Blue River Interactive Group

Apr 23, 2012

CANP Launches New Site

Blue River has recently launched the redesigned and redeveloped web site for the California Association for Nurse Practitioners (www.canpweb.org). This project was done in partnership with Shaw / Yoder / Antwih, Inc. (www.shawyoderantwih.com), one of Sacramento's leading legislative advocacy and association management companies. The two firms worked tightly together to meet the three primary objectives of the project:

Improved User Experience

For this project, Blue River leveraged its many years of experience with member-based organizations to design and develop a brand new user experience for CANP that allows current and potential members to gain access to important content quickly and easily. A new look and feel was created that integrated new branding efforts from CANP as well. One of the main focuses was to ensure user experience was  inviting and intuitive.

Provide Self-Help Tools to Members

The CANP web site is integrated with Euclid Technology's ClearVantage association management software (www.euclidtechnology.com). This system provides member tools such as creating accounts, managing accounts, renewing membership, member directories and more. Blue River worked with Euclid to develop a seamless integration between ClearVantage and the web site content. Members can now access all information about their account from the web site which should reduce incoming account management requests and provide increased member satisfaction related to their online experience.

Enable Web Content Management
Blue River integrated Mura CMS (www.getmura.com) an open-source content management system to handle the web content management needs. This system allows CANP staff to edit and create content via Mura's web-based interface without the need for technical support or web development personnel. Blue River also developed a Clear Vantage integration manager that allows CANP to list, edit and place the Clear Vantage functionality on the site in any location.

This is the first of many projects for Blue River and Shaw / Yoder / Antwih, Inc. working as a partnership. Shaw / Yoder / Antwih has decided to leverage Blue River's expertise in web design and development for member-based organizations along with Mura CMS to provide platform solutions for other associations on their roster. We look forward to continued success of this partnership and improving member -based organization web sites across the state.

Mar 23, 2012

Site Launch for SYNTHEON, Inc.

We are happy to announce the launch of the new www.syntheoninc.com web site.

SYNTHEON Inc. designs and builds advanced, high-efficiency products and services for the building and construction industry worldwide. Blue River created an intuitive, professional website that clearly reflects SYNTHEON as an innovative leader in the building industry. The site features SYNTHEON's complete product line filterable by location, impactful product detail pages, galleries and a mobile interface.

Visit www.syntheoninc.com to view the work.

Mar 16, 2012

We launched a great site, but we can't show you.

We recently designed and developed a brand new, state of the art User Experience for a large, highly trafficked, internal web site within a very cool company here in California. Unfortunately, due to privacy issues we can't tell you who it was for or show you the work. You will have to trust us. It turned out very nice! We can tell you what we did though:

• Strategic Analysis
• Content Taxonomy
• Interactive Wireframe Prototypes
• Graphic Design
• HTML/CSS Template Development

To find out more about our User Experience Design skills, contact us at info@blueriver.com.

Jan 18, 2012

We're Hiring! - Project Manager

Project Manager

We are currently looking for a talented, organized and experienced project manager to add to our professional services team. Please read the description below and if you have what it takes, send your resume and project experience to careers [at] blueriver.com.

Position Description
As a project manager, you are both an advocate for the client and our firm. In this role, you are responsible for ensuring delivery of each project that is on-time, on-budget and meets the client’s expectations. You will be expected to manage multiple projects at one time with varying timelines, budgets and scope. This is a challenging but gratifying position that requires a hard working, experienced individual that is willing to go the extra mile for our firm and our clients.

Position Duties

• Meeting with clients and project stakeholders to define project requirements
• Collaborating with the internal team to define project approach and deliverables
• Creating and maintaining detailed project schedules using Merlin software
• Scheduling and facilitating ongoing status meetings with internal resources
• Scheduling and facilitating ongoing status meetings with project stakeholders
• Managing internal resources assigned to your projects
• Coordinating and managing external resources (sub-contractors)
• Communicating project status, budget and concerns to management on a regular basis
• Facilitating change management on each project
• Providing project documentation in the form of...
  • Project Schedule
  • Project Requirements
  • Functional Specifications
• Training/User Documentation
• Ensuring client satisfaction throughout the entire project.

Candidate Requirements
The ideal candidate will meet the following requirements.

• 3 year minimum managing large-scale web development projects
• Understanding of the web development lifecycle
• Outstanding organizational skills
• Outstanding communication skills
• Ability to manage multiple projects at one time
• Experience managing local and remote teams
• Experience working with Content Management Systems a plus
• Strategic planning and Information Architecture experience a plus

Jan 18, 2012

We're Hiring! - Front End Developer

Front End Developer

We are currently looking for a talented front end developer to add to our professional services team. Please read the description below and if you have what it takes, send your resume and project experience to careers [at] blueriver.com.

Candidate Requirements

Ideal candidates will possess the following requirements.

• Minimum 3 years developing web sites and front end templates
• Deep understanding of HTML, CSS, HTML5, CSS3 and jQuery
• Experience with content management systems
• Understanding of mobile template development practices
• Adobe Creative Suite mastery
• Javascript mastery is a plus
• Mura CMS and CFML knowledge or experience is a plus

Oct 18, 2011

California Professional Firefighters site by Blue River wins national award (again)

CPF.org recently was awarded “best affiliate web site” in the annual International Association of Fire Fighters Media Awards. These awards are independently judged by media experts and outside members of the news media and include sites from all 50 states and Canada. It’s the 2nd time in four years that the site has won the top award.

May 31, 2011

City of Cincinnati selects Blue River and Mura CMS

After a long and thorough evaluation process, the City of Cincinnati has selected Mura CMS to power the City's public-facing websites. Consisting of hundreds of thousands of pages, the City of Cincinnati's websites will be redesigned and re-launched with Mura CMS providing powerful and easy-to-use Content Management capabilities to the City's hundreds of content administrators.  

Blue River will be providing a range of professional services and Mura CMS support to the City as they convert their sites to Mura CMS. 

May 18, 2011

Site Launch: Miyamoto International

Blue River is proud to announce the launch of the redesigned MiyamotoInternational.com website today. Completed in an incredibly quick 7-week design-to-launch process, the new site showcases Miyamoto International's engineering expertise and vital earthquake relief efforts. 

Powered by our Mura CMS (of course), the new site contains a overview of projects completed by Miyamoto International, a newsroom with archives and video features, information about their world-wide locations (with Google Maps integration), and many more features. 

We're delighted to be working with a firm that performs such top-quality work, and also assists with disaster relief (and prevention of future problems through improvements in engineering). 

May 18, 2011

More Intel Projects for Blue River

Intel Corporation has engaged Blue River to provide enhancements and support for multiple internally-facing Mura CMS sites. Per Intel's request, we cannot share details about these projects, but we can say that these sites provide information and functionality for Intel employees world-wide, and Blue River provided Information Architecture, Graphic Design and and Website Development services in the creation of these sites. 

Intel Corporation has used Mura CMS since 2007, and Blue River is proud to count them among our list of satisfied clients. 

May 13, 2011

Cloud-Based Mura CMS Hosting Now Available

One of the top requests over the years has been a recommendation for Mura CMS hosting. And we couldn't be more happy we now have a resounding answer for that question:

We are now offering Mura CMS Hosting at www.murahosting.com.

We've partnered with GoWest Hosting to provide high performance, cloud-based hosting from the people that know Mura CMS best — us! GoWest has been providing hosting services for the ColdFusion/CFML community for the last decade and have a track record of providing service that is second to none. We've worked closely with them to create a shared hosting solution that simplifies deploying and maintaining sites in Mura CMS. MuraHosting.com is a great solution for small business, blogs, non-profits, freelance projects, personal sites, and much, much more. Learn More about Mura Shared Hosting

May 12, 2011

Grant Shepert of Meld Solutions Joins the Blue River Team

We are delighted to announce that Grant Shepert of Meld Solutions is joining the Blue River team. If you've been active in the Mura CMS community at all over the last few years, Grant's name will be a familiar one. Grant was one of the earliest community adopters of Mura CMS and has spent the last few years developing plugins and consulting for Mura CMS as the founder of Meld Solutions. His contributions include Meld Forums, Meld Gallery, Meld miniCommerce, a Google SiteMaps plugin and several others.

Grant will be performing a key role at Blue River as an application developer, trainer and contributor to Mura CMS. However, beginning July 1st, Grant will become the head of our new European office based in London, England. We have provided support and training to European clients from our US offices, but now will have a physical presence in Europe, making it much easier for us to provide convenient, prompt responses for our European clients!

In addition to being a great guy to work with, Grant knows Mura CMS like few others.  We're very, very excited to say the least. Welcome to the team, Grant!

May 3, 2011

Blue River begins engagement with Procter & Gamble

Blue River is pleased to begin working with Procter & Gamble on a new, internally-focused website project. The project details can't be shared due to privacy concerns, but we can say that Blue River will be providing information architecture, graphic design and website development services. The new site will be launched on Blue River's Mura CMS platform, providing Procter & Gamble with a powerful, easy-to-use toolkit for website publishing and maintenance. 

This is Blue River's first engagement with Procter & Gamble; we're looking forward to a long and fruitful partnership.