Meet Randall Blaum, for Marketing Results

I was wondering about Twitter & LinkedIn So I posted a Q&A on linkedIn:

Does the 80/20 rule hold for Twitter? Would I expect that 20% of my linkedIn contacts are on twitter? Or 80%? Or, should I expect 20% of my twitter contacts are on linkedIn? Or 80%?

But I was more interested in the perception that others have about Twitter. Of course, it should be easy to measure. Simply apply the time necessary to research the facts. For many, Twitter seems like a waste of time. For others, they are making connections that prove valuable. Probably both are true!

I see Twitter as a top-of-the-funnel communications system that is like the proverbial "lick of the ice cream." I have found that if someone follows me on Twitter and likes what they see, read, etc. they tend to follow me me to my blog, on LinkedIn, and then to other product or service sites. Twitter is not a hard sell, but more informational in nature, whereas LinkedIn is all about who does what and how we can work with each other to better our businesses. I can plot a direct path from a newcomer on Twitter to LinkedIn to a sale, but I cannot track many people traveling the other direction. —Randall

Thanks for the best answer Randall Blaum. Looking at your profile, should we connect concerning my Rhino Island Media efforts? You can follow Randall on LinkedIn or Twitter. I do. -ski P.S. It pays to have smart friends. ---- Jeff 'SKI' Kinsey, Jonah ski@throughput.us ©2008 Throughput.us LLC. All rights reserved.

The New Labor Pool

Now that's Funny! The Law of Supply and Demand knows no ethnic stereotypes ...

Classic: 1min $ales Person

How do you prepare for the New Year?

"Whenever I am successful I know I have chosen, consciously or unconsciously, to use the positive thoughts that created my success." —page 34

Remember the One Minute Rehearsal? I have used this technique to sell projects as well as to implement the plan. Most every field of study talks of painting a picture of expected results before charging into the heat of battle. One of my favorite questions: "What will success look like?" Better know ahead of time! How do I prepare? Review the classics over my morning cup of coffee. One simple reason that I use and recommend the "One Minute" series of texts, is for the picture that they paint:

A world without Stress

Especially important this time of year... Given the economic challenges. Results are as close as your email. Write me. -ski ---- Jeff 'SKI' Kinsey, Jonah ski@throughput.us ©2008 Throughput.us LLC. All rights reserved.

getReady for 2009

The Sun is about to Rise on 2009 Yes, there are some loose ends for wrapping up 2008... but please take the time to ensure a great launch for your New Year. And yes, like every year before it, 2009 holds promise to be your best year ever. You decide! So decide to make it a great year. Need help? Drop me a note. -ski ski@throughput.us ©2008 Throughput.us LLC. All rights reserved.

My Christmas Wish

"Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." —Galatians 5:1

Do you Brand your PR?

Do You Brand Your PR?

How influential are the words and images we use in our communications? According to Professors Gavan Fitzsimons and Tanya Chartrand of Duke Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, and Grainne Fitzsimons of Canada's University of Waterloo, most influential.

"Apple's logo can make people think more creatively than IBM's logo."

"What we found is that people who were subliminally primed to the Apple logo were more creative than people who had been subliminally primed to the IBM logo."

Seems that flashing the Apple logo for just 30-milliseconds was enough to send a group of 341 students into a more "creative" state than sharing IBM's logo according to a recent Science Daily report.

What message is your press release sending?

We all know the power of branding, but few may appreciate the hidden powers that accompany strong brands like Apple®, Coca-Cola and Nike. Or household names like Kleenex® or Tide®. What does all this suggest for your next release? Paint a picture! Tell a story as Dan and Chip Heath suggest in Made to Stick. Why produce "dry, boring" material that most people (other than family and friends) would rather simply avoid? Suggestions? I thought you would never ask!

• Does your company/brand/product augment another company's offerings?

How powerful is the imagery of Urbanspoon's app? Notice the mention of the word "iPhone" in the short and pointed headline? As well as the URL? Not one or two high-gloss photos of the iPhone, but three!

• Does your message lend itself to Social Media exploitation?

Notice the YouTube® video promoting the app? Is your message viral? Can those in love with your brand quickly share the love?

• Does your "news worthiness" leverage the seasons of the year?

Once again, Urbanspoon has tied this brief message to America's most popular (or seemly the most advertised) high tech Christmas gift item 2008: GPS. In other words, more than enough branding to make a splash.

Now, take a look at your web site.

How do you measure up?

-ski ---- Jeff 'SKI' Kinsey, Jonah Strategy, Tactics & Execution Dover, OH | Hilton Head Island, SC | Las Vegas, NV ©2008 Throughput.us LLC. All rights reserved.

Doc Searls meet Boone Pickens

"A friend close to What’s Happening in several industries, plus the Obama Transition Team, tells me all the action is around Energy." —Doc Searls

That is good news. But are they going to attempt to reinvent the wheel? Would they consider some outside expertise on the subject? Doc, have you looked at the Pickens Plan? A search on your blog reported:

Your search for boone pickens returned no results.

Allow me to introduce you and my readers to Boone:

From the desk of T. Boone Pickens

Hey Army,

I’ve told you this all along — our addiction to foreign oil could bring us to our knees, and there wouldn’t be a damn thing we could do about it. Now take a look at today’s headlines. OPEC just announced it’s cutting production by 2.2 million barrels. Remember – this is on top of the 2 million barrels in cuts they’ve already made since this summer! These guys are serious about getting the price of oil back up right where they like it: $75 a barrel, $100 a barrel, $150 a barrel.

This is exactly why now is the time to pull together and Push the Pickens Plan. Every time the price of oil drops, America falls asleep. The Saudis don’t. The Iranians don’t. The Venezuelans don’t. But we do.

President-elect Obama said it best a few weeks ago on 60 Minutes. “Oil prices go up, gas prices at the pump go up, everybody goes into a flurry of activity. And then the prices go back down and suddenly we act like it’s not important, and we start, you know, filling up our SUVs again. And, as a consequence, we never make any progress. It’s part of the addiction, all right. That has to be broken. Now is the time to break it.”

I couldn’t agree more. We’ve got to break that addiction now. Before it breaks us.

Click here to join your Pickens Plan District Group. Better yet, sign up to be the leader if there isn't one already so you can help bring in 500 more members to the New Energy Army in your Congressional District before Inauguration Day. Those first 100 days are right around the corner, and the way OPEC is playing we’re going to have to move fast.

-Boone

StockTwits and $JAVA

Kinda depressing, isn't it? I do not understand why more companies do not go private. Sun Micro ($JAVA) has a market cap around $3B and over $2B in cash on hand. Note to Jonathan Schwartz:

Ask your yourself the tough question... What business is Sun Micro in?

I sure can't tell. Remember when Sun made great SPARC hardware and ran UNIX? I was there in the trenches when Solaris was taking over from SunOS v4.x ... working help desk issues at Lexis-Nexis during the transition. Our helpdesk app was running Sybase on a Sun SPARC server. That is where I learned TCL (another Sun product of sorts)... but I digress. StockTwits dot com received $800K in funding, so I went over to take a look. Amazing. I have been trying to figure out twitter monetization models with little success. Not sure where StockTwits is headed, but I love this simple (as in not complex) app. It knows EXACTLY what is does! Well, while playing around with it, I jump over to look at Sun's ticker (JAVA) and was amazed. Shocked actually. So I fired off a note to "MrSun" (Schwartz' twitter account) suggesting that he get a StockTwits account and take a look at his chart (monthly mode) from this new vantage point. I went on to suggest that he should take it private. Rumors are flying that he should be axed. I do not follow Sun close enough to know. However, as the saying goes, "If a fish stinks, it stinks from the head first." But again, to me, no one seems to be asking the right questions. Like, why buy MySQL? Like, why push everything except your hardware? Sun Micro was a great company with the best products in the UNIX world, IMNSHO. Today, I just don't know what (or who) they are. Do you? -ski ---- Jeff 'SKI' Kinsey, Jonah Strategy, Tactics & Execution Dover, OH | Hilton Head Island, SC | Las Vegas, NV Disclaimer: I do not own Sun stock at this moment in time. However, that could change at any moment. ©2008 Throughput.us LLC. All rights reserved.

Crowd Sourcing 6 Degrees

Over on LinkedIn... A conversation sparked this concept: why not use Crowd Sourcing with the Six Degrees of Separation to reach key decision makers? And thus was born a group on LinkedIn:

Crowd Sourcing 6 Degrees

Now what? Get some folks to join and begin applying the techniques! Simply follow the link and join us. Not on LinkedIn yet? No worries, sign up is free. Just follow the link and look for directions on how to get your own account. -ski ---- Jeff 'SKI' Kinsey, Jonah Strategy, Tactics & Execution Dover, OH | Hilton Head Island, SC | Las Vegas, NV ©2008 Throughput.us LLC. All rights reserved.

Chainsaw Al Dunlap redux

I know why I was looking... for Al Dunlap But I cannot explain why my post on Dunlap is the most popular page on my blog. Can you? For me, it was a simple search for wisdom concerning our present economic times. Al Dunlap understood hardships, at least up until his Sunbeam years. He understands focus and the value of having the right team on the field. Few people understand the number of jobs he saved at Scott Paper. Yes, Dunlap saved jobs! I have blogged at great length how wrong lay offs are for the most part, but at Scott, cutting the deadwood QUICKLY saved the company. Did some great people get let go? Sure. But the blame must be placed on the shoulders of those that created the situation. Doctor Dunlap had little time to analyze every aspect of operations at Scott in great detail before starting surgery to save the patient. Think ER (as in Emergency Room). Remember the wrong members of the management team? It happens. If you turn your personnel function over to HR and then storm off to attack the next bottleneck without conveying the mission and culture of your business, there will be mistakes. Wrong people get hired. Some wrong people will be promoted. Good people will leave. But I digress... Guess I figured it out: people are searching for insight on how Chainsaw Al Dunlap saved companies to fight another day. Please tell me that you recall mentoring is learning how to gleen valuable lessons from (flawed) humans. Yes, his "four simple rules" are just as valuable today as when he shared them in his book, Mean Business:

1. Get the right management team
2. Pinch Pennies
3. Know what business you are in
4. Get a real strategy

-ski ---- Jeff 'SKI' Kinsey, Jonah Strategy, Tactics & Execution Dover, OH | Hilton Head Island, SC | Las Vegas, NV ©2008 Throughput.us LLC. All rights reserved.

Nuts on Bailouts

Cavuto of Fox News on Auto Bailout

"People going nutty for money, though not everyone is flying over the cuckoo's nest."

Great two minute (2:09) clip on Hulu dot com from Friday's broadcast. -ski

My Apple Wish List

Did I forget anything? Where else can you spend $22K this Christmas season on stuff you really need? On a new car? Two 3.2GHz Quad-Core Xeon "Harpertown" Intel processors, 32gig of memory, 4TB of disk space and dual 20" monitors... now that is what I call a workstation! And to think, the base price was only $2795. The Apple Mac line keeps getting better and better. What is on your list this year? -ski

Give Toms Shoes

What could be easier? Want to make a difference in the world? Give the gift of hope this year... buy TOMS shoes. -ski

More Music = Less Violence

What if we spent more time with Music? Would that make the world a less violent place? Methinks so. I am willing to give it a try... -ski

LinkedIn Biz Plan Q & A

Meet Shawn Brazo This time, I was looking for wisdom on business plans:

What is the most important aspect of the business plan for a manufacturing startup with $100K to bootstrap? Requirements suggest startup biz will need to raise $2 million (or more) to "go live" with manufacturing in 12 to 18 months. Prototype(s) need built. Facility acquired, key employees hired, marketing materials created, etc. What is the key component of the biz plan that MUST be exceptional and without flaw?

I have probably written five or six business plans. Some more formal than others, but wanted to see the current mood among my colleagues on this query. There are some good responses, but the one that makes the most sense given the few details that I did provide (and few details that I did not provide), was from Shawn:

Sales! If you don't have a pipeline of sales and revenue generation, all of the planning discussed is academic. Sell it, then build the infrastructure to deliver what you have sold.

Shows experience. That, "Been there, done that, got the T-Shirt!" kind of confidence that is rare. Honorable mention for most thorough response (paraphrased here) goes to Brian Vinson:

"Right now it is very important also to show how you will stay on the positive side of cash flows - with credit more difficult to obtain you will need to show a good cash flow that allows you to cover all expenses until you're able to cover expenses..."

To see all the answers, and the complete response from Brian, view the LinkedIn query. -ski ---- Jeff 'SKI' Kinsey, Jonah www.throughput.us ski@throughput.us ©2008 Throughput.us LLC. All rights reserved.

Twitter increases unique page views

What is the single largest factor? I would suggest that twitter is responsible for a majority of the increased traffic to this blog. I started using twitter in May 2008. Like most, feeling my way around the twitosphere, connecting slowly at first. Yes, I have increased my blogging some months and launched some new sites, but look at quantity of posts in the "blog archive" at the right. Nothing there to explain the steady increase. Look at October 2008, only 32 posts! With bloglines and twitter, I have more access to the world around me than ever before... and using the RSS feeds from twitter inside bloglines it is the best of both worlds. Will I eliminate emails and blogging? No. But in over three years of blogging, nothing has increased the visibility of my thoughts like twitter. Your mileage may vary. -ski ---- Jeff 'SKI' Kinsey, Jonah www.throughput.us ski@throughput.us ©2008 Throughput.us LLC. All rights reserved.

What happened to Monday?

I think I lost a day What happened to Monday? Once again I seem to be living that expression, "The faster I go, the behinder I get!" There are still a host of activities for which I expect to complete on Monday. The Monday that seems to have elapsed yesterday at midnight... before I could complete them. -ski