Chris Shiflett, our CTO, went intercontinental in February and March 2009 to give well-received talks at two PHP-centric conferences for developers (including the closing keynote in Québec). His focus was a fresh approach to an old topic: web application security. Moving beyond the basics, Chris — who is the author of O’Reilly’s Essential PHP Security — inspired his audiences to consider the bigger picture and learn to develop secure (and superior) user experiences by considering both technical and social aspects of security.

Developers have wrangled with the technical side of security for years, and at this point, the typical security lapse is almost always a case of “pilot error.” At both PHP Québec and PHP UK Conference 2009 Chris widened the aperture to reveal security problems that aren’t simply technical vulnerabilities. By stepping back and acknowledging that working with PHP brings social implications and weaknesses, too, we’ll find there’s much we can do to engage or reassure users.

Businesses are beginning to fully grasp that the user experience is key to the success of a web site or application, and PHP plays a role — particularly in the areas of user behavior, credibility, and the user’s perception of security.

Perception can be as important as reality. Chris linked this to his interest in cognitive psychology, including change “blindness” and ambient signifiers, and used real-life examples that clearly demonstrate the profound impact human behavior can have on an organization’s security. For example, you may give users the perception that their choices on a site are private. If they discover that their private information actually can be accessed — not along obvious user paths but through searches — their perception of the company takes a hit. He also ventured into password anti-patterns, and took the audience on a tour of usability-related security problems at well-known sites.

Slides from his talk Security-Centered Design are available. Look, too, for his blog post on one case where he underscores that this isn’t an either/or situation, social versus technical. PHP should be technically correct and enhance the user experience.

As one London audience member said of his talk, Security-Centered Design: Exploring the Impact of Human Behavior:

…offered some new and interesting perspectives.…Full of quick-witted humor and obvious intelligence. By far the best talk of the conference.

The response from the PHP Québec audience was equally enthusiastic. Twitter comments on his London talk included “very interesting, mind boggling and entertaining,” “not the usual security talk, which is what made it interesting. It was the highlight of the conference for me,” “very inspiring,” and — especially intriguing for those of us who didn’t attend — “Thanks for the great talk, the cow paths idea will stick with me.”

Credit: Quit Bitchin’ and Get Your Glyph On Sketchnotes by Mike Rohde

Our Creative Director Jon Tan, well-known for his love of typography and its use on the Web and in print, shared his insights at two recent gatherings. As the business world takes note of well-considered design’s influence on a company’s success, demand grows for typographic expertise.

First up was Skillswap Brighton, January 2009, in the U.K. Brighton has more than its share of talented web designers and developers and when people such as Jon speak (along with friend and colleague Richard Rutter), tickets are snapped up quickly. While the history of typography reaches back to dyes or ink on papyrus, typography on the Web is, as Jon says, “a toddler.” Self-taught designers, especially, seek strong foundational information that will move them beyond mere intuitional affinities for the beauty of a typeface to mastering the underlying rules that lead to the most utilitarian, elegant, and effective use of type. As author Jost Hochuli writes, in his book Detail in Typography:

These are the components that graphic designers like to neglect, as they fall outside the area that is normally considered as ‘creative.’

Jon’s talk, 80% Science, 20% Art (slides, audio) was an eye-opening, practical “celebration” of the scientific roots of great typography. Improving our work requires research, more rigorous thought, and following rules that have emerged over centuries. He calls for using typefaces with respect for the care and consideration that went into creating them. The payoff is more than satisfaction with a job well done. Even the nuance, the gentle finesse that the reader may never notice can make a page startlingly more engaging, more true to the message.

Typography is more than the study of letters and symbols. Their layout on a page and their variation in weight, proportion, and other attributes often determine our immediate response to a page. Typography, used well, directs us to the good stuff, and orders information so that we not only can absorb it, but actually want to. Choose a typeface for a company, advertisement, or book and, for better or worse, you’ve given the subject a personality and tone, as subliminal as it may be. Choose the right size, line-height, and background color and visitors’ eyes feel comfortable enough to read on. Good designers learn to choose wisely. With type so critical to the success of a message and with the type itself so often beautifully crafted, typography addiction runs rampant among visual designers. They’re as obsessed as junkies, as persnickety and opinionated as wine connoisseurs. Follow typographers in online forums and you’ll see they’re as ready for a brawl as beery soccer fans.

Speaking of which, Jon’s next stop was the annual massive web geek conference, SXSW Interactive. Mid-March days are brimming with web celebrity-led panel discussions, serious topics, the beating pulse of the latest trends, and rich encounters with colleagues and new friends. The input can be overwhelming but it all funnels into an experience that reignites passion for our work. Nights are reserved for intense talks — or shouting over the bar bands at endless, crowded parties.

Typography enthusiasts filled the seats at the panel discussion Quit Bitchin’ and Get Your Glyph On, at which Jon, joined by four other standout typographers and designers, zeroed in on the imagined and real constraints of web typography. Panels are notorious for uneven results but this one, packed with resources, delivered — described on Twitter as “an incredible presentation” and “one of the best I saw.”

Because SXSW Interactive is spring’s epicenter for people who create web sites, even some of our geekier developers dipped their toes in the water. Chris Shiflett and Theo Schlossnagle braved this front-end cool kids’ conference and escaped relatively intact.

Want to learn more about typography?

• Jon Tan’s blog
• The Elements of Typographic Style (a classic book on typography by Robert Bringhurst)
• Thinking with Type (a solid yet approachable book on typography by Ellen Lupton)
• Detail in Typography (Jon’s review of a little gem of a treatise on microtypography)

Jon Tan’s next presentation:

Jon will be speaking at OSCON, July 2009, in San Jose, presenting Grokkin’ Design. As in the past, you’ll find many of us on the scheduled speaker list, attending sessions, and milling about the halls.

At the magazine industry’s fifth digital conference, “Magazine 24/7: Navigating the New Reality,” in New York City on March 3rd, the winners of the third annual Magazine Publishers of America (MPA) Digital Awards were announced. National Geographic was even more successful than they were at The Webbys last year.

The MPA awards honor the excellence and innovation in digital publishing of magazine brands across twelve categories. National Geographic was awarded third place for MyShot in the Best Web-only Tools category, and two second prizes:

1. Best Online Community for MyShot
2. Web Site of the Year: News, Business & Finance for NGM.com

National Geographic also won first place in two categories!

1. Best Online Video - Standalone for “Searching for the Snow Leopard”
2. Best Online Video - Series for “Fast Lane to the Future”

We at OmniTI were lucky enough to work with National Geographic on NGM.com and MyShot, so we’re especially pleased to see their success with both of those projects. Congratulations to everyone involved!

The results of our third annual chili cook-off are in! When Message Systems was spun off as a separate company the contest continued with the added spice of brand honor at stake. The day arrived and our shared kitchen was full of firing crock pots and the aroma of gourmet chili.

In OmniTI’s corner we had our own Miguel Montanez, interface designer, with his “El Chupacabra” chili — a unique southwestern style chicken chili topped with queso fresco. Also representing OmniTI, was chief operating officer, Sherry Schlossnagle, with her own “More Meat Chili,” a spicy, beefy chili, perfect for any meat-lover. Sating appetites before the main event was the famous Mexican taco salad of our administrative assistant extraordinaire, DeAnna Mullen. In the Message Systems corner was Joal Barbehenn, Laurie Ann Mathison, Steve Morgan and Zhi Wang who provided some fierce competition for our own culinary heroes.

Finally, the cooking was done. Tasting began in earnest. Many went back for seconds. Some for thirds; all in the interest of a fair and balanced competition, of course. Votes were cast and counted. By popular acclaim, our own Sherry Schlossnagle was crowned “Chili Cook-Off Champion!”

Congratulations to Sherry and all the contestants for their hard work. The excitement was intense. The chili even more so. After we recover, we’ll start looking forward to next year.

The Webby Awards have been referred to as “the Internet’s highest honor” by the New York Times, and as “the index of success in the global new media scene” by The Guardian. With roughly 10,000 entries submitted this year, simply being nominated is quite an honor, but actually winning a Webby is a rare privilege indeed.

National Geographic received two Webby Awards! Belated but hearty congratulations to everyone involved!

The first Webby Award was in the “Magazine” category for National Geographic Magazine Online. They also won the People’s Voice Award in the same category! We’re very pleased to have helped National Geographic with their success. The ngm.com site has been our baby for the past year. After the launch of the new site, the number of unique people visiting the site went up by 500%. As well as a huge rise in regular visitor numbers, the content management system and caching we built for them also withstood massive traffic spikes from multiple features on Digg, MSN, and the New York Times.

We also helped to create Your Shot, which won National Geographic their second Webby Award for the best use of photography. Your Shot enables people to upload and store hi-res images, and create puzzles and wallpaper from the photos. Best of all, they can submit photos for possible publication in the National Geographic Magazine!

All of National Geographic’s success would not be possible without their brilliant team who worked with us at every stage. This is what they had to say about the work we did:

OmniTI has been fundamental to our success. Their depth of experience and unwavering commitment to quality, combined with a refreshing blend of innovative thinking and stellar support, have repeatedly provided us with rock-solid and scalable solutions, contributing substantially to the growth of our business.

~ Dave E. Smith, National Geographic.

We can’t thank Dave enough for his support and kind words. It was great working with him and his colleagues. On our side, we’d also like to give a special mention to Leon Fayer, Chris Schammel, Clinton Wolfe and Greg Chiasson who did exceptional work throughout.

We’re very proud to have National Geographic as one of our clients. More fantastic projects are coming to fruition in 2009. We’d love to share some of them with you, but you’ll have to wait until later in the year when all will be revealed!

Like National Geographic, more and more publications are concentrating on the Web. The Pulitzer Prize Board are supporting the trend. They recently announced that they will accept entries from online-only publications. We’d like to congratulate them on their decision — the evolution in traditional print media and online publishing is something we’re excited to be involved with. Here’s to more great work with National Geographic and other publishing clients in 2009!

As the year draws to a close, festive frivolities just around the corner, we’ve been reflecting on the year gone by. 2008 opened with big news: the opening of our New York office. Throughout the year, we’ve been overjoyed to welcome many new faces into the OmniTI family.

At just over ten years young, it’s with fervor and faces aglow that our attention turns to what’s under OmniTI’s Christmas tree this year. It’s a little early to be opening presents, but we’re eager to unwrap and share some good news with you.

From our roots in operations and infrastructure, to web application development, user experience, and interface design, we’ve always concentrated on being the best we can be. We employ the most talented people in their fields to provide our clients with top-notch service. So, as we continue to expand, it should come as no surprise that we’ve made no exception when choosing a Creative Director. The OmniTI family are very pleased to introduce you to our new Creative Director, Jon Tan.

Jon has been known to say, “Design is 80% science, 20% art.” Luckily for us, he’s an exceptional scientist and artist—because we like to have our cake and eat it, too. Like many of the people here at OmniTI, Jon has a broad background, but with a passion for and expertise in interface design, web typography, and user experience design. A member of the International Society of Typographic Designers, Jon’s work has featured in many galleries, blogs, magazines, and books.

The thing our clients find most valuable, both financially and professionally, is the rigor we apply to our work. It’s people like Jon, people with passion and attention to detail, who have meant two Webbys being awarded to the new National Geographic Magazine site this year, a site we’re very proud to have helped create.

We think our design practice lives up to the high standards we’ve established in the rest of our work and puts the bow on our holistic web services offering.

Welcome aboard, Jon!

However, putting pizza levity aside for a second, our company has grown every year for over a decade without outside finance. It’s put us in a strong financial position, both as an employer, and as a partner to clients, and is something we’re very proud of. To make sure we remain strong, and to help guide us through the changes to come, we’re happy to announce that Jim Wright has joined the family as Vice President of Finance. Jim is an outstanding strategist and critic. Most recently he was the Chief Financial Officer for a $750M company, and previously spent over fifteen years as a management consultant. Jim spent five of those years with a “Big 4” firm, and spent the other ten as a founding partner in a consultancy firm that advised Fortune 500 companies on process improvement and broad financial matters. He has also worked with several private equity partners where he played a key role in setting financial structure and raising financing. Many would say Jim’s a financial guru. We think so too, and we’re delighted to have him with us; welcome aboard, Jim!

Seeing fantastic, talented new people come on board has been a particular pleasure. When a business grows organically as we have, every new hire is a new person added to the family. Luckily, they don’t need potty training, and come ready-educated, but the family analogy stands. So, without further ado, here are some of the folks who’ve joined us since the spring, with a little about each:

1. Brian Clapper, Web Engineer: Primarily a Perl developer, Brian has been known to dabble in various other languages from time to time, but now is mostly interested in mod_perl and building high performance websites.
2. Nicholas Sloan, Web Engineer: Nicholas developed web applications for the Division of Academic Affairs and the Western Michigan University Student Association. He is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh.
3. Dave Hubbard, Web Engineer: Dave previously worked as a Google engineer integrating the Google Search Appliance into customers’ networks. As a consummate all-rounder, he fully embodies the phrase, “Jack of all trades, master of none”.
4. Christian Dailey, Web Engineer: Christian worked for four years as the IT everything guy. During his time as web developer, systems administrator and designer, he quickly picked up proficiency in multiple languages. He is also focused on security issues, best practices, and ensuring delivery of maintainable code and user-friendly applications.
5. Corey Cossentino, Web Engineer: worked for several different companies on projects for the Department of Defense, as both a software engineer and a system administrator. He is attending classes part-time at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, in order to earn his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science.
6. Anthony Gentile, Web Engineer: Anthony studied Computer Information Systems at Appalachian State University and Berufsakademie Mannheim. He has special interests in security, user interface, and wireless applications.
7. Umar Farooq, Web Engineer: Umar studied Computer Engineering and Physics in school, before going on to work as a research analyst at Johns Hopkins University, developing high performance code for modeling cardiac activity.
8. Christine Slocum, Web Engineer: Christine comes to OmniTI after spending five years with the US Army Research Laboratory, where she developed software for the lab’s machine translation and data mining systems.
9. Kerry Schriefer, Web Interface Designer: Kerry is a patient and focused designer with a background in publishing who’s about to receive her Master of Art degree in Publications Design from the University of Baltimore.

There’s more about them in their own words in their profiles, so please feel free to browse at your leisure. Also, if working with us at OmniTI sounds like an attractive proposition, get in touch with Andi Marini. At the very least it’s always good for us as a company to meet talented and like-minded engineers, developers, and designers.

There are a few more bits of exciting news coming shortly, but I think we did pretty good with this entry to break what was a long but busy silence. Happy Holidays!

Chris Knight: "Kent put his name on his license plate."
Mitch Taylor: "My mom does the same thing to my underwear."
Chris Knight: "Your mom puts license plates in your underwear? How do you sit?"

Jason, Todd, and Keri are eccentric enough to express their inner-geek on their license plates.