So next Thursday (June 3) is the Marketing Excellence Awards dinner for the AMA Baltimore, and the official passing of the baton from Luba Abrams to me as president of the Baltimore Chapter. It’s interesting and exciting in equal parts. I’d love to see you all there, if you’d like to come (you don’t need to be a member) please click here and if you want to see pictures of me doing the voice over for the intro movie, click here.
Wish me luck!
Posted in Blog Entry
Here’s a link to an article about how the Baltimore Chapter of the American Marketing Association is promoting their annual Marketing Excellence Awards through Social Media. I’m quoted, of course. http://bit.ly/a6AuiD
Posted in Blog Entry
I admit, I’m dissappointed. My most recent experiment with virtal business/all cloud computing went bust. The final straw was at dinner with my husband and brother where they mocked me openly about how virtual apps weren’t really working for me.
Here’s what I tried:
1) Abandon desktop email software and use only Gmail with domain name mapping
2) Abandon Word/PPT/XLS and use only Googe Docs
3) Abandon paid Web hosting and go with free WordPress deployments hosted on their server
Here’s why it didn’t work:
1) Gmail falls apart when you try to use multiple email addresses. I currently use 6 mapped domains, which means six totally different email addresses. With Gmail, I needed to login/logout of each address account in order to keep my email “to” field clean.
When I tried forwarding all 6 addresses to a general Gmail account, much of my inbound and outbound mail was captured by spam filters so my clients couldn’t communicate with me.
The mail that DID get through was marked “marcidevries@gmail.com on behalf of Marci@mdvinteractive.com” which is a stinky way to brand a tech company, right?
2) Using Google Docs was a hassle because I couldn’t really get regular .doc .xls .ppt files to open correctly in Google Docs. Therefore any document sent by a client wasn’t really readable. I also couldn’t edit and then send them a Google Doc back because Word et.al. doesn’t really open Google Docs correctly.
Which, considering that they didn’t receive my emails anyway (see problem #1) maybe this didn’t really matter. LOL
3) The free hosting by WordPress is really pretty awesome. However, there aren’t enough widgets available to allow the site to do what I want it to do. So frustrating. I am still hosting in the free version, but will probably switch to paid hosting with WordPress as my free CMS in a couple of months.
So there’s my update on Virtualization. The Web is SO CLOSE to being able to actually do this. So close, but yet so far…
Posted in Blog Entry, Getting to the Point
Not sure how to think about online advertising? You may want to check out this article by Chris O’Hara at Traffiq. It’s an interesting perspective, and (of course) I’m quoted in it. http://bit.ly/cIscrK
Does this ring true for you as you’re looking online marketing for this year and beyond?
Posted in Blog Entry, Getting to the Point | Tags: marketing, online advertising, pricing marketing
A few years ago, many of you heard me going on and on about RSS feeds and how the Internet was starting to talk to itself to make content move faster. Now there’s a relatively new innovation called PubSubHubub (or PuSH) that’s changing the game again. It’s a different way of doing RSS feeds — like there’s an assistant technology. Anyway, watch the video — it’s easy to understand and fun.
Posted in Blog Entry | Tags: Blog, blogging, Hubub, publishing content, pubsubhubub, PuSH, RSS, rss feeds
Some of you have been reading this blog/site wondering what exactly I do. If it’s not clear from the few notes I have posted on these pages, come and hear me talk about it live & in person.
I’ll be plugging my mug in front of audiences that you can be part of on these dates:
February 17, 2010 Chesapeake Regional Technology Council
Presentation: Social Branding, the Web and the New Meaning of Love. Location: Loews Hotel, Annapolis MD. Register online here
March 6-7, 2010 Mosaic Weekend Retreat
Presentation: 4 Ways the Web can Enrich Your Life. Location: The Woods Resort, Hedgesville, WV. Register online here WOMEN ONLY
March 24, 2010 MDSG (Marketing Director’s Support Group)
Presentation: Onlne Reputation Management — Embracing “Truthiness” Location: Baltimore MD Register online here
May 26, 2010 Baltimore Chapter of the American Marketing Association
Presentation: What’s New in Social Media. Register here AMABaltimore.org/events
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When I left the agency a couple of months ago, I thought I’d need a cadre of hard-core programmers to help set up Web sites and add Web 2.0 functionallity for upcoming Web projects. It used to be a Hurculean effort to put thought and image into a working Web framework, and that’s where we made all our money.
To my amazement, the Web has been building itself and working very hard on becoming so easy and cheap that almost anyone can toss up a Web site (like this one) in a single afternoon for around $50. I found this pretty deflating initially, but instead of reducing my ability sell Web services (old school style), it has actually allowed a better partnership between clients and me. With quick deployment/low cost Web dev, we can all to be more nimble and deploy Web presences that are single-topic focused instead of trying to jam absolutely everything into a singular hog of a Web site.
So far I like this better…
Posted in Blog Entry, Getting to the Point
There’s authenticity, immediacy, and the holy matrimony of the two.
Here’s an interesting finding from my work on the Baltimore AMA board. We revamped the site into a WordPress/bloggy sort of entity, and opened it up for board members to write on, and all of our members to contribute to.
This simple act of Opening the system to everyone has reinvigorated the site, and brought activity that I didn’t think I’d ever see on an association site. The contributions are genuine and interesting, and the response from members as well as non-members has been immediate and awesome. Check out this entry where an AMA member writes about a company she admires, and then that company responds within MINUTES from the Web. Awesome.
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Posted in Blog Entry, Getting to the Point | Tags: authenticity, blogging, comments, reality