Chalk the walk and chalk it up to more good Umpqua Bank ideas

"What do you suppose the world would look like..." Chalk Art, by Kailynn.

Umpqua Bank has hit pay dirt or 'pay-sidewalk.' They recently announced an August 23 event called Chalk the Walks. It's meant to inspire the community to get out and express their artistic side, have a good time and associate the fun with the Umpqua brand. To facilitate the explosions in pastel, Umpqua is offering free chalk in the Vancouver, WASH. branches between now and August 22 to make this happen.

This isn't the first time Umpqua has sprung outside the vault in their thinking.

Under the company's SpotLight program, Umpqua promotes local merchants by displaying and selling their products right inside the bank. To qualify a business owner lives or works in the neighborhood, has a product within a qualifying price range that displays well. The last criteria is that the business needs to to apply.

Once approved the bank sets up and sells the actual product. After approximately three months, they take down the display and send the business a check for the merchandise sold.

Other Umpqua amenities include a bi-weekly Breakfast Club, a coalition of small business people who learn from each other's area of expertise, and events called Small Business Therapy.

From there the bank morphs the concept of employee benefits to the next level and offers employee 'perks,' for YOUR employees.

But the best part is their support of the arts. Local arts. Art of people who may not even have talent.

Stefani DasGupta, Universal Associate IV at Umpqua Bank Esther Short Park branch, is encouraging customers and neighbors to drop in and pick up free chalk to create inspiring, sidewalk graffiti.

"We loan umbrellas when it rains, so chalk while the sun is shining seems like a perfect match for the August weather."

For focus on small business and community, Umpqua Bank has been chosen as 360 Biz of the Month.

Umpqua Bank 360 Biz of the Month

Time to celebrate. Head to the bank and chalk up some good ideas!

Chalk the Walks is a project of The Joy Team, a nonprofit corporation based in Vancouver, WASH. with the slogan, spreading joy to millions.

	Chalk the Walks
	Chalk the Walks Facebook Page

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Angst Gallery: 360 Biz of the Month

Angst: an acute but unspecific feeling of anxiety.

Gallery: the moment after.

When I first envisioned 360 Biz of the Month I imagined it as an opportunity to recognize start-ups creating awesome technology—the new stuff that gets you excited if only for its simplicity and cleverness.

April appeared with a couple of nominations, but the timing wasn't right for the interviewee or interviewer.

The second week of April rolled in, and all available resources focused on finishing taxes.

Foursquare Day, April 16, took the collective pent up tax anxiety and funneled it into a hashtag: #superswarmpdx. I headed toward Whiffies and cherry fried pie. All kinds of people and entertainment awaited, but no inspiration.

Does it have to be technology? I asked myself on the drive home. Or, can I change the 'rules?'

Rules are made to be broken, I decided, or at minimum to be enhanced.

So, it is with pleasure that 360 Convos announces Angst Gallery as April's 360 Biz of the Month. This honor is awarded for demonstrating that a small space on Main Street can change the landscape, if not the world.

It's not technology that drives the Angst Gallery but a community of creativity, environmentalism, and active loyalty to Southwest Washington.

Owner and Gallery Director, Leah Jackson, opened the gallery in 2008 after she curated a masterful Baby Boomers exhibit at the Clark County Historical Museum. Prior to that she co-founded and directed Sixth Street Gallery, a Southwest Washington artist co-op.

I met Leah Jackson when our kids were in grade school. I picked up my darling in a car, she picked up hers via bicycle. Jackson is an avid fan of green transportation and championed PARK(ing) Day in Vancouver, Washington. PARK(ing) Day is a global event that originated in San Francisco and temporarily transforms metered parking spots into temporary public parks.

Three years later, the City of Vancouver rewarded Jackson's efforts by capturing on-street parking for bicycles directly in front of her gallery (pictured above). Today, anyone who rides a bike to downtown Vancouver can park it on the street at 1015 Main Street, Vancouver, Washington 98660. The bicycle parking will be officially celebrated in June during Angst Gallery's annual "Bike Love" show. For this event fees are dropped and any bike related art is welcome to be juried for the June show.

Angst Gallery features unique offerings from traditional oil on canvas, pen and ink, watercolors, ceramics and jewelry to steel sculpture, mixed media, and fiber art. The gallery also hosts interns from Vancouver School of Arts and Academics. Their work included learning how to jury a show and they actually juried the April show.

The gallery promotes local poets such as Christopher Luna and offers gallery space off-hours to hold poetry workshops. The deadly duo, local mystery writers Carolyn J. Rose and Mike Nettleton, also found a spot in the gallery to sell their latest book, The Big Grabowski. The ancient upright invites keyboardists to finger the ivories and browse the gallery's collection of CD's and LP's from local musicians that litters its immense top.

Environmentalism carries over into every segment of gallery life. The gallery has in its collection a remarkable piece of wearable-recycled art. Jackson approached Sherry Mowatt, the Artistic Director of the Fort Vancouver Tapestry Project, to create her incredible idea: a form-fitting, sexy dress made out of recycled bicycle tires.

Seriously. Bicycle tires.

Leah Jackson wore it to the 2007 Bicycle Transportation Alliance Alice Awards Event, and it was also on view during the Clark County Fair that year.

Angst Gallery has infused itself into the economic success of the area. It was a founding member of LOCALS, Lower Columbia Alliance for Living Sustainably, best known for advocating diverting 10% of business expenditures into the local area. Angst Gallery also co-founded BikeMe! Vancouver. The front room on the gallery is home to a plethora of bicycle publications from many organizations. Most of the publications are free and available to all gallery visitors.

So, what's next for Angst Gallery and owner Leah Jackson? Well, that is a surprise, but it has her out front of the space next door scrubbing tile.

Angst Gallery
1015 Main Street
Vancouver, WA 98660
360.980.8352
Leah.AngstGallery@gmail.com

Vehicle (and bicycle) parking. First 20 minutes on meter FREE.

Open Wed-Sat Noon-5.
Open til 8pm on First Fridays.

View Larger Map


REFERENCES:
Angst Gallery:  Website
SW Washington Zest: 10 minute conversation with Leah Jackson
SW Washington Center for the Arts; Doc published Summer 2009
Art is in the eye of the beholder: Student interns at Angst Gallery
Bike Love event June 2009: Bike Portland.org photo gallery
Leah Jackson: Director Angst Gallery

PRIOR 360 BIZ OF THE MONTH:

March 2010 

Nozzl Media

February 2010 Moment of silence for bankrupt newspapers

January 2010 Gist

Nozzl Media: 360 Biz of the Month

The Nozzl Media dream team pictured left to right: Brian Hendrickson Visionary and Lead Developer, Greg Griffiths Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Steve Suo Executive Vice-President and Editor, Steve Woodward, Chief Executive Officer.

Formed in Portland, Oregon, Nozzl Media celebrates its anniversary today, March 21, and can add the distinction of 360 Biz of the Month to the festivities.

Nozzl Media resulted from the spontaneous combustion of journalists and programmers who answered the challenge to help news organizations survive. The rapidly changing media landscape has proven that people want information in real time, they want the opportunity to decide—at any given moment—what is important to them, and they want community media companies to ever more finely define: local, local, local.

Nozzl Media has given local a new definition and moved it into a real time stream of local news, local public records, and local social media conversations. Users of the Nozzl product can open up the flood gates and experience an onslaught of information as if rafting over whitewater. Or, the nozzl can be filtered to reduce the rapids to a steady drip of the desired mix of news and information.

At the first of the year, the beta version of the web widget (v1.0) was released into the wild for open testing. Jeff Bunch, web editor at The Columbian Newspaper was one of the first to beta test it. “I like the real-time aggregation and streaming of information, beyond Twitter, as their product's functionality extends to public databases.”

The team is focusing heavily on enhancing the features and usability of the web widget and mobile app. You can read more about the Nozzl Medai solution here, and sign up to try the real-time stream here.


Read our two part interview with Steve Woodward here and here.


REFERENCES:
Welcome to the Age of Robot Reporters ReadWriteWeb
Nozzl Media Corporate Web-site
Steve Suo Editor of Nozzl Media

PREVIOUS 360 BIZ OF THE MONTH:

February 2010 Moment of silence for bankrupt newspapers

January 2010 Gist

NOTE:

I receive no remuneration for the companies I recommend. Whenever possible, I do readily accept and heartily drink coffee with company representatives.

Gist: 360 Biz of the Month

                                                                                                                    

For a generation taught to demand privacy from the companies it transacts business with, Boomers have readily abandoned that concept and joined Gen Xers and Gen Y in a very vibrant, public information sharing performance. Transparency is touted as the answer to what ails us and everyone is encouraged to step out on the information dance floor and boogie.

With each rotation of the mirrored information globe the dance hall twitters with life and we attempt to catch the flickers and make sense of them. In one ear interesting voices chirp in 140 characters, in another social media presentations sing. Associates are LinkedIN, family and friends are Facebooked, and everyone wants to know where and when via Plancast, Foursquare or Gowalla, and we blog all about it.

We share a lot, but most of it is lost in the mayhem.

Garnering salient information about the people who are important to us, especially in business, can be as illusive and dazzling as chasing the mirrored reflections of the disco ball. Gist, a Washington State corporation founded by T. A. McCann, created software for "relationship-centric professionals" to address our need to sort and prioritize the dazzling information mayhem.

For its unique, relationship deepening, innovation, Gist is my choice for 360 Biz of the Month.

I was introduced to Gist by a fellow Twitter-mate turned real-life friend, Ed Borasky (@znmeb). Boraksy is geekedIN and has enough online influence to beta test new products. He received a first round Googlewave invite and tossed one my way before I barely knew what a wave was. Right on the heels of Googlewave Borasky gifted me with Gist.

I like being among the first to know things and seeing the big picture puzzle in a comprehensible map. Gist provides me with all that and a scorecard. My relationship with the people and businesses in my database are weighted or scored based on a proprietary algorithm. A yellow or red alert tells me when too much time has passed between interactions with my inner circle. A detail screen offers an in-depth look of who our shared contacts are, and constant information monitoring keeps me abreast of their blog posts and news mentions.

Gist integrates inside Outlook, Salesforce, and the iPhone, and allows me to focus on my contacts one at a time—in order of their importance to me.

It's most valuable asset is that it saves me time. Instead of me plowing through a sporadic stream of Twitter submissions to find the person of the hour I want to connect with, then tracking down the latest piece of news on them, or signing up for constant Google alerts, Gist allows me to review that individual’s entire online interactions and news spotlights in a date sort that includes a company profile from Dow Jones Business & Reltationship Intelligence. Gist creates a clear portrait, a complete dossier of my contact, and reduces the time needed to pull the varied pieces together to the time elapse of a log-in. The information can be browsed lightly or explored deeply by following provided links.

Gist can be used as a brand monitoring tool, too. I had no intention of using it for this, but it unearthed a dozen copyright infringements for the company that employs me.

Because I have a native bias of Washington State businesses, I took the time to reply to the emails Gist sent asking for feedback. As a result, I connected with Greg Meyer, Customer Experience Manager. He was easily coerced into doling out a generous number of Gist invites for my network. Don’t be shy. Gist is ready for more people to test its beta product. And it’s offered free to my blog readers.

Click the link for complimentary Gist invite:
https://beta.gist.com/signup/360ClassicCarol

Congratulations Gist and T.A. McCann for earning 360 Biz of the Month for January 2010 status. I was too enthusiastic about your product to hold this post until after the first of the year. Wishing you much success in product development.


REFERENCES:
About Gist Corporate Web-site
T.A. McCann Gist Profile
Microsoft Case Study: Gist Document published October 2009
Testimonial: Michael Michaels, recruiter at Verticalmove and organizer of Seattle Job Social YouTube 

NOTE:
I receive no remuneration for the companies I recommend. You can’t buy me. You can wow me.