It’s pretty well known throughout our office and to our clients that we’re visual thinkers. We believe that clean (we’re talking spec-free clean, folks) whiteboards are an empty canvas with endless possibilities to:

• think clearly for our clients
• foster collaboration
• push great ideas forward

Whiteboards have a huge part of this philosophy, but so do the markers. Not just any marker, but Quartet Markers. Though their longevity may not compare to the typical whiteboard marker, we’re advocates of this specific marker because of it’s richness and easy writing style (“EnduraGlide” technology). It takes about a single wireframe and/or bulleted list to feel the difference and become a believer.

Last Friday we received a delivery of 100 markers, and it was like Christmas morning people.

So now our conference room is not only flanked with two 8′ whiteboards and 94″ projector screen, but a storage bin of 100 markers. To us, that’s a formula for the perfect collaborative environment and we get pretty darn excited about it.

So, what do you think? Do we have an obsession brewing around Caxiam Group, and is it healthy?

Come for a visit and lets whiteboard this conundrum out.

My name is Zach Stevenson and I am a developer here at Caxiam Group. Today is my one year anniversary with Caxiam Group and to celebrate I am writing my first of many blog posts. As many in the industry know, when you start learning a new language or framework, you usually create a very simple application that just outputs the text ‘Hello World’. So I feel it’s fitting that as a developer joining the company’s blog that my first post be ‘Hello World’.

It’s not just me joining the blogging circuit here at Caxiam, but my fellow developers Luis Camilo and Tyson Willey have joined as well. Each one of us has a different programming background and because of that, the three of us make an amazing team. Our interests in web development span across almost every spectrum and therefore, so will our topics of discussion.

This is where you come in. We want you to want to discuss with us your opinions on the topics we post about so that we can all learn from each other. The developers here at Caxiam Group feel that it is impossible to become a great programmer in a silo, so we want to learn and develop from others in our industry.

We want to deliver posts that are new or informative to the web community. We know that our audience expects only the best from us, so we already compiled list of topics that we know will blow your socks off. We can’t wait to share everything with you all!

-Zach Stevenson & The Development Team

I was more than thrilled (ecstatic, ridiculously grateful, super excited…) to get a job straight out of college with a company like Caxiam. I’ve always been a fan of small businesses and I think Caxiam is comprised of talented and dynamic people. As a team they identify each person’s individual talents and really capitalize on those. It helps not only the business, but the employees flourish.

There are many things I’ve learned in my first months of work at Caxiam; here are some of my favorites.

Successful collaboration takes good communication

…and remembering to use the manners your Momma taught you.

I did work as a team in college, but let’s be honest, it’s not the same. Sure you deal with differing personalities, but for the most part at my school classes were small so I ended up working with people who were my friends. Plus, we were so new to it all we hadn’t had time to have opinion on coding strategies, habits and preferences during a web project. At work there are lots of people collaborating on the same project. When you work on a file, you need to do your work in a way that facilitates the process. Sure, I might have some fancy naming convention I like, but it’s kind of rude to impose that on another person, would I want to have to translate someone else’s foreign naming? No way! So, basically, when working in a team environment on a project, say please, say thank you and communicate constantly. Oh, and be very nice to the developers, because when you commit to Git you WILL get a nasty merge conflict, and they are the heroes who will get you out of it.

Earning the trust of customers takes time…and patience

(and guess what, it’s frustrating on both sides!)

Clients don’t do it on purpose, and neither do I as an employee, but it will happen, we will cause accidental frustration. When I stopped to think about it, what did I expect? I was a stranger and hadn’t earned their trust yet.  That was an important lesson I learned working here. For the most part I think it comes down to earning their trust and making sure you aren’t expecting them to understand Greek (and yes, I realized quickly that those big fancy terms I learned in school are like Greek to a client. How could I expect them to know it?) Clients want you to be honest with them; they don’t have to trust me right away. Part of the job is earning their trust. Another important thing I learned was use plain English – sometimes us people in the web industry come off like we’re talking in an entirely foreign language. It’s frustrating when a doctor talks to you only using complicated medical terms, so it would be equally frustrating for a client to hear me using fancy web terms. Keep it simple.

The PC at work doesn’t appreciate you using the shortcuts from OSX.

I’m a Mac girl. I wasn’t always one. From Windows 3.1 until 2004 I worked exclusively on Windows machines. In 2004 I got my first Mac, a 12in PowerBook. When I started at Full Sail in 2008 I got my 15in MacBook Pro. I love OSX. I don’t really want to start a ‘Mac vs PC’ war. If one is more natural to you than the other, that’s awesome. Macs just have a more natural feel for me. Caxiam is a PC family. All of our computers run Windows, so out of my comfort zone I went and back onto a PC while at work. It hasn’t been overly unpleasant for me (Microsoft did a nice job with Windows 7), but I don’t think my Dell at work would say the same thing. If it could talk to me I think it’d have some choice words because I’m pretty sure it is entirely sick of me accidently utilizing the Alt like it is the Command key. Who knows what horrible things I’ve communicated through the Frankenstein shortcuts accidently used while working on my work PC, I’m surprised my computer hasn’t gone into self-destruct mode.

SEO Sounds like Voodoo Magic.

It’s not, but it sure can end up sounding like it is. One of the services that Caxiam offers is a large variety of Search Engine Optimization strategies for a business’ web presence. I’ve been working on some of those projects and I have decided that SEO is one of the hardest things to clearly talk about to clients. SEO is a legitimate, exceedingly important and vital thing for a web presence to have. Those facts are entirely true, but they don’t make SEO any easier to explain to clients. Caxiam has this awesome SEO Playbook they give their clients that helps explain and clarify what SEO truly is. I helped develop it and I think one of the hardest things was explaining it clearly enough that it wouldn’t just sound like untrustworthy magic. I’m describing something that is probably going to sound brand new and foreign, and just asking the client to trust me on it. That takes a big leap of faith for a client, and some careful planning of my words – I want a client to understand what their money is being invested in and I want them to know the why and how of what we’re doing.

Fireworks saved my life.

No, not really. But it’s pretty fantastic. I was a Photoshop girl. 100%. I’d taken a class on Fireworks back when it was still owned by Macromedia but I never used it afterwards. I went to college and started cheating on Photoshop with Illustrator; until finally it was so obvious to Photoshop I couldn’t hide it anymore and I had to declare my love for Illustrator for the world to know. Then a weird thing happened, I started working at Caxiam and Brian was working in Fireworks. I asked him a bit about it and after just one day of working with graphics in it I was sold. Sold on a new love, Fireworks. While Illustrator and Photoshop are still incredible programs in their own regard, Fireworks just fits so easily and works seamlessly when designing for the web. I’m totally in love with Fireworks. Does this make Fireworks a home wrecker? Perhaps. Though I still use Photoshop for photo manipulation, poor Illustrator has been pushed entirely to the side. Whether my choice was kind or not, Fireworks is AMAZING and it’s the program I’m going to stick with.

Tyson Willey joins us as an experienced software developer with front-end development skills. For the past several months Tyson has been learning our B2B E-Commerce website framework and developing a custom solution for a client in Washington D.C. As this project nears launch he will begin working on two other custom B2B E-Commerce web solutions for large wholesale distributors in the Orlando / Tampa area. All projects had undergone design and front-end development phases prior to his arrival. He was delivered a client approved, front-end prototype and was thrilled to begin the software development process with such a clean starting point. Tyson is deliberate, detail oriented and extremely focused. Welcome aboard Tyson!

Luis Camilo joins us as an experienced software developer with additional skills in Linux server administration. Luis has been tasked with supporting some of our largest clients’ production applications by way of routine maintenance and large scale enhancements. In just two months with Caxiam Group Luis has already performed several major enhancements on large B2B E-Commerce websites for wholesale distributors. He is slowly working his way into our custom application development side and learning the ins and outs of several high-traffic sites. Luis is reliable and bright – able to work backwards through e-commerce sites and custom applications that he did not originally develop and make sense of all the pieces. Welcome aboard Luis!

Zach Stevenson joins us as a rookie software developer right out of Full Sail’s web development program and brings a wide array of skills perfect for supporting everyone on the team. Zach has worked on websites, custom applications, and several of our many B2B E-Commerce websites. He has performed website maintenance, assisted on large enhancements to custom applications and even built a smaller custom web application from scratch all by himself. Zach brings energy, a positive attitude, and a strong work ethic to the team. He is growing as a developer with each passing week. Welcome aboard Zach!

As far as new work goes, we are happy to announce recent contract signings from clients in Atlanta, Orlando, Tampa, Flemington New Jersey and Palm Bay. We have signed multiple custom website projects, B2B E-Commerce projects and custom application development projects which touches on three of our four core offerings. Awesome!

We’ve officially been operating out of our new Altamonte Springs location for six months now and couldn’t be happier. We’re still putting the finishing touches on our new space but it definitely feels like home. Believe it or not we are already considering office expansion as our team is now comprised of 11 full time employees and 2 part time contractors. While we are hoping to avoid expansion in the late months of 2010 we are excited about the possibilities 2011 will bring!

Stay tuned for more news on additional hires, new projects and site releases!

Ready?

Once Ethan and I started to outline the long-term vision of our collaboration and the benefits of a merger in early 2004, establishing a new company was the next big challenge on our list.

Now I’d love to reveal some elaborate brainstorm that lasted months, and I hate to disappoint my inquisitive readers, but the CAXIAM name was truly an overnight phenomenon. It came to me as I was burning the midnight oil for a client in the home office of our shared town home. I energetically hopped to the whiteboard (yes, adrenaline can exist at 2 am) and the ideas began to outpour.

Ethan had cashed in earlier in the night, so it was just me, my initial ideas & a burst of excitement that kept me up for another couple hours. I knew he would awake first in the morning, so I needed to “sell” these ideas to my new partner through a narrative e-mail (which we’re both notorious for) & this whiteboard session below.

Name Game

Pronounced “KAX-EE-UM”, this unique word was actually derived from the names of our freelance companies established back in 2001. A2M Interactive (Mine) & Code Axis (Ethan’s). It simply made sense to form an uncommon identity by extracting letters (see below) from 2 companies that will now share services under one umbrella. Even the foundation of our company name speaks into the spirit of our collaborative approach.

Thankfully, our companies had many letters to choose from (22 to be exact) and the name game generated a handful of ideas. It was a balancing act of pronunciation, uniqueness, availability & opportunity potential.

• Google Search (“caxiam” & “caxiam group” generated zero results) – Check.
• Sunbiz.org name check (unique business name) – Check.
• Domain Name (caxiamgroup.com, caxiam.com was available) – Check.

After spending the next few days discussing more thoroughly with Ethan, it was then decided to append GROUP to Caxiam. It rolled easily off the tongue, unlike some other options (Corp, Org, etc.)

Color Selection

Deciding on the primary color of the Caxiam brand was an effortless process, but not because Ethan is color blind (I like to toy with him periodically – it’s solid entertainment).

Both the A2M Interactive and Code Axis color palette played in the cool area of the color wheel. So, we each contributed 50% of our hue and met right in the middle – literally (see below).

Interesting enough, 6 years later a similar turqoise was Pantone’s “Color of the Year for 2010″.

“Turquoise is a color that most people respond to positively.”

“It is universally flattering, has appeal for men and women…”

“Turquoise adds a splash of excitement to neutrals and browns…”

www.pantone.com/pages/MYP_mypantone/mypInfo.aspx?ca=75&pg=20706

Tag line

On my initial whiteboard brainstorm, I played around with the phrase “Assembling Success”. I was keen on the word “Assembling” because it best represented the vision of the company.

• Company execution dedicated to process & phases
• Connecting talent together to provide the best possible solution
• Professional employees with specific instructions & unified goals

“Success” expressed our earnest desire to succeed in three particular areas. Our clients, our employees & our ever growing industry.

• Problem solving for our clients, bringing the most ROI
• Bringing happiness to our talented team through culture, challenging projects & diverse clientele
• Having a forward thinking to benefit from industry trends & shifts in technology

The next morning, Ethan’s initial response to my ideas (below) were enthusiastic, but the tag line was missing something. He quickly suggested “Assembling Success on the Web” and it stuck immediately. After 4 years, we then shortened it to “Assembling Web Success”.

The downside to having a unique company name is people don’t necessarily know WHAT you do specifically (i.e. Web Design Group). The bulk of the solutions we wanted to design and develop for our clients were web based. Building Websites, Web Applications, Ecommerce & helping clients Market Online was going to be our focus. Assembling WEB Success gave our tag line context and helped our branding emphasize we have professional services in an industry that was:

• Unlimited in its potential
• Dynamic & forward thinking
• Constantly evolving, challenging

Caxiam Group, Assembling Web Success

So there you have it! Thanks for enlightening yourself with our history, we appreciate the read. If you enjoyed this blog post, be sure to check out our Company History

So what were the factors that played into our decision for a new office?

Cost and Lease Terms

At the end of the day the cost and lease terms were the number one factor. We have so many good things happening with our company right now and several opportunities that could take us in any number of directions. The last thing we wanted to do was sign a lease that locked us in for a long period of time and strapped us for cash. Our plans for 2010 and 2011 involve a 40% expansion in staff and cash on hand is an important factor in growing our team.  The typical lease for a group like ours runs from three to five years. With the commercial real estate market being what it is, we were able to get a two year lease, several months of free rent, a custom build out and a monthly rate that’s less than half of our current rate. This puts us in a prime position to route these savings towards the expansion of our team and thus the expansion of our service offerings.

Location

Location might have been the toughest factor to evaluate. Should the focus be on the employees and their drives to work or on existing clients who visit most often? What about proximity to the airport for our many out of town clients? How about proximity to where I think future clients will be located? Should I consider a location that is near our bank? Nice hotels? Fun restaurants? The reality is that I have to focus on all those things and some how come up with the “best” answer.

Let’s look closer at employees and clients for a moment.

Employees

For whatever reason, it turns out that the majority of our team members live in Seminole County. This means Longwood, Oviedo, Maitland, and Altamonte. And after closer review it turns out that my partner Eric and I are the only ones who live in Winter Park. Many of our employees put in long hours and love to visit the office on the weekends. If the drive time of 6 individuals could be cut by 50% over a span of roughly 250 working days per year, what could this do to the bottom line? It either gets them more time with their families and thus makes them feel better about their employment with us or it gives them more time to spend at the office helping our clients. Any way you shake it down, this was a vote to head towards a Seminole County destination.

Existing Clients

After taking a sampling of client visits during the past five years we realized the majority of these visits are from out of town clients. We have great clients in places like Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, New York, California, Washington D.C., Virginia, The Bahamas, Puerto Rico and The Cayman Islands who love traveling to Florida to visit us for several days at a time. This means hotels and restaurants are a factor. This means that proximity to the airport is a factor, as is the accessibility of our office, as is parking. While our Park Avenue location is certainly closer to the airport than our Altamonte Springs location, the variety of hotels available near Park Avenue is almost non-existent. And as great as the Park Ave restaurants are, Altamonte Springs has plenty to offer in this category. Our parking situation will be drastically improved with dedicated parking spaces versus our current “first come, first serve, probably gonna get a ticket if the meeting runs long, you don’t have a chance during the two art festivals per year” parking situation.  Although it’s not a landslide, Altamonte Springs seems to edge out our current Winter Park location. Our out of town clients can finally get a good night’s sleep without waking to the Winter Park train every 45 minutes and find a place to park their rental cars.

Floor Plan and Layout

The floor plan and layout was probably the most enjoyable factor to evaluate. Many of the places we looked at allowed us to modify the floor plan to our exact needs but the Altamonte Springs location we selected was the closest to matching our needs out of the gate. This means less time and money will be spent knocking down walls and re-wiring electrical outlets and more time can be spent on customizing the interior. Our current space is about 3,200 sf but we never felt like the layout used this space efficiently. The single largest room in our current office is 16 x 12 and it was very difficult to have more than 6 people in a room collaborating at any given time. This was a big limitation in the collaborative world of web design and development. The first thing we set out to do was enlarge our meeting space to 22 x 19. This will allow two 16′ whiteboards, a 52″ LCD mounted on one wall and a high-resolution projector screen on another. We also have room for a U shaped table to comfortably seat 10.

The one thing we did really like about our Park Ave location was that it allowed for every employee to have a private office. I know there are endless debates about open work areas vs. private work areas and there are some really bright people on different sides of the fence. To me, it boils down to personal preference. Employees will be most productive where they are happiest. I spent roughly five years working in a very open environment when I was a software developer for Fidelity Information Systems and did not enjoy it. I’ve always been more of a “tune the world out and get to work” sort of person. Complete immersion. Finding and embracing “the zone”. A private office has always been a better setting for me to work this way and it seems that our employees are all wired the same way. Each private office is large enough to have three people comfortably collaborate. Each private office is equiped with ample white board space, seating space, and telephone equipment. And when more than three people are required for a meeting, we have a great conference room to handle that.

Here is a snapshot of our new floor plan:

Intangible Perks

Once we found places that met our specs for cost and lease term, location, and floor plan and layout we started to look around at the intangible perks. Because we had already decided on a Seminole County destination the choice here seemed obvious. Uptown Altamonte is the only area we felt could begin to compete with the intagibles offered by Park Ave in Winter Park. The water, the bridge, the surrounding beauty, the restaurants within walking distance, the community events, the mall, the movie theater, the nearby grocery store and even a daycare within walking distance for one of our employees.  It’s the intangible perks that make our employees love coming to work and encourages our clients to stop by more often then they otherwise might.

Without further ado, here is an aerial shot of our new office location:

This  office will certainly remain in our hearts as our company takes another step in growth. I can’t even begin to explain the foundation we built, technology we established, clients obtained, team members hired & overall process we formulated behind these closed doors. If our company was Nike, the time spent in this office would be like the release of the first Jordan’s back in 1985.

Groundbreaking and forever memorable.

Back in 2005, checking out the space for the 1st time…

What would we have done without Will? What a handyman! He personally put together all of our desk furniture – which was no easy task. Like I’ve always said, our team has mad skillz.

Believe it or not, moving 3 employees into a new office space takes a lot of time. Especially when you pass up professional movers – whatever it took to save a few dollars back then.

The first white board (maybe the most under-appreciated tool at CG) is mounted in the conference room, and the Caxiam dream starts to become a reality…

I think my fondest memory of our first conference room had to come back in 2006. We were kicking off our initial strategy & planning for the Bahamas Electricity Corporation website (www.my-bec.com), and welcomed 7 BEC employees to our office for 2 days of marathon meetings.

As you can see below, the conference room seats comfortably about 4-5 people. 7 BEC members + 3 Caxiam members = lots of body heat. We even had to make a special trip to Office Depot to purchase a couple extra chairs! I can remember distinctly having people sitting in the halfway, onlooking the meeting from over 10 feet away. Ah, fun times!

In this particular case, bigger would have been better, but our meetings were still very productive, project objectives were met and site eventually launched with success!

I remember how proud I felt when these simple vinyl letters were applied to the front door. Maybe you’ve seen this door when walking Park Avenue?

And who could forget the random Culligan jug explosion? That thing fell right off the tank dispenser and 5 gallons of water went everywhere. I mean, everywhere.

Like I said, SO random that is just fell off like that. I mean, there’s really no logical explanation for it.

Or is there…

The Caxiam team back in 2005, shortly after move in. Mike (short-term contractor at the time), Ethan, myself & Will. The dedication and perseverance of this three man crew was the reason we succeeded early on.

Thank you Winter Park for all the great memories these last 5 years! All 7 employees thank you for your hospitality.

Here are some other nods while we’re traveling memory lane:

• Barnies’ 2-for-1 happy hour (Joe & Will started the habit, 2E enthusiastically followed)
• The convenience of having our bank within 100 feet (time saver!)
• Egg Sandwich & Tuna on Pita at Powerhouse Cafe (quick & yum lunch)
• Working & delivering over 75+ websites/applications/internal tools for our clients
• Having the best seat in the house for Winter Park’s Christmas Tree lighting
• The Half-Life gaming (The years where Ethan slipped, Will excelled, newcomer Joe gained respect, Jim continued to hop,  Dave plateaued & Maverick, well, he continued to dominate)
• Having Art Festivals right outside our front door (mmm, funnel cake)
• The 1,697 times we put a client on MUTE while a freight train barrels through the train station
• Outmaneuvering the 3 hour curb parking police (yes, our strategy exceeds the Web)
• The inception of “Salsa Friday”
• …and hiring the best Web team in Central Florida!