UC Santa Cruz’s world-famous Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems apprenticeship program is helping change agri-business. The www.growafarmer.org website helps alumni, along with the growing community of beginning farmers, with resources, event information, and a beginning farmer forum. A shovel might not be as sexy as a guitar, but the results sure taste good!

Some site highlights:

• Job listings
• Land listings
• Alumni current and past project and business descriptions
• Farmer Forum
• Google map integration
• Member messaging system
• Online and alumni member management system

McDill Associates (www.mcdill.com), a superstar marketing agency that specializes in the food and beverage industry, trusted Workbox to take their beautiful designs and turn them into a powerful WordPress website.

We’d like to brag about the easy-to-use, but super-sophisticated slideshow feature we customized for them, but ultimately, we think the results speak for themselves:

A detail of the slideshow feature:

The old site:

Workbox is extremely proud to announce the launch of Jazz Pharmaceuticals’ new website. The design was created by the talented and insightful Dennig Marketing Group, and Workbox built the site with highly customized WordPress for the content management system. This is the fourth iteration of its corporate website Workbox has built for Jazz over our seven-year relationship (we started with Jazz before they were a public corporation!).

In addition to simplifying the overall look and feel, we standardized the site’s subnavigation (and utilized right nav). We believe visitors will find it fast and easy to use.

Jazz’s bigger news is that they combined forces with Ireland-based Azur Pharmaceuticals to create a new entity: Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc.

Workbox looks forward to continuing work with the amazing team at Jazz and is currently “migrating” all of Jazz’s product websites from static HTML to the WordPress CMS.

Workbox is excited to announce the launch of Liquor License Connection at http://ca.liquorlicenseconnection.com. This new business is changing the way liquor licenses are bought and sold in California by giving license owners and buyers a more transparent, efficient and inexpensive way to engage in the sale of liquor licenses.

Currently, most buyers and sellers need to work through a broker to help them navigate the paper-work intensive and confusing process required by the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.

Liquor License Connection, however, gives liquor license sellers and buyers a simple way to negotiate a price and complete a sale. Liquor License Connection also streamlines the documentation process for buyers and charges much less than typical brokers.

Additionally, Liquor License Connection shows comparable sale prices for similar, recent transactions (known as “comps”) to registered users so there is less mystery involved in the transaction negotiation.

Finally, if a particular sale requires a little extra assistance, or other services are needed, Liquor License Connection has highly experienced partners who can help with liquor license expediting, escrow, 500 foot surveys, legal services and recording services.

Again, we are very excited to be part of a business that could radically change and improve an inefficient and confusing industry.

What Workbox is doing: all technical development, UI and online marketing consulting.

Overview: An outline of recommendations for managing development, editing, approval and publishing of pharmaceutical product marketing websites.

For: Website developers, in-house IT teams, in-house marketing teams, in-house compliance teams.

Like all product websites, pharmaceutical product websites have to meet the sales, marketing and IT needs of their parent companies. But they also come with a bunch of other requirements that are unique to regulated industries (particularly if the products are non-OTC).

Legal, compliance and regulatory teams and agencies may need to review, approve, “roll back” or completely eliminate specific content, pages or entire websites – and it often needs to be done immediately. This can be a surprisingly difficult (and potentially costly) process if you aren’t prepared.

So, after putting out a few fires and assisting frantic IT teams, here are our recommendations for managing pharmaceutical product websites.

1. Full backup upon every major site edit, and backup archive.

First, regulators may ask to review your full site as it existed on a specific date. Second, your legal department may require the same thing. Finally, you may be required to “roll back” the website content and functionality to a previous version on a site-wide level. So make sure you have a full backup that you can present online if necessary.

2. Four functional copies of the website for different purposes and stages in the development, approval and publishing process.

First, the live/production site that is visible to the public.

Second, a password-protected “validation” site that will be used by compliance, regulatory and legal teams to review and approve the site before it is published and replaces the existing live site. Once this is approved, this site is moved to production.

Third, a password-protected “test” site for marketing and IT teams to review content edits made by the marketing team and technical edits made by the development team. Once these teams approve this website, it is moved to validation.

Fourth and finally, a development site dedicated to your development team to work on and test technical edits.

3. Rapid shut down process and assets.

This is the worst-case scenario: your compliance team or a regulatory agency requires massive or site-wide content edits and the existing site simply cannot be visible to the public until a new website and content is approved. Some people call this a “kill switch” or a “shut down site.” No matter, you need to be prepared for the worst. We will have a blog post dedicated to this particular requirement in a few weeks.

4. A content management system (CMS) so you can quickly edit content and “roll back” content on specific pages.

A good CMS makes it easy to edit content and, if required, “roll it back” to a previous state if issues arise. A CMS will also keep track of when edits were made and who made those edits. Finally, it can make it easier to manage “moving” the site through the various sites in the approval process.

5. SVN system for the development team.

This is a little geeky, but it helps the development team track technical changes and when those changes were made across all your websites. An SVN is an invaluable tool to keep things coordinated and manageable.

Some folks may think that this set up is excessive or too time-consuming, but non-compliance or regulatory errors can be extremely painful for a company. Also, Eric Weidner recently spoke with a corporate insurance attorney who mentioned that insurers are starting to look more seriously at how pharmaceutical companies maintain website assets and the processes they have in place for potential emergencies. This is definitely a case where “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

If you have additional ideas, think your business has a great way of handling website management, or think we missed something, please let us know. We’d love to hear from you!

Yours, Gleb Aksyutchenko and Eric Weidner

Workbox client Ampio Pharmaceuticals will open NASDAQ tomorrow (November 1, 2011) morning.

Congratulations to the entire Ampio team!

The Life Sciences Foundation’s website (www.lifesciencesfoundation.org – recently built and launched by Workbox) showcases important events, people, discoveries and organizations in the life sciences from the 18th century to the present. One of LSF’s goals was to create a dynamic, scrolling timeline feature that would give users an idea of the site’s subject matter, emphasize the presentation of “years and events” and help users quickly click into content.

We were all originally inspired by Google’s corporate timeline and all the great, free stuff they provide, but we needed to add a bit more functionality and design grooviness – and every bit of content, from the images to dropdown menus, had to be managed through our PHP-based content management system.

Ultimately, we decided to build the basic functionality using the jQuery Draggable plugin and jQuery UI animation plugin. Workbox’s technical architect, Kirill Egorov, decided not to use Sencha Touch and jQuery Mobile solutions as they he felt that were too complicated and cumbersome for our purposes. So, a simpler solution was found. We’re going to show the code that specifically handles dragging/listing.

Identifying the device (function IsTouch):

We also used the jQuery Touch plugin, but it had to be modified because the start position of the “timeline” layer didn’t work correctly for our “move” event. Originally in the plugin, the start position of the layer to drag was defined as follows:

In the “touch” method we rewrote the piece that has to do with calculating the shift for “left” position:
Replacing this line:

with these

_startPos[0] — position of the pointer at “touchstart” event
_startData[0] —shift of the left position for the dragged layer at “touchstart”

Finally, this is how we initialize the component:

As a result, the timeline scrollbar works on IOS and Android mobile browsers!
Please feel free to use this stuff, give us feedback and send us links to stuff you’re built using it!

Cheers, Kirill Egorov, Gleb Aksyutchenko

Most small business owners design and build their websites like this:

First, hire a designer and start with a great-looking logo. Then, design a homepage that has all the stuff they want in it. Next, start building the website. Finally, write all the content.

This is the exact opposite of what you should do if you want to build your site as cheaply and efficiently as possible.

Instead, to save money and move quickly, here are the proper steps to follow to build your website:

1. Outline all the pages you want in your website and write as much content as possible (preferably, all of it).

2. Create a sitemap and architecture (I’ve attached a simple web architecture done in PowerPoint that you might find useful, but you can simply sketch it out on paper, use Word or whatever you’re comfortable with).

3. Hire a web designer and developer to design the logo and homepage simultaneously – show logo designs within homepage designs so you are sure the logo will work in context.

4. Finalize content while the site is being built.

Essentially, I am suggesting you do the most difficult task first: write content.

I’ll explain why later, but let’s back up and talk about what is involved in building your website.

Your small business website consists of three basic elements: content, design and technology.

The content is the words, images and videos contained in the website – you create this yourself or hire writers, photographers (or purchase images) and videographers.

The design is how your website looks and how the content is arranged within the pages – this is typically done by a professional web designer.

The technology is the actual pages that show content on the Web and get found by people through search engines, and it runs the various bits of functionality and features contained within the site – this is typically handled by a professional web designer or developer.

The goal, ultimately, is for your small business website to present your company in a compelling way. To build a compelling website, you need a solid site architecture, which is determined by the content. Then you need a great design, which is determined by your industry, brand, architecture and content. Finally, you need handy technology which will be used to manage the content within the design and architecture. It starts and ends with content.

Now, I’ll give you three reasons why you should write your website’s content before you do anything else: money, money and money.

Reason 1: Money & Efficiency

Let’s start with a question. Can you know how many pages your site will contain if you haven’t written the content?

No, you can’t. You may have an outline and think you know how many pages your website will contain, but until you put finger to keyboard, you only have an estimate. Once you start putting the words and pictures together, the number of pages will change. And since many inexpensive web designers charge by the page, the page count could affect your budget.

And, hey –want to drive your web designer crazy and spend more money at the same time? It’s easy! Just say this: “Oops. I just found out we need another page in the top navigation bar.”

Time comes to a standstill, and your designer’s blood pressure rises along with your bill.

Reason 2: Money & Design

Homepage designs are probably the most expensive element of the design process. You save money and time when you know exactly what content and images go onto your homepage. Remember, every edit or tweak could cost money and waste time.

Reason3: Money & Time

Small business websites are almost always delayed because the content is not finished. People never believe me when I say this, but it’s true. Whether it’s a team member bio that needs editing or a product description that needs updating, content is usually the problem.

The truth is that most people don’t like writing and will put it off as long as possible. But dive in and bang it out – you’ll be glad you did.

With best wishes, Eric Weidner

Designing, building and managing a pharmaceutical company’s product pipeline chart can require a surprising amount of time and effort – designing styles for the chart, entering html code and text for products, stages, and indications, then mapping products or indications into stages, and, finally, linking to individual product detail pages.

Sometimes, a product pipeline is built in Flash or is simply a static image file (neither option is great for SEO). Even bigger problems arise when you have to make edits to the chart. For example, adding a new stage/phase or changing the status of the product within a stage/phase can require building an entirely new chart.

Workbox Pipeline Plugin for WordPress

As you probably guessed by now, Workbox’s programmers have developed a WordPress plugin to automate pharmaceutical product pipeline management. Here’s what it handles:

> Pipeline content and links to internal product detail pages. You can manage pipeline content very easily through your WordPress admin panel, and link to specific site pages through a simple dropdown menu.

> Clinical and/or regulatory phases and stages. Not only can you create as many “phases” or “stages” as are appropriate for your company, but you can also manage the percentage of completion of each stage for each product (1% through 100%).

> Indications and references. A product can have multiple indications, the indications can link to individual detail pages and each indication can have a separate “phase/stage” timeline. Additionally, each product can have one or more clinical or other reference that can link to more content internally, offsite or open a layer/iframe.

> Full and condensed pipelines. You may want a smaller pipeline on your homepage that features select products or indications, while showing a more complete pipeline on your top products page. Our plugin allows you to select which products and indications appear in the mini-pipeline dynamically.

> SEO. Because it’s fast (it presents neither an image file nor Flash), contains relevant keywords and unique text, and links to internal pages, the plugin can improve your site’s SEO.

> Show on any page. Show one or more pipelines on any page by using the Options feature in your WordPress admin panel.

> Multiple pipelines. Create as many pipelines as you like. An example would be if you want to separate the presentation of entire classes or types of products, like pharmaceutical and diagnostic products. Here’s how one of our clients, Ampio Pharmaceutials, uses it:

Finally, here’s how the pipeline is served on the frontend. As you can see, this is not rocket science – feel free to use the concept for your own WP implementation. We’d love to see your results if you do!

Cheers, Gleb Aksutchenko

Potential investors, partners and employees often judge a biotech company’s success by its technology pipeline and the possible revenue stream that pipeline can generate. Similarly, pharmaceutical companies are often judged by product phases and the probability of receiving health authority approval for the products in their pipeline.

Either way, it’s all about the pipeline. So a pipeline’s presentation must be up-to-date, accurate, easy to understand and professional looking.

That’s why Workbox developed a handy plugin that makes it easy for biotech and pharma companies to create and maintain pipeline charts on their websites through their WordPress CMS interface. This plugin can be customized to match a website’s style and particular functionality and content requirements, and link up with individual product description pages so site visitors can click directly to a product page to learn more. Additionally, a “mini” or truncated version of the pipeline can be created to fit into small spaces on individual pages.

Ardelyx (www.ardelyx.com)

Ardelyx’s website (which Workbox recently launched) includes 3 basic elements: program (the compound or drug), indication (what the program is targeting) and the phase (status in the approval process). All of these elements are managed through our WordPress plugin so they can update the content in minutes. Additionally, the phase “bar” can show a percentage of progress within a specific phase, and, although they are not currently using this feature, the programs can be categorized.

Ampio Pharmaceuticals (www.ampiopharma.com)

Ampio’s pharma pipeline is very similar to Ardelyx’s; however, they show the indication under the product name, rather than in a separate column.

Ampio also uses the pipeline plugin to manage their diagnostic product pipeline, although it is a little simpler (no indication is shown).

The Workbox team will post the code for this plugin along with some notes on how to configure it in a week or so. Please note, this will not be a simple, plug-and-play plugin, but will require advanced configuration. We hope other WordPress developers find it handy and will give us feedback.

Cheers,

Eric Weidner