Headstand Media

Headstand Media took a little outing to a Chicago Cubs game on the afternoon of April 18th. The forecast included rain, but it turned out to be a fantastic sunny afternoon with a comfortable cool breeze and no rain! Two friends joined us from ShopLocal: Patrick Flanagan - Director of Product Management, and Chris Quinn – Graphics & Ad Operations Manager.

Not only was the company and the weather great, the Cub won, 3 to 2 over the Pittsburgh Pirates. As you can see below, we had great seats right down the first base line next to the yellow foul ball pole!

Thanks Don!

The Reilly Company is an international management services company providing solutions to management, marketing, sales, distribution and operating problems worldwide. The company is dedicated to identifying areas of potential market opportunity and performance improvement thereby helping its clients to compete successfully in world markets and maximize their growth and profits

Reilly service offerings consist of:

• Corporate Performance Assessment
• International Expansion
• Structural Recommendations and Implementation

Headstand Media has been engaged to help The Reilly Company website to perform better in lead generation and new business acquisition through our Search Engine Optimization Services. The site will be reorganized and redesigned following our keyword research phase.

Headstand Media is pleased to announce Nightstand 5 scheduled for April 24th, from 6 to 8:30 PM. We’ll serve drinks and food at 6 PM while guests arrive and to facilitate informal networking. We’ll have short introductions right around 7 PM, then go into our featured discussion.

Build Your Own Nightstand

Sometimes it is just good to sit and talk with friends about ideas, trends, developments and experiences related to our lives with: emerging technology, Web 2.0, online communities and social networking, new media and communication in our changing world.

Headstand Media will guide us in an open-ended discussion and conversation on new things we’ve seen, questions that have come up, experiences we’d like to share, developments on the horizon - encouraging all of our guests to participate and contribute.

So, we invite you to bring along your ideas, thoughts, experiences, issues, questions or news to contribute. We’ve got plenty of white-board space, and a laptop and projector to view websites or resources online that will help our discussion.

We have a speaker and topic lined up for May, but we’ll also spend some time brainstorming on future topics and presentation resources that you’d like to see covered in the months ahead.

We encourage you to invite friends and associates who may be interested in this topic. We only ask that you RSVP!

We’d love to see you there!

Confirmed Attendees:
Randal Birkey - Headstand Media
Benjamin Nelson - Headstand Media
Kyle Williams - Headstand Media
Steve Tanner - Kidology
Scott Ruth - Breakthrough Urban Ministries
Chris Arndt - Moody Bible Institute
Richard Ellison - Cultivest
Branden Stuck - Kidology, Sony
Kent Thompson
Tim Schwaar

Invite a Friend!

Headstand Media is pleased to announce the launch of the new Different Cremation Urn website found at www.differentcremationurn.com. The website design by Headstand Media, was created to work along side David Orth’s primary Orth Furniture business website. David’s custom urns are all one of a kind, beautiful pieces of art. Each bronze cremation urn is handcrafted with a hidden opening, various patina options and can be inscribed with a personal message.

“Cremation urns don’t have to be trinkets or oddities that someday you may wonder what to do with. An urn can be something beautiful and resonate, something that gathers and enfolds memories and personal loss, carrying them forward into the larger human prayer and struggle.” - designer/sculptor David Orth

Headstand Media not only created the user interface for Different Cremation Urn website, but also created a custom Order Request Process that allows a user to select the unique specifications they’d like for their urn, and then submit that request to David Orth. Lastly, Headstand Media provided valuable Search Engine Optimization services and web marketing expertise on this project. Please visit www.differentcremationurn.com today!

Headstand Media is pleased to announce the launch of a new Sunshine Gospel Ministries website found at www.sunshinegospel.org. The website design by Headstand Media, was integrated using the open source Drupal Content Management System and launched on March 24, 2008. Drupal is built upon open source PHP and MySQL technologies. It is also extremely search engine friendly and will enhance the Sunshine SEO rankings and traffic over time. Headstand provided customer training in the use of this powerful Web 2.0 CMS tool and once trained, this tool has allowed customer staff members to enter and keep the site content up to date using a standard web browser.

Also integrated into the new site was an updated and more contemporary Sunshine brand logo and tagline; “Seeking the Renewal of the City.” Headstand Media is also preparing multiple print materials using the new logo design and web design format, so that the ministry presents itself visually in a consistent and coordinated manner. The new print materials include: business cards, letterhead, envelopes, ministry logos, brochures, forms and other newsletters.

The site features multiple videos explaining various aspects of the ministry from mission and vision to program descriptions and the racial reconciliation philosophy. The videos were shot and edited by LifeFocus Productions, and converted into Flash Video format for integration on the website. Also included is a full site search tool, commenting, RSS feeds, event calendar and animated Flash photos.

Sunshine Gospel also uses eTapestry for its donor record and communication software and databases. Headstand Media worked with eTapestry to integrate several secure web forms that allow site visitors to set up online donations, or payments for classes or other event registrations.

The new website positions Sunshine Gospel Ministries with a new contemporary image and will enable it to perform much better in the search engines, as it connects with the community it serves, the surrounding Chicago area supporting churches, and a growing college student audience interested in their Bridge Builders urban ministry training program.

Hello to all our Nightstand friends. Due to vacation and travel schedules this month, we are not hosting a Nightstand event on March 27th, as would normally have occurred. Instead, we are planning to host Nightstand 5 on April 24, 2008. We will be sending an email to our Nightstand invitation list prior to that date in April, with information on the topic and featured presenter. We will also post that information here for all of you who have subscribed to our RSS feed.

Have a great Easter holiday and spring break, and we’ll see you in April!

Randy, Benjamin and Kyle.

March 2008 seems to be going very well in the “new business” category.

Headstand Media has been able to welcome a number of new customers including:

• Christianity Today International
• Southport Grocery & Cafe
• The Presbytery of Chicago
• Superior Wine, Inc.
• Circle Urban Ministries

We are providing various services for each customer ranging from search engine optimization (SEO) research, new website design, and content management system (CMS) implementations, to network infrastructure consulting and upgrade planning, website maintenance and feature upgrades.

It is very exciting to be growing a new business with customers like these. We feel very privileged to be working with such great people and look forward to building strong, long-lasting relationships.

Headstand Media has begun the process of helping an online wine merchant to grow their online business through intelligent search engine optimization services. Our process begins with keyword research and then uses that research to base recommended website changes and upgrades upon. Our initial research identified what we feel to be some great opportunities for Superior Wine to focus their SEO and website efforts on.

Circle Urban Ministries has been serving the Austin community on Chicago’s west side for nearly three decades, providing holistic help that makes a difference in that inner-city neighborhood. Randal Birkey began working for Glenn Kehrein and other Circle staff doing graphic design and computer related work back in the 1980’s along with Chuck Thomas. While managing BIRKEY.COM in the late 90’s, Randal also consulted with and trained Circle staffers and helped them launch and host their first website.

Now, as Headstand Media, Randal has just begun a four phase project with Stephen Montgomery and Circle staff to help stabilize and upgrade their internal network infrastructure, and then extend their presence more effectively on the web through search engine optimization, content management systems, and web 2.0 features designed to extend and multiply their ministry and communication reach.

Phase One - Review and Plan

Phase Two - Infrastructure Implementation

Phase Three - Website Refresh

Phase Four - Ongoing Support

Headstand Media looks forward to this new working relationship and partnership with Circle Urban Ministries.

We thought we’d have some fun today here at Headstand. The collection of Web 2.0 parody logos below inspired us to “Web 2.0ify” our current Headstand Media logo. It seems that the web has a copy-cat environment to it, so it’s pretty funny to see how this Web 2.0 logo style has taken off. Now that we have “Web 2.0ified” our logo, I’m sure we’ll be perceived has even more hip, cool and connected, and will no doubt reach a new younger target audience (which would be fine with us!).

The Web 2.0 parody of corporate logos shown below have been floating around the net for a while. We’ve been unable to track down who created these, so if you know, let us know and we’ll be sure to give credit where credit is due. Otherwise, enjoy the fun.

Which is your favorite? What other corporate logos would you like to see “Web 2.0ified?” If you’re really feeling creative, mock one up yourself and send it to us. We’ll be happy to post it for all to see.