Date for Sept. SCIMA is set...

We've set the date for the next SCIMA and have a great speaker lined up - won't you join us?

September 25 , 2007
Location: The Colonial Center (map it!)
from 4:00 - 5:45 p.m. (presentation will begin at 4:30)
Topic: Membership Marketing
Speaker: Jeff Greene,
Director Marketing & Communications Coastal Federal Credit Union
Please RSVP by emailing contact@myscima.com.

Membership Marketing:
Get your customers and prospects involved – their feedback is the best way to improve your communications strategy.
Jeff Greene, our guest speaker, oversees the publishing and placement of over 35 channels (including advertising, media, website and email marketing) yielding continuous member and marketing communications for Costal Federal Credit Union.
Devoted to evolving is trade, Jeff uses his experience across many mediums to mentor others, he even finds the time to engineer successful philanthropic drives on a limited budget. Read more about our speaker and make plans to join our next gathering.

About this Month's Speaker: Jeff Greene, Director Marketing & CommunicationsCoastal Federal Credit Union

Since graduating with a double major in broadcast news/ technical journalism from Colorado State University in 1985, Jeff Greene has been passionate about discovering new creative ways to communicate and embracing his weaknesses. He commonly refers to himself as a caterpillar in the way he’s polished his skills and made continual professional advancements.
With experiences in Television news – photojournalist, reporter and newscast producer – Jeff is a marketer that looks at you straight in the eye. As the marketing director at the American Lung Association of North Carolina, he engineered a very successful fund raiser driving the sale of $390,000 in discount golf discount cards and nearly half a million in donations over the internet – all this with a budget of less than $200.
Today at Coastal Federal Credit Union, Jeff oversees the publishing and placement of over 35 channels for continuous member and marketing communications (including advertising, media, website and e-mail marketing). His marketing is based on true member feedback, as he is always learning & improving the impact of his communiqués. He is always trying to learn.
A mentor to many online marketers, he is learning to demonstrate the extent to which he knows what is most important role is by commonly answering his phone as, "Jordan Greene's Dad."
Jeff has a BA in journalism from the University of Colorado and an MBA from the University of North Carolina.
Sign up for our email list or visit our blog for information about this and upcoming sessions

Make Flow Charts without Visio

The Digital Inspiration blog has a great article about a website that allows you to create flow charts online, without the use of any special software. This is a great tool for project managers and others in IT or Web development who might need to put together a flow chart on their infrastructure.

Next SCIMA: Email Absolutes

Please join us for the next SCIMA meeting:

August 28, 2007
Location: NCR (map it!)
from 4:00 - 5:30 p.m. (presentation will begin at 4:30)
Topic: Email Absolutes
Speaker: Sundeep Kapur
Send us your RSVP to contact@myscima.com.

Looking to launch an email marketing initiative or sharpen your current campaigns – our Email Absolutes can help you harness the interactive features of this low cost, high-speed, personalized medium while avoiding SPAM and maintaining your whitelisting status.

RSVP to contact@myscima.com. See you there!

Service In Action Call - TODAY!

All SCIMA members are invited to the Service In Action phone call, hosted by Sundeep Kapur of NCR eCommerce. Service In Action is a monthly marketing phone call attended by several marketers in various fields to discuss best practices in email marketing and ecommerce.

Today's call is at 2pm EST. We'll be talking about The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly - Best Practices in Email Creative.

Remember, the call is free!

The call in number is 1-800-774-4523, meeting ID 8816. The presentation is hosted here.

We hope to hear from you today!

Ready to Start a Blog?

If you’re ready to start a company blog, but have encountered resistance from senior management, consider using these justification points:

1.It’s free!

2.It works! When searching Google and Yahoo you’ll notice blogs are showing up earlier and earlier in the search results. Search “SC meeting planning” and you’ll find the Columbia CVB website. But look just a few results down and notice their sales blog coming in at #4.

3.It’s fun for everyone. Not only is creating a blog easy, it’s also a great way to build a sense of teamwork and collaboration amongst all levels of staff. Yes, some members of your team might feel overwhelmed or not know what to write. Give it just a few days and notice the change in attitude. It’s fun to create a profile. It’s neat to see your photo online. Pretty soon everyone feels like a celebrity.

4.It’s easy. Since posting to a blog doesn’t require knowledge of html, everyone from the president to the receptionist will enjoy the ease of use and sense of freedom that comes along with posting. Inviting others to join your blog as contributors is as simple as entering their email addresses and clicking on “invite.” This will generate and email to each person you’ve invited with instructions on how to create a username and password. After that, it’s ready, set, blog!

5.Everyone’s doing it. From McDonald’s to Grandma. If you want to stay current online, you need one, don’t you?

Social Media in the Skies

City Wall

The CityWall is a large mutli-touch display installed in a central location in Helsinki which acts as a collaborative and playful interface for the everchanging media landscape of the city.