How to Change the World

The Art of the Business Card

A few weeks ago I was in Charlotte to make a speech for Network Solutions, and I met Justin Ruckman. He handed me his business card--which I just loved. For once, a business card that cuts to the chase and is readable. Hallelujah! So I asked him to make business cards for me. Take a look at your business card: Can people really read the 8 point type? If you want Justin to make business cards for you, his site is here.

Creating Infectious Engagement

Just found out about a great conference at Stanford called "Creating Infectious Engagment." It's on May 1st from 3:30 to 6:00 pm. Learn more by clicking here. It features speakers such as Diego Rodriguez, Perry Klebhan (CEO of Timbuk2), and Debra Dunn (former SVP at HP). The conference is free--it can't get much better than this!

The Impact of Social Media on Sales, Support, Marketing, and Branding

Over at the Sun Microsystems small and medium business site, I published an interview with Josh Bernoff about his new book (co-authored with Charlene Li) called Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. In this interview he discusses the impact of social media on sales, support, marketing, and branding. He and Charlene are big wheels at Forrester, so this is recommended reading people in any kind of web marketing role. Click here to read the interview to learn about topics such as why the CEO of a publicly-traded company probably can’t write an interesting blog.

The Art of Sucking Up

There is an art to sucking up. Done too blatantly it will backfire. Done too weakly, you won't get what you want. The perfect suck up contains the following elements:

• Credibility. No matter how good you suck up, if you don't meet the requirements for placement, a job, an interview, whatever, it won't matter, so you need to show why you deserve what you're asking for.

• Empathy. Who can resist a little play on emotion? "Please help me...we're just a little company trying to make a go of it." Actually, I'll tell you who can resist this: buttheads that aren't worth sucking up to.

• Utility. The best suck-ups are mutually beneficial. You are not only getting something, you are also providing something of value. Or, if you're in no position to do it right away, that you will provide something of value in the future. Great suck-ups are always a win-win situation.

• Gratitude. If you're trying to get something, express gratitude for what you already have. This works much better than acting pissed off and wronged. Confrontion is not part of the art of sucking up because you can seldom bludgeon someone into helping you.

• Obligation. According to The Man, Robert Cialdini, if someone does something for you, you're pretty much compelled to do something in return. For example, if you've already done something useful for me, how can I resist doing something for you?

• Fluidity. If you're going to ask someone to do something, make it a friction-free effort. You've probably got one shot, so assume the answer will be a "yes" and provide the action items. For example, if you want us to list your site in Alltop, provide the feed--don't force us to go look for it.

• Flattery. You might think that this is the most important element in a suck up, but it isn't. This is because most of the people you'll be sucking up to are frequently flattered (deserved or not), so don't make this a central part of your pitch. One sentence at the beginning is enough, then focus on credible reasons why the person should help you.

Here is an example of a great suck-up. It was in response to this question in the About Alltop FAQ:

Q. How, as a site owner, do I get my site (or blog) moved up the page?
A. Send us a persuasive email . FYI, telling your readers about Alltop and blogrolling is particularly persuasive.

---

Here it goes. My name is Brad Ward, a co-founder with Matt Herzberger of www.bloghighed.org, which is featured in your Education section on Alltop.com. Right now, we’re all alone, hanging out on the bottom row. We are very appreciative and excited to be included, but with a FAQ question like that, we couldn’t resist attempting to move ourselves up the totem pole.

We’re pretty cool though, trust us. Here’s what we do at bloghighed.org: we are aggregating 20 of the best higher education Bloggers out there, from webmasters to marketers to admission counselors to vendors to consultants and more. Sound familiar? We’re like Alltop’s little brother or something. So how about a little love? We’ve already given you some: here and here.

Truth be told, we’re not The Chronicle. We’re not Inside Higher Ed or the Washington Post. And we never will be. But you know who we are? We are the ones who are taking the leaps and advances that make these, these, these and these happen. We’re the ones brainstorming and figuring out how we are going to implement this stuff months before it hits the press. We’re presenting a combined 100+ times a year at conferences. We write for University Business. We run eduStyle.net. We run TargetX. We are accomplished campus photographers. We are keynote speakers (both of them, in this instance). We combine for thousands of RSS subscribers.

Above all, we are a community, deeply committed to each other and the greater good of higher education, and even more to the success of BlogHighEd.org. Have no doubt that we’ll stick around and continue to grow. We don’t make money from blogging. No ads, no fluff. We’re doing it after the 8-5, on the weekends, and over lunch (like right now). And if that isn’t awesome enough to move us to the top of the Education section, I’m not sure what is.

Thanks for your time

Brad

---

Or,

If these elements are too subtle for you, you could always erect (no pun intended) a statue to the person in your front lawn and go from there. As you can see above, Laura Mayes, one of the co-founders of Sk*rt, did this after my post about Sk*rt in gratitude, but it would have been a highly effective suck-up in advance.

The Myth of A Listers and Influencers

Continuing on the theme of Duncan Watts and the demise of influencers and A listers, CNET Networks conducted a three-part study called "The Influencer Study from CNET Networks: Challenging Perceptions." It explored the structure of social networks, the motivations for giving advice, and methods of acquiring information.

The results challenge three commonly-held perceptions:

1. "The Few Inform the Many. While the size of personal networks varies widely, with some individuals having ten or fewer connections and some having more than 100, each person wields some influence. Viewing the model as a pyramid discounts the much larger number of moderately connected individuals who can help spread the work about your product or service."

2. "They Share Because They Know More. Influencers aren’t driven to share information for the sake of appearing knowledgeable or to demonstrate their expertise. They’re primarily motivated by a basic desire to help others. They develop a stronger sense of self-confidence when it's well-received, further motivating them to help and advise others."

3. "A Single-Minded Focus. Influencers aren't necessarily single-subject experts. Our research shows that influencers have diverse interests crossing a wide range of topics. On average, they are interested in ten to twelve topics and they actively seek information on these topics. This is true whether they have large or small networks. There are two critical attributes for information to be valued by the influencer, no matter what topic they're investigating: it must be both unique and trusted."

According to the study, "The flow of information isn’t coming just from a small group of connected individuals at the top. It flows between networks, regardless of the size of the network. Instead of a pyramid, the model of influence is more accurately shown as a diamond, emphasizing the importance of the large number of moderately connected influencers."

The study provides three key marketing takeaways:

1. "Two unique characteristics of information that influencers value are that the information is unique and trusted. Your company can’t insert itself into an influencer’s social network, but you can place your messages in environments that have both attributes, not just one of them."

2. "Shape your marketing messages for the larger network of moderately connected users, not just the few highly connected individuals at the top. This involves considering this group's emotional and informational needs, not just modifying the messages you used for the top tier."

3. "Make content actionable for users. Whatever format your message is in, make it easy for others to forward and share it. Have an instructional video online? Add a quick "Forward to a Friend" link."

Click here to read the entire study. Then figure out how you can apply its findings to your marketing.

Avenue A Razorfish 2008 Digital Outlook Report

Avenue A Razorfish released the 2008 Digital Outlook Report yesterday. The purpose of the report is to help Avenue A's clients understand consumer behavior in the digital space. In the report experts cover topics such as media spending, mobile web usage, social influence marketing, the state of search, and behavior targeting. Here are some tidbits from the report:

• Vertical content properties and paid search were the biggest beneficiaries of the increase in spending. Verticals grew from a 37% share in 2006 to 39% in 2007. Increasingly, advertisers are showing a desire to work with a broader range of partners, as evidenced by the expansion of the number of sites the agency used in 2007. The majority of that expansion has occurred in the vertical category.

• In difficult economic conditions, the most accountable marketing channels will be best insulated from cuts in spending. This clearly bodes well for online advertising relative to other channels. However, there will be an impact, even in the most efficient digital channel—search marketing. Search has become a powerful tool for shoppers, and in a recessionary environment, consumers will search, shop, and buy less frequently.

• Only a few years ago, a Web site’s home page was the most prime piece of digital real estate a publisher could offer. Not so much today, however. The relevance of the home page as a media buy is on the wane. Search, social networks, blogs, and RSS (among a host of other online sources) are driving more and more users deep into today’s Web properties. Now, the majority of consumers bypass a site’s home page completely.

• Every page is now a home page, each of which will have a wider reach, a lasting shelf life, and the ability to attract a new audience like never before. To capitalize on this, ensure that every page has a strong, clear global navigation scheme and related content that is visibly promoted. And don’t forget to make sure that display advertising gets prominent, above-the-fold, home-page-like treatment (300x250 rectangles and 728x90 leaderboards). Remember, every page can be accessed in any conceivable manner and in any conceivable order—you can’t design properties to control user flow anymore.

• Despite user requests for a single mobile, PC, or gaming device to do everything, we found users increasingly willing to embrace multiple devices—even when those devices possess overlapping capabilities. For instance, a Nintendo Wii for the whimsical side of their gaming lives and an XBOX 360 for competition. A laptop for managing the business of life and another littered with stickers for fun. A smart phone for e-mail and a flip phone for weekends. We found users unwilling to make the compromises that come with an all-in-one while willing to embrace devices for different highly specialized aspects of their lives: “We bought my brother-in-law an iPhone specifically so we could get him to check his e-mail. Nothing else seemed to work.” (Laura, 26)

• Consumers don’t see the Internet as something distinctly different from their offline worlds anymore, and they expect seamless transitions. Every key consumer activity has online and offline components—each one contributing to the total experience. The reason? Finally, the online world is getting more social, and as a result, more like the offline world.

• In social media, marketers need to understand where their brands intersect with the passion points of their consumers. But ultimately, they need to empower consumers to express themselves via their connection to the brand. In most cases, brands can craft the framework of a campaign, but the customization of content and the dialogue around the campaign will be up to the consumer.

The report is stuffed with useful information and challenging thoughts that will change a thousand PowerPoint presentations. The material is so good that I'm surprised that the Avenue A folks are letting me post the report in its entirety, so download it before they change their minds. The person who manages the report is senior vice president Jeff Lanctot, and he has just started a blog that's worth checking out too.

---

PS: if you liked this posting and want to read "all the top stories" about social media, please check out this "single-page aggregation".

If You Want Customers to Be Happy, Give Them Less Product Information

Here's a counter-intuitive thought: Shoppers with less information about a product are happier than those with more information. Researchers at the Tippie College of Business came to this conclusion after conducting a study in which people were asked their opinions of chocolate and hand lotion.

One group was given extensive information and the other much less. For each product, the group given less information was more optimistic about the product because it was easier to engage in wishful thinking. Perhaps if people are given more information, then it's harder to kid themselves.

I can see how this could be true: Would I want to know about the preservatives and animal by-products in chocolate or hand lotion? I don't think so. But there is something to be said for "romantic" information like the chocolate is from some exotic location (or that it adheres to the principles of free-trade).

But this study is thought provoking: When it comes to product information, more might not be more--especially when you have a crappy product. (Is this not the perfect photo (chocolate and lotion) for this story? iStockphoto/Yanik Chauvin)

Forget the A-List After All

You’ve got to read “Is the Tipping Point Toast?” by Clive Thompson in FastCompany. The gist of Thompson’s piece, based on the work of Duncan Watts of Yahoo Research, is that the theory that a select few “key influencers” matter more than “the rest of us” when it comes to viral and word-of-mouth marketing campaigns is flawed. Said Watts:

“It [achieving marketing success through influentials] just doesn’t work. A rare bunch of cool people just don’t have that power. And when you test the way marketers say the world works, it falls apart. There’s no there there.”

In contrast to influential marketing, Watt’s believes the key factor is the readiness of the market: “If society is ready to embrace a trend, almost anyone can start one—and if it isn’t, then almost no one can.” There will be first movers, but almost anyone can be this first mover—and therefore what Watts calls an “accidential influential.”

My money is on Watts. If you agree, it should change your perspective on marketing:

• Spend less time and effort on industry events and other focused PR and marketing that involves sucking up to journalists, analysts, and experts. Spend more time and effort pressing the flesh of real customers. Typically, you won’t meet too many customers at a Ritz Carlton.

• Try mass marketing because you never know who will be your “accidental influential.” Or, as the saying goes, “Let a hundred flowers blossom” to determine who “gets” your product. Admittedly, the challenge is to find a cost-effective way to do mass marketing.

• Forget A-list bloggers. Lousy reviews by them cannot tank your product. Great reviews cannot make it successful. Focus on big numbers—any Technorati 1,000,000 blogger can be a channel to reach people. If enough people like your product, the A-list bloggers will have to write about you.

How does Watts’ thinking square with evangelism? I don’t see a conflict because evangelism is about “bringing the good news” to everyone and then supporting the people who “get it.” Evangelism is not about sucking up to only people who are famous and self-important. To wit, few Fortune 500 CIOs helped make Macintosh successful. It was unknown artists, designers, hobbyists, and user-group members who made Macintosh successful, and we could have not identified them in advance.

photo by Steve Pyke

The Art of Registration Pages, Opt-In Practices, and Welcome Emails

Dave Walker pointed out a very interesting blog post called "Ecommerce Registration Usability Tips." The author(s) analyzed the registration procedure of eighty seven online retailers. One of my pet peeves is sites that don't allow you to use your email address as a user name--he found that only 13% do. Surprisingly, only 1% of the sites required Captcha completion--I thought that was very low. The post also analyzed how many pre-checked opt-in email: 57% did so. Finally, the post examined welcome emails--the ones that you get after you register. All three posts are very interesting reads for any company that requires registration. In case you missed them, here are my thoughts on the similar subject of fighting friction.

Word of Mouth Versus Key Influencers

This summary of an article from the December issue of the Journal of Advertising Research (good luck finding the issue online because I couldn’t) says that common word-of-mouth advertising by regular folks is more powerful than “key influencers.” Which is to say that sucking up to A-list bloggers may not be all that it’s cracked up to be. It seems like it’s bad day for celebrity endorsements.

James Coyle, assistant professor of marketing at Miami University’s Farmer School of Business, Elizabeth Lightfoot of CNET Networks, and Ted Smith and Amy Scott of MedTrackAlert conducted the study by surveying website visitors, conducting in-depth reviews, and analyzing website usage patterns. Said Coyle:

“We find that trying to track down key influencers, people who have extremely large social networks, is typically unnecessary and, more importantly, can actually limit a campaign or advertisement’s viral potential. Instead, marketers need to realize that the majority of their audience, not just the well-connected few, is eager and willing to pass along well-designed and relevant messages.”

I agree. I think that most key influencers are pompous, insecure jerks who take themselves way too seriously. And I say this knowing that you can rightfully accuse me of being one of them. The marketing lesson is this: Create something great, sow fields (not window boxes), “let a hundred flowers blossom,” and pray that “regular folks” will spread the word.

HomeTips: There's a Lot to Like

Google announced the winner of the Adsense Story Contest today: Hometips. This is a site that features free content concerning home improvement, remodeling, repair, redecorating, and do-it-yourself projects. For example, here are tips for hanging Christmas lights.

According to the owner, Don Vandervort, the revenues generated by Google Adsense went from paying for coffee to paying for lunches to paying for all salaries, overhead, and business development. The site's traffic is moderate--something like one million visitors a month or less if you believe Compete. I love this kind of story:

• The company started in a backyard clubhouse. Don converted the bottom floor of his sons' two-story treehouse. "Two-story" treehouse? How cool is that?

• The site has a clear focus: content for homeowners. There's nothing that I can find that smacks of "Web 2.0 social media" at all. This is just so refreshing: All you can do is find information, you don't need to bond with any strangers.

• Don added Adsense to his site by himself. He said it took twenty minutes. He probably didn't do any market research, focus groups, or 2x2 McKinsey-esque matrix analysis.

• He probably didn't even raise a dime of venture capital. He probably didn't even try to raise venture capital. He probably didn't even boot PowerPoint. He certainly didn't present at Demo or TechCrunch40.

Yes sir, there's a lot to like about Don's story: do what you love, focus on a niche, find a viable business model, and work for yourself.

The Mother of Name Change Reports

Continuing on the theme of naming companies, you should read “Company Naming Changes 2006” by Strategic Name Development. 1,900 name changes occurred last year. The company has identified nine categories of name changes:

1. Dog Eat Dog (34%)
   
2. Too Big or Too Little (29%)
   
3. Build on the Brand (Building on a Strong Brand) (5%)
   
4. Quick Makeover (14%)
   
5. U-Turn (8%)
   
6. User-Friendly Naming (4%)
   
7. Buying Into the Club (3%)
   
8. Rebuild, Restructure and Rename (2%)
   
9. Spinning Off Into The Unknown (1%)

My favorite is “Center for Minority Educational Affairs” becoming “Center for Multicultural Equity and Access.” Three is a lot to learn from this report if you’re changing your company’s name and undertaking rebranding.

How to Name a Name

I enjoy the process of coming up with a name for a company or product, and the fact that so many domains are taken makes it more challenging and enjoyable. (My latest, greatest is Muchobene.) Halfagain Marketing posted an article called “What’s my name?” which is a very useful list of naming tips. For example, it mentions two online tools that I had never heard of: More Words and Word Lab Tools.

I’ve covered naming three times in the past (almost as many times as Truemors!) in case you’re interested: The Name Game, Trademark Tips for Your Web App, and A Study of the Pros and Cons of Company Names. By the way, I wish someone would create—hopefully it’s available already, and I don’t know about it—a site where I could enter a word in English and simultaneously get the translation in several languages like Japanese, Hawaiian, Hebrew, French, German, Spanish, and Latin. This would be very useful for coming up with names.

Update: Michael Kreppein pointed out (thanks!) that Dictionary.com provides multiple translations at the bottom of a word’s page—I seldom scroll down that far, so I didn’t remember this. Still need Hawaiian and Japanese in English characters, though.

Two Free Conferences: Fake Steve Jobs and Personal Branding

My interview of Fake Steve Jobs, sponsored by LinkedIn, is tomorrow at 6:00 pm Pacific. If you want to attend in person, click here to register. UStream will also stream it live if can't attend in person. You can click here or return to this posting to watch this embedded player.

Also, on November 8th at 10:00 am Eastern, I will moderate a panel called "Evangelizing Evangelists to Build a Business and Build Your Brand." The panelists are:

• Krishna De, Ireland’s leading corporate, employer and personal branding and social media marketing strategist, as well as author/host of the blogs and podcasts: www.bizgrowthnews.com, www.todayswomeninbusiness.com, www.thepodcastsisters.com and www.talkingcoaching.com.

• Tim DeMello, serial entrepreneur and the founder, Chairman and CEO of Ziggs, Inc.--a one-stop source for creating and managing your online brand.

• John Jantsch, marketing coach, award winning blogger and author of Duct Tape Marketing: The World's Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide.

• Andy Sernovitz, an expert in blogs, buzz and word of mouth marketing and author of The Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking.

This is part of a twenty-four hours of free teleseminars with experts from around the world. All seminars are free, and all speakers have donated their time. Attendees will be asked to make a donation to Kiva, the microfinance organization. The goal is to raise $100,000. To learn more, click here.

“Fast Forward: Designing for Constant Change” Study

My buddies at Avenue A | Razorfish provided me this copy of a study called “Fast Forward: Designing for Constant Change.” It consists of thirteen essays and research that explore how consumers’ digital media habits affect the ways that companies should design user experiences and digital brands. The company wrote the report for marketers who are trying to design more effective online ads and websites in the face of rapid technological change. It is the result of 500 interviews conducted in July, 2007

Topics include social shopping, web site design, video, widgets, AJAX, RSS feeds, user interface, and mobile media devices. Here are two key findings from the study:

Marketers need to stop thinking of creating online ads or websites in isolation. Instead marketers should design experiences for consumers wherever they live in the digital world, across websites, blogs, mobile devices, or on desktops. (These conclusions are discussed in more detail in the first chapter, “Avenue A | Razorfish Digital Consumer Behavior Study.”)

Marketers should stop thinking of the web as just another channel to express their offline brands. Instead marketers should build digital brands that take advantage of the web’s unique attributes, such as its immersive nature. (To that end, Avenue A | Razorfish introduced a scorecard for marketers to measure the effectiveness of digital brands. The details are reported in the chapter, “Digital Darwinism.”)

Avenue A | Razorfish also started blog about the topic called Digital Design Blog.

The Art of Evangelism Web Conference

Please join me for a free online WebEx seminar called “The Art of Evangelism.” During this seminar I'll explain the strategies and tactics of evangelism for products and services. I hope you can join me.

Tuesday, September 25th
11:00 am Pacific
Register here

Disrupt-Then-Reframe Selling: How to Close a VC?

Have you heard of the concept called “disrupt-then-reframe”? The theory is that you introduce a non-sequitur or unexpected element into your pitch and then immediately inject a call-to-action. The disruption theoretically neutralizes critical thinking and makes a person more susceptible to agree.

This concept is the result of a study by Barbara Davis and Prof. Eric Knowles in which they sold note cards door-to-door for a charity. When they told people that the cards were eight for $3.00, they had a 40% success rate. When they told people that the price was eight for three-hundred pennies and then said, “which is a bargain,” 80% of the people bought cards.

Give it a shot and let me know if the concept works for you. I suspect that venture capitalists will be very susceptible because they have attention deficits anyway. Here’s how it would work. Suppose that you’re negotiating an investment; just say: “Our pre-money valuation is 500,000,000 pennies which is a bargain for a Web 2.0 company.”

PS, did I tell you that you can read the Truemors web site for zero pennies which is a bargain? Just click here. :-)

How to Get a Free, Autographed Copy of The Art of the Start

Facebook reduced the number of people that a developer can invite to add an application. The limit went from infinity to ten; thus, it is much harder to achieve critical mass. However, if a developer can evangelize people to invite ten friends each, the outlook is brighter. The question is, “How do you get people to do this?”

As the saying goes, there’s more than one way to skin a cat (with all due respect to PETA). Here’s my offer: if you install Truemors for Facebook, invite ten friends to install it, and post a few truemors, I will send you an autographed copy of The Art of the Start. You might wonder how I’ll know if you installed Truemors and invited ten people. The answer is that I am going to trust you.

There’s one limitation. I will only ship books to addresses in the U. S. because I don’t have the bandwidth to figure out shipping and customs to every country in the world. Note: I said I will only ship to U. S. addresses. For example, if you live in Kazakhstan and have a friend or relative (“Borat”) in the U. S. who can get the book to you, go for it.

Please proceed by installing Truemors. After you’ve invited ten friends and posted a few truemors, send your name and address to this email address. This offer is limited to the first two hundred people.

Let’s see if I get disabled by Facebook for doing this. :-)

How to Talk to the Press

Here’s a video featuring editors and reporters from the Wall Street Journal, Wired, TechCrunch, Seattle Times, and Seattle Post Intelligence discussing how entrepreneurs should pitch the press. You can also read the wrap up if you’re too busy to watch the video. Also, here's a video featuring only Michael Arrington from November, 2006.

The short story: Create something great, throw out all the marketing bull shiitake, and explain it in thirty seconds.

The Nine Best Story Lines for Marketing

Lois Kelly is the author of Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word-of-Mouth Marketing. This is her explanation of the top nine types of stories that people like to talk about. If you’re pitching your company to investors, customers, partners, journalists, vendors, or employees and you don’t use at least one of these story lines, you probably have a problem. And most likely you’re too close to what you’re doing, so you think that you’re uniquely “patent-pending, curve-jumping, and revolutionary.” :-)

1. Aspirations and beliefs. More than any other topic, people like to hear about aspirations and beliefs. (This may be why religion is the most popular word-of-mouth topic, ever.) Sun Microsystems’ Scott McNealy’s point of view about ending the digital divide is aspirational as is Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard’s views about how companies can grow by reducing pollution and creating more sustainable business strategies. Aspirations are helpful because they help us connect emotionally to the speaker, the company, and the issues. They help us see into a person or company’s soul.

2. David vs. Goliath. In the story of David and Goliath, the young Hebrew David took on the Philistine giant Goliath and beat him. It is the way Southwest Airlines conquered the big carriers, the way the once unknown Japanese car manufacturers took on Detroit, and the way social media is taking on the media giants. Sharing stories about how a small organization is taking on a big company is great business sport. Rooting for the underdog grabs our emotions, creates meaning, and invokes passion. We like to listen to the little guy talk about how he’s going to win and why the world—or the industry—will be a better place for it.

3. Avalanche about to roll. The mountain is rumbling, the sun is getting stronger, but the rocks and snow are yet to fall. You want to tune in and listen to the “avalanche about to roll” topic because you know that there’s a chance that you will be killed if caught unaware. This theme taps into our desire to get the inside story before it’s widely known. It’s not only interesting to hear someone speak about these ideas, they have the ingredients for optimal viral and pass-along effect.

4. Contrarian/counterintuitive/challenging assumptions. These three themes are like first cousins, similar in many ways but slightly different. Contrarian perspectives defy conventional wisdom; they are positions that often are not in line with—or may even be directly opposite to—the wisdom of the crowd. The boldness of contrarian views grabs attention; the more original and less arrogant they are, the more useful they will be in provoking meaningful conversations.

   Counterintuitive ideas fight with what our intuition (as opposed to a majority of the public) says is true. When you introduce counterintuitive ideas, it takes people a minute to reconcile the objective truth with their gut assumption about the topic. Framing views counter to how we intuitively think about topics—going against natural “gut instincts”—pauses and then resets how we think and talk about concepts.

   Challenging widely-held assumptions means that when everyone else says the reason for an event is X, you show that it’s actually Y. Challenging assumptions is good for debate and discussion, and especially important in protecting corporate reputation.

5. Anxieties. Anxiety is a cousin of the avalanche about to roll, but it is more about uncertainty than an emerging, disruptive trend. Examples of anxiety themes abound: (1) Financial services companies urging baby boomers to hurry up and invest more for retirement: “You’re 55. Will you have your needed $3.2 million to retire comfortably?” (2) Tutoring companies planting seeds of doubt about whether our kids will score well enough on the SATs to get into a good college. Although anxiety themes grab attention, go easy. People are becoming skeptical, and rightly so. Too many politicians, companies have bombarded us with FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) with no facts to back up their point.

6. Personalities and personal stories. There’s nothing more interesting than a personal story with some life lessons to help us understand what makes executives tick and what they value the most. The points of these personal stories are remembered, retold, and instilled into organizational culture. Robert Goizueta, the respected CEO of Coca-Cola, said he hated giving speeches but he was always telling stories—often personal ones about how he and his family had to flee Cuba when Castro took control and had nothing more than his education.

   Similarly, when Steve Jobs gave the commencement address to Stanford University in June 2005, he shared his personal story and life lessons. That commencement address, “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish,” was talked about on thousands of blog and was published verbatim in Fortune magazine. It helped us see Jobs in a new light.

7. How-to stories and advice. Theoretical and thought-provoking ideas are nice, but people love pragmatic how-to advice: how to solve problems, find next practices, and overcome common obstacles. To be interesting, how-to themes need to be fresh and original, providing a new twist to what people already know or tackle thorny issues like how to get IT and marketing organizations to work together despite deep culture clashes between the two.

8. Glitz and glam. Robert Palmer sang about being addicted to love. Our society is more addicted to glamour and celebrity. Finding a way to logically link to something glitzy and glamorous is a surefire conversation starter. For example, tagging on to the widespread interest in the Academy Awards, Randall Rothenberg, former director of intellectual property at consultancy Booz Allen-Hamilton, last year talked about the similarity and challenges between creating new “star” product brands and movie stars.

9. Seasonal/event-related. Last, and least interesting but seems to resonate, is tying your topic into seasonal or major events. Talking about industry predictions around the New Year, advertising during SuperBowl season, executive compensation reform when an executive of a well known company “resigns” with an especially bloated compensation package are examples of this type of story.

---

Here’s a good exercise for your team: Have it read this posting and then answer the question: What story line does our marketing currently use? Then, if you’re brave enough, ask the question: What story line should our marketing use?

Live Coverage of Steve's WWDC Keynote

I’m going to the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference to cover Steve’s opening keynote. I’ll post real-time reports beginning at 10:00 am Pacific on Monday morning at Truemors. Yes, this is just another ploy to draw traffic to Truemors. :-)

If this isn’t the coolest way to get this message, I don’t know what is: via Royal Navy fighter pilot.

The Lesson of Tam's Art Gallery

A little while ago I was in Hong Kong to make a speech. I visited Stanley Market,—a large bazaar (nothing to do with the Stanley Cup). Mind you, it’s a kiosk compared to the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, but it’s jammed with stores.

Most of the stores carry a little bit of everything: tshirts, shoes, consumer electronics, leather goods—you name it.

After spending an hour there, I bought something from only one store: Tam’s Art Gallery. This store specializes on making “chops” (seals). You provide the English word, and the employee makes a chop with the Chinese characters.

This is a small part of the store’s selection of chops. Other stores sold similar chops, but only as part of a mashup of many items.

I relearned a marketing lesson here: Do one thing right. Tam’s positions its product offering and thereby helps its customers make a purchase decision. All the other stores offered too much and made a product decision more difficult. Granted, it may take you a while to figure out what the one thing is (for all I know, Tam’s started off sellling a bunch of stuff too), but businesses should strive for standing for one thing in their customer’s minds.

The Art of Schmoozing II

Susan RoAne wrote the book on schmoozing. Literally: How to Work a Room: Your Essential Guide to Savvy Socializing. The recently updated and revised book is a classic because we will all have to walk into “rooms” that contain meetings, conferences, trade shows, business mixers, fundraisers, and parties and be able to schmooze, make connections, and walk out with our heads held up high.

Because you may be using PR firms less, you really need to hone your schmoozing skills. Therefore, I asked Susan to provide her top ten tips of schmoozing.

1. Think analog, not digital. We still have to interact with people although the digital world has afforded us many ways to stay in touch using technology. We must know how to meet, mingle, make small talk and connect with others in the analog world both in our professional and personal lives. You can IM, text, ping, or Twitter and yet, you will still get invited to an office party or a cousin’s wedding and have to do the face-to-face.

2. Prepare for every event. We now have many search engines to use to find out about the event, association, company or organization. Take note of the news on the site, the people highlighted and the news that is noted. Find out who you need to meet and who you want to meet. Ask your network or the event host to make the introduction.

3. Determine what you have in common with the other people at that event. When you find that common point, you both will be more comfortable. If you alter your focus and think about making others comfortable with you, they will be.

4. Prepare a self-introduction. Be ready so that you can introduce yourself if there is no greeting committee. It’s a seven to nine second pleasantry, not a thirty second elevator speech, and key it to the event so others know why you are attending. That will help them figure out what to say to you.

5. Read voraciously. This means blogs, online newspapers, and even the good old analog print newspaper. Every page of the paper provides news, information, scores, reviews, and even gossip (the newsy kind of schmooze) that is fodder for conversation. Jot down three to five items in case there is a lull and you have something else to add. Don’t forget to read industry journals and national magazines. Other people may have read that interesting article in FastCompany, Forbes or O Magazine! If they haven’t, you can highlight and get the conversation rolling. It’s ok to watch TV, and I often quote Jon Stewart of The Daily Show!

   Also, read Truemors everyday. This will make you a better schmoozer because you’ll be on top of the latest news in a broad selection of areas. This will make you the king or queen of small talk (see below).

6. Approach the person standing alone. He or she will welcome your company. No one, even CEO’s, want to stand in a room by themselves. It just feels dorky.

7. Just smile and say Hi or Hello. According to research, those are the best opening lines. While we wait for the utterly brilliant icebreaker to pop into our brains and then to come out of our mouths, the person we may want to meet has already moved to the opposite side of the room. Depending on your age or crowd, the word “hey” may be the greeting du jour.

8. Make small talk. Too many of us think that we must be talking the important, deep stuff and consider small talk to be trivial. Wrong. Author Michael Korda’s Uncle, movie producer Sir Alexander Korda, said, “A bore is someone who has no small talk.” Small talk is how we learn about our common interests, experiences and connections.

   Once you find the guy who also wears Jerry Garcia ties or kindred deep dish pizza aficionado or the person who also has teenagers, or the quilter or The Daily Show/Jon Stewart fan or the local senior league hockey player, conversation flows. Remember the last time you met a person who decided to get right into the “big” talk about famine, disease, war, poverty while you had a beverage in one hand and a mini taco in the other? Now that’s a bore.

9. Listen, listen, listen. People tell us about their interests. If we listen and stop planning what to say next, drafting our grocery lists or personals ad, we’d all be better conversationalists. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that we are not paying attention if our iPods are in our ears, our Blackberrys or Treos are in our hands or we are waiting for our BlueTooth enabled calls. In fact, doing any of the aforementioned behaviors does send a message to others and it might not serve you in the long run.

10. Go everywhere with the intention of having fun. People want to be around the upbeat, fun, interesting, and interested person.

Bonus Tip: If you want to make a positive memorable impression, treat people like people not like prospects!

The Art of 'Ware, a Reinterpretation of The Art of War

In the early 1990s, Bruce Webster wrote and published The Art of ‘Ware (M&T Books, 1995), a reinterpretation of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. Basically, Webster applied Sun Tzu’s work to creating and marketing IT products. Webster recently updated his original version. If you’re a Sun Tzu fan, you’ll enjoy what Webster has done. (Photo from Wikipedia)

DIY PR

My buddy, Glenn Kelman, the CEO of Redfin, had a strong reaction to last week’s post about PR by Marge Zable Fisher. So much so that he penned an alternate solution to the challenge of a good client-agency relationship: Don’t hire an agency and do it yourself. Here’s what he wrote.

---

Nobody knows if Charlemagne could read because an advisor always read aloud for him. It was considered humbling for the king to do anything himself. The same fears drive the most captivating, articulate entrepreneurs to hire publicists. Who wants to risk looking like a fool? As a result, hardly anyone in technology ever tries to talk to a journalist by herself—except Guy, of course.

That’s too bad. Just the other day a newspaper’s technology editor told me, “It’s just so hard to meet entrepreneurs these days. You always get their PR people.” A dozen entrepreneurs sprang to mind who would kill to tell their stories. All have agencies. So what I am recommending is not howto manage an agency, but something more radical: not hiring an agency at all. Here are ten reasons why.

1. The truth will set you free. Over and over, publicists tell their clients to stick to the agreed-upon message to avoid mistakes but this guarantees you’ll never say anything thoughtful or spontaneous. Maybe your company has two and a half customers. So what? If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably not dumping toxins into a river or selling cigarettes to teenagers. Let GE and Philip Morris retain agencies. If you were stripped absolutely naked for the world to see, a few warts might show up, but more people would do business with you. Once you get comfortable with that, you’re ready to deal with the press on your own.

2. The rolodex is already online. Almost every journalist publishes his e-mail address, and many have a blog. You can also use LinkedIn and Jigsaw. The point is that you can communicate with journalists without a PR person. Usually a sincere note from an entrepreneur is enough to start a conversation. Pick out something good that the journalist wrote and say what you really think. Make a top-five list of what your company has learned in its first six months. Suggest an idea for a story. Keep it short; ask for nothing. It’ll mean a lot more coming from you rather than a publicist. Odds are you’ll hear back.

3. You don’t have to seem all grown-up and boring. Every entrepreneur feels vaguely disreputable. Maybe you drive a crappy car. Maybe you never went to prom. There are enough stuffed suits in this world to fill fifteen Wall Street Journals a day. As anyone who watches American Idol will tell you, what this spun-out, over-hyped world is absolutely famished for is a little genuine personality. And, outside of your technology, it’s probably the only thing you have. So stop trying to be like IBM and just be yourself.

4. Ideas are the precious things. Most entrepreneurs are bursting with unconventional ideas: Maybe you think an ad-crazy Silicon Valley has lost its nerve; maybe you’re a grown woman delivering pizzas to diffident recruits in Stanford’s computer science lab; maybe you’ve always wanted to meet the hairy guy living in a trailer park who sends you the inspired spam about mail-order pheromones. These are the kinds of ideas that journalists love.

   Imagine how you would finish this sentence if you were having two beers with your best friend: “You know the strangest thing about what we’re going through is …” What comes next is your best story idea. Even if the story isn’t about your company, you’ll be a part of the conversation. The rest will come naturally.

5. Let the fur fly. When proposing a story, consider Michael Jordan’s response when asked how much to bet on golf: “Whatever makes you nervous.” If there’s no drama, there’s no story. Most publicists are terrified of a genuine story with real characters and an unpredictable outcome, so no journalists are allowed into your data center on launch day nor can they mingle with customers at your user conference. As an entrepreneur, you’re going to be more comfortable with risk than a publicist. And you won’t win as a start-up without taking risks, over and over again.

6. Nerd-to-nerd networks are where it all happens—and value speed in everything you do. Most publicists feel threatened by the Internet’s systems of attribution, glorification and punishment, where Digg can make an obscure posting more important than the evening news. Agencies don’t have the street cred, the technical chops, the instinct for candor, the distinct voice and, above all, the commitment to speed to engage in a meaningful conversation with the blogosphere. In the thick of things, you don’t want to have to coordinate with consultants or get permission from anybody. Just ask John Kerry.

7. Even bad coverage isn’t so bad. I was once profiled in a national business magazine doing odd things in my underwear. It was terrible; I lay face down on a couch for an hour after reading it. And you know what? It wasn’t that bad. Never whine to the journalist about coverage, avoid narcissistic story-lines, and don’t worry if you make a few mistakes.

8. Go in alone. It’s hard to make a move when your dad drives you on a date or to sound contrite about the neighbor’s begonias with your mom standing behind you. It’s just as hard to connect with a journalist when a publicist is always at your side. You often need a candid space in which you can say what you really think. Just bring a notebook so you can jot down any follow-up items and you’ll be fine.

9. Passion + expertise = credibility. A publicist will never have your passion for your project, and she’ll never have as many colorful customer stories as you do. A friend of mine once told me about “the greatest idea in the history of capitalism,” which turned out to be a semi-pornographic massive multi-player video game. A publicist would never have pitched it as well as he did.

10. Make time. Most entrepreneurs say they don’t have time for DIY PR. Sure, it takes a while to spam 100 journalists with every press release. But that doesn’t work anyway. Focus on a few big ideas, and you can tell them yourself. Use a feed-reader and Google alerts to track industry news and company mentions. Conveying your company’s story in a personable, compelling way is one of your most important jobs.

11. (Who’s counting?) Hire an employee, not an agency. When you need help, hire a person, not an agency. This is especially important if you’re not interested in journalism. And if you can afford it at all, it’s worth hiring an employee rather than a contractor. You want someone who can dive into what you’re doing whole hog because he believes in it, without all the staff churn and management overhead of an agency.

    What should you look for in this employee? The worst PR person has contempt for journalists because he either believes journalists can be easily spun or because he becomes aggravated when they can’t. The three best questions to ask when interviewing a publicist are “Who are your favorite writers in journalism?” Why are they your favorites?”—so you can find someone who actually cares about the craft of journalism—and “What is an example of a feature story that you’ve pitched?”—so you can find someone excited about ideas.

    Also, ask for a writing sample. As with any other position, value brains, drive and a soft touch over looks. Most of all, don’t hire anyone fake. Of course, you’ll need to make it clear that the PR person won’t be managing an agency.

A battalion of agency publicists will try to terrify you about the perils of launching your company without their expertise, but anyone who tries to scare you from DIY PR, starting a company, or buying a house online usually isn’t someone an entrepreneur should heed.

The Top Ten Reasons Why PR Doesn't Work

Margie Zable Fisher runs theprsite.com. Every day someone tells her that he or she has been “burned” by a PR firm, and Margie’s goal is to help small business find the right PR firm. I asked her to provide the top ten reasons why PR doesn’t work:

1. The client doesn’t understand the publicity process. PR folks need to better educate people about how publicity works. The first thing many clients ask is, “Can you get me on Oprah or the front page of the Wall Street Journal?” The answer might be “yes,” but the process to get to the “yes” may take months or years, and may first include a series of smaller placements.

2. The scope of work is not detailed and agreed upon by both parties. Here’s a typical example: a client signs an agreement to spend $3,000 per month. Client expects to get three publicity placements per month. PR person expects to work 20 hours, regardless of the outcome. The inevitable disconnect leads to customer frustration and the feeling of being “burned.”

3. The client has not been properly trained on how to communicate with the media. Proper training for interviews is crucial; otherwise, key messages can be misconstrued, and even negative stories can result. Clients seldom blame themselves when this happens.

4. The client and the PR person or firm are not a good match. Example: Client hears about a local PR person, meets and likes the PR person, and figures it’s a good match. Or the client chooses the lowest price PR option. And the PR person, instead of referring the client to another practitioner who is a better fit, decides to take on the client—and the money.

5. The client has not gotten results quickly enough and ends the relationship too soon. Client should plan on conducting a campaign for a minimum of six months. And even that is aggressive. A year should really be the bare minimum to commit to PR The media works on its own timetable, which is usually much longer than the client’s.

6. PR people don’t explain the kind of publicity placements a client will most likely receive. Every client wants a big profile of the company on the cover of a major magazine or newspaper, but most stories are about a “trend,” several companies, or some recent news with quotes from experts. Profiles are few and far between. Yet, instead of explaining this, PR people often tell potential clients what they want to hear, in order to get the business.

7. Clients don’t realize that what happens after you get the publicity coverage is sometimes more important than the actual placement. My smartest client didn’t care if he got a quote or a profile—he just wanted to be included in major media. When it was time to get an agent and publisher for his book, he handed them a list of all his media placements, and this clinched the deal. The agent and publisher figured that if all of the major media was willing to include him as a source, then he must have something important to say.

8. Clients refuse to be flexible on their story angles. One of my clients once said to me, “We only want profiles.” When the media wasn’t interested, they refused to consider other story angles that the media was interested in. Now I make sure clients are willing to have us pitch three to four angles.

9. Clients get upset when the media coverage is not 100% accurate or not the kind of coverage that they wanted. One of my former clients said, “That TV segment on me was only a minute long.” When I explained that length of time was impressive in TV Land, she refused to understand.

10. Clients won’t change their schedules for the media. Clients need to drop everything if the media calls. This may be inconvenient, but the media waits for no one. If you want to be a “media darling,” then you need to make yourself available at any time. Those who do will reap the best benefits and placements.

Ten (Nine) Questions with Anastasia Goodstein

Anastasia Goodstein covers Generation Y in her blog YPulse. She has worked for Current TV, AOL, and Oxygen TV. She recently published a book that will help you understand the online activities of young people called Totally Wired: What Teens and Tweens Are Really Doing Online.

1. Question: How does being totally wired change being a teenager?

   Answer: Teenagers are connected to each other, lots more information, and media 24/7. They need parents and adults to set limits on this use and act as guides as to what’s credible as well as to help them be more media and marketing savvy. It means that there is a new way of communicating that adds an element of distance, the possibility of anonymity, and the reality of much of this communication is public or can easily be made public.

2. Question: What are the positives and negatives of this development?

   On the positive side, teens can say more digitally than they might feel comfortable with sharing in person. On the negative side, you can be meaner when you can’t see that person’s reaction—this has led to the new term cyberbullying. People should check out Cyberbully 411.

   Teens are learning, often by making mistakes, that what they post online can be seen by more than just their friends. They are learning that what they post online or what others post about them, can be hard to take down, and that it can spread virally to lots more people. All of the impulses, motivations, desires, and feelings around being a teen haven’t changed, but technology definitely raises new issues and challenges we all have to deal with.

3. Question: Why are MySpace and the like so popular?

   Answer: Teens put the “social” in social networking. Being a teen is all about individuating from your parents and spending more time with peers. We did this by hanging out in malls, parks and parking lots. Today’s teens are much more scheduled and structured, and today’s parents are more reluctant to let teens hang out unsupervised.

   MySpace and other social networks have become virtual hangouts where teens can socialize without parental supervision. Teens also love decorating their MySpace pages as a way to tell the world who they are (at this week!) and find other teens who may be interested in the same things: for example, cars, video games, animal rights, and goth fashion.

   Teens love being able to communicate to all of their friends with a bulletin and getting feedback through comments. Plus we all know high school is all about social status—now it can be quantified, exaggerated or minimized with the number of friends on your MySpace profile.

4. Question: Is banning MySpace and other social networks by schools a smart thing?

   Answer: I advocate educating as opposed to legislating. Schools should bust teens for using MySpace when they shouldn’t be but don’t block it. Educators have a role to play in teaching teens when it’s appropriate to be on MySpace and when it isn’t, as well as what is kosher to post and what isn’t—and what it means to maintain a public profile.

   Blocking technology doesn’t teach teens how to use technology safely and ethically or how to think critically about the sites they visit. For many low income teens who still may not have computers or access to the internet at home, a school library, public library or federally funded after school program are often the only places they can participate in Web 2.0 at all. If we block and ban these sites, a whole population will miss out on what their peers have access to at home.

5. Question: Is the danger of online predators exaggerated?

   Answer: Yes. They’re out there, for sure, and parents should be talking to tweens and teens about how to be smart and safe online, i.e. don’t talk to strangers – even those who say they are teens, don’t post too much personal information, etc. But the reality is that more kids are abducted by someone they know, usually an estranged parent or relative than by strangers.

   Kids and tweens are much more vulnerable to being manipulated by online predators and are usually experimenting with identity themselves at that age, so they may venture into an adult chat room and say they are 25 “just for fun.” Older teens mostly just ignore creepy adults, reject them as friends or tell them to go away. They’re there to socialize with their friends, most of whom they already have relationships with offline.

6. Question: Why do teenagers blog?

   Answer: Some teens still keep written diaries with their deepest thoughts scrawled in them hidden away in their bedrooms, but this generation is more comfortable putting that stuff out there for their friends—and often the general public—to read.

   Most teens blog as yet another way to communicate with their friends. They are more about the commenting back and forth and keeping the conversation going than writing lengthy blog posts. That said, there are lots of teens who post poetry and photographs and who actively journal on their blogs as well as teens who blog about specific topics like tech or music. Check out this teen-run blog network: Random Shapes.

7. Question: What is healthy sexual behavior for a teenager?

   Answer: That’s a tricky question. I believe in teaching teens about human sexuality with a more holistic and developmental approach vs. focusing on just whether or not to have it and what kinds of diseases you can catch if you do.

   A really positive and accurate site for teens about sex is Sex, etc. Teens meeting strangers online to “hook up” is rare—it does happen, but I would venture to say it’s a teen who is already engaging in other kinds of high-risk behaviors. Is “cybering” healthy sexual activity? I’m not a psychologist, but it’s definitely safe sex!

8. Question: What big brands truly “get” teenagers?

   Answer: I’m not saying this just because you worked with Apple, but ever since the iPod launched, teens love Apple as much as any Mac fanatic. And it’s not that Apple is marketing to them specifically, they just have created great products and design that teens are crazy about. While MTV has ceded some of its trendsetting dominance to the internet, you can’t underestimate their understanding of teens and how to reach them. Other brands teens love: Nike, Toyota Scion, Xbox, Sony PS2/PSP, and Nintendo.

9. Question: Coming back to MySpace, can one make the case that MySpace teaches computer and writing skills?

   Answer: Any time teens are playing around with language, whether it’s coming up with a new acronym for IM or a text message, it’s a good thing—even if you have to tell them not to use shorthand in their English papers. Writing on a MySpace blog, writing messages to each other, or commenting all involves writing and language skills.

   It’s not the same as structured writing in school, but any time teens are expressing themselves through the written or typed word, it can only help their writing skills. And being on MySpace definitely teaches computer skills—teens spend hours on layouts for the pages, embedding video, photos and widgets and learning how to navigate and use new sites. They have a better understanding of Web 2.0 than many adults, including their parents and teachers!

You can also read an excerpt and listen to her radio interview

Salesforce Developer Conference

I’ll be speaking at the Salesforce Developer Conference on Monday. This is a free event. I learned something recently: Salesforce.com is really a software-as-service “platform” that has applicability beyond “salesforce automation.” Ergo, this conference is also for software entrepreneurs. Hope to see you there.

The Essence of Duct Tape Marketing

Duct tape (the tape) is simple, effective, and affordable—it’s not always the prettiest solution, but it does always work. The central theme of Duct Tape Marketing: The World's Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide by John Jantsch is that effective small business marketing is a system—not an event—composed of simple, effective, and affordable techniques.

When you combine that with the cult-like obsession many people have for all things duct tape you also get a pretty good example of how something simple like the right name can do a great deal for a company, product, service, or book. I asked John to distill his marketing ideas to a top-ten list, and here is what he provided:

1. Narrow the market focus. Create a picture of the ideal client: what they look like, how they think, what they value, and where you can find them. Start saying no to non-ideal clients.

2. Differentiate. Strip everything you know about your product or service down to the simplest core idea. Make sure that the core idea allows you stand out.

3. Think about strategy first. Take everything you’ve done in steps one and two and create a strategy to own a word or two in the mind of your ideal client and prospect.

4. Create information that educates. You are in the information business, so think of your marketing materials, web sites, white papers, marketing kits as information products, not "sales" propoganda.

5. Package the experience. Put visual elements around every aspect of the marketing strategy that you adopt. Use design to evoke the appropriate emotional response from your ideal prospect.

6. Generate leads from many points. People learn in different ways. Your lead generation efforts must allow your prospects to experience your firm from many different angles and views.

7. Nurture leads along the logical buying path. There’s a natural way for your prospects to come to the conclusion that you have what they need. Build the lead conversion system for before, during, and after the sale.

8. Measure everything that matters. Certain things always matter. The secret sauce is in finding and measuring the intangibles – those things down on the shop floor that eventually add up to profit.

9. Automate for leverage. Embrace the Internet or else. Create access, stimulate community, capture innovation, and build knowledge to automate the basic delivery elements of your information business.

10. Commit. Resist the temptation of the marketing idea of the week. Create daily, weekly, monthly, and annual marketing calendars, make marketing your new habit, and find the money to stick with the plan.

---

Science Daily Week

This is the final issue of Science Daily Week. Here’s a three-fer.

1. Researchers at the University of Oregon found that when people watch someone perform a task that they know they’ll have to repeat later, similar parts of the brain are activated that are used doing the the task itself. The source is “Watching With Intent To Repeat Ignites Key Learning Area of Brain.”

2. An article called “Subliminal Advertising Leaves Its Mark On the Brain” cites how researchers at University College London found that subliminal images attract the brain’s attention on a subconscious level. An implication is that subliminal advertising could work. That is, of course, assuming you don’t Tivo past the ads. :-)

3. Seeing the color red can hinder people from performing their best on tests. This is the conclusion of a study called “Research On the Color Red Shows Definite Impact On Achievement” at the University of Rochester.

So what did we learn during Science Daily Week?

At the very least, if you’re the boss, you should give a bonus to the marketing person who killed the TV commercial featuring subliminal images of a red Ferrari that over-hyped the product that was going to air during a sexually charged program like Sex in the City.

---

Science Daily Week: Advertising and Sexy Content

Today’s Science Daily tidbit is that advertising during television programs with sexy content is less effective than during programs with no sexy content. This is the research finding of Ellie Parker and Adrian Furnham of the Department of Psychology of the University College London.

I loved this quote:

“The fact that recall of adverts was hindered by sexual content in the programmes suggests that there is something particularly involving or disturbing about sexual programmes....”

Then again, I Tivo everything, so television ads are largely irrelevant no matter when they run. It would be interesting to examine whether online advertising is less effective on sites with sexy content. The eyeballs are there, but are they distracted?

---

Science Daily Week: Hype Kills

Science Daily Week continues with the study of assistant professor Vanessa Patrick (University of Georgia) along with co-authors Debbie MacInnis and C. Whan Park (University of Southern California): “Marketing: Too Much Hype Backfires.” The study shows that “people take notice when they feel worse than they thought they would, but—oddly—not when they feel better than expected.”

The team coined the term “affective misforecasting” to describe the gap between anticipated and actual feelings. This supports the old adage that people tell five others about a bad experience but only one about a good experience (“negative evangelism”?). Thus, it sure looks like “under promising and over delivering” is the way to go.

---

2007 Digital Outlook Report

Avenue A Razorfish recently published the 2007 Digital Outlook Report (6230.6K). This report examines trends in the way consumers, publishers, and advertisers employ digital media to have a conversation with each other. Specifically, it covers the following areas:

1. Digital Buzz

2. Digital Media (R)evolution

3. Search

4. Consumer Dialogues: The Digital Class

5. Measurement

6. Op-Ed: What’s on Our Minds?

   • Creative Considerations for 2007 by Jim Gibson

   • Why Authority Matters in Web 2.0 by Laura Porto

   • The Death of the