In the last 14 years, Trivera Interactive, has developed a small team of seasoned professionals who enjoy a warm atmosphere and family like environment. While the environment itself is relaxed – the workload is far from it – the Ying to your Yang. If you derive joy from flexible full length days, hard work, and progressive deadlines – you probably are a lot like us.

The story…

In two weeks a very decent fellow and beloved colleague, Jon Vogelman, will be departing the halls of Trivera Interactive – his 5+ year tenure included being lead php developer.  His years of dedication have brought us a far way and it will be hard filling his shoes – but we must still try!

We are looking for a heck of a great person who can ideally fulfill the following:

Job Description:
We are currently looking to hire a Web Developer at our Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin Office, who will provide a high level of service and support to our multiple brand operations. We are looking to hire an experienced web developer with a proven track record of developing and supporting dynamic PHP/MySQL driven websites and online applications.

Primary Responsibilities:
• MVC & Object based php development.
• Participate in the data and development of MagentoCommerce Solutions and Legacy (OSCommerce) PHP driven e-commerce sites, ensuring strong functionality and optimization, a best in class customer experience, and excellent conversion and ROI.
• Participate in Concrete5 & Wordpress CMS development.
• Participate in 100% custom design and development projects, including the implementation of relational database systems and their web interfaces using Zend (etc.) frameworks.
• Responsible for quoting new project functionality, and scope.
• Responsible for cross browser compatible (IE6->IE8&FF) build-out of PSD files into CSS2/CSS3 & AJAX compatible skins.
• Ongoing work with our Sales, Account Management and Designers in the project planning and development process.
• To assist IT Management Team in planning of overall company strategy regarding web development and search engine optimization
• To test and troubleshoot site related issues and support end-users.

Minimum Skills/Qualifications:
• Minimum of 3 years experience
• Bachelor Degree Preferred
• HTML4, CSS2/3, Javascript, AJAX (JQuery/Prototype)
• PHP, MySQL
• CMS (Wordpress, Concrete5, etc)
• FTP, SSH & Webdav
• Photoshop experience
• Ability to work with and communicate clearly with non technical end user
• A passion to use technology to solve business challenges
• Good organization skills
• Independent and Team worker
• Great work ethic

Pluses include:
• Experience with business-to-consumer e-commerce software
• Knowledge of Payment systems (Authorize.net/Paypal)
• Experience with ERP and CRM systems
• Experience with Basecamp Management Software, Cpanel, phpmyadmin and Openoffice
• Knowledge of retail POS software
• Any experience in the following: Perl, Python, C++, Java, VBScript, Postgres, Flash
• Working with Windows (2000->Windows7), Linux(Ubuntu) & MacOSX

In an ideal world, the person has the above knowledge and capabilities with the ability to have some level of social skills. If you resemble this ideal candidate to join our small and dedicated staff get in contact with Trivera here!

Launched at the beginning of this last year, www.whippersnapperdesigns.com provides the web-based presence to their Wisconsin based store.
Lisa’s talented staff of artists create unique stamping designs enabling you, your friends and even your grandchildren to make meaningful projects for family and loved ones. Feeling creative? Take a look.

Things are rough, very rough around the edges but we are getting somewhere … the goals and the business model have been mapped out regarding the site, now for making the concept real.

Currently, things are being dabbled with across the board, working several design concepts into layouts and working through what kind of technologies will be relied on.

As a computer geek, I spend most of my day hiding my face behind two complimentary dell monitors that scream “look at me.” – for the next 8-10 hours I do just that.

My wonderful girlfriend on the other hand is very much not a computer geek. She actually enjoys talking with people at her coffee shop and racing up mountains in WORS (wisconsin off road series – a tradition passed down by her father bubba), where I would find it more interesting going down them on two pieces of wood. Kudos.

I made a summer resolution to be  keep up with her on those nice short bike rides, maybe even stay in shape and feed the old mustang less gas money.

So I started using the old bike, not just any bike, but an awesome Dos Niner Salsa bike.

The 29 Incher Dos Niner and I fell in love right away when I purchased it, she has been at my side since traveling from the midwest to the east coast and back. This past month we the Dos Niner enjoyed a trip to upstate new york around a small lake.

Shes been a great bike until yesterday when she took her final ride.

It may be crazy, but how the heck do you break the top tube and the down tube of a frame – without hitting anything?

Apparently, I found the key or perhaps it found me.  Much like the opening of Failblog.org I did a complete nose dive off of the bike with my feet still clipped in.

The fail came into play with our local hill. Taking up a full lane of traffic, I blazed down the hill at in 9th gear, great, that is until the front tire blew out. Shifting all your weight back does NOTHING when all your momentum is forward and you are going down!

Between my helmet and my backpack I was mostly fine – the frame is another story. Check it out:

Yeah that’s right, both the top and the down tube had clear tears/breaks/fractures right about where you would expect to find the  front housing stop. The front end of the bike is totaled, rim is spent, fork may be out of commission . When my girlfriend arrived to see the damage she was surprised – never had she seen a tear like that in that location – I was expecting it near a weld (specifically the seat) if there was ever to be one.

Out of all of this hopefully the Salsa guys can give some insight into options – I don’t think anyone has seen a torn frame over a popped tire.

More Pictures:

Did you miss it?

Yesterday premiered Milwaukee’s Social Media conference which I am honored to have been apart of it.

Take the area’s local best and brightest social media marketers, toss in expert agencies and media developers with a mix of eager companies, organizations and small business owners and we made the best networking event in town.

The event presented and organized by Trivera Interactive at the Italian Community Center was the first of its kind in Milwaukee. With over 350 attendees from Wisconsin and Illinois based businesses the event featured interactive learning and strategies to incorporate and excel one’s business endeavors. The key of the presentations can be summed up with a series of simple questions:

• How to get involved social media?  (We used Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Myspace)
• How to become successful with social media? (We used strategies and tools ranging from How to search to how to post using Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, Tweed and more.)
• How to make money? (What to do and how to do it, sorry this one stays a secret – but you can come to the next event to find out).

Here is the Event! Warning: Some effort and planning was involved!

Opening:

• Tom Snyder – Social Media: Fun and Games or Powerful Business Tools – CEO of Trivera Interactive

Break Out Sessions:

• Todd Sattersten – Blogging your way to success
• Chris Remington & Katie Fleming – Using social media to impact your position in the search Engines
• Christina Steder – How Web 2.0 changes your Traditional Marketing Strategy
• Jamie Shields, Brigette Breitenbach & Andrei Slobstov – Your Social Media Program: Insource or Outsource?

Panel Discussion:

• Panelists: Sue Marks, Joe Woelfle, Scott Baitinger, & Chris Allen – Using Social Media to Create Success for Your Small Business
• Monitored by: Augie Ray

Afternoon Break Outs:

• Chris Remington & Katie Fleming – Repeat of Using Social Media to Impact Your Position in the Search Engines
• Phil Gerbyshak – Execute a TWitter Business in 30 minutes a Day
• Sara Meaney – Find and Fuel Fans with Facebook
• Katie Felten – Leverage with LinkedIn

Closing Keynote Speaker

• Jay Seinfeld – How to Get your Customers to Brag about You with Social Media – CEO of blinds.com

Sponsors Included: Trivera Interactive, Time Warner Cable, Southwest Airlines, Best Buy, Biz Times Media, C2, Smart Interactive Media, First Priority Printing, Hello Goat Designs, Bigh Shoes Network, Identify-yourself, and The PMG Store – Thanks Sponsors!

How about the work?

So what goes into an event like this? What does one worry about, and what is the outcome?

The Short? Money, Time, Effort, the Sleep you had hoped for – resulting in something everyone can enjoy and want to repeat.
My part was small, make sure the technical details work – fix them if they don’t.
Out of excitement, fear, and a gnarly stomach I didn’t sleep a wink the night before.

Getting Started:

Arriving at the Italian Community Center at 5am enabled a quick run through making sure that everything (from a technical standpoint) was rolling.

The mics worked, the projectors & computers were out, sound checked passed, the Print Media was distributed to the 350+ seats and getting a private network was underway dedicated for the live #smum hashtag twitter feed. Take a few pictures here and there and call it a day!

What could go wrong? At an event like this,  anything could, thankfully nothing unforeseen had gone a rye. Too bad right?

My concern remained connectivity, bandwidth and power, unfortunately the ICC didn’t come close to expectations in this one area (5Mbps/1Mbps) – it’s not really their fault. Their beautifully decorated rooms provided all the convinces for a wedding or ceremony, however only contained only 1.5Mbps/.3 of bandwidth.  (Note: Next time bandwidth aggregation will take place with better hardware) I questioned before hand: “Would it be enough?” (This time around, not a chance) Time for Panic!

Would an internet event without a solid source of internet connectivity remain a concern for you?
As the users filled the main conference room two hours later they also filled up the available leases of the ICC’s two available routers. It is what it is. An announcement was soon made to encourage users to utilize their 3G networks and that was that!

If “that” was the pitfall of the day, then the day would still be awesome! Quick coverage by Biztimes saying: “Southeastern Wisconsin business people make it happen“! Awesome right? Yes, yes, they are one of the previously listed sponsors.

The presentations commenced and everything was sunshine and kittens.

Our first introductory speaker was Tom Snyder in the topic: Social Media – Fun and Games or Powerful Business Tool assessing the business aspects of social media summing his performance to these keys words:

“Successfully utilizing social media is like a mullet – all business in the front and a party in the back. Schedule your time and utilize the morning for real business and use the evening (after 5pm) for dialogue for relationship building.” – awesome advice.

Managing your interactions is different than an email. The goal is to create a dialogue based on “humanistic characteristics and interest” like your love of dogs and building a sound base from there. I have never effectively been able to start off a business meeting with “Alpo or Pedigree” but social mediums provide the stage for just that. Different persona’s are useful for different goals, be sure to keep things clean and professional and polite if you can – avoid political and religious views unless that is your specialty.

Unfortunately, I do not see my great aunt (Sister Mary Evelyn Jegen) Twittering any time soon about her seminars: Justice and Peace have Embraced

*Side Note: The Mullet quote was a hit! His materials and others are available online at: http://socialmediamilwaukee.com/recap.php

How about the Second #SMUM event?

It will happen, but when? That has yet to be determined.

Being our first event we have learned so many new ways to improve the user experience and also target what people are really after all using Social Media.

What to Look forward to?:

• More People – We oversold our 350 seats and hit almost 400 people – 600 people sounds like a conservative goal. Do you know someone who is interested in social media?
• More bandwidth, more power – Yes everyone will be online! Hopefully, Time Warner will continue to be a sponsor and work with providing additional bandwidth. Powering your mobile devices and your laptops will be met as well.
• Different Presentations – new speakers and repeat break out sessions – Choosing between two awesome break-out events can be challenging.
• Download-able Materials – instead of trying to write and keep-up with speakers – download their presentation and make notes – or just enjoy and absorb.

For your wireless guru’s and hardware network junkies – I am thinking of WAN aggregation with distributed Enterprise Access Points.

WAN Aggregation Options: consuming 3 Wan Lines for aggregation – DSL(from ICC), Cable (From TW), & Sprint via CDMA USB

• Yvatta  – open source router
• Peplink Max Wave – http://www.pepwave.com/products/max-mobile-router/
• Edimax ER 1088 – http://www.edimax.us/html/english/products/ER-1088.htm

Access Points:

• Forti Wifi 50B – http://review.zdnet.com/product/networking-and-wi-fi/fortinet-fortiwifi-50b-security-appliance/32463109 If you have other suggestions, questions, or feedback I would love to hear!

I am on a quest for the Golden Ticket. Today’s piece of the puzzle is Point-of-Sale.

The goal is to discover the golden ticket for small businesses to open their doors, and keep them open – the real stimulus package will be to tie up: an Open Source Operating System, Open Source Point of Sale Solution (utilizing a webserver), Open Source Ecommerce, and finally financial, ERP&CRM solutions to cover the rest while all at an affordable price point.

How do we start at a low entry point and maintain low total-cost-of-ownership? (PST) FOSS!!! (Free and Open Source Solutions)
FOSS solutions range heavily in upfront development costs to suite your business needs however you really save in yearly licensing fees.

In the search for an Open Source POS sytem, OpenBravo POS has taken the trophy. While antiquated Point of Sale systems are abundant (to be listed…), in my opinion, OpenBravo has hit the balance of visual aethestics, usability, simplicity, and functionality.

Cutting through all the clutter of solutions turns you into a genuine Piers Morgan, some solutions are aesthetically unpleaseing yet powerful: (pictures to come)

Looking through the POS market for this past month has presented many challenges towards finding a great entry point for small business. The ideal entry point for the Developer’s overhead is $0.00 on licensing – good luck right?! – but OpenBravo hits this mark and many others.

Lets get down to the meat and potatoes, what is great and what is not so great about this product:

(review update to come…)

OpenBravo POS (open source point of sale)

The Good: (TBC..)
The Bad: (TBC..)

The Conclusion: (TBC..)