I asked the audience if anyone had ever heard the phrase, “dancing on a shifting carpet”. Since it’s so integral in my life, I was quite surprised when no one had. Dancing on a shifting carpet speaks to one’s ability to maintain grace and poise, while the ground moves unpredictably. During the most chaotic times, I draw upon Grace Kelly and Fred Astaire.

However, it also fits when developing an online marketing campaign. There can be so many variables, so much research to be compiled and compared, that a clear picture of valuable action may not become clear until the final few hours.

The information to be included in the campaign, will change from company to company, client to client, based on a number of variables. Of course, there are a few basics to be included: recommended placement, placement target audience, ad sizes, etc.

However, when deciding between contextual advertising, behavioral, or retargeting; static or flash; networks or affiliates – the inter-relationships can be complicated. It takes cunning and skill, along with grace and poise, to make sense of it all.

I cover a lot of this in my presentation.  So take a look at the slides below, and give me a call if you’d like to learn more.  Until then, keep dancing!

Maurrean
901-888-5862

• Support local startups by participating and supporting Launch Memphis activities
• Learn about the startups that are afoot and support them as individuals and businesses
• Give local startups an extra double-shot of consideration

Here’s what you do:

1. Sign-up to be a beta tester at stiQRd.com
2. Tell your retailer friends to email stiQRd for more info at social@stiqrd.com
3. On Twitter, follow @stiqrd and @launchmemphis
4. On Facebook, LIKE stiQRd and LaunchMemphis (& LunaWeb while there)
5. Bring your awesome ingeniousness to 48Hour Launch and have an experience you’ll never forget.
6. If you can’t make it to the entire event, show up at Emerge Memphis at 516 Tennessee St. on Sunday Jan30 at 6:00pm and for when the new startups present their businesses and cheer them on!

Let’s begin by deciding what BarCamp is not. BarCamp is not like conference you’ve ever been to. You won’t be served cold coffee or cold speakers, and the topics weren’t previously determined with little or no audience input. NOOOO! BarCamp is a knowledge-sharing event wherein people learn from the presentations, and talk to each other to create the value they personally need from the event. BarCamp is a place for you to participate, learn and share. BarCamp is the un-conference.

BarCamp Memphis is interactive and user-generated. Anyone and everyone who comes to BarCamp is invited to come with a topic in hand and prepared to share. Don’t worry if you’re not a legend, neither are most of our presenters. Rather, these are folks from local or regional companies sharing many of the same challenges. Session formats can be a traditional presentation (with or without slides), a Q&A session, a demonstration, a panel discussion or just about any format of your choosing. Just make sure your topic relates to the web, web technologies, geekery, new devices, etc.

At the beginning of the day, everyone votes on the presentations. The result is the most relevant, informative, and interesting conference possible for all its’ attendees. Said simply, BarCamp Memphis becomes what you want it to be.

BarCamp Memphis will also have rooms set aside for open discussion on the topics that matter to you most (i.e. the ones you create), we call these Core Conversations. There will be panel discussions throughout the day on those subjects where two (or more) knowledgeable folks team up to discuss their chosen topic. Even the traditional presentations are more exciting when you get to pick them yourself.

It’s time for bloggers, techies, marketing profs, entrepreneurs, and geeks to unite again at BarCamp Memphis 2010!

Mark your calendars!

Mark your calendars! BarCamp Memphis is almost upon us! This year’s event will be Saturday, Nov. 13 – it’s an unconference  event – and more than ever before, this year will be steered by the participants. Topics and presentations will be crowd-sourced, possibly even impromptu, and elected by the attendees.

BarCamp Memphis is also seeking any level of sponsorship, from door prize donors, to venue sponsors, to monetary donations. Or you can volunteer your time to the event! To get involved, call us at 901-888-5862, or email us at info@BarCampMemphis.com.

More details at BarCampMemphis.com, mark your calendars! We will see you in November!

Essential Plug-Ins for WordPress – Joe Spake

Joe Spake’s TribeCamp presentation on essential WordPress plug-ins was more like a roundtable discussion and a swap-meet of best tips and practices. Joe demonstrated a few of his favorite plug-ins and then opened up the floor for suggestions from the group. Here’s what came out of that session:

Apture

This plug-in facilitates the addition of media to your posts by heading out and finding links, videos and photos for you. You type in search terms, it finds the items and will even plug in the appropriate Creative Commons attribution if necessary.

What Would Seth Godin Do

The consensus among the group on why it’s called what it’s called was “who the heck knows?”, but this plug-in allows you to create customizable text that will automatically appear for a user based on how many times they’ve been to your site. For example, the first time a user visits the site the message might be an initial welcome, whereas the second visit might offer a prompt to leave a comment or simply welcome them back and suggest a new feature on the site they might check out. The text is entirely customizable, so the possibilities are limitless.

Facebook Like

Though this might be old news now, the Facebook “Like” button is a simple plug-in, easy to install and allows users to like your posts, thus plugging links to your site into the user’s Facebook newsfeed. All a user has to do is click “like” as Facebook has so conditioned us to do, and your blog is linked in their Facebook profile. If another user clicks to find out more, it will take them to the content on the external site. The plug-in will automatically load this feature on all old posts.

WordPress Database Back-Up

This plug-in automatically backs up your entire WordPress blog to e-mail. The plug-in will e-mail the back-up to you in a .zip file each night. If you create a filter within your e-mail management system, you never even have to see the messages come through. They’ll automatically be dropped into a folder, but they’ll be there when you need them.

Special Text Boxes

Provides an easy way to do pull-quote boxes within a blog post without using any code.

LifeStream

Consolidates your social media all into one place.
One word of caution voiced by several participants in the discussion was to exercise care when installing plug-ins, because you can risk slowing down your load time. They will slow the load speed of your home page, even if you are not actively using all of them. Be sure to go through your site periodically and delete the ones you are not actually using to keep load speed as high as possible – search engines look for a fast load time so you want to keep things as streamlined as possible.

Writing for the Web – Elizabeth Cawein

DON’T DO THIS!!!!

Really, folks. Typing in all caps is just unnecessary and annoying, and makes people want to abandon your blog as fast as their mice can hit the Back button. But, short of that preference, Elizabeth Cawein’s “Writing for the Web” session was not dictatorial on grammar. After all, the less formal nature of blogs and some websites may lend themselves to run-on sentences, incomplete clauses, and maybe even the SELECTIVE use of all caps for emphasis.

The key, Elizabeth says, is to “establish a style and stick to it.” That might include choosing a particular style manual (like MLA or Chicago), but mainly it’s about your tone and topics. If you write a funny blog about your dog and sudden throw in a cooking post, people are gonna be scratching their heads.

Your style will also determine the proper length of your posts. Shorter is better in general, but depending on your content and how engaging it is, people might be willing to commit to a longer post. Even so, Elizabeth says she tries to keep her posts under 500 or so words.

Elizabeth also emphasized the importance of reading and then re-reading your post to check for misspellings and (unintentional) grammatical errors. Even if you’re writing in a lighter, fun style, there’s still no excuse for errors that make your post difficult to read.
Then, tag tag tag!

Free as a Business Model - Blake Palmer

Is there such thing as a free lunch?

In most industries, no. Sure, a business will tell you that such-and-such is free, but only if you jump through these hurdles, pay for this other thing, or face a hidden fee later. “What’s the catch?” we, the cautious consumers, have learned to ask. We have been burned before.

It’s just the laws of supply and demand at work. Most products are inherently limited in supply and simply cannot be given away for free, lest the manufacturer lose their profit. But what about Internet content, which has no limit? With ever increasing supplies of bandwidth, storing and processing, we can produce all the online music, blogs, social networks and cat videos that the public could want.

So, can we have at least a cyber-free-lunch in this environment of unlimited supply? Blake Palmer argues that it’s not only possible, but inevitable. Just look at services like Flickr. They offer a great service for no charge at all. If, however, you want unlimited storage, you can pay a small fee to become a premium member, and Flickr can make enough money from the small percentage of users that opt for premium that they can keep the rest of the site up and running. And a premium option is only one model for using “free” as your business model.

The band Radiohead posted a whole album for download to their website, and asked listeners to pay whatever they wanted to for it, with zero as an option. They made more money than they would have with a record label, plus they earned good will and great publicity.
Can we one day have a free lunch outside of the internet? Some businesses are already working on it. Blake cited a gym in Europe that offers completely free memberships, but if you don’t go at least once a week, you have to pay for that whole month. Ryan Air now offers travel for as low as one euro, and hope to soon offer completely free flights, while they make all their profit off of the extras, like checked luggage and-in flight food and drink.

It’s about thinking outside the box. Turning the traditional business model on it’s head and creating an innovative relationship between the consumer and the business. And isn’t that what Web 2.0 is all about?

Capturing Light

Presented at TribeCamp by Justin McGregor
When the shot matters, you don’t want to miss it because you’re fiddling with your camera’s exposure settings. It’s just got to come naturally, says Justin McGregor, and step one is learning about aperture, ISO, and shutter speed. Then, go play with your camera until adjusting these elements is like second nature.
“Capturing Light” was an exposure 101 course for photography beginners. Justin went over the definitions and basic principles of aperture, ISO, and shutter speed, and then tossed out a few great photography websites and blogs to check out!

• Digital Photography School
• Photofocus
• Strobist
• Within a Click
• Nerboo’s Flickr Photostream

First, you’re not actually locked in. And you’re surrounded by bright, ambitious, idea-driven people. Oh, and there’s beer.

So maybe nothing like a lock-in at all, then, eh?

If you want to know what 48 Hour Launch is really all about, get yourself registered and be at the Launch Pad tomorrow afternoon ready to dive into a start-up project. In the course of a weekend, teams will work to develop a business from idea to reality. Here’s a little more info from Launch Memphis:

48 Hour Launch is one of the most powerful and unique entrepreneurship programs in the country. It promotes the development of local economies and the implementation of innovative ideas with new launched startups. Simply put, creative individuals from all industries unite their talent in one location to launch new enterprises in a 48 hour period.

All your food, drink, wifi, and other needs are met by organizers. All you need to do is bring your brain (and a coffee mug and/or laptop). We take care of the rest while you take care of the startups.

The festivities kick off on Friday at 6 p.m. at the Launch Pad at Emerge Memphis.