What Is Everyone Doing to get Noticed?

So, you want to get noticed do you?  Me too.  But what are we going to do?  Well, if I knew that, I wouldn't have a .blogspot in my URL title and I would be making a lot of money (or at least some money) from all this advice I give.

It is fun, and sometimes even inspiring, however, to check out what OTHERS are doing to get noticed.

Here is one way to get noticed:  Fill something with something else and then let it all spill out.  That is what NY City Harvest did.  I would like to see the ROI figures for this stunt.  Oh well, they got me to blog about it didn't they?

Another way to get noticed is to play with dolls.  Although this commercial reminds me of Asop's fables: Asop mocks people through the use of animal charicaters to avoid offending anyone.  Point Park University uses dolls.

Or you can do the classic, that is, give away stuff for free like Honda.

Finally, you can do something totally absurd that just gets people talking and hope that by somehow getting them talking they will want to buy your product.  I mean, hey, it worked for Skittles.  This is my favorite of their absurds, watch the others if you like this one, there are some really strange and hilarious commercials in this campaign.

Hope this gets your juices flowing so you can get NOTICED.  If not, oh well, at least you had a good laugh.  If not, oh well, at least, you, um... practiced reading and... watching.  Now go get noticed.

Social Networking is for FREAKS, right? Wrong.

I guess it depends on your definition of FREAK.

Possible assumptions:

So facebook is to middle school-ers today what AOL Instant Messenger was to middle school-ers 10 years ago.

Twitter is for following every detail of every portion of all of your favorite people... Ashton Cutcher is SO dreamy

YouTube is for watching boring and often inappropriate home videos.

Linked in is for... what is linked in for?






Maybe these assumptions are true.  Here is what I use these social media sites for (or what I could use them for)

When I post a link to my blog in my Facebook status and my wife does the same, our website visits triple that day.  Have a web business?  Draw attention to it.  Starting a promotion?  Let people know.

Twitter.com can be used for a lot more than obsessions with people that are famous.  Look how writer Ryan Penagos uses his twitter account to promote his business, Marvel.com.  If you have a following on Twitter you have instant access to a market that has already shown interest in what you have to say.  Man, marketing is easy.

Here is a great video from a company that knew how to use YouTube


Blendtec drove incredible amounts of business to themselves with these clever videos.  I mean, who doesn't want to watch an i-phone in the blender?

LinkedIn is possibly the easiest way for someone seeking employment to get their resume and more infront of a potential hirer.  Likewise, it makes the resume review process much more streamlined.  Additionally, there may not be a better site for finding connections in the workplace to try and land an internship, job, or interview.  Look into it.

Don't be a FREAK, make good use of social networking.

What to do with all that CASH?

You have a bank account for your personal finances.  You have another for your credit card.  You open another account with lower interest for your car loan.  You open another account because you had a great business idea.  You hear about a great deal for a gas card through your gas station, so you open another account.

So what are you gonna do?  You might not have a lot of cash, but the cash you do have is moving like crazy!  Here is a great way to keep that cash in place:

http://www.mint.com

You can enter all of your online banking information, including credit cards, loans, checking, savings, etc.  Mint will track all of your transactions, and even classify them for you (i.e., gas, food, clothes, etc.)

Not only can you keep track of where your money comes and goes, you can watch where you are spending all you money, and when you know where your biggest expenses are, you can focus on where to cut costs.

Now you have a great tool for managing all that cash of yours.

An Actual College Business: Overtime Sports Center

This is simply a copy of our marketing audit slideshow.  It is a pretty good snapshot of the business though.  Click on the pictures of the slides to make them bigger.

Don't Kill the Goose: Make Experience Not Money

There is a temptation in us college students to go after the goose and neglect the golden eggs. What the heck did I just say? What does a goose and some metallic eggs have to do with business or ventures or anything of the sort? Oh yeah, I have to start with the story before I go after the analogy:

Once upon a time...

no.

A long, long time ago...

still sounds stupid.

There once was a farmer...

that's better.

There once was a farmer that lived far away in the country with his old wife in his old cottage.  He owned two old dogs, one old cat, and a very old goose.  The whole old community of farmer, wife, and animals were poor and barely could afford to exist!

From this picture to the left, the farmer apparently wore a dress and had a really funky haircut.  Anyway...

He was surprised to find one day when he went out to check the eggs of the old goose, the goose had laid a golden egg.  He was sure that it couldn't be true, even though the egg was heavy and cold.  He took the egg to the local Gold Identification Office ('cuz they had those all over in those days), and indeed, the goose had laid a golden egg!

He was thrilled and told his old wife and she was thrilled and then they were all thrilled together.

The next day the farmer went to check the goose and it had again laid a golden egg.  He was surprised, although less than last time, and he snatched up the egg and went to market to sell it.

Well, long story short, the farmer kept getting golden eggs from the goose, a little less excited and more demanding each time until finally he and his wife decided they would go and get all of the golden eggs all at once.

When they gutted the goose, however, they found that it was the same on the inside as any other goose.  They had killed their source of golden eggs.  After the money they had amassed was spent (they hadn't studied the time value of money at college), they were as poor as they had ever been.

The end.

What a weird story, right?  What does this have to do with us?  The farmer killed his opportunity by going after the quick fix or the easiest route.  We do the same thing!

Lets play the "would you rather" game:

1.  Take an easy class in your area of interest where the professor doesn't take attendance and tests are a cinch
OR
2.  Take a tough class in your area of interest with hard tests, required attendance, and highly technical content?

1.  Work at McDonalds as a cashier for $17 an hour
OR
2.  Work for WalMart in corporate offices for free?

1.  Take an internship from you brother in-law running the copy machine at his print business for $3500 stipend
OR
2.  Take an internship from Intel helping manage accounts for free?

1.  Start a business selling hot dogs for $1200 a month
OR
2.  Start an internet business with increasing traffic for $100 a month?

I don't want to blabber.  I hope you get the point.  Don't kill the goose.  Don't go after the quick fix and waste your opportunities to build valuable experiences that will move you towards your goals.

My simple recipe for not killing the goose:  Find your passion + Make experiences in your passion + Use experiences to make better experiences = great professional life, healthy goose, many golden eggs.

DON'T KILL THE GOOSE BY WORKING FOR MONEY ONLY!

Get All Pumped Up n' Stuff

I am not into motivational stuff.  I think it is a bit fluffy.  I think it lacks information and exudes opinion.  But I also think it is very popular.  I think some people really like it.  That being the case, here are a couple of videos that aren't half bad and that will motivate us to be "true to ourselves" and all that jazz.