Sarah Biedak: Why We Seek the New: A History and Future of Neophilia – An interesting look at why we all are always trying to discover the next best thing.

Jesse Davis: Social media measurement is difficult. There’s no one tool that does it all, no one strategy for measurement, no one department that owns this space, but this article by Fast Company has some interesting thoughts about how to organize, strategize and analyze social media ROI.

Melissa Lion: I don’t condone crying at your desk, however, if you’re up for a bit of a weep and some very beautiful stories from people all over the world, check out DearPhotograph.com. And hand me a tissue.

Julie Yamamoto: Video: where good ideas come from http://youtu.be/NugRZGDbPFU.

Gary Rubin: How social media is changing college athletics and recruiting. http://espn.go.com/college-sports/recruiting/football/story/_/id/7510010/social-media-makes-mark-recruiting

Stefanie Week: Ever wonder what those tech-savvy youth are doing online and with their mobile phones these days? Ekaterina Walter from Intel compiled an impressive list of the top stats for how Gen Y is using technology.

What did you read this week?

Melissa Lion: Will Condé Nast be able to pull up out of print media’s death spiral with a new revenue model? The New York Times article, Condé Nast Is Changing Its Blueprint, explores the possibility.

Sarah Biedak: Facebook has launched Facebook Questions, a Yahoo! Questions-esque service. This could be useful for seeking community feedback and research.

Darcie Meihoff: I have two favorites this week. Have you considered inviting a guest blogger to your blog? Get some helpful tips from HubsSpot’s recent post. I credit @DaveAtNorth for this one: a 14-page article from The New York Times, The Web Means The End of Forgetting, explores how your digital past is never forgotten and can haunt, or help you. Enlightening and a little frightening.

Erik Sebellin-Ross: New Forrester research shows that Foursquare doesn’t have a big enough user base to warrant its use in marketing efforts. Outside of major cities, sure . . .

Stefanie Week: Content is king, but only if it’s free. A new USC survey shows that zero percent of those polled would pay for Twitter. I think I’d have to agree.

Julie Yamamoto: Mashable reveals how to send an audio tweet.

Julie Ma: Having a case of writer’s block? Clarabela Media’s post, Nine Sites Every Freelance Writer Should Bookmark, will get anyone’s creative writing juices flowing.

In short, the answer is “yes.” They’re not dead, and here’s why: company newsletters have been redefined, and can be leveraged across new platforms to expand their reach and cross-communicate in various channels. That’s a big payoff and great ROI on content that otherwise would have been sequestered in a printed piece. If you plan strategically, today you can get more bang for your buck out of newsletters than you ever could before.

Here are five tips to keep in mind to set your company up for newsletter success:

Content is king. No matter what form a newsletter takes–printed or email–content is still the most important element. Develop stories that help, encourage, and inform the audience with timely information. Expand the content out beyond just you and your company to include industry trends, case studies, and tips that readers can benefit from. The best content is brief enough to engage those with short attention spans and not too self-serving. As the news media shrinks, this approach is an opportunity to tell your story directly to customers.

Plan, plan, plan. Organizing a successful newsletter takes planning. The first step is setting a purpose for your newsletter. Ask yourself what you want to accomplish for all the effort and expense. Next, establish deadline and publish dates to keep everyone on schedule, and evaluate timing to coincide distribution with trade shows, product launches, or other timely opportunities that can support the brand message. This has proven to work for both printed and email newsletters.

Leverage social media. Newsletter content makes great fodder for a company’s social media channels. For example, post newsletter stories on your website and distribute links via a Twitter account to your audience. Or post on Facebook and ask customers to comment. By doing so, you reinforce your message and get more mileage out of your efforts. Social media is also a rich environment for gathering content. For instance, we use one client’s Twitter account to conduct quick survey polls using SurveyBob on industry topics and run the results in the company’s quarterly newsletter.

Appoint an in-house publisher. CMD works on newsletters for several clients and the most successful ones are those that have a single, internal contact who acts as publisher. Our experience shows that bringing too many people into the newsletter process is like inviting too many chefs into the kitchen. Everyone has an opinion and the end result usually isn’t that good. Plus it never goes out on time.

Survey says. Have you asked your customers recently what they want to read about, or do you just think of story ideas that sound interesting? Remove the guesswork and survey your audience about stories, frequency, distribution method, etc. You can’t give them what they want if you don’t know what it is. This step could save you time, money, and improve your odds of positively connecting with customers.

Thank you.

As we take the next couple of days to spend time with family and friends this Thanksgiving holiday, we want to say thank you to our clients and friends of CMD. As we all know, it’s been a challenging year for many – both personally and professionally. Through it all, we’ve battled to create more from less, set the bar higher under some pretty extraordinary circumstances and pulled together as a team to not only survive, but thrive. We’re grateful especially to our clients, our partners and everyone on the CMD team who work together each and every day to help make us all better, tougher and wiser. We wouldn’t be here without you…literally. You’ve kept us inspired to reach beyond expectations and we are thankful for the opportunities as well as the challenges, and for all those times we’ve dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s together. Because of you, we are confident that there will be many more successes and plenty of excitement ahead of us going into 2010.

So from our “agency family” to yours, Happy Thanksgiving. Above is a little video and some pictures to share with you how we celebrated Thanksgiving this morning here at CMD – thanks to our very own account services team for always taking good care of us, including getting up bright and early to prepare a fantastic breakfast for the whole agency!

- CMD

VEGAS WEDDING, PORTLAND-STYLE
SCRAP and Opera Theater Oregon marry glitz & glam all for a good cause, Sept. 26

What:
What do opera, Elvis and the environment have to do with one another? It all bubbles up to a show-stopping party that audiences won’t soon forget.

SCRAP, Portland’s favorite source of environmentally friendly creative inspiration, is hosting a Vegas-style party featuring the singers of the Live Opera Jukebox. For donations, singers will accept requests to perform timeless Vegas show tunes in opera-style for the crowd.

In true Vegas spirit, a real officiate will be on hand to perform marriage ceremonies on demand during the event and attendees will be able to express their own creativity by making festive veils, corsages or bouquets from recycled art supplies provided by SCRAP.

Tickets for the event are $20, which also include light refreshments. The Wedding in Vegas party benefits SCRAP and Opera Theater Oregon (thank you, thank you very much).

When:
SCRAP’s Wedding in Vegas party is Saturday, Sept. 26, 7 p.m. Tickets are limited and can be purchased in advance at www.scrapaction.org

Where:
CMD Agency, one of Portland’s leading creative marketing agencies, located at 1631 NW Thurman in Portland. Parking is free in CMD’s parking lot.

Contact:
Darcie Meihoff, CMD on behalf of SCRAP, (503) 488-4252 or dmeihoff@cmdagency.com