Royal Oak Music Theatre ~ Saturday, July 24

(Birmingham, Mich) – Featuring the designs of world-renowned designer Jeff Garner of Prophetik, The Uptown Group (TUG) will host the “Green Breeze Fashion Show for Land Conservation” – showing going green not only helps our environment but it’s fashionable too. The unique green fashion show is Saturday, July 24 (Doors open 7 p.m. /Show at 8 p.m.) at the Royal Oak Music Theatre. Proceeds from the event benefit The Greening of Detroit and The Community House.

“The Green Breeze Fashion Show for Land Conservation” will bring the distinctive, all-sustainable fashion lifestyle line of Jeff Garner of Prophetik to the runway for the evening. Organized by TUG (The Uptown Group) – a collection of young professionals dedicated to making a difference in Southeastern Michigan through fun and innovative social events, cultural programs and community outreach – the evening will offer guests an evening of fashion, on-site vendors, food and music. Read the rest of this entry »

Social Media & Pre-Sliced American Cheese

A lot can be said about how we portray ourselves and our businesses through social media channels. Some advisers will recommend not to post anything that may alienate your audience (the “pre-sliced American cheese” or “greatest common denominator” philosophy).

But there is more to social media than being non-offensive or inclusive. The trick is to be non-offensive, inclusive AND CON¬CURRENTLY: interesting, available, current, occasionally funny, informative, and not-too-busy-to-pay-attention-but-not-too-idle-to-over post. Oh, and ditch the social media ‘I just opened my account’ generic page/avatar uniform as soon as you can (Need help? Give us a buzz).
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The IRS has established a procedure for charitable groups to apply for tax-exemption by incorporating as non-profits, known as 501(c)3 organizations. Doing so enables them to receive donations that are tax-deductible for donors, as well as receive grants from foundations and other funders.

While the procedure for applying for tax-exempt status is not difficult, it is strictly prescribed. In addition, individual states have their own rules regarding incorporation and tax-exempt status, and both levels of government have specific rules and reporting requirements to maintain a group’s status.

In simplest terms, an organization applies to the Federal Government to obtain an Employee Identification Number (regardless of whether they actually have paid employees). The group then incorporates in their home state. In Michigan, this process takes as little as four days and costs only $20.
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As traditional print newspaper readership is declining, online content is becoming more and more predominant. Just fewer than three-quarters of Internet users gather their news today online, according to the 2010 State of the Media Annual Report by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. People are exploring various media outlets to get their news when they want it, especially as the amount of information continues to grow online.

But this transition presents itself with issues. Daily print newspaper circulation has dropped just over 25 percent since 2000, according to the State of the Media 2010 Report, and in September 2009, industry-wide circulation fell just under 11 percent from a year earlier. “Those declines, however, pale by comparison to the loss in revenues, which represent a more significant problem,” stated the report.
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5. Your website is Flash based

• As a best practice your main business website should not be completely in Flash. Now, this does not mean you have to swear off using any Flash within your site. Having Flash modules to add interactivity to your site is perfectly appropriate if you want to simulate how a certain product functions or a process. A couple issues with having an entirely Flash website are:
• Search engines view an all Flash site as one file, meaning there is not the same opportunity to optimize different pages for different keywords, titles and descriptions.
• Flash files, particularly those using sound effects, embedded movies or bitmap images, may take some time to load. How fast it takes your website to load is a factor in how Google will ranks your page.

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So what would social media look like it if we went back in time to 1776 …

MySpace: MySpace was a way for those to establish their own personal space. Deodorant was not invented yet, only flowery perfumes to mask odors. MySpace was created so bodily vapors did not suffocate others near you.

Facebook: Facebook was the equivalent of a “Wanted” poster. Walking around town, you’d see various people’s faces posted on saloon doors and parlor entrances. Whether a man was looking for a good time or the town was to be on the lookout for those committing treason, Facebook provided networking in the general vicinity, so messages and status’ of others could travel near and far.

Twitter: Twitter was just another name for one’s carrying pigeon. If your horse isn’t fast enough and you needed a message to travel across towns quickly, sending a short, light message through your own carrying pigeon proved extremely efficient.

Flickr: Flickr could be found in just about everyone’s home. Since electricity was not invented yet and candlelight was the popular method to provide light, this candlelight made it easier for visitors to see their host’s faces, as well as the paintings hanging around the house.

(Troy, Mich.) — Media Genesis has been headquartered and served southeastern Michigan for more than 14 years. But now, the Detroit area won’t be its only home – the internet solutions company has opened up a satellite office in Chicago.

“We have always found Chicago to be a great market and have wanted to expand there for some time,” said Media Genesis CEO Brad Frederick. “We are extremely excited about the opportunities in terms of reach and growth a second office can bring to the company.”

And Chicago isn’t the only place Media Genesis has stretched its geographical horizons to. Recently, Media Genesis has taken on a project in Texas for the Fort Worth Housing Commission, traveling to do a photo shoot in Colorado for BSST, provided an analysis and website design for Dana Holding Company in Ohio, and developed a website for the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania using Microsoft SharePoint.

“The stability of Media Genesis has always been based on our diversification of project type, client size and industry, and now through expansion of our geographic presence and reach.” Frederick said.

Media Genesis specializes in services ranging from consulting, interactive multimedia, audio/video, application development, E-learning, online promotion, and hosting.

For more information about our new Chicago office please call 312.985.6375, or visit www.mediaG.com.

If you are reading this, there is a good chance you are tethered to a power strip which is tethered to the socket in the wall. If you are one of the unlucky ones, that socket may be deep within the cave under your desk, or worse, behind the couch.

If you aren’t plugged in (as us laptop users sometimes brave against the waning tide of battery life), you’re likely nervously watching the battery icon in the corner of your screen.  In which case, I hope you can finish reading before you’re rudely interrupted by the shutdown.

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10. Your site has dead links

This might not be the sole reason you redesign your website, but might be the first step into evaluating the content, design and brand and how these play into your online reputation of your company. A free Microsoft tool to find dead links on your website is http://www.microsoft.com/web/Downloads/platform.aspx

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Every internet user is all too familiar with the concept of online advertising, be it in the form of a too-good-to-be-true offer, a survey, a pop-up window advertising myriad of services, and the text that runs along the bottom of streaming online video. As consumers have turned off their televisions and plugged in their PCs for home entertainment, the very nature of these advertisements has changed abruptly and in a noticeable way.

Taking the place of boilerplate, generalized advertisements like those that run on network television, we see customized and targeted information directly related to the content of our emails, our interests on Facebook, and our connections on LinkedIn. While this information is still used to sell products, a movement towards using this idea to address the social concerns of users has been quietly growing across the web.

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