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Meet: Joe Greve

Welcome Joe Greve, our new web developer at Elexicon! We are thrilled to have him join our team. To help you get to know Joe better, we asked him to answer a few questions.

What is your educational background?

I have an associates degree in Web Design from Kalamazoo Valley Community College, and spent a year at Ferris State University studying Game Design and Animation.

What are five interesting facts about you?

1. No matter the topic, I probably have some random fun fact about it
2. I like to think I’m pretty great at making food
3. I’m exceptionally detail oriented (sometimes to a fault!)
4. I can repair most anything on a car
5. I once solved a Rubik’s Cube, by following a guide

If you could visit anywhere in the world you’ve never been, where would you go?

Japan! Osaka, Tokyo, Toyota City, the mountains — all of it.

How do you wind down after work?

Usually by cooking myself a nice meal. I find cooking really therapeutic. Maybe just because you can’t really rush a good meal!

What’s a topic you wish you knew more about?

I feel like my answer to this changes every week. But right now, I think I’d say automotive metalworking.

If you had to listen to one song for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Africa, by Toto. Extra points for the Weezer cover.

Who inspires you?

In no particular order: Steve Jobs, Christian von Koenigsegg, anyone who can stick it out with a personal project for more than a few weeks, and my fiancé.

Because I’m the Astronomy Guy at Elexicon, I’m once again going to use my work as an excuse to post about Space.

Here’s a breathtaking photo of the Orion Nebula.

I’ll let Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy (now at Syfy) describe what you’re seeing:

This image of the Orion Nebula is one of the largest and deepest ever taken. It was done using the HAWK-1 infrared camera attached to the Very Large Telescope in Chile, an 8.2 meter telescope that can see celestial objects in extraordinary detail. This image is not exactly what was released by the European Southern Observatory originally; the observations were remastered by astrophotographer Robert Gendler to bring out more detail and to really shine a light (so to speak) on the phenomenal beauty of this immense stellar nursery.

There’s some important science lurking in this image, but there’s something I want to point out first. The glowing part of the nebula is actually just a small part of a much larger complex called the Orion Molecular Cloud. It’s a dense, cold cloud of gas and dust, invisible to the eye, and stars are forming in it. A clutch of stars happened to form near the edge of the cloud, and once they switched on after birth their intense radiation began carving enormous cavities in the gas, chewing away at the material in the cloud.

Because they’re near the edge, they eventually ate a hole on the side of the cloud. In a sense they popped the bubble, blowing out the cloud at their location, which happened to be on the side of the cloud facing us. When we look at the Orion Nebula, we’re actually seeing a dimple or divot scooped out of the denser material. The lower density and much hotter gas filling that dimple glows brilliantly, creating the nebula we see.

This image actually shows that extremely well. Redder material is denser, and the blue glow suffusing the nebula is lower density, hotter gas, tracing the shape of the cavity. It’s an extraordinary glimpse literally inside the nebula.

In other words, you’re looking at a star factory. This video from the Science Channel explains what goes on inside that factory:

The TL;DR version: when gravity clumps enough material together, pressure can build to a point that the atoms of that material fuse together. Those atoms then release their energy in a chain reaction that ignites as a star. A star is a perpetual series of nuclear explosions balanced by the contracting force of gravity—until the fuel runs out.

How star formation relates to content strategy

We sometimes see attempts to trigger website ignition by throwing all available website-y material together in one collection of web pages. Unfortunately in those cases, physics isn’t taking over just because staff bios, a company history, and excerpts from brochures about products or services are gathered together.

Without strategic planning and intentional organization of content, you can end up with a loose mess of material adrift in a nondescript corner of the universe—er, the internet.

Here’s the thing: those clouds of dust in the photo above are the same material that ignited to become stars. The clouds are reflecting light from nearby stars or radiating heat from those stars as light—they’re not giving off their own light.

A website that is similarly just a loose association of website-y stuff is also defined in contrast to other, ignited websites using similar material—competitors. And it won’t look as good as a cloud of space dust backlit by stars.

This applies at the page level, too. For example, efforts to make the homepage ignite can lead to unusable clutter that drives visitors away or leaves them with an unclear path to what they need. You don’t want a page like that standing in contrast to the ignited homepage of a competitor.

The lesson: you won’t get ignition with your website without some intentional arrangement of the material. You want the web equivalent of the atomic fusion that ignites a star.

But also remember: once you have ignition, you won’t have the balanced forces of chain reactions and gravity holding it together. You need a plan in place to keep the fires going.

We can help with that

Elexicon’s content strategy services can help you figure out what you have and what you need, as well as how it all should be arranged to achieve a stable, lasting ignition. Together with our design and development services, we can help you achieve a clear, usable, and human-centered experience for your users.

Your website can shine on its own. And, hopefully, outshine the rest of the stars.

Marketing guru Seth Godin’s Purple Cow is written for marketing professionals, and anyone who wants to expand their horizons with a unique perspective. He explores marketing strategies and uses case studies to help explain his point of view.

Godin begins by explaining that marketing doesn’t have enough “P’s,” referring to the famous “Four P’s of Marketing”:

1. price,
2. product,
3. place,
4. and promotion.

Godin suggests that we need to account for more “P’s,” such as positioning, publicity, pass-along, permission, and Purple Cows.

What are Purple Cows?

Purple Cows are standout experiences (like literally seeing a “Purple Cow”) that create more than just the typical desired outcome such as a purchase, a reaction, a click, etc. Purple Cows are a promotion technique that works best when the goal is to spread more than just awareness. The goal of a Purple Cow is to generate something deeper and more lasting: loyalty, a relationship, a creative spark, even an obsession.

Purple Cows are important in your business because people are too busy and will ignore your messages if you don’t break through the noise with something exceptional.

I know firsthand that consumers are frustrated with the clutter of advertisements and traditional marketing, so much that their disdain for ads has led them to ad blockers.

So, what should marketers do? Create Purple Cow experiences for consumers with otaku.

Otaku

Otaku is a Japanese term for people with obsessive interests. According to Godin, otaku describes something that’s more than a hobby, but a little less than an obsession.

Godin says, “Otaku is the overwhelming desire that gets someone to drive across town to try a new ramen-noodle shop that got a great review.”

As a marketer, I believe that otaku is an essential quality we are looking for in consumers. The more consumers have otaku towards your product, the more chances a Purple Cow phenomenon will occur.

A prime example of otaku in the United States is hot sauce. Boatloads of people are lining up to taste the hottest hot sauce and will compete in the most outrageous challenges. This obsession has led to a real business, therefore showing the impact of otaku.

Moving forward, we as marketers need to understand otaku-driven consumers to implement more successful products.

Final Thoughts

Purple Cow is a great book to gain inspiration for marketing professionals. Godin provides case studies that provide ideas on how to create remarkable experiences for our consumers.

My favorite case study was “How Dutch Boy Stirred Up the Paint Business.” Dutch Boy, a paint manufacturing company, created an entirely new product based on a key insight: people hated paint cans because they were heavy, hard to carry, hard to close, hard to pour from, and no fun. So, the marketing team changed the product, creating an easier to carry, easier to pour from, easier to close paint jug.

We need to take a design thinking approach towards marketing, and understand that sometimes you need to stop selling the product and think instead about how the consumers are engaging with it. If you exercise a little empathy, you can gain consumer insights that will increase purchasing decisions and sales.

That leads me to end with a question. How can you redefine what you sell and make it better?

Welcome Emma Sluiter, our new digital marketing specialist at Elexicon! We are thrilled to have her as a part of our team. To help you get to know Emma better, we asked her to answer a few questions about herself.

What is your educational background?

I recently graduated from Grand Valley State University in December 2018 with a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Health Communications, Advertising, and Public Relations.

Your degree was a big part of the mutual interest between us!

This is true on so many levels. Personally, I first gained interest in Elexicon because their team helped create and supports Health Beat, Spectrum Health’s brand journalism site. I was a Health Beat reader in college, so the opportunity to work alongside them in an agency setting was ideal for me. Since one of my passions is communicating about healthcare, I believe working at Elexicon is the perfect first-step for me after college. I get to explore the impact of the communications we create for healthcare clients and their patients while learning more about web development from my team. It’s a win-win.

What were some collegiate activities/clubs you were involved in?

To start, I had my own one-hour radio show in college called Emma’s Dilemmas. I would talk about my personal dilemmas while covering local health news — I was pretty funny if I do say so myself! My radio show later led me to become GVSU’s student radio news director, where I was able to inform listeners about local health news on a regular basis.

Additionally, my time in college was spent in student government. I was a part of GVSU’s Student Senate where I worked on a committee to oversee internal relations and student funding. I helped appropriate $1.2 million to student organizations and learned more about team building and about my university’s resources. I also planned leadership programs and conferences — including the Leadership Summit, Transitions: New Student Orientation, and the First Year Leadership Program.

Not only was I involved at my university, but I was also involved in my local community. I volunteered my time at animal shelters, Well House and 20 Liters. Lastly, I was involved in a collegiate ad agency called The Bloom Group, where my colleagues and I worked on real-life marketing campaigns with Open Systems Technologies (OST) and GVSU.

What are your Top 5 skills?

Perseverance would be one of my top skills, because I never give up on a task or goal until it is completed—and completed well. Next, I would say organization because I am able to work on multiple tasks at the same time with a clear perspective on what needs to be done. Public speaking is another top skill of mine, mainly because of my outgoing personality and my desire to communicate with others about what I’ve learned. Teamwork is another skill I have obtained over the years from playing sports and working on team projects in college. Lastly, I would say I am an active listener because I find it important to learn from others and their experiences.

What do you like to do outside of work?

Watch new TV shows on Netflix, play my Nintendo DS, and hang out with my orange kitty.

You’re burning the midnight oil on a deadline. What’s your go-to snack?

Ben & Jerry’s Toffee Bar Crunch… and if that’s not in my freezer, I just make popcorn.

Music, podcasts or no headphones while working?

I tend to have headphones on while working. I can always jam out to music by 5 Seconds of Summer, and listen to podcasts. I have been finding myself listening to health and wellness podcasts lately, and I am enjoying the new perspective I am getting about nutrition. I like to listen to something at work because it keeps me motivated.

What book(s) are you reading?

I like to read books that help me escape the real world, and allow me to have a creative mind. For “escape” these days, I am reading the Witch & Wizard series by James Patterson. For my professional development, I have just read White Hat UX by Trine Falbe, Kim Andersen, and Martin Michael Frederiksen, Purple Cow by Seth Godin, and Contagious by Jonah Berger.

As a new member of the Elexicon team, I wanted to learn more about not only our design processes but other communication professionals in our community. So, on January 17, 2019, I attended a West Michigan PRSA event on the topic of design thinking. The educational event was led by the West Michigan Center For Arts + Technology (WMCAT). The hosts were Brandy Arnold and Kirk Eklund, and they targeted the one-hour conversation toward PR practitioners.

What is design thinking?

According to the hosts, design thinking—or human-centered design—is “intentional problem solving.” This mindset can be applied when constructing products or processes.

This intentional problem solving method has a five-step approach that was originally proposed by the Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford. The five steps are:

1. Empathize
2. Define
3. Ideate
4. Prototype
5. Test

Brandy and Kirk informed us that the five-step approach is not linear and that there will be no clear step to transform and/or solve a problem. Design thinking can even revert back to the first step due to research findings along the way. That said, it is important to include empathy in each step because centering the target audience will ensure a successful outcome for the entire process.

A design thinking example

To dig deeper into the impact of design thinking, Kirk provided an example: an MRI machine created by Doug Dietz, a designer at GE Healthcare.

Dietz created an MRI machine that was supposed to change healthcare. Although the MRI machine was helpful for providers, he discovered that patients, specifically kids, were afraid of the machine. He was dissatisfied with his original invention, and sought to find out why the kids feared the machine.

Dietz utilized the first step of design thinking: empathy. Through his study of how kids felt about the MRI machine, he found that younger kids feared it because there was a lack of adventure in the MRI experience. From this insight, Dietz adapted the machine to create the Adventure Series.

The results of Dietz’s human-centered design approach were outstanding. According to Kirk, the sedation rates of MRI experiences dropped from 80% to 1% from these changes. Furthermore, this example shows the tremendous impact of a collaboration between innovation and empathy.

To understand this design thinking example further, watch a TED Talk led by Doug Dietz himself.

“When you design for meaning, good things will happen.”

Doug Dietz, designer at GE Healthcare

Final Thoughts

To wrap things up, I learned that design thinking is a flexible process that can help solve problems in unique ways.

Elexicon takes a similar approach to design thinking and human-centered design, which we incorporate into our agency principles. I believe that this process can help you solve even the most complex problems, and provide valuable insights for any company or organization.