4 Years. Go.

This Land

This video was shot by my good friend Chia, a headshot photographer in  NYC.

Paul Allen: CEOs Who Code

I was reading tonight a Paul Allen post about CEO's who code.

I tried to leave a comment but I think I was unsuccessful. At least I didn't get the 'moderation' confirmation that's common on Wordpress blogs.

Paul's post was dead-on with this.

There’s an amazing feeling of satisfaction when you build something that works – and better yet, something that is used by thousands of people.

Now, I'm not a coder by any means. In fact, any mention of coding by those are not immersed in C+ or Java or Ruby on Rails or whatever is probably too much.

For myself, I've had to learn a little CSS, HTML, SEO and enough of other stuff that I can often cut and paste real code to get things to work the way I need them to.

The first 'application' that I created was cobbled together from some off the shelf shopping cart software and, what was then, newly discovered RSS feeds... but it worked. (Way before Groupon I might add.)

As soon as you have the title of CEO (and it's a real company) it's irresponsible to be coding. A CEO is responsible for the direction fo the entire organization, and that requires that a CEO's head be above the trench line and not down in the Java.

That being said, CEO's who understand how code is developed, structured and what's possible are a huge asset to a technology company. Before you can create something new you must understand what's possible and the shortest, most efficient way to get there.

Through Channel Sales Managment SaaS

A video oveview of Senside's sales channel communication management SaaS offering.

Sendside's a perfect solution for companies that sell through the channel with VARs, resellers and channel partners. They now have visibility not only into their channel partners, but through their partners to the end buyer with real time reporting and analytics that offer awesome new insights into exactly what content is being opened, read, and what messages are resulting in sales.

And it doesn't stop there. Towards the end of the video you'll see that there are a host of other capabilites around content dissemination and control that give sales channel companies control they never dreamed of.

Swagapalooza

Companies are catching on to the fact that bloggers can provide an effective way to create buzz about their brands. We've seen several efforts that explicitly recognise that fact, such as TasteCasting for restaurants and YokmoK's free travel giveaways. Bringing the notion into the world of new consumer products is Swagapalooza, an invitation-only event that gives influential bloggers free samples of new products.

Created by Bay Area startup Launch Hear, Swagapalooza aims to give entrepreneurs a way to get their producs in front of the most-followed bloggers and tweeters from across the United States. The first event was held in New York in September last year. At it, brands including Surprise Industries, Idea Paint and Switch2Health—which, coincidentally, we just covered—had the chance to make presentations to the select audience of 100 bloggers, 20 Twitterers and 5 Redditors. In exchange for their participation, the audience members were entitled to free samples of any of the products being presented. A detailed review of the event is available on AdAge.

Swagapalooza's next event will occur in March in San Francisco, and Launch Hear is currently seeking both bloggers and companies with new products to show off. One to try out in your next promotional campaign? Or how about launching something similar elsewhere? (Related: Blogger helps connect consumers and brands — Food blogger turned intermediary & purveyor.)

Website: www.swagapalooza.com
Contact: alex@swagapalooza.com

from Springwise

Can't Buy Happiness Past $60k

$60K a year can make you happy

Psychologist and Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman says millions of dollars won't buy you happiness, but a job that pays $60,000 a year might help.

Happiness levels increase up to the $60K mark, but "above that it's a flat line," he said.

"Money does not buy you experiential happiness but lack of money certainly buys you misery," he said. But the real trick, Kahneman said, is to spend time with people you like.

Engage. Convert. Retain.

Sendside.net, our corporate site, has a new look that focus on four selling propositions that point out where we really shine; lead conversion, channel communications, security and compliance, and customer retention.

To be honest, the old site was to busy, a byproduct of too many cooks in the kitchen.

This new site is svelt, and while the top menus have some depth, the homepage has only for main points of focus.

One of the most significant changes is that we've implemented Capture, the worlds-first and only intelligent lead response engine that allows us to perform any action when a web form is submitted; Send a Package, assign a lead to a specific rep in a CRM, trigger a email notification, just about anything else you'd want to do. And, of course, you can do them all together.

If you've never seen an example of how inteligent lead response works, you can see it in action here.

The Cove

The Cove has won about every documentary award available.

I've been anxious to see it. First because it's obviously a really good film, and secondly, because it's equally obvious that it's emotionally charged.

It was.

If your family hasn't seen The Cove, which is probable, rent it and watch it as a family. There are some important questions and answers to be had.

Scalability

Products scale quite nicely than you.
Services? Not so much.

While I'm beating the bushes 24/7 at Sendside, I've got some systems in place around launching products that's working quite well, and it's all built on the premise that incremental value is scalable only around products, not services.

I think I know something about this. After all, I was a painter for about 20 years. Artists have perhaps the poorest business model there is. Painting is a huge time investment and you'll need some serious inventory with no assurance that what you're doing will sell. At least to start.

One of my epiphanies came when I entered the limited edition print market. Suddenly I was painting a single painting, but selling it thousands of times. (Incedentally this does drive up the price of the original which is also nice.)

But before I wax too philosophic, let me come back to my point. Products scale. So my crack team organized under my medical spa site at Medical Spa MD is busy creating value by leveraging our expertise to take specific products to market.

Last year we launched a new site that ships wholesale Botox worldwide. In the next month we're launching three new services: Teeth whitening, medical outsourcing, and do it yourself SEO. There are about eight other products, services, and partherships lined up behind those. And that's just for Medical Spa MD.

I've got designs on the artist, painter, headshot photography and actor markets in NY and LA since I've got some experience there as well. While I'm not quite at the four-hour work week with these sidelines, I'm probably close to eight... and I work on weekends.

Of course I couldn't do this myself. I have a team that reside in various locations around the world; California, New York, India... And they do the heavy lifting. I'm just around to provide direction, and to pay the bills. Fortunately, with scale comes profitability.

Shine Teeth Whitening

We've launched another Select Partner for Medical Spa MD. Shine Teeth Whitening

Shine provides professional teeth whitening services to medical offices while creating jobs for single moms, musicians, artists, and others who don’t fit well in the traditional 8-5 corporate world.

Shine's technicians are trained by licensed dentists to create custom fit trays for teeth whitening at a fraction of the cost of obtaining those services from traditional dental office suppliers.

This teeth whitening service for physicians joins other Medspa MD partners like Medical Spa RX, a site that imports wholesale Botox and Restylane from Canada.

Gateway Aesthetic Laser Clinic: Worst Plastic Surgery Bilboard Award

The worst plastic surgery billboard I've ever seen. In fact, it may be the worst plastic surgery ad too.

This is what happens when someone in the laser clinic is doing the marketing and advertising for plastic surgeons.

I've actually seen this billboard. It's along I-15 in Utah and I've driven past it a few times. Each time shaking my head in utter disbelief that anyone describing themselves as a 'cosmetic surgeon' could be attached to such bad taste. (And the actual design is worse. Quite obviously the work of a $6 an hour kid that's still in high school.) How could anyone think that this would move a woman to get plastic surgery?

The Gateway Aesthetic Institute & Laser Center is the cosmetic dermatology practice of Dr. Mark Taylor but there's usually a plastic surgeon to be found. I guess now it's 'Dr. Heidi'. According to the Gateway Aesthetic Institue's web site, Dr. Heidi is actually:

Heidi Regenass, M.D., a board certified plastic surgeon who comes to Gateway Aesthetic from Phoenix, Arizona, where she owned her own successful practice.

Dr. Regenass brings an international flair to cosmetic plastic surgery. Dr. Regenass specializes in plastic surgery procedures that rejuvenate the face and body, enhancing one’s natural beauty.

It may well be that this as was designed by Gateway Aesthetic Institute and Dr. Regenass didn't have anything to do with it. In that case I feel sorry for her. It's got to be embarrassing to have your name attached to something this crass and trite.

What the Bad Billboard Project says about Dr. Heidi's boob job billboard:

My business used to be housed in an office a few feet from this billboard. Only it was a different billboard back then. I was driving by, saw this, and felt like I couldn’t pass it up. It is poorly designed, to be sure, but I’m not sure that matters so much, at least as far as getting your attention. Whether it would actually result in increased sales, I’m not sure. Probably, since many people don’t appreciate good design, either consciously or subconsciously. As for me, I’m thoroughly offended and would certainly never let Dr. Heidi get her dirty paws on me.

Climate Change

The Skeptical side claims at least 31,486 dissenters in their ranks, according to the PetitionProject.org. That sounds like a lot. But is it?

Of course, not all 12 million US scientists therefore agree with ‘The Consensus’. But this puts the PetitionProject’s 31,486 signatories in some kind of context.

Our maths here is somewhat coarse. Some better data suggests the ‘consensus’ figure is around 97.5% of publishing climatologists and around 90% of all publishing scientists supporting the human-induced climate theory. See this study for more details (PDF – Doran And Zimmerman 2009)

Actually, here’s how some of it looks:

Skeptical Field

Among the climate skeptic scientists, we wondered which fields of science were most represented. We expected climate and earth sciences. But we got…

In fact, when you adjust the PetitionProject’s odd categorisation – they filed ‘chemical engineers’ as chemists and physical engineers as ‘physicists’ – the total number of engineers who signed the petition, by our reckoning, jumps to 49%

Why so many engineers?

informationisbeautiful.net

Peta

It's pretty often that when I hear of PETA being mentioned, it's in a kind of dismissive and condescending way. Of course, you could just watch the video.

Pledge to go fur-free at PETA.org.

Sendside Salesforce Appexchange 5 Star Review.

OK, I'm excited. Sendside's integrated with Salesforce CRM and we're now available on Salesforce's Appexchange Marketplace for any business using Salesforce.com. And... we've received our first review, a stunningly well written comment from one of our clients, Vetrazzo, a green manufacturer of high-end recycled glass surfaces.

Here's what Vetrazzo has to say about Sendside in their review of Sendside on the Salesforce Appexchange.

Integrating with Salesforce gives Salesforce users all the benefits of Sendside's external communications (multi-dimensional tabbed messaging, Sendside Packages, instant notifications, detailed reporting and analytics) directly from inside a Salesforce account. It's a perfect pairing of two complementary technologies.

The result is that management can see into the sales funnel (which is why businesses implement Salesforce) and gives the sales team a real reason to use Salesforce and close more deals (which the sales guys like).

Here's the copy from Vetrazzo's Appexchange review:

At Vetrazzo, we use the Sendside Packages technology for automated lead follow up on all our web inquiries. We're able to send them a rich content, customized information package that hits the prospect immediately - while they're still excited about Vetrazzo from their website visit.

When we presented Vetrazzo Recycled Glass Surfacing at the Dreamforce Keynote, we received a flood of traffic to our booth on the exhibit floor; people flocked to see the product. All the lead data we captured onsite was gathered through a force.com site and then triggered a Sendside Package full of product content as a follow up. So if you were one of the many hundreds that filled out that form and received a package from Vetrazzo - that's Sendside.

In short, value is great, they've been very supportive and we're working on integrating this tool into our overall marketing strategy more comprehensively.

Very nice to have our first Salesforce integration review of Sendside on the Appexchange be a perfect 5 stars.

12 Extremely Effective Guerrilla Marketing Stunts | Strategic Marketing

Ad-agencies are finding it more and more difficult today to get through to the average consumer, and marketing saturation only grows with every year. It’s for that reason that guerrilla ad-campaigns are becoming so prevalent in the industry.  Here we take a look at some of the recent, most effective and ingeniously simple guerrilla marketing found since our 8-part series last year.

Simple Ideas

(images via onthegroundlookingup, gothamist, stephengates)

It doesn’t take much to get a reaction from people when it comes to guerrilla marketing.  Above we see how sandal-maker Havianes used the vibrant colors of their own products to catch eyes in Paris.  Cleverly placed prop-replicas from V For Vendetta caused thought-provoking pause in the step of passers-by, and coffee-giant Folgers had the bright idea to use a manhole in New York to remind city-goers just how good a steaming cup of coffee can look in the morning.  Meanwhile, an adventurous plastic surgeon found success in a local coffeehouse.

Good For Any Purpose

(images via geckoandfly, arrestedmotion, adofdamonth)

Many public-awareness campaigns are using guerrilla tactics in their ads.  Here we see smoking targeted in a Cancer ad giving us a glimpse of our early demise.  Cities around the globe began spotting graffiti referring to the then-upcoming Watchmen movie, in a bold move that not only mimicked the film and its graphic-novel predecessor, but also made viewers think a little more politically.  DHL took the comedic route in a fun global stunt that showcased their package tracking, by placing large pixelated mouse-pointers on their couriers.

It Shows Up in the Most Unexpected Places

(images via pzrservices, whatsthecrack, myselectedads, parsons)

Reynolds Wrap had a great idea for inner-cities with their wrapping of storefronts campaign; it was nearly impossible to walk by and not notice the familiar household item now super-sized.  Beach-goers were surprised to find enormous clams scattered about, only to then find an advert for a local eatery sealed inside them.  An Indian BBQ seller got creative with street-drains, while Nationwide Insurance got friendly with a paint company, and created a hilarious, building-sized ad that was absolutely impossible to miss.  It really is the simple things that are most overlooked, unless they’re guerrilla.

via weburbanist.com

Guerrilla marketing somtimes = strategic marketing.

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