Time's 50 best websites of 2008

The 2008 edition of Time's 50 best websites is out. I always enjoy clicking through their choices and discovering obscure gems.

Say hello to ecopop

Say Goodbye to 86 the onions. Say hello to ecopop.

ecopop is a living fun factory of innovative ideas designed to instigate positive change in individuals, community and the world. It's a virtual product development, branded content, and consulting collective that specializes in merging capitalism with global responsibility. ecopop.com is a free idea exchange invites the creative community to help solve problems that truly matter in the world.

After more than 14 years of creating influence, demand, social currency, and profitability for 130+ iconic brands around the world, visionary brand innovator and serial entrepreneur Chad Rea (A Texas Tech alumni) repositioned his efforts to bring conscious consumerism out of the exclusive fringe and into the accessible mainstream.

Rea's mission is to use his creative problem solving talents, pop culture sensibilities, proven intuition, and integrated marketing and new media prowess to solve problems that matter to the world and ensure that constructive brands have the creative tools necessary to compete with leading mainstream brands. And to do this is a way that entertains and embraces people through pop culture.

Working directly with visionary entrepreneurs and ambitious enterprises, ecopop provide expert advice, innovative ideas, and actionable marketing assistance across all aspects of business, including product development, branding, advertising, design, marketing, media, branded content/entertainment, and public relations.

There has been a paradigm shift. In Rea's opinion and experience, those companies that align their product with their global responsibility, and package themselves in an authentic way that appeals to a broader audience, will reign. The race is on. And it couldn’t be more exciting.

"More pop. Less crunch."

editor's note: At first glance, I couldn't figure out what ecopop is so here's the About Us page.

Learn from every job

Photo by Seraphimc

USA Today has a great article about how CEOs learned invaluable lessons from their first jobs growing up. This article reminded me of pushing grocery carts and being a dishwasher and busboy when I was 14 and 15. This excerpt particularly caught my eye because it seems like a lot of recent college graduates want their first full-time job to be their dream job at so-and-so dream company. It doesn't always work that way. What the first job can be, however, is a stepping stone toward your dream job at so-and-so dream company.

Chris Kearney, 52 and CEO of industrial products giant SPX, was 13 in 1968 when he made $100 a week loading trucks for the family-owned beer distributorship in Mount Pleasant, Pa., something generations of Kearney boys have done since the end of Prohibition.

Today's teens should think of every job opportunity as an important building block in life, no matter how menial it seems, Kearney says. "A successful career is built incrementally, one step at a time."