Plain words, uncommon sense
Magical Mary’s non-fiction book for children, Prepare To Be Amazed: The Geniuses of Modern Magic, has been shortlisted for the 2007 Silver Birch Award.
Silver Birch is hosted by the Ontario Library Association, and the winners are chosen by readers aged 8 to 12.
I’m a little late on this but it’s still November 1 so if you’re into social change and want to help with a little experiment then read the post on worldchanging.com, then go to Amazon.com and buy their book today.
The plan is to use the internet and word of mouth to get enough people to buy the book today on Amazon to push it up in terms of sales rank. This will get the attention of Amazon, who will likely order more books, and will hit the radar of the indies too.
The plan is a little hit and miss on how the publishing industry actually works, but since I’m a tree-huggy, alternative girl, I want to buy this book, and, therefore, also want to support the enthusiasm of their plan. Since I’m a practical, hard-working bee in the publishing industry, let me explain where the cracks exist.
It is very smart to use word of mouth and generate lots of sales, even for a short period of time. Here’s the but …
1. You want to have lots of sales over a longer period of time, at least a week, not just one day. The perception is wow, they got a whole bunch of people to buy the book on one day. Great. But those sales likely equal the sales they would have gotten over a longer period of time. The pie doesn’t get bigger, the sales just all appear on one day. NOTE: I said this is the perception. Of course, you’ll sell more books because you’ve done an outreach campaign to educate people about your book. But you need to think about how to sustain the sales too.
2. Amazon’s bestseller list is influential to Amazon buyers and the publisher involved. A one-day blitz might get media attention or Amazon’s attention, but you want real long-term impact and, again, a way to sustain sales. Booksellers can return stock so you can do the blitz to get more orders but it doesn’t help you if they return them a month later.
3. Amazon ranks books based on sales over the previous hour. The ranking system is strange. I don’t know why authors keep checking it. It’s an interesting guide but so what if you were #1 for that hour and then #72 for the next hour and then back to #30,000 at the end of the day. That’s not the real data that Amazon looks at, or what a publisher or bookseller considers when making budget decisions.
What does work is the enthusiasm the WorldChanging Team has for the book, for giving readers a purpose and plan, for generating interest and publicity about what they are trying to do and for their book.
You can get attention. My point is simply do it for long-term benefit rather than a short-term media hit.
I recommend reading the comments after the post because there are some clever tips and information from other authors and book people about how to be even more effective than the one-day blitz, and how to be more effective in an indie shop. Read in particular what Maria Headley has to say.
Anyway, I’ve requested this book for my birthday but I’m not going to order from Amazon.com because even though I have a Canadian shipping address, they source US books. I want to support Canadian publishers and distributors so I order from Amazon.ca for hard to find titles and buy from my local shop.
Michael Winter, author of The Big Why and other books I’ve greatly enjoyed reading, has survived falling into an inferno. Speaking of the big why — why? Why was he near an inferno?
According to Quill and Quire, Michael was at the city dump, unloading some roofing from his room, lost his balance and fell into the open air inferno.
Quill reports: ‘Luckily for Winter, the usually deserted dump was not entirely deserted on this particular day. Sitting nearby, according to the author, was a solitary man enjoying some spirits who caught sight of Winter falling into the incinerator. ìHe saw me fall in, got help, opened the back doors [of the incinerator], and I flew out with my arm on fire,î says Winter.’
Quite an X-men story: Winter wrestles Inferno.
Darren pointed me to Kirsten Bole’s website crowstoburnaby.com.
Kirsten has discovered a list of female Vancouver bloggers on a strange site that doesn’t appear to be doing much but looks like there’s some connection to Virsouq.com, which is a website about alternative weddings.
Possibly they are looking for female, 30-something, Vancouver bloggers to blah blah about the upcoming wedding show.
My favourite part of all the strangeness is the one line sentences used to describe our blogs.
Darren is “ok, so he’s a guy, but a high technorati rating”.
SoMisguided is “Another girl, a little tree huggy–prolly thinks of herself as rather alternative”.
What do you think? If you had one sentence to describe this blog, what would you say?
UPDATE: Ok, it’s a little late for you to register. I can’t believe it’s already October 25. Check out the site instead and prepare for the next one.
Want to start a company blog but don’t know how or have received resistance internally? Do your co-workers think blogs are only online diaries kept by basement-dwelling, cat lovers? Tell them it’s not true. Tell them how to run a successful corporate blog. Tell them how to handle negative feedback and criticism as well as how to respond to positive feedback and praise.
If you want to blog for a business but don’t know where to start, attend the 2006 Blog Business Summit in Seattle, October 25-27.
The site offers all sort of great reasons to give your boss about why you should attend.
The full conference is $995, but you can visit SocialSignal.com who are sponsors and they’ll tell you the discount code, then it’s only $895. A true steal of a deal.
I attended the Blog Business Summit several years ago and it really helped me quickly figure out what I needed to do blogwise and why I needed to start right away.
How many planets do we need?
According to the WWF 2006 Living Planet Report we’ll need two if we continue at our current level of resource striping (5 planets if every country’s footprint was as big as America’s–Canada is not far behind so don’t get too smug).
The Living Planet Report started in 1998 and outlines the state of the natural work and the impact of human activity upon the planet.
It’s not good news.
Humans (especially North Americans) are using the planet’s resources faster than they can be renewed. Our total footprint now exceeds the world’s ability to regenerate by about 25 percent.
We are drying the dishes faster than we can wash them.
It’s reports like the Living Planet Report that makes the Conservative Clean Air Act all the more laughable. By 2050, if we continue on our current trajectory with optimistic projections for moderate population increases, food and fibre consumption and CO2 emissions, we will be demanding resources at double the rate at which the Earth can generate them.
We tend to get stuck on the economical “incentives” for carrying on with the current state of affairs, for doing more studies, for basically doing nothing. What is the financial cost of overshooting by 50%, 100%, 150%?
Not up for a big read, take the One Tonne Challenge. Oh wait, the Conservative government scraped that.
Here’s an old site, but still useful for hints: OneLessTonne.ca.
Or read George Monbiot’s book HEAT: How to Stop the Planet From Burning.
I just got this book, but the jacket flap tells me that Monbiot “demonstrates that we can achieve the necessary cut–a 90% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030–without bringing civilizations to an end.”
Who’s up for sustaining life on Earth?
Random House Canada sent me HEAT, along with 10 tips from George.
10 Tips for How to Stop the Planet from Burning:
1. Cut your flights. Nothing else you do causes so much climate change in so short a time.
2. Think hard before you pick up your car keys. On average, 40% of the journeys made by car could be made by other means — on foot, by bicycle or on public transport.
3. Organize a “walking bus” to take children to school.
4. Ask your boss to devise a “workplace travel plan” that rewards people for leaving their cars at home.
5. Switch over to a supplier of renewable electricity. You don’t have to erect your own wind turbine, but you can buy your power from someone who has. (How do you do this????)
6. Ask a builder to give you an estimate for bringing your home up to R2000 standards.
7. Ditch your air conditioner.
8. Turn down your thermostat: 18 degrees is as warm as your house ever needs to be. You just have to get used to it. (It’s true. James has been freezing me for years, but now I’m used to it and often feel too hot in other people’s houses. Although I also prepared for their homes to be Arctic fresh.)
9. Make sure every bulb in your house is a compact fluorescent or LED.
10. Do not buy a plasma TV: they use 5 times as much energy as other models. (Is this plasma computer screens too?)
Want more? Lots of articles on www.monbiot.com.
The good folks at Geist are running their 3rd annual Geist Literal Literary Postcard Story Contest.
(I know, for postcard fiction, they could have picked a shorter contest title, but it’s a good contest nonetheless.)
There’s big money to be had in postcard fiction:
1st Prize: $250, 2nd Prize: $150, 3rd Prize: $100
Postcard fiction is one of my favourite formats, perhaps I will bore you sometime with my entries from previous years, which have never graced the honourable mentions, then you can tell me they suck by your silence or cautionary feedback, i.e., “stick with the day job.”
Enough rambling, go to the Geist website for the contest details.
In a nutshell, mail Geist a postcard and write max. 500 words (fiction or non-fiction) that in some way relates to the image on your postcard.
Congratulations to Aaron, winner of the bool.
Here’s my YouTube video of the random draw, watch it now.
Don’t know what a bool is, here’s how it started.
For my own purposes, I want these notes handy. If you are interested in reading about the Canadian Marketing Association’s digital marketing conference, then here you go and thank you for indulging me with your time. If you couldn’t care less, add a link to the comments page for something fun that you’d rather be doing. That way, when I leave marketing-land, I’ll have somewhere fun to go too.
CMA is going to post the speakers presentations on the CMA website.
In fact they might already be up on the CMA blog:
http://www.canadianmarketingblog.com/
The CMA blog has a number of great contributors. They also have podcasts of the event, there’s links to photos. I’ll link to their posts below, but this is meant to be my archive of what people were scheduled to talk about, what they did talk about, and what I thought about what they talked about.
If you want more than my opinion, check out OneDegree.ca. I think they did a much better job than the CMA blogging about the conference.
Overall the conference was informative, I got to meet David Weinberger, I had an amazing roundtable on Social Media, which was moderated by Kate Trgovac, and I met lots of interesting people who attended the conference.
October 19
Morning Keynote:
Changing the Conversation: General Motors of Canada is Driving Success OnLine
Frank Trivieri, General Director of Marketing, GM Canada
It takes courage, commitment, and innovation to survive and thrive in todayís fiercely competitive automotive landscape. Nobody knows this better than Frank Trivieri, the senior marketing executive at GM Canada, one of the countryís largest advertisers. Frank will share surprising facts about GM Canada; where GM has been and where it’s going. He will discuss the role of digital marketing in GM’s turnaround strategy. Frank will showcase some of the innovative ways his company has been marketing online, discuss the lessons they’ve learned, and offer some words of wisdom for marketers who are struggling with the integration of digital and traditional media.
SoMisguided Post 1: Frank Trivieri talks about GM Canada
9:45 a.m.
What are YOU Thinking?
Steve Levy, President, Canadian Market Research Eastern Canada, Ipsos Reid
What are marketers (on the client and agency side) thinking and perhaps more importantly what are they (you) doing in the world of digital marketing? Steve Levy will provide highlights of an exclusive Ipsos Reid survey of Canadian marketers that will identify what is happening in this space and why. What will marketers be doing/changing in the near future? Who is on the cutting edge and what does it mean to be on the cutting edge? What are the key opportunities and major barriers in the digital marketing space? Is search marketing as big a deal as some would say and how are you responding to democratization/disintermediation? And amidst all of these issues, how are you organizing and staffing to meet some of these changing circumstances?
SoMisguided Post 2: Steve Levy on spending money online
11:00 a.m.
Six Pixels of Separation ñ How marketing connects in a digital world
Mitch Joel, President, Twist Image
Itís a small world after all.
While many marketing professionals are still struggling to understand the principles of online marketing, an entirely new generation of digital opportunities is already taking place and theyíre being created by consumers.
Consumers have never been so powerful and have never been so in control.
But what does all of this mean to marketers, and how do we keep our jobs?
In this session, Mitch Joel will unravel the fascinating world of new marketing, consumer-generated content and social media. If media like blogging, mobile blogs, narrowcasting, podcasting, second life, viral marketing and search engine marketing make your eyes glaze over, Six Pixels Of Separation is for you.
Understand how these new marketing touch points are creating new conversations where the results are staggering and loyalty is off the charts.
Welcome to the new conversation. Welcome to the world of new marketing. Welcome to Six Pixels of Separation.
SoMisguided Post 3: Mitch Joel on Six Pixels of Separation
CMA Post on Mitch and his MySpace example
CMA Post about Mitch’s session
1:00 p.m.
Luncheon Keynote
Markets in the Age of the Miscellaneous
David Weinberger, co-author of the influential bestseller, The Cluetrain Manifesto
As information, commerce and social relationships go digital, the old constraints on how they’re organized go out the window. The digital age is also the age of the miscellaneous, enabling customers to pick and choose what they want — including not just products, but also opinions about products — from the universe of offerings. Markets are rapidly inventing new ways to organize themselves, based not on accidents of geography or even of demographic similarity, but on genuine interests and the sound of human voices. This changes the basics of what markets are, what they expect, and what they demand.
SoMisguided Post 4: CMA: David Weinberger on Humans and the Internet
OneDegree.ca Post: David Weinberger on Misinterpreting the Cluetrain Manifesto
2:30 p.m.
Back by popular demand
Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing
Bryan Eisenberg, Principal, Future Now Inc.
Good marketers know that customer-centric marketing is mandatory. However, we are not the customer. What the customer perceives as relevant is the thing that successful marketers must anticipate, plan and deliver on. Bryan Eisenberg shares insight from his new book ìWaiting for Your Cat to Bark? Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing,î which offers details on Persuasion Architecture, a proven persona-based methodology.
Persuasion Architecture helps marketers anticipate different angles from which customers frame their questions and then co-ordinate messaging across multiple channels so that marketers can create predictive models of customer behaviour. Donít miss out on learning about this marketing approach that can skyrocket the effectiveness of your interactive marketing.
SoMisguided Post 5: Bryan Eisenberg on How Marketers Fail Us
CMA Post on Bryan Eisenberg – Why are we so bad at the Online conversion game?
3:45 p.m.
The Experience Exchange
Back by popular demand, the Digital Roundtables are an exclusive opportunity for you to exchange insights with your peers on one of 13 different topics. A bakerís dozen of leaders in the field will moderate the Digital Roundtables and keep the dialogue and ideas flowing.
1. Podcasting
2. Blogs
3. Branded Entertainment
4. Conversion & Measurement
5. E-commerce
6. E-mail Marketing
7. Social Media
8. Paid Search
9. Search Engine Optimization
10. Customer/User Experience Design (Usability)
11. Wireless/Mobile Marketing
12. Future Digital Marketing Platforms
13. In-Game Advertising
October 20
Morning Keynote:
It’s All About the Content: Podcasting as a marketing tool
C.C. Chapman, Host, Managing The Gray
Podcasting is the hottest technology to arrive on the scene. But it’s not just a creative way to repurpose audio and video content to reach your customers: It’s a powerful mechanism to allow you to build a community and truly connect with your market. Podcasting veteran and new media specialist C.C. Chapman will discuss potential pitfalls, keys to success and insights into how you can harness the power of podcasting.
SoMisguided Post 6: C.C. Chapman on Podcasting
CMA Post on Podcasting is Apple Pie for Whales
9:30 a.m.
A Day in the Life of Todayís Youngest Media Consumer
Laura Baehr, Director of Marketing & Nonlinear, YTV (Corus Entertainment)
This session focuses on kidsí use of different digital media: Whatís changed over the past decade? What hasnít? What are eight-year-olds doing that 14-year-olds arenít (and vice-versa)? How do kids play in this multi-media world, and how do they multi-task? What technology do kids own, what do they want to own, and how are they going to get it? Find out when the kidsí experts at YTV present a comprehensive look at todayís youngest media consumers and customers.
SoMisguided Post 7: Laura Baehr on YTV and what tweens are up to these days
10:30 a.m.
Industry Leadersí Panel
Moderator: Mark Evans, Senior Technology Reporter, National Post
Panel:
Jordan Banks, Managing Director, eBay Canada
Arturo Duran, President, CanWest Interactive
Patrick Lauzon, Executive Vice-President, Quebecor Media
Alex Leslie, Vice-President, Product and Technology, AOL Canada Inc.
David U.K., Director of Sales and Strategic Alliances, Standard Interactive
Ray Newal, VP Business Development, Yahoo! Canada
CMA Post: what they thought about the panel
11:30 a.m.
Closing Keynote
The Traditional Interactive Agency
Joseph Jaffe, President & Founder, Jaffe, LLC
As digital continues to enjoy unprecedented growth and continued success, is there a danger of falling into old, bad habits and the familiar territory of complacency, mediocrity and risk aversion? Is history repeating itself and if so, what can those tasked with the all-important charge of leading their companies and brands into the consumer-controlled world do to keep ahead and stay ahead? Are todayís interactive agencies and marketers structured, equipped and capable of best leveraging the onslaught of consumer generated content, social media and new marketing in generalÖand if not, what needs to be done about it.
SoMisguided Post 8: Joseph Jaffe on the influence of social media
Post 1: Frank Trivieri talks about GM Canada
Post 2: Steve Levy on spending money online
Post 3: Mitch Joel on Six Pixels of Separation
Post 4: CMA: David Weinberger on Humans and the Internet
Post 5: Bryan Eisenberg on How Marketers Fail Us
Post 6: C.C. Chapman on Podcasting
Post 7: Laura Baehr on YTV and what tweens are up to these days
Post 8:
The Traditional Interactive Agency
Joseph Jaffe, President & Founder, Jaffe, LLC
Joseph’s presentation was by far my favourite. He issued a call to arms. Be better than you are now.
If content is king, Google is Merlin: Google advises, Google is about content.
Interactive is the new traditional.
The consumer pie is not going to grow, but we’re all going to become more efficient, we as marketers will pay more for something that is organic, provides repeat visitors and is effective. We will stop paying for advertisement that is annoying to customers, does not work, and involves us continually whining at customers “over here, over here, over here.”
Joseph challenged all of us to look at our past 10 marketing campaigns and rate 1-10 on:
experience
permission
involvement
conversation
Understand social media. It’s about funnels of trust, respecting someone’s time, influence, abundance, total access, self-actualization and a ripple effect.
The new world order is about broadband, wireless, networks and search.
Joseph Jaffe is undoubtably online:
http://www.jaffejuice.com/
http://www.getthejuice.com/
He also said that he’d post his presentation so as soon as it is up, I’ll post the link, otherwise, poke around yourself. You are empowered, you are in control, you can do whatever you want, whenever you want. You can see how this is alarming to “control the message” marketers. Rattle that cage Joseph!
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