Pushing the Spectrum

Marketers have long tried to turn happy events into shopping opportunities. Macy's and Gimbels and others pushed us to see Christmas as a chance to buy gifts. Shopping is right next to happiness on the spectrum of emotions, I guess, just as green is next to blue in the rainbow. They did it to Valentine's day and now, of course, Halloween.

Lately, some marketers would like to push us to move from fear to hatred. It makes it easier for them. We honor and remember the heroes who gave everything, the innocent who were lost, the neighbors who narrowly escaped. A day to hate? I hope we can do better than that.

Loyalty

Loyalty is what we call it when someone refuses a momentarily better option.

If your offering is always better, you don't have loyal customers, you have smart ones. Don't brag about how loyal your customers are when you're the cheapest or you have clearly dominated some key element of what the market demands. That's not loyalty. That's something else.

Loyal customers understand that there's almost always something better out there, but they're not so interested in looking.

Loyalty can be rewarded, but loyalty usually comes from within, from a story we like to tell ourselves. We're loyal to sports teams and products (and yes, to people) because being loyal makes us happy. Why else be a fan of the Cubs? Some customers like being loyal. Those are good customers to have.

Loyalty isn't forever. Sometimes, the world changes significantly and even though the loyal partner/customer likes that label, it gets so difficult to stick that he switches.

I think there's no doubt that some brands and teams and politicians and yes, people, attract a greater percentage of loyal fans than others. Not because they're bigger or better, but because they reinforce the good feeling some people get when they're being loyal. Hint: low price or supermodel good looks are not the tools of choice for attracting people who enjoy being loyal.

Rewarding loyalty for loyalty's sake--not by paying people for sticking it out so the offering ends up being more attractive--is not an obvious path, but it's a worthwhile one. Tell a story that appeals to loyalists. Treat different customers differently, and reserve your highest level of respect for those that stand by you.

If you want to learn to do marketing...

then do marketing.

You can learn finance and accounting and media buying from a book. But the best way to truly learn how to do marketing is to market.

You don't have to quit your job and you don't need your boss's permission. There are plenty of ways to get started.

If you see a band you like coming to town, figure out how to promote them and sell some tickets (posters? google ads? PR?). Don't ask, just do it.

If you find a book you truly love, buy 30 and figure out how to sell them all (to strangers).

If you're 12, go door to door selling fresh fruit--and figure out what stories work and which don't.

Set up an online business. Get a candidate you believe in elected to the school board.

The best way to learn marketing is to do it. JUST DO IT!

by: Seth Godin

Virtual Project Management

Project Management (PM) is a complex and challenging task that strives for solutions and deliverables within time and budget. Virtual Project Management (VPM) is an even more daunting task. PM is the discipline of planning, organizing and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives. VPM is attempting the same, except all project team members are not physically in a single location, possibly spanning different states and/or countries. VPM is the art of bringing together many diverse people to work towards a common shared goal. One can look at VPM as a new dimension of project management, in that it is a new way to manage projects that was influenced by the rise of the internet and the use of collaborative software tools that are used to facilitate projects. Project members can now be organizationally disbursed across the globe and come together as knowledge workers to complete the tasks.

VPM has unique challenges.

Since team members are often scattered in different locations around the world, they have different schedules, cultures and expectations. Managing a virtual team makes it difficult to micro manage which is a traditional concept in project management. Project Managers often need to manage people for whom they have no first-hand or personal experience with. Project members have to become acutely aware of their team member’s differences and somehow align them to work together. The entire team is dependent on technology to do its job in order for the project to be successful. Project Managers need tools tailored to the challenges of virtual project management.

Virtual Project Management Tools

The tools that are used in VPM need to accommodate teams in a global work environment. The key task that any VPM tool must accomplish is to allow team members to communicate with one another. Because team members are not physically in the same location, and may have no prior knowledge of each other’s work, communication becomes key. In addition, tools must have the ability to allow team members to collaborate in the virtual space, as that is the only venue open to them being from different locations. Tools need to be equipped with the capabilities to allow the project manager to manage the project – scheduling resources and tracking progress on tasks. Being a project manager in a virtual setting does not allow the PM to micromanage the team, therefore the tool should be equipped so that the PM can manage, track and facilitate the projects with ease and stability.

In order to accomplish full life cycle virtual project management, VPM tools were researched and compared. Software Tools must have the following features:

• Web based
• Creation of schedules and tasks
• Assigns resources and activities
• Reporting functionality
• Document management
• Collaborative software
• Notification feature