Business is not "Just Business
Jul 30, 2007 Family and Friends
Occasionally, the fact that we are all human becomes sharply ingrained in my thoughts. Business is not just business. Anyone who tells you that, has never had to do the difficult deeds often required on the job, or they just enjoy tired cliches.
Once again I go off topic of my blog. But this thought came to me as I drove home today.
Under the formalities of mission statements, corporate speak, board room meetings, stodgy rules and paperwork business is a ultimately a set of friendships. Well, what amounts to friendships. Friendship with your boss, with your colleagues, with your vendors. Sure, there are lines drawn. You don’t want your boss to sit down and tell you how to live your private life- “That guy you are seeing is bad news.” or ” I think you should consider losing a few pounds” – that would be considered harassment. You likely don’t even want to hear these things from colleagues! Friendships with colleagues can be just as tricky. I do my best to help colleagues when I can – but what if by helping you are actually making it worse for them? But if you don’t help – you aren’t being much of a friend in their eyes. How about vendors or suppliers. People you pay to do work for you. Perhaps old-school business etiquette would suggest that you remain at an arms length. Unfriends. Unlikely. Just as important as how they do the job, is how work they with you. So, what if you consider them a friend, but the business side of the relationship isn’t working out?
The truth is sometimes these friendships are difficult. Sometimes business needs to come first. Sometimes you come first. Sometimes you have to break it off. And, “It’s not you, it’s me” doesn’t work. Business is not just business, sometimes it comes home with you and haunts you or lifts a giant weight from your shoulders. The friendships are necessary. These are the building blocks of your workplace, they are the conversations that make work bearable. But just as necessary is for you to know when to draw the line – when to say “Can we still be friends?” and when to walk away.
We are all human and the distinctions between friendships in and out of work- these lines are blurred. Business is not just business – because of our own humanity.
Conversation is a profound act of humanity.
- Cluetrain Manifesto
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Hey, if this blog is about web tools – we blur the lines on friendship and business everyday on social networks! Look at your friends list – I bet you that a quarter to half of those friends you met at work. I checked mine and out of 201 friends, 54 are through work.
Popularity: 2% [?]
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What We Can Learn From the Recording Industry
Jul 29, 2007 Marketing & Communication
I was listening to the “This Week in Tech” (TWIT) podcast this week, an episode titled The Day the Music Died, and it caused me to consider the peril of becoming complacent, of not looking ahead, and not considering changes in the market place within and even outside your industry.
Business-as-usual doesn’t work anymore. The web has changed that.
the death of the music industry
Journalists have been predicting the demise of the music industry for years as record sales have dipped to a new low. According to a recent special report titled The Record Industry’s Decline in Rolling Stone (June 2007) overall CD sales have plummeted sixteen percent this year so far, and that is following a previous seven years of unprecedented deterioration. The report states that- “In the face of widespread piracy, consumers’ growing preference for low-profit-margin digital singles over albums, and other woes, the record business has plunged into a historic decline.” A study by Nielsen Soundscan, shows that US consumers purchased 785.1 million albums in 2000 compared to 588.2 albums last year. In 2000, the ten top-selling albums in the U.S. sold a combined 60 million copies; in 2006, the top ten sold just 25 million. Despite this obvious decline in album sales, digital sales are growing, consumers bought 582 million digital singles last year, up sixty-five percent from 2005. These new revenue sources, according to Rolling Stone, do not make up for the steep decline the record labels have faced over the last few years.
the music industry is growing…the record industry is not growing.
According to an article in the Economist “seven years ago musicians derived two-thirds of their income, via record labels, from pre-recorded music, with the other one-third coming from concert tours, merchandise and endorsements, according to the Music Managers Forum, a trade group in London.” Today those proportions have been reversed—resulting in the labels being cut off from the largest source of revenue – concert sales and merchandise. Other sources, such as NPD Group are also showing that consumers are listening to more recorded music; whether from CDs, downloads, video games, satellite radio, terrestrial radio, online streams or other sources. If money is made in concerts, endorsements and merchandise perhaps the logical conclusion is for artists to give away their music as a promotional tool. Just this month that is exactly what Prince did! The artist gave away his new album “Planet Earth”, in Britain for free with the Mail on Sunday.
net radio bruhahaha
The TWIT podcast was focused on the latest legal fiasco surrounding the recording industry. Not to be confused with previous legal battles such as those against Napster, P2P (peer to peer) and filesharing sites, and even music fans themselves – this time the recording industry is looking for more royalties from internet radio webcasters.
A brief history:
From SaveNetRadio: On March 2, 2007 the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB), which oversees sound recording royalties paid by Internet radio services, increased Internet radio’s royalty burden between 300 and 1200 percent and thereby jeopardized the net radio industry’s future. At the request of the Recording Industry Association of America, the CRB ignored the fact that Internet radio royalties were already double what satellite radio pays, and multiplied the royalties even further.
From Wired News: This month new terms were proposed for internet radio webcasters. Under the new proposal, SoundExchange (a group responsible for collecting music broadcasting royalties) would cap the $500 annual per-channel minimum fee at $50,000 per year for webcasters. In exchange, webcasters could be required to provide more detailed data on the music that they play and make an effort to stop unauthorized copying from streamrippers, software that can turn net radio streams into permanent recordings. In addition to the minimum caps proposal, Webcasters were given assurances that negotiations would continue to work out breathing room for small and non-commercial broadcasters.
I am simplifying this situation. There are plenty of other issues and considerations – likely enough for an entire book.
The problem is the recording companies weren’t looking ahead. They weren’t, to use an overused cliche – thinking outside the box. They tried the business-as-usual method. Just tighten your grip and hope for the best. They want everyone to play the game their way – but new technology has changed the way we listen to music, the way we discover new music, and the way we get music. Shutting down Internet radio or charging them enormous royalties is not a solution, just like going after Napster didn’t solve the piracy issue. The recording industry held onto an old business model that simply won’t work in a world of iTunes, Rhapsody, Amazon and P2P sites.
the long tail
Chris Anderson wrote in his book The Long Tail about a new economic model for the media and entertainment industries – Unlimited selection! In the book he says “Unlimited selection is revealing truths about what consumers want and how they want to get it in service after service, from DVDs at Netflix to music videos on Yahoo! Launch to songs in the iTunes Music Store and Rhapsody. People are going deep into the catalog, down the long, long list of available titles, far past what’s available at Blockbuster Video, Tower Records, and Barnes & Noble. And the more they find, the more they like. As they wander further from the beaten path, they discover their taste is not as mainstream as they thought (or as they had been led to believe by marketing, a lack of alternatives, and a hit-driven culture).”
He points to Rhapsody as an example: “Not only is every one of Rhapsody’s top 100,000 tracks streamed at least once each month, the same is true for its top 200,000, top 300,000, and top 400,000. As fast as Rhapsody adds tracks to its library, those songs find an audience, even if it’s just a few people a month, somewhere in the country.Combine enough nonhits on the Long Tail and you’ve got a market bigger than the hits. Rhapsody streams more songs each month beyond its top 10,000 than it does its top 10,000. In each case, the market that lies outside the reach of the physical retailer is big and getting bigger.” What an amazing opportunity for the recording industry who has backlogs of music dating back decades! If only they would move beyond focusing on just the hits…perhaps they would find new ways to make money. If only they had seen this opportunity seven years ago.
one step ahead
The music industry topic is a little outside my blog focus, and my expertise – but the story shows how important it is to keep abreast of changes in technologies, understanding how they shape the changes in the marketplace and ultimately how you as a marketer will have to converse and do business with consumers. Imagine if the Recording Industry had spent time examining the new technologies and discovered ways to work with them rather than against them.
When I talk to fellow marketers about blogs and podcasts, RSS, Facebook, and Twitter – and they look at me blankly – unfamiliar with these, now basic, web tools – I am shocked. Marketers should be using these new tools, trying them out and visualizing how they could change the way they converse with their customers. Too many are ignoring what is going on, not looking at the future of the market, not comprehending that even if these particular social networks or technologies have a brief life – they will make way for the next great thing that will once again change how we do business.
That is my plea – fellow marketers – pay attention to new technology. Get your hands dirty, sign up for Facebook even if you don’t want to connect with old friends, start reading blogs and podcasts, perhaps even start your own. Keep an eye out for the next new thing. Of course, keep reading my blog as I introduce you to other tools and show you how to use them.
Subscribe to my feed, so you can keep reading. If you don’t know how – just read the previous post RSS for Beginners.
Popularity: 6% [?]
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RSS Lesson 2 & Facebook Google Reader App
Jul 22, 2007 RSS, Web Tools & Applications
I had wanted to post this video in my original post on RSS, however, I couldn’t find it because it was before I was using De.icio.us (which I will explain on another post since I know some of you are thinking…huh?!) This video should help to explain more about RSS and Google Reader – it even has cute little diagrams.
Click To Play
While I take the time to write a second post today I also wanted to mention that for those of you who are on Facebook – you can now share your Google Shares on Facebook. The new application is aptly named Google Reader Shared Items. All you need is your ID number from Google Reader to set it up. Go to your Shares (left column at the top) and you will see the URL for your feeds, simply copy that long number at the end – it is your ID. If you and I are friends on Facebook we will be able to check out each others “shares”! So far I only have one friend sharing feeds on Facebook (sniff, sniff!)
Popularity: 5% [?]
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Blog Search 101
Jul 22, 2007 Search Marketing, Social Media, Web Tools & Applications
If you aren’t already a blog reader, knowing how to keep track of them through Bloglines and Google Reader, as I talked about in the previous post, may seem a rather pointless first step! However, since you have taken this step – when you do find interesting blogs you will easily be able to subscribe and keep your feeds organized!
According to Technorati there are 175,000 new blogs every day, and blogs are being updated with new content at a rate of 1 every 18 seconds, or 1.6 Million posts per day. That is a lot of information to get through to find the ones you are interested in! So how do you find blogs that are of interest to you?
Blog Search Tools
Technorati
Technorati is one of the most popular search tools for blogs. The Technorati “ranks” and “popular” lists are often cited metrics for the blogosphere. Technorati rates blogs by “Authority” and “Rank”. The “Authority” rating is based on the number of blogs that are linking to that particular website. The higher the number – the more Technorati Authority. Quite the popularity contest! The Technorati “Rank” is calculated on how far you are from the top – so the blog with the highest “authority” ranks number one. This form of rating blogs obviously allows you to find the blogs that others enjoy, but keep in mind new blogs (like mine…) will have no authority and will rank at the bottom – but the information you garner can be just as valuable. On the right hand side you will see the Technorati button, click on it to visit my profile.
Ready to search? Let’s say you are a big fan of the HBO show Entourage, and you want to make sure you are at the top of your game in Jeremy Piven trivia. So you want to find an Entourage blog. At the Technorati home page you can use the search bar in the upper right corner. Type in “Entourage”. You will see the below in the window:
It will find blogs with the word “Entourage” and posts with the word “Entourage”. As you can see above you can choose the tab that suits what you are looking for. Obviously a post that has the word “Entourage” in it could be anything – including this blog when it is live! So I would tend to look under the “Blog” tab which will bring you to a list of blogs called “Entourage: Entourage The Dream Team” and “Entourage Fodder: Reviews and News”. As you can also see above, Technorati suggests “Related Tags” – Jeremy Piven, Television, and HBO. By selecting “Jeremy Piven” you will get a list of posts that mention his name, and blogs that use Jeremy Piven as a tag. With all the available resources on Entourage – you should be well prepared for the next round of pop trivia.
Perhaps now is a good time to describe what a label or tag is…
Think of a tag as a category name. People can categorize their posts, blog, photos, videos, or music with any tag that makes sense to describe it. Within the Technorati environment, there are two kinds of tags. There is the “Post Tag” and the “Blog Tag”. The Post Tag is used to describe the topics covered in individual items (posts) and is taken from labels bloggers use within their blog. At the end of this blog posting you will see that I have used labels to describe this posting (Technorati, Finding Blogs etc.) Blog Tags are assigned from the Technorati account blog settings when a blogger sets up his or her own blog, and describe the topics the blogs covers.Technorati also allows you to browse blogs by subject matter, however this particular area was hard to locate. I only found it while reading some of the FAQs. Technorati’s main page seems to focus on the best of the best, top video, top blogs, link here to favourites, link here for popular…Of course you can always use the search function, but sometimes it is nice to browse, see what is out there. Technorati’s Blog Directory is hard to find on the site but is useful for those of us who are browsers. The only downside is that it gives you general topics, such as “Books”, “Business”, “Entertainment” or “Movies” but doesn’t then divide it further to include for instance “Marketing” under Business or “Romance” under books. So great for the generalist.
Other Blog Search Engine’s and Directories
Obviously Technorati is not the only blog search tool out there. But it is one of the more popular ones out there.
Google Blog Search – A very simple search, it is basically Google Search only it looks through blogs and comments on blogs only.
Blog Catalog – Blog Catalog allows you to set up your own blog in the database and search for others of interest. There is a search function which will find keywords in the user-defined features of the blog, and within the tags allocated to the site. It does have a browse feature (which is easily found at the top of the page!) and it is divided beyond “Business” or “Arts & Entertainment”.
Best way to find blogs…
The number one way to find blogs is of course is the best way to find anything – word of mouth! I find the majority of the blogs I read on marketing and PR through other blogs and podcasts. Often within a post a writer will mention other bloggers and link them, and of course most blogs include a “blog roll” which is a list of blogs that they enjoy reading. I have included a list of Marketing, Tech and Mommy Blogs I read to the right as a place for you to start!
Popularity: 4% [?]
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RSS Readers for Beginners
Jul 19, 2007 Blogs, RSS, Web Tools & Applications
I should start by saying that I am by no means an expert on all things “internet”. In fact, I am hardly a technically person by nature. In my family that would be my brother the computer engineer, who (shameless plug) has a blog called OMOVO where he discusses “technical” stuff like telecommunications, mobility, and their convergence. I have always been the one who excelled in English due to my love of reading, but Quadratic Formulas haunted my dreams.
That being said, I tend to find trends and cling to them, obsess over them, and spend hours talking them up to friends, coworkers, and random people. Lately, that obsession has been on all the cool things I have found on the internet. When my son was born it was Mommy forums, blogs, and building my own website around his pictures. Now back at work I have found incredible resources and social networks which, along with my mommy forums and blogs, keeps me on the computer for hours after my son goes to bed. When I find something I like – I want to share it. Facebook for example. Friends and family actually began groaning when I mentioned the word “Facebook” in conversation.
On the flip side, they also seemed to start coming to me with questions on “how-to” with regards to web tools.
So that is one of the purposes of this blog. I will start with how to subscribe to blogs – since if you plan to continue reading this one – you might want to learn how to do this:
BLOGS
When I first began reading blogs, I just added them to my “favourites” and sporadically visited to see if anything was new. This meant I either missed a lot, or when I visited I was overwhelmed with new content. I learned later that there was a way around this! It is called RSS or Real Simple Syndication and it is allows you to publish and subscribe to frequently updated content like blog entries or new content on web pages with feeds. While there are Windows based readers, and Mobile RSS readers I chose a Web Based RSS Reader .
There are two that I would recommend – they are simple to use and allow you to “clip” or “file” away your favourite blog posts.
Bloglines has a split screen interface, with subscription menu on one side and the posts on the other. It is easy to set up- all you need is an email address and a password. Bloglines will send you a confirmation email to you, and then you are up and running. The easiest way to begin “subscribing” to blogs with Bloglines is to set up an “Easy Subscribe” button on your browser. Visit Bloglines Easy Sub to add your button (it gives instructions for the various browsers). You can also add subscriptions from the Bloglines front page under “Subscribe” – by copying and pasting the Blogs URL. As well, many established blogs will have a “Subscribe” feature, look for images like these:
When you subscribe to the feeds consider categorizing them, while you may only have a few to begin with – eventually you will have oodles of blogs you are following and it will be helpful to know what they are about! Categorize based on topic, such as Food, Business, Marketing, News…You can do this in the Options section as you subscribe. Automatically the Folder will read “Top Level”, if you drop the menu you down you can add new folders and save your blog under the category of your choice.
As you subscribe to feeds they will show up on the left screen under the “Feeds” tab. It will show that there are X number of unread posts in the last week. Beware as soon as you click on the Blog Name it will look as though you have read all the recent posts. This is also the case for the Folder – if you click on the Folder name, it will assume you have read all the feeds. I have tried, but the back button doesn’t fix this!
A nice feature if you are like me and want to refer to interesting articles later on is the “Clipping” ability. At the bottom of each post you will see a place to “Email” and “Clip/Blog” . A new window will pop up and allow you to make notes about the clipping or comments on it should you wish to add it to your own blog. As well, on the bottom right hand corner you can file it under the folder of your choice. To refer to Clippings later on, simple go to the Clipping tab on the left hand screen.
Google Reader is what I am using now, as it is nicely integrated into my iGoogle (a topic for another posting), my Gmail and so on…
If you have a Gmail account it is easy to set up Google Reader as your email and password will work. Once set up – you can take the Google Reader Tour if you so choose. It is very helpful and goes through all the features as well as the basics. Like Bloglines the left side of the screen shows your feeds while the right side shows the blog posts. A nice feature with Google Reader is that you can show unread posts in an “Expanded” or “List” View. The list view becomes very helpful when one blog has 50+ unread posts and you want to find the posts that interest you without spending a lot of time scrolling. As in Bloglines you can categorize your Blogs under various folders – simply visit “Manage Subscriptions”.
Unlike Bloglines Google Reader doesn’t appear to have an Easy Subscribe button, however you can copy and paste the URL on the main page where it says- Add Subscription.
Finally there are a few other cool features built into Google Reader:
Starred Items – A great way to file away for later.
Tags – Add tags on articles you are saving (bottom of the postings) – this can help you find them later on. There doesn’t appear to be a limit to tags so be as specific as you like. You might also tag things as “Print” if you want to remember to print it at a later time.
Shared Items- You can easily create a Public Page with favourite posts. At the bottom of the page choose “Share” and it will automatically post to your very own public page. Visit my google reader feed and subscribe (yes, there is a feed!) as your first feed subscription (after the MEGO Again Blog of course!)
If you have any questions feel free to post them to the blog – or if you are shy email them to me!
Popularity: 4% [?]
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M E G O
Jul 12, 2007 Blogs, Marketing & Communication, Social Media, social networks
MEGO, a term I heard some time ago on a podcast (which one?) that explains how I feel
- when I open Google Reader and see 100+ new items;
- when I sync my iPod to discover I am now 6 weeks behind in podcast listening,
- when I pour over articles-upon articles of fascination
and then realize that I will never be able to take it all in (or catch up!),
the information will drown me.
That term is “My Eyes Glaze Over”.
The aim of my blog is to help others discover the amazing social networking tools and plethora of learning tools that I have found (and keep finding). Hopefully, while not setting them up for a case of the “MEGOs”.
Popularity: 2% [?]
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