Posts Tagged ‘event’

eHarbor names final MVPs of 2009

Friday, December 4th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

We’ve had quite a few MVPs in 2009. MVPs are eHarbor, Inc. employees who go above and beyond their normal job requirements to accomplish something extraordinary. This month, eHarbor’s leaders selected winners for both November and December in preparation for the big announcement on December 10.

On December 10, at the Hawaiian Christmas Party in the Provo City Library, we’ll find out who is the MVP for the whole year. They’ll select someone from all of the MVPs who’ve been named in 2009. But that’s the topic of a whole other blog entry. For now, I’ll talk about November’s and December’s MVPs.

We had one winner for November and two for December. Designer James Gentry is the November MVP, and Developer Matt Walker and Customer-Support Representative David Smith are the December MVPs.

I can’t take credit for writing all of these MVP descriptions. I wrote the one on David while my coworkers Alyssa Udall and Britnee Nguyen wrote the spotlights on Matt and James, respectively. Britnee was actually last month’s MVP. You can read about her in my blog entry, “eHarbor MVP creates 6-month PR plan.”

On with the MVPs!

James Gentry
eHarbor, Inc. MVP James GentryWith hard work and dedication, James has really made an impression on his coworkers and earned the November MVP! Recent changes to the Design team opened up a position for a design manager, which James was unanimously appointed to.

Coworkers say that James “stepped in greatly” with his new promotion and continues to “go above and beyond and is always available to help and give his advice.” This new position enables him to “make sure customers are happy and that our Design team stays happy with their work,” his team leader said.

He loves recording and mixing music, eating peanut butter M&Ms, tacos, watching the shows 30 Rock and Community, and his favorite color is #669900… green.

Matt Walker
eHarbor, Inc. MVP Matt WalkerMatt’s Web-development skills have been valuable to eHarbor for the last three years he’s worked here. Matt’s the recipient, along with David, of the December MVP award for his combination of working hard behind the scenes and being a nice guy.

With the other developers, he’s been keeping things running smoothly throughout the company. He’s also a friendly guy who assists new coworkers around the office. “Matt always does such great work and is always so nice and pleasant to work with!” said one of his nominations.

Matt enjoys programming, which is a good thing since it’s his job, but he also likes to read, write and play video games. His favorite movie is Dead Poets Society and his favorite dessert is chocolate velvet. You can catch him watching Mythbusters and Doctor Who on TV or eating sushi at Sakura.

David Smith
eHarbor, Inc. MVP David SmithDavid works hard to give top-quality customer service to everyone who calls in. He goes the extra mile in helping customers by answering people’s questions thoughtfully and following up to make sure they are satisfied with their custom Internet-marketing solutions. Well done, Dave!

His favorite candy is Reese’s Pieces and his favorite food is gum. Interesting. Like James, his favorite color is green… forest green. For fun, he enjoys working on cars and playing sports, as well as listening to bands like Weezer, Pearl Jam and Saves the Day. His favorite movies are V for Vendetta and Gladiator, and his favorite TV show is It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

eHarbor gives back with Food Drive

Monday, November 30th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Starting on November 2, eHarbor, Inc. has been hosting a Food Drive to help the needy in our local Utah County area. Christmas is always such a great time for charity and a spirit of service. Winter isn’t my favorite season of the year, but December might just be my favorite month because of all the awesomeness it contains.

eHarbor, Inc. logoWe have enjoyed an incredibly successful year in 2009, and so of course we want to give back to our community. It’s amazing how fast the time has gone. Can it really be almost 2010? Incredible.

The eHarbor Food Drive will end on December 10. To make it more interesting, we’ve divided the company into two teams: the Turkeys and Cranberries. We’ve all been donating canned items, toiletries, cereals, macaroni and cheese and other nonperishable products to see who can do more good. We’ll see who the winner will be.

Competition is a great thing, isn’t it?

Keep coming back to the eHarbor Blog for fun company updates like this. Check out the Submit Solution Internet marketing blogs for the latest on Web design, social media and PPC solutions.

eHarbor MVP creates 6-month PR plan

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Content writer Britnee Nguyen (pronounced “when”) was selected as the MVP at eHarbor, Inc. at the Halloween party we hosted on October 30. You can read more about that party in my blog entry, “The most colorful pie chart you’ve ever seen.”

eHarbor MVP Britnee Nguyen

Britnee is extraordinary, even for an MVP. Take a look at her accomplishments. Within 90 days of joining eHarbor, Britnee has:

- Helped organize the Submit Solution website launch party.

- Obtained cool Submit Solution “S” stickers for employees to stick around the office.

- Gotten eHarbor CEO and founder Oliver Bigler into the Utah Valley BusinessQ as one of the 10 coolest entrepreneurs in Utah Valley. That will appear in an upcoming issue. I’ll hopefully keep you posted on when it comes out.

- Designed a six-month public-relations plan for Magellan Commerce.

And those are just her four most visible accomplishments. Yeah, amazing. When she’s not performing superhuman feats around the office, she likes to sit outside on a warm day with a Dan Brown book. You can find her enjoying enchiladas or an ice cream cone at the Chunga’s restaurant in Provo.

She also enjoys reading, writing (Does anyone ever like doing one but not the other?), bike riding and playing sports like volleyball. Her favorite color is pink and her favorite TV show is Scrubs. Her favorite movies include The Guardian, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Pride and Prejudice (2005).

You can read many of Britnee’s superb blog entries on the Submit Solution Internet marketing blogs. Keep coming back to the eHarbor Blog for updates on our company, and check out Submit Solution’s four blogs for the latest information on free search engine submissions and other topics, like Web design and social media.

The most colorful pie chart you’ve ever seen

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Do you want to see a pie chart that is full of colors. I mean Full. Of. Colors. You might have seen some colorful pie charts and graphs before, but I’m positive you haven’t seen one this colorful. I’ll show it to you at the end of this blog entry, but first I want to wish you a happy Halloween in two days!

eHarbor Inc. will have its annual Halloween party tomorrow at noon. I wrote about it in a blog entry, “eHarbor Halloween party to showcase culinary talents,” a few weeks ago. This will be a fun event. We’ll have a chili cook-off (hence the title of my previous blog entry) with several eHarbor employees vying for the title of best chili. Yum yum.

I think I’m most looking forward to the creative costumes people will wear. We’re having a competition for who wears the most creative costumes.

This is where the colorful pie chart comes in.

Each month, I send out a poll to my fellow eHarbarians to ask them about different topics. I then include the results in pie-chart form in the next issue of the eHarbor ePort, our monthly newsletter. We have another issue coming out at the Halloween party, so I’m excited about that. Anyway, for the October issue, we asked people what was the best Halloween costume they ever wore or saw someone else wearing.

And these are the responses we got.

There were so many different ones that I considered not putting them in a pie chart at all. But it looked so nice I just had to do it. Usually, there’s a clear winner followed by a few other responses. In this one, almost every answer only got one vote, offering a variety of results. Feast your eyes on the creative minds of eHarbor’s employees.

Keep coming back to the eHarbor Blog for company updates, and go to the Submit Solution Internet marketing blogs for the latest insights into free search engine submissions and other SEO and PPC topics.

October eHarbor, Inc. pie chart on Halloween costumes

eHarbor Halloween party to showcase culinary talents

Friday, October 9th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

On Friday, October 30, 2009, eHarbor, Inc. will host its annual Halloween party. I can’t imagine it being anything but a lot of fun. We’ll have people dressing up in Halloween costumes, decorating the office with plenty of orange and black decorations and, best of all, competing in a Chili Cook-off.

That’s right, we’re going to enjoy some hot chili just in time for the frosty weather that’s bearing down on Utah and probably other parts of the country. Several people have signed up so far for the competition and each of them will bring their chili concoction in on October 30 to serve it at the party. I’m not sure how the dishes will be judged, but the winner will be rewarded for their efforts.

I’m looking forward to the food and the costumes. I’ve never been too interested in dressing up, but I hear some eHarbor employees are quite creative. Last year, one employee dressed up as Severus Snape from the Harry Potter books, and another dressed up as the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, who famously walked through New York City in the film “Ghostbusters.” It will be fun to see what they come up with this year.

This talk of Halloween costumes reminds me of something I would like to share with you.

Each month in our company newsletter, which we call the eHarbor ePort, I write a comic and someone else illustrates it. In the October 2009 issue, I did one on the upcoming Halloween party. You can find it below. We’ve been doing these comics since February of this year, so maybe I’ll post some of them on the eHarbor Blog for all the world to see. Some of them are pretty funny, if I do say so myself, but others are inside jokes.

If you haven’t seen “The Karate Kid” recently, I highly recommend you check it out. That’s one of my personal favorite movies.

This blog entry has been all over the place. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading a little bit of my stream of consciousness. Be sure to keep coming back for company updates, and go to the Submit Solution Internet marketing blogs for the latest insights on Web design, SEO, PPC and social media.

October 2009 eHarbor comic

eHarbor softball ends fall season

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

After a stunning doubleheader victory to end its regular season the week before, the eHarbor, Inc. softball team played another doubleheader on Wednesday, September 23, 2009 with different results. Those two games were the first two of the fall season’s playoffs and, unfortunately, we lost both and so we won’t be moving on toward the championship.

eHarbor softball players in the dugout

The eHarbarians tried hard in the first game, but the other team proved too strong. We put up an excellent fight in the second game of the night and we almost pulled off a come-from-behind victory, but we came up just short.

This was a crazy season. It started with an impressive win and ended with two stunning victories. You can read about our two wins in my blog entry, “eHarbor softball wins dramatic doubleheader.”

Winter is just around the corner – it’s supposed to snow in many of Utah’s mountains tomorrow – so we’ll probably play softball again in the spring.

You can keep coming to the eHarbor Blog for updates on what our company is up to, as well as the newest updates on ecommerce, Web design and SEO. I also recommend you check out the new Submit Solution blogs. Their themes include:

- Paid Search Advertising

- Search Engine Optimization

- Social Media

- Website Design Services

I’ll see you again soon!

Submit Solution receives tasty website launch party

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009

By Robert Lockard

The new Submit Solution website is quite amazing, isn’t it? If you haven’t checked it out, be sure to visit www.submitsolution.com right now to see all the great Web design, SEO and other services we provide there.

In fact, Submit Solution’s new website is so cool that we actually held a launch party in its honor on Monday, September 21, 2009. Alyssa Udall and Britnee Nguyen, the other two writers on the four ecommerce blogs on Submit Solution, and I planned a company-wide get-together in which we enjoyed refreshments and gave out prizes. The refreshments were made up of drinks, as well as orange and white donuts, which were shaped like the new Submit Solution logo. See for yourself.

Submit Solution logo made of donuts

Submit Solution logo

That S-shaped group of donuts was one of my favorite parts of the celebration. After that, we held a fun scavenger hunt. Employees had to search the Submit Solution website for clues to lead them to prizes cleverly hidden throughout our eHarbor, Inc. office. We hid clues on Submitsolution.com in the site’s blog tags, image titles and in the text of Web pages.

The prizes people could win by finding and unscrambling the clues included toys, candy bars, eHarbor mugs and Bigler Bucks, which we affectionately named for Oliver Bigler, the CEO and cofounder of eHarbor, Inc. We use Bigler Bucks to buy company products, like pens, mugs and shirts. Our employees enjoyed this friendly competition. Most of them are used to playing foosball, so this scavenger hunt was quite tame in comparison.

You can read more about this website’s great features in my blog entry, “Submit Solution launches updated website with new design features.”

eHarbor softball comes close

Friday, September 11th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

The fifth game in eHarbor, Inc.’s fall softball season was an exciting confrontation. On Wednesday, September 2, 2009, our eHarbarians fought hard, scoring 10 runs in a single inning. They enjoyed so much success that coming into the bottom of the second-to-last inning, they had brought their lead to six, with a score of 13-7.

eHarbor, Inc. softball team

Unfortunately, the other team came to life in that inning, scoring an astonishing nine runs. eHarbor got two early outs, but after that the other team just kept hitting solid grounders outside our fielders’ range. It took too long to get the last player out – the damage was done.

Our hitters stepped up to the plate to try to make up lost ground, but they all popped out. The other team won the game 16-13. Boy, that was an exciting game. The eHarbarians tried hard, but victory was just beyond their grasp. Our record this season is now 1-4.

We played our next game on Sept. 9 in Orem, Utah and we also lost. Next week, we’ll have double header and then our regular season will be over. If we can triumph in our last two games, we will hopefully be able to get into the playoffs, as we did in the summer season. You can read about our record-breaking summer season in my blog entry, “eHarbor, Inc. softball ends season in good form.” Stay tuned to the eHarbor Blog to find out how our team does.

eHarbor softball’s glorious demise

Friday, August 28th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Picture this: The eHarbor, Inc. softball team is going into the final inning of its fourth game down by 11 points. They’re up against the wall deep into blowout territory, and what do they do? Their bats light up the field, scoring six runs before their valiant effort runs out of steam. It was quite a sight to see. The final score was 13-8.

The eHarbarians lost, but we lost in style.

eHarbor softball playerAnother highlight of the August 26 game was when a runner on the opposing team charged into the third baseman with all his might, trying to get him to drop the ball. But that third baseman stood firm and got the runner out, even though the hit he took bloodied his face pretty bad. He’s okay, and he has a spectacular story from it.

The umpire at our game was particularly fiery. At one point he threatened to throw one of the opposing team’s players out of the game unless he calmed down and played fair. That was a priceless moment.

Our eHarbor team is 1-3 so far this fall season. We’ll keep playing with passion as the season progresses. I’ll be sure to keep you posted on our next game on Wednesday, September 2, 2009.

By the way, you should definitely come back to the eHarbor Blog on Monday for a special blog entry on a new product we’re releasing through Magellan Commerce that will change the ecommerce industry. Stay tuned!

eHarbor softball fights a great fight

Monday, August 24th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

On Wednesday, August 19, 2009, eHarbor, Inc.’s softball team, the eHarbarians, played an amazing game. Both teams were equally matched in strength and determination and when the final inning came to an end, they were stuck in a tie. We weren’t able to get any runs in the top of the first inning of overtime. But in the bottom half, the other team managed to score a single run, barely giving them a victory.

eHarbor softball team playing

This is the third game of our fall season in the Orem recreation league. We always have fun, whether it’s a victory or a loss. In this game, we put up a great fight, making the other team really earn their win.

I’ve got a great blog entry about social media for you on Wednesday. That same day eHarbor will play its next softball game, so I’ll keep you posted on the results. Be sure to come back to the eHarbor Blog to keep up with all of our great ecommerce and Internet marketing posts. We’ll see you again soon!