Fri 22 Feb 2008

Jason Rakowski Speaks Out on When to Fire The Customer

Posted by jtmcarthur under Customer Service, Marketing
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I’ve never met Jason Rakowski, but he introduced himself through a comment on my previous post.  As I always do, I checked out his website to ensure that the comment wasn’t originating from yet another linking/spamming news-aggregation site selling pharmaceuticals or worthless paraphernalia. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Jason writes a very good blog on customer service.

As a service to my readers, I’m providing a link to his blog posting on When It’s Time to Fire the Customer.  He even provides a helpful case study. It looks like Jason works in or with the auto industry, so I suspect he knows more than a bit about customer service, both good and bad.  Jason?

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Tue 19 Feb 2008

wsRadio: Looking for Some Feedback

Posted by jtmcarthur under Marketing
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About 10 years ago, I did several video segments with Caspar Weinberger on the show World Business Review (WBR).  I was one of the “industry experts,” whose job it was to keep the conversation on topic, and not let the episode go too far afield or become too much of an infomercial. 

Cap (he wanted to be called “Cap”), who was eventually replaced by Al Haig, passed away in 2006, but he was amazingly active well into his 80s, when he was hosting this show.  He used to record between 4 and 6 episodes a day. At the time, distribution for the episodes included broadcast on the business channel on United’s overseas flights to Japan.  I only know this because I spent so much time flying to Japan in those days and saw myself on the overhead screen from time to time.  WBR also licensed the content to schools, which I always found interesting.

Every startup is looking for cost-efficient and effective ways to get the word out on their products and services.  StorMagic decided to leverage wsRadio with this webcast.  It’s well produced. I don’t know the cost, and I need to hear from wsRadio regarding how many listeners they get and how the content they produce is distributed.  I’d also like to hear from anyone who has used wsRadio or similar services to get the word out.  Was it effective in raising visibility?  Did it increase end-user or partner leads? Did it help close sales?

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Thu 14 Feb 2008

Can We Talk? Seeking a Blog-Dialogue or Blogalogue.

Posted by jtmcarthur under Collaboration, Communities, Product development, Storage and Data Management
[2] Comments

My goal when I started this blog almost a year ago was to:

  1. Create a resource for entrepreneurs and inventors
  2. Have a conversation with those entrepreneurs (or entrepreneur wannabes) on strategies, tactics, and best practices.  

On the second goal, I feel like I’ve fallen short.  There’s not enough dialogue.  (more…)

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Thu 7 Feb 2008

Batting 1000 with LinkedIn

Posted by jtmcarthur under Collaboration, Communities, Enterprise 2.0, Social Media
[2] Comments

Howard Perlstein, founder of HOW, a  management consulting services company based in Brookline, Massachusetts, just became my 1000th connection on LinkedIn.  We were introduced by a mutual friend and met for coffee. He talked about his business, and I talked about mine.  We also talked about ways that we might be able to help each other.   I have no idea, yet, whether I or he will reap any financial reward, but, as I said to Howard, if you don’t take the occasional random walk, you’ll wear out your path.

Someone asked me recently, if I actually know all of the people in my LinkedIn network.  The answer is “yes.”  And I wish that I had started using LinkedIn sooner, because I’m missing the other 5000 people I’ve met during the past 10 years. OK, 5000 is a guess, but I’m not far off.   And somewhere in those 5000 is someone I can help. Sometimes for fun and sometimes for profit.  And while I can’t help everyone, as a good friend, Barba Hickman, founder of Applied Clarity, said to me, “If I start off each day thinking about how I can help someone, the business pretty much takes care of itself.”

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Wed 6 Feb 2008

Facebook Marketing

Posted by jtmcarthur under Affiliate Marketing, Communities, Enterprise 2.0, Selling, Social Media, Storage and Data Management, Viral Marketing
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A recent blog entry by Denise Shiffman on Viral Voice referenced an article in InsideCRM entitled The Facebook Marketing Toolbox.   I’ve only been using Facebook for a few months, so this article was a great find, with links to tons of resources and recommendations.  Thanks Denise.  This article is required reading for my new client, StorMagic, and my nephews who continue to grow their restaurant, Black and Brew, down in Lakeland, Florida.  Keeping getting the word out!  For all others, reading is optional, but highly recommended.

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Mon 28 Jan 2008

Carlsberg's Vintage No. 1: The Latest Microbrew

Posted by jtmcarthur under Marketing, Product development
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I like an occasional beer.  I don’t drink a lot, but when I have a beer, my taste tends towards darker microbrews such as HE’BREW, the chosen beer, or a good stout, such as Guinness, properly poured.  I realize that by saying that, I’m not making any fans in St. Louis, home of Anheuser-Busch, brewer of beers that are quite a bit cheaper than HE’BREW, other microbrews, or Guinness.  

Recently the Carlsberg Group  introduced a $400 beer.  That’s $400 for 375 ml, which is about 30 times more than I pay for even the best micro-brewed six pack.  In 2006, Carlsberg, which sells beer in over 150 countries, generated 41 billion Danish Krones in revenue from sales of 102 million hectolitres of beer and 19 million hectolitres of soft drinks.  For the record, one hectolitre is equivalent to about 176 British pints.  So they are definitely not a microbrewer. (more…)

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Thu 24 Jan 2008

Want to Build a Company? Feed the Troups.

Posted by jtmcarthur under Compensation, Startups
1 Comment

I once visited a very successful technology integrator just outside of Boston.  Every Wednesday, the mother of the founder, who was Italian, would cook for the entire company.  At the time, they had more than one hundred employees.  What a feast!

If you want to launch a startup, and you want to recruit and retain high-quality, highly-motivated members for your team, it’s imperative that you take care of them.  Cash conservation is important, but food, really good food, can go a long way to keeping a team motivated.  After all, it can’t all be about the distant and potentially huge payoff.  Employees can’t eat options.  There’s got to be something it in for them today.  Which brings me to today’s post.  A friend directed me to their son’s blog: One Food Guy.  There are enough restaurant and recipe suggestions to keep an entire team of entrepreneurs motivated.   Check out the Andalusian crepes.  Hmm.  Is that my stomache growling?

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Thu 24 Jan 2008

The Black-Swan Bet, A Sensible Approach to Technology Hedging

Posted by jtmcarthur under Funding, Startups, Technology
Comments Off on The Black-Swan Bet, A Sensible Approach to Technology Hedging

I’m a couple of hundred pages into The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.  In Taleb’s world view, The Black Swan can be the highly-improbable good event or the highly-improbable bad event, either of which has the ability to change the course of history.  He makes a good case for his statement that highly-improbable events have more impact on the world’s future than probable events.  I’m sorry, if that seems irrational.  But my recommendation is that you slug through the first 200 pages, as I did, and see if you reach a similar understanding.  (more…)

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Tue 15 Jan 2008

Networking Your Way to the Next Career Opportunity

Posted by jtmcarthur under Communities, Networking
1 Comment

The truth is that this post is not about entrepreneurs or inventors.   If I really stretch it, maybe this post is for individuals who are looking for opportunities within startups.  It’s definitely for people who think they have spent too long working for one of the bigger systems companies and are now looking for other opportunities in faster-growing, more nimble environments.  It’s for people who were recently laid off, or who are about to be laid off. At any rate, it’s for people looking for the next career opportunity. 

Sometimes, I think I should be in the headhunter business, because I get almost daily calls from truly talented people, who for reasons that sometimes escape me are looking outside their current employer for the next career opportunity.  I guess the reason that I’m not in the headhunter business is that I don’t have as many companies coming to me with good jobs to fill as I do good people coming to me looking for jobs.  Maybe the Tycoon widget from Myndnet, that I added to my Facebook profile will help change that, but I’m not sure yet.  Check it out. (more…)

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Thu 10 Jan 2008

A Social Media Question: One Dig and Some Thoughtful Answers

Posted by jtmcarthur under Communities, Enterprise 2.0, Marketing, Social Media, Viral Marketing
[2] Comments

I posted the following question on LinkedIn about five days ago:

What’s the best strategy for creating end-user awareness of an innovative product through social networking?

Here’s the dig.  At least I think it was a dig:

Try and be a bit more simple and straightforward in your communications than you are in your questions. (more…)

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