Posts Tagged ‘movie’

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.

If Nikola Tesla created the Internet

Friday, October 23rd, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Few people are as intriguing and visionary as Nikola Tesla. If this American immigrant had been as beloved and accepted as Thomas Edison, we would have had 2009 technology back in 1909. Unfortunately, this revolutionary genius was given short shrift by many and his image has become obscured by history.

Tesla CoilIf you’re like me, you first heard about him in 2006’s “The Prestige,” an excellent movie, by the way. I’ve been thinking a lot about him recently, and I want to share my thoughts on this great man and what he might have accomplished if the world had been ready.

Without Tesla, we wouldn’t have car engines, long-distance radio, radar, fluorescent lights, energy-efficient light bulbs (which Tesla created more than a hundred years ago, but was not allowed to manufacture until a few years ago because of patent issues on the socket) and many other useful inventions.

If Nikola Tesla had created the Internet, I’m sure it would be many times better than what we have come up with. First of all, he would have come up with a much better means to transfer information online than comparatively inefficient phone lines, coaxial cables, fiber optics or copper wires. He probably would have started with a wireless system and made it faster than we’re used to. Then he would invent something truly amazing to replace that, just like he always did.

You can read the rest of this blog entry in the Submit Solution Website Design Services Blog on November 9. The photo of the Tesla Coil is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of maveric2003.

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

Finding Superman image on Google no easy feat

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

By Robert Lockard

The other day, I had an image in my mind of a strange object and I wanted to find a picture of it online. The only problem was I didn’t have a clue what it was called. The image in my head was of a scene in “Superman II” when General Zod’s henchman Non is in the Oval Office and he’s staring intently at something. It’s five metal balls tied to strings in a row and the ones on either end keep hitting the four still balls, causing the ball on the other end to bounce away and come back again.

Maybe you already know what I’m talking about.

I turned to one of my coworkers here at eHarbor, Inc. and asked her to help me. She could picture it, as well, but she couldn’t put her finger on the name. I tried searching for “metal ball attached to strings hitting each other” on Google, but I didn’t find what I was looking for. Luckily, my resourceful coworker found it on Amazon.com, I believe. I could now put a name to an image – Newton’s cradle!

This story illustrates my need for a visual search engine and not simply a text-based one. Luckily, Microsoft and Google are both heading in that direction. I read about their efforts in a CNN article entitled, “Microsoft, Google expand search-engine tools.”

You can find the rest of this blog entry on the Submit Solution SEO Blog on October 6, 2009. The photo of Newton’s cradle is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of ƒяαиcєscα яσsє.


Newton's cradle in motion

Social media can’t replace blogs

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

I read a provocative post from the Blog Bloke a while ago that I’d like to comment on. The post is entitled, “8 Twitter tips to promote your blog.” In it, the author responds to the argument that Twitter and other social media are replacing blogs and that we should drive traffic to Twitter instead of to our blogs and ecommerce websites.

History of blogs

He points out the many flaws with that idea in his blog entry. I would like to focus on two of them.

The first point I would like to focus on is, as the Blog Bloke puts it, “If you are a marketer trying to make money you will want your Twitter followers to visit your blog and click on your ads.”

To quote Lex Luthor, I couldn’t have said it better myself. Companies can post links to deals and special offers on their Twitter accounts, but those links always go to one of their corporate websites or landing pages. Nothing is bought or sold on Twitter, itself. Social media is an excellent part of Internet marketing, but it is not a replacement for the many other tools, such as paid search, SEO and blogging.

You can find the rest of this blog entry on the new Social Media Blog on Submit Solution when it is published. The new Submit Solution redesign is almost ready, and it will get most of our Internet marketing blog entries from now on, while the eHarbor Blog will mostly be about eHarbor, Inc.

The comic of the history of blogging is from Flickr, and it is courtesy of stefan2904.

Rain can’t stop eHarbor summer party

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.

Rainy camp site

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.

eHarbor summer party coming in June

Thursday, April 30th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

You might remember my blog posts on eHarbor, Inc.’s celebration of its successful start to 2009 with a showing of the movie “Knowing.” I’m pleased to say the good times keep coming, as the company recently announced its annual summer party on June 12-13, 2009.

Tiger plays with soccer ballThat’s not to say that we’re celebrating all the time or that we’re focused solely on having fun. Our slogan for 2009 is “Swinging for the fence,” and we’re doing our best to live up to that ideal by working hard and giving our best effort.

Back to the eHarbor Summer Party, it is going to be fun. All eHarbor employees are invited to come enjoy camping, barbecue, an outdoor movie (I love movies!), golf tournament and some sort of water e-lympics.

These festivities will take place in Hobble Creek Canyon, near Springville, Utah.

The photo of a tiger playing with a ball is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of Tambako the Jaguar. This is the second photo of a tiger I’ve included in the eHarbor Blog. I also included a photo of a lion with my blog post on making content king. I really like cats.

The world still hasn’t ended

Thursday, April 2nd, 2009

By Robert Lockard

So far, it appears the Conficker C virus is not doing much damage, as many had predicted it would. The Washington Post published a satiric blog post on April 1, entitled “Conficker Worm Strike Reports Start Rolling In,” describing all of the damage being done by the virus. Then, at the end, the author included a note saying, “Just kidding - April fools!”

Cat and dog sitting together

This keeps happening: the Cold War, Comet Hale-Bopp, Y2K – all of these events were supposed to bring about the end of the world, or at least a fundamental change in it. But they failed to live up to expectations. The world hardly changed at all as a result of these events. Yes, I know the Soviet Union fell apart at the end of the Cold War, and that was a pretty big change. But look at Russia today and you’ll see they haven’t really changed that much. President Obama just met with the Russian president to talk about nuclear disarmament. Sound familiar?

Pranks like Conficker C, which don’t deliver on their promises, might actually do a great deal of damage by leading people to lower their guard or simply not care about actual crises that come later on. I never try to fake people out so I can laugh at them and say, “Made you look!” because that damages credibility and makes people constantly on edge and less eager to trust others. That’s not what I want.

This discussion reminds me: Last week, eHarbor, Inc. treated its employees to a showing of the movie “Knowing.” The movie had a lot of good moments, and I especially enjoyed it because the filmmakers actually had the courage to *SPOILER ALERT* blow up the world. No sugarcoating, no simple solution, no endless number of countdowns to avert destruction, like in “Armageddon” (a movie that utterly failed to live up to its title) – just the whole world on fire. Now that’s a way to deliver on catastrophic promises.

Mind you, I don’t want the world to be destroyed and, after seeing the movie “Knowing”, I felt a little depressed. But I do like seeing promises fulfilled when someone bothers to make them. Heck, even “Back to the Future Part II” promised the universe, or at least our galaxy, would be destroyed by a time paradox – but that didn’t really happen. All I’m saying is I hope someday people who promise something earth-shattering will actually follow through with it. Until then, I won’t hold my breath.

By the way, eHarbor and its affiliates (Magellan Commerce, Real Estate Promoter and Submit Solution) have good news on the horizon that I can’t wait to discuss. We’re growing a lot and we hope to share the positive ecommerce news soon as new products are released and updates are added to our websites.

The photo of the cat and dog sitting together is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of MïK.

Celebration time at eHarbor, Inc.

Friday, March 27th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

It’s Friday, and eHarbor, Inc. is celebrating a successful start to 2009 by heading to the Thanksgiving Point Mega Plex in Lehi, Utah for a movie day – just as I mentioned in a blog entry last week. We’re closing up shop early and going to a 3 p.m. showing of a movie called “Knowing.”

Buenos Aires paper-filled sky

I love sharing enthusiasm and good news, especially when times are tough.

Can you believe this is the 20th blog entry I’ve written for the eHarbor Blog in the past two months? I’m having fun sharing ecommerce news and search engine optimization tips. Of course, sometimes I enjoy taking a moment to simply have a little fun every now and then, like today.

On Tuesday, March 31, 2009, the day before April Fools Day, I plan on posting a more serious blog entry about a potentially troublesome computer virus called Conficker C. Not exactly about ecommerce, but I think it’s good to be informed of things like this since we depend so much on computers for our businesses to succeed.

The photo of the papers falling in Buenos Aires, Argentina is from Flickr and it is the copyright of friendofdurutti.

Movie night celebrates eHarbor, Inc. success

Tuesday, March 17th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

I keep adding tidbits from movies to my blog entries to spice them up. I’ve mentioned several movies in my blog entries: “The Natural” (1984), “Pinocchio” (1940), “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981), and “Back to the Future Part II” (1989).

This time I’ll focus solely on movies. Indulge me a little as I depart from ecommerce topics once again.

Knowing (2009) movie posterOn March 27, eHarbor, Inc. will treat its employees to a showing of a new movie called “Knowing.” That movie looks really interesting. eHarbor has been seeing exciting growth in 2009, despite tough spots in the U.S. economy, so this will be a fun reward for all of us who are making eHarbor’s success possible. eCommerce seems to be doing pretty well, under the circumstances. Don’t lose hope!

It’s still March, but it feels like summer with the kinds of movies coming out in theaters. Watchmen” and “Monsters vs. Aliens” are two examples of movies with a summer feel. But both of these have March release dates. Hopefully, the real summer movies won’t disappoint, either.

My next blog entry will be the last in the search engine optimization series we’ve been covering for several weeks. There are plenty of other exciting topics to discuss, so stay tuned! The “Knowing” poster is the copyright of Summit Entertainment.