When I first heard about Node.js, I may well have scoffed. I don’t tend to scoff a lot, but using JavaScript to run a server engine seemed a bit like circumnavigating the globe in a swan-shaped paddle boat.

Don’t get me wrong, I love JavaScript. I also love giant swan boats, but I know that they don’t travel well, and they don’t do well in high seas. At any rate, JavaScript is often the right tool for the right job when it comes to creating dynamic front-end interfaces when you don’t need a lot of power, like say on a mobile device. But running a server using Javascript seemed a grossly underpowered swan boat for this particular ocean. So I dug deeper and what I found was badass.

Stephanie’s warm lentil salad paired perfectly with Joy’s presentation on maintaining brand identity across multiple platforms to make our third Lunch-n-Learn Thursday a hit.

Last week it was jQuery and BBQ chicken. In the third installment of our Lunch-n-Learn Thursdays—where one person prepares lunch for the entire Mightybytes crew with goods from the local farmer’s market while another readies a spiffy lecture on an educational topic of their choice—we covered design challenges that affect everyone (not just the art director) while feasting on some tasty legumes laced with all kinds of farmer’s market treats. We lunched! We learned! Here’s what went down.

Our second Lunch-n-Learn Thursday featured James on chef duty cooking from items purchased at the Andersonville Farmer’s Market and Bryan as chief educator.

Chef James whipped up Easy Roasted Red Potatoes with Barbecue Chicken and a Summer Salad while Professor Bryan enlightened us on the wonders of using jQuery to build web interfaces. Here’s what went down . . .

Katie Delahaye Paine’s book helps businesses go beyond analytics software to measure what’s important to their organization's success.

Comparing measured business performance data with key benchmarks to measure progress over time will often make the difference between an efficient operation that executes strategic tactical plans and one that flies by the seat of its business attire. Measure What Matters: Online Tools for Understanding Customers, Social Media, Engagement, and Key Relationships offers some ideas to streamline your analytics practices.

If you’re wondering how to take advantage of the many cloud-based services out there, we have some ideas.

There’s much ado about cloud computing these days. Apple’s iCloud is just around the corner (okay, well, if by corner you mean ‘this Fall’) and promises dozens of features to help you access and manage content across devices. New SaaS apps are being released on a near daily basis. The topic even made Time magazine so you know it’s an idea whose mainstream time has come. So how do you take advantage of all these emerging resources?