Fiser's Daily Thoughts - 4.28.11

FDTs for 4.28.11:

Apologies for missing a few days. Had a couple of road trips and my power has been down for 2 days with all the storms in Memphis.

1. Twitter in the Rain - Speaking of bad weather. With three consecutive days of inclement weather in MEM, I have found that Twitter is by far the best way to get weather updates. The last thing I want in any storm is DirecTV!

2. Pay It Forward - Okay on to more exciting things... @SteveCase tweeted this website out today.  It's 20 blogs that every entrepreneur should read. I'm a big believer of spending 30 min. each day to cruise through articles, blogs, tweets from forward thinking business people. Don't stop there. Pay it forward and send it to your current customers and prospects. It might be the spark for more business. Let me know if it works...

3. Got a big open house tonight at the office. Not even sure I need to mingle with customers/prospects since we have Ghost River/@boscossquared beer! Got a keg of Golden Ale and Witbier and that should do all the talking!

Fiser's Daily Thoughts - 4.21.11

FDTs for 4.21.11:

1. Company Website = The New Office Lobby - Ran across this stat today via @fastcompany article.

"Roughly 97% of consumers make their purchasing decisions via the web but decide to buy the products instead at physical retail locations."

Although this figure is for e-commerce, I would think this trend extends to other business sectors, but maybe not at such a high rate. Regardless, what does this mean for your business? I think it is a good indicator that your website has now become the lobby to your office. If your website is the first thing a prospect saw, would they explore further, email, even call? Or move on to the next company? Consider a facelift, monitoring analytics, and connecting to your website with social media activities.What are you doing to drive and keep web traffic?

2. No #2 today. I'm going to have to blame it on #3. See you on Monday!

3. No work tomorrow! And this means heading to the Madison Rooftop Party. If you are in downtown Memphis, stop by after work. $7 cover. Cocktails, Food, Music. It all last until 10pm.

   

Fiser's Daily Thoughts - 4.20.11

FDTs for 4.20.11:

My apologies for missing yesterday. I was away for most of the day. Back at it today...

1. Attention Upcoming Graduates - I really enjoyed this article from Brad Feld. Read it over lunch and being an MBA student instantly connected. How did you choose where to go after college/grad school? Decision based on a job or based on a city or something else? My first jump out of college was based on a job and not where I wanted to make a life. Don't get me wrong...I'm glad I did it this way b/c ultimately I made a life and met my wife. Article reminds me of a quote from Twain,

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.  So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor.  Catch the trade winds in your sails.  Explore. Dream.  Discover."

Hope all the upcoming graduates will get a little inspiration from this article.

2. Internal Brand Ambassadors - Is your team ambassadors for your brand 24/7 or just during working hours? I'm certainly not advocating that everyone drink the company Kool-Aid 24/7, but I do think that employees can capitalize on great opportunities outside of work. Might be at a church, a child's school function, a bar, etc. Do you have your team prepared to be an ambassador for your brand? If I run across any literature on this, I will post to the blog.

3. Grizz Nation! Rise Up! 7:30pm CT TNT. Let's do this!

     

Fiser's Daily Thoughts - 4.18.11

FDTs for 4.18.11:

Hope the weekend went well for everyone. Got to make it quick today. There is a 12-page corporate governance/ethics paper waiting on me to pay some attention to it.

1. In the spirit of corporate governance and ethics...When investing, do you ever review the credentials of the company's board of directors. In the past I don't think I would have done this, but after taking this corporate governance/ethics class I probably will. Next time you think about investing in a company's stock, take a quick look at their board. I think you will be glad you did.

2. Okay...I admit that #1 was boring. On to augmented reality apps. I've already blogged about this subject, but wanted to touch on it again. How about augmented reality app for real estate? Think it would be great for condo hunting, office space leasing, etc. Hold your mobile device up to a building and check out what's inside. What do you think? Does it exist?

3. Wife was out of town this weekend. Here was her replacement. Somebody played too hard!

Fiser's Daily Thoughts - 4.15.11

FDTs for 4.15.11:

Weekend Edition!

1. Cold Calls. Just hearing these words can make people shiver. Is a true cold call becoming extinct due to social media? I've often used LinkedIn and Twitter to warm a lead up before calling a prospect. I'm mixed on whether to begin with a strict cold call or the social media warm-up. Both have pros/cons and seem to be largely dependent upon factors such as the age, industry, personality of your prospect.  Regardless, I believe a mix of both optimizes your chances of turning a prospect into a client. What's your choice and why?
 
2. If you haven't already, check these guys out. SeatGeek (@SeatGeek). I first read about this company in Fast Company (@fastcompany) a while back. Some of the perks of using them: Aggregate tickets from several online ticket providers, pricing forecast and a peek of your seat view before you buy.  

3. Haven't had these guys in a while. So delicious...

Fiser's Daily Thoughts - 4.14.11

FDTs for 4.14.11:

1. Been following OpenView Venture Partners (@OpenViewVenture) for a couple of weeks on twitter. They push out great content via OpenView Labs (@OpenView_Labs) that is worth 10 min. of your time. Not to mention, great business model for VC Firm.

2. While I'm touting OpenView, this was a great article that they pushed out today about driving email based subscriptions... http://labs.openviewpartners.com/what-should-an-incentive-to-subscribe-look-like/

3. Day baseball is the greatest! Wish I could have made the Redbirds game today.

Fiser's Daily Thoughts - 4.13.11

FDTs for 4.13.11:

1. Virtual Dressing Rooms - Does this mean that brick and mortar clothing stores are a thing of the past? Especially with free shipping becoming the norm? Still think people like the shopping "experience" and touch and feel of the clothing. Next question is how to get a virtual shopping assistant involved. Here is a YouTube clip:

2.  Social Media Single Sign-On Technology - Calling on someone much more sophisticated than me to build or enlighten me if it already exists... Can we get one site that will consolidate all our social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) with SSO tech? Something like HootSuite or TweetDeck does for Twitter.

3. 72 degrees, no clouds in sight, perfect day on the workplace rooftop!

 

Fiser's Daily Thoughts - 4.12.11

Like a bad habit, I'm back to my blog. This time, I'm taking a little bit of a different approach...

Instead of long narratives that may or may not captivate you, I am going to throw two to three of my daily thoughts out. My hope is that some of these will promote in-depth conversations that could produce even greater ideas.

FDT's for 4.12.11

1. QR Codes in Commercial Real Estate - I've seen a lot of QR codes utilized in residential real estate, but not many in commercial real estate. Easy way to show off listings. Maybe take it a step further and engage the prospect with a chat/text function? Couple of links to check out:

http://www.slideshare.net/Stutts/20-interesting-things-qr-codes
http://www.bizjournals.com/memphis/stories/2010/10/11/tidbits1.html

2. Charter School Administrative Support - Currently, there is not a good solution for back office support in Tennessee charter schools. Accountants/Development Directors/Etc. are needed like any other school, but the funds aren't there to pay a competitive salary. Could pooling charter school's back office duties together be the solution? California has done it...

http://www.exed.net/

3. My killer shoes that arrived last night via Zappos (yet another plug for them)