Marketing Articles About Corporate Topics

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Results for: corporate

65 items found:

Big Bizs That Started In A Recession. Inside CRM: It might seem counterintuitive to start a new business when the economy is in the dumps. But a recession can actually be the ideal time for launching a company. In fact, many well-known and successful organizations were born during an economic slump. The following major corporations made it big during recessions: Burger King Corp., with its [...]
(11/18/08 09:00 AM)

Recession Fashion. The depressing economy may be prompting us to keep our wallets shut, but so far it's doing very little to curb our fashion obsession. Amidst widespread corporate layoffs, our nation elected a new president, and the subsequent fashion coverage ...

(11/17/08 09:00 PM)

How to Select the Right Corporate Hampers. So you are going to send out corporate hampers to people. But you don't know how to choose the right corporate hampers for the right people. How do you know which corporate hampers are ones that the... (11/13/08 09:00 AM)

Tips on Corporate Christmas Party Games. Everyone will look forward to the company Christmas party when you make plans to include these corporate Christmas party games! Oh Come All Ye When you need Christmas office party games that wil... (11/13/08 09:00 AM)

The Advantages of Corporate Gift Hampers. When companies are looking for promotional items, they are looking at different types of items and they are wondering if there are advantages that each type of promotional item has over others. There... (11/13/08 09:00 AM)

Google, Campbell Soup, J&J Tops in CSR. Google, Campbell Soup, and Johnson & Johnson top the list of American companies that the US public sees as most socially responsible, according to the 2008 Corporate Social Responsibility Index...

(11/11/08 09:00 AM)

Keep Your Homebased Biz Running Smoothly. Alibaba.com: Leaving corporate America to run a homebased business is the ideal situation for many people: There’s no boss breathing down your neck, no boring meetings to attend and no 45-minute drives in rush hour traffic. Working from home can be a rewarding experience, but it’s easy to forget the basic rules of running a successful [...]
(11/10/08 09:00 PM)

Finding Gold Mine In Digital Ditties. The New York Times: Joel Moss Levinson always knew he had a calling in life. But it took cheap video cameras, YouTube and some desperate corporations to show him what it was. Levinson’s skill is turning out homemade corporate commercials — what advertisers call a form of “user-generated content.” Companies, frantic to connect with younger consumers, sponsor [...]

(11/06/08 09:00 PM)

Why the Executive Compensation Debate is Fundamentally Flawed. I sat through a very interesting presentation on the problems with executive pay and the associated comp plans being used in today’s corporations. As I listened to the presenters very eloquent arguments, it dawned on me we are having the wrong ...

(11/06/08 09:00 PM)

XBRL and Financial Transparency. The future of financial transparency is XBRL, the international language for the electronic communication of business and financial data. In development by an international non-profit consortium with the cooperation of approximately 450 corporations and government agencies, XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) is supposed to save money, increase efficiency, and improve the accuracy and reliability [...] (10/29/08 09:00 AM)

Incorporation Processing Free for a Day. This content from: Duct Tape Marketing Incorporation Processing Free for a Day MyCorporation, an Intuit company, takes a lot of the headache and hassle out of legal requirements of forming a corporation. I’ve used the service over the years to form, admittedly, pretty simple corporations, but it is a great tool and can save you a substantial [...] (10/28/08 09:00 PM)

Is Today a Good Time to Buy?. I’ve been pondering the wisdom of buying into the market now, while the going’s cheap. This BusinessWeek article confirmed my ambiguity: Across many asset classes, prices appear cheap, and in some cases dysfunctional markets have created long-term bargains. Many money managers see good value in beaten-down blue chip stocks. High-quality corporate and municipal bonds are yielding [...] (10/27/08 09:00 PM)

Corporate Taxes and the Economy. Last week I wrote about small business and marginal tax rates. My position was that your average small business owner is not going to see a huge effect of Barack Obama’s proposed tax increases on incomes over $250,000. Business Pundit reader DRob made a great point that I want to address here. It comes down [...] (10/27/08 09:00 AM)

Clouditude.

A friend of mine has been going deep on the entire cloud computing ecosystem as he works through some ideas for a new company. He coined a term "clouditude" a few days ago and send me his thoughts about it. I found his term / definition fascinating and very relevant (look for me to start using the word "clouditude". I asked if I could republish his thoughts directly to see if anyone had any comments to add; here they are.

I have been exploring so-called "cloud" computing recently and had a few thoughts that might be interesting to you and possibly to share with readers, who undoubtedly would have some ideas to add.

The "cloud" could be viewed as the Internet cloud or the Web cloud - I am particularly focused on the Web. In particular, I would say that a system operates in the web cloud if it can be used via a standard web browser (possibly including common plug-ins such as Flash/Flex) from anywhere with Internet connectivity. Restricted systems, such as internal corporate "clouds," are not excluded from this definition as long as they are accessible (with appropriate permissions/credentials) from anywhere.

I've coined the term "clouditude" as a measure of both the extent to which a system leverages the cloud and the ease with which it can be used and managed in the cloud. I prefer this term rather than "cloudiness," partly because the latter has other connotations, but also because there is an "attitude" component: is the system at home in the cloud, or has it been shoehorned to work there?

To clarify this idea, consider a J2EE application server:

- It can be used to support applications in the cloud, but to do so it requires appropriate computer systems and underlying software and configuration to operate properly; a browser-based configuration interface increases its clouditude.

- An AMI or similar virtual machine instance (created manually or using tools like JumpBox, rPath, CohesiveFT, or AppLogic) makes it easier to set up in the cloud, subsequently needing only custom configuration, so this has higher clouditude than the application server software alone.

Building the machine instances with a browser interfaces has higher clouditude than using the command line.

- Tools like Scalr, WeoGeo, and Elastra make it easier to manage the resources, including scalability, redundancy, and failover issues. This has a lot of clouditude, because here the application begins to have independence from the infrastructure architecture.

- Seamless redundancy and rate-management across different cloud infrastructure vendors is an obvious area to improve clouditude, and is in the process of getting built out. It appears that RightScale and Kaavo are aiming for this, although it does not seem to be available yet.

Now our "application server" is pretty much completely virtual. We load it onto the service, and it is available for an application to use. If volume increases, or servers go down, or prices change, we don't really care or know - it all happens automagically.

From an application developer's perspective, there is a next step, where I don't need to know anything about the underlying infrastructure, including whether there is an application server at all. I just build the application and click a button to deploy it. Google's AppEngine and Force.com both are attempts to implement a high degree of clouditude for application developers. Force.com actually has higher clouditude, because the application is developed, tested, and run in the cloud, while AppEngine has a local sandbox environment for development, then you upload/deploy to Google.

Of course, with both of these solutions, one trades off flexibility and control for clouditude. Force.com applications only operate there, and AppEngine applications, though written in Python, have to use the proprietary BigTable as a datastore. It doesn't seem like this sort of lock-in is essential to the practical implementation of a high clouditude environment, but I don't really know.

It will be extremely interesting to apply this idea of clouditude to whatever Microsoft announces next week at the PDC.

(10/25/08 09:00 AM)

MIT Venture Capital Conference Entrepreneur Showcase.

Having lived through the last major tech downturn (precipitated by our friend, the Internet bubble), one of the big lessons that I learned was to steadily play through. Specifically, I've reached the conclusion that there is no right or wrong time to start a company, or build a company. Great entrepreneurs will figure things out regardless of the macro environment. As I'm quick to say (and it's now becoming one of my favorite cliches), "some of the best investments I've ever made / companies I've helped start were created / funded between 2001 and 2003."

MIT is having their 11th annual Venture Capital Conference on 12/6/08. This one is titled Reinventing Venture Capital. I'm sure that part will be stimulating for the VCs that are there, but the really good stuff appears to be the Entrepreneur Showcase.

Over 30 early-stage businesses from sectors including information technology, healthcare and clean technology will be selected to exhibit their business vision and technology prowess at the 11th MIT Venture Capital Conference. Entrepreneurs will have an opportunity to explain their business, display their products, learn from the MIT network, and find growth opportunities. Attendees include VCs, Angels, corporate executives, and the general public.

If you are a startup and want to apply to be part of this, the application is here and the directions for applying are here. If nothing else, you'll get to hear Eran Egozy talk about Harmonix. If you ask, he might even play his clarinet for you.

(10/23/08 09:00 AM)

GM: The Country’s Latest Corporate Beggar. From the Financial Times: General Motors is seeking a sizeable capital injection from outside investors as a possible alternative to a deal with Chrysler, the carmaker’s smaller Detroit-based rival. Such an investment would be along the lines of Warren Buffett’s recent purchases of minority stakes in General Electric and Goldman Sachs. Many industry experts have questioned the benefits [...] (10/22/08 09:01 AM)

New Financial Definitions. This has been making the email rounds: CEO –Chief Embezzlement Officer. CFO– Corporate Fraud Officer. BULL MARKET — A random market movement causing an investor to mistake himself for a financial genius. BEAR MARKET — A 6 to 18 month period when the kids get no allowance, the wife gets no jewelry, and the husband gets no sex. VALUE INVESTING [...] (10/14/08 09:00 AM)

How Wall Street's Meltdown Will Affect Your Career.

Wall Street's woes could creep into every aspect of the job market, but some folks have more to fear than others, career experts say.

If you're a freshly hired middle-manager with a company that's about to be swallowed up in a merger, make sure your resume is up to date. But if you're an accountant who specializes in corporate risk reduction, now might be your time to make a power move.

(10/03/08 09:00 PM)

Learn Word of Mouth Marketing.

Always willing to post a shameless pitch for a good cause... here's an upcoming event that you won't want to miss!

Word of Mouth Marketing Crash Course - Chicago, July 30th

Learn Word of Mouth Marketing Our friend and WOM guru Andy Sernovitz is hosting a small-group word of mouth marketing seminar. Usually he only does private training for companies at a very large price, so this is a rare chance for 50 people to get the best introduction to word of mouth that there is.

We've arranged for a $250 discount for our clients. Use code "welovemarketingsavant" when you register.

This is a very practical, hands-on course. In one intense day, you will:

* Master the five steps of word of mouth marketing
* Construct an action plan that your company can start using the very next day
* Get the same training that big corporations (Microsoft, TiVo, eBay) have received -- for a fraction of what they paid
* Know how to translate word of mouth marketing into real ROI
* Participate in an active, intense day of practical brainstorming (not boring theory)
* Learn from Andy Sernovitz, the guy who literally wrote the book on word of mouth marketing

Andy promises you will learn a repeatable, proven marketing framework that is easy to execute, affordable, and provides measurable results within 60 days.

More information: http://events.gaspedal.com

(07/08/08 09:00 PM)

Small business growth through investing.

Since launching MarketingSavant (my social media/digital marketing consulting company) earlier this year, I've been looking at a number of ways to grow the business, outside of hiring people. By growing the business I mean simply the cash base or revenues from the organization. I was caught off guard when another local consulting business owner asked me "so, what's your exit strategy?" Wow, I just kicked this thing off, what do you mean "exit strategy". Of course, I know exactly what he means, but I'd never really given it that much thought. When you're an entrepreneur or an intrepreneuer (someone with an entrepreneurial spirit inside the corporation), you need to have your own exit strategy. For me, I've chosen to pursue an 'education in investing' strategy to help grow my cash reserves while I grow the business. Yes, I know, the market isn't exactly doing well, but that's precisely the time to get in. I look at the stocks and funds that I'm investing in now and thinking back to when I graduated college in 1999... if I had invested even a modest sum then, I'd be doing quite well now. Which brings us to the one thing that I think investing and marketing have in common (I'm sure there are others...but this one is really important... Faith in the future. As marketers, we're always marketing to the future, with faith in that marketing campaign and it's ability to deliver future value. As investors, we're buying stocks and funds with faith in the company's ability to grow into the future. Marketers and investors unite! Doom and gloom does not serve you...it's the faith in the future that keeps both of us afloat and in business. [Inspired by Kevin's post on 'cracks in the retirement nest egg']
(07/08/08 09:00 AM)

How to LIVE RICH. A good friend and ex-Dell colleague passed away on Friday, April 25, 2008, after a courageous and inspiring battle with brain cancer. I want to celebrate and share the piece of his life I knew, and the words of wisdom he left for all of us. Two months after I joined Dell in March 1999, a curly-haired Harvard grad moved into the cube next door. Over the next seven years Rich and I worked together to help build Dell’s consumer eBusiness to a $3.5B business, and then on Dell’s CRM and segmentation strategy (he worked on corporate strategy while I worked in Consumer division). But what he worked on is not as important as HOW he accomplished his goals. Rich exemplified leadership. In fact, he had the rare quality of being a Level 5 Leader, as outlined by Jim Collins’ book, Good to Great. He excelled through confident humility amidst a (typical) corporate environment of politics, ego and alpha aggression. He always put decision in terms of what was right for the business, and helped others grow in the process. Everyone loved to work with Rich or for him. So many of us were awestruck at Rich’s knowledge and wisdom. Rich often put up ‘observations’ on his small whiteboard in his cube. One time he made the observation that time and quality of mission statement are inversely related – graphed on the board, the more time spent on the mission statement the less it resonates. So true. And so funny.... (04/29/08 09:01 PM)

Workweek.

Is "workweek" one word or two? I think it used to be two, but has now morphed into one. Or maybe not. Anyway, there's a lot going on out here in proposal land. Over the weekend I finished up revising the Corporate Experience section of my law firm client's resubmission and e-mailed it to her. Due to the nature of that resubmission, my client ended up with over 400 pages that had to be scanned and put on a CD to send off to the government. She also needed to reproduce the entire proposal and submit a hard copy to accompany the CDs. It took her all weekend to get everything together and then, of course, the scanner broke down. I could have told her this would happen.

I'm now preparing the technical section of a DOD proposal for a long-time client. Much of it is similar to a proposal I helped prepare for her late last year, so I can recyle parts of it. But I still need to do some background research and gather information on the local market for a couple of categories of healthcare specialists. My client doesn't like to do this research, and neither do I. But I'm doing it anyway.

Then on Monday, re-compete #3 arrived. Oh joy. It is due at the end of May, so we have six weeks to work on it. My client sent me the RFP, which I haven't read yet. I did open the file, but when I saw that the RFP was over 125 pages, I closed it up without actually looking at it. Maybe I'll read it today. My client and I have been playing telephone tag, so we haven't talked about the proposal yet. But this assignment will keep me pretty busy for the next month and a half.

Then maybe I can take a little vacation.

(04/16/08 09:00 AM)

What Evaluation Criteria Can Tell You.

Many government RFPs and RFAs tell you how your proposal will be evaluated. These evaluation criteria are often found in Section M, and may specify how you will be "graded" on each particular proposal section or subsection. Sometimes the criteria have points attached to them (e.g., Technical Approach-50 points, Key Personnel-30 points, Corporate Capabilities-20 points); other times the RFP/RFA will tell you that the criteria are listed in decending order of importantce.

While we all try to do as good a job as possible on all sections of our proposals, the evaluation criteria and their associated scoring systems can tell you some very important things:

Where to put your emphasis: if your technical approach will be worth 50 points and your corporate capabilities will be worth 20 points, you should plan on spending much more of your time preparing the technical approach than on preparing your coporate capabilities. You can have great capabilities, but if you do poorly on sections that are valued higher, the capabilities may not help you overcome the lower scores you receive on other, more important sections.

How to assign your proposal staff: Similarly, you may need to assign more personnel to work on the higher-scoring sections than on those that will be scored lower.

How to alllocate your pages. If the RFP/RFA does not specify the exact number of pages for each individual section, you can use the evaluation criteria as a guide. If your proposal will be a total of 50 pages, for example, then at least 25 of those pages should be devoted to your technical approach (50 pages x 50 points). This is a very broad measure, however, and you will need to strike the right balance between the number of pages and number of points depending on how much material will need to go in each section. But it is a starting place.

(04/10/08 09:00 AM)

Purchase the Marketech '08 Marketing Technology Guide!.

$19.99

Marketech 08: Using Emerging Media in Marketing - eBook - $19.99

Today's service industry organizations depend on deeper and more relevant customer connections to drive loyalty, retention, referrals and reactivation within their coveted client base. These companies don't just need technology however, they need a systems perspective on how to integrate the ever changing world of social media, social networking and Web 2.0 into their core business infrastructure to meet their customers in their medium, now and in the future.

Purchase Now to Discover:

2008 Emerging Media Vehicles

How to Use New Media Vehicles to Your Advantage

The Latest Internet & Marketing Technologies that can Impact Your 2008 Marketing Plans

Your copy of the Marketech 08 Guide PDF will show you how to put these technologies to work for you.

This guide includes a service-organization perspective that will help you:

Utilize relevant marketing & customer service technologies that today's leading service organizations employ to connect with their customers. This includes an overview of tools from social networking via Facebook, organic corporate networks and customer community programs to communication vehicles like blogs, online video and podcasting.
Integrate with existing common customer loyalty, retention, referrals and reactivation initiatives.
Identify benefits and risks associated with these techniques and technologies such as lower cost to service and increased referrals vs. loss of central control and the increasing customer control of your brand reputation.
Discover who's doing this already examples and how is it working for them. We'll look at a myriad of case examples with learning's and action items than any organization can apply.

This eBook is available as an Instant Download in Adobe PDF *** Full disclosure: I wrote the e-book as part of a project for the AMA in late 2007 and retained the rights to publish. The response to the guide in my TechnoMarketing sessions and other speaking engagements has been so positive that I've decided to offer the item for sale.
(04/04/08 09:00 PM)

Site Update and New Feature.

This weekend I spent some time adding some great new resources to my site. Check out my What's New Page to see what I've added.

I've also instituted a new feature for these and subsequent new resources. Recently, I discovered Clipmarks, a tool you can use to clip and stash snippets from Web pages. I've been trying to come up with a way to incorporate Clipmarks on my site and decided to begin using it to highlight the new additions. A possible other use might be to incoporate it in this blog, maybe for a "Site of the Week" or "Site of the Day" feature. I'm still thinking about this, so stay tuned.

Now what you will see when you go to a page on my site where I've added a new resource is something like what is shown at the bottom of this post -- a clip from the Foundation Center website.

To see the clips for the new resources, go to any of these pages:

Business Plans
Grant Writing
Small Business
Grant Subjects
Grant Samples
Legal, Financial & Contracts

What do you think?

clipped from foundationcenter.org

"The subject of this short course is proposal writing. But the proposal does not stand alone. It must be part of a process of planning and of research on, outreach to, and cultivation of potential foundation and corporate donors."

(03/24/08 09:01 AM)

Mystery Solved!.

The other day, I wrote about some of the top websites that refer people to my site. One of those sites is the US House of Representatives, which has been sending people to my Guestbook page for quite some time. Well, yesterday I decided to try to find out where on the House site the link to my own site is listed.

It took me only a few seconds to find it using Google. I searched for "US House of Representatives government grants" and the first site listed on the search results was this one: Federal Funds Express - a site I'd never seen before. But apparently a lot of other people have.

Federal Funds Express may be a good place to start looking for government grants and other sources of funds, but it's not really an in-depth resource. However, there are some good links on the site (including mine, of course), which in turn can lead to other good resources. Links are listed under the following categories:

How to get and manage grants
Federal charitable and corporate sources of grants
Resources to help small businesses
State and local government funding, data resources and disaster assistance
Educational resources for students, schools and colleges
Property, surplus, donated and unclaimed
Family issues: health, housing and consumer protection

The website hasn't been updated since October 2007, but you may still find some good sources of information there. I checked a few of the links, but didn't have time to check them all.

I'm thinking about sending an e-mail to the Webmaster asking him or her to direct people to a page on my site other than my guestbook. But maybe it would be best to leave it as is.

(03/20/08 09:01 AM)

My 1997 Home Page & Resume...still alive!. Maybe with the new baby I'm in a nostalgic mood to share this with you... I was going through some old files on my computer tonight and found a local version of my personal home page I built in 1995 and abandoned in 1997. I clicked on one of the links and it went live! It's still at http://users.aol.com/samdecker. I have no idea why this is still live...I lost my free "SamDecker" AOL account in 2000. My home page simply featured my online resume and list of links live, but it's an interesting trip back in history, with an animated gif and .gif photo of myself (everything was .gif back then!). You can see some early Internet links, many of which are not live anymore. I don't call out some of those college accomplishments on my resume any more, but you can see my entrepreneurial roots! Also, as an aside, you can see my first corporate web site I built (with the technical skills of Raines Cohen). Here you can see the 1996 version of the User Group Connection web site. And if you want to see what I looked like with hair in 1995, here you go: Before: And after... If anyone tries to sell you something with these before and after pictures, don't buy it (as if I have to tell you)! (03/09/08 09:00 AM)

Marketech 08: Using Emerging Media in Marketing.

Marketech 08: Using Emerging Media in Marketing - AMA Members-Only Webcast
Today's service industry organizations depend on deeper and more relevant customer connections to drive loyalty, retention, referrals and reactivation within their coveted client base. These companies don't just need technology; however, they need a systems perspective on how to integrate the ever changing world of social media, social networking and Web 2.0 into their core business infrastructure to meet their customers in their medium, now and in the future.

Register now to discover:

2008 Emerging Media Vehicles
How to Use New Media Vehicles to Your Advantage
The Latest Internet & Marketing Technologies that can Impact Your 2008 Marketing Plans

You'll also receive a complimentary copy of the Marketech 08 Guide PDF that shows how to put these technologies to work for you.

This program includes a service-organization perspective that will help you:

Utilize relevant marketing & customer service technologies that today's leading service organizations employ to connect with their customers. This includes an overview of tools from social networking via Facebook, organic corporate networks and customer community programs to communication vehicles like blogs, online video and podcasting.
Integrate with existing common customer loyalty, retention, referrals and reactivation initiatives.
Identify benefits and risks associated with these techniques and technologies such as lower cost to service and increased referrals vs. loss of central control and the increasing customer control of your brand reputation.
Discover who's doing this already (examples) and how is it working for them. We'll look at a myriad of case examples with learning's and action items than any organization can apply.

Date: December 6, 2007

Times: Session 1 - 10am PST/ 11am MST/ 12pm CST/1pm EST or Session 2 - 12pm PST/1pm MST/2pm CST/3pm EST

Host: The American Marketing Association and Dana VanDen Heuvel, a highly recognized expert on blogging, podcasting, RSS and other interactive marketing trends and a frequent guest speaker at many AMA live training programs, including the recent premier Training Series: Technomarketing event.

Register Here for the Marketech 08 Webcast.
(12/05/07 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)

Innovate, Create, and Re-create. Michael Port blogged about my son, Leon, who recently went from being a professional athlete to a corporate gig. Michael's right, I AM a proud parent, and really impressed with the quality of the article written by Brian Compton of... (10/12/07 09:01 AM)

New Social Media Presentation Released.

I'm just putting the finishing touches on a new Social Media/TechnoMarketing presentation that I'm pretty excited about. For those organizations that make the distinction between a 'client' (long term relationship) and 'customer' (transactional relationship), I've developed a program that illustrates how to put the latest tools & technologies in play for your service organization.

Want more info? Drop me a line!

Social Media for the Service Industry Enterprise

Today's service industry organizations depend on deeper and more relevant customer connections to drive loyalty, retention, referrals and reactivation within their coveted client base. These companies don't just need technology; however, they need a systems perspective on how to integrate the ever changing world of social media, social networking and Web 2.0 into their core business infrastructure to meet their customers in their medium, now and in the future.

This program will provide a focused, service-organization perspective on:

What are the relevant marketing & customer service technologies that today's leading service organizations employ to connect with their customers. This includes an overview of tools from social networking via Facebook, organic corporate networks, and customer community programs to communication vehicles like blogs, online video and podcasting.

How do these integrate with existing common customer loyalty, retention, referrals and reactivation initiatives?

What are the benefits and risks associated with these techniques and technologies such as lower cost to service and increased referrals vs. loss of central control and the increasing customer control of your brand reputation.

Who's doing this already (examples) and how is it working for them. We'll look at a myriad of case examples with learning's and action items than any organization can apply.

Want more info? Drop me a line!

Check out my marketing speaker page more info on my other marketing related speaking engagements & programs.

(10/11/07 09:00 AM)

Brand Management Position Available in Eau Claire, WI. Hey Folks, I recieved an email today seeking some referrals for a brand management position in Wisconsin. The role is based in Eau Claire, WI If you're interested, please contact: Leasa Sanders McIntosh leasa [at] shouldbeskiing.com 303-757-4103 Position Details:

Develops marketing strategies and programs to drive corporate revenue and communicate corporate vision/strategy.
Leverage market knowledge, customer understanding, marketing research, competitor assessments, and analysis to develop clear customer acquisition, retention and recapture strategies.
Partner effectively across the organization, including corporate sales, development, operations, technology, and finance.
Manage multiple projects simultaneously with attention to detail, tenacity, and a focus on results.
Identify new product and market opportunities and develop/execute plans to realize revenue goals.
Analyze program results using qualitative and quantitative techniques.
Develop and manage marketing budget.
Works to build and maintain relationships with all internal management team members to provide the highest level of service to our clients and their consumers.
Provides feedback, including appropriate reporting to key management personnel in order to identify continuous quality improvement opportunities.
Develops sales support materials, including presentations, brochures, and proposals.
Develops materials to support internal communications and strategies.
Develop client communications and strategies.
Performs other duties as assigned.

(10/04/07 09:01 PM)

Altruism Before Capitalism.

Over past couple of months delivering the AMA TechnoMarkting seminar on social media, web 2.0 and the evolution of marketing and commuincation on the Internet, there's a fun phrase that I've been throwing around and beating up with audiences which I think needs a bit more explanation.

Invariably, when I throw out the "Altruism Before Capitalism" concept, it elicits one of two response types. The first, and most desirable response, is the one where people nod in agreement with the "oh, of course, I see exactly what you're saying" look. The other look is, of course, the look that indicates a complete lack of understanding of the words "altruism" and "capitalism" or a full grasp of the vocabulary but an utter disbelief that the concept can be even close to real.

It is real.

What is Altruism Before Capitalism?

Altruism is defined by Webster as:

1 : unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others 2 : behavior by an animal that is not beneficial to or may be harmful to itself but that benefits others of its species

In short, this is simply an organization putting the needs of its constituents ahead of its own needs. Or, aligning itself with advancing the welfare of others before its own. Capitalism, on the other hand is defined as:

an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market

More coming on this topic...

(10/03/07 09:00 PM)

Yahoo Buys Zimbra for $350 Million. Yahoo has agreed to buy Zimbra, a startup that offers Web-based corporate e-mail (and a Next Net 25 company from 2006). The price is a hefty $350 million—one of the largest for a Web 2.0 startup to date. Yahoo is right to build up its portfolio of Web-based apps, but Zimbra is an enterprise app. Yahoo (YHOO) is a consumer company. So this could end up being a stretch for them (or its entry into a whole new market). Update: A senior Yahoo executive just told me that the acquisition was more for Zimbra's technology than an attempt to create a wedge into the nascent enterprise Webtop market. That makes more sense. So expect to see some of Zimbra's gee-whiz Webtop features appear in Yahoo's consumer e-mail, contact, and calendering apps down the road. (See my earlier coverage fo Zimbra here, here,and here) (09/17/07 09:00 PM)

Are Big Ad Agencies So Clueless That Corporations Should Avoid Them?. http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/NussbaumOnDesign/archives/2007/07/are_big_ad_agen.html (08/13/07 09:00 AM)

If You Advertise in Second Life, Does Anyone Care?. Frank Rose has an excellent piece in this month's Wired suggesting that advertisers are wasting millions of dollars by building pavilions in the 3-D world that nobody visits. Excerpt:At least 50 major companies have ventured into the virtual world to date, spending millions in the process. IBM has created a massive complex of adjoining islands dedicated to recruitment, employee training, and in-world business meetings. Coldwell Banker has opened a virtual real estate office. Brands like Adidas, HR Block, and Sears have set up shop. CNET and Reuters have opened virtual bureaus there. It's as if the moon suddenly had oxygen. Nobody wants to miss out. Once you put in several hours flailing around learning how to function in Second Life, there isn't much to do. That may explain why more than 85 percent of the avatars created have been abandoned. On a random day in June, the most popular location was Money Island (where Linden dollars, the official currency, are given away gratis), with a score of 136,000. Sexy Beach, one of several regions that offer virtual sex shops, dancing, and no-strings hookups, came in at 133,000. The Sears store on IBM's Innovation Island had a traffic score of 281; Coke's Virtual Thirst pavilion, a mere 27. The Internet will eventually be full of such 3-D environments; Second Life might even be one of them. But in the meantime, it's just slurping up corporate dollars and delivering little in return.After factoring out all the double-counting of avatars and the overwhelming... (07/25/07 09:01 AM)

Andreessen Rakes in $92 Million on HP-Opsware Deal. Marc, originally uploaded by Gina Bianchini. Hewlett-Packard's (HPQ) $1.6 billion acquisition of Opsware (OPSW) announced this morning strengthens its hand in the market for automated data center management software. Corporate data centers are getting bigger and more complex, so software to automate it all is a growth area for HP.The big winner in this deal, though, is Marc Andreessen. Yes, that Marc Andreessen. Opsware was his second startup after Netscape (originally dubbed Loudcloud). At HP's offer of $14.25 a share, he stands to make $92 million off the deal personally (according to Yahoo Finance, he owns 6.5 million shares.) Now, all he needs to do is sell Ning (which he also co-founded), and he'll have a hat trick.Opsware has had many ups and downs since it was formed during the dotcom bubble in September, 1999. As Andreessen notes on his blog:Loudcloud took off like a rocketship, raised $350 million in equity and debt financing, went public in March 2001, and was rapidly nearing $100 million in annual recurring managed services revenue when the entire market blew up and virtually all of our competitors and peers went bankrupt.In September 2002, we did a complete restart as a public company -- we sold our managed services business to EDS and turned Loudcloud into Opsware, a software company based on the core intellectual property developed at Loudcloud. Over the next five years, we executed on our original vision -- automation of large-scale modern datacenters and computer systems.We have become the clear market leader,... (07/23/07 09:01 AM)

Women in Sales - Participate in a Groundbreaking Study. My colleague and B2B sales expert, Jill Konrath is working with The Center for Sales Innovation to reach out to women in business who make a living calling on corporate accounts through an innovative study. If you are a B2B... (07/13/07 09:02 AM)

Google Beefs Up Its Enterprise Apps with Postini Acquisition. Google Apps Logo Originally uploaded by zabitmobibook Google announced today that it is buying Postini for $625 million. Postini makes security software for e-mail and other enterprise communications applications. It is Web-based, hosted software, just like Google Apps. Googe (GOOG) wants Postini to make its hosted Google Apps (Gmail, Calendar, Docs & Spreadsheets) more appealing to businesses. So far, more than 100,000 businesses have signed up for Google Apps, but security concerns are obviously holding back adoption from bigger companies. Dave Girouard, the vice president in charge of Google Enterrpise explains: The response to Google Apps has been tremendous, with more than 1,000 small businesses signing up for the service every day. At the same time, large businesses have been reluctant to move to hosted applications due to issues of security and corporate compliance.The size of this deal indicates how serious Google is about going after Microsoft's sweet spot—productivity apps for business customers.... (07/09/07 09:00 AM)

The Corporate Org Chart Wiki. http://orgchart.forbes.com/ (05/04/07 09:00 PM)

Blogging starts a boomerang effect for organizational change. Internal executive blogging is internal only, obviously. But external executive blogs have major internal effects too. The E-mediator blog talks about the boomerang effect of corporate executive blogging, and it's a discussion worth thinking about for those organisations about to start blogging.

"...external executive blogging is an efficient management change mechanism useful to co-orient organisational members towards new strategic objectives. The feedback loop will mobilize an external force to influence employee sense making which has a different effect on their internalization of the messages from the top. External audiences and media influence provides a powerful force in terms of employee acceptance and strategy elaboration. As they are secondary sources they often twist the change narrative away from corporate language towards more comprehensible sub cultural languages that resonate with employee lifeworlds."

(04/06/07 09:01 AM)

Internal blogs not always blogs as we know them. My point exactly: BusinessWeek writes that corporate blogging is an internal rather than external communications channel. And not only that -- the "bloggers" don't even know they're blogging.

It may not seem like they're blogging. They're simply using software to send information. Sometimes they do it from remote Internet cafés. In time, they'll be able to file from cell phones. But each mailing, technically, is a blog post. And the program will expand to a host of Cannondale staffers and affiliates. "We're transferring our corporate content management system to blogs," Maurice says.

I believe this is a glimpse of the future. It's not necessarily the future many early bloggers long for. Blogging have until now been a very conscious act. We are deliberately (trying to be) open, we speak in a personal voice with an informal style because we see that as part of the format's great benefits. And because we want to, of course.

But if someone is just publishing, there is nothing to suggest that their style would be any different from whatever content people have produced for intranets for years. Content that is all but personal, informal, open-minded.

My conclusion? None, yet. But if the conversation and the informality is disconnected from the blog tool as such it might actually be a good thing. The important aspect is after all that we -- organisations in general -- become more humanised and that needs to go beyond a few active bloggers. We should speak with a human voice everywhere. (04/06/07 09:01 AM)

This is now an archive. I have decided to focus all my attention to my own corporate blog. I started this one at a time when there were, more or less, no discussion about social media in the Swedish/Scandinavian blogosphere. Now there are and it makes more sense to be part of that.

We have also seen an explosion of international blogs on this subject. Whatever role I may have thought this blog could have, there are so many others doing it now. Keep on going. I read many of you!

But -- there's always a "but" right -- who knows what the future brings? So for the time being I'm leaving it all here as it is. Your links here won't be broken. And if you don't think it litters your feed reader too much, why not stay subscribed...?

Thanks for all comments, e-mails and other contacts. If you by some strange accident of life should wake up one morning and being able to read Swedish I really recommend reading my Swedish stuff :-) (04/06/07 09:01 AM)

Internal blogs -- want to share knowledge?. From talking to companies, I realize more and more than the main business use of corporate blogging will be internal. In numbers, of course, but probably also in result/effect.

Would you like to share your experience?

Can you tell me about your internal blog(s), how they started, how people use them, the most common subjects they write about, if they generate conversations etc?
I will write about what I learn (here, for example) but if you don't want to I won't mention your company.

Would be great to hear from you. My email address is in the column to the right. (04/06/07 09:01 AM)

3 Emotions to Drive Execs to Action. Yesterday I was on a panel for a Forrester bootcamp on Social Media. One of the common questions was how to convince senior management to agree to and resource these new emerging channels and marketing strategies. What moves consumers to action? Emotion. It’s not much different than with executives and managers…you just use data to create those emotions! In my experience, there are three emotions I’ve seen drive executive action: Fear – show the competition is having success with a strategy that you are not. I’m putting this first because fear is the biggest motivator in the human psyche. And the first reaction for executives when they see a competitor doing something successful is to react. I’m not suggesting this is always right, but it’s reality. It’s a call to action event. If a competitor is launching an emerging channel strategy, your executives have to decide to do something or nothing. Use this time to drive a recommended strategy. Excitement – show and prove the revenue impact from such a strategy. Changne resistance is typically due to prioritization and predictability. Corporations, and management in them, have a need to drive predictable growth and mitigate risk. Priorities are driven based on familiarity of strategies that drive confident results. Something that can be proved to drive better results and meet or beat forecast excites executives. Pride – most forward-thinking executives want to be first to market, forward thinking, innovative and cutting edge. Some want this because it is right for the company,... (03/22/07 09:01 AM)

New Book on Corporate Blogging. It's exciting when someone you know launches a new book. Congratulations to Debbie Weil, a recognized blogging expert, on her first offering, The Corporate Blogging Book: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know to Get It Right (Portfolio Publishing, 2006). I... (02/28/07 09:00 AM)

How Measurement Can Impede Long Term Growth. Measurement and accountability crystallizes movement towards a goal, individual performance, and helps identify employees worthy of merit. Measurement is the language of any organization. The more measures we can hold employees accountable for the better, right? Hold on. There’s a cautionary tale to running a company with an extreme and unbalanced reliance on internal measures. Most corporate measures and employee goals are internally focused, financially-oriented, and functionally silohed. There’s an unfortunate consequence for companies that ONLY focus on these measures. While it’s healthy to manage business with a pragmatic view of financial health, over the long term, a primary focus on these internal lagging measures is not what builds a great company. Can you agree that a great company is one which builds products based on customer needs, strives to delight customers, and generates positive word of mouth as a result? Great companies reinvent and innovate. Now, how many internal measures and key performance indicators directly tie to accomplishing these objectives? Can you identify the internal measures that measure the required cross-functional cooperation to ensure the entire customer delights customers? Sustained-growth companies create great experiences and benefit from positive word of mouth. The Ultimate Question / Net Promoter questions supports this, where Fred Reicheld studied companies with sustained growth and found when customers were willing to tell friends about that company. What companies are you willing to tell friends about? Here are some ideas: Toyota / Lexus, USAA, Costco, Southwest Airlines, Craigslist, Apple, JetBlue, and Amazon. What do these companies... (02/19/07 08:59 AM)

Career Tip #12: Take Bigger Risks. If change is not happening in your organization, it’s 99% probable that the company is on the decline. And if you’re the only one who knows this, start preparing your resignation letter now. Executives who land a high level position, play it safe, and clutch onto high salaries, need to be flushed out of corporate America. They have the triple impact of holding back innovation, sucking profits from bonuses, and demotivating great people who eventually leave. And, by definition, these executives reach a plateau. Whether you’re an executive or not, I suggest you take bigger risks to move your career forward (and for fun). Make big plays. Take initiative for change at a strategic level. Bigger risks help your career because you stand out, differentiate, and accomplish great things. Whether you’re an individual contributor or manager, anyone who takes initiatives and risks can become a leader. They are the ones who are break through the next level. Their reputation is lasting and their contributions are recognized and rewarded over the long haul. Plus, the accomplishments create great soundbytes! At Dell I led a small ‘big change’ team. We were responsible for Dell’s consumer CRM strategy, customer centricity, retail competitive strategy, Hispanic marketing, customer segmentation, and other large projects. All of these initiatives were not part of day to day operations. They had to be invented, sold, implemented and finessed into company operations over time. The challenge for each of team member, from a career perspective, was to get the perspective... (01/17/07 09:00 PM)

12 CEO (Leader) Diseases and Prescriptions. I read a great article in Cheif Executive Magazine last month which I flagged planning to post the highlights. I'm finally getting to this! Dr. Robert Kuhn, who has 12 years experience in MA and has worked with 15,000 companies and their CEOs, summarized 12 CEO Diseases and How to Treat Them. I've seen many of these diseases take hold of leaders I've worked for or with...and I have to fight off a few of these bugs as well. I'm posting it here because Chief Executive Magazine may not have a huge reach and I want to share these with a wider audience than just CEOs. These diseases should be guarded against among General Managers, SVPs, VPs and any senior leader or manager. I'm only sharing the disease and an excerpt from Dr. Kuhn's 'prescription'. I encourage you to read and distribute the full article here. Some of the diseases that CEOs catch may seem minor; these can be the virulent ones that morph stealthily into major corporate illnesses. Following are some CEO diseases and my prescriptions for treating them.Talking Too MuchPrescription: Track the percentage of time you speak compared to that of your subordinates. Yours should be a lot less. Goals Too AggressivePrescription: Set goals that have, say, a 35 to 45 percent likelihood of success. Power Building Trumps Wealth Building. Prescription: Take this psychological test. When making a big decision, ask yourself how it will build the market value of your firm. Then, immediately, shift the introspective question... (01/07/07 09:01 PM)

Embracing the naive prospect. Many businesses cater to individuals and corporations that are making a once in a lifetime purchase. Whether it's a DJ for your kids sweet 16 or a company that pours tar on the roof of your factory, it's unlikely you're... (12/17/06 09:01 PM)

16 Insights from Ted Leonsis (Word of Mouth Marketing Association Keynote). I’m in D.C. presenting at the Word of Mouth Summit. I wanted to share my notes from today's keynote by Ted Leonsis, Vice Chairman of AOL(and owner of several Washington sports teams). Mr. Leonsis shared tremendous insight and perspective on how marketing has changed, and he presented it with disarming humility and sincerity. It was great to hear someone at his level ‘get’ what has happened to the market and marketing with such clarity, presented with simplicity. Here are some of the points I captured from his presentation… Give customers the opportunity to create, share, and self-express. It’s why there are 55 million blogs. Typically corporations want executives to ‘stay on message’ and to ‘be handled’…but that doesn’t pass customers’ sniff test. Mr. Leonsis, for example, typed his responses in chat room QA…typos and all. Their job at AOL was to surrender to the audience. To hold the mirror up to the audience. Fastest growing markets: Latino, African American, Boomers, Youth. Youth is an entirely different market (note: search Millenials on Google). He encourages kids to study Mandarin and Math. China is producing 260k college grade in Math. U.S. is producing 22k, 10k are foreign students. In a happiness study, factors of happiness are: Relationships, Community, Self-Expression, Giving Back, Pursuing a Higher Calling. Online can help these things. Book recommendation: “The Great Third Places” Ad spend is 8% online, while time per person per day is 17% online and growing. Shift in spend will follow. Early in his career he... (12/12/06 09:00 PM)

[pause] Single Employed Female: The Invisible Years. http://www.jorydesjardins.com/pause/2005/03/single_employed.html I used to work at one of the largest corporate behemoths in the world. As small and insignificant as it can make a person feel to work at a company this size, there were certainly perks. The first... (12/12/06 08:04 AM)

This is a Paid Review. Notice: This is an ad. I am getting paid to write a review of ReviewMe, a new service that pays bloggers to write reviews. Although I am getting paid, I'm not writing this for the money. I want to know what it feels like to share my opinion and be compensated. I want to know how you feel about it (write comments). Though I'm writing this in full disclosure, I wonder if this review loses the essence of a review? As for ReviewMe and the service, I'm impressed with the way it works, and how easy it is to sign up and understand the logistics. The interface is well thought out. They will pay me $50 for this review, which I believe is determined by the influence and visibility of my blog. They pay via paypal or check. However they ask for social security number, I suppose for tax purposes....but I don't feel very comfortable giving any service this information. Looking at their site and the blogs who have sign up, it appears the technology blogs are the most prevelant, and for good reason. I'm sure technology companies may be the first to use this service. However, I also imagine people are going to start setting up crappy blogs to leverage this service (and many like it). I fear for the corporations who use this method. Companies and products with disclosures on their word of mouth may find this kind of word of mouth working against them. After all, they... (11/11/06 09:00 PM)

Want Engagement? Participation? Get Fringy.. Today the Washington Post posted an article on MySpace being so “Last Year”. As said by journalist Yuki Noguchi, Such is the social life of teens on the Internet: Powerful but fickle. Within several months' time, a site can garner tens of millions of users who, just as quickly, might flock to the next place, making it hard for corporate America to make lasting investments in whatever's hot now.There are 122 million profiles on MySpace and 400,000 created each day. I don’t predict its demise overnight, but I’m sure Excite, Alta Vista, Tripod, iVillage, Geocities and other sites of their day had impressive stats in their day. This is the peak of MySpace’s day. Is this article the last click up the roller coaster hill? As goes fashion, music, or anything else that is ‘in’, so does participation and engagement on web sites. Especially for young people…Millenials (or Gen Y) as they’re called. They participate and contribute to what is cool, in, now, absurd, edgy, provocative, and new. After all, online participation is the form of brand exception for high-tech teens. Well, I guess it is for anyone…but to the point, for the young population the context of participation has to be edgy and new. And to create that, you need to get fringy. In order for corporations to participate in a world of participation, user generated content, and citizen marketing, then their corporate imperative is to, shall we say, loosen up the tie! Perhaps let the legal team have... (10/30/06 09:01 AM)

Should I Be a Sole Proprietor?. I am starting a new business and would like to know the differences between a sole proprietorship, a partnership and a corporation. A sole proprietorship is a form of business that is legally indisti ...

(08/28/06 09:02 AM)

What Is a Master Franchise? . A master franchise allows individuals or corporations to buy the rights to sub-franchise within a specific U.S. territory or another country. Even though the initial franchise fees are higher, a maste ...

(08/28/06 09:02 AM)

What Should I Do to Check If a Proposed Name For My Corporation Is Available?.

What should I do to check if a proposed name for my corporation is available?

(08/27/06 09:03 AM)

Once You've Decided to Incorporate. Once you´ve decided to incorporate your business, you have more decisions to make. You have to decide which type of corporation to form and where to incorporate. You´re entitled to incorporate in any ...

(08/26/06 09:02 AM)

Using Debt to Finance Your Small Business. General When your corporation takes out a loan, it is incurring debt. Loans are a well-known and well-used method of raising capital. The biggest drawback to taking out a loan for your corporation is ...

(08/23/06 09:00 AM)

What Are the Benefits of LLCs and LLPs?. Limited liability corporations (LLC) and limited liability partnerships (LLP) are two new business entities created to mix some of the properties of corporations, partnerships and sole proprietorships ...

(08/22/06 09:00 AM)

Hiding your email address in plain site. Posting email addresses on your website is dumb. Evil things called Spam-bots patrol the web looking for email addresses to add to their spam lists. For a corporate website, a web-form is a convenient way to hide from bots as well as manage incoming requests.

But for situations where direct contact with someone is preferred, please don't post their email address on the website without hiding it from the bots. There are a number of ways to do this, but the best way is to use Javascript to assemble the email address for a browser. Spam-bots (and search-engine-bots) don't use browsers or Javascript and thus just get some useless code.

A quick search turned up a number of tools to do this, but I used this one yesterday. You just take his email.js script and add it to your website, then use his tool to generate the script-call with the information to assemble the email address in the browser.

So I've added an email link to the right of this blog, instead of going to the 'about' page (where I assume Blogger has posted my email address with similar cloaking). Blogger won't let me use the script within my posts, but you can look at the webpage to email me (if you can't guess that my email is dave-at-b2blog anyway.) (08/22/06 09:00 AM)

Wednesdays Contract Management News and Comment (16th August 2006). United States Department of Commerce Executes Contract for Technical Management of the Internet with ICANN (ICANN) The United States Department of Commerce has executed a new contract with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to continue to perform the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) function. CH2M Hill lands FEMA ... (08/16/06 09:00 PM)

Marketing Bullseye 7: 12 Steps to use Metrics to Get In the Heart of Your Business. I have spoke at several conferences on 12 principles to put eBusiness into the heart of your business. However, these principles are applicable to bring about any change to the center of your culture – assuming your culture cares about metrics. Tthere is a heart in your business. It is often hard to articulate, but you know the people, meetings, and general culture from which most decisions and actions originate. Your project, program or department may or may not be in on this heart of the business. Often times, eBusiness is not at the heart of a corporation, for example. Usually, change leaders are not at the center of day to day business. They are running the marathon and everyone in the day-to-day around them is running a sprint. So how do you make change happen that hits the marketing bullseye? The best way to get into the heart of the business is to use metrics. Metrics can’t be ignored. They force attention of sprinters who are looking at metrics every day. And, they most importantly, they get the attention of senior management. They give something for people to put on their resume. And they give your overachieving peers something to work towards. The strategy is to create a system around you using metrics to build momentum for the right (bulls eye) projects, programs and initiatives. Here are 12 Steps to use metrics to get to the heart of your business, in a Ready, Aim Fire approach: Ready1. Democratize –... (08/14/06 09:02 PM)

Sundays Contract Management News and Comment (6th August 2006). Rotoblock Signs $5 Million Development Contract With Brazilian Automaker; OBVIO ! of Rio de Janeiro Signs Development (The Auto Channel) RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil--Aug. 1, 2006--Automotive technology firm Rotoblock Corporation (OTCBB:ROTB) has signed a development and license agreement with Brazilian automotive company OBVIO ! for the development and incorporation of ... (08/06/06 09:02 AM)

This is NOT me-mail. Got an email today... one that I knew was coming... "Marriott goes smoke free" Dear Jon Strande: In order to accommodate the preferences of the vast majority of our guests, all Marriott® hotels in the United States and Canada will become 100% smoke-free by October 15, 2006. This is the industry's largest move to a smoke-free environment and includes over 2,300 hotels and corporate apartments under the Marriott, JW Marriott®, Renaissance®, Courtyard®, Fairfield Inn®, SpringHill... (07/29/06 02:28 PM)