We’re committed to fine-tuning our services and offerings. Feedback from our customers is essential to our growth. We really appreciate the responses.

If you or your company have web-based initiatives on the horizon, don’t hesitate to reach out and begin a dialog with us. We’d love to be a part of your success.

The gala will honor Dr. James Hansen, newly-retired director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City. He has studied the atmosphere of the Earth for years, and is referred to as the “father of global warming” because of his early warnings about the phenomenon in the 1980s. As a leading scientist, his impassioned voice is important to the fight to combat climate change and the negative impact humans are having on the environment. See Dr. Hansen’s Ted Talk “Why I Must Speak Out About Climate Change.”

Consider attending the gala or making a donation to support environmental causes in Colorado.

My dad, Jon DeCrette, camping below Buffalo Peaks in Collegiate Peaks Wilderness, Colorado – 2002

My name is Paul DeCrette. Since 1998, I have run BlueChannel, a small web development and consulting firm. I enjoy my work, provide livable wages and good benefits to a few employees, and genuinely care about my clients. But I am not changing the world through programming or email support!

I moved the business to Colorado in 2000 to take advantage of our state’s beautiful and precious outdoor spaces. I wanted to spend time with my beautiful wife Nicole and raise my children in clean mountain air. When I took on Mick Jeanne – a long-time employee – as a co-owner a few years ago, we jointly acknowledged that the world is bigger than us and precious to us. We agreed to put some money where our environmental mouths are. After all, talk is cheap, but change is expensive! Good causes need financial support.

1% for the Planet is a good fit. It connects us with like-minded businesses and demands a simple, honest, and manageable annual giving goal – and one that changes as means change. “A portion of profits donated to charity,” or “10% of profits donated to this cause” is meaningless; any business owner knows profits can be manipulated by compensation and other accounting tricks. But when you donate a percentage of your gross sales as reported on your tax return, the number is concrete. For BlueChannel, this number, albeit small, was hard to swallow at first. It has since grown year over year, and now it is just built into our business model and lives. And while we would continue to give even if this was not true, the exposure we receive from our annual contributions has made this commitment financially worthwhile as well. Doing the right thing can pay.

Colorado Environmental Coalition has recently merged with Colorado Conservation Voters to become Conservation Colorado. Priorities include protecting public lands and wilderness areas – many of the same areas I backpacked and fell in love with after moving here. They also work to mitigate climate change and encourage pro-environmental legislation. Right now, they are active in trying to encourage rural Colorado utilities to increase their clean energy sources. Help the cause and take action to support SB 252 and related legislation today!

Republican, Democrat, or otherwise, you can’t do business on a dead planet. I encourage you to support an environmental cause, and if you need ideas, 1% for the Planet and Conservation Colorado are indeed worthy.

For the last decade, we’ve recommended our clients use the underdog mail service iContact (formerly IntelliContact). We liked their interface, we liked their pricing, and we liked that they were not the big player, Constant Contact. We signed up for their affiliate program, recommended their service to clients, and built marketing campaigns on on their platform.

Out of the blue, I received this brief letter dated December 10, 2012:

Dear Paul DeCrette,

iContact, LLC has recently conducted an extensive review of iContact’s Affiliate and Partner programs and has concluded that the current program which you are enrolled in has not satisfied its stated objective of having iContact Affiliates and Partners refer a steady stream of customers to iContact and promote iContact’s services. Therefore, iContact is terminating such Affiliate and Partner Programs as of December 31, 2012.

We invite you to join iContact’s new marketing programs described at www.icontact.com/partners by contacting us at Partners@icontact.com. We value the relationship that we have with you and hope that you may choose to work with us in the future.

On December 17, the day I received the letter, I made contact with Partners@icontact.com as they requested:

Hi!

I received a notice from Vocus about the end to the iContact referral program. Will you continue to pay referrals on accounts already referred to you, just stopping payments on new referrals? Or are you planning to stop the previously-referred, agreed-upon current referrals being paid?

Thanks for the clarification,
- Paul

They never responded. In Q1 2013, I received my last commission check. We still actively use the service because we have clients on the platform. But are we still referring our clients to this business? No way.

Business advice: keep your promises. Respond to your emails. And give folks more than a few days’ notice when you are ending a previously agreed-upon commission structure that you’ve been honoring for a decade. I understand situations change and businesses need to adapt. But was this the best way to handle a long-term partner? Absolutely not. Unacceptable. And now rather than advocating for your service, I am intentionally speaking out against it.

Good luck iContact! With great services out there like Constant Contact and MailChimp, you are going to need it!

The project was not without its challenges; we took over midstream from a failed previous attempt. Robyn Openshaw (aka Green Smoothie Girl) and her team were great to work with despite their frustrating situation. Apparently, the first developer over-promised, under-delivered, went way over budget, and hijacked the site. Luckily she turned to BlueChannel to help save the day. Read her blog post about the situation.

At peak times, GreenSmoothieGirl.com (which BlueChannel hosts) handles almost 1,000 simultaneous database and web server connections. We’ve been lucky to have Robyn’s patience as we fine-tune her custom hosting platform, and are thrilled to support her going forward as she and her team work hard to spread the green smoothie gospel.

To your health!

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