In STEP With Sonia

As it turns out, the story of Sonia is quite the graphic one. Not that kind of graphic. Shame on you. From hell-raising cheerleader to rebel art director, it’s filled with snapshots and snippets that create a fascinating life. With its recent Short Stories exposé, STEP Inside Design delved into what made Sonia Greteman who she is today. The magazine took readers behind the scenes and gave them a glimpse of the creative force that is our fearless leader.

To read all the juicy details, click here.

Viva la Digital Underground

Not only do we believe that there’s always room for self-improvement – we thrive on it. Feeding the gray matter is what keeps us at the top of our game. That’s why we devote a full day each year to team-building and goal-setting. Usually, this takes place offsite with consultants and facilitators guiding the action. This year, we decided to take matters into our own hands with a social media boot camp.

We locked the door and stocked up on disciplinary rulers. School was in session and we were all taking a ride on the Digital Underground. It was packed with social media goodness – from analyzing practical uses for Twitter to brushing up on digital etiquette. We huddled for brainstorming and strategizing and broke for friendly competition and play. Even after such an intense workout, we still left with the hamsters in our heads running like they’d just downed a double espresso.

Sure, we learned a lot. But we also had a lot of fun. Just check out our video.

In January, we wrote a comprehensive social media policy to help inform our team about the proper uses for these new tools during work hours. Since then, our policy has been featured with other, much larger companies’ policies, such as Intel, Yahoo!, Harvard Law School, GM and the U.S. Air Force.

There’s no reason to reinvent the wheel. If you’re wondering how to manage your team’s use of social media, feel free to take our policy and adjust it to meet your needs.

Together We Won

A Clarus Award, that is. “Together We Can,” for the Kansas Children’s Service League, won in the Annual Reports category. The Kansas chapter of the Public Relations Society of America recognizes the best of the best in communication and public relations. Designed by Garrett Fresh, the KCSL report delivers financial summaries, but goes well beyond the dry statistics with feature stories about children and families KCSL has helped as well as profiles of the people who make such successes possible. An overall Kansas-y feel unifies the piece into a cohesive, warm, snuggly, aww-inspiring whole.

Click here to view more.

The Wichita Aero Club took flight last fall and almost immediately climbed to the uppermost flight levels. In addition to bringing in some of the industry’s biggest names at monthly luncheons, the club is introducing a must-attend gala this summer – with our very own Ashley Bowen Cook serving as co-chair. The event, originally envisioned as a black-tie affair, morphed into a more casual fundraiser to benefit thousands of laid-off aviation workers, encouraging attendees to ditch the expensive tux in favor of an increased contribution. It featured a short video celebrating the city’s aviation heritage with a walkthrough of the planned new Mid-Continent Airport terminal and the Greteman Group-designed exhibit chronicling Wichita as the Air Capital.

While your furry friends may not appreciate what it does, Spay-Neuter Kansas provides an invaluable service to the community by offering low-cost spay and neuter services. Fewer kittens and puppies born means fewer dogs and cats that, sadly, get put to sleep in shelters. It’s a great cause, but like any business, it needed a web presence to more efficiently present its message.

Good thing for Spay-Neuter Kansas, cats and dogs aren’t very good at Internet navigation. (It probably has something to do with their poor spelling and grammar.) Without having to worry about offending the delicate sensibilities of web-savvy critters, we developed a website for an organization that really makes an impact. In addition to the mandatory kitty and puppy pictures, it’s full of information on the importance of having your pet spayed or neutered as well as success stories from other communities that have similar programs.

It’s no joke that on April 1, Greteman Group turned 20. That’s two decades of strategy-driven creative that rocks the pants off our clients. It’s a milestone, of course, so we wanted to shout it from a mountaintop. But our Kansas mountains just weren’t up to the task. So we opted for a social-media blitz to get out the word.

We’re big proponents of harnessing the power of social media as a brand-engagement channel. It’s an excellent way to build relationships and disseminate information to a targeted audience in real time. Plus, it’s cost effective and not as stuffy as, say, a press release. So we set the Twittersphere and Facebook ablaze with stories and fun facts from the past 20 years. Employees posted comments with their fondest GG memories and we made a slew of new friends online. All in all, it was a grand old time. That being said, we’re really just saving our party hats for next year. Twenty-one, here we come – after all, the age of majority is when the revelry really begins …

Until then, check out our Twitter feed and Facebook page.

Rah-Rah Royal Caribbean

Alienation occurs when employees don’t feel a bond with their work. It causes dissatisfaction, lower productivity and higher turnover rates – each taking bites out of a company’s bottom line. Employers can keep them engaged by opening lines of communication with management and each other. Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines understands that a happy employee is a productive employee. So it’s giving managers the tools and training to make their teams more, well, team-like. We worked with RCCL to brand its employee engagement program.

We like you. We want to see you grow and achieve. We want you to be the best you that you can be. But we have to use some tough love: It’s time you started using social media, even if you don’t want to.

We know you’re apprehensive. Entering social media is a big step. It seems like it was only yesterday that you set up your first website. But it wasn’t yesterday. It was 15 years ago. It’s time to get out of the kiddie pool and join the grown-ups. We’re not asking you to jump off the high dive or try out for the Olympics. Just join the conversation, explore the possibilities and feel free to ask questions.

It’s OK if you’re scared. Using social media opens you up to criticism. There are also legal and personnel concerns to address. But it’s nothing that other companies – probably some that are more conservative than yours – haven’t already dealt with. (Check out the sidebar on our social media policy to see how we dealt with it.) Yes, it’ll add another item to your already imposing to-do list. But, with the way things are headed, it should be an action item.

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Live and Learn

About a bajillion colleges cater to working adults by offering online courses. Some have commercials that make you think. Others have jingles that you couldn’t get out of your head even if you used a stick of dynamite. But none are quite like Southwestern College Professional Studies.

Sure, it offers online courses. But it delivers so much more – from onsite classes to amenable credit-transfer policies to a curriculum that’s flexible enough to evolve at the speed of business. It’s a pretty impressive bill, really. The only problem was breaking through the cacophony its competitors were causing.

We partnered with Southwestern College to develop a clear, meaningful, resonant brand. We checked out the competition and decided to steer clear of stock photography of smiling graduates. Surveying current Learners, we found that staff and faculty do everything they can to prepare them for the future without overlooking their obligations to the present.

The tagline “Higher Education Within Reach” emphasizes getting an education on your terms. A Learner can be a mother, full-time employee and cheerleader for her kids as well as a college student. It sounds so good it almost makes you want to go there, huh? Well, they do have master’s programs.

View the Southwestern College Professional Studies campaign.

A Company With Soul – A Brochure
to Match

Engaging, stylized figures probe, examine, drill, inspect – and carry readers through OLC Global’s smart new brochure, providing a quick, easy understanding of the company’s impressive capabilities. OLC Global began life as On-Line Communications, but that was long before “online” acquired its current meaning. Through the years, this shrewd market research data collection and outbound-teleservices company has kept ahead of the trends, and its competitors, and has been as strategic with its marketing as it is meticulous with its research. Fun, funky and fabulous owners Tom and Peggy O’Connor set the bar high for a brand adjustment aimed at communicating OLC’s full range of services and digital savvy. Their new brochure and associated collateral deliver out-of-the-box construction – uncommon size, distinctive binding, memorably sturdy paper stock – standing out from any stack of competing material. Our research (yes, Tom and Peggy, we know it’s not scientific) declared it a clear winner.

View spreads of the OLC brochure.

Garrett Fresh is one of those interns who never left. For the past 10 years, he’s grown from a fresh-faced college student who does an excellent Pee-Wee Herman dance to a seasoned art director who does an excellent Pee-Wee Herman dance – all while creating strategic, award-winning work. But, like a Transformer, there’s more to Garrett than meets the eye. He’s evolved from a print media whiz to a digital media ace – not an easy feat for a designer.

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