When The Gap announced last week that they were moving to “a more contemporary, modern expression” with their logo, they sure got a lot of feedback.  The backlash came from all corners of the social web, including thousands of tweets and Facebook updates calling out the new design.   It only took a few days for The Gap to make a decision and revert back to the old logo, avoiding the spill of consumer backlash beyond the social web.

In addition to being kind of funny, this case displays the power of social networking.      Why the ad wizards behind The Gap’s logo switch up didn’t see what was so glaring to the tens thousands of common folk armed with a twitter account and a Facebook page isn’t what is important here.  The point here is how powerful the collective voice of the social web has become, and the impact on such a large institution.  Gap may have been the sacrificial lamb here, but It will be very interesting to see the way companies handle similar situations going forward given the overwhelming response here.

If only twitter was around in the times of “New Coke”….

I can not say this for certain, but judging by the way he is holding this thing, I can only assume that he is about to sling it back into the ocean like the hammer throw in the olympics.

In addition to setting up the site, I added some color to their logo, hooked up their menu, and tried my hand once again at food photography.  The site is also optimized for search engines, but given the newness of the site, it may take a short while to see results.

Cosmos makes the best pizza in Corolla by far, so I am glad to help design a website that compliments their brand.  Check out the full site by clicking here, and order a pie while you are at it.

I have been working with one of my clients to develop a social media based marketing plan for the web.  My first draft of this presentation was a B-school style masterpiece; 15 pages full of graphs, charts, and industry lingo bound and ready for the boardroom.  When I first presented the plan the proverbial light bulb never went off, leaving a lot of blank faces.  Knowing the point was important to get across, I went back to the drawing board.  I decided that I would cut out the specifics of the plan and present it conceptually, in a format that was as visual as possible.

Now that I have explained what I wanted to accomplish, and some basic steps, my client is fully onboard preaching the benefits of social media to anyone who will listen.  We are working through the steps, and accomplishing some pretty significant results along the way.

Here is my final presentation to the client, in a short, sweet, and straightforward format. I have altered it a little to avoid confusion, but the nuts and bolts are still here.  Read through it, I think these same principles can apply to other businesses looking to market to the social web.

Expect the downward trend of Myspace to continue, while Twitter and Facebook continue to grow traffic.  Twitter is doing it’s best to stay on top of this growth, announcing a new version of Twitter launching next month and an expanded version of “Promoted Tweets”, which enables businesses to purchase “Who to Follow” suggestions within their target market.  Twitter continues to be an emerging force in the social media market, and should not be missed by businesses looking to expand their presence online.

We are very proud of the fact that we have gained the number one ranking for restaurants in the city of Corolla, NC.  Sites like Tripadvisor.com and Yelp.com can be a great tool to promote a small business that has a focus on a quality product.   In a transient tourist market a site like this can be extremely useful in attracting new customers.  Tourists go to these sites looking for unique and high quality places to eat in an unknown area, hoping to avoid tourist traps and chain restaurants.

The beauty of sites like this is that they provide an objective perspective with customers as contributors.  In the same way a customer can write a glowing review that will help a business, they can also write a review about a bad experience that will damage a businesses ranking.  As a business that focuses on quality, we decided to embrace these websites, and are currently conducting a campaign encouraging ALL of our customers to write about their experience at our restaurant for all to see.

This is just the beginning for websites like this, as the internet is making it easier and easier for customers to have a voice in the marketplace.   A business owner(or marketing manager) needs to stay on top of these sites, ensuring that information is up to date, monitoring for fake reviews from competitors, and answering customer questions in order to gain the full benefit from these sites.  I have developed a full blown marketing campaign for sites like these to not only monitor the posts, but to encourage customers to visit these sites and share their positive experiences.

As these sites continue to grow businesses focused on quality will continue to benefit, just as lower quality businesses will be hurt by poor reviews. At Lighthouse Bagels, we are already seeing the positive effect of this site on our business, and we will continue to stay on top of this as a marketing initiative.

Other small business/restaurant owners with a focus on quality, feel free to get in touch with me.  I will work with you to get your business up in the ratings and attract new customers in no time!

A few months ago, I wrote a post about the logical steps of a green retrofit.  The point of my post was that despite the “it” factor of alternative energy, going for solar panels right off the bat doesn’t make much sense.  Yesterday, I read a post from Musings of an Energy Nerd, that approached the same issues graphically .

Above is the “Pyramid of Conservation”, which originated from Bob McLean, CEO at Hunt Utilities Group, which he created for Minnesota Power.   The pyramid is meant to help customers understand where to start when taking on an energy efficiency or retrofit project.  There are ten levels of the pyramid, and the most effective way to achieve energy efficiency is to start at the bottom and climb up.  The levels at the bottom of the pyramid provide the foundation that allow the levels above to gain maximum benefit.

While a lot of this may seem like common sense, people get it wrong all the time – installing solar panels on an inefficient home.  I am all about expressing things visually, so while this may seem pretty straight forward, it is still a nice reference.

Note that the top levels of this pyramid are the areas where the government incentives historically come into play.  For the first time, the bottom levels have been targeted by the government with the HOMESTAR program proposed last month.

I was recently reading about famed photographer Carleton Watkins who took a lot of the famous early photographs of the National Park System, and I came across this shot “Yosemite Valley from the Best General View” from 1866.   I noticed that it was taken from a similar vantage point as one of the photos I took from Yosemite last year, so I tried to overlay them for comparisons sake.  The result is pretty cool.

One of the great things about nature is that it doesn’t change very much over the years.  While the 142 year gap between Mr. Watkins’ photo and mine might seem like a long time, it is a pretty insignificant period of time in the life of this beautiful place.  With that being said,  I am very thankful for our National Park System’s ability to keep places like this in their natural state; as it doesn’t take very long to build condos or hotels that would change this site forever.

Given the aforementioned time crunch, and a small marketing budget we wanted to design something attractive and professional, and do it quick.  I was able to accomplish this by using Apple’s Iweb software, my new go to for short on budget, short on time projects.  While the site lacks the functionality and content management system that I generally like to have in the websites I develop, it fit the customer’s needs perfectly.

The site is live at http://www.ladolcevitacorolla.com , if you want to check it out.  The site is pretty basic right now, but we hope to get more content and functionality over the course of the season.

Finally Corolla, NC has a delicious Italian restaurant!

The nation’s first zero-energy public school is now being constructed in Bowling Green, KY.  Wait, Kentucky?  Yep, Richardsville Elementary School in Warren County, KY is about to become the first zero energy school in the US.  Warren County Public Schools have had an active conservation management program since 2003,  avoiding $4 million in energy costs, and reducing total consumption by 28%.  WCPS is a great example of how things like this don’t get done overnight. Now that they have five Energy Star certified buildings in their system, they are now ready to tackle the gold standard zero-energy public school.

Richardsville Elementary School is the brain child of SCB Architects, and will house a capacity of 600, costing an average of $175.61 per square foot to build.  In addition to being a net-zero facility, SCB is also aiming for LEED Platinum certification.  To achieve net zero energy, the design focused on six key aspects including a high-performance building envelope, daylighting, geothermal HVAC & hot water generation, on-site solar panels, an efficient operations and maintenance plan, and an Energy Star rated kitchen for all those delicious school lunches.

The design of the school is meant to encourage and teach sustainable practices at a young age. There are four main hallways in the school each focused on making students a part of the experience.  The “geothermal hallway” and “solar hallway” both have exposed portions of the system complete with gauges so the students can monitor the performance of the systems.  The other main hallways focus on rainwater collection for plumbing, and recycling.

The school is being constructed now, and the progress is being monitored by a live webcam on the school’s website.  Pretty cool stuff, check in every now and then.