The Journal Record Publishing Company held its annual Beacon Awards banquet here in Oklahoma City on July 12th, 2011. Element Fusion was honored to be invited as a finalist for the Beacon Award for philanthropic impact by a small business in the State of Oklahoma. We were even more surprised and honored when we were named the recipient of this award. We want to sincerely thank the Journal Record and the Beacon Awards for this very gracious recognition.

The Beacon Awards were established to recognize the philanthropic efforts of businesses across the State of Oklahoma. Element Fusion was recognized for two philanthropic programs. First, our Shine the Light! program, established in 2010, which enabled us to partner with our network of designers across the country to donate ten websites to ten different non-profits last year. Second, our Radium3 Website Giveaway program, through which we implemented a system of public nominations and voting to select four additional non-profits and donated a complete website design and CMS hosting package to each. In total, Element Fusion donated fourteen websites to fourteen different non-profit organizations last year.

As part of the Beacon Award recognition, the Journal Record is making at $500 donation to a charity of our choosing. Element Fusion has selected the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma to be the recipient of this donation. We're honored to get to deliver this additional donation to the Food Bank very soon.

Along with the launch of our built-in online store functionality (see the previous post), the LightCMS website has been completely redesigned and restructured. It now sports an updated visual aesthetic as well as changes to its overall page layout to make it even easier to navigate. The changes include an updated features section, a new designers section with information about the LightCMS Designer program, as well as an on-site support section including improved design documentation. There are a host of other improvements that we encourage you to see for yourself!

The redesign has already been featured on several popular design-related sites, such as CSSMania and Line25. And for their hard work, we're immensely proud of our team!

Today, we're launching the biggest update to our LightCMS and Radium3 content management system platforms in their histories. Today's update adds complete ecommerce functionality, fully-integrated into the powerful yet easy-to-use architecture of our CMS. This functionality has been added to all websites running on our platform at no additional monthly charge.

The Store functionality provides our users with a complete ecommerce solution built right into their websites. The store lets users create products, organize them into product listings across their site, and provide their customers with a seamless, secure shopping cart and checkout experience. Its powerful backend management system helps store operators fulfill orders and communicate with customers.

We've also added twelve new, free design templates, created specifically for e-commerce applications, to allow users to easily set up their websites and online stores. The templates are freely available to all users of LightCMS and Radium3 and can be used as is or modified as our users see fit.

Complete information about the new store features can be found on the store pages on the Radium3 and LightCMS websites.

In our most recent giveaway, which took place toward the end of last year, we chose two worthy non-profit organizations to win a donation of a free website design and one year of free hosting with Radium3. We are pleased to announce that the first of those two websites to be completed is finalized and has launched!

Over the past several weeks, we have met with Love Link Ministries to discuss their site's new design and to get their old content moved to its new home with Radium3. You can see the new site design below or by going to  http://www.lovelinkministries.org.

By integrating their site onto Radium3's CMS, they are now able to use our powerful, web-based tools to update or create new content. That means keeping their site up-to-date and fresh will be easier than ever before.

Love Link Ministries (visit the new site)

Element Fusion Donates More Than a Dozen LightCMS Subscriptions to Non-Profit Organizations in 2010

OKLAHOMA CITY –  Element Fusion, developer of premier Web content management system LightCMS, introduces its Shine the Light! program, a philanthropic initiative to encourage Web designers to give back to their communities. When a LightCMS Web design reseller donates time to design a Web site for a non-profit organization of their choice, LightCMS steps in to provide the non-profit with its powerful, Web-based tools, hosting, and support for an entire calendar year, free of charge. LightCMS has donated 14 pro bono projects over the past year and plans to double that number in 2011.

Recent Shine the Light! recipient Sean Lukasik, freelance designer of CreAgent Marketing and adjunct professor at Corning Community College in Corning, New York, leveraged Shine the Light! to host a competition among students in his Web design classes. Under his guidance, Lukasik’s students utilized LightCMS to develop and launch an actual Web site for a pre-selected local non-profit, the Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes. The Web site project helped students learn about Web design via the state-of-the-art LightCMS platform. Student winner Derek Slife gained hands-on experience, while giving back to local community arts initiatives.

“Through LightCMS’s Shine the Light! program, my students donated their time and expertise to a local non-profit, while working with a professional program that provided all of the design, hosting and management tools they needed to create a creative, functional site – completely free for the Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes,” says Sean Lukasik.

Recognizing the need for Web design amongst non-profit organizations, LightCMS gives its resellers the ability to design a Web site for the non-profit of their choice. Once a non-profit is selected and a designer donates his or her time, LightCMS steps in to provide the non-profit with free access to its entire system and array of tools. Neither the non-profit nor the designer ever have to worry about hosting configurations or software upgrades, and the robust Web-based tools allow the organization to easily manage its site’s content.

“We’re excited to be able to create an outlet for designers to donate their design expertise and provide a service for non-profits,” says Tim Wall, Director of Product Marketing with LightCMS. “Using LightCMS, Web designers have a sophisticated Web design platform that gives them the necessary tools and hosting needed to create a high quality Web site for an organization that may not otherwise have the financial means.”

To participate in LightCMS’s Shine the Light! program, Web designers must be enrolled in the LightCMS Rewards programs. When designers reach a bronze level ($100 in recurring revenue using LightCMS), they become eligible to support one Shine the Light! project per calendar year. Click here more information on LightCMS’s Shine the Light! program.

Our Shine the Light! program (available through our LightCMS product) was highlighted by The Wall Street Journal last week. The Journal ran a story about small businesses with New Years resolutions, and mentioned our own resolution to double the number of websites we donate through our Shine the Light! program in 2011. We donated ten Shine the Light! websites in 2010 and we plan to make that twenty in 2011. Of course, we can't do it without the help of our LightCMS customers, who partner with us to donate their own design services, creating a complete website package for our non-profit beneficiaries.

If you're a LightCMS designer, we hope you'll consider participating with us through Shine the Light! this year.

It's that time again. Time look take a look back at all that's happened this year and look ahead with anticipation for all of the great things to come.

2010 was an amazing year for Element Fusion. It was the year our company turned Ten Years Strong, and with that milestone came another step in our transformation from local web design shop to international web software company. Consolidating our products into two brands, LightCMS and Radium3, makes us stronger, better positions us to meet the needs of our current customers, and opens the doors to accelerated growth in the years to come.

Recognition of our company's strong growth continued in 2010, landing us on the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest growing companies in America for the third consecutive year and Oklahoma City's Metro 50 for the fifth consecutive year. We're very pleased with the opportunity to celebrate strong growth in the midst of a struggling economy, a major business transition, and while continuing to maintain an investor-free and debt-free position.

Perhaps the most exciting number to share is the number of websites we were able to donate in 2010. Through our Website Giveaway program now running on Radium3, we selected four non-profit organizations to receive complete website design packages and free hosting on the Radium3 system. But additionally, through LightCMS's Shine the Light! program, we partnered with designers all over the world to provide an additional ten non-profits with free websites. That's a total of fourteen donated non-profit websites in 2010, which is by far the most we have been able to accomplish in a single year.

2010 has been a great year, but we look forward to an even better year in 2011. We're currently working on a massive project which we've code-named Project Tuscany. This project, to be released in 2011, promises to be the most significant upgrade to our product line yet. In addition to Tuscany, we'll be hard at work on a host of other features and, as always, at providing the exceptional level of customer service you've come to expect from us. Hold onto your hats because it's going to be another great year!

Recently, Radium3 held a nationwide giveaway offering to design and host the websites of two nominated non-profit organizations. Out of the myriad of nominees and a process of public voting on seven finalists, two non-profit organizations have been chosen. Those organizations are Arts Aftercare (Seattle, WA) and Love Link Ministries (Oklahoma City, OK).

These generous organizations will receive custom website designs as well as one year of free hosting on the Radium3 content management system. We are looking forward to working with them to develop their new websites in the days ahead.

For more information, check out the official announcement from Radium3 here.

Element Fusion is once again looking to expand our sales team.  If you're an all-star sales representative and have a passion for the web and tech, we'd love to talk with you.

Why Element Fusion?  Check out our top reasons to work here.

Element Fusion is looking for an experienced Web Designer to join our creative team in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. If you'd like to join us, take a look at the details below.

We're looking for:

• Clean design style, intuitive user interfaces, and innovative concepts
• Excellent Photoshop and XHTML/CSS skills
• Technical expertise balanced by creative thinking
• Ability to work on multiple projects and meet frequent deadlines
• Attention to detail
• Unique and creative portfolio

The web designer should be adept in Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.) and capable of taking a website from design concept to fully-functional HTML and CSS. We’re especially interested in standards-based designers with strong XHTML/CSS skills. Experience with Adobe Flash, ActionScript, JavaScript, or other dynamic scripting (such as ASP or PHP) is a plus.

Element Fusion offers an energetic, casual work environment and provides excellent benefits.  Please see our jobs page for more information and details on how to apply.