« April 2004 | Main | June 2004 »
Uffe Elbaek, KaosPilots Principal and author of KaosPilot A-Z, is interviewed at NextD.
The interview is outstanding. It give you another great look at the thought behind the Danish business school.
Read the interview, get inspired, and come back to get a copy of KaosPilot A-Z to find out more about this amazing place.
I can't understand how people keep saying there are not many signs of inflation in the economy. And if they admit there is inflation they will point to the price of oil and how it is coming back down already.
My father runs a small sheet metal fabrication shop. The price of steel and copper have almost doubled in the last 18 months. Aluminum is now headed that way. He has passed on those increases to his customers. It is only a matter of time before those increases ripple through the economy.
There was an article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel yesterday that illustrated the rippling. Kopp's, a local frozen custard chain here in Milwaukee, is raising their prices. "The price of materials- everything from plastic forks to custard mix- have increased about 20% over the last couple of months", says manager Bud Reinhart. Later this week, the price of custard will go up about 12.5% and the price of cheeseburgers will go up 10%.
Pixar is the cover story in Wired Magazine this month. Like many of you, I have seen all of the films. The article does a great job of giving a look at the people behind the movies.
I was not familiar with the exact financial success of the digital animation house. The article states Pixar's five movies (Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc., and Finding Nemo) have grossed $2.5 billion dollars. Those numbers make Pixar the most successful movie house of all time.
This section explains why Pixar and Disney had a falling out:
Since Toy Story, the fate of Disney and Pixar have been intertwined. Pixar makes the movies, and Disney distributes them; they cofinance the films and split the profits. But this January, when Pixar met with Disney to discuss their contract, an emboldened Steve Jobs decided to change the deal. He's angling for terms like those George Lucas brokered with 20th Century Fox for the Star Wars prequels: Pixar would finance its own films (with budgets around $80 million), take 100 percent of the profits, and pay Disney a distribution fee. Not surprisingly, Disney resisted. Each Pixar movie nets Disney an estimated $200 million, and under Jobs' proposed arrangement, the company would make less than half of that.
Go check out the new trailer for The Incredibles. They are going to have another hit.
A VC hits it on the head. It isn't about your blog anymore. It is about the feed.
I was talking with my graphic designing friend Tim yesterday. We were talking about an identity for Astronaut Projects and a possible facelift here. I told him that there wasn't much point in upgrading the look to A Penny For..., because less people are going to be visiting the site. They are going to come looking for the feed and subscribe. They may be back on a rare occasion to get some additional information. As feeds provide more stuff, visitors will visit even less.
With the first anniversary of A Penny For... coming up, we will probably spiff things up a bit around here.
This is a great post from Michael at An Entreprenuer's Life.
If you find yourself swearing, it is normally a bad sign. In this case, it might be good.
We have about a dozen entries in the bizblogdirectory in less than a day.
:)
I really like this post from Bill at Pheedo. He takes the 4 P's of marketing and turns it into the 5 P's of blogging.
I have been hearing all of these great things about wikis. I decided I needed to get in the game.
You will find the the A Penny For... Wiki at http://wiki.apennyfor.com
The first experiment is going to be a user maintained directory of business blogs. Feel free to jump over and add your blog or one you like. All the details are there.
If you have questions, email me at todd [at] apennyfor [dot] com.
Trevor Cook of Corporate Engagement is organizing a blogsphere PR Week for July. You can check out the wiki and see the proposed topics. They have corporate blogging as a topic for one day, which I am going to get in on.
I'll pass along more details as they come.
The words Web logs (yes it was spelled that way), RSS, and wiki all appeared in the Wall Street Journal today.
Marketingsherpa has an article out about how PR people should contact bloggers. From the article:
[Seth] Godin writes about marketing, he's super well-known, and he needs to be on your radar if you're in the marketing or PR industry.But don't try to pitch him, or even contact him.
"PR people should never contact me. It has never worked once. If they
do, I make it a point to never mention their client, ever," he says.
Bloggers want something that matches their interest. They want something they can link to. I am looking for things that are unique and readers won't find on other blogs.
Steve Hall of Adrants describes well what I want:
Think of your relationship with a blogger as a conversation, he suggests. For example, one person sends weekly instant messages to Hall, always "the juiciest stuff," he says. "He sent me a lead on this scavenger hunt in New York City that Nike is doing. I scoured Google for news on it, couldn't find it anywhere, and had it on my site a week and a half before I saw it anywhere else."
Anil Dash has a link to the New Yorker today. The article talks about literary assistant Kate Lee and how she trolls the blogsphere looking for potential authors. Elizabeth Spiers of Gawker fame and Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit are currently in the publishing pipeline.
Jeremy keeps talking about writing a book. The door is opening.
I talked about the AmEx article from the WSJ on Tuesday and the Jerry Seinfeld Q&A on Wednesday.
Today MarketingVOX alerted me the new webisode of Jerry and Superman that is available. I watched it and thought it was pretty good.
I also think AmEx is good at PR. They got both of those articles placed just prior to the launch. The viewers go into the webisode with a slightly higher awareness for the AmEx brand. Maybe, viewers will be a little more likely to try the product out.
There is a Q&A with Jerry Seinfeld in WSJ today [sub. needed]. The questions were under the heading "Creativity".
This is the best exchange:
WSJ: Most ad folks think the 30-second commercial is the optimal format. Your "Webisode" lasts for several minutes. Do consumers have that long an attention span?
Mr. Seinfeld: There is no such thing as an attention span. There is only the quality of what you are viewing. This whole idea of an attention span is, I think, a misnomer. People have infinite attention if you are entertaining them.
People are looking at Apple and PCs and finding Apples are not that expensive.
I found the same thing.
If you get the RSS feed for Worthwhile Magazine, you'll noticed they updated things today. They went one step further than we did at 800-CEO-READ by not only adding the author but also the category to the header.
I think adding the author is a must on any multi-author blog. How do you know who is talking.
With this change, I will now starting reading Worthwhile's feed again.
On the top of B1 in the WSJ today, there is an article titled, "For Big Marketers Like AmEx, TV Ads Lose Starring Role."* Big companies are starting to spend their money in other places. This isn't huge surprise, but the article give some insight into what the big guys are thinking. This from AmEx chief marketing officer John Hayes when he addressed NBC's ad salesforce:
Your business model needs to change...It used to be that we bought time, shipped you the commercials, had lunch or a glass of wine together once in awhile; you took care of the quality of programming and we made sure the check did not bounce. We all sat back, checked the ratings , watched our business grow...those days are woefully over.
*subscription needed
Katherine at Decent Marketing generated some discussion around her view of hired buzzers (here and here).
There is another article from Silcon Valley Metro that takes a similarly questioning tone. The article is called "The Secret Agents of Capitalism" [via Media Guerilla].
I strongly recommend it if you are interesting in this evolving space.
Today, you will find the last stop for the Business Blog Book Tour at Bold Approach.
Thanks to everyone who participated on this tour. It was the biggest on thus far.
And I have to give a huge shout-out to Seth for subjecting himself to the bazillion questions we had.
Now, go buy a copy of Free Prize Inside.
This was a $100,000 question from ABC's Super Millionaire tonight:
If you start with a penny and you double it every day, how long will it take before you have one million dollars?
A. 27 days
B. 74 days
C. 157 days
D. 293 days
Answer below the fold...
BzzAgent is a word-of-mouth marketing firm based in Boston.
They keep an interesting blog, which keeps customers and bzzAgents (people who create buzz for them) up on what is going on inside the company.
Their post today was a copy of the email they sent to shareholders and investors. I think it is pretty gutsy to tell the world about the angel funding you are looking for, who you are doing projects with, and who your big prospects are.
I can't pass up stories with pennies in them.
NY Times: How to Pinch a Penny, and Make Lincoln Laugh by Claudia Deutsch
There is some clarification from Mena at Six Apart today. Here is my question on multiple author limits answered:
What if I have a weblog or author who's no longer active on my installation?This was a less common question, but it's one that I think we need to clarify.
The limits in the license govern the use of Active weblogs and authors. For the purposes of the license restrictions, we're defining a weblog as "Active" if you've posted to it within the last 90 days (receiving comments do not count), and an author as "Active" if that author has posted within the last 90 days.
So, if you have a couple of weblogs in Movable Type that you no longer post to, but want to keep around for archival purposes, that doesn't count towards your license limit. The same goes for authors on your installation.
This means I can have guests host my blogs and won't violate the license.
I feel better.
Since we are just finishing the BBBT, I thought this might be of interest.
This NY Times piece talks about how book tours now take place on TV rather than in book stores.
Rodent Regetta has a good summary of the current turbulence in blogging software.
RR also links to Scripty Goddess, who says she doesn't know where she is going, but she will be changing platforms. She highlights the idea that for a company that writes blogging software, 6A are bad terrible at communicating with their customers.
I think that SG is part of a very important segment of the MT user base. They are people who like playing under the hood with MT. They host their own stuff on servers. Typepad is perfect for people who don't want to deal with the technology. MT is for the early adopters and for people who are doing the really interesting stuff. Those are the people 6A most want supporting them and got 6A to where they are now. And those are the people most unhappy right now. Not good.
Hans Culling at Media Culpa has done a roundup of PR blogs. He has ranked them according links via Technorati.
It's a bit like TGIFriday but better. Thinking by Peter is hosting today.
Remember we have tacked on one more day. Monday we are at Bold Approach.
Stan Lee (creator of Daredevil) was asked did he ever imagined Daredevil would last forty years:
"In all honesty, I never thought about it with any of our comics or characters. It is hard to describe, but in the days we were doing all of these superheroes, when we started them, all we were concerned about was that the books would sell. So we were so involved and occupied with making ever issue as good or better than the last that the thought of what these would be like in forty years, it never occured to me. And I doubt any of the guys was thinking of it at that time..."
Early on, Daredevil's costume was yellow. Stan Lee started hearing from customers says they didn't like the yellow. Lee decided to change it to red.
"I hate to disillusion people, but that is the amount of intensive study and thought and research and focus group meetings that we had in determining in a color of a costume."
There was a short article about iTunes on CBSMarketwatch today.
I realized I tend to talk about iTunes a lot here. I like the product. I think it is leading change in an antiquated industry. It is interesting to watch that change from its beginnings only a year ago.
I only wish you could link to a song or album.
Branding Blog is hosting the Business Blog Book Tour today.
Please pay David and Seth a visit. The header alone is worth the visit.
MT 3.0DE is released. I have been trying to link to Mena's post on it, but it looks like their server is a bit overwhelmed.
There is new pricing, there is new policy, and there are a lot of upset people. Dana has the best rundown of the conversation right now.
The 15 author limit is going to cause me the most problems. At 800-CEO-READ, we plan on have lots of guest authors who will post for a day or a week. Rather than quoting their material, I would like them to be able to post it themselves. I don't mind paying for the software, but it seems like Six Apart are missing how their customers are using it.
Robert gets the Business Blog Book Tour and thinks the Microsoft folks should do some of the same.
Thanks, Robert.
I think freelancers share the sentiments of John Romita Jr.. He pencilled Daredevil from 1988-1990 and again from 1993-1994.
"When my mortgage bill comes I am nailed to this spot...You are basically working on commission. Ask any commissioned salesman or any commissioned worker what it is like knowing that if you don't work that day you won't get paid. That is a scary feeling. And we don't get sick days. You are suppose to be taking care of yourself. So I take the vitamins and drink a ton of water..."
My referral log shows a lot of people coming over from the Marketing Sherpa Best Marketing Blog contest.
Just wanted to say hi to all the new visitors.
Hope you'll take a look around and enjoy what I have to offer. Maybe, you could subscribe to the RSS feed and we can continue this conversation.
Any which way, I am glad you had a chance to stop by.
They just kicked off the best singer on American Idol.
Do customers always know best?
The special section in Monday's (5/10/04) Wall Street Journal was published under the topic "Leadership" and focused on cost cutting. I have never been a big fan of cost cutting, because I don't think the right people are involved in making the decisions.
When I worked at GE, there were two kinds of cost cutting. The first involved a GM or VP looking at his budget and saying "I'm not going to make my number." The next day they all travel was suspended and the office supply closets were locked. That drove me nuts.
The second was planned program that targeted costs. Sourcing and Engineering worked together to find alternate, equivalent materials and services. Production and Engineering would work together on new products and processes that took cost out. I thought that was a great process.
These examples from WSJ fall into the second category:
...Pitney Bowes commissioned Medical Scientists Inc., a predictive modeling firm in Boston, to answer the question, "What is the biggest factor in turning an employee with relatively low health-care costs in one year - usually between $400 and $700-to one with high costs of roughly $10,000 or more?"The employees most at risk, it turned out, were those suffering from a chronic condition, such as diabetes or asthma. That in itself wasn't a surprise. What was startling, though, was that the presence of the condition wasn't such a risk factor. Rather, it was the incidence of patients refilling their prescriptions for medications such as insulin and inhalers only two-thirds of the time or less."
The cost of implementing the program was one million dollars a year and PB weren't sure what the results would be. Cost of employee health-care for people with these chronic conditions has dropped between 10%-15%. This year, they are going to save one million dollars as a result of this program.
Jon at Business Evolutionist has invited everyone over to his place today for the Business Blog Book Tour with Seth Godin.
"How many superheroes are known for what they can't do? Superman can fly and lift up buildings. Batman is ridiculously smart and has got all the technology in the world. Spiderman can spin webs and swing across buildings. Daredevil is blind. He can't see. That is his distinguishing feature. "
-Frank Miller, Penciller and Writer for Daredevil
I feel like I need to explain this one a little. I really like this quote, because there are products and services that people like for what they can't do. The first thing I thought of was the original Palm Pilots. I think they became popular because of what they couldn't do. I know I am stretching this one a bit, but people liked Palm because it was a device dedicated to do a specific set of tasks.
I think media without advertising is another example. Cook's Illustrated and The Believer are examples of this. Both are charging a bit more for the product, but in exchange, you get a magazine that is pure content. This may be a better example of being known for something you don't have.
Please help me. There have got to be other examples to shore up this line of thought.
I have no problem admitting that I am a fan of American Idol. I have always loved live music. I have always thought that was the true test of a musician - What do they sound like on stage? If I have a choice, I will always buy the live version of the song or album.
Oh, there was a point to this post. Karl Moore and Mark Bajramovic wrote a piece that appeared in this week's MarketingProfs called Marketing Lessons From American Idol. It is all about getting your customers involved early.
P.S. I want Fantasia to win. I am not sure she can beat La Toya, but she is getting my vote.
Visit today's BBBT tour at WonderBranding. Also be sure to watch Michele's video.
"I remember what was cool when I was growing up. It was either DC or Marvel. You belonged to either one gang or the another. I think it is healthy for kids at the bookstore...talking about it [and ] disliking one company or another. They are buying everybody's books. The important matter is that they are passionate about something. If it is passionate about loving Marvel or not loving Marvel, that's great. Because being passive is just death."
-Joe Quesada, Marvel Comics Editor in Chief and Penciller on Daredevil 1998-2001
Please go vote in the MarketingSherpa Readers' Choice Blog Awards.
You will find many familiar names.
A Penny For.. has been nominated in the Individual category.
Rock the Vote!
Stan Lee created many of the original characters for Marvel. You can see a biography of him at Salon.com
Here Lee talks about creating a comic book community:
"With Marvel, what I always tried to do was make it like a club; an inner group that we knew about and that the outside world wasn't even aware of. If you read Marvel you were on the inside, you were hip, it was sort of an exclusive thing, limited just to Marvel readers. And I tried to talk to the readers, as if they were friends and not readers. Not only, hopefully, they'd enjoy the stories, but they enjoyed being a part of the Marvel mystique you might say."
Jeremy is already off and running with the Business Blog Book Tour this morning.
I have always liked comic books. I still have a couple hundred issues of X-Men in my basement from when I collecting. I would earn money mowing lawns in the summer, save it, and each month I would order all of my comics from Westfield Comics in Middleton.
I have enjoyed that fact Marvel has been producing full-length features. What proved it would work was X-Men in 1999. What proved you could make a lot of money doing it was Spiderman. Marvel has a list of 30 movies that are currently being developing.
I watched Daredevil over the weekend, and I thought it was good. I always make sure to watch the second disc of extras with any of the Marvel movies. On this disc, they interviewed a variety of people who have written and drawn Daredevil over the years. What struck me was how the stories they were telling were very applicable to business.
So this week, I am going to post a number stories from people like Stan Lee, Frank Miller, and John Quesada. I did this was the Hulk movie (here and here) and I thought it would be interesting to do again.
Just wanted to make sure you saw this great post from the Church of the Customer. It about the importance of word of mouth with movies.
Join everybody for happy hour at Brand Mantra.
I have talked about Swedish authors Jonas Ridderstrle and Kjell Nordstrm a number of times, (here, here, and here). They wrote Funky Business and more recently Karaoke Capitalism.
I still get search hits for Karaoke Capitalism. I wanted to let you know that you can get the new book at 800-CEO-READ. I talked about it on their blog early this week.
Hiring the right people is really important. I know it is a truism, but it was painfully obvious on our trip.
During the last week and a half, my family took three flights with the America West Airlines. It was myself, my wife and our one year old son taking the trip and having the little guy with us required bringing the carseat.
As I am sure you are aware, there are a dozen buckles and straps sticking out. We were a bit concerned about something getting caught on the conveyors they use.
In Milwaukee, we asked the check-in folks if they had anything we could put the carseat in. Their response was, "We don't carry supplies". The TSA folks pointed us to the Delta counter, where they were more than happy to help with a large plastic bag.
In San Diego, we asked the same question. The person checking us in said, "Hang on. I will be right back." He came back with a 55 gallon trash bag. It worked great.
In Phoenix, we got the same story about how they didn't stock supplies. This time Southwest came to our rescue.
Same problem, same rules, but three different people. One of them got it right.
We were out of town for a week and a half visiting family in San Diego (the Wild Animal Park is a must) and Phoenix. I came back and need to get the BBBT going. I also have the other gig which is keeping me busy.
I will get back to posting here. I want to share stories from the trip and I am catching up on some reading, so there might be some things there.
Seth is riffing at the 800-CEO-READ blog today.
Today, Katherine Stone at Decent Marketing is hosting Seth and the BBBT.
You saw the work that the coroners at Brand Autopsy, right?
I need to announce two changes to the Business Blog Book Tour.
On Thurs May 6th, we will be moving the stop from Dana's Blog to the 800-CEO-READ Blog. Dana had some scheduling problems. Seth is going to post some more thoughts on the book similar to what he did here.
We have also added one more stop to the tour. You can visit Dave Lakhani at Bold Approach on Monday May 17th.
The schedule has been updated in the upper right corner, on the tour page, and I here in this entry.
Tour Stops
Inquiring minds want to know:
If a company set-up a external blog to talk to customers, would you consider that a free prize? If not, what could you do to make it one?
Only if it's worth talking about! Most blogs are boring, self-absorbed, trivial and not worth remembering, never mind talking to people about. Company blogs are worse, because everyone wants to play it safe.
Safe is risky!
Safe is invisible!
If you want to play it safe, please don't bother wasting time on a blog. It won't work.
A blog for your customers becomes remarkable when you start doing stuff like posting negative feedback and angry letters. Or when you post instructions on how to buy the stuff you sell, cheaper, from someone else.
NO, you don't have to be self-destructive (I assume in both cases above, there's a reason to stick with you, and your candor actually helps) but you must be remarkable.
How do you balance finding an edge and with finding a market big enough to sell to?
Big markets didn't used to be big markets. They used to be small markets. There are 2.4 million blogs. There used to be 10. There are millions of people drinking bottled water. There used to be none.
If you can make your idea spread, odds are that you'll find a market. The hard part isn't figuring out what's big enough. The hard part is being remarkable.
This is Trumina. She works at the Best Buy in Mount Vernon, NY.
She's a Free Prize. People come from all over to buy something that without her is just a commodity. All digital cameras from Sony are the same, for example, until Trumina sells you one.
She becomes the Free Prize by breaking all the rules at the store, by telling the unvarnished truth and by going out of her way for people.
It's not rocket science, but it works.
Yesterday, my dad had his cronies over. Fiftieth high school reunion, and since we're local, we hosted. It was really fun.
After brunch, I served chocolate covered pickles.
Yes, they were a big hit. Plenty of conversation.
But Mickey did NOT say to my dad, "I've got to go out and get me some of these chocolate covered pickles."
It was a gimmick, not a Free Prize, for the simple reason that it didn't catch on.
That doesn't meant that it won't work for some people. It just means that outrageous is not remarkable and not everything weird is a free prize.
The free prize is just a gimmick until it becomes the thing that people talk about.
Putting my book in a cereal box (Seth Godin :: Free Prize Inside) is nothing but a gimmick, of course, until people start putting the cereal box on their desk and then using it as a way of starting a conversation about the book. Then it becomes just as important as the book itself. Sort of like frequent flyer miles.
When was the last time you shopped there? Last year, more than 85% of all Americans did, with almost 50% doing it weekly.
If that's not you, you're not getting the massive thing that's happening.
They sell 30% of all the Tide that gets sold. 30% of a lot of other stuff too. They have a huge share of their sales in private label goods, and it's getting bigger all the time. Why? Because they're C H E A P.
So...
If what you sell is an average product for average people, tell me why those people won't try to find it at Walmart. And if they try to find it at Walmart and there's a private label or a competitor that just as average, but cheaper, why won't they switch?
The lesson of Walmart (for consumers) and the web (for business AND consumers) is simple: If it's not worth crossing the street for, you're in a commodity business. And if you sell a commodity, you don't deserve a profit. Trying hard doesn't count.
The profit comes not from making your profit marginally better (because no one will notice marginally better, because people don't care about you). The profit comes from finding a free prize and offering it to people.
After more than two years (really?) of posting my own blog, here I am on Todd's, guest blogging to flog (flogging on a blog...) my new book, Free Prize Inside.
It's a very weird feeling. Sort of like house sitting, but worse. I don't want to break anything, don't want to rearrange the furniture or leave my socks in the washing machine.
Hey, Todd, thanks for leaving a full fridge...
Loic Le Meur talks about digital media and a copyright free future. I can see and feel the change. I just can't figure out what it is going to be like on the other side. I want to know where I should be.
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | ||||
| 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 |
| 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
| 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
