Emerge Inc. Blog

During the 2007-2008 school year, Briana Palacios has worked with Emerge through the JVS Business & Marketing Academy Co-op Program. I had the honor of attending the 36th Annual Employers’/Parents’ Appreciation Event with Briana and her parents. The event showcased the students and their accomplishments. Employers were recognized and received a plaque for participating in the program.

Throughout her Co-op, Briana has competed in various competitions, won numerous awards and held officer positions within the Business Professionals of America. She was also named Outstanding Senior and received the William Burton Scholarship.

Briana is the Office & Content Specialist for Emerge and LorainCounty.com. While working with Emerge, she provided first point of contact to clients, created advertisements and other graphical aspects of websites, reviewed and managed the day to day content on LorainCounty.com.

As the school year comes to a close, we wish Briana the best of luck in her future endeavors. She plans to continue her education at Lorain County Community College in the fall pursuing a degree in Broadcasting and Journalism.

Today’s Elyria Chronicle Telegram reports on the state of City websites in Lorain County, where Emerge’s Elyria office is located.

The story focuses on the number of local Cities that are in the midst of website redesigns or planning for website redesigns.

Our favorite part of the article is this little gem:

“The only city with no plans for major change is Lorain, which arguably has the best Web site of any city in the county.”

Emerge designed the website and has worked closely with the City of Lorain since the sites launch in 2003. The site includes a number of administration tools to enable the day-to-day content to be maintained by the City.

The article goes on to say:

Lorain Auditor Ron Mantini, who runs the site, said the city gets mostly positive feedback about how easy the site is to navigate.

As evidence of that, usage of the site has gone up tremendously over the years.

In 2004, the city’s Web site had just 14,400 page views. In 2005, that climbed to 30,325, and it has continued climbing with 79,000 views in 2006 and 164,000 in 2007.

So far this year, Mantini is tracking 5,400 page views per day. At that rate, the Lorain site could have close to 2 million views in 2008.

That is because the Lorain site not only has a lot of information — such as profiles and contact information for Council members — it also has useful interactive elements for its residents — such as tax forms, a list of job openings, a complaint center and even the capability to accept bill payment.

For information on how Emerge can help you develop arguably the best website in your industry, please contact us.

Yellow Ball Tennis Camp recently expanded their Tennis Camp to include 2 new locations. Emerge worked with Yellow Ball Tennis Camp to expand their website to offer online registration for 3 different locations, Miami, Oberlin and Toledo. The site also includes information on camp types, locations, coaches, staff, sponsors, tennis news and a Pro Shop.

Campers can learn more about camp, register online and download their player packet. Once camp begins, campers and their parents will be able to view the tennis match results and photos from camp. To learn more about Yellow Ball Tennis camps, visit http://www.YellowBallTennis.com.

If you are interested in added online registration to your website, contact us at (440) 284-4949.

By: Ed Skimin

Mike and I visited San Francisco, California recently to attend the Web 2.0 Expo. A very large (some estimate are over 10,000 attendees) conference that provides a 30,000 foot view of the Internet industry.

Since our inception, Emerge team members have attended at least 1 major conference each year. This provides us an opportunity to broaden our understanding of the industry, form a clearer vision of the future direction of the industry and build relationships with thought leaders.

We were exposed to a lot of great ideas and insight this year. To be honest, we are still digesting everything and thinking through the implications for Emerge, LorainCounty.com, our clients and ourselves personally.

If anyone is interested in discussing some of the themes, just let me know. Could be a great topic for lunch or an after work beer.

Emerge recently worked with the Lorain County JVS to add informational videos to their website. The videos provide information on:

• Building Trades
• Business and Marketing
• College Tech Prep
• Community Service
• Culinary
• Manufacturing Engineering
• Transportation

In addition to watching the videos online, website visitors can download the videos to their iPods.

Video on the Internet is huge. In February 2008, United States Internet users viewed 10.1 billion online videos, an increase of 66% over last year.

And, its not just high school kids watching videos. In February 2008, 135 million people watched online videos, spending an average of 204 minutes. These statistics come from ComScore.

For information on adding Internet video to your business strategy, contact Emerge.

Emerge is looking for great students for two new Internships:

Web Application Developer/Programmer
Website Developer/Designer

Each year Emerge creates summer internship opportunities to provide students with experience working in an office and with a team. We also use it as an opportunity for us to evaluate who might be future additions to the Emerge team.

If you know anyone who is motivated, focused and skilled in these areas, we would appreciate it if you let them know about the internships.

Just 10 weeks after launching Assured Vacation Rentals, Emerge worked with the company to rebrand, redesign and relaunch the website as WhyRentARoom.com.

Both sites enable websites enable owners of vacation properties to market their properties on the Internet to travelers. However, the reality is that there are a lot of sites that provide this service. Why be the same?

WhyRentARoom.com focuses more on the traveler. The site has seven blogs, everything from traveling with family to traveling with pets.

If you are a traveler, be sure to check out the vacation homes available and the interesting travel information.

If you are a vacation home owner, be sure to list your vacation property on the site. If you add your property by May 1st, it is completely free for 1 year.

During a recently presented to a group of marketing directors from Lorain County non-profit organizations, I included a slide titled ‘Ed’s Bias’. The topic was Internet marketing and I thought that in this era of transparency it was important that I start out by being clear my predisposed position.

As it relates to marketing on the Internet, here are some of my biases:

• Strategic use of the Internet is vital to the success of every organization.
• Internet Marketing is about Experimenting; there is no one size fits all option.
• The Internet is not/should not be a free medium. It provides great value and should therefore be an investment.
• Local Matters. The Internet is not just about marketing to the world, but also to your neighbors.

The full presentation included 10 marketing related topics, from search engines, to social networks. In future posts, I will share more of my thoughts and Emerge’s work in Internet marketing.

No need to wait for the hot weather, the MetroParks serving Summit County (Ohio) have already begun accepting online purchases for 2008 swim passes.

The Emerge developed online reservation system is designed to enable users to quickly and easily complete their purchase. Website users simply enter their name and birthdate and the system automatically checks if they qualify for an adult or child swim pass. In addition, users can purchase as many swim passes as needed in a single transaction, so go ahead and get one for the babysitter.

MetroParks Serving Summit County Home Page

Swim Pass Purchase Page

For more information on Emerge’s work with many Ohio parks agencies and departments, visit EmergeParks.com.

Emerge was one of the corporate exhibitors from throughout the United States at the 2008 Ohio Parks and Recreation Association Tradeshow. The “Let the Games Begin: Learn, Play, Experience” tradeshow and conference featured exhibits for everything from playground equipment to sports gear to computer database systems.

Over 1,000 people attended the conference at the Dayton Convention Center on February 11th and 12th. During the tradeshow, Emerge showcased EmergeParks, a customized, online reservation and ecommerce solution designed specifically for Parks and Recreation organizations. We have worked with 12 Ohio Parks and Recreation organizations, including Columbus, Geauga, Lorain, Lake, and Toledo.

The EmergeParks Reservation Platform will enable Parks to accept online payments, access and manage payment information, maintain a park user directory, generate reports and define administration access permissions. They can also expand the platform by adding Extensions Modules to provide additional functionality to the Reservation Platform.

If you would like information regarding developing a customized solution for your business or organization, please contact us at (440) 284-4949.