This is a funny song. I kind of agree that the whole antenna issue is overrated.

Last week on Thursday April 22, 2010, Erik Deckers participated in the Strategy Session called Mistakes Small Business Makes in their marketing.  Erik was responsible to talk about “The 3 Mistakes Companies Make with Their Blogging and Social Media.  He will discuss the following:

1. Ignoring Social Media
2. Broadcasting, Not Conversing
3. Abandoning the Plan

I think he did a pretty good job.

Check it out:

Last night I had the pleasure of escorting my 16 year old daughter to the Emerson and Lake concert here in Indianapolis. Palmer could not make it, so they sent Memorex in his place.

Being a drummer, I was a little disappointed because I have never seen the Palmer of the trio perform. That being said, it was still worth it because Keith Emerson is a freak on the keyboards. When I see talent like his, I can’t help but admire the gift of music and the musicians that can express themselves through their art.

It was a cool concert because the venue was small. The stage setup was a recording studio with the guy behind in the booth. Yet, the stage had the feeling like a couple of guys playing in your living room. They played some of their popular songs that featured Greg Lake on acoustic guitar and of course Keith Emerson’s myriad of keyboards.

They even took questions from the audience. One guy was like the annoying kid at school who sits on the edge of his desk raising his hand, going “Teacher…teacher..me me!” The other notable feature of the night was the annoying blond woman in front of us that would not sit down. She had obviously been drinking for most of the evening and was toasted by the end of the show. As both my daughter and I are musicians, it was annoying because we really wanted to see them perform.

(We have a history of being stuck behind idiots at concerts. Our Rush experience together was also tainted with a drunken blond in front of us. Then she reminded of the drunken woman at the Kansas concert several years ago. While I did not remember it when she mentioned it, the cobwebs cleared and I recall what she was talking about).

The highlight for my daughter was concluding the show with “Pirates”. It is off their Works album and one of the best ELP songs ever. They told us a funny story about how Leonard Bernstein was in Paris when they were recording it. They shared it with him and his response was, “The singer is pretty good.” As for the rest of it, he shook his head in disgust.

They are touring all over the US, so if you are interested, I say it is worth the admission. Tour information can be found at www.greglake.com
[recaptcha_form]

For the past 6 years, I have participated on an online forum that covers the state of Hungarian Football.  There are a small number of “hopeful” Hungarian Football fans that are waiting for the resurrection of the “Golden Team” of the 1950s.  We religiously follow our beloved Hungarian National Team only to be disappointed every 2 years when they fail to make a major tournament.  The last time Hungary participated in a World Cup was in 1986 in Mexico.

Football is passion and passions brings out the worst or best in others.  The forum is going through the changes that often occur in groups where a choice is asked of its members to be with the forum leader or not.  Members come and go, but now there is a come to Jesus with the remaining members to pledge allegiance to the Forum Manager.

Now, if we follow the pattern of what is happening, it is a common in offline communities for people to become divided.  There seems to be a life cycle that starts with the following steps:

1.  Mutual Respect

2.  Cooperation

3.  Division

4.  Power Grab

There is a “Lord of the Flies” effect that seems to take hold.

Division leads to power grabs by individuals that leads to potential dictatorships for order.

I am going to explore this phenomenon further.  This behavior is not limited to online forum behavior but permeates our lives.  I have seen it in how organizations work too.  Competition breeds cooperation that denigrates into division which ultimately leads to a new congregation forming at another Church.

This common offline behavior can be seen occurring in online forums also.

More to come on this subject…
[recaptcha_form]

My cousin in Hungary has renovated an old home in a small town north of Budapest called Göd. He did a fantastic job modernizing the home with a new kitchen to a 2 car garage with opener. It is a home that has a small moment in history as the last place that Admiral Horthy the leader of Hungary during the interwar period stayed before his exile to Portugal.

My cousin is selling the home because the kids are all grown up and they are downsizing. He asked me to post it on some Real Estate sites here to attract Hungarians that may want to move back. After all, since Hungary is no longer a communist country, there is an attraction for some to go back home.

What has happened? I have had some legitimate inquiries into the home from people I am trying to attract. Hungarians that are looking for a nice home back in Hungary.

However, I have also attracted the most bizarre scams. I like this one from a gentlemen professing to be a Colonel Glen Parent of NATO forces in Iraq. There is a real person name Glen Parent who is in NATO, but this guy is just too funny. He obviously has taken on the persona. HIs English is a lot to be desired.

Here is his message to me:

“Hello ,

[recaptcha_form]

Found this online. Kind of repeats a lot of what we usually recommend clients do with their eCommerce.

[recaptcha_form]

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.

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.

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.