If you’re a local business owner and/or someone who is always looking for creative new advertising solutions, you may want to make note. Clothing retailer Gap is changing what people think of as “advertising,” coming up with possibly the strangest promotional campaign of all time. Working with the owner of a reindeer pasture in Lake Crystal, Minn., Gap has equipped eight reindeer—Emma, Zoe, Cooper, Stella, Chloe, Toby, Duke and Bailey—with GPS units, and will deliver promotional discounts to their customers based on various contests including which reindeer (each one represents a different discount) move farthest, fastest or slowest in a given day, or even which moves closest to the North Pole. Progress and current winners/discounts can be monitored at ProjectReindeer.com. Read More +
Come Meet our Newest Summa Office in Eugene!
Here at Summa Real Estate Group, we’re very excited to be closing out 2010 in a big way. In addition to adding new brokers Patty and Ron up here in the Portland area, a whole new office has opened in Eugene under owner/brokers James Mitchem and Marisa Garrett, both of whom we hope you’ll meet at the upcoming open house of their new office! Read More +
Wash. County Commissioners OK Plan Mapping Long-Term Growth
Late Tuesday, Washington County commissioners approved a plan to map out where growth should take place over the next 50 years. The plan must now be submitted to the Metro Council and, if approved, will then head to a state land-use commission who will ultimately decide whether or not it will be adopted. Read More +
10 Most Overused Buzzwords on LinkedIn Profiles in USA
As we mentioned a few weeks ago, it seems that just about everyone is taking to LinkedIn lately, as both a business networking tool and, perhaps more importantly, the new way to look for jobs. If you’ve opened an account for the latter, LinkedIn’s recent announcement should be of the greatest importance to you. The website released a listing of their top ten most overused buzzwords and naturally, they ring pretty familiar. A lot of these phrases seem very skillfully phrased and impressive, but apparently they’re just causing you to blend in with the crowd. Sit back with your resume, open up LinkedIn in your browser and get to editing as you enjoy the 10 most overused buzzwords below the cut, as well as a map graphic showing the most overused buzzword in ten other countries. Read More +
Twitter 2010: A Year in Trends
2010 is coming to an end, and while we could associate any number of technology or trends with the year, none may be more fitting than Twitter. The short-update website blew up this year, and it wasn’t only teenaged Justin Bieber fans tweeting. Many companies have found effective ways to support their business through Twitter, including interacting with customers/fans as well as issuing updates and news items that are pertinent to their customers and industry. (Just ask BP, whose Twitter account is unfortunately not as popular as the fake, BP account.) Below, take a look at the top 10 overall trending topics on Twitter from 2010, as provided by Twitter themselves, as well as the top 10 in each category. Read More +
Principal Broker Ron Hopkins Joins Summa Real Estate Group!
We here at Summa Real Estate Group are very proud to welcome Ron Hopkins as the newest member of our team. Ron is a principal broker who has been in real estate for over thirty years, meaning regardless of what comes up during the buying or selling of your home, he’s seen it before. In addition to having an extensive marketing background which he’s put to good use facilitating the sales of thousands of homes, Ron has the prestigious Accredited Buyer’s Representative (ABR) designation, a certification designed for brokers who have made a priority of working directly with buyer-clients. Read More +
Barcode Hero–The Digital Wish List, Letter to Santa
Need some help collecting your children’s wish lists? Barcode Hero is out to make Christmas shopping easier. The seasonal update to the iPhone and Android app is decked out in festive fare, and allows kids to build their own wish list for Santa through scanning in-store products that they’d like to see under the Christmas tree and building a wish list from the ensuing database. Upon completion of the list, the users then send the list off to Santa Claus. (With a copy CC’d to their parents.) Read More +
TriMet Board Approves Portland-Milwaukie MAX Line, New Bridge
If you love the Milwaukie area but find its proximity to downtown and the rest of the metro area a bit too inconvenient, good news abounds. Wednesday, the TriMet board approved $700 million in bonds to build a MAX lightrail line connecting Milwaukie to Portland, which will include a new bridge spanning the Willamette River. Read More +
Commercial Real Estate on the Mend?
Following declines in the last several years in the face of a lagging economy, it appears commercial real estate may be on the rebound, with signs indicating that the downturn has begun to plateau. According to Deloitte’s recent Commercial Real Estate Outlook: Top 10 Issues in 2011 – Generating Momentum for Recovery, next year could see the early stages of recovery for the commercial real estate industry. Below, take a look at today press release revealing the top issues facing commercial real estate according to Deloitte’s report– Read More +
Google eBooks: Reading from the “Cloud”
Google has already changed the way we search and use the internet, so why not change the way we read. Today the search giant unveiled Google eBooks, the newest service that will attempt to carve out a niche in the ever-growing eBook industry. Google eBooks, previously known as Google Editions, already has 3 million books and 4000 publishers onboard, including all the major publishing houses, and has focused most of its marketing efforts on two major differentiating characteristics. Read More +
