Blue Collar is building a sharp relationship with Columbia River Knife and Tool (CRKT).

Founded in 1994 and based in Tualatin, Oregon, CRKT is dedicated to making practical, purpose-driven knives and tools that are high in quality and innovative by design.

CRKT entered the limelight at the 1997 SHOT Show when the K.I.S.S (Keep It Super Simple) knife was introduced. The small folder, designed by Ed Halligan, was a huge success. Within the opening days of the show, a years’ worth of product was sold out. The K.I.S.S. sold at 4-5 times original production numbers, resulting in a tripling of production efforts. CRKT was officially on the map—big time.

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Hood River has a lot of great things going for it. A focus on arts in education is just one of them. The Teddy Webber Scholarship & Student Art Auction is an annual event at May Street Elementary, and this was the biggest year yet. Under the leadership of school Principal, Kelly Beard, the event raised over $18,000. This record-breaking success exceeded 2012’s total by $8,000! The 2013 Student Art Auction raised $16,000 to put towards art experiences and supplies for May Street Elementary Students. Awesome!

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We’re incredibly stoked to welcome Jenna Edginton to the garage as Account Manager. Unlike the majority of the current BC team, Jenna is a native Oregonian. She ventured to Illinois for college and earned a BS in Biology from Principia College, where she threw javelin, coming in twelfth at nationals. (She’ll be great during the apocalypse.)

After a three-month self-supported bike trip through France in 2008, Jenna landed as PM with a web design and development company in Portland. Today, she’s living the dream in Hood River. We couldn’t be happier to add to this spunky go-getter to our team of pro mechanics.

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Marlin Brando, Brand Identity Expert with Blue Collar

Hi I’m the shop’s marlin, Brando. I’m resident expert on all things branding.

If you’ve been in marketing or advertising long enough, you’ve probably done some version of this workshop exercise; “if our brand walked into a party, who would it be?”

And you probably heard answers like Barack Obama (because it’s trustworthy and forward-thinking) or The Rock (powerful and charismatic) or Taylor Swift (wholesome and bubbly).

But did you make sure to remind everyone that those people are already brands in their own right? And that they didn’t just start that way?

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As we know at Blue Collar, the hero is the content, not the design. And the power of the distinctive brand asset is not to be taken for granted. If a user can experience a brand and it’s product in the purest and most memorable form, we have done our job well.

Sigma Photo’s 30mm F2.8 DN up close and personal

Studio Photography

When you represent a brand whose reputation is on the line, the treatment of product photography is critical. In this case, we applaud our client, Sigma Photo, for producing some incredibly sexy product imagery. Sigma understands that while high-quality studio photography is not inexpensive, there is an indirect return on investment that can be achieved simply by improving the end-user’s experience. In turn, we create a larger brand footprint, elevate brand perception and sell more product.

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I’ll admit it. Email Marketers have gotten lazy over the last few years. It’s easy to say, “We can’t do that because Outlook 2003 won’t support it.”

Wrong answer. Hear that ringing? It’s the future calling. Didn’t you know that the world has been changing? But that’s just it. Most email marketers don’t know that the world has been changing. They’re still building email exactly the same way as they were five years ago.

Why is the world changing? Web browsers have gotten better. More people use mobile devices and web-based email. There’s a lot more you can do now than you ever could before.

I’m going to dispel four myths of email marketing. Let’s turn that “can’t” into “hell yes.”

Transparent PNG images in email

This is the easy one, yet email marketers are still wary of using them. Most can’t even tell you why. There’s some kind of whimper that, “It just won’t work.” The reason was Lotus Notes. That bastard program was still being used by some big companies out there, who refused to upgrade their email systems. Notes was notoriously hard on email designs. You couldn’t fight it. You had to deal with it. Older versions of Outlook also choked on the transparencies of PNG images.

Well, worry no more. Almost everybody has upgraded their email browsing experience. This report from Campaign monitor lists Lotus Notes users at 0.07%.

You’ve been making your life miserable for less than one percent of the market. Use PNGs.

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Blue Collar is thrilled to welcome Elena Blanco as Technical Director.

With her Masters in Software Engineering from the University of Pavia, Italy, Elena applied for her PhD and had the opportunity to interview with Microsoft. This was the beginning of a new journey that brought her to Seattle, WA. Elena’s been a programmer her whole life, starting with Commodore 64 back in the day, with a broad background from C++ to Flash Action Scripting to PHP and ColdFusion.

Elena brings 16 years of professional technical experience to Blue Collar, and will be focused on architecting big-picture technical solutions for websites, software and applications. She’ll also be managing our development team and working hard to take our technical execution to the next level creatively.

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In 2012, as we scoured Portland event calendars for less formal, more conversational, creative-focused events, we realized that there’s a bit of a hole to fill.

We know a lot of smart, interesting, thoughtful people who inspire us at every turn, so we created The Persuaders Society. Mingling with our colleagues and Portland’s creative community in a relaxed, stimulating environment is always time well spent. Our tagline is “Think free. Drink free.” And that’s exactly what we’re doing.

Looking for the Persuaders? Head to the underbelly.

Our first three events were held at Al’s Den—a dark, moody underground cubbyhole—at McMenamins Ringlers Annex. The presentations and lively conversations they sparked were impressive and affirmed that we’re onto something. Here’s a snapshot of our first three speakers. We’re working to make our future wrap-ups more consistent, but for now, we’re shootin’ from the hip.

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Social media is the future of the web. Many people have said it. Many people have been saying it for a long time. The next generation of everything is going to be socially integrated in ways that we would have never imagined just two years ago. But social media is not the end of the story, just as it is not the beginning.

Content, that often depreciated king, is still the core of the internet. There is nothing else the web does better than serve up content. Whether it is downloadable whitepapers, or videos of sponsors, or product pictures, the web is a content delivery wonderland. This will always be true.

Content is King

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A myriad of new social platforms and technologies emerge almost weekly.

Social Commerce is a subset of eCommerce that supports social interaction to buy and sell online. With a relatively short and checkered history, Social Commerce is continually blurred as a myriad of new social platforms and technologies emerge almost weekly.

In 2012 Social Commerce sales totaled roughly $9.2 billion (approx. 4% of online sales). This figure is expected to climb to $14.25 billion in 2013 and $30 billion in 2015. Various research outlets support the following claims:

• 20% of online shoppers would purchase within a social media site.
• 40% of users regularly search for products via Twitter.
• 12% of consumers have purchased a product online because of info they found on Twitter.
• 60% are willing to post about products/services in Facebook if they get a deal or discount.

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