Randi Bjornstad, reporter with The Register-Guard did something pretty special. Well, many things actually. First she was diagnosed with cancer, went through treatment, and is now healthy. Then she was brave enough to tell the whole world about it in her first-person story that came out on Sunday in the Oregon Life section. And check out this picture. In her gown and everything! I’m so impressed.

Then she started a blog, called The Fem Side, “…where as women we talk about things that are important to us — and maybe even mobilize occasionally to do something about issues we think are most important.”

I recently started working with Oregon Imaging Centers on a campaign to get women over 40 in for their annual mammograms. Early detection not only saves lives, but reduces the risk for extreme treatments like mastectomy. Like Randi, many women who find their breast cancer early through their annual mammograms, undergo a relatively minor surgery, called a lumpectomy, followed by several weeks of radiation. It’s not a walk in the park, but it’s doable.

Wouldn’t it be great if we, as women, encouraged one another to get our annual mammograms. I want to walk down the street or sit in a coffee shop and hear other women talking about their mammograms. We need to support one another in taking care of ourselves and that starts with simply making time to make our health a priority. Wait til you see the campaign.

A quick shout out to my friend and coworker, Melinda Dille. She recently got her book, Tales from the Dog Park, published. It’s the sweetest little book. CAWOOD will be giving them away to clients and potential clients as part of our Change promotion.

Long sweet story short, Melinda had a journal full of sayings that she acquired while observing her dogs at the dog park. She dreamed of putting them together and passing them on to others for their enjoyment and edification. She mentioned Harvest House Publishers to me because somewhere in the back of her mind she remembered that I knew someone who worked there. Inspired, I called that person, Jenn Butenschoen. She’s in charge of the department that gets the books printed. She mentioned it to the person in charge of gift book acquisitions, Jean Christenson. And it just so happens they were looking for Melinda’s exact book at that exact time. They’d already found an illustrator, Clinton Banbury, and were just waiting for the perfect author to come along. Truly amazing. It never happens like that. I see it as a miracle. There’s just no way all the pieces could have come together without God’s intervention.

Melinda received her first copies late December and we celebrated it’s launch at a wonderful party in January. Hopefully, you’ll see the book in stores by the holiday season. If you want a copy in the meantime, just let me know and I’ll hook you up. I can also get it personally signed from the author. Just let me know who to make it out to.

Should a name be plain and just state what it is? Or should it evoke emotions?

Let’s say you’re going to a clinic for a preventative screening. That means you’re being brave, biting the bullet and doing what you should to make sure you’re not sick. And if you are sick, you can catch it early and have a better chance for recovery.

In this imaginary scenario let’s pretend that you don’t have a personal connection to anyone at this particular clinic. You will be seeing a random technologist, not a doctor that you know.

Do you want the name of the clinic to say, “Get your test here,” or do you want it to say, “Feel good about coming here,” even if you’re not quite sure what the name means?

Let’s think about it in relation to hair salons. Why do some have fancy French or Italian names instead of just calling themselves Hair Styles Salon. Number One, if every hair salon called themselves that you wouldn’t know one from the next. Number Two, the fancy name makes you feel better about spending a bunch of money on your haircut.

But what if that were truly the only Hair Salon in town. Could they then just be Hair Salon or would the fancy name still be meaningful?

I could go on and on with examples but I think you get the point. I’m not sure there’s a clearcut answer. The reason for a fancy name might just be the owner’s need to make it feel special. And that’s probably ok.

Many of you have commented about my site’s good design. Thank you for the nice sentiments. I must give credit where it’s due. Cory Cailteux designed my site. We work together at CAWOOD. We’ve worked on many web projects together, such as Applegate Medical, Summit Bank, Slocum Orthopedics, Queen Anne Victorian Mansion, Buy Commonsense, the CAWOOD Blog, and a new campaign site, CAWOOD Change. And we’ll launch Oregon Imaging Centers, O’Connell Pensions, Market of Choice, and Spruce Mountain Cabinets sometime this year.

On the personal side, we worked together on Tales from the Dog Park, my site here, and he’ll help me with a site for my First Place program in a couple months

So, if you need a site designed for your business, contact me at CAWOOD and Cory and I will work on it together. We’re a good team and your business will benefit. We promise.

If you need a personal website designed, contact Cory directly and he would be more than happy to assist you.

One more note, Cory takes great pictures. Check them out. Those are his flower pictures at the top of my site.

SPECIAL: The first person to contact Cory or me about web design will receive a 10% discount. Good for Dana’s Life readers only!

After many months of researching, preparing, planning, presenting, and fretting… two projects came in today. I feel a little stunned. After that much work and waiting it seems strange for them to both come through on the same day.

The first is a web project for Market of Choice. I’m totally excited about it. I received the final approval today from the owner, Rick Wright, after the third layer of meetings about it. We’re creating a social networking site that will change the way grocery stores advertise. It will allow users to decide which content they want to see, including what’s on special. It’s so revolutionary for a grocery store, yet so obvious. The trend for advertising is to give the content the customer wants in the way they want to receive it. Not force them to read the newspaper and weed through full pages of specials of which they may only be interested in one.

I found out about the next project while in the shower tonight. I literally answered the phone soaking wet. It was Josh, from Oregon Imaging Centers, telling me that we won the award for their 08-09 marketing budget. He had just finished the board meeting where they decided. I’m thrilled! We’ll start work tomorrow.