On May 2, 2007, hesketh.com was honored for its outstanding customer service at the Raleigh Chamber of Commerce's Pinnacle Business Award celebration. CEO Heather Hesketh, accepted the First Citizens Bank Amazing Customer Service Award from Steven Blalock, Market Executive for First Citizens, on behalf of her web development and user experience agency.

There are lots of antisocial networking techniques out there, from spam to phishing. Explore what they are, how it all works, and how are you contributing to all the mess in this presentation from SXSW.

As part of its commitment to the local community, hesketh.com is proud to announce the launch of the City of Oaks Marathon web site, effective today. In addition to providing complete information about event requirements and registration, the site provides detailed information about the course itself, training opportunities, and other events that will precede the actual race on November 4, 2007. Robb Hamilton, a hesketh.com employee, is co-marketing director for the event. 

 
Just as with the Web, standards (as well as widely-accepted conventions) are vital to the continued success of email as a medium. Many of the threats to email as a medium are rooted in a laxity and tolerance for failures to observe standards, or failures of, or weaknesses in, the protocol-defining standards themselves. By enforcing and enhancing existing standards, fixing the existing holes in those standards, and introducing various new standards, we can fix email.

Heather Hesketh was presented the 2006 Women in Business Award by Triangle Business Journal in recognition of her success and dynamic leadership in the Triangle’s business community.  The award, presented at a ceremony on August 10, 2006, comes on the heels of recognition in April as a 40 Under 40 Leader.

Where does spam come from? We've all asked ourselves this question. A cadre of systems administrators, who are actively trying to preserve this incredibly important communications channel, have invested a great deal of time into understanding the problem. Learning how to read email "headers" in order to trace spam to its senders, blocking abusive mail servers and other sources, and so on - has given us some interesting insights over the years. Lately, however, the spammers have begun to escalate their attempts to ensure delivery of their unsolicited ads for illegal (and dubious) pharmaceuticals, porn, and virtually everything else. The United Nations estimates over 70% of all mail sent on the Internet is spam, and it's getting worse.

Whether considering an initial Web investment or a redesign of an existing Web initiative, a crucial step in your process should always be to address the key components that help to create a positive user experience. These components include: Copywriting, Information Architecture, Interface Design, Information Design, Workflow, and Cross-platform Compatibility.

Back in the old days of the technology boom, we didn't have to worry about finding “the money tree,” because we had money forests. The Web had hit town, and it was sexy. To avoid being left off the tech bandwagon, venture capitalists couldn't write checks fast enough — regardless of the true viability of many of the early technology ideas. But as investments were lost, those days came to a quick end. Today, business plans, feasibility, viability, and ROI are back in the picture — and funding is harder and harder to secure.

Blogs are about to storm the corporate world — but not via the CIO's office. They are appearing in companies most often as the convenient records of engineering or design projects. In fact, blogs are following the same bottom-up adoption path that was created by instant messaging (IM), another collaboration tool originally used for personal communication. As blogs bubble into businesses, they introduce new ways to create, share, and leverage knowledge — and that is why they should be on your radar.

You get what you pay for - that statement has been pervasive throughout most of our lives, but is it always true? What about open source software? Not only is it often released for use at virtually no charge, but its source code is also made freely available for modification and customization. The philosophy behind open source is that deep cooperation evolves a software product at a pace that conventional development can't match. But it still begs the question - is there business value in this approach?

As we deflate the monster yard snowman and store the fruitcakes for next year's regifting, it's time to reflect on events of personal significance of 2003 — replaying the good, the bad, and the ugly. And in the end, we look forward to the beginning of a great 2004 — an opportunity to right the wrongs and improve the improvable. Yes, we're talking resolutions. For us, it means asking you to join us in resolving to make it the Year of the User.