Igniting the Revolution...

This is my final post on this blog. Please update your browsers to this link And your RSS readers here . Thanks for reading!

Fair amount of hullaballoo (at least in the virtual circles in which I run) about the social media aggregator sites. The leading candidates FriendFeed AlertThingy SocialThing Each promises to pull in "streams" from sites such as Facebook , Twitter...

Let me admit upfront. This isn't my idea at all. I'm lifting it wholesale from Virginia Miracle of OgilvyPR who has a brands worthy of a weekend category. Why? Because I think it is a great litmus test for the value you are delivering. It's a good one...

Do Price and Quality go hand in hand? We know that they don't, but as consumers, we aren't always rational. When lacking other information, our minds have been conditioned to take the mental shortcut. Higher price equals higher quality. Was watching DVR...

Let's assume for a minute that you are trying to build a unique 'global micro-brand .' You know that every single interaction with another individual matters and can increase or decrease the value of your brand. But, are there times when you can (or should...

If you are buying advertising, how do you know you are getting "a good deal?" There's no market clearinghouse for advertising a la Nasdaq that allows you to see what the prices are across the web. Well, my friend Amar Goel just pinged me with the launch...

It's been a few years since I read Sun Tzu's the Art of War, but Google's announcement yesterday of an App Engine that scales using Google Infrastructure is nothing less than a full frontal assault at Microsoft's server business. The attack on the desktop...

Make yourself a Tweetcloud ( here's mine ). Good chance to take a look at HOW you are communicating using twitter. Are your words adding value? Making an impact? Or just making noise?

If we're truly in the "attention economy," then a book like Hypnotic Writing could definitely be a competitive advantage for any of us. I liked the concrete suggestions on how to improve your writing, the recognition that it's not a "quick fix" to do...

Which comes first? The story or the work? The story or the product? Seth Godin raised this theoretical question (and gave an answer) in yesterday's post. Today, in chatting with an MS sales rep re: the challenges of selling Microsoft CRM [CRM=Customer...

If we've said it once, we've said it a thousand times, no company, no individual can "control the message anymore." This is the fundamental shift of marketing today. Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell drive this point home in their book "Citizen Marketers...

is of course, when you have a job. And, the best time to "work your network" is when you don't really need your network. Quick story from today to illustrate the point. Got a call from Jason Schwartz , one of the more intelligent people I know. (Full...

Call out to my cuz, Ben , for this one.

Ok, so let's say you are a brand manager at P&G or a product manager at Microsoft... Or let's say you are a sales executive at a professional services firm... And let's say that you believe 100% that traditional marketing is dead and that social marketing...

Few things build a person's credibility with me faster than honest feedback. Met Bill from Neudesic last night at a Microsoft partner networking event. He said: "hey, I've been on a call that you hosted before" (maybe same one as Veronica?) I said: "so...

Veronica Kennedy is getting married in October. For the past 2 months, I've followed the wedding challenges she's faced via Status Updates on Facebook. It's been fun to see her get the dress, book the hall, etc. Thing is, I had never met her face to face...

The book Wikinomics offers up the idea that Internet technologies will enable companies to more closely collaborate with customers in product development. I don't know if they had yogurt in mind, but why the heck not? The Stonyfield guys have done a nice...

Because she listens. I posted a review of her book, Brazen Careerist, on my personal blog (as well as this one) and she wrote a comment. You know what that says to me? She's scanning the net for discussions about her. She's listening to what people are...

At first I thought, "another self-help book by a would-be know-it-all." I'd read Penelope Trunk's columns over the years in a few different places and she struck me as someone with a big ego. Hey, just being honest here. But, I'd heard some...

The appeal of blogs to a corporation is the ability for an individual to effectively scale his communication. There is no doubt that you can reach a huge audience through your blog. But that audience is built one at a time. Not literally. But, by how...

More than one person ( Ben Gordon and Mike Fox , for starters) have asked the question of how I measure/track the blog. Let me start by offering this... RSS is the KEY The single most important measure of blog success is "how many people have subscribed...

There's a lot of debate in the blogosphere about the value of a recommendation on LinkedIn. Are they fluff pieces? Are they valuable? Obviously, you should take them with a grain of salt (but that's true of traditional references as well, I suppose),...

If you are a power Outlook user, there is still no SaaS/online substitute for what you do. But, Facebook's recent feature add of "Lists" is the closest thing I've seen to the 'Categories" feature that is so critical to my relationship management...

If you read my review of SuperCrunchers and are as convinced as I am about the value of using smart data to help your customer acquisition efforts, then the next step is to figure out how to actually DO IT. Short answer: not easy Long answer: there's...

Unfortunately, it's not going to happen. Ok, well it might, but the odds are seriously against you. Mark Cuban had a great post on this at More on Blogs, The Long Tail and Following vs Leading . So, if you are not going to get rich and famous by becoming...