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How an 8-Year Old Became Co-CMO. I have to share this story…it’s about how my son got offered the job of Co-CMO for Bazaarvoice.Last week we had kids-at-work day. I brought in my 8-year-old son Kyle and 11-year-old daughter Haley in for half a day to experience my work. They were very excited, however, I had a number of meetings and conference calls. During these meetings my daughter colored, read, and ate ice cream. My son, on the other hand, walked the halls and started offering advice to our employees. Soon, our Partnerships Director suggested he interview for a job. So, Kyle typed up an introductory letter and started interviewing with our recruiter and several Bazaarvoice managers. I still have no idea this is going on. Soon Kyle gets into Brett’s office (our CEO). Brett interviews him and soon realizes that his skills of giving “tips, advice and opinions” on things like pricing and how to sell products align well with marketing. So he offers him the Co-CMO position -- actually senior to me -- paying $50/mo and 100 shares! In the video below I compiled some clips that I and others collected that day, showing his interview with Brett and examples of the advice that he was giving me and our VP of Business Development, Brant Barton. None of this is staged for video, we just captured what was happening. He came up with all of this himself. It doesn’t stop there. He collected 15 business cards and since Wednesday he’s been emailing my employees... (02/24/09 09:00 AM)

User Generated Content is Booming for Baby Boomers. A marketer from a manufacturer brand recently asked me if user generated content was relevant to the baby boomer and senior population. Boomers make up of 35% of the Internet population. While it’s true that Millenials (the 13-24 generation) share content at double the rate of Baby boomers (56%), 31% of Baby Boomers share their own user generated content. This could be in the form of reviews, blog posts, comments, discussion forums, etc. Bazaarvoice has several clients with a high percentage of boomers in their base that are getting great results from UGC; such as QVC, Sears, Macy’s, Blair, Home Depot, Canadian Tire, Golfsmith, and many others. The use of search (where 25%+ of results are UGC) and usefuleness of user generated content for a purchase is relevant at any age. Just ask someone you know over 50 if they read reviews when they shop online. Nielsen found 8 out of 10 shoppers used reviews when shopping over the holidays, and that includes 35% of the internet population that are boomers!If you are interested in learning more about marketing and new media strategies for the Baby Boomer generation, consider attending the What’s Next Boomer Summit, March 19 in Las Vegas. There will be an E-Revenue Bootcamp. I will be speaking there and will discuss the impact of UGC and customer reviews for this generation. Also, Guy Kawasaki will keynote. Should be a great conference! (02/24/09 09:00 AM)

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How an 8-Year Old Became Co-CMO. I have to share this story…it’s about how my Son got offered the job of Co-CMO for Bazaarvoice. Last week we had kids-at-work day. I brought in my 8-year-old Son Kyle and 11-year-old daughter Haley in for half a day to experience what I do at work. They were very excited, however, I had a number of meetings and conference calls. During these meetings my daughter at colored, read, and ate ice cream. My son, on the other hand, walked the halls and started offering advice to our employees. Soon, our Partnerships Director suggested he interview for a job. So, Kyle typed up an introductory letter and and started interviewing with our recruiter and several Bazaarvoice managers. I of course, still have no idea this is going on. Soon Kyle gets into Brett’s office (our CEO). Brett interviews him and soon realizes that his skills of giving “tips, advice and opinions” on things like pricing and how to sell products align well with marketing. So he offers him the Co-CMO position -- actually senior to me -- paying $50/mo and 100 shares! Fortunately I make a little bit more than that. In the video below I compiled some video that I and others collected that day, showing his interview with Brett and examples of the advice that he was giving me and our VP of Business Development, Brant Barton. None of this is staged for video, we just captured what was happening. He came up with all of this himself.... (08/17/08 09:00 PM)

Off to the ALI Social Media Summit in Chicago.

If you're in Chicago between Monday and Wednesday, drop me a line!

I'll be presenting at the ALI Social Media Summit in a pre-conference workshop. Check it out:

How To Use Social Media To Enhance And Improve Your Internal Communications Efforts - And 7 Steps To Take Your Internal Social Media Program To An External Marketing Program

Some people may think that social and emerging media tools are just for customers. However, they can greatly improve your internal communication, peer networking and knowledge sharing and management initiatives if used properly. This workshop will show you how to leverage the most prominent social media tools to strengthen your internal communications processes and improve the effectiveness of any customer-focused organization. If you're considering social media for customer/external communications, this workshop will also give you specific insights and help you to 'eat your own dogfood' before going headlong into social and emerging media & marketing with your customers and prospects.

Each attendee will take away:

A comprehensive understanding of each and every internal social media tool available to their organization
Concrete examples of organizations that are employing these tools
A roadmap of where to start and how to progress in your internal social media endeavor
Develop the business case to sell internal social media based communication tools to management
The seven steps to taking social media from an internal endeavor to an external marketing program
A comprehensive workbook which explains how to learn more about each of the tools discussed

(06/09/08 09:00 AM)

The Gap in Customer Engagement. Late post from the Forrester Marketing Forum Conference I attended a couple weeks ago. The topic was “Customer Engagement”, which is heralded by many publications as the new marketing buzzword. I love buzzwords…they get buzz! Which gets people talking, which gets people trying things, which causes failures, which creates learning, which (hopefully) creates better companies. I digress. The primary research and paper behind customer engagement was conducted by Brian Haven, who’s a great Forrester Analyst. I’ve known him for years and spoken in his workshops on Social networking and UGC. I’m a big believer in the idea of customer engagement. But I have 2 cents to add on where customer engagement comes from and where the gap is in achieving this goal in organizations. The conference was a balance of ideas to measure customer engagement, with tools, principles and experiences that result in more engaged customers. During the show I posted to Facebook “Customer Engagement is a more measured way of defining Customer Experience”. Said another way, Customer Engagement is an outcome…and outcomes (as well as inputs) are measurable. There are a lot of metrics that can point to engaged customers. I don’t think the absolute figures of these measures matter as much as trending to understand if you’re winning or losing customer engagement. But what is a point of customer engagement worth in revenue, margin or saved costs? Some of the metrics for customer engagement – such as time on site, Net Promoter, or Brand awareness -- could track... (04/23/08 09:01 PM)

Posting from the NCMPR conference at the NCMPR blog.

I've spent the last few days in beautiful Savannah, GA at the NCMPR conference (NCMPR, for those of you not familiar, is the National Council for Marketing and Public Relations) where 500 of the best & brightest marketers from 2-year colleges and educational organizations from the US & Canada are gathered to discuss the latest in greatest in college marketing trends tactics.

For a few days I'm posting on behalf of Mark Little of the Central Piedmont Community College at his blog for NCMPR.

(04/04/08 09:00 PM)

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Round and Round.

My computer-adverse client called yesterday to say she would be coming by my office to work with me on the proposal and that she would be bringing "a big round diskette" that had some material on it that we could use. I got a little panicky because I had no idea what a big round diskette was. Could she have been referring to the old 5" floppy disks that don't exist any more? Finally I realized that she was probably bringing a CD with files on it. And that's what it was.

When she got here, we worked on the proposal for a bit, and then she dropped a bombshell, telling me that she did not need to submit a cost proposal. She said that she had gotten this information at the bidder's conference. I told her that this did not make sense, and she pointed to a section in the RFP that said that bidders would not need to submit a financial statements or details on their burdened rate until just prior to contract execution. Plus, she thought that the evaluation criteria related to cost was confusing. I tried to explain, but she was convinced that the Contracting Officer had said no cost proposal.

So she decided to call the Contracting Officer. Except she dialed the wrong number and got hold of the Technical Officer (COTR) instead. The COTR could not find the page in the RFP that my client was referring to and insisted that there was no such page. They went round and round on this:

COTR - what page is that?

Client - it is page 54.

COTR - there is no page 54.

Client - yes, on page 54 it gives the evaluation criteria for cost

COTR - the evaluation criteria ends on page 53

Client - no, there is another page

COTR - I have the RFP right in front of me and the page after page 53 is this one (reads the first sentence).

Client - no, that it not it.

COTR - I will have to check with the procurement office because it is not in my copy. Oh, wait a minute, here it is. The pages in my copy are out of order. At any rate, you need to talk to the Contracting Officer about this because I don't know the answer to your question.

So my client gets hold of the Contracting Officer and asks the question about submitting the cost proposal. He said yes, we have to submit a cost proposal, but not price. As for an explanation of the evaluation criteria related to cost, he cannot tell my client what it means. She has to interpret it for herself the best she can. They go round and round on this for a while, but my client finally hangs up and says to me:

"I better get started on my cost proposal."

(03/01/08 09:01 AM)

Lovely E-Mail.

I get quite a few e-mails each day. Some are from people asking about my services, others want me to answer their questions, and still others write rather lengthy stories about various hardships that they want to overcome by getting grants that don't exist. Then there is the e-mail I received yesterday asking for a donation so that the sender could attend a conference in Las Vegas, which she can't pay for because she doesn't have any consulting work. Hmmm, I would like donations so that I too could go to Las Vegas.

But every so often I receive an e-mail that just plain makes me happy. I got one of those yesterday too. Here it is:

I am 30 yrs old with little to no experience in writing up
proposals. I am currently working in a middle management position in a
small company. I feel I have an idea that would greatly benefit the
company I am currently working for. After approaching one of the senior
management with it, he told me he liked it and to write up a proposal.

I have been searching the internet for the past week and a half
attempting to gain insight and advice into how to create a quality
proposal. I am not the type of person how expects, or even wants, to
have someone else do my work for me. Most of the sites I found offered
to create a proposal for a fee. It is my belief that unless
circumstances require otherwise that a person should learn to do things
for themselves. It was a nice surprise to find on your site a starter
list of sorts that I could use to begin to make a proposal on my own.
Your "Proposal Preparation Checklist" and Proposal Pointers and
Pitfalls" are wonderful tools and I wanted to take a moment to thank you
for freely distributing them. It is a welcome relief when someone sets
forward information to allow people to empower themselves. The links
you have provided to other websites are also wonderful. Just skimming
over the Checklist and Pointers, I have already noticed some points I
would never have considered.

So again, thank you so very much. I really appreciate the effort you
have put into your site and also the information you have offered freely.

What a beautifully-written thank-you note. And to boot, it expresses my own mantra -- "do your homework" -- just perfectly.

It's just so nice when something like this pops up in your mailbox!

(03/01/08 09:01 AM)

Keeping Up (Not).

I'm behind with everything, and this blog seems to get pushed down on my priority list. I don't want it to, but even so, I just can't seem to find the time to get the blogging done. Still, people keep reading it and signing up for my subscription notification form. So now I feel guilty for not writing anything here for a while.

I have been bogged down with work and more work. First, I finished the little sole source proposal that I wrote about earlier. My client submitted it to the federal agency, which liked the proposal but didn't like the cost. So my client is having to revise his numbers and re-submit. One of my colleagues, a CPA who specializes in government costing, is working with him on this. My client is certain to get the contract, but not before the feds make him jump through a few more hoops.

Second, I've been working on a USAID proposal. Somehow, I got assigned to prepare the largest section of that proposal and it took longer than I anticipated (no surprise there). As soon as I finished it, USAID issued a one-week extension. My client is happy to have this extension, but I'm not because it means that I might have to do more work. I'm waiting to hear from them maybe today. In the meantime...

I've moved on to starting yet another assignment that I put off because I had to finished the USAID stuff. This is what I am behind on now. It is a very large proposal for NIH -- a services project, not a research project. The technical section consists of 5 separate volumes: Personnel, Technical Approach, Management Plan, Past Performance and Work Samples. I'm almost done with the Management Plan and it is about 50 pages in length. My client is working on the Personnel Section, and I am going to have to move on to the Technical Approach section probably beginning tomorrow. NIH wants lots and lots of details about everything, and there are no page limits to any of the volumes.

So, I just continue to plod along here in my little world of proposals. Sometimes I wonder how I ever thought that this would be a good career. A lot of people think it is, but frankly I'm not sure. It's a good career if you want to be under a lot of stress all the time and if you like having one deadline after another -- deadlines that rarely slip. Ugh, I can't really even think about it right now because I have to get back to my writing. I have a conference call with my NIH client later this morning.

Later...

(03/01/08 09:01 AM)

Hour by Hour?.

I'm plugging along on the NIH proposal. I would say that I have about 75% of the Management Plan done so far and will hopefully complete the first draft by the end of the week.

In a conference call with my client yesterday we discussed the other sections. My client is basically handling the entire Personnel section. In addition to having to recruit Key Personnel, my client will have to fill out a lot of different personnel and staffing-related forms that are contained in the RFP. One look at these forms and you would almost want to run away from this bid. The forms require lots and lots of detailed info.

My client is going to start sending me some material and information that I can use in preparing the Technical Approach section. If the Management Plan alone is going to be 50+ pages, then the Technical section is likely to be 100+ pages. Details, details, details.

Here's an example of the extent of the detail required. I have never seen this before in an RFP. One of the subsections of the Technical Approach is a phase-in plan, where we have to discuss how my client will take over parts of project from an incumbent contractor. That's OK -- I have written quite a few phase-in plans. But in addition to the normal stuff we have to address in that subsection, the RFP says that we have to "detail every hour of proposed Government assistance as completely as possible."

Wha? Are they kidding? I can't even detail what I do every hour of my own day much less what the Government would do. What would they do? Stand around? Have meetings? Talk on the phone? Take coffee breaks? Nap? Have lunch? This is nuts.

I've just got to wonder who in NIH thought this one up. See what I mean by wanting to run away? Looks like there will be more than the usual amount of fictional writing here.

(03/01/08 09:01 AM)

Learn Word of Mouth Marketing -- WOMM-U, May 8-9. This year the Word of Mouth Marketing Association is doing something completely different (disclosure: I'm on the board). It will be WOMM-U (Word of Mouth Marketing University), the first training-based conference full of case studies, operational cookbooks, and practical advice to make Word of Mouth Marketing work in your organization. The tracks will include topics on Managing a blog program Activating WOM in Social Networks Building a Sustained WOM Program Measurement: The ROI of Fans Selling into the CEO ...and much more. Keynote presenters includes my friend Joseph Jaffe (author of "Join the Conversation") and Jeffrey Graham, who leads research for NYTimes. Join me at this unique conference, May 8, 9 in Miami. Register here. (02/28/08 09:01 PM)

Round and Round.

COTR - what page is that?

Client - it is page 54.

COTR - there is no page 54.

Client - yes, on page 54 it gives the evaluation criteria for cost

COTR - the evaluation criteria ends on page 53

Client - no, there is another page

COTR - I have the RFP right in front of me and the page after page 53 is this one (reads the first sentence).

Client - no, that it not it.

COTR - I will have to check with the procurement office because it is not in my copy. Oh, wait a minute, here it is. The pages in my copy are out of order. At any rate, you need to talk to the Contracting Officer about this because I don't know the answer to your question.

"I better get started on my cost proposal."

(02/27/08 09:01 AM)

Lovely E-Mail.

But every so often I receive an e-mail that just plain makes me happy. I got one of those yesterday too. Here it is:

So again, thank you so very much. I really appreciate the effort you
have put into your site and also the information you have offered freely.

What a beautifully-written thank-you note. And to boot, it expresses my own mantra -- "do your homework" -- just perfectly.

It's just so nice when something like this pops up in your mailbox!

(02/21/08 09:01 PM)

Hour by Hour?.

I'm plugging along on the NIH proposal. I would say that I have about 75% of the Management Plan done so far and will hopefully complete the first draft by the end of the week.

I've just got to wonder who in NIH thought this one up. See what I mean by wanting to run away? Looks like there will be more than the usual amount of fictional writing here.

(02/21/08 09:01 PM)

Keeping Up (Not).

Later...

(02/21/08 09:01 PM)

Red Teams.

I never heard the term "red team" until several years after I began my proposal writing career. My employers never used them and it wasn't until I started working on my own that I encountered organizations that used red teams on certain proposal efforts.

Basically, a red team is a team of outside reviewers that a company brings in to review a proposal once the final draft is completed. Many organizations don't incorporate a red team review process because: (a) it can be expensive; (b) they can't spare the time; and (c) the idea has not occured to them. But if you are preparing a proposal that is very important to your firm, using a red team can be a valuable and worthwhile activity.

In a nutshell, the process works like this:

Your company identifies people (perhaps 4 or more) to serve as red team reviewers. These people should not have been involved in the proposal in any way, and in fact it's best if they are outside your organization. You will probably need to pay these reviewers a consulting fee for their time. Depending upon the size and complexity of the proposal, the red team review can take from one to several days.

Before the red team begins their work, you'll need to prepare for them. They will need a packet of materials, including the RFP, your final proposal draft, the proposal outline, checklists, instructions, and other relevant materials. These can be put in binders that are distributed to each reviewer. The red team will also need a conference room or other space where they can read and meet.

Once the red team assembles, the Proposal Manager or another member of your proposal team may give a verbal presentation on the proposal: what it is about, some background on the issues, what problems have been encountered in developing the proposal, etc. The Proposal Manager also goes over the instructions with the review team. These instructions should be as specific as possible -- they should tell the red team reviewers what you want them to look for. For example: Is the proposal theme clear and consistent? Are the benefits of your approach desirable and clearly stated? Does the proposal address all of the RFP requirements? Is it convicing? How can specific problem areas be fixed? How could the overall proposal be improved? Etc., etc.

The red team begins its review, first working individually to read the materials and document their comments and impressions. Once this is done, they meet as a group to discuss their findings and to prepare a set of recommendations. When the review is completed, the red team presents its comments and recommendations to the proposal team, which then incorporates the reviewers' suggested improvements.

Besides red team reviews, there are also pink team reviews. But that's a topic for another day.

(02/21/08 09:01 PM)

It's Done.

I finished my book proposal. Actually, it's not totally "my" proposal, since the book (if it ever comes about) will be written by me and a long-time colleague and friend. So we worked on it together and sent it off yesterday. We thought it looked pretty good, but what do we know? Neither of us has ever written a book proposal. It will be interesting to see what happens. I suspect it will be a while before we hear anything

This is a really busy time of year for us proposal people. The government's fiscal year ends on September 30, so agencies are often in a rush to spend their money. Thus, the release of many RFPs. I am getting numerous e-mails every day from people who need proposal help and, as usual, they are waiting until the last minute to get that help. I am already swamped with work, so I'm taking on very few new projects. In addition, I'm still waiting for three RFPs from two clients that I've committed time to. Plus, in a couple of weeks I'll be starting on the next phase of my workplan project. In the middle of all this, I'll be taking a few days off to go to Maine with my husband who will be attending a conference there. Lobster!!

Yesterday, a client who I haven't heard from for about 5 years called. In fact, she called four times. I wasn't answering the phone because I was working on the book proposal and didn't want to be interrupted. But she left messages. Apparently she needs a proposal done for a local government agency here in Maryland -- pretty much the same kind of thing that I've helped her with before. But she is somewhat difficult to work with, and with my current workload I don't know if I will really have the time. Still, I hate saying "no" to existing clients, although I'm not sure I would consider her an existing client after a gap of 5 years.

I just need to have more hours in a day.

(02/21/08 09:01 PM)

Lovely E-Mail.

But every so often I receive an e-mail that just plain makes me happy. I got one of those yesterday too. Here it is:

So again, thank you so very much. I really appreciate the effort you
have put into your site and also the information you have offered freely.

What a beautifully-written thank-you note. And to boot, it expresses my own mantra -- "do your homework" -- just perfectly.

It's just so nice when something like this pops up in your mailbox!

(02/20/08 09:01 AM)

10 Elements of Sustained Greatness. Last week I attended and spoke at the Word of Mouth Marketing Summit hosted by WOMMA in Las Vegas (get the presentations here). The conference this year had great energy. Keynotes by Richard Tait of Cranium and Jeff Bell of Microsoft Xbox were inspirational. And it was much more executional-focused than previous years’, perhaps because of the focus on social technologies / online. Many conversations -- which I get very interested in -- were around the cultural aspects of word of mouth. What does it take to succeed years beyond ‘the launch’? One night, in the Rio hotel room, I watched a documentary on Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini (boxer), a champion boxer. He said, “It is very hard to get to the top, but it is even harder to stay there.” I would assert that the hype of ‘being on top’ or the ‘coolest new thing’ for a person, topic or company usually lasts no more than 2 years. Toys is the best example. Think of Cabbage Patch Dolls, Pet Rock, Tickle Me Elmo…the hype for these lasted less than two years. It is the rare entity that can sustain greatness. But it happens for companies like USAA and Costco who keep a watchful eye on customer satisfaction. Or for entertainers, like Madonna, who sustain their visibility and music through reinvention every two to three years. Or books like Blink and Good to Great stay on the best sellers list because of their timeless wisdom and application. The ingredients to... (11/19/07 09:01 PM)

10 Rules to Live By (Deborah Schultz). I was at the Forrrester Consumer Forum last week. The topic of the conference was social technologies. At a place like that you meet people that have blogs. I try to check out blogs of people I meet, I scan them, and see if something pops out. I met Deborah Schultz, a consultant in the Social Media / Interactive Design, and this post popped out to me where she outlined 10 things she tries to live by. In a busy, transparent world these rules are relevant for a consultant or corporation...they are salient for management and marketing...and some are useful to remember when living your life! Do not ignore your customers, it WILL come back to haunt you Constant iteration is NECESSARY - build in flexibility so you can respond quickly Don't LIE - you can't HIDE the truth anymore Build LISTENING into your DNA (Put it in customer service, marketing, product management - just PUT IT SOMEWHERE) Learn to BALANCE the listening with PERSPECTIVE so you are not constantly in REACTIVE mode. DESIGN matters - Make it EASY (iPhone anyone?) Be CLEAR & CONCISE - who has time for long winded-ness Be EMOTIONAL - tell a story [read this to learn the basics] Be HUMAN - talk like one, act like one. Sounds like a big DUH but it is amazing how easy it is to get lost in complexities when we forget this one. Take a BREAK - and step back to think BIG thoughts Great stuff Deborah! (10/13/07 09:00 PM)

Focus Word of Mouth Marketing on Influencers or the Network?. At the WOMMA conference in Las Vegas (Nov. 14, 15) one of the primary topics on the table is the debate and implications to the marketer focusing on the influencer or the network. The influencer model suggests you should focus on the few (say 15%) who are disporportionately influential. Malcom Gladwell called these the Connectors and Mavens. The netowrk model suggests that the importance is having many connections is more important. I'm not fully versed on both of these equally. I'm looking forward to learning more at WOMMA Summit. However, in my experience and in practice, I don't think a word of mouth marketing strategy is complete without a consideration and strategy for both. The breadth of the network is like reach. Your message can carry throughout a broad set of diverse influencers...some more influential than others. However, I believe there are personas that are more likely to share word of mouth. In my experience these people spend more and more frequently, in a retail example. For example Jupiter found the online 'Super Communicators" represent less than 20% of user generated content but over 30% of spend.Bigger mouths = bigger wallets! I think frequency and reach are still relevant concepts, but more relevant when applied to word of mouth. If I see a brand in facebook, in a review, in an online review, in a forum post, and then perhaps I see it in advertising as well then I will be more predisposed to buy. Along that journey perhaps one... (10/07/07 08:58 AM)

Liveblogging TechCrunch 40: Day 2. Here are some highlights from Day 2 of TechCrunch 40 (in reverse-order of appearance): Kaltura: This startup was voted on-stage from the demo pit by the conference attendees. Slick, collaborative video editing software. It's all Web-based. Lets you collectively create a video with your friends. A wiki/peer production platform for making videos. Zivity: User-generated porn. The site shares revenues with the "models"who upload photos. Just what the world needs: a company that is lowering the bar on porn. One of the presenters had this weird handlebar mustache. What's with that? WooMe: Speed dating site where you spend a minute meeting potential mates via Webcam. Real-time social networking. Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom is a backer. Metaplace: Build your own virtual world that can appear on any site as a 3D virtual-world widget. The big idea is that every object in the world can be linked to. "Metaplace is trying to Facebook Second Life," says panelist Loic Le Meur. Yahoo's Brad Garlinghouse argues Second Life has too much traction to be displaced. BeFunky: Turns photos and videos into cartoons. Sort of makes everything look like A Scanner Darkly. Also lets you create "uvatars" that look exactly like you. (They are hand-drawn now, but will soon use the same "Cartoonizer" technology you can already apply to photos and videos). Startup is from Turkey. Cool FX. Panelist MC Hammer thinks its funky. Wixi: Yet another file sharing site. As panelist Loic Le Meur says, "Everybody is doing that." mEgo: Have too many social networks... (09/18/07 09:00 PM)

Breaking: Facebook's Zuckerberg Announces FB Fund. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg just announced on stage at the TechCrunch 40 conference that he is creating a $10 million fund, to be called the FB Fund, to give $25,000 to $250,000 grants to software developers creating applications on Facebook. He is doing this with Peter Thiel of the Founders Fund and Jim Breyer of Accel Ventures. These will be no-strings-attached grants. Founders and Accel won't get a stake in the companies, but they will get first rights of refusal to invest later if any of the startups raise a more sizable venture round. The money will be doled out by an advisory board to consist of Thiel, Breyer, Zuckerberg, Josh Koppelman, and Reid Hoffman. Says Zuckerberg:Any developer can submit their app. If we think the project is good we will give a grant.Zuckerberg clearly wants to create as many incentives as he can for developers to create cool apps on Facebook, as do Thiel and Breyer (who are investors in Facebook). (09/17/07 09:00 PM)

Liveblogging TechCrunch 40. I'm at the TechCrunch40 conference in San Francisco today and will be liveblogging the event. Forty startups are launching new Websites/products. Here are the standouts (in the reverse-order that they are giving their demos on-stage): AOL launches Bluestring: It's nice to see some creativity coming out of AOL. Bluestring is a Web-based application that lets you create a slide show easily by mixing photos, music, and video. You can then send those sldie shows to your friends and family, and they can add their own photos, music, etc. if you allow it. Once you are happy with the finished product, you can take an embed code and post it to your blog, MySpace page, or whatnot. The site just launched a few today. 8080 Publishing: From the makers of JPG magazine (a crowd-sourced photo magazine), this startup is launching a new travel magazine called Everywhere. Everyday travelers submittheir photos and short travel write-ups online, and the best stuff gets printed on paper. I like this concept—building a community that creates the magazine—because it is really pushing the bounds of professional-amateur content. (Disclosure: My former Business 2.0 colleague Todd Lappin is the editor). MusicShake: The crowd really liked this one. It's from South Korea, a sophisticated Webtop app that lets you put together a song from over 170,000 tracks that the startup has created—everything from backbeats to vocals sound effects. A 9-year-old in South Korea ended up creating one of the most popular songs on Cyworld using this app. There is... (09/17/07 09:00 PM)

Disruptors Cover Story. For the September cover story of Business 2.0, I put together our second annual list of some of the most disruptive startups on the planet. This really brings things full-circle for me. I started out with a Disruptors cover story last year, which led to a conference series, which spawned a Web video show, which (naturally) gave rise to this second magazine cover story. The companies that made it on this year's list are: 1. Blinkx (video search)2. Raydiance (ultra-short pulse lasers)3. Expensr (Web-based Quicken)4. Zipcar (car-sharing done right)5. MFG.com (an eBay for manufacturers)6. Virgin Charter (Expedia for air taxis)7. PatientsLikeMe (patient-to-patient intelligence)8. Bloom Energy (distributed power)9. Vanu (software-defined 10. Zink (inkless, mobile printing) And for good measure, I threw in five more: —A123Systems (hybrid-car batteries)—Renewable Energy Group (biodiesel)—Desktop Factory (3-D printing for the masses)—Cree (LED powerhouse)—One Laptop Per Child (the greenest, and cheapest, laptop on the planet)... (08/22/07 09:00 AM)

Imeem is Rocking. Dalton Caldwell is finally finding his groove. His Sequoia-backed social network, Imeem, started out a couple years ago as a standalone, instant-messaging application. He soon scrapped that in favor of a Web-based social music site. But then, a victim of his own success, Imeem was banned from MySpace and threatened with a lawsuit from the Warner Music Group. Caldwell, though, has turned all of that around, and made Imeem into a legitimate, ad-supported music streaming site. He won over Warner Music, which dropped its lawsuit and licensed its entire catalog of songs to Imeem in return for a share of the advertising revenues associated with its music. In fact, Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfman, Jr. found the relationship with Imeem important enough to highlight in Warner Music's most recent earnings conference call. Now, not only can you listen to songs from indie groups like The Essex Green (and embed them on your blog): But you can also also listen to Warner Music acts like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and embed (30-second samples of) those as well: Imeem claims 16 million unique visitors in July, 10 million registered users and more than one million unique logins a day. Third-party measurement site Compete.com puts the number of unique visitors at 4.6 million, but shows that U.S. traffic is growing and beating both Last.fm and Bebo (see graph above). Comscore shows Bebo slightly ahead of Imeem in the U.S., with 4.4 million visitors in July versus 3.9 million for Imeem (and 1.8... (08/20/07 09:00 AM)

Building a Better Conference Badge. http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog/archive/2007/04/building-a-better-conference-badge (05/09/07 09:01 AM)

Let's meet at WOMMA, April 17, New Orleans. I'm speaking at WOMMA's Word of Mouth Basic Training, April 17, 18 in New Orleans. My topic will be aquiring, amplifying and measuring online word of mouth. Cost for the conference is $795, but that's a bargain compared to most conferences that are closer to $2,000. I've been to a few of these now and they are great events. The association has exploded and you will learn a lot and meet some great people who are focused on how to drive word of mouth to drive business results. Drop me an email if you plan to come!... (03/02/07 09:00 AM)

Craigslist Meets the Capitalists. "Jim Buckmaster, the chief executive of Craigslist, caused lots of head-scratching Thursday as he tried to explain to a bunch of Wall Street types why his company is not interested in 'monetizing' his ridiculously popular Web operation. Appearing at the UBS global media conference in New York, Mr. Buckmaster took questions from the bemused audience, which apparently could not get its collective mind around the notion that Craigslist exists to help Web users find jobs, cars, apartments and dates -- and not so much to make money." (12/18/06 09:00 AM)

Red Teams.

In a nutshell, the process works like this:

Your company identifies people (perhaps 4 or more) to serve as red team reviewers. These people should not have been involved in the proposal in any way, and in fact it's best if they are outside your organization. You will probably need to pay these reviewers a consulting fee for their time. Depending upon the size and complexity of the proposal, the red team review can take from one to several days.

Before the red team begins their work, you'll need to prepare for them. They will need a packet of materials, including the RFP, your final proposal draft, the proposal outline, checklists, instructions, and other relevant materials. These can be put in binders that are distributed to each reviewer. The red team will also need a conference room or other space where they can read and meet.

Once the red team assembles, the Proposal Manager or another member of your proposal team may give a verbal presentation on the proposal: what it is about, some background on the issues, what problems have been encountered in developing the proposal, etc. The Proposal Manager also goes over the instructions with the review team. These instructions should be as specific as possible -- they should tell the red team reviewers what you want them to look for. For example: Is the proposal theme clear and consistent? Are the benefits of your approach desirable and clearly stated? Does the proposal address all of the RFP requirements? Is it convicing? How can specific problem areas be fixed? How could the overall proposal be improved? Etc., etc.

The red team begins its review, first working individually to read the materials and document their comments and impressions. Once this is done, they meet as a group to discuss their findings and to prepare a set of recommendations. When the review is completed, the red team presents its comments and recommendations to the proposal team, which then incorporates the reviewers' suggested improvements.

Besides red team reviews, there are also pink team reviews. But that's a topic for another day.

(12/12/06 08:42 AM)

Keeping Up (Not).

Later...

(12/12/06 08:42 AM)

It's Done.

I just need to have more hours in a day.

(12/12/06 08:42 AM)

Hour by Hour?.

I'm plugging along on the NIH proposal. I would say that I have about 75% of the Management Plan done so far and will hopefully complete the first draft by the end of the week.

I've just got to wonder who in NIH thought this one up. See what I mean by wanting to run away? Looks like there will be more than the usual amount of fictional writing here.

(12/12/06 08:42 AM)

[Conference Calls Unlimited] Zane's 10 Rules for Creating EMPLOYEE Evangelists. http://zane.typepad.com/ccuceo/2005/04/zanes_10_rules_.html I loved Guy Kawasaki's 10 Rules for Creating Customer Evangelists. They were crisp, concise; His presentation of these rules at WOMMA Summit was engaging, smart, inspiring. But who carries out your mission to "Make Meaning"? Or who "Localizes... (12/12/06 08:04 AM)

[Church of the Customer] The doctor is in. http://customerevangelists.typepad.com/blog/2005/03/the_doctor_is_i.html What's one way to stand out at your next industry conference? Don't dress like everyone else... more...... (12/12/06 08:04 AM)

Why the Boo.comeback makes sense. "There has been much discussion lately, most of it negative (you can read more comments on Technorati), about the comeback of boo.com and once again, I find myself on the opposite side of the shared wisdom. Before I go into reasons as to why I think a comeback by Boo.com (a boo.comeback?) makes sense, let me first go into my unique qualifications to make such an assessment: I happen to have worked at Boo.com in the past and I was the insider who exposed some of the challenges the company had faced. I spent a fair amount of my time, in 2000 and 2001, talking at conferences about the lessons learned from this failure and I think that some of those are now fixed." (12/12/06 08:04 AM)

Search marketing works for B2B, too.. Thanks to a reader, I learned that there was a 'B2B Case Study' session at the recent Search Engine Strategies conference in San Francisco. The article reviewing the session, titled, Search marketing works for B2B, too, starts with this gem:

"Most people assume search marketing works only to reach consumers, but it's actually quite effective for businesses wishing to connect with other businesses, as well."

Um, I'd counter that SEM is more effective for B2B, but I think this comment just shows the lack of knowledge of the author--obviously B2B is off the charts for some folks. The article throws up comments about basic SEM for B2B but this bit is probably of interest B2Blog readers:

"Rick Brown, President of NetTrack closed out the session with a discussion of the effectiveness of paid inclusion in vertical aggregator sites like ThomasNet, GlobalSpec and Industrial Quick Search. Brown articulated his endorsement of such aggregators cautiously, saying that they can bring in relevant traffic as well as provide valuable links to a company's homepage but that many of the metrics such websites use to promote their services (such as "reach," "page views," and "brand activity") don't have much impact on a client's bottom line.

He also noted that the value of the links from content aggregators is highest when the landing page can be controlled and there is a one to one relationship between the product category being searched and the landing page on a firm's website. Brown suggested than firms who invest in paid inclusion on a vertical aggregator site have their own analytics like ClickTracks to determine the value of the traffic coming in from sites like Industrial Quick Search. "

Um, get an analytics program? Duh. What most B2B folks don't do is actually look at the data and ponder its meaning.

One thing that Rick Brown said that is innovative, is that he proposes a 1-to-1 relationship between the seller's landing page and the product categories on the directories. I've opined before that part of the problem with directories is that once the user clicks-thru, they have to start their search over again.

BTW: A rather interesting post by Marketing Headhunter Harry Joiner about a SEO specialist looking for a new job. Key fact: $125-150K pay for specialists at SEO agencies. Wow! (08/28/06 09:03 PM)

Understanding OneNote in Office 2003. Microsoft OneNote is designed for taking notes at meetings and conferences and taking notes while you're talking on the telephone. Rather than scribble notes indiscriminately in a Word document, you ...

(08/22/06 09:00 PM)

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