Doug Elwell, Inc.: News: DEI Unleashes Sevenfold Sites

Monday, May 12, 2008

Tunnel Vision Inc. (http://www.tunnelvision-inc.com), a residential technology solutions provider, needed their website redesigned to improve their company's online image and attract new business. In return for their business, we provided them with a quality website, at a price they could not refuse.

Art de Triumph (http://www.artdetriumph.com), a small, Chicago-based art studio startup, had a large catalog of quality artwork by local Chicago artists and others around the world, but they had no way to market their art effectively. To solve this problem, Art de Triumph engaged Talan Solutions (http://www.talansolutions.com), which leveraged its partnership with DEI to provide them with an attractive and affordable e-commerce solution to sell their large and growing inventory of original and classic art prints and cards from around the world. DEI designed the site concept, the company branding, and the logo, while Talan Solutions provided eCommerce functionality, database development, and integration.

FinancialCounsel.com (http://www.financialcounsel.com), is a website dedicated to providing free legal advice for professionals in the field of finance including but not limited to investors, brokers, brokerage firms and financial planners nationwide in the area of securities law and employment law. FinancialCounsel.com needed to establish a quality web presence without a six-figure price tag. DEI was able to provide FinancialCounsel.com with that and more, and continues to provide them consulting services on a regular basis.

Architectural Lighting Management (http://www.almsys.com) manufactures a full line of lighting control systems. ALM needed a site to promote its products online, and DEI was able to help them place information about their company, their products and services, and even their entire catalog online at a price they could afford. DEI also continues to provide ALM with consulting services on a regular basis.

International Components Corporation (http://www.icc-charge.com). For over 30 years, ICC has been established in the design, manufacturing and supply of power, control, charger and "hands free" products to the portable appliance industry. ICC needed a website upgrade immediately, and DEI was able to meet the challenge. Within two weeks, DEI had turned around a completely new site design, complete with Flash intro.

Talan Solutions (http://www.talansolutions.com) is a premier provider of solutions consulting with extensive experience in information technology and project management. A solutions partner with DEI, Talan needed an interface design to help improve their corporate image, especially their online image. DEI provided a quality design for their site, and continues to work as a interface design solutions provider on various Talan projects.

iScout (http://www.iscout.tv) is a recruitment and organizational development firm focused on helping all types of companies grow. The iScout business model provides clients with the quality people they need by enhancing the entire recruitment process and leveraging the inherent advantages of the Internet and advanced recruitment applications. iScout had an immediate need for a web presence at an affordable price with some customized features, and DEI was able to come through with this attractive and easy to use site.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Contact Doug Elwell at:
Phone: 630-665-1595
Fax: 630-665-1373
Cell: 630-750-2467
Email: doug@dougelwell.com
Website: http://www.dougelwell.com

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Brand Warfare: 10 Rules for Building the Killer Brand
David F. D'Alessandro
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Powerful lessons on how to build and sustain your own "killer brand". Creating and sustaining a good brand is the most complex and perilous task any business will ever face, yet nothing is as misunderstood. Under the direction of marketing wizard David D'Alessandro, John Hancock transformed itself from a sleepy old life insurer into a leading financial services giant, with a sustained 20% annual rate of growth. In Brand Warfare, D'Alessandro draws on his personal experience as a brand-builder and examples from America's smartest and most foolish corporations, developing principles that you can use in any market. At the same time, he creates an entertaining picture of the marketing business with anecdotes that convey a keen sense of the absurdities of corporate life, balanced by a tremendous respect for the consumer. This tough-minded, funny, and refreshingly candid book gives you a proven roadmap for marketing success as you learn:

Why every business needs a good brand to compete

Why consumers need good brands as much as good brands need them

Why sycophancy from the agency and meddling from inside the company will sink your campaign every time

About sponsorship: how to avoid being taken, and how to make the investment pay for your brand

Why it's as important to market your brand to your employees as it is to your customers

Why every business decision should be filtered through the prism of the brand

Gonzo Marketing: Winning Through Worst Practices
Christopher Locke
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The coauthor of the no-more-business-as-usual blockbuster The Cluetrain Manifesto — which basically told Net-age marketers to stop talking at their markets and start conversing with them — follows up with a book that's more a highly entertaining, nimbly erudite screed against our current mass-market, mass-media culture than it is a recipe book for e-commerce marketing success in the post-cyberboom era. Writing in a paler imitation of the profanely irreverent, freely associative "gonzo" journalism style pioneered by his obvious idol Hunter S. Thompson, Locke starts with the by-now-familiar idea that old-style mass-marketing "broadcast" advertising just won't work on the Web. Indeed, he says, conventional print-ad tactics as embodied online by banners and pop-ups might actually generate more ill will than sales, and that's why companies must use the Web to somehow enjoin their products and services to the quirky niche interests of the gazillion individual cybercommunities (or "micromarkets") whose greatest advantage for marketers is how freely and speedily their members talk among themselves, touting a brand when and if it's truly deserved.

The Virtue of Prosperity:
Finding Values In An Age Of Techno-Affluence
Dinesh D'Souza
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In The Virtue of Prosperity, former White House policy analyst Dinesh D'Souza offers the first in-depth analysis of the spiritual and social crisis that has been spawned by the New Economy and new technologies. The chief problem societies have faced "since the time of the Babylonians," writes Dinesh D'Souza, has been the problem of scarcity. "But now that age has passed, and America has a new problem: coping with prosperity." It's a good problem to have, but also a serious, even debilitating, one. "The moral conundrum of success," the author continues, means that all too often, "the body is flourishing, but somehow the soul still feels malnourished." D'Souza is well known for his bestselling conservative books Illiberal Education, The End of Racism, and Ronald Reagan. On these pages, however, he seems to set politics aside to ask deep questions about the meaning of life in a world of material abundance. (Review by Amazon.com)

The Monk and the Riddle:
The Education of a Silicon Valley Entrepreneur
Randy Komisar, Kent L. Lineback (Contributor)
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Prospective entrepreneurs may think they know everything there is to know about starting a business in Silicon Valley. They can draw up business plans, have meetings with venture capitalists, maybe even get funded and actually launch a start-up. However, in The Monk and the Riddle, Silicon Valley sage Randy Komisar reasons that's only half the equation for success. And it may not be the important half. Komisar has worked with a number of companies — Apple, LucasArts Entertainment (the gaming division of George Lucas's empire), and WebTV among them — and has come to a rather startling conclusion: if you can't see yourself doing this business for the rest of your life, don't start it. In other words, he wants to see passion and purpose in business, not just spreadsheets and a by-the-numbers business model.

To illustrate, Komisar takes the reader through a hypothetical Silicon Valley start-up, with an eager entrepreneur named Lenny trying to get funding for an online casket-selling business. As Komisar helps Lenny find the real purpose of the business, the passion behind the revenue projections, he reflects back on his life as an entrepreneur. Komisar emerges as a master storyteller, the kind of guy you'd feel honored to share a bottle of wine with. And you believe his conclusion: "When all is said and done, the journey is the reward." It's great if you've made billions on the journey, but the important thing is that you do something you can truly throw yourself into. (Review by Amazon.com)

Burn Rate
Michael Wolff
Journalist Michael Wolff is a recognized pioneer in the business of cyberspace, meaning he has been developing products and services for the online world since the dark ages of 1994. During the intervening years, however, not all the activities he engaged in, nor all the people he dealt with, left a pleasant taste in his mouth - although, to be sure, his cumulative adventures certainly have been very lucrative.

In Burn Rate: How I Survived the Gold Rush Years on the Internet, Wolff pulls few punches as he candidly and methodically recounts the single steps forward and multiple steps back that marked his experiences while trying to transform a fledgling print media enterprise into a towering New Media colossus. After developing a series of "NetGuide" books that proved hugely successful, he attempted to transfer the concept to a variety of online offshoots and in so doing connected with Wired magazine, Time-Warner's Pathfinder, the late Robert Maxwell's media empire, AOL , assorted venture capitalists, sundry competitors, and numerous would-be partners. Burn Rate is a fascinating tale that might best be characterized by the old adage that warns us to "be careful what we wish for, for we just might get it." (Review by Amazon.com)

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