Here’s another success from our growing portfolio of custom WordPress themes. Lauren Slade, of the Universal College of Reflexology, asked us to move her e-commerce website ReflexologyeStore.com to WordPress. The custom theme we developed replicates the look and feel of her static HTML site, saving untold hours of redesign time. Only difference is, she can now easily add and remove products, create new product categories, and tag products as related—all in a nice, friendly, HTML-free interface. She can even stick featured products and other items in her site’s sidebar with just a few clicks.
This adds up to less overhead costs and greater profits for her web venture. So go check out the site and learn to read some feet while you’re there.
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We recently relaunched the website of seminal punk photographer Edward Colver after migrating the old, static edwardcolver.com into WordPress. Velocity7 developed a custom theme for the project, geared to precisely match the look and feel of the old site.
While the appearance remains nearly the same as the original, the transition increased the end-user functionality of the site by leaps and bounds. For example, we customized some WordPress plugins to allow Edward’s merchandise manager to easily add new shirts to their web store. V7 also streamlined their e-commerce engine, which had previously routed potential buyers through multiple third-party sites in search of their coveted shirts.
]]>AUBRN Calif. July 10, 2009 – Are you interested in boosting website traffic to your business?
Do you understand the importance of accounting transactions?
Help is on the way. The Sierra Economic Development Corporation (SEDCorp) is hosting a series of classes designed for the entrepreneur and small business owners in Auburn and Placerville:
Internet Marketing
July 16, 2009 – Intermediate Class – Auburn
August 18, 2009 – Beginner Class – Placerville
August 25, 2009 – Intermediate Class – Placerville
The Beginner class you will learn how to get top rankings on Google, how to pick the right keywords for your business and you will be shown free tools to market locally, track website visitors and improve your business.
The Intermediate class will cover implementation of Internet marketing skills presented in the beginner class. Advanced techniques of keyword research and competitor analysis will be explained using examples from class participants. Other topics will include link building, Social Media Marketing, Google Analytics and Pay Per Click advertising.
6:30 PM – 9:00 PM
Cost: $45.00, paid in advance
Instructor, Coryon Redd, is a successful entrepreneur who will teach you how to use free Internet tools to build a better website and draw customers to your business. In addition, you will be given an evaluation of your current marketing efforts and how to improve your marketing techniques. This is the class where your marketing dollars will be well spent.
Financial Feasibility Analysis
July 22, 2009 – Auburn
August 11 & August 26, 2009 – Placerville
This workshop will cover financial implications of common accounting transactions, financial forecasting, break-even Analysis and cash flow projections. If you don’t understand these – you are missing the boat. Learn how to forecast accurately and realistically and whether or not you have enough money in the business to survive.
6:00 PM – 8:30 PM
Cost: $45.00, paid in advance
Instructor: Dave McDougall has an extensive background in both the corporate and small business world. From 1970 to 1988 Dave worked for various Fortune 500 companies in middle to upper-level management positions. In 1988, Dave started his own business that eventually grew into a $12 million, 120 employee, multi-location car rental company. Dave sold the business in 2001 and is enjoying consulting throughout the counties.
Auburn class location:
Sierra Economic Development Corporation
560 Wall Street, Suite F., Auburn, CA 95603
Placerville class location:
El Dorado County Office of Education
6767 Green Valley Road, Placerville, CA 95667
Please call Sandy at 530-823-4703 or email sandy@sedcorp.biz to reserve your seat. Payment must be received in advance.
Future classes to sign up for: QuickBooks, Identity Theft, Office Organization, Survival Marketing and Retirement Planning.
]]>Nevada City, CA – Velocity7, Nevada City’s leading marketing communications agency, has launched joidesresolution.org, a major new educational initiative of the Washington, D.C.-based Consortium for Ocean Leadership. The website tells the story of the JOIDES Resolution, a former oil exploration ship now in use as one of the world’s premier tools for scientific climate research. The JOIDES Resolution—or JR, as it is known on board—drills core samples from the ocean floor. Scientists use these cores to study the history of Earth’s climate.
The new website is deeply interactive and integrated with top social networking tools. The site provides teachers with a plethora of classroom resources and activities, and appeals to kids with videos and games. Users can communicate with scientists on board and read frequent updates from scientist and crew member bloggers. Visitors can sign up to receive blog feeds in their RSS reader, or for a monthly email newsletter also designed by Velocity7. In the fall, the Consortium for Ocean Leadership will sponsor two national contests for students through the website. The contests were designed and planned by Velocity7.
“We think we took this site to a whole other level with the integration of social networking tools.” states Velocity7 CEO, Robert Trent. “A teacher might read an interesting blog entry with an embedded YouTube video, and then share that video directly with her teaching buddies on Facebook and Twitter. All that functionality is just a couple of clicks away”
The launch of the website coincides with the relaunch of the ship itself. The JR went to sea on March 5, 2009, after over two years of retrofits to the ship and its science facilities. The ship is operated by the Consortium for Ocean Leadership, a nonprofit organization representing 95 public and private ocean research education institutions, aquaria and industry. Acting of behalf of these leading institutions, Ocean Leadership works to advance research, education and sound ocean policy.
]]>Here is a bit about Lessing
Lawrence Lessig is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the school’s Center for Internet and Society. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty, he was the Berkman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and a Professor at the University of Chicago. He clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court.
Maybe you’ve heard about the soon-to-be APPLE Sustainability Center, scheduled to open this summer in downtown Nevada City? We plan to post more details soon – but, to help get the ball rolling, please help us out right now by taking this quick (just 5 questions) online survey:Click Here to take survey
Stay tuned for more – and sign up for our announcements emails!
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What if there were an easy way for Businesses and individuals in New York City to dispose of all of their E waste?
What if there was a 4th Bin?
New York, NY April 2, 2009 – Valiant Technology in association with
Per Scholas, The Architect’s Newspaper, Metropolis Magazine, Soho Reprographics, Supermetric, and Core 77 has today launched “Design The 4th Bin” a competition aimed at designing the next generation E-waste logo and an E-waste Bin for New York City.
The winning logo is to be released as a public domain/creative commons design, to be as familiar as the möbius strip on every paper and plastic recycling bin.
The winning bin is intended as inspiration for an E-waste collection system in New York City. It aims to help building owners, businesses and residences comply with the new laws going into effect in 2010 restricting the disposal of electronic waste.
For more info visi http://4thbin.org/
]]>Contact: Robert Trent, Director
pr@velocity7.com
Phone: 530.470.9292
Velocity7 Wins Gold Addy Award for Public Service
Nevada City, CA – Nevada City’s premier marketing communications agency has been awarded a Gold ADDY Award by the Sacramento Ad Club. This success at the local level advances Velocity7’s entry into a regional-level competition, and, with success there, to the national level. The ADDY Awards is the world’s largest advertising competition, and is the only creative awards program administered by the advertising industry for the industry.
Velocity7 took home Gold honors for Public Service Campaign in a Single Medium for creating sevenforthesierra.com, an educational website on seven issues and ideas critical to the future of the Sierra Nevada. The website attracted visitors with a seven-month PR campaign highlighting a new concept each month. Visitors were presented with an engaging introduction to the issue, and directed on to further information and resources to take action on the issues that inspired them.
The Seven for the Sierra campaign was inspired by regional efforts to increase the sustainability of Sierra communities. Velocity7 used the campaign to introduce the web-browsing public to leading organizations and individuals working on behalf of the Sierra. Issue pages directed the user to organizations like the Sierra Business Council or South Yuba River Citizens League for further information. Illustrations from renowned field guide author, illustrator, and environmental educator John Muir Laws enlivened every entry.
About Velocity7
Velocity7 provides integrated marketing solutions. Services include marketing communications, web, branding, print, public relations, advertising and media planning. 530.470.9292 www.velocity7.com #####
A: Because seven eight nine.
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Nevada City office melds multiple entrepreneurs in single space
Robert Trent owns a Nevada City marketing and public relations firm that provides promotional materials for organizations committed to saving the world’s oceans.
His business, Velocity 7, also provides glossy brochures for Airstream trailers — those towable, livable aluminum recreational vehicles.
All he needs is a laptop, a chair, and a reliable Internet connection that, when it goes down, Trent can walk two steps away and ask fellow entrepreneur Rob Sheldon to fix.
Sheldon is a self-employed information technology specialist who works in the same office with Trent — and Sheldon sits next to Paul Smith, who has an MBA in sustainable management and owns a consulting firm.
And when Smith wants to share an idea with Trent, he can either walk the four steps to Trent’s desk, send him a Twitter feed or instant message.
The entrepreneurs, each with his own business, work in the same room in a second-floor office on Broad Street. Trent holds the lease to the building, and Smith, Sheldon and one other solo entrepreneur work at different desks in the same room.
Together, they make up Sierra Commons, where business people can rent space on a month-to-month basis.
For $200 a month, Trent offers tenants a desk, an Internet connection, and the chance to break the work-from-home doldrums.
“You get a lot more value for your money,†Trent said. “We’re not making money by subletting. That’s not why we’re doing it. It’s all about getting some energy going to share some ideas and learn from each other. Being a part of this downtown is important to us.â€
More productive
Trent, 42, has been in the building on Broad Street for five years. Sheldon, 30, who owns No Problem IT consulting, has been in the building two and a half months; and Smith, 39, who owns Green Smith Consulting, has been in the building one month.
“I didn’t need an office, technically, but it helps to have human beings around you,†Smith said.
Smith and Sheldon use sleek laptops; Trent and his associate use desktops.
The office has a kitchen and a bathroom around the corner, but no copy machine — that’s done down the street, in an effort to keep waste at a minimum.
The “solopreneurs†are working to save some green — both money and otherwise — by using one office.
“We all need to make a living,†Trent said. “We’re all businesses with local, national and international clients, and we all want a quality of life, and this adds to it.â€
Sheldon, who does troubleshooting, network administration and installation, and Web design and development, used to work at home.
“I think it’s fair to say that my productivity has increased 250 percent. I get so distracted at home.
“It feels very good to say ‘I have an office,’†Sheldon added.
The setup is not unusual in larger cities — nor in Nevada City, which has several examples of similar work arrangements.
Smith joked that the office is so user-friendly that all one needed to work there is a roll of toilet paper and an Internet connection.
But they really need intangibles, too.
“There’s a culture that has to be a part of it,†Trent said. “If you have a party and you have crackers and Cheez Whiz, it doesn’t mean it’s going to be a big, good party. It has to be a symbiotic relationship.â€
So far, so good.
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