Happy New Year: Top Blog Posts for 2010

December 31, 2010

I hope you have a very happy, healthy and successful 2011!   Thank you very much for reading this blog, whether this is your first visit or one of many. 

Here are the three most popular blog entries of 2010, with a new year’s resolution to write many more in the new year!  Please enjoy.

UPDATE:  Moments after tweeting my resolution to blog more often in 2011, I see I am being held accountable (!) by WordPress’ PostADay / PostAWeek Challenge.  OK, WordPress, count me in … for the PostAWeek, that is!

 

The most popular post overall during 2010 was actually a 2009 post: 

Poor Communication can Scuttle Effective BI, Your Personal Brand, and a Simple Bus Ride 

 

Top 3 most popular posts added in 2010:

1.  Not All Interruption Marketing is Bad 

2.  Play the Product Marketing Game Like a Chess Grandmaster

3.  Animal Metaphor Farm: Don’t be a “Gorilla” or “Eagle” in Business … Be a Crow

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Leave a Comment » | Business Intelligence, Marketing, Personal Branding, Product Marketing | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Mike Urbonas

“Everything I Know About Business (and Life) I Learned From…Poker? Or Maybe Slaying Dragons…?

January 23, 2010

Quick! Think of a subject; any subject. Now think of any kind of game/pastime/hobby. Got it? You’ve just completed a Mad Lib:

Everything I know about   [subject]

I learned from  [game/etc.] .

You just might have a new best-selling book (or at least a blog post) topic now!

Ever since Robert Fulghum wrote that ‘everything he needed to know he learned in kindergarten,’ it seems like there is a lot of writing out there with a similar “Everything I know about…” theme – lots of it snarky parody, but many clever writings, too.

In the clever category is “Everything I Know About Business I Learned from Poker,” written by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, an idea appearing in the What Matters Now e-book (compiled by Seth Godin), which I just wrote about here. Tony Hsieh provides a clever explanation how poker has taught him about financials, strategy, education and culture, excerpted from Tony Hsieh’s excellent blog.  (As I have mentioned before, any company whose CEO is writing an informative, thought-provoking blog has a competitive advantage in leadership).

Still, it’s easy to take the idea too far: unlike business, poker has a much higher level of luck that can’t be reduced through proactive strategic planning and creativity (think effective product marketing and management, etc.). Even after correctly speculating an opponent has an inferior hand, a bad final “river” card can do you in anyway. In poker, it’s often better to be “lucky” than “good”!

Today poker is very widely regarded as very “cool”, with televised poker champions playing their personas to the hilt.

That said, I have a great deal of respect for someone willing to share an “Everything I know…” insight using a game, pastime, hobby, etc. that is…well, let’s say definitely not perceived as “cool” by popular culture.

For that I wish to honor Chad Henderson of Oklahoma City: Everything he needs to know about life he learned from…Dungeons and Dragons. (Thanks to BoingBoing for their original posting on this.)     Read the rest of this entry »

2 Comments | Innovation, Interpersonal Skills, Personal Branding, Product Marketing | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Mike Urbonas

What Matters Now: “Glittering Paragraphs” of Bright Ideas

January 19, 2010

Anybody can have ideas – the difficulty is to express them without squandering a (stack) of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph. - Mark Twain

Photo by: cayusa (Flickr CC)

Thanks to Bruna Martinuzzi, author of The Leader as a Mench, for sending me just before the holiday break a copy of What Matters Now, a free e-book compiled by marketing author and visionary Seth Godin.

Over 70 authors, executives, and entrepreneurs each share an idea, using no more than a couple of “glittering paragraphs,” for you to think about and act upon in 2010 and beyond.

Among my personal favorites that are food for thought related to marketing and personal branding:

As much as I am an advocate for blogging, being networked on LinkedIn, etc., author and entrepreneur Howard Mann shares his idea on being too Connected:

There are tens of thousands of businesses making many millions a year that still haven’t heard of twitter, blogs or facebook…Have they missed out or is the joke on us?…More megaphones don’t equal a better dialogue…

Read the rest of this entry »

2 Comments | Personal Branding, Product Marketing | Permalink
Posted by Mike Urbonas

Poor Communication can Scuttle Effective BI, Your Reputation, and a Simple Bus Ride

November 8, 2009

Several years ago I flew to and from a trade show via TF Green Airport in Providence, RI instead of Boston Logan Airport as usual.  This small airport has (or at least had at the time) one large economy parking lot with shuttle buses.

Remember Ralph Kramden? The bus driver I dealt with was an Anti-Kramden.

You were supposed to give the bus driver the number of your bus stop near your car.  Running late, I rushed to catch my departing flight and didn’t make note of the number, but I knew I had parked near a certain corner of the lot.

“Excuse me,” I said to the bus driver, “but I don’t have my bus stop number. Can you just drop me off at whatever stop is nearest to the far right corner of the lot?”

“What’s the number?” grunted the bus driver.

“I don’t have the number.  But I know my car is near the far right corner of the lot from where we are right now.”

“What’s the number?” the driver again grunted, a little louder this time.

(What…?!) “I said I don’t have the number. I’m near that corner of the lot over to your right.”

“What’s the number?”

(Is this guy for real?!) “Look, can you just stop anywhere near the far corner of the lot?”

One of my colleagues from the trade show, a TF Green regular, mercifully interjected with a stop number he happened to know was somewhat close to my car. The bus driver, now given “The Number,” did silently acquiesce to stop there, his eyes forward as I walked off the bus. Note that there was no language, cultural or hearing-ability issue with the driver. He was simply locked into his own way of thinking to an absurd degree: no stop number, no stop.

The way a person communicates is a major component of their reputation and “personal brand.’  And I believe the vast majority of communication problems are caused by the personal baggage we bring to the table when communicating, known in psychological terms as confirmation bias.   Read the rest of this entry »

4 Comments | Books, Business Intelligence, Interpersonal Skills, Personal Branding | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Mike Urbonas

“Balloon Boy” Fiasco Teaches a Personal Branding Lesson

October 18, 2009
Remix from Flickr photo (CC) by Salim Virji: http://flickr.com/photos/salim/

Remix of Flickr photo (CC) by Salim Virji: http://flickr.com/photos/salim/

Without bothering with further commentary on the theatre-of-the-absurd “Balloon Boy” fiasco that also left the media bamboozled and humiliated over its national coverage of the hoax, there is a worthwhile lesson here for personal branders.

In this instant media age, it is more possible than ever to gain immediate attention. The question is, what are we going to do with that attention? Gaining attention for the mere sake of gaining attention is, in effect, the spectacle-seeker’s oddball way to merely say, “I’ve got nothing.”

Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment | Personal Branding | Permalink
Posted by Mike Urbonas

Point/Counterpoint: Two Polar Opposite Managerial Styles & Personal Brands

October 11, 2009

October 2010 marked the first annual customer User Conference I attended hosted by my employer at that time, iStrategy Solutions [since acquired by Blackboard]. It was a pleasure to meet so many smart, enthusiastic data warehousing customers I had been collaborating with for case studies, webinars and in-person testimonials.

Since I traveled to BWI at the end of September and returned in early October, I had a chance to read AirTran’s September and October issues of its Go magazine. I found it interesting that the business author profiled in each issue so thoroughly and diametrically opposed the other.

George Cloutier, the founder of American Management Services, with a long record of successful business turnarounds to his credit, is the author Profits Aren’t Everything, They’re the Only Thing, profiled in the Go September issue. Meanwhile, the October issue of Go profiles the book ESPN the Company: The Story and Lessons Behind the Most Fanatical Brand in Sports by longtime consultant to ESPN Anthony F. Smith (scroll about halfway down each of these links to read each book and author profile).

How is this for disagreement, not to mention two very different personal brands, as summarized by Go magazine:

Source: PicApp.com

Source: PicApp.com

On Leadership:

George Cloutier: I am Your Work God! You want your employees to do what you say, not what they think.

Anthony F. Smith: Avoid the myth of single-person leadership. “Leadership is really a shared phenomenon…(Each ESPN executive) needed to surround themselves with other effective people who could fill in areas where they were not as skilled.”

Read the rest of this entry »

4 Comments | Books, Personal Branding | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Mike Urbonas

Want Business Success and Avoid Depression? Be Willing to “Wear the White Belt”

September 15, 2009
Photo: Mirandala (Flickr CC)

Photo: Mirandala (Flickr CC)

The VentureFizz website lets you “see what’s buzzing in Boston’s tech community.” The site includes links to a wide gamut of blogs by Boston entrepreneurs. One of the better blogs is Seeing Both Sides by Boston venture capitalist and former entrepreneur Jeff Bussgang, including his post, Should Entrepreneurs Be More Like Teenage Girls? As my wife and I are extremely proud of our two teenage daughters, this post easily caught my attention.

Jeff Bussgang’s post refers to an article from The Economist which suggests that the more willing a person is to give up on “unreachable” goals, the less likely they are to be depressed. Dr. Randolph Nesse of the University of Michigan suggests that just as pain is a warning you should stop you doing a damaging physical activity, so too low mood is a mental warning that you should stop doing a damaging mental activity – in particular, pursuing an “unreachable” goal.

The article goes on to quote a Canadian university study that may support Nesse’s hypothesis. The study measured depression and “the goal adjustment capacities” of 97 girls aged 15-19. It was concluded that the girls who experienced mild depressive symptoms could more readily disengage from “unattainable” goals and were also less likely to experience severe depression in the long run.

“Persistence is part of the American way of life,” (Dr. Randolph Nesse) says. “People here are often driven to pursue overly ambitious goals, which then can lead to depression.” He admits that this is still an unproven hypothesis, but it is one worth considering.

What concerns me is how one defines an “unattainable” goal. Is the goal in question really unreachable, or is it unreachable without a long period of new learning and practice?  Is it a really a ridiculously futile goal, or is it what I called in a recent post a “Grit Goal”?

Read the rest of this entry »

2 Comments | Personal Branding | Permalink
Posted by Mike Urbonas

Job Seekers Getting Attention: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

August 6, 2009
Source: evo_terra (Flickr)

Source: evo_terra (Flickr)

I recently came across CornOnTheJob.com, a blog by Philadelphia-based headhunter Rich DeMatteo. Helping job seekers with good advice is important to Rich, as it is to me, and I enjoyed visiting Rich’s blog. Rich just posted on a topic that was on my on-deck circle: job candidates “thinking outside the box” to gain attention. There are definitely many job seekers acting “outside the box”…but I’m not so sure these folks were “thinking.”

The Boston Globe did a very good piece on “outside the box” (more like ”beyond the pale,” unfortunately) job seekers making spectacles of themselves, including, among others, Pasha Stocking of Connecticut who blew $2,500 for her “HIRE ME!” billboard that earned the “odd news” type of national media attention…but no job opportunities.

Since that Globe article, others have joined this group of job hunters gaining attention, but not the “good” kind of attention that will land them a job. Chances are you have heard of one Trina Thompson, who has sued the college she graduated from seven short months ago because she remains unemployed. Now we can all agree this is the worst public spectacle attention a job candidate can get. Rich gives Thompson a well deserved dressing-down along with some good common-sense advice that Trina Thompson should have done already (join LinkedIn, look into a resume writing professional, etc.). The Onion sums up Thompson’s hapless lawsuit with suitable irreverence. Litigious mediocrity is not a good personal brand to embrace, Trina…

But Rich DeMatteo and I have agreed to disagree on the virtue of an ”outside the box” tactic by Sean Christman, a recent La Salle graduate.

Read the rest of this entry »

6 Comments | Job Search, Personal Branding | Permalink
Posted by Mike Urbonas

Buy this Book and Read it Now: The Leader as a Mensch (Book Review)

July 22, 2009

I have referred to business author Bruna Martinuzzi’s 2007 article Optimism: The Hidden Asset previously on this blog (here and also here) as a wise and pragmatic exploration of a positive character trait that tends to come in handy for anyone looking to succeed in marketing, or anywhere in business…or life itself. Optimism is just one of a wide array of highly desirable character traits, including humility, empathy and generosity, to name just a few.

Hopefully you have worked for a person who demonstrates these traits routinely; who communicates with openness and dignity, acts with honor and integrity, and rejects asserting positional authority in for of leading by example. If you have worked for such a person, as I luckily have, you have had the unique pleasure and personal enrichment that can only come from working for a mensch.

mensch (měnsh)  n.  Informal. A person having admirable characteristics, such as fortitude and firmness of purpose: “He radiates the kind of fundamental decency that has a name in Yiddish; he’s a mensch” (James Atlas).

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mensch (accessed: July 21, 2009).

Take this quick survey: What one word best describes your boss…

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2 Comments | Books, Personal Branding | Permalink
Posted by Mike Urbonas

Introverts: Not Networking is Not an Option! (A Brief Interview with Holland-Mark CEO Chris Colbert)

June 23, 2009

I am happy to report that I successfully bounced back from a surprise April 2009 layoff from a former employer and landed a great new job two months later.  Networking made all the difference in the world.  In fact, in terms of what really worked in my job search, networking was the world.

Just to be clear, this is NOT effective networking! (Source: University of Melbourne, Australia)

Just to be clear, this is NOT effective networking! (Source: University of Melbourne, Australia)

Without networking, I never would have found this job, or for that matter, another good offer for an appealing extended consulting opportunity. I was not one of hundreds of resumes in someone’s email inbox. Neither opportunity was advertised anywhere. In fact, the opportunities were not even fully defined yet when I first explored them.

If I did not have my network which I initiated before I was laid off, if I had not cultivated my network with new contacts after I was laid off, I would still be unemployed.  It’s that critical.

Holland-Mark CEO Chris Colbert led a thought-provoking presentation at last week’s Bentley University Success Network meeting which I believe inspired attendees to build and nurture their networks.  Effective networking is made possible by your personal brand (Brand U); who you are and what makes you unique (what Chris refers to as your One Simple Thing).  Chris’ presentation was recorded and should be available on the Bentley University website soon (stay tuned).

I spoke yesterday with Chris about his presentation and dug a little deeper on how job searchers predisposed to introverted behavior might be at a disadvantage, as they might be more reticient or even shy about approaching others and developing a network to succeed in their job search.  The bottom line is clear: Not networking is not an option.  But introverts out there who bristle at the thought of getting out there and networking should take heart: Networking is not about winning a popularity contest or using phony flattery to manipulate others to help you.  At its core, networking is all about being authentic.

Read on for my chat with Chris Colbert.  I hope you find it helpful.

Read the rest of this entry »

2 Comments | Interpersonal Skills, Job Search, Personal Branding | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Mike Urbonas

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