At Colle+McVoy, we’ve been having our own election. The candidates were whittled down, 10s of 100s of 1000s of pennies were spent on advertising, scare tactics were used, and finally today we can cast our vote for “Copywriter.” Please cast your vote today for Joel Stacy or Brian Ritchie. Remember, voting is your right as an American. Make sure your voice is heard and vote today.
The polls do close at 11:59 PM tonight. We also accept write-in votes. Just use the commenting option on this post.
We just finished developing this widget for the Minnesota State Lottery. Widgets have certainly gotten a lot of attention in the last year and because of that there have been 1,000s of ineffective or silly widgets created. I’m really proud of the widget created by the team at Colle+McVoy because it delivers a REAL consumer benefit: winning numbers.
Players frequently visit MNLottery.com or LuckyMN.com, the player’s club, for winning numbers. The widget brings the information right to them. This saves them time and gives them another great reason to be a fan of the Minnesota State Lottery.
Strategically, the widget helps us move toward a push-model instead of a pull-model. If we can deliver key information to them in the form of a widget, that’s GREAT, even if it means the number of people coming to our websites decreases. Again, it’s NOT about traffic, it’s about marketing effectiveness and this delivers!
The widget was built using the NetVibes platform. We chose that platform so that users of iGoogle, My Yahoo, and other platforms could install the widget. Heck it even works in the Apple Dashboard and scales to the size of the column or window. Now, that is sweet.
So I don’t normally ready USA Today, but when our client and our site is featured I feel obligated 
I think their write up is spot on. However, I do have a tiny bone to pick about their criticism. Based on the persona research we did, the need/want to search across states wasn’t a requirement. In fact, no one brought it up. Most people indicated they are going to a very specific destination and simply want more info about the location and what’s around the area. That said, we’re going to re-examine the use cases, personas, and needs/wants to make sure we didn’t miss anything.
Colle+McVoy recently launched a great new site for Taubman Mall Centers called Yearbook Yourself. The site lets you upload a photo of yourself and see what you’d look like if transported back in time to specific years from decades of the past. I think this photo of me from 1982 is pretty accurate
Yearbook Yourself
I had absolutely nothing to do with the initiative except getting to watch it all come together. The team really kicked ass and put together a smart, simple, and intuitive experience that really delivers on the “brief.”
Get out there and Yearbook Yourself now!
Head of Social Media at Walgreens. Interactive marketer, innovator, boat rocker, continuous learner, movie lover, risk taker, dad and all around good guy. I'm always up for a spirited conversation. These are my thoughts and ramblings, not those of my employer.
