Musings of a Marketing Maven

Christine Thompson> What's on my mind: life and work

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Entries Tagged as 'Tools & Technology'

Following Through on New Year’s Resolutions

December 30th, 2009 · Comments Off · Back to Basics, Creativity, Tools & Technology

It’s that time of year again, time to review what worked (and what didn’t) in 2009, imagine new possibilities, dream, and set intentions for the coming year. I’ve been enjoying the process of setting some actionable goals for 2010, while identifying some larger aspirations that I’d like to translate into action. To prepare my plan [...]

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Are Digital Models Influencing the Business of Yoga?

December 17th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Tools & Technology, Yoga

My Seattle yoga studio is undergoing what its founder calls a “rebirth,” overhauling its web presence, expanding the class roster, and offering online class registration and payment options. Finally! This is a smart decision, as they have limited space, a growing number of qualified teachers, and increasing demand for their classes and workshops. On one [...]

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Falling Out of Love with QuickBooks

October 30th, 2009 · 3 Comments · Brand Matters, Tools & Technology

For years I’ve loved QuickBooks – a tool that made managing my company’s money remarkably pleasant. I used to rave about it to colleagues. But over the past several product releases I’ve become disenchanted; I think Intuit has lost its way, and has lost sight of whose interest it was pursuing. No longer customer centered [...]

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Visualizing Your Digital Persona

October 13th, 2009 · 3 Comments · Brand Matters, Tools & Technology

Researchers at the MIT Media Lab have released an online tool that  attempts to characterize your digital persona based on data mining of online resources. Right now the tool is in the fun and exploratory phase, but it offers food for thought. Have you ever wondered what your digital fingerprints might look like, if there [...]

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Nice Update from TweetDeck

September 25th, 2009 · Comments Off · Social Media for Business, Tools & Technology

My PC now sports a nice update from TweetDeck. It’s smart enough to shorten URLs automatically, and supports drag-and-drop of photos to Twitter, Facebook or MySpace. Nice time-saving features… Print PDF

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Why Don’t They Listen to Their Customers?

September 24th, 2009 · Comments Off · Back to Basics, Tools & Technology

The idea of phone companies listening to their customers is perhaps an oxymoron, but I haven’t given up hope. Browsing Verizon’s list of supported cell phones, I was struck by their obvious lack of needs-based segmentation. Like most carriers, they seem Print PDF

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Sharing Can Be Addictive

July 14th, 2009 · Comments Off · Creativity, Tools & Technology

My family is getting ready to celebrate my mother’s 80th birthday. We decided to create a “memory book” in which we’d collect family photos, stories, family recipes. At the end of this process she’ll end up with: a printed book of photos and images, courtesy of Shutterfly (or equivalent service) a printed booklet of stories [...]

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Working with Windows 7

July 1st, 2009 · 1 Comment · Tools & Technology

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 Print PDF

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Windows 7 & Mac?

June 24th, 2009 · Comments Off · Tools & Technology

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 [...]

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Spam: Finally Solved

June 10th, 2009 · Comments Off · Tools & Technology

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. [...]

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