Britamania

QR Codes could be a big part of direct marketing in the future

2010-04-08T13:34:00.005-04:00

As postage rates continue to rise, paper grows more expensive and customer response continues to drop - traditional direct mail as a business and marketing channel continues to shrink. Most people refer to this as "junk mail" but in the past, even a 1% response to junk mail was enough to support a business. Today, that isn't the case.

A few traditional DR companies have made the jump - most of them major catalogers like JCrew and Pottery Barn - and are now very sucessful eCom companies. Their web business makes up the bulk of their revenue. But there are many others who have not yet shifted to a more digital model and continue to rely on the USPS and paper based marketing messages. The reasons are many - most of them have to do with the customer demographic or product specifics.

Can a QR code help bridge the gap?

A QR code is a digital bar code. When a user takes a picture of it, a text message is usually sent in return with promotion or product information. But it can do many other things like communicate with an app and delivery further information about a product or service. And of course, the link between marketer and consumer via mobile is established.

I know there are a lot of people who think QR codes won't be adopted in the US. I'm betting that they will and if implemented creatively could be help many large DR companies.

Google is betting on the same - Google now automatically generates QR codes with a URL extension.

You can't force change

2010-03-29T14:44:00.002-04:00

There is a law that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. This applies to almost every new marketing campaign - sales go too high and you run out of stock (I remember once an email from our sourcing dept claiming "unexpected over-performance of a marketing campaign has led to significant stock shortages" - nice that even when you sell out it can be a bad thing). New designs almost always have some backlash against people who were used to the old one. New site layouts cause confusion, etc.

Here is a good one dealing with the distribution of computer vouchers. The studies proved the vouchers were used but time spent on the computer went almost exclusively to playing computer games. Math scores for the group receiving the computers actually went down!

Try try as hard as we might. . . .

Unintended effects of programs are impossible to predict. This is one of the things that makes change so difficult - - "look, we gave away computers and they played games on them instead of doing their homework."

The only way to really effect change is to convince people that they must change - you saw this a few years ago when the price of gas spiked to >$4/gallon. Hummer is out of business now and smaller more fuel efficient cars are in our future. Everyone knows that price is coming back soon. Enticing or goading people to change never works. Change is personally difficult and most people won't succumb unless they feel the pain of NOT changing is worse than the change itself.

Ad Spending by channel - relevancy and measurement counts

2010-03-17T10:20:00.004-04:00

An overview of 2008 vs. 2009 advertising spending by category via techcrunch.

Across the board, ad spending dropped 12.3% or about $1.5-billion.

Out of the 20 or so categories, only two saw y-o-y spending increases - Internet display and FSI, up 7.3% and 3% respectively.

Newspapers, Local Magazines and Spot TV were clobbered by >20% drops.

When you compare the Internet Display and FSI to Newspapers, Local Magazines and Spot TV, you can the importance of ad relevancy and measurement.

Internet display, while generating less than 1% click can be highly targeted with both niche categories and user behavior as the basis. This results in higher click rates and higher conversion (i.e. give a golfer a golf ad and he's more likely to click it....). Obviously, tracking performance can be done fairly easily in this channel, so a clear work/didn't work can be done quickly. Spending can be controlled based on what the results say.

FSI's are an interesting channel because they can also be highly targeted. An advertiser can select the newspaper or magazine to insert the FSI and then can take a customer selection, such as new customers, retained customers or specific geographies or zip codes. FSI's are often coupons and this type of promotion has seen a resurgence the past two years - so its an excellent vehicle for delivering these types of promotions and discounts. Since they are redeemable, FSI's are also a great way to measure the effectiveness of a campaign,

Newspaper ads, local magazines and spot TV all are too general. The only one you could argue with is the local magazines because they can be quite niche, but the readership for these has dropped dramatically in the past few years, so their reach is no longer very impressive. Newspaper ad effectiveness if very hard to measure. Spot TV ads are difficult to control and the advertiser usually has no say in when or where the commercial is aired.

Advertising continues to get more relevant. The channels that support this idea will be the ad channels that survive. Channels that support ad control and measurement are also going to "win". Over the next few years there will likely be more convergence between direct marketing and advertising.

Albany needs leaders and not politicians

2010-03-10T13:52:00.005-05:00

I live in New York and the state, like many others, is in "financial crisis." Sounds cliche and most people are often distant from the impacts, but not this time. Severe cutbacks have caused the state to stop payments to school districts. In my district alone, for instance, the payment was about $1,000,000/yr. This means the school tax, already going up 5% will have to go up another .5%. Cutbacks are falling right down to the citizens the state is supposed to help.

It doesn't help that the Governor of our great state is about to be thrown out due to ethics violations and has already decided not to run for re-election. Talk about being involved . . . .

Things are so bad, they have dug up Lt. Gov Ravitch to come up with a blueprint plan on how to "solve this crisis." Ravitch was famed for helping NYC out of its financial woes in the 70's when Mayor Dinkins tried his best to wipe NYC off the map.

Ravitch has put together a well thought out plan. It calls for, in particular:

significant spending cuts and abolishing much criticized Albany spending practices.
forcing lawmakers to account for how they are spending money
forcing balanced budgets in order to float more debt (i.e. operating expenses are paid for from operating cash, not debt)
limit borrowing to 1%-2% of the budget

Wow - sounds like a real stroke of genius. Spending cuts. Abolishing spending practices that have "plunged" the state into debt. Limit borrowing.

And the Democratic response - “It’s not D.O.A.,” said Mr. Silver, the Assembly speaker.

Our government leaders have really failed their constituents. When the most basic of fiscal responsibility is met with "its not DOA," people should run for cover.

What this shows is that leadership without accountability is hard to track success. Being fiscally responsible is not the #1 priority for elected officials, but making sure our tax dollars are accounted for and are spent responsibly is of primary concern. To reject these measures is to reject accountability.

All leaders need to be held accountable and balanced budgets do that. Next time you hear someone not wanting transparency or tracking, be wary - I guarantee they are very poor leaders.

What is your company's DNA?

2010-03-04T17:28:00.001-05:00

Every company has a DNA. Its what makes it special - what make it tick. In cases where a company is a category killer, the DNA is a real competitive advantage. Some call them "moats" that competitors can't cross.

Kodak was a good example of this. HBR did a great case study on them regarding corporate re-inventions. For decades they were all about film processing. I can't remember the exact process they mastered, but it obviously had to do with 35mm film. Way before digital cameras, Kodak was all about processing. They became masters at it, so good in fact it was hard for anyone else to jump into the film industry. Fuji tried but never really took much market share.

Then, digital cameras came out. What do you think happened to Kodak? They obviously didn't embrace digital photography - they fought it. So throughout the 90's and into this past decade, the company shrank - - -first slowly, then quickly. It took years for the corporate DNA to change.

Yahoo is having this identity struggle right now. It needs to switch from being a search advertiser to a network and content advertiser. Looks like they are having trouble at it. Check out this quote from their CEO, Carol Bartz during a recent interview about Yahoo's regrouping strategy.

For an industry that’s based on creativity and inspiring people, I don’t know why it’s so afraid. I don’t think it should be afraid to just try some crazy new stuff. But when I talk to people about online marketing, they just seem to freeze. … I thought this was going to be a much racier industry that wore black and got out there and rock and rolled and I see it being a little shier. I mean, I’m the crazy lady.

Yahoo doesn't have a "crazy new stuff" kind of DNA. This will likely take years to change. With 164-million visitors per month. It will be interesting to see how many they lose before they make the transition.

When is consumer research bad?

2010-02-25T16:11:00.002-05:00

Consumer research is the bedrock of many companies and it makes sense. You want to know how your product or service stands up against competition and its good to hear about it first hand.

But when is product and consumer research bad? Nice post here from Dan Pallotta about leadership and consumer research.

Research is bad when you have a new product that breaks the rules. New products and services go through the typical lifecycle - innovators, early adopters, early majority, etc... If you don't have enough innovators in the research the idea will not pass muster.

Research is bad when you are attempting to position a product. Is it higher priced, lower priced, more upscale? No two people have the same view. A company has to figure out its branding and stay true to it. I was at Conde Nast the other day and I was talking to one of their group managers about the dip is sales. If you hadn't heard, ad-sales dipped about a billion dollars last year (ouch, yes $1-billion). They have been getting blasted in the business trade over this. The group manager shrugged and said, "we're a private company and live for our brands. We didn't lower our rates. The New Yorker never goes on sale. Every other publisher does. Thats how we remain special." Now that is staying true to the brand! You can't focus group that. Leaders just do it.

I used to have a boss that always said, "customers are stupid. They don't know what they want." He didn't mean to insult our customers but make the point that customers would say one thing in a research meeting but sales data proved they did otherwise.

Think about it . . . who would have thought Mini-Cooper would outlast Hummer 5 years ago?

Is your strategy malleable?

2010-02-17T17:29:00.006-05:00

Good post here from the HBR. As with most HBR articles that are free, they tend to be obvious but contain a few bits of wisdom that you can take with you.

Here, HBR is talking about when you think your company strategy is wrong.

I think the best part of the article highlights that no strategy is perfect. Having pieced together online strategies for the past several years - where you start and where you end up are usually strangers. Companies and organizations need to adapt to what is working. Yes, there needs to be an end goal in mind but how you go about achieving success can remain hidden for a long time. Almost all strategies are built on assumptions. Those built of empirical data may seem more grounded but still require some assumption of what the data means.

This is perfectly illustrated in the short case sample provided in the article. Just because you think its a niche, there really needs to be a need. In this case, clients want great copy - they could care less if it came from stay at home mom's. Here, maybe the strategy is low cost one as stay-at-home mom's might cost less in overhead (no insult intended, I'm only implying they work PT).

This happens a lot with technology companies who believe their technology fits one thing or solves one problem, only to find out it can be used creatively somewhere else where there is a need.

Case Study #1: When the competitive advantage is a disadvantage
In 2005, Laura Casela (some details, including her name, have been changed) joined a strategic communications firm started by two former consulting colleagues of hers. Laura was brought in as the Director of Business Development to help grow the year-old firm. Laura was excited about her new role and about the company's future. The firm was founded on a unique premise. Most communications firms rely on freelance writers to do a lot of their work and clients have little knowledge about who these writers are. Laura's colleagues decided to change that by hiring stay-at-home moms who had left the industry to have more time with their families; they felt this was an untapped and experienced resource and if leveraged appropriately, could be a competitive advantage for the young firm. They built their brand around this hiring approach and had success with it in their first year in the market.

However, soon after taking the job, Laura discovered that the leads she was pursuing were not turning over. She was able to capture referrals but when new leads went to the website, they seemed to lose interest. She asked a few would-be clients what turned them away and they explained they weren't looking for a business of stay-at-home moms. Many said it just didn't feel like "a right fit." Laura realized that "clients wanted the best writers they could get and they were hiring a communications firm to do the hiring for them. They didn't care who did the work, as long as the work was great." Laura was conflicted; she believed in the brand and like the founders, thought it would help them stand out in the crowded New York market. But the evidence showed something different. Laura shared what she learned with her colleagues and explained that despite how much she believed in the principle, this was an angle they should drop. The founders were surprised; but they were open to what Laura had to say, primarily because of the evidence she provided, including client feedback and emails. Laura's speaking up had a huge impact and the firm's founders, together with Laura, are now working with a strategy consultant to rethink their branding.

App loyalty and usage

2010-02-15T14:42:00.003-05:00

Someone I know close the mobile/app world directed me to this link/article. Its a good way to map out the categories of existing applications to determine which categories retain users and which ones are fading stars.

Apps are usually associated with entertainment, but as you can see from the diagram that Flurry comprised the gaming and entertainment category generates a lot of usage in the first 2 weeks but does not retain loyalty. On the other hand, news apps have the highest level of loyalty and usage.

Once again shows targeted content is in high demand - its finding ways to package it in meaningful ways that generates value today - - instead of the content itself.

This is an important analysis to watch as "appification" of devices continues. I would guess over the next few years more and more devices, even down to high powered net books, will begin to use apps on top of a minimalistic OS as a general platform. In the coming years my guess is all of this will begin to float onto the web - similar to what Dropbox is doing with document storage/retrieval.

Implementing Digital Change is tough

2010-02-05T09:29:00.004-05:00

I had the pleasure last night of attending a small get together of industry professionals. I met the gentleman at B&N responsible for brining the Nook to market. I also met the music executive responsible for negotiating the first deal with Apple to sell individual tracks (something that was unheard of in the music industry before iTunes).

The conversation drifted into the future of books and music. Sure, the music industry was taken by storm by digitization of their product. The books industry is clearly moving in that direction but will likely move a bit more slowly.

Three things came up that were very interesting. First had to do with implementing change. For the most part, most digital business or efforts cannibalize a legacy business that is usually a cash cow. iTunes wrecked CD sales as digital books will soon wreck book sales. Companies will not move from a successful high margin business to one with smaller margins unless they are forced to. Music was quickly forced and the book industry is slowly being forced.

What they are doing now in both industries is creating uniqueness to their products - books have sample chapters from other books. CD's have hand written notes from the artist. These items make the physical product more unique. They charge a premium for these things and it is working, they claim. The problem is that industry players are not used to providing this and it may not be scalable across every product.

The second item that came up had to do with organizational design for implementing change. We talked about all the different ways it can be done: silo, breakout, embed. A lot boils down to the CEO. The CEO needs to have the courage to move from one business model to the other. Companies fail at this re-invention all the time because CEO's also have to protect their bottom line. They need to make a short term decision to hit a profit goal at the expense of a long term inevitability. Some CEO's can toe that line pretty well. Other CEO's can't. They won't move to a digital format until it "pays out" (read: newspapers). That may keep the company strong short term but then causes them to chase digital in the coming years - they leave a problem for their successor.

This is a tough one because no one can see what is coming around the bend in the digital world. I was speaking to someone at Billboard.com and he said the Facebook was the #2 referring site behind search for billboard.com. No one would have thought that even 1 year ago. Yet many companies are still struggling to find out what "to do on Facebook."

Lastly, we all agreed to digitization of products is now all about the user experience. Buying a product is simply not enough anymore, but the process of buying a product is now so important. Everything from the app store to the packaging has to be thought out. When you think about the difference between the Sony Reader and the Kindle - the iPod and the Zune - its the experience that is different. The satisfaction one gets when making a purchase and owning an experience rather than just a device.

The conversation was summed up well. Its better to move fast and imperfectly than slowly and perfectly. Given you don't know what is ahead and the road is ever changing, you need to be nimble - the adage of failing fast and moving on was thrown out several times. Big companies also have a hard time with this, the idea that digital products are iterative. They are used to creating the big product and having a big release. Digital products can't be done that way. They are leaked out quickly, tested and refined.

Great evening of conversation.

Newsdays Long Island - Pay Per wall generates 35 users

2010-01-28T13:31:00.004-05:00

A few newspapers, notably the NYTimes being one, have recently gone about or plan to put up pay-per walls between users and their content.

I guess the thinking is that they feel their content warrants people pay for it online.

Newsday - a daily paper on Long Island did this a few months ago. The spent $4-million re-designing the site. The result is 35-sign ups and $4,000 in revenue.

Papers who have sought after content, or content that is valuable simply by its aggregation, such as financial data or trends, can likely do this. General, or even world news, will likely not work. That information is no longer sacred - it can be accessed from everyone for free. Its like buying air.

Newsday is owned by Cablevision, who also owns the cable property on Long Island as well as the Knicks and Rangers and several other media properties. Users can access the site if they have a subscription to the other property. I assume their strategy is to limit access to Long Island information unless you pay in some way to Cablevision.

This is clearly the opposite of the way things are moving. Content needs to find people - not the other way around in todays world.

Will the tablet create paid content programs

2010-01-20T10:26:00.004-05:00

I'm not sure what Apple has planned for the tablet and the "paid content" plans with publishers - but getting people to pay for content online will be extraordinarily difficult. The NYTimes announced today it is launching a "paid metered content" program.

I'm not sure what the NYTimes can offer that I can find for free elsewhere - on another news site or blog.

The content has to be personalized and served in a way to that is meaningful to users. If it just gives users access, it will be very limited in its success.

Throwing walls and barriers to entry up on the Internet is not a strategy that has worked - AOL is the great example of that. Content is open and must be accessible.

Apple and Harper Collins to lead the way selling digital books on tablet

2010-01-19T09:40:00.004-05:00

It will be exciting to see how people take to digital book formats. The Apple tablet can be a big boost to digital book readers: Kindle and the Nook. Apple is now teaming up with Harper Collins to test and sell books, presumably, for the tablet.

Harper Collins has always been more progressive than other publishers. They were one of the first big houses to publish lots of digital content, create readers guides and build a direct to consumer campaign.

The industry is a tough one. B&N is the gorilla and Amazon is undercutting prices and creating a market for used books. Publishers are in the business of telling people what they should read - in the new digital world, thats a tough position to be in. People want to hear what other people think not what a publisher thinks is good because they paid a big advance.

Publishers have to change their DNA from content filter to content delivery if they are going to have a home in the future. When you think about it, they don't even create the content, they just take it to market for a mass audience. Today, the audience is fragmented and there are multiple channels that publishers can't reach.

When you think about it, there is no reason why a Stephen King or James Patterson even needs to use a publisher today. They could sell direct to Amazon, B&N and sell their books online. They would probably make vastly more money and better control the print runs, which is one of the big cost drivers (printing and un-sold returns).

Publishers need to find a new home in the value chain. I hope Harper does well. I think the digital book readers will catch on in the next few years as the devices improve.

Sage Advice on Product Positioning

2010-01-13T11:14:00.002-05:00

I received wonderful advice yesterday from a person who has taken several business from nothing to multi-million $ companies. We were talking about a new product launch I've been working on. The advice was simple - as most good advice is. He said the approach he has taken has never changed and if the questions can be answered then the product can be taken to market.

First, begin with the end in mind. Where are you headed. What do you want to be? What is the goal?

From the goal you outline your strategies for achieving that goal. What is the course, the plan of action? How are you going to "do this"?

From the strategies you then lay out the tactics. What do you need to do to get the strategies accomplished? Are the do-able? How long? Who do you need?

And most importantly, and this is where most fall down - the tactics must be measurable. Are you making progress? If not, maybe the strategy is flawed. Maybe the execution was not right. Can it be fixed or was the strategy a bad one to begin with? If the strategy is flawed the goal obviously can't be reached. No goal = failure.

Only then can you determine if a new product can stand on its own in the marketplace.

What is driving health care costs and who will pay

2009-12-29T09:20:00.004-05:00

The health care bill has the chance to alter the personality of America more than any bill. Just like Social Security did for providing financial stability (if you want to call it that) our government wants to provide health care stability.

Its important to fix, no doubt. Families spend on average $8,700/yr on healthcare and it consumes about 18% of our GDP. Its a system that is horribly broken.

But what is driving the cost of the care? Here is an interesting paper published by the national institute of health policy that highlights the health cost drivers and where they are coming from. Its a pretty simple paper to read and if you know anything about business management if makes sense.

Price are driven by three things:

1) cost of goods and services

2) quality of goods and services

3) demand for goods and services

Sounds like economics in Freshman year....

The issue with our system is that all three are out of control. The cost of providing the goods and services have gone up. Doctors need more insurance. Specialists have exploded and charge higher rates. Nurses are in short demand and therefore get higher pay. The list goes on.

The quality of goods and services has also gone up. Anyone who gets sick and can afford to come to the US for treatment, does so - they do this because we have the best health care, the latest technology, the latest procedures and the best facilities. If you look at the charts - hospital expenses have grown tremendously mostly due to better technology and the costs associated with acquiring it. Also, the "very sick" who represent 5%-20% of hospital patients eat up 20%-50% of the hospital expenses. Classic Pareto principle.

Lastly, and this was surprising - was demand for services has also gone up. People want more treatment from their doctors and more prescription drugs. Historically this has been the case.

So, the rates go up. Costs go up and demand is up. Therefore prices go up - - economics 101.

Now, here is an interesting op-ed piece from Rob Herbert in the NYT that highlights what the bill does and where the money comes from to pay for all this (or keep the costs down - because that is what the bill intends to do - its not about coverage. It is about costs).

To grossly summarize his points - the government is betting that if we make health care more EXPENSIVE for people, they will use it less. Yes, make it more expensive for the people "who can afford it" - namely, the middle class.

And where does most of the money come from? The government is betting that companies will stop paying for insurance coverage for workers, and instead, give workers a higher salary. More income tax would be collected (remember, taxes are taken out AFTER medical costs now). The big question is, will companies pay workers more, or simply say "we don't offer medical coverage." In which case more workers will be without coverage and costs will skyrocket.

Back to economics 101 - can we control the costs of goods & services? Maybe, but for the most part doctors will likely become more specialized and more expensive. It is a natural progression. Can we stifle the quality of the care? No way. So that leaves us only one option - lower demand. Making health care more expensive will lower demand.

Unlike gas - which if you remember was almost $5/gallon back in the Summer of 2008 - health care is an elastic demand for most people, meaning, you may be able to do without some. Gas is an inelastic demand. If you drive 20 miles per day to get to work - you can't drive 15 miles and still get to work. You just pay more.

Of course, if you get cancer or you are pregnant or you are in a car accident - care is completely inelastic. It becomes a necessity. What happens when that $80,000 bill comes and you are on the hook for 20% of it?

Very enlightening. Our leaders are failing us. Demand is not what should be attacked - costs should be.

Readers Digest and the making of a content media company

2009-12-21T14:58:00.004-05:00

A great profile of Readers Digest today in the NYTimes advertising and media section.

If you make money advertising and you do that with original content - business is tough. Newspapers and magazines clearly fall into this bucket.

On the advertising side, a space ad in a newspaper is almost worthless today. In magazines its worth a bit more but the reach has declined so much the ad has little impact.

Advertise on a web site and you can pay for specific impressions, type of impressions and even set a CPA fee so you can cap your expenses per lead. Buy keywords and you can learn how people are finding you online and refresh marketing material with the proper wording.

If you create content most of it is being consumed in places that you don't own; websites that aren't yours, blogs that critique you owe you nothing, followers agree or disagree and pass their thoughts along to thousands without you knowing. Content now is about conversation. "Lead stories" or "Cover Stories" are published and then passed around. The conversation takes place in the corners of the Internet.

Readers Digest is such a microcosm for the entire old-school publishing industry. Everything that made them strong in the 70's-80's is not useful today. Writers, distribution, printing, access to large swath of middle america. Everything you need to make you strong today, they are trying to build. But what are they building? Content web sites . . . .

Mary Berner makes $125,000/mo - an enviable sum - trying and figure out how you make money in content online. "Audience building" appears to be the new phrase, replacing what I suppose was subscribers.

The strategy she has, however, is very similar to what RD did back in the day - make the audience come to you. This time instead of magazines she is using web sites.

Content on the web doesn't work like that. People are only a click away. Content is ubiquitous. The only strategy that will work for content is one that distributes, not one that gathers. Content that is relevant, not content that is all encompassing. Content that arrives, not content that I need to go.

Content has flipped - no longer will people go to content - the content needs to find the people.

RD filed for Chapter 11 earlier this year.

What can Tiger tell us about loyalty and money

2009-12-09T16:26:00.004-05:00

I'm a big golfing fan. There are few things that surprise me in the news but the Tiger Woods story was definitely an eye-opener.

Not just for me, it seems. Tabloids have jumped on this as hard as Tiger hits his driver.

Why? For one, Tiger made millions - hundreds of millions - off being personified as the "model athlete." Brash, talented, clutch, powerful, graceful and of course, mild mannered, courteous and a family man. Endorsements were no problem. Tiger was about as safe as they come. People bought Nike items at a 50% mark up because of Tiger. Brands are about expectations and when Tiger's name was on it, expectations were very high - and very expensive.

Then, it turns out it was all a lie. What is it now - 15, 20 different women? Some of them saying Tiger was paying them; flying them around the world to meet him! Tiger definitely liked to get his freak on. Maybe he's better suited for Girls Gone Wild than Buick!

Rick Reilly's article on how Tiger Woods needs to fix his image is a good one. In sum, Rick is suggesting Tiger go nuclear - clean house and come clean. Go underground for a year and re-surface. Regardless, it will take years to rebuilt what happened, much like Kobe Bryant.

But what does this tell us about loyalty when money is involved - - lots of money.

It tells me people who "care" for Tiger; his inner circle - looked away. There is no way he could have pulled this off without several of Team Tiger knowing about it. They must have all known this day would come. That is an amazing thing when you think about. I can just imagine his agent sitting at night wondering - is tomorrow the day the story breaks?

It tells me that when lots of money is involved, one must always question the motives of people who surround a leader. You'll never hear about his support team who made millions off Tiger over the last decade. They fell back to the shadows.

Google went through a bit of this earlier during the crash. For a time (a short time) options were actually worthless as they were more expensive than the stock price - gasp! You saw some talent leave Google. From a business perspective, maybe this isn't half bad. Sure - we work for money, but to be successful you need a loyal team.

When lots of money is involved loyalty can be hard to find.

Facebook releases new privacy information

2009-12-02T15:18:00.003-05:00

Facebook today tightened and clarified who can see your personal information. Regional Networks are now out. These networks, such as school alums, or some as broad as "NYC" became large. Most people did not realize when you join one - your information becomes visible to people in that network. As easy end-around a "privacy" setting was the join and network the user was likely in, such as a school group.

They also clarified that privacy settings will be set to either allow "friends" or "friends of friends" or simply "everyone" to view the information.

This came in tandem with their announcement of some staggering traffic figures. 69-million people use the app Farmville. 1.4-million photos are uploaded every second. Traffic is through the roof.

This is a really good decision for Facebook. The site is about trust. Ruin it once and the user will never go back. Even worse, that user then tells all their friends "what happened to them on Facebook" and that group begins to scale back the information and use on the site. That makes Facebook less effective.

Facebook is leading the charge in the new "network" age of the Internet. Focusing on trust is a big component of that.

Our leaders are fallible too

2009-11-23T16:36:00.003-05:00

Interesting take on a revisionist history of WWII.

Had Devers been well liked by Eisenhower, maybe the war could have ended sooner.

Leaders always have an inner circle of others they trust. People in power get where they are not only because of their own effort but the effort of others. Its hard when someone outside that inner circle of trust comes to the table with a game-changer.

Had Devers been so convinced his plan would work, he should have won over someone within Eisenhower's circle of trust. This sounds irresponsible of Devers, but people in that position - when dealing with a commander like Eisenhower, should understand how decisions are made.

Every organization has a formal organization structure and every organization has an informal organization structure - like it or not - people who are effective now how the informal structure works and uses it to their advantage.

For whatever reason, Eisenhower didn't trust Devers. It was Devers job to earn that trust.

Google is betting on web based applications for most users

2009-11-23T12:12:00.004-05:00

Google is betting that all applications will be web based in the future - or at least 90% of the ones you use on a daily basis.

Word docs, spreadsheets, surfing the web, email, social networks - they all can be done with web based applications rather than native applications. This makes a standard OS less important.

The chrome OS is heading things in this direction. I recently plunked down $1,500 for a macbook pro. After watching my wife use it for a few months - she has yet to tap into about 85% of what a mac can do. She mainly uses it to connect to the web. I probably could have saved $1,000 and bought a netbook or a light laptop.

It will be interesting to see if Google's strategy and bet on web based applications pays off.

I was recently equipped with an HP EliteBook 2530p. Its small, weighs less than 3 pounds -and unbelievably get about 5 hours of battery life (I recently went from NY to LA with the computer on the whole time and landed with 15% battery life remaining). Its great for what I need for work as I don't require large native programs - just typical office and email.

At the same time - I just hired a Production Artist. $4,900 in hardware and software later, a Mac arrived fully loaded.

Its hard to guess if I represent the typical user or the production artist does. My guess is I do (so does my wife).

Nice to see the product landscape changing with user habits. I remember when RAM and processor speed were all you needed to worry about.

An excerpt from MG Siegler at TechCrunch

The point is that consumer computing is shifting to a place where speed and mobility are paramount. The reason people are so excited about products like the CrunchPad and Apple’s tablet isn’t because they can run Photoshop — they can’t — it’s because they offer an easy way to use the Internet. Same thing with the iPhone. Same thing with Android phones. And it will be the same thing with Chrome OS and the ChromeBooks.

If Google can break in with a new piece of equipment and create their own product category - as the article points out - they will educate users than a full OS is simply not necessary for most of today's computing needs.

the iTablet could be disruptive to gaming and eReaders

2009-11-19T12:46:00.003-05:00

The iTablet has the ability to be just as disruptive to handheld game systems and eReaders as the iPhone was for mobile phones.

I was unconvinced of this until I spoke with another staffer here who highlighted my ill-conceived wrongs upon Apple.

Imagine a 10.5 inch screen that can do what your iPhone/iTouch can do now - play music, check email, text and buy applications. Add to it word, excel and a bigger browser. Add to that the ability to drag'n drop items. Add to that the ability to hook up external keyboard and mouse.

Essentially - it will likely be a netbook "plus" but with the ability to download apps.

This could really disrupt (or continue to disrupt) handheld game systems like the DS. It can also be detrimental to eReaders - Kindle and the Nook.

My guess is this is why Apple has decided to delay the launch and wait for two models - the big difference will be screen resolution and size, or so it seems.

Apple continues to develop products that have duplicate uses - in lifting they call this super-sets - doing exercises that work two muscle groups instead of just one. Coupled with their closed loop computing system, this makes it hard for Apple users to switch off Apple products (ever tried seeing what iTunes songs can be used on a Zune - -hint, its not 100%).

Apple will soon be home for millions of users for their gaming, music and book needs. If they can work Apple TV into the mix . . .maybe they have all four media sources.

Good sites gone bad through lead generation - Shutterfly

2009-11-17T21:53:00.005-05:00

The internet is a marketers dream, especially when it comes to data collection. A wealth of information can be obtained and captured about you.

This has made the practice of lead generation very prevalent online. One site can easily pass another site your personal information including credit card information. This can all be done with a simply check box and the description of what they are doing buried in small text copy below the check box. In many, or even most, cases - lead generation practices are deceiving.

For example:

I am a regular shopper at Shutterfly (the good site in my title). Over the past years I've likely uploaded hundreds, if not thousands, of photos to create holiday cards, vacation books or to order prints for myself or my family. The switching costs for these sites are high - once a user is invested in uploading photos, that user likely stays committed; like myself. Shutterfly always delivered on what it promised and the prices were good for the services.

Recently, my wife made a purchase. At the end of the checkout, there was a coupon for $10 off your next Shutterfly purchase - being a regular customer, she clicked on it and hit submit.

Unknowingly, she just gave permission to Shutterfly to send her personal information and credit card information to a company called Reservation Rewards. The company began charging her $12/mo for a discount coupon service.

Several months went by. I finally noticed the odd $12 charge on our credit card bill. I spent a few hours tracking back what it was and the road led back to Shutterfly.

After diving deeper, I easily found many complaints of fraud for Reservation Rewards. I contacted Shutterfly and the response I got was obviously a pre-written email to other customers who have complained.

Websites have a particularly important choice - make money off individual's information or protect it. Companies that pawn identities aren't in the business of creating value. The data collection business is a billion dollar business - but marketers are paying for relevant leads. This is not a relevant lead. Try it out - the offer is also on classmates.com. You'll be surprised how unknowingly you'll be sending your information.

It was hard to believe Shutterfly stooped to this level. It was only after really digging that I learned Shutterfly makes over $2-million/yr off this deceptive service.

Shame on you shutterfly - you just lost a customer. Hello Kodak.com!

Elections Results and Leadership

2009-11-05T09:12:00.003-05:00

What do the election results on 11/3 tell us about leadership?

It was less than two years ago the nation was stunned by the election of Obama. People were fed up with the direction of the country. Two wars, a lousy economy, and suffice to say, the global community held a mild to severe dislike for America. The White House lost trust in most of the people.

Obama runs on a "change" platform. People gravitate to it because we need to change - but change to what? Most campaign promises aren't specific. They can't be. Obama promised to "renew" America. Return America to being a "world leader". Resolve our "international conflicts."

And Obama is trying to change things - first, he had to fix the economy. To do that, he needs to spend. In order to spend - he needs to raise taxes. I don't think this qualifies as a change in Washington. Tax and spend goes back to the Boston Tea Party. At the same time, this was a must do to jump start the economy - so far it appears to be working, but again, not a new idea.

Next up is health care - part II. Do Bill and Hillary Clinton ring a bell? Again, not really change.

What else has there been? Some push for education reform. Some push for renewable energy - this is the one area where someone can point and say - this is definite change, and its a good one. I would have liked him to nail down Detroit in the bail-out more; make them build electric fleets be certain dates. . . who knows, maybe this was a handshake deal in the background.

So on Tuesday night, voters when to the polls and clobbered the Democrats. Why? Because we haven't really changed anything. More so, the vision of change is still blurry. Tons of people are still without jobs. Taxes are still too f*cking high and we are still engaged in two wars. Even health care reform is tattered and stuck in red tape.

The functional role of a leader is to clearly point out where we are going. Explain why were are going there and detail why that place is better than the current place.

The Democrats, I feel, have simply said - we're leaving . . . . .I'm not too sure they know where we are going.

And this isn't meant to be a political blog. I'm skeptical of Republicans too. A friend of mine recently said, "the democrats can't get anything done and the republicans seem to do the wrong things." So pick your poison . . .

Bing's Strategy is not to Replace Google

2009-11-04T09:26:00.003-05:00

The strategy for #2 (or in this case #3) depends on #1.

Google is completely dominant. It has created the moat - meaning, anyone who tries to attack it won't be successful. People don't "search". They "Google".

Bing's strategy, whether intentional or not, is not to be everything, but be niche.

Bing's strengths are in finding video, shopping, travel and gossip. In terms of universal search, they are better than Google, in my mind.

Will they every be a real threat to Google - not anytime soon - but they appear to have successfully carved out a niche for themselves. Thats all you can ask in an industry where the leader has a 71% market share.

Cash for clunkers program generates higher GDP growth - is that good or bad?

2009-10-30T10:44:00.002-04:00

Interesting chart of the day from Business Insider. The chart illustrates the impact of the cash for clunkers program on GDP growth.

News yesterday was GDP was up about 3.5% over a year ago. This was the first quarter of growth in a while so it made news.

The auto industry is vital to our economy. Thats why the govt bailed most out. Cars require metal, rubber, fabric and of course, lots of manpower to make. There is also a big impact on secondary industries that support the car industry. Glass, repair shops, dealerships, insurance, etc.. I believe there are almost 1-billion cars on the road worldwide today. Thats a lot of potential business.

About the chart, some would say this is exactly what you'd expect from the cash for clunkers program. Sales went up. Production went up. Dealerships stayed open. People kept their jobs.

Opponents would say you are delaying the inevitable. Programs like this are what got the housing industry in trouble (i.e. everyone how wants a home should own one...). Forcing a purchase might not be a good thing.

I'm a marketer, not an economist, but I would think anything that sparks the economy is a good thing. I imagine its like a flint to start a fire. If the fire goes out, you need to start it again somehow.

As a marketer, this program was perfect. The benefits are everywhere. Get old gas-guzzling cars off the road. Generate sales in a core industry. Generate sales with large cash value purchases, which cars are. Create lending for car loans to move cash around the system.

This was a program where everyone wins. This is always the basis for good deal making

Business that feed on viral - are they sustainable?

2009-10-27T18:56:00.004-04:00

One of the fastest growing business categories online is clothing - expensive clothing. The trick to selling a ton of it is to sell it cheaply.

Access to after market clothing is a booming business online. Designers like it because they don't have clothes at half off hanging in Bloomingdales or Saks. They also like it because it can be controlled. Pieces can be leaked out slowly or quickly.

The industry is attractive because the cost for acquiring customers is low. Most acquisition is done word of mouth. Some sites even require and "invite" to sign up.

The revenue growth speaks for itself. RueLaLa grabbed 1.2-million members in 18 months and saw revenue jump from $.3 to $28-million in just short of 3 years.

The problem with this model is that it isn't sustainable. The model can be copied with anyone who has access to high fashion designer clothing that is in surplus. It probably won't be long before the major stores are running their own remainder sites and saving inventory and store space. You can see the deal from GSI Commerce to acquire RueLaLa comes with a hefty earn-out over the next few years. About 40% of the deal is in the form of an earn out. The cash is well earned from the starters - congratz!

Certain business feed on viral spread - and it works, because its the marriage of value and convenience for everyone involved. But what grows businesses is quality of product and/or service. What unique item are you bringing to the table?

Ideeli - RueLaLa - Gilt Group - they are all the same. They've hit on a model that works on the Internet and they are first in the space.

Could CNN's new site be the future of news?

2009-10-22T22:12:00.003-04:00

Brought out earlier today in front of a festival crowd at the Time Warner Center in NYC, the new CNN site boasts several functions that enhance and engage the user in an interactive way.

Users can sort articles based on topic and popularity. Users can be quizzed on current events to see how up-to-date they are. A large opinion portal. A partnership with TED TV. And of course, more live events in collaboration with Facebook. CNN has the most visited live stream event on the Internet - the Michael Jackson burial. Now they will do it with Oprah.

I think this is a step in the right direction. It allows users to interact with and contribute to the news while CNN gives them the tools and the packaging.

News is clearly moving for a controlled environment to one where users are interacting and contributing themselves.

Can't wait to see the new site.

The Nook is likely a game changer for eBooks

2009-10-20T21:35:00.003-04:00

Just what the iPhone did for mobile phones in the US, I'm predicting the Nook with do for books.

The Nook, at least now, has done a good job to enhance the reading experience. Intuitive interface, share with a friend features, seamless downloading - it appears to erase the problems associated with the Kindle.

So what does this mean for publishers? Well - its a good thing that is gives more customers access to books, but its not a good thing that its in Barnes and Nobles hands. Already a gorilla in the industry, this even gives it more clout. Soon, authors can go directly to B&N to distribute books. Why do you need a publisher. Its also not good because prices will go down.

The publishing industry is fraught with inefficiency. Books cost very little to produce - maybe $3-$4 for most bestsellers? Yet they sell for $20! Great margins, until you learn that most copies get returned, and like the movie industry, publishers are now more reliant on big hits. One hit needs to pay for 9 misses.

In two years, Google and B&N will likely control most distribution of digital books. This will surely grow as time passes. eBooks won't be adopted as fast as eMusic - but it will happen.

www.nook.com

A trip through major media outlets

2009-10-16T14:19:00.002-04:00

I recently had the privilege of going on a mini-road show with our Biz Dev person. We were pitching a new service for digital content delivery. We had a line up of meetings with several major newspaper and media outlet in the US.

Each location was amazing. Glass encased buildings overlooking the Manhattan skyline. Spacious and plush lobby areas with leafy campuses. Conference rooms complete with sliding screens and recessed lighting. Probably some of the most impressive buildings I've walked into in a while.

Yet, there was another common theme with each location. When we walked upstairs - to where the workers sat - the floors were mostly empty. One floor in particular was totally deserted at one company.

Sometimes you don't need to read the WSJ to understand how dramatically these companies have been hurt by the digital age.

Photography is now a mass media

2009-10-12T16:17:00.004-04:00

Mashable now reports Flickr has surpassed 4-billion photo uploads. Impressive as they hit 3-billion only 5 1/2 months ago.

The article then says its nothing in comparison to Facebook's 15-billion in total and 2-billion photo uploads per month.

The sheer volume is amazing. Camera phones and credit card sized photo cameras have made it easier than ever to take photos wherever you are.

People, by nature, are visual. If asked to read something with an image, the reader always studies the image first.

At the same time, users are uploading pictures to Facebook for different reasons than Flickr. Flickr throttles the amount you can upload a month, so its not the best service for uploading the latest BBQ or wedding photos. Facebook is better at that. Its also easier to share with your friends on FB.

Flickr is about lower volume but higher quality. The photos that reach the top of Flickr "most viewed" are often some amazing photography.

Photographers with little access now have the ability to reach millions.

Photography is not put in the same category as music or news when talking about media the Internet changed, but photography is now a mass media - before, I would argue that it was not. The internet has really help move photography forward. It made it more enjoyable, easier to share and use.

Why was this not the case with music and news?

Mostly because entrenched industries tried desperately to fight against it instead of adopting it (read: music labels and news sources). Creating scarcity generates value (I think Jeff Jarvis wrote that in What Would Google Do). That doesn't work in today's open source economy. Kodak and Cannon made it easy to switch from 35mm film to "digital prints". They didn't fight the inevitable.

When is VC or PE good? When is it bad?

2009-10-05T09:04:00.004-04:00

Its becoming more common to trash investment banks and those that reap big rewards (read: millions of dollars) at the expense of others.

Lets not forget we work within a capitalist system. Much like Darwin's Evolution theory, capitalism takes the best and spits out the companies that can't keep up.

This article in the NYTimes is a good example. Simmons Bedding was bought then sold 7 times over the past 20 years.

There are times when private equity or venture capital money is good. For instance, when you are growing and need to raise cash. In most cases, start ups can not fund their development. Instead of taking on risky bank loans, they will give up a portion of company ownership for money - makes sense. These firms also lend guidance and access to boards and CEO's. You hear stories about "start-ups selling their soul" to PE or VC money, but for the most part - its almost impossible to bring a company to market without their help.

There are also times with PE or VC money is bad. In this scenario, a company that is "undervalued" has been identified. The smart-er people at the investment company believe they can run the business better than the current management. In a few rare instances, this is probably right. Management has missed something. Management isn't killing off sacred cows - whatever the case may be - they do exist, but not often.

In most cases where companies are bought like this - such as with Simmons - the investment company is just plain wrong. The changes they want are too difficult or don't fit the company culture, and therefore fall apart. Or, the marketing message is no longer clear and alienates the customers.

I'm not sure what the situation is with Simmons. My guess is investors saw a big brand name in an industry of no clear brands. Maybe there was something wrong (or something to fix) with the financials of the company.

In either case - if you work for a company that has been flipped several times, or feel your company is being purchased in order to be "fixed" - get out! Investment firms are not in the business of running companies. They are in the business of buying and selling them.

Leave it to the NYTimes to tug at the heartstrings. I do feel bad for the people that worked there, but don't blame the investment banks.

Mobile usage by age and gender - many differences

2009-09-30T09:58:00.004-04:00

Mobile usage is now growing quickly at the "tail ends" of the age curve - namely younger people and older people. The article by Nielson lays out mobile usage and sites used.

Its only a matter of time before everyone has web access with a mobile device. Most customers recycle their device every 2-3 years. When people upgrade now they are likely getting a smart phone with mobile access.

Interesting to note the difference in usage between woman, men and teens.

Woman are using it to access social sites like facebook, myspace, t-mobile and gossip sites like people.

Men are using it to access news and sports: NFL, NBA and CNET are tops of the list.

Teens, no surprise, are using it to text and send/receive images.

Interesting to see how the mobile devices are becoming practical for each age and demographic. Apple and RIM definitely have a leg up on the competition.

Idaho is Capital of SPAM

2009-09-29T17:20:00.003-04:00

93.8% of emails in Idaho are SPAM - so says symantec. This ranks them as the #1 city in the US for SPAM.

Symantec defines this by measuring the emails received by a sample of business addresses. Hard to determine if a private address is any different, but I would imagine its similar (email addresses are not tied to a street address).

Puerto Rico and Montana have the lowest levels at 83.1% and 85.7% respectively, but that is still a lot of SPAM.

What a shame such a great communication medium is being rendered useless. Regulation has been ineffective at stopping SPAM'ers. They move to quick and are hard to find. When you can send millions of messages for free, the law of averages are in your favor. SPAM is a good business to be in if you don't mind breaking the law.

Direct response companies missed the boat on email. They should have stopped negotiating rate reductions with the USPS and Congress and focused, instead, on email. A stamp is $.32. Even if they charge $.01 per email delivered - everyone wins. SPAM goes away. Users are happier. Businesses save money.

Its probably too late now. Users are already jaded. So few people give a usable email address now when they register for things - when they do - most are becoming familiar with opt-out procedures.

Is it me, or are more people pushing paperless services? Going paperless is obviously the next big step. Email isn't the solution, however.

Time spent on social network sites triples YOY

2009-09-25T18:36:00.003-04:00

Its not surprising that time on Social Networking sites has tripled.

Sure, lots of people have signed on, but social pages have done a good job at helping users organize their lives; or at least aspects of their lives.

Through aggregation services and applications - our homepages have started to become the social site we use the most. API's make it easy to bring in all the content and feeds that we want.

Being collaborative and open is what is driving the sustained growth.

Online views will tell you what is quality content

2009-09-24T20:00:00.003-04:00

Techcrunch was able to secure an email from the CEO of CBS interactive who is critical of Hulu (and therefore NBC). I'm not sure what a "reckless Hulu stream" is, but I assume its something that subverts advertising, or at least making money off advertising.

The thinking is very typical of traditional media. Ratings must be suffering if people can view it online for free.

At the same time, if the major networks simply made quality content, people would watch them all the same.

The great thing about the Internet and sites like Hulu is that users can pick whats good. If tons of people find your show on Hulu, thats great. To assume that people aren't watching your show on TV and instead watching it on Hulu . . .that is very far fetched. Likely, if no one is watching it on TV - they aren't watching it on Hulu.

Denial . . . its the first stage of death.

Civility ends where SEO begins

2009-09-15T14:32:00.003-04:00

I hardly ever read the USA Today, but it seems to be the paper of choice left on your doorstep when staying overnight in a hotel.

It was a please to see an article like this on the front page - What Happened to Civility?

The article pulls together three outragous acts over the past few weeks: 1) "you lie" outburts by Reg Joe Wilson cast upon our very President. 2) Serea Williams freaking out and threatening the line judge at the USOpen and of course, 3) Kayne West's interuption of Taylor Swifts acceptance speech at the VMA's.

These interuptions have less to do with civility and more to do with getting noticed.

Do a search on Joe Wilson on YouTube and numerous videos pop up with total views well over 2-million.

Serena - much the same but with less view volume.

Kayne West is off the charts. Appearances on Jay Leno, blog posts by numerous celebrities and several million video views on YouTube. Search "Kayne West" and see.

Sounds like being uncivil gets one noticed . . . .

With media being so instantaneous it is today, "pop culture" stories swirl and dive bomb into people's homes faster than ever. Need instant fame - make a sex video. What to get on the public radar - insult the President. Want to ensure your strangle hold on pop music idiocy - interupt an acceptance speech. We're all watching now-a-days and all too eager to share the story.

Ever hear of Joe Wilson before? How many times have you seen the Kayne West video or comment in the last three days? Think Serena doesn't appreciate that she's back in the limelight right now? Her endorsements are worth much more than what she earns playing tennis.

Most of these outbursts are likely planned - they have to be - imagine the amount of advertising dollars all of this is worth?

The movement away from mass marketing

2009-09-10T12:30:00.003-04:00

A good post by Seth Godin today about how marketing tries to make first generation customers aware of their products/services. He calls it, The Big Drop Off - the difference between the marketer's enthusiasm and the buyers enthusiasm. Obviously, the buyer usually has much less.

He then goes on to say that good marketers are now trying to create good products to have great stories to tell.

But this is also a telling sign of the state of mass marketing. Years ago the only option was mass marketing. Sure, word-of-mouth always existed in the framework of referals, but on a large scale that is not viable for a sales or marketing groups.

Two things have changed today. First, mass marketing is much less effective. It is more fragmented and tough to reach "mass audiences" with mass marketing - markets have become very niche.

Second, the Internet, and social media in particular, has now made it very easy for people to generate buzz about great products and services. This generates customers and lots of free content that helps with SEO. Today, your customers can do a lot of marketing for you if you give them the tools to do so.

Even better, combining mass marketing with the ease of message transfer over the Internet, can really speed the introduction or a marketing message. Microsites, YouTube videos, twitter posts, facebook pages - all these help perpetuate the message.

Mass marketing is now just one missle in the arsenal - one bullet in the marketing gun. The big difference today is, mass marketing alone can not mask a mediocre product or service.

Experience Pays, Even with Start-Ups

2009-09-09T08:34:00.003-04:00

An interesting look at start-ups and the age of their CEO. Young CEO's and their start-ups seem to get all the attention, but when you look behind the numbers, as TechCrunch did - experienced CEO's have more success.

The author, Vivek Wadhwa, gives some solid reasons - most about experience - and that is a big one. I think when it comes to start-ups it comes down to two things: execution and a little bit of luck.

A lot has been written about execution so I won't go into much detail here, but a good idea with no execution is worth nothing.

Luck is a different animal. People say you make your own luck and I believe that. CEO's with lots of experience know how to do this. They do it mostly through business contacts. Over the course of a 20 year career, a successful CEO with have hundreds of valuable business contacts to tap for advice, manpower and, most importantly, funding.

Good CEO's know how to connect people - and this is essentially what business is about.

Is your product or service really that special?

2009-09-03T11:58:00.005-04:00

I've had another run-in with ATT about my mobile service.

For past several years, my bill (wife and I combined) has been fairly stable and predictable. Last month, however, it jumped - in fact - in nearly doubled.

As the running joke goes, most people need a lawyer to understand their phone bill. ATT is no exception. I called customer service. The rep was very nice and pointed out, correctly so, that my usage has jumped dramatically lately.

He kindly moved my plans up the next level - more minutes, more txt, more money . . . - then he credited my account almost $150.

This month, I received my bill and the amount was almost 3x what it normally is. Having just moved my programs up a notch, this annoyed me, so I called again.

This time the rep was not very nice - she moved my phone minutes up, again - but didn't bother to credit the account. Obviously she did not have the authority to credit an account two months in a row.

This is where things got interesting.

I asked her what the cancel fee would be to cancel BOTH lines - the cancel fee was roughly $250. The bill due was $100 more than that. So I asked her, "its cheaper to cancel my service with you than pay my bill." She agreed, but then replied, "changing services would be such a headache. Isn't it worth staying for $100?"

Rephrased - is me paying ATT to remain a customer worth me paying them $100. Considering they probably spent twice that to acquire me and I don't really like them - the answer is clearly no.

Phone service is becoming a commodity now. Customers won't put up with hassles when dealing with a commodity product.

The Internet and other digital channels have made many services commodities. This is what people mean when they say the Internet has "leveled the playing field."

Google Moves ads left

2009-08-11T17:29:00.002-04:00

Google has moved the ads left on their SERP's. Granted, screen sizes are getting HUGE now-a-days but it doesn clutter the "clickable" area.

Most research, such as heat maps, suggest that clicks are moving more and more towards the organic results. In fact, last I looked, about 60% of the clicks generated on a SERP fall onto the top three links. The more specific the search, the more it is concentrated.

Despite all the ads now appearing for popular keywords, only the top two or three receive many clicks. Google put ads on top. Now they will move the ads left in closer.

Yahoo is already doing paid inclusion (they have another name for it now, but its essentially paying for top placement on relevent keywords). My guess is Google will create their own paid inclusion program . . but call it something else.

Take a little bit of money from a lot of people

2009-08-06T14:49:00.001-04:00

Sometimes its the simple things people miss that make lots of money - an excerpt today from the London Times:

Outside England's Bristol Zoo there is a parking lot

for 150 cars and 8 buses. For 25 years, its

parking fees were managed by a very pleasant

attendant. The fees were £1 for cars ($1.40),

£5 for busses (about $7).

Then, one day, after 25 solid years of never missing

a day of work, he just didn't show up; so the Zoo

Management called the City Council and asked it

to send them another parking agent.

The Council did some research and replied that the

parking lot was the Zoo's own responsibility.

The Zoo advised the Council that the attendant was

a City employee.

The City Council responded that the lot attendant

had never been on the City payrole.

Meanwhile, sitting in his villa somewhere on the coast of Spain

(or some such scenario), is a man who'd apparently had a

ticket machine installed completely on his own; and then

had simply begun to show up every day, commencing

to collect and keep the parking fees, estimated at about

$560 per day -- for 25 years.

Assuming 7 days a week, this amounts to just over

$7 million dollars!

.....

And no one even knows his name

Netflix Corporate Culture - wear it on your sleeve

2009-08-05T17:21:00.002-04:00

Someone posted a netflix Reference Guide on our Freedom and Responsibility Culture.

I'm assuming its real (it would be a lot of work to put together 128 fictitious slides). Even if its not, the deck raises some interesting concepts when dealing with the need to retain high caliber talent in a growing company, while minimizing complexity and maintaining innovation.

The deck does a good job of explaining why those two elements are in conflict. As a company grows, it needs to develop procedures to minimize chaos. At the same time, more procedures drives less innovation. At a company like Netflix, that is not good.

So what do they do?

First, they pay top dollar for top talent. In fact, they overpay for "stunning colleagues." They also cut smartly - they fire people who are not stars. Companies always say they do this, but Netflix lays out a great litmus test. "Who would you fight hard to keep if they informed you they were leaving Netflix?" And even better - they encourage the reverse. They want employees to ask their managers "would you fight hard to keep me if I were to leave?"

Second, they change salaries yearly. If you are in demand - you are in luck. If you have a ubiquitous skill set - prepare for a pay cut.

Third, company values - - they note the Enron company values: Interigty, Communication, Excellence, Respect. It was etched in marble in the company lobby.

Netflix correctly states that a company's values can clearly be shown by the people they hire, promote and fire.

Fourth, they bleed the concept of freedom and responsibility. They allow people to solve their own problems. They allow people to think and execute without strings attached. For instance, they don't have a vacation policy. They don't even have a company expense policy other than "do what is right for Netflix."

When you combine all of these, it creates a huge trust relationship. While I don't necessarily agree with everything (especially the yearly review and potential salary adjustments), there are major takeaways for all managers. The yearly salary review is a tough one. Stability is a major reason why some people take jobs. If you salary can fluctuate every year, this would be a turn off to some people, for instance, who are saving for college tuition or paying for a care for a relative.

Yahoo - MSFT marry over search

2009-07-29T09:38:00.003-04:00

An update to yesterdays post.

The agreement between Yahoo and Microsoft grabs 30% market share. If you have a search budget, you can't ignore this anymore.

I manage the search budget at my company and its a 7-figure budget. Very little of it went to MSFT and only paid inclusion for Yahoo. With 30% share, we'll need to talk about Bing in the same light with Google. What will be interesting is to see if the demos and quality of traffic are different or the same. At the end of the day, ad spend is all bout driving traffic and the ROI associated with it.

Microsoft - advertising isn't working . . .yet

2009-07-28T14:55:00.006-04:00

Microsoft announced quarterly earnings the other day. Unlike Google and Apple, they did not beat estimates.

The most problematic of areas seems to be their "online services" division, which is primarily ad based revenue. It lost (732) against 731 of revenue - so for every dollar earned, two dollars went out the window.

The poor showing reminds me of a video a class was shown at HBS of Steve Ballmer - claiming the future is all about "advertisers, advertisers, advertisers."

The video walks though the three strategies MSFT has tried over the past 8-10 years. First was "windows windows window." Next was "developers, developers, developers." Then in 2006 they switched to "advertisers, advertisers, advertisers." It doesn't seem like any of the three has worked. They missed search. They missed open platform computing. They are missing social networking and they are now missing cloud computing. In general, they are missing that things are now open - its about building infrastructure, not software solutions or ad solutions. Smaller more nimble companies will do that - not Microsoft.

Microsoft is clearing chasing now. They are chasing Google in search and Apple in mobile. Their windows operating system, the cash cow of the company, is declining.

Their deal with Yahoo is to bolster the "online services" division to make it bigger. Their only hope is to grab 50% of the search market. Right now they have about 10% and Yahoo has about 17% - so combined they create a problem for Google at 27%.

I think global search revenue is in the $15-billion range . . .so half of that would be very big.

I think if I were CEO of MSFT (gulp) I'd probably focus on our core competency, which is Windows. Build networking off the windows OS - copy what is working for Apple and the iPhone and Google and the applications (maps, Wave, docs, etc..). They have to think outward, not inward.

Some good pointers on leadership and hiring from Carol Smith, SVP Ellen Media Group

2009-07-27T12:08:00.004-04:00

A really good and short interview in the NYT with Carol Smith, SVP for the Elle Media Group.

The interview is condensed, so my guess is the bulk of the interview wasn't about whether women are better managers than men, but leave it to the NYT to bend it in that direction.

There are some wonderful quotes in it on how to be a better leader, if you can get past the forced "women are better list makers and don't talk about football in meetings" crap.

Q. What is the most important lesson you’ve learned about leadership?

A. The importance of winning over employees as opposed to bossing employees. I learned that lesson very, very early — in sixth grade......... In the end I think that if you win people over, they’ll follow you. And of course you need other qualities, like honesty, decisiveness and the ability to confront. I’m a really good confronter.

Classic example of level 5 leadership. It goes beyond being "part of the team." This type of leadership is mostly by example. The leader provides employees what they need to be successful. When things are going wrong - confront and fix. Don't let problems linger.

Q. Let’s talk about hiring.

A. I am living by something I read in Cathie Black’s book [“Basic Black: The Essential Guide for Getting Ahead at Work (and in Life)”] which I sort of instinctively knew — that you’ve got to meet someone three times, and one of them better be over a meal.

You learn so much in a meal. It’s like a little microcosm of life. How they order, what they order. How are they going to give instructions to a waiter? Are they sending back the meal eight times? Can they keep the conversation going, especially if you’re hiring someone who is in sales? Are they asking smart questions?

Throughout a meal, the personality comes out, I think. Are you going to connect with us? Are you going to be part of the team, or are you going to be one of these independent players who wants to take all the credit? Are you good with assistants? Those are things you can find out in some subtle ways when you eat with someone.

I also believe you hire for fit rather than for skill set. In the professional world, most skills can be learned (or need to be learned). Anytime someone is hired for their skill set, its always a question mark if it will work out. The work environment is a powerful force.

Google slashes costs to make quarterly earnings

2009-07-17T15:43:00.004-04:00

Sometimes its good to see even the mightiest companies fight the margin squeeze when revenue is down, or flat. Google makes its quarterly earnings mostly be cutting costs.

Most of it coming from administrative expenses and capital improvement costs - namely: food and equipment . . . . $110-million in savings.

Thats a lot of laptops and cheeze whiz!

Banks post Profit - Bankers bank to being millionaires after 5 month absence

2009-07-16T14:01:00.003-04:00

Two very interesting stories today in the NYT.

The first is about how former treasury secretary Henry Paulson was "assailed" in Congressional hearings about the BofA deal with Merrill.

Congress is accusing Paulson of misleading congress "and the American people" about how important this acquisition was - and why did BofA buy Merrill if they needed $45-million in tax payer money.

Its a good question.

First . . if you remember correctly. People were predicting a financial meltdown or historic proportions. Merrill - gone. Lehman - gone. Most other investment banks were days away from being broke. The govt had to take dramatic steps.

A great quote section:

Representative Jackie Speier, a California Democrat, asserted, “In many respects, I feel that the taxpayers bought Merrill Lynch for Bank of America,” noting the total of $45 billion in TARP funds that the bank received and Merrill’s $50 billion purchase price.

Mr. Paulson’s reply: “What the taxpayer got was an averted calamity.”

Mr. Paulson told the committee that the government did not bail out the financial system to benefit the big banks but instead to protect all Americans.

“The tragedy is they didn’t create the problem,” Mr. Paulson said of the American people. “It was the big banks that created the problem. But they would be the ones that would pay the greatest penalty if there was a collapse.”

In the past two days Goldman has posted record profits and now JPMorgan posts record profits. Bonuses are expected to be huge at both banks. Democrats are now calling for caps on pay.

This is a tough one - first, the banks cause the problems then use taxpayer money to fix the problem. Next, banks post billion dollar profits and all seems normal again.

I think this is what they call a necessary evil. The govt had to step in. If they hadn't bailed the banks out, the country would be in a severe depression right now with most banks closed and insolvent. The govt would likely be running the central bank. It could very well have spelled the end to the Fed Reserve and the closed loop banking system it runs.

At the same time, bankers are now making millions again - or an average of $770,000 per year if you happen to work at Goldman this year.

Is this right?

Bankers have always made lots of money. Banking is a business and just like every other business it must post profits and show growth. Lots of growth means lots of profits.

Banking is also a closed industry - traders and bankers routinely move from bank to bank. When you lose a top banker, you usually lose the entire team that works under that banker. The MD from the FX team resigns - so does the entire FX trading desk . . .ouch!

This is why they get paid so much. Retention of talent is everything because its all proprietary knowledge.

If you know something special that makes a lot of money - the odds are you are a very very rich person.

Making Money with Mass Customization of Content

2009-07-14T11:42:00.002-04:00

A short but interesting article on the future of newspapers.

I think the larger point of the story is - how do you make money if you are a content provider in a world where content is now, for the most part, free.

The answer is that people are willing to pay for content that is catered to them. No one wants a whole newspaper sent to their home, but they do want subjects sent to them on their mobile device or Kindle.

Mass customization of content will be worth something in the next few years.

Paying More for Something Special - even if its not that special

2009-07-13T12:20:00.002-04:00

This post from Seth Godin about eggs reminds me that people will always pay more for quality or special treatment if they can afford it.

You only need to look at the bottle water industry as an example.

Even though we live in a country with the highest standards for drinking water, we spend $11-billion per year on it. As Money points out, there are stricter laws and governance over tap water than bottled water. Yet, it costs 1,900 more to deliver and requires 2,000 times the resources to produce and get to market.

Its basically exactly what you would get from you kitchen sink.

People buy it regardless of these facts because they have been told its better for them. It will make them feel special.

Good marketing is all about having a good perception - bottled water has a good perception right now, but it is changing.

Ford Survives without Bankruptcy

2009-07-07T15:52:00.004-04:00

Good interview with Bill Ford. Basically, the question is - why was Ford the only car company to survive without bankruptcy protection?

When you listen carefully - it all comes down to cutting costs - he calls it restructuring - and making better products that are well received.

Sounds basic, but it really is that simple. Executing that was likely very difficult.

Robert McNamara - leadership with poor results

2009-07-06T13:23:00.003-04:00

A fantastic article on Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense under Kennedy during the Vietnam War.

There are so many parallels in what he experienced and later stated in different books and speeches to the situation the country finds itself in today in Iraq - some of the items that jump out are:

1) Know what you are getting into - He had spent decades thinking through the lessons of the war. The greatest of these was to know one’s enemy — and to “empathize with him,” as Mr. McNamara explained in Errol Morris’s 2003 documentary, “The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara.”

Its obvious our leaders under Bush and Rumsfeld made this same mistake when invading Iraq. They assumed we would overcome the forces and take control of the country. We vastly under estimated the people in the region and their dislike of America.

2) The winners get to write the history -

“We burned to death 100,000 Japanese civilians in Tokyo — men, women and children,” Mr. McNamara recalled; some 900,000 Japanese civilians died in all. “LeMay said, ‘If we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals.’ And I think he’s right. He — and I’d say I — were behaving as war criminals.”

“What makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?” he asked. He found the question impossible to answer.

McNamara was lionized for his efforts in Vietnam, yet - if the US had won, he would have been a hero. The US will look back decades from now at what was done in the Middle East from 2001-2015 and likely not like what they see. The written history will likely be negative. At the same time, if Iraq had been a big success, this would have been a monumental shift in foreign policy towards the middle east. It does not look like that will be the case.

3) Never assume victory - The plan proved impossible to fulfill. One lesson of the Bay of Pigs, Mr. McNamara told the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was that “the government should never start anything unless it could be finished, or the government was willing to face the consequences of failure,” according to the State Department’s official record of American foreign policy, “’The Foreign Relations of the United States.

There is a natural tendency to assume success. People very often overlook the impact of failure.

4) Sadly, our govt will mislead in order to rationalize war - Congress authorized the war after Johnson contended that American warships had been attacked by North Vietnamese patrol boats in the Gulf of Tonkin on Aug. 4, 1964. The attack never happened, as a report declassified by the National Security Agency in 2005 made clear. The American ships had been firing at their own sonar shadows on a dark night.

Anyone remember "WMD"?

Its hard to believe such a brilliant man spent the last years of his life wrestling with the morality of his decisions. Even his work at the World Bank came under scrutiny even though he was trying to end world poverty.

How does one find peace when the body of work left behind causes pain for so many? His intentions were pure but the results catastrophic. Going it alone and being a maverick does not always prove so fulfilling. But would a leader want it any other way?

Key Trade groups release Comprehensive Privacy Principles

2009-07-02T11:35:00.002-04:00

I received the following email today outlining a massive self-regulation guideline signed by four major advertising trade groups: DMA, IAB, BBB and 4A's along with the FTC.

The basis are seven priciples that everyone must follow.

This is a good first step in order to keep the government at bay.

Message copy/pasted below:

Dear DMA Member:

Today DMA, along with our colleagues in the advertising and marketing community, the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A's), the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), and the Council of Better Business Bureaus (BBB), announced cross-industry principles for self-regulation for Online Behavioral Advertising (see press release below). This announcement culminates a year-long effort to respond to the call from the Federal Trade Commission for industry self-regulation in this important and rapidly evolving area.

DMA expects in the coming months to go through the process of incorporating these principles into the DMA Ethical Guidelines. DMA has for many years been the leading authority across all platforms in providing effective self-regulation in the privacy area for our members and their consumers. This initiative marks another important milestone in this area.

As the marketing community continues to innovate and deliver relevant offerings through all channels, including the Internet, television, wireless, and mail, DMA will be at the forefront of ensuring responsible practices with our members.

Best Regards,

John Greco
President and CEO
Direct Marketing Association

KEY TRADE GROUPS RELEASE COMPREHENSIVE PRIVACY PRINCIPLES
FOR USE AND COLLECTION OF BEHAVIORAL DATA IN ONLINE ADVERTISING

Top Trade Associations Embrace First-Ever Broad Industry Self Regulation

JULY 2, 2009 - A group of the nation's largest media and marketing trade associations today released self-regulatory principles to protect consumer privacy in ad-supported interactive media that will require advertisers and Web sites to clearly inform consumers about data collection practices and enable them to exercise control over that information.

This unprecedented collaboration represents the entire marketing-media industry and includes the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A's), the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). The Council of Better Business Bureaus (BBB), a leading organization dedicated to advancing marketplace trust, is also part of the effort and has agreed, along with the DMA, to implement accountability programs to promote widespread adoption of the seven Principles. This cross-industry self-regulatory task force represents the first time that representatives of the entire advertising ecosystem have come together to develop principles for the use and collection of data in this important area to the economy.

This self-regulatory program is expected to be implemented at the beginning of 2010.

"Consumers deserve transparency regarding the collection and use of their data for behavioral advertising purposes. I am gratified that a group of influential associations - representing a significant component of the Internet community - has responded to so many of the privacy concerns raised by my colleagues and myself," said Commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour, Federal Trade Commission (FTC). "These associations have invested substantial efforts to actually deliver a draft set of privacy principles, which have the potential to dramatically advance the cause of consumer privacy. I commend these organizations for taking this important first step. I am hopeful that successful implementation will follow. In the meantime, I encourage the entire privacy community to continue a dialogue that places the interests of consumers first."

"The practice of advertising has clearly been revolutionized by the emergence of the Internet. Today, we can match the content of an ad to the interests of the consumer in ways undreamed of just a few short years ago," said Nancy Hill, President & CEO, 4A's. "We will, of course, be able to continue this interest-based advertising only if we maintain the public's confidence that we are responsible stewards of the data on which it is built. The self-regulatory Principles being announced today represent a giant step forward in sustaining that consumer confidence. We are proud to have been one of the driving forces involved in bringing these Principles to life."

"Guided by the seven Principles we have announced today, the advertising community is developing one of the most comprehensive self-regulatory programs ever undertaken by the business community. The fast-changing online marketing environment is best addressed by a self-regulatory framework that is transparent, flexible and accountable to consumers' needs and concerns. On behalf of our 360 members, who collectively invest more than $200 billion annually in marketing communications, we look forward to jointly developing a comprehensive business system that respects and honors these Principles," said Bob Liodice, President and CEO, ANA.

"The Council of Better Business Bureaus is delighted to join this effort to provide solid guidelines and meaningful oversight of common sense Principles that should govern the business community as it collects and uses information to deliver advertising of interest to consumers," said Steven Cole, President and CEO, Council of Better Business Bureaus. "We think that what is most important about this effort is the real commitment by a broad coalition of businesses joining in to deliver a transparent and credible monitoring and enforcement program as a complement to the practical and consumer-friendly
Principles. We look forward to working closely with the DMA and our other National Advertising Review Council partners to deliver a quality program."

"These Principles are an important step in developing a meaningful self-regulatory framework for companies advertising on-line and represent the culmination of many months of hard work," said John A. Greco Jr., President and CEO, DMA. "As a respected voice in Washington, D.C., and on behalf of our 3,400 members, we look forward to integrating these Principles into DMA Guidelines, which for 35 years have set the standard of best practices through our strict ethical guidelines for business."

"This historic collaboration represents businesses and trade associations working together to advance the public interest," said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO, IAB. "Although consumers have registered few if any complaints about Internet privacy, surveys show they are concerned about their privacy. We are acting early and aggressively on their concerns, to reinforce their trust in this vital medium that contributes so significantly to the U.S. economy."

"The NAI applauds the creation of these Principles and appreciates the opportunity to have been involved in their development," said Charles Curran, Executive Director of the Network Advertising Initiative, a cooperative of online marketing and analytics companies committed to building consumer awareness and establishing responsible business and data management practices and standards. "Our members' long-standing experience under the NAI's code shows the effectiveness of self-regulation in providing consumers with notice and choice about online behavioral advertising. The broadening of industry self-regulatory standards under these Principles will enhance consumer confidence in the online medium, and we commend the associations for their leadership in bringing together thousands of companies to expand transparency and choice across the Internet ecosystem."

Taken collectively, the participating associations represent more than 5,000 leading U.S. companies across all of the key businesses that have played a role in the transformation of the way consumers experience media. According to the "Economic Value of the Advertising-Supported Internet Ecosystem," a recent study commissioned by the IAB, the advertising-supported Internet represents 2.1% of the total U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) contributing $300 billion to the economy and has created 3.1 million U.S. jobs. The Internet itself has become a vital link in the supply chain and communications chain for all businesses, and is a lifeline for the hundreds of thousands of small businesses and publishers that have no equivalently cost-effective means of reaching so wide an audience. The ecosystem includes advertisers, advertising agencies, Web publishers, Internet access services providers, providers of application software such as Web toolbars and Internet Web browsers, search engines and online advertising networks.

In January 2009, the task force announced that it had been working on the development of these Principles in direct response to calls on the Internet ecosystem by the FTC to develop more robust and effective self-regulation of online behavioral based advertising practices that would foster transparency, knowledge and choice for consumers.

The Principles are designed to address consumer concerns about the use of personal information and interest based advertising while preserving the innovative and robust advertising that supports the vast array of free online content and the ability to deliver relevant advertising to consumers. This self-regulatory program consists of the following seven Principles.

The Education Principle calls for organizations to participate in efforts to educate individuals and businesses about online behavioral advertising. To this end, the digital media industry intends, in a major campaign that is expected to exceed 500 million online advertising impressions, to educate consumers about online behavioral advertising, the benefits of these practices and the means to exercise choice, over the next 18 months.

The Transparency Principle calls for clearer and easily accessible disclosures to consumers about data collection and use practices associated with online behavioral advertising. It will result in new, enhanced notice on the page where data is collected through links embedded in or around advertisements, or on the Web page itself.

The Consumer Control Principle provides consumers with an expanded ability to choose whether data is collected and used for online behavioral advertising purposes. This choice will be available through a link from the notice provided on the Web page where data is collected.

The Consumer Control Principle requires "service providers", a term that includes Internet access service providers and providers of desktop applications software such as Web browser "tool bars" to obtain the consent of users before engaging in online behavioral advertising, and take steps to de-identify the data used for such purposes.

The Data Security Principle calls for organizations to provide reasonable security for, and limited retention of data, collected and used for online behavioral advertising purposes.

The Material Changes Principle calls on organizations to obtain consent for any material change to their online behavioral advertising data collection and use policies and practices to data collected prior to such change.

The Sensitive Data Principle recognizes that data collected from children and used for online behavioral advertising merits heightened protection, and requires parental consent for behavioral advertising to consumers known to be under 13 on child-directed Web sites. This Principle also provides heightened protections to certain health and financial data when attributable to a specific individual.

The Accountability Principle calls for development of programs to further advance these Principles, including programs to monitor and report instances of uncorrected non-compliance with these Principles to appropriate government agencies. The CBBB and DMA have been asked and agreed to work cooperatively to establish accountability mechanisms under the Principles.

To view the complete document, click here.

Bing is doing things right

2009-07-01T21:05:00.002-04:00

Its good to see Bing getting so much positive buzz. Bing is doing a lot new things. It is a good search engine but its also taking the extra step of doing things Google has not, like including Twitter posts.

I'm not sure how much money they spent on the ad campaign, but its probably mid-8 figures.

They have done a good job of setting themselves off as "different" from google.

Its interesting that Bing has done this with a good product AND advertised it the old fashioned way - multichannel. I love the "search overload" commercials.

Change a culture through stories

2009-06-29T16:41:00.003-04:00

Here is a great short article by Peter Bregman writing on behalf of HBR.

Very simply - how do you change the culture of a company?

Through stories - a great quote:

We tend to conform to the behavior of the people around us. Which is what makes culture change particularly challenging because everyone is conforming to the current culture. Sometimes though, the problem contains the solution.

You see it all the time in companies. At Polo headquarters here in NYC . . everyone wears black. Why? Who knows - its not the uniform, but everyone does. At Bertelsmann, all the senior executives wear dark suits with no ties. Why? Who knows . . . its probably been that way for ages.

People do what others around them do. So, to change the culture, celebrate and starting doing something new. Create your own "new" culture.

This is why most companies fail. To do this, it needs to start from the top. If only mid-level managers are embodying the "new" culture, others won't jump on board.

But if the CEO of Polo wore white one day, or the CEO of Bertelmann started wearing a tie - or jeans - others would likely follow.

Great bit of advice!

The difference between leaders and managers and why they are both good

2009-06-24T17:37:00.002-04:00

A great reminder that leaders and managers ARE different - but you need both to be successful - this is an excerpt from Michael McKinney's blog.

From, On Becoming a Leader - -the famous distinction:

The manager administers; the leader innovates.
The manager is a copy; the leader is an original.
The manager maintains; the leader develops.
The manager focuses on systems and structure; the leader focuses on people.
The manager relies on control; the leader inspires trust.
The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective.
The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why.
The manager has an eye always on the bottom line; the leader has an eye on the horizon.
The manager imitates; the leader originates.
The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it.
The manager is the classic good soldier; the leader is his own person.
The manager does things right; the leader does the right thing.

And now from Presence:

The point here is not that leadership is good and management is bad. They are simply different and serve different purposes. The fundamental purpose of management is to keep the current system functioning. The fundamental purpose of leadership is to produce useful change, especially nonincremental change. It is possible to have too much or too little of either. Strong leadership with no management risks chaos; the organization might walk right off a cliff. Strong management with no leadership tends to entrench an organization in deadly bureaucracy.

This is why a company of leaders is never a good thing - neither is a company of managers.

The key, at least in my mind, is can the leaders convince the managers to follow!

Network capacity will be the biggest issue in the near term

2009-06-22T16:57:00.006-04:00

A short and interesting article about what technologies people are buying today to consume media. It appears items which require physical media are slowly dying in favor of digital downloads.

Working on this first hand, I'm convinced that in 3-5 everything will be downloaded. The idea of running out to buy software or a cartridge for your Sony DS will be like running out to buy vinyl today - - no one does it unless you collect them.

At the same time, here is a post about the increasing demand for mobile network capacity and AT&T's woeful efforts to keep up with them. It is clear device manufacturers will be able to build devices that are faster and increase performance to a point where they surpasses what networks can provide. Apple is rejecting apps that will be network hogs, such as the live streaming app SlingPlayer. The networks can't keep pace with the growing demand . . .and that is on the mobile front.

Combine what they are asking for in the first article and what is coming in the second article, and you really have a capacity problem.

This is where the telcoms have to step in and perform. This is more than just a land line connection. People will be living their digital lives through their networks, from movie downloads, to cable TV, to mobile phones to playing hand-held games. It all has to squeeze through the network.

It will be interesting to see if Microsoft of Google tries to step into this space in the name of "platform development". Or, if one of them buys a large telcom or cable provider.

Andriod Apps are starting to appear

2009-06-19T11:34:00.004-04:00

A follow up on my post yesterday about how important apps will be for these new smart phones.

It looks like companies are gearing up for Andriod and Google. Certain companies are dedicated to building apps just for Andriod.

Here are a couple of really interesting apps that utilize Google Books, live streaming video to the web and localized social search.

The one thing Google will have on Apple is that apps will likely be able to utilize existing Google platforms like Maps, Books, Docs, etc... It might make development for the Andriod more utilitarian rather than apps that are geared towards gaming for the iPhone.

Palm Pre store is empty!

2009-06-18T22:49:00.003-04:00

Someone at work has the palm Pre and its a nice device. It is too bad they didn't figure out the download store by now. With only 18 apps live, downloads are much lower for the Pre than they were for the iPhone during the first month.

Also, Apple timed their release of 3.0 OS very well. And what a great update. I seldom get overly excited about a piece of software or a device, but Apple went above and beyond with this OS update. Everything is backwards compatible and they fixed every conceivable annoyance. Once they get AT&T to fix the tethering, the iPhone will be an absolute essential.

Apple has done a great job thinking about the iPhone and iTunes store as a platform - something to let others build on. It is obvious Palm is not ready for the flood of app applications. That is probably why they are limiting developer access to the SDK's. Development now is about openess, not restrictions.

So far, RIM has stepped up with an app store and wiffed. Now Palm....It will be interesting to see what Google does with Android later this year.

Bold Marketing Moves breed success

2009-06-16T17:08:00.002-04:00

Good post from Seth Godin about bold marketing moves.

One of the most memorable take-aways I kept from Good To Great, the famous business book by Jim Collins, is that success in most cases was not done taking tiny steps forward. It wasn't done by doing what you do . . . better!

In almost all cases, breakout success was achieved through a few bold marketing decisions; either to break with the past or start something new.

Seth's quote:
Big marketing breakthroughs always come from doing something that everyone else says is off the table.

This strikes along the same vein. There are marketing forces out there occurring that require people to think radically differently about their brand and their business. No one would have thought Apple would be in the music business. No one would have thought a search engine would become the most important window to your customer. No one would have thought the NYTimes and GM would be bankrupt (OK, maybe not the NYTimes...), but it is all happening.

What is one bold move you can make?

Making Money online with content

2009-06-15T14:09:00.003-04:00

A short but interesting article on how to make money online with content if you are a content provider.

This goes along with the other post about what made you strong before probably won't make you strong in the future.

Making money online with content requires a new way of thinking about deriving revenue. Popular content should be free and generate revenue via advertising. Niche content should be paid.

Interesting concept, but if you are a newspaper with global newsrooms, the business metrics probably do not work.

Hard to believe you'll make money with the beat reporter writing in the lifestyle section rather than your foreign corespondent covering the election in Iran.

What makes you strong today?

2009-06-11T09:16:00.005-04:00

GM finished its bankruptcy proceedings the other day. Here is an interesting article in the NYTimes about how difficult instituting change at GM will be.

One of the biggest lessons I've learned about the impact of technology in the marketplace is that - what made companies successful before will not be what makes them successful in the future.

What do I mean by that?

If you are GM, you were successful in the past because a) massive dealer distribution, b) ability to leverage operations to support multiple brands (i.e. one car frame can be used in Buicks, Pontiacs, Saturns, etc..) and c) size.

How good are these things now?

Dealers - more people are using the Internet to buy cars; at the very least, everyone comes armed with information about car pricing. When times are good, lots of dealers is great. When times are bad - lots of dealerships are horrible. Dealers can't move cars so return or don't order inventory. "Hot" vehicles are sectioned off to top dealerships. Its highly inequitable.

Operations - on a spreadsheet this is wonderful, leverage what you have. Building new vehicles is cheaper due to re-usability. In an age where customization and 1-1 detail are important - this is the anti-Christ. Most GM vehicles were hardly distinguishable from each other. 20 years ago when 2 car families were just beginning, people didn't mind. Today, uniqueness is paramount. Cars reflect our personalities.

Size - size was great to muscle people around, but in the end, size is crushing them. They aren't nimble. They can't change. GM needs to get small, or at least think small, to succeed.

This is why change is so hard - people slide back to what they know . . .the things that made them great. In today's world, what were strengths even 15 years ago are at best moot, at worst detrimental.

Bing really great for broad search terms

2009-06-05T22:56:00.003-04:00

Microsoft has been spending a lot of money on the ad campaign for Bing, but I have to say - I used it all day today and I like it. Bing has already overtaken Yahoo as the second biggest search engine.

I like the fact that you can explore the search results and related content. I think its a much friendlier browser if you are doing broad search teams.

As an example - go to Google and open another browser window for Bing.

Search on something broad - like 'guitar' or 'book groups'.

Bing dissects the possibilities very well. It gives the users options on how to make a broad search more specific. Google doesn't.

I think broad searches make up about 40% of total searches. If Microsoft is going after this, its a really good start!

Google's Love/Hate relationship with Twitter

2009-05-27T09:10:00.003-04:00

I think its safe to say that Google is now spin-doctoring twitter and the impact of real time search. Its been known that Google has been tweaking its algorithm for the past few months trying to factor in a timing mechanism for events happening in real time. There have been rumors that Google plans to buy twitter.

There is also now one of Google's Associate General Council's speaking about the dangers of Twitter and "flash mobs". I think her point is that all communication mediums have taken years, even decades, to develop and are wrapped in layers of laws and rules. Twitter, and the Internet in general, has few of them.

You can tell a company is foundering about a topic when you are hearing two sides of a story from within the same company. Is Twitter dangerous or should we buy them for $500-million? Hmmm....

As with Microsoft being hurt by open source, Google will also be hurt by social media and sites like Twitter that operate in real time. This is in conflict with the data heavy data crunching mentality of Google.

Motivating or De-Motivating

2009-05-26T16:20:00.002-04:00

An interesting article from John Roulet at Forbes.com.

In sum, leadership in the 21st century is not about motivating employees. Its about avoiding situations where they become de-motivated.

A quote:

When leaders decide to address demotivation, they quickly see that, unlike with motivation, it's essentially the same for every employee. You can be certain, for example, that everyone on your staff wants the following from you and always will: (1) clear direction, (2) the resources to perform as required and (3) never to be treated disrespectfully. A work environment structured to provide those three things is also exactly what shareholders want and expect. Deliver them, and you will be on your way to leadership greatness. Fail to do so, and you may be an adequate leader but you'll never be a great one.

There are, in sum, two key steps to staying on top of motivation and demotivation.

First, hire and keep on your team only people who are motivated to do their jobs well. As Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, says, "Get the right people on the bus."

Second, understand that if they become demotivated, it is because of the environment in which they work. Strong and courageous leaders recognize that such an environment is their own failure. Understanding that can prevent you from misdirecting resources into unnecessary efforts to motivate staff.

Good to Great is one of the best business books I've read, but I wonder if this is all easier said than done. How do you know when people become de-motivated. How do you know if the direction you are giving them is clear? The view from up high can sometimes we filled with clouds.

The only want to really understand leadership and the motivation (or de-motivation) of staffers is to establish clear accountability and roles.

Once roles and accountability have been established, leaders must ask if staffers have what they need to complete those tasks. Once everyone says "yes"- then there are no excuses.

The biggest motivating factor in business today is achievement. If leaders can make it appear that people/teams are achieving something, then everyone stays motivated.

Times Change - you have to accept that fact

2009-05-20T16:26:00.003-04:00

Was reading Michael McKinney's leadership blog.

Came across a short bit of wisdom that I think is spot on. Its an excerpt from a book by Jeff Carlisi, Jam!

Times change and tastes change with them. You’ve got to accept that fact going into any endeavor … so do everything you can to prepare for them. Your work is a large chunk of your identity. And when it goes, a large chunk of your self goes with it. There’s no way to prevent that, but you can start searching around to make connections between what you’ve done before and what you could be doing next. Eventually something will click for you, and when it does, you’ll find it every bit as rewarding as your previous career.

I think its a great bit of wisdom because it hints at several things.

First, things change now more than ever. Roles and jobs that once seemed totally secure are now 1 small invention or software program away from being obsolete. There isn't an industry out there that has not been touched by "streamlining" with better technology and processes.

Second, it resonates why people are so resistant to change. Success often breeds a level of protection around the items/process that created that success. But as they say - all good things come to an end eventually. Being aware that a "large chunk of yourself" is associated with your job reflects how difficult change is within a company.

Companies that are successful at changing often do it outside the normal course of business and build it slowly while the other side begins to fade away.

David vs. Goliath - how to increase your chances of winning as an underdog

2009-05-18T14:51:00.004-04:00

A really great article about how underdogs beat the big guys. Amazingly, David beats Goliath 29% of the time. However, if David goes about things in an unconventional way, they boost their success rate to almost 69%.

This makes sense. As I've said before, the strategy for #2 depends highly on the strategy for #1. If you are #2 you want to be something that #1 is not - -granted, the competitor is #1 for a reason, so whatever it is that got them to #1, they are probably very good at. Something #2 can not likely replicate easily. Thats why some people like macs and some people like PC's. Its an interesting ad campaign to watch for both Microsoft's reaction and Apple's continued pressure on the complications around using a PC machine.

In this article, Malcolm Gladwell does a great job of showing the example in everything from basketball to warfare.

In todays business world, this is why is often important to be very nimble. Any team, of lesser quality, can come together and put on a full court press and knock you off your game.

Search Spending

2009-05-14T09:29:00.002-04:00

I receive lots of daily newsletters, ranging from mobile to email to site usage to search. The information is valuable. Of course, I can't read all of them every day, but I do scan the headlines and click articles that sound interesting.

I received one this AM from eMarketer. They are in the business of selling information, and its expensive. They are a good source for all types of industry information and I'm lucky enough that my company pays for a license to the DB of research.

At the same time, most of this stuff is new - and there is a different between fact and opinion.

In this morning's article - SEARCH SPENDING SWELLS WORLDWIDE - they clearly show 55% of the companies polled plan to increase SEO spending. This is compared to email, social media, affiliate, etc.. Most of the channels are increasing but SEO is increasing at a faster rate.

Then comes all the opinion about why this is happening:
- search marketing is what savvy marketers rely on to attract new customers
- SEO has benefits over SEM
- SEM/SEO is "the best customer acquisition tool in the online space"
- SEO improves organic listing yet won't fall off if spending slows

Interesting opinions. Search is clearly important to online marketing efforts. But a good SEO campaign works in conjunction with a solid SEM campaign. Google is smart and will figure out the SEM items and the SEO links and move them upwards in the rankings together. I've read case studies that having both programs working together can boost response 20%.

Having them work together has all sorts of great benefits - lower cpc cost, more impressions, high click rates, etc...

I still think when it comes to search, there is a lot of learning to do on behalf of traditional direct marketers. I'm not even sure search is the best acquisition tool in the online space - it depends on what keywords you are bidding on and the quality of the lead - if its a branded term, yes, I agree. These customers were looking for you and will likely convert. If you are trying to step into the way of a broader keyword search - i.e. "reading" instead of "Jim's bookstore" - a bookseller may have a tougher time converting a sale on that word. Reading can mean so many things.

As a marketer, its always important to look at the facts, then clearly separate the opinions. Opinions are also important . . .but must be weighed against other ideas.

Andriod taking on Apple in 2009

2009-05-12T10:50:00.003-04:00

Recent email sent to me cut/pasted below. Written by John Paczkowski via All Things Digital. The date written is 5/11/09.

I wonder if Apple is simply too far ahead. Now the RIM has taken a large share of the market, Google will be the third person to the party. I don't think the Palm Pre has a chance. Too many devices already out in the market for them to make a dent.

Most industries become a three horse race - my guess is RIM will lead because, lets face it, Bbrry devices are more ubiquitous than iPhones. iPhones are really entertainment devices wrapped in a phone. Bbrrys are standard issue now for almost all executives.

________________________

2009 is going to be a banner year for Google’s (GOOG) Android mobile operating system. Strategy Analytics estimates shipments of handsets running the OS will grow 900 percent this year as more vendors adopt it. And at that rate, it will far outpace the growth of Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, whose shipments the company expects to increase just 79 percent in 2009.

“Android has fast been winning healthy support among operators, vendors and developers,” said Strategy Analytics director Neil Mawston. “A relatively low-cost licensing model, its semi-open-source structure and Google’s support for cloud services have encouraged companies such as HTC, Motorola, Samsung, T Mobile, Vodafone and others to support the Android operating system. Android is now in a good position to become a top-tier player in smartphones over the next two to three years.”

If that comes it pass, it’s bad news for Palm whose Pre handset and WebOS will be facing off against a powerful mobile triumvirate — Apple, Research in Motion and Google.

RIM now in a dead heat with iPhone

2009-05-05T08:51:00.003-04:00

BlackBerry's share of the smart phone market shot up from 10% to 50% with the Blackberry Curve. According to Mobile Marketer, most of this was because of the "buy1 get 1 free" marketing promotion RIM ran. All things being equal, this promotion doubles the device volume in the market.

What a very clever way to combat Apple and the iPhone. This gets back to the marketing strategy for someone in the #2 spot - be what #1 is not!

Apple is only on one carrier. Curve is on all four major carriers.

Apple is relatively expensive. You could get two Curve's for $199.

Getting the devices into people's hands is critical and RIM did that with a great promotion. With a 50% market share the RIM OS and the download store could rival iTunes if it is executed well.

Poor retention rates on Twitter

2009-05-04T14:02:00.002-04:00

Two interesting articles here. First is a post by Seth Godin about "friction" and why twitter will suffer from poor retention.

The second is a post with data points regarding the poor retention of twitter by Nielsen.

I'm a big fan of Seth Godin. Reading his books and his daily blog are today's equivalent of an MBA in Marketing. In this case, friction has a negative connotation to it. I believe what he means is, there is little personal vestment going on with new twitter users. Unlike Facebook and MySpace - there is a huge user vestment in setting up a page and connection with others.

Twitter is different. Twitter is a running tally of news and updates - - in a way, its a mix between and blog, RSS reader and connection tool. I use it to follow topics that I am interested in: industry news, guitars, golf, books, etc...

I think when new users come to Twitter, they follow their friends - if that is the case - Facebook will do just fine.

Users need to vest themselves in twitter - follow 50 people on a topic that you like. Try it for a few weeks. My guess is most will likely return.

If you join, follow 5 friends and post "its raining again," I agree, most won't came back for that. But if you can get access to content and sites geared towards your interests, that is a useful tool.

People need to vest themselves in Twitter before they give up on it!

Microsoft still trying to make gains in search

2009-05-03T22:05:00.002-04:00

Microsoft is still trying to make inroads with their search business. Currently locking in about 10% of the search market, LIVE is certainly nothing a company like MS can be happy about.

Sometime in the next few months, MS will launch Kumo. This will be their latest search engine project.

They are also still trying to purchase Yahoo. Yahoo has about 16% market share, so combined MS can control 25% of the market vs. Google's 64%. That makes it a closer race.

It will be interesting to see how '09 ends for MS and their search - obviously, MS employees don't even seem to be using the service over Google.

Another interesting point about the linked article are the postings. Everyone loves to talk about MS and the "monopoly" they have. You could say the same thing about Google and search and Apple with MP3 players. Of course, none of them have a monopoly per the definition of monopoly. Out of the three major titans, I do think MS is in the worst position. Its shrinking - Apple is growing and even Google, who completely relies on advertising revenue, is growing in a recession.

I also think perception is a major problem for MS - no one seems to like them. Apple has its army of users and Google has done an excellent job of building utility in their web services. The sheer mass and distribution they have is awesome on top of the incredible reach in search.

If MS can grab 25% of the search market they will be in a good position. They has shown an inability to battle Apple with the mobile and app market.

Definition of Social Media - maybe?

2009-04-28T09:14:00.003-04:00

Just read a definition of social media - its a blend of PR, marketing and advertising (props to Tom Smith at TrendStream, although I also see it written on ScottMonty's Ford twitter feed - not sure of the origination).

I agree with that statement, but I also think the mode of communication is real reason why Twitter has struck such a nerve. Its short and immediate - its mirrors how our entire society is moving - immediate gratification: its instant, scalable and easily searchable and therefore things are quick to find.

I also think social media gets back to push and pull marketing efforts. This phrase was the rage a few years ago. Its been a while since I've heard someone utter it. I think social media resides right on the fence. It is clearly a push mechanism. Companies are lobbing items out into the space and letting consumers take over. But its also a pull effort - its a great way to leverage free traffic back to a particular site or page - - it definitely helps with organic content.

Digg reverts toolbar iFrame exposure

2009-04-15T17:20:00.002-04:00

I think its a shame that Digg is getting lambasted for the iFrame Digg bar.

Yes, iFrame design is definitely over with - but the reason it was deemed poor UI is because it was synonymous with "stealing" another site's content - i.e. you frame my site on your site, so there is no reason to go to my site.

Digg, on the other hand, is in the business of both aggregating content but also distributing it. The toolbar clearly helped with the distribution of the content. The problem is that some saw this as Digg "stealing" it within their iFrame.

I don't agree.

As a content developer, the packaging of the content is irrelevant. Distribution of content is critical. Digg does that and does it very well with the toolbar. Could it impact site visits? Probably, but does the distribution of the content within the toolbar outweigh the potential loss of visitors? My guess is the answer is undoubtedly yes. The toolbar likely helped much more than it hurt.

Too bad they changed it.

A Cheat Sheet on "why should we be on Twitter?"

2009-04-14T14:48:00.003-04:00

Here is a good post about social media and how companies can use twitter. Its by Andrew Ballenthin at Sol Solutions.

How many of us have been asked by our boss, CMO or CEO about "what can we gain from using these social services." This is a really good cheat sheet of responses.

While it is simple and straightforward, that is also its strength.

The question really is, why aren't more people doing this effectively. These are new very direct ways to communicate with customers.

Some good quotes:

“Two-thirds of the world’s Internet population visit social networking or blogging sites… according to a new Nielsen report “Global Faces and Networked Places.” …that percentage is likely to grow as time spent on social network and blogging sites is growing more than three times the rate of overall Internet growth.”

As executives, managers and entrepreneurs talk in boardrooms, across water coolers and over coffee the question needs to shift from, “what is social media and is it right for us” to “let’s understand how these things work and figure out how we can be leaders in our industry as we innovate and embrace change.”

Online Video's biggest contributions

2009-04-13T17:39:00.002-04:00

Video is bound to be a big part of how the internet develops. I've written about it here before. People are visual beings. People do not read things (how many times have you seen a usability trial where the word "next" is ignored but an image of "next" is noticed immediately).

A really great article today that reminds us of how video has already impacted the viral nature of what we do and watch online. These are the 100 most iconic internet videos ever.

I would imagine the total views for these top 100 videos likely add up to about a half a billion views.

How difficult is it to get on Bethpage Black - 2009 US Open Course

2009-04-09T15:30:00.001-04:00

Notice received last week from Bethpage Golf:

ATTENTION GOLFERS

As most of you already know, the extraordinary demand for tee times on the Black Course always exceeds supply. This should not be surprising given the extraordinary design of the course, outstanding playing conditions, exceedingly reasonable price, and that there are now over 70,000 registered members in our reservation system. With our National Championship arriving this June, we fully expect demand to play the golf course to significantly increase paralleling demand that existed prior to the US Open in 2002.

As a result, we will be implementing the identical restrictions and tee time schedule which we established for the Black Course during the spring of 2002 until the course closed prior to the commencement of the Open.

Therefore, effective April 11, 2009, through May 31, 2009, a golfer may play the Black Course only one time. This includes a golfer playing under their own reservation or a reservation made by another and/or a walk-up.

All New York State residents must present either a valid New York State Driver License or a New York State Non-Driver Identification Card. If you are not a New York State resident, you must present a valid driver license from the state of your residence, or if unavailable, another form of photo ID as well a credit card. Golfers who play the Black Course once will neither be permitted to make another reservation nor play the course during the above referenced restricted time period.

From April 11, 2009, through May 31, 2009, the Black Course will be open from 8:00 am to 1:00 pm Tuesday through Sunday, and will be closed Monday. However, the Black will be open to the public on Monday, April 13, and closed to the public on Tuesday, April 14. The first hour of tee times will be devoted to walk-up golfers (24 players). Thereafter, access to the Black Course will be limited to telephone reservations (96 players). Additional walk-up times may become available throughout the day if either a reservationist no shows or a canceled tee time has not been reserved.

Following the conclusion of the US Open, we intend to reopen the Black Course for public play on June 27, 2009, at which time the course will return to its regular operating schedule and the normal one per month reservation restriction will govern play.

At a random time each night, a supervisor will distribute numbered bracelets to patrons parked in the designated, numbered parking spaces located in our overflow parking lot. The bracelet will be issued to one person in each car. The vehicle or parking spot must be continually occupied. A one hour break is permitted, however, the parking space must continue to be occupied. If a vehicle is not occupied for more than one hour, the patron(s) will be asked to move to the end of the line. The patron who was initially issued the bracelet must be present the following morning when bakery tickets are issued. At that time all individuals in each car will receive bracelets and bakery tickets. At no time will more then four bakery tickets or bracelets be issued per vehicle. This process will be followed for golfers in the first twenty cars. Thereafter, only bakery tickets will be issued.

Reservation holders and their fellow players will be braceleted at the cashier station. All patrons, whether playing on a reservation or as walk-up golfers, when registering with the starter must present an intact bracelet, and the bracelet must remain intact until the starter removes it just prior to play. It is essential for all golfers to recognize that if a determination is made by park staff that any bracelet has been tampered with, the player will forfeit his/her right to play the golf course that day. In the case of reservation holders, if the bracelet of any member of the group has been tampered with, then the entire group will be disqualified from playing the course that day. Furthermore, neither rain checks nor refunds will be issued as a result of procedural violations.

Patrons who have a reservation on the Black Course are required to register with the cashier one hour prior to their tee time. Golfers who have purchased green fee tickets for the Black Course are required to check in with the starter at least twenty minutes prior to their tee time. Failure to follow these procedures will result in forfeiture of your tee time and will count as your one round of play during this restricted play period.

Waiting for Cancellations
Patrons who are waiting for openings on the Black Course will be issued numbered bakery tickets by the monitoring ranger in the golfer registration area. The ranger will record the bakery ticket number and the patron's name. If an opening occurs, the ranger will call players from the waiting list, in sequential order. The patron must be present when a bakery ticket number is called. The bakery ticket is non-transferable. The starter will only move up golfers waiting at the tee, if the opening occurs twenty minutes or less from the tee time. For example, if at 9:00 am patrons in the 9:20 am tee time have not yet registered with the starter, the starter will move a golfer with the next earliest tee time into that slot. All other openings will be sold to golfers issued numbered bakery tickets.

Google Voice Introductory Email

2009-04-09T08:51:00.003-04:00

I received the following email this morning from Google Voice:

Hello GrandCentral User,

We are happy to announce that GrandCentral has been upgraded and is relaunching as Google Voice. While not yet open to the public, we wanted to give you, our GrandCentral users, the first opportunity to start using Google Voice.

In addition to the GrandCentral features you already know, we've added voicemail transcription, SMS support, conference calling, Goog411, enhanced spam protection and low-priced international calling. We have also integrated GrandCentral with your Google Account and your Google Contacts list.

To upgrade your account to Google Voice, just log in to your GrandCentral account and follow the directions at the top of your inbox. Upon upgrading, your GrandCentral number, PIN, and forwarding phones will be moved to Google Voice.

Note that since Google Voice uses the Google address book, your GrandCentral contacts will not be imported automatically. You can import your GrandCentral address book with these instructions. You will also need to recreate any individual/group settings and greetings.

After you upgrade, all your new voicemails will be accessible at Google Voice, while all prior messages will remain available at GrandCentral.

Thanks for being a great GrandCentral user and we hope you enjoy Google Voice!

Best,

Craig, Vincent, and the Google Voice team

Upon following the instructions, I can now see where google is headed. The interface looks similar to Gmail. Now users have access to email and voice within the google tabbed structure (maps, docs, reader, etc..). Messages can be heard or transcribed to txt and sent to you via email or SMS.

There is a very easy interface that allows Google to dial any number from the screen. It will ring your phone, then connect you via internet. Google credits you $1 for international calls. You can add credit with a credit card/pay pal.

I do like it because it combines email and voice fairly seamlessly. Unlike the clunky desk phone I have now where I miss 95% of the calls anyway.

Carriers are the next railroads unless they change

2009-04-08T16:45:00.002-04:00

A great quote from Jeff Bussgang from Venture Beat 4/6/09:

Carriers are seeing their content revenue (ringtones, ring backs) flatten out and seeing voice minutes saturate, so they are all over applications and advertising. That said, it’s probably too late. The industry is ripe for disruption. The landline businesses are dragging the diversified players down and their entrenched, proprietary strategy will be hard to sustain as the world moves more open and off-deck. The commoditization of communications infrastructure is a movie we’ve seen over and over again (see Railroads, Bankruptcy of) and it may take 10-15 years, but we will see it again here. The communications companies are at risk at becoming the next Newspaper industry if they don’t adapt fast.

iPhone App install rates for top apps via comscore

2009-04-08T16:08:00.002-04:00

An interesting article/release from comscore about iPhone apps and their penetration rates.

Out of the top 25, only 12 are games. Out of the 12 games, more than half are what I would consider "basic"" pac-man, bowling, sudoku, etc..

The rest are social network apps (Facebook, Myspace, AIM) or strange entertainment (bubble wrap, light saber).

As with most information coming out of apple, the information is incomplete. This lists the percentage of installs based on the user population - which I believe stands around 10-million strong and growing. Tap Tap, the top installed app, has a 32% installation, or 3.20-million installs.

No information is given about how often the app is used or even deleted. Free apps (which most of these are) likely have high delete rates.

Apps are definitely a great way to communicate with your customers in a controlled mobile environment. The sophistication of the apps stores are also getting better, with return policies and try before you buy periods (Apple hasn't started that yet but Microsoft and Google have).

More and more digital communication will begin to move out the "fringes" of the internet rather than dragging people back to a web page.

More support for twitter

2009-04-06T11:58:00.001-04:00

The new friendfeed is also very twitter-like in its use and construct.

http://beta.friendfeed.com/about/betatour

Take the tour with the link above.

Digg Bar provides more evidence that twitter has arrived

2009-04-03T16:02:00.003-04:00

The new digg bar is a quick way to interact with your digg content while also providing tiny URL's to post seamlessly onto twitter.

The most amazing thing is that Digg now becomes more of a "push"service rather than a "destination" site. I use Digg primarily to archive old articles I found helpful or contained important statistics. A user had to "go to" Digg to use the service.

Now - the new iframe tool bar is useful because a) a user doesn't need to be tethered to the Digg site anymore, and b) is allows a user to view comments, views, Digg# and even search on related content right from the toolbar.

And most importantly - it creates a tiny URL for easy cut/past into Twitter, Facebook or an email.

Its no surprise its those three options - - I would guess those three modes of communication are here to stay as a major channel.

Facebook's Growing Pains

2009-04-01T16:08:00.002-04:00

Facebook is amazing. Its growing at a rate of almost 1-million users per day. They will have 200 million users in total very soon. The company is only 5 years old.

Massive growth often causes massive problems.

See here

Here - here

and here.

Seems like Mr. Zuckerberg has made plenty of enemies in the last 5 years. He's also dismissed what seems like a fairly talented bunch on his executive team.

You can look at this two ways - one, he's a problem to work with. Or, two - he has a vision and he's bouncing anyone who departs from the chosen path. There are plenty of people who have started successful companies that were later ousted (Yang) or left (Jobs . .only to return) or ruined things (Case).

Facebook is at a very awkward age and the decisions it makes in the next 12 months will be tough to reverse or walk away from. Obviously its a huge ad conduit - but it really has to become more than a big advertising venue (even Google is learning that lesson right now). Its a new way for people to connect and socialize, which is a basic human tendency.

Once Facebook goes public, we'll see if Zuckerberg stays - he won't have the stamina to bounce so many execs and watch the stock price fall.

Obama is going to fix GM - and its time

2009-03-31T09:47:00.003-04:00

Here is an amazing quote from a story in today's NYT by Dave Sanger.

What is awe-inspiring is that everyone knows that GM needs to be "fixed". If you read between the lines - what this quote illustrates is that GM was always behind the curve yet its workers were paid more and received great benefits.

So . . . subpar performance resulted in higher pay and great benefits?

Who can argue against Obama "fixing" GM - its time! Obama is showing a lot of vision in not just fixing the company but shaping the industry for the future. No watered down law changes or taxes on imports this time.

But to Mr. Obama’s critics, who have thrown around the word “socialism,” the distinction may be lost. And in many ways Mr. Obama’s ambitions go far beyond Truman’s: He displayed a willingness to use his powers expansively not just to cope with the immediate crisis, butto reshape the industry for when times get better.

“It should have happened years ago,” said Mary Ann Keller, a longtime auto analyst who has been unrelentingly critical of G.M. for, in her words, “being perpetually two years behind the curve.”

“It must have come as shock to their management, because when you think about it, the government never said no to them before,” Ms. Keller said. “When G.M. complained about the Japanese, the government got ‘voluntary restraints’ on car imports. When G.M. said it would be hurt by fuel efficiency standards, the standards were usually watered down.”

As the company’s lender of last, last resort, the government will have the final say on every significant decision until the company is turned back out into the free market. And for Mr. Obama, that entails many political risks.

If the generous health care plans that autoworkers have grown accustomed to are pared back, if wages fall to something closer to what workers at the Japanese and German transplants in the South are paid, it will be Mr. Obama — not G.M.’s management — who will be blamed.

Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed

2009-03-31T09:21:00.003-04:00

Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed

This is a great image of major stock crashes of the past and how long it took to gain back 100% of the value. It looks like it takes anywhere from 2-5. The 2000 crash took about 2 years. The crash of 1929 took a little over 20 years to fully recover.

Of course, this assumes we are at the bottom right now . . . . .

Posted using ShareThis

Rick Wagoner's goodbye email

2009-03-30T16:11:00.002-04:00

CEO's usually get too much blame when things go wrong, but they also get too much credit when things go right. Mr. Wagoner has to "step aside" from GM. During his tenure GM market position slipped from 33% to 18%. The company is on the brink of bankruptcy that could plunge the economy single-handily into another mini-depression for the another year.

People wonder why CEO's make millions? Well, in this case - if the company goes under, so does the world economy. I think thats worth a few million per year.

And is Mr. Wagoner to blame? Partly, because he didn't change the company enough.

But companies will only change when there is an absolute dire need to change - such as survival. GM was making it before the crash - not making it well, but making it. Companies won't throw out the baby with the bathwater until they realize the baby isn't a baby at all.

Today - GM found that it doesn't have a baby. He's out as well as most of the managing directors and board members. Real change can now happen.

The amazing thing is, he's still optimistic. About what? I'm not too sure.

What he should have done is highlighted where they failed and urged the remaining employees to do everything in their power to change. The current formula is broken - no matter how great the employees are.

GM Message from Rick Wagoner

On Friday I was in Washington for a meeting with Administration officials. In the course of that meeting, they requested that I “step aside” as CEO of GM, and so I have.

Fritz Henderson is an excellent choice to be the next CEO of GM. Having worked closely with Fritz for many years, I know that he is the ideal person to lead the company through the completion of our restructuring efforts. His knowledge of the global industry and the company are exceptional, and he has the intellect, energy, and support among GM’ers worldwide to succeed. I wish him well, and I stand ready to support him, and interim Non-Executive Chairman Kent Kresa, in every way possible.

I also want to extend my sincerest thanks to everyone who supported GM and me during my time as CEO. I deeply appreciate the excellent counsel and commitment of the GM Board and the strong support of our many partners including our terrific dealers, suppliers, and community leaders. I am grateful as well to the union leaders with whom I have had the chance to work closely to implement numerous tough but necessary restructuring agreements.

Most important of all I want to express my deepest appreciation to the extraordinary team of GM employees around the world. You have been a tremendous source of inspiration and pride to me, and I will be forever grateful for the courage and commitment you have shown as we have confronted the unprecedented challenges of the past few years. GM is a great company with a storied history. Ignore the doubters because I know it is also a company with a great future.

Blind Loyalty sometimes does not work

2009-03-25T09:14:00.006-04:00

This story did not make it on a lot of news shows yesterday - probably because the "carnage" was relatively low. Only 4 people dead. Our news shows need more than that these days.

The story is tragic because it could have been avoided. This is the case with most accidents, but this is so obvious it leaves you shaking your head.

An F/A-18 military training flight crashed into a single family house. It killed 4 occupants. The pilot ejected to safety.

During the flight, the pilot's right engine blew out. He then was low on gas and then warning lights turned on for his left engine. I would say this is as "grave" a situation gets when flying.

The pilot was training landing on aircraft carriers. They steered him clear of the aircraft carrier and sent him back to the mainland. This is where things get questionable.

The pilot was a Marine pilot. The fact is he flew right over a navy base - the question is - why? People in the armed services will tell you they did this to avoid the "inconvenience" of dealing with Navy aviation maintainers, who it seems are quiet troublesome to deal with if you aren't in the Navy or flying Navy equipment. He tried to land at a Marine base further away, and he didn't make it. Killing 4 in the process.

You can listen to the flight audible here. About 3/4 of the way through, the control says rather matter-of-factly, "we'll fly you right over North Island Navel Station." The pilot says nothing.

The pilot and 14 members of the crew were dismissed from the Marines.

Ties that bind so tightly that cloud reasonable thinking are never good . . . .blind loyalty needs to have limits.

How would you feel if someone in your family was killed because a Marine did not want a Navy mechanic to work on his plane?

Obama seeing the big picture on bonuses

2009-03-23T21:19:00.003-04:00

It is very important the Obama NOT pass this crazy 90% tax on bonuses.

No matter how crazy it is that these people received these bonuses, it is even more crazy that the Congress drafted such a law.

Why?

Because it sets a very dangerous precedent - - and that is - - if you ever upset Congress or the "citizens of the US" we are going to kill you with a tax.

This is nothing but confiscation of personal property. Obama is doing the right thing by not supporting it. If this was passed, it would definitely be in front of the Supreme Court within months.

Funny that the organization famed for pork barrel projects and spending millions where it is not needed feels obliged to give advice on finances . . . .

US Made cars are better - they swear

2009-03-18T21:48:00.002-04:00

Mike Hughes, president and creative director, The Martin Agency

"As powerful as advertising and marketing are, they're not going to save the American car industry. What the industry needs is a vision. The kind Bill Gates had for software, Steve Jobs has for Apple, and, yes, Henry Ford had for automobiles. Don't just give us what you think we want; give us what we should want.

Don't keep telling us your cars are every bit as good now as Toyotas or Hondas. That's probably true today, but you've been trying to sell us that line for far too long. Tell us why we should want your cars. If you can't figure out what makes your product special, then it's probably not special. When you do have something to say, market the hell out of it. Boy, would I love to do that campaign."

Great quote - you know you have a good product when you don't have to tell people how good it is. Today, really great products spread word of mouth.

If your message is trying to convice people that "we are better then them" something is definitely wrong. Marketing is a battle of perception - perception is reality.

Russia on point with negotiation tactics

2009-03-17T13:03:00.005-04:00

Anyone who has ever negotiated a deal will tell you rule #1 is always negotiate from a position of power or influence. Rule #2 is understand the other party's thinking -what are they trying to get out of this. And #3, determine a floor that is acceptable and don't go below it.

So, what the heck does all this mean.

Take a look at what Russia did today. Russia is planning a large scale re-arming.

An interesting time to make such an announcement. The finances of Russia make the situation here in the US seem like our cups flow'ith over.

They will be meeting the new US administration next month and need to counter-balance the notion that they exhibited major problems when fighting Georgia (not the state . . .the country) a while back.

By doing this - they immediately scare everyone. No one wants a stronger military in Russia. Second, they mildly threaten NATO - they, "cited encroachment by NATO as a primary reason for bolstering the armed and nuclear forces."

In one press session, they have just satisfied rule #1. They threatened to "become" a power and singled out NATO (read, the US). Now, when meeting with Obama, they are sitting much more in the driver's seat that they were yesterday, when they were "weak".

They satisfy #2 because the US is very transparent - the US does not want a stronger Russian military. Russian knows this and will play off it.

And #3 . . . my guess is they want money - probably in the form of trade or export provisions, maybe oil?

I guess we will have to see what the US hands over this time to quell the "military build up" threat. Those crazy Russians . . . they sure read their MBA books on deal negotiating . . .

Web 3.0?

2009-03-16T16:50:00.005-04:00

Web 3.0 will be about identity portability (and probably video...).

TweetDeck latches onto the Facebook connect today. I don't happen to use TweetDeck but I looked over the shoulder the other day watching someone use it, and it seemed a great tool. It allows users to split followers into groups. This allows you to follow your hobbies or friends more easily without having to dig through the page.

The way sites digest and repurpose your information is becoming more commonplace.

Last night was able to get my blip.fm account to feed Twitter which feeds my Facebook page feed. I now have about 5 sites directly feeding Facebook. I visited my Facebook page for the first time in a few days yesterday and it looks like I've spent hours on it. It is all very seamless.

These connections will be important - there is only so much time a user can invest in a blog or a site. Most users will not be willing to start something new or join yet another online group or discussion forum - at the same time, if the user can leverage what they are doing to create more content, they probably will.

The next battle is for the phone

2009-03-13T13:18:00.004-04:00

Two developments today that again show the next big battle is going to be between the .coms and the telecommunication companies.

First, Google announces an enhanced Google Voice based off the Grand Central service. The service allows you to aggregate your phone numbers into one and control what phone rings when the number is called. It also allows free internet calling through the system.

The second comes in the form of Verizons new privacy changes. It allows people to "opt-out" of Verizon's information sharing policy, wich includes; "services purchased (including specific calls you make and receive), billing info, technical info and location info. They promise to only share this with 'affiliates, agents and parent companies. Customers have 45 days to notify Verizon if they do not want to participate. Ouch!!!!

First, I've used Grand Central for over 7 months and think I used it once. My phone numbers are like email accounts now - I give one to businesses, I give one one friends and I give one to people that I never plan to speak to again. Unless you have a job that requires you to be "found" quickly - I don't see the point in this service - and even if you were an emergency worker, you probably already have a service that does this very well.

Second - -Verizon - - what are you thinking? You can never go backwards when it comes to privacy. You can never ask for more - - I want to share more about you, Mr. Customer - so that I can make more money off you! That doesn't work.

I think what this illustrates is a .com moving in on new telcom turf and telcom attempting a re-do on their privacy policy to be more like a .com.

In the end - everyone is after the same thing: customer information in order to provide relevancy in ad targeting and product placements.

The phone is the next great battlefield.

Changing everything is too difficult

2009-03-12T21:53:00.002-04:00

When industry norms start to die, people panic. It's difficult to change when you think that you must change everything in order to succeed. Changing everything is too difficult.

-Seth Godin

What a great quote. If you work at a company or an industry where "everything" must change - then you are likely in trouble. Companies only change when there is a total sense of urgency. It is human nature to gravitate to what we know and what makes us comfortable.

Changing is difficult and changing "everything" is close to impossible.

Its a lot easier to start fresh . . . its more optimistic.

A good leader

2009-03-10T22:02:00.000-04:00

And a great example of a good leader. Way to go Thomas Dart!

Leaders can fail you part II

2009-03-10T21:54:00.003-04:00

And another example, that those who lead us should always be questioned.

Madoff will likely plead guilty. He has bankrupted not only friends and neighbors, but charities and non-profits.

Way to go . . . .

When leaders fail

2009-03-10T17:12:00.004-04:00

The plight of former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick in Detroit is a parody on how to fail as a leader. He broke rule #1 - with great power comes great responsibility.

It is also a lesson that people need to be careful who they choose to lead (and who they choose to be their boss). Your leader impacts your life more than you think!

The messages prove he thought he was above reproach. He favored individuals and obviously abused his power by leasing vehicles and handing out jobs.

The amazing thing is that he thought he was portraying himself as a leader.

Some of the better quotes:

A leader in denial!

"I wanted you to know now," legal counsel Ruth Carter writes him. "This is not supposed to go to the media."

The mayor declines, with vigor.

"F--- that," Kilpatrick writes back. "It will go to the Media.

Carter replies: "Technically it is not supposed to be released by either party ..."

Kilpatrick: "It will be Released! Reject that Bull----. F--- THEM!

It was a rejection Kilpatrick would come to rue. He ended up secretly settling those claims, and another involving a third cop, for $8.4 million plus legal fees in 2007.

A leader surrounded by "yes" men (or mothers, in this case).

U.S. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Detroit, weighed in first, asking her son to call, and reminding him, "YOU ARE CHOSEN."

A leader in complete denial!

"The difference! This is politics and PR. People want to see thier mayor be a leader, make a strong affimative stmt, then shut up ... I was confident and calm. I believe there has to be one comment of disgust and indignation. Women (79 % of voters) loved that (expletive). Young men always have a (expletive) them (expletive) attitude. I choose women. Fight for family, children."

Two points of view

2009-03-09T20:58:00.004-04:00

Consider these two articles:

The first is a warning from Google that their revenues are "down considerably". Of course, their version of down is only 10% growth as opposed to the normal 25% growth. Not bad when you consider most companies are down 10%-50%.

The second article highlights that CBS has increased its online ad revenue 30% y-o-y, from $23-million last year to $30-million this year.

Advertising dollars are still out there. Advertisers need to get their message out. More is happening with online management of events, like the NCAA tournament or The Masters or the NBA playoffs. Not much new is happening with search engine marketing . . . .video, scoreboards, sponsorships, txt updates, mobile updates - an "event" has a natural draw to repeat visitors, hence repeated impressions of a marketing message.

People always need a new story to tell but advertising is still about the basics - combine a great vehicle with a matching brand and create a great campaign that targets the desired audience with repeat messaging . . . . Google doesn't have that. CBS does with the NCAA tournament.

G5 vs. others = not even a contest

2009-03-04T21:34:00.003-05:00

A recent article quote from Yahoo Auto:

The G5 trails the majority of compact cars when it comes to comfort, quality and performance, leading to a poor U.S. News ranking. Its sticker price is also a bit higher than many competitors, and it's expected to depreciate as much as 60 percent within the first five years of ownership - twice as fast as its top-ranked competitors. In addition, five years of fueling and maintaining the G5 is estimated to cost you $5,000 to $10,000 more than Honda's Fit or Civic. The G5's future is unclear since GM has announced plans to shrink the Pontiac model line significantly. Pontiac sold just 767 G5s nationwide in January.

Better values: If you're in the market for a compact car, consider the Honda Fit and Hyundai Elantra.

Why are we bailing out Detroit again?

Facebook goes after Twitter

2009-03-04T16:58:00.002-05:00

Proof again that today's hero can be tomorrow's ghost. If Facebook is right, they could kill Twitter by simply copying the format and speed of the micro-blogging service.

Not to mention, they can take it a step further with Facebook connect. Not only can they post in real time, but anything they do on other sites will feed into the posting.

They eliminated the max number of fans, which is a good thing for corporate America. CEO, Zuckerburg writes:

"What we’re talking about today, is that there’s a philosophical change in that we want to converge these public figures (which are one way) and friends (two way connections)."

He's making it easier for companies to attract a following and communicate in real time with the fans. I smell a monthly fee coming for any company on Facebook......

Don't feel too bad, Twitter - - I still have a Friendster account . . . somewhere.

Facebook Reverts its ToS

2009-02-26T15:17:00.002-05:00

Facebook has to be careful with user data. Its a catch-22 for them - a blessing and a curse.

Advertisers drool at the amount of detailed information users have on their page - what you eat, where you travel, your email, your IM, where you live, your life status, your age . . etc... Its all right there. Ad networks would be lucky to capture 20% of the information Facebook has on about 180-million people (I think that was the last count - you'd need to double check that number).

As you can see last week, if they try to exploit this situation, users will flee. Facebook reverted to its old ToS last week after changing them to explain that they own user data indefinitely. Obviously there was a huge backlash.

Facebook and other social network sites need to be careful with this. They are sitting on what makes them so valuable but they have not found a way to harness that data without alienating its users.

Facebook really needs to adopt a store within a store strategy. They could use that data to display relevant products. They need to go beyond advertising into content delivery and merchandise.

Email growth

2009-02-25T11:29:00.002-05:00

Email is a great way for companies to stay in touch with customers and deliver highly targeted offers in a cheap format. You wonder why so few companies make it a larger portion of their overall budget:

Email represented only .4% of a companies overall DR budget in 2008 and made up only 1.5% of a companies DR revenue, per eMarketer Daily.

A quote:

“Retailers ratcheted up their e-mail marketing campaigns to aggressively compete for consumers’ dwindling spending dollars,” says Jeff Grau, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, Retail E-Mail: Online Marketing Strategies. “That was due largely to the fact that e-mail is cheap to administer and delivers an ROI far superior to paid search, catalogs and other marketing media.”

Nevertheless, for retailers with large advertising budgets, e-mail campaigns represent only a tiny fraction of their marketing budgets

“E-mail marketing still accounts for only 1.5% of direct marketing budgets in the US,” says Mr. Grau.

Promotional email volume is accelerating but clearly does not get the respect it deserves as a channel. Email has proven to be the #1 ROI device in any digital channel. Meanwhile, more people of flooding dollars into search marketing. Search expenditures are expected to increase from roughly $12-billion to $28-billion over the next 5 years.

I think this is because email is tough to do correctly and the penalties are very stiff for SPAM'ing people. Search is very measurable and can be started and stopped quickly - no DB's, no segments, no deployments. At the same time, email is likely going to be the DR channel of choice over the next 5-7 years. As companies get smarter about email and the technology (and laws) fall more in-line with commercial efforts - email will likely become one of the bigger digital channels.

Pontiac Brand killed by GM

2009-02-20T16:44:00.005-05:00

If you mentioned Pontiac to anyone under 25 they might look at you with a wrinkled nose. What exactly does Pontiac stand for today? Who knows . . . .

30 years ago - and this is very hard to believe - Pontiac stood for sexy cars. In fact, it was the center of muscle car madness. take a look at the image below. What once were stylish and sought after cars, became the Astek and the current GTO.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/02/20/business/20pontiac2_600.JPG

GM made one of the biggest mistakes by concentrating on cost savings rather than differentiation back in the 1980's. It is essentially what is killing the company right now (other than the union costs). Each division built almost the same car - there was little difference between them. They took a Firebird and turned it into a 2005 GTO because the frame could be shared with a Mercury.

A brand stands for a level of expectation - what does your company brand stand for . . .it should only be 1 or 2 words.