Marketing Articles About Meetings Search Results
- 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)
- Why You Should Have Your Next Business Meeting in Second Life.
Second Life, the virtual reality site, is reaching out to a new audience: businesses. SL is seeing an uptick in traffic for business meetings, conference calls and classes -- and that's welcome news for a site that has long struggled to retain users.
How much of your traffic is business and education users?
(08/05/08 09:01 PM) - Attention Austin Entrepreneurs: Geoffrey Moore Speaking June 18!. Geoffrey Moore is the best selling author of Crossing the Chasm and Inside the Tornado. He will be in Austin on June 18th speaking to Texchange on the topic of “Provocation-Based Selling: How to Break-and-Enter Established Markets….Even in a Downturn.” This is the first time he has spoken publicly in Austin. Texchange meetings are normally for members only, however this event is open to the public. This event will surely sell out, and this blog posting (along with Austin Startup) is one of the first mentions of this event outside of Texchange. Geoffrey Moore is one of the top speakers in the nation, and it’s pretty rare to get an A-list speaker in Austin. Take advantage of this rare opportunity, and sign up now before the event is sold out. [Update: already 1/3 sold out as of 5/12.] When: June 18th, 6:30pm Where: Austin Country Club Cost: $60 for non-members Register Here: http://tinyurl.com/4tch6c Selling disruptive innovations requires a special approach as markets are self-organized to privileged incumbents and exclude challengers. The key is to win over the ever-elusive executive sponsor. Drawing on six years of experience as a venture partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures, Moore explains how start-ups have learned to get past the gatekeepers and capture the attention and support of line-of-business executives. Geoffrey Moore Geoffrey Moore is a co-founder and managing director at TCG Advisors and founder of The Chasm Group. He is the author of Crossing the Chasm, Inside the Tornado, The Gorilla Game (with co-authors Tom...
(05/12/08 09:00 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.
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) - 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.
(02/21/08 09:01 PM) - Marketing History Day and What I love about YouTube.
I'm in the middle of a book by Dr. Frank Lutz, "Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear", and came across a passage where he points to what he feels is one of the most effective political ads of all time, the "Daisy" ad for Lyndon Johnson's presidential run in 1964. It's a juxtaposition of a young child and nuclear war, which culminates in the statement "We must either love each other, or we must die." Wow. That pretty much spells it out.
I'm a big fan of marketing history, especially when I can see it on YouTube and I'm a bigger fan of seeing current marketers pay attention to marketing history in their current campaigns. Today's marketing is FULL of slogans, campaigns, and poor execution that, had the one who devised the strategy in the first place done a bit of historical due diligence, they would not have committed the same mistakes.
I was in a meeting recently where we were discussing a new marketing strategy (web 2.0 type stuff...) with a group of seasoned marketers around the table. I like to drag out historical marketing references from Marketing Classics in meetings like that, not because it makes me feel smart, but because so many of the current challenges we're trying to overcome and the prevailing 'new media' & new ideas are really rooted in time-tested ideals that if we just paid attention to, we'd be so much further ahead...
Anyway, I digress. The point is, I brought the discussion around to 'marketing myopia', or 'what business are you really in here'... None of the marketers around the table could identify w/ marketing myopia, though they did grasp the concept of 'what business are you really in.'
This type of disregard for marketing history is an issue. I'm thinking we need to coin a day "National Marketing History Day", perhaps Kotler's (May 27) or Levitt's (March 1) birthday or something. On that day, we'll read historical marketing articles and check out the 'marketing history' channel on you tube, and drink a bit of the The Real Thing (Coke - 1943).
What do you think?
(10/03/07 09:00 PM)
- A Beginner’s Guide to Mind Mapping Meetings. http://lifehacker.com/software/note-taking/a-beginners-guide-to-mind-mapping-meetings-288763.php
(08/13/07 09:00 AM)
- Eight Tips for Healthy Meetings. http://freerangelibrarian.com/2007/07/26/eight-tips-for-healthy-meetings/
(08/10/07 09:01 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)
- Basic Guide to Conducting Effective Meetings. http://www.managementhelp.org/misc/mtgmgmnt.htm
(05/23/07 09:01 AM)
- 33 Random Thoughts About Meetings. http://studentlinc.typepad.com/studentlinc/2007/05/33_random_thoug.html
(05/07/07 09:00 AM)
- Career Tip #6: Inform Others. Are you an executor? Do you get stuff done? Great! Now make sure you tell people what you’ve done. Inform your manager and peers about what’s going on. In 1x1s, in email, in staff meetings, make sure you are giving updates and status on projects, action items, and goals. If someone emails you something, respond back that it was received and when it will be done. Then email when it was done. It sounds simple, but this closed loop process builds confidence with your manager, his peers, and your colleagues....
(01/14/07 09:00 PM)
- 3 Ways to Get More Involved in Professional Associations & Networking. Ever feel like you are attending lots of meetings and events for professional organizations but the returns and rewards are low? You won't want to miss our Monday morning Score More Sales tele-call on this topic, with special guests Gayle...
(12/12/06 08:47 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.
(12/12/06 08:42 AM) - 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)
- 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)
- How to Clarify Objective & Strategy with the “Because Test”. The right way to start a conversation, a meeting, an idea, a project, or a company is with the right objective. Unfortunately it doesn’t always start this way. I thought Dell folks were pretty good at starting with objectives until I got my Six Sigma green belt and started to see things through a DMAIC lens (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control). It was amazing how many meetings started with the “Improve” phase immediately, before we had properly defined, measured or analyzed the problem. We were still successful through execution and correction, but we could be better. Test if you’re starting with the right objective by using the word ‘because’. Simply add the word ‘because’ after you describe your objective. For example, I hear marketers say ‘we need community’ or ‘we want to add social networking to our site’. Now, if they were forced to say, “We need community because…” it would help clarify why this is the objective. We need community because competition has it. We need community because there’s a lot of hype. We need community because we think our customers would like to talk to each other. ?? Perhaps we’re starting with the wrong objective. Is Community really the objective, or a means to the objective? Maybe the objective is to ‘drive conversion higher because marketing costs are skyrocketing”. And therefore, community could be a strategy to meet the objective. Or maybe not. It depends on the root cause and environmental factors of the situation. Why is the...
(07/29/06 02:28 PM)
