Mary and I have been working extremely hard on our new book with our good friend Nancy Dowd. The book, Bite-Sized Marketing; solutuions for the overworked librarian, will be coming out this summer from ALA. Keep an eye out for it!

2008 brought many great changes and many exciting projects to Fearless Future, so Jonathan and I wanted to take time to thank all of those people and companies that made it such a great year. Whew!

• January—Mary moved back East in January to central Pennsylvania. After one year as Director of User Services and Outreach at Musselman Library, Gettysburg College she continues to be engaged and excited about her work there. She and her wonderfully smart and creative colleagues are currently in the process of creating an integrated approach to marketing in libraries. Stay tuned for more details.
• April—Jonathan continues to receive accolades about the IM marketing effort he was involved in with American Univerity Library and in April he presented about it at Computers in Libraries with our amazing colleagues Alex Hodges and Patricia West. This campaign proved that a library could create a great looking campaign that matched perfectly with its target audience and clearly stated the benefit of using the IM service to that audience.
• April—Mary presented at CARL (California Academic and Research Libraries) in March with Pauline D. Manaka from University of California, Irvine and fellow fearless colleague Yvonne Mery from the University of Arizona Libraries. We adapted the “Can Libraries be sold as Soap?” for an hour session and Pauline added a section about Energy Star. Pauline is a great library colleague and Yvonne and I hope to work with her again soon.
• May—Mary was invited to be a panelist at the opening session Branding Bravely of at Amigos Library Services and at the same conference Mary and Yvonne conducted a three hour workshop version of “Can Libraries be sold as Soap?” We worked with the wonderful Laura Kimberly and Eddy Smith of Amigos who made us feel so welcome in Texas. Last but not least we got to catch up with one of our favorite fearless friends, Tommie Wingfield.
• May—Mary was invited to be a panelist on College of Dupage’s Library Challenges and Opportunities Teleconference—Rules of Engagement: Attracting and Engaging Library Users. This was the first time Mary was involved in a live, produced teleconference and it took her a while to get used to this format. The entire production crew at Dupage was so amazing, so patient and professional. Ellen Sutton who coordinates the Dupage Library Challenges and Opportunities asked Mary to work with her on the 2009 Library Challenges & Opportunities and together they put together two new programs for 2009. More about them later.
• August—Jonathan’s design of American University Library’s Annual Report was featured in Graphic Design USA’s “American In-House Design Award”.
• August—Mary conducted a three-hour version of “Can Libraries be sold as Soap?” for the Tri-state College Library Cooperative. Mary worked closely with Joy Dlugosz of Eastern University to adapt the workshop to the needs of the organization. Joy first met Mary when Mary was a guest lecturer for University of Pittsburgh’s School of Information Science. Mary does this every April for professor Susan Alman who is the director of the Fast Track program at Pitt. Joy is amazingly energetic and committed to librarianship.
• September—Fearless Future begins work with the Adams County SPCA. First we redesigned their unchaining brochure and in 2009 we will be working on their membership campaign. We are so impressed with the commitment all of the ACSPCA employees and board bring to this shelter; we are honored to work with them.
• October—Jonathan conducts Adobe Illustrator® training workshop for ARGY
• October—Jonathan’s design for American University Library’s Annual Report is also featured inPrint Magazine’s October 2008 Issue “Creativity + Commerce Business Graphics”
• November—Mary brought together three librarians to talk about Information Literacy for Life. This was the first teleconference that Mary helped shape and facilitated. It could not have gone any better. Alex Hodges, Niketha McKenzie and Roshin Matthew all presented about information literacy and their particular populations but more importantly the collaborations that can be created to create a seamless continuum of information literacy throughout one’s lifetime. Keep your eyes of all three of these librarians because you will undoubtedly her more about them.
• November—Fearless Future works pro-bono for ArtLitho to design their holiday card.
• November—Mary has chapter published in Staff Development Strategies That Work! Stories and Strategies from New Librarians. Mary chapter is titles Knowing and Showing : from a good to a great boss. In this chapter Mary recounts eight lessons she remembers from her greatest mentors and bosses. Working with editors Georgie Donovan and Miguel Figueroa made bring this chapter to fruition easy.
• December—Fearless Future submits manuscript for their how-to marketing book soon to be published by ALA entitled “Bite Size Marketing”.
• December—Fearless Future starts work with Julie Strange at Maryland Askus Now to create a commercial to promote their state-wide virtual reference service.

Thank you to everyone for making 2008 a great year!!! Mary & Jonathan

My goofy girl Lola

Mary and I are so excited!!! We are going to start doing some pro-bono work for the Adams County SPCA in Pennsylvania soon. Which means we get to work with the awesome Lisa Conklin, their director of development. We will keep you updated on what we come up with. This is really exciting for us since we are both huge animal lovers:

My Raucous Bunch (Roxey, Lola, & Stewie)

Mary’s crazy cats (Steward & Basil)

A great day in Texas. Mary and I gave our presentation/workshop to the Amigos folks in Dallas this past week. The workshop, “Can Libraries be Sold Like Soap?,” was similar to our CARL presentation but we did make a few adjustments. What’s great about the way we have structured the workshop is that we can easily tailor it to fit any size group. We’ve worked with groups as small as ten and as large as fifty. We can also easily cut or add activities to accommodate for time constraints. One hour workshops work, but they’re not as effective as the three hour workshops we have given. “Can Libraries Be Sold Like Soap?” is constantly evolving. At the core is our commitment to offering a workshop that is engaging, practical, entertaining, and of course, educational. Still, we are always updating it with analyses of new social marketing campaigns and new activities that really allow participants to come out of the workshop with the beginnings of a campaign. The folks at Amigos came out of the workshop with some great ideas including the “Take One for You and One for a Friend” school library campaign and the public library campaign “Steal Music for Free at Your Library.” We got to meet some great folks from the area including Nancy Hill from UTEP and Betty Long from the New Mexico State Library. We hope to see these folks again and develop workshops aimed at their particular staff and needs. Only regret is that we had to leave so early. Mary to Chicago for another workshop and me back to Tucson for work and three-year old play. Thanks to Eddy and Laura at Amigos for all the help behind the scenes. Presentation and travel went off without a hitch thanks to their support. And again thanks to our guru, Katya Andresen, for continued inspiration via her book and blog. One last thing. If you doubt Mary’s presence and stardom, just click here: http://genneaux.wordpress.com/2008/05/09/i-am-a-tool-of-engagement/ The gal’s a rising star!!!

This week Mary is presenting at two conferences. Woah Mama! Keep an eye out for her if you are attending either of these conferences! A Brand You World: Amigos Member Conference 2008 Breakout Session with Yvonne Mery Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

Can Libraries Be Sold like Soap? When: Wednesday, May 7 – 1:00 p.m. – 3:10 p.m. (Breakout Session) Speakers: Mary Evangeliste Director of User Services & Outreach, Gettysburg College and Co-Founder, Fearless Future: Marketing for Things That Matter; Yvonne Mery, Assistant Librarian, Undergraduate Services Team, University of Arizona Library Audience: Branding and Marketing Traditionally, many librarians have had little faith in commercial marketing, perceiving it as unnecessary and claiming, in effect, that you can’t sell libraries like you sell soap. This session will present an alternative perspective on commercial marketing: social marketing and its applicability to libraries.

Tools of Engagement: Attracting and Engaging Library Users Library Challenges & Opportunities Friday, May 9th, 2008

What are the most creative libraries doing to engage current and potential users of the library? Join us as we explore great new ideas for reaching and engaging users and look at some results of users’ involvement in shaping library services, programs, and spaces. This program will go beyond PR, to involving our various communities of users in shaping the libraries of the future. Panelists include an accomplished library social marketer and outreach librarian, a very successful public library director who has integrated her library with other public agencies, a leader in college student engagement programs, and a recent MLS graduate exploring new ideas. This teleconference is 90 minutes–Noon to 1:30 p.m. Eastern Time

Mary and I are always haranguing anyone who will listen about the importance of a solid brand. So, in order to strengthen our own brand, we have launched a new logo. In order to maintain a little of the old branding, we took the three circles of our old logo and turned them into the windows of the rocketship. By and large, the typography remained the same but our tagline has now changed to more accurately portray our company.

Old Logo	New Logo

We were able to keep our “Retro-Futuristic” look that we love, but make it more eye catching and dynamic. What do you think? Oh, and check out the new homepage design too…

Yvonne Mery and I will be presenting on Friday April 4th in Irvine California at the California Association of Research Libraries. We will be presenting with a wonderful colleague from UC Irvine, Pauline Manaka. We are presenting a shortened version of “Can Libraries be sold as soap?” Our interactive workshop that focuses on social marketing campaigns and its transferability to libraries. Jonathan will be presenting with other awesome colleagues, Alex Hodges and Patricia West, on Tuesday, April 8th at Computers in Libraries in Arlington, Virginia. Jonathan and company will be talking about the amazing work done marketing IM service at American University Library. Finally our wonderful friend and co-author Nancy Dowd of The “M” Word is also presenting at Computers in Libraries. Nancy will be talking about how to survive tech exhaustion and instead find the best uses Web 2.0 technology in libraries.

As you may have noticed Jonathan has been posting up a storm with very little word from me; well that is because I am busy getting used to being back on the East Coast—which is awesome. I took the position of Director of User Services and Outreach at Musselman Library—Gettysburg College on January 7th. There are already doing so many amazing marketing and outreach activities at the library and I am honored to be part of their team. I am now living in Gettysburg which is completely different than living in Tucson. But the nature is just as beautiful but totally unlike that of the Sonoran Desert. Last Sunday I took a hike and experienced the tall evergreens and babbling brooks. I can’t wait for spring to truly begin so that I can really experience what the outdoors are like here! Early on, I noticed that everything in Gettysburg is named after the battlefield, there is a Battlefield Harley Davidson Shop, Battlefield Fries, Battlefield Holiday Inn, Battlefield anything and everything. When my friend Alex was here helping me move, we could not stop singing Pat Benatar’s “Love is a Battlefield.” So I submit to you, for your approval, these wonderful fashions from the early 80′s. Watching this video makes me remember how stoic singers always used to appeared in their videos.

Mary and I are testing out a new blog design. If you are reading this in a feed reader, come check out the new design and the new features. Poke around and let us know what you think.

I just got done re-desiging Fearless Future. Mary and I wanted to go with a much cleaner design than before with the goal of making it much easier to navigate.