Question: Did you go through the traditional route and send in a PR announcement to get the coverage? (If so, can you share with me to share with the students)

Or, did it come by being at the Pitch session on Thursday and networking with the OWH reporter?

Or, a different way?

I always like to know the story behind the story so I can tell the students, “How did they do that”? It helps to answer the “WIFM” question that keeps the students more interested in how education (at least my way of education) is real-life training on what you need to do to get noticed.

As for the press, we definitely did NOT go the traditional PR route. In fact, our approach to marketing in general is very non-traditional.

The short story is, we met Stefanie (the reporter) through our involvement with entrepreneurship here in Omaha. I’m involved with a number of initiatives, each centered around this idea of putting Omaha on the map as a place where entrepreneurship and startups can not only happen.. but flourish. This started with my involvement with the Chamber’s entrepreneurship organization “Cornstalks,” which I have been involved with from its inception. Additionally, I helped organize Omaha’s first Barcamp event, and I am working with Jeff on Silicon Prairie News.

Its not “networking” in the traditional sense, its more genuine than that. Its building and being a part of a community at a very grass roots level.

It’s through these involvements that we were able to tell our story, establish ourselves as a company of innovators and leaders, and meet people like Stefanie. At that point, getting into the paper was almost as easy as making a phone call and saying, “I think it’s time to be in the paper.”

Like I said, our marketing efforts are non-traditional, at best, and are less focused on “selling widgets” or “signing contracts,” and more focused on “building community.” Through channels like our blog, Twitter, and now UStream, we’re wanting to build a following of people who truly care about our company, believe in our story, and want us to be successful.

Our advice is to point your students in the direction of people and super-successful businesses like Gary Vaynerchuk or 37Signals. These companies are leveraging community and buzz to generate “real” press and media coverage.. and that’s what matters.

Update: Stefanie gives some insight into how to get some press coverage..

Stay tuned for more live broadcasts, we think its a fantastic way to build community, and to share our experiences and opinions with the world. Following us on Twitter is the easiest way to find out when we’ll be broadcasting, or follow us on UStream. Soon though, we’ll be launching BrightMix.tv, which will be the one-stop-shop for all things video at BrightMix. Stay tuned!

Dusty & Kevin giving a presentation to a group of Creighton University entrepreneurs

Grill Day at BrightMix (mmmmm…steak….)

Our Logo Design Process

It took a good chunk of time for us to settle on a logo, partly because we couldn’t come up with any solid ideas and partly because our name doesn’t really represent anything. If we had picked a name like Blue Buzzard or Fog Creek Software, well, it would’ve been a little easier

Anyway, we were pretty certain that we needed an insignia as part of the logo; we didn’t know exactly what that insignia would be, other than something that was unique and representative of us.

So, we read a lot about other small company’s branding efforts and figured we’d try out similar brainstorming tactics. Here are some of our initial ideas:

Initial rough sketches and ideas by Dusty

We discovered that it was far too easy to put too much thought and meaning into a logo. I mean, it’s simple to say we want a logo that says we’re smart, cutting-edge, trendy, and fun, but portraying all of those descriptions, all at once, is very difficult. For instance, this logo is trying to portray just a little too much and becomes somewhat confusing:

Thinking outside the box? Hmmm…

Not really finding anything that felt right, we worked with our friends at the Granger Group to experiment and come up with ideas.

Some eyeball thing and BrightMix Anime? Just not right.

BrightMix eXtreme edition!

At some point, Bob from Granger came up with this and we really liked it. It was simple and had a cool and unique font:

We tweaked it a bit by altering the fonts and swapping out the little people out for real i’s (we felt they were too gimmicky). A couple of days later we had our final logo, which sits atop this page. A big thanks to the Granger Group for helping us find something we like!

Fixing the Site’s Colors

With our logo in the bag, we just need to integrate it into the existing site. After some color matching and graphics editing (admittedly, mostly done by Dusty), the site was looking pretty good. While he was at it, he revamped the blog commenting section, which is now much cleaner and allows for markup, and added a Flickr gallery to bottom of the page to show off some of the realness of our company.

We’re pretty pleased with the new site. It’s not super-amazingly-awesome, but it’s leaps and bounds better than the old one. In case you never saw the old site, here is a side by side comparison of old and new:

Your Feedback Appreciated

We’d love to hear what you think about the new site. Is it good / bad / better / worse / terrible / you’d rather stare at flashing spyware ads? Leave us a comment!