Categories
Brain Buster Podcasting The Marketeer

Christopher Penn – Honorary Ronin

So I thought I was pretty clever earlier this week with my Rule of 2 (don’t waste your time with social networks that you only hear about once), then Chris Penn, of The Financial Aid Podcast weighed in with a brilliant comment – who gives a damn about the 2 minutes it takes to register, join every network out there to lock down your namespace (protect your brand in Marketese), and he’s absolutely right. He also pointed me towards some other crazy crap Google is trying.
The thing is, this is not the first time he’s dealt me a brainbuster. He’s doing crazy stuff all the time over on MySpace and he’s always experimenting. He’s also good at scripting, and I’m not, so that makes me jealous.

You may ask “Why only an Honorary Ronin”? Chris is actually a ninja, so calling him a Ronin would be an affront. I’ll let him correct my limited understanding if necessary, but the Ninja work for the emperor, sort of like Navy Seals (but you never see them and if there was a movie about them with Charlie Sheen in it, everyone involved in the film would end up assassinated). The Ronin is often without a master, usually because they have been disgraced – basically mercenaries.

In other words it’s sort of like how Colin Powell would be Sir Colin if not for that altercation we had with the kingdom back in the late 1700’s.

I also salute him for working at this place that, for some unknown reason, he’s the only one there that’s not a supermodel (actually I just checked Flickr and for some reason there were some other guys at the holiday party this year, maybe they took some heat for discrimination or something).

So Chris, this sangria’s for you.

Categories
Daily Life Productivity Booster

Defend Against Social Networks – The Rule of 2

As a hip, swinging Web 2.0 kind of guy/gal, I’m sure you have the same problem – every other week, at minimum, you get an invite to join YASN (Yet Another Social Network). After a while your inbox is crammed with notices and spam from a bunch of websites have names with no vowels, and no traffic.

Fear naught, the answer is here! The defense is “JFunk’s Rule of 2”. Anytime I’m asked to join YASN I make a mental note of the name of the network and if I ever get asked again (this is where the 2 part comes in…) I’ll join. I figure that if a social network can’t get on my radar from more than one source, it’s probably not going to make it anyplace.

Not the most earth shattering post, but for some reason I feel much better on passing up an invite for YASN… “Oh, I’m sorry, we just have rules about these things, It’s not that I have anything against giving my personal data to some group nobody has ever heard of before”.

In other news we had the work Yankee Swap. I got a candle (not a guy’s gift), swapped for some lottery tickets (which always move on), swapped for a Mag-lite flashlight. I was happy with that but then that got swapped out for a cheaper no-name flashlight. I would have preferred the Best Buy gift certificate I threw in the ring, alas…

Categories
Brain Buster Geek Stuff

Brain Busting Dilemma

This just happened and I had to sneak over here for a quick post. My plan this morning was to go to a holiday gathering of former co-workers from DCI. I just heard about Crayon’s holiday party in Second Life… I’m actually considering passing on the real world event for the virtual one.

Categories
Productivity Booster SalesForce.com SEO and Paid Search The Marketeer

SalesForce.com for the Treo

About a month ago I noticed that with the exception of a “dummies” book there were very few print resources out there on the big SF so I decided to turn to the blogosphere. I stumbled across SalesforceWatch.com and found a post that they were looking for usability testers for the next release of Salesforce for the Treo.

Because I was an alternate I never got an NDA, but I’m not going to yap and betray Melissa, who gave me the guided tour. The one thing that I liked the most is already in the existing version – the ability to see the latest Opportunities that have Closed as Wins. It’s a cool system but I really need to upgrade my Treo 600 to take advantage of it. In other SF news I still have not been able to get the Google AdWords/Salesforce integration to work. My server only likes forms that use “Submit” and I need to use a different term if I want the SF snippet to work. More experimenting this week to see if I can get that to work. I’m also doing a bunch of hygiene with Ringlead and that’s working well.

Categories
Email Marketing The Marketeer

HTML vs Plain Text Email

I sent off an email campaign yesterday and finally got around to testing a full-color HTML message vs a plain text one. I’m an old enough fart to remember how open and click-throughs exploded when images were added to email so this could be the coming of the full circle. Trying to get a plain text email out proved to be quite a challenge, there’s no way in ConstantContact to just click “Text Only” (but I thought of a workaround for that, of course 1 day after moving hell and earth to get it out via an Outlook mail merge, which is another horror story of it’s own adding to my December from hell).

So in the spirit of the Rocky Balboa release today, I’m wondering if there are any opinions out there on who will be triumphant, the champion or the challenger?

Categories
Brain Buster Lead Generation The Marketeer

Virtual Telemarketing

As a follow-up to my post on “Just calling to check in” I was checking my voicemail and a message started up with the classic p0rn theme playing (you know the one, a little slap bass and guitar scratch – bowmp, ba-bowmp, wacka-wacka). After a few seconds a woman’s voice came on trying to sell me something, I can’t even remember what the hell it was.

It just struck me as odd that this virtual voice was “talking” to my voicemail. Just as weird as the lovely Carin talking back to our GPS as we drive around Boston. We hear a human voice and the device IS alive. If I could find a way to automatically delete any voicemail that’s machine to machine that would be it, I’d be in my beach house on Nantucket.

Categories
Daily Life Lead Generation Productivity Booster The Marketeer

Just calling to check in

About a year ago I attended a session on how to sell on the phone by Jeff Hoffman of Basho Strategies. He brought up a point that’s become a pet peeve of mine – people calling just to check in. Any time I get a call from somebody trying to sell me something, they’re “just calling to check in”. I immediately noticed I do it all the time. Whenever I’d call someone to bug them about something, or try to sell them something, I was really calling just to check in.

I’ve given up answering my phone, everybody gets to leave voicemail and then I can sort through them every hour or as necessary. As soon as I hear “Hey, it’s X and I’m just calling to check in…” I hit the delete key and move on. I’ve picked up at least an hour a week. I’m wondering if there’s a future in phone sales at all, or has my heart just turned to stone? Is it wrong for me to make change when I throw a $5 in the homeless guy’s cup over at the off-ramp to the Pike on Storrow Drive?

Categories
Podcasting

The M Show – Game On

Live from Boston! It’s Sunday Night! That means there’s a hot fresh M Show waiting to be loaded on your iPod. If you don’t have one, get one for the holiday – you need it, you know you do!

The only stuff newsworthy involved the gaming industry so that’s all we’ve got, that and some field recording with some people who slept out outside for a shot at a Nintendo Wii. Tomorrow it’s back to work.

Categories
Gaming The Marketeer

Big Bumpin’

I was a the local Burger King this week feeding my junk food addiction with one of my favorites – the Burger King Chicken sandwich – basically the chicken equivalent of a hotdog, rolled in batter and deep fried. Add a toasted bun, mayo and lettuce and I’m ready for the defib to zap my rapidly hardening arteries.

BK has a great campaign going now where if you buy a value meal you can get an XBox game for $3.99. The games run on both the new Xbox 360 and the original Xbox. Always a sucker for a novel campaign, and a card carrying gamer I had to try one out. I immediately had to laugh as I asked for a copy of “Big Bumpin“. Am I just being too Beavis and Butthead or does this seem outright blatant:
The lit marquis on the game cover says “Big Bumpin'” and you’ve got the king, known for slinging the meat, and his huge (game) cock right there with him. I haven’t actually had time to try it out myself but the reviews on the gamers sites I hit now and then say that this is the best of the three and not bad, especially at the price. So if you hear that 70’s scratch guitar theme later these week, you know I’ll be busy in round of Big Bumpin’ with the King and will deliver my verdict.

Categories
Brain Buster SEO and Paid Search

Big Google is Watching You

I had a chance to chat with one of the Crayonistas last night and he tipped me off to this:

http://www.google.com/psearch

I feel like Shatner… “This is going to be big, REALLY big”