Christopher S. Penn – Marketing AI Keynote Speaker

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Grandma Penn's Breakfast Bake
A tasty treat, and useful if you’re trying to cook for a lot of people on, say, Christmas morning.
- Get a tube of fast-bake dinner rolls of any brand you prefer. Separate them out.
- Grease a 9×13 pan. Use as little or as much as needed to keep stuff from sticking to it.
- Lay out the rolls in a single thin layer on the bottom of the pan, stretching them so that the bottom of the pan is not visible.
- Beat 6-9 eggs along with a cup of shredded cheese together.
- Add in other ingredients as you prefer, such as sausage, bacon, onions, peppers, whatever makes you happy in, say, an omelet.
- Pour the mix over the rolls. Stick the pan in a 350F oven for 30 minutes or until the eggs are firm and solid at the center.
- Cut and serve the tastiest breakfast you’ve ever had for a group of people.
Special thanks for Grandma sharing this! Enjoy!
December 6, 2009
On sorrow

Ever lost someone you cared about?

Ever faced impossible odds or certain defeat?

The difference in life between those for whom events and circumstances crush them and those who overwhelm their circumstances to success (or at least a decent Pyrrhic victory) is all in how we approach them.

For some, escaping loss and sorrow is the best way out. We retreat from the circumstances, we get away, we change our context so that the loss doesn’t hurt nearly as much, so that it’s not in our faces all the time. We take the measured break from the life we lead to reset, reboot, and find our way out of blinding sadness. One day, we wake up from the nightmare and can live again.

For others, we work together to overcome our respective sorrows. We teach where and when we can to help others just starting out on their journeys how to overcome initial obstacles, maybe how to take that time off, and in the process of teaching, we learn and grow ourselves. We find that sometimes the best advice is coming from us, but we just forgot to get the memo. One day we wake up, realize that we’ve been teaching ourselves as well as others, and we are healed of our woes.

For a select few who are especially courageous and especially willing to subject ourselves to the fire, we dive straight into our misery and like a blacksmith pounding iron into swords, we find it within ourselves to twist and reshape our sorrows into motivators. We turn loss into gain, sadness into resoluteness, anguish into unyielding will to do more, be more, achieve more in the face of what we’ve lost. We honor the past by forging the brightest future we can. One day we wake up and realize we’ve become greater than we ever could have been without our loss, and in a wonderful, poignant irony we become thankful for hearing the lessons of our sorrows and being richer for it.

Whichever pathway you choose, may you find your way home.

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December 2, 2009
A better way to be thankful on Thanksgiving
Something to think about this Thanksgiving (for those who celebrate it, for everyone else it’s World of Warcraft’s PIlgrim’s Bounty):

Don’t just be thankful for the things you have in your life that you appreciate.

That’s good and a good start, but if you want to take it to a different level, ask yourself this:

How can I create or foster more of what I’m thankful for in the world?
- If you’re thankful for family and friends, how can you help reinforce strong family and good friends in the world for others?
- If you’re thankful for health, how can you bring a healing presence to those around you?
- If you’re thankful for wealth, how can you help others achieve what you’ve done?
In short, what do you stand for? What do you want to see more of? How can you create more of that in the world, in your community, in your life?

As you do your prayers, meditations, gatherings, and offerings over the holiday (or any day, really), think about that cornucopia on the table. From nothingness appears a Pilgrim’s Bounty of what’s needed to bring life, health, and prosperity to your life.

Ask how you can create more of that for yourself and everyone you care about and the universe (or *.deity if that’s your belief system) may just agree to a win-win situation in which everyone gets more of what they want and need in your life.

Happy Pilgrim’s Bounty!

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November 25, 2009
Why Serendipity Shouldn't Matter

Why Serendipity Shouldn’t Matter

“Serendipity is the effect by which one accidentally stumbles upon something fortunate, especially while looking for something entirely unrelated.” – Wikipedia

I’ll be contrarian to my good friend Chris Brogan in saying that serendipity shouldn’t matter to you. Here’s what I mean. There’s an interesting expression in ninjutsu: banpen fugyo. Literally, change, never surprised. Toshitsugu Takamatsu, the previous headmaster of the Togakure Ryu ninjutsu school, is quoted as saying there’s no such thing as surprise for the ninja.

Stephen K. Hayes, my teacher’s teacher, often says that luck is merely energy that is unchanneled.

If you’re really good – really good – at life, if you’re working towards mastery of all that life has to offer and all the potential you have in life, then surprise and serendipity should be the gravy. They should be the bonuses at best. Why?

At the Web 2.0 Open, one of the exercises I asked people to do (adapted from Stephen K. Hayes’ phenomenal Evocation workshop) is to pick out something in your life that seemed like a lottery ticket sort of experience. Pick out something that was just wow! and good fortune came your way, and tell that story to a friend. During the event, I asked people to talk to the person next to them about their experiences, telling this story of a magical moment in their life when something fortunate happened. I told my story of co-founding PodCamp with Chris Brogan and suddenly finding myself on a jet to Sweden to put on PodCamp Europe at Jeff Pulver’s behest.

Serendipity, right? Good luck, right?

The second half of this particular exercise was to take the exact same story but retell it in a fashion where no luck was involved, where you made it happen and the natural course of events was that your efforts and focus created the outcome of success. I asked people to exaggerate if they needed to, but make the story work. Again, my story was of how hard Chris and I worked to create PodCamp and make it the success it was, and naturally events occurred which led to us being asked to create PodCamp Europe.

Here’s the funny thing: with a significant majority of the room, very little or no exaggeration was needed. Very little. Most people were able to find enough factual evidence in their lottery ticket moment of all the things they had done, all the choices they had made, that led to their good fortune. More than a few spirits perked up as they realized just how much of a hand they had in their “luck”.

This is the power that you have, the power that you give away, the power that you forfeit when you chase serendipity, when you hope for good things to happen just because instead of taking the reins for yourself.

Take charge of your life. Take charge of your destiny. Yes, leave room for hope and serendipity, leave room for good things to happen as bonuses to what you’re already doing, but do not live another day in your already too short life counting on hope when you have the capacity, the capability to take the wheel of the ship for yourself, to make good things happen, and to set the stage for the results you want.

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November 25, 2009
Doing More With Less

Doing More With Less

I had the pleasure and privilege to present at the Web 2.0 Open conference in New York City recently on the topic of Doing More With Less, a topic near and dear to everyone. The session itself is based on so much of what I’ve learned from Mark Davis of the Boston Martial Arts Center and his teacher, Stephen K. Hayes. Here’s the funny part about the session – I can’t replicate any significant part of it here on the blog.

The content is entirely provided by you, the audience. I’m more or less just a tour guide. No slides, no PowerPoint, not even a real presentation, just a guided experience in which you and your fellow audience members discover new things about yourselves.

I called the session the most technologically advanced session of the entire conference, and in a way, it’s true. The human technology was what we explored. I made the analogy that gear and tech will only get you so far. Hand a rank amateur a $50 point and shoot camera or a$ 2,000 DSLR and you’ll get about the same number of lens cap photos. The gear and tech can improve bad photos potentially to mediocre, but that’s about it.

Conversely, a truly skilled photographer? Give them either camera and they’ll create amazing works of art that nearly ignore the limitations of gear. Don’t believe me? Check out the cameraphone category on Flickr to see some amazing works.

In the session, we investigated four areas of doing more with less:

1. Redefining less. With friends, we examined what less was with our training partners, and then looking at less from a different perspective to gain some mental freedom from a poor resources mindset.

2. Finding authentic self. With friends, we examined things that have always been a part of our lives and how we can align ourselves and our careers, lives, and businesses with our inherent strengths to do more, plus looked at the difference between our current selves and our superhero selves.

3. Reclaiming responsibility. With friends, we examined aspects of our life that appear as luck, good or bad, and how we can change our perceptions from luck to being in charge of our lives.

4. Empowering our minds. We examined in a distilled fashion the idea of using your iPod to control your emotional state.

It’s nearly impossible to convey online any significant part of the experience, so if you weren’t able to make it, I hope you can attend a future version of this, or attend the seminars and workshops given by my teachers. If you were there, I look forward to reading your feedback in the comments.

You can also pick up some of the source material from Stephen K. Hayes as well.

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November 22, 2009
Mitch Joel is New Media's Alton Brown

Mitch Joel is New Media’s Alton Brown

I’ve been reading Six Pixels of Separation, the book by friend Mitch Joel. It’s a terrific read, well worth the $14 or so I spent on the Kindle version, but I’m amused by many of the comments and criticisms of the book, especially that it’s not a how-to book.

If you have any familiarity with the food world, you know of Alton Brown. Part Mr. Wizard, part Monty Python troupe member, Alton Brown spends an enormous amount of time in his show Good Eats on the why of food, rather than just the how.

How is the individual recipes. How to make pancakes. How to deglaze a pan. How to fry a turkey.

Why is the rationale behind the choices you make as a cook. Why is the muffin method used for certain recipes when the end product doesn’t look like a muffin? Why is water’s molecular structure so important to cooking?

Here’s the difference between how and why: how is for beginners. How is for the line cooks who just need to crank out predictable results over and over again. How can be accomplished by relatively untalented people or even by machines. How is good and useful, but how is not the way you become better at what you do once you’re no longer a beginner.

Ask any proficient chef how large their recipe card index is and they’ll give you a blank stare at best, because they’ve transcended the need for individual recipes. Professional chefs understand concepts and the why of cooking. Professional chefs understand that the flavors of tomato and basil go together at a subconscious level, so they don’t need the individual recipe cards that specify mixing X amount of tomatoes with Y amount of shredded basil leaves plus a pinch of salt. Professional chefs understand at a subconscious level that you always, always, always salt tomatoes as early in the cooking process as possible. Why? Because tomatoes contain a natural form of glutamic acid and salt bonds to it to create a natural form of MSG which really makes a tomato’s flavor sing.

Six Pixels of Separation is not a cookbook of how. You won’t find a recipe in it for exactly how to structure a tweet or exactly how to write a good blog post. You’re not supposed to find those recipes in it, because it’s largely a book of why, not how. If you’re looking for a recipe book, there’s an entire industry of For Dummies / For Morons / For Complete Idiots / For The Stupidest People That Are Still Capable of Reading This Book books out there. (does it bother anyone else that you’re automatically a Dummy if you’re a beginner, at least according to those series titles? Labeling someone a Dummy as a beginner is a great way to ensure people don’t want to try something new.)

Once you’ve transcended the need to march in lockstep with exact recipe cards, once you understand the basic application of all the tools and you’re ready to step up to understanding why you should or should not be doing things, you’re ready for a book like Six Pixels of Separation.

Don’t misunderstand – there is still a tremendous need for very beginner focused materials out there. The constant 80% new folks rate of attendance at PodCamps testifies to the continuing opportunity for people to get involved in new media. I’m just saying that you need to set your expectations appropriately for a book like Six Pixels of Separation and be prepared to work very, very hard to execute on the strategies in it.

Full Disclosure: Mitch is a friend and I’m probably biased in my review of his book. Expect links in this post to go to one or more affiliate programs and know that I get paid a nominal fee for referring you to those resources if you make a purchase or purchase inquiry. Thanks in advance for buying everything in triplicate.

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November 19, 2009
What casino gambling should teach you about online marketing

I recently had the opportunity to spend a few hours observing (not playing, I know the house odds!) people at a casino during a business conference. What a superb experience – not as a player, but as a marketer, to see how casinos manage the end user experience for maximum profit.

Imagine for a minute that someone put a box in front of you that, on average, will give you 42 cents for every dollar you put in it. No one in their right, rational mind would ever use it. Imagine for a minute that someone built an ATM that gives you exactly 42% of whatever amount you request. That ATM would be torn out of the wall by riotous crowds.

Yet thousands of people a year flock to casinos and use machines and games designed to do exactly that. Why? Because casinos have mastered the user experience.

Let’s take a look at some of the tricks of the trade:

1. No windows or clocks. Time is the enemy for casinos – they want you to spend as much time as possible in the venue (on the premise that you’re not a weirdo like me who just stares at people without spending money) and gamble as much as possible. No cues to show just how much time has elapsed ensure this.

2. Low lighting and lots of ambient sound. Every machine in the room makes noise, and more often than not, even the demo modes have sounds that are pleasant to the ear and evoke video game-like feelings of winning. Why? Low light keeps you relaxed and slightly less aware than harsh, stark light, and lots of ambient amusement sound contributes to the idea that you’re playing games instead of spending money.

3. Play money. I lost count of how many times players referred to their chips as play money, fake money, toy money, or some other proxy by which they completely forgot they were using real currency. At one blackjack table, I saw enough money cross the table back and forth in just a few minutes (table minimum $200, maximum$ 50,000) to buy several cars. Casinos use proxies for money to get you to spend more, because the money doesn’t look or feel like money at all.

4. Leave no dollar behind. Right outside the casino floor was… a Rolex shop. And an art gallery. And a Swarovski crystal shop hawking stocking stuffers starting at $40. Casinos know this above all else: you might win on the floor, but you’re not leaving with your money if at all possible. Every hook imaginable is available to get you to spend anything you didn’t lose to the house.

Now, how does this apply to marketing online? Take a look at your web site. Does it evoke the feelings that you want to elicit from your customers? If your goal is to get customers to spend some time with your content, does the “atmosphere” of your web site – color palette, brightness, tonality, contrast – encourage your visitors to relax, to forget about whatever else they were doing? Look at the patterns of lights and textures in a casino and you see endless repeating patterns that are nearly hypnotic. I’m not saying you should turn your web site into a slot machine’s decor, but think about what decor you do have and what it’s conveying.

Take a look at how you process transactions. Do you make it as easy as possible for visitors to transact with you? Do you use proxies for money like point systems or credits? In a casino, you can slap down a C note on the green velvet and have chips in hand, ready to gamble in less than 10 seconds. How fast can your visitors buy? Does your site let your visitors slap down the plastic and buy immediately? iTunes and Amazon figured this out long ago with 1-click.

Are you leaving money on the table? Are you letting your visitors get away with their wallets intact? What other things can you sell to your visitors as they browse through and leave your site? I’m not saying be obnoxious and run a javascript that forces a visitor through an annoying series of ads, but think about all of the different products or services you have and that you sell via affiliate programs. Are you presenting them as powerfully as the Rolex shop in the casino next to the cashier’s cage?

Casinos make good money because they’ve distilled the user experience for maximum profit. Are you doing the same?

Photo credit: acaben

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November 16, 2009
Financial Literacy presentation at MASFAA

Here’s a recording of a financial literacy presentation I did for the Massachusetts Association of Student FInancial Aid Administrators. Please watch this with a friend or colleague present and do the exercises together for maximum benefit!

Video

Slides

Financial Literacy 2.0

View more presentations from financialaidpodcast.

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November 13, 2009
Inbound Marketing Summit: Social Media ROI

If you missed it earlier this year, I presented at the Inbound Marketing Summit on the ROI of social media. Here’s the session video. Enjoy!

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November 12, 2009
Punchlines and Personal Quotes

If you’ve spent any time on my personal site, there’s one page I’d like you to think about replicating on your own, either publicly or privately, and it’s the quotes page.

Why?

Well, the idea for the quotes page came from the father of one of my teachers, the late Ira Hayes, motivational speaker. His son, Stephen K. Hayes, found among his belongings a page of punchlines that he kept as a crib sheet for speaking. What’s funny is that Ira didn’t write down the actual jokes, just the punchlines, so unless you attended his speeches back in the day, no one is really sure what the actual jokes are. Ira just collected the punchlines together over time as he spoke and developed new material.

The quotes page on this site isn’t quite punchlines, but it is stuff I’ve collected over time that I find personally significant. Little expressions of things that made me think, things that are worth remembering.

Why do this? There’s more content than ever today. More blogging, more tweeting, more everything, and it’s so tempting to get into the easy, lazy habit of assuming that Google will remember for us what we’ve experienced that we just turn our brains off. Hear a funny speech? Someone probably recorded it, right? Read a funny quote on Twitter? Google will have it, right?

Don’t bet on it. If it’s important, don’t bet on it. In my Advanced Social Media class, I admonish my students that the live sessions may or may not be recorded, but they should act and work as if the sessions will NOT be recorded, so that they train their brains to capture useful information, rather than rely on a third party.

I encourage you to do something similar for yourself. It doesn’t have to be public like my quotes page is, but make a habit out of saving and storing valuable information, useful information, in a compact form. If you speak publicly, obviously this is a practice that has an immediate use for you, but even if you don’t, it’s still a good habit to get into for tuning up your brain.

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November 8, 2009

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