Archive for the ‘eHarbor’ Category
Thursday, July 9th, 2009
By Robert Lockard
Each month, eHarbor, Inc. singles out one of its employees as the Most Valuable Player or employee of the month. They announce the winner at a company lunch on the first business day of each month. The MVP is someone who has done extraordinary work, going above and beyond his or her duties to help the company succeed. On July 1, Alisha Walton was named MVP for her exceptional actions in June.
It takes an amazing kind of person to come back to work so soon after enduring a terrible car collision, a month-long hospital stay and several surgeries. Alisha is definitely an amazing person.
She was riding a motorcycle in May when a car came and hit her at full speed, knocking her to the ground and breaking her neck. Thankfully, Alisha’s neck injury did not paralyze her. She spent a month in the Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo, Utah. You can read a quote from her about her experience in a Daily Herald article, entitled “UVRMC trauma team: Life in the balance.”
Six days after her June 3 release from the hospital, Alisha returned to work while still wearing her halo and being confined to a wheelchair. Amazingly, she got right back into her job, despite the pain and struggle she faced. She has a great sense of humor about her situation. For instance, she said her hobbies include photography, reading, surfing and now wheelchair racing. Her spirit is truly indomitable.
I’ll keep you updated on MVP winners each month from now on. We have quite a few exceptional workers at eHarbor, so it will be great to give them the recognition they deserve. By the way, I was also named the MVP for June along with Alisha, but I prefer not to call attention to myself. It’s nice to be noticed for my hard work on the blog and other projects, though.
Be sure to enjoy our great blog posts on ecommerce and search engines next week in the eHarbor Blog!
Tags: article, company, Daily Herald, eHarbor, humor, MVP, news, positive, provo, utah
Posted in eHarbor | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009
By Robert Lockard
This is my last blog entry about eHarbor, Inc.’s softball team this season. We played what turned out to be the last game of our season on Wednesday, July 1, 2009. The playoffs were a double-elimination tournament and we lost our second game.
We started our season with a perfect 5-0 record. We then ran into some of our league’s best teams and our success was tempered with four losses. But our final record of 6-4 was still the best record we’ve ever had. We put up a great fight in the playoffs, losing after a great effort in our first game and then having our post-season come to an end last week.
All in all, it was a great season. We might play again in the fall, so I’ll keep you posted if we do. Even though the season is over, we’ve still got plenty of great information about eHarbor that I’ll be happy to share in future blog posts. Not to mention all the important updates on ecommerce and Internet marketing.
Stay tuned to the eHarbor Blog!
Tags: baseball, company, eHarbor, event, game, provo, sport, update, utah
Posted in Fun, eHarbor | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
By Robert Lockard
What a game our softball team played on Wednesday, June 24! The other team pulled ahead to an early eight-point lead, but eHarbor, Inc. closed the gap and remained tied for several innings before the other team finally scored a few runs at the end to barely beat us. It was an exciting game, even though we lost.
Here are the highlights of our first postseason game:
- Two players went 4 for 4.
- One of those players got an in-the-park home run, two doubles and a single.
- The other player got two triples and two doubles.
- eHarbor CEO Oliver Bigler managed to hold onto the ball at home plate as a runner smashed into him. Thanks to his effort, the runner was out.
The good news is we are not out of the running, yet. This is a double-elimination tournament, so if we win our game tonight, we’ll still be able to move on. I hope to report good news in my next blog entry about our softball team.
Tags: baseball, eHarbor, event, Fun, game, oliver bigler, provo, sport, utah
Posted in Fun, eHarbor | No Comments »
Thursday, June 25th, 2009
By Robert Lockard
eHarbor, Inc.’s softball team closed out its regular season on Wednesday, June 18 with a 6-4 record. That is the best record we have ever had.
The final game gave eHarbor a rematch with one of the teams it lost to a few weeks ago. You can read about that game in my blog entry, “eHarbor, Inc. softball humbled by 2 losses.” The good news is that our loss against this team was by a much closer margin than in our previous game. Hopefully, we’ll meet them again in the post-season, which began this week, and we’ll win when it really counts.
Here are the highlights of our last game of the season:
- Two players went 3 for 3
- Our outfielders made several amazing catches
- Our defense was strong, keeping the other team from scoring too many runs
Some season highlights include:
- The top batter on the team went 13 for 15
- Two players had batting averages above 80 percent
- 12 of our 13 batters had batting averages of 50 percent or better
- Oliver Bigler, our CEO who is featured in BusinessQ magazine, went 10 for 17
As I said before, our record this season is quite good for an Internet marketing company. We’ll keep you posted on our post-season games in the eHarbor Blog. We hope to make it all the way this year!
Tags: baseball, company, eHarbor, oliver bigler, orem, positive, provo, sport, utah
Posted in Fun, eHarbor | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
By Robert Lockard
As promised, here is a follow-up to my blog entry on the eHarbor summer party, which was held on June 12 and 13. That was a fun event. Many eHarbor, Inc. employees came to Kelly’s Grove in Hobble Creek Canyon, near Springville, Utah, on that Friday night to enjoy a barbecue and play games.
I had expected to watch a movie on Friday night, but we instead sang karaoke. It was a lot of fun, and we learned more about each other’s personalities through our singing than we would have by watching a movie. Oliver Bigler, our CEO who was recently profiled in BusinessQ magazine, emceed the karaoke and he even sang a couple of songs, himself.
My wife and I don’t have any camping supplies, so we decided to go home that night instead of camping out with many of the other families in attendance. The sky had been threatening to rain most of the evening. We heard thunder and saw lightning several times before we finally headed home.
On the way, the rain became so heavy it was almost blinding. It felt like a flash flood. Being from Washington, I’m used to heavy rain, but this was beyond what I’m normally prepared for. It was as though someone was dumping a bucket of water on our windshield every second we drove.
We stayed off the freeway and took a regular road home because I could hardly see the lanes, and I felt safer going at a slower speed. We made it safely to our destination and enjoyed the rest of the storm from the safety of our home. I love falling asleep to the sound of rain. The thunder was elegant, as well.
On Saturday morning, I had planned on returning to the eHarbor summer party, but the clouds still threatened to rain, so I thought it best to do something indoors. I heard the E-lympics were fun, though. I would have liked to have seen and participated in them. Oh well.
Tags: company, eHarbor, event, Fun, game, oliver bigler, positive, utah, weather
Posted in Fun, eHarbor | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, June 17th, 2009
By Robert Lockard
After its 26-0 blowout victory on May 27, the eHarbor, Inc. softball team was humbled by two losses, one on June 3 and the other on June 10. The good news is that tonight our team has a chance to return the favor to the team that beat us by more than 10 points on June 3.
Here are some of the highlights of the June 10 game:
- One eHarbor player batted 1.000
- Three of our players went 3 for 4
- One of the players who went 3 for 4 hit 3 doubles
- One player hit an out-of-the-park home run
Tonight’s game will be our last game of the season before heading into the post-season playoffs. Our record is 6-3 right now, which is pretty good for a company that focuses on ecommerce and online marketing. Speaking of which, we’ve got a great blog entry on search engine optimization and computer viruses on Friday. Stay tuned to the eHarbor Blog!
Tags: baseball, company, eHarbor, event, Fun, game, orem, provo, sport, utah
Posted in Fun, eHarbor | 2 Comments »
Monday, June 15th, 2009
By Robert Lockard
Oliver Bigler, the founder and CEO of eHarbor, Inc., was spotlighted in the summer 2009 issue of Utah Valley BusinessQ on page 63. This magazine highlights good small-business practices and entrepreneurial achievements in the area south of Salt Lake City.
The feature focuses on Bigler’s ability to think on his feet and remain flexible in his business decisions. His ideas have led to a change in eHarbor’s and its affiliates’ focus from search engine optimization to website hosting and ecommerce solutions.
Bigler joined what would become eHarbor in 2002 after working as a Strategy Business Consultant for the Monitor Group in Cambridge, Mass. Bigler started targeting a growing segment of the online market: small to mid-size business and ecommerce. Submit Solution was the first entity created under Bigler’s leadership, followed shortly thereafter by Real Estate Promoter, which focused on search-engine marketing and lead generation in the online real estate market. In 2003, Bigler created a new corporate entity to house the increasing number of divisions. That new entity was named eHarbor, Inc.
I talked a bit about Bigler in my second blog entry “eHarbor’s future: Swinging for the fence.” He has big plans for 2009, and many of them have already come to fruition. Be sure to check out the redesigned Magellan Commerce website. You’ll see many other positive changes this year as we work on new designs for our other affiliates, such as Submit Solution. Exciting news keeps coming from eHarbor, Inc.
Tags: business, company, Ecommerce, eHarbor, magellan commerce, marketing, Media, news, oliver bigler, Real Estate Promoter, Submit Solution, Utah Valley BusinessQ
Posted in Ecommerce, Media, eHarbor | 5 Comments »
Thursday, June 11th, 2009
By Robert Lockard
Those of you who read my April blog entry “eHarbor summer party coming in June” know this weekend is the time of this long-awaited event. It will be held in Hobble Creek Canyon, near Springville, Utah. On Friday night, we’ll enjoy a barbecue and outdoor movie. I’m definitely excited for that.
eHarbor, Inc. employees will be able to camp out that night and compete in water e-lympics Saturday morning. Here are some of the activities the e-lympics will include:
· Water volleyball
· Watermelon-eating contest
· Water-balloon toss
· Water kickball
· Hula-hoop contest
· 3-legged race
I hope the clouds will begin to part and the rain will stop by Friday. I grew up in the Puget Sound area of Washington state, so I’m used to rain and clouds. But here in Utah, I’ve been trying to get used to the extreme cold of winter and extreme heat of summer. I don’t mind having cool weather in the summer, but it’s starting to throw me off a little.
Anyway, even if it’s not the best weather, I’m sure we’ll have fun. On Monday, I watched a play of “Beauty and the Beast” at the Scera Shell outdoor theatre in Orem, Utah. It rained on us for a while leading up to the start of the play. But I enjoyed that play so much I hardly minded the rain at all.
Before the summer party, each eHarbor department (Support, Marketing/PR, Design, etc.) was asked to create a flag to represent it. There were some really creative designs, and I am excited to see them at this event. I hope to get some great pictures of them and other things for a future blog post.
The photo of the tarp sagging with rain is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of nalilo.
Tags: company, eHarbor, event, flag, Fun, movie, orem, positive, sport, summer, utah, Washington, weather
Posted in Fun, Movies, eHarbor | 2 Comments »
Thursday, May 28th, 2009
By Robert Lockard
eHarbor, Inc.’s softball team suffered its first loss on Wednesday, May 20, 2009 to the only other undefeated team in the Provo/Orem area’s recreation league up to that point. We lost by the closest margin for either team this year: 11-14.
Before its first loss, eHarbor won the two previous games by 12 points and 15 points, respectively. You can read about those victories in my last two blog posts about eHarbor softball: “eHarbor unbeatable after 5 games” and “eHarbor softball wins by 15 points.”
Last night, however, our team bounced back, redeeming itself with a stunning blowout. Expect more eHarbor victories as the season continues.
I will return to ecommerce and online marketing on Monday with an awesome blog post about changes coming to the paid-search industry. Stay tuned!
Tags: baseball, company, eHarbor, event, Fun, game, orem, provo, sport, success, utah
Posted in Fun, eHarbor | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009
By Robert Lockard
Social media is a great tool for businesses to communicate with customers. It gives marketers an opportunity to establish close contact with people in ways seemingly unthinkable until just a few years ago.
Despite social media’s strengths, it should not be considered an end unto itself. Without other marketing strategies, such as search engine optimization, advertising, etc. a company’s efforts in social media could fall flat. A Brafton article entitled “Does social media increase SEO?” caught my interest and inspired this blog entry.
This is not the first time I’ve talked about social media and its effects on ecommerce in the eHarbor Blog. In one of my blog entries, I noted companies are increasing their spending on search engine marketing, despite the recession. In another, I point out companies are also reducing their social media spending slightly this year, after greatly expanding it over the last few years.
It seems like many businesses have learned the virtues of social media, but they are also prudent in their decisions to try to maximize return on investment. By getting to the top of search engines, companies can reach a wider number of Internet users than by using social media. Both are useful tools and should not be considered superior to the other. But it appears businesses are choosing the broader tool than the more personal one to help them through this recession.
In the Brafton article I mentioned above, Warren Cohen, CEO of SEO-focused Greenlight, said social media would probably not have a noticeable effect on SEO for a company’s website. SEO is built slowly by creating a search engine-friendly website, populating it with relevant content and building connections with similar websites.
A presence on Twitter, Facebook and other social sites is great and it can add to search-engine rankings, but it probably won’t have a significant impact.
Tried-and-true principles are your best options for getting to the top of Google, MSN and Yahoo. If you would like a more in-depth explanation of SEO and how to use it to your advantage, check out my blog entry “Search engine optimization at the drugstore” or my seven-part series on SEO tactics.
The photo of Winnie the Pooh and “Tigger” is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of JoshMcConnell.
Tags: article, Brafton, Ecommerce, eHarbor, facebook, funny, google, humor, marketing, online, search engine optimization, SEO, Social Media, twitter
Posted in Ecommerce, SEO, Search Engines, eHarbor | 6 Comments »
