Making Lemonade

November 30, 2009 By 14 Comments

Have you recently been laid off?  Going through some difficult times?  Today Bob Collins, who I work with at New Marketing Labs, showed me this cool project, Lemonade, that he has been helping out with as a side project.

Lemonade is about “what happens when people who were once paid to be creative in advertising are forced to be creative with their own lives.”

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Besides the trailer, you can also check out the Facebook Group.

If you’ve recently been laid off, what have you used your down time, besides hunting for a job?  Have you been trying to make your own lemonade?

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Is Social Media A Fad?

November 29, 2009 By 29 Comments

When speaking with people that are outside of the social media, marketing or technology circles, many believe that social media is just a fad.  They think about the numerous news stories about pedophiles on MySpace; don’t understand why you should tell people that you had pizza for dinner on Twitter; and think that Facebook is only for high school and college students.  In order to turn these groups of people into believers, they need stats and case studies.

Well, fortunately for them, there are tons of great case studies such as JetBlue, Comcast, Dell, and Southwest (Chris Brogan keeps a bunch more on his Delicious page).  There are dozens of stats over on sites such as Mashable, ReadWriteWeb, TechCrunch, and a number of other blogs.  For even more stats, enough to make your head pop, check out my Delicious page.  But, unless you keep up on this rapidly growing industry, it can be hard to keep up with the ever-changing stats.

Instead of reading post after post with charts, graphs, and comparisons, I’d highly recommend you check out this video on the social media revolution.  It provides a visual that’s more powerful and easier to grasp than charts and graphs.  I don’t know about you, but spreadsheets, while necessary, tend to put me to sleep.  I tend to retain more via watching videos.  So, I hope this video is helpful to you as well.

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So, what’s your take?  How do you change the minds of those who think social media is just a fad?

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Living in the Cloud and Google OS

November 28, 2009 By 8 Comments

If you’ve been keeping up on your reading of tech blogs, then you can’t get away from all of the increased chatter over Google OS.  Google continues to try revolutionizing the way we interact with the web.  Google OS is going to change the way we work on a computer.  Initially, the target will be netbooks and will change the way we think of the typical desktop.  As Google explains:

For now, Google OS is not designed to be your main operating system.  It’s just a fast way to get online, a simplified operating system that removes unnecessary software and opens the browser in a few seconds.

Google OS will keep everything you do in the cloud.  Obviously, the suite of apps will be Google products.  While the launch of Google OS is exciting, and plenty of blogs have covered the launch, it does bring about the question of living in the cloud.

Many people I know turn to the cloud for some portion of their daily interactions but still feel more comfortable and interact with a typical desktop.  For example, I use Google Docs for documents that I want to share with others or that I want to be able to access any time (in addition to tools like Dropbox).  For day-to-day documents, spreadsheets, and slide decks, I use iWork or Microsoft Office.  Instead of sharing documents, I attach them to emails which then cause a long thread and confusion over the latest document version.  I know that using cloud-based apps like Google Docs would solve this, especially for a company using the Google Apps environment.  But, the challenge is that as a business society, we are still comfortable with doing the email thread method, even if we know it’s not the most productive.

Eventually we will all make the convergence fully to the cloud.  If Google has any say in it, their push of Google OS will help to make that convergence even sooner.

Check out this video from Google to find out more about Google OS.

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What are your thoughts on living in the cloud?  What percentage of your time is spent using cloud-based apps versus desktop apps?

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The Audacity to Win Video Review

November 12, 2009 By 9 Comments

Were you as amazed as most of the rest of the country when Barack Obama seemingly came out nowhere to take the 2008 Presidential election by storm?  Have you sat back and scratched your head wondering how the Obama campaign did it?  Are you amongst the group that wants to understand how they built such a strong community, both online and offline?  Need a break from the regular onslaught of business, marketing, and self-help books?  If you’re whipping your head up and down, first, stop.  We wouldn’t want you to get whip-lash.  Now, don’t even bother watching the video below and go buy 5 copies of The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama’s Historic Victory (Amazon affiliate link) by David Plouffe.  Enough said.

Want some more explanation?  David Plouffe was the campaign manager and chief architect of the Obama presidential campaign.  Over the course of 2 years the campaign raised more than $750 million, had a staff of almost 6,000 people and an army of volunteers that totaled into the millions.  The Audacity to Win (Amazon affiliate link) takes you closer than any other account of the Obama campaign has.  There are many business, marketing, community development and time management takeaways in addition to the granular level detail of what it takes to run a presidential campaign.

As usual, I shot a quick video with my thoughts on the book.  If you can’t view the video, check it out over on my YouTube channel.

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The Importance of Quiet Time

November 11, 2009 By 9 Comments

In the insanely fast paced lives that most of us lead suggesting that you should add in time for reflection or quiet timesasha would be launch an attack of virtual (or physical) stones being thrown at me. But, taking quiet time is an essential quality for leaders.  In several interviews with leaders and executives from all over the world, those such as President Obama, Bill Gates, and many others, they have mentioned the importance of taking quiet time for reflection, thinking, and planning.  For some, this may be on a daily basis while others may carve out time out of their week, month, quarter or year.

While I admit that I’m in the same boat as I would imagine most of you are so I fail to take this down time as often as I should.  That is exactly one of my favorite reasons for flying. After the laptop dies, I read all of the magazines and am tired of reading a book, I usually turn on chill, relaxed music (e.g. Boyz II Men, Usher, or something similar) and just blankly stare out of the window or close my eyes.  I find this is the time when I develop my next moves, develop new ideas for my clients, work through presentations or simply reflect.

I wish I could force this time into my schedule every day.  But, of course, the demands of work and life takeover and before I know it, there are a few hours left to grab a couple hours of sleep before it all starts over again.  It is something I’m striving to do more of now and have actually begun scheduling it into my calendar.  I find it that valuable.

Do you take quiet time to strategize, plan, think or just let your mind wonder? Do you find it valuable?  How do you fit it into your schedule and on what frequency?

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