PostEgram

The Hot Shots are headed to the State Finals!

2011-03-23T05:22:00.000-07:00

Check out this video I did for Patch.com of the Royal Oak Hot Shots!

Why does PostEgram Ask for Permission to Posts on Walls?

2011-02-24T13:05:00.000-08:00

We received an email from a PostEgram customer today asking this:

"Why does Postegram need to post to my wall? What will you post?"

What we post to walls is a "Courtesy Reminder", like the one you see above. We post it 48 hours before your PostEgram is created with a link to "manage content" on it. (It's in the lower right-hand corner.)

The PostEgram Content Manager gives you the ability to delete any news or photos you don't want to share. It is also were you go to write personal messages. (About 80% of all PostEgrams have a personal note in it!)

The best reason for the Courtesy Reminder? It serves as a reminder to upload pictures. PostEgrams are best when they have lots of photos!

We hope this helps! Keep those questions coming.

PostEgram Offers Family Yearbooks!

2011-02-18T18:43:00.000-08:00

Let PostEgram print your Facebook network status updates and photos into a perfect-bound, bookstore-quality paperback. Include up to 15 people in your family.

Yearbooks start at $45.

I just got mine back from the printer and I LOVE it. It's very professional looking. The color pages are wonderful. It's like a combination journal/scrapbook of all the people I love. What a great gift for future generations! I wish there was Facebook when my grandmothers were alive.

Email judy@postegram.com and get a quote!

Judy Davids
PostEgram Co-founder

Thank you Quicken Loans!

2011-02-03T10:22:00.000-08:00

We love Quicken Loans!

Thank you for helping PostEgram keep military families connected to their families via a printed facebook magazine.

Check out this video.

PostEgram on Channel 7 Action News!

2011-01-06T11:54:00.001-08:00

Thanks Jordan for taping this segment for us!

PostEgram on Channel 7 Action News!

2010-12-24T10:41:00.000-08:00

PostEgram on Channel 7 Action News

2010-12-24T05:55:00.000-08:00

PostEgrams make a great gift for tech-shy seniors.

Watch the video!

PostEgram gets a little love from the Cavs!

2010-11-11T05:10:00.000-08:00

Last night PostEgram was honored to be a part of the Cleveland Cavs Military Family Appreciation Night at the Q.

Together, with the Cleveland USO, we gave away 1000 PostEgram subscriptions to keep military families connected to their loved ones.

The Armed Forces make enormous sacrifices to serve our country. Keeping in touch with family shouldn't be one of those sacrifices.

Happy Veterans Day!

PostEgram on Xconomy

2010-10-26T04:16:00.000-07:00

PostEgram gets a nice writeup on Xconomy.com

Click here to read it !

PostEgram in Woman's Day

2010-10-09T09:24:00.001-07:00

On the cover of Woman's Day this month: Stay In Touch. There's a nice article about how families connect and guess what? PostEgram is one of the solutions. Pick up the November 1 issue. You might even win a FREE subscription to PostEgram!

PostEgram in Woman's Day!

2010-10-06T04:46:00.000-07:00

Some of our fans have been writing to let us know they saw PostEgram in the latest edition of Woman's Day magazine. It's true we are in the November 1 issue. Look for it on newsstands.

PostEgram on Inc.com

2010-10-06T04:39:00.001-07:00

PostEgram CEO, Judy Davids, gets a mention on Inc.com. She talks talks about what it's like to been a one-woman sales force.

PostEgram on MSNhttpBC "Your Buisness:

2010-10-06T03:34:00.000-07:00

Check out PostEgram on MSNBC's "Your Business"

Ways to Improve Your PostEgram

2010-08-12T11:16:00.000-07:00

PostEgrams recipients look forward to getting news from you!

PostEgram customer Pam wrote to tell us: "Aunt Viv got her PostEGram and SHE LOVED IT!!!!! Got the sweetest note in the mail from her thanking us for it:)....made her day! Best part is... she doesn't know yet that she'll be getting one once a month from us. This is going to fun!"

The awesome part of sending a PostEgram is that it requires minimal effort for MAXIMUM benefit! Here are 5 simple steps you can take that will make your PostEgram positively SMASHING.

#1 Upload pictures! The best PostEgrams are the ones that include photos of you, your kids, your vacations, your special events etc. A picture is worth a thousand words!

#2 Caption those photos. Photos captions are included in your PostEgram. Take a few seconds to type who's in the photo and what the occasion is. This really helps the recipient!

#3 Manage your content. We'll post to your wall 48 hours before your PostEgram goes out in the mail. This is your opportunity to remove any content that's not relevant for the recipient.

#4 Add a personal note. The Content Manager allows you to write a personal message to be included in your PostEgram. It's sort of like sending a Direct Message. Only the recipient will see it.

#5 Post to your wall no matter what. So your life is not as exciting as Donald Trump's, who cares? Share a good book you are reading. Or a TV show you are watching. Or a recipe. The recipient wants to hear from you!

PostEgram: Share your news. Share your photos. Stay in touch.

2010-08-12T11:14:00.000-07:00

Want to share pictures with Grandma, but not necessarily your other Facebook Friends?

2010-08-11T07:42:00.000-07:00

Sometimes PostEgram contributers have pictures they would love to share with the PostEgram recipient, but not their Facebook friends. For example some people feel uncomfortable posting photos of young children to Facebook and giving their names. Here’s how you can make sure only Grandma sees certain photos.

Go to your “Profile” page and click on your “Photos” tab.

Click on “Create a Photo Album”.

Name your album.

Click on the “Privacy” drop down menu.

Click on “Customize”.

Under the “Make this visible to…These People” click on the drop down menu.

Click on “Specific People”.

Type in the name of the person who created the PostEgram. This is the person who posts a "PostEgram Courtesy Reminder” on your wall.

Now click on “Create Album”.

Select photos to upload.

Upload photos.

Click on “Publish Now”.

The album will be posted to “Your” wall but only you and the person who creates the PostEgram will be able to see it and, of course, the recipient of the PostEgram!

(However, you can "remove" the wall post if you want and the photos will still be included in the PostEgram. To revove the photos completely from Facebook you must delete the album.)

THANKS A MILLION

2010-08-05T04:24:00.000-07:00

So check this out. YOU CAN WIN A POSTEGRAM! How?

Check out Quicken Loans Thanks a Million Contest.

Here's the scoop:

Quicken Loans has come a long way since their humble beginnings in Southfield, MI. It started with Dan Gilbert and a few of his friends – folks with a clear dream to make the mortgage process easy and simple.

The dream came true.

Today Quicken Loans has more than 3,000 team members and is headquartered in Detroit. As the nation’s largest online mortgage lender, they help thousands of clients every day and they are close to closing their MILLIONTH LOAN!

To celebrate, they are making things exciting with a Thanks A Million sweepstakes. Just click here and you could win one of thousands of prizes including a POSTEGRAM. It’s free and fun.

Try it!

Vacation Photo Tips

2010-06-17T18:15:00.000-07:00

At PostEgram we see what's trending with our customers. Recent PostEgrams have lots of graduation photos--from pre-school to high school. Our guess is we'll soon be seeing lots of vacation photos.

Robert Caplin shared some of his travel photography secrets with the New York Times.

http://frugaltraveler.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/qa-tips-from-travel-photographer-robert-caplin/

PostEgram is in the NEWS!

2010-06-09T15:40:00.000-07:00

Read Marty Keenan's story on PostEgram in the Detroit News. Click on this link:

http://detnews.com/article/20100609/BIZ/6090347/1001/biz

Vote for PostEgram!

2010-06-09T15:34:00.000-07:00

Got a minute? I know. Who Does? BUT, it'd be really great if you could take 5 seconds and vote for PostEgram at :

http://www.startupnation.com/leading-moms-in-business/contestant/8607/index.php

Thanks!

How we came up for the idea for PostEgram

2010-06-01T11:03:00.000-07:00

We often get asked how we came up with the idea for PostEgram. It's a good question.

PostEgram CTO Ken Bloink and I were students at Bizdom U.* Bizdom is an entreprenuer boot camp where folks turn business ideas into business plans. Most Bizdom students enter the program with an idea about the kind of business they want to build. I did not.

One day we did an exercise in class called Disciplined Dreaming. Disciplined Dreaming is a concept (and soon to be published book) developed by the founder and CEO of ePrize, Josh Linkner. Josh is the author of several books. His latest one is on creativity.

Here's how Disciplined Dreaming led to PostEgram.

One day we tried it out at Bizdom U. The first thing my Bizdom instructor, Dan Izzo, did was write down what was important to us in terms of starting a business. For Bizdom students, those things are:

The business has to be located in the City of Detroit.
It has to be scaleable.
And the idea should be launchable for $100,000 or less.

As a class we selected a target audience for a business. We decided to look at senior citizens.

With that in mind, we studied the world around us as it related to the elderly. We looked for trends and inflection points . Inflection points are the points of change. (Like an iPod was an inflection point for how we listen to music.) As a class we noted a rise in the use of technology and social networking. We also noted the demise of newspapers. We also realized that retirees are on fixed incomes. Health issues and loniless also came up.

After we familiarized ourselves with our business guiding principles, our target audience, and our Inflection Points, we tried to connect the dots. We started our "Long List" of business ideas--we had to come up with 100.

Keeping in mind the Inflection Points, a couple of people came up with ideas for teaching the elderly how to use computers or Facebook.

That's the point where the idea for PostEgram came up. I thought of my 78-year-old mother-in-law and how she enjoyed it when I showed her my Facebook account. I knew, however, her objections to owning a computer. It did not interest her. So I came up with a way that she could view Facebook without one!

Lucky for me, Ken thought the idea could work too and he had a printing and programming background.

Here's the thing I think is really cool. Of the 100 ideas we wrote on the board that day, PostEgram was like number 60 or so. I talked to Josh recently and he was explaining that when businesses try to come up with new ideas they will develop maybe 5 ideas. BUT, the long list proves that the deeper you go the fresher the ideas get. As Josh put it "Quantity drives quality."
So there is the long explanation of how we arrived at PostEgram. I felt it was worth giving credit where credit is due. Much thanks to Josh Linkner for his inspiration.

You can learn more about Disciplined Dreaming™: A 5-Step System to Develop and Manage Creativity by downloading a free, short eBook (approximately 2000 words) that explains the system in detail. You’ll enjoy examples, stories, and specific techniques that you can immediately put to use to grow your creative capacity. Click here to get your copy.

*Bizdom is a comprehensive four-month, non-profit, entrepreneur boot camp that trains future entrepreneurs about everything they need to know to start and grow a successful, innovative, Detroit-based business. The program was launched by Dan Gilbert, Founder and Chairman of Quicken Loans Inc. and has been funded by him with assistance from the New Economy Initiative and the Kauffman Foundation. Training is conducted by local entrepreneurs who use their real-world and personal experiences to train participants about the opportunities and challenges they will face as business owners. During the program, participants prepare a business plan for a company, which must be located within the City of Detroit.

PostEgram allows social networking without a computer

2010-06-01T10:56:00.000-07:00

This article appeared in the Daily Tribune.

PostEgram allows social networking without a computer
Published: Saturday, May 29, 2010

By Catherine Kavanaugh
Daily Tribune Staff Writer

Newsletter compiles Facebook updates, photos for low-tech subscribers.

There was a time when 78-year-old Joy Davids kept the family connected, relaying news from the mundane to major milestones to relatives who called her regularly.

However, nowadays the family, especially the young ones, doesn’t phone home as often to tell the Hazel Park woman about their school concerts or find out what their cousins are doing. They text and use Facebook to keep up with each other and hundreds of their closest friends.

Technology sidelined the Davids matriarch, who doesn’t have a computer and doesn’t want one. That bothered her daughter-in-law, Judy Davids, 50, of Royal Oak, who based a new business called PostEgram on bridging the generation gap.

PostEgram uses an application on the Facebook platform to turn personal updates and photos into a printed newsletter that arrives monthly in the snail mailbox of friends and family who don’t go online.

Customers can sign up for a PostEgram account for $4.99 a month, edit content for the newsletter, and schedule delivery. The price includes printing and postage.

“It’s great for me,” Joy Davids said. “It keeps me informed without sitting at a computer. I saw pictures of my grandson’s house in Seattle before he moved there and another grandson’s little boy walking in Georgia. It keeps me in touch and they don’t have to call.”

Judy Davids said her mother-in-law was the inspiration behind the business she runs with Ken Bloink, a fellow graduate of Bizdom U, an entrepreneur boot camp started by Quicken Loans Chairman Dan Gilbert.

“Before Facebook came along she was the family status updater,” Judy Davids said. “When social networking exploded we didn’t need her anymore to find out what our out-of-state relatives were up to. She would tell us something and I knew from Facebook it happened two weeks ago.”

The communication gap also was evident when Judy Davids couldn’t convince her sons to call their grandparents about their concert performances and school accomplishments.

“They’d say, ‘I wish I could just text them,’” Judy Davids said. “Kids text and seniors wait for phone calls. Our generation is sandwiched between our kids, who are technical natives growing up with technology, and our parents, who are technical foreigners. We’re technical immigrants, who are learning it and interpreting for them.”

Judy Davids came up with PostEgram to do the interpreting for a growing number of subscribers who want to keep not only elderly relatives but military servicemen and women in the loop.

PostEgram has caught the attention of the Michigan National Guard for reservists serving overseas.

“They use computers, but while they are away for 15 months their computer time is limited. PostEgram keeps them connected,” Judy Davids said.

Another subscriber is creating monthly newsletters for a relative who suffered a traumatic brain injury and has memory problems.

Joy Davids saves her newsletters as a family journal and a modern brag book about her five children, 11 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.

“I take it often when I have lunch with my friends,” she said. “They share their pictures and I share my newsletter. It’s a good idea.”

PostEgram lets the sender and recipient communicate in a way that’s comfortable for them. The business launched in April with $115,000 of seed money from the Bizdom Fund for modest salaries and start-up costs.

Bizdom U maintains a share of ownership to fund future ventures and requires participants to locate in Detroit.

“The idea is to reinvent Detroit with business not based on manufacturing,” Judy Davids said. “I’m proud to be part of the vision that Detroit can make a comeback.”

It’s a personal comeback, too. Fifteen months ago Davids was laid off from a consulting firm where she had worked for 17 years. She reinvented herself from an obsolete draftsperson to a CEO.

She also is the guitarist in the Mydols, which will appear on the reality TV series Gene Simmons Family Jewels.

“I always felt creative and fearless about everything except what I did for a living,” Davids said. “My friends called it the golden handcuffs. I was afraid to give up a paycheck.”

Now she is watching her ideas pay off.

For more information about PostEgram, call (313) 202-6675 or go to www.postegram.com.

PostEgrams Brings Bliss

2010-05-06T10:32:00.000-07:00

Read what the Bliss Lady thinks about PostEgram.

http://theblissnetwork.blogspot.com/2010/05/what-do-fox-2-news-and-bliss-network.html

Put Your Best Facebook Forward

2010-05-06T09:28:00.000-07:00

If you’re like millions of Americans, chances are you’re on Facebook. Furthermore, odds are you’re uploading lots of photographs. About 2.5 Billion images are uploaded to Facebook every month. It seems as if it has never been easier to share your life in pictures with your family and friends, right?

Well it certainly is easy to connect on Facebook, but the truth is there may be someone special missing all those snapshots of school events, birthday parties and vacations—and that person is Grandma. Statistics show that about half of all Americans over the age of 65 do not have Internet access. So while you’re uploading images from your mobile phone, poor Grandma is looking in her mailbox looking for a letter from you.

That’s where PostEgram comes in.

PostEgram, a new Detroit-based business, makes it possible for those without a computer or the desire to socially network online, to keep in touch with their loved ones. PostEgram uses an application on Facebook® Platform that gives users the ability to transform their personal updates and photos into a full-color printed newsletter which is then delivered to the mailboxes of family and friends.

The idea is the creation of Judy Davids and Ken Bloink, two entrepreneurs with backgrounds in entertainment, the print industry and web development. Davids crafted the idea after noticing that her mother-in-law, who does not have a computer, was missing out on her grandchildren’s activities which Davids posted daily on Facebook. Davids and Bloink developed the easy-to-use application and constructed a business model through Bizdom U, the non-profit Detroit-based entrepreneurial boot camp founded by Dan Gilbert.

“When we came up with the idea, we knew Grandmas would love it,” says Davids. “The reaction we didn’t expect was how much the senders of PostEgram would like it. We discovered a lot of folks today don’t print photos any more. Images exist only on the memory chips of cell phones, digital cameras, computer hard drives and, of course, Facebook. We talked to customers, who had every intention of going to the drugstore and printing up pictures to send off to Grandma—but they got busy or they forgot. Because of PostEgram, they don’t feel guilty anymore!”

To make sure Grandma isn’t missing all your Facebook photos, go to http://www.postegram.com/ and find out how you can subscribe.

Here are some tips from Rosh Sillars to make sure your Facebook photos are worth the look. Sillars is the author “The Linked Photographers Guide to Online Marketing and Social Media.”

Make Your Facebook Photos Outstanding

Be clear about who your Facebook audience is. Use your personal profile for things like photos of your kids, and a Facebook Page for photos of your business products. Your customers don’t want to see your kids in the bathtub and Grandma doesn’t want to see an advertisement for your widget.

Make sure you caption all your photos. You may be very proud that your little Timmy is shaking hands with the Mayor, but most of your friends will not know who that lady in the red suit is.

Get in close for portraits. Facebook photos can only be enlarged so much, so if your subject is standing 20 feet away they may be unrecognizable.

Also avoid flash photography. Use natural lighting when possible.

Taking a head shot? Make sure the subject isn’t standing in front of a wall. Add dimension by asking the subject to put one foot forward. This will adjust the shoulders so they are not square and avoid the photograph looking like a mug shot.

Shooting an event? Do a Triangle Shoot. That is, take overall photos that set the theme, like shots of the crowd or the surroundings. Take medium shots that tell the story, for instance candid shots of two people talking. And take close-up shots for drama. These are tight images of the little details. You want to include as much variety in your photos as possible so they are interesting to look at.

When photographing children, get down to their level. Don’t shoot down at them. Capture them laughing or being goofy. Include a favorite toy in the photo. Take pictures that show their personality.

For more photography tips from Rosh visit http://www.roshsillars.com/ or read his blog at http://www.newmediaphotographer.com/.

PostEgram as seen on FOX 2

2010-05-05T15:38:00.000-07:00

Is Grandma missing your SUPER AWESOME Facebook posts?

2010-04-29T11:02:00.000-07:00

Before Facebook came along, remember how you use to call Grandma? She’d tell you how your cousin in Texas had his gall bladder removed, and how your other cousin in Florida got engaged. Grandma was the original status-updater.

Then social networking exploded, and poor Grandma lost her job. Darn it. She never bothered to learn to use that electronic friend maker.

Well PostEgram makes it possible for those without a computer or the desire to socially network online (like Grandma), to keep in touch with their loved ones. PostEgram uses an application on Facebook® Platform that gives users the ability to transform their personal updates and photos into a full-color printed newsletter which is then delivered to directly to Grandma’s doorstep.

The service is easy-to-use. It’s affordable. And it’s automatic. Set it up once, and never feel guilty again. Grandma will see what you’ve been up to and all those photos of your cute kids too!

Visit our website at www.postegram.com to find out more, and then CALL YOUR GRANDMA. She misses you.