TELNET

You know it.

Black screen.

Green Letters.

Kind of like The Matrix, but far less entertaining.

At least I never saw “blonds, brunettes and redheads” while staring into the screen. Well, maybe that’s not true but they were reflections of people walking behind me while I continued to be lost in the pixels.

Twenty-one years ago today, it was my first visit to the offices of my first soon-to-be-called-dot-com-industry job.

We sold TELNET software for the Macintosh–these days it seems that the term Macintosh is as cool as a pair of sequined bell-bottom pants. I’m supposed to say Mac–to government contractors and Fortune 1000.

The punchline is that we sold this software against some stiff competition. That was a public domain TELNET application written by our own CTO while still in college.

You think your market is tough? Give away a free version of your product and sell directly against it for $100s a copy. Go ahead. I dare ya.

It’s time for a new year. On a cosmological scale, the distinction is quite arbitrary. Next month is also the anniversary of the rotation around some random point in the universe too.

This is as good a time as any though to make a change.

What are you going to do? With your job, your business, your service, your products. Whatever.

How would you sell yourself against a perfect replica of your offering that’s made available for free? It’s a perfect replica so you can’t change the features in your commercial version. Even if you did, the reality is usually those differences are nothing more than window dressing.

And yet, maybe window dressing is the clue.

What’s the difference between a storefront with well-maintained, fresh displays that are constantly tweaked without actually changing anything about the products offered and a store with some dusty old sign in the window that’s two seasons out of date?

The answer is simple, business A gives a crap.

How would your business change if you put a little life into it? I mean the kind of life that doesn’t require the proverbial mirror placed under your nose to see if you’re breathing.

What if the only thing you did differently this year was to do what you did in 2011, but do so on purpose and with purpose.

Same hours.

New energy.

New impact.

The other guys aren’t wearing kid gloves and waiting for you to get on your feet before engaging in some “friendly competition.” They don’t matter anyway. Chances are you’re the biggest risk to your own wants and dreams.

I’m not going to use the cliche about getting out of your own way. I instead advocate getting behind yourself and pushing yourself into oncoming traffic. Try playing your life like you’re the main star of Frogger for a while. It may not be a good way to live your life 24/7 but how do you think you’re ever going to level-up if you don’t stick your neck out and take a real, intelligent risk?

Step up.

Step out.

Make a difference.

Act like you really care.

“Watch your thoughts for they become words. Watch your words for they become actions. Watch your actions for they become…habits. Watch your habits, for they become your character. And watch your character, for it becomes your destiny!” –Margaret Thatcher

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The state of Texas aims to collect sales tax from businesses who have affiliates operating from their state. To do this Texas House Rep Elliott Naishtat has introduced HB 1317 to collect tax from online purchases by redefining what it means for a business to have a physical presence in the state.

Kudos to the Texas government for finding new and creative ways to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. The most obvious "how can you not see this coming" response is to block affiliates from states with such clueless governments. Companies have already done exactly that to affiliates in other states where such physical presence definitions exist. It’s a double-whammy for the state: they won’t be able to collect sales tax from the business or collect income tax from the affiliate as they drive affiliate marketers to the curb.

I think people like Elliott Naishtat should read Atlas Shrugged, or at least a Cliff Notes version with pop-ups. While Ayn Rand takes an absurdly extremist view in illustrating her view of measures like this, it’s funny to read depictions of similarly clueless government officials as they express surprise towards any resistance to such forms of highway robbery taxation.

Thanks to Shawn Collins for first reporting on this over at his blog.

http://blog.affiliatetip.com/archives/texas-advertising-tax-bill-introduced

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One of the more interesting ads from the Superbowl last night was a spoof on the 1984 ad from Apple. Some of the chatter on Twitter, Facebook and marketing blogs is talking about the ad in terms of product features; the Motorola Xoom vs Apple’s iPad. This seems odd because I didn’t see any discussion of features in the ad.

Instead, here’s my take on the ad. I’d love to hear your comments too so chime in below.

When the 1984 ad came out, one of the main reasons to buy a PC was conformity. It’s what “all businesses” used. If you bought a computer for home, it only made sense to buy the same thing you had at work. PC users were the “blue suits” and Apple presented the Mac as a way to stand out from that scene.

Never once did the 1984 ad say “the mac is a better computer.”

It said “the Mac isn’t a PC.”

Or, more importantly, it said “if you own a Mac, you’re not one of ‘them.’”

The ad was a statement about conformity.

What’s the landscape now?

Apple is one of the biggest companies in the world. Their market valuation makes them bigger than Microsoft.

The little white earbuds may give awful sound but they send a signal to people on the street.

“I have an iPod.”

Of course, with the amount of iPods, iPhones—and now iPads—sold, “everyone else” has one too.

That’s right. Apple is no longer the sign of hipster coolness.

Apple is no longer the underdog.

Apple is the symbol of conformity.

From this context, the Motorola Xoom ad is absolutely brilliant. They don’t talk about apps, battery life, or the number of cameras mounted on the thing.

The message is identical to the original 1984 ad. If you buy an iPad, simply because it’s an iPad, you’re a conformist wonk.

Hilarious.

Here’s the Motorola Xoom ad

and here’s the original Apple 1984 ad

P.S. I love my iPad.

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A new service from encoder.com was released today called vid.ly Upload a video to vid.ly and they will encode it into a bunch of format and give you an HTML5 universal embed code which lets you share that video with a very long list of devices.

To try it out, I uploaded a 4:26 minute video and about 10 minutes later it was all ready to share. Given the list of formats into which the video is encoded I imagine that it would have taken me several hours to do the same series of encoding on my PC.

Assuming it all worked as advertised, the following video should play “everywhere.”

The direct URL is http://vid.ly/7u9m5i

and here’s the embedded version.

Vid.ly is free, with a pro version “coming soon.”

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If you want to get found more, you need more content. It’s that simple. I’m not going to drone on about how that content must be quality content. I don’t believe in producing junk content and I’m sure you don’t want to be a search engine spammer either.

Each piece of content you create is like virtual real estate. Somewhere in the body, title, description, etc., you include keyword phrases, which are simply the things you want to be associated with so the people who need what you have can find you when they search online.

To further expand on this, I made a short pencast. Click play below to check it out.

SEO is a big subject. I plan on doing a series of these posts and pencasts so if you have any questions, please leave them in the comments below.

Technorati Tags: Marketing, SEO

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As CES was underway this past week, I monitored news releases, blog posts and product announcements from companies with cool new things to share with the world. While the things they had to talk about did seem cool, the ways in which many companies shared the news was, in my sometimes-not-so-humble opinion, so ridiculously bad I wasn’t always sure whether to laugh or cry.

Brand new companies—without a shipping product—put out news releases starting with “XYZ Corp, the leading provider of…” Seriously? I’m the leading provider of partially chewed gum with bite marks made by the bridge in the top right of my mouth.

And that’s not all.

I ran into a new product announcement page that rambled on and on, until about half way down the page there was a phrase that gave me some hope…

It read, “…simply put…”

Oh yay! After four paragraphs of crap, they’re going to tell me what the heck their product even does!

It continued with, “…product name…buzzword…synergy…win-win…”

Please stick a fork in me. I am soooooo done.

Without naming names, here’s a product description I’m reading right now.

“…integrated services that are process based with a focus on satisfying business requirements.”

That’s what came after the words “simply put.”

Enough with the hype already. It doesn’t matter if you’re a B2C, or B2B business—or maybe you don’t know or care what those terms mean and you simply have something cool which will be of great value to the right people—you’re talking to humans.

So speak like one.

If your copy reads like anything up above, don’t despair. It’s better to suck than to sit around with nothing but a blank screen. Such “perfectionists” don’t even have bad copy to show for all their nail biting analysis and deep thought.

Here’s a simple formula for speaking to human beings when you have something cool to share.

1. Here’s what I got.
2. Here’s what it will do for you.
3. Here’s what I’d like you to do next.

That’s really not all that hard is it? Try it and you might be amazed at the results.

Technorati Tags: copywriting, Marketing

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If you’re a politician or a PR wonk from a major industry, you probably obsess over one thing: being “on message.” After all, a group of copywriters spent a long time crafting your message. You’d better make sure that–even if you’re asking for directions to the bathroom–you’re communicating it constantly.

Unfortunately, being on message tends to come at the expense of authenticity. People can smell “messaging” from a mile a way. It carries quite the odor of manipulation and “demographic targeting.”

Consistency, that’s born of your values, is one thing. It demonstrates integrity, congruency and passion. Carefully crafted media responses are rarely derived from such things and fall flat on the ears of those you most want to hear.

Comments or questions? Leave them below. I’d love to hear from you.

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If you haven’t seen The Princess Bride, you may want to call up a friend and have them apologize for not making you watch it. Seriously, what’s your excuse? Netflix delivers to caves…probably.

Whether you’ve seen it or not, please allow me to set the stage.

Early on in the movie, we meet Westley, the poor farm boy and Buttercup, his part time antagonist, and true love. She repeatedly asks him to do things, and he always complies.

He doesn’t endure.

He’s not being submissive.

His actions are driven by a higher power that never runs out.

It carries more energy than any force of nature.

Each time she asks him to do something he says, simply, “As you wish.”

If subtitles could appear in thin air, the translation would be: “I love you eternally.”

Sadly, Westley is taken from us—presumably meeting his death—and Buttercup’s heart is broken.

Buttercup becomes Princess Buttercup and is set to marry the evil D.B. Prince Humperdinck—and she is to be killed on their wedding night, with the country of Guilder to be blamed for it—until a mysterious figure comes on the scene to save her.

The Dread Pirate Roberts

[cue dramatic music]

The Dread Pirate Roberts takes on expert swordsmen, battles wits with evil geniuses, dukes it out with giants, dodges geysers of flame, and triumphs over unusually large rodent-like creatures and other challenges of endurance and patience all in the name of one thing.

The quest for indoor plumbing?

No! It’s still exactly the same force that guided his repeated water-fetching efforts from before.

Love

Whether as Westley, the poor farm boy, or the Dread Pirate Roberts, he is always driven by one, single force.

Love

Such a creative force can move mountains.

Its source has no limits.

With a wind like that at your back, there’s no limit to where you can go and what you can do.

What’s fueling your passions?

Who you are, what you do, & how you do it—some call it your personal brand—are all driven by something. Hopefully it’s a creative force that naturally seeks to grow. One that will always endure.

Negative and destructive forces can’t drive you for long. They’ll burn you out eventually. Such things don’t last. That’s what makes them destructive.

My advice: seek the creative powers like love as your source of power.

Maybe you don’t feel like working with it today.

That’s ok.

Find a way to give practice to what fuels you anyway.

Every day.

You won’t find yourself swashbuckling to defend what you love every day.

Some days, it’s just about fetching water…even if it’s just a glass of water.

Feed it through practice.

Nurture it always.

…and for your viewing pleasure, a small snippet from the movie.

Technorati Tags: love, personal branding, personal development

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One of the things I love about Kurosawa samurai films is the way mastery shows itself through so many of the people. The samurai aren’t just into swordplay—though the movies wouldn’t be as much fun if there wasn’t plenty of that—but also show an appreciation for understanding the world around them.

That attitude of mastery is focused to the tip of their blade, but mastery can show itself through anything, like a perfectly made bowl of rice.

Sometimes there’s an upstart who starts out brash but then wants to learn from a master—to develop mastery too.

Mastery is infectious.

From one generation to the next—or just from one person to another—the pursuit of personal mastery has many benefits. For the person working towards mastery, there’s the energy unleashed through the expression of that passion. For those on the receiving end of that mastery—ok, unless it’s a bad guy getting stabbed with a sword—there’s a benefit to being able to hear a new piece of music, see some new art, eat a lovingly cooked meal or receive a well-written TPS Report.

Mastery is even expressed through how you show love and caring towards another.

Regardless of what it is, each time you try the results come out a little different from the last. That’s a good thing. Develop your mastery through the iterations. Learn from the successes as well as the not-successes (seems pointless to call them failures).

As long as you try, it’s worth something.

Mastery isn’t something you arrive at.

It’s a journey.

It’s an expression.

What do you love to do?

How can you express it today?

How can you make it better over time?

How can you turn that mastery into something that will support you for life?

Technorati Tags: Marketing, personal branding, personal development, samurai

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Survivorship bias is based on the claim there is a logic error in concentrating on the people or things that "survived"—or succeeded— some process and overlooking all the failures from the same system.

It’s often used to beat up on anyone who writes a book on investment or business strategy. The reality is that most businesses fail and most people who attempt to succeed at something fail (at least once) so, what’s the point of studying success if these people can’t provide a systematic, step-by-step that guarantees success.

Makes sense if your approach to the world is to blame everyone else for your life.

Y’know, because such a bias is why most people get that one way ticket to Palookaville.

I call total-BS on anyone and everyone who hides behind survivorship bias. The simple fact is that it is everywhere and applies to everything. Therefore, as a single variable solution sought out by the dimwitted and lazy of thought, it’s simply not a viable argument.

Let’s take corn. One kernel of corn, when planted, produces about 600 kernels of corn on a single ear.

What an amazing display of prosperity!

But the survivorship bias people would rather point out that most kernels of corn never grow into plants.

They’re all failures.

Therefore, the study of why a seed successfully grows from the ground is an optimistic estimation of success. It ignores the gerbillions of kernels that coulda been a contender. Clearly those evil kernels of corn are actually holding back the real secrets of their success. They’re just growing so they can spread their evil DNA.

Boo hisssssss

Does every person who studies “real hard” get a perfect GPA?

Nope.

Does every person shooting 500 foul shots a day get into the NBA?

Nope.

Does every person taking karate, and who learns all the katas, get a black belt?

Nope.

I could go on and on, but what’s the point?

If every success could be perfectly hammered into a simple step-by-step process, we would all have perfect lives and there would be no need for any self-help books. You’d just go to the Post Office and look up your solution on the wall.

Yes, survivorship bias can be used to mess with statistical data—and I do happen to grok stats—but that’s not what I’m talking about here. If you want to succeed, model success. Don’t spend your time wallowing on what is preventing you from getting there. Tag that wall with a laser and show it who’s boss.

And for your viewing pleasure: The inspirational scene from On the Waterfront.

Technorati Tags: Business, personal development, success, survivorship bias

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