Everything About Business Except The Bottom Line: FunnyBusiness

WSJ Needs To Purge Its Databases

The caller ID was a 614 number. The person on the other end of the line identified himself as Jeff from the Wall Street Journal. Jeff's job was to get me to start subscribing to the newspaper again. Back in 09 I had an online subscription to the paper, I have never had the paper version delivered because I can't stand all that paper in my house.

As Jeff was waxing on about all the expanded sections and features that are now available  in the paper, I interrupted him. " Jeff,  I already have a subscription to the Wall Street Journal. I get it on my Kindle.>"

"Well," he said, not missing a beat, "Then the paper version would be an excellent accompaniment to the online version."

"Really?" I said,incredulously, thinking of the $14.99 a month I pay for the privilege of reading the digital version of the paper.

At this point Jeff started to back pedal, explaining he didn't have a Kindle and really had no idea whether I get the full version of the paper or not.

Now normally I would just get my Kindle and check but this week I let my friend Janet borrow the Kindle so she could test it out. I checked my iPod Touch, thinking that it would download there but it turns out that the WSJ doesn't believe in WhisperNet syncing.  Evidentl,y if I bought my issue of the WSJ for my Kindle that's the only place I can read it. You've got to be kidding me.

This is making me so cranky. I understand business models. I don't object to paying the $14.99 to read it on my Kindle. I do object to not being able to read it on my iPod touch since I paid for the digital paper, and I do object that the WSJ doesn't purge its databases and had someone calling me to subscribe to the paper when I have a live subscription.

I've Been Tagged : Six Unimportant Things About Me Meme

It's been about a year since I participated in a meme. I like memes. They can be quite festive. My cousin Michelle, who blogs at Patterns From The Past tagged me sometime last week, or was it the week before?

This Meme Is Called Six Unimportant Things About Me.  I struggle. Feels a bit weird. But then I thought of the The Mason Williams Reader Matter

 

1. My dog Uma Thurman slept on my bed last night. First time ever.
2. I'm a big Keith Olbermann fan
3. I haven't watched last week's episode of  LOST yet--- yes, I have been that busy
4. I love Hotwire.
5.When I want to ramp up my creativity, I listen to Randy Newman
6.I still stay in touch with my close friends from college

Here are the Rules for this game of tag:

1. Link back to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Share six unimportant things about yourself.
4. Tag six random people at the end of your blog entry.
5. Let the tagged people know, by leaving a comment on their blogs.

I'm tagging: Denise Tanton Zandria Steve Murphy Mary Claire Hunt Eve Tahmincioglu Bill Harris

Auto Dealers See Black Selling Pink in Mexico, Japan and England

Last summer, as part of a major car exhibition, Mitsubishi gave away one "Princess Kitty" automobile.

Around the same time. Volkswagen Mexico announced it would be producing 13 Special Order Pink Barbie VW Beetles. From Gadget 4 Girls:

"The car features decked-up all in pink to emphasize your feminine charm and elegance. Every single detail of new Volkswagen Beetle Barbie is made in pink, including pink accents and inserts reflected onto leather seats, floormats, door trim, and even steering wheel. Even the lug nuts of this "Barbie Doll car" are made in pink. This is a car for those girls who are not afraid to become the talk of the town. As for me, I am not likely to opt for this kind of car, as I'm a sport cars fan. But it's up to you to choose your vehicle and lead the lifestyle you enjoy. The Beetle Barbie will be sold through exclusive VW dealers for a price of $ 24,368."

In Japan, Nissan has launched the Pink Pino - sales are brisk. They anticipated selling 2500 a month.  In the first month over 5000 were sold.The Associated Press report featured on CNN.com says,

...in most countries, experts tend to advise against making autos pink or adding other "cute" features to appeal to female drivers partly because that may smack of sexism and turn off women -- except in Japan. Here, young women are extremely powerful in setting trends, and the culture of cute is so prevalent grown men aren't embarrassed about dangling little mascots from cell phones.

Also, Japanese consumers frequently use personal products to show off who they are, often buying designer-brand products to make a statement, said Kazuo Ikegami, marketing expert and professor at Rissho University. "Product image is far more important for Japanese consumers than American consumers," Ikegami said. "There's a much bigger element of personal identity in Japanese marketing."

Even the advertising for Pino is tailored to women who are about 20 years old. The pamphlet is like a Japanese comic book, depicting the story of three young well-dressed women going shopping together, manicuring their nails to match the star-patterns on Pino seats, using aromatherapy oils in the car. The TV ads also tell a similar story.

Nissan marketing manager Miwa Ishii says one goal for Pino is to court young drivers to the Nissan brand with hopes they'll move on to buy more expensive models in the future.

Re:Invention says the success of the Pink Pino is a reminder that when it comes to marketing to women its not about pink or not pink, it's about five things.

(1) pursuing your best opportunity target market niche (remember: one shoe size does not fit all!)
(2) listening for your target customers' stated (and latent) wants, needs, hopes and dreams and respecting their concerns and issues
(3) catering your company/product key messages to those stated (and latent) wants and needs
(4) sweeping those good folks off their feet with a product and product experience that surprises and delights them -- "taking their minds, hearts, and souls to places they've never been" and giving them "a reason to tell all their friends about you!"
(5) providing a clear call to action.

As one of the comments on the Re:Invention post  observed, in the U.S. pink is considered tacky. Not so in England, home of thePink Lady Taxis  and home to many pink car accessory websites. GB Driver has an entire pink auto accessory section.  From pink seat belt and steering wheel protectors
to Pink Pedals to the pink gear knob  gaiter.

GB Driver isn't the only site selling pink car accessories in the UK. The Pink Toolbox Co sells the Pink Car Kit(winner of the 2006 Gift of The Year.) Unlike GB Driver which limits sales to Great Britain, the Pink Car Kit is available for international sales. It does have a fabulous tool that doesn't seem to have a name

The steel hammer point safely shatters car windows so you can get out when a door is jammed due to impact damage, and the blade slices easily through seatbelts.

In her post,RE:Invention shares a bit of pink trivia,

"What makes PINK so scary? According to the website "Gender Specific Colors," pink was considered a boy's color at the turn of the century. PINK is merely bright unsaturated RED. The color of love. The color of passion. Pink can be pale or proud or shocking. When it comes to marketing to working women, pink marketing could merely imply: "making the extra effort to court your best customers."

You can read more about pink as a boy color on the Gender Specific Color Web site.  Navigation note: a authentication box pops up but when I clicked cancel a couple of times I was able to access the site.

This is cross-posted at Blogher

HOLIDAY INN SPOT FEATURES SUSAN THE BLOGGER

Marcus: "Zack,are you looking at Susan's Blog?"
Zack:   "She was featured in four of the leading business magazines?"
Marcus: "And she is so humble you would never know that to talk to her."
Ted:    "She doesn't sound very humble to me if she's crowing about her accomplishments on the worldwide net web. She's embarrassing herself. She's embarrassing the company and... hello, Susan"

 

Is Susan the first blogger to be featured in a commercial for a major brand?  If she is, Fallon, the agency that created the spot,isn't ready to take credit. The blog creative was pitched to help promote that Holiday Inn has WiFi in public areas. However, in that original creative, the blog belonged to Ted.

Now, unless you are an afficionado of Holiday Inn's Campaign you are probably not on a first name basis with the characters. Ted is the senior guy who is stereotypically obnoxious.

In the pitch,Ted had blog that he didn't want the public to know about. Ted's blog was about personal stuff including his passion for hot air ballooning. It was on location for that shoot(it did include hot air ballooning)that the creative team decided to experiment with the actors.

"We said to them Ted doesn't have the blog, Susan does. It's a business-focused blog that highlights her accomplishments," explained Paula Maki Biondich who is the copywriter on the campaign. " We said, "Okay,go and it came to life."

The punchline: Marcus says to Ted, " It seems like you should report to her."

Susan's blog is part of Holiday Inn's "Look Again" Campaign that is trying to reposition the hotel from a family, leisure roadside brand to a more business-centric one. This is the second year for the campaign that features the life of "business guys" on the road.

This is cross-posted at Blogher
  

Funny Business seeking new name

That would be the blog "Funny Business "written by blogger and cartoonist Brad Shorr.

Here is his post announcing they would be changing their name.

"Yesterday I had the pleasure of talking to Elana Centor, who has been blogging since 2004 at her brilliantly named blog--Funny Business.  It's an excellent read--informative and well-researched  commentary on business culture.   

Elena and I felt our two blogs having the same name had become confusing.  For example, we're both honored to be on the Squidoo Z List, but people may not know which Funny Business they're voting for. (If you're so inclined, please log in to Squidoo and vote up both Funny Business blogs and our Word Sell blog--thanks!)

The solution?  This Funny Business blog is going to change its name!   For a number of reasons, we thought this made the most sense.

If you'd like to suggest a new name--fire away!  We'd love to get some fresh ideas!"

We were not the first bloggers to go bump in the night. In  June, AmberStar ,who has a philosophy based podcast called  Zencast ,discovered  that there was a band called Zencast with a podcast. She asked the the podcast discussion group on the Podcast Alley Forum for their thoughts.

Jeffoest offered:

You are missing a key data point (I think) that could help you with the decision and that is the fact that we DON'T know how popular or how prolific that other podcast is going to be as they are also brand new with only one podcast under their belt. It would be a shame to take on your 'second choice' name only to find out that that band just puts out one or two podcasts, for example. On the other hand, if the band podcast is very popular and prolific, confusion about finding your podcast gets heightened. (think google searches for 'zencast').

Thus I can't give you the right decision for you, only factors that I would consider in making the decision.... (wishy washy, eh??!)

In 2005, The Trademark Blog asked the question : Can Similar Blog Names Co-exist? Should Blogs Obtain Trademark Protection?

As to whether two blogs could co-exist with the same name, without speaking to the precise example given above, the analysis would be the same as to whether any other goods or services could co-exist under similar, namely the multi-factorial likelihood of confusion test.  The three most important factors would be similarity of the marks; similarity of the goods/services and similarity of the channels of trade.

That brings me back to Brad Shorr. Check out his blog.Help him come up with a new name.for a blog he says is about"office humor,  corporate cartoons,satire and occasional insight."

Image Credit: Brad Shorr. You can purchase his cartoons on mugs, mousepads, etc.

Making the Z-List

They're known as the A-listers -- those elite  group of bloggers that seem to garner the lust, love and attention of other bloggers and most importantly, main stream media. The A-listers are invited to speak at conferences and share their wisdom . The A-listers names pop up everywhere. Other bloggers want to link to them in hopes that some of the A lister's blogging dust sticks to them.

When the mainstream media decides to invite a blogger to share their opinions, they go to the A-list.   

That's where the Z-list comes in.  See in blogging, you get on the A-list by having a ridiculous number of people linking to your site -- its not necessarily about the number of people who visit your site, its about the links.

So the Z list was created to help the non A listers increase their link power.  As they say "there is no A list so there can't be a Z list. Just Good Blogs."

Call it blogging envy or revenge of the bloggers but this is a list designed to challenge the status quo.

The Z-list was created on December 12,2006 by  Mack Collier at Viral Market decided to create a meme called the Z-list. As he wrote

Here's the deal: In an effort to bring more link-love to those blogs that I feel aren't getting their due, I've created a small list of blogs below that I've linked to. The idea is to create a meme built around giving link-love to the blogs that deserve it, and hopefully turn Technorati's system of using a blog's # of links to determine its 'authority', on its ear.

This was his original list.

Shotgun Marketing Blog
BrandSizzle
bizsolutionsplus
Customers Rock!
Being Peter Kim

As of this morning, the list was over 300 strong. It's now being hosted on Squidoo where it has become a 'lens" where you can go to the list and vote. As of this writing,  FunnyBusiness was number 12 on the list. There is another Funny Business (two words , not one) on the list. That's the group of bloggers who opted to use a name very similar to mine when they started blogging last May. More on that  at another time.

If you decide to vote, a click on the up arrow is a good thing. A click on the down area drops the entry  to a lower ranking on the list.

So vote now, vote often.

French Newspaper decides Bloggers are no longer second class citizens

For some journalists, it's akin to Chicken Little declaring, "The sky is falling. The sky is falling."  Not only is the French newspaper Le Monde,welcoming bloggers ---they are giving them equal billing as professional journalists.

Mon Dieu.

From Loic Le Meur blog,

Le Monde is one of the first newspaper in the World to offer blogs to their readers, under the Le Monde brand. They have also published a ranking of the 10 top blogs, mixing their journalists blogs and their readers blogs, showing them at the same level, based on blog readers recommendations.

The Le Monde blogging policy comes at a time when American newspapers are continuing the slippery slope into circulation oblivion. A slip, that Jennifer Saba reports in Editor &Publisher ,the financial experts expected.

"Circulation declined as expected," wrote John Janedis, senior analyst with Wachovia Equity Research, in a note. He, like others, points to the effects of the Internet that is giving print circulation a whipping.
 
"We expect the companies in our coverage universe to continue to improve their online presence, using both their own Web sites, as well as to purchase other online assets, to help combat the continued decline in circ trends," Janedis wrote.
 
Bear Stearns analyst Alexia Quadrani doesn't even think yesterday's bad news -- daily circulation plunged 2.8% and Sunday fell 3.4%, one of, if not the worst drop in recent years -- will do much to shake The Street's confidence. Or lack thereof.
 
"Overall we believe these results are in line with expectations of low to mid single-digit average declines and therefore do not expect a material impact [on] the publishing stocks," Quadrani wrote in a note. For that, she's waiting for October advertising results.

The folks at Freakonomics have different take on the situation.They say the circulation drops are intentional

Not everyone is convinced that newspapers are dying, of course. Jack Welch wants to buy the Boston Globe; Dow Jones just managed to find a buyer who paid $282 million for six smaller newspapers; and of course several months ago, McClatchy bought Knight-Ridder. Circulation declines notwithstanding, these transactions suggest an underlying value that the newspapers’ own articles do not reflect.

The media executive Allan D. Mutter makes a very interesting point on his blog about circulation declines: a lot of them are essentially intentional. That is, circulation figures are falling in part because many newspapers—in response, I am guessing, to recent audit scandals at Newsday
and elsewhere—have stopped distributing free or cheap copies of their papers, which used to be helpful in padding circulation figures.

But, as Music City Mafia pointed out,

Circulation is the least of the newspaper’s worries. Advertisers are heading for the exits in droves. Car dealers have traditionally spent more money in the local paper than all other media combined. And that has held steady for decades. But newspapers share of dealer’s budgets (according tot the N.A.D.A) has deopped from 51% to 36% in the last two years. I assumer that similar numbers exist for your favorites: Real Estate Agents

"This is not a fad":Corporate Blogging

Saying she wanted to write the "uncool" blogging book, blogging consultant Debbie Weil set out to write a "how-to" book for corporations who have heard about the power of  blogs but not sure how it fits into their business model.  Released in August 2006, Weil says her books is targeted to corporate-minded people.

While she is a obvious proponent of corporate blogging, Weil says that there are some pitfalls--particularly if a company promotes customer service on their blog and then customer's actual experiences don't match up.

Weil recently chatted about the book, blogging and where she thinks corporate blogging is headed.You can re

You can read more about Weil's blog on her blog:BlogWrite for CEOS

Corporate Blogging does have its detractors. Amy Gahran, on her blog The Right Conversation   links to a post called Why Jonathan Schwartz should not be blogging  by Dave Taylor  and then shares her thoughts on why most CEOs should not blog.

"As anyone who's worked in or with corporations for more than five minutes can attest, often CEOs are the last people who can speak to the public in a relaxed, human voice. This is especially true for text blogs where you're dealing with the written word.

In my experience, most top-level executives are horrible writers. Worse, they loathe writing and they aren't emotionally prepared to handle open comments. They're more comfortable giving speeches and interviews -- which might make them better candidates for a podcast."

 

As for Taylor's rationale for CEOs keeping being nonbloggers:

The most important issue, however, is that the CEO is not the person in a company responsible for communicating with customers and the marketplace. Indeed, the traditional role of a Chief Executive Officer is to raise money. That's it. They're responsible for contributing to the strategic direction of the company, but most typically not the tactics. Look at this another way: quick, how many CEOs can you name? How many from companies with more than $10 million in sales or more than 500 employees? I thought so.

This is cross-posted at Blogher.

The Resume Writing Blogs

Sitting with my son Noah, and our cousin Jeffrey in an unpretentious Mexican restaurant near Washington Square on Sunday, we started talking about Noah's job.

Having just graduated in June from the University of Wisconsin, Noah sent out one resume, went on one interview and was gainfully employed 10 days after graduation.

Not so for his friend Sam*. Like Noah, Sam graduated from Wisconsin in June. He was a strong student with a major in marketing. He had several internships. He's sent out 95 resumes and hasn't been called for one interview.

Jeffrey said the obvious. There has to be something wrong with his resume. Or does there?

Just the day before I was chatting with my friend Lynne about resumes. Sitting in a lovely european coffee shop( that's what it called itself, "european coffee shop" ) near 1st avenue and 15th in NYC, I was talking via my cell phone with Lynne in St.Louis who had just landed her dream job-- planning events and managing volunteers for a nonprofit.

Instead of going the tradiitional resume route, Lynne opted to send a "career basket". Lynne had taken 12 words that described the skillset of the position and then filled a bucket with chatchkees representing each skill. For organized, there was  a little dayplanner, for creative,a box of crayons,and so on. Her traditional resume was in the center of all the stuff. She got the job.

Not ready to do a bucket resume but not wanting to end up in Sam's position with no call backs?

There are a ton of resume writing blogs that will either provide you with the confidence to create the world's best resume ,or intimidate you enough to  hire a professional resume writer to do the job for you.

Jennifer Anthony at ResumeASAP Blog offers practical advice like: Eight Essential Proofreading Secrets to Keep Your Resume Out Of The Trash andListing Other Interests on a Resume Yes or No?.

At One Louder Heather Hamilton has a post with multiple links for people who want to brush up on resume strategies.

The Executive Resume Blog offers news on the latest trends, techniques, and issues affecting executive employment and executive resume writing.  Laura, like many of the resume blog writers promotes she is a certified resume writer. Then there's a post from Diane Penna, who asks the question,Are Resume Writing Services Necessary? Her conclusion?

If you are concerned about having your resume get noticed, I would suggest getting help with your cover letter instead. Resumes, while detailed, are not typically written in full sentences, while a cover letter requires excellent English skills. Don't make the mistake of thinking that just because a cover letter wasn't requested that it isn't needed. Do what I did. Spend an extra hour or two and put together your own resume and I bet you'll be pleasantly surprised with the results.

And finally, Lorelle on Wordpress suggests that just as Thursday is the new Friday, Blogs are the new resume.

’For your career, a blog is essential,” says Phil van Allen, a faculty member of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. ‘’It’s the new public relations and it’s the new home page. Instead of a static home page, you have your blog,” he said. It’s a way to let people know what you are thinking about the field that interests you.”

*Sam is a pseudonym. He is a real person and would love a job interview.

Image Credits: Flickr members spoOman and Pål Løberg

This is cross-posted at Blogher
 

Just Flock It

   Under the category of Browser Wars, a fellow Blogher who also happens to work at Flock, recently responded to someone's question on an easy way to add photos to their blogs.

I was interested because I have spent considerable time trying to learn the art of including photos on blogs.

Adding photos can be daunting. There's the sizing issue and the copy wrapping issue that sometimes can take longer to resolve than the post itself.

She recommended --sharing that she did work for Flock-- that they should start using Flock as their browser. Given that I am not a techie and that I just converted to FireFox from IE in 2006, I had never heard about Flock.  And, if you are, like I was, of the mindset that a browser, is a browser , is a browser...then I encourage you to take a look at flock.

From Extreme Tech

The Internet is supposed to be interactive, right? It's not just about being a passive watcher of Web sites, but about sharing your input, as well. The Flock browser is an attempt to bring some of the Web 2.0-style concepts right to the application that gives you a view of the interweb. Built on top of FireFox, Flock incorporates "mashups"—the hip buzzword for web service integration—with social bookmarks (with del.icio.us and Shadows), photo sharing (with Flickr and Photobucket), and blogging—with tools built into the browser for posting to your blog. In fact, it's this integration on which Flock's creators intend to build their business model, cutting deals with other web services.

Based on Firefox it does have some dandy features like allowing you to drag and drop photos from your desktop to their photobucket uploader and then a strip of your photos (that black band at the top of the screen shot) is displayed in the browser so you can just drop and drag the photos from your photbucket  onto your post. Very Cool. It magically does all the html coding thing for you. I'm sure it does a ton more that's all I've tried so far.

From Personal Computing World

Setup is easy and Flock will take all of the settings from Firefox, including page history and cookies. This makes the transition the most painless of all browser upgrades, although this will not help those moving from Internet Explorer or Opera. The interface is similar to most browsers, although the most recent browsing history is revealed by right-clicking on the Back button rather than there being a discrete menu. It does feel a little hidden, but is convenient once discovered. On a more favourable note, it is possible to add icons for the blogging, photo and news tools. A search box in the toolbar is nothing new, but the extra twist from Flock is that it searches dynamically as text is entered. The results vary depending on the words but it is a much faster way of searching. Flock is an ideal tool for anyone who wants to record their web experiences on a blog. Simply select an area of text or even an image, and then select the Blog This option. An editor appears with both a Wysiwyg editor and a source editor. It is compatible with Blogger, Typepad and other popular blogging tools. You can see some demo posts at http://ano pensource.wordpress.com.