Recycling has always been important in the effort to save the planet, but the new green movement and interest in sustainability has given the earth an even brighter look into the future. Here at {e}, we put an emphasis on going green (reduce, re-use, recycle) whenever possible while working on current and future projects. And, after doing a little research, you can find the resources to recycle just about anything from the past as well.

My hope is that this blog post will offer you some new information and inspire you to clean out your clutter and put it to good use. Below is a list of resources to recycle anything from old running shoes to random cords and cables (Yes, there is something you can do with that tangled mess of old computer cords in the corner of your attic…Hooray!).

1. Cell Phones: Learn how to donate or safely recycle your old cell phone.
2. Electronics: Electronics can be recycled such as old phones, MP3 players, even ink cartridges and it is for FREE!
3. Athletic Shoes: Nothing to do with those old athletic shoes? Nike does! They have a great program to recycle “any brand of athletic shoes and turn them into sports surfaces and playgrounds. You can take your old shoes (even if they stink,) to any Niketown Store, Nike Factory store or get info off their website.
4. Techno Trash: Techno Trash got you weighed down? Not anymore! Greendisk will help you recycle anything from VHS tapes and players (Are those considered vintage yet?), cords/ cables, CDS, cameras, and more.
5. Computers: Not only can computers be large and awkward to get rid of, but they also contain harmful chemicals that need to be disposed of properly. Most major computer companies offer recycling options. Find more information at Apple, Dell, HP, Gateway, and Toshiba
6. Mattresses: Although mattresses don’t offer a way to recycle them, you can use one of the other two “R” words: Re-Use. Freecycle.org is an internet community that puts the saying “one person’s trash, is another person’s treasure,” to good use. (So this site is not limited to only mattresses.)
7. Dry Cleaning: I am not a fan of those wire hangers that come back from the dry cleaners, but I hate to throw them away. Some dry cleaners will take them back to re-use or recycle (sometimes the plastic too). Alteration shops may have a use for them as well. Just ask your local service provider. While on the subject of dry cleaning, the process itself uses toxic chemicals. So I would encourage you to consider looking for a shop that offers “wet cleaning” or possibly just hand wash the garments yourself when possible.
8. Cleaning Services: On another cleaning note, some cleaning services are going green. If you have little ones and/or pets like me, it is always refreshing to know that your home is clean and also safe and free of toxic chemicals that could put your loved ones in danger. Visit Maid Brigade for more information on green cleaning.
9. Grocery Bags: While the paper grocery bags are recyclable, the plastic ones are great to re-use for anything from trash can liners, dirty diaper bags, doggie poop bags, and the list goes on. So don’t just toss those bags to the side, re-use them. Last but not least, bringing your own re-usable bags for groceries is a great planet saver too! ( I just keep mine in my trunk, that way I always have them when I need them!)

OTHER RESOURCES

• Staples Stores nationwide: Just drop of any unwanted office product/ small electronics and they will either refurbish it for use or recycle it for you.
• Craigslist: The mega popular website has an area where you can post items you would like to give away for free.
• Planet Smoothie: Some companies like Planet Smoothie are encouraging their customers to help them find ways to reduce, re-use, or recycle their trash by rewarding them with money and/or merchandise. For more information on the Planet Smoothie contest visit their website.

Remember not all recyclables need to be sparkling clean when tossed in the bin, but the cleaner they are the less energy is required in the next step.

YOU CAN RECYCLE THAT?

If the information you have gained from this article has just wet your whistle to the tune of going green, Arizona State now offers a major in sustainability. If your not able to go that far, I hope that you will use the information in this article for your home and/or business as we are sure to do here at {e}. So when your friend asks you, “You can recycle that?” You can answer with confidence, “ You sure can!”

SHARE YOUR RECYCLING TIPS

I really enjoyed researching for this article and would love to learn what all of you out there could teach me as well! Please leave a comment of any great recycling/ green/ sustainable tips you might have and I will be sure to share them with everyone I know.

This post is targeted toward all real estate developers. When it comes to multi-family real estate advertising, your first step may not necessarily be to convince us that your construction techniques and detailing are superior. We believe it is and so does your potential buyer…Or at least we assume that it is good enough, unless you prove otherwise. Speaking from the point of view of both a real estate advertising expert as well as of that of a former apartment dweller, I can tell you that effective advertising isn’t in the “construction” details.

What a Buyer Wants

As an Advertising Account Manager, my first meeting with a developer usually goes something like this:

Me: “So what do you see as the key selling features of your multi-family development?”
Developer: “We used the highest quality pre-fabricated structural metal wall panels supporting an elevated composite concrete flooring system…(blah, blah, a bunch of technical construction jargon that I can’t understand…).”

Neither I, nor the potential buyer can understand exactly what the developer is describing. And, the buyer is who we (the advertising agency and the developer) really care about reaching with the message, right?
What really matters to the potential buyer (aka the target audience) is, “Does this fit my self image and lifestyle?, Will there be other people my age living there?, How close is the apartment/condo to downtown?, Will my king-size bed fit in the bedroom?, Are there stainless steel appliances in the kitchen?, Is the look of the building more traditional or modern?, Is this apartment/condo for me?” So, the crucial job of the advertising agency is to look past some of the developer mumbo jumbo (sorry developers) and paint an undeniably glamorous picture of the product in the eyes of the target audience. A picture that appeals to them on an emotional level and makes them feel a connection with the property and a subconscious need to live there (the gritty construction details can wait until closer to the end of the purchasing decision, when the consumer is already emotionally sold on the product). It’s much like the thought process you may have encountered when buying your first iPod. You saw the groovy commercials and have decided the iPod is for you….It’s perfect for your long runs and the pink color option will look way cool with your work-out gear. You’re sold! It’s not until you go online to order your new running companion that you stop to consider the storage capacity (yes, the gritty technological details). The emotional lifestyle connection is what sold you on the iPod, and the techy details were just a final consideration before closing the deal.

Connecting with Your Audience

The key word here is “connection”. The goal is get inside the minds of the target audience and make a connection with them through advertising. A lot of research (such as market studies, focus groups, etc.) goes into discovering exactly what the target audience wants and the results are unique to each project. A quality advertising campaign takes into consideration all of the findings and creates a consistent message. This means that the copy, imagery, layout, font choice, audio, and features are all in line with the wants of the target audience and that these elements combine to form the intended connection with the target audience. If this goal is successfully achieved, the target audience should look at the advertisement (whether it be a website, magazine advertisement, billboard, etc.) and say, “Ah, that’s me” or “That’s who/where I want to be”. That’s the beauty of lifestyle advertising. It connects with the target audience on a purely emotional level, not just a nuts and bolts logical level.

The Finished Product

I realize that this “lifestyle” advertising concept may be hard to grasp, here’s a link to a perfect example of it: www.ellingtonapartments.com. As you’ll see on this website, the copy, imagery, layout, features, and audio all work together to create an edgy, hip, jazzy vibe…which is exactly what the target audience asked for. The website visitor even has the option to change the audio track and the homepage image, so that the visitor can do exactly what the apartment tagline offers,”B-U-ON-U”. Another stand out example, although it’s a little more literal since it’s a condominium rather than an apartment (and there’s more at stake in the minds of the consumer since they must make more of a permanent buying decision is www.oneriverfront.com. What you do find on these websites are stunning photos of the building (inside and out), the area and the vibe it generates, and the type of people who live there…All in all, the lifestyle. What you don’t find on these websites is a bunch of construction specifications and other information translated only by developers and construction experts.

“I see this mistake made all too often by new home builders, as well as fellow real estate professionals. A home purchase is a very emotional decision, heavily based in self image and lifestyle choices…. The most effective marketing is heavy in emotional appeal and tells a story, appealing to the self image of the potential buyer.” Tom Kingsford - Bodin Realty International of Boulder, CO is a boutique real estate firm expertly representing buyers and sellers for more than 40 years.

This idea of connecting with the target audience on an emotional level applies to business to consumer advertising in almost all industries. (I just decided to pick on real estate developers in this post since more often then not, the advertising agency works directly with the developer and not an in-house marketing team.) And, no doubt we’ll be discussing this concept further in future posts. So tune in to our blog in the coming months for more informative jabber about lifestyle advertising.

So, your advertising agency or in-house marketing team presents you with a stellar, on the mark design for your new website. You’re very excited and tell them to move forward and make it live asap. But wait! You may be missing something…or someone, like a huge chunk of your target audience. What am I talking about? Your new best friend, Web Standards.

Let me introduce you to Web Standards. Web Standards, of course, has a formal definition which we’ll introduce later. First let me start by explaining to you what Web Standards means to you, and more importantly, your consumer. Using web standards means that everyone (the important part of “everyone” is your target market, of course) can see your gorgeous site just the way that you see it (no matter what browser or electronic web viewing device they’re using). It also means that your target audience can view your website just as fast and find it just as easily as you can. Does this Web Standards stuff sound important now? If so, read on.

There are countless ways to develop the back-end of a website, and with so many different options what makes one programming technique better than the next? In this blog I will try to explain the advantages of having your website designed and developed using current Web Standards and how that will help your site stand apart from that of your competitors. Okay, now for the techy stuff (Warning: In order to prevent your eyes from glossing over, you may want to pass off the remainder of this post to your trusted web programmer).

What are Web Standards?

Web Standards is a general term for the formal standards and other technical specifications that define and describe aspects of the World Wide Web. In recent years, the term has been more frequently associated with the trend of endorsing a set of standardized best practices for building websites, and a philosophy of web design and development that includes those methods.

As the World Wide Web has evolved, there have been different browsers (Internet Explorer, Netscape, Firefox, Opera and Safari, to name of few of the most popular) with different specifications and no standardized set of rules for design. This led to an increasing number of sites with code that was virtually impossible for the browsers to pick through for search result ranking purposes. As more and more sites were being developed with inconsistent and unorganized code, a grass-roots movement was started to develop standards for the web. Hello Web Standards! This movement created The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). W3C, along with other groups and standards bodies, dedicated themselves to developing such Web Standards because this is what our brand new friend Web Standards does, ”…simplifies and lowers the cost of production, while delivering sites that are accessible to more people and more types of Internet devices. Sites developed along these lines will continue to function correctly as traditional desktop browsers evolve, and as new Internet devices come to market.” – Web Standards Group. Don’t you agree that we should all have a friend like him?

“Go W3C and Web Standards!”, right? Wrong! There’s one small problem…Because the Web Standards movement was driven by primarily the freelancer, small businesses and institutions, many large web development companies do not promote or advertise their use of Web Standards. Unfortunately, this lack of big business support has slowed the growth of Web Standards and thus slowed the process of this information trickling down to the common website consumer.

Here at {e} house, we are strong supporters of the Web Standards movement. And we are doing our best to inform the consumer of these standards in order to make their site as functional (for the widest audience) as possible. Here’s a detailed list of what Web Standards has to offer: (Again, beware of techy jargon overload!)

The Benefits

• Less Bandwidth Intense:
  Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) has allowed website designers and developers to streamline the process of writing web programming code. By building your site using CSS, you are able to significantly reduce the size and load time of your site. This will greatly increase the performance of large sites. Even smaller sites will benefit, as pages will load much faster for users. The reason that CSS layouts load quicker than non-CSS pages is because once the CSS file has been cached, all of the page styles and images have been loaded. Each page after the initial load will only need to load that page’s unique content.

• Extensibility:
  There is a CSS reference site that is a perfect example of what well planned CSS is capable of. CSSZenGarden demonstrates that it is possible to change the look and feel of a website completely without touching the code that builds the site and only editing the CSS page.

• Ease of Maintenance:
  Because websites do require change and maintenance, CSS standards driven sites make it very easy for any developer to get into and make changes. It used to be that sites were built with nested tables and inline styles that made it nearly impossible to read. If the site was new to the person making the changes, they were up for a huge challenge. Now, a well documented CSS layout is easy for a developer that is new to the site to jump in and make the changes. This definitely means a smaller maintenance and changes bill for the owner of the site.

• Compatibility (with newer browsers and mobile devices)
  This is something we call forward compatibility. This means that any website that is designed and built the correct way can be viewed correctly on multiple browsers, platforms, and internet devices. The beauty of standards is that a site built using them will continue to work on different browsers even as current browsers evolve and new browsers are introduced.

• Accessibility:
  Valid code does not necessarily mean that your website will be completely accessible for the disabled, but many feel it’s a good place to start.

Phew! If you were able to get through that list, you are probably ready to write Web Standards into your will…. Now I have a little wrench to throw into your plans. It’s Web Standard’s enemy, Flash. As you have probably noticed, Flash is an extremely common element used in many websites. But Flash is not Web Standards compliant. The idea of using a plug-in on your Internet browser to view content on a website is against Web Standards. Does that mean that you should never use Flash? Probably not. We often use Flash elements in our client sites and even our own. The key is knowing how Flash will display in different browsers and how to address browsers that don’t support Flash (such as Safari Mobile).

Our Suggestions

So, here’s our suggestion to you. Embrace Web Standards as your friend and be sure to introduce him to your favorite web designer (If your pick web designer is {e}, you won’t have to). As Jeffrey Zeldman, founder of Happy Cog Studios, said “Standards are vital to any medium. Because the software through which the web is viewed finally supports standards, it makes sense to learn and correctly use them. Doing so saves time and money, reduces overhead, extends the usable life of our sites, and provides greater access to our content.” That sounds like something we can all relate to.

It’s a question that’s been around since the beginning of advertising: Anyone can write, so why the heck do I need a copywriter? Actually, there are so many reasons for hiring a professional writer that we use one for every project. Here are the top ten reasons why:

1. Copywriters are to words what musicians are to notes. Or sculptors are to stone. Or, you know, baristas are to coffee beans.
2. Good ideas are hard to catch. Copywriters bring a big net.
3. A good design with poorly written copy is like chocolate ice cream with sawdust sprinkles.
4. Copywriters know how to use alliteration, allusion, assonance, onomatopoeia, gerunds and prepositional phrases. The rest of us barely know what those words mean.
5. If a picture is worth 1,000 words, the right words can be worth 1,000 sales.
6. Sticks and stones may break your bones, but the wrong words will kill your marketing.
7. Copywriting is the poetry of sales. It’ll make your customers go weak in the knees.
8. A copywriter bends the laws of time and gravity: saying things with half the words and twice the impact.
9. “Proper words in proper places, make the true definition of style.” – Jonathan Swift (See? Only a writer could write that.)
10. Good copy is agile, quick and deadly accurate. Yep, copywriters are word ninjas.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Mobile Internet has been estimated at over 34.6 million users back in June of 2006 according to the “U.S. Device Census Report for Q2 2006″. Apple expects to add 10 million iPhone users by the end of 2008 and experts estimate another 8.5 million iPod Touch device users, which also support mobile browsing via WiFi. Combined, these three user numbers equal twice the population of New York City. With an audience this size your website can surely expect iPhone/iPod Touch visitor traffic. Our focus today is to explain to you, who may not build websites for a living, what you need to know about your company’s website and how it will function on these Mobile Internet devices.

What Is Mobile Marketing Anyway?

Mobile Marketing has been all the buzz over the last year and it is no wonder why with, “more than 3 billion mobile phones in a world of 6 billion people. That’s 2.5 times more cell phones than Internet connections” says Adverting Age’s Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) 2007 Mobile Marketing Guide. For those of you who are new to Mobile Marketing, the MMA defines Mobile Marketing as, “the use of wireless media (primarily cellular phones and PDAs) as an integrated content delivery and direct-response vehicle within a cross-media marketing communications program. Mobile Marketing can be a marketing use of voice messages, text messaging (SMS), video messaging (MMS), live video and television delivered to a mobile device; downloadable products (games, videos, podcasts, ringtones, wallpapers) and the Mobile Web, including WAP sites.”

Enter The iPhone & iPod Touch

You may already know that Apple’s iPhone is changing the mobile devise market, but you might not know it is also changing the Mobile Web as well. In the past, the Mobile Internet has been made up of mobile sites specifically built for mobile phone browsers using technologies such as WAP. Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch have changed this by creating the most computer-like mobile browser to date, called Mobile Safari. I am sure you have seen the TV commercial where we are told that the Internet experience on the iPhone (or iPod Touch) is the same as you would expect from your computer. This is true to a certain extent.

Although Mobile Safari does display websites adhering to web standards very similar to your computer, the one major difference with Mobile Safari is the lack of support for Adobe Flash Player. Mobile Safari will not support any Flash content on your website. There are many speculations as to why this is the case (such as battery life) and some people believe that Apple is in no rush to support the Flash Player. The bottom line is that if your website is made up of Flash, the Flash portions of your site will not display on the iPhone and iPod Touch. As you can imagine, this could be a real problem for many companies and their websites. Other plug-ins such as Quicktime, a multimedia platform, have been updated but still work differently on these devices. Below are a few items to consider when evaluating your website.

Things To Know

1. Flash is not supported and will not display on the iPhone and iPod Touch. So websites using Flash to present information or navigation will not work properly.
2. Because these devices use Wi-Fi and/or Cingular’s Edge Network, download times will be much slower. This means that if your website is slow to load due to messy code and lots of images, users will have an even longer wait-time to see your site.
3. The screen on the iPhone and iPod Touch is much smaller than an average computer screen, so anything under 320px will be shrunken to fit the display by zooming out. This means that some things maybe too small to read or require the user to scroll to see everything.
4. The browser on these devices has a limited RAM (Random Access Memory), therefore webpage content should be under 30MB total.
5. These devices have no mouse! The mouse is replaced by the user’s finger. Consequently, if buttons or links are to small to click, the user will have trouble navigating the site.

Where Do We Go From Here

If we haven’t lost you by now, many of you might be asking well what now? Here are three strategies for going forward.

1. Do nothing. You my think that iPhone and iPod Touch users are not your target audience. This may be true now. But when you consider the impact the iPod had on the MP3 market, you could make a good argument that Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch could be setting the standards for the Mobile Web going forward. So your visitors might not be using these devices now, but they probably will be in the near future.
2. If your website is already close to working on these devices, you can optimize your current site as best as possible. This strategy would be for a website that might already be close to web standards or has minimal Flash. One option would be to remove the Flash portions of the site altogether. If this will not work for your particular website, another option would be to include both Flash and non-Flash elements in the programming. This means that the site is programmed so that if the website is viewed on a regular computer, the Flash portions will be present. If viewed on an iPhone or iPod Touch the Flash portions will be replaced with static images or other supported content. Our current {e} site would be an example of this strategy.
3. The last option would be to create a separate site specific to these devises only. Examples of this would be www.airtran.com. On a normal browser the site looks like most see it, but if you visit the site on a iPhone or iPod Touch you will see a mini-site designed to make navigating the website easy and with only minimal features that are the most important.

Help

If you are on a Mac (sorry PC People) and don’t have an iPhone or iPod Touch and you want to test your site’s capability on these devices, take a look at iPhoney. For the rest of our readers, please feel free to post a comment below or send us an email and we will try to answer any questions you may have about your current site or future website plans in regards to capability with the iPhone or iPod Touch…or any other questions for that matter (just a little plug).

Update

Read part two of our iPhone and iPod Touch series. Are my customers iPhone users?

Adobe making a mess for them selves by now announcing that they cannot use the SDK to get flash on the iPhone. Not great on Adobes part, it’s never a good idea to over promise and under deliver.

Looks as if Adobe is set on getting some form of the Flash Player on the iPhone whether Apple cooperates/helps or not.

There has recently been much talk regarding Flash coming to the iPhone. Steve Jobs announced that anyone waiting for Flash may be left waiting. Steve Jobs dismisses Flash for iPhone