The New TV
Oct 30, 2007 New
More and more these are the things we talk about around the water-cooler… online videos…
Here is one that is both smart and funny.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0PMbpRe208&rel=1]
Popularity: 2% [?]
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iGoogle vs Netvibes
Oct 27, 2007 RSS, Social Media, Web Analytics, social networks
I have been an iGoogle fan for a while now. However, a few friends suggested Netvibes so I felt it was time to give it a try. For the last week I have been using Netvibes on my home computer, and iGoogle at work.
What are iGoogle and Netvibes?
I suppose you could say that these site are the successors of the portals from the 1990s. A new scripting technique called Ajax has shown that web applications don’t need to rely solely on pages being reloaded from the server to present changes to the user. Rather, everything seems to happen almost instantly. From Wikipedia:
“The intent is to make web pages feel more responsive by exchanging small amounts of data with the server behind the scenes, so that the entire web page does not have to be reloaded each time the user requests a change.”
Ajax is what iGoogle and Netvibes are built on. Ajax start pages are easy-to-use, customizable web pages, allowing you to keep up with the latest news and add interactive content. You can add new RSS feeds and widgets, and move your content around the page.
What can you do with iGoogle and Netvibes?
Organize your web life on one page! There are widgets/gadgets/modules for just about anything; To Do Lists, International Clocks, E-mail, and various RSS Feeds. You choose what goes on the page and where it goes. You can stream the blogs you follow through individual modules placed on the page, or by using one specifically for your feed aggregator (I use Google Reader).
There are widgets for Facebook, Twitter, Gmail and Del.icio.us that update as new content is available. You can add additional tabs allowing you to organize your widgets if you like by category. On the left you can see my iGoogle page where I have added widgets for Facebook, Del.icio.us, Twitter, Google Reader and Google Analytics.
What is the difference between iGoogle and Netvibes?
iGoogle
Like other Google pages, the page is very functional but light on graphics and style.
Many modules on iGoogle force you to open an additional page in order to read, or compose anything. On Netvibes the Facebook module allows you to search within in your friends from the Netvibes page, and from the Flickr widget you can flip through your images or the images of friends.
Netvibes
Netvibes is much more pleasing to the eye than iGoogle. With Google the search header takes up a third of the page. This means your favourite widgets end up falling below the fold, or you have to use multiple tabs. Netvibes doesn’t have the search header which is just as well since search is built into Mozilla browser anyhow!
Another benefits of Netvibes is that it allows you to sign in to multiple Gmail accounts, whereas iGoogle makes you sign in and out to get to your other accounts. I write two blogs, this one and another one about my 2 year old. My other blog is also through Blogger, but with a different login – which means I must log out of iGoogle every time I want to post to that particular blog.
The downside for me with Netvibes is that there are no modules for Google Analytics or Google Reader. While it could be argued that you can subscribe to your RSS feeds through Netvibes – I prefer Google Reader as it allows me to share articles by emailing, my Shared Google Reader feed and Feedheads (Facebook Application). Google Reader also allows me to star, tag and file away my favourite articles. I found some suggestions online that to deal with this issue one could use a module called “Tiny Browser”. However, it is really tiny…
My Choice
After a week using both…I have decided to stick with Netvibes. To get over my issue with Google Reader and Analytics for the time being I have set my browser to open multiple windows upon opening. One with Google Reader, one with Netvibes and one with Analytics.
Popularity: 7% [?]
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Pet Peeve
Oct 25, 2007 New
I am a team player – it says so on my CV. It also says that I am “self-starter” and other peculiar résumé terms. I am sure if I looked I would see that it also states that I work well independently. Most people likely include statements like this in hopes that it makes them employable. However, there are a lot of people who may work well independently, but when asked to collaborate they fight back and try desperately to gain control. Others, enjoy working in a team but when asked to work by themselves they flounder around – accomplishing nothing.
During my free time (outside of work, being a mom, and blogging…) I volunteered to help out with a non-profit organization. Obviously it can’t be expected that unpaid people will give their full attention to their project. And, of course the same issues found at the work place, exist in the volunteer world. That includes individuals that either prefer to work alone or can’t accomplish anything without a team survey. I like to think that I straddle these two extremes. Hence, the reason it drives me mad when I have to work with someone who exhibits one of these traits. During the work with the non-profit I have had to work with an individual who seems to like to control the project, work completely independently and share nothing. Instead of working collaboratively throughout the project and determining roles for each member – this person took on it all. Sending it back when it was “finished” despite requests prior to see the work.
One particular piece of the project was a list of 195 people to follow-up with, create
d by our hard working independent worker. When asked if there was perhaps a few on the list that would be a priority…the individual apologized for the “overly comprehensive list.” Right… that is what I would call it (sarcasm) Had the team been involved from the get go – we would have known the projects priorities and perhaps the time line would still have been in line with the critical path (which, by the way…this person also created!)
Thanks for listening! How would I get all of this out of my system without my blog. . .
Thanks to Stock Exchange (barunpatro & gnmills)
Popularity: 2% [?]
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Early Morning Flub
Oct 22, 2007 New
Today I inadvertently became a spammer. Early this morning I was surfing the internet, and decide to press the “Stumble” button on my StumbleUpon tool bar. Because it had recently been updated it asked me to look for friends…so I did. It showed me that one of my friends was on StumbleUpon. Without thinking or paying attention I said “Connect”. Realizing after doing this – yikes – that it was going to email all my Gmail contacts. I tried pressing the Stop button on the browser, click the back button…anything to stop it.
It didn’t work. So half asleep this morning I spammed my friends. That being said at least it was a worthwhile cause. StumbleUpon is great fun! Apparently some of my friends thought so too…six of my friends have now joined.
I don’t feel quite as bad. Phew. Dodged that bullet…
Popularity: 2% [?]
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Information R/evolution
Oct 18, 2007 Books
I have to share this video:
I just finished reading David Weinberger’s book Everything is Miscellaneous (which you should definitely add to your book list!) and this video is almost an executive summary of the book.
A great job by the people who created The Machine is Using Us.
Popularity: 3% [?]
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HR Speak
Oct 16, 2007 A Good Laugh, Marketing & Communication
Recently I started a new position at work. Previously I was a Category Manager – and now I have the fancy title “Marketing & Communication Manager”.
With a new job comes a new job description. Reading my job description reminded me the importance of clarity, and writing the way your audience will easily comprehend. Why do companies spend hours writing copy that sounds ridiculous. Packaging, websites and corporate literature are written with buzz words, the biggest words they can find, and miscellaneous industry terms. Why? So they confuse the reader into thinking their product is the greatest thing in the world?
Same thing with job descriptions. Just go to Workopolis if you feel like reading job jargon. For example mine says:
“Establish and execute the communication and public relations strategy with a focus on delivering quantifiable and demonstrable results.” Yikes. What is this? Why not just Plan and Execute Communication Strategy that deliver a decent ROI.
It should also be noted “Quantifiable” was used two more times in my new job description. My guess is that they want my programs to = sales.
“Respond to requests for information from the media, customers, stakeholders, or other groups”
This could be any job…I am responding to any requests for information, from potentially any human on the planet.
The word “Develop” is used 3 times. “Manage” – 3 times. Of course a sprinkling of “Implement”, “Support”, “Execute” and ” Create”.
I know our HR Manager and she is amazing, and busy. I suspect this was just a copy and paste effort from other job descriptions grandfathered into the company, or from web postings.
Or perhaps she tried Buzz Word Generator to see if it might get by us silly marketing folks.
I just used it and got this great new term ” empower cross-platform convergence” that could easily be used in a job description see example:
Manage marketing strategy to empower cross-platform convergence.
Sounds good doesn’t it.
Popularity: 2% [?]
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Dove Onslaught
Oct 11, 2007 Advertising
If you are a regular blog reader – you have likely already seen Dove’s follow-up to its popular Evolution video. However, if by chance you haven’t you absolutely need to.
I think it is brilliant. Dove has picked up on how we feel, they have tapped into a social cause their target market believes in.
Bob Garfield at Advertising Age called it a great film but questions the hypocrisy of Unilever who also own Axe and Slim-Fast. Joseph Jaffe asks one of the questions that ran through my mind as I watched it:
” how the rest of the “beauty” industry must feel about these very authentic ideas, which hit home on the travesty of misrepresentation, misdirection and borderline indoctrination and propaganda that is the “30-second spot”
The only question is, when this campaign “For Real Beauty” goes stale and no longer seems to work…what will Dove do? It will certainly be difficult to ever go back to the traditional messages that the beauty industry usually uses.
Popularity: 2% [?]
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Photo Freak Out
Oct 6, 2007 Books, Family and Friends
I am reading David Weinberger’s book Everything is Miscellaneous. And within 20 pages I am freaking out.
I am constantly snapping pictures. The first year of my son’s life I PRINTED on average 70 a month. It is important to note that since he turned one I haven’t printed any, I have just loaded them into my Adobe Photoshop album.
Weinberger says, “Now check your computer. If you have a digital camera, you may well have saved over a thousand photos in just the past few years.”
yes. 9334 to be exact.
” As a result, we are loading into our computers thousands of photos with automatically generated names that mean nothing to us.”
yes. IMG_0057.jpg is a picture of my son and his friend Ethan.
“We’re simply not going to be able to keep up.”
Yes. So true.
“What’s clear is that however we solve the photo crisis, it will be adding more information to images, because the solution to overabundance of information is more information.
So now I am using the tags on Photoshop Album, tagging photos with who is pictured, what is happening and which collection it should be part of. I still have 8890 to go.
Popularity: 2% [?]
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Google Analytics
Oct 3, 2007 RSS, Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Web Analytics
MEGO: My Eyes Glaze Over Again has been live for almost 3 months now. Since the start I have used Google Analytics to track traffic to my site. I also use Feedburner to understand how my site is used through RSS aggregators such as Google Reader and Bloglines.
In the last three months in order to publicize my site I have:
- Shared my site through my Google Reader Shared Items (learn more about Google Reader from my previous post!)
- Posted my site to Del.ici.ous (Start Social Bookmarking – check out Social Bookmarking 101, and 201!)
- Added my URL to Facebook profile
- Added notes on Facebook about my new blog and new posts (3 times). Currently I only import my Mommy Blog to my Facebook profile
- Occasionally linked to my blog from Twitter (If you aren’t Twittering…why not?
- Had my IM message as http://www.megoagain.com/
- Added my blog to directories such a Blog Catalog, Blogorama and Technorati
- Talk about it constantly to anyone who will listen
I have not made a huge effort to publicize my site outside of my circle of friends and virtual acquaintances, but I am pleased with the traffic to my site! If anyone has other ideas of how to “share” my blog – please post a comment!
So the results so far: (for those of you who get thousands of hits a day…don’t laugh..I am just starting out!)
- Total visits 650
- 58% are returning visitors
- Visitors are from all over the world:
71% Canada
16% US
7% UK
6% includes Australia, Israel, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Germany, India, Lithuania, Malasia, Switzerland, Russia, Japan, Ukraine, United Arab Emigrates, South Korea, Finland and Mexico
- Based on the Network Location I have had visitors from:
Conair (since I work here that makes sense!)
General Mills
Loblaw Companies Inc
Canadian Bar Association ( I believe that is one of my friends)
Air Canada
Bank of Nova Scotia
Canadian House of Commons
Cargo Jet
Grace Maternity Hospital (Halifax)
Landscape Ontario
RIM
TD Bank
Playboy
Edelman PR Worldwide
and more…
Traffic has come from direct (41%) or referring sites (44%). Search made up 15%.
- Direct (41%)
- Blogger (17%)
- Google (15%) -
- Facebook (7%)
- Other referring sites 20%
Most popular posts:
- A Stock Issue
- New Concept Loblaws
- Productivity at the Workplace
If I look at my Feedburner stats (which honestly I don’t really understand…other than it should help me determine who has subscribed to my site through an RSS reader) – I have anywhere from between 11 and 21 subscribers – the majority who use Google Reader.
Popularity: 5% [?]
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Cuisinart Kitchen Party
Oct 1, 2007 Social Media, social networks, word of mouth
Last Thursday I wasn’t sitting in front of the TV watching the season premiere of Gray’s Anatomy (no worries though, I recorded it!). Instead I was at the fifth Cuisinart Kitchen Party held in Victoria, B.C. Like the previous four parties I left thrilled with the reaction of the guests, and excited with the sense of community that was tbuilt through the event.
Urbanmoms.ca
We started the Kitchen Party concept with Urbanmoms.ca in September 2006, and at that time it was an online component consisting of a sponsored blog section. The Kitchen Party blog is written by a mom blogger and at the beginning focused on recipes, using appliances when making the recipes and the occasional product review from some of moms. Recently Jen from Urbanmoms.ca made a slight change to the section with a new blogger and a focus on stories from the kitchen or the idea that the kitchen is the “heart of the home.”
Why did we choose to work with Urbanmoms.ca over creating our own corporate blog? Urbanmoms already had a community of over 10,000 moms. Moms who were actively involved with an incredible site with blogs on cool products, dieting, gossip and Mompreneurs. As a mom myself, I knew that I was more likely to go to non-corporate site for reviews, and more likely to ask my peers for recommendations than a corporate talking-head. Urbanmoms.ca gave the brand credibility and it opened it’s community to us – as long as we played by the rules- of course. The sponsored section was open and transparent. We didn’t moderate comments or the blogger for that matter. It was built not to sell, but to communicate to the Canadian moms in the Urbanmoms.ca community and hopefully over time to build loyalty.
Home Kitchen Parties
In January 2007, we moved the program off-line (although the online portion remains). We offered the mom community a chance to host their own Kitchen Party. Cuisinart and Urbanmoms.ca would bring the food, the Chef, and even the cleaning people. The hosting mom just had to invite 10-12 friends and have a kitchen that was big enough for a Chef and 15 other people!
When we talk to media about the event – the are constantly referring to the “Tupperware Party” as a comparison. Having been to Pampered Chef, Tupperware, and Discovery Toys Parties myself – I can say there are a few similarities. Just like at these parties the hostess invites her friends – from work, from the gym, from her daughter’s horseback riding class. Most of the guests know only 1/4 of the other women there, and the rest she gets to know throughout the evening. Like the other parties there is food, wine and loads of conversation.
There is a big difference though – we don’t sell at the party. At the end of the party I don’t pull out a catalog and say “now you can order what you would like….and if you order a lot the hostess gets a bunch of freebies”! In fact, at the end of the party the guests get a gift from Cuisinart. One time it was a Cuisinart Griddler, another time an Immersion Blender, and prior to that an Electric Knife. We call it our Oprah moment. At the event the women aren’t “sold” products, rather the Chef uses the products to create various recipes, and gives the women hints and tips on product use. We encourage all the guests to try the appliances and to ask questions – it is meant to be fun and interactive- hence the title “Kitchen Party”.
Measuring the Success
We have done five of these parties so far, and have one more planned in November. We have held parties in Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Ottawa and the latest in Victoria. While the portion online we can measure with quantity of comments, number of click-through and pageviews – the success of the actual in home Kitchen Party is difficult to quantify.
We have determined a few ways to measure the success of this program:
Quality of Feedback
At each party we get a ton of valuable feedback from the guests, about how they use (or don’t use) appliances; what they are looking for from a small appliance brand and what they like (or don’t like) about cooking and kitchen appliances. After the party I will often hear from a few guests who e-mail to tell me that they purchased X, Y or Z product – which of course is amazing feedback!
Urbanmoms.ca sends out a pre-survey to the guests, and a post survey as well which gives us great view of how perceptions of the brand change.
Earned Media
Press has been a nice bonus with this program. Urbanmoms.ca and Cuisinart have been in trade publications such as Marketing Magazine and Strategy Magazine, consumer magazines such as Chatelaine ( 5 page spread “Army of Moms, May 07) and we also appeared on CBC and Rogers television.
Word of Mouth
We know from the post survey that the majority of the guests tell over 7 friends about the evening. Word of mouth is hard to measure of course. How many will they actually tell and what will they say? Will one of the people they tell – tell someone else? Will the story propel someone to purchase Cuisinart next time? Hard to tell, but one guest in Victoria said it best she “will definitely buy Cuisinart the next time because we took the time to connect and do something different”. It becomes abundantly clear that consumers don’t want to be sold to anymore, they want to communicate with a brand – 2 way. Traditional advertising simply doesn’t cut through anymore.
Brand Ambassadors
After each Kitchen Party I choose five or six women from the event to be part of our brand ambassador team. Right now that team has received some product to review – but I hope to expand that program in the near future.
If gut feeling is a measurement tool – I believe the program is going great!
Popularity: 2% [?]
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