I got a lot of comments on my look (see below) where I sported the 70′s stache for a solid 2 days. Most of you cringed in pain just looking at me with my stache. But some of you liked it, like a yearning for the days of Saturday Night Fever. So, your task is to comment below with a haiku on how you feel about 70′s style in today’s age.
Of all of the talks given at SXSW ’09, I loved the last 15 minutes of Tony Hsieh’s presentation the best. This part of his talk focused on The Science of Happiness and his earnest desire to spend 10% of his time studying the structured elements of what makes all of us happy. The three levels he shared were: rockstar, flow, and meaning/higher purpose (check out Slide 44 on the Slideshare presentation below). I’m now dedicated to reading and learning more about this balanced, structured approach to happiness. Comment below if you recommend a good book that speaks to you on this topic.
Watch the entire slide show—-
Ah, the vastly entertaining Guy Kawasaki started off the keynote with swagger and a few digs on Sarah Lacy’s dismal interview of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg which happened exactly one year ago at SXSW. Guy followed up with some poignant questions for Wired Magazine publisher Chris Anderson who is about to publish his book “FREE” which of course be free in its electronic version. The debate centered around whether or not freemium (new word thrown around liberally in this SXSW Kawasaki / Anderson interview) products lower the value of that product based on pricing it as FREE for the standard/limited/trial version and a cost to the premium version of that product or software. Check out the video and tweets below to draw your own conclusions.
My Kawasaki / Anderson tweets—-
#sxsw keynote – who’s going to be the star – Guy Kawasaki or Chris Anderson? Will Guy give more Apple examples or Alltop?
Kawasaki and anderson take the stage now. Gonna be good – I feel it.
Sarah lacey jabs already by kawasaki – nice.
The big question is how will twitter make money now?
The power of Twitter has never been so apparent in the eROI office as when @The_Real_Shaq tweeted “Anybody in portland touches me rt now will get two tickets I’m at redstar cafe.” As Megan put it “It was like a stampede upstairs!”
Leading the frenzied mob was Christine and Don who fought their way to the Red Star for a chance to grope the 7 foot 1 mammoth. Christine, a dedicated Blazer fan, saw the tweet, took off her earrings and ran the seven blocks in moccasins with Don at her side. Somehow, with the will of true Blazer fans and the hearts of eROI employees, Christine and Don the magnificent were able to reach O’Neal and claim their prize – two tickets each to a rocking basketball game. A proud day for all.
Before this presentation at SXSW, I had no idea what “whuffie” was. Check out the video, slideshare presentation, and tweets below to get the real definition, but my paraphrased version is that whuffie is good karma points but more in the context of an online community. I sat next to Portland’s social media guru, Dawn Foster, Shizzow founder Ryan Snyder, and Silicon Florist’s Rick Turoczy – so the side conversations were as valuable as the actual presentations. As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, there was a huge Portland turnout for SXSW ’09 – impressive.
Watch Tara Hunt’s slide show—-
Got some great ideas from the Breakthrough Innovation talk at SXSW. Instead of looking at incremental changes and feature bloat, look at game-changers (e.g. Wii, iPhone) by focusing on one thing you do really well – so well that you’d put it as the word or phrase on your super hero outfit. A phrase that does NOT work would be something like “Increased Productivity.” A lot of her points reinforced what I recently read in the book “Made to Stick” by Dan and Chip Heath. If you are in a product development cycle like we are here at eROI, this session was uber-relevant. Check out the video and my tweets below.
My tweets—-
#sxsw session on making breakthroughs – we often get into an arms race w/ competitors and hit a brick wall
breakthroughs with ideas or performance – Kathy Sierra seems like she’s gonna be a rockin speaker #sxsw
you need to help people kick ass to breakthrough the competition
One contributor, Zoey Margolis or “Abby Lee”, turned her popular blog into a book:
My tweets from this SXSW author session—-
Zoey margolis, author and blogger, talking about being a sex fiend.
She has a british accent – must be smart.
Love her words like tosser and wanker
Angelic feet. Guy saw her at the tube station. He had foot fetish. Great vocab.
She had a snog with him. More british slang. F word works for her. Good emphasis.
Girl with a one track mind with sordidness all about her. Very entertaining.
Presentation Based on the book by Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval—-
Great examples in this presentation and the book is an easy read for the flight home – I got through it in a couple hours. The only bummer was that the authors couldn’t make it to present and sent one of their execs instead. Otherwise, lots of great examples about how paying attention to the details matter. A lot of times it is important to “sweat the small stuff”.
My tweets from this session—-
In “the power of small” #sxsw session now in Room 10 – great examples of shreddie diamonds (vs. squares), aflac, and swiffers
great SNL spoof called “swiffer sweepers” with sweeping your floor with your kids bodies in swiffer outfits – good stuff
To the rebel in all of us, James Powderly is our part-nefarious, part-make-the-world-a-better-place hero. As you’ll see from the video and my tweets live from the Monday keynote speech below, Powderly is intoxicating in his allure to scrawl graffiti all over a 500 foot building with amplified lasers and projectors. He even got incarcerated before the Beijing Olympics last year for 10 days for attempting to pull off an impermanent graffiti trick on mass scale. What he didn’t talk about until the last question of the session was his new project to enable a quadriplegic man to be able to do art again, but this time through his eyes (and lasers) instead of his hands. Creativity in such an authentic way – not sure you get a sense of his energy from the video below.
My tweets for this SXSW session—-
#sxsw keynote – just had 2000 people cooperatively give middle finger to speaker james powderly, grafitti research lab
Research and track grafitti all over world
Learning what a #led throwie is. Very cool on a mass scale
Take a laser and write in huge letters on a huge building
This SXSW panel was great from an entrepreneurial perspective, especially with Kaiser Kuo’s insight into Chinese entrepreneurialism and how American entrepreneurs can partner with Chinese companies to enter the Chinese market. Robert Scoble has the rockstar fanfare from the SXSW crowd, but I thought Kaiser Kuo was the real star on this panel from his insights.
My tweets for this session—-
In #sxsw session with scoble – ditch the valley and run for the hills
Mike maples jr invested in twitter in the beginning – it could have only started in the valley
Kaiser Kuo: the world is NOT flat. It’s spiky with major innovation centers like San Fran, Beijing, Boston, etc. It snowballs from epicenter
I went back through my 287 tweets from five days at SXSW Interactive with an intention to do a dozen different blog posts. Instead, I realize that I just need to share bits of inspiration instead of piecing together thorough notes for each session I attended.
Overall takeaways:
OK – I guess I need to do separate blog posts to show some cool visuals and videos of my favorite influences there.
This morning, eROI Sales & Strategist, Alex Williams took this fine photo in Los Angeles, of all places. Hopefully, Alex will comment on this blog post with a quick update of what he’s learned from Mediapost’s OMMA Hollywood event, which is all about online media, marketing, and advertising. A quick reminder that Optimism is the eROI mantra for 2009 and beyond, and what better day to see this huge banner than a day the stock market skyrockets.
I recently wrote an article for iMedia Connection titled “11 Email Design Best Practices” and thought I’d share it with you if you hadn’t already checked it out. It starts like this:
Remember the last great offer you didn’t see? The savvy email marketer knows that you catch more conversions with honey than you do with vinegar, so make sure your email design is sweet!
If you’re starting a new email marketing program, or looking for an edge to take your email campaigns to the next level, consider these ideas for designing emails that get your compelling offer noticed. These tips and tricks will start you off right, and even help experienced email marketers amp-up existing campaigns, turning precise communication into profits and visibility.
1. Before you start
Prior to constructing your email, make sure that your message is clear and concise. Develop and refine what you want to say so that readers don’t lose interest or get confused about what your call-to-action is. What is your offer? How will reading and clicking through this email help the reader? Make sure they know what’s in it for them. Before and during the building process, continually ask yourself, “What would I think if I got this in my inbox? Would I immediately delete it? Or worse, report it as spam?” Rule No. 1 — don’t be spam.
Even the most compelling message can be rendered ineffective if it’s presented in an undesirable way to your readers. During this process you may encounter many challenges and obstacles. Your design team may want to create something striking and beautiful, but your audience may not want it. At the same time, don’t throw readers for a loop with a design that is off-brand. Your email design should be able to flow well with the look of your website as well as any pieces collateral offered. Consistency is good. Also, design the email around your readers by responding to their personality. Are they tech savvy? Parents? Students?
If you’ve got a couple hours to spare, then you should read this whole 176 page report. If you only have 5 minutes, it’s worth skimming thru the online pages. Razorfish, one of the largest digital agencies in the world, did a phenomenal job with laying out the landscape of online for the first half of this year (I don’t think anyone can accurately predict what’s going to happen 6 months from now, but I am an optimist and think our industry will grow at a healthy clip in the second half).
Here’s the Big Online Report – Enjoy!
http://digitaloutlook.razorfish.com/publication/?i=13617
Bud Caddell hit the nail on the head with this awesome, quick to go through, SlideShare presentation below. Take a second to go thru it.
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