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March 2008 - Posts

Thursday, March 27, 2008 10:24 AM

Collaborative Yogurt...

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
Posted by jerman of the board | 0 Comments
Wednesday, March 26, 2008 5:23 PM

Why I Love Penelope Trunk...

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
Posted by jerman of the board | 0 Comments
Wednesday, March 26, 2008 11:30 AM

Book Review: Brazen Careerist

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
Posted by jerman of the board | 1 Comments
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Wednesday, March 26, 2008 8:59 AM

Blogging is a retail business...

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
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Sunday, March 23, 2008 10:11 PM

How I measure blog success...

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
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Sunday, March 23, 2008 11:34 AM

Recommendations as Relationship Builders...

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),
Posted by jerman of the board | 1 Comments
Friday, March 21, 2008 2:42 AM

Facebook as Outlook Killer?

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
Posted by jerman of the board | 0 Comments
Thursday, March 20, 2008 2:00 PM

Book: Business Intelligence-the Savvy Manager's Guide

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
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Thursday, March 20, 2008 6:20 AM

Get Rich by Blogging...

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
Posted by jerman of the board | 2 Comments
Wednesday, March 19, 2008 2:28 PM

Is Your Setup Virtual-Enabled?

One of the smartest things I've done in my home PC setup was to install Virtual PC (also a version for Mac). Why? Simple: Test with no regret I love testing out new software. But, we all know what it can do to your system (just slow it down to outright
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Tuesday, March 18, 2008 2:14 PM

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should

By now, you've been on the receiving end (and perhaps the sending end) of someone's vacation photo album. The sites are so easy now that with a few clicks, you can upload 300 pictures. But, because it's easy for you to do it, doesn't mean it's easy for
Posted by jerman of the board | 1 Comments
Monday, March 17, 2008 5:42 PM

It's the Headline, Stupid!

And I'm talking to myself on that one. In this attention economy , when the headline of my blog posts are syndicated via twitterfeed , to Twitter and then on to FB, Skype, and Plaxo, the key is to have a good headline (and now I've added FriendFeed to
Posted by jerman of the board | 0 Comments
Sunday, March 16, 2008 1:13 PM

Go Green, Get Green

    Is doing the right thing for the wrong reason ok? Let's take T-mobile for example. I've been a customer for 10 years (since they were VoiceStream) and very satisfied. For whatever reason, I've been getting a paper bill in the mail all these
Posted by jerman of the board | 4 Comments
Saturday, March 15, 2008 9:56 PM

What makes a good status update?

I know I said that the purpose of a status update is to stimulate conversation , but, I am going to modify that slightly. The purpose of the status update is to build your online brand. Or, as Hugh MacLeod might say, your " global micro-brand " So, how
Posted by jerman of the board | 1 Comments
Friday, March 14, 2008 6:03 AM

What $150 million buys you...

At least one part of the ad inventory that MS has purchased on Facebook seems to be directed at existing MS employees on Facebook. Good for them. In building a community of passionate evangelists/advocates, one of the best (if not the best) place to start
Posted by jerman of the board | 1 Comments
Thursday, March 13, 2008 9:31 AM

Go Where They Are...Touching Your Social Networks...

In a simpler time, I had everything about my contacts in Outlook. My strategy is simple. At a minimum, a network contact will get an email from me with a brief update quarterly get a call from me on his/her birthday Over time, as my network has expanded,
Posted by jerman of the board | 0 Comments
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Wednesday, March 12, 2008 12:56 PM

A Customer with a Megaphone...

Community marketing in a nutshell: Find the people who are naturally interested in your product/service. Reach out to them. Inform them (don't sell them). Excite them They will take it from there. A little bit of work and a big impact. Here's the evidence
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Tuesday, March 11, 2008 10:26 AM

Stimulate Conversation through Content Syndication...

Once you have your status syndicated across multiple social networks , the next thing is to have your content syndicated as well. The objective is the same...stimulate the conversation. If each of us is our ow n channel , we need to think of the type
Posted by jerman of the board | 0 Comments
Monday, March 10, 2008 3:17 PM

Outlook/Twitter/Facebook...Starting a Conversation

I'll throw out there that the purpose of a status update is to: stimulate conversation... If you can write a short note that gets awareness and attention (see attention economy), that's remarkable. And, if by doing so, you create a conversation with members
Posted by jerman of the board | 0 Comments
Monday, March 10, 2008 2:56 PM

The Attendee Experience...

When planning an in-person marketing event, the first thing I do is put together an "Experience Brief." Much like a business plan, it is my vision for how the guests at the event will experience the day.   Read more here at the new blog...
Posted by jerman of the board | 0 Comments
Friday, March 07, 2008 11:12 AM

New RSS Feed...

I would be honored if you subscribed to the new RSS feed for Igniting the Revolution. Why is it moving? See here .
Posted by jerman of the board | 1 Comments
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Thursday, March 06, 2008 10:39 AM

Front Page of the New York Times...

My dad used to say to us growing up: "Act as if what you are doing will be on the front page of the New York Times." In an analog era, there was some, but not much risk of that happening. In a digital era, the exposure opportunity on the scale (or beyond)
Posted by jerman of the board | 3 Comments
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Wednesday, March 05, 2008 11:48 AM

Advice Needed: Should I Stay or Should I Go Now?

Ok, not me, but my blog. And I need your advice, please The question: what are the pros/cons of moving my blog off the msdn platform? The Pros Individual Brand Equity - Look, let's face it. I'm not going to be at Microsoft forever. At some point, I move
Posted by jerman of the board | 1 Comments
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Tuesday, March 04, 2008 6:11 PM

Petty Guidelines for Leaving a Voicemail...

Here are my guidelines. It'll help you build your relationships. Don't drone on REPEAT your phone number. It' s really the only thing I have to have. Don't just say "call me." Tell me WHY you are calling. Be quick. I hate it when people don't tell me
Posted by jerman of the board | 0 Comments
Monday, March 03, 2008 4:56 PM

There is no "social networking for business"

I've had a few people ask me to blog on "social networking for business." Thought about this for a while and my answer is: It doesn't exist A bit extreme, perhaps, but business ultimately comes down to relationships with other people and whether you like
Posted by jerman of the board | 2 Comments
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Monday, March 03, 2008 4:29 PM

The 6 Billion Channel Universe...

People often say something to the effect of "networks are dead, we're in a billion channel world now," when referring to Internet/YouTube, etc. I'm going to postulate that the universe of channels is actually much, much larger than that. Why? Because
Posted by jerman of the board | 0 Comments
 
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