I've been frantically helping a group of really talented people start-up an e-commerce site for the entertainment industry. We are pre-launch, so mum's the word - but it has been exciting. I've been to Hollywood every other week since January.
Meanwhile, I've been helping a buddy who is launching an organic artisan cheese company.
Alemar Cheese is the brainchild and labor of love of one of my best friends - Keith Adams. I've tasted the first batch, and it is great. Think soft Camembert style cheese with the earthy flavor that is distinctive, big and bold.
The cheese guys in the Twin Cities loved it - and Keith will be debuting next week at specialty shops and Farmer's Markets in Mineapolis and St. Paul.
Things at Yovia go great - we've closed our Angel round, and have fine tuned our business model. I'm completely out of the day-to-day stuff - but remain an investor and advisor.
A teach Entrepreneurship part time - I love it - it keeps me connected. I've taught both here n Minnesota and in Germany last year to the MBA students at WHU near Koblenz. The experience taught me more than the students.
This spring I went to Eden Campus in South Africa, and helped get the students up and running with blogs. I often challenge my students to start blogging - it seems to me that they are all going to get "Googled" soon by prospective employers, dates and prospective in-laws. They might as well have a say it what people find.
People ask why I blog - is it a selfish, "I just want to be heard" syndrome? Probably a bit of that. but there is more. My wife blogs also, and though she has journal for years, she finds the art of posting a bit terrifying - that sharing your ideas with the rest of the world makes you think a bit more. The processes of sharing your ideas defines you to the world.
A full time professor at the local University and I were talking the other day, and we posed a question - what if every assignment, from every student in the entire university was blogged on the campus website?
Imagine if every paper and assignment was out there for the world to see on a blog. It was a sub domain of the University until you graduate, then you could post a copy on your own blog after that.
Of course, lots of negatives come up - plagiarisms,privacy issues, etc.
But think of the body of knowledge - imagine if each college had 10,000 papers a week being published to its site - that students had to live with these permanently on the web.
I know I would work harder as a student.
From an SEO standpoint, it would do wonders for the University website.
Picture two potential employees, both fresh out of college, both with similar resumes. One has an online example of 4-5 years of thoughts, ideas and scholarly work - the other doesn't - who do you hire?
With a simple redesign that focused on the customer experience, the site improved it's conversion rates dramatically. Our focus was increasing our inbound links: we went from just a handful of inbound links to over 2,000 as of today. We use Hubspots free website grader (and great seminars) to keep an eye on our progress.
I think this is a great example of what can go right when designing a website. Consider this:
1. Focus on strategy, not design. Websites are integral parts of your customer communication strategy. Spend resources thinking out where it fits into your total value proposition, and what the customer needs from your website.
2. Measure, measure, measure. Before you start the redesign, figure out how you will define and track success.
It's been a fascinating journey. We're raising awareness of cancer through beautiful butterfly jewelry. It started with a butterfly pendant designed by Rita Willeart, and has grown into a huge collection of Butterfly Pendants, Butterfly Pins, Butterfly Earrings and Butterfly Charms.
We've grown the website to 500% more orders in the first few weeks than the previous version of the website had in three months. The redesign of the site was just the beginning - and we used the same design and coding firm. The magic was drawing the knowledge out of the team, and thinking of the project as a new business - not just a website.
If your company needs help overseeing the development of a new venture, please drop me a note.
I've been following Apple as a stock for years. It was the first stock I ever purchased - 10 shares around 1980.
I own a bunch of it, purchased a various times over the past 8 years. I'm way up.
Yesterday, another big announcement. New phone, lower cost, .ME subscription service.
The stock went down. Why?
Well, a couple of things to remember. On any given day, a stock price has nothing directly to do with the fundamentals or health of a company. The price is a product of supply and demand.
Yesterday, more people wanted to sell than buy... the price goes down.
Lots of smarter people than me (Warren Buffet being my favorite) point out that great companies perform very well over time - that there is a 100% correlation - sooner or later great, profitable companies are rewarded with higher valuation.
Back to Apple - my first take, watching the Keynote address by Jobs - Apple just launched a $99 a year "Exchange for the rest of us." - and lowered the price of their phone, and made it a lot more usable.
I doubt this makes the company worth less in the long term.
I love Quickbooks. I want to use Quickbooks. I really, really do.
I own Quickbooks. I bought Quickbooks edition 1998, and upgraded to 2000, 2002, and 2004.
I own all sorts of "Tips and Tricks" books on Quickbooks.
I teach my entrepreneurship students how to use Quickbooks, and recommend it to my start-up clients.
So why am I not using Quickbooks?
Because the process sucks. Here's my story:
I needed to send out a few invoices - and I finally had rid myself of my desktop. I had moved everything over to my Vista laptop a while ago. I just had never tested Quickbooks 2004.
Crashed. Reinstall. Crash. Google. Not Vista compatable, sometimes. Crash.
Decide to upgrade.
Upgrade box on website requires longer number than my number.
Call. 45 minutes. Lots of "absolutely sir, can you hold a few more minutes."
Call center guy: "Upgrade is only $189.99, regularly $209.99"
"But your website says the regular price is $189.99?"
Call center guy: "But this is for an automatic download plus the backup CD."
"I can get this on Amazon right now for $169"
Call center guy: "Hold sir." ... ... ... ... ... ... ... "I can sell it to you for $169"
We do the deal. Phone number, credit card, email. Lot's of "can you repeat that."
Call center guy: "I'm sorry, but this price is only for the automatic download."
Sigh.
Call center guy: "And now I give you your free one month trial to our support. In 30 days your credit card will be charged $29.99 a month."
Thinking "AAAGGGGGGGRRRRRGGGHHH @#$@#$@$"
Saying "No, no, no. I don't want that."
Call center guy: "But you can cancel."
10 minutes of polite arguing.
End up agreeing to it.
I try to download. Not Firefox compatible. Try with IE. Oops, not Google tool bar or any download manager. Find link for direct download.
I finally just canceled my order - and it appears my card was never charged. We'll see if I get charged for tech support. Surprisingly, this was the easiest thing to do all day.
I ended up installing my 2004 version on my wifes laptop... took me 10 minutes to print invoices. I'll use her computer a few times a month. A hassle, but not worth $189 and a day of my life to work around.
Why their process sucks is that they are not following through. They need to make sure that what happens never happens to anyone else. EVER.
It's O.K. that my experience with Quickbooks sucked. I still love their software, will still teach students and recommend it to clients. Just not as enthusiastically. Price and Jaffe argue that the best companies take experiences like mine and use them as an opportunity to improve their products, their customer knowledge, and strengthen relationships.
Radio, shedding talent as fast as it loses audience, is rapidly becoming irrelevant to the younger generation. Yet most Americans still listen to something for much of the day. Radio could be the way into those ears, but only if it invests in creating compelling reasons to be there, only if it grabs hold of us the way the voices of past decades connected to the loves, pains and dreams of young listeners. As always, the future lies in the past.
Want to help save radio? So do I. Let's figure this out together...
Here's a metaphor (or is it a simile?) for working together:
Here's the deal - the metronomes stay out of phase until they can freely transmit energy between each other - that's what the pop cans do. A little energy is passed in one direction, which slows or speeds up the others, until they are in perfect harmony.
Does that happen in your organization? Do people freely communicate with each other? Or are they stuck in their own silos - each out of sync with the other?
It is perfect. A design firm without the flash and noise... simple contact info, what they do, and examples. One page. At the end, they say Thank You, and invite you to contact them.
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