text:
MECOSTA COUNTY, MI -- A 911 recording on a Mecosta County home invasion and shooting is revealing the dramatic events that led to a 58-year-old woman's death.
Kathleen Hawley of Morley died after she went inside a Cramer Road home where police say Duncan Willis, 27, apparently was holding her daughter and other women and children hostage.
James Jackson, her Morley neighbor, drove Hawley to the home about 8 p.m. after she was alerted to possible trouble by the boyfriend of Hawley's 37-year-old daughter.
"I told Kat 'Now let's take it easy going in there, you don't know what's going on," Jackson told a dispatcher moments after the shooting.
"Kathy went running in there. I told her 'slow down, slow down, let's wait and see what we got.' She kept hollering to her daughter.
"I heard a little boy. And then Kathy opened this door to this other room, she screamed and pow, somebody shot her right there."
Jackson called 911 from the yard of neighbor's house and waited for police to arrive.
The ordeal ended early the next morning when Duncan Willis, 27, surrendered to police and let the hostages go.
Willis, who lived across the street from the home police say he invaded with a long gun, is charged with murder, six counts of sex assault and other felonies.
Jackson's account provides the latest insight into a crime that relatives of both the victim and suspect are trying to comprehend.
Willis has a history of violence, but confined to misdemeanor convictions.
In the 911 recording, Jackson tells a dispatcher how Hawley had received a phone call Thursday evening from the boyfriend of her daughter. He was concerned because Hawley's daughter abruptly hung up the phone after someone burst inside.
Jackson and Hawley then rushed to the Cramer Road residence.
"Kat went running into the house. I wish she hadn't of done it. I told her to slow down. She went into the house and was hollering for (her daughter). She opened a door and (Kathleen) screamed and somebody shot the gun and she fell on the floor," he told the dispatcher.
A few minutes later, Jackson tells the dispatcher that he can see a car leaving the home where the shooting happened.
Jackson's account seems to indicate that Duncan tried to get away from the shooting scene. The car went down to an adjoining road and the driver shut the lights off.
But about the same time, a Montcalm County sheriff's deputy speeds by Cramer Road and misses the road entrance.
Jackson then said the car that left the shooting scene returned, and the driver went back into the house.
Police arrived just seconds later.
E-mail John Tunison: firstname.lastname@example.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/johntunison


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LESLIE, MI — Stockbridge's boys basketball team won Tuesday night.
And that's about the only good thing Panthers coach Joseph Wenzel saw from his team.
Wenzel said he saw his team get outworked, outhustled and outplayed, but still managed to cling to a 45-43 win over rival Leslie.
"They played harder than we did," Wenzel said. "That was disappointing to me. I think they beat us fundamentally. I think they were more of the aggressive team."
Click here to read more from Stockbridge's win over Leslie
So, did Wenzel see anything that pleased him?
"We won," Wenzel said. "That's the third one in a row and it's nice to get back on that winning track. It's been kind of up and down."

subset: commoncrawl


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SPRINGFIELD — The presence of seven family members in the courtroom helped to spare Eric Rodriguez two years in state prison Friday.
The 25-year old Holyoke resident pleaded guilty to three counts of cocaine distribution in Hampden Superior Court.
At the request of defense lawyer Paul R. Rudof, Judge Mary Lou Rup gave the defendant a three-year state prison term, two years fewer than requested by Assistant District Attorney Patrick S. Sabbs.
Noting that the guilty pleas marked the second time that Rodriguez had been convicted on cocaine charges, Sabbs said the defendant was polite, intelligent, came from a very good family and had a 2-year old daughter.
"He should have known better," Sabbs said.
Rudof said his client had been working a minimum-wage job at a hotel and got involved with cocaine sales for the extra income.
He said Rodriguez's family – including a mother who is a Head Start teacher, siblings who are attending or have graduated from local colleges and a brother-in-law who owns a local auto sales business – were disappointed with him, but still supported him.
Seven of Rodriguez's family members were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in the second row, directly behind the defense table.
"This (his proposed three-year sentence) is not a slap on the wrist," Rudof said.
Rup said she was impressed with the family's presence and background, and decided to impose the shorter sentence.
"I'm going to take a chance on you," Rup told the defendant.
"You have a very good family, and you've done nothing to make them proud," she said. Referring to his young daughter, Rup added: "You want to make her proud of you, and not have a dad whose locked up."
Rodriguez will serve his sentence at MCI-Cedar Junction. He will receive credit for 283 days in custody since his arrest last October.


text: Explore The south The Hummingbird Highway Dangriga Hopkins Glover's Reef Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary Placencia The far south Punta Gorda Share South of Belmopan lies Belize's most rugged terrain. Population density in this part of Belize is low, with most of the towns and villages located on the water. Dangriga, the largest settlement, is home to the Garífuna people and is the transport hub for much of the region. Further south, the Placencia peninsula is the area's focus for coastal tourism, boasting some of Belize's only true beaches, and is also the departure point for the south's idyllic cayes. The Southern Highway comes to an end in Punta Gorda, from where you can head to Guatemala or visit ancient Maya sites and present-day Maya villages. Inland, the Maya Mountains form a solid barrier to land travel except on foot or horseback. The Belizean government, showing supreme foresight, has placed practically the whole massif under some form of protection. The most accessible area of rainforest is the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary, a reserve designed to protect the area's sizeable jaguar population. Read More


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Fall Online, Graduate, & Accelerated BSN (8-week) courses begin. Event Details »
The annual Halloween Concert, featuring a children's costume contest. 7 p.m., Oct. 25, Xavier Theatre. Event Details »
Dr. Sarah Kessler of the University of Kansas Medical Center, an applauded HIV/AIDS researcher, will address global health issues. Event Details »
University of Saint Mary4100 South 4th StLeavenworth, KS 66048913-682-5151
USM is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission, a member of the North Central Association of Colleges & Schools (NCA), and is an AQIP Participant.


text:
MOULTRIE, Ga. - Darrell Williams spent part of his childhood behind a mule, plowing the fields on his family's tobacco farm.
"It was hot," he said. "I had to follow that plow and that mule. There was no air conditioning on that plow and no shade."
So Williams welcomed the arrival of tractors. They improved farmers' efficiency and relieved them of some backbreaking chores. Most drivers now sit in shaded, air-conditioned cabs.
Now, with the arrival of Global Positioning System technology, the 59-year-old Williams is witnessing another major agricultural advancement - tractors that can steer themselves far more precisely than even the most experienced human operators.
Tractors with GPS autopilots are steered over peanut and cotton fields by the same signals that guide missiles to their targets.
"It's almost unbelievable," Williams said. "It's something to be living in this age, coming from mules to tractors that you don't steer."
Tractors outfitted with the GPS systems have been showcased at farm shows for a couple of years, but this is the first year that workers used one to plant the peanuts that will be harvested during the 26th annual Sunbelt Agricultural Exposition. The expo runs from Oct. 14-16 near Moultrie.
"We'll hook the same tractor to a sprayer ... to a digger and during the show ... to a peanut harvester," said Chip Blalock, the show's director.
Williams, who manages Sunbelt's 600 acres of demonstration crops, emphasized that autopilot doesn't mean driverless. Operators are still required to make critical decisions, set the proper coordinates and make sure the machinery is working as it should.
"It's something to be living in this age, coming from mules to tractors that you don't steer."
Darrell Williams
They also must turn the tractors around at the end of each row. After that, the GPS system takes over, bringing the tractor back on course to make another satellite-accurate pass across the field.
The technology should reduce driver fatigue and allow them to work around the clock if necessary.
But with the systems costing an average of $50,000 each, farmers will need time to evaluate the cost-saving potential of GPS.
Glen Rains, a University of Georgia agricultural engineer, said a driver with average skills might veer an ordinary tractor off course by 6 to 12 inches while traveling across a field, but GPS-equipped tractors are accurate to within an inch.
Inaccuracy in planting and harvesting can lead to reduced yields and lower profits.
"To me it's exciting technology and it has its place in agriculture," said Worth County peanut farmer Johnny Cochran.
"But I think we're still in the developmental stage. I hope it's going to do like cell phones and computers and come down in price.
Tyron Spearman, who publishes a peanut industry newsletter, said prices of the tractors are already dropping, but there will be a learning curve as farmers figure out how to use the new systems.
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On the day before school ended for winter break, Dec. 21, students at Carl H. Kumpf Middle School in Clark participated in a fundraiser, organized by eighth grade Language Arts teacher Chris Taillefer, to support victims of Hurricane Sandy.
The event was called Stop the Clock and students brought in as much pocket change as possible. At the beginning of every class the students chose to give their change to the teacher and class couldn't begin until the teacher counted all the change.
While the teachers were counting, the students participated in a number of enriching holiday activities. When the teacher finished counting the coins, they started their class. The class with the most change won a bagel party. Most classes at Kumpf joined in, and raised money for a good cause.


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Do you prefer playing offensive, or defensive and why?
I prefer winning
Depends what my opponent is doing :) If we're both attacking it makes me nervous. I'd actually rather defend and prove his attack was wrong in some way (if possible).
However if one of us is the attacker and one of us the defender, I'd rather be attacking. I choose this because a botched attack is more forgiving than a botched defense I'd say
thanks waffle master. arctor, plz leave this forum
anymore comments?
could you explain?
I too am more positional , but out of the two I would say defensive.
what is positional?
Positional is where , instead of going straight for an attack or a defence , you slowly build up a better position and " strangulate" your opponent by leaving him with no good options. Great positional players are Anatoly Karpov and Jose Capablanca.
so kind of like attacking and defnding at the same time?
I would say more defensive as you improve your own position , rather than attack your opponents.
cool. thanks
It completely depends on the board.
I would say I am offensive, but there are times when the best form of attack is to defend certain squares and pieces before you have the opponent where you want.
My most crucial form of play is more to do with wanting control of as much of the board as I can handle. Aggressive/defensive play have their roles for this goal.
Control the board, control the outcome. Usualy this requires some sacrifices and most I would say consider this offensive play.
Some people say I'm offensive, but then they aren't talking about chess...
I also agree that there's no universal choice of "attacking" or "defending".
You play the position that's at the board. If your opponent has a weakness - attack that weakness. If he doesn't, don't attack - there's no target, and you would waste moves or material; try to first create a weakness, or wait for one to appear. If you have a weakness, try to make sure your opponent won't be able to exploit it, or that exploiting it will cost him/her something else. If you have no weakness - try not to allow one.
Instead of choosing between an "attacking" or "defending" style, try to develop your ability to assess the position. If, while looking at a random chess position, you are able to say "White stands better", "Neither side can win", "Black can attack White's castle because it's weak", or something like that, you're half way towards choosing your style of play in that position, hence in all positions.
Develop your positional evaluation skills. They will tell you how to approach the position.
Here's an article from IM Jeremy Silman that can give you a possible approach to positional evaluation and its influence over game planning and move choice:
thank you for all your advice and suggestions
Arctor's comment was the best and most accurate so far. The ultimate goal in chess is to win by checkmating the oponents king, and you often don't get to choose between attack and defense if you want to reach that goal. In some positions, preffering to attack/defend is the equivalent of preffering to lose rather than win or draw.
You're also a fool if you think you can completely control discussion in this forum, even if it's your own thread.
well, the topic wasn't whether you prefer to win or lose, becuase that's just stupid. the topic was what your playing style is, and why you like to play that way
of course you can choose whether you want to attack or defend! it just depends on the position as elona said. you can choose the positions, and everything is your opinion.
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The holidays are over and yet summer is still months away. So how do we prevent ourselves from catching the winter blues? There are a variety of things you can do to help keep you healthy and happy during these long winter months.
First, it is important that you get plenty of light exposure; take a walk around downtown Sherwood or visit one of Sherwood's parks.
Second, make sure to exercise regularly. Instead of strolling though the park, maybe go for a light jog around the park.
Third, keep things fun! Plan some fun activities with friends, family, or even yourself! Be sure to do some of the things you enjoy during the winter.
And finally, eat healthy. Treat yourself to a good healthy meal at one of Sherwood's many restaurants.
For more ideas on how to prevent the winter blues and some of the symptoms, check out the Villanova University web link on Winter Blues and Seasonal Affective Disorder.


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Social Media Fallacies – What To Know If You're Thinking of Social Media January 27, 2009Posted by John in Technology.
Tags: Jason Baer, social media
4 comments
Here is a great post by Jason Baer on the fallacies of social media. Social media is the email marketing of our web 2.0 everyone will do it but how is the question. I've been doing it for years and I agree with this post. I've added some of my comments in { } below. Thanks Jason for a great post.
1. Social Media is Inexpensive
False. Done correctly, social media – even a simple reputation monitoring program – is a time intensive proposition that requires daily vigilance.
2. Social Media is Fast
False. Social media is by definition slow. Done correctly, social media is about developing meaningful relationships with customers and prospective customers in their natural habitat. You have to create content, be part of many communities, and proceed incrementally. Many successful social media programs take months (or even more than a year) to really germinate.
3. Social Media is "Viral Marketing"
False, in the same way that a square is also a rectangle, but a rectangle isn't a square. Can a social media program go viral? Absolutely. But if you're engaged in a social media program in an effort to go "viral" you're not really engaged in social media at all. You're engaged in an advertising and marketing campaign that uses the Web as its distribution platform.
{I will agree but add something here to Jason's post: the conversation is the advertising campaign and the social result of the conversation if done correctly is the definitive word on the topic – hence an ad-like message or effect}
4. Social Media results can't be measured
False. Especially in comparison to many other communication programs like traditional PR, TV advertising, outdoor advertising and others, social media actually offers pretty solid metrics. Can those results be tied back directly to sales, and therefore ROI? Probably not yet, but other than search and email (and maybe banners) where CAN you do that?
{I will add that the metrics are not online and this is the opportunity to bridge both offline and online experiences and benefits to users}
5. Social Media is optional
It doesn't matter what the demographics of your customers are. It doesn't matter what industry you're in. Your customers and prospects are talking about you online. Your company needs to be part of that conversation. Today. Online is where many people do their talking, so that's where you need to be.
6. Social media is hard
False. It's not hard, it's complicated. It's about having a strategy for making your company or organization more like a person and less like a machine. It's about humanization.
If your customers and prospects feel like your company is more human and actually cares about them, they'll want to be part of it….use technology to be yourself, and don't overthink it.
Update: Thanks to Ben Smithson for point out the mistake in the title..
Look At This Social Media Advertising Done Right – Vertical Advertising Is The Model January 15, 2009Posted by John in social media.
Tags: Air Force, online advertising, social media, Vertical Advertising, Volomedia
2 comments
For those who follow my blog know that I've been a big proponent of social media, but the problem is results and measurement. Airforce is doing something innovative with their agency and Volomedia. I really like this announcement from G4 and Volomedia. Volomedia has signed up a big publisher and a big advertiser to insert ads in portable media and video. The best part is that it work on ITunes and the Iphone. I've talked about this before around how iTunes (and IPhone) now has a business (revenue) model.
Comcast's G4 cable television network and Web site G4tv.com have begun working with VoloMedia to insert ads into the 300 podcast videos distributed monthly through about 23 feeds. The ad network began placing ads for the media giant last month, targeting young gamers.The U.S. Air Force placed the first ads in G4's podcasts: Attack of the Show, X-Play, and Game Trailers. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based VoloMedia's new vertical business, Video Game Podcast, supported the ad campaign created by GSD&M Idea City, the advertising agency for the Air Force.
What Does This Mean? Why is this important?
Vertical media works. The trend is away from individual sites or blogs but instead to 'blanket the vertical' with brand messaging. In turn effective reach in a vertical hits enough critical mass that brand equity translates. Said another way the most effective way to leverage things like blogs and podcasts is to 'buy' the vertical. The dynamics of social networking and social media create an opportunity to hit alot of people in the affinity group. What's even cooler about this announcement is not only reach but measurement. This is a good move by the Airforce to get a vertical – here it's gaming as the 'contextual' proxy for audience affinity. It's a no brainer that gamers are their target audience, but instead of going for silo'd conversion, Airforce is going for blanket coverage in the vertical or affinity group.
I predict this is the way the world will go very quickly. Vertical media advertising. This is a great program for brand advertising, and it has measurement. I am sure it will be a success.
Web 2.0 Revenue Models ?? Drama 2.0 Weights In January 12, 2009Posted by John in social media, Technology.
Tags: online advertising, social media, web 2.0
1 comment so far
Web critic blog – Drama 2.0 has a post about the realities of Web 2.0. Not to toot my own horm but if you're interested in Web 2.0 business models just read my posts from the past 2 years – the monetization answers are there.
Here's the conclusion that Drama 2.0 came up with – pretty right on.
As we head into 2009 facing one of the toughest economic environments in decades knowing that the fun and games are over, it's time to face the reality: the Web 2.0 we have today is not the Web 2.0 we envisioned a few short years ago.
The most popular Web 2.0 creations have not been cheap to grow and operate. They're still struggling to find revenue models that will serve as the foundations of self-sustaining businesses and even those startups that generate significant revenue in absolute terms (namely Facebook) cannot justify the valuations they've been given. And profitability is still largely a pipe dream.
While it's possible that Web 2.0 stars like Facebook, Digg and Twitter will turn things around, it's quite clear that these companies are not like many of their hot Web 1.0 counterparts, which, despite having to battle challenges of their own, were able to develop viable revenue models and turn a profit relatively early on.
Given all this, for Web 2.0 proponents who continue to make the same asinine argument, "Don't treat Web 2.0 like Web 1.0!", it's 2009 and I concede defeat. Web 2.0 is not like Web 1.0. It's in a special (ed) class of its own.
Clay Shirky Media Business Market – His Forecast for 2009 – Look For The Deeper Meaning Within His Words January 7, 2009Posted by John in social media.
Tags: Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody, Media Business, social media
1 comment so far
I'm a big fan of Clay Shirky and his research. His latest book "Here Comes Everyone" is awesome. He makes some great points that it's worth posting his forecast here as well from the Guardian. Many of my opinions and analysis of media and social media align with Clay's. I suggest if you're interested in Social Media or "media 2.0" that you follow Clay's work.
Clay Shirky predicts further gloom for traditional media: "2009 is going to be a bloodbath." Yet he foresees that a recession may produce greater industry clarity by forcing radical action, which he explains as a boss saying to staff: "'Bonfire, this is Hail Mary time!', instead of: 'This year we made as much money as last year but we're still restructuring dramatically.'"
Much of the success of Shirky's recent book, Here Comes Everybody, about internet technologies and the effects of mass democratisation of the web, came from its simplicity and the absence of jargon. "As with the printing press, the loss of professional control will be bad for many of society's core institutions," he writes. In conversation he is just as plain-speaking, saying, for example, that "Management has a hard time destroying parts of its business unless the alternative, obvious to everyone, is that there is no choice." Based in the unlikely environs of NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program, a stone's throw from a fusty independent bookstore in downtown Manhattan, rather than Silicon Valley, Shirky, 44, is unburdened by traditional media ties. After Yale, he worked as a painter and theatre director before becoming ensnared by the web in the early 90s thanks to his mother, a research librarian. He has consulted at News International and lists the BBC as a current client. "The advantage I had over people in the traditional media industry is precisely what I didn't know," he says. "I was a pretty unlikely early adopter."
No one, of course, can know what a future media landscape will look like. But, given that Shirky was among the few to have forecast 15 years ago that classified advertising would be sold online rather than via a newspaper ad, his crystal ball is more estimable than most others. This is his forecast:
The great misfortune of newspapers in this era is that they were such a good idea for such a long time that people felt the newspaper business model was part of a deep truth about the world, rather than just the way things happened to be. It's like the fall of communism, where a lot of the eastern European satellite states had an easier time because there were still people alive who remembered life before the Soviet Union – nobody in Russia remembered it. Newspaper people are like Russians, in a way.
Jeff Jarvis said it beautifully: "If you can't imagine anyone linking to what you're about to write, don't write it." The things that the Huffington Post or the Daily Beast have are good storytelling and low costs. Newspapers are going to get more elitist and less elitist. The elitist argument is: "Be the Economist or New Yorker, a small, niche publication that says: 'We're only opening our mouths when what we say is demonstrably superior to anything else on the subject.'" The populist model is: "We're going to take all the news pieces we get and have an enormous amount of commentary. It's whatever readers want to talk about." Finding the working business model between them in that expanded range is the new challenge.
Why pay for it at all? The steady loss of advertising revenue, accelerated by the recession, has normalised the idea that it's acceptable to move to the web. Even if we have the shallowest recession and advertising comes back as it inevitably does, more of it will go to the web. I think that's it for newspapers. What we saw happen to the Christian Science Monitor [the international paper shifted its daily news operation online] is going to happen three or four dozen times (globally) in the next year. The 500-year-old accident of economics occasioned by the printing press – high upfront cost and filtering happening at the source of publication – is over. But will the New York Times still exist on paper? Of course, because people will hit the print button.
Books and magazines
If you pick a magazine at random, it will not interest you. For people who care about quality, it's easier to find it online. If it's a highly qualified niche magazine, something aimed at surgeons or firefighters, it's going online. There's no reason those things should exist.
The great advantage magazines have is glossy pictures. It's better to read on paper than on the web but it's much better to look at pictures on paper than on the net. Brides magazine is going to be the last one standing.
The book world is more secure. I think the big revolution is going to be print on demand. Imagine only having one browsing copy of every book in a bookstore. You could say "Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers looks good", and out pops a brand new copy. Why does a bookstore or a publisher have to be in the shipping and warehousing business?
The big fight will be between passion and mass appeal but I don't think it's a question of who will win. It's not a transition from A to B, it's one to many. The question is who figures out the business model that says it's better to have 6 million passionate fans than 7 million bored ones? That is going to be the transformation because what you see with these user groups, whether it's for reality TV or science fiction, is that people love the conversation around the shows. The renaissance of quality television is an indicator of what an increased number of distribution channels can do. It is no accident that this started with cable.
And the BBC iPlayer? That's a debacle. The digital rights management thing …let's just pretend that it was a dream like on Dallas and start from scratch. The iPlayer is a back-to-the-future business model. It's a total subversion of Reithian values in favour of trying to create what had been an accidental monopoly as a kind of robust business model. The idea that the old geographical segmenting of terrestrial broadcasts is recreatable is a fantasy and a waste of time.
What does the next decade hold? Mobile tools will certainly change the landscape, open spectrum will unleash the kind of creativity we've seen on the wired internet, and of course there will be many more YouTube/Facebook-class applications. But the underlying change was the basic tools of the internet. The job of the next decade is mostly going to be taking the raw revolutionary capability that's now apparent and really seeing what we can do with it.
Online Video – Trends Content Models Advertising Models At NewTeeVee Live Event November 12, 2008Posted by John in social media, Technology.
Tags: Content Business Models, NewTeeVee Live, online advertising, social media, video
2 comments
I will be moderating a panel that is sponsored by Volomedia at NewTeeVee Live. It will be a workshop on content monetization at the NewTeeVee Live conference in San Francisco this Thursday, November 13 at 3pm.
The panel is titled "Pennies Today, Dollars Tomorrow: Learn How To Make Money In The Media Transition As Television Moves To The Internet".
Pennies today, Dollars tomorrow. Learn how make money in the media transition as Television moves to the Internet.
As content moves from controlled programming to a decentralized, multi-platform distribution model, solutions are required to engage, measure and ultimately monetize this audience. The session will explore this cross-over from television to online and devices, and discuss opportunities while maintaining control of your digital distribution for the anywhere, anytime audience.
- John Furrier, Founder, Furrier.org
- George Ruiz, Head of New Media and SVP Business Affairs, International Creative Management
- Susan Bratton, CEO and Co-Founder, Personal Life Media; Vice Chairman, Association for Downloadable Media
- Murgesh Navar, Founder, VoloMedia
- David Smith, Founder and CEO, Mediasmith
I hope to get to address the following types of questions
• Environment: real-time verses asynchronous, social network, web sites, blogs, podcasts, ..etc
• Distribution: reach, metrics
• User: Online content viewer, preferred method of consumption, how do you define good content?
• Advertiser: social media, engagement, loyalty, conversion?
• Other: iPhone, downloadable, streaming, content development, distribution systems, content franchises, affiliate models
Content Model
Value proposition of content online? What is an example of a successful content franchise?
Value of content or value of brand?
Success models of content deployments
Content formula: Speed and Control;
Speed: (slow verses fast) and Control (high vs low)
Open distribution: sampling verses giving away the 'store'
Tasting (sampling) ? SNL verses Olympics
Concept of a viewer? Is it the same as broadcast? Does the notion of a "viewer" matter online?
Is there risk in being open or is risk overstated?
Is there a 'holy grail' metric for content publishers? Engagement, viewers/listeners, loyalty, commerce, ..etc ?
Content models: ad supported verses subscription – are there any other kinds?
Business model: is it just promotion or is there a "there there"?
Advertising Model
Are ad networks working?
What are advertisers looking for in the new tee vee environment?
Role of brands? Is it about the brand?
Role of the agency?
What works what doesn't work?
Audience engagement – what does it mean? Benefits to advertisers?
When does an advertiser know when it's working? Are there identifiable tipping points out there?
How do they plan for future campaigns?
Budgeting and media buying of the future?
Here is a video of George Ruiz – Taken by Tim Street in LA. George is an agent and talent king and has been a successful film studio exec and negotiator.
Mzinga Has New CMO October 28, 2008Posted by John in Technology.
Tags: Mzinga, social media, web 2.0
2 comments
Mzinga ( http://www.mzinga.com/pr/), the leader in enterprise social media and learning solutions for the workplace, marketplace, and extended enterprise, today announced that Patrick Moran has joined the company as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO).
Here is Josh from Forrester with Mzinga – This video is a good overview of Mzinga's value proposition
Social Media Snake Oil or Value Add – Social Media Spending Being Cut October 21, 2008Posted by John in Technology.
Tags: Jennifer Leggio, online advertising, pr, social media
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I loved this post not only for the title but the blogger Jennifer Leggio goes into what is the core issue. To many people bullshitting their way around social media. I agree and have been banging on this drum for months now about social media here and here (corporate blogging is failing)
Here is my view – I guess that I'm anti PR on how social media will roll out.
Anyway she nails it on the market. As we slide deeper and deeper into the recession social media is being cut left and right. Social media until it scales will continue to be cut.
What's the future for all social media strategists and practitioners – apply social media to the business processes on how to improve business results. The business process improvement aspect of social media – the impact to organizations in how they organize, talk to prospects, and customers. More importantly how companies compete.. words like ROI, finacial impact, leverage, revenue per employee, benchmarking, customer service, and business intelligence will trump words like engagement, conversations, storytelling, blogs, podcasting, viral branding.
My favorite line from Jennifer's post – "A business strategy should not be altered to fit social media; the social media approach needs to be altered to fit the business strategy."
Yes PR is Changing – Get Used to It – It's About Dialog + Collaboration = Transactions August 13, 2008Posted by John in social media.
Tags: collaboration, pr, PR 2.0, social media
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There have been a number of posts today about the role of PR. Some are saying that PR is dead. I don't think so. I think PR is changing.
What is changing is the process of PR. I mean the business process and the benefits of new strategies and tactics. For example from this blog I can effectively monitor and have conversations that impact others – opinion leaders, subject matter experts, and mainstream press. Hell why even hire a firm just sponsor a blogger. Some bloggers are better than PR firms because they cut through the cutter to talk directly with their audience. Getting access to that audience is key rather than the standard PR tactic to manipulate the audience. Just go direct. Audiences are smart so trying to do a head fake on them will only hurt the brand and reputation of the company. Bloggers offer a direct business model for PR firms. For instance, if a company in tech wants access they can just sponsor my blog ($5k a month) and I can (in most cases) do more than a PR firm can do for them.
I've posted many times that what makes effective PR in the classic sense is becoming obsolete. The new PR is a combination of automated and algorithmic social media.
There are many examples of this. PR Firms are traditionally hired to monitor and represent companies. Now companies and do that on their own or for alot less. However, high impact PR 2.0 is more than about pitching and buzz it's about relating to the public – hence public relations. It's about communications and collaboration.
Old way: communicate out + no dialog (of offline dialog) = broadcast model (outdates and not compatible with the way the net is built)
New way: communication out – a dialog or conversation + collaboration = opinion shaping or some sort of transaction (sales, influence, reputation, business deal, ..etc)
PR is becoming more about automation and a audience marketplace – the results are manufactured by PR firms but the market of users (a PR marketplace). Call it conversational marketing or whatever but it's different and PR is changing
PR 2.0 = communication + dialog + collaboration
Social Advertising About to Boom – In Growth Not Bubble Pop. July 23, 2008Posted by John in social media.
Tags: online advertising, social advertising, social media, video advertising
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While I talked about Social Media being misunderstood, the real dollars will be in online web video advertising. Seems pretty straight forward – the web delivers and is measurable. Connecting the dots you can see that advertising is changing which basically means the users are changing. User behavior is alway leading advertiser behavior change. Except video advertising will be done in a new way.
Report out today shows that Professionally-produced Web programming yields high CPMs, according to a new report from the Diffusion Group. The CPMs for long-form online content are $40 today and will reach nearly $46 in 2013. Meanwhile, CPMs for short clips are clocking in at about $30 and will increase to about $34 in five years.
User-generated videos generate CPMs of about $15 today and will reach $17 in 2013. The report also found that user-generated videos account for about half of the online videos consumers watch but only 4% of online video ad revenue. Meanwhile, professionally-produced videos command the other 96% of Web video dollars. Advertising in Web video should reach $590 million this year and hit $10 billion in 2013.
YouTube is slowing figuring this out. The key to success is to evove with the market not force it. I'm long on YouTube. They are the 'next new network'.
Video works on the web and soon advertisers will figure out how to do it. Right now they are failing. Prerolls are the only game in town so we're stuck with it for now.
Why Current Social Media is Crashing – Traditional Advertising Doesn't Listen – Doesn't Work For Social Media July 23, 2008Posted by John in social media.
Tags: online advertising, social media
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In a post by Paul Daigle called the Net Effect. He talks about how advertising doesn't work in social media because traditional advertising doesn't listen it only talks.
I think that this is a wake up call for all the Social Media executive out there and C-level executives trying to understand social media. Social media a half 'Groundswell" (book written by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff) and half "Book to be announced" (not yet published – Peter Drucker like book). The business process improvement aspect of social media – the impact to organizations in how they organize, talk to prospects, and customers. More importantly how companies compete.. words like ROI, finacial impact, leverage, revenue per employee, benchmarking, customer service, and business intelligence will trump words like engagement, conversations, storytelling, blogs, podcasting, viral branding.
Rather than me going on again and banging the drum about my view I'll let Paul say it and he puts it in a business light.
Paul writes..
"Every week a new article seems to redefine what social media means for brand advertisers. This communicates, accurately I think, that the advertising and media industries are still working to understand how they can best help their clients capitalize on the new social media opportunity." …
"Advertising doesn't know how to listen. It only knows how to talk. So talking with advertising people about social communities is like telling an accounting department how you can increase sales. Sure, you can run traditional ad campaigns within social settings, but the real opportunities being advanced are not advertising… but communication opportunities. This misalignment between the goals of marketing decision makers and opportunities being offered is why many companies are moving so slowing, and acting so suspiciously of social media."….
"Advertising isn't going to go away, and it isn't going to change. Nor should it. Advertising, as we know it, will remain an important way to build brand and drive sales. But developing social strategies and advertising strategies are completely different vocations. I don't believe marketing or advertising departments are where tomorrow's corporate social initiative will reside."
"In order for companies to succeed socially, they will have to restructure to become social entities. It will happen, but it will take time. Helping companies understand where their social assets lie and how to synthesize these assets to create modern CRM departments maybe the answer. These new departments would strive to manage the ear, face and personality of the business, and help the company engage socially to win. In the real world, when we represent our companies at social events we do so knowing who we are, why we are there, who we are speaking with, and what we'd like to accomplish. We know that our success requires that we engage the room in conversation and that we listen."
Social Media Czars in Demand – Big Brands Need Help July 14, 2008Posted by John in social media.
Tags: social media
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Social media is in high demand. Don't ask me (I'm baised of course) just read Brian Morrissey's story in adweek. Brian has been wandering the social media woods for a while picking up the trends in what it all means. Bottom line: Big brands need direction and fast.
I've been consulting for some big brands over the past year since I left PodTech. It certainly is exciting. Some big changes happening around advertising not just PR. Online advertising will be more like TV ads but with keyword like measurement. The best of both worlds. I've uncovered some interesting success formulas for social media that I'll be talking about soon, but for now I think Brian's article hits a big point home…Big brands need to get busy and put the organizations in place.
Here are some gems from Brian's story.
"They needed an internal evangelist, someone who can work within the company to bring all the disparate groups together..
The hiring of dedicated teams reflect the rising importance of social media in companies. Once thought of as an interesting new media channel, social media is increasingly seen as a catalyst for changing how companies operate. It points to a new corporate structure that favors open over closed, dialogue over monologue, and decentralized power over command and control.
"The biggest challenge is moving away from thinking about it as marketing and PR," said Peter Kim, a Forrester Research analyst. "It's about product development, it's about IT. It's got to cut across all functions of the company."
Social-media experts are in high demand as companies attempt to figure out how to adapt how they talk to customers and even among themselves. Companies like Ford, Intel, Dell and Pepsi have concluded the best way to change is by bringing in a social-media czar to lead their strategy.
Brand Advertising Social Media Trend: YouTube Needs the Advertisers to Catchup – Don't Do PreRolls July 10, 2008Posted by John in social media.
Tags: Brand Advertising, online advertising, social media
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What's an example of Social Media? Make something social and sharable. Gatorade has a success on their hands. It's not to the level of Coke Mentos but it's close.
There has been talk about the opportunity for brand marketers to connect with users of a new generation. Also, YouTube got slammed by a Wall Street Journal article on their lack of monetization. The problem is that brand marketing will be done differently. Here is the Gatorade commercial on YouTube. It's not a commercial but a piece of content created for the community. As I have been saying on this blog for a year "Content is the Ad". Wall Street Journal is missing the point and if YouTube does pre-roll then they will lose users fast.
YouTube should continue to serve users by providing a great user experience and let the advertisers innovate – not the other way around. Hey Chad Hurley: Don't do prerolls! Let the advertisers innovate on the copy strategies that work for YouTube and don't change YouTube for what is a behind the times advertising market. This Gatorade ad is a great example. Companies like Intel should do this rather than doing those boring NPR sounding videos. Brand marketing is about respecting the audience and delivering content that they will enjoy and find valuable – not a marketing piece.
What's interesting is that this Gatorade video has millions of impressions over multiple users reposting it. The penetration is amazing.
The big deal is that this isn't some boring product specific video talking about Gatorade. It's a product placement ad that speaks directly to the Gatorade demographic. Was it successful – sure thing. It connected with their audience in a mode that they enjoy. It's respectful and not a overproduced in your face Gatorade ad – like on ESPN.
Here's the ad look for the product placement. Gatorade gets the benefit by not mentioning Gatorade. This trend will continue.
Social Media Alert – Ding Ding July 1, 2008Posted by John in social media.
Tags: modern ad agency, online advertising, social media
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This is a great blog post by Joe Marchese of Mediapost.
This is so spot on that it is worthy of a reprint in full here see below. Epic post from Joe Marchese of Online Spin blog at Mediapost. This is a very timely post and very right on the money. Great blog reporting. Thanks Joe. I fully endorse Joe's view. Here here..
Traveling during the last 10 days, I have had 26 meetings and two speaking engagements. I have had some amazingly insightful conversations with some of the smartest people about the social media challenge and opportunity, from the media agency, creative agency, marketer, and publisher perspective. One theme kept popping up: It's not that media shops, creative agencies and marketers don't see the potential of social media, it's that agencies, in their traditional role, have developed an organization that does not support the proper activation of social media for brands.
Put simply, Madison Avenue wasn't built to service brands in social media and, more importantly, Madison Avenue is not built to make money from the proper activation of social media for brands. The question is, can the system adapt, or will a new breed of agency be born in the vacuum of effective social media campaigns? Evolution or revolution? I have seen evidence of both.
Activating a brand in social media delivers a variety of benefits. Social media's conversational nature means that a campaign can deliver a lot more than simply message distribution. Social media can give a voice to a brand's customers (or those a brand would love to have as customers).
The effective social media agency will:
Be a long-term partner. There are no "campaigns." People will continue a conversation even though the calendar says you should be moving into a new campaign. Starting and stopping social media campaigns is guaranteed to waste resources and have very poor ROI. All the effort goes into building the social media conversation, and the positive ROI is really achieved once all you have to do maintain the conversation (which requires a lot fewer resources). For this reason, agencies effective in social media will look at multi-year engagements; rather than start and stop social media campaigns, they will work to help direct the conversation to achieve a brand's goals. As Adam Broitman of Morpheus Media said on my panel: "you shouldn't think in terms of running a social media 'campaign,' but instead think in terms of making a social media 'commitment.'"
Provide product feedback. Your social media supporters are your customers as well. A social media campaign, therefore, will allow an effective agency to deliver very pointed feedback directly to a brand's product team.
Provide message feedback to creative. Stuart Elliott of The New York Times, one of the people I had the pleasure of sitting with over the past 10 days, made the observation that when television was first introduced, advertising was having people stand in front of a microphone reading off a script about a product (like radio). It dawned on the industry that this new medium meant that new methods of advertising were possible — and that they should capitalize on TV's unique picture and motion qualities.
You can't predefine your creative in social media, because it is a conversation. To predefine your creative would be like entering a conversation with a script, and no matter what the other person says, continuing to stick to your script. You might as well be standing in front of a microphone reading a product description. What a brand's social media activation partner will do is to make sure that people's feedback is properly distributed to the creative teams so that they can iterate on the creative elements. For more on how this is developing, read Brain Morrissey's recent Adweek piece, "Shops Strive for a New Formula."
Achieve social media message distribution. Of course, the effective social media agency will be able to measure and enhance the amount of distribution, or people sharing and talking about your brand. Rather than simply buying the media, a social media agency will know the various levers it can pull to help distribution — i.e., more creative assets, games, etc., to create involvement.
Measure the ROI of brand campaigns (both inside and outside of social media). Social media is made up of people who buy brands — and who frequently talk about what they do and don't like. Thus there is the ability to measure the effectiveness not only of your online social media efforts, but all of your various marketing efforts. It's up to the right agency partner to pull this all together for a brand.
An agency's new role in social media will be to maintain a brand's presence and extract various benefits that a brand should receive from making a social media commitment. To do this will require redefining the media agency's role. It will be far more consultative. It will interface with more facets of a client's organization. Tapping into all the ways an effective social media agency can deliver value to marketers, will set apart this new breed of agency. The skills required to coordinate effective social media management will command the margins required to support Madison Avenue.
Jeremiah Owyang Blog Turns 2 Years Old – He Shares His Secrets June 27, 2008Posted by John in social media.
Tags: Forrester, Jermiah Oywang, social media
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Congrats to Jeremiah who's blog turns 2 today. I hired Jeremiah when I was running PodTech because of his ability but also his vision. My wife Linda and I value Jeremiah's friendship since we both left PodTech.
Why I think Jeremiah is doing great work. He practices what he preaches. He's pragmatic but tries new stuff. Most importanly he shares, innovates, and listens. At PodTech many thought Jermemiah shouldn't be blogging. I stood my ground and supported Jeremiah because he was doing it right. He supported my vision while others didn't agree (I can't wait to write the case study post on what really happened at PodTech). I'm sure folks even at Forrester might say that Jeremiah is giving away valuable research that could be monetized…Sure thats and position someone can take, but I submit that Forrester will sell more research at higher prices by keeping the blogging going.. it build a community. Congrats Jeremiah.
Created focused content
Publish frequently
Think of readers first
"Productized" content
Have Passion
Social Media Secret Sauce ? It's all BS – The Best has Yet to Come June 27, 2008Posted by John in social media.
Tags: online advertising, social media
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Jason Heller writes a great post on Social Media. Jason starts his post with the following.. "Are you a traditional marketer or agency person, or even a digital agency person who is frustrated at the new crop of "social media elite" who claim that they know all the answers? Or…are you a social media marketing maven who is frustrated that the rest of the industry just doesn't get it?"
There is so much bullshit being thrown around in Social Media these days you wonder what's up or what's down?
Readers here know that I'm bullish on Social Media, Social Advertising, and Social Everything when it comes to online marketing. I've been there from the beginning so I can say that Jason's line about people knowing all the answers. No one knows. I've been doing R&D for three years in social media and even today it's still wide open. No one has the answers. It's evolving.
The only constant is the Internet – it is working and it is providing the utility in social media. The problem is that most successes happen by accident – that is experiments that have performed positively – aka "lucky strike".
Social Media is like making a sauce – everyone can try but only talented marketers with the right ingredients can make it work. Additionally the infrastructure is changing at a platform level so the ROI answer is elusive but available.
I have been documenting many of my experiments of what works but there is no silver bullet. How to crack the code in Social Media. For insight into how to crack the code in Social Media Marketing check out this post that I wrote last week.
Social Media for marketers requires a certain understanding of the key dynamics of Web 2.0. For the dynamics in the Web 2.0 world check out this post that I wrote.
Of course Microcontent will be a big trend ….etc
There are some great people working on Social Media and Social Advertising models and soon we'll see great results. I'm in agreement with Jason if you hear someone say that they have the answers start running for the hills.
For information on my research (which isn't published) just sponsor this blog🙂
Update: Jeremiah Owyang has a great post of the folks doing social media work in the corporate world. This list is very comprehensive. This is the list of folks doing the research or Marketing Engineering. It lists the companies doing the work (corporate companies). I like this list because I've worked with most of the folks on there and all are doing great work. The discovery of the secret sauce in social media is around the corner.
Long Form Video is Good – Good Move YouTube June 18, 2008Posted by John in Technology.
Tags: social advertising, social media, video, youtube
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SAI is reporting that YouTube has finally moved to allow long form video – for now you have to be a partner to sign up.
It's no secret that I have been a fan of long form video for a long time. I think that the future of online video advertising is 'long form' ads. In the Web 2.0 value proposition is around content. Content is king and now it will be in both long and short form on Youtube for the masses to enjoy. Ads will follow almost immediately.
The one problem that I have with YouTube is that the quality is horrible on the videos that I upload. Fix that and provide long form and you have the new TV platform.
As I have posted before YouTube is TV for everyone under 18. YouTube has a tremendous opportunity to not only be the resource for discovery of 'new tv' video but the presentation provider.
I am very bullish on YouTube. Their business development teams better get busy because a tsunami of deals will be flying in.
Social Media: How To Crack the Code in Social Media – It Takes Marketing Engineering June 17, 2008Posted by John in social media.
Tags: online advertising, social media
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I've been tracking social media, social networks, RSS, Internet infrastructure, and online advertising for over 10 years. One thing that I notice is that hype can dilute reality.
There is so much "bull" being thrown around out there regarding social media it makes my head spin – blogging tools here, wikis there, engagement this, conversations that, metrics this, ROI need,..on and on.
The elephant in the room is that it's early and no one has cracked the code on social media – how to define it, program it, deploy it, measure it, and scale it across their company.
Here is a good post from Mediapost Online Spin blog by Joe Marchese. He is hosting a panel to talk about this. His guest are Augustine Fou, SVP, digital strategist, MRM Worldwide, Greg Verdino, Chief Strategy Officer, Crayon, David Berkowitz, director of emerging media and client strategy, 360i, Rich Gagnon, Chief Media Officer, Draft FCB, Adam J. Broitman, director of emerging and creative strategy, Morpheus Media. Should be a good panel. These guys on Joe's panel are at the cutting edge so I'm looking forward to hearing the discussion on Joe's panel.
What's relevant about Joe's post is that he nails the market: summed up in a word – experimental.
He also goes on to note.."The even funnier thing is that this is both shocking and not surprising. It's shocking, given the reach and depth of connection social media offers, yet not surprising because no one has unlocked social media in a way that demonstrates return on marketing objectives, such as reasonable expected range of outcome at for set amount of resource allocation. If you are a brand or an agency, there is not much more you can do but test various methods and watch longingly as your potential brand advocates and customers participate in a media category without you. But it's not the end of the world, as long as your competitors don't figure out how to benefit from social media in a scalable manner before you."
I like this post because I've been doing research on cracking the code on social media specifically for over 3 years. I've run dozens of experiments before I started PodTech, while at PodTech, and now for the past 10 months after I left PodTech. The findings are interesting.
What does it take to crack the code on social media and social advertising? The answer might just be staring you in the face. It starts with getting the right people on the staff (expertise), running many experiments, having an realtime analytical audit, analytic audit analysis, and finally mindset based in reality.
The hardest part is finding the right people. It needs to be figured out by the right mix of personnel. It isn't just PR or just marketing. On the personnel side it's more like infrastructure engineering expertise. Social media is a based on web services so it takes "marketing engineering". Marketing engineering isn't the primary skill of PR executives. Instead it's the business and technical programmers that have the expertise and knowhow. Successful social media teams have engineering backgrounds on the team.
The great thing about the web is it's biggest problem for marketers in social media – Everything is Measurable. Does that suggest that the ROI problem doesn't exist? The biggest challenge is to define what to measure.
How to crack the code in social media: put the right team together, run tons of experiments, know what to measure, and measure. The solution might just be staring you in the face.
Social Media is Web 2.0 – Relationships – New Linchpin for User Value June 2, 2008Posted by John in Technology.
Tags: online advertising, social media, web 2.0
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Mike Arrington weights in with his opinion of social media. He makes a relevant (pun intended) point – content spewing is clutter that creates noise which in turn makes relevance harder to filter. Timing couldn't have been better with Jeremiah weighing in on what he sees as the big trends in social media.
Let me break this down – participation and interaction is key (as Fred Wilson and Mike Arrington point out). However Chis Saad, Alex van Elsas point out – it's personal and about motivation of users. It's about Relationships.
It's about RELATIONSHIPS in context to the user 's behavior.
Web 1.0 – USER paradigm – self service was at the heart of the user experience
1. search/browse
3. information
4. action
Web 2.0 – USER paradigm – everything remains the same except instead of self service (which is now a full blown user norm) it's about relationships
1. search/browse
3. information
4. action
RELATIONSHIPS are at the heart of the user experience.
Big Trend and Opportunity: the need for the creation of the key utilitiy for users around their relationships (the holy grail for advertisers and new startups). It will be in the form of new filters in the contextual and behaviorial area around relationships and information.
Just like in Web 1.0 it was in context to the web page and keywords in search. For Web 2.0 we will see a multidimensional approach to context and behavior centered around relationships – to content, people, data, ..etc.
At the end of the day the value to the user will be the same as Web 1.0 – getting information and taking action. However, instead of self service being the linchpin for context and behavioral value to users, a new linchpin will be based upon relationships.
Whoever makes the users value proposition of getting information and taking action faster, easiers, and simplier will win.
My Social Media Vision – It's a Movement a Revolution June 2, 2008Posted by John in social media.
Tags: I have a dream, internet freedom, social media, vision
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Fred Wilson is posting his vision for Social Media. Most consultants and experts really don't know what they are talking about. The definition of Social Media is so obvious but yet so illusive. Nailing the definition of Social Media is like nailing the definition of what Web 2.0 is. There is no one definition. It's a movement – a revolution.
Here is my vision of Social Media – The Internet and soon we will all be connected to it. We must prepare.
I have a dream.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the Internet dream.
I have a dream that one day this world will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all people are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of China will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Iraq will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by their profile page but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down in blogosphere, with its vicious opinions; one day right there in blogosphere, little bloggers will be able to join hands with big bloggers and as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day Silicon Valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the conversation shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the Internet with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our Internet into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to share together, to struggle together, to go to post together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be enabled one day.
This will be the day when all of Internet's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My Internet, 'tis of thee, sweet land of information, of thee I sing. Land where my kids plan, land of the blogger's pride, from every social network, let Internet ping."
And if the world is to be a great place this must become true. So let Internet ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let Internet ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let Internet ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let Internet ping from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let Internet ping from the curvaceous slopes of California!
But not only that; let Internet ping from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let Internet ping from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let Internet ping from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let Internet ping.
And when this happens, when we allow Internet to ping, when we let it ping from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of Internet's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and ping in the words, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
Internet Rights are about Freedom. Social Media is a movement a revolution.
Sales 2.0 – Social Media – Support is the New Marketing June 1, 2008Posted by John in Technology.
Tags: Sales 2.0, social media
19 comments
Guest Post: Andy Ridinger of Mural Consulting. In this post Andy Ridinger talks about how the sales process is impacted by Web 2.0 and search – aka Sales 2.0
Remember that chapter in your business textbook about the sales model? It probably looked something like this:
For the most part, this model is still valid. All of these things still happen. The small, yet important difference between then and now is the result of social media, especially with web-centric and Software-as-a-service products. Before, a sales rep would handle just about every step of the process. He would discover new customers, then work with them as they asked questions and evaluated the product, and eventually convince them to purchase the product. As long as you had a good sales team that could connect with customers, you did well. And as long as you kept them supported well enough, they would stay.
Google is the new Account Rep
Fast forward to today. Like I said, these areas are still the same, but now instead of a skilled sales rep interacting with your current and potential customers, you have a computer screen. What do I mean? Well, what did you do the last time you were interested in a particular item or service? You probably looked it up on Google. After you found the company's website, you probably also looked at the other links your Google search returned, including blog and feedback posts by others who had already used the product. Assuming you were still interested, you downloaded the trial version, installed it, and started playing around with it. You may have even checked out more blogs and message boards to ask specific questions about the product of other users. Finally, you decide you like the product, so you click the activate link, enter your payment info into the site, and purchase the full product.
Sound familiar? Did you notice that you went through the first 3 areas without ever interacting with an employee of the company who makes the product? As many people know, my customer telling you I'm great is much better than me telling you I'm great. The opposite is also true. A company may have a feedback section of their own, but as Bruce Temkin points out in his Bank of America example, you should still look in more than 1 place before drawing your own conclusions.
So customers are more empowered than ever with information about not just your product, but your company and the way you have treated others. Kinda scary. What does it mean?
"I bought it because I use it"
For starters, we've moved to a new level of buying. A customer will buy your product because they're using it and it does what they want, rather than using a product because they bought it. Also, notice the immense impact these changes have on how important the Support area has become. It was always a good idea to keep your customers happy, but now it's required. You want your customers to become raving fans. Raving fans tell their friends and post blogs and feedback to share with anyone who will listen. They do your marketing for you for free. When a potential customer does that initial Google search, you want them to see the blog posts from your raving fans. If you have angry customers instead of raving fans, guess what that initial search will bring back.
Customer Service is the new marketing. Companies need to start treating customer service as an investment rather than an expense. The necessary "White Glove" level of service required to create raving fans is more expensive in the short-term, but in the long term you not only spend less supporting current customers, but their free word-of-mouth marketing will help you add more customers.
Without taking away from the importance of Support, let me say that all is not lost with Discover, Evaluate, and Purchase. You still have a chance to make an impact.
Discover: Online marketing is more important than offline marketing. Youtube, Facebook, and Wikipedia have moved into the top 10 most visited sites. If your marketing efforts can't be found with a search engine, a lot of customers are missing you.
Evaluate: Your micro-site must deliver. The web has kind of given us all ADD. We spend an average of less than a minute on a page, reading fewer than 12 words or so before we decide to click on to something else. Your site and pages need to be focused and do the job they were intended to do. This sometimes means breaking corporate branding guidelines.
Purchase: If someone can buy your product without ever interacting with a human, then they can certainly not buy it that way too. The great blog postings and feedback may have convinced a potential customer to download the trial, but now your product has to sell itself. You must have the best product on the market, and for reasons other than price.
The New Sales Model
When you take into account the changes resulting from Social Media in the world today, the Sales Model looks more like this:
Things have changed, but the new rules allow for many new and exciting ways to grow and enhance your business and marketing strategies. It also means that companies who can't keep their customers happy aren't going to do as well as their competitors with raving fans.
Bottom line, customer support is the new marketing. Social media has moved much of the control you used to have from your sales rep to the web. My suggestion is to start with an experience audit. See what it's like for your customers to deal with you. If it's not a stellar experience, get some help to make it that way. The best part about the new world of selling is that it runs on happiness. And who doesn't like to be happy?
Thanks to Andy Ridinger for the post. Andy Ridinger is the Marketing Coordinator for Mural Consulting (www.muralconsulting.com), a specialized team of Software-as-a-Service experts. Prior to working with Mural, Andy was a Marketing Specialist for Microsoft, responsible for the Mid Atlantic Area.
I feel that I should share my friend Pete Blackshaw's book with post. Pete is a pioneer in social everything and has big time traditional brand management experience. Thanks Pete for twittering this link to me.
Here is Pete Blackshaw's book called "Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000: Running a Business in Today's Consumer-Driven World"
email me at johnfurrier at gmail.com and I'll twist Pete to get you a free book🙂


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Pumpkin Farm Fun!
Posted by + Show Post
We took the kids to a local pumpkin patch today! They had a really great time! They did the pony rides, a little-kids haunted barn, this Kiddie Korral play area, a hayride through the haunted forest and the petting zoo. It was a lot of fun and great weather!! :)
Have you taken your kids yet? Did anyone go this last weekend?
Michelle, mom to Lucy, Henry and Charlie
Replies (11-11):
We went to a chainsaw fest thing and there were a bunch of pumpkins there. We didn't get one tho. We bought our from Meijer's
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Kenner Police have released surveillance photos in the search for three men who robbed the Capitol One Bank located at 3644 Williams in Kenner this morning. Two of the men jumped over the bank counter and demanded a teller fill a bag with money, while the third man stood in the lobby, said Lt. Wayne McInnis, Kenner Police Department spokesman.
The men were wearing masks and gloves and blue-and-white striped button-up shirts and jeans, McInnis said.
They fled the bank in a Chevrolet Tahoe, which they abandoned a block and a half away. From there, they either fled on foot or in another vehicle, McInnis said.
Police found the empty vehicle minutes after the bank robbery and are trying to find the owner, McInnis said. He didn't have the amount of money taken from the bank.
He said the men implied they had weapons.
Police got the call about the robbery at 9:21 a.m.


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Sometimes you need to step away from watching the game as a Celtics fan.
Sometimes you need to just sit… watch… and soak in someone doing something better than just about anyone else ever has.
That's how I feel about Ray Allen's jump shot. And I'm not alone. SLAM is calling Ray the best shooter of the decade.
Allen is a study in consistency. Whether bursting
off the dribble or brushing off a screen, Allen plants his left foot,
squares his body toward the basket, bends his knees and elevates
straight up – not veering this way nor that. He pumps the basketball
from his torso with his right hand gripping the seams raising the ball
to a crescendo above his head, perfectly between his eyes. He needs
little time, as his left hand guides the ball before the right wrist
snaps forward, violently, striking a steady, if uncomfortable, pose,
and ensuring optimal backspin all in the matter of a split second as
the ball is sent off on its parabolic journey
Tonight, Ray needs just 7 of those jumpers to fall to score 14 points and join the 20,000 point club, Who knows… he might be able to hang around long enough to join the 25,000 point club. And if he does, he'd like to do it here in Boston.
"It's a great situation here," said Allen, who has not missed a game this season and is second in scoring and minutes, both to Paul Pierce.
"I'm a loyal individual. I don't look at it like, 'what other teams
have cap space and all that.' My agent will keep me informed as to
other potential situations, I'm sure. But this is what I know. My house
is here in Boston. I want to do everything I can to make sure I stay
here and finish my career out."
There's also an added incentive for Allen to try and work something
out with the Celtics, beyond the basketball. His son, Walker, was
diagnosed with juvenile diabetes during the 2008 NBA Finals and is
treated at a world-class facility in Boston. Allen knows how critical
that is; Walker had to be hospitalized just before a recent Celtics
road trip, resulting in Allen nearly missing the Nov. 29 game in Miami.
"My family is comfortable here," Allen said. "My son with the diabetes, that's important. Obviously, I want to be here."
The question's been asked here before. If you give Ray 3 more years… what's fair? As Peter May notes… Jason Kidd just got 3 years, $25 million. Are you willing to give Ray $8 million per for the next 3 years?
I hope he and the C's work something out. He's not quite the player he used to be… but he's still impressive.


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Amourelle Products Limited
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We provide on-site service in our local area(20 miles of Reading Berkshire)
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Making A PurchaseMaking an on-line purchase could not be easier. Just browse our online shop, and click 'Buy Now' beside the items that you wish to buy and put them into the shopping cart. Click on 'Add More Items' to add further items to your basket. You can click on 'View Basket' at any time to view or delete items you have within it. After you have finished your selection, click on 'Proceed to Checkout' and you will be asked for a few details that we need to be able to satisfy the order. We accept Visa, Mastercard, Maestro, Solo, Electron or cheques in the post. We do not accept American Express. 98% of orders are despatched the same day, details of stock availability is shown beside each product.
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2: Small Scale Sin
Nov 24, 1995
Small-scale stories on the nature of small-scale sin.
Poet Michael Warr talks with Ira and reads some of his poems inspired by his childhood. Warr grew up as a Jehovah's Witness and found that he had some problems with the religion's rules. He is the author of several books of poetry. (8 minutes)


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Do you hear any strange noises while booting your computer? Or Do you feel that your PC is working slow? All these are signs that indicate that there is something wrong with your hard disk. The conditions can worsen if you ignore such incidents. So you must test your hard drive for any errors or damage and get it fixed before anything goes wrong.
Hard disk plays a vital role in a personal or professional computer. In system hard disk is considered to be a basic component for data storage. All the files you create or copy in PC is by default saved on your hard disk drive. The performance of the hard disk is measured based on the free memory space available on the computer. The more the free memory space the best the performance is. But most of the time, due to large data usage the hard disk get populated leading to performance issues. Let us consider some few reasons for hard disk failure. Refer http://www.testharddriveperformance.com/for-mac.html in order to know how to test hard drive performance on Mac
Huge Data storage: Over the period of time, user store and remove lot data on hard disk. As files get added up, the hard disk reaches full and available free space fall below its critical level. Hence, as a result of this users can notice a drop down in the speed of the system.
Bad sectors: Bad sectors on hard disk are one of the reasons for strange noises that occur on the system. A bad sector signifies the parts of the HDD that is faced by a physical damage as a result of mechanical failure or scratches. You can check hard drive performance using command prompt by clicking on the given link.
Natural calamities: Hard drive failures can also be the consequence of natural calamities like thunder or lighting. Such effects cause disturbance in the power lines and damage the hard disk. As a result the whole computer system fails to operate causing huge data loss
Excess heat generation: Hard disk consists of a rotating head that performs read and write operation. When there is more number of head spins, excess of heat gets produced which in turn damages the hard drive. This eventually results in hard drive corruption. Check Here to extract info for testing hard disk performance in using device manager option
Fragmented hard disk: When you use the computer for a particular period of time, you would have performed frequent operations like saving, copying and deleting the files. In such times if you store a new large file, it may lack memory space in a contiguous manner and hence gets divided into memory chunks and stored randomly. This increases the head spins and access time of files and applications
Henceforth, to avoid all such circumstances you must keep a watch on the heath of your hard disk frequently. You should check your system hard drive for bad sectors, percentage of fragmented data and amount of used and free space frequently and try to resolve it. Refer http://www.testharddriveperformance.com/windows-xp.html in order to test hard drive performance on Windows XP platform
Still facing the problem in cheching your hard drive for errors and problems, then make use of the best tool in that class - Remo MORE. This tool has a feature using which you can easily check your computer hard drive for problems. It then provides a one-stop solution to rectify the problems. It is available for free and can be downloaded from the links provided here.


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Dear Marylou: Do the clothes actresses wear on the red carpet have any real effect on fashion? -- A.S.I., Cleveland
Dear A.S.I.: It used to be that the clothes that set off trends were those worn in the movies. As in Marlene Dietrich's tuxedo by Travis Banton in "Morocco" -- the first le smoking. And Marilyn Monroe's crystal-pleated, halter-neck blow-up dress by William Travilla for "Seven Year Itch" (most say it's the most copied Hollywood dress of all time). And Audrey Hepburn's little black dress by Hubert de Givenchy for "Breakfast at Tiffany's."
The red carpet dress that set off blogger heaven last year was Angelina Jolie's right-leg-baring expos at the Oscars. (The dress was by Versace.)
If I were an actress deliberating on what to wear at the Academy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 24, I would choose the Chado Ralph Rucci design illustrated here. It's a kind of spoof on Jolie's right-leg moment, and it's more of the moment -- the moment being less expos , more raffin .
This remarkable navy jersey one-shoulder dress (more discreet than plunging, breast-baring necklines) is slit up the side to show not a leg, but an underskirt of navy sequins. I think it represents a kind of new propriety in fashion -- a sophisticated elegance with both wit and wonder. You could call it a leg up. Watch for this Rucci marvel on Feb. 24.
Dear Marylou: What were your favorite dresses at the Golden Globes? -- M.H., Laramie, Wyo.
Dear M.H.: By far, Tom Ford's praiseworthy gown for Julianne Moore. It was black and white and red-carpet-red all over, and totally illustrative of fashion's move to elegance and chic and away from bare-all brazen. Another trend that seemed to echo where fashion has been leading us is the move to strapless dresses. Cleavage-baring gowns look totally pass to me.
Dear Marylou: I'd like to buy a long -- or longer -- skirt, but am not sure what style it should be. Please advise. -- P.B., Warm Springs, Ga.
Dear P.B.: Assuming that you care about fashion but don't want to be victimized by it, and are planning to wear the skirt to work, I recommend a long skirt that is not so narrow that you can't walk in it and not so full that it evokes "Dancing With the Stars." If you can find one with a calf-to-hem zipper, so you can adjust for stridability, that would be ideal. I also recommend a stumble-proof skirt that stops at the ankles or just above to make climbing into a bus, car or taxi more manageable.
Dear Marylou: You once described a procedure for restoring a shrunken sweater to its original size. I think it had something to do with hair conditioner. Right? -- L.M., Rutherford, N.J.
Dear L.M.: If your sweater has not shrunk too much and is more matted than mini-mized, you might want to wear it as is or take out the sleeves and wear it as a vest. Reason: Boiled, brushed and felted surfaces are now major.
If you'd still prefer to have your old sweater back in its original condition, try soaking it for 15 minutes in hair conditioner -- any brand. Start with a solution of half water, half conditioner. Then rinse. Squeeze out excess liquid (do not wring), place on a towel, shape with your hands and let dry away from heat. If your sweater does not revert to its original shape, repeat the process, using full-strength hair conditioner. The shrunken fibers should relax back into their original shape. Please report back.
Marylou Luther


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Shirley May Lehn of Jackson, Calif., passed away Wednesday, July 2, 2014 at Sutter Amador Hospital in Jackson at the age of 80. She was born in Redlands, Calif., on November 13, 1933 to the late Ray and Bonnie (Martin) Moore. She moved to Hanford in 1966 and owned Shirley Lehn Realty for 20 years.
She enjoyed refinishing antique furniture and was an avid reader. Shirley moved to Amador County in 2004 to be close to her son, Michael, and his family. She was a devoted mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. Shirley loved her cockatiels, Lala, Popo and Dipsy, and had raised them from eggs. Shirley is survived by her sons, Michael Kirkley (Marta) of Sutter Creek, Calif., Dan Kirkley (Brenda); grandchildren, Alisha Schwartz (Jason), Christopher Kirkley, Ian Kirkley, Caitlin Kirkley and Chase Lehn; and great-grandchildren, Ellis and Sutton.
At the family's request there will be no services. Condolences may be sent to the family by visiting danerimortuary.com and signing the guest book.


text:
(Photo: YouTube Screenshot/three)
March 7, 2014|9:06 am
Hilarious video of the latest ad from international telecommunications company, Three.
Starring The Girl, The Singing Cat in the front of the bike, and a whole bunch of wacky things going on as they ride by.
The little girl and the cat sing the 1980s hit "We Built This City" by Starship. Just watching this video will have you laughing for hours!


text:
Why Are Whiplash Claims Often Denied?
You are stopped at a light when the car behind yours fails to stop and crashes into your vehicle. This is a classic example of the type of rear-end collision that often causes whiplash. Yet when you file an insurance claim, the company denies it, believing your claim is fraudulent. Whiplash injuries have earned a… Read More »


text: So I bought an M1 Carbine from Auto Ordnance about 9 months ago. And after having shot hundreds of rounds through it, I got home and went to go clean it when I noticed the rear sight was loose! The Wedge that holds the entire sight keeps it from coming up, but it continuously slides from side to side. Anybody else run into this problem?


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Anyone know if they are comming out with a new tank?
New Legion Air?
Started by Yeti Hunter, Oct 12 2008 03:38 PM
1 reply to this topic
Posted 12 October 2008 - 03:38 PM
A paintball gun doesn't make the player. It's the person behind the gun that is responsible for taking care of, cleaning, and pulling the trigger of it that makes every shot count.
B/S/T Feedback
B/S/T Feedback
Posted 14 October 2008 - 09:22 AM
I'm pretty sure James said there would be a new one coming out when he was on the radio show with PBChat or whoever it was.
05 Cyborg, 06 Cyborg, PM8, Hybrid NXT, E-Mag
Classic/Pump/SC Mag, Brassterling, CCM 86'd SuperStocker, 2008 Grey Ghost, VM-68 EXC
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Composition: Silver
Fineness: 0.6400
Weight: 5.2000g
ASW: 0.1070oz
Melt Value: $1.89 (10/26/2016)
Diameter: 23.5mm
Obverse: Lippizaner stallion with rider, rearing, left
Obverse Designer: Hans Köttenstorfer
Reverse: Austrian shield divides date, value above, sprays below
Reverse Designer: Josef Köblinger
Edge Description: Reeded
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Kiwi Harvester 1.4
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The N.J. Marine Fisheries Council holds a meeting today at 4 p.m. in the Toms River Township Office at 33 Washington Street. The most important item on the agenda involves setting summer flounder regulations for 2010. The appoved options have been listed in previous blogs. The Advisory Panel was generally inclined toward retaining the 18-inch minimum and six-fish bag limit while expanding the season somewhat by opening on Memorial Day weekend and continuing through Labor Day. The public will be heard at the meeting, but time is limited and complaining about the Management Plan in general will be unproductive as the Council has no control over that. Theoretically, the councilmen should vote for what's best for the entire state, but there's no representative from north of Manasquan Inlet -- and during Council meetings in South Jersey there's been a tendency for dates favoring the early season there to prevail. An increase in minimum length to 18 1/2 inches would considerably extend the season, but reducing the bag limit to four would only gain a couple of days. Surfcasters are pushing for a later spring opening that would permit fishing later in September. That still might not do me any good since the only large fluke I caught in the surf last year was a 19-incher on December 17 at Brick Beach. Those making comments should restrict themselves to only the approved options. The Council can only select among those approved by the Technical Committee as meeting the Management Plan's requirements. I suspect that the Memorial Day to Labor Day weekends season will find the greatest support. Sea bass regulations will also be discussed.
I'll be covering the opening of the World Fishing & Outdoor Expo at Rockland Community College Field House in Suffern, N.Y. today. The biggest Sportsmen's Show in our area opens its doors at 2 p.m. and runs to 9 before continuing through Sunday. Visit sportshows.com for info.


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October 15 Postgame Quotes: Mike Richards
On the goal that was waved off:
In my opinion, I did not agree with it, but not much you can do about it after. I don't know if it was the reason, but it is definitely a momentum swing in the hockey match. [Reporter: It looked like you were trying to avoid him, like step around him.] Well, I got Salo, I think it was Salo, hit me and then I was around the net and I think he even tried to push off me or push me away and I was just trying to avoid him. I don't know. I don't know what happened. Why it wasn't a call. Like I said, a momentum swing in the hockey game. It's 2-1 instead of a little later in that period three-nothing. So, it's obviously a call but we have to react a little better to some adversity.
On trying to generate offense:
You have to earn your bounces. You have to earn your luck. It's not a fluke when players get pucks bouncing to them and stuff. It's being in the right position. It's working to get there and we just have to do more of that and just work for your goals. It's not easy to score goals. If it was, everyone would do it. So it's just about getting back to shooting everything towards the net and not turning pucks over. When you're in slumps you just have to work that much harder to try to get to the front of the net, out-battle that defenseman and find the puck in front.
On the speed of Tampa Bay:
Fist shift, it put us behind the eight-ball with them scoring. Then I thought we were actually getting better as the period went on. Our Power Play has got to score us a big goal just to get us back in that hockey game, but it didn't happen. They were opportunistic with their chances and we gave them too many stressed attacks at our net.
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According to the apocryphal story, Susannah was secretly observed bathing by two elders. For refusing their advances, Susannah was falsely charged with adultery and faced a death penalty. However, she was exonerated and her story became an example of the triumph of justice. This subject was frequently painted in the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for the possibility it offered in depicting the female nude.
This painting by an unknown artist is a copy of a work at Burghley House attributed to Artemisia Gentileschi (1622). Susannah was originally more naked than she appears today, as further drapery was added at a later date.
In correspondence to the museum, Ellis Waterhouse observed that the Nottingham painting is a copy of the work at Burghley House, which he attributed to Artemisia Gentileschi. However, current thinking queries the attribution of the Burghley painting to Artemisia.
The Nottingham version was discussed briefly in the Nottingham newspaper Evening Post and News, 23 November 1964.
Core Record
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2 sweet girls,oh my-- where are you today?
yes,so hot
Aurora Snow (pink top) and Jenna Haze (black top)
wheres the second part!
great video.
Please second part NOW!!!!!
so, a younger Jenna Haze... can't tell who the girl in the overalls is.
I love the dark haired Italian one--honey where are you?
:O! .i.