Client News
ELLETTSVILLE, Indiana – Reflecting its proven innovative qualities as a U.S. broadband technology industry leader, Smithville has again been named a national Top 100 broadband company by Broadband Communities magazine. Achieving this national recognition for an unprecedented eleventh consecutive time, Indiana-based Smithville was recognized as a top fiber technology service leader by a panel of experts through a comprehensive, competitive process. As noted by industry experts, Smithville has firmly established a reputation for providing fiber broadband and fiber-to-the-premise service (FTTP) in Indiana (particularly in traditionally neglected rural areas). The company was named together with major national firms such as AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and others in receiving the 2019 honor.
Smithville is again the only Indiana-based company to be named this year to the Top 100.
“We strive for high standards of customer service and performance at Smithville, so it is humbling and gratifying to be nationally recognized for excellence by our industry peers,” said Darby McCarty, chairman and CEO of Smithville. “This national honor truly reflects the quality and performance of our Smithville professionals, who are among the best in the business.”
Seventy-six-page report documents feedback received from county public meetings, research, analysis; letters of intent for implementation of identified projects can now be submitted. MEK provided public meeting organization, strategic content & design services for intense economic development project.
WASHINGTON, Indiana – After several reviews and requested updates in its submission of a 76-page Quality of Place and Workforce Attraction Plan, Daviess County received notice of official approval for the plan from Regional Opportunity Initiatives, Inc. (ROI) officials. The submission of the Ready Communities plan capped off “a very intensive 60 days of research, soliciting public opinion and reviewing the needs of Daviess County,” said Bryant Niehoff, executive director of the Daviess County Economic Development Foundation (DCEDF).
DCEDF, in tandem with several other Daviess County organizations like the Daviess County Community Foundation, Purdue Extension Community Development, the Daviess County Chamber of Commerce and others, directed and helped guide the assembly of the report. The approved plan formally identified a number of potential projects and activities that can now be considered for implementation funding through ROI’s Ready Communities program.
“It was a great process, and one that gave us confidence – we now have renewed focus, vision and capacity to build on a strong foundation to advance Daviess County,” said Niehoff. “We have already received some very positive feedback from ROI officials regarding Daviess County’s planning process, and now we are beginning to hone in on high priority projects that could be great candidates for ROI’s implementation program.”
Elevating the standard of care, Brightlamp’s patented mobile technology platform unlocks the diagnostic power of the pupil for physicians (including optometrists, ophthalmologists, and primary care) as well as nurses, athletic trainers and clinical researchers.
INDIANAPOLIS – Capturing objective data in about five seconds that can aid concussion diagnoses through an iPhone, the Reflex PLR Analyzer, an industry-disruptive diagnostic tool for traumatic brain injury (TBI) and various cognitive issues, is rapidly advancing in the healthcare market. As brightlamp’s premier mobile pupillometer technology, Reflex represents a “truly breakthrough innovation in the healthcare space,” as noted by Indiana University innovation expert Donald F. (“Dr. K”) Kuratko.
A SaaS mobile product, the new version of the Reflex PLR Analyzer was launched in August, 2019.
“The advanced functionality of this new version of Reflex truly helps unlock the diagnostic power of the pupil,” said Kurtis Sluss, brightlamp CEO and founder. “brightlamp’s patented technology platform captures and measures pupillary light reflex [PLR] parameters, which have been proven to be an objective, quantitative and non-invasive diagnostic means for a broad spectrum of clinical conditions.”
MILAN, Indiana – Elevated care, less disruption and better access to medical professionals represent critical benefits of the new telehealth center formally opening August 6 at the Milan Elementary School in Ripley County here. “With our Chromebooks and other initiatives, Milan Community Schools have positively and consistently leveraged technology to benefit our students and communities,” said Jane Rogers, Superintendent. “Becoming part of the Indiana Rural School Clinic Network represents a new means to provide convenient, high-quality health care services for our students.”
Cinda Ahlrich, principal of the Milan Elementary School, noted that the new technology service, which will typically connect to Nurse Practitioner Katie Davis at Milan Primary Care, allows elementary school children to be seen by a medical professional without leaving the school facility. “This elevates the level of care that we can provide our students in a timely way and fashion,” said Tammy Jutzi, health services coordinator and school nurse for Milan.
MEK scored a regional (multi-state) Diamond Award for its 2018 digital project for client Smithville. 
Details from the award application and the work performed appear below:
Improving the Digital Customer Experience for Smithville
How does a top tech company react when their online brand imagery doesn’t match market reputation? Known as a leading technology innovator, Smithville’s main website didn’t match its reputation. Visitors complained about Smithville’s web presence as a painfully slow-load with an old look that hadn’t been fully updated in years. The old site led to online brand-bruising, as Smithville held a strong reputation for outstanding customer service and early adoption to new tech like Gigabit-speed fiber broadband in south central Indiana. The challenge? More than a decade ago, former internal employees of the company developed a Drupal-based website and inexplicably incorporated certain features that rendered the website difficult to update. MEK was directed to transform the existing platform and create a foundation for an enhanced and improved online customer experience.
Research – MEK successfully secured a budget for internal and external research that included both primary and secondary research, and also an intense competitive analysis. The interview research included internal employee and key personnel focus groups, where customer-facing staff was able to articulate both what they didn’t like and what they would like to see in a new website. Over the past three years, MEK had developed workaround service-specific web properties as Smithville dealt with internal technology issues to lay the foundation for an all-new Smithville.com. MEK also created a pop-up research tool on the Drupal site (and other Smithville web properties) to determine external perceptions and needs, as well as using Google Analytics and other data sources for user analysis. MEK then provided separate presentations of the completed research to senior management. The research showed a major need for a new responsive and mobile-friendly website with specific improvements for an enhanced customer experience (E.g., smoother log-in for bill pays and other services, an improved capacity to determine service availability, better communication access, and other items). The internal research yielded more functionality requests than were available in a Phase I development, but the research process did positively better manage internal expectations and produced guidelines for a proposed Phase II.
Planning – Smithville had previously standardized with MEK and its web development partner Rare Bird for a WordPress platform for its other websites. That would continue with the new Smithville.com. Driven by the research, a formal Creative work plan was developed and objectives for the new site included: improvement of prior load-times, an attractive and more intuitive web design (clean and less cluttered parallax format), easier log-ins for various customer services, enhanced mapping functionality for service availability, a new capacity for visitors to solve their own problems with extended FAQs and new chat functionality, and the capacity to serve as a central portal for all existing Smithville web service properties (business, security, retail store, etc.). The scope was divided into phases, with Phase I to provide the firm foundation for later enhanced functionality after the abandonment of the old Drupal-based site and the creation of an all-new customized WordPress-driven site. A budget for Phase I development was secured.
Implementation – MEK assembled a team to develop the new WordPress platform and implemented an in-depth process to port over existing content from the old site, now edited and revised with key words and alt phrases to maximize SEO optimization. MEK creative guided the process. Concepts of the new site were regularly presented during development to senior management (and on occasion external contacts) to drive positive development. The GDPR implementation in Q2 was accommodated in the new site. Development was smooth.
Evaluation – The completion of Phase I met or exceeded all objectives. See the new website here.
WASHINGTON, Indiana – A countywide initiative is now underway to help identify local assets and possible projects to improve quality of place, workforce development and attraction, and local amenities, according to Bryant Niehoff, executive director of the Daviess County Economic Development Corporation and Foundation. Similar to what is taking place in the 11 counties served by the Regional Opportunities Initiative (ROI) in Bloomington, a $50,000 grant has been approved to help the county develop a strategic plan specifically to help address issues associated with quality of place, workforce development and attraction, and improving attributes and amenities. The plan will feature local input, including two public Town Halls, that will include critical data and identify possible projects to advance the county and region in those targeted applications.
“Daviess County already has a lot going for it 
like a high rate of median income growth, an expanding population, and other significant advantages,” said Niehoff. “This ROI Ready Communities grant gives us the capacity to go to leaders and residents to formally determine the quality of place, workforce attraction, and workforce development needs of the county so we can continue to move the needle.”
For the county to continue growth, it must address issues like talent attraction and retention, improving amenities like housing and supporting services, and continuing to make Daviess County an attractive place to live, work and raise a family, the executive director continued. “These are competitive issues that every county in the ROI region currently faces,” said Niehoff. “So, we’re grateful that we have these resources from ROI to begin to formally address them in a unique way.”
Battling a local infant mortality rate (IMR) that exceeds the national average by some 150 percent, medical professionals, hospitals, clinics and trained facilitators in Daviess, Dubois, Greene and Martin counties will now “collaborate closely together” to aggressively reduce the local IMR rate and increase overall infant and family health, according to Don Kelso, executive director of the Indiana Rural Health Association (IRHA).
These four counties have a combined infant mortality rate of nine deaths per 1,000 live births (as measured 2013-2015), one of highest rates in Indiana. Uniquely, rural Martin County (like several other counties in Indiana) has no obstetricians and no dedicated labor and delivery medical facilities. Expecting mothers there are referred to facilities in Daviess and Dubois where these services are available. Ironically, Daviess County stands out with 10.79 deaths per 1,000 live births, which places it among communities with the highest IMR in Indiana, and indeed the nation, despite appropriate services being available in this specific county.
UPDATED — Following a courageous battle with illness, John Layden skydived one final time off of this mortal coil on March 26, 2020.
Requiescat in pace, old friend. Many — including everyone at MEK — will miss your sharp intellect and keen wit, but we’ll look forward to seeing you again.
Here are details of John’s remarkable life in the Indianapolis Star: https://legcy.co/2V2a6D4
John Morris has been appointed COO of Time Compression Strategies and the company has launched a new SaaS Cloud version of the remarkable technology as the company continues to move forward.
INDIANAPOLIS—Long-time CEO John Layden of Time Compression Strategies (TCS), a manufacturing, supply chain, business processes and technology firm, is retiring effective May 31, 2019. The search for a new CEO is ongoing to replace Layden, a nationally recognized supply chain expert who formerly also was a SAP executive prior to forming TCS.
When he retires at the end of May as CEO, Layden will end a three-decade-long technology collaboration with his brother, David Layden. David Layden and John served together as the primary intellectual drivers for a variety of technological innovations now actively deployed in major manufacturing operations in the United States and abroad.
In the past 15 years, the Layden brothers’ partnership effectively concepted, developed and patented the Ancelus database platform, which is recognized as a major breakthrough in data management that ranks in importance to the first introduction of the relational database a half century ago.