You are not too late to enjoy the benefits of social media — you will never be too late — because the spoils in social media marketing go to the company that can maintain its social media participation over the long haul over the long term. Start now, start later, and I guarantee that if you’re a lion-hearted social media marathoner, you’ll probably best your competition.  Anyway, Joseph Ratliff did a brilliant job getting you motivated in How The Social Media Promotes Your Business:

The great thing about social media marketing is it offers a place to talk about your business in a new setting that is a lot less threatening than many other types of advertising. Social media is not about the hard sell. Instead, it focuses on creating relationships with people. Social media allows business people to share some of their personal lives with others. This helps to overcome any fear or reservations connected to buying from people online.

If you’ve started a blog for your business, you already have your foot in the water. The next logical step is to begin commenting on other blogs related to your business. Spend some time searching for a few blogs that you enjoy and subscribe to them via an RSS feeder to manage your time. This will allow you to follow several blogs without having to go to each one every day. When you find a post you can contribute a useful comment to, go to the site and offer your thoughts. Leave a link, if you can, so the audience can link to your own blog. Make this a part of routine at least three times a week.

Next, choose one or two social media communities to join. There are dozens and dozens out there, so do not try to become visible everywhere. Two of the most popular social media communities for business networking are Twitter and Facebook. Both of these are effective sites to increase your relationship building skills with prospects. Combine some personal tidbits with some business information until you discover the perfect mix of both. Do not just focus on building big numbers of friends or followers. It isn’t all about the numbers. Instead, build a little slower and spend your time interacting with the people you meet.

Jonathan Trenn popped this insightful article about Yelp over on Marketing Conversation, The contorversy about Yelp (and be sure to check out David Gelles’ article on a similar topic over at the Financial Times, Yelp rejects claims of extortion):

Ah, controversy.

Now, it’s with Yelp, the mega online review site.  On Wednesday, the East Bay Express, an alternative newspaper that covers Alameda and Contra Costa counties in California, published a very provocative article , “Yelp and the business of extortion 2.0″ on the sales operations and tactics of Yelp.  The paper made some very pointed accusations, some of them seemingly legitimate while others sounding too nebulous.  They state that Yelp is both maniupulating the placements of restaurants reviews as sales tools and then using scare tactics to then solicit advertising sales from these same restaurants.

The accusations are alarming but, because I think the article was poorly presented, it’s left me thinking that Yelp perhaps had a major sales problem in one office as opposed to a company wide sleaze factor policy.

Yelp’s initial response, written on the company blog by CEO Jeremy Stoppleman is inept and insufficient.  He’s likely satisfied that his blog posts are enough…and it may appear to be just that for the time being…but controversies such as this, be they true or just speculation, have a way of undermining a company’s integrity in a hurry.  Especially a site that 1)  is about user generated online reviews, and 2) has trust as a hallmark of its standing.

Oddly, the Yelp blog doesn’t allow comments.  That’s not a good idea…especially for a site that’s about online reviews and citizen participation.

Here’s the gist of the article.  Writer Kathleen Richards talked to “dozens” of business owners over the “past several months” and found that six of them said that Yelp sales reps promised to remove or move bad reviews if the business chose to advertise.  And these businesses would often get sales calls from Yelp reps soon after they mysteriously started getting a rash of negative reviews.  The theory here is that Yelp employees would start to or enlist others to write negative reviews on a company, those reviews would then appear at the top of a company’s page, and the company would get a phone call from a rep looking for an advertising by so those reviews can “go away”…usually to the tune of $300 a month.

For those that declined, positive reviews seemed to begin to disappear.  For those that did manage to buy, negative ones began disappearing.

This is pretty damning stuff.  If true, it shows a coordinted effort between people in sales those on the back end tech team.  It made some establishments feel as if Yelp was acting as if it was the “mafia” in that Yelp was threatening establishments to pay (advertise) in order to not be damaged.  That’s called “protection money” in organized crime.

But as I red between the lines I ended up scratching my head.   Over several months, after talking to “dozens” of businesses, Richards found six restaurants that felt that either they were being offered a quid-pro-qo for advertising to reduce or eliminate bad reviews; or some felt that this extended to manipulative threats of the placement of poor reviews and the elimination of postive reviews.

“Dozens.  “What does that mean?  36?  60?  84?  How did Richards find these restaurants?  Did she talk to one and then ask the owner/manager if he or she knew of any others that had similar stories?  Both questions are important.   The first because it leads to how widespread the problem actually is in the Bay Area and the second, because if there is a lack or randomness to all this, then the sample restaurants are self selected by the reporter.

The article relies on the how some of the restaurant owners “feel”.  These feelings may be completely legitimate.  But it is hard to counter a “feelings”e of another is the one with the feelings remain anonymous.  I fully believe in using anonymous sources, but there should be greater evidence used.  That is, if one is trying to prove that this is a consistent sales tactic used by the company as a whole.

And speaking of as a whole.  This article seems to be focusing soley on the East Bay restaurant seen.  True, it is an East Bay pub, but the article is written as if it is a widespread problem and the issue here is “the business of extortion”.  It fully damns the Yelp based on a small sample of local business’ feelings.

Stoppleman has since written a few more blog posts, but he could use a change of attitude.  There’s been enough discussion on the net about this article denigrating Yelp.  Hundreds of tweets on Twitter, negative mentions on Technorati, and articles in substantial online pubs.

The reason why I say that Stoppleman could use a change of attitude is because he’s treating all of this as an illegitimate attack.  The accusations, regardless of their veracity, at least sound reasonable.  And his defensiveness doesn’t really address the issue.

He does have on post that does work, at bit, in my opinion.  “Nine Myths About Yelp” is designed to negate what he feels are falsehoods.  The most important one he lists is #3 (it should be #1, but he doesn’t seem to realize it).  It is stated here:

Myth #3: Yelp salespeople manipulate reviews for prospective advertisers (for example, offers to remove a negative review if a new client signs up, or a threat to remove positive reviews if the business owner does not choose to advertise with Yelp)

Reality: We have every reason to trust the smart, hard-working and ethical salespeople who work at Yelp.  Beyond this, to avoid even an appearance of impropriety, we’ve taken several steps to ensure no member of our team is tempted to game the system.  Specifically:
1. Yelp salespeople do not have access to the system that deletes reviews; only a few members of Yelp engineering and user support team have this access, and they literally work on different floors within the office.
2. Every Yelp salesperson signs an agreement that s/he will not write reviews of any business while employed by Yelp.  We trust our teammates in sales to live up to this commitment.  We also have several monitoring systems in place to ensure nobody (accidentally or otherwise) crosses this line.
3. Through our vigilance, we once did find a salesperson who encouraged a friend to write a positive review for a prospective client (that the friend had actually patronized). The salesperson’s role at Yelp ended that day.
4. When a new advertiser signs up with Yelp, the relationship is handed off to an Account Manager.  The Account Manager then takes the client through a 30 minute phone training session — and confirms that reviews have nothing to do with advertising.
5. After the training call, the Account Manager sends a follow up survey that asks each client how much s/he agrees with the following statement: “I understand that Reviews are completely separate from the Yelp Ad Program, and that there is an automated filter that may suppress some of my reviews whether or not I am a client.”  Any client who does not click “Completely Agree” in this case gets yet another follow-up call for clarification.

Myth #4: Yelp removes positive reviews from businesses its staff does not like, or from businesses that do not pay for advertising

Reality: A review you may have seen on Yelp previously is no longer there; this happens.  The review in question may have “disappeared” for one of three reasons:
1. The review may have been suppressed by Yelp’s automated Review Filter, which is always out there looking for suspicious reviewing activity (like those anonymous rants and raves you see on other sites).
2. The writer may have removed her own review; she has the right to do that at any time
3. Another user believed the review violated Yelp’s Review Guidelines and sent it to our customer service team for review. The customer service team agreed, then manually removed the review.

Both our customer service team and the Review Filter work exactly the same way for advertisers as they do for non-advertisers.

This is how he should have addressed the issue at the very beginning.  Blown opportunity and his company has suffered and will continue to suffer as a result.  And he has to go beyond stating that the sales people and the tech people with access to placement of reviews work on different floors.

My guess is what happened is that a few sales reps in that particular office would scour the reviews on Yelp, and when they found some recent newly written negative ones, they then picked up the phone and made a sales call, offering the package that places a selected postive review on top – one that is visibly marked as being sponsored.  Some pitches probably went far beyond this…saying that they could make the negative one “disappear”.  Sales people will say sleazy things.  Stoppleman should understand this and not discount this.  He should then conduct some sort of internal audit that would show the public that he is trying to address the problem and root it out if it exists.  Retrain.  Resolve.

Now is it possible that some sales types had relationships with the tech people.  Absolutely.  Different floors – HA!  So the problem may have been more than a poorly written article.  Yelp needs to look into that because, as Yelp knows, online reputations matter.

And to Jeremy Stoppleman…you should allow people to comment on your blog posts.

Merkur, Ford’s attempt at bringing Ford of Europe cars to an American audience, lasted only four years (1985 to 1989). Despite its short life, it did bring the Merkur XR4Ti to the US. It has everything a weird car lover could want: turbocharged fourbanger (the Lima 2.3 from the Turbobird and SVO), RWD, five-speed manual tranny, an independent-rear suspension and a strange European look. Despite the cool looks and Karmann construction it wasn’t enough to carry Merkur to fruition. Unfortunately, it has the death-touch of Bob Lutz.

After I wrote The Powerful SEO Benefits of Blogger PR Outreach, I looked around Google a little bit under the keywords “blogger outreach” and on the first page I discovered my new friend and partner, Stephen Davies of 3W PR and blogger for PRBlogger, and look what I found: corroboration! According to Stephen, “In fact, the SEO benefits could out-perform all of the other benefits of blogger outreach,” which we at Abraham Harrison, LLC, are discovering more and more every day! Check out The SEO benefits of blogger outreach:

The SEO benefits of blogger outreach

Blogger relations, or blogger outreach as I like to call it, is a relatively new concept in the PR and marketing arena. Prior to blogs and other forms of social media, people working in our industry have never had such direct access to influential people from all walks of life. The advent of these new platforms has also enabled us to tap into real insights, views and opinions on various products, brands and issues which in-turn have allowed us to have open and transparent *relations* with the *public* (public relations, get it?).

As proved by Edelman, Forrester and Nielsen, the opinion of the every-day person is increasingly becoming a more trustworthy source of information. The public is more ‘media savvy’ than ever before meaning marketing messages no longer have the same effect as they once did. If they ever did. Is it any wonder that PR people, marketers and the respective companies they represent are increasingly seeing the value in blogger outreach?

Using myself as guinea pig and my involvement in the O2 blogger outreach campaign. The company working on the initiative, VCCP, probably looked at this blog and classified it with having a niche audience. With around 1500 RSS subscribers I can safely assume that I don’t hold great powers of influence. Not to say this blog doesn’t hold *some* level of influence; it does. To what extent, though, I really don’t know, but I’m sure the guys working at VCCP have their own reasons for including me in the outreach.

So let’s assume that after I wrote both posts on the O2 Xda Orbit 2 I ‘influenced’ some of this blog’s readers. By “readers” I mean people who are subscribed to the RSS feed or email alerts and are updated as and when I publish new blog posts. How I actually influenced them is another matter. Did they rush out and buy the phone as soon as they read my review? Maybe not. Did I at least increase awareness of the phone to some of the readers? I presume so. Either way, some level of influencing was in play.

Job done? Maybe not.

What’s struck me the last week or so is the amount of traffic I’ve received by people looking for information on the Xda Orbit 2. Quite a lot in comparison for this itty-bitty blog. So-much-so that since I wrote the two posts about the phone on the 20th and 27th February they’ve proved to be the top two most popular blog posts from those dates to present time. Take a look:

Note: The Homepage and About page have higher traffic but these are static pages and not blog entries.

Again, if you look at the top ten keywords used to get to this blog since I wrote the two posts you’ll see that four out of the ten are related to the Xda including the most popular two keywords:

This, to me, is pretty impressive and it puts blogger outreach in a whole new different light. In hindsight, it’s pretty obvious that SEO plays a part in all of this but maybe I was too caught up in the ‘direct approach’ and ‘two-way conversation’ ways of thinking that I didn’t give it any thought.

In fact, the SEO benefits could out-perform all of the other benefits of bloggeroutreach. Two reasons:

Relevance – You can see by the keyword data that people who landed on either post through a search engine were actually looking for information on the Xda. The people who subscribe to my feed weren’t necessarily – I published it and they may have read it. No guarantee there, though.

Volume – If the search engine traffic to each post continues which, chances are, it will then those two posts will have received a lot more attention from Google and the like than they did through an RSS feed.

These two reasons make the point that SEO should not just be considered when initiating of blogger outreach campaign but should be high on the agenda. The measurement and evaluation process of the campaign should include any traffic and SEO data that are available to gather. They could be the most valuable results you’ve achieved!

The underlying objective of a blogger outreach campaign is, of course, to generate positive and authentic opinions on your product or brand. But if what you are promoting is a lousy, useless or even mediocre product, however, then the next title of a blog post could be “The SEO nightmare of blogger outreach.”

It’s all about the quality of the content or product you’re promoting at the end of the day.

Stephen is managing director of 3W PR, a UK based online PR consultancy. You can connect with him on Twitter or check out his LinkedIn profile. | Email Stephen

It is just the time of year when The Fresh Air Fund begins preparing for the summer full of summer camps filled with happy faces and lots and lots of kids from the cities who get to spend their summer vacation out of the city and in the country. It is also a very important time for finding and hiring camp counselors for the summer as well as locating, vetting, and securing host families as well. All of this information is collected on a little informational web site you can check out, but I will excerpt some of this below.

Fresh Air Fund Needs Counselors for Summer 2009!

You love working with children, and that’s probably what we like most about you. Running across the ball field, washing off the glitter glue, or swimming in the lake – with your cabin group laughing around you – you’ll be in your element.

Are you going to be the counselor the children learn to paint with? The one they play soccer with? The one they want to hang out with? Or perhaps the one they read a bed-time story with? Whatever your role becomes, you’ll thrive on the challenge and commit yourself to the cause.

You’ve got to be 18 or over by June 20th to apply, and you’ll usually have completed at least one year of college by the summer. Any previous work with children should always be included on your application.

The experience you’re about to apply for will be like no other, and it’s going to take patience, flexibility, creativity, and a whole lot of self-motivation. But the rewards will be great… overcoming challenges, meeting new friends, playing games in the sun, jumping into the cool lake, painting face masks, hitting a home run, telling stories around a camp fire…

…and then seeing that smile brighten a child’s face.

We’re looking for counselors and program staff for all five of our summer camps – but places fill fast, so get your application in today.

We are now accepting applications for the 2009 season.

What I think the fine people at Fresh Air Fund are looking for Camp Counselors right now, so if you’re interested in applying to become a Fresh Air Fund camp counselor, please apply here. And, if you are on the fence, be sure to check out the below video, see through the eyes of some Fresh Air Fund counselors:

I just got off the phone with fellow AdAge Power 150 blogger CR Ransom and we had quite an amazing chat.  CR runs Mosnar Communications, Inc. Public Relations, an Atlanta-based firm focused on the African American luxury market, “folks who have over $250,000 a year to spend on lifestyle.”

During our conversation, I realized that it is a very exclusive market and hard for outsiders to infiltrate because the Black luxury market is guarded and takes care of its own.  I am told that this is a community that doesn’t really even need much of a web presence or a social media strategy because the market is closed and people are very loyal to one-another and to their Churches. These are very traditional, conservative, communities that require someone like CR and the gang at Mosnar to act as ambassador.

Mosnar Communications may well be based in Atlanta but its reach and influence carries far past the borders of Georgia. CR is very grateful for what Google and blogging has done for their practice as both platforms have given Mosnar a clientelle well beyond even the boarders of the United States.

In fact, CR told me that her firm competes — and wins — on Google in searches that anyone would die for about luxury brands, luxury branding, and the like –  even outside her core, which is aspirational, upper-middle-class, affluent, and wealthy Black Americans.

Because of the Internet, blogging, CR’s commitment, and Google, Mosnar Communications has gone from being a niche vertical geo-targeted regional Atlanta player to a firm that fields calls from major global brands and media from around the world.

CR Ransom told me that, to her, the key is Google and how Google’s algorithms don’t segregate based on her location, race, gender, company size, number of employees, the people she knows, or anything else, and that allows her offerings, content, experience, and insights to show up, in a search, right next to agencies and firms a thousand times bigger (and probably less likely to really understand her market like she does).

When I wrote my scathing response to the Whopper Virgins campaign as perpetrated by Burger King over on Ad Age’s Global Idea Network, Ian Lurie responded with Whopper Virgins: Not Appalling. Not Brilliant, Either.

Whopper Virgins: Not Appalling. Not Brilliant, Either

Chris Abraham over at Marketing Conversations wrote an thoughtful critique of Burger King’s new Whopper Virgins campaign.

I appreciate Chris’s opinion: The video is at times jingoistic and, frankly, a little embarrassing if you’re an American. Burger King went out of their way to find people in local clothing minutes from major urban centers in Europe. How exactly did they do that? Much of the video is just more ugly Americans pointing and giggling at the rest of the world.

I also see Burger King’s thinking: This is a great viral piece. The effort alone – flying a broiler all around the world to cook burgers, for gosh sakes – is worthy of a documentary.

So, is the Whopper Virgins campaign ‘good’ marketing? Marketing should:

• Help the target audience make informed decisions about products. Nothing about this video does that. Nothing tells me why I’d want a Whopper.
• It should not make the target brand look foolish. Burger King ends up looking (in my opinion) a tad silly. They spent who-knows-how-much money to shoot this. Could they have better spent the money on other aspects of marketing? Or on their product? Also, “Whopper Virgins? Are you kidding me?
• Make me want the product. This video utterly fails to do that. Granted, I’m a classic middle-class liberal. So I have no sense of humor. But I’m also an avid fast food consumer. This video makes me want Wendy’s.
• Take risks. Good marketers take chances now and then. Nothing wrong with that. And this video clearly takes a gamble.
• It should generate buzz. It’s certainly done that, with headlines like “Socially Awkward” and “Just Bad Taste?”.

I don’t think this video deserves the controversy it’s generated. You could interpret it as offensive. But would you consider it as offensive if the video had been done by National Geographic? Probably not.

But it’s not good marketing, either. It’s an art project: A huge investment of dollars in something that probably won’t pay off, in spite of the kerfuffle right now.

How many burgers do you have to sell to pay for that rental helicopter, I wonder?

One of my goals in life is to be on Boing Boing, so in many ways my dreams are coming true every day in so many ways in the form of getting a guest blog post on Boing Boing Gadgets about the ultimate gadget, my hand-made, bespoke, Randall Model 1 knife — many thanks to my buddy John Brownlee for inviting me over and for not only considering my knife a gadget but fancying it worthy of bbG:

Knife Porn: Four years waiting and one month with the Randall Model 1 Fighting Knife Posted by John Brownlee

Guest Review by Chris Abraham

After four years, I finally received my bespoke, hand-made, Randall Model 1 “All-Purpose Fighting Knife.” Unstead of tearing right into the box, I paused and filmed a nine-minute unboxing video and took some photos of the knife — knife porn.

There are two iconic fighting knives known the world over for their service in World War II. The British Sykes-Fairbairn dagger and the American style of fighting knife, inspired both by the Bowie and the American hunting knife. There was one knife, above all other, that I coveted… coveted not just because it was considered “the best” by all of the knife magazines I bought but also because it was associated with doing hard service during World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. That knife was the Randall Model #1.

Because I wanted a Randall that was as authentic to the knives that have served our military since WWII, I ordered the Randall with a carbon blade, since it predates stainless steel. There are some challenges associated with owning and using a carbon steel knife, be it in the kitchen or in the field.

First, they can — and do — rust. Since rust is normal with daily use out in the field, don’t freak out if it happens to you. A little sandpaper should do the trick if the rusting isn’t too bad.

Second, even if you spend the time and attention required to make sure your knife remains dry and sealed under a light coating of oil, there is still the issue of discoloration. Unlike stainless, carbon steel reacts with the things it touches. The acids and oils of the leather sheath could discolor the blade. Cutting meat will discolor the blade, too.

The instructions also suggest that cutting meat with the carbon blade results in discoloration, so you’re pretty much screwed unless you don’t use your Randall at all. Luckily, that’s not true. Go ahead and use it, if you’re not a strict collector — it was meant to be man-handled. Like I said above, all of the discoloration can be easily polished out of your knife. Working carbon knives always end up looking a little like they were made of silver because of the way silver tarnishes.

When I received the knife, the blade was coated with a light oil. The instructions recommend keeping the blade dry and lubricated with WD-40. After I posted the unboxing video on YouTube, someone commented that I should be really careful with the carbon steel blade and not store the knife in the leather scabbard but rather keep the blade (but not the handle) wrapped in an oil cloth.

And how does it feel? Perfectly-balanced. It’s right where it’s supposed to be: the shiny brass hilt rests the handle right on your forefinger, as it should.

There is an after-market for Randall knives if you’re unwilling to wait for 4-years for one like I did. I checked out A.G. Russell, a popular knife store, and I found the Randall Model 1 for $600. Instant gratification for Randalls generally starts at $600 for a brand new knife of someone else’s design, usually with a micarta or stag handle, and quickly tops out at thousands for a specialty, rare, or vintage knife. If you want a knife made by Bo Randall himself, it will cost: older Randall knives are worth five to fifteen times their value.

These are collectors knives, that’s for sure. If you explore the catalog, you’ll get a feel how extensively you can pimp your knife. I ordered mine plain vanilla “traditional” with the pressed-leather handle, 7″ blade, and Duralumin butt cap. Some options I could have requested were a longer or shorter blade in stainless steel. There’s an assortment of brass hilt shapes and sizes along with a myriad of handle types, including bone, tusk, horn, micarta (a mixture of layered linen and resin), or just about anything else that could be shoehorned onto the full tang.

I don’t know if I like the big and bulky sharpening stone pocket on the front of the sheath since I don’t plan on being far enough in the wilderness to not be able to come home to sharpen the knife. I did a little research and you can get just about anything you want from Randall, including getting the sheath without the stone pouch, although a replacement sheath from Randall costs almost two-hundred dollars, nearly the cost of the knife itself. If my Google searches are true, you can even get sheaths in other leathers and colors, including ostrich, alligator, and zebra. All I need to know is the length of the blade, which is a very standard and popular 7″ (8″ is also very popular).

The man behind Randall Made Knives, W.D. Bo Randall, started making hand-forged knives as a hobby back in 1937 and started selling them in the years leading up to World War II. A reporter wrote a story about Bo during the early years of the war and there was so much demand for his fighting knife, now known as the Model 1, that Bo became a full-time knife-maker. According the website, Bo Randall hand-crafted each knife no matter how much demand or the temptation to mass-produce. Throughout WWII, the knives became legendary. Ronald Reagan carried a Randall Model 1 knife.

And, if you ever have a chance to buy a used Randall on the cheap, don’t reject a knife just because it’s rusted or the sheath is rotted. Some oil, a fine grit emery cloth or steel wool, a little polish, and you’re good to go. These knives were made for duty so there isn’t a lot you can do to “kill” the knife. And, if the knife looks a little far gone, don’t worry, you can probably find a knife-maker in your area who can fix it up by reshaping the blade and restoring the bits and pieces. If you want to restore your Randall in style, to this day you can buy replacement sheaths from the company, made to order. Additionally, you can send your Randall home to Orlando, Florida, where it was born, they can do a lovely job restoring it.

Why did I buy a knife like this? Well, that’s an odd thing, and the reason dates back over 24 years to when I was a strapping teen. When I was in high school, during the mid- to late-80s, I was a teenage commando. I went to an all-boys Catholic school in Hawaii called Saint Louis School and we had an JROTC program that I joined because it was either that, PE, or band (shudder). After joining JROTC I joined the Ranger club. On the surface the Rangers were a bunch of boys who did calisthenics and ran around campus and were entitled to wear black berets and bloused jump boots on the days every member of JROTC was required to skulk around school in Class-A Army uniforms. Still, that wasn’t all the Rangers did. We also spent weekends playing the part of Opposition Forces (OPFOR) for Hawaii’s National Guard and Army Reserve. As part of all that, we were issued camouflaged fatigues (BDUs), ALICE packs, web gear, and M-16s. Yes, real M-16s with real banana clips and real brass casings filled with real smokeless gunpowder, but without bullets with a blank-firing adaptor.

I was motivated and dedicated. I became obsessed with everything military. I bought copies of SOF and shopped at Army surplus stores. We all prized authentic gear and many of us bought Vietnam-era slash-pocket OD fatigues and Ka-Bar knives. I was obsessed with knives and started a collection.

That was 1984. I didn’t end up ordering my own Randall until twenty-years later while I was supposed to be working for Pete Snyder at New Media Strategies during the Summer of 2004. I put down $50 as a down payment, clicked “order” and then obsessed about it for nearly five years! I paid off the balance of $264.00 about a year ago. It was supposed to be delivered in June but I received a letter letting me know that delivery had been delayed until October.

Why does a knife take four-years? One of the reasons my order, #57224, order date September 2004, took so long is because I ordered my knife in a time of war. Randall Made Knives is a purveyor of hunting knives during peacetime; however, during a time of war, most of their capacity is spent on providing for our troops. According to their FAQ, “spare time and space is devoted to filling military knife orders for our active military customers. I think that’s fair, since the Model 1 was a military knife from the very beginning.

It was finally ready for delivery while I was in Berlin so I had the knife FedExed to my mom’s house in Arlington, Virginia, and counted the days until I returned home for Christmas. I arrived on Christmas eve but kept it in my pants until Christmas day, when I took this unboxing video and these photos.

After four years, the knife more than lives up to my expectations, especially since there were a couple of cool surprises that I didn’t know about, including red, white, and blue patriotic spacers between the hilt and the pressed-leather handle and between the handle and the Duralumin butt cap — I’ll photograph it with my Nokia N95 camera phone. To be frank, I have been waiting for this Randall Model #1 for twenty-four-years, since I fell in love with this perfect thing back when I was a Freshman in high school.

Worth the wait? Yes! Any hype associated with the entire experience? No, I don’t think so at all. It couldn’t be better-crafted or more beautiful. I am no longer a knife collector — or an anything collector — so the only two remaining knives in my collection is a Cold Steel Tanto I got back in 1983 and this Randall Model 1.

Randall Made Knife Unboxing Porn

Randall Knife Unboxing Pics [Flickr]

---

When not waiting four years for a knife to be hand crafted for him, drunkenly stumbling away with me from a disreputable Berlin pub, or being one of the sweetest and smartest guys it is my pleasure to know, Chris Abraham runs a crackerjack conversational marketing firm, Abraham Harrison. This technically makes him a scumbag, but I love him anyway.

I am not telling you anything you don’t already know since you’re reading this. Since you’re reading this, you’re either my friend or you follow one of my blogs — so I have probably chewed your ear off about the benefits of both social media marketing as well as social media public relations.  Here’s another example that this trend is growing and becoming mainstream. Lauren Cook hooked me up with this article from the Houston Business Journal, “Online strategies, responsibility are becoming marketing ‘musts’” (Via Marketing Conversation)

The latest trends in getting company names into the public eye are catching on quickly, and marketing professionals say those who don’t adapt may be left behind. The following are examples of marketing that experts say companies can no longer afford to ignore:

Using ‘social media’

Blogs, forums, chat rooms, Flickr, Twitter, Youtube.com, Facebook.com and MySpace.com are emerging as powerful marketing tools.

“People who are experts on or passionate about a particular topic or interest may start their own Web site, generate a blog or post videos online,” says Cindy Marion, president of Marion, Montgomery Inc. “Over time, bloggers and social media contributors continue posting more subjects, articles, videos or sound clips related to their specific interests. This is good for conversation and for search engine optimization.”

According to a recently released Cone Business Survey, 93 percent of Americans believe companies should have a presence on social media sites, and 85 percent believe these companies should use these services to interact with consumers.

“The people have spoken but the wheel hasn’t been reinvented,” Marion says. “Because although the medium may be new, proven marketing strategies remain. Consistent messaging and frequent communications are key to creating perception, influence and persuasion.

“When people want to know about something, they typically ask their friends,” she says. “Now they often search for it online. If a company has a Web site, that’s a good start to gain a base knowledge of the product, but if an unvested third party touts that company’s products and services, then the company’s reputation gets more credit. If an online friend or trusted source touts it, all the better.”

I am going to talk about my spirituality, which is something I rarely do. I do so because these are Holy days and I am feeling prayerful. Apropos, I will be discussing prayer.

I love Aimee Mann‘s rendition of Three Dog Night’s “One is the Loneliest Number” from the memorable movie Magnolia. As I returned on my bike from a night of going away that my friends John and Claudia threw for me, I was listening to a podcast download of Speaking of Faith about prayer, Approaching Prayer [alt link] and Anoushka Shankar and Krista Tippett were discussing prayer and they both agreed that prayer is probably the most important part of the spirituality of any faith, and probably the hardest to endure over the course of ones spiritual life.

I agree. Though it is more than worth it.

Back to Aimee Mann and “One is the Loneliest Number.” The lyrics of the song go, “one is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do.” I object. I think that one is the Holiest number. I believe that in concert, prayer can be amazingly powerful; however, a prayerful life solo is rare indeed.

Prayer, Mano-a-mano, is indeed a marathon. A prayerful life requires constant contact, constant Faith, indefatigable devotion, and the endurance of the niggling fear that you’re wasting your time by simply mumbling to yourself.

According to the New Testament, prayer should not be a public act with the single-minded goal of being perceived as being Holy; rather, “when you pray, go away by yourself, all alone, and shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father secretly.” (Matthew 6.6). To me, anyway, one is the Holiest number that you’ll ever do.

And please don’t limit your experience to the traditional prayerful acts of kneeling before a candle or bed. Prayer can be done while on the city bus, during a morning run in the frost, while in the corpse pose on a yoga mat; at an Ashram, Mosque, Temple, Church or Monastery; while swimming laps or doing reps — it really isn’t important.

You don’t even need to call it prayer — you can call it meditation, visualization, self-hypnosis, centering, or wishing — you don’t need even ask for world peace or feeding the hungry (though you really should consider it) — you can, and are encouraged, to pray for the health, wealth, and happiness of your own family and even for your very own health, wealth, and happiness! (why not?)

Here’s a simple warning that prayer is powerful and not limited only to well-wishing. Prayer is an energy, a force, an intention. Prayer taps Godhead. Even so, it can be used for anything in the short run. But don’t be lured. It really isn’t worth it. Another hint: Good, God, Prosperity, Happiness and Love are not limited resources with finite supplies. For some reason, someone has been able to spin that there is Peak Love.

Unlike peak oil, there is no limit to the benefit of blessings on any one person — there is no reason at all for competition, quarreling, or self-denial. Currently, there is a false scarcity of prosperity and blessings. Like diamonds (and probably oil), there is a limitless supply of blessing and prosperity that one can tap through prayer — not simply for you, yourself, but for all of those around you. Even better, like the electrical grid, any prayer that is not used by you or those for whom prayed is paid back in for everyone’s benefit and blessings.

OK, I think I have tapped myself out, spiritually, for 2008. We’ll see how this goes over — maybe I will continue revealing a completely different side of myself into 2009. Please feel free to comment and let me know if I have either contributed to your life or have encouraged you, rather, to backup slowly towards the door — exit, stage left!

And, to conclude, I wish happy Holy days to you and yours.

• YouTube – Awesometown – FOX Cut

• Blog profile – Twingly Blog Search

• Burger King Fails With BK Boxers » Adrants

• Controversial ads can help boost a brand – PRWeek US

  Eric Yaverbaum, president and CEO of Ericho Communications, says the press might not be good, but this kind of attention effectively multiplies the company’s ad buy and drives consumers to want to go online and watch the video.

  (tags: social media public)

• Grammar Girl :: How to Write Your First Novel

  Since you’re listening to this podcast, you probably love the English language and the written word. And if you do, you probably have an itch to write that first novel. Well, you’re not alone. The dream of writing a novel, either for personal satisfaction or to make money, has been prevalent in our culture for decades, if not centuries.

• MediaPost Publications – Kmart Enlists Bloggers For Social Net Campaign – 12/12/2008

• /Message: Izea: Where Is That Line Again?

• Izea and PayPerPost Further Abandon Concept Of Quality Blogs | Philaahzophy

• Kmart Enlists Bloggers For Social Net Campaign – MediaPost Publications | Social Media Digest

• mrontemp: I still want my Swedish meatballs! The Izea brouhaha continues

• IZEA Blog: ”Twitter Tips” Week One Winner

• Blogging for dollars | Janet Fouts

• IZEA, Chris Brogan, Disclosure, and Community Trust | 1115 Media | Michael Buechele

• Copywrite, Ink.: Being Human: Chris Brogan

• Understanding Izea’s Sponsored Blogging Service

• Jaffe Juice: Carpe Diem – Sears the Day!

• Federated Media / Tech: Izea: Where Is That Line Again?

• Jane’s Tumblr

• Top 10 Reasons to be an Entrepreneur in College | College Mogul

• Paid Posts: Why they’re not that bad, but why you shouldn’t do them

• Sears, Christmas And A $500 Gift For You | How To Split An Atom

  Chris Pirillo, Jim Kukral, Tamar Weinburg, Aaron Brazell, Liz Strauss, Joseph Jeffe, and Chris Heuer

• The Pond » Izea

• Sponsored Post: Granting a Wish with Sears | Technosailor.com

• The Midnight Writer: Writing Boring Articles

• Sponsored Post – Sears Shopping “A-Ok” With This Blue-Collar Guy

• Kmart Sponsored Post: Petty Politics Buries Debate | ChrisKenton.com

• Jeremiah Owyang Inserts Foot In Mouth (Again) Over IZEA Sponsored Posts | Technosailor.com

• Understanding Izea’s Sponsored Blogging Service… (Web Strategy by Jeremiah) » TechNews.AM

• TechWag » Chris Brogan and the Tempest in a teapot

• The Sanctity of Social Media? | Altitude Branding

• Dumb Looks Still Free: So there is no connection between….

• What is Your Time Worth? What’s Worth Your Time? : GeekMommy’s WebLife

• IZEA Advisory Board Dinner – a set on Flickr

• Are Paid Posts now acceptable on blogs? (poll)

• Want to Go to Affiliate Summit West? | The BenSpark

• Advertising and Trust | chrisbrogan.com

• Freaky Frugalite » Blog Archive » Blogging For Pay, Part 1: Preparing For Your Future

• Settling into the new job « CodeHappy

• Who Is Strumpette?

  (tags: PR blog online twitter blogging is personality reality)

• Young PR

  (tags: marketing PR social media blogs links blogging journalism prblogs youngpr)

• Another Frightening Show About the Economy from This American Life

  Another Frightening Show About the Economy

  (tags: life news usa politics podcast money Radio npr Markets this thisamericanlife tal swaps subprime cds credit default swap)

• Credit default swap – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Flip MinoHD Camcorders | Flip Video

  (tags: technology video movies tech photography videos shopping tobuy wishlist flip hd mino)

• About Us – DC Navigators

Please enjoy my latest AdAge Global Idea Network blog post, Social Media Are Truly Global — Just Ask a Slovakian: Don’t Underestimate the Reach of Twitter, Facebook: (Via Adage)

Social Media Are Truly Global — Just Ask a Slovakian: Don’t Underestimate the Reach of Twitter, Facebook

Recently, I was a speaker at a conference in Bratislava, Slovakia, called Daily Web. Everybody there was super-connected. Everyone was on both Facebook and Twitter. While I was at the conference, I received invites from my fellow attendees get connected on Twitter, Facebook and even LinkedIn.

During a break, I was told that there are about 60,000 Slovakian users of Facebook, using a mix of the available Czech interface and the English. They were all much newer to Twitter, but the conference did have a Twitter profile and I chose to create the hash tag for the conference, #dailywebsk. I was told Facebook is beginning to bogart the populations of local Slovakian communities and there are plans to localize Facebook into Slovakian the way that it is localized in the Czech Republic and Germany.

This got me to thinking. All of the Brits I have been meeting in Berlin are more keen on getting my “Facebook e-mail,” the e-mail that would allow them to easily find me on Facebook, rather than asking for a business card. Are cards going obsolete? Or, at the very least, are your Twitter and Facebook credentials more important on your site, your business card or your name tag than your e-mail, phone and fax?

All of my German friends are on Facebook as well, sharing images and adopting the social network with as much dedication and abandon as we do in the U.S. Same thing goes with my friends from Mexico and Colombia. When I attend conferences these days, I am likely to be recognized as @chrisabraham as I am by my name.

However, I admit that I live in a rarefied air and so there might be issues of connectivity, class and access that I am not addressing here. That said, I am still amazed whenever I take some time to click on over to Twittervision to watch a global representation of the whole Twittering world.

Because of the nature of Facebook and Twitter, localization works very well. Since both social networks allow you to easily communicate with your friends, and your friends are generally a lot like you. There isn’t a lot of cross-talk between English-, German- and Spanish-speakers.

There are no barriers, of course, between the different locales and the different languages. The barriers are emergent. Since I have quite a few Facebook friends and Twitter followers, 2,707 and 2,374 respectively, I get a lot of cross-talk between languages, and that pleases me. What makes me even happier is when I visit someone’s Wall, sort of like the publicly visible whiteboard that lots of students hang outside their dorm room. I often see a mixture of Spanish, German and English, all mixed up, according to each particular relationship.

The feeling I have, however, is that Twitter and Facebook are not perceived, worldwide, as American imperialism. And I think this is fantastic. Why is that? I think it’s because Facebook and Twitter created relatively neutral platforms and then got out of the way. This is especially the case with Twitter, which is perfectly inert: 140 characters. No context, only essential conversation.

After being a part of the Twitter community for a little while, the whole nature of it falls away and it becomes invisible, a simple communications vehicle, disassociated from its origins: like the phone, texting, TV, electricity, e-mail, the internet! Who cares who invented these things, after all, when each nation, culture and people ultimately make it their own. And this is what is happening with Twitter and Facebook — people are making them their own.

I really don’t use MySpace very much at all. In fact, I embarrass myself every time I look at my MySpace profile. That said, every band in Berlin has a MySpace profile, just like every other band in the entire world. Globally, you’re likely to see a MySpace address if the band you’re digging on has an internet presence. Even if your favorite global brand has its own website, there’s a good chance that they also have a MySpace address. A couple weeks ago, I checked out three bands here in Berlin and they all has MySpace URLs: Orchestre Miniature in the Park and Tim and Puma Mimi.

None of these bands think about the gross imperialism associated with their decisions; they have adopted all of this American innovation with complete ease. Back in the day, Friendster had a terribly time sorting out its business model internationally. Its success in Asia bogged down its servers while confounding its salespeople on how to make any money from all these community members who were dedicated participants but not generating any local revenue. It was probably because the worldwide ad networks and the global sales of ads were not there yet, focused mostly on the U.S. market. Now times have changed. Here I am in Berlin being served not simply German ads but also geo-targeted ads based on exactly where my data is being served.

I have taken all of this in due course and just considered it normal; however, I realized tonight that it isn’t normal. It occurred to me that folks might not know how thoroughly adopted these Web 2.0 platforms are worldwide. How many people around the world refresh Facebook and Twitter many times an hour at their workplace, the same way everyone does it, even among an ever-growing population in the Slovak Republic.

I have been pinned by the coverage of #leweb down in Paris on Twitter, especially during all of the excitement as Dr. Helen Fisher talked about sex, attraction, and falling in love. So, since everyone else has been taking the Chemistry love personality test, I thought I would do the same. So, with no further ado, here’s my results. Is any of is surprising? You, too, can take the test for free (and sign up, as a result) over at Chemistry.com

Hello Chris,

Welcome to your Chemistry Profile. The following analysis is based on your responses to our questionnaire. Your results identify your major and minor personality types, as well as the types with whom you’re likely to be compatible.

Your Major and Minor Personality Types Characteristics of all four personality types can be found within each of us, but there is almost always one personality type that is dominant. We call this the major personality type. The Chemistry Profile also identifies your minor or secondary personality type. You exhibit some aspects of this personality type, though not to the same degree as with your major type.

• Your major personality type = Director
• Your minor personality type = Negotiator

You are a DIRECTOR/negotiator You are an innovator. You are an inventive, thorough, independent thinker with a deep interest in how the world works. You quickly grasp patterns and relationships. And when you focus on a particular work-related or social puzzle, you often come up with novel theories and ideas about it. You have a strong need to achieve. You want to make an impact on the world. And with your aptitude for theoretical thinking, your investigative rigor, your logic and your determination, you are likely to win the honors your hard work deserves. You are a complex person, outwardly assertive, logical and intellectual, yet likely to see the many sides of an issue, feel deep sympathy for others and enjoy the spiritual as well as the concrete. You can be friendly, insightful and eager to please. These attributes, combined with your love of challenges and knowledge, make you an exciting, and at times, very sensitive companion.

How your personality breaks out

Explorer – 23% of your personality - Known for high energy, high creativity and spontaneity. Seeks novelty, risk and pleasure. Intellectually curious and not easily swayed by opinion.

Builder – 19% of your personality - Usually very popular. Deep attachment to home and family. Calm demeanor and low anxiety. Often consistent, loyal and protective.

Negotiator – 27% of your personality – Excels at seeing the big picture, long-term planning and consensus building. An intuitive thinker who is flexible, verbal and socially skilled. Imaginative, empathetic and nurturing.

Director – 29% of your personality – Daring, original, direct and inventive. A non-conformist. Skilled at abstract thinking and short-term planning. Often assertive and quite competitive. Tough-minded and efficient.

Dating Tips for Directors

• Not everyone is as direct, focused and “to the point” as you are. So make sure you give potential partners the time they need to express themselves. You will probably be surprised at their logic and intellect.

• Your competitive spirit is useful in the office but it doesn’t work in dating–unless you find someone who likes to challenge and debate. When that happens, go for it. Otherwise, try to listen actively.

• Aim at investigating some of the “grey areas” during an invigorating conversation. Much of the world does not see in black and white.

• Separate work from play. Try to get your assignments out of your mind while on a date—so you can truly enjoy your “down time” with a partner.

• Make sure to schedule enough time to get to know someone.

• Try looking directly into the eyes of your partner during a conversation; many people find this “anchoring gaze” a powerful form of intimacy.

The answer, of course, is “it takes about ten years of suffering hard work to become an overnight sensation.” In the case of new media and Web2.0, you can so that in a lot less time. Being an early — the earliest — adopter doesn’t hurt, but it isn’t necessary, really. However, any way you slice it, with a few exceptions, becoming an overnight sensation on Twitter, YouTube, Plurk, QIK, Utterli, LinkedIn, Facebook, or MySpace is going to require a lot of your resources (time and/or money) and more time than you probably planned out for your boss or your client — or yourself!

I am pretty interested in seeing how my Twitter profile has gone from nothing to 2,511+ followers. Twitterholic has allowed me to figure that out in an easy-to-read format, which I appreciate. I joined Twitter on January 6th, 2007. By October 30th, I had 441 followers. It took until May 5th, 2008, to break 1,000 followers. It only took until September 11th for me to break 2,000 followers, and now, as of December 7th (a day that lives in infamy), I have 2,511 followers. I find that interesting to study but I don’t know what it means.

I think I will venture to explain its meaning: social media requires investment and time. Growing a social media profile is like growing a coral reef: after seeding the reef, there are so many things that need to happen before a reef blooms “in its own.” There are many things that can aid the reef: safety, cleanliness, warmth, nutrients, oxygenation, etc… however, one of the most important thing is time and commitment.

Social media cultivation makes most PR and marketing professionals cringe at the thought of trying to sell these solutions to their clients. A client generally wants metrics now and right away. Clients oftentimes spend tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars to create a social network platform, a blog, or a spate of social media profiles that are world class and amazingly turned; however, when the six-month mark comes around and the community is not yet bustling, most clients get severe cold feet and oftentimes abandon all of the work-in (and money out) as a failed campaign — right before the reef blooms!

It kills me to see the number of corporate blogs, home-grown social networks, message boards, and social network profiles that are like those bare and barren rocks and wrecks that never in fact ever blossomed into an emergent community manifest in a coral reef. An ecosystem as delicate and hardy as any social media space, from Twitter to Facebook, from MySpace to your corporate blog.

I forgot to also add to the resources plus time equation: commitment, consistency, calmness, dedication, generosity, and compassion. When you invest in online community as much as I do (2,511 on Twitter with 11,200 tweets, 2,734 on Facebook, 1,496 on LinkedIn, and 5,321 posts on my blog, an online presence I have had since 1999, for example) then you need to be generous — give more than you take — and you need to be committed to the long term. You will need to learn what each community will allow, suffer, enjoy, or penalize. You will learn where the borders are and you will learn what works (and draws people in) and what doesn’t (making them flee).

Well, with no further ado, here’s a lot of work, time, creativity, hours, minutes, wit, mistake, missteps, business, play, Washington, Berlin, Slovakia, San Diego, and a hundred other places. If you want to have 2,500 followers and you’re not already famous, you’ll have to put in the work. If you can achieve tens of thousands of followers, you’re probably already somebody; in that case, it wasn’t just overnight: you just put in your licks elsewhere. Otherwise, put on those work-gloves and start working!

Visit Chris Abraham’s Twitter Page
Visit Chris Abraham’s Webpage

• Chris Abraham was the 608,473rd person to sign up for twitter!
• Chris Abraham is ranked 843rd on twitterholic! (by followers)
• Chris Abraham is ranked 1st in their location on twitterholic!

Bio: Web strategist and new media guru and president of Abraham Harrison LLC, http://chrisabraham.com
Joined Twitter on 2007-01-06 14:51:39

According to Jonathan Trenn, over at Marketing Conversation — Bob Garfield’s “Chaos Scenario” may start locally — the world of advertising is in a place of chaos — spanning the dead zone between traditional advertising methods and new media advertising.

Bob Garfield’s “Chaos Scenario” may start locally

If you haven’t read Bob Garfield’s presentations of how advertising will evolve over the next few years (Part 1 and Part 2), then you should. He calls this the “Chaos Scenario”…a perfect metaphor for what he describes. In it, he argues that traditional advertising is dying out as media usage and consumer behavior are changing. Much of the change has its roots in the rise of the internet as a marketing vehicle. But, Garfield points out, new methods and practices have yet to fully pan out. And many companies haven;t come to grips with this new and show no signs of doing it any time soon. This is going to cause (my interpretation) chaos as traditional media outlets struggle to get advertisers while these advertisers struggle to figure out how to advertise effectively with their limited knowledge.

For the most part, I agree with his thesis. Most major traditional marketing-oriented mediums are becoming less effective as promotional vehicles. Media usage is more dispersed, more personal, and thus, more controlled by the end user. And many times those end users today are choosing to ignore or avoid the advertising messages that are send their way. Whether it ends up being as dire as Garfield suggests, I have no idea, but changes are coming and neither the advertising mediums nor the advertisers themselves are ready for it.

And I think local is where we’ll see it first. I see this happening one the local level over the next three years. Goldman Sachs is predicting that traditional local advertising vehicles – local TV, newspapers and radio stations – are going to get hit particularly hard during this recession. I’m going to agree, and the key world there is “particularly”. That’s because local advertising is hurting anyway as advertisers have already been pulling back because it doesn’t work like it used to. Add to that further cuts in ad spend and you could get a serious amount of casualties on the local media market.

In the above graphs, we can see that newspaper get hit the hardest. Readership is down in the first place. That’s permanent. People have stopped buying newspapers for whatever reason – a lack of interest in news, having news available online, and getting quick news capsules in other mediums. A poor economy has little or no effect on newspaper buying. We won’t be seeing a rebound once the economy bounce back.

The collapse of players in the local ad market will reduce the options for advertisers. Yet the demand will probably still meet the supply. So we’ll see further erosion. Craigslist, satellite radio, and cable TV will make this so.

One of the alternatives will be local online advertising. But I don’t see many local advertisers ready for this. I still see most local companies that are likely to advertise having little more than brochureware websites. I see very little use of local Google Adsense coming from traditional businesses. And, again, the websites are neither optimized for online search nor are they set up with the correct landing pages for potential ads. Local businesses SHOULD be developing internet strategies, but the decision makers in them don’t go to our conferences, they don’t read our blogs, they’re not on Twitter. Nor are they probably on Facebook or MySpace. They’re far from it.

So while they’ll be temporarily holding back ad dollars during tough economic times, they’ll be likely losing some of their traditional advertising choices. And they won’t be ready or equipped to start marketing on new media – because they’ve chosen to not take the time to learn it. The end result? Chaos.

I call it white knuckle syndrome: holding on to the handholds you have, frozen on the face of the cliff, because you don’t know where the handholds of the future are. This chaos is pretty amazing to watch as the economy pitches and GM bails on Super Bowl.

Advertising knows it needs to jump off the locomotive before it pitches into the gorge (the bridge is out!) but reaching out to the proffered hand of the guy in the helicopter seems pretty risky too. But, as the current handholds become chalky and you start to feel them crumble under your weight, you’ll need to find somewhere else to go, and quick!

I tell anyone who will listen to me that the current crop of advertisement methods is too ephemeral. The moment you spend the money and your ad runs is the moment it is either gone to the grave — unless you’re smart and willing to keep it alive, in conversation, online on YouTube for the spots or on a blog somewhere for the print work — or you will feel compelled to keep on throwing money at it ad infinitum, because contextual ads, banner ads, etc, only last as long as you write checks.

What my specialty is is online conversation marketing, online public relations, and online earned media. When you earn peoples’ attention and when they choose to speak about you, your clients, and your services, then you have a gift that keeps on giving — this is content that lasts well past the campaign and into the future. This is both the sort of thing that Google loves — it is SEO catnip — and it is just the sort of content that flows, both upstream to A-list bloggers and to mainstream media and down to your readers, aggregators, and to other bloggers and other blogs. If you want to see some examples of powerfully successful blogger outreaches, check out International Medical Corps (IMC) 2008, Survivor Corps Operation Survivor 2008, and Fresh Air Fund Summer 2008, Jerry White’s I Will Not Be Broken book promotion. In many cases, these campaigns are close to a year old, yet they still still live in hundreds and hundreds of blogs and feed Google’s index until all of these blogs are taken down. It is really amazing how effective this sort of “advertising” promotion works. What’s better, when the campaign is over and the client “turns off” our tap, the content continues living and isn’t just shut off like it is with banners, buttons, and contextual advertising. Very interesting, very cool, and powerfully effective.

Remember how much fun Communication Arts is to page through? — CA is intoxicating! Well, every ad you make can be as interesting, as long as you’re willing to come out of your art department and share your process, share your experience, share your steps. Keeping those ephemera alive through narrative, sharing, conversation, and story, is what social media is, it is what customer service is, it is surely what branding should be.

Anyway, There is a lot of opportunity in this time of chaos, of this time of transition. The same sort of transition (and opportunity) happened when PCs came online, replacing the IBM Selectric II; when the Internet changed E-Commerce, threatening to eviscerate bricks and mortar stores, and it is happening now, more than ever, with advertising, marketing, and PR.

To me, Chris Brogan said it best the other day on Twitter, “customer service is the new PR.*” Looking at what @comcastcares has been able to do, customer service is the new PR, the new marketing, and the new advertising.

So, as those handholds start to get chalk and begin to crumble, it is important to at least set your eyes on a new handhold — or maybe a helping hand — before your original handhold turns to powder.

I know there is so much money — huge buckets of hot cash — in TV commercials (and you’re still all stoked from your experience — and profit — from the presidential campaign) but you need to diversify! You need to start spreading your weight over a number of holds: left and right foot, left and right hand — and hopefully a belay man and some crampons and a few anchors and camming devices… as much as you can do.

This is a time of chaos, and your mistakes will all be gentle and you will be admired for doing cool stuff, so it is a perfect time to make the leap. Right now, SEO, SEM, affiliate and marketing firms, PR firms, and social media consultants are doing ad buys, are learning advertising, are becoming severely profitable.

They drink your milkshake.

But it is not too late. It is a time of chaos, it is a time to take risks. Learn from what has happened to your cousins, PR and main stream media. Evolve or perish. Yes, these will be interesting times for Madison Avenue and around the world.

And for you who have yet to do the reading, please check out Cluetrain Manifesto and Naked Conversation.

Oh, and no, I have not read Bob Garfield’s original presentations of how advertising will evolve over the next few years (Part 1 and Part 2); however, I plan to — and I plan to say more after I do. I merely intended to cross-post Trenn’s article from Marketing Conversation — I just didn’t realize I had such a strong opinion on the issue until I started writing my standard introduction and analysis paragraph.

* I can’t find the quote that Chris Brogan made, however, I can find my quoting of him on Twitter — maybe someone can help me find his original Tweet.

Image via CrunchBase

John Brownlee of Boing Boing Gadgets cracks me up. He is one the reasons why have so much fun in Berlin. I just got off the phone with him and he dropped that he blogged about my business partner, Mark Harrison.

A private moment with Steve Jobs by John Brownlee

My friend Mark Harrison is an intriguing sort: a globe-trotting alpha male who spends winters rubbing elbows with bikini models down in Mauretius and summers either indulging in sport in Berlin or piloting yachts around Cape Horn. He’s also got some fantastic stories about his run-ins with various eccentric business tycoons. One of those tycoons is Steve Jobs.

According to Mark, the year was 2000, and the company he worked for had set up a meeting with Jobs. Their pitch was simple: while Apple at that time owned the educational market up until the end of grade school, they completely lost all of their users by the time high school started, where computer labs became dominated by PCs. Their proposition was simple: team up with Apple and leverage their presence in thousands of schools to expand Apple’s educational market share.

From the very second he sat down with them, Jobs seemed agitated. The second his ass hit the chair, Jobs began rocking back and forth autistically. But as Mark’s colleagues made blunt and undeniable appraisals of Apple’s presence in high school computer labs, the rocking dramatically increased, then exploded… along with Jobs.

A purpling shade of apoplectic, Jobs launched to his feet, flecking the table with spittle. “You’re shit! Your company’s shit! It’s nothing compared to mine!” he screamed, an outstretched finger jutting accusingly up and down. Eventually, his fury was spent, and the situation was defused by some politically expedient cooing noises.

Still, it’s all just so Jobs, isn’t it? Ever since I heard the anecdote, I can’t help but think of Jobs that way. Turgid with rage and quivering in front of a PC or DAP or mobile phone, spraying its display with spittle: “You’re shit! SHIT! DO YOU HEAR ME? Your operating system’s nothing compared to mine.”

Mark used to be a big cheese for Primedia in New York at the turn of the century but I had never heard this story. Please read and laugh. The funny thing is that back in the day, Mark and I were big proponents of Apple and their Apple for the Teacher and Apple for the School program. We were inspired by the Apple Evangelist, Guy Kawasaki, and both wondered why Apple kept on dropping the ball and ceeding market share to Microsoft. Well, after reading this post you will see that is was probably hubris.

Related articles

• Steve Job Passed On (it-sideways.com)
• Steve Jobs is dead (ireaderreview.com)
• Steve Jobs has Passed Away (geektyrant.com)
• Steve Jobs Has Passed Away (1955-2011) | ZeroHedge (tomhuff.wordpress.com)
• Steve Jobs Has Died (923now.radio.com)
• Steve Jobs: 1955 – 2011 (macstories.net)
• R.i.p. Steve Jobs (jesssmartsmiley.wordpress.com)
• Steve Jobs Has Passed Away (dlisted.com)
• Apple: Company Co-Founder Steve Jobs Has Died (annem040359.wordpress.com)
• Apple Honors Steve Jobs (suburbanmen.com)

Please check out my first article as a writer for AdAge, In ‘Poor But Sexy’ Berlin, Brands Need to Understand Casual.

In ‘Poor But Sexy’ Berlin, Brands Need to Understand Casual: To market successfully, you need to understand college kids

This is my first post for the Global Idea Network and I am happy to be here. I aim to post once-a-week about my experience in Berlin and around Europe as an expat. Today, I want to talk a little bit about Berlin, the city its Mayor, Klaus Wowereit, called “poor but sexy.”

Berlin is sexy, poor, and the most casual city I can imagine. Everyone wears jeans, t-shirts, hoodies, and some sort of field jacket. At first I mistook this casualness as slovenliness or poverty. No. Berlin’s casualness is very intentional. In spite of limited cash, Berliners are slaves to fashion and remain current. The moment jeans went skinny, Berlin went skinny. When the world became obsessed with Chuck Taylors, Berliners sported them. Current, as long as the fashion palette keeps to caps, jeans, t-shirts, jackets, and sneakers. When my friend Mark wore the wrong sort of casual his friends staged an intervention: the jeans were all wrong, the jacket was uncool, and the shoes had to go.

It occurred to me that successful marketing in Berlin requires marketing to college kids, who are the epitome of poor but sexy, across the board and for everything. How would you sell a car, a cell phone, a pair of panties, a watch, some gum, a bank account, or a credit card to a teenager and you’ll probably get it right here in Berlin.

When it comes to purchases, Berliners judge each others’ fashion sense like they do at college, where how you were dressed had more to do with style and selection — how you wore it — and less to do with the total cost of purchase and where you bought it. Competition in the marketplace comes from flea markets, hand-me-downs, swap meets, and eBay as easily as it may your competitor. Lots of those skinny jeans and Chuck Taylors were scored used from the 80s. I learned from my friend Libia from Mexico City that Berlin is world famous for its used clothing and consignment stores. There is no stigma associated with getting stuff used and cheap — quite the opposite.

There are other concerns when marketing to Berliners: biking, weather, exposure, and the elements. Like college students, Berliners take public transport and ride bikes every day in all sorts of Central European weather. In fact, I have been told again and again that bicycles are neither recreational nor optional. They’re essential to daily life. Like students going to class in the morning, Berliners need to carry everything they need for the day with them. Necessity demands that Manolos are pretty impractical, as are skirts, heavily-styled hairdos, and exceptionally-delicate makeup rituals.

Berlin casual is not limited to kids in their teens and twenties, however. I am talking about my 39-year-old friend Frank, who pretty much dresses in hooded sweatshirts and jeans all the time (with a fierce family brand loyalty to the G-Star brand, universally popular in Berlin) and, coincidentally, dresses just like his two sons, 8 and 10, as you can see in the photo illustrations. Yes, Frank, who runs a production company called The Lime Machine, approved this post.

I have been invited to be a European correspondent to the AdAge Global Idea Network. I am a resident of Berlin, Germany, and will be mostly reporting my experience in Central and Eastern Europe; however, GIN is a moveable feast — it is global, after all. I hope you enjoy the post. Please consider subscribing to the blog. I plan to post at least once-a-week. Plus, there are a wide assortment of other great bloggers from around the world.

My friend wrote the following email to me. I asked her if I might be able to post it and she said yes, as long as I make it anonymous:

So maybe you’ll understand my irritation. Yesterday I found myself defending feminism to a couple of otherwise fairly liberal women. I’m not yet able to articulate precisely what about this conversation I found most disturbing. I’ll spare you the details, but one of them was arguing that feminism didn’t accomplish anything because women have always been able to do whatever they wanted to. To me, this just displays astounding ignorance (and how do you counter that, really?). Both of them, however, were arguing, essentially, that a woman’s primary purpose is to have and raise children. Really? And they weren’t so subtle in what they thought of me by way of implication. (It’s very possible I was reading more into this than I should have.)Now there are certain circles where I expect this sort of bullshit (and this is by no means a slight on women who choose to have/raise kids). And I’ve been distancing myself from those circles as much as I can. But it doesn’t look like I cant dodge this issue much longer, seeing as it appears unavoidable even amongst purported liberals. I’m hoping that with these women at least–I probably won’t see them again until after the new year–the issue is dropped, particularly because I don’t really feel that, in a professional setting anyway, I can really say what I think, in the way I really WANT to say it.Why, why, why in this day and age are women still most valued–even among other women–not for their brains, their wits, their gifts, their abilities, their accomplishments, but for their uterus? I had no idea this line of thinking, is this country anyway, went beyond the usual suspects. I thought that being valued for who one is, man or woman, should be a given. Or am I just pissed as an inherently flawed person because I’m not a nurturer? And what should I say/do the next time I run into this sort of thing?

Firstly, I am honored that I was included in the email — I am the only boy — with the subject line, “You’re enlightened people.”Secondly, I studied feminist theory in college and have always been a proponent of equal rights for women as they choose to define it.Thirdly, I would really love to get a discussion going about this issue because it means a lot to me, to my friend, and to loads and loads of women who value themselves for “their brains, their wits, their gifts, their abilities, their accomplishments” and not just for their uteri.

I love my new old Seiko 6309-7040 Diver but I have had some problems with fogging that had been killing me. It is always so sad when you have a perfect, badass, chunky Seiko diver that is fogged up — diving watches, even classic watches from the 70s, should probably be water-resistant. It got fogged up, then I put it away and used my other fancy diver.

After a couple months, the steel bracelet of my other diver broke, so I went back to my Seiko 6309-7040 Diver — and the fogging was gone for months. Sadly, I adjusted the time and it fogged again. I have been struggling with the fogging. I tried to dry out the watch in the oven and it worked until the watch got cool, then it fogged again.

Here’s the solution — and it might be unintuitive, but it works! Unscrew the watch to make sure it can breathe. Then, throw the watch into the freezer! There isn’t any place in the house that is drier than the ice box.

Why? Well, because all the water turns to ice, so the watch dries out and all of the vapor leaves the watcha and take to the rest of the box. So far, I removed the watch from the freezer, quickly adjusted the time and then put it on my wrist. So far so good.

So, if you have a problem with your dive watch or any other watch and there’s water in the watch and you’re getting all fogged up, give the freezer a try. You need to make sure your screw-down winding mechanism is unscrewed; otherwise, you’ll just freeze the water inside the watch.

So, I know you’re tempted to put the watch on top of the radiator or in over at a very low temperature, it doesn’t work as well as bringing the timepiece below zero. The watch is now down to body temperature and the watch it still clear! I will let you know what I discover — to see if it really works.

I love this watch very much and I want this classic tool watch — it is really iconic and probably one of the best, most innovative, dive watch ever produced, with the famous and very cool.

Who knows.

I think that if the watch doesn’t maintain its dryness, I will need to find myself a watchmaker or watch repair guru to give me some proper help.

Anyway, if you have any sure-fire ways to dry out a watch, please let me know because I am still not completely certain that this watch is completely clear of humidity.

I will try to give you a report in about 24-hours as to how this all worked out (crossing fingers).

I am here in Bratislava, Slovakia, to attend the 2008 Daily Web Conference as a speaker. I am still a little in the dark but I do know that I will probably be totally amusing and use some variation of the below presentation, that I sort of practiced for your edification and amusement.  What do you think?  Is it enough for the Brightest Minds of Central Europe?