• Read more about Brian Lacey Named As Industry Chair of Advanced Technology

CEO of Mobomo Named as Industry Chair of Advanced Technology Academic Research Center

Washington, D.C. --- Mobomo, LLC, headquartered in Washington, D.C., is a premier mobile-first web and mobile application design and development company that has extensive experience in working with federal agencies and commercial enterprises. Brian Lacey, CEO of Mobomo was recently named as the Industry Chair for the Advanced Technology Academic Research Center (ATARC) Mobile Customer Experience Working Group.

The ATARC Mobile Working Group is a technical working group of government, academia and private industry thought leaders collaborating on topics of interest to the Federal mobility community. The group’s goal is to provide the Federal Government with recommendations for methods to increase efficiency and reduce cost using cutting-edge mobile solutions.

“I am thrilled to be named an industry chair for ATARC. There is always work to be done to customer experience technologies and techniques to improve the public-facing mobile applications,” says Brian Lacey, CEO at Mobomo, LLC.

Mobomo specializes in working with government agencies helping enable technologies and improve the way they serve and engage with users. Not only does this benefit the user but agencies are seeing benefit through cost savings.

• Read more about Our Journey to a New Brand

WHO WE ARE

Rebranding for any company is an evolution of itself. It can mean a new logo, name, symbol or design conformed into one new identity. Once known as two separate companies, Intridea and Mobomo officially became a single website & mobile application development company around 5 months ago. Instead of renaming the company we decided to keep the name Mobomo (we liked their name better)!

After the merger was finalized the next step was to develop a new identity for the our newly formed family, we had to figure out “who” we are as an agency. Luckily, we shared the same vision for “who” we wanted to be which made things fairly straightforward, but I know that this isn’t the case for all rebrands. WE are energetic, WE are agile, We ARE MOBOMO!

Any company whether they are rebranding or not should be eager for new changes and ideas that can further propel their brand which ultimately leads to success. A company that is stagnant or doesn't have the drive or push is destined to fail. A key to any rebranding process is taking all your learnings, both internally and externally, and applying them to your new identity. Along with applying your best practices learned through experiences it is important to listen, be open to all ideas and try new concepts, if not change will never occur thus a stagnant company is inevitable.  In this post I’d love to walk you through our REBRANDING process as well as our newest developments to our new brand that makes it what it is today.

OUR LOGO

A logo or icon represents a company's name, when someone sees that logo they immediately associate with a particular company or brand. As a newly formed identity, we decided a new logo was an immediate next step. After weeks of deliberation, our new company logo was decided on- the hummingbird. A hummingbird to us perfectly combines the energy we put into each project, with the gracefulness and agility that comes with a team who is able to rapidly shift to the needs of our clients.

The new Mobomo word mark, is a custom typeface that is strong and commands attention. Capable of standing out in an overly crowded space, and infinitely versatile, the Mobomo word mark stands as a strong foundation of who we are.

Finalizing THE BRAND

Selecting the right font can be detrimental to a new brand and as the first rule of thumb.. it should always compliment the new logo. For our primary font we chose FF Real for it’s simple and elegant, yet strong appearance that translates well across a variety of different mediums. Our secondary font choice is Source Sans Pro, which was selected because it compliments FF Real perfectly and is a great display font.

The color palette we decided on supports our core beliefs illuminating our agile and energetic spirit towards all of our work.

And no redesign is complete without iconography to help tell it’s story. We chose an icon library that works well both on and offline, it is one that’s simple in it’s level of detail but strong in it’s ability to be recognized.

Combine all of our efforts and you get our final product...!

By: Mike DelGuidice

• Read more about NASA Uses "Headless" Drupal To Reach New Website Heights

In April 2015, NASA unveiled a brand new look and user experience for NASA.gov. This release revealed a site modernized to 1) work across all devices and screen sizes (responsive web design), 2) eliminate visual clutter, and 3) highlight the continuous flow of news updates, images, and videos.

With its latest site version, NASA—already an established leader in the digital space—has reached even higher heights by being one of the first federal sites to use a “headless” Drupal approach. Though this model was used when the site was initially migrated to Drupal in 2013, this most recent deployment rounded out the endeavor by using the Services module to provide a REST interface, and ember.js for the client-side, front-end framework.

Implementing a “headless” Drupal approach prepares NASA for the future of content management systems (CMS) by:

1. Leveraging the strength and flexibility of Drupal’s back-end to easily architect content models and ingest content from other sources. As examples:

• Our team created the concept of an “ubernode”, a content type which homogenizes fields across historically varied content types (e.g., features, images, press releases, etc.). Implementing an “ubernode” enables easy integration of content in web services feeds, allowing developers to seamlessly pull multiple content types into a single, “latest news” feed. This approach also provides a foundation for the agency to truly embrace the “Create Once, Publish Everywhere” philosophy of content development and syndication to multiple channels, including mobile applications, GovDelivery, iTunes, and other third party applications.

• Additionally, the team harnessed Drupal’s power to integrate with other content stores and applications, successfully ingesting content from blogs.nasa.gov, svs.gsfc.nasa.gov, earthobservatory.nasa.gov, www.spc.noaa.gov, etc., and aggregating the sourced content for publication.

2. Optimizing the front-end by building with a client-side, front-end framework, as opposed to a theme. For this task, our team chose ember.js, distinguished by both its maturity as a framework and its emphasis of convention over configuration. Ember embraces model-view-controller (MVC), and also excels at performance by batching updates to the document object model (DOM) and bindings.

In another stride toward maximizing “Headless” Drupal’s massive potential, we configured the site so that JSON feed records are published to an Amazon S3 bucket as an origin for a content delivery network (CDN), ultimately allowing for a high-security, high-performance, and highly available site.

Below is an example of how the technology stack which we implemented works:

Using ember.js, the NASA.gov home page requests a list of nodes of the latest content to display. Drupal provides this list as a JSON feed of nodes:

Ember then retrieves specific content for each node. Again, Drupal provides this content as a JSON response stored on Amazon S3:

Finally, Ember distributes these results into the individual items for the home page:

The result? A NASA.gov architected for the future. It is worth noting that upgrading to Drupal 8 can be done without reconfiguring the ember front-end. Further, migrating to another front-end framework (such as Angular or Backbone) does not require modification of the Drupal CMS.

• Read more about Federal Mobile Computing Summit 2014: Government in the Future

We were particularly proud to see one of our favorite clients, Peter Dewar, Chief Technology Officer at the District of Columbia Retirement Board (DCRB), participate in a thought-provoking panel on Wearables and the Internet of Things. The session's description as a “visionary panel” proved to be true, as all of the participants outlined the groundbreaking mobile capabilities they foresaw as feasible within the next five years.

Mr. Dewar described his vision for implementing Google Glass in the office, at conferences—even for pension fund participants, staff, and Board members. Taking the idea of “smart rooms” even further, he also described a futuristic conference room, which would be able to set up a meeting’s required media (think dial-ins, projectors, etc.) upon the meeting organizer’s entrance or (biometric) authentication.

We from Mobomo were on the edge of our seats thinking about the possibilities, and excited about building them—especially for our government clients. Congrats to Peter Dewar for a great panel session, and thanks to Tom Suder for hosting yet another fantastic summit. We’re looking forward to next year’s—and to the future of mobile (in the government!).

• Read more about In A Galaxy Far, Far Away...NASA Gets Their Webby!

Previously, we mentioned that NASA won a Webby, and we were delighted to accompany them to New York City to receive it. With a packed schedule of events, the Webbys pulled out all the stops with a star-studded, wildly entertaining night to remember. Award recipients and attendees were treated to a cocktail hour, followed by a fun, fast-paced ceremony at the famed Cipriani Wall Street.

During a delicious, four-course meal, guests were regaled with a stream of acceptance speeches by all of the winners. All speeches had to be 5 words or less, which left little room for rambling, but lots of room for wit. A crowd favorite? A speech that wisely stated: “As my favorite song says—”

NASA astronaut, Mike Massimino, wasn’t the only powerhouse in the room: guests rubbed elbows with Orange Is The New Black’s Taylor Schilling; Jason Collins, the NBA’s first openly gay player; the Jamaican Olympic Bobsled team; De La Soul; the co-founder of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee; and one of Mobomo’s all-time favorites, George Takei (who presented NASA’s award!). And for those who want to know exactly what the Fox says, we can tell you, but we’ll have to charge: he sat right next to us during the ceremony, and as you’d expect, had a lot to say.

After an exciting night, the Webbys closed with one more after-party, where guests celebrated their Internet wins. Congratulations, again NASA! We may be biased, but you were the most stellar winner in the room.

• Read more about Molten Magic: Mobomo Visits Mars, Inc.

We love all of our customers, but working with a world-renowned, chocolate company makes everything a little bit sweeter!

While building mobile solutions to help Mars’ global sales teams, we were invited to visit the company’s main North American candy campus. There we took a private, guided tour around, and saw exactly how all that Mars magic is made.

We’ve been on a lot of tours, but none as colorful and sweet! We got to see the magical center of an M+M, giant vats of gooey chocolate, and even some of our favorite candies being made. Willy Wonka himself would have been awed.

We couldn’t be more…satisfied to call Mars one of our clients—and we certainly couldn’t be more full! Thanks for the tour and treats, Mars! We’ll happily come back (and taste test!) any day.

• Read more about Mobomo Profiled by Leading DC Media Outlet

For Mobomo, the media coverage just keeps rolling in. This week, we are honored to be the feature of In The Capital’s latest tech profile!

The DC-based blog interviewed our very own founder, Barg Upender, to discuss our position at the forefront of the Mobile-Federal IT space, exactly what spawned Mobomo, and the various feats we’ve accomplished since our inception not long ago. Additionally, Barg gives some insight into our mobile development model, and what he predicts happening in Federal IT.

Head over to In The Capital for the full article!

• Read more about Betascape - Where Art and Technology Meet

This weekend we'll be supporting the innovation that happens when artists and technologists collide, through our sponsorship of Betascape 2011.

Last weekend, we sponsored and presented at MobileUXCamp in DC to discuss the ways in which mobile devices are reshaping our interactions with the web. This weekend we'll be in Baltimore, supporting the incredible work that happens when artists and technologists focus their combined talents.

Betascape is an annual event in Baltimore, aimed at involving designers and developers in ground-breaking work though informative sessions and interactive workshops. Participants come together in groups on the final day to explore the new ideas that emerged over the course of the weekend and create small projects that will be judged and awarded based on their level of innovation.

Betascape's theme and purpose is analogous with our method of design and development at Intridea. Our design process isn't detached from our development process; our designers don't work independently from our programmers. Rather, they work together closely from initial discovery to prototype to the finished product (and beyond).

Designers and developers at Intridea explore our client's needs together, and when the final design is approved and sent to our development team, the designers stay involved throughout the process to ensure that the UI/UX adapts to any architectural changes that are made during the development process. This ensures that when a product is complete the application is both aesthetically and structurally optimal.

We understand the value of the relationship between artist and technologist and we're looking forward to talking about our process at this weekend's neoteric event. Join us in the Interactive Lounge to talk shop or even just to say hello and grab some fancy die cut stickers! If you won't be at the event, be sure to follow us on Twitter for live coverage of the happenings over the weekend.