Thursday is American Thanksgiving, and we thought now was a good time to say thanks to Boxcar Marketing friends and clients who champion sustainability. It’s one thing to be innovative, and a whole other to be innovative and helping the planet.
Chefs who source local food and cook with sustainable ingredients now have an eco-friendly choice when it comes to their chef jacket.
Dajoji chef coats are designed by chefs for chefs and are made from 100% organic, unbleached cotton. The coats are also stylish. Managing Partner Jessica Robinson brings to Dajoji her fashion experience from leading retailer lululemon athletica, and Fashion Designer Leanne McElroy worked with Founder and Chef Anthony Nicalo to bring to life the initial designs. The fitted style is especially flattering on female chefs. Dajoji Kitchen Performance Apparel is available in all sizes.
Plus the Holiday Gift Pack is a great deal!
Includes a Dajoji Chef Coat paired with a special edition, organic olive oil by Renato Fenocchio, imported exclusively by Farmstead Wines.
Want to give a green gift to your company this year? Legend Power’s Electrical Harmonizer-AVR is green for the planet and green for the wallet.
Legend Power offers businesses and organizations an energy conservation device known as the Electrical Harmonizer with an automatic voltage regulator (AVR), the “Electrical Harmonizer-AVR”. The Electrical Harmonizer-AVR is the world’s first proven, sustainable and cost effective solution to address energy conservation in commercial and industrial facilities through voltage optimization.
If you’re a big box retailer, grocery store, hotel, school, government building, warehouse, manufacturing plant, hospital or large office building, ask for a free building audit to see whether the Electrical Harmonizer-AVR is right for your building. Conserving electrical energy could save you up to 10% off your electricity bills, plus a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and an extended life for electrical equipment. Green is good.
Ready to build your dream home? JayWest Country Homes Ltd. is Western Canada’s largest independent distributor of Viceroy Homes. Viceroy dream homes embody the key principles of building green techniques. The homes are designed to maintain a high level of indoor air quality and energy efficiency, while minimizing the impact of manufacturing on the environment. JayWest Country Homes can help you design or build your Viceroy Home. There are over 80 floor plan designs that JayWest can customize to your needs.
Have enough stuff? Dreambank encourages us to stop giving stuff and start giving dreams.
How it Works: you post your dreams to Dreambank.org (your dream vacation, your dream home, etc.) and choose from a list of charities that Dreambank supports. Come Christmas time, instead of giving gifts, friends and family contribute to your dreams. Dreambank gives 10% of the transaction revenue to the charity you choose.
Agricola Marrone Moscato d’Asti Soleil d’ Oro is my breakfast wine. Absolutely delicious.
Farmstead Wines imports rare artisan wines that are handcrafted on small farms. The wines are made by the very same farmers who grow the grapes, without irrigation, chemicals or manipulation.
Our favourite farmer at Boxcar Marketing HQ is Gian Piero Marrone. Gian Piero Marrone continues a long-standing family tradition of winemaking, started by nonno Pietro Marrone nearly six decades ago. The family’s vineyards are situated throughout the hills of the Langhe region in Annunziata, Cuneo, just outside the village of La Morra in northwestern Italy. As mentioned, the Moscato is one of our favourite wines in the Farmstead collection. It has fruity aromas, crisp clean acidity, pleasant aromatic nose, and is well balanced with a tinge of frizzante and only 5% alcohol. (See, you could have that for breakfast, right?)
Ayala Moriel Parfums is an artisan perfume house located in Vancouver, BC. Founder Ayala Moriel designs and handcrafts natural perfumes from pure and precious botanical essences. She’s always looking for materials that are harvested sustainably.
If you’re not green enough, Ecoholic is a great resource on practical tips and products that can help you help the planet. You’ll learn what not to buy and why, ideas for great gifts, clothes, and home supplies, as well as advice on what seafood is safe to eat, what green cleaners actually work and more.
Why not shop responsibly?
At Boxcar Marketing we think it’s really special that we can work with so many great people who are doing interesting things that support a sustainable way of life. In fact, our projects, friends and clients all share this interest in common. Many thanks to the friends and clients of Boxcar Marketing this Thanksgiving. Thank you for being good.
We did a fun interview with Nicole Tomlinson for a story about Dancing Matt‘s internet video phenomena for the Vancouver Sun. Nicole did a really nice job of summarizing our chats and emails and the Dancing Matt phenomena.
And just in case you’re not one of the 15-million+ people who’ve watched one of Matt’s dancing videos, please let the one below load and enjoy 4 minutes of delight.
Spring is traditionally associated with change and renewal. A time to clean things up. A time for new seeds to be planted. Spring also happens to be an excellent time to announce the evolution in our business.
Same great service, strategy and team you expect, with a new name. It’s still Monique Trottier and James Sherrett and a merry band of partners working hard behind the scenes. Except now the scenery has changed.
Why the name change?
We wanted to better describe the type of “Work” we do: “Marketing.” At the same time, we wanted to keep the feel of a hard-working, industrious shop, which led us to “Boxcar.” Last, we wanted to do away with inconsistency over our name (Work Industries) and domain name (www.iworkindustries.com).
So after a few sessions at the white board and too many domain name searches, Boxcar Marketing was born.
We’ve let some friends and colleagues know about the name change, so it’s percolated out there into the great Google. Now this announcement makes it official.
What does the name change to Boxcar Marketing mean to you?
Where you saw Work Industries, now you’ll see Boxcar Marketing. On invoices, cheques, business cards, contracts and in email addresses, we’ll be Boxcar Marketing. We’ll do our best to redirect all the Work Industries points of reference to Boxcar Marketing. But if you spot an old reference to Work Industries, please let us know.
As is the nature of our business and our philosophy, we expect and want your feedback. We practice and preach conversational, 2-way communications.
So let us know what you think. If you have questions or concerns or just want a little more information on the name change, please contact us. We’re still at the same phone numbers and office address. But now we’re Boxcar Marketing. Please update your email address book:
As a Flickr Pro user (Here I am!) I can now get access to more advanced stats — search engines users finding my photos, websites using my photos, links pointing at my photos. All kinds of good, useful information. Almost like running my own little photo website.
To get the Flickr stats activated for your account, you have to be a Pro account and logged in. Then if you click Your Stats under the You menu, you’ll get instructions on activiting the stats. If you’ve already activated the stats, you’ll get the stats.
Just a little tip to get a little more out of a great service!
Barcamp Vancouver 2007 is set to kick off tomorrow night, August 17, at 6 pm. The monster that is Barcamp Vancouver 2007 then runs for 24 geek-packed hours, wrapping up Saturday, August 18 at 5:30.
If you registered many weeks ago, all the details for the good, good fun are below. If you missed out on registering, I’m pretty sure we’ll be running again next year. So stay tuned in July for an announcement.
But before we get to the details of the event, I’d like to pimp the session I’m pitching for Saturday. Here’s the pitch:
Zero to 30 Seconds in Less than 1 Hour or So You Think You Can Make an Ad?
In one session we’ll go from concept to finished product on one or more advertisements (depending on number of participants) for anything we want. Email me if you’d like to get started on a few briefs before the session. — James Sherrett, ad hacker
I expect things may be a little wooly at first. It’s a pretty ambitious goal to bang out a few ads in less than an hour. But I think it’ll be one grand experiment! I’m interested to see how it shakes out.
Anyone interested in going a little pre-session preparation? Contact me and I’ll pass along the briefs I’m working up to get us rolling.
We’re oversubscribed (yay!), which means that some people who want
to come won’t be able to come (boo!).
So please, if you’re in the first 120, check your dates and availability.
Are you sure you’re coming? We want to minimize the wiki squatting.
If you’re not sure you’re coming, please strike out your name and post
the name of the top person left on the waiting list in your former place.
If you’re on the waiting list, are you sure you’re available to come?
If not, please cross out your name. If you’re still keen on coming,
check back on the list to see if you’ve been added to the first 120.
We don’t mean to be too anal about this. We just want to make sure
that all the people that want to be there and can be there do get
to be there.
And to do that, please help us get the word out to all Barcampers.
Blog this message if you can. Forward it on to friends who are
interested so people are in the know.
We’ve gone through the list of signed-up attendees. Everyone who
left an email address has been sent this message. But that’s only
53 of about 160 people and email is a fickle mistress.
We’re missing out on getting in touch with some folks and we need
your help to get the word out. So blog the hell out of this and
we’ll (hopefully) reach everyone.
T-Shirts
We have printed 120 Barcamp Vancouver 2007 t-shirts to cover our
collective nekkidness.
They’re fuschia (!) and they’ll be available at the door on a first-
come, first-served basis.
We’re taking a suggested donation of $20 for each t-shirt, to
finance our lavish unconference lifestyle. Any monies left over will
be rolled into financing next year’s proceedings.
One of the suggestions from past Barcamps has been to post a list
of potential topics for sessions before the unconference. That way,
people can do their homework and get a hint of the sessions
available.
So that’s a great idea. Now let’s put it into action.
On the Barcamp Vancouver 2007 main page we have a heading called
Topics. So far, we have 2 sessions listed. The page is a wiki.
Anyone who wants to add a session, please go to it.
From past unconferences, we’ve seen that topics for sessions that
get listed beforehand have a much higher chance of getting selected
and getting great participation, which is, after all, the point.
So if you want to lead a session, or even just see a session on a
particular topic, please post the topic.
We’ll do some active wiki gardening to lend some order to the list
of topics, but anything is fair game. Go. To. It.
Schedule of Barcamp Events
Friday, August 17: food and drink at the Alibi Room
appetizers all evening
open bar starting at 6:30 pm (until our credit runs out!)
Lots of folks have worked hard to make Barcamp Vancouver 2007
happen. Sponsors have ponied up cash. Busy people have volunteered.
People with work to do have reinvested their attention to see
things get done.
So if you have a chance, thank a volunteer or a sponsor or one
of the folks at Workspace (our venue!) for making the event happen.
Last of all, thanks to all of your for all the enthusiasm, energy
and passion. And for reading this far.
Barcamp lives in the relationships between all of us. All of us
make it happen. So come to the unconference ready to rock and
help us all kick some ass.
We’re taking some vacation time next week and heading to our family camp at Lake of the Woods, in northern Ontario, for a week.
From July 28 to August 6 we’ll be pretty out of touch with any means of communication. In an emergency, the usual means of contact will work, but we can’t promise they’ll be swift.
We’ll be back in the office on August 7, ready and raring to go. Until then, we encourage you to unplug as we will. Distance, after all, make the heart grow fonder.