Feeling Alive

Went to the Counting Crows/Maroon 5 show last night. Both were excellent.

The Intangibles

Via Seth Godin, a great post about intangibles in a service business. I view this from being on the service buying side frequently. Service providers would do themselves a service by printing this post and placing it in a visible place near their work space.

It also reminded me of Steven Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and in particular

Think Win/Win describes an attitude whereby mutually beneficial solutions are sought that satisfy the needs of oneself, or, in the case of a conflict, both parties involved.

and

Synergize describes a way of working in teams. Apply effective problem solving. Apply collaborative decision making. Value differences. Build on divergent strengths. Leverage creative collaboration. Embrace and leverage innovation. It is put forth that when synergy is pursued as a habit, the result of the teamwork will exceed the sum of what each of the members could have achieved on their own. “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

Project Management Bible

Update: I wanted to refresh this post from earlier in the year to give some love to the book.

I had the good fortune of being a technical editor of a book that recently published called, Project Management Communications Bible ISBN: 978-0470137406.

This is a great reference and resource that follows the Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK) best practices, which means you're getting accurate, easy to understand and proven methodologies. Besides being able to attest to the fact that it is technically accurate, the book is very comprehensive and provides a true toolkit for anybody who has been a assigned a project big or small and needs to establish a methodology, process and communication protocol for a project.

Having lead a large enterprise implementation of a content management system, 20+ individual new Web site developments spanning North America and EMEA, and countless other projects large and small--I highly recommend this book.

If you would like to purchase the book, please help a guy out and buy it via my Amazon store...click the picture to go there...right now!

Prep for Football Season Part III

“Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.” ~Lou Holtz

Taking it to the People

I had a post about the changing landscape of journalism and in particular sports journalism with Opensports.com. Well, here is another site that has a Chicago local flavor.

Prep for Football Season Part II

Have I said I love online video and Hulu? I do, I really do.

The Message...

I have touched on this in the past here, but I continue to be struck by the way the Obama campaign is able to leverage the Internet and control the message. As I watched a CNN reporter "break" some news and talk about Michelle Obama preparing for her speech tonight at the Democratic National Convention as she went to the YouTube channel and played video released to Barack Obama's channel.

It shows a level of marketing savvy that frankly seems more in tune than his opposition who is on the record as not having any email, but he is aware of the "Internet." Great.

Micro Sites Revisited...

I won't belabor the point, because it's been covered here before, but micro sites are a good way of providing very focused content in a concise, engaging format. It's a perfect avenue to use for a product launch to engage and excite a consumer and tease them into your broader site or capture their data on the spot and follow-up quickly with a trial offer, switch-out for example via email.

Micro sites have a very useful place in the interactive marketing tool box and as a component of an integrated marketing plan. The truth is that they are just coming into the med device space. Pharma has been dabbling for years (see Viagra, Cialis, etc), but you can see examples such as this that nicely brings together some storytelling, video for engagement and trial opportunities. It's also pretty well branded.

David Armano at Logic + Emotion delves into the topic further. He raises a few good points. I like the challenge to rise above the clutter. For Med Device and Pharma the challenge is to go above and beyond what has been done to create something that is unique, engaging and compelling. It's a tall challenge and I look forward to the coming years as interactive seeps its way into organizations and becomes not just a tactic but THE strategy that starts marketing plans.

Care for a Pop?

I grew up n Northern Indiana. South Bend (St. Joseph County) to be exact. Known mostly for making Studebaker's back in the day and home to Notre Dame. But even Notre Dame doesn't want to necessarily brag about being in South Bend so they have their own zip code.

I distinctly remember going on a vacation to Sarasota, Florida in 1987 and as we drove down as a family of five in the Ford LTD and made our way south of Indiana, a couple of things became embedded in my memory. The first is the unmistakable smell of coffee and cigarettes at 6:00 in the morning that was at the time was truly gag worthy; and secondly that the waitresses in the restaurants we stopped at along the way would ask what kind of "soda" I wanted. This was strange to me because I wanted a "pop." To take my cultural immersion a step further as we got in Georgia the nice waitresses in the restaurant would ask if I wanted a Coke and what kind of Coke did I want? I was perplexed because where I came from there is only one kind of Coke. Even today, I still refer to it as "pop" and it "soda" still doesn't roll off the tongue...

These types of regional differences have always fascinated me and leave it to Paul Kedrosky at Infectious Greed to find the chart for it.

Well Said

Mark Cuban pontificates (in a good way) about online video. I couldn't agree more, although online will continue to increase and I think marketers will continue to shift more of their targeted ad dollars online when people are in an info-seeking mode (lean forward) versus the relaxation, some would say vegetative (lean back) state of TV.

That is also not to say that you won't be able to watch a show on Hulu, etc. but HD and 42"+ of HD goodness will not be replaced by your laptop or computer. I see them as separate activities for some time to come.

TubeMogul

I've covered video and video distribution in the past, but want to make sure distribution is included in the total equation. Content is only as good as its reach.

tubemogul is the aggregator for distribution.


Article in BusinessWeek that discusses the rise of and need for video distribution.

Getting Warmed Up for Football

If you have an hour to kill...

Consider it the visual Cliff Notes for the evolution of the Internet.

Word of Mouth...

A great list of sites to track, measure and understand the impact of word of mouth on your personal brand, business or product.

Via Digital Influence Mapping Project.

Speaking of the Next 5K Days

Ironically, I just this on Web-Strategist.com. Since I work internationally 90% time, I like how this presentation incorporates a world view. It's easy to think everything begins and ends in the US, but there is an increased usage and online marketing sophistication everywhere.

Universal Mccann International Social Media Research Wave 3

View SlideShare presentation (tags: socialmedia research social media)

The Next 5,000 Days

Interesting perspective from Kevin Kelly, former Executive Editor of Wired magazine. The "consumer" internet is approximately 5,000 days old and he poses the question and his thoughts about the next 5,000 days.

I graduated from Indiana University in 1995 and distinctly remember the "Information Super Highway" coming into conciousness--at least in a mainstream kind of way. Moving into technology publishing and then on to a few start-ups, I feel like I have been along the entire way, at least as much as you can not being located in Silicon Valley. Having committed my career, albeit within a large health care organization, to online marketing, Web development and interactive, I personally can not wait to see what the next 5,000 days brings us.

It will surely involve deeper penetration into our lives through devices, accessibility and utility. It will also continue its unimpeded march towards the center of the "marketing" universe. And it will continue its unyielding pace in leading the way in the ongoing fragmentation of all media.

Apps are the new Microsites Part II

Aside from the Olympics, which is seeing record ratings, TV viewership is down, video is up and Hulu has a new widget. Sweet.

The Future of Sports: Social Media Style

If you're over the top sports fan and dialed into the sports blogosphere and sports talk radio you probably understand that there is a not so quiet movement against ESPN, affectionately referred to as the "Four Letter Network." The disdain is for their creation of news, self-serving tendencies in promoting sports news that happens to be liked to what they have contracts to air (Arena Football for example) and the frequent transgressions of their on air talent (too many to list). If you want to keep up on this and sports from a different lens I highly recommend Deadspin.

I saw a new sports oriented site that seeks to create a user driven sports site. The power social media moving into the sports realm. It will be interesting to track over time. To get things started they have Sean Salisbury, formerly of the "four letter" to bring his take to you 7 days a week.

More detailed description from TechCrunch here.

A Little Less Conversation

Interesting article at AdAge regarding the supposed love of customer feedback and increasing difficulty in reaching organizations.

I think the author, Pete Blackshaw sums it up nicely when he says:

At the end of the day, while consumers may see two divergent personalities emerge in their brand experience, they typically reach one conclusion. This means we're as good as our last snafu or snub. So we need to fix the big picture.

I think this boils down to adopting a customer-centric approach and make no mistake, it requires tough questions and hard changes to ingrain a customer-centric approach in your organization from your Web presence to your marketing to your call center, but it can pay tremendous dividends if done well. The challenge is getting awareness and Sr. Leadership to champion the cause.

I think you'll begin to see this increase over the next 12-24 months as budgets in Pharma and Medical Device are squeezed and retention strategies are implemented at the expense of customer acquisition. It always happens in a down economy or market cycle...


Now a Little Less Conversation...

The New, New Thing

As video continues to legitimize and move away from watching Kimbo Slice and skateboard accidents you will begin to see more brand channel development through YouTube. It can become nearly a closed loop system process from SEM to your site or micro site and then back to your YouTube brand channel.

The trick is keep Google out of your pocket multiple times since they will want your SEM dollar and oh yeah, your video advertising dollar as well.

Here are a few examples of brand channel.

http://www.youtube.com/jnjhealth

http://www.youtube.com/cadillac


Then the new Brand for the future.

Online Advertising: What Does the Future Hold?

Crash Into Me

Excellent version of an excellent Dave Matthews song sung by Stevie Nicks.

YouTube: Money Talks, BS Walks

Good analysis from the NYT regarding Google's ongoing effort to monetize YouTube. I'd say they can afford to learn on the job, but it'll be a few years before they begin to see wide video advertising when Pharma and Medical Device organizations are only beginning to see the awareness generation and brand building capabilities in a sustained SEM program.

Drug Marketing Ready For A Decline?

A brief article in BrandWeek about the decline in Pharma DTC advertising.

Analysts expect to see more money go online or into CRM programs, which are far cheaper than commercials. "They could make the largest Web buy ever instead of the smallest TV buy ever," said Jack Barrette, the former pharma ad sales chief at Yahoo! who is now CEO of Wego Health in Cambridge, Mass., a social media company.

I haven't seen the growth yet, but I hope it does come. It's time to recognize that online as a channel has come of age and presents a tremendous opportunity to drive brand awareness, provide engaging brand and product experiences. When utilizing multiple tactics including: a Web site, micro sites, email, SEM, promotional landing pages, social media or video to name just a few, used properly and in harmony, online makes a wonderful marketing gumbo that is targeted, cost effective and more measurable than any other marketing channel.

Makes perfect sense to me...and for those that know how to do it are at an advantage.