Blogger Socialites: Dagrosa, Debasieux, DeWitt, Dickman, Dunay

We’re slowly crawling through the alphabetical list of marketing bloggers who will be attending the inaugural Blogger Social (April 4-6, NYC) – today, it’s the “D” list.

Terry Dagrosa

When I first surfed over to Terry’s blog, I did a double take and assumed that I must have stray-clicked. Nope. Her blog really is called Seduction Meals, and it really is “about food + romance and the premise that everyone should learn to master one dish that is their signature dish—a Seduction Meal, to enchant and captivate that special someone in your life…”

Fact is, there are some fabulous recipes here, accompanied by some very tasty graphics! This blog can be quite seductive if you have any appreciation for fine dining (how I wish I could indulge my gastronomic appreciations without consequences!!) Here are some neat Valentine’s Day stories.

As best I can tell, Terry works at BehaviorDesign in NYC. Here is her LinkedIn profile.

You may gain a pound or two just visiting Terry’s site. Can we hire her to cater the Social??

Luc Debaisieux

Luc has given his blog one of my favorite names in our corner of the blogosphere: Mindblob. Of late, Luc hasn’t been updating that regularly, but when he does, you’re usually in for a great graphic or two. Most of his focus is on social media and advertising.

Also, Luc has a great graphical avatar!

Luc works for JWT and lives in Belgium. I’ve been looking forward to meeting him ever since he started making encouraging comments on my blog many months ago. Luc also worked with Mark Goren on the great Blogger Social collage. Here’s Luc on LinkedIn. Looking forward to seeing this talented Belgian here in greater NYC!

Gene DeWitt

Gene runs DeWitt Media Strategies – he helps clients develop optimal media investment approaches. And so, his blog focuses on various media issues, including broadcast TV, blogging, and more.

Gene’s a NYC guy, located right at Rockefeller Plaza. Here is his bio, including a list of the many impressive companies he’s advised.

Matt Dickman

How to summarize Matt? Here are the words that immediately come to mind: prolific-smart-social media-blogging-geek. If you want to surf on the leading edge of the social media world, put Techno//Marketer (the name of Matt’s blog) at the very top of your bookmarks.

Matt podcasts, vidcasts, Twitters, Flickrs, Slideshares – he is a true marketing and technology guru. One of the things I like about Matt is that he just jumps right in and does this stuff – if he’s going to investigate some new gizmo, you’re going to see it on the blog. Here is a link to his personal site, which I just found for the first time, with links to some of his (very nice) photography work.

But he’s more than just a social media geek. Matt has the mind of a marketer, and his posts are meaty. He recently took on a new role as Director, Digital Marketing for Fleishman-Hillard (here’s the full LinkedIn profile), so he is now more deeply involved in the PR world. Like many of us gathering at the Social, Matt has strong feeling about new approaches – this little post sums it up succinctly. Matt’s a true networker, and I can’t wait to finally meet him in early April!

Paul Dunay

Here is how Paul describes himself on his blog (called Buzz Marketing for Technology): Paul Dunay has spent more than 20 years in marketing, creating buzz for leading technology companies such as Google, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Avaya and Cisco. Paul currently is a Director of Global Field and Interactive Marketing for BearingPoint. Dunay holds an Executive Education degree from MIT in Strategy and Innovation and a Bachelor of Science degree in marketing and computer science from Ithaca College. The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent BearingPoint’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Here’s the money quote from a recent post of Paul’s, entitled “There is no ‘Campaign’ in Social Media: The bottom line: If you want to go Social, it takes time, content and a strategy to measure success (read the whole article – well worth your 2 minutes).

Doing a little Google background, I found this Wikio page with a bunch of links regarding Paul, who appears to be very active in podcasting. Paul also has an eponymous URL, with a nice, neat presentation of all things Paul Dunay (including articles, social media platform entries like LinkedIn, etc.) Paul is well-published and has a boatload of marketing experience – he will add a lot to the discussions at the Social!

Here’s the full list of Blogger Social registered attendees:

Tara Anderson
Todd Andrlik
Mike Arauz
David Armano (these four are profiled here)

Matthew Bailey
Ryan Barrett
Cam Beck (these three are profiled here)

Jennifer Berk
Rohit Bhargava
Susan Bird (these three are profiled here)

Toby Bloomberg
Tim Brunelle
Katie Chatfield
Thomas Clifford (these four are profiled here)

Mack Collier
Saul Colt (these two are profiled here)

Terry Dagrosa
Luc Debaisieux
Gene DeWitt
Matt Dickman
Paul Dunay (these five are profiled above)

Gianandrea Facchini
Jason Falls
Anna Farmery
Mark Goren
Heather Gorringe
Kristin Gorski
Lewis Green
Ann Handley
Gavin Heaton
Kris Hoet
Kevin Horne
Sean Howard
Joseph Jaffe
Ryan Karpeles
CK
Chris Kieff
Joe Kutchera
Jennifer Laycock
CeCe Lee
Geoff Livingston
Lori Magno
Sean Maher
Valeria Maltoni
Caroline McCarthy
Matthew McDonald
Paul McEnany
Tim McHale
Drew McLellan
Doug Meacham
Virginia Miracle
Scott Monty
Darryl Ohrt
Rita Perea
Marilyn Pratt
Jane Quigley
Arun Rajagopal
Connie Reece
David Reich
Marianne Richmond
Cathleen Rittereiser
Steve Roesler
John Rosen
Roberta Rosenberg
Mike Sansone
Linda Sherman
Nathan Snell
Paul Soldera
Marshall Sponder
Terry Starbucker
Seni Thomas
Tangerine Toad
Jonathan Trenn
Mario Vellandi
Greg Verdino
Neil Vineberg
John Wall
Debbie Weil
Tamar Weinberg
CB Whittemore
Kaitlyn Wilkins
Steve Woodruff

Blogger Socialites: Collier, Colt

Are you one of the conversational visionaries who will be attending the inaugural Blogger Social (April 4-6, NYC)? Well, you’ll be in great company. Today, just a couple profiles – Mack “25” Collier and Saul Colt.

Mack Collier

Mack is the orginator and maintainer of the Viral Garden’s Top 25 Marketing blogs, a weekly scorecard of which blogs are getting the most traffic. I confess to a bit of “25 envy,” but since I’m not really a full-time marketer and mega-prolific blogger – hey, I have to settle for re-runs of “24”!

On his blog bio, we find the following: Mack Collier is a social media consultant, and author of The Viral Garden, a blog focusing on marketing and social media. He also is a frequent contributor to the website Marketing Profs, as well as the marketing blog Daily Fix. Mack is a requested speaker and has advised companies of all sizes on their social media strategies, from small businesses and startups, to companies as large as Dell and Nettwerk Music. And you can see on the sidebar all the places where Mack will speak next, including SXSW and more.

Much of Mack’s blog focuses on…well, blogging, so it’s a great hub for all things blogging/social media. If you want some Mack on Facebook or LinkedIn, you can view him there. Here’s a quick interview of him also, using the title “Social Media Consultant” (I like that!) We look forward to seeing him here in the great Northeast!

Saul Colt

Saul is one of those mousy, unassuming, quiet types – a happy-to-be-in-the-background humble native of Toronto. Painfully shy about his inadequacies, he nonetheless describes himself as the Smartest Man in the World on the masthead of his blog, followed by this description: Saul Colt is in all of us…..he inspires great things from people of all walks of life including people in correctional facilities. Called a Marketing Genius by many, Saul Colt is a modest man who just happens to be the Smartest Man in the World and quite possibly your guilty pleasure!

Hmmm…definitely a marketer!

Saul’s posts are all over the map, with a very personal and informal touch, which makes for entertaining reading. Saul works at FreshBooks, an online invoicing and time tracking service for freelancers and service providers – sounds quite interesting, actually. His LinkedIn profile gives his title there as Head of Magic – that’s a first! Sounds like his co-workers enjoy him as well. Saul will be a fun addition to our April gathering!

Here’s the full list of Blogger Social registered attendees:

Tara Anderson
Todd Andrlik
Mike Arauz
David Armano (these four are profiled here)

Matthew Bailey
Ryan Barrett
Cam Beck (these three are profiled here)

Jennifer Berk
Rohit Bhargava
Susan Bird (these three are profiled here)

Toby Bloomberg
Tim Brunelle
Katie Chatfield
Thomas Clifford (these four are profiled here)

Mack Collier
Saul Colt (these two are profiled above)

Terry Dagrosa
Luc Debaisieux
Gene DeWitt
Matt Dickman
Paul Dunay
Gianandrea Facchini
Jason Falls
Anna Farmery
Mark Goren
Heather Gorringe
Kristin Gorski
Lewis Green
Ann Handley
Gavin Heaton
Kris Hoet
Kevin Horne
Sean Howard
Joseph Jaffe
Ryan Karpeles
CK
Chris Kieff
Joe Kutchera
Jennifer Laycock
CeCe Lee
Geoff Livingston
Lori Magno
Sean Maher
Valeria Maltoni
Caroline McCarthy
Matthew McDonald
Paul McEnany
Tim McHale
Drew McLellan
Doug Meacham
Virginia Miracle
Scott Monty
Darryl Ohrt
Rita Perea
Marilyn Pratt
Jane Quigley
Arun Rajagopal
Connie Reece
David Reich
Marianne Richmond
Cathleen Rittereiser
Steve Roesler
John Rosen
Roberta Rosenberg
Mike Sansone
Linda Sherman
Nathan Snell
Paul Soldera
Marshall Sponder
Terry Starbucker
Seni Thomas
Tangerine Toad
Jonathan Trenn
Mario Vellandi
Greg Verdino
Neil Vineberg
John Wall
Debbie Weil
Tamar Weinberg
CB Whittemore
Kaitlyn Wilkins
Steve Woodruff

Blogger Socialites: The “Master” post

I’ve had a request to provide a single link to the Blogger Socialite series of posts – this is it!

The series is now complete – whew! There is a shorter, “official” set of bios (suitable for easy printing) here – the “bootleg” Blogger Socialite set will also be in print-able format shortly (thanks, Jennifer Berk!)

So, here we go…

Tara Anderson
Todd Andrlik
Mike Arauz
David Armano (these four are profiled here)

Matthew Bailey
Ryan Barrett
Cam Beck (these three are profiled here)

Jennifer Berk
Rohit Bhargava
Susan Bird (these three are profiled here)

Toby Bloomberg
Tim Brunelle
Katie Chatfield
Thomas Clifford (these four are profiled here)

Mack Collier
Saul Colt (these two are profiled here)

Terry Dagrosa
Luc Debaisieux
Gene DeWitt
Matt Dickman
Paul Dunay (these five are profiled here)

Gianandrea Facchini
Jason Falls
Anna Farmery (these three are profiled here)

Mark Goren
Heather Gorringe
Kristin Gorski
Amanda Gravel
Lewis Green (these five are profiled here)

Vahe Habeshian
Ann Handley
Gavin Heaton
Kris Hoet
Kevin Horne
Sean Howard (these six are profiled here)

Joseph Jaffe
Ryan Karpeles
CK
Chris Kieff
Joe Kutchera (these five are profiled here)

Jennifer Laycock
CeCe Lee
Geoff Livingston
Lori Magno
Valeria Maltoni (these five are profiled here)

Caroline McCarthy
Matthew McDonald
Paul McEnany
Tim McHale
Drew McLellan (these five are profiled here)

Doug Meacham
Virginia Miracle
Scott Monty
Darryl Ohrt (these four are profiled here)

Rita Perea
David Polinchock
Marilyn Pratt (these three are profiled here)

Jane Quigley
Arun Rajagopal
Connie Reece
David Reich (these four are profiled here)

Susan Reynolds
Marianne Richmond
Cathleen Rittereiser
Steve Roesler
John Rosen
Roberta Rosenberg (these six are profiled here)

Mike Sansone
Linda Sherman
Nathan Snell
Paul Soldera (these four are profiled here)

Marshall Sponder
Terry Starbucker
Seni Thomas
Tangerine Toad (these four are profiled here)

Mario Vellandi
Greg Verdino
Neil Vineberg
John Wall (these four are profiled here)

Tamar Weinberg
CB Whittemore
Kaitlyn Wilkins
Steve Woodruff (these four are profiled here)

Blogger Socialites: Bloomberg, Brunelle, Chatfield, Clifford

A whole bunch of collaborative bloggers will be attending the inaugural Blogger Social (April 4-6, NYC), and to try to help us get to know one another a bit before we get there, I’m trying to sketch out some quick profiles of each registrant. Today, we have some serious variety in the B’s and C’s!

Toby Bloomberg

The Marketing Diva. That’s Toby. And if you haven’t met her yet, you’re in for a treat! I had the privilege of sipping some Cabernet with Toby and a handful of other bloggers some months back in Manhattan, and it was a delight to meet the diva behind Diva Marketing Blog. There are some geographical concentrations of marketing bloggers here in the U.S. (NYC area, Chicago area, Iowa), but Toby (originally from Boston) flies the Southeastern contingent flag from metro Atlanta.

Toby has been blogging since 2004, so she is a true blogging veteran. Here are some of her reflections, asking where all those early business bloggers are? Her posts are varied, but always thoughtful. She posts on women’s issues, but in her words, “Although “Diva” is definitely a woman’s thing, “Divo” men are most kindly welcome!” You go to some bloggers for a quick snack. When you want a complete dinner, you visit the Diva.

Toby heads up the eponymous Bloomberg Marketing, where social media is blended with marketing strategy. More on Toby? Check LinkedIn. And here is an interview with Toby from last year (printed, or link to the podcast). We look forward to welcoming Toby back to the Northeast!

Tim Brunelle

With a title like Useful Lunacy, you have to figure that Tim’s blog is going to be intriguing. And his blog is an interesting mix of posts focusing on creativity, advertising, music (Tim’s a drummer, with a degree in jazz). He teaches for MCAD (Minneapolis College of Art and Design, which I’d never heard of before), and some of his posts are directed at his students in their creative pursuits. From Minnesota, he is playing a foundational role in the launch of a new agency, Hello Viking.

Here is Tim’s full resume. And LinkedIn, of course. He did a bunch of work on the VW account (Drivers Wanted).

I have a feeling that conversations with Tim in April will be wide-ranging and fascinating!

Katie Chatfield

I couldn’t come up with a better summary for Katie that what she wrote on her amusingly-named “Get Shouty” Blog:

What’s going on here?This blog is a celebration of: being passionately wrong; being fearlessly right; allowing authenticity to shine; the fold over funny; and, above all, the power of not taking yourself too seriously.By day I’m the digital director of the communications strategy company bellamyhayden.In all the moments in between I try to feed my insatiable curiosity about everything and not get too shouty about it all.All my friends and colleagues lives are much quieter now that I have this blog. They thank you for giving me attention, as the incidence of ’hey, did you know….” has significantly reduced in the year that I have been publishing. Sometimes they do wonder about my imaginary friends though….

Please comment, feel free to disagree, and please don’t mistake passion for conviction- I’m usually trying to argue something out with myself – you are most welcome to join in.

The “posts of Chatfield” tend to be punchy, high impact, and often fun (here’s a striking sample). Tasty marketing nuggets here, that often defy easy categorization.

This digital evangelist from the land down under is coming a long way for the Social! Here is her LinkedIn profile, and we definitely need a better-resolution picture of this blogger – we’ll get it done in April!

Thomas Clifford

I’ve come to really appreciate “Director Tom,” with whom I had a wonderful visit back in December in Connecticut. Tom is a prolific blogger and participant in various social media platforms. He is all about creativity, conversation, marketing, and especially film.

Tom produces corporate videos with Moving Pictures, a central Connecticut firm. Tom has quite an interesting background…as with Tim Brunelle (above), Tom started out in music before finding his creative niche in film and marketing. I wonder if we might be able to arrange an impromptu jam session at the Social?

Tom is very active on LinkedIn, using the Question/Answer forum effectively to increase his visibility. Want to know more about using digital media to tell your story? Then head on over to the Director Tom blog and drink it in. Can’t want to see Tom again in April!

Here’s the full list of Blogger Social registered attendees:

Tara Anderson
Todd Andrlik
Mike Arauz
David Armano (these four are profiled here)

Matthew Bailey
Ryan Barrett
Cam Beck (these three are profiled here)

Jennifer Berk
Rohit Bhargava
Susan Bird (these three are profiled here)

Toby Bloomberg
Tim Brunelle
Katie Chatfield
Thomas Clifford (these four are profiled above)

Mack Collier
Saul Colt
Terry Dagrosa
Luc Debaisieux
Gene DeWitt
Matt Dickman
Paul Dunay
Gianandrea Facchini
Jason Falls
Anna Farmery
Mark Goren
Heather Gorringe
Kristin Gorski
Lewis Green
Ann Handley
Gavin Heaton
Kris Hoet
Kevin Horne
Sean Howard
Joseph Jaffe
Ryan Karpeles
CK
Chris Kieff
Joe Kutchera
Jennifer Laycock
CeCe Lee
Geoff Livingston
Lori Magno
Sean Maher
Valeria Maltoni
Caroline McCarthy
Matthew McDonald
Paul McEnany
Tim McHale
Drew McLellan
Doug Meacham
Virginia Miracle
Scott Monty
Darryl Ohrt
Rita Perea
Marilyn Pratt
Jane Quigley
Arun Rajagopal
Connie Reece
David Reich
Marianne Richmond
Cathleen Rittereiser
Steve Roesler
John Rosen
Roberta Rosenberg
Mike Sansone
Linda Sherman
Nathan Snell
Paul Soldera
Marshall Sponder
Terry Starbucker
Seni Thomas
Tangerine Toad
Jonathan Trenn
Mario Vellandi
Greg Verdino
Neil Vineberg
John Wall
Debbie Weil
Tamar Weinberg
CB Whittemore
Kaitlyn Wilkins
Steve Woodruff

Blogger Socialites: Berk, Berkowitz, Bhargava, Bird

In the lead-up to this year’s Blogger Social (April 4-6, NYC), I’m attempting to gather brief “snapshots” of all the 75-odd registered bloggers. For this post, we’ll introduce Jennifer Berk, Rohit Bhargava, and Susan Bird.

Jennifer Berk

Jennifer describes herself on her blog this way: My name is Jennifer Berk, and I’m an alum of MIT (math/computer science, minor in economics) currently working for Amplify Public Affairs in Washington, DC, as an Internet Strategist…whatever my job title, my goal is use technology to improve communication, both between members of my team and between my clients and their audiences.

She has provided a more extensive page of her background and interests, which includes rock-climbing (back in the day, I used to enjoy rappelling myself). Her blog will be a year old by the time we reach the Blogger Social – while not updated very often, it does have the very interesting title of Information Squid!

LinkedIn has more Jennifer info (as does Twitter and Facebook)

David Berkowitz

Inside the Marketers Studio is David’s blog, and it can best be described as “meaty.” This guy thinks. I particularly enjoyed his caveat-laced review of Joseph Jaffe’s recent book – it was all caveats! There is good variety in David’s writing, and a nice personal tone as well.

His self description is this: David Berkowitz is Director of Emerging Media & Client Strategy for 360i, the search-centric digital marketing agency. He helps 360i’s leading brands in media & entertainment, retail, and other verticals leverage marketing opportunities at the nexus of search engine marketing and social media. Additionally, every Tuesday, he pens the Search Insider column for MediaPost, with over 175 articles published to date.

Then his bio rattles on about his various other contributions and honors, but ends with a great money quote:

He’s just getting warmed up. Love it!

David is recently married, and if you want a pictorial overview of his life, there it is on Flickr! You can also find him on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Rohit Bhargava

Rohit’s Influential Marketing Blog has the subtitle, Reflections on creating compelling, marketing, advertising, and PR strategy. The site is a cornucopia of social media commentary and advertising stuff – you could immerse yourself here and not come up for air for a long time! I enjoyed his thoughts on Scott Adams and the Dilbert blog – how the blog wasn’t meeting Adams’ expectations.

He is a Senior VP of Digital Strategy and Marketing at Ogilvy. Like Jennifer Berk (above), Rohit is from the Washington DC area.

Rohit has a book coming out this spring, entitled Personality not Included. Will it be available in time for book signings at the Blogger Social?

Rohit can be found on Facebook and LinkedIn as well.

Susan Bird

Susan is a born communicator – though I’ve never met here, I’ve appreciated how regularly she “pings” via e-mail, so I look forward to finally getting eye-to-eye at the Social. Her ever-updated blog, Smart Talk on Conversation, is, not surprisingly, all about conversation and the use of words. The layout of the blog is quite pleasant, visually. This recent post on changing words by altering one letter is quite amusing!

Here is someone who really likes Susan’s conversation tools (available on her website). I hope she brings some samples to the Blogger Social…

This overview page has a lot more “birdsong” (Sorry, Susan, couldn’t resist) – she does a lot of corporate speaking engagements/workshops (note to Susan – anything for pharma??). Here’s a bit on her company, Wf360. You can even hear Susan as she did a radio broadcast on the topic I is for Intercourse: The ABCs of Authentic Conversation for Companies. Looking forward to conversations in April!

Here’s the full list of Blogger Social registered attendees:

Tara Anderson
Todd Andrlik
Mike Arauz
David Armano (these four are profiled here)

Matthew Bailey
Ryan Barrett
Cam Beck (these three are profiled here)

Jennifer Berk
Rohit Bhargava
Susan Bird (these three are profiled above)

Toby Bloomberg
Tim Brunelle
Katie Chatfield
Thomas Clifford
Mack Collier
Saul Colt
Terry Dagrosa
Luc Debaisieux
Gene DeWitt
Matt Dickman
Paul Dunay
Gianandrea Facchini
Jason Falls
Anna Farmery
Mark Goren
Heather Gorringe
Kristin Gorski
Lewis Green
Ann Handley
Gavin Heaton
Kris Hoet
Kevin Horne
Sean Howard
Joseph Jaffe
Ryan Karpeles
CK
Chris Kieff
Joe Kutchera
Jennifer Laycock
CeCe Lee
Geoff Livingston
Lori Magno
Sean Maher
Valeria Maltoni
Caroline McCarthy
Matthew McDonald
Paul McEnany
Tim McHale
Drew McLellan
Doug Meacham
Virginia Miracle
Scott Monty
Darryl Ohrt
Rita Perea
Marilyn Pratt
Jane Quigley
Arun Rajagopal
Connie Reece
David Reich
Marianne Richmond
Cathleen Rittereiser
Steve Roesler
John Rosen
Roberta Rosenberg
Mike Sansone
Linda Sherman
Nathan Snell
Paul Soldera
Marshall Sponder
Terry Starbucker
Seni Thomas
Tangerine Toad
Jonathan Trenn
Mario Vellandi
Greg Verdino
Neil Vineberg
John Wall
Debbie Weil
Tamar Weinberg
CB Whittemore
Kaitlyn Wilkins
Steve Woodruff

Pharma Web Branding, Part 10 – Merck

Perusing through the home page design of major pharma companies, today I arrived at Merck.com. First impression – visual overload! Lots of links and sections, not much white space, and the overall sense that it was going to be serious “work” to find what I needed here – or even to know what it is I need.

Of course, that’s a common problem with these big corporate sites, but the compulsion to toss everything into an up-front visual salad is, in my opinion, a fundamental mistake in interface design. Initial impression matters, and in the first few seconds, I, as a visitor, should somehow gain a connection to the company. Here, I just feel overwhelmed.

Merck does open up with a theme “Where patients come first”, which is actually better than some of the taglines that I’ve seen on other sites. However, there is a visual discrepancy that is just wrong – the most prominent graphic panel, top/center, has the headline “How patients come first at Merck” – but then the accompanying graphic is of healthcare professionals! If you’re going to talk about patients, reinforce that message with a visual focused on patients! (note: when you first come on the site, the panel is a little slide show making a few different points – reasonably effective, but the graphic above is where it “lands”)

As with the AstraZeneca site reviewed last time, this site is artificially constrained to accommodate least-common-denominator small-resolution screens. Sigh. The inevitable crowding effect, and the smallish font size, make the experience less pleasing.

Once you get past the home page and start navigating through the site, it’s pretty much big-pharma-info-overload-as-usual – tons of links, sections, and details, with navigation elements at the top, bottom, left, and right. That’s a lot of choices to make!

What distinguishes Merck? From this site, I simply don’t know. Yes, a website exists partially as in information repository. But, at the very top-level, it should immediately tell me about the company – make me feel something important. There should be a single, distinguishing message. I don’t see it here.

Prior website reviews, from my (pharma-oriented) Impactiviti blog:

Wyeth

GSK

Pfizer

J&J

Novartis

Sanofi-Aventis

Abbott

BMS

AstraZeneca

Do you ooVoo??

I was hit with a flurry of invitations in the last two weeks to “ooVoo” – which I resisted initially, as I sometimes feel overloaded with all the new collaborative/on-line toys.

Then I got a more personalized invite from one of my favorite local bloggers, C.B. Whittemore. And it hit me – a free service to enable on-line video conferencing – including free calls and chat? And even though C.B. is only 25 minutes away, how fun would it be to just have a quick on-line talk including live video feed?

So I bought a webcam (Logitech Pro 9000 – pretty sweet, includes audio), downloaded ooVoo, and voila! – instant ooVooing.

Just finished up a quick session with Cam Beck (who types faster than I talk), and I see that a number of other bloggers have already begun ooVooing. But I’m thinking about more than just social fun – now that video uploads are so simple, how am I going to employ this for business?

What are some of your ideas?

Blogger Socialites: Bailey, Barrett, Beck, Bellamkonda

In the lead-up to this year’s Blogger Social (April 4-6, NYC), I’m attempting to gather brief “snapshots” of all the 75-odd registered bloggers. Last time, we looked at the “A” list. Let’s take a look at some of the “B” friends we’ll befriend.

Matthew Bailey

Matt is the main man over at SiteLogic Marketing blog. Here is the official summary of the company: SiteLogic was founded by Matt Bailey, who has been in the search marketing industry since 1996. As early as then, he was evaluating websites based on brand protection and ROI. Matt started speaking in the late 1990’s at Bed and Breakfast seminars, teaching website marketing and search engine optimization.

Matt’s blog is coming up on its 2nd anniversary. He covers a lot of topics touching on web marketing, including optimization, design, and trends. The posts are meaty and practical, and the tone is professional. Good use of white space. I love this post about Analytics according to Captain Kirk.

This link has some good background bio on Matt. If you’re looking for site optimization services, he’s your guy!

Ryan Barrett

First thing to understand is that Ryan is a female, not a male (I have one son named Ryan, and how easy it is to make assumptions!). Ryan is a copywriter at a Boston ad agency, and her blog, Cheap Thrills, is her personal site. The posts are wide-ranging – politics, social media, personal, Boston stuff, you name it! Love colorful design? – check out these eye-grabbing quilts!

It appears that Ryan is a Red Sox fan and that definitely scores extra points in my book!

Here are 8 random things about Ryan – will we find anyone at the Blogger Social who has longer fingers??

Cam Beck

I’ve been looking forward for many months to meeting Cam. We’ve corresponded via e-mail often, and I know I’m going to like this guy. Cam, along with 2 co-authors, runs the Chaos Scenario blog. If you’re feeling challenged by geek-speak and on-line acronyms, Cam just posted a great little piece on Net Lingo. The blog focuses on branding and marketing issues.

Cam works for Click Here, a geekreative group in Texas helping companies use technology in their branding. My suspicion is that Cam does not root for either the NY Giants or the NY Yankees, but we can confirm that at the Blogger Social!

Cam is a former Marine (or is it true that there are no former Marines?), a Boy Scout leader, and a contributer to Marketing Profs Daily Fix (sample). He sums up his business philosophy thusly:

1. In order to deliver effective customer service, you must first become a servant to your customers.
2. To become an effective servant to your customers, you must first admire and respect them.
3. Respect for others requires you put their needs before your own.
4. Every experience is a learning opportunity.

Cam’t get enough? Here’s a LinkedIn profile. Looking forward to some Lone Star fellowship come April!

Shashi Bellamkonda

Shashi works for Network Solutions and has been blogging for several years. He lives and works in the DC area, and enjoys creating posts with pictures, videos, and interviews of various people in the tech and social media industry (including this little piece on Jennifer Berk, another of the registered attendees).

Shashi is an internet addict, and he describes his professional life thusly: Product Innovator – totally plugged in to technology consumer products strategy and marketing. Expertise in communities, using Social media tools, Optimizing the message to the new media. Responsible for the strategic planning, execution and management of the mobile web products, Website tools for small business, Search , Analytics and Internet Advertising. website traffic strategies and Social Media Optimization. 

LinkedIn? Of course! Twitter? Naturally. Shashi is going to be “talking tech” come Blogger Social!

Here’s the full list of Blogger Social registered attendees:

Tara Anderson
Todd Andrlik
Mike Arauz
David Armano (these four are profiled here)

Matthew Bailey
Ryan Barrett
Cam Beck
Shashi Bellamkonda (these four are profiled above)

Jennifer Berk
Rohit Bhargava
Susan Bird
Toby Bloomberg
Tim Brunelle
Katie Chatfield
Thomas Clifford
Mack Collier
Saul Colt
Terry Dagrosa
Luc Debaisieux
Gene DeWitt
Matt Dickman
Paul Dunay
Gianandrea Facchini
Jason Falls
Anna Farmery
Mark Goren
Heather Gorringe
Kristin Gorski
Lewis Green
Ann Handley
Gavin Heaton
Kris Hoet
Kevin Horne
Sean Howard
Joseph Jaffe
Ryan Karpeles
CK
Chris Kieff
Joe Kutchera
Jennifer Laycock
CeCe Lee
Geoff Livingston
Lori Magno
Sean Maher
Valeria Maltoni
Caroline McCarthy
Matthew McDonald
Paul McEnany
Tim McHale
Drew McLellan
Doug Meacham
Virginia Miracle
Scott Monty
Darryl Ohrt
Rita Perea
Marilyn Pratt
Jane Quigley
Arun Rajagopal
Connie Reece
David Reich
Marianne Richmond
Cathleen Rittereiser
Steve Roesler
John Rosen
Roberta Rosenberg
Mike Sansone
Linda Sherman
Nathan Snell
Paul Soldera
Marshall Sponder
Terry Starbucker
Seni Thomas
Tangerine Toad
Jonathan Trenn
Mario Vellandi
Greg Verdino
Neil Vineberg
John Wall
Debbie Weil
Tamar Weinberg
CB Whittemore
Kaitlyn Wilkins
Steve Woodruff

Blogger Socialites: Anderson, Andrlik, Arauz, Armano

In the lead-up to this year’s Blogger Social (April 4-6, NYC), I’m attempting to gather brief “snapshots” of all the 75-odd registered bloggers. Hopefully, this will give me/us a head start on socializing with many new friends. Today, in our alphabetical pursuit of blogger profiling, the “A” team…

Tara Anderson

Tara works for a small tech outfit called Lijit, which provides search tools and stats for bloggers (you can get a Lijit Wijit at the site for your blog, if you are so inclined). Tara’s blog focuses mostly on life at Lijit, and it’s a great way for a small-ish start up tech company to get exposure. The tone of Tara’s blog is casual and personal, which seems to reflect the culture of the company. Lijit is located in Colorado, so Tara is coming a long ways to get to the Blogger Social!

This is how Tara is described on the Lijit site: Tara Anderson, Community Catalyst – Tara’s been a public school teacher, restaurant manager, stand-up comedienne, massage therapist, and is now in charge of evangelizing Lijit, which she does with aplomb. Tara spends her days reaching out to new and potential Lijit users, as well as generally finding ways to grow the Lijit community and get our message out there. She’s comfortable striking up a conversation with anyone, anywhere, anytime (unlike the rest of the folks here), but is still nerdy enough to represent.

And what does Big Brother Google tell us about Tara? Well, this and this! Can’t wait to meet this lively blogger!

Todd Andrlik

Todd is the creator of the Power 150 (recently acquired by Advertising Age), a regularly updated listing of the most popular marketing blogs. His blog, ToddAnd Marketing and Media, is a treasure trove of marketing, advertising, PR, and blogging stuff. The layout is pleasant, with good use of graphics and white space, and Todd’s blogging interests are wide-ranging, so this is a good site for a broad overview of topics and links.

Todd directs marketing and PR for a construction firm and has also consulted with many others on marketing and PR issues. He and his (art teacher) wife have a silky Terrier, Wrigley, which may also indicate a certain sports team bias.

More Todd? Sure. Here’s a LinkedIn profile, and an on-line interview posted by Geoff Livingston.

Mike Arauz

Here is how Mike describes himself on his blog:
Mike Arauz is interested in Media, Marketing, Technology, Photography, Film, Food, and Politics. This site is a place for you to discover the things that Mike thinks are interesting enough to pass on. Mike is a strategist, a futurologist, a digital anthropologist, at Undercurrent, and lives in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

And that’s exactly true…the blog is a “Mike mirror,” and the topics range from marketing to Barack Obama to social networking and lots more. Here is Mike’s LinkedIn profile (nice profile photo, btw), and a collection of very cool Flickr photos (here is a favorite of mine).

The Undercurrent website has an intriguing company self-description. Not quite sure what they do, exactly, but clearly, it’ll be interesting talking to Mike about it! And when you visit Mike’s website, you’ll note one of the “grittiest” header graphics that you’ve ever seen on a blog!

David Armano

David is well-known in the blogger community for his tasteful blog, Logic + Emotion. David is an idea guy, and he specializes in very cool graphics, especially with overlapping circles. He is VP of Experience Design with a firm called Critical Mass, and his blog is heavily weighted toward marketing/design/blogging/business. Here is a recent post summarizing why he still blogs, after 2 years.

Courtesy of Google, we can find out about David’s Italian background, engage in Twitter talk (if that’s your thing), and get the full LinkedIn profile. But mostly, we can look forward to some great conversations in April with a very creative fellow!

Here is his personal website. I make numerous business trips to Chicago, and since he is in that area, I need to stop being lazy and set up a lunch meeting with him…

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Here are the other registered attendees. I’ll try to do a couple more in the next day or so…
Matthew Bailey
Ryan Barrett
Cam Beck
Jennifer Berk
Rohit Bhargava
Susan Bird
Toby Bloomberg
Tim Brunelle
Katie Chatfield
Thomas Clifford
Mack Collier
Saul Colt
Terry Dagrosa
Luc Debaisieux
Gene DeWitt
Matt Dickman
Paul Dunay
Gianandrea Facchini
Jason Falls
Anna Farmery
Mark Goren
Heather Gorringe
Kristin Gorski
Lewis Green
Ann Handley
Gavin Heaton
Kris Hoet
Kevin Horne
Sean Howard
Joseph Jaffe
Ryan Karpeles
CK
Chris Kieff
Joe Kutchera
Jennifer Laycock
CeCe Lee
Geoff Livingston
Lori Magno
Sean Maher
Valeria Maltoni
Caroline McCarthy
Matthew McDonald
Paul McEnany
Tim McHale
Drew McLellan
Doug Meacham
Virginia Miracle
Scott Monty
Darryl Ohrt
Rita Perea
Marilyn Pratt
Jane Quigley
Arun Rajagopal
Connie Reece
David Reich
Marianne Richmond
Cathleen Rittereiser
Steve Roesler
John Rosen
Roberta Rosenberg
Mike Sansone
Linda Sherman
Nathan Snell
Paul Soldera
Marshall Sponder
Terry Starbucker
Seni Thomas
Tangerine Toad
Jonathan Trenn
Mario Vellandi
Greg Verdino
Neil Vineberg
John Wall
Debbie Weil
Tamar Weinberg
CB Whittemore
Kaitlyn Wilkins
Steve Woodruff

Blogger Socialites – Summaries and Snippets

The first Blogger Social is a little over a month away, and I’m looking forward to meeting a bunch of new people. Now I don’t know about you, but I always feel a little intimidated in new settings, particularly unstructured social groups (yes, some of you have told me I don’t act like it, but that’s only because this introvert has been forced out of his shell over many years). So I thought I’d engage in a little on-line research about each one of the registered attendees, so I won’t feel quite so clueless when we’re all together. And, well, I’m…Curious.

Want to come along? It’ll be an ongoing series between now and early April, and hopefully, I’ll get through the whole list.

Tomorrow, the “A-Team” – Tara Anderson, Todd Andrlik, Mike Arauz, and David Armano.

Tara Anderson
Todd Andrlik
Mike Arauz
David Armano
Matthew Bailey
Ryan Barrett
Cam Beck
Jennifer Berk
Rohit Bhargava
Susan Bird
Toby Bloomberg
Tim Brunelle
Katie Chatfield
Thomas Clifford
Mack Collier
Saul Colt
Terry Dagrosa
Luc Debaisieux
Gene DeWitt
Matt Dickman
Paul Dunay
Gianandrea Facchini
Jason Falls
Anna Farmery
Mark Goren
Heather Gorringe
Kristin Gorski
Lewis Green
Ann Handley
Gavin Heaton
Kris Hoet
Kevin Horne
Sean Howard
Joseph Jaffe
Ryan Karpeles
CK
Chris Kieff
Joe Kutchera
Jennifer Laycock
CeCe Lee
Geoff Livingston
Lori Magno
Sean Maher
Valeria Maltoni
Caroline McCarthy
Matthew McDonald
Paul McEnany
Tim McHale
Drew McLellan
Doug Meacham
Virginia Miracle
Scott Monty
Darryl Ohrt
Rita Perea
Marilyn Pratt
Jane Quigley
Arun Rajagopal
Connie Reece
David Reich
Marianne Richmond
Cathleen Rittereiser
Steve Roesler
John Rosen
Roberta Rosenberg
Mike Sansone
Linda Sherman
Nathan Snell
Paul Soldera
Marshall Sponder
Terry Starbucker
Seni Thomas
Tangerine Toad
Jonathan Trenn
Mario Vellandi
Greg Verdino
Neil Vineberg
John Wall
Debbie Weil
Tamar Weinberg
CB Whittemore
Kaitlyn Wilkins
Steve Woodruff

Taking the iPhone plunge

OK, I finally did it.

Tired of a cell phone that wasn’t a great performer, and wanting to consolidate a number of functions (contacts, calendar, e-mail, music, etc.) into one device, I decided to shed the old technology garments and jump into a stylish new Apple iPhone.

I figured it was going to take a number of days to “figure it out” and bring the system up. Nope. In very little time, I had it activated, sync’ed up my iTunes music, connected to my Yahoo mail account, and easily explored many of the other wonderful functions of this very cool device.

First impression – where has the rest of the software design world been all this time? What a fabulous interface! As I have mentioned often to my clients, I am not at all easy to impress when it comes to interfaces – I’ve seen far too much user-hostile and non-intuitive design. The iPhone, however, is a delight to use – I was texting my 17-year old son in no time (and was he shocked when he found out I’d gotten an iPhone!) and my one concern – the flat-screen “virtual” keyboard – quickly became a non-issue when I began to use it. Sweet.

So, all you veteran iPhone users out there, help me out. What are some of the best tricks you’ve found? What are the free downloads and other goodies you’ve come across that you’d recommend? Tell the world (well, OK, at least ME) in the comments how I can better use this thing. Because if there’s such a thing as love at first sight when it comes to communication devices, I think I just took the fall…

Not Quite What I Was Planning

Quite possibly one of the briefest contributions I’ve ever made – Six Words. A recently released book called Not Quite What I Was Planning – Six word memoirs by writers famous and obscure features page after page of fun and interesting six-word summaries of life’s lessons. The editors at Smith Magazine asked for contributions on-line, and sure enough, mine was accepted (page 175) along with many others.

A few favorite samples:

“Was rebellious teen. Now raising one.”

“Good, evil use the same font.”

“Awkward girl takes chances. Fun ensues.”

“Always working on the next chapter.”

I won’t tell you mine – you have to buy the book to find out!

Lots of goodies in here – in fact, this is a perfect “bathroom book”!

Straight from the Diva: Building Business Relationships

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, an interesting post by the Marketing Diva herself, Toby Bloomberg, who consolidated the thoughts of 62 bloggers on how to build effective client/vendor/partner relationships.

Good stuff here! Thanks, Toby!

2 Days Left to Get Social!

The deadline to sign up for the First Monstrous Blogger Social is this week – are you IN?

The following fine bloggers are registered so far – but you must sign up by Feb 15th.

Susan Bird  Tim Brunelle Katie Chatfield Terry Dagrosa Matt Dickman Luc Debaisieux Gianandrea Facchini Mark Goren Gavin Heaton Sean Howard CK Valeria Maltoni Drew McLellan Doug Meacham Marilyn Pratt Steve Roesler Greg Verdino CB Whittemore Steve Woodruff Paul McEnany Ann Handley David Reich Tangerine Toad Kristin Gorski Mack Collier David Armano Ryan Barrett Lori Magno Tim McHale Gene DeWitt Mario Vellandi Arun Rajagopal Joseph Jaffe Rohit Bhargava Anna Farmery Marianne Richmond Thomas Clifford Lewis Green Geoff Livingston Kris Hoet Connie Reece CeCe Lee Toby Bloomberg Seni Thomas Darryl Ohrt Joe Kutchera Paul Dunay Marshall Sponder Chris Kieff Tara Anderson Jason Falls Paul Soldera Roberta Rosenberg Saul Colt Todd Andrlik Nathan Snell Ryan Karpeles Mike Sansone Jennifer Laycock Neil Vineberg Cam Beck Mike Arauz John Rosen

What other incentive could you possibly need? Well, how about a chance to win your very own Curious George mascot? That’s right, in addition to the Curious George doll now circulating among the Age of Conversation authors (hey-where is he now, anyway??), we’ll have a drawing for THIS Curious George for one lucky attendee at the Blogger Social.

In fact, here’s an idea for all of us attending – do you have something you’d like to give away to a lucky blogging comrade? Something that uniquely expresses you or your blog identity (note to Tangerine Toad – that could get interesting for you!)? Because if we’re going to raffle off a monkey, maybe we can have fun giving away other items that creative bloggers bring! If you’re into it, why not blog and show what you want to toss into the mix – it’ll just make the time of sharing all the richer!

Branding a Department

Everyone understands the need to brand a product…well, not everyone. Some companies do a great job of branding deliberately, others succeed almost by accident.

Nonetheless, all of us – every person, company or product – has a brand. That is, an image and a feeling that occupies the mind of people who have encountered us. That is our brand. The question is: do we pro-actively build our brand in the best way possible?

Much of my paying work is helping pharmaceutical companies plan and develop effective training strategies. Sometimes, however, we wander into the creative ground of creating a “brand” for the department. Needless to say, I enjoy those times!

When a division of a company wishes to brand itself in some fashion, it is vital to have a clear goal and set of deliverables when going through this exercise, so that something of enduring value is created.

Let’s look, first off, at several reasons why a department might seek to more effectively brand itself. One or more of these might contribute in any given case:

Create a more consistent visual presentation

Seek to crystallize and communicate the purpose and goals of the department

Build esprit de corps among those within the department

Create the sense that the department is a valuable “destination” for potential recruits

Elevate the identity and value of the department within the corporation

Put forth a distinct message separate from (but not in opposition to) any overall corporate branding

Next, let’s consider 3 potential levels of “branding” that might occur at a department level:

1. Presentation (basic look/feel) – this is less a true branding exercise, than an attempt to arrive at consistent visual standards. Often, this will involve a logo of some sort, and some graphical/color standards that are designed and enforced in all production (e.g., a stylized T&D with a red and grey scheme).
2. Message and Presentation – this includes the above, plus the addition of some sort of defining and aspirational message that truly represents the aim of the group.
3. Identity, Message, and Presentation – this involves a more thoughtful process of seeking to articulate the value, culture, outlook, and goals of the department, now and for the future, and crystallizing this in clear summary statements and messages. In this case, an exercise of “brand-storming” precedes development of messages and presentation element, since those are the outflow of identity definition.

By and large, outside assistance in brand definition is very helpful, as those on the “inside” often are too immersed and invested in the department to objectively analyze it, and tease out the distinctive elements.

Here is how I put it in a post a while back:

Ironically, sometimes the key business stakeholder is the person least able to distill things down to the core, and identify the key differentiating message. I was meeting with a business partner just yesterday morning, and as she showed her new marketing approach, it was quickly clear that all the bullet points spread out in front of us did not contain a unique or compelling message. Because she was so immersed in the trees, it was far more difficult for her to step back and see the forest – yet for me, in a matter of minutes, the solution was plain. However, for that very reason, the hardest assignment I’ve taken on has been my own business! Too many trees, all of my own planting…far easier to objectively analyze someone else’s forest!

Sometimes, of course, “the point” of a business is actually there – it’s just not been clearly identified and effectively expressed. Those are the most exciting opportunities – an entrepreneur or business that has a great offering, but just hasn’t figured out a compelling and “sticky” message.

Many divisions of a company are virtually invisible, and sometimes, that cannot be avoided. But when there is an opportunity to create a distinct “brand” within the company, carpe diem!

Other web resources I’ve written on the theme of brand definition:

Bullet point Branding

How to be Unremarkable

Better Branding (from TheStreet.com)

What is Branding?

Brand DNA

Pharma Web Branding, Part 9 – AstraZeneca

This week, it’s time to review AstraZeneca‘s home page, in my occasional forays into critiquing the websites of pharmaceutical companies. I don’t do exhaustive site reviews here; just high-level impressions of the home page and the overall navigation design.

When you type http://www.astrazeneca.com into your browser, you arrive at the home page of the AZ International site. Because they are a global company, this is a reasonable choice on the part of the company. It takes a sharp eye (far upper right corner) to find the spot where you’d navigate to the country-specific sites (they did place a fairly prominent link further down for US visitors).

The site design is decent – the use of colors and graphics is better than a lot of the pharma sites I’ve reviewed so far. The width of the site is artificially constrained for older computers, a choice that I hope fewer companies will make in the future. Consequently, the site feels crowded, with a lot of very small text. As with many “Big Pharma” sites, the page is very busy – there are so many categories of information that it can feel overwhelming. However, at least there is an eye-catching graphic front-and-center, with a brief tagline and a reasonably well-crafted corporate summary.

Moving over the U.S. home page, I immediately noticed that the “pedigree” of the site was clearly a derivative of the global site – again, a smart move. However, in this case, because (I assume) the United States user base has a larger percentage of modern computers, the width of the page is increased somewhat, making it feel less compressed than the International site. This site has more variety in the use of graphics, but shares the solid use of color schemes (blue in this case; purple for International).

Going into the sub-menus on the left, the information presented in the middle and on the right changes intelligently, and the overall pleasant graphical design themes continue. There’s a lot of “heavy” information that healthcare/pharma companies have to present, and AZ uses the best method (IMHO) – a prominent graphic with summary statement, followed by a minimum of overview text, followed by links to various other pieces of more detailed information. I never felt “lost” on this site.

In short, this is pretty good execution. Some of the best look/feel and use of color that I’ve seen so far, and a better-than-merely-functional navigation scheme. All of these huge companies must make trade-offs and compromises due to their diverse audiences (patients, healthcare practitioners, shareholders, regulators, lawyers, employees, multiple countries, etc.) and AZ has done a better job than most making a good impression.

Prior website reviews (from my Impactiviti pharma blog):

Wyeth

GSK

Pfizer

J&J

Novartis

Sanofi-Aventis

Abbott

BMS

Steve’s Sticky Stuff 2_11

How would you react if you walked into Grand Central Station and saw hundreds of people “frozen in time”? Probably a lot like this (video).Admit it – you’ve always wanted to do something like this.

Making holographs in minutes – if you groove on interesting technology, you’ll enjoy this.

Extreme hail pictures. Cars don’t stand a chance against this stuff!

The evolution of Tech Company logos, from Neatorama.

Steve’s Sticky Stuff 2_2

Got stuck in Chicago this past week (weather delays). But, I’m glad we weren’t trying to take off or land from here!Another new free web-based tool – this time, an on-line virtual classroom (WiziQ)

A t-shirt for those of us beginning to feel the encroachments of advancing age.

Pharma Web Branding, Part 8 – BMS

It had been a long time since I’d gone on Bristol-Myers’ site. So it was a pleasant surprise when, a few moments after typing www.bms.com into my browser, an interesting voice began speaking to me.

BMS features a patient story front-and-center – but not merely a picture with words. A video kicked right off and, in the span of a few seconds, I was engaged in a brief account of someone overcoming rheumatoid arthritis.

Now I normally dislike video or audio firing off as soon as I get onto a website. Actually, “resent” is a more accurate term. But in this case, I was drawn in. This little vignette was done just right.

And, BMS puts to use some reasonably good taglines. Your will. Our Medicines. Together we can fight serious diseases. Together we can prevail. Instead of just using some sterile self-referential tagline about health, BMS tries to create a sense of connection.

The rest of the site design is just OK. The use of white space is reasonable, and the navigational elements are pretty typical of a major pharma company. If anything, it’s too crowded – and that “TMI” (too much information) motif continues as you get into the submenus. Sometimes, you can throw so many links at visitors that it is hard to feel comfortable – like being in a party with 50 people packed into one room. The relatively simple graphical design of the home page gets cluttered once you move deeper into the site – a jumble of graphics and colors begins to intrude.

Nonetheless, I’m going to give Bristol one high mark – for nailing the use of video and using storytelling to immediately grab attention. While the rest of the site doesn’t stand out, that element is the best “hook” yet I’ve seen on a pharma home page.

Prior website reviews (from my Impactiviti pharma-oriented blog):

Wyeth

GSK

Pfizer

J&J

Novartis

Sanofi-Aventis

Abbott