Where Product is the New Marketing and Marketing is the New Product
I came across this video earlier in the week and just couldn’t resist sharing.
While meant to be taken lightly, the video does an outstanding job of illustrating marketing strategy. All it really takes is three little steps,
Enjoy and have a great weekend!
Before the holidays, I was in Xi’an, China doing market research. It had been a long day of customer interviews and all we had time for was a quick walk around the old city wall before the night sessions.
While walking next to the wall, in what seemed like a tranquil park, we ran into something completely unexpected – an outdoor roller skating rink. It was a scene right out of the 70′s including speed skating, skate dancing, and a little roller derby all going on at the same time.
Check out the short video below that captures a bit of the excitement:
Just about a year ago, I wrote a post talking about this blog and my lack of overall goals. Reading one of Rohit Bhargava’s latest articles set off an “ah ah” moment for me on how to best explain why I am blogging.
Rohit comments:
Social media is just one of the tools that I use on a daily basis. To focus on just that and make it my identity would be like calling a runner a “sneaker guy.” They might love their sneakers, but it’s still the method they use to get from where they are to where they want to be. The way I use social media is similar … I use it for marketing. I’m a marketing guy first and foremost. It’s why my blog is called Influential Marketing and why you won’t ever hear my introduce myself as an expert in social media. I use it often, and do know what I’m doing – but my expertise and my career is in marketing.
I am also a marketing guy and having knowledge and skills when it comes to social media (and content development) is going to become more and more of a prerequisite going forward. I am may not have all of the goals for this blog figure out but I do have one of the most important:
I am working on a new product plan and am on a quest for the ever elusive sweet spot.
Definition: a sweet spot is a place, often numerical, as opposed to physical, where a combination of factors suggest a particularly suitable solution.
I know its out there somewhere, waiting for me to find it - but it isn’t making it easy. You see, finding your product’s sweet spot is a lot like Goldilocks at lunch time - very hard to please. A little to the left is too small. A little to the right is too big.
A little too late, you get eaten by bears.
Signs at the Cancun airport duty free shop:
They really take their shopping seriously here:
Put simply, workplace optimism, if nurtured properly, can be a competitive advantage…Best Buy (BBY), for example, says a 2% increase in employee engagement at one of its electronics stores corresponds, on average, to a $100,000 annual rise in sales at that location.
Have I mentioned I am way overdue for a vacation (as I am sure most are these days)?
Unfortunately, the timing is crap. There are a million things going on with my product, key launch dates are approaching, and there is an endless request for Power Points.
Nevertheless, the tickets are purchases and the rooms are booked. It is only a short 4 day trip but I am going to do the unthinkable and not bring my laptop. This will be the longest I have been off work email in three years.
I have to admit it feels good and terrifying at the same time. The idea of not getting any red hot urgent issues for a few days sounds amazing. The thought of coming back Sunday night with a thousand emails to read, not so good.
Anyway, I am off. Will worry about that on Sunday.
Take care,
Josh
I am failing at “Making It All Work”, David Allen style. The last week has been crazy and I have had to focus all my energies on just staying afloat. So, instead of having my own personal review of MIAW, here are some great ones I found before I bought the book (at this rate, Allen will have a new book out before I finish):
As usual, Allen’s approach appears to be a combination of business-speak and Zen enlightenment (with a sprinkling of sports metaphors about “winning your game”). The concept of self-management alone connotes the idea that you’d manage your monkey mind they way you would an unruly underling at the office.
I found the book full of common sense brilliance. Reading this book in conjunction with a two day re-booting my GTD system for the start of a new year was extremely helpful.
In fact, when I put it down, my initial reaction was “Getting Things Done is stronger for engineers and left-brain types – Making It All Work fits better with right-brain types.”
Seven years later David Allen still remains a fresh and insightful voice in the field of business and personal development. He electrifies his reader with his profound and poignant down home style that is at once practical as it is philosophical.
On a side note, I am testing a new iPhone application called SmartTime. The app lets you scheudle tasks and events and synch with Google Calendar. It has several cool features such as filtering by tags and managing multiple projects and calendars. I can’t say I have figured it all out yet but I am working on it. For $9.99 it is worth checking out.
Just started listening to the new book from GTD guru David Allen, Making It All Work. Billed as a companion toolkit to the now classic, Getting Things Done:
David Allen shows us how to excel in dealing with our daily commitments, the unexpected, and the information overload that threatens to drown us. “Making It All Work” provides an instantly usable, success-building toolkit for winning “the game.”
It is still early so check back in a bit for a review/recommendation.
I have been off and on again with GTD for quite some time. I have found that when I am not swamped, I am too lazy to keep up with a system and when I am swamped, my system is not ingrained enough to keep up. Basically, I am still at level 1 GTD, list management (trying to find a spot for everything hence the Tetris reference).
In an effort to improve my GTD skills I am going to try and be explicit on what I am tracking and how I am doing it. Here is my current system and tools:
More to come here.
TechCrunch ran a story over the weekend with a review of Digg’s financials and it is not looking that good (also on Silicon Alley).
The first three quarters of 2008 Digg had revenues of $6.4 million and losses of $4 million. That implies total 2008 revenue of $8.5 million, with $5.3 million in losses.
The big question that TechCrunch asks is what are the estimated 35+ engineers working on at Digg? With a smaller staff, their massive web traffic (estimated at 16 million worldwide unique monthly visitors) should enable them to squeak out a profit of some kind.
The speculation is that they are trying to build some sort of advanced advertisement platform similar to Google’s AdSense that will enable them to insert targeted adds into their user generated posts. In the theory, that sounds like a good idea, but will it really pay off?
I am a fan of Digg and visit the site daily (If you don’t know much about Digg and their founder Kevin Rose, Inc.com recently published an overview). It is one of the best places on the web to find all the current popular news, stories, and latest gossip and follies. But that in itself is the issue. “All” is a very broad market to target on the web and Digg hangs it all out there to see.
Here is a sample of a few of the stories on the front page today:
This is the best part of Digg. Right next to serious social/political issues are irreverent, silly, outrageous, and sometimes, offensive posts. That’s great for users of Digg but make a tough sale for corporate advertisers. Now, I am not saying that corporate advertisers will not post ads on Digg. In fact, right now there is an ad for a Ford Flex featured in the top right banner. But note, this is right above the ad from GIftCardFreebies.com (view screen shot here).
There are a lot of brands out there that are not going to like having their products squashed between jokes on Marijuana and SMBC comics and these brands have deep pockets.
So what about Google then? They have targeted ads and they can have much more offensive material on their site so, why are they such a success? Because Google search starts with a blank canvas and you give it a target. It knows that if you are searching for Teddy Bear vs. Teddy, what is acceptable and what is not. Plus in situations where there is ambiguity, the lack of banner ads help keep the site neutral.
The hardest part of this for Digg is that even though they helped drive this GroundSwell of user generated content, they don’t control it (see HD-DVD encryption fiasco). Any effort to mainstream the site or push edgy content off the front page will not be met with a quiet response.
Thoughts?
