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July 25, 2005

And of course with easy payment terms...

Just saw this quote from The Sun magazine (wonderful monthly writing, ideas, essays):

"The only reason a great many American families don't own an elephant is that they have never been offered an elephant for a dollar down and easy weekly payments." - Mad magazine

How true this is. Just goes to show you how important it is to get entry offers that lower barriers for people to make the initial purchase decision.

Posted by johnza at 09:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 21, 2005

The Fourth Place as a Blog

A while ago we wrote a piece called the Fourth Place about how the web, blogs, or web businesses should aspire to repeat what Starbucks has strived for as a Third Place outside of home and work.

And lo and behold, I run across this blog called the Fourth Place from a developer in London, who uses his site as just this sort of Forth Place because...

"Sometimes when there's a lot going on in your head its nice to get it out on paper. Paper's too old fashioned so this programmer does it online. I'm 24 living in London and thinking a lot about all kinds of things."

Posted by johnza at 04:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Personal MBA

Josh Kaufman just launched a new site called the personal MBA. A really cool idea of building the resources you need to have your own MBA equivilent without spending a fortune. I like what this is doing. There are forums resources etc. Cool.

He also got his Personal MBA 40 approved as a Change This manifesto. Congrats and can't wait to see it come out.

This is an awesome list of books to read. And we are deeply flattered to be included.

Posted by johnza at 04:18 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 19, 2005

Round up of recent web mentions/reviews

Here's a quick summary of some nice (and otherwise) mentions we've gotten about the book and the blog:

• Software CEO put us tops on their summer reading list, calling the book "one that any software marketer should check out... a surprisingly useful guide to marketing strategy... a down-to-earth approach... refreshingly free of the buzzwords and big-company academic theory that plagues most marketing books." We were in interesting company worth checking out, including "The Real Story of Informix Software and Phil White" by Steve W. Martin; "Presenting to Win: The Art of Telling Your Story" by our buddy Jerry Weissman; "Beyond Bullet Points: Using Microsoft PowerPoint to Create Presentations that Inform, Motivate, and Inspire" by Cliff Atkinson; "The Best Software Writing 1" edited by Joel Spolsky ; and the "Software Sales & Distribution SuperBook."
• Stanford Business School put us on their recommended reading list, saying "The coaches who designed this playbook tested and perfected their system as marketing executives at Microsoft and as venture capitalists." (Note: Rich is a Stanford alum)
• The M Show had nice things to say about us in their marketing podcast episode 20
• Marketing Journal says that you "Gotta have a look at this marketing website and book... They will tell you how you should market and compete against your competitors with 5 basic strategies for a competitive market."
• Global Mammal particulary liked the description of the Stealth Play
• Ben Casnocha called us "a clear and entertaining look at proven tactics that start ups can employ to make inroads in a new market."
• Chief Marketer gave a nice summary of the book and our DMA pitch.
• Crosshairs also liked the DMA pitch and the book
• Eric Sohn liked our thoughts on perfection, but took us to task a bit (and also gave good input on) for shameless promoting one of our companies (which we will likely continue to shamelessly do)
• Alexoid also likes our thoughts on perfection
• Charles Fitzgerald was so inspired by the platform play that he started a blog on it
• They'll All Fall waxes poetic about marketing - “Marketing. Somehow, that's the same as influence and seduction. And yet, few of us has taken the time to investigate it.”

For a summary of our other acclaim and stuff click here.

Posted by johnza at 05:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 18, 2005

Real Beauty: In the Eye, Ear or Brain of the Beholder

Images are powerful marketing tools. They say alot about the marketers using them and our response to them says a lot about us as consumers, as people and as a soceity. Nowhere is this more true than in images of women.

Not that I am qualified to comment, but early today I was priviledged to join a radio discussion on WBUR in Boston on exactly these topics, sparked by Dove's ongoing campaign, the Campaign for Real Beauty. The other, much more qualified participants included:

• Dr. Nancy Etcoff, Harvard Medical School psychologist, and author of the book, Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty
• Julia Savacool, senior news editor at Marie Claire, and author of the article, One Woman, Two Messages: Does your attitude about your body influence the way other people see you?
• Kathy O'Brien, Direct of Customer Marketing at Dove
• and Jennifer Westaway as host.

It was a fascinating discussion with lots of interesting data about how women see themselves and how media imagery influences that self perception. And also about how the new Dove campaign, which uses unretouched imagery of all kinds of women who aren't models relates to those findings. Interesting call ins as well. A few who felt patronized but others who really loved the diversity.

Despite some questions about the possible cynicism of Dove, who is owned by Unilever (who also sells Slimfast), most everyone felt - including, as I posted previously, myself - that this campaign was a refreshing step in the right direction.

To listen to the full show, click here (note you will need the Real Media player).

As a quick follow-up to the show, I thought I would do my own survey of the blogsphere. Here's a summary of what I came up with:

• Bohemian Yuppie loves the realistic approach to beauty and has some good perspective on the Etcoff study
• On the other hand, Stephen Newton dissented, his wife hates the campaign and wouldn't want to be seen with Dove products for what it says about her - that she is a fat, unattractive person
• World Magazine blog, a Christian oriented site had tons of commentary almost all in support, including a comment that the Christian right should spend more time preaching postive self image than indicting others
• AdLand admired the campaign and had a good overall survey of the all the aspects of the campaign
• Noise Between Stations, like the integrated nature of the campaign, including the online customer interaction, feeling that they helped make it more genuine
• Tokyo Times, noted a recent blond wig tossing event with support
• CMO Magazine quoted Mary Lou Quinlan, CEO of Just Ask a Woman, a New York marketing consultancy saying "To say that you’re beautiful just the way you are, it’s a warm, fuzzy feeling, but does it make the cash register ring?"
• Moon Rocket felt that the in "differentiating Real Beauty from beauty depicted in traditional advertisements" the campaign became disingenuous. And that it "would have been better served had Dove made this transition in their marketing ideology without issuing numerous self-congratulatory press announcements meant to lure customers to their brand of beauty products."
• Collaboration marketing, another marketing blog, really appreciates the campaign
• The Guardian found some folks, real beauties in their own rights that felt the models aren’t flawed enough
• Dragon Fly Grrl, an LA woman's blog,
  found it really refreshing living in the land of the super model and super model wannabes
• This is What We Do Now loves it too
  
  So net, net, it is at least generating a lot of commentary and attention and - I think - a healthy discussion. And most folks are in support of it.

If it raised awareness of Dove too, I continue to call it a really good campaign

Posted by johnza at 04:16 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 08, 2005

Gotta love a premium

OK. This is a shameless promotion of one of our portfolio companies but so what. It is a very good offer. And I love good offers.

Judy's book is giving away $5 Starbucks cards if you write 5 reviews of local services, venues etc.

Huge response. Lots of good reviews. Go ahead and get writing. Hey, you may not add to the page rank of your blog, but with this typing you get a free frappicino or two!!

Posted by johnza at 12:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 07, 2005

Yes AND So

We've written a lot about how the words "Yes" "But" "So" can really work as the outline to any kind of persuasive arguement you want to make.

• "Yes", establishing empathy, understanding of your audience's situation.
• "But" pivoting to the challenge, allowing for disagreement or change
• "So" introducing your conclusion

Sounds good and works, in most cases. But recently my wife pointed out that while the word "Yes" is great, and really helps lower your audience's (in this case our pleading son's) inherent resistance, the word "But" can bring that resistance right back up.

"But" can signal "oh yeah, here it comes, the negative, the disagreement, the disappointment..." So, in her dramatically greater sensitivity and wisdom, she said why not use the word "AND" instead? In most cases it accomplishes the same thing in terms of your arguement but it doesn't raise hackles.

Why tell someone "Yeah, yeah I see your point, but you're wrong, so I have a better idea?" Just to make them mad and more resistant. Maybe in some cases, but that is not usually what you are trying to do in marketing. Instead, why not say, "Yes, I see where you are coming from. And, we could take that further. So, lets come to the following conclusion together."

Yes, I see my wife's point, and she is generally right. So, let's take it a little further...

• Yes, "And" and "But" are both coordinating conjunctions: "joining two items of equal syntactic importance" (part of the group "for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so" that form the mnemonic FANBOYS) - i.e. in structural logic terms they mean exactly the same thing.
• And, my wife is right that "But" also can connote negativity - "Implies that the following clause is contrary to prior belief."
• So, "with the result or consequence that," although I frankly think "But" works better than "And" in the above arguement, I am going to use "And" instead whenever I talk to my wife because it works better for her. And besides S.O. is also an abbreviation for "Significant Other" and I want to keep it that way.

And if all the above contortions of "And" and "But" wasn't confusing enough, here are a bunch of links to others I found googling "Yes But So":

• A whole blog called Yes But Still - very nice statement that "life is what happens when your reading aphorisms" (remember if you can't be a poet...)
• "Yes saddam is evil but.." Boy, what do you follow that with?
• Yes, But Why Are the Grammys So Awful? Got me, maybe it's a requirement for awards ceremonies and political conventions.
• Living Longer, yes! But living well? - Hey, eat drink and be merry!!
  (Simple measures that will help keep you healthy)
• Yes, But Is Weight Loss the Be-All and the End-All? I certainly hope not
• Yes, character counts, but so does winning. Hey, wait a minute I thought that was my excuse for getting picked last for the football team.

Note: there were almost no entries for "Yes And So" Hmmmm....

Posted by johnza at 04:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 06, 2005

Blogging -- Real life

"If you cannot be a poet, be the poem." - David Carradine

Boy, have I ever been absent from blogging for a while. And I feel bad about it. But this great quote made me feel better.

Maybe what I've been writing in this blog isn't exactly poetry, but it was writing. And maybe running around the country communicating with investors and trying to help small companies grow isn't exactly a poem but it sure did make me too busy doing to write anything about it lately.

Hope to have a bit more time for reflection in coming weeks. And still like the idea of "being the poem" in the other parts of my life too.

Posted by johnza at 09:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack