Good People: Inspiration Cafe

Last night, in between Academy Award segments, I viewed the 60-second True North commercial spot featuring the Inspiration Cafe. Today I decided to find out more about it.

Crystal on Leaves fine art photograph, Susan Loeb Chaplik

Dignity and Respect

Located in Uptown on Chicago's north side, Inspiration Cafe provides restaurant-style meals, case management, support groups, life-skills training, financial assistance and other services to homeless men and women in a therapeutic community that promotes dignity and respect.

Guests of the Cafe have access to the full range of Inspiration Corporation's programs, including employment training and career services, voice mail, and subsidized housing. Inspiration Cafe's goal is to help men and women overcome the causes of their homelessness and find stability by securing income and affordable housing.

Santeria fine art photograph, Christopher Gans 

Inspiration Cafe was founded in 1989 by Lisa Nigro, a Chicago police officer who began searching for a personal response to the homelessness she encountered in Uptown. She began by loading up a red wagon with sandwiches and coffee to distribute to homeless individuals on the streets.

One Inspired Evening

On March 13, 2009, Inspiration Cafe celebrates their 16th annual One Inspired Evening, which brings together more than 650 Chicago-area art lovers and friends of Inspiration Corporation for an evening of cocktails, live music, and live and silent auctions.  Now that's inspiring!

My Dream Rome fine art photography, Jennifer Jackson

Read more about the Cafe, their mission and the Inspiration Corporation HERE.

Photos displayed in this post, and part of the text, was borrowed from the Inspiration Corporation website--for details, artist information and copyright information, please visit the links above.

Series: Blogging - The Low Cost, High Return Business Marketing Tool: Part 7: Trackbacks and why they are important

In October 2008, Part Six of this marketing series covered the cons for businesses without a blog--a list of reasons why not blogging could affect your bottom line. This addition to the series will cover the importance of using Trackbacks.



l 2 r: Away fine art photo - aral33 photography, Doc Holiday hat - Moe Sew Co., Delicate Furry Necklace - Sara Lagace Original Designs, Gold Spalding dress - Makool Loves You.

Trackbacks are a tool used by bloggers for linking to other blogs. For example, if the author of a blog finds a great blog post on another person or company’s blog they might want to link it back to their company blog. The old-fashioned way to link would be to manually insert a link on the authors’ site to the discovered blog of interest, but the person whose blog is being linked to would not know you had linked to them unless they were informed. “A trackback program will notify the original blogger when one of their posts is linked to another blog by setting up a link at the bottom of every blog post.”[1]

t 2 b: Large Green Bowl - sirius.fnord, Montana fine art photo - Kerri Bastin, Origami Ornaments - Paper Red Shoes, Slate Bottle Trio - Sara Paloma Pottery.

Trackbacks are important to bloggers because they increase awareness of blogs and improve the credibility of a blog. A post about the referenced blog accompanies a trackback on one blog, which is the equivalent of receiving free advertising for the referenced blog. Readers will follow the links, learn of the referenced company, and possibly visit that blog again if they enjoy the content presented. The result of a trackback equals more traffic for the blog and more opportunities for making new connections.

“A growing number of American CEOs rate blogs
effective as employee communication tools.

59% of CEOs polled said they find blogs useful for internal
communications.
47% of CEOs stated they see blogs as a tool for external
communications.
18% of CEOs say they plan to host a company blog over the
next two years.”[2]

l 2 r: Sample Soaps - Kelle's Kitchen, O, Christmas Tree holiday cards - Jumping Jack Designs, 6-bottle Wool Wine Holder - Etcetera Media.

This post is part SEVEN of a marketing series. Please visit my archives to read parts 1-8.

The photos featured in this post represent items sold by our uber-creative, fellow small business owners, in their online Etsy stores. Please click on the links under the photo grids to visit the artist shops on Etsy.

Handmade fine arts, crafts, jewelry, metalwork, furniture, edibles, organic, eco-friendly, toys, decor, clothing, fibers, home decor, paper goods, accessories, supplies and all kinds of retro-good vintage items are waiting to delight your shopping sensibilities for the holidays and all-year-round on Etsy from all around the globe!

[1] Detty, Terry. "Why Trackbacks are Useful For Blogs." [Weblog WebReference.com] 2008. Webreference.com. 25 May 2008 http://www.webreference.com/promotions/trackbacks/.

[2] Sharma, Dinesh C.. "Study: CEOs find blogs useful." cnet.com 7, November 2005 25 May 2008 http://news.cnet.com/Study-CEOs-find-blogs-useful/2100-1047_3-5937387.html.

copyright pfeiffer photos 2008 - all rights reserved. do not use my writing or photographs without my permission. contact me HERE for info and permissions...thanks!

Blogging: The Low Cost, High Return Business Marketing Tool - Part 1: The Power of Communication

“What we’ve got here is…failure to communicate.” ~Captain, Cool Hand Luke

Today’s consumers crave human contact. We’re tired of voicemail with its menus full of options that don’t offer us solutions. The deluge of professionally prepared information that is intended more for influence our decisions more than to provide us with answers to our questions or speak to our concerns. Mechanical voices try to assure us that our calls are important but the humans that record the voices don’t answer those calls.

Click the grid for a larger view

(l 2 r: Incomplete - fine art photo, AliciaBockPhotography, You Don't Say original painting, Hilarie Galleries)

The humans we are able to reach are often barely able to speak our native language and they read responses off of a script. Buyers distrust corporations because of a lack of connection. Headlines tell us tales of corporate abuse, ethical scandal and illegal conduct. Companies are seen as monoliths without souls, run by slick lawyers and crooked accountants calling the shots and keeping their drone-like employees in line. Many people have a negative view of marketing. A suspicion has built that there is no human behind the refined language of a press release or advertisement. Consumers have built up their mental filters, purchase technology such as TiVo, and use spam filters to evade marketing messages.

Click the grid for a larger view
(l 2 r: Code Green tee, Binary Winter, Robot Notecards, Creative Apples)



Into this atmosphere of distrust comes the culture of blogging. Blogging brings interaction, it’s informal, it allows for typos, grammatical error, and the occasional forbidden word. Real people write Blogs and they allow discussions to begin with real customers who want to talk back. Blogs permit participants to move from one topic into another and back again. Bloggers feel free to interrupt one another to ask questions, make suggestions and challenge arguments.

A recent American Express survey found that only 5 percent of businesses with fewer than 100 employees have blogs.[1]

This post is part one of a series. In spring of 2008 I completed a marketing class as a requirement for my degree program. My final project was a 20-page research paper and I chose the subject, "Use of blogs as a marketing tool". This series will contain pieces from that paper. My hope is simply to inspire those, like us, with small and micro businesses, in their blogging (and marketing) endeavors.

So why should you care about this information? Simply put, because it could affect your business in a very positive way!

This post is part of a marketing series. Please see my archives for parts two through eight.

The photos displayed in this post represent items sold by our talented fellow small business owners, in their online Etsy shops. Please visit their shops to view other terrific handmade items.

[1] Alboher, Marci. "Small Business: Blogging's a Low-Cost, High Return Marketing Tool." [Weblog newyorktimes.com] 27, Dec 2007. The New York Times. 26 May 2008 .

Cartoon courtesey of toothpaste for dinner, copyright 3.07.

copyright pfeiffer photos 2008 - all rights reserved. do not use my writing or photographs without my permission. Contact me HERE for info and permissions...thanks!

Fresh start

Welcome!

This is our new blog for Pfeiffer Photos! Anyone who might be reading this who also blogs knows that it involves a commitment of time and energy to keep things fresh and interesting. Our goal is to do just that. We hope to chat with you, share our adventures in Oregon and beyond, hopefully make some connections and, of course, we'll be posting lots of great photos which is what we're all about!


All that being said, let's get it rollin'...

(Twins by Tina, Pfeiffer Photos 2008)

The photo displayed in this post is available as a print...check our Etsy shop or contact us to purchase--thanks!