Three of the Worthwhile team members recently spoke at a nonprofit event hosted on Wednesday, July 20th by DNA Creative Communications. The event was called “Web Fusion: Tracking and Training Your Visitors” and assisted dozens of attendees in optimizing their utilization of online tools to produce the best possible visitor experience. The [...]]]>

Three of the Worthwhile team members recently spoke at a nonprofit event hosted on Wednesday, July 20^th by DNA Creative Communications.

The event was called “Web Fusion: Tracking and Training Your Visitors” and assisted dozens of attendees in optimizing their utilization of online tools to produce the best possible visitor experience. The half-day workshop included discussion of topics such as web traffic, blogs, SEO optimization and more. Speakers covered their specific web topics for audience members whose expertise ranged from basic to advanced.

Worthwhile speakers included Dan Rundle, Chris Rackley and Will Gray. Dan was a keynote speaker and was interviewed on the question “Do You Have a Healthy Web Presence?” Chris and Will each gave breakout sessions. Will’s session was entitled “SEO 101,” and Chris’s was “Blogging that Matters.” Each of these topics gave our Worthwhile team members the opportunity to share their expertise and passion for the benefit of the community.

For more information on future DNA events like this, visit dnacc.com or call 864–235-0959 (extension 1).

As the Communications Intern for Worthwhile this summer, I have learned about everything from Information Architecture and SEO to press releases and customer service. As a part of my job, I recently had the opportunity to interview Emily Kosa and Meg Reid at DNA Creative Communications right here in Greenville to learn more about communications. [...]]]>

As the Communications Intern for Worthwhile this summer, I have learned about everything from Information Architecture and SEO to press releases and customer service. As a part of my job, I recently had the opportunity to interview Emily Kosa and Meg Reid at DNA Creative Communications right here in Greenville to learn more about communications. As usual, I can’t believe the coolness of my internship.

Emily is the Account Executive and Meg is the Account Coordinator for DNA. The two share both an office and clients. They work together to serve their customers in a wide variety of areas including social media, account services, branding, web hosting, public relations, e-newsletters, public education, and more.

Both women studied communications in college, and their minors included advertising and psychology.  They have extensive experience with media and public relations, so both bring a lot of knowledge to the table. I was amazed at the amount of smarts and ability each of them had individually. Since their range of services is so wide and they each have to talk to many different types of people every day (government workers, news anchors, web hosting companies, etc.), they both have to stay well-informed in a lot of different areas. They want their clients to know that they can call either of them and expect great, expert service.

They shared what they love about their jobs as well as their struggles. Interestingly, the two tied together. One of their greatest hardships is the intangibility of public relations and branding. It is often difficult to produce a concrete, immediate metric of success for clients. However, this struggle leads to what they love most about their job: the payoff of taking on a challenge. The patience they must have in gradually helping a client transform its campaigning methods eventually results in a satisfying, “before and after” effect on the customer. They love having a helpful impact on their clients.

I thoroughly enjoyed the interview; it was both informative and inspiring for me as a student interested in communications. The team members at Worthwhile look forward to staying in contact with DNA Creative Communications and seeing the amazing ways they will continue to influence the Greenville area.

Web for Good is pleased to announce our first client. After significant thought and deliberation, the Web for Good board has chosen A Child’s Haven for a pro bono project. A Child’s Haven is a Greenville based therapeutic and prevention center for developmentally delayed, abused, and neglected young children and their families. Their goal is [...]]]>

Web for Good is pleased to announce our first client.

After significant thought and deliberation, the Web for Good board has chosen A Child’s Haven for a pro bono project. A Child’s Haven is a Greenville based therapeutic and prevention center for developmentally delayed, abused, and neglected young children and their families. Their goal is to transform the lives of the entire family unit, so that they can proceed into the future, living healthy and productive lives. Here’s how we plan to help.

It is the desire of Web for Good to transform A Child’s Haven’s current website into a more interactive tool that helps create conversation between the organization and those who are part of the supporting relationships. We are ready for the challenge of using the Web to provide a tool for telling the story of A Child’s Haven, as well as making that story happen.

We want to say thank you to the twenty-four organizations who submitted applications for the inaugural Web for Good project. We trust that they and other worthy groups will choose to participate in future years. It is our desire that in years to come we will be able to support more than one organization through the foundation.

Congratulations to A Child’s Haven! We look forward to working with you.

What do 2 small children, 5 women, 5 men, 20+ trash bags, and a massive pile of debris have in common? You guessed it – HOG, err, Hands on Greenville that is. On April 30th some of the Worthwhile gang got together to form one of the 135 volunteer work teams that helped to clean [...]]]>

What do 2 small children, 5 women, 5 men, 20+ trash bags, and a massive pile of debris have in common? You guessed it – HOG, err, Hands on Greenville that is.

On April 30th some of the Worthwhile gang got together to form one of the 135 volunteer work teams that helped to clean up Greenville. We were 11 of the 6,817 volunteers that spread out all over Greenville. Our task — clean the yard of a Meals on Wheels customer.

Thanks to our fearless leader (Will), we met in a Bi-lo parking lot at 7:55am on a Saturday morning to get our mission briefing and then caravan to our volunteer site. Once we arrived we got busy raking leaves, mowing the yard, cleaning awnings, picking up sticks and debris, and making sure we turned the yard into “yard of the year.”

Here are just a few of the many lessons learned from that day:

1. Louisa will be late, but Chris Cloud will always be later.
2. Beth is superb with kids and adults alike – maybe there isn’t much of a difference between the two?
3. If I ever need my yard raked I will call upon Leslie and Nate…wow. Just because you code all day doesn’t mean you aren’t deft with a rake.

On a more serious note it was an awesome opportunity to work together as a team to help out a family in need. We worked hard, but we had a great time doing it!

Maybe you have some great volunteer stories or ways that Worthwhile can help out in the community? Let us know!

Our supervisors for the day.…

Special thanks to Amy Haynes for helping and taking the picture!

To see more pictures check out our Flickr feed here.

I have a couple of friends and organizations that I do a little work for to help them or their cause out. The reason I do it is not because I love extra work, or have some need to fill my free relax-time with nose-down computer tasks, it’s because they’re my friends and I believe [...]]]>

I have a couple of friends and organizations that I do a little work for to help them or their cause out. The reason I do it is not because I love extra work, or have some need to fill my free relax-time with nose-down computer tasks, it’s because they’re my friends and I believe in their cause. One such group is the Palmetto Peloton Project (www.p3ride.org). We do a lot of work for them here at Worthwhile, but in addition to that I maintain their yearly blog for their “Challenge to Conquer Cancer” relay ride from Greenville to Austin, TX (www.ridetoaustin.com). I also try to help them stay up to par with social media (although I dropped the twitter-ball this year. We’ll get better about it!) and generally I toot the P3 horn whenever the topic of cancer comes up. This group will have donated close to three quarters of a million dollars to local cancer research and the LiveStrong Foundation when this year’s events come to a close. Not only is this completely phenomenal, my wife has been a part of this group for the past three years and is a cancer survivor. I enjoy helping them out.

Another friend of mine holds a yearly convention in Asheville called the Southern Energy and Environment Expo (www.seeexpo.com). For the past ten years my friend Ned has been bringing people together from all around the alternative energy and sustainable living worlds. They showcase windmills, earth-friendly buildings, cars, farming and hundreds of other environmentally friendly products and services. Good stuff for us all to learn about and use when we can!

So, back to why I do this stuff… I don’t get paid for all of it, and what I do get paid for I try to charge as little as possible. I care about these people and what they are doing. I am not helping these guys for the money I might make on the side. If it were up to me I’d do it all for a tee-shirt, a jersey, or a hat. The swag always lasts much longer than the cash anyway, plus I am a walking (or pedaling) advertisement for the cause whenever I wear it! Win-win situation! I come from a fine art background into the computer world, and for me it is pretty cut-and-dry what motivates me. For me there is a much simpler but far more grand payoff than cash — Appreciation.

What drives you? What is the big payoff for what you’re spending your efforts on? Do you have a passionate cause… and an extra tee-shirt? : )

Each year The Worthwhile Company presents The Worthwhile Company Young Innovator Award to a college student who exemplifies exceptional character and expertise in his work. The award citation states: “The Worthwhile Company Young Innovator Award — given by The Worthwhile Company, is presented to the senior graduating from the Computer Science Department who most exemplifies the [...]]]>

Each year The Worthwhile Company presents The Worthwhile Company Young Innovator Award to a college student who exemplifies exceptional character and expertise in his work.

The award citation states: “The Worthwhile Company Young Innovator Award — given by The Worthwhile Company, is presented to the senior graduating from the Computer Science Department who most exemplifies the life of Christ, through excellence in leadership, learning, and serving, while demonstrating effective technological, problem solving and communication skills.

The Worthwhile Company proudly presented this year’s award to Brandon Durkee. Brandon graduated from Bob Jones University in May with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science.

The Worthwhile Company is proud to be a supporting sponsor of the Greenville, South Carolina based Palmetto Orthopaedic Associates Cycling Team. Known in the Southeast simply as POA, the team has made a name for itself in two years and is poised for even greater success in 2010. Worthwhile captures this success by providing the team with a website that conveys the drive and teamwork with which POA races.]]>

The Worthwhile Company is proud to be a supporting sponsor of the Greenville, South Carolina based Palmetto Orthopaedic Associates Cycling Team. Known in the Southeast simply as POA, the team has made a name for itself in two years and is poised for even greater success in 2010. Worthwhile captures this success by providing the team with a website that conveys the drive and teamwork with which POA races.

The new site allows friends and fans to follow along with the team as they campaign in the 2010 cycling season. Users can learn more about the team members by visiting the roster page to read bios and see individual race results. The site also catalogs the team’s overall successes on the results page. 2010 promises to have a lot of data!

Team manager, Blair LaMarche, will be keeping everyone up-to-date with what is happening within the team at the site’s blog. The entire site is designed on the WordPress framework and this allows the team to easily keep not only the blog current, but the blogging process is used to maintain the entire website. Follow along with Blair (and other riders) as they record the events of the season.

On the events page you can see the races in which POA team members will be racing. However, POA Cycling is about more than just racing bicycles. The team also supports the cycling community by providing a series of races during the year including the St. Francis Sports Medicine Summer Series, the South Carolina Time Trial Championships, the South Carolina Road Racing Championship, and the Fall Extravaganza (now in it’s second year). Information about these events will be presented on the site in the Events section. Information about the team’s involvement in charity events will also be presented here.

The team knows all this takes support and that is why the sponsors receive exposure throughout the site — not only on each page, but in a unique sponsors’ section devoted to the various sponsors who help the team receive the very best equipment and support. Sponsors now get exposure on the website, as well as the team’s uniforms, printed materials, and through various social media outlets.

The visually appealing site also provides a glimpse at the action throughout the year as users are able to view photos from the various events. Once again Worthwhile makes it easy for the team to manage this section by integrating Facebook galleries into the WordPress framework. More social media integration will come as The Worthwhile Company team continues to enhance the POACycling.com experience.

Racing my bike has been a learning situation and I have been amazed at how often lessons learned on the bike translate to real life -- especially a competitive business environment. One such instance stood out to me in a recent race. It exposed for me a weakness on the bike that I also realized is something I need to overcome in my business life.]]>

It was exciting when two parts of my life came together. This year The Worthwhile Company is helping sponsor the Piedmont Orthopaedic Association Cycling Team — POA Cycling for short. The team has gotten off to a solid start and I’m glad to be both sponsor and racer.

For me it has been a learning situation and I have been amazed at how often lessons learned on the bike translate to real life — especially a competitive business environment. One such instance stood out to me in a recent race. It exposed for me a weakness on the bike that I also realized is something I need to overcome in my business life.

Cycling is a team sport. However, only one team member crosses the line as the winner. During a race each team member must make multiple decisions. Often, he must do so without collaboration with his mates. Those individual decisions affect the entire team.

This demands a level of trust and commitment. It allows the leader of the team for that day to focus on the one task — winning. He knows that his teammates are working to make sure he is kept in the best position. He knows they will be willing to turn themselves inside out in order to bring back a threat. There is an incredible bond in a team with the right chemistry.

Then the time comes for the rider for whom the team worked so hard to make his move. During a recent race, that was the position I found myself in with a kilometer to go. My team had me set up perfectly. I moved up with 500 meters to go and was in the fourth position. I was confident that I could take the win — there was really only one threat and he was somewhere behind me.

At 200 meters I made a mistake. I took my mind off of the goal in front of me and started thinking about the threat behind me. I knew he was strong and I reasoned that if I went too early, he would be able to ride in my draft to the final meters and then swing around me with the momentum to win.

I settled in on the front waiting. My thought was that as he came up to me, I would counter and we would race to the finish with the fastest man winning. Unfortunately, that is not what happened.

The known threat never appeared. He had gotten boxed in during the shuffle of the field sprint. What happened was two riders on the same team split me on the right and left. They came from several riders deep so by the time they got to me their speed put me in a deficit. I could not accelerate quickly enough to counter. They finished side-by-side with me in third place right behind them.

My team had put me in the perfect position to win. It was time for me to deliver. However, instead of focusing on the goal, I got side tracked trying to analyze the competition.

In a field sprint with 200 meters to go, it is not time to think. It is time to act! When you see the finish line, you don’t hesitate. You DO. When you make that move, you GO! You go with 150%. You leave nothing in the tank.

At Worthwhile, we have a great team. It is a team built on trust and competency. The decisions made each day by the individual team members set the team up to win. However, there are those times when the goal is in sight and it is time to DO. Then you GO with 150%. Pausing to over analyze leaves you playing catchup.

Put trust in your team. Put trust in your own training. Put threats out of your mind. Put the focus on the goal. Put the pedal down and give 150%. It works in cycling and it works in life. It will make both you and your team winners.

Read more of Jonathan’s cycling thoughts at LowCadence.com.

Ian Wagner, Software Developer at The Worthwhile Company, competed in the 6th Annual Mercer University Spring Programming Competition on February 27, 2010. Ian’s team took second place out of the 27 teams in the programming competition. Georgia Tech, Mercer, and Wofford were among the schools in attendance. Teams had 5 hours to build computer software [...]]]>

Ian Wagner, Software Developer at The Worthwhile Company, competed in the 6th Annual Mercer University Spring Programming Competition on February 27, 2010.

Ian’s team took second place out of the 27 teams in the programming competition. Georgia Tech, Mercer, and Wofford were among the schools in attendance.

Teams had 5 hours to build computer software in order to solve 11 complex problems.

Congratulations to Ian and his Bob Jones University team!

I wanted to dedicate my blog post today to Mission For Haiti and the Haitian people who are struggling to even survive as we speak. Mission For Haiti is a Worthwhile client, and we are privileged to work with such wonderful people. There are many things to say concerning MFH, the earthquake, and the current [...]]]>

I wanted to dedicate my blog post today to Mission For Haiti and the Haitian people who are struggling to even survive as we speak.

Mission For Haiti is a Worthwhile client, and we are privileged to work with such wonderful people.

There are many things to say concerning MFH, the earthquake, and the current crisis in Haiti. Whether through TV, print media, or the internet, I’m sure you’re staying fairly current with what’s going on.

I want to remind us all that, though the earthquake happened almost a week ago, the conditions day-by-day for many people are getting worse, not better, with water, food, and fuel diminishing and more bodies being discovered.

While many U.S. and worldwide organizations have tried to mobilize units to aid Haiti during this time, Mission For Haiti is, in essence, on the ground in Haiti already. In fact, they have been for a long while now, well before the earthquake hit. They support Hosanna Baptist Church in Jacmel, Haiti, a city about a half-an-hour from Port Au Prince.

If you’ve been considering donating money to a worthy organization, I couldn’t more highly recommend Mission For Haiti. Currently, the Hosanna church building is being utilized to care for those who are in need. 100% of the monies donated to MFH are going directly to helping the Haitian people through Hosanna, where relationships have already been established. Who better to aid the Haitian people than those who have been there for a quarter century or longer!

Donate to Mission For Haiti