1. Alexandria, VA
2. Cambridge, MA
3. Minneapolis, MN
4. Arlington, VA
5. Seattle, WA
6. St. Louis, MO
7. Austin, TX
8. Bellevue, WA
9. Washington, DC
10. Pittsburgh, PA

I’m proud to say I’ve been to all of these places. Ok just the airport in Minneapolis. In any event I would like to take credit for Pittsburgh top-ten since we opened up the “east coast branch” but of course I can’t.

Not really much here as far as how one could capitalize on this strategically, but sure fun to try and find your city and to gloat to your friends about how you’ve had an address in two of the top ten (Alexandria and Washington, D.C.) and live and work in the metro region of another two in the top ten (Pittsburgh and Seattle).

As you may have guest, Jim and I have decided the show has run its course. When we get time we’ll record a fairwell.

I am convinced that agility will be the hallmark of future successful nonprofits.

In five years, successful ministries will look like the Dutch soccer teams of the 1970’s, playing Total Football to the delight of their constituents and the benefit of human-kind.

A programming note, from here on out when you see football, I’m talking about the sport the rest of the world calls football, what we American’s call soccer.

Total Football is a concept created by Rinus Michels and first really put into practice by the Dutch Ajax team in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.

Generally in football you have a particular formation, such as the 4-4-2 the U.S.  team often plays. That is four defenders, four midfielders and two attackers (football formations always start at the back).

The goal is to keep this “shape” throughout the game. Teams often get into trouble when they loose their shape and holes open up.

In Total Football there is a starting formation (4-2-4), but players swap roles on the fly as the game progresses.


It’s easier to understand if you watch the first 20 seconds or so of this video (excuse the cheesy music).

Right about 18 seconds you can count all ten Dutch players in the frame. This is a big no-no in general, but was part of the Total Football philosophy.

This system requires each player to constantly access the current state of the game and the space around them to flow to where the team needs him. It creates huge match-up problems for defenders and leads to an improvisational type of play that is hard to coach against.

As you would expect people who are better attackers than defenders play that role more often. And of course the goalie stayed in goal, that role never got swapped around. To be sure this took a special group of players and when Ajax traded their star player away they had trouble replicating their early success.

A nonprofit will always have folks who are stronger in some aspects than others.

And will always have team members who’s role shouldn’t be shared (CFO comes to mind).

The more a nonprofit’s employees look up from their particular task and take a larger view to understand what is needed right now to be successful the more successful you will be.

By itself this is nothing but blue-sky solutioneering, I have a few specific ideas I’ll be publishing here over the next few days, so stay tuned.

I’m super proud of the result and even though I’m the only one writing this post, there was a much bigger team behind the site. I won’t mention names, because I’ll leave someone out. But you know who you are THANK YOU!

I’m especially proud of the team at OURM. We primarily worked with Amanda and Laurie Fewless — the only mother daughter advancement tag team I know about.

Before this project I would always say that no client had ever gotten all of their content in on time. The folks at OURM not only got their content in on time, but early! They were, as always, a pleasure to work with and gracious hosts when I went down to train them on the website. Oh, Laurie and Amanda if the hotel asks about the bath robes … you know nothing.

Consider the rest of this post the “directors commentary” on the website, an inside look at the brilliant twisted blessed minds that brought you the new OURM.org.

First let’s look at the homepage.

Before	After

You can see the new version is more compact so you can see more of the content without scrolling. We also wanted to focus in on one featured story, one easy place to interact.

The neat trick on the homepage is the cardboard texture that overlays the image isn’t part of the image, so OURM can update the main feature image easily.

Next, let’s look at the One Homeless Night homepage.

Before	After

The One Homeless Night site was previously managed outside OURM’s website making it difficult to update. The separate website could also cause some brand confusion, since One Homeless Night is an outreach of the Mission, not a separate organization or program.

The CMS Platform we are using is flexible enough to allow for particular sections of the site to have a different look, so we were able to brand the One Homeless Night section while keeping it in the overall look and feel.

Speaking of platforms we are using the MonkCMS from Monk Development. We are technology agnostic at Masterworks, recommending the best solution for each ministry.

In Monk, we’ve found a partner with a CMS that fit just right for OURM. They did a great job supporting us as we developed the site on their platform and OURM can depend on them to provide upgrades to and support for the platform for years to come.

Of course we also added some new things to the OURM site, I’d like to highlight two of them.

The first is their “Virtual Tour” page which lets you go through a set of images that introduce you to the people and places that are part of OURM.

OURM supplied the photos, but we were able to use Monk’s built in Flash galleries to display the images in a way that will make it easy to update and add images to the tour.

The second is the navigation, if you hover over one of the main navigation items you get a drop down, but not just any drop down. Paul Moment, our web designer, has started calling these rich drop downs.

Until Paul designed these, I was 100 percent against drop downs. I felt like they were a crutch used to cover up bad information architecture.

On OURM’s site, they are a vital part of telling the story. Each drop down has a hand selected image that powerfully communicates what that section is all about.

Well that’s enough of a preview I think, if you want to see more of the site you can head on over to www.ourm.org.

If you are interested in learning more about the process of going from “before to after”, drop me an email at jsmith@masterworks.com.

We begin a series on Abita beers with Satsuma Harvest Wit. We’ll be doing four Abita beers over the next four weeks.

News

This is an update from a story we brought you several weeks ago about a beer from Michigan. Drinks Americas Holdings, Ltd announced that on July 4th it started brewing and filling kegs for the launch of Kid Rock’s “AMERICAN BADASS BEER COMPANY”. Kid Rock plans to launch kegs of his new AMERICAN BADASS BEER American Style Lager at Detroit’s Comerica Park in time for concert dates July 17th and 18th. AMERICAN BADASS BEER will be available at kiosks within the park during the concerts.

After these shows, a newly formed sales team will begin meeting with and selecting distributors and filling orders in the Michigan market. J. Patrick Kenny, CEO of Drinks Americas, said, “ We will launch AMERICAN BADASS BEER in Michigan starting with Comerica Park and then rolling out to the balance of the Michigan market.

Satsuma Harvest Wit

• Abita is located north of New Orleans, in the town of Abita Springs, Louisanna.
• Abitia first began brewing beer in 1986. That year, the company produced 1,500 barrels of beer. Today, they brew over 80,000 barrels of beer annually and 5,000 barrels of root beer annually, which puts that in the larger craft beer area.
• In fact, they are the 31st largest brewery in the country right now and the 17th largest craft brewer.
• We are going to get into more of the history over the next few weeks, but let’s talk about this weeks beer first.
• It weighs in at 5.1% abv and is made with the satsuma fruit.
• The satsuma fruit is a citrus fruit, something along the line of an organe or a tangerine.
• Pour – Almost Coors lite in color. A little bit of haze, but really not much to speak of. The head is a crisp white, that does seem to stick around for at least a few seconds.
• Smell – Citrusy, but not bitter citrusy, almost organe or tangerine. That would be the Satsuma fruit I suppose. Some spices, corriander, but very light.
• Taste – First taste I get is of bitter orange rind. A little bit of the lighter wheat comes through as well. Mouthfeel is medium with a tone of carbonation.
• Overall, it is an intersting beer. I can see this being a very good quenching beer, and after tasting this I would like to actually like to try the Satsuma fruit.

Next Week

OK, next week will be another Abita, although to be honest I am not sure which one.

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The poster-child for donations on Facebook is the Causes application. Last week, the Causes folks posted that the application has passed $10 million in fundraising in two years. For this they should be applauded.

Looking closely at the numbers, my advice to ministries still stands: invest in Facebook, but realize that if your primary goal is to raise money, Facebook isn’t the best tool.

Two important pieces of data that aren’t reported directly in the numbers they released help to illustrate this point.

Twenty-six thousand Causes have received donations. An impressive number to be sure, but there are 252,476 Causes on Facebook. That means that 90 percent of the Causes on Facebook have not received a single donation.

So it is obvious you need to do more than hang up your virtual shingle and watch the donations pour in.

So let’s look at some causes that Causes itself is proud of.

The Cause with the most donations is The Nature Conservancy with just over $300,000 donated. They also have a full-time person dedicated to social media, no small reason why they are performing so well.

It is also instructive to look at the ratio of revenue to members. The Nature Conservancy has 123,689 members as of the writing of this post. That means a donation of $2.43 per member.

And that number is on the top end. If you look at the Causes that are cited as success stories, you see a bleaker picture:

While these groups represent a very small percentage of the Causes on Facebook, they do show a pattern: more members doesn’t necessarily mean more money. In fact, if anything more members means fewer donations

These numbers aren’t an indictment of the Causes strategy for any of these groups. Many could be targeting membership as a goal and in that case may be very successful.

What this analysis does show, is that fundraising on Facebook today is not as effective as a number of other online channels.

The key part of that last sentence is “today.” The biggest thing that stuck out to me in the announcement is that $5 million has come in 2009. That is some acceleration in giving worth taking note of.

In other words, Causes has raised as much in 6 months as it did in the previous 18 months. If there was a major natural disaster in this time frame or it was the traditional giving season, you could attribute other factors. But without anything else the only logical explanation is that the pace of giving on Facebook is picking up.

Dave Raley’s discussion in his post Facebook is OLD also supports this from a demographics standpoint.

If we were stockbrokers, it appears as if Facebook is going from a “hold” to a “buy.”

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Did you hear Jake mention he has a Tour de France podcast? Want to hear more audio gold from the co-creator of Your Next Beer, check out the Tour de France for Beginners podcast.

News

This weeks news is really less news and more of a shameless plug for a Chicago related beer event.The third annual AleFest Chicag will be held on Saturday. More than 150 craft brews from some 50 domestic and foreign breweries will be poured at Soldier Field’s Stadium Green which is the grassy plaza outside the lake side of the stadium. Represented will be such Chicago-area breweries and brewpubs as Flossmoor Station, Goose Island, Metropolitan, Piece, Three Floyds and Two Brothers. Attendees will be able to taste brews and quiz brewers or brewery reps about how their favorite beers are made.

Unibroue La Fin Du Monde

• This weeks beer, La Fin Du Monde, weighs in at 9.0% abv and is classified as a Belgian Trippel.
• For those of you who don’t remember, we did talk about trippels in our Belgian series. However, as a brief refresher:
• The name “Tripel” actually stems from part of the brewing process, in which brewers use up to three times the amount of malt than a standard Trappist “Simple.”
• Traditionally, Tripels are bright yellow to gold in color, the head should be big, dense and creamy. Aroma and flavor runs along complex, spicy phenolic, powdery yeast, fruity/estery with a sweet finish.
• Sweetness comes from both the pale malts and the higher alcohol. Bitterness is up there for a beer with such a light body for its strength, but at times is barely perceived amongst the even balance of malts and hops. The lighter body comes from the use of Belgian candy sugar (up to 25% sucrose), which not only lightens the body, but also adds complex alcoholic aromas and flavors. Small amounts of spices are sometimes added as well.
• La Fin Du Monde roughly translates to the end of the world, and was brewed to honor the great explorers, who believed they had reached the end of the world when they discovered America.
• First brewed in February of 1994 after 18 months of research, the website describes it as having champagne-like effervescence, it has a vigorous presence in the mouth, which accentuates its strong personality. Slightly tart, with the balanced flavors of wild spices, malt and hops, it belongs to the class of great Trappist beers and, in this regard, is a North American first. At meals, it can replace white or red wines and enhances the flavor of most dishes.

Next Week

Well that’s all for the Unibroue beers. Next week I think we are going to start another series based on a brewery, but I am not sure which one yet, so tune in a find out.

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View at audioboo.fm

View at audioboo.fm

View at audioboo.fm

News

In order to promote responsible drinking this July 4th, we bring a story of true drunken stupidity to you this week so you can know what not to do. According to the Associated Press, a South Milwaukee man was accused of driving drunk last week after trying to use a golf cart to drive home nearly 40 miles away from the golf course where he had been drinking beer. The man told police that his relatives had left him behind at the golf club. I have wanted to leave drunk people at the golf course from time to time. So he got in a golf cart and headed home down Highway 167. When the sheriff caught up with him, the man said he had drunk about 10 beers, but did not consider himself intoxicated. I think that if you think for some reason that driving a golf cart home, clearly, you are either retarded or drunk…or both. So don’t do that this weekend.

In a side note a recommendation from a listener, Tasting Beer: An Insider’s Guide to the World’s Greatest Drink a book by Randy Mosher

Unibroue Maudite

• Back this week to Unibroue. We are halfway through the series and to be bevery honest, there isn’t alot more that we can say about the brewery.
• As a brief review, Unibroue is a Candaian brewery located in Quebec, Canada. The brewry is currently owned by Sapporo a Japanesse company.
• In November 1992 Maudite which is translated to “the damned one, was the first strong beer to be distributed in Quebec grocery stores.
• It weighs in at 8% abv and is classifed on the website as a Strong Red Ale, refermented in the bottle, which probably just means bottle conditioned.
• Because of the high alcohol content on this one, it can be cellared and the website says that it has a 5 year life span or more.
• Maudite has a typically Quebecois name that is reminiscent of the legend of the Chasse-Galerie (the legend of the Flying Canoe). Legend has it that a group of lumberjacks struck a deal with the devil to fly home in their canoes, guided by Satan himself, to make it home in time for Christmas. This is the scene that is depicted on the label as well.

Next Week

One more week, and one more Unibroue beer. We are going to be looking at La Fin Du Monde, which I believes translates into the end of the world. So tune in and enjoy.

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And for those fair readers who thought I was buried somewhere between New Castle and Poulsbo, rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated, more on that at the bottom of the post.

This statistic comes from a comScore report, but was brought to my attention by The Agitator.

Additionally that comScore report found that the average time people are watching videos is 3-5 minutes, not the 1  1/2-  to 2-minute range we advise the ministries we work with.

But before you fire up the camera for that long-form video, remember averages are often skewed by large numbers at either end of the spectrum. In other words a few folks watching full-length movies, say on Hulu.com, could skew that number up fairly easily.

Bottom line, video engages people exponentially longer than a web page alone. We used to say you had eight seconds to capture a user with a web page, now I usually say its down to two or three seconds. Which means that people, on average, will engage with a video for 80 times longer then they do with a web page alone.

So if three-quarters of the folks on the internet watch video and they engage with it nearly two orders of magnitude longer than just a web page – say it with me now – you need to be doing online video.

Personal Note: I know I haven’t been writing as often, but things are busy both here at Masterworks and at home. Family and work come first, so posting to the blog comes fourth. Second is a two-way tie between bicycling and sitting in airports. Good news, we’ve been working on some exciting stuff that we’ll announce in these pages soon!

News

Well, for the second week in a row we have a Pennsylvannia story. This one is from my home town of Pittsburgh, where the Pittsburgh Brewery will no longer be producing Iron City. All production will be moved to the old Latrobe brewery, owned by City Brewing. The brewery will go dark on June 22nd for the first time in 150 years. The brewery president said that the old Pittsburgh brewery cost too much to upgrade and and was not sustainable in the current economic climate.

Unibroue Chambly Noire

• Alright, well we are back for a second week at Unibroue, which we found out last week was a Canadian brewer that makes some rather potent beer.
• We talked a little bit about the brewery last week, but let’s go back into the background some more.
• In 1990, the founders of Unibroue, André Dion and Serge Racine obtained 75% interest in La Brasserie Massawippi Inc., a struggling brewery in Lennoxville, Quebec.
• At the end of 1991 the remaining shares of Massawippi were acquired and transferred to Unibroue Inc. Massawippi changed its name to Brasserie Broubec Inc. and amalgamated with Unibroue in 1993 to form the corporation that was around before it was bought by Sleeman.
• In spring 1992, Blanche de Chambly was unveiled after consultation with a Belgian brewer. La Maudite debuted in November of the same year, and Unibroue began to invade the palates of Quebecers. It would be another 18 months of research until their next beer, La Fin du Monde was ready for the market in February 1994.
• Another year passed, and Raftman debuted in March of 1995, followed by La Gaillarde in August. By now Unibroue was gaining respect and was exporting: even slow learning LCBO permanently stocked Maudite and Blanche de Chambly in the fall of 1995. Unibroue’s first seasonal, Quelque Chose, was unveiled in January 1996, and L’Eau Bénite debuted in June 1996.
• More on the history next week, but as for now, how about the beer for this week, Unibroue Chambly Noire.
• Chambly Noire weighs in at 6.2% abv, which is a step above last week, and is classified as a Belgian Dark Ale.
• Belgian Dark Ale’s are traditionally all over the board, but are darker in color and can contain some spiceness, as you can expect with some typical Belgians.

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As promised our Unibroue series begins with a small little thing Ephemere.

News

This weeks story comes from Harrisburg, the state capital, where the Pennsylvania Supreme Court says stores and restaurants with licenses allowing beer to be consumed on the premises cannot limit sales to take out. The court ruled 5-1 Monday against a Sheetz convenience store in Altoona, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported. Louis Sheetz, the chain’s executive vice president for marketing, said he was surprised by the ruling and does not understand the court’s reasoning. “We are certainly not the first, and we certainly won’t be the last restaurant to sell six-packs,” he said. “The only possible difference is that they serve beer on the premises, and we do not.” Giant Eagle, a chain that has cafe areas inside its stores, has applied for beer licenses for seven stores in western Pennsylvania. Dick Roberts, Giant Eagle spokesman, said the chain is studying the court ruling, because it had planned to sell beer only for off-premises drinking.

Unibroue Ephemere Ale

• Well finally, no more Irish beers for a while. This week we turn our sites on a Canadian beer company, Unibroue, and the first in a series of beer that we are going to cover from that brewery.
• This was actually a listener suggested series from Ben in Chicago, so thanks Ben for the idea and feel free to keep them coming to everyone else as well.
• Unibroue is a brewery located in Chambly, Quebec and was founded by Quebec native Andre Dion in 1993.
• As with most breweries these days, it has been bought several times, first by Sleeman Brothers, Ltd in 2004 and then later by the Japaneses brewer Sapporo in 2006.
• Now I don’t want to cover too much of this company in the first week because quite frankly I am already a little worried about running out of material in the coming weeks, so lets focus some on the beer for the evening.
• Tonight’s beer, Ephemere, weighs in at 5.5% abv, and I believe is the lowest alcohol beer that Unibroue makes. There are a lot of high octane products from the brewery.
• It has been brewed since 2002 and is described as a while ale brewed with apple must on the website and ale brewed with apple juice, coriander, and curacao on the label.
• I had this one out of a 750 ml bottle that was corked and capped. The bottle claims that it is a bottle conditioned beer, and with the cork popping, that would seem to be true.
• The pour was light in color, very much like a wheat beer and very hazy, again like a wheat beer. It also had a nice big white fluffy head that seemed to go away rather quickly.
• The smell on this one was green apple, almost like a jolly rancher green apple it was that potent. It got me wondering if this was going to taste artificial.
• The flavor is not as potent as the smell may suggest, with a bit of bitterness up front and the apple aftertaste.
• There was a little bit of sourness here, but really not too much. Overall it was a pretty good beer for summertime. It really wasn’t too heavy and the apple gave it just enough to make it taste different than a wheat beer.

Next Week

Next week we are going to continue our Unibroue series with Chambly Noire, a dark Belgian beer.

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The second, and last, beer in our Irish Beer in Ireland series we look at Kilkeny Irish Cream Ale. Sorry about my audio quality, I forgot to turn my actual microphone.

News

Well talk about topical, we not only have a news story for you tonight, but it is a news story about Ireland. The oldest brewery in Ireland closed on May 30th. The Beamish and Crawford brewery was opened in Cork, a southern county in Ireland, around 1792. Production of Beamish is being transferred to the Heineken Lady’s Well brewery in Cork following a decision made last year. This means that Beamish and Murphy’s, once bitter rivals, will now be housed under the same roof. Heineken Ireland meanwhile has presented the Beamish archives – probably one of the most complete brewing archives in Ireland or Britain – to the Cork city archives. Beamish, as you may remember, was an Irish Stout that we covered back in our first Irish series and I actually like it better than Guiness.

Kilkenny Irish Cream Ale

• Tonights beer is Kilkenny Irish Cream Ale, named after a town located in the middle of the country, Kilkenny.
• A little bit about the background of this beer. Well, guess what, it is made by Diageo, the giant beverage company that also makes Guiness, Harp, and Smithwicks.
• We have talked long and hard about Diageo, so I am not really going to say much about the company.
• The beer is actually produced in Kilkenny in the same brewery that produces Smithwicks.
• The St. Francis Abbey Brewery occupies over 25 acres in the heart of Kilkenny City. The brewery has been part of local life for over 290 years and it is here that Smithwick’s Ale was first brewed in 1710.
• To give you a feeling of the size of the brewery, Budwieser is also produced there for the Irish domestic market.
• Tonights beer weighs in at 4.3% abv and is not available in the US. It is available over most of Europe and even Canada, but not here. Also, there are some rumors that the beer may start to be imported here in the future, so just keep your eyes open.
• Kilkenny is first a formost a nitro beer, alot like Guiness. This gives it a nice creamy mouthfeel and large head.
• The taste is rather well balanced, with some nice malty flavor and just a bit of bitterness from the hops. This is really kind of like Smithwicks, just a little bit better mouthfeel.
• Overall, I would give this one a try if you can get it.

Next Week

Well, that is just about it for the Irish beers, being that this is the second Irish beer series that we have done within the last 4 months. Next week a new series, one completely focused on Unibroue. So tune in.

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Jim’s back from Ireland and we begin to take on some of the beers he sampled over there, starting with Guinness.

News

A press release from MillerCoors today is announcing that they are recalling one of their products. MillerCoors has recalled a batch of Coors Light in the Southeastern United States after taste tests at the company’s Georgia brewery found the beer to be subpar. Yeah, go ahead, make your jokes here about Coors Light not really having any taste anyway. MillerCoors began pulling the beer from its distribution system and from retailers. “We sampled it and realized it wasn’t up to standards,” said Pete Marino, a spokesman for MillerCoors. He didn’t immediately know how much beer was recalled, or if the recall had been completed. But the batch involved only Coors Light brewed at the firm’s Albany, Ga., brewery.

St. James Gate Brewery, Dublin

• Before we go into Guinness, let me tell you a little bit about the experience that was the St. James Gate Brewery.
• While the old brewery building is no longer actually used as a production brewery, Diageo Guinness’s parent company, has done a fantastic job turning it into a self guided museum.
• One of the first things that you see when you walk in is the famous 9,000 year lease that Arthur Guinness signed in 1759 for 45 lbs per year. The lease is situated at the base of what is supposed to be a giant pint glass of Guiness, and by giant I mean 5 or 6 stories high.
• The museum takes you through the production of Guinness, and beer in general in a rather detailed and interactive experience.
• Once you get through the production levels, there are several exhibits that show you about Guinness advertising over the years and even a place where you can pour your own. Because pouring Guinness correctly is half of a good Guinness.
• At the top of the tour, and top of the building, is the Gravity Bar, where your ticket can be redeemed for one free pint of Guinness.
• Now, I am a little fuzzy on the vital stats of Guinness overseas, so I will say that is weighs in at 5.0% abv which may be a little lower than the US version.
• This beer in Ireland I thought was actually much better than Guinness in the US, and I enjoy a good Guinness in the US. It seemed to be a little bit more full bodied, almost a little bit thicker than its US cousin. It also had a slightly more bitter flavor from what I would guess is the increase in roasted malt.
• One thing that may be influence the taste is the water. Yes, brewers all run their water through filtration systems, but you can’t always get everything out.
• As our cab drive said while we were there, “You could wash your car with the stuff in America, the Guiness in Ireland is much better” and I kind of half to agree.

Next Week

Next week we will be keeping with the Ireland theme and talking about Kilkenny Irish Cream Ale, yet another beer that I had a chance to have in Ireland.

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Another bit of “filler” this week, but tastey, tastey filler. This week we look PENNdemonium.

News

Another in a long line of stupid beer related crimes tonight’s. Authorities are investigating a chainsaw attack. Leflore County Sheriff Bruce Curnutt says a group of men walked to a house in Monroe and said their car was out of gas. The residents drove them to their car but say they noticed a pack of beer was missing from the good Samaritan’s vehicle. A fight broke out and the officials say a man with the group that ran out of gas grabbed a chainsaw and cut another man’s arm.

PENNdemonium

• Penn Brewery was founded in 1986 by Tom and Marybeth Pastorius, however they had to contract out their brewing at first because of a PA law that stated that you weren’t allowed to be a microbrewery or brew-pub.
• Tom Pastorius, with technical and financial assistance from the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, began restoring the former Eberhardt and Ober Brewery located at 800 Vinial Street in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. Three of the original E & O brewery buildings remain, the stock house (c. 1880-84), and office building standing on a side cut into the rock of Troy Hill. Pastorius hired German Brew-master Alex Deml, who oversaw construction of the 20,000 barrel-a-year capacity brewing facility, which included custom built and authentic German imported micro-brewery equipment.
• The brewery and restaurant was scheduled to go out of business as of Feb 2009, but at the last minute a 5 year lease was signed, so I guess they are still there.
• Tonight’s beer, Penndemonium is a maibock beer, a springtime beer that appears to be a lighter bock beer but is pretty strong with the alcohol content. This one weighs in at 10% abv.
• This beer poured a lighter color than other maibocks, but the lack of head is in keeping with the style.
• This beer is unfiltered which means some yeasty goodness in the bottom of you’re glass
• Taste is a bit thin, almost light lager like, which is not good for this style.
• A bit malty but hardly any hops which is wrong for this style. Generally Maibocks are hopper than other bocks.
• The beer hides the alcohol taste very well, but that’s about the only thing it does well

Next Week

Next week we are going to go back to Ireland for beer, but with a little twist. Jim is actually going to Ireland and is going to taste some beers that are actually in Ireland.

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Another departure for YNB, this week we look at a Brew Pub Hofbrauhaus Pittsburgh. Jim and I are both traveling a lot so we are doing things a bit differently this week.

News

Well, this past weekend, for those of you who didn’t know, was the second race of the triple crown, the Preakness. This years attendance at the Preakness, which was won by a filly Rachel Alexandra, was down dramatically due to a ban on outside beer. The reason for the ban was because, shocklingly, drunk people can be rowdy and they decided that was enough of that. Just another reason to drink in moderation, just don’t give people a reason to take the beer away.

Hofbrauhaus Pittsburgh

• There are three Hofbrauhauses in the United States, one in Pittsburgh, one in Las Vegas, and one in Cincinnatti.
• Hofbrauhaus was founded in Germany and the first brewery was created in 1591.
• In 1828 a restaurant was added, so that the patrons could have both beer and food in one place.
• The Pittsburgh location is modeled after the old world style of the German locations, with four distinct areas. There is a open hall inside that is made up of benchs and a polka band, a quiet dinning room, an outdoor veranda, and an outdoor beer garden. The design includes lots of exposed wood beams and general German looks.
• The food is distinctly German, including various sausages and wursts, saukrauts, and schnitzels. I had a wurst platter that included three different types of wurst.
• Now, how about the beer. Well, they have four standards and one seasonal. The standards are all brewed on premise, while the seasonal may be brought in from Germany. The standards are a light lager, a standard lager, a Weizen, and a dunkel. The seasonals rotate by month.
• I had the dunkel beer, which is a dark lager and weighs in at 5.5% abv.
• The taste was distinctly maltly, with just a little bit of bitterness but a very easy drinker. And that is a good thing because the beers come in two sizes, half liter or liter. With those sizes, you really can’t have too heavy of a beer.
• Overall, I really enjoyed the experience. Not only was the beer and food excellent, but the atmosphere was fantastic as well. I strongly suggest going to one of them in the US if you are around one.

Next Week

Next week we will be doing a beer that both Jake and Jim have tried, it is Penndimonium from Penn Brewing Company in Pittsburgh.

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“Masterworks has greatly impressed us with their rich and deeply accurate insight into our organization.  While assisting us in the refinement of our core constituent engagement strategies, they have helped us recognize our own organizational strengths, provided resources which have encouraged us to avoid unnecessary expenditures, identified opportunities to improve existing processes, and provided creativity in defining specific points of execution.”

“Masterworks sets a new standard for client service organizations in their own right.  Simply, they have deeply encouraged us to consider horizons we’d not considered before, not only because of their creativity, but also because of their clear single-purpose heartbeat for the Kingdom we now serve together.”

“Masterworks is so much more than a marketing agency, they are a true ministry partner! Their Kingdom focus allows them to come along side their clients to serve in ways that help clarify mission, expand vision and build effectiveness into systems and programs.

Masterworks’ strategic consulting services have inspired our ministry team and helped to deepen the impact of the Josh McDowell Ministry during challenging economic times. We are grateful for their passion and partnership in ministry.”

“Masterworks is giving us solid marketing strategy, both online and offline. It’s helping us remain strong in trying economic times. I also appreciate working with people who share a passion for our mission. Masterworks is truly a part of our team in every sense. We hired an agency, but we got a partner in ministry!”

In a blog post with the preview of that session, Holly Ross mentions a study by Jakob Nielson on nonprofit websites, usability and donations.

For those unfamiliar with Mr. Nielson, he is considered by some to be the web usability guru and by others to be highly overrated. Such is the life of an Internet celebrity.

The top-line take-away is that, for the most part the donation process wasn’t the issue. The issue was getting donors from the homepage to the place where they could donate and providing them with the information they needed in order to make that decision.

Specifically, how the donations will be used.

As always, clear, conscise writing wins the day here. People generally scan, not read, the web so making clear use of headings is the best way to direct people to the information they need.

We are in the process of a few website re-designs right now and hopefully in the next few months we’ll have some good examples to show, stay tuned!

Some of you may have seen this on Twitter and Facebook, but I figured I could make the “official” announcement here.

Essentially this allows you to add a “Click Here to Donate/Sign Up/Whatever” lower-third over your video. A “lower-third” is exactly what it sound like, a semi-transparent overlay of the lower 1/3 of  your video. Many online video sharing sites use this space for paid advertisements. You can see an example in the video referenced in the blog post.

This is a very good thing. Hosting video is a pain to set up and maintain. YouTube’s ease of use and social aspects have long made it a preferred solution. The only thing lacking was a clickable call to action actually in the video, now that’s gone.

This feature is new so the only real results are what we have from this one video. Charity: water was able to raise $10,000 in a single day on YouTube.  This number by itself sounds impressive. However, that video has 285,511 views or put another way charity: water got about $0.03 of revenue per view.

So while the new technology enables click-to-action, getting that many eyeballs is still the tough nut to crack. In this case YouTube featured this video on their homepage which is good for thousands if not tens of thousands of those views.

Will adding this to all your nonprofit’s videos create a significant ongoing revenue stream? Probably not. However, coupled with the right promotional strategy to drive people to your video it can provide an important way to move a constituents’ relationship from YouTube to your organization and from there cultivate that relationship for long-term value.

The always helpful Agitator strikes again.

In the post linked above, Tom talks about two studies. One showed people who touched a product were more likely to buy it and the other that a positive first time experience is strongly correlated to long term brand loyalty.

Tom, then goes on to ask what can nonprofits do to replicate the experience of touching a product.

One of the rescue mission’s we work with is already doing this.

Orlando Union Rescue Mission (OURM) hosts One Homeless Night where people are invited to sleep under an overpass for one night. I know that OURM isn’t the only one doing this, and if you know of others, feel free to link it up in the comments.

World Vision has World Vision Experience: AIDS which is a touring exhibit you walk through and get a better understanding of what its like to be a child in Africa.

I bring up these two examples because at first glance you might say, “We can’t make what we do something you can touch, its too personal/intense/complicated/unsafe” and you would be right.

However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t distill one piece of that experience into something that can be physically shared with others.

Just think about the experience of walking into a cathedral style church. A few weeks ago, my wife’s college roomate came to stay with us and when we sat down in church, she said to me, “It [the church] makes me feel small, but I guess that’s what it’s supposed to do.”

I think many would agree that God’s greatness is not something that can be neatly packaged, but church architecture has been providing an experience of that greatness for hundreds of years.

Does carrying two five gallon buckets of muddy water across a 1/2 mile course give you an understanding of what it’s like to live in a village where you have to walk ten times that far for water twice a day? Perhaps not, but I guarantee it helps you understand the importance of drilling clean water wells.

Does eating on a Food Stamps budget give you an understanding of what it’s like to live in poverty in the United States? Perhaps not, but I guarantee it gives you insight as to why many underprivileged people struggle with weight related health issues (hint: fat calories are cheap calories).

The key in both cases is letting go of a notion that we are somehow diminishing the people we serve by providing a small, imperfect window into their world.

When we choose not to take this risk we trade a small, imperfect window for no window at all; denying people the opportunity to expand their understanding and to be moved to action.

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When I posted that I was about to read/finished Outliers, I got a number of questions, so I thought I would post my thoughts.

After my first post an old friend, Andre mentioned something he called the “standard Gladwell caveat” when I asked what that was he replied:

Gladwell is a reporter, not a visionary. His books are starting points, not end points.

That had the unfortunate effect of framing my entire reading of the book. I say unfortunate, because I generally like to not put a frame around books I’m reading. However, after finishing this book and thinking about Blink, I have to agree with Andre.

Gladwell finds things that are out there and puts a story to them. Now to be sure the things he finds are things many of the rest of us, in some cases everybody else, has overlooked and that is the mark of a great reporter.

This book does a great job of dispelling the common wisdom of outliers. Specifically, that exceptional people are exceptional for some intrinsic reason that is special to just them. Instead, Gladwell argues that circumstance and consistent (not hard) work have much more to do with success than our mythologies would have us believe.

What the book is light on is prescription for how to maximize these favorable circumstances. With the one exception of Junior League Hockey in Canada. Since Joe is the only Canadian I know, this bit of advice is for him: have kids as close to January 1st as possible.

After I finished the book, Katharine asked if the book, “was worth reading.” From a content perspective, if you take the following on authority:

• When you are born has a lot to do with how successsful you are
• Where you are born has a lot to do with how sucessful you are
• You have to spend 10,000 hours at something in order to master it
• You only have to be “smart enough” past that point there are other skills that will determine success, even in very academic fields

That’s the short, short version of the book. The rest is evidence. However, I find Gladwell a very good writer. As someone who has to express myself for a living I find reading good and great writing is worth it regardless of the content.

That’s my longish answer to two shortish questions.

Think twitter is just for the kids? It can be a powerful way to deliver great donor experience.

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If you hang around here long enough you’ll see posts about Pew Internet and American Life studies. The project does some of the best primary research on internet use in the United States.

A recent study looked at how people in different generations use the different parts of the internet.

A few observations. Things that aren’t surprising:

• Younger people are over-represented on the internet
• Older people do less on the internet than younger people
• Email is still the killer app, but it is increasingly becoming something for “old people”

Things that were surprising:

• Less than 50 percent of every generation read blogs
• More than 70 percent of every generation makes travel reservations online
• 30-39 percent of every generation gets religious information online
• Less than 0-9 percent of every generation visits virtual worlds

So for those churches who built virtual buildings in Second Life, right ballpark, wrong bench.

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The Pew Internet and American Life project recently released a report detailing adult’s use of Social Networks. Hat tip to Read/Write Web for the heads up.

You can download the whole report at the link above, but here’s the important stuff:

• 35 percent of American adult internet users have a social network profile
• 75 percent of online adults 18-24 have a social network profile
• 50 percent of adults have a profile on MySpace
• 43 percent use social networks to “organize with other friends for an event, issue or cause”

You could interpret these numbers as more adults using social networks, however; I believe it has more to do with the fact that more people on social networks have become adults.

People who are eighteen this year were born in 1990, some people refer to them as “digital natives.” In other words they don’t know a world without a pervasive internet.

The fact that MySpace is still the dominant representative supports that theory. MySpace was the social networking site for a number of years when people in this age group were teens.

From a fundraising perspective, the percentage of older adults online is still relatively small. 30 percent of adults 35-44 and 19 percent of adults 45-54. These are the core donors of many nonprofits.

So if you are looking for funds now, social networks are probably not the best choice from a demographic standpoint.

However, if you are looking to engage the next and the next, next generation of donors – social networks are a safe bet.

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Most email broadcast software hides the marginal cost of sending email.

In other words, most organizations consider email a fixed cost, “we pay $xx for email whether we send 1 or 100,000.” This can lead to bad email behavior.

Direct mail has very clear marginal costs to send a piece of mail. Many look at the lack of marginal cost a selling point on email and are probably surprised I would be saying a per piece cost is a good thing.

The marginal cost of paper mail forces you to consider the potential net revenue every time you send out a mailing. When the apparent marginal costs drops to near zero, like in email, the returns necessary to justify an action also significantly drop.

This is often a good thing, since it allows you to engage your constituents in ways that aren’t economical on the direct mail side. But it can lead quickly to over communicating with your list.

So even if your email provider doesn’t charge a marginal cost to send email, your organization should begin to come up with an internal number. This number should take into account time for list management as well as costs associated with unsubscribes.

Every time a person unsubscribes from your email there is a real cost to your organization.

Right now this is more art than science, but making sure to capture all the costs of email is a good habit to get in to.
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So after much to-do Masterworks has actually launched a blog, we’re so 2005.

That means two things for Barnabas Notes:

1. I’ll probably be posting more because its part of my job
2. Those posts will probably link over to Masterworks’ blog

That also means I’ll be closing comments on some posts, to capture those comments on the MW blog.

I did port over many of my posts, but none of your comments, since when you commented here you weren’t thinking you would be shilling for anyone

So, if you want to comment on any posts again, feel free to do so.

I really dislike programming emails. It is a pain and I always feel like most people would just appreciate much more simple design.

So it struck me as odd that I’ve been possessed to redesign two emails I get on a regular basis. These are 100 percent bandit, they haven’t asked me to do this and I’m not even sure I’m going to point out this blog post.

The first is from my old college. Check out the before and you can see the header dominates the top of the email and someone thought red was an acceptable body font color.

The redesign is subtle and gives more space for promotion.

The second is from a local restaurant group. The before clearly shows them committing one of the cardinal sins, email-as-one-big-image. They do this a lot.

With this redesign I tried to keep it classy. They have a number of restaurant so I figured the color of the headlines would trade out with each restaurant having its own color.

Are there emails you get that you are loath to look at? Bandit that stuff up.