Last August I wrote about my new job at Patronpath. This has been a challenging 8 months at Patronpath but the business is proving itself over and over. Our first quarter was larger than last year and our clients have double-digit growth internally using our marketing and ecommerce solutions.

Last night, we won the Mira Awards for Indiana’s Information Technology Gazelle Company!

The most challenging part of our efforts is, by far, integrating with Restaurant POS systems. There are only a couple in the industry that are capitalizing on new technologies - most of the others are still in a world of batch files, Access Databases and even FoxPro. We’ve got a great framework in place for accomplishing this that is unlike the rest of the solutions and we’re proud of our POS integration.

We also have almost as many in our implementation funnel as we do live! That’s got me working overtime on automation and simplifying implementation. Thank goodness we’ve got a great team at Patronpath. Mark Gallo, President, understands the industry inside and out. Chad Hankinson is the best salesman I’ve ever worked with - he never stops when the sale is done - he continues working with his clients in their implementation and beyond. Our most recent employees are Tammy Heath, Account Manager, and Marty Bird, Director of Marketing.

Tammy is a fantastic Account Manager who cares about her clients. Marty has been a godsend for me, personally, since he’s organized and built our email marketing programs and is working to streamline our internal operations by implementing Salesforce along with our current tools, Google Apps and ExactTarget.

The team doesn’t stop there, either. Kristian Andersen and Associates have provided us with an awesome web presence and brand. And we continue to get ongoing consultation from our board - who run businesses like Autobase, HealthX, First Internet Bank and RICS Software.

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• How Little Do Users Read? (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox)
  Via Digital Solid. On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely.
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  If a blogger/blogspot user is stealing your content (I reported one this morning), here’s the contact information to report them to blogger.
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• Summize Conversational Search
  Hat tip to Selsius. Search Twitter in realtime with Summize
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Today in my mail I received a blue envelope that had my name and address neatly printed on the front. The reply address was a P.O. Box but it still appeared handwritten. When I flipped the envelope over, it had the Hallmark seal on it. The curiosity got the best of me and I opened it to find a card with the following message:

This is handwriting font technology and it’s really hit the direct mail scene the last couple of years. Direct marketers know that if they get you to open a piece of mail, you’re much more apt to read the piece. If you read the piece, you’re more apt to call. If you call, you’ll probably buy. It all begins with the open, though!

The reason why this font is somewhat believable is how they vary the size of the same letters (check out the ‘e’s in speed), and the letter spacing (both kerning and tracking). The technique definitely captures your attention, there’s enough of a difference from ordinary type to trick you into thinking it’s hand-written.

One easy way to tell that it’s not is that the actual lines are perfectly spaced from one another and precisely straight. No doubt these subtleties will also be changed in the future. Either way, it’s a pretty nice piece of work and I’m sure it will convert quite a few prospects. I’m not interested since I might be moving soon.