Twist of Lime, with the help of developer Alexis Sarthou and designer Kate Dore of Dore Davis Design, completed and launched the new 1% for the Tetons Web site last Monday, January 25. The new site represents an evolutionary step not only for the online presence of 1% for the Tetons, but for the organization itself.

The site was designed with an eye toward simplicity, ease of updating and with future expansion in mind. The design highlights Members and Grants, and it allows Members to update their own profiles and make offers to Members, Supporters and the public at large. There are now dedicated Members, Grants and News areas, where the proof of this incredible concept are showcased.

The launch of this new site comes just as 1% for the Tetons announced its new granting process. The new process involves two rounds for grant applicants and will feature an as-yet-to-be-released function of the new site that will allow Members and the public to cast their vote for potential grants by making pledges. This new function will be unveiled in the next several months. You can read more about the new grants process here.

I wrote about bottled water early on in this blog. I hate it. Hate the bottles mostly, but the whole concept in a country that has the safest drinking water right from the multitude of faucets in your own home and workplace — yes, even the one in the bathroom — is completely ridiculous on so many levels. Hated it then and still hate it now.

At least some people are starting to wake up the atrocity known as bottled water, including the good folks at Brita who have had growing success with the “Filter For Good” program.

But many, many people still blithely buy into this scourge of the earth. Which is why I’m glad to see this infographic from the good folks at OnlineEducation. Don’t miss this. And you can put the graphic on your site with this code.

Presented by Online Education

"Where to Put it All" opens tonight, Friday, December 11, at 5:30 p.m. in the Center for the Arts in Jackson.

My wife, Miga Rossetti, has been working hard for the past many months on a new body of artwork that is now hanging in the Center for the Arts in Jackson. Please join us tonight, Friday, December 11, at 5:30 p.m. for the opening reception in the Center Theater Gallery for her show, “Where To Put It All.”

Every spring a squadron of robins attempts to build nests between the rafters of our front porch. Some fail and some succeed, but each works frantically, collecting bits of all kinds of grasses and twigs, to build their potential new homes and rear a new brood of chicks. Regardless of their level of success, we’re left with a number of abandoned nests at the end of the summer. These nests have become the inspiration for Miga’s latest body of work, “Where to Put it All.”

There are birds and nests and symbols of all kinds in her new paintings. They reflect her desire to create order from the relative chaos that is the collective life of our family. We are freelancers, entrepreneurs, parents and fun-hogs (not necessarily in that order). We work in graphic design, art, marketing, writing, and we run a greeting card company. We have two beautiful daughters who are wildly active and creative and produce a never-ending stream of drawings, projects and whatnot. And we live in a place that allows us to be active outdoors, skiing, cycling, hiking, paddling and whatever else. How to get it all done and then where to put it all?

Special thanks to the Art Association of Jackson Hole for sponsoring this show and hosting this opening, which is hosted in part by The Liquor Store and The Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund.

Columbia Sportswear has done a great job of incorporating utility into their marketing on Pandora.

I love utility. My dad was very hands-on and could build or fix anything: a car, a plane, a house, whatever. Luckily, I got his knack for being able to fix things, and while I am no longer a “practicing” carpenter, I spent several years doing it, still take on my own home-improvement projects, have a shop full of tools and am a big sucker for hardware stores and Tool Crib catalogs.

I’m also a pragmatist and favor products and services that make my life better or easier, and that translates to marketing. There are all kinds of examples of utilitarian marketing strategies (though still far too many non-utilitarian marketing efforts), and with the interactivity of online marketing, these “utilities” are becoming more prevalent.

That’s why I was pleased to see what Columbia Sportswear has come up with in its marketing on Pandora. First of all, Pandora is a great example of radio letting us drive the bus, to a certain extent. We get to vote up or down songs within a particular strain of a genre, or “station,” in exchange for great free music of almost any type. A compromise for sure, but it is interactive radio at its best.

Now, because the reality of all this online content is that it actually costs money to produce (as much as we want to be in denial about that), Pandora has had to explore a few monetization schemes, and I give them kudos for introducing advertising in a way that isn’t too obtrusive.

(more…)

Welcome to the newly redesigned MarketGreener and Twist of Lime sites. Or is it the newly redesigned Twist of Lime and MarketGreener sites? Whichever it is, they’re now joined at the hip!

I launched MarketGreener just over two years ago as a way to dip my toe into the world of blogging. Since then I have learned a lot about blogging — including what it is and isn’t for me — and I’ve garnered a decent audience along the way. While not a huge following, there are some regular readers among you and a lot of others who have simply stumbled across this site. And since my focus from the beginning  has been to write about what I find interesting or helpful in the world of marketing and sustainable business practices, I’ve tried not to use it as a soapbox for my business.

But then, about six months after establishing this blog, I left the world of the gainfully employed to start Twist of Lime, a marketing and content services agency. My first site was built by me using Dreamweaver. And while I was confident with my DW skills and proud to have successfully built my own site, I have always known that design is not my forté and that the previous site was not the strongest calling card for someone trying to make a sizable chunk of  his income from building Web sites.

I’ve learned a lot in the past year-and-a-half, both from my clients and my teammates. The result of some of that knowledge is here in this redesigned site. Design was done by my wonderful wife Miga, who’s own skills in Web design are growing, and the development was handled by Alexis Sarthou, whom I have known and worked with since my Circumerro days and is very talented in the ways of building WordPress templates (yes, this site is powered by WordPress!), among other fine development skills. And, from time to time, some of what I do on the business side does and will continue to show up here on MarketGreener.

Please take some time to check out the new site. There are still a few tweaks to make and I welcome any and all (constructive) feedback. And I hope you continue to read the blog, and that you enjoy it enough to share it with others. Please bookmark it, join our email list or subscribe in a reader. And as always, enjoy!

I’m finally getting caught up on things after last week’s Wyoming Business Council Idea Expo. While attendance was down some from previous years, I felt the program was very worth while. Of course, my completely biased opinion is based on the fact that I gave two very well-received seminars. I had gone prepared to present only my search engine optimization seminar but was asked at the last minute to talk also about social media marketing. This seminar turned out to be one of the best-attended of all during the Idea Expo.

Social media marketing is obviously very hot right now, and the interest Wyoming businesses are taking in this topic is understandably high.
(more…)

Well folks, it’s official: I’ll be speaking at the Wyoming Business Council’s Idea Expo the end of this month. The Conference runs Monday and Tuesday, September 28 and 29. Specifically, I will be giving my seminar on The Basics of Search Engine Optimization on Monday afternoon at 4 pm. Before that I will be either participating in a panel discussion on using social media for business or giving my own presentation on the same subject. Haven’t heard yet which it will be, but I’m going prepared.

(more…)