A Picture is Worth $10,000? Give me a Break, McCain.
I am sitting here drinking coffee, watching Channel 6 News, and finishing up a blog post. I am having a pleasant morning, thank you for asking! Unfortunately, now I am a little upset because of a picture worth (brace yourself) $10,000.
John McCain is visiting Indianapolis today and, of course, he is having a dinner/fund raiser/$1000-$3000 a seat/shaking hand hoopla. What a great way to raise money for your campaign! Pay the money. Get some food. Shake hands with the future President of the United States. You can even get your picture taking with John McCain. Step right up. Wait. How much did you say you gave to the McCain cause? $9000? $5000? Sorry, only $10,000 and above donors get to take a picture with Mr. McCain.
What?
Excuse me?
I can’t get a picture at this party without giving $10,00?
CAN I HAVE some personality in politics? I am not supporting or defending either campaign, but I feel like there is no personality, no authenticity.
Yes, the Obama campaign has done an EXCELLENT job in creating a juggernaut of a brand. And yes, McCain and Obama both have emotionally charged words in their campaign like “Change, Hope, Resilience.” Whatever.
Can I get someone real? Maybe? Can I get a PERSON. Someone that doesn’t sound like a political-byte robot. I have heard both speak and they BOTH bored me to death.
McCain needs $10,000 to blink.
Obama has $10,000 from a cheat.
I think I will use my $10,000 not for a picture but to buy a car, which I will drive off a cliff. Money well better spent.
Sometimes Doing Nothing Pays Off.
(hat tip to Seth Godin for this wonderful post)
Mr. Godin is right when he says:
The irony, of course, is that they’ll (Wall-E, Pixar) make plenty of money. Bravery often pays off, even if paying off is not your goal. Especially if that’s not your goal.
Marketing isn’t always about pandering to the masses and shooting for the quick payoff. Often, the best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing at all.
Is Mr. Godin speaking on one of my favorite topics: marketing authenticity? I am not necessarily sure. If you read the full post here , you will find that he is referencing the fact that QUALITY directly relates to the overall success. More often than not, you will not need to hook up the crack wheel and act like Robin William’s in Patch Adams. Sometimes all it takes is a quality product (Wall-E) and a quality communication tool (the Internet).
I can’t imagine the extreme amount of stress seeping from the Pixar offices. You have ONE movie a year to make a splash and to make money. ONE. Talk about a huge gamble!
Honestly, I envy Pixar’s trust in their product.
Take note! Take note business owners, entrepreneurs, product managers, and salesmen. This is a great example of confidence in your product offering. We should all have this kind of confidence.
Should A NFP Use Twitter?
I had a great question posed to me by Scott Semester of Smaller Indiana in relation to my post about Comcast .
The question follows:
Kyle, can you talk a little more about (or recommend online resources that can explain) how companies and nonprofit organizations can use Twitter to connect with their target audiences? I have a Twitter account, but it’s just for personal stuff and I usually forget to use it at work. How might I and my colleagues add value for donors via Twitter?
What a great question!
The first step in utilizing a social tool like Twitter is to understand the human element in relation to social media. The human element can be referred to as an underlying form of authenticity when using social tools for communication. Scott made reference to using Twitter for “personal stuff” and he is on the right track. When consulting with a company, I tend to recommend two separate accounts. You should always have social media tools for your personal life, which SHOULD ALWAYS BE separate from your business.
When a person is seeking out information on your company they want two things concrete information (hard data, contact info, about us, etc) and the human element (owner, employee, company mission, etc). Twitter, not to mention every other social media outlet, gives you the opportunity to show a more human side to your business/organization.
Next step: Just try it out. Start an organization Twitter account (ie. Comcastcares). Search for people in your area and start following. See what happens.
Put some HUMAN into your COMPANY. Believe me, it is worth it.
After all, an empty, heartless logo is the last thing a donor will give money to.
Collaborate, Answer, and Defuddle Any Question
A new question and answer social tool has been made available on the net (props to Mashable for this article).
The new site is called Defuddle .
I have a member profile on other Q&A Collaboration tools like LinkedIN, Yahoo!Answers, and Yedda. I can rest easy when I say I have been pleased with the ease of use through each site. Defuddle takes it one step farther and makes it EXTREMELY easy to post and reply to questions. I agree with Paul Glazowski of Mashable when he says:
“it’s already showing to be a real treat to use – and aesthetically pleasing to boot.”
Defuddle is aesthetically pleasing and is easy to use. Everyone should sign up for this cool tool and try it out. What could it hurt?
Comcast: A Company That Finally Gets It!
Sunday afternoon: A time to sit back, relax, watch a good flick , and hit up Twitter. I was perusing my twitter pal ThomasHo and he was mentioning how he chose Comcast over AT&T because of a twitter post called Comcastcares .
I was pleased to find that Comcast actually has an employee twittering! Talk about getting deep into socialmedia! Every one should take note and follow Comcast on this brilliant way to connect with their customers!
New Brand Image for Wal-Mart? Should I Care?
A recent article from WSJ.com has brought to light Wal-Mart’s (now officially Walmart) push to change its logo and brand identity. The ugly blue and white logo will now be replaced with a cleaner white and orange logo with a star burst.
Should I care?
On a consumer level, I could care less.
On a branding level, it is an extreme development for one of the largest “brands” in the nation. I do not shop at Walmart.
I can’t stomach looking at the old logo and I hate the color orange. My negativity towards Walmart is extreme. EXTREME.
The new branding will be a direct attack to one of Walmart’s biggest competitors, Target . Can a new look, new employee swag, and a new tag line save the Walmart reputation? Negative perceptions of the retail giant have been heard and taken to heart.
Can Walmart reverse the negativity associated with the brand?
An article from FastCompany to check out.
Has Google Met Its Match In Yandex?
A recent post on BusinessWeek.com clued me into a new search engine on the Eastern side of the world called Yandex .
According to Business Week,
Few outside of Russia have heard of the Yandex search engine, but that may soon change. Yandex has 44% of the Russian market—10 points ahead of Google—and is now the No. 2 search outfit in Europe, according to researcher comScore.
I am interested to see if Yandex can hold its own to the search giant. Google is pushing deep into the Russian market and has forecast ad revenues to jump from $200 million to $1 billion in the Russian market by 2010.
I would love to give a run down of the Yandex search engine but unfortunately I am not that familiar with Russian. But from what I have read Yandex is making headways to combat Google.
Can Yandex keep the motherland or will Google create a heavy enough force to drive Yandex down?
Firefox 3 Extentsions. Get it in.
Mashable had a great write up on the Top 30 Firefox 3 Extensions. I agree with most of them and wanted to add a couple of my own.
I would list Mashable’s 30 but let’s be honest, I just don’t have the time. 
Follow the link and read through them.
My top 5 FireFox Extensions:
FireGestures : mouse gestures to control functions in FireFox
Digg Ext: self-explanatory
GSpace : Awesome ext for using some of the 7GB of space you get on Gmail for file storage
Facebook Tool : Might as well be updated 24/7
Twitter Fox : Twitter me Firefox
Check them out. Download Firefox 3 if you haven’t already. It is pretty sweet.
If you want a run down of the entire Firefox 3 check out Doug Karr’s post here.
Smaller Indiana Party at Intelligent Offices
I attended the Smaller Indiana party last night and it was AWESOME! I had the pleasure of meeting a ton of people and also had the pleasure of catching up with others.
Intelligent Offices did an awesome job at hosting the party. Smaller Indiana now has an office at their beautiful building. If you are in the Indianapolis area you should def. go check out the office building. It is a very cool set up.
Holy..My Top Friends Feature is Gone
I received the alert from Mashable this morning.
I went to check out the warning that my top friends app could be gone. Yep, completely gone.
Stan Schroeder of Mashable makes a great point that whether or not Facebook deleted the app or they have a glitch in their system it could mean bad news for app developers and businesses wanting to use Facebook for business.
I honestly don’t know how I feel about app deletion, if that is the case. I didn’t receive a message or email or even a POKE to let me know my top friends app was going to be removed. It was just removed. If it is a glitch in the system, this may the first sign that app developers should be wary of the Facebook system.
Cheerio!
