I went to the Clausen Law Group technology update networking event last night. The group meets the first Tuesday of every month at Point Richmond and features a speaker with great work experience and insight into an industry.

The speaker last night was Tony Ruggiero, CEO of FirstOnScene LLC. He started his talk discussing the quality and price differences that the  military is spending on fighter jets.  He turned this around and compared the trends in fighter jet quality and price to the technology industry. He showed how IBM at its rise had some 55K workers, Microsoft had 27K, and eventually down the technology line, Faceboook has 1K workers with 300,000 users (a 1 to 300 employee to user ratio). The phenomena that he expresses here is that technology, when used efficiently costs less, therefore reaping greater profit margins, and requires less man power. The jump in technology that has made programs like Facebook and the iPhone so successful is that these programs were written to pair with API (Application Program Interface). API allows non-paid employees to create tools that will integrate into the open source program.  An  example of an API program for Facebook is Animal Farm,  and an example  of  a program for the iPhone  is the Kindle, as it is an add on created by another company not employed by Apple.

The take away from this meeting: Innovate or Die.  Embrace the latest trends in technology and use them to your advantage (ie. create your own application to integrate into programs such as Facebook and the iPhone and find a way to make money through the benefits of free viral marketing).  For example, Kindle is a free app on the iPhone, but Amazon makes money when consumers purchase and download Kindle books. Tony Ruggiero referenced the fart app for the iPhone. Most thought the idea was ludicrous, but because of the viral spread of the name, and the low cost to download the app for the general public, the .99 application made the owners rich.

Right, time to build my app!

Amid the endless pronouncements about social media — often shortened to “social” these days by consultants trying to sound like they know what they are talking about — is the reality that social media is not a solution, or a sure bet.
Social media can’t:
Substitute for marketing strategy.
A Twitter campaign or a Facebook page that announces your weekly specials is not a marketing strategy.

Succeed without top management buy-in.
Social media requires a way of thinking that includes willingness to listen to customers, make changes based on feedback and trust employees to talk to customers.
The culture of fear (of job loss, of losing message control, of change) is ingrained in corporate cultures. Top management has to want to change.

Be viewed as a short-term project.
Social media is not a one-shot deal. It’s a long-term commitment to openness, experimentation and change that requires time to bear fruit.

Produce meaningful, measurable results quickly.
One of the complaints about social media is that it can’t be measured. But there are many things that can be measured, including engagement, sentiment and whether increased traffic leads to sales.
Those results can’t be produced or measured in the short term. Like PR, social media marketing often produces its best results in the second and third year.

Be done in-house by the vast majority of companies.
A successful social-media campaign integrates social media into the many elements of marketing, including advertising, digital and PR. Opinion and theory are no match for experience and the best social media marketers now have more than 10 years of experience incorporating interactivity, blogs, forums, user-generated content and contests into online marketing.
You need strategy, contacts, tools, and experience — a combination not generally found in in-house teams, who often reinvent the wheel or use the wrong tools.

Provide a quick fix to the bottom line or a tarnished reputation.
Social media can sometimes provide quick results for a company that’s already a star. When a well-loved company like Zappos or Google employs social media, its loyal fans and followers pay attention.
However, there’s a lot of desperation in a lot of corporate suites these days, and many companies seem been convinced that a social-media campaign can provide a quick fix to sagging sales or reputation issues. Sorry, nuh, uh.

Be done without a realistic budget.
Building a site that incorporates interactivity, allows user-generated content and perhaps also includes e-commerce doesn’t come cheap from anyone who knows what they are doing.
Even taking free software like WordPress and making it function as an effective interactive site, incorporating e-commerce and creating style sheets that integrate with the company’s branding, takes more than time. That takes skill, experience, and money.

Guarantee sales or influence.
Unless your effort can pass the “who cares” test — and most simply can’t — your social media efforts will fall flat.
And unless you know how to drive traffic to your contest, video, blog, event, etc., you’ll have little more than an expensive field of dreams.

Be done by “kids” who “understand social innately”
You can climb Mount Kilaminjaro without a sherpa guide, but why would you? Experience and perspective can make the trip easier, or even save your life.
Companies trying to run social media without experienced consultants waste time, money and reputation on their efforts. And then, sadly, many decide that this new-fangled approach doesn’t work.

Replace PR.
No matter how great your website, video contest, blog, Twitter strategy, etc., you still need publicity. Or you may end up with a tree falling in the forest and nobody hearing it.

Artwork from all the past few years. Make sure to check all the pages.  Design work to come soon!

My Artwork

“It is harder to see than it is to express. The whole value of art rests in the artist’s ability to see well into what is before him.”

“Art cannot be separated from life. It is the expression of the greatest need of which life is capable, and we value art not because of the skilled product, but because of its revelation of a life’s experience.”

“Paint what you feel. Paint what you see. Paint what is real to you.”

“Different men are moved or left cold by lines according to the difference in their natures. What moves you is beautiful to you.”

Robert Henri

1. Maintain Quality Customer Service.    Target customers you’ve already got.
2. Gain market share through google adwords, pay per click, SEO.
3. Increase your visibility.     Kartoo.com, RealEra.net
4. Create synergy with marketing mediums.   All advertising and marketing comes from the same cloth.
5. Use mobile marketing — an emerging marketing tool that is proving to do well.   “For example, Crunch Gyms made the most of their call-to-action billboard and offered a free guest pass to anyone who brought in a snapshot of their outdoor advertisement. The next wave in mobile couponing will encourage customers to scan product barcodes and receive offers directly at the point of purchase. The beauty of these kinds of incentives? Consumers won’t just opt in, they’ll be the ones actively initiating the request. And, they’re timely, personal and trackable. Marketers can evaluate results and metrics almost immediately, and ideally evolve the transaction into a relationship. ” Salt Branding
6. Use steaming video on internet sites.  YouTube has the second most searches than any other site, more than yahoo. Optimizes your web site.
7. Social Networking    
8. Facebook, Twitter, etc.
9. E-Mail Marketing.  Reach out, retain, and track e-mail relationships. Engage consumer through polls and surveys.
10. Provide Perks

At work I helped to create and drive the branding process of our apartment marketing site (www.cypressbayapartments.com). My company decided they wanted to take marketing in house, to the owner level.  As part of taking property marketing to the owner level, we needed to come up with a new  name, separate from Hamilton Zanze.   This was a four month process in which we brainstormed elements of branding the property on the physical site. In the end, we decided the best place to start the brand was on the internet.   I worked with a team that specializes in multi-family apartment marketing sites called MyNewSite to create our website. I directed the design of the landing page and created the logo. Once the Cypress Bay website was live we needed to trademark the name (we should have done this before launching the site in case the mark was taken.. but we did things the way we did).   I worked with our lawyers at Foley to conduct searches for similar companies, names, alternate names in federal, state, common law, and internet on the name and trademark.

Cypress Bay Apartments Landing Page

The mark is currently being filed and should be officially protected in six months.   Cypress Bay Apartments is set up with google analytics.

This book has made me understand how someone of my personality can be happy and successful in the business world. I feel more comfortable with my abilities as a designer and artist and feel like I don’t have to sacrifice these strength to move onwards with my career. The book is split into six senses: Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play, and Meaning.  Below are some quotes I enjoyed:

“The next 10 years will require people to think different from their areas of expertise. They will not only have to cross those boundaries, but they will also have to identify opportunities and make connections between them.”

“The ability to make big leaps of thought is a common denominator among the originators of breakthrough ideas. Usually this ability resides in people with very wide backgrounds, multidisciplinary minds, and a broad spectrum of experiences.”

“All great entrepreneurs are Systems Thinkers”

Link to Wikipedia

Through my SF Entrepreneurial group on meetup.com I learned of the Yelp Business Success Panel  hosted at the Westin. About 100 people showed up to discuss how social networking, specifically yelp, had helped their small business. Many business owners are using social networking sites like Facebook to market themselves, or even as part of their business plan.  For example I met a lady who was selling Vi Pak, a food supplement for weight loss product through Visalus. This company will hire anyone to promote their product by spreading awareness through their personal network of friends on Facebook. People are rewarded with a leased BMW, sounds a bit like a modern day Mary Kay business to me.  I met a lady who started her own company that focuses on social networking identity. She manages people’s social networking sites by creating consistency. There is a market for this, really?

Two small business owners gave a presentation on how Yelp had helped promote their companies — International Orange Spa and Tax Ninja. Both of these companies spend no or very little to place their business on yelp. They receive so much coverage from this one source that it is their only marketing source.

I visited Safan Art Ranch in Fiddletown, what a trip this place is! Safan means heaven in the Asmat language. I had no idea of its existence and have probably passed by it a dozen times. Safan ranch is home  to Steve, who decided to leave his corporate CFO job when he was 33 and start a different life.  Steve converted the existing barn into a great living space and has Asmat (an ethnic group of New Guinea) inspired art decorating his walls. The property has about 10 trailers that have been spray painted mostly by artists local to Sacramento, another barn that holds art materials, a bunch of goats, chickens, other birds, as well as an organic farm.  Steve opened up his ranch to the WWOOF group (World Wide Opportunities for Organic Farming) and he hosts wwofers for the better months of the year.  

I’ve been updated… much of the creative process and creation of this ranch is thanks to Angela the artist! 

This article in the Sacramento Bee discusses more details of the ranch, enjoy!:

http://www.organicearthangel.com/lifeatsafan.htm