Q: You mention Henry Ford creating the assembly line: “Productivity was so astounding that Ford stopped measuring it. By 1914, other companies needed for five times as many workers to build the same hundreds of thousands of cars as Ford.” Henry Ford was also known for paying workers well. It seems the best way to improve standards of living is large productivity gains?

Jeffrey Hayzlett: That’s one way, I don’t know if it’s the only way or the best way.  It’s more of a philosophy, give people what they want and get the things you want.  Provide a great product or service, of high quality, and there will be consumers.  The same theory can be applied to anything you are advertising, marketing or promoting.  For example, use the workers in Henry Ford’s plant and productivity. In Ford’s plants they became so good they stopped measuring.  It was about not only paying workers a fair wage – a good wage – but about offering them other things, enticing them, so they could buy the product they made, have pride in ownership, pride in building the products they created.  There are lots of different ways to go about getting the things you want.  Money may not always be the greatest incentive when gaining productivity or motivation.  Again, find out what people want and then give it to them.  Motivating my salespeople isn’t always about making good money – it can be a way to keep “score” – but sometimes it can be offering incentives such as golf balls, trips, even cowboy boots to get the team excited to want to go out and do more on the company’s behalf.

Q: Kodak invented the digital camera in 1975 but didn’t launch it back then……why?

Jeffrey Hayzlett: Their success led to their own demise.  Because they were trying to protect the great margins film had – you had a product that was 70, 80 even as high as 90% in terms of profitability.  They were doing everything they could to keep that alive for as long as they could.  The problem became they forgot what type of company they were.  They started to believe they were a film company rather than a company that would help people make images and move information, a company focused on innovation, a company providing emotional technology.  They had the only product people would actually run into a burning building to save, yet they focused on being a film company rather than a company that can innovate and recreate itself again and again and again.  If we look at the most successful companies, whether it be IBM, Apple or a host of others it’s about being able to reinvent yourself as well as remembering at the core of it all who you really are.

Q: You suggest a fear of change and that this can inhibit healthy debate with those that disagree with us. What is the best way to create culture that can thrive on healthy debate, starting with how we pick a new breed of leaders?

Jeffrey Hayzlett: We all know that leadership starts at the top but is also reinforced and thrives at the bottom.  So across the organization if you don’t have leaders at the top of the org that are willing to not only to create tension but take it as well then you are not going to get the give and take that you want at an organization.  You won’t be able to encourage innovation, encourage change and encourage growth because everybody will be looking out after themselves because they are afraid of what they might say because the boss might have retribution.  So the key is to create an organization where people can stand up and question things.  By standing up and questioning things you create the tension in the system and you get something better than you first started with.  If I start with item A and someone starts with item Z and we start creating so much friction back and forth and this friction creates a fire of new ideas somehow we’ll go one way or the other to move the new idea to a better place.  I think that’s what great leaders try to do.

Q: When I worked at BlackRock(BLK) there was discipline around process, but it was flexible to allow breakthrough ideas. In Chapter 14 you wrote “Some people get caught up in the idea rather than the process, but I think the process leads to the idea.” Please elaborate on this concept…

Jeffrey Hayzlett: It’s a little bit of both in this particular case.  Certainly you can have a great idea but if you can’t get it out and get it through the process it will never see itself through fruition – it will never make it to market.  I can remember one time sitting in a meeting with a chief technology officer – one of the smartest guys in the world that I had ever met.  He said, “Jeff, you realize because I make this product, I create this software program – if it weren’t for me you wouldn’t have a job.”  I had to remind him that it could be the greatest product in the world but if it weren’t for me selling it and marketing it – getting it out through the process and to the customers’ hands that he wouldn’t have anything.  So that’s what I’m talking about the process leads to the idea.  By having great processes and great systems set up then you can try to push things through to allow things to be able to win. If you don’t have a great process, even the greatest ideas will lose before they begin.

Q: So when done right, this can allow a company to focus on the future more effectively?

Jeffrey Hayzlett: Absolutely, by having a great system, a great process, a great way of channeling greatness then you’re going to be able to look for more things to put through to your following.  Look at the greatest sports teams in the world, it is those that focus on the fundamentals of having great athletes – not just one great player or two and then try to build the team around them but yet having a great team made up of different people and that’s what process does for us.

Q: In the 1993 classic book, Reengineering the Corporation by Michael Hammer and John Champy they mention that executives are “frighteningly unfamiliar” with three forces, separately and in combination: Customers, Competition and Change. You actively did this in those retail stores. Given the popularity of that book almost two decades ago, why do you think companies are still so unable to focus on these basics?

Jeffrey Hayzlett: I think so many companies focus on the next big thing, the big peel, the magic peel.  I think especially in the US we look to that one big thing that will do it for us rather than again getting back to that process, getting back to good and hard work.  If it was easy anyone could do it – it’s not supposed to be easy.  Therefore, the focus on competition, the focus on customers, the focus on change are just as good today as they were decades before.  It’s important for us to be able to take a look at how we implement change, look at customer and competitors to be able to drive and channel the forces behind being successful.

Q: “Radical transparency is not a one-way street of engagement.” Why do people have such a hard time developing a 2-way mindset in search marketing and social media?

Jeffrey Hayzlett: Inherently, I think it’s because people are scared.  Most people don’t like to get feedback.  I was one time in a phase in my life where I wore all black all the time.  Someone asked me why and I said because it makes you look slimmer.  The person turned back to me and said, well it’s not working.  I think a lot of people are afraid to hear that feedback sometimes and it takes a very strong leader and a strong person to get into that 2-way mindset, that it’s ok to get feedback – both positive and negative.  By the way, look at the negatives as a gift because that’s a way for you to be able to change, to turn around that potential customer or that person who’s had a negative experience.  I’ve heard from brand leaders and internal departments (HR, Legal) where they want to try to control the situation but you can’t control the situation. When it comes to brands especially, you can’t control it because a brand is nothing but a promise delivered.  It’s about delivering a promise and when you deliver that promise or opportunity up to the customer it’s going to be interpreted in different ways.  Sometimes that’s positive and many times its also negative.  Yet you should be strong enough in your leadership abilities, strong enough in your offering to be able to understand that this will come with everything.  There’s going to be a good, a bad and an ugly but the good should always outweigh the other two.

For more information, please visit http://hayzlett.com/. Thank you!

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Comcast Still Running Untargeted Ads
• Walmart, Listening
• Chicago Conference Attendees Point to Chicago Shortcomings

Bestselling Author Alan Weiss

Alan Weiss has written over 45 books. Absorb that for a minute. That is a heck of alot of books.

His latest is Million Dollar Referrals (McGraw- Hill). A timely title about one of the most unique marketing art forms, referrals. Why timely? With constant changes in media and the rise of new channels such as social media, referrals can make or break many kinds of businesses. It is certainly an under-managed areas of marketing strategy in most organizations that has potential to improve business results. Like most marketing it requires your value proposition to be crystal clear as you are asking someone else to explain it to someone else. I can say from experience that many people skip this step.

Million Dollar Referrals is a clearly written, thought provoking read. The kind folks at McGraw-Hill were kind enough to set up an interview with Alan Weiss, the conversation is below….

The opening chapter discusses “Business Relationships are a Process, Not an Event”. You could replace the word relationships with many other concepts. Making that switch requires changing personal habits and or corporate culture. What is the best way to create this behavior change?

Alan Weiss: It merely requires educating your buyer and client. Culture change is a rubric, signifying less than nothing these days. Demonstrate to the client the nature of the relationship and partnership in terms of ongoing interaction and support.

What are the typical issues that can lead to a consulting provider being replaced? Can referrals be used effectively to ignite that need for a change in provider?

Alan Weiss: Trust that is violated. It’s very difficult to replace a highly respected consultant in a client. You can use referrals to become an additional resource as opposed to a replacement.

If you were starting a new consulting company from scratch today what areas would you take extra care to distinguish unique value in today’s highly competitive and global landscape?

Alan Weiss: Responsiveness; intellectual property; testimonials; global applicability; thought leadership; contrarianism.

You discuss that for referrals to be successful, clear communication of both targets and mutual benefit need to be present. What is the hardest part about consistently achieving this?

Alan Weiss: Being afraid to ask, failing to follow up, taking “no” too readily, not adequately demonstrating the win/win/win nature.

The are many new areas of strategic consulting involving technology convergence, search marketing, mobile, etc. What is the best way to convey certain value for new services where the price is not well established?

Alan Weiss: Price has nothing to do with it. The key is to show the value in terms of the buyer personal needs as well as the organizational need. Every client knows what he wants; few know what the need. Consultants should identify the needs.

Is there any way to create referrals when you are working with a client under a non-disclosure agreement?

Alan Weiss: Sure. You can be referred outside the industry, or without regard to the nature of the work, and without revealing that the source was a client.

Is there any major issues you think people over look with referrals?

Alan Weiss: They don’t prepare their clients or the environment, and fail to consistently ask because they are embarrassed.

I understand you occasionally put on some unique seminars? Is anything upcoming?

Alan Weiss: Just finished Thought Leadership at The Breakers in Palm Beach. Million Collar Consulting® College next week. Australia speaking tour after that. The Art of the Referral Workshop in Newport on Nov. 30. http://www.summitconsulting.com/

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• TiE Chicago Chapter Start Up Stories
• Lee Odden – an Interview by Neil Patel
• The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Formerly Chicago GSB

To be clear, it’s a thoughtful post and I don’t disagree with anything materially in what was said. So why write about this? I find the entire conversation to be 100% completely unnecessary.

First a story. When I was a teenager, I saw in ad in the back of a magazine, it stated to send $1 and a self addressed stamped envelope (SASE) to receive information on a tried and proven money making business strategy. It sounded good so I sent it in. A few weeks later I got a my envelope in the mail. It contained a small note that contained a message like this:

A proven way to make money:

- Open a post office box

- Place a small ad in the back of a magazine asking for $1 and a SASE to “learn a proven way to make money”

- Put your $1 bills in the bank and send notes like this one

Yes, I was scammed. But being scammed was an important event in making me a more careful and better consumer. I learned. It was necessary for me to grow. Did the magazine know the ad was a scam? Probably. Did that stop them from publishing it? No. Consumers need to judge each situation for themselves based on the data available and make the best decision.

So Dave why is this potential FTC regulation unnecessary (and possibly quite harmful)?

1. The content revolution is not well enough defined to regulate it – It’s changing all of the time, if businesses and individuals still have trouble understanding it’s implications on our society. How can a group of elder statespeople in our government know what is right? Simple answer. They can’t. As traditional media loses relevancy/power content will increasingly be created by the masses. It’s a simple fact. Get used to it, in the long run, it may actually lead to the removal of the abuse of monopoly power.
2. Traditional advertising is not generally marked in the manner the FTC is suggesting – When you watch TV, ADVERTISING is not in giant letters on the commercial during the program is it? No. It’s not on outdoor billboards. It’s not in newspapers, magazines or the majority of web site banner ads. Why? Because it’s obvious to those who look closely. Creating a double standard here is just plain silly and it’s insulting to people’s intelligence.
3. Previous FTC measures have proven to be massive failures – The FTC instituted the Do Not Call List Registry and the CAN-SPAM  Act several years ago. Yet I get numerous unsolicited commercial calls to numbers I’ve registered on the list. I get tons of spam from email lists that I have NEVER signed up for on a daily basis. Regulation without enforcement results in selective usage of the law. This is not good and can be abused on both sides. The FTC has a proven history of failure and should go fix it’s previous messes before creating unnecessary new ones.
4. Social media platforms should do everything possible to prevent fraudulent usages – I see tons of fraudulent Twitter users emerging daily. Twitter should be creating validation of each and every user which would lead to an immediate reduction in questionable activity. Why aren’t they? Because it would put holes and raise questions about Twitter’s “growth story” and that with no revenue model in sight would lead to lower valuations and less money being pumped into the company. Twitter has a responsibility here and I don’t see it doing everything it can to eliminate questionable activity on the platforms. If the social media platforms acted responsibly – unnecessary legislation could be avoided.
5. The traditional advertising industry is apparently using lobby influence dollars to try to maintain it’s declining monopoly power via regulation – Content is taking over the economy as search allows people to find it and social media networks allow it’s distribution.  This is similar to how the printing press once revolutionized content distribution. We are living in something like this again now.  Yes there will be pain. But regulations in the middle of the content revolution will hinder commerce and slow the process of replacing business models that are no longer highly relevant. Do we legislate against fuel efficient vehicles in favor of gas guzzlers? No, of course we don’t – why create unnecessary legislation that harms new forms of efficiency? yes, this really is this unnecessary. 
6. “All Marketers Are Liars” – This famous book by Seth Godin indicates that deceptive advertising has always been a part of society and likely always will be. This is NOT new. Don’t we respect people enough to make their own judgments? I do. Why then act like it’s new? It’s not.

Look at the facts of history, the proposed FTC regulations will solve nothing and do nothing besides place a greater burden on commerce in an already struggling economy. We can prevent this grave mistake. Now let’s go do it.

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Maybe Major Media Should Actually Research How Digg Works
• Questionable Google Ads For Splog Creation

After lunch he gave a highly intense 50 minute speech. He talks fast (as do I) so I think I missed a little bit of the talk in this blog post, but I hope that you are still able to glean the vlaue out of it that I did, seeing him live brought his ideas to a new level for me. He’s done a fantastic job of simplifying the complex, we shoudl all learn from his example.

Without further delay, here is my live blog post of his talk (please forgive brevity and language errors):

In the past 30 to 60 days have you used or replied to the following media:
Direct mail – 3% replied
Mainstream Media – 22% replied
Print Yellow Pages – 3% replied
Google, etc 100% replied
Tapped peer to peer network to get URL 80%

Why are we still focused on the 2-3% methods rather than the 80% and 100% methods?

Cindy Gordon at Universal Orlando told 7 just people the wizarding world of Harry Potter. Mainstream media and other people followed – when 7 = 350,000,000 million

What are we after? Attention. Cindy Gordon earned that attention via a Midnight conference call with 7 people.

David Meerman Scott – in 2002 he was fired laid off from Thomson for practicing cutting edge marketing. People are afraid of content based marketing. They are still afraid of it. THis fear is harmful in a multitude of ways.

Dentist in Boston. Started a blog. Wrote “Healthy Mouth, Healthy Sex” a free ebook. The ADA hated it. Her business is now doing $1 million dollars a year.

“You must unlearn what you have learned.” –Yoda

Prospects. Tell your story to an interested market.

Every hotel web site is the same. Boring, product focused.

Imagine a hotel website that was customized for each buyer? Businessperson, corporate travel manager, family choosing a vacation spot, wedding planning, event planner, etc

Who are your buyer personas?

What do you want your buyer personas to believe?

You can…
Buy attention…TV attention (talked about how silly CPM banners are would you like to buy space on the back of his laptop?)
Beg for attention…
Bug for attention…
Earn Attention…the best way…in the new rules!!!

Example: Approva
Internal Auditors…. iloveagoodaudit.com
Videos on Youtube “Happy Birthday Sarbanes Oxley”

On the web, you are what you publish…

It’s all about people…and some people aren’t playing nice on social media…

He put 14,000 post it notes on Jaguar, 3M liked it and contacted him. He asked for $2,000 for more notes. They said no. They got slammed and destroyed a positive thing.

If your mother would say it wrong, it probably is.

Encourage sharing…

Why do people use this Gobbledygook? 350 most overused phrases. Then counted the number of times this was used. The Gobbledygook Manifest.

Visual Gobbledygook – don’t do it.

Parents against reprehensible metal music…was a bait and switch – Toyota Matrix 2009

Causes this  “You are trapped on this website, you are screwed” syndrome

The back button is the 3rd most used web feature. (Sad isn’t it?)

You must lose control of your marketing!!!

The Grateful Dead allows bootlegging of their concerts and  music. Millions of people download it and adore the music. Lose control of your marketing… (I’d like to point out that this is not a new concept great to see an old school example)

Example: Mailer Mailer – made a whitepaper totally free – created a 20x increase in downloads – all for abandoning the email address! A good trade you should all make.

Put down roots – be where your audience is.

Kadient – The new rules of sales enablement – landscape rather than portrait, color rather than black and white.

Point the world to your virtual doorstep! Queensland, Australia had a contest, 34,000 entries and one guy creating content once he won.

FEAR – You have to unlearn what you learned

We want 330,000 people to be in Public Affairs.  In a world where people block social media, the Air Force promotes and social media.

I can’t do this…I’ve heard every excuse in the world…if a B2B German Toilet company can do it, you can.

STOP MAKING EXCUSES!!!

David like my recent post about VP of Communications at Universities enough to tweet it, check it out!

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Interview: David Meerman Scott On Marketing Lessons From the Grateful Dead
• Hire Dave To Speak

Wow! That was tiring, I stepped on the L at 7:30AM and didn’t get home until 1:30AM the next morning! 18 hours of pure madness! Most people noticed the great speeches by Gary Vee from Wine Library TV and Dick Costolo (aka ask the wizard) and others. But what I really appreciated was the other things that the day brought to me. When Frank Gruber and Eric started TECH cocktail, one of the goals was to enable the interaction of people and removing barriers between entrepreneurs, funding sources and removing the boundaries between Chicago and the rest of the world.

When I sit at the first TECH cocktail CONFERENCE Chicago watching great speeches and meeting people from startups from both the east and west coasts while talking, playfully joking about Internet concepts and trading ideas with a local Chicago angel investor in the back of the room for hours on end – it’s at that moment one can clearly perceive a vision is starting to become reality…

For a first conference, it was very well run. There were those little things with a venue that didn’t go quite right with the elevators and not having enough power outlets (but you could say that about any conference) but those were out of their direct control. You could see that Eric and Frank went out of their way to challenge the audience about topics that too often go ignored at startups, like how to set up a corporate entity properly, partnerships and most of these challenges and experiments went well.

So what’s next? I’d like to challenge each and every person in TECH cocktail community to take things to the next level by taking the following actions:

1. Follow Up – People need to work to get to know each other better and learn to leverage each person’s special gifts and talents and realize that 1 + 1 > 2 when we behave in this manner. For me, I know that creating new business partners while listening to help iterate the product, data model or service is my area of strength.

2. Change TECH cocktail from an event to an everyday process on your own – a three month cycle time is not sufficient to build relationships to the next level – it’s everyone’s responsibility to make an hour here and there to sit down with someone, learn about what they are doing, give them a fresh perspective and potential assistance. Don’t wait for the next TECH cocktail event. If this means you need to organize your contact info, make that important time investment.

3. Listen to what Dick Costolo had to say about Internet company NDAs and then change your behavior accordingly (where is the video of that speech anyway?) – Stop sending people NDAs that serve no purpose other than to destroy your access to people who are the most qualified to help you. Ideas are a dime a dozen, assembling the right people with the current knowledge and future potential to create that reality is what matters.

4. Go beyond lurking, participate!!! During the conference, I had at least 10 people talk to me about a blog post of mine in detail, yet they’ve never left a comment on my blog. That’s sad. Leaving a comment leaves you a hyperlink back to your business or blog and allows distribution of one’s business network organically removing them as the bottleneck, please use this viral tool.

5. Learn to hire people for their current knowledge, network, blogs and future potential - not legacy job titles and brands – this takes work, research and being involved in the community, but it is how you’ll find the breakthrough thought leaders and future superstars.

6. Become an ambassador to expanding the understanding of the tools we all use and expand our base of understanding to new people outside our core – If you have a client or operate a service do they understand what Internet advertising, blogs, rss, social media, twitter, etc do? If they do is their organizational culture and structure set up to handle it to serve a customer’s needs? Many people know there is a problem but do not know where to start to fix it – I want to help those people as it will ease the adoption and enhance demand for disruptive new Internet services. I’m planning a series of future posts on this important, yet highly untouched topic. If you have examples of success stories or learnings in this area, I’d love to hear from you.

What else would you add to this list? I look forward to your contributions.

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• TECH cocktail Chicago 7
• TC08 Chicago – Designing With Users In Mind
• TECH Cocktail This Thursday – Bring Your Business Cards!

What was Mary Ann thinking?
Though Spitzer rode roughshod over most of the week’s news, a few other stories still managed to slip to the top of Buzz. One of them was a Yahoo! News article on Dawn Wells, the actress best known for her portrayal of Mary Ann on “Gilligan’s Island.” The aging star was caught in a pot bust, fined several hundred dollars, and slapped with six months of “unsupervised probation.” But the indignity didn’t stop there.

The story stirred a tremendous amount of interest in Search—but not about Dawn Wells. Instead, lookups skyrocketed for Tina Louise, the va-va-voom redhead who played Ginger on the show. We registered an astonishing 13,076% rise in demand for her name (compare that to Wells’ 5,860%). Just the thought of Mary Ann triggered all these luscious old memories of Ginger, Ginger’s photos, and Ginger’s legs. Searchers also boosted “tina louise news” and “tina louise now.” What would the Professor say?

So TV character Mary Ann(Dawn Wells) gets into some legal trouble and Ginger’s (Tina Louise) traffic more than doubles the increase of Mary Ann’s. WOW! That is the first time I can recall a vivid example of a news story about one topic creating a massive increase in search volume for another topic that was not mentioned. In other words, it clearly shows the power of brands.

For those of you who say it’s due to another word starting with the letter B, I’d offer this picture of a young Dawn Wells to show in conjunction with the picture above that the scripts and wardrobe selection shaped Ginger’s superior brand recall when it came to their search of choice this week.

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• ReadWriteWeb’s 2008 Web Predictions
• A Personal Belief on Branding
• Career Distinction : Stand Out by Building Your Brand

This is a really smart tip.

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Looking Forward to Barcamp Chicago 2008
• My friend Neil Patel
• New York Times Article Andy Rubin Google Gadget Guru

There are three primary prizes you are shooting for:

1) Becoming a “featured video” on the Youtube homepage.

This is apparently an internal process at YouTube and the system is not transparent. Andy Mckee’s “Drifting” was added to the Youtube featured videos after thousands of views, while Mike Huckabee eating a hamburger named after him in NH yesterday was added when it had zero views. One thing is clear, being featured on the YouTube front page can provide rocket fuel for perpetual viral status. For example, Andy Mckee’s “Drifting” now has 10,000,000+ views.

2 ) Ranking well on the any other social, tagging or metadata metric.

Most Viewed, Most Discussed, Top Favorites are all categories accessible within one click of the home page. The later two categories have been dominated lately by supporters of Ron Paul who have been actively doing the work necessary to get their videos featured. Each of these has subcategories to think about when you chose a category, tags and content wording – Autos & Vehicles, Comedy, Education, Entertainment, Film & Animation, How to & Style, Music, News & Politics, People & Blogs, Pets & Animals, Science & Technology, Sports, Travel & Events and Watch on Mobile. Do you have a community to mobilize?

3) It’s not a complete one to one correlation, but videos with higher views, comments and favorites tend to be the ones featured in Google universal search results.

This can keep the viral traffic going to that video long after the YouTube event. Critics would note that this creates an echo chamber effect that is as entrenched as a Wikipedia page.

OK, how do I do this?

- Start with making quality content that creates passion.

- Start with standard SEO of your video content.

- Build links via best practices – consult these expert entries on how to optimize for: StumbleUpon, Digg, del.icio.us, link to the videos on blogs etc.

- If you have a community get them to view the YouTube video content, favorite it, rate it and comment on it in a tightly clustered time frame.

I’d also experiment with some new tools such as:

- Tubemogul (thanks to Karl Long for the suggestion)

- Video Sitemaps – though it’s not clear whether that is only for self-hosted videos.

For the gray hats out there:

- Tags appear to be valued highly in YouTube’s current search relevancy process. Yet unless a viewer clicks to see all of the content the tags will never be seen.

- After a video is popular on YouTube, you can edit the category and get it to rank in a new category using the traffic that was built in a different vertical. This tactic surprised me in that I did not know you could change the video after publishing in that manner, though I’m surprised by how well it works. Please keep in mind this only works for videos with existing high traffic.

There is an amazingly thin amount of content on this subject, I’d highly welcome other people’s thoughts on the subject for inclusion and expansion of this research to date. But for now I hope this serves as a useful guide to you for your YouTube video view optimization!

UPDATE 1/16 – this has been translated and expanded upon in German!

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• SES San Jose Day 1 – Video Search Optimization
• Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2008: Video Search Engine Optimization
• Net.Finance 2008: Jon Kaplan of Google – YouTube and Financial Services

****************************************************************************

Everyone on this panel clearly put a lot of long, hard work into the concepts, thought and research into this panel and this blog post won’t do the great conversation the justice it deserves. It’s bleeding edge, this is fun and interesting stuff that will eventually transform the way consumers chose products and discover need brands that specifically meet their needs.

****************************************************************************

Does search help CPG? Comscore and Yahoo! provided the data for the SEMPO study.

James Lamberti, Comscore

The search marketing opportunity…100 million unique visitors in food alone, and babies

Who are these searchers? Average income, dramatically higher, 80% female

They enjoy cooking and entertaining.

Allergy sufferers are a prime underserved demographic. The opportunity to build brands via presences made through educational experiences.

Matt Wilburn, Yahoo!

Order of importance to searchers

- Information & Help

- Purchase Decision

- Promotion

- Company Website

Content matters more than a direct navigation. (I see a pattern developing here)

Consumers expect a digital shelf to be similar to a store shelf.

Out of stock, hard to find are issues.

Are you visible in paid and organic? Are you creating a nice impression?

Dana Todd, Sitelab

This is a compelling proposition. We believe in the promise of search for branding issues.

We need to think outside ROI. Back away from the spreadsheet. You need to get people thinking outside direct acquisition.

The first brand for cheese is on page three of the Google organic listings. Why?

Chinese toothpaste issue was a counter reaction to the ingredients article in Wired.

Develop problem and solution content.

If searchers are special, treat them as such!!!

End of session comments…

67% of searchers found a brand they weren’t aware of… (Kevin Ryan)

The term PPC is useless outdated and should be changed – Digital Point of Purchase? (Dana Todd).

Question by me in Chicago: Dana brought up the cheese in PPC and no brand organic terms, to use the Liz Strauss conversational blogging element, there are actually 10 posts on toilet paper on Technorati today, shouldn’t brand managers be engaging this, not only for the SEO benefits, but the innovation road map as well?

(all panel heads nod in agreement) Using the data during the planning process is the next frontier after this issue (which is still in the early days)…

This is certainly an area where the conversation will continue and evolve, it’s a challenging area due to the issues of massive change.

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2008: Search Engine Marketing and Consumer Packaged Goods
• Welcome To My Marketing Strategy Blog
• ad:tech Chicago 2006 – Disruptive Technology for Fun and Profit, Sponsored by Avenue A | Razorfish

Should organizations be smaller like tree trunks instead of the traditional pyramids?

How can this change take place if most leaders don’t know it’s necessary and are not up to speed about what to do or how to do it even if they acknowledged the issue?

How will recruiting morph to put the generalist thought leaders in place to lead this change – perhaps those with competencies derived in other industries or through accelerated self learning?

Other coverage of Seth Godin’s Search Engine Strategies Chicago speech:

Meatball Sundaes and the Smelly Old Guard

Seth Godin Tells Marketers How to Avoid Meatball Sundaes

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Seth Godin Keynoting Search Engine Strategies Chicago and His New Book Meatball Sundae
• Ask Launches AskEraser
• Getting noticed in the new word-of-mouth network

I’m sitting here in Kitty O’Shea’s in Chicago and Jim Hedger says “Yes, I would pay to see that!”

Greg Jarboe says, “I’d advertise on that video because the video would get a lot of cheap hits.”

What do you think? If enough people agree with Jim, maybe Kevin Ryan will be making his hammer debut on Youtube!

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• SES Chicago 2007 : David Isenberg on Net Neutrality
• Kevin Lee Discusses MSN Adcenter
• Seth Godin Keynoting Search Engine Strategies Chicago and His New Book Meatball Sundae

Marketing (r)Evolutions

Mass advertising on passive customers was what used to work.

People sleep while watching TV, hard to pay attention to advertising when sleeping.

Sleeping while surfing the Internet is not something that happens.

Godaddy.com Super Bowl XL TV commercials didn’t use the same model on the web site. Did Godaddy leave money on the table.

Money is better than traffic.

Apple had to give rebates due to word of mouth on iphone pricing.

Marketers still think customers are dogs.

But search puts the power of when and how in their hands (the sonsumer).

Overcoming sales friction – 85% of car purchases start online – you arrive knowing more than the salesman in many cases. Attack of the blogs – Consumers trust other consumers more than marketers. 54% resist, 56% avoid, 69% block ads – yet we still want to buy.

Customers will control the conversation. People have forgotten how to have relationships.

The web is a major influencer, a mere 26% of consumers were SATISFIED with the experience. They are missing the BASICS. Conversation rates are continuing to fall.

All new brands are based on the experience model. Invest in the customer experience.

We are obsessed with the how many, not the who. This needs to change.

Customers desire great and meaningful experiences.

SCENT, ads must think it has scent to be useful.

80% of traffic dies off within three clicks.

GEICO – connects the story…

Zafu – bras in launch video didn’t match website.

Usability – Frederick Winslow Taylor is the father.

We are all connected and customers will control the conversation. It involves persuasion architecture!!!

Traffic generation is about money. Don’t imitate your competitors. It’s the tiny pieces that matter. Focus on making your service better.

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Bryan Eisenberg’s 21 Secrets to Top Converting Websites
• Business Card #2200 – Bryan Eisenberg
• At SES San Jose / Silicon Valley 2008 Day 1

CHICAGO

I’ve learned that certain merchandise that was once carried by Kmart, yes Kmart, is now carried in the landmark Marshall Field’s store that is presently labeled Macy’s.

There will be a rally at noon Sunday to bring back the great name of Marshall Field’s, prior to the NY Gaints game against the Bears in downtown Chicago (60602).

Jim McKay had this to say about the Black Friday Marshall Field’s protest:

How successful was it? Over 8,000 leaflets and over 1,300 buttons were distributed on State Street over the two days. Friday’s distribution exceeded our previous busiest day (Saturday, December 23, 2006) by roughly two-and-a-half times! Part of this was due to an unprecedented number of shoppers on State Street. Another part of this was simply those former Field’s shoppers who came to check out what was happening in the building that used to house their favorite store and were unhappy. They came in droves to get leaflets in buttons. At more than a few times, people stood in line to get leaflets and buttons from us. A couple of times, the lines were 10-12 people wide, although 5-7 people wide was more typical. That’s right–people waiting in line for buttons that say, “Forever Marshall Field’s” and leaflets explaining why it is important to continue boycotting Macy’s until Marshall Field’s is restored in service and quality as well as name. It was quite unprecedented. What’s more, there were those who picked up a leaflet or button or both and then came back minutes for even hours later with other family and friends to get more.

Amazingly, it appears the movement to bring back Marshall Field’s seems to be growing stronger over time in Chicago!

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Marshall Field’s – Always Alive in Our Hearts
• Vlogs Ain’t Blogs
• In Case You Missed It…

Low marginal cost public relations opportunity or serious about participating in the auction?

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Robert Peck – Bear Stearns: Mobile Spectrum Auction C Block Results Likely To Be Delayed
• Google Goes Wireless
• Google Adsense for Mobile Launches

It seems like a collaborative offering that could be highly effective when utilized with other parts of the multi-channel ecosystem. Maybe one day I’ll get to utilize it in my toolbox! Many people in the Internet society have forgotten about the effectiveness of phone conversations to drive collaboration, interaction and create actions. I recently had a conversation with my 82 year old great aunt in this regard.  She stated that, “I lived for 72 years without the Internet just fine. I’m not sure my life is truly better with it.” A non-mainstream view perhaps but one that elements of how to be a successful marketer in the multi-channel sense.

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• My First Exposure To ifbyphone
• Dick Costolo’s Tips on Raising Capital
• White Paper…Query Suggestions for Mobile Search: Understanding Usage Patterns

At first I was thinking this would be a long speech, it was in actuality a short, crisp presentation followed by a spirited, fun and playful question an answer session. It far exceeded my expectations and Kevin Ryan should be commended for having this type of community event.

Now onto a discussion of his new book, Meatball Sundae. The foundation for a new economy is being built. The past several years have laid the foundation for a new industrial revolution.

Told the detailed story of Josiah Wedgewood and his high standards for pottery.

There are 14 main themes occurring right now in the world – though there are many smaller and industry specific trends playing out. These 14 trends are (I typed them fast in a live blog situation so I might not have them exactly right):

- Direct communication with customers is creating massive change

- Individuals can amplifying their voice and become a critic – these are not hassles to be dealt with. The answer is building an organization that thrives and survives on this…

- Having an authentic story is vital

- We don’t have attention spans anymore (why are you still reading this post? )

- The new marketplace long tail – very few organizations are embracing it

- Create innovation – If you can describe a job it can get done by somebody cheaper

- Google and the shredding of information and bundling

- Noise and infinite channels of communication

- Consumers can talk directly to consumers without the middleman or company

- The changing balance of scarcity and abundance – it’s hard to imagine people being bored

- Big ideas can reach many people quickly

- The shift from how many to who – the idea of being on the today show instead of a blog is higher value is over

- Democratization of the wealthy – the gap between the rich and poor is getting wider but the rich is going up

- Gatekeepers are more important as they distribute information yet less important as you can go around them easier than ever

After the short speech on the trends there was a free for question and answer session…

Is your marketing out of sync?

SG: They should say how change your marketing (what you do) so that it’s in sync with what the market demands.

Why don’t most companies get it yet?

SG: I spent many years selling advertising. People buy TV advertising, it’s fun and it’s not measurable. When the Internet came along and they went running to Yahoo! to buy ads that aren’t measuring. Google and Overture were used by small business people in the ad. The choice is Superbowl ads that don’t work and measurable ads that are harder to make work. It’s naïve to hope that they will shift in a month or a year. They will eventually have to shift. The prices will continue to go up. People still applaud the commercial not the SEM.

(At this point the Gmail javascript froze all of my browsers. I had to reboot and relaunch. OF COURSE THIS WAS THE MOMENT KEVIN RYAN CHOSE TO ASK THE QUESTION I SENT IN – SO I’LL HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE AUDIO THERE.)

Where do you find thoughtleaders to lead organizations and instead of hiring people with “experience”?

SG: I wrote a post on a similar topic about the loss of relevancy of credentials today. Basically, there are two types of leaders qualified to do this:
- People who have managed change before
- Idea people who don’t necessarily know better

How do make a corporate blog work?

SG: Blogs don’t reach people, people reach blogs… You need to be quick and candid. It’s all about change and being iterative in nature.

Everyone attending SES Chicago will receive a copy of Seth’s book. I look forward to continuing our conversation and maybe even hearing his answers because Gmail’s javascritpt won’t be interfering with his in person appearance!

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• SES Chicago 2007: Seth Godin Talks about Meatball Sundae
• Ask Launches AskEraser
• At SES San Jose / Silicon Valley 2008 Day 1

John asserts that two major things are changing at present in the advertising marketplace:

1) The destruction of integrated marketing and direct control of brands is no longer possible.

2) The nature of storytelling is changing. People can understand multiple branding messages and themes, especially in Generation Y.

It’s totally awesome to be at a traditional marketing conference and hearing some of these themes being not only talked about, but actually practiced. There is still a long, long way to go. This conference with 13,000 delegates traveling from all corners of the earth dwarfs the size of the search marketing and social media conferences that I frequently attend. It quantifies the immense magnitude of the amount of change that is potentially still ahead. It’s kind of overwhelming to think about actually and I don’t overwhelm easily!

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Management Consulting
• Bonnaroo – Lost Opportunity for Top Acts
• SES Day 2- New Yahoo Search Marketing PPC Platform…

New term POST

People

Objectives

Strategy

Technology (notice how this is listed last? Charlene pointed out that this is on purpose! In other words don’t execute until you have things thought through!)

Mantra: Embrace your customer to turn revolt into reformation

Ask yourself: How do you turn (customer) revolt into revolution?

Hopefully both speeches will be online later.

What was the high point of the speech for me that told me that a revolution was taking place at Forrester?

It was when Charlene pointed to a technology adoption benchmarking slide and then put a red X through it saying “don’t pay attention to that”!!!!

What does this mean to me? It means that benchmarking it starting to die due to the increased cycle times and shorter shelf life of information. I’ve long felt that you can’t benchmark your way to the top. You have to lead and take risks. To lead and take risks you must have the top generalist thought leaders of our times on your team. People who understand things like search engine optimization as a strategic tool, social media, bottom up communities and cultures, defining a defensible data model from the start and who practice customer listening for their innovation.

After Charlene, Christie Hefner gave an amazing speech about the history of Playboy’s brand and demonstrated how it’s always been customer focused dating back decades and how it’s embracing the demise of the one to many media model. I hadn’t been aware of this but Playboy has had a mobile presence since 2002! Wow.

She also talked about the brands usage in search and have it’s a frequent search term. In fact a quick check of Google trends indicates a large lead in search volume for Playboy over the New York Times.

Her speech was fascinating from the historical side, yet the brand of Playboy is softening as it’s constantly evolving, Charlene’s conversation was far more disruptive and unnerving to many of the people seated around me. Yet it became clear to me that Playboy is a company that has lived many of today’s social media principles long before they were fashionable.

In in the end, it’s all about building a bottom up culture that has the executive support to constantly innovate. Most people don’t get that yet and if they do it’s even more unlikely that they view customers and other stakeholders as critical to success. We are just starting this journey and I can’t wait to participate fully in the fun parts of this revolution to come!

fcf07

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Hire Dave To Speak
• Forrester Consumer Conference – Mobile Marketing’s Play In The Channel Strategy

Rob Key

Consumers trust each other the most

Social media rapidly gaining SERP Predominance and are now intertwined.

You no longer own your brand. Your brand is a conversation.

What is below the waterline of this iceberg?

You are losing control.

Conversation Mining (Buzz Monitoring)

This conversation is replacing traditional market research.

Are you listening to consumer generated media? You should be….

How do we engage this into a social media strategy.

Go across all and many forms.

It’s amazing how the conversation leads will occur.

Conversation mining provides many, many benefits.

Is this person a reasonable or determined detractor – how you treat them differently.

Andy Beal

Editor – Marketingpilgrim.com

Writing a book on this subject

Company name, executives, customers, press releases, partners, reviews, etc.

Potential Tools to Use:
Moreover.com – industry
news.google.com
Digg.com
Technorati.com
Co.mments.com
Blogpulse.com/conversation
Blogpulse.com/trend
Flickr (other photo sharing sites)
video.google.com – now a true search engine
keotag.com
wikipedia.org
oodle.com
google.brand.edgar-online.com
upcoming.yahoo.com
amazon.com/tag/iphone
google.com/trends/
searchanalytics.compete.com
copernic.com
pipes.yahoo.com

Jonathan Ashton, Director, Agency.com

Search engines magnify smaller voices.

Buzz Management now equals Brand Management

Remove top down approach to brand management

Powerful impact of consumer comment sites

Blog as a soapbox – existing entry, comment added.

Co-opetition is a key to mitigation

Maximize Your Own Site to Run Interface

Orkin has a Wikipedia page and Terminix does not.

Again, creative thinking and co-opetition.

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Nissan Pulls New Zealand Ad, Loses Opportunities for Buzz
• Open Question for SES San Jose Day 1- Facebook Internal Search Optimization
• At SES San Jose / Silicon Valley 2008 Day 1

Quite likely the busiest session of the day to the fullest house. One can’t help but notice that if Greg Jarboe had gone to Google and designed Universal Search himself he likely couldn’t have designed it to play into his strength areas in news and pr related issues. The implications and transformation for universal search are still evolving, but they are clearly changing the landscape. One other thing that became clear from this event was that Ask is becoming a serious contender in this marketplace.

Greg Jarboe –

Universal search is the biggest event since “Florida” update. 70% of what I used to know is now obsolete. The patterns are not yet clear in personalization.

News results ranked #4 if you searched for the term iPhone on June 29

In the #8 position, was a Youtube video. We don’t know if it was done on purpose.

July 17, Rupert Murdoch – news with image – brings up a whole new reputation management – be prepared to optimize images.

Early chapters of Henry Potter were leaked, the blog results are on page one of results

Investor relations now is moving to the front page of Countrywide. Few companies have complete control of their brands now on Google.

Unflattering images of Hillary Clinton and that vast right wing conspiracy is building links to unflattering results.

Blogs on Hurricane Dean already on front page. Images will likely come next.

All of the rules have been rewritten – how do I research this? Focus on the upper left links. News seems to be on the top left all the time. Search remains #1 way journalist find information about a company.

Newsknife and Google News Report – be checking this. Your PR people aren’t ready for that yet. If you are not giving a jpg file in a release, start now.

Google News right now doesn’t do video news. Likely to create that.

Social mapping tools can help identify most influential bloggers. In certain categories they show up.

A couple of years ago there was vertical creep session here at SES – I now rank for that term. Not a good thing.

You can’t afford to ignore Universal Search Today

Google is making specialized or vertical content more visible through Universal Search

Sherwwod Stranieri, Catalyst Online

This throws a lot of  curves into the theme. Ask 3D and Google cut new paths.

Conventional web pages that once rank well are going to move around maybe down. Other things will move updates.

Number of videos is significant in the Youtube world. Are the search engines using comments as an indicator?

We are looking at it as search marketers. Showed client example.

How to look at it: Google PR, Y! Page links, keyword phrases in tags.

Videos ranking correspond well with views, comments, etc.

Bill Slawski

Why does news, images and video show up there.

I’m not sure I see this all as a revolutionary concept. How do we get out content into our results.

Showed examples of screen prints from each engine for the word spider.

Showed the Google patent, oddly looks quite different than Google’s universal search does now.

Google acquired several Infoseek patents.

Discussed Onebox and log file data.

Ranking in Vertical databases – how do you rank for that vertical?

User behavior – key value pairs, be certain definition and being defined. Questions and Answers work the same way. Html formatting may play a role.

Enhancing the user experiences.

David Bailey – Google
Technical lead for the vertical search.

What are our goals?

Make google.com the search box of first resort.

Display special features for special results

Keep it fast. Keep it simple. Above all, keep it relevant.

Showed example: origami crane

This will continually improve and extend to more result types.

It’s still about the web.

But: think about creating quality content in other forms. Expect similar SEO guidelines to apply.

Create quality content, describe it well and we’ll see what happens.

Tim Mayer, VP Product Management

We are transitioning to a better optimized user experience

Freshness and user intent became relevancy issues.

News, local and other verticals – the possibilities are infinite. Federation plays a role.

Some implantation examples:

Music Artist Shortcut

Movie Shortcut

Hotel Shortcut Inline

Consumer Electronics Shortcut

As we go forward, it’s going t be more about the intent of the searchers.

Eric Collier, Director of Product Management

“We are the scrappy innovator of search.”

Ask.com 3D: SERP Design

We moved the content up top and removed the top links.

Large jumps in user satisfaction seen in both the site analytics and surveys

Increase in vertical channel usage

Starting to see a reduction of multiple query sessions around the same keyword term.

Expect to see a larger percentage of SERPs with blended results

User location will play a larger roles in SERPs

Expect to see fewer web results in SERPs

Blogs, Images and Video results will take online reputation into account when ranking

Pay attention to other search drivers

Other coverage of this important session:

RB Digital Boots

Rustybrick

AIM Clear Blog

Lee Odden’s Toprankblog

Bonus coverage:

Lee Odden interviews Tim Mayer

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• SES San Jose 2007 Day 2 – Images & Search Engines
• Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2008: Universal & Blended Search Engine Conversation
• Open Question for SES San Jose Day 1- Facebook Internal Search Optimization

I’ve heard some of their Reach Branding Club seminars and while I’ve made a ton of progress using their concepts and other related ideas, I think the major lesson is that we all can improve our personal brands and to ignore the issue is a risk that one should not take!

One great lesson of the book is unintentional. In the Preface, there is a discussion of William’s and Kirsten’s life journey. I learned many things about them that I did not know that personalized their brands for me in a new way. Don’t be afraid to discuss your struggles they are likely critical areas that define you. You should definitely check out this book.

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Management Consulting
• Hess Corporation Hopes to Strike Oil with a Talent Management Suite
• An Indeed.com Alternative

MODERATOR:
Jeffrey Pruitt, President, SEMPO, and Executive VP, Search, iCrossing

PANELISTS:
Kelly Graziadei, Senior Director, Agency Development, Yahoo! Search Marketing

James Colborn, Group Marketing Manager, adCenter Communications Group, Microsoft

Kevin Willer, Central Region Development Manager, Google

James Colbourn, Microsoft

Kelly Graziadei, Yahoo!

Think about the many different faces of search.

- The Researcher – look at Yahoo! Buzz to create an audience pyramid. Look at other content. Miller Beer Run. Showed a campaign with getting the beer – Yahoo! created the game and got excellent results

- The Reputation Manager – geo-targeting, ad testing, etc. Jet Blue built a campaign to respond to negative news.

- The Brand Manager – 79% introduced to new brands in search and 61% expect brand leaders to be consistently in the top of search results.

- The Great Integrator – TV, web, games, mobile all at the same time.

- The Advocate – Searchers are advocates that build brands through social media – significant in the pre and post purchase mode.

Kevin Willer, Google
- Information silos in the past. You almost needed a search engine for the search engines. Now all the silos are in one universal search.

Google Promotion – search for Bourne – showed how the site with Youtube

Search for PR. – You need to be ready to answer those searches

Search the New Performance Link – showed Motorola example and Presidential campaign data for Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama, Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney (He said the

We want to start thinking about search in different ways.

James Colbourn, Microsoft
Search Today: A Performance Tool
- To increase brand awareness
- To Sell Products
- To Generate Leads
- To Drive Traffic To Company Website

How do advertisers measure success?
- Traffic
- Conversions
- Impressions
- ROI

Brand, Awareness, Acquisition Tool and Lead Generator

Search as a research tool is a leading indicator for:
- A Business
- An Industry

Beyond Search
- Media Buying
- Budget Allocation
- PR Activity

The potential for search is higher than current usage…

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• ad:tech Chicago 2006- Warm and Cozy SEO
• adtech Chicago 2007 is July 31-August 1
• ad:tech Chicago

Shashi Seth, Head of Monetization, YouTube.com

Rebecca Paoletti, Director, Video Strategy, Yahoo!

Patrick Moorhead, National Manager, R&D Advanced Marketing Solutions, Avenue A | Razorfish

Chris D’Alessandro, Group Director, Customer Insight, Organic, Inc.

Moderator: Curt Hecht, Executive VP, Chief Digital Officer, GM Planworks/Starcom Mediavest Group

Rebecca: Video search is not as important to core clients as media that is relevant to the brand. The off network piece is important as well. Reaching your users wherever they are, walking down the street, whatever…

Patrick: It’s almost the Holy Grail. We need to redefine contextual to mean what the user means at that moment.

Chris: If you are looking at an awareness company, it’s not the Holy Grail.

Curt: How does this scale? How are the agencies? Pre-rolls?

Rebecca: The trend to distribute us towards pre-roll. We are far away from dynamic video smart ads. What they search for. Dynamically delivered video is hard to deliver. Dynamic video is a long ways away.

Patrick: I disagree that we are far away from dynamically generated video.

Curt: Who is digging in on this?

Chris: Emerging and bleeding technology is getting there.

Curt: Are you talking about testing and learning?

Chris: Search is always part of everyone’s repertoire.

Rebecca: Shopping and merchandising makes a lot of sense. We have huge testing and learning going on right now.

Curt: Marketers will have to deal with versioning of creative.

Chris: we’ve had to segment sites. What kind of content do we deliver?

Patrick: We have to measure this stuff from an optimization of media dollars. The same investment can service a much broader audience. Campaign management tools will catch up at some point. Look at things holistically; it’s half about people management.

Shashi: Traditional click through and engagement numbers are not sufficient. We need to come up with standard metrics across the board.

Audience question on pre-rolls and potential attrition to smaller sites.

Shashi: When we announce our ad unit, we will take all those things into account.

Rebecca: We only use it for premium inventory. We balance the pre-roll with the length of the content. We’ve done a lot of testing in this area and found it had no adverse impact.

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• adtech Chicago 2007 is July 31-August 1
• ad:tech Chicago 2006- Warm and Cozy SEO
• Contact #2300 – Contextweb CEO Anand Subramanian

Here are some tips on how to navigate via CTA to Navy Pier. Cash fare on the CTA is currently $2. This is a pdf map of the areas described below.

From the Sheraton: the #29, #65 and #124 buses stop in front of the Sheraton on Illinois and terminate and 600 East Grand Avenue, this will save you three blocks of walking.

The number#124 bus starts in the West Loop at Union Station, Ogilvie Transportation Center and terminates at 600 East Grand Avenue.

If traveling from Midway Airport, take the Orange line to Roosevelt, walk down the stairs and travel one block west to State Street. Take the#29 State bus northbound to 600 East Grand Avenue.

If traveling from O’hare Airport, take the blue line to Monroe, walk up the stairs, then walk one block east to State Street. Take the#29 State bus northbound to 600 East Grand Avenue.

For those staying at a hotel a bit further north, the #66 bus travels east on Chicago Avenue, then south on Fairbanks to Grand to 600 East Grand Avenue.

For those of you attending ad:tech, I have the following high level networking objectives and look forward to speaking with you (please drop me an email contained on my Bio page):

1) I’m seeking anyone with senior contacts at major search engines

2) Anyone with ideas or connections to publishers, advertisers or investors regarding mobile search and mobile advertising.

Have a great show!

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Wordcamp in San Fran Today!
• Catch Up – Interesting Posts Recently
• adtech Chicago 2007 is July 31-August 1

I’d like to add a few items to Julie Roehm‘s list:

1) If they don’t understand the basics of search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing. More importantly, they need to understand how this gets incorporated in other traditional forms of marketing which are still relevant in our society.

2) They need to understand blogs and customer listening. In other words how to innovate in real time from customer feedback. They need to have a CEO and a board which fully understand and support these efforts. A good way to determine if one is qualified in this regard is to be a blogger themselves who “gets it”. Not in terms of frequency, but in terms of quality and conversation.

What others can you think of to add to Julie Roehm‘s list? I’d like your thoughts.

UPDATE 7/2009:  New Personal Life Media Interview

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Medio Systems Names Robert P Lilleness Chief Operating Officer
• IAC Split Up Conference Call Summary
• My Speech at eComXpo Now Has a Contest

It wouldn’t be possible without you…

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• FCF07 – Social Media Brought My Jacket Back!!!
• How Much Equity For Your Venture Capital Funding and Employees?
• Intellext – Dr. Jay Budzik and CEO Al Wasserberger

Here are the bands that are being webcast.

Friday, June 15th

Uncle Earl                     12:30pm – 1:15pm
Cold War Kids                1:15pm – 2:15pm
Brazilian Girls                2:15pm – 3:30pm
Kings of Leon                 3:45pm – 5:00pm
Paolo Nutini                   5:00pm – 6:15pm
Gillian Welch                 6:15pm – 7:45pm
The Nightwatchmen       7:45pm – 9:00pm
Lily Allen                       9:00pm – 10:00pm
The Roots                      10:00pm – 11:30pm

Saturday, June 16th

Old Crow Medicine Show                        12:45pm – 1:45pm
Spearhead                                             1:45pm – 2:15pm
Regina Spektor                                      2:15pm – 3:30pm
The Black Keys                                       3:30pm – 4:15pm
Damien Rice                                          4:15pm – 5:45pm
Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals       5:45pm – 7:45pm
The Hold Steady                                     7:45pm – 8:15pm
Mago: Billy Martin & John Medeski           8:15pm – 9:45pm
TBD                                                       9:45pm – 10:15pm
The String Cheese Incident                     10:15pm – 11:30pm

Sunday, June 17th

Robert Glasper Trio                     12:30pm – 1:00pm
John Butler Trio                          1:00pm – 2:00pm
Flaming Lips (Sat Night Show)      2:00pm – 3:00pm
Bob Weir & Ratdog                      3:00pm – 4:30pm
Wolfmother                                4:30pm – 5:30pm
Wilco                                         5:30pm – 7:00pm
The White Stripes                       7:15pm – 8:45pm
Widespread Panic                       8:45pm – 11:30pm

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Nissan Pulls New Zealand Ad, Loses Opportunities for Buzz
• Lost a Stack of Business Cards
• FCF07 – Social Media Brought My Jacket Back!!!

“All brands outlive their useful life, often to the detriment of the consumer and newer value propositions.”

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Career Distinction : Stand Out by Building Your Brand
• Billy Dexter – MTV’s Chief Diversity Officer
• Happy First Blog Birthday

This is how Mazda did it recently:

- Sent me an email in early March inviting me to test drive a Mazda and get a $25 gift card as I had previously signed up for promotions as some of the new models were of interest

- Printed off pdf file

- Filled out form

- Went to Mazda dealer

- Found salesperson who didn’t know about the promotion

- Had manager figure out the details

- Test drove a Mazda

- Mailed in form

- After 8 weeks card had not arrived and wrote blog post about it

- A week later, the card arrives in the mail and I pick it up as I leave the apartment

- Since it has no sticker on the card saying it’s not active, I proceed to try to use it at a gas station and the guy tells me it’s not activated

- Went to myecount.com and filled out a form that was just way too long (see below)

- Put in mazda as my password for secret questions – for $25 this just is not necessary

- Unchecked default boxes to get updates from myecount.com

- Finally spent card

- Wrote post on this non-optimal customer experience in terms of duplicate data entry, time, cost and user utility

This is a great example of how not to run a promotion, not exactly a good idea when you are trying to get someone to build trust in your brand for a 5 figure purchase.

See the full size of this form here.

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Mazda March 2007 Test Drive VISA Gift Card Not Received After 8 Weeks
• Great Last Minute Gift Ideas
• Banana Republic

1) Video game companies designing graphics

2) Non-profits needing to explain their value

3) Any company or person needing to tell a story

4) Cartoon transcripts of Scoble’s PodTech interviews

5) Or maybe designing a new Olympic logo for the 2012 London games!

Yikes the logo below cost 400,000 GBP ($797,000) to make according to the Guardian Limited and BBC News. The BBC stated that the video version caused reports of epileptic seizures. The numerous negative YouTube videos can be viewed here.

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Indy 500 Television Coverage
• Happy Thanksgiving 2007
• Merry Christmas!!!

Few things I’ve ever seen on an online newspaper site have shown such a true respect and understanding of the radical change in the newspaper medium as the homepage of Cleveland.com did today. More and more people read only online. There it was in the middle of the page it said “Download today’s front page”(of the paper edition). Wow! I downloaded the pdf and it looked sweet.

I bet that pdf file becomes the De facto cube poster in every office in Cleveland on Monday. Cool Cleveland.

That pdf file is interesting for other reasons as well. It’s also a great branding and advertising tool in stealth form. Take a closer look at the pdf file again. It brands the Plain Dealer in the top left corner. It is also a sales piece. Look at the bottom left corner now. It has URLs to purchase both pictures from the game and a larger poster of the front page.

Now if only cleveland.com would remove the age, zip code and sex question on the entry pages like Cleveland‘s Joel Cheesman wants. 90210 anyone?

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Chicago Sun-Times, Where are the Trackbacks?
• Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Files Lawsuit Against Google
• Volvo C30 Designer Blog and More On Listening

I completed the test drive, mailed in the form and 8 weeks later I still have not received this gift card. It appears I have plenty of company as well based on these message board posts. Not a good way to treat prospects of your 5 figure products. If you can’t send a gift card in a timely manner, does this experience build confidence that you will be dealt with fairly if something went wrong with your new Mazda? No.

When companies are creating incentives to interact with their products and services why aren’t they realizing that how the experience is handled can have considerable impact on their brand – either positive or negative?

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Mazda Test Drive Gift Card Lameness
• Great Last Minute Gift Ideas
• Banana Republic

According to the Chicago Tribune, a press conference after its (Macy’s) annual meeting here Friday, Federated’s chief financial officer, Karen Hoguet, said former Field’s stores are performing no worse or better than the roughly 400 regional department stores Federated acquired from St. Louis-based May Department Stores Co. in 2005 and converted to Macy’s. But there is an exception: the Chicago store on State Street. The landmark store, long a tourist destination, is “doing badly,” Hoguet said, without providing specific performance data.

After listening to Danny Meyer yesterday (see post below) I can’t help but noticing this wasn’t about a store, it was about hospitality, word of mouth and networking and the way people felt during that customer experience. A recent post on Marshall Field’s – fieldsfanschicago.org message board (which is amazingly still getting strong traffic – you may recall I stated I thought this issue had blogsphere legs back in September) says it best:

“I miss shopping in Marshall Field’s because Field’s IS Chicago. For me shopping at Field’s was an adventure because Field’s was more than a store…it was an institution which made people feel special just being there amongst the special merchandise that only Field’s could offer and the sales people made even the transactions memorable because of the way they wrapped items, hard and soft, in white tissue paper sealed with a green MF sticker before generously pulling out a large MF forest green shopping bag in which to place my purchases. That was ‘the frosting on the cake’.”

“But you know what I r-e-a-l-l-y notice at commuter train stations, on North Michigan Avenue, on State Street and in the Chicagoland shopping centers, at O’Hare and Midway and at other airports around the country???? I miss seeing people, by the dozens and dozens carrying the distinctive green Marshall Field’s sturdy shopping bags with the handles! The absence is so barrenly striking. You readily KNEW they were either FROM Chicago or had a fun shopping trip as a tourist and were going back home. You just do not find people carrying macy’s plastic sacks anywhere it seems, she added. Why should they?! Macy’s is everywhere, and therefore not special at all. It is all so sad.”

Do you hear this Mr. Lundgren?

Another reader posted in reply to the many clearance items at the store now…

“Customers want the stores converted back to Marshall Field’s not Marshalls.”

In a related matter, Macy’s has new problems due to accusations of a former LA Times reporter.

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Marshall Field’s – Always Alive in Our Hearts
• Downtown Chicago Marshall Field’s Rally Sunday
• Vlogs Ain’t Blogs

What follows are the raw notes of Danny Meyer’s speech at the National Restaurant Association in Chicago on May 19, 2007. There are amazing insights in his speech and new book, Setting the Table, in regards to separating the concepts of service and hospitality, recruiting and how to life to it’s fullest. All lessons that can be applied to web 2.0 or any business in need of refined and high performance culture. Please note that the notes are raw and from his voice:

He let everyone know that it was his first time speaking at an NRA show. However, he attended the 1985 NRA convention. I wanted to learn about a POS system. We got a big presentation on it. I gathered the courage to ask a question. Is it really feasible to give a rolled thermal check instead of a proper check? If you give them good food at a fair price you can give them a check on toilet paper and they will come back someone chimed in.

Something dawned on me about five years ago. We focus on mistakes more than what is going right. My grandmother was proud of her garden. She taught me to garden at the age of 6. Ignore the weeds water the flowers. It dawned on me many years later that is what we should do in real life. A lot of things were going right.

Opening my restaurant was a passion. The strongest business decision I ever made was to fire myself as chef. In a city that has 22,000 restaurants, we have 6 in the top 42 Zagat Favorite Restaurants. People who are highly institutive make poor analysts. I do things that are intuitive. I employ over 1,500 now.

What does it mean to be my favorite (restaurant)? When you put those words in front of anything it is the highest compliment that can be paid. If I could figure out the secret sauce, Id have something. Location has ceased to be a critical fashion. The other 95% of the people say its’ service and not location, location, location. We needed a service economy. The car rental company didn’t have the convertible you wanted, the bank didn’t do what you wanted, etc. The Internet changed the rules. If you wanted to rise to the level of my favorite, you did if via performance. Performance used to be the thing that did it for you. I’ve always made a practice of asking why. You guys make the best roast chicken, you seat us on time, etc. We stopped hearing that when people started using the Internet. If you wanted to set yourself apart you could do things to differentiate, but replication happens much sooner now. Performance is a lot like air conditioning. Nobody has ever walked into the Grammercy Tavern and said this is great air conditioning, but if it doesn’t work, they don’t come back. Performance is now a lose proposition, it is not a win proposition. Nobody defined how hospitality is different than service. Did the waiter clear the table timely? Hospitality defines how you make someone feel. You have made them feel like you are on your side. Hospitality only occurs as we see it. Service is the technical delivery of product. You can write a manual to define the service and we have a different manual for hospitality. If you do something, do it consistently. Hospitality is not a monologue it’s a dialogue. The preposition for is involved in hospitality and the preposition to is there when you do something to somebody. It takes certain technical skills to open up a bottle of wine. We had been focusing 49% of skills training for technical skills. We spent the other 51% hiring for hospitality.

Hospitality IQ is the companies which are successful are the most successful in hiring the right hospitality. We need to hire people who derive pleasure from giving pleasure. What occurred to me is that you can’t teach it.

Kind, Intelligent and Curious, a high work ethic and integrity. These people were people with a high degree of empathy. Integrity is more than honesty. It is the judgment to do the right thing. More often than not they are life choices. Talked about leadership and the relationship to being a captain on a team. You get to be in a business of setting rules. Every single organization in the world have the exact same five stakeholders – customers, investors, community, employees and suppliers. We created a virtuous cycle of events. But if you believe in virtuous cycles, you can make more money by putting ourselves first, employees trust and put investors last. If I could raise my Hospitality IQ when hiring we’d be better. We put our community and suppliers ahead of investors to. Why would we have a community investment department? Why not help fix the park across the street. A rising tide lifts all boats. You might succeed at that. You can invest in the tide. Do your competitors go up with you? The niche of BBQ goes with the tide. Table is another example. We needed to create a new tide. We have been working to build community. In the same way that a championship horse is born with the DNA, it still needs to be trained. Make sure your staff needs to have the heart muscle worked hard. Birds of a feather flock together. The staff wants other people to work with that have a high hospitality quotient. People who have the same emotional need to learn pleasure. If you teach me more than the next guy, I’ll stay here. The biggest thing, please listen to my aspirations. We always want people to be part of a new opening of a new restaurant.

49% of a swans body mass is below water, 51% of the swan is above water doing the graceful stuff. My favorite chapter is the road to success is paved with mistakes well traveled. Waves are like mistakes, there is another one just behind it. My biggest mistake was back in 2002 and I found it hard to find the type of people. It took 35 minutes to get a drink on opening night at Blue Smoke. When I learned the swan theory, I never knew. Eye contact, a mile a hug and some pretty darn good food.

Question: Questions about putting staff ahead of customer.

What I’m saying is exactly that. If you have the best recipe, it’s not good if you don’t have good ingredients. Our hospitality will never rise to a higher level. The two things I look for in any business are focused on their work and enjoying each others company, I know it will work.

Question: When you were hiring for HQ, how do you train your managers.

Since you derive pleasure for making people for feeling comfortable, you can be blind to it. Have others help you. The prospect drops out that can be frustrating. I’ll ask someone, “Tell me how you used heart in your last job.” We tell people there are the skills that matter for you.

Question: Can you talk about the importance of the quarterly newsletter?

Listening is as important as expression. The fact that you think it’s quarterly when it’s twice a year is a testament to its’ effectiveness.

End.

It was a pleasure to listen to Danny speak. I’m glad I took the time to listen and learn from his wisdom about life and hospitality.

UPDATE: He had a book signing to go to at 2PM. At 4:45PM, I still saw him standing there with a line of people with books. Nothing short of amazing!

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• In Case You Missed It…
• Marshall Field’s
• 8 Random Things About Me

First the Dmarc founders left Google.

Now http://www.dodgeball.com/ (dead link 11/2010) founders, Dens Crowley and Alex Rainert (please drop me a note if you read this guys), not only have left Google but they posed for a thumbs down photo that they have posted on Flickr, a Yahoo! property. The photo already has over 26,000 views and appears to have a viral element based on the view count growth, the interesting comments on the Flickr photo and a lot of blogosphere reaction. I’m trying to imagine how frustrated someone must be to post of photo of this nature, announce new project associations and state that they are throwing a party “to celebrate our escape”.

Putting my investment management hat on, I’d like for independent analysts to be allowed on the earning call this Thursday. If allowed to do so, I’d like to ask the following question, “Why is Google having such a hard time with HR and staffing issues, whether it is regarding hiring new employees, retaining pre-IPO employees (see podcast) or integrating acquisitions? Has Laszlo Bock’s background proven not to be the right style of leadership and is it time for a change?” The “all big companies are always ineffective” is a major cop out as there are big companies that are admired and in fact some cases adored.

Ideas on what to do with Dodgeball are everywhere you look. The comments on the Flickr photo are fascinating to read. P.S. When searching for these entries on Google Blog Search I found considerable splog/spam (MFA Made for Adsense) sites – Google should work to solve that issue.

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

http://www.blogator.com/g/2833510 (dead post 11/2010)

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

http://www.electrolicious.com/archives/2007/04/did_twitter_kill_it.html (dead post 11/2010)

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

http://mcmanus.typepad.com/grind/2007/04/two_dodgeball_f.html (dead link 11/2010)

“http://topicstop.blogspot.com/2007/04/google-alert-google_1007.html (dead link 11/2010)

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

“http://ipfreaks.com/dreamscene/?p=2258″ (dead post 11/2010)

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

“http://www.tmesolutions.co.uk/web_design_kent/Marketing+News/2007-04-16/Google+dumped+by+Dodgeball+founders/3800849030″ (dead link 11/2010)

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

http://yummy.vermontconnect.com/cool/dodgeball-founders-leave-google-and-that-leaves-dodgeball-probably-dead/ (dead link 11/2010)

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

http://www.teknolife.com/tech-news/disgruntled-dodgeball-founders-leave-google-infoworld/ post removed

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

Dodgeball Founder Departure – April, 2007 post

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Google Needs to Take Action on Splogs/Adsense
• Banana Republic
• Google Accused of Conducting Smear Campaign Against Privacy International

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Bill Hanekamp talk about Microsite.com
• Finally…Real Proof That Brands Affect Search Choice…Ginger and Mary Ann
• Lee Odden’s Top Ten Online Marketing Tactics for 2008 Survey

In the spirit of SEO, I’m currently adding to my blogroll for a limited time. Please add my blog to your blogroll with just my first and last name and e-mail your link and short anchor text preference. I’ll get right back to you with your new Google PR5 link.

Relevant links:

Dave Pasternack

Dave Pasternack

Dave Pasternack

Dave Pasternack

Dave Pasternack

Dave Pasternack

Dave Pasternack

If I missed a relevant site, please let me know.

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Future Dining at Esca
• Thank You, Robert Nelson
• One Reason Why You Should Not Start a New Online Retailer

I first met Peter Harkins in person at Barcamp Chicago in the Summer of 2006. As I’ve gotten to know him, he knows far more than just coding, as he appreciates and participates constructively in conversations about business strategy and monetization. It’s a winning combination.

The response has been incredible to the Sociable plugin, so you’ve been slammed with inquiries…

Peter: I’ve gotten dozens of mails about Sociable in the last week, from sites wanting to be included, users testing it out in unusual situations and last-minute feature requests. I’ve promised to get 2.0 out by Midnight February 1, so it’s been a race to the wire to get in new features.

Peter: I’ve added 26 sites at last count in this version. Just this morning a Hungarian programmer sent me at least a few more, so I may have as many as 60 sites in the next version.

You’ve add new language translations with this version, that is exciting…

Peter: Yes. It looks like this version will have support for Spanish, Czech, Italian, German and French with more to come. Before 2.0, interested users were just picking it up, translating it, and offering it for download on their blogs. It was a bit frustrating to track bug fixes between different branches of Sociable. Now we’ll have a unified project to share resources and drive development faster, I want to have releases at least every other month in 2007.

You keep the installation and interface pretty simple…

Peter: Deliberately, so, yes. As a programmer, it’s really easy to think of the UI as “that last bit I have to add so people can use my beautiful code” instead of what it truly is: the most important part of the application. So I spent a lot of time making sure that you can install Sociable just by unzipping and uploading it, rather than try to provide complicated install instructions. I spent time on a feature most people never see: when you install Sociable, it checks a manifest of files to make sure it was uploaded right, and it tells you what files go where if it’s not perfect. It provides help right when you need it most, and plainly enough that you understand it.

Peter: The drag-and-drop in the admin interface is just a delight to use, and deliberately so. I want blog owners to feel safe playing around with the different options to see what works on their site. So I’ve spent most of my time on making the UI really nice as well as fixing up the insides.

So you also reprogrammed the internals of the Sociable application for future development and expansion beyond WordPress?

Peter: I want to start porting Sociable over to work on other blog engines like TypePad, Movable Type, Mephisto, and more. So I’ve cleaned up the internals of 2.0, laying the groundwork for 2.1 or 2.2 to support more engines. It’s also going to start doing a little stat reporting when it checks for updates. I know there are roughly 10,000 blogs out there using it, but I’d like to know more exactly and maybe cross-reference to traffic rating services to find out what kind of positive effect it has.

You have an alert system for updating?

Peter: Yes, Sociable checks for new versions when folks view the admin console and notifies the blog owner to go download it. Without it there’d still be people using Sociable 1.2 in five years, hopefully with it everyone will be upgraded in a month or two.

In the past you mentioned that there are three different types of users of Sociable…

Peter: First up, there’s beginning bloggers. They’ve just started a blog, and they’ve got stars in their eyes of being the next BoingBoing or something. Sociable is a tool they’ll use to get the word out about their new blogs, and I’m really glad to help out. As much trouble as some have had spelling “Sociable”, it’s been most rewarding to talk to them because they’re new to blogging and are so happy to be able to easily drop in Sociable.

Peter: Then there are the established bloggers. They’ve got an audience and they want to start leveraging it. Sociable makes it easy for their audience to start getting the word out and growing the blog. I get most of my feature requests from this group, and they’re the people who send me the code to add their favorite bookmarking site.

Peter: I get a lot of links from the SEO crowd, who really put the word out about Sociable. They’ve found Sociable to be a useful tool, so they turn around and install it for their clients. Oddly they’re group I hear the least from, they almost never mail me. But they’ll be the most unusual mails sometimes.

So how are the SEO emails unusual?

Peter: I’ve gotten a really bizarre feature requests like – “You should make Sociable automatically submit each blog post to every bookmarking site! And then vote it up!” – or other crazy schemes! It’s frustrating, Sociable is a tool to help blog owners by reminding readers to bookmark good content. “Sociable should make other blogs using Sociable link to mine with the link text I fill in!” Ugh! I should mention that this is a tiny minority of the SEO folks, I’ve only gotten a half-dozen “Help me spam!” mails.

Sounds like we could monetize a Sociable SEO Pro version together?

Peter: There are definitely a few customers waiting, but I’ve got plenty of other projects ahead of it.

Like what?

Peter: I just recently launched NearbyGamers, a social site for tabletop gamers to find other folks to play card, board, and role-playing games with. It’s been a real blast, but my to do list is as long as my arm so it’s eating up my free time. And I’ve been trying to keep updating my own blog with web coding tips but it’s easy to slip out of the habit.

Sociable has created great networking for you. What are some of the better stories?

Peter: I ended up doing CrunchBoard for TechCrunch because I met a guy via a guy via a guy who used Sociable, and that was a real fun project.

What are some of the underused or misunderstood features of the tool?

Peter: One minor frustration has been writing CSS for Sociable that can deal with all the odd things different blog themes do. I’ve had dozens of people mail me asking (sometimes quite forcefully) why Sociable doesn’t look right on their blog, and so far none have thought it’s their own site doing it.

What else should the people know about Peter Harkins?

Peter: You should never ask him to sing anything…

Good luck with the release Peter!

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Catch-up: Through the Voice of Peter Harkins
• WordPress PDA Plugin Installed
• WordPress 2.3 Beta 1

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Is Your Resume Going Into Spam Oblivion?
• Switching Search Engines is Easy…
• Chicago’s Enso Introduces New Beta Products – Web Search Anywhere, Translate Anywhere and More

Question: So a lot is happening these days at PRWeb!

Joe: Yes! We have been extremely busy upgrading our systems to accommodate increasing demands both in release volumes and page views. We have also been busy implementing partnerships such as Billboard’s Billboard Publicity Wire and Business Wire’s EON.

Question: What will being owned by Vocus will mean to PRWeb customers?

Joe: PRWeb has tried hard to listen to the market and deliver the tools and services it wants. This has done very well for us and our parent company, Vocus, wants us to hold that course. Their greatest concern was to come in and do something which would muck up what they saw as a great company with great products and rabidly loyal customers.

Question: Could you inform people about the new Business Wire alliance?

Joe: PRWeb and Business Wire have partnered to create a uniquely enhanced newswire service, EON. EON stands for “Enhanced Online News.” Press releases submitted using the Business Wire’s EON platform receive the benefits provided by PRWeb online distribution and technologies which will make the press release more visible to consumers and more accessible via Web 2.0 sites and social media sites. This really demonstrates how PRWeb complements rather than directly competes with traditional newswires.

Question: Let’s start simple, what distinguishes PRWeb from other press release services?

Joe: Traditionally, newswires were expected to either fulfill disclosure requirements for public companies (distributing news of material interest to stockholders out to financial analysts and into the financial news arenas) and/or to get the media’s attention in the hope they would reproduce the message to their audience. But PRWeb isn’t a disclosure newswire and we don’t stop at delivering your message to the media.

For example, when a traditional newswire says they are inserting your release into Yahoo! News, they are actually inserting it into Yahoo! Financial’s news index. This is where people interested in finance are spending their time, this is not necessarily your best audience (consumers, trade partners, etc.). When PRWeb inserts your release into Yahoo!, it is being placed in Yahoo! News. This is the consumer-oriented property as opposed to the financial-oriented property.

In addition to locating the best distribution channels for your release, PRWeb has also led the industry with, and in some cases is the only newswire to offer, many technologies built into our platform which makes your release more visible online and gives visitors more information and resources when they arrive at your release page.

Question: You recently added several new features. Could you outline what these mean in detail?

Joe: PRWeb customers are always discovering many new features and tools while using PRWeb. Some of these are rolled out with very little fanfare, such as the new eBook Electronic Media Kit Wizard.

The eBook Electronic Media Kit Wizard provides PRWeb customers with the ability to create a professionally produced collection of their press releases in PDF format. This tool provides for a customized cover and company profile page. The full release body including Internet links is provided for every release included. This means PRWeb customers can now easily produce a professional company information packet for the media, potential partners or prospective clients.

There are many other changes such as additions to our PRWeb Podcasting service offerings and Trackbacks are now available on PRWeb Photowire pages.

We are always pursuing new ideas and methods to improve our offerings which, quite frankly, is a very fun part of our business!

Question: Also announced was the elimination of the free release service. Yet many have commented positively on this, can you please explain this apparent contradiction?

Joe: Let me first explain why we did this. PRWeb has grown and changed many times over the past decade. One goal that has always been present has been to give the most people access to our services. To do this meant keeping our prices as low as possible and even providing a free release product in our offerings. This has served us and the market well as our speedy growth has shown. I will go so far as to guess that we have actually created a new group of press release users who otherwise would not have been able to afford them.

But as time passed, we discovered two critical challenges to the free distribution offering. First, we had to defend ourselves and others from the prospect of spoofing (a third-party releasing information about someone or some company that just wasn’t true). To do this, we had to greatly restrict the distribution of free releases to the point where there just wasn’t any value in them any more. Second, the editing resources used to maintain quality content on our site was largely from the free content. The time spent dealing with free content versus time spent on paying customers became too tilted towards free content. So given the risk, the lack of ultimate value provided and the burden on our resources, it was decided to discontinue providing a free release product.

To answer your question, yes there is a positive side to this for our customers and for visitors to our site. As mentioned, we were dedicating a lot of resources to free content which can now be dedicated to our paying customers. This means an increase in customer service response time, freedom for our staff to spend more time with our customers as needed and higher quality content on our site.
———————————————————————-
I’d like to thank Joe for spending time with us talking about the press and social media release services that PRWeb offers. It’s an evolutionary journey that is taking place in this space. What other questions might you have for Joe? What do you think of these new offerings and how do you compare them to PR Web’s competition? Inquiring minds want to know!

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Lee Odden – an Interview by Neil Patel
• Jason Spero of Admob Interviewed
• Live.com Search Interview and Some Questions I Still Have

Thanks for inviting me Jason!

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Yahoo! Chief Data Officer and Executive Vice President of Research & Strategic Data Solutions, Usama Fayyad Talks at KDD 07
• Microsoft Strategic Account Summit 2007 – Post 2 SAS
• Being Responsive

It’s interdisciplinary combinations-design and technology, mathematics and art-”that produce Youtube and Google” , says Thomas Friedman, the best selling author of The World Is Flat.

Yet human resources, hiring managers, executive recruiters, candidate sourcers, chief marketing officers and  chief financial officers haven’t yet mastered the art of finding this skill set of thought leaders seeing big picture patterns and seek out one dimensional candidates with “experience”.

What has to happen to integrate these skills into a recruiting and hiring mindset of what is this person capable of rather than a limiting belief frame of compliance? A discussion of how to recruit these types of skills more proactively is certainly welcome in 2007!

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Unethical Hiring Practices: Job Search Sites Serve Up Ads With No Intent to Hire US Workers
• Nissan Pulls New Zealand Ad, Loses Opportunities for Buzz
• The Great Debate: Content Versus Distribution – CTIA MEL 2007

Robert Scoble stated: “As for how bloggers can play in this process? I think we just are going to come up short in coverage of campaigns when compared to the mainstream press.” I agree with almost all of what Robert did on the trip (based on what I’ve seen so far). That said, I think Robert had his PodTech/video blogging hat on a little too tightly here when making this statement that covered his listening ears!
Seperately, Karl Long in his debunking of “Social Media is Dead” stated: “To me the difference between social media and “the media” or “big media” is control and influence. Social media is primarily controlled by the participants, by the viewers, readers, listeners etc. where as traditional media is primarily controlled by an organization with a narrower agenda like a corporation, or a political party.”

So how do we build a mandate to create government listening via social media to take election control out of the hands of money and the media elite? Likely through a series of incremental steps towards a social media society. Call it “average Joe accountability politics” (Open to better names if you’d like).

In Paul Tsongas’ 1992 campaign book, “A Call to Economic Arms: Forging A New American Mandate”, a pre-Internet era publication, still stands as one of the most comprehensive documents a Presidential candidate has ever published about what they would actually try to achieve after being elected. I urge you to familiarize yourself with this document as it A) is amazingly relevant after 15 years (many of the problems remain) and B) Paul argues in the document that a mandate is necessary for a new President to press through a change agenda.

The end of that 72 page document contained the following which serves as a platform for empowering the masses to have their voice heard. It serves as a blueprint for innovation minus the blogs and social media tools of today:

We will be what our culture empowers us to be.

To strengthen our common culture must be our common mission. Recognition of, and dedication to, that mission is the mandate of our leadership. It doesn’t lend itself to ten point programs and quarterly reviews. It will be a discussion that will never end. It should never end. The journey to renew America’s spiritual base will take us back through our history to harvest the wisdom of that history.

We will revisit our ancestors’ thinking and learn once again to pay homage to the basic values that made America. Those values, long since articulated, will then serve as our safe passage to the future.

In our collective veins flows the blood of those who crossed the Bering Land bridge. Of those who endured deprivation during the winter in Plymouth. Of those who suffered in the holds of slave ships and on the decks of immigrant ships. Vietnamese boat people. Hungarian freedom fighters. Salvadoran refugees. On and on.

Above all, there flows the blood of those who died for America. For our freedom. Not so we could be cynical, or uncaring or second best. But in the belief that we would be worthy of their sacrifice in how we lived our lives and how we honored our country. This is the New American Mandate.

VII. Return to Purpose

Adversity tests the character of individuals. It also tests the character of a people. We are now being challenged by outside forces that seek to erode our standard of living and by others that portend environmental and energy cataclysm. In addition, we are challenged by internal forces that are undermining the fabric of our social order.

What would our ancestors have done? Simple. They would have accepted the challenges and pushed ahead secure in the knowledge that their destiny was within their control. Avoidance was not what they were all about.

So it must be with us.

Facing our challenges forthrightly is how we honor the labors of our forebears. It is our moral imperative.

But, more importantly, it is the source of our hope. We are a blessed America. It is our will and determination that will deliver us. Let us, again, unleash the spirit of the American people and again secure our future and the future of our descendents.

Let us return to purpose.

This is a post on how to use social media to improve accountability in political campaign. As such I’d like to learn which Presidential campaigns are actively monitoring the blogosphere. Please leave a comment if you have an official association with one of these candidates and feel free to discuss this post in your own communities. Thanks!

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• John Edwards Campaign Claims Listening
• Google Local/Google Maps – Michael Adelberg Summary of GeoDomain Speech
• Sexy Social Media Revolutions Emerging – Forrester Consumer Internet Conference 2007

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Microsoft: now about 4,500 bloggers
• Hugh Griffiths Joins Microsoft as Director of Mobile
• Bloggers – Where are the C-Level People?

One of Andy’s videos “Drifting” made it onto the front page of Youtube this week and has now received over 700,000 views! While it’s great that this occurred, it’s a sad reminder of a broken music industry that categorizes people much the same limiting way online recruiting does, not being seen by all of the people who might be interested in the competencies and skill set that a person offers! It’s great when you start to see these barriers and limiting beliefs starting to be broken, hopefully 2007 will be the year we see this happen in not only music, but also recruiting as well. If you like this video be sure to check out his remake of Toto’s “Africa”.

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• How To Do YouTube Video View Optimization Part 1
• Google Desktop Migrates to Google Front Page
• Comcasted – Issues Almost Closed Out Now

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• The Praise for Youtube Revenue Sharing – All for Nothing?
• My Hotmail is Now Windows Live Mail Beta
• SES Day 1 – Social Search Overview

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• SES San Jose 2007 Day 1 – Advanced Paid Search Techniques
• SES San Jose 2007 Day 1 – Post-Search Marketing Ads
• adtech Chicago: Tactical Search Strategies: Local and Mobile Search

Where do you fit in? Discussed Crest toothpaste mobile campaign example

What tools are available, what is the reach, what are the learnings?

Tools available today:
- Messaging
 - Voting
 - Promotions
 - Search
- Mobile Browser
 - Banners
 - Interstitial
 - Search-based
- Applications and content
 - Free / discounted services

New mechanisms are emerging
 - Physical proximity
 - Coupons and loyalty (Cellfire)
 - Using location (opt-in) to improve targeting

Where does mobile fit?
Eyeballs>>Awareness>>Consideration>>Preference>>Personal>>Loyalty

What is the reach of these tools?
1 in 4 receive text messages regularly

Youth see their mobile phone differently

Think Europe is so far ahead? Think again…
 - Internet penetration is higher in USA than Europe

What does the data mean?
 - Mobile campaigns need to target data adopters

It’s still early
 - Most US consumers still use voice
 - Mobile formats are small and generally difficult to use
 - Ad Standards need to be developed
 - Mobile is a unique channel

Compared with the fixed Web, consumers’ mobile experiences are:
 - Abbreviated
 - Transactional
 - More tied to the physical world
 - Successful campaigns embrace these differences

Best practices
 - Target mobile early adopters
 - Immediacy factor
 - Tailor content to mobile screen and user’s process
 - Use promotions to boost response rate
 - Employ creative or ad formats that match product or service
 - Time campaigns for maximum business ROI
 - Tie mobile to offline marketing

Tomorrow’s mobile marketing next practices
 - Integrated marketing campaigns
 - Performance-based metrics
 - Smart use of innovative functionality
 - Location sensitivity

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• FCF07 – The Role of Mobile Search in Social Computing
• Mobile Advertising Network
• Forrester Consumer Conference – Tuning Into Mobile TV

1. NASCAR is intensely focused on relationships and partnerships.

2. NASCAR has always been focused on customers.

It’s no wonder that they are so successful!

The thirty-one degree banking at Daytona built with customer experience in mind – being able to see the whole track at once! I never thought about it before, maybe the best customer experience involves things you don’t even notice. 

NASCAR is now the #2 sport on TV only behind only the NFL, 75 million viewers

Mr. Helton  believes that access to the drivers is critical piece of the success.

Recently opened a new LA office, NYC office, creating opportunities of NASCAR drivers to be in everyday life and making appearances in show business.

All of the sponsors work closely with licensing and headquarters. Sponsors are critical not only to underwriting the costs, but to other aspects of the sport as well.

NASCAR has always taken advantage of technology. (what a great mantra and it’s true)

NASCAR has racetracks, car owners and drivers who are independent – Mr. Helton expressed amazement that it all works sometimes. 

All in all, when I saw Mr. Helton on the agenda, I truly had no idea what to expect, I saw a new side of NASCAR, one that made me appreciate the other side of NASCAR.

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Forrester Consumer Conference – Tuning Into Mobile TV
• Upcoming Search Engine Investor Conference Presentations
• Upcoming Yahoo! Presentations

To enter, simply answer the following questions in a blog entry before the close of eComXpo:
1) Who exports what cereal to what country and why?
2) Who had a flat tire?
3) What three disparate data sets does David advocate tying together to create a customer driven experience?

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• How to View My Speech at eComXpo
• eComXpo is October 9,10,11, 2007
• Upcoming Conferences!

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Viewpoints.com Launch Party Friday Night
• Cisco’s iPhone Trademark Post
• 7 Reasons Crazy Egg Will Be Successful

Sometimes the post combines other elements like artwork.

My favorite grauduate school professor, James Schrager of the Chicago GSB, always preached conciseness in his entrepreneurship class so that executives and people funding your startup can understand it consistently. It makes things easier to digest. Especially if the concept is new to a person which is frequently the case in the blogsphere as you stumble upon a random blog.

That’s why executives are like blog readers, yet most executives don’t read blogs, interesting contradiction, isn’t it?

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Mobile Screen Capture and Mobile RSS Readers
• Good Tips for Building Blog Readership
• In Case You Missed It…

- Why did you start blogtipping and what exactly is blog tipping?

I started blogtipping (or blog tipping) in April 2006 as a fun, simple way to remind myself and other bloggers to help each other.  You just surprise three other bloggers by publishing a post in which you give each blogger three compliments and one suggestion.

- What positive experiences have you seen with it?

The best part has been getting to know other bloggers and encouraging them.  I’ve watched as others connect with people they never knew before via the blogtipping meme.

- How and why do you spread it and how do you monitor that?

I blogtip a different trio of bloggers on the first day of each month.  I subscribe to several keyword search feeds ( e.g. a Google Blog Search feed for “blog tipping”) that notify me when someone mentions the meme.  I leave appreciative comments at as many blogtipping posts as possible.  Finally, I do a monthly “round-up” post highlighting some blogs that I’ve discovered through blogtipping.  It’s all very simple and takes little time or effort.  But as they say, a little goes a long way.  The biggest reason blogtipping spreads, though, is the “pay it forward” mentality it inspires in its participants.

- What suggestions would you have for others wanting to start a viral meme?

Keep it simple.  Give it a unique name.  Maybe fashion a few buttons or widgets to promote it (like my silly blogtipping icons).  Make it recur regularly if possible, to encourage repeat participation.  Set the example by doing it yourself.  Don’t push it on others – just set it out where they can see it and remind them of its benefits from time to time.  The key to it all is to create something self-replicating that helps people improve themselves.

- What plans do you have for blogtipping in the future?

I’ll keep doing it each month and continue recognizing the blogging tips I learn and the fine bloggers I discover as a result of others’ blogtipping posts.  Perhaps someone will come along who wants to take blogtipping in a new direction, and that’s fine by me.  I wasn’t the first to advocate regularly praising and critiquing others’ work in a public forum.  Someday “blogtipping” might die, but the principles it espouses, like selflessness and friendship, will remain immortal.

- How can we help you spread blogtipping?

You just did .  Talk about it, try your hand at it.  Even bashing blogtipping (which no one has done to this point) would ironically tend to spread it.  The two best ways to kill a meme are to ignore (not attack!) it from without or to corrupt it from within.  Were I value my meme above my friends or blog readers, it would reek of narcissism and quickly lose support.  Let meme-makers remember that memes, like real viruses, hold no life of their own and must rely on living hosts for their carrying power.  The power to spread ideas stays rooted not within the subsoil of technology, but much deeper: in the bedrock of human minds and hearts.

I’d like to thank Easton for his time, if you got something out of this, please link to, err tip it, to others!
 

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Increase Blog Traffic With YouTube Videos
• Catch Up – Interesting Posts Recently
• Dell Blog – Still Waiting for USB Port Shortage Acknowledgement

Corporate bloggers must have thick skin.

Community Manager – gather sources and send them away…they will come back.

How do I get all employees involved?

Community marketing allows engagement.

Responding to complaints:
- Engage the blogger – “we hear you”

Blogger relationships – treat them with respect and analyst.

Bloggers are egotistical.

I’m not in PR.

Prospects trust other customers than anything else. Embrace and use your current customers.

Let go, to gain more.

Do not over structure corporate blogs for product announcements.

Blogoshpere conversation benchmark tools are important. 
 
Rift between corporate communications and web – often exists.

You should educate people to overcome that rift. Social Media consultant.

Just do it . The tools will evolve.

Give to the community and they will give back. 

You need to trust and love your employers. IBM built it’s blogging policy with a Wiki.

Vivid examples given about how to use Myspace.

Wells Fargo has a blog, teaching credit. Useful content build trust.

 Links, activity, forum and stickyness.
 
C-level blogs can save time as the future meetings are framed.

Sun, says C-level leader is to communicate. 

“Social media is gray.”

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• The Growing Conversation Debunking the “Social Media Is Dead” Post by Steve Rubel
• Upcoming Conferences!
• FCF07 – Social Media Brought My Jacket Back!!!

“Podcasting is Tivo for audio.”

Podshow is a network of shows. Yahoo!, iTunes, Podcast Alley are other alternatves.

There are a lot of people out there who aren’t technically savvy. 11% of adults have downloaded a podcast. 35-44 is 45% of penetration area – dismisses the myth that podcasting is only for Generation Y.

Podcast listeners are:
- Educated
- Affluent
- Trend Leaders

Niche focused – listen to relevant content

Podcasts are detachable from your computer – iPod, etc. I listen to podcasts when I’m walking my dog, sitting in airport tool. Audio is the only communication channel that you can do while listening to something else.

Allows you to listen while doing something else.

Podcasting has low barriers to entry. I learned how to do it in under and hour.

Podcasting facts:
- 20,000 independent podcasts
- Podcasting community is supportive
- Has it’s own conference
- Spawned the “podsafe music” field (Pod Safe Music Network – let people know you  use it and they are happy)
- Support services emerging

Lybsyn.com only charges you for file storage (monthly fee)

IBM Podcast – Investment Relations Department – talks with different thought leaders around the company.

Ipressroom.com – talks about the future of press

Nearly all podcasts are free.

Producing a podcast is about setting a consistent format.
- One host or co-hosts
- Interviews
- Segments?
- In the field

Mix/minus – gets rid of latency.

Eliminate glitches

Secrets of Successful Podcasting:
- Unscripted and natural
- Regular
- No overt selling
- Housed on a blog
- Listener feedback encouraged and incorporated
- Employ other forms of engagement

Hobson & Holtz

www.forimmediaterelease.biz

Blog.holtz.com

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Digg Adding Podcasting Section
• Upcoming Conferences!
• ad:tech Chicago 2006, Blogging, RSS, Podcasting, Vidcasting

Talks about history, blogs are best way to get stuff indexed in Google.

There is an informal conversation network. Tells the story about how a few people he told that he was leaving Microsoft. How that spread and then a largely unread blog was the one that first posted it is why you need to pay attention to *ALL* bloggers, not just him.

Talking to bloggers is more important than covering Walt Mossberg.

People who read blogs are far more likely to click and take action.

The auto blog reader is more likely to click through to other auto sites.

Most people understand search engines. Talks about google.com and how people search “Yahoo” and vice versa. It demonstrates that it’s a Google world.

If you pipes are leaking, you need a plumber. So you type in “Chicago plumber leak” and you need to be on the top of the organic search results. Links are important and so are other things. Changing the content every day helps the algorithms. Blogs, due to the frequency of content update are excellent tools to do this.

He talks about the plumber blog that gets link due to the knowledge. Also talks about how he got a ripped off once with a carpet and is blog entry ranked higher than the company.

A dirty secret about Google is that the ad click through rate is lower there du to the higher educational level of a typical Google user.

People will link to audio and video more than they will text. Suggested video press releases. Be different. Hugh’s cartoon’s are different. Video and Flickr and other sites can create buzz.

Talked about the “Dell Hell” issue. (strangely few in the room had heard of it – shows how far we have to go) Tells the well known Jeff Jarvis story.

Talks about how to listen. (I would say this is Robert’s biggest gift)

Then gave examples of how he linked to complaints directly when he joined Microsoft, fascinating!

Currently, HP story is a great example. They have not listened to the blogosphere. It is making the ethics crisis there worse.

Every project should have a story behind it. Talked about channel 9 naming story and how Microsoft built transparency. The PR folks didn’t pay attention to our blogs and Channel 9 until we were in the New York Times. It’s so funny how that works. Tells more about telling good stories and how important that it. It’s all about story telling process.

If you post something it shows up in my RSS aggregator. Using RSS is far more productive!

How do I get my content viewed in new places…talked about second life.

Valleywag recently wrote about a bad pitch. Democracy Now, Z Fank, Ipod can aggregate. Steve Jobs used Rocketboom to do the recent Apple launch.    

Again, HP – where is the engagement in the ethical issues?

Ragan PR conferece 2006

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Skype Reinstall
• Could Twitter Actually Have a Business Model in Keywords?
• Mobile Advertising Network

Then again, I myself posted video content in the past week (see unedited “loud announcement of Macy’s boycott” in my Marshall Field’s post). In my case it showed an angry mob and was in fact useful for this purpose. I wouldn’t want a whole blog filled with posts like that, but it served a purspose here for getting the passion across. Yet way more people viewed the text post than the Youtube video at this point though, maybe it’s because they too don’t find it compelling enough to click through?

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Scoble You’re Cracking Me Up!!!
• New Techmeme Leaderboard Lauches
• Microsoft: now about 4,500 bloggers

Please join us to witness anger, tears and protest at 9AM Saturday in front of the Marshall Field’s State Street store!

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Downtown Chicago Marshall Field’s Rally Sunday
• Vlogs Ain’t Blogs
• In Case You Missed It…

What Scoble talks about in his post along with a cast of great comments is interesting and all too accurate. But the notes about lack of retail investor involvement are encouraging, I don’t think we have Silicon Valley restraint to thank for that I think we have Enron and Sarbanes-Oxley (higher cost of doing IPOs and being public now).

In Flickr doesn’t suck, the Don McAskill post states, “Companies triumph over market leaders all the time. They do it by innovating and executing brilliantly.” What a refreshing thought process. Sad to see it on a site discussing 19 zillion unnecessary photo sharing sites that gets tons of traffic discussing this topic, but refreshing nonetheless. So, maybe people are focusing on the businesses that tech guys are building and hyping because they are missing the critical element – business skills, search engine optimization and related expertise. A product manager is someone with a combination of business and technical skills in every successful company I’ve ever been a part of, I doubt this rule will change. People need to think bigger than “Google will buy us”.

What is wrong with Frothy Bubble 2.0? It’s not based on basic business principles like customer satisfaction, unmet needs and workable business models. I can spot this stuff a mile away when I talk. For example, when I went to Search Engine Strategies last month, one Web 2.0 person I know asked me, “Why are you going to such a boring conference, dude?” That sentence wouldn’t be right without the dude would it? Well, I had the time of my life and I learned a ton of great stuff to boot! Meanwhile his project is $100,000 in expenses and no revenue in sight.

So what is there to do? How about looking at some of the business plans I’ve seen that make sense, have revenue models and either go into new markets or attack fundamental basic flaws in the existing search engines? Naw, that would take real work, less photos at parties and it would take brainstorming and thinking outside of the box.

Think about it, pick up the phone if you have a real idea or you are an angel investor – especially if you are one that doesn’t even own a camera – then I really want to hear from you!!!

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Fred Wilson Dislikes the Techcrunch Dead Pool – Too Bad!!!
• Seattle Bubble – A Great Blog
• SES Chicago 2006 – Day 1 – Advertising in Social Media

The rumors that he is leaving to build the world’s largest design firm of flash web sites are unfounded!

Please do a blogroll lesson here and update your blogrolls to daggle.com, many people change primary blogs and the blogrollers don’t follow. For example Robert Scoble’s old blog still ranks above his new blog in Google…

---
Related Articles at Digital Business Strategy Marketing Management:

• Danny Sullivan to Continue with SES (Official)
• Danny Talks Feeds
• Today’s Daily Searchcast