Data is like money. Money does not care who owns it, how people feel, or what people do with it…etc. Money has no feeling or emotions. It does not grow on trees. Money does not care if it is poorly managed or properly managed. There is no crime for mismanaging money, but there is often a price to be paid. The same holds true for data. When money is properly managed, it can create new money via investing. In turn, the new money can be used to acquire new things and privileges. The same holds true for data. When data is properly managed, it can be used to create new data via mining. Business intelligence created from data mining can be used to acquire new things (or create new products). When data is mismanaged, there is often no crime committed, but there is often a price to be paid. The sheer loss of data is similar to the loss of money. Without data, the power to create something new is lost. Likewise, the loss of money creates a loss in the power to acquire something new. Given the relationships just described between data and money, why do so many organizations mismanage their data? There is a divergence the occurs, and it is this: Data is often worth money, but money is not worth data. In other words, they are not completely interchangeable. Data must be converted into money before it can be used in commerce. The is the role of a financial institution. Your bank statement is data, but that data can only be converted into cash by a financial instrument (i.e. ATM, Debit Card, Cashier…etc.). Why do so many organizations respect their money, but disrespect their data? As society continues the transition from an industrial age into an information age, keep a close eye on the role of data. It may soon become the currency of choice as the dollar may someday lose respect.

Creating something from nothing is one of the best talents a person could possess. What is the best part about this talent? Everybody has it. Yet, very few use it. I have many people ask me about various patents, websites, e-books and products I have developed. They ask, “How did you come up with that?” or “What made you decide to do that?” Once I answer their question(s) they almost always respond with this statement: “Wow…I wish I could do that.” I often explain how they could create. Yet, still, the resistance in thought continues.

Question: Where is this “cannot do it” mindset coming from?

It’s a real tragedy…Particularly for a nation known for innovation and invention. I’m sure many of you have an answer to offer. Some of these people are hell bent on convincing others that they cannot create something meaningful. Interestingly, these same people are loaded with thoughts and information about various things. I often come to them for ideas…and they deliver! There is an overwhelming amount of people who think their ideas are not worth something monetarily, or their ideas do not offer enough substance. Phewy! Think about it. There are people making millions of dollars writing songs about their depression and heartache. These people got rich from their feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy. Gretchen Wilson wrote a song about being a redneck woman, and made history. Prior, she had never written a song before. She felt she had nothing to write about. She felt inadequate to be a country star after watching Faith and Shania showcase their beauty on videos. “I could never be that. I’m a redneck from a small town in Illinois.” It wasn’t until John Rich (of Big ‘n Rich) said “Write about being a redneck.” Once Redneck Woman hit the airwaves, it was a hit. Women across the country could relate. Gretchen was not alone in her thinking. They were not beauty queens in a video either. They could relate to the feelings of inadequacy.

One of the biggest things holding people back today is something called Compare and Despair. Compare yourself to somebody who has more than you, and see yourself as the deprived one. It is stink’n think’n. To achieve a higher level of thought and creativity, you must get past yourself. The best part about being you is simply being YOU. Believe in it, and believe in yourself. Creating something from nothing is often about having faith in yourself. Confidence is the engine powering invention.

The search engine is an online tool with two faces. On one hand, it is a tool designed to search for things on the Web. On the other hand, it is a tool for achieving visibility. The majority of folks use a search engine for finding things on the Web. However, for those of us in the Web marketing world, getting found on the Web is the quest. The search engine is actually a visibility engine. We want people to see us listed on the search results. We want people to know about us. We want to be discovered by everyone. We want people to click on our Web link. Many clients request to be placed in the top ranks of a search engine. They spend good money on SEO and SEM efforts. There is a list of keywords they always want to be seen under in search results. However, there is almost always a problem with their list. Their list is full of a bunch of common words they are interested in targeting. What makes this a problem? The words will almost always have stiff competition as other people want to be seen when those words are searched upon. Common words such as consulting, cars, phones, tomatoes or shoes are surely to be expensive in pay-per-click and very difficult to be organically ranked.

Question: How do you get visible in a visibility engine?
Answer: Be unique.
Unique words get found in a visibility engine. What are unique words? Words that are made up, misspelled, or appear in a unique pattern with other words. Let’s take a quick look at an example. Let’s say you are interested in getting visibility related to tomato soup. If you have a forum, blog or video series you might want to cleverly name it one of the following:
Toomato Soup – A misspelled word
Twomato Soop – A made up word
Twomade Oh Soup – A unique pattern of words
Two Made A Soup - A unique phrase
As of this writing nobody shows up under those words in reference to tomato soup. Is this a visibility opportunity? You bet! These four examples would only cost pennies in an SEM campaign because nobody is investing in those words. Organically in SEO, these four examples are winners again. Nobody is using them. Yet, when these four examples are said out loud, they all sound like tomato soup…a couple of expensive pay-per-click words with heavy organic ranking competition.

There is a skill rarely discussed, and it is so important, that you must know about it. It is a skill that is completely overlooked in the academic world. Yet, it is a skill used almost daily by just about every profession. If you are in business development or technology, then you have certainly used this skill. If you have ever tried to sell an idea to somebody, then you have used this skill. If you have ever tried to keep people’s undivided attention, then you have used this skill. Are you wondering what skill I am talking about? I will tell you in a minute. Some folks have become very good at this skill. As a result, they have become very successful. They have been able to convince crowds to listen closely. In fact, if you want somebody to immediately focus on something, this is the skill to master. If you want people to listen to every word you say, this is the skill to master. If you want people to read through your website and buy things, then this is the skill to master. By now, you are probably thinking, “Okay, enough already! What is this skill? Please state it!” If you have read to this point, then you have just experienced somebody using this skill on you. Do you want to know what the skill is I am talking about? Okay. Here it is…The skill is the ability to build curiosity. When people are curious, they are open. You cannot be pushing something away at the same time you are curious about it. This is powerful when you meet people who are resistant or unapproachable. Curiosity is the nutcracker. It can make the most stubborn turtle come out of it’s shell. That tough customer or manager that keeps saying “No.” to everything…make him or her curious. You will watch that “No.” turn into “Oh?” Building curiosity and learning how to manage it, is a skill. Be sure it is in your toolbox.

It has been said that customers only buy two things:

1. Solutions to their problems, and
2. Good feelings

Right now, customers especially need solutions to their problems. Specifically, their jobs are in possible jeopardy due to the economic climate. They need a solution, and right now most retailers, are not providing it. Deep discounts are not necessarily a solution, but they can provide good feelings. That’s only one of the two previously mentioned. Right now, as a retailer, you need both. As the retail sector continues to get pounded by the economic downturn, more retailers are slashing prices. Deep discounts and clearance sales are popping up everywhere. In turn, the aggressive savvy consumer market is making a comeback. As customers worry about their jobs and the prospects of long term unemployment, saving money is in vogue. According to recent news from the Associated Press, the annual savings rate for consumers is at a new high. This is a bit of a mind shift, considering the savings rate for Americans has been a negative number for years. The shift from spending to saving has been more apparent online. Social media conversations have turned to saving a buck, versus spending it. In fact, a whole new group of deal chasers has sprouted on several consumer sites.

Question: Is this a good opportunity for retailers?

Answer: You bet!

Retailers who can demonstrate their brand’s ability help you save money will be winners. Notice the word “help” is accentuated in that last sentence. We are not talking about massive discounts and blowout sales. We are talking about a retailer helping people cope with their current environment. Look no further than Hyundai’s latest offer of allowing customers to return a car if they lose their job. As soon as their offer hit the airwaves, interactive traffic exploded for Hyundai. Customer’s wanted to know more about the deal, and Hyundai wanted to know more about customer’s situations. Traditional discount marketing does not work if the customer has no job or income. Customers want help, and solutions to their problems. Hyundai recognized a discount does not provide a solution for the job weary. Helping customers cope with debt due to unemployment is a solution.

In the early years of ecommerce, simply getting a products page with a shopping cart and secure transactional infrastructure was the goal. Today’s ecommerce is about actively engaging with online shoppers. Larger ecommerce websites allow shoppers to rate products and post their own product reviews. In so many words, customer satisfaction now has a loud speaker for the world to hear. The loud speaker follows a product, or service, wherever it goes. Go to any of the major commerce sites like Best Buy, Sears, and Amazon and you will see many products getting rated and reviewed by customers. You can see everyone’s thoughts and experiences with a product, and it’s not just limited to the actual commerce site. Websites like Consumerist.com and RipOffReport.com have opened the door to customer’s experiences.

What’s most intriguing is how large corporations “attempt” deal with this open style of feedback. It’s something that makes many organizations uncomfortable. Why? Most organizations do not like to engage in conversations about their short comings and mistakes. Marketers worry that if they acknowledge these new media channels as legitimate, they automatically endorse the whining and complaining that sometimes takes place in them. This is particularly true for CEOs whose jobs are measured on their ability to cast positive images in the shareholder world. With the peer-to-peer style of communications happening in the social network arena, a company can no longer simply ignore negative feedback online. Several companies have made the mistake of using their PR marketing communication teams, or legal teams, to correct negative conversations. These teams have not adapted to this new channel of communication. They are still in the mode of issuing statements that talk unidirectional “to” customers, versus talking bidirectional “with” customers. The secret here is to stop fearing negativity.

Look no further than Dell as an example. In 2007, there was a posting on The Consumerist called “22 Confessions Of A Former Dell Sales Manager” that spread like wildfire across the Web. It was a list of tips for getting better deals from Dell. The company didn’t like it and sent in their legal team to squash the posting on The Consumerist. They sent a cease-and-desist letter to The Consumerist webmaster. In turn, The Consumerist cheerfully published the letter on their site while channels like DIGG and Reddit picked up on it. Dell’s credibility was sinking fast! Several days later, Dell’s Chief Blogger issued an apology for the company’s arrogant behavior and reaction. Within a day, the story lost steam and pretty much died. The lesson?…It is now more important than ever, for companies to acknowledge mistakes in these new channels. If they want to keep their customers, they must deliver the one thing every customer wants: Trust.

Peer-to-Peer communications is something customers have longed for many years. They wanted a real conversation that not only involved a company, but it’s customers too. They did not like just-being-talked-to as so often done by television commercials and lousy call centers. With social media, they got their wish.
Question: Has a new human behavior been discovered with social media?
Answer: No.
What we are now seeing with social media, is an interactive digital paper trail fully documenting our same old behavioral traits. A whole new level of interactivity is upon us, but at the very core, people are still behaving like people. Social media has not given us a new set of emotions. Rather, it has given us a megaphone and a mirror. We are now seeing ourselves in the mirror more than ever. We are now hearing ourselves, and neighbors more than ever. We are now seeing online proof of how everybody else thinks and behaves. And it’s not just limited to humans. Corporate behavior now has a digital paper trail fully documenting their interactivity in the online world.

Many like to call this era Web 2.0. I believe that best describes a new level of technology, but does NO justice in describing the human factors involved. Something has certainly changed in the human factor component. It deserves its own description: Interactivity 2.0.

With Google surpassing over 11.8 billion searches per month, its no wonder many marketers now want their product pictures to get top rankings in search engines. What’s different? If you search for a term in Google, you get the traditional results back with a list of indexed sites. However, notice when you click over to Google Images, you get an entirely different list of sites with a corresponding image. The rankings are all together different for images. Unfortunately, most search engines today struggle with ranking relevant images. Since the engines do not have image recognition built in, they must rely on the image descriptions you provide in your site code. Getting a top ranked image is a little different strategy than getting a top ranked website listing. Unlike your main SEO efforts of HTML code optimization, metas, titles, site index, and keyword content, images are treated differently by Google. To date, there is not a pay-per-click option specific to images.

Here is where to begin:
1. Name the image file as a keyword. Example: mykeyword.JPG
2. Make sure the image ALT tags have keyword content in your code.
3. The image should be surrounded by the targeted keywords.

Until embedded image recognition technology catches up with search technology, it will be important to be mindful of images descriptions.

When it comes to writing articles with the intent of getting good search engine rankings, there are six golden rules to follow.

1. BALANCE. Strike a balance between good grammar and good “crawler” grammar. Make it keyword rich for crawlers. If your keywords are something like “Internal Revenue Service” avoid abbreviating everything in the article to “IRS” in the article. It can make the article a bit wordy to readers, but the crawlers love it.

2. STRIP-DOWNS. If you submit your article to an article submission site, avoid sites that do strip-downs. Some sites will publish your article with your name for author credit, but take out your website info. Make sure your web address stays in tact for the reciprocal link.

3. TITLE. This is simple but often missed: Make sure you have at least one keyword in the title. Good attention grabbing titles do not necessarily translate into good crawler titles. Example: If your keyword is handbags, it needs to be there. Don’t do this title–”What is this year’s hottest accessory?” It should be this title–”What are the hottest handbags for this year?”

4. AUTHOR BOX. Every article should have an author’s box with your keywords and website. Some folks will write an article and only put “written by [insert name]” at the top. Avoid this mistake.

5. FORMAT. While HTML articles are more crawler friendly, if you feel the need to have the article in PDF format, make sure you have at least one keyword in the PDF file name and link description.

6. SUB-TITLES. (This one is terribly overlooked!) Some crawlers will display the article title in full, with the beginning sentence as the description versus the Meta. Go an extra step, put a sub-title in your article that describes the content. The crawler is more likely to display the sub-title over the first sentence in the search results. Keep in mind, this sometimes does not directly impact rankings, but increases the odds of somebody clicking on it if the number one or two rank does not read well. After all, getting somebody to click on your link is the REAL goal.

Detroit. After months of being in the national spotlight for a bailout, did the additional coverage help Detroit automakers? Hardly. The folks in Washington got the opportunity to take the air out of Detroit’s tires. There seemed to be a continuous assault against Detroit’s past and present mistakes. There was no shortage of negative press for Detroit. They got slammed for job banks, private jets, gas hogs, poor quality…etc. Being on the brink of bankruptcy only threw more gas on the fire. Not good. So, the looming question for Detroit is: How will they recover? The 2009 year will be do-or-die, not just for Detroit, but virtually every car manufacturer.

They are ALL hurting and NOBODY’s business is safe.

Sounds like a great opportunity doesn’t it?

For Detroit, getting the American consumer to look beyond the negative perceptions has long been the hill to climb. To this very day, the majority of American consumers do not believe that Detroit builds quality fuel-efficient vehicles. Despite the real facts and evidence about their cars, the American consumer feels they are correct in their thinking. Any marketing and advertising against their paradigm is always met with resistance. Trying to change this belief could be a complete waste of time. A completely different course should be taken. Get customers curious. People are not able to push away at the same time they are curious. Don’t sell what you are offering. Sell what they are buying. There are two case studies in the past Detriot might consider. Harley Davidson and Saturn.

Harley Davidson
Remember when AMF owned Harley Davidson? OMG! The bikes were pathetic. The American consumer did not believe Harley could make a quality bike no matter what data or advertisement was presented. Sound familiar? In short, the company changed hands. The bikes were completely redesigned to customer specifications. Production was greatly limited and the biggest re-branding effort in history followed. In the end, Harley was able to turn things around in a big way.

Saturn
In 1990 we heard, “A different type of car. A different type of company.” Indeed. A car that didn’t dent? Yes. Dent-resistant plastic body panels were a unique technology. Historically, unique technology in the automotive business wins. A different type of car company? Yes. A factory that took singing breaks and hug sessions. A dealership experience that was more about the prospect than a commission.

More than anything, these two case studies made customers curious to see what at the buzz was all about. Curiosity is showroom traffic.

UPDATE 1/11/09
Looks like a possible step in the right direction: http://blogs.thecarconnection.com/marty-blog/1016787_2009-detroit-show-cadillac-converj-concept