Creative Solutions Blog

Tonight, I had the pleasure of meeting with the distinguished author, international management trainer and consultant, Ken Blanchard. His presentation, hosted by the Entrepreneurs Organization of Boston at Bentley College dovetailed with the publishing of his new business book, The One Minute Entrepreneur. He spoke from the heart with warmth and humor.
In true Californian fashion, he asked the crowd to play along with a simple exercise to get things started. He asked everyone to stand up and try to meet many new people while showing no genuine interest in them. For 30 seconds, people walked around, shook hands and said ‘Hi, how are you?’ and moved on.

Then he had us try it again and meet new people as if they were our long lost friends. The energy level soared; there were hugs, big smiles and laughter. It was an amazing contrast. The point of the exercise was that you have to know how to manage people’s energy and focus your mind on positive thinking. It clearly worked.

When Mr. Blanchard was a college professor at UMass, he used to give his students the final exam on the first day. This caused a ruckus with the rest of the faculty. ‘Why did you give them the exam?’ they used to ask. He replied, ‘Because I’m going to spend the rest of the term teaching them the material and I want them to get an ‘A’. In business, he explains, you also want your employees to succeed and to help people win. He does this by reviewing the manner in which an employee will be evaluated at the year-end review.

Profit, he explained, is the applause you get for taking care of your customers and creating a good working environment. Be a constant learner and make a difference in people’s lives.

Essentially, there are two components to our lives, tasks on one side and thoughts and reflections on the other. When we wake up, we start the day with an alarm clock and a checklist of things we must do. Lily Tomlin sums up the rat race nicely by saying, ‘Even if you win, you’re still a rat.’ Blanchard poses the thought ‘Wouldn’t it be interesting if we changed the name of the ‘Alarm Clock’ to the ‘Opportunity Clock’?

Author Ken Blanchard’s business classic The One Minute Manager has sold more than sixteen million copies worldwide. He coauthored over thirty bestselling books including Raving Fans, Gung Ho, and Whale Done.

This morning, the Pentagon reported that the US Navy needs to shoot down one of our own US Spy Satellites loaded with toxic fuel before it crashes to earth. Pentagon officials say it needs to take extraordinary measures to blow it out of the sky. I thought about it for a moment and said … this is too good of a story to let go, I have to have some fun with this.

Then I had the idea to connect the New England Patriots and their bad public relations with Spygate. My idea for an illustration was to show the exploding satellite and reveal that it contained the NE Patriots Spying Video Tapes.

The illustration reads: … When and if they shoot down the US Spy Satellite

… My God … It’s the Missing Spygate New England Patriot Video Tapes!

Pedro Laboy, Senior Partner of Tocquigny.com, an Adweek Top-25 Interactive agency, and author of Brand Nexus, presented his insightful and visionary presentation on the latest trends and rapid advances happening on the web. Tonight’s exclusive event was held at the Hulk International Business School and was hosted by the American Marketing Assoc.

John Bergdoll, Creative Solutions, Inc and Pedro Laboy of Tocquigny.com, the keynote speaker, compare notes and exchange views.

In my conversation with Pedro, he said, “In a few years, when you type in ‘broken leg’ on Google, the resulting links will show you the closest doctor to you with appointment options like ‘the doctor can see you on Tuesday at 8:00am.’ The technology is now being developed. The future of the web is driven by data!”

• Interactive Media
• Search Engine Marketing and SEO
• Email & Enewsletter Marketing
• The Digital Adoption Curve
• Defining the Digital Footprint (social, informational, transactional, experimental)
• Banner Advertising
• Mobile Marketing
• Website Usability
• Behavioral Marketing
• Landing Pages
• Web 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0

In attendance tonight was Lew Sabbag, President of Servigraphics, Inc.

A few interesting and telling factoids:
Pedro asked ‘How many websites are there?’
Answer: Google has only indexed 50% of all websites.

Is your email mobile-friendly?
Answer: It should be … 60% of web users are now looking at email on their Blackberries.

50% of the searches on Google key in the domain name in the search instead of typing it in the URL space above.

62% of Google Search visitors click through if a link appears on page one of the search results.
Only 28% for links that appear on pages 2 or page 3.

Thanks, Pedro, for the semantic web review and for projecting the likely components to Web 3.0 (for years 2010 to 2020) and Web 4.0. … to infinity and beyond.

The PRSA Boston hosted its PR Products and Services Vendor Showcase at the Fairmont Copley Plaza on this blustery morning. It was a good opportunity to learn more about extended PR services and meet some interesting people. I had a nice talk with Meridith and Sarah from Bates Communications.

Meredith O’Connor and Sarah Woods of Bates Communications
and John Bergdoll, Creative Solutions, Inc.

Beth Bryant, BBWrites, is the welcoming and very organized PRSA/Boston administrator.

For elegance and sophistication, you can’t beat The Fairmont Copley Plaza.

The Social Media Revolution is upon us. Savvy marketing professionals are changing the way their company communicates with customers, and now they ask questions like: ‘To blog or not to blog?’

Last night, the American Marketing Assoc of Boston hosted another excellent networking event at Flat Top Johnny’s, Cambridge, bringing the social media surge to the forefront.

(Left to right) Amy Quigley, Molecular (AMA VP of Programming, co-chair), John Bergdoll, Creative Solutions, Inc., Myles Bristowe, Vividcontext, (AMA President-elect) and Annette Goldberg, Connexion•a (AMA VP of Programming, co-chair)

The energetic crowd of about 200 marketing professionals was buzzing with conversation on social media, blogging, widgets, Wordpress, Web 2.0, YouTube, SEO, and wondering if blogging has become mainstream in the business world. This creative and enjoyable format for networking had everyone engaged as each person was surveyed on social media.

Question #1) Social Media will build ‘Traffic’ or ‘Relationships’?
Survey Results: Traffic 28%, Relationships 72%

Question #2) Do you think companies new to Social Media are best served by ‘Jumping In’ or taking a ‘Wait and See’ approach?
Survey Results: Jumping In 76%, Wait and See 24%

AMA members, Manya Chylinski, Alley 424 Communications
and Jerold Gelfand, Boston Digital Video

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