Published on May 30, 2008
in Ideas.
Just a few thoughts on indifference. I recently read that the Jesuits (a christian religious order) wanted their members to be indifferent. Indifferent to money. Indifferent to power. Indifferent to authority. Indifferent in that they could take it. Or. Leave it. The Jesuits taught that when people are indifferent they can focus on the major initiative untainted by alterior motives.
Would the democrats be better off if we were indifferent to Obama or Hillary? Would our customers be better served if we were indifferent to profits?
The only way I see a group, a party, or a company can benefit from indifference is if they have one defined mission.
Published on May 20, 2008
in Ideas.
I rarely get this question from someone we don’t hire, but today, I received this email.
Thank you for getting back to me and I’m sorry that I wasn’t a right fit for the job although I was very eager and highly interested about the position.
If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you from your discussion … can provide me with some interviewing advice. I would like to know how I could improve and what my weak areas were. It would really help me in my job search process.
Since this was an engineering position, we’ll assume you have the technical chops. But, if you’re a college hire you need to make up for experience. Here is my quick reply…
If I could give you a tip or two.
1. Use the product as much as you can before interviewing.
2. Know competitors and have questions and insights ready to ask.
3. Make a site or two as home projects so you can demo them. Maybe even a facebook app.
I think the big thing to stand out is to demonstrate amazing initiative when you’re just coming out of college. This will help separate you from more experienced candidates.
Published on May 20, 2008
in Ideas.
There has been some quality discussion on California gay marriage ruling lately. Interesting to read the diverse perspectives. It’s wrong because California voters were ignored? What’s the definition of marriage? Religious zealots upset? Stay out of peoples lives…
Seems like lots of people have something to say about it.
Published on May 16, 2008
in Ideas.
Long before social networks started becoming the new portal, the primary communication tools (email, chat) of portals struggled to monetize users. But, services like Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, Gmail offer a sticky service that keeps users coming back over and over again. $.25 CPMs for domestic traffic may be considered pretty good in these environments which is similar to what social networks earn today. The value in the communication service is the ability to offer high value editorial content to the huge audiences these services attract. Think of email as a funnel and the programming around it as a science to heard users into high value context like search, financial tools, shopping, and researching cars.
Social networks are largely communication platforms that are similar to email. My belief, the key to monetize the users and increase the value of the visitor is to create context around the actions beyond communicating (email). This is where advertisers will pay premium CPMs and where applications built on top of the social networks have huge opportunities to create experiences with valuable context.
The next thing social networks need to realize is that they have the opportunity to control the “start” experience of an internet visitor. This means becoming the homepage for every visitor. There are three hugely valuable things that happen when you become the starting point at scale. One is the ability to direct traffic at scale via editorial programming. This needs to be done at a personalized level, but will still offer scale in reach to advertisers. The second thing is the massive scale that advertisers get when they purchase ads like on the homepage of Yahoo or MSN. There aren’t many places this reach can be purchased and it’s expensive inventory that is sold out quickly. Lastly is search. As social networking sites get better at combining social search with general search this will lead in a shift from people heading to Google to people searching within the social networks. By making search a more prominent feature, this will lead to dramatic increases in monetization.
Published on May 7, 2008
in Ideas.
It wasn’t all that long ago when Kobe was accused of raping a women in Colorado. At the time, many of his sponsors started distancing themselves from him. Fast forward a few years … he wins his first league MVP, the Lakers win the West and look like they’ll go deep in to the playoffs.
From a marketing perspective, has his personal brand fully recovered? If not, what would it take?
My feeling is if it hasn’t by now, it never will.
I get asked from time to time what blogs I read. Here is a selection of blogs that cover ad sales, ad news, online marketing, and social media.
http://blog.contextweb.com - good corporate blog
http://www.doshdosh.com/ - social media marketing
http://www.paidcontent.org/ - content and news focused
http://www.marketingvox.com - marketing news
http://www.marketingsherpa.com - digital marketing case studies
http://www.shoemoney.com - more grass roots affiliate marketing
http://www.adrants.com - Insight to ad creative
Published on May 2, 2008
in Ideas.
There are a few different types of resumes I like to see, especially for engineering.
1. First are people that have been through military training. The military must be disciplined, and highly organized. When people with extensive military training become civilians they often translate these skills to the real world by focusing on a mission and executing.
2. The second are entrepreneurs that have started companies. They have another level of understanding of how difficult it is to create a viable company and insights on what to do to be successful. They are often practical in their approach, and have real world learnings of competing for customers in the trenches. They also tend to have an interest in the overall business beyond their job scope and a deeper understanding and commitment to a mission.
Published on April 30, 2008
in Ideas.
The bar for ecommerce is rising. My wife ordered new kids bedding from Kuku Nest. The bedding quickly arrived with a hand written thank you note from the owner. Wow. A hand written personal note.
When I think of having an online store I think of how efficient it can be. The order comes in, the credit card is charged, the shipping label is automatically printed, the item is pulled and boxed, and the shipping company is notified.
When are things like writing a personal thank you note worth the extra effort? It’s not scalable, it takes time, but it is impressive. So remarkable that I bet it’s excellent marketing.
Published on April 30, 2008
in Ideas.
One of the things that has rapidly changed since blogging began to grow in popularity are all of the brands that are following the discussions that mention them. I made a post about content delivery networks and the struggle I had getting quotes. After that post, no problem getting a quote. The funny thing is that they were better prepared to react to a blog post than they were to just answer the phone.
Published on April 22, 2008
in Ideas.
I’m playing in a basketball league at USF. We had a 9:40 game last week. Pretty late for me, plus had a long day and was waiting for resolution on a support call I had placed. I was thinking of skipping the game. But, we only have 6 players, so if someone doesn’t show up, we are in trouble. At the end of the day, I largely showed up because I committed to play, and felt a responsibility to the team.
If you’re going it alone, and find it tough to stay motivated, get yourself a team. It will help.
