focus on offering goods and services people actually want and need

“In today’s increasingly saturated product marketplace, surface appeal is not enough to elevate me-too products or services above the pack, or to yield sustained success. The harder trick is to use design to get beneath that superficial marketing level and to delve down to core business issues such as: What do people really need? And how can we best provide that?

That business should be focused on offering goods and services people actually want and need may seem obvious. Why would companies do otherwise? The reason is that they often are focused more on their own existing capabilities and objectives than on the needs of others.”

- Warren Berger, GLIMMER: How Design Can Transform Your Life, and Maybe Even The World, pg 100

Ford Fiesta Movement Mission 4 film from Team Houston

From the description on youtube:

zenfilm — June 09, 2010 — The Ford Fiesta Movement Mission 4 film from Team Houston “Pause” presents an unusual twist on romance with sci-fi/fantasy overtones. Pause was filmed in one day by the Zenfilm creative team and features the sights and sounds of America’s 4th largest city set to the music of Houston artists Southern Backtones and Tyagaraja. To vote for this film in the competition simply text “Zenfilm” to 44144 . There will be no spam… we promise. Thanks for your support.

Google “God in Houston” and you won’t find a church

In the process of explaining SEO (search engine optimization) over the years I frequently demonstrate that if you Google “God in Houston” the top results are not churches. Now I’m not talking about the local results that show the churches, but the actual search results below that that lists KSBJ as the top result for “God in Houston” when searched on Google. And the only paid search result is for “Houston Gold” – like the shiny stuff you make jewelry out of. Here is a screen shot:

From a technical perspective, this makes perfect sense. Because the largest churches in Houston do not mention the word “God” on their web sites. Yes really. Using a search engine keyword analyzer, a test of second.org shows the following.

Note the title is “Second Baptist Church, Houston, TX.” Thus they will likely rank for “Churches in Houston” but not for “God in Houston.” A simple fix would be to update the title to “Second Baptist Church, Serving God in Houston TX”.

I mention this because exactness of speech matters. It means that some of our largest churches have zero (0) possibility of being returned if a downtrodden person googles for them in the middle of the night. It means missed connections when a bible study group at a particular church might be the perfect connection for a fellow Houstonian. But we will never know because of a failure of exactness of speech.

On the flip side, a tip of the hat to Braeswood Assembly of God church which comes up for both the physical location and second natural ranking after KSBJ in the search results. And all because they mention the word “God” in their title.

So be specific. Be exact. And I’ll leave it to you to search for the ministers’ names – they rank a bit higher than God.

PR 2.0 New Media Communications Model

New Media Communications Model from PR 2.0. An evolved version of Lasswell’s model per the book:

Who
Says what
In which channel
To whom
To what effect
Then who
Hears what
Who shares what
With what intent
To what effect

Explained in greater detail in PR 2.0, Solis, Breakenridge. pg 190. This is mostly a note to myself as I wonder about how to measure such things in the Personal Brand Era.

SchipulCon in two days – Oct 45, 16, 2009 at the Houston Zoo

What started in 2007 as the Tendenci User Conference, was canceled in 2008 due to a very unwelcome hurricane, has now morphed into SchipulCon 2009. Planned by @MagsMac, the conference has a great lineup of speakers including Deirdre Breakenridge, the author of PR 2.0.

The full SchipulCon 2009 Agenda is posted on the site. And registration is here.

And of course a HUGE thanks to our sponsors without which this would not be happening!

Schipul – 12 Years Old and Counting

The company is 12 years old today. Wow. What a journey so far!

A huge THANK YOU to our clients, our employees and all of our supporters over the last 12 years. Black swans do exist, and thrive, with a lot of help from their friends. THANK YOU!

We’ll have a party after SchipulCon 09 to celebrate. But I had to post to mark the occasion. Thanks again y’all.