iBec turns 18 years old!

The June 2024 Newsletter -

iBec Creative is officially a legal adult! So much has changed over the past 18 years. Back in 2006, Pluto had just been reclassified as a dwarf planet, Facebook was gaining in popularity, and a dozen eggs cost less than a dollar. Of course, there are some things that haven’t changed. We still listen to Temperature by Sean Paul on the office speakers and we’re still operating under the belief that being kind and doing the right thing are the best ways to operate a business.

To celebrate, we all enjoyed lunch together and then played iBec-themed Jeopardy where Becky played the role of Alex Trebek (or for newer Jeopardy fans, Ken Jennings). We all won scratch tickets for correctly naming things like which cover letter excerpt was written by which iBec employee or which client wrote which testimonial. Even though Sean cleaned up by winning what seemed like more than half of the scratch tickets, no cash was claimed. He left for his month-long sabbatical shortly after that, though, so I guess he’s still a winner in the end. Congratulations on 10 years at iBec, Sean!

(Just shy of) $500 raised for the American Heart Association

Nate, Morgan, Violet, Chelsea, and Jake collectively raised juuust shy of $500 for the American Heart Association! In addition to some fundraising, they gathered at the Back Cove Trail in Portland to walk the 3.5 miles around Back Cove. It was a great way to get up and get moving on a Sunday morning for a great cause. Thank you to everyone who donated!

The American Heart Association’s mission is to “be a relentless force for a world of longer, healthier lives.” If you’re interest in donating, volunteering, or participating in future events, head to their website here!

Combining volunteer efforts to launch a site for a good cause

Each quarter, iBec selects a nonprofit that applies for our Embrace Purpose Grant to receive $5000 towards one of our services. The Embrace Purpose Grant came about because we believe that all organizations, regardless of their budget, should have access to the resources they need to make a meaningful impact.

This past quarter, we had a tough decision to make, and even though EqualityMaine wasn’t selected as the grant recipient, several iBec team members banded together to use their iBec volunteer hours to help design, develop, and launch their new website!

Thank you to Chelsea, Kes, Rayna, and Violet for volunteering your time to help support the EqualityMaine team and mission to “protect and advance full equality for all lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer Mainers by creating an inclusive and intersectional movement through political action, community building, education, engagement and collaboration.”

You can head to the EqualityMaine website here to donate, view upcoming events, and learn about everything they are doing to empower LGBTQ+ Mainers and their families.

Keeping up with the robots

AI has been the talk of the town for awhile now. There are all kinds of uses that continue to emerge as it grows and evolves. We asked a couple iBec team members what they think of AI right now. Here are there responses!

“I like using AI to help me get in the mindset of our clients’ target customers. I will ask ChatGPT to create a customer profile to analyze the inner workings of a demographic’s purchase behaviors.”

- Kes Lavoie, Digital Marketing Manager

“I’ve found Perplexity to be a helpful tool to use in place of Google. It’s a conversational search engine that actually sites its sources, making it somewhat more trustworthy.”

- Jake Dombek, Digital Marketer

“It can be challenging to see how AI can be used as more than a gimmick, especially since so many companies are rolling out products based on buzzwords alone. I have been digging into using AI as a code assistant with good results and have been working with our clients to find data-driven improvements we can offer using AI.”

- Rayna Winters, Senior Web Developer

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