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Bill Bishop has been writing a great series of posts at Slate.com, analyzing the polling and results of the election. He theory has been that there is a "big sort" going on as people move to areas populated with people of similar beliefs. Liberals to the coasts, conservatives moving south, etc. His last post reviews the election results: No, We Didn’t: America Hasn't Changed as Much as Tuesday’s Results Would Indicate. Here is a quote:Political campaigns these days aren't designed to change minds. Candidates target voters who are already likely to support them-and then the campaigns feed these voters more of what they want to hear. That's a strategy that is all about polarization, and it works.Switching gears, Axl Rose released the latest Guns-n-Roses album this week. I was going into my senior year in high school when Appetite for Destruction came out- it's literally the theme music for the year I lived in London. Every time I hear those riffs, I feel like kicking something just go the sheer aggressive fun of kicking something. I haven't bought the new album yet, but the reviews have been rather slashing (lol). Here is a quote from SPIN:Guns N' Roses, 'Chinese Democracy'

An outrageously overblown pop-metal extravaganza, Chinese Democracy feels like a perfect epitaph for all the absurdity and nonsense of the George W. Bush era -- one final blowout before Principal Obama takes our idiocy away.

The music toggles between two primary modes: grinding industrial rock and keys-and-strings balladry. (Imagine Rammstein covering Wings, basically.)And in the, closing the barn door after the horse has run away, GM is getting rid of its jets, after getting skewered in the press. Truly, the management of the car companies must be some of the stupidest people on earth.Lastly, mint.edu has a great post, A Visual Guide to the Financial Crisis. Lol.

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No news to anyone interested in PR these days, but Motrin screwed the pooch over the past week. How can any company be taken by surprise by a negative reaction to a new campaign nowadays? Consumers are active, vocal and organized. You might want to run your messages by them before rolling out a campaign. Get their feedback- you know, find out what their pain points are (he he).Here is an excellent list of things to do, from NevilleHobson.com:

Of the many blog posts published by communicators and pundits with opinions, one of the best I’ve seen comes from Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang and lessons learned:

• Always test your campaign with a small segment first
• Always have staff on hand to be prepared to respond during the weekend
• Don’t launch a campaign right before the weekend unless you’re prepared to respond
• The participants have the power, so participate
• For better or for worse, more influencers are talking about Motrin than ever before

I’d add one in the middle:

• Ask yourself: what is our plan of action if a viral effect develops around our brand/product/service, especially out of our normal business hours?

But it’s the last two of Jeremiah’s bullet points that are especially important.

Amen.

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Hi all, it's been a while since I last posted. With the market gyrating and Sequoia's famous powerpoint presentation scaring the bejesus out of everyone (btw, you should read this is you haven't already), I've been busy focusing on new business development activities and developing a new marketing initiative. I believe in the theory that companies that can invest in marketing to maintain positive cash flow and compete effectively in a downturn can take market share and drive some competitors out of business.One company that seems to have the same approach is LinkedIn. They announced the launch of their applications platform today. I've been very impressed with the groups feature they added earlier this year. In terms of traffic to my website, and generating conversations, it's the best, most immediate return on my investment of time, I find.I'm eager to explore the apps they currently offer and I'm excited to see what apps are developed down the road. My concern however is that LinkedIn will have to gradually loosen the restrictions on contacting people you don't know. Now, any email you receive is going to be legitimate and, most likely, worthwhile to read. It would be a shame if they killed the golden goose by letting LinkedIn turn into a spam machine.

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Yes, it's very exciting! Last week, I was lucky enough to sit down with Oscar Fuster, the VP of Marketing and Strategic Alliances at ePok, an access management software company based in Bethesda, MD. Oscar is an experienced marketer having lead marketing teams at iGov, International data Products, SMS Data Products Group. He shares his experiences working in growth environments and the impact of social media. Oscar's been with ePok for less than a year- would you market ePok differently?(In the interests of transparency, ePok and Strategic (my firm) are working together. We were picked to develop and run the social media/PR aspect of Oscar's marketing strategy.)

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At work, we talk a lot about creativity and creating content that has a "wow" factor. A PR agency, at heart, is about creating content that is entertaining a well as engaging and educational and then distributing it to the right audience at the right time. Being creative and/or innovative, however, is hard.I think it's hard because it's so rarely seen. Our imaginations seem to have a difficult time re-imagining common things or creating entirely new things.So, when I saw the following YouTube video from the folks at BMW, I thought, "this is a true example of re-imagining a known thing, playing around with the idea and seeing what it does." Usually, I think, you end up with something that has a "wow" factor.Check it out for yourself!

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I'm not sure the technology world is going to be hurt as much as the housing, finance and industrial markets are. Dealflow seems to be strong. However, given the impending collapse of western civilization, here are some interesting datapoints for the world to enjoy:Blogging for Dollars: Slate's Michael Agger gives a overview (for dummies) of the blogosphere and how bloggers make $$ for all the people who are going to be laid off this year.FDA Takes End Run to Award Contract to PR Firm A local PR agency continues its epic quest to be the scuzziest PR agency in America.No Credit Crunch in the Channel According to eWeek, there is plenty of cash in the tech world and no signs of scarce credit, unlike our friends in finance, homebuilding or industry. Of course, this could change at any moment I guessKen Schachter reports on the shutting of the IPO and M&A windows. Tech companies are going to have to grow organically a little longer than they thought before cashing out.And the NASDAQ is only down 3.5% today!! Yay!

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It's after Labor Day, so we're in full swing now. Aside from hitting the phones and banging out emails, blog posts and podcasts, the event and trade show fall season is filling up my calendar. Good networking isn't hard to find, that's for sure. I posted earlier about the AMA's Mobile Marketing event. Now I'd like to share my notes from last Friday morning's Potomac Tech Wire's event on The Future of Software held at the Ritz in Tysons.There were two panels- one, software company executives and the other, venture capitalists. I'll list the panelists for each and bullet the main talking points.Panel One-Andre Boivert, Chairman, Zenoss and InfobrightTodd Bramblett, CEO, LeverPointGreg Gershman, VP Search and Engineering, OdeoBarg Upender, President, IntrideaPanel Two-Carter Griffin, Partner, Updata PartnersHarry Gruner, General Partner, JMI EquityDon Rainey, General Partner, Grotech VenturesJanet Yang, principal, Novak Biddle Venture PartnersPaul Sherman was the charming moderator, as usual for PTW sponsored events, for both panels.The panels had a lot to say about the relative strengths and weaknesses of the SaaS versus the traditional enterprise software package, the open source model versus the proprietary model, the ad-supported versus paid license model, and how each kind fits into the needs of different customers. The software market is fracturing and how that affects how companies buy and how VC's make investments. Today's software market is different than in the past because:

• Users are sophisticated now. They know about the downside of the traditional software and want better interfaces, slicker graphics, better speed, easier implementation, etc.
• Users are buying software. They are not being sold. Buyers across the enterprise are educated on quality and functionality.

The old big fat Fortune 500 software sale is dying. Spending is fractured as departments, offices buy their own CRM packages without say so from the corporate IT departmentCoding used to be difficult. As software development packages get easier to use (Ruby on Rails as an example) there is a lower barrier to entry for new software companies. The time to value for the customer becomes more of a differentiator. That requires domain expertise. And a focus on execution.New software has a hard time differentiating itself- it has to focus on vertical, or niche, markets and show a deep understanding of that market. Don't bother trying to differentiate. Focus on intangible assets. For example:

• the old sales model for software was extremely labor intensive
• the new open source model keeps the sales cost low
• users try it for free, then pay for additional levels of sophistication
• aim to convert 1% of downloads
• users only contact company when they've reached the point of conviction and are ready to pay

Execution is key- can you ramp up users quickly and do you have the ability to scaleWhat models are working, given the commoditization of software?

• buyers are out of the control of the IT departments
• cloud computing/SaaS allow software companies to sell directly to operational units at a low price point ($25-50k) without IT department involvement
• the SaaS model is a small (1-2%) of the whole market but is growing fast
• especially fast penetration of the SMB market

How are open source software and SaaS interacting?

• open source is allowing sophisticated developers to execute custom projects quickly and cheaper
• SaaS is bringing turnkey, easy to use and implement applications to organizations that have had the resources in the past- "the local church group using Google Calendar"
• startups can have huge scale from day one- from a investing perspective cloud computing plus SaaS equals low initial capital expenditures to get alpha and beta versions built
• the middle area is getting squeezed

Were these guys (and gals) full of crap? Are you a software marketer or salesperson- are you seeing these trends?

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Oh, and the Bears beat the Colts Sunday night. For those of you who need to brush up on the Bear's fight song...as sung by a opera tenor.Bear down, Chicago Bears, make every play clear the way to victory; Bear down, Chicago Bears, put up a fight with a might so fearlessly. We'll never forget the way you thrilled the nation with your T-formation. Bear down, Chicago Bears, and let them know why you're wearing the crown. You're the pride and joy of Illinois, Chicago Bears, bear down.

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I attended an interesting and informative event at NPR's office last Thursday night on mobile marketing put together by the DC chapter of the American Marketing Association. I've talked a lot about mobile marketing on this blog over the years.Just my two cents: it's been a long time coming, but I think the promise of (at least non-Location Based Services (LBS)) mobile marketing is at hand.The event had a strong, experienced panel who confirmed a lot of what I already knew about marketing on mobile devices but had a lot of new compelling information. Here are the panelists:DP Venkatesh, CEO, mPortalMary Gramaglia, Director of Sales, Sybase 365Michael Lieberman, Mobile Integration Director, HyperfactoryDemian Perry, Product Manager Content Development and Mobile Operations, NPRChris Parandian, Founder, Tin Can Communications(Thanks to the ever-charming Old Town Alexandria resident, Limor Shafman, for moderating the panel!!)The topics of discussion ranged from extremely tactical to very high level. Here are some of the takeaways...

1. Mobile marketing is a unique medium due to the intimate and individual nature of the interaction. People don't share phones so their handheld is an extension of the person and his/her personality. When marketing through mobile, that relationship must be respected.
2. Ask for help. Mobile marketing is complex and cannot be planned in a silo without reference to your other branding, marketing and PR efforts. Like all media, mobile marketing has strengths and weaknesses- plan for both. Mobile is digital and can be tracked like any digital campaign. But be sure mobile targets your audience and make sure your message is relevant for that audience.
3. Don't distract, annoy, bore, confuse or attempt to hold your audience hostage.
4. Mobile marketing is about engagement rather than reach. Always include a call to action to further interact with you. Mobile marketing is, at its core, a social medium, akin to social networking. Give people a chance to participate and express themselves. Don't blast a brand message to 100,000 people.
5. Go to the Mobile Marketing Association and read their marketing guidelines.

Do you think the panel left anything out? Should marketers think about mobile marketing in a different way? Or ignore it?

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I don't have any idea when or if a backlash against the current green orthodoxy will start but two articles on slate.com caught my eye. Neither article dismisses or denies the problems that the green movement addresses, but they both poke holes in the fear mongering and simplistic solutions offered to the public. As an agency serving clients with a green message, this is something to keep on the radar screen.It's Time To Turn Down the HeatSlate.comBy Gregg EasterbrookArtificial climate change is real; even skeptics now call the danger scientifically proven. But Friedman, Al Gore, James Hansen of NASA, and others present climate change as some kind of super-ultra emergency. Global warming is a problem, one that must be managed via greenhouse-gas restrictions and a weaning away from fossil fuels. But in a world of poverty, disease, dictatorships, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, lack of girls' education, and more than 1 billion people without cleaning drinking water or electricity—climate change barely makes the Problem Top 10. Besides, the solution can't be a panicked pullback from the present economic system, though perhaps that system can be amended over the long term. Economic growth is needed to allow the world to afford environmental protection. At least for the next few decades, headlong resource consumption will be necessary to generate the capital that will pay for a clean-energy infrastructure.Rusted RootsSlate.comBy James E. McWilliams...One issue frequently overlooked in the rush to embrace organic agriculture is the prevalence of excess arsenic, lead, cadmium, nickel, mercury, copper, and zinc in organic soil. Soil ecologists and environmentalists—and, to some extent, the concerned public—have known for more than a century that the synthetic pesticides of conventional farming leave heavy metals in the ground. But the fact that you'll find the same toxins in organic soil has been something of a dirty little secret.Nothing ever continues in a straight line forever, so I'm sure that an eventual rise in measured criticism will cause the Greens, as a political and cultural group, to lose the current hollowed status they currently hold. These two articles might be a couple of the early data points that support that view.What do you think? Am I completely off my rocker?