Category: Uncategorized (Page 3 of 26)

There will be no Super Bowl Commercials featuring dogs and horses promoting a B2B brand this year. Liam Neeson won’t be doing voiceovers Sunday about Enterprise software.

B2B Marketing is the quiet opportunity. Its success is not measured on fluffy numbers like “Followers,” “Retweets” or “Net Promoter Score.” B2B is about leads and sales. Not $.99 sales. $99,000 sales. B2B is sexy in its own unsexy way.

This Tuesday, some great people from the B2B Marketing world will get together at Moz World Headquarters and each share 15 minutes of wisdom. At the end, I’m going to get to ask these experts a few questions panel style. I’m looking forward to it, and if you are into B2B Marketing, I hope to see you there.

www.B2BNowAndNext.com

Only 32 teams are invited to the World Cup finals that you are watching now. How did the 190 or so teams get whittled down to these? Well, there are 3 years of intra-continent tournaments that deliver a few finalists. Here’s how the allocations break out:
1 Host Country
13 European Countries
5 South American Countries
5 African Countries
4 North American / Central American Countries
4 Asian Countries

So, is Europe deserving of 13 spots? Is Africa worthy of 5? Let’s look at the first round of games. (For this comparison, we’re putting the host Brazil with the other 5 South American teams)

North/Central America (4): 3 wins, 1 loss. Vs Africa 2-0-0. Vs South America 1-0-0. Vs Europe 0-1-0.
South America (6): 4 wins, 2 losses, 0 ties. Vs Europe: 3-1-0. Vs Asia 1-0-0. Vs North America 0-1-0.
Europe (13): Total record: 6-6-1. Record vs non-European teams 3-3-1: Vs South America: 1-3-0. Vs NA: 1-0-0. Vs Africa 1-0-0. Vs Asia: 0-0-1
Africa (5): 1 win, 3 losses and 1 tie. Vs North America: 0-2-0. Vs Europe: 0-1-0. Vs Asia 1-0-1.
Asia (4): 0 wins, 2 losses, 2 ties. Vs Africa 0-1-1. Vs Europe 0-0-1. Vs South America 0-1-0.

So what does this tell us?
– The only African or Asian team to get a point against a non Asian or African team is South Korea, with a tie against Russia.
– South America has been as good as advertised, other than Uruguay.
– North America has been pleasantly surprising.
– Europe could not be more neutral.

Clearly the African and Asian teams are struggling, while Sweden and Ukraine are sitting at home. Maybe we should be allocating some of their spots to Europe.

We are 4.32% of the way through the MLB season. And your Seattle Mariners are in 1st place.

Sure, we still have about 1,395 innings to play. And a lot of things can go wrong during those innings. But for 9 innings yesterday on a rainy April evening, it was FUN to be in Safeco Field. I can’t remember the last time I said that.

I’ve “enjoyed myself” at Safeco Field a few times in the last 5 years. I’ve also “spent time with friends” there. But I can’t remember the last time a combination of optimism, anticipation, energy and crowd noise equaled a “fun time.”

But there I was, watching Corey Hart hit two home runs to lead the 1st place Mariners to a come from behind win over the arch-rival Angels in front of a sold out and loud stadium. Look at all those words I haven’t been able to use in a long time to describe the Seattle 9:
– Two home runs
– Win
– Come from behind
– Loud
– Sold out
– 1st place

I’m not going to project that the Mariners will still be in 1st place on Sept 1 and that we’ll be in a playoff race. I won’t presume that the next 1,395 innings will be devoid of heartache, injury or frustration.

But I will enjoy this time. Top of the standings, a potential Cy Young winner and some young exciting players, combining to make baseball fun again. That’s all we can ask for.

I had the chance to do a little work and visit Sweden towards the end of December. I had every intention of writing and publishing a ton of material.  I did accomplish the writing part – volumes and volumes of content.  But not all of it is ready to be published. So instead of waiting around and trying to get it all together, here’s a short recap that’s a little dated now, but talks about my first week or so.

——

Ok, its Sunday afternoon here in Sweden, so factoring in the 15 hour trip, 9 hour time difference, and the fact that it gets dark at 3:30pm, I think I’ve been here somewhere between 3 and 12 days.  Hard to know exactly.

Some photos: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjPZL7VZ

No these aren’t from 2013, but I think they reflect my mindset as I head out of the year and into a new one. It’s a good time to reflect on them.

• “When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream.” – Paulo Coelho
• “Everything good I have came from honesty, good intentions, and low expectations.” – Frank Chimero
• “Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic.”
• “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” – Ben Franklin
• “If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevancy even less.” – General Eric Shinseki
• “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.” – Mark Twain
• “Age ain’t nuthin’ but mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.” – Satchel Paige
• “The world is made for people who aren’t cursed with self awareness.” – Annie Savoy
• “All you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure.”
• “I’ve been asked this question a lot, How do you want to be remembered…to be remembered at all is pretty special.” – Cal Ripken Jr
• “It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” – Steve Jobs

This is pretty much purely my speculation…

Fact: Out of 16 people on the Seattle City and King County Councils, Richard Conlin was one of 2 people to oppose the proposed arena. From Wikipedia:

On October 15, 2012, both the King County Council and Seattle City Council approved a financing plan for a $490 million sports arena in the Seattle’s Sodo neighborhood, backed by venture capitalist Chris Hansen. The King County Council vote was 9-0, while the City Council vote was 7-2, with Conlin and Nick Licata as the only opposition.^[16] The new arena was intended to host the NBASeattle SuperSonics professional basketball team as well as a potential NHL ice hockey team.

Opinion: I voted against Conlin solely because of this.  Didn’t even look to see who the opposition was. (Of course, the joke’s on me – the opposition is a Socialist and I’m stuck with THAT for 4 years, but anyway.)

Conlin’s only colleague in his failed anti-arena effort was Nick Licata, who keeps getting elected under the same Seattle-specific psuedo-common sense that says people should wear socks with birkenstocks, refuse to use umbrellas in the rain and improve traffic by getting rid of car lanes for bike lanes. It appears Licata was at least lucky enough to be able to wait for the election to be over before having to launch his failed initiative to derail $151,000 from funding a more formalized Seattle Startup Initiative. I breathe a little thanks that Licata has lost enough pull that he can’t completely derail common sense in the Council anymore. Still, I can’t help think that as a city, we get what we deserve as long as we continue to elect that crackpot. But it’s worth noting that he waited until his paycheck for the next 4 years was secure before trying his latest effort to hold Seattle back.

But back to the point of the story. Richard Conlin is forced out of his job of guiding a city, and headed back to a job of writing policy for non-profits, thanks in part to his refusing to help bring a privately-funded arena to life.  He could have used common sense and kept his job. But he didn’t. And by refusing, he forced voters to go against common sense and elect a Socialist. All in all a wash for the voters, and a loss for him.

Relax… this isn’t going to become a food blog.  But ’tis the season for candy and jack-o-lanterns. And I took the guts and remains of my small little pumpkin the other day and turned them into something worth sharing.

So here’s the recipe for the best pumpkin seeds you’ll ever eat.  They are so good that people who don’t like pumpkin seeds will like them.

Prep:

1. Wash pumpkin seeds
2. Lay seeds on a slightly tilted cookie sheet to drain and dry them overnight for 24 hours.
3. When you get grief from impatient people about the 24 hour drying process, ignore the impatient people and go to sleep.

After 24 hours:

1. Melt a few tablespoons of butter in a bowl.
2. Mix in salt (just a little to start).
3. Mix in cayenne pepper (about the same amount as salt).
4. Mix in white pepper (little less than the cayenne).
5. Mix in black pepper (little less than the white pepper).
6. Mix in brown sugar (your choice).
7. Stir the seeds around the melted butter and spices, and give the mixture a taste. It should be sweet, then bring a little kick about 3-5 seconds later.
8. Reseason to taste. More sugar and heat.
9. Stick in the pre-heated oven at 300 degrees for 30 minutes.
10. Take out the seeds and shake them around to wake them up.
11. Put them back in for another 15 minutes.
12. Take them out and put them in a bowl.

Trust me. These are the best seeds you’ll eat. And the best part is that you are able to take the healthiest part of this candy-gasmic holiday and turn it into a sugary butter bomb.

Happy Halloween.

Happy Fall 2013.  This summer sure got busy, as you may have figured out from my lack of writing.  And things look to only get busier as we head into the autumn season.  So, here are a few things and events I’ll be participating in.

October 1 – Dec 3:  Teaching Marketing 555 (Entrepreneurial Marketing) in the UW MBA Program.  If you have a start-up and would like to get some in class recognition, feel free to drop me a note. I’m always on the look-out for people and business to put in front of the class.

October 18: NWEN Entrepreneur University – I’ll be moderating a panel entitled, “From student to serial entrepreneur: The lifecycle of startups.” My experts will include Andre Dumont, Director of Business Development at Moz,  Mariah Gentry, CEO at Joey Bra and Kelly Smith, CEO at Curious Office. Should be a great panel.

November 6 and 7: I’m really looking forward to teaching a short section on Social Media Strategies to a group of MBA students from Lucerne University in Switzerland. They’ll be at the UW for a week or so, soaking up knowledge on a number of topics that thrive here int he Northwest.

November 20: It’s been a while since I have been back at the Seattle School of Visual Concepts, but right around Thanksgiving I’ll be leading a workshop on Content Marketing Strategies.  Feel free to come check it out.

I think that’s it for now.