Marya Hornbacher says she'll start tweeting when she can fit a Russian novel into 140 characters. The Pulitzer and Pushcart-nominated author and I sat down to discuss new work, social media, the collapse of publishing, and writing to your passions.

I first met Marya Hornbacher in 2008 when I interviewed her for Bookstream just before her third book, Madness: A Bipolar Life, was released. We had a great rapport in the interview, found we have a lot in common, and have since kept in touch. I was thrilled to learn that she is currently in Chicago a few days per week teaching at Northwestern University and will be reading almost entirely new work at Women and Children First bookstore on Friday, February 25th. We sat down in her room at the Dana Hotel for a quick chat between meetings and classes.

According to a new report by Nielsen Norman Group, giving money on charity websites is 7% harder than spending money on e-commerce sites. Donating physical items is even harder. For non-profit websites, social media is secondary; the top priority is to create clearer content.

The Non-profit and Charity Website Usability Report offers 224 pages and 116 design guidelines for improving the usability of essential information and processes on charity, non-profit, and NGO websites. How does your site stack up? We looked over the report’s criteria to compare our work to its findings.

Interior workspace makeover? Yes please! We just underwent an office overhaul with new furniture from Turnstone, giving our work environment a sleek and professional image upgrade while fostering more productivity and creativity.

“The desks Mightybytes has been using for the past ten years or so have served us very well, but they outlived their usefulness probably about four years ago,” Tim said. “When your desk starts wobbling on its legs every time a computer is moved, it’s definitely time for an upgrade.”

Recently, Google has announced that it will withdraw support for the H.264 video codec in lieu of its newly acquired On2 technology, which supports the WebM VP8 and Ogg Theora codecs. What does this mean for your future web video experience?

While this does sound like alien language, our crew is going to break down the logistics and discuss if Google Chrome is essentially promoting or undermining the open web. Read on and then decide for yourself.

Our final take (for now) on best design and coding practices for better email campaigns.

Part Four in a Series of Four

Wrapping up our four-part blog series, ‘Tips from the Experts at Emma’, we offer seven tips to improve the design and code of your email campaigns. Yes, our friends at Emma and other email service providers offer template stationery in an always-evolving variety of pre-built styles, but if you really want to drive success, custom design and coding is the way to go. Here are some ideas on how to build a better custom campaign.