Have you ever had a Tom and Jerry?

All right, so you probably already know I was raised in Wisconsin. There are so many ‘Sconie traditions that have carried on with our family, but none so celebratory as the Tom & Jerry Christmas cocktail.

Around this time of year, this frothy beverage has been the norm. Called the ‘Tom & Jerry’ after the Pierce Egan’s book, Life in London, or The Day and Night Scenes of Jerry Hawthorn Esq. and his Elegant Friend Corinthian Tom (1821), this drink was made popular by Jerry Thomas, the famous Occidental Hotel bartender from San Francisco.

I asked followers for ideas for recipes, and all I just got were recommendations for Domino Bar and Red Eye Brewing Company in Wausau, but neither of those places was about to part with a recipe.

So instead, I turned to the Google and found a couple of recipes — none that I was convinced would suit me. So I tweaked one recipe a little bit.

Here’s my Tom and Jerry batter recipe

This makes about 12 cups:

• 12 eggs, room temperature & separated
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 pound butter, room temperature
• 3 pounds confectioners’ sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice

Directions

Whipped Egg Whites

I started out beating egg whites and salt in a KitchenAid mixer. Since it was stainless steel, I read this causes a chemical reaction that might affect the ability of the egg whites to hold their stiffness so I added the 1/2 teaspoon Cream of Tartar. If you’re using a glass bowl you might be able to skip the tartar. Make sure to lift your beater or whisk straight up once in a while. If it’s ready the egg whites will form sharp peaks that holds their shape.

While that was going, I used a hand mixer to beat the egg yolks in a separate bowl.

Once you have those bowls done, beat together butter and confectioners’ sugar in the largest bowl you have. This made a bit of a mess and never really got light and fluffy like the original recipe said it would. In any case, I blended the whipped egg yolks and vanilla to the butter mixture. As this was happening, I also stirred in the nutmeg, cloves, allspice, and the egg whites – beat this well until you have a nice batter.

I split the batch into two tupperware containers, one to put in the fridge and the other went into the freezer (the batter can be frozen up until Christmas).

Add Rum & Brandy

To make the actual Tom and Jerry drink, start with two tablespoons of batter in a large mug. Add 3/4 shot of Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum and another  3/4 shot of Korbel Brandy. Add hot water until full and stir your tasty beverage until batter is dissolved and frothy. Top off with a shake of nutmeg.

Watch out, this is a tasty drink and will sneak up on you if you’re not careful.

I fully intend to entertain our guests with this delectable batch of yumminess next game night in December. See ya there!

The news earlier this week was that John Borthwick’s Betaworks was buying the beleaguered  Digg brand. To add a little sizzle, they proclaimed they threw away the source code and started anew intending to release a “rethink” version of the platform in a six week turnaround! Well executed marketing ploy.

I remember spending hours on Digg.

In those early days before Twitter & Facebook, I found all of my news on Digg first. Remember the ‘Digg Button?’ That was how you voted up content… it’s the great-uncle for signaling to the world that you ‘Like’ a piece of content… Now you can mimic the same behavior with numerous buttons – Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, and the list goes on.

Further, my old startup used a Digg button-like action as the basis for our idea voting mechanism, UserVoice. We had portrayed the company as “Digg for Ideas” in the early days.

In any case, the ‘Digg Button’ functionality is still alive and well – only as tributes to newer incarnations.

And then there’s Yahoo.

My fellow former hometown citizen, Marissa Mayer is introduced as the new CEO of Yahoo (yes, we both grew up in Wausau, WI). Pretty big news week with just that – but oh yea, she’s pregnant too, setting the stage for many super-mommy comparisons in the near future.

I still pay for the pro service of a Yahoo Mail address for my personal email. I guess for mostly nostalgia reasons, but messages are delivered to a Gmail account for easier managing. The actual utility of the Yahoo Mail service went downhill somewhere, so I made the switch.

In addition, Yahoo groups was a great service where my wife and I found things to do, tips about new neighborhoods we had moved to, tips on finding babysitters, and a host of other community-based connections.

So here’s the thing…

Both Digg and Yahoo grew their businesses on Communities.

Once the marketers stepped in, trying to ‘optimize for revenue,’ that’s when both companies started the slow death spiral into irrelevance.

It’s about people.

When you leave that basic tenet and start inserting profit into the equation over building a solid community base, you’re sure to start losing your way somewhere.

While we’re at it, let’s talk flickr.

I used to love flickr too.

I still pay for the pro service – not really sure why anymore, but I’m still a customer none the less.

And looking at dearmarissamayer.com I know I’m not alone.

While media outlets have already moved on to the next news cycle…
I’m sitting here wondering…

Will Betaworks and Yahoo be able to give us the community their former leadership took away from us?

If they can do their part, it’ll be up to you and I to do our part.

By that I mean, add these services back into our regular Internet routine — and pay for the services you love most.

If that happens, maybe we will see the renaissance of Digg, Yahoo… and flickr.

What do you think, can Marissa Mayer and John Borthwick pull this off?

Addvocate: Salesforce’s Former Head Of Social Marcus Nelson Preps A New Social Enterprise Startup

Marcus Nelson, co-founder of customer service startup UserVoice, left his role as head of social media at Salesforce.com back in April to start a company called Addvocate — and now he’s starting to talk about what he’s up to.

When I met with Nelson yesterday, he gave me a quick demo of the initial product (currently in private alpha testing) and talked about his broader vision. He says the idea came from his work at Salesforce, where convincing his coworkers to share content on Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites was always a bit of a struggle — a complaint he’s heard from other companies. The problem is that “share this blog post!”-type requests usually come at the wrong time, like when someone is just trying to read through all of their email or catch up on all of their updates on an internal social network like Chatter. Sometimes, they’re even passed along via Excel spreadsheets (ouch).

“Knowledge is your best marketing,” Nelson says. “However, I feel this speaks to where social enterprise products are going, not the products being offered today.”

With Addvocate, on the other hand, companies can make these suggestions at the moment when employees are logged into their social networks and primed to share. After someone installs the Addvocate browser plugin, they’ll see a bar at the bottom of the screen whenever they’re on Twitter (and eventually other social networks). Administrators can use the plugin to add links that they want to promote (for example articles that talk about the company in a positive light, or new posts on the company blog), which then appear when employees log in.

Nelson argues that in many ways, employees are a company’s best advocates on social media. After all, if you follow a company on Twitter or “like” them on Facebook, you’re probably expecting promotional messages and deals. On the other hand, if you follow someone who works for the company, you probably expect them to be, for lack of a better word, a real person, who is more likely to share genuinely interesting content. (That’s doubly true if they’re might a friend of yours.)

Of course, not everyone wants to become a shill for their employer. That’s why one of Addvocate’s key features is that you can always say no to a suggestion, and only share the content that seems like it might be relevant to your followers. Ultimately, Nelson says he’s hoping this will encourage companies to create content that’s more interesting and less nakedly self-promotional.

Nelson and his co-founder Abraham Williams plan to release a beta version of the product in August, perhaps after raising some funding. The browser plugin will be free, with customers paying for additional features, Nelson says. For example, he plans to offer analytics that give companies a better sense of which messages and employees are driving the most engagement, so they can take a more systematic approach to their social media strategy. He also told me about some more ambitious plans for future products, but I’ve been sworn to secrecy.

Related articles

• Addvocate: Salesforce’s Former Head Of Social Marcus Nelson Preps A New Social Enterprise Startup (techcrunch.com)

//EDIT: TechCrunch announced the official purchase of Buddy Media at $689M today — title changed to reflect announcement.

______________________________________

Well if the Internets are true then holy crap, huge congrats to CEO Michael Lazerow & his team… not to mention their happy investors!

I’ve never met Michael but he seems like a really sharp, hustle-type entrepreneur – his degree in Journalism clearly having paid off in spades.

So… We’re all probably looking through his LinkedIn profile trying to figure out his interesting voyage. Did you know he started an “Associated Press-like network” of University newspapers only to become the CEO of Golf.com? ***

How the hell does that happen?

Then he sells Golf.com to Time, Inc. Pretty good start, but he left after only a year and 4 months… likely way before his earn-out at Time (usually an earn-out is 2 years). So either the Golf.com properties produced poorly or Michael couldn’t stand working for a big company.

My bet is he spurned the big corp politics. That would make sense as most entrepreneurs don’t like being forced to fit a role that doesn’t have lots of freedom to experiment. There’s a good chance he left a lot of money on the table.

The guy’s got to have big balls.

So he starts a consultancy… But four months into that it says he began Buddy Media. What’s interesting here is there’s a small hiccup in the history. He actually bought a virtual currency company called Acebucks (remember when virtual currency was all the rage? horrible name btw).

Anyhoo…

Michael knew he was on to something, enough so to get back in the game and get things moving. And move he did by roping in investors like Howard Lindzon, James Altucher, Peter Thiel, Roger Ehrenberg , and even Mark Pinkus. Rockstar, right?

From the surface (and the Google), it looks like Michael is on his way to a glorious exit with a company that’s making every effort to lead the “Social Enterprise.”

The big questions.

Will people at Salesforce begin confusing Gordon Evans for Michael Lazelow, or vice-versa?

Well that’s not it. Actually, the bigger question is how will Mr. Lazelow & Buddy Media fit in at Salesforce? There’s an already established pecking order of social thought-leadership.

In addition, Salesforce has yet to fully realize the potential of Radian6 and Rypple as part of their offering. The marketing tells a unified Social Profile story inside their CRM, but the technology hasn’t quite caught up… yet.

Buddy Media is the logical compliment without question, but in the end it’s really going to boil down to these two issues:

1. How long will Mr. Lazelow play nicely with a new set of big corp politics?
2. How will Buddy Media play nicely with existing Salesforce offerings?

Let me know how things go, Michael — we’re cheering for ya!

*** he started Golf.com and Buddy Media with his wife Kass. They also have 3 kids. Anyone else seeing some similarities here…  

It was such a great experience, but decided I would embark on a trip to visit a friend in France.

Being a young man, I had little sense of time, money, or even risk for that matter — it was really just me I had to worry about; I had my backpack, and a little money in my pocket (about $280).

A week later, I was stuck in Zürich, Switzerland without a dollar to spare.

Who knew travel & food would be so expensive?

Well, I certainly didn’t, but that was okay. I was young, determined, and resourceful. That and I made some friends on the train who offered to put me up in Switzerland until I could figure out what to do next.

I turned Forty One years old today.

I decided to embark on another trip — quitting my job to start something new.

But this time, there’s much more at stake. Time, money, and risk mean something completely different today. It’s no longer just me, a backpack, and a little money in my pocket.

There’s a wife of 14 years. There’s also three amazing children, and a new home overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge.

When I was 21, the destination was clear, get to France.

Now, it’s not so clear. I’m not even sure what the destination looks like.

I’m also not sure where the trip is going to take us.

But here’s the thing about being 21 — I did eventually get to France. It might have taken me in directions I hadn’t thought of, and required some help from friends to pitch in so I could reach my destination.

I believe the trip we are on today will likely have us arrive at our next destination in a similar fashion.

Happy Birthday to me — thanks guys.

Please read his letter and consider writing some advice for him in the comments below, Thank you!

Josh on the Barcelona coast line

Hey Marcus,

Life sounds like it’s taking another exciting turn for you. Happy to hear it . How you explained your next project sounds really exciting. Integration of the social scene into the business scene in a seamless manner, will be key for new age marketing and business.

I have been lucky enough to experience this first hand but without the use of any computer or website. Which I think has significant implications for the dynamics of the “traditional” (if I can say traditional for a company that has only been around since 2004) Facebook friend and beyond.

After some time here in Spain, I befriended these two small business owners; to the point of hanging out and going out on the weekends together. I met them in their store (a fruit juice store) and we began to talk and eventually became great friends. I didn’t begin to think of this from a business standpoint until a few weeks in, when I realized that I had been making trips to their store 3-4 times a week, just to hang out.

After some time chatting, I would buy a little something. I realized that I had been supporting their business more than I would have been, with the root cause being in the real friendship we created. It became more than just marketing exposure but also customer retention, simply through genuine friendship.

In the business sense this it the power of becoming a friend; before it just meant clicking accept. Not to take away the importance of exposure, but in many places I feel like that’s all it is. This friendship, if looked at from a total business standpoint or too naively (as just a friend) could frankly be damaging to my psyche.  But who says you can’t have your cake and eat it too? There are two (possibly more) main facets to the story: 1) I have made some friends whom I value greatly 2) I have supported people whom I have a genuine emotional investment in.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I have experienced and analyzed firsthand the benefits, both from a friendship side and a business side, of a deepening of the meaning “friend.” Not just accepting a friend request but actually embracing one in an effective way is the real puzzle that I would present.

I know this is your milk and honey, and with your experience you know mountains more than I do in this department. I just wanted to share some thoughts I have been having and pick your brain a little.

It would be totally naive (borderline idiotic) for me to think that this is not where business is headed, that much I know. So I want to expose myself more to the tech world in preparation for graduation and life. I’m an idea guy, but my knowledge in the tech world is… well enough to get me by.

I’m interested in how this type of business works and just wondering what kind of insight/advice you could give a guy like me, as far as getting on the right track to having a more advanced level of understanding in this department?

I’ll take whatever your willing to give. 

Sorry for the rant… your blog just got my creative juices flowing

Please say shalom to Emily, Olivia, Stew, and lil Henry…. oh and Rocky 

Love,

Josh

reposted with Josh’s permission

Crazy to think it’s been nearly three years since I arrived at Salesforce. I can’t imagine having been anywhere but here — I’ve learned so much about digital and marketing, dealing with press and analysts, as well as playing the politics needed to navigate a big company.

The beginning

When I started, “The Enterprise Cloud Computing Company” only had three main solutions and about three thousand employees.

It was a big company by most standards, to which my startup friends would roll their eyes and/or outright express their distaste for enterprise by asking, “Why would you go to Salesforce?”

They didn’t understand what you could learn from one of the best marketing teams around. And learn I did, for which I will always be grateful for the opportunity.

I created my own role.

Social Media was largely unattended by the company. As a former startup guy, we had capitalized upon this absence, but now as an employee I felt the need to shore up this area and my boss gave me plenty of room to make things happen.

I ended up helping with product launches, PR, events, customer support, troubleshooting, an Oracle protest, and even a Super Bowl commercial — in so doing I got to know the teams who headed up these various areas. The process exposed me to so many amazing people who I would never have had the opportunity to know otherwise.

In Feb of 2011, Marc Benioff had written “The Facebook Imperative,” and our company was suddenly thrown into Social. A few months later, we acquired Radian6 and suddenly we were “Born Cloud, Reborn Social.” Suddenly, we were hiring and training new recruits and things went at break-neck speed till we were living this new “Social Enterprise.”

Living the new Social Enterprise

The faster we grew, the more social media management challenges arose. Things like training, audits, compliance, and reducing risk… even finding ways to encourage more employees to participate!

From speaking with industry peers, it didn’t take long to realize this was not a unique scenario, but many companies were experiencing these same challenges:

• Why can’t social be made drop-dead simple to manage across an organization?
• How do you scale social across departments?
• Is there a way to make an inherently non-social company into a social business?
• How would one identify their most effective social employees and give them better visibility?

Why I’m leaving Salesforce

At some point I realized I could build a solution for many of these issues. Why not create a product to make life easier for companies making the leap to social?

So that’s what I’m doing. I’ve assembled a small team to bring a solution to market, and in the next few weeks you’ll start to see glimpses of what’s to come.

That’s why I’m leaving Salesforce.

To build.

Wanna help?

Let me know.

I'm sorry guys, I've run outta room

As a kid, I remember being spazmatic; random ticks, uncontrolled squinting, jumping & convulsing, unintelligible outbursts, I think you know the type.

Playing sports made it worse. Imagine the social discomfort inflicted upon those around me.

This is certainly the most probable cause for frequent ‘last pick’ on kickball teams.

So it’s with a certain distress that I write this.

It’s not you, it’s me.

My latest fascination has been a mobile social network called Path – an absolutely gorgeous product.

Every user interaction so well thought out — and combining the best of individual apps; posts, check-ins, music listened too, pictures (with filters), emoticons, and cross posting to your other fav apps (twitter, facebook, tumblr, & foursquare at the time of this writing). You’ll also see who of your friends have actually seen your posts, which is a nice touch.

It’s all you’d want from Facebook but in a much more brilliant experience — thing is, you can only connect with 150 people.

Which has brought me to this.

I’ve exhausted all my connections. Several times as a matter of fact. Who knew it’d be so hard to designate only your most 150 personal relationships?

When I first found out about the service (thank you Matt Matteson), I made the mistake of adding a bunch of folks who quickly stopped using the service for whatever reason (it was capped at 50 friends back then). That seemed okay because it was infrequently used.

Now that Path 2.0 has gained traction, it’s increasingly difficult to identify only 150 people. Some are family, colleagues, conference buddies – it just goes on. So I find myself filtering and pruning… a lot.

1. Who have I friended that never returned the favor?  Gary Vaynerchuk, Robert Scoble, Brian Solis, MG Siegler – I get it, crazy popular folks who are inundated with requests.
2. Who unfriended me at some point and is now just taking up space?  (I know, you don’t like so many pictures of my new son)
3. Asking myself, do I really want to expose personal posts to this person?

As such, I’m pruning again. Weeding through requests from people who have ended up in this state of Path purgatory where I’m not sure I want to let them off the hook by clicking ‘x’ while at the same time not having enough space to click ‘add’

I’m really sorry to leave you in this condition… it’s horrible being in limbo. Just not enough room to squeeze everyone in. Believe me when I say that I understand what it’s like to not be first pick.

Just wish my parents had discovered Ritalin.

Just a couple extra notes about creating blog content and then sending out to social media:

• Don’t look at it as a Blog – It’s content distribution.
• 71.4% of consumers say that blogs effect their purchasing decisions “somewhat” or “very much.”
• 25% visited a site after learning about a product via social media.
• 30% claimed they wished to learn more about a product or service.
• 48% of twitter users introduced to a brand were compelled to search for additional information.

Finally, I won a new MacBook Pro & a free year of phone service from Chris Moody & Phonebooth Friends. Thank you guys so much!  If anyone needs a free year of Business Phone Service, lemme know — I have an extra!!

data source:  http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/4934-consumers-remember-branding-seen-on-twitter

You don’t want to read another New Year’s Resolution.

Nor do I want to write one.  Some things are better left discovered than announced, don’t you think?

Sunset in Huntington Beach, CA - December 2010

In 2009 my Wife & I took the challenge of maturing a startup, leaving the startup, moving to San Francisco, furnishing a new house, enrolling our kids in new schools, and working for new companies. It was exhilarating, exhausting, and incredibly rewarding.  We took on every task head on, and we loved it.  We were fearless.

2010 was no less momentous as we moved into new levels of stability with the household, happiness with our kids, and promotion at work. We felt like we were getting somewhere.  Things were good, predictable, and comfortable. Don’t get me wrong, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with these things.  The economy being the way that it is, we are more than blessed.

But I have to say, there’s this thing that has kept me on edge a bit for the last few months.  I’m feeling “safe.”

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.”

~ William Shedd

Maybe you feel the same?  I dunno, but last time I checked, “safe” never changed the world.  It’s not inspiring, nor does it inspire others.

No, “safe” maintains.

Now before you jump the gun and think we’re going to do something rash, hear me out.  One can make change where they are at.  It doesn’t mean we have to change jobs, move to another city, or upset the apple cart of life.  However, one can change how they think or behave:

• Say what you think, speak what you feel.
• Never be afraid of what others think.
• Don’t wait for people’s permission.
• Take in on the chin if you fail.
• Stop covering your ass.

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”

~ Dr. Seuss

You know that feeling where you lean back on your chair, and just when you think you’re about to fall you grab the table to steady yourself… What if you stopped grabbing the table.

Would you fall?  Would you keep your balance?

I want to see what happens.  I need to see what happens.

Let go.

Fearless.