Welcome to aimClear’s stunning new home, 9 West Superior Street. Located at the crossroads of Duluth, Minnesota, Superior Street and Lake Avenue in the very heart of our city. Read on for a look at the historical background of our new digs, and a sneak peek inside…

From 1884 until 1932, this magnificent Romanesque style building, designed by renowned architects Oliver Traphagen and George Wirth, was home to the legendary Silverstein & Bondy Department Store. Traphagen is famous for contributing a number of significant buildings in Duluth including Old City Hall, Wieland Block, Munger Terrace, the First Presbyterian Church, Chester Terrace, the era’s City Jail, Pastoret, Stenson Block and Costello Hardware. Co-architect George Wirth studied at Cornell University, grew a prodigal St. Paul consultancy until 1889 and was responsible for designing classic Duluth buildings on his own and partnered with others.

Mid 20^th century architects Giliuson, Ellingson and Erickson retrofit the building with a classical façade, which explains the swags, wreaths and Ionic capitals atop the mock columns framing the street level exterior. In the 1930s and 40s, Bud’s Style Shop inhabited 9 West. Then, the building lapsed into sad times, hosting transient business tenants and finally falling into tragic disrepair. The structure ultimately stood empty for years and faced potential condemnation.

Enter Vonjaro partners, a Duluth investment firm piloted by visionary Duluth entrepreneur and patron of the arts, Jim Jarocki. Jim purchased the building with dreams of preserving its stately legacy. Soon after the acquisition, the economy tanked, making it difficult to find the right tenant. A couple of years later, I found myself sitting next to Jim on a red eye back to Duluth from Minneapolis. This was October of 2010. I’d known him for years because we have kids the same age who go to the same school and have played on the same sports teams. We chatted about aimClear’s growth and I mentioned that we were in the middle of an intensive search for a new location. We loved our Canal Park office but had flat outgrown it. He shared his vision for 9 West and I was mightily intrigued. We agreed to explore possibilities. I called him the next week to discuss, and it seemed within our range to take part in the renovation project. Jim indicated that with us as an anchor, he would have an easier time finding other tenants. We moved to the next steps.

Vonjaro engaged respected Duluth architect Doug Zaun, partner/owner at Wagner Zaun, and we started down the road. Doug is known for designing creative, memorable, functional and sustainable commercial and residential buildings. It was a click right away. The process moved along at a natural pace and pretty soon we were looking at preliminary designs. Then, aimClear jumped in with both feet. Vonjaro retained RJS Builders INC, who joined us at the table. 9 West was literally gutted and rebuilt inside out to our dream specifications, which took more than six months. With aimClear in hand as first tenants and the project underway, Jim cut a  deal with Ragstock, a cool and campy alternative clothing store to take the first floor.

Our COO Laura and CTO Joe managed the design/build process for aimClear, with crucial support, input and hard work from Merry, Alyssa and Dan. I actually had little to do with the project and it speaks to the synchronicity of our team that the space reflects my desires so very well. My sole input to the office design comprised of a 15 minute meeting with Doug, the architect, last December. I told him that we wanted the office open, centered on our kitchen life and, since it is such a long space (nearly a thousand feet deep), I wanted to insure contiguous light from the windows front-to-back by using a lot of glass so as not to interrupt natural light patterns. I explained that aimClear, even when we were small, always had flex’ workspaces and our team moves around. Though there are several dedicated offices, most of us hang out in the open, and retire to private spaces as needed in small and large groups to collaborate. Doug was surprised that I personally did not want a dedicated office, preferring to work in the kitchen or conference areas. He took it all in. The rest, as they say, is history!

Dude, This Is An Incredible Space
The office is nearly 6,000 square feet and encompasses the entire second floor of 9 West Superior Street, front to back. The staff works up front in an open seating arrangement overlooking Superior Street, Lake Superior, Canal Park and the crossroads which mark the very heart of our lovely port city. The open floorplan surrounds an incredible gourmet kitchen, designed to be on par with the set of a cooking-network-caliber show. We’re set up to cook and cater a meal for 120, with all industrial grade appliances and a seriously equipped pantry, wine room, catering/beer cooler and Riedel stemware (Pinot, Bordeaux, Champagne flutes, dessert wine, and Chardonnay shapes). The technical infrastructure is amazing. There is fiber throughout with both wired and wireless connections everywhere, card key controlled access, outlets in the floor and many extras.

Community Workspaces
Looking towards the back of the office from the kitchen, there are two completely classic glassed-in conference rooms that seat 12 each. The near conference room is named, “WTF” and the far, “OMG.”  Each has independent climate controls, a huge flat panel, video conferencing equipment and various lighting scenes. Look closely at the caller-ID if we call you from one of these rooms for a fun Easter egg. Our third enclosed conference room seats six and is aptly named, “LOL,” doubles as the wine storage room and completes the trio of enclosed community workspaces. There are two meeting spaces in the kitchen, the breakfast bar stools at the counter and a kitchen table seating 10, under a groovy light that gradually changes color and reflects in WTF’s glass wall.

Conference Living Rooms
There are three “Conference Living Rooms” in the office. This green living room is called, “Fantasy Island.”

In the upper left above the couch you can see one of my favorite pieces of art in the office, a classic native Aboriginal painting from Australia we picked up (after much face-to-face negotiation) from a downtown Sydney art dealer this past March during SMX Sydney.

To the right of the Fantasy Island living room is the “Napa Room,” a tricked out Marmot glacier tent, sans fly, pitched for our team to take naps (or find a bit of orange tinted repose) on an extremely cushy orange futon.

Another conference living room, “Gilligan’s Island,” is available practically right next to the kitchen breakfast bar. This is one of my favorite workplaces in the new office.

In keeping with the modular workspace environment, our team members have the option of using the standing desk, adorned by an incredible painting by our dear friend, artist Amanda Thralow. To the right there’s one of many community desks, that anyone can use. This workspace seems to be the favored hangout for guests.

Recently, we hosted our grand opening.  We were lucky to have Deep Cereal in the house to create whiteboard art for the occasion.

Our visitors had a rocking good time at the grand opening. In this picture you can see the piano lounge (The third living room conference area) and the disco ball near the far post to the right, hanging high.

The Chamber of Commerce came by for a classic ribbon cutting ceremony, giant scissors and all. They seemed to like the disco ball.  We also have a fog machine for those 80′s glam rock moments.

Yep, that’s me with Duluth’s Mayor, Don Ness and his lovely wife, Laura. If I look like an uber-proud CEO, it’s because I am.

This is what it looks like to be in the OMG conference room.

This is the famed, “Todd Mintz Memorial Hallway,” named after my good friend. Don’t be fooled by the “memorial” moniker. Todd’s not going to be dead for at least 50 years.  This 150-foot hallway is adorned with art and leads back to the recording studio and gym.

The treadmill desk and gym area is called “Matt’s Muscle Lodge.” The recording studio/video editing space is named, “TerraAura,” after a record company I owned in the late 90s and early 2000s.  It’s awesome to have the capabilities to create and edit podcasts, television episodes, and YouTube videos right on site.

I’ll say it one more time, for the third time! “I can’t believe we’ll ever outgrow this space.”  aimClear has grown 2X every year for five years now. Thankfully, there’s plenty of room in this incredibly sweet office.

We’d like to send a big thanks to the team that made our new home possible, especially Jim Jarocki for taking such a huge leap and being open minded about how we designed the space.

We hope you’ve enjoyed the tour of our new office. We’re fortunate to have visitors from all over the world come to Duluth to work with aimClear. If you’re ever in the region, please stop by for a cup of coffee, glass of wine or even a bit of rest in the Napa Room.

Thanks to Dan, Doug and Lynette for the pictures used in this post

Since we published our post (Did $10 Million In Destination Marketing Make Duluth Famous?) I’ve enjoyed stimulating exchanges with folks we respect. To those who reached out, thank you! We received a number of thought-provoking questions. These inquiries resonated with us, because the very idea was to inspire dialog. We thought our readers would find some of the questions and answers interesting. 

Have we proven that VisitDuluth is doing a bad job?

No. That was not the purpose of the post.  We’ve asserted three things: (1) Fewer people around the world have heard of Duluth than some other areas as pertains to destination themed categories in search and social media. The numbers speak for themselves. (2) Duluth is not breaking out as we believe it could and should. (3) Duluth has little geographic outreach in digital media.  People can draw their own conclusions what these assertions mean.

We read in the Duluth News Tribune recently that a consultant noted something similar — that our marketing is aimed locally and could be national and international because of the splendors of our region. (No link because the DNT charges for archived stories.) “Stapleton takes encouragement from Duluth’s growing popularity as a tourist destination, as well. ‘You really do have it all,” he said, observing: “Your brand is incredibly strong.’” But Stapleton said the city can do more to market itself on a national level. He urged Duluth to begin work on a new marketing plan, so it will be positioned to make the most of the much-awaited economic recovery.”

Does the general decline of tourism interests in the world, or Duluth’s possible good performance against Google Insights international and domestic category trends diminish the relevance of our study?

No. First, we don’t fully believe Google Insights category trends are as reliable a metric, because Google is not transparent in what keyword clusters comprise the datasets. The method we used, city compared to self/city, generates transparent keyword clusters to confirm. However, for the sake of speculation, let’s assume the trend-line data is good.

Our study was not about Duluth in relation to category trends! We don’t dispute them or claim that Duluth is performing poorly against trends. Our effort was to study Duluth in relation to itself and other places. Duluth may be holding its own and even possibly beating some category trends against the odds.  Taking that a step further, it is possible that VisitDuluth’s marketing and/or other factors caused Duluth to avoid a skid that many other locations suffered. On the other hand, we’d be interested to see how Duluth fared against category trends if VisitDuluth did not exist.

Would it be embarrassing to find out that Clearwater or Fargo spends a lot more… or no money on Tourism, and that there are external reasons for their rising success other than marketing?

No. Of course it wouldn’t! Such information may provide good lessons for all. Perhaps Duluth need not spend much at all on the VisitDuluth website and marketing. Remember, in other categories, Duluth fares better than tourism. Maybe collaborative maintenance by volunteers would stimulate a better outcome.  Also, so far as Duluth, Fargo, Clearwater, etc., these are only a half dozen out of thousands of destinations we could analyze. Every locale is different. Fargo may need tons of money for marketing. Clearwater may spend 5X what Duluth does on printed paper brochures.

Fargo is not, on its face, as pleasant a place as Duluth. Why do people want to travel there? Is their growth about how tourism has piggybacked on industrial or business growth? Is it because the overall interest in Fargo is still less than Duluth and has further to go? Maybe the reason is that it was extraordinarily weak in past years and is claiming its place.

Each region has unique challenges and advantages. Sure, we could dissemble years of activity and marketing for many places, find out their budgets and draw conclusions regarding what methodology resulted in their comparative reach. That would cost a lot of time and money to reverse engineer. We think time would be better spent working on growing Duluth’s national and international brand than arguing the details of why we’re less known.

Does VisitDuluth just need a little bigger budget to get to a critical mass?

Perhaps the answer is yes. We don’t know if Duluth spends too much or not enough or just the right amount, but we think the investment in Internet marketing may need to be redistributed amongst various channels. Postulating a budget wasn’t the purpose of the post. Rather, we took time to examine Duluth’s digital footprint.

Did we do all this because we’re trying to get aimClear hired?

Nope. We love Duluth. We have moved people here to live and work, we have kept UMD and CSS grads here when they were ready to leave. We did this research and created this post to create a dialog that may stimulate ways to make Duluth better known. It will make recruiting easier for us.  We want more people to know the magic we know exists here. We don’t care who does it as long as they do it well.

What is our motivation?

We set out to spawn a dialog about setting higher goals that involve geographic outreach, name recognition, and a short, medium, and long-term plan to grow Duluth into the powerhouse it deserves to be. If my inbox is any indication of other private conversations taking place around the city, then we have reached the first goal… dialog!

Image By Dennis O’Hara, NorthernImages.com

[Study notes, 10/26: There is now a followup post to this study: Visit Duluth, aimClear’s Study, Frank Questions & Answers Also, here is Google's documentation regarding use of "+" and "-" signs in Insights For Search queries. Use of these standard operators are documented in this study.]

We live in a marketing world where it’s possible to evaluate brands based on empirical demographic data culled from massive penetration of digital channels. To our international search and social marketing readers, we hope you find this article’s approach to profiling our region’s tourism brand-penetration a useful methodology to use with your clients. To Duluth’s people, aimClear offers the study as a contribution to this glorious city and the wonderful community that spawned our company.  The study is presented in four parts:

• What We Wanted To Know
• The Methodology
• The Results
• The Data

What We Wanted To Know
Over the last ten years, VisitDuluth, our city’s official promotional agency, has spent over ten million dollars of tourism tax on convention sales and destination marketing. We thought the investment was significant enough to bear study.

Tourism leaders publicize increased revenue Duluth’s destination marketing brings to our local economy year over year. Trending revenue is an important component to measuring the success of our tourism tax investments. That’s not what this study is about. There is no public discussion about how the Duluth brand is growing out there in the larger world and how it rates compared to other cities. This study is intended to fill that discussion gap. Here are some of the questions we set out to answer:

1. Is Duluth’s brand famous as a destination in ways that are measurable by classic digital marketing metrics?
2. How has Duluth’s reputation grown over time?
3. How does Duluth compare to other destinations, as measured by social media and search penetration across all categories as well as destination-themed categories?
4. Is Duluth as well known as the BWCA next door and, if not, does the opportunity exist to strategically brand Duluth as a world-class pristine wilderness gateway?
5. Is our city renowned compared to other mining-roots-to-tourism locales with similar proximity to major cities and over the same period of history, like Lake Tahoe?
6. Do potential visitors all over the United States, Europe and Asian Pacific countries know our hometown’s brand, top of mind, as they consider where to visit next?
7. Is Duluth, slowly but surely, becoming legendary like The Grand Canyon, Nantucket or Hilton Head as a world-class recreation spot or travel destination?
8. Has the money we’ve spent branding created a lasting legacy past promoting a strictly regional destination, where Midwestern people visit for work and vacation in statistically significant clusters?
9. Is our dear city a household name, as evidenced by measurable interest in categories like hotels, recreation and travel?

The Methodology

Google Insights for Search is a tool that online marketers use to gauge “search interest” at the keyword and concept level. It outputs interest-trends for top keywords in tightly related semantic clusters culled from hundreds of millions of daily searches globally. Insights analyzes a quantity of global Google web searches from all Google domains to calculate how many searches have been done for and related to terms tested, in relation to the total count of searches done on Google over time. The data is available by category, subcategory and geographic areas over time.

We examined Duluth’s progress, both in relation to itself and compared to other test destinations. We considered both international and domestic data, since 2004, in all categories aggregated, and across various destination themed categories.

Facebook has over 700 million users who can be profiled in prodigal detail. These days, such data is priceless, nearly anthropological in nature. Facebook Ads Demographic Research Tool has become the gold standard to measure the affinities, interests and other incredibly personal predilections of fanatically engaged Facebook users all over the world. More than 42% of Americans are represented in this sampling, the greatest social aggregation of measurable human interests in history.

Facebook’s social graph keeps track of many user data points. Changing profile privacy settings only effects how users see each other, not Facebook’s internal tracking. This tracking is stripped of personally identifying information and made available to advertisers to target via Facebook Ads. It’s easy to see how many Facebook users are “interested” in demographic objects. To measure Duluth’s reach, we studied Facebook users’ interest in Duluth in America, Asian Pacific countries, Oceana, Europe and compared to other destinations.

The Results
We found that Duluth’s reach, as evidenced by search interest over the last eight years and current social media penetration, has not grown and even declined in some categories.

Duluth is not in the same league, in the public’s perception, as other classic American destinations. The city remains primarily a regional brand and, though there is limited awareness in other American regions and internationally, the interest is not substantial comparatively. In some categories, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness– immediately to our north– eclipses Duluth in reputation.  (We theorize that BWCA interests could be leveraged strategically.)

There may be reasons that year over year visitors and tourism revenue grew, even in light of flat or decreasing international interest in tourism. A loaf of bread costs more than it did in 2004. So do hotel rooms. Also, with a declining economy, travelers may stay closer to home. More local businesses create and promote events with their own advertising budgets. In other words, the year over year visitor count and financial increase we enjoy may not be fully as a result of VisitDuluth’s marketing. Also, we don’t debate the need to market close to home, to traditional core customers. Our point is that it may be possible to aim higher. There are communities, including Fargo and Clearwater Beach, that have bucked the trend and grown their destinations to travelers and other in categories.

We recommend investing our tourism dollars differently, focused on expanding domestic and international awareness by deploying digital PR and advertising campaigns. Online channels could have been integrated or even replaced some traditional media, towards the goal of systematically making our city’s splendors internationally known, category by category, search by search, targeted demographic by demographic, channel by channel.

It is our hope that this study stimulates meaningful dialog amongst city officials, local media, the Chamber Of Commerce, local tourism officials, hospitality entrepreneurs and marketing agencies.

The Data
Start Guided Tour Of The Data >>>>

Study Site Map
Study Homepage

Insights For Search Data & Conclusions
Fargo & Clearwater Beach Growth

Duluth Hotels, International Interest In All Categories & Insights Semantic Cluster Example: Charts 1 & 2

Duluth In Recreation Category, International Interest: Chart 3

Duluth In Travel Category, International Interest: Chart 4

Duluth In Hotel & Accommodations Category, International Interest: Chart 5

Duluth In Vacation Destinations Category, International Interest: Chart 6

Duluth, Ann Arbor & Napa Compared In All Categories, International: Chart 7 *

Duluth Hotel, Hotels, Lake Tahoe hotel, Grand Canyon Hotel & BWCA Compared In All Categories, International: Chart 8 & 9 *

Duluth, Lake Tahoe, Grand Canyon, Compared In Domestic Travel Category: Chart 10

Duluth, Lake Tahoe, Grand Canyon, Hilton Head, Compared In International Travel Category: Chart 11

Duluth, MN, Minnesota & Nantucket Compared In Domestic Travel Category: Chart 12

Duluth, MN, Minnesota, Key West, Yellowstone, Ann Arbor Compared in Domestic Travel Category: Chart 13

Duluth, Lake  Tahoe, Nantucket, Grand Canyon Compared In International Vacation Destinations Category: Chart 14

Duluth, Minnesota, MN, Ann Arbor Compared In Domestic Recreation Category: Chart 15

Duluth, Lake Tahoe, Grand Canyon, Ann Arbor Compared in Domestic Recreation Category: Chart 16

Facebook Data
Duluth Facebook Interests Compared: United States

Duluth Facebook Interests Compared: Europe & Asian Pacific

Observations
Duluth Tourism Study, What’s Next & Conclusions

* Charts updated 10/18/11

Header image: © NorthernImages.com

Also graduating from the Labovitz School of Business and Economics in 2008, aimClear’s Merry Morud is highly-skilled Facebook marketer and social media strategist. Her 2010 speaking engagements include Search Marketing Expo Advanced in London and SMX New York. Following aimClear’s commitment Duluth,  on September 21st Merry will visit with Marshall School College Prep’s  freshmen class to discuss implications of sharing with social media  and privacy, as well as digital footprints, cyberbullying, and appropriate conduct for young adults in social networking communities.

Google is planning to test ultra-high speed broadband networks and is considering Duluth as a trial location, among others across the country.

Google Fiber, so you’re considering a move to Duluth…? Join the club. In 1982 I first came to visit. Then after a decade-long love affair with the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) to the North, I finally made it here in 95’ and never left. Our office to this day is in famed Canal Park. Many of us here have similar stories of falling in love with Duluth and moving here.

Google, over the coming days, we’ll be sharing aspects of our community and why aimClear, an internationally known search marketing agency & many other tech companies, thrive here.  57% of aimClear’s employees were either born in the Duluth/Superior area and/or are a product of University of Minnesota, Duluth or University if Wisconsin, Superior.  Today’s Part 1 shares some background, pictures from our friend Dennis O’Hara & a free music download of one of my songs-deeply inspired by Lake Superior.

I was but in my early 20’s when I first discovered this unique region. So much about Duluth, Minnesota was utterly compelling to me. Having grown up in Boston, summered on Nantucket, frequented trails in the Presidential Range of New Hampshire’s White Mountains, Duluth was like coming home without having ever been. Dude, I could not believe it was Minnesota!

A Vast Inland Sea
Lake Superior is AWESOME.  I was no stranger to the sea’s spectacular grandeur or intense weather for that matter.

Not to worry… the Souls are hardy here, born of Northern European Immigrants. The ore that powered America’s industrial revolution was sent by train from the great Mesabi Range, loaded onto boats in Duluth Harbor and sent to Detroit. Now, taconite pellets have been replaced by high tech and tourism.

Duluth is a perfectly placed digital port of call.

Duluth is a world-class pristine wilderness port-city gateway. For generations ships of many shapes, sizes and purposes crossed under our great areal lift bridge.  From the Saint Lawrence Seaway Greek, Turkish, Italian and vessels from the farthest waters make their way here.  Google Fiber, it’s awesome here in Duluth.

Now Here’s the Song
Portage to Heaven | Seafarer’s Way .mp3
I recorded this song with some friends in my living room-of-the-day, in a house dug out of the dunes on Park Point, the largest freshwater sandbar in the world. Lake Superior was placid, as the sun set across the rolling dunes on Lake Superior.  Anchored ships on the horizon kissed the sun’s final reflections goodnight.

I was thinking about the mystical nature of Duluth, this gateway to the Boundary Waters & canoeing “up north” with my sweet daughters. It was late summer 1998. We hope you enjoy my song,  Portage to Heaven.

Duluth Pictures: Dennis O’hara NortherImages.com, Copyright, used by permission.

Canoe Picture: Sylvie Weintraub

Music: “Portage to Heaven,” Marty Weintraub

photo credit: pmarkham

All good things get better! aimClear has exited  those architecturally picturesque halls of Duluth’s historic Carnegie Building and “moved on up” to  loft-style grandeur, third floor corner suite offices in the iconic Paulucci Building.  We’re pleased to announce that we’ve relocated to Duluth’s famed Canal Park.  This space doubles the ol’ dig’s square footage, along with an immeasurable upgrade in scenery.

Overlooking our building and filling my window is Duluth’s historic Aerial Lift Bridge.   All day, sounds and sights of the World Wide Web inside converge with  harbor ambiance.  The bridge goes up and down while honking at passing ships from around the world. Manny just took this picture out my office window.

The Paulucci Building, named after legendary entrepreneur Jeno  F. Paulucci  sits in the heart of Duluth’s lakefront and is literally the last building before the Ariel Lift Bridge, timeless passageway to the beaches of  Minnesota Point AKA Park Point and the world.  Mr. Paulucci owns this building and is famous for starting over seventy companies during his long career including Chun King,  Jeno’s Pizza Rolls, and Michelina’s.

Peer out a different window and be graced by a view of the largest of the great lakes, Lake Superior.  The power of the lake makes itself known on days white caps threaten to overtake everything in their path.  Other days, step outside and lunch becomes a peaceful, zen experience walking or sitting along a lakewalk that spans over 3 miles and takes you up the rocky shores of the lake. With sounds of Bob Dylan inside and Seagulls outside, aimClear staff experiences the magnificence of Duluth every day.  Richard Bach eat your heart out.

Nostalgically, our airy space is reminiscent of the 1920s with one open corner dedicated to Marty’s baby Grand piano (one of his favorites).  The recording studio is under construction and expected to come on line next week.

Add some Far Niente Cab’ and mood lighting to be instantly   transported to a lakeside lounge scene that rivals the days of the Velvet Fog.

We hope you’ll drop us a line any time you visit Duluth, Minnesota.  You know where to find us: last door on the right before you go over the bridge .

Happy Thanksgiving morning from snowy Duluth, Minnesota.  Greetings to our search marketing friends.

The sun is barely risen, looming golden on the distant Lake Superior horizon. Steam wafts off the harbor, for temperature differential between warm water and frigid air. The contrast is stark and representative of our world, terribly conflicted in awesome beauty and terror.

Things are so very different in Mumbai this morning and we pray for our human brethren. Gratitude should be easy to come by readers. As of now 101 are dead and 314 wounded in India, lives snuffed out prematurely in horrible fireballs and cacophonous gunfire.

Gratitude, Contrast & Thanksgiving
This morning my children sleep in blessed peace and will awaken to feasting, the circle of love and family. Meanwhile all over the world, families grieve the inconceivable loss of precious loved ones. Somehow I am safe and warm, cloistered in our Northern Minnesota outpost city. Yet on every continent, bloody confrontations destroy entire generations of human lineage, one person at a time.

Thank you for the gift of relative peace here, on this traditional day of  family and banquets. Godspeed to those around the world who know not the serenity we treasure. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, from the entire aimClear family.

What is projected to be a massive 3-day spring blizzard is now affecting Internet access and power to the City of Duluth, Minnesota (aimClear’s home). At least one large regional ISP has been taken down by the outage which is city and region-wide.

Over 10,000 electric customers and thousands of Internet users (including websites) are without service at this time. Weather conditions are so serious that one ISP, with over 20,000 customers, was down for over an hour in the pre-dawn light whilst crews hacked accumulated ice from an outdoor generator enclosure for proper exhausting.

The blizzard continues to rage with wind gusts of 50-55 MPH, restricted visibility down to a 1/8 mile and violent thunderstorm cells moving through the area. Lightning is flashing outside intermittently. At this writing city plows have been pulled from the road due to extreme conditions. There is no power or Internet to my home and we have personal Internet access only because Sprint is still providing EVDO service at this time. At least one television station has been knocked off the air.

aimClear will keep clients informed to the extent that my laptop batteries and then Blackberry will sustain communication. Clients expecting to meet with me in Minneapolis today: I will not be making the trip until the roads are passable and power/Internet is restored here.

After the present-day Duluth library was built on Superior St. downtown, The Carnegie Building barely avoided demolition in the late 1970′s. Then, concerned Duluth preservationist instigated a coordinated lobbying effort to save the landmark. The building was neglected and fell into a state of crumbled disrepair.

Following a large private investment, the building, beloved by generations of Duluthians, was placed on the National Register of Historic places and distinctive offices were created while preserving the structure’s historic character.

If you’re ever in Duluth, Minnesota please stop in for a cup of cappuccino, Cabernet, or an air hockey game…or 2…or 3 Our whole staff wishes to thank John Goldfine (and ZMC’s entire crew) for graciously hosting our company through exponential growth in the Palucci Building complex for all of 2007. We’ll miss you guys.

There’s a tremendous amount of buzz about search marketing in the hallowed halls of academia. Today aimClear will speak to students who are engaged, as part of their business education, in consulting with seven different regional businesses (CED clients) in the area of marketing-communications campaign development.

We’re honored for the opportunity to give back to the Duluth and Northern Minnesota regions.