking. Just like every other holiday, Christmas is about food at my house. Last night, my daughter and I made cookies for her teachers. Before the year is out, we’ll have made more cookies, fudge, caramel and any number of other treats. We have a number of recipes we only make during the holidays — many of them a carryover from my own childhood — and it wouldn’t be Christmas without them!
Jamie Roberts: Watching “Christmas Vacation” or “A Christmas Story” together. Attending Christmas Eve services in my hometown. Being jumped awake by my niece and nephew on Christmas morning.
Bill Hudgins: For a number of years, we have been part of the local Rotary Club’s shopping for kids — about 120 kids plus Rotarians and spouses, Interact members (high school Rotary) and others invade Wal-Mart at 6 a.m. My wife, who is the Rotarian, takes photos and I wrap presents. Christmas Eve church service. Hanging icicle lights on the fence in front of our house. Fruitcake.
Lena Basha: My mom and I would ride around the night before Christmas and look at all of the lights, and when we’d see some, I would exclaim “Shine on! I saw it first!” I’m not sure what that meant. Still don’t. But I still say it!
Barbara Mathieson: John and I watch “Christmas Vacation” every year. It’s one movie that always cracks me up. We don’t do the gift-thing anymore. On Christmas Eve, we go out for a nice dinner. On Christmas Day, we have a midday meal with his parents.
Ben Stewart: On Christmas Eve, my father’s side of the family gets together to exchange gifts, joke around and play games. It’s the one time of the year where everyone is present for the party. Usually new-comers to the family get broken into the “craziness.”
Megan Goodchild: For the last 10 years I’ve lived 500 miles away from my family and have rarely made it back home for the holidays, so I’ve been adopted by my friends’ families around the holidays. For the last several years I’ve spent Christmas with my boyfriend’s family, who have always welcomed me as one of their own. They do it up right, too — lots of ham, turkey and adult beverages! Then after dinner we get together with friends and usually watch a movie or go bowling.
Patrick Ragsdale: Eating Christmas dinner at a gas station. We did this for over 10 years since we always drove back to Nashville from Indianapolis on Christmas day.
Lynne Boyer: Christmas Eve, one of the youngest in our family reads “Twas the Night Before Christmas” for the family. We’ll see if my son, 6 years old, is up for the challenge this year. Christmas brunch with my family, of course followed a few hours later by Christmas dinner.
Lisa Ask: Golden Rod Eggs. My great-grandmother invented this brunch item. She was a great storyteller who lived during the depression. She made a cream sauce out of the egg whites and poured the whites over an English muffin. Then she’d crumble the egg yolks (the Golden Rod) over the top. She made this very inexpensive meal for Easter and Christmas, but told the family that it was food that royalty ate to make it more special. Golden Rod Eggs are still a staple at Christmas. Now, however, we have ham, tomatoes and other delicious fixin’s.
Rex Hammock: Each year, my family has breakfast on Christmas Eve at Nashville’s Pancake Pantry restaurant. This got started back when our children were very young and Christmas Eve meant lots of stressful last-minute errands and massive projects related to those three words parents of young children always dread: “Some assembly necessary.” We discovered it was good to attack the day fortified with a hearty breakfast. And the tradition was established. Somehow, our Christmas Eves have mellowed a bit (teenage recipients of gifts can assemble things themselves) as post-breakfast activities now usually include naps. (Bonus tradition: Blogging about Christmas Eve breakfast at the Pancake Pantry: 2004, 2006.
For me, it’s all about the pajamas. I participate in adopting a family every year and there is always good food. But for as long as I can remember — it’s got to be the longest-standing tradition for our family — my sweet Gran would give us a single present to unwrap on Christmas Eve. It was and is always pajamas. A couple of years ago, mine had monkeys on them. In the past they’ve been spotted like a leopard, plaid like Christmas wrapping paper, or solid blue in a shade she thought brought out the color of my eyes. No matter what the pajamas looked like, we all hit the tree Christmas morning dressed in our finest newest pajamas, ready for whatever the day would bring.
What about you? Are there movies, food or fuzzy slippers that the holiday season just wouldn’t be the same without?
(“How’d we do that?” is a continuing series that examines the creative ways we do things at Hammock. Sometimes, it’s hard to make things look easy. Warning: Don’t try these at home — call us.)
By Rex Hammock & Patrick Ragsdale
Back in early 2007, when we started talking about creating a new Hammock.com, we determined that it should be a laboratory in which we would test various approaches and technologies and demonstrate the results — especially approaches to web development about which we are enthusiastic, but maybe not quite ready to recommend to our clients. That’s one of the reasons you will — if you look closely — see us constantly adding and removing things from the site.
As part of our laboratory approach, we decided to do two things:
We’ll be sharing several examples of such approaches in future “How’d we do that?” pieces, but it seemed obvious to us that this first look behind the curtain should be at how we’re using the photo sharing service Flickr on Hammock.com — and on Flickr.com/hammock — in a wide variety of ways that help us tell our story in a creative, efficient and, excuse our boasting, extremely cool way.
First, it might help to explain Flickr and why we chose that service to use in our experimentation. Now owned by Yahoo!, Flickr started out as features that were part of a multi-player online game. It may look like a place simply to post photos, but the service’s DNA is all about community and sharing and story-telling and discovery. We started using Flickr early-on. Blogging pioneer Rex was enthusiastic about the blog-like approach the service used to re-think how a photo-sharing service can work (reverse chronological display, commenting and RSS feeds were conventions Flickr launched with). The photos Rex hosted on his Flickr account — like, for instance, his photos of Nashville Greenways — have been viewed over 200,000 times.
At the same time, Patrick became a student of the way in which Flickr allows its data to be accessed and displayed in a wide variety of ways utilizing RSS feeds and (sorry for the geeky acronym) third-party developers who use Flickr’s API. For those not schooled in web-tech alphabet soup, that simply means Flickr allows its users to pull data (i.e., the photos stored there) and to display that data on other websites. The more open a service’s API, the more creative a web developer can be with data from that service. And Flickr is a good service when it comes to allowing a developer to build on its API.
Here are just some of the ways we’re using Flickr:
We’re hosting many of the photos seen on Hammock.com at Flickr.com/hammock. Typically, a web developer places images in a file, hidden away on a server somewhere. We decided that we wanted to use Flickr.com as another platform to show off our work and people and so, when you visit Flickr.com, you can browse around and get a good look at hundreds — and soon to be thousands — of images. In almost every instance, those images are also used here as part of our galleries or, well, almost anywhere you click.
We not only pull photos from Flickr, we pull text: We decided to use Flickr.com as a content management system (CMS) to handle the names and captions that accompany photos on Hammock.com. In other words, rather than entering text twice — on Flickr.com/hammock and on Hammock.com — any person on our staff can name and describe a digital photo, then upload it to Flickr. By utilizing Flickr’s APIs, we then display all of that information whenever a user clicks on a photo. Also, by thinking of Flickr as an easy-to-use content management system, we’ve now got a way that everyone — and we mean everyone — who works at Hammock can manage photos that appear on their people page. No one has to give any photos to a webmaster (what’s that, anyway?) to post or know anything about posting to their page. By just dropping a photo in a set on Flickr, their photo automagically appears on Hammock.com.
We decided not to reinvent the slideshow wheel. On the last iteration of Hammock.com, we had areas where a user could view our work as a Flash slideshow. We’re not big fans of having Flash all over a website, but we know, used correctly, it is a great story-telling tool. Because we were in the mindset of utilizing the tools already baked into Flickr, when the topic turned to displaying our work in Flash, we decided immediately to skip building out that feature ourselves.
There are a few other Flickr tricks sprinkled throughout Hammock.com — and we’re adding more all the time. In the future, we’ll use another “How’d they do that?” to review them.
For now, just smile and say cheese.