Not lost . . . yet.
Over the past few weeks one of my biz partners and I have been looking at acquiring a new company, which has been quite an educational and exhilerating experience! Thanks to some of our great mentors in the
Junto Program, we have learned more about this process than we could have imagined. It is also because of this program that we have even been presented with the opportunity.
Once we finalize the details over the next week, I'll post some of my learning experiences. Until then, an interesting group that I have been involved in is
Fight Club. You might be surprised to hear that it's not as brutal as you'd think; just a tight crowd of entrepreneur's sharing their war stories in business. I have met some really high caliber and highly experienced businesspeople at this event, so check it out and if you'd like to come, it's by invite only - just let me know you're interested.
Memorial Day
In an effort to learn more about the history and purpose of Memorial Day I did some reading up on wikepedia.org, and some other sites and learned some great information.
First of all, remember the national moment of silence at 3pm locally, for one minute of silence to remember the soldiers that have served our nation, and in an effort to make our nation one!
Wikipedia is an excellent resource for information. Although it provides content generated by its users, it undergeos months of correction by thousands of content providers and editors, which generally results in informative and accurate content. On a topic such as Memorial Day, it is likely to cover all the basics accurately and has helped me to understand some historical facts.
This day began after the Civil War and was initiated in an effort to remember those who fought for the Union Soldiers, who were those that were part of the Army of the United States of America. As a result of the secession of the Southern States, President Lincoln issued a draft (although only 8,000 were drafted - all others were volunteers, true patriots) and recruited soldiers for what was believed to be a 3 month battle to recover the Southern States. Of the 2.5 million men that served, 390,000 died (one in four soldiers), and resulted in the bloodiest tragedy and greatest amount of deaths out of any war that America has fought in to date.
After the war, General Logan advocated the idea of creating a national holiday because he was impressed by the South and how they honored their dead, along with the ancients like the Greeks who venerated their dead with botanical gifts. Waterloo, New York became the official birthplace of "Decoration Day," and this was first observed officially on May 30, 1868. The actual name of "Memorial Day" was not recognized by Federal Law until 1967.
Interestingly, many of the confederates did not want to recognize this national holiday and still have their own Confederate Memorial Day. After WWI The meaning of Decoration Day was extended to cover all soldiers that have died on behalf of our nation. I found it peculiar that the date of this holiday was changed from May 30 of every year to the last Monday of May every year, in an act to make a convenient 3-day weekend for our citizens (passed under the Uniform Holiday Bill). Several groups still advocate the idea of changing the holiday back to it's original date.
I am tremendously appreciative of our soldiers and their service on behalf of our country and hope that all of us will remember their efforts and think of how we can serve our country to uphold the constitution, our liberties, and the future of our great nation. Check out http://remember.gov/ to read up on our government's effort to maintain this great holiday - and listen to the song "On this Day," which is on the site. Happy Holiday my friends!
“ Last Monday in May”©
By
John T. Bird
We pause to remember those who died
With so much courage, so much pride
They’ll never come back, yet memories endure
To remind us of freedom: fragile, pure
We’re worthy of their sacrifice if we pause each day
Not just on the last Monday in May
Killer Interactive Video Concept
Video has taken major leaps and bounds online over the past couple years! I am amazed at sites like YouTube.com, video.google.com, break.com, heavy.com, ifilm.com, ourmedia.org, and several others that have created the ability for people to post their videos, or for companies to create viral videos that reach incredible amounts of viewers.
YouTube is hosting "40 million videos per day to six million unique users daily, up from 3 million in December, with more than 35,000 videos being uploaded per day. YouTube is serving more than 100 million page views a day and is ranked the 21st most trafficked site on the Internet, according to Alexa (http://youtube.com/t/fact_sheet)." A great triumph of this company came from its internal employees who created a way for the uploaded videos to be cut and posted on any blog to make it incredibly viral. Check an article about this company at Forbes.com entitled 'Raw and Random.' It will be interesting to see what revenue models YouTube comes up with.
From watching videos like these and having a discussion with a fellow Junto Partner, we came up with an interactive video concept that enables people to purchase things that they see in a video. Within the past month we've learned of 2 other companies that are up and running with similar concepts that I think you'll find pretty fascinating.
The first has made the jump from viewers having to guess what products/brands people are wearing to offering it through links and product pictures on their website. Starstyle.com features fashionable contestants from American Idol and the Real World along with links to major clothing and jewelry companies. This is one step closer to our concept, and the next example has superintensified what I plan on doing.
Avant.com was brought to my attention by one of my business partners, and this is a must see! They have created imbedded links and active clicks to pictures and people in the video to do hyper product integration and demonstration. On the left hand side of the media player you watch a video, and on the right hand side you view product details, bios of people you see in the video, etc. For example, as you watch a video about Honda's new 2006 Civic, you can roll your mouse over the video and when you see the Honda Symbol appear in place of your mouse, you can click and get more details on different parts of the car, which details are shown on the right hand side of the media player. They are somehow patenting this process called the V-Click (I actually think it's a front - probably just a trademark on the name). Look at their site and the 4 product demos that they have. Although their model is heavily weighted to one company and one type of product, I really like their application and interactive functions. Excellent program and idea!
Once we have a beta version I will get more specific about our program and who our target market is. In the meantime, picture a combination of the three main points I covered in this post and you'll have the basic idea. If any readers have seen good examples of other video sites that they like and use then please post a comment - or if you have seen other applications of this video concept I would love to hear about it!
Connect Magazine Event - PR and Marketing
Here in Utah Valley we have an excellent business magazine called
Connect, and every quarter they have the Business Ignitor Series where they bring speakers in to talk about a specific subject, have some good eats, and networking afterwards. It's only $10, and has been well worth it every time I have gone.
Their recent event was about PR and Marketing, with a panel of 3 of Utah's top Marketing and Branding gurus, namely:
- Ken Foster, Associate Professor of Marketing Communications, University of Utah
- Dave Newbold, President and Creative Director of Richter7
- Hal Christensen, Founder, Christensen & Associates
From this event I learned about what the most critical information is that a company needs to gather in order to create a brand and marketing strategy, approximately how much you should budget in order to carry out an effective marketing plan, and about a few new marketing resources that I was unfamiliar with.
The resounding message from these specialists was that you need to know your customer. Rather than advertising to the critical mass, you need to know your niche, and know everything about your product's category (including competition), your customer's demographics/psychographics, etc, and know all this before you attempt to create a marketing strategy. After being asked the question "What is the single most important item to establish your brand," Newbold responded that you must know your audience.
For all of you traditional Utahns who want to use the Guerilla "do it yourself" marketing approach, your main resource for effectiveness will be your own creativity. The most creative example mentioned was UDOT's mailing broken chunks from Utah's highways to legislators to send the message that they needed more funding for Utah's roads. Typically, however, a business should plan on spending at least $5-10k to begin creating their brand, which would include some web surveying, competitive analysis, and identifying your brand. On a national level, it's more like $40-70k, or $80-120k if you want to be noisy.
Some excellent research resources that were mentioned during the event were the
Simmons Market Research Bureau, which is the "oldest and most respected authority on the behavior of the American Consumer," and recommended books like:
- The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell
- Good to Great, by Jim Collins
- Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This, by Luke Sullivan
