This week’s Marketing Over Coffee (the best marketing podcast ever recorded in an oven toasted goods shop with co-host John Wall) features discussions of free, messaging failures, and other great fun. If you haven’t tuned in, head on over and get your cup of marketing.
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The credit crisis we’re currently enduring has been a long time in the making. Arguably, you could stretch all the way back to 1971 when President Nixon removed the United States finally from the gold standard, making our currency a fiat currency. Since then, and especially since the late 1980s, we’ve been inflating our currency and sloshing around cash from one bubble to the next, as investors chased yield and strategy shifted from long term to short term.
Consider the bubbles we’ve had:
Each bubble larger than the last.
It’s like… like the United States has been bar hopping, and the real estate bubble was the final bar before last call. Then someone stood up and yelled “Drinks are on me!” only we don’t know who. Doesn’t matter, drinks are on someone, so drink up!
The credit crisis is the hangover for 37 years of excessive drinking at the fiat currency bar. As the song goes, you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here…
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I wish I knew who to attribute this to.
“An eagle has two wings, left and right. Without both, it cannot fly.”
Something to remember in partisan times.
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I was thinking to myself as I lay in bed this morning, coughing up phlegm, that I’ve been more sick in the past year than I’ve been in the last ten. The corollary is that I’ve traveled more in the past year than in the last ten, and travel and I seem to disagree, at least on a health front.
I already take a multivitamin supplement and drink plenty of juice and water (and coffee). Regular exercise is in the mix, too. I can’t take Airborne because I’m allergic to sucralose (nasty swelling rash) – what other tips and tricks do you suggest to fend off travel crud?
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LinkedIn. Love it or hate it, it’s prominent, it’s a social network, and it lets you post URLs to your profile… except that they’re naked URLs, with no link text to help you in your search efforts, right?
Nope.
Now you can. Go to LinkedIn, make sure you have a public profile set up with a good URL, and then instead of choosing My Blog or My Company, choose Other.
Cha-ching! Link text in your profile from a prominent, trusted domain.
Speaking of which, are we connected on LinkedIn? If not, connect here:
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A few late night thoughts. Without digging into all the economics, the short version is this: 2008 economically is poised to be somewhere between hideous and horrifying. Take your pick: subprime, alt-a, gasoline, wheat, corn, student loans, etc. Any way you slice it, the economy is in a tailspin.
That said, the show must go on – but how? When donor pools dry up, how do non-profits weather downturns? Here are 5 ideas.
1. Batten down the hatches. Just as every other American individual and business MUST do, non-profits need to be ruthless about cutting costs. Got a photocopier in the office? Unplug it, and ask that people use a scanner and email instead. Enforce 100% lights out at the end of the workday to cut power costs. Reduce or eliminate as many consumable as possible – belt tightening is the rule.
2. Hit up donors sooner rather than later. It’s customary in the non-profit world to ask donations and contributions around the holiday season, but as the economy trends downward, you need to ask now, while there’s still disposable cash. Pick a reason, any reason, to ask for donations. Hitch up to minor but relevant holidays, or an aspect of those holidays, or heck, just manufacture your own holiday, but ask.
3. Increase focus on microdonations. The Internet gives non-profits greater reach at lower cost, more so than ever in history. Leverage that power to focus on building your house list, your potential donor base. This requires some serious heavy lifting in marketing, but as long as you have capable staff, you’re trading time and energy marketing online versus expensive offline marketing. Learn how to find your donors online, and learn how to get small donations from LOTS of people. Be sure to investigate any and all payment options and find the lowest per-transaction costs. Amazon and Google Checkout both offer 100% pass-through of contributions.
4. Build buzz. You’re already doing good work – now get off your duff and start marketing the heck out of your works. The more awareness you can spread about your work, the easier it will be to get critical general operating funds out of donors. Look carefully at how you market your works, and make friends in the PR and marketing fields so that you can ask their advice before launching any kind of campaign.
5. Mind your money. Wherever you’ve got your money parked, be SURE it is safe. If you have general operating funds in anything other than an FDIC insured account, your organization is at risk from a legion of predicted bank failures. Make sure you’re playing it super-safe with the cash this year – know where it is, and know that it’s insured.
With luck, talent, and intelligence, operationally efficient and forward-thinking non-profits should do very well in 2008 as the rest of the pack is slaughtered by the economic sharks in the water. With fewer competitors for donors’ money, the most lean and aggressive non-profits can potentially earn some big donor market share. Good luck!
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Where do the veterans of new media go?
A theme that has cropped up in discussion lately about PodCamp is this:
Where do the veterans go to learn new stuff?
PodCamp, BarCamp, NewBCamp, BootCamp – there are so many conferences, sessions, and opportunities for new folks, from Zero to Podcasting at PodCamp Toronto to all of NewBCamp/BootCamp, and it’s heartening to see the new media community welcoming with open arms anyone who wants to learn. New media’s future hinges on the continued generosity of the community, and I hope PodCamp especially continues to be one of the welcome wagons.
That said, where do the veterans go to take their game to the next level? Where can they turn?
To be honest, there isn’t anything for them, not because of a lack of desire, but because being on the frontier means you’re responsible for your own training, your own innovation. You can get together with friends and share what you’ve created, but by and large, innovation is your responsibility.
Sure, I think it would be fantastic to have a 400-level track at PodCamps, and PodCamp organizers would do well to remember that all levels of skill welcome means all levels, including the occasional rocket scientist/trail blazer, or else that occasional rocket scientist has a diminished incentive to contribute.
But beyond that, the innovators are on their own. In the martial arts, one of my teachers, Ken Savage (of the Winchendon Martial Arts Center), compares our head teacher, Mark Davis (of the Boston Martial Arts Center) to a trailblazer at the head of our line, machete in hand, cutting a path so we don’t have to.
Being a trailblazer can mean recognition, thanks, and even fame, but it also means you’re the first guy or gal to step on the snakes, scorpions, and other delights the jungle has in store for you. Veterans of new media need to remember that as well – if you want to continue being a leader, the path never gets easier. Same scorpions, different day.
Where do I personally go to learn? I look at tons of different sources for idea components. For example, I got a thank you email from someone on LinkedIn that had a great idea component in it, something that I’m going to combine with a few other ideas and make even better. New ideas, new insights are all around, if only we’re paying enough attention to grab them as they whiz by. Ideas come from arbitrage – I’ve often quoted Mark Davis’ signature expression, study something old to learn something new. Finally, ideas come from just trying something, watching it flop, finding the parts that did work, and refining it until it does work.
As Thomas Edison said, “I haven’t failed 10,000 times. I have just found 10,000 ways not to make a lightbulb.”
Where do YOU get your ideas? Where do YOU go to learn?
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For those thinking about audio podcasting as an effective sales mechanism, master sales trainer Dan Kennedy has an interesting perspective on audio as a marketing tool. Granted, in his blog post, he’s talking about CDs and not digital delivery, but the points about why sales folks should be delivering audio as a sales mechanism are just as applicable.
If you’re looking for a sales podcast, check out the Sales Roundup Podcast, another one of our fellow New England Podcasters.
I’ve been following a lot of Dan Kennedy’s stuff since I was introduced to it by one of my teachers, Dennis Mahoney. Dan costs a LOT for any kind of materials, but he delivers a lot of useful, out-of-the-box templates that work incredibly well. I use his sales letter template an awful lot when I send out promotional emails for the Financial Aid Podcast or Matthew Ebel.
Combine it with systems like neurolinguistic programming and new media, and you’ve got a terrific combination.
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I had the opportunity to film Matthew Ebel playing live at AS220 in Providence at NewBCamp this past Saturday. After some uphill learning curves, I got the hang of the tricks I needed in order to make this video, and here’s the final result.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1LqUUv2cC8[/youtube]
Enjoy it!
Please leave all comments on the video itself, and rate it – I’d love for more people to see Matthew at work.
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For those who didn’t head out to PodCamp Toronto this weekend, another UnConference launched in New England – NewBCamp. Very closely aligned in concept (though no connection) to PodCamp Pittsburgh‘s BootCamp PGH, NewBCamp was created by Sara Streeter, a student at Johnson & Wales University, to achieve the dual goals of introducing new people to the various technologies available and to energize the Providence area technology scene with the power of new media.
I went to NewBCamp to share a little and see someone else’s take on the UnConference idea, and I’m pleased to say that NewBCamp is very much the same energy, enthusiasm, and excitement that embodies the PodCamp series of events. I think the Providence area has got its own UnConference series, and it’ll be interesting to see if NewBCamp and BootCamp can work together, since they’re so closely aligned.
Even a veteran can learn lots of new stuff, and I’m certainly no exception. Sara’s session, Speed Mentoring, is an absolute gem of a session that I would love to incorporate into PodCamps. It’s like Speed Dating, but instead of relationships, a few people self-designate as mentors in specific topics, and then folks in the room can cluster towards topics that they’re interested in or that they need help in. Those small, focused discussions were revelatory in their own right, but I think the Speed Mentoring concept is a nice twist to conversation.
I had the opportunity to fine-tune and present a more story-like version of my New Media 101 session. Matthew Ebel was kind enough to stream it on uStream.tv, and recorded part of it here:
A full version with better audio will be produced and released soon.
The day concluded with a concert at AS220 in Providence with Matthew Ebel. Over 90 minutes, Matthew took us all on a fantastic musical tour of his work, including a new version of probably my all time favorite song of his, I Will Wait For You.
NewBCamp was a fantastic experience, and I hope to see it flourish and accomplish its twin missions of introducing new people to technology and bringing a boost to the Providence technology and new media sectors.
“The sun’s coming up in the morning, and I’ll be there…”
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