One of our servers is experiencing intermittent outages due to overload issues. This affects some of our WordPress & Drupal websites.
When attempting to access sites on this server, you may encounter “503 Service Temporarily Unavailable” errors. For the most part, you will see no issues with the site – but we know that any down time can be frustrating. We apologize for the inconvenience to our clients and their site visitors.
This is one of our older servers; we are upgrading all of the affected sites to a newer server one at a time. We are starting this process immediately, but it may take up to two weeks to migrate every site.
Thank you for your patience, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact our Support Team at (281) 497-6567 ext 411 or support@tendenci.com.
We will be following up with each affected client directly as well.
The WorldView Reporting Feature in Campaign Monitor
With the recent upgrade of the Tendenci membership management CMS platform to Tendenci 5.0, we thought now was a great time to consider integrating a 3rd party email marketing application instead of using the in-house Tendenci newsletter module. We have started testing a few of the popular ones including MailChimp, Constant Contact, and Campaign Monitor so that we can better help our clients create successful email marketing campaigns.
Last week, I drafted and sent out my first email newsletter campaign using Campaign Monitor. I was truly impressed with its ease of use and cool features that most email marketing applications don’t have in one package. Here are my top 5 reasons Campaign Monitor is an awesome email marketing tool:
1. Drafting and editing an email newsletter template has never been so easy! Anyone who has ever put together an email newsletter knows you’ll spend 1/4 of the time writing the content and 3/4 of the time editing and formatting your newsletter. Campaign Monitor greatly reduces your time spent creating the newsletter with their new vertical split editor, drag and drop functionality, drop-down menu selection to personalize messages, and an expandable WYSIWYG editor that automatically adjusts in size as you add content to it.
2. Reporting and Tracking tools like no email campaign has seen before! Campaign Monitor’s Worldview is the coolest new web marketing feature I’ve seen and that is just 1 of the numerous tools they offer with their email marketing program. You can easily see a summary of the campaign in the Snapshot view that includes unique opens, clicks, shares, bounces, unsubscribed, top links clicked and more. Click on one of the overview items on the snapshot to dive deeper into the results of your email campaign, and export all the data into any .csv or excel spreadsheet. You can compare your recent campaign to past campaigns, track google analytics to see sales and conversion rates and even see who is sharing across social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
3. Campaign Monitor Integrates with Tendenci 5.0 and oh so many other online platforms! In addition to standard integration with Tendenci 5.0, Schipul can integrate Campaign Monitor with most website content management systems including WordPress, Drupal and Joomla. Campaign Monitor also plugs-in to a number of different software programs including Google Analytics, WuFoo, Salesforce CRM, Shopify, and others.
4. Your email campaign is delivered instantly! No more waiting hours after you press send for your email newsletter campaign to go out. Campaign Monitor lets you send your campaign instantly, or you can schedule it to go out at a specific date and time. You also have the option of sending a test email to up to 5 email addresses at once before sending out the real campaign. You also can pay a small fee to submit your email newsletter through a design and spam testing before you send to ensure the best success rate.
5. Set-up and automate segmented and customized marketing campaigns! Campaign Monitor’s Lists & Subscribers tools enable you to import, segment, personalize, and target specific demographics with ease. You can create rules within your subscriber list to create and automate multiple A/B email tests and measure the results with simplicity. Campaign Monitor also automatically clean-ups your subscriber list with unsubscribes and bounced emails and helps you avoid sending spam. You can even sign up to receive new subscriber activity through an RSS feed.
I actually look forward to creating my next email newsletter using Campaign Monitor. I also am addicted to the Worldview reporting feature.
I want to add that Campaign Monitor does have the option for agencies and designers to rebrand their email marketing interface and resell to their clients. Schipul will not be doing that, and clients will be charged directly by Campaign Monitor at their base prices.
What more exciting conference can you imagine than a passionate group of children’s museum creative minds and directors from all across the world discussing child development, educational resource updates and – most excitingly of all to our geeky ears!! – innovative technology topics.
Want to keep in touch with the great learning and excitement that’s happening? Here are some ACM Interactivity 2011 resources:
Want to win tickets to Houston International Festival’s Silk Road Journey?
The Schipul headquarters (in our beloved Houston, TX) is one of the greatest melting pot cities in the United States. This multi-cultural experience is only amplified by (client) Houston iFest‘s annual event that highlights a different geographic location every year.
This year’s iFest theme is The Silk Road: Journey Across Asia which brings a rainbow of traditional garb, delicious food vendors, international musicians and dance troupes.
Leave a comment on your favorite travel destination to win!
This year’s Houston iFest festivities continue to run this weekend (May 7th – May 8th) and we want to send YOU!
Leave a comment on this blog post telling us about your favorite (or dream) travel destination for a chance to win!
We’ll pick 2 random winners that will each receive iFest passport – good for 4 tickets and parking for the iFest on Friday (May 6th) 12pm CDT. Bon voyage!
Congrats to winners Denise and Sara – enjoy the iFest magic!
An aural highlight of the festival was a great performance by the Rootz Underground, a reggae band that had the crowd dancing and singing the entire set. The night got a little more Cajun-y with a stop at the Joel Jesse CCR release party at a venue called Antlers.
The Schipul and Tony C’s team closed the night grooving to Texas native Cedric Watson – a multiple Grammy award nominee and fantastic performer. Many thanks to Tony Chachere’s, who truly make the best Cajun hosts any Texans could ever ask for!
Last night the Houston Zoo invited the Flock, the zoo’s group of young supporters, to visit the giraffe house at the new African Forest exhibit.
More than 100 visitors arrived to the after hours event and got an up-close encounter with eight Masai giraffes housed at the zoo. Guests were taken in groups to a barn where they were able to stand on an elevated platform to feed, pet and play with the long-necked, spotted herbivores. As it turns out, giraffes are wildly social and curious. Without much prodding they walked right up to the visitors to nibble from their hands, pose for photos and take a lick at guests’ toes.
The giraffes are just one area of the zoo’s African Forest exhibit, which opened late last year. The 6.5-acre habitat is home to a colony of chimps, white rhinos, and antelope. While guests didn’t get up close and personal with the rhinos, keepers brought a few animals to the party including Olivia, one of the guinea hogs, and Ernie, the North American porcupine.
We’ve attended several Flock events, and applaud the group whose mission is to inspire a new generation of zoo supporters. Flock is underwritten by Momentum Audi and the evening’s event was sponsored by Freebirds, Saint Arnold Brewing Company, and Yelp of Houston. For more information on joining the Flock, visit www.houstonzoo.org/flock.
The Houston Technology Center is known for affording education, insight and more to entrepreneurs needing to climb the ropes to commercialization. The topic of the day, presented by Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, was “Strategic Implications for Houston as a Center for Innovation.”
“The most grand commodity of all is information” – Steve Ballmer
High Tech Talk
Highlights included the path that technology has taken in the last decade and where it’s going in the next. Hand-held devices, resources technology and virtual worlds where business takes place with Avatars were all topics of discussion. The forum mainly, however, focused on informations technology and the important and continuing role it will play on business development in the years to come.
Steve Ballmer also spiced things up wit ha sneak peak of some great Avatar based programs for X-Box360 even giving away an X-Box to a lucky attendee at the end of the program.
Hugs to Houston Technology Center
Sheila Whanger did a great job organizing the event and it was wonderful to see Walter Ulrich, President & CEO of Houston Technology Center up on the stage as well. Let’s not also forget the welcoming faces of Downey Bridgwater, Chairman of the Board – HTC and Larry Kellner, Chairman of the Board – Greater Houston Partnership.
Cocktails? Brunch? A live DJ? Awesome animals? Yes, please! This was the set-up for the Houston Zoo’s Beastly Brunch held on Sunday and it was marvelous. The Beastly Brunch and other such events at the Zoo are held by Flock – The Houston Zoo’s Young Supporters Group who do their best to promote public awareness and interest in The Houston Zoo with events such as this one.
Party Animals
The DJ and the reflection pool created a perfect atmosphere for a Sunday brunch and the weather was superb! Cocktail bars, coffee and Sprinkles cupcakes were set up and down the length of the reflection pool with tasty buffet of bruchy eats at the end for everyone to enjoy. My coffee was followed by a bloody mary, a mimosa, croissants, various quiches, fruit and cupcakes… that’s right; cupcakes and mimosas at the zoo with a herd of Houston’s animal lovers. Bliss.
Cuddly Critters!
Not only did The Houston Zoo provide an amazing morning of mingling and gnarly nibbles, but they also brought out some adorable critters! I got to meet a chinchilla and a very tiny owl. I’m a sucker for fuzzy and tiny creatures and these guys were just too much cute to handle.
It was a great day…
The Beastly Brunch lasted from 12pm-2pm; so afterward we walked off all the deliciousness with a stroll through the zoo, which is always a delight, waved goodbye to our new animal friends and headed home (sleepy, but excited for the next event at The Houston Zoo).
Kudos to Flock! Want to Join them?
Flock is a group of 21 and up professionals who devote themselves to the growth and success of The Houston Zoo with unique, exciting and educational events throughout the year. It’s easy to join Flock and a membership carries with it awesome privileges including entry to some fantastic shin-digs and exclusive volunteer opportunities.
Thanks, Sponsors!
Also, thank you to the sponsors of The Houston Zoo’s Beastly Brunch! Food, atmosphere and beverages were also provided by the following:
Maybe that one thing about you that you can’t stand is your different.
To that, Karen Walrond (@Chookooloonks) would say, “Your different is your beautiful.”
Karen Walrond, author of The Beauty of Different dropped by Schipul client, Blue Willow Books for an intimate reading and book signing. Karen shared with visitors her different (she was a sensitive child) and said it’s probably what made her able to write the book.
The reading was like sharing a story with a good friend. It was share and share alike as visitors talked about their different, their experiences blogging and their journeys through photography. After the reading, Karen signed books with personal messages to each woman.
The Blue Willow staff f gifted Karen with a pen before she climbed the ladder to leave her mark on the wall. She wrote: Your Different is Your Beautiful.
The Beauty of Different features photos and stories of everyday people and the unique things about them. Through their faces and revelations, perhaps readers will discover their own special qualities.
Really! It’s official! This month, Parent’s Magazine announced that The Children’s Museum of Houston was voted No. 1 in the United States! Way to go and CONGRATULATIONS, Houston Children’s Museum – Everyone is so happy for you all and for Houston. We can’t wait to check out Spring Break at the Museum this year too!
Many Houstonians, the young and the young at heart alike, already know why The Children’s Museum of Houston is such a fun place to learn, interact and play. Founded in 1980, the Museum’s mission is to transform communities through innovative, child-centered learning. The Children’s Museum of Houston is also packed with exhibits bursting with whimsy and fun that engage kids in the ultimate learning experience…plus they just have tons of cool stuff!
Want to Visit The Children’s Museum? You totally Should!
In 2005, with the addition o f another building, The Children’s Museum of Houston added 39,000 square feet of exhibition space and have continued to amaze and wow Houston with cutting-edge displays, child-based learning methods and design and one of the best family experiences any city has to offer. See what The Children’s Museum has going on right now and find out why it’s thebest Museum for Children in the entire Nation!
One of our servers is experiencing intermittent outages due to overload issues. This affects some of our WordPress & Drupal websites.
Be sure to stop by for our very own Aaron Long’s panel on Saturday, May 21st on 
