Pivot designed and created a website for Loveland-based Mirasol Senior Living Community. The website has a custom web design and uses a WordPress platform, which is an easy-to-update content management system, allowing Mirasol to highlight the affordable housing options available for seniors 55 and older. To visit the site, go to www.mirasolseniorliving.com.

There are many great reasons to blog, such as “getting found” by prospective clients who are a good match for you or your organization, enhancing your reputation and brand, and building credibility, among others. One of the main hang-ups for would-be bloggers is developing content others value, and keeping at it once you start. Below are seven ways to enhance your blog content and stay on track:

1) Make a list of categories for your blog. Be strategic when creating the list. Don’t write about your dog on your business blog. Instead, brainstorm topics your prospects and customers care about. We like how-tos or trends within our industry to let folks know we are on top of issues that matter to their success.
2) List a handful of subtopics for each category. Break down the main categories described above. You can’t slice things too many times. Try to do too much in one blog post and you’ll reduce your effectiveness and ability to “get found” via search engines. Instead, be specific with your posts.
3) Create a style bank. Like reporters and copyeditors, develop and follow a style guide that keeps you consistent as you move forward.
4) Don’t be rigid—leave some room for spontaneity. Hear a great news piece on NPR on the drive to work that might be fodder for a blog post? Then get to work, take care of the post, and slot it into your schedule. A colleague blogged on the Gap logo snafu as it unfolded, and his blog got more than 1,000 reads.
5) Time yourself. If you are like most of us, you are a knowledge-based businessperson paid by the hour or project. In other words, time is money. Get your post done and move on. Perfection is a lofty goal, but unrealistic.
6) Follow an editorial calendar. Track where you’ve been and where you are going. A calendar helps you spread out content smoothly so it offers variety and predictability at the same time. One blog we assist with, EPOCH Senior Living, has a 20-post-a-month schedule. Mondays are a preview of events throughout the week while Wednesdays rotate between recipes from EPOCH chefs and favorite activities with residents from activity directors. Other days we sprinkle the blog with guest posts from senior residents (our favorites), experts and others. It is a carefully developed editorial schedule that helps us maintain balance.
7) Have someone proof your post. Nothing kills your credibility more than a post riddled with grammar and spelling problems.

Blogging takes time, but it can help differentiate you from competitors. Have other ideas on how to enhance blog content ? Share your thoughts.

When corrections professionals gather for the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center’s annual conference today, the role of technology in improving efficiency and saving money for agencies will be an enormous issue. As a result, BI Incorporated, a national provider of technology, treatment and training services for community-based offenders, will place significant emphasis on BI TAD, a device that combines continuous alcohol monitoring and location monitoring and operates on the same software platform with all of BI’s other technologies. NLECTC’s 11^th annual Innovative Technologies for Corrections Conference, which brings together the industry’s most technology-savvy individuals, will be held June 21-23 at the Westin Beach Resort in Fort Lauderdale.

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BOULDER, COLO. – A new series of intensive one-week certificate programs at Boulder Digital Arts is set to make the organization a national resource for digital professionals, students and other professionals looking to learn important new tools and techniques in web design, social media marketing, video production and other fields. The Transitions certificate program will debut June 7.
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BOULDER – Check out Boulder Digital Arts‘ new 3,000-square foot home, sit in on free workshops taught by some of the organization’s top instructors, and mingle with other digital professionals during an open house from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday, April 24 at Boulder Digital Arts, 1600 Range St. The event is free and open to the public. Food and drink will be served. Read more »

BOULDER – Artist Cindy Ward didn’t have to live here to create the winning T-shirt design for Boulder’s 2010 Walk & Bike Month, presented by GO Boulder. Simply visiting her son and daughter, both Boulder residents, helped her understand the city’s unique walk-and-bike culture and create a design that captures the fun and energy of the annual event.

A pair of cyclists, three pedestrians and a pet dog explore Boulder in Ward’s design. The image will appear on T- shirts worn by organizers, volunteers and supporters during the month-long celebration of Boulder’s cycling and pedestrian culture.

Twelve judges picked Ward’s design from dozens of entries. For designing the winning t-shirt image, she’ll receive a small cash award and a Walk & Bike Month packet of items. Ward, a St. Louis resident, works as a graphic designer for a Harley-Davidson licensee; does freelance design for shirts, fliers, brochures and logos; and enjoys hiking, biking, camping and skiing. Ward is planning a permanent move to Boulder soon.

“Cindy’s image really captures the joy of being an active, healthy pedestrian or cyclist,” Walk & Bike Month Director Sue Prant said. “We had more than a dozen great entries, but overwhelmingly the judges said ‘This is what it feels like to walk and ride on a sunny day in Boulder’”

Boulder’s 34^th annual Walk & Bike Month is now one of the oldest, largest and most participated-in events of its kind in the nation, with more than 80 activities that begin in late May and roll through the popular Bike to Work Day on Wednesday, June 23. Last year, more than 7,500 people turned out for Bike to Work Day; organizers estimate nearly 9,000 riders and walkers will participate this year.

For more information, call Sue Prant at 303-564-9681 or bikesue@gmail.com.

About Walk & Bike Month 2010 (www.communitycycles.org)

The 34^th annual Boulder Walk & Bike Month is a diverse celebration of more than 80 bicycle and pedestrian activities organized throughout June. Presented by GO Boulder, Walk & Bike Month is the largest free event held in Boulder. Organizers expect 9,000 riders and pedestrians will turn out for Bike to Work Day, being held on June 23 this year. Activities are being coordinated by Community Cycles, a local nonprofit that educates and advocates for the safe use of bicycle transportation.

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Congratulations to Boulder Digital Arts, our newest client, for a great page one story in the Boulder Daily Camera. Zach and Bruce are meeting a need here locally for a wide range of talented professionals, and with their expanded space they’ll be reaching out beyond Boulder.

Our friends at Pedal to Properties are making friends with their sustainable model. They’ve recently entered into agreements with Bikes Belong, a national advocacy organization that works to make cycling easier and more accessible, and EcoBroker, which offers education programs for environmentally friendly real estate professionals.

By partnering with organizations that have similar goals, P2P can get their name in front of the audiences they want to reach. With Bikes Belong, they reach people who care about sustainable neighborhoods and bicycles. With EcoBroker, they can connect with “green” real estate agents, as well as buyers and sellers who care about the environment.

News releases detailing the partnerships after the jump…

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Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez teaches students in her Blogger Academy. (Nick Miroff for NPR)

I was listening to NPR on the way to the office this morning and was struck by this story. Yoani Sanchez is a Cuban blogger, virtually unknown in her own country, but influential among Cubans living abroad. Although her blog, Generation Y, is blocked by the Cuban government and she isn’t allowed to have an Internet connection, Sanchez persists. She emails several posts at a time to friends oversees to post on her blog. In turn, they send back comments from her blog.

Sanchez also runs a blogger academy from her home. She teaches others how to use social media tools, which are opening new connections and pathways to information in spite of the government’s efforts to quash access to them.

For me, Sanchez’s story highlighted how privileged we are to enjoy the freedom of speech, easy access to a wealth of information and the growing number of tools available to interact and share information and opinions freely in the digital space.

I’m in PR, but I don’t like it when PR firms try to intentionally mislead audiences. Maybe I’m naive, but I think such practices give PR and marketing a black eye. The goal of PR is to engage audiences that need to know about each other – consumers may have a need, companies have a product, you help connect the two for mutual benefit – not trick people. So when I read articles like “Reputations at stake, companies try to alter word of mouth online,” I boil. This Washington Post article implies that many of the reviews you read about products and services online are being influenced by teams of “marketeers” (not musketeers, but close!) who surf the web all day looking to write positive reviews for clients in all the right places. Yuck. Not only does that mislead people who trust these review sites, like Yelp, but who could do that for a living? Sounds like a modern day coal mining job to me.