Will There Be Pizza on Mars?

Read about a very cool application of 3D printing technology is outlined in, "The Audacious Plan to End Hunger With 3D-Printed Food," from Mashable

Anjan Contractor’s 3D food printer might evoke visions of the “replicator” popularized in Star Trek, from which Captain Picard was constantly interrupting himself to order tea. And indeed Contractor’s company, Systems & Materials Research Corporation, just got a six month, $125,000 grant from NASA to create a prototype of his universal food synthesizer.

But Contractor, a mechanical engineer with a background in 3D printing, envisions a much more mundane—and ultimately more important—use for the technology. He sees a day when every kitchen has a 3D printer, and the earth’s 12 billion people feed themselves customized, nutritionally-appropriate meals synthesized one layer at a time, from cartridges of powder and oils they buy at the corner grocery store.

Contractor’s vision would mean the end of food waste, because the powder his system will use is shelf-stable for up to 30 years, so that each cartridge, whether it contains sugars, complex carbohydrates, protein or some other basic building block, would be fully exhausted before being returned to the store. Ubiquitous food synthesizers would also create new ways of producing the basic calories on which we all rely. Since a powder is a powder, the inputs could be anything that contain the right organic molecules. We already know that eating meat is environmentally unsustainable, so why not get all our protein from insects?

If eating something spat out by the same kind of 3D printers that are currently being used to make everything from jet engine parts to fine art doesn’t sound too appetizing, that’s only because you can currently afford the good stuff, says Contractor. That might not be the case once the world’s population reaches its peak size, probably sometime near the end of this century. “I think, and many economists think, that current food systems can’t supply 12 billion people sufficiently,” says Contractor. “So we eventually have to change our perception of what we see as food.”

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone who reads this is having a great Christmas!

Everything You Wanted to Know about Negotiation

I suspect many of you are dealing with and annual evaluations and asking for end of year raises. I just read an article that will definitely help you get the biggest raise you can: The 10 Minute MBA Course On Negotiation by Eric Barker in Business Insider.

This is an excellent overview of the main principles of negotiating almost anything. Take notes. Practice.

Here is a snippet.

7 Elements Definition Of Success 

You want no deal or a deal that meets your interests, not your positions. Interests are why you want things, positions are what you say you want. (Interests: “I want a job that makes me happy”, Positions: “I want 100K a year.”) Failure is when the result fulfills your positions but not your interests (“Got the salary but also got a crappy boss, little vacation time and a dead-end role.”) 

Leverage negotiation tactics that create value. Work with the other person to create more options and opportunities for both sides to be happy, not just settling on the first thing everyone says. 

All proposals should be supported by valid criteria. What’s the story of why this offer makes sense? 

Know your alternatives and make sure this deal is better than those alternatives. 

Use negotiation tactics that build a working relationship. You end up dealing with the same people often so lay the groundwork for smooth negotiations going forward. 

You want a deal that leads to a clear reliable commitment. The result has to be something they can and will do, not something that will fall apart. 

You want to reach a deal with efficient communication so everyone is on the same page.

Again, read the whole thing here.

Harvard creates brain-to-brain interface, allows humans to control other animals with thoughts alone

In the exciting, but scary tech news category goes this little tid-bit...


Harvard creates brain-to-brain interface, allows humans to control other animals with thoughts alone

Researchers at Harvard University have created the first noninvasive brain-to-brain interface (BBI) between a human… and a rat. Simply by thinking the appropriate thought, the BBI allows the human to control the rat’s tail. This is one of the most important steps towards BBIs that allow for telepathic links between two or more humans — which is a good thing in the case of friends and family, but terrifying if you stop to think about the nefarious possibilities of a fascist dictatorship with mind control tech.

Good Presentation on Creating Content from Marketo

Marketo, a marketing automation software company, is always creating good content for marketers. They know that they are battling for mindshare and have to position themselves as marketing experts.

This deck is a pretty good example. Take a moment...

Creating Content that Converts from Marketo

Was The “The Long Tail" Wrong?

Today I read a great article, "Blockbuster" by Kelefa Sanneh in the New Yorker.

This was a dominant refrain in the aughts; commentators mourned the disappearance of small record stores, big bookstores, broadly popular television programs. Chris Anderson, who was then the editor of Wired, had a more optimistic view: in 2006, he published “The Long Tail,” which celebrated the coming demise of “the hit-driven mindset” and the growing importance of online distribution. Using Netflix, Amazon, or iTunes, you could browse what Anderson called “the infinite aisle,” where vast inventories and smart suggestion software made it easy to shun blockbusters and follow your own passions, no matter how obscure. He argued that retailers, too, had been freed from the tyranny of the hit. Technology made it possible for businesses to profit by “selling less of more,” catering to an explosion of niche markets that, taken together, rivalled the size of the mainstream. Consumers were travelling down the demand curve, away from the head, where the most popular products lived, and out onto the tail, home of the miscellany, which was growing longer (as variety increased) and fatter (as sales of non-hits increased). The new popular culture would be more interesting and more efficient, catering to the ever more diverse tastes of a general public that was outgrowing its reliance on old-fashioned hit men...

...He also hailed a researcher named Anita Elberse, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, whose work on Netflix had been “very helpful.” Now Elberse has published “Blockbusters: Hit-making, Risk-taking, and the Big Business of Entertainment” (Henry Holt), which is a response to Anderson’s long-tail theory, and in many ways a refutation of it.

So what happened?

One of her most persuasive subjects is Schmidt, who revealed himself to be a long-tail apostate in 2008, scarcely two years after Anderson’s book was published. “Although the tail is very interesting, and we enable it, the vast majority of the revenue remains in the head,” he said. “In fact, it’s probable that the Internet will lead to larger blockbusters, more concentration of brands.” Anderson’s book often read like a manifesto, cheering for the triumph of the underdogs while also predicting it. Elberse wants to reassure her readers that a hit—“The Avengers,” an N.F.L. game, a Taylor Swift album—still draws a crowd, showering profit on the corporations behind it. Her case studies are meant to demonstrate that popular culture remains big business, and that, in an increasingly complicated and unpredictable cultural marketplace, hits are more dominant than ever. The story she tells about the entertainment business resonates with a bigger story that people often tell about America, where Elberse sees “a winner-take-all dynamic” increasing the distance between the most economically productive citizens and everyone else. More efficient markets aren’t necessarily more diverse or more egalitarian, and perhaps there’s no reason that music or film or books should be immune from the forces of consolidation. Anderson assumed that consumers, once freed from the limitations of brick-and-mortar retail, would scatter into countless niches. In Elberse’s view, we would rather lump than split, and new technology—amplified by canny deal-making—is making us lumpier.

I highly encourage all of you to read this article...

Good Article: 10 surprising social media statistics that might make you rethink your social strategy

Good article from The Next Web (a great site) that looks at some of the trends happening in social media. Much of the conventional wisdom is seemingly out of date.

Here are the ten items they showcase.

1. The fastest growing demographic on Twitter is the 55–64 year age bracket.

2. 189 million of Facebook’s users are ‘mobile only’

3. YouTube reaches more U.S. adults aged 18–34 than any cable network

4. Every second 2 new members join LinkedIn

5. Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web

6. LinkedIn has a lower percentage of active users than Pinterest, Google+, Twitter and Facebook

7. 93% of marketers use social media for business

8. 25% of smartphone owners ages 18–44 say they can’t recall the last time their smartphone wasn’t next to them

9. Even though 62% of marketers blog or plan to blog in 2013, only 9% of US marketing companies employ a full-time blogger

10. 25% of Facebook users don’t bother with privacy settings


And a quote:

 Your social media strategy really comes down to what your goals are, and who your target customers are, but it doesn’t hurt to pay attention to the trends happening across the web. Hopefully, these stats will help you to identify trends that will affect your strategy and adjust accordingly. 

 Good tip!

The best—and worst—times to post to social media

Some good info from Ragan...

http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/14644.aspx

Here's a look at three of them:

Facebook: Traffic is highest between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. ET.

Best time: Between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. ET

Worst time: 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. ET

Pinterest: Saturday morning is the best time to post.

Best time: 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. ET or 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. ET

Worst time: 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. ET

LinkedIn: Post before or after business hours.

Best time: 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. ET or 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. ET

Worst time: 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. ET

Wild Drastic Logo Changes

I saved this article in Business Insider a while ago. I am fascinated by how logos have become more and more minimalist over the years. A simple, easy to understand logo is the starting point of any brand.

Certainly not the way they used to do it. Lol.

Read the whole article here:

Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling

You may have seen these rules posted elsewhere. They are so awesome, I'm going to post a link anyway.

Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling

Former Pixar story artist Emma Coats tweeted this series of “story basics” in 2011. https://twitter.com/lawnrocket These were guidelines that she learned from her more senior colleagues on how to create appealing stories. I superimposed all 22 rules over stills from Pixar films to help me remember them. 

My favorite? "#4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___."

Second Priveo Video - "Emoticon Man"

I posted last week that Honeycomb was hired to help launch Priveo, a mobile app for messaging your friends with short videos.

I neglected to post a link to the second video we produced. The first video gives you a sense of how the app works. This one is a little more fun...I hope you enjoy it.

The Truth About Sleep, Science and Productivity

Good article in Fast Company about how much sleep people need to maximize their productivity.

The Truth About Sleep, Science and Productivity 

When the topic of sleep arises, two questions invariably follow:

What's the perfect amount of sleep to keep batteries charged and stay productive?

How do I go to sleep the right way?

Both are common questions, but the answers aren't as simple as they might seem.

THERE'S NO MAGIC NUMBER

... 

The bottom line: understand that sleep is highly individual, and to ensure that you can fall asleep when you need to, train your brain into knowing when it's time to turn the lights off.

For the record, I am one of those people who needs 8 hours of sleep to even be quasi-functional.

Honeycomb Consulting Covered in Washington Post

So...I'd like to brag a little bit. LOL.

I was asked to appear on a panel for DC Entrepreneur Week. The topic was on branding and marketing a startup, something that I love to talk about. The other panelists were super engaging and intelligent, so it was a great discussion. Anyway, the Washington Post wrote a short overview of the event, with a quote from yours truly.

Read it here: 5 take-aways from DC Entrepreneurship Week’s panel on “Creating a Loyal Brand”

First Video from Priveo

My client, Priveo, just released their first video. We are pretty excited, so check it out and tell me what you think.

Priveo is a mobile video messaging service that will be launched soon.

You can sign up for an invitation here: http://bit.ly/14j6OhR

Good Examples of the ROI from B2B Content Marketing

Top Rank blog is generally a good source of usable information. This article is particularly rich.

Want to see content marketing in action and real world examples of the value it can generate...

11 Examples of Killer B2B Content Marketing Campaigns Including ROI

Read the whole article for more info on these campaigns-

SunGard – Created awareness amongst IT professionals for SunGard Cloud offerings with a zombie themed campaign. The zombie themed effort resulted in exceeding download rates by 300%, a 5.7% email open rate and 20+ leads.

Limelight Networks – Implemented a “For Dummies” themed education campaign drawing attention to success and failures for companies and their digital presence. The campaign gained exposure through nearly 10,000 social media and news release views and $200k+ worth of sales opportunities.

Logicalis - Using content assets such as emails, microsite and ebook, Logicalis developed a thought leadership effort that supported sales teams by enabling custom messaging based on the prospects interaction with the campaign. With a target audience of about 2,000, nearly $8 million in new pipeline business was closed.

Sales Benchmark Index – Targeting prospects that were newly hired VPs of Sales, this campaign focused on providing a toolkit that identified corporate pains when VPs of Sales fail as well as case studies of successes. The promoted ebook was downloaded by target VPs 5,781 times.

Lattice Engines – Partnered with a research firm to create a study showing the impact big data has on sales. A robust mix of content marketing tactics were used to promote the report including: ebook, blog posts, guest articles, video interviews, Slideshare and an infographic. The report was downloaded 500 times, covered by 15 blogs and industry media sites and 1,500 views of the ebook.

Optum – Created an integrated marketing campaign to support the launch of a new solution, support sales and build thought leadership. The content marketing mix included: advertorials, display ads, email, direct mail and a campaign website. The successful campaign earned a 23.5 lead to conversion rate, 475% increase in website traffic, 2,500+ resource downloads, 28% increase in YoY blog followers and $52 million in contract value of new business with less than $ 1million invested.

ADP – Developed a content marketing campaign to connect and engage with their target audience on a ADP solution using white papers and a diagnostic assessment tool. The campaign generated over $1 million in new sales opportunities with several deals closed within the first 3 months of launch.

Demandbase – This education campaign was designed to help B2B marketers make the right content technology investment by using a white paper, infographic, webinar, Slideshare and a live presentation to spotlight tools that can maximize the power of content. The results of the campaign included 1,700 leads, 125 webinar participants, 5,000 views on Slideshare and $1 million in new business.

Xerox – Created a targeted “Get Optimistic” campaign to connect with 30 top accounts and partnered with Forbes to create a magazine that offered relevant business tips. 70% of targeted companies interacted with the microsite, readership increased 300-400% over previous email campaigns, added 20,000 new contacts, generated 1,000+ scheduled appointments, and get this: yielded $1.3 BILLION in pipeline revenue. Yes, BILLION.

OpenText – Created a personalized new customer onboarding site offering a variety of assets (white papers, checklists, product pages, ebooks, case studies) and content to welcome new clients and provide upsell, cross-sell opportunities. The campaign also included a two phase nurturing program. 1,700 new contacts were identified along with 31 new opportunities worth $1.8 million.

Crowe Horwath – Using 48 pieces of content in 4 different topic areas, this campaign targeted C-level prospects in financial institutions with $1 billion or more in assets across the buying cycle. Content tactics included: executive briefs, case studies, infographics, checklists, Q and A, and Brainshark video. 778 contacts were engaged with a 70% open rate (vs. 10%), 2 engagement worth $250k in revenue.

Jeff Bezos Had His Top Execs Read These Three Books

Just read this interesting post on Farnam Street (a good blog to read).

Jeff Bezos Had His Top Execs Read These Three Books

One of the best parts of the interview is the detail given by Bezos about some of the books he’s shared with Amazon’s top executives — he uses these as frameworks for shaping the future of the company. 

1. The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker
2. The Innovator’s Solution by Clayton Christensen (Interestingly, the only business book Steve Jobs ever liked was The Innovator’s Dilemma, by the same author.)
3. The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt

Good Article in Inc.- 6 Reasons Companies Fail at Content Marketing

Another good article on marketing in Inc.

6 Reasons Companies Fail at Content Marketing

So...what are the reasons?

1. They have no subscription strategy.
2. They fail to inspire brand evangelists.
3. They still keep their content creators in silos.
4. They place traditional marketers in content roles.
5. They overlook internal marketing goals.
6. They miss out on opportunities to partner with traditional media.

I'd say that pretty much covers all the possible modes of dysfunction.

Five B2B Marketing Trends to Watch

MarketingProfs, always a good source of innovative essays on marketing, posted a good article that reviewed the coming trends in marketing.

Here is a link to the post along with a quick outline...

http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2013/11767/five-b2b-marketing-trends-to-watch?adref=nlt100113

Trend No. 1: Employee Advocacy and Social Selling

Trend No. 2: Content Marketing

Trend No. 3: Mobile and Consumerization

Trend No. 4: Big Data

Trend No. 5: Agile Marketing

This last trend is something that I think marketers have been wrestling with. Many companies are having trouble dealing with a faster business tempo.

Being an agile B2B marketer means that you still need to adhere to the same core principles of strategic marketing, but you also need to act in a faster, more collaborative and responsive way. New and adaptive automation technologies are essential to acting fast, being responsive, and scaling. Social marketing is essential to staying informed and being relevant to your target audience. Be flexible, understand your customers, and act quickly!

Go and read the whole article...it's worth your time.

Honeycomb Consulting is Two Years Old!

Honeycomb Consulting is Two Years Old!

Two years ago this month I went online to incorporate a new enterprise called Honeycomb Consulting. I had high hopes that I would be able to bring value to a range of clients, but I remembered the statistics that most companies fail within a year or two.

There are always shifting fortunes during the run of any business, but I can look back over the past 24 months and see that I've been blessed to work with some great companies on interesting projects...

Some highlights...

- Working with a mobile video app company, Priveo (www.priveo.me), supporting their initial product launch with a new website, videos, lead generation and PR outreach

- Built a public relations campaign for wireless innovator Solid (www.solid.com), resulting in increased trade and analyst coverage (NY Times, Tech Crunch, InformationWeek, RCR Wireless)

- Developed an event based thought leadership campaign with client Lyceum (www.lyceum.com), a payroll and HR systems provider, based on the issues facing small businesses as they attempt to comply with the regulations stemming from the Affordable Care Act (ACA)

- Constructed content marketing program for travel risk management company, iJET (www.ijet.com), that included graphic design, collateral development, and public relations outreach

- Helped systems management company LANDesk (www.landesk.com) develop their social media program and worked with them booking third party experts, including press and analysts, to be interviewed on their blog.

A big thank you to everyone who put their faith in Honeycomb!

If you would like to receive a detailed presentation about these engagements, just let me know and we'll schedule a time to chat.

Or, if you like to learn more about Honeycomb, have a chat about your marketing needs, visit our website, send me an email or just call me at 202-497-8333

Reading List!

Here are a few articles that caught my eye, for your light beach reading:

How to Destroy Teams and Become Losers - Leadership Freak

Five Ways to Improve Your B2B Social Marketing Strategy ROI- Inbound Marketing

How Startups Can Triple Their Custome Base in Year or Less-Tech Cocktail

The Monster list of startup submission sites for free listing -The Startup Videos

Invitation to Beta of Private Video Messaging App

I am working with a new client that is building a very cool video messaging app.

They are asking people to join the beta review process, so sign up now for an invite to test the beta version of Priveo - private video messaging reimagined bit.ly/14j6OhR

The invitations will be sent out shortly, so sign up now. bit.ly/14j6OhR

Why Asking Sales What They Want Is NOT Sales Enablement

A very good read on how to engage with the sales team and methodically determine how marketing can create the content that best improves the sales cycle...

Why Asking Sales What They Want Is NOT Sales Enablement - MarketingProfs

Basically,

1. Define Sales Activities

2. Identify the Coordinating Goals

3. Create an Activity Map

4. Perform a Materials Analysis

But click through to read the whole article...

When is the Best Time to Post Social Media?

Another good article from PR Daily...

"The best—and worst—times to post to social media" - Kristin Piombino

Facebook: Traffic is highest between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. ET.
Best time: Between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. ET
Worst time: 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. ET

Pinterest: Saturday morning is the best time to post.
Best time: 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. ET or 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. ET
Worst time: 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. ET

LinkedIn: Post before or after business hours.
Best time: 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. ET or 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. ET
Worst time: 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. ET

Click through to massive infographic...

5 Phases of Social Media Measurement

Read an interesting article I thought I'd share. There is no shortage of posts online on the topic of measuring the effectiveness of social media. I always thought that the true measure of any marketing expenditure was whether it increased sales, profitability or the valuation of the company. Hard to connect a tweet to a market capitalization, but one should always have that goal.

Anyway, this article from Clickz does a pretty good job of explaining the conceptual structure...

How to Measure Social Media - and Show Results to the C-Suite
http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2134500/measure-social-media-results-suite

And a nifty graphic too...

5 Phases of Social Media Measurement

Mad Scientist?

Lifted from the great blog, "The Big Picture", by Barry Ritzholtz.

Page after page of professional economic journals are filled with mathematical formulas leading the reader from sets of more or less plausible but entirely arbitrary assumptions to precisely stated but irrelevant theoretical conclusions. -Wassily Leontief, Science, Volume 217, 9 July 1982, p. 106.

Always a good idea to keep in mind when you read a news article that begins with "A new study released today said,..."

Are You A Freelancer?

If you aren't, then just wait a while...you probably will be.


40 Percent Of Americans Will Be Freelancers By 2020 - Vivian Giang, Business Insider

By 2020, more than 40 percent of the American workforce, or 60 million people, will be freelancers, contractors and temp workers, according to a study conducted by software company Intuit.

The entrepreneur business model will play a major role in the future workplace. The report also says that in the next seven years, the number of "small and personal businesses in the U.S. alone will increase by more than 7 million" and fulltime, full benefit jobs will be harder to find. Most of these businesses will be web or mobile-based and will work closely with a global workforce.

In 2020, one in six Americans will be older than 65, but they won't be "traditional" seniors as they will continue to work part or full-time.

Do you think this is a positive development?

Map of All Tornadoes in USA

My heart goes to the folks in Oklahoma dealing with the devastation there. I grew up in the midwest and was taught, in elementary school, what to do when the tornado alarm sounds. Sad.

I came across this map today and thought I'd share it with you. It comes from iO9.com (a pretty cool site you should read). Using data from the government, they plotted the disftance and strength of every recorded tornado in the USA.

How to Get Smarter- The Buffett Way

I just read this story last night and thought I would share it. Very good advice from some very successful people.

"The Buffett Formula- How To Get Smarter" - Farnam Street blog

How to get smarter 

Read. A lot. 

Warren Buffett says, “I just sit in my office and read all day.” What does that mean? He estimates that he spends 80% of his working day reading and thinking. 

“You could hardly find a partnership in which two people settle on reading more hours of the day than in ours,” Charlie Munger commented. 

When asked how to get smarter, Buffett once held up stacks of paper and said “read 500 pages like this every day. That’s how knowledge builds up, like compound interest.”
All of us can build our knowledge but most of us won’t put in the effort. 

One person who took Buffett’s advice, Todd Combs, now works for the legendary investor. He took Buffett’s advice seriously and started keeping track of what he read and how many pages he was reading. 

The Omaha World-Herald writes: 

Eventually finding and reading productive material became second nature, a habit. As he began his investing career, he would read even more, hitting 600, 750, even 1,000 pages a day.
Combs discovered that Buffett’s formula worked, giving him more knowledge that helped him with what became his primary job — seeking the truth about potential investments. 

But how you read matters too. 

You need to be critical and always thinking. You need to do the mental work required to hold an opinion. 

In Working tougher: Why Great Partnerships Succeed Buffett comments to author Michael Eisner: 

Look, my job is essentially just corralling more and more and more facts and information, and occasionally seeing whether that leads to some action. And Charlie—his children call him a book with legs.

Monday Morning Reads- Hodgepodge Edition

Porter five forces analysis -Wikipedia

50 Unfortunate Truths About Investing - Motly Fool

The computing deployment phase- Chris Dixon

This One Chart Shows Why The U.S. Economy Is Finally Recovering...-Henry Blodget, Business Insider

Report: 2013 Temkin Experience Ratings -Customer Experience Matters

Windows 8 — Disappointing Usability for Both Novice and Power Users -Nielsen Norman Group

The New Algorithm of Web Marketing -Tanzina Vega. NY Times

Yang Kyoungjong -Wikipedia: Yang Kyoungjong (c. 1920 – April 7, 1992) was a Korean soldier who fought during World War II in the Imperial Japanese Army, the Soviet Red Army, and later the German Wehrmacht. Yes, you read that right. A fascinating story.

How Big Is A Petabyte, Exabyte, Zettabyte, Or A Yottabyte? -High Scalability

Tuesday Night Reads

Marketers struggle to measure events' ROI -B2B Magazine

The 6 Keys To Being Awesome At Everything - Business Insider

How IBM's Agencies Are Helping the Software Giant Target CMOs- AdAge

Why is it so hard to make a phone call in emergency situations? -BoingBoing

11 Beautiful Examples of Infographics -Dawgeared

By the way, this resume infographic is wicked cool. You should hire this guy...

Hump Day Reads

Keeping up with the latest, most valuable thought leadership content on the Internet is always difficult. Luckily, I've curated five articles that I think every marketer needs to read. What do you think?


22 Ways to Create Content and Beat Writer’s Block- Business 2 Community

A Better Way to Measure Your Ad Campaign- Harvard Business Review

The Great Eight: Trillion-Dollar Growth Trends to 2020 - Bain & Company

Content Repurposing Is the New Way of the World - Duck Tape Marketing

Avoid These Three Deadly Sins of Sales Messaging - MarketingProfs


As always, if you like to learn more about Honeycomb, have a chat about your marketing plans for 2013, visit our website, send me an email or just call me at 202-497-8333

Google Reader is Dead

Google announced the other day that Google Reader is being killed off. I'm not sure if you know of this fine program, but I use it several times a day to review and read many, many RSS feeds and websites. Combined with Flipboard on my iPad, it is one the best ways to consume content, I  think.

I have 380 feeds in my Reader, which I have collected over the years. I've been told that all of the other competing services are inferior and that they all basically crashed yesterday due to the crush of Reader users suddenly arriving to sign up.

I would happily pay money for this, until now, free service, but Google thinks that they have to focus scarce resources on other projects, which I understand.

I just seems to me that they could have generated some goodwill by releasing the source code as an open source project and let the users manage it.

Change.org petition to keep Google Reader alive attracts over 47K signatures - Venture Beat

Four alternatives to Google Reader - USA Today

The Fuhrer is not pleased...as you can imagine.

Hump Day Reads

Wow,  what a busy week...here are few items that caught my eye...mostly, marketing and social media stuff, but a few other items to keep the brain fit.


Open Source Entrepreneurship- Steve Blank blog

5 Psychological Triggers to Increase Social Engagement- Social Media Today

Social Media Marketing Can Get Out of Sync with Consumers - eMarketer

Do You Question Social Media Culture? You Should - Nick Kellet

Deflecting the Assault on Social Media - MarketingProfs

10 Lessons From Digital Pioneers on How To Become a Digital Success - MarketingProfs

The Landscape Architect’s Guide to WASHINGTON, D.C. - American Society of Landscape Architects

D.C. Is Weird, in Charts - Washington City Paper

The Insourcing Boom - The Atlantic

Warp Drive May Be More Feasible Than Thought, Scientists Say - Yahoo News


Content infographic courtesy of Eloqua. Full Size version here: http://blog.eloqua.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/The_Content_Grid_Eloqua_JESS31.jpg

Weekend Reading

Six articles I'm reading this weekend. Anything catch your eye, that you think I should read? Let me know...

1. 10 Lessons From Digital Pioneers on How To Become a Digital Success


2. Marketing Resources for Startups – Go from Zero to Traction in 90 days


3. Recession Forecasting Ensemble (RFE) and market timing


4. 30+ Ideas To Create Great Content For Your Customers


5. Write E-Mails That People Won't Ignore


6. How To Improve The ROI Of Your New Product Launch 

Oh, and today was the Nationals' first spring training game. Giddyup!