by Nicole Ouellette | Aug 10, 2010 | Marketing Monday
Every Monday, the Breaking Even blog takes on a business, non-profit, or website with a good marketing idea. Have one? Send it in!
This morning, I was listening to NPR (on the Maine Public Broadcasting Network) and heard about former marketer now turned non-profit marketer Sid Lerner talking about the Meatless Monday concept him and his firm started as a way to get people to eat healthier one day a week. According to the story, 20% of the American population was aware of the term. Personally, I’ve heard about it on a few blogs I read (I do like food) and I was surprised the recognition of the phrase was that low.
Meanwhile, it turns out some college campuses have also bought in to the concept but most younger generation folks aren’t going meatless for cholesterol but for the environment. (Which is a big reason why I eat meat only a couple times a week myself. Holy grain acres, Batman!(As a complete aside, you can read a whole nerdy though somewhat slanted article about grain acres here with neato diagram if you are interested.)
by Nicole Ouellette | Jul 14, 2010 | Too Cute Tuesday
Every Tuesday, it’s a craft, a cocktail, and friends. To join the fun, check out Facebook at www.facebook.com/toocutetuesday. To see archives of past TCT evenings, see www.toocutetuesday.com. And to start your own chapter or join ours, contact Nicole.
I have no idea what posessed me to bookmark this craft post sometime in March but all I can think of is it fits some of my favorite crafting criteria: 1) it involves food 2) it’s easy and 3) it looks impressive.
It was decided that my lack of Photoshop skills meant that rather than making photographs into a three color workable situation that we’d make our chocolate creations using initials and just be creative on the font front.
Over the weekend, I stopped by discount liquor store with the sole purpose of picking up items to try at Too Cute Tuesday. Enter a nice bottle of wine that had a fun label. Yay KungFu Girl!
by Nicole Ouellette | May 19, 2010 | Too Cute Tuesday
Every Tuesday, it’s a craft, a cocktail, and friends (eat something, drink something and be social). To read more, check out www.toocutetuesday.com (all the posts) or check out the Facebook page. (We usually put photo galleries and some extra stuff on the Facebook page.)
Inspired by this post at Readymade, we decided to carb it up this week with gnocchi. In May, we’re doing food as crafts. It’s technically making something and, quite honestly, spring is making us hungry.
by Nicole Ouellette | Mar 1, 2010 | Marketing Monday
Every Monday, the Breaking Even blog looks at a individual, business, or website promoting itself in interesting ways online. Have an idea? Do tell!
When I first began my blog in 2007, it was a hard choice between whether I would be talking about money or food. I decided that talking about money would force me to learn more about it but I still love food, follow several food blogs, and overall am interested in food-related issues.
My friend Sarah tipped my off to Foodista, a website startup from a few former Amazon.com employees. It was seeking to be an open source food encyclopedia, not just of ingredients but of recipes. Being the good friend that I am, I followed Foodista’s progress throughout Sarah’s internship there but continue to keep in touch now. (Sarah had to return eastward to finish her MBA.)
Foodista has done a few things well that I’ve noticed:
Foodista has a specific enough focus that it isn’t doing too much but a broad enough concept for it to grow.
As a website, you don’t want to pigeonhole yourself but you do want to give potential visitors an idea what they’ll find in relation to content on your site. Foodista tackles the expected ingredients and recipes but also discusses techniques of food preparation and cooking tools, which is less commonly found information. Having the focus of food (and food in the title of their domain name), however, gives potential web visitors an idea of what this site will be about. (If you aren’t sure what I’m talking about, click here for an example of a much less clear website.)
Foodista allows users to submit content… without logging in.
As a web person constantly exploring new things, having to register for every website is a pain. Sure, it gives the website publisher/owner my contact information but for many people, having to register to do something simple like look around or even comment can be a deterent.
Foodista allowed me to upload my two fiddlehead pictures last spring with absolutely no issue. It also effortlessly connects to accounts you may have on other sites, like Flickr or Facebook. If I use the site a lot, I will no doubt create an account but for now, I feel the pride of being slightly famous in my own head, in relation to cookable ferns anyway.
by Nicole Ouellette | Feb 12, 2010 | Blogging
Breaking Even blog is mostly business and money related but Fridays, I’m going to write about whatever I darn well feel like. Because aren’t Fridays supposed to be fun?
And when I think of fun lately, I keep thinking about the part of last weekend where I parked my butt on a couch. Instead of watching the Superbowl last Sunday, ie the most watched television program in recorded history, I watched ‘Jule and Julia’. It was a movie about cooking and blogging, two of my favorite things.
I actually enjoyed myself. Meryl Streep’s performance makes me wish I would have met the real Julia Child and Amy Adams makes an adorable blogger.
My first, eye-rollingly geeky first impression is that this movie makes blogging look easy. Within a few months, Julie’s blog gets over 50 comments in one day and by the end, the New York Times has featured her. I’ve been blogging going on three years. Honestly, I’m ecstatic when more than two of you reading this decide to comment.
Every Tuesday, it’s a craft, a cocktail, and friends. To join the fun, check out Facebook at 
