Climate, now there’s a hot topic. With concern growing for the welfare of the planet, businesses are finding green credentials and sustainability can be an appealing point of difference. For a sustainable business, striving to meet the triple bottom line (people, planet, profit) is the measurement of success.
As most businesses now present themselves digitally, an environmentally conscious enterprise will also look at the impact of their online activities. With the world’s data centers expected to surpass the airline industry as a greenhouse gas polluter by 2020 (from a study conducted by McKinsey & Co.), this is not a bad place to start and environmentally friendly hosting (with data centers powered by wind or solar) is emerging.
Also, here’s a nice idea from WWF to stop folk needlessly printing your attachments -
The tiny Swiss town of Obermutten (population 79) recently boosted it’s profile hugely. Like their page on Facebook and the town will print out your profile picture and post it on the town bulletin board. This was fine until the board was full and now with around 12,500 likes the townspeople have taken to using any available surface to display their fans.
Below are some points to consider as you consider digital marketing.
Search
Google is the #1 search engine.
You Tube is the second.
What are you doing on You Tube?
Turn your white papers in videos, product videos, how to videos etc
Google+ is actively searched by Goggle so it helps with rankings.
Get active on Google+…it might just help those rankings.
Social media
Social media is a new form of communication just as the phone was once. And as with the phone it may seem odd to start with but you will get the hang of it.
People are already talking in social media about your business, as such your “social phone” is already ringing – are you answering it? If not this is bad.
And if it is not ringing then this is even worse. Facebook is the #1 website on the web – what does it say about your business is you are not being talked about?
What should you use social media for?
Use it to listen to your customers. People want to be heard.
Find affinity with your customers. Helps you get in the mind of your customer.
Budgets
Digital marketing earns you sales; it is an investment not an expense.
Amortize your website costs. If you do you site properly it will last 3 years.
There is money in your balance statement somewhere for digital marketing – find it – cut back a trade show
And some stats:
70% of people believe what they read on the web.
Over 40 year olds are the largest buyers of iPads.
More than 50% of traffic is coming via a mobile browser.
69% of all business on the web starts at Google.
41 year old woman are the biggest players of social games
TimeZoneOne creates internet marketing campaigns for our clients. Websites and the like are the most important form of marketing / advertising for most small and medium sized businesses.
TimeZoneOne’s philosophy is “Fresh and on the Front Page”. We will create fresh website branding and content that will raise our client’s business to the front page of Google. This will drive sales leads.
We provide digital marketing to businesses in Chicago, Chicagoloand, Naperville and beyond.
However not everyone thinks that digital marketing is invaluable. This morning Nick reported back from the field that a prospect said to him….
“the internet is a Government tool to monitor communication, we do not believe in it”
I believe that goal setting is vital to helping people and organizations make progress.
In the formal context goal setting involves establishing specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-targeted objectives. Goal setting theory suggests that it’s powerful tool as it ensures everyone in a group has a common goal and understands what is expected of them.
I certainly believe this to be the case, but what I especially love about goal setting is that it engages the power of the subconscious. If you set your mind on a clear path and visualize it then your brain will find a way to get you there.
Here is a great quote wiki quote that describes this: “Goal setting capitalizes on the human brain’s amazing powers – our brains are problem-solving, goal-achieving machines.”
TIP:
In our USA office we have started asking ‘what is the objective of…this meeting, email etc’. This simple question at the start makes a huge difference to how you approach something. I encourage you to try this.
Achieving excellence should be everyone’s goal. After all why not? Why chose to be a bit average, a bit OK, a bit so-so?
Before “working” my background was sport and performance was a much easier thing to measure; at the end of a game someone won and someone lost. But even in sport once you dug deeper it still got murky with some people playing better, some people training harder etc
In business excellent performance is clearly desired but can get lost in the cracks of emails, meetings and worky-work.
Here is a short list of things that help with performance.
Clearly define what winning looks like
Clearly define and live by the culture
Communicate the big picture to everyone
Develop an ownership mentality
Be transparent to build ownership and understanding
Focus on internal communication
Celebrate wins
TimeZoneOne has always been focused on performance and excellence. However resting on your laurels gives you sores so I am delighted to report that we have just started sharpening our focus on performance.
Following on from yesterday’s blog I thought I’d share some more on the All Black’s haka and an American connection.
A number American High School and College Football teams have adopted and adapted haka and are performing variations of the haka used by the All Blacks, ‘Ka Mate‘ and ‘Kapa O Pango‘, as well us other haka from New Zealand and around the South Pacific. And it’s not just Hawai’i, where they have their own Polynesian traditions, but also in many other states including Texas, Utah, Nevada, Florida and Arizona – there are even a couple British American Football teams who are know to have performed haka.
Here’s the Bingham High Miners performing their haka…
Now I’d like to share what I think are some great All Black’s haka moments. Traditionally you would respond to a haka with a haka of your own, which is what the Polynesian teams do, but most team’s do not have a haka or an equivalent, so it’s hard for them to know just how to respond. The worst thing you can do is ignore it.
In 1996 the Australian’s chose to ignore the haka and run through warm-up drills instead. They then suffered their greatest ever defeat, losing 43-6 to the All Blacks. The Italians ignored the haka in 2007 and were thumped 76-14. In 2006 the Welsh would only let the All Blacks perform the haka before the anthems rather than right before kick off, the All Blacks performed the haka in the changing room to the disappointment of the Welsh crowd, and then went out and beat the home team 45-10.
A number of nations have developed their own responses to the haka, Australians sing ‘Waltzing Matilda’ and the English sing ‘Swing Low Sweet Chariot’. Both are good responses, but below are what I think are the best responses to the challenge of the haka…
In 1997, Englishman, Richard Cockerill went toe-to-toe with his opposite number Norm Hewitt while they performed the haka. The referee became so concerned that Hewitt and Cockerill would begin fighting that he pushed Cockerill away from Hewitt. Cockerill went on to say afterwards “I believe that I did the right thing that day,” he said. “They were throwing down a challenge and I showed them I was ready to accept it. I’m sure they would rather we did that than walk away.”
Normally, at the conclusion of the haka, both teams would get into position for the kick off. In 2008, Wales simply stood their ground. Both teams stood, staring at each other for over 2-minutes and the referee pleaded with them to begin the game. The Welsh had managed to get into the All Black’s heads a bit with this response and the All Blacks went on to not beat Wales by as much as they normally would have.
When Irish club side, Munster, played the All Blacks in 2008, the four New Zealanders in the side stepped forward and performed “Ka Mate” before the All Blacks.
And this is, in my opinion, the best response ever. I think that this response got inside the All Black’s head and set the platform for their defeat in the 2007 World Cup. The video doesn’t quite capture it, so I’ll explain. It’s the World Cup quarter final. The home side, France, came on to the field wearing track suits, as the All Blacks prepared for the haka, the French side took of their track suits and a third of the team were wearing red shirts, a third wore white shirts and a third wore blue shirts. So, when they lined up on half way in front of the All Blacks performing the haka, the formed a 22-man strong French flag in front of the All Blacks. The highly under-rated French side then went on to defeat the All Blacks. It was the All Blacks earliest ever exit from the World Cup.
A few weeks back I blogged about the opening ceremony of the Rugby World Cup. We are now in the final week with the All Blacks taking on France in the final this weekend.
The big story of the World Cup so far for New Zealand had been the injury which took a pivotal player, Dan Carter, out of the tournament, and then the injury to his replacement which has seen the unlikely rise to prominence of a young Aaron Cruden, a 22-year-old from Palmerston North who, a only a couple years ago, had cancer.
The World Cup has also given rise to another unlikely hero, Piri Weepu. Having been out of contention due to injury many times, criticized over his fitness and (in my opinion) under-rated by the selectors, he was brought into the squad as a back up for the half-back position and has now taken over the number 9 jersey and the kicking duties.
Piri Weepu has finally been giving a stage on which to shine, he has been leading the haka and taking a leading role on the field too, and if the the All Blacks win this weekend, he will have cemented a place in New Zealand folk lore. He continued his brilliant form last weekend despite a family tragedy and illness.
Chuck Norris jokes have now become Piri Weepu jokes in this part of the world and there are many internet memes now bearing his image – you can make your own here. And there are numerous facebook fan pages dedicated to Piri.
The other big stories in New Zealand are the ship wreck of the Tauranga coast and associated oil spill and the upcoming election. Most New Zealanders believe that once the World Cup is out of the way, Piri Weepu will turn is attention to taking care of the oil spill and then successfully run for Prime Minister.
Here is Piri Weepu leading the All Black’s performance of the haka “Kapa O Pango” against Argentina in the quarter final. Piri’s opening words in this haka translate as “Let me become one with the land… This is our land that rumbles..” after this performance we had another 5.5 shake in Christchurch, that’s the ‘Weepu effect’.
