Blogging often is seen as a young person's game. But I think it's a near-perfect pastime for me and others who have retired or are approaching retirement -- and our numbers in the blogosphere are growing daily.

In fact, blogging is also for centinarians:

Now there are thousands -- including 108-year-old Olive Riley, who lives in Australia and blogs at Life of Riley (www.allaboutolive.com.au) with the help of her friend Mike Rubbo.

I talk about this in seminars and events all the time and am even pitching a few folks on the idea that blogging is for the masses (at least, now it is!) and until you do a bit of exploration, you never know who you can reach!

I still remain a hardcore Boingo fan. The $21.95/month for Boingo has saved me hundreds in Wifi fees at hotels, coffee shops, airports and nearly everywhere else that you can use Boingo. It's really a shame that Boingo hasn't been able to get in cahoots with AT&T or T-mobile (at least not where I'm sitting... Boingo is not a roaming provider option).

Actually, this whole post was prompted by the guy sitting next to me that was just checking in to see if the Wifi was working OK. He's a contractor responsible for shutting down and taking out the Tmobile equipment and finalizing the setup on the AT&T stuff. What a dude. Came by, made sure eveyrthing was cool, checked signal strength & everything (the AT&T stuff works better over the past few weeks than the Tmobile stuff ever has... They must be doing something right!)

Thanks Starbucks & AT&T!

I'll be presenting at the ALI Social Media Summit in a pre-conference workshop. Check it out:

How To Use Social Media To Enhance And Improve Your Internal Communications Efforts - And 7 Steps To Take Your Internal Social Media Program To An External Marketing Program

Some people may think that social and emerging media tools are just for customers. However, they can greatly improve your internal communication, peer networking and knowledge sharing and management initiatives if used properly. This workshop will show you how to leverage the most prominent social media tools to strengthen your internal communications processes and improve the effectiveness of any customer-focused organization. If you're considering social media for customer/external communications, this workshop will also give you specific insights and help you to 'eat your own dogfood' before going headlong into social and emerging media & marketing with your customers and prospects.

Each attendee will take away:

• A comprehensive understanding of each and every internal social media tool available to their organization
• Concrete examples of organizations that are employing these tools
• A roadmap of where to start and how to progress in your internal social media endeavor
• Develop the business case to sell internal social media based communication tools to management
• The seven steps to taking social media from an internal endeavor to an external marketing program
• A comprehensive workbook which explains how to learn more about each of the tools discussed

Joseph Dumont penned a piece for Imedia entitled "Why Agencies are Failing" in it, he lays out several of his own observations that are founded in a report from Forrester (might be worth the $279 price tag if you're seeking some Forrester Research Therapy for your agency) and compiled from his keen insights into the agency world.

This article really hits home as it comes at a time when I'm doing a bit of work with a few agencies that I regard with the utmost respect and I can't help but see some of their challenges echoed in this article. Those are the agencies that are truly students of advertising, marketing, customer behavior and have a genuine purpose in this world. They will succeed because they can learn, they can grow and like energy (you know, never at rest) they are always moving and changing and they're on the right path.

On the other end of the spectrum are agencies who are truly stuck. They're afraid of stepping outside of their comfort zone, afraid to admit that they need help, don't have a mastermind group internally that's challenging their age-old positioning and their clients are suffering as a result by way of crusty old strategies, reheated ideas and basically an ignorance of the end customer that we're all trying to reach. Those agencies will fail a they aren't even on a path - they're standing still.

Here are a few observations that I took from Joseph's article. I really recommend read though it with you highlighter handy - there are some real nuggets in there. If you're an agency, take this to your next staff meeting and discuss it. It's that important. If you like, buy the Forrester report (and tell me if it was worth it!)

1. Damnit, get out there and do the hard work to really understand how your client's consumer has changed their habits, where they hang out and what they want to hear from you. Media kits are for armchair advertisers. You need to get out there, listen, react and move. Oh, and get your client's leadership and front line folks on the same page too. Customers are smart. They see through the disorganization.

2. Watch political marketing. I've said this for years and I'll say it again "the harbingers of the next generation of marketing are working in politics". Watch all 3 candidates and how they leverage the digital space. Also, pay attention to their budgets. They're moving mountains and spending very little (comparatively) online...they reach the masses on TV and the influencers through digital (online) means...it's a great country we live in!

3. Interactive does NOT mean Internet. It means really in-ter-acting... get people involved, acting and interacting and engaging. Most of what's called "interactive" is anything but.

4. User generated content is not the holy grail. User generated genuine interest in a brand that excites consumers and pushes their 'loyalty button' is what we're really seeking. There are many UGC campaigns that are bolt on piles of crap... If UGC is not aligned with your brand and the only respondents are professional contestants, you should rethink things a bit. Just because it's cool doesn't mean it's you (or that an agency should sell it to you)

5. I actually think that we're in pretty good shape - there is BRILLIANT marketing going on out there (just read iMedia, Marketing Sherpa and others to see the kick ass campaigns and strategies that are rocking the marketing world)...but there's always room to do better. Both agencies and internal marketers can't afford to get lazy. The entire profession of marketing is founded on a "faith in the future" perspective! That's why we market - for the future...so hurry up and let's all get there!

What a great post to encounter first thing this morning. I just had this discussion with two separate clients in the past two days on how to optimize their account signup and newsletter subscription forms. Some great advice from Bill:

Here's what I learned to ask myself and my team... 1. Which information is a must-have? Do I have to know where they came from or can my web analytics tell me? 2. Which information could we collect later? For example, we collect billing information when the client goes live with their event. 3. Eliminate the rest. If a piece of information doesn't create a change in action, then I eliminate the field.

I agree with Bill 100% and often ask a couple more questions to get this right. Of course, you're never done asking questions. You should always be testing you forms to achieve greater conversion!

1. What data can you market to? If you're asking for address, birth date, phone number and the like - are you really going to market using all of that data or are you just collecting it because you think you need it (or your CEO thinks you need it)
2. How does the data tie into the rest of your CRM and database marketing efforts? If you're a B2B company you'll want to and need to know different things than a CPG company.
3. What's the "form fatigue" factor and how do you eliminate data point collection to ease up on your customer's patience.

From: ChristianSarkar.com

From a marketing perspective, Tata would be wise to engage the active fan bases of both brands during this process!

Thanks guys!

Have said all that, I find their email marketing efforts to be lacking in precision. As you'll see in the email screenshot below, they combine English and Spanish in the same email. I have nothing against Spanish - I spent 4 years of my high school and college life learning it - I do have something against poor targeting when you know that you can (and should) do better!

By simply asking for 'language preference' on their email signup form (which, by the way, is a pain in the ass to get to and is hidden under the "Team Makita" link that's hardly visible at the top of the page), you could not only eliminate the annoyance of a dual-language email, but be much more prudent in targeting by doing everything (including the subject line, which was English only...go figure).

Part of the value of email marketing is being able to tightly segment and market to your house list. Makita is missing out on a significant (though I'm not sure how big their house list is...it could be much, much larger if it were easier to sign up for!) opportunity to really communicate with your target audience!

Motivational speaker Zig Ziglar coined the term "Automobile University" to describe how time spent in traffic can be used to educate yourself on a variety of subjects. Using audiobooks in your car is a great way to learn almost anything from finance to philosophy, literature to languages. In a year, the average driver can learn about as much as a college student attending a year's worth of classes.

What's that, you ask? Well, if you're looking for the how-to, you can certainly read this super-helpful piece in e-how. Although, I think that by stating books on CD or podcasts and books on iPod are the likely the best learning devices for time-starved marketers and that listening to any of these in your car on the way to work, to a client or in the airport/on the plane is the best way to keep up on what's new in marketing.

The next question I get is "what should I be listening to?" Well, here's a few ideas:

1. Why don't more marketing authors release their books as audiobooks? Now, I'm not sure about the market dynamics of this (perhaps it's cost prohibitive?) but when you look for books with "Marketing" in the title in the audiobooks section of iTunes, you find only 39 titles. So, that's one place to start. Now, not every great marketing book has "marketing" in the title, but look at that list of books you should read that you've been sitting on for a while and see if you can't find a few of those in iTunes and download them.

2. There are GREAT marketing podcasts out there. There are over 200 podcasts on iTunes that are some how related to marketing, business or PR. You can only choose a few and still keep up a sane listening schedule. Here are a few good ones:
.....Joseph Jaffe's podcast
.....Duct Tape Marketing with John Jantsch
.....any of the other 200 or so podcasts in iTunes that trip your fancy

3. The AMA Marketing Matters Live radio show and podcasts. Great guests, a great host and solid interviews. Always timely and always helpful. A must listen!

For a few days I'm posting on behalf of Mark Little of the Central Piedmont Community College at his blog for NCMPR.

Lo and behold, it appears that the folks here don't like Expedia! (though Travelocity and others were accessible)

However, if I'd had this little tool (and for those of you w/out land lines, this would be cool as well), I'd have been able to dial in perpetuity until I heard the phone ringing.

http://www.wheresmycellphone.com/

Of course, if you're web enabled, you could also Skype out to your mobile # and find it that way as well...

$19.99

• 2008 Emerging Media Vehicles
• How to Use New Media Vehicles to Your Advantage
• The Latest Internet & Marketing Technologies that can Impact Your 2008 Marketing Plans

Your copy of the Marketech 08 Guide PDF will show you how to put these technologies to work for you.

This guide includes a service-organization perspective that will help you:

• Utilize relevant marketing & customer service technologies that today's leading service organizations employ to connect with their customers. This includes an overview of tools from social networking via Facebook, organic corporate networks and customer community programs to communication vehicles like blogs, online video and podcasting.
• Integrate with existing common customer loyalty, retention, referrals and reactivation initiatives.
• Identify benefits and risks associated with these techniques and technologies such as lower cost to service and increased referrals vs. loss of central control and the increasing customer control of your brand reputation.
• Discover who's doing this already examples and how is it working for them. We'll look at a myriad of case examples with learning's and action items than any organization can apply.

Success Is A Tug Of War, Push And Pull To Win

This is where it gets interesting. This Sunday, I received an email telling me that someone that I didn't know was following me on Twitter. So, my natural reaction was to check them out and return the favor by beginning to follow them. I know, over time, I'm sure that the reciprocal following will die down, especially among internet celebs with a high profile, as they simply won't want to follow everyone... However, Twitter phenomenon seems to be a lot like rubbernecking (you know, in traffic, it doesn't concern you, but you look on anyway). Or, what I'll call, Twitternecking. While rubber necking is "To look about or survey with unsophisticated wonderment or curiosity," Twitternecking is likely "to blindly follow another Twitter user for the simple reason that they began following you.

Brands reaching out and banking on the twitternecking effect are smart, at least at this stage. If you avidly follow, say, 2000 people, and 500 of them twitterneck (I have no idea what the reciprocal follow rate is on Twitter...this is just a guess, but I'm following most everyone following me) you now have an audience of 500 people that are tuned in whenever you say something...for now...

So, who is the company in question?

Twitter: http://twitter.com/Rystique
Website: http://www.rystique.com/

Greater minds have already written lots about Twitter for marketing:
What Web Marketers Should Know About Twitter by Jeremiah Owyang

Starter Kit for Grassroots Campaigning: 5 Tactics to Improve Results With Web 2.0, Email & Mobile on MarketingSherpa