Month: August 2007

BlogDay

Today is officially BlogDay, you can get the story and original recommendations in my previous post.

Just a few other things I read that are always great:

I’m a salesforce.com insider by reading SalesforceWatch.

On the small business tech font, and for Tales of Chicago check out Chicago Mike.

Most readers know I’m still going through Sex and the City withdrawal, The Pink Shoe Diaries help me cope.

As a comic fan (aka – Fanboy, aka – dork) Title Undetermined makes me laugh.

I’m also giving a second plug for Mike Champion because he needs a dose of the Google Juice, and mentioning GameSpot which is not a blog but still full of great info.

Daily Life

Stuff That’s Bugging Me

People that think links or Twitter summaries are blog posts that anyone reads.

Or gives a crap about for that matter.

The kids in my neighborhood that yell out of car windows.

The fear of what I would do to them if I had an opportunity.

But, whenever those kinds of things get out of hand, there’s always something like the Rocky Run to Benefit Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Good triumphs over evil. The Sox win. I sleep well for another night, ready to face tomorrow, faith in humanity restored.

For a less cranky John, check out the best marketing podcast, Marketing Over Coffee, which has a very funny closing this week.

Daily Life Podcasting

Rough Road Ahead

The boxes are getting filled and we are preparing for the move. The office where I do my writing is been destroyed so my posting may be sporadic over the next week. I’ll be limited to when I’m on my laptop at home and that’s about it. The scanner has been packed up too so no Friday Night Fights, or other wacky photos until the box reopens.

The summer doldrums continue with everyone waiting until the decision makers get back from vacation. A good time to clean up your lists and get ready for Q4.

Libsyn seems to have their domain issues straightened out so there will be a new M Show for you before you sync tomorrow morning.

-J

Brain Buster

Red Sox

I’ve always wanted to walk on the grass at Fenway Park. This may be my chance.

Daily Life Podcasting

Silent, but Still Deadly

Normally I cheap out on the Thursday post and brag about the latest episode of Marketing Over Coffee. We had a good discussion yesterday talking about trade shows, amongst other things. The bad news is that my hosting company, Libsyn is having a real run of bad luck. They’ve been having a hard time getting the stats package back up and running and now they are completely dark. This is the only service disruption I have ever had with them in almost 3 years of podcasting 5 different shows.

This is one of those moments where you realize how important it is to have control of your feed. The primary feed for The M Show is http://www.themshow.com/feed which then redirects to my libsyn feed. So if this continues I just redirect to someplace else, or write my own feed and I’m back in business. You need to ask yourself if you are building an audience for yourself, or for your hosting company, or for feedburner, or somebody else.

For $5 a month I really can’t complain since I’m getting unlimited bandwidth, but it is a bummer to be down as Marketing Over Coffee continues to gain momentum. So, this is kind of a lame post but at least it’s not a bunch of compiled twitter updates or bookmarks from del.icio.us

I’m tired, and I’m off to bed…

Email Marketing Great Marketing Swipe File

VirtualResponse Channels Dre

Post author By themshow
Post date August 22, 2007
No Comments on VirtualResponse Channels Dre

This is the best marketing I have ever seen for an email company. The only downside to this is that if you don’t know Salesforce.com you won’t get all the jokes, otherwise, brilliant!

[youtube]lq4m2JnCTo4[/youtube]

Podcasting

Quincy Jones

This morning on my way into work I listened to Podcast 411. The host, Rob Walch, interviews Quincy Jones. When I saw it downloading in iTunes I thought “It can’t be THAT Quincy Jones, as in THE Quincy Jones“. But it is, and it is fantastic. Not only is he fun to listen to but he’s also uplifting and motivating.

“The melody is the only thing that comes straight from God” – Quincy Jones

I laughed at number of the stories, and overall I found it funny because, like any story told by someone over 50 years old they tend to run off in more than one direction. But unlike your crazy uncle Stan, whose stories run from Aunt Petunia, to the dog food factory in Kansas, to the time they met some baseball player you never heard of, Mr. Jones’ stories run from Miles Davis to Frank Sinatra, to Paul McCartney, around Michael Jackson, with the occasional world leader thrown in along with enough Grammys to fill a small pickup truck.

If any part of the music Quincy Jones has done is a favorite of yours, go check it out now.

Brain Buster

Motivating to Buy

I’ve been thinking more about the fact that marketing is the process of influencing opinion to ultimately sell a product. An important part of selling a product is trying to understand why customers need it. Why should someone buy the product that you are offering?

Today I bought a pair of $100 pants that are completely organic and environmentally friendly. That’s the lead selling proposition, all of the marketing around the product is in regards to the fact that it’s made with hemp, easily renewable, blah, blah, blah, a lot of granola eating, tree hugging stuff.

But the motivation behind the purchase had nothing to do with the marketing. I finished my run at the gym this morning and had the horrifying realization that there were no pants in my bag. It was the adolescent nightmare of going into the workplace and realizing I had no pants on, come to life.

The only place to buy pants at 8am is at the Whole Foods grocery store. So I bought them. Anybody looking for a slightly used pair of green hemp pants?

Remember that marketing is an art, some people will like your work, others will hate it, some will buy because they want to, and some will buy because they have to. Your job is to get creative to maximize your effort and return, but don’t get too caught up in the guys with no pants who will mess with your ROI calculation.

Daily Life Podcasting

Another Weekend in The Can

Post author By themshow
Post date August 19, 2007
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Perfect weather this weekend and I had a chance to play around with my camera, no incredible photos but now I know a little more what the hell I’m doing.

It’s Sunday, that means there’s a new M Show for you! Now we get back to business…

Daily Life

Timex iPod combo

I haven’t written about it here before, but I am huge fan of Timex. I do love watches and at one point was considering a Rolex, and I noticed a similar Timex that was about $2,000 less, did not need to be cleaned every year, had an indiglo face that allowed me to see it in the dark, and I wouldn’t have chest pain if it was lost, crushed, destroyed etc. (like my $300 Revo Sunglasses that are somewhere in Davey Jones’ Locker).

Once you can see beyond the marketing of expensive watches you’ll feel liberated…

Anyway, I got an email from them (they do great campaigns, I get to see the new stuff and get discount codes) and they have an Ironman that interfaces with the iPod. It’s pretty cool (but I’m waiting for the Nike one that will also integrate with the shoe sensor).

An important point though – the Nike+ only works with the Nano, the Timex works with most (all) of the different model iPods. I wonder what the range on it is?