Category Archives: Internet

Carnival of Marketing

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I apologize for my absence. I was gone for 4 days, had work, school (midterm, presentation), and tonight I had a concert. In short, I’ve been oh-so-busy lately.

But that’s not why I’m writing. I’m here to remind everyone that the Carnival of Marketing will be hosted by yours truly next week. At first, I didn’t even understand what a Carnival was but it’s quite simple: write something insightful, new, and/or interesting and I will gladly spotlight your post right here. The point is, I host the carnival and you’re one of the rides. People stop by here because they know I’ve collected the best rides the internet has to offer.
For example, a few weeks ago I wrote Market to College Students. I was in the Carnival and I received a bunch of traffic/subscribers.

So, if you have something you’d like for me to mention just shoot me an email ([email protected]). It’s really that simple. I look forward to the submissions!

[tags]carnival, marketing[/tags]

Carbon Dioxide

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Two ski patrol members died of asphyixation. They fell into a volcanic fissure and the deadly gasses killed them. As I read the sad news I realize it just confused me. “…authorities on Friday identified the deadly gas as carbon dioxide… emissions from the ground have previously been linked to die-offs of trees in the region”. You’re trying to tell me carbon dioxide has started killing off trees?

Weekly Schedule

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I was looking at David Seah‘s excellent tools the other day. I was inspired. I had been thinking about revising my daily schedule and I came up with the following tool in Excel: the Linear Week Schedule.

filled

I basically laid out the week in 30 minute blocks. Each row is 6 hours. Now you can see the entire week starting at midnight on Sunday. This seemed useful since our days run into one another (and I know my day doesn’t stop at midnight). This is what David did with his Compact Schedule. It shows the week along a line, not in seven seperate chunks. I found his idea to be pure genius…

withnote

As you can see there’s plenty of whitespace for leaving notes, a todo, etc. I figure I can use this space for all the extra notes and things I need to get done throughout the week. Plus, I can get into more detail if needed (meeting location, time, room number).

colored

I also tried using Excel to color-code my regular events (sleep, eat, school, etc). This way I can see at a glance when I’m planning on doing certain things. At the same time, there’s room to include written events if need be.

fullview

Obviously, this can be as detailed or as simple as you’d like. Be creative and let me know if you found this useful. I was just toying around and figured somebody else might be able to use it. Anyway, I’m off to start planning out my week…

Click here to download WeeklySchedule.xls

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Hypocritical Blogging

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As I sat here reading over 100 RSS feeds, I just had a realization: I’m a hypocritical blogger.

I post regularly and expect hundreds of people to read what I say.

Yet, I read (scan) hundreds of blogs thinking: “That’s crap. That’s stupid. Oh that’s very interesting! Why’d that person post that? Why do people think that’s so clever?” I’ve been going through blogs lately wondering: why do I do this when so much of it is of little value to me? I spend a lot of time reading and at this point I don’t even know how much of that will continue…

But, at the same time I want people to come back to my blog and read what I’m saying, find it useful, and leave insightful responses. How can I expect bloggers to read what I say if I refuse to read what they’re saying?

I think the simple answer is (for me, not everyone): quality over quantity. This simple rule applies to my subscribers, traffic, links and –most importantly– content.
With that in mind I’m thinking I’ll be shifting my writing style…

..and reading style.

Some of the first to leave my reader? Sad to say but it’s the A-listers, like Steve Rubel, Robert Scoble, and Jason Calacanis.
Why get rid of these guys? They’re clever, sure, but:

  • they largely point to content I can find elsewhere
  • there’s just way too much stuff
  • egos are a bitch and get in the way of a blog’s quality sometimes

You can tell the difference between those blogging for blogging and those blogging for an audience. Seth Godin is my favorite blogger becuase he’s short, sweet and his posts are full of greatness.

Guy has been dropped because, although he’s got good stuff:

  • you can find it all in his books
  • everyone else quotes his latest posts
  • it takes a long time to read everything he says

But, hey, he got his link like he asked…
[tags]blogging, blogs, communication[/tags]

25peeps

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I came across a neat site today, 25peeps.com. People get bored and like pictures, right? Well this site puts up a 5×5 grid of 25 people’s pictures and if you like what you see you click and visit their blog. I submitted my site.. I wonder how much traffic it’ll send.

Anti-Immigration?

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I found this to be extremely interesting: an article about stupid students protesting the anti-immigration legislation. Flying the flag upside down, ironically, demonstrates distress… not disrespect. As another reader pointed out, it’s also ironic that “…these young men and women are enjoying their educations on the back of the American taxpayer at a public school, while denigrating the country that provides these benefits to them.” I guess that’s fitting; our public schools don’t teach good sense. Sigh. One of my largest pet peeves has always been “people who make up for intelligence with volume.” Yell louder when that’s all you have going for you… Personally, I blame the French.

MSFT Dividend Math

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On it’s face a 9-cent dividend sounds pretty weak…

Quite the opposite is true in Microsoft’s case. We need to keep in mind how many shares will receive those 9-cents. So, if you don’t have the number of outstanding shares offhand that’s fine, we’ll do some quick math.

Looking at Google Finance tells me that Microsoft’s market cap is $279.21 billion. ‘Market cap’ means market capitalization… which means ‘how much the company is worth’. Naturally, public company’s worth is based on their stock.

So, since we have Microsoft’s market cap we know that it’s calculated by taking the number of outstanding shares and multiplying it by the stock price.

Market Cap = Number of Shares x Price Per Share

Since we have 2 of the 3 numbers (market cap and price per share) we can essentially solve for the number of shares:

279.21 = 27.02x, or279.21/27.02 = Number of Shares

So, Microsoft has over 10 billion shares outstanding. We can then multiply that by our dividend of .09 and we realize that a whopping $900,000,000 will be returned to shareholders. It’s all about how you present these things. Which headline is more captivating:

Microsoft announces 9-cent dividend, or

Microsoft returns nearly $1 billion to investors

As you can see, even a penny from Microsoft is certainly no minor thing. See kids? Accounting can be fun!

PS: Gates holds a little over a billion shares. He’ll be receiving a check for a mere $92,474,940.24.

[tags]accounting, microsoft, dividend, money[/tags]

Age of Profanity

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An AP article on profanity made me wonder: are swear words becoming mainstream? I was thinking about this last night while watching some ABC Family. I thought to myself: “this is what ABC considered ‘family’ material?” I suppose the downward spiral is inevitable. Besides, they’re just words right? Personally, I find it very hard to express myself on here sometimes becuase I choose not to use certain words. I think these colorful words have begun replacing thoughtful adjectives…

French Strikes

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I sit and wonder what the youth of France think will be accomplished through their protesting. The Villepin legislation is meant to stimulate hiring by allowing companies to fire workers under 26 after two years of work. Sure, on it’s face that sounds a bit unfair. It even sounds like “we will let you hire temporary work at little cost to the employer:”

Detractors say the law gives employers license to use youthful workers for two years then drop them to avoid having to provide the social benefits attached to long-term contracts. Sixty-three percent of the French oppose Mr. Villepin’s decision to keep the law on the books, according to an opinion poll published Monday in the newspaper Le Monde. (NYT)

But to an employed student I don’t see why this isn’t viewed as an opportunity. As the old saying goes: “beggars can’t be choosers”, right? In a country full of unemployed students wouldn’t anything be better than nothing?

Apparently not. It seems that the attempt to give students jobs has been supported by strikes and closures throughout the country. I understand a desire to re-negotiate the legislation… but shutting France down in response seems a little… overdramatic?

Besides, over 63% of our country doesn’t approve of the President but are we flooding the streets? ;-)

Maybe that’s just me. Maybe someone will set me straight…