Sizzle! Posts

Company Growing Up, Are Your Competencies?

by Kas Kunz

Starting a business from scratch, growing a company, turning around a troubled company, maintaining success with inevitable upturns and downturns in the market or running a multinational company requires different skills. What does it require at each of these points in its existence? How do you market to achieve the different business goals?

Business growth and maturity — developing marketing intelligence is not something the business does by itself, but is intricately tied to the individuals who make up the company. Everyone is responsible for marketing — whether it's internal or external. What is done within the company always impacts the customer.  

Marketing is not something that is done once or periodically — it's always part of a successful company. It takes the business goals — defines what needs to be done and how they need to be implemented in order to be achieved. For a company to continue as a viable business a culture of learning, development, and growing competencies are always in the marketing mix.

Brought together in this video are two well-known individuals that have grown up in businesses started from scratch that grew into multinational companies, which have been part of major technology evolutions in the business world. No matter what scale of business you want to be involved in or achieve, as you watch and listen, imagine all the changes they made in their competencies as their businesses grew up.

What's up in the World of Blogs and Connections with Social Networking?

by Kas Kunz

This past week eMarketer.com published an interview excerpt with David Tokheim, the General Manager at Six Apart Media who are the creators of the blogging service TypePad, Movable Type, and Vox. One trend brought out is both blogging tools and social networks are making it easier to connect between the two. When you post on your blog such as TypePad you can publish through to your Facebook and Twitter — which means you don't have to use multiple systems to connect your various online activities. Other insights from the interview:

"Mr. Tokheim: We're seeing a lot more women blogging, a lot of mommy bloggers. They have a different dynamic than what we've seen from tech bloggers in that most of the moms have multiple blogs. They work with different networks like BlogHer, as well as Six Apart Media. And there's a very strong community around what they're doing.

eMarketer: What do you think is driving the spike in mommy bloggers?

Mr Tokheim: Two things: I think it's awareness, or word-of-mouth, and blogging platforms have become easier to use.

One of the reasons that technology bloggers were some of the first bloggers is that they were tech-savvy and able to write code, which you needed to do in the early days of blogging."

In the same week, Anita Campbell, the Executive Editor of Small Business Trends shared her insights on a recent 2009 Women and Social Media Study by BlogHer, iVillage, and Compass Partners released April 28, 2009.

3 Findings she highlighted from the study:

• Interesting Finding #1: Social Networks Like Facebook Get the Most Usage
• Interesting Finding #2: Blogs Wield the Widest Influence
• Interesting Finding #3: Women Look to Blogs for Business, Politics, Cars, and Technology

"Depending on the nature of your business, it might be worth it to focus on Facebook or MySpace — if, for instance, you are in the entertainment business. But for most things, such as if you are in B2B business or selling technology, blogs could give you more influence."

Read Anita Campbell's excellent post for more of her input on these findings.  

More from the Study:

• Women are twice as likely to use blogs than social networking sites as a source of information (64%), advice and recommendations (43%), and opinion-sharing (55%), while they are 50 percent more likely to turn to social networking sites as a means of keeping in touch with friends and family (75%)
• U.S. Female Internet Population 79 Million
• U.S. Female Active Social Media User Population 42 Million
• Age range in the study 18-77 years

For details of the methodology and to delve into the insights of the study Download the PDF Survey and read their press release.

Large, medium or small doesn't matter when it comes to the Internet, the services and connections it enables impact everyone's business. How do you see these market insights being integrated with your business goals and objectives?

Classical Inspiration

by Kas Kunz

I've been a reader of Garr Reynolds' blog Presentation Zen for several years. His commentary on presentations and design has been insightful and practical to use. I was introduced to the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) organization through his blog. The individuals that speak and perform at TED's annual conference are a diverse group from internationally known entertainers and business leaders to ones well known in their field of technology, science, and design. I always like to get Garr Reynolds perspective on the different presentations. One I'm glad I watched that he made a few comments about in his May 12 post was on Benjamin Zander.

Since 1979, Benjamin Zander has been the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic. He gave this talk at TED last year. Whether you're a fan of classical music or not and if you've not heard Benjamin Zander speak before, you will gain a different perspective after you watch this video. He provides a unique, inspirational, thought provoking perspective on possibilites set to music. Watch and enjoy.

The Visit

by Jane Betters

I live in an apartment where we get to know our neighbors by riding the elevator or seeing each other in the garage. I had a nice couple move into the apartment below mine a year ago. When they first moved in, I went down and welcomed them. I knew the woman had medical problems because she was always attached to oxygen and generally in a wheelchair. 

One more time I went down and visited her when I knew her husband was out of town and she might be lonely. I told her I'd come down and play cards with her the next time. But I was so busy with work, and babysitting my grandkids. Plus I went through a divorce and an office move. The year went by quickly. So quickly that I never made that visit to play cards.

I did, however, make time for her visitation this week. Yes, she died. And though I have many excuses, there was still time to drop in and let her know there was someone who cared about her. I obviously didn't know her well, but I wish I had. At her visitation I learned much more about her and the interesting life she'd led.

So, why am I telling you about this? Because it's so easy in our busy world to think there's always tomorrow. Sometimes there's not. If you've been putting off a phone call, a note, a visit to someone, don't wait. Take the time to make a difference in someone's life and don't live with a regret.

Video — is Anyone Watching Online?

by Kas Kunz

Just a mere 4-years ago video on the Internet got a major boost. The year was 2005 and in February of that year YouTube came into existence. It made it easy for an individual or business to publish a video online. How many videos are watched online today?

eMarketer.com May 4, 2009 published research:

• According to tracking figures from comScore, in March 2009, Google sites once again ranked as the top US video property with 5.9 billion videos viewed and a 40.9% online video market share. YouTube.com accounted for the bulk of that viewing, with more than 99% of all videos viewed at the property.

• Overall, the average US online video viewer watched 327 minutes of video in March, nearly 5.5 hours.

With the newcomer Hulu.com opening their site to public access in March 2008, the pros are starting to make their move online. Hulu provides commercial supported streaming videos of TV shows from the networks and movies from the networks and studios.

YouTube also provides TV shows and full length movies.

Internet statistics show there's room and interest to watch video content produced by amateurs and pros alike. Which means it doesn't have to be on a grand scale to be effective for your business and worthwhile for your prospects and customers. With the time lapse it's taken the pros to arrive it means they're having to figure out how to connect with their audience online like the rest of the business world.

Below is a short video on The History of YouTube to help give you an idea of the impact of video online and the type of connection to create for your business prospects and customers. This is part of a study on YouTube conducted by an anthropology class at Kansas State University.