Greg Verdino

Read my guests

Mickey, Doug, Ryan, Jonathan and Matt.  But, for the first time since I launched this blog, no Greg.

"No Greg" is the easy part -- I'm with the family at Disney World this week (which covers off on Mickey as well) and rather than having my blog go dark for a week or spending my "time off" online (my usual vacation routine,) I've lined up a rogue's gallery of blogfriends to contribute come pretty interesting posts during the course of the week (one per day, Mon-Thurs.) 

In fact, when I got a load of the quality and diversity of the posts that these guys had written, I grew concerned that I may have made myself obsolete at my very own blog! 

You'll learn why you need to think narrow and why all the technology in the world won't help if you're using it for the wrong reasons. You'll take a trip into the past (complete with codpieces!) and get a glimpse of the future.  And who are the fine bloggers that will serve as your guides?

Let's meet Doug, Ryan, Jonathan and Matt...

When I first met Doug Meacham, he worked at Circuit City and was involved with, among other things, the electronic retailer's first foray into Second Life.  Today (well, starting Monday actually,) Doug is a managing consultant with IBM, where he specializes in multi-channel integration for retail environments.  He blogs about consumer technology, user experience and social media trends at NextUp.  Congrats on your new gig, Doug!

I'm not actually sure where Ryan Karpeles works - in fact, until last week I thought he lived in Australia!  Turns out Ryan is based in Chicago.  Go figure.  What I do know about Ryan is that he writes an uncommonly high number of posts that make me think, "man, I wish I'd written that one."  If you haven't met Ryan yet, be sure to check out Living Light Bulbs.

Jonathan Salem Baskin found me, and mistook me for a marketing expert, while he was doing research for his book - Branding Only Works on Cattle -- coming out in September 2008.  By day, JSB runs Baskin Associates Inc, a marketing consultancy built around the notion that Brand Is Behavior (which is certainly more actionable than my notion that Branding Is Bullshit.)  His blog, Dim Bulb, is loaded with smart, quirky posts and is well worth the read.

And finally, Matt Dickman, the Techno//Marketer himself... Matt works at Digiknow and is a marketing/technology/strategy/social media rennaissance man.  His video tours of new media properties, his weekly "buzz" reports and, most recently, his whiteboard videos that explain new technologies in terms that even the newest of noobs can understand combine to make him a blogger to watch (erm, pun intended...)   

So, thanks to the guys (and yes, they're all guys - not sure how that happened since I know so many great women bloggers) and I hope everyone enjoys the week.  Check out their posts throughout the week and don't forget to chime in with comments.

links for 2007-09-28

• Tim Ferriss | Top 5 Uncommon Time Savers for Bloggers
  (tags: blogging web2.0 socialmedia ideas content reference)
• Arun Rajagopal | Its MINDBLOGGING Today
  Age of Conversation gets major coverage in a Dubai print magazine - I'm pictured in the article twice.
  (tags: age-of-conversation blogging books community emergingmedia crayon web2.0 socialmedia media)
• Logic+Emotion | Why Execs Are Stumbling in a New Media World
  Great post about the dangers of holding onto your "traditional media thinking."
  (tags: media marketing content ideas strategy change webdesign)

My Brand ManageCamp photos

As a quick follow-up to yesterday's post, I thought I'd share a few photos I took at Brand ManageCamp, yesterday and Tuesday (apologies in advance for the poor quality.)

First up, here are a couple of shots of the audience that was kind enough to sit through my presentation -- I like to take pictures from the stage before the crowd turns hostile and starts throwing rotten fruit (usually about three minutes into my rant.)

And here are a few of my fellow speakers.  First up, Made to Stick co-author Dan Heath.  Hard to tell, but I think I may have shot this photo from three or four miles away.  Dan is the dark speck off in the distance, just to the right of the big screen.

This is Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice.

And finally, here's a shot of speaker and design guru Don Norman, posing with his lovely trophy wife.  Oh wait a sec, that's design guru David Armano.

You can see a few more shots at Flickr.

Give the people what they want

Today, I'm presenting at Brand ManageCamp in Chicago.  My talk, "Give the People What They Want," challenges some of the basic tenets of traditional marketing, lays out some new rules and shows how conversational marketing really works.  Here are my slides (I think that my feed and email readers will need to click through to see them.)

I keep telling myself that I'm going to put together a version that includes the talktrack that goes with the images -- and I figure one day I will -- but in the meantime, I hope you enjoy the slides on their own.  I'd love to hear your thoughts.

links for 2007-09-25

• Firebrand - The Best in Commercial Culture to Launch on TV, Web and Mobile
  Direct link to Firebrand's social media press release.
  (tags: advertising content marketing firebrand video brands creativity culture media mediabuying television startups innovation)
• Test.org | Six Spaces of Social Media
  (tags: community design internet media reference socialmedia socialnetworks technology emergingmedia web2.0)
• Influential Marketing | 8 Unique Reasons People Like Twitter
  Rohit Bhargava writes about why microblogging - or whatever you want to call it - is relevant and useful.
  (tags: internet blogging bloggers web2.0 microblogging twitter emergingmedia)

Brands on fire (with a little help from crayon)

Y'all know that I don't usually blog about clients but I figure I can get away with it every once in a while.  Today, one of crayon's clients, a new media company called Firebrand, held a press conference at Advertising Week to announce their upcoming launch.  (crayon made sure that a bunch of bloggers got to be there in person, alongside their MSM counterparts -- and we'll be working the social mediasphere through launch and beyond.)

So what is Firebrand, exactly? 

It's a new, opt-in entertainment and marketing destination that gives consumers interactive access to their favorite brands, products and promotions.  They program the best and coolest TV commercials the way MTV used to program music videos (with "Commercial Jockeys," even - think MTV's vee-jays with a serious jones for good ads) and are slated to be the first multi-platform network to "go live" simultaneously on television, the web and mobile. 

Firebrand doesn't launch until October 22nd, but you can see a sneak peek in this video.

[Feed and email readers click through.  Everyone else can see additional promo and demo videos here.]

Now, those readers with finely tuned bullshit sensors might be asking, "So wait a second, did Verdino really just write 'best and coolest tv commercials' without any sense of irony?"

Well, yes I did... because what sucks most about tv commercials?  The fact that they are interruptive, at least when they're crammed into traditional commercial breaks. 

But what happens when commercials don't interrupt other content but actually are the content -- branded content to be precise, but content nonetheless?  Lots of people tune into those funny ad shows in TV, watch the Super Bowl just to see the ads, or watch and distribute interesting ads they find on video sharing sites. So why not a site that hand-picks and programs nothing but good commercials?

Check out the vids and pics, join our Facebook group, or sign up to get an alert when Firebrand launches -- and let me know what you think.  Can Firebrand do for commercials what MTV did for music videos in the 1980s?  Can Firebrand -- yikes -- revitalize the 30-second spot?

links for 2007-09-24

• Ad Age Small Agency Diary | The 30-Second Spot Isn't Dead
  Attests that better creative will revitalize the medium.
  (tags: adage advertising media creativity marketing television video)
• ChaosScenario | The 30-Second Spot: Dead or Only Napping?
  Cam Beck responds to the Ad Age article - creativity will help, but finding more effective ways to connect with consumers will help more.
  (tags: adage advertising creativity marketing media television video)
• CScout | Japanese Man Documents the Life of a Coke Vending Machine
  Interesting report about a Japanese blogger who posts daily updates about a single Coke vending machine - strange but compelling and somehow brilliant.
  (tags: marketing brands bloggers blogging blogs photos web2.0 ideas citizenmarketers)
• Extreme Nano | Digital Natives Will Drive Web 2.0 Into Your Business
  (tags: web2.0 socialmedia business emergingmedia digital innovation change technology youth)
• Conversation Agent | Are Blogs the New Thought Leadership?
  (tags: bloggers blogging blogs business ideas web2.0 socialmedia)

GV sighting: virtual business in Newsday

This weekend, I got some major ink in my hometown newspaper, Newsday.  I'm featured prominently in the Money & Careers cover story about how local companies are doing business in Second Life.  My mug -- looking eerily like my avatar hadshot -- even graces the cover of the business section in the Sunday paper (photo shown to the left.)

crayon's commitment to operating as a virtual company and our sustained presence in Second Life continue to pay dividends on the publicity front, even if my parents (or my wife for that matter) still don't understand what I do for a living.

Read the story here. 

Matt Dickman's great Second Life video tour accompanies the online version of the article, making a good article even better.

The 7 strands of "blog DNA"

Recently, I was working with some of my fellow crayonistas on a blogging strategy for a client and we put together this simple graphic that presents the 7 Strands of Blog DNA - the key elements that, when combined in a unique way, make any given blog what it is.  Original, compelling and unlike anything else on the web.

Let's consider each of the 7 traits:

1. VOICE: It's what you say and how you say it.  Voice is your blog's unique, distinctive narrative style that draws readers in and keeps them coming back.
2. TEXTURE: This trait refers to the unique combination of multimedia elements that give your blog a distinctive look and feel that complements the unique sound of your voice.  Texture speaks to if and how you use audio or video, illustrations or photos to dress up your posts.
3. IMMEDIACY: This is a measure of recency and frequency.  Immediacy is the element that keeps your blog feeling fresh and timely.
4. CONVERSATION: This is the element of dialogue, the degree to which you provide the reason and the means for people to talk back to you, and to what extent do you engage directly with your readers?  Lots of people argue that a blog isn't a blog without conversation, but we can also point to at least a few high profile blogs that aren't conversational at all.
5. CONNECTIVITY: This speaks to the ways in which you participate in the community at large.  It's your blogroll, the way you use links and trackbacks, the extent to which you comment on other people's blogs or even participate in blogger events and social networking activities.
6. ACCESSIBILITY: The extent to which you make it easy for readers to access your blog's content -- feeds, email subscriptions, widgets, syndication and more.
7. VISIBILITY: Tags, key word-rich headlines and posts, and automated search and directory pings.  This is about making sure people find your blog and your most relevant content whenever they're looking for information on a topic you cover, whether they're using Technorati, Google or any other search engine to find it.

So, what's your blog's DNA?  (Or the DNA of your favorite blog, if you don't write one yourself?)  How do you combine these 7 traits to produce something that is uniquely yours and that keeps your readers coming back for more?

I'd also love to hear your comments -- and hope I can refine the framework based on your thoughts. Does this work for you?  Did I miss anything?  Get anything wrong?  Chime in.

What is a blog?

If you're reading this post, you probably already know what a blog is - but I think this is a nice primer from Pajama Market (via the Typepad blog.)  Besides, there is a method to my madness.  Tomorrow's post walks through what I believe are the key traits of "Blog DNA."  Stay tuned.

[Feed and email readers click on through for the video.]