You probably noticed I’m trying out a new WordPress template.  Please be patient as I work out the bugs.

Wrapping up the year, Here are some great reads from other blogs:

Being Peter Kim: Wunderman on direct marketing. Or was it social media?
A Nostradamesque marketing prediction from 40 years ago. As they say, a man before his time.

Seth Godin: Only Two Years Left
From 4 years ago, not 40.  Still, this is yet another must-read from Seth.  He will light a fire under you with one simple question.

Brand Autopsy: Favorite Posts from 2007
If you don’t read johnmoore’s blog, this is a great place to start.  Sage thoughts on Starbucks and heartwarming tales of his late mother.

Thanks to Troy for including me in his list of Outstanding Blogs.  As Mack Collier (a great blogger with a much better grasp of social media than I) stated, here’s to extending the holiday link-love:
100 Bloggers, 37 Days, 3i, 43 Folders, A Clear Eye, A Daily Dose of Architecture, The Agonist, All Things Workplace, All This Chittah Chattah, Angela Maiers, Antonella Pavese, Arizona High Tech, Arun Rajagopal, AttentionMax, A Writer’s Words, An Editor’s Eye, Badger Blogger, Bailey WorkPlay, Being Peter Kim, Brett Trout, Best of Mother Earth, Beyond Madison Avenue, Biz and Buzz, Bizhack, BizSolutions Plus, Blog Business World, Bloggers Showroom, Blogging for Business, Blogher, Blog Till You Drop!, Bob Sutton, Brain Based Business, Brain Based Biz, Brains on Fire, Brand Autopsy, The Brand Builder Blog, Branding and Marketing, Branding Strategy, Brand is Language, BrandSizzle, Brandsoul, Bren Blog, Business Evolutionist, Business Management Life, Business Pundit, Business Services, Etc., Busy Mom, Buzz Canuck, Buzz Customer, Buzzoodle, Career Intensity, Carpe Factum, Casual Fridays, Change Your Thoughts, Chaos Scenario, Cheezhead, Chief Happiness Officer, Chris Brogan, Christine Kane, Church of the Customer, Circaspecting, CK’s Blog, Come Gather Round, Communication Overtones, Community Guy, Confident Writing, Conversation Agent, Converstations, Cooking for Engineers, Cool Hunting, Core77, Corporate Presenter, Crayon Writer, Creating a Better Life, Creating Passionate Users, Creative Think, CRM Mastery, Crossroads Dispatches, Cube Rules, Culture Kitchen, Customers Are Always, Customer Experience Crossroads, Customer Service Experience, Customer Service Reader, Customers Rock!, Custserv, Craig Harper, ‘Cross The Breeze, Daily Fix, Dawud Miracle, Dave Olson, David Airey, David Maister, David S Finch, Design Your Writing Life, Digital Common Sense, Director Tom, Diva Marketing, Do You Q, Duct Tape Marketing, Empowerment 4 Life, The Engaging Brand, Essential Keystrokes, Every Dot Connects, Experience Architect, Experience Curve, Experience Matters, Experienceology, Extreme Leadership, Eyes on Living, Feld Thoughts, Flooring the Consumer, Flooring the Customer, Fouroboros, FutureLab, Genuine Curiosity, Glass Half Full, The Good Life, Great Circle, Greg Verdino’s Marketing Blog, Hee-Haw Marketing, Hello, My Name is BLOG, Holly’s Corner, Homeless Family, The Idea Dude, I’d Rather be Blogging, Influential Marketing, Innovating to Win, Inspiring & Empowering Lives, Instigator Blog, Jaffe Juice, Jibber Jobber, Joyful Jubilant Learning, Joy of Six, Kent Blumberg, Kevin Eikenberry, Learned on Women, Life Beyond Code, Lip-sticking, Listics, The Lives and Times, Live Your Best Life, Live Your Inspiration , Living Light Bulbs, Logical Emotions, Logic + Emotion, Make It Great!, Making Life Work for You, Management Craft, Managing with Aloha, The M.A.P. Maker, The Marketing Excellence Blog, Marketing Headhunter, Marketing Hipster, The Marketing Minute, Marketing Nirvana, Marketing Roadmaps, Marketing Through the Clutter, Mary Schmidt, Masey, Masi Guy, The Media Age, Micropersuasion, Middle Zone Musings, Miss604, Moment on Money, Monk at Work, Monkey Bites, Movie Marketing Madness, Motivation on the Run, My 2 Cents, My Beautiful Chaos, Naked Conversations, Neat & Simple Living, New Age 2020, New Charm School, Next Up, No Man’s Blog, The [Non] Billable Hour, Note to CMO, Office Politics, Optimist Lab, The Origin of Brands, Own Your Brand, Pardon My French, Passion Meets Purpose, Pause, Peerless Professionals, Perfectly Petersen, Personal Branding , The Podcast Network, The Power of Choice, Practical Leadership, Presentation Zen, Priscilla Palmer, Productivity Goal, Pro Hip-Hop, Prosperity for You, Purple Wren, QAQnA, Qlog, Reveries, Rex Blog , Ririan Project, Rohdesign, Rothacker Reviews, Scott H Young, Search Engine Guide, Servant of Chaos, Service Untitled, Seth’s Blog, Shards of Consciousness, Shotgun Marketing, Simplenomics, Simplicity, Slacker Manager, Slow Leadership, Socially Adept, Social Media Marketing Blog, Spare Change, Spirit in Gear, Spooky Action, Steve’s 2 Cents, Strategic Design, Strength-based Leadership, StickyFigure, Studentlinc, Success Begins Today, Success Creeations, Success From the Nest, Successful Blog, Success Jolt, Talk to Strangers, Tammy Lenski, Tell Ten Friends, That Girl from Marketing, Think Positive!, This Girl’s Weblog, Thoughts & Philosophies, Tom Peters, Trust Matters, Verve Coaching, Viral Garden, Waiter Bell, Wealth Building Guy, What’s Next, WordSell, Writers Notes, You Already Know this Stuff, Zen Chill, Confident Writing, Idea Sellers, Tune Up Your EQ, Know HR, Mission Minded Management, Managing Leadership, Matt’s Idea Blog, Black in Business, Design Your Writing Life 

I’ve known about this for a while and yet I’ve only watched one presentation video.

If these speakers were making appearances here in Tulsa, I’d be paying to go see them. Yet, I find it hard to give up the time and effort to watch them for free online.

Why is that? It’s the same info.

But it’s a different forum.

Part of the appeal in attending a live presentation is knowing you will be surrounded by like-minded individuals. There’s a collective sense of belonging. There’s also the opportunity to connect with other attendees and expand the knowledge gained from the speaker. To tap into the wisdom of crowds.

MIT’s online forum doesn’t facilitate that. Actually, I’ve never seen an online forum that does this as well as a live, personal event.

Online
It may never equal the live presentation, but what if viewers could comment on these vidoes? Rank them? Rate them? What if there was a schedule of weekly chat sessions based on particular videos? How about a subscription-based email list specific to those who have watched specific presentations? Notify me by email when a similar presentation is uploaded and available.
Live
What if live presentations used the pre-registration process as an opportunity to connect attendees with similar interests? Then you give them the ability to contact each other and create a post-presentation discussion group for bloggers, educators, students, managers or small business owners… etc.

I think there’s incredible, untapped value here… and it doesn’t just apply to presentations either.

In celebration of their 30th Anniversary, Star Wars has unveiled mashup.starwars.com.  It contains about 250 clips and an online editor, allowing fans to mix and match clips together… creating various scenarios.
It’s not perfect, so you have to use your imagination quite a bit – even in simply watching the clips.  But, isn’t that the point?

(Hat Tip to WeirdGuy)

Wannaspell.com is a live whiteboard in which anyone can move magnetic letters around to spell out words, etc. Lets see how many times the word “Digg” can be spelled out in a room! This is the coolest site I’ve seen all day.

The live whiteboard doesn’t scare me.  What scares me is “coolest site I’ve seen all day” is considered the high bar.

This means it probably isn’t as cool the next day.

Websites aren’t the only ones affected by this.

Is there any value in “brochure” type web sites?

Not much, I think. Here’s why:

My philosophy is that “Mom and Pops” are better served by following a permission marketing approach with websites.

1. How can I create content people will COME BACK to read?

time-sensitive, changes often, relevant, anticipated

2. If I want to do #1, how do I manage it?

content management system, allocate employee time

3. If I’m creating content, how can I best leverage it?

blog, email newsletter, printed newsletter, op-ed piece

4. Can I send email coupons that customers can abuse without it hurting me?

(because they will take advantage)

5. Can I create offers they will relay to their friends?

forward to a friend link, create value

They’re so easy to overcome, yet so often overlooked. In my opinion, at least six of these mistakes are easily fixed with a good blog or simply good content management software.

1. Bad Search
2. PDF Files for Online Reading
3. Not Changing the Color of Visited Links
4. Non-Scannable Text
5. Fixed Font Size
6. Page Titles With Low Search Engine Visibility
7. Anything That Looks Like an Advertisement
8. Violating Design Conventions
9. Opening New Browser Windows
10. Not Answering Users’ Questions

Concerning #1 and #6, here’s an example from my personal experience. Dentyne-isms are the cute “parables” on the back of Dentyne gum packages. Type “dentyne-isms” into a Google search. The top two links are to this blog. Dentyne’s website doesn’t even show up in the search results.

Apparently people really like these dentyne-isms. Right now, the post that comes up in the search results has over 50 comments. It’s one of the top search terms bringing people to my blog.

Read the rest of Jakob’s Top 10 Web Design Mistakes. His details are worth the few minutes of reading.

Icon Factory under construction from Idea Sandbox