Monday, November 07, 2011

Pivotal Play Event- Government Meets Sports

I wanted to make sure you were aware of this event organized by the fine folks at Morgan Franklin. The event is free, but there is limited space, so register now to reserve your spot. This won't be your regular boring panel, as it is being filmed as it were a live TV show.  I'll be there if you want to catch up.


Here is the relevant info...

Pivotal Plays™ Event: 
Government Meets Sports
Featuring Panelists from the FBI, Washington Redskins, and Dateline NBC
Join us to learn how executives in government and sports make Pivotal PlaysTM in their organizations every day. You will hear unique perspectives on strategy, managing change, taking risks, team building, and making difficult decisions.

Date
November 9, 2011

Agenda
10:30am Registration
11:00am Panel Discussion
12:00pm Networking Lunch

Location
The Newseum
555 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20001

Our event will feature the following distinguished panelists:
  • Bruce AllenExecutive Vice President and General Manager, Washington Redskins
  • Shawn HenryExecutive Assistant Director of the Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch (CCRSB), FBI
  • Special Guest: Chris HansenCorrespondent, NBC News, "Dateline NBC"

Monday, October 24, 2011

Mobile Social App Usage Skyrocketing

ReadWriteWeb posted last week about new statistics from ComScore about the rapidly increasing use of mobile apps to access social networking platforms. Here is the link...


Analytics firm comScore released new data today showing that U.S. mobile social media audiences increased 37%, and more than half of social mobile audiences read a post from an organization, brand or event on their mobile device.
While the mobile browser accounted for more visits, research shows that the social networking app audience has grown five times faster in the past year. While the mobile browsing social networking audience has grown 24% to 42.3 million users, the mobile social networking app audience shot up 126% to 42.3 million users in the past year.
And...
People are increasingly checking social networks more from their mobile devices. More than half (52.9%) read posts from organizations/brands/events. One of three mobile social networkers snagged a coupon/offer/deal, and twenty-seven percent clicked on an ad while visiting a social networking site.


Thursday, October 13, 2011

Good News! Honeycomb Consulting is Born!



The good news here? I'm very proud to announce the birth of a new company.

After standing up the marketing infrastructure for a division of the largest privately held management consulting company earlier this year, I have started my own firm. Honeycomb Consulting brings to you the expertise and best practices I’ve learned from fifteen years of building and executing business development, social media, mobile, public relations, marketing and advertising campaigns.

Faced with an uncertain economic environment, senior executives I speak with can’t or won’t bring on new employees or full service agencies. However, the need remains to find prospects, close clients and strengthen relationships.

That is where I come in…

I founded Honeycomb to address the projects sales and marketing leaders have not been able to get to.  

Think about these questions…
  • Are you generating enough leads?
  • Is your social media strategy suffering from a lack of good content?
  • Does your website copy need refreshing?
  • Do you have a mobile app?
  • Are there prospects that haven’t received phone or email outreach?
  • Do you have projects that you have just not been able to kick-off?


Interested? Email me and let’s schedule an initial phone call and walk through your to-do list... and talk about whether you have the right or enough resources to achieve your goals. If it makes sense, we will work together to develop a project that addresses any neglected or under-resourced priorities.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Register Now for Social Media Survey Results Event

Click here to Register...

Event Information


Join Market Connections and Strategic Communications Group for the release of the Public Sector Social Media Study.
The second edition of this popular study takes a comprehensive look at use of and perceptions around social media among government agencies and contractors.
TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EVENT:
Learn how your organization stacks up against leading agencies and contractors using social media
Find out which devices and social media networks government target audiences prefer
Bring three repeatable social media success stories and the latest study results back to your office

WHO SHOULD ATTEND:
Marketing, Communications and Business Development professionals serving the government and contractors, including marketing, promotions, public affairs, public relations, digital and new media communications.

AGENDA:
8:00-8:30 a.m. – Networking and breakfast
8:30-9:15 a.m. – Presentation of study results
9:15-10:30 – Panel discussion and Q&A with industry and government experts

PANELISTS:
D.J. Caulfield, GSA - Branch Chief, Communication and Digital Marketing
Jack Holt, DOD - Former Sr. Strategist for Emerging Media
Meredith Lawrence, Polycom - Director, North America Federal Field Marketing
Steve Lunceford, Deloitte - Strategic Communications for Federal Public Sector
Nancy Nolting, Intelsat General - Marketing Programs Manager
Lisa Dezzutti, President & CEO, Market Connections will present the study findings.
Marc Hausman, President, Strategic Communications Group, will moderate the panel.

Friday, September 23, 2011

Government and Social Media - Take the Survey!

Market Connections, in partnership with my old firm, Strategic Communications Group, have organized a survey on the attitudes to and the deployment of social media in the public sector. Whether you are a government employee or a contractor, please help these fine folks out and take the survey! 

 


The results are going to be announced at an event in Tysons Corner, this October 18.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Big News Day- Apple, Facebook and Google

Kind of a busy day in tech news...

Apple is announcing its next earth shattering event will be held on October 4. Two big pieces of news? iPhone 5 and new CEO Tim Cook will be headlining the event, not Steve Jobs. Personally, I'm waiting for iCloud and cloud based iTunes. But that's just me...

Facebook revamped its interface. Again. It is proof that we are just slaves to Facebook that they make these changes and have absolutely no desire to let us know about it in advance. They simply don't care because they know they rule the world. Hubris, my friends. Hubris.

And Google opened up Google+ to the masses, including a big blue arrow on the worlds most expensive real estate, pointing right at it. Is Google+ going to defeat Facebook? I doubt it. It has some nice features, but it seems like whenever someone else creates a cool, new social networking tool, Facebook copies it and adds it to their platform. Thus, all the secret interface revisions.

Wednesday, September 07, 2011

This Recession is Boring

This recession is boring. I know we aren't really in a recession any more, but it certainly still feels like one. I am bored with the feeling. Time to flip the switch.

Businesses are waiting for smooth sailing before hiring and investing. Waiting for the idiots in the White House and Capitol Hill to behave a little less stupidly. Waiting for our European friends to deal with or ditch Greece, Italy and Spain, etc. Waiting for Americans to deleverage and pay off the debt of the 2000's. Waiting, waiting, waiting.

We can't wait forever. There are 17,000,000 Google results for "innovation during recession."  Everyone knows that the strong invest, innovate and take market share during tough times. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has had no trouble taking over the consumer electronics space. Whole Foods (NASDAQ:WFM) continues to rake in boatloads of cash. Read here:

I was just reading an interview of Whole Foods CEO John Mackey by USA Today. The most interesting part of the interview is his discussion of how Whole Foods is entering the health and wellness services business.
The company is open up 5 prototype stores with “Wellness Clubs” to expand their business into the services sector.
“We’re opening Wellness Clubs in five prototype stores. It’s potentially a new paradigm for people being healthy. All of the key diseases killing Americans can be largely avoided or prevented through healthy diet and lifestyle, but people don’t know exactly what to do. Whole Foods will help educate them."
I find this fascinating for a company with $8 billion in sales that is the clear market leader in its niche. Instead of resting on its laurels, it decides to innovate instead.
The whole economy is being held back by a lack of confidence, by just about everyone, consumers and businesses alike. Confidence, or animal spirits as economists like to call it, is a fragile thing and hard to build. When you don't feel confident, you should fake it until you make it.
The article How You Too Can Be an Optimist in Prevention points out, "In research at Wake Forest University, for example, scientists asked a group of 50 students to act like extroverts for 15 minutes in a group discussion, even if they didn’t feel like it. The more assertive and energetic the students acted, the happier they were".

Or...as Barney would say...

Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Whoah...New Blogger Look and Feel

You can't tell by reading this but there is a new management interface here on Blogger. Apparently, Blogger has been at work on this new system for a while. Frankly, it is going to take some getting used to.

Read the explanation here on the Blogger Buzz Blog:

It’s been a few years since we made major updates to Blogger’s look and feel, and there’s a lot more to these changes than just shiny new graphics. We’ve rewritten the entire editing and management experience from scratch so it’s faster and more efficient for you—and easier for us to update and improve over time.


I'll let you know how it goes...I'm still getting used to my iPhone.

Friday, May 06, 2011

How Gullible Are We?

StumbleUpon is a marvelous site. Found this today...and had to share it!

From: http://www.math.psu.edu/tseng/H2Ojoke.html


This was found on the newsgroup: rec.humor.funny

H2O: Dangerous Chemical!

A student at Eagle Rock Junior High won first prize at the Greater Idaho Falls Science Fair, April 26. He was attempting to show how conditioned we have become to alarmists practicing junk science and spreading fear of everything in our environment. In his project he urged people to sign a petition demanding strict control or total elimination of the chemical "dihydrogen monoxide." And for plenty of good reasons, since:

  1. it can cause excessive sweating and vomiting
  2. it is a major component in acid rain
  3. it can cause severe burns in its gaseous state
  4. accidental inhalation can kill you
  5. it contributes to erosion
  6. it decreases effectiveness of automobile brakes
  7. it has been found in tumors of terminal cancer patients
He asked 50 people if they supported a ban of the chemical.
  • Forty-three (43) said yes,
  • six (6) were undecided,
  • and only one (1) knew that the chemical was water.
The title of his prize winning project was, "How Gullible Are We?" He feels the conclusion is obvious.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Kluge Estate and Winery heads to auction- another over-leveraged homeowner?

Interested in buying a 900 acre vineyard down near Charlottesville, VA? Here is your chance...pretty beautiful if you ask me, but probably out of my price range...


From the WBJ:
Less than a month after Bank of America took possession of Patricia Kluge’s Albemarle Estate near Charlottesville, Farm Credit is set to auction off the Kluge Estate and Winery.
Farm Credit repossessed the property by buying it at a foreclosure auction in December.
The 901-acre property will sell at auction April 7, according to J.P. King Auction Company, which will handle the sale.

Apparently, Donald Trump is interested in buying the property, according to this article in Luxist.com. Normally, The Donald's taste isn't for me, but this house is pretty fine.

Friday, February 25, 2011

Crushing Debt. Sounds like an Opportunity?

The whole country is struggling with the issue of too much debt. From families struggling with under water mortgages to states trying to figure out how to cut costs to the federal government's difficulty dealing with the $14 trillion national debt, it seems everyone is trying desperately to deal with this issue.

This month, there are 869,000,000 entries for "debt" on Google. And there are fun widgets to track everyone's debt





Economists are saying that economic growth will be stunted for years as families, states and the federal government divert money into debt and interest repayments.Check out a few random stories:


This intractable problem pervades everyday life, business and politics.Doesn't this sound like a business opportunity? Smart companies and clever marketers could address this issue by developing products and services to help people and governments either cut costs or raise revenue or both.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Small is Beautiful in Government Contracting?

The always prescient Nick Wakeman at Washington Technology has a good article out today about trends he is hearing from the market place. Entitled "Welcome to a New Era of Government Contracting", Nick compiles his take-aways from a finance seminar on the government market organized by Raymond James.The pressure to accomplish a mission while cutting costs is impacting government leaders and the contracting industry in some interesting ways...

Is insourcing dead? Is the era of big systems integrators ruling the roost coming to a close? Will the defense cuts save the economy?

These were some of the dominant themes I heard executives and others talking about at investment bank Raymond James' 10th Annual Government Services & Technology Summit on Thursday.

A variety of public and private companies gave presentations on their strategies. Because three presentations were usually going on simultaneously in different rooms, I couldn’t hear all of them, but the ones I did hear often shared similar themes.

The easy one to explain is the death of insourcing. Several executives and other speakers commented that a year ago insourcing was a big concern, but not so much now as Defense Secretary Robert Gates has publicly admitted that the cost savings he envisioned from moving contractor jobs to government jobs did not materialize. 

Well, so much for that effort...however, I think it is indicative that government leaders are getting more creative and experimenting with new methods to cut costs, reorganize processes while maintaining their missions. More...

The theme that people came back to repeatedly was this idea that size and bulk are not the measures of success they once were for government contractors.

Brian Gesuale, senior vice president of Raymond James, used two leading companies of the past decade as examples.

In the mid-2000s, CACI International and SRA International both were rewarded with growing market valuations as they grew. But while they have continued to grow larger, both have seen the value of their stock decline, Gesuale said.

“The supersizing strategy is not the strategy going forward,” he said.

Instead, Gesuale and other speakers emphasized the need to build value by focusing in on niche capabilities that are close to the customer’s mission.

“We want to be close to the flagpole of the agency” is how Vangent CEO Mac Curtis described it during his presentation.

In other words, whatever your company sells, you need to be able to tie it directly to supporting the mission of the agency. 

Well, no truer words have been spoken....