Business to Consumer Media Placements

Business to Consumer Media Placements

Business to Consumer Table Of Contents

Date

Publication

3/2/2015

Inc.

2/10/2015

Facebook

2/10/2015

Advocate.com

10/10/2014

Inc.

5 Simple Ways to Get Employees More Engaged

9/24/2014

Inc.

Why You Should Invest More in Social Marketing This Holiday Season (Infographic)

9/20/2014

NBC News- Online

9/3/2014

Entrepreneur

9/3/2014

ADWEEK

8/28/2014

Entrepreneur

8/11/2014

PR Week

8/7/2014

Fast Company

8/1/2014

Bloomberg Businessweek

7/11/2014

Entrepreneur

7/7/2014

New York Times

7/1/2014

Fast Company

6/1/2014

Reno Magazine

5/8/2014

Entrepreneur

4/22/2014

Forbes

4/1/2014

Apartment Therapy

3/27/2014

Entrepreneur

3/26/2014 3/17/2014

Real Simple Bloomberg Businessweek

Title 16 Ideas For Creating A Stronger Team And Better Culture The Advocate Magazine Op-Ed: A Gay Man's Voice In The Eating Disorder Conversation

What America's Retailers Are Spending on Social Media This Holiday Season (Infographic) The Grand Ole Opry Gets Hip to Hashtags to Harvest a New Audience Online Pop Culture Events Widen Social Graph The Video Revolution Will Not Be Televised Offerpop App is Source of Inspiration for Brands 5 Ways to Manage Both Good and Bad Online Reviews Beach Read Recommendations of the Guiltless Sort 4 Ways to Rewire the Corporate Brain to Compete in the 21st Century A Casino Town Rolls the Dice on High Tech How Gopro is Transforming Advertising As We Know It Community Pillar 3 Alternative Tech Startup Cities With Less Traffic, More Housing (Infographic) How Four Eco Brands Are Using Social Media Marketing Effectively Craft Advice From The Pros: 10 Tips For Sewing And Quilting 3 Companies Share How They Stay True to Company Culture Amidst Rapid Growth How to Decorate with Radiant Orchid What's Your Workday Exercise?

Business to Consumer Table Of Contents

Date

Publication

2/24/2014

NBC News

2/11/2014

Wall Street Journal Live

1/31/2014

Wall Street Journal

1/31/2014 1/10/2014

ADWEEK The New York Times

1/14/2014

Fitness

1/2/2014

CNN Travel

1/1/2014

Spirit

6/27/2014

Today Show

5 Tips to Prep Your Home for Summer Storms

12/16/2013

Vogue

11/13/2013

Entrepreneur

11/13/2013

Ad Age

8/16/2013

Vogue

8/9/2013

Bloomberg Businessweek

4/24/2013 11/19/2012

US News: Money The Wall Street Journal

10/22/2012

Fox Business

9/19/2012

Good Day Sacramento

7/23/2012

Huffington Post

4/1/2012

Entrepreneur

2/29/2012

Mashable Business

2/1/2012 12/26/2011 11/1/2011 6/1/2011 4/1/2011

Dwell AutoWeek Money Magazine Inc. Good Housekeeping

Six Snow-Filled Winter Getaways Why Wait Until Saturday? Small Businesses Seek Black Friday Buzz Hashtags Breathe Life Back Into Social Commerce North America's Best Lakeside Retreats: From Great Lakes to Golden Ponds Offerpop Launches Facebook Poll App for Brands How to Spot a Home-Contractor Scam For Nevada Prospectors, Mud is Gold Own a Piece of a Karate Franchise and Keep Your Day Job Black Rock Mud James Kosta, 3G studios: A Wild Ride for Jailed Teen Hacker Turned Video Game Entrepreneur Making sure the kids are all right Timeline for Brands: How to Prepare for Your Company's New Facebook Page Reclaimed Materials Baron off the Ball Point, Click, and Cut Remote Bills Fabulous Facebook Pages Petite Treat

Title

Not Your grandma's Quilt: How to Speed Up a Timeless Art Form Internet Speed-Quilting Queen Jenny Doan Entrepreneur Stitches Together a Quilting Business The Second Screen Super Bowl Tahoe, Calif.

Rock at Life Like Christie Rampone: The Soccer Star Spills Her Do-It-All Secrets 15 Lesser-Known Ski Resorts to Check Out This Winter Looking Ahead: mark your calendar for these fun-filled events held across the country in January and February

Business to Consumer Table Of Contents

Date

Publication

11/18/2010

Wall Street Journal

8/2/2010 1/13/2009

Star Playboy

Title

GM IPO Soaring, But GM as an Investment?

Blech Hot Website Drink of the Week

16 Ideas for Creating a Stronger Team and Better Culture The 'perks' that matter most are those that get your team to bond in unexpected ways.

March 2, 2015

A great company culture comes down to one thing: people. You define your values and mission, but ultimately, it's up to your team to live by them. And that starts with having a cohesive team in the first place, one that's willing to trade ideas, praise, and even lunch recommendations.

Curious about the ways entrepreneurs help their employees connect--to the company's mission, but also to each other--we asked 16 members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) to share the perks, products, and processes that have helped the most. Their best answers are below.

1. Intrapreneurship, Shark Tank-style.

It is crucial to create a culture that empowers everyone within the organization to be innovative and intrapreneurial. We hold a semi-annual event, very similar to Shark Tank, where employees come and pitch their ideas. Ideas range from new products to ways we can streamline or improve our current processes. This helps create a culture of collaborative, collective intelligence.--Dusty Wunderlich, Bristlecone Holdings

2. Public shout-outs.

At the end of every monthly team meeting, we put up a slide listing all of our company values. Then, team members have a chance to give shout-outs to each other based on those values and based on each person's work in the past month. It's a great way for everyone to publicly recognize each other--and it's free!--Bhavin Parikh, Magoosh

3. A culture calendar.

We recently introduced a culture calendar that is viewable by all team members. It includes activities ranging from team meetings to employee birthdays to fitness challenges. Team members are also able to suggest new activities in a shared document. Putting events down on a calendar, accessible to everyone across different office locations, leads to increased team communication and transparency.--Doreen Bloch, Poshly

4. Lunch lotto.

We instituted a monthly lunch lotto where we draw names for a group to go to lunch on the company's dime.

This was started in efforts to build interdepartmental relationships between people who may not work together regularly, and break down silos that may exist between some departments. We encourage people to chat about personal and work life, and they typically take a longer lunch than usual.--Angela Harless, AcrobatAnt

5. A Champion-in-Residence.

Our company's biggest cultural win was the addition of three-time boxing world champion Paul Vaden, who is our Champion-in-Residence. Paul has had a big impact on our company culture. Employees meet with him regularly, and he attends major company meetings to offer inspiring guidance. He also adds to the level of fun in the office and hosts departmental boxing classes off site, too.--Jason Kulpa, Underground Elephant

6. Naps.

As the CEO of a mattress company, I always try to emphasize the benefits of adequate sleep to my customers and clients, as well as my team members. Napping is a huge part of our company culture here, and I have found that a well-placed nap will make my already-gritty employees even more hardworking, creative, and happy when they wake up.--Firas Kittaneh, Amerisleep

7. A supply of books.

We cover the cost of books for our team, so there's zero friction in the process for anyone who wants to learn something new. Because we seek out new markets and novel product ideas, we're constantly adding to our knowledge base and becoming experts in different fields. Catering to a culture built on learning and continuous self-education is the key to our successes.--Emerson Spartz, Spartz

8. An adventure reimbursement program.

We implemented an adventure reimbursement program to instill the concept of "work hard, play harder." We reimburse our employees to participate in an adventure or try new things on the company's dime. During meetings, we then talk about it. Some have taken swimming lessons, gone to a play, taken karate lessons, and the list goes on.--Tamara Nall, The Leading Niche

9. A group "campfire" session (no tech allowed).

We have a process called "campfire" every Monday and Wednesday morning with zero electronics. Our team meets at our creative room on the floor, cross-legged. We discuss project statuses, current challenges, brainstorm creative and development solutions, define workload action plans, and socialize. Our full team is

deeply integrated into the company with an enthusiastic understanding of the global workload.--Dalip Jaggi, Devise Interactive

10. A Ping-Pong table.

Great companies have a passionate drive to beat competitors and help customers win. Embracing a healthy culture of competition is a great way to feed this fire. Our solution: Installing two Ping-Pong tables and running monthly tournaments with a variety of prizes. Let's just say that the competitive spirit is alive and well at VideoBlocks.--Joel Holland, VideoBlocks

11. An investment in employee learning.

We believe strongly that as consultants and advisers, we must push the thinking in our areas of specialty. We invest in developing our staff members as thought leaders because it not only helps strengthen our brand, it also provides opportunities for team members to shine. This strengthens our culture because it directly aligns with our values and strategy, and benefits employees.--Chris Cancialosi, gothamCulture

12. Better communication for remote workers.

We are a small company with a remote workforce. In order to strengthen our corporate culture, we needed a tool that allowed all of our employees to share ideas, work through problems, and socialize just like they would under the same roof. We've accomplished this with Slack, which has become our team's virtual office. It's the foundation on top of which we've developed our culture.--Maxwell Finn, Loot!

13. Frequent team lunches.

We encourage a team lunch every Friday afternoon outside of the office. This allows the employees to connect on a personal level outside of work, which helps them relate and connect with each other. You spend more time with the people you work with than your own family, so it is important to enjoy your time around them. Jayna Cooke, EventUp

14. Dinners at teammates' homes.

At least once a month on a weekend, a teammate or co-founder will cook dinner for the team at their home.

Teammates will bring their family, dogs, significant others, and friends. We're extremely family-oriented as a team and treat building our company as a team/family effort, not just as a job.--Nanxi Liu, Enplug

15. Team recognition and rewards.

I'm not lackadaisical about the culture I build, and I've found major success with software and apps that allow employees to give each other kudos for just about any job well done, then allowing the employee to pick from a variety of rewards THEY want (headphones, time off, casual dress days, cash, etc.). Because of programs like YouEarnedIt, I'm able to let my employees cultivate real culture.--Darius Mirshahzadeh, Endeavor America Loan Services

16. Team workouts.

Seeing each other sweat and compete together in an organized sport (like soccer or running) does wonders to build team cohesiveness. You view each other in a different light as well as learn about people's families.

People learn to compete. It's something we will continue to expand on in the coming years.--Kofi Kankam, Admit.me

The Advocate Magazine February 10, 2015

Op-ed: A Gay Man’s Voice in the Eating Disorder Conversation February 10, 2015

Eating disorders are prevalent among gay, bisexual, and transgender men, but it isn't always easy to find help.

Eating disorders in our society are not viewed as male diseases. But they should be. According to one study, more than 15 percent of gay or bisexual men have experienced anorexia, bulimia, or binge-eating disorder in their lifetimes.

I started having disordered behaviors around food when I was 21 years old. I remember it distinctly. Just before a family vacation to England, I had started to gain a little weight. Our family in the U.K. immediately noticed my weight gain and mentioned it. This caught me off guard, as my sister had always been the one with a little more meat on her bones, leaving me to identify myself as the thin sibling. Looking back, I can see that was the trigger.

I didn’t think anything of it at the time and made a mental note to start working out. Gaining weight was embarrassing, and going to the gym where people could see me did not feel like a comfortable option for me. So I started running. I would go out into the desert and run until my body couldn’t take any more. During this time I was living in Las Vegas, where there’s plenty of room to run in the middle of the desert and no one looks twice, a blessing for runners and a temptation for someone suffering from poor self esteem. Mentally, I was just losing unhealthy weight and getting back to my “skinny” identity, but physically it was much more than that.

At this point the person I was seeing in the mirror wasn’t a reflection of reality and I was fixated on body image. I soon stopped eating regularly.

It was easy for me to restrict food. The ADHD medication I was taking at the time suppressed hunger, so instead of taking one pill a day I took three or four, and I didn’t crave food for days at a time.

Breaking my fast every few days only allowed my body minimal nutrients, as I took a laxative with nearly everything I ate. When my digestive tract did get relief from laxatives, if you could call it relief, I would drink alcohol to hide the hunger.

My unhealthy eating patterns materialized in so many different ways. I never thought that obsessive working out could lead into an eating disorder so quickly, or be an eating disorder in

itself. There’s such a wide range of ways that it manifests itself and too many easy ways to keep it going.

Unfortunately, at that time I didn’t see my self-consciousness as a clear weakness. There was so much going on inside my head that the last thing I was concerned about was being overly bodyconscious. I hadn’t come out yet and didn’t realize the extreme stress that my psyche was under.

My actions and food restriction became more severe with the rise and fall of stress — something I must monitor to this day.

At age 30 I came out, broke off an engagement to a woman, and embraced the LGBT community. During one of the most stressful periods of my life, my eating disorder raged on more intensely than ever.

Thankfully I had incredible family support. My sister provided tremendous encouragement and love. But even though they were right beside me, no one in my family knew how to handle it.

My weight became a joke within the family. People would mention that my clothes were hanging off me and laugh. It was like having an alcoholic aunt whose issues the family ignores. Everyone can see it, but they’re all too close to the situation to step back and think, That’s really an issue and we should get help. No one could see my eating disorder clearly, including myself.

But I couldn’t stop. Constantly worried about how I looked so I could maintain my “skinny” identity, the eating disorder took over. Very early on after I came out, the community labeled me a “twink,” which only perpetuated my obsession with my natural physical characteristic of having a small frame.

Most social groups of young people categorize each other based on physical characteristics, and the gay community is no different. Youthful individuals are placed into a certain box that they’ll identify with for years. There are all these images of popular body types from different time periods floating around. The issue is being brought to light specifically for women, but there’s also a vast population of men who are subject to the same social pressures. People don’t think men have these kinds of issues with body image, so it’s not talked about. These pressures and categories greatly contributed to the way I viewed food.

It sounds cliché, but to get over something like this you’ve got to be secure with yourself. Full recovery will never happen when the concern about what other people think is still prevalent. My eating disorder came in waves for roughly 10 years until I was truly happy from the inside out.

When stressful situations arise, I’m still susceptible to disordered eating, and I keep that in mind.

I’d like to say that if my life suddenly fell apart I’d be able to stay strong, but seeking help from a therapist would be necessary.

Thankfully, with age comes maturity, which helps maintain a positive body image. However, with eating disorders being an incredibly deadly mental illness, it’s important to get help and not to try to wait it out with age. If I had reached out for help from a specialized eating disorder

treatment center, the esophagus damage, digestive struggles, overly sensitive gag reflex, and stomach harm could’ve been minimized.

Seeking help as a gay male is intimidating. Looking for resources can also feel discouraging because many of the support systems are designed for women. Still, there are places that offer support for men, like the Center for Hope of the Sierras, for example. If we could spread the message to every body-conscious man that help is out there, so many gay men like me could be spared the physical, emotional, and psychological toll of battling an eating disorder alone.

JOSEPH HOLTOM lives in Las Vegas with his boyfriend and proudly hasn’t had an eating disorder relapse in nearly five years.

5 Simple Ways to Get Employees More Engaged 10.10.2014

BY KEVIN DAUM @KEVINJDAUM

Most often just issuing a paycheck is not enough to get employees really excited about their work. Here are 5 easy and powerful ways to boost their engagement.

Engaged employees can transform a company. They can take customer loyalty to new levels, reduce hiring costs, and improve productivity and product quality. But boosting employee engagement is hard work. And busy executives are sometimes so focused on the objectives that they don't take the proper steps to keep employees tightly tied into company culture and inspired to do great work.

A recent survey from Bain and Company in partnership with Netsurvey analyzed responses from 200,000 employees in 40 companies and found two troubling trends. First, the survey showed that engagement declines with employee tenure, meaning that your most experienced and knowledgeable employees are typically the least engaged. The survey also found that employee engagement was weakest at the lowest levels of the company and in service and sales departments, putting the least engaged workers on the front lines of a company's daily interaction with customers.

So how does a company boost employee engagement without the trial-and-error, time-intensive process of launching a new program from scratch without a blueprint for success? I recently had the chance to discuss this challenge with Darius Mirshahzadeh, President and co-founder of Endeavor America Loan Services. Mirshahzadeh has built a great team of highly engaged employees at his fast-growing mortgage company based in Walnut Creek, California. In less than a year, Endeavor has attracted 200 employees while spending zero dollars on recruiting. Here are 5 of his secrets for making sure employees start off on the right foot and stay highly motivated in their positions throughout their tenure.

1. Me before WE. Barrels of ink have been spilled over the concepts of collaboration and teamwork. These practices are vital, but so is the often overshadowed emphasis on the individual employee. Mirshahzadeh practices the "me before we" mentality using the StrengthsFinder talent assessment tool to discover

and grow employees' natural skills. His management makes it a point to mentor employees in their specific strengths and assemble teams that have complimentary skill sets. "Me before we" does not sacrifice the team for the sake of the individual, it puts an emphasis on individual development that ends up making for stronger teams.

2. Practice the "1 Percent" rule.

So many executives delay putting a program in place because they think it requires a lot of effort or resources. Mirshahzadeh instituted a rule requiring at least one percent of company resources dedicated to employee development early in Endeavor's lifecycle. The commitment equals roughly 20 hours per employee each year focused on personal development. The program fosters company loyalty and high morale.

3. Make first days and birthdays special.

Employees need to feel appreciated from day one and throughout the year or they'll feel detached and possibly resentful. On first days of work, don't just put the employee in a desk and let them fend for themselves. At Endeavor, first days are significant with an executive or founder spending personal face-to-face time with employees. On work anniversaries and birthdays, employees get hand-signed cards from senior management, a gift certificate and a personal note.

4. Use easy employee recognition tools.

Consistent employee recognition is necessary for engagement, but doing it in a meaningful and consistent way is time-consuming and complicated for many. Endeavor uses a software tool that simplifies the process and democratizes recognition to allow the entire staff to recognize their colleagues. YouEarnedIt is a points-based software system that allows employees to gift points to deserving co-workers. The points can be redeemed for prizes or other rewards. Recognition comes in real time. The tool alleviates the burden of a manager having to launch the program and the results are a more authentic gauge of true employee achievement.

5. Make feedback easy and effective.

A huge part of any executive or manager's job is listening. Listening sparks some of the best ideas, helps identify workplace problems early and builds a more connected and collaborative workplace.

Endeavor uses the 15Five software system to provide a real-time, direct feedback pipeline to managers. Employees take 15 minutes each week to send comments that take a manager only five minutes to read, review and respond. The best ideas are quickly and easily passed up the chain of command, while problems are identified and addressed immediately. Listening is still best done inperson and face-to-face, but the system organizes feedback, sets up regular check-ins and allows unfiltered feedback to be sent to the highest decision-makers in the company with the push of a button.

Why You Should Invest More In Social Marketing This Holiday Season (Infographic)

BY GRAHAM WINFREY @GRAHAMWINFREY 9-24-2014

Cashing in on the 2014 holiday season is all about socializing commerce. Here's what your marketing team needs to know.

Social media marketing will play a crucial role in driving sales this holiday season, when U.S consumers are expected to spend a whopping $650 billion.

Nearly 70 percent of brands in the U.S. will invest more in social media marketing during the 2014 holiday season compared to last year, and 92 percent of marketers plan to spend the majority of their social budget on Facebook, according to a survey from social software company Offerpop.

The infographic below shares some of the most important social marketing trends for the upcoming holiday season.

What America's Retailers Are Spending on Social Media This Holiday Season (Infographic)

By Constance Aguilar updated 9/20/2014 12:15:27 AM ET

With a predicted growth of 8 percent as compared with last year, according to Prosper Spending Score, the 2014 U.S. holiday shopping season has begun. Many companies bank on the success of sales from November and December to wrap up their fiscal years on a profitable note, with Prosper estimating this year will be a $650 billion holiday retail season. Although Facebook and Twitter recently announced built-in commerce options, they’re being tested only by a handful of companies.

After surveying more than 120 social-media marketers, my client Offerpop found that Facebook still reigns supreme among ad dollar allocations, with 92 percent of marketers planning to spend the majority of their holiday social-media marketing budget on Facebook, despite the platform’s plummeting organic reach. (Offerpop clients and participants in its educational seminars were surveyed.) Sixtyseven percent of marketers polled said that they will increase their spending on social media this holiday season with the direct goal of increasing sales.

Oceanside, Calif.-based headphone company JLab Audio is also preparing to sell products online with the help of Facebook ads in a crowded marketplace (with competitors like Beats and Skullcandy).

While the company leverages brand partnerships on social networks such as Instagram and Twitter, Facebook will be getting the lion's share of JLab Audio's holiday social-media budget, said marketing manager Jordanne Muldner. JLab plans to double this year's Facebook ad budget (over with 2013's level) and increase its socialmedia advertising budget for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

The Grand Ole Opry Gets Hip to Hashtags to Harvest a New Audience Online SEPTEMBER 3, 2014

I grew up in a rural Nevada town surrounded by barbed wire fences and farm fields stacked with bales of alfalfa. A sprawling livestock auction yard sat behind the pizza joint where I worked. Its most popular menu item was appropriately dubbed Barn Wedges.

Oh, and you better believe that country music was a staple of my environment. And yet, an organization that thrust the genre into mainstream America and became a crown jewel of country culture, completely skipped my notice until recently. Starting in the 1920s the Grand Ole Opry showcased performers who were broadcast on radio.

Through the decades performers have included Hank Williams, Elvis Presley, Dolly Parton and more recently Brad Paisley, Rascal Flatts, Dierks Bentley and Blake Shelton.

With its 90th anniversary on the horizon, Grand Ole Opry is staking a comeback using the digital landscape to touch millennials and generations with a newfound interest in country music.

I first encountered Grand Ole Opry because my 17-year-old sister posted a slew of photos to Instagram holding a CD. I was first shocked to see that she owned a tangible music medium, but her hashtag and the plethora of comments and "likes" prompted me to dig further.

Turns out, by taking a photo with an album with the hashtag #MyRoadBetween she was entering a contest hosted by Grand Ole Opry. Hashtags, brands and contests are commonplace. But a contemporary concept adopted by organization with little to no recognition among the core demographic participating in said contest struck me.

The Pew Research Center has reported that 91 percent of teenagers on Instagram post “selfies.” If this many teens are posting photos of themselves to social media and with Instagram and Twitter near the top of their favorite social networks, according to Piper Jaffrey, Grand Ole Opry struck gold with its strategy. Further inspection revealed that there were scores of submissions, and a separate contest called for Instagram videos, too. (The contest was conducted on multiple platforms and Grand Ole Opry was able to aggregate the content and track it by using software of Offerpop, a client of my firm.)

The key to Grand Ole Opry’s success was not just harnessing a timely trend but tailoring the campaign to appeal to a younger audience. Most marketing experts will advise companies to harness social data and build campaigns appealing to their core audience. But Grand Ole Opry accomplished more than gathering a trunk full of user-generated content and great metrics. The organization embedded its brand into the lives and networks of a generation of fans that can carry them into the future. Talk about "social security."

Creating a unique world within a social network Survey data collected by GlobalWebIndex in in late 2013 demonstrates Tumblr’s impact on users between the ages of 16 and 24,

a demographic that BusinessInsider has pointed out is difficult for brands to reach. Flooded by fashion companies, artists and indie musicians, Tumblr is a breeding ground for youth-oriented content.

A common sentiment among social gurus is that those who want to make social-media networking succeed have to put in the time. Grand Ole Opry took every social network into account for its digital marketing strategy, a bold choice considering the time and content commitments companies take on with each new network engaged with.

Rather than simply paste a Tumblr logo on its web page, Grand Ole Opry created a persona for the microblog labeled #thecircle. It’s packed full of video performances and interviews, making visitors feel apart of a special backstage club with exclusive access to current stars and country icons.

Treating content as a reward.

Signed posters are a great social contest prize. For Grand Ole Opry, using them as leverage garnered a ton of user-generated content and engagement between social media users and the organization. But limiting fan rewards to such prizes places budget and creativity limitations, and while it’s still effective, it’s traditional, the opposite of Grand Ole Opry’s new marketing tactics. After all, there are only so many times that fans will post a photo to score a poster. Grand Ole Opry took an interesting approach to this dilemma via Twitter.

Specific tweets from @opry requested 1,000 retweets by a certain time in order to unlock videos from stars such as Lucy Hale and Carrie Underwood. Fans responded in droves, requesting that their followers also participate to reach the goal.

Rather than offering a typical prize, Grand Ole Opry engaged its fans and rewarded them with in-house content in exchange for engagement.

Requesting shares, likes and retweets from fans is fine, but to do so and offer them something in return is full-circle marketing at its best.

Not leaving behind faithful fans.

Grand Ole Opry hasn’t forgot the loyal fans who helped the organization weather 90 years and all the changes in the country music industry. Its Facebook page shares video performances from Dolly Parton and Wynonna Judd and takes the time to honor classic artists and mediums.

An effective social-marketing campaign targets multiple audiences and engages on several levels while collecting additional data, usergenerated content and increasing organizations' reach to new fans. This might seem straightforward for contemporary companies, but entities with a long history could find it hard to creatively deliver brand messaging and content to ever-changing social media users.

Grand Ole Opry could have easily bitten the dust or just kept things simple and catered to a stereotypical demographic. Instead it has leaped into the digital future with tactics that other companies can learn from for their own efforts

How the Girl Scouts Do Real-Time Social Marketing

Pop culture events widen social graph

By Lauren Johnson September 3, 2014, 1:41 PM EDT gone are the days when the Girl Scouts relied on word of mouth and door-to-door cookie selling to build brand buzz. Now, the organization enlists Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram for everything from long-term recruitment efforts to timely contests and promotions.

Indeed, the organization uses a team of three employees to capitalize on pop culture moments—like when Luis Suarez’s bit an opponent during this year’s World Cup—that will broaden the brand’s appeal beyond moms and volunteers to the general public, according to Kayla Santalla, senior social media specialist at Girl Scouts of the USA. And in some cases, this real-time mentality helps the Girl Scouts blur the line between marketing and public relations.

For instance, the Girl Scouts posted a 13-second video riffing on Suarez bite in June. The video, which has been viewed more than 9,100 times on YouTube, shows a Samoa cookie biting a Thin Mint.

The clip was produced in a day and posted to social media. The video garnered one million media impressions during one night and was featured on ESPN and ABC. "It’s a way of leveraging digital assets that we create for social, creating a buzz around it and then pitching it to get essentially placement without paying for an ad in a prime time like the World Cup," Santalla said.

In another real-time marketing example, the Girl Scouts re-created Neil Armstrong’s famous moon landing to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing in July. Staffers also employ social listening tools to find and respond to online conversations about the brand.

Tech-savvy selling Beyond real-time content, the Girl Scouts uses mobile payments and an app that locates nearby places where consumers can buy cookies. During "cookie season" the organization runs app install ads on Facebook and Twitter targeted at markets where cookie sales are going on.

The Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. has more than 267,000 followers on Facebook and another 43,000 on Twitter. Instagram and Pinterest collectively represent another 21,000 followers.

Since the bulk of Girl Scouts are under 13 years old—Facebook’s minimum age for opening an account—the organization’s social efforts target parents but play up the perspectives of scouts. "We usually lead with the girls’ stories and what they’re accomplishing," Santalla said.

While cookie season generates the most social outreach (the brand even has astand-alone cookie Facebook page), the Girl Scouts also runs year-round contests and posts content regularly to keep the social engagement going.

Through Sept. 8, the brand is running a contest on Facebook called GirlSports Photo Challenge. The Offerpop-powered promo asks consumers to send in pictures showing how they stay active during the summer for a chance to win gift cards and merchandise.

"It has been going on a few weeks and engagement’s been crazy—I think we have over 40,000 votes, over 1,000 entrants so far," Santalla said. "It was a fun, low-lift way of keeping our fans engaged and keeping [Facebook’s] algorithm in our favor to balance out when we message out about other things that we want to resonate with our base."

Facebook ads have also been used to drive traffic to the contest, and the initiative fits into a bigger marketing push that will be employed this fall to boost the organization’s recruitment efforts.

Other planned media include geo-targeted Facebook ads and influencer efforts with Michelle Obama and Robin McGraw to recruit new volunteers. `

The Video Revolution Will Not Be Televised AUGUST 28, 2014

In the ongoing fragmentation of media that has already transformed the newspaper and music industries, the television business is the biggest and perhaps last traditional media giant to be dramatically affected.

Netflix and Hulu are eroding the base of this powerful industry. YouTube and Vimeo are destabilizing it. The advertising implications will be enormous as this industry is disrupted.

Billions of dollars of advertising and marketing dollars will be unleashed on nascent but growing digitalvideo platforms. This migration of ad dollars is already happening in a steady trickle. But should the television studios' stranglehold on the video audience break, that trickle may become a flood.

The waning power of TV. Television certainly still holds major advertising power, but that's changing rapidly. Live TV viewership is dropping dramatically and will continue to wane asmillennials dominate viewership.

The advertising impact of television (which no longer has to be viewed live) has also waned as DVRs have become prominent, letting viewers skip ads. Television advertising might experience an increase in spending with political ads being placed prior to the 2016 presidential

election and because candidate debates appear on live TV. But the longterm trend of younger viewers relying on online methods of viewing is bound to continue.

Licensing is a large revenue source for televison studios but things are changing as companies like Netflix begin to develop their own original programming (witness House of Cards). And when a show is produced by a studio but broadcast online, this represents a transition to online advertising, much the way a newspaper article supported by online advertising represents a transition for publishing companies.

Cable is also facing deep disruption since its lucrative bundling structure may be unraveled.

As Time reported in April, "With all these changes, industry has reason to squirm. In a report last year, media analysts at the investment firm Needham & Company estimated that if all TV content were unbundled, the TV industry would take a $70 billion dollar hit, and all but 15 or 20 channels would disappear."

The new wave of digital advertising.

Advertising on cable and broadcast TV is a $78 billion industry, according to Nielsen. But television ad growth is slowing even as spending on digital video advertising is increasing dramatically. It's clear that advertising is following the audience. Online video advertising received 35 billion views in December alone, according to Business Insider, and is averaging 100 percent viewership increases each month in year-over-year comparisons.

With the rise of online media comes the ability to meticulously track impressions and conversions and connect advertising directly to ecommerce. With a traditional television ad, viewership has been the prime measurement of its effectiveness. For online advertising, though, everything from clickthroughs to conversions and impressions can be gauged.

The rate at which digital ad spending is growing is impressive (and is projected to double in four years).

This ad growth is fueling a flourishing of streaming services like Netflix, which reported a steep increase in earnings in the second quarter of this year as the company added 1.7 million new customers in three months.

The proliferation of channels and video sources is being supported by mobile consumers. Thus the annoying “push” advertising of pop-up and banner ads that consumers now largely ignore has given way to “pull” advertising that consumers actively seek out. This “pull” video advertising model has made video ads an effective online ad vehicle, averaging a click-through rate of 1.84 percent, according to Business Insider.

Future trends.

This advertising revolution will not be a simple transfer from television screens to online digital sources. It will involve a transformation of how advertising is served, tracked and converted. Instead of a studio-andagency model of video development and advertising production, more online video will be organically created, crowdsourced and user generated. Viral ads will be developed not in the war rooms of highpriced ad agencies but instead hatched by ambitious creatives with an

idea, a camera, a laptop and some editing software. Stars will be minted through YouTube views and multichannel networks.

Television networks will still exist, but I expect they will operate like the newspaper industry today -- with smaller budgets: They will increasing be tied into digital and social channels and no longer serve as the dominant players in the medium.

The successful broadcast and cable television programming of the future will have to be nimble and innovative, capturing audience’s attention with full integration with digital channels.

As the audience for television fragments across Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and multichannel networks like Fullscreen and Maker Studios, advertising will become more targeted, more data driven and more connected to social media.

Artful video curation and aggregation will become a valuable commodity. I predict that as the growth of content marketing sends an increasing deluge of video into websites, mobile devices and viewers’ social media streams, the companies that manage to organize, curate and manage that overload of video will gain the trust of audiences.

After all, there is only so much content a person can consume. Content fatigue will be headed off by companies that deliver only the most inspiring, relevant and targeted video content to their audience. Waywire offers a good example: The company curates videos that directly appeals to a specific audience For years now, product and service companies have been working to become content producers. Now they are realizing that they also must

be content curators. So much video is flooding the digital world that automated and efficient ways to showcase video can yield dramatic results with minimal effort.

This wave of digital disruption in television will unleash a new round of innovation in video creation, curation and programming. Just like the rapid decline of newspapers set off a round of digital innovation with the arrival of companies like Slate and The Skimm and prompted newspapers like The New York Times to launch innovative digital arms like 538.com, video will also birth new companies and fresh online ventures at traditional television companies.

Advertising will follow the audience into a world of mobile, social and web-based video. The video revolution will not be televised. But it will be increasingly targeted and user-generated and curated. And companies will be launched in a new digital landscape where capturing audiences fragmented across many video platforms will become the new challenge.

The production and curation of video is more accessible than ever to small and midsized entrepreneurs. It can be a powerful tool for companies to gain widespread visual exposure among an audience of young consumers who are turning off television and warching video on smartphones, social networks and streaming services.

Offerpop app is source of Inspiration for brands August 11, 2014 by Tanya Lewis , Be the first to comment

Offerpop enables brands to maximize their Pinterest activity by crowdsourcing and curating content from their fans.

Specifications Offerpop’s Inspiration app allows brands to capture and curate user-nominated pins and publish them to branded Pinterest boards, landing pages, Facebook tabs or websites. Clients can store pins for future use. The app also provides real-time metrics, including unique visitors, performance tracking, follower increases, and participation timelines.

Cost Price varies depending on the scope of a campaign, but it typically starts at $1,000 per year.

User Julie Booth, digital director at Nine West Group, has been using Offerpop’s Inspiration app since April 2014.

How do you use it?

We log into our overall Offerpop account on the Nine West Facebook page. Facebook allows us to create a hub for any promotions or contests through Offerpop's Inspiration.

To set up a contest with Inspiration, you just fill out the fields, such as contest information, rules, and images. It’s a copy-and-paste format that takes no longer than 30 minutes to set up.

How does it serve your business needs?

Being in the social space is important. As a fashion brand, it’s especially important to leverage Pinterest as an online wish list of what our customers are sharing so they can get inspiration from each other. We want to ensure we’re part of that wish list conversation.

You have to be nimble because the social world is always changing. Simplicity is also important to us, and we need tools that are very user friendly. Inspiration gets the job done, and it is also very easy for us to use and manage.

When you look at the history of social media and the history of launching contests, there was always development time, which delayed execution of ideas to engage your customers. Having a turnkey tool like Inspiration that allows us to get an idea up within 20 minutes is essential.

This spring we launched an ad campaign centered on the concept of the dream closet.

The creative was an array of key items for spring situated in a pink inspired dream closet. The messaging was that women were going to need a bigger closet because there are so many great shoes to have for spring.

We’re always thinking about how to leverage each social platform in a unique way to support our seasonal messaging and campaigns. For last spring’s campaign we decided to use Pinterest to make the biggest virtual shoe closet ever, and Offerpop’s Inspiration app allowed us to do that, gathering the initial content on Facebook.

The call to action was really simple. We asked our audience to create a pin of a pair of shoes they loved and submit the link through the entry form on our Facebook page. We didn’t limit them to specific brands, but we subtly encouraged them to check out ninewest.com for inspiration. Entrants were eligible to win weekly giveaways of $100 gift cards throughout April.

We then used the Facebook submissions to populate our branded Nine West Pinterest pinboard, which was branded as a gigantic virtual shoe closet. We did moderate submissions to make sure we didn’t post any shoes that were obviously competitors but, for the most part, we were pretty agnostic because wanted authentic sharing.

It was our largest, most successful contest at that point in terms of entries and participation. It increased brand awareness and drove a significant number of new Pinterest followers for us.

How does it integrate with your existing infrastructure from an IT standpoint?

It’s a simple, web-based app. We had the option to easily embed the contest on ninewest.com. We didn’t do that for the April contest, but we will look into doing it in the future.

What are the main benefits?

It is very simple and easy to use for both the brand and social fans.

We didn’t have to use outside developers. We want a turnkey option to get something up immediately, and it’s great we can do that in-house with our own team.

What are the main drawbacks?

There are no drawbacks so far.

What would you like to see improved/added?

There’s nothing I can think of at this time.

The two-way dialog we have with the Offerpop team is really great. We can give them ideas and know they’ll be addressed. Offerpop is great about continuously updating its suite of apps.

Competitors Woobox: provides social marketing apps for sweepstakes, polls, contests, coupons, and more.

Shortstack: an app for designing customized social media campaigns, including contests, sweepstakes, product galleries, and contact forms.

5 WAYS TO MANAGE BOTH GOOD AND BAD ONLINE REVIEWS WORRIED ABOUT YOUR REPUTATION ON YELP OR GLASSDOOR? LEARN HOW TO BUILD TRUST AND ATTRACT NEW CLIENTS--WITHOUT FEEDING THE INTERNET TROLLS. August 7, 2014 | 5:41 AM BY

CHRIS TERRILL

In a perfect world, customers would hire you based on the quality of your work, and not on the opinions of Internet users whose feedback may or may not be entirely truthful.

According to an Ipsos Public Affairs survey, online ratings and reviews play a significant role in your customers’ purchase decisions. How you leverage your positive reviews, while learning from and managing your negative reviews, is critical to your business’s success.

Here are five ways to ensure that online ratings and reviews can work to your business’s advantage.

1. SEEK OUT SITES THAT ONLY POST VERIFIED REVIEWS Humans are predisposed to focus on the negative. This inherent bias is why we’re able to vividly recall unpleasant experiences. Because negative events tend to elicit stronger emotions, people are more apt to share their negative experiences. However, these emotions can easily cloud their judgment and distort their perceptions of the experience. Given the ability to post reviews that

don’t require verification, it’s easy for individuals--or competitors--to embellish or misrepresent the truth without fear of recourse, especially when hiding behind a veil of anonymity.

The good news is that consumers are becoming increasingly adept at recognizing false reviews, both positive and negative. Because a review is only as trustworthy as the individual posting it, many consumers are seeking out sites that verify their reviews. Joining a site that only posts verified reviews is the first step toward protecting your business from false reviews.

2. RESPOND TO NEGATIVE REVIEWS WITHOUT BECOMING DEFENSIVE Negative reviews sting, and much like negative events they elicit stronger emotions. While you might be tempted to respond to a negative review with an immediate and vigorous defense, doing so could damage your reputation more than the initial review.

The best thing to do is to give yourself time to process the review before responding. When you do respond, and you should, be as diplomatic and professional as possible. Don’t be defensive and don’t blame the customer. Be apologetic if you came up short, or explain the situation if the customer misunderstood what led to the complaint.

3. USE REVIEWS TO PINPOINT AND SOLVE PROBLEMS No matter how good you are at what you do, there’s always room for improvement. Ratings and reviews give you the insights you need to make those improvements. The key is to reframe critical reviews as opportunities to evaluate and address any shortcomings in your business practices.

Monitor your ratings and reviews to identify patterns. If multiple customers are criticizing certain aspects of your operations, work to address the issues raised in a timely and effective manner. At the same time, don’t overreact to negative reviews by making large-scale business decisions based on a single critical comment.

4. MAKE SURE THE SITE RANKS BUSINESSES ON REVIEWS, NOT ADVERTISING When a potential customer visits a site that provides ratings and reviews, they do so with the expectation that the reviews will be authentic and honest, regardless of how positive or negative they might be. Unfortunately, some sites allow advertising to influence their rankings.

In order to be effective, your reviews and rankings should be based solely on the opinions of your previous customers, and not how much you spend with the site hosting those reviews. If a site makes the pitch that you can improve your rankings by advertising with them, it’s time to question the legitimacy of their ranking process.

5. CONSIDER A REVIEWS AND RATINGS SITE DEDICATED TO YOUR INDUSTRY Some sites try to do it all: rating and reviewing restaurants, retailers, and professional services.

That might pull in visitors, but this everything-to-everyone approach can yield inconsistent--and sometimes unsubstantiated--reviews from customers who aren’t as knowledgeable as those who post on industry-specific sites.

While it’s a good idea to expand your reach by posting your business profile across multiple sites, focus your efforts on those that are directly related to your industry, specifically those that screen member businesses and verify all ratings and reviews before publishing them.

--Chris Terrill is the CEO of HomeAdvisor, the nation’s No. 1 resource for pre-screen home improvement specialists. Terrill has years of leadership experience in the Internet business, including executive positions at Match.com, Nutrisystems.com, and Blockbuster.com.

Beach Read Recommendations of the Guiltless Sort

By Arianne Cohen August 01, 2013

4 Ways to Rewire the Corporate Brain to Compete in the 21st Century JULY 11, 2014

The era of the robber baron is long gone and the days of the rapacious capitalist are dwindling. The corporate world that once rewarded aggression and strong-armed business dealings is now refocusing on collaboration, transparency and corporate responsibility.

This amounts to an absolute cultural about-face for many companies -- a rewiring of the corporate brain to reward skills that net a more collaborative workplace.

Most companies are still only halfway through this transition. And many are still searching for the tools and the tactics to power their success.

The bean counters have been slow to quantify the impact of such changes on the bottom line. But turnover rates, customer loyalty, brand image and project accountability for companies demonstrating this new mind-set may eventually show that a sustainable culture and profitability are the new yin and yang of business.

Here are four ways that companies can reframe their corporate cultureto be more flexible amid all the technological innovation, globalization and constant communication of today's business world:

1. Help employees become inspired by the “why” of work. Managers and executives sometimes fail to grasp the motivation for why people work. Humans are complex creatures, thriving on reaffirmation, praise, the inspiration of working in a tight-knit team or the ambition of changing people’s lives by building great products. They work for a paycheck, too. But truly inspired workers are motivated by much more. Understand that to unlock the secret to motivating employees and connecting them in a team.

A 2013 Gallup study quantified the immense benefits of an engaged workforce. Companies with highly engaged employees outperformed firms with lower engagement by 10 percent in customer ratings, 22 percent in profitability and 21 percent in productivity. They also saw significantly lower turnover and absenteeism and fewer safety incidents and product defects.

If employees are adrift in a work environment not understanding the why, they will likely have a morale problem. Connect employees to the “why” and motivation, innovation and great customer service will follow. The personal “why” and the company “why” should be aligned and complimentary.

2. Make philanthropy a company cornerstone. After the Great Recession, Gordon Gecko’s “greed is good” motto from the movie Wall Street seems reckless. Today, many consumers and employees are aligning with companies dedicated to philanthropy and corporate responsibility.

Forward-thinking companies are weaving philanthropy into all aspects of corporate culture and discovering that giving can have a positive impact

on the way they develop talent, retain employees, promote leadership and serve customers. Giving is a critical way some corporations build teams, encourage leadership, recruit and retain employees and connect with customers and their communities.

Philanthropy is “R&D for business” and a “growth strategy,” says Doug Conant, a former Campbell Soup Co. CEO: “The more we leveraged our business resources to deliver social value to the communities around us, the more engaged our employees became and the better we performed in the marketplace.”

Fifty-nine percent of Fortune 500 companies increased philanthropic giving from 2007 to 2012, according to the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy, whose member firms gave $14 billion to charity in 2012. As chairman of that committee, Conant sees philanthropy as a staff development tool, a way to connect with community and “as incubators for promising ideas and a mechanism for understanding both community and corporate needs.”

3. Build teams that learn and adapt together. The every-man-forhimself outlook is being replaced by an ethic that prizes the success of a team over the accomplishments of single employees. If individual survival and personal reward are the focus, team members will build silos and create a “scarcity” mentality even in the face of abundance of opportunity. Teams succeed through collaboration, effective communication and adaptation.

One of the greatest achievements for a company is creating selfsustaining teams whose members learn and grow on their own.

Fostering a company culture where ideas can germinate and thrive

organically and where team members adapt and advance by interacting with others is the hallmark of a self-sustaining work environment.

A team structure where members mutually benefit from collaboration is critical for a company’s bottom line as well as staffers' sense of connection.

4. Streamline communication. Effective communication is a key trait that companies look for in a 21st-century work world. Yet today's workplaces are saddled by communication overload. Often, employees these days communicate too much, incessantly sending email, setting up conference calls and conducting staff meetings and strategy sessions.

High-performing teams communicate effectively by balancing communication with action. They target their communication to be actionable.

If companies were to step back and analyze their business operations, communication is an area where streamlining and sharpening could save time and boost effectiveness.

According to a report by international training firm 360 Solutions, a business with 100 employees experiences on average 17 hours of downtime a week, lost to having to clarify communication. This translates into an annual cost of nearly $530,000. The report also noted that 38 percent of staff feedback hinders employee performance.

Wading through emails, sitting through long, unfocused staff meetings and overbooking a week with conference calls can sap productivity and motivation and make it hard to decipher what's truly important.

CMYK

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Entertainment

Advertising

Social Media

A Payoff From Streaming

No Lazy Days of Summer

Twitter’s Ad Strategy

Independent labels and young artists are embracing streaming music on their own terms.

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Original programming is replacing many of the reruns that typically dominate the summer.

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Dick Costolo, Twitter’s chief, has kept his ad team intact as he seeks further revenue growth. 5

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A Casino Town Rolls the Dice On High-Tech

Seeking a New Image, Reno Cites Low Taxes And a Good Location To Attract Start-Ups

By DIONNE SEARCEY

RENO, Nev. — A street newly nicknamed Startup Row intersects this city’s old strip of casinos touting Money Maker Jackpots and Crazy Cash Slot Tournaments.

While old-fashioned slot machines are whirring nearby, this stretch of road has become a home for smartphone app makers, cloud computing developers and companies like one that set up shop here recently to build tiny sensors that allow devices to connect to the Internet.

For most of America, Reno stirs images of worn-out casinos, strip clubs and quick divorces. But it is trying to change that reputation and reduce its reliance on gambling by taking advantage of its location and low taxes to gain a solid footing in the new economy. Instead of poker payouts, Reno now boasts of e-commerce ventures, an Apple data center and a testing ground for drones. It also hopes to attract a large factory to build batteries for Tesla’s electric vehicles.

“People believe in this town, and they’re tired of being presented as this joke,” said Abbi Whitaker, a local business owner who helped create a marketing campaign to reshape Reno’s image. “When you’re at rock Continued on Page 4

PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAVID CALVERT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Clockwise from top: Horses at a warehouse in Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center. The Truckee River cuts through downtown Reno. Startup Row, a development hub downtown. Pinoccio, on Startup Row, makes radio sensors. A Zulily plant being built at Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center. The Whitney Peak Hotel in downtown Reno.

Principles Are No Match for Europe’s Love of U.S. Web Titans

By MARK SCOTT

LONDON — On weekends, Guillaume Rosquin browses the shelves of local bookstores in Lyon, France. He enjoys peppering the staff with questions about what he should be reading next. But his visits, he says, are also a protest against the growing power of Amazon. He is bothered by the way the American online retailer treats its warehouse employees.

Still, as with millions of other Europeans, there is a limit to how much he will protest.

“It depends on the price,” said Mr. Rosquin, 49, who acknowledged that he was planning to buy a $400 BlackBerry smartphone on Amazon because the handset was not yet available on rival French websites. “If you can get something for half-price at Amazon, you may put your issues with their working conditions aside.”

Across Europe, love — or at least acceptance — often wins out in the lovehate relationship with American tech companies like Amazon, Facebook and

Google. Despite their often vocal criticism of these behemoths, people in the region are some of the most active and loyal users of American social networks, search engines and e-commerce websites. They are often even more hooked on the services than Americans are.

Google now has an 85 percent market share for search in the region’s five largest economies, including Britain, France and Germany, compared with less than 80 percent in 2009, according to the research company comScore. Google’s

share of the American market stands at roughly 65 percent.

Facebook — the target of several government investigations for its tax practices in Europe — also has more than doubled its number of European users, to over 150 million, in the last five years, and the social network’s European user numbers now outpace American figures, according to the social media research company eMarketer.

American tech companies operate sevContinued on Page 3

Divining Why One Film Spurs Activism, While Others Falter

By MICHAEL CIEPLY

LOS ANGELES — You watched the wrenching documentary. You posted your outrage on Twitter. But are you good for more than a few easy keystrokes of hashtag activism?

Participant Media and some powerful partners need to know.

For the last year Participant, an activist entertainment company that delivers movies with a message, has been quietly working with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Knight Foundation and the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism to answer a question vexing those who would use media to change the world.

That is, what actually gets people moving? Do grant-supported media projects incite change, or are they simply an expensive way of preaching to the choir?

Ultimately, the answers may help determine which projects get financed, which formats are favored and how stories are structured. That could be true for so-called double bottom line companies like Participant, which seek to profit (or at least break even) while creating social change, and also for nonprofits like the Gates Foundation, which increasingly rely on entertain-

An index gauges emotional response as well as whether viewers took any action. ment-style media (like the education documentary “Waiting for ‘Superman’”) to drive an agenda.

More immediate, those behind the effort say, new measures of social impact will enable sharper focus and rapid course corrections in what have often been guesswork campaigns to convert films into effective motivational weaponry. That approach would apply to a hit like the movie “Lincoln,” which counseled civic engagement, or to a box-office miss like the antifracking film “Promised Land.” Both were Participant-backed films.

To get the answers it wants, Participant is developing a measuring tool that it calls the Participant Index, assisted in the effort by the Annenberg school’s Media Impact Project. In rough parallel to the Nielsen television ratings, the still-evolving index Continued on Page 2

NETFLIX/NOUJAIM FILMS

The documentary film “The Square,” about the Egyptian uprising in Tahrir Square, Cairo. On an impact scale of 100, the film scored an average of 92.

G.M. Data Has Potential As Safety Tool

By AARON M. KESSLER

As General Motors overhauls its approach to safety, one powerful tool may be a technology that dates back two decades — the OnStar in-car assistance system.

Yet in the automaker’s recent flurry of recalls, with new safety problems announced in millions of cars, the automaker says none were prompted by analysis of the voluminous OnStar data it collects. And the company declined to discuss how it is using OnStar to investigate safety problems, citing competitive reasons. It would say only that OnStar is being used to notify owners of G.M. vehicles about the recent recalls, which now have reached about 29 million for the year.

But analysts say that OnStar, which has more than seven million subscribers and clocks an average of 100,000 emergency responses a month, could be an effective tool for G.M. in its drive to revamp its safety practices. So far, the automaker has hired 35 new specialists to investigate potential defects and named a new vice president in charge of safety.

OnStar, analysts say, can be especially useful in spotting trends in ways in which other methods fall short.

“It’s not a common technology that others have,” said Jesse Toprak, chief analyst at the webContinued on Page 3 David Carr, whose Media Equation column usually appears on this page, is off.

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ADVERTISING

A Deluge of New Summer Programs Has TV Marketers Scrambling

By STUART ELLIOTT

OR the marketing executives whose job it is to round up eyeballs to watch television, the summer is turning out to be hazy, crazy, anything but lazy.

A deluge of original programming is replacing many of the reruns that typically dominate schedules this time of year, offering viewers perhaps the most new summertime series since the early decades of the medium, when so-called summer replacement shows filled in for 13 weeks when the networks’ premier programs finished their seasons and went on vacation.

By one count, broadcast networks and cable channels are introducing 88 shows from late May, when the 2013-14 season ended, through late September, when the 2014-15 season will begin. Add the new series on websites like Hulu and YouTube, along with new episodes of streaming video series like “Orange Is the New Black” on Netflix, and “the choices are bountiful,” said Marc Berman, editor in chief of TV Media Insights. “That once-proverbial ‘Gone fishing’ sign in the summer is now a memory.”

“The growing trend of programming on a year-round basis” not only produces “larger tune-in” in the summer, which benefits advertisers, he added, it also “translates into a stronger promotional platform for the fall,” when the television season starts again.

The need to find viewers for all that fresh summer fare is generating a flood of advertising campaigns, in traditional media as

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FRANK W. OCKENFELS 3/SHOWTIME

One ad for the series is styled to resemble the racy men’s magazines of the 1950s.

To promote the second season of “Masters of Sex,” Showtime asked the filmmaker Tatia Pilieva to create an online video in which strangers undress each other down to their underwear. well as in newer realms like social media.

“It’s challenging in a culture with a lot of noise to get attention,” said Don Buckley, executive vice president for program marketing and digital services at Showtime Networks. “You have to find unique ways to reach people.”

For instance, among the commercials, print ads and posters to promote the second season of the Showtime series “Masters of Sex,” which is to begin on Sunday, will be a video clip on YouTube . titled “Undress Me,” created by the filmmaker Tatia Pilieva.

“First Kiss,” her video promoting a small clothing line, Wren, has

generated almost 85.8 million views on YouTube since March.

In “Undress Me,” 20 strangers are paired, undress each other down to their underwear and go to bed. The action is meant to evoke the research conducted in the 1950s by the main characters of “Masters of Sex,” William Masters and Virginia Johnson, as is the principal artwork for the campaign, which is styled to resemble the racy men’s magazines of the era that were often sold in plain brown wrappers.

“It’s probably more important than ever to have the right creative platform,” Mr. Buckley said.

“We don’t take anything for granted.”

“Masters of Sex” is one of two series that Showtime, owned by the CBS Corporation, is bringing back on Sunday for a second season, along with “Ray Donovan,” with Liev Schreiber in the title role. Another cable channel, USA Network, is running campaigns for four series that returned for the summer — “Covert Affairs,” “Graceland,” “Royal Pains” and “Suits” — and two, “Rush” and “Satisfaction,” making their premieres on July 17.

“I joke that as a marketer I wish I’d appreciated five years ago, even three years ago, how much easier it was to launch and sustain a show,” said Alexandra Shapiro, executive vice president

for marketing and digital at USA Network, part of the NBCUniversal division of Comcast. “To stand out, you’ve got to zag while everyone else is zigging.” “‘Satisfaction’ is a great example of what we need to do now, and will need to do, for all our shows,” she added. To promote that drama, about a couple trying to make marriage work, USA Network has teamed with two nontraditional media companies, HowAboutWe and Vice Media, for efforts like online video and events.

“This is one of our first television-related projects,” said Eddy Moretti, chief creative officer of Vice Media, which also creates content that advertises movies and brands. He described the three-episode web series that will promote “Satisfaction,” about “sex and relationships in the modern world,” as “additional storytelling inspired by the story-

telling of the show.”

“The TV marketing departments are saying, ‘Let’s do something different,’” Mr. Moretti said. “I think that’s really cool.”

As appealing as unconventional promotional tactics are, Mr. Buckley of Showtime said, they are “part art, part science.”

Although “we have analytic tools we didn’t have even five years ago to help us find people with the propensity to watch a show,” he added, “we’re flying a little blind because we don’t always have the metrics.”

The result is sometimes two steps forward and a step back.

For instance, complaints in Los Angeles about some billboard ads with startling images of a worm in an eyeball — promoting “The Strain,” a horror series that the FX cable channel will introduce on Sunday — led FX to replace them with other ads for the show. Although “we’re not out there looking to upset people,” said Stephanie Gibbons, president for marketing and on-air promotion at FX Networks, part of 21st Century Fox, the series is “not for the faint of heart” and the images “are signaling some people that it’s not for them.”

“When you’re breaking rules,” she added, “there can be some glass on the floor.”

“The Strain” is one of five series FX will introduce this summer, along with “Married,” “Partners,” “Tyrant” and “You’re the Worst.” Television is “definitely a 365-day-a-year business now,” Ms. Gibbons said. “There’s no break, no cycle; it’s a wheel of continuous content.”

“Sometimes,” she added, laughing, “you feel like the hamster within that wheel.”

Reno, an Old-Fashioned Casino Town, Rolls the Dice on a High-Tech Future From First Business Page bottom there’s a good chance to reinvent how you go up.”

Reno exemplifies how cities not far from California, including Boise, Idaho, and Tucson, are trying to poach the state’s technology culture to help diversify their economies, marketing themselves as places where taxes are lower and environmental regulations are less onerous. They hope that when the next recession strikes, they will not sink to the same depths as they did in the last one.

Reno is among the best situated, less than a four-hour drive from San Francisco and in a state with no corporate or inventory taxes. It gained appeal as an outpost of Silicon Valley nearly a decade ago after a Microsoft licensing unit and an Amazon distribution warehouse moved in.

California refugees were buying homes, lured by the relatively low cost of living and the 30minute drive to Lake Tahoe.

Then came the Great Recession, walloping Reno’s gambling industry, and its housing and job markets. At the end of the recession in 2009, homes had lost nearly half the value they had in the beginning of 2006, and median prices continued to fall. At its depths in September 2010, Reno’s unemployment rate was 13.4 percent compared with the national average, 9.5 percent, according to Moody’s Analytics.

But now, after several years scraping along the bottom in almost every measure of economic health, Reno appears poised to turn the corner, according to economists who study the region.

Housing prices are slowly starting to rise. The unemployment rate has declined to 7.1 percent.

New technology companies are arriving, and older ones are expanding, including Zulily, an e-commerce company for women and children’s clothing and home décor, which announced plans in May to double its warehouse and hire 600 people.

Most of all, civic boosters are on edge waiting for Tesla, Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company, to announce the location of its new battery factory that is expected to employ more than 6,000 people. Tesla has said it is considering Nevada, Texas, California, Arizona and New Mexico.

Reno is not far from one of the few lithium deposits in the country, it is relatively close to Fremont, Calif., where the vehicles will be assembled, and its indus-

RETAIL SPACE

DAVID CALVERT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Abbi Whitaker, owner of the Abbi Agency, who helped create a campaign to reshape Reno’s image, with the chef Mark Estee at Campo, his restaurant along the Truckee River downtown. trial park has tens of thousands of acres of land for the auto company’s new expansive factory.

Tesla officials did not respond to requests for comment.

“There are solid reasons to be optimistic about Reno,” said Greg Bird, an economist at Moody’s Analytics. “We’re starting to really see the data turn for them.”

Reno competes for new businesses with Salt Lake City and major cities in Arizona, all of which are convenient for online retailers to set up shipping locations for customers in California and the rest of the West. In Tucson, Duralar Technologies, a global nanotechnology company, announced in March that it planned to set up its United States headquarters there.

Boise has increased its marketing to lure new technology companies and has drawn several start-ups in recent years, said Clark Krause, executive director of the Boise Valley Economic Partnership. The organization emphasizes its outdoor lifestyle on its website.

It is not a simple climb back from the depths of the recession for these cities. Nearly all are constrained by a shortage of skilled workers to fill the jobs created by companies their econom-

ic development offices are trying to attract.

“We have the same challenges everyone else does when it comes to finding enough talent to grow as much as we could,” Mr. Krause said.

In Reno, where many workers traditionally have been employed in some aspect of the gambling industry, the work force is less educated than in more populous cities, economists said. Tesla, for instance, might have to recruit from elsewhere to find enough trained workers for its battery plant, should it decide to build here.

“We’re not going to wait for the gaming industry to come back,” said Mike Kazmierski, president of the Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada.

“It’s not going to. So what are our strengths, and how do we capitalize on them?”

Mr. Kazmierski is encouraging Reno to prepare for the new kinds of companies his team is wooing. A major part of his strategy is just up the hill from Reno’s casino strip: the University of Nevada, Reno. The campus of 18,000 students has traditionally not played a major role in the city’s economy and is physically separated from the rest of town

by Interstate 80. Students often earn their degrees and leave.

But now, the university is starting to work with Mr. Kazmierski’s team to make sure students are trained in specific skills or even the languages needed by companies looking to settle in Reno. The university created an on-campus office space this

A city laid low by the recession carefully charts its ascent. spring for an Australian drone company that decided to open a research outlet in Reno, one of a handful of locations the federal government has selected for testing unoccupied aerial vehicles.

Separately, the university just announced plans to take over an empty downtown building that will house a center for drone research, a student welcome center and a coffee shop.

Mr. Kazmierski outlined his vision on a recent morning driving down Reno’s casino strip, past the Showboat Inn, the pay-by-

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the-week motels and signs advertising $5.99 prime rib and fries. Towering old casino buildings could be turned into student dormitories or condos. Storefronts could house technology companies. The new drone research building could host an incubator space for businesses.

For companies, the region’s chief draw is its lack of taxes. But the location has other advantages. Reno is less than a two-day drive to anywhere in the West, an advantage for shipping companies.

And there is no shortage of land ready for development. Outside town, along miles of scrubby desert, large manufacturing centers, distribution centers and office parks already have moved in, and more are on the way. The area is so expansive that wild horses roam among the warehouses. Surveyor stakes mark new developments, and fire hydrants sprout seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

Three years ago Reno and the neighboring town Sparks averaged four tours a month for prospective companies. Mr. Kazmierski said that had increased to 10, with scouts from 14 companies visiting in May. “The most challenging obstacle to get over is our image,” he said. “That image of a second-tier kind of Vegas is embedded in their heads.”

Visiting executives are surprised to learn that the Truckee River cuts through downtown, where a restaurant scene is emerging. Bike paths wind through the city and beyond, and urban gardeners raise chickens in their backyards. A new downtown boutique hotel has no casino. Instead, its main feature is its 164-foot climbing wall.

The Reno Collective, along Startup Row, offers a shared work space to foster entrepreneurialism. On a recent day the office was filled by young people tapping on laptops, some sitting on exercise balls, and one with a dog curled around her feet.

In the same building, Eric Jennings set up his company, Pinoccio, two years ago, making tiny radio sensors for enabling Internet connectivity.

“There’s such a low barrier to entry here,” Mr. Jennings said.

“If you’re passionate about something you can just take it on.”

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THE NEW YORK TIMES

HOW GOPRO IS TRANSFORMING ADVERTISING AS WE KNOW IT HARNESSING CONTENT CREATED BY THE USER IS NOT JUST AN AFFORDABLE MARKETING STRATEGY; IT'S ALSO PRETTY POWERFUL STUFF.

BY KEVIN BOBOWSKI GoPro’s rising stock prices after its initial public offering (IPO) last week just go to show how powerful and versatile user-generated content can be.

Some people still think of user-generated content as shaky videos or filtered photos, only good for sharing with family or friends on social media. But that is an outdated concept, and one which GoPro would dispel.

Many media platforms are proving that user-generated content has the quality to captivate audiences. Video cameras affixed to the helmets of skiers, snowboarders, and BASE jumpers generate footage for the slickest television commercials, and Instagram photos from fashion fans are now the center of online catalogues for major fashion brands.

USER-GENERATED VALUE

Everyone got a glimpse of the power of user-generated content thanks to GoPro’s recent financial disclosures leading up to its public offering. The company more than doubled its net income from 2010 to 2011 to $24.6 million but only spent $50,000 more in marketing costs to do it, according to Wall St. Daily. And GoPro repeated the feat in 2013, increasing marketing costs by only $41,000, but making $28 million more in net income.

Embedded in those numbers is the multi-million-dollar marketing and advertising value of user-generated content. In place of an art director, acting cast, and team of videographers, GoPro simply hands a wearable camera to an amazing athlete and

gets back advertising and marketing gold. Regular customers have become advertisers on a smaller scale, shooting high-quality video, loading it onto YouTube and social networks, and advertising the capabilities of the cameras to friends, family, and complete strangers.

THE NEW MEDIA REALITY

But GoPro wants to be much more than a hardware-maker with a built-in, affordable marketing strategy.

The company wants to evolve into the user-generated media company of the future.

And in that regard, GoPro is in the vanguard of a new media reality.

Viewers can tune in to a full GoPro channel on Virgin America Airlines or stream the video through an Xbox. What viewers see when they tune in is one of the most remarkable, branded video experiences available. Viewers get a front seat to the adventures of world-class skiers and snowboarders, BASE jumpers, and mountain bikers, not to mention a whole range of video outside of the world of extreme sports, like a stunning recent video of an African Pelican learning how to fly.

Technological advancements have made user-generated content both compelling and high-quality, and GoPro proves that a tiny camera, in the hands of the right people, can create captivating content that will gain an audience no matter what purpose it is used for: social media marketing, advertising, or television programming.

GoPro is just one high-profile example of this fast-growing trend. Fashion retailers and consumer-packaged goods companies are harnessing Instagram photos, Vine videos, and other forms of consumer content to spread their brand message on television, in online ads, and in marketing material.

User-generated content is the next marketing and advertising frontier for brands. Its wide acceptance is due to the fact that it is both powerful and affordable. But most of all, it is relatable in a way that polished, directed, scripted advertising is not.

GoPro’s valuation is based partly on the high-quality video camera that it makes. But even more than that, investors are intrigued by the potential of the video camera manufacturer to blossom into a full-fledged media company driven almost entirely by user-generated video.

For the brands that are spending big advertising budgets, the ascendance of GoPro is also a reminder of an evolution in marketing that they must adapt to: the attainable and largely untapped marketing and advertising potential of user-generated content.

--Kevin Bobowski is vice president of marketing at Offerpop. The company creates a global social-marketing campaign platform that helps audiences connect with companies' brands.

3 Alternative Tech Startup Cities With Less Traffic, More Housing (Infographic)

BY JOHN SOLARI | May 8, 2014| 7 Comments

Silicon Valley’s powerful entrepreneurial economy has resulted in some major downsides: gridlocked traffic, high housing prices and a growing and aggressive tech backlash. Today, three cities previously known more as vacation destinations are now legitimate alternatives to Silicon Valley life at a much more affordable price. For the adventurous startup or mature tech company, there's life beyond red taillights, long commutes and protestors blockading buses.

Las Vegas, Denver and Reno, Nev., mix together a vibrant startup culture with world-class recreation or entertainment.

And they all do it in places with plenty of affordable housing, a few million fewer highway-clogging cars and minus the debate over gentrification.

Related: What Elon Musk Really Thinks of 'Silicon Valley' 1. Las Vegas. Tony Hsieh gets credit for jump-starting Las Vegas’ startup scene with his $350 million Downtown Project, but the city has grown into much more than his personal project. Switch Communication’s founder, Rob Roy, is pumping money and energy into the InNEVation Center, a collaboration space that delivers some of the fastest Internet speeds in the world (courtesy of his company's SuperNAP data center) and serves as a meeting place for startup and economic development events.

Las Vegas’ Downtown Container Park, where an enormous metal praying mantis sculpture shoots flames out of its antennae, hosts live music events along with unique retail and dining spots. It's helping draw new hospitality sector investment like Seth Schorr’s new ultramodern Downtown Grand hotel, a gaming, dining and entertainment venue.

While the VegasTech Fund, founded by Hsieh, is a big influencer in town, early-stage and maturing Las Vegas companies can seek financing from the Las Vegas Valley Angels, Brennan Capital and state sources like the Battle Born Venture Fund and the Silver State Opportunities Fund.

Competitive advantages: Las Vegas is an hour's flight away from California's two biggest population centers and the center of the convention and trade show universe. Representatives of the largest companies in the world touch down for business networking and product launches. Las Vegas has affordable housing and business costs, anchor businesses like Zappos and Switch Communications and a year-round industry-event schedule. Median home prices are $164,700, according to Zillow; about half a million dollars less than San Jose's.

Related: Tech Firms Seeking Talent Spring for Spacious, Luxe Quarters 2. Denver. A healthy startup ecosystem includes companies of all maturity levels, whereby ones that have grown from shoestring outfits to market leaders might reinvest in the community. And Denver has businesses in fast-growing industries and companies large and small, young and mature.

Denver-based businesses like HomeAdvisor, now a subsidiary of IAC with 1,200 employees, participate in community-building events like Denver Startup Week.

At the center of Denver’s startup activity is Galvanize, a 30,000-square-foot entrepreneurial campus including a venture capital funding firm, as well as collaborative co-working space and a social hub for events and education. Companies with origins in the Denver area include Mapquest, Photobucket, Rally Software, Cloudzilla and Forkly.

Firms like Grotech Ventures, with offices in Denver, are financing startups and are joined by large Boulder-based funds like the Foundry Group.

Competitive advantage: Denver is located in a mountainous region that many consider more of a vacation destination than a business hub. Indeed Colorado ski resorts are just down the highway and the area's mountain biking and hiking trails are virtually endless. Denver offers all of this, while retaining an affordable cost of living. Home prices, at a median level of $254,800, are higher than in Reno, Nev., and Las Vegas, but still less than half the price of San Jose's.

Related: The 10 Best Cities for Buying or Selling a Home 3. Reno’s allure lies with its geographic location, affordability and emerging and energetic startup scene. It’s a morning’s drive from Silicon Valley and just a half-hour car trip from the ski slopes and beaches of Lake Tahoe. That mix of business friendliness, quality of life and entrepreneurial energy is attracting small, scrappy startups and the satellite offices of some of the world's largest technology companies.

The Biggest Little City has transitioned from a gambling mecca into an entrepreneurial hot spot.

Tesla Motors is eyeing the city to house its new “gigafactory,” a multibillon-dollar battery-production headquarters; Apple has already built a data center there and Intuit, Microsoft Licensing and Drone America are headquartered in town. Homegrown startups are sprouting downtown. Reno’s Startup

Row along the Truckee River features cloud-computing companies and fitness-software outfits, a vibrant co-working collective and a hardware developer that builds microcontrollers.

Reno's vibrant entrepreneurial culture includes 1 Million Cups events, hackathons and startup weekends all year long. Marmot Properties is remodeling and updating scores of Reno homes in central locations to house the influx of entrepreneurs.

Capital needed to fuel startup activity is also available: The Silver State Opportunities Fund is investing $50 million in Nevada-based business. And the Battle Born Venture Fund is a state fund that provides critical funding for early-stage, high-growth companies in Nevada. The Reno Accelerator Fund invests in early-stage companies in the capital.

Competitive advantage: Reno’s home prices are a world away from Silicon Valley's. The median Reno home price is $198,700, according to Zillow (less than a third of San Jose's) so nearby tech startups and maturing companies don’t have to worry about employees struggling to find homes or commuting long hours.

Reno’s tax environment is considered business friendly. And city's startup scene is alongside a downtown whitewater kayak park with terrific skiing and a web of mountain bike trails nearby. Plus, Reno’s thriving bar, restaurant, coffee and entertainment scene includes Campo, named one of the nation’s best new restaurants by Esquire in 2012.

Below see an infographic created by the Economic Development Agency for Western Nevada to market Reno's startup culture.

Follow Entrepreneurs 4/22/2014 @ 9:40AM 4,228 views

How Four Eco Brands Are Using Social Media Marketing Effectively Comment Now Follow Comments

Environmentally conscious companies don’t just sell products, they promote a mission and sustain a lifestyle that benefits their customers and simultaneously makes the world a better place. It is natural then that when these “triple bottom line” businesses take to social media, they use their authentic voice and positioning to simultaneously promote philanthropy and increase ecommerce sales.

However, according to Offerpop, a NYC-based social marketing platform, the most effective green brands “not only raise awareness for causes on multiple networks, but tailor their campaigns to leverage the visual web and user generated content by allowing users to submit conscious content, give back and gain exclusive information.”

Here are four sustainable brands that are doing it well: 1.

TOMS

TOMS gained popularity with their “one for one” policy (where they donate one pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair purchased). They now have over 2 Million twitter followers.

They’ve captured that audience using a variety of social tools and campaigns that keep philanthropy on the forefront of their fans’ minds.

Best Campaign: One Day Without Shoes

TOMS annual One Day Without Shoes campaign asks patrons to go barefoot to raise “global awareness for children’s health and education,” and they are rocking it on social media. Not only do they have a dedicated page on their website, but they host Instagram meet-ups in several social-savvy cities, offer a toolkit for those who want to participate, and a Pinterest board (with 33k+ followers) full of shareable fact photos and participant photos. TOMS delivers a fantastic example of a social awareness campaign that actively engages fans and spreads its message far and wide.

2. EcoTools EcoTools is a company that offers quality eco-friendly beauty products and gives back to great causes. EcoTools utilizes social content from their team and fans to create unique social offerings.

Best Campaign: Hashtag #Ecotools EcoTools used their brand hashtag #Ecotools to aggregate Instagram content from their fans and share it via the Hashtag Gallery tool from Offerpop. They also use their team of experts to share

tips and reward fans across platforms. They know how to create useful branded content extremely well. They have a $10k giveback program for customers to win money to donate back to charities of their choice.

3. Recyclebank.

Recyclebank is a company that rewards people with deals and discounts for taking everyday green actions. They are leveraging their position as green-lifestyle educators to be a hub for social buzz.

Best Campaign: LivingEarthMonth

Recyclebank is using Earth Month (April) to create community awareness on social media under #LivingEarthMonth. They have created a microsite that features content from Twitter and Instagram and aims to inspire readers to make the most of Earth Month. The site also directs viewers back to their website to purchase products that are environmentally-friendly.

4. Loomstate.

Loomstate is an eco-friendly clothing company that has a lot of projects to help make the planet a better place. They excel at blogging and their social content is perfect for sustainable hipsters to share and like.

Best Campaign: Act Natural Blog Loomstate offers easy-to-read, interesting blog posts. Content marketing is a key feeder of social media marketing; they go hand-in-hand. Many companies attempt to create blogs that impact readers, but few accomplish it the way Loomstate has. Their blog posts are relevant to the eco/sustainable current culture, and feature easy-to-digest bullets on how to get involved and

how Loomstate is supporting each particular cause. They are a great example of how effective ongoing, well-composed content can work for a brand’s messaging.

All four of these companies are using social media for social good and engagement. They are proof that the two can be done in conjunction to create the most impactful messaging for brands and our planet. Â

April 1,2014

Crafting is good year round, but when you're stuck indoors all winter and nothing sounds better than a warm blanket, quilting has a lot of appeal. It's a practical, creative, and historyfilled pastime that I know many of our readers love. Whether you're a pro or you're just getting started, here are ten tips for modern quilting, courtesy of Jenny Doan–the gifted quilter, instructor, YouTube celebrity, and owner of Missouri Star Quilt Company.

1. Always keep your sewing machine in good condition. Clean it regularly, and have it serviced when needed.

2. It is important to have a sharp rotary blade, as this will prevent cutting accidents. Keep extra blades, needles and thread in your stash.

3. Use quality fabrics. When you use good quality fabric, you can rest assured that your quilts will stand the test of time (and toddlers, pets, sunshine, washing machines, etc.).

4. Press to the dark side if possible. That being said, if anyone opens your quilt to check which direction you pressed your seams, they are not your friend! The most important thing is that your quilt is pressed and your top is flat.

5. Always use a ¼ inch seam when quilting. Remember that your ¼ inch is unique to you.

Don’t worry if your seams are bigger or smaller than your neighbors, the key is consistency.

If your seams are all the same size, your quilt will be perfectly beautiful!

6. Never pre-wash your pre-cuts. They will end up a frayed mess! Fabrics have improved in quality so much that we don’t need to worry about shrinkage or fading like we used to.

7. The bias is your friend. Bias allows us to work in pieces that may not fit exactly. Take your time, pin at seam intersections, and try not to pull your fabric.

8. Quilting should be fun! Enjoy the journey and remember that if you make a mistake it could just be a whole new pattern! Patterns are more like guidelines for creativity rather than strict regulations.

9. Take advantage of YouTube tutorials. They have great tips and tricks you might never have thought of!

10. One more thing…never eat Cheetos while quilting, unless you have orange fabric!

3 Companies Share How They Stay True to Company Culture Amidst Rapid Growth

BY JOHN SOLARI | March 27, 2014|

Most companies start off steeped in culture. They begin as programmers pulling all-nighters writing code or scrappy advertising agencies teeming with wild ideas hashed out over informal brainstorming sessions.

But as companies grow, and specifically when they grow rapidly, structure sets in -- often at the culture's expense. Soon a company that was founded on a wildly creative, loose and fun company culture runs the risk of becoming bureaucratic, stale and uninspired.

More and more companies are realizing that rapid growth when not paired with an equivalent emphasis on company culture, poses a threat to a company’s ability to recruit and retain employees, innovate, inspire creativity and build brand loyalty.

Feeling like your company may fall in the same trap? Check out our advice from two fast-growing companies and one corporate culture expert.

1. Ditch the hierarchy and focus on a flat company culture. Offerpop is a rapidly growing company in a fast-moving industry. Based in New York City and backed by venture investors, the social marketing software-as-a-service company has added more than 45 employees and opened offices in London and San Francisco in the last year.

Related: Creating and Keeping a Positive Company Culture But walk into their three-floor offices in Manhattan and you will see company CEO and founder Wendell Lansford sitting next to an Offerpop employee six months out of college. This flat company culture, room for career advancement and company sports teams are all key to Offerpop’s success in recruiting and retaining employees in a market that has them compete directly with high-paying industries like investment banking.

“The company is very flat in terms of the work chart,” says Kevin Bobowski, vice president of marketing for Offerpop. “Informally, it is an incredibly flat structure because anyone can come up and talk directly to the CEO, co-founders and executives.”

Besides having a flat culture, Offerpop builds on that camaraderie by fielding soccer and basketball teams, which allow employees to interact outside of the work environment. They hold trivia nights at the office, and when they launch a new product, they celebrate with a company-wide Poplaunch party where popcorn is served and different departments mix and mingle.

“It allows people to connect, which is harder as the company grows,” says Bobowski.

The emphasis on a vibrant workplace has paid off for Offerpop. Some of the company’s more successful new employees are often hired from referrals, as Offerpop builds a culture of “doers, not delegators,” says Bobowski.

2. Instill passion and personal values. Reno, Nev.-based digital agency Noble Studios has grown 40 percent in the last year, a year after being named one of fastest-growing companies in the nation.

Much of the company’s rapid revenue growth came from an early company culture formed without a thought toward the bottom line.

Related: Making Gratitude Part of Your Company Culture “We care about our clients -- money was the last thing that we actually thought about,” says Noble Studios founder Jarrod Lopiccolo. “We love creating and we love giving value.”

One way the company does this is through book clubs, where teams read and discuss the same text. Team leads pick the books with an eye for topics that specific teams needs to delve into. The book clubs help align teams, spur discussion and ingrain a culture of learning in the company.

The book clubs are one component of what Noble Studios has become known for in Reno -- building the talent and knowledge of a homegrown team in a second-tier technology city.

“A lot of the talent we had to grow,” says Lipoccolo. “But they had to have the right ingredients -- the ability to think long term and not short term. It’s exciting for companies to think that secondary markets can foster and maintain this level of talent.”

3. Remember the big picture. Odyssey Teams is a Chico, Calif.-based corporate training company that has worked with some of the globe’s largest enterprises to build and maintain culture.

Related: Google Employees Confess the Worst Things About Working at Google One of the fundamental ideas behind Odyssey Teams success is that many employees have lost track of the “why” of their work. They feel lost in a sea of co-workers all dealing with one miniscule portion of a very large task and fall into the uninspired monotony and ritual of completing their work day after day.

Odyssey Teams breaks through that apathy by reconnecting their audiences with the reason they work, the difference they can make and the value of communication and collaboration in the workplace.

That says, Odyssey Teams co-founder Lain Hensley realizes that companies cannot always keep the same culture they had when they founded. They must be willing to evolve and adapt as they grow.

“You can't retain company culture when you are growing, you must carefully architect its evolution and surrender to the fact that it will never be the same as it was in the past,” says Hensley. “Look forward and build something new that would put any startup, like you used to be, out of business in a flash.”

Hensley says that good company culture does not always mean a conflict-free environment. But strong cultures can survive conflict, and even benefit from it.

“You need explosive ingredients to make a dynamite team, so be ready to work carefully and deal with a few explosions now and again. If that happens you are on the right track,” says Hensley.

How to Decorate With Radiant Orchid March 26, 2014 | By Brigitt Hauck | Comments (0)

Each year, Pantone, the world’s authority on color, declares a color “color of the year.” This year’s hue: radiant orchid. The vibrant color, which combines purple, fuchsia, and pink undertones, may make for a stunning dress, but can you incorporate it into your décor? Alison Victoria, Chief Designer at DesignMine, shows how radiant orchid can be used either as an accent color or as the main focal point.

• Break out the paint: Painting a focus wall in a large room, like the living room, can highlight and brighten the space.

Be sure to balance the look with a lighter shade of purple such as lavender, or more natural colors like beige and gray. If the shade seems too bright for a wall, add a pop of color by painting items like mirrors, picture frames, or bar stools.

• Create a floral theme: Both floral patterns and radiant orchid are all the rage right now. Consider blending the two with floral wallpaper, new upholstery, or simply adding purple orchids to a tabletop.

• Try a bright backsplash: If radiant orchid is a household favorite, opt for a brightly-colored tile backsplash in the kitchen above the stove, or try using the colored tiles on the bathroom floor or in the shower.

• Add accent pieces: Purchasing a few pieces for a room can make it look brand new. Consider buying pieces you can easily change out, like radiant orchid lampshades or throw pillows See more ways to decorate with purple. If purple just isn’t your color, try these easy ways to incorporate other colors into your décor.

1/31/2014 10:30:00 PM

Internet Speed-Quilting Queen Jenny Doan If you want to learn how to make a quilt in a day, Jenny Doan can teach you. WSJ’s Jim Carlton takes a look at what makes her videos so popular, from the ”Jelly Roll Race” to the “Disappearing Nine Patch.”

Entrepreneur Stitches Together a Quilting Business Short cuts and video tutorials boost an outfit in Missouri By JIM CARLTON CONNECT Updated Jan. 31, 2014 10:39 p.m. ET If you want to learn how to make a quilt in a day, Jenny Doan can teach you. WSJ's Jim Carlton takes a look at what makes her videos so popular, from the "Jelly Roll Race" to the "Disappearing Nine Patch."

HAMILTON, Mo.—This tiny farm town used to be known as the home of James Cash Penney Jr., founder of the namesake department store chain. These days, it is better known in some circles as the home of Jenny Doan.

Those would be quilting circles. Over the past few years, Mrs. Doan, 57 years old, has become a veritable superstar of the craft. Her YouTube tutorials on how to make quilts have drawn as many as a million viewers, some from as far away as South Africa.

Her family's Missouri Star Quilt Co. gets as many as 30,000 orders a month for pre-cut patches and other quilting supplies. The 5-year-old company has become the secondlargest employer in this town of 1,800, its operations covering a patchwork of formerly vacant downtown buildings that include a "sleep and sew" retreat hotel. Fans stop Mrs. Doan for autographs. "I can barely go to Wal-Mart without someone recognizing me," she says.

The key to Mrs. Doan's popularity: she appeals to "instant gratification" quilters. "I don't teach people how to be the best quilter," she says. "I teach them how to do it the easiest."

Instead of the weeks or months often required to complete a quilt, Mrs. Doan's method teaches how to make one in as little as a day—by using a variety of pre-cut fabric patches a quilter otherwise would have to painstakingly snip out and stitch together. She also supplies the materials to do so.

Jenny Doan, star of YouTube tutorials on quilting. Her Missouri Star Quilt Co. channel draws as many as a million viewers. Jim

Carlton//The Wall Street Journal

"I'll show you something that makes it look like you worked really hard," she says.

That simpler process was the appeal for Carmen Leticia Attie, a psychotherapist from Mexico City, who learned to quilt in 2010 by watching Mrs. Doan's videos. She also found Mrs. Doan's breezy style less intimidating than that of other quilting tutors. "She makes you feel as if it is not only possible, but easy."

Some quilters reject the shortcuts, saying it takes away from the history of the craft.

"Traditional quilting is the historical way to do it," said Linda Courtney, a shopkeeper from Stewartsville, Mo., who learned quilting from her mother.

Bonnie Browning, executive show director of the American Quilter's Society, said interest in quilting has been on the rise, especially people wanting to learn via the Internet. One reason Mrs. Doan is so successful, she said, is she was one of the first quilters to start making online tutorials. Today, there are several, teaching various approaches. "You know what, there's a place for everyone in the quilter's world," said Mrs. Browning, whose group is based in Paducah, Ky. Among America's estimated 21 million-plus quilters, Mrs. Doan is a relative newbie. She didn't take up the hobby until 1997, shortly after she and her husband, Ron, left California to

move to this town 65 miles northeast of Kansas City, Mo., with their seven children. "We literally picked a place in the middle of the U.S.," she says.

Her husband landed a job as a machinist for a local newspaper, but by 2008 his shop had been cut from 25 people to five. "It wasn't a question of if I lost my job, but when," says Mr. Doan, 60.

Concerned for their parents' future, two of their grown children, Al Doan and Sarah Galbraith, that year took out a $36,000 loan to buy their mother a professional quilting machine. "We were thinking if we didn't do something, Mom is living in our basement when she gets old," says Mr. Doan, 31.

To accommodate the 12-foot-long machine, the younger Mr. Doan and his sister spent $24,000 buying a former antique store for their mother to work in. Not long after she got it up and running, Mrs. Doan says, her family noticed quilting searches were a hot topic on the Internet.

Enlarge Image

"Al said, 'Mom, we need to do tutorials,' " she recalled. "I said, 'Sure. What's a tutorial?' " Their first, shot in her cluttered shop in February 2009, didn't go well. Mrs. Doan tripped on an electrical cord and broke her leg. She still managed to grimace through the video. "She was so awkward," her son says.

Subsequent efforts were better. Mrs. Doan turned on the charm, sometimes hamming it up.

She started an "Iron Quilter" competition, mimicking the Food Network's "Iron Chef" cooking contest, with two of her daughters squaring off in samurai-style bandannas. About 500 people sent in pictures of entries.

In the precise craft of sewing, Mrs. Doan isn't always the most polished instructor, but that just seems to add to her appeal. "One time, she was making a quilt block but she almost cut it wrong‌and she laughed and said, 'How many of you were saying: NO, No‌don't do

that!'" said Monique Atkinson, a 53-year-old quilter from Quebec. "I thought it was just hilarious!"

In 2009, Al Doan and his family decided Missouri Star could be a serious business. They noticed that his mother's video fans would want to use the precise fabric she showed in a tutorial. So they began stocking up on those fabrics to sell. "One day, we got eight sales in one day," Mr. Doan recalled. "We were so excited."

Almost five years later, Missouri Star sells an average of 1,000 orders a day. Mr. Doan won't divulge the company's revenue, but noted the business invested $750,000 last year to upgrade its buildings, and now employs 80 workers.

Along the way, Hamilton has become a tourism destination for the quilting crowd. Most days, 50 to 100 visitors arrive to meet Mrs. Doan and members of her family in their 5,000square-foot main shop.

City Administrator Dale Wallace says the tourism is great, and that maybe the town just needs to patch up its array of amenities. "For example, we really need to find something for the men to do," he said of the husbands who sometimes come in tow with their quilting spouses. "Maybe we'll put in a gun shop."

For now, Hamilton Hardware, once the location of the 500th department store in Mr. Penney's retail chain, serves as a way station for bored spouses. "The quilters don't come in, but their husbands do," said owner Eddie Ernat. "We have some pretty neat conversations."

The Second Screen Super Bowl

Brands bet big on hashtags to convert television viewers into a social media audience

By Kevin Bobowski

January 31, 2014, 2:54 PM EST

As those $4 million, 30-second ads flash across flatscreen TVs this Super Bowl Sunday, brands that bet big on the final NFL game of the season will be more focused on what is happening on millions of small smartphone, tablet and laptop screens across the nation.

This year, more brands than ever will use their high-dollar ad slots to deliver a halfminute pitch convincing consumers to interact with them on social media. It’s what marketers have long been calling the second screen audience, and this Super Bowl will reveal how important this social media audience is to advertisers during the largest live television event of the year.

The momentum has been building for several years now. In 2012, only 7 percent of Super Bowl ads contained hashtags, but last year that number climbed to 50 percent, according to MarketingLand.com. In 2014, hashtags are expected to overtake corporate website mentions, according to Web-strategist.com.

Several large trends are converging to fuel this phenomenon. Television’s power is waning, making must-see TV that consumers choose to watch live (without the use of a DVR) more valuable to advertisers than ever before. But as the price tags for these live TV spots rise, brands want something more than 30 seconds of TV exposure for their $4 million. They are finding that extra value on social media. And most are using

hashtags—the symbols that unlock a connection across all social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vine—as the mechanism that taps consumers into their social media channels.

Brands that use social media correctly are reaping a lengthened period of influence from their Super Bowl ads. They are starting social media conversations before, during and after the game. Adobe research shows that “visits and page views to companies that advertise on TV during the Super Bowl show a 20 percent increase in visits on the day of the game and maintain higher than average traffic for a week following the game.”

H&M has already jump started the social media engagement days before the Super Bowl, giving their fans the opportunity to choose the ending to a Super Bowl spot featuring David Beckham by voting for “#covered” or “#uncovered.”

The Super Bowl showcases an advertising world in the throes of deep, systemic changes.

The one-way broadcasting of advertising messages to a somewhat passive audience is evolving into a much more interactive advertising and marketing experience. Brands are conversing with customers, exchanging ideas, and soliciting content through social media. More and more, traditional advertising is becoming a billboard, pointing consumers toward social media, where more personal layer of marketing, advertising and interaction closes the deal with consumers. Once consumers engage with them online, brands have many more targeted ways to convert a transaction that is now only a click away.

The Super Bowl is still the king of American advertising events. But as hashtag after hashtag flashes across the screen on Sunday, it will be clear that the world’s largest brands already realize that the second screens glowing in the room are the heirs to the throne.

Kevin Bobowski (@bobowski) is the vp of marketing for Offerpop, a New York-based social marketing software company that powered the first use of a hashtag in a Super Bowl commercial in 2011, in the '#ProgressIs' campaign by auto manufacturer client Audi.

Rock at Life Like Christie Rampone: The Soccer Star Spills Her Do-It-All Secrets Written on January 14, 2014 at 5:37 pm , by Samantha Shelton

Rock at Life Like Christie Rampone: The Soccer Star Spills Her Do-It-All Secrets Written on January 14, 2014 at 5:37 pm , by Samantha Shelton

She’s one of the biggest names in the world of soccer, whether you’re looking at men’s or women’s teams. Christie Rampone. The superstar defender has been playing since 1997, experiencing firsthand major moments in the sport’s history (you know, the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, where she led the underdog team to come from behind and snatch gold. NBD.) As the first U.S. player to compete for four Olympic teams - not to mention the only active player remaining from the 1999 World Cup championship team – she knows what’s what. But that doesn’t mean this captain is ready to retire her cleats. In fact, even though she admits the thought of coaching sounds appealing, that’s all it is – an idea. With her focus zeroed in on giving her all – whether that’s to her teammates or her family of four (husband, Chris, and daughters Rylie and Reece) – Rampone is powering ahead, determined to stay on top of her game despite an ongoing battle with Lyme disease. We sat down with her to find out what it’s like being the only mom on the team, and how, even after thousands of hours of playing outside in the sun, she still manages to look so freaking fab. Steal her secrets below.

You’re one of the most iconic players in the sport, but you’ve also been able to work with other phenomenal athletes. Who have been some of your favorite teammates to play with?

I’ve looked up to Kristine Lily from the start. As an older player, she always led by example and always gave 100 percent, and I always aspired to have that on the field. Playing with Shannon Boxx in front of me has been a lot of fun, the two of us being able to coordinate and lead on the field. And going up against Abby Wambach in training to then step it up on the field.

Our readers love proving that age is just a number. As one of the oldest active players, what are your thoughts on that?

I think it’s great to be able to be that role model and aspire others to still compete and not look at age. Age comes up a lot for me, but I try to defer it and have them just look at my play. I’m not talking about the word retirement at this point – I’m going to continue to do what I love and just enjoy it while I can. My goal right now is to keep proving myself, earning my spot and helping grow the sport of soccer.

With the Sochi Games coming, I have to ask – if you were to compete in the winter Olympics, which sport would you choose?

I would probably play ice hockey. It’s something I’ve always wanted to try to do because it’s a team sport – I don’t think I’d be good at an individual sport. Seeing how passionate they are [the hockey team], it coordinates with the soccer side. I think they’re just as inspiring. It looks fun but definitely challenging.

You’re the only mom on the team. How do you juggle parenting with being a team captain?

It’s a lot. I try to balance it all by not overdoing one thing more than the other. For me, there are no days off, so being strong and healthy is critical. I compete every day on the field, and then I take care of my kids. But I think educating them is key. They know mom stays active – they see me runand lift,

and we’ll bike to dinner if we’re going out, or bike to the soccer field. Reece loves that I pick her up from school every day on the bike.

As a player, becoming a mom has been great for me. It puts things in perspective, realizing that soccer is a privilege and I’m very lucky to be playing it for this long. And my kids help motivate me to be a better person and look after my teammates before myself. I have that motherly instinct, and I think that’s helped bring the whole sport full circle, rather than just thinking about myself on the field.

It completes me.

You announced in 2011 that you have Lyme disease. How has that affected your career, and daily life?

I take Epicor, which helps my immune system tremendously. It keeps my insides strong while I work to stay physically fit and keep my outside strong. Otherwise, I have to be mindful of the fatigue and try to stay ahead of the game, resting when it’s necessary. To stay mentally strong, I think of my teammates and the end goal – the World Cup. If I’m having a bad day and need to rest, then I do. But when I feel good I make sure I go all out. I’ve learned from experience when to push through and when my body is telling me to give it a rest.

I have to say, your skin looks fabulous. What are your beauty secrets?

I drink a ton of water and use light makeup that my aunt makes to get that nice glow. Then I just eat right and take care of my body. I used to think I was invincible, but as you get older you realize how much time, energy and effort it takes every day to stay fit, so you become more mindful. And I use a little mascara to open up the eyes, and I’m good to go.

More from FITNESS: Soccer Star Julie Foudy Talks Self-Esteem, Sports and Staying Fit How U.S. Soccer Superstar Alex Morgan Prevents Injuries On and Off the Field Landon Donovan Shares His Skin-Saving Tips Categories: Celebrity, Motivation, The Fit Stop | Tags: Christie Rampone, Olympics, soccer No Comments

15 lesser-known ski resorts to check out this winter

By Tamara Hinson, for CNN updated 10:03 PM EST, Mon December 2, 2013

Sugar Bowl, Lake Tahoe, California Sugar Bowl already has some of America's best tree runs, but this winter several developments are set to transform the area.

A new chairlift will provide advanced skiers with easy access to the challenging Crow's Face and Strawberry Fields areas, previously reached only by hiking.

The new lift will also connect Sugar Bowl to the largest cross-country ski resort in North America, Royal Gorge.

Sugar Bowl's Lodge is one of the coziest hotels you'll find in a ski resort and is accessed via gondola.

Sugar Bowl, Lake Tahoe, California; +1 530 426 9000 Truckee Donner Lodge, 10527 Cold Stream Rd, Truckee, California; 530-582-9999; from $99 per room per night

TRAVEL & LIFESTYLE

Six Snow‐Filled Winter Getaways

by Heather Rabkin

Now that winter is in full, blustery swing, we believe it’s high time to plan a seasonal trip to experience the season in full effect. With that in mind, Vogue.com has rounded up six of the most luxurious and snowy spots across the U.S. Whether you’re a ski bunny or just a hot- chocolate aficionado, there’s a snow-filled destination for everyone.

The Lodge at Sugar Bowl

Located just north of Lake Tahoe, the Lodge at the Sugar Bowl is the country’s only snowbound village— the only way in (or out, for that matter) is via gondola, or snowcat. The property’s charming, Bavarianstyle lodge dates to the 1930s (Walt Disney was an investor), and the resort boasts a multitude of renovations this year. The Crow’s Peak chairlift offers unprecedented access to expert-level tree skiing, and a brand-new fitness and aquatic center will debut next year, set to include outdoor hot tubs. sugarbowl.com

Photo: Courtesy of The Lodge at Sugar Bowl

Lake Placid Lodge

The seventeen cabins located on Lake Placid are the epitome of an haute stay in the woods. In the 1880s the site was transformed into luxury campgrounds for railroad magnates and industrialists. These days freestanding cabin features beds with thick, downy mattresses atop frames fashioned from tree trunks, vintage camp photos, and working stone fireplaces. As the only luxury hotel property on the famed lake, the Lodge is the ideal base from which to explore the surrounding Adirondack Mountains.

Dunton Hot Springs

Situated in a former ghost town within the Colorado Rockies, the resort’s hand-built cabins (some by the town’s original miners in the late nineteenth century) have all been luxuriously restored with amenities such as heated slate flooring and Native American textiles. The property also opened a farmhouse this year, which will serve as a winter outpost between the lodging and nearby skiing at Cresto Ranch. Think of it as the perfect pit stop for hot toddies by the stone fireplace.

The Ranch at Rock Creek

Formerly a bustling silver mining boomtown, Philipsburg is now home to the sprawling 6,600-acre Ranch at Rock Creek, an all-inclusive resort. Guests can stay in the Granite Lodge, which is outfitted in all sorts of Western period-authentic details (read: no in-room TVs and no gym). However, the greatest amenities lie in the details, such as the option to go “glamping” at the property’s newly opened Sweet Grass Tent.

The canvas cabin has two-bedrooms, a kitchenette, gas fireplace, and cedar soaking tub.

Lumière

Everyone seems to know your name at Lumière Telluride—from the bellhop to the breakfast chef— creating an intimate sensibility for this luxurious destination. The boutique hotel has eleven hotel rooms and eighteen multi-room residences, including the 3,700-square-foot five-bedroom penthouse. For those that dare venture outside of the cushy surroundings, the property offers ski-in/ski-out access to the slopes. In the afternoons there are homemade, après-ski baked goods.

Canoe Bay

The mid-century modern cabins at Canoe Bay provide a smart backdrop at this quasi-camp for grownups. However, in lieu of a dining hall there’s dinner by candlelight, and relaxation time can include popping into the in-room Finnish sauna. The eco-friendly retreat was built with a focus on sustainable design, from the cabins with recycled wood furnishings (designed by a Frank Lloyd Wright protégé) to fireplaces crafted from local stone. Outdoor excursions include ice skating on Lake Wahdoon and crosscountry skiing in the nearby Blue Hills.

Why Wait Until Saturday? Small Businesses Seek Black Friday Buzz November 13, 2013

Predictions for Black Friday and 2013 holiday sales range from tentative to lackluster, thanks partly to a drop in consumer confidence following the government shutdown. But one thing is certain – major retailers aren’t taking chances. That means stores opening at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving, holiday ads before Halloween and aggressive layaway programs and discounts through Cyber Monday.

With Black Friday turning into Black Weekend, there’s some fear that Small Business Saturday – a nationwide campaign launched by American Express in 2010 – may get lost in the blitz, along with the small businesses that can’t afford to slash prices.

But there’s a unique opportunity for small businesses, according to Ronald C. Goodstein, Associate Professor of Marketing at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, who specializes in retail and consumer behavior.

“With consumer confidence down this year, people will give fewer gifts but more meaningful ones,” he said. “The competitive advantage for small businesses is the ability to provide personalized service. They can help customers pick that thoughtful, relevant gift in a way that Macy’s, Walmart or Target can’t.”

The best way for small businesses to win customers, he adds, is to join forces.

Thinking little and local Power in unity is what drove Betsy Cross and Will Cervarich to launch Little Boxes, a two-day postThanksgiving shopping event in Portland, Ore., that rewards consumers who shop the city's local retailers.

Little Boxes was born in 2011, after Cross saw a Black Friday ad for a big-box store opening on Thanksgiving night.

“It struck me that you never think about small shops on Black Friday. I thought, ‘There has to be a way we can band together and be more powerful,’” said Cross, who co-owns the Portland boutique betsy & iya with Cervarich, her husband.

Related: How Online Retailers Can Make More Money by Next Week The campaign now unites over 170 businesses, which offer discounts and raffle prizes to customers.

It’s also boosted bottom lines, with some store owners reporting as much of a 50% increase in Black Friday sales since joining Little Boxes.

Cervarich adds that the goal isn’t to compete with Black Friday or Small Business Saturday, but rather harness existing buzz. “There's no question that AmEx’s Small Business Saturday has helped focus the spotlight on small businesses. But one of the reasons we started Little Boxes was because it didn't seem right that shopping locally should come only after you've shopped big boxes.”

There are a number of similar initiatives brewing nationwide, including Seattle’s Gift Local Pledge and Dallas/Ft. Worth’s Spend and Win campaign. But even smaller communities are getting big benefits from building their own shop-local holiday campaigns.

The city and Chamber of Commerce in Fallon, Nev., created the Live Local Fallon campaign this summer to encourage residents to spend locally, rather than driving to nearby Reno. They’ve recruited 155 businesses to participate in a campaign where shoppers get stamps in a “passport” that makes them eligible for raffle prizes for every $15 spent. There’s a special push around Black Friday, during which incentives for shoppers will be tripled.

“We’ve been very concerned about the leakage of dollars getting spent outside Fallon,” said Rick Gray, executive director of the Fallon Convention and Tourism Authority. “We tried educational campaigns and ads. But until we came up with this tangible way to reward residents, we didn't feel the message was hitting home.”

Related: Disturbing Crime Trends Facing Retailers (Infographic) But other non-retail small businesses prefer to avoid one of the busiest shopping days of the year. Visit Myrtle Beach is launching Travel Saturday this year. For 24 hours after Black Friday, giftgivers and deal-seekers can book discounted travel, lodging and entertainment for 2014 at participating small businesses in the South Carolina beach community. The idea is to spotlight a travel-centric economy on a day when consumers are likely to be at home, online and less occupied with retail deals.

According to Goodstein, this is the kind of creative thinking and unity that small businesses need to compete.

“Black Friday used to delight consumers and offer real deals. Now big companies buy in order to sell at sale price. They compete on lower margins, which means less quality,” he said. “Small businesses need to work together to lower prices [but keep quality high]. Offer consumers service and something special in a tough economy at a discounted price – you can’t beat that

Hashtags Breathe Life Back Into Social Commerce Already Showing Promise as the Actual Mechanism of Payment By: Kevin Bobowski Published: November 13, 2013

Social commerce ‐‐ the purchasing of products through social media ‐‐ is on the rebound. And that rebound is being aided by an unlikely ally ‐‐ the simple hashtag.

Hashtags have migrated to Facebook from their origins on Twitter and are growing in use from Google+ to Tumblr as well. They have particularly benefited from the explosive growth of Instagram, where they makes photos and videos easily categorized and searchable.

Now hashtags have an increasing presence in online search, and brands are realizing the hashtag's potential to be a link that unites messages in an increasingly fractured social-media landscape. While social networks will come and go, the hashtag is a tool that allows brands to be identified across any of them; content can then engage the social-media audience on whatever site individuals prefer.

Hashtags are also helping brands make the jump from social marketing to social commerce, adding the sought-after viral element to purchasing. When a consumer's social "friends" see when and what their friend purchases, it opens up a powerful viral element to online transactions that can be leveraged with coupons, discounts or offers. Unlike social commerce campaigns that are linked to only Facebook, a hashtag-driven campaign brings in a social audience from any social network, multiplying the number of online consumers a campaign can reach. And a hashtag can be as specific or general as needed, relating to a single product or to an overall brand, depending on the campaign strategy.

Gartner research shows that 74% of consumers rely on social networks to guide their purchasing decisions, but that influence is now divided across many social networks. Hashtags can unite and bolster that influence, while keeping campaigns simple and user-friendly. Given that social commerce is a $14.25 billion industry, the implications are huge.

The hashtag also has shown promise as the actual mechanism of payment in social commerce.

Both Chirpify and an American Express partnership with Twitter are creating ways for social users to purchase items with a hashtag. Chirpify has a name for this tweet-to-purchase symbol -- the actiontag. In both examples, social media users tweet or post a unique hashtag that triggers an online purchase through a connection to a pre-determined online account or credit card. After a simple confirmation, the transaction is complete.

Hashtags are also crossing over to sites like Polyvore and Wanelo -- social shopping sites that have harnessed the look and feel of social media for the sole purpose of online shopping. Wanelo and Polyvore use the hashtag for internal search functions of their online inventory of merchandise, allowing site users to discover collections and see new styles by searching for a hashtag under which all the items are organized.

Co-buying website Buyapowa.com allows users to request that an item be offered on the website by tweeting #buyapowarequest. ModCloth is using hashtags to allow social media users to compete todesign the brand's new styles — giving engagement a whole new meaning that transcends the social realm. By requiring that aspiring ModCloth designers tag each entry with "#modcloth" and "#wedding," the brand has used the contest to drive branded hashtag traffic right into the Pinterest feeds of socialmedia users actively planning wedding purchases. Adding in offerings of coupon codes in exchange for hashtag participation helps a brand's deals and discounts go viral across social channels.

The connection of the hashtag to social commerce is still in its infancy. We'll see that connection grow stronger as brands use the symbol more effectively, and in more innovative ways. The thing we don't know is where the symbol ultimately will take us.

With summer waning, we thought we’d turn our attention away from the ocean and over to the underappreciated lake. Maybe it’s for a late August getaway or an early fall weekend trip, but either way, Vogue.com found eight stunning spots to relax by North America’s prettiest swimming holes.

Offerpop Launches Facebook Poll App for Brands Offerpop Launches Facebook Poll App for Brands "Like to Vote" Feature Takes Advantage of FacebPook's New Promotion Guidelines NEW YORK, N.Y., Oct. 9, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via PRWEB - Offerpop, the most widely used social marketing platform, today announced the release of its Poll app, the latest in Offerpop's suite of social marketing campaign apps.

Poll allows marketers to launch mobile-ready Poll campaigns on Facebook that engage consumers, amplify word-of-mouth, and capture rich data about their fans to inform their cross-channel marketing campaigns.

Fans can participate in Polls by liking their selection – a feature that takes advantage of Facebook's recent change to their promotion guidelines. When Facebook users Like their selections, they create news feed stories in their timelines and their friends' news feeds, with a link back to the campaign, driving campaign virality. Brands can promote Polls anywhere – website, digital ads, in stores, and TV – extending the reach of traditional advertising programs.

"The Poll app is part of Offerpop's mission to leverage Facebook's newest guidelines and features, enabling brands to run results-driven social campaigns," said Prakash Mishra, CTO and co-founder of Offerpop. "The Poll app helps marketers improve the reach of their campaigns by creating viral stories, resulting in bigger social and email audiences."

Marketers can set up a Poll in minutes using Offerpop's one-page campaign builder. They can enable options like fan-gating with a single click, so that participants must like the page to vote. Brands can also add custom forms to capture valuable data about campaign participants after they make their selections, like email addresses and opt-ins for future communications.

Fans can also opt to comment after they've made their selections, driving even more participation.

"Polling our customers via Offerpop's platform helps grow word of mouth, build engagement, and impact downstream metrics," said Erica Young, Ecommerce Marketing Manager at Ashley Stewart. "We're excited about the ability of like-based voting to drive campaign virality."

As soon as brands publish a campaign, Poll launches a real-time report and begins tracking program metrics such as unique visitors and fan growth.

Users can export user data into Excel with just one click. Plus, polling fan bases helps brands crowdsource marketing and product decisions and get valuable user data about their audience's opinions and interests.

About Offerpop Offerpop is a powerful, easy-to-use social marketing platform. Marketers across the globe use Offerpop to run social marketing campaigns across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, mobile devices and websites, and access rich data about their fans and consumers. From small businesses to marketing agencies to top brands like Amazon, Unilever, and Viacom, companies use Offerpop to grow their audiences, generate word of mouth, and grow their businesses. Offerpop is a Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer, qualified by the PMD program in Apps. Offerpop is a Twitter Certified Product. Learn more at http://www.offerpop.com.

This article was originally distributed on PRWeb. For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/10/prweb11212011.htm CONTACT: The Abbi Agency Krystal Tingle krystal@theabbiagency.com +1 (775) 323-2977

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This is the season when the lawn mowers begin roaring, the mulch is spread and homeowners, if they haven't already, begin thinking about getting that roof fixed or finally putting up a privacy fence. But it isn't just the sun that comes out. There are also the pests—the ticks, the mosquitoes and the con artists.

As plenty of homeowners are aware, there are ample anecdotes in the media of home-contractor scams. These often con the elderly into either giving up money for no work done, or having work done but at an exorbitant price that wasn't agreed to. In the last few weeks alone, a 77-year-old man in the Philadelphia area paid for his roof to be repaired only to end up paying to have a useless, tar-like substance splattered across it; in Norfolk, Va., an 83-year-old woman gave a home contractor $4,300 and never saw him again; in San Diego, a con artist has been offering to fix driveways, collecting down payments as high as $2,500 and giving nothing in return.

The anecdotes go on and on. So what should you do if you want a project completed but don't want to see your name in the local paper, where you're quoted warning your neighbors not to fall for a scam?

Research your contractor. Everyone thinks they're doing that, but it isn't as straightforward as one might think to vet a home contractor.

"In many cases, we see a person posing as a licensed or reputable contractor, and all checks out until the first payment is made to begin the job, and then the subject disappears. We see fake business cards and websites being used, and criminals can assume the identity of a real contractor, register a company or

use an alias. The goal is always the first payment," says Tom Burnett, a spokesman for Wymoo International, a worldwide detective agency headquartered in Jacksonville, Fla. Burnett is also a former private eye.

Despite all the tricks a con artist can play, you can vet a contractor, says Burnett. Obviously, there's the tried-and-true method of using a contractor that a friend or family member swears by, but if you don't have that avenue, Burnett suggests: • Contact the Better Business Bureau where the company or contractor operates and check for complaints.

• Ask for references and make sure you actually contact, say, two of them.

• Check to see if the company is registered with its state or your state's division of corporations.

• You can ask for the contractor's license number to verify with your state's Department of Professional Regulation, or your contractor's state license board or similar office.

• And, of course, search the Internet for whatever you can find on the company.

Be wary of paying upfront. This is tricky, too, because even honest home contractors ask for money upfront, for good reasons. "Let's say you want your front door put in, and if the contractor makes the order, and you back out, they essentially own that front door," says Amy Matthews, a home contractor who has hosted numerous DIY Network and HGTV series and is a spokesperson for Home Advisor, an online portal that matches, for free, homeowners with licensed home contractors (homeadvisor.com).

So it isn't weird for a home contractor to ask for money upfront, but it shouldn't be astronomical numbers, says Matthews. "It's very common for home contractors to ask for a percentage, say, 30 percent at the start, 30 percent in the middle and the rest at the end, and you should never pay at the completion until you've really looked it over."

She adds that every state is different, and that in California, home contractors aren't allowed to ask for more than 10 percent of the job upfront. Meanwhile, some states have no regulations regarding home contracting projects. It is also wise to pay a home contractor with a credit card instead of forking over a wad of cash or paying with a check. This will give you a record of the payment for the authorities and improve the odds of getting your money back if you are swindled, since credit card companies may refund your money in such situations.

If the proposal isn't very detailed, that might be a red flag. A home contractor who plans on putting a fence around your yard or fixing your roof isn't likely to offer up lengthy, detailed plans, but if you want to hire a contractor for a fairly elaborate project, such as a room addition, you'll want to see some detailed blueprints.

"The less gray areas there are, the better off homeowners will be," says Nicholas Iarocci, who owns a home contracting company, Source Development, Inc, which services the New York City area. He says detailed plans can "make the homeowner aware of possible additional expenses," which can help you if the contractor is ethical and if the contractor isn't. After all, some unethical contractors deliver when it comes to work, but they overcharge. Or they might not plan to destroy your finances but do because of the shoddy way they run their business.

"If an insured contractor brings a day laborer or an employee that's not on the books, and they get injured, the property owner is directly affected," says Iarocci. "I collect certificates of insurance from my subcontractors."

Don't let yourself be rushed into a project. Some perfectly honest home contractors will come to your house unsolicited, says Matthews. "They're called storm chasers," she says, "and there are some very credible contracting companies that look for homes that have been hit after a windstorm or heavy rain, but you still have to do that background check to make sure."

So if the contractor can't wait for you to think about their offer, or for you to summon your inner Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew and check them out, stay away. And you should always keep an eye out for that classic red flag waving in the warm, friendly breeze. Sadly, just as there is no free lunch, there is also rarely an extremely cheap lunch.

Says Matthews: "If someone offers to do a really quick job on your house for a really low price, and it sounds too sound to be true, it probably is."

James Kosta, 3G Studios: A Wild Ride For Jailed Teen Hacker Turned Video Game Entrepreneur Posted: 07/23/2012 2:48 pm Updated: 07/23/2012 3:26 pm

James Kosta woke up at 5 a.m. to the sound of someone pounding on his door. Groggy and naked, he opened the door and was tackled by members of an FBI tactical team, armed with MP5 submachine guns, who started securing all his computers. Kosta was 14 years old.

Kosta's life has often played out like some surreal video game. At 13 years old, he emancipated himself from his parents, only to be busted by the feds one year later for illegal hacking. After his release, Kosta worked for the CIA, and by 24, he was a tech entrepreneur making millions.

Today, Kosta, 37, runs 3G Studios Inc., a video game business that's set to pull in $10.5 million in revenue this year.

But startup success wasn't what Kosta expected for himself as a teenager facing 45 years of jail time for 45 counts of technical burglary, including hacking into the systems of major banks, GE and IBM. When a judge gave him a break, Kosta seized the opportunity to turn his life around.

HuffPost Small Business found out how Kosta's intense reality eventually led to virtual success.

Why did you seek emancipation from your parents?

I was making money from consulting work, so I approached the school with the idea of formalizing the high school computer club I had started into a business. By my 13th birthday, I was earning about $1,500 a month ... and spending money with friends, coming home late, skipping school. When I had an 18-year-old girlfriend, my parents said if I lived under their roof, I'd have to concentrate on school, give up my girlfriend and shut down my business. I went to court and proved to a judge I was responsible enough to be on my own.

How did you turn your computer skills to hacking?

I fell in with a bad crowd focused on what networks we could get into, both military and commercial. Just like gangs and the mob have initiations, if you want to be part of the most highprofile, advanced hacking groups, you have to cut your teeth. It was nothing destructive. A lot of it was for bragging rights, to say you pulled something off.

You might have been a global hacker when you were arrested, but you were still a kid.

Were you scared?

I was terrified. When you're that young, because your parents always give you warnings, you expect someone to say, hey, knock it off. I never expected any action like that. Also, what came to light very quickly was that I wasn't technically a kid. When you're emancipated, they have the right to charge you as an adult.

How were you able to get out of the 45-year sentence?

After being in for almost a year, the judge agreed to suspend my sentence if I didn't commit another crime and I agreed to join the military when I was eligible. I think what he saw was an intelligent kid who needed discipline. For me, it was a no-brainer. I knew if I went to maximum security for youth, a guy like me probably woudn't have a good experience.

In between, they stuck me in a boys camp in Santa Barbara. We were on the second line of fighting forest fires. To see those firefighters in action and have them respect me meant a lot, and shaped me as a man. That's when I first realized I could be helpful to people instead of being nefarious.

At 18, you started serving in the Navy. How did you end up in the analyst division of the CIA by age 20?

I was working on a Naval Intelligence project that got transferred to the CIA. I was responsible for tracking the money going to various warlords and radical sheiks in North Africa and the Middle East. Then I was doing penetration testing on military installations, working with IT groups to see if I could steal data from outside. It was the beginning preparation for technological warfare.

How did you transition from the military to making millions?

I got recruited as a Microsoft contractor straight out of CIA. I was consulting with multiple companies, then my brother and I started one of the first commercial websites focused on financial markets. In 1999, we sold our dotcoms for tens of millions of dollars.

After 9/11, how did you start working for the CIA again?

I offered to simulate Las Vegas getting hit with a dirty bomb and how rescuers could lock down the city. We were using a game engine by the company that did Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, where we dropped these bad guys into Las Vegas and started [pursuing] them. We thought that was more fun than the simulation business, and our heart was aching to move toward commercial video game development, so we steered the company in that direction.

Your reality has been so intense, what drew you to virtual world?

I fell in love with the concept of interactive entertainment, allowing people to make their own story. The analyst side of me loves that it's like watching ants from above. You get to see how people are experiencing a story, reacting to stimuli you put in place. In intelligence, looking at human patterns, I was fascinated by social hacking, using a person's belief systems to get what you want. The real question with video games is that suspension of disbelief -- can I fool an audience that thinks they're in control when they're really not?

Do you see any way the story of your own life has come full circle?

I was an intelligent, rebellious youth, but my grades and attendance records weren't the sole indicators for my potential contribution to society. Ultimately, society suffers when we're that myopic. When you look a little deeper, as people did with me, you're able to get kids focused on their potential. A huge part of my company is focusing on teen mentoring for troubled youth.

That's something I owe to the people who helped me.

Entrepreneur Spotlight Name: James Kosta Company: 3G Studios Inc. Age: 37 Location: Reno, Nev. Founded: 2006 Employees: 47 2012 Projected Revenue: $10.5 million Website: http://www.3gstudios.com/pages/home/

GM IPO Soaring, But GM as an Investment? Blech. - Deal Journal - WSJ

http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2010/11/18/gm-ipo-soaring-but-gm-as-an-inve...

NOVEMBER 18, 2010, 12:26 PM ET

General Motors clearly isn’t having a tough time finding buyers — when it comes to its stock. Shares are up about 7% on its first trading day as a refurbished public company, and that’s after the offering was increased and the price raised.

But not everyone is enthusiastic. Earlier, I wrote skeptically about the initial public offering in this Writing on the Wall column, and reached out to potential investors. Almost all contacted were less-than floored with the prospect of owning G.M.

Associated Press

Evan Kirkpatrick, a financial adviser in Seattle, said he’s not surprised with the early gains GM has made in the market today, but “with the government remaining a significant shareholder after the IPO, the uncertainty risk exceeds the potential gain for our clients,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see the hype surrounding the offering lead to high volume and potentially rapid gains, but we prefer more predictable”

investments.

Perhaps not surprisingly, advisers in Michigan were less skeptical. David Aquilina, an adviser in Troy, Mich., said GM is really a “new company” and that there will be “tremendous drive to get it right” but cautions all bets are off if we get a double-dip recession.

“The GM IPO is a long term hold, and that they will be an owner along with the U.S. government,” Aquilina said. “UAW and CAW, each with a vested interest in seeing the company do well.”

Robert Barone, who heads Ancora West Advisors in Reno, Nevada, said much of GM’s problems have to do with a customer base “loaded” with debt.

“GM is facing a saturated car market in an industry with loads of capacity,” Barone said. “There is a reasonable probability that they will still have trouble competing due to the high fixed costs involved in U.S. production.

“Unless GM can reinvent itself, and become a low-cost manufacturer of quality vehicles at competitive prices, the IPO will more than likely turn out to be a poor investment over the next decade.”

Bill Smead, manager of the Smead Value Fund, sees GM at the mercy of a bigger macroeconomic picture, one that doesn’t favor the remade car company.

“Along with emerging markets and commodities, these cyclical companies show you it’s late in the party,” Smead said “In my time in the investment business, I have never seen such a ridiculous premium put on this kind of additional risk.”

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GM IPO Soaring, But GM as an Investment? Blech. - Deal Journal - WSJ

http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2010/11/18/gm-ipo-soaring-but-gm-as-an-inve...

And even retail investors were cool to the offering.

Becky Sturm, who owns a beauty shop in St. Paul, Minn., said she doesn’t want any part of “bailed out” companies and this extends to the products they buy as well.

“I have purchased GM cars and trucks my entire life, but being a small business owner and witnessing the behavior during and the mismanagement of the companies that were bailed out by our government, I will never purchase or recommend another GM car in my lifetime.”

Like Sturm, Elizabeth Cohee, an attorney in Oakland, Calif., isn’t recommending the products or the stock.

“GM has shown that they believe themselves to be immune from adherence to the standard practices that provide even a modicum of protection to the average investor,” Cohee said. “A certain amount of trust is required when a company asks investors to finance their operations; GM has demonstrated that they are not worthy of that trust.”

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