Love clicks, in the true spirit of the season….

We’ve reached the time of year when I invite you to join me in sending daily clicks to www.hungersite.com, where our simple mouseclicks can benefit a number of vital causes each day. Big thanks to Travis the Elf for picking The Hunger Site as his Project for Awesome entry at this time last year, and for posting this video. Together with my family, I am sending my warmest thoughts to many friends and colleagues worldwide, and feeling a lot of gratitude.  I’m especially thankful to the individuals behind my client companies ATTIK, a52, Elastic, Brand New School, Rock Paper Scissors, Shilo and We Are Plus for helping to support the following organizations over the past several years. Read more

Business ventures of your dreams…

I remember being 12 years old and being very impressed by a young guy I met, Tommy Ewasko, who at that time (1978) was well on his way to becoming a professional photographer. Tommy was the first professional creative person I ever crossed paths with, and after getting to know him a bit better, I began to see the world in a different way. Last month, my successful English entrepreneurial comrade Rob Ford of Favourite Website Awards (TheFWA.com) shared a story with his friends on Facebook where he was included in a 10steps.sg feature by Johnson Koh entitled “Interviews of Ten Accomplished Founders.” If you have not visited TheFWA.com before, I can easily imagine you having a kind of epiphany when you do, and there are other domains within Rob’s empire which are equally inspirational, including FWATheater.com and FWAPhoto.com.

To me, because his business model is original, creative, seemingly very fun, and largely self-guided, Rob represents the kind of successful entrepreneur that one only dreams of becoming. Do please read the “Interviews” article linked above to learn more about the origins of Rob’s business, and those of the other talented young gentlemen listed below. There’s enough inspiration here to change many people’s perceptions of the very nature of business… and represent new approaches to how resourceful individuals can build their own unique success stories independently.
. BuySellAds – Todd Garland
. Envato – Colliss Ta’eed
. Good Tutorials – Zach Holman
. Abduzeedo – Fabio Sasso
. Tutorial9 – David Leggett
. DeviantArt – Angelo-Sotira
. iStockPhoto – Bruce LivingStone
. Pixel2Life – Dan Richard
. SmashingMagazine – Vitaly Friedman & Sven Lennartz

Freeload: WMIG / The FADER Present We Mix It Good Mix Vol. 7: Crookers

The filmmakers from creative production company Shilo (www.shilo.tv), together with We Make It Good’s creative director Clayton Vomero, have partnered with The FADER to release the next editions of their original mix series, and are very proud to announce the We Make It Good / Fader Mix Series Volume 7 release, featuring Italian DJ duo Crookers. As with all the past We Make It Good Mix Series releases, the artwork for the Crookers release was created by Shilo’s Evan Dennis. Enjoy!

read more | digg story

January “Real Simple” Listmania…

Stuck at Goodyear getting my car its annual inspection, I was a actually disappointed when the job was done so quickly… simply because I’d found the great January “Real Simple” magazine’s special coverage dedicated to lists. The Secret Society of List Addicts’ blog celebrates the issue by linking to “essentials.” My two favorite tips from my quick scan of the issue are there: jott.com and evernote.com.

read more | digg story

Psst: You have got to try this!

One of the most time-tested and powerful means for promoting a product, service, brand or business is having people personally recommend it to their friends. Many terms are applied to this activity, and whether you call it buzz marketing, viral marketing, word-of-mouth marketing or something else, the human desire to connect with others — taken to new heights by virtue of the expanding toolset available nowadays via social networks — makes this power available to just about everyone, and you don’t need a big budget to crank it up. What you may need, however, is a sound business strategy and operation, a positive environment for success, and/or products or services which are truly buzz-worthy. To get your game on in those areas, I highly suggest you follow this link and download the new Forrester Report on The Chief Customer/Experience Officer Playbook. Next…

…make a date for 11am CST on April 23 to join Andy Sernovitz, the author of “Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking,” founder of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, and faculty member of Northwestern University, in a free webcast from Marketing News Radio. During the show, which is presented by the American Marketing Association, Andy promises to teach us exactly what to do to create our own successful word of mouth marketing campaigns. Be sure to tell a friend!

Exploring Access, a force for change….

FedEx Corporation recently commissioned a study to help others understand the dynamic role being played by “Access” — which it defines as the force that lets people exchange, interact and participate; “a small word that explains a lot of big changes in the world today.” Some of the results of this study are presented in Access Review, a new magazine that hit my desk in September. Fedex’s press release announcing the new publication says their goals include showing the many ways Access is impacting lives and businesses around the globe. To explore this interesting venture and its premise, I encourage you to visit the site linked above and request your own free subscription.

One of the more accessible and thought-provoking features to look for is “34 things you can do today (that you couldn’t do 34 years ago).” It provides a fascinating history lesson on the in-roads of this phenomenon of Access. I am also intrigued by a two-page feature under the headline of “Best Practices for the Access Century.” Here’s a summary of their list of the most critical innovations expanding Access around the world, with links to selected external articles for additional info where I could track them down. Onward and upward!
. 3D Printing
. The Aerotropolis
. Anonymizer Tools
. Citywide WiFi (or Mu-Fi)
. Creative copyrights
. The Keiretsu 2.0
. Offshored Consumption
. RFID Tagging
. Social Lending
. Solar Power
. Very Light Jets
. The Maestros — people and companies figuring out how to connect goods and markets in new ways.

Jazzed over Joost…

If you want to read about something that the rest of the world is going to be buzzing about very soon, I highly recommend the article “Here Comes Trouble” written by Spencer Reiss, which appears in the February issue of Wired. In fact, I highly recommend the entire issue — I read it cover-to-cover during a recent airplane flight and was riveted, entertained, enlightened and inspired.

Why in my humble opinion does Mr. Reiss’s article warrant your immediate attention? In short, the creators of Kazaa and Skype have a new offering which employs P2P networking to deliver “the best things about TV” combined with “the best things from the Internet,” in a free service. If your appetite’s already whet, be sure to log into www.Joost.com to sign up as a Beta Tester. Perhaps you’ve already done that, and you’ve received the ‘tokens’ allowing you to give your friends instant access? If so, how’s about hooking a brother up?