John Adam Parkway project has July 23 completion date

If you've been driving on John Adams Parkway the past six months the new bridge over the Idaho Canal has become a daily reality to you (although not nearly the reality I imagine it was to the people working on it when the temperatures were below zero.) Here's the latest: The project, which started Oct. 23, 2012, has a scheduled completion date of July 23. As of Friday, the city had been charged 78 working days. The construction bid cost was $827,000 for removal and replacement.

Federal funding for Idaho Falls airport tower now good through September

The terminal and tower at Idaho Falls Regional Airport

The Transportation Department announced today that the Idaho Falls and Pocatello airport control towers will continue to receive federal funding at least through Sept. 30.

The eastern Idaho towers were among 149 that had been marked for closure after across-the-board spending cuts went into effect in March. Last month, the White House announced the towers would remain open through June 15. A brief statement issued by the Federal Aviation Administration this morning said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has determined there is enough extra money, under a bill passed by Congress last month, to keep the towers open through the end of the budget year.

At lower-traffic airports, the control towers are operated by contractors for the FAA. Five people work in the tower at Idaho Falls Regional Airport.

In early April, Airport Director Craig Davis said he would be shifting money in the airport's budget from maintenance and other areas to keep the tower operating through Oct. 1. After that, it would be up to the City Council to decide whether to keep the tower in operation.

The annual cost of operating the tower is close to $425,000, he said.

Work begins on First Street Stinker station

The car wash is gone, the land is cleared and the footings are scheduled to be poured Friday for the new Stinker convenience store at First Street and Holmes Avenue. Once the store is built, the old store will be torn down to make way for parking. The pumps will remain where they have been all along.

Idaho Community Foundation names Catherine Smith to head development effort in I.F. office

Catherine Smith

The Idaho Community Foundation has hired Catherine Smith to be its first fund development/donor relations officer in the Idaho Falls office. Smith served as marketing director for the Idaho Falls Arts Council for seven years and also worked with the Idaho Commission on the Arts as a regional public art advisor. In addition to marketing and public relations, she has a strong background in graphic design.

Her hobbies include watercolor painting and graphite drawing as well as outdoor activities with her family, especially in Swan Valley. Smith married her high school sweetheart after they finished college and they have two young boys.

“Being an Idaho girl, I can’t wait to visit the incredible communities in east and southeast Idaho that are rich in history and tradition,” she said. “I am excited to explore the organizations and people that are doing notable work in our region. Idaho is a treasure and I am honored to be able to continue the work of ICF in the region and across the state I truly love.”

Tweets and notes from the tourism conference in Idaho Falls

Idaho Tourism is the first destination marketing organization to team up with PixFusion, a leader in personalized entertainment and composite imagery, to utilize its photo-personalized technology. The My ID campaign invites visitors to place themselves, family, and friends in any of seven Idaho online adventure videos. Check it out at http://www.visitidaho.org/my-id/

I did a mess of live tweeting today at the Idaho Conference on Recreation and Tourism, which is being held this year in Idaho Falls at the Shilo Inn, ending Thursday.

Why live tweeting? Because this is the 21st century, for heaven's sake, and the speakers were experts on social media. Also, I'd only done it once before and figured I could use the practice.

I have no idea whether my tweets reached a lot of people, or whether I was just making a nuisance of myself on Facebook where they appeared one after the other. You'll have to pardon me if it was the latter, but for everyone who might have missed out on the fun, here's a compilation. Let's see if there's any cohesion when compiled in one place.

The first take comes from William Bakker and Ben Vadasz of Think! Social Media:

• "The whole point of social media is to get people talking."
• Five levels of social media sophistication.
• Level 1: Listen first, then respond.
• Level 2: Somebody is doing something, but I'm not sure what. (Share remarkable content).
• Level 3: Social media supports our marketing campaigns. User generated content benefits both parties.
• Passionate communities share content. Work with them & they'll do the marketing for you
• Level 4: Before you do any marketing, ask will it be shared?
• Level 5: Set up a dialogue instead of doing a monologue.

And here are a few of Bakker's observations scribbled in my notebook and not posted online (until now):

• "A brand is not a logo and a slogan. A brand lives in somebody's heart."
• "If you get people talking, they'll do the marketing for you. The whole point of social media is to get people talking."

For destination marketing organizations, Vadasz offered the example of Vulcan, a small farming community in Alberta, Canada, that put itself on the map by embracing Mr. Spock (a logical thing to do.)

"It's become a Disneyland for 'Star Trek' fans," he said. "They made their destination remarkable."

"Be remarkable" when you post on the Web, he said. It's not enough to say "Like us on Facebook."
"Why should I join your page?" Vadasz said. "Am I going to get cool information? Am I going to be able to post content? Take the person to a call to action or a value add."

The lunchtime speaker was John Thornton of Google. Here are my tweets from his talk.

• People are 1. Online 2. Hyper-informed 3. Constantly connected
• On average, people visit 18.2 unique online sources before buying a car, 7.0 before buying dish soap.
• Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT): Google-ese for research period before buying decision
• Mobile devices have become our "second brain"
• Every day, 8 years of content is uploaded on YouTube. Richest source of content for your brand
• 24 percent of time spent online is spent watching video. Video ad spending is only 7 percent of online ad spending
• Social is the new water cooler. Be a part of the conversation
• Your brand is defined by the people who are interacting with it. You don't own your brand. 77% of brand content is created by consumers

I also learned from Thornton that if I hope to regain Google's good graces I need to call 1-866-2GOOGLE and repent for suggesting (in a roundabout, satirical way, but apparently they don't have my sense of humor in Palo Alto) that people do online that which ought not to be done. I will provide no more detail, because obviously they look at everything I write and are quite willing to administer a smack-down if I get too smart-alecky.