Neato Torpedo!

You can learn quite a bit by just goofing around. I have started a rather involved process of building a sample garden center website. I did it in order to use it as a reference tool for an upcoming presentation at the New England Greenhouse conference on November 6th. Well, what started out as a simple, straightforward project has ballooned into a race against time (deadlines, ugh!).

It seems as though the more you add, the more you want to add; ad naseum. You can really get hooked on technology. I really did have rather modest goals when I started to create XYZ Garden Center's fictitious website. Then when I was adding a Google map for directions it occurred to me that I need a real address. So I added the address of my childhood home. Why you ask? Well, because with a Google map you can see a street view and actually see the house. Neato!

Then when I was adding a fictitious Constant Contact account I decided to add the 'survey' function and put a poll onto the site. You never know, you might want to know what your customers think. Alright, I did it because I thought it was... neato!
Well then I was going to add this new cool form creator. It would allow for all kinds of applications for the website - an 'Ask Us' form, a submission for the 'We Plan, You Plant' service, and of course for the 'Contact Us' page. It was fast and really neato!

Are you sensing a trend here? Of course there is a danger in cramming so much stuff onto a website just because you can, but I though, hey, wouldn't it be cool to create a Facebook page for the site and show people how you could create a 'Fan' club for XYZ Garden Center? Still sorting that one out for now.

The reality with a website is that it is never finished. There are always new ideas and adjustments that could be made based on the feedback you get when you add the Google Analytics - neato stuff!

The only thing that will stop me now is the deadline for submitting my PowerPoint presentation outline for the talk. I sure hope they have high speed Internet access. I guess I should really get back to the creation of the site, but I had to compose a sample Blog post to make sure it would work on the sample site.

Did I mention the blog post? Or the podcast? Neato stuff for sure...