Photo by Glorianna Davenport for Time

Our chosen charity, One Laptop Per Child, has focused a good portion of their efforts on Rwanda, both because it represents a worst-case-scenario and because its president has embraced the program to a degree unmatched by other heads of state.  Because of this concentrated effort, OLPC is hoping to see an effect that stretches beyond the schoolhouse and into the economy at large.

“The President wants to make Rwanda a technology and services hub — another tall order considering that just 7% of the country’s 11 million people currently have electricity. And that, curiously enough, is where the laptops come in. He and OLPC proponents hope the computers will both teach the students the language of technology and offer them a way to chase down simple information they lack but which kids in rich nations take for granted. According to the government’s vision, the laptop will be the engine for the spread of electricity and Internet across the country…”

We’re proud to be a part of such a noble effort.  If you’d like to join in, you can contribute by visiting the OLPC donation page.

(via Time)

Our founders spent some time at the recent Internet Retailers Conference and Exhibition in Chicago, and a good portion of that time was spent in the company of our bestest friends at Volusion.  Here you’ll see Volusion’s video recap of the event and starting at about 1:22 you can see Dane and Kevin (from left to right) talking about the future of eCommerce.  Their answer is pretty lengthy just because it would be rude to say, “The future of eCommerce is Brand Labs,” before throwing some gang signs and walking off camera (which was the original plan).

(via Volusion)

Attendance for the conference was up significantly over last year and the prevailing tone was overwhelmingly optimistic, as eCommerce continues to assert its critical position in the world of consumer retail operations as a whole.  The obvious buzzword (or buzzphrase, if you will) was mobile commerce, and as the first developers of a mobile Volusion platform, we weren’t surprised one little bit.  Hit the jump to see a few pics of Brand Labs with all the party people…

Our fearless leaders, Kevin Harman and Dane Downer at the Stamps.com/Volusion mixer

Here we have Paul Goldman, CEO of Juiced Hybrids, Adelle Rodriguez from Volusion's marketing department with our perpetually smiling leader, Kevin

Finally, (clockwise from the left) there's our own Dane Downer with Andy Humphrey from EcoMowers.com, Mac Harman (no relation to our prez) from Balsam Hill, and (once again) Adelle Rodriguez from Volusion

Mixed in with Garden Gates’ truly interesting story is a special, secret Brand Labs testimonial.  From the article:

What’s the best idea, event or change you’ve made recently in the way you operate or market your store?

If I told you my ideas, I would either have to kill you or charge you.

Granted, Chad could be talking about almost anything.  He is, after all, an unstoppable marketing machine… but we like to believe that we’re at least some small part of his recent successes (based solely on the number of baked goods we’ve received in gratitude for a job well done).

We hope that our revelation of this bit of Chad’s big plan doesn’t mean that we’re now a target for assassination or some sort of unexpected chargeback.

Congrats on your cover story Chad!  Here’s to your continued good fortune and us not being killed by your highly skilled team of ninjas!

(via Home Accents Today)

Oh, hey!  We offer ongoing SEO!

(via Google)

There.  Now everything is fixed and we can all go about the task of living our lives unencumbered by the weight of this grammatical ambiguity.

(via Wired)

If you’d like to set something up, you can email Dane at dane.downer@brandlabs.us or Kevin at kevin.harman@brandlabs.us, or just look for these happy, smiling faces on the show floor (Dane’s on the left, Kevin on the right).  They’re prepared at all times to drop some eCommerce knowledge.

Word.

Our recently adopted charity, One Laptop Per Child, has just announced that they intend to debut an early-stage prototype of the XO-3 laptop at CES 2011.  This prototype touchscreen tablet will likely have a glass screen for testing in less harsh environments, on their way to the ultimate goal of an all-plastic, nearly indestructible final product with a dual-mode display, appropriate for use in direct sunlight or indoor environments.

The new tablet looks pretty damn sweet, but we’re still in love with our little XO-1.5.  On the other hand, if the OLPC folks are able to hit their target cost of $75 as opposed to the $199 for the current model, we’ll be able to change the name of our charitable effort to “One Laptop Per Child Every Three Days”.  Not quite as catchy, but we don’t think the kids will mind.

(via IT World)

That sounded wrong.

Regardless, let’s just say that Volusion is up for a bunch of trophies in the upcoming Stevie Awards (the American Business Awards) on June 21.  We wish them the very best of luck!

(via Volusion)

(via Google)