Samples of my work:
Work that you can be proud of. Work that I can be proud of. A personal approach to project management.
The Caravelle Resort (www.thecaravelle.com)*
The Slater Company (www.theslatercompany.com)
GoCashiers (www.gocashiers.com)
Southern Tide College Ambassador Program (ambassador.southerntide.com)*
Ebb & Flow Pictures (www.ebbandflowpictures.com)
North Shore at Lake Marion (www.northshoreatlakemarion.com)*
Career Hell (www.careerhell.com)
Strand Management Group (www.leasemyrtlebeach.com)*
For your reading pleasure
Web job titles need a facelift
If it wasn’t clear enough that the web came first and web marketing second, just look at our job titles. Web designer, web developer, interaction designer, user-interface designer, webmaster. Make it stop!
Screen resolution on the way up: less than 1% of my visitors used 800x600 screens
I was just looking through the past six months of Analytics data and wondered what people were using these days for screen resolution. I knew screens were getting bigger, but this was surprising. Excluding handheld-size screens, only a miniscule 0.72% of my site visitors used screens less than 1024x768.
Now with RSS and commenting
I just had to point out that I built in an RSS feed and commenting capabilities in the last 24 hrs.
Should I have a mission statement?
I’m a big fan of a wildly successful little Chicago-based company called 37signals and I read their blog quite frequently. They had a post yesterday about mission statements and their frequent irrelevance. I’ve thought about having one before, even though my business model hangs heavily on the idea that the traditional business model might be outdated — business plan, what? So I ask, should I have a mission statement? Do you?
10 things Google Suggest knows about us
I was playing around with the autocomplete function on the Google home page search box, also known as Google Suggest. I noticed if you started typing in a very vague query, it was really interesting — almost wild — what it would try to guess about what you were searching for. It takes the relative popularity of what you started to type and gives you suggestions for what you might be looking for. So what can we learn about ourselves by seeing what Google thinks we want to know? Here are ten things I found out.
How do you convince your clients to use web standards?
I am a huge supporter of web standards. I might not be an absolute purist, but the fundamental concept is a big deal. I read about web standards, I’ve been to Zeldman’s A Conference Apart and I just generally think it’s a great idea. But I sometimes have trouble impressing upon a client how big a deal it is. This can make the difference between a client choosing you over the flashy Flash shop in town or between keeping their broken homegrown CMS monstrosity over your cheaper, SEO-friendly and more-accessible option. So how do you convince your client you’re right?
Cold call: FAIL
I find myself thinking a lot lately about marketing since technically it is in a broad sense the industry I work in. All of my client work is marketing. —Anyway, I just received a cold call about accounting services. The caller talked about what they offer and did not ask me about my company until I volunteered something like, “I’m pretty small, so I don’t really need that right now.” Only then did the caller say they worked to help with startups, etc. That’s when my skepticism meter started to register.
RE:Dear Twitterphiles: Here are the three things I still don’t understand about Twitter. Please help
My response to Raina Kelley’s article on Newsweek about Twitter. Here’s an excerpt of what she said:
I am one of the most self-absorbed people I know. If I had been aware that I could broadcast my every thought in 140-character chunks to every one of my acquaintances, dozens of times a day, I would have tried Twitter long ago. But I’ve been Twittering for about a week (OK, I only lasted a day, but I’m still reading other people’s tweets), and I’ve realized that I have nothing to offer you Tweeples except for lies
I started to post a reply in their comments, but after submitting the comment, I was prompted to sign up for an account in order to post (bad user-experience, Newsweek!). So here’s what I had to say....
Good design sells products
I just clicked on my first Pandora ad ever. (If you don’t know what Pandora is, it’s great free internet radio that learns what you like. Go check it out: http://www.pandora.com.) Anyway, the only reason I clicked on it was because the product itself was designed well.
See all entries
* refers to site designed as full-time employee of Fuel Interactive
Ground-shaking News!
Don’t just build a website — build a web presence in the living web
You might be asking yourself, what can a website do for my business? As the web continues to progress, step back and think about how you use the web now and how you’re using it more and more every day. As more of us turn to the web as our primary resource for information, it’s not just about having real estate in cyberspace — it’s about being there when people need you. It’s having a personal presence that gives the web some life.
Random Samples
Design Charts | various / Toxic Design
Video: RSS feeds in plain English | Lee LeFever / Common Craft
How to get free books to review on your blog | Nick Evans / Problogger/Macheesmo
The Principles of Successful Freelancing | Miles Burke / Sitepoint
Project Honeypot | Fighting spam and comment spam / Unspam Technologies
Pure Imagination: An interview with stop-motion filmmaker PES | Marc Ostrick / eGuiders
Build your own social home | Chris Coyier / CSS Tricks
Facebook faces furor over content rights | Carolina McCarthy / CNN/CNET
10 Harsh Truths About Corporate Websites | Paul Boag / Smashing Magazine
How to use Twitter as a Twool [Flash presentation] | Guy Kawasaki / VizEdu
Perfection is pointless: Tips to help the creative perfectionist | Matt / Spoonfed Design
Interesting article about coworking for freelancers | Alex Hillman / Mashable
Dogs on the job: corporate canines | Career Hell / www.careerhell.com
Obesessions - €2500 in pennies | Sagmeister / ministryoftype.co.uk
Innovate or die | Randy McClain / The Tennessean
Retro web design examples | various / Smashing Magazine
Around the world in 42 days and $5,312 | Strange Maps / Wordpress
Rothkography - abstract photography contest | Bryan Bedell / Coudal Partners
Logo mashups | Mario Amaya / Different Thinker
Gotta love eduardo recife’s work | Recife / misprintedtype.com
Six new directors who are making music video cool again | Jake Swearingen / Wired
When did modern art begin? | Jonathan Jones / The Guardian, UK
Russian Poster Set | various / Flickr
25 beautiful macro photography shots | various / Smashing Magazine
Contact Me
(843) 696-7237
Twitter: @mccambridge
A LOT OF PEOPLE HAVE ASKED about the background photo on this site. It was taken on the beach by Fort Moultrie on the harbor side of Sullivan's Island, SC. The old, wooden sea wall has been there as long as I've lived in Charleston. The beach is a great place to watch the ships and shrimpers come in and has one of the best views of downtown Charleston.