Sarah Benson, a writer from Ink magazine interviewed me and a bunch of other great people in Kansas City on the topic of Personal Branding. It’s a good piece. She did her homework. Although, I have a bit of beef with the headline she used, which reads “Sell Yourself” (doesn’t fit right with the spirit of personal branding being authentic and not contrived …but it’s catchy, so i get it). She does however frame things well by stating, “Personal branding is becoming easier and more important as we share more online.”

Grab an issue of Ink magazine and check out the article if you’re interested.

If you’re interested, I was asked to give a presentation on Personal Branding coming up on February 9th for GenKC at the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce. If you can make it, I’d like to see you there. Come say hi! They even made this fancy flier for my presentation

“Today is your day, your mountain is waiting, so get on your way.”

- Dr Seuss

It’s a common approach to sprinkle throughout your website and email communications, links to your company Facebook page and Twitter profile. The general rationale for most people who do this, is to increase your following in all of these channels. Research and trends continue to show that your company’s website is not a destination or starting point, but rather it’s social channels that are.

That said, rather than hoping your customers will click the Facebook or Twitter icon in the footer of your website or in the email template design, there is a place that is easily overlooked as the appropriate context for asking your customers to “Like” or “Follow” your business…

…the confirmation page.

Let’s say you run an ecommerce business. Upon checkout, customers expect to get a confirmation on-screen of their purchase (which is looked at carefully). You should embed the Facebook “Like” box to make smart use of the space you have for the page shown at checkout. Given the customer has already purchased a product, one could say that there is not a better time to ask a customer to click a “Like” or “Follow” button” (given they just paid money for your product or service they want).

BTW, it’s not just limited to the confirmation page for not only checkout, but for things like Contact Us and other forms on your website are potential areas to provide a better context for prompting users to “Like” your company page. It’s easy for your web developer to just copy and paste the HTML code from the Facebook social plugin page.

I think this is a stupid-simple idea. Don’t over think it. It is easy to implement, great use of the space, and it just makes sense.

Now, can you please click “Like” button on this blog post thank you
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SNOWMAGEDDON hit Boston (i think it does every year). I was there for meetings with @Timberland, and I took this picture from the 11th floor, looking out my hotel window (this is with my point-n-shoot S95, it has a tilt-shift function).

‎I also took this picture of the postman while walking the streets in snowy Boston (again, took this with my point-n-shoot S95, using the tilt-shift feature. the more i learn how to use the features of this camera, the more i love it)

I had extra time on my hands after my client meetings in the Boston/New Hampshire area …so I dropped by to visit the bar from the movie The Social Network (Thirsty Scholar Pub). I do also realize this is rated an 11 out of 10 on the scale of geekyiness, but I was SO EXCITED!!!! To walk the ground Mark did… I shot this video blog and took this picture with my iPhone.

Lately, I’ve been a fan with taking just short-n-simple video blogs using the front-cam on my iPhone 4. They’re not edited pretty, or HD, but I really like how light and easy it is to quickly capture and share something. Plus the vertical ratio of the videos is fun, just cause it’s different than widescreen.

I shot this video with the front-camera on my iPhone (if you can’t see it click here).

This week I’m at Timberland‘s HQ. They are a client I work with. Come to think of it …I haven’t had a chance to really expand on my blog about some of the really fun stuff we’re doing with 2 projects that are on-going with them: http://blog.timberland.com and the Timberland Community. In the future, I’ll share more about some learnings of some of the really innovative stuff we’re doing with them.

If you do not have to work today, you should consider using your free time to do your “homework”. Yes, you should take a few moment to remember and read-up on significance of what MLK did for the world. But, after you’re done with that, instead of watching a movie or TV- take time to work on YOU. Plan, study, learn, and DO whatever it is that gets you closer to achieving your goals or projects. The smartest people I know, taught me that it’s the time when no one is working …that you should be working hard to get ahead. It takes sacrifice, but it’s worth the effort.

I stopped by the KCPT studios the other day for a meeting. During the tour of the TV station, we went outside under the TV/radio tower …so of course i whipped out my iPhone and took this photo and this short video. This perspective of the tower + metal construction is impressive! I remember walking under it and looking up and saying, “WHOA, this is awesome!” (i just wish i had my nice video camera with me…)

We do a lot of custom web development at the company I work for (Digital Evolution Group). However, many times we advise clients that it’s not in their best interest to start at the beginning and have us build things custom from the ground up.  That said, yesterday I lead the team that just launched a simple contest campaign for Kansas City Steak Company on Facebook. We utilized a popular contest campaign platform called Wildfire. It’s a simple, cheap, and relatively easy to stand-up in a matter of hours (you read that right, i said hours). You can use a white-label version of the app if you’re looking to hide any branding from Wildfire. And the CSS we customized for the client can even be reused for future contest campaigns. It’s certainly not the most sophisticated development or solution we’ve ever done for a client- but given the objectives, client needs and wants, budget and timing …this was the right solution.

BTW, I wasn’t paid to write any of this I just really like the App and wanted to share it with you.

A look at Midland Radio‘s SubZero headphones (full disclosure: Midland was the company who sponsored me at CES this year). If you can’t see the video, click here to watch.

This is just some fun random bits of footage from the conference. There is SO much fun stuff at CES, sometimes it’s hard to put it all in 1 video blog! If you can’t see the video below, click here to watch.

A first look at Discover Karaoke, a iPad powered karaoke system that’s simple to use. You can even download songs from iTunes for your karaoke songs. If you can’t see the video below, click here to watch.

A first look at the Nike+ SportWatch GPS powered by TomTom that tracks your runs and gives you reminders to go running. The sensor can track time, pace, distance, calories burned, and heart rate. Your running history of every run is tracked and stored.

I’ve always wanted to SEE a Tesla in real life. I’ve read SO much about them from the valley, this was so cool to see. Tesla is a all-electric car company out of California. They partnered with Nvidia to power this insanely awesome 17-inch infotainment display and video based instrument cluster. The Model S Tesla is an all-electric car that will be released in 2012. If you can’t see the video below, click here to watch.

Fulton Innovation shows off wireless electricity concept in the kitchen. Powered cereal boxes and soup! If you can’t see the video below, click here to watch it.