Sports marketing is a interesting niche, if you are into it, the AMA Boston has an event with a completely kick-ass panel coming up. The panelists work with the Red Sox, Patriots and Bruins, as well as reps from Dunkin’ Donuts, EMC and Jordan’s Furniture (they are again offering free furniture if the Sox sweep the World Series, a promo that they’ve had great success with).
The latest Marketing Over Coffee went out yesterday, a good listen for anyone getting their email campaigns off the ground or starting their company’s first website:
Today I learned about CrossFit from Peter Shankman, a fitness program built on this principle: “Develop the capacity of a novice 800-meter track athlete, gymnast, and weightlifter and you’ll be fitter than any world-class runner, gymnast, or weightlifter.”
And you’re already asking how this relates to marketing… but it does.
About 5 years ago I first started learning about low carbohydrate diets and it changed my life. Up until that point I had lived the average American life of gaining a pound a year after turning 21. This was even with being more active than average, including a Boston Marathon, over 300 miles with the Boston NikeTown Running club, skiing, golf, blah, blah, blah.
The problem with the low carbohydrate diet is that it goes against everything we have been sold for years. Between filling up the aisles of the supermarket with processed flower and sugar, and getting a food pyramid built by the groups lobbying for the grain industry, there’s been no profit in telling you otherwise (unless you are a guy named Atkins
Now I can actually affect my weight, something that I was not able to do before that point. My only problem now is my addiction to sugar and baked goods (which weighs heavier on me now because I am making a conscious decision to be a fat slob rather than being able to cry victim of my metabolism, natural weight or whatever excuse is vogue). The good news is that spring is here and it’s time to take off the winter weight, and begin training for the Falmouth Road Race.
As part of that I’ll be setting a new Nike+ group as the race approaches and would be interested in any training stories, and I’m going to try and learn the CrossFit exercises. Hopefully I won’t injure myself doing an inverted hang or some other doofus move. Anyone fatblogging, feel free to step up, or throw down a gauntlet. And check out the CrossFit blog for daily workouts. Yes, that is not an error, averaging over 400 comments per post.
Both low carbohydrate diets and CrossFit started to come together in the 70’s. Both of these brands had a fundamental truth behind them – the ability to get results, but without the Marketing machine of a profitable industry behind them, it’s taken 30 years to get to me. Think about that when you are trying to measure the velocity of word-of-mouth.
Lately I’ve been thinking more outside of the box. Not because I’ve taken any consultant or analyst pills, but rather because the world just decided to kick me out of the cardboard container I’m used to.
First was a few weeks ago when I installed VMware Fusion on my wife’s Mac. The sight of windows booting up (and running better than it does on most PC’s was something I never expected to see firsthand (nor even ever own a Mac for that matter, now there are 3 in the family so far).
Second was getting to check out some Solid State Disk Drives (or SSDs as you’d call them if you were in the know, and now you are). Having a hard drive with no moving parts changes the game in a lot of ways, as soon as a media player and a laptop hit my price point with an SSD, I’m in. Things like reducing the boot time from a minute 40, to 35 seconds is right where I want to be.
This week I’ve been doing some data analysis. The labor has changed now that I have access to the SalesForce.com API. I’m starting to move beyond CRM – the idea that the best you could do is a database that contains all the information about your customers and prospects. I’m now thinking about exploring how the database changes as time passes. Questions like “Is the sales process improving?”, “What data am I missing, and is it important to fill in the blanks”, “What does the normal suspect to prospect to customer lifecycle look like?”
The crazy part is that these questions have been discussed for years, but we’re finally reaching the point where almost any business can get access to the tools to answer them.
The weekend is almost over and that means off to Studio N for the latest episode of The M Show.
Listen here: Direct link to file
You can also check out some new photos from Fenway Park, my sister hooked me up with Yanks/Sox tickets on Friday.
Amanda Gravel posted on this insane Firefox plugin. Check it out.
So it’s been a busy week. I had a wedding to go to on Monday (yes, different, I know, but it ended up at Finale, which is a wonderful thing), so I’ve been playing catch up ever since.
Important things for you:
This week’s Marketing Over Coffee podcast is up and I’m going to see if I can get a player to work right here:
I failed to include a link in the last post to Scott Monty, it’s because it was 1am and I was going to add in a link to one of his Sherlock sites and then never went back to it.
I’ve also got a partially written post from my discussions with The Smartest Man in the World (who just jumped from #9 up to #3 in Google! Go Saul!), but some of it ties into a super secret project that I am working on that will not roll out until June, so it may be a while on that. ’til then check out the funky cartoon thing he’s playing with, it’s very cool.
For those following the travel saga, we ended up taking the LimoLiner, a 28 passenger deluxe bus that worked very well, although we felt the pain of a fellow traveler across from us who was sitting next to the guy who really wanted to talk politics and spilled his coffee all over both of them. This further solidifies my “Final Approach Rule” I don’t engage in transit conversation until the final 10 minutes just in case I’m seated next to some type of freak. I put on my headphones, fired up the laptop and checked out some Season 3 Doctor Who.
Lots of fun this weekend in New York City. The unofficial prelude was being lucky enough to have schedules overlap to catch Chip Griffin in the Brandy Library with the Scotch bottle, a great place to visit in Tribeca, followed up with a fantastic dinner at Pepolino.
The great part about this event was that there were no formal sessions, just social functions. The first night at an Irish Pub, followed by a boat tour around Manhattan, and a semi-formal dinner that evening (Blogger Prom, as some called it).
The highlight for me was meeting The Beasties: Ryan often confused with Justin Timberlake, Nathan with some real technical chops and mastering of the A/B split, Lijit’s mercenary Tara (but there’s a big heart in there… maybe.) and Matt with a razor sharp wit, and aggressive attack on the bar that reminds me of my days before I learned better. I haven’t laughed that much in a long time.
It was also great to meet Matt Dickman in person having followed him over on MarketingProfs.
The lowlight was chatting with Todd Andrlik, founder of the Power 150. I enjoyed talking to him but maybe he’s got Kryptonite in his bag because every time I talked to him I had no game whatsoever. He was shooting some video, asking what makes blogs influential and I tried to make a crack about using blogs for global domination. As anyone who does comedy knows, there is no middle ground. Either you win, and people laugh, or you lose and you get no laughs – the comedic equivalent of a 65 car pile up with an explosion that takes out the orphanage next door.
After my crash and burn Tara was kind enough to give me a gun to the head gesture. I was feelin’ the love.
And if that weren’t enough, we were chatting on the boat and the topic of American History came up. I said yes, I have read a lot of U.S. history, but then as I tried to dig into the database I realized that my full year of American History at school is now too far in the rear view mirror to be seen. I couldn’t even recall Stephen B. Oates, UMass prof and well known author from my time there. At least I managed to scratch up Manchester’s American Caesar, but it’s amazing how, as my career has progressed I’ve read less and less outside of my profession. Fortunately for me he was a gentleman and spared me any remarks such as “So I heard your stroke recovery is going well” or “You know I do have a coloring book about the Constitution you could check out”.
I also got to catch up with the Podcast Sisters, I always appreciate listening to Anna’s insight.
I even broke out the David Ogilvy pipe, fortunately Greg Verdino had a point and shoot to catch the moment. That’s me with Scott Monty and Linda Sherman.
Congratulations to Scott Monty for the success of the Oovoo campaign run by Crayon, complete with a $30,000 donation to the Frozen Pea Fund (and for talking me into going to the event). The lovely Carin joined me for Breakfast with the Monty’s, the Savvy Auntie, and Jason Falls, who we will probably be visiting soon as Carin is looking for an excuse to see the horse races, and I want to tour a distillery.
There’s plenty of pictures up on flickr if you’d like to take a look around.
Back to work after a busy weekend in Gotham City. I had a great time a blogger social, and have to do a full write up, but catching up on sleep was a higher priority this morning.
You know it’s solid when the Ogilvy pipe comes out. I just requested permission on this copyrighted shot from Greg Verdino, I think I need a point and shoot, I can’t carry the bag everywhere.
It’s Blogger Social! I am riding the LimoLiner to New York City today. It’s as if you took a Greyhound bus and had it pimped out by the same guys that assemble the First Class cabin in a 747. I wanted to try the Acela but tickets last night were over $400 round trip and for that price it would be easier to drive down.
Now I see why we never get to Gotham city, for all the time and exepense if you add another $200 and 2 hours we could be in San Francisco or Miami. I really do love NY but at those price points I’d rather leave the weather of the Northeast behind.
The good news is getting to meet some fellow freaks and hit the NY Camera stores which have everything…