May 2012
3 posts
3 tags
Five Most Common RFID Mistakes
Louis Sirico is the global evangelist of RFID. So when he posted the five most common mistakes companies make when selected RFID, I thought it was worth publishing.
You see, we are just in the infancy of this location industry. And, yes, it is slow in coming but one day almost everything we own will be able to be tracked.
Now this will be do wonders for the TV remote problem. But also for...
“Crank it up”
– A person with a new idea is a crank until his idea succeeds. Then he is Steve Jobs.
4 tags
E-mail Etiquette: Think Twice, Talk Nice
I saw a good article in GovLoop today about how to communicate through e-mail.
Basically, writer Stever Ressler has two important duh-isms: Think Twice, Talk Nice.
Think Twice emphasizes the concept that e-mail is very easy to send and impossible to get back. Many times, it is preferable to walk down the hall or pick up the phone to talk. But sometimes you can’t. And when you...
April 2012
7 posts
2 tags
Leadership? How about followship?
If you say follow me and start walking, and then notice no one is following you, you are not leading, you are merely taking a stroll. — heard on Morning Joe and attributed to John Boehner
2 tags
Digital Publishing Platforms
I am doing some research on digital publishing platforms, such as publishing a magazine. This project will enhance distribution via the internet, avoid cutting down trees, and accommodate mobile platforms, such as Apple and Android devices. These packages have gotten very sophisticated lately and some are available on-line as a service.
The best options are offered as services so that the...
4 tags
4 tags
Adwords 101
#bizvillebuzz
Web Marketing Today has a good article on PPC advertising. Written last year by Melissa Hackley, its still a good tutorial on how to effectively use Adwords and other systems like it. In a series of chapters, it covers everything from writing good ads to how to evaluate how you are doing.
4 tags
"Bring Your Own Device" Not Going Away. Get Over...
Corporate IT managers can complain, fight and forbid progress all they want. But the phenomena of employees using their own computer and smart devices for work is not going away. It started with Macintoshes in the dark corners of the company. Now, employees publicly bring in their iPads and smart phones, sometimes in directly opposition of official company policy. Its called Bring Your Own Device...
3 tags
A Simple Slider
http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/s5/
S5 is a simple slide show builder based on JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. This page describes the standards-based tool and gives access to source code.
March 2012
7 posts
If we can put a man on the moon...
If we can put a man on the man, we can . But wait, in the current political and economic environment, we can no longer put a man on the moon. Sorry, Newt, your moon colony will have to wait until the cutthroat political style that you invented falls out of favor.
3 tags
SXSW
Watching the SXSW technology interview on CNN. That’s about as close as I’m getting this year. #bizvillebuzz
4 tags
Apple expected to announce iPad3 on Wednesday
#apple #ipad3 expected to be announced on wednesday. I guess Apple’s legendary tight lip about upcoming launches has been busted. Not that its a big secret. Everyone knows they are poised to do the Next Big Thing this spring. And I wonder what we’ll hear about the iPhone 5?
4 tags
Carbonite, good move.
@carbonite I was already boycotting #carbonite because of their support of Rush Limbaugh, but the pulling of advertising by Carbonite is a good move. Maybe I’ll reconsider. Right now, I’m happy with Mozy.
3 tags
Kyle Schafer, WV CIO, retires. Remarkable IT...
#nascio #dotgov Amy Schurr, executive editor, StateTech magazine, reports that Kyle Schafer is retiring. Schafer has had a remarkable IT career in the state of West Virginia and most recently served at president of the National Association of State Chief Executive Officers. #govtechnews
4 tags
Link to a helpful site: MakeUseOf
The website <a href=”http://www.makeuseof.com/”>MakeuseOf </a> is a great place to look for some terrific software. Take a look. #bizville
February 2012
4 posts
The 99% Declaration
http://www.the99declaration.org/
Google's Dirty Little Secret
What’s up with Google exploiting the Safari browser? #bizville Graduate Student Jonathan Mayer uncovered Google’s secret practice of planting information in the form of browser cookies without your knowledge or permission.
Third-party ad agencies, such as ClickThrough, have for years set cookies on your computer so that they can follow customer behavior. As you surf from site to...
Big ToDo
Life hack thinks that ToDo lists don’t work. I am interested in this belief because I have several todo list that are unfulfilled and abandoned. #bizville #judvaughn #todo #lifehack
One of the reasons they say is that todo list have a list of large projects that can’t get done right away. So most people do the small unimportant tasks just to be able to check something off.
Of course,...
Siri-ously
If you were going to buy an #Apple iPhone for #Siri, think again. It only occasionally works right and is busy a lot. Promising technology but like a rocket backpack, we may have to wait a little longer. It worked better in beta—when there were no customers.
January 2012
11 posts
3 tags
Apple's Dark Secret
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/454/transcript
Ira Glass
Siri, where do you come from?
Siri Software
I, Siri, was designed by Apple in California.
Ira Glass
Where were you manufactured?
Siri Software
I’m not allowed to say.
Ira Glass
Why?
Siri Software
Good question. Anything else I can do for you?
—
We, in the first world, enjoy amazing products...
2 tags
8 Ways to Build Customer Loyalty
http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/8-ways-to-build-customer-loyalty.html
From Inc Magazine: Here’s the simple truth in eight points to keep the business going. I’m putting this in my reminder queue so I will focus on it. #bizville
3 tags
Remember the Basics
#bizville This post borrows several ideas from Ted Rubin’s StraightTalk blog. He asserts that those young upstart marketing people may be all over social media but that doesn’t make them immune to the marketing basics, any more than a new batter is immune to the fundamentals of how to hit.
He offers three fundamentals in his post, which every marketing person should write on their...
Happy Talk
#DanBuettner, studying happiness says people making $40-$70 are the happiest, if you measuring them real time. Higher-income people say they are happier in retrospect because they tend to forget the bad stuff and remember the good. #newtestamentdemocrat
2 tags
Happy talk
#DanBuettner, studying happiness says people making $40-$70 are the happiest, if you measuring them real time. Higher-income people say they are happier in retrospect because they tend to forget the bad stuff and remember the good. #bizville
Happy customers
Make sure you take good care of customers. A happy customer tells three people. An unhappy customer tells Google. #bizville
Blog digest over e-newsletter
Are you pulling your hair out trying to figure out what to put in the next newsletter? Is the deadline looming like some dark storm cloud? Then just forget it.
Instead, just copy, paste and publish a digest version of your blog from the last few weeks. Why? Because a blog digest has many great advantages. Newsletters are so ominous; blogs are a lot more casual and approachable.
Here are some...
3 tags
Ruining your SEO campaign
Over at the Daily Blog Tips, there’s one of those I’ll-tell-you-what-not-to-do-so-that-you-will-do-the-opposite-thing articles on SEO.
The author lists five things you can do if you want to lower your SEO scoring. It’s pretty straighforward, but always good to review the basics.
The best thing I re-learned was that you shouldn’t optimize a bad website. Sure SEO helps...
1 tag
Website checklist
Here is a checklist for a successful blog site — wait, wait, stick with me. The same punch list that’s essential for a blog site is essential for your corporate or personal website.
It’s elementary. Generally, the purpose of a blog site is to make content easy to update and enable readers to respond to you. NEWSFLASH: ou need to build your corporate site with the same goals in...
3 tags
Marketing defined
Wikipedia defines the term marketing as “an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.”
But this is a bit too small. The emphasis seems to be on marketing communications, which is a large, important part of it but not...
Hog
I had my traditional black-eyed peas and hog jowl just now. Yum. Its a Southern tradition in my family. It comes from a belief that the pig represents prosperity—which is a view shared by many cultures.
But the jowl is definitely not eating “high” on the hog. Its a low, inexpensive cut of meat. I always assumed that eating common black-eyed peas and a cheap cut of meat was a...
December 2011
8 posts
Information Junk Food
Clay Johnson says we’re suffering from “information obesity:” consuming too much “junk” news and too little healthy data. He proposes a new regime for the New Year… Hear the interview at http://thekojonnamdishow.org/audio-player?nid=20568
TwiV
I don’t watch a lot of TV. Mostly Burn Notice and political stuff. But I have started having my Twitter feed on during programs (with hash tags filtered for that program). People are chattering about stuff all through the show. It’s like watching TV with a roomful of fans and critics except I can selectively read or disgard what they are saying. Its my little way of turning boring TV...
Creativity
All things are created twice. First, we created an idea or concept in our mind and moosh it around a bit before going forward, i.e., building a dog house. Second, we create it in physical space, i.e., grab the hammer and some wood. The better we create it and moosh it around in the first step, the better the second version will be. #bizville #creativity
”Talent is God-given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful” —anonymous #bizville #marketing
4 tags
Heard on Morning Joe
A retired Burger King marketing executive was asked, “Why didn’t you go after McDonalds and beat them up on their food preparation practices and their quality control?”
He replied, “Because the one thing you don’t do in marketing is to kill the category.”
That’s what Congress has done. They have killed the public office category. They have made it so...
Breakfast
I coat the pan with a tablespoon of Canola oil, add some chopped onions, and perhaps some minced vegetables. Once they are dancing in the pan, I crack some eggs in a bowl and stir in a little water. Into the pan it goes so the magic can start.
While observing the omelet chef at several four-star hotels, I learned how not to “bruise the eggs.” It’s a subtle process, but once you...
1 tag
Fire all your guns at one time...exploding into...
Big holiday shopping numbers at the same time Europe and the world economy is imploding. Have we just decided, that even though we’re careening toward the cliff, we’ll just sit back and enjoy the ride?
Jungle Primary
I learned a new phrase this morning: jungle primary. That’s when a general “blanket” primary is held where all political parties run their candidates and people from all parties vote for any of them (not the party). The two or three winners compete in a runoff.
This is an interesting concept because it breaks the stranglehold of the two big parties. It gets nearer a system of...
November 2011
5 posts
Schema - structuring the web
One of the problems of search engines is that, while they can easily find EVERY instance of a certain key word, they cannot easily discriminate between subtle meanings of those terms. Google essentially says, “here are 10,000 mentions of this word and now you sort it out”.
For example, a search engine cannot differentiate between the meaning of trunk (elephant’s nose), trunk...
Thanks for your service
I sat next to a Master Sargeant on my last plane flight. We began to talk and I told him that I hardly ever said to a soldier, “I appreciate your service”.
I told him that I felt that it comes off like saying, “Hey, thanks for doing my dirty work, sucker.” Now this guy was six foot five and built like a titanium bomb casing. A sniper. Not given to sentimentality. He...
Search marketing webinar from Adobe →
Here’s a great primer for moving from traditional marketing into more social, interactive marketing. Spoiler: Its about accountability. Its a back-to-basics session but I like to get as much triangulation as possible from credible sources.
5 things NOT to say in a negotiation →
Forget how you should negotiate. Inc Magazine has five things you should never say.
Social marketing - A century's old process →
Anyone who has done international business, especially in Asia or the Middle East, knows that its all about relationships. While Americans pride themselves on transactional sales, the rest of the world forgoes talk of business until a suitable social engagement has been formed.
Frustrated Ameican business people think of this process as slow and a total waste of time.
But suddenly, the way...
October 2011
3 posts
Netflix - how not to do market research
Netflix presents a great model for banks on how to screw the customer. The Internet gives consumers more choices and sometimes the ability to to confound greedy companies. Near field communication will come faster than we realize, giving us the ability to pay for purchases with our smartphone and avoid the bank “convenience” fees they charge us for using our own money.
Kkaddaffyy. No one could spell his name, anyway.
Instead of bragging about getting terrorists “dead or alive” and then doing nothing, President Obama has kept his mouth shut and orchestrated the killing of major bad guys across the globe. Throw another one on the barbie, Mr. President.
Cyber-security Training Gets Failing Grade →
Dark Reading, a popular security magazine, says that security professionals are losing the battle on conveying cyber-security information to users. The problem isn’t the user, says Mike Murray, managing partner at MAD Security. Security pros think that they have themselves to blame, saying that they haven’t figured out how to successfully motivate users toward more secure measures...
September 2011
4 posts
Emailchemy-making lead into gold
Holy cow! WeirdKid software offers a migration and management tool for e-mail. According to the web site, it will move your archived messages from about every format to about every other format.
A friend of mine said its great when moving mail from your local computer to Google mail, although that isn’t one of the systems mentioned.
Details at http://www.weirdkid.com/
Both sides of his mouth
Got love Rick Perry. He says he wants to make the federal govt. irrelevant but complains when the fire fighting aid is late. #teapartytaliban