Posted by: Virginia Moore, Senior Strategist May 14, 2013
Here at Rock Creek, we are starting to work on company-wide workflow enhancements, and it seems like we’re in good company judging from the abundance of process-related events and articles in the communications industry.
Posted by: Andrea Paton-Ash, Digital Marketing Strategist May 09, 2013
What does every coder have in common? A good set of headphones. No one is more conscious of the office distractions than Rock Creek’s coders. Concentration is key when rattling through lines and lines of code. Here’s a playlist to keep you on your coding game.
Posted by: Alex Parent, Digital Marketing Strategist May 06, 2013
No matter what industry you are in, you’ll probably agree: companies are increasingly challenged to do more with less. This, unfortunately, is easier said than done. But what if I told you that there was a tool with the power to identify cost saving measures, improve efficiencies, and develop new strategies? You might ask, “What is this magical tool that he speaks of?” Well, folks, I’m talking about website analytics.
Posted by: Mariya Ho, Marketing Strategist Apr 22, 2013
In honor of Earth Day, we participated in the Rock Creek Conservancy’s 5th Annual Rock Creek Extreme Clean Up, a volunteer effort to make a difference and help restore Rock Creek to health, along with the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay. Our cleanup was one of over 50 locations along the 33-mile stretch of Rock Creek.
Posted by: Michelle Chin, User Experience Strategist Apr 19, 2013
When it comes to the Rock Creek UX team, we are a pretty well-rounded bunch. By day, you will find us sketching interface experiences, but elsewhere, you can catch Virginia at a Kennedy Center performance or an E Street Cinema film. John will be redecorating his home – it was recently featured in Apartment Therapy! Try to catch Jess on her bike on the weekends or check out planes with Andrew at an aviation show. And don’t be surprised if you see me doing sound production for a DC ska band. Yes, we may be individuals, but there are some telltale traits that all of us, UXers, exemplify.
Posted by: Andrea Paton-Ash, Digital Marketing Strategist Apr 11, 2013
With limitless distractions around the office, it can be hard to focus. While the lucky few have offices with doors, some of us only have our headphones. Whether you use it to block out your neighbor or keep you focused, music can help you get lost in your work and even inspire you to create.
I asked our designers to send the songs that help them get through the day while reigning in their creative brainwaves to translate them into show-stopping designs.
Posted by: Zane McHattie, 508/Accessibility Practice Lead Apr 02, 2013
Generally speaking, when people think about web accessibility, more often than not they imagine blind users who are accessing the web from a computer and using some sort of a screen reader. While this is one audience that benefits from an accessible website, it’s far from the only one.
Read More: How Does an Accessible Website Benefit All Users?
Posted by: Jennifer Shine, Proposal Manager Mar 28, 2013
Developing compelling and winning proposals is critical to expanding our business and showcasing our capabilities to new and current clients. Our dedicated team of proposal professionals is trained in the Shipley Associates methodology for proposal development. We are also members of the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP) to stay current and to expand our knowledge on industry best practices through events and workshops.
Posted by: Jeff Riggs, Associate Director of Strategy Mar 25, 2013
Much has changed in the last few years at RCSM. A lot has changed online too.
RCSM is now 60+ employees strong with full in-house web development, Accessibility and UX teams—not to mention our growth in the areas social media management and marketing campaign development. And there’s our program-level federal contracts from FTC’s website re-build to FEMA’s outreach campaign. To say the least, it’s an exciting time.
Posted by: Sonia Kreimer, Project Manager Mar 15, 2013
Project Manager Sonia Kreimer recently had the opportunity to travel overseas for a FEMA Youth Preparedness Project. She shares her travel experiences in our first ever Rock Creek Travel Diary!
Posted by: Janessa Klahs, Director of Project Management Mar 04, 2013
At Rock Creek we follow the Project Management Institutes (PMI) best practices for managing projects. Using this standard ensures all projects are run in a similar manner and the internal teams are clear on the expectations.
Just last month, our sixth and final project manager passed her PMP exam! Here are 5 tips to help you as you prepare to take your PMP.
Posted by: Andrea Paton-Ash, Digital Marketing Strategist Feb 28, 2013
Everyone likes a pat on the back, but we prefer high fives! This year, Rock Creek Strategic Marketing jumped up to the #2 spot for Visual Art and Design Firms in the Washington Business Journal’s Book of Lists, up from fourth place last year.
Posted by: Zane McHattie, 508/Accessibility Practice Lead Feb 22, 2013
Rock Creek has long focused on the principal that web accessibility is about more than just complying with Section 508, an amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1974. Instead, our premise is simple: Web accessibility is a way to break down barriers and make sure that content is available to everyone. But creating accessible websites doesn’t just happen—and it won’t happen if everyone working on the project isn’t onboard at the beginning. This was the basis of our presentation at a Drupal4Gov event at the National Institutes of Health on February 21.
Read More: Iterative, Cooperative Web Accessibility: Rock Creek’s Presentation at Drupal4Gov
Posted by: Virginia Moore, Senior Strategist Feb 14, 2013
Designing sitemaps is something we do everyday as User Experience (UX) practitioners, and it’s easy to take for granted that colleagues and clients know what all those little interconnected boxes mean. To help us communicate what a sitemap is, and what goes into making one, the UX team came up with a workshop that challenged us to explain what we do in a brand new way and to demonstrate how it works with a hungry crowd at last week’s brown bag Rock Creek Academy.
Posted by: Ashley Bright, Marketing Strategist Feb 07, 2013
This Tuesday a few of us gave a social media presentation. Our clients are increasingly asking us to help them with social media outreach, and we took this opportunity to share some of what we’ve learned from some recent social media audits and strategy plans we’ve worked on.
Together with Andrea Paton-Ash and Alex Parent from the Digital Marketing team and Mariya Ho from the Strategy team, we presented some platform-specific knowledge and best practices. We focused on moving beyond the basics and talking about strategies that are working now for some of the top performers on social media.
