Marketing Hipster

Even though we have not even hit Christmas, I have already begun looking back at 2010. It was definitely an interesting year with high’s and low’s. I have begun planning my 2011 professionally and personally and I cannot help but look back at this year to understand where I have been and to help me understand where I am going.

Here’s what I have taken from 2010:

The year has to start and end with the person who matters most to me in the world, my wife. We passed our two year anniversary in 2010 and I think this year was the year that we really learned what it meant to be married. How to live together, how to work together, how to communicate with each other and how to truly understand what love really is. I fall more in love with her each day and without her none of this would matter. I am so excited to see what 2011 brings for both of us.

If my wife is number one, second are my friends. I have some amazing friends. They make me laugh, they give me so much to think about and I know I can count on them. Unfortunately, I don’t believe I have been as good of a friend as I should or could of in 2010. I needed to put the extra effort required to ensure things like families and jobs didn’t get in the way of incredibly important friendships. As I have gotten older, it has become apparent to me that all relationships require work. I didn’t do as much work as I should of this year and for that I want to apologize to my friends. You guys are incredibly important to me and I promise you that I will do a better job with in 2011.

I would say that professionally 2010 was one of the most challenging years I have ever lived through. There were a number of times and I am sure I am not alone, when I asked myself, what the hell am I doing? Though each time I asked myself this, we would deliver some great work, a client provided good feedback or I would watch one of my team members grow professionally and I found the answer to my question. While I had my successes and failures this year, I am extremely proud of my company and the people in it. Our agency begins and ends with our people. I am going to leave 2010 extremely proud of a number of team members who I have witnessed first hand grow this year into absolute superstars. I am excited to see what we can accomplish in 2011. Specifically, I did not feel like I accomplished all that I could of this year. I have a number of objectives and I am going to accomplish them in 2011! (Eye of the tiger!)

As I was looking back, something that really made me smile was this incredible community I live in. This year I have met so many wonderful, smart and passionate people in the Triangle. There have been so many great events like the Triangle AMA, Media Leaders, Internet Summit, etc. I cannot say enough about the wonderful people in this community. I truly believe that the Triangle is and will continue to grow and flourish because of so many talented folks. I want to thank so many of you who I met and gotten to know this year. You not only have my respect, but you have my friendship.

I can’t end this post without talking about the albatross that I have been carrying around with me throughout 2010. Simply put, I chickened out on several things this year. I had several ideas that I wanted to pursue and because it might of taken me out of my comfort zone, I didn’t do it. I could make excuses like I did not have the time, too much going on, but simply put, I could of found the time if I wanted to. I simply chickened out and to be honest, it has been bothering me. In 2011, I am going to push myself to be uncomfortable. Great things can happen when you leave your comfort zone.

I want to wish everyone a safe and happy holidays and new year. I wish for all of us a better and happier 2011.

Cord

This blog is a couple of years old and for a good period of time, I was pretty dedicated writing at least several times a week.  I built up a pretty good audience and really connected with a number of talented and interesting people located all over the world. When all of a sudden I stopped writing.  I don’t know any better way to describe it other than life got in the way and all of a sudden, I didn’t feel like writing anymore.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not making excuses.  I have been trying to nail down exactly when I went off track with my writing and even more importantly, why?  I don’t know if I have any definitive answers to be honest. One of the only conclusions I have come up with is that for a while now I have not prioritized my life correctly.  I have put things on the top of the list  that shouldn’t of been there.

That is all coming to an end right now my friends.  My focus is to once again put the time and effort into rediscovering my voice here on Marketing Hipster and hopefully connecting with the people I once was in contact with as well as with new folks.  During my hiatus from this blog, I have been spending a good deal of time on Twitter and some real amazing things have happened.  I have developed a number of wonderful connections with people through Twitter prior to ever meeting them in person.  And when I finally get the opportunity to meet them in person, it is just that much better because of the relationship we had already established via Twitter.

There is so much noise out there and I think somewhere within all that noise, I got lost and forgot about what was really important to me.  What I have come to realize is what gets me up in the mornings and gets me excited about my day are the amazing connections we have the opportunity to create. If you think about it what other time in the history of the world has technology reached a point that allows us the freedom to express and connect with others around the world?  There are no borders or boundaries to what we are capable of.  Moving forward that is what I am going to focus on.  Discussing and reaching out to as many interesting people as possible, creating connections that I and hopefully my readers can learn from.

One of the connections that I made online prior to ever meeting in him person is a smart gentleman named Phil Buckley.  Phil and I were chatting on Twitter last week and he said something in regard to writing regularly on the blog that really stuck with me.  He said, “If I go 7 days without writing in my blog I start to feel the guilt.  After 14 days, there is no more guilt.”

Right on Phil.  Here’s a toast to new beginnings.

I received a great deal of email from folks who had thoughts on my previous post, MySpace is Finished. Unfortunately, I wrote something that generated a lot of interest and my database craps out on me causing the comments not to work. But I do appreciate the people who took the time to drop me an email with their thoughts, thank you. Since others could not see all the emails I received and all the questions that were raised, I thought I would post a follow up.

Several emails I received said pretty much, “MySpace is free and you get what you pay for.” This I find very hard to agree with. Even though we do not pay to become a member of MySpace or any other social network for that matter, we as users give MySpace something far more valuable than a few dollars. We give them our time and attention. Think about the amount of time people spend within the MySpace walls and community? For a business that makes their revenues through online advertising, there is nothing more important. And for that reason alone, MySpace should have a singular focus on delivering the best user experience possible on their site for their members. In my opinion, not only does MySpace not deliver a good user experience, the web site has terrible navigation, atrocious look and feel and more error messages than a beta version of Windows Vista. How does a web site expect to continually grow when the product your selling, your web site, is broken to say the very least?

MySpace even after continued attempts has non-stop spam going through every facet of the web site. There is no enforcement or pro-activeness to try to stop the deluge of profile, comment and email spam. All of this adds up to only one thing, a terrible user experience.

What this says to me is that MySpace is forgetting who is truly important to them – their members! Because without you and I and the millions of other members coming on daily and updating our blogs, adding new content to our profile pages, sending emails to friends, etc, etc. They have no business.

Now let’s look at this in another way. I am assuming most of my readers are marketers. MySpace recently announced a new targeted advertising program that they call “Interest targeting” which they will be pulling content from members profiles and based on what that user has written on his page, MySpace will tailor ads towards that content. This should not come to a big surprise to anyone as everyone is moving into that direction. I guess my question is what type of company would actually take advantage of this service or for that matter any other MySpace service? Even if, my target market were youths as a CEO of a company would I be willing to risk having my brand being advertised on profile pages that could have a picture of a half naked woman on it or a guy with a picture of a swastika? Who would be willing to jeopardize their brand by advertising on MySpace?

This time I am hoping comments are working.

Technorati Tags: MySpace, social network, online advertising

I think one of the biggest challenges that companies both large and small are wrestling with at the moment is how to better engage with their customers. I think for many companies they are beginning to realize that the old stick your head in the sand and hope it goes away technique is just not working out and even more importantly, I think they are realizing that discussions and conversations are going to be taking place online about their company, products and services whether they get involved or not. Now that many are coming to this realization, the question is how do they go about engaging these online conversations while of course still protecting their brand and company?

At one time, I was under the belief that many of these companies don’t get involved out of pure apathy and lack of understanding. There might be companies out there that this is true, but as I have been working with larger and more established companies over the last couple of years, I have begun to realize that there are many other more complicated reasons on why companies are not engaging more with their customers online.

One of the issues that I have recently seen first hand take place is the risks that specifically larger companies take when engaging with people online whether it be in blogs, discussion boards or social networks. Unfortunately, we live in a litigious world which in layman’s terms means that you can be sued by anyone for absolutely nothing. And even though many of these suits are baseless and eventually thrown out of court, it still costs companies a great deal of money defending themselves from these lawsuits. I was having a discussion with a client of mine and he said something that stuck with me in regard to getting involved with these online conversations happening about his company.

He said, “There have been so many times that I have read something that I dearly wanted to respond to, but before I do, I need to weigh how much it will cost my company if someone sues us based on what we say compared to the any type of reward our company would receive from posting a response.”

It’s an interesting issue, one with many different facets to it.

So I have been a bit lacking lately when it comes to my posts as well as me responding to other people’s comments. I apologize for that and am absolutely going to try to do better. I thought I would start off the week with a question where hopefully can stir some great thoughts and debates.

I am doing a speech in front of the Charlotte chapter of the American Marketing Association on October 10th and I thought I would get your input and ideas as I put together what I want to say for my presentation. If you are in the area, please feel free to attend, I would love to see you.

So here’s the question. Is it a good thing for companies to try to engage their customers online? Does the good outweigh the possible repercussions that could come from it? And finally what are some of your ideas on how companies can engage online with their customers?

Technorati Tags: engage with their customers, online conversations

Happy Monday folks. I hope all had a good weekend. I had a glorious weekend as finally after months and months of anticipation, football arrived back on Sunday’s! Life can now begin again for many of us.

During the NFL season, one of my favorite things to do on Sunday’s is hang out and watch football, bust on friends about football and pretty much just take in hour after hour of football. It’s a great life I know. Anyhow, during yesterday’s games, I saw something interesting that I thought I would discuss.

I live in Raleigh, North Carolina and over the last week or so, the news stations here have been consumed with a tropical storm named Gabrielle. This storm had the same odds of hitting us bad as I have hitting the lottery, but even though the odds of this storm even making it to shore let alone coming up here were slim, the news stations I guess had nothing else to report so they rode Gabrielle until she was dead and buried.

On Sunday, the storm came as close to the NC coast as it was going to get and the only weather it brought was some rain to the coastal towns which they along with us needed. No big winds, no hail, no flooding, just your ordinary run of the mill rain shower. HUGE news I know. Yesterday as I was hanging out watching football, I was amazed to see that not only once but several times, the local TV stations here broke INTO football coverage to pretty much tell us that absolutely nothing was going on.

I was amazed that there were a couple of news directors actually saying, “Let’s break into network coverage so that our “meteorologists” could report that the coast is getting rain and for 99.9% of our viewing area, we will see absolutely no change in the weather whatsoever.

“We are interrupting your regular scheduled program to tell you that we have absolutely nothing to report. The storm that we hoped to God would come a shore unfortunately did not, so um, there is nothing to worry about and the sun you see outside your window should stay just like that, well, I guess until it is time for the sun to go down…..”

As I was watching these idiots trying to be relevant, I was wondering, what happens when there actually is some kind of weather emergency? How much trust will I have in you when in times that I do not need you, you chose to stick your nose into my life? It reminds me of the boy who cried wolf. After the boy falsely cried wolf a couple of times, people did not believe him when he actually was telling the truth.

What do you think? Am I making a mountain over a molehill here?

I have been real remiss of late that I had not mentioned a brand new buzz network that has launched by a frequent commentor here and a friend, Antman.. The Ant has put together a real interesting network that has a wide range of categories and interests that is totally focused on creating and developing buzz for you and the areas that you are interested in. I was lucky enough to be allowed as a beta tester and where this could go has endless opportunities.

The site is still in Beta, but the Antman has allowed the beta testers to invite more people to come and play and see what you think. I have taken the initiative to invite the people who regularly comment here to give Cre8Buzz a try. Many of you should of already received invites from me. If you did not receive an invite and would like one, just add a comment to this post that you want one and I will send you out one immediately.

Jason Calacanis declared on his blog “Facebook bankruptcy“. Overall his post is a rant about how he is too popular and all the requests he gets is keeping him from actually doing things. Jason also decided to turn off comments on his blog.

You know as I was reading his post, I was thinking of those movie and rock stars who for years wish and work their tails off to make it big. All they want is the fame and the fortune and then one day they actually attain their goal only to complain about how they have no time for themselves and how hard it is to be famous. Boo hoo. Isn’t life cruel.

Come on Jason, please. Is there someone at your place holding a gun to your head making you accept friends requests, forcing you to send emails? I don’t really care about the Facebook thing, if Facebook is not your bag than delete your profile and move on already. What I do take issue with is you shutting off comments to your blog. You should know better than most of us that blogging is about community. It is about giving the opportunity for anyone no matter who they are to let their voice be heard. By you shutting off your comments, you are shutting the door on the community that you have worked damn hard to create these many years.

“If you do have a blog and don’t want to take the time to fire off a blog post in response to this then, frankly, how valuable is your comment? The benchmark for responding to my blog is now starting your own blog and writing a post.”

Ah, I see, so now unless you have a blog, an individuals thoughts, opinions and comments are not valuable? Coming from a true innovator like you Jason, this kind of statement is embarrassing to say the least. I agree with you Jason on one point, you are bankrupt, morally bankrupt. So enjoy yourself in that ivory tower you constructed my friend. We shall see what happens in the future when all those requests and comments stop coming, you think your attitude might change then?

Technorati Tags: Jason Calacanis, Facebook bankruptcy, Facebook, community

So I have been tagged twice one from Matt and one from Bob. Bob, I am very sorry it has taken me this long to respond. The tag is posting 8 random things people may or may not know about me. So here it goes:

1. When I was a kid, I got off a tour bus in Florida without my relatives which they did not notice. I sat on the curb for a half an hour until the bus came back for me. The entire ride back the driver was making fun of me. To this day, I would love to kick that drivers butt!

2. The first concert I ever went to was when I was 13 which my friends and I camped out for tickets. It was to see Genesis at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. We camped out overnight for them and got the second to last row on the very top section of the stadium. Mom dropped us off and picked us up. Awwwww…

3. My father once threw me through our garage. Yea not against, but literally through it.

4. A day after graduating high school, a friend and I jetted off and traveled throughout Europe. It was bar none the best time I have ever had in my lifetime.

5. I drink Fruit2O water like crazy. I love the stuff. I usually drink 3-5 containers a day easily. Oh also, even though it is named “Fruit2O” a take off of H2O, I call it “Fruit2.0″ (pronounced Fruit two dot Oh). I do it pretty much because it really annoys my fiance.

6. Every summer since I was very young until a teenager, I went to camp. I started in the youngest bunk and went up to junior counselor. I never realized just how amazing that place was until I got older.

7. I love to BBQ. In my humble opinion, nothing tastes better than when it is barbecued.

8. I am counting down the days until NFL football begins again. Life begins in September!

Ok, that is my random stuff. I guess I need to tag some folks. Here you go, you be tagged:

• Adam
• Jeremy
• Jake
• Meg
• Jennifer
• Ryan
• Alex
• Nathan

This morning was the official launch of Age of Conversation, a book written by over 100 bloggers from all across the globe. I was lucky enough to have been given an opportunity to write a chapter in this book and I am very excited to read what the other 100 or so bloggers came up with. I have already placed my order this morning for both a hardcover, paperback and an e-book.

All proceeds minus printing costs will go Variety, The Children’s Charity. The prices and how much goes to this charity are as follows:

e-book: $9.99 ($7.99 going to charity)
paperback book: $16.95 ($8.10 to charity)
hardback book: $29.99 ($8.55 to charity)

For more information, please check out the official Age of Conversation blog. You can order both the e-book as well as the printed books through Lulu at Lulu.com/ageofconversation. If you order the e-book, you can download it and start reading immediately after purchase.

You can also check out a Google Map that was created that shows where each author is from.

Once people have a chance to download and read it, I would love your thoughts and opinions.  Thanks for your support.

Technorati Tags: Age of Conversation, bloggers

I’m a ponderer and I was hoping you my fabulously intelligent Hipster readers would be interested in pondering with me… My ponderable today is about blogging. As bloggers, what are we looking for? What do we need and what do we want? I think each one of us began to blog for many different reasons. Whether that be for fame and fortune or just somewhere that we can share our thoughts. For me personally, I started blogging for one reason, but fairly quickly, I continued blogging for a much different reason, community.

This blog along with sites like MyBlogLog have given me the opportunity to meet and befriend people that I would of never had the opportunity to meet let alone have fabulous conversations with. It’s been amazing and it’s something that as I get older and hopefully wiser, I have come to realize just how precious this community and these conversations actually are.

Think of what technology has given all of us the opportunity to do. Just yesterday, I was introduced right here on this blog via a comment to an incredibly interesting woman named Ryan who through our conversation we discovered that even though I live in Raleigh and she in Boston, we grew up about a mile from each other. I am using the term “grew up” loosely as I grew up and then she was born as I am considerably older than her.

Now the reason I am bringing all this all up is that even though blogging is exploding each and every day, I believe that we as a community are dramatically under served. Even with the technology available and a whole lot of players in this market, I still don’t think people truly get that it is not always about subjects or interests, it’s about THE CONTENT and THE PEOPLE! What do I mean by this? There are blogs that focus on subjects that from the outside looking in, I would probably not have any interest in. But for one reason or the other, I took the time to truly read what some of these amazing bloggers are writing and now I cannot get enough of them.

Let me give an example. There is this amazing woman named Jen who writes a couple of different blogs. One is called Goodness Graciousness and the other is The Art of Intimacy. Now just from those titles, what would was your first impression? Mine was Chick Flicks! A place where women talk about love and how their men don’t cuddle with them enough, yada yada, yada… Now just being honest, for me personally, I think I would rather have my teeth removed with a rusty wrench than read this, but as usual I could not of been more wrong. Instead Jen writes these wonderfully personal as well as incredibly interesting articles that read like they came right from her heart and landed directly onto the screen. Content and People…

It’s amazing what we as individuals can do and I believe that when we as individuals can get together in a community, there is no limit to what we could accomplish. Though right now, I feel like there are things that are missing to enable us to do that.

So here is my ponderable that I would like your help with. I want to be able to have a better and stronger community. I want to be able to get better and more specific feedback on what you the reader likes and dislikes. I want to be able to keep track and stay abreast of what you my readers/fellow bloggers are writing about each day with the limited amount of time that I have available. I want an easier way to communicate to you both individually as well as a group.

What do you want? Am I off on my thinking or are there things that you would love to have that would allow your voice to be better heard as well as being able to find and hear other voices easily and quickly? I am asking you to join my ponderable and offer your thoughts. There are no wrong answers in Ponderableland, unless you ask me to vote for you for the Best Blogger Award.

Alright, here we go.. Sit back, take a deep breath, relax and join my ponderable and share your thoughts. Thanks!

Technorati Tags: Hipster, pondering, ponderable, blogging, bloggers, community, MyBlogLog