It’s been a week now since our Neighborhood Bar-B-Q and it was a great success.  Our theme was “encouraging neighborhood.”  The theme began with the idea of wanting to be involved in our business community, and getting to know those around us.  We realize that oftentimes businesses get “tunnel vision,”—and who can blame them (us) because there are always day-to-day things to deal with in business and one can easily get caught up in their work.  It goes along with the adage, “there are never enough hours in the day.”  The theme of “encouraging neighborhood” actually originated from the fact that we wanted to encourage companies around us to break away from that habit, and we wanted to engage with each other.  That’s why we were (and still are) encouraging neighborhood interaction.  We want the neighborhood to be an encouraging body, not just another business networking group.

At the Neighborhood Bar-B-Q, we had a total of 22 companies represented by approximately 55 individuals.  We enjoyed pulled pork, brats, fresh fruit, salads, grilled vegetables, baked beans, and wonderful desserts.  We also had some great live music from local “neighborhood” talent.

At MOVE, we believe that business is not about just “dollars and cents”; it’s about relationships.

We’d like to extend a big “thank you” to the following organizations that came out in support of our Neighborhood Bar-B-Q!

A2Y Chamber of Commerce—For more information about joining the Chamber, contact Cheryl O’Brian at (734) 665-4433.

A2 Fiber wants you to help them Google to install a high-speed broadband network in AA.

A2Y Leadership—Be a leader.  Explore your community.

AutoKnowledge provides knowledge management software applications for automotive product developers.

Baker Strategy helps you make SMART Customer Strategy happen.

Dominant Systems Computer Networks is offering neighborhood coupons for free analysis services, up to one free hour of telephone support, and PC repair for a flat rate of $159.  (Contact Dominant Systems for more specific information.)

Eagle Crest Conference Resorts is considered to be "The Resort of Southeast Michigan,” an initiative of Eastern Michigan University and a partner with Marriott Hotels.

Goeztcraft Printers has been serving the community since 1900 with full service printing from pre-press to bindery.

Info Ready is a new category of powerful software that streamlines the grant development process.

JOUST Strength and Fitness is offering a neighborhood special for 50% off on workout programs in August.

Marriott Hotels and Resorts is a beautiful facility in Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti that is partnered with the Eagle Crest Conference Resort.

Master Automotive Diagnostics is offering the “neighborhood” a Free Vehicle Inspection Program (V.I.P.) and a detailing package for cars at $79.95 ($89.95 for trucks, SUVs, vans, and crossovers) that includes a coupon for a free V.I.P. oil change. (Contact Master Automotive Diagnostics for more specific information.)

MOVE Communications is an integrated marketing communications company that will help make sure you have the right idea to set your sales in motion.  Call us to set up a free 1-hour consultation on how to improve your marketing by enhancing your website or creating a brand video.

Prakken Publications publishes magazines that focus on technology and education.  Their publications include TechDirections and The Education Digest.

The Produce Station offers delicious fresh produce and superior catering services.

Ribeiro Jiu-Jitsu is a highly accredited Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu academy.

Rightaway Delivery specializes in time-sensitive scheduled deliveries as well as emergency deliveries.

Signs By Tomorrow creates affordable, high-impact signs and visual messaging solutions.

The Southside Business District is a network of some of the best-kept shopping secrets in AA.

U of M Herbarium is a world-class research museum dedicated to the study of plant and fungal diversity in Michigan, the Great Lakes and globally.

Whirly Ball is a game that combines the skill of basketball and Jai-Alai, and is played from electric bumper cars.

Zingerman’s Mail Order offers corporate gifts with ZING!

Today I attended the weekly Lunch Ann Arbor Marketing presentation at Conor O'Neills on Main Street. Aside from having a fantastic lunch, I learned a lot about the importance of music within your strategic plan and messaging. This weeks presenter was Don Kline of Fleming Artists and 8BoxMuxic. He began by going over a history of jingles and their role in advertising. He referred to successful jingles as "earworms," a snippet of a song that gets stuck in your head, it embeds a message in your brain. The very first and one of the most successful earworm was Breakfast of Champions by Wheaties in the 20's. The longest running jingle to ever be used was by Slinky. Slinky's tactic was to use a song that would stick with children like a nursery rhyme, it became part of the family dialogue about toys. Then he talked about how in recent years advertising music has become more mainstream by incorporating popular music and upcoming bands. His example was Cadillac's use of the band Phoenix and Led Zeppelin. It speaks to the generation they are trying to sell to.

Next he talked about obtaining music to use in your marketing materials. There is royalty free music that is free to use, but may be over used, and creative commons licensed music that is licensed by the musician that allows free usage of the music within certain terms; ie. it must be for a charity purpose or you cannot alter it in anyway etc. There are many types of creative commons licenses. He also talked about ASCAP and BMI licensed music as well as master licenses which can cost anywhere from $10 to $10,000+ dollars.

The end of his presentation had some great tips for implementing music on websites and they are as follows:

1) Make sure the music enhances your message and is not just there to be cool.

2) You MUST have an off button, people get really irritated if they don't have an option to stop the music.

3) Be legal. Do your due diligence to make sure the music you are using is, in fact, free to use.

4) Use the best audio quality possible.

5) Make sure the music compliments the site and brand. Don't have smooth jazz playing on a pro-sports team's website.

6) Don't start the music abruptly loud. The view doesn't want to be startled so....

7) Ease into the music.

8) Make sure the music has a purpose. Is it for an intro, background music, etc. People don't usually want to listen to music the entire time they are using the site.

9) Loop the music if necessary.

10) Don't employ the butcher. Make sure the music is fluidly edited and is not choppy.

Make sure to keep up to date with LA2M and support Ann Arbor Fiber!

Happy Friday everyone! I am Claire Harold, the newly hired Graphic Designer for MOVECommunications.  Last week I had the pleasure of attending AIGA Detroit’s Information Architecture & Usability Research workshop for the web as a part of their Design+Business series of presentations.  I learned a plethora of knowledge about the importance of information architecture andusability. 

The first speaker was Chris Farnum, the Senior User Experience Designer at ProQuest here in Ann Arbor.  Information Architecture is the navigation, organization and  labeling of content on a website in order for it to be “user-friendly.”  In small companies, like MOVE, the designers do most of the information architecture along with the graphic design, but in larger companies they are separate roles.  The IA (info architect) provides a guide for the designer, a blueprint of the content.  This is given to the designer as a wire frame, which sort of looks like a design layout but isn’t, and the graphic designer then uses that blueprint to layout the design and visuals.  In an ideal work this is a fluid process.  Chris talked about the tension that can sometimes arise between the IA and the designer; the designer feeling that their creative vision is being stepped on and the IA feeling that their need for familiar conventions and mass of information is being restricted.  This is an internal conflict that I often deal with when managing a lot of content, where do you draw the line between needing a clean, crisp, original design and needing to maintain the practical conventions to please the client?  There is no clear answer to that question other than that there has to be a balance.

Chris provided us with some great resources to look at.  Two books that he swears by are Information Architecture for the World Wide Web by Rosenfeld and Morville and The Elements of User Experience by Jesse James Grant.  He also suggested looking at Human Computer Interaction (HCI), Library Science, The Information Architecture Institute, The Information Architecture Summit, ASIST SIG-IA, IUE Conference, boxesandarrows.com, and the IDEA Conference. 

Jodi Bollaert, the second speaker and the Vice President of Information Architecture & Usability Research at Team Detroit spoke about website usability research.  I never realized how important it is to research the effectiveness of the navigation and design of a website. How do you know if your website is successful if you don’t ask the users?  It seems like a no-brainer.

Jodi talked about different research possibilities and techniques but before researching you have to define the objectives for your website.  What do you hope your users are doing there and what do they want to accomplish while on the site?

The first research tactic is interviews, group or individual.  It requires an experienced interviewer to asks non-leading and open ended questions as not to form a bias within the question.  These interviews can be conduced via phone, online or in person.  The second is a Focus Group that lasts about two hours and is a forum setting to inspire conversation about the usability.  It is important for thegroup members to be the intended audience.  The Third, Expert Usability Evaluations, involves having highly trained usability judges evaluate the website.  The big downfall is that it does not involve actual users.

The fourth, and Jodi’s favorite, is Usability Testing. These tests can be done on the phone, face-to-face, or remotely online. Face-to-face and phone testing is done by the user being prompted to perform and find specific things on the website. The web testing is done via survey or screen sharing.  This tactic is much more cost effective and provides very specific information. Some samples of online testing services are Ethnio, Webex, and Go To Meeting and they are referred to as “intercept recruiting” because they catch and prompt a user while they are trying to use the site on their own.  The user is also given an incentiveusually, such as a gift card to Amazon.com.

Jodi’s resources included orgaizations like Usability Professionals Association and the Michigan Usability Professionals Association, websites like Useit.com, UIE.com, and Usability.gov.  She also recommended these books:  Rocket Surgery Made Easy and Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug,Designing Interfaces byJennifer Tidwell, About Faces by Alan Cooper, and Designing Web Usability by Jakob Nielsen.

I will absolutely be attending more workshops likethese.  It is a great community of professional designers and design thinkers to bounce ideas off of and ask questions to.  Please visit Detroit.aiga.org for information about their weekly Design + Business workshops.

 Posted on a fence near the entrance to Greenfield Village is this quote from Daniel Webster:

“When tillage begins, other arts will follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of civilization.”

If Webster’s pithy claim was true for an upstart America two centuries ago, could it also resonate in today’s post-industrial post-modern post-information America?  It would seem that more and more people believe so.  On Thursday I found myself enjoying their company at the Food System Economic Partnership (FSEP) Conference for “Building a Better Food System in Southeast Michigan” held in Jackson.  Jeff Bodtke, our new Account Coordinator at MOVE who grew up on a blueberry farm in west Michigan, joined me for a full day of informative, interactive sessions with topics ranging from savoring local flavors in Jackson to food and agriculture policy for Michigan.

Jeff and I attended separate sessions and we made some discoveries throughout the day:

Sandhill Crane Winery of Jackson makes a delicious, sweet raspberry wine—a dessert in itselfJ.

A grassroots campaign called Ten Percent Washtenaw affirms the enthusiasm for “locally grown” in our area, but wants us to know that at present only ½ of 1% of the $1 Billion of food we consume annually is actually grown in Washtenaw County.  Ten Percent’s goal is to get us to 10% locally grown by 2010.

Ginny Trocchio, Project Director for The Conservation Fund/Ann Arbor Greenbelt, noted that as Greenbelt land is being acquired, the Advisory Commission is strategically identifying critical areas for farmland preservation.  For a tour of Greenbelt farmland, check out the Greenbelt Bus Tour on July 17^th.

The keynote speaker really brought it all together for me.  Michael Sands, founder of the Farm Business Development Center, described the Prairie Crossing project in north suburban Chicago as “an incubator for beginning organic farmers committed to creating financially rewarding and ecologically healthy farm businesses in the suburban landscape”.  The incubator is not just a cool design for a suburban development connected to a local food source.  It makes economic sense.  One acre of intensively farmed organic vegetables can generate up to $20,000 in revenue, in contrast to the same acre of corn or soybeans at $600-700! This revenue generates local jobs and pumps money into the local economy. 

Could Ten Percent become a reality if Ann Arbor developed an incubator program in the Greenbelt?

As a business committed to helping our local economy go and grow, MOVE sees local farming as an essential ingredient of our area's future.  Hats off to Jennifer Fike and her team at FSEP for organizing a terrific event.  I wish I could have mentioned all of the incredible things Jeff and I heard, saw and tasted on Thursday, but hopefully this post will serve as a reminder that Webster’s fencepost quote rings true today.

Yesterday the Eagle Crest Resort hosted an A2Y Chamber Reception for all of the members.  The networking event was a great opportunity, especially for me, to meet other members.  The reception was held in the beautiful clubhouse overlooking the golf course and Ford Lake.  Eagle Crest gift bags were handed out, prizes were given (unfortunately none to me), and hors d’oeuvres and drinks were served.

After the reception ended, Eagle Crest allowed A2Y Members to play golf at the twilight rate with a cart.  Bruce from Benz Insurance was nice enough to invite us into his golf party and also invited an individual player named Justin, who does electrical work in the area, to play with us as well.  We were quite a dynamic foursome-- Bruce and Justin being the better players, with Don and I being there more for visual encouragement.  I finished my first nine holes at Eagle Crest at 52.  Don, on the other hand, doesn’t want me to publically announce his score, but if you come over to MOVE HQ I would be more than willing to show you our scorecard. 

I would highly recommend playing at Eagle Crest; it is fun, challenging, and offers great views of Ford Lake.  A thanks goes out to the awesome A2Y Chamber and Eagle Crest!

On Wednesday, June 16 Carol and I had the opportunity, with some of the newly combined A2Y Chamber members, to take a tour of the renovations of the Big House during Morning Edition. 

Now, while I want to be 100% sure to claim allegiance to my true colors—Green and White—I was very impressed with the renovations.  Our main tour was through the club seats and box office sections, but all of the improvements include:

• Wider seats and aisles with handrails to make it easier for fans to move in the aisles.
• New elevated concourses with additional restrooms and concessions along both sidelines.
• More wheelchair locations along the sidelines.
• Two new buildings on the north end of the stadium that will house additional restrooms, concessions and public safety services.
• A new building on the south end of the stadium that will offer additional concessions and restrooms.
• A new press box.
• Refurbished restroom facilities.
• 650+ new chairback seats on the west side.
• 46 suites in the west side structure (33 suites located on the first level and 13 suites on the second level).
• 1,900+ outdoor club seats and stadium lounge on the first level of the east side structure.
• 250+ indoor club seats and 850+ covered outdoor club seats and stadium lounge on the second level of the east side structure.
• 36 suites on the third level of the east side structure.
• Four towers, one at the end of each sideline structure, which will have elevators and wide stairways to bring patrons to the new concourses and premium seating areas.
  

The project is supposed to be completed in time for the Wolverines to play UCONN on September 4th. 

You can view pictures of this project and find out more details at:
http://www.mgoblue.com/victorsclub/michigan-stadium-details.html

It's not an earth-shattering revelation that people are increasingly watching video on the web and mobile phones.  The average person can easily post their own videos to YouTube, Facebook or a blog.  Hulu offers free tv programs and movies on-line and Vizio announced during the Super Bowl that it is bringing internet apps to TV. 

As delivery gets faster and systems more capable of processing larger amounts of information, we're seeing more and more video.  So how do you make use of video online for your business or organization?  Here's our top 10 list of things to keep in mind for creating effective video for your website. 

1. Use video for its strenths--creating emotional impace and a memorable impression
2. Reflect your brand.  Make sure any video that you post expresses the essence of your brand so that the viewer's connection with it is strengthened.
3. Define a clear structure.  If you're promoting a product, express one or two key benefits and do it in a memorable way.  If it's a corporate overview, create a 3-minute and a 30-second version.
4. Billboard key ideas.  Focus on the one impression you want to leave with your audience.
5. Create emotional impact.  This can be done through music, a story or images.  Try to fit one emotional moment into each minute of a 3-minute piece and one into a 30-second piece.
6. Convey personality.  You can achieve this through many things including music, images, writing style, humor, and showing people from your business.  People like to see people.  Choose an on-camera spokesperson or a narrator to present your story with personality.
7. Ensure rapid downloads.  Online users quickly lose patience.  They will wait a little longer for a video to stream than a webpage to load but not much.  Having a visible progress bar will keep users interested because they have a general idea of how long they will have to wait.  Keep in mind mobile viewers as well.
8. Decide your budget ahead of time.  Not every video needs to have the highest production value.  A corporate overview should have a higher production value than a video blog.  Once you decide what your video is, let the creative team take it away.
9. Invite your audience back for more.  Point out opportunities to go deeper into your website or contact you.
10. Make video production a regular part of your integrated marketing communications strategy.  Online video content is only going to grow as the world becomes more image and motion-oriented.  Stay current and active.  It will pay off in customers feeling more strongly about their relationship with your brand.

See how we created a variety of lengths and subject matter videos for the Michigan State University Broad Full-time MBA program on their website.  They have received really positive feedback about how these videos helped potential students connect with their brand.  You can also see other examples of videos here on our website. 

This year we joined Think Local First.  We're excited about the potential to work with other local companies and be a part of the success of these businesses as they enrich our community.

Recently I had another experience of thinking local first.  I attended a Career Expo at the University of Michigan's School of Art and Design.  Thanks to U of M's career development coordinator, John Luther, I had the great pleasure of interviewing communications artists on the cusp of graduation who are now looking for employment.  Each has almost completed a very fine program that develops gook thinking as well as good creating. 

I was at the career day because we're looking for new talent.  Over the years we've had significant success through our internship program with students like these.  In some cases we were the launch point to a first job elsewhere and in some cases that first job was with us.  One of the great things for all MOVIANS--intern, strategic partners or staff--is that we have the opportunity to work in the very eclectic and multi-disciplined field of integrated marketing communications.  This diversity of approaches and talent was exemplified for me by the variety of skills I saw in the portfolios of the seven artists whose work I reviewed that day.  Each was inspired by an interest of theirs which led them to develop a capability in some aspect of the business to further this interest.  For one woman who had a passion for running (she qualified for the Boston Marathon) it was applying design skills to generate an interactive training calendar for marathon runners.  For another it was applying information management and type execution to better communicate with new immigrants.  For another it was her love for the theatre that led her to create show posters. 

But after finding should come doing.  So we chose a partner team to work with us from this group of seven whose skills matched the requirements for an R&D project for one of our customers.  We got together at Espresso Royale on U of M's campus, brainstormed how to refine the concept, built a better structure to express these developments and then went into production.  After a few back and forth refinements we had a prototype we could show to the client on a mobile device. 

The moral of this story: There's a lot of talent in our community.  Consider how you can open up to more of it.  I think you'll be pleased, as we are, with the outcome.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend an open house sponsored by the  Ann Arbor & Ypsilanti Area Chamber of Commerce (thanks, Chamber) at Zingermans. (www.zingermans.com) 

The open house took us to 7 stations that represented some of Zingerman’s current family of businesses— the Bakehouse,  BAKE! with Zing,  the Creamery, Catering, Mail Order, Coffee Company and Zing Train (a training business.).  At each station you felt the same enthusiasm and heard the same message from the people who were working in the different businesses—“we love it here because we’re working with great people, living out a terrific company culture, working on exciting business ideas" each of whose goal is to provide unsurpassed service and quality food products to its customers.  It’s a winning combination.  And it’s infectious. As a customer you leave feeling energized by the experience and renewed in your loyalty to the Zingerman's brand.  For many of us residents of Washtenaw County it has become “our Zingermans”. 

The "local" theme connected to another conversation I had when I met a new colleague in our industry, marketing communications.  He hails from Kentucky.  I asked him if he knew Wendell Berry and he said, "definitely."  Besides Zingermans, perhaps the advocate for local business initiatives that has had the greatest impact on me recently is writer, philosopher and farmer, Wendell Berry.  (http://brtom.typepad.com/wberry/). For many in the local food movement he is a household name.  From his Kentucky farm he has written about the need to nurture the local community through stewardship of the land and relationships built on local food production and distribution.

  So when our executive team was wrestling this week with our own growth strategy as an integrated marketing communications agency and weighing what risk reward we should undertake, we referenced this concept—local jobs for local strategic artists.  It is a worthy endeavor.  Because when we as strategic artists at MOVE—those who by creativity and common sense generate income—can employ others of a similar gifting, we can join together with others to build and enrich the larger community. 

For all of you business leaders who are asking yourselves, especially in these economically challenging times, why you’re doing this—perhaps local jobs to enrich the local community will be a compelling reason for you.  And for you workers—consider staying local (especially after you’ve done New York, L.A. and Shanghai) and help build a life locally that, through its richness of spirit and excellence of product, can still have impact globally.  See you in the neighborhood.