Mitra Creative’s team feels blessed and humbled by our win of the illustrious 2009 MarCom PLATINUM Award for our complete redesign of the Lizalde Design/RickyLizalde.com website for leading Fashion Lingerie designer — and Project Runway® Season 4 contestant — Ricky Lizalde. The MarCom PLATINUM Award is the highest distinction in the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals (AMCP) competition.

Our President, Karl Joseph Ufert, says: “Winning this award is a huge and truly unexpected honor for us. I attest our achievement to the insightful, masterful hand and eye of Mitra Creative’s Creative Director and Co-Founder, Vincent Wang, who designed the site, to our marvelous collaboration with Ricky Lizalde and to the gorgeous photos of Ricky’s collection (by San Diego-based photographer Alex Slattery) that Vincent used to create the site.”

*UPDATE: We’ve learned from the MarCom Awards Committee that there were 4,800 entries in the 2009 competition. Out of those entries, approximately 15% won Platinum Awards, and less than 2% of these for Web design/development projects.

Mitra Creative is proud to announce our win of a 2009 MarCom GOLD Award for the website that we produced for Deep River Technologies.

Deep River Technologies is a leading, North Carolina Piedmont Triad metropolitan area-based (Greensboro, NC), MicrosoftMicrosoft®-Managed and Certified partner with specific expertise in providing comprehensive Microsoft® Dynamics® NAV solutions to small, medium and large businesses. Mitra Creative — in concert with our strategic alliance partner, The Nurture Institute — produced a vibrant new brand and website for Deep River Technologies (formerly SoftBytes LLC), which was singled out by the MarCom Awards committee.

The MarCom Awards, administered and judged by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals (AMCP), is, according to their website: “an international competition for marketing and communication professionals involved in the concept, writing and design of marketing and communication programs and print, visual and audio materials. Entries come from corporate marketing and communication departments, advertising agencies, PR firms, design shops, production companies and freelancers.”

This is Mitra Creative’s second GOLD MarCom Award–we achieved the same distinction in 2007 for our work on the now multi-award-winning website for Derive Technologies. Our President, Karl Joseph Ufert is thrilled with the win and thanks his entire team for their wonderful efforts on the design and development of the Deep River Technologies site. “Way to go, team”, says Karl!

The Mitra Creative team has not been Blogging for a while. Several reasons:

1. Our President, Karl Joseph Ufert, lost his father in July 2009. This temporarily slowed Karl’s activities, speaking appearances and trend-watching.
2. We have been hard at work throughout the end of summer/beginning of fall on a number of important, but time-consuming projects–we will launch three new full-scale websites in the next several weeks for clients in the Technology (Microsoft® Partner/Solution Provider), Fashion/Media and Advertising spaces, and we just upgraded the WordPress platform for the Sutter Medical Center Castro Valley project Blogsite.
3. We have been developing a series of new offerings, including our Digital Video Production/Video Marketing and SEO/Social Media Consulting practices.
4. We are working on a number of collaborations/partnerships, including furthering our activities with the important marketing strategy firm, The Nurture Institute (creators of the Microsoft® Partner Essentials Marketing program).

We look forward to updating you on all of these exciting projects, events, business practices and alliances, as well as continuing to provide valuable information regarding the marketing, interactive, Web 2.0/3.0, digital video spaces and related topics.

On May 28, from 11am to 12:30pm EST, I will be giving a webinar for IAMCP Women in Leadership & Technology on the use of Web 2.0 and Social Media for IT Business. The webinar will be broadcast to a worldwide audience. Details appear below!

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AGENDA

Effective Marketing Strategies for a Down Economy – A Roundtable/Panel Discussion

Location:

February 19, 2009 at 8am at 1290 Ave of the Americas 6th Floor – the NYC Microsoft office.

Panel Participants:

Eric Rabinowitz – Nurture Institute
The Nurture Institute™ (www.nurtureinstitute.com) is the premier channel marketing and customer relationship marketing company specializing in small and mid-market clients. With plenty of proven direct marketing tools to share, your business can’t afford to miss out on our innovative customer relationship marketing solutions.

Karl Joseph Ufert – Mitra Creative
Mitra Creative (www.biztech.mitracreative.com | www.mitracreative.com) is a New York-based marketing communications and interactive design agency focused on providing solutions to IT business consultancies, VARs, software design and integration companies, and technology manufacturers and distributors. Led by Karl Ufert (formerly Sr. Director of Marketing for AMC Computer Corp.), and Creative Director, Vincent Wang, the company produces forward-thinking Websites and Web 2.0/3.0 and social media platforms, other interactive communications and digital video presentations—all leveraging decades of experience in bringing value to the IT Channel.

Tim Freestone & Dean Maire – enter.marketing
enter:marketing (www.entermarketing.com) is a managed marketing services company that supports the marketing initiatives of Value Added Resellers and Manufacturers in the Information Technology industry.  We execute unique, industry leading programs and approach demand generation as a process, rather than a project – a process that manages and cultivates opportunities from the stage of identifying interest to Return on Investment (ROI).

Howard M. Cohen – HMC Corporate Copywriting & Consulting
IT Channel veteran Howard M. Cohen (www.howardmcohen.com) brings his experience, his expertise, and his tremendous network of friends and resources to every project.  Compelling content is the key to sales & marketing success and Howard’s strong, persuasive writing style translates even the most technical concepts into readily readable copy that your business clients will understand and appreciate.  From white papers to case studies to proposals to web content and much more Howard will most effectively convey your message to your audience.

This roundtable/panel discussion will feature channel-dedicated marketing experts included Nurture Institute, Mitra Creative, HMC Corporate Copywriting & Consulting, and others.  We’ll talk about more effective ways to reach, penetrate, and win business from companies facing today’s economic climate.  Learn what IS working in the channel.

Skills Exchange:

Long overdue, this session offers all attendees the opportunity to tell everyone else about their special, unique, and well-differentiated services and how all of us can make money selling them to our customers.  Looking for new services to sell to your existing account base?  Here’s the place to find them.

Hoping that the many of you who were able to make our New Year Celebration had a great time I look forward to getting back to business with more topical, pertinent, timely, high-value content.  This meeting promises to be a great kickoff to what promises to be a challenging year!

PLEASE RSVP via Reply to Howard M. Cohen (hmc@howardmcohen.com) IMMEDIATELY so we get you on the building security list.  I look forward to seeing you there.

Howard M. Cohen
NYC IAMCP Chapter President
US IAMCP Communications Chair
Corporate & Commercial Copywriting
Web Content - Proposal Development
Business Development and Marketing
15 Spector Lane - Plainview NY 11803
516.965.6431
mailto: hmc@howardmcohen.com

Learn more about my writing at www.howardmcohen.com