Creatives all across the world know of “the Spark”. Sometimes we really “just aren’t feeling it”. We look for creative inspiration in all directions: street signs, TV commercials, websites, competition, antique stores, magazines, play-lists and the very popular (not for this guy) cup of Joe. What ever it is, once it hits you, it’s an artist’s race to the finish to get it down and recorded (on paper, wax or screen) before a distraction hits and it fades away.

Although it began with a TV commercial, a global campaign centered on a digital push launching March 1 will allow consumers to produce their own mixes of music and, beginning in April, create animated films at Sprite.com. They say you must “demonstrate what the brand was about and allow you to experience the brand.”

I get mine from Bruce Lee movies [and now maybe Sprite]. Where do you find your spark?

Here’s a link to the rest of the article.

The homepage boast 8 large images that ask the viewer “What are you inspired to do?”. From there you can explore what Inspired Action is all about. It’s main focus is helping individuals find their direction. The viewer will have the opportunity to read thought provoking quotes, get ideas on how to advance their careers, read through articles and videos and even connect with Todd as helps you through your Inspired Action Plan.

Below are some screen shots of the homepage and the interface. You can also visit the site here, Inspired2Act.com. Big shout out to Todd! We hope you are as proud of the site as we are!

The mission of Hope Lutheran School is to develop and foster spiritual, academic, physical and social growth in children and to assist them and their families in becoming productive members of God’s Kingdom.

Because of this strong, passionate mission statement, it was very important to place emphasis on the Christ-centered, educational focus in developing the logo. Also, we decided to highlight the fact that the school has been establishing itself within the community for over 25 years.

Please take a moment to review the concept design and provide feedback on the look and feel of the proposed logo for Hope Lutheran School. We feel it is a bold, traditional yet forward and fresh design for the school and will only aid them in continuing to strengthen its foothold within the Shawnee and greater Kansas City area. We’d love to hear your honest feedback!

Thank you.

What do you think?

As a professional in the business world and an online marketer, my life (personally and professional) is all connected. Between my Facebook profile which is linked to my company site, which is in the signature of my email located right above my LinkedIn profile address, there is no way that a prospective client or vendor can’t find out anything and everything about me with the click of a mouse.

With that said, no matter what your professional intentions are with sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook, it is important to dot all of your “i’s”, cross every last “t”,  and keep it professional (or at least PG) at all times.

Here a few tips to optimize your LinkedIn presence:

You know that status thing that you sometimes update on your facebook page? We’ll it’s on LinkedIn as well…USE IT. It will increase your visibility and search engine optimization of your page.

Do you notice how your job title is the first thing besides your name that comes up when visiting your LinkedIn Page? Make that a description of you or your objective (just like what you have on your resume). That gives someone a fair opportunity to judge who you are and what you’re about and decide whether or not they want to scroll through the rest of your page

If you haven’t already, edit your URL to your name. Again, SEO.

Write your summary for 2 target audiences: an employer or client AND GOOGLE. In the instance of looking for a new position, just copy and paste your resume (assuming that your resume is action keyword optimize for those companies that use computer programs to scan them). SEO is huge when people are scanning your profile for relevancy and qualifications.

Now although I just said, “copy and paste your resume”, FOCUS on the future. Write about your goals, vision or the mission you want to achieve by utilizing a networking tool such as LinkedIn. Your past work history will be interesting to most people to an extent but no one wants to read your Job Obituary.

(Let’s throw in a Facebook tip since their probably connected somehow) If you haven’t gotten this one yet, un-tag yourself in photos that you wouldn’t want a prospective client or employer seeing. And if it was posted by you, take it down.

Join related groups! And when you’re a member of a group, participate in discussions: ask questions, forward interesting articles and links, post helpful tips, etc (Its called interactive for a reason).

This blog posting is truly just a small piece of the tip of the iceberg. Visit http://learn.linkedin.com/ to learn more about optimizing your profile and using this tool to its full potential.

Katrina, Jerry and John

On Tuesday of this week BCG had two high school students come to the office and shadow. Jerry and Katrina spend most of the morning with the group learning about how BCG operates and taking part is discussing goals and experiences. After Jerry and Katrina shared their goals for the future, they sat down with John, BCG’s Interactive Designer, for a 1 on 1 introduction to blogging. Next they sat down with Andrew, one of BCG’s designers, to watch and learn a bit about the branding process….along with a little basketball talk. Jerry and Katrina spent the last hour of the day walking to and eating lunch at Harry’s Country Club (in the City Market) with Christy, Andrew and John. Over all, a great experience for both Students and BCG!

Remember when you could go to askjeeves.com and the little butler guy would pop up at your service to answer any burning question you could come up with?

Well in ‘06, the company got bought out, they re-branded to ask.com, got rid of “Jeeves the butler” and became a Google look-a-like site. Oh, wait! I mean Mr. Jeeves “retired blissfully”<—

Now of course they conducted tons of market research, interviews, etc, etc to come to that decision but now…Jeeves is back! He’s fresh out of retirement like Jordan wearing #45 and he’s got a new look.

Why is he back? Is it because…

…Too many loyal customers complained about his absence?

…They are fighting like cats and dogs with MSN, Yahoo, everyone else and their mother for the 10% market share that Google does not own?

…Or maybe they realized that the little butler guy that may have annoyed some people was actually a creative, fun and personal touch that connected with searchers and differentiated it from the other engines?

I think the domain www.ask.com lends a lot of credibility to their operation but they should have stuck to their guns, stayed “different” and kept the iconic butler as part of their brand. Who knows how much brand loyalty they would have built by now.  Thru their research they asked a lot of people what they thought, but maybe they should have Asked Jeeves first.