Recent Posts
By Jeff White: Oct 06, 2011
Filed Under: Design, Jeff
The internet has exploded with news of the death of Steve Jobs and tributes are pouring in from all sides. I’m leery of adding my voice to the din, but I wanted to share a few thoughts on it.
Apple has had a massive impact on my life. There is no question that I wouldn’t be where I am today without the Mac.
I’ve known that I wanted to be a designer since I was 16 years old, after spending a summer working for a design agency in Halifax. At the time, I think it was 1989, and that office was full of Mac SE30s, Pluses and other all in one Macs, plus a single new colour Mac IIx that blew everyone’s mind. I had never really used a computer before, but I knew I would be learning about it soon.
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By Jeff White: Jul 28, 2011
Filed Under: Development, Jobs
Update: This position has been filled. We’re still always looking for talented people, so feel free to send us a resume.
We’re on the hunt for an exceptionally talented web developer to join our agency full-time in downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia.
You’re a programmer who understands the importance of both development and design to the success of a project. You love open source, web standards and having a really interesting development problem just waiting to be solved.
People Matter, Objects Don’t – it’s the world view that shapes everything at Kula Partners. We create marketing programs, build websites and apps, and develop content that connects people to each other. Basically, we see the evolution of the internet, the rapid adoption of social media, and the increasing role technology is playing in our lives as being more about people than the technology itself. That doesn’t mean that we value the way things look over the way they work. Just the opposite. We want every interaction to be seamless, smooth and well-considered. Read More »
By Jeff White: Jun 20, 2011
Filed Under: Design, Development, Jeff
This morning, we were reviewing comps for the new kulapartners.com site that our design team whipped up (side note—they’re gorgeous, can’t wait to show you). Anyway, in reviewing these mockups we noticed that the on site search box was taking up some valuable real estate that could be used for other things.
Before removing it though, we went and looked at our Google Analytics to see just how many were using the on-site search tool. Less than 0.5% of the pageviews on our site were generated by the search tool. Of those, 2/3ds were for “search kula”, and the other third were for searches I personally had performed looking for old blog posts to reference. Read More »
By Jeff White: May 18, 2011
Filed Under: Jeff, Social Media
Being able to hold a conversation with someone is a lost art, according to my seat mate on the flight home from St. John’s, Newfoundland. We had started chatting when Porter’s free drink service (woohoo!) began, and didn’t stop until we landed in Halifax. The elderly gentleman seated next to me with his huge wispy white beard had been on the rock for a bit of vacation, until it came time to leave his wife behind to cook for the men and women actively working to rebuild parts of the island devastated by last year’s hurricane. Read More »
By Jeff White: May 13, 2011
Filed Under: Jeff, Social Media
I gave my first ‘intro to social media’ talk more than three years ago at the AIM Conference. That was a presentation Rob Swick and I gave called “The Authentic Web”. Since then, I’ve lectured on the topic frequently; introducing various industry groups, small businesses, non-profits and numerous others to social media. Since the talks are often an hour or less, it’s hard to delve too deep into anything but tactics when many in the groups haven’t really moved beyond a personal profile on Facebook. Read More »
By Jeff White: Mar 25, 2011
Filed Under: Development
Facebook, as we’ve discussed at some length, loves to test new interface paradigms. A few months back they released a gallery ‘improvement’ that causes all photos to open in a lightbox instead of within the main interface. This screen has all the same links and functions of the old Facebook, but breaks expected functionality. Aside from that, it’s just ugly and lightboxes are often a hack for viewing images that limit access to the rest of the interface. Read More »
By Jeff White: Mar 16, 2011
Filed Under: Design, Jobs
We’re on the hunt for a ridiculously talented web designer to join our agency full-time in downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia. If you’re passionate about design, obsessed with the web, and enjoy creating elegant user interfaces people love, we should talk. Read More »
By Jeff White:
Filed Under: Design, Jeff
Facebook is forever testing new user interface paradigms. And they usually release them on an unsuspecting public, generally to mass uproar. Facebook rarely responds to these protests, and generally speaking people seem to adapt and move on.
This morning, they released a particularly insidious update to the service. They’ve removed the ability to create paragraphs by hitting the return key in comments. You can still use the shift-return key combo to generate a soft return. But it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to change how such an important key works. Read More »
By Carman Pirie: Mar 14, 2011
Filed Under: Carman, Strategy
Much has been said about Chrysler’s firing of their social media agency this week after a road rage faux pas by a junior agency staffer. Beyond questions of whether the firing was justified, as organizations build out their social media marketing efforts this story points to a recurring challenge for marketers:
In a world that favors speed (which often comes with increased errors) and, supposedly, authenticity, what happens when someone authentically makes a mistake while being authentic? Read More »
By Jeff White: Feb 27, 2011
Filed Under: Content, Design, Jeff
I was lucky enough to spend some time in the sun during the past week or so. One thing my kids were most looking forward to on our Florida trip was a visit to Disney World. A place that, honestly, I had no interest in going. Other than Pixar’s productions and a few of Disney’s animated efforts, I’ve lost a great deal of respect for the Disney brand in the last decade. Read More »
