Tim Frick and Joe Grossman, creative director for Jell Creative, provided tips and tricks for improving search engine optimization and online engagement as part of Harris Theater’s Learning Lab on Thursday, July 14th.

Joe’s presentation to an audience of Chicago-area performance organizations focused on the importance of how companies appear online and continually auditing one’s website to improve search engine optimization while Tim focused on content strategy, social media engagement, and measurement.

Mightybytes recently sponsored the Andersonville Farmer’s Market during Green Week on July 13th with an eco-friendly photo booth that didn't use any paper and didn't break the bank either. Here's how we did it.

The market team gave us room for a fancy banner, but not being a seller of produce or creator of fine quality baked goods, we struggled with the best way to represent ourselves amongst the asparagus and cheese curds. Sure, we’re a green company and all, but what, really, does a digital media firm have to offer market customers?

We thought about giving away free web audits, but that’s lame.  Like super lame. Then we considered creating a game show called ‘Let Me Google That For You’, but weren’t sure we could sustain that across five hours of open market time (and some people might not find it very funny). We tossed around a few other ideas as well, but none really seemed to stick until Bryan came up with the brilliant idea to build a photo booth. “And of course it would have to be a green photo booth,” he said, to which we naturally all agreed. So it was decided.

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 . . .