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WBJ; Q&A: Greteman Group’s Todd Gimlin on 20 years of Web work

July 18, 2013

Wichita Business Journal
Emily Behlmann

Todd Gimlin’s field of work has gotten a lot more complicated since he started at the Wichita marketing agency Greteman Group 20 years ago.

Greteman Group 1996 homepage
The Greteman Group’s first website was mainly informational, while showcasing the agency’s design skills. There was no concern about search-engine optimization or interactivity.

Gimlin is Greteman’s senior interactive director, though the nature of that position has changed substantially. He says that at first, his job entailed putting together interactive and multimedia projects that would be handed out on floppy disks or CD-ROMs. Later, in the mid 1990s, he launched Greteman Group’s first website, and now, he works with a team to develop complex Web-based interactive content for a range of clients.

Gimlin reflected on the evolution of the Web during his 20-year career in this Greteman Group blog post. He describes how much more complicated websites have become as businesses expect them to do more. At first, he writes, Greteman Group’s site was optimized for Netscape Navigator. Now, the Greteman team ensures clients’ sites look good across a range of browsers and devices. They worry now about search-engine optimization and interactivity.

“I can say without hesitation that it becomes more of a pain in the ass with each passing year,” he writes.

Here’s a portion of my conversation with Gimlin:

Was there general agreement within the office in the 1990s that the Greteman Group needed a website?

“Since it was so new, it was more like, ‘What is it?’ than ‘Why do we need one?’ It was not costing us millions of dollars to develop a website. … Once everyone in the office agreed that websites weren’t going to go away, I think everyone was on board.”

What was the goal of the first Greteman Group website?

Greteman Group 2013 homepage
The latest version of the Greteman Group website is multi-functional, designed not just to inform, but also to turn visitors into customers. Its design is optimized for a variety of browsers and devices.

“We tried to be forward-thinking. We saw this as something that was a trend that was going to last, not just a flash in the pan. We decided to put resources into learning everything we could about it. Back then, there wasn’t much to learn about it. It just grew from there.”

Were clients clamoring for websites in the 1990s?

“In the early to mid ’90s, we had to convince clients that they needed one. I don’t think it was a long time after we launched our own site that we got our first paying job.”

What have you and your team done to stay on top of industry changes?

“I have my iPad next to me during the day, and I subscribe to a lot of blogs. I have apps to keep up with the news. I do a lot of experimentation when I have the time to do it. That’s a necessary part of the job now. Back then, you could buy one book and know everything there was to know about building websites. Now, you do need a team, and each person needs to have a specific focus.”

What are some of the most positive changes for business that have come about in the past 20 years?

“The role of websites in the ’90s was just to have a presence — just to be there and give out a certain amount of information about the company. Now, we want our websites to do so much more. We want them to convert visitors to customers. We want to be able to engage with customers through social media. … It’s more of an evolution. Websites are getting smarter all the time. They’re so much more intelligent, more engaging. … It could be the case in the future that websites are smart enough to give a different experience depending on who’s there.”

Do you ever long for the days when work on the Web was simpler?

“In a way, yes, in a way, no. It’s like having a child. … You’re able to look back when the child was a baby and say, ‘That was cute, that was nice,’ but you don’t stop loving your child as they grow up.”

© Wichita Business Journal, 2013

07.18.13 · Greteman Group

BlueSky Business Aviation News; Websites. A Look Back

July 17, 2013

BlueSky Business Aviation News

BlueSky Business Aviation News
Todd Gimlin, senior interactive director, Greteman Group, a marketing communications agency in Wichita, the Air Capital.
Websites. A Look Back
n the 20 years I’ve been at Greteman Group, I’ve been a part of designing and coding more websites than I can count. And I can say without hesitation that it becomes more of a pain with each passing year.

Our first site, for our own agency, was a small, beautiful thing. If you saw it today you’d wonder what that was in the corner of your gigantic monitor, the likes of which we did not have in the mid ’90s, and which would have probably terrified us.

There weren’t many pages. There wasn’t much text.We didn’t care about how we ranked in Google searches, because Google didn’t exist. Neither did Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or any of the other billion social media sites whose little icons I find necessary to put on websites now.
Our first home page in the mid-’90s sure stood out. Yes, we know the nav buttons (the round things) weren’t labeled. It was a simpler time.

Then VS Now There was no video or fancy-schmancy moving graphics. It would have taken days to download anyway, given the fact we were all on slow-as-molasses dial-up modems that sounded like you were strangling a robot to death. There was no Flash or Javascript, so interactivity was limited to clicking on something and hoping that it took you somewhere relatively interesting. Coding websites was simple, simply because there wasn’t much at all to the HTML language.

If a designer asked me to put a particular graphic in a particular place, I would say no, you can’t do that.Then they would walk off with their head hung low and I would put the graphic where I could. Which usually meant centered on the screen. Oh, and our site was optimized for Netscape Navigator. And NOTHING ELSE.
Just two years later, we launched a site that was a bit more traditional – except for the odd button icons and disembodied hand.

An Evolution of Design But for what it was, our website had style. Other sites were made horrible by adding visitor counters that looked like odometers, animated GIFs of mailboxes opening and closing and blinking text. Our site had twinkling stars and an astrological theme. It was our baby, so it had to look good. Today, the sites we build, including our own, look good in every browser and every device.

We take care in writing copy to maximize SEO. We use usability studies to provide sites that work the way users want them to work. We study analytics in order to make websites better over time. We code in the latest cutting-edge technologies.And we have a team of passionate experts working on websites, because unlike in the ’90s, it’s impossible for one person to know everything.
We ushered in the millennium with the first GG site done almost completely in Flash. Years before Apple declared war on Flash.

Putting the User First We do these things because we expect more from our websites. We want them to do more than lie there and look cute. Our baby has grown up, and with that comes more responsibility. Just like the mother of a child actor or beauty pageant contestant, we expect our website to get a job and make some money. The same holds for sites developed for our clients – aircraft manufacturers, flight support and aftermarket services. They’ve got to be conversion-based, modern marketing marvels. And everything from direct mail to advertising better point your customers to your site. So here’s to two decades of increasingly complex websites, future interactive challenges and not-yet-dreamed solutions.

Our current responsive-design, chock-full-of-magic site looks good no matter what you view it on. And you know at a glance what we can do for you.
©BlueSky Business Aviation News | 18th July 2013 | Issue #233
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BlueSky – your weekly business and executive aviation news – every Thursday
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07.17.13 · Greteman Group

How Website Design Has Changed Through the Years

In the 20 years I’ve been at Greteman Group, I’ve been a part of designing and coding more websites than I can count. And I can say without hesitation that it becomes more of a pain in the ass with each passing year.

Our first site, for our own agency, was a small, beautiful thing. If you saw it today you’d wonder what that was in the corner of your gigantic monitor, the likes of which we did not have in the mid ’90s, and which would have probably terrified us. There weren’t many pages. There wasn’t much text. We didn’t care about how we ranked in Google searches, because Google didn’t exist. Neither did Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or any of the other billion social media sites whose little icons I find necessary to put on websites now.

Greteman Group 1996 homepage
Our first home page in the mid-’90s sure stood out. Yes, we know the nav buttons (the round things) weren’t labeled. It was a simpler time.

Then VS Now

There was no video or fancy-schmancy moving graphics. It would have taken days to download anyway, given the fact we were all on slow-as-molasses dial-up modems that sounded like you were strangling a robot to death. There was no Flash or Javascript, so interactivity was limited to clicking on something and hoping that it took you somewhere relatively interesting.

Coding websites was simple, simply because there wasn’t much at all to the HTML language. If a designer asked me to put a particular graphic in a particular place, I would say no, you can’t do that. Then they would walk off with their head hung low and I would put the graphic where I could. Which usually meant centered on the screen.

Oh, and our site was optimized for Netscape Navigator. And NOTHING ELSE.

Greteman Group 2000 homepage
Just two years later, we launched a site that was a bit more traditional – except for the odd button icons and disembodied hand.

An Evolution of Design

But for what it was, our website had style. Other sites were made horrible by adding visitor counters that looked like odometers, animated GIFs of mailboxes opening and closing and blinking text. Our site had twinkling stars and an astrological theme. It was our baby, so it had to look good.

Today, the sites we build, including our own, look good in every browser and every device. We take care in writing copy to maximize SEO. We use usability studies to provide sites that work the way users want them to work. We study analytics in order to make websites better over time. We code in the latest cutting-edge technologies. And we have a team of passionate experts working on websites, because unlike in the ’90s, it’s impossible for one person to know everything.

Greteman Group 2006 homepage
We ushered in the millennium with the first GG site done almost completely in Flash. Years before Apple declared war on Flash.

Putting the User First

We do these things because we expect more from our websites. We want them to do more than lie there and look cute. Our baby has grown up, and with that comes more responsibility. Just like the mother of a child actor or beauty pageant contestant, we expect our website to get a job and make us some money.

So here’s to two decades of increasingly complex websites, future interactive challenges and not-yet-dreamed solutions.

Greteman Group 2013 homepage
Our current responsive-design, chock-full-of-magic site looks good no matter what you view it on. And you know at a glance what we can do for you.

07.12.13 · Greteman Group

WBJ; 40 Under 40 — Looking back at the class of 1998

July 11, 2013

Wichita Business Journal
Emily Behlmann

The Wichita Business Journal is looking forward to its 16th year of honoring 40 community members who are leading businesses and contributing to their community — all before their 40th birthdays.

We’ll honor this year’s 40 Under 40 class on Aug. 1. (Register here.)

It’s a can’t-miss event partly because it offers a sneak peek at a new generation of Wichita leaders. Some are already prominent and well known, but with many honorees, you get the feeling that the best is yet to come.

A few examples from the first 40 Under 40 class illustrate the point. We’re publishing their original 1998 profiles on our website for the first time today. Find links to their profiles in the list below, which includes the honoree’s name and employer at the time they were recognized, or in the slideshow to the right.

We’ll post another 40 Under 40 class on each business day from now until Aug. 1, when the class of 2013 profiles will be published. Check out the class of 1998. I suspect you’ll see many names you recognize, even if you weren’t in Wichita when these individuals were recognized. People like Walter Berry, Brad Clothier, Jane Deterding, Sonia Greteman, George Laham and Scott Redler are arguably more influential today than they were in 1998.

We think the class of 2013 has the same kind of potential. We’re excited to see what they do next.

40 Under 40 Class of 1998:

(Name and employer are as of the date the individuals were honored)

© Wichita Business Journal, 2013

07.11.13 · Greteman Group

In the Race to Win

Does private aviation make you successful? No. But it propels the dreams of successful people. People like Austrian racing legend Niki Lauda.

Rush, Ron Howard’s movie about the three-time Formula One world champion, opens in September. Every time I see the promotional trailer, I’m transported back to my interview with Lauda for Bombardier’s Spring 2000 issue of Contrails magazine. At the time, he was running a rapidly growing airline and charter operation. He was in Tucson, Arizona, to pick up a newly completed Learjet 60 for Lauda Executive.

I did the interview on the ramp at Bombardier’s completion center in Tucson, scribbling on a notepad, trying to hear above the roar of aircraft engines – with Lauda holding my tape recorder. He said no to my suggestion of going inside to a quiet room where we could sit down. I soon understood why.

Be Quick. Be Brilliant. Be Done.

“I want to be efficient with less time,” Lauda told me. “If you achieve that in a company, you blow everyone else away.” One way to do that: meetings without chairs. Based in part on his example, it’s a philosophy our agency has come to embrace: holding quick swarms, discussing issues, disbanding to work out solutions individually, then regrouping and repeating the process as necessary.

Lauda knows what he wants and is relentless in its pursuit. Challenge drives him. When he founded Lauda Air in 1979, he spent years fighting to gain the right to enter a market monopolized by Austrian Airlines. Finally, all was in place to begin scheduled flights. On the day of the inaugural flight, he was told some paperwork wasn’t in place after all and he would be unable to land in Sydney, Australia, as planned. He refused to take no as an answer and personally piloted the airliner to Sydney. He landed to bands playing, TV cameras rolling and civic leaders delivering speeches. By seizing the spotlight of world attention, Lauda gained grassroots support for his airline’s right to fly. (Note, Lauda Air merged with Austrian Airlines in 2012 and the brand was retired in March of this year.)

Don’t Look in the Rear View

Lauda applies the lessons of the racetrack to business – discipline, innovation and, most of all, speed. In addition to his racing triumphs and stint managing the Jaguar F1 racing team, Lauda founded and ran a second airline: Niki, now a low-fare subsidiary of Germany’s Air Berlin. “Many people have the same idea, but success goes to the one who can accomplish it first,” he said. “Success starts with creativity, but it is realized by taking care of every little detail.”

Lauda won his first championship at age 26. A year later, in 1976, he crashed his Ferrari at the German Grand Prix, suffering such severe burns and toxic fumes that he was given last rites. Only 30 days later, he was back in the cockpit, though scarred for life. The movie Rush focuses on this epic, drama-filled Formula One season, framed by the crash, but fueled by the rivalry between the perfection-seeking, laser-focused Lauda and the charismatic, English playboy James Hunt. They were the rock stars of the raceway.

To Finish First, First You Must Finish

“In racing you’re not always winning,” Lauda said. “Sometimes you’re losing, crashing, ending up in the hospital. … Racing teaches you very quickly what it takes to be successful, because you see the results each week. You go out there every Sunday, and there’s no question about the judging. The first is the first, the second is the second. There is nothing to discuss. You have to adapt to a very simple, non-excuse lifestyle. If you do not win, first you must look to yourself. Then if you can’t find a solution, you work with your car or crew. When you start doing this at age 18, it become ingrained.”

Taking the Keys

There’s only one Niki Lauda, but I’ve been impressed by how, more often than not, the individuals I meet in business aviation share a common trait. They have more than knowledge and skill. Their ultimate weapon is drive. The sheer force of will. Their ability to motivate others and themselves. And to do extraordinary things.

While you wait for the movie to come out, you can read the full Niki Lauda article from the Bombardier Contrails Spring 2000 issue here.

*This article originally appeared in the July 4 issue of BlueSky Business Aviation News.

07.03.13 · Greteman Group