Alright, I confess: I’m a closet geek (or at least my husband says so). The latest evidence? Yesterday I installed the release candidate for Windows 7 on my MacBook Pro under Boot Camp.
Ironically it took me as long to install Windows 7 RC1 as it took the plumber [Read more →]
There’s a very real obstacle to successful social media engagement, and that’s the fact that “most companies and agencies were not built for dialogue,” according to Matt Dickman of Fleishman Hillard. It’s not just a problem of scale.
Most businesses lack the cultures for open-minded listening and responding, and cultures tend to take a long time to change. How often have you observed a panic-stricken or repressive response inside your company to negative criticism or consumer feedback in the blogosphere?
Most companies also lack people-based scale to handle higher levels of engagement with customers, partners and others via social media.
Check out the fascinating presentation by Matt Dickman, SVP Digital Marketing, Fleishman Hillard:
→ No CommentsTags:
For some time I’ve been looking for the perfect yoga mat, but have not yet found it. Over time and with daily usage the mat becomes a kind of sacred place so it’s important that you find one that really fits your needs and values. Here’s what I’ve learned over the past couple of years. [Read more →]
Perhaps it’s an oxymoron, but I find myself wondering how well Windows 7 will perform on my MacBook Pro under Bootcamp.
I had my ear bent at a party this weekend by a guy who had just installed Windows 7 Release Candidate on his PC. He enthused that it was the first time in a long while that he had actually enjoyed using Windows. It got me thinking…
So I tweeted yesterday and asked if anyone had tried installing Windows 7 on their Mac. To date, I’ve had no replies…
Perhaps I’m odd. I’m not a Mac-versus-PC kind of person. Instead, I’m a “both and…”
So, if anyone has tried to install Windows 7 RC on a Mac, let me know what your experience has been so far.
Lately my friends and I have been talking about how people succeed, wondering why some are more successful than others despite comparable intellectual advantages or innate talents. Most of us have read Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, and we’ve been comparing his case studies to our personal experience and pondering the implications.
We’re been telling stories about how and when we got our lucky break, describing the people or events that were transformative in our lives. [Read more →]
→ 1 CommentTags: mentors
Blocking spam and keeping viruses out of our mailboxes are huge hassles for small businesses like mine. We don’t have in-house IT staff and the techs we rent by the hour don’t appear to know what the best spam-blocking options are for a business of our scale. Consumer-grade spam blockers just don’t make the grade.
I’ve been testing a service offered by a firm based in Montreal, called Perimetec, and am happy to report that I’m now getting enterprise-class spam blocking for an affordable price: $2.50 per mailbox. During my trial period with their service, statistics show that 85% of the mail sent to my email domain has been spam.
It’s been a huge relief to have that blocked from my computers — and my iPhone! Before Perimetec it simply wasn’t worth my time to use the iPhone for email checking, due to the huge volume of spam (1000’s of messages per week). Now it’s a blast.
I highly recommend this service (based on Barracuda technology) for other small business owners who operate without the benefit of full-time IT staff.
So how does Lululemon inspire such cult-like loyalty among its customer base (principally yoga practitioners)? They do the basics really well — for both in-store and online shopping. It’s clear they’re paying attention to customer experience management across many dimensions.
Here are some of the things they get right: [Read more →]
I had a chuckle this morning, courtesy of a friend who works at Microsoft. She passed on a link to the “Twitter spoof video” that Jeremiah Owyang showed in a blog post this week. Although tongue in cheek, the animation raises some good points about what happens when a new way to communicate turns into a celebrity fad fest.
Industry pundits and market analysts have lots of advice to offer companies pondering the implications of Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, PR 2.0, social media or conversational marketing. The blogosphere and conference circuits are full of what experts have to say about the urgent need for business transformation, for companies to “embrace the groundswell.” Threats loom, as expressed in this quote from a leading source:
If you have a brand, you’re under threat. Your customers have always had an idea about what your brand signifies, an idea that may vary from the image you are projecting. Now they’re talking to each other about that idea. They are redefining for themselves the brand you spent millions of dollars, or hundreds of millions of dollars, creating. …Business-to-business companies are, if anything, more vulnerable to these trends.
— From Groundswell, Charlene Li & Josh Bernoff, Forrester Research, 2008
If you’re a practical, action-oriented business person, you’re probably wondering about the incremental price tag. Hold on to your hats: if you work for a mid-market or larger company, you could easily be looking at a start-up investment of hundreds of thousands of dollars on top of your existing marketing budget. Here’s why.
The publicity team for Putting the Public Back in Public Relations asked me for a review in this blog. This is the latest book by Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge, two eminent thought leaders in the world of public relations and social media. 
Their book is an in-depth discussion of their manifesto for “a New PR” — to reinvent the practice of PR given the onslaught of social media, new forms of peer-to-peer engagement, and the emergence of conversational marketing. There’s a lot to like in what they’re advocating, even though it threatens to turn the traditional practice of marketing inside out.
But — I’ve struggled for a week now to get my thoughts in order before writing the review, as requested by their publisher. (For my creative procrastination, see this post.) [Read more →]
→ No CommentsTags: conversational marketing·PR 2.0·social media