I find marketing extremely interesting because the tactics change rapidly, while the basic principles never do. If I was hiring an agency, I’d want a team that brings together the old and the new, even though I often have a strong urge to go with whatever’s new. Adpearance is a Portland, OR based digital marketing agency that crafts “campaigns that launch from the solid foundations of traditional marketing, but with the added benefit of statistical analysis.” They’ve taken the best of both worlds and combined them into a complete offering that is focused on the most important thing: client ROI.
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I downloaded my first MP3 from an AOL chat room. I was an extremely early adopter when it came to “file sharing,” but after the lawsuits started and some of my favorite services were shut down, I gave up. Torrenting became all of the rage, and I missed the boat. I’ve heard a lot about BitTorrent, but I never realized that they are a real company with more than 100 employees. They’re based in San Francisco, CA, and they are “passionate about building a better, smarter Internet through distributed computing.” That may sound like an unattainable mission for such a small company, but it’s not. BitTorrent’s protocols account for 20-40% of the Internet’s traffic, which means that the company has a ton of influence..
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Cupcakes are supposed to be a miniature version of cake–a more reasonable and practical dessert. Yet as they moved from grade school birthday celebrations to being a culinary trend, they seemed to get bigger and more unhealthy–with some even pushing towards 1,000 calories. Tons of businesses popped up and seemed to offer more and more decadent cupcakes, and then the bubble burst. So how did one cupcake company continue to grow despite tons of competition and fading interest from consumers? By offering mini cupcakes that won’t instantly make your pants feel tighter. Baked By Melissa is a New York, NY based company that was started with “the idea that people should be able to taste more flavors without that post-dessert guilt trip.” Three cupcakes from Baked By Melissa add up to 140 calories. It’s still not health food, but it’s a reminder of what cupcakes were originally meant to be.
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In the 80s and early 90s it was popular to foretell that we were only a few years away from having robots ingrained in our daily lives. That obviously didn’t happen. Even with today’s technology, a seemingly sentient robot like Screech from Saved by the Bell’s Kevin is unrealistic, but we’ve made a ton of progress. There are robots that sweep floors, wash floors, clean gutters, clean pools, dispose of bombs, and lots more. iRobot makes robots that do all of those things, and much more. The company is based in Beford, MA and “was founded in 1990 by Massachusetts Institute of Technology roboticists with the vision of making practical robots a reality.” That reality is finally here.
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systems administration
Last night we celebrated my fiancée’s cousin’s ninth birthday. I found out that his latest interest is professional wrestling, so I spent most of the night body slamming him into a beanbag chair. I’m no wrestling connoisseur, but I know a few moves–it was just about the best birthday present I could have given him. When I was growing up, it was a semi-open secret that professional wrestling was stage. Now it’s fully acknowledged. If you want the real stuff, you go to Ultimate Fighting Championship, a company that “revolutionized the fight business, and today stands as the world’s leading MMA promoter.” UFC is based in Las Vegas, NV, and has developed from a fringe sport that got its start in the early 90s to a mainstream sport that gets coverage on ESPN. The story of how UFC went from being outlawed in most states to being widely accepted is fascinating, which is why I highly recommend that you read the Wikipedia article on UFC. It’s a long story, but it will give you insight into both politics and business.
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Latin America is a region with amazing economic potential. I haven’t spent a ton of time there, but I’ve spent enough to know that the business climate is very different from the U.S., and can vary significantly from country to country. Still, the economies of Latin American countries are very closely tied to each other, and that makes it extremely important that there is cooperation and communication amongst the business community. The Group of Fifty is a Washington, DC based non-profit that is made up of select “business leaders who head some of the most significant and forward-looking enterprises in Latin America.” The organization provides “a forum for the leaders of the region’s most important companies to address changes as they appear in different sectors and markets, to hear from their peers in other countries about alternative business strategies, and to compare experiences and exchange ideas about the future of the hemisphere, its economies and its politics.”
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If there’s a time to get out and enjoy your city’s parks, it’s right now. The weather is beautiful, everything is in bloom, and most people will be in a good mood as they enjoy the first few weeks of great weather. While a nice park is great on its own, it can be even better with some top notch programming to bring the community together. City Parks Foundation is a New York, NY based non-profit that creates “programs in parks throughout all five boroughs of New York City.” They got their start in 1989, and since then they’ve been enriching and connecting “New Yorkers through free and accessible arts, sports, education and community-building initiatives.”
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I enjoy when companies include essentially useless numbers on their websites. It’s fun to see how many cups of coffee they consumed last year or how many left-handed employees they have, but it doesn’t really tell you much. Capstrat has one really important figure mixed into their “a few things you should know” section–they’ve increased employee headcount by 23% over the last year. That’s a big number in any industry, but it’s especially impressive at a full-service ad agency. I’ll bet it has a lot to do with being a leading name in the growing Raleigh, NC market. Capstrat calls itself “the agency helping companies succeed at critical moments,” which lines up perfectly with their top billed skill of finding the perfect way to say exactly what needs to be said.
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It took way too long, but spring (summer?) is finally here. For me that means that I played my first game of beach volleyball on Tuesday, but for many others it’s time to go on a run. The amateurs and the experts are both out in force, and many have ambitions of running faster or longer. If you truly want to commit to improving something, you have to measure it. RunKeeper is Boston, MA based company that “transforms your phone into a personal trainer, helping you track your runs, set your goals, and stay motivated to go that extra mile!” If you use Facebook, you’ve almost certainly seen a friend post one of their runs via RunKeeper.
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I use a credit/debit card for almost all of my purchases. It makes it extremely easy to track where, when, and how I spend my money. I actually get annoyed when I have to pay cash. Unsurprisingly, I’m not the only one who likes to collect data on my purchases. Pretty much every business that could potentially sell me something would love to have more data about me. Datalogix is a company that collects that data. They are based in Westminster, CO, and they “leverage the power of purchase-based audience targeting to drive measurable online and offline sales.” They started by collecting offline purchase data, but now they’re mixing that data with online, direct mail, e-mail, and mobile. That’s an amazingly powerful combination.
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I’ve mentioned a few times that I’ve been working hard to get in shape for my wedding. So far I’ve lost about 35 pounds while adding muscle. All of my success has come from the Paleo diet and a personal trainer. I like sticking to the basics when it comes to health, but some people are looking for an answer in a bottle. NutraClick provides such answers. They are a Boston, MA based natural products company that builds “brands by developing winning products and leveraging the power of online marketing to drive offline demand.” So far they have products in Sports Nutrition, Natural Health, Age-Specific Skincare, and Beauty (with a side of social selling), and I’m sure more are on the way.
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While I really enjoy reading about entrepreneurs’ personal journeys, I don’t take much interest in their personal lives unless it’s especially relevant to the business’ story. A divorce would typically be completely irrelevant in one of these posts, but today’s it worth talking about. You’ve probably heard of Tory Burch, an extremely successful fashion brand named after its founder (who is now a billionaire). Tory Burch, the person, got divorced from J. Christopher Burch in 2006. After the divorce, Chris Burch decided to start a chain of retail stores called C. Wonder. His ex-wife obviously left a lasting impression, since it’s widely cited that New York, NY based C. Wonder has taken a lot of inspiration from Tory Burch’s designs, while selling the “preppy” goods at a much lower price. There were a few lawsuits and some bad blood, but all seems to be settled now.
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Happy Mother’s Day! I’m lucky enough to get to spend today with my mom. She’s in town for some wedding planning stuff, so we’re enjoying our first Mother’s Day together in years. While I have great memories of all of the amazing things my mom has done for me, some of the most important things that she did happened before I can remember. Good mothering is most essential in the first few years of life, and that’s why the National Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies Coalition was started as a response to the US Surgeon General’s conference on infant mortality. They’re an Alexandria, VA based non-profit that “is a recognized leader and resource in maternal and child health, reaching an estimated 10 million health care professionals, parents, and policymakers through its membership of over 100 local, state and national organizations.”
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College students have a reputation for being broke, yet they always find a way to buy the essentials (most often that seems to be beer). In fact, most students borrow money to pay for their education, so it seems a bit odd to consider them a lending source. Yet that’s exactly what Lend for America is doing. They’re a New Brunswick, NJ based non-profit that believes that “with the right tools, college students can change the lives of their communities’ low-income families and gain a broader social perspective.” The tools they are talking about are centered around microfinance–a way that people even on college student budgets can make a meaningful investment.
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As an online publisher I understand how difficult it is to balance ads and content. I’m lucky in that the job search space allows a little more flexibility–most job postings are technically ads, so people don’t really differentiate between “editorial” and paid placement (though I still try to). The toughest part for most publishers is that ads perform best when they blend in with the content. This is really hard to do in an honest and unobtrusive way, but that’s exactly what Vibrant Media tries to do. They are based in New York, NY, and they are “the world’s leading provider of in-content contextual technology that gets brand content and advertising discovered across platforms.” With a network of more than 6,000 publishers they are able to reach upwards of 300,000,000 unique visitors every month.
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Right after I graduated college, I started investing in the stock market. I’ve more than doubled my money since then, which means that I made some pretty good decisions. One stock that I was considering at the time was CWTR. It was around $45 back then, and I thought that I had a few good reasons to believe that the stock would go up from there. Luckily, I didn’t buy. The stock is now at less than $4 per share–and that’s after a 4 for 1 reverse stock split. I’m glad that I avoided that -98% return on investment. While Coldwater Creek, which is based in Sandpoint, ID (with a design center New York, NY), has certainly struggled over the past 6 years, that doesn’t mean that you should overlook the potential opportunity. The multi-channel “specialty retailer of women’s apparel, jewelry and accessories” started as a one-room mail order business. They obviously had an amazing growth period that took them to going public, and now it’s time for them to get back on track.
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I made a big mistake in sixth grade. I decided to take French instead of Spanish. In the time since, the Spanish speaking population in the United States has skyrocketed, while whether the French speaking population has grown or shrunk is pretty much irrelevant. Here’s a stat that tells you all that you need to know: almost 10% of all U.S. based Google searches are done in Spanish. Bilingual marketing is becoming a huge business, and we all know that local marketing is already huge. YaSabe is a Herndon, VA based company that is brining the two together. They are “committed to connecting businesses, Latino culture, and community allowing users to be ‘in the know’ and confidently make choices about how and where to spend their time and money.”
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My soon to be wife and I are planning on moving to a new place in July, which means that we’ve been spending a lot of time on real estate websites. One thing that I’ve learned in the process is that many real estate agents have no idea how to use the Internet. The web is an amazing medium for showing off a property, yet time after time I come across terrible listings for really nice places. Why would you make the first photo in the slideshow of the bathroom? I have no idea, but real estate agents do it all the time. Apparently, they need all of the help that they can get, and that’s exactly what Market Leader offers. They’re a Kirkland, WA based company that provides agents with “tools to effectively generate, manage, and close more transaction.” They even go so far as to guarantee leads for their clients.
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When I was growing up, if we wanted food delivered, it pretty much had to be pizza. For a couple of years, there was a service called “Bring Me My Dinner” where a guy in a tuxedo would bring you a meal from a higher end restaurant, but it didn’t last very long. Then I went to college and the delivery options got more diverse (I could even get cookies delivered after midnight!). Now I live in a big city, and I can get nearly any type of food delivered to my door. But there’s more to delivery that just food. What if I want flowers, groceries, or something from the hardware store? Delivery.com is a New York, NY based company that has been “connecting people like you with merchants in their neighborhoods” since 2004.
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It’s extremely important to surround yourself with ambitious people. Unfortunately, that much easier said than done. Where do you find people who can challenge you? Even if you go to a great college or have impressive parents, it can be hard to find the right kind of people to push you. It gets even harder if you come from a low-income community. That’s why iMentor “builds mentoring relationships that empower students in low-income communities to graduate high school, succeed in college, and achieve their ambitions.” They’re a New York, NY based non-profit that was founded in 1999 and has connected well over 10,000 students with mentors.
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I come from an extremely artistic family. My Dad is an architect, my mom is a graphic designer, and my sister is a painter, yet I have almost no artistic ability. Still, I realize how important it is for every person to engage in some form of creative expression. For me it’s building websites and cooking, but for many people it’s some type of art. Art Enables is a Washington, DC based non-profit that has found that “often people with developmental disabilities are better able to express themselves in images than in words.” The organization fosters this creativity by providing a group of about thirty people (the program is open to those “18 and over from throughout the Washington metropolitan area who are diagnosed with developmental disabilities and who have the desire and the discipline to work at becoming professional visual artists”) with “the resources and supports they need to become visual artists.”
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There used to be three places that you could buy video advertisements: ABC, NBC, and CBS. Now there are millions. Nearly every website has the capability to sell video advertising, though very few have a team to sell the ads the way a tv station would (and that’s not even the best way to do it necessarily). SpotXchange is a Westminster, CO based company that makes buying and selling video advertising easy. In fact, they claim to have “the largest global marketplace of video ad inventory, reaching 110 million unique visitors each month in more than 35 countries.” It allows publishers and brands to link up that might never have connected without SpotXchange.
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It seems that geek culture has finally become mainstream. Maybe it’s the fact that engineers are in high demand at companies like Facebook, Apple, and Google. Or maybe it’s the upsurge in popularity of sites like Reddit. Or maybe it’s shows like The Big Bang Theory. I don’t really know, but for the first time in my lifetime, it’s good to be a geek. So good, in fact, that many of the “popular” kids are now claiming geek status. Whether you’re a true geek or a poser geek, you need geek gear, and ThinkGeek is the place to go for that. They’re a Fairfax, VA based company that started with the “simple idea to create and sell stuff that would appeal to the thousands of people out there who were on the front line and in the trenches as the Internet was forged.”
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Some of you (though probably not most of you) should quit your internship search and start a business. It’s what I did, and I can’t imagine having done anything else. That’s why I’ve spent hundreds of hours talking with and helping aspiring entrepreneurs. Yesterday I came across a Quora answer by Noah Kagan that I wish they had all read before I talked to them. It explains why most people who hold off on pursuing their dream of starting a business are doing so for the wrong reasons. There’s a movement called The Lean Startup that preaches a similar philosophy–starting a company doesn’t need to be expensive and you don’t even need a brilliant idea. Lean Startup Machine is a New York, NY based company that is spreading the philosophy not only to new entrepreneurs but also to people working in more corporate positions.
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In my day… Macs and PCs used completely different file formats. Writing a paper on my Mac (I was one of the few back then) and printing it on one of my school’s PCs was always a risky proposition. If I didn’t convert the file properly, I might end up with no homework and a really lame excuse for my teacher. We’re well past those days, yet many people still struggle with PDFs and other files. A simple request to sign a form and send it back can me lead me down a half hour process of trying to find any way possible to avoid buying a new ink cartridge for my printer. Next time I’m going to try Nitro. They’re a San Francisco, CA based company that builds “easy-to-use products that help people work smarter with digital documents.” Whether it’s for personal use or for a corporation with thousands of employees, Nitro offers a simple, affordable solution.
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I’m headed to Colorado for my bachelor party this weekend. We rented a ranch, and we’re planning on hiking, fishing, and eating meat. My hope was that we’d get shorts and t-shirt weather, but it’s looking more and more like we might need to bring along something from The North Face. It’s not that we’ll be doing any hardcore mountaineering during the trip–it’s just going to be cold. As much as we all know that The North Face, which is based in Alameda, CA, is about pushing “the boundaries of innovation so that you can push the boundaries of exploration,” we also know that a lot of their gear is purchased to keep suburban kids warm while they wait for the school bus. That’s not a slight The North Face. It’s just that when you make high performance clothing and outerwear that looks great and is relatively affordable, people are going to use it in all kinds of situations.
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My dad is an architect. I was dragged on all kinds of architectural tours as a kid, and that hasn’t changed now that I’m adult. Whenever my parents come to visit Chicago, we end up spending an afternoon on some sort of architectural expedition. About half the time my dad comes up with a random place that he wants to see, and we drive around looking for it. The rest of the time, we end up doing a more formal tour–usually through the Chicago Architecture Foundation. It’s a Chicago, IL based non-profit organization that is “devoted to celebrating and promoting Chicago as a center of architectural innovation.” It all started in 1966 when community members banded together to save the Glessner House (we already did that tour) from demolition. That eventually led to the founding of the Chicago Architecture Foundation, which was then a founding member of the Association of Architecture Organizations.
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I used to watch a show called BattleBots. It was a competition between teams that built robots designed to kill each other. I particularly enjoyed the robotic violence, but I could still enjoy watching friendlier robotic competition. That’s what FIRST promotes. They’re a Manchester, NH based non-profit that uses robotics and other forms of technology to “to transform our culture by creating a world where science and technology are celebrated and where young people dream of becoming science and technology leaders.” FIRST stands for “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology,” and it was founded in 1989 by Dean Kamen–the guy who invented the Segway along with quite a few other amazing things.
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As commerce continues to move online, selling things in a retail setting is becoming more and more about offering an experience. Apple is the ultimate example of this–whenever you walk into one of their stores you’re instantly surrounded by excitement. That’s exactly what Charming Charlie is going for. They’re a Houston, TX based “fashion accessories retailer” with more than 200 stores across the country. Their “in-store experience features a breath-taking volume and variety of accessories, ingeniously arranged by color, making that perfect accent fun and easy to find.” It’s something that they’ve been working on since 2004, and they seem to be getting it right.
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There’s a bar in Chicago that is filled with board games. It’s a really good time, if you can get a table. While more and more gaming is moving on to mobile devices, there is still a huge group of people that prefer to sit around a table with friends or family and enjoy a game the old fashioned way. That’s good news for Blue Orange Games, a San Francisco, CA based board game company that was founded in 2001. They now have a catalog of more than 40 games, and they’ve won more than 200 awards. While most of their games aren’t explicitly educational, they are the kinds of games that make you think (they still call them educational). That’s why they’re great for schools, families, and anyone else who is sick of the mindlessness of many of today’s gaming options.
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