e3datasolutions company blog

Be part of the emerging economy with SCORE's Internet marketing workshop "

By: Jerry Chautin, SCORE volunteer, business columnist
SCOREing small-business success

Savvy Entrepreneurs are Getting Ready to Profit
Online Marketing is Required to Compete

Workshop: Marketing on the Internet
When: September 23, 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Where: SCORE Atlanta, 233 Peachtree Street, Ste. 1900

Registration and Price: Online at Internet Marketing or
call, 404 331 0121


Do not get caught sucking your thumb while the economy emerges from the recession. Your competitors are planning to make their move and will eat your lunch if you are not prepared. Now is the time to beef up your knowledge about cutting-edge, Internet marketing tools

Alma Hill attended SCORE's Internet marketing workshop and says "I not only have found the workshop informative and well-organized, but I've also enjoyed meeting other professionals and hearing some of their concerns." She is the owner of Alma Hill Communications and understands that forming relationships with workshop attendees and the presenter is part of the experience. "You can't afford not to go if you're serious about making your business a success."

The award-winning journalist offers her services online at almahillcommunications.com.

The workshop leader is Sean Mahoney, founder of MahoneyOne, an expert on Internet marketing and a skilled presenter. You can learn more about him and his activities online at MahoneyOne.com.

"Internet marketing uses a different tool to achieve the same goal," according to Mahoney's presentation. "Online marketing is just marketing through a different medium."

But for some unexplainable reason, Web-page designers and so-called "experts" abandon their marketing skills and opt for slick and glossy products. That does little to sell your products or services. Instead, SCORE's workshop attendees will learn how to get the best marketing results, even on a limited budget.

More specifically, it all starts with your business plan and marketing plan. The research, strategies and sales program must be clearly defined before they can be merged into your Internet marketing action plan.

Mahoney's corporate and entrepreneurial experience will be key in guiding you through the process that is right for your business and budget.

Just like many small-business owners, Jim and Holly Muenckler were doing fine "up until the economy took a wrong turn approximately two years ago," according to Jim Muenckler. "I attended the (Internet marketing workshop) and saw a SCORE counselor to see if there was something else I could do or just 'wake' me up somehow."

Even though Mahoney's workshop is interactive, attendees like the Muencklers often take the additional step of requesting free one-on-one advice from a volunteer SCORE business counselor. It gives them a chance to ask personal questions that they don't want to expose to the group and form long term mentoring relationships to explore their ideas in depth.

You can learn more about Muenckler's interior design company at hollymuenckler.com.

The workshop will cover search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to help clients find you quickly online. And equally as critical, Mahoney will show you how to measure the effectiveness of your Internet strategy.

For the first time, this Internet marketing workshop will be broadcast live from its downtown Atlanta location into the Warner Robbins Chamber of Commerce and also the Cobb County Chamber of Commerce with the help of e3datasolutions and their TwoPlus web training software. Hence business owners in those two locations can conveniently go to their local chambers of commerce, experience the workshop and get timely answers to their questions from Atlanta-based Mahoney. Other chambers of commerce throughout Georgia will eventually host SCORE's, Atlanta-based workshops

If you are not marketing on the Internet yet, or are unhappy with your online marketing results, this is the workshop for you. It is time to get your piece of the emerging economy by changing the way you market your products and services.

As previous attendee Jim Muenckler puts it "The definition of stupid (as I was taught) is doing the same thing and expecting different results."

#####

About SCORE:

Since 1964, SCORE "Counselors to America's Small Business" has helped more than 8 million aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners through counseling and business workshops. It is a nonprofit resource partner with the U.S. Small Business Administration. More than 11,200 volunteer business counselors in 370 chapters serve their communities through entrepreneur education dedicated to the formation, growth and success of small businesses. The Atlanta chapter has 100 volunteers in conveniently located branch offices.

Note to media: Photos of the SCORE counselors quoted and interviews are available upon request. For interviews with SCORE business counselors or SCORE small-business clients, contact SCORE's chairman, Jeff Mesquita: e-mail, scoremarketing@joimail.com, cell: (770) 713-1702. You may use this article in part or in its entirety and distribute copies with credit to SCORE Atlanta scoreatlanta.org. The columnist's CV is online at: tenonline.org/sref/jc1bio.html. Follow him at www.Twitter.com/JerryChautin

Innovative financing for small businesses

By: Jerry Chautin, SCORE volunteer, business columnist
SCOREing small-business success

Learn how to obtain funds for your small-business
Loan and venture capital are available if you qualify

Workshop: "Crisis or Opportunity --- Financing Your Small Business"

September 1, 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

SCORE Atlanta, 233 Peachtree Street, Ste. 1900

Registration and Price: Online at tinyurl.com/cydufq
or call, 404 331 0121

"The purchaser had many years of experience and knowledge in the business and had prepared a detailed and well thought out business plan and had an excellent credit score," writes Steve Bloom on SCORE's "Ask the Expert" blog.

Bloom was profiling a businessperson who sought purchase money financing to buy an existing business. While everything seemed in place there was one ingredient missing: The purchaser was putting very little, if any, of his own cash investment into the acquisition.

"When a borrower has no personal funds at risk, there is no compelling reason to work out problems that will surface and even with personal guarantees in place, recovering a 100 percent of a defaulted loan is very difficult," Bloom says. "Simply put, the purchaser had 'no skin in the game'."

This is the kind of candor that Bloom brings to his workshop called, "Crisis or Opportunity --- Financing Your Small Business." He is a SCORE volunteer, a former commercial and multifamily mortgage banker, business lender, entrepreneur and currently provides angel, venture-capital equity for select business opportunities.

Beth Remmes attended the workshop. But first, she received free mentoring from SCORE, "Counselors to America's Small Business." During the mentoring she was advised to test out the concepts detailed in her business plan. "I realized that the overall message to take action and to test it out, (that) was what I needed to hear," she says. "It allowed me to set my business in motion."

Small-business owners often feel unsure if they are doing things the best way. Free business counseling through organizations like SCORE, small-business development centers and women's business centers, provides the sounding board that entrepreneurs need. Additionally, these SBA resource partners offer workshops that add an additional dimension to what small-business owners receive from one-on-one counseling.

"I attended Steve Bloom's seminar," Remmes says. "I left the seminar feeling like I was on the right track."

Bloom ticks off a checklist of what every small-business owner needs to know in order to be successful. Equally as important, he discusses how to get financing now and prepare yourself for the right kinds of funding as your business expands.

Remmes says, "I was able to check off many - if not all of the keys (Bloom) had listed for being a successful entrepreneur; so it was a very validating experience." She is the owner of Zola --- The Art of Green Living. Learn about her business and see her personal video online at, zolagoods.com.

You will not leave the workshop with assurances of getting a loan or venture capital for your business. But you will become wiser, learn to think like a lender and be better prepared to make an application for funding.

"Truth be known, finding private capital isn't as difficult as it would seem," Bloom says. However, "the investment opportunity must be of a scale where the business can grow significantly, the business plan supports an unmet need in the marketplace, has a significant rate of return, is concentrated in the information technology world, bioscience, or is so unique that an early exit strategy can be obtained."

By comparison, lenders are not in business of taking entrepreneurial risks. If the business succeeds, all they get is return of capital with interest. By contrast, the successful entrepreneur takes a bigger risk to earn significant returns on investment, peer recognition and fulfillment of his or her dreams.

To learn the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, do not miss this workshop.

#####

About SCORE:

Since 1964, SCORE "Counselors to America's Small Business" has helped more than 8 million aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners through counseling and business workshops. It is a nonprofit resource partner with the U.S. Small Business Administration. More than 11,200 volunteer business counselors in 370 chapters serve their communities through entrepreneur education dedicated to the formation, growth and success of small businesses. The Atlanta chapter has 100 volunteers in conveniently located branch offices.

Note to media: Photos of the SCORE counselors quoted and interviews are available upon request. For interviews with SCORE business counselors or SCORE small-business clients, contact SCORE's chairman, Jeff Mesquita: e-mail, scoremarketing@joimail.com, cell: (770) 713-1702. You may use this article in part or in its entirety and distribute copies with credit to SCORE Atlanta www.scoreatlanta.org. The columnist's CV is online at: tenonline.org/sref/jc1bio.html

Limited budget? SCORE's August 26 marketing workshop shows you how to blend traditional and online techniques to get customers.

By: Jerry Chautin, SCORE volunteer, business columnist
SCOREing small-business success 
 

A Marketing Plan Assures your Success
Lack of Planning Can Forebode Your Failure
 
 
Development & Implementation of an Effective Marketing Plan

When: August 26, 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m
Where: SCORE Atlanta, 233 Peachtree Street, Ste. 1900
Details: Online at tinyurl.com/cydufq or call, 404 331 0121   

      The online photographs blew me away. Ayesha Lakes posted them online at www.phoartgraphy.com. She is the owner of PhoArtgraphy and a professional photographer with sensitivities and skills that started at age 11. "One of my aunts gave me a Vivitar 110 pocket camera for Christmas and I never looked back," she says. "I took pictures of everyone and everything at any event I could, just because I loved it." 

      Pundits say, "Do what you love." But what they do not tell you is that you also have to make a living doing it. That requires understanding who your customers are, how to reach them and knowing how much they are willing to pay for your product or service. Equally as important, you must learn how to get enough customers so that you can pay your bills and enjoy the lifestyle you dreamed about. 

      A marketing plan, with the accompanying research and selling strategy, is the heart of your business plan. Add to that a few financial projections and you will have the necessary framework to succeed. That is what you will learn to do at SCORE's August 26 workshop. Jay Levy and Bill Cooey present it. They are both SCORE volunteers and marketing experts. 

      Levy is currently the marketing chair for SCORE Atlanta. He was formerly a marketing executive in the healthcare industry and also launched his own marketing agency. It gives him direct experience with what start-up and existing small-business owners need to be successful in today's challenging economy. 

      In addition to volunteering for SCORE, Cooey is the principal owner of www.e3datasolutions.com an Internet and web-based marketing firm. Since minimizing cost is always an issue for small-business owners, he will address capturing more business from your Web site. Because of the Internet, he says that, "there is a huge amount of marketing intelligence that companies used to pay millions of dollars for that can now be had for free." More information about e3datasolutions can be found at www.e3datasolutions.com/scoremarketing

      Meanwhile, back at the PhoArtgraphy studio, photographer Lakes says, "My SCORE experience impacted my marketing. It provided me with good ideas; the most important of them is creating a marketing plan." 

      Additionally, she learned about search engine optimization. "I have implemented one of the ideas regarding SEO, and I think that may have increased my visibility," she says. 

      Alan Zell recommends wilsonweb.com and searchengine.com for information on SEO. He is a SCORE volunteer in Portland, Oregon. But he stresses the need to combine traditional sales and marketing techniques with SEO. "The further one gets away from their prospective clients the costs go up with less results."  

      Cooey agrees. "SEO is not the panacea that many are led to believe. The resources spent on SEO in most cases can be better used by attending networking events or replying to posts at relevant industry blogs."  

      SCORE Atlanta's workshop will discuss the various approaches to traditional, and nontraditional marketing. You can decide what is best for your business. 

Contact SCORE for more information at www.scoreatlanta.org

##### 

 
About SCORE: 

Since 1964, SCORE "Counselors to America's Small Business" has helped more than 8 million aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners through counseling and business workshops. It is a nonprofit resource partner with the U.S. Small Business Administration. More than 11,200 volunteer business counselors in 370 chapters serve their communities through entrepreneur education dedicated to the formation, growth and success of small businesses. The Atlanta chapter has 100 volunteers in conveniently located branch offices.  

Marketing on the Internet Workshop August 10th

By: Jerry Chautin, SCORE volunteer, business columnist
SCOREing small-business

Online marketing mystic is uncloaked at SCORE workshop

"Marketing on the Internet"

August 10, 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m

SCORE Atlanta, 233 Peachtree Street, Ste. 1900

Details: Online at tinyurl.com/cydufq
or call,  404 331 0121

Here is bad advice: Build a Web site and the world will buy your products and services.

Here is good advice: Build a Web site that sells benefits and solves problems. Furthermore, practice the mystical art of search engine optimization and you will substantially increase your sales.

Online marketing is a cost-effective way of reaching customers from coast-to-coast and around the world. But building and online presence and getting your Web site top priority on search engines is not a game for neophytes. SCORE's workshop will help you implement an online strategy to increase your business.

Before you start designing your Web site, Bill Cooey says, "It is crucial that during the initial planning stages the competition be researched for price, for ideas on product development, and for existing market penetration." He is a volunteer business counselor with SCORE, "Counselors to America's small business," and also the principal owner of e3datasolutions, LLC. "There is a huge amount of marketing intelligence that companies used to pay millions of dollars for that can now be had for free."

Cooey's company designs Web sites and software to connect you with your customers, vendors, employees and stakeholders. You can learn more about the company at e3datasolutions.com.

A manual published by Inc Magazine and distributed by SCORE called "How to Really Market on the Internet," outlines five essentials.

■ Your Web site must deliver what it promises or your company will lose credibly.

■ The site should load quickly because shoppers will go elsewhere if they can't quickly find what they want. Avoid using large photos, sound and video clips.

■ Contact information should be easy to find. Include your physical location, phone number and fax to reassure visitors that you exist in more than just cyberspace.

■ Provide customer interaction with contests, games and instant feedback. Allow them to request information and post comments.

■ Update your site frequently if you want visitors to return.
Even if you design the perfect Web site, it is important to get high priority from search engines. Search engine optimization requires additional skills. SEO is the art of using keywords and understanding the algorithms and methodology used by Google, Yahoo and other search engines to place you near the top of page one.

Alan Zell recommends wilsonweb.com and searchengine.com for information on SEO. He is a SCORE volunteer in Portland, Oregon. But he stresses the need to combine traditional sales and marketing techniques with SEO. "The further one gets away from their prospective clients the costs go up with less results."

Cooey agrees. "SEO is not the panacea that many are led to believe," he says. "The resources spent on SEO in most cases can be better used by attending networking events or replying to posts at relevant industry blogs."

SCORE Atlanta's workshop will discuss the various approaches to marketing on the Internet so that you can decide what is best for your business.

####

 

Since 1964, SCORE "Counselors to America's Small Business" has helped more than 8 million aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners through counseling and business workshops. It is a nonprofit resource partner with the U.S. Small Business Administration. More than 11,200 volunteer business counselors in 370 chapters serve their communities through entrepreneur education dedicated to the formation, growth and success of small businesses. The Atlanta chapter has 100 volunteers in conveniently located branch offices. For interviews with SCORE business counselors or SCORE small-business clients, contact SCORE's chairman, Jeff Mesquita: e-mail, scoremarketing@joimail.com, cell: (770) 713-1702.


The columnist's bio is online at: tenonline.org/sref/jc1bio.html

Video Conferencing and Online Training Tips and Best Practices

We have all seen it - online conferencing or webinar nightmares. Either poor preparation, technical glitches, you name it, have prevented what should be a great experience in a meeting or training session. A webinar or meeting is only as good as the production process that goes on behind the scenes.

So now - We want to hear from you - We are gathering information for our blog and to assist with our white paper. Please reply with any stories, tips, best practices, or just to rant about online meetings or training sessions. We will use your comment, but not your personal information unless you want us to, for the support of our technical paper.

Thanks in advance!

Bill Cooey

www.e3datasolutions.com

Your survival depends upon marketing your services or products

By: Jerry Chautin
SCORE business columnist
SCOREing small-business success
Workshop: Development and Implementation of an Effective Marketing Plan
When: Tuesday, May 19, 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Where: SCORE Atlanta, 233 Peachtree Street, Ste. 1900
Details: Online at tinyurl.com/cydufq or call 404 331-0121

During this recession, the survival of your business depends upon how well you market your products or services. “Clearly, a reduction in your marketing expenditures will impact your ability to reach your objectives,” Jay Levy says. He is the marketing chair of SCORE Atlanta, “Counselors to America’s Small Business.”

On May 19, Levy and Bill Cooey will be presenting a workshop in downtown Atlanta called “Development and Implementation of an Effective Marketing Plan.”

Cooey will cover the online marketing portion since that is what he does for a living. His company, e3datasolutions.com shows clients how to maximize opportunities on the Internet. “Companies whose product sales were a given six months ago are (currently) scrambling to make a sale.” he says. Cooey maintains that finding the solution does not have to be expensive. “With the technology available for gathering information it is much easier now to be in tune with the market.”

Market research is the heart of your business plan. “Good research gives you real insight into how you are seen in the marketplace,” Levy says. It tells you “what your competitors are doing (and) what are the market's unfulfilled needs.” Importantly, filling needs is the crux of your ability to compete with industry giants, more entrenched competitors and entrepreneurs with deeper pockets than you have.

Here are some guidelines:

• Define the size of your marketplace
• Determine how much of the market you can capture
• Identify your potential customers
• Analyze your competition
• Learn how to reach your prospects
• Manage the cost of reaching your prospects
• Interpret your research into sales, expenses and cash flow

For more tips, check out a “A Guide To Market Research” online at tenonline.org/sref/jc2.html
Because of the recession and the need for you to learn survival skills, the workshop will address how to market on a limited budget. That’s why Cooey devotes 45 minutes to inexpensive Internet marketing and answers your questions. “The ability to put far-reaching feet on the street by networking on the Internet allows the business owner to not only make thousands of contacts quickly, but also economically,” he says.

Levy agrees that marketing does not have to be expensive. “One of the best, yet inexpensive marketing options, is networking among current and prospective clients,” he says. “Attending association meetings and trade shows provides a low cost opportunity to build relationships in your market place.”

While corporate executives are slicing and dicing costly market research, some savvy small-business owners are cold calling on prospects, leaving business cards in strategic locations and putting flyers on windshields. As a result, prospects are contacting them. Other businesses are starting blogs, e-mailing online newsletters and snail mailing greeting cards during the off season so that the volume of holiday mail is not obscuring their message.

This workshop will be your opportunity to find out what techniques are working best during the recession. Learn from the workshop leaders and the attendees. Your future depends on it.

OTHER INFORMATION:
About SCORE:
Since 1964, SCORE “Counselors to America’s Small Business” has helped more than 8 million aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners through counseling and business workshops. It is a nonprofit resource partner with the U.S. Small Business Administration. More than 11,200 volunteer business counselors in 370 chapters serve their communities through entrepreneur education dedicated to the formation, growth and success of small businesses. The Atlanta chapter has 100 volunteers in conveniently located branch offices. www.scoreatlanta.org

Design your Website as a marketing tool using search engine optimization. SCORE Atlanta's workshop shows you how

By: Jerry Chautin, SCORE volunteer, business columnist

SCOREing small-business Online marketing mystic is uncloaked at SCORE workshop “Marketing on the Internet” workshop April 14, 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m SCORE Atlanta, 233 Peachtree Street, Ste. 1900 Details: Online at http://tinyurl.com/cydufq or call, 404 331 0121.

Here is bad advice: Build a Web site and the world will buy your products and services.

Here is good advice: Build a Web site that sells benefits and solves problems. Furthermore, practice the mystical art of search engine optimization and you will substantially increase your sales.

Online marketing is a cost-effective way of reaching customers from coast-to-coast and around the world. But building and online presence and getting your Web site top priority on search engines is not a game for neophytes. SCORE’s workshop will help you implement an online strategy to increase your business.

Before you start designing your Web site, Bill Cooey says, “It is crucial that during the initial planning stages the competition be researched for price, for ideas on product development, and for existing market penetration.” He is a volunteer business counselor with SCORE, “Counselors to America’s small business,” and also the principal owner of e3datasolutions, LLC. “There is a huge amount of marketing intelligence that companies used to pay millions of dollars for that can now be had for free.”

Cooey’s company designs Web sites and software to connect you with your customers, vendors, employees and stakeholders. You can learn more about the company at www.e3datasolutions.com.

A manual published by Inc Magazine and distributed by SCORE called "How to Really Market on the Internet," outlines five essentials.

■ Your Web site must deliver what it promises or your company will lose credibility.

■ The site should load quickly because shoppers will go elsewhere if they can't quickly find what they want. Avoid using large photos, sound and video clips.

■ Contact information should be easy to find. Include your physical location, phone number and fax to reassure visitors that you exist in more than just cyberspace.

■ Provide customer interaction with contests, games and instant feedback. Allow them to request information and post comments.

■ Update your site frequently if you want visitors to return.

Even if you design the perfect Web site, it is important to get high priority from search engines. Search engine optimization requires additional skills. SEO is the art of using keywords and understanding the algorithms and methodology used by Google, Yahoo and other search engines to place you near the top of page one.

Alan Zell recommends wilsonweb.com and searchengine.com for information on SEO. He is a SCORE volunteer in Portland, Oregon. But he stresses the need to combine traditional sales and marketing techniques with SEO. “The further one gets away from their prospective clients the costs go up with less results.”

Cooey agrees. “SEO is not the panacea that many are led to believe,” he says. “The resources spent on SEO in most cases can be better used by attending networking events or replying to posts at relevant industry blogs.”

SCORE Atlanta’s workshop will discuss the various approaches to marketing on the Internet so that you can decide what is best for your business.

www.score.org

e3datasolutions provides technology solutions that help customers interact with their clients, vendors, employees. As a vendor and a supporter of SCORE, e3datasolutions will broadcast this workshop online to remote SCORE office locations where SCORE clients will participate and interact with the speaker in real time via TwoPlus - their online collaboration tool. More information on the platform can be found at www.TwoPL.us .

OTHER INFORMATION:
Since 1964, SCORE “Counselors to America’s Small Business” has helped more than 8 million aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners through counseling and business workshops. It is a nonprofit resource partner with the U.S. Small Business Administration. More than 11,200 volunteer business counselors in 370 chapters serve their communities through entrepreneur education dedicated to the formation, growth and success of small businesses. The Atlanta chapter has 100 volunteers in conveniently located branch offices. For interviews with SCORE business counselors or SCORE small-business clients, contact SCORE’s chairman, Jeff Mesquita: e-mail, scoremarketing@joimail.com, cell: (770) 713-1702.

Reprinted with permission from www.scoreatlanta.org

If you could do 3 things to improve your online training sessions...

1. Prepare
2. Prepare
3. Prepare

Remember the old adage about the three most important things to remember in real estate - location, location, and location. You can have the most beautiful of house designs, the best craftsmanship, the highest quality materials, but if you build the house in the middle of an industrial park it just won't sell.

It sounds simple enough, but it can't be over stressed. Preparation on the part of the trainer and moderator is the most important part of online training. It is easy to get wrapped up in the technology and excitement of broadcasting and forget the fundamentals. The training topic can be of the highest importance, the trainer can be the best communicator, and the need may be most urgent, but if you can't find an internet connection because you did not speak with the Network Admin in advance to ensure the meeting room wall jack is "live" then you can't broadcast.

For a successful online presentation it is a great idea to have a checklist to aid in preparation. The first item on the list will not be the setup of the camera, but in the research of the topic. Preparation of the presentation materials should be done well in advance. A site survey of the facility at the proposed broadcasting time is a good idea. If you are presenting online from you home office and the lawn crew usually shows up at 2 pm on Thursday then don't plan to give your presentation at that time. Leaf blowers make for terrible background noise.

At least one, if not several, dress rehearsals are absolutely required. Not just to check for lighting, etc. but to get a feel for the follow of the presentation. Even if you are taking a training session that has been given numerous times to an onsite audience, you will still want to check to see how it flows when presented online. Not every nuance of the presenter will necessarily translate to an online audience.

The checklist will evolve over time. The basic tasks will be listed and should be in a simple, repeatable format. Everything from the setup of the equipment to reminding everyone to mute their cell phone prior to starting should be addressed. Remember, the technology is only 10% of a successful presentation with production tasks (preparation, rehearsal, setup, etc.) being the other 90%. Technology is not perfect, so you must have a manual contingency plan for even a complete failure such as a rescheduling / refund policy.

For a free trial of TwoPlus - our online meeting and training - solution please click here.

Hope to see you online soon!
Bill Cooey
www.e3datasolutions.com

Collaboration Tool for Freelancers Yields "Coopetition"

A new tool to assist the independent contractors and mom 'n' pop design businesses of the world just went into beta testing this week. Blellow, which opened up on March 3rd, combines a "Twitter like" messaging format with a "group" organizational structure to allow users to seek out help from other subject matter experts for their projects. Full roll out is targeted for SXSW where they are a sponsor at the Mashable + Blurb Bash. Think of it as a "Smart Twitter" that fosters the building of coopetitional relationships as opposed to a "slice of life" personal update.

Blellow seems to be a more serious candidate for supporting collaboration than Twitter. Additional features include a job board for hired positions, a freelance board for independent work, and a project board for posting "one time only" needs. Attaching files to Blellow posts is an extremely helpful feature and helps to reduce clutter in posts as well as possibly saving an additional trip to a wiki. For example, I attached a file called "samplecode.txt" with one of my posts for review which other users can access to help spot check for errors.

I tried out the project posing feature as I needed some help with some Flash customization for one of my customers. This morning when I checked I had 4 replies. Not bad given this is only in beta.

Blellow also provides a way to grade the quality of the help received from other users via a "kudos" system. If @mandi helps me through a problem I can award her a kudo in the form of points. These points accumulate providing an overall rating for that user. The more kudos the more help has been given. That total is displayed on my profile. I'm not sure if this will be a true gauge of quality, but moreover one of quantity of action since it is a total and not an average rating.

I am still in the process of working through the site and trying to learn how each feature works. As any beta version, there are a few small bugs that are being worked out. Blellow seems committed to this process and has a form for providing feedback on the site via an orange button displayed prominently on every page. The Blellow staff is also actively watching the posts and giving updates on their status. There is also the usual blog / forum to look for answers to questions related to use or post opinions.

The informational video below gives a good demonstration of how the freelance would utilize Blellow for help.

 

I think there is great promise in this tool and I look forward to full release. So far I haven't seen anyone post "I'm having my morning coffee" or "It's a beautiful day in sunny ATL" yet so I'm hoping that trend will continue. After all, I still have Twitter to feed my narcissism!

Bill Cooey

www.e3datasolutions.com

 

"Where's Waldo" has become a Google Reality in Latitude

Early last year I reminisced about a series of books / games from my kids childhood called "Where's Waldo", where a happily nerdy cartoon character named Waldo is effectively concealed within a mass of other caricatures. The goal is to just find him. Scenes from busy streets challenge the reader to find the face of Waldo among a barrage of other pedestrians, street hawkers, and the like. In the context of my previous post I compared Social Networking to that children’s series.

Today I am making a brief reprise of the story in conjunction with the release of "Latitude", the latest tool from Google for mobile devices that puts an icon of you on a google map. The blogosphere was abuzz with numerous articles, as well as with publications and news services such as AP and the Wall Street Journal.

Not to be one to jump on the bandwagon of re-broadcasting the release as so many writers have, I prefer to delve in to the thought process of Google and the users of this service in an attempt to try and "get it". With all due respect for the engineers that created this tool I am still trying to think about what would be a good use for this information.

I guess there is the entertainment value in a sanitized voyeuristic sense. From the same person who would "un-hide" their location for continuous display, does that border on a being a watered down version of changing clothes in front of a window with the curtain open. Or possibly is it to support narcissists who are spouting their "Hey, look at me!" attitude to life.

From a business point of view, will this lead to virtual sales bots that will be trolling the sites alerting proprietors of local businesses? Quick, "Joe" is heading down the sidewalk - let's send a whiff of his favorite stew to the street to try and achieve a Pavlovian response.  

Let's contrast this to a service such as Twitter which in effect can provide the same location data to Latitude. Both services are in effect "opt in". You can choose to blast every thought that pops into your head to your "twitter followers" or in this example you can tell everyone "Having a latte at SBUX at Peachtree and 17th". With Latitude, you are "choosing" to display your location, maybe without the "foam". Either way there has been a conscious decision to inform others. Or has there?

With Twitter, you have to type in where you are - consciously. There is no automated “tweet” for that (yet - but maybe I will work on that next). With Latitude, you are given the option for this to be automatically shared. So envision this:

You are an avid social networker and freely release your personal information to all your "friends" you have found on Facebook. You come home one day to see your computer, plasma TV, and all your other expensive toys missing. Oops, I guess Sam the burglar wasn't your "friend" after all since he checked his Latitude and saw that you were sipping coffee on the opposite side of town. He used his Google calculator to figure out how much time he needed to clean out the place before you reach home.

While this is unlikely to happen, it is not outside of the realm of possibility. There are probably more opportunities for simple embarrassment like when your boss checks his Latitude to find out where you have been (the 3 hour “lunch meeting” at the local strip club).

Either way, the true usefulness of this tool in a business sense still needs to be revealed. You can sit back and say to yourself, “Imagine the commercial possibilities...”. When you come up with something please post back to this blog with those results.

Bill Cooey

www.e3datasolutions.com