The Hammock Blog

When you reach for a cover on a magazine stand, what is it that grabs your attention? Is it the photography? The enticing cover blurbs? The color?

Editor Megan Pacella sat down this week with our design team to talk about just those questions and one of our own publications. Let us know what you think!

Tweeters at Hammock Inc. share their favorite apps

You probably already know that we love Twitter! So last week when the conversation turned to what tools use to tweet, there were several votes for favorites.

At Hammock, we tell stories about people from all over the country, and photography plays a big role in the way these stories are told. Through the years, our art director, Kerri Davis, has built an amazing cross-country network of freelance photographers who conduct photo shoots of small business owners, soldiers, preservationists and other subjects featured in our magazines and on our Web sites.

When I asked Kerri what makes a freelance photographer stand out in her mind, she immediately thought of Eric Millette, a San Francisco-based photographer who does a lot of shoots for MyBusiness magazine. When we find a photographer we like, we'll use them as often as possible! Here are five characteristics that Kerri looks for in freelancers, and some visual examples of how Eric meets—and exceeds—those expectations.

Social media surprises from our mothers

It wasn't until I was in high school that I really started to recognize my mom had an identity beyond being putting a healthy, home-made meal on the table every night, making sure we understood our homework, and offering encouraging words or a forgiving smile when we needed it the most.

Now, I always knew she was a cool lady, but recently I've been starting to see where I must have gotten the Internet-nerd gene from in the family. Over the last couple years, my mom has started to get into social media: She uses Bloglines to read RSS feeds (she's got mine in there!), we chat more over IM than we do on the phone, and a few months ago she asked me how hard I thought learning Dreamweaver, a website-building application, would be for her (my answer: Go for it!). Oh, and although she doesn't have an account yet, she knows what Twitter is. I can't even say that for most of my friends.

Since we're all very passionate about social media here at Hammock, I figured I wasn't the only one whose mom was starting to warm up to the new media bandwagon. Read on to find out whose moms have embraced this new technology and whose might still be a bit leery.