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Michael Klett
Senior Web Applications Developer
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Mike Arsenault
Brand Strategist
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Casie Gillette
SEO Manager
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Jeff Sargent
Web Development Manager
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Ben Madden
HR Coordinator
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Jeremy Butler
Online Marketing Manager
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Jonathan Kay
Ambassador of Buzz
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Adam Majid
Front End Developer
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Team Blog
Learn from the experts of the Grasshopper Team. From design to engineering, customer service to marketing, Grasshopper employees are dedicated to making sure they follow our core values and that our customers reap the benefits.
Management Tips from the Pros: AMA Recap
One of the great things about working at Grasshopper is that each member of the team is given the tools needed to be successful and to advance their skillset. In our main office we have a library (check out some of our book reviews), hold Grasshopper University (team members teach the company something they know a lot about) and employees can attend various seminars & trainings related to their field…on the company dime. We are encouraged to become better!
Last week I was fortunate enough to attend a 2-day management training seminar put on by the American Management Association. Taught by Adam Vane, a leader in leadership and conflict resolution, I received some solid advice and real world tips on working with members of your team and becoming a better manager.
Overall, there were a two main things that stuck out in my head and they both revolved around communication:
Listen Listen Listen
We all “hear” what people are saying but we don’t always “listen”. As a manager you need to listen to what your employees are telling you. This is especially true if you are a small business or startup…your employees are your insight into what’s happening both inside and outside the company. You need to listen. Here are a few ways you can listen to what your team members are saying:
Our First Skunk Works Iteration
At the end of our second quarter, the Grasshopper Engineering team conducted its first ever “skunk works” iteration. With most of the quarterly initiatives wrapped up, we thought it would be a good idea to devote the last two week iteration to projects that were more fun, creative, and longer-term in nature.
We are certainly not the first company to do this sort of thing – Atlassian and Google are two well-known examples of companies giving developers time to work on side projects – but we figured we’d give this a shot as well and see how it turned out.
What the heck is skunk works?
In short, the term refers to teams within organizations that have a high degree of autonomy and work on advanced or “secret” projects. See the wikipedia definition for more.
Why did we do it?
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While we are an Agile team and have a degree of freedom on what gets worked on day to day, Read more »
Introduction to Usability Testing
I was brought into Grasshopper as a user experience designer about three months ago and have been serving as the lead designer for the new interface we are working on. During this recent redesign phase, we’ve been doing a lot of usability testing and today I will be sharing ideas on it.
To start off, we need a definition for usability testing and I couldn’t find one clear cut definition for ‘usability testing’ but through utilizing Google search, I was able to compile the following:
Usability testing is defined as:
Usability testing is a technique used to evaluate a design involving use of a prototype or product by its intended users, testing to determine the extent to which the design is understood, easy to learn, easy to operate and attractive to its users. In a collaborative usability test the usability specialist moderates an active dialog with the participant in order to better understand his/her behaviors and opinions.
Now as we have a basic understanding of what usability testing is we can speak about reasons why it is important and the benefits of including it during your design process.
The Recession: Why It’s Good for Entrepreneurs
With the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression, 2009 was, without a doubt, one of the worst years for the economy. Is it a pure coincidence that this year also represented the highest year on record for entrepreneurial growth? No.
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the definition of entrepreneur is “one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise.” They are in fact undertaking a risk when they open a business and what better time to take a risk then when you have the freedom to do so- when you’re laid off? The last thing many people want to do when they get laid off is to go through the long, difficult and often frustrating task of searching through hundreds of job search websites, sending out cover letters and resumes only to receive that e-mail saying “Thank you for your interest but we have found another candidate…”
So why not do something you’ve always loved? Sure you may not make money right away, but committing yourself to doing something sure beats sitting around feeling sorry for yourself and your wallet. Not sure where to start? Check out Entrepreneur.com’s 55 Home-Based Startup Business Ideas
Remember the famous saying “Do what you love and the money will follow?” It’s true. Put your mind to it and success and money will come. And if it doesn’t, it’s never a mistake if you learned something from it.
SEO Your WordPress Site
Last night I had the opportunity to speak at Boston WordPress Meetup on the topic of SEO and Wordpress. One of the questions I asked the audience before I started was how many people were using WordPress for their business site. The answer was almost all of them.
When I started thinking about it, I realized that many of our customers probably are using WordPress as well, so why not provide some tips here on how to make a WP site SEO friendly.
All in One SEO Pack
One of the great things about WordPress is that it is open source so people are always making it better and keeping it current with technology. While SEO certainly isn’t new it has become much more important over the last few years.
The All in One SEO Pack is a terrific plugin that can help improve your site and eliminate issues that can be caused through WP, including duplicate pages (the plugin blocks /tag, /author & /category) and canonicalization.
The other great thing about the All In One plugin is it allows you to set a custom title and meta description.
URL Configuration
With so many people using WP for their business website, it’s important that you can configure the URLs to your specifications. Read more »
Minimalism in Design
The tragic irony of minimalist design is that it’s actually quite complex in its implementation. The purpose of this series is to outline a few of the significant aspects of minimalist design and to define some of the complexities involved in creating a website that is both minimalist and rich in user interaction.
To begin, I’d like to establish a loose definition of minimalism and what you can expect to be discussed in this series. While the untrained eye may define minimalism as black and white with very few objects on which to gaze, I’d like to begin to unpack the complexities that make up a well designed minimalist website. I believe minimalist design can be described, at a high level, as the effective use of subtlety, typography, spacing, and pixel-perfect accents spread across a well thought-out canvas.
Because I have a particular affinity for minimalism and choose to do all my designs in that mindset, I am often asked the question if there are good designs that are not minimalist. The answer is, of course, yes. I just can’t think of any! Read more »
3 Key Factors to Success in an Agile Environment
Agile development means a lot of things to a lot of people. Depending on what role you have in a software-centric company, agile development might impact you in regards to anything from hiring, to marketing tactics or organizing planning sessions. As a front end developer here at Grasshopper, I’m a member of an agile team of engineers, and have experienced agile from the depths of the development trenches.
With all that can be said about agile and the concepts surrounding it, from my point of view there a few simple things that are absolutely key to finding success using this process: know yourself, know your team, know your project.
Knowledge of self is the first key factor to being able to find success in an agile environment. In order to achieve your goals within small, demanding iterations, you have to be aware of your own limitations within that span of time. Work life, personal life, and everything else in-between can be factors that impact not only the amount of time that is at your disposal during a development cycle, but the level of focus that you will be able to give your tasks. Having a solid understanding of yourself is the first step towards successfully producing high quality work with the rest of your team.
7 Marketing Tips I Learned in College
Corrine Ayoub is the current marketing intern here at Grasshopper. She will be writing several guest posts over the next few months.
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Importance of Customer Loyalty and Satisfaction
It’s 10 times more expensive to gain new customers than to retain them. Therefore, customer loyalty, connection, and satisfaction is very important. Keep in contact with your customers via social networks and occasionally conduct surveys to see if they are satisfied with your company.
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Free is better
Sounds obvious right? As a consumer culture Americans love the idea of not paying. Offering free trials for your products or even discounted promotions are an excellent way to get people to try them out. Once they see how good the product is, they’ll be willing to pay more for it!
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Network Network Network
A stranger at a bar who orders the same thing as you? Your parents old college roommate who is visiting? Your best friends cousin’s uncles stepbrother twice removed? You never know who you know. Engaging in conversation is key to getting your name out there and networking. You never know who you really know. And they may know someone too. So don’t be afraid to talk!
Friday Flix: HR Coordinator Ben Madden Makes the News!
First David makes the local news for his stint on a segway and now another Grasshopper team member makes their television debut.
In town for the recent Recruit DC “Unconference“, our very own Ben Madden was interviewed by ABC 7 WJLA about the recent sales tax increase on soda. He’s famous! (Check it out at 0:19)
If the video doesn’t load for you, check it out over at WJLA
Friday Flix: Segways + Entrepreneurs = Polo?
A few months ago, members of EO from around the Boston area, including Grasshopper co-founder David Hauser, met up to play an unusual sport: Segway Polo. WCVB Channel 5 Boston covered it and the video is now up for your viewing pleasure.
Click on the image to view the video on the Boston Channel.
