I’m a Digital Juggler

Mango Design is an Auburn, Alabama based New Media Development company working in a broad range of communication mediums.

What is “New Media”?  Some define new media based a list of technologies (web devlopment/design, videography, digital photography, podcasting and so on).

Several universities now offer degrees in New Media versus the traditional BA’s in Communications, or Graphic Art, or Computer Design and so on. Here are a few links to just a sprinkling of such programs: Iowa State University, University of Minnesota, DePaul University, University of Utrecht/Netherlands)

However, New Media as defined in my personal business plan simply means we are un-restricted and focus on a broader range of [mostly] digital mediums with the intent of distributing this content in a search engine friendly way on the social network stage of the world wide web.  Sorry, I know, that is a long sentence.  Yet, in any event, bottom Line: My firm belief is that as a professional in digital media today you have to be capable, proficient, and compelling as a digital multi-tasker.  You have to be a digital juggler.

Mango’s biggest strength is SEO (search engine optimization). Wanna be on page one of Google? Talk to me. I am probably one of the few people you will meet who has a copy of Google’s patent application on my desk and reads it with a highlighter.

In addition Mango currently is:

(1) Developing our own WordPress themes for news magazines and photography sites.

(2) Launching into commercial/corporate image photography. For lack of a better term, Corporate Branding Photography.

This came about working with business web development projects and found so many client companies who had zero professional quality image assets to use on their sites.

As I tell everyone about websites: People don’t read text anymore. However a picture IS worth a thousand words and that information gets read, albeit subliminally. Research bears this out (e.g. Stanford University/Captology)

That said I have several projects now on the books and will post those galleries later (Summer 2009).

Beyond those new frontiers, at any given time Mango Design is involved in: Corporate Web Development Projects, Video Production, Audio & Video Podcast Production, Open Source social media applications & customization services as well as Branding/ Logo Development.

About me

From my earliest days I remember only wanting to do two things: fly airplanes and be a photographer.

One highly technical the other an amalgamation of the technical and artistic.  When I joined MAF,  a large international mission organization, as pilot in 1993, they gave me a battery of psych and personality profile tests.  While most pilots were generally higher on the analytical, left brain function and lower on the more artistic right brain inclinations, I consistently tested equal on both scales.

Well, the psychologists and test givers didn’t know quite what to make of this.  Never had seen it before they said.  In fact I had to take one test over three times to validate the results and each time the results returned the same verdict within a percentage point or two.  Apparently my right and left brain hemispheres have a good means of communication and in fact enjoy each others company quite a lot.

That said, in 1999 I began learning how the web worked and shortly thereafter launched my first website…from the Amazon rain forest in Shell, Ecuador.  In fact I built and managed that first site using a 14.4k bit rate modem.  I placed some flight videos [of some of my jungle flying experiences] on my site in those days and remember waiting hours for a single 3 minute video to upload!

But it was fun and I learned a lot.

In 2002 I came back to the US to work for Mission Aviation Fellowship as both a pilot recruiter and their web developer for a newly designed website I’d convinced them we needed.  From there my work was noticed and people began asking if I could help them with their own sites.  One thing led to another and in 2004 I formally opened Mango Design.

Since then I,ve developed dozens of sites across the US for organizations large and small, commercial and non-profit.  The range in clients has been from high political office, to Olympic athletes, to international non-profits, to college organizations and probably a few more.

Web development is a mix of both right and left brain:  image & graphic development on one hand, and coding (CSS, PHP, configuring databases and so on) on the other.  I enjoy what I do and hope it comes across in my work.

If you have any questions about what Mango can do for you, please contact me today so we can talk.

Blessings,

Sandy