Current Affairs Archives - Page 9 of 14 - McLellan Marketing Group

Microsoft takes on Apple’s iPhone with ZenZui

March 27, 2007

Image representing iPhone as depicted in Crunc...

Maybe this is why Apple and Steve Jobs announced the iPhone when they did….

Yesterday, Microsoft Corp. announced the launch of ZenZui, an independent company with the mission of transforming the way people engage, consume and interact with Web content through a revolutionary mobile user experience and information ecosystem.

With ZenZui, your phone screen is a portal into your own customized Zoomspace, an information landscape of personalized, cached content that we call Tiles because they reflect your lifestyle. Using a single thumb, you fly in and out of your Zoomspace — two simple taps gets you directly to any Tile.

Read the official press release over at Virtual Generations.

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Hurry up to help a grad!

March 24, 2007

Earlier this month I posted a request. Help me help the newly emerging college grad .

Let’s save them from all those horrific mistakes that leave us shaking our heads.
Let’s guide them by sharing our own war stories.
Let’s inspire them with words of wisdom.

In short — let’s get them a job!

I am compiling all of the great comments (and tracked back posts if I can find them throughout the blogosphere) into a free e-book that we’ll make available to any grad who wants the download.

We’re going to start assembling the e-book at the end of the month, so you have a few days left to get your comments in.

Come on — someone helped you once upon a time. Time to return the favor.

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Want to author a business book?

March 22, 2007

Knowledge@Wharton is announcing a novel initiative in book publishing.

The project, tentatively called We Are Smarter Than Me is an experiment to see whether a large community of business people can jointly author a book of the same name. Pearson will publish the book later this year.

The book focuses on ways in which companies are learning to leverage social networks and the power of communities to improve their performance by allowing customers or others to take over functions typically performed by experts.

Every contributor will be credited as an author, and will help direct royalties to charity. While several readers have already signed on, they’re looking for more participants.

I’m going to jump on board — how about you?

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Does Twitter have to be useful?

March 19, 2007

Maybe I’m missing the point.

You cannot throw a cat without hitting a blog talking about Twitter. Everyone seems to have pretty strong opinions about it. It seems to be a love or hate thing.

A couple Twitter bits of love:

Kevin Lim’s Theory is the Reason goes into incredible depth on its who’s using it, why they’re using it and how to use it better.

Tara Hunt of Horse•Pig•Cow exalts Twitter for helping her keep grips on her thoughts, activities and friends.

A bit of Twitter disdain:

Kathy Sierra’s Creating Passion Users suggests that Twitter is further strain on our already stretched attention spans and ability to focus.

Darren Barefoot at DarrenBarefoot.com takes a shot or two at Twitter and then does a very funny look at what Shakespeare’s Twitter entries might look like.

And now…love or hate, people are working hard at justifying Twitter’s existence by morphing it into a business tool. Mike Sansone has an interesting idea over at Converstations about how to use Twitter for finite teams.

Even Technorati’s Buzz TV is getting into the conversation.

Here’s my question. Why?

Are we at a point where we can’t just enjoy it as both a distraction and a diversion? That it’s a link to our friends and colleagues and sometimes they say something interesting and sometimes not? It’s fun. Sometimes its serious and sometimes it silly. In the week that I’ve been using it, my friends have made me laugh out loud and stop and think.

I’m not so sure it needs to be anything more. At least not for me.

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All about Apple

March 11, 2007

It occurred to me today how often I have written about Apple. Now granted — I love the Mac. I wouldn’t use a PC if you gave me one for free. But I’m not letting my brand bias my blog. (Try saying that 5 times fast!)

One of the truths about elite brands is that they create buzz. Look at how many opportunities for buzz Apple created that I grabbed onto:

Steve Jobs — $400 million smart (the free publicity gained by the iPhone announcement)

Hey raving fans, STOP promoting my product! (Apple lawyers trip over themselves, letting semantics get in the way of promoting the iPod)

Fortune 500 Corporate blog review series: Apple (A study of corporate blogs and Apple’s place in that mix)

Want to create an Apple-sized buzz? (Inc. com’s study of how Apple creates buzz)

Should I launch this product? (My thoughts on the iPhone launch)

Hey Goliath, I think you’re going down! (the Zune versus iPod discussion)

That’s a post about Apple at least once a month! How many companies do you know that can/do create that sort of positive buzz?

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You meet the nicest people!

March 8, 2007

10+ years ago, when I was a sysop (like a host with some "hall monitoring type" powers) in a CompuServe forum, there was always a discussion about if "on-line friendships" could possibly be as rich and long-lasting as friendships formed off-line.

I’m here to tell you the answer is yes.

So its interesting to me that we can fast forward to today and jump into the same conversation. DA raised the issue after spending the weekend with some old high school chums. Then, Gavin Heaton added his voice to the debate over at Marketing Profs Daily Fix.

Here’s my take. Relationships grow out of shared emotions, experiences and reaching out to one another. All of that is borne from investing time in one another. Listening to each other’s thoughts, responding to them, cheering on the days things go well and sending a supportive cyber hug when one of your favorite bloggers is having a tough time — all of that breeds intimacy. Connection. Caring. I’ve had conversations with bloggers who just welcomed their first baby into the world. I’ve also had conversations with bloggers who are overcoming alcoholism and other personal struggles. You can’t tell me that those connections are any less real because they’re made on-line.

One of the elements of blogging that I think is most significant (which I’ll write about in my 5 reasons why I blog post which is due any day) is the intimacy that can be achieved. I think that the medium is just symantics.

And it starts, just like it does in offline life, with a simple gesture. The other day I got an e-mail from Steve Manousos. We’ve never met. He’s never commented on my blog. A total stranger. Until the e-mail.

I read your blog every now and then, and when I do, I wonder why your photo is so dark. Here, I’ve lightened it up for you.

And with that, he attached a new jpg (see the lighter side of me to your right) What a cool and unexpected thing to do.

So, of course, I wrote him to say thanks and learned that he’s the owner of ImageSnap, an online store where you can personalize everything from basketball hoops to mousepads. I also learned that he used to be on the national desk at the LA Times and founded the company that made Painter, Dabbler and Poser.

Will we be lifelong friends? I don’t know. But the beginning of a connection has been made. And that’s how it starts. But first, I need to get him to read the blog more regularly!

So what’s your take? Are online friendships different? Does it matter if you ever meet in person? Tell me about a friend you’ve made via your online life. Or tell me you disagree.

But tell me something…after all friends don’t ignore each other!

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Help me give college grads a fighting chance

March 5, 2007

It’s Spring. The birds will soon be chirping, the flowers blooming and the college grads descending like locusts on every marketing agency, marketing department and media outlet. They all want one thing — their first real job.

I remember how scary it was. 20+ years later, I shake my head at the mistakes the grads make while trying to vie for my attention. So I decided we (yes WE) could give them a gift that will put that digital camera to shame. We can help them get that job.

Here’s how you can help:

~ Post your answer to one (or more) of the following in the comments section:

How I landed my first job (war/success story)
What I wish I knew when I was trying to get my first job
My advice for someone trying to break into the marketing/advertising business
Words of wisdom about careers in general

~ Point to this post on your blog and encourage your readers to come over and add their 2 cents so we can gather even more answers and advice.

We’ll gather up all the comments, thoughts and stories and create an e-book for the grads to download and study. Who knows — maybe we’ll get some great employees out of the deal as well!

Come on — someone helped you once upon a time. Time to return the favor.

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How do you chase new business?

March 2, 2007

A resource that I have enjoyed for a long time is RainToday.com. They describe themselves as "your online source for insight, advice and tools for growing your service business."

And they are certainly that. I almost always find gems of insight in their articles.

They have just released a new research report What’s Working In Lead Generation. (with the obligatory sub head: How to Spend Your Time, Energy & Money for the Best Marketing ROI in B2B Professional Services.)

They’ve been kind enough to share a press review copy of the report with me and over the next several posts, I’d like to share with you some of the wisdom their research has uncovered.

As we always should, let’s start with where we’re at today.

The report goes on to say that:

45% responded that finding a lead generation strategy, tactic, or offer that works well is "extremely challenging" or "very challenging".

84% of respondents reported that in the next two years they will increase their lead generation efforts.

What does that mean for us? First, everyone agrees that finding new business is no small or easy task. And to reduce it to that probably means you aren’t really doing so hot at getting it done. The second and potentially alarming stat says that the competition is getting ready to gear it up.

Are you ready? What is your lead generation plan? Is it automated enough that if you get busy — it keeps chugging along?

For many small businesses, this is the biggest challenge. They launch a lead generation tactic or plan and it works. Yeah! But also — Boo! Because the plan is too dependent on their man hours. And now the man hours are consumed with taking care of the new business they just generated.

Once they get that new business under their belt — the pipeline is dry again because they could only do so much and then the work got in the way of continuing to fill the pipeline.

What do you have in place to prevent that?

More insights from the report are on the way….

Note: The full RainToday.com report shares 6 key insights which I’ll be exploring over the next few days with you. In the meantime, if you’d like to download their free 21-page summary, you can grab it here.

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You don’t know what you don’t know

February 24, 2007

One of the most dangerous habits a marketer can develop is thinking that they/their life experience is an accurate (and the only) filter. We’ve covered aspects of this topic before.

That’s a very narrow lens to use. But, with a slight twist, your single lens view finder could become a kaleidoscope with all the colors and images mixing up and showing you a completely different way of seeing the world.

Let me give you an example. I read an article about a new product/trend that is beginning to bubble up across the globe — women only cab or car services. When I first read it, I thought — wow, are we talking segmentation too far? But as I kept reading, my middle-class white man perspective melted away. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but it never occurred to me that women would be attacked after getting into a cab. But, according to what I read, it happens. In London alone, an average of 10 women a month are attacked.

Here’s how the Pink Ladies, a women-only cab service in the UK is solving that problem for women.

"Booking is done over the phone, and a text message is sent to the customer to let her know the vehicle is approaching, which means she doesn’t have to wait outside. Drivers are trained in self-defense and will wait outside a customer’s home after a drop-off to ensure she gets in safely."

Bravo to someone who turned the kaleidoscope to see the picture in a new way and develop a profitable and customer centric new solution.

Here’s my question to you marketers — how do you make sure you’re looking through a kaleidoscope and not a single lens view finder?

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Technorati tag cloud — what does it say?

February 22, 2007

I was checking Technorati tonight and the tag cloud on the home page caught my eye.

These are the things we — the entire blogging world — are talking about.

For those of you who aren’t as familiar with tag clouds — the bigger the type, the more frequently blog posts are tagged with that word. In this moment of time — this is what matters to us enough that we write about it.

Where’s the marketing lesson in the cloud?

Pop culture is clearly huge. Shock tactics (like shaving your head) still work. Despite the mainstream media focus, people aren’t ready to talk/think presidential race ’08 yet.

What do you see in the cloud?

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