Americanized

How will you commemorate Independence Day?

Independence Day by Cox & Forkum

I will create a mood board for my future visit to the United States of America. Maybe I should create a special board on Pinterest for my trip to the Land of Opportunity? The Americanized banner by John Cox will be included on the board.

In the evening, I will check-in at my favorite place in Gothenburg, and celebrate in the style of a Foursquare mayor (from the Latin, meaning "greater") with fellow friends of America. 

I want to end this post with an excerpt from my post, Time To Bring Back The Smiley Face To America:

I must say that I still have high hopes for a second renaissance in America, due to the fact of the positive sense-of-life which is shared by a great deal of Americans, combined with the historical foundation that the Founding Fathers achieved a long time ago. Please keep striving for your own pursuit of happiness! 

(OpenForum.com, October 14, 2008.)

Instead of celebrating Sweden's national day on June 6, I am commemorating the traders (called merchants at around 0:45 in the video clip by King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden) of the New Sweden colony.

I am not a Royalist, I am a Constitutional Republican (not a supporter of the GOP). And I am not fan of FDR, but I want to include this video clip from the dedication of the Delaware monument in 1938.

My long-range goal is to revisit the melting pot that bubbles with innovative business ideas.

I am a member of the Scandinavian-American fraternal, cultural and educational organization called The Vasa Order of America. I was interested to learn that some of the famous business people and inventors with Swedish heritage are: 

• John Ericsson, the inventor of the screw propeller. 
• Charles Walgreen, the founder of Walgreens. 
• Eric Wickman, the founder of the Greyhound Company. 

If you needed more examples of how immigrants have added to the innovation in the United States, I found two interesting reports via Elizabeth Kelleher's post, Immigrants Fuel Small Business Growth in the United States. 

(OpenForum.com, October 19, 2009.)

Labour Day a.k.a International Workers' Day is on May 1st, so I thought it was timely to write a post on the division of labor in a philosophical sense. I will not be marching along in the protest march on May 1, instead I will celebrate Lemonade Day and the entrepreneurial spirit of the United States of America. 10 years ago, I did a pro-American counter-demonstration... 

Back to the concept of division of labor and being an entrepreneur. I don't have design skills, so I contacted John Cox, who "is a painter, cartoonist, and illustrator for hire." I told John about my idea for the Americanized banner, logotype and blueprint for merchandising, but I also gave him "artistic freedom," in order to have a successful creative process. Check out John Cox's post, Website Banner Commission and read the comment thread and you will get "insider information" about the work of art...

Money-wise, the illustration had a higher price tab than you would pay on Fiverr, but less than you could end up paying if you would hire a regular (m)ad-man... ;)

For more information on John Cox's work, please read my post, Interview with John Cox, and listen to my podcast show from 2010.

Yakking It Up with Martin Lindeskog 

Do you think that the Americanized visual image will be a success factor in the marketing of the forthcoming Americanized.org site?

John Cox has created the Americanized banner. Could you figure out the different American elements in the image?

Do you have tips on merchandise services and sites that provides gear and promotional products? I will set up a shop on CafePress and Spreadshirt.

My long-range goal is to create a foundation that will be organized to support the American sense-of-life in different ways.

From This Day in History:

On April 25, 1917, jazz legend Ella Fitzgerald is born in Newport News, Virginia. She was called "The First Lady of Song," an honor whose meaning is captured in a compliment paid to her by the great composer Ira Gershwin: "I never knew how good our songs were until I heard Ella Fitzgerald sing them." Quite apart from the quality of her voice, there was a warmth and intelligence behind it that gave even melancholy songs a plausible tilt toward optimism. Billie Holliday or Frank Sinatra might fully inhabit the dark side of a torch song, but Fitzgerald, in the words of the critic Frank Rich, "could turn any song into an oxygen rush of bouncing melody that reached the listener's ears as pure, untroubled joy—the eternally young sound of a young country." 

(History.com)

After I had read Ivan Widjaya's post, Buying a Website? How to Stay Away from Shady Marketplace Listings, I registered an account on Flippa. I searched the site and found this domain: Americanized.org

From the description:

Americanized.org is a premium 1 word domain.
The .org extension gives trust, credibility, and authority to your business.
The word Americanized describes how to make or become American in character; assimilate to the customs and institutions of the U.S.
The .com is available at godaddy for $4888 and the .net is avaialable [sic.] for $1288(see attachment)

This domain can be used in many topics:

• Politics
• Education
• Resume Services
• Books
• Business directory and more...

I placed the highest bid and then purchased the domain. The idea of owning a domain with the word "America" in it, is going back to my blog (in Swedish), Lukeion - A School for American ideals.

I have several ideas on what I could do with www.Americanized.org in the future. You are welcome to give me tips and suggestions on content for the site.

How much do you think the domain could be worth in the future? How much would you pay for it today? At the moment, it is appraised for USD $210 according to Valuate.com.

My next step is to contact John Cox and ask him to come up with an idea for a blog banner and logotype. I want it to be a blueprint for forthcoming Americanized.org merchandise. Would you wear gear in the same line like the following sketch?

America First

Reading material: What's a good startup domain name? by Garry Tan.