2009 Roundup
About the Author
Having designed his first website at the age of 13, Andy has been with StorMan since 2006 and is now our Marketing & Web Services Manager. Andy also runs our client graphic & website design department, known as StorMan Business Services.
Whether your question's about web design, colour codes, Google or HTML tags, Andy's your man! You can get in touch with Andy via our Contact page.
As far as years go, I think 2009 has been a bit of a tough one - not just for self storage, but for the world as a whole. But the good news is that things are certainly looking brighter! While our year started off fairly sluggishly, things picked-up midway through and then rocketed up to new & record-breaking highs after the SSAA's 2009 Convention & Tradeshow on the Gold Coast (click for photos).
The year also saw us implement a number of changes and improvements to many areas of the business - including internal systems. We now have an industry-recognised bug & feature tracking system which has helped us monitor and track releases with specific hardware and software revisions (such as Microsoft's recently-released Windows 7), as well as report on various aspects of the product development cycle.
One of my personal motto's is not to use paper - so in virtually all of my areas of work with company branding, marketing & internal systems design, I have used & implemented electronic methods where possible. Let's just say that I don't like the idea of using paper - or printing stuff out all of the time. Not just because my handwriting is shocking these days (ironically, I blame the very thing that I'm promoting here) but because paper can get lost, misinterpreted and it's not easy to transport - especially if you have thousands of them.
If it's electronic to start with, then you can do so much more with it. You can automate it, you can make multiple copies, you can edit it, enhance it and share it. It can be on the other side of the world in seconds. That doesn't happen easily with paper.
While I admit that it often takes longer to create a process using an electronic medium (one often needs to understand a few lines of code to implement automation and so forth), the long term timesaving's are incredible. I'm pleased to say that as part of this process, I've also learnt many new features of one of the software packages I use to create eForms.
In terms of my other roles here at StorMan, it's been a busy year for the multimedia side of things as well. Some of my tasks have included designing a tradeshow booth & everything that's to go inside it, doing voiceover's for our new website and filming (and then editing) online sales videos for new customers. As a creative type, I must say that I thoroughly enjoy the range of tasks that I get to work on... but nothing is more rewarding than finally figuring out why a particular script or stylesheet on a web page is misbehaving.
As part of the new network of websites that I have developed for StorMan, I've implemented a lot of "web 2.0" technology (specifically, by using Ajax and jQuery; for those in the know). With this comes a massive new learning curve - but so far, so good. While there have been days where I've almost collapsed in a heap from frustration, they've often ended - in the last 5 minutes mind you - with a fix. It's amazing what a walk around the office or the block can do for the mind - it gets you out of the zone for a moment so you can think about things a different way and from a different angle.
With a website utilising new technologies always comes the problem of making it backwards-compatible with older browsers - but we've implemented a few things to try and make the site degrade as gracefully as possible. Feel free to have a wander around the new site and let us know what you think.
In terms of online blogs and news articles, 2009 has been the busiest - with thousands of readers logging on to read articles such as this one. We've also had a few "guest bloggers" on board for the first time this year - with articles posted by from Malcolm Collins (of Collins Westlink Consulting) and Claire Beattie (of the Self Storage Association of Australasia). Should you be interested in becoming a guest blogger to showcase your business, the industry or how our product has helped you, please get in touch.
Finally, before I sign off for the year (click for our festive season operating hours), I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your business and support throughout 2009. I hope you have a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. Please stay safe and thank you for reading.
Regards,
Andy (Marketing & Branding Manager, StorMan Australia)
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