Some developers love social media and completely buy into it’s power, but others not so much.  Numerous developers feel that social media is similar to other online waves and will eventually pass.  If you do not believe that these type of developers exsist, I suggest running to your dev department as simply saying the word “Twitter”

It is important that developers have buy in to social media because they are the driving force behind the actual creation and evolution of the social media momvement.  To help with this here is a great list of the Top 18 Social Media Resources for Developers.

Enjoy the list and happy tweeting boys (and girls)

Recently, I began taking classes toward a Master’s in Education. One of our first discussion questions was: Interpret the differing views of teacher through the lenses of the media. What do the examples in film, TV, print, and other media tell us about the meaning of teacher?

The overwhelming response from students was that a teacher’s job is not accurately portrayed by media – news media focus on negative stories about teachers, film shows unrealistic scenarios with teachers receiving little support from administration or an unattainable turnaround situation (think Freedom Writers, Dangerous Minds and Stand and Deliver).

Working regularly with the media, it made me think about why this might be the case. My conclusion? No one is necessarily responsible for promoting the positive achievements of teachers, especially proactively. Instead, the media and general public hear from government reports that schools are failing, standardized test scores are not improving and there are too many ineffective tenured teachers. Without a counteractive positive message, media run wild with the sensationalized negative messages.

Do you find yourself in a similar profession? I wonder how many others are inaccurately represented media. Maybe it’s time for some proactive messaging and outreach. First stop – job swap with Rena on KARE-11!

I love twitter as much as the next person, but I think this may be taking it a bit far.  E! has just announced that they will be running celebrity tweets across the bottom of of their programing similar to the news crawl on CNN and ESPN.

What do you think about this?  Is this a Good use of Twitter or just a gimmick?

Google has made a major update to the way users can refine their searches.  It is now very easy to refine or filter out result that meet specific criteria.  Want to see only reviews from the past 24 hours?  No problem.

What opportunities does this change provide for SEO and marketing your website?  First, let’s understand how it works.

Here is where one can access this feature.  Do a Google search and on the results page click on “Show Options” just below the Google icon on the left.

The filter options are on the left side.  Just try them out to see how they effect your search results.

Dig deeper visually into the results using the Wonder wheel.

SEO Opportunities
After playing around with the filter you can see how useful this can be in getting more relevant results for the user.  It is also clear that different sites rank for the different filters.  It is probably rare to impossible for a single site to rank highly for each filter.  How can you optimize for all these different options?

The first step is simple.  For a given keyword, look at what is highly ranked for each filter.  Are there opportunities to create content that can be optimized for that filter?  The video filter is pretty straight forward.  Create a video with keywords in the title and desription at the minimum.  It has a good chance at high rankings.

Reviews
The “review” filter provides an opportunity to see what reviews rank highly.  See if it is possible to direct any customers to these sites to place reviews.  If your site provides reviews, there is a format to encode the review data to ensure the results can be displayed in a Google search result.  This is an easy way to gain visibility by updating your code.  Here are details that explain how to mark up structured data.

As you can see there are many ways to optimize for these filters.  Start working on this now, as it adds a whole additional dimension to optimizing a site.  It is only a matter of time before the average search engine user starts using this new feature.  In 2007 the average search query was only three words, now it is up to 4 words.  Users are becoming more sophisticated.  It is our job to stay ahead of the game.

Google video showing how to use the new “Options filter”

For this blog entry I thought I’d share an example of how powerful amateur videos and information on the internet can be; acting in a similar way that word of mouth recommendations and marketing work. This example focuses on the shaving industry and Gillette in particular, now owned by Procter & Gamble.

Razors, blades, and the marketing for them have changed quite a bit over the past 50 years. You’ve seen the ads. Nowadays the TV spots will often feature some guy looking in a mirror while shaving in a towel, with perfect abs and pecs, zero body hair, perfect shaving cream application that looks like rubber, along with a scantily clad bimbo gawking and giggling in the background. During Gillette’s previous “Mach” era, they would also feature jets whizzing by on screen… what a huge selling point, and oh, how masculine! Their latest product is the “Fusion” razor, which uses five blade cartridges and also comes in a battery powered version. Do you really need 5+ blades and more importantly, why would you ever need a safety razor to be electric? The advertisements have changed with the “Fusion” line but remain just as corny. They now try to feature this fusion technology as something that’s really advanced and high-tech. More recently, they even tried to target video gamers but in my opinion, failed to make a connection. Saturday Night Live mocked the then fictitious 3 bladed razor in 1975, with the “Triple-Trac” skit featuring Al Franken as a caveman searching for a “close shave.” It was only 23 years later, in 1998, that Gillette first introduced the “Mach 3”. It certainly wasn’t the last time the company was ridiculed either. SNL also did a “Platinum Mach 14” commercial featuring John Goodman in 2000 and The Onion published a five blade article (warning – excessive profanity) in 2004, which was of course 2 years before the “Fusion” was introduced.

I didn’t check to see what agency or agencies work with Gillette but I’ve never been impressed with their media campaigns. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that I detest them. However, for several years I actually did use a Gillette “Mach 3” razor. In case you are unaware, the company uses a very brilliant freebie marketing campaign. By purchasing information and acting just like a pusher, Gillette targets and hooks young males around the time of their 18th birthday by sending a free razor in the mail. I received one around this time and started using it on a regular basis, previously only using an electric razor if I remember correctly. It seemed pretty good at the time, but when I ran out of blades and went to the store to get some more, it hit me; the price, that is. I quickly realized that I had been duped but on the other hand, what other options were there? Schick sells comparable products but their price point is very similar to Gillette’s. Then there are a few generic, single-blade razors that just seemed cheap and, of course, the Bic disposable razors, which also seem to lack in quality. Electric razors are easy to use, but it’s just not the same as a “wet shave.” At the time, I just decided to suck it up and pay for the “Mach 3” refills and did this for at least a few years.

A few years ago, when I was still in college, I was browsing digg.com and I happened upon a video that eventually changed the way I shave. The video itself features a middle-aged guy and it’s far from professional, yet very informative. It revealed a method of shaving that I was mostly unaware of – shaving with a traditional, double-edged (single blade) safety razor – the way your grandfather probably used to shave. That’s right: heavy metal razors with a chrome finish, badger or boar hair brushes, and shaving cream in a tube or bar soap form… I can just hear Tim Allen’s grunts of approval à la Home Improvement. These single-blade double-edged razors aren’t manufactured in the US anymore, and you aren’t going to find any of the necessary supplies for this method at your everyday retail store. However, the razors are still made in other countries and you can find some related products at higher end stores such as Nordstrom , Crabtree & Evelyn, etc., possibly at a barber shop, or through the internet. One of the most popular brands is Merkur of Germany (subsidiary of DOVO Solingen), which is the brand I chose to go with – recommended for beginners. Other brands include Edwin Jagger (UK), Parker, Boots (UK), and MÜHLE (German) among others. Because these traditional razors are so durable, you can also buy used razors such as Gillette and Schick products from the 40s, 50s, or 60s. With a little cleaning and some new blades, they’re as good as new. New blades are manufactured by Merkur, Derby (Turkey), Feather (Japan), Persona (Israel), 7 a.m. (Bangladesh), Astra (Czech), Dorco (Korea), and the list goes on. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, shaving with a traditional double-edged safety razor is more popular in other countries.

Concerned with Safety?

When it comes to safety, yes, you have to be a little more careful when shaving with a traditional razor but after using one for a couple of years now, I’d claim that there really isn’t that much of a difference compared to the modern products that Gillette and Schick are producing. As long as you take things a little slower and get some practice in, you’ll be fine. These are nothing like a straight edge (carry in your boot) razor – yet, when searching for information on classic shaving methods, people also seem to enjoy those as well.

What’s the advantage?

• Cost: One of the primary reasons I chose to switch was the cost. The traditional products at the retailers and probably the barber shops are usually overpriced and are targeted at more upper-class businessmen types. On the internet though, you can find great products at reasonable prices – I prefer Amazon.com. Initially, a double-edged razor and the necessary accessories will seem expensive. A good basic Merkur razor will set you back about $40 – $50. If you don’t want to use canned shaving cream, you also need a brush (badger hair is preferred), which start around $30, along with some quality shaving cream – $10 – $15, and a mug to mix up a lather. It’s only over time that you’ll mostly likely be able to save some money, and it all comes down to the blades. If you use Gillette’s latest and so-called greatest product, the “Fusion”, 8 refill cartridges will cost around $20+. Compare that to the Merkur blades that I use, which I can usually find on Amacon.com for around $6 for a pack of 10. Gillette might make claims about the “Fusion” blades lasting longer but I’d be very skeptical. I change the blade in my razor once a week.
• Quality: The other primary reason to switch is the quality of the shave itself. With normal cartridge razors you tend to just hack away the hair really fast. The razors are lightweight, and you end up with something that more often than not, is far less than ideal. With a traditional double-edged safety razor, you’re forced to slow things down a bit, make some preparations, pay attention to the direction that the hair grows, make at least one pass, and take the proper aftercare steps. The weight of one of these razors will also typically be much heavier so instead of pressing down on your face, you allow the razor itself to apply the appropriate pressure. The end result is a shave that leaves much less irritation, and just altogether feels much more satisfying. There was at least one weekend in college where I returned home only to realize that I had forgotten my shaving equipment. Going back to a flimsy plastic Mach “3” was like a joke.
• Environment: I’m not an environment advocate. I’m not really against the people that are because I enjoy nature just as much as the next person, but at the same time, you’d never see me marching down the street or chaining myself to a tree. That being said, cartridge blades use plastic and have to be thrown away whereas a single double-edged blade is just metal and can be recycled. In addition, traditional shaving cream in a tube or in bar form produce less waste and are simply more natural compared to the canned, chemical filled aerosol shaving creams that most people use.

The amazing thing is that this classic style of shaving has actually been making a bit of a comeback, thanks mostly to the internet. As I mentioned above, I learned about this method by browsing digg and finding mantic59’s YouTube channel. After researching the topic a bit more, before making a decision to try it, I came across sites such as Badger & Blade, a decent-sized community with a message board that contains over 1 million posts. There have also been popular articles on the topic such as How to get that perfect shave on MSNBC, and How To Shave Like Your Grandpa on The Art of Manliness – an article that also landed on digg. The really intriguing thing is that a company isn’t behind the communities or articles. It’s just a more obscure topic that once people learn more about, they’re compelled to try it themselves and tell others. The razor and blade manufacturers seem to have little internet presence, so this is really a case of word of mouth information spreading successfully. Many companies would find this internet community to be highly desirable.

Gillette’s ad agency can try all it wants to try to convince me that adding just one more blade is somehow going to change everything. Silly gizmos like the “Fusion Power” just make me shake my head and laugh. To me, this type of thing is on par with those crazy HD sunglasses infomercials. Claim all you want, you’re not going to change my mind. There is a lot of information here and no, the switch to a double-edged razor it wasn’t necessarily a life-changing moment but it would be something that could make a company like Gillette think twice about its current strategies.

That is the profound observation that Peter Drucker, the father of business consulting made many years ago and somehow seems to have been lost in time. Today, when top management is surveyed, their priorities in order are: finance, sales, production, management, legal and people. Missing from the list: marketing and innovation.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that Drucker’s wisdom has not escaped the leadership of 3M Company, a world leader in innovation. George Buckley, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of 3M offered some timeless advice in a recent address to employees, which is well worth sharing with the rest of the world:

I own an old vicarage in Derbyshire that I love to visit a few times a year. About 10 years ago I was shopping at the supermarket there for some groceries. While doing so, I saw something inside that I had never seen before. It was a carton that said on it “98% fat-free milk.” I thought, what the heck is that? 98% fat free milk! After a few microseconds, I realized it was what we call 2% milk in America.

But it provoked a thought in me that still persists today. In a 2 percent downturn, there is still 98% percent of the business left. We understandably tend to focus our attention on the 2 percent that is gone, not the 98 percent that is left.

But we need to focus on the 98 percent, and not fret over the 2 percent.

10 rules to follow:

So, focusing on the 98 percent, I thought I’d share 10 rules to follow in building and keeping market position.

1. Be prepared to service the whole market from bottom to top, including private-label products. If your customer wants it, you should be prepared to make it and supply it.

2. Develop great customer relations from the bottom to the top of your customer’s organization. Interface and inter leave at every level. Love those customers.

3. Offer pristine service: strive for on time in full fill rate levels of 99 percent or better. It builds the bond of trust and reliance.

4. Never get complacent about your market position and continue to innovate so as to delight the end consumer.

5. Relentlessly drive out cost and relentlessly drive in innovation now matter how old or how well established the product is. Always try to bring new value to the customer.

6. Always share the bounty of both cost reductions and innovation with our customers and your consumers. Greed never works log term.

7. Never do anything that is customer unfriendly, it will always harm you in the end. Breaking the bond of trust with your customers is a bell that you can never un-ring.

8. Try to arrange it so that your customers make more money on what you manufacture than you do. They will love you for it and they will want to sell your products instead of somebody else’s.

9. Over time you will build brands and products that delight your consumer and are loved by your customer. We call these “enduring franchises.”

10. Having done all of this, never, never, never ever abuse the privilege.

Innovation is key to survival

I’m convinced that innovation remains the best way to differentiate your products from those of a competitor. But innovation scares some companies because they see it as inherently risky. There is no ability to predict outcomes accurately because there is no data on the future.

But the fact is you must innovate to survive, let alone prosper. Innovation is, and always has been, 3M’s secret deadly weapon.

Magazines get it. Other mediums, I’m not so sure.

I’m a big fan of magazines. Paging through a variety of titles from Coastal Living to Forbes Small Business is one my most relaxing, enjoyable weekend or travel pastimes. Mostly it’s for pleasure, but being in mar-com and having a magazine-journalism degree, admittedly I can’t read a magazine without thinking about the business aspects, too.

Interestingly, the very best magazines are exemplars of excellent branding. As traditional a medium as these printed pieces may be, there is and always has been an innate understanding by magazines of how to connect with a reader and extend the brand beyond the pages into the reader’s life.

While newspapers and television continue to struggle and social media morphs the traditional outlets, magazines seem the most adept and fittest of content contenders. Today’s edition of the Wall Street Journal highlights some ways magazines are looking beyond the standard format to engage readers.

True, magazines aren’t exactly flourishing with ad revenue and several have ceased publication; however, it’s refreshing and admirable to see magazines making valid, creative efforts to engage with readers. I’m (selfishly) betting on magazines to remain viable in the media evolution we’re experiencing.

With all the massive change going on in our business, we naturally get a “look forward” mentality, keeping us focused ahead so we can be up on the latest developments right when they happen.

But as with everything in life and the universe, we are what we are because of where we’ve been in the past. When Picasso was invited to be the first contemporary artist to view the cave paintings at Lascoux ( sp? ), he came out after some time and stated: “We have invented nothing.”

So, what about advertising? Should the newer and younger troops be aware of where the business has been? Does it matter to them, or anyone else?

I submit it does. The new technologies, interactions, socializations, etc. are changing the way we develop strategies, spend our client’s moneys, measure our successes and failures. But, and this is a big but, the decision to pursue, create and innovate still rests with people. Humans. Human relationships. Not to put too fine a point on it: Selling. The art of sales. Nothing will happen without the person who knows how to convince someone else to spend their money with company A, based on strategy A. Selling, on a personal, human, face-to-face level is still mandatory. Selling is a special skill, and very few can do it well. In my 30 years in advertising, I’ve met no more than a dozen who can do this.

Which brings us to today’s topic: the relevance of Mad Men. I’ve had the priviledge to have worked with two people who were in advertising in New York in the early 60’s. Both Brooklyn Jews, one a writer, one an art director. Mad Men takes place a few years before this, and my friends told me stories from then, about how they were part of the “creative revolution”, replacing the old staunchy system that was more similar to “The Hucksters” than to “Trust Me”.

But selling never changes. What I love about Mad Men are the presentations to clients. The creative director and the “suit” character have risen to their positions by being better at selling their thinking and their selves with more skill than any other sales category. They convince through logic and emotion, poetically and demonstrably. They represent the apex of the sales heirarchy.

To read more, and see some actual client presentation scripts, go to:

http://www.designobserver.com/archives/entry.html?id=30467

History is always the most interesting thing.

Last week KFC bit off more than it could chew. The company, in the midst of its biggest launch — grilled chicken — announced on Oprah Winfrey’s show that anyone could download a coupon for two free pieces of grilled chicken, two sides and a biscuit.

Little did KFC realize how impactful Oprah Winfrey is, and how much Americans love free food. In the first two days, KFC experienced a total of 10.5 million coupon downloads and gave away 4.5 million meals. Two problems occurred — some franchise stores stopped redeeming coupons, and KFC did not employ technology that would keep people from copying the coupons.

As a result, KFC removed the downloadable coupon from the Internet and instituted a rain check program. Customers were angry and expressed their negative feelings in-store and online.

While big-time publicity stunts can generate buzz, they also can backfire. Dr Pepper messed up last year when it bet against Guns N’ Roses finishing the “Chinese Democracy” album. Taco Bell, however, was lucky in 2001 when the Mir did not hit its South Pacific target. The lesson:  be prepared for a promotion to be successful.

That is right. After being of legal gambling age for over 10 years, a blackjack dealer for 2 and a half, and the founder of a home poker league that hosted over 40 tournaments (totally legal ones… really!), I’ve finally visited Las Vegas. Yes, Vegas, the “Gambling Capital of the World,” the “Glitter Gulch,” the “City of Lost Wages,” and even “Sin City.”

Just to get it out of the way, I actually did come back a winner. $122.50 to be exact. That of course does not count the money spent on the airfare, hotel, food and drink. But I’d be paying for that on any trip. And to drag this out even further before getting to the point of this post and for those interested in blackjack… I didn’t win a single hand in my first 10. Lost 9 and pushed 1 including the dealer getting 3 blackjacks and 2 draw 21′s in those first 10 hands. Not a good way to start. But I pulled out a moral and financial victory by getting it all back plus a little before a chain-smoking New Yorker with blackjack skills of the queen of hearts sat down and drove me away.

I guess that is as good of a transition to the purpose of this article as any. Introducing what I learned from Vegas.

1) Smoke. It is everywhere. Coming from Minnesota which has gone smoke free in all our bars and clubs it was a nasty realization. Smoke combined with all the dirty dust from the money pits of construction, including the MGM Mirage’s CityCenter project with a price tag of $9.1 billion (which a well-informed taxi driver said was closer to $12 billion), vanquished my voice for the entire trip.

If I had done more research by simply typing in “vegas smoke” on Google I could have found this “I’m allergic to smoke” forum post or this “Avoiding smoke in Vegas” blog from Chowhound if I was a bit more specific in my search query.

Or I could have gone to Twitter and done a search for “Las Vegas smoke” and gotten this result – MilesofTxtiles: @NewYorkology 15.8% lowest rate of smokers? That’s about the number of people in Las Vegas who DON’T smoke.

End result, there is a ton of good info available online for trip planning, don’t stop at just looking at pictures of hotel pools and restaurants. Be specific about what you want and see what type of user generated content you can find. Chances are someone out there has been there and had the same needs as you. And make sure if/when you do go that you go online and rate things. Your hotel, the restaurants you visited, the clubs you danced the night away at, the drinks you imbibed. We’re all on this world together so help the next guy/gal out and make sure they don’t make the same mistakes you did or even better get to experience the great things you found.

Stay tuned. This is the first of a 5 part series. If you are a Vegas rookie maybe it will help you out. If you are trying to figure out how to use the Web to help travel planning it might help you out. And if you are a Vegas insider from the outside and know everything about the town you’ll probably know exactly what I am saying.