The New Signature creative division earned an IMA Outstanding Achievement Award under the category “Nonprofit” for the website we designed and produced for the Foreign Policy Initiative. This award demonstrates that the Foreign Policy Initiative website excelled in all areas of IMA’s judging criteria and represents a very high standard of planning, execution and overall professionalism.
The Interactive Media Awards recognize the highest standards of excellence in website design and development and honor individuals and organizations for their outstanding achievement. This award is further validation that New Signature is a leader in the industry, able to effectively and efficiently develop powerful and appealing websites for our valuable clients.
NAPCS Dashboard
With help from New Signature, the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools launched a new and improved version of their Public Charter School Dasbboard. The most comprehensive set of charter school data ever made publicly available now includes performance data on over 5,000 individual schools.
The new features build on previous capabilities that allowed visitors to browse and extract data covering 10 years of charter school growth and performance at national and state levels. The new enhancements allow Visitors to search for individual charter schools by location, name, management organization, and various accolades including performance data benchmarks and recognition under the U.S. Department of Education Blue Ribbon Schools Program. (more…)
New Signature’s core values shape the way we do business. One of these core values is to, “Help create a better community through our actions.” One way that we help create a better community is through our efforts to ensure that we limit our (and our clients’) impact on the environment. New Signature’s goal is to be green like Kermit the Frog. As such, New Signature places a strong emphasis on reducing our impact on the environment. We have take a number of steps to do this, including the following:
Transportation. New Signature participates in WMATA’s SmartBenefits program and provides each employee with a corporate ZipCar membership. Participation in WMATA’s SmartBenefits program encourages New Signature employees to use public transportation for commuting as it reduces the cost by making it pre-tax. While New Signature encourages employees to use public transportation, especially the Metro, to visit clients there are some instances that require they drive. In these instances, the ZipCar membership enables our staff not to have to bring cars to work–instead they can simply use a ZipCar on an hourly basis. (more…)
One of the key revolutions over the past 30 years has been the slow death of proprietary, closed systems. Building on an earlier theme I’d like to explore just exactly how far we’ve come in the technology world.
30 years ago most people worked with computers strictly on mainframes. The personal computer explosion hadn’t begun yet, save for a few hobbyists. If a company purchased “A” computer, it was an extraordinary capital investment. Furthermore, choosing one vendor over another meant locking in to not only the hardware, but the software and all the programs moving into the future. On the telephony side, systems were similar: you’d choose a vendor first, and then take what the vendor offered you. From financial systems to HR to filing, proprietary solutions dominated the field, and single-purpose equipment (e.g., a fax machine that just faxes, a calculator that merely does simple calculations on paper, no overlap between a “copier” and a “printer”, etc) was omnipresent. (more…)
A time-tested way to improve performance of business processes is to increase transparency. A process that everyone can watch is a process people can comment on, suggest improvements, and determine if it even makes sense to be doing in the first place.
One of the ways New Signature can help your organization increase the transparency of its processes is to conduct a through process review with key stakeholders. In it, we will:
- outline the cyclical processes that take place each day, week and month;
- identify the review points, potential bottlenecks, and areas that are ill-defined;
- go over the existing documentation (as well as the process to update said documentation); and
- suggest potential changes (both on a technology and a process level) to speed changes.
The last point is important. Often the problems with a process are not simply a technology problem. Some vendors might come in and say “Purchase SharePoint Server!” as a potential solution without fully understanding all the facets of the challenges. At New Signature, before we make a recommendation we want to ensure that we know all the facts. Although Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (and soon Microsoft SharePoint 2010) are great solutions, if the real flaw in the existing paper-based process is an overloaded manager, or an ill-defined review system, simply converting that system to a computerized model won’t solve the problem. Instead, we focus on the heart of the problem, and once solved, provide real recommendations for the best problems to fix. (more…)
In July of 2009 New Signature published a post on network security (Network Security: Passwords vs. Passphrases) where we pushed for the use of more complex passwords and the use of passphrases to make this easier for the average person to use and remember. This morning (January 20, 2010) the New York Times published an article entitled “If Your Password Is 123456, Just Make It HackMe“. The article shows that weak passwords continue to be a substantial problem.
“According to a new analysis, one out of five Web users still decides to leave the digital equivalent of a key under the doormat: they choose a simple, easily guessed password like ‘abc123,’ ‘iloveyou’ or even ‘password’ to protect their data.” (more…)
Continuing our Microsoft Office 2010 exploration, we come to Microsoft Outlook 2010, the most used application during the day. Some of the new features include:
- Conversation View
- Multiple Mailbox Support
- 64-bit Support
- Online Archive Folders
- Mail Tips
- Search Folders
- Enhanced Calendar Functionality
For users of Google Mail, Conversation View may seem like a feature long overdue. By allowing multiple emails to be combined into a thread, reading large quantities of emails can be done in a much quicker manner. (more…)
“It’s very important to have better, clearer charter laws – laws that enable innovation, promote transparency about how charter schools perform and how they are held accountable, and provide fair access to public funds and facilities. We’re encouraged that the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools supports creation of better charter school laws as models of learning, and we encourage authorizers to hold charters accountable for student performance.”
– Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan
With that quote, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools launched, their “State Charter Laws Rankings Database,” a unique, highly interactive mini-site that allows visitors to review the laws governing charter schools in all states and across 20 categories. The site uses color coded maps, animated text panes, pop-up help windows, and rich cross-linking to provide a compelling research experience. (more…)
There are so many new features in the Microsoft Office 2010 suite, it’s difficult to narrow them down to a few highlights. But moving beyond the consistently cool Backstage view, here are some of the great new features in Office 2010 that work across all the products:
- Same File Format
- Customizable Ribbon
- Save Screenshots
- Save to SkyDrive
- Co-authoring
(more…)
The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools unveiled a new, private site for the nationwide community of public charter school leaders and administrators on Wednesday, January 6th. New Signature worked with the Alliance to design and construct the site which features discussion boards, an online resource library, events, community profiles and directory, announcements, and polls. Access to the site is by invitation only. Once registered and logged on, each member is greeted with a personal home page presenting the latest content in his or her areas of interest. In addition, members can search or browse content and they can sign up to receive a weekly digest of the latest material via email.
The site is an important tool that will allow charter school leaders across the country to collaborate remotely to share best practices and improve the quality of local charter schools by tapping the expertise of colleagues nationwide. Members can work together to achieve their common goals by sharing experience across broad topics including: Advocacy; Communications and Public Relations; Quality; Sustainability, Revenue and Membership; and Internal Operations. (more…)
