Todd Sattersten :: Astronaut Projects

Happy Mother's Day

Rejecting the brash commercialism that Mother's Day has become, I did a little DIY for the two main moms in my life. I don't remember where I initially saw this, but I was immediately attracted to the idea of making my own $15 Mont Blanc pen.

It is very simple to do. I got my supplies at OfficeMax buying the two-pack Mont Blanc for $10.99 and a 4-pack of Pilot G-2 Pens for $4.99 (so my per piece price was $7.50). As the instructions lay out, you only need to cutoff the little nub at the end of the Mont Blanc cartridge to make it fit in the G-2 casing. I bought the ones in with clear case so you could see through.

If there is any question about the appropriateness of the gift, my wife has an engineering degree and an MBA. My mom is an accountant. I am assure you they both appreciate fine writing instruments.

To the rest of you mothers, Happy Mother's Day!

Being Open

I scheduled a call today with someone who I thought was doing some cool stuff. I told him I had read about his company recently and wanted to find out more.

"Are you writing a story?"

"No, I am just interested."

I told him I had a similar idea for publishing.

"We work with authors too."

I said that it wasn't really the same thing. I explained a bit and said I just wanted to know what sort of things he had learned through starting the company.

"Before we go any further, are you looking to partner with me or set-up some kind of consulting."

I said again that I wanted to know more about his business.

"It would be great to sit here and throw around ideas with you, but my time is really limited."

[Pause]

And I thanked him for his time.

I guess I have gotten use to talking about ideas freely and openly. It is such a natural part of the blogsphere.

Ideas that are shared, flourish and prosper.

Not everyone shares that view.

Citizen Lawyer

The Internet is allowing people to take back control of journalism and marketers. How about law?

The Wall Street Journal has a great story [sub. needed] of exactly that today. Susan Hudock was fired from Aventis on medical grounds that she could no longer do her job. She suffers from shingles and was dealing with the condition by taking pain medication. This made is difficult for her to drive to see doctors as a drug rep. She asked for long term leave based on American With Disabilities Act and was denied.

This started the four year legal battle. She start with a lawyer helping her and had to go it alone after the legal bills became to large. The article details the trials and tribulations of representing yourself in the legal system. Some of the resources she used included FindLaw, the Cornell University Law School site, and episodes of Law & Order: Trial by Jury.

Hudock lost the case in trial, but will be again by representing herself as she appeals the verdict.

Open For Business Project

The Open For Business Project is an open source project that encompasses an entire suite of enterprise software including ERP, CRM, E-commerce, and CMMS.

Cool.

Is OFBiz for you?

Social Customer Manifesto

I wish there were less manifestos, but I think you might want to subscribe to Christopher Carfi's Social Customer Manifesto.

Here is his customer manifesto:

• I want to have a say.
• I don't want to do business with idiots.
• I want to know when something is wrong, and what you're going to do to fix it.
• I want to help shape things that I'll find useful.
• I want to connect with others who are working on similar problems.
• I don't want to be called by another salesperson. Ever. (Unless they have something useful. Then I want it yesterday.)
• I want to buy things on my schedule, not yours. I don't care if it's the end of your quarter.
• I want to know your selling process.
• I want to tell you when you're screwing up. Conversely, I'm happy to tell you the things that you are doing well. I may even tell you what your competitors are doing.
• I want to do business with companies that act in a transparent and ethical manner.
• I want to know what's next. We're in partnership…where should we go?

LEGO gets customers involved

I absolutely love this story from Think by Peter Davidson. LEGO is allowing customers to download software, design their own building set, and then upload the design for competition against others. LEGO is going to put the winning designs into production. Winners will be awarded with design credit on the box, free sets of their design, and royalties.

Talk about getting your customers involved!

Love it!
Love it!
Love it!

This is getting closer

I have read the article Open Source Marketing from Hans Peter Brondmo at clickz a couple times as people have been linking to it. It took James at the Modern Marketing Blog to pull out the best part and for me to finally notice it.

Open-source marketing encourages openness and discussion, facilitates debate and idea sharing. It encourages free downloads of the finished ad and the "source code" -- all the storyboards, video clips, raw animation, text copy, sound files, and other components -- used to construct the advertisement. Open-source marketing enlists the audience to take a message, an image, or a jingle and "improve" it by creating derivative works. It encourages consumers to not just consume and critique, but to engage, improve, and redistribute improvements if the original doesn't work or measure up.

This is getting closer to the definition of what I think open source marketing is.

Open Source Marketing from Modern Marketing

Here is another take on all the talk of open source marketing. James Cherkoff from the Modern Marketing Blog uses the common example of Dean's campaign and the uncommon examples of GE and Mercedes-Benz.

I again like the ideas, but I still feel we are playing at the edges of this.

[via COTC at TraderMike]

Marketing Open Source

I like the words in that order. The Reverend helped me see that.

I am seeing lots of linkage to Crazy Like a Firefox. It gives a couple more tidbits to the story.

[via Johnnie Moore and others]

Can I Have A Hallelujah?!

I recently added Open Source Marketing with Reverend Ted to my aggregator. Rev. Ted writes about the trials and tribulations with the marketing of open source software.

To me , this is what Open Source Marketing is all about - "Perhaps we'll find that given enough eyeballs, all the bugs in marketing theory are shallow."