Heating Up the Marketing Campaign in Chicago Bird Sanctuaries

Chicago really has a lot of greenspace and parks. Chicago also has a lot of bird sanctuaries.

Today, while taking a break from the job search, I found the Bill Jarvis Bird Sanctuary. I didn't have enough time to investigate much, but I got some sense of the sanctuary and the conservation mission that Chicago has taken upon itself at the beginning of the century. The Bill Jarvis Bird Sanctuary has a fence around it, and, apparently, people can't enter it willy nilly. The City intends to keep everything in the confines of the fence undisturbed beyond the original planting of the trees and other fauna. A sign said that no foot traffic beyond bird watching and walking around was allowed. No dogs allowed inside without a leash, either. I like the idea behind the The Sanctuary, especially since it brings some bit of wilderness and nature into the City.

I used to wander around the woods behind my parent's house when I was younger. They really became something I liked to have around me. Obviously, the parks and even a sanctuary or two doesn't make for woods, but it gives me a taste of nature while also allowing me to enjoy the crowds of the city. A part of me even believes that us humans shouldn't necessarily live in the wilderness.

A friend of mine who majored in economics once mentioned to me that cities (ideally if they have a good infrastructure) damage the environment (not necessarily the greatest link. . .) less than if people live in the wilderness (again, the link really doesn't express what I mean well).

Considering the availibility of public transportation, I can see the validity of that argument. With the amount of factories in cities, though, I don't know how much cutting down on private transportation cuts down on the aggregate emissions.

The more I've thought about the whole climate change issue, the more I grasp an ironic fact. The more that we use air conditioners, the more we increase the temperature on the planet. One or two of them wouldn't make a difference, but consider how many people in warm climes use electric air conditioners. Well. . .these things need a lot of electricity, which requires power generation. Up until fairly recently and on a typical basis, this power comes from dirty sources, like oil, coal and, yes, nuclear power sources (nuclear doesn't create emissions, itself, but it does require dirty power sources, at some early point, to mine and process the uranium, plutonium and other viable radioactive sources.

Yes, air conditioners may be our demise. How ironic.

But yes. . .the Bill Jarvis Bird Sanctuary. I also liked that they has signs about the different birds that live in there on a regular basis, migrate there to live on an occasional basis or stop in for a little while during their migration elsewhere. I can't remember most of what I read, but I look forward to checking out the plaques some more and eventually learning more about birds.

SOME INTERESTING WEBSITES

While researching Market Wire today to send a resume, I found some interesting websites.

Before listing them off, though, I want to make a quick sad note about a grammar mistake in the cover e-mail that accompanied the resume. Made me sad to find the mistake, especially after feeling that I had written an impressive, clever cover letter. Oh well. . .hopefully they'll give me the benefit of the doubt, and I can somehow pass it off. . .even though the resume is for an editing/proofreading position. Oh well. . ..

Without further ado:

+ 826 Chicago: I actually read about this organization a couple days, while flying home from the East Coast. The AirTran magazine had a small profile on it. Some guy in San Francisco started up 826 Valencia, an organization that teaches writing to kids 8 - 18 and sells products to support the teaching writing program. Apparently, the idea caught some attention around the United States, so people set up organizations based on the same model. 826 Chicago is one of those organizations.

+ Duct Tape Marketing Blog: The blog for Duct Tape Marketing, which looks like a firm that produces resources about marketing and provides learning opportunites about marketing. The blog, itself, brings up some marketing topics for small businesses and products that can help the small business. Looks like it gets updated regularly. Also voted the Best Small Business Marketing Blog.

+ Lynann's Blog: Blogging centering around (citizen) journalism and PR. Up until now, I had only recently heard about the importance of blogging from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart or in regular print newspapers, but I hadn't really seen its power in action. One entry in this one addresses that the power of blogging comes from the human contact. The site also addresses other issues regarding blogging, journalism and PR. She also touches upon a book by Desmond Tutu.

+ Marqui's World: According to their website, Marqui is a simple, elegant Web content management and marketing automation suite designed to manage your marketing activities. This blog actually introduced me to a lot of the other blogs on today's list. This one provides yet more perspective on marketing, PR and the Blogosphere. If this topic introduces you, and it should if you want to get noticed on the World Wide Web, read this blog, too.

+ Orcology: This blog addresses social media, like blogs and Wikis.

+ Creating Passionate Users: A blog centering around marketing, organizational theory and, somewhat, social cognition.

+ Naked Conversations: Hard to describe this one. Apparently, these two guys write about their books. I'm starting to think that their focus is on social media, which apparently hasn't been adopted as an official term yet.

+ Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed: A financial blog. Unfortunately, "financial" feels like a loose term for some reason.

+ PubSub: This company introduces an application that provides an RSS feed for search terms you provide it. It supposedly checks out blogs and other sites on the Web. It hasn't worked too well for me yet, but they warn that it's just a beta version of the product.

+ Southern Appeal: A fairly conservative blogs that made me want to hurl a couple times. I plan on sticking with it, though, just to make sure that I stay "fair and balanced."

+ The Diva Marketing Blog: A cute meta-blog centering around marketing, of course, and, obviously, -blogging.

+ The Paradigm Shift: Adapt or Die: I think this one focuses on making money through Website design.

WOAH. . .TOO MUCH TIME IN FRONT OF THE COMPUTER

I really should get going, off to bed and spending time with the family.