I heard form the folks over at Connect and Conserve which is run by Adobe and the U.S. Green Building Council. If you sign up for a free trial of Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro, which is their Web-based collaboration service, $25 goes to a local school to help it go green. If you sign up for it through The Hot Iron, and as I am in Chicago, it will help a Chicago school.

I’ve used Connect Pro before, as well as its predecessor Macromedia Breeze. It has a robust yet easy to use interface, and I would consider it one of the best services in its class. So give Connect Pro a try, and by greening a Chicago school it will mean I pay less taxes. Right?

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Yesterday I was not planning on writing in The Hot Iron about the 8th anniversary of the terrorist hijackings and attacks on the US on September 11, 2001. I of course remembered the day, and thought about it quite a bit. However it wasn't until I read a post on Barry Moltz's blog about the 9/11 anniversary that I decided to comment on the post. His post featured tweeted messages from people, and my comment was surely longer than 140 characters. I had blogged on 9/11 a couple of years ago, but not in detail. The following is the comments I wrote.

I was in the Back Bay of Boston, across the street from the Prudential Center, the second tallest building in the city. Where my office was, I could see planes from my window heading west. Did I see any of the planes leaving Logan that morning that were hijacked? Maybe, maybe not – it was like me saying I see the L trains going by today.

When we got news, it was like everyone did – choppy, continuously retracted, and then we couldn’t get anything on the Web and we hovered around the few TVs in the office to hear the news. Around 10 am ET they closed our office.

When I walked out the door, I realized there was nothing below me – in the Back Bay, there are all kinds of tunnels – subway, highway and train, and started walking towards the South End to get on “solid land” and then started calling friends. For some reason I drove into the city that day, and gave a few people rides back out.

The day before I had flown home from a wedding into Logan. The next time I flew through there, the airport was dramatically different. What looked like slapped-together dividers was the new security setup, and State Police had automatic weapons, which looked extremely awkward. Every time I fly through there I always think about what it was like before.

I had 3 friends affected by the terror attacks. One missed his bus for a meeting in one of the Towers and that’s why he is still here today. A friend worked in tower 7, the 3rd building to go down, and was working from home. Another had transferred to the PATH train to NJ at WTC and when they hit Hoboken they were told to get off, and when he got outside he saw the second plane hit the Towers. Also, someone with whom I served on an advisory board with, though I had never met, was on one of the planes out of Boston.

When I got up this morning and started my day I didn’t think of it right away. When I went to an office building today in the Loop and saw elevator banks wide open, aka not protected with security as all buildings in Boston became after 9/11, it then hit me.

A month and a half later my (then) fiancee ran the NYC Marathon. She had to be on the buses to Staten Island at 6am for a noon start due to the increased security. I recall walking around Midtown and there were very few people, even at the Today Show. We went down to Ground Zero and saw some of the cleanup that night. The subway only went to Canal Street and we had to walk from there. I’ll never forget the smell, not to mention the sight.

It is something I’ll never forget, and I know from what was done to us that day, it has made impacts on many things I do, great and small, everyday.

mp/m

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Here’s your opportunity to get a great domain name - redmug.com. I have decided to sell this domain name, and am using Bido.com, the social domain name auction service. You may recall a few weeks back I was a guest speaker during a domain name live auction. Now I will be sitting on the sidelines watching as redmug.com goes on the auction block.

Redmug.com can have many uses. As pictures, it can refer to mugs that are red, or for a more general application to coffee or travel mugs. The word “red” in itself is very common on Internet-based businesses. Plus mug has other meanings, including your face.

There is no reserve for the auction of redmug.com , and the opening bud starts at US$28. The auction will be on Wednesday, September 16 at 2:00 pm ET, 1:00 pm CT. You must register with Bido to participate in the auction. Even if you’re just interested in watching it, the Bido site has some unique features, like the 2-step, secure login process, which rivals ING Direct, in my humble opinion.

See you at Bido on September 16, and bid early and often on redmug.com!

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The next likemind will be Friday, September 18, 2009 in dozens of cities around the world.

In Chicago, it will be at Argo Tea, 140 S Dearborn St. at the corner of Adams and Dearborn Streets in the Loop from 8:00 am to 10:00 am.

I call likemind a gathering of creative-minded people, from various disciplines including Internet, advertising, art, social media, et. al. For more information on likemind, you can read this great article on likemind from the New York Times.

No RSVP is required. You are also welcome to join the likemind Chicago Facebook group.

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Editor’s Note - The following is a guest post by Emily Brackett, President of Visible Logic, Inc. a Portland, Maine-based graphic design firm that works with start-ups and growing businesses to help them build compelling and comprehensive brands across media. A longtime reader of The Hot Iron and strategic partner of Dunkirk Systems, LLC, Emily shares some of her wisdom and experience here, which we hope will be the first of many guest posts from her.

As a business owner, you probably have the usual elements of your corporate identity: business name, logo or wordmark, business cards and a Web site. However, as you grow your business, your identity can either be strengthened by consistent branding, or dilluted by irregular use of these elements.

There are several common reasons why business owners are not consistent in their branding.

The first is that no one is in charge of watching the brand. Many times our brand identity is being added to, molded, and stretched without anyone giving it much thought. Someone should be ensuring that logo usage and graphic elements are consistent from one piece to the next and from one media to another. For a small business, this may be the business owners, or an internal marketing person. If you work with outside designers, Web developers or even a print shop who does some design/typesetting for you, make sure you instruct them on how to use your identity correctly and uniformly.

Another reason why many businesses have so little cohesiveness in their image is that they try new things too often. You may be tired of seeing the same colors and similar layouts, but your customers (or potential customers) may just be starting to grasp your unique identity. Keep with it and the payoff will arrive.

Why is consistency important?

Avoid confusion

The most obvious reason to be consistent with your brand identity is that you don't want to confuse potential clients and customers. Make it easy for someone to remember you. Frequently, people notice certain elements, but not all the details.

For example, you meet a potential client at a networking event and give her your business card which features a large, red, circular logo. A few weeks later, that person is thinking she may need your services so they Google your name and browse to your Web site. If she sees a large, red, circular logo she feels confident that she’s at the right place. If, on the other hand, your Web site shows your logo (even the same graphic) in green, she may feel confused and question whether this is indeed the same person and company she had met previously.

People trust things that they know

The first example highlights the most basic type of confusion that can cost you sales. But often it is more subtle than that. Every time a potential client hears your business name or sees your logo it gets registered, even slightly, in their memory. The stronger the bank of memories - and therefore the connection - someone has to a brand, the more likely they are to buy from that brand. Consumers choose brands that are familiar, because they seem known, established, and therefore trustworthy.

It makes business sense - increase your returns

Unfortunately, many business owners make their brand inconsistent without giving it much thought. One example is an entrepreneur who hires a Web development firm to create their Web site and another design studio for their printed work, without coordinating the two. You’ve paid for two projects but rather than having those two pieces compounding your brand and building them exponentially, you may end up with two unmatched marketing tools. Therefore, the two pieces are not as effective in building brand recognition as one coordinated effort.

How to build consistency:

• Use the same business name, logo, and/or logotype. Typeset the name and other elements, such as a tagline in a fixed fashion. Whether you do this yourself or work with an experienced graphic designer, once the logo or wordmark is done, don't change it.
• If you’ve hired a designer to develop your logo or wordmark, make sure you receive electronic files that you can work with. You and your staff should use these graphics in all letters, memos, proposals, etc. Do not retype or tinker with the logo, and do not allow your staff or agencies to do so either.
• Choose a corporate color, or color palette and use them as the dominant color scheme throughout your materials - printed or online. If you’ve worked with a professional designer for your logo, make sure you’ve received your pantone (PMS) color numbers as well as CMYK and RGB equivalents. Whether you create something yourself in PowerPoint or work with a graphic designer, always use those same colors.
• Think across media. Ensure there are design elements that are similar across all of your materials. From business card to Web site to advertisement to educational brochure, there should be a recognizable look and feel.
• If you worked with a professional designer, have them write up some easy-to-follow guidelines and have them create templates for you. These might include a letterhead template in Word and a PowerPoint template for your presentations.

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