A Monmouth student who actually blogs!

The blog I found was by a former Monmouth student, Joe (his last name isn’t listed and none of my friends could remember). He graduated in May 2003 with a bachelors degree in English, and as he says, the school ruined the ceremony. From my recollection, that was the last time graduation was held at school and it was held during a rain storm that would have made a monsoon look like a drizzle. He was a member of the Sigma Pi fraternity at Monmouth, and still holds a position, province archon (what he says is like “a volunteer regional director”), with the fraternity.

Joe has a Master’s degree in Public Policy from Rutgers, and is planning on going back to get his doctorate when he gets rid of some of his debt. His “About Joe" page does a good job of laying out who he is, where he’s from (including that he moved from Manhattan to Morris County when he was 8), and even his grade point averages from when he graduated from high school, Monmouth, and Rutgers, all of which are pretty impressive. He also includes information about a web design company he started, Usable Web Solutions, LLC.

His most recent post,"New Friends for Usable Web Solutions, LLC" talks about some of the companies he’s worked with and how his company is doing. It seems like a public relations effort more than a blog post because it seems directed towards possible future clients. It says something like, “Look, here are the companies that I’ve worked with already and because you know them and you respect them, you know that I can be trusted to do whatever web design projects you need.”

The blog seems to have a duel purpose. On one side, there’s the business aspect. This could be a great public relations tool. If a prospective client calls him to set up an appointment to discuss their project but wants to see some of his work before they commit to anything, they could come to his blog to see one style of design, then use the hyperlinks to jump to sites that his company has designed for other clients. In my opinion, it is a good way to show off his ability to design a site for every purpose. One company may want a site that is meant for a young audience which is well represented by his blog’s site. Another may want something more professional, and through the links on his blog, the company can see the different types of professional sites that Joe has created for his other clients. It is a great way to both get his company’s name and its ability to create good sites for all types of clients out to the public.

Joe also appeals to another audience. He posts on topics that are directly related to the people who live around Monmouth. In a post submitted on Wednesday, February 14, 2007, titled “Bad Ice on the Roads in Monmouth” (), he follows up on an earlier post about what he called “Storm of the Century on the Way” . In his first post, he basically says that none of the weather people can decide what is going to happen, and that they can’t know. “There’s only one problem with all of this planning, though…absolutely nothing supports the claim that there’s going to be a bastard of a snow storm tomorrow!” He says at the end of the post that he thinks the snow they are predicting won’t happen and, “that we’ll all be at work tomorrow.” He was right; there wasn’t much snow, but no one was at work that day either because what was snow turned to a nice two inch coating of ice. It is beautiful to see on the trees, but it wasn’t conducive for travel. I am sure that the roads were a nightmare because the university’s president actually cancelled class. It was the first snow day in his entire career at Monmouth.

Another interesting thing that I found on Joe’s blog was in a box on the right side of the page, about halfway down. It says “categories” and includes: "Book, DVD & etc. reviews, Christmas and Wintertime, Entries, Gym Stories, Idiots, Morons, and Fools, Iraq & War on Terror, Jokes & Humor, Sigma Pi & Fraternity, Student Loans and Debt, The State of New Jersey, WWE, ECW, & TNA Entries ." The number of posts that have to do with each category is listed with the topic, and when you click on the link, you get a list of every post that has even the tiniest bit to do with the selected category. I think this is a great feature on his blog. It makes it very easy for someone to come onto his site, and find whatever you might want to read about in one click instead of having to pick through each entry. Under the category “Entries,” there are 529 entries, and it would take ages to get through all of them if they weren’t separated into categories.

I really like his site. I think it has a bit of everything to appeal to a diverse number of audiences including Monmouth students, especially those in the Sigma Pi fraternity, and any possibly business clients. This is the kind of site I would expect from a website designer. He understands that people want what they are looking for now, with as few clicks as possible. If I had a blog on my own site, I would want it to be like this one.