Quiver & Quill

 (Image courtesy of Krishna De, from Flickr)Children are less likely to lose touch with their friends because they’re connected by social networking sites from the moment they begin school. This was not the case with my parents’ generation. I recently reconnected on Facebook with a friend from middle school. Within two days, five of my other middle school classmates had reconnected with me. There was something exciting about looking at their profiles to see who they’ve become, how their faces have changed and how their personalities haven’t.When today’s kids grow up, their entire social network will age with them. They will decide who to remove from their networks and how much access to grant those who remain, rather than seeking out old friends. How will this affect their sense of who they are, who they were and whom they consider to be their people?

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I love this lil’ email from Daily Candy. It’s personal, engaging and perfectly sassy. The signature is brilliant: “We look forward to working with you.” It welcomes me as a member of a team and creates the expectation that they want to help.

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American Public Media’s Marketplace, a national radio show, has a great interview with E&J Gallo Winery CEO Joe Gallo called “Growing up in the wine industry.” A few highlights:

“There are two big decisions to make in life: What you do and who you marry. And a lot of people get one right and not the other.”

“I’ve been guided by my dad’s philosophy on what it takes to be successful in business:
-Stay independent
-Hire good people
-Strive for perfection
-Never be satisfied
-Don’t plan too far ahead
-Have a sense of urgency
-Work like hell
-Be lucky

Listen to the entire podcast here:
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/11/16/growing_up_in_the_wine_industry/

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Do we want choice, or just the perception of choice?
I believe we are most persuaded by marketing that simplifies the act of choosing.

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Here’s why:

1. At a movie, baseball game or restaurant, she spontaneously sighs and says, “I seriously love my car.”
2. When another Mini driver stops to check out her car, she says, “That’s such a Mini-owner thing to do.” “What?” I ask. “You wouldn’t understand.”
3. She spent over an hour reviewing the care pack Mini sent her – and smiled as she lovingly turned every page.
4. Every time she makes a U-turn, I get to hear the speech about how superior her Mini is (to my car) and how my car could never do what her car can do so smoothly.
5. Ditto parking, turning, stopping or packing luggage.
6. She actually waves at other Mini owners. And they actually wave back. Even in New York. I am not making this up.
7. If she brakes hard and says, “Are you OK?” I know not to respond. She’s talking to her car.
8. She wants to attend Mini-related events and regularly Googles them.
9. Yesterday, after borrowing my car for the day, she said, “Your car is over-sized and clumsy. I feel at one with my car. I know how it moves, and how it responds to the rain.”
10. When asked what she likes about her car, she says – without rehearsal – “Its awesome design; it feels cool, trendy and compact; it has great handling; it makes super-safe turns; its width-to-height proportion, like a bulldog’s stance; the huge trunk space; it’s easy to drive; it has a vintage design, but I know it’s a BMW; I feel safe in it; if anything happens, Mini roadside assistance will come pick me up.

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I’m the best Tipper On Earth

Originally uploaded by Jason DeRusha

I pay at the counter at my favorite lunch place. Most people do not tip even when they sit and at this little dive. I’ve noticed that when people pay with a credit card, they always tip well. And when they pay in cash, they seldom tip.

When they pay with a credit card, the receipt is printed with a blank line for the tip. And when they pay in cash, there’s obviously no such line.

It’s the expectation of leaving a tip—or the fear of insult surrounding leave the tip line blank, which causes many people to tip when paying with a credit card but not when paying cash.

I would love to see how asking customers paying in cash, “do you want to leave a tip?” would affect how many of them do. So, do you want to leave a comment?

P.S. I am currently at blog group deciding whether to delete this post or explain it further. The point I want to emphasize is the “do you want fries like that phenomena” that when people are asked directly they tip. This restaurant is a little take out place, I appreciate their service and acknowledge it often with gratuity.

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work, buy, consume, die (boomerang card)

Originally uploaded by BdR76

I work with 40+ sales reps from both local and national media companies every month placing digital media buys for clients. Most sales reps fail to close a deal or earn a repeat order not because of their digital knowledge or skills, but rather shortcomings in their service.

Here are a few common mistakes:
1. Treating an agency’s smaller and larger clients differently. The size of the client does not always correlate to their budget on a particular campaign.
2. Renegotiating rates during a media buy rather than scheduling a time during the planning process to discuss.
3. Failing to provide added value—or offering no incentive to clients who continue to renew orders.
4. Failing to offer ideas and suggestions to enhance the campaign.
5. Selling out of inventory without informing the agency ahead of time.
6. Only talking or emailing the agency when they are placing a buy—this will guarantee a strictly transactional relationship.
7. Failing to inform the agency about changes to the media website and its essential stats (uniques, TOS, impressions, new content and sponsorable assets)
8. Failing to provide the agency with a wrap up report
9. Complaining…about the size of a buy; the fact that a competitor received the same buy; the urgency with which a buy needs to be executed
10. Forgetting reoccurring advertisers in favor of short-term profitable opportunities
11. Mistaking when the agency is looking for an idea versus when an agency has an idea and is searching the right digital venues to execute it.
12. Failing to hit deadlines. This is both when the campaign goes live and when the campaign has concluded.
13. Failing to deliver all the media that the agency booked—and informing the agency after the campaign has ended.

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Here are a few ideas from my reading that I found intriguing this week:”Forty percent of all mothers in the U.S., believe it or not, are on Myspace. Twelve percent of all internet minutes are spent on Myspace. Forty-five percent of all users on Myspace are over the age 35,” Chris Dewolfe, CEO of Myspace in Business Week, 6/2/08.

“Life conspires to beat the rebel out of you,” Bogusky says, dropping one of those lines that could be either authentic on-the-fly wisdom or something he once saw on a T-Shirt. “I was at a meeting at Nike recently with a bunch of senior people, and that’s just the thought that went through my head. For everyone at the table I could see how life was trying to beat it out of us.” Alex Bogusky quoted in Fast Company, June 2008.

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While I’m not a gamer, this game might just make me one. Thanks to @jowyang for pointing this out.

Gaming Videos

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Twitter gives a context for the mundane. Life’s small details are no more or less important than they were before Twitter, just now more people are paying attention to them. And I think that is a good thing.

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Grandpa Pettigrew

Originally uploaded by Carla216

It’s cleaning day. It’s discovery day. After sorting through papers for the past coupla hours, I discovered a letter an old mentor of mine wrote.

He’s a world famous author. When I was 10, we lived across the street from him. His wife made us tea, and we watched Ken Burns documentaries and talked about World War II and sailing. He gave me the first book which made me want to read, “The Count of Monte Cristo.”

I moved away a year later. We stayed in touch via email. When I graduated college, five years ago, he wrote me this :

“Zachary—I’d guess you are cut out to be a writer. Think you’d have the talent, brains, etc. Do you have what it takes to go down that long and lonely road which you have somewhat accurately foreseen? Who knows? I don’t. Neither do you. It ain’t an easy trip.

You’ll need to know what sort of writer you will be. Fiction or non-fiction. If non-fiction, a reporter of the world (a fine skill) or someone like George Orwell, and many others, who show us reality filtered through their own value system. If fiction do you pick one of then “genre” and within it, do your thing? Or do you try to appeal to the academics who control the world of literary criticism and sign up for whatever is the current darling of the English Professors?

Whatever you decide, I think you have to decide to write for two people. One is yourself, and one is that worthy reader to whom you wish to deliver your image, your vision of a street scene, your memory of two people getting acquainted. Early one, decide if you want to be published. If so you must face the reality of the world of publishing and aim at an audience large enough to provide some sort of sales…”

If I were to write, I hope to capture those Sunday afternoon of drinking tea and talking about the war with my neighbor.

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Tim’s bachelor party 1

Originally uploaded by erat

I knew I was doomed from the second I saw the word bachelor party in the subject line. It wasn’t spam. It was far worse: the massive group email that you can’t opt out of.

It was sent to my work email. A good friend of my cousin’s sent this particular email inviting the more than 20 guys who received it to help organize a bachelor party. By the time I read the email nearly all twenty guys had responded with a “reply all” to the group. Some messages were essential, like what city to host the party. And others were less so, for example, “LOL Bob.”

The comment threads are just beginning. We’re months away from the bachelor party. As it gets closer, there will be more inside jokes amongst people I don’t yet know arriving like “personal letters” from the Publisher’s Clearinghouse in my inbox.

There is no real way to ask people not to use my work email. If I do, when I arrive at the bachelor party, I’ll be that “jerk” from the email list.

What do you do in a situation like this?

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In a few weeks I’ll be in a small village in Colombia trying to impress my girlfriend’s grandparents. And as impressive as Twitter, Facebook, social media and advertising might be, I think learning Spanish is a far more effective way to go here. So I’ve covered my apartment with Spanish phrases and words, and my friend Karlenis hand selected the phrases (i.e., appliance tagging). I’ve also downloaded a few Spanish books on audible. So as long as they ask me one of 50 or so phrases, I’ll be just fine. Hasta manana.

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The smell of brick, spring flowers and Fenway-

He sits peacefully in the sun, an old man selling plastic birds.
As a young man, did he sell papers on same corner?
I ask him if I could take a picture.
He nods yes.

I do not want a plastic bird.
I want a photo.

“I would like a green one,” I say.
He passes it to me as if bestowing a secret
“You have to fill it with water,” he says filling it with water.

I blow.
Nothing happens.

“You have to pucker your lips,” he says.
I pucker my lips and blow again.
From the plastic bird emerges a beautiful song that floats above the traffic

How many Bostonians own one of his birds?
And if they played at the same time what magic would fill the streets:
Cars would stop
Women would leave their salons, nails wet, to watch
Cats chasing after the sound of his plastic birds

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My friends started a website called Nkd Guru. They are finalist in a competition, and the winner receives a cool million dollars in venture funding. Check out their stuff, and if you like it, vote for them. Even if you don’t like it, their accent and the video is cool enough to earn the vote. And if you love the idea, as I do, help spread the word.

How to vote:
1. Click on this link - http://youbethevc.com/finalists
2. Click the “Join” tab
3. Fill out your info
4. Click the “Finalists” tab
5. And Click 5 GREEN STARS under the nkdguru logo

(NOTE: There is no confirmation per se, the indication is in the form of 5 stars changing color from “white” to “green”)

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More than thirty attended the third Rubber Chicken Social Club dinner at Chang Sho restaurant in Cambridge. We shared great food and conversation. In order to facilitate this, everyone at the dinner received a note card with an assignment. The names of three different people at the dinner and questions to ask them were written on each card. The questions were conversation starters based on people’s areas of expertise or interest.

For example, one question read: “Ask Bob how he uses Second Life in his business.” and another “Ask David what the difference is between filming for the web and filming for TV.”

After each course the ten people at each of the three tables switched places. From what I could tell everyone had the opportunity to get to know each other.

My favorite moment of the evening happened when I looked around the table to see everyone happily eating Chinese food and discussing social media, politics, PR, the Cambridge geek scene, investing and mobile user interface design. It felt like one of those movie moments when the soundtrack kicks in.

Thanks for making the Rubber Chicken Social Club a success. If you’d like at attend the next dinner, email me, or send me a tweet (quiverandquill). Bring a healthy appetite and your sense of humor.

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A creative ad caught my eye on Facebook today. A young man used a Facebook flyer to ask prospective employers to hire him. When you click on his ad, you arrive at his YouTube page with a short pitch (see it below). I love the concept of job seekers targeting prospective employers with creative techniques like these.

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I am speaking at the National Association of Broadcasters next week. The topic of my talk is “How to Activate Listeners Online.” My strategy is to share with the audience that online marketing isn’t just one set of strategies. In fact, there are hundreds of strategies and many critical outcomes which trigger which of those strategies are selected. For example, all of the outcomes below are important to interactive directors of media companies; however, the selection of strategies is contingent on the budget and order of importance of the outcomes. Key outcomes for radio websites:

• How to get more existing listeners to your website
• How to get your competitions listeners to your website
• How to get listeners to affiliate with your station on their point of presence online
• How to get more listeners to spend more time on your site
• How to get more listeners to invite their friends and family to the site
• How to get members of your community to blog about you
• How to win friends and influence listeners in social networks
• How to increase subscriptions and downloads
• How to grow the quality of your online community
• How to grow the size of your online community
• How to get recruit the best interactive talent
• How to get find the best ideas to activate your listener online

I’ll put my slides on slideshare.net after the presentation.

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I received an email from my old accountant. His daughter, and ten other local young ladies, were modeling prom dresses for a local clothing store’s website. The young lady who received the most votes won a prom prize package. This is a simple promotion, and I imagine highly effective. My accountant most have sent this email to a few hundred people, and each model I am sure did the same.  It’s a simple promotion and a good idea. 

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Bulk Bin of Mini Rubber Chickens

Originally uploaded by zoomar

I am starting a social club called “The Rubber Chicken Social Club.”
The name comes from these mini rubber chickens that my business partner gave me years ago.They were a reminder to smile during my presentation at the National Association of Broadcasters in 2006.
Ever since one mini rubber chicken has lived comfortably in my wallet, nestled right behind my license. It’s a daily reminder to bring humor and personality into my work and life.

Right now the Rubber Chicken Social Club throws monthly dinners.
New friends, sales people, tech geeks, bloggers, entrepreneurs, twitter addicts, scholars and old friends all come together to share a meal. About 25 people attend, and I either work with or collaborate with all of them. Everyone who attends has a genuine curiosity, a love of learning and meeting new people.

In the coming months I plan to turn the Rubber Chicken Social Club into an active, inclusive, high-energy group mini rubber chicken lovers. Some things I would like to do are: bowling; breakfasts; lectures; tweet ups; Twitter Olympics (yet to be defined); pecha-kucha’s; Random acts of organized kindness; Trivia night and giving away tons of mini rubber chickens. I am at the brainstorming stage right now. If you would like to be part of this, leave me a comment—or attend one of our events. I am very open to your suggestions. I will give a mini rubber chicken to the first 3 I receive—just tell me where to send them.

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