Today is a good day
New client project kickoffs and
Online software innovation goodness

Better yet, a sun break appears
and Old Town Portland
is a beacon of light again.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you have an iPhone, please share with us a haiku about why you like it so much. Here’s mine:

iPhone, radiating
beauty, video camera
in my pocket alas

“eROI is what you look for in any business relationship: an expert partner who helps you realize your vision. The eROI team listened carefully to our needs, asked probing questions that helped us better understand the capabilities that would enable us to reach our goals, and communicated closely with us all the way to achieve success. The final product went above and beyond what we thought was possible. It was mindblowing.”
–Noah Glass, CEO, GoMobo

“Choosing eROI to help launch our magazine into the digital realm has been a great decision. The support from their web team has been incredible, making the scary transition from print to online- stress free. They provided structure, guidance and solutions to any minor hang up we experienced along the way.”
–Kaitlyn, CBS Watch Magazine (new site hasn’t been launched yet)

“Working with eROI to help with the development and launch of seven planet was key to company on many levels and will prove to be a critical positive impact on the brand. We began speaking with their team about 7 months prior to launching our virtual trading post (our ecommerce store/company site) with the intent to launch a site that was easy to navigate, that visually differentiated our brand and that helped our patrons effectively find out how the “mindful commerce” could work in their lives. In the end, they met all three of those criteria without question and in turn also were very patience with us in the process as we had scope revisions, content delays, support needs, etc. Finally, they proactively approached us after our launch with product review site upgrades, that would help improve the trading post and usability, without being asked to do so. Those upgrades are now implemented and we look forward to working with them consistently on making the seven planet site and our company newsletters as key to the brand and the vision of mindful commerce as our traditional green general stores.”
–John Friess, CEO, Seven Planet

2009 PAF Rosey Awards site

I’m not so sure this site would work in most other industries as it is definitely edgy, controversial, and provocative, but I think it’s a shot in the arm that Portland needs.  The true test is to see if agencies from other cities take notice.  Then, an interesting dialog will begin.

You’ll start to see this campaign promoted more on Twitter (I love the “Rosey Smack Feed” section of the ‘Win Tix’ part of the site), Facebook, and other blogs in the upcoming months.  I’ve got to sign off from this blog post to think of some good Smack Talk myself – submit your own here >>

Here is my Twitter stream from Ignite NYC in reverse order (most recent to oldest posts):
# Kickstarter.com seems really cool as crowd-funding concept. Like kiva.com for the usa. #nyc4

# @ignitenyc vibe is awesome – crowd is into it and super supportive. All presentations except one have been solid

# Oh: “the greatest trick the devil ever invented was convincing the world he didn’t exist. I wrote him back, baby!” #nyc4

# @the_swine_flu hilarious @theonion. Brilliant!

# Charitini a very cool concept #nyc4

# Online dating pres of 16.1 million profiles and made a census by congressional district. Amazing.

# Dollhouse earth part 1, 2, 3 – love the disconnectef thoughts all coming together at the end #nyc4

# Overview effect for man on the moon – altered consciousness #nyc4

# Unicef built rapidsms to facilitate sms and problem solving for malnutrition in africa #nyc4

# Beautifully done @cstoller

# First presenter is from organic. Study kindle page like rock layers. I will show u mine if u show me yours. Money. Hilarious #nyc4

# @ignitenyc kicks off with a really positive vibe. I think it might beat out wash dc, but tough to beat pdx. #nyc4

OK, I love these YouTube Ignite NYC IV videos so much I had to show more – check ‘em out below:

Tim Hwang starts off the first few seconds a little tough, but is really really good after…

Kickstarter.com is a really cool concept – like kiva.org for US companies:

Please comment below in the form of a Haiku! Thank you.

Novel concept, but I actually used our eROI Event tool to create an event for our Employee Disco Party on June 26th (if you are one of the 2 friends that employees can invite, then you too can join in the fun). I thought some screen shots of the back-end admin area would help you see why we are excited about this beta release (even though the feature set is slightly limited for the next 1-2 months until we get feedback from all of you that want to signup for a FREE account for free events (to use for RSVPs to dinner parties, seminars, BBQs, industry networking events, business meetings, etc.)

During this Beta Release, we will continue to support, maintain, and offer our eventROI product to our clients for complex events as it contains a larger feature set than the current Beta release of eROI Event. The goal is to eventually replace eventROI with eROI Event, when the features of eROI Event exceed those of eventROI. eROI Event has been developed in a manner that will allow users the ability to upgrade easily.

Please write your own haiku about ways you’d like to use this event registration tool – I’m waiting to see your haiku in the comments below.

I still love email
on my Blackberry, but the
web + apps on iPhone are crazy sexy

The above haiku did not follow the haiku rules, I apologize.  Don’t use that as an example for your own haiku, but you must express yourself in the comments below.

In Portland, we’ve had huge windstorms. During dinner at a friend’s house, a massive tree branch came crashing through my Prius back window. I love nature, but this time, my love affair was tainted for a night and the next morning.

So, after having seriously f@*#ked up dreams all night, I went for a long run in the morning and began processing my thoughts.  Before, my run I glanced at the NY Times front page article titled “Poll Finds Faith in Obama, Mixed with Patience.” In many of my blog posts, I’ve talked about 2009 being the year of optimism and it has been an optimistic year until the bloody tree limb incident last night. But, I knew I could mentally power thru these dreaded pessimistic thoughts.

The sub-header in the NY Times article was “Most say they expect progress to require at least 2 years”, but I think we as a people in the technology age of immediacy have much less patience than 2 years. My belief is that the Obama administration needs to make significant traction on at least 1 issue and 1 industry within his first 3 months. If not, I think more and more people will become jaded and let their proverbial f#%*king tree limb, pessimistic feelings last longer than 12 hours. So, I put the question out there to 400 followers on Twitter and Dylan Boyd replied immediately with a 1 year horizon to make real changes happen.  Mark Kelly, an online marketer from Seattle, replied “@ryanbuch re: obama I think we will give him the typical 2-3 mos because of our extreme short term focus. Dems will be more patient.”

Whatever the timeline is, you gotta give Obama credit for his ability to inspire. I’ve been listening on NPR to today’s 750,000 person celebration, speeches, musical performances. Yes, there are huge expectations on our new President, but let’s give him some credit for jumping into the trenches with us on economic issues and global political issues 2 1/2 months before his job starts. As an entrepreneur, I have a lot of self-motivation. But sometimes, it helps to know that we are part of a larger effort to make a hugely positive impact on the world and create some amazing jobs and opportunities in the process.