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changing anything about the products offered and a store with some dusty old sign in the window that’s two seasons out of date?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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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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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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What if you gave your product away but charged admission for people to work with you? Would the experience your customers get be worth the admission price?

Disney does this. You pay a handsome price to get in the park and then all the rides are free. When I was young, I remember going with my parents to Disney World. My mom never got on a single ride. She took pictures and brought my brother and I towels when we came from the water ride soaking wet.

Did she need to ride the rides to get her money’s worth? She says no. She got the experience.

What do your customers get?

Chances are, your products and services can be found elsewhere. What experiences do your customers get along with the “product”? How does that experience showcase and create the context which encapsulates the entire experience? Your personal brand feeds this as well. Whether you closely tie yourself to each client or you’re the distant guru, that persona shapes how your customers experience you and how they experience what you offer.

My mom never complained about not riding the rides at Disney because she got the experience she wanted and she paid the same as everyone else who rode the rides from sun up to sun down. How about your customers? If you stopped charging to ride the rides and instead charged admission for what you do, would you customers get more or less value from the experience?

Technorati Tags: experience, Marketing, personal branding

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When I first read Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us [AF] from Daniel Pink, I was blown away. I hadn’t heard very much about the content so I didn’t know what to expect. I just thought it was a book on motivation. I’ve worked with managers who love to create “incentive bonuses” and have had employees who even—get this—asked for bonuses when completing their assigned work on time. I’ve also worked with personal development workshops that suggest you create personal incentives as a reward for achieving a goal. If that goal is to get to 100 pushups in a single shot, that sort of incentive system seems to work fine, but I’ve always had this uneasy feeling about doing such things when creativity and problem solving is on the line.

Imagine how blown away I was to find out that a Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded in 2002 to psychologist Daniel Kahneman. His research, along with studies backed by MIT, the University of Chicago, Carnegie Mellon and the Federal Reserve, along with other studies from psychologists, sociologists and economists show that larger rewards led to poorer performance in tasks that called for anything beyond rudimentary cognitive skill.

It’s easy to miss some of the important details here. This does not say that compensation isn’t important. A person should be compensated in such a way that they are not “worried” about money and therefore can relax into the creative and problem solving tasks. In doing freelance writing, I find that getting a sufficient retainer to start seems to increase my productivity whereas having the compensation “held hostage” actually seems to lead to my mind wandering to other ways to generate cash flow.

Which is to say if you don’t pay people enough, they won’t be motivated. After that point has been reached, “bonuses” do not enhance performance in creative and problem solving jobs.

For some more info, watch this video from RSA Animate. The content from Daniel Pink would be great on its own, but is really enhanced with this creative video accompaniment.

This video from TED is also worth watching.

“This is one of the most robust findings in social science, and it’s also one of the most ignored.” –Daniel Pink

Here are some additional links to studies cited by Daniel Pink in his talks and his book.

• The Effects of Financial Incentives in Experiments: A Review and Capital-Labor-Production
• Karl Duncker’s “Candle Problem” and functional fixedness
• Economist Dan Ariely who did the MIT study

What do you think? Is this a surprise to you? Don’t believe it? Any personal experiences? Leave a comment below.

Technorati Tags: Daniel Pink, Drive, economics, motivation

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Everyone starts somewhere. Invariably, that somewhere is “the beginning.” The beginning may look different on the surface from one person to the next but absolutely no one is born playing violin, writing novels, doing taxes, hunting down all the Jedi in the universe, pounding on opponents in heavy weight fights or winning bouts on The Iron Chef.

So while being a 3rd don black belt is super-cool, that same person started with a white belt, no belt or their pants down around his or her ankles (literally and/or metaphorically speaking). The same can be said about you for everything you’re good at today.

And what’s wrong with that?

There’s energy in newness.

I know people on Elance who created an account and then bid on jobs saying “I’m so new, I’m going to bed over backwards to give you a better experience than anyone else bidding on this job.”

I once worked at a communications hardware company that sold millions of 56K modems months before they finished inventing everything necessary to ship the product.

I’ve personally stood in front of company CEO’s saying “this has never been done before and that’s why we should do it,” and they said yes.

And find me someone who worked on the NASA Moon launch team with experience sending rockets to the moon.

Inexperience doesn’t mean incompetence. We just elected a President with no real executive experience. Of course, now that he’s there it’s his job to step up and do what he needs to do and learn what he needs to learn, and deliver.

Watch the movie Julie and Julie (I know, there’s a book too). I presume Julie Powel at least knew how to boil water and pop stuff in the microwave, but was probably not ready to bone a duck when she started her blog. That wasn’t enough of a reason for her not to start, but I see people much further down the road look at blogging, consulting, writing, building a shed and all sorts of other things with an amazing level of fear…due entirely to their lack of experience.

No matter what it is that you’d like to do. If you think you’re missing something before you can get started, ask yourself how that lack is actually an asset. Reframe how to see lack and turn it into something you have that’s a gift.

Technorati Tags: Assets, Branding, Marketing

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I could write a lot on the book The Experience Economy, but there’s one thought that really hit me from what I read. What if, instead of charging for your product or service, you instead charged an admission and gave the rest away for free?

How would this impact how you interact with your market?

How would this change your focus on the customer?

The best example of this contrast is a theme park like Disney World (or Disney Land) vs a carnival. Whether or not you personally like Disney World/Land isn’t the issue…their cash flow statement clearly shows that plenty of people do.

When you arrive at Disney you pay an admission to enter the park. At a carnival you often go in for free.

At Disney, once you’re inside, the rides are free. At the carnival you buy tickets and then spend them to get on the rides individually.

How does this change the experience? Are the rides really all that different? I can find trolley rides with robots at either venue. Roller coasters,  rides that spin, rides that go up in the air…functionally it’s the same thing right?

But it’s the experience that changes the context.

I’m guessing that in many cases, the net outflow of cash from your pocket is about the same. Whether you pay for everything a la carte or in a lump sum at the door, what you pay is probably equal.

At Disney World I go through “It’s a Small World” every single time and never calculate it from the “cost per ride” as part of the original admission.

At a carnival, if I had to pay 15 tickets for it, I’d be pissed. My focus is turned from the experience of being there to a critique of the worth of an individual ride.

Heck, the Tilt-A-Whirl isn’t worth 15 tickets to me these days.

Wooden roller coasters? They kill my back. There’s no way I would pay to get on one…and yet, when I visit King’s Dominion, near where I live, I get on their wooden roller coaster every single time. I swear I can feel my vertebrae clack together. It has nothing to do with getting my money’s worth and everything to do with immersing myself in the experience.

Anyone who witnessed me shoveling the snow for the past couple of weeks may have realized that this is how I roll. Snow down my back from a big wind gust? Soaking wet from climbing on top of SUVs? All part of the experience. Love it, even when I’m in agonizing pain from the exertion.

The last three times I’ve been to Sea World, I’ve spent an entire day feeding the dolphins. (I had to pay for all those sardines too.) The last time I was there I paid another $150 to take a “behind the scenes” tour.

So I paid admission to pay to feed dolphins and pay to look at tank filters for a bunch of sharks.

Sign me up.

I wasn’t the only on there, doing exactly the same thing, either.

I can’t think of a single story of an experience I had from a carnival or fair I’ve been too, but I can describe lots of awesome experiences I’ve had with friends (and some I’m sworn to never share…cough cough…Pleasure Island at Disney World). I’ve ridden the chocolate factory tour ride at Hershey Park more times than I can count (and I don’t think it’s ever changed) and I can vividly remember some of the people I rode with and the fun times we had.

I’ll pay a lot for an experience but I’m kind of cheap when it comes to paying for the individual components that make up that same thing.

I don’t think I’m alone in this either.

So how about you? What would your own business look like if you were to charge admission for it and give away a part that’s currently charged for? If not your business, how about some other businesses out there? Leave your comment below and share your ideas.

Technorati Tags: Branding, Business, Marketing, The Experience Economy

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This ad ran in Time Magazine (June 30, 1947). That’s right, the headline reads DDT is Good for Me. 

When I make jokes about this, I’ve actually had someone respond with “well yes, but the benefits of DDT in Africa can’t be argued with.”

Really?

I understand that Malaria is a horrible affliction, but if you’re going to keep score, then put everything up on the board. According to research published in the Journal Science, The Lancet and other peer-reviewed publications, those same people who are being “saved” by DDT are going to also have to deal with the following:

• Disruption in semen quality, menstruation, gestational length, and duration of lactation
• Premature births
• Reduced birth rate
• Diabetes
• Neurological disorders
• Asthma
• Cancers
  • Liver
  • Pancreas
  • Breast
  • Blood
  • Testis
  • Lymphatic System

This doesn’t even begin to cover the effects on the rest of the ecosystem. You can look that up for yourself.

With Malaria resulting in over 800,000 annual deaths, it’s obviously a major issue and it needs serious attention. However, just because DDT is easy and cheap to manufacture in massive quantities does not automatically make it the right solution.

Once DDT is in the ecosystem, it runs its way through all forms of life. Studies indicate that its impact is felt by anything made of living cells.

That’s, like, everything, right?

Which leads us back to the DDT is Good for Me ad. Perhaps you’re looking at the copy of the ad and thinking how silly it is. Aren’t you lucky that no one is spraying DDT in your backyard? Think again. With the way this stuff moves through the ecosystem, any yard is your backyard.

If an ad ran like this today, would you simply accept what it said? Would you just assume that some government agency, with its highly-compensated staff, is running its own studies to make sure every line of such a series of claims is true?

Who really is looking out for you?

Technorati Tags: advertising, DDT, Time, Truth

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What if everything you thought you knew about motivating yourself and others turned out to be wrong?

What if the old “carrot and stick” approach has been, time and time again, proven not to work?

What if those tried-and-untrue tactics were also proven to hinder results and decrease performance?

What if a Nobel Prize was awarded in economics to one of the people who has proven that old school management and motivation does not work in any creative thinking setting (which is anything outside of the most mundane of assembly lines)?

Well buckle up because according to the decades of research condensed into Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink, it’s all true.

In some remarkable tests, which can’t be satisfactorily digested here, carrot and stick incentives reduce creativity and productivity to a remarkable degree. In professional settings, this assumes an employee is being fairly compensated as a baseline. When an “incentive” is then applied to that person’s work the results are worse, regardless of the size of the incentive.

As many people are struggling to recover from tough times, the findings (and alternatives) found in this book should get serious consideration from everyone. It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to motivate yourself, start a business or hold one together. How you manage motivation (an oxymoron) is a critical element in your results.

Have you read this book? Do you agree? Disagree? Think Pink is a loonie? Sound off and leave a comment below.

Technorati Tags: Daniel Pink, Drive, motivation, Results

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Once upon a time, companies registered domains for everything. One frozen food company registered a .com domain for every single product they sold. The idea back then seemed simple enough (relative to a limited understanding of the Internet): There were no useful search engines, so why not make it possible to type “[productname].com” into the web browser (typically that  ugly POS known as Netscape) to pull it up?

Other companies used this approach to create a domain name for each advertising campaign.

The search engines came along and after a maturation process Google rammed their concept of “ site authority” down our throats. Having many domains weakens your online authority and that meant putting everything back on one domain’s site. Then you had to find a creative way of arranging all the information so search bots and (as an afterthought) people could find it.

I’m just glad there aren’t more wiki’s as a result.

Aside from search engine optimization woes, it’s just plain harder to get people to come to your site anymore. In case you didn’t get the memo, social media has the Internet by the nards and it’s not likely to let go any time soon.

So what’s a company like Coca-Cola to do?

If the people at Coke have any brains, they would abandon the old model of needing to own every web property with which they intended to market and get in the middle of the crowds of people who want what they have and like to talk about it too.

Apparently, the right people at Coca-Cola are in possession of said brains because that’s exactly what they’re doing.

Now maybe they didn’t come up with the idea to create their Facebook fan page first but at 4,134,849 fans and counting, they haven’t screwed it up either. Last time I checked, this fan page had just made news by crossing the 1 million fan mark. I don’t think that was too long ago so adding on another 3 million fans is pretty sweet.

What do people do on this page?

They talk about Coke, Coke Cookbooks, shirts, the museum, flavors, sweeteners, when the Stevia Coke is going to be available and when I CAN BUY IT HERE IN DC (hint hint) and all sorts of stuff I really doubt a marketing team would have ever come up with on their own.

In other words, Coca-Cola is connecting to people where they are (social media) and joining them in conversation.

I can’t wait to see how this shift impacts Coke in 2010. Some of the frontier is still unknown but if they can pull off authenticity and being “real” online, then anyone can.

How about you? Are you walking away from any of your marketing practices from the previous year and stepping into more social media/networking?

Technorati Tags: Branding, Business, Coca-Cola, Coke, Marketing, Social Media

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