tags: happy, holidays, merry, christmas, new year, twelve horses

This year’s Governor’s Conference was themed, “It’s All About You,” which was meant to convey that it is the citizens and business professionals of Nevada that make it a great place to live and work.

The conference was was well-attended and featured uplifting speakers and performers.

Some of the speakers included, Mayor, Bob Cashell; Lieutenant Governor, Brian Kroliki; and CEO of the Reno-Sparks Convention & Visitors Authority (RSCVA), Ellen Oppenheim.

Each presentation was very positive and demonstrated the success of the state as a whole, as well as the impressive renaissance that is occurring in Reno, Nevada in regards to redevelopment, tourism, and the economy.

Two other speakers that I especially enjoyed were Howard Putnam, former CEO of Southwest Airlines, and Guy Kawasaki, managing director of Garage Technology Ventures and former affiliate of Macintosh.

While their presentations were certainly different, both speakers shared similar central themes to their presentations - Differentiation and Making a Mantra.  Southwest and Macintosh have succeeded in large part because they provided a service or product that did not exist before, and they built a company culture that was unique from their competitors. Think laid back atmosphere, affordable direct flights, empowering creative minds, and iPods.

As Guy explains it, they “jump(ed) to the next curve.” Here’s me with him after his speech.

Twelve Horses own CEO, David LaPlante was also a featured speaker.  His presentation was titled, “Web 2.0: It’s All About the Relationship.” He covered the importance of consumer generated media and managing relationships online. Brands can either hide behind a veil of carefully crafted corporate speak, or they can get out there for instance, with a blog, which enables them to personalize their brand and interact with customers.

The dichotomy consists of fear and isolation on one side, and openness and sharing on the other side. Obviously, companies must be careful about what they say and do; but what do your customers want?

All in all the conference was a great time, and it brought many people from Las Vegas, Reno, and rural cities around Nevada together. There is a lot of positive change happening in the State, and it will be exciting to see what is in store for the future.

In the meantime, the ski resorts are all open and beginning to receive copious amounts of snow. So come visit!

 tags: governor’s conference, tourism, reno, las vegas, nevada, guy kawasaki, consumer generated media, blog

Recently, the Pew Internet & American Life Project, a non-partisan, non-profit research center that examines the social impact of the Internet, released the results of a survey that included questions about podcasting. They determined that 12% of Internet users say they have downloaded a podcast or vodcast.This is up 7% from a similar survey conducted in February-April of 2006.Here are the basics of the survey.

• Nationally representative telephone survey of 2,928 adults.
• Conducted during the month of August, 2006.
• Portion of the survey that covered podcast downloading was administered to 972 Internet users.

This survey has led to quite a bit of press about the subject. Catherine Holahan from Business Week wrote a recent article titled, “What Podcasting Revolution?” Melissa Campanelli’s article, “Podcast use Increases, not yet mainstream: Pew Study” was written for DM News; and Silcon Valley Sleuth blogs about it under, “Podcasts: growing pains or the end of hype?”So, what does this all mean for businesses interested in pursuing podcasting?These authors are positing that podcasting is falling on deaf ears.Mp3 players and applications like iTunes have only been around for a few years; in fact, podcasts really only started showing up in 2003. Considering the time frame, I’d say 12% of Internet users is not too shabby.What this study does not capture is how many people are simply listening or viewing the podcasts on the company’s website. For Horse Power, I know through analytics that the majority of our listeners actually listen to the podcasts directly from the blog.Podcasting is distinguished from other digital audio formats because it can be downloaded automatically using feeds like RSS, which makes it a distribution channel capable of delivering rich content. Other than that, it is still simply an audio or video file.What I think is so important about podcasting is that it has pushed businesses to think about how to improve the online experience with more audio and video content. Beyond that, it is fairly simply to distribute it through a feed and provide the opportunity for subscribers to listen or watch it on the go as opposed to being tied down to their computer. Based on the research, podcast dowloads are growing, so it is really a no brainer if you are producing this content anyway.Podcasting offers businesses the ability to personalize their brand and demonstrate their expertise. Even if the majority of listeners or viewers come to the website to download or stream the content there, as opposed to subscribing to the RSS feed and downloading it to their mp3 player or mobile device, they are still providing good content that helps build relationships with new and existing customers.In short, podcasting and vodcasting are simply cost-effective means of distributing content that you should be creating anyway. If the mainstream wants to listen to the hype, the counter-hype and follow the statisticians no matter the results, then great. To quote Marty Neumeier, “zig when the others zag.”tags: podcasting, vodcasting, blogs, pew study, horse power

I’ve been around long enough and have read enough posts to know many of the unwritten rules of blogging.  I think many of them are pretentious and self-righteous, but I still tell clients about them so they know.  Anil Dash, one of the head honchos over at Six Apart, has a great post rebuking one of these myths; the myth that CEO blogs have to be by the CEO.

Mr. Dash is not arguing to have a phantom writer or lie about where the content is coming from; however, he is saying its alright to get help or co-write posts.  He also writes its alright to not post frequently - another common blog rule. 

I think the important take away is that as long as you are honest and transparent, you can’t really go wrong.

via: Bloggers for Hire

Two of Twelve Horses clients, Deloitte and JP Morgan, were name as the top places to launch a career by BusinessWeek magazine. Deloitte ranked 3rd behind Disney and Lockheed Martin and JP Morgan ranked 9th.  I know whenever I chat with people from either of these companies they are truly excited about the projects they are working on.  Congrats to you both.

Considering Twelve Horses is headquartered in Reno, Nevada, I feel it is my obligation to talk about one of the largest anomalies our area experiences each year around the Labor Day Weekend - Burning Man. To explain what Burning Man is, "is a bit like trying to explain what a particular color looks like to someone who is blind," so says the official website. But I’ll do my best to summarize.

Burning Man is week-long event that attracts 30,000+ people from all over the World. It is held in the Black Rock Desert on a giant playa just outside the small town of Gerlach, Nevada. People come to camp, construct a temporary city, and create an experience based on self-expression and community. After the giant archetypal man is burned in mock effigy, people begin to disperse, and eventually the playa is once again left devoid of any human trace. Despite all of the hype about strange people and unlawful activity, it is really a peaceful demonstration that produces some truly amazing and creative artwork.

From a marketing perspective, Burning Man is a fantastic example of the power of word-of-mouth. Create an event that people actually want to go to, and guess what, they come in mass. No prints ads; no TV commercials; no email blasts; no special offers or coupons. They’ll even be willing to pay $375 for a ticket.

Let’s see….30,000 people x $375 = $11,125,000. Not a bad budget for an art party out in the desert. However, I believe much of this money goes to permitting, security, supplies, and other administrative costs; and all of it goes back into the event. Commerce isn’t even allowed within the limits of the proverbial city, so I assume even the organizers are practicing what they preach.

The financial impact for Reno is not something to ignore either. As the Reno Gazette-Journal reports, 11% of attendees earn $100,000 or more annually, 9% earn between $75-$100K, 14% earn $50-$75k, and 24% earn $25-$50k; additionally, 61% have bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral degrees. People are flying into the airport from all over the place, renting cars and RVs, buying food and supplies, and in general using the products and services the Reno area has to offer. Throughout the week, you can go into a grocery or outdoor store and many of their shelves are empty. Make plans last minute and try and rent an RV, and you will have to go as far as Sacramento, CA to find one; and the price will be marked up 200%!

Yet, go to one of the official tourism sites like the the Nevada Commission on Tourism or the Reno-Sparks Convention & Visitors Authority, and you will really have to search to even find a blurb about Burning Man. These two outfits spend millions of dollars marketing the Reno region, but are clearly reticent to align themselves or endorse what some may consider to be a racy and unwholesome event. Because of these decisions, people across the world that learn about Burning Man will associate it with Nevada, but they more than likely will not associate it with Reno. Think about all of the Google juice alone that is not being utilized.

The last but certainly not least subject that I want to touch on regarding Burning Man is their use of technology. If you go to their homepage, you will see that they now have a Webcast, a television station, a virtual city, online social networks, online polls, and even wireless capability in a desert area that you wouldn’t be able to get a cell phone signal on to save your life any other time of year. I even found this cool Burning Man Beatmaps on Susan Mernit’s Blog, which I linked to from a Rojo newsletter that I subscribe to via email. Cool stuff!

Kudos to the folks that have created this event. It is definitely something to marvel at whether you are an artist, a marketer, or a techy. As to whether I am going to marvel at in person, well, I’ll leave that up to your imagination.

Technorati : black rock desert, burning man, nevada, reno

Mike Rundle has an excellent post over at Business Logs discussing how successful social networking sites give users something in exchange for their content.  Mike suggests that users get pleasure from submitting content and this pleasure has a multiplier based off the return for submission.  He postulates that if you submit a story to digg.com it takes about 5X in terms of effort for a return of 50X in pleasure (where X is the multiplier).

I think Mike hit the nail on the head.  When Jason Calacanis recently offered to pay diggers for submitting content to Netscape.com he was utilizing Mike’s theory.  For Jason, the effort required (in both switching from Digg and finding the stories) would be minimal compared to the pleasure multiplier of getting paid.  I’m not sure if he actually hired any but if I was a top digger - currently ranked 536 - then I would have seriously considered it.

Moving forward, sites need to seriously consider what the user is getting in return for there effort.  Getting consumers to fill out simple forms has always been a challenge, now every new site wants their users to add pictures, videos, bookmarks, posts, etc.  Web 2.0 is fueled by the community, the community is fueled by its user generated content.

Yesterday morning I attended a Roundtable discussion put on by the Sierra Nevada Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America focused on the relevancy of journalism in today’s public relations market. In fact, our Director of Business Development, Josh Kenzer was one of the speakers.Before arriving to the event I was a little puzzled by the title, “Is Journalism Relevant in Today’s PR Market?,” because I thought, of course it’s relevant. A better title would consist of something like, why is journalism relevant in light of social media, or how has its role changed or been impacted. But the discussion ended up focusing heavily on new channels of distribution, search, blogging, podcasting, and new online social mediums or medias. Of course, I was happy that it did. Social media is having significant effects. If you haven’t seen any recent examples of how it has played a role check out what AOL recently had to deal with, or Dell, or Jupiter Research.Other topics of the discussion included truth, relevancy, media fragmentation, how impossible it is for journalists to report on everything, whether or not a blogger can really be a journalist, and the fact that pr professionals, reporters, and media companies are motivated by money. I certainly believe that both reporters and media outlets have a passion for truth, breaking news, and getting the facts straight, but there is still an undeniable and underlying influence attributed to money. PR professionals get paid to generate exposure just as much as media companies depend on advertisers.That does not change the fact that I am a news junky. I have my RSS feeds setup, receive my email newsletters, read cnn.com, nytimes.com, my local newspaper, turn on the TV at night for more local and national news, PBS, and, you guessed it, the Daily Show. From a local perspective, I am often frustrated when I simply see AP stories regurgitated, or some TV reporter sitting on the side of the road telling me its raining or snowing when I can simply look outside and see that it is. Bring me more in depth reporting about social, economic and environmental subjects. Take those paid reporters and put their energies toward something more meaningful - but to who? Me? Maybe they aren’t so concerned with me. Maybe their target market is the person who wants to see someone in their slicks standing by the side of the road in the rain. Many people are pretty apathetic about what is going on outside of their little sphere. I have friends that are this way.I appreciate the power of social media and self-expression, but I want it to resonate more in main stream media. Traditional media, namely print publications, are struggling to discover new channels of communication. They are looking at email, mobile, rss, blogging, podcasting, myspace, and the like, but I think they are considering it as a way of distributing the same old story; or advertisement. Maybe we as a collective whole can dig a little deeper than that.My biggest takeaway from the Roundtable discussion was the emphasis on truth, transparency, and relationships. Send a press release to a reporter with misinformation, and you can kiss that relationship goodbye. Also, you could wind up getting blasted in the blogosphere or somewhere else, and the negative implications of that could be extremely harmful. As a company, we’ve got to continually get our name out there to generate awareness, but it has to be done with these ethical and sensible principles in mind. Once you’ve got that in place, hit every possible channel you can. Technorati : journalism, public relations, reno public relations, social media

Robert and I recorded a podcast this morning with a Reno Real Estate agent that gets it. Diane Cohn  uses her blog and podcasting to introduce herself to potential buyers online. None of us will be surprised to know that much of the initial home buying research is performed on the Internet. During this process, buyers are more likely to find Diane because of her blog and podcast (stayed tuned to the Horse Power Podcast for the interview).

Prior to recording the podcast, we were chatting about whom her ideal clients are. She made the statement that she really likes those that do their initial research on the Internet because they are smart, ask good questions, understand the market better, are upfront and tend to be fun loving. This made my wheels start turning and I started thinking of some compelling questions:

• Is the Internet creating a new personality type?
• Do the core personalities of those individuals who spend a large part of their time online differ from those who don’t?
• Are the habits and patterns that we are learning online influence us in social settings?
• Does repeated uses of search engines cause us to be more straight forward and upfront?
• Does the analytical process used to research online extend into our personal and professional life?
• Does the social networking skills we cultivate online (IM, email, MySpace, Linkedin) carry over to how we network in real life?

I’m sure it won’t be too long before someone turns these types of questions into a book.

    Technorati : Internet, Personalities

As the Marketing Manager for Twelve Horses, I find great amusement and an appreciation for Seth Godin’s post on, “Ten Things Programmers Might Want to Know About Marketers.” My primary focus is to build Twelve Horses’ brand and bring more leads and prospects in the door, and much of this is done online. I depend on the expertise of our programmers to achieve these goals, but it is often challenging because of the degrees of separation regarding our responsibilities and daily activities.

Not only are our competencies, personalities, deadlines and daily activities different, but when the programmers are busy working on client billables, it is especially difficult to justify the notion that they should spend time working on Twelve Horses’ marketing activities. This touchy situation is further compounded by the fact that we are a marketing and technology company; so anything we do for ourselves better be good.

Some things that I try to keep in mind at all times are:

• Scheduling items far in advance.
• Outlining the purpose, flow, messaging, composition, and desired results of each job to hopefully limit excessive and annoying amounts of changes.
• Illustrating the importance of their efforts and the benefits to the company.
• Saying, “Thank You” after completion and making the effort to sustain a positive relationship.
• Sharing the results and rewards to convey the fact that it is a team effort.

These few items may sound simple, but I think they go a long way in helping to implement successful and efficient marketing campaigns. Internal communication, organization, and relationship building are key steps toward developing a better understanding between programmers and marketers.

Technorati : internal communcation, online marketing, programming, relationship building
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