Eco-Friendly Digital Marketing Internship

As the main focus of my eco-friendly internship I am assisting with and updating the  social media accounts for United Way of Washtenaw County.  As an intern with Ingenex, I am currently focusing on the Twitter and facebook accounts for this excellent cause.  United Way, as a whole, has roots dating back to 1887 and has been assisting with community needs by helping to cope with challenges throughout the Great Depression and World War II.  The organization has had several different names over the years, but has maintained the goal of building communities and motivating people to help others.

United Way of Washtenaw County began around 1920 when the Arbor United Charitable and Community Service was organized.  For over 89 years UWWC has worked to improve community standards collectively by directly impacting critical issues.  UWWC partners strategically with local non-profits that provide human and health-care services in order to actively assist with high-priority issues in the community.  UWWC re-evaluates each of its partner non-profits with each years campaign to ensure that they are on topic, financially stable, and reporting benefits to the Washtenaw community through their efforts.  To see this years community partners for United Way Washtenaw visit their website.

Each Year United Way launches an active campaign around Labor Day, incorporating local employers and over 1,000 volunteers, which runs through the end of December and .  United way accepts donations year-round, but the largest concentration of promotional efforts to improve the lives of everyone in the community is during these annual campaigns .  This years campaign for UWWC focuses on on improving five critical issues for Washtenaw County:  shelter and housing, health-care, early childhood care and education, alleviating hunger and aging in place.  The campaign slogan is Give, Advocate, Volunteer.  Live United.

If you are interested in volunteering, donating, or just learning more about what United Way Washtenaw does visit them on Twitter, facebook, and their website!  Live United!

Google Wave launched a week ago. Yes, you might be upset because you didn’t get an invite, but that’s no reason to boycott it. Courtesy of Mashable, I’ve summarized some of the most important aspects of this redefining Web tool:

According to Mashable, “Google Wave is a real-time communication platform.” It’s real-time, so you can witness what other people are typing, character-by-character. Waves can be added to any blog or Web site and be edited by anyone else (wiki). Developers can build apps. in Google Wave; users can playback what’s been said in the past and can drag-and-drop files for sharing. These are just some features associated with Google Wave.

So, what exactly is a wave? “A wave, specifically, refers to a specific threaded conversation. It can include just one person, or it can include a group of users or even robots…Anything you’ve ever discussed in a single chat or conversation is a wave.” Within waves are wavelets, threaded conversations that contain blips, which are the single, individual messages. Blips are like lines in a IM conversation. It is also possible to post documents, extensions, gadgets…pretty much anything that can be shared.

Inside waves, you can share gadgets. For instance, any application already created in iGoogle or OpenSocial can be run within Google Wave. What’s nice is that applications are specific to waves, not individual users. In Facebook, you have to register for that specific app. to use it; in Google Wave, it belongs to everyone in that wave.

Robots are the other wave extensions. However, they’re more robust than the past annoying robots. “They can talk with users and interact with waves. They can provide information from outside sources (i.e. Twitter) or they can check content within a wave and perform actions based on them (i.e. provide you a stock quote if a stock name is mentioned).”

You can even embed a Google Wave conversation and use it as chat room, as a way for visitors to contact you, or something more.

Google Wave is still in its early phases, but soon it will be avaliable for all of us to enjoy and connect with.

So I’m writing this post nearly 4000 miles away from a little city in Spain called Granada. These days, one doesn’t have to be at home to stay close to the events of the week or even to work. With modern technology, specifically social networks, I am able to not only sufficiently complete my work remotely abroad from Spain, but I am able to stay up to date with my social circle and inform my family of my doings and whereabouts. Here are some of the tools I use and how I use them while traveling and working abroad…

Twitter: Without a doubt my favorite and most efficient tool. In the past, I kept a log of my travels via a blog, but it turned into a narrative of cathedrals and bars. I think the best parts of traveling are the little things you encounter, the things you don’t really remember to put in your blog. By connecting Twitter to my mobile phone, I can let my family and friends live my travels as they happen in real time simply by tweeting my experiences for the entire world to see. I did however run into a bit of trouble though when I promised my family I would tweet that I was safe as soon as I was done running with the bulls. My phone ran out of euros and I wasn’t able to let anyone know I was safe, chaos ensued and my parents and girlfriend started calling hospitals in Pamplona and everyone thought I had died. Have no fear I’m still here and am NOT writing this post from 6 feet under.

Skype: In my opinion, this is the best video chat application on the market. Not only can you chat for free Skype to Skype, but for mere fractions of a penny I can call anyone in the world. Skype has given me the ability to stay close with my family and friends without costing me a dime. As a messaging utility, Skype is fast, robust, and lightweight. Skype also allows me to have the ability to SMS anyone in the world for some outrageously cheap rates. Another amazing snippet about Skype, they have opened their communication protocol for others to use. In laymen’s terms, other software engineers can integrate Skype’s VOIP technology to offer even more incredible features in the future.

Wikitravel: This is without a doubt my favorite website for traveling. Everyone loves Wikipedia, but Wikitravel takes it a step further and specializes the information strictly for traveling. Don’t k

now where to go for the weekend? Simply hop on Wikitravel and start surfing until you find that hidden little gem nestled deep in the woods or on a beach miles from civilization.

Facebook: This is an obvious one. One of the depressing parts of traveling is not knowing what is going on at home. Facebook’s mini-feed does an incredible job of making me feel like I am still sitting on my couch in East Lansing. Through traveling, I try and friend nearly everyone I meet. I have established my network around the world which I will be able to rely upon in the future. Too often people limit themselves to a close social network, my intention is to establish small networks all over the world and leverage them all as one. The possibilities are simply endless, upon my return next year I will have friends in just about every country imaginable.

Or Both.  For those of you unfamiliar with the latest foray into digital reading devices, Amazon has provided us with the Kindle DX.  The major difference being the larger screen it offers from its predecessors.  The finer details, however, being, according to Amazon (because who can say it better, right?):

“At Amazon, we’ve always been obsessed with having every book ever printed, and we know that even the best reading device would be useless without a massive selection of books you want to read. Today, the Kindle Store has more than 275,000 books available, plus top newspapers, magazines, and blogs. This is just the beginning. Our vision is every book ever printed, in any language, all available in less than 60 seconds. We won’t stop until we get there.

Whether you prefer biographies, classics, investment guides, thrillers, or sci-fi, thousands of your favorite books are available, including 107 of 112 books currently found on the New York Times® Best Seller list. New York Times Best Sellers and most new releases are $9.99, and you’ll find many books for less.”

Now, on the surface of things, you may ask yourself, what in that description warrants such a doomsday title to this blog entry?  Well, hold on a sec, first let’s look at the good that it brings.  For starters, everything previously mentioned – books, newspapers, magazines, and blogs on-demand and at your fingertips.  You can carry an entire library in your bag, purse, or briefcase.  Not to mention, it has 3G Wireless, text-to-speech (in other words, it reads to you), and supports PDF.  Beneath the surface, there’s the Eco-Friendly benefits, as well.  The first thing that comes to mind, while simple, is it saves trees.  No more paper, no more chopping down trees, right?  Environment – 1, End of the World – 0 in that regard.  It also decreases pollution caused by the production of books, magazines, and newspapers, and eliminates the damage done to the environment throughout the distribution channels, mainly the carbon footprint left by shipping.  All in all it sounds like a pretty great product…but wait…

There has to be something wrong with it.  Well, let’s start with the hefty price tag.  The original Kindle 2.0 can be had for $359, with the Kindle DX being available for pre-order at $489.  But in the end, the price is only a barrier to entry for those that can’t afford it…like interns or college students.  So say you can afford it, is that the only drawback? No, for starters, when a date comes over, you can’t leave random copies of classic novels and famous treatises lying around to impress them if they’re all on your Kindle.  You could also lose it and there goes your library in one fell swoop.  However, most importantly, what about the demise of the publishing industry as we know it? If everything becomes digital, then what’s the point of actual newspapers, books, or magazines?  If more and more people are simply downloading their reading material, then the printed word will cease to exist because 1) advertisers don’t want to advertise in a medium that doesn’t reach anyone, 2) there’s no point in printing them if no one is buying them.

For some of us, that’s just not something we want to see.  What about curling up with nice, big hardcover novel on a cold winter’s night?  Or bending the hell out of a paperback on the train home from work?  What about spreading the Sunday newspaper out in front of you at the kitchen table while sipping a cup of hot coffee?  Or rolling up last week’s edition of Entertainment Weekly or the Economist to kill a pesky fly (or shoo it out the window for you bug activists)?  Heck, some people will even miss the ink stains that begin on your fingers and somehow end up on your face, furniture, and clothes when reading the New York Times.  The point being, that innovation often spells the demise of something in favor of another.  Horse-n-buggy? Automobile.  VCR? DVD.  Knowing stuff? Google.

In the end, though, it’s all up to the Invisible Hand…of the Almighty?  No, of Adam Smith.  In other words, it’s up to all of you.  If enough consumers want it, then the Kindle will thrive.  If everyone wants it, then the Kindle and other products like it will replace our ink and paper past.  However, hopefully the Kindle becomes what it should be, a way to get people to read again and read more.  Not a replacement for books or newspapers, but a bridge between nothing and something…a complement to one’s library and subscriptions as a convenient way to read while traveling or commuting or a way get a book right away rather than having to drive to the bookstore or wait days for your Amazon order to arrive.

For someone who considers themselves a traditionalist, your humble blogger here sees the Kindle as a hopeful good-natured cousin to the printed word that will peacefully coexist and grow the world of literature rather than destroy it.  Always a fan of new gadgets, as long I can have my cake (the traditional book, magazine, and newspaper) and eat it too (the Kindle), I won’t complain.  And finally, a note to Amazon: If you would like to send the Eco-Friendly Interns a Kindle or two to test for ourselves, this blog entry can easily be edited to remove any and all elements deemed to cast the Kindle in a negative light.  Thank you.

How about an email marketing campaign?
In a world where customers are continuously bombarded by communications a company shall find the best way to catch their attention and let them listen to their messages. In such a setting who is more likely to be the winner is an organization with real interests to share and a smart way to do it.
An Email Marketing Campaign could be one solution to do that. If cleverly planned this instrument could commit a company’s public to its activities and highly improve its image.
You just need three things in order to start with it:
-    Contacts: they might be interested in receiving your news, it thus takes a long preliminary job in order to build relationships with customers and partners.
-    Good contents: you will have to draw your public attention and keep on doing it with captivating and appealing news.  Before starting with your campaign assure you have enough subjects to talk about for the very first period.
-    An email service provider to do it: at least you have to manage just a few contacts you can organize in a mailing list by your own, you will need a program created specially for this purpose. Let’s see how I managed it.
Searching the Web you will find many email service providers created to implement, send, track, and manage your email campaigns. I found out that some of the leaders in email marketing solutions are Vertical Response, Emma, iContact, and AWeber. Reading reviews and trying these four services I learned their commonalties and their differences and I came up with the best solution for me. They are all good in reaching the contacts and allow to import your contacts from an external database, which is really time-saving. Stats, an important tool in order to check the effectiveness of you campaign, are available also for the whole of them.
iContact is very good and affordable if you have a quite small database, as the cost considerably grows up with the increasing of the subscribers. With its more than 300 templates and the possibility for you to design your own, it is the best choice for those companies who will focus their email campaign more on the impact of the message itself than on the contents, as, with respect to other solutions, text is quite wasted in here. It also offers easy ways to setup forms to capture new subscribers from your website and, if you wish to enable that, a double opt-in for added security to your subscribers.
Another good program is Vertical Response.  Unlike iContact this service is much more efficient with the increasing of the list.  They have a good customer support available for online or phone help. They even offer 10,000 free email credits to qualified non-profits.
My Emma is also good, but a little less diffused than the other services considered. It is a nice-to-use program and its cost is quite low for small lists. As for iContact one of the strengths of this service is the design offered. Nevertheless, it is not recommended for business purpose as it does not allow differentiated communication or the creation of lower level lists.
My final choice went to Aweber. This service is recommended for medium size senders as it offers a complete set of features and good flex in use. With respect to iContacts and MyEmma, it has less graphical options, but, as my mailing campaign will be focused on interesting contents, I prefer not to have the text limitations those services have. What I liked the most about Aweber is its reliability and its strong anti-spam policy. This provider guarantees a full and personalized customer service, accessible by chat, phone, or even twitter, and with one person assigned to you for all support calls.
We will see what results this communication will bring. For now, I am happy to be involved in this new challenge that will see me always up to date and in the very first line to surprise my public with interesting and innovative news!

Marta Battiston

Obviously technology has played a ubiquitous roll on this very long and daunting path towards the White House. As we speak, I am glued to CNN on my TV, Huffington Post on my computer as the poll results continue to trickle in from precinct to precinct, state to state. Technology and digital media’s pogressive evolution has made this election unlike any election in history. It truly blows my mind that I have access to up-to-the-second poll results. However, access to this technology on Election Eve has become more like an addiction. And I’m enjoying every second of it.

Perhaps one of the most revolutionary and beneficial uses of technology was seen in Barack Obama’s campaign efforts. Obama and his organizers were able to assemble an email and text messaging campaign that seemingly amassed millions of foot soldiers. Not only did these digital campaigns provide subscribers with the latest information on Obama’s live and televised appearances, they provided volunteer opportunities and donation opportunities. This is a ground breaking and strategy and clearly it worked for Obama. This campaign resulted in a super wealthy campaign that was able to advertise on many media outlets across the nation. McCain’s campaign, on the other hand, was substantially poorer. Was this a result of Obama’s utilization digital resources? Perhaps.

No doubt Obama picked up where Howard Dean left. Dean’s campaign manager, Joe Trippi. An article on GovTech discusses the way that Trippi was able to utilize the internet and create a grassroots organization to take what was an obscure candidate with very little campaign money and turn him into a legitimate contender for the Democratic ticket. By taking the campaign online, they were able to cut campaign costs while simultaneously gaining access new forms of fundraising. Previously, the internet had only been used to make in-person campaign easier and more organized (think listings of mass-mailings). Until 2004, no one had taken campaigns online.

Obama’s digital campaign literacy has revolutionized the way people access political information. Obama has appealed to the Google and Facebook generation, which no doubt resulted in astronomical figures in the polls. Last night we watched history in the making- a revolutionary campaign has made way for a revolutionary Presidential candidate.

Our Human brains tend to operate in dichotomies: good and bad, man and woman, Obama and McCain and… nature and technology?! Humanity, or more specifically our advances in technology, have largely been responsible for the degradation of ecosystems, exhaustion of resources and extinction of species. Technology is therefore intrinsically in opposition to nature… or is it?

Ok, so our societal advancements have not always treaded lightly on our Mother Earth. It cannot be denied that we have done some irreversible damage. That being said, we are still a part of these integral ecosystems and what is done has been done. It is then, perhaps the most beneficial to utilize our technological advancements to help preserve, conserve and reduce what damage has been done (when possible). Yes, this is a rather large task, and one may ask simply how can you even begin to approach this? Well…

With the advent and ubiquity (literally) of the internet, solutions may be as simple as running a Google search. I recently stumbled upon a website boasting the ‘30 Best Eco Sites.’ As is turns out I hit the green goldmine of eco-sites! This site features a list of some of the best green internet resources. These top 30 sites include everything from environmental blogging, eco-clothing and products and day-to-day living tips. Each and every site serves as an excellent educational green resource, and I highly recommend that you check it out.

On site on this list that caught my eye in particular was EcoGeek. EcoGeek focuses on the connection between nature and technology and aims to prove that green gadgets can be good. Ah ha! Just what I was looking for- people are actually synthesizing these two concepts that until recently (and I mean recently) were definitively at odds. Maybe, just maybe, we can use this internet thing as a platform for a universal green movement…? Sure, technology has been bad for our planet. But it’s time to realize that technology may also have the power to begin to heal the environment. Shunning or ignoring the omnipresence of modern day technology will do nothing to save the planet. We must accept the reality of this situation and begin to use the tools we have at hand to begin to work towards a more sustainable future.

In the past several years, the hideous truth about plastic bags has been gaining more and more media attention. People are beginning to realize what these bags are made from (petroleum) and how long it takes them to disintegrate in landfills (a long time, should they make it there). 

I began to realize this anti-plastic bag mass movement has trickled down to a variety of large chain stores in the local Ann Arbor area. Although perhaps this is an attempt to tap into the ‘green niche’ rather than operating out of eco-consciousness, I feel optimistic none-the-less that environmental stewardship is beginning to be addressed on a larger scale level.

Last night I was shopping for various toiletries at my local Rite-Aid. I noticed that even they carried cloth bags emblazoned with their logo! I was a initially a little shocked, and proceeded to the cash register where I told the clerk that I didn’t need a plastic bag. He seemed amazed at my ability to carry my three items by hand out to my car. He proceeded to let me know that some of his regular patrons will ask to double bag unnecessary items (such as a gallon of milk).

Wasteful behavior such as this makes me feel fortunate that many stores are beginning to add additional taxes when you use plastic bags. Additionally, many cities and states are beginning to propose an all-together ban on plastic bags. Both measures have proven to be very successful. In fact, China’s ban on plastic bags will save an estimated 37 million barrels of oil! This ban extends to the free bags distributed to customers. 

Unfortunately, not everyone is willing to ban plastic bags or even to tax them. The city of Dallas’s local council recently stated that banning plastic bags and food containers would have a “negative impact on the local environment, the economy and the school system.” They went on to say they believe in educating people about what is responsible behavior and simply “not to litter…” a preventative measure that works oh so well…

All in all I am totally in favor of bans or taxes on plastic bags. I think that this is absolutely a step in the right direction; if people are more aware of their conspicuous consumption, then they are forced to take a step back and reevaluate their behavior. This increase in environmental awareness in recent years has spurred many programs that adress the urgent need for stewardship and sustainability. 

Recently, Ingenex has begun to research Michigan State University’s Be Spartan Green program. As discussed in my recent blog post, we hope to bring our eco-friendly internship program to help bring digital and environmental education to East Lansing. It is through awareness and education made possible largely due to digital technologies that we can work and strive towards a more sustainable future.

There are literally hundreds of social media networking tools available on the web, many of which are free and fairly simple to figure out. While it is debatable which is the ‘best’ utility (as this is fairly opinion based), there is no doubt in my mind that Twitter offers something distinctive in the realm of digital technologies. Twitter can be used as a social networking tool through short, 140 ‘micro-blogs’ or ‘tweets’ as they’re called, that serve as status updates for an individual, organization or company. You can choose whose updates you receive and similarly people can add you and follow your updates. Here is one of the coolest features of the site: the ability to receive updates from your contacts via the Twitter webpage, through Facebook, as an RSS feed, SMS text message or via Instant Messages. Additionally, you can have your Twitter account automatically publish a link to your latest blog posts. You also can control your privacy settings and restrict who receives your tweets.

Twitter allows you to create your own personal profile complete with biography and links to any personal webpages that you may have. You can search all other Twitter profiles to find people in close proximity to you and with similar backgrounds and interests. Twitter is straight to the point; it allows for you to share instant information with a network of contacts in a concise manner.

This image is known as the Fail Whale, an iconic aspect of Twitter.

Many businesses and business-minded individuals alike have put this Web 2.0 tool to good use. Companies such as Whole Foods, CNN and JetBlue all have accounts that provide consumers with relevant-up-to-date information in their respective industry. You can also follow both Democratic and Republican Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates on Twitter- really useful to provide up to date information about their campaigns. 

Twitter is continuing to grow in size and popularity as many businesses are realizing that this tool serves to fill a unique digital niche. Not only can tweets provide up-to-the-second information about products and services offered by your business, but it serves as an interactive forum where a business-consumer dialogue can occur, allowing for maximum success on behalf of all parties. Of course, this interaction is even more beneficial for a business that operates in a primarily digital field (take Ingenex, for example).

Twitter is showing itself to quickly be the way of the future. Because accounts can be created for both individuals and large corporations, the type of information transmitted in a tweet can cover a wide range of meanings and purposes. Corporations can notify followers of potential sales, while individuals can let their contacts know that they’ve just recently posted a blog entry worth checking out. Tweets are short but extremely multi-faceted in terms of use and the type of audience they can potentially reach. I definitely recommend utilizing this social networking tool for both your personal and business needs.