Silicon Valley Events

Social Media Experts Educate SVAMA

noreply@blogger.com (Jay C) — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 20:46:00 +0000

Written By Michael Scadden, SVAMA Volunteer

Fulfilling its promise to gather and inform, the SVAMA held back-to-back Social Media programs at Symantec and Adobe during the recent fall quarter. The October program, hosted by Symantec, featured blogging executives and veterans who were eager to pass on their knowledge of the latest Web 2.0 tools available to market savvy professionals. With all of the recent buzz surrounding social marketing trends, the panel faced a very knowledgeable SVAMA crowd that was treated to the latest strategies and techniques for establishing two-way communication within a marketplace. The panel did not disappoint. It seemed each question from the crowd resulted in demand for deeper explanation from industry leaders who not only track blog activity, but interpret and educate marketing professionals on how to effectively use this strategy as it becomes more sophisticated yet easier to implement.

Panel member Michael Sippey, Vice President of Professional Products at Six Apart, stated, "This isn't about the technology, after all, it's about a new way of enabling the conversation in the market so that companies can build better widgets that customers actually want, and are willing to pay for." Did the panel members succeed in convincing the audience of the virtues of blogging? Well, yes and no. While almost everyone agreed being aware of the changing marketplace and being an influencer in your community was beneficial, not everyone was ready to jump in and start their blog. Many questions from the crowd came up regarding the risks involved, like exposing yourself to criticism or having a blog community destroy the reputation of your product or service. As to be expected from executives of blogging companies, the message was "put aside your fears and go for it." However, it wasn't a sales pitch. At least from my vantage point, the panelist had a sincere desire to educate marketing professionals on what is not only becoming a more effective way to communicate a company's product and service advantage, but quite possibly a necessary way of communicating that advantage. The message? Yes, there is a risk; yes, it is well worth taking.

While the Symantec program offered a micro-view of Web 2.0 blog strategies, the November program at Adobe presented the macro version and highlighted some of the companies capitalizing on the latest in Web 2.0 and soon to be 3.0. As blogging becomes a mature strategy for marketers, the question always remains, what's next? What's next is becoming more familiar with companies like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Second Life because these companies are experiencing serious growth.

Similar in structure to the October program, the Adobe program featured PR professionals from Sony, Dovetail, and Voce Communications. Although not as concentrated in subject matter as blogging, the moderator/panel set-up presented an overview of some of the different social media tools available and how to possibly use them. I say possibly, because even though these media forums are gaining in popularity, marketers are still learning how to use them as effective marketing vehicles. What does this mean for marketing professionals? At this stage it's more important to be aware and stay current of the rapidly changing trends and use them to the best of your ability. Stay flexible and understand that what might be a viable marketing strategy today, could be obsolete tomorrow. Yes, jump in, participate; but, at the same time, be willing to learn new ways to swim.

While the Symantec program went in-depth about a single subject, the Adobe meeting gave us and overview of a variety of social media trends. Both achieved their objectives. Both were valuable, and based on comments from some of the members I talked with, both were worth spending an evening to become better marketers.

Speaking of social media, I would be interested in hearing your opinion of these two programs so feel free to comment on this post.

Blue Chalk Networking

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Hall) — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 06:52:00 +0000

We had a particularly fun crowd at the Blue Chalk tonight. Lots of nice people to meet. Andreas Mueller of Bloofusion made an interesting observation about the attendees lately. They are a high quality group of people interested in marketing and that has been the case at all of our meetings this year. It is a good point and something that has been true for a good long while. A couple of examples . . .

Sushil Jha from OuterJoin. Sushil has known about SVAMA for a while and is getting involved as a volunteer. He is going to help our new VP of Monthly Programs, Don Humbert, and our VP of Workshops, Tony Green, with some of the phone calling duties. Sushil's company has an interesting way of integrating the various online promotional channels into a program that produces results for their clients.
Alex Littlewood from Liquid Agency. I realize that Alex has appeared in our blog before, but he continues to impress with his ability to produce great communications for SVAMA and the board is looking forward to his contributions over the next year or so.
Dave Wagner is joining SVAMA as our VP of Customer Involvement. It is a new position this year and we are lucky to get someone with Dave's experience and depth. He has served on the board before and has some great ideas about creating communities within SVAMA so that we can learn from each other and network within specialty groups. Let us know if you have ideas along these lines or want to contribute to a group.
Jennifer Clay has decided to continue on the SVAMA board as our Co-VP of Online Communications next year. She will share responsibilities with Nancy Marx in that area. I am happy that she has elected to stay as it makes a smoother transition between years when board members stay for multiple years. This new position will allow SVAMA to focus more on our web, email, and other communications versus previous years.

Hope that you will join us at our next event.

Web 2.0 Workshop

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Hall) — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 22:51:00 +0000

Wow. We had a real learning experience at the workshop last week. Karen O'Brien from Crimson Consulting led the discussion centering on the latest ways to involve customers using Web 2.0 concepts. There were 36 people there - straining our facility to the maximum. SVAMA's Co-VPs of Workshops, Shilpa Le Le and Tony Green deserve a medal for putting together such a strong program. Our members and friends also deserve a strong "thank you" for squeezing up to accommodate the overflow crowd.

Speaking of the crowd - they got involved early and often discussing their own issues and getting suggested solutions from Karen and each other. Heather Meza won a drawing for a new iPod. She is shown in the photo on the left with Karen on the right.

There is a lot of interest in this area as it continued a theme from our last monthly program covering Online Communities. At least one attendee wanted more time and detail on Web 2.0 and related issues. If we held another workshop that goes into more details about one or two areas of Web 2.0, would you be interested in attending?

SVAMA has been struggling with some of the same issues. In fact, we have a VP in charge of Customer Involvement for the first time this year. As an experiement, we set up a discussion area for attendees of this workshop at svama.org. Karen has agreed to upload several items of interest including the slide presentation and some key web sites where you can get best practices and useful advice. The discussion is open to anyone. You can also keep up with the latest developments in this area at Karen's blog.

Online Communities

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Hall) — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 06:15:00 +0000

We had a good evening discussing online communities led by Sue Connelly from Connelly Communications. Scott Wilder from Intuit led off the evening with a discussion about Intuit's process for developing the QuickBooks community. Intuit's reputation for customer focus is apparent given the extent of their analysis before launching their group. Dave Cole from Symantec gave us some good information about security threats surrounding online communities and how some of them have been resolved. The most rapidly evolving threat is the theft of personal information rather than spamming type threats. Finally Dave Kopp from Yahoo talked about some of the ways to start a group and how to manage issues after you get started.

It was an interesting evening and well worth the time. The crowd was a little different this month versus other meetings - more large companies represented tonight. So the networking was great and met some interesting people.

John Merrells is the CEO and Co-founder of Embrace Mobile, a company who builds applications on mobile phones. For example, SVAMA could get instant feedback on its meeting instead of using paper forms - a great idea and I would love to see SVAMA begin to use this technology.
Elizabeth Williams is new to SVAMA and attended our networking event last month at Blue Chalk. She came again tonight and brought a guest - something that is happening more and more at SVAMA.
Malgosia Mazany specializes in international sales and marketing and is currently looking for her next position. She is generating a lot of interviews and I suspect that she will be employed very soon.
David Crawford recently left Affymetrix, a bio-tech instrumentation firm. David has the sciences and business background and experience for a company in the bio-tech, pharmeceuticals, or medical electronics industry.
The University of Phoenix sponsors SVAMA and staffed a table at the event. It was good to meet some more of the people there as we really appreciate the use of their facilities for board meetings and workshops.

January Networking - a Hit

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Hall) — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 06:27:00 +0000

Wow. The networking event this evening was the best of the year. There were 45 Silicon Valley marketers crowded into the space at Blue Chalk in Palo Alto. Michelle Hoover, SVAMA's VP of Networking commented that, "I knew there were a lot of smart marketers here, but I have never seen so many in one place." Congratulations to Michelle's team for developing the networking plan for the chapter this year and for following through with some great events.

Sorry that I didn't get to meet everyone - but saw both new and familiar faces tonight. Here is a sample . . .

Amy Yang, Asian Pacific Liason for The George P. Johnson Company in San Carlos. Her company does integrated event marketing all over the world. I am hoping that Amy can spend a little time volunteering for SVAMA. More information about the company is available at http://www.gpjco.com/.
Clara Kuo, a student who is going to work with SVAMA's LinkeIn group from Monterey. She is very smart and currently searching for a job - Please leave a comment so that we know what you are looking for Clara.
Nancy Marx, the person primarily responsible for SVAMA's new web site design. Stay tuned for that rollout later this year.
Brian Steacy is a member of both the Silicon Valley and the Sacramento Chapters of AMA and is planning to take a volunteer position with SVAMA next fiscal year (starting July 1). Brian has a lot of BusDev experience and spends lots of time here in Silicon Valley. Brian also introduced Micheal Leon from Reactr.com where they specialize in interactive and relationship marketing.
Alex Littlewood is a project manager for Liquid Agency, a brand marketing agency in San Jose. Liquid Agency has an impressive client list - primarily large Silicon Valley tech companies. See details at their web site at http://www.liquidagency.com/

We are hoping to do a wine-tasting event next month and include all of the niche marketing organizations to join us. More about that later via email.

13 Dec Mixer a Huge Success

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Hall) — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 14:43:00 +0000

We had a super crowd at the mixer last night at Blue Chalk in Palo Alto and met lots of Silicon Valley marketers.

Rene Vischney is a long-time SVAMA supporter who has been involved over the years when he has time and then goes away for a few years when he is very busy. Sound familiar? Rene, I hope that you are ready to get involved again. We need your wisdom and support.
Sandy Kroft has been an active participant at SVAMA at least for the past year or so and has volunteered to help our programming group. Thank you Sandy. It's always nice to see a familiar face and to get to know you better.
Dave Alpert from PodTech.net where they serve up PodCasts and blogs all day every day. We are hoping to fit Dave or one of the other PodGurus from PodTech into our speaking schedule next year.
Welcome Holly Bachman to Silicon Valley. Holly just arrived from Minnesota in the last few days along with a new husband and a job barely 24 hours old. Her employers at Progressive Solutions in Santa Clara should get a prize for putting new business cards in Holly's pocket for our meeting last night.
Had a great conversation with Suzanne Pallo from Creative Strategy Group. Her company is focused on outbound communications like annual reports, advertising, collateral materials, direct mail, branding and programs and product development.
Mia David - we have to finish our conversation about genealogy - Lots more to talk about.
Eric Swartz is the Tagline Guru. Eric is in a narrow and important branding niche and we could all learn from his experience. Check out his services at taglineguru.com.
Therese Hart specializes in project management and marketing. This the first time we met and I hope to see Therese at our next meeting.

Members of local niche marketing organizations were invited to join us at this event and several of them accepted our offer of discounted pricing. Thanks to Rebecca Barthel, Elizabeth Caselton, Janice Cuban, Sheryl Huang, and Eric Swartz for attending our meeting and for supporting other marketing organizations in Silicon Valley. We learned from the experience last night and hope to do some more extensive joint events in the future.

These events are great fun and an easy way to get acquainted in an informal setting. Hope to see you at our next one!

SVAMA Mixer at Blue Chalk 29 Nov 2006

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Hall) — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 17:50:00 +0000

We had a great group of people at Blue Chalk last night. There are so many interesting people who attend our events that it is hard to decide which ones to mention. Here is the short list of people I met.

Jennifer Berkley is a loyal member of SVAMA and founder of The Insight Advantage. It is always nice to see friendly faces at our events. Jennifer's company helps organizations understand customers and integrate that insight into their daily operations.
Jim Mitchell is the Director of Development at michael patrick partners, where they are doing some great branding work for some high-profile clients.
Rob Fugetta is with a startup called Zuberance in the very early stages of development. Rob has deep experience in word-of-mouth marketing and expects to leverage that experience at Zuberance.

Make plans to attend our special mixer in December. All of the 'niche' marketing organizations have been invited to join us. So it should be an event with a broader mix of marketers. Details will be posted at our web site at http://www.svama.org/

Gene

Customer Segmentation - Robert Lingard

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Hall) — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 17:59:00 +0000

About 20 of us participated in a workshop last night that featured Bob Lingard. He emphasized the value of employees who understand the process and who are comfortable working with the quantitative data required to do a good segmentation. The process is a little more complex than I can tell you here, but involved these general steps . . .

Pick a segmentation project that is a priority to you
Define the major categories in the target audience
Write down descriptive phrases about each of the major categories
Identify specific attributes about each category that you would like to measure
Define the dimensions of each attribute that cause you to treat the audience differently

We broke into groups of four or so and had fun going through the process on planning sheets that Bob provided. It was a really good learning experience and I walked away with an easy process for segmenting customers - plus a couple of good ideas from team members for my own business.

SVAMA has a way of attracting the most interesting people to meetings like this . . .

Nico Peruzzi has been a member of SVAMA for only a year and just renewed his membership. He is a well-rounded marketer with interests in market research, CRM and strategic marketing - the type of marketer that Bob Lingard believes will deliver the highest possible value to employers in the future.
David Moss from Siemens Communications: David worked with Bob Lingard at Siemens and is very familiar with the process we used. I learned almost as much from David as from Bob. David is involved in the data management portion of the segmentation process at Siemens with ambitions to become more involved in the analysis work.
Marcia Healey from Aquent: Aquent is a provider of all sorts of marketing services including marketing staffing and IT services. So the discussion had an obvious appeal to Marcia.

This was the first meeting that I have attended at Phoenix University. It is the right venue for this type of event with classroom style seating and flawless plug-and-play overhead equipment. Phoenix has provided space in the past for SVAMA's board meetings but this is the first year that we have held workshops there. We are thankful for their continuing support of our programs.

I wish that more people could have been there last night as Bob is certainly one of Silicon Valley's thought leaders in the area of segmentation.

Konstantin Guericke - Co Founder and VP Marketing, LinkedIn

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Hall) — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 17:22:00 +0000

The MBA Marketing Network at Santa Clara University put on a great program last night featuring Konstantin Guericke from LinkedIn. SVAMA is working with the leadership of the network to cooperate on programming and other activities of interest to both groups.

Konstantin discussed some of the basic principles behind LinkedIn and their basic ideas for growing the site. Many people in the audience were interested in specific features of the site and we learned a lot about using the site for different purposes. It is surprising how many different ways people approach a fairly simple tool.

For example, job seekers can find out more information about prospective employers by reading profiles of managers and by contacting current and former employees of that manager. Learning to do better searches is key to making the best use of LinkedIn. You can even construct a search for people who are similar to you (by using your own profile as a guide). Once you find them, you can contact them through your network to find out how they got their jobs and what they might recommend for you.

It is interesting that LinkedIn executives see themselves as making a better world by making these connections possible. In order to get valuable recommendations in your profile, you need to be a good corporate citizen. Konstantin believes that this ability to connect will drive people to do a better job with their existing relationships.

I had hoped for a little more information about their marketing strategies. Regardless, the event more than met my expectations and the team at the Marketing Network did a terrific job.

Strategic Marketing for Technology Firms

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Hall) — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 23:36:00 +0000

Silicon Valley marketers have a rare opportunity to hear from Mohan Sawhney, McCormick Tribune Foundation Professor of Technology at Kellogg School of Management. Mohan is an award-winning writer and expert in the areas of . . .

Collaborative marketing
Marketing process design
Marketing and media in a connected world
Business innovation
Business agility

Dr. Sawhney will provide attendees with a solid grounding in the concepts, frameworks and tools for attaining superior customer insight in rapidly evolving marketings - primarily high tech markets. Participants will also learn how to approach needs-based market segmentation for guiding product development. Finally, Mohan will cover action-oriented activities needed to create compelling value propositions for each segment.

The course is designed to address marketing issues in companies both large and small and should appeal to sales and marketing executives in high-tech software, Internet, services, chip, biotech and hardware companies and other industries that are changing rapidly. Get a huge discount by entering "SVAMA" as the promotional code when you register at . . .

https://www.etouches.com/reg/newreg.php?admin=1&eventid=340

The course is an all-day event being held on November 30th starting with breakfast at 7:30 am at the Network Meeting Center at TechMart in Santa Clara. Inc. Magazine is co-hosting this event with SVAMA and we appreciate their support. The registration fee . . .

$995 - 33% discount for "SVAMA" promotional code = $666.65

. . . includes breakfast, networking, the all-day seminar, course materials, collateral, and a one-year subscription to Inc. magazine. I hope to see you there.

Legal Marketing Association - Bay Area Chapter - Call for Presenters

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Hall) — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 22:21:00 +0000

The Bay Area Chapter of LMA is planning its educational program for the coming year and has asked for proposals from presenters in the areas of . . .

Economy / Finance
Strategy
Leadership

The group plans to produce nine programs on various topics that fit into those three main areas. Proposals in MS Word format must be submitted by October 15 and include . . .

Proposed program title or topic
A one-page overview describing why the program is of interest to the Bay Area legal marketing community and what attendees can expect to take away from the session
The core area of focus Economic / Finance, Strategy, or Leadership
Recommended program format (e.g. panel discussion, interactive workshop, multimedia presentation, etc.)
The level of audience experience for which the program is best suited
A brief resume or biographical sketch for all proposed speakers
Names and contact information for at least two references that would recommend the presenter(s)

Get additional information and download the Call for Presenters from LMA's web site at . . .

http://www.lmabayarea.org/docs/LMA_2006_Call_for_Presenters.DOC

Send your proprosal to the program committee c/o Dave Bruns at dbruns@fbm.com by October 15, 2006. The committee will select and notify speakers by November 1, 2006.

SVAMA Members Meet at Blue Chalk

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Hall) — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 13:03:00 +0000

SVAMA held its first networking event of the year at the Blue Chalk in Palo Alto last night. It was a pure meet-and-greet type event and everyone seemed to have a good time. Kudos to our VP of Networking Events, Michelle Hoover for arranging the venue and to our Chapter Administrator, Angi Roberts who always makes things look easy.

I met two people yesterday who said that they really liked the email updates that keep them informed about marketing events that are happening in Silicon Valley - that's is nice to hear. There were lots of interesting people there.

Amy Yang from The George P. Johnson Company (Integrated Event Marketing) has relocated to the Peninsula and asked about moving her membership to SVAMA from another chapter. If you are in the same position, you can either move your membership or you can maintain memberships in multiple chapters. The folks at AMA International can easily walk you through that. Call them at 800-AMA-1150. It is helpful to have your member ID available when you call - the number is on your membership card and on every direct mail piece that you get from AMA.

J. Michael Judd is the CEO of North Beach Productions and provides production services like photography, sound and video for product marketing and corporate events. He also speaks on various marketing subjects and asked to be placed on SVAMA's list of speakers for future events. Our event topics are driven by member feedback through our annual Topics Survey fielded by our Marketing Research Group. Once a topic is established, we look into our database for speakers on that topic.

Hope to see you at our next networking event - sure to be even better than this one.

Gene Hall
President
SVAMA

Direct Marketing - Cracking the Code

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Hall) — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 02:50:00 +0000

The program last week was filled with both strategic and practical advice about direct marketing. From the back of the room, I could see people all over the room frantically taking notes. If you are one of those who can't read your own writing, the slides and audio will be online in about 30 days. That information is also available if you missed the meeting completely even though you missed some fun networking before the program started. Check out this and other past programs at SVAMA's Event Archive:

http://www.svama.org/pastevents.html

There are rumors that this archive will become a member-only benefit next year. If that is true, you might want to look now.

It was nice to see Bob Marx at the meeting. Bob is new to Silicon Valley and participated in AMA in Florida where he used to live. He stays busy as the Director of Marketing at the San Jose Convention Center and is getting active in our chapter's programming efforts. Welcome Bob!

There were also several new members of SVAMA at the meeting as my guests. The chapter is make a lot of progress and it is important for new members to know that we are all here for the same reason - to Stay Connected! and Stay Informed! - and that meeting them is an important part of getting the most from SVAMA. If you are new or if you want to become a member of the premier chapter of AMA International, let me know how I can help you get involved.

Thank you for your interest in SVAMA.

Gene

Hands-On Media Training for Public Relations Personnel and Start Ups

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Hall) — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 19:59:00 +0000

More and more people are telling me about Vintage Foster's knack for doing training of this type. Since this is an interactive session, seats are limited. If you are interested in PR or if you are involved in a start up, you should take this class. Vintage is reported to be the best speaker on this subject anywhere.

Global Branding in a Wireless World

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Hall) — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 12:09:00 +0000

We had a fun time last night at the SVAMA monthly event featuring Frank Cutitta, CEO and founder of The Center for Global Branding, Wayland, MA and lots of new faces during the networking hour. Just a few interesting people that I met . . .

Mick Liubinskas, CMO of Zapr: Zapr is a way to share information on your PC with friends, groups of friends, or the public. You can try out their beta version at http://www.zapr.com. Mick is in town from Sydney to evaluate availability of locations and people to staff a Silicon Valley office of Zapr scheduled for later this year. Mick's blog is at http://zapr.typepad.com/michael/2006/08/hot_in_svama.html.
Ragnar Kruse and Petra Vorsteher from Smaato Inc. located in San Mateo: Smaato provides services to global smartphone users.
Bakari Savage from PRNewswire: Bakari is new to Silicon Valley and provided information and literature about PRNewswire at SVAMA's sponsorship table. SVAMA's PR group uses PRNewswire exclusively to distribute press releases and to connect Silicon Valley's marketing thought leaders with reporters who are covering various marketing specialities. Check out their other services at http://www.prnewswire.com/
Carrie Harrington, Lisa Clarke and Elaine Yu from Aquent Marketing Staffing: Aquent is also an SVAMA sponsor and came last night to meet some people. Their choice of the sponsorship table nearest the food was a smart and I have used my Aquent notepad twice since Carrie gave it to me last night. Aquent is located at http://www.aquent.com/
Michelle Hoover, VP of Networking Events for SVAMA: Michelle has multiple talents and moved around the room taking photos. Those will appear in our filmloop (just to the left) in a few days. If you see a photo that you like, just join the loop and drag the photo onto your desktop.

Frank Cutitta's presentation was outstanding with lots of great corporate examples of advertising from around the world - both print and electronic. I was particularly impressed with Frank's discussion about the tension between global marketing departments and regional or country marketing departments. Those two groups view the market from different perspectives with the global group wanting consistent branding all over the world and the local group scratching their heads over communications that make no sense in their geographic area. Read about other presentations from the Center for Global Branding at http://www.brandsintl.com .

If you missed the program last night, you can still see the presentation and audio at SVAMA's event archive located at http://www.svama.net/pastevents.html in about 30 days. This service is courtesy of Bill Hopps from Coreography who attends our events and records them for playback at http://www.coreography.com/. Coreography is an interesting company that leverages existing presentations to drive lead generation and eventually sales.

CMO Summit 2006

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Hall) — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 00:40:00 +0000

The Power of Engagement:
Gaining Customer Intimacy, Influence & Inspiration

Returning to the roots and essentials of marketing, this year’s fifth annual Chief Marketing Officer Summit explores the critical mandate for marketers to reaffirm their role as custodians of customer knowledge and needs, dedicated to perfecting the process of customer engagement, realizing more value and return from relationships, and improving insight, access and influence in the market.

Join more than 300 of your peers for this lively and energizing exploration of customer engagement across business-to-business and consumer market sectors. Help drive the conversation around customer community, continuity and co-innovation with global branding leaders from Best Buy, Expedia, Intel, NHL, Feld Entertainment Inc., FUBU, Yahoo! and more.

To register: http://www.cmosummit.org/register.asp

Mastering MPM On-line Certificate Program: Wish you were back in school instead of dealing with your marketing budget?

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Hall) — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 23:41:00 +0000

The CMO Council is granting your wish with our "back to school" Mastering MPM course that won't take you out of the office but will send you right to the head of the class; as part of the self-paced, on-line curriculum, you will work with seasoned marketing professionals and experienced faculty on an in-depth case study consultation around one of your marketing campaigns. Sign Up Now for the MPM program,

http://www.mpmforum.org/register.asp?pid=svama

and you will get the "back to school" Fall special - $395 for on-line certificate curriculum. Choose what makes sense for you, an individual online study or a company-centric track for groups.

The MPM course is designed specifically to give mid-level marketing professionals the tactical and strategic knowledge that will help you drive better bottom-line product marketing performance. Completing the class earns you an "MPM Specialist" certificate that proves marketers "measure up" to rigorous MPM standards. To learn more about Mastering MPM and the importance of marketing measurement, please contact Robert Nelson, academic director of MPM Forum at, bnelson@globalfluency.com

Yahoo! Big Idea Chair Award

noreply@blogger.com (Gene Hall) — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 23:36:00 +0000

Yahoo! and the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council are excited to announce that at this year's CMO Summit Oct. 4-6 in San Francisco, we will be "seating" a winner of the inaugural Yahoo! Big Idea Chair Award. Showcase your agency and your company best work in front of over 300 peers and top marketing executives. The Award is targeted exclusively at technology and telecommunications companies that have used online and offline channels to activate, sustain and grow customer relationships. Submit now and astonish the panel of 13 judges, the widely recognized experts on marketing, with the inspiration and results of integrated, multi-channel marketing campaigns which were "exceptional, measurable and remarkable" in driving business outcomes. Have your work introduced by Micheal Tchong of Ubercool and displayed during an official ceremony at the CMO Summit. Please visit . . .

www.cmosummit.org/2006/sf/yahoo

. . . for complete entry details and submission requirements.