Day one has been somewhat of a disappointment. Maybe I chose the wrong sessions? Should’ve gone to Wil Reynolds. Should’ve gone to Jake Bailey. I heard a panel of super affiliates (all search affiliates) talk. Vinny Lingham, Adam Veiner (wish he was on the panel not the moderator) and a few others. There’s so much noise outside the room and the sound system is poor it’s tough to hear it all. The message was clear: we don’t like changes in policies or our advertiser’s web sites. Also: don’t waste our time if your program isn’t going to make us $50-100k. They also talked about working in niches with thousands of keywords (the long tail). My wish: other types of affiliates represented.

In another panel with Wayne Porter it seemed like he was always on a soapbox about his ideas. A mumbled, emphatic set of ideas, at that. A bit eccentric. I know he’s a legend but this is the first time I’ve heard him speak. The panel was just not that well organized. They tried to cover too many sweeping topics in one session veering from topics like defining web 2.0 to defining and discussing the long tail, etc without really getting to any point. What I wanted: a panel about how to suck up to or recruit a super affiliate.

Then there was a session about a viral video by TaxBrain. It was sort of gee whiz look what we did. The marketing tactic they used was too gray hat for my taste. Faking a crime. Yes, it worked but people will now be more skeptical. Marketers would be stupid to use a technique like this. There was little take away for the audience so it seemed like a brag session. There were hints at real information (how to slice & dice a commercial for different purposes and how to build on it) that could’ve made a better presentation.

In general on panels: tell the people on the panel what you will ask them ahead of time and get their input about the direction of the discussion. People skills and presentation skills are vital. Just because someone has worked from home making millions doesn’t mean they can effectively speak to a crowd.

No internet access in the sessions made me grouchy, since I like to blog. Maybe they could set up a blogger’s corner so as not to be rude to the speaker but giving us a place (maybe towards the back). We couldn’t possibly be more annoying than all the clanging around from the hotel staff right outside the doors.

Now for the good: the party at the Wynn (Tryst) was lots of fun.

I got the latest (January 2007) Fast Company magazine. Is it Landmark or is there transformation everywhere? I’m more drawn to this issue than any other I’ve read. I actually go back and read what the editor wrote and he said: “One of this magazine’s central themes is that business can be a profound force for good” then almost as a side note mentions that the magazine is now using 80% post consumer recycled paper. How seamless that works. Not only are they reporting this but they are part of it themselves. I believe companies not only can but should be a force for good. I believe doing so improves business because after all businesses are just groups of relationships. I appreciate all the industries and interesting problems this issue addresses.

Companies or people’s transformations mentioned:

• Whirlpool – Their main designer Chuck Jones wanted to create a measure of the impact of design on profit. He says he “proves what is provable then TRUST that financial results will follow (I’ve been listening to the Speed of Trust by Stephen MR Covery that talks about the business dividends of trust and this fits right in, even with the name of the magazine).” In essence they trust their customers to tell Whirpool what they value (with focus groups and standardized measurement of feedback on aesthetics, craftsmanship, technical performance, ergonomics, and usability) and the marketplace to provides another gauge (looking at competitor’s products and compare them).
• Serial intellectual entrepreneur (what a title!) John Davis transformed an old building in Minnesota into a cultural center against everyone in the town’s reason. In the end it increased jobs 40% and more than a dozen new businesses opened. I love the idea of art transforming business.
• IBM uses Second Life to train new employees (I need to play this game, if I ever find the time – is there the possibility of enough time??)
• I’m totally digging cross-industry synergy like Burton using inspiration from Herman Miller’s chair to design their snowboards. What other possibilities like this exist?
• Transforming the remote control (into an ergonomic circle with a scroll wheel like a mouse) and the computer monitor (into a giant touch screen experience).
• LA’s mass transit system: putting art, branding, and design into the subway and transforming city buses with new paint (bright original colors like Rapid Red and Business Blue) and exteriors. The design of the tickets alone made it into a design museum! The Orange Line (of buses) “was the first to be built from the bottom up using Metro’s new design standards, celebrated its one-year anniversary with TRIPLE the expected boardings and plans to extend the service.” Outcome: 83% of riders say service has improved even though it didn’t change (it transformed). Ridership doubles.
• Podcasting transforms a museum frozen in time (the founder dictated nothing in the museum could change after her death, which screams stagnation but that is not at all what happened). But she couldn’t stop the transformation of the museum into a social media powerhouse. Theirs is the most popular classical music podcast with over 40K downloads in a month

“When I learned that there was an addition to radio – new ways to spread the message of classical music and young artists – I became obsessed,” said music director Scott Nickrenz.

He so embraced podcasts as part of the museum that he added “podcast curator” to his title. That’s a great title. Can I be “Internet curator” (add it to my business card) or “Internet tour guide”?

What an inspiring and fun read! If you know of any other businesses transforming their industry, please comment. I just listened to Good to Great about business transformation and the impact it has on the bottom line. Exponential and sustained growth is what trust brings to organizations, which eventually transforms them.

Off to Affiliate Summit. We’re riding up in a rental car and it is ipod enabled but not Internet-enabled. Just that the speedometer goes up to 240mph (ah there is that speed reference again, this time I want to maximize it) which makes you want to press the gas but cops hang out in the medians. I’m typing out blog posts on Word for posting later and I’ve already got TWO PAGES before I know it.

You know you’re an optimist when you bring what I packed for one short trip:

Books:
Money for Content and your Clicks for Free (cheesy title! so far not into it)
Crucial Conversations
Naked Conversations
Working With You Is Killing Me

Audio DVD:
Good to Great (almost done, very good)

Magazines
Fast Company (love it, see next post)
Revenue (good as usual)

The way back I’ll be surrounded by geeks so we’ll see how much reading I can do. I feel like I haven’t really read or slept in a year (I’m being dramatic). It took three hours to get ready because I took care of a lot of details I have ignored for over a month.

A lot of people in the affiliate marketing industry work from home and I get a lot of varied responses on what people think about it.

Inc. Magazine just gave us permission to be messy, even proclaiming that it’s good for business. They say when you’re a neat freak, “…you lock out some highly useful qualities–such as improvisation, adaptability, and serendipity.” They say Americans have a lot of collective guilt over disorganization and messiness:

“…most Americans tend to consider themselves woefully messy and disorganized, and that even holds for the highly successful. Two-thirds of respondents said they feel guilt or shame over how messy or disorganized they are. Fifty-nine percent say they think “somewhat less” or “the worst” of messy people. Two-thirds say they would be more successful if they were neater and more organized, and 60 percent report feeling pressure to be neat at work. Fully 88 percent say their organizations are either not organized enough or organized the wrong way. Only 7 percent thought there was even a possibility that their companies were “overorganized.”"

They cite the examples of Alexandar Flemming discovered penicillin in the midst of a mess that turned moldy. Scaled Composites hires people with no experience for their job and encourages them to find fault with everything the company does. Novell acquired Ximian and they somehow got them to loosen up their culture, encouraging less control and more openness. The result was good for sales.

I heard someone from Ogilvy & Mather, an international design firm, speak about how he can’t trust anyone with a clean desk. He changed the space in their office to be playful and interactive. And they are spinning out some of the most innovative designs for the top brands of the world. It’s like he grabs the chaos and coalesces it into something amazing. It’s the raw material of creativity.

So tonight I rest easier knowing the mess on my table that is my sometimes desk, is fine. This article is a breath of fresh air from the diatribes on processes, productivity, and all the management or business philosophies out there. Like Cat Stevens says, “there’s a million ways to be…” and I’ll add successful.

“The New Rules of PR – How to Create a Successful Press Release Strategy for Reaching Buyers Directly” is a free downloadable ebook by David Meerman Scott. He’s gotten over 150,000 downloads and this is a revised version. He’s also releasing a book in June about social media.

Scott will give a webinar about the book on Tuesday, February 13th at 2pm ET or 12pm MST. He’ll talk about how an organization can develop a strategy to get their news noticed online. Unfortunately the link to register was broken, but I’ll update this once it’s fixed.

I know this isn’t normally news, but in this case it is. I saw a homeless man Phil Burns at the SEO class at Corporate Alliance. I would link to his blog but I’m in a rush to prepare for Affiliate Summit this weekend. Plus I’m not exactly sure if he actually blogs anymore. You just don’t see much of Phil Burns these days (like me, but worse). There he was in a ragtag TagJungle t-shirt and jeans.

His phone has been turned off – but he carries two (one is prepaid). They both go off a few times. The woman from BusinessQ magazine asks him about a column he writes for them. I try to get pitch an affiliate marketing article to her; doesn’t work. It looks like sleep is something Phil needs more of. Phil shows me pages and pages of search engine rankings for different keywords (yes, put the keyword in your URL, title tag, and H1 tag, that is the key to ranking above the big boys like MSNBC and CNN).

There are three women total, including the editor and me, in the room of about 30. Working from home for the past two plus months, this is the social event of my life. I sometimes go a few days without seeing another human’s face except through my sliding glass door. I see Buck from TNI and he says they miss me. Michael Eager, Matt Anderson, and other friends are there too. It’s a reunion.

All I know is that if I were a filmmaker I’d be getting this down. Documentary filmmakers missed the Provo Labs story already (drat) but this one is still in the making. Someone grab a camera and follow this.

So in conclusion, this is all I have to say: If Phil Burns doesn’t succeed as an entrepreneur he’ll die a martyr for the cause.

Sometimes I can’t tell the difference between guts and insanity. I hope he succeeds. In the meantime it makes good blog fodder. Why oh why wasn’t I born a business columnist? I know Jordy hates that about me, but I truly love the personalities and knowing what makes people tick in business. Endlessly fascinating — at least from a distance.

[disclaimer: this is supposed to be poking fun...Phil is my friend]

I just read a report by Internet Retailer that the Bombay Company doubled their online sales. They do around of $15.9 million and are expected to double that.

How? A new exec over ecommerce says it’s using email marketing and web analytics to respond to what customers do on the site. I think email marketing is one of the most underutilized Internet marketing techniques. Surprisingly, a lot of companies still don’t use it. Never before has keeping in touch with vast numbers of people around the world been so accessible.

I know email marketing is nothing new. I just think most of us aren’t using it to the full potential. Your email list is gold. Respond immediately when a new person signs up. Establish contact right off because if you wait they may forget who you are and unsubscribe. Of course you always work harder on client’s sites than your own. Affiliate Flash is not a good example here!

Speaking of which, I want to find a site that lists email newsletters I can advertise in along with the readership and cost. I’m launching a new site with a few friends in a week or two (don’t worry I’ll announce it). I want to do some email advertising and I’m also going to experiment with placing affiliate ads in newsletters. Anyone know of a good resource?

The incredibly smart Jeff Barr of Amazon.com blogged about his nasal surgery. Now that’s taking your health into your own hands. He goes a step further…I could see a business around this idea, making medical images of people. He hacked his way through. Can you imagine how you might learn about your own body and how responsible you’d feel about your health if you could get inside yourself in 3-D and understand what is going on with your body? This would be a great article for Wired…you must see the pictures!

This site cracks me up and it’s about time. It’s a bit cluncky in design and usefulness, but I love the idea. The Rip off Report is the place to find or report businesses or individuals who are frauds or who are dishonest.

You know how I used the analogy of skiing to describe my life that has felt like almost unmanageable speed? I talked about how I was just trying to keep it all together and have fun at the same time. Well, look at this possibility. I could not only enjoy the speed, I could actually take flight…watch this video on YouTube from Deer Valley resort by my friends at RockyMountainVoices and you’ll see what I’m talking about…