Author: Dave J.

You’ve heard me say it a bunch of times. Usually with concrete examples of what can go wrong that will ‘kill ya’.

Here is how Seth tells it in his post A million little cuts: “you avoid a slow death by getting every little thing right.”

That’s why we are guardians! (See that post for a gem from another guru, BPG, who says “Empires crumble at the fringes”.)

As a jack-of-all marketing guy, I often find myself having to work with photos. Website, flyers, emails to reps, and more. Some are professionally taken, others are quick snapshots with a digital camera. I still need to re-adjust size and formats, and other minor formating. Just today I was trying to adjust the coloring of two pictures that I want to use together, but one is blueish and one is redish. It ain’t easy!

Here is a great article reviewing the picture process, from shoot to file-prep. If you don’t like her DIY light-box, you can find some decent ones on eBay.

Check it out: Taking Professional-looking Photos Without a Professional

BTW: Here’s my image-handling toolbox:

• Older camera similar to Canon A610 with a pivoting screen. The pivot feature is essential if you are taking pictures of larger equipment, so you can go low or high.
• Irfanview basic image handling program. Great for quickly viewing images, cropping & reducing file sizes, plus basic color adjustment. Its free, everyone should have it!
• Photoshop LE version that came with the camera. I use it for working with TIF files I get from the pros. Its not the easiest to use, but has the best functions for managing outlines and colors.
• Fireworks for creating composite layouts and adding text. It’s preview mode for export to jpg makes it essential.

Here is the email I received from the SAE show which we are attending (formating modified for compactness):

SAE International Corporate Communications
invites you to participate in a
SAE 2006 WORLD CONGRESS PR TELECONFERENCE

Monday, Jan. 30, 2006, 2:30-3:30 p.m. EST
or
Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2006, 9:30-10:30 a.m. EST
* You only have to be on one or the other! *

To participate in this session, call … and dial pass code …#
You help us so much – we want to help you!

Okay, the chances of me joining a PR teleconference are almost nill to start with, but this email does nothing to get me there. Here are some snowballs at the writer of this one:

• Why the cutsy GIF image with the cutsy saying? How about an SAE logo instead?
• Why say “you only have to be on one or the other” when there are better ways to communicate that there are two different sessions?
• And why, why, why, invite folks to such a teleconference without telling them what its about??? “We want to help you!”–how???

Aren’t PR professionals supposed to be experts in communication? In creating buzz and interest in what they are doing? Look out snowmen, looks like you’ll be the only ones at this call!

I’ve been reading the Slow Leadership blog, which I’ve found to be helpful to keep thinking about how to do my job better…and sanely. The blogger, Carmine Coyote, has been running a survey about readers’ needs for slow leadership. I dutifully filled it out.

I was not prepared for the type of responses he got. Here’s one sample:

“Problems are delegated, not tasks. There is a culture that says ‘If you can’t meet the deadline it must be because you’re not trying hard enough’, rather than ‘You’re not meeting the deadline. Is there a problem? Can we help?'”

He finishes the post of comments from the survey with this thought: “Eventually, the pressures reach those who can delegate no further.” Is that any way to run a business or be a leader? That’s insane!

Read more: Slow Leadership: First feedback from our survey

I never really revealed my new year’s resolution this year. That’s because I haven’t followed Larry’s steps to make it SMART yet. What I want to to is become a GTD person. A ‘Getting Things Done’ organized person.

In The GTD book, David Allen says that we need a trusted tool to record our Next Actions so that our brain can relax. I’ve wanted a web-tool to do this, but everything I’ve found was set to just run on my PC or a thumb-drive. I want to easily access my GTD tool from home or work. Today at LifeHack there was a link to a new GTD tool running on PHP.

I downloaded it and started looking at installation. All the instructions are based on installing an SQL server on your own Mac. Ack! I’m no PHP/SQL geek, but how card could it be? Here’s what I had to do to install it on my website.

1. Created database on the server using tools from my host’s DirectAdmin program. Made sure to note username and password (note username and database name format is like this: b2blog_gtd).
2. Edited the config.sample.php file per the instructions, but also modified the database name, then saved as config.php.
3. Uploaded all the files to a directory on the server (you can probably guess the name of the directory).
4. Tested the index.php page and remembered I also have to create tables in the database.
5. Used web host’s tool myphpadmin and clicked to load an external SQL script. This script is part of the files that come with GTD_PHP.
6. After getting error messages, I edited the sql script to correct two things: 1. corrected database name (shows up only twice, I think); 2. corrected one line in the script that wasn’t compatible with my version of SQL.
7. Re-ran the script until it worked.
8. Used my host’s tool to password protect the directory. If I wasn’t writing this post, I probably wouldn’t have done this.

My version of SQL is older (4.0.16) and what I had to do is change the last line of each table-creation step to read like this:

It took me a while to figure this out, so I hope I can help someone else whose host isn’t running the latest and greatest.

Now, if I can finish the book and do the SMART steps, I can start getting things done…online!

Its B2B spam written with the skill of a 419 (Nigerian) scam…

“Hello Sales,
We saw a placement of advert of your products so we decided to contact you for the product and we want you to know they will be shipped to our company for the New Year Sales and new products to be market for our customers. We make the payment for all Items we bought with our Company Account Credit card informations so we will like to konw if you ship to London,Uk i mean in SHOREDITCH, LONDON where our company is location.We want you to give us the goahead to pick the Items we need if you accept our proposal. “

Bizarre!

I’ve been interested in blogging about Jigsaw, but I haven’t had the chance to use it except under a trial account. Jigsaw is a database of business contacts that the users, primarily salespeople, jointly add to and keep updated. I imagine that for marketers and salespeople who need to generate new contacts on an ongoing basis, the service could become very valuable. It looks revolutionary and is well designed.

John Blossom of Shore Communications talked to the president of Jigsaw and posted a report. He says they have 2 million people in their database. Here’s one snip:

“This is especially important for keeping up with middle management contacts who are oftentimes the doorways in to corporate accounts, contacts that are far less likely to crop up in updates from Web mining services and traditional database services tracking more senior management positions. “

I wonder about the classifying of contacts beyond their title. Is anyone out there actively using Jigsaw who wants to share a short review? (Just leave some comments here.)

The Semicon West show is months away, but they are already sending out exhibitor newsletters. Today’s had a link to the following Exhibitor Warning:

“Please be aware that there is a company operating out of Austria, Fairguide.com/Construct Data Verlag (Fairguide) that have been preying upon exhibitors in Europe. Based on recent information, they are now moving into the U.S. market. “

They are apparently sending out exhibitor directory forms that appear to be from the show, then hook you into a $3,000 contract. That’s a nasty trick.

Jim Seybert at Fool’s Box came back from a seminar with a great question by Reggie McNeal (author of The Present Future):

“‘Have you recently discovered that an assumption you keep, or a belief you hold is based on knowledge that is no longer true?’

…You shouldn’t be able to come up with a quick answer to McNeal’s question. I think he posed it as reminder that success in the future will require you to vigilantly examine your assumptions against current realities. What works today will not work tomorrow and trying to build your successful future with today’s ideas is a recipe for failure.”

I think that this kind of change is slow and less obvious, and not an ‘aha’ moment.

McNeal’s book is about how churches should fit into today’s society. Part of this change-of-mind is the fact that the world is changing and that deeply held beliefs (or marketing methods, etc.) need to change to fit this change.

The real kicker for us marketers is that we often face changing the minds of people who have already set to buy someone else’s stuff. How possible is it to get a Coke drinker to start drinking Pepsi, after all?

Read more: Fools Box: I resolve to change my mind

Brian Carroll at B2B Lead Generation Blog tells us to watch out for the following sales & marketing challenges in 2006:

1. Fewer sales opportunities unless you’re top of mind
2. Commoditization will continue
3. Increased selling at the executive level
4. More outreach required to the sphere of influence
5. Less selling time
6. Return on investment measurement difficulty

Maybe these are more perennial challenges to manage, but it is important to stop and think how you can better deal with these issues (including preparing your salespeople) to be more successful this year.

Read what Brian says about each: Top Six Lead Generation Challenges for the Complex Sale in 2006