We should have some exciting announcements coming in the next few weeks.  With new content on the way, and positive changes on the horizon, we’re looking forward to delivering the creative buzz you’ve come to know and love.

1. Target Twitter Users with TwitterHawk: Now that have determined businesses are able to use Twitter free of charge, we felt it appropriate to begin providing tools for you to take advantage of the medium.  Thus, we present TwitterHawk – a service-based website that auto-contacts twitter users based on their message content and location.
2. When shouldn’t you Twitter? So, if you ever head out on a secret mission or receive confidential business info, you should keep that to yourself.  Think that is elementary?  Check out this gem (one of many) from a US Congressman en route to a “secret” trip to Iraq: “Iraq! Issues! Longterm impact on containing Iran.. Need a coherent detainee strategy.  Amb Crocker leaving after a very successful tenure”.  Again, just one of many, including a “Just landed…” message.
3. The Thought Behind Pepsi’s New Logo: If you’ve ever wondered how an industry-leading company goes about redesigning their logo, you are in for a treat. PepsiCo recently relaunched their brand with a snazzy new logo, and the initial thought-concepts from the agency who won the job are available on Scribd.
4. Timing Your Email Campaigns Will Determine Success: Email is an interesting thing.  It’s cost-effective and quick, incredibly efficient when executed correctly, and allows for mobility previously unseen in business.  While the benefits can be extraordinary, one factor that is typically overlooked is the timing of your message.  Get your offer or opportunity in front of your guest when they’re not ready, and you’ll see your return drop.  Hit that sweet spot, and you’ll begin to see much more profitable results.
5. Making the Old New – Starbucks Instant Coffee: You read the headline right, Starbucks is entering the Instant Coffee market.  An interesting case of reinventing a product to meet the demands of the times.  How did they reach that decision, and how might you apply their strategy?

1. mindmeister: Collaborative Online Mind Mapping: mindmeister provides a web-based location for mutiple, mind mapping input – be it from individuals in the same room or across the world.  Multiple users can access and edit the same map at the same time, allowing for a truly integrated mapping experience.
2. The Best of SlideShare: “How to Use Google Analytics”: Volume I, Issue 3:  How to Use Google Analytics
3. The Future of Facebook: Facebook is exploding onto the age 35+ scene.  With friends, family, long-lost schoolmates and distant relatives reconnecting at record numbers (220M in December alone), it would be hard to argue with anyone that Facebook isn’t blossoming into the central hub for many internet surfers.  What does this mean for your business, wanting to tap into these resources?  And what does it mean for Facebook, trying to capitalize on their sleeping giant?
4. Design: In the Eye of the Beholder: I don’t know what quality makes a great logo incredible, or a poorly designed one so dang ugly.   I do know, however, there are giant leaps between good logo design and bad logo design.  Today, we can thank the New York Times for illustrating this point through Super Bowl XLIII.
5. Disney’s PhotoPass: Upload & Print Photos: Everyone knows you can upload your photos to Shutterfly and print them.  If you don’t use Shutterfly, maybe you use smugmug, Printroom, snapfish, Kodak Gallery or even Walmart.  But did you know that Disney’s PhotoPass offers the same services?

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1. Radar iPhone App: Share iPhone Photos in Realtime on Facebook and Twitter: Radar and its realtime sharing of iPhone photos has come to the iPhone, immediately available for download.  The application allows users to instantly sync photos in realtime to Facebook and Twitter accounts, and just in time for Super Bowl XLIII.
2. Let NewsGator Assist in Your Evaluation of Enterprise Social Computing: NewsGator has released an assessment tool, SCORE, to assist you in determining if an enterprise social computing solution is a good fit for your workplace.
3. Leverage Web 2.0 for Business Growth & Resiliency: We are very fortunate that, given the generational challenges we face today, we have tools that those that came before us could not possibly imagine.
4. Use Tweetag to Determine Hot Twitter Topics: If you are looking for the latest “buzz” in the social network-sphere, Tweetag can get you there.  A visit to the Tweetag homepage serves up a word cloud 40 words deep of the hottest keywords on Twitter before you begin customizing your search.
5. BulbStorm: Collaborative Innovation: If there’s two things that have become a bit of a theme on this site, it’s belief in the power of collaboration and the excitement of innovation.  With this in mind, we present BulbStorm, a community based site that brings the two concepts together to assist you in building yours.

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Sarah Cowley from the Creative Circus in Atlanta writes:

My students have taught me this: we can’t simply move on. In order to prevent becoming stale as designers—and it’s happened to all of us—we have to keep our eyes open and our minds inquisitive. Keep asking questions. Keep learning. It can be so easy to get into a professional rut, and assume that our real world experiences teach us everything we need to know. So, I’m encouraging you to get out those old college books. They’re inspiring. And, it might just help you look at your work in a new way. Bringing a fresh perspective to our type choices, layout, imagery and concepts can never hurt. In fact, it’s a necessity.

So, how do you stay fresh?

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1. Revolutionize Your Presentation Flow with Prezi – An online presentation application that builds your slides along two-axis maps and presents them by rotating and zooming. Pretty slick…
2. Apple’s Anti-Piracy Removal from iWork ‘09 is Pure Marketing Genius – Apple’s insight has revolutionized the way we compute, listen to music, and speak to each other.  By removing serial numbers from the iWork ‘09 suite, they will revolutionize the way we distribute and use software next.
3. How to Motivate Creative People – For the readers in our crowd, we present to you an eBook – How to Motivate Creative People, by Mark McGuinness from Wishful Thinking.
4. Apple MobileMe, Meet Google Web Drive and Microsoft SkyBox – The ability to sync calendars, tasks, documents, contacts, etc., with multiple computers from a web-based storage system will, in the future, be a necessity.  Apple had the market cornered… Until Google and Microsoft stepped into the ring.
5. Top 10 Traits of the Creative Personality – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi at Psychology Today broke down the traits of a creative personality.  So I ask you this – can the personality be molded?

1. Photoshop -101: Self-Taught Artistry – Don’t immediately turn to your cube-buddy and ask, “What does the pen tool do again?”
2. Storytelling: The Key to Growing Business – Storytelling elevates businesses even when you may not realize it.  Are you making storytelling a priority?
3. Inbox Zero: Your Guide to Email Sanity – An innovative look at the role of email in your life guaranteed to at least make you consider the way you work.
4. The Four Ways of Creative Cultivators – Being a creative cultivator takes a shift in our traditional way of thinking, but will ultimately produce some amazing results.
5. Palm Pre: iPhone Killer? – A new kid is on the block.  How does it compare to the world’s No. 1 smartphone?

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