Although Carrie Byrne only recently moved to Seattle, our associate creative director is fitting right into the Pacific Northwest—she’s an avid snowboarder and mountaineer—and making a significant impact on the level of service Worktank provides our clients.

Carrie’s background—from her MFA in graphic design at the Rhode Island School of Design to her work researching human-computer interaction—allows her to bring a unique approach to her client work that combines both left- and right-brain thinking. She’s got a knack for combining her functional design experience with a depth of knowledge and passion for the purely visual. (more…)

Earlier this year, Vertafore launched an effort to consolidate its disparate products and services under one brand, better aligning the businesses to meet its customers’ needs and more effectively communicating to the market all the solutions Vertafore offers.

Today, Vertafore represents the only software and services provider to the insurance industry that offers nearly every solution that an insurance business would need. Because many of its businesses have strong brands and reputations on their own, Vertafore struggled to communicate this broader message. (more…)

It’s official: the new xeko.com site is live, thanks to design and development by Worktank!

To bring xeko.com to life, we partnered with the Xeko team to develop and launch an interactive Web community and online game system. This site functions as an extension of Xeko’s award-winning animal trading card game that teaches kids about endangered species, ecology, and conservation. (more…)

Recently, I was asked to contribute a week’s worth of guest blog entries to www.fastcompany.com. Topics included viral campaign strategies, customer retention in touch economic times, corporate social responsibility, incorporating data tools into marketing campaigns, and connecting with your audience through brand storytelling. You can read them all here: http://www.fastcompany.com/tag/melinda-partin.

At Worktank, we’re proud of our talent and diversity and believe it better equips us to serve our clients. As it turns out, we’re not alone in thinking our diversity makes us stronger. DiversityBusiness.com, the nation’s leading multicultural business website, recently recognized Worktank in its ninth annual ranking. Worktank was ranked number 10 of the top 100 women-owned businesses. In a ranking of Washington state businesses, Worktank was ranked 17th of the top 50 diversity-owned businesses. (more…)

Today, everyone wants to drive more qualified leads into the sales funnel, boost sales conversion and retain their best customers forever. The challenge is that competitive pressure, advertising saturation, and shrinking budgets are making it harder for you to do the job.

Part of the problem is reaching customers at the right time. Organic and paid search, contextual advertising, and social marketing provide new ways to efficiently connect with your customers when they are looking for what you sell. That’s the easy part. (more…)

The staff at Worktank will be rallying the community later this week to overcome our challenges and proactively “Embrace the Lemon.” This innovative campaign seeks to leverage the abundance of lemons in the public psyche to “make lemonade” on an unprecedented scale, creating a community of optimism to turn things around and drive positive change.

“I think we speak for most people when we say that we’re tired of all the lemons and the negativity,” said Melinda Partin, CEO of Worktank. “What we all need is a little optimism and positive change. It’s time to turn the page, take action, and embrace the lemon.” (more…)

While Worktank is one big, happy family, we also have our divisions, and one of those divisions is focused on online event services.

Over the last eight years, this “quiet” division of Worktank has produced close to 13,000 events, building a reputation for delivering strong and measurable results for clients. From product launches to internal corporate announcements to virtual training seminars, our team provides a broad range of event production services to help clients with their communication needs. As business strategist Toby Holmes will tell you, “Worktank’s specialty is helping clients tell their stories—and events are just another channel through which we can help tell them well.” (more…)

Systems engineering and visual art sound like divergent paths. But not for David Sherwin, who is Senior Art Director, UX Strategy at Worktank.

User experience design is a critical component of any successful online endeavor, especially in today’s increasingly complex marketing landscape. At Worktank, David focuses on interactive projects—the more complex the better—helping clients tell their stories and reach key audiences through highly experiential websites. (more…)

I have a group called Dinner Club on Facebook where people sign up and are notified of the restaurant we’re going to the fourth Thursday of every month.  It is usually a large group, so sometimes it can be difficult to find a restaurant.  A restaurant manager joined the group and then sent me an email letting me know he would be happy to be of assistance should Dinner Club want to come to his restaurant.  This is a small but vibrant example of two people who haven’t met identifying a shared need or want, and creating a connection of trust, immediacy and relevance.

The influence of proximity and direct dialogue can’t be underestimated as one of the primary reasons people do or buy things, and brands should seek to create online experiences that replicate the closeness implied in proximity.

Close proximity dialogue has the following benefits:

• trust in the source,
• immediacy of the recommendation, and
• relevance to the person’s needs or wants at that point in time.

To achieve proximity, brands must focus on these three benefits.  Many companies do one or two things well, but rarely do they nail all three. (more…)