About two years ago my wife and I were looking over the fence at other home options as our family was growing. My wife’s brother and sister both were working for Plantation Homes at the time. Before I knew what hit me, we were buying a new home in the Lantana community which is in southwest Austin at William Cannon and Southwest Parkway – very near the new AMD campus. Purchasing the home was a great experience because we had two insiders looking out for us. During the process I mentioned that I wasn’t a fan of how new neighborhoods had centralized locked mailboxes. I grew up with a mailbox in front of my house and liked the simplicity of walking out to get our mail. At the same time, I was quickly reminded of a key benefit of locked mailboxes – added security from identity theft. What a smart point which had totally slipped my normally very paranoid approach to identity theft protection.

So back to the mailboxes – here is a picture which got me thinking:

For the past couple of weeks, each time I drive by the mailboxes (fortunately, it is my wife’s routine to actually get our mail) I have noticed the same number of unwanted telephone books. So how do you feel when someone leaves phone books at your door step? For me, I am not a fan and feel frustrated when I have received phone books on my door step in the past – I didn’t ask for the clunky phone books and now I have a new task which is to recycle the very unwelcome phone books – thank you very much nefarious phone book people.

So what is my point and how does a locked mailbox tie into web development and online strategy? The reality is we need to evolve and accept the fact the rate of change will not slow down. Our online strategies need not to fall victim in becoming unwanted phone books. The brutal facts of our reality are that social marketing for one isn’t going away. Further, the way we build loyalty and engage customers online will continue to evolve especially with the rise of Gen Y. Is your web site going to evolve at the same rate of change to build rather than loose momentum? What are you doing to add build loyalty? How are you using web technology to engage your audience? Take action and talk to us today about staying relevant in the fast, cool world of the web.

Steve C. Kahle
Managing Principal
White Lion Internet Agency

I am a professional problem solver enthusiast dealing with meetings, battling my inbox and task list every day all to help in doing my part to design and develop world-class web sites. My work life is awesome and so is my personal life. I am blessed with a great wife and two awesome little dudes and another little dude on the way in April. I owe it to my family to work just as hard for them when I come home as I do my team and our clients. The problem is when I come home I am typically on the edge of being mentally wiped out.

Now being caffeine free for some seven years I have been in search of the holy grail of how to re-energize. I have read countless articles about sleep optimization with many triangulating the point of how people should avoid naps after 3:00 PM. I decided to put the expert advice aside and starting experimenting and have found a winning combination. For the past couple of months almost every work day, I duck out for 15 minutes when I come home. I fire up my bedroom fan on high speed to create some nice, neutral white noise, put on my face mask (which I have been made fun for wearing), set my iPhone timer for 15 minutes…

…stretch out and close my eyes. After taking 20 deep breaths I think happy grateful thoughts and chill. When my alarm sounds (I like the Bell Tower sound), I quickly shake off the rested state and am ready to go. Typically working a couple of hours each night after reading time, I glide through with a nice energy buzz. Where before I had to fight getting in front of a computer again, I have no issue. Oh, and I also sleep great at night.

In summary, this web developer agency chief recommends learning from computers and rebooting when things start running sluggish.

Steve C. Kahle
Managing Principal
White Lion Internet Agency