Our first Russian language project was just released for an event in St. Petersburg, Russia.  The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum needed a platform for communicating key data points and trends for participants at the event.  They were enamored with Knowledge Concierge, the platform we developed during a 10-year-long engagement for PricewaterhouseCoopers and World Economic Forum.  So we leveraged that platform, customized it a bit for them, and created Russian and English versions of the site.  Check out http://deepdive.forumspb.com or the original version at http://knowledgeconcierge.com.

 

Here's a sample of Deep Dives in Russian:

Healthways' tagline is "Create a healthier world".  One step in that direction is to work with communities on strategies to encourage wellness.  We created an application for Boston Consulting Group and World Economic Forum earlier this year that leveraged Healthways data to share statistics on how wellness programs can decrease costs for businesses.  This platform was enhanced and expanded to be applicable to communities - allowing a community, such as Shelby County, TN, to see real data about their area to be able to judge how wellness programs could improve health and decrease costs.  The interface we built  was extremely simple and belies a very complex back-end running calculations against a massive data set.  Simplicity masking complexity - just the way we like it!

View screenshots of the project »

The Founder Institute, which is somewhere between an executive MBA program and an incubator, is coming to Boston.  I participated in this fantastic program last year during the inaugural session held in Silcon Valley.

The program is unique in that participants pay a small fee to attend, and get four months of classes on building a business taught by successful entrepreneurs.  For those who graduate, as I did, they participate in a pool with their fellow graduates, meaning that as any of us succeed, we all have the potential to benefit.  I highly recommend to any startup founders to think about participating in this program.  And Boston area CEOs who qualify should make themselves available as mentors. 

There's so much talk about making Boston an innovation and business hub again and this is yet another great opportunity to do so.  Classes start in July!  Scott Kirsner did a nice piece on his blog about it today.

We recently launched the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development web site. This project was designed by another agency and we did the technical development using Expression Engine, an open source content management system.

We're doubling down on Davos this year, with two different clients and two projects launching for the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting. 

We've been working with PricewaterhouseCoopers for 10 years on KnowledgeConcierge, which this fall evolved into its third incarnation.  We've added some more functionality for Davos, as well as a ton of content.  If you're looking for FastFacts (small tidbits of visual data - charts, graphs and maps) on topics across many different themes, issues, regions and topics, you'll love KnowledgeConcierge.  And we've made it easy for you to share the content, with embed tags, dynamic PDF and PowerPoint generation and social media sharing tools as well.

This year, we're also working with a new client, Boston Consulting Group.  BCG has created a fascinating financial model looking at how intervention programs targeting healthy behaviors can generate massive health and productivity savings for organizations.  Our web front-end is doing calculations against a massive back-end data set, allowing Davos participants (and the public) to answer a few quick questions and get real-world personalized insights into how they can save millions of dollars for their organizations while helping their employees become healthier.  The interactive tool is a great compliment to what is a compelling research project created by Boston Consulting Group for the World Economic Forum.

At Beehive Media, we believe in the idealized yet pragmatic possibilities of a global society.  And we've been working with the World Economic Forum in various capacities since 2000.  So in this new decade (sort of), we're delighted to be Doubling Down on Davos.

View screenshots of the Wellness App »

According to a survey done last January, the technology industry is the most trusted sector among "opinion elites" 35-64.  I'm not sure what this means, but thought I'd share it.  (Using the newest incarnation of KnowledgeConcierge - the site we built for World Economic Forum and PricewaterhouseCoopers and debuting some new features for Davos 2010.)

The Ansara Family Fund has a philosophy of giving that centers on empowering their grantees and is summed up in their new tag line: "building capacity to eradicate poverty."  We are proud to have helped the Ansaras with their new web site that just launched last week.

Karen and Jim Ansara started the fund 10 years ago, and wanted to create a site to showcase the work of the international and local nonprofits and development organizations they support.

There were several goals in creating the website:

- Bring grantees more attention and support
- Help prospective grantees understand what resonates with the fund, both to help them with focus, as well as reduce the number of grant seekers who don't fit the fund's mission
- Help grantees/applicants learn about each other
- Inspire international giving among other donors – with a special focus on getting funding TO Boston NGOs and FROM Boston area donors
- Design a site that reflects the spirit of the Fund's work

The design is bold and direct, expressing energy, excitement and dynamism from the main page to the interactive grantee pages. Large, bright photography provided by the grantees conveys the geographic reach of AFF's mission and gives the site a strong identity. Inspirational quotes on each page capture the essence of the Ansaras' and their fundees' purposes. The use of a burlap background and earth tones suggests the Fund's ground up approach.

View screenshots of the project »

At Beehive Media we do a terrible job of bragging about ourselves.  People ask me all the time "how do you market yourself?" and "where do your clients find you?"  And I always shrug my shoulders and sheepishly respond that we get a lot of repeat business from clients and some referrals and a decent amount of incoming leads from pay-per-click advertising and directories.  We advertise on AdWords and have our site listed on several directories like Haystack and Xemion and a bunch of others.

But I'm always embarrassed when asked the question because I have to admit that for the past 15 years or so we've had an almost entirely passive marketing and sales effort.  We don't push, we don't advertise much at all, we don't speak at or attend many conferences, we only apply for one awards show per year, we don't do PR and we don't brag.  It's not that we're without ego or that we don't believe that those things would be good for business.  We've just always been too busy. 

So imagine our surprise when in the past four weeks, we have managed to win a prestigious award, be featured in BusinessWeek magazine, and get quoted in Inc. Magazine.  As a marketer friend said to me, "Ok, so you don't need me, or anyone else, to tell you how to market or do PR ever again." 

But here's the interesting part.  So far, at least, we've seen almost no impact on our business. 

OK, it's only been a short while.  And we're not promoting it the way some might.  (Can you do a press release announcing that you've been mentioned in the press?  That feels like an endless loop!)  I've tweeted about it once or twice.  Of course I told my Mom and a few friends.  But we're not sending an email blast out about it, or scheduling 10 tweets over three days to make sure it gets to all of my followers.  And to be honest, that's what it takes to be heard in today's world.  You have to hammer things over and over and over again to get through the clutter.  Otherwise, press coverage, like anything else, is just a blip.  It made my Mom proud, and it prompted some friends to congratulate me, but it is not leading to more business per se.  That would take a sustained effort, more appearances in the press, more promotion, in other words, a real marketing effort. 

Guy Kawasaki, marketer-extraordinaire, is often villified for being a Twitter-spammer.  He tweets dozens of times per day.  And he has ghost-tweeters helping curate and tweet content.  And he lines up his tweets, scheduling them for regular posting throughout the day and night, including a schedule whereby every tweet runs three times.  And all links go through one of his pages, providing a constant stream of traffic to his own site, not just the destination content.  He has gone out of his way to explain the methodology and reasoning behind that choice.  And it all makes perfect sense.  It is good marketing from a solid numbers-driven approach.

Perhaps one day we'll take a more proactive approach to marketing Beehive but for us and our business, the softer approach is more appropriate.  But our new startup, buzub, will definitely require a bigger marketing effort.  I look forward to taking a more Guy-like approach for that effort (thought we probably won't take it quite as far as he does.)

And yes, the irony is not lost on me that here I am writing about how we don't promote, brag, etc., but the first thing I'm going to do when I'm done writing this blog post is tweet about it, post it to Posterous and Facebook and.........

My job is to do everything.  I sell, I manage clients, manage projects, do information architecture, oversee creative, contribute to technology either hands-on and/or helping debug.  I'm a classic generalist.  Not to mention that I wash the dishes, do the books, lick envelopes, etc.  My life is complex, which is probably why I crave simplicity.  And because I'm busy and borderline overwhelmed most days, my web consumption habits probably match most of the world out there - I am a master skimmer.  Hit me fast, grab me in 3 seconds, or you've lost me. 

This is one of the reasons why we redid our site to be so minimalist.  (BTW, we were just listed today as a featured site on Minimal Exhibit, a web site devoted to minimally designed web sites.)  From a few conversations I've had recently, I think this is really resonating with people.  I've heard from a few who've criticized our approach, but more importantly, I've heard some of the most enthusiastic praise we've ever received from others. 

Don't get me wrong, people liked our former site.  It was beautiful, well-designed, great copy, etc.  And it got us on the list for people looking to hire companies like ours.  But something has changed since our new site launched.  We're getting incoming calls from people who not only like our site, but who already have formed a deep impression of us.  They think we "get it".  They like our tone.  And they love our short and sweet approach to content on the site. 

In other words, we've given our audience what we're always telling our clients they should give theirs: short bite-sized chunks for the skimmers to consume.  Our philosophy is that first, you have to give the skimmers what they want.  A percentage of them will dive deeper, looking for more substance.  The rest will leave, and that's OK.  But if you can draw in the right group to dive deep, and then give them good stuff when they get there, you're leading them down a path where they admire you, trust you, seek your advice, service, product, etc. 

The vision for this site hit just a couple of months ago.  Our team collaborated to bring it to life quickly and it is everything I had hoped it would be.  Short and sweet at the front, deep enough in the middle to satisfy, and ultimately lead people to call us to help them solve their challenges in similar ways.

Last night, Beehive Media proudly accepted its first MITX Award for the work we did with Centerbrook Architects and Planners on their new web site.  When I got up on stage and had to say something (thanking the Academy, etc.), the only thing I could come up with was praising our client.  And I wasn't the only one.  Not a single person last night got up on stage and said "This client was a complete nightmare!  They were late with everything, paid us too little, were difficult to work with, wouldn't take our advice, etc."  And the more I think about it, the more I realize that having good clients is the most important thing in our business.  And no, I'm not sucking up!

When Centerbrook first contacted us, I was really excited.  I love architecture.  When I travel, I find there are two things I really look forward to when visiting a new place (or even old favorites.)  1) the food; 2) the architecture.  I can wander around for hours just staring at buildings and people watching.  I've often thought that if I had to do it all over again, I might even be an architect.  Like the web design and development business, it's one of those rare professions that blends left brain and right brain, creative and technical.  Successful projects in both fields require an eye for usability and function as well as aesthetically-, technically-, time- and budget-driven goals.

But on paper, they should have been a complete nightmare!  Here are all the reasons why working with them should have been awful:

1) architects don't have a reputation for being the most humble of professionals, so expecting them to take guidance and question assumptions was not a given
2) they came to the table with a design already done by their in-house designer (toes, get ready to be stepped on)
3) architects really, really, really, really, really care about design and function - there would be no corners cut, no room for imperfection
4) decision by committee, especially with a partnership, is always a challenge - competing interests and disagreements are difficult and slow to resolve
5) they had already been working on this project internally for months, a clear indication that the above concerns might really apply

Surprisingingly, in the end, they have turned out to be one of our best and favorite clients.  Not because they didn't care about the things we expected.  Not because decision by committee didn't slow things down at times and make some decisions difficult.  Not for any of the listed reasons above, in fact.  In the end, they are an excellent client because we always had a really great dialog going about every aspect of the project. 

We started with discussions about web strategy, the existing information architecture and the existing design.  We had to help validate their concepts, throw in some of our own, and help move the project past the idea phase and into construction.  This process was full of long debates.  But they were always that - debates.  They involved open-minded and ego-less conversations on both sides.  We sometimes disagreed but we always were able to justify our points to each other, had an opportunity to convince each other why our approach made sense, and whether it was because of time, budget or arbitrary opinion, decisions were made and we always felt good about them.  It was one of the most collaborative and open client interactions we've ever had and it resulted in award-winning work.

This may not be the most awe-inspiring revelation of all time.  But it brings some clarity to what makes design and development projects go well.  It requires an open mind, a healthy debate, interaction between client and designer/developer, and a willingness to work together to come up with the best results, given clear goals.  Centerbrook brought all of this and more to the table and I like to think we did as well.  And I know that we'll be looking for more clients like Centerbrook with whom we can work because it makes the process and the results so much better.
 

Making the complex simple.  This is what we have done for our clients for 15 years.  And this was the inspiration for our new web site.

Why simplicity? 

First, I believe that people want direction.  They want to be guided to what is important, what is worth their time and attention.  This is what is driving the Twitter craze.  People want the people they know and trust to tell them what to look at.  I'm not content experimenting with a firehose of information and hoping to get good stuff every now and then.  I want you to guide me to it.  Simple design does this.  By minimizing visual and content distractions, we're focusing on what we think is important.  For our site, what's important is to give a quick sense of the types of organizations we work with, what we're about, and most importantly, the work we've done recently.  I think our new site does that very well.

Second, since showing our work is the most important thing, we felt that minimizing the use of color would draw the eye most effectively to screenshots of our work.  We look at our site like a museum gallery wall.  It's just a backdrop for the work.  Some will argue with this approach but they can make their own highly designed portfolio sites!  We do that for our clients, not ourselves.  Maybe in ~3 years when we do this again, I'll have changed my mind, but I doubt it!

Third, I believe that building an interactive experience is a challenging project for most non-technical people.  Many of our clients have never done it before, or have done a simple site and are graduating to a larger site with more functionality, a content management system, etc.  It is intimidating for them in many cases.  But our job is to help make that experience less stressful, less complicated...simpler. 

Anyway, no reason to go on and on.  I just thought I'd explain our approach for those who are interested.  Think It.  Do It. ® :)

I love simple things. I mean simple functionality and simple visually. Google does some things really right. And other things are not at all as simple as they could be. Sometimes their engineers dominate when their design team should have more influence. (Gmail and AdWords interfaces are both good example of this.) But when Google decided to update its home page, including a version with literally nothing but its logo and a search box, it really worked out well, in my opinion. If I'm going to use Google, I'm going there to do a search. If I want access to my Google Docs or Google Maps or GMail, I'll go directly to docs.google.com or maps.google.com or mail.google.com. On the main google.com page, just give me the search box, man! BTW, if you're not seeing this, just refresh your page and this should be the view, at least for a moment.

This is the request I just posted to Google. I've already made one request, but thought I'd try again:

I really really really want an invite. I've already filled this form out. And I'm sure this is just putting me at the end of the line. But maybe, just maybe, there's a human who will get this, and feel my sincerity and, in a moment of pure altruistic glee, send me an invite just 'cuz. Please, oh please? If it helps, I will devote my entire life to Google Wave - and possibly sacrifice my second-born child to you. (My first-born is approaching teenager-hood, so she's past prime sacrificing age...)

The new web site for Funders Together to End Homelessness launched today. Funders Together, a national network of foundations and corporations supporting strategic and effective grant making to end homelessness, approached us to design and build the new site to help reinforce their positioning as a center for thought leadership on the subject of homelessness in the United States.

They had several key challenges and opportunities:

• Complex subject matter: homelessness has multi-faceted causes and solutions
• Abundant content: one of the main purposes of the site is to disseminate a huge amount of information on best practices, news and case studies
• Diverse audience: the site needs to serve Funders Together members, non-member funders, prospective funders, housing and service providers, public sector agencies, the media, and the general public. Each group has its own set of functional and informational needs. In addition, viewers can be anywhere on a spectrum from highly informed about the causes of and solutions for homelessness to almost complete ignorance.
• Communications with and among members and partners: Network organizations such as this have to meet the needs of different component organizations. There was an additional need to facilitate cooperation among the constituent groups.

Beehive's approach was to use web and rich media techniques to increase the immediacy of the issues faced by the homeless. At the same time, we provided an easy-to-understand conceptual framework for homelessness and a hierarchy of information that allows users to efficiently access the information at the right level for them.

The Issues Explorer introduces this framework, and provides opportunities for users to drill down into the content.

The site also includes a robust search engine and provides information on an interactive map, providing a critical aspect to this audience: location-based content. Since homelessness is a regional issue, location is key to solution identification and implementation.

The Content Explorer offers filtered keyword search, with results displayed as text and on the Google Maps map.

The Partner Locator shows foundations, housing and service providers, public sector partners, and housing projects on a map.

We have incorporated social media into the site, with ShareThis functionality throughout , Funders Together's Twitter feed available on the blog, news and events pages, and with links to FT's Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube pages. We even incorporated a “Tweet This” feature into the Content Management System running the site, which we built on open source technologies (Zend Framework and Doctrine ORM.) The site's design, which is clean and accessible, reinforces the streamlined access to information.

View screenshots of the project »

Sonicbids helps bands get gigs and helps promoters book the right bands.  And it brings value to brands by allowing them to engage with customers and associate their brands with the 200,000 independent artists in Sonicbids' stable.  Sonicbids needed support creating a platform for its branded marketing, which we built and launched in August.  This site, for an international retailer, was used for an employee recruitment and retention program and had the added benefit of attracting employees' friends and family to the store for the excitement.  The allowed people to find bands by genre or geography, preview their music, download a full track and vote for bands they liked.  The site ran for about a month, tallying up votes for the audiences' favorite band which, in the end, performed for the employees at internal events.  The site was built on Microsoft .NET, using Sonicbid's internal API to access its data.

View screenshots of the project »

After 10 years working with PricewaterhouseCoopers and the World Economic Forum, it was time for a new concept for a long-standing and successful project, KnowledgeConcierge. This year we redesigned and re-built the site from the bottom up, focusing on the delivery and syndication of FastFacts – charts and graphs of compelling information. The site provides access to visualized data tagged by the Forum’s taxonomy of Themes, Sessions, Issues and Regions. Users can find content and then can syndicate and share it by embedding it into their own web site or blog, via RSS feed or by on-the-fly generation of PDFs or PowerPoint files of the selected content for use in print, presentation or just via email. We are thrilled to continue to work with PwC and the Forum’s many events.

View screenshots of the project »

PricewaterhouseCoopers commissioned Beehive to leverage its Brand2o platform (platform which enables the user to generate custom marketing materials in PDF, HTML, and Powerpoint formats) to allow its user-base to search and concatenate PDFs from their vast knowledge library.  This project combined .NET web services, Flash components, and SQL Server to provide a robust platform in which users can select from a variety of unique topics and categories and have a unique PDF built, in real time, for them to download and review.

View screenshots of the project »

Today, Beehive Media launched the newly redesigned New Center for Arts & Culture website. The site is built on Expression Engine, a content management system (CMS), which has empowered the organization to keep the site current with the Center's many and varied happenings. The New Center can quickly and easily add photos, videos, podcasts, newsletters, and other rich content to their site without having to involve outside technical staff. The process for adding and selling tickets to events and accepting donations has also been streamlined. With an exciting series of Programs such as "New Center Live," which will feature this Fall such personalities as Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Bruce Feiler and Congressman Barney Frank, the New Center is positioned to offer its users and members original, compelling content. Beehive has created a system which will provide the tools the New Center sought to extend its reach, add to its membership base, and showcase this vibrant content to Boston and beyond. Beehive worked with another firm, which had branded the New Center and did the site design.

View screenshots of the project »

Unilever has over 400 food, home and personal care brands, with over $40 billion in annual sales.  Beehive Media worked with another agency, providing back-end development for several sweepstakes micro-sites for Unilever's Axe Hair and Suave brands.  These sweepstakes, done in conjunction with major retailers Dollar General and Family Dollar, generated hundreds of thousands of sweepstakes entries.  One version of the site included a blog, allowing consumers to share beauty tips with each other.  The campaigns have been a huge success for Unilever and more are expected to be rolled out throughout 2010.

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Today, Beehive launched a new website for Centerbrook Architects and Planners, a national architectural design firm serving mainly institutional clients. The site's clean design and spectacular photographs quickly communicate the firm's deep experience, exceptional industry expertise, and its eclectic approach to projects. Beehive validated Centerbrook's own design mockups, advised on the information architecture and constructed an underlying foundation for the site that makes it easy to maintain over time. The site will serve as an effective platform for the firm's marketing needs in the coming years. Michel Pariseau of Centerbrook commented, "As architects we have very intimate relationships with our clients most of which are institutional. We must understand and appreciate their concerns and their agenda - always putting their interests above and beyond our own. Beehive managed to mimic our philosophy and culture and work with us (a multi-headed partnership) seamlessly - and the success of our website, its cleanness and simplicity reflect that seamless relationship fostered by Beehive.

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The Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation and PricewaterhouseCoopers asked us to prepare a video based on PwC's Arab Business Intelligence Report, later renamed to the Arab Human Capital Challenge (AHCC), reporting on trends in the Arab World.  The report was renamed to reflect the primary finding, which is that the one of the Arab World's biggest challenges is in educating and training a workforce that can compete globally.  The current challenge is all the more urgent given the need in the Arab World to create more than 90 million jobs in the next 10 years, by some estimates.  The video, done in both English and Arabic, was to be played on big screens on-site at a conference in Dubai.  We created custom graphics and 3D animations to visualize the data. The overall paradigm was a map of the Arab world, and iconic images and music created an Arab-centric feeling to the video.

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The Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library came to Beehive Media for a revamping of their website. The new site is rich in content, visually compelling, and uses leading edge technology. Users can search by multiple criteria, and zoom into minute detail of high-resolution maps (using Zoomify Beta technology). Educators can search for resources by education levels, topics, ideas and skills. Users can also buy map reproductions online. An easy-to-use, robust content management "ingests" maps and metadata, and the site provides access to more than 2000 of the historic maps in its collection. User visits to the site have skyrocketed since the redesign and the average visit length has increased from under 10 minutes to nearly 60 minutes - almost unheard of in the industry! In January 2009, the site was been named the "Digital Library of the Week" by the American Library Association, the oldest and largest library association in the world with members in academic, public, school, government and special libraries.

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Gerber Life Insurance Company came to Beehive for help in developing an online customer education, needs analysis and product selection guide for potential adult life insurance customers. Beehive designed a friendly, bright Flash module that walks users through a series of questions about their needs and then recommends term or whole life insurance based on their answers. The guide also explains the difference between term & whole life insurance and gently guides users to apply.

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Breville TV is an innovative and sophisticated video streaming website that leverages the latest web technologies to deliver a compelling marketing platform for Breville USA's latest kitchen appliances. The site features cooking videos by well-known television stars like Australian chef Curtis Stone. As these shows play, related product links or more on-site clips featuring ingredients, drinks or appliance tips are continually offered in a video synchronized sidebar. Users can also set up a play list, view/print recipes and choose from dozens of videos in several categories.

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The Norman B. Leventhal Walk to the Sea is a new historic walking trail on the streets of Boston, which educates the public about how the landscape of the city has changed over its history. Beehive Media was chosen to bring the exhibition to the web. We created a navigation system in flash based on the map of the walk, which allows users to click on the various stops along the way and learn about this fascinating history through text, vintage photographs and prints as well as historic maps of the city. We also created a slide-show introduction which dramatically shows the transformation of Boston's landscape over the years.

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The McGraw-Hill Companies Facilities Department came to us with two needs: 1) An automated way to track how long business records must be retained for legal purposes and 2) a scalable application for charging departments for their mail and photocopy usage. We built the web-based Records Retention Schedule System (RRS) and Mail & Reprographic Billing System (MRB). The RRS allows Facilities to easily record, edit and print the schedules for all business units and departments, and any McGraw-Hill employee can look up their documents' retention schedule. MRB enables the entry of each department's mailing and photocopying costs; it flags invalid account numbers, permits credit/debit adjustments and exports the records to the general ledger system.

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BeehiveMedia recently launched the video hosting platform for Booz & Co., the commercial business born of the division of Booz Allen Hamilton. We built a database-driven video archive containing dozens of internal and public-facing clips for the firm. In In addition to the on-page video display, we provide embed codes that Booz & Co. staffers use to place videos directly into booz.com pages. Security is a critical concern for Booz & Co., as it increasingly relies upon video communications with its far-flung staff, including about sensitive internal data. We created a custom security solution to protect their information while allowing their staff access to this digital video platform. The video is hosted on a globally distributed and redundant platform to maximize playback speed and performance around the world.

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Sorouh Real Estate, one of the largest real estate developers in the United Arab Emirates, asked Beehive Media for help showcasing its premiere projects in its Abu Dhabi Sales Centre. Beehive installed its innovative kSPACE: Geospatial application, which is a first-in-the-world mashup of Flash and Google Earth, combining the impact of Google Earth with all the interactivity and multimedia capabilities of Flash. Potential buyers can see properties on the earth, fly around them to get a sense of the space, watch videos about them, check up on construction progress, and sign up to get more information. kSPACE: Geospatial, part of a suite of tools, provides a compelling way to immerse customers in developments before they are built.

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The Property Portfolio contains vital information on W/S Development’s entire portfolio of over 75 retail properties in an easily navigable, elegantly designed Flash-based presentation. The retail properties (primarily open-air shopping centers) are organized by state and appear on property profile pages. The property pages contain demographic data, property features, maps, aerial photographs, lease plans, and more. They are all dynamically generated from W/S Development’s extensive database. The Property Portfolio has become the primary presentation for the W/S Development leasing team to market its properties, virtually eliminating printed materials. It also provides a significant competitive advantage.

Beehive also designed W/SD's standard and mobile websites.

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Beehive Media designed and built the online video catalog for PBS International, which distributes the broadcast rights for PBS programs around the world including Nova, Frontline, and American Experience. Behind the scenes, this online video platform includes a full content management system and logged-in users can watch streaming video for feature-length programs (not progressive download like YouTube!) and create their own catalogues. Amazingly, until 2007 they were using printed catalogs and sending DVDs via snailmail. Our solution immediately brought about six-figure savings in printing and shipping costs and has dramatically increased their ability to showcase programming to TV executives around the world.

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BeehiveMedia designed and developed the video hosting platform for Booz Allen Hamiton. We built a database-driven video archive containing dozens of internal and public-facing clips for the firm. In In addition to the on-page video display, the Booz Allen Hamilton web site's search engine does direct queries of our database for video content, displaying the results on the corporate site. Security is a critical concern for Booz Allen Hamilton, as it increasingly relies upon video communications with its far-flung staff, including about sensitive internal data. We created a custom security solution to protect their information while allowing their staff access to this digital video platform. The video is hosted on a globally distributed and redundant platform to maximize playback speed and performance around the world.

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Project Just Because is a non-profit serving families in need, predominantly in Metro West Boston. This charity has a a no-red-tape, no-questions-asked policy of providing food, clothing, toiletries and any other items needed by families or individuals who have fallen on tough times. This is a pro bono client of ours, and we are very proud to be affiliated with PJB. In the ten years since it was founded, PJB has grown and now has hundreds of volunteers and helps thousands of families. PJB's founder, Cherylann Walsh won a 2005 Governor's Award for her "outstanding service and spirit of volunteerism," and recently won the the 2009 Cabot Community Celebrity Award, given to "a REAL celebrity in our community…a bright spirit, who improves our community with little thought of personal recognition." The organization's donations have doubled in size each year for the past few years and have become a critical support system for Metro West families in need.

The HP Partner Tool project is built on Beehive’s Brand2o platform which enables the user to generate custom marketing materials in PDF, HTML, and Powerpoint formats.  The Partner Tool is used by HP partners from around the world to custom-generate marketing brochures for many of HP’s software and hardware platforms.  The site won the HP-internal Innovation award for two years – branding it as the best new use of technology innovation in HP’s marketing effort.

RSA, The Security Division of EMC, has trusted Beehive Media to provide theme, conceptual design, graphics production and on-site creative direction and technical support for President Art Coviello's keynote addresses at the RSA Conference and at events in the US and Europe for the past several years. "We selected Beehive Media to partner with us because we knew they would bring the right creative touch to this important address. But we received a lot more value. In a very short time they gained a comprehensive understanding of our business, translated our goals and objectives creatively and then delivered results flawlessly on show day. Smart and Creative...a powerful combination." (Kristin Hilf - former Director, Corporate Communications, RSA)

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Beehive Media served as a Knowledge Partner for the Arab Strategy Forum, an elite gathering of government, business and thought leaders in Dubai. Beehive delivered a suite of technical innovations including a massive web-based knowledge platform and content management system. We also created a "Map Gallery" with interactive maps providing what we refer to as a "pyramid of knowledge" on trends in the Arab World. These maps gave users a linear story mode (like an executive summary) and acted as a deeper research tool, allowing interaction with the underlying data. We also created event announcement screens and kiosks used throughout the venue and an interactive handheld application that synchronized with the web-based knowledge platform.

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House Party creates unique opportunities for market research for television. They get 1000 people across the country to throw a party at which a new TV show is previewed. After the party, participants discuss the show and then use a web site to post their feedback on the show. We helped House Party develop a suite of online tools to measure and track user feedback, as well as fun interactive tools to engage users. We have helped the company deliver solutions for the hit TV show "Avatar" on Nickelodeon, as well as NBC's "Biggest Loser" and "The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch" on CNBC.

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