eROI Days Email Agency

I had some time to write in my Creative Journal this past Memorial Day and have finally gotten around to going through a great branding exercise - a gushing love letter to my company, eROI. Another great branding exercise is writing an epitath for what it would read on the tombstone for your company. But, that is for another day. Today, it’s about love, so here’s what I’ve got:

My Love Letter to eROI

I love that we actually have some true customer evangelists who love eROI and take pictures of themselves wearing red eROI T-shirts all over the world and send them to us with pride.

I love when employees grow, mature, innovate, create, and design things I never thought possible, and far beyond anything they could do before joining eROI.

I love the camraderie at eROI. It’s a very open, candid, transparent atmosphere where people colloborate, encourage one another and tell it like it is, instead of tip-toeing on eggshells as I’ve experienced working at other companies.

I love that the folks at eROI and the brand of eROI has fun and pushes the envelope (examples include the insanely creative and fun Annual party, annual retreats in the Great Northwest outdoors, karaoke, potlucks, insanely talented musicians and break-dancers in the company).

I love that eROI feels like a healthy, young family (albeit, a large family now), where we work hard and play harder, but we have a similar set of values of putting family first, have lives outside of work, and have ambition in the company to make a profoundly positive impact on the world through design and online communication and commerce software.

I love that eROI maps to the life I want to lead - I can take week-long vacations in the backcountry (and 4 weeks off per year because of a really strong management team that keeps things running smoothly).

I love that we are growing organically, relatively fast and smart. We’ve been recognized as an Inc. 500 company and the 8th most admired company in Oregon across all industries. That means a lot to be recognized both nationally and on the state level by 2,000 other CEOs - only made possible by an awesome team of employees and solid customers.

I love that I am happy with my life and happy with eROI despite a twisted entrepreneurial desire to always push harder and never be satisfied with where we are as a company.

I love Portland and that eROI is emblematic of all the good things in Portland culture.

I love the little things that spark conversations or make people smile and laugh, like our business cards, viral micro-sites, or our company gifts to top clients and partners. I really love how our brand and brand elements have evolved into a strong precense locally and getting there nationally.

I love the creative space we occupy in our building - exposed brick, tall ceilings with old wood beams, and overall cool, non-traditional atmosphere.

I love doing yoga with employees, led by an instructor, on Friday mornings.

I love the creative inspiration I get from artistic conference tables and inviting spaces in our office. I love natural light and clear thinking.

I love eROI’s present state and try to live in the moment, but love even more how far we’ve come from our founding and how amazing the future looks if we hit our goals and milestones.

Most of all, I love the people at eROI and our collective power to have a positive impact on one another and the community as a whole.

Mashup: The compounding (”mashing”) of two or more pieces of complementing web functionalities to create a powerful web application. This is usually achieved through the use of APIs.

On May 22nd 2008, eROI took home the first everWebVisionary Award for Best Mashup, winning the award on the strength of our project with the Oregon Golf Association - Explore Oregon Golf,

Oregon Golf Association invited eROI to create a dynamic online web application that enables users to search for golf courses using criteria such as course type, location and rates, providing detailed information back to the user about each course. Details for each course may include ratings, scorecard information and each course’s policy and services. eROI then integrated the mapping capabilities of Google Maps into the site in order to provide users with search results that include maps and printable driving directions to each course.

eROI and OGA then took the site a step further by integrating an event calendar tool and club membership section, making all regional golf-related events and clubs easily searchable. This system required eROI to develop a custom database, managed through a password protected administration tool, to store all course, event, and club information. By empowering courses, clubs leaders and event organizers to keep accurate and relevant information readily available online, eROI achieved OGA’s goal of supporting Oregon tourism by creating a single Web destination for detailed golf course information and activities in the area.

In addition to the awards, the Webvisions Web Conference as a whole was a smashing event! Our web development team took advantage of the workshops, sessions, and guest speakers before coming back with an award in hand. Great job guys!

(more…)

I just read the recent Inc. Magazine issue cover story on the most innovative small company in America, Threadless.com. It’s a fascinating story of some geeky web design kids who started a social community website in college with frequent T-shirt design contests whereby the winner would get their design printed on a T-shirt and sold online (to that same community). They started selling a couple thousand T-shirts, dropped out of college, and it has since grown over the past 5 years into a $30 million per year, 50 employee company with great margins.

While the above story is unbelievably compelling and a reflection of the cultural shift of a new generation who shares all online, is transparent, and believes in the online medium, it is one of many case studies in the for-profit world. I recently went to a fundraiser for Portland’s best-kept secret of a non-profit, Friends of the Children. I recently joined the Board, and true to my outspoken, naive youthfulness, thought I could make huge changes right away. What I didn’t realize is how much good the organization does at a magnitude I never imagined before. The positive impact really hit home with me at this 600 person fundraiser, when young adult after young adult got on stage with their mentor / friend, and told of impossible odds of rising above their past of abuse or neglect early in their childhood to be the first ever in their family to graduate from high school, or to get to States in their freshman year in high school, or begin full-time working at a prestigious law firm in town.

What makes this organization, Friends of the Children, so incredibly powerful and successful is its innovative business model. It pays full-time salaries for professional mentors to be with a few kids one-on-one mentoring week after week, for 12 years. That loyalty and consistency in these young people’s lives that have never had that from anyone before is unbelievably rewarding, healing, uplifting. I was a mentor in college for 4 years in a program called Big Siblings in Charlottesville, VA. Up until a couple years ago, I still kept in touch w/ my little brother. I have my own kids now and can’t offer that daily consistency that paid mentors can and do provide and the results and emotional connection that occur from these relationships truly inspire all of us who witness it.

My hat goes off to entrepreneurs like Duncan Campbell who founded Friends of the Children and pours his heart and soul into a beautiful creation that transforms kids lives, and the community as a whole.

Thank you Friends of the Children.

RmbrME touts the Greening of the world by eliminating business cards. You gotta be kidding me? Of all the opportunity in the world to save billions of trees and reduce the carbon footprint, I wouldn’t start with business cards.

Regardless, let’s talk about the joy you get when you see a really clever business card. That brand experience, when hand-delivered, can be so powerful and positive, why would I want to eliminate that experience. Business cards are an extension of your company’s brand, but more importantly, your personal brand and a pride in both team and individuality. The good business cards I get make me laugh or spark a conversation. There’s a reason that business cards have been around for centuries and it’d be a shame for every technology entrepreneur to continually think that their technology will replace some age-old medium completely. It almost never does. We need to be comfortable with many mediums living side by side in a complementary fashion.

Alright, I’m done with my rant. Now you can read the full article on Sustainable Life Media >>

RmbrME’s Gabe Zichermann: “Ditch the Business Cards”

SLM: So how does RmbrME work?

Gabe: RmbrME is a pretty straightforward service. Sign up for an account and link it to whichever social networking sites you use - LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. (RmbrME supports all of them). When you meet someone you’d like to exchange information with, you simply text “rmbrme” with the phone number or email address of the person you’d like to contact. That person then receives an instant invitation from which they can connect with you on any social networking site that they choose and also access your contact information.

The service grew out of a simple frustration that I had with the tremendous waste associated with paper business cards. I looked at the business card and thought, “Wow, this really serves an incredibly brief purpose. I just take it back to my office and copy down the information into my computer.” People go to conferences and come back with piles of business cards that eventually end up in the trash.

RmbrME was born out of the desire to eliminate that paper waste, making the connection seamless, and also making the experience much more real-time than it is today.

Read the full article here >>

My buddy who runs the Nike account for U.S region for W+K is very psyched today when he saw the following Ad Age article come into his inbox making it official that Nike is moving its running shoe business away from Crispin and back to the mother-ship agency Wieden+Kennedy. Score one for Global Agency of the Year, W+K - arguably the best creative advertising firm in the world and the largest independent agency of its kind.

Nike, Crispin Partnership Ends After 13 Months
Running-Shoe Account Is Going Back to Longtime Agency Wieden

By Rupal Parekh and Jeremy Mullman

Published: May 22, 2008

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Just more than a year after widening its roster to include hotshop Crispin Porter & Bogusky, Nike is shifting its running-shoe and Nike-Plus business back to lead agency Wieden & Kennedy, a spokesman for the marketer said.

Crispin CEO Jeff Hicks confirmed the split in a statement, citing a mutual decision to go different ways: “We will forever be in awe of the company that is Nike and wish them nothing but the best.”

Barack’s email campaign has hooked me during this election season. His emails have been relevant, ultra-local (great list segmentation here), and the content is inspiring. I give it a 10 out of 10.

However, one of my colleagues, brought up a good point. Here is what she had to say:

Hi Ryan,
Just my latest email marketing peeve. I was a John Edwards supporter. When Edwards endorsed Obama, I got an email urging me to register at Obama’s site. There was a specific link (www.barackobama.com/johnedwards). I signed up because I do want to support Obama now, and I also want the Obama campaign to be able to gauge how much support comes via Edwards.

Below is the first email I got after signing up. As if I’ve been a supporter all along. It seems like a missed opportunity to send me something relevant, ie. thanks for signing up, we really respect Senator Edwards and like him, we support issue X, Y and Z.

It would have been so easy. Sigh.

Cheers,
Jean

Begin forwarded message:

From: Barack Obama
Date: May 21, 2008 4:45:21 PM PDT
To: Jean
Subject: Thank you
Reply-To: info@barackobama.com

Dear Jean,

You did it.

Not just yesterday, but every day for more than a year, you did what the cynics said we couldn’t do.

You said the time has come to get beyond the same old tactics that divide and distract us, and you gave people a reason to believe again.

Because of your work, we won the Oregon primary by a large margin — and made it clear that at this moment, in this election, there is something happening in America.

There is something happening when Americans who have never participated in politics get involved and knock on doors, make phone calls, and talk to each other about their vision for our country.

There is something happening when people vote not just for the party they belong to but for the hopes they hold in common.

Change is what’s happening in America.

The momentum you created won’t stop now. Together we’re building a campaign that will compete in the general election — and a united Democratic Party that can lead this country for the next generation.

You can keep it going by taking a trip to Montana for the last primary in the country. Supporters like you are needed to help get voters out to the polls for their June 3rd primary.

Sign up now to help Get Out The Vote in Montana:

http://my.barackobama.com/cometoMT

We’re within reach of the nomination, and we are ready to take this country in a new direction.

Thank you for everything you’ve done to make this possible.

Barack

Alright, so I’m incredibly biased towards local success stories in the Portland software community. I think it’s relevant to share an amazing story / article in Forbes on Jive Software’s meteoric growth in the web 2.0 collaboration space taking on behomeths Microsoft and Lotus.

Higher Office
by Claire Cain Miller

Upstart Jive Software aims to change the way people work by bringing social networking to the office. It’s up against some firm called Microsoft.

Jive Software chief executive David Hersh has a lofty goal: a world where office work is so fulfilling, inspiring and free of trivialities that parodies like Dilbert and The Office cease to exist.

There are loftier goals–ending genocide, famine, cancer–but Hersh’s is a good fight, and you can make a lot of money helping companies get themselves out of those endless e-mail chains and pointless meetings of office work. Jive’s software uses the Web to do that.

“People live in e-mail and documents no one else can see. We’re changing the way companies work,” says Hersh.

Read the full article on Forbes.com >>

db Clay, known to many of us at Portland’s Saturday Market as the groovy collection of wallets made out of duct tape has come a long way with their sophisticated new e-commerce website built primarily using Ruby on Rails technology.

www.dbclay.com

To kickoff the site and 10 year anniversary (founder Garett Stenson started at 19 years old in college - sickeningly talented young entrepreneur) of the company, db Clay is throwing an insane party on Thurs, May 29 at Lizard Lounge and a 2-day sale on May 30-31. Check out the invite and the goods here >>

Loren McDonald explains it well. With rapid agreement among email industry insiders, Loren really nailed the answer to the question of the relevancy of the common email metric “open rate.”

The MediaPost article begins:

Email Open Rates: What’s the Alternative?
by Loren McDonald , Thursday, May 8, 2008

MY PREVIOUS COLUMN, “WHY THE Email Open Rate Must Die” spawned a spirited debate, mainly on these three topics (click here to read the first column and all 17 comments):

Don’t kill the open rate, but view it in the proper perspective.
PLEASE let it die!
What can we replace it with? You don’t offer any suggestions other than to say we can do better.

I stand guilty as charged of not offering an alternative to the open rate in that first column. I will remedy that in this column.

The Open Rate: Rename, Rethink, Redefine

So, what are the alternatives to the open rate?

1. As I understand it, none exist today or in the near future. Some have suggested using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to track opens, but many email clients also block CSS. The major email providers (Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail/Live Mail, Gmail) can more accurately track “open or read rates” because the email client resides on their servers and does not have to hit an external server. But, the chance of these email providers sharing open data is as likely as world peace.

2.So, let’s rename it the “Email Render Rate” or something similar that reflects what the tracking images really measure. My proposed “render rate” would more accurately reflect what occurs when images are loaded in a recipient’s email client. This includes in preview panes, software clients such as Outlook or Web-based services such as Gmail and Yahoo Mail.

This redefinition (nothing else changes) will benefit retailers and others for whom product images are important to conversion. A render rate of 25% lets the sender know that their email rendered with images in 25% of the messages seen by recipients’ inboxes or smart phones.

Analyzing the subscriber base by render rate over time would help the marketer better optimize creative for subscribers who normally view images and for those who don’t. As smart marketers and the industry make this shift, I’m sure dozens of other creative uses of the render rate would also emerge.

3.Next, let’s de-emphasize the open rate and focus the email scorecard on output and business metrics. I’m not devaluing email process metrics. In fact, I find tremendous value in spam-complaint and unsubscribe rates, for example.

But ultimately, the only metrics your CEO and CFO care about are those that measure how the email program supports business goals such as growing revenues, increasing margins, improving customer retention and lowering communications costs.

Read the full article here >>

Mahalo is on a role. First, the controversial TechCrunch review of Mahalo’s founder blog entry on expecting employees to work 16 hours a day every day because he does (which I wholeheartedly disagree with). Now, their YouTube retro video is truly good stuff and relevant to the email marketing world. Mahalo, the human search company, is trying to show how pull technology like search doesn’t have the flaw of spam, but the creative is strong enough to get a chuckle out of it.

An employee sent me an email with this link - fascinating!

Freedom, A Twitter Away For UC Berkeley Student Arrested In Egypt

“As surreal as it may sound, Twitter can get you out of jail! The catch…send the right message to as many people as possible as fast as you can and voila!

UC Berkeley journalism graduate student James Karl Buck (29), former Oakland Tribune multimedia intern, was arrested during a demonstration in Mahalla El-Kobra, an industrial city in the Nile Delta.

What the Egyptian authorities didn’t probably expect was the prompt reaction of a large circle of friends in the United States and the anti-government bloggers in Egypt, who were sent an instant text message from his cellular phone: “ARRESTED,” the San Jose Mercury News reports.

The micro-blogging service allows users to send text messages up to 140 characters long, and the message Buck sent had the desired outcome: his friends called the University, the American Embassy, as well as the Associated Press, the International Herald Tribune and other media.

The result: he was released the next day, although according to his affirmations, the Egyptian authorities told him just hours after his arrest, in the middle of the night, that he was a free man.”

Not sure there is much biz there, but that’s really the point. My wife and I are going to a pretty remote area of the country and we’re looking forward to some good outdoor adventure there.

I’ll share some appropriate pics and video upon my return and try to make it somewhat relevant to the online marketing world, but for now, I’m going to enjoy a well-deserved week off blog posts, among others. Did a little research on YouTube, and thought I’d share this one:

The PDC (Portland Development Commission) worked with the Portland Classical Chinese Garden to create this video to show in several cities throughout China with the intent of recruiting more Chinese businesses to move into Old Town/Chinatown.

eROI has been in Old Town / Chinatown for the past 6 months and we’ve seen a dozen other software companies and creative agencies move into the neighborhood. We’re big fans.

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