I love my new ScanSnap S1500M! I just do. This product paid for itself not 4 hours out of the box. Tasks that would have taken me days, even weeks, to do were accomplished in a short time.
Business cards that were piled up – done! Oh, and input into my contact manager! Conference manuals and notes stacked beside my desk – now digitized and searchable. Sweet! File cabinet print outs from previous projects are now converted to Word documents.No more paper clutter.
Did I say I love this tool?!
Save files as PDFs, searchable PDFs, Word, Excel, add to your contacts and in color or black and white. Everything I have wanted to do the Fujitsu designers and engineers seem to have thought of. Even if there is a paper jam, a window pops up showing me the last item scanned and asks if I want to rescan it after I clear the rollers and continue with my project. Nice work.
If you are an information hound and collect research, periodicals, newspaper clippings, business cards, and more – you have to get a Fujitsu ScanSnap. If you do, let me know what you think. If you already have one, tell me of your experiences here.
The company I work for, Five Q, has Subject Matter Experts or SMEs (pronounced “smees”) on a variety of topics. Our staff has expertise in web and marketing related areas, including but not limited to web strategy, usability, SEO, social media, information design, mobile strategy, user experience, email marketing, and project management. Our SMEs are continually researching new trends and directions in web technology. The distinguishing factor between a trend and a direction is that trends come and go, but a direction is a solid shift and movement in web usage and technologies. For our client partners, here are some of the prominent directions we see for 2011 are:
Mobile-optimized Websites: Web users are “going mobile” at an alarming rate. If you do not have your web content optimized for this platform, you will be behind the curve.
Social Customer Relationship Management (CRM): Are you prepared for inbound marketing? Traditionally, we think of marketing as outward focused, but good customer service creates influence that leads to word-of-mouth marketing to generate sales and donations. Are you making an impact?
Online Brand Management: How are you managing your online brand? Does your audience perceive you as relevant or as a “has-been”? What do people think of when they think of your brand? Taking control of your online reputation is something you can and should do.
How do these new directions fit with your web strategy? Is your plan flexible enough to accommodate change? Five Q can help. Contact us today for more information.
This provocative clip gives you some data to chew on if you are wondering about the ROE and ROI of Social Media. Thanks Socialnomics – Social Media Blog.
I have to be honest, I have not researched this yet. So, I wanted to hear what you have experienced. I have heard that while the iPhone is cheaper to buy ($199) the cost of operating is more and so it all evens out similar to the original pricing.
Now, it’s your turn – talk back. Have you found this to be true or is the phone more competitive with other models and manufacturers?
Who’d have thought a sci-fi television show could have profound thoughts and quotes? Funny how some things stick with you over the years. I can remember these quotes from when I was a kid. They seemed applicable then and they seem so now. These can apply to life, business, and politics. Enjoy!
After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true. –Spock in ‘Amok Time’
It is curious how often you humans manage to obtain that which you do not want. –Spock in ‘Errand of Mercy’
I just saw this on Dustbowl and thought, “Now that is cool!” Here’s a restaurant in Soho London that utilizes technology in a creative way. Visit Inamo to see and learn more.
Thanks to the extraordinary hospitality of the folks at Toyota Motorsports, I had a dream day for a business writer on July 12th. My next book, which will be coming out in a year, is about management lessons gleaned from the history of auto racing.
On July 12th I attended the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series LifeLock.com 400 at the Chicagoland Speedway. The race began at 7 PM, and I drove into the parking lot at 11 AM; it was eight hours before the action started. Or so I thought. It turns out that I was attending my first NASCAR race as a fan on the exact 50th Anniversary of Richard Petty’s first NASCAR race as a driver.
If I had had even a small clue about how many management insights I would gain from studying auto racing, I would have written this book five years ago. Here are just a few things I learned.
Add Value
A NASCAR race is so much more than just a car race. It’s a Super Bowl event. There were 75,000 people there, and I estimate there were at least 20,000 people tailgating at 11 AM. I repeat, this was eight hours before the race started. It’s a giant carnival, with actual old-fashioned barkers yelling out that they had free offers inside their tents. It’s a giant concert with singers and entertainers on stage all day. It’s a massive outdoor mall with over 100 booths selling caps, shirts, buttons, miniature cars, giant corn dogs, and even lemonade.
A NASCAR event attracts every conceivable brand name product. I walked through the largest Abraham Lincoln museum I’d ever been in, and it was on wheels. I even saw a display set up with dozens of the largest and most magnificent televisions I had ever seen.
The race – and the organization – provided value beyond its product.
What is the overall concept of the value your company offers and how can you deliver that value in synergistic ways that can support each other?
Personalize Your Brand
The strongest brands there were the racecar drivers themselves. People of all ages wore shirts with the faces and numbers of their favorite drivers. There was booth after booth of shirts, cups, cars, and other take home goodies with pictures of an individual driver and the number of their car on them. I bought two small replicas for both of my children of the M&M’s car that Kyle Busch drives and a Toyota Racing t-shirt for myself.
On top of all that, the drivers themselves appeared all over the place to meet with fans. These drivers are highly paid and are doing extremely intense and dangerous work for nearly three hours during the race. However, for several hours leading up to the race they are going around and saying hello to fans.
Can you imagine a CEO who makes millions and millions of dollars a year going around to customers for several hours to talk with them right before an important board meeting? That’s essentially what these racecar drivers do before every race.
How can you make your organization’s brand more personal for customers?
Create an Experience
There are 43 drivers who compete at each NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race and there are 36 such races each year all over the U.S. This is a traveling circus that is bigger than any circus I had ever witnessed. And then there’s the race itself. You haven’t heard loud until you’ve heard a NASCAR race. If you haven’t been to a race, then watching it on television doesn’t demonstrate the speed well either. These cars were within a few inches of each other going at least 160 MPH and jumping from high to low on the turns in the track.
The whole day pulsated with lessons both on and off the track including: branding, innovation, teamwork, strategy, execution, planning, problem solving, winning, dealing with change, and preparation. It wasn’t just a race; it was a 360 degree experience. I encourage you to read “One Helluva Ride” by Liz Clarke, which is about the history of NASCAR and also provides powerful thoughts on business momentum.
How can your organization take your product and create a compelling experience around it?
Make Your Own Pit Row
One of the highlights of the day was being allowed to spend 45 minutes walking up and down pit row a few hours before the race started. Pit row houses 43 pit stalls used to replace tires, refuel cars, and fix any car problems. The actual racecars were sitting about 25 feet away from pit row itself while I walked up and down.
This was branding heaven. A place where customers, corporations, and racing teams all met in one spot. It created an extraordinary win-win-win situation. The racing teams provided additional value to the customers by letting them see up close where the cars went during the race. I saw hundreds of photos being taken where fans would sit with the crew members and get their pictures taken in the pit stalls. Every one of those pictures the fans took had corporate logos in them. That meant the sponsors would be seen thousands of times when those pictures were developed and shown with pride to family members and friends. These corporate sponsors weren’t just hidden on the last page of a brochure. They were part of the fan interaction with the racing teams at the pit stalls.
As I watched all of this several questions popped into my mind. Can you imagine professional baseball or football players letting fans look in their lockers a few hours before the game and have their pictures taken standing in front of those lockers? Can you imagine corporate logos all over the lockers and the field itself? You might think that would ruin those games, and you might be right. However, think of the total cost of going to a Major League Baseball game or an NFL Game. I can’t afford to take my wife, Barb, and our children, Ben and Sarah, to very many Major League Baseball games. We have this thing called college tuition to pay for someday. The last time I went to a Major League Baseball game it cost me something like $225 for one night.
Yikes.
At the NASCAR event, the parking was free, the food was reasonable, and the ticket prices were not exorbitant.
How can you create a pit row in your business? Make a list of all of the types of customers you have. Now make a list of all of the companies that would like to sell to those customers. Could you create a unique event for your customers featuring your products and services? Could you then include other companies at that event as sponsors who would underwrite the cost of the event and benefit from being in front of your customers?
Mind the Caution Flags
During the race there is one turn in the track that has nothing to do with what’s right in front of the racecar driver. It’s called the caution flag. When debris lands on the track or a car gets damaged while racing, the caution flag is waved and all the drivers have to slow down and get behind the pace car. That doesn’t seem too bad, except for the lead driver, who has to slow down and let all the other cars line up right behind them. The cushion suddenly evaporates.
This same thing happens in business. You’re doing a good job and staying focused. You’ve built tremendous momentum and you are well beyond the projected pace. Your organization is by far the best in the industry, and you continually generate significant, sustainable, and profitable growth.
Then suddenly the market place changes. Instantly all of the businesses in your industry slow way down. A series of national stories about your industry immediately sends even your most loyal customers searching for alternatives.
Think of the housing downturn that occurred in 2007 and 2008. Suddenly the most successful and the least successful real estate agents were compressed into an incredibly tight market. The leader’s lead was no longer what it had been. When there is even an isolated incident of Mad Cow disease, it sends restaurants and grocery stores into a temporary spiral, whether they were way ahead of their plan or way behind.
This is why it is so important to focus on improving performance and not solely on your relative position compared to others at any given moment. Just because you had a great or terrible quarter doesn’t mean you’re stuck in that position forever. Perhaps your competitor made a big sale right before the quarter ended, and you made one right after the next quarter started. It looks like you’re way behind when in reality you’re not.
When your market gets compressed how will you be prepared to win the race in front of you?
I encourage you to go to a NASCAR race, but get there way, way before it starts and let the lessons on management soak in.
Dan Coughlin is a business keynote speaker, management consultant, and author of “Accelerate: 20 Practical Lessons to Boost Business Momentum.” He speaks on entrepreneurial habits, quality, leadership, branding, sales, and innovatio
When the iPhone first came out I was skeptical about it’s longevity…
As fantastic as the BlackBerry is for letting you connect to your office while you’re on the go, you have to have that office to connect to in the first place. I have a home office so I can telecommute to my Virginia-based job from New Jersey, but lately due to family demands I’ve been out of that office more than I’ve been in it. Next month I’m moving to a different part of New Jersey. The app store convinced me that I can lead a crazy web working life and still get done what needs to get done for my employers without keeping my laptop and its associated gear with me all the time.
Thinking about joining me in switching fruits from berry to apple? Here’s a quick look at what’s to love (and not-so-love) about being a new iPhone owner from the point of view of someone very used to the BlackBerry experience.
It’s in your pocket: teaching spectacularly with cell phones. Great speech by Hall Davidsonfrom Discovery Education Network about using mobile phones in education, the kind of talk many teachers and administrators need to hear. The first thing Hall said was to take out and turn on our cell phones
There is a large potential for cell phones in education, but current best practices are small. Mobiles have lots of functionality, including:
Telephone
Text messenger
Still camera
Video camera
Video player
GPS device
Podcaster
Music player
Are we really going to ignore a device this powerful? Can we, when it has all kinds of applications for teaching, learning, school-to-home, administration?
In general, we still take cell phones away, and school districts ban them (e.g. during school hours). However, if this is a tool for adults, we need to teach kids how to use it.
Kevin Kelly is one of those guys I could listen to for a time and then have to walk away and ponder on all the implications of the information I have just received. He is one of a handful of people I greatly admire. At the “5000 Day” mark, Kevin talks about the next 5000 days of the Worldwide Web and makes some interesting predictions. The clip is about 20 minutes long, but well worth the time. Sit back and listen to what Kevin has to say.
Phil Cooke, Producer/Director, recently posted this on his blog. This applies to many areas of life and work. I thought it was interesting…very interesting. Where do you see application in your life?
When people ask me why I use a Mac, my usual response is that it’s more “intuitive.” A PC is logical, but a Mac’s interface and software is more like the way I think. I’ve also noticed it in how quickly young kids adapt to a Mac in contrast to a PC. They just seem to “get it.” It’s similar to the GPS systems on my car. A few years ago I had a Lexus and I loved the GPS. It just made sense. It thought the way I did. But now I have a Land Rover and I hate it. The Land Rover GPS is good, and it’s very logical – but I find it’s very difficult to use.
Celebrate with me one of the most creative and influential mediums of our time – animation!
One hundred years ago today, the first animated film of all time was released to the public. Fantasmagorie was created over the course of four months by French caricature artist Émile Cohl, who became known as “The Father of the Animated Cartoon”.
(From /film) Read more…
…all play and intertwine in the composition of great photos.
They draw the viewer in and beg the questions,
“Who is this?”
“What is happening?”
“What has happened?”
“Where is this?”
“Why?”
And, in so doing draw us into introspection…
I’ll be taking a week off to focus on closing out a project (July 28-August 1). More to come from the lessons learned during this engagement. It’s a really cool online course with custom hooks into a client app. The back-end was designed as “plug and play” so content can quickly and easily be swapped out while still being applicable to the course testing and grading scenarios.
Where has the Summer gone in 2008? So many movies and so little budget or time. While visiting my friend’s blog I was reminded of all there is yet to see. Here are some of my thoughts as well as my friend, Melvin.
Speed Racer: Visually stimulating, has an odd cast. I have not seen it yet, but Melvin says, “Go with low expectations and you’ll have a blast.”
I have heard nothing but good fun about IronMan. I still wanna see it while it’s in the theaters.
I have also seen:
Batman The Dark Knight – definitely a “dark” movie with a nihilistic Joker.
Kung Fu Panda - Good fun CG movie. My kids love the figures.
Prince Caspian, Narnia – Good adaptation of the C.S. Lewis book (not closely followed). See my previous post.
Wall*E - I heard mixed reviews about Pixar’s latest release. “Not much dialogue” was a common complaint. However, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think the movements and “body language” created all kinds of dialog.
Hellboy 2 – Another in a list of good movies directed by Guillermo del Toro.
Still to see: Clone Wars, Indiana Jones, Get Smart, Journey to The Center of The Earth…Hmmm…what else am I missing?
There is a war going on within organizations: Marketing and Sales are at odds and fighting against one another. Marketing complains that Sales never follows up on all those leads they send. Sales grumbles that Marketing doesn’t bring them any qualified leads. It’s a battle that neither side can win. And the company as a whole loses unless the two sides wave the white flag and agree to work together as partners, rather than against each other as adversaries. The two sides should join together to fight the war against competitors who are conquering market share.
The truth is both functions are crucial for success. Marketing makes the phone ring and salespeople close deals. It’s a very close association between two functions, so why is there such a disconnect? Part of the problem is that Marketing suffers from a credibility crisis. Marketing is viewed as the people who throw parties and spend budgets, rather than as part of the machine that drives revenue and profits. There are companies where Sales holds weekly revenue calls, and nobody from Marketing is on the call. In order to work with Sales, Marketing must be viewed not as a cost center, but as a strategic asset that drives growth. How can marketers do their part to achieve success and end the war?
Prove Your Worth
CFOs make budgeting decisions and recommendations based on facts and figures. Marketing must present useful data that enables CFOs to understand the value of the Marketing department. Evidence of this issue is seen in a Marketing Sherpa study in which only 17% of B2B marketers queried were sure their CFOs understood the value of lead generation programs. To combat this, provide meaningful success metrics.
Collaborate
Traditionally, the Marketing and Sales departments operate in silos. Each department performs its function without interacting with the other. To end the war, the barriers must be broken down. Sales and Marketing should share common goals. Both should frequently meet to share information. Or, savvy organizations might take it a step further: Have Marketing go on a sales call along with salespeople, or invite salespeople to participate in Marketing meetings, so each side can see, first-person, the challenges the other department is up against.
Instill A Focus On The Customer
Instead of paying attention to divisive internal issues, devote your energy to focusing on the customer. Find reasons to work together to solve customer problems…and to focus on the “right” prospects.
Define Core Messaging
Along these same lines, make sure both departments have a clear understanding of the company’s competitive advantage and key sales differentiators. If Marketing is promoting a product based on price advantage, and Sales is touting customer service (but neither mentions the other) they present mixed messages to the marketplace. Agree on a value proposition, and stick to it. That means having coherent messaging coming from all parts of the organization. Make sure all ads, marketing materials and sales presentations communicate that value proposition to prospects.
Prove Them Wrong
When all else fails, prove them wrong. Make sure you’re generating not just large numbers of leads, but qualified prospects. Remember, in the BtoB world, quality is more important than quantity. You might have a big budget, but if you don’t use it effectively to generate quality leads, why bother?
Don’t Overlook The “No-brainers”
Too often, Marketing’s attempt to “prove them wrong” involves complex strategies and unconventional marketing tactics. But don’t overlook the obvious. One of the most effective forms of online advertising is an industry directory. It’s a small investment – often just a few hundred dollars for an entire year of advertising. And it produces quality prospects. Your ad is hitting prospects at the exact moment that they are actively searching for your company’s product or service. What better way to drive qualified leads than when you already know they’re looking for exactly what you provide?
Marketers who put these tips into action will be closer to ending the war: to being seen as an equal partner with Sales in the effort to deliver revenue for their organization. Marketing programs will be more successful, sales will increase, morale will improve, and customer satisfaction will go up. Peace, at last.
Do you talk to your reader in your sales letters? Are you using language that is too formal or stuffy? Worse yet, are you writing in a style that is too informal?
Formal Language
I talk to so many people that are confused about what is business appropriate in their written correspondence. Many are convinced that the company expects them to use the old formal language.
Let’s look at an example.
Pursuant to your inquiry of March 17, 2008, I am enclosing some literature regarding our XYZ products. Our organization is dedicated to providing the utmost quality and cost effectiveness. We are confident our products will meet and exceed your standards of excellence.
This is too formal and most likely will bore your reader. You should ask yourself if this is how you would speak to the customer in a face-to-face conversation.
Informal Language
Now let’s consider the opposite approach. We treat our customers as if they were one of our closest friends. We use slang, make up adjectives, and forget we have proper grammar and sentence structure to consider. We forget that email, when used for business correspondence must remain business appropriate.
Take another look at the above excerpt now written in a very informal style.
Hey, thanks for calling. I put some really cool stuff about our XYZ products in the package. Our company thinks quality is really important and our pricing is uber-low. You’ll be totally stoked by our super products.
This is too informal. It sounds like we are talking to a friend at a college party.
Business Appropriate
Let’s make our excerpt more conversational, while maintaining the appropriateness.
Thank you for your call. I have sent you some information about our XYZ products. You might have heard that our company values quality. We would like to show you how we can help you be most cost effective. Let’s talk some more about how we can help you and answer your questions. We want to be sure you feel good about your decision to buy our products.
Does the above example sound too stuffy? Is it too informal? Does it sound conversational and still maintain a business-like tone?
Try reading your sales and business letters out-loud before you send them. Make sure they are written in a conversational style that maintains a business tone. Give your customers the respect they deserve by communicating in a clear and concise manner. Choose strong, direct words to convey your message. Write in a style that encourages your reader to want to talk more with you.
Source: Valerie Kendrick is the President of Kendrick Resources LLC, specializing in communications skills training.
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