“Actually you'll upload photos or images from here. You'll give them a password so they can view their photos and any of the different sketches or links you put on. Really, all they can do is invite Aunt Lucy in Poughkeepsie to view their Recess space.”

“Recess?” Dana asked.

“A time away from work and active design,” I said. “It sounded less punitive than TimeOut.”

“And we won't lose the personal touch?” Viv asked.

I opened my mouth to answer, but Eddie interjected again. “It's like the phone. You've had phones since you opened the shop, right?” He swung his gaze from Vivian to Dana, and then back, as if he were asking both of them for agreement. Between you and me, J, I think he just wanted to catch a look at Dana, again; but I did watch his eyes and they stayed at face-level without any downward drift at all. He was trying hard to be tactful.

“But you all intuitively know when to pick up the phone and when you actually need to run out and see the client. Recess allows clients to glimpse their dreams…and to share them. And I'm kidding about Aunt Lucy in Poughkeepsie ; they'll usually share with little sis across town.”

“Great. Just what we need—design by committee,” Shelly said. “Most of these clients are of two minds about any choice I put in front of their face anyway. Now I'm going to deal with every Aunt Lucid out there.”

I raised my coffee cup to her. “Spoken like a woman that's just defended our Brentwood beachhead against the twin terrors of sister collaboration and outside intervention.”

“But Shelly, not all the sharing will be like Brentwood ,” Eddie said. “I don't think your business model can completely migrate to the web; you'll always need to go out to a person's home and get a feel for the actual space. Most of the people a client will share with will be friends that have already been inside their home, anyway. The tool won't work nearly as well if that's not the case. I really see this new website and especially this feature as a proactive measure to really set you apart from the competition.”

“OK, OK,” Shelly said. “I just want to make sure we don't change the way we've been doing business up to now. At least not too much. It's worked pretty well. That's all.”

Viv jumped in. “So for now we're just featuring the consumer services? We'll add the business services later?”

Eddie nodded. “We felt it best to wait on that for now. We'll probably add a second URL, re-skin the generic part of this site with a different graphic look, and then plug in a new series of case studies once you have some new business wins in the small business sector.”

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