Gerald's Posts

stuff to share | ideas & random thoughts

Sort of Craigslist in Reverse

Tell people what you want versus having to search to see if what you want is available.  That is the gist of Zaarly.com.  The site is fairly new and in the week or

so that I have used it they are quickily fixing bugs and implementing new changes.  I think the concept has strong potential based on personal expereince.

Have you ever wanted to broadcast to your friends, family of community when you needed or wanted something.  I just as a kid.  I wanted a Snap N Go stroller.  Went on Cragislist and found a few but none near me.  Zaarly can help you broadcast what you want and when you want it.  Sure, Carigslist has more traffic and eyeballs.  Zaarly is new and doesn't have a ton of users but I think the social commerce aspect will be popular.  Check out Zaarly here.  

Zaarly

Take out "American Made" and your house is empty!

 

This week ABC World News has reported on a series called:  Made In America.  It's pretty interesting and can be an eye opener when you consider how many things in your home are NOT American made.  Take a look at the video above where a family in Dallas Texas took everything out of their home that was not made in America.  Even the poor dog's bed was taken out.   

ABC News cites Economy.com's stat that:  if every American spent an extra $3.33 on U.S. made goods, it would create nearly 10,000 new American jobs.

Finding and replacing items that are Made In America is more expensive but I know I would be willing to spend a heck of a lot more than $3.33 if it could have a profound impact on creating more jobs IN THE USA!  Remember the days when Wal-Mart strictly sold Made in America products?

Fastest Company Ever, one oil change at a time.

Media_httpblogappoint_tciuq

I might be the last one to the dance but just bought my first Groupon deal this morning.  Yes, I've heard of Groupon and know what they do.  I've even seen a few deals in the past but none that ever excited me.  It wasn't until I read about the offer Google made at $5.3B, that I began to explore their service and application.  Then this morning as I am sipping my coffee and perusing my email, I am hit with the following email subject line:

64% Off Oil Change and More

Now I drive a Jeep Cherokee and usually get oil changes at either GoodYear or our local mechanic.  They typically run around $60 so when I read further I saw:

$20 for a Synthetic Blend Oil Change, New Wipers, Tire Rotation and More at Wood & Fullerton Goodyear Tire and Auto Service($55 Value). Choose from Nine Locations.

A mediocre pair of wipers at Wal-Mart are $15.  They say synthetic blend oil is better, plus you throw in the tire rotation....to me it was a no brainer.  I bought the coupon.  The amazing thing about Groupon is how well they make the process simple and it makes you focus on this deal.  They are showcasing this merchant.  If I was the merchant, I would feel awfully special today.  Tons of people have already bought the coupon.  This guys have hit a huge home run.  There is the new emergence of O2O also called Online-to-Offline marketing.  Groupon helps expose small businesses who would never get this type of marketing through traditional means like print advertising.  By the way, have you noticed the new guerilla marketing method of having some guy on the street corner with a sign that reads:  Going Out Of Businesses, Everything is 50-70% off.  It is usually on a stick and they are trying to get you to pull in.  I wonder if that works, because the store is still there.  They never went "out of business".


Coincidentally, last night I saw Andrew Mason, CEO of Groupon, be interviewed on Charlie Rose.  You can catch the interview here.  When asked why they did not sell to Google, Andrew was pretty quite  about it but he and his co-founder feel they still have a lot left to 'change the world'.  Everyone's definition of changing the world is different but you have to admire that the huge payday wasn't their motivator.  Groupon had some interesting stats where they have significantly improved businesses or an organization's membership numbers.  Here are two:

Art Institute of Chicago, 5,000 new members, increase base by 6-8%

Joffrey Ballet in Chicago, increased memberships by 30% !!!!!!!!!

They are claimed to be the fastest growing company, EVER!  Crazy.  Congrats to these guys for hitting a home run and I am sure they will hit the Motherload soon.

Charlie Rose Interview with CEO of Groupon: http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11338

GE

Burger King's F#*# You Leads to Firings...Why Chic-Fil-A Succeeds!

Media_httpmedianbcbay_ohace
via nbcbayarea.com

Read this article:  http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local-beat/Burger-Kings-F-You-Leads-to-Firings-108763129.html?r#

"Sacramento resident Francisco Perez told KCRA TV after ordering food at the Sacramento restaurant, he noticed his receipt read "f--- you" in the area that would normally say "thank you."  The four-letter profanity was spelled out not once, but twice."

So why does Chic-Fil-A succeed aside from having clean, well lite, modern facilities and food that doesn't make you feel "as" guilty? The people they hire. They hire better quality people, hands down. You walk into a Burger King, Wendy's or McDonalds and the quality of the employees is bad. Really bad except for the McDonalds I visited in Greenwich CT. I think those folks had college degrees.

Don't think they pay enough to attract talent? Maybe and I don't know what Chic-Fil-A pays but whatever it is, I don't think you'll find this kind of crap happening like the story above.

Always, a #1 with Coke.
Later,
GE

Find your polling place and follow the US Election on the go

Find your polling place and follow the US Election on the go

Friday, October 29, 2010 | 12:51 PM

The United States midterm election is on Tuesday, November 2, and we encourage all eligible US citizens to get out and vote. We’ve made it easy to find your polling place and follow election news by visiting our Election Center mobile site at m.google.com/elections on your Android-powered phone or iPhone.


Enter the address where you’re registered to vote, and we’ll show you a Google Map of your polling place. The Election Center site also has information about candidates running for office in your area.

So come Tuesday, let your mobile phone guide you to your polling place, and let sanity guide your vote!

Posted by Ryan Pollock, Product Marketing Manager

Labels:

via googlemobile.blogspot.com

So simple. Makes you appreciate google and a mobile phone. No reason to not go vote b/c you don't know where to go.
GE

3 easy but powerful ways to improve email

Real quick.

1.  unsubscribe.com .  Ever get email that you may have subscribed for awhile back and no longer want to receive?  Clean out your inbox with unsubscribe.com.  Free service allows you to unsubscribe for up to 5 emails a month.  There is also a paid unlimited service if you need it.  There is a plug in for popular email clients like email, or just forward the email you do not want to continue receiving and it will remove it permanently.  Simple and easy.  Learned about this one from Fred Wilson on his blog:  www.avc.com/

2.  Rapportive.  Find out more about those people sending you email.  Learn about their profile and other sites they are using like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.  The beauty of this tool is that it resides inside your email client and is non obtrusive.  For folks who like to connect via LinkedIn this is a great app to see if the person within the email you are reading is on LinkedIn or you can see other interests in the profile.  Works well with Gmail.

3.  Priority Inbox.  For Gmail users.  New way to prioritize your inbox by teaching gmail what is important or not important.  This can even improve any current filters so that you get all relevant email throughout the day but allows you to access all email when necessary.  For grinding through hundreds of emails a day, this can be a time saver.  First you must teach the system what is important.  For me it worked great within  a week.  Cool video below on how it works.

Bottom line is that these three useful tools will:  make your email time effective, reduce annoyance, and increase understanding/opportunities of who you engage with.  Later,
GE

Like It or Not, Twitter Has Become a News Platform «

There’s been plenty of debate lately about whether Twitter has become “mainstream” or not, but examples continue to pile up of how the social network/microblogging platform has worked its way into our lives, to the point where it has become a form of media unto itself. Whether it will ever become mainstream in the sense that it gets used by your aunt or grandmother is almost irrelevant — the reality is that, for all its flaws, Twitter is a publishing tool, and an increasingly powerful one. And it can be used by anyone, journalist and non-journalist alike.

One of the most recent examples came several days ago, when a Japanese journalist who was kidnapped in Afghanistan managed to trick his captors into letting him post a message about his location to Twitter. It’s not clear from the news reports whether his tweets helped get him released or not, but it is yet another example of how easy Twitter makes it to broadcast that kind of news — and not just to one or two people, the way email or text messaging does, but to potentially hundreds or even thousands (in 2008, Twitter helped American photojournalist James Buck spread the news that he had been arrested by Egyptian police while covering an anti-government protest).

Two other examples of Twitter as a news platform are the recent hostage-taking and shootout at Discovery Channel headquarters in Maryland, and the earthquake that hit near New Zealand last week. In the first case, reports about a gunman in the Discovery building started coming in before the news was on a mainstream news outlet. And in the case of the earthquake — as in similar cases involving earthquakes in China and forest fires in California — reports flooded the Twitter network while most mainstream media outlets were still unaware that it had even occurred. One resident said she relied on news she got from Twitter more than the radio, because it was a lot faster (although it should be noted that she is a Twitter fan and web consultant).

Obviously, Twitter reports aren’t going to contain a complete accounting of an event like an earthquake or a shooting, but it has become just as obvious that they can be a powerful tool for “man on the street” or eyewitness accounts, whether it’s the fires in California or a plane landing in the middle of the Hudson River. In the case of the Discovery Channel situation, reporters described how useful this was because it acted as “an early alert system” on what was happening. In fact, earlier this year researchers looked at the flow of content on the network and found that Twitter is far more of a news medium than it is a traditional social network.

Since the protests in Iran last year, there has been a lot of debate about how important Twitter was during those demonstrations, and whether it was actually used by dissidents or merely by sympathizers in the West. But there’s no question that it helped spread the news of events such as the shooting death of protester Neda Soltan — which many saw as a key moment in the protests — and that it was important enough that the Obama government contacted the company to ask that it delay scheduled maintenance on the network while the protests were going on. The network has been used in a similar way in protests in Burma and elsewhere.

The thread that ties all of these events together is simple: Twitter, like blogging did before it, puts the tools of publishing in anyone’s hands. And yes, that means the information flowing through the network is not always accurate — hoaxes are a routine part of the stream — but it also means that there are thousands more eyeballs and brains studying those reports than there would be at any mainstream media outlet. The bottom line is one that journalism professor Jay Rosen reiterated during a recent address to journalism students in Paris: the “people formerly known as the audience” have the tools to become part of the media now, and that is changing our society in ways that we are only beginning to appreciate.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d): What We Can Learn From the Guardian’s Open Platform

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr users Waldo Jaquith and George Kelly

via gigaom.com

Just got back from Sumo Match

My last post was May 31st.  Too much time since I last wrote, especially when my original intentions and goals for this blog were to be consistent in my writing.  However, there is a reason for my short departure that drained my ability to even post a short message. 

Sumonagfighting1

Over the last 8 months our company has been negotiating a strategic relationship with a large company that has been one of the top learning experiences of my life.  Without boring you in the details, the stress of the deal was the constant ups and downs, turns, surprises and unknowns that were daily and even by the hour.  Having read many articles from other entrepreneurs and start-ups about going through the process of a strategic deal, I was mentally prepared for the challenges but until you are in the trenches it does not compare.  Being the smaller piece of the puzzle, the amount of leverage and influence on the deal ebbed and flowed for 8 months until deal fatigue was about to create attrition amongst the players.  For a start-up/small business this can be awfully painful.  Nonetheless I am grateful that the deal is done and now we can move on.  In the end, certain parameters of the deal caused us to make significant changes to our strategy, operations and view of our immediate horizon.  If I were to scratch a short list of lessons from this experience on the back of a napkin they would be:

  • give yourself options, don't limit yourself
  • don't be afraid to press on getting decisions, if both parties want it bad enough then pressing doesn't hurt
  • be clear on your criteria for success and remind everyone throughout the process
  • seek legal counsel early on BOTH sides of the negotiation
  • nobody cares what other issues are pending on the outcome of your deal
  • start-ups and large companies have vastly different cultures, know each other's framework for operating
  • manage expectations internally within your organization for the potential outcome
  • most important: faith and belief, don't know what you believe in but you need to ask for supernatural help

Jason Fried's comments in this INC article ring true now that we are planning our next 3, 6, 12 and 24 months. 

Tomorrow. Eventually. Next quarter. Next year. Five years from now. Exit strategy. Throw these words away. They don't matter. Today is all you have in business. Tomorrow is just today again. Next week? Seven todays in a row. A month isn't 30 days. It's 30 todays.

At times the resulting deal is anticlimactic after the 8 month (actually much longer) wrestling match to get this done.  Now it is time to go to work, no champagne popping, no gifts, no parties.....the 15 minutes are up and now it's time to dig deep.  Rejuvenation can be found without going to Tahiti for two weeks....it's within the inspiration you get from the vision for your future.  I have read about Cameron Herold's (COO for 1-800-Got -Junk) Painted Picture exercise and believe it is a great example for start-ups and entrepreneurs who are facing the battle everyday to layout their vision.  Execution (action, preferably the right kind) will always be the key to success no matter how wonderful your idea and plans may be on paper. I look forward to sharing more as we go down this new path.

Today's post would not be possible without 1) my Mom's inspiration and motivation for our business 2) incredible support from my wife throughout all the ups and down 3) having a business partner I trust and who compliments my strengths or reduces my weaknesses 4) friends and family who were always supportive 5) great employees who helped us get to where we are today and always represent our company well (to become a market leader and a viable business). 

So I am sure the next chapter in this story will still have suspense, drama and all that stuff.  More to come.

GE

Drive by Daniel Pink (video)

Interesting presentation by Daniel Pink about what motivates us in the workplace.  As a small business owner it helps reinforce the principles that research and other experts have stated but many times difficult to implement.  Aside from this being a solid topic the visual presentation is attractive and helps ingrain the message.  Great example for the Dan Roam's book Back of the Napkin which I recommend.  Watch the video above.

Later,
GE