We’ve all heard of the cliche about interns grabbing coffee and making photocopies. But an internship program can be so much more than just that. In fact, there are many internship benefits for employers. Here are a few:

Find future employees
An internship program is a great way to “test drive” potential employees. Instead of learning about a job candidate through his or her resume, a reference, or even an interview, you get to see them in action first-hand. As an employer, you get to see how the interns operate. You learn their strengths and weaknesses. You will find out if they can follow directions, work in a team, and do their jobs well. And you will know whether they fit into your company’s culture or not. Many large corporations hire full-time employees from their internship program for these reasons.

Low-cost
Interns don’t cost much in terms of money. You can offer unpaid internships in exchange for college credit (there are six legal criteria that must be satisfied in order for an internship to be unpaid). Even paid interns typically receive a lower wage than full-time employees. And you don’t have to offer medical coverage or retirement benefits to your interns.

Increased productivity
You can reduce your own workload and focus on the most important work by delegating certain tasks and projects to interns. And since interns are low-cost compared to employees, you have the ability to hire multiple interns at the same time. This means higher productivity, the ability to work on more projects, and ultimately, better results.

Interns are teachable
Many interns participate in an internship program for the experience and are eager to learn. Since many interns have little prior experience, they are willing learn your company’s system and way of doing things. Less experience can mean fewer bad habits for interns to “unlearn.”

Fresh perspectives
Interns grew up in a world far different from the one many of today’s employers grew up in. They see and understand the world differently. Even within a group of interns, each has his or her own unique set of experiences.This allows them share perspectives and ideas you may not have considered.

Understanding of technology and web 2.0
Although they might not have much professional experience, interns do have an understanding of technology and web 2.0. Today’s college students grew up using Google, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and MySpace (back when it was more popular). They connect with others through the web on a daily basis. Many also have technical skills in photo or video editing, web design, or programming.

You can create an internship program that will leverage the technological skills your interns already have. For example, an internship focused on social-media can greatly benefit your business.

Conclusion
Regardless of the size of your business or company, having an internship program can be advantageous to your success. It might take a little bit of time to train interns, but ultimately, the benefits far outweigh the cost.

If you would like to learn more, please read AD Publishing’s white paper on how to create a win-win internship program [pdf].

News Release

For Immediate Release

Digital Marketing Agency ADPublishing.org, LLC Extends Healthcare Client Base with UCSF Medical Center and Expands Service Offerings in 2012

Pleasanton, CA – January 31, 2012 – Digital marketing agency, www.ADPublishing.org is pleased to announce that they have been engaged by UCSF Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry, to develop an Internet, mobile and social media marketing and branding campaign. AD Publishing will develop for the department new, graphically rich and content engaging website and social media platforms as well as implement a comprehensive marketing campaign across the digital landscape of PCs, Macs, tablets and cell phones.

In addition, to UCSF Medical Center, AD Publishing has also added several new clients in the healthcare industry, including: medical doctors, chiropractors, and acupuncturists. “We not only have the domain knowledge, but also the critical mass to outperform in this space,” said David Chan of AD Publishing. “With our extensive service offerings and our dedicated, highly skilled team, we are confident that we can help any size healthcare practitioner, whether a sole proprietor or a medical institution.”

AD Publishing’s expanded services offerings include: an online support ticketing system, 800 number phone support, and a proprietary training website. All of these services have been designed to ensure the best possible support for our clients. In addition to post-support procedures, AD Publishing also provides extensive pre-development support in the form of online project management, meetings and continual tracking of development process.

Finally, AD Publishing has developed a very compelling pricing model for the sole practitioner in order to help them jump start their practice without breaking the bank.

To learn more about AD Publishing, please visit us at www.adpublishing.org or call us at 877.886.8766.

###

Contact:  David Chan

Email:  david[ @ ]adpublishing.org

Phone:  1-877-886-8766 ext. 108

When you are not listening, you are not learning; and learning or monitoring what costumers and competitors are saying about your business, service, or product is extremely important in defending your brand’s image.

Social media offers the ability for customers to have conversations and interact directly in discussing opinions about a brand’s service or product, may it be god or bad. Ideally, you find only positive messages about your brand everywhere! But rarely is that the case.

One negative message can spread like wildfire, especially in the hands of social media users where information spreads like a virus. You truly make your brand vulnerable to these negative messages if you do not serve as a source of defense and engage in online reputation management (ORM). Take the time to manage your brands reputation by listening, here is why:

1. Learn through research – researching the costumer feedback online, may it be good or bad, helps your business directly improve the services and products you provide. Social media provides information and saves you time in trying to get your customers to take surveys and fill out “how are we doing” cards. This is great a tool, so do some research, seek it out, and utilize it!

2. Crisis management – discover a potential communication crisis early on and work to engage in a marketing strategy to eliminate future damage or repair damage that has already been made. This is a great way to be proactive and act as your own online “virus protection.”

3. Protect your brand’s image – Engage in your own PR by defending your brand and presenting a positive image. If you listen to what others are saying, you can work to counter act the negative messages.

You heard it here; the best way to engage in online reputation management is by listening and monitoring what customers and competitors are saying about your brand. Now be proactive, and go listen to what others are saying about your business!

 The latest issue of  Webdify Magazine is finally out! This website magazine is your monthly source for WEB, SOCIAL, and MOBILE news. Get your copy now!

Is social media strictly for the use of business promotion… No! Non-profit organizations utilize social media for community engagement to obtain support from potential sponsors. They do this by primarily bringing awareness to their cause in order to gain support. There are a number of reasons why non-profits to go about employing social media tools in order to better connect to the community.

Here are 3 reasons why:

1. Reinforce strong relationships – Non-profits use social media to establish and reinforce fundamental relationships with its sponsors. Before the booming use of social media, this was carried out through telephone calls, sending regular newsletters, or sending cards; all to provide updated information and strengthen the relationship among the non-profit and supporter. Social media, since it is much more rapid then outdated means of communication, works great to keep in touch with supporters in a more consistent fashion and at a greater rate; allowing for more outreach, more often.

2. Location Based technologies – Some of the newer emerging technology in social media incorporates attention to the location of a social media user. This is extremely helpful when non-profits coordinate charity events or fundraising events; it brings exponential awareness and support. It’s cheap and easy advertising! Which is a double bonus, since fundraising is the foundation to any non-profit organization’s success.

3. Online videos bring awareness and credibility – A lot of small businesses use online video, through YouTube or Facebook, to get their name out there. Can non-profits use the same method to their advantage?  Definitely! Videos have the capability of spreading like wildfire. Think about it, if you create a video and tag people, then those people see the video along with any of their friends or followers. Plus, people love to be featured! So, get them on camera saying why they love your organization and how people can support your cause, or people sharing their successes with the organization. It’s a great way to bring awareness and establish a desired image to the public.

So there you have it, social media use can be just as be beneficial to non-profits as to businesses.

 The latest issue of  Webdify Magazine is finally out! This website magazine is your monthly source for WEB, SOCIAL, and MOBILE news. Get your copy now!

So you’re bored, sitting on the bus ride home and what do you catch yourself doing? Exploring the web on your mobile phone. But wait, so is everyone else around you.

Smartphones, like the iPhone or Google Android, are growing in popularity; consequently, mobile web usage has become an escalating trend. More and more people conduct research and buy products straight from their phone than ever before. So clearly, the best way to overcome the competition among businesses is to have the fastest, most accessible, and user friendly website for mobile phones.

Consider this, you are doing research on your phone and discover two sites selling the same product at the same price. One site however, is slow and difficult to navigate, and the other is fast, provides easily accessible information, and looks appealing. Which are you more likely to use?

Here are a few tips to help in mobile web development:

1. WebKit – There is no standard format for mobile web development, but more and more smartphone operating systems are following the iPhone’s lead in using WebKit to standardize the display of their webpage. In other words, using WebKit will make your webpage look more consistent on majority of the smartphones.

2. WPTouch - If the website you created runs on WordPress CMS, there’s a great plugin called WPTouch that can quickly optimize your website for the iPhone and Android devices. Did I mention it’s free?

3. Mobify – Want to enhance the performance of your site? Who doesn’t! Mobify is a free service that assists in creating a mobile version of your already created website. It works great with WordPress, Drupal and ExpressionEngine.

If you want to get ahead of the business competition, invest some time in creating a fast, visually appealing, and user friendly mobile website.

As you contemplate using cloud computing architecture this year, there are certain lingo you need to know. As with any new and innovative technology, buzzwords abound and cloud computing is no different. Most folks have heard about it but few know they are actually using it every day. Even fewer know there is much more to the cloud than Google Docs or Gmail. It’s easy to get lost in all the hype and misinformation going around so here is a list of buzzwords explained about cloud computing to help you sort out what is all the rage these days.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

IaaS is what started it all. IT departments were looking for ways to lower their data center costs because every time they needed to add more processing power for their applications, it was very expensive and time-consuming to implement. Third-party vendors were aware of these issues and began to offer computing infrastructures for rent. This way, IT shops would not have to hassle with physical machines, data center floor space, cooling requirements and physical security. They would simply rent what they needed from someone else.

IaaS has evolved significantly since its inception with players such as Amazon, Rackspace, Microsoft, GoGrid and others. Each offers something unique but in the end the core services are storage, operating systems, network components such as firewalls and load balancers, and the capability to provision and monitor these resources.

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

PaaS was born out of the need to provide a consistent and inexpensive platform with which to develop enterprise applications upon. It combines IaaS with software and tools so developers can have the freedom to build innovative web applications and services offered entirely over the Internet.

By using PaaS, IT shops no longer struggle with all the environments required to develop applications, such as testing and quality assurance infrastructures. They simply provision these resources via cloud management tools and deploy their applications to them. If a mistake is made, environments can be deleted and the developer can start over easily, all with little downtime.

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Often used interchangeably with PaaS, SaaS is actually a subset of PaaS, providing an on-demand delivery model for applications that are accessed over the Internet using a web browser. Typical applications include customer relationship management (CRM), content management and collaboration apps found in most medium to large enterprises.

Other familiar SaaS applications the general public uses everyday are Gmail, Google Docs, Amazon, WordPress, The Weather Channel, etc. All of these apps use the cloud to store data and expose services that developers can use to integrate features and functions into their own applications, resulting in innovative apps at a much lower cost than if they were built from scratch.

Multi-tenent

This term is used to describe a whole slew of cloud computing buzzwords such as architecture, hosting and services. It simply means that there is a single application running on a server and multiple clients, or tenants) are able to use the app as if they were the only one using it.

This is a giant leap forward from the days where a vendor would use many instances of the same application and each client would have their own instance. A multi-tenant application drastically reduces computing resources and makes upgrades and ongoing maintenance much easier on everyone.

Public Cloud

A public cloud is a set of resources offered by a vendor that provides data storage and applications to the public over the Internet. Some resources are free such as Google Docs while others charge by how much you use them. Information is not really public per se, just publically available to subscribers and is usually accessed with a username and password.

Private Cloud

A private cloud is a set of resources that are typically behind a firewall, such as in a corporation. These resources are available in a limited fashion because of information sensitivity or corporate security policy. An example of a private computing cloud is a Human Resource application that might provision some server computing power on-demand (IaaS), use some software components (SaaS) and a proprietary database that only the HR app is allowed to use.

Web Services

A web service is a component of software that provides a standards-based interface to a function exposed by an application. In other words, it lets a user have access to part of an application that normally would never be available to use. For example, if you want to display the current temperature in your city on your website, you can use a web service from a weather provider to get the temperature. This way, you do not have to provide a weather station in the area you want the temperature for.

Even More Buzzwords

There are many more cloud computing architecture buzzwords and new ones seem to be invented every day. This list covers the major ones that should allow you to hang with cloud computing crowd. Consider yourself armed and dangerous now and your boss will be impressed with your new-found wisdom.

As more and more applications begin to leverage the cloud as a major part of their architecture, it makes sense to take a step back and understand just what is going on in terms of cloud computing basics. Much of the cloud is abstracted away from both the app developer and especially the end user. But it is a good idea to explore exactly which services the cloud is providing and how. Here is what every user needs to know about their cloud app.

Building Your App Is Much Easier

When you use cloud services, your app automatically becomes easier to build and maintain. Why? Because pre-built services mean you have less code to not only write but also less code to test. Cloud services tend to be mature and robust offering good documentation as well as error handling and a standardized interface. These are the things in life developers tend to struggle with or don’t enjoy doing.

Having the ability to pick and choose best of breed cloud services, your app becomes less of a monolith and more flexible, giving you the ability to change things around without having to re-work or write new code. You can get more accomplished in a shorter period of time, something IT managers will praise you for.

Testing Your Application Is Faster

With the ability to spin up a virtual testing infrastructure in the cloud literally in minutes, you gain a tremendous advantage in testing speed. Moving code through the various testing environments is no longer a tedious and burdensome task that requires three or four people to validate. You simply create (provision) what you need from pre-configured templates using cloud infrastructure management tools and voila, instant infrastructure and near-instant testing.

Once your testing infrastructure is set up and you have your testing process honed in, future testing becomes almost a joy since all the baggage that comes along with a traditional environment is gone. You can get something into the end user’s hands quickly and be able to validate requirements, functions and features more efficiently.

Your App Becomes Location Aware

One of the benefits of using cloud infrastructure is that the app’s static files like images, JavaScript files and CSS files can be served to the end user from the closest server location to the end user. This is called a Content Delivery Network (CDN) service where the location of the user is computed and provided to the CDN service. The service then finds a server closest to the user’s location and serves the file from there.

Why is this important? The Internet has no set route that data is transferred by. It does its best to route traffic in the most efficient manner possible but sometimes it’s not the fastest route. Using a CDN ensures that the best opportunity for data to travel the least distance and therefore arrive faster is achieved. Your app appears faster and more responsive to your end users.

Your App Requires Careful Attention to Security

By moving to the cloud, it is imperative that you know exactly how the cloud provider handles security, both physically and with data. Using storage services is one thing, but knowing how the data is stored and what steps are taken to ensure ongoing access integrity is paramount. If your app stores and retrieves sensitive data using cloud services, then your app must take additional measures to secure transporting and storage of the data.

Your App Relies Heavily on an Internet Connection

Building an application that consumes cloud resources over the Internet means your app is dead in the water without an Internet connection. This may seem obvious but many apps don’t degrade gracefully when a connection becomes unavailable. The app simply times out without allowing the user to do anything else.

If your app is mission critical, it should allow for reduced functionality when a connection is unavailable and sync back up with the cloud when the connectivity is restored. This way, your users can still be productive and you don’t look like a buffoon even though it’s not your fault.

But Wait. There’s More.

Now that you know cloud computing basics, you know that cloud computing is just a fancy term for using someone else’s computing resources. With the future evolution of the Internet is leaning heavily on cloud computing, you must take a step back and take in just what this means. The way apps are built is changing rapidly and forever. The more you know about how your future as an app developer will change, the better you can be at meeting ever-changing business demands.