I got called in to Federal Jury duty recently, and was excited to see how our legal court system works, but dismayed that I would only get a small taste of it, since, like many other people there, I could not afford to volunteer a week of my time at $9 per day, which is far less than jurors for the city of Philadelphia get paid. We sat around from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm, when we were finally called in for jury selection, which lasted about an hour.  I was reminded how bloated the system is by the huge volume of potential jurors, the large proportion of people who were not available to serve in the first place for various reasons, and the long wait time. This is one reason there has been discussion about having dedicated jurors, but so far that idea has not been accepted.

This won’t be your experience at DDA. DDA works constantly to make our internal process and your experience efficient. We’ve established steps to follow for any potential project, which allows us to give an outline of the the process, to ask for what is needed in advance, and to estimate a timeline and costs. You may be surprised at how much is involved, and how we’ve streamlined each step. For an example of the many options and steps DDA might discuss with you, check out the website design and development section on our website. One of the most important services DDA offers is our dedication to a comprehensive, efficient process.

This week I received an email from my dad asking if I stopped checking Facebook, because he sent me a friend request one week ago and I hadn’t confirmed yet. I explained that I barely use Facebook, so a one or two week response is about the norm. I was amused that my dad has embraced social networking more than me. But, little by little, I am being pulled into new ways of communicating, like texting, Facebook, and Twitter.  I used to find texting quite annoying until I got a cellphone with an qwerty keyboard, but now I’m seduced by the fun of playing with abbreviated words, and the convenience texting allows when talking on the phone would be rude in a quiet setting, or when it’s too difficult because I’m in a noisy environment. I’m slowly but surely being pulled into using Facebook more, to see people’s vacation photo albums, to touch base with far-away relatives, and feel connected with a larger community.

To make things worse, now I’m going to have to join Twitter, since my friend just jumped on that bandwagon to promote her business, and I don’t want to miss the latest! DDA hasn’t resisted these new forms of communication though. We’ve been creating unique interactive games as long ago as 2000, like Digi Islands, a virtual vacation community, and You Bet My Life, a forum to place bets and make wagers on news and popular culture. And of course, we blog, and we help clients set up blogs for their website to increase website optimization. Check out DDA’s Learn and Enjoy website to see many more examples of how we make the interactive attractive, or read more about our interactive services by visiting ddainteractive.com.

Finding a good source for information can be a challenge. In our hurry to leave for Virginia last weekend, we did not think to bring a map. We did, however, have three gps’s, and two passengers’ opinions to try to resolve the differences between them. Any of the gps’s would have worked well, if we had a map to get us around the times when all of the gps’s wanted us to turn onto roads that didn’t exist.

Traffic became congested, and my friend felt stressed seeing the cars in the parallel lane speeding by. The cars were going so fast, compared to us, we couldn’t have deducted it was an HOV lane, because we couldn’t see any passengers in the cars at our slow speed. We didn’t see any signs confirming it was an HOV lane, or any signs indicating how we could get on it. Suspecting it was an HOV lane, we tried taking exits and asking people how to get on it, but didn’t find anyone who knew.

We got to our campsite late, missed the potluck, and had to set up our tents in the dark. I did not have time to take a look at the tent I borrowed before we left, so it took me a while to figure out how to do that on the fly in the dark.

We had each others’ company so we didn’t mind much that we missed our arrival goal, and the weekend was great. But when it comes to your business, lack of information can be much more costly. DDA specializes in helping you provide information for your existing and potential clients, and for your employees. Our training  and marketing videos demonstrate carefully developed content written by our in-house, degreed writers, which, combined with audio, narration, animation, and illustrations, are an effective way to engage your audience. Whatever the subject, whether it’s corporate, medical, or musical, DDA’s CD-ROM/DVD and online video presentations will help you reach your destination as planned.