Of course, there are some tips for setting up a good business dinner. Things like – if you’re booking the restaurant, only go somewhere that you’ve been before and that has a wide range of types of food and a quiet enough atmosphere to allow for conversation to happen easily. And other suggestions such as – pick a place that has parking because you don’t want to frustrate people by making them drive around one-way streets looking for a meter spot for a half hour (I live in Boston, this is VERY important!) But these three tips are about getting the most out of the business dinner.

1 – Listen first, ask questions and keep it brief. People love to talk. And they particularly love to talk about themselves. If you’re at a business dinner, this also applies to people loving to talk about their work, the company that they work for or the business that they started. Before you start talking, let them tell you about themselves. If they don’t do it naturally, ask them some questions. If question-asking doesn’t come easily to you, plan the questions ahead of time. “Tell me about what you do” is a good starting point. Ask questions about the history of the company, the role that they play there, big contracts, their areas of growth and their plans for the future. Ask questions about their family, where they live, when they mention their hobbies, ask about those. Be interested in the people who you are dining with – that will go a long way. On the other hand, don’t talk too much. If there are two of you, you should talk less than 30% of the time. If there are more than two of you, the percentage should drop to less than 15%. And most of that time should be asking questions and talking about topics that your dining companions bring up first.

2 – Find common ground (aka don’t get on your soapbox & don’t take offense). When you do talk, make sure that your topics are neutral or related to something that they brought up first. It’s totally OK to talk about your business (you’re at a work dinner, after all) and anything related to work that you are passionate about, but you don’t want to offend your dining companion. You’re not out to dinner with friends, so you don’t know what these people think – about anything. It’s better to leave the debate for conversations between friends – you are trying to find commonalities, not differences.

If someone that you’re dining with says something with which you would normally take offense, let it go. A business dinner is not the place to correct or educate your dining companion on the places that they are wrong or that their opinions differ from yours. Of course, you should take everything that is said into consideration when you’re trying to decide whether to do business going forward – but getting your guard up is not going to help anything in the middle of a social dinner.

3 – Be likeable. This is probably the most important point of all. Even if you violate the first and second tips here, and talk too much and about controversial topics, but people like you, you’re going to be OK. Being likeable is a challenging thing to quantify, though, because everyone thinks that they are likeable. So to be sure that you can accomplish this, you’ll probably have to enlist the help of a partner, co-worker or trustworthy friend. Ask them to help you. Find out from your co-workers what part of your job that you talk about too much. Ask them what aspects of the job they think are most interesting – focus on those things. Check with your friends – the ones that you think are the most likeable – and ask them what stories you tell that are their favorites. What stories do you tell that make people laugh? What are some interesting things about you? What are some pieces of trivia about the place that you’re visiting (you can look these things up ahead of time!) What’s a quirky but interesting story that you read in the news recently? What’s something interesting about the town that you’re from? These types of stories are things that you can think of ahead of time – so when there is a lull in the conversation, you can pull them out and be likeable with your good stories, your interesting anecdotes and your fun tales.

At the end of the day, the business dinner is all about relationships. And they are often the difference between signing the contract across the conference table when the meeting moves from dinner to the board room.

Photo by swami stream

Click here to take the quiz

(UPDATE: I’m going to ask you for an email address at the end of the process. I wanted to warn you up front so that I don’t catch you off guard!)

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One of the things that we’re working on at Pure Incubation is launching a variety of software tools for publishers aimed at helping them solve their most crucial business issues. (If you want to know more about those publishing problem areas, read this post.) We’re doing this through our Sauce Technology business unit, and today I want to introduce you to a specific application - Quiz Sauce.

The quiz above was built using the application - give it a whirl and let me know what you think. Here’s the link to take the quiz in case you missed it above - What tech entrepreneur are you most like?

First, publishing is broken because media and publishing companies don’t have a way to effectively account for their audience. In one traditional publishing model, specifically in the B2B controlled circulation print publishing world, publications require subscribers to fill out a qualification form. Qualification forms are long, multi-point questionnaires that ask a series of data points that help the magazine figure out if the subscriber is a qualified recipient of the magazine. (See an example here) Basically, to qualify to receive a print magazine for free, a subscriber would fill out this long form that asked various demographic questions, as well as information about the subscriber’s budgets, number of sites that they had purchasing power over, and how many people they influenced at their job, etc. Those forms are then used to determine who qualifies to receive a free subscription of the magazine. If the subscriber has enough purchasing power, they get the magazine. The publisher is then able to use this data to provide a subscriber profile to potential advertisers, who then decide to run ads in the magazine based on the demographic profile of the subscribers who are receiving that magazine. All of which was qualified and audited based on the qualification forms.

As the online shift has happened, things have changed. Where the Internet allows for audience measurement (IAB Guidelines [PDF]) in a way that print publishing never did, it isn’t necessarily measuring the things that are going to help publishers succeed. While the Internet allows for a great deal of measurement, the measurement is in metrics such as page views, time spent, number of page views and the like. These data points are valuable to advertisers, but don’t provide any information into the specifics of the audience that is visiting that site. So a site like CleanRooms, (just as an example, not to pick on that site specifically), which is micro-targeted to people who care about contamination control technology, can show its advertisers that its website was visited x number of times in June, but can’t provide details on exactly who it was that visited the site. Advertisers know the reach of their message, but they can’t be sure of the targeting.

This has caused a weird content dilemma. Instead of focusing on creating the content that will serve their audience specifically, publishers have begun creating content that will attract the MOST readers, because they are measured by page views instead of audience specifics. This is the first thing that has to change online. The model that the qualified magazines used where they were able to provide specific data on exactly who is visiting their site – the audience demographics – is essential. This is particularly an issue with B2B publishing where the goal has always been to reach the right audience, not necessarily the broadest audience. (This is less of an issue in consumer publishing where the goal was to reach the largest number of possible people.)

The only way to overcome this challenge is for publishers to move this audience development model online – so that they are capturing details and data about their audience. Not only is it vital that they are able to prove exactly who their audience is, but the ability to capture their contact information and permission to continue to contact them in the future is also vital. It is with that contact data and permission, just as it was when publishers were able to send subscribers print magazines, that the publishers are going to be able to build their audience, get them to build affinity and be an effective media partner to advertisers.

The second issue is the way that advertising is being as audiences move from print to online. With the print publication, advertisers were content to know that their message was being read, reviewed or at least seen by the right audience. With the move to online, advertisers are looking for measurability. Google has changed the online media industry not only by providing a low-cost online advertising channel for marketers, and not only by allowing publishers to generate simple revenue by running advertising on their sites, but also by pioneering the idea of return-on-investment (ROI) and pay-for-performance media. No longer are advertisers satisfied to buy advertising on the same basis as they did in print, just to reach a specific audience demographic. (Remember, there’s some question as to whether online sites are reaching the same demographic that their print counterpoints were reaching.) Advertisers are now flocking to ROI-based advertising channels like search marketing and lead generation. The issue is that publishers are having a difficult time figuring out how to offer these types of programs to their advertisers, but they have to figure this out or else they are going to be in deep, deep trouble.

Finally, the nature of content has changed entirely. In the traditional publishing model, media companies hired content producers who wrote fabulous content that was pushed out to subscribers via their print publications on a periodic basis. With the launch of the Internet, the publishers were able to publish to a site that the audience could come back to on their schedule – that was revolutionary at the time. But now, things have changed to an even larger degree. No longer are the media companies and publishers the sole creators of content – not by a long shot. Now there are new media companies with content producers, bloggers who are self-publishing content, and a whole host of user-generated content channels, such as social networks, reviews sites and the like. On top of that, all of the companies that relied for years on the publishers to get the message out about their products have become publishers. They have websites, but they also create and distribute content in an incredibly wide variety of formats.

Publishers who are coming from the traditional model are fighting this change. They make the argument that traditional journalism, although it’s going through a huge decline, is one of the foundations of our society and without it, we are going to suffer. It might be. And we might suffer. But the truth is that consumers of content – the subscribers of the past – want lots of different types of content (PDF), and they want to get their content from a variety of sources.

Here’s a fictional, but realistic example. A new virtualization server is being released by Dell. A consumer hears about it because there is a news story on his favorite technology Web site. He wants to know more, so he goes hunting for content. That publication only has that one article, but he doesn’t know that; he follows the links in the article to find additional information. On that publication’s site, he reads an old story about another company that has a virtualization server, then a round-up of virtualization servers, both of which were linked to in the article. He clicks on a link to a white paper (written by Dell, hosted on the publication’s web site), and reads that. But that’s not really all the information he wants – he wants more information on this new virtualization server. So he clicks the link to the press release from Dell. At the bottom of the press release is a link to the page on the Dell website that has more information – so he goes there. The Dell Website has a whole bunch of information on the server, including pictures, a video and a white paper about the benefits of virtualization in an insurance company, which happens to be the industry that the consumer is in, so he reads and watches all that content. After reading all the information available on Dell’s site, the consumer goes to Slashdot to see if anything has been written about the new server, and then goes to Google where he types “Dell virtualization reviews” and goes to five sites that feature reviews from IT pros that have used other Dell virtualization servers in the past. He then gets back to work, fairly satisfied with the information that he’s read.

In the old model, publishers don’t really believe that this is the way things work. They don’t believe that a consumer of content reads any information from a vendor and believes it. But the truth is, content consumers are looking for multiple angles on the same topic. They want to know what the journalist thinks and will give that information great weight, but they also want to know what the vendor says about their own product, and what their peers have to say. Just check out the graphic below, from the Enquiro Business to Business survey 2007 (registration required) – about the types of content that are involved in and influence the B2B buying process. Content from all sources isn’t only viable, it’s necessary and highly influential. Publishers, many of which have a large number of livelihoods tied up in the traditional publishing model, aren’t totally willing to let go of their long-held beliefs to embrace an online strategy that includes content from a wide array of sources. But they must if they want to retain their audience and subscribers.

These are the problems with publishing that I see – 1) the need for effective audience development methodologies; 2) the ability to support ROI-based advertising programs and; 3) the diversification of content types to solve all the needs and wants of the core audience.

Without embracing these three elements, traditional publishers are doomed. But if publishers can figure these things out, it might just save publishing.

Photo of rusty printing press by anyjazz65

The tool allows you a few options - Unfollow all who do not follow you back, Unfollow all, and Follow all who follow you. You can also add in up to 50 users who won’t be affected by the action, so if you have a particular celebrity that you like to track or thought-leader who doesn’t follow you but you want to keep tracking, you can exclude them from the action.

This service is free for accounts with up to 1800 followers or friends. For larger accounts, this can be used up to three times for free.

This isn’t a recommendation to use this tool - I don’t think that either bulk following or bulk unfollowing is a great Twitter strategy. But I have heard from many people who are looking for a tool to accomplish this exact functionality, and have seen Huitter’s tool work effectively.

I’m from Binghamton, N.Y.

In the past, when I told people that fact, I had to explain where Binghamton is located. (Upstate. Do you know where Syracuse is? No? Ithaca? No? How about Albany? You know, the state capital? About two hours from there.) But now, everyone has heard of Binghamton. I wish that it was because our basketball team made it to the NCAA championship. But sadly, it’s for a far grimmer reason.

I have had a number of posts half-written about what happened in Binghamton since I heard the news. None of them seems quite right to publish in the wake of the multitude of experiences and sadness and loss. But I will say that Binghamton is so much more than a sick shooter and tragedy and death. Just as the city isn’t all bad, it isn’t all good with “tidy houses lining the neat streets,” as I heard someone on CNN report (I guess they must have been reading Wikipedia). But Binghamton is my hometown, as Rod Serling wrote. I love it, and I love the people who live there. And I’m incredibly saddened by the recent events.

But that’s not really what this post is about. This post is about how the news spread, and just how much media has changed.

Just a few years back, news was spread by the mainstream media. Some event would happen, and other than the few people who might have been at the scene, the majority of people found out the news through TV, radio, or even the Internet. But typically, the people reporting on the news were the major news media outlets that were using various media to report the news.

But all that is changing. Now, there are a variety of publishing and communication tools that allow everyone - not just the mainstream media - to distribute news. My experience finding out about what had happened in the Binghamton shooting event was completely different than during any other news even in the past. Not only was the information transferred through a variety of media, but the people who were passing on the news were the people on the scene, the people who really knew what was happening; the people who I care about.

Here’s a timeline of what I found out, when and how:

April 3
12:45pm - Instant Message from a co-worker who saw the news on Twitter.

1:20pm - Phone call from my husband Chris, who was driving to a meeting and heard the news on the radio.

1:24pm - Text from a friend: “Turn on CNN now if you can. Shootings in bingo.”

1:28pm - Text from another friend: “Binghamton is in the new Big Time. Shootings”

1:38pm - Twitter Direct Message: “Did you see what’s going on in Binghamton?”

2:44pm - Facebook post from friend: “I just heard that my brother [a Binghamton police officer] is safe from the incident in Binghamton. Thank god.”

4:24pm - Facebook post from my cousin, who’s a firefighter in Binghamton: “Just got back from working the worst shooting in Binghamton history. Never thought that being a firefighter I would be wearing a bullet proof jacket. It was not good at all. prayers for the injured.”

9:23pm - Text from a friend: “Sadly I heard from that [a friend’s] mom was teaching English there 2day and may have been killed. It’s not official yet, but likely.”

For me, during this event, the news that I cared the most about I got from my friends and family through a variety of means - text messages, IM, Facebook. I watched some of the news coverage on CNN and MSNBC, but when Geraldo started spouting off about how Binghamton “is a very tight knit community” I had to turn him off. I didn’t want to see pictures of the American Civic Association via Microsoft Virtual Earth. I didn’t want to watch the news teams scramble to find someone that they could talk to who knew the town and the people there. I wanted to connect with friends and family, via the phone, Twitter, texting, Facebook. I wanted the news from people I loved and trusted, just like I always have. But the big shift is that now there are ways to do this; to gather and disseminate information and to keep connected to all the people I want to talk to who are hundreds of miles away.

Now, instead of listening to what the mainstream media has to say about Binghamton, I can find out what my friends and family think. And I can be encouraged and inspired by things like this awesome note posted to Facebook by one of my cousins:

“Over the past few days, I have listened to people all over the country try and define Binghamton. I will take a stab at it. Binghamton consists of a majority of people that are “down to earth”, love their family, cherish good times with friends, are not afraid to work hard and care about their neighbors. That is why no matter where you go, it is always good to see Binghamtonians! You know who you are!”

Like I said, the app launched today and the first quiz is out - What Style Wedding Gown is Right for You? Although this quiz will clearly be the most useful for anyone planning a wedding (and I hope that you’ll forward the link to any bride-to-be that you know), I would love for anyone reading this post to take the quiz and send me feedback. You can find my contact details here or post your comments to the bottom of this post. Seriously - I want to know what you think about the whole thing, specifically the application, but also about the content of the quiz. All comments, both positive and negative, are welcome.

Since I’m talking about the wedding Websites, here’s one more random bit. On the March 12 episode of The Office, Michael Scott (the show’s “hero”) is talking about a business idea that he has planned. Although his imaginary company is called “shoe-la-la,” I couldn’t help but find it humorous that I actually HAVE a site called Shoella. The names are eerily similar. Here’s the clip - enjoy.

And please send me your comments and feedback!

I was working on an article for The Industry Standard - When will BlackBerry App World launch? And I found a lot of reports from various media organizations, including Gizmodo, that the App World store was set to launch on March 4. It didn’t. So then I was looking everywhere for the reports that the store launch was delayed, trying to find out what happened to RIM to delay the launch.

But I didn’t find any stories about the App World delays.

So that oddity caused me to send a quick note off to a BlackBerry PR rep to ask her about the March 4 launch date. Her response:

“RIM announced the official name of the application storefront – BlackBerry App World – on March 4th. The company did not set March 4th as a launch date. I did see some articles that mistakenly said the store was announced on the 4th, but that was just the date the official name was released (the storefront was actually first announced in fall 2008). BlackBerry App World is on track to launch within the next month.”

I sent the note and heard back from the rep about 1.5 hours later. Easy. But this experience brought home the point that Fred Wilson made on March 4 (ironically) about talking to the source to get a story right. It is so easy to send a quick note to a company or an individual to check on the facts of a story before publishing, but it’s easier to NOT send that note. Trust me - I’m as guilty of this as the next guy. I just happened to notice a discrepancy when I was researching the story; otherwise it’s doubtful that I would have sent that note to the PR rep at all.

This is definitely a problem with online publishing. Not that one publication could make a mistake - that happens in print publishing, too. But that one publication makes a mistake, which is then picked up over, and over, and over again by various online media outlets without anyone ever checking the facts.

The solution to this problem is the readers. It will be up to all of us to determine the reliable publications, and support them by reading the ones that are good, and not the others.

Photo by srslyguy

Yes, that’s right - Steve Wozniak (aka The Woz) is one of the contestents on this season’s Dancing with the Stars, which debuts tonight. I am rooting for him, although after watching the video embeded below, I’m not holding out a lot of hope that he’s going to crack the top 10. But GO GET ‘EM WOZ!!! It takes a whole lot more guts than I have to go on television in front of 20+ million people dancing. Seriously, that is some brave stuff. I saw video of myself dancing at my wedding. Not. Pretty.

There is one thing that I think might get missed in all the stories about Woz’s efforts to dominate the dance floor that is worth mentioning. That one thing comes from a letter that was posted to his personal Website.

“An iPhone app to vote for me should be in the iTunes store soon but it’s not there yet.”

As far as I can tell, this is the first time that a reality TV contestant has launched an iPhone application to help fans cast votes for him. But it won’t be the last.

Leave it to The Woz to innovate in a format that no one thought could ever be improved upon - Reality TV.

(And sorry for the lack of recent posts! I am hoping to get back to writing more regularly VERY SOON.)