Archive for the 'management' Category

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Shocking “business” stats

I was just turned on to the upcoming movie, Amazing Grace, about William Wilberforce and his life’s work of abolishing slavery in England. It from the same follks that produced Bridge to Terabitha, Chronicles of Narnia and Ray.

As a businessman with a decent amount of international sales & marketing experience, I had no idea just how big child slave labor is TODAY. There are more than 27 million people in slavery around the world today. That’s more than double the numbers of the mid to late 1800’s. I know there are valiant efforts in place to reduce child labor and sweat shops, but the numbers are shocking:

  • 27,000,000+ in slavery today
  • 50% are children
  • 1 in 5 of the world’s 5-17 year olds work in the worst forms of child labor
  • 91 cities in the US have reported cases of human trafficking
  • 800,000 people trafficked across international borders each year

To learn more and sign the petition to end modern day slavery, visit Amazing Change, the social action component of the movie. Rumor has it that George Bush will be the last signature before it goes to the UN to take sanctions against countries that encourage or turn a deaf ear to slave trade. Love Bush or hate Bush, this is the right thing to do.

Visit the Amazing Change Website

Press Release 2.0

Stowe Boyd of /Message has been stirring up a hornets nest on how the traditional press release fits into this new world of social media. If you’re responsible for corporate or marketing communications you owe it to yourself to check out his posts.

Original Post

Follow Up Response

As this social medium matures, I think it’s important to realize that for the time being, social marketing avenues are just one of many marketing tools. It’s far too early for most businesses to abandon everything but blogs, ratings, and user generated content. And it’s still a little early to hang your hat on RSS. There are decades of infrastructure and communication channels that businesses leverage to get their message out – though few will argue that most do a poor job of communicating effectively.

Having said that, the sooner that traditional businesses get up to speed with this “trend” that is quickly becoming mainstream, the better off they’ll be (i.e. their brand communications will be more honest, more human, and more effective).

Power 150 – Top Marketing Blogs in US

Power 150 Graphic

Todd Andrlick put together a Power 150 list of American marketing related blogs. I thought, “this will be great, all the best marketing blogs in one spot.” And guess who’s #103? Little ol’ me. What an awesome surprise. Todd’s blog is a great read itself and I’m honored to be included in the list – in fact it looks a lot like my Google Reader RSS feed list. I’ve seen my subscription #’s and views go up steadily over the last year. It’s nice to know that others are paying attention and value my thoughts.

technorati tags: power 150, marketing, blog, todd andrlick

Still don’t believe in the power of blogging?

I’m still amazed at the power an individual brings to the table:

From Mack at MarketingProfs

Kohl’s obviously didn’t ask for this, but more importantly, how will they respond?

Social Media Research

A small collection of white papers and presentations for those wanting to learn more about how social media is impacting marketing strategy. This list is by no means exhaustive, but it is a great start on learning the basics to take advantage of current trends. Social media can be a great addition to your marketing toolbox.

BrandCamp by Tom Fishburn

Marketing Evolution Carnival #1 – January 2, 2007

Marketing (r)evolution Carnival

Welcome to the January 2, 2007 edition of Marketing (r)evolution Carnival brought to you by Nick Rice @ Strategic Design.

This Carnival is an aggregation of some of the best thoughts on the future of advertising, branding, marketing and strategy. Enjoy and Happy New Year!

Advertising

Valeria Maltoni presents Where’s the Benefit to me? posted at Conversation Agent, saying, “Thank you for this opportunity to contribute to the conversation.”

Chris Houchens presents Users First posted at Shotgun Marketing BLOG, saying, “Your customers are what “monetize” a business. Stop developing short term strategies that kill long term gains.”

Murad Ali presents Three (3) Easy Ways to Optimize Your Blog posted at The New Marketing World.

Branding

Jack Yoest presents Rocky Balboa: Courage, Integrity, Faith, Victory The Movie posted at Reasoned Audacity, saying, “Your Business Blogger was in Philly recently and wondered about the Rocky statue that was briefly at the top of the 72 steps to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Since September, the statue is now at the base of the steps. So I decided to ask the man who might know, Sylvester Stallone. Why? I asked him. Rocky Sly says, It’s better where it is — at the base of the steps. At the top was the completion — the end — but it’s not the completion that counts — it’s the journey. The Effort; The Passion.”

Kevin Skarritt presents Jingle all the Way posted at Nuts and Bolts of Brand.

Marketing

C.B. Whittemore presents Shelly Lazarus on the Future of Advertising & Marketing posted at Flooring The Consumer.

David Maister presents I Can’t Believe This Worked on Me! posted at Passion, People and Principles, saying, “We all love to believe that we are very rational in our own buying, but there are times when marketing and selling approaches that we would like to believe don’t work on us, well, they actually do.”

Kevin Skarritt presents Control Freak! posted at Nuts and Bolts of Brand.

Matthew Paulson presents The Problem with Quixtar & Amway. posted at Getting Green.

Charles H. Green presents Bad Marketing 101: Trust Me! posted at Trust Matters, saying, “What are the two most trust-destroying words you can say? “Trust me!”"

Mike Sansone presents Is del.icio.us a Marketing Tool? posted at Converstations.

Strategy

Andy Nulman presents Theory 2-Intimate Goes Big posted at Pow! Right Between The Eyes! Andy Nulman’s Blog About Surprise, saying, “Happy to be at the carnival, and wondering if the rights to the cotton candy concession are still available.”

Tim Peter presents What Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft will buy in 2007 and why… » thinks posted at Tim Peter thinks…, saying, “This is from about a week ago, but I think it takes a broad look at media 2.0 in 2007. Enjoy!”

Tim Peter presents What’s the least you can do? » thinks posted at Tim Peter thinks…, saying, “This is an another post that you might also find useful. Enjoy.”

Matthew Paulson presents Gold: A Bad Investment posted at Getting Green.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of Marketing (r)evolution Carnival using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: marketing (r)evolution carnival, blog carnival, marketing, advertising, strategy, branding

Latest posts on SmallBusinessBranding.com

SmallBusinessBranding.com is starting to take off. We have a goal of 1000+ subscribers and we are seeing consistent growth. Here are my latest posts:

The Business of Business

A Lesson from the Garage

Lack of Creativity is Killing Business

Z-lister link love update

Many thanks to Mack for putting together the original list of “z-list” bloggers that need a little attention. The goal was to disrupt the Technorati rankings by sharing a little link love amongst authors with great content but without the recognition of Top 100 bloggers.

Here’s the original list:

Shotgun Marketing Blog
BrandSizzle
bizsolutionsplus
Customers Rock!
Being Peter Kim
Pow! Right Between The Eyes! Andy Nulman’s Blog About Surprise
Billions With Zero Knowledge
Working at Home on the Internet
MapleLeaf 2.0
darrenbarefoot.com
Two Hat Marketing

The Emerging Brand
The Branding Blog
CrapHammer
Drew’s Marketing Minute
Golden Practices
Viaspire
Tell Ten Friends
Flooring the Consumer
Kinetic Ideas
Unconventional Thinking
Buzzoodle
Conversation Agent
The Copywriting Maven
Hee-Haw Marketing
Scott Burkett’s Pothole on the Infobahn
Multi-Cult Classics
Logic + Emotion
Branding & Marketing
Popcorn n Roses
On Influence & Automation
Bullshitobserver
Servant of Chaos
converstations
eSoup
Presentation Zen
Dmitry Linkov
aialone
John Wagner
Nick Rice | marketing & branding thoughts
CKs Blog
Design Sojourn
Frozen Puck
The Sartorialist
Small Surfaces
Africa Unchained
Perspective
gDiapers
Marketing Nirvana
Bob Sutton
¡Hola! Oi! Hi!
Shut Up and Drink the Kool-Aid!
Women, Art, Life: Weaving It All Together
Community Guy
Social Media on the fly

Customers are always

Small Business Branding

z-list

The jump to Wordpress

It’s coming up on one year of blogging and I’ve had the best time. I started on Blogger and tweaked the heck out of their templates before I made the decision to switch platforms. Wordpress is great and doesn’t have the stigma that Blogger does; not that there aren’t a lot of valuable blogs on Blogger, just that there’s a lot of splogs too.

Anyway, here’s the new home. Hope you continue to enjoy the posts.

An employee’s confusion

I read this on Hugh’s manifesto request and had to pass it on…

Anna Farmery of The Engaging Brand blog sent me in this manifesto:

If… a brand starts inside, an employee’s confusion

1. If you believe in the strategy, why can’t you explain it?

2. If talent is important, why is promotion based on your social circle?

3. If we are entrepreneurial, why do we make decisions by consensus?

4. If values are important enough to put on a card, why are they not applicable to leaders?

5. If the future is important, why do we spend time in meetings looking at the past?

6. If you embrace talent why, do you only speak to me about my weaknesses?

7. If we aim for a USP why, are encouraged to produce sameness?

8. If we believe in diversity, why are you all 40+, white and male?

9. If we need to cut development and R&D to hit budget, how can you afford a two-day team bonding session in a 5-star hotel?

10. If it is us that interact with customers, why don’t you see we should feel the brand values first?