Blog

Last week the team at SimpleFlame decided to surprise Jason Tinnin before his actual birthday,  January 19th. Although we enjoyed a great pizza party, there was no cake. The birthday cake was to be a surprise from Jason's lovely wife Amy and reserved for his true birthday, which was today. As a surprise to all of us and even to Jason, Amy thought carefully about the selection of exactly what kind of cake to get. It couldn't be just any cake, it had to be the perfect cake. So, I thought I would blog about it.

If you haven't heard the story, Jason and I love giving each other a hard time, all the time. We are both type A personalities and are hyper competitive with one another - it simply brings out the best in us and what we are all about at SimpleFlame - hard work while having fun. We both enjoy golf and that is where everything is left out on the table.  In 2010, Jason played some of the best golf in years.  Quite frankly, we have had some rounds come down to the last couple of holes. Handicaps make things as fair as they can be and it sets the stage for us. I can't really describe it. But it is such a blast for both of us, especially when its really hard to have a little time to ourselves as we run and operate our businesses.

Needless to say, Jason is a PC guy while I'm a Mac guy. Our latest bets involve stickers and the rest is history! Notice that there are only two stickers on the laptop.  However, the type mentions 3 golf rounds.  Here's a sneak peak of a new colorful sticker that will be applied soon...

As a creative I'd like to give Amy a total thumbs up on her creativity and selection. Amy, you picked the perfect cake, the Apple Cake!  The team here at SimpleFlame all had so much fun with it. And lastly, Jason, I look forward to many more golf rounds, many more business ideas, and many more opportunities to bust your chops. To a great friend and business partner, Happy Birthday!

Your bud,

Cesar

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of our wonderful clients, friends, and family!

It's been a pleasure working with you all this year, and look forward to a successful 2011.

The SimpleFlame team is taking a couple extra days off to spend with our family and friends during this Holiday season. Please see our Holiday hours:

Friday, Dec 24: CLOSED
Monday, Dec 27: CLOSED
Tuesday, Dec 28 - Thursday, Dec 30: Here and working hard
Friday, Dec 31: CLOSED
Monday, Jan 3: Geared up and ready to run full speed

Take care, and Happy Holidays,

SimpleFlame

 

As a small business owner, you have to wear many 'hats' in order to succeed. You're the accountant, manager, marketer, purchaser, organizer and the list goes on and on. You can't be the expert in every one of those categories. So, how will you find the help you need without breaking the bank?

We are proud to be a member of an exceptional new St. Louis based organization called Experts 4 Entrepreneurs (e4e). This organization is made up of 25 successful entrepreneurs and subject matter experts filling every major small business gap. From marketing and promotional needs to legal and general business issues, there is a successful entrepreneur there to help. This community is the resource we have all been waiting for, which allows small businesses with specific skill sets to lean on one another.

How can you tap into this group of experts?

We would like to invite all small business owners in the St. Louis Metro area to attend an e4e business seminar on November 3. "Don't Fly Alone" will give you the opportunity to connect, collaborate, and contribute with topics relating to entrepreneurs.

The keynote speakers for the event will be Ron Ameln, President and Owner of the St. Louis Small Business Monthly and Alan Minster, co-author of Sales Utopia. Both bring a load of valuable knowledge and will kick off the event.

The cost for the event is only $45 and half a day of your time.

Find out more information and register at SimplySuccessful-llc.com/BigEvent.

We'll be there. If you have the chance, be sure to say hello!

Last Thursday, I had the pleasure of keynoting the MarketSTL conference here in St. Louis. I met up with some old friends from last year's event and even had the chance to meet some new friends from a local, St. Louis creative agency, The Loud Few.  They were doing an awesome job of keeping their twitter followers updated by providing real time updates as speakers made important points in their presentations (#marketstl twitter timeline).  Although I was listening, I was also following along and I experienced just how powerful Twitter has become.

There was one point in the day where the conference room we were in was getting cold. A mere mortal would have gotten up, walked out, found a maintenance guy and asked them to turn down the thermostat. However, this was a conference room full of social experts and Lisa Keller (@lisackeller) and Erin Steinbruegge (@steinburglar) would have none of that. They sent a tweet out to @lumiereplace and asked them to turn down the A/C.

So what happened? Not long after the tweet, a maintenance man walked in and turned down the thermostat. A quick "thank you" went out from the girls to @lumiereplace and all was good. Kudos to @lumiereplace for being a big brand that "gets it".  

This has me thinking; I wonder if I send a tweet to @cesarkeller to bring me a sandwich, if he will be as reliable as @lumiereplace. Let's see.

 

SimpleFlame is proud to announce a new business venture that has been in the works for over a year, its called Kiyuco.com. Kiyuco.com is a membership site providing Adobe Business Catalyst video tutorials to Business Catalyst Partners all over the world.  Our tutorials are different compared to other online resources in that they have practical application, provide you step-by-step instruction, and allow you to think creatively about tools, widgets, modules, and other functions that make you a better designer or developer.

SimpleFlame has been lucky to participate in some of the coolest and most complicated Adobe BC integrations, and with that kind of experience, we have learned a lot along the way. Clients and customers from all over the world have contacted us for consulting, support, training, and high-level BC Expert knowledge. Sharing that knowledge and empowering BC Partners to take the Adobe BC platform to the next level is something we are very passionate about. Although Business Catalyst has come a long way, we feel that it is only the beginning with much better things to come. And that is why we branded and created Kiyuco.com, the hub for BC education, to do our part and create awareness for our platform of choice.

Kiyuco launched a successful beta release last week. We had an overwhelming response of collaboration, interaction and feedback. This information was tremendously positive, which reinforced what we set out to accomplish. Our mission to educate other BC professionals with master tricks and tips, via practical and well thought out video tutorials has become a reality.

And of course, Kiyuco.com was built on Adobe BC, we wouldn’t have done it any other way. There is a lot of advanced technology going on with the website and how it handles the user-experience behind the scenes. That topic is meant for another time and another blog post. However, Jason and I will be unveiling Kiyuco at Adobe MAX 2010 later this month. We have been invited to speak and talk about project case studies. The Kiyuco.com project will certainly be a part of our presentation.

I wanted to take the time to thank all of the SimpleFlame team for all their hard work and crazy schedules these past couple of weeks leading up to our launch. And I also wanted to thank everyone that participated in the beta release. Your feedback and participation was priceless.

If you haven’t already, please visit Kiyuco.com… we have a feeling you are going to love what you see.

It's here, once again… MarketSTL, the St. Louis Internet Marketing conference for small business owners, is Thursday, October 7. This year, MarketSTL is especially important, as Jason Tinnin, co-founder of SimpleFlame, will be the Keynote speaker. It is such an honor for our company to be a part of this event. Although every small business owner should be taking advantage of the web, frankly it seems like such a daunting place. Small business owners want 1 thing; results. To get results, you need education; and MarketSTL provides just that. Each speaker has a passion for taking complex topics and simplifying them, wading through the theories and tech-speak, and providing valuable action items for your business’s success.

Please make sure if you have registered that you join SimpleFlame and other business owners for the Pre Conference Mixer. We are sponsoring this event on Wednesday, October 6 from 7 pm-10 pm at Hotel Lumiere. For more information on this event, please visit the official MarketSTL website.

We hope to see you there!

Before I jump in and tell you about my trip to the HOW Conference it seems reasonable to introduce myself. My name is Patrick McNeil and I am relatively new to the SimpleFlame team. I do however have a long history in web design and development; I am probably most well known for my blog Design Meltdown and my books The Web Designer’s Idea Book(s). At SimpleFlame I play a fun role, I get to help our integration team with the building of client sites and I get to drive new initiatives like our forthcoming Kiyuco.

This year I was fortunate enough to get to speak at the HOW Conference about web design trends and how to use them. It is a topic I am extremely passionate about and it was a lot of fun. One of the exciting things to see come out as a part of being at this conference surrounded by creative’s was seeing how Business Catalyst fills a need that is very evident to this particular audience. I had numerous conversations with designers looking to embrace the web and it was amazing how it always came back around to how BC could solve a lot of problems for them.

As a person rooted in technology it isn’t hard to imagine setting up a combination of things like Wordpress, Magento and Mail Chimp to create a full online business. I have become adjusted to the need to upgrade and maintain such sites. But when you consider all that BC does for you, and you combine that with the technical limitations designers face, BC becomes a powerful player. After attending HOW and hearing peoples stories and frustrations with embracing the web I have a much better appreciation of the power BC holds for such people.

I actually think Adobe missed a huge potential audience by not working BC into the HOW Conference. Sure they were there pushing CS5, but this isn’t exactly news to those attending. It would take some careful strategy to break through to the designers and speak their language, but I think Adobe would find a receptive audience.

I had a great time at HOW and I hope to be invited back next year. I was fortunate enough to meet a lot of great people and I look forward to working with creatives more in terms of helping them embrace technology and work in a field driven by it.

Trevor Clark, a great client and friend of our SimpleFlame team, happened to be passing by St. Louis on his way out west. In 2009, we had the pleasure to collaborate and assist with the creation of his Trevor Clark Photography brand. We are all fans of his work and always look forward to learning about his latest adventures throughout the U.S. As he stopped by our offices in St. Louis, we took some time to kick-back and talk shop for new things to come in 2010.

Besides some creative brainstorming and technological babble, we enjoyed some beers at one of our favorite local burger joints. Catching up and trading stories with the latest and greatest became way more fun than our standard project conversations. This goes to show that relationship-building, mutual respect, and understanding of one another can go a long way in a professional setting. As much as we wanted to keep it all going, we couldn't hold Trevor and "El Guapo" (the awesome travel photo studio he calls home) from continuing the journey.

We always tell our clients that we truly vest ourselves in their business and brand. Trevor Clark is no exception and we wanted to share our experience with everyone.

As we are fast approaching the holiday break, we genuinely hope you have a wonderful time with friends and family. Don't forget to relax, refresh and get ready for a busy 2010. We here at SimpleFlame are doing the same and will have reduced Business Catalyst Support hours over the next week as we give our team a well deserved break.

Our office will be closed and no support will be provided on the following days:

• Thursday, December 24, 2009
• Friday, December 25, 2009
• Friday, January 1, 2010

Have a very merry holiday break!