Around the Corner Grand Opening: South End Custom Framing & Fine Art Gallery
For Immediate Release
October 5, 2009
Contact: Natalie Kaufman, 617-797-8296, nrkaufman@gmail.com
Around the Corner Grand Opening
South End Custom Framing & Fine Art Gallery
South End, Boston — A grand opening celebration will be held on Thursday, October 8, 2009 from 6:00 p.m. until 10:00 p.m. at Around the Corner, a custom framing shop and fine art gallery located at 637 Tremont Street, which recently opened in Boston’s Historic South End.
“I’m living the dream,” said owner Amanda Accardi, who earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2006. “I love being able to couple my passion for unique design and conservation with the desire to promote highly talented, emerging artists. My store is quickly becoming a vehicle for numerous local artists to showcase their work.”
According to Accardi, proper archival framing should last a lifetime so she uses the most advanced techniques and materials in art preservation. In addition to exceptional quality, a creative twist on the standard mat and frame is the real focus of the shop. One will notice the finest hand wrapped silk mat, a painted bevel to accent the perfect frame, unusual treatment of a painting on canvas, and the clarity of glass fit for a masterpiece.
Accardi looks forward to becoming an integral part of the community and will donate to and attend the upcoming Human Rights Campaign of New England Dinner and Silent Auction Gala.
For more information visit www.framearoundthecorner.com, email amanda.accardi@gmail.com or call 617-266-1800, 978-273-9037 mobile.
Opening THIS THURSDAY, Oct. 8 from 6-10 p.m.
637 Tremont Street
Come by for refreshments, food and fun!
Marketing Metrics – Part 1
I just started reading Marketing Metrics: 50+ Metrics Every Executive Should Master (Hardcover). Had some great reviews on Amazon… Here’s a quick overview:
A metric is defined as a measuring system that quantifies trends, dynamics or characteristics. This is the foundation of data-based marketing, which encourages objectivity and collaboration within a firm. As the book claims, if you can’t measure then you can’t manage.
Metrics allow a manager to quantify products, customers and distribution channels under various conditions. A portfolio or dashboard of data can be used to develop triangulated strategies and solutions based on market dynamics from different perspectives. Managers must practice and learn from their mistakes to understand which data points to focus on over time. Decision makers must also appreciate the relationship between these data points and their limitations. The system becomes the precise and operational language of an organization.
The book promises to teach readers the fundamentals of data-based marketing and assist with the development of intuition around metrics. Over the next few weeks I hope to learn how to perform relevant calculations on the fly and under pressure as a means to continue my career development. Stay tuned!
Embed the MailChimp Form on Your Facebook Page
I signed up for MailChimps e-mail service on behalf of Black Cat Rescue, which is free for lists of 100 contacts or less. Black Cat Rescue is a small organization (and currently filing for non-profit status) so I knew the mailing list would initially remain under MailChimps threshold and the organization can’t take advantage of free service from VerticalResponse yet.
Once the setup was complete, I took advantage of MailChimps simple one-click option to generate code of embedding a sign up form on your website. Much to my surprise, the code functions within Facebook’s FBML!
We were able to create a tab on the Black Cat Rescue page on Facebook that hosts the MailChimp form!
This was SO easy to create (and surprising since FBML can be so finicky); however, only the e-mail option will display for sign-ups.
- Sign-up for MailChimps e-mail service
- Build a form
- Customize your design (font colors, etc…)
- Click on “create embedded code for small form” at the top of the page
- Add FBML to your page on Facebook (considered an application)
- Drop the code for your form into the FBML field
- Add to tab in the FBML application settings
Zappos 2-Day Bootcamp. A Dream come true!
Several days ago I received an e-mail about a 2-Day Bootcamp put on by Zappos to help individuals learn more about their strong culture and ways to implement such a culture within one’s own organization. I’m totally psyched that this is even going on, whether or not I’m able to attend.
I’ve been following Zappos for a while, now. I’m not quite a company stalker, but easily an evangelist. Between their internal corporate culture and ability/desire to engage customers, Zappos has truly set themselves apart (and in my opinion ahead) of the mindset of today’s corporate environment and approach to success. I encourage any reader of this post to learn something new (big or small) from this organization.
E-mail Design & Development Guidelines – Part 2
No CSS
Some inline CSS will render more often than not; however, the use of classic HTML formatting will ensure proper rendering and less spam filtering as often as possible. Emails must be designed for inboxes’ lowest common denominator in order to render correctly, which is why it’s still considered a best practice to stick to basic HTML.
E-mail Design & Development Guidelines – Part 1
Unified standards, specifications, and best practices have made it possible for web designers to increase the accessibility and usability of the sites they’re designing while ensuring that the sites look the same no matter what browser is used. Unfortunately, no such standards presently exist for email design which is why emails face a number of rendering issues that differ among ISPs.
Throughout the next few months, these posts will act as a guide, not a strict set of design and development rules, to optimize e-mail performance.
Design for the Inbox
Pending guidelines will help you achieve the highest level of compatibility across all of the major email clients, which means that most of your subscribers will be able to view clean copies of your messages with a clear CTA. However, there are some specific challenges with some of the major email clients that you should pay careful attention to, as they threaten the success of your campaigns.
Outlook 2007 -
Approximately 75% of subscribers use Outlook as their primary email client. This client is particularly popular amongst the workforce. Previous versions of Outlook used the IE-based rendering engines but the latest version uses Microsoft Word, which will cause some rendering issues if you aren’t careful. Outlook 2007 has a number of features that it doesn’t support, including:
- CSS background images
- Forms
- Flash, Javascript, or other plugins
- CSS positioning or CSS floats
- Animated Gifs
- Image bullet points
If you use animated GIFs in your message, be sure that the first frame is not blank as this is the only frame that will be seen by your subscribers using Outlook 2007.
Gmail -
Following the HTML best practices outlined above will help you overcome these problems with Gmail. Like Outlook 2007, Gmail has very little support for CSS, including:
- Background images, colors, and positions
- Borders, even when using nested table with background color
- Margins and padding
- Width and height
- Font styles, sizes, and weights
- List styles and images
If you include a “.com” at the end of text, Gmail will automatically link that text to a Google search for the domain. To avoid this, remove the “.com” or add a space between the text and the “.com”.
Gmail isn’t the only email client with these issues as Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, and Lotus Notes all have similar issues. However, it has been slow to make changes to support CSS. For more information on CSS rendering in emails, visit the Email Standards Project.
For users with certain security settings, Gmail will also display a warning message within your e-mail if you include text that refers to a URL, but links to another URL. For example, if text within your e-mail displays as “walmart.com,” but links to hangout.net, the warning message will display. However, this will only occur with major websites as text.
MSN Live Mail and Yahoo! Mail -
It’s important to note that MSN Live Mail (Hotmail) and Yahoo! Mail sell ad space in the area surrounding your message so the preview panes are tiny. This challenges the design process and you must be aware of how much of your message will appear in the preview pane.
Yahoo has begun selling keyword ad space within messages. This means that certain phrases may link to content if you have not established a predetermined link. The issue is new and no best pratice exists to combat the ad placement within your message. In some cases, you may be able to link content to override the use of ad links withing content. The best approach is to test your e-mail with Yahoo to screen for keyword linking.
When using Hotmail and Firefox, stacked images will render with a white line breaking the images. To avoid this, use empty white space around all images when possible. However, you may aslo add style=”display:block” within an img tag to avoid there is only one image within a row. When several images appear within one row, you may need to seek other alternatives for design or coding.
Inbound Marketing University #IMU
It’s been WAY too long since my last post. Trying to catch up on FREE Inbound Marketing University webinars in time for Monday’s certification exam.
Inbound Marketing University (IMU) is a free marketing retraining program for marketing professionals—as well as marketers between jobs—looking to gain new skills to get ahead in the competitive workforce.
Completed How to Blog Effectively for Business (GF101) and SEO Crash Course to Get Found (GF102) so far. Pretty comprehensive stuff.
Check out the class schedule for archived and upcoming sessions.
NetSquared’s Global Challenge and Conference (N2Y4)
NetSquared – an initiative of TechSoup Global – is focused on launching Open Innovation Challenges designed to recruit and fund Web and mobile-based social-benefit projects.
This year, the NetSquared Global Challenge and Conference (N2Y4) calls for world-changing ideas about how mobile applications can help citizens, groups and others create a better world for everybody.
The NetSquared Community will vote to select the top 14 projects to be featured at the N2Y4 Conference. At the conference, project developers will have the opportunity to network with great minds from the business, philanthropy, entrepreneurship and nonprofit sectors. The final 3 projects will receive cash awards.
Can you help spread the word about this great opportunity for social changemakers around the world? It means a lot!
Visit the N2Y4 page and share it on Facebook, Delicious, etc…
Grab a N2Y4 badge to show your support
Contact the NetSquared Team with any questions or bright ideas.
Higher Ed Experts’ Webinar Series – Analytics 360
How to track and measure (and show to your boss) the ROI of your online initiatives.
HigherEdExperts.com will be conducting a 3-webinar series that will help higher ed individuals and groups jump start, fine tune and optimize an effective web and email analytics program. The webinars are designed to demonstrate the best way to track and measure important data using tools like Google Analytics, calculate return on investment and use online analytics tools to improve web and email initiatives.
March 24, 2009 1PM-2PM ET – Rain date: March 31, 2009 1PM-2PM ET
Web Analytics 101: How to plan, start and implement a comprehensive analytics program
March 25, 2009 1PM-2PM ET – Rain date: April 1st, 2009 1PM-2PM ET
Advanced Web Analytics: How to track data, measure ROI and improve your web initiatives
March 26, 2009 1PM-2PM ET – Rain date: April 2nd, 2009 1PM-2PM ET
Advanced Email Analytics: How to track data, measure ROI and improve your email initiatives
Series cost is $300.
Bonus: Attending institutions get a 1-week free access to the recorded sessions of the series just after the live events as part of their registration.
Change.org is Seeking Social Change Career Guides
Change.org is hiring a team of part-time career guides in anticipation of a Big New Project they’ll be rolling out soon. Social Change Career Guides will provide daily advice about finding a career in social change.
The guides will serve at the increasing interest regarding careers with a purpose. Despite the increase in demand for jobs that serve a cause, it is still more difficult to find information about positions that support social advocacy than a traditional for-profit job. Change.org hopes to change that.
You don’t need to have a formal background in career services for the position. To apply, send a brief introductory email and your resume (or a link to your Linkedin profile) addressed to Ben at jobs@change.org.
