Today we rolled out another major system upgrade. As usual, many of the changes are behind-the-scenes enhancements, but there are a couple of exciting new features you will definitely want to know about.

The first is another milestone in making the system more accessible from mobile and touch devices. Recently, we enabled touch devices to access element menus and settings screens. Now we’ve made the content areas themselves editable. Previously it was impossible to edit the content in text elements, blog posts, and calendar events because of the limitations of mobile web browsers. The new update allows our system to recognize when you access it from a mobile browser, and it provides you with an alternate content-editing tool.

The new editing interface is quite simple, but you will need to be familiar with basic HTML tags (like <p>, <h3>, <br>, and <ul>) to enter content effectively. To access this new editing interface, login and pull up any content-editable element on a mobile device. The new interface will appear, allowing you to insert content and HTML into the content regions.

Did you know? We’re now publishing information about smaller changes to the software as they happen. You can follow it to stay up to date on all the tweaks and changes to LightCMS and even have some fun along the way. Follow @aLightCMSserver.

Inc. Magazine has announced its annual listing of the 5,000 fastest growing private companies in America. We’re pleased to announce that Element Fusion has made the list for our third consecutive year.

This year’s list tracks growth across the three year span from 2006-2009. During that period, Element Fusion saw an increase in revenue of 81%, landing us at #2,774 out of all private companies in the US and #24 out of the 34 Oklahoma-based companies that made the list.

As you can see, the period measured encompasses the great recession our economy has suffered recently. Inc. points out that finding growth in companies has proved itself more difficult this time around:

"It will probably comes as no surprise to savvy Inc. readers that it's not as easy to find growing companies as it was a couple years ago. In 2008, the second year of Inc.'s expanded list of 5,000 growing privately-held companies, there was much enthusiasm as firms across the country showed eagerness to be part of our list. The three-year growth rate of the company at the No. 5,000 rank doubled from 20 percent in 2007 to 40 percent in 2008. This year, the enthusiasm was still there, but very often, the growth was not. Our measuring period of 2006 through 2009 encompasses the recession, which economists say started in December of 2007 and lasted through the end of last year. Poignantly, many firms applied for this year's list even though their 2009 revenue was less than that of 2006.”

- from "Finding Growth in a Recession" by Jim Melloan

These sobering reflections on the state of our economy make us ever more grateful for the support you all have shown us which has resulted in our continued growth over this difficult time period. We truly are humbled and honored to have you as our customers and we look forward to continuing to serve you for years to come.

We're always trying to find ways to improve your experience with our CMS software. And to that effect, we recently made it possible for users with touch devices to access the element menus on our system. This enhancement allows you to simply tap on an element's control bar to access its drop-down menu if you are in admin view. On a laptop or desktop computer, these menus are accessed by hovering over the menu bar, which isn't possible on a touch device. So we've changed the behavior on touch devices so that touching the element name will perform a similar function.

This new feature will allow touch devices to:

• Access the "manage posts" page on blog elements
• Access the "manage entries" page on form elements
• Access the "settings" pages for all elements
• Use the "move up" and "move down" buttons to move elements within a region
• Use the "delete" button to delete an element

This update is a small, but important step toward making it easier to manage your website from a mobile device. We hope you enjoy it!

Today marks the last day that Glen, our favorite summer intern, is going to be with us. He's been an asset to have around, and it's been our honor to help him get some first experience with professional web design. He's helped us with everything from assisting our ongoing services team, research, working with sitebuilds, and even some design. 

This sharp young man started with us his senior year of high school, where he graduated as a valedictorian, and is leaving us to begin his first semester at Oklahoma Baptist University, where he plans to major in graphic design and information technology. On a parting note, Glen says to potential clients considering Element Fusion, "The designers at Element Fusion really know what they're doing. They're talented artists, they stay up to date with the latest trends, and they know how to make designs customer-friendly. If I could say anything, it would be that you can trust your designer at Element Fusion."

When asked what his favorite part of interning at Element Fusion has been, he said, "The environment. It's like a family, and that connection is really beneficial to good work. Everyone takes serious pride in their work and in the company, and that makes the whole environment just a really nice place to work... that and there's soda."

Here are five great examples of sites we've been working on and launched recently. 

American Mothers

Calvary Chapel Olympia

Immanuel Baptist Church

Reaching Souls International

Terwillegar Community Church

One of the great things about working for Element Fusion is the monthly catered lunch. The food is always fantastic. Recently we had Fazoli's, and before that we had Qdoba. This time we went with Chad's favorite pizza place, Papa Angelo's Pizzaria. They have three locations in Oklahoma, and all of them serve fantastic New York-style pizza. If you're looking for some great pizza, think about Papa Angelo's. Great choice, Chad!

Today we got this great compliment from @JenPearsall:

Shout out to @efstatus for your quick response about my website. You guys ROCK! I anyone needs a low-price but AWESOME CMS, check 'em out.

Thanks so much, Jen!

It's definitely summer here, with the heat index peaking around 110 F this week. But if we can't get out of the heat, we might as well look good in it! Our uber-talented developer / designer Andrew put this shirt together, and his choice of electronic marigold couldn't have had a better reception. The design is fantastic, and we thank Andrew for his hard work. Below are the shirts as seen through the beautiful lens of an iPhone 4. 

The stylish Chad is an instant sensation with this summery shirt set on display. Are those arrows symbolic of Element Fusion's rising success or are they directions to the gun show?

At the beginning of this year, we began a series of giveaways for non-profit organizations. After much deliberation, nominations, and public voting, the Swaziland Partnership was selected as the first organization to receive our donation of a free website design and one year of free hosting on our CMS system. We've had a fantastic time working with them on their site's design, and we're excited to see what their new site allows them to do.

Below, you can see what their website looked like before we redesigned it and what it looks like now. By integrating their site onto our CMS, they are now able to use our web-based tools to update their site's content, making it much easier for them to keep their information current and fresh.

The Swaziland Partnership (visit the new site)

The old site

The team that made it happen

We took this picture after one of the meetings when the partnership's representatives met in our office to discuss their site. From left to right is Matt Grimm (developer / designer with Element Fusion), Pat Burton (Swaziland Partnership), Lynn Bloomer (consultant with Element Fusion), Barbi Moore (Swaziland Partnership), Bob Miller (Bethany Nazarene), and Brian White (project manager with Element Fusion). 

Here are some of the great new websites that have launched recently. Be sure to check them out!

Cathedral of Faith

GoVirtualStaffing

Wiedemann Insurance Agency