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Entrepreneur.com: Latest Articles

Unstoppable Moms

Posted: December 30th, 2008, 6:00am CST

Feeling afraid and overwhelmed? Let these successful women who overcame significant obstacles inspire you.
Unstoppable Moms

Posted: December 29th, 2008, 6:00pm CST

Feeling afraid and overwhelmed? Let these successful women who overcame significant obstacles inspire you.

Execupundit.com

Cyber-Warrior

Posted: August 31st, 2008, 6:23pm CDT

At another Webcast, Pelgrin launches into an hour-long slide presentation, which includes accounts of 227 million records containing personal information that were involved in a security breach; a city whose tram system was hacked by a schoolboy; and the astonishing stupidity of human beings. Exhibit A: More than 400 people actually clicked on a link asking, "Is your PC virus-free? Get it infected here!" during a six-month advertising campaign on Google.

Read the rest of Ellen Perlman's article on the efforts to fend off cyber-attacks on the State of New York.

Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog

“Continuous News” in action

Posted: August 31st, 2008, 6:18pm CDT by Terry

If you want to know what I mean by a local media company doing “continuous news” (see: News is a Process, Not a Finished Product), give a lookie-loo to the KTBS-TV website. It helps that a hurricane is bearing down on the coast, but the formula works with or without breaking news.

From a statistics perspective, the can site is measured in terms of simultaneous active sessions (think “ratings”) with ads sold by daypart. I predict you’ll see this in many other places as the months and years go by. The RSS feed is also quite useful and, therefore, valuable.

KTBS is a client of mine, so naturally, I’m proud of them.

Execupundit.com

Office Decor Update

Posted: August 31st, 2008, 6:08pm CDT

Now this is an office.

Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog

Are you working on your personal brand?

Posted: August 31st, 2008, 3:04pm CDT by Terry
If you’re not, you should be.

Jeremiah Owyang, a senior analyst for Forrester Research and one of the smartest web guys around, has a provocative post on his blog about the honing of one’s personal brand. I’ve been thinking a lot about this myself, because I see the struggle between anchors and reporters who blog and the companies they represent. The media companies want their brands reflected in the work of “their” employees, but it may be smarter for these people to be allowed to develop their own.

Let’s face it; the day is coming when independent journalists will offer their goods and services to media companies, instead of the companies actually employing them. This is already happening on a small scale, but I expect it will increase as fiscal pressures squeeze the life out of media companies. Hard-working independent contractors can make good money, and it will cost media companies less to purchase their work.

And so my advice to journalists is to develop your own brands, and Jeremiah’s entry gives lots of good advice. Here’s just some:

There are so many brands now, in fact with the introduction of websites, and blogs in particular, many are developing personal brands, something not as easy to accomplish (as) in past years. With this profileration of brands, it becomes so much more difficult for brand to stand out from the millions of others. Sure, you’re thinking the long tail solves this, and well yes, in a way. In reality there are leaders and followers being created in each sub-niche, so the rules of getting noticed still apply.

He advises people to:
- Have a goal
- Develop a unique brand
- Get personal
- Attend local events
- Lead events
- Be interesting
- Archive your achievements
There’s also great advice in the comments.

If you work for a local media company, I strongly recommend you start blogging and building your brand. If you’re a local media company, I strongly recommend you let your people blog, although you might want to own the domains that drive their brands.

Execupundit.com

Political Buttons and Bumper Stickers

Posted: August 31st, 2008, 1:44pm CDT
For many years, I collected campaign buttons from all parties. In the course of that process, bumper stickers and slogans would cross my desk. Among them:
- Gay Whales Against Racism
- AuH2O in '64 [Goldwater]
- Vote Buddhist
- Better a Third Termer Than a Third Rater [FDR's third term]
- Vote for the Crook [Edwin Edwards versus David Duke]
- No Dukes [Another anti-Duke slogan]
Any other memorable ones?
Fame Through Defeat

Posted: August 31st, 2008, 12:06pm CDT

AH: If Custer had somehow won the battle of the Little Bighorn, would he be as famous as he is today?
JD: Absolutely not. With a success at the Little Bighorn, he might have gone on to a stellar Army career such as Nelson Miles enjoyed, and achieved that level of fame. But that would have occurred only if he received a promotion to General; otherwise, he might have been as well-known as Col. Eugene A. Carr, who defeated the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers at Summit Springs, Colorado, in 1869. I don't think either name is familiar to the general public.
If George Armstrong Custer had won the battle of the Little Bighorn, most people wouldn’t even know his name today.
Read the rest of the American Heritage interview with historian James Donovan.
What Was Forgotten At The Meeting

Posted: August 31st, 2008, 11:39am CDT
1. A simple agenda.
2. An extra pen.
3. Additional copies of key documents.
4. A fall-back approach if the PowerPoint failed.
5. A clear explanation of the source and amount of financing.
6. A description of what the situation will be once the project is completed.
7. An assurance that adequate resources are available.
8. An evaluation of the risks.
9. All of the relevant players.
10. A candid statement of the downside.

Dave Winer :: Scripting News

More Republican humor

Posted: August 31st, 2008, 11:14am CDT

Worth reading, Maureen Dowd's op-ed in today's Times.

Summary -- the McC choice of Palin is the plot of a low budget chick flick. Now, picking up the story where she left off...

The wrinkly white haired dude and the VP-chick win the election and just after he's inaugurated, the old guy dies suddenly and she's sworn in, over the objections of all the white males on the old dude's staff and the leading members of Congress including the fat white male Speaker of the House played by John Goodman (ignoring for a moment that the actual Speaker is a spry foxy grandma type). Donald Sutherland plays the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who does the swearing-in.

She gets a chance to redectorate the Oval Office in pink and throws a frat party at the White House for her friends from Alaska, who do funny farting and belching scenes in austere parts of the White House supervised by stuffy old maids and butlers and a corrupt Chief of Staff who the chick-Pres fires when she finds out he's been mean to one of her Alaskan friends.

Things are settling down to normal when the second Cuban Missle Crisis starts. It's looking pretty tough for our heroine when her husband, riding his snowmobile across the Bering Straight, throws a keg party for the guys manning the Russian missile silos in Kamchatka and convinces them to reprogram the computers to point their missiles back at Moscow. The Russians, who are fed up with white men too, and want to break their own glass ceiling, overthrow Putin and elect a hot Russian babe to be President, and the final scene is a summit meeting in a hot tub with the two Presidents comparing breast pumping techniques, drinking a beer and of course enjoying a moose bratwurst.

Turns out Russians and Alaskans have a lot more in common than you might think.

Update: Cross-posted at Huffington.

Execupundit.com

Quote of the Day

Posted: August 31st, 2008, 10:33am CDT

Every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the.'

- Mary McCarthy on Lillian Hellman

Dave Winer :: Scripting News

Republican humor

Posted: August 31st, 2008, 10:22am CDT

I've been blogging a long long time. You can see my mistakes, things I got wrong, and the few I got right. I like to put my stake in the ground, and when I go back sometimes it makes me feel humble.

There was a time, believe it or not, there was a time when I liked George W. Bush as President.

On March 27, 2001, I wrote: "There's something satisfying about the Bush Presidency, and for a time I couldn't put my finger on exactly what it is. Now I think I get it. If this guy could be president, anyone could. He bumbles along twisting around his mouth when he speaks, with his Texas accent that I don't believe. I imagine him on the scene of The West Wing, reading his lines, and sipping his coffee saying "Oh this is really good coffee, thanks." He gets his cues from Dick Cheney, but he could just as easily get them from a TV series director. Smile here. Say something nice about America. Good job Dubya. Excellent."

Can you believe it!

Anyway, last night, I went to dinner with some friends in Berkeley (it's good to be home), at a very nice Thai/Vietnamese restaurant. The waitress, a sweet Asian woman, was very polite and had a nice smile. One of my dinner companions said: "Maybe she should be Vice-President!"

We all had a hearty laugh.

Seth's Blog

Every Sunday is the same

Posted: August 31st, 2008, 8:28am CDT by Seth Godin

Please don't show me graphs that place the days in order, in a bar chart.

I know it's convenient, but it's useless.

Every week I get a chart like this, and every week Wednesday is after Tuesday (and Tuesday's on the phone with me). Highlighting web traffic in this way is not helpful. All it tells me is that once again, the weekend was sort of slow.

Or consider this chart, the standard comparison display, from Google Analytics.

This chart is only useful if both months begin on the same day--once every seven months, give or take. Why isn't the computer smart enough to line the dates up for us?

Week on week and month on month matter a great deal online (and off). Daily charts, on the other hand, just confuse things.

Leadership Turn

Quotable quotes: Do you believe what you’re told?

Posted: August 31st, 2008, 5:30am CDT by Miki Saxon
Post from Leadership Turn Image credit: svilen001 CC license

Do you listen to what people say about you? Do you believe what they say?

Do you listen without realizing it, buying into the negatives and allowing them to shape your life?

Whether you do or don’t is a function of your MAP and that’s within your control—in other words, it’s your choice.

So when someone tells you that you can’t, think about it honestly—first about the source of the comment and then about the comment itself—and make your choice.

Here are a number of folks who fortunately didn’t listen.

Can’t act. Can’t sing. Balding. Can dance a little. –MGM executive, reacting to Fred Astaire’s screen test, 1928

You’d better learn secretarial work or else get married. –Emmeline Snively, to Marilyn Monroe, 1944

Many others who’ve won fame and riches were told they couldn’t/wouldn’t succeed…
- Elizabeth Taylor because “her eyes are too old”
- 5’6” Alan Ladd was too short, as were Laurence Olivier and David Niven, James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson.
- Esther Williams, Alexis Smith, Patricia Neal and Ingrid Bergman were all too tall
- 5’7”Katharine Hepburn was considered too tall to work with Spencer Tracy
- Barbara Streisand’s nose was too large and too ethnic
- Anne Bancroft left Hollywood for acting lessons in New York and won several Tony Awards
- Sylvester Stallone’s lisp, face and voice were all considered no-wins
And finally a business favorite of mine straight from the horses mouth,

“So we went to Atari and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we’ll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary; we’ll come work for you.’

And they said, ‘No.’ So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, ‘Hey, we don’t need you. You haven’t got through college yet.’” –Steve Jobs on efforts to get Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak’s personal computer.

To whom do you listen?

Your comments—priceless

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Brand Autopsy

More BBQ Video

Posted: August 30th, 2008, 7:39pm CDT by johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy)

** Yeah, this post is off-topic ... oh well. **

The above photo is of my older brother (Trip) and nephew (Blair). It was taken earlier this month when Trip's family visited me in Austin.

When folks visit me in the badlands of Central Texas, I make it a point to take them to a top-notch BBQ joint. Smitty's BBQ in Lockhart, TX is one of the top-notch BBQ joints I take people to. And that photo is from a smoky side room inside Smitty's.

The other BBQ joints I take people to include Louie Mueller BBQ (Taylor, TX), Kruez Market (Lockhart, TX), and City Market (Luling, TX). (Snow's BBQ is also on this list but as we know, it's only open on Saturdays [video].)

A few months ago ... two high-school friends visited me and we went on a big-time BBQ Binge. Three hours. Three BBQ joints. For sloppy video of our BBQ Binge, watch below:

Dave Winer :: Scripting News

Almost home

Posted: August 30th, 2008, 1:49pm CDT

I'm writing this from the rest stop at Donner Summit on I80. (The precise coordinates were provided by the GPS in my EVDO modem -- gotta love the technology.)

Three or four hours left on my road trip.

I found an archive of DNC speeches on WNYC and listened to both Clintons, John Kerry, Al Gore and the finale, Barack Obama.

I have not heard one minute of pundit commentary on these speeches, and I saw them all live. So I am untainted by anything but the direct experience of listening to what the Democratic Party, as led by Barack Obama, had to say last week, and I am much more than impressed, I am blown away.

It's incredibly literate and intelligent and these people, not all of whom have always been great orators, have risen to the occasion, and the ones that were great (Bill Clinton and Obama) have reached new heights.

Finally, American politics that's worth listening to and participating in.

One of my first tasks when I get home will be to prepare a BitTorrent archive of all the speeches. I urge you as strongly as I possibly can, to give them all a serious listen. It may well change how you feel about the United States. And forget what Wolf Blitzer and Chris Matthews and Anderson Cooper and Larry King say, they're idiots, they have no ideas, and are owned by corporate media. Trust me -- it's great stuff, and the convention was wonderful. I've heard from others that they're spinning it otherwise. They're full of it.

Okay back to the highway!!
Bumper sticker

Posted: August 30th, 2008, 1:44pm CDT

My Name is Kate

links for 2008-08-30

Posted: August 30th, 2008, 1:30pm CDT by Kate
- Anybody Can Be a Social Media Rock Star So how do you make a social being out of a person who finds it hard to spend time around other people? Simple. Remove the need to connect in person. (tags: socialmedia introversion)

Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog

The AP’s inevitable fate

Posted: August 30th, 2008, 11:58am CDT by Terry

Editor & Publisher had a couple of articles this week (here, here) about the slow stream of newspapers who are opting out of their deals with the Associated Press. The biggie is the Minneapolis Star Tribune. According to various reports, these AP contracts have a two-year out clause. In Minneapolis, the Star Tribune has given its required notice, but in Spokane, the Spokesman-Review is even challenging the clause, insisting that the latest rate increase is actually a new contract, which the paper is refusing to accept. In their minds, the Spokesmen-Review will be free of the AP in January without waiting the two years.

Other papers are also leaving the fold. They include The Post Register of Idaho Falls; The Bakersfield Californian; and The Yakima Herald-Republic and Wenatchee World, both in Washington. Other publishers have sent angry letters to the cooperative, and papers in Ohio have banded together to form their own cooperative, which portends further problems for the AP.

This should surprise no one, for, as I’ve oft-written in the past, the Internet by-passes middlemen, and it is no respecter of companies. The networks even by-pass affiliates in delivering their programs directly to viewers these days. This “by-pass” trait inherent to the Web has been discussed by minds much greater than mine, only they use the term “route around” to describe the idea.

“The net regards censorship as a failure, and routes around it.” John Gilmore, SUN Microsystems.
“The net regards hierarchy as a failure, and routes around it.” Mark Pesce, Writer, consultant, Sydney, Australia
“The web regards centralization as a failure, and routes around it… by moving to the edge.” Stowe Boyd

My take: “The net regards the middleman as a failure, and routes around it.”

So the handwriting is on the wall for the AP, which has its work cut out for it in redefining itself. As a purveyor of original content, it will always have a place in the media world, but the creation of original content — as all media companies are discovering — is at the wrong end of the value chain in today’s business world. It’s just plain expensive, and if you can’t make enough money to support it through advertising, you’ve got a big problem.’

At the AP, original reporting is supported by the contracts the cooperative has with the hundreds (thousands?) of media outlets around the country and beyond. AP has a history of always raising prices, and I can remember from my days as a news director the pain of the size of the monthly check that went to the AP. I can also remember feeling absolutely choiceless, and therefore powerless, in the relationship.

The clear message from the action of these papers is that life for the AP cannot continue, for there are now ways to “route around” the cooperative and obtain news directly from the source, and I expect a cheap model for this is just around the corner. Such a model could come from the AP, but it won’t, because like any other business caught in the throes of disruption, the AP has to protect its legacy business.

Execupundit.com

Funny Books

Posted: August 30th, 2008, 11:20am CDT

Firoozeh Dumas provides a top five list of funny books.
Sales Conversation

Posted: August 30th, 2008, 10:52am CDT

Hi.

We're going to close in fifteen minutes.

Do you have any. . .?

Jack's out. He's our main sales rep.

Could I possibly. . .?

Our stock is really low due to last week's sale.

What about. . ?

If you're looking for the slacks, I just sold the last pair.

I guess I'm out of luck, right?

Come back next week. I'm sure things will be better.

[Inspired by Great Customer Connections by Richard S. Gallagher.]

42 Points on a Double Word Score

Testing the WP for iPod

Posted: August 30th, 2008, 8:40am CDT by Joe Boughner

I have never felt quite so hip as I do now; tapping out a blog post on my iPod.

Leadership Turn

Form vs. leadership - appearance vs. substance

Posted: August 30th, 2008, 7:31am CDT by Miki Saxon

I know, you were expecting to read about the fifth chapter in IBM’s The Enterprise of the Future (a steady Saturday feature since July 12 (be sure and download your free copy), but I’m taking a break in the name of politics.

As you all know, John McCain announced his running mate in an acknowledged effort to blunt the Democratic convention momentum (yawn). Nothing new there.

McCain chose Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Based on my limited knowledge of political maneuvering, her main advantages are gender, Conservative credentials, and age.

Upon reading here and there today, I got the impression that the Republicans are hoping that “Hilary women” will vote the Republican ticket because the Vice Presidential candidate has the same plumbing. Never mind that Palin stands in diametric opposition to most of Clinton’s beliefs.

At the Democratic Convention and in the media Obama was hailed as a personification of Dr. King’s Dream, but If he (an eighth cousin to Dick Cheney and an 11th cousin to G. W. Bush) does win he’ll actually be the seventh black president (after Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Dwight Eisenhower)—just the first one who shows and, as Americans have proved over and over, appearance is everything.

Are we [the American people] really as shallow as we’ve made ourselves out to be?

Is our vision truly so focused on form that substance sinks into oblivion?

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Execupundit.com

The Informal Interview

Posted: August 30th, 2008, 7:03am CDT

My post on the informal stage of the job interview is up at US News & World Report on-line.
Quote of the Day

Posted: August 30th, 2008, 7:00am CDT

You must regulate your life by the standards you admire when you are at your best.

- John H. Thomas

Seth's Blog

The uncanny valley

Posted: August 30th, 2008, 6:10am CDT by Seth Godin

Tom points us to this fascinating concept. It's called the uncanny valley and it goes back as far as Freud.

When you get too good at faking it, people freak out.

We love cute dogs, cute monkeys, clairvoyant websites, smart voice mail systems.

But we get totally wigged out when a website knows too much about us, when we start talking to a voice mail attendant like she's a real person or when a photo or a robot is just too good. A magician is fine, an actual mind reader we burn at the stake.

The relevant issue here for marketers is what happens when our databases and predictions get too good. I don't want the hotel to automatically serve me the same breakfast as last trip, or for the doorman to pretend he's my friend just because he read a database entry.

Emergence Marketing

links for 2008-08-30

Posted: August 30th, 2008, 4:00am CDT by delicious
- Closing the Engagement Gap and Customer Experience « Skilful Minds

Unusual Business Ideas That Work

Mint.Com Success Story

Posted: August 30th, 2008, 3:22am CDT

http://www.mint.com/

Wherever money is transacted, tracked or traded, there is a profit to be made. It's a fundamental principle of markets from Wall Street to eBay. Now Web 2.0 entrepreneur Aaron Patzer, 27, is putting that principle to work. Patzer was tired of spending hours at his PC entering expense details into financial programs like Quicken. That's when he created Mint, an online application that tells you how you're spending your money by instantly aggregating financial information from your online bank and credit card accounts.

Although the service is free for the site's 430,000 users, there are several hooks in place to ensure that Mint will make a mint for Patzer and his investors. Primarily, since Mint knows where you bank and how you spend, the site engages in suggestive upselling, nudging users toward banking and brokerage partners, or suggesting new mortgages and credit cards.

As for advertising revenue, Mint sells quality over quantity: Since the service already knows where you shop and what you buy, ads are more targeted--and more profitable. "The only ads you'll ever see on Mint are those calculated to save [the user] at least $50," says Patzer, who's already raised $17 million in funding for his Mountain View, California-based company. "We'll soon offer cash back and coupons for the places you shop most often."

Young Millionaires - Sticks And Stones Success Story

Young Millionaires - Anne Pawsat-Dressler

How a pet project became a money-making business

Mom Turns Love For Making Brownies into $1 Million Dessert Gifts Company

Consultant Blog from ConsultantJournal.com

Categories - take 'em or leave 'em?

Posted: August 30th, 2008, 1:05am CDT

The new website for Consultant Journal is *almost* here. We're still tweaking the design. I wasn't happy with what we had. Once I realized the design was a sunk cost, it was easier to let it go. So I'll be keeping some elements of the original mock up, but also bringing in some of the clean look of the existing site.
...

Startup Spark

To connect with a reporter, you need to lead

Posted: August 29th, 2008, 6:39pm CDT by ShannonCherry

What makes a reporter –or for that matter, anyone in your target market – keep reading your marketing materials and press releases? It all comes down to a good lead (or lede in the media business).

An effective lead makes a promise to the reader or viewer: I have something important, something interesting, to tell you. A good lead beckons and invites. It informs, attracts, and entices. And it must be mastered if you want a journalist to decide your story is worth covering.

Follow these guidelines and expect to grab the attention of more readers and expand your audience!

The lead sentence should include the most important information in less than 25 words. You want to make sure that your lead is merely a summary of what the article will include. If the lead is too long, it begins to resemble the beginning of a story instead of a short description of your article.

Don’t guess that your reader will know what you’re talking about from the headline. Although many readers may grasp the article’s content from the headline, there are still those who may need a more detailed explanation of what your piece is about.

There should be no advertising or propaganda in the lead. Any extra exaggeration in the lead just adds unnecessary length and you could lose your reader.

The lead paragraph should include the who, what, when, where and how of the story. Once you answer the main questions of who’s involved, what the event is, and when, where and how it will occur, you’ll have everything you need to write the rest of the article.

The lead needs to be bold so that it is communicated to your audience effectively. The importance in communicating your message in the lead boldly is to draw the interest of the reader and make them feel like they have enough information about the article even if they only read the lead. The key is to make them want to read the rest of your article by catching their attention early on.

When it comes to word usage, less is more. The best thing you can do to communicate effectively is cut down the jargon. If your message is hidden behind a lot of complicated terminology, you run the risk of losing your reader’s interest. Putting your information in simple terms is more successful in getting your message across than utilizing complex words, phrases and inner-circle jargon.

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Execupundit.com

Friday Afternoon Music Break

Posted: August 29th, 2008, 6:00pm CDT

Have You Ever Seen The Rain?

Dave Winer :: Scripting News

Initial thoughts on the Palin nomination

Posted: August 29th, 2008, 5:58pm CDT

1. It certainly was creative and thought-stimulating.

2. However... it shows McCain thought he was losing to Obama and needed to do something bold that would stir things up. And he certainly did that.

3. However... no matter how well they vetted her, even if nothing terrible shows up, she has no experience in the world, and virtually no experience in the United States. What does she know about American cities? Our industries and businesses? Economic issues? Balance of trade? The military? Katrina? He picked her because she was the governor from the state that was furthest away from Washington. Point made. But despite what the Republicans say about her qualifications, she has no grounding to run this country. Might as well pick someone from another country.

4. They say she's as qualified as Obama, but that's wrong. They should get to know Obama's background and how intelligent and studious and thoughtful he is. Read his books. He's incredibly well educated, and I'm sorry running a successful campaign for the Democratic nomination for President is much more experience than being the governor of a very small state with no budget problems (they have a built-in surplus because of tax revenue from their natural resources and a very small population to spread it out over -- Alaska is a very strange state, unlike any of the other 49).

Update: Read this Huffpost piece for a deeper look at #4.

5. The decision certainly was creative, but it won't age well. It will look like a desperate dumb move a couple of weeks from now. As stupid as trying to take and control Iraq without enough troops, without a plan for the occupation. It's the Republican approach to problems, shoot from the hip without thinking things through. The invasion of Iraq was certainly a "wow" event -- like the choice of Palin -- but it didn't age well. This is another of those.

6. They can't get Hillary voters with this VP candidate -- Hillary is a progressive, and even most Republican women are pro-choice. Americans are pro-choice. A woman candidate who is pro-life, no matter how attractive, doesn't have much appeal in this country, another tone-deaf decision by McCain, the kind of decision you don't want a President making. Sure Hillary got some votes from Republicans who crossed over during the primaries, because the Republican primary was decided early, and Rush Limbaugh urged them to interfere. But those people were always going to vote for McCain. This decision shows total disrespect for the American electorate as if they only vote based on symbolism.

7. Net-net -- it's a PR stunt designed to draw attention from the press away from Obama. It will do that, but not for very long. Obama is a fantastic organizer. They will get the votes, and gimmicks won't convince very many people to vote Republican even if it does fuel punditry and political blogging. But even the pundits will decide at some point, finally, that this country needs leadership more than gimmicks. She's not a serious candidate for vice-president. Choosing a president is a serious thing. That's the only point the Democrats have to make to dispose of this.

Businesspundit

This Week’s Links

Posted: August 29th, 2008, 5:07pm CDT by Drea

Comcast puts broadband usage limits on its oversold network.

This study shows that increasing tax rates makes people report more taxable income.

Dean Baker notes that the rise in durable goods orders–one of the economy’s only current strong points–has to do with machinery.

The Daily Green has a list of the ten greenest presidents in US history. You’d never guess that Tricky Dick is one of them.

The WSJ has yet another take on the China vs. India superpower debate. Somebody should build a market around all this speculation.

Emergence Marketing

Little Known Fact meme takes off on twitter

Posted: August 29th, 2008, 4:28pm CDT by francois

Did you know that Sarah Palin was the Twitter Fail Whale? And that she actually shot JR?

A “little known fact: Sarah Palin” meme took hold on Twitter and quickly crossed the pond to Europe. The tweets are coming in by the second and some of them are simply hilarious - you can follow what is being said via the twitter search engine.

Unfortunately, and with John McCain not using the Internet he may never know…

Social networking at its best

Happy Labor Day Weekend!

Execupundit.com

The Virginian

Posted: August 29th, 2008, 4:13pm CDT

Several weeks ago, in a flash of nostalgia, I purchased a copy of Owen Wister's The Virginian.

"The Virginian" was assigned reading when I went to high school back in the Jurassic period. It was tucked into a packet along with "Animal Farm," "Kon-Tiki," "A Tale of Two Cities," "Julius Caesar," and several other works I can't recall. Even back in those days, it was an odd choice ("Kon-Tiki" was another) and I regarded the eclectic nature of the stack as a sign that some school administrator had a sense of humor. "What are you reading?" someone would ask and the reply would be "Oh, Dickens, Shakespeare, Orwell, and Wister."

Wister?

Still, as a high school student I had enjoyed the book. Although I couldn't remember its ending, I recalled that it had a easy gait, reminiscent of a gentle horse, and that its hero, who is always simply called The Virginian, is quietly heroic.

Anyway, I wanted to see if the book is as good as I recalled. "The Virginian" is not in the same league as "A Tale of Two Cities" but it is quite good. There is one cringe-inducing section where the hero sings a song in what appears to be black dialect, but the overall message of the book is noble. The hero is courageous, the villain (Trampas - great name for a villain) is devoid of virtue, and the love affair between The Virginian and the local "school marm" raises interesting questions about class differences. A large part of the book grapples with the question of whether he is good enough for her and near the end moves to the question of whether she is good enough for him.

The reason why I mention this strange choice of a long-ago literature class is my suspicion that the book was assigned not as an example of great writing, but to encourage good character.

I wonder if any high school literature books are selected on that basis today.

My Name is Kate

Find the Right People - Best Practices in Social Media Marketing

Posted: August 29th, 2008, 2:47pm CDT by Kate
Mitch Joel recently posted about Best Practices in Social Media Marketing and has asked folks to weigh in with their best practices. This is an awesome idea ... a crazy number of us blog about doing the right thing, but no one has really pulled them all together. So this is my small contribution in the hopes that these all get pulled together in a handy place for communications folks new to this space.

To me, there is nothing more attractive (and yes, kinda sexy) than someone who is passionate about what they do. And what makes me even more admiring is when they take that passion and share it in amazing, creative ways. And when you get the right passionate person talking (or writing or singing or vlogging) about the right topic, magic happens.

My Best Practice in Social Media Marketing

Choose the right person. Now this may seem like stating the obvious, but so many social media marketing efforts have failed because the person who started the initiative didn't have the temperament for social media. They may not be the obvious choice (like the CEO or the VP of Corporate Communications). They will also likely not be the most popular person in your company (like the Director of Sales who is super-affable at the office party and with clients, but whose emails make you cringe).

The right person should be passionate about their work and the company they work for. They will want to share the good and the bad about the company/products because this genuinely helps customers. They will have a clarity of communication (in a number of forms) and will have a spirit of learning and reciprocity. They will embody the values of transparency and disclosure. And they will, of course, know how to listen.

It is by choosing/encouraging the right person in your company that you will come to know success through social media marketing.

Want to participate?

Chris Brogan sums it up:
1. Blog it.
2. Link to Mitch’s blog
3. Tag it “social media marketing best practices”
4. Optional: And then tag someone else with the meme.
Photo Credit: k-girl

Freakonomics Blog

Bring Your Movie-Industry Questions

Posted: August 29th, 2008, 2:17pm CDT by Stephen J. Dubner

Dan Glickman When the Motion Picture Association of America was formed in the 1920's, its primary mission was to change the public's negative views toward the movie business. Today its main target is copyright theft. The M.P.A.A.'s home page displays a running tally of the number of pirated DVD's confiscated, and its international counterpart, the Motion [...]

Tara Hunt ::HorsePigCow:: marketing uncommon

Incentives: the good, bad and the unfortunately necessary

Posted: August 29th, 2008, 2:08pm CDT by miss rogue

I know I need to approach this topic with kid gloves because there are many of you out there that either perform good deeds entirely selflessly or many of those that truly believe that you do. I used to be part of the latter group. Then I read The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation by Matt Ridley and realized something really significant:

Just because a good deed is performed to someone’s benefit, it doesn’t make the deed any less good.

In fact, as Ridley points out, in the absence of personal incentives to positively contribute to a community, the majority of people would not contribute at all. And there are incentives, even if indirect, to performing good deeds. Even if all of you are in the 0.01% of people who perform good deeds entirely selflessly, think about all of the people you’ve met in the world you could only convince to give more, do more and care more. Those are the people need incentives - for better or for worse.

I think about how current incentives work. I was chatting the other day with another Matt, Matt Langdon of the Hero Workshop. He was saying to me that he was setting up the Hero Workshop as a non-profit because he would feel bad about making a profit off of this work. Really? Why, I thought? There are plenty of people getting rich off of doing nasty stuff like making cigarettes and selling drugs and lobbying governments to keep us oil dependent. And there are even more people making millions from just producing a load of crap we don’t need. Why should the people contributing positively from the world have to take the martyr road? My second thought was, “No friggin wonder it is an uphill battle to get people to do stuff like Matt is doing!” Matt’s are rare. Dedicating your life for the betterment of others is a beautiful, amazing thing, but if you can’t pay the bills or provide financial security for your family and your future, you will probably end up getting burnt out really fast.

There is no reason for us to be holier-than-thou about our contributions (not to mention the very essence of holier-than-thou points to the fact that we want recognition, which means the act itself is not, after all, selfless). Good for those of us who have sacrificed ourselves for the benefit of the wider community, but we should never become martyrs because of it. We should, instead, be thinking of ways to create more of us to do the work…’cause at the end of the day we have to make a living…or at least I do.

I’m personally overjoyed that people are making gazillions off of the green movement (as long as it’s not a hoax). The fact that you can do good AND do well is an amazing incentive and, I think, the tipping point for people to actually start giving a damn…through consumption, yes, but if that’s what it takes, I’m all for it. This is America after all. We vote through our consumption…that we have a choice to vote for positive change is awesome.

I’ve been thinking a great deal about incentives and I think that people like Jane McGonigal and Austin Hill are doing amazing work in this area, incentivizing acts of kindness through gaming techniques. Ethically, people may have a problem with gaming human nature, but I don’t. To game towards the good is helluvalot better than to incentivize people towards acts of exploitation, waste, corruption and greed. And, believe me, the long-standing dominant atmosphere favors the greedy.

For the upcoming HeroCamp, I’m going to be concentrating on incentives. Having a 15 year-old who is not in that 0.01% has been eye-opening for me. He’s a good kid and very talented and I love him, but whenever I speak of heroism or positively contributing to the greater good, he rolls his eyes at me and calls me lame. What incentivizes him? Well, money is the biggest thing unfortunately, but he also plays games like World of Warcraft, where I watch him sacrifice himself and his points constantly to move his tribe forward. And when I asked him to come to HeroCamp and be our Lame-Meter, he agreed. I incentivized him with a voice…a chance to influence an outcome…a chance for him to shine. Okay, and a few days off of school, too, but that was less of an incentive than the rest. I asked him to be himself and told him that would be a key role in what we’re working on. The incentive is ego.

I believe that raising Whuffie is also good incentive that encourages positive contributions. However, I am not so blind as to ignore the way that people exploit this as well. There is an upside and downside of everything. We need to figure out better ways to reward those that are doing good in the world (and sometimes this means that they need to make money from it) and remove the incentives for people to exploit influence in the networks (by making it harder for them to make a living - refusing to buy their goods or read their blogs).

So, in conclusion, I believe that making a better world comes down to building in positive incentives (beyond ‘it’s the right thing to do’) for good deeds and removing the incentives for bad deeds.

My Name is Kate

links for 2008-08-29

Posted: August 29th, 2008, 2:01pm CDT by Kate
- Canadian Domains Are More Valuable | The Other Bloke's Blog âSimply because a domain name is identical or similar to a trademark name should not result in the transfer of the domain name to the trademark owner. In my view, unless there is some evidence that the use of the domain name infringes on the use of the trademark name, a person other than the owner of the trademark should be able to continue to use the domain name.â
  That, in a nutshell, is the law in Canada, thanks to Justice Wright.
  (tags: domains onedegree caTLD canada)
Cool Little Mac App - I Love Stars (iTunes ratings)

Posted: August 29th, 2008, 12:57pm CDT by Kate

In the Great iTunes Library Transfer of 2007, I lost all of my song ratings and play counts. Sigh. Which means that my smart playlists weren't so smart anymore. So I've been slowly putting in ratings again. Which is a pain b/c you have to switch to iTunes to do it. And they don't have a keyboard shortcut. Now, I found a number of smart folks who had written Apple scripts to do ratings short-cuts or tweaked keyboard shortcuts in the system settings. For a Mac newbie, a little scary.

So instead, I have tried and am delighted by a little toolbar app called "I Love Stars"

It appears in your menu bar when iTunes is playing. And you just click to set your star rating. It also takes scroll wheel input. It's so tiny and easy to use. Even more so than a keyboard shortcut, I think. MacApper says it best:
I think utilities like these are really helpful because it reduces distractions. Having to switch to iTunes just to rate music is annoying and somewhat distracting. Though you originally planned to just tag a song, in no time, you’ll end up browsing album art, looking through the iTunes store, and actually buying some music. It’s simple utilities like these that get the job done, and done fast.
I Love Stars is free (like beer) from Potion Factory. They also have a pretty neat playlist creation tool called Tangerine. It creates playlists based on Beats Per Minute.

Via MacApper

Bonus link: I also came across AutoRate which is a mass tunes rater based on a formula. I like to do each song individually, but this might work for initial ratings.

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