May 20, 2012

Posts Comments

You are here: Home / Archives for 2009

Star Wars in Concert

December 13, 2009 By 1 Comment

Ok, so my wife tells me, “I got you and Andrew concert tickets for “Star Wars in Concert” for your birthday.“ I have to admit, I did not jump up and down. “Ok”, I said with a one eye brow raised.

If you have kids and you have kids that love music, take them! It is kind of expensive at $65 a ticket, but it was worth it.

We saw the concert at Conseco Field House. Surprisingly, the sound was excellent. I leaned over and ask my son, “Is this live, or is this Memorex?” He gave me a puzzled look of course because he is not familiar with the old Aretha Franklin commercials from the 1970s-1980s.

The real point of this post is, “Community Orchestras can learn something from the Star Wars in Concert series.” The concert combined visual montages with the music. People were clearly entertained. (I am still shaking my head at the quality of the sound. The orchestra was so tight).

I remember when classical music was taught to me. I finally learned about classical music while on a study abroad program in Austria. Our Professor taught us the significance of Mozart, Beethovan, Hadyn in the context of their time. He was so enthusiastic about the music that I finally go it.

John Williams film music is very easy to get because we have the visual support of the film to help convey what the music is saying.

What if Symphonies started applying some of the same techniques to traditional Mozart, List, or Beethoven pieces. After all, we are an easily bored society. People want to be entertained by our standards today which include video or visual stimulation. Maybe we should have a video running that accompanies the music being played by the Orchestra.

Think I am crazy? Well, Conseco Fieldhouse was full. So, something tells me people are ok with orchestrated music. They just want to be entertained with it.

It was a great concert. I recommend it to anyone.

Filed Under: internet marketing, Internet Public Relations, marketing

Butler University Jazz

November 22, 2009 By 1 Comment

Mr. Matt Pivec – a Professor of Jazz Studies at Butler University is a visionary. butlerjazzresize.jpg

This weekend, I had the privilege of watching some talented High School musicians perform in small combo groups performing great tunes from Miles Davis to John Coltrane. Most High School programs provide students opportunities to play in large ensembles. However, the opportunity to play in combos is generally limited.

Mr. Pivec has implemented an outreach program at Butler University to attract talented musicians from local high schools to explore jazz on a different level than what their high schools can offer. If you watch most high school music programs, players are pretty restricted to the music that is in front of them. Mr. Pivec’s program gives players some freedom to explore the improvisational opportunities in jazz.

Most of these high school kids would not get this type of musical education, until they actually go to college. Jazz Ensemble groups are generally large and a handful of kids get the limelight. Mr Pivec’s program gives every kid in the group a chance to explore improvisational moments. As he said in the program, “It teaches them to feel the music.”

So, if you have a high school kid that plays a jazz instrument and wants to explore jazz at a different level, Mr Pivec is running programs throughout the school year at Butler University. Combo education in the fall and a Jazz Ensemble in the spring. Tryouts for the Butler Youth Jazz Ensemble will be in January of this year.

If you want to learn more or talk to Mr. Pivec directly, check him out here.

He is a visionary and Butler should be proud of the work he is doing. I know the kids are enjoying it. I have 2 of them in the program and am thankful they have the opportunity to experience it.

Filed Under: Music Education, Youth Jazz Combo, Youth Jazz Music Tagged With: , , , ,

Is Fear Being Used to Hack People?

November 5, 2009 By 1 Comment

My colleague, Mike Seidle has writtien an excellent post on the use of fear in marketing.  It is a topic I sometimes bring up in my own posts.  He has nailed some good ones here.  You can read his post at his site:

http://mikeseidle.com/blogs/indymike/09-11-04/fear-being-used-hack-people

Courtesy of www.howstuffworks.com

Courtesy of www.howstuffworks.com

Ever wonder why the news cycle keeps getting more and more fear-centric?  Why do political special interest groups spend so much on creating alarm?  It’s pretty simple:

Marketers, the media and politicians are hacking your brain.

Before you get out the tinfoil hat, let’s discuss the security hole they are exploiting:

Your built-in capacity for all-or-nothing responses to fears and pre-wiring to overreact to threats.

Randolph Nesse, provides quite a bit of detail on this phenomena in  is an evolutionary biologist who has spent considerable time researching all-or-nothing defenses.  All-or-nothing defenses are very costly and appear to be like overreactions to a threat that is statistically unlikley to result in harm.  Nesse has found that overreactions happen to work well in nature when analyzed over time.  Even though a bird may abandon hundreds of meals because of passing shadows, the response kept the bird alive the single time the threat was real.

Overreaction is tough to unlearn. Animals continue to overreact for generations even when the original
threat has been gone for generations.  This is why birds born in
captivity at the zoo still fly away when a shadow passes overhead despite a zero chance of being eaten by a predator.

So what about people?  Here’s where it gets interesting.  People have a capacity for overreaction to threats, too. How about our response to swine flu? It’s not hard for marketers to use Nesse’s “smoke detector principle” to manipulNoted security guru Bruce Schneider uses the example of a hotel evacuation because of a fire alarm, which as it turns out isn’t very to be likely to be caused by an actual fire. According to Schneider:

We tend to be poor judges of risk. We overact to rare risks, we ignore long-term risks,. We get risks wrong — threats, probabilities, and costs
– all the time. When we’re afraid, really afraid, we’ll do almost
anything to make that fear go away. Both politicians and marketers have
learned to push that fear button to get us to do what they want.  – Schneider on Security

Schneider has understated what is going on. People who make a living influencing others have changed how they do their job because it’s just far too easy to push the panic button. People will respond predictably 99% of the time: react to avoid the perceived fear.  Here’s how it works:

1. Paint picture of security.
2. Inject an easy to identify threat to the picture that gets the right flavor of fear.
3. Provide an easy safe place to find security.

Here’s one you’ve seen:

  • The picture: life with an attractive mate.
  • The fear: failure to perform.
  • Provide an easy safe place to run to. (Male enhancement pill)

Political Version:

  • The picture: Successful children.
  • The fear: Supporting jobless bums for a lifetime.
  • The safe place: Increase your taxes, build new Taj Mahal school

It’s so easy, a marketing script kiddie can do it. And unfortunately, it works.

Filed Under: internet marketing, marketing, Online Behavior Tagged With: , , ,

At the Top- Entrepreneurial Networking and Learning

October 29, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Ron Sukenick approached me several weeks ago and described a new networking event he was putting together called “At the Top“.

As he was describing At the Top, it had a familiar sound to it.  It sounded a lot like the old Entrepreneurs Alliance of indiana.  I thought, “man I miss the old Entrepreneur’s Alliance.”  I miss seeing everyone on the 3rd Thursday of every month to have drinks and learn about how business started, failed and succeeded.  See, I used to be President of EAI.  We had too much competition and everyone just kind of pulled out.

So, Ron asked if Professional Blog Service would like to be a co-sponsor of the event.  I said, “Absolutely”.

Here is why, I would not have co-started Professional Blog Service, if not for the Entrepreneurs Alliance.  It was there that I heard many stories from many different Indianapolis business people who were just like me.  My  all-time favorites were:

  • Ray Compton – “You don’t need a lot of money to market, you need to be creative.”
  • Harley Davidson – “There are three things needed to be a successful manager – knowledge, experience, and emotional competency.”  With the emphasis on emotional competency.
  • Jeff Smulyan – Great story about how he got started

And the other companies:

  • Ritters Ice Cream
  • JD Byrider
  • Scott Jones
  • Ontario Systems

The list really goes on and on.  There were a lot of great companies and speakers that participated at the Entrepreneurs Alliance of Indiana.

So, Ron has resurrected this idea with his “At the Top” program.  The venue is the excellent Skyline Club downtown.  (See the metaphor here, “At the Top”  on top of Indianapolis?)  The format is going to be similar to what we did at EAI.  There will be cocktails and appetizers with a guest speaker for each meeting.

So, if you are an Entrepreneur seeking inspiration from other Entrepreneurs that have gone through what you are experiencing, go to the “At the Top” meeting November 18, 2009.

What:  At the Top

When:  November 18, 2009

Time:  5:30p

Where:  Skyline Club – Downtown Indianapolis

Professional Blog Service is very happy to be a co-sponser of this important series of meetings.  Without Entrepreneurs, there is no economy.

You can learn more about At The Top here.

Filed Under: Entrepreneurship, marketing Tagged With: , ,

Online behavior, why is it so bad sometimes?

October 19, 2009 By 1 Comment
Two Face - Character from Batman comic book

Two Face - Character from Batman comic book

Two Face - Character from Batman comic book

What is it about being in front of a computer that can sometimes bring out the worst in people?

Hiding behind email

In the office, email is the weapon of choice.  How often have you received a nasty email from a co-worker who says things they would never say to your face?  I had a boss that used email to say what he really thought, yet he had a hard time communicating it in person.  After reading it, you would scratch your head and ask, “What was that all about?”

Back in the day before all the electronic communication, if you had a problem with someone, you would spar with them in some form to settle the dispute.  Today, we hide behind email.

I like my wife’s rule to my kids.  If you can’t say it to their face, then don’t say it at all.  She can’t stand the “hide by email” effect.  She is a direct person and tells it like she thinks it is.

Message Board Rage

Another phenomenon I have been observing is what I call  “Message Board Rage”.  I participate in several boards and blog discussions.  There is another guy in some part of the country or world.  He has never met the other person, yet he is spewing a vitriolic hatred for the other person.  In many cases, it is because the other person just does not agree with what they are saying.

Growing up as a 1st generation Hungarian boy, respect is a very important concept in my family.  I grew up in the era of respect your elders.  Now that I have reached my mid-40s, I understand what experience really means.  There is an absence of this long held value in message board culture.  Not only can you show disrespect, you can down right destroy someone you do not really know.

Which begs the question, what drives this behavior?  Are these individuals so unhappy in their real lives that they feel power to take it out on people half a world away?  As my wife says, would these people do it in person?  Chances are not.

Twitter Rage

Recently, we observed some Twitter rage.  An individual did not like something another person said, so he attempted to totally destroy the credibility of the other person.  It was not an intellectual banter of professionals.  It was a vitriolic dialog akin to something seen on the Jerry Springer show.  Is there no professional respect in the world?

The individual tried to engage me.  I pointed out, this will become a circular argument.  Why even have it?

The individual that was getting the rap is guy anyone would like to have a beer with.  He is funny, witty, and just a decent human being.  Yet, this guy from another part of the country had no qualms about trying to destroy this person’s reputation online.

Binary World

Everyone today is right and the other person is wrong.  Convictions are so important that basic human communications have degraded into a disrespectful shouting matches.  The current economic situation does not help matters, as people are full of fear.  The anger out there certainly does mask that fear.

So, what should be done to change the bad behavior in electronic communication?  Simply, start with your own behavior.  Ask yourself, why am I allowing this person I don’t really know, pissing me off?  Is what I am writing, what I would say to him/her in person?  If not, don’t write it.  It’s a start.\

Online Golden Rule

“If you can’t say it to a person’s face, then don’t write it in an email, message board, blog or twitter post.”

Let’s bring the concept of mutual respect back into our dialogs.  We can solve more problems this way.  Maybe even help one another in the process.

Filed Under: internet marketing, Internet Public Relations, Online Behavior Tagged With: , , , ,

Is Cold Calling Dead? Can Social Media Fill the Void?

September 29, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Is Cold Calling Dead? Can Social Media Fill the Void?

Yes and No.

I know this is a hot topic right now.

Traditional cold calling seems to be a thing in the past. How many of us like an interruption in our day of someone trying to sell us something? I particularly like the ones that do not even ask, “Is this a good time to talk?” Or, I had one recently where the guy made it sound like he was representing the firm that put on a trade show I participated in. After I realized I was being sold, it kind of pissed me off. I decided not to do business with him anyway, because he had been deceitful.

I hired an expert in cold calling several years ago. She had built a successful IT Staffing business before cold calling had become so widespread. She got frustrated because it had become much harder to get people to even want to talk. Cold calling in her mind was dead.

Those are my anecdotes.

What are the statistic?

Proponents of cold calls will tell you, it depends on the industry. But the fact of the matter is it is about numbers. On one site I found, the sales manager did the math to figure out how his people could make the $100k the owner says they could. He found his folks would need to make 510 calls a day. He already knew that he needed to “speak” to 100 people in order to get three buying customers (a .0058 percent close rate from calls to closes). He presented the numbers to the owner and suggested the following:

  1. Purchase a bigger list to support the increased numbers needed.
  2. Or, increase commissions so reps can earn the 100k
  3. Or, find new ways to work smarter.

The owner’s response: “The reps might do better than those statistics.”

I am not suggesting that the phone is dead. It just needs to be used differently. Prospects need to be warmed up before calls are made. And at a .0058% close rate, there has got to be a better way.

How can social media help?

In B2B, social media can play an important role. It is a list building exercise, only it’s a list you build. The ROI in social media is building the list of possible customers, and industry contacts. An organic list is more valuable to you than a rented or purchased list. If you are generating conversation through social with your marketplace, they are more likely to do business with you.

With social media, it won’t take 100 conversations to get three clients. You can start getting one client in about eight phone conversations — which happens after you’ve laid the groundwork through a social network. Your sales pipeline becomes more predictable.

Cold calling in the traditional sense is dead. But, warm calling is alive and well. Social Media can help warm those folks up.

Filed Under: internet marketing, marketing

Witnessing racism

September 16, 2009 By Leave a Comment

I had lunch with my best friend yesterday who is African-American.

I witnessed a red-neck blow smoke on him on purpose. I was totally shocked and could not believe what I saw. Why all the hate? What is in people’s hearts today that someone would be so disrespectful to another human being? I am angry and sad to think this world is so polarised that people openly display their racism to others.

To expand our thoughts on the subject, maybe I can answer my own question.

Racism is a learned behavior. It is something we teach our kids and it gets passed on from generation to generation. Racism is something that not only covers skin color, but ethnic group. IE All Italians are in the mafia, All Hungarians steal, Jews have big noses and are good with money.

While a lot of people say they are not racist, in their hearts, they are. Why? Because we have been taught by the groups in which we associate to look upon other groups with disdain or blame.

I find myself doing it too from time to time. I will challenge anyone and say their hearts carry racist and prejudiced thoughts.

It’s a human problem. And yes, there are African-Americans that do it too.

To change, we need to challenge ourselves and our kids to follow the simple rule:

“To live in a world where people are not judged by the color of their skin, but the content of their character.”

An asshole is an asshole, no matter their race or creed.  Why are we now becoming a nation of them?

We need to get ourselves out of this polarized world we are creating. Us against them. Black and white. Right and wrong. Liberal and Conservative. Good vs. Evil.  Have computers been a prime reason for a move into our binary world?  You either hit the right button, or it does not work.

It’s this polarity that is infecting people’s hearts to do what that man did to my buddy yesterday. 

Filed Under: internet marketing

Nostradamus and the Anti-Christ

September 10, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Last night, my Son and I watched Nostradamus on the History Channel.

According to the program, my Son and I learned that Napoleon was the first anti-Christ in his prophecies.  Wait?  What?

He was a change agent for his time.  He invaded Europe to eliminate the Monarchial structures.  After his defeat, the royal families quickly put them back.  They continued their repressions, until the 1848 revolutions which forced a compromise to their rule.

Now, the whole Hitler idea made sense.  But, when the guy tried to explain that Nostradamus predicted 9/11 by using numbers that if you convert them to something else, it comes up 9/11/11.  See, he had secret code because he did not want people to know they were the one.  Wait? What?

I used to have an employee that was a born again Christian.  We would have heavy discussions about religion, satan, etc.  He made reference to someone being an anti-Christ.  I said, “Of course he is, if you want to believe.”  “For all you know, I am the anti-Christ!”  I gave him an evil look and I think he almost pooped his pants.

As I was watching the show, the construction of the essay, I realized that we can see the things they were sharing, if we want to see it.

Who is Mabus that they speak of?  Well, if you move the letters and assign mathematical equation to the the letters, Mabus is Bush.  Wait?  What?  I thought he just had a hard time speaking English and had a “I don’t get any respect from my Daddy syndrome.”

If you Google the question, who is Mabus.  The answers are all over the place.

The anti-Christ is who we want to see.  For right wing Republicans, it is Obama.  For Liberals, it is Bush and Cheney.  According to Google search, it is a host of Middle Eastern leaders whose names mysteriously translate to Mabus.

I think the solution to all of this is simple.  If we would spend a little more time loving each other rather than hating each other, the world would in fact be a better place.  If we stopped listening to other people’s opinions about how things are and should be and start loving, things could get better.  Maybe we need to aspire to a higher level of consciousness.  A consciousness that understands our fears, our anger, our sadness, and embraces the joy, instead of allowing others to manipulate our fears and convert it into anger.   This could free us from ourselves to truly experience the love we all want and raise us to a higher consciousness.

Ah…who am I kidding.  We fear and hate because it feeds our egos.  Love is for suckers and hippies.

Filed Under: internet marketing Tagged With:

From Boom to Bust – Flint, MI

September 8, 2009 By 2 Comments

“You can go from boom to bust, from dreams to a bowl of dust, you can fall from rockets red glare down to brother can you spare another war, another wasteland, another lost generation”

Neil Peart – Between the Wheels

When I go back to Flint, this line in a Rush song always comes to mind. See, Flint, MI is a case study in boomtowns gone to bust. At its peak, General Motors in Flint employed 82,000 people at plants around the city. This does not include all the industries that support General Motors. Today, General Motors only employs about 8,000 workers.

Back in the day when folks would travel north from Detroit or south from Saginaw, you would be greeted with a very proud sign that declared Flint, Buicktown. See, back in the day, Buicks used to roll off the lines in Flint. I remember the big Buick Park Avenue friends of ours had. One of my favorite cars we owned as a family was our Buick Riviera. It had a powerful V-8 that moved when you pressed the pedal. Flint was not a beautiful town, but parts were charming. It boasted a fantastic cultural center that included museums, a theater, and planetarium – all the things that patriarchal wealth from the Mott family bought. It always seemed that Flint started to die when Mr. Mott died.

Today, the big billboard that would boast you were entering Buicktown now advertises the greatest economic development solution for all struggling economies – a Casino. (I guess Mr. Potter won, we are transforming all our struggling economies into Potterville).

Go around town and you will find that its mighty past has been dismantled – literally. The factories that my Grandfathers, Grandmothers, Uncles all worked – no longer there. One of the largest manufacturing facilities that stretched 2 miles on the north side of town – gone.

Today there are a lot of weeds growing between the pavement throughout the town. Flint could become an episode of “Life after People” on the History Channel.

I have friends that are still making a life of it in Flint. A couple have their businesses downtown and are doing their part to make something happen. The bright spot being the investments being made by the University of Michigan into downtown Flint.

Where is the next Billy Durant and what industry will bring to the community? Or, is Flint just a footnote in the history of communities that have gone from boom to bust?

Maybe they should just shut portions of the city down, give it back to nature, and become a lumber town again. Sometimes, we have to go backwards to go forwards again. Maybe that is what a community like Flint should consider.

The one bright spot – they still have the best hot dogs/coney dogs in the world there.

Filed Under: Entrepreneurship

Advice on spending your stimulus check

September 2, 2009 By 1 Comment

Got this through email, I found it quit funny:

Sometime this year, we taxpayers may again receive an Economic Stimulus payment.

This is a very exciting new program. I will explain it using the Q and A  format:

Q. What is an Economic Stimulus payment?
A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.

Q. Where will the government get this money?
A. From taxpayers.

Q. So the government is giving me back my own money?
A. Only a smidgen.

Q. What is the purpose of this payment?
A. The plan is that you will use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy.

Q. But isn’t that stimulating the economy of China ?
A.. Shut up.

Below is some helpful advice on how to best help the US economy by  spending your stimulus check wisely.

  • If you spend the stimulus money at Wal-Mart, the money will go to China .
  • If you spend it on gasoline, your money will go to the Arabs.
  • If you purchase a computer, it will go to India .
  • If you purchase fruit and vegetables, it will go to Mexico , Honduras and Guatemala .
  • If you buy a car, it will go to Japan .
  • If you buy usless stuff, your money will go to Taiwan..
  • If you pay your credit cards off, or buy stock, it will go to management bonuses and they will hide it offshore.

Instead, keep the money in America by:

  1. spending it at yard sales, or
  2. going to ball games, or
  3. spending it on prostitutes, or
  4. beer or
  5. tattoos.

Simple, but humorous look at life in the United States.

Dont know who the author is.  Will give he/she credit if told.

Filed Under: internet marketing
« Older Posts

Featuring YD Feedwordpress Content Filter Plugin