Our Perspective

It’s April… Wait, Really?

Is it us, or was Christmas just a few weeks ago? Nonetheless, spring is officially upon us, and at 104 West, that means one thing… baseball season. Having Coors Field as our next-door neighbor means that every April we find ourselves right in the middle of a very distinct kind of chaos, also known as Rockies season.

But things are scarcely less busy inside our office, as we have a flurry of new clients that have us hitting the ground running, including GoodData, Mobile Pulse, and Neighborhood Pay Services.  

GoodData, a disruptive, cloud-based enterprise platform for business intelligence, helps convert big data into profitable insights and strategies for business executives. The company’s mantra “BI without the BS” has leading innovators taking notice – GoodData is funded by Andreessen Horowitz and trusted by companies including Living Social, Pandora, Mint to name a few.

Mobile Pulse provides simple, secure, and scalable mobile broadband measurement software solutions. You can read some great local coverage by the Denver Post here and again here.

Neighborhood Pay Services (NPS) is a financial service provider for the multifamily housing industry. The company’s Rent Assurance program was recently launched and enables property companies to capture incremental occupancy from conditionally approved applicants.

We are thrilled to be adding these companies to our roster, and to build partnerships with them. They are all poised to disrupt their respective markets, and are faced with the opportunity to make a lasting impact by driving the industry conversation and displaying thought-leadership.

One of the best aspects of working with new clients is that the unique needs of every business means that we continue to be tasked with innovating the conventionally trusted methods of communicating… and we thrive on that challenge. 

 

Who Wants to be a Corporate Executive? The Answer Might Surprise You

From the desk of Kelli Flores…

104 West recently worked with our client, Intelligent Office, to develop what would come to be known as the Work IQ survey. The idea behind the survey was simple… everyone has a work style, but it’s not always the work style that they want to have. So we set out to find out how people currently work, but more importantly, how they aspire to work. Intelligent Office is a virtual, professionally staffed office space with locations across North America, so they have a vested interest in knowing what modern workers want their workday to look like.

So to gain the insight that we wanted, we put together a survey that asked a variety of questions on work environment, attire, resources, technology, hours, etc., and for each question, respondents gave two answers… how do you currently work, and how do you aspire to work. As a result of how they answered each question, every respondent fell into one of four categories to define both their current and aspirational work styles: corporate executive, professional, entrepreneur or independent.

We collected more than 1,000 responses to the survey, and when we started compiling the data, we weren’t exactly sure what the outcome would be. What we actually found was more surprising than even we had anticipated. When it came to how people want to work, not a single respondent wanted to be a corporate executive. Could that be right? We pored over the data, and then pored over it again. Survey says? No one wants to be a corporate executive. Not a few, not just one… none.

The data from the survey pointed to an enormous shift toward more mobility, flexibility, and ultimately, more freedom in the workplace. Some of what modern workers want is still what you might expect… people want to dress professionally, and they still want to have an office and a personal assistant. But an overwhelming majority also said that they want to have a better work/life balance and they want to have resources that will allow them to get away from their desks.  We think that this represents a new generation of workers that have emerged out of the recent recession. They still want to be successful, and they still want the “American Dream”, they just want it on their own terms.

We’re excited about what we uncovered with the Work IQ survey, and because of its tremendous success, we are now preparing to launch the second round of the survey. So stay tuned, because we’re about to dig even further into what it means to be a modern worker.  

 

We've Been Busy

From the desk of Jennifer Roane…

Is it May already? I can’t tell. With all this rain and cold in Colorado it seems more like November in Boston. But, it is spring in Colorado and we almost missed it. Not because of the rain, but because we hit the ground running at the beginning of 2011 and haven’t looked up until now. 

Since we launched Content Delivery Optimization late last year, we have been working hard with existing clients to create PR programing based on this process. We have also been out talking to new prospects and as many companies as we can about why CDO is creating value and tangible returns to our existing clients’ businesses. 

Over the course of the past six months, we have learned that our CDO process is providing clients with a modern form of communication and engagement. By using CDO as the basis for all of the programs we create, we are building rich communications platforms and are able to translate these into campaigns that provide the right mix of connection with audiences. 

It is a twist on the way big brands create their corporate communication strategy, but tailored to smaller companies, budgets and the new normal landscape we find in the world of public relations.

We are seeing this translating into exciting work with existing clients, as well as helping us bring on new clients. In fact, we just announced three new clients on Wednesday -- eWise, North Plains and Smartling. All three companies chose to work with us because of this approach to communications. 

You can read more about these new clients in the press release. All are strong additions to our current mix. They all are innovating in their respective markets and making exciting moves – a combination that is energizing. 

We think that 104 West CDO process is ready-made for delivering strategic messaging that takes advantage of all the myriad communications channels we now have, and opens up more delivery mechanisms for our clients.

Now that CDO is up and running successfully for clients, we will continue to evolve it to make it work even harder for companies. 

Welcome MocaPay and Intermap’s AccuTerra

From the desk of Elaine Schoch...

The team has busy the last few months - really busy! But it has paid off and we're happy to announce the addition of two new clients that are developing mobile platforms and applications - MocaPay and Intermap’s AccuTerra.

Mocapay provides a mobile experience platform that offers merchants an integrated and secure marketing and sales solution to enhance the lifetime value of a customer by mobile-enabling gift and loyalty programs.

Intermap’s AccuTerra for the iPhone delivers a wealth of information from mapping content to videos, educational content to 3D views of outdoor, off-road recreation areas. Here's a quick video regarding how the app works.