Backflip Publisher: sheywood

My last Backflip update was in the summer of 2003. Imagine my surprise when I logged in to find 2543 links in 152 folders patiently awaiting my return.

I guess Backflip was one of those Web technologies that was a little before its time. I wonder how many of these links still work?

BBspot - Which OS Are You?

This is a lot of fun.

Here's what I got:





Which OS are You?

Along the theme identified earlier this week by Seth Godin in his post, Where are the Tweakers? come recommendations from two new sources for sites looking for help in keeping up with the changes needed to optimize a site's customer experience.

ITtoolbox is a great source for information about IT that is organized as a community for professional IT doers and users. A blog post on the site, Rent A Coder - How Software Gets Done: ITtoolbox Blogs describes a site that helps take care of the code "tweaking" that goes along with keeping a Web site fresh. If you need to hire a coder for any size project, check it out.

Also, Seth has started a Tweakers group on Squidoo and has published a Squidoo lens about Web Tweakers with more referrals.

I've noticed that numerous sites (including this one) have undergone significant changes in recent weeks. Keeping on top of site changes can easily consume hours. Web tweaking sounds like a real entrepreneurial opportunity for ambitious coders.

Seth's Blog: Where are the tweakers?

In Seth Godin's blog today, he noted a real need that is often neglected in managing the Web experience -- the role of testing elements of our sites and improving them constantly using the findings based on the results.

Seth asked for examples of "tweakers," coders obsessed with the need to constantly improve a Web site's usability and relevance.

Immediately, I thought of the folks at MarketingExperiments.com when considering the testing aspect of the equation. Dr. Flint McLaughlin and his team extensively test the minute details of the customer experience at a variety of sites, then make changes and re-study. The team generously shares its results with site users, including action plans based on findings.

With the information from the site, all that's missing is the marathon coder and the Mountain Dew.

In Marketing Geek: Marketing Calendar 2007? blogger Michael Fassnacht makes some excellent points about the limitations of the annual ad marketing planning process that goes on in many organizations.

As someone who has been more used to the opposite approach, but has worked with conpanies who treat the calendar as a sacred cow, I agree that the calendar-based planning process is rather limiting given today's customer conversations and the need to react quickly to changing conditions and opportunities.

On the post, I made several comments about how a more customer-centric process could be integrated into the annual plan in a gradual way that is less threatening to existing cultures than simply throwing out the familiar process.

Thinking about why we have processes in place can help us identify who the stakeholders are in the processes in question. Ad agencies and publishers obviously like the idea of nailing down a huge ad buy before the new year (and in some cases before the holiday sales season changes expectations about what to spend.) Marketing departments like to be able to plan work efficiently. The question is, does this approach serve the client by serving the needs of the client's ultimate customers with timely and relevant IMC communications?

I do think there is value in calendars if used as planning rather than contract negotiation tools for ad buys. MarketingExperiments.com has a super approach to maximizing customer relevance (and thus in most cases, sales and profits) on its Marketing Blueprints page. Be sure and check out the Merchandising Calendar PDF.

Happy planning!

In this article, CNN.com - The meaning of life (and business) - Sep 13, 2006 Peter Walker introduced readers to Dr. Srikumar S. Rao, who teaches an unconventional course called "Creativity and Personal Mastery" in two prestigious MBA programs. The course, that has been described by students as life-changing, is the only that I know of with its own alumni group.

Yesterday, I had the privilege of hearing Dr. Rao speak on a conference call sponsored by Leading News . His approach is one to which I could relate. I would call it purple, as in remarkable because, as the CNN article mentioned, most MBA students (with some exceptions) have not examined the fundamental questions that they are forced to confront in completing Dr. Rao's class. (Odeo has an interview with Dr. Rao conducted by Todd of 800CEOReads on the same theme in downloadable MP3 format. )

Years ago, Insight's then-CEO Eric Crown was quoted in the Phoenix Business Journal advising people to do what they love, saying that they should wake up in the morning excited at the prospect of the work they would be doing that day, or they should find other work. Dr. Rao's message reminded me of Eric's quote. We carry messages and mental images of expectations that tell us what we should do, but are not necessarily what we are called to do. To achieve real success, it is necessary to align what we choose to do with what we are called to do, our passions.

It's only when we realize that things are what they are and that we are the ones who choose where we will spend our energy and attention that we can discover what is truly important and what just seems to be. When we act in ways that are consistent with a desire to make the world a little better in some way, rather than as a means to exchange for something we want, we will begin to experience a kind of karma that leads to success. Success achieved this way is authentic, because it is based on our values rather than on artificial "mental models" that can guide those who believe those models are reality.

Webmaster Tutorials Blog Archive Direct MarketingÂ?s Conflicts With TodayÂ?s Internet Marketing takes a look at Internet marketing versus a traditional view of direct marketing. Yes, there are marked differences in the classic definition of direct marketing versus what is effective today.

While the post is right in describing the basic differences between the two in general, and I would argue that the two concepts need not be polarized as conflicting. What about looking at them as complementary elements in a conversation with customers and prospects?

I see some of the concepts here, such as AdWords, as especially complementary to direct marketing.

Elements like landing pages and customer experience paths are similar to classic direct marketing letters. Subscribers to dynamic content will receive information directly from us in the feed, similar to a magazine subscription received in the mail. People who order products may receive inserts from merchants.

Yes, the customers are in charge, and that only makes the need to apply the fundamentals of creating relevance greater and drives the ROI up.

Direct marketing's measurability has been the foundation of the Internet marketing metrics in use today. Before the renewed interest in Direct Marketing following the dot com bubble's burst, Internet marketing was all about eyeballs, not relevance. It seems to be working better with a little help from DM.

Even if the two are not the same, when strategically applied, together they make each other better.