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Apr
13

The Mind Share Market

By | Branding, Focus, Marketing

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I recently had the opportunity to review a copy of The Mind Share Market, by Nicolas Pujol.  It’s the one of the better straight marketing books I’ve perused lately, and I wanted to give it a fair shake.  Unfortunately, my schedule and the heavy technical nature of much of the book made this review take longer than it should have.

The book on a whole is a clever combination of case studies, anecdotal illustrations, and technical evaluation.  For a lay reader this might be a bit intimidating, but you can easily skip most of the technical analysis and discussion – the graphical illustrations and prose-format case studies are more than informative enough to bring home a point.

One of the best illustrations, though, is the concept of price.  Pujol takes the reader through a careful analysis of a real MIT experiment regarding customer purchase behavior.   [Read more...]

Feb
16

Guy Kawasaki – Enchantment

By | Branding, Focus, Marketing

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Enchantment - The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions

Last week, I received an advance copy of Guy Kawasaki’s new book, Enchantment.  I’ve actually been waiting for this book for a while now, so I put down my Tom Clancy novel and immediately dug in.  For a business book, it was amazingly easy to read, and I was proud to finish it in just 3 days despite a heavy work schedule.

Easy to read, but powerful.  Kawasaki’s book is filled with practical advice on how to not just know your customers, but to enchant them.

If you’ve read this blog for very long, you know about my fascination with developing relationships with your “perfect customer.”  Enchantment is very much the same idea, albeit with a far more refined tone and the weight of a former Chief Evangelist for our favorite consumer brand behind it. [Read more...]

Feb
14

The Death of the Idea

By | Development, Focus, Marketing

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What value is there in an idea that never sees the light of day?  Many times, we come up with fantastic ideas.  The next great American novel.  The next great web project.  The next multi-billion dollar disruptive innovation.  But 99 times out of 100, the idea dies in its infancy.

We create a great plan, bounce it around inside our head, then let the spark of imagination and brilliance fizzle out without explaining it to anyone else.  The idea dies, and we trudge on through life towards the next disappointment.

This is not the way things should be. [Read more...]

Feb
05

A Problem Addressed, and an Apology

By | Focus, Marketing

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My earlier post regarding my frustration with Thesis got a lot of responses on Twitter. Some of them supportive, some of them attacking by concerns. I do want to say, though, that a select few managed to rise above and we’ve been able to figure out quite a bit.

Firstly, I want to apologize to the team at DIYThemes for the tone of my earlier article. Yes, I was addressing Thesis directly, but my original goal was to address the nature of premium theme shops and private support forums in general. You’re not the only ones out there, and my words were meant more for the ones that have been entirely uncooperative (to the point of alleging license infringement on my part when I’ve done things to try to help). Using Thesis as an example was a reaction to a current issue, nothing more.

Fixing the issue at hand

After chatting with a few people on Twitter, it was recommended that I just ask people requesting support for a copy of Thesis:

@EricMann just ask your client for a copy of Thesis, so you can diagnose/fix the problem. That's not "distribution" (cc: @pearsonified )
February 5, 2011 12:23 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@chip_bennett
Chip Bennett

I was hesitant to take this route for a few reasons.  Mostly, as I mentioned above, I’ve actually been accused of violating licenses before just for asking.  The last thing I wanted to be seen as doing is skirting anyone’s rules.  I have a great deal of respect for everyone in the WordPress community, and I was trying to show that same respect for the terms of DIYThemes’ licensing as I read them on the website.

Thankfully, Chris Pearson weighed in on the issue as well and cleared up a lot of confusion on my part:

@chip_bennett @ericmann Correct; your client can also give you his/her login to access the forums.
February 5, 2011 12:28 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite
@pearsonified
pearsonified

To say the least, this was a very educational situation for me.

In review

  • No, I did not initially approach DIYThemes to solve this issue directly. My experiences with other theme shops has me wary of ever asking for special consideration or permissions.
  • I was not trying to attack any developer directly with my post. What I’d like to do is establish some kind of community best practices for when premium shops and free shops need to work together. We should collaborate whenever possible and create win-win scenarios.
  • I owe Chris Pearson, the DIYThemes team, and everyone else involved an apology. I was very quick to write my initial post and, unfortunately, took a lot out on you that I shouldn’t have. For that I’m sorry, and I thank you for being willing to fix the problem and mend fences.
Dec
13

What is Twitter?

By | Branding, Family, Focus, Friends, Marketing

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I’ve been asked this by several people over the past year.  And, having been somewhat more active on Twitter lately, I think it would be a good idea to actually explain both what Twitter is and why you should care.

Vocabulary

First, some terms you need to know:

  • Twitter is a social networking application and website that allows you to broadcast short messages to large groups of people.
  • A Tweet is one of these short-format messages.
  • A Tweep is a user on Twitter – think of it as a Twitter Peep.

Use in a sentence: Twitter is a tool you use to send Tweets to your Tweeps. [Read more...]

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