MVP of Communications: Your friend, Twitter

Most of my friends are well aware that I spent a couple of days last week at this year’s Boards Summit conference in New York. The publishers and editors of Boards Magazine have been producing this event for 10 years now, to support and help lead people from all points around the globe who are actively involved in the commercial production industry, and other sectors directly engaged in creating breakthrough marketing initiatives. The organizers outdid themselves this year, at a time when changes are playing out faster than ever, requiring us all to rethink, revisit, and then redouble efforts to seize any potentially viable opportunities, even those where there is little or no expectation of profit. Read more

We Are Plus relaunches, drives positive brand movement worldwide

Since first launching Plus et Plus in New York City in 2002, company founder Jeremy Hollister, his co-creative director Judy Wellfare, projects director Zu Al-Kadiri and their colleagues have built a reputation as a go-to company for fashion brands seeking to create sexy, marketing-savvy visual content for high-profile promotional uses ranging from live and in-store events to online, offline and traditional broadcast marketing campaigns. Recently relaunched as We Are Plus, over the past several months the company has delivered innovative projects for AMC, Shu Uemura Cosmetics, and Kidrobot, among many others. Read more

Best young/tech entrepreneurs….

This week, I’ll be in Daytona Beach, Florida, at the 2009 National Mobility Equipment Dealers Association’s annual conference, where I anticipate that some exciting developments will be happening for my brother’s company Further OPTIONS, which is among three finalists nominated for this year’s Adaptive Driving Alliance (ADA) New Technology Award for Innovation in Engineering and Technology for the physically challenged. Business Week continues to showcase promising developments like this happening here in the U.S. and elsewhere around the world. Below you’ll find some links to a couple of recent Business Week Special Reports on the best young entrepreneurs of high-tech, and on the Geneva-based World Economic Forum’s latest Technology Pioneer honorees.

Best Young Entrepreneurs of Tech
Our roundup of the tech industry’s most promising players aged 30 and under…

Meet This Year’s Tech Pioneers
. The World Economic Forum has bestowed the coveted honor on 39 companies, which could become the Googles, a previous winner, of tomorrow…

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

Setting the stage for your phenonemal event…

Fast Company Magazine’s Elizabeth Svoboda put together a really fascinating story on San Francisco-based multimedia design lab Obscura Digital in the July/August 2008 issue, and you can check it out in all its vibrant glory by following this link: Obscura Digital’s High Def Projections. Another really interesting, video-laden piece on this unique company from July, written by Kara Tsuboi, appears on CNET’s newly redesigned site here: Video: The swirling, surreal world of Obscura Digital. As Kara writes in her piece, ” Read more

Shouts from CES 2008…

Each year at this time, my business mindset quickly transforms from a quiet nostalgiac melancholy into a flat-out mental sprint preparing client initiatives targeting events like The Sundance Film Festival and the Super Bowl. This time around, though, thanks to the Facebook musings of my brilliant former boss Mike Terpin, I became aware that the annual Consumer Electronics Show was about to kick-off in Las Vegas well before the show’s massive media coverage began flooding my inbox. Earlier today, Mike updated his Facebook message to say he’d completed his official duties and was ready to check out 35 football fields-worth of CES exhibits before they wrap up today. I only wish I was there with you, Mike! Instead, while I forge ahead on my own client agenda, it’s my pleasure to point up some of the top 2008 CES coverage I’ve seen.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKQ86CINLUQ]
. For those interested in CES who could not attend — or don’t want to read (:^)) — I’ve embedded a great visual overview by Jeremy Gutsche, the publisher of Trend Hunter Magazine, from his recent interview on Toronto-based CityTV’s Breakfast Television. For readers, this link leads to the story on Jeremy’s CityTV moment on TrendHunter.com, where you can find many interesting reports on CES introductions.
. Venerable journalist and editor Peter Caranicas profiles the entire conference for the executive television industry readers of World Screen News with this report entitled “Report from Las Vegas; CES Kicks Off the Year in Content.”
. Visit this page and enter “CES” (with quotation marks) into the search engine to see the top advertising and marketing-related stories from this year’s CES via MediaPost’s powerful search engine.
. Billboard’s Antony Bruno and Hillary Crosley filed several CES stories of special interest to the music industry. If all works properly, you can find them here.
. And finally, based upon the emails I’ve received, Digital Arts Magazine evidently had an army of reporters on hand in Las Vegas for this year’s CES, all bringing us detailed news on their favorite discoveries. Visit the site and search for “CES” to read scores of in-depth stories of interest to artists, production professionals and techies.

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.

Bootcamps for both sides of your brain…

Today I discovered The Professional Network Small Business Resource Center, a truly amazing site from Nielsen Business Media offering tons of up-to-date information on starting and operating a business. It’s hard to imagine a richer underlying resource for this information, considering NBM’s trove of market-leading trade magazines covering entertainment, media, marketing, retail, travel, professional performance, real estate, design and healthcare, its numerous directories and business-to-business products, plus events, conferences, and trade shows. Among the Small Business Resource Center’s offerings, I learned about a free full-day Interactive Marketing Virtual Conference and Trade Show from Adweek Media set for Tues., Oct. 16, on the subject of “Staying Ahead of Technology – And Your Competitors.” The presenters include leading journalists from Adweek, Nielsen, Brandweek and Mediaweek, plus many other VIP luminaries. Click on the event’s title for full info and to register.

On Nov. 15, after you’ve dialed-in the latest technological innovations, you might also consider attending what media sponsors Advertising Age and Creativity refer to as Bootcamp for your Right Brain: The IDEA Conference 2007. Register by Oct. 16 to save $100 off the admission fee ($575 after that) and plan to reap scores of business-driving new ideas in the course of networking with some of the business world’s most provocative innovators. Put it all together and you’ll have a brilliantly productive and heady holiday season, and a high-power launching pad for the 2008 of your dreams. Ready set? Go!

Interns offer free help, and possibly the key to your future success…

A great story from Pete Blackshaw recently appeared on ClickZ.com under the headline of “Ten Great Marketing Insights From My Summer Intern.” I was immediately hooked, as I have often recommended to my clients and colleagues that they address man-power challenges by putting interns to work, and then giving those interns some tough but potentially rewarding assignments. I’ve personally seen this approach yield great results for all parties, and I have fond, appreciative memories of every intern I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with.

Mr. Blackshaw’s article is really interesting and well written, so be sure to check it out for more detail on the lessons and insights I paraphrase here, which he has reaped from a summer intern he affectionately refers to as Chandler from Cincinnati:
. Google is perceived simultaneously as being both Big Brother and Cool Older Cousin, so to speak
. Facebook is now, MySpace last week
. Friends give you social credibility
. Sharing news or info that’s not new makes you a dud
. Web 2.0 offers the ability to manage info overload, and that’s very important to the Chandlers
. Your career accomplishments define you
. Chandlers love Wikipedia
. Brands seeking social interaction/discourse need to keep it simple and not be heavy handed — or else suffer the consequences
. Chandlers also love open source

The long tail of your personal data…

It doesn’t take much of an incident to bring us computer-users home to the reality that we are very vulnerable. So long as things work properly, all is fine and dandy… but if flipping on the switch doesn’t bring Mac or PC to life, the day can quickly turn black. Relying upon computers to any extent, we are all bound to face legacy issues, where it’s out with the old and in with the new. On this subject, I recently found a hair-raising article from a 2005 issue of the late Ziff Davis publication Sync Magazine. The unattributed piece reportedly analyzed 60 hard drives from discarded computers. Guess what they found?
. 100% contained personal emails
. 75% contained recoverable data
. 50% contained illegally downloaded media files
. 25% contained social security numbers
. 27% were workplace computers
. 79% of workplace computers contained evidence of downloaded porn

The article also provided these tips for completely wiping the contents of your PC:
. Drill: Drilling a hole in the hard drive makes your data virtually unsalvagable.
. BC Wipe (Windows): Run the evaluation version of this program from Jetico (www.Jetico.com) to completely and permanently delete your files.
. SuperScrubber (Mac): Mac users can permanently remove data with this $30 program’s military-strength disk sanitization, available from Jiiva.
. Evidence Eliminator: This $150 program, available at www.evidence-eliminator.com, is probably what James Bond uses to ensure his hard-drive remains clean as a whistle, even to government forensics experts.