Archive for September, 2009

My Twitter Stream from Inc. 5000 Conference

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

The calm before the storm at #inc5000. Already connected with old friends and Inc magazine staff  http://yfrog.com/0oqxmjj 5:56 PM Sep 23rd from Tweetie
Inc #1

One more photo from Gaylord resort in wash dc. Schwanky. http://yfrog.com/16vonyj 5:57 PM Sep 23rd from Tweetie

inc #2

#inc5000 conf starting now. Largest attendance ever at 1,700 of us. Aggregate rev of $214 billion http://yfrog.com/0nxn1jj 6:14 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

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You Just Got Mooned

Monday, September 21st, 2009

I don’t know about you, but I love to moon the people in my life.  No, I’m not talking 8 year old boy humor here I’m talking the new site we launched, Moonit.

It’s a place where you can evaluate and track your relationships, get advice on things happening in your life and catch up on celebrity gossip, all while Mooning your friends.  Really “Mooning” is checking your compatibility but that doesn’t sound nearly as fun.  We are so excited to see this dream become a reality.  For me, an internal brainstorming session for Moonit was the very first meeting at eROI I ever attended.  I feel an attachment to Moonit, I wonder if I put in the site’s launch date and my birth date if we would be compatible…

Moonit - Make Destiny - Love & Horoscope Compatibility Tool_1253578713818

Beyond my fondness for the site, Moonit has been getting really positive reviews.  They had the honor of being a part of the TechCrunch50, in what felt like minutes after the launch, allowing them to showcase the site and even bribe a security guard to allow them access to a special room in exchange for figuring out his “crazy love life.”

The site is fun, easy to use and is a perfect compliment to your social media life (you can even use facebook connect.)  If nothing else, at least you can moon your boss.

Moonit Press:

The Moonit Blog»

Read the blogher Article»

Moonit on Forbes.com»

“Friend or boyfriend” in the examiner.com»

eROI’s Email Testing Guide

Friday, September 11th, 2009

Something that we preach at eROI is to TEST TEST TEST.  We believe that testing should be an integral part of every email marketing campaign.  Our latest free guide gives you instructions on how to test, what to test and how to measure success.  We have given advice on what metrics you should be wary of and which ones are more solid, for example, your read rate may be leading you on.  Basically, what we are trying to get across is that testing helps to take out the guess work.  This is a great resource for anyone getting ready for, or in the process of, an email marketing campaign.

“Even with all the numbers and ideas that fly around during the process, testing can be fun! Not just because it eliminates guesswork and settles arguments, but because of the surprises waiting around every corner. This bevy of information and direction is what proves the value of testing again and again.”

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DOWNLOAD THE FREE GUIDE »

2 Days until the Old Town Block Party!

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

We are only two days away from the Old Town Block Party and the entire neighborhood is buzzing with anticipation.  As I mentioned in my last Block Party post, this was born out of a brainstorming session at eROI and now has grown into an event with over 20 booths, a record release party, Seven Planet store opening and a rummage sale just to name a few happenings.  The eROI lounge will be by the exit on 5th, between Couch and Davis.  Come down and say hi to us and all the other Old Town businesses.  I can’t think of a better way to spend a Portland Saturday then with food, drinks, shopping and a lot of music.  Let’s celebrate our community and help re-erect the Hung Far Low Sign!

Check out the Old Town Block Party»

Donate to help re-erect Hung Far Low»

OTBP_Merc_Full_Page

5 Days, No Electricity, Addicted to Email, not Twitter

Monday, September 7th, 2009

There is nothing like a little distance to make the heart grow fonder.  The past 5 days, I’ve spent with my little family in a remote, rustic cabin in the forested Wallowa Mountains outside of Joseph, Oregon (6 hour drive from Portland).  As with any vacation, it took a couple days to unwind, then it was pure bliss doing what I love doing – being outdoors nonstop, hiking, spending time with my family, and being undistracted by all the craziness in our technology-laden lives.

Upon my return to the grid (meaning my iPhone on the drive back), I realized that my longing for technology was really in communication of key information and emotional connection through my inbox (email is not, nor will it ever be dead in the foreseeable future), not through Tweetie, Tweetdeck when I returned to my laptop at home, Facebook, LinkedIn, or any website at all – it was spending 6 hours of catching up on all of the things that are hyper-relevant to me in my inbox.  Interestingly enough, I could only really scan and internalize all the issues brought up through hundreds of emails on my iPhone for about an hour, and the other 5 hours of digging way deeper and responding happened through my Outlook inbox on my laptop.  It’s a totally different mode of thinking on a 14″ screen than a 2″ screen.

There is a lot of chatter over the past several months among Email Marketing industry execs (over a hundred of us on a private email list) about whether or not Twitter is a complete waste of time or if it will kill Email, and it seems so obvious to me that Twitter is a useful conversation piece that has its place in the marketing mix, but is not yet the killer addictive app/platform/communication channel that email is.  In each of our daily lives, the large majority of us prioritize our Inbox over everything else.  It took almost a week in the woods to be able to articulate this simple gravitational pull towards email.

Agency Interns: Part II

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

To the blog that brought you the Crispin video on interns (probably after you had seen it a couple times – sorry I was a little late to the game on that one), NOW I show you a local agency – little shop called Wieden+Kennedy and a different kind of culture / humor w/ their 12 program of interns.

If you have little kids around your computer, like I do right now, you might want to watch the frequent, casual F bombs used in the video, albeit educational.