After my blog post went live, a few hours later, I had friends telling me not only about job opportunities, but that news about my departure was trending on Twitter! WOW!

I got calls from folks, emails, messages on Facebook, tweets. I was overwhelmed, honestly. I was blown away by the outpouring of support, and had more than one misty-eyed moment where I realized relationships I had with people were stronger than I ever thought they were.

Early on, I was fortunate enough to be introduced to a gent who is a career counselor. A “happiness whisperer” of sorts, Gerry spent a few hours chatting things through with me before leaving me with a few key things to think about. I cannot recommend this process enough to folks. While everyone’s experience will be different, I can say that my own lead me to clearly state what was important to me. No small feat, this allowed me to look at opportunities from a variety of angles: would there be growth opportunities, what’s the history of the company look like, where is the job located, what are taxes and cost of living numbers like, do I believe in the direction the company is focused in, does this role allow me to meet my personal goals for career growth, was the money good, and so on.

Moving your career forward is a difficult task.  Sure, you can “take a job” but will it bring satisfaction? And what are you measuring satisfaction against? If you have no income, any job offering a paycheck will appear satisfying on some level, and may be what’s needed at the moment. But have you identified what will make you truly happy? Yes, every job has moments where you scratch your head, but that’s life. Much tougher is understanding what motivates you, that touch-point in life that every time you make contact with it, you pivot refreshed, happier and satisfied. I know, all new-age and stuff, but I swear, the exercise is worth the effort.

I looked at opportunities to consult, a friend asked me to join their company and begin the process of running it for them, I interviewed with GoDaddy, chatted with eBay, considered working with Nike, fielded emails from Amazon and looked at opportunities with Microsoft. Heck, the TSA tweeted me with an offer at one point!

Throughout it all I had in mind a few things that mattered to me. That time with Gerry paid off! I knew I wanted to continue working with businesses (of all sizes). That’s a passion of mine and something I think I’m good at. I also knew I didn’t want to stray too far from the online marketing community, owing so much to the industry and the people in it. Scale also mattered to me. Being able to help out hundreds, or thousands of people and businesses each year in the past had me yearning for more of that exposure. And I was definitely open to opportunities that would help me build my personal brand.

After almost 2 months on this journey, the end is upon me. Today I embark on the next step in my career. It’s a comfortable step. One that allows me to hit all the high points on my list of wants: working with businesses, staying connected to and serving the industry, working at scale, personal growth and more!

So where will I be working? Well, if your money was on…Bing, you’re a winner!

…and I’m excited to be back!

You’re still going to see me blogging on the Webmaster Tools blog and I’ll be at the conferences as well. But as you’ve become accustomed to lately, you’ll also hear more voices than just mine in the mix. This means more and deeper insights from the various teams within Bing and part of my new role will be to keep this train charging down the tracks!

In the past I worked closely with the Webmaster team to help bring the tools and services you needed to market, and that work will continue as we move forward. Frankly, that group is so strong, there’s little need for my hands on the product directly, and for that I am grateful. The Engineering team that brought you our world-class Webmaster Tools has been running the show the entire time I’ve been away, so the Tools remain in excellent hands day-to-day.

I’m also going to be spending time working with folks on the API side of the house, seeking ways to grow engagement with our data-level opportunities for businesses. It’s no secret that the data-layer will continue to be one of the most important aspects of search moving forward. The trick is helping businesses understand how to access it and leverage it for their own success.

While I am excited to be back, I am humbled by the voices across the industry who offered their support and grateful to the company I’ve been with since 2008 for this opportunity to continue this great work with their support!

2015 is going to be an awesome year gang!

Duane

Image Source: http://amolife.com/image/images/stories/Nature/beautiful_water_reflections_8.jpg

Yesterday was one of the most emotional days of my life.

I lost my job as my position was eliminated, and I darn near burnt the orange cinnamon rolls I baked! (Props to Pillsbury for making a bad day better though, because damn those rolls were tasty!).

Microsoft announced changes within the structures of several groups in the company. My group was affected, and while I have natural concerns for my own future, I am now faced with saying goodbye to some talented friends and coworkers. It has been a pleasure to work beside, and learn from, these people. They are smart, dedicated and creative…not to mention a barrel of laughs!

I am confident in my own abilities and hopeful for each of those affected by yesterday’s layoffs. It happens. Companies make decisions every day. And while it may seem easy to quarterback things like this from a distance, I can state I feel no enmity. Not an ounce.

The last 7 years of work with Microsoft have been a gift. I have learned, made new friends, traveled, helped build successful products and in some small way, I think, helped make a difference, a positive difference, for businesses, consultants and SEOs worldwide. Tough to be bitter with anyone who enabled THAT in your life.

My life is filled with fortune, however. And for this I am grateful. No, I didn’t find a winning lottery ticket on the way home yesterday(though I DO need to check my tickets!). I have a supportive family, I have a broad network of friends & people, and I have transferable skills. 

It was a busy day, but I had the luck to come across (and time to read) an article I found to be useful and somewhat inspirational.

What To Do If You Get Laid Off

I will continue to explore opportunities within the company, but if you know of solid opportunities outside of Microsoft, sound off gang. Not too proud to ask for help and support. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ reach me quickly.

duane

YouTube Redesigned, Still a BitTorrent Site if You Dig Deep – If you visited YouTube in the past 24 hours, you proba… http://t.co/hQvV5W7o
December 08, 2012 at 04:24AM

Riak CS Lets Users Replicate Data Globally – Customers can now replicate Riak Cloud Storage (Riak CS) data across mu… http://t.co/GtbeiLiF
December 08, 2012 at 07:24AM

Social Ads, Analytics Come to Shoutlet 6.0 – Shoutlet just unleashed a host of new enhancements for its platform, wh… http://t.co/kpxy1AwL
December 08, 2012 at 10:26AM

With Instagram out of the Picture, Rumors of Twitter’s Own Photo Filtering Feature Reemerge http://t.co/i0eL5231
December 09, 2012 at 04:24AM

Yahoo Year in Review 2012: Election, iPhone 5 & Kim Kardashian http://t.co/ZJhhlVKw
December 09, 2012 at 10:24AM

Black Friday & Cyber Monday PPC: How Did Retailers Prepare? – An analysis of the holiday spending of various retaile… http://t.co/o5SIqLBH
December 10, 2012 at 06:28AM

How to Teach Yourself SEO – So, you want to learn what all those techie-types are referring to when they talk about … http://t.co/M76M5bFI
December 10, 2012 at 06:29AM

Let your customers in on your secret sauce – In a post-recession America, people are increasing interested in invest… http://t.co/xGZ9opf2
December 10, 2012 at 06:29AM

Unholy alliance to swoop in on Kodak’s IPR – Rating: Google & Apple join forces – shurley shome mishtake An Unh… http://t.co/Wi6n7LjA
December 10, 2012 at 07:28AM

In-Depth Workshops at SMX West – Super Early Bird Rates Expire Next Week http://t.co/6Y60qykd
December 10, 2012 at 07:28AM

Google Forces Raven Tools to Kill Rank Tracking Tool – Raven Internet Marketing Tools is discontinuing its popular r… http://t.co/UUtUDOwV
December 10, 2012 at 02:25PM

FTC Says Mobile Apps for Kids ‘Aren’t Making The Grade’ – A biting new report from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission… http://t.co/zzAiwOwB
December 10, 2012 at 02:26PM

On Hanukkah Google Adds Festivus Decorations But No Dreidels http://t.co/VqxPjiln
December 10, 2012 at 02:26PM

Did you know Bing Ads is giving away $5k in ad credits this month? Check out the sweepstakes: http://t.co/jiMRP8OG Happy Holidays!
December 10, 2012 at 04:01PM

Being a Super Villain Just Got Easier with Bing Snapshots – Bing have added two new categories to their ‘snapshot’ s… http://t.co/rQRmg6j2
December 10, 2012 at 04:44PM

Search On for Biggest Search Geek – Looking for early morning news and tidbits for you guys today I ran across a con… http://t.co/PLnsVmv1
December 10, 2012 at 10:24PM

ROPE: 4 Essentials for Global Integrated Digital Marketing – Integration continues to be a problem, especially acros… http://t.co/4O7UMTFl
December 11, 2012 at 04:27AM

Bing Brings People and Landmarks To Snapshot – Bing’s latest effort to get one over on Google has seen it decide to … http://t.co/ATVpbZ3C
December 11, 2012 at 04:28AM

10 .htaccess File Snippets You Should Have Handy – Posted by Tom Anthony .tomcode { font-family: Courier; color: #… http://t.co/p1XE1cet
December 11, 2012 at 04:28AM

Guest Post: Why enterprise mobility is a board level issue – by David Akka, UK md with Magic Software The cultural… http://t.co/IQVPktdm
December 11, 2012 at 04:28AM

IDC: Samsung Widens Lead Over Apple on Connected Device Sales http://t.co/oZ1pX6KX
December 11, 2012 at 04:28AM

App Lock from McAfee defends against handset loss – Rating: Muggers can’t go on spending spree with your smartphone … http://t.co/y2LmDs6v
December 11, 2012 at 10:31AM

FTC Views Mobile Apps Lacking in Child Friendliness – A report from the FTC released this month, “Mobile Apps … http://t.co/5UaOSzTX
December 11, 2012 at 10:31AM

Will 2013 Bring A Paid Link Resurgence? http://t.co/V7N99qxZ
December 11, 2012 at 10:31AM

Search Engine Land Turns Six, Celebrates With New Editor-In-Chief & Expansion Plans http://t.co/lO4YBmap
December 11, 2012 at 11:26AM

Verizon Denies Restricting Customer Access to Google Wallet – Verizon Wireless, the nation’s largest mobile operator… http://t.co/UJ0aUmxo
December 11, 2012 at 11:26AM

SEW Weekly: LinkedIn Shares B2B Social Ads Tips – Gary Fearnall, Global Marketing Director at LinkedIn, shares tips … http://t.co/oirGN4B6
December 11, 2012 at 12:27PM

T-Mobile Comeback Challenges Mobile Industry Predictions of Its Demise http://t.co/iFm7JyJB
December 11, 2012 at 12:28PM

The Marketing Main Event: Search vs. Social Media – For Internet advertisers, the main event face-off for 2012 is th… http://t.co/c2SawF90
December 11, 2012 at 01:44PM

Tapjoy Cruises Past One Billion Device Threshold – Tapjoy has one billion reasons to jump for joy. Following Septemb… http://t.co/7rI8KRVX
December 11, 2012 at 01:44PM

Google’s Authorship Fail: How Truman Capote Was Credited As A NYT Writer 28 Years After His Death http://t.co/2Ab0dLUk
December 11, 2012 at 01:44PM

12/12/12 Asteroids and Doomsday: What Are You Searching For? http://t.co/r49Aw9bg
December 11, 2012 at 02:59PM

Inside Android’s Mobile Malware Fail – Unfortunately for Android, the mobile operating system that is an apparent ma… http://t.co/VIPkwh93
December 11, 2012 at 02:59PM

Google Finally Adds Their Hanukkah Decorations To The Search Results http://t.co/VBMTomGA
December 11, 2012 at 02:59PM

Another Tool Maker Forced To Choose Between AdWords API And Scraped Data http://t.co/fw5q8i0W
December 11, 2012 at 04:05PM

Dear Santa, I’m a Search Engine, and I want…to give away $5000 in Bing Ads Credits! http://t.co/TsoxGaYP
December 11, 2012 at 05:14PM

Bing Social Sidebar Gets a Makeover – Following the new update to Snapshots, Bing cleaned up their social sidebar to… http://t.co/BXZQb1mS
December 11, 2012 at 05:30PM

Visiting Australia? Apple Maps May Kill You, Police Warn – Travelers visiting parts of Australia are being urged not… http://t.co/cgGXnFmZ
December 11, 2012 at 06:35PM

FTC: Mobile App Developers Still Failing to Protect Kids – The FTC has issued a report on software apps that critici… http://t.co/MrUbcv7O
December 11, 2012 at 08:23PM

Gangnam Style, Royal Wedding, Olympics Top Google UK 2012 Searches http://t.co/adSLzJuA
December 12, 2012 at 04:27AM

Latest WCIT 2012 News Foretells of Unfounded Fears – The 12-day World Conference on International Telecommunications… http://t.co/UgTuIqpl
December 12, 2012 at 04:28AM

Every Marketer Should Be Technical – Posted by Jamie There’s been a lot of talk of roles like growth hackers… http://t.co/GhS26Z5f
December 12, 2012 at 04:28AM

Guest Post: What responsive web design doesn’t fix – Improving mobile web access Part III by Geoff Dennis – directo… http://t.co/KbvTlaHg
December 12, 2012 at 04:28AM

Automotive Mobile Ad Strategies Must Consider Varied Purchase Drivers & Timing http://t.co/PIyiLDsZ
December 12, 2012 at 06:26AM

Using Facebook’s Custom Audience feature – Facebook recently announced their Custom Audience feature and advertisers… http://t.co/tT14WLBl
December 12, 2012 at 06:27AM

Bing Adds Social Sidebar Mod – Backyard Fence for Friendly Advice http://t.co/E503M2iU
December 12, 2012 at 06:27AM

12 Top Search Trends To Kick Off 12/12/12 Google Zeitgeist http://t.co/2TF5ISCy
December 12, 2012 at 06:27AM

Fortune 500 vs Inc 500: Who’s More Social – One of the many conversations I always hear at social media conferences,… http://t.co/Be9ddnWa
December 12, 2012 at 10:32AM

Webcollage Signs Walmart Subsidiary – More than 3,000 e-commerce sites worldwide, including Walmart, Best Buy, Sears… http://t.co/hwTCvedW
December 12, 2012 at 10:32AM

BlackBerry 10 SDK Goes for The Gold – In less than two months, Research in Motion will bring to market its new Black… http://t.co/fLCyJUEc
December 12, 2012 at 10:32AM

Selling Search to the C-Suite – by Mike Moran Image via Wikipedia Some of you have probably tried to sell yo… http://t.co/7MKeEhBQ
December 12, 2012 at 10:32AM

Google Introduces WYSIWYG Tool For Structured Data Markup http://t.co/DLsAkWGY
December 12, 2012 at 10:32AM

Time Warner Gets Into The Business of On-Demand on iOS – On Wednesday, Time Warner Cable Director of Digital Communi… http://t.co/npKOYboV
December 12, 2012 at 11:26AM

Infected Search Results Jump 80% During Holiday Season http://t.co/xSuNSlM3
December 12, 2012 at 11:26AM

SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 12, 2012 http://t.co/eX0Fm1cL
December 12, 2012 at 03:49PM

Why You Shouldn’t Ignore Long-Tail Clients (Small Business Owners) http://t.co/dkWemn5s
December 12, 2012 at 04:46PM

Desktops Get a Makeover (Of the iPad Variety) – Every once in a while software comes along that disrupts the user ex… http://t.co/GcGVbvS8
December 12, 2012 at 04:46PM

Google Experiments With New Flight Explorer Feature http://t.co/nYwbGCjX
December 12, 2012 at 06:25PM

Google Maps Is Back On The iPhone: Native iOS App Released http://t.co/MDwxKRiq
December 12, 2012 at 11:23PM

Citation Neighborhoods: How to Gain a Local Search Monopoly – An overview of major citation neighborhoods – local se… http://t.co/bU14W4S0
December 13, 2012 at 04:27AM

Facebook’s Year In Review, Especially For You – First we had Twitter, followed shortly after by Google, and now toda… http://t.co/vKTEK8Nn
December 13, 2012 at 04:28AM

Top 1 SEO Tips for 2013 – Posted by Dr. Pete If we’ve learned anything in 2012, it’s that Google isn&rs… http://t.co/j0dC7Wpx
December 13, 2012 at 04:28AM

Social PR Tips to Get Fit for 2013 Digital Marketing – Create a relationship with your audience before the sales cyc… http://t.co/ZdBeLqbu
December 13, 2012 at 06:26AM

[Infographic] 2012?s Hottest Social Sharing Trends – AddThis, the largest social infrastructure and data platform on… http://t.co/iSrAWWzh
December 13, 2012 at 06:27AM

Latest trends powering the Innovation Economy – Tony Perkins, organizer and founder of the Venture Summit Silicon Va… http://t.co/PC8LToZH
December 13, 2012 at 06:27AM

Mobile advertising revenues will reach $12.8 billion in 2013 says Informa http://t.co/l4ZGKVRx
December 13, 2012 at 07:29AM

10 SEO & Social Lessons from the Election – Presidential campaigns are massive marketing phenomena. An inevitable bi… http://t.co/fBKZEYXu
December 13, 2012 at 08:28AM

Google Announce Changes to Solve Mobile Ads “Fat Finger” Problem http://t.co/CNTGNOaV
December 14, 2012 at 12:24AM

EE extends headstart with 17 more cities added to its 4G coverage http://t.co/6bRGsclp
December 14, 2012 at 01:24AM

Back to Basics: 7 Steps for YouTube Success – YouTube can drive massive amount of traffic, help build your brand and… http://t.co/HjtlTaG5
December 14, 2012 at 02:24AM

http://t.co/mb7YuKtr Insights Report Highlights Growing Tide of Local Search http://t.co/DLKEzkWk
December 14, 2012 at 02:25AM

Locations ousts branding in rich media mobile ads, says Celtra http://t.co/YnasMN6r
December 14, 2012 at 07:28AM

Yahoo Announces Secure Search Partnership With AVG http://t.co/Ic6nGbgQ
December 14, 2012 at 07:28AM

End of Year Housekeeping for Robust SEO Campaigns – For most of us, December is the quietest time of the year in the… http://t.co/Bd6JxfSy
December 14, 2012 at 08:27AM

How to Skyrocket Your Reader Engagement Rates – Seeing the traffic to your website increase is a great thing, but wh… http://t.co/cCKrg8f0
December 14, 2012 at 08:28AM

Only 23% of Brands Are Using Online Video Advertising – A new study from Kantar Media has found that 77 percent of b… http://t.co/A6J9lYFY
December 14, 2012 at 12:25PM

Evaluating the Knowledge Graph vs. Social Graph – What’s more valuable, the vast inter-relationships of all known fa… http://t.co/DYvCZZXH
December 14, 2012 at 12:26PM

Are You Giving The Gift of Mobile Apps This Holiday Season? – Looking for the perfect gift this holiday season? Ther… http://t.co/vsdQHsWR
December 14, 2012 at 12:26PM

Reporting On Social Media Engagement http://t.co/qHk39pB6
December 14, 2012 at 12:26PM

Shame: Availability of Guns Via Search – Any constitution, law, principle, belief, or monetary reason cannot be an e… http://t.co/5BlDDbDD
December 15, 2012 at 02:23AM

Using Email and Social for Crowdfunding Success – Crowdfunding sites like CircleUp, Indiegogo and Kickstarter are a … http://t.co/NOnAnlsR
December 15, 2012 at 10:24AM

Related articles

• YouTube’s Biggest Overhaul Of Its Data API Yet Adds Universal Search, Efficiency, And Lets 3rd Party Tools Post To Subscribers

I highly recommend folks swing by the Beancast to listen to the show.

Here’s the list of topics we discussed this time around:

Nokia’s job posting fuels rumours it might be planning Android phone http://t.co/1Koco1zV
December 01, 2012 at 01:23AM

6 Steps Toward Creating Great Marketing Content for Consumers http://t.co/WB8iJ2fj
December 01, 2012 at 04:25AM

TV documentary to spotlight scale of government lobbying by Huawei http://t.co/VcEFJav1
December 01, 2012 at 04:25AM

Does Your “PR” Matter When Building Links? – PR is a common acronym when we talk about link building, and you might … http://t.co/DJ16W75O
December 01, 2012 at 06:24AM

Frustrations of Becoming a Serious Twitter User – by Mike Fleming I believe one of the main reasons for Twitter… http://t.co/gP2VnDAr
December 01, 2012 at 08:24AM

Top Google Help Elves Revealed Before Christmas – Last week Google announced their Top Contributors to the Google He… http://t.co/McSnXMpW
December 02, 2012 at 06:23AM

How Can You Show Potential SEO Clients That You’re Trustworthy? http://t.co/udmtwu5q
December 02, 2012 at 10:25AM

17 Ways to Get De-indexed by Google – Imagine this: In a blink of an eye your website vanishes from Google. Trying e… http://t.co/6UGtqBIz
December 03, 2012 at 02:25AM

News Corp. Plans To End ‘The Daily’ – Not even two years have passed since News Corp. hailed the launch of its iPad-… http://t.co/iSLG4BVc
December 03, 2012 at 09:27AM

Use Progress Indicators for a Standout, Multi-Page Checkout – As you read this, consumers are filling their virtual … http://t.co/8yUG1TzF
December 03, 2012 at 01:27PM

November 2012: Best of Search Engine Journal – Like any organization, Search Engine Journal’s value is reflect… http://t.co/H4ANh32h
December 03, 2012 at 04:34PM

Xmas 2012 will be biggest ever for m-commerce says BuzzCity – Rating: 50 per cent + will buy Xmas gifts via mobile … http://t.co/S9iFlzQf
December 03, 2012 at 07:24PM

Google Opposes Regulation Free and Open Web Campaign – A highly publicized UN conference on the future of the intern… http://t.co/2hoJcbyd
December 04, 2012 at 12:24AM

Monitise bounces back as £100m fund raising strategy becomes clearer http://t.co/DoYsiMA8
December 04, 2012 at 01:24AM

95% of Tech Consumers Use Social Media [Study] – New study from IDG Research Services has found that 95 percent of c… http://t.co/iZVHKgSO
December 04, 2012 at 02:24AM

[Infographic] What’s the Real Value of That Email Newsletter? http://t.co/YQ5QFnLb
December 04, 2012 at 04:28AM

The Red Carpet Economy – Posted by gfiorelli1 I was not always a web marketer. I spent almost 15 years of my pr… http://t.co/776tZkr3
December 04, 2012 at 04:28AM

Guest Post: Improving mobile web access – Responsive Web Design http://t.co/2PrK1oIl
December 04, 2012 at 04:28AM

Microsoft Launches Bing Ads Sweepstakes & Funny Internet Explorer Video http://t.co/B9cKbzD8
December 04, 2012 at 04:36AM

Nokia offloads Finnish HQ as economic noose tightens – Struggling Finnish phone maker is selling off its head office… http://t.co/WsQEi0iW
December 04, 2012 at 07:27AM

Generation Y Influence Peaking According to Edelman Study – The results of a study conducted by Edelman, the world&#… http://t.co/DCkofszP
December 04, 2012 at 12:28PM

Verizon Video Getting Replaced – News surfaced Tuesday that Verizon Wireless is shuttering its Verizon Video service… http://t.co/B9kteyaW
December 04, 2012 at 12:28PM

Identifying Bad Links (And What You Should Do About It Right Now) http://t.co/ZBwScx3U
December 04, 2012 at 01:27PM

Registration Opens for 2013 ETA Annual Meeting and Expo – On Tuesday, The Electronic Transactions Association the t… http://t.co/81cu8zVR
December 04, 2012 at 01:27PM

Boy seriously burned after BlackBerry Curve ‘spontaneously combusts’ http://t.co/jX3PRtKb
December 05, 2012 at 01:24AM

5 Remarketing Tips to Maximize Your Holiday SEM – As the holidays approach, people will almost certainly make severa… http://t.co/R76zecdR
December 05, 2012 at 06:26AM

9 social media predictions & business recommendations for 2013 http://t.co/VJ7nwsoC
December 05, 2012 at 06:27AM

KickVox Takes Aim At “10 Blue Links” With New Visual Mobile Search App http://t.co/eFF5gQp7
December 05, 2012 at 06:27AM

GlobalCharge uses MACH for direct operator billing In Germany http://t.co/2zMdTFoA
December 05, 2012 at 07:29AM

Google’s Local Knowledge Graph Carousel Finds Its Way On Tablets http://t.co/toIIejHv
December 05, 2012 at 07:29AM

Advanced Search Operator Tactics – A better understanding of advanced search commands, will make you more resourcefu… http://t.co/vxpr7xzs
December 05, 2012 at 08:28AM

Fellow SEO Providers – We Can’t Help Every SEO Prospect! – As someone who has built an SEO business from the ground … http://t.co/IKUOPB7b
December 05, 2012 at 08:29AM

Just Testing: Google Searchers May See Up To A Dozen Experiments http://t.co/zrWon0qe
December 05, 2012 at 08:29AM

The 25 Best WordPress Plugins Ever – The year is coming to a close, and if 2012 has taught us anything, it’s t… http://t.co/M2nXur5q
December 05, 2012 at 01:27PM

Amazon Touts Kindle FreeTime Unlimited for Greater Family Entertainment http://t.co/8xVJUgvZ
December 05, 2012 at 01:27PM

Live from SMX – Live from the Search Marketing Expo (SMX), SEJ brings you the real time SMX Social Media Marketing t… http://t.co/bwarqGtL
December 05, 2012 at 04:35PM

7 Key Ways to Optimize Facebook Fan Page SEO (along with Mozinar Q&A) http://t.co/oiSCUW7G
December 05, 2012 at 04:35PM

How to Build a Vending Machine for Customers or Leads (Part 2) http://t.co/bpp6jEhl
December 05, 2012 at 04:35PM

SEOs: Will You Negotiate a Salary Increase in 2013? – Conductor, released an infographic that illustrated SEO role s… http://t.co/CBY4svuG
December 05, 2012 at 04:50PM

Chancellor counts on 4G chickens to reduce nation’s deficit – Credit agencies are circling again over Britain follow… http://t.co/3vBvtYKK
December 06, 2012 at 01:24AM

‘The Big Change’ That’s Reshaping Modern Link Building – Almost everyone who is on the web today has the ability to … http://t.co/fHsHBj94
December 06, 2012 at 02:24AM

Instagram and Twitter: The New Social Media Frenemies – Once, Twitter and Instagram were good pals, but the fairy ta… http://t.co/c8HLEoDx
December 06, 2012 at 04:28AM

Justin Bieber Gets 32K Retweets Per Tweet – Can You Beat That? http://t.co/PoX914QN
December 06, 2012 at 04:28AM

How To Take Control Over PLA’s & Product Search http://t.co/ef3XYxJa
December 06, 2012 at 07:27AM

Ogone adds missing jigsaw piece to ekmPowershop’s m-commerce solutions http://t.co/pGYg0Tdl
December 06, 2012 at 07:27AM

SEO Audits & the Web Developer Plugin: 12 Helpful Features for the Technical SEO http://t.co/hEyLX4HT
December 06, 2012 at 08:26AM

3 Tips for Email Gold – Small businesses often question how they can use email marketing to grow their business. The… http://t.co/N0dRmP1O
December 06, 2012 at 10:30AM

Intel hooks up with ITV & Shazam for interactive ad – Rating: Get ready to Shazamduring X Factor final Here in Blig… http://t.co/PXapQnrH
December 06, 2012 at 10:30AM

Nokia Partners With Xyo To Power “Replacement App” Search For Windows Phones http://t.co/s2sFzf5K
December 06, 2012 at 11:26AM

Amazon Rolls Out New A/B Testing Capability for App Devs – Capping a long week of big initiatives and announces by t… http://t.co/E2Tc3Tww
December 06, 2012 at 11:26AM

Learn about Web Crawling & Indexing. Join our Bing WMT Webinar on Dec. 11th @ 12PM EST for “Crawling Basics”: http://t.co/YZ9uDUJ3
December 06, 2012 at 11:34AM

Google+ Adds Community Pages and Snapseed Vs Facebook and Instagram http://t.co/D5SpFXtU
December 06, 2012 at 12:27PM

T-Mobile Confirms Partnership with Apple – There’s major breaking news in mobile today. T-mobile is officially joini… http://t.co/m63pvlgR
December 06, 2012 at 12:27PM

Five Fantastic Web Font Services – The evolution of the Internet has taught developers that the key to creating a su… http://t.co/uBkB4KE5
December 06, 2012 at 01:26PM

Tim Cooks Pledges Fix for Apple’s Botched Maps – Let’s face it. Most Apple fans will readily admit that the Cupertin… http://t.co/IdXF6juo
December 06, 2012 at 01:26PM

Instagram Kills Twitter Photo Integration – It’s official. Instagram has voluntarily ended its Twitter photo integra… http://t.co/b1sl9SOX
December 06, 2012 at 02:26PM

Tim Cook Drops Major Hints About Apple in New NBC Interview – A new interview with NBC News is giving the world a di… http://t.co/IlqoaKas
December 06, 2012 at 03:25PM

SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 6, 2012 http://t.co/0HO4nCgb
December 06, 2012 at 03:25PM

So, You Want to Know About Foreign Language SEO? Mozinar Q&A http://t.co/XCBrKLze
December 06, 2012 at 04:34PM

Google Making Mobile More Friendly for Travelers – Traveling over the holidays can be hectic. But Google is doing it… http://t.co/0D93mClt
December 06, 2012 at 04:34PM

Apple’s Big Mac Plans Coming to U.S. – With Apple confirming plans to begin building Mac computers in the United Sta… http://t.co/NT7qGxCD
December 07, 2012 at 02:24AM

3 Holiday PPC Tips for Ecommerce Advertisers With Thousands of Products http://t.co/MCxCYKhw
December 07, 2012 at 06:26AM

Google Person Finder Helps Trace 2012 Miyagi Coast Earthquake Victims http://t.co/ESbXsE3t
December 07, 2012 at 06:27AM

Bing Shopping As A Poster Child For Consumer Confusion About Ads http://t.co/7D2P3yyF
December 07, 2012 at 06:27AM

Jumio’s payment technology used by mobile startups – Rating: Built into forthcoming Drinksquare app Payment technol… http://t.co/NTXJowN4
December 07, 2012 at 07:28AM

iAcquire Cook Up Some Tasty Link Building Recipes – iAcquire has started a series called “12 Days of Linkmas”. It is… http://t.co/4W4danpA
December 07, 2012 at 12:25PM

What No One Wants to Tell You About Email Marketing – Do you get the impression that people hate email marketing? If… http://t.co/U1Auw1xr
December 07, 2012 at 12:26PM

Are You Spending Enough Time and Money on Mobile, Social? – For business owners, entrepreneurs, and mobile developer… http://t.co/cLX3vAlZ
December 07, 2012 at 12:26PM

Bing Webmaster Tools SEO 101 Webinar Video and reminder – Last week we started our series of Bing Webmaster Tools We… http://t.co/1AaRRheq
December 07, 2012 at 04:33PM

How I Would Do SEO for Rap Genius – Posted by tomharariThis post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the m… http://t.co/z4V7g3d6
December 07, 2012 at 04:34PM

Which Mobile Customers Should Mobile Marketers Target? – It sounds like a thought-provoking question that should cul… http://t.co/ikhJqvZZ

English: Infographic on how Social Media are being used, and how everything is changed by them. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

<<FYI:  It appears the site where this interview appeared is now offline.  Sorry gang.>>

I spent some time a couple weeks back with John Phillippe from www.zsalvo.tv.  We had a wide ranging conversation touching on search optimization, social media and conversion optimization.  John is simply a great guy, and it was a pleasure to talk with someone who understands the depth and nuance needed to run a successful online business today.

The interview can be viewed in it’s two parts, starting here:

Part 1
Part 2 requires you register with the site, which is free.

Our conversation covered what’s important in each area mentioned above, offering up actionable insights that many businesses can apply today.  It was a great session as John had the questiosn ready to go and knows the material well.  Big thanks to John for the opportunity to chat and share some insights with folks.

Image via Wikipedia

Well, to be honest, there will be no talk of crazy cool medallions.  I’ll leave that to the SNL guys and the Barry Gibb Talk Show.

Spent the week in New York City at SMX East and cruising around town meeting with startups.  Had a blast.  Sheraton Towers is a bit less-than-expected, but so goes hotels in the Big Apple.

SMX East was fantastic.  Saw lots of old friends, met loads of new folks and managed to help a few people solve some problems.  I spoke on two panels and gave a theatre presentation, in which I managed to transpose some numbers.  Thankfully my short deck had them correct and I managed a quick back-track.  Other than the people watching and those standing nearby, I don’t think anyone noticed.

The “Making webmaster data actionable” session seemed to go well, and I saw a bunch of positive Tweets afterwords.  Yesterday’s “Ask The Engines” session was a hoot!  Great panel with Rich from Blekko and Tiffany from Google…and Danny Sullivan moderating.  Managed to sneak in one solid zinger with Danny so I’m hoping he let’s me come to the next show…LOL

As for the startups, well, I met with businesses at three incubators around NYC, and zipped to Boston late yesterday for two more events in Beantown.  Loving the finished tunnels and the venue was super handy to the airport.  I have literally never left an office meeting and 10 minutes later been at the airport – cool.

Want to know the meaning of dedicated?

That would be the gent who had questions for me today, and when we ran out of time, he simply asked if he could drive over to the airport with us to use that time for his questions.  He was very polite and a great guy, so we were happy to have him along.

One key thing I was reminded of this week when meeting with the startups was that the focus of most people running businesses is not on online marketing.  They gravitate to social media marketing, but SEO et al remains something they want to think about later.  And that’s not really an option as investors will want to see well-rounded marketing plans that cover paid search, social, seo and more.  By skipping these critical online marketing tactics, it can make the investor wonder and question their desire to invest.  Stil, it’s a new space for these budding entreprenuers and I know with a bit of time and effort, they’ll get the bases covered.

Mostly though I encountered smart folks, solving unique problems in inventive ways.  They are game to dig in and do the work, not afraid of late nights and believe in their vision.  Just the attitude that breeds success.  They are also all very smart folks, so if this idea doesn’t pan out, they’re ideally equipped to tackle the next one and make it a winner.

BTW – pizza on the East Coast IS better than on the West Coast.  Save the hate mail.  I’m right.  If you’ve ever had one of each, you know.

Cannot wait for this plane to land so I can get home.  Inflight wifi is pretty handy, but nothing beats your home network!

Bob Knorpp (The Beancast)
Cindy Gallop (If We Ran The World)
Rupal Parekh (AdAge)
Christopher Baccus (AT&T)
…and me…

The Beancast is a marketing podcast recorded each Sunday evening by industry vet Bob Knorpp.  Bob has a revolving cast of characters each week, so the discussions, as you can see, cover a wide range of topics and are always entertaining.  Bob’s pre-show prep notes can give you an idea of what the topics were this week:

Is Facebook The New Nielsen Family?: Once again Facebook is trying to leverage the wealth of information it has on us for the sake of profit. They’ve announced a new partnership with Nielsen that could bring demographic accuracy to the online ad space. Now is this partnership between Facebook and Nielsen really as important as it seems? They claim that this tracking of ads will be as, if not more, effective than their TV model of tracking family viewership — are there holes in this claim? Isn’t this opening another pandora’s box over privacy — can Facebook really afford another privacy battle with competition heating up from Google? Another study out last week showed that most Facebook fans of local businesses aren’t local to that business. The concern was that businesses need to target locally better, but does it also reveal that we still don’t know how to assign relevance to relationships with brands — will this tracking be able to get to intangibles like the person travels a lot or orders online?

The Plan For Foursquare Pages: Not to be outdone by the bigger players, Foursquare announced it will be expanding it’s branded pages offering. Up til now only companies could apply for these pages, but soon any of us could throw up a check in page. BeanCast page here we come! This is obviously a good growth move for the company, but could it also hurt the the service with a glut of irrelevant content? Do users really desire more content than check-ins, tips and the game? What about the rumor in the NY Post this past week that Foursquare plans to start charging brands for their official pages — can Foursquare do what even Facebook hasn’t been able to achieve?

Product Placement As A Regulation End-Run: Advertising to kids has become a hot button issue and a wave of regulations are thwarting marketers from promoting products like fast food to young people. But these marketers seem to have a found a loop hole by exploiting more and more product placements as their means of keeping their products in front of their audiences. Ethics aside for a second, is it wise for marketers to be doing this or is this just a desperate move that will draw additional outrage and regulation? What options do marketers have when their products aimed at kids are under fire? When does a brand have to come to terms with the fact that their problem is not a marketing one, but a product one?

Mobile’s Need For Simplicity: A great article by Kunur Patel over at AdAge.com this week highlights some of the major obstacle to the growth of mobile advertising in the US. I (Bob) read this article and am I right in distilling the problem down to a need for simplicity? Is the problem really the complexity of different platforms and multiple ad creation or are marketers just being too resistant to the new way of things where you can’t just shoot a commercial in one format and send copies to all the stations? Would standardization really fix things in the end — isn’t the real problem results? Would advertisers take on even the most complex system if it proved itself to be more effective than the old system?

The Problems With Promoted Tweets: Finally, some trouble is brewing in the Twitter ad offerings. Brands are once again questioning the ethical problems of having their promoted tweets appearing right alongside uncurated topics that can be anything from Hitler discussions to pornography. Does Twitter need to do a better job of policing trends or do brands need to get a better understanding of advertising in the social spaces?

And here are all the link you’ll need to hear us chatter about those topics:

Subscribe to The BeanCast Marketing Podcast

Show notes for Episode 163 of The BeanCast Marketing Podcast

The direct file link to the mp3 so you can Listen to Episode 163 of The BeanCast Marketing Podcast

The iTunes link for The BeanCast.

The iTunes link for Fast Takes.

The Fast Takes RSS feed.

The BeanCast AudioBoo Page.

The Beancast Zune Link.

The iTunes link for Ad Age Outlook.

Hit the link if you’re interested in learning about the gas station tacos, the reference to “bitches” ewas because Cindy noted many younger Facebook users are creatively tagging friends with the “spouse” flag.  I noted I would request a “bitch” option be instituted by Facebook, because I wanted to make Bob my bitch.   And that reference to porn?  Well… Cindy will explain that shortly over here…

Image via Wikipedia

I actually finished reading Paul Allen’s book a while ago.  I’ve been trying to balance my thoughts on it since then.

Maybe its the case with most autobiographies, but you could be forgiven for thinking this is a book or bragging – founded a huge tech company, funded commercial space flight, owned sports teams, had pro atheletes playing ball in his backyard – any one of these would be a dream for most people, yet here Paul lays bear all he has done to date.

It would be tempting to call BS – if it weren’t all true.

I’m definitely interested to hear more about the Microsoft story from other sources, and I can readily see how Paul’s book caused a fluff upon release.

Overall, I’d recommend the book, but be ready.  It can get a bit long at times if your tastes don’t align with area of focus in Paul’s life.  I’m not really into sports, so much of his content on dealing with sports stars, or coaching issues was just something for me to get through.  I am interested in sailing and yatchs, though Paul only mentions this aspect of his life in passing.  But all this is a personal point of view – I’m sure most people will be fascinated with it all.

I did find many areas fo his life highly engaging, though, and reading through those sections I simply couldn’t get enough.  Paul has given much to the world, and continues to do so today.

So, in the end, I think the book is worth reading…though as with any one person’s recounting, sometimes there is more to a given story that what one person recounts.

Related articles

• Paul Allen charity giving $2.5M for arts, food aid, job programs (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Image via Wikipedia

I’m reading Paul Allen‘s new book, Idea Man: A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft and thoroughly enjoying it.  He does a solid job of bringing the reader along to hear the story of Microsoft from his perspective.  I’m beginning to think I should have kept up my childhood hobbies of rebuilding radios and playing with my TRS-80 computer…LOL

This is the first every biography that I’ve read, and I have to say it’s pretty interesting.  I bought it on a whim via the Kindle app on my Win7Phone and I’m darn glad I did. It’s an interesting recounting of the history of Microsoft from an intimate insider’s point of view.  While you may be tempted to think you know the cast of characters, and what they are like, I’ll admit the story is opening my eyes a bit.

We all know how the story ends, with Microsoft becoming a global leader, but uncovering the history, in detail, of the very early days, and some of the pivotal decisions Paul and Bill Gates made is inspiring.  It’s all too easy to look back on the history of Microsoft and just assume it “happened”.  The fact is, it was a huge risk and more than a little luck helped things along.

Thought I’m not entirely through the book, I recommend Idea Man to anyone interested in interesting life stories.

A couple other books I read last year that still inspire me are Online Marketing Heroes: Interviews with 25 Successful Online Marketing Gurus and Blogging Heroes: Interviews with 30 of the World’s Top Bloggers.

These two books offer a collection of interviews with some of the best known names in each area.  Each interview is worth reading, with the author managing to get the participants to reveal information about what it took to become successful.  I found Blogging Heroes to be not just inspiring, but also genuinely helpful.

OK, I’m heading back to keep reading Idea Man.  Thanks Paul, for the interesting life you’ve lived, and for sharing the story.