Category Archives: Weblogs

Could it be Too Late Already for 2010 Trends?

Business Planning, Business Stories, Business Strategy, Weblogs, , , , ,

The trouble is that by the time it’s obvious, in terms of ideas and opportunities, it’s usually too late. The winners are already entrenched.

The reef metaphor is a good one, but usually you have to be early on the reef to reserve your spot. Only the big creatures, sharks and all, can cruise in late and get traction.

Coral reefs are ecosystems. Creatures and more creatures develop. Technology is too. We’ve seen technology worlds develop around personal computers, the Web, mobile phones, and lots of others.

One of the smartest people I know, a technology wizard, tipped me off to Robert Scoble’s The Google Reef post last week. That post linked to David Winer’s 2007 Twitter as coral reef post. Way before the rest of us caught on, he saw Twitter coming. Here’s his reef description:

Scattered throughout tropical seas are coral reefs that started when a ship sank and sea creatures made it their home. Then the predators of those creatures started hanging out, and their predators, all the way up the food chain. Eventually, if the ocean climate was right, a coral reef would appear, much larger than the wrecked ship that started it all.

Does it have to be a sinking ship? Reefs develop on their own too, right? I could try to stretch the idea to say personal computers developed over the wrecks of their bigger predecessors, and the Web over the wrecks of the early bulletin boards; but that’s pressing the metaphor too far. What Scoble was talking about was the development of markets around Google.

You have to see it early to win with it. We see here Dave Winer caught on to Twitter earlier than most of us. But then he also caught on to outliners, scripting, and some other things earlier than most of us. Some think of him as the original blogger, and he was there as an early RSS pioneer too. I first met him in the early 1980s, as the man behind the More outliner (and ThinkTank, and others).

Notice the timing: Twitter about three years ago. I think it does us all very little good to be onto some of these trends (Twitter, mobile apps, ebook readers, tablet computers and all) now. Now it’s obvious. If you want to really win, figure out what’s going to be big in 2013 or 2014.

And don’t guess wrong, because that can be expensive. We all assume first in the market is a great advantage, but not when it means you’re there too early. Maybe tablet computers are going to be big when Apple gets there, but they’ve disappointed most of the entrepreneurs who started earlier with them.

And good luck with that.

The First Three Commandments of PR

Weblogs, , ,

I guess many of us would like to think PR has fundamentally changed in the last 30 years, but frankly, not so much. At the core, some critical parts of it are built in. And they haven’t changed.

How would I know? I’ve been on both sides of this table. In the 70s I read press releases as a foreign correspondent for UPI and Business Week and others. In the 80s I read them as a monthly columnist for a software magazine. Then I became client of PR, company president, paying for press releases. Now I’m writing again, monthly columns in several publications, and this and other blogs, so I’m reading them again.

And wow, I have to say, so many of these things are boring and self-centered. They lead on themselves and why they care, rather than on what’s new and why anybody else would care. Person X has published a book is boring; give me something interesting about the book. Company Y announces a new product is boring; give me something the new product does for me, or for other people. Man bites dog, not dog bites man, please.

1. Make it Newsworthy

The news in media still matters.  I’m amazed at how many would-be press releases start out with totally self-centered boring “XXXX company announces the release of YYYY product” as if anybody really cared about it. Boring. What’s the news angle there? Give them a hint at the headline of the story. What’s new? Maybe it’s the first, or the biggest, or the oldest; it needs to be something worth highlighting. The first cell phone that shoots darts. The first manure-powered car. Put that in the first sentence.

2. Make it Interesting

Has everybody forgotten that fundamental principle of good business letter writing (emails too), that you start with “you” rather than “I”? That extends to press releases too. Instead of the I-focused “our company announces” how about starting with “Now you can get XXX” or “Do you need YYY”? It’s like headlines. Ask a question. Generate self interest. Focus on the benefit to the reader.

3. Make it Surprising

We’re talking here about media, so think of it as headlines again: surprising generates interest. This is great for surveys and research announcements, for example. Find the most surprising information in there, and make that the lead. A recent Kauffman survey found that typical founders are married with children and well-educated and strive to rise above their lower-middle-class heritage. So they led the press release with that. I found it surprising. And that’s a key. Even if it isn’t really new, surprising works very well.

Conclusion

Yes, I know the math of my saying the first three commandments is off, but it turns out that when you look at them, all three of them are essentially the same thing. It’s about the headline, or the lead. Make them read on. Make it the core of the first paragraph. Then quote somebody in the next paragraph, then get down to the which company announces what.

(Photo credit: Chepko Danil Vitalevich/Shutterstock)

Why Men With Pens is Written by a Woman. And Why That Matters.

Current Affairs, Weblogs, Writing, , , , , ,

Honestly, except for the name itself, I’ve never cared or wondered whether the author of Men With Pens was man or woman. It’s a good blog for writers. I did assume man, of course, because of the name of the blog, and the byline. This isn’t something I think about.

But I was shocked to read Why James Chartrand Wears Women’s Underpants as a post in CopyBlogger yesterday. It turns out that James Chartrand, author of the Men With Pens blog, @menwithpens on Twitter, is a woman, not a man.

Why do I care? I don’t care that she’s a woman and not a man. It makes no difference to the value of the content.  But I do care about the story she (James Chartrand) tells, and why she uses a man’s name.

Taking a man’s name opened up a new world. It helped me earn double and triple the income of my true name, with the same work and service.

No hassles. Higher acceptance. And gratifying respect for my talents and round-the-clock work ethic.

Business opportunities fell into my lap. People asked for my advice, and they thanked me for it, too.

Did I quit promoting my own name? Hell yeah.

I do believe that the difference between genders is the most interesting thing in creation. But I don’t believe in gender differences in jobs or opportunity and particularly not in writing. My favorite bloggers are about half and half, men and women. I just want the posts to be useful, interesting, amusing, and good. I’m as likely to read Pamela Slim or Anita Campbell as I am to read Seth Godin or John Jantsch. I like to think the world has come a long way since I was born in 1948. That the chauvinism we took for granted without even thinking about it in the 1950s and 1960s has given way to a better, more equal world.

Maybe so; but “more equal” isn’t the same as “equal.” Damn. Ask James Chartrand about that.

Everybody should read Why James Chartrand Wears Women’s Underpants. And everybody who cares about writing and blogging should subscribe to her blog – not because of her gender, or her surprising revelation about gender disguised, but, rather, because it’s got a lot of good content.

Did you Miss the Online Train? Is it too Late?

Marketing, Technology, Web/Tech, Weblogs

Even if you don’t have a website, blog, Facebook page, Yahoo! or Google listing, it’s still not too late. It really isn’t. That’s what they said in 1999, and again in 2005, and every day. The future just keeps on coming, day after day. Jump on now, and you can look back later.

Seth Godin, one of my favorite bloggers, has an excellent post titled is it too late to catch up?  He suggests some things to do about it, and one very interesting thing not to do, which is (quoting):

Don’t have any meetings about your web strategy. Just do stuff. First you have to fail, then you can improve.

That’s pretty aggressive, but it makes sense in context of the rest of his suggestions. Seth has suggestions like putting the president’s real email on every invoice, giving bonuses for blogging, getting Gmail email addresses for everybody. Good stuff.

And even this one, which, despite my years as a consultant (and maybe that’s because of) I also like a lot:

Refuse to cede the work to consultants. You don’t outsource your drill press or your bookkeeping or your product design. If you’re going to catch up, you must (all of you) get good at this, and you only accomplish that by doing it.

However, there’s this irony: Seth’s writing it in a blog. I read it in a blog. I’m recommending it in a blog. And the people it’s intended for, those who don’t have websites or blogs or Facebook pages, probably aren’t reading blogs. Sigh…

(Image credit: schlaeger, via Flickr cc)

Develop Your Business, Not Just Your Business Plan

Weblogs

I’m still long-term frustrated with how many people lose the potential steering and management benefits of business planning because they focus on the plan as document instead of the planning as management. With that in mind, and in honor of Global Entrepreneurship Week 2009, I did a webinar Nov. 19 on the theme in the title of this post. Here is the recording:

http://www.youtube.com/p/48C303850E8CD942&hl=en_US&fs=1

If for any reason you don’t see the video here, you can also click here to go directly to the source, a playlist on YouTube.

There’s an important point I’m trying to make. Don’t dismiss business planning as part of your business life just because you don’t want (or have) to do a formal business plan document. Most of us running businesses don’t have to do a formal document. We do, however, want to do our business as well as we can.

It doesn’t have to be the big formal plan you avoid because it sounds hard. Keep it simple, just big enough to manage and steer your business. Write it down so you can track progress and make course corrections. But maybe you never print it; just leave it on your computer.

Here are five main components:

1. Define success

Be realistic. And recognize that success is different for different people. Is it about getting financed, growing big, becoming rich? Or is it doing what you like to do, while making enough to get by? Independence? Wealth? It’s not nearly as simple and uniform as sales growth, profits, and cash flow. Start with that.

2. Focus

You can’t do everything. You can’t please everybody. Focus on your keys to success, and your core competence. Focus on a well defined target market, and know who isn’t in your market, and why not. Strategy is a lot about what you’re not doing.

3. Understand the steps

Break it down into the steps you’ll need to take. What has to happen? How do you get to that success? What will it take. Define some key points, milestones.

4. Put it into specifics

Think about metrics and measurement so you can track progress. Lots of numbers and dates. Task assignments, responsibilities.

5. Follow up and manage

Track your plan. Set regular review points, look at plan vs. actual results, and make course corrections.

10 Simple Easy Ways to Green Your Business

Weblogs, ,

This weekend I finished Greening Your Small Business, a well written and easily readable new book by Jennifer Kaplan, dealing with a lot of background and a lot of specifics about the idea of “greening” the business. Happily, she starts out by defining what “greening” means, in several practical contexts. Then she deals with greening as green marketing, green travel, green purchasing, and a good understanding of the underlying business rationale.

One thing I particularly liked about the book was its list of 50 easy ways to make your business greener. To my mind, the simple and easy-to-implement tips are by far the most valuable. Here are my 10 favorites, taken from those 50 (all of this is direct quote):

  1. Make recycling easy by providing clearly marked bins throughout the workplace.
  2. Turn off lights (and other equipment) when not in use (i.e. at night).
  3. Turn off computers and monitors every night. Just shut them down.
  4. Make use of scanners and PDF formatting to digitize hard copy data for future use and distribution.
  5. If your copier permits it, set the default to double sided.
  6. Add this message to your email signature: by not printing this email, you’ve helped save paper, ink, and trees.
  7. Fax electronically–send and receive faxes directly from your computer(s); if you fax the old-fashioned way, eliminate cover sheets by sticking a post-it fax cover note on the first page.
  8. Whenever possible, eliminate direct mail from your media mix.
  9. Create electronic versions of materials such as media kits, reports, and other documents, and then post them to your website.
  10. Eliminate disposable items in the workplace.

I’m afraid I can’t say that I do everything on this list. But I am trying as much as I can.

[disclosure: Jennifer sent me a review copy of her book.]

5 Entrepreneurship Basics B-Schools Can Teach

Business Education, Weblogs, ,

I’ve been asked a lot lately about business schools and entrepreneurship, which is why I did this post, last Friday, about one thing wrong in that area; and then this one yesterday, on whether business schools can teach entrepreneurship. That’s become a very interesting discussion. I expect to post on it again, if only just to summarize some of those comments.

So, in the meantime, looking at Twitter and comment reactions to yesterday’s post, I sat down today and thought about what you can learn about entrepreneurship in a classroom, that will help you be a successful entrepreneur. Not that you can’t also learn all of this from books, websites, mentors, and advisors too; but learning it in class might be more efficient.

 

1. Cash flow

Cash flow is critical but not intuitive. Cash isn’t profits. That ebb and flow of cash related to accounts receivable and inventory management, collection days and payment days. This one by itself justifies studying entrepreneurship. Studying this in the classroom is way better than learning it the hard way. One cash flow disaster (running out of money) in business can cost you more than two years in business school. Easily.

2. Business planning

Yes, I really like business planning. I’ve liked it since I was first exposed to it in the middle 1970s. Don’t get bogged down in the formal academic full business plan, necessarily; but business planning is a great way to see a whole business, from strategic focus to objectives to specific milestones, tasks, responsibilities, management, sales, marketing, and finance. And it’s a great tool for teaching.

3. General business fundamentals

Never underestimate the fundamentals of strategy, marketing, data gathering, finance, and analytical thinking. There’s a lot to be said for learning how to translate concepts to numbers and back to concepts. Not to mention vocabulary, and analytical frameworks, and methodologies for isolating problems and layout out solutions. Disciplines and methodologies are good to know. And hey, buzzwords don’t hurt.

 

4. Communication skills

Writing — clear, simple communication, in practical English sentences — is so important. It is so often underestimated. And presentation skills, focusing on what’s most important and communicating that to others. My experience is that good business schools teach that.

 

5. Skepticism

A good education can teach you what not to believe, and why not. Enthusiasm is great, and you hear so much about passion and persistence and all, but not without a basis for reviewing what makes sense and what doesn’t.

The Best Startup Funding is Initial Sales

Advice, Back to Fundamentals, Starting a Business, Weblogs,

We all forget too easily: the best startup funding is sales. Sure, angel investment, friends and family, SBA loans, all of those options are necessary for most startups. But sales is better.

If you can, find the early customers. Give them a deal, make them important, work with them to optimize their needs; but make a sale.

Even if you need to go out and find investment — and I speak now as an actual angel investor — there’s almost nothing as convincing as actual sales. People are spending money. It makes a new business proposal far more credible.

True, not all businesses can do that. But a lot of them can. And, as we write about business plans and seeking investment and all, we forget the real sweet spot: finance growth by making the sales.

The Joy of User Revolts

Social media, Web/Tech, Weblogs, ,

It’s not that surprising, really; and we’ve seen it before with Facebook. When Twitter released a new feature, and it’s users didn’t like it, they had to change it back.

The Wired Magazine online story is Mob Rule! How Users Took Over Twitter. I found it interesting reading.

For the same kind of thing in Facebook, here’s a link to a Google search for “Facebook user revolt.”

The user revolt is a high-class problem. It’s the trappings of success. It means 1) you have users; 2) they care about what you’re doing with the site they use; and 3) there’s a forum or medium they can use to make their opinions known.

This is a great sign of real success. It’s a problem only if nobody listens.

(Photo credit: Flickr cc, by Daliborlev)

On Twitter, A/B Analysis, and the Art of Headlines

Blogs and blogging, Journalism, Web/Tech, Weblogs, , ,

Do you like my headline here, on this post? Can you write a better one?

Headlines are critical. I’ve noted that, with some frustration (I’m not so good at headlines) on this blog before, here.

Headlines come up today because being in New York last week to  judge the Forbes.com business plan contest gave me a chance to visit with my son Paul, who lives in New York, and is CTO of Huffington Post. And he told me what they’re doing on the Huffington Post about headlines.

Why do you care? Maybe because (whether you like its political views or not) in the last 2-3 years Huffington Post has posted huge growth in traffic and advertiser and investor interest and visibility and traffic. So they have to be doing a lot of things right. And, if you’re writing or blogging, you should know about how they do headlines.

It starts with a lot of testing. Paul was quoted in How the Huffington Post uses real-time testing for headlines in Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab:

The Huffington Post applies A/B testing to some of its headlines. Readers are randomly shown one of two headlines for the same story. After five minutes, which is enough time for such a high-traffic site, the version with the most clicks becomes the wood that everyone sees.

And then there’s Twitter. As a Twitter user, I enjoyed reading Huffpost crowd sources headlines in Snoo.ws. Here are highlights:

Using the hashtag #headlinehelp, visitors will be able to click on a link to an article and help write an appropriate headline that fits the story. Through social byproduct, the best headline will filter through to editors.

The Huffington Post made its first attempt at using the hashtag late yesterday asking participants to replace the headline, “No, YOU Lie,” regarding a story about Rep. Joe Wilson’s interjectory fireworks during President Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress.

Hashtags are not perfect aggregators by any means, as previous use of them has seen contests hijacked and critical messaging spoiled. With Huffington Post’s reputation, they surely have gained some followers who may wish to use this idea in a negative way for the company.

How cool is that? I’d love to copy that idea. But reality rears up its ugly head: Huffington Post has hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter; I have barely four thousand. Mine are smarter and better looking, but still …

Or no, perhaps, not so cool? Maybe data-driven headlines are a problem (quoting The Noisy Channel on this subject):

I’m sure this approach must rattle some old-school journalists. And there is a real danger of optimizing for the wrong outcome. For example, including the word “sex” in this message might improve its traffic … but to what end?

OK, good point, but the discovery that there are some words (sex, violence, naked, brutal) which get better results is nothing new. It’s older than I am (I posted about words I won’t put into titles despite the temptation on this blog a couple of years ago).  What’s new is the ability to test quickly and bring a crowd into it in a practical way.

It’s not about asking people what’s new, or changing the news content. It’s about headlines. And gaining readers.