I wanted to put up a quick post to mention a couple of great events I will be participating in this week. I’ll be posting my March schedule shortly as well. In the meantime, hopefully you can join me at one of the below. Looking forward to it!

February 25th – Webinar: “Email & Social Media: Community, Content & Killer Campaigns”
DJ Waldow and I will be presenting this on behalf of Awareness, Inc.

Attendees will learn:
• Why email is the digital glue of social media
• How to integrate email & social (tactical, low-hanging fruit)
• Strategies for using email & social media as complementary channels
• How to optimize content to encourage sharing
• Strategies for effective community building using email + social

You can register here.

February 26th – “Got Effective Email Marketing?” – A Panel Discussion
Hosted by ThinkBusiness Media, join me as I moderate the following panel of marketing rockstars:

Jeanne Jennings, Principal, JeanneJennings.com
Raj Khera, CEO, MailerMailer.
Jeffrey Lupisella, President and CEO, Vizual, Inc.
Bill McKay, Vice President, Direct Media Millard.

The event is in Tysons Corner, VA from 7:30-9:30. You can register here.

As Bob Dylan sang, the times they are a changing. For marketers, now the times are a changing more than ever before. Think about the landscape shift we have seen in marketing communications over the last 24 months alone. There have been incredible amounts of change and evolution in marketing mediums, and most importantly the connections, community, trust and influence that the social web has brought to the forefront.

The future is now:

Today, if you are a marketer, and you are ignoring this fundamental shift in communication, you are doing both yourself and your company a large disservice. You are putting your job on the line, and it will be just a matter of time before your organization “shifts” with or without you. As marketers it is our duty to leverage all of the tools that are available to us today.

Are you on the bus or off the bus? That is the question any savvy marketer must ask themselves these days. Sure, every market and industry is different, but everyone is going to be affected this time (they already have, many just don’t know it yet). This marketing communications landscape shift isn’t just another “tactic” to include in your media plan, this is the new frontier of marketing communications. We are in the future now.

Is your marketing department adaptable?

To me, one of the secrets to success in today’s marketing landscape is having the willingness and ability to adapt. The ability to change, hence the marketers “new normal.” What is the new normal? According to me, the “new normal” for any organization should be the ability to constantly change, with the times, the technologies, and the mediums that are literally evolving the way that we think about communicating and engaging with our customer base.

The “new normal” should always be morphing. They say, the only constant is change, and that is so true when it comes to today’s marketing landscape. As marketers, we can no longer be set in our ways. In today’s world, our ways need to be constantly changing because the optimization of our efforts is never complete. As our VP of Strategy & Innovation Chris Penn says, there is always more juice to squeeze!

Are you taking action?

Now is the time of new thinking, experimenting, evaluating and adapting. This is the time. Your company’s marketing department should be morphing into a publishing organization, and leveraging the power of your customers and subscribers networks. As I have said several times this year in my speaking, 2010 is the year of social acceleration, and TRUST and INFLUENCE in the social web will drive more purchasing decisions than EVER before.

So, as we move forward in 2010 and the landscape continues to change, it is important that we as marketers stay nimble and light. Now is not the time to “over process” your marketing function, but rather to test the waters on new mediums, learn more about your existing subscribers (social graph), build brand ambassadors and evangelists (easier said than done, yes), and most importantly LEVERAGE what is beyond your control…… the thoughts, opinions, recommendations and influence of your existing base.

Think about it.

Am I off? Tell me what you think in the comments.

I recently had the opportunity to speak at this years Web 2.0 Expo in NYC. I was part of the Web2Open sessions that were organized by the Podcamp Foundation (Hats off to Whitney Hoffman), and in traditional “unconference” fashion, those of us who were asked to speak could do so on any topic we wanted.

The theme of this year’s Web 2.0 Expo was “The power of less,” and with that in mind I took this opportunity to do something I’ve been wanting to do for a while, get back to my roots and start talking about my experiences with entrepreneurship, starting a business, bootstrapping, and all of the lessons I have learned along the way…. so far. The Web 2.0 Expo theme was a perfect fit to “beta” a presentation I dubbed: “Bootstrapping: Building a Business Funded by Revenue.”

The Web 2.0 talk was the first step in developing a series of posts and presentations that I will be focused on throughout 2010. Though my story is still very much “in progress,” I have started several businesses, and have been building my most recent company, Blue Sky Factory, for almost 9 years. I’ve learned a wealth of lessons through my experiences building a business from the ground up with zero funding.

The Framework:

As mentioned earlier, the Web 2.0 talk was in “beta,’ as I am still very much flushing out the various topics and segments I would like to cover. As I have been thinking through things, there have been three main topic areas that seem to encompass the spirit of what I would like to talk about. They include the following:

1. Start-up Lessons

Just as it sounds, and what essentially encompasses most of the presentation below, there are oh so many start-up lessons to discuss, and every entrepreneur has their own. Sometimes, more often than not, they all have their own version of the same lesson. I plan on discussing several of the ones that I have experienced and have processed.

2. Building a team

At the end of the day, any good entrepreneur will tell you their company is only as good as its people. It is so true. Over the last 9 years there have been many different people who have joined my company, and each one of them play a key role in our operation. I plan on talking about building teams who are aligned, motivated and constantly executing.

3. Managing growth

It is often said that managing growth is simply the act of trading one set of problems or challenges for the next. There is a lot to be said for that statement. Growth isn’t easy, but if you find yourself managing it, then you are doing something right! There are a several “stages’ of growth to be discussed in a variety of topics (team, technology, infrastructure, finance, sales, etc).

Below, are the slides from the Web 2.0 talk, which tend to focus mostly on the first topic of “start-up lessons.” I would love to hear your input, or questions in the comments below. I will be continuing on this topic organically, and hope to begin to drill down on the high level topics listed above shortly.

This coming week I will again be heading to one of my favorite places on the planet, NYC. I will be attending Ad Tech on Wed and Thur, and will also be speaking on a panel at Graham Lawlor’s Ultra Light Startup’s on Thursday November 5th at 6:30 at Sun Microsystems. The event is dubbed “Email Marketing for Startups”.

I am looking forward to it and I will be joined by some incredible folks who I can’t wait to meet. The panel looks like:

Moderator:

* Maisha Walker, President of message medium and e-commerce columnist with Inc. magazine

Panelists (alphabetic order):

* Greg Cangialosi, CEO of Blue Sky Factory
* Neil Capel, Founder and CEO of SailThru
* Lisa Klieman, Vice President, Business Development at Innovyx, Inc.
* Adam Rich, Co-founder and Editor-in-chief of Thrillist

If you are coming let me know and lets be sure to link up. If you are going to be at Ad Tech and want to link up as well drop me a line. I will be roaming the exhibition floor most of the time. See you in NYC!

This coming Tuesday at 1pm EST, I will be doing a webinar with Brian Halligan, CEO of Hubspot. Below is the overview of the session. Hope you can join us!

Get leads to come to you, then turn them into customers.  Sound too good to be true?

It’s not, and it gets even better.  No more cold calling, telemarketing, or spending tons on print and radio ads.

Enter inbound marketing.  This (more recent) style of marketing allows you to get found by potential customers online.  The key is retaining these leads, building a relationship with them, and turning them into clients.  Enter email marketing.

Join us for “Inbound & Email Marketing: So Happy Together” on Tuesday, October 13 at 1 PM ET as Brian Halligan, CEO of HubSpot, and I discuss the inbound marketing landscape and how email marketing complements this method of attracting customers.

Attendees will learn:

• Inbound vs. outbound marketing
• Strategies for using inbound marketing to attract new customers
• How to build a relationship and retain leads through email marketing
• Tips for making the most of inbound and email marketing as complementary channels

There’s only one week left to register, so sign up today!

This morning I was inspired to write about some tips for the business traveler, fittingly enough on my flight out to Dallas, TX. The question I asked myself was how does one stay sane with a business travel schedule that just won’t quit? I’m actually not sure that’s possible, but I can share with you the following 10 tips (In no particular order) that help me stay as close to a state of travel zen as I can. I hope these help you when you get ready to jet set again:

1. Show up ready to board. Always check-in and have your boarding pass in hand before you get to the airport. This allows you to skip the crowded counters, eliminates a potential delay, and allows you to head right for the security line when you get to the airport.

2. Never check luggage. I mean ever. As long as you can avoid it. I realize this can be tough for some people, but I can easily go 5 days on the road with a carry on suitcase and a separate carry on shoulder bag. This is key for travel flow, as it allows you to get right on the plane, and right off the plane then get on your way. More importantly, you never have to worry about losing your luggage, something that happens way too much these days.

3. Choose the right airline. Depending on where you are going you should give serious thought to which airline you choose. For business, Airtran & Southwest go almost everywhere for a decent fare, but if you are going cross country, Virgin America is the only way to go. They’ve got flying down.

4. Buy good luggage. Don’t take this one too lightly either. I have had a ton of luggage over the last few years and its all been beaten & broken. Nothing is worse than when the zipper on your suitcase breaks! If you travel a lot don’t skimp on the luggage. I finally upgraded to a nice set of Tumi luggage, a wheeled carry on and a shoulder bag. I can’t believe the difference its made in my travel experience and its only been a month.

5. Stay hydrated. Drink a LOT of water when you travel. Although you should drink water all of the time, drink it even more of it when you travel. Its easy to get dehydrated when you are at 30,000 ft. Stay hydrated it helps all around.

6. Boost your immune system. I try to stay healthy in general, but prior to flying I always go for that extra immune system boost of vitamins and nutrients with Airborne. Let’s face it, airplanes are pretty much germ central. Giving your body that extra boost can’t do you any harm at all. I try to do it before every flight, it’s easy and it doesn’t taste bad at all.

7. Always sleep in a good bed. This is probably one of the more important ones to me. Anytime business takes me away from home, I make sure I am comfortable. Fortunately, a lot of hotels these days have good beds and plenty of other amenities. I am personally a fan of Kimpton Hotels, they offer a good selection of hotels in almost every major market, and they have a great loyalty program (plus free wi-fi).

8. Make time to exercise. This is sometimes hard to do on the road, but I always bring work out clothes with me when I travel. I try to hit the gym at the hotel or hit a local yoga class if convenient. When you travel, sometimes a good sweat makes you feel great and completely rejuvenates you.

9. Pace yourself. Depending on your travel itinerary, you may, like I do, often find yourself faced with back-to-back activities day and night. Take it easy and find a pace. Watch your alcohol intake, and make sure you get enough sleep every night. You know what your body needs to be on point. Try to keep that balance (easier said than done, I know).

10. Eat well my friends. Yes, we all know it’s VERY easy to go off of your diet when you are constantly traveling. But it is possible to eat healthy and stay on track when on the road. I’m a pescatarian (I’m vegetarian but eat fish as well), so my diet is usually limited. I try to research decent restaurants and food establishments before I head out just to get a sense of what’s out there. This is hard with groups of people, etc, but do your best and try to eat well.

Have a tip you would like to add? Please do so in the comments, I’m always looking for more travel tips to streamline the process! What works for you?

Below, is an excerpt from the Maryland Chamber of Commerce Digital Marketing event that took place on Thursday May 14th. In this video, taken by Will Burns, I talk about how to jump start your social media community with your email database, and how to build email subscribers through social media.

I am really excited about Bootstrap Maryland. When Jared Goralnick first asked me to be a part of it I hadn’t even realized he had been working on such an interesting and important event. I’ve always thought an event that brought together similar entrepreneurs who have experience building businesses outside of the most common routes, (ie. raise friend and family money, raise angel investment, raise VC, etc) would be extremely valuable to the next generation of entrepreneurs. Our region is ripe with talent, ideas, and products that are already in “the lab” and just waiting to officially “launch.”

I look forward to sharing my story and advice around building businesses with little to no funding at all. It certainly isn’t easy, but it can be done with, as Jared states “drive, brains and little creativity.” Details on the event are below, or you can click here. If you are thinking of starting a company, or already are out of the gate and are looking for some additional inspiration. Hope to see you there on May 2nd.

Bootstrap Maryland brings together young entrepreneurs and the necessary tools for running a lean and successful technology business.

At the Bootstrap Maryland Conference on May 2, 2009 you will learn how to turn your web or technology idea into a business. The presentations will cover topics such as:

* What you need (and don’t need) to get your business off the ground.
* Most products fail due to lack of marketing, not failed technology. How to get the word out inexpensively with social media, events, and creative PR
* The most relevant technologies people are using today, and ways to get the technology right the first time
* Stories, lessons learned, and discussions from young people who have built successful businesses

I rarely do this, but somehow the stars aligned where I actually spoke to 3 entirely different groups of people, 3 days in a row about social marketing and macro level trends that are happening in the marketing communications space. The audiences were as follows:

1. Technology Council leaders of North America
2. A global provider of testing & certification centers.
3. A large law firm.

This proved to be very interesting for me, because 99.9% of the time I speak to marketers. So, taking essentially the same message and applying it to the non-profit, testing & education, and legal professions proved to be interesting, and it worked.

The one nugget that I found to be the most interesting of all was that EVERYONE GETS IT (for the most part). I started every presentation with 4 key MACRO trends, the first one being that marketers finally understand, and get the fact that we are now in a two way media landscape. The batch and blast mentality of one way media is so old school, and so foreign to the modern marketer. I feel people are starting to get this on a broader level, and they are embracing it.

Why do I feel this way? There wasn’t anyone in the room at ANY of the three talks I gave that challenged or countered some of the statements and trends that clearly outline a shifting landscape of communication for organizations and businesses. In the past someone always didn’t agree, or there was big push back on some level, once we got into the details. I actually always look forward to it, because a healthy debate / friction is always good. The closest we got on a debate was the whole personal vs. company profile, mixing the two together, or not, etc. Good one for sure.

Maybe it was just that the folks I spoke with were primed and ready to hear more. Either way, as a person who goes to a ton of events and speaks to a variety of audiences, in my mind companies are beginning to adapt. More and more marketers and organizations are applying more social marketing tactics and mediums to their outreach programs. Its not just marketers that get it either, the “organization” as a whole is starting to get it. This is good, because as many of you well know, it is happening. We are in a world of dialog marketing, so embrace it.

Would love to hear your thoughts below.

I can’t stress how much respect I have for Tony Hseih. I had the pleasure of watching him give the opening keynote at SXSW last week. His message is very powerful. Zappos “gets it.” Video highlights of the keynote and his slides are below. Enjoy:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Zappos – SXSW – 3-14-09

View more presentations from zappos.