October 28, 2011 in Media Orchard, PR Agencies by Orchardo
IDEA GROVE NEWS: Three More Join Idea Grove Team

We are pleased to announce the additions of Whitney Davidson, Clay Zeigler and Joy Jennings to the Idea Grove.

Whitney DavidsonWhitney is our vice president of account services, and comes with more than 12 years experience in PR and corporate communications. Most recently, Whitney was a communications manager for CB Richard Ellis. Previously, she was a senior account executive with GolinHarris in Dallas, a public relations manager at ZixCorp, and an account executive at the Rankin Group in California. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism and public relations from the University of Texas-Arlington.

Clay ZeiglerClay is Idea Grove’s vice president of content, bringing more than 25 years of writing and editing experience to the role. Clay spent 14 years working as an assigning editor at The Dallas Morning News, directing reporters for the newspaper’s Metro section. Before coming to Dallas, he worked as a reporter and editor at five smaller newspapers in Texas, Florida and Pennsylvania. Clay holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from the University of Pennsylvania.

Joy JenningsJoy is our account supervisor. She has spent the past 20 years in marketing, communications and public relations, most recently at Dean Foods. She has worked primarily with technology and telecommunications companies, including Nortel, Pegasus Solutions, Philips Electronics and PageNet. There she worked for several years with Idea Grove President Scott Baradell. Joy has a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Baylor University.

 
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October 19, 2011 in Media Orchard, PR Agencies by Joy Jennings
HEADS UP: E-Recycling at Idea Grove Diverts Modern Flotsam from Landfills

When our microwave went kaput, it seemed wrong to carry it to the building’s dumpster. (At Idea Grove, we’re tree huggers, of course.)

Our nonfunctioning appliance got us thinking about all the other junk that sits around our offices and homes, from ancient laptops to seen-better-days DVD players.

How can we say goodbye responsibly to electronic dinosaurs? And how can we throw out hard drives full of confidential data?

A quick Google search led us to Erecycler, a company here in Dallas that destroys and recycles electronics and more. They take it all: appliances, laptops, cameras, phones, printers. Hard drives are destroyed, not merely “wiped.” Even cables and wires are accepted. (As we told the team here, if you can’t remember what it went to, it’s time to say goodbye.)

So last Thursday morning, a modest pile started growing in a corner of our kitchen. By this afternoon, we said goodbye to a small mountain of plastic and metal junk — the flotsam of the 21st century.

 
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October 14, 2011 in Media Orchard, PR Agencies by Joy Jennings
IDEA GROVE NEWS: The Idea Grove Relocates to Office in Addison

The Idea Grove team is excited to be working from a new office that provides more space for meetings with clients and more room for the firm to grow.

Our new office is at 14800 Quorum Drive in Addison, near the intersection of the Dallas North Tollway and Beltline Road. We’re in Suite 170, just off the building’s lobby.

And though our location has changed, our focus has not. We’re still serving our clients as a single, trusted resource for public relations, online marketing and Web design.

 
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July 19, 2011 in Media Orchard, Media Relations by Stephanie Fedler
CLIENT NEWS: RiseSmart Earns More Awards, Praise

RiseSmart continues to rake in the awards with its innovative, cloud-based outplacement solution, Transition Concierge.

After being recognized as one of the 10 most promising technology companies by SiliconIndia.com in May, RiseSmart in June made the Red Herring Top 100 North America, a list of the year’s most promising private technology ventures selected by the Red Herring editorial team.

Also last month, RiseSmart was named “Most Innovative Company of the Year” (for companies with up to 100 employees) at the 2011 American Business Awards, also known as the Stevies.

Last week, RiseSmart was named one of three finalists for “Innovative Company of the Year” in the 2011 Golden Bridge Awards, which will be awarded in New York on August 10.

As RiseSmart CEO Sanjay Sathe put it, “This is yet more evidence that we have disrupted the $3 billion U.S. outplacement industry once and for all — delivering unprecedented results to employers and their transitioning workers.”

Top Gartner HCM analyst Jim Holincheck apparently thinks RiseSmart is on to something, too. He recently offered his opinion that cloud-based technology promises to have a transformative effect on the U.S. outplacement industry.

Said Holincheck:

As a growing percentage of leading corporations apply cloud-based solutions to improve their HR processes, many have neglected to upgrade a key component of the talent management lifecycle: effective offboarding.

By leveraging technologies such as content aggregation, semantic search and cloud-based delivery, employers have the opportunity to accelerate time to placement for their transitioning workers while reducing outplacement program costs.

RiseSmart is the leading cloud-based outplacement solution — in fact, they created the category.

Congratulations from the Idea Grove team!

 
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July 15, 2011 in Media Orchard, PR Agencies by Orchardo
IDEA GROVE NEWS: Stephanie Fedler and Jill Diedrich Join the Team

We’d like to welcome Account Executive Stephanie Fedler and Account Coordinator Jill Diedrich to the Idea Grove team.

Stephanie is a media relations and social media professional with experience spanning work with nonprofit, healthcare, finance, fashion and technology clients. Stephanie’s efforts have earned her clients media coverage with an ad value equivalence of more than $1.5 million to date.

Prior to joining the Idea Grove, Stephanie served as an account executive at Nunez PR Group for nearly two years. Among her experiences, she served as product spokesperson for Naya Shoes, appearing on television news programs nationwide to promote the brand. She has bachelor’s degrees in corporate communications and public affairs as well as psychology from SMU.

Jill comes to us from Austin, where she was an account executive at Hackney Communications, specializing in developing PR strategies for financial clients, technology companies and entrepreneurs. She is a graduate of UT-Austin, where she was in the public relations honors program.

Jill’s background includes New York PR agency experience, as well as a demonstrated commitment to philanthropy and women’s empowerment. She is director of operations for Make Charity Cool, a start-up nonprofit with the goal of making “charity work” seem like less of a chore.

 
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