Amid the Noise and Haste

Top Ten TypePad Traffic Tips

TypePad publishes their list of Top Ten Traffic Tips to help drive traffic to your blog.

There's no such thing as too much traffic. You could read SEO blogs until your eyes fall out but the truth is you don't need a PhD in statistics to build your blog's traffic. It's pretty simple, really. To help you out, we've got the top ten things we tell our best friends to do for their blogs:

Tip #1: Post More Often

Tip #2: Turn On Google Sitemaps

Tip #3: Invite Compliments with Favoriting

Tip #4: Build Your Following

Tip #5: Share Posts to Twitter and Facebook

Tip #6: Optimize Your Post Titles

Tip #7: Harness the Power of Twitter

Tip #8: Add Email Alerts

Tip #9: Follow Others

Tip #10: Reach Your Followers' Followers with Reblog and TypePad Micro

via everything.typepad.com

Help Support Alzheimer's Research

I will be walking and am looking to reach my personal goal of $1,000.  Please help me reach my goal by donating here:  http://memorywalk09.kintera.org/longisland/katekearney

Here is more information about the walk from the Alzheimer's Association:

The Alzheimer's Association Memory Walk® is the nation's largest event to raise awareness and funds for Alzheimer care, support and research – and it calls on volunteers of all ages to become champions in the fight against this fatal disease. Since 1989, Memory Walk has raised more than $260 million for the cause.

Memory Walk is a community event that joins friends, family and co-workers as they walk to end Alzheimer’s. Participants typically register in teams of 10-12 and fundraise using tools supported by the Alzheimer’s Association. Walks vary from one to three miles and are held in nearly 600 locations nationwide.

Please join us in taking steps to end Alzheimer's.

Long Island Memory Walk, Saturday - September 12th, 2009 - Registration/Breakfast begins at 8:30 a.m. Old Bethpage Village Restoration, Old Bethpage, NY (LIE Exit 46).

Twitter Takes a Step Toward Commercial Accounts

Businesses have been using Twitter successfully for awhile now (see Dell article from the NY Times).  Now Twitter is one step closer to a business model for making money off of this.  NY Times just published "Twitter Takes a Step Toward Commercial Accounts" where Anamitra Banerji, manager of commercial products at Twitter discusses their progress:

Twitter 101 is the first step toward doing that. “If you intrinsically see some value in Twitter, you will want to pay more to get more,” he added.

Twitter unveiled Twitter 101, a series of Web pages and a downloadable slide show that explain what Twitter is and how businesses can use it, along with case studies of a few companies that use Twitter.

It remains to be seen how long it will take for twitter to launch a paid model, but this is certainly a step in the right direction.  If their services provided added value for businesses it just might work.

Making Twitter More Useful for Business

John Jantsch over at Duct Tape Marketing has some great tips for making your tweets more useful, especially for tracking ROI...a few of his suggestions include:

• Let’s say I find a site I think is cool and tweet it. From my dashboard I can see lots of folks jumped on that and passed it around and also thought it was cool. Bingo! - I’ve got a topic for an expanded blog post.
• Let’s say I write a blog post and point it out on twitter - I can get real-time feedback, over and above comments, on how hot the topic was
• Let’s say people seem to like certain types of tweets, judging by how they interact, than others - could that help me tweet better?

Really, this is all about connectivity and thinking outside of the box to find new ways to share content, and other's.

Helpful tools John shared for doing this, and tracking results include

HootSuite

CoTweet

SU.PR

Objective Marketer

Speaking to the Masses

A wonderful post from the Explainist Blog talks discusses writing as yourself; removing the corporate language to really get your point across. The post features great quotes such as:

"If you work for an institution, whatever your job, whatever your level, be yourself when you write. You will stand out as a real person among the robots..."

I wholeheartedly believe this. If you want people to understand what you're trying to impart, don't fluff it up with flowery words and contrived jargon. Tell it like it is. You are a person, speaking to other people.

Creating a Culture of Empowerment

In this economy, it is hard to motivate and empower employees when all around us we see lay-offs, salary freezes, and a struggle for those few openings in the job market. I just read Creating a Culture of Empowerment, an article by Florence Stone, the editorial director for American Management Association, which provides some simple cultural changes companies can make to offset some of these ill-harbored sentiments. Here's the high level list:

• Listen to employees
• Demonstrate your trust
• Keep employees informed
• Help employees balance work and personal lives
• Foster open communication
• Give bad news straight
• Encourage reasonable risk
• Foster autonomy
• Praise success
• Link rewards to organizational goals

They delve into each suggestion in the article, explaining and providing examples to help both new and experienced managers create a culture of empowerment.

Posting via Email

This is a new thing for me - emailing to post to my blog. I have fallen off of blogging for a while and need to get back in the game. It was a crazy year: I graduated from my MBA program, I got married, I have a new job...it's been a little busy. I am hoping that this email-to-post feature works well so I can post more frequently in 2009. Here's to making this work.

Email Directives - simple tips to curtail volume and communication issues

I have been working with a team of people at my company to identify the issues we have been having with email.  They revolve around two things:  communication, or lack thereof; and volume (400 emails by lunch??).  Today we launched the training identify 10 Email Directives to enforce throughout the company which are simple to follow, easy to implement, and if they work right, should make a huge impact on volume and communication.

Here is what we did.  I think this may be helpful to a lot of companies, both large and small.

1. I put together a team of forward thinking people representing each department.  This helped build a network of individuals who could also become evangelists and tutors as the program was rolled out to the entire company.
2. We had brainstorming session to discuss and identify what was causing our email issues and what directives we could easily put in place to help.
3. We narrowed down the list to the top 10.
4. I put together training slides and a presentation to walk everyone through each directive and included peer training tips so everyone would be included in the process.
5. I launched the training.

To give you an example of some of the directives we chose to include, he is a sample, in no particular order:

Use the Rule of 3:    If it takes more than 3 emails to get something done, pick up the phone or get up and go talk to the person.  Recap the discuss

 No Blind Forwarding:    "See below" means nothing.  Recap a forwarded email to provide all information at the top so the receiver doesn't have to scroll or infer what is meant from the previous messages.

Manage Your Email Folders:    Schedule time daily or weekly to go through mails in the inbox, sent folder, deleted folder and archive folders.  Delete what isn't needed.  Organize messages and folders.

No Gratuitous CC or Reply All:    Know who you are sending a message to and why.  A person in the To line is supposed to act on the message.  A person in the CC line is being copied as an FYI.  Don't just add everyone to CYA!  Be selective.

Graduation Day from Pace University...it finally happened!

I haven't posted in a long, long time.  For the past 23 months, my time has been filled with papers and projects and teams and conference calls.  But it paid of nicely.  I just graduated with my MBA from Pace University's Executive MBA program. 

I can't say enough about how much I got from the program.  It taught me about cohorts, team work, myself, and of course business principles and practices which were immediately practical and useable.

Cycle 9 starts Aug. 16th, and they are always looking for more good applicants. By the way, Module 8 has a record-breaking 28 enrollees. Now's the time to get an MBA! To find out more about Pace's eMBA program, visit www.pace.edu/emba or contact Jim Parker, Director - Executive MBA Program and Adj. Assoc. Prof. of Marketing for the Lubin School of Business, directly at (212) 618-6653 or jparker@pace.edu.

"Communication delivered is not the same as communication received."

I received an email this morning from a vendor who had to issue a me aculpa.  They had sent a previous announcement with errors and with unclear information.  In the email I received today they stated "Communication delivered is not the same as communication received."  It made me think.

We don't always here the message that is being delivered.  More commonly we hear what we want to hear, or we hear what we think was said, but because it wasn't communicated effectively the message became skewed or misinterpreted.  This can happen in personal or business relationships.  It can happen with verbal or written communication. 

Communication isn't easy, and different mediums exist.  Some of the connective threads for good communication across any meduim include: clarity, listening well, and being concise.

Team Building

When it comes to companies with many different deparments the unfortunate downside is silos.  Each department can become so focused on their own tasks at hand that the other departments become secondary in priority.  There are two key things I have seen when this happens:

1. Departments are made up of people (the people part usually gets lost); and
2. Departments need to work together as a team to keep the machine running

The Reforming Project Management Blog had a great list of questions to ask when dealing with "Team Communication and Health."  Asking these questions can help identify gaps in communication that can then be addressed with team building exercises, lessons in communication and development.

• To what extent is the team positive?
• To what extent is honesty and trust evident?
• To what extent is the team learning and improving?
• Is morale improving, steady or declining?
• To what extent are team members being open and honest with each other?
• Are there barriers between trades and professions and if so How high are the silo walls?
• How long or short are tempers?
• To what extent are team members collaborating?

Delays, Timing, Hold-ups

So it has been quite a while since I posted.  It will begin to pick up slowly again...I have recently changed jobs which has taken me away from the blog with preparations, training, etc. 

I hope to be back soon, posting more about customer service and much more.  Please stay tuned!

LSSO launches RainDrops

Hot off the presses from LSSO:

New Year, New Things . . . from LSSO! Now there's another way to see what's hot, find out what thought leaders are thinking and get in on the action. LSSO's blog, "RainDrops", launches today!

You can read and comment on postings from the LSSO team and guest bloggers. We can't claim that we'll always be serious, but we can promise to be blogging about sales and service issues that effect you each and everyday! Please visit http://lssoraindrops.blogspot.com and let us know what you think. If you are interested in blogging with LSSO, please contact us at amy@legalsales.org.

Best of luck with this new project!

Product Review - The LegalBizDev Success Kit™

I was recently asked by Jim Hassett to review his new product The LegalBizDev Success Kit™, "an audio course and set of reference tools that will help lawyers win new business more quickly by applying best practices from other law firms and other professions." 

I have known Jim for a few years now after having met at an LSSO RainDance conference. I've seen him speak for the LMA, and have read his book "Legal Business Development, a Step by Step Guide" (which is also included in the Success Kit). I couldn't say no...so below is the review I sent him.  You can read more about the Success Kit here.

Out of the box impression:

Right away it appears to be a well thought out tool kit. The inclusion of the desk reference and quick start guide is a great way to keep this in front of attorneys, and the note pads with the repeated line “What should I do to increase new business?” is a constant reminder to keep on top of things. 

The addition of the audio CD is another great tool. Since attorneys are always busy and on the go, the ability to upload this information to their iPod and listen at the gym, on their way to work, on a plane, etc. is very smart and makes learning and remembering all the more accessible.

Separate Components:

 The Quick Start Sheet

 Simple and effective. Clear directions and a good tool to have for reference to specific topics and sections of both the Desk Reference and CD.

Desk Reference

 This is an amazing tool. It is practical, usable, and the tips, guides and suggestions are completely doable. The well thought out sections and references, as well as the tools, actions items, and slide make this something that any lawyer at any stage in their career can use.

 Basic Principles and Best Practices CDs

 Providing both visual and audio CDs is plain smart; yet another way to learn from the Success Kit. The ability to break the learning into shorter segments, again, makes this more valuable and usable for attorneys.

 The Whole Package:

The Success Kit really is the whole package. I keep repeating the works simple, effective, usable, smart because that is exactly what it is. Jim Hassett has put together tools and tips which any lawyer at any stage of their career can easily take and apply to their business development efforts; and they are easy enough to integrate into the daily work schedule of even the busiest attorney.

On customer service...

From the November 26th edition of DMNews:

"Whoever touches the consumer's experience needs to contribute to the experience."

       - Bobbi Merkel, director of convergence, TPN

Good Vocabulary can Help end World Hunger

For each word you get right, Free Rice donates 10 grains of rice through the UN to help end world hunger.  Dust of that dictionary...

You can also see the total number of donations by day.  Here's a look at the last five days and the cumulative total.  FreeRice began on October 7, 2007.

4 November 2007	48,038,530
5 November 2007	53,847,080
6 November 2007	73,566,480
7 November 2007	75,201,580
8 November 2007	77,126,310
	___________
	1,008,771,910

Thanks to Seth Godin for relaying this to us from Jonathan.

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Strategy taking over

So I haven't posted in quite some time...strategy has taken over.  Business strategy that is; in my MBA program.  It's really fascinating, but time consuming.  I guess it should be.  What company could survive with a slip-shot strategy in place?

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Tools that Make Blogging Easier

Jantsch from Duct Tape Marketing posted awhile ago about a few desktop tools you can use that make it easier to blog.  Here are the ones he mentioned:

• ScribeFire Firefox extension - officially not exactly a desktop client as it works inside of Firefox (I use this and I find it very easy to use)
  
• Windows Live Writer - a great tool and part of the growing Windows Office Live offering
  
• ecto for MacOSX and Windows - created for Mac users and still the king

Basically, these tools let you blog directly from your desktop without logging in to your blog.  I like using ScribeFire because I can click on an icon and it opens up a window on the bottom half of my screen.  This allows me to see what I am blogging about in the top half (see below):

Technorati Tags: blogging, FireFox, Live Writer, Ecto

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Friday Fun: Left Brain vs Right Brain

Are you a "big picture" oriented thinker with spacial perception and maybe a little impetuous?  Or, are you detail oriented, practical and more reality based?  Steven Levitt from the Freakonomics Blog points us to Marginal Revolution to find out.  Which way is the dancer spinning; clockwise or counter-clockwise?  Your answer will tell you which side of the brain you tend to use.

My question is, if I stare long enough I can actually change the direction I see.  So does that mean I'm a little left brained and a little right?  Or, am I just out of my mind?


Technorati Tags: perception reality thinking

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on Customers

From Julie Fleischer at Forrester's Marketing Blog:

"I keep hearing people ask how much control we should give our customers.
What they don't realize is our customers have already taken control and
we'll never have it back"

So true!

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So true!

Google Helps Sort Through the Noise and Haste

Google is a handy resource and we are pointed to some of the helpful tools you can use on a daily basis by two of my favorite blogs, Common Craft and Business Opportunities Blog.

First, Common Craft has released their video about using Google Docs, Google Docs in Plain English which you can watch here:

Click To Play

Next up, the folks at the Business Opportunities Blog gives us a list of 15 iGoogle gadgets to help with productivity.  Here are the first 5 gadgets provided:

1. Today List
2. iReminder
3. Time sheet recorder
4. Google Analytics
5. Google Services

To find out more about these tools and to read the rest of the list, visit the Business Opportunities Blog.


Technorati Tags: tools productivity Google

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Travel Amid the Noise and Haste

John Jantsch over at Duct Tap Marketing has alerted us to a new handy little resource called TripIt.  What does it do?  According to John:  "TripIt allows you to organize these details and does it in simple fashion."  How does it work?  It looks quite simple:

If you've used it, I would love to hear from you.

Technorati Tags: travel, itinerary

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Word of Mouth Marketing - Not Working or Not Worth Talking About?

Seth Godin, by way of Micah, points us to an article about Jupiter's new report about viral marketing, "Viral Campaigns Falling Short, Says JupiterResearch."  The article states, "JupiterResearch...found that only 15% of viral campaigns in the past year achieved the goal of prompting consumers to promote the marketer's message."

But here's the thing: isn't viral marketing supposed to be about the product?  I mean, if you like the product, or not, you tell people about it.  The campaign is secondary.  I have to agree with Seth here:

Excuse me... the most effective technique is making stuff worth talking
about in the first place. True viral marketing happens not when the
marketer plans for it or targets bloggers or skateboarders or pirates
with goatees, but when the item/service/event is worth talking about.

Here is a true example of viral marketing.  I have a friend who uses a credit union in New York.  She lives in Florida.  It's extremely inconvenient for her to go there, but she LOVES their service.  In fact she raves about it.  She loves them so much she sent out the following email to her list of friends with no prompting from the credit union, and it wasn't part of a "viral marketing campaing."  Here is her email in full (I've removed any personally identifying information):

Hey, gang,

As most of you know, I've been an insanely happy member of the same NYC credit union for about ten years. Well, the Entertainment Industries Federal Credit Union just opened up their membership to the general public (it used to be employee-only), and I wanted to pass that info on to everyone I possibly could. While they aren't the flashiest (as you'll see from their website), they truly take care of their customers. If you are even vaguely dissatisfied with your bank, you should check them out.

This is a Manhattan bank that knows my name when I call from Florida. We're talking small-town hi-[name]-how-is-the-new-car-working-out kind of conversations, while they approve loans, consolidate my debt, and work with me on mortgage information. And, trust me, I'm one of those customers who can't add, doesn't understand decimals and asks the same damn question over and over. They never make me feel like an idiot...I LOVE THIS CREDIT UNION!

The only downside I found when I lived in NYC was that they only have one location, Madison and 55th, but since most of my banking is electronic anyway, I never thought that was a huge problem...So, visit the website - www.eifcu.org - or call Joe Reyes at 212.833.5533 to get membership info. And feel free to pass this on to your friends. It's really nice to know the name of the person handling your money.

And, yeah, I'm kind of nuts about them!

When someone is brand loyal because they truely believe in a product or service, they tell people about it.  That is viral marketing.

Technorati Tags: viral marketing, word of mouth

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Seth Godin on Labor Day

Well said Seth.

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Contrary to Popular Belief, it IS Easy Being Green!

Snap.com has made it really easy to be green with their CO2 Saver.  What is it?  I'll let them tell you:

CO₂ Saver is a lightweight program that
manages your computer's power usage when it's idle, saving energy and
decreasing the demand on your power utility.

The less electricity produced, the fewer harmful emissions and greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO₂) are released into the atmosphere.

What's cool is you can see how much CO2 you have saved as well as how much other snap users have saved.  Smart. Simple. Free. Oh, and no adware or spyware. Well done Snap.com.


Technorati Tags: CO2, green, carbon dioxide

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Is Price Your Only Differentiator?

John Jantsch over at the Duct Tape Marketing Blog points out a key flaw in many business descriptions - and how to break out of that mold!  Here is the exercise he suggestes

Go to the web site of your four biggest competitors, copy the
introductory paragraph from their home page and paste each on a
document. Now add the same from your own web site. Lastly, black out
any mention of the names of the firms and pass this page around the
office or to anyone familiar with your business.

Now what can this show?  Can you even pick your company's description out from the competitors?  As John points out, "what is usually painfully obvious is that each of the companies is saying essentially the same thing."

Can your customers really read the difference, the reason why they should pick you instead of their customers?  If not, all they can do is choose by price.

Instead of dollar signs as a differentiator, I suggest that you describe your company with the most simple words - no jargon!  Amid the noise and haste of business-speak and language, filter the noise and simply tell your customers what you do.


Technorati Tags: marketing

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Free SEO Tools

seomoz offers a toolbox on their site full of free tools to help you with search engine optimization.  Really cool.  Check out tools to help:

• Determine the strongest pages on your domain
• Find out what other websites are hosted on your IP address
• Check whether your URL has been indexed by Google, Yahoo! and MSN
• Check your page rank

There are more too.  These are great tools for small companies with tight budgets to hop on the SEO bandwagon and help your website get found on the world wide web.

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Am Law 200 Firms are Becoming Social

By way of Doug Cornelius of KM Space and Kevin O'Keefe over at LexBlog, I found out that 8 of the top 10 Am Law 200 law firms, those with the highest gross revenue, have social networks on Facebook.  That's pretty big news.   Law firms have traditionally been slower to adopt less traditional means of marketing and business development.  But as Kevin points out, "Lawyers, amongst others, should focus on how examples of new media can
help instead of disregarding them because others use them in an
unprofessional or non business-related way."

Here are the firms with the current number of network members from each firm from Kevin's post:

1. Skadden, Arps 379 Members
2. Baker & McKenzie 728 Members
3. Jones Day 286 Members
4. Latham & Watkins 291 Members
5. Sidely Austin 199 Members
6. Mayer Browne No Network
7. White & Case 370 Members
8. Weil, Gotschal No Network
9. Shearman & Sterling 225 members
10. Kirkland & Ellis 192 Members

Scott Glavin from Enterprise 2.0 wrote about this, tipping off Doug Cornelius, and pointed out a few business uses of using a social networking site such as Facebook:

• exploring who else in your organization has the same interests and connecting.  Professional networking, but via the net.
• sharing media and updates with colleagues such as photo’s and business travel plans
• general exploration of how web2.0 can be supplemental to company goals

I think one of the biggest hurdles of adopting this new technology is eduction.  Scott's points are a fantastic entry point for why networking within a firm or company has benefits.  Internal communication is key to helping grow a business and social  networking enables this communication.  I encourage other firms and companies to adopt social networking as well. 

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Test Your Company's Customer Focus

From the department of common sense:

Shannon Holman over at If You See Something Say Something points us to A Three-Question Test of Your Company's Customer Focus from John Hagel of Edge Perspectives.  As yourselves this:

1. Who in the organization holds real decision-making power? Is it the organization that manages relationships with the customer or is it some other group?
2. What are the primary measures of performance for the firm?
3. What is the primary focus of the brand promise of the company?

From John:  "The companies that really succeed in the customer relationship business will have no trouble meeting this test.  All the rest had better decide which of the other two businesses they really want to focus on."

Pecha Kucha - "The Sound of Conversation"

You have a meeting, the conversation goes round and round, nothing is accomplished and worse yet people go off point, get distracted and you walk out wondering how to get that last hour of your life back.

Enter Pecha Kucha, Japanese for "the sound of conversation."

• 20 slides
• 20 seconds per slide
• Power point off!

That's it.  As Seth Godin so aptly states, "Tell me a problem that can't be outlined in six minutes and I'll show you a problem it's probably not worth having a meeting about."

Read more about Pecha Kucha in this month's Wired from Dan Pink.