Author: themshow

Categories
Productivity Booster

Traveling with an iPad

On my last business trip I left my laptop behind to see if it would be possible for me to get by without my laptop. I’ve done it for personal travel and the results were the same – aside from wanting to jump into photoshop a couple of times and having to wait on that, I have been able to get by on the iPad alone.

One test point was international – I was down near Cancun, Mexico so I bought the international data plan for one month. It seemed a bit slower than the 3G connection in urban Boston, but it worked very well.

I did find an issue that travelers should be aware of though: I bring the component cable with me so that I can charge it and plug it into the hotel TV to watch my own movies or TV series. The problem was that I also use the iPad as my travel alarm clock. When the component cable is plugged in, it disables the internal speaker so if the alarm goes off you can’t hear it. The only good news is that the component cable and the charging cable can both use same AC adapter, so you just need another cable, not a second wall wart.

Also on the iPad front, if you are into using a stylus, I got a Stylus Socks Pro to review and have added that to the Best Stylus for the iPad post. Shape Dad also has styluses for those who need a mouth stick, or a T-Stick for more stability.

Categories
Great Marketing

The Marketing Over Coffee Awards

Three years ago, around the end of 4th quarter I was talking with Christopher S. Penn about the shortage of interesting things going on in the industry at the end of the year. Everyone is trying to close business for the end of the year, retailers are flat out with the holiday crush, and the back to back dietary threat of Thanksgiving and Christmas eliminate the chance of much excitement in marketing headlines.

We had talked about awards many times on Marketing Over Coffee and Chris joked that we should do our own awards. To get the full impact of the joke you need to know that in Marketing and PR circles awards are often given little respect. There are many that aren’t much more than “pay your application fee and get a trophy” (and half ass agencies hope to dupe green clients into believing that they really are “award winning”) and then there are others that large organizations shoot for, and at these companies there’s often a person that has applying for awards as one of their major job functions.

I do have to say that when recording some audio with David Meerman Scott a few years ago, he did get me to see an angle I had missed. There are certain awards that you should pay attention to because of who the judges are. In many industries there are awards judged by influential people that you might already be trying to reach through your normal marketing channels. Paying a couple hundred bucks to get some guaranteed time with the right people is a no brainer if there’s a fit.

Our joke was, we would give the awards to who we liked. If you were doing something cool, and you were a fan of the show, you could win. No “Yes! You’ve won, please send us $295 for your trophy”, no automatic winners by paying the fee, in fact – no entry fee at all. To demonstrate our uncanny marketing prowess, in 2009 we rolled out  the first “23rd Annual Marketing Over Coffee Awards”

By the second year though, it was less of a joke. By giving the awards to people who were doing exceptional things, it took on a life of its own very quickly. Despite our best efforts to make it a counter-culture joke, people started taking it seriously.

You can check out the list of winners (and the latest show) over at the MoC blog, but I wanted to give my director’s commentary.

So far, every year there are one or two people that I come in contact with that change my outlook completely. Of course when nomination time rolls around, I nominate these, and their odds tend to be pretty good.

In 2010 Simon Sinek’s book had that impact on me. Anyone in Marketing must read this book. As we talked about it, he said that he had noticed at the agency he was at, that one team could do amazing work for a client, and the have mediocre results for another. His quest do figure out why that happens resulted in “Start With Why“.

Simon tweeted about winning and he has a loyal following that re-tweeted his message, and I have to give a hat tip to the group from Gainsville that tweeted about their offer to see Simon, the award winning author at their next event. Awesome job with the magnetic grappling hook!

The other winner from day one was Alure. I was very busy with work when the Inbound Marketing Summit rolled around and couldn’t attend the event, but Foxboro is a short drive from my home and I wanted to meet Ben Strong, one of last year’s winners in person. As we were having drinks I saw this guy come in and I recognized him but couldn’t place him. It was killing me because I knew that I recognized him from TV or the movies, not business networking. After about 5 minutes it finally hit me that it was Sal, who I had seen many times on Extreme Makeover Home Edition. I won’t get into the full story, but besides the fact that I think it’s the best show on TV, it has also been a tremendous motivator for my family. Sal introduced me to some of his guys, including John Doyle, who has been covering a lot of ground, and that’s where the MoC holiday interview came from this year.

This year I realized we should have been doing an Entrepreneur of the Year award, as risk-taking is a critical part of testing new marketing waters (and Chris also mentioned that next year we need a “Boring” award for those who execute perfectly on things like emailing their customer base every month – things that make a huge difference t the bottom line but are pretty light on sex appeal). C.C. Chapman and Ann Handley had been nominated for their book “Content Rules” but I’ve known them both long enough to see the book as only the latest in a long string of “Next Big Things”. Having worked over at ClickZ Ann been part of MarketingProfs rising to the top of the Marketing Publication heap, and I’ve known C.C. since the days when being a podcaster would get you on Network TV and a feature Article in the Globe (unlike now, buried deep in the trough of disillusionment), and he was an easy choice for Entrepreneur of the Year.

On products, the  Toll Free Freedom Virtual Phone System won on votes (so we didn’t have to do our first sell out award since they are a sponsor of the podcast), and deserves it, taking the risk to sponsor a rebel marketing audio program.

I met Saul at Blogger Social 2008, he was one of the followers of the now defunct M Show, and is a contemporary, so we get each other’s absurd 70’s references. He has also done an acceptance speech – where else can you see Erik Estrada covering Kool and the Gang?

Finally, it has taken on a life of its own – every year there are a couple of winners that I meet for the first time through the awards. These people usually take the awards more seriously than the organizers, but I’m thankful to meet new people doing exciting projects:

This year Ryan Holota worked hard to get the votes, and has even done a Press Release on his win.

Ryan and Brian blew away all other vote getters, and their book on Social Media is “Still Awesome, and Still Free”. A sense of humor is greatly appreciated in this space, and I welcome them aboard, Gavin MacLeod style.

Congratulations to this year’s winners, thanks for making 2010 a great year.

Categories
Geek Stuff

What is the Best Dog Food?

With the passing of our dog Hannah, an economic turning point was reached. She was allergic to many common dog food ingredients, so we ended up having to buy her very expensive dog food. At first it was a prescription food, until we found out that it was actually a lot of low quality ingredients. We were able to switch to a higher quality of food that was less expensive (around $70 for a 30 lb. bag).

When we adopted Carter from the shelter he had been eating whatever garbage he could find on the streets, so we knew that even the crappiest dog food on the market would still be something he would suck down so fast he wouldn’t taste it anyway. Eating stuff like your own crap must kill the whole gourmet experience…

My first stop was Consumer Reports, an excellent site, but outside of their major categories I often come up short. In this case they have a pet food study going on now, but no results yet. Next stop was the Google, and it did not disappoint. I found Dog Food Advisor, an amazing site. From what it says there, Mike’s dog was a victim of the dog food industry’s lack of quality control. Like any true hero, he has stepped up to right what has been wrong.

It was very easy to check out the 5 star foods and find a number of alternatives. At this point though, my background in Economics kicked in – Yes, there was a ton of data on the quality of the food, but without pricing information there was still work to do.

I fired up Google Docs and started building a table of pricing from Amazon. We are Amazon Prime Members so for many of the dogfoods there is no shipping charge (I know, I couldn’t believe it either when a 30 pound box with a bag of dogfood showed up at my front door, but it did).

By calculating the price per star I was able to compare prices at similar quality levels. At this point I found what I was looking for – I never thought I would make a plug for “Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover’s Soul” but it has 4 stars, and costs significantly less than all of the others I checked out. After buying a first bag, it looks almost exactly the same as the food we were using that costs twice as much. Carter still hoarks it down so fast that I still don’t think he tastes anything, but he seems to be doing well.

Unfortunately at this point the lovely Carin identified a critical flaw in the model – I had considered all dogfoods equal by weight and that is not the case. Generally the better dogfoods are richer in nutrients so you don’t have to feed your dog as much. In some cases I noticed that it can be as much as half the food over lower quality brands (so that heinous cheap stuff is no bargain at half the price if you go through it twice as fast). The proper calculation would be cost per meal – a function of price/weight per meal/weight of bag. I may not even bother as I think I’ve got a pretty good solution, but perhaps there is an outlier out there that’s an even better deal.

Just in case you are really interested, I’ve made the table available here, you can check it out and use it as you will. If you have any additions to the data (such as how much stuff costs at Costco), or have comments on the model, I’d love to hear it.

Categories
Productivity Booster

11 Little Secrets

Going through the draft bin I had a note about 11 Little Secrets from Christopher S. Penn, my co-host on Marketing Over Coffee. Check out his list of 11 things that can make you more productive. None of them are earth shattering, but when applied can deliver significant results.

Here are some things that help me:

  1. Get enough sleep – the goal is to be able to live without an alarm clock, which may be more wishful thinking than reality. You’ll find that if you pay more attention to getting adequate rest you won’t get sick as often and I find that when I am more tired, my patience suffers.
  2. A place for everything – Being organized saves time in the long run, my keys are always in the kitchen near the door. I never lose time looking for my keys.
  3. Travel Bag – I have a second set of the things I need when I travel. Rather than keeping a list or possibly forgetting stuff, the bag always has my chargers, toiletries and an outlet extender in it.
  4. The Calendar – Where it all happens. Quarterly goals get broken into monthly and weekly chunks, the calendar is where you allot time to make your plan happen. By scheduling the important stuff first you won’t get crushed by the tyranny of the urgent.
  5. Quicken – Managing cash flow and being able to accurately forecast expenses is invaluable
  6. Avoid the white stuff – flour and sugar. This alone will allow you to drop weight at will.
  7. You need more than one monitor – Having a laptop with a docking station that lets you use a second screen is a huge productivity boost. As I write this post I can grab affiliate links from the other window and refer back to Chris’ original post.
  8. Notes – Between your calendar, a shopping list, and the draft bin for your blog, you should never have to remember anything. Write it down and leave your brain free to be creative or solve difficult problems, not “remember the milk”
  9. Media On Deck Circle – Have a couple of movies, books, and music playlists ready for when you travel. Running around the night before you leave trying to get a 2GB file down from iTunes is not always easy.
  10. Buy the tools – Anytime something breaks, consider learning how to fix it. If you know how to fix a leaky pipe or repair your own cellphone you not only save money, you are no longer at the mercy of others
  11. Buy Cheap, Buy Twice – This was the motto at a ski shop I worked at in High School. Yes, you can get the cheap one, odds are it’s also the crappy one. Yes, the Honda Lawnmower is a lot more expensive, but ask around and you’ll hear the stories of people that have had them for 20 years. Nothing’s worse than getting the cheap drill from Home Depot and having it crap out when you need it.
Categories
Daily Life

Operation Comix Relief

With the holidays gone I wanted to give some ink to Operation Comix Relief. Chris runs this non-profit organization and is nearing ten years of sending comics to soldiers around the globe – approaching 2,000 packages!

With year end approaching I sent over a check as part of my charitable donations goal for the year and he sent me an email back thanking me personally and said that I enabled 15 packages to go out over the holidays.

If you value the freedom we enjoy that was earned by others and could spare a few moments you could make a big difference to those serving throughout the world (especially those in hospitals), by visiting Chris’ site and clicking on the Paypal link to make a donation.

Categories
Daily Life

Mind Mapping

In the Marketing Over Coffee LinkedIn group MindMaps came up as a topic. We talked about it this week and I said that I’d share more than I normally show in my Quarterly Review posts.

Here’s a full screenshot (click it for full size) with my gory details removed:

Here’s a zipped file if you have MindManager, or an exported Word Doc.

The process is simple – at the beginning of the year think about what you will accomplish on four fronts:

  1. Family
  2. Personal
  3. Professional
  4. Financial Goals

You’ll probably find that you have many of these quadrants already full of items, and that’s fine, it’s good to be able to give yourself some credit for your dumptruck full of stress that you’ve been taking for granted.

Some notes:

Family – Remember that your life is juggling, but not all the balls are the same. Your family is one of the glass ones, you drop that and it will never be the same. It doesn’t have to take all your time, but it does need to be first in your planning.

Personal – Here’s your one shot to pick something fun to do. Fitness also sets here, you’ve only got one body so you need to plan for it to last a while.

Professional – This will be different for everyone, but my mix has been the current job, side projects, and keeping your personal brand strong.

Financial – After the sands of time have blown away nobody will care about a few thousand bucks, but you do need to put some food on the table today. If you’ve been using Quicken, it’s pretty easy to forecast this stuff.

So from here, you need to check in at least once a month, better yet have a day once a week (Sunday nights tend to work well), where you look at your upcoming calendar and make sure you’ve made time for the big stuff.

Every quarter, update the scorecard to see how things are going. If you’ve got anything big planned please tell me about it, I’m still trying to fill my 2011 card.

Categories
Daily Life

Man’s Best Friend

My blogging holiday is over, having hit my 52 post goal before Thanksgiving I’ve been playing around with a bunch of other projects including a new laptop (and workflow) for me, and dumping 28 tons of gravel into a half filled root cellar in the garage (but that’s another post).

The first day of the new year was not a happy one here. Carin’s dog Hannah had reached 15 years old and has not been doing well for a couple of years. She went deaf about 3 years ago, and had a tumor removed two years ago. As we were driving out to see our family on New Year’s Day, even with her in the way back of the car I could see that a small growth she had in her mouth had exploded.

We had been preparing for this for a long time but it’s still so sad when the day arrives. Carin got her as a puppy 5 years before we started dating, and I used to joke that she took care of her until I showed up.

I’ve had many dogs and she was by far the smartest. Many of them would get their toys when told to, but you could say “No, the Blue one” and she would go back for the right one. Sadly, she is survived by Carter, who walks into things all the time.

We miss her, but it’s good to know that she’s no longer in pain, but the house still feels kind of empty.

Categories
Productivity Booster

Using Your iPad as a Desk Clock

I have a set of logitech speakers that are vintage 2006. They are one of the first ones that came out and I got them after Adam Curry plugged them as he used them in his San Francisco apartment. They are still great, but only one downside, they don’t charge the current generation of iPod Touch. Since the H-Bomb uses it in his room we had to upgrade to something that would charge. I swapped it out with my XtremeMac Luna Alarm Clock – it charges, sounds great, and has a dimmer control – a great product.

Now I needed a new alarm clock so I took the Sony Dream Machine from the office. The bummer with that is that it’s at least 10 years old and the CD player doesn’t work anymore. Since I can only wake up to the buzzer I now have the XtremeMac Micro Dock on my Amazon Wish List.

As the dominoes continue to fall this means that I now no longer have a clock in the office. I didn’t think it would be a big deal, but after half a day I realized I needed to get one. I have a Griffin Loop and a Bluetooth keyboard for the iPad so I thought I could set that up and try a desk clock app.

After Googling and checking out the AppStore (btw if you are not using AppShopper you are missing out on a great tool to find stuff in the AppStore) I found 4 apps to test out:

My Frame – Tried to add pictures and it crashed on every 3rd or 4th one. At that point I got frustrated and deleted it.

myPhotoAlarm – Deleted all but 1 of the stock photos and I couldn’t add my own, again I gave up and deleted it. Update: Right after this was posted, Gregg responded and apologized for a bug that’s due to the 4.0.2 update. I will reinstall and see how the update arrives when the folks at Apple let it through. Points to Gregg for great customer service.

Lifelike Clock – Is one I have kept, it doesn’t have photo capability, but it does allow you to access your music library for alarms. This is a good one if you want your own alarm clock when you travel. It also includes weather.

Nightstand HD – Was my winner, it allows you to select your own photos (although there is a bug I’ve hit after 10 photos where I’ve added new ones and they don’t show up. It also has weather functionality. If it had the ability to hit my music library for alarms it would be the sole survivor.

I’m also playing the Christmas levels of Angry Birds, if you have any great apps please comment so I can check them out!

Categories
Daily Life

Mr. Rogers and Extreme Makeover Home Edition

As I clean out my inbox I have links worth sharing that finally come to light. I wrote about Mr. Rogers giving you the smackdown, and even though it was in 2007, the magic of the Google has kept it around and it was cited in a recent Fast Company article. Also interesting in my post is a comment with some kind words from a guy who was just beginning to really tear things up – Chris Brogan.

Over on Marketing Over Coffee we’ve released a special episode just for people who have bought the iTunes Marketing Over Coffee app (and folks that buy the Android app out probably later this week will also get it). The rest of the subscribers will get it the last week in December, but you faithful reader can also get it early since you go out of your way to check out this space.

MOC Interview with Sal Ferro and John Doyle of Alure Homes

[audio:http://traffic.libsyn.com/marketingovercoffee/MoC191-ehme.mp3]

Have a great Thanksgiving!

Categories
Daily Life

Video on the Web

Big News
I’ve been reading what I can about HTML 5 lately and came across this great resource on Video for the Web. It covers codecs, wrappers and a bunch of other stuff including H.264, a video standard that HTML 5 supports.

Lesser News
This was also computer overhaul week. Besides my upgrade, which is, for the most part, completed, I also juiced up the Lovely Carin’s Mac with 4x the RAM and more than doubled the hard drive and went up to 7200 RPM. It really screams now.

I also gave Handbreak a try for getting  some of my DVDs into iTunes so I can check them out on the iPad. the H.264 standard looks amazing. I’m glad I saved all my source DVD’s so I can replace the files I have now. I joined the new gym down the street so I’m looking forward to catching up on the TV and movies I have missed in the past year. I’m thinking about catching the last season of 24 since I’ve see the others. The BBC’s Sherlock is great but doesn’t take long to watch. Any other suggestions welcome…