So this is not a Pivot, it is rather more of a Pirouette. Yes a dance term for turning around.

Over the past decade I have been involved in one way or another in the world of digital marketing. For the last five years I have run my own business and provided digital marketing consultancy to some of the biggest names in business, and some of the smallest. I love what I do. I have always considered myself on the edge of what I do and, looking forward I see that while broad digital consultancy is still a very valid opportunity (and many are entering the space all the time) it is no longer necessary for me to be a part of that group.

For over a year I have been having conversations with some select individuals about what the next conversation should be, after social technologies. Some agree with me, some don’t but for me the conversation about social technologies is over. Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Instagram etc. most marketers know what they are, they know how to use them from a technical perspective. So what should the next conversation, for that is what I as a consultant really do, I have conversations with clients, be about?

The next conversation is about Creativity. Over the past five to ten years marketers have been forced to become technologists. Some embraced this willingly others less so. I think it is time that we shook off the technology focus and refocused our attention on being creative in marketing again. Let the technology be what it will, it has never mattered. Whether it was Radio, Print, TV or Out of Home the medium is not the message at least not in the sense it has become perceived to be. Social technologies have become a route for lazy marketing. Guru’s and Marketing experts were “amazed” at Target’s “innovative” use of Twitters video service Vine this past week. Take a look at the litebright animation they put together. Now call me cynical but that isn’t innovative or particularly creative in fact I’d guarantee I know at least a dozen 7 year olds who could have done it better.

The medium is forcing the creativity but it shouldn’t be that way. While geeks are being celebrated for changing the world, they aren’t it is the creatives who have always changed the world. DaVinci wasn’t a geek, he was a creative genius. I want to work with and help people who are seeking to expand their creativity.

So what does all this mean? IncSlingers will remain. The focus will change and already has. Instead of providing broad digital strategy moving forward the focus will be on creativity in marketing. I’ll continue to write here about digital but the focus will be on creativity. If you’d like to share your thoughts on creativity I love having guest writers send me articles.

Never being one to tell others to do what I am not, I am also proud to announce that I am launching a new venture today. Some of you who are connected with me on other platforms will have already guessed at the direction I was headed. The new venture is Blue Cat Photography. I will be focusing on People centered photography, from personal portraits, special occasions through professional headshots, events and promotional photography. I’ve actually been doing this for nearly six months but it was time to make it official. If you like what you see on the site hit me up and let’s talk about doing a photo shoot.

Why wait until now to perform this pirouette? Today is my fiftieth birthday, I want you to see that no matter your age you are never too old to follow your passion and combine it with business should you wish.

I’ll see you at conferences, online and maybe even the other side of my lens soon.

image used under CC by Monja

Computers have engrained themselves into every aspect of our lives, and in most cases, having the world’s collective knowledge at our fingertips is a very good thing. Even going hiking or exploring foreign lands on vacation, it seems like there’s now an app for that. Although smartphones allow us to take our work anywhere, many of us still have to spend a large portion of our working hours seated in front of a computer.

How do we make the best of those hours? The more efficient that we are when using our computer, the sooner we can put it back into ‘sleep’ mode and get outside for a run or head home to see our family.

If three hours into your workday, you often find yourself staring at the screen and wondering what you’ve accomplished, follow these guidelines to rev up your online efficiency.

1. Think in Folders
Is your computer’s desktop a cluttered jumble of dozens of overlapping icons? Are there documents on your desktop that you haven’t opened in months? Right now, create a new folder called “Everything.” Now, drag everything on your desktop into it.

Suddenly, you can actually see that vacation photo you chose for your backdrop that’s been hidden since soon after you purchased your machine. Next, go into your new “Everything” folder and think about how you can divvy up the files with a handful of overarching folders. I use:

• Current Projects
• Past Work
• Pictures
• Music and Videos

Each of those folders is then sorted internally by client, project or by month and year.

The key is to create a system where every file immediately has a place to go, and nothing is ever left on your desktop to distract you for eternity.

2. Clean Up Your Bookmarks
Most of us have a routine when it comes to browsing the web. We may check a few news sites in the morning, as well as Facebook and other social media. How much time do you typically spend in the morning before getting to your actual work? If it’s more than 15 or so minutes, prioritize the two or three sites that are most important to you and give them top placement in your bookmarks tab. You could even set these to open automatically at start-up. Take the rest and stash them away out of sight, so that you’ll have to click somewhere else to bring them up, rather than being constantly tempted to check them.

3. Use Social Media as a Reward
Although Facebook, Twitter and Google+ have managed to bring us together in ways never before possible, they’ve also sapped millions of hours of productivity away from us. If you have alerts of new messages or comments from your social media pages set to flash on your phone, consider turning off this constant distraction. Likewise, don’t stop mid-task to check for comments on your latest Facebook post. Get in the habit of finishing one thing, then using social media as a quick reward before moving onto the next task.

4. Keep Information on File
Filling in forms online takes time. I’ve come to love Google Chrome’s browser for its intuitive ability to save and plug in form information whenever I’m making an online transaction. For log-ins and passwords, I keep a Dropbox file handy with encrypted versions of my passwords for any site, so that I can immediately pull them up (from any device, as well) without wasting time or guessing.

5. Amp Up Your Keyboard Shortcuts
If you already use keyboard shortcuts (i.e., Command+N to open a new browser window), then why not create more for the actions you regularly use on your computer? For Mac users, it’s a simple process, outlined here, and it’s possible to create computer-wide shortcuts or commands that are specific to an application.

6. Learn to Type Faster
Nothing slows you down like hunting and pecking. If that’s still you, make it a goal to get up to at least 30 words per minute (the most productive folks can type at 50+). There are tons of typing tutorials and programs available online, many of which are free, so without recommending anything, just search for ‘typing trainer’ or ‘typing tutor’ and you’ll find plenty of great options. Now commit 15 minutes a day to practicing until you meet your goal.

What other ways have you found to speed up your work online and avoid wasting time?

image used under CC license by Michael Moss

It can be uncomfortable in the cloud. With nebulous definitions and still-emerging best practices, its no wonder many organizations are confused and uncertain about moving their data and applications.

One of the major confusion areas involves the open cloud. It can be difficult to sift through the buzzwords and determine what is and isn’t an open cloud.

Alex Williams, writing at TechCrunch.com, lays out a pretty exhaustive list of the qualifications a cloud solution must have to be considered an open cloud. While Williams’ list is not completely comprehensive, the major points are that an open cloud must have freely accessible, open application programming interfaces (APIs), the freedom to move data between providers at will and the fact that there’s no on-site hardware requirement.

In addition, he adds that an open cloud is federated, meaning your organization can run its apps and move data across multiple cloud environments.

Williams’ full list is here; but the major elements of an open cloud he lists include:

—An open cloud has open APIs.

—An open cloud has a developer community that collaborates on developing the cloud infrastructure or platform environment.

—An open cloud gives users the rights to move data as wished.

—An open cloud is federated — you can run your apps and data across multiple cloud environments.

—An open cloud does not require an IT administrator to provision and manage.

—An open cloud does not require new hardware.

One of the original proponents of the open cloud is OpenStack, produces a ubiquitous cloud computing platform for both private and public clouds, and aims for a simple, scalable and feature-rich solution.

The code for OpenStack is licensed under the Apache 2.0, and is available to any developer who can run it, build upon it and/or submit updates and changes back to the project, ensuring evolution of the platform without the fear of proprietary lock-in.

Whether you’re a corporation, a service provider, a research lab, a university, a major enterprise, a midsized business or an SMB VARS, SMBs, launching a public or private cloud environment and leveraging the support and resulting technology of a global open source community can foster great advances in the cloud.

This post is written by Rackspace blogger Sharon Florentine. Rackspace Hosting is the service leader in cloud computing, and a founder of OpenStack, an open source cloud operating system. The San Antonio-based company provides Fanatical Support to its customers and partners, across a portfolio of IT services, including Managed Hosting and Cloud Computing.

5 Must Try Web Applications for Your Small Business

Many businesses are finding the value in switching to cloud technology for many of their business tasks. If you’re considering moving some of your business functions into the cloud, there are a number of different applications that you could utilize successfully.

While there are many available options when it comes to online tools for business, I prefer the tools discussed below because of my familiarity and experience with them. However, you will need to decide which tools resonate with your organization and business structure.

What Does “The Cloud” Mean

Cloud computing is Internet based computing platform, where resources, software and information are shared with computers and other devices on-demand over a private or public network like the internet. This shift from traditional software models has steadily been gaining momentum over the last 10 years. With Cloud computing, many headaches are eliminated because the management of hardware and software becomes the responsibility of an experienced third-party vendor. Since the infrastructure is shared, it works much like a utility in that upgrades are automatic and scaling is easy as pie so you only pay for the resources you use.

QuickBooks Online

QuickBooks business accounting software is one of the best cloud applications for accounting and billing purposes. Every business has to keep track of their accounting, and QuickBooks is pretty much the undisputed leader in that category. This particular application is held entirely in the cloud, which allows you to access your information from any internet enabled computer, smartphone, or tablet from anywhere.

Google Apps

Google Apps is another nice set of cloud tools for business. They make it easier for your employees to be productive. With Google Apps you can collaborate on projects and communicate easily with one another. For example, if someone is working on a document and they need to share it with someone else, that other person can access it instantly online and make any necessary changes to it. This is a lot easier than having to attach files to emails and send them back and forth.

Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM is one of the premier customer relationship management platforms out there. It has a lot of features that make it easy to keep track of interactions with customers. It has a Web form that allows you to capture leads from your website and integrate them into your CRM database. Then when you make contact with a customer, you can keep track of your notes, emails, and calls so that it’s easy to determine what part of the sales cycle they are in.

Google Analytics

If you have a business website, it’s always important to keep track of it as well as you can. This requires you to view the web traffic that your site generates on a regular basis. With Google Analytics, you can do exactly that. Google Analytics gives you an easy-to-use format to work with. You can run all kinds of reports and even create your own reports to look at the information that you want to keep track of. You can see who is coming to your site, how long they’re staying there, and what pages they’re visiting along the way. It really helps you see how well you’re doing with your website and capturing sales or contact information.

Dropbox

Dropbox is a cloud-based service that lets you securely share documents across your network from anywhere you have an internet connection. Business documents such as financials, client files, notes, documents, spreadsheets, ideas, meeting notes, and more can be accessed, edited, and shared with your clients, team members, contractors and anyone involved on a project. Just drag and drop any file into Dropbox with a few clicks! You’ll never be left without an important document or spreadsheet again.

Got an idea or blog post you would like to share with my readers? Drop me an email and let’s talk.

image used under CC by Joanna Lee Osborn

That all said it has been interesting to watch SXSW via social media and news outlets and to get a sense of how those on the edge or the outside of the tech/social marketing industry view it. This post is in part inspired by an article I read on CNET and posted about on Facebook. As I mentioned in my Facebook post I was surprised by the tone of the article. The writer seemed to be taken aback that SXSW has become increasingly a brand showcase. Obviously they haven’t been attending SXSW very long.

I, along with many others have berated SXSW organizers in the past for letting the conference become too big and too dominated by brands. This year I have changed my position. What I believe SXSW has become is a Brand version of CES. It isn’t limited to tech brands – Pepsi are a major presence, CNN have grown their presence each year, even Oreo’s all had a major presence this year. So why fight this direction. Rather I’d like to see SXSW actually embrace it. Every industry has it’s showcase. The automotive industry has events like the International Motor shows that take place in LA, Detroit, Dallas, Geneva, London and countless other cities. CES is the consumer electronics industry’s show case. Why not marketing?

SXSW could easily be repositioned as that, an opportunity for the smartest of the smart digital marketers to show off what they have done and what they are planning to do in the coming months. Along side this the other changes I would make would be to scrap the sessions. Yes I know that is sacrilege, after all what is SXSW without content – well actually SXSW without content is pretty much what I have already described, a digital marketing show case. So why do we need the content? A lot of the content is repetitive, derivative and some just ridiculous.

Rather I’d like to see a series of education sessions around the city paid and produced by Brands. This allows for a much needed and greater level of transparency than we currently get in sessions. When you attend a session, unless the speakers are completely honest, you have no idea who paid for them to be there, who they are promoting (either overtly or covertly) and what their angle is. If you were to attend a session or group of sessions clearly sponsored and produced by a Brand then you know, going into it, that the speakers have some form of association with the brand – and that, by the way, is totally ok. As a professional speaker I get paid to speak at events which means someone somewhere paid my speaker fee, travel and accommodation. Usually that is an event sponsor, which means at the very least I am going to give them a thank you from the podium.

In the format I am proposing the audience already knows the connection so there is no wondering. You can pull the curtain aside and simply enjoy the content. What is more, there would be a direct measure for brands in terms of ROI at SXSW. Instead of simply counting the number of people who stopped by the booth and took some of the swag, butts on seats and the ability to follow up with those people is much more rewarding.

So what do you think? Is this a model of SXSW you would attend?

Have you ever gone to sign up for a new URL for a company website or blog — or perhaps to activate a company Twitter account or Facebook page — and been disappointed to find that the account name or URL you hoped for had already been claimed by someone else? This is, of course, hugely frustrating — because once those pieces of online real estate are claimed, there is really nothing you can do to win them back! Losing out on these key online properties is not just a source of frustration, however. It is also seriously bad news for your online branding and reputation management efforts.

Consider these two facts. For one, the domains associated with your branded terms — i.e., YourCompanyName.com — are the ones that are likely going to show up when someone searches for your small business on Google or Bing. Naturally, you want to make sure that the page is filled out with positive information about your brand! Second, it is far from unheard of for rival companies and even disgruntled employees to seize these online properties and use them for purposes of online defamation and embarrassment; to avoid “phantom” URLs or Facebook pages, operating under your brand name, it is imperative to snatch up these online assets as promptly as possible!

Considering Your Branded Terms

The first question that a small business owner faces is simply this: Which online assets do you need to obtain? Here it is important to think through all of your branded terms. Obviously, you want the domains associated with your company or brand name. If your brand is something somewhat generic — if you own a Chinese restaurant called China Buffet, for example — you may also want to register some geographically specific online assets (i.e., ChinaBuffetNYC.org, or ChinaBuffetAsheville.net) in order to distinguish yourself.

It is not just your brand name that you should consider. What would it mean for your company, were your key executives to become subjects of online defamation? Protect against this by buying the online domains associated with your most visible leaders. You might even register the assets associated with your products, if your products have specific, branded names — something like “iPhone” or “Big Mac.”

A Word About Exact Match Domains

It is important, here, to note that Google has imposed some regulations against the widespread use of “exact match” domains — which means that if you create websites under YourBrand.com, org, and .net, you may actually end up receiving search engine penalties. Even so, it is a good idea to buy all of these domains. You may not use them all, but simply stocking up on them will prevent others from using them against you!

A Checklist of Assets

Small business owners should begin this process by thinking critically about the branded terms they need to protect — but once this is done, it comes time to actually register for the appropriate online assets. Which kinds of online real estate do companies need to lay claim to? There are a few items worth noting.

We have already suggested that buying the proper domain names is important. You absolutely want to be the one to have control over what is posted to YourBrand.com, .org, and.net, and you want to have similar control over the domains associated with your products and your key executives.

Beyond that, it is important to consider the ways in which a potential customer or client might search for you on the Web. What if your company is called Sammie’s Widget Emporium? Is it possible that some clients will search for you under the name Sammy’s? If so, obtaining the domain associated with this spelling variant might prove helpful.

The geographically specific domains can also prove handy. Again, simply think through how people might search for your company. If Sammie’s Widget Emporium is located in Charleston, South Carolina, there is a decent chance that folks will search for “Sammie’s Widgets Charleston” — and as such, you want to make sure you, not your business rivals, have control over SammiesWidgetsCharleston.com!

More Items on the Checklist

Gaining control of these pieces of online real estate is important, but there are still further assets over which small businesses might lay claim. These are the social media accounts. Again, you may not use all of the social media accounts associated with your brand — but it is prudent to establish your control over as many of them as possible. Your checklist should include Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and even Pinterest and Instagram.

Snatching up all of these online assets is something that may take a little bit of time — but it is time well spent. Obtaining these online properties effectively insulates your brand from online reputation assaults down the road. As such, it can afford small business owners some peace of mind about how their companies are portrayed on the Web.

Before becoming President and COO of www.reputationchanger.com, Mike Zammuto worked with a number of leading Internet companies. Reputation Changer offers a variety of online reputation management services.

I’ve been saying this for years now in my presentations, use the metrics available to your organization to make changes that get you closer to your customer. Don’t make assumptions, don’t jump on bandwagons, look at the behavior of your customer and then help them get more connected to your brand in a way that makes sense to them. While other brands might think that it would be a great idea to start a pinterest campaign with a board full of cute baby pictures, this brand is focused on doing something that drives value to the bottom line (no pun intended).

According to Diapers.com their customers “.. have been steadily moving to shop via mobile and tablet devices -  in December 2012 40 percent of all Diapers.com traffic came from mobile and tablet devices, an increase of more than 100% from the year prior.” If you see behavior changes like that and don’t respond are you really connected to your customers? Probably not. So Diapers.com produced an iPad app that allows customers to shop for and complete a purchase from their iPad. Diapers.com is part of Quidsi Inc, Ron Feldman, director of Quidsi’s mobile and tablet group said “Our mission is to make shopping for baby essentials as easy as possible, and our customers have been telling us that shopping on a tablet is a key part of that.”

Not only does the app provide a mobile shopping experience but it syncs with the website so that a purchase started on a computer can be completed on the iPad later. Obviously recognizing that those purchasing diapers aren’t always in a position to simply sit down and tackle one task at a time, they are much more likely to be multi-tasking and something like diaper shopping, while essential, is also something that should be quick and easy.   Like other grocery apps the new Diapers.com app includes functionality to store frequently purchased items and select them again when they need replacing.

What I really like about this use case is that it shows an organization that is striving to know its customers better, is responding to their behavior and is adjusting its purchase path accordingly. I’d love to see more brands adopting this type of focus on customer behavior instead of opting for what they think is a quick and easy solution via social tools. Knowing your customer and responding to their needs is the best path to increased loyalty and consumer advocacy.

What brands are you seeing that are being responsive to customer behavior?

image used under CC by Chesi

Before I get into the three things you should spend on, I’m not saying that Social Media isn’t worth spending on, what I am saying is that it isn’t the priority that some Social Media “guru’s” would have you believe.

Customer Service

This should be a no-brainer and yet for some reason here we are in 2013 and still companies think that a great Facebook page or a fun Twitter competition will some how make up for bad Customer Service. I think we can all agree the point of Social Marketing is to tap into the “Word of Mouth” channel that already exists.

Businesses need to realize that the thing people talk about most is bad experiences and no where more than on Social channels. Investing in outstanding customer service will lead to happy and satisfied customers who are more than willing to recommend you. Zappo’s is often cited as a great example of a “Social Business”. I call BS on that, what they are is a superbly customer focused business.  Investing in Customer Service is investing in your customers and they will show their appreciation with repeat business and repeat referrals.

Employees

How many times have you had a bad experience with a brand because of the point of human contact you had. Even the most patient of us (I should exclude myself from that statement because I have very little patience) who try to understand that the human being we are interacting with isn’t the company, they just work there and they are probably just following instructions.

The problem is that a lot of companies don’t see the connection between the point of contact and the point of sale. The person at the cash register isn’t just the operator and receiver of customer money. They are the face of your organization. Whether it is a can of beans or a sports car, people buy from people. Investing in employees makes great business sense, but it also makes for great customer experiences. As I pointed out above, providing great customer experiences leads to great customer commentary – the same thing you are trying to achieve with that Facebook page, Twitter account, Instagram/Pinterest competition.

Education

A few years ago I was listening to Peter Shankman deliver a great session, he made one particular statement that has stuck with me ever since. He said that he was more than willing to pay for anyone who worked for him to take a writing course because communication is at the core of what we do.

He couldn’t be more right, but I would take it further. Invest in education for yourself, for your employees. Teach them skills that your business needs, give them the ability to do more for your business and you will retain them longer. Sure they will leave eventually and you will have to start again, but you’ll have to do that anyway. Investing in them will make them more invested in you. Don’t leave yourself out of the equation either. Many small business owners I have met have never held management positions, suddenly they have employees and beyond telling them what to do they have little or no knowledge about how to get the best from them. Taking a few personnel management/human resources courses at a local college will be an investment you won’t regret.

Those are the three things I would suggest you invest in before Social, what would you add to the list?

Let’s not forget that short video has been done before, via the Twitter platform no less in the form of 12 Sec video, a platform that shut down two years ago. It seems that Twitter now feels it is in the right space to compete with Facebook. After the acquisition last year by Facebook of Instagram I am sure that Twitter felt the need to produce something that was visual. They already shut Instagram out of the Twitter API, so launching a visual product of their own was an obvious step.

The problem is that video and stills are not the same thing, not by any stretch of the imagination. Firstly Instagram, while not exactly making photographers out of its users has at least made better picture takers out of some of them. The use of filters has taught some Instagram users concepts like composition and lighting or at least some steps toward those elements of photography. Video however is a lot more complex than simply slapping a filter on an image to make certain elements “pop”.

Video has to be a lot more interesting to capture a viewers attention, even if it is for only 6 seconds. The fact that the video loops makes these videos look more like animated gifs than real video and that in itself is a problem, it reduces their value even further. Obviously Twitter is hoping that this platform will catch on with brands and marketers and will at some point be folded into their revenue generation efforts. Some brands are already using it. Take a look at this collection put together by Social Fresh. Not exactly Spielberg is it?

This is part of the over all issue with Social Media platforms, it is leading not to the increase in creativity but to the dumbing down of marketing. Why bother brainstorming something creative when you can simply shoot a 6 second video of a bunch of staff dancing in the office and then post it in the hopes that “fans” will reshare it and it will go “Viral”.

Don’t be fooled by this platform, it will go the way of Chatroulette and other attempts to harness video by people who really don’t understand the visual arts at all. Some of Vine’s other critics have pointed out that it has become an hotbed for porn – really? Amazing an online video platform being used for porn, say it isn’t so! I think porn is the last of Twitter’s issues for Vine.

Have you tried Vine?

Facebook and other tech companies have, in recent years, fallen into the habit of solving problems no one has. Facebook Graph Search is yet another example of that. Of course marketers are all excited about the prospect of being able to find more people on Facebook, especially via their interests and those who make a living via networking and selling affiliate type programs are no doubt excited about the opportunities to plague more people with their messages.

But for the average Facebook user, those with that magic number of 130 connections or less, they could care less. Even the geekiest of them. My girlfriend is a geek, she is not only a geek but a math geek, she can do things with numbers in her head that I still can’t manage on a calculator. I often use a combination of her and a friend of mine who is the same age as me and only three months ago got an email account, as my acid tests for whether Social Media is progressing or simply becoming more “inside baseball”.

Let’s take my girlfriend first. She uses Facebook to stay caught up with family and friends, to post pictures that make her laugh that she finds on Pinterest, to stay in touch via Facebook messenger with my daughters (who knows what they scheme over in those messages!) but the one thing she isn’t looking for is to grow her network, she has no need to. If she wants to make friends with someone she does it in person. Now my friend with the new email account. He has looked at Facebook, his wife uses it in much the same way as my girlfriend, but he sees no advantage to it in his life, I doubt he will ever have a Facebook account. Personally I’ve spent the last six months culling connections from Facebook and have reduced the size of my network by almost 50% to absolutely no detriment. In fact the experience is much improved.

So who is Graph Search for? It is for those inside Social Media. That is the problem, Facebook, Google et al are producing products for people who are in the industry, not the average users. Those in the industry and by the “industry” I mean those making a living at least tangentially connected with the internet, are easily impressed by new features, things they believe will make their experience better, but that is because they spend the majority of their days on sites like Facebook. The reality is that the real majority of Facebook users don’t spend all that time on the site.

I’d rather see Facebook improving the mobile version of their site, making it something stable and useable than rolling out more “meta features” that serve only to feed the echo chamber of Social Media guru’s trying to convince the world that it can’t live without Social Media.

Are you excited to see Facebook Graph Search?