Emerge Inc. Blog

On Friday (June 14, 2008), Emerge held a full team retreat. With the addition of 3 new team members spread across 2 offices and a number of interesting opportunities on the horizon, we felt it was time to get everyone together.

The Emerge Team: Mike, Boone, Kyle, Sam, Jessie, Cambron, Nyree (Not pictured: Ed, Briana and Nick)

The goals for the session were anything but modest:

• Provide a clear roadmap of where Emerge is going
• Let everyone see where they fit in this roadmap
• Enable everyone to connect with fellow Emerge team members
• Elicit ideas from all team members

In addition to the normal introductions, “what is your name, where did you work before, what do you do at Emerge”, we always add a question with a twist. This year we asked everyone “from your perspective, what is the coolest thing on or about the Internet.”

One of the most interesting response came from Emerge’s new visual designer Cambron Jones.

“It’s kind of like food. You just have to have it.”

To put this into perspective, we’re not talking about a sheltered high school student. Cambron is a 2005 graduate of the Unviersity of Akron who has worked for 3 years as a professional visual designer and web developer for American Greetings and Ibid Power.

He has a point. For a lot of us, the Internet has become a necessary part of our personal and professional lives.

By: Ed Skimin

I was fortunate enough on Saturday to watch two Lorain County girls softball teams play for the State Championship in Akron, Ohio. Photos from the games can be found at:

Division I - Elyria High School vs. North Canton Hoover

Division III - Wellington High School vs. Hebron Lakewood

Between the two games, there was about a 3 hour break, while the Division II game was played. Since Akron is about 1 hour away from home, it didn’t make sense to drive back and forth. Yet I wanted to get some of the photos from the game online.

Panera Bread proved to be the solution. Not only did I have a great lunch. I was able to log onto the Internet, at no cost, upload my photos to Flickr (Elyria Gallery, Wellington Gallery) and build the slideshows that appear on LorainCounty.com.

By the way, when my laptop battery started to run a little low, I was able to plug into the wall and recharge the battery, again at no cost. I really enjoyed the environment. Students were studying for final exams, families were eating lunch, shoppers were taking a break.

It was very relaxing, refreshing and a nice break from working at the office and at home. You will definitely find me at Panera Bread a lot more often.

Tom McGinty of ABC Refreshments shared the following news with us:

“We just secured a large manufacturing company in North Ridgeville as a result of our website presence.”

ABC Refreshments is a Full Service Vending Company located in northeast Ohio. The company was started in Avon Lake, Ohio in 2005 with a single Pepsi machine and through word of mouth has flourished into a thriving vending company with a wide variety of accounts.

Emerge worked with ABC Refreshments and launched the website in February 2008.

Emerge partners with three Lorain County radio stations (WEOL, WOBL, WDLW) to simulcast their local sports broadcasts over the Internet on LorainCounty.com.

This weekend, we simulcast audio from three local teams that competed in the Regional Girls Softball Finals. Elyria and Wellington won their games and will now play for the State Semi-Finals later this week and hopefully the State Championship on Saturday. All of which will be simulcast on LorainCounty.com.

Simulcasting local sports started years ago as a way to provide content on LorainCounty.com, to experiment with audio over the Internet and for the marketing benefit, as the radio stations mention LorainCounty.com and provide us with advertising space.

Over the years, we have heard stories of people listening from far away, grandparents out of town, parents away on business and the occasional service member listening from overseas.

On Sunday, both local newspapers shared another one of these stories. Elyria star Sarah Bracey shared with reporters that her brother, serving in Iraq was listening to the game on LorainCounty.com.

From the Chronicle Telegram:

It had extra meaning for her on Saturday. Her brother, Army 1st Lt. Dan Richard, is stationed at Camp Taji, 12 miles north of Baghdad. He told Bracey he would be following the game via Internet on Lorain County.com.

“I really like this field,” said Bracey, who was the only player on either team with more than one hit. “Today I was really excited because my brother’s in Iraq in the Army. He was listening online and I knew I had to do something good. He’s my favorite person. I love him so much. He’s like my best friend.” Richard comes home in September.

From the Morning Journal:

“I guess that I like this field,” Bracey said. “I was really excited about today because my brother, who is in Iraq in the Army, was watching the game on-line. I knew that I had to do something for him.”

This is a great reminder that our work has meaning. It’s not just about zeros and ones or lines of code. It is about people.

Update (June 5, 2008): The story has now been in all 3 local newspapers.

From the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

Elyria (27-1) will play Mason (24-8) in a Division I state softball semifinal at Akron’s Firestone Stadium at 5:30 p.m. Friday. Richard, stationed at Camp Taji, just north of Baghdad, will be able to hear the semifinal on LorainCounty.com, the Web site linking to Elyria radio station WEOL AM/930.