Last night was a great night of networking and learning in various networking groups. It wasn’t until the middle  of the afternoon when I looked at my wife and business partner’s shared calendar that I was aware of a Small Business Owners meeting at the Greenville, SC Chamber of Commerce. I am so glad I went.  Everyone there were small business owners in the Upstate of South Carolina or interested in entering the Greenville,SC market. We had a chance to listen to Timothy Justice of Rescom Construction and ask him questions about what we could do in our own businesses to take them to the next level. Very encouraging.

After the meeting at the Chamber I went to the meeting of the Upstate Entrepreneur Forum which was about a mile away. This was another opportunity to network with other entrepreneurs and listen to Elizabeth Garrison of Ever Green Recycling, her business vision and past business experience.  Once again I got some great tips and ideas to grow my own business and to make it stronger.  Not to mention I love meeting others I can work with and help succeed and thus help my community prosper.

I had to leave the UEF a little early, It pained me to do so but on the other side of town another group I am very passionate about was meeting.  The Greenville Mac User’s Group has been around a long time and I’m happy to be a part of the group of enthusiastic Mac computer users.  Last night’s GreenvilleMUG meeting revolved around the discussion of backups and we also had a video conference with our local Apple rep who could not make the meeting in person last night. I have a desire to start a more specialized group of people who want to develop applications of the Mac OSX platform and the iPhone.

The only thing I regret about going to all the meetings last night was I had to spread myself around, leave early at one and show up a little late at another. I didn’t get to network and make as many connections as I could have. I do plan on e-mailing people I meet with last night who I exchanged business cards with to do some of that networking today.

Did you see me last night (4-14-08)?

I find it very interesting that some companies will brand themselves by the product they produce or service they provide and another company that does the exact same thing will brand themselves by the problems they solve or even long standing  industry terms.

Take our company for example.  We provide design and development services in the realm or web, print, photography and podcasts. You will have advertising agencies that provide the exact same services, you have other companies who say they are “marketing” companies also provide the exact same services. What gives?

It’s true that a bulk of the work we do is web design and web development, especially e-commerce and content management. It’s where we started and and it’s not big secret that it’s one of the easiest businesses to get into because of the low cost of entry. It’s probably one reason we have so much local competition within that realm. In the mid to late 90’s web design was the cutting edge technology and to a large degree it was an experiment in the early days when most people were on dial up and the design specs were restricted to the limitations of the technology at the time. We do consider our web work as a “hub service.” Whenever possible we want our print products to lead people to our clients web site, Podcasts which take on a “life” beyond the a web site definitely call the clients web site home and a majority of the photography work we provide is optimized for the web as a way to effectively tell a story.

If you are looking for a company to design a web site ask if they provide other media marketing services as well/ You may be surprised that they do! If they only specialize in web design what is their mindset in regards to integrated media and consistent branding? Of course we are not talking against other companies who call themselves web design firms, marketing firms or advertising agencies but we do want to make it clear the we provide many of the same services they do but our niches and clientele may be different.

What are your perceptions who you hear the terms, graphic designer, marketing firm, ad agency, web designer, creative professional, etc?  Is it confusing to you?  Do many tend to do the same things from your perspective? Have the industry names not caught up with technology and skill sets of the work force?

What can we do to better communicate SpinningSilk Multimedia doesn’t “fix computers” and how can we make it clearer that we provide more services than web design as some people we have talked with are so easy to latch on to in conversation?

My last post covered the “old school” method of marketing known as direct marketing. A method used to target a wide range of consumers in a particular demographic or “geographic.” Initially the direct marketing mindset was attempted on the Internet via banner ads, mass market e-mails (Ok, let’s just call it spam now)

In the beginning stages of when businesses started using the Internet they attempted to do things the way they were done in the older media of print, TV and radio among others. We were indurated with banner ads we soon learned to commit to a blind spot, pop-up ads we soon learned to remove through third party software or different web browsers.  thankfully things have changed and Google used their great search algorithm to not only return better search results but also to display ads in a textual form people would be more interested in seeing. This is an example of using the technology in the particular media to it’s greatest advantage.

Blogging and podcasting also take advantage of another aspect of marketing in the “real world” but aggregates the information in such a way they you can only do on the Internet.  People will look very suspect at companies who do blatant advertising but we get great assurance from talking to friends and third party authorities we can trust.  Even if I blog or podcast is on a businesses own web site people will place greater trust if they are being taught and informed as opposed to a forceful sale. Two great examples of how podcasting/blogging is used to market products are Photoshop User TV and The Adobe Creative Suite Podcast.  Both of these promote Adobe products and Photoshop User TV even has advertising but it’s advertising I don’t mind because I have already sought out the podcasts and blogs for their topics and more than likely I am a likely candidate to purchase either the Adobe products, software or camera equipment.

What aspects of Internet marketing have you grown to despise and which one do you find refreshing?

One of the great advantages of personal computers is the ability to store large amounts of information. One of the greatest disadvantages of personal computers is the ability to store large amounts of information. This morning I was at the hospitial with my wife and her family as my father-in-law underwent major surgery. I started organizing a few files on my laptop and soon discovered I had filed away all kinds of lists, eBooks, images and instruction manuals that I forgotten about.

It almost reminds me of household issues when we will buy things for the kitchen or home improvement tasks only to come home and discover you already had those items.

Why do we however wait till “dead times” to do organization? I’m tempted to say it’s not exciting but the funny thing is once I get started on organizing things from computer files to stuff around the house I have a hard time stopping. In the process I suddenly think of better ways to organize things.

It’s all to easy to put things off. Before I go to bed at night I could care less about putting clothes up in the closet or in the wash pile. I’ll just throw them on the chair beside my bed. I do the exact same thing with my computer files by throwing them into a catch-all folder or on the desktop. Is their really a difference between the “dump folders” and folders that are specific for the items is question? Yes, it may be a little easier to find some thing or the place may look cleaner but as Larry the Cable Guy and David Allen ask, “Are you getting it done?”

I don’t want to convert a “to-do” folder into another catch-all location where the intention of getting something done is created but the work is still put off.

How do you best convert your organizational project into action? If I create a to-do list from everything I organize I will become so overwhelmed that to be honest I’ll just sweep everything under the rug and give up except for the most critical time sensitive project.

Perhaps the key to organization is to recognize that taking action is one of the first steps in organizing. Just as you use three big boxes to clean out a garage or room in a house the same strategy could be used when it comes to computer files. An action folder, a maybe folder and a throw away or “pass along” folder.”

The final step should be the archiving, a step many of us do at the beginning because it looks and feels nice but there is no sense in organizing unless some action is going to be taken.

What do you use to aid in your organizational and action work flow?

We  have been working on coming up with a very short slogan that distills our company’s mission and brand into a memorable statement.  After many meetings and going back and forth with various ideas we are pleased to present, “Innovative Media in Harmony” as our official company mantra.

Nothing beats listening to a group of singers or instruments who join together to form a unified sound. While the bulk of our work involves web design our commitment is to integrated marketing solutions that communicate a consistent brand across multiple form of media from web sites, print products like business cards, signs, newsletter, a logo as well as optimizing and developing compelling content for portable devices.

You may have noticed that we talk about innovation a lot. Innovation is not only about new technologies it involves discovering more efficient ways to do things, the way a message is presented and how it’s distributed to the intended audience.  Look for this mantra in more and more places in the days ahead.