Leadership Award - Congrats to JameyB!

JameyB, class of 1992, was honored with a leadership award by the Beloit College Seniors of the Mortar Board Society. Mortar Board is the premier national honor society recognizing college seniors and alumni for outstanding achievement in scholarship, leadership and service. Mortar Board recognized JameyB for her dedication to leadership, as President of the alumni board, President of her own company and often giving back to non-profit organizations.

“It was such a treat! And so much fun at the ceremony speaking with Seniors. There is so much energy from this graduating class! So much energy for our future! Thank you!” (JameyB)

View the video of the awards!

CocktailCloister.com LAUNCH!

Welcome to the Cocktail Cloister – Independent spirit ambassador, cocktail enthusiast, and rum fanatic. If you like, I mean LOVE the magic that is a delicious cocktail, then this is the site for you. Follow our friend John as he explores bars (both national and international), attends classes and from time to time works behind the bar!

DavidB created a custom logo that is used on the site as well as all the marketing materials from business cards to corkscrews. Look closely - there are 3 cocktail instruments hidden in there! The site was built using WordPress and a custom web design. WordPress allows our client the ability to update his site from anywhere his laptop can go - even the beach!



If you have a project that needs a standout logo, marketing materials and an easy to update website, give us a call to discuss!

Otrassn.org annual Celebration event!

Over The Rainbow Association is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing affordable, accessible housing and employment opportunities for adults with physical disabilities. Our mission is to enable adults with disabilities to lead an independent life.

On Sunday, December 4, 2011, Over The Rainbow and world-renowned opera singer, Nancy Gustafson, will host our 22nd annual foot-tapping, heart-stopping CELEBRATION benefit concert to raise money to support our mission. In addition to Nancy, the concert showcases a bevy of world-renowned singers, including Sylvia McNair, Richard Leech, Paul LaRosaand Jonathan Beyers. We are also pleased to announce that our very own resident, Nichole Goodman, whose courageous performance at last year's concert touched everyone's heart, will be joining this year's cast. Over our twenty-two year history, these performers have regaled audience members from across the United States year after year with beautiful contemporary, classical, and holiday music.

This coming holiday season, join us in our CELEBRATION and give the gift of independence.
Venue:
Pick-Staiger Concert Hall
Northwestern University
50 Arts Circle
Evanston, Illinois 60201

What I learned working from home

Recently I had to have surgery, which meant working from home while I recovered. I found some great online tools, tricks and apps that made me productive. Some you may have heard of before and some may be new - all I can say is they did the trick!

Google Docs
LogMeIn
WebEx
Dropbox
Trillian
Chrome Sync (for bookmarks)
my handy dandy address book for passwords (and a pencil)

And some great resources about working from home:
microsoft.com/atwork/remotely/workremotetips.aspx
workathometips.com/
zenhabits.net/top-30-tips-for-staying-productive-and-sane-while-working-from-home/
lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/six-effective-tips-to-work-from-home.html
greenblog.pgi.com/category/telecommuting-tips/

I am now back to my normal routine heading into the office and feel so much better! These tips however, are still very helpful and handy for those days when I need to work from home due to the weather, illness or meeting that upcoming deadline!

Do you have tips or tricks to share? Head over to our Facebook page and join the conversation.

Social Networks

Have you checked out Google+?
Are you on Facebook? Do you tweet?

Did you know Volkswagon, Google, Old Spice, Ford and Papa John's are considered by Advertising Age to be the top promoted tweets and engagement rates. Twitter reports that the average promoted tweet sees between a 3% and 5% engagement rate, and up to 7% to 10% when combined with a promoted trend.

At the end of 2010: Social media networks and blogs consume nearly 25% of people’s time online. The number of people who are visiting social media sites has increased by 24% over the last year. The average visitor spends 66% more time on these sites than they did a year ago. Facebook is the world’s most visited social media brand with 54% of the worlds internet population visiting the brand. And much more. (thanks jeffbullas.com)

Some great places to keep up to date on what is happening with social media and marketing at Mashable:
mashable.com/social-media
mashable.com/2009/10/28/small-business-marketing
mashable.com/2009/09/30/small-business-strategies

Your Plan B on Twitter
Your Plan B on Facebook
Your Plan B blog!
And you guessed it - soon we will be on Google+

Give us a call and we can discuss what might social network will work for your company's message. Call 773-665-2552

Happy Halloween 2011

Here are 13 Halloween related links to enjoy!

365 Days of Halloween
All year round collection of horror, spooky and Halloween images!

Bath and Body Works
Pumpkin candles, soaps and lotions!
Super spooky hand sanitizer in glow-in-the-dark or bat carriers!

Death and Dementia
Their list of links proves quite entertaining!

GOTHtober
Each year the GOTHtober calendar counts down to Halloween with 31 days of music, video, animation, recipes, crafts and other assorted art goodies.

Grandin Road?s Halloween Haven
If you like Martha Stewart?s Halloween items, this is one of the places to buy them. We tend to wait for the sales though…

Halloween.com
Everything from the history of Halloween to locating haunted houses.

Halloween Peeps
Just love the peeps!

Halloween Website
Good collection of Urban Legends!

Pottery Barn
Another spooky home decorator hot spot at Halloween time!

Victorian Trading Company
Some great items all year round really!

Vintage Halloween
Great collection of images of noise makers, paper mache and more!

Williams-Sonoma
At Halloween they carry one of the BEST Pumpkin Bread mixes. And each year they seem to add more and more items to make your kitchen spooky!

Yankee Candle
Home of the Boney Bunch!

Introducing the new spookyinc.com

Counting down til Halloween!
Something new from the folks who brought you GothicChicago.com!

In the world of Facebook, Google+ and Hot Topic, a more personal project emerged from the SpookyB's (JameyB and DavidB) in the early 2000's – SpookyInc.com (spooky stuff for spooky people.) SpookyInc.com offers a wider, yet more select, resource. The links are being narrowed down to a more focused list (only the spooktacular will be selected) but the reviews and photoshoots of featured artists, bands, talent, events continue strong as ever! In the next month or two, SpookyInc plans to resurrect the much-loved, and sorely missed 13 month October to October calendar!

If you want to see some of what we do when we aren't in the office, hop over to this site. Full of spooky links, videos, photos and coverage of spooky events.

You can follow us at our site: spookyinc.com
On Facebook: facebook.com/pages/Spooky-Inc-Studios/117365494952307
And on Twitter: twitter.com/#!/SpookyInc
And soon Google+