Concord Conserves, a non profit started by Bartlett Interactive, launched a website application that allows individuals to calculate their footprint, make reductions and compare themselves to others, both locally and globally. The website application was created as part of a 2011 Conservation Challenge for residents of Concord and Carlisle, MA.

Web Application Dashboard

The web app includes a ‘dashboard’ showing an individuals total carbon footprint, comparison to others around the world and how many earths needed if everyone lived like that person as well as the amount of reductions that person has made. There is also a ‘groups’ section which shows how individuals compare to other people in their town and how many reductions each person has made.

“People in Concord are very conservation oriented but many don’t realize how large their footprints are” says Concord Conserves and Bartlett Interactive founder Harry Bartlett. “The web app shows how people compare to others both in terms of consumption and reduction. This type of peer-to-peer information has proven to be a powerful driver for people to change their behavior.” 

Bartlett Interactive developed the web application as well as a promotional strategy that included creating a 40’ sign and sidewalk messages that ask the question “What’s Your Footprint?”. The signage was created by local high school students Wyatt Burns and David Yanofsky and created using re-claimed plywood and paint.

40’ “What’s Your Footprint” sign at Emerson Field in Concord MA

Pin It

The Challenge kick off event was held at the Harvey Wheeler Community Center in West Concord Sept. 27, 2011 and showcased companies and organizations that help reduce people’s footprint. The event included 14 exhibitors and music and art work by CCHS high school students. See a video and photos of the event on Facebook.

Harry Bartlett (Bartlett Interactive), Morwen Two Feathers (Concord Conserves) and Wyatt Burns (artist)

A poster campaign with large photos depicting the different aspects of sustainability such as oil production, local food, conservation land and drought were also put up around town.
To date about 140 people have made 300 reductions, reducing 106 tons or carbon. Many of the participants are high school students who used the web app as part of their Earth Science class.

See more at www.ConcordConserves.org/Challenge and the Facebook page.

Web design tools, content management systems and Internet marketing processes (SEO, email) continue to evolve, providing more extensive capabilities, easier to use software and reduced cost. BITS (Bartlett Interactive Tool Suite) is a collection of the best tools providing clients higher value websites and Internet marketing programs at a lower cost.

BITS is based on Bartlett’s 14 years of experience delivering web solutions for over 150 clients in a variety of industries.

The tool suite focuses on the 3 key areas of a healthy online presence:

1. Design: tools that enhance the branding and design of websites as well as user interactions such as innovative ways of displaying and interacting with content
2. Marketing:tools and best practices for easily managing online conversion, email programs, Search Engine Optimization and Social Media that generate leads and brand awareness
3. Technology: a feature rich and well tested open source content management system (CMS) for easy website editing, publishing and deployment of advanced capabilities such as e-commerce

See more details about BITS and web design, web development and Internet marketing at Bartlett Interactive

EXAMPLES

The following projects were recently completed using BITS system. 

Better Homes and Gardens
www.bhglivebetter.com

Better Homes and Gardens needed a web presence and Internet marketing platform for introducing their Kitchen Collection line sold through Walmart. The site included many features such as a blog, recipe swap, extensive product photography, blogger contest, video and social media integration. Post launch services include SEO, email marketing and social media integration. 

The site has over 400 pages and uses Drupal core functionality plus about 30 add-on modules for managing content, blog, social media and community functionality. BITS allowed for easy development of the site and online community as well as post launch Internet marketing activities, saving time, increasing effectiveness and providing a healthy ROI.

EBSCO Publishing (EP)
www.bizsum.com

EP needed a web application that could be easily replicated and customized for multiple product offerings. Some of these offerings include subscription based e-commerce for the general public, private corporate communities, free trials, forums, user authentication, on-site search, blogs, RSS and socal media feeds.Each product website utilizes extensive Drupal core functional and numerous off the shelf and customized modules.The benefits of the BITS system included: reduced time required to develop the web application, easy management of websites and the ability to launch complex product offerings easily in the future.

UTEC
www.utec-lowell.org

 
The site we built for the United Teen Equality Center (UTEC) included extensive website design and development, an online community and advocacy tools for a nationally renowned non-profit serving the youth community in Lowell, MA. Website features include an online store, social action petition micro-site, forums, job resources, videos, Flickr fed photo galleries, online donations, audio gallery, SalesForce.com integration, on-site search and private user area.

The BITS system saved development time allowing for more time to be spent on design, messaging, social action (online petitions and advocacy), user interactions and site features such as the photo, video and audio galleries.

GET STARTED
Getting started is easy, just contact us at (978) 369-2472 or online (links to form). We’ll analyze your needs and recommend the easiest, most cost-effective way to obtain value from your website and online marketing programs.

Pin It

New addition to the Bartlett Interactive team expands company’s web development capabilities

 

Concord, MA February 14, 2011 – Bartlett Interactive, an interactive design agency, is excited to welcome newcomer Ben Davis to a versatile team of developers and creatives. Ben Davis, a native of New Hampshire, has recently joined the Bartlett Interactive Team as the in-house web developer and PHP guru.

A graduate of Lyndon College, with a BA in Digital Media and an AS in Computer Science, Ben has a focus on web development. He brings his knowledge of XHTML, CSS PHP, MySQL, jQuery and multiple CMS applications including Drupal and Wordpress to enhance BI’s current projects.

Founder Harry Bartlett is looking forward to working with Ben. “Ben’s addition to our team expands our web development capabilities. We will be able to provide a much more in depth experience for our clients while continuing to provide Drupal as a platform. Ben is a perfect fit for our focus on building websites that increase brand awareness, lead generation, and online advocacy for non-profits.” 

In the beginning most websites were built with Dreamweaver, FrontPage or just a text editor like Notepad. These editors allowed for easy construction of 'brochure' websites. As sites became more dynamic the need for a content management system (CMS) increased.

Here are 3 things to know before committing to a CMS.

1. What a CMS Does

The web continues to re-invent marketing, sales and communications but there is a knowledge gap between the tools available and the ability to use them. Understanding what a CMS does and how to integrate it with your company’s online objectives is a critical part of realizing the web’s potential to grow your company.

The principal behind a CMS is quite simple. It’s a database with core functionality e.g. website editing, and add on modules. It can manage content as well as e-commerce in a search friendly way. It also can easily feed content into other sites e.g. social media communities.

After  the objectives are defined for a site, the best way to understand what a CMS does is to use one. Aligning the objectives with the features the CMS provides and working with real content is the best way to fully understand what is realistic and possible.

2. Which Open Source CMS is Best

Opinion here will vary, but at the moment we believe Drupal and WordPress are clearly the best - Drupal for larger, more complex sites and WordPress for simpler sites and blogs.

The reasons for this are: Drupal and WordPress are open source (free), have a large installed base (hundreds of thousands of websites), a web development community in the thousands and standard, non-proprietary technologies (PHP, MySQL, Linux and Apache). These qualifications mean that the functionality is well tested, has less chance of becoming obsolete and is less expensive.

It also doesn't hurt to know that the White House, BBC, Sony and others use Drupal.

3. Total Cost of Ownership

There are 3 parts to the cost of a CMS. First the upfront software licensing fees (if there are any), maintenance costs and hosting fees. The reality is that unless you are looking for an enterprise level CMS, open source (i.e. free) is the way to go.

Maintenance costs depend on who is working on the site. The most cost effective strategy is to have someone within your company maintain the site leaving more heavy-duty work to outside contractors. The more people within your organization that can use a CMS the better. This will increase the amount you publish and make your brand more visible online as well as make for a more accurate, up to date and compelling site.

CMSs are resource intensive and require at least a virtual dedicated server hosting plan. These start at $30 per month. If your site is on a shared plan (under $20 a month) it will be slow.

Summary

As the web evolves choosing the right CMS can have a significant impact on how well your organization is able to utilize the web’s potential. When determining the requirements for a site re-design or a new site, make sure selecting the right CMS is a priority.

We recently launched an online carbon calculator for a non-profit we started called ConcordConserves.org (CCO). Since being introduced in January this year, 384,357kg of c02 has been eliminated and over 330 people have participated, far exceeding our expectations.

We first researched all the live calculators out there looking for the best features and platform for developing it. The calculator we came up with has 3 parts:

• Calculate: The ability to calculate your footprint based on transportation, food and home energy use
• Reduce: The ability to reduce your footprint by selecting actions from a list weighted towards local rebates
• Compete: The ability to compete with others to see who can reduce the most

After investigating several web development platforms we decided to use Drupal, the open source content management system since it gave us the functionality and flexibility we needed.

But what made the calculator appealing and how did we get so many reductions? Here are the 3 best aspects we think did the trick.

1. Compete: this feature has been far and away the most effective part. It’s implemented using groups. In this instance a teacher at the local high school decided to use it for the Earth Science department, where there are about 11 classes. Each class is a group and each competes with each other to see who can reduce the most.

2. Peer View: The calculator allows people to see what reductions groups have done as well as contact each other and post comments. Since peer relationships have shown to be one of the most powerful drivers when trying to influence and change people’s behavior, we wanted to emphasize this part. Adding community/social media features is a big plus when trying to get people to use an online calculator.

We also inserted a chart on the entry page showing how per capita emissions of Americans stack up to other countries. Don’t be surprised, Americans emit more carbon per person than just about any other country. This type of peer-to-peer comparison chart is a really effective way to get the point across and inspire people to act.

Note the above chart also shows how many planet earths would be needed if everyone on the planet consumed as much as the average in that country.

3. Go local: There are a lot of calculators out there so we decided to make ours as local as possible. Remember ‘act local, think global’? The list of reductions starts with programs offered by the town (e.g. $5 off compact fluorescent bulbs). We also targeted the schools so that the calculator could be used in their curriculum. CCO is all about local too, making it easy to promote it within the community. We also included a master “everyone’s reductions to date” feature showing how much carbon has been reduced by everybody. This feature is an easy way for people to feel a part of a bigger group as well as feel like they are making a more significant contribution.

We learned a lot from this project – about how to build online communities as well as how to engage people to improve the environment. Creating online communities is not easy but understanding what motivates people can make for a far more compelling online experience.

Note, a special thanks to the Concord Carlisle Community Chest for their generous grant, and the support of private donors as well as Fletcher Boland, Jessie Pearl, Christopher Lorch and Kitty Smith who built the calculator. Without their help it would not have happened.

Bartlett's eValuator continues to prove that the majority of websites are not well optimized. Visually, anyone can see whether a website is well designed or not but many people are unaware of just how many other key elements make a website successful.

Based on the eValuator results dating back to October 2008, over 37% of the websites entered received a grade below 50%. See the pie chart below for a complete overview:

The grade is based on behind the scenes factors such as Google PageRank, indexed pages, meta tags, PR, and more.

To see what grade your website receives, try out the eValuator now.

With the growing number of social media outlets on the web, I thought it would be a great opportunity to build an online community out of the The Concord Conservatory of Music (CCM) website, www.concordconservatory.org.  I wanted to create an area for students as well as family and friends to experience all that the school has to offer.

In working with Bartlett Interactive, they were able to incorporate several features such as video streaming through a video sharing service, Vimeo, for watching music recitals, a Flickr photo gallery so anyone can upload photos of events and/or students playing instruments, as well as a link to the CCM Facebook page.

The ultimate goal is for everyone involved in The Concord Conservatory of Music to feel like part of a community. By sharing photos with one another, watching recitals, interacting on Facebook, and making the website more user friendly, we are able to make that happen.

If you would like to see how Bartlett Interactive built an online community for us, visit www.concordconservatory.org

Kate Yoder
Concord Conservatory of Music

Recently, one of our clients, the Oration Group, asked that we find a way to post their YouTube videos to their website automatically. There’s lots of ways to do this including using several widgets YouTube supplies or by rolling your own feed parser.

Integrating the video listings with the visual styling of this site was essential, which ruled out the branded YouTube widgets. There was also a very small budget, which eliminated custom coding a feed parser to display the information exactly as we wanted.

Our middle of the road solution delivers a lot of functionality, with a minimal investment. You’ll have an automatically updating feed of video on your site in no time. Here’s how:

1. Download the files (Courtesy of Feed for All)
2. Edit the following code to use your website urls

   <?php
   $XMLFILE = "http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/base/users/youryoutubeusernamehere/uploads?alt=rss&v=2&client=ytapi-youtube-profile";
   $TEMPLATE = "http://www.yourwebsitehere.com/sample-template.html";
   $MAXITEMS = "50";
   include("/rss2html.php");
   ?>

3. Paste the script above anywhere on your php enabled website
4. Upload the files to the base (root) folder of your website.

If you’d like to learn more about what this script can do, including many customization options, check out the full documentation.

Learn about 3 tools that can make your website more visually interesting, simply and inexpensively. Our screencast "How to Make Websites More Visual" discusses ThickBox, SlideShow Pro, and Flash video with numerous examples and pricing info.

Whether you're making your own website, or going to a design firm, you need to know a bit about web hosts. It may not be the most exciting topic, but I've explained it in a language everyone can understand. The language of pies.

Bartlett Video | Websites are Like Pies

Really, they are.