Building a well-connected network takes time and effort, but if you have fun along the way, it could make your life a lot easier.
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Hey everyone, pull up a chair. In fact, fill out a nametag, introduce yourself to the person sitting next to you, and tell us what you do. This episode is about one of the single most important skills you can learn in life: Networking.
As always, I was out on a run to figure out this week’s topic. I’m usually a morning runner, but this week found me gliding down the edge of Manhattan’s East River at dusk on a summer Sunday. They’ve done a great job landscaping and carving out areas and installing benches and tables for people to relax and take in the view, and I saw two older women sitting and chatting at one of the tables.
Two things struck me. First, they had brought their own bottle of Merlot and were drinking from wine glasses, and second, they had brought their own tablecloth to put over the standard issue, bolted-into-the-sidewalk table.
Have you ever dreamed of ditching the corporate world in order to open a small business in a rural town? Can big city marketing experience translate to a small town coffee shop? Lets look at someone that did it.
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Over the 4th of July weekend, I escaped the hustle and bustle of Manhattan to relax a few hours away in a small town in upstate New York. It was a big day for a college friend of mine, who was marking her full exit from the corporate world with the opening of a little coffee shop cafe on Main Street, USA.
She has actually made a pretty linear progression in her marketing career, one that many people might admire and aspire to.
Need a website? This week I interview the guys behind Squarespace.com, an online web page publisher that powers websites for businesses, bloggers, and professionals worldwide.
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Squarespace.com lets you build your own website from scratch with an elegant, easy-to-use interface. As I always try to do, I put the product through the paces to evaluate it myself.
Look, even though millions of people figured out how to register a domain name on GoDaddy.com, that they can create their own site on places like Tumblr, and can post a YouTube video to their blog by pasting an embed code, that doesn’t mean it’s going to look like a professionally-designed web page.
If that were the case, why do people constantly still ask me to help them set up a website? And even though there’s something as seemingly simple as a 1-click install with WordPress, why does my web consultant friend John have more clients than he can handle?
The Economy. The White House. The Auto Industry. The Internet. The world is in a massive state of change right now, and I got to listen to the business people that are leading us through this change. Let’s find out what I learned.
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The quotes just kept on coming.
I was manning the WiredBiz Twitter account at their Disruptive Business Conference in New York City on June 15, 2009, and Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos was being interviewed by Wired writer Steven Levy. As fast as I could type, Bezos would answer nearly each and every question with the perfect sound bite. He was the God of Quotations.
How did he make it look so easy?
Sure, fifteen years of media training will certainly make any executive a lot smoother than the average marketing manager giving a ‘How to Use Twitter’ presentation to their department’s VP. But somehow every response answered the interviewer’s question, was effortlessly weaved into a conversational format, yet stood on it’s own as a how-to guide for entrepreneurs.
If you’ve been to a bar lately, you’ve probably been asked, “Hey, what are you drinking?” But have you ever really taken the time to think about your answer?
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It was a sunny Sunday in New York City this past weekend, and as I watched the people of Manhattan leisurely go about their day, I had to wonder how many of them were a little hung-over, just like me.
A few glasses of great wine over Saturday night dinner with friends led to a few more at an outdoor garden, and my friend and I started talking to a couple we just met. When the waitress came over and asked what he wanted to drink, the husband — a neurosurgeon no less – asked for something “different and exotic.”
Without skipping a beat, the server came back with an orange colored concoction in a martini glass, to which she then floated something in it and lit it on fire. Everyone was happy… the man who got his wish, the onlookers in the back garden, and the waitress who later got him to order a second one, at $14 a pop.
His wife was much more direct. Her drink was straight and to the point: Ketel One and tonic, on the rocks, with a lime. Bang. Done.
Hey, it’s the 1 year anniversary of The Hopkinson Report! So what’s my secret? Either delve into a topic that you’re really really into, or meet and interview people doing very cool things. As a car geek, I spent 4 hours at the New York Auto Show. So in a testament to my very first episode, the Porsche vs. the iPhone, I’m going to talk about cars, and marketing.
First let’s set the scene… The New York Auto Show is a massive production, a popular trade show that takes place at the Javits Center in Manhattan for up to 12 hours a day over the course of 10 days. Saturday April 11 brought pouring rain to New York City, making it the perfect day to be inside but do something fun. After sufficient food and caffeination, I descended into the belly of the beast.
The crowd was extremely diverse. There were plenty of 30-something white guys like me ogling the latest Porsches, families of 5 climbing in and out of minivans, and gangly teenagers with newly-minted driver’s licenses in the Fast and Furious demo talking tiptronic transmissions.
I also spotted a few secretly giddy Dads that probably implied to their wives that it would be a big chore to lug the boy to the show. Later on, he would ruin his 8-year-old son for the next 50 years by sitting him in the driver’s seat of a $100,000 Mercedes convertible, not realizing he had planted a seed in the kids brain and that he wouldn’t actually get to OWN that car until he was nearing retirement.
But with a fun, free-for-all atmosphere where everyone there patiently followed the car show etiquette of taking turns getting to sit in most any car they wanted, and without the normal stress of a used car salesman in a bad suit hovering over you, it was bliss for a car geek.
Are the new breed of netbooks the real deal or marketing hype?
In last week’s podcast and blog post, I laid out a dilemma for the gadget-obsessed. The Amazon Kindle 2 and a slew of mini notebook computers – or netbooks – have entered the market in the last year or so at a price point of $350.
Is either, or both of them, worth the tech investment?
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The price point of $350 is very interesting, especially in these times. For a lot of people, if there’s a gadget you need for $40 or less, such as a thumb drive, a new set of earbuds, or a case for your iPhone, most likely you’ll grab it as an impulse buy because it will make you happy or more efficient.
If there’s something over $400, like a new TV, a new Macbook, or a video console system and a few games, then it becomes more discretionary and something you put off until you have the budget for it. Or at least that’s how it you SHOULD look at it.
Do I? In looking back at my major geek purchases over the last 18 months, it turns out I’ve been remarkably consistent in my upgrade pattern. Let’s take a look:
Frankly, this analysis is rather stunning. I’m almost ashamed. Three to four years???
The sky is falling! The economy is failing! People are panicking! So why are all these people so happy? I take to the streets to find out why.
It was a simply spectacular fall Sunday in New York City. Much, much too nice out to stay inside and work on a podcast, so I took the streets of Manhattan with my camera to talk to people and find out first-hand how the current state of the economy was effecting them. Here are 5 profiles.
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I have a saying that when you live in New York City, every day is like being on vacation. The sites, the sounds, the excitement. And nowhere is that more evident than Manhattan’s SoHo district. The area is known for it’s cast iron architecture, extravagantly-priced artist lofts, retail and boutique shopping, leggy models, fashion designers, and art galleries.
The variety of accents you’ll hear in just 5 minutes on the corner of Prince and Mercer tells you that visitors from around the globe descend on the area to experience all it has to offer. Surely one of the richest neighborhoods in the country (Forbes has the nearby 10003 zip code as the 14th most expensive in the country, just 4 spots behind 90210) will be feeling the downturn.
Lets see what people say … continue reading the blog post below.
The internet has revolutionized the way we conduct business. But one category that seemingly can’t be brought online is the process of buying glasses. I discuss why it’s so blurry.
Today’s podcast is a bit of a rant. Quite simply, I want to buy new glasses. The problem is, the process of doing so is one of the few things in life that are NOT made easier by the web. Let me explain.
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I am the ultimate researcher. Give me any task, from finding the best digital camera to the best sushi restaurant in New York and I will give you a rundown of all the things you need to consider. In the past six months I have researched Blu Ray DVD players, pillowtop mattresses, external hard drives, portable thumb drives, ski houses in upstate New York, and traditional Japanese guest houses in Kyoto. Really, I’m a machine. Everyone asks me to do this.
All of this is made easier by the web. I type fast, am a Google god, and can open a new browser tab with a new source of information before you can blink.
But none of this matters when looking for new glasses. The system is broken, and I’m going to give you 7 reasons why.
Have you ever thought about what it takes to create and market your own business? The founders of Roomorama.com have taken an existing niche business idea and added social media to it. I interview the founders, Jia and Federico, to see what they’ve learned.
They’ve taken the concept of connecting people looking for short-term apartment rentals in major cities, and added a twist of social media.
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We cover the following topics:
Making the leap from 9-to-5 worker to entrepreneur
How did they get started?
What problem did they see that they were passionate about solving?
Jia’s reaction the week before she quit her day job
Product positioning
Handling online financial transactions
Funding a small business
The Roomorama revenue model
Creating a win-win situation with customers
Advantage of Roomorama vs. competitors like Craig’s List
Using the community and transparency to build trust
