7/29/2005

I Need A Job!!!

Well, I have finally figured out what to do with my domain name http://www.davidebowman.com In light of the fact that my employer is closing up shop next month, I am using it as an online resource to find a job. If you happen to know of anyone who is looking for professional marketing expertise, please send them to the site. It has my resume, a small sample of my recent work, references, and much, much more. Feel free to check it out for yourself, and let me know what you think.
welcome to davidebowman.com

LexisNexis product available through Yahoo!

More interesting news from LexisNexis as they have partnered with Yahoo to make information available through the popular online site. LexisNexis product available through Yahoo!

LexisNexis profit rises 27%

Here is some good news from a Dayton area company. LexisNexis has announced that they had a 27% increase in profits. Great news for many in the Miami Valley and many in the Dayton AMA.
LexisNexis profit rises 27%

7/28/2005

PositiveAttitude.pdf

I recently came across this manifesto entitled "A Positive Attitude" by Dan Auito on Changethis.com This article is great bulletin board material for those of you in managerial positions. A positive attitude is important, especially in times of adversity. One line that I thought was great from the article: "What you spend the most time on is what and who you are going to be."
14.05.PositiveAttitude.pdf (application/pdf Object)

7/27/2005

Great Service Can Be As Simple As Vanilla Wafers

My wife surprised me this morning by calling me and asking me if I would like to meet her and my daughter for lunch. I gladly accepted her invite and met her at a restuarant called Johnny Carino's. (I know it is a chain restaurant, but that is beside the point.) We were promptly seated, and our order taken. Pretty standard. As we sat at the table a cook from the kitchen came out and said "hello" to my little girl. He was very friendly and he brought her out a nice dish of vanilla wafers on the house while we waited for her mac & cheese to arrive. She loved them, and I really appreciated the gesture. Later another cook came by an said hello as well. She asked how our food was, and joked with my daughter, who was suddenly uncharacteristically shy, for a few minutes. It was a very nice lunch, and I would like to say how impressed I was by the fact the people there actually wanted us to enjoy dining in their restaurant. Seems like that would be the goal of every restaurant, but it is seldom achieved. Great service can be as simple as a dish of vanilla wafers. It is all about making an effort.
Home

Oil price spikes put GM Moraine at risk

As gas prices continue to rise the GM plant in Moraine is in jeopardy. That means that 4,100 people might potentially be out of work. That is not good news for a city that is not exactly experiencing a boom. I ask you, "what can the city and the region do to revive itself?"
Oil price spikes put GM Moraine at risk

7/26/2005

The Green Machine That Could Be Detroit - New York Times

This is a brilliant article about positioning, risk, vision, and marketing from the New York Times. What if an automaker decided to "Go Green" and break from the norm? The Green Machine That Could Be Detroit - New York Times

7/25/2005

Advertising Trend To Change

The last advertising trend communicated was in regards to TiVO and the frequency of viewers fast forwarding commercials...essentially this was called the death of tv advertising.

This morning, on the radio, a gentleman was discussing how the network stations were requiring TiVo to modify this feature. Being proposed...when a viewer will fast forward a commercial...the company/product logo will come up so viewers can stop and view the commercial, if they choose.

Not sure how this is still going to help products...especially when viewers are not likely to desire in watching a commercial...just the name they will remember. Can this still be effective?

7/22/2005

Church of the Customer: Podcast: Measuring word of mouth

"What the heck is a podcast?" Well I am so glad you asked. I will show you. Click on the link below and you can listen to a podcast from Church of the Customer about Measuring Word of Mouth. This is a great podcast, and is a cool example of what you can easily do. When you are done listening, start thinking about how you can use podcasting in your business. Technology is your friend...be not afraid!
Church of the Customer: Podcast: Measuring word of mouth

tompeters! WallopWalmart16

Tom Peters has a great rant on his weblog today, discussing how the small business can beat the big one. He calls it his WallopWalmart16. It is a great Friday read. Brilliant advice from a brilliant guy.

tompeters! management consulting leadership training development project management

7/21/2005

Milton Glaser Inc.

For those of you in the field of design, (FYI: know it or not, that is everyone) here is a great essay by Milton Glaser, one of the greatest designers of our time. "10 Things I Have Learned."
Milton Glaser Inc.

Linux Pipeline | Small Biz Blogging Joins The Marketing Mix


I came across this article about small business blogging on the AMA website, http://www.marketingpower.com. The article links to several other articles on various issues facing small business professionals thinking about setting up a small business blog site. With so much potential for growth, and so little understanding of the medium, this article is a great starting point for those considering entering the blogosphere.
Linux Pipeline | Small Biz Blogging Joins The Marketing Mix

7/20/2005

1st Annual Internet Marketing Survey

I am posting this survey that was sent to me by Irene Dickey, who is a UD professor and member of the Dayton Chapter of the AMA. She is in need of professional feedback for a project that she, Dr. William Lewis, and Joe Sumpter are working on. Please help out your fellow AMA members and a great community partner by clicking on the link below and completing the survey. You can also forward the link to other marketing professionals that may be interested in helping. On behalf of them I invite you to help the cause, and thank you for your participation. See more below.
You can find the survey at: http://www.cecc.com.au/surveys/usamark/

Hello our names are Irene Dickey, Joe Sumpter and Bill Lewis. We are from the University of Dayton and we are conducting research to gather your opinion on the importance and use of Internet marketing tools. We
are inviting you to participate in this research study.

We intend to survey those involved with marketing decisions within organizations. If you have received this survey in error and are not a marketing professional, please forward it to the appropriate marketing
professional in your organization.

Your organization was chosen for this study because it is listed on an Internet business directory.

There are a variety of Internet marketing tools and options for businesses to adopt. This study aims to investigate which options are employed by businesses and what level of importance is given for each option.

The final results will be used in an Internet marketing study to suggest Internet marketing strategies for better meeting customer needs, wants and expectations.

We anticipate that it will take approximately ten to fifteen minutes to complete the questionnaire. Your responses will be treated in the strictest confidence and are anonymous as you are not required to
identify yourself or your organization.

You are free to withdraw your consent and discontinue participation in the study at any time. If you wish to withdraw your consent please do not click the submit button for the questionnaire.

To begin the survey click on the following link:
http://www.cecc.com.au/surveys/usamark/
Any questions regarding this project can be directed to any one of us.

Irene Dickey (937-229-2025) or William F. Lewis, (937-229-3704), or
Joe Sumpter (937-369-7128)University of Dayton, Dayton, OH 45469-2271
.

Seth's Blog: Inside and Outside


I just read a great post on Seth Godin's blog entitled Inside and Outside. Seth posts something of value, at least valuable to me, several times a week. In this post he discusses a recent experience he had at a local Starbucks. He observed that the employees had "decided to enjoy their jobs," and what a difference it made. The point is whether it is a coffee shop or a corner office, you can choose to do what you love, love what you do, and pursue it with passion. Starbucks has mastered this concept. You can too. Life is too short to do otherwise.
Seth's Blog: Inside and Outside

7/19/2005

Stay Hungry - Stay Foolish

Here are some wonderful word by which can all live! This comes from a 2005 Commencement Speech given by Steve Jobs at Stanford University - it is something to which we can all relate.
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says
This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.

7/18/2005

Church of the Customer: The Whole Foods marketing philosophy

I love this short article from Church of the Customer, which compares the marketing strategy of Whole Foods to that of Safeway. My favorite line:
Safeway: "Spend money on ads telling customers we're great."
Whole Foods: "Spend money on being great."
That is the future of marketing.
Church of the Customer: The Whole Foods marketing philosophy

7/15/2005

Anyone can be a podcaster

Today's Dayton Daily News a very good article on Podcasts. It gives you a 101 look at what they are and where they are headed. Disney, Newsweek, NPR, Jim Rome and others are podcasting. Is there a way that your company can benefit from Podcasting?
Anyone can be a podcaster

Little Red Book of Sales


While I am not officially in Sales, Salesmanship is a skill that is useful to us all. We all sell something. Whether you are selling your boss on why your idea is great, or selling structured cabling to OSU, we all sell and are all sold to. Jeffrey Gitomer has a great book for those who are in the world of sales. The Little Red Book of Selling is an easy read, it is not expensive, and it has a ton of practical tips on how to increase your effectiveness as a salesperson. The first page has a great quote "People don't like to be sold, but they love to buy." Down to earth writing that is definitely worth reading. Gitomer.com

Research - Untested Assumptions May Have a Big Effect - Stanford GSB


"What we do comes from how we think." Jeffrey Pfeffer, Thomas D. Dee II Professor, Stanford Graduate School of Business.
How are marketing and HR related? Well here is an article that talks about just that topic. Company philosophy is critical in determining success, and often assumptions that managers commonly make are wrong. This paper by Professor Pfeffer is brief but thought provoking. He challenges some basic assumptions that many deem to be the gospel truth. How does your organization think? How do you think?
Research - Untested Assumptions May Have a Big Effect - Stanford GSB

Chevy Uses Promotional Broadcast Integration During All Star Game


Marketing turns up everywhere... Sometimes it is good, sometimes it is bad, sometimes you don't even realize it is marketing. Check out this story about a paid product placement by Chevy that appeared in the MLB allstar game. The gist is that cameras panning the crowd "happened" to stop on a fan banner that said hhrya.com The announcers then feigned ignorance of the promotion and began to discuss what the banner could be about. Well it was a pre-planned placement designed to drive people to the site put together by Chevy. Some would say this was brilliant, some say deceptive, some awful. I think on some level they are all right. Tell us what you think by placing your comments below.
Adrants » Chevy Uses Promotional Broadcast Integration During All Star Game

7/14/2005

Before and AFTER magazine


Need design help or are you praying for what I like to call "design intervention" to give you some inspiration with your latest project. Check out Before & After magazine's web site. They offer some great free articles and if you choose to subscribe they have a wealth of design strategies to keep you on top of your game. Check out the site.

IBM tacks blogs to Workplace | CNET News.com


Think blogs are not that important? Well IBM thinks that they are important enough to add into the upcoming version of their workplace collaboration software. Cnet has a great article about the latest move by Big Blue... How much do you know about this coming technology? Learn more about blogs and other marketing tools by joining the Dayton AMA. "Discover the Power of Marketing!"
IBM tacks blogs to Workplace | CNET News.com

7/13/2005

Customers Don't Grow on Trees

Peppers and Rodgers, authors of "The 1to1 Future" have a great take on customer satisfaction. They propose using Return on Customer as a new metric. This is another great article from July's issue of Fast Company.
Customers Don't Grow on Trees

Free Lunches


Fast Company has a great little article that I have linked to about the pro's and con's of giveaways as a marketing tool. Nothing Earth shattering, but entertaining none the less. Perhaps a little inspiration for those of you considering such a program. There are also some interesting articles in this month's issue about bosses. Do you work for Mr. Burns or someone like him?
Free Lunches

7/12/2005

How the Market Is Changing

Interesting article that describes the latest trends in marketing...including the importance of generating new ideas for communicating your message(s). In essence, creating a "new medium". However, in the beginning, the editor states how most of the top advertising agencies (in Seattle) are adopting different types of technology to deliver their messages. Yet, in another article I had read that only "8% of consumers in new media prefer marketing that only uses the internet, PDAs or video games" and "80% consider the sale of email lists a serious violation of privacy"...What are your opinions and thoughts about utilizing technology to communicate messages?

7/11/2005

ChangeThis :: Tomato TomA[h]to


ChangeThis is a great web site. It is updated monthly, and features free PDF articles from some of the best and brightest thinkers of today. This month features a great article by Tom Peters. Check Tomato TomA[h]to, and the other articles, out for yourself.
ChangeThis :: Tomato TomA[h]to

USATODAY.com - Population boom spawns super cities

Haya El Nasser has a great article in USA Today discussing the emergence of megapolitan areas. What does this mean to Dayton? Well, it means a lot. Dayton is right in the middle of an enourmous megapolitan area which includes Detroit and Cincinnati. Want proof of the Megapolitan trend of cities growing into larger economic regions. Alright, Drive on I 75 or I 70 in any direction. The distance between cities in miles is the same as it was 20 years ago. The scenery between them is not. Look at the Dayton to Cincinnati journey. Towns like Springboro, Centerville, Mason, Monroe, and West Chester are booming. Warren and Butler county are growing. It is ever more common for households to have one person working in Cincinnati and one in Dayton. Alright, I know I am sort of stating what is obvious here, but stick with me. This growth means that businesses must think beyond the boundaries of cities or metropolitan areas. There is tremendous opportunity for businesses to grow like never before; capitalizing on larger markets, greater resources, and larger professional networks. With the increased opportunity comes the increased threat of new competitors. It is not a long jump for a successful business in Columbus or Indianapolis to start an operation in Dayton. Technology makes this move easier than ever. Great marketers will recognize this trend and capitalize on it. Great marketers, like you, will be looking at the resources of the region, positioning your business for success in the megapolitan environment that is emerging. Great marketers will not be surprised to see a LaRosa's pizza thriving in Centerville, or a Flying Pizza thriving in Mason. Are you thinking about the megapolitan area? You should be.
USATODAY.com - Population boom spawns super cities

To Blog or Not to Blog

Thanks to Shaun Frecska, who forwarded me this article to post here at the Dayton AMA blog site. It is an interesting look at how businesses are approaching the use of weblogs or "blogs." My take on this is clear. It is just like any other tool. If you run your business poorly, no blog, no matter how well written will help you. If you are using a blog as a compliment to your product and service offering, it is a great tool. I view the corporate blog as sort of a bulletin board for public consumption. I do disagree with the author's assessment that the "marketing department" should not be the ones authoring the blog. My take is that if your whole company is not the "Marketing Department," you are doomed to fail. Job title is meaningless. The person at the front desk is every bit as responsible for marketing as the Director of HR, as the Chief Marketing Officer, as the CEO. While that responsibility may not be spelled out in the job description in terms of tasks, it should be in terms of philosophy. "How you do your job impacts how the customer perceives our business. Your ability to succeed in your given job, means that the company will be more able to not only identify the needs of the customer, but to satisfy those needs." "That positive customer perception is critical in shaping the success of the organization." That is marketing at its purest.
If your HR department is bad about returning calls to job applicants. That is bad marketing. If your receptionist is too busy reading "People" to smile and greet actual people, that is bad marketing. A blog can serve as so much more than just a canned commercial. It can provoke thought. It can create discussion. It can make your business better. It can increase your businesses awareness. It can also be a disaster. It is not hard to do, if you take the time to put your heart into it. If you do that, you will find your niche on the web. If you can do that, you will find success in the use of the blog. If you simply "mail it in" and expect your less than honest communication to translate into increased business, your weblog will fail...miserably. Choose wisely.

Marketing
- bizjournals.com

7/07/2005

Brand Autopsy

Cheap is not an effective long term marketing strategy. This post is an interesting look at the recent GM employee discount. This program was wildly successful in generating short term sales. However does this band-aid approach really fix the problems facing GM? Check out the post.
Brand Autopsy

Seth's Blog: The Threat of Pigeons and Other Fundamentalists

More from Seth on change.
Seth's Blog: The Threat of Pigeons and Other Fundamentalists

Seth's Blog: On Whale Oil

The world is changing. Are you embracing that change? Here is a great post by author Seth Godin on the concept of change.
Seth's Blog: On Whale Oil

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?