GREENDRINKS

Goodbye 2009 and hello 2010! It’s time to welcome the New Year with the first Greendrinks event of 2010. It’s all happening this coming Tuesday, January 12th, at VIA Group headquarters on 34 Danforth Street, Suite 309.

Our host for this month’s Greendrinks is VIA Group, a full service advertising and marketing communications agency based in Portland. Founded in 1993 by John Coleman, a life-long Maine resident, VIA has a number of high-profile clients both in and out-of-state, including Welch’s, DuPont, LoJack and Maidenform. “VIA is a marketing agency that creatively helps the world's best companies grow in ever-changing times,” writes Coleman. “It is an agency built on the following 10 principles which continue to guide our business today: Be curious, Do work that makes you proud, Be on budget, Create respect, Honor the process, Be on time, Figure it out, Find the magic, Think like the audience, and Believe.”

VIA is in the planning stages of renovating and moving into the Baxter Library building on Congress Street, so Portland can expect to keep it’s major advertising agency around for quite awhile longer.

Co-hosting this month’s event is a newcomer to the communications arena. Maine. Magazine launched its first issue in September 2009 with the goal of connecting people with the “new and the now of the state,” according Peter Smith, the magazine’s senior editor. “We want to profile creative artists and designers—people that invent things and make things,” he says, “with an emphasis on sharp design and a sense of style, quality and craftsmanship.”

The magazine hopes to cover the green in Maine. “This state has so many natural resources in it that everybody, in general, seems to value and wants to conserve,” says Smith. “Just by being here and covering these types of stories in Maine is, in a way, an implicit green mission.” To that end, Maine. Magazine wants Greendrinkers to bring green and sustainable story ideas to this month’s Greendrinks. Smith explains that the magazine wants to connect with its readers at a new level, trying to engage with them and offer opportunities for reader-directed content. If you’ve got a good story, this is the opportunity to share it with the folks at Maine. Magazine.

Both co-hosts of this month’s event are excited to get to know Portland’s Greendrinkers. So come on out and introduce yourselves! And, as always, try to carpool where possible and remember to please BYOV (bring your own vessel)!

Written by Peter McDougall
http://maukamakai.wordpress.com/