Moments of Clarity

Join me next Wednesday at 6PM for a talk called: Help! My Business Is Invisible - Increasing Your Internet Findability Factor

 Yours truly will be giving a talk for the New Iowa Entrepreneurs Coalition Meet Up Group next Wednesday, November 19th at 6PM.  Click here for full details and to RSVP and/or Join this meet up group.

Description of the talk is below.  I hope to see you there meeting, interacting, and building relationships with other progressive Iowa entrepreneurs.

HELP!!! - My Business is Invisible
Increasing Your Internet “Findability” Factor
6:00 PM - Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Ask 100 people, "What's the first place you look to find a business or information on a business?" and 98 will say Google. Yet phone book ads, glossy brochures, and static "cobweb" sites still make up the bulk of many small and medium sized company marketing budgets. Break out of the old routine and hear some low cost - high impact organic Internet marketing strategies that will give your firm a fighting chance online. Doug Mitchell, Founder of createWOWmedia (www.createwowmedia.com) will show you how to increase your Internet Findability Factor and amplify your online brand with a focus on web video and multimedia.

Location

E-Myth Coaching Center

6000 Grand Avenue
Des Moines, IA 50312
515-288-6984

Come and learn with me through the robust QA that I KNOW will break out.  If you're already "in the know" or a super web traffic findability guru...please come and share your knowledge with the crowd through the QA and interaction. 

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Ignite Des Moines - Promotional Video from create WOW media

The create WOW media team crafted a nice promo/recap video of the Ignite Des Moines event hosted by Daniel Shipton at Impromptu Studio in Des Moines.

Enjoy.

Ignite Des Moines Promotional Video @ Yahoo! Video

Who told everyone in my highschool class about Facebook over the last few months

Image via WikipediaI've been commenting to my wife that it seems everyone has discovered Facebook...in the last 90 days.  In that time, no less than 30 people have "found me" there.  People from high school are crawling out of the woodwork and connecting.  My wife has been on for a while but she's experiencing the same thing.   I brought this topic up in my Blogging Class and people started snickering that it's true for them too.

Is this massive Facebook land rush happening in my world alone?  Are there others out there who are being deluged by friends and other random people they've not heard from in years?

I'm really blown away by this.  It makes me wonder if those "find your classmates" reunion sites are headed out of business due to this "insta-connect" Facebook world.

I've started using it more lately due to this pull effect.  By default having to log in and confirm/deny connections has made me more aware of what Facebook is offering these days.

In fact, I found out some friends were engaged first....before anyone else...since I was in Facebook and saw that they'd changed status.  I'm always the last to know (pay attention) to these things.

It felt kinda good to be in the know.  Thanks Facebook.

I look forward to connecting with more of you all soon.   

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Part 1 of my Podcast with Adam Steen of 25 Connections

We just released part I of my Podcast interview with Adam Steen of 25 Connections.  We got together to discuss the power of networking and relationships and what that means in our current economy.

Adam is in the business of connecting people but he's not just a slick networking guru.  Adam believes in the kind of networking that uncovers hidden business opportunities and matches resources...with opportunity.

Take a listen and subscribe to our createWOWmedia feed to get all of the future pieces of the interview as well as some other great ideas on how to leverage multimedia in your business.

Click here to visit the post and listen to the podcast.

 

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Check out Brett Rogers and see how following your passion can open doors

I saw this video piece on Brett Rogers and was really impressed.  I've seen the art from his phone...I'd NOT actually appreciated that he was creating his imagery on such a small "canvas".  Wow.  For those of you who've not seen what Brett does....he creates artwork using the drawing pad feature on an LG Dare cell phone.  Mind you the screen is roughly a 2 inch square.  Fascinating.

Take a look and see what a passion for the "artsy" side of cell phones can do for you.  I hope you end up not only with free cell phone usage...but as a paid marketing consultant who discovered a brand new niche market by following his passion.

Nice work.  Keep it up.

http://www.kcci.com/video/17849448/

Brett's blog found here.

Introducing createWOWmedia

Hi folks:
The team has been working on some very exciting things here at Midwest Command.  Over the last year, we've been producing robust multimedia content for our Interactive Learning Environments (ILE).  We had many firms contact us and ask if we could do the same for them.  They asked us to:

1. Turn so so presentations, marketing material, speaking engagements, and documents into rich multimedia with sound, voice over, imagery, and professional appearance.
2. Shoot company intro videos that capture the mojo of their brands in video that is "good enough for the web".  Flaming fireballs optional.
3. Create robust and good looking blog based corporate websites for them that had a bunch of great organic Search Engine Optimization tools (SEO) working for them behind the scenes. 
4. Create Interactive Learning Environments so businesses extend their brands and digital product offerings globally online.
5. Develop web video strategies and some stock "intros and outros" that companies can reuse over and over again.
6. Help them understand the online world, social media, and their online BUZZ. 

We have been working under the radar to form www.createWOWmedia.com

createWOW provides Brand Amplification to small and medium businesses through  multimedia, blogging and social media, and Interactive Learning Environments.

Ask your small business owner friends how much their "Yellow Pages" ads cost per month? Ask the same group how many of them go to the Yellow Pages to look up services/products available themselves?  Could that resource be re-tasked? 

It's a pleasure to work with SMB's.  I know they get the shaft sometimes when it comes to these kinds of services because their budgets are small and their dreams are big.  Well we're tired of you being on the receiving end of the shaft...and believe its our job to help you take advantage of as much of this technology as makes sense for you.  We know how to provide IMPACT and RESULTS on a budget.  It's how we've modeled our own business and we believe you should get the same treatment.

We're already making an impact locally.  Feel free to contact Ryan @ Nutrisport - Full Potential Training and ask him what it's like to do business with the createWOW team.

If you can spare a couple minutes, please watch some of our videos in the products and services section of the site. 

Blogging For Business Class: If interested, fill out the form below

Please forward this post, reblog/repost if you know people who would like a solid foundational course in "Blogging for Business." 

Hi there:  If you're contemplating taking my Blogging for Business Class in WDM or DSM, please add your information into the form below.  That way, I'll be able to notify you when the registration book/ class catalog comes out.  Of course it's not online "yet" but you know...government agencies are slower to adopt these things. This is NOT actual course registration just a pre-gathered interest list.

Usually, the catalog comes inside the newspaper and is strategically placed around the DSM metro I guess.  I'd love to have you and I think you'll get your money's worth (it's about $50 I think for 4 weeks, 8 hours total).

If you're an expert blogger of course, you're welcome to pay to support our schools, boost my numbers,  and heckle me from the back.  Just be prepared to get a laser pointer burn to your retina.

Fields Marked with a * are required
*Full Name:
*Email Address:
Company:
Title (at your company):
Website/URL:
Address:

Are you an SMB looking to use multimedia to support or EXPLODE your brand?

Let's say you are an SMB (small to medium business) in the Des Moines metro.  You have a nice website that's well put together and appealing.  You've got a nice "about" page with little JPG's of your employees and a quick bio about them.  Not bad.  But in the SMB space you CAN and SHOULD be able to STAND OUT and be heard from!  But what to do?

Here's a quick checklist we've been working through.

When I visit your site:

1. Is there anything there conveying what it's actually like to do business with you? Blog posts, videos, interviews, audio clips, testimonials, case studies?
2. Does your site in any way indicate to me that you're different than "everyone else that provides the same service or product as you do?" 
3. Do you make it easier to say "yes" than the competition?
4. Do you offer multiple modes of contact to reach different demographics?  In not too many years, those "kids" who text message all day may be running the office.  Do you accommodate that mode of communication deemed critical by current and future generations?
5. Do you offer RSS feeds for news releases and/or blog posts?  Most likely if you are blogging the answer is yes.  Blogging is NOT a requirement to provide RSS feeds of your news releases however so don't count out one because of the other.
6. Are you leveraging any social media platforms?  Twitter is a prime example.  The other day I put out a call for someone to create a logo...fast.  I got 4 replies from Twitter from local designers and within 4 HOURS I had prototypes in my inbox.  Maybe people won't ask you questions about your accounting business in twitter that often today...but just give it a while.  (HINT:  That's code for do something about it now).

We'll add more to this list soon but hopefully there's some food for thought in here.  If you'd like to chat more about some of these things, give me a shout. 

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Paul Gratton and Company Video Production

This video was fully created in 48 hours as part of a contest/competition.  You'll see our good friend Paul Gratton in a staring role.  Nice work Napkin Sketch Productions.

Having trouble exporting to mp3 in garage band '08?

Have you ever created a beautiful audio track or podcast in Garage Band, (ver 4.1.2) only to not be able to export it to mp3?  I did everything right.  I of course found the menu, selected export to disk, chose my settings, and hit export.  Only problem was the file NEVER appeared.  After about 20 attempts and believing for certain that I had some larger issue and searching the cloud...I found someone with same problem.

Turns out, Garage Band doesn't like long file names.  A quick rename was all it took and I was back in business.  Unreal.  If you suffer this problem as a new Mac/Garage Band user and have found this post, I take checks and/or PayPal for that hour of productivity I just saved you.  It was my pleasure.  I'll use the funds to get hair plugs and Grecian Formula.

On another note, I love my shiny new iMac.  The keyboard alone seems gloriously pleasant.