Visimation GoShapes: Alternative Energy Suite

Mountain Stream Group Adds Visimation To Our Roster Of Clients

/in /by
Visimation - GoShapes: Alternative Energy Suite

Sample of Visimation’s GoShapes. Alternative Energy Suite

We are pleased to announce the addition of Visimation to our roster of clients. Visimation, Inc. is a software development company. They develop custom and standard shapes/stencils, add-on applications and templates for Microsoft Visio. They sell their Visio add-ons, shapes and templates through their ShapeSource.com store. Additionally, they conduct Visio training seminars and maintain a blog with tips on how to more effectively use Visio. To learn more about their products and services visit www.visimation.com or www.shapesource.com or www.visiozone.com.

We will be assisting them in developing and disseminating an email marketing campaign, and conducting business development and public relations efforts among other services.

Marvelous Inventions Photo - Electricity

Marvelous Inventions And The Men/Women Who Created Them. Who Should Be In The Design Hall Of Fame?

/in /by

Marvelous Inventions - Electricity Photo

What’s your top 10 inventions? Who are your top 10 designers/engineers?

Since the dawn of time, humans have been full of curiosity. They’ve asked what if, and used their ingenuity to create products and machines that have solved a problem, and made people’s lives easier, more efficient or safer. Some of the millions of marvelous inventions that have changed world in small and major ways, include the steam engine, electricity, the telephone, the television, the radio, the microwave oven, air conditioning, the automobile, the airplane, the printing press and the semiconductor.

The designers and engineers — men and women like Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Leonardo Da Vinci, Johannes Gutenberg, Harriett Russell Strong, Henry Ford, Denis Papin, Ben Franklin, and Josephine Garis Cochran — for the most part have worked in obscurity and only became famous posthumously. In most cases, they never get the recognition they deserve because educators, students and the public at large don’t understand what engineers do.

In fact in a survey for the American Association of Engineering Societies, Harris Interactive found 61% of respondents didn’t consider themselves well informed about engineering and engineers, and 70% of respondents thought that the media did only a fair or poor job covering engineering.

Product Design and Development magazine feels that the design engineers should get the recognition they deserve for a lifetime commitment to the profession, and are creating PD&D Design Engineering Hall of Fame. They’re asking design engineers to email them with their top 10 list of design engineers. Upon compiling the submissions an advisory panel will select the first five inductees. Mountain Stream Group is proud to be one of a member of the advisory board.

To learn more visit PD&D at the following link. http://www.pddnet.com/blogs/2009/07/pdd-design-engineer-hall-fame

Before You Leap Into Social Media and Networking Photo

Before Leaping Into Social Media and Networking

/1 Comment/in /by

Social Media & Networking Photo - Before Leaping

Six steps to your organization’s social media and networking success.

The Internet, more specifically social media and networking has changed the way people and organizations connect, create, stay in touch or seek help from others.

Citizen journalists are using social media tools like blogs, microblogs, and video sharing to inform the world of the events surrounding the 2009 Iranian election protests when traditional journalists were banned from the country. It helped to topple the Egyptian government and many other Middle Eastern governments in 2011.

Musicians utilize services like Myspace and YouTube to launch careers and connect with fans. Companies employ wikis to collaborate on product development,  manage projects and customer relations, and provide technical support. E-tailers and restaurants apply reviews and opinions to increase traffic and drive sales because while 14% of people trust ads, 76% trust consumer recommendations* for purchase decisions. Furthermore, companies use Facebook to encourage fans to refer their products or services since a Facebook friend referral makes two-thirds of US Facebook users more likely to purchase a product or visit a retailer¹.

However, many organizations are jumping head long into social networking before they know what it is, how to use it, what platforms their stakeholders may or may not use, what social technographics define their stakeholders and what costs —  direct and hidden — are involved for fear they are going to be left out.

Others leap in because it is going to be a ‘cheap’ way of marketing themselves without having goals, strategies and tactics established, knowing the human resource and time allocations needed to get results, defining a method for measuring results, and determining what message(s) they’re going broadcast. Read more

Without Knowledge Your Marketing Investment Is Worthless Photo

Without Knowledge Your Marketing Investment Is Worthless

/in /by

Without Knowledge Your Marketing Investment Is Worthless Photo

Business owners invest in their firms, not stocks is the headline AP Business Writer Joyce M. Rosenberg used for her article in Crain’s Detroit Business, June 24th Small Talk section. It discusses how business owners, like you, are intending to invest in their businesses instead of the stock market, since it’s such a risk.

If business owners are truly going to (re)invest in themselves as the article states, then they really have to understand that a marketing investment is something they cannot do without. It’s one of the investments that, if done right, has the largest return-on-investment and impacts the business the most.

But sadly, I have to say, many companies start without any research. Many fly along by the seat of their pants. Many don’t have a clue who their competitors are, what their business structure is and how they are positioning themselves in the marketplace. Many don’t have an inkling who their stakeholders are, their customers’ needs and wants are, or how and where their customers get their information. Many don’t know what makes their own business unique.

If your business wants to gain the greatest return-on-investment possible, have the best conceivable brand image and awareness and have the largest sales increases attainable, you must do your due diligence before you invest. Hopefully, that is what you did when you invested in the stock market. So, the same principles must apply to your company’s marketing investment because without knowledge the investment is worthless. Read more

Wakeup Fluid Power Industry or Prepare for Extinction Photo

Wake Up Fluid Power Industry Or Prepare For Extinction

/7 Comments/in /by

Wake Up Fluid Power Industry Or Prepare For Extinction

A recent post in the Hydraulics & Pneumatics magazine’s discussion group on LinkedIn asks: Is fluid power on the decline?

As a person who worked in the industry for 10 years and has provided consulting services to the industry for the past 16 years, I believe it is—especially in the United States. And, if they don’t wake up immediately, they’ll find themselves in the history books and museums alongside dinosaurs—extinct.

Like a precision military assault, the fluid power industry is getting hammered on several fronts: technology competition, the environment, government regulations and knowledge loss. The environment, government regulations and knowledge loss have teamed up to open a gaping hole in the fortress allowing a full frontal attack by technology competition.

And, like Great Britain during World War II, the industry has done very little to combat the forces working against them. While some have acknowledged defeat and quit the battle, most of the industry, it seems, have yet to realize they’re under attack or their survival is at risk. Read more

Agencies Unite Photo

Agencies Unite To Help Organizations Keep Pace With An Evolving Landscape

/in , /by

Mountain Stream Group - Agencies Unite Photo

Fluid Power Technologies International and Konstanz Kommunikations undergo consolidation with Mountain Stream Group to form new, Chicago-based experiential communications design consultancy.

Thanks to the Internet the world’s getting smaller and moving at an ever-increasing pace, communication methods are expanding, and an organization’s success is increasingly dependent on fluid global communication.

The number of internal and external, seen and unseen points where your stakeholders touch, experience and hopefully connect with your brand, product or service keeps growing. Beyond the normally thought of touchpoints, your building’s architecture, your workspaces, your information systems and workflow processes, your product’s aesthetics and functionality, and your computer-mediated and machine-to-machine interactions are now vital members of a very dynamic communications ecosystem—living together interdependently. Read more