37 of the Best Web Designs from the Travel Industry
Published August 10th, 2009 in Galleries

“Travel websites often feature large, attractive photos because of their emphasis on visual appeal. In this post we’ll look at 37 well-designed sites from the travel industry for your own design inspiration. Some are state or government tourism websites, and others are for hotels or business involved in the travel industry.”

Source: vandelaydesign.com/blog/galleries/travel

Not far from the offices of Twelve Horses is the West Shore of Lake Tahoe. A beautiful place where dramatic snow-covered mountains cascade downward in to the sparkling blue waters of one of the clearest, most breathtaking bodies of water in the world. Juxtaposed to this raw beauty are businesses that depend on the Web to communicate their brand to the wayward traveler looking for information to help them make informed decisions.

Last year, Homewood Mountain Resort came to Twelve Horses for a website redesign, which you may have read about here. Like many of our website design projects, we were tasked with organizing large amounts of information into a user-friendly format that satisfies both the client and their end user. A common practice we employ to accomplish this delicate balancing act are module tabs or user interface (UI) design patterns. Whenever possible, we strive to accompany these tabs with both text and graphics to improve the experience.

Smashing Magazine just recently published an article titled, Module Tabs in Web Design: Best Practices and Solutions. The article features Homewood Mountain Resort along with some other exceptional examples of module tabs being used to optimize web pages. Here is an excerpt from the article:

A module tab is a User Interface (UI) design pattern where content is separated into different panes, and each pane is viewable one at a time. The user requests content to be displayed by clicking (or in some instances hovering over) the content’s corresponding tab control.

Module tabs are seeing an increase of use as websites and web applications push for optimizing web page screen areas without sacrificing the amount of information presented at once. For example, in weblogs,  they are used in secondary content sections (such as the sidebar) to present relevant and interesting information such as a listing of blog posts which users can interact with to get to web pages quicker. This inevitably allows for an unobtrusive and compact manner of presenting content.

This article discusses the use of the module tabs design pattern for use in websites and web-based applications. We share with you some best practices to consider when using module tabs, a listing of real-world examples of websites the take advantage of module tabs, as well as tutorials and free downloadable scripts for building and deploying module tabs in your sites.

Give it a read.

How did David LaPlante, CEO of Twelve Horses go from being a ski racer to the head of a successful online marketing company? It was a little accidental.

But anyone that has worked closely with David knows that it has also taken a whole hell of a lot of work, creative thinking, determination, and very little sleep. David juggles a ridiculous amount of responsibilities. Along with leading this snarky band of brothers and sisters, he serves as chairman of the Nevada Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology, and on the board of several organizations including, the local economic development authority (EDAWN), Entrepreneur’s Organization, Artown, The Holland Project, Reno Bike Project, and the local school district. On top of that he is a father of two boys, which he is begrudgingly pulled away from for numerous speaking engagements and client meetings.

Despite this herculean load of work, David also manages to project a relaxed and fun demeanor that echoes the unique culture of Twelve Horses that we all enjoy. Obviously, the Reno Gazette-Journal sees it in him as well.

Twelve Horses’ David LaPlante: Living a new, better dream

As iconic daredevil Evel Knievel learned in more ways than one, accidents happen.

It’s a lesson one Reno CEO also happened to learn more than two decades ago, courtesy of a snow-covered mountainside.

As a kid growing up in Crested Butte, Colo., going to college and forming his own company wasn’t exactly on David LaPlante’s radar.

“I wanted to be a ski bum,” LaPlante said. “I wanted to go to Europe and race.”

The first wrinkle in LaPlante’s dreams for a grand European tour surfaced on April 1988 during his final ski race in high school. LaPlante hooked a tip during his last slalom, disqualifying the aspiring skier. It was after the race, however, that LaPlante’s European dream would jump the shark. With his racing plans temporarily on ice due to the disqualification, LaPlante went skiing with friends at an out-of-bounds area. The accident that followed proved to be more serious than simply hooking a tip. LaPlante said he essentially “obliterated” his knee.

It was while LaPlante was recovering at home that his father would float the “C” word. Perhaps the young LaPlante should consider going to college, his father said.

Following the conversation, LaPlante and a friend soon found themselves touring the University of Nevada, Reno, as part of a recruiting visit for the ski team. Little did LaPlante know that his first step into the university would also be the first step in heading his future company, Twelve Horses.

“I just fell in love with the place,” LaPlante said. “Next thing I knew, I was going to Reno. So if I hadn’t hooked that tip in that slalom — if I didn’t have that 1-centimeter judgement error, who knows where I would be now.”

Taking the reins

Featuring a unique fusion between marketing and technology, quickly explaining what Twelve Horses does in layman’s terms can be tough even for its CEO.

In the simplest terms, Twelve Horses can be defined as an online brand marketing and messaging technology company, LaPlante said. But labeling his company as just a marketing firm would be oversimplifying at best. After all, not many marketing agencies have their own research and development departments, much less their own patents for messaging, ticketing and data replication technology.

Read the rest of the article here…

Using a light source the right way can add dimension and beauty to a website design. Strong light sources create a stark contrast between light areas and shadows in a design, making the elements look more realistic and dimensional and less flat. Read more…

Here are some examples:

BestWebGallery | TheBestDesigns | CSS Mania | CSS Drive | Smashing Magazine | Abduzeedo | CSS Idea | 1st WebDesigner

Which is better?

That can be a daunting question. Do I go with an open source company like Drupal, Mambo, or Joomla!, or a proprietary system like Twelve Horses? Unfortunately, the answer isn’t cut and dry. It requires a significant amount of research, evaluation and judgment that shouldn’t be taken lightly.

Content Management System

Step 1 – Be realistic

Don’t kid yourself, there is no silver bullet. Every option has pros and cons, but the goal is to find the solution that will provide you the most value and the least headache. Here is a comparison of the two:

Open Source:

Pros: Upfront costs are minimal. Many vendors are able to work in the major platforms, and if they aren’t, the learning curve is low. Updates and modules are typically free, abundant, and help is available all over the web.

Cons: Customization is more limited. Modifications and custom  integrations are susceptible to upgrade issues that typically are not supported. Because open source is community driven, it is a one-size-fits-all approach that can create bloated features. Free add-ons can be buggy and present possible security threats.  Potential downtimes can also present high risks for businesses.

Proprietary:

Pros: Business driven not community driven. Streamlined skill sets allowing for faster development times, and customization options are more flexible. Typically niche driven keeping features lean and inline with your industry. One company means greater support and accountability. In many cases, especially for medium to enterprise-level businesses, total cost of ownership is less in the long run.

Cons: There is a higher initial investment, licensing fees, and you are tied to one company for customizations and updates. Switching vendors can be difficult and expensive.

Step 2 – Define your needs

As with any integration of new technology, defining your end goals will help drive the tactics and products to support it. Ask your team the following:

• How large will the site be?
• Is it one site or multiple sites?
• How many users will be accessing the system?
• Will you be integrating your website with any other online marketing applications or vendors?
• Who will maintain the site?
• Do you have internal resources, or will you need outside support?
• Do you require database and code level control?
• What other supporting products and services does the CMS vendor provide?

These types of questions are critical in determining the best solution.

Step 3 – Research

Look at what is core to your company’s online success and find vendors that support the mission. If an open source option fits, look at the community and ensure that the development path is inline with your company. If a proprietary system is deemed the best path, make sure the company has a solid history of continual CMS development. Also, remember to look at total cost of ownership. Your time equals money, so the less time spent managing vendors is more time you can spend growing the business.

Step 4 – Act

Choose a solution and stick with it, but at the same time be aware of what your exit strategy would be and how much it might cost.

At the end of the day, you’ll find that a proprietary CMS is a targeted solution that offers less risk, more accountability, and greater scalability where an open source system offers greater internal flexibility and an abundance of add-ons that are generally free at face value. The real question is whether you want to concentrate on the execution of the medium or on your business? The choice is up to you.

In the meantime, we will experience the migration of software evolving into websites, and Twelve Horses is expanding its boundaries with these new technologies. Recently, we created a new event planner that integrates the functionality of software but utilizes the power of the Web.

Dynamic Meeting Planner
Our client, Dynamic Competence, needed a way to transform a paper-based meeting system into a dynamic communication tool that facilitates conversations for meeting topics. To be successful, the client needed to manage and monitor meeting plan revisions, improve group communication, and use a medium that would help save time and effort for meeting planners.

In this project we developed features that we have not yet seen: the website works more like a software application than a traditional HTML site. Below I’ve highlighted some of the functionality we developed.

Features for Success

1. Drag-And-Drop Interface A planner has the ability to categorize their contacts into different groups before sending out the meeting invite. To help increase speed and usability, the interface allows the planner to drag-and-drop their contacts into the available groups before sending.  This saves the planner time and effort when creating the invitee list to be a part of the meeting process.

2. Double-Click Editing Instead of making edits via a regular textbox and hitting save, a meeting planner simply goes to the topic they need to edit, double-clicks on it, and this opens up the section to be edited. This dynamic interface also allows editors to add and disable topics with one-click, saving time and effort.

3. User Feedback System The success of the system relies on the interaction of the client’s users. If, for any reason, a user has an issue with a website or wants to comment, a Feedback button is provided on every page. To provide more insight into the feedback, the user’s comments, current page, and date submitted are all tracked by the System Admin Inbox (see below). This valuable feedback data also provides insight on how to improve the application for future use.

4. System Admin Inbox The system administrators wanted to be sure all the feedback was being read and responded to appropriately. With multiple feedback messages, this could be a daunting task to make sure everyone is receiving a response. To complicate matters, there could be multiple System Admins in the system. To resolve this, the feedback items are displayed in an email inbox format (read or unread), and the message tracks which System Admin first read the response.

5. Versioning Each iteration of the meeting process is saved as a separate webpage to the website. With this, a meeting planner can see how the meeting agenda transformed from the first draft to the final version of the agenda. This tracks all comments and changes, keeping the meeting processes organized and easily retrieved for historical purposes.

Using web-based applications provides many advantages: updates and new features are rolled out across to users in real time; data is stored on the server and is accessible from anywhere that has Internet access; and custom solutions are tailored to a client’s needs, which isn’t as easily done with software.

Soon we may solely rely on the Web for our daily workflow. Until that happens, we will continue to push the boundaries of Web technology to help meet clients’ needs and increase the usability of applications.

At a recent TED conference, best-selling author of Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert stated, “we have completely internalized and accepted collectively this notion that creativity and suffering are somehow inherently linked.” She goes on to further frame “the utter, maddening, capriciousness of the creative process” by suggesting that we pull from something greater than ourselves. Maybe Gilbert was thinking of the late Carl Jung who once said, “Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument.”?

When it comes to email marketing, designing for your objectives can be a little maddening. If you do pull from something greater than yourself, and then translate that perfect vision to strategy and paper, you may find that your creative team is not realizing it. So, back and forth you go until there is no time left. A deadline is a deadline. But there is no doubt that the battle for the inbox – and your customer’s attention – requires engaging, actionable designs. What can you do to minimize your suffering and help aid that creative process along?

Know Your Audience

Through personalization, you no doubt consider who you’re addressing with every send. But who really is your audience, and what are they expecting from you? If you have a sizeable database with varying preferences, this is where you can not only practice segmentation, but also employ different designs and messages for each segment. What a great way to make your audience feel like you are personally interested in their needs and goals. Not to mention leveraging different designs for newsletters, promotions, events, and important notifications, as many businesses do.

Get Your Rendering Right

There is nothing worse than a well-designed email that just doesn’t render right. Ask yourself whether your recipients are primarily businesses or consumers? This will determine if the majority is using say, Microsoft Outlook vs. Gmail or Hotmail, or perhaps even receiving their emails on a mobile device – keep in mind that 30% of B-to-B recipients are receiving emails on their mobile devices. Regardless, it is impossible to get an email design, or the content offer itself, to render perfectly in all email clients, so you want to shoot for the top 2 or 3 and then make sure you test – test – test before you launch.

Avoid Graphical Overload

Remember less can be more. It’s especially important not to overuse graphics in an email to the point that images constitute the entire message. It is that much easier to delete an email message if nothing at all captures the consumer’s attention before they have opted to download images. Ask yourself, what are recipients going to see above the fold? Does it stand out? Does it speak to their needs? Call upon Maslow’s hierarchy of needs if you need some help with this.

Content is King

Great designs fall flat without good content. No amount of slick design skilz are going to carry your customer over the line if the message doesn’t add value to the recipient’s life. Subject lines, headlines, offers and calls to action are all crucial to a successful campaign. With one quick glance of these elements a recipient will understand what the value is immediately upon viewing the email. Easier said than done, but if you solidify the messaging first, establishing a strong supporting design can be made much easier.

The Beauty is in the Data

Don’t be afraid to test a few different designs early on in the game. Many email marketers get their template and design down to a point where everyone internally is pleased with the outcome. But no one has any idea what the customer really thinks! Each time a client has pursued A/B testing, it was completely obvious which email design performed the best. Also, don’t be afraid to test offers and subject lines. As you achieve greater relevance it will have a direct result on your clickthrough rates. Yes, you may have to invest more time in creating additional versions at the outset, but the payoff will be greater conversions with the final send.

Break the Rules

The email marketing industry loves to apply various rules and best practices by which we should guide our “online lives”. While it’s great to have a foundation to work from, don’t let best practices become a burden either. At the end of the day, your job is to move the needle more than you did the last time, so don’t be afraid to experiment with the experiential and maybe even defy conventional wisdom.

Considering these factors during the early stages of an email marketing campaign will lessen the suffering and assist you in finding the drive to make email a more effective instrument.

Real. Pure. Authentic.

Three words that Alpine is known for. Three words that have helped mold a website, guide blog posts and continually increase web traffic to keep sales steady despite a slow economy and a late starting season. Of course, it isn’t just the words, but the translation of these words across multiple channels that are bringing them continued success.

Real Communications

Alpine maintains a constant stream of video, photography, blog posts, as well as events and promotions to help drive home those three key tenets of their brand and increase conversions through search engine optimization and stronger relationships with their customers.  Many companies view social channels like Twitter and Facebook as marketing tools in the same way they view a print ad or TV spot. But the users of these social networks simply won’t allow it.

Studies have proven that people are tolerant of advertising in exchange for good content. The same goes for the Web. But no one is willing to follow a company on Twitter if the majority of their tweets offer no discernible value and are purely promotional. It is a tough concept for many to understand, and spending two hours a day keeping up with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr is a hard concept to swallow. If you do it well the results are quite rewarding, but you must first have a good base.

Pure Design

Every good online strategy starts with a home base, a place where all the information is stored and transactions can be facilitated. Because of this, websites and their accompanying databases serve as the most important interaction points in the online marketing mix. But many websites end up overflowing with too many promotions and special offers competing for precious real estate on the homepage. Not the case with Alpine. Instead, they use texturing, leverage terminology like The Blogosphere, The Haps and The A-list, and utilize image-based navigation with animation. The end results is a better use of graphics and messaging that support one another in order to produce the desired conversion. But how do you get new customers to the website, and once you do, how do you keep them coming back?

Authenticity

Many companies choose to portray only the best about themselves on the web. They remove negative comments from their blog and they push the same print and TV messages across all available channels. But there is nothing real or pure about that. Alpine embraces the negative and uses it to stay authentic. They don’t lower their voice when bad weather and lift holds hit, they don’t produce video that is just a smaller version of their TV ads, and they definitely don’t consider their website to be an online brochure. Instead, they inform their customer. They send twitters when the lifts are on hold, they tell you to sleep in and wait for the avalanche crew to blast the hill before heading up, and they let negative comments spark greater conversation on their blog. These tactics might make the average marketer nervous and feel as if they are not in control, but in many ways they already aren’t, and the only way to help guide the brand forward is by openly engaging with the consumer and interacting well.

The Stats

In the month of December, with much less snow fall and much harder economic times, Alpine has seen an increase in overall traffic to their website by 25%. Web analytics show that this increase in traffic has much to do with their Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and blogging activities. Since the redesign of the website, Alpine has also seen a 19% increase in email subscribers and a 22% increase in text messaging subscribers.

Of course, we can’t all be ski resorts. Design, messaging, and communication channels are going to vary for different industries. Nevertheless, Alpine serves a great example of how we can all benefit from a multi-channel marketing mix that stems from a well-constructed brand that delivers on its promises and keeps it real.

A web widget is best explained as a mini-application that runs on a web page. Bloggers use widgets to update their content, such as a twitter feed. Financial institutions use widgets to add value to a users’ experience such as providing a currency converter.  Other businesses use widgets to push time-sensitive promotions or extend their services on other sites, such as Google maps.

Recently, Twelve Horses developed a custom Flash widget to help increase a client’s services. Have you ever traveled to a distant place and wanted to know what there was to do? Our client, BeDynamic, provides content for event/venue information across major cities for travel-oriented businesses who are continually, answering the traveler’s question, “What’s to do?”

The interactive and extensible widget allows BeDynamic to install the widget on their client websites. This permits BeDynamic to easily share its event data with their travel partners and push ticket sales.

Visitors go to a client website, such as an airline, and search through the widget for local events. If the person finds an event that they are interested in, the person can buy tickets to the event, map the venue location, or build an itinerary that is then emailed to the user.

The widget works off of BeDynamic’s XML event data. The XML feeds the widget, which organizes and displays this information based off the XML event category. Also through a configurable XML file, the widget’s design and featured city can easily be managed by BeDynamic. Therefore, if an airline company or convention and visitors bureau wants to use their widget, BeDynamic can install this application on their client’s site to easily match their brand.

A separate, but similar widget was developed to show “Featured Events” on the BeDynamic site as well. The feed randomly displays featured events in the XML files, showing ticket and event data for different locations. This helps communicate the type of event data that BeDynamic could provide for a potential client.

 If you are looking for another way to engage your users or learn more about them, a widget is the way to go. A widget adds new functionality to a site and improves the user’s experience.

Best practices suggest every marketing budget should include a line item for usability testing. But what exactly is usability testing? When do you employ it? And how and where do you start?

What is Usability Testing?
The goal of usability testing is to measure your product’s ability to complete or accomplish its intended function or purpose – basically, to affirm whether or not you are truly building your product with your end-user in mind. A few usability goals when building a web site may include:

• Understanding how different visitor types look for information
• Collecting feedback on the types of services/solutions/products your customers might look for
• Getting responses on the tone and amount of information you supply
• Identifying preferred information architecture, terminology and design for your target audience(s)

When Should You Use Usability Testing?
Usability testing is best employed early on in your effort, preferably at the wireframing phase, or at minimum to test initial design prototypes. Many marketers who use testing in their build process do so to validate their efforts after the effort is already completed. There are several challenges with this approach. What if the feedback you receive shows you may need to consider major design, navigation or content rework? Do you still have the time, or the budget, to execute such changes?

With usability testing, you hear straight from the user the problems they’re encountering with your product, helping you identify problems and devise solutions before you introduce your product to your valued customer. This saves you and your customer from a potentially very big headache.

How does Usability Testing Work?
Usability measures four core areas¹– performance, accuracy, recall and emotional response. Let’s consider a session focused on reviewing a new web site.

• Performance: How much time, and how many steps, did it take your site visitor to finish a task? To find a product or sign up for a newsletter? 
• Accuracy: How many mistakes did the user make? And were they able to get back on track with the right direction? Or does the error require changes to your site?
• Recall: How much did the person remember after the testing?
• Emotional response: Was your test subject confident in their abilities to complete the task at the end of the session? Were they stressed? How did they feel about their experience with your site?

To conduct a usability test, first, a scenario is created. Perhaps you identify trouble or problem areas you’d like greater insight into. Then, a series of tasks to complete the scenario is created that move users through the site to identify if those problem areas are, in fact, issues and to what degree. Throughout the session, users are prompted to provide their feedback on potential solutions.

By the end of the session, you should know more about whether or not the naming conventions used on the site, the navigation structure and the site design will meet your user’s needs, or if it needs revisiting. You can also glean feedback on the user’s expectations of your site and if it did or did not meet them. 

How and Where do I Start?
Sometimes the hardest part of usability is determining how and where to start. There are a variety of methods – from one on one interviews to focus groups, to individual sessions to surveys – that you can employ. And while many companies try to take on the task of usability themselves, they are not always experts in the user experience arena. Determining what you need and how to best attain the results you seek can be a daunting task.

There are experts in this field that can make usability a turnkey operation for you and direct you down the shortest (and most affordable) path to getting there. One expert in the field, User Insight, is both a partner and client of Twelve Horses. Their collective experience of over 20 years of user experience testing makes them one of the top 3 usability firms in the U.S., as rated by Forrester. They offer a variety of services that can help you ensure that your product or site development effort is on the right track, or to determine next steps for your existing efforts.

1 Nielsen, J. (1994). Usability Engineering, Academic Press Inc.

Spam is on the rise and has been since its origin. It was recently reported[1] that close to 200 Billion spam email messages are sent each day – approximately 90% of the world’s email. To combat this, Internet and email providers aggressively monitor their networks for user complaints, stale data, and malicious content. They establish reputation models that identify if an email sender is legitimate or not, and then use this data to determine whether to deliver, bulk, or block incoming messages.

Companies that are in the business of sending email marketing messages find themselves in a position where they are trying to send large volumes of legitimate email, but at the same time not look like a spammer. To help bridge this perception gap a number of email sender best practices have been developed and recommended by the email industry at large. These best practices help email senders to identify themselves as legitimate companies, sending legitimate email to recipients that have requested it.

There are some fundamental steps you need to take on your own, but then there are also several services your ESP should provide.

Accountability

Email providers continually monitor their inbound mail to determine what messages are legitimate and don’t cause user complaints. To that end, there are a number of steps a sender can do to look as legitimate and authentic as possible:

1. Authenticate email with the authentication standards available (i.e SPF, Sender ID, DomainKeys, DKIM).
2. Ensure that WHOIS information for the sending domain is correct and accessible. Don’t mask this information using domain privacy services.
3. Ensure that sending IP addresses have valid and correct reverse DNS.
4. Use a dedicated sending IP address.
5. Add verbiage to the top of the message asking the recipient to add the sender email address to their address book.
6. Provide a link to an online version of the email.
7. Make unsubscribing obvious and easy.

If you are not sure whether your ESP provides these services then now is the time to ask. Nevertheless, not all deliverability services come automatically, and some take a little more effort on your part. But it is worth it.

Project Your Brand

Companies often make the mistake of not leading with their brand when they send email messages. Use the “from” field and subject line to distinguish your company, and live text in the preview pane to again communicate who the sender is. Be very aware of how your emails appear before images are downloaded by the recipient’s email client, and when in doubt setup and test send to multiple email clients from Gmail to Microsoft Outlook.

Maintain a Two-Way Dialogue

It is important that you give your recipients an easy means of responding. If you can email them then they can email you. Many times recipients will simply reply to the original senders address, so be sure to monitor those requests. It also helps to clearly provide a “Contact Us” link, or a preferred “reply to” address. Another means of leveraging the conversation is to point your email communications back to a company sponsored blog or forum.

List Hygiene and Maintenance

In order to maintain good deliverability rates, it is important that you keep your email lists up to date. The best means of doing this is to be sure you email everyone on your list at least once every 90 days. Senders should keep historical data on subscription signups, and quarantine email addresses that bounce, or are returned as not deliverable.

The plague of Spam has taught society to not trust email. As such, it is a continual uphill battle for legitimate senders to get their email delivered successfully. Nevertheless, if you take these steps it will go a long way to demonstrate accountability and maintain email marketing as one of the most effective tools to reach your current and potential customers.

[1] “Cisco Report Spotlights Worldwide Cyber Security Threats”, http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2008/prod_121508.html

When it comes time for a new website design, many companies simply trust their perspective, or even just the web dev shop they selected, to properly design and architect the navigation and layout of their website. They don’t take into account the usability of the website from the customer’s perspective. Skipping this step can equate to user frustrations, deviations or disjointed paths through the site, and ultimately poor conversions resulting in lost revenue.

Don’t make this mistake!

Web analytics and recorded on-site sessions can tell you a lot, but it is only half the picture. User Insight provides businesses with extensive usability testing to ensure everything from branding and navigation to terminology and messaging is spot on.

Of course, if User Insight is going to redesign their own website they need to practice what they preach.

Before embarking upon the redesign of User Insight’s website, Twelve Horses provided them with several different wireframes to test. They set up user paths equivalent to A/B testing and recorded and eventually incorporated the feedback. For a complete explanation, please visit their website for an informative breakdown.

Needless to say, this process saved considerable time and dollars in the design phase, and the end result is a website that gives the customer what they want instead of what we/they think they need.

Product development and entering a new market can be a lot like judo. According to Wikipedia, Judo is “characterized by the indirect application of force to defeat an opponent. More specifically, it is the principle of using one’s opponent’s strength against him and adapting well to changing circumstances.”

This strategy is at the heart of our new ticketing platform.

Give the interview a listen.

FYI – To listen to the podcast via Utah Daily Pulse, you may have to exclusively use Internet Explorer.

Audio: CouchCast – Steve Spencer of Twelve Horses

This week on the CouchCast we are excited to talk with Steve Spencer, President and CTO of Twelve Horses, a Reno Nevada company with an office in Draper Utah.

Twelve Horses recently released a new product called Twelve Horses Ticketing. During our interview, Steve talks about why the company felt this was a market worth going after, even when it’s dominated by giants like TicketMaster, StubHub and Tix. The company is focusing on a market segment they feel has been overlooked by the big players, and priced out of for the small to medium sized business.

Twelve Horses is a full-service relationship marketing and messaging company specializing in designing interactive communication solutions. Utah is proud to have this company in it’s community. To find out more about Twelve Horses and what they can do for you, please visit their web site at http://twelvehorses.com.

Quality Design = Visual + Technical + Creativity

A while back we launched a new legal website for Kummer Kaempfer, and they were kind enough to submit it as part of the PRSA Las Vegas Valley Chapter’s annual Pinnacle Awards. They snagged a few awards in the categories of Internet Sites, Electronic Newsletter, and News Release. Nice work ladies and gents!

How many people do you think search for and make a judgment about a law firm based on the integrity of their website?

To all of you out there in the blogosphere and beyond, we at Twelve Horses would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy Holidays!

In addition, we have a little confession to make. This year we didn’t do a catchy holiday marketing campaign, an interactive card, or donate a lot of money to charities. Why you may ask?

We’ve been working our butts off on client projects, as well as improving our offerings and building new products.

While all you may get for Christmas is a pink bunny suit, we got a stylish new Blog Design and Events site. Also under our tree is plenty of continuous process improvement to our core products, namely the Twelve Horses Ticketing platform, which was recently topped off with a big, bright red bow. I think Mike’s partial to the new wide-angle head cam and 5 feet of fresh powder in the Sierras, but now we are just rubbing it in.

But the other thing to mention is that we don’t believe giving back is reserved for just one part of the year. Our management team and staff are actively engaged in many different community organizations with purpose of improving education, environment, and the economy. As examples, check out our Philanthropy page, or read about our COO recently receiving the “Spirit Award” from the Association of Fundraising Professionals.

Of course, if you did choose to give back over the holidays then Thank You! You surely made the world a better place for all of us. And if you could just do one more thing it would most appreciated.

Pray for Snow!

I also got a TubeMogul t-shirt!

-Mike

Came across this little gem on TED’s blog. It is courtesy of Wordle.

Print buys and traditional media spends require considerable investment and frequency to produce results. Not only are they expensive, but they typically limit engagement to direct pitches as opposed to two-way dialogues with customers. While metrics such as circulation, GRPs, and Nielsen ratings are good, they are hardly exact. Coupons, barcodes, and phone numbers can be put in place to track return on investment, but what if the amount of people that are actually seeing and using them is going down?

Everywhere you look these days you read headlines like:

Top 100 Advertisers Shifted $1 Billion To the Web Last Year At The Expense Of TV And Newspapers

Implosion: Newspapers Down 12.8% In 1Q

Auto Industry Revs Up Online Spending

Anheuser-Busch Looks To Slash Costs, But Not Marketing Spend

Major brands are shifting their marketing and advertising dollars to the web because, why?

• The Web is THE source for information and interaction.
• It represents the largest consolidation of customers with expendable income.
• You can reach customers at the point of making a purchasing decision.
• The online shopping experience is more valuable because of product comparisons, ratings, and feedback.
• You can engage your customer on a personal level and have meaningful dialogue that forms a positive relationship.
• The scale and extensibility of the Web, and web applications, is practically boundless.
• You can target campaigns based on niches, social networks, groups, keywords, customer type, and geography.
• Creative and messaging can be dynamic, interactive, and actionable.
• Companies are not bound by 3rd-party deadlines and campaigns can be launched quickly and cost-effectively.
• It is easy to append, shift,  and replace an online marketing campaign at any point in the cycle.
• The shelf life of a web page, blog post, video, or campaign is potentially limitless.
• And most important of all, you can Track, Measure, and Analyze everything.

Josh Bernoff from Forrester Research recently stated, “In the last recession, online spending cratered along with the rest of the advertising industry. But since interactive marketing programs are now fueled by measurable results, not dot-com madness, we believe that they can thrive in a recession.” Bernoff added, “Social applications in particular, such as communities and social networking sites, are cost-effective and have a measurable impact on prospects’ decisions in the consideration stage, which will be important to companies under recessionary pressures.”

Enter Social Media Marketing:

Businesses are increasingly realizing they can start a business blog, build out a YouTube channel, and join a few social networks for a fraction of the cost for a TV ad; and there is an audience. Joe Mandese, editor of MediaPost recently cited a study stating, “for adults 18-34 – social media now is the dominant form of personal communication media, with 85% of this influential demographic group relying on one or more Web 2.0 platforms to stay in touch with others.”

I guess you can call it Viral Marketing…if you want.

What has long been described as viral or buzz marketing is really the practice of getting customers to take action on a particular message by consuming it and passing it on. Because of the extensive reach of the web, a successful campaign can achieve tremendous success for your brand. But how does that relate to ROI? How much does a friend cost or a video view worth? The answer is, it depends. It depends on what you do with the relationship. Did you capture an email address from a sign up form? Did you overlay a link in your video that directed people to shopping cart for a particular product? Did it inspire enough motivation for someone to come down and test drive the latest model of car? Social marketing must consider all of these aspects and then some.

Some Words of Caution:

There is a right way and a wrong way to delve into the practice of social media marketing. If you do not have a clear strategy combined with a creative delivery your campaign will fail. People will not immediately eschew a social campaign because it is a business, but they will have higher expectations and be hyper critical. A few things to consider about a social marketing campaign:

• It must be clever, and it should resonate on a psychographic scale.
• It should be architected to persuade customers down a certain path but never force them.
• It should deliver on its promise.

As the Social Graph demonstrates, not only are you going where your customers already are, but you are giving them the means and the reasons to come back to interact with you. Done right, not only will it raise brand awareness, but it will also boost revenues by increasing direct and indirect web traffic.

Move Forward or Fall Back.

In an uncertain economic climate it is typical for many businesses to batten down the hatches and wait out the storm. They become conservative and unwilling to experiment. They worry that any marketing efforts will simply fall on deaf ears. These are legitimate concerns. Fortunately, the evolution of web applications, and our ability to get a message out quickly, cost-effectively, and with the right measurement tools in place means you don’t have to bind your hands with complacency. You can proactively get your message out and build your web base. Test, Tweak, Rinse and Repeat. Find the people that are searching for what you have to offer.

If you would like more information on social media marketing Click Here or Contact Us.

I think each employee has their own set of reasons for why they enjoy working at Twelve Horses. For some it would be the flexible work hours and ability to telecommute. Others would cite their appreciation for the exposure they get to new technologies and strategies for online marketing. Many take advantage of Twelve Horses wide array of community involvement, while some like to conduct business meetings over powder turns at Lake Tahoe.

Our individual values and the attributes we look for in an employer can differ, but the general consensus is that we all value an environment where we can voice unconventional ideas, experience new challenges, grow as individuals, and be given the opportunity and resources to make the world around us a better place. Twelve Horses gives us this special mix, and because of it we give back to the company, the individuals we work with, and the community around us. Here is an excerpt from the article:

As a superb example of today’s innovative technology companies, Twelve Horses has become a recognized leader in the fast-paced Web business field since its founding in 1995 in Reno by CEO David LaPlante. In the spirit of the mythical creatures for which the business is named, the company empowers its clients through interactive communication solutions. With a roster of 45 employees, Twelve Horses specializes in relationship marketing and messaging from its headquarters in Reno and offices in Salt Lake City, Atlanta, Phoenix and Tampa. Clients are scattered around the country and include small, medium-sized and Fortune 500 companies. Although she enjoys the company’s generous benefits, Leilani Schweitzer, social marketing manager, said she especially appreciates the overall corporate culture and flex scheduling. As a single mom, Schweitzer does a lot of work virtually. “There’s beauty in being able to work in my pajamas,” she said. Schweitzer also said she thrives on the creative environment that sets employees up to succeed, rather than fail. “It’s the best group I’ve ever been around because they’re all very smart and positive,” she explained. As she continues to grow along with other high-energy, creative employees, she looks forward to a long relationship with the company. “So much of our lives is spent working so it’s important to be in the best place,” she said.

tags: Reno, Nevada, Lake Tahoe, online marketing, “best companies to work for”

Last week this headline hit the news feeds:

Planworks, Starcom MediaVest Group’s dedicated General Motors buying-and-planning unit, has cut 25 jobs. The cuts come as GM is preparing to shift half of its $3 billion budget into digital and one-to-one marketing within the next three years.

This headline demonstrates the shift that is occurring in both consumer habits and the agency world. For example, is Gen Y a) subscribing to print publications and picking up the newspaper, or b) surfing the web and sending text messages on their iPhones?

Looks like GM gets it. $3 billion is no small spend, and it may even exceed data released by BIGresearch who provided a report in 2006 (see below) comparing the amount large brands spent on ads vs their influence on consumers.

   Automotive Ad Spend vs. Influence to Purchase
                           Spend/Influence**

Advertiser  Magazines  Newspaper  Outdoor    TV    Radio   Internet
---------  ----------  ---------  -------  ------- ------- -------
General      12.19%/     6.66%/    1.24%/  40.29%/  3.04%/  3.59%/
Motors        16.9%      17.0%     10.2%   17.5%    6.4%     8.7%

Ford         13.08%/     5.89%/    0.82%/  40.85%/  1.52%/  3.85%/
              17.0%      16.5%     11.9%    18.0%    6.7%    8.4%

Toyota       12.95%/     2.58%/    1.09%/  39.47%/  1.40%/  2.79%/
              19.0%      15.8%     10.5%    16.8%    5.3%    8.6%

*Source: BIGresearch SIMM 11 and analysis of Ad Age Domestic Ad Spending
         by Category (2006)
**       % of Total US Ad Spend/Media influence on brand owners to purchase
         a vehicle

What GM undoubtedly sees is an increase over time in the Influence metric for Internet, as well as the eventual merging of Internet and TV.

GM has already begun to foray into interactive websites and social media marketing campaigns.

Here are a few examples:

• GMNext
• Social Media Newsroom
• Chrysler Blog
• GM Fast Lane Blogs

At the heart of GMNext is a two-way dialogue with customers about everything from environment to innovation. It is a commendable endeavor and demonstrates a commitment to an open conversation about the future of transportation. Big brands like GM cannot afford to seem out of touch or archaic. They have to be on the pulse of current and future consumer preferences in order to be relevant in the market place. Using the web to engage customers is an excellent way of gathering data, and it has far more reach and measurement potential than a conversation in a showroom at a local dealership.

Of course, it is all lip service unless GM’s products actually evolve with their online strategies. My guess is they will because they have to, because I certainly won’t be buying another car that only gets 18 mpg. I just hope it is fast enough.

tags: gmnext, general motors, online marketing, social media

In my tenure at Twelve Horses – just over 6 years – we’ve always had an in-house CMS that we implemented. We’ve constantly been evolving it, adding features and making it better. Today, we are pleased to announce the release of version 1.4.1. While it appears to be a dot release, it’s quite significant for us.

We’ve added 12 new features, enhanced 10 existing features and fixed numerous bugs. Of the new features, the two most impressive are a comprehensive permissions-based system and multi-site management system.

Our larger clients have a need to allow certain people within their organization to edit separate parts of their sites. These clients still need to have control over the content to make sure the brand and style is maintained. Our new permission system provides for permissions around adding, editing, publishing, approving, uploading and just about any element of the website you can imagine. And while we’ve had permissions in the past, this is the first time it’s been implemented in WebGen and to the extent it’s capable now.

Multi-site management allows clients to manage two or more separate sites through the same interface. This means sites that are hosted on separate domains can maintain consistency, share content and provide one seamless interface for updates.

As you can see, we take our CMS very seriously. We are well down the road map for the 1.5 and 2.0 releases. If you are a current customer, we will be contacting you shortly about the upgrade. If you are not yet a customer, contact us about doing a demo today.

Your Company’s Online Presence

Making Your Web Site Work for You

by Kathleen Foley

According to Internet World Stats, more than 1.3 billion people worldwide have Internet access, and in North America, more than 71 percent of the population is online. With more people each day using the Internet to find information, compare and purchase products, and make important business decisions, having a competitive Web site is vital for businesses both large and small.

Should every company have a Web site? “If you had asked me that five years ago, I would have said no, but now it’s absolutely a necessity,” said Jarrod Lopicolo, business director for Noble Studios, a marketing and Web development firm based in Carson City. “The Internet is the No. 1 place for research before doing business with anyone, whether it’s choosing a dentist for a root canal or someone to provide a service for your company.”

Mark Cenicola, CEO and president of Cenicola-Helvin Enterprises in Las Vegas, agreed that having a Web site today is “critical” for all businesses. “Even if you’re a small operation like an auto mechanic, a Web site is a way for you to build credibility and enhance your image,” he said. “It also helps generate new business via search engines.” Cenicola’s company publishes a variety of Web sites ranging from technology news to classified advertising.

Both these experts agreed that it has become more difficult for the average business to create and maintain its own Web site, because visitors expect more functionality in a site today than they did just a few years ago, when a static “brochure site” containing basic information was the norm. Some of the functions visitors have come to expect on Web sites include event calendars, feedback forms, member directories, blogs and message boards, RSVP functions, shopping carts, search functionality and video clips. “Tools help people stay on your site longer and build up the retention rate,” said Lopicolo. However, learning how to program and maintain each of these features can be a daunting task for a non-professional.

“I don’t think it’s possible these days to implement an effective Web site without going to a Web development company,” he said. “It’s possible to download a Web site design template and populate it with content, but it wouldn’t have the impact you need to compete in today’s market. It would be like handing someone a business card with perforated edges. They would immediately know that you did it yourself, and your image would suffer. It’s hard to do your own site and have it not look amateurish.”

Cenicola remarked, “If you’re not an expert at Web site design, you probably shouldn’t be doing it. You could buy a set of plans and try to construct your own house, but if you’re not a building contractor, think of the learning curve, all the time it would take and all the mistakes you’d make. Then you’d have to worry whether the foundation was really solid.”

Content: Text is Just the Beginning

Managers at many companies today are wondering if they should feature a blog on their Web site. Cenicola noted, “Message boards and blogs are a growing trend, but they aren’t yet business-critical.” Blogs not only present another way to bring visitors into a site, but they also give professionals like attorneys or financial planners a chance to be seen as experts in their field.

According to Ding Communications’ art director, Erik Flippo, who also designs Web sites for the Reno-based advertising and marketing firm, “A blog can drive people to your site if it has good content that people are interested in. You can get repeat visitors that way,” he said. “However, if you don’t have anything relevant or timely to say, it doesn’t make any sense. It can be labor-intensive: somebody has to write the content, and you also have to make sure it’s timely and constantly updated. If you’re not willing to make the investment in manpower, you should think twice about starting up a blog or adding Web 2.0 functionality to your site just because you think everybody else is doing it.”

Videos are another popular feature on many Web sites, since most people now have high-speed Internet connections allowing them to easily download and view larger digital files. Many people prefer to spend four minutes watching a video or slide show instead of reading printed text to get the information.

Constantly reviewing and updating the content on your site is important for items like calendars and blogs, as well as traditional features like press releases or news sections. If visitors to your site see a bulletin announcing that the company president will speak at the upcoming 2006 Chamber of Commerce meeting, they will know you don’t make much of an investment in your Web presence, and your image will suffer.

Your Web Site as a Marketing Tool

David LaPlante, CEO of Twelve Horses, remarked, “Everyone’s waking up to the fact that the Internet starting line is Google. More and more people are realizing that if they aren’t as relevant online as they are in the real world, they have a problem.” LaPlante’s Reno-based marketing and messaging company provides services that include Web site design and development, search engine optimization (SEO) and multi-channel marketing.

SEO is a technique that arranges content within a site to make it appear in the best possible ranking on results pages when online visitors use search engines like Google and Yahoo. Since people naturally read a page from top to bottom, a site appearing near the top of the first results page is more likely to be visited than a site at the bottom, or on a later page.

Search engines routinely “crawl” Web sites looking for key words or phrases, and use complicated algorithms to determine how to rank sites according to how often these words and phrases appear, either in the content that is readable on the site or in the underlying codes or tags.

“When optimizing a site, it’s important to select your key words carefully,” Flippo noted. “You don’t want to be competing for general key words. If you have a travel agency, it would be crazy to optimize your site for the word ‘travel’ because there are so many other sites that reference that word. Yours would never appear near the top among all those thousands of results. You want to go after keywords that are two or three words long, like ‘Hawaii cruise’ or ‘Lake Tahoe skiing.’ The more specific you can be, the more likely it is you will be listed high in the search engine. You will also target the customer who’s more likely to result in a sale.”

Flippo warned against adding key words to a site only to get better search engine rankings. “It has to be good content that makes sense,” he said. “Search engines can tell if you’re just repeating key words, and they will punish you for the technique, which is called ‘keyword spamming.’”

SEO results in what is called an “organic” search, as opposed to paid placement on search engine pages. “The organic part means that it’s free – you’re not paying for it,” Flippo explained. “Once you make the initial investment of optimizing your site, you don’t have to pay for anything else.”

SEO is only one component of Search Engine Marketing (SEM), which has grown into a multi-billion dollar business. Although organic searches are free, they don’t guarantee results, and companies eager to grab their share of the market are willing to pay search engines to have their sites mentioned on results pages. According to the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, spending on SEM grew from $9.4 billion in 2006 to $12.2 billion in 2007, with spending projected to grow to $25.2 billion in 2011. The largest SEM vendors are Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter.

According to LaPlante, more businesses have come to realize the importance of Web searches in bringing in revenue. “There is also more competition for your customer’s or prospect’s ‘eyeballs’ and attention,” he noted. “Internet content until about three years ago was composed chiefly of branded sites and news media. There weren’t many compelling reasons for Internet users to spend the majority of their online time on sites that were not brand-specific. Now we have interactive social sites like MySpace, YouTube and Flickr, and people are blogging, consuming video and chatting. They are viewing content that is not created by the brands themselves, but by fellow consumers. The coming together of these two trends has caused many companies to hit the proverbial panic button, asking, ‘Why is our Web site visitation going down or flattening? Where are our visitors going, what are they doing, and why aren’t they staying on our site?’”

LaPlante said the popularity of all these new online channels has created a paradigm shift for companies wanting to advertise their products or services on the Internet. Instead of trying to drive everyone into one site that they can control, they may have to decentralize and spread their brand out into other online areas.

Companies whose customers are more likely to be younger and more tech-oriented are among the first to investigate alternate means of reaching them, according to Flippo. “You have to target the medium to your audience,” he noted. “If your potential customers are not technologically savvy, then why invest in text messaging or a MySpace page? Your audience won’t be there. On the other hand, there’s a nightclub in Reno whose audience skews very young – people in their 20s and 30s – and their only Web presence is their MySpace page. The acts that come to perform there, and special guests like Ultimate Fighting Championship stars, all have MySpace pages, so it creates a kind of synergy, using the ‘friends’ function on MySpace. It presents cross-promotional opportunities that works for them, but their marketing strategy wouldn’t work for most traditional businesses.”

Making the most of a company’s online presence can produce a good return on investment, but experts note that the initial investment does need to made if a firm expects to compete in the 21st century market, which is increasingly moving to the Internet.

Before starting a relationship with Twelve Horses, the Las Vegas Monorail did not sell tickets online. This was in part because they did not have the technology to take online ticket purchases, as well as the fact that they needed an enhanced web presence. What we helped them uncover was that a lot of opportunity existed to create new relationships, increase awareness, and generate a greater demand for tickets.

If the Las Vegas Monorail was going to sell tickets online they would need an ecommerce solution that was flexible and customizable. For example, Las Vegas receives a plethora of different groups to the city. If the Monorail was going to service these customers they would need to be able to handle large group purchases, as well as offer special incentives to encourage them to do so. Furthermore, non-technical staff would have to be able to manage it whether it was adding groups, defining the ticket price, specifying date ranges, managing the payment options, setting shipping preferences, and much more.

Needless to say we built it for them. Here is a look at some of the features of the Las Vegas Monorail Ticketing Platform.

Managing Channel Partners

The Las Vegas Monorail works with a number of channel partners and groups. The ticketing platform allows them to set-up a revenue share with these partners, as well as implement their own branding and images online, in emails, and print. It is extremely flexible. For example, they can run multiple promotions at once. This was the case for the recent Consumer Electronics Show (CES) where there were two different promotions – discounts for attendees and discounts for exhibitors.

Ticketing

The ticketing features are very diverse and capable of handling a multitude of different scenarios. Additionally, integration of ticket tracking and reporting is providing the Monorail with deeper customer insight, which enables to provide a higher level of customer service. Here are just some examples:

1. Automated postings of ticket blocks and and auto removal of postings by set parameters such as date of expiration.
2. Discount Codes defined and assigned either randomly or branded such as “CES2008.”
3. Overrides conducted either temporarily or permanently to groups, types, or partners.
4. Tiered ticket pricing based on quantity, time purchased, or aggregates.
5. Logic in the ticketing prevents, for example, trying to use standard postal delivery when it is international.

Fulfillment

The ticketing platform is flexible enough to allow the fulfillment of tickets via email, direct shipping, and soon – mobile.

1. Electronic delivery allows the customer to print the voucher at home and redeem onsite.
2. Email confirmations sent automatically with purchase confirmation, canceled order and refund, and tickets shipped. Email templates also include branding based on channel partner and/or promotion.
3. When the Monorail handles the print fulfillment they can download all the contacts and do a mail merge on all their envelopes, mailing labels, and tickets.

Customer Service

1. The customer service module gives the Monorail the ability to look up the customer based on any information they give.
2. Those with set privileges can void and change tickets, which reconciles on the financial side and funnels down to the various communication channels.

Reporting

1. The Dashboard shows financial report summaries and projections, so they know how they are doing.
2. Integration with Salesforce matches opportunity numbers to promotions so they can track real-time ticket sales and the success of a campaign. It also allows them to see important items such as what a particular vendor or channel partners agreement was from the previous year.
3. Redemption tracking not only makes sure the ticket cannot be used again, it also lets the Monorail know where and when the customer scanned the ticket, so they can better understand traffic and know where there major stops are.

All of this may seem like a lot, but this is just a brief overview of everything the Las Vegas Monorail Ticketing Platform can do. Suffice to say, the integration of this ecommerce solution has unlocked another channel of additional revenue for the Monorail, and because it is business automation at its best, it is completely scalable and requires very little additional internal resources to get it done.

tags: online, ticketing, ecommerce, solution, business, automation, las vegas, nevada

“For Twelve Horses, social networking is not just an area of commercial expertise, it also helps employees foster the group mind that is essential for any team to perform at its best.”

A few months ago, Twelve Horses took part in a series of improvisation workshops designed to help employees stretch their minds, and become more adept at strategic thinking and concise communication. The world of web technology is highly competitive and things change rapidly, so it helps to stay in shape. These workshops were led by Michael Bonifer, a dynamic individual who has enjoyed a rich career in new media, entertainment, and technology, and who recently authored GameChangers, a book about improvisation for business.

Improvisation for business draws upon the fact that business is dynamic, ever-changing, and filled with unique moments requiring original responses. Whether you are going through an RFP process, pitching a new product to a prospect, or putting together a plan internally with a team, one must be able to think on their feet and draw upon the collective intelligence of the group.

Bonifer takes the practice of relationship building in the business environment, and carries it to a hypothetical stage. Participants are not equipped with scripts, but instead are given a framework or an idea from which to operate. Improvisation techniques are used to seek out solutions to complex problems. While you do act out certain scenarios, the exercises are not about scripting or acting in the sense of deception. Improvisation for business is about performing at your best.

Does it take courage? Will you feel challenged? Will you at moments feel outside of your comfort zone? The answer to all of these questions is, yes. But in the end you will be rewarded with a greater sense of self and the career in which you operate. You will find yourself in more control of the day-to-day scenes of business and life. You will be able to better understand and guide how the scene is developing before the story is already over.

Business is competitive, erratic, sometimes volatile, and always changing and evolving. To adapt, differentiate, and deliver exceptional results, employees must be able to reach beyond conventional methods of engagement and operate in the moment. Improvisation for business will help your organization identify its strongest representatives, uncover problem areas, and help employees recognize strengths they were not readily aware of or given the chance to explore.

If you would like to hear more about the process to decide if it is right for your company give us a shout. We’ll be happy to tell you more.

It was a great event, and a huge thanks goes out to the Officers, Directors, and Members of TBAN who nominated and elected us. Furthermore, none of it would be possible without an awesome team of talented employees, customers who have been with us since 1994, and an array of partners who have supported Twelve Horses going back to the early days when we were Aztech Cyberspace.

We are not only honored, but thrilled, excited, proud, stoked, fired up, and above all – humbled. The fact is there are many cutting edge technology companies in Nevada that are doing impressive work and collectively elevating the tech environment of the state. They are here for a myriad of reasons, but suffice to say, it is because Nevada is a great place to do business.

So, why did we win? Well, you can read what the president of TBAN had to say in the press release. Clearly, it has a lot to do with the type of web development Twelve Horses is doing, as well as the length of time the company has been in business. But from my perspective, there is more.

Part of TBAN’s mission focuses on “supporting and expanding technology in Nevada.” Twelve Horses is involved in numerous community organizations that center around technology, marketing, design, education, and economic development, but one organization in particular, which has really grown in significance in recent time, is the Nevada Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology (NCET). David LaPlante, CEO of Twelve Horses serves on the Board of Directors as chairman, and I know he has put a lot of personal and company time and energy into seeing the organization flourish.

David LaPlante is what I would call an extreme advocate of technology in Nevada, and you would not believe the amount of energy he puts forth in driving it. Between myself and social marketing manager, Leilani Schweitzer, we have an incredibly difficult time just keeping up with him and his schedule. It is INSANE. He is not the only one either. His partners, Steve Spencer and Martin Gastanaga, take on their fair share of community involvement and support as well. But it really and truly comes from a great love for what they do, and while I am biased, it looks as if it is really achieving really great things for the state of Nevada. This brings me to one final point.

Does Twelve Horses do all of this for semi-selfish reasons? The answer is, yes. Because we are headquartered in Reno, Nevada, and yet, service clients all over the country and beyond, we are aligned in many ways with the Reno-Tahoe brand and business environment. The better the region looks and functions, the better we look and function. It is no different when tech companies establish themselves in Silicon Valley. They know there is a certain brand perception that comes with that geographical area, and they know there is a certain level of infrastructure and employee potential.

Martin Gastanaga is a fifth generation Nevadan, and David is very much rooted, along with his family, in Reno, Nevada. Many of Twelve Horses’ employees were born, live, and love it in Reno-Tahoe. So what you have is a partnership. Local community organizations, governments, businesses, and citizens and stakeholders help Twelve Horses by creating and fostering the type of business environment we need to be successful, and in turn, we do what we can to help Nevada become even better.

Twelve Horses will keep striving to develop new technologies and applications, open up new office locations, and also support the communities in which we operate. It has been a ton of work and a ton of fun, and we have met a lot of great people and enjoyed many new and exciting experiences along the way.

Again, a huge thanks to TBAN for the award, and our promise is that we will do what we can to live up to it.

• He gave us a rundown on the recent progress we have been making.
• Announced the addition and promotion of some folks.
• Told us that we were going to be expanding our Salt Lake City office, as well as Las Vegas, Phoenix and Atlanta.
• Complimented us on what a great job we were all doing.
• And then he paused….

Suddenly, Martin Gastanaga, our COO wheeled in a giant box filled with individually wrapped presents. As they were being passed around, some of us were shaking our’s trying to figure out what it was; meanwhile, others were patient. But once we all had one we collectively tore into them. What was hidden beneath the paper was indeed an exciting surprise!

Every single member of the Twelve Horses team received a shiny new iPhone!

After things quieted down David closed the meeting with one final statement -

Go Play. Go Create. Go Make Them Better.

I can’t wait to see what our developers, designers, marketers, and general technologists come up with. For me, I’m looking forward to showing off my You Tube videos and Flickr photos.

Yeehaw!

This hilarious parody, entitled “The Couple”, pokes fun at the disconnect that currently exists between traditional advertising and today’s consumers.

There is definitely a need for change within the industry as advertisers continue to view their audience as a statistic or dollar opportunity instead of forging meaningful relationships that will benefit all those involved.

“You’re saying you love me but you’re not behaving like you love me. It’s not genuine.”

The world needs more genuine advertising.

Nevada Magazine just published an article on the subject:

Beyond Reading
Interactive Web site tells Nevada’s stories
through its articles, images, and sounds.

Now, thanks to the Online Nevada Encyclopedia (ONE), Internet users can observe the Strip’s 50-year transformation behind the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign in a matter of seconds, spend a day with a fourth-generation ranching family in Gardnerville, and order a drink at the Old Washoe Club in Virginia City. OK, the Web site’s not interactive to that degree, but the Media Gallery allows you to get so up close and personal with the inside of the historic bar that you can view the detail in the pictures on the wall.

The virtual Web site, which incorporates the latest technology in its articles, images, and audio to tell Nevada’s story, officially launched in April. “We wanted an experience that goes beyond reading,” says graphics editor Howard Golbaum, a professor at the Reynolds School of Journalism at University of Nevada, Reno. “It’s the next best thing to being there.”

ONE was featured at the recent Rural Roundup, the Nevada Commission on Tourism’s annual conference. “From a tourism standpoint, we’ve always promoted rural Nevada, but this is a way to show it,” says Edward Estipona, a board member of Nevada Humanities, a publicly funded non-profit organization that brought the project to life. “There’s a lot of great stuff in addition to Las Vegas and Reno.” The site’s purpose is to preserve the Silver State’s history and educate the general public, but Estipona sees a less tangible benefit. “We think it can help break down some of the cultural barriers that have been created in our state,” he says. “It’s always north versus south or town versus town.”

Designed by Twelve Horses, ONE differs from other information sites of its kind, such as Wikipedia, because all of the 300-plus stories are written and edited by professionals. Nevada is one of only six states to have an online encyclopedia, according to Estipona, who says about 10 new articles appear on ONE per week.

U.S. Senator John Ensign and state Senator Dina Titus were instrumental in funding the project. Ensign helped secure a $350,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education, and Titus worked with the State Finance Committee to match the federal contribution. Several other organizations offered financial assistance. “Budget is the only challenge we see right now,” Estipona says.

If you’re interested in contributing ideas or funds to ONE, contact Judith Winzeler, executive director of Nevada Humanities, at 775-784-6587 or winzeler@unr.nevada.edu.

The strategy was to create a searchable, indexed, and available repository for cultural and historical information pertaining to Nevada. By implementing such an online system, Nevada Humanities would demonstrate their significance as a resource to residents and visitors of Nevada, as well as assist the state in demonstrating all of the unique elements of its history and culture to the public at large.

The site takes advantage of a few key technologies:

• Custom Tag-based Content Management System
• All of the ONE’s articles are stored in a web database and accessed using a tag/keyword based system. All of the directories on the site are “virtual directories” meaning content can be stored and cross-referenced faster and more efficiently. Twelve Horses developed new technology called Mod-CMS specifically for this solution.
• Custom “Wiki” Back-End
• The ONE site administrators have full access to the content management system and can add/edit/delete/categorize all of the articles, authors, links, suggested readings and media from a fully relational web database.
• The design is based on Wikipedia, however ONE’s Editors needed a method to completely control the content and it’s availability to its readership, rather than often inaccurate visitor contributed content.
• Virtual File Directories
• Because content is only a directory away from root and the URL’s are clean, the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of this site is boosted, along with search engine ranking.
• Virtual Reality Multimedia Gallery
• A media gallery was developed to store virtual reality (VR) movies, images, and is planned to also store historic audio files. The media gallery can be accessed from any site category and also from an article page.
• Full-Screen Virtual Reality
• Technology was developed to show the VR movies in their own window and can be expanded to a full-screen view.
• Flash and User-Interface
• A Flash header was incorporated and all major categories are color-coded for enhanced usability.
• Interactive Virtual Reality
• A Special Feature section was added to the homepage to exploit more feature-rich, highly interactive virtual reality movies. These movies can be controlled in their own windows with zoom, full-screen and 360 degree pan attributes.

From day one, a major focus of the Horse Power Podcast has been: Don’t make it about Twelve Horses.

We select interviewees based on whether they have a unique and interesting profession, business, and/or story to tell, and not whether they will provide us with some means of interjecting a soft sell, or an excuse to talk about the company in any detail. For 35 episodes I think we have done a good job of sticking to that; however, for this episode we decided to break the rules.

Reason: To give our listeners a better understanding of who the company is behind the mic. Yes, we have a website with information, a blog that puts some personality behind our online presence, and even a podcast run by employees of Twelve Horses. But hearing what we are about from the horse’s mouth aka the CEO is a little different.

So, with that being said, in this interview we talk with David LaPlante about how Twelve Horses got started, what is the essence of the brand, and what is some of the secret sauce behind the success of the company thus far. We touch on the evolution of the online experience, some of the mistakes that marketers make, and how the web is making companies and individuals more scalable, adaptable, and capable of greater success. Furthermore, you can expect to learn more about David LaPlante himself.

A lot is covered in this interview, and there is still much more, but it might be another 35 episodes before we get there. We’ll just have to see. 

This photo of David was shot by Geoffrey Nelson for the Northern Nevada Business Report feature story but ultimately wasn’t used. It was shot at Squaw Valley using a cool combination of old Polaroid technology and digital manipulation.

Listen Now (MP3, 45.0)

tags: ceo, podcast, blog, twelve, horses, interview, david, laplante, online, web, marketing

David is quoted through the article giving excellent insight into some of the top Nevada issues.

“As for downtown revitalization in Reno, it’s not so much the projects, but the increase in cultural opportunities that has us excited. We’re bringing in the creative class – the 20- and 30-somethings who wouldn’t otherwise come to a sleepy, boring downtown. Now that they’re attracted to Reno, it bodes well for companies who are looking for that type of employee.” – David LaPlante in the April 2007 issue of the Nevada Business Journal.

I am glad that I only agreed to review one because it took a considerable amount of time to do so. I approached the judging process very seriously because I know how hard the students worked on them and what it could mean if they won. The plans were scored on many different components including:

• Their ability to provide a stand-alone overview of the plan
• Vision, History, Current Status, Strategy, Goals, Mission and Objectives for the business
• Features and Benefits and Competitive Advantages
• Marketing and Competitive Analysis
• Operating Strategies
• Critical Risks
• Cash Flow, Income Statement, and Balance Sheet
• Funds Required/Used
• Offering that clearly articulates the proposal/terms to investors

I was required to make comments on each category, and I did not my best to provide as much feedback as possible. Even for those students that did not make it to the finals, I think it is an invaluable process and one that should serve them well into the future. It is exciting to see an organization like NCET empowering the future entrepreneurs of Nevada.

New this year is the Lieutenant Governor Award, which is a $10,000 cash prize that is split between a graduate and undergraduate team that employs clean, renewable, or efficient energy technologies and services. Growing the renewable energy industry in Nevada means big dollars for the state, as well as a great means of weaning this country off of non-renewable resources.

The winners of the Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup and the Lt. Governor’s Awards will be announced on April 26 at the Awards Gala at the Siena Hotel Spa Casino in Reno. The events begin at 5:30 p.m. with a cocktail reception, followed by dinner and the awards at 6:30 p.m.

Governor Jim Gibbons, the Gala’s Guest of Honor, will be joined by Lt. Governor Brian Krolicki, Master of Ceremonies, and Patty Wade, Event Chair.

RSVP for the event here.

tags: reno, nevada, center, for, entrepreneurship, and, technology, Donald, W., Reynolds, Governor’s, Cup, awards, competition

The VYP is the young professionals’ connection to the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce (LVCC) and membership in VYP includes direct access to all of the LVCC events including their monthly luncheons and all of their business-centric programs. I had a chance drop in on one of the VYP’s members only events, a Fusion Mixer touted as a chance to network in some of Vegas’ choicest venues. This mixer was held at The Verandah at the Vegas Four Seasons a couple of Wednesday’s ago on March 21st. And, as a guest of a member I was able to sneak my way in for a review.

The venue space was a little narrow at first glance, but the close quarters, hor’devours and wine served its purpose, as this was definitely a great place to meet and greet with ease. This attendee was pleasantly surprised with the welcome reception I received from everyone in attendance especially the coordinators and officers of the organization. With the overall variety of businesses in and around Vegas, opportunities to mingle and network with young professionals in those fields is a rare find.

Usually, networking groups are limited to an industry (American Marketing Association (AMA), Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), Mortgage Brokers, etc.), so the VYP is unique in its category. If you are a young professional in-town or in the area, the VYP group is a definite recommend. You can check out their future events at http://www.vegasyp.com.

It is going to be difficult not to sound like I am kissing up to the boss, but know this, he wouldn’t want me to do this post. If I know him well enough, he will never be fully satisfied with it, and he will continue to tweak the navigation, the plugins, the design, and basically anything you can think of. Meanwhile, I am letting you know about it.

What is the impression you get upon visiting David’s blog? For one, you can certainly get a sense of what is important to him – social marketing, branding, entrepreneurship, family, skiing, Reno, Nevada, Tahoe, to name a few. Secondly, you get the impression that this is no ordinary CEO of a successful company with a global base of customers. He is not hiding behind the corporate veil. He is actively engaging the online community, sharing his ideas, and demonstrating his personality. He is inviting people to interact with him. He is building his network and seeking knowledge.

When I first started working at Twelve Horses there was no company blog. David actively encouraged its creation and even offered Twelve Horses’ servers and expertise if employees wanted to start their own. Since then, many employees have entered the blogosphere and have grown their networks, their knowledge-base, and their sense of themselves.

I for one feel that blogging is and will continue to play a significant role in the development of my life. I am constantly learning, and it’s really cool to have a CEO that will come into your office and show you a brand new widget, plugin, or social networking application like Twitter that he has found. The only irritating part is that I have a hard time finding them before he does.

To advise clients on the use of new technologies we have to be using them ourselves. We have to practice what we preach. It is why the environment at Twelve Horses is one of constant learning, collaboration, and change. And it is not specific to one department or set of employees. It is everyone, including the CEO.

So there you have it. Add David’s blog to your RSS Aggregator, bookmark it, remember it, do whatever you do to keep organized, because I suspect he has a few things to say in the days to come.

tags: David LaPlante, Twelve Horses, blog, social, networking, brand, Reno, Tahoe, Nevada

In this episode of Horse Power, we are joined by Connie Brennan, CEO and publisher of the Nevada Business Journal. We discuss NBJ’s history as the only state-wide business publication, some of the differences between Las Vegas and Reno businesses, as well as their strategy of providing all of their content online for free.

We also discuss Connie’s 10 kids, and how a girl from Arkansas came to adopt 4 girls from the Philippines.

Listen Now (MP3, 20.8)

In this interview, we talk with Sam Shad of Sam Shad Productions about his move from London to the United States and his career evolution. Sam has gone from DJ and radio host to TV reporter and producer of his own shows including, "Nevada NewsMakers" and "The Dining Show." He is a member of the Nevada Broadcasters Hall of Fame.

Shad is a self-professed performer, businessman and salesman, and his cheerful manner and trademark attire of suit and white tennis shoes established him as one of the area’s most popular TV personalities.

“Nevada NewsMakers” airs in northern Nevada on NBC affiliate KRNV-TV Channel 4 and on Charter Communications Cable Channel 14, 15 and 18 (depending on the market). “Nevada NewsMakers airs in Las Vegas on NBC affiliate KVBC-TV Channel 3, and on Cox Cable Channel 123. “Nevada NewsMakers” also is carried by Reno radio station KOH-AM 780, and is available in streaming video on nevadanewsmakers.com, and also on audio and video Podcasts on iTunes.

The same Reno TV channels also carry “The Dining Show” (previously “Best of Reno”), which Sam launched in 2001 to showcase top restaurants in the region. “The Dining Show” is also available in streaming video on thediningshow.com.

Listen Now (MP3, 29.3)

 tags: happy, holidays, merry, christmas, new year, twelve horses