Tuesday, April 28, 2009

THANK YOU! Our 12th Anniversary was a BLAST!

A GIANT THANK YOU to our clients, network and friends who came out to play last week!

Cat, Atalee, DavidB and I would like to thank you again for supporting Your Plan B Company for over 12 years now with great projects, new friends and cool web designs. We love working on the web and look forward to the next cool project - whatever it may be :)

Photos from the party can be seen on our Flickr account!
And if you missed getting a lime green shopping tote, email me and I can pop one in the mail for you.

THANKS!

Monday, April 20, 2009

Twist of Lime! Our 12th Anniversary Party!


Your Plan B Company Party at Holiday Club Chicago!!
Come share a twist of lime with us to celebrate our 12th Anniversary :)

This is our chance to offer a GIANT THANK YOU to our clients, freelancers, network and friends (and family) in a swingin' atmosphere.

It's been 12 years and Your Plan B Company is busier than ever with great challenges, beautiful ideas and creative marketing projects. We want you to know how much we appreciate your continued support. AND how much we look forward to the upcoming web trends and how they might effect your online marketing and business!

6:30-9:30pm Open Bar with Green/Lime themed Snacks
(And hang around for TWIST AND SHOUT afterwards where DJ Dave Roberts and guests from Chicago's Mod/scooter scene spin 60's Mod/Soul/Ska! Kristine pours $4 (20 oz) Import Schooners all night!)

Please RSVP by emailing jameyb@yourplanb.com so we can add your name to the VIP list!

Monday, April 13, 2009

Counting down to Earth Day!

Ways that we are green, lime green:

- telecommute often using the internet or conference calls
- walk, bike or take public transportation to work more days than driving
- belong to zipcar.com
- electronic mailings for our client billing and announcements (vs. printing + snail mail)
- reuse paper (last year we only used one box of paper!)
- buy recycled supplies
- recycle our cell phones (donate to a good cause!)
- purchase electronics with auto power down (and remember to turn everything off at the end of the day!)
- shop with our own bags
- receive e-bills instead of mailed bills from our vendors and utilities
- turn off the faucet while brushing your teeth and take shorter showers
- support local farmers, by shopping at the farmers markets
- use ceramic cups - no one-time use cups here
- change incandescent light bulbs to fluorescent bulbs
- turn the thermostat down by three degrees during the winter/turn the thermostat up by five degrees in the summer
- sweep the carpet each week instead of using the vacuum cleaner
- combine all errands for one day each week
- unplug all charging devices when not in use

and hey, our corporate color is green, lime green (HEX CODE: LIME)!

Overall our goal is to reduce, reuse, recycle and buy smarter.
And we hope you will join us!

Monday, April 6, 2009

Not sure how to edit HTML? No clue what PHP is?

We've got you covered and can make website updates easy with a Content Management Solution (CMS)...

What is Joomla?
Joomla is an award-winning content management system (CMS), which enables you to build Web sites and powerful online applications. Many aspects, including its ease-of-use and extensibility, have made Joomla the most popular Web site software available. Best of all, Joomla is an open source solution that is freely available to everyone.

What's a content management system (CMS)?

A content management system is software that keeps track of every piece of content on your Web site, much like your local public library keeps track of books and stores them. Content can be simple text, photos, music, video, documents, or just about anything you can think of. A major advantage of using a CMS is that it requires almost no technical skill or knowledge to manage. Since the CMS manages all your content, you don't have to.

Check out some of our Joomla! sites:
trillfilm.com
holidayclubchicago.com
otrassn.org
spatulatta.com

Give us a call 773-665-2552 to convert your site over to a CMS.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Twitter, Flickr and more - Learn about online communities!

Myspace, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Tribe, Linkd in, LiveJournal, Classmates, Reunion, Bebo and and and...

What are these?
And how can you use it to market your company or organization?

"A virtual community, e-community or online community is a group of people that primarily interact via communication media such as newsletters, telephone, email, online social networks or instant messages rather than face to face, for social, professional, educational or other purposes. If the mechanism is a computer network, it is called an online community. Virtual and online communities have also become a supplemental form of communication between people who know each other primarily in real life. Many means are used in social software separately or in combination, including text-based chatrooms and forums that use voice, video text or avatars. Significant socio-technical change may have resulted from the proliferation of such Internet-based social networks." (thanks wikipedia)

What this means for you? Think of these virtual communities as a café or lounge of like-minded individuals all interested in what you have to say.

Get going then!
Join or create a new community today to help spread the word about YOU!

Give us a call if you would like to discuss how social networking can help your marketing plan - 773-665-2552

Monday, March 23, 2009

Your Plan B Company going lights out on March 28th for Earth Hour 2009



On March 28, at 8:30 pm local time, one billion people will go dark for Earth Hour. World Wildlife Fund is asking individuals, businesses, governments and organizations around the world to turn off their lights to make a global statement of concern about climate change and to demonstrate commitment to finding solutions.

Already hundreds of icons and landmarks around the world have signed up to turn their lights off for Earth Hour 2009 including - the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Sydney Opera House, Acropolis and Parthenon in Athens and The London Eye, among many others.

To to be part of the global lights out visit http://www.earthhour.org/

Your Plan B Company will be joining in! And as a countdown to Earth Day will be posting some other Clean and Green themed information and tips.

Monday, March 16, 2009

NEW SITE for OTRASSN.ORG

Incorporated as a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization in December 1974, the Over the Rainbow Association was originated by parents and concerned community leaders. DavidB and I began volunteering with OTR in 1995 building their first simple site to the new 3.0 CMS version of today!

Be sure to pencil in the upcoming CELEBRATION event in your calendars! You can read last year's event wrap up in their recent newsletter. And check out their other upcoming events too - get involved if you can!

For many years Your Plan B Company were the website editors, but now with open source options like Joomla! we were able to create a new version of the site where their team and residents can be the editors. Like the community that exists in their brick and mortar buildings, we will be maintaining the site as an online community with different levels of access based on task. And the Board Members can be more actively involved too with their special section. Be on the look-out for all sorts of new videos, blogs and photos from OTR!

If you would like to remodel your site into a Content Management Solution (CMS) or want to know more about CMS, feel free to give us a call at 773-665-2552