PC4Media

"all search begins and ends with people, not algorithms."

Yep.

Online Local Ad Spending = $12.1B by 2011

That's a big #.

Sales Gender Differences

You may remember Jeanne Worrick putting me in my place a few blog posts ago.

Well. She's at it again. She's using StumbleUpon to do research to support her crusade. (That's like using eBay to buy Prada.)
 

Here's her latest ridiculous statement:

This confirms what I have been saying: that women don't need to be taught how to read people, but men do.

In her comment on my previous post, Jeanne said:

Peter, you are part of a new generation that may have grown up seeing women more empowered and so more readily accept and respect what she has to say. If so, that is great.

That is true. I don't believe that there are many "professions" that a man has "an edge"  on a woman or vice versa.

I also don't think that women are naturally more intuitive in assessing a person. Maybe if you paired up 100 women vs 100 men, women are more intuitive. But, to make the blanket statement that ALL men need to learn it and NO women need to learn it, seems a bit extreme.

Sorry, Jeannne. I still don't see the case for a sales course tailored only to women.

So, Rick and Dave... When is OMG (Recently named to the Inc 5000) going to step up and dig into those tens of thousands of assessments they've given to determine whether men have different sales issues than women?

GrayBoxx Will Revolutionize Local Search

They haven't launched yet.

But, their BETA site (found here) is accessible.

Check out a few searches and compare to the crappy local search results on Yahoo and Google.

Cross Marketing Your Business

The box below gets appended to our clients' newsletters - if they opt for it. By participating, they get their message out to 60k subscribers. That's reach that a small business could never acheive alone. We're soon launching some more cool things for our clients that will get their message out even farther - and help them increase their traffic from search engines.

What Else Do you Need?
We strive to be a resource for our clients beyond our own expertise. We do this by building relationships with other stellar business professionals. As a member of WhizSpark, we're happy to introduce you to some news from some of these resources. Feel free to call us if you'd like personal  recommendations.

BenefitsLab: Why A Company Should Have a Benefits Portal
Sharks: Worcester Sharks Announce PreSeason Schedule
WhizSpark: Upcoming Events and Local Business News
Strategic Auctions, Inc: Upcoming & Past Residential Real Estate Auctions
August Electric: Protecting Your Home from Intrustion with Security Lighting
Ink Again: Save 30-40% on Your Printer Cartridges
Unlimited Links: How Can I Share My MS Outlook Data with My Coworkers?
Northeast Export Magazine: Building Your Business Internationally
Chafee Center: Chafee Center Helps Launch Zana Network
Irish Times Pub: Celebrating 10 Years
BBB: Torch Awards, Golf Tournament, New Members
Sunshine Landscaping: Summer Lawn Care Tips
Marlborough Chamber: Chamber Events & Happenings
Business Concepts, Inc: Are You the Right Person for That Job?
Worcester Boys and Girls Club: Thanks to Commerce Bank and the Lions Club
New Life Health and Wellness: Summer Time Recipes, Nutrion and Exercise Tips
Lujon's Mens Clothing: Boston Quality Suits at 40% Lower Prices
Mark Paskell: How to Interview a Contractor
Amcomm Wireless: Win a JABRA Bluetooth
LTS LeaderBoard: LTS Leaderboard Launches 4th Season in MA 

heythatsme

Unfortunately, HeyLetsgo had to change their name to going.com. Actually, it's a better URL. I wish I had thought of it. I am sure it was bought from someone else, though. I wonder how much of the money they raised went to that?

Anywhoo.. I thought they were going to trigger a big following of "hey..." dot coms, like napster and friendster sparked the "ster" domain movement.

So. The point of the post: heythatsme. Follow the link. It'll all make sense.

And big congrats to Joe.

Yes. This post was about the importance of sales ability, Roy. Sorry.

Clarification: If you follow the 'big congrats to Joe' post and read Rick's comment on me, I should clarify that I am not averse to raising funds. It just has to be on the right terms.

Clarification II: There is little to no connection between the links to Roy and the links to Rick. I was just following a stream of consciousness. Maybe I should write for readability, instead.

A Great Bank

I am seriously considering keeping a public log of everyone that I meet and have a quality conversation with. What are your thoughts? Tell me. Then, I'll tell you why I might do it.

Spoke with Christopher Berglund from Marlborough Bank this morning. Good guy. Met him here. He helps businesses get the money they need to grow. He is also an expert at retail lending.

As a result of our conversation, I am connecting Joe Eori of Sage Capital with Chris because they both agreed that they might be able to help each other - by helping each others' clients. 

Anyways. The impetus for writing this post was that Marlborough Bank's URL is A Great Bank. That's smart. Not only from the tech side because it helps with SEO. But, from a marketing side too as there aren't many banks that strive to be GREAT. And from talking to Chris and learning about how they put service and relationships and their clients' needs before "pushing products" - it sounds like they 'live it' over there too.

Social Search

I haven't watched the videos yet. Scoble is always a little late to the game. I've never really seen him say anything too profound. And this actually verges on the sensational. I don't think techmeme, facebook and mahalo will beat google. Although, they are all piece of a more useful interweb.

But, I agree with the theory: The most important variable in the future-perfect search algorithm is 'what mom thinks'.  Or more broadly: what the people you trust think is important.

And that's why implicit social networking is much more important than friend lists too.

If you want to know what implicit social networking is, it's best embodied in the Robot Coop's applications, where "things" mediate our connections; where common experiences and dreams connect us.

Previous Beechwood Forum Speakers

We're booking some speakers for the Beechwood Forum. Each of them asks me for a description of the group and what other speakers talk about. Each time, I have to go through and dig out the links. Now I can just send people to here.

Nancy Stassi
Peter Stanton
Dick Kennedy
Kevin O'Sullivan
Carl Harvey
Dr. Subramanian
John DiPietro
Ira Rashap
Kelle Sparta
Adam Marx
Michael Lehr & Ken Lizotte
Ted Turner and Judith Bowman
Ted Coine & Jacki Rose
Eric Tapley

Update: While I am at it. I might as well have a centralized 'public' place where I can store the upcoming dates and who is slotted in to speak.

September 20th - Ray Frias, CEO of BBB.
October - Attending NE Biz Expo in lieu of meeting.
November 22nd - Dennis Rice, Executive Director of Alternatives Unlimited
December 20th 2007 
January 24th 2008
February 21st
March 20th
April 17th.
May 22nd
June 19th
July 24th
August 21st
September  18th
October 23rd
November 20th

Events: Local Community vs Local Search

Yelp launched event functionality for "users". (Scoble's review here.) They're entering a very crowded field of startups still - who are all still dominated by eVite.

Ethan points out Yelp doesn't have events in their database. Of course they don't. They just launched it. Ethan says his company has lots of events because they are focussed on creating a search experience. True. They do a good job there.

IMHO, you need both a big list of events and you need a comunity. Yelp seems good at creating a community or atleast throwing a party. Ethan thinks search is more important.

A long time ago, I and a lot of other people, stopped comparing my startup to these companies chasing consumers. Obviously, WhizSpark hasn't focussed on search. And our community isn't that large or geographically dispersed. And we're focussed on business networking events and events that have a financial purpose for being. We provide a service that provides value to event producers, businesses and individual business professionals. Things that they are willing to pay for. But, every startup founder has a sweet spot for his own startup. Mine is certainly not better than any others. In fact, there are so many unique approaches being pursued, it's really cool to watch. When we started, there certainly wasn't anywhere near this amount of innovation. I welcome Yelp to the party. It'll be interesting to see how their service evolves when they begin to care about generating revenue.