KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI (March 3, 2010) – For the past 3 months, legendary automotive designer Chip Foose has been working with John Deere to produce a customized 1972 John Deere 4020 tractor. Thousands of people have been following the design and build process online through video “webisodes” made available at the http://deere.com/bigbuck website and on You Tube. Interest in the unveiling has reached a fever pitch, leading John Deere to produce the event live online in partnership with social media agency, Fresh ID. Anyone with an internet connection can watch the big reveal online at http://foose4020liveshow.com this Thursday, March 4th at 1:00 p.m. PST/4:00 p.m. EST.

The tractor is part of the unique Big Buck Customized 4020 Tractor Giveaway that customers can enter to win at their local John Deere dealer through June 30, 2010. John Deere chose Chip Foose to completely customize the tractor in a way that has never been done before to highlight sales incentives that run through April 30th 2010. The tractor will be on display at the John Deere booth throughout the 2010 Commodity Classic in Anaheim, California March 4-6 with online replays of the unveiling available at the http://foose4020liveshow.com website.

Following the unveiling, the tractor will tour the country as part of the John Deere Drive Green Tractor Experience where rural property owners, agricultural producers and other interested consumers can take advantage of the opportunity to operate and ask questions about the latest models of utility tractors and other equipment available from John Deere. The tractor, along with three gator utility vehicles, will be given away as part of the promotion. Rules for the giveaway as well as a complete schedule of Drive Green events can be found at http://deere.com/drivegreen.

About:
John Deere (Deere & Company — NYSE: DE) is a world leader in providing advanced products and services for agriculture, forestry, construction, lawn and turf care, landscaping and irrigation. John Deere also provides financial services worldwide and manufactures and markets engines used in heavy equipment. Since it was founded in 1837, the company has extended its heritage of integrity, quality, commitment and innovation around the globe.

Chip Foose is an internationally recognized automotive designer and fabricator best known for his work on custom hot rods. He starred in five seasons of Overhaulin’ on TLC. Foose’s unique style has earned him numerous industry awards, including the Ridler Award and Best of Show at SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association), as well as recognition in the Hot Rod Hall of Fame. Foose owns and operates a custom shop in Huntington Beach, California.

Fresh ID, LLC helps businesses around the world expand their business and reach their goals. By understanding companies from the inside out, Fresh ID designs intelligent solutions and products that help clients do business and engage with prospects and customers. Brand identity and monitoring, social media consultation and campaigns, web design, site socialization, interactive design, application development and user experience strategy are a few of the services offered by Fresh ID. More information about the company and the Twitterface application is available athttp://freshid.com and at http://twitterface.com.

“I’m very excited about this new position,” explains Qualls. “Fresh ID has a long history of success in creating positive user experience and brand images for companies all over the country. This is a great opportunity for me to add my skills and experiences to an already fantastic leadership and team.”

Qualls was previously co-founder and Chief Development Officer for the successful start-up company LightThread, LLC. Responsible for business development, Qualls was instrumental in helping the company achieve profitability within their first year. Prior to LightThread, she held a variety of leadership positions in sales, program management, product development, business integration and executive management. She has successfully built, managed, and consulted on teams with global companies such as Cisco, Sprint, General Electric and John Deere. In addition to her new role at Fresh ID, she is the current President for the Social Media Club of Kansas City and serves as an at-large member on the Blue Springs Officials Association executive board.

Qualls joins founder and current Chief Creative Officer, Kristi Colvin, at Fresh ID, who has run the company as a sole proprietor since leaving PentaSafe Security Technologies in 2002.

“Many experienced business consultants reach a crossroads of deciding between remaining independent, or changing and growing into a larger company in order to achieve more. After working with Lisa Qualls at LightThread on various projects the past year, the synergy and complementing skills between us were too obvious to ignore. I knew she was the right person to take the helm and help Fresh ID grow into the future, so asking her to join me as a partner and take the CEO position made perfect sense. I have seen firsthand how dedicated Lisa is to our clients success and growth… she continually goes the extra mile for our customers, partners, staff and contractors.”

Colvin has created business communications since 1995 for leading software organizations and small-to-medium size start-up companies and worked for many Fortune 500 organizations as a consultant in addition to leading teams at PentaSafe and SigmFlow Software as User Experience Manager. From a foundation in print design and retail visual merchandising, she added web site design, user interface design and human factors research to her creative skill set. She specializes in applying design thinking and intuitive insight to branded online and offline experiences and emerging technologies.

Fresh ID also announces a change of location. The company’s new offices will be located in the Meers Advertising building at 1815 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64108. Fresh ID will officially move to the location on Monday, February 15.

Fresh ID helps businesses around the world expand their business and reach their goals. By understanding companies from the inside out, Fresh ID designs intelligent solutions and products specific to what clients need in order to do business and engage with prospects and customers. Brand identity and monitoring, social media consultation and campaigns, web design, site socialization, interactive design, application development and user experience strategy are a few of the services offered by Fresh ID. More information about the company is available at http://freshid.com.

Contact:         Matt Bartlett
Phone:            877-785-3737
E-mail            matt@freshid.com

Here’s my theory: we sell what we see. First, a little background so you know where all this is coming from. During 2009 I became involved in various business ventures… I launched Twitterface, my web-based Twitter client. I went away from a company name I had used for some years (this one, Fresh ID) and set up We Heart Studios with a lot of cute, focused names associated with it like We Heart Tumblr and We Heart WordPress. I created a long-needed “personal brand” for my pithy musings that have nothing to do with business. That brand got a lot of attention online for some reason, but it doesn’t really communicate what I do. I helped LightThread (who we partner with on lots of projects) as we tried to get more work here in the Kansas City area – in fact, we almost launched yet another new brand to focus on integrated marketing, then pulled back from that. All of these things have been competing for my attention.

So coming into December, I had a lot on my mind… and I felt disconnected from my own company branding. I am a little mystified regarding the way people view me and how few people know what I actually do – I am mostly on “marketing” or “social media” lists on Twitter, which is so vague. That’s unsettling as someone who needs to make money from creative services, and mostly enables social media from a technology perspective, rather than being a speaker on it or author or something. In short, I felt I needed a brand overhaul and continuity, something I both relate to because it typifies me, and can use in a corporate setting to do what I do to earn a living. This can be hard for a creative type – we like so many things. But what I resonated with most is my old company name, Fresh ID… I have had a company with the name “Fresh” in the title since about 1997. After some thought I realized I needed to commit to it fully, with my whole being, and so I have finally made Fresh ID an LLC and am in the process of rebranding everything to fall in line with my core offering.

What has this to do with you? Well, I want you to think about something. In the day-to-day, sort of always online life that many of us now lead – a true mix of business and pleasure at all times, what is it you’re looking at, physically? Are you looking at other people’s brands more than your own? This may seem unimportant, but consider for a minute: do you see branding for Twitter, Tweetdeck, Facebook, YouTube, Google, etc. more than yours? And if so, what are you focused on? Do you have a brand that represents you both online and in printed materials to give people? Whether you’re self-employed or work for a company, is that brand and all it stands for top-of-mind and in your face, every day? And if so, do you love it? Do you get the value behind the words and colors and images? Does it stand up well next to competitors? Is it vibrant and exciting to you, or stale and outdated, or non-existent? Are you proud of the brand you represent, so much so that it’s part of your life pretty much 24/7/365 days a year and you want to share it with people?

Because my theory is, we sell people on what is most present in our lives. This is where I wish I had some numbers or studies to give you, but I don’t. All I have is my own semi-psychological nature and human factors observations to offer… really, just an intuition about this. I think that with my personal branding being most present for me, and my various other ventures being dabbled in and scattered around all over the internet, I was unfocused when it came to a unified message. So I have taken steps to bring my own brand into alignment with what I can do for people (intelligent design with a universal view), what I can offer (lots of creative/tech/socialization services) and what lights me up (making products.) And I’m really, really excited about it. I have some visuals of my new branding to show you, and will do a dissection in another post of how I created the Fresh ID brand and the various elements I used, for those who are interested and want to do something similar for themselves, or at least want to understand the visual dynamics of a strong brand.

Below are Fresh ID-branded Twitterface & Twitter pages & a Ning Workspace design (we’re going to try using it in private mode to manage projects) plus a prototyped business card, which you’ll see all complement this site and blog design:

This site you’re in right now is the umbrella for all I will focus on in 2010. It’s not quite finished, so bear with me, but this is where my blog is now, and it has its own little name, The Arboretum. I like to think of The Arboretum as being where we can all hang out, discuss, think and learn from each other. I have moved my Design for Users blog into this site so that I can share all the thoughts I have on user experience and customer care, as well as point to the products we offer, show portfolio pieces, list services and explain our differentiator, since we are primarily a B2B services company.

Twitterface is going through some changes and we will be changing its name eventually (partly due to Twitter’s request that product names not contain the word Twitter in them.) And of course I will continue to work on projects with my friends at LightThread. But this is going to help me focus on what’s truly important and enable me to keep my own brand top-of-mind in the coming year.

This was my best decision so far, because bringing everything into this one business site is going to ensure I am in and out of my own company site much more than I was before. (I will keep my personal tumblr for playing, talking about cooking, music and other personal passions, etc.) We will be going further with this idea, as we develop ID Clouds (more on what that is later) that makes working online more pleasant and keeps us in our branded environment, because I truly believe we are selling what we see.

What do you think? What are you looking at everyday? Is your focus as sharp and your mission on target? If not, let’s talk about it and get you on the right path. If you have a brand you love and are proud of, share it with us so we can learn from what you’re doing!