Apple Camp

So my 10-year-old daughter is at Apple Camp today for the movie-making class. Am I a little jealous? Well, yes. It really seems like fun, and I kinda want the t-shirt they give the kids.

But underneath the blatant way to get people to come back to the store and be surrounded by everything new and shinny Apple, it is a great way make sure that kids and parents know how to use and get the most form their Macs, and in the long run, build loyalty to Apple products because they can do all of this with an Apple computer right out of the box.

I know Apple has been under fire on the interwebs for being expensive and being "closed" (just do a quick Google of "iphone + flash" and you will get bombarded). But as far as a computer or tech company, the advertising, gorilla marketing, and ability to build brand loyalty has been amazing.

Looking past the physical products and at the marketing plans shows a very diverse process to develop loyal customers.

Aside from the marketing, my daughter is really enjoying the class, and it has been fun for me to watch her learn about story boards, shooting footage, and now editing to create a final product. She spent a lot of time with her little sister shooting the video clips, and she is making her own music video of Justin Beiber's song "Baby" with her little sister and her bitty baby doll. (I'm still working on getting her to listen to music that isn't played on Disney Channel, which is tough when the radio and her friends constantly have it going, but we are making strides. She likes some of Dessa's new songs.)

This has been great for her, and she has been really excited. After it's all done, we'll load it up to share with you.

Video Tour of Bluffs at Nine Mile Creek

I put together a video tour of one of the properties my company manages, the Bluffs at Nine Mile Creek in Eden Prairie, MN. I recorded the video using a Flip camera, and then edited it in iMovie. Not perfect, but it is a beta to show management that video can be a helpful marketing tool for us.

Let me know what you think (besides I took shaky video...)

Summer Term

I am taking Marketing Communications for the summer, winding down my MBA program. The class is based around our group project of building a marketing plan for a non-profit company. My group will be helping PROP in Eden Prairie. They offer help to those in need with a food shelf, consignment shop, and financial planning services.
Our first step will be outlining our marketing plan, should be interesting, as this is my first time doing a full marketing plan for a non-profit company with very limited funds for marketing.

Data, data, data

In the data gathering mode, trying to put together a way to track all of our activity from our website, our property resident portals, and our internet advertising with site sites like Rent.com and ApartmentFinder.com.

Once I get that step down, the fun will come, as I put together recommendations for our Marketing group to give to the properties. Once I get this set up, I will share some of my findings and templates to get more colaboration from everyone.

Fun from my Ethics class

For my Ethics class we are writing an oath, and for fun, we thought we would create a twitter account to go along with. I thought it might be fun to have the only oath (that we know of) for a business that can be passed along in 140 or less.

Here is the account: twitter.com/ethicsteamred

User Survey

Hey everyone, I am looking for feedback on one of our websites. Would
you take a few minutes and take this survey? Much appreciated! http://bit.ly/bpXNVI

Do you use your website?

So, maybe its just me, but I have been coming across a lot of websites lately that are just not user friendly. I don't want to call anyone out here just yet, but it really makes me wonder if people spend any time on their own sites.

I think my next "project" I will pick out some websites that I come across and do an informal usability audit for a little practice.

I have been amazed at how many sites make it difficult for visitors to get to information, lack conversion points, just don't work, and so on. This isn't even getting into mobile. I am really looking forward to this (holly geek alert Batman) and should be kind of fun. Maybe I will also post it SEOmoz to get some more input on the audit tactics I am using.