Photo by melodramababs on Flickr

I give advice. I give suggestions. I give support. I give ideas.

However, it has recently come to my attention that not everyone appreciates how openly I give. Does this surprise me? Why, YES IT DOES!

The Dilemma

So my dilemma for today is this: Is there a way to determine who I should and shouldn’t give advice too?

• Does it matter their personality type?
• Does it matter whether they are management or subordinate in my relationship with them?
• Is gender an issue?
• Or does it just depend on the individual, and I shouldn’t care if they don’t want to hear it, I should give it to them anyways? (my current view point)

As always, I know “Depends” is going to want to be said. I also know that timing may be the key to everything. However, with out those factors involved what else should be determined?

I’m a Communications Major For Cryin’ Out Loud

Human relationships have always been a fascination of mine, particularly human communication methods. So I am genuinely interested in what you have to say on the topic. Later this week (I promise), I’ll give you my in depth take on the topic.

Thanks for participating,
DRM2

Photo by nathangibbs of Flickr

Well, it has been about 5 months since I have last written. I told myself that if I started a blog I would make sure to write on it constantly. For some odd reason I feel that is an important step in having a blog. As mentioned in my last post, I have been slavin’ away with two jobs, and it has kept me rather occupied. However, as summer sets in, I feel it is time to move on, settle down and become a one job man.

However, I’m not completely going to just settle down, I have a goal. I have never been a goal setting type. I mean I have life goals such as becoming a concert pianist, a renaissance style marble sculptor, and a millionaire by 30, okay 40 now. But short term goals are something that I just don’t really do. I like not having expectations for the day, and living life with whatever may come my way. However I do have a goal that I have set for the summer (shorter term).

I help hundreds-or-so people make money online every single day. It’s my job, it’s what I do, and if you ask me, I do a bang up job at it too. So the question is, why can’t I help myself make a little money online? Good question, huh? So my goal for the summer of 2010 is to create an online business, and strike it rich (because that is what the internet is for)!

So as I journey through this new adventure, I will be sure to keep my avid readers (Annie by name) up-to-date with my latest developments. Therefore requiring a blog post quite a bit more often then what you have become accustomed to.

Wish me luck, Enjoy!
DRM2

P.S. If you have suggestion on what I should do to “strike it rich,” feel free to let me know. Just an FYI, if it deals with pills, porn or casino’s the answer is NO!

Well, I suppose like any blogger looking to make it to the top of peoples reading lists that I must apologize for my absence from my blog. I like blogging, I really do.

The reason I have not been able to spend as much time on my site as I would like, is because I have been working like a maniac. I decided to take on a second job for the holiday/winter season so I can get this family up and on its way to a house of their own. Somewhere in time I heard a story or two about how my grandpa would work from morning to night to keep the family out of debt, and food in their bellies. I heard stories of the farmers, whose property I currently reside on, work the days away to be where they are today. Well, I figured if that is what they did to get ahead in life I should too.

So just like any other man looking after his family, trying to provide, and keeping kids clothed, I took on a second job teaching people how to use Macs, at the local Apple reseller store. It is something I really enjoy doing and I am getting paid for it, so in my book it is a win/win (sorry for the cliche). I know it isn’t the physical, manual labor the ancestors did, but hey, it’s 2009. Besides, teaching elderly couples how to create a gmail account takes just as much patience as fixin’ a tractor.

My hope is with the holidays coming, I will be able to get some time to write a little more of what is on my mind and finish the site so that it just screams- DAVID MALMBORG!

Thanks for your patience.
DRM2

My great SEO Company (mine, meaning I work for them) just gave away an incredible marketing package valued at $60,000 to a very deserving company. We chose to give the package away to a company that had been hit hard by the recession, and yet with the right help, could really benefit from the opportunity. SEO.com chose The Green Building Center as the winner, and I couldn’t be more excited. —SEO.com is Going Green!

The only issue I have (and it is purely selfish) is that my team is not going to be directly involved in the 6 month contract with the company. I hope though, that I may get a chance to do some work for them. I did get to go with the presentation party to film the owner receiving the reward (video below).

I definitely will be monitoring their success, because I really am interested in knowing how big of a difference a killer online presence can make to company in today’s world. Especially when a company doesn’t currently have one. When and if possible, I’ll try to keep you updated on the progress of the Green Building Center. If you want to learn more about the winner, you can read the official press release.

Here is what will be included in the next six months:

• New redesigned website (with the latest conversion optimization known to man)
• SEO (Naturally! (no pun intended))
• PPC
• Online PR
• Social Media Strategy, and Implementation
• and I think I may have convinced them to do some professional photography for the awesome products.

Here are our promotional videos explaining the giveaway:

The Presentation Party:

I am a big believer that giveaways designed to help the community, will far more benefit the giver than the receiver on a corporate level (in more ways than publicity). I am excited to be a part of company willing to make such a big commitment for a local company.

Enjoy,
—DRM2

[tweetmeme]After putting much thought into my response and getting carried completely away with Halloween costume building, I have finally come back to put my two cents into this dilemma. I appreciate the comments posted, even if most of them came from the spurring of my wife.

View the Dilemma

As I was thinking of the examples I presented on artistic branding, as well as other companies that later came to mind; I wanted to see if there were any similarities I could find between them. With all of the brands I was choosing, I noticed a trend forming. Ultimately, I think I figured out where to draw the line between a tight hold on a companies brand, and bringing on some artistic evolution.

All of the brands that I can think of that have very open artistic adaptations, are all in a sense social icons. It seems they have broken the “cool” barrier for consumers. And as I put more thought into this, I believe that it is because their brands have been opened to mass trendiness that their logos require artistic adaptation to remain “cool.” Volcom, Harley Davidson, and Coca-Cola are all great examples of companies that have reach beyond corporate identity and are pushing into the social sphere. So when all is said and done, not every company should be liberal with their logo layouts.

I really believe that if a company is not on its way to becoming the next trendy icon, and I know it is tough to admit this sometimes, but it is probably best to remain very strict on logo usage. However, not all hope is lost, I do think it is appropriate for the company to have a style guide adequate for a broad range of options. For example, you should have these versions of your logo:

• primary
• reverse
• grayscale
• without company name
• horizontal
• vertical/stacked

This way you are not limited in your branding, and can appropriately used your logo in all of your marketing materials.

A final word – When it comes to branding I always like to see how Apple does it. Because I idealize Apple Inc. and their marketing, I believe they make for a pretty good barometer. I think it is safe to say that Apple has successfully broken into the “cool” social sphere of consumers. However, I have noticed that they still remain very closed about the artistic use of their logo. Maybe true “logo zen” is when a company can make its brand a culture icon without artistic adaptation. Just a thought! -DRM2

Welcome to David’s first dilemma, well at least the first one presented on this blog.

With my Dilemmas, I am simply going to post a debatable question. Then I’ll point to a few references, and hope that I get some decent participation in the comments. These posts will definitely be better if we have people participate. Next week when I write, I’ll add my take on the dilemma. It is pretty simple.

David’s Dilemma

How liberal are companies supposed to be with there brand. Meaning, should you use your logo for artistic purposes in an effort to support and further your brand identity?

Get my take on this dilemma >>

Here are couple of references to what I mean about artistic/liberal brand usage.

• Volcom
• Coca-Cola
• Harley Davidson

Each one of these examples are company owned websites that have a different version of the logo in multiple places on the page. The Harley Davidson page I think best suits this argument. On that page alone they have 10 different identities or logo usage, and each one is artistically used.

Please comment and let me know if you think that artistic usage of a brand is acceptable or should you be very specific in the manner which it is used.

Thanks for participating in my dilemma.
Enjoy! DRM2

Get my take on this dilemma >>

[tweetmeme]Is social media the biggest shift in business since the industrial revolution? That is a big claim but yet… when put into perspective it very well may be. To me it makes perfect sense that Social Media and online communication is a vital part of business. I say that because I work online everyday trying to promote businesses on the web, and I have personally seen blogging and social media like Facebook and Twitter make a huge impact on a company’s ability to reach out to customers and consumers. I know it works, but how big of an impact could social media possibly have when it is so new?

A friend of mine introduced me to this video (below) which I found it to be absolutely fascinating. It shows how extensive social media has become in our society, and cemented in my brain how important it is for a company to catch onto the wave and find “fans.”

The Stats

Impressive, huh? Here are few of the stats that I think surprised me the most.

From the start, “Generation Y will out number ‘baby boomers’ in the year 2010.” Gen. Y, or the Millennial Generation, is my generation, and are generally those who were born between the late ’70 to the early 90′s. The reason this is significant is because this is the generation that grew up with technology. They grew up seeing the changes of personal computing, the internet, and global communication. The fact that 96% of this generation as joined a social network shows that they are a market online. Generation Y will be the largest adult demographic by next year, and they find their information online.

If you couple those two statistics with these other ones, you should start to really get an understanding of why social media is becoming a monumental shift in the way we communicate and why a business needs to be there. 78% of consumers trust peer recommendation as opposed to only 14% that trust advertisements. And if 96% of the largest segment of consumers are on a social networks, they are going to be getting their peer recommendation from a social network.

“80% of Twitter usage is on a mobile device,” meaning if they have a bad experience their peers are going to know the minute it happens. On the flip side if they are really enjoying themselves or their experience the word will also spread. This is huge for any business to want to keep their clientele happy.

But where does a business begin? Participating in Social Media as a business is an art, and is ever changing. If your business is unique to the point that you couldn’t possibly use social media to promote your business (which I think would be very unlikely for 95% of businesses), then it is important for the business to understand that social media exists and the word travels fast.

When I was purchasing a car earlier this year, I ended up having a terrible experience with a slick-willy used car dealership (National Auto Plaza in Salt Lake/Sandy UT), I told them that I had let everyone I know on Facebook know that they should never buy a car from NAP, and I had asked my friends to also post about my bad experience. The Manager looked at me like I was an idiot, mainly because he didn’t understand what Facebook was. My 250+ friends all saw the post and  4 of my friends actually reposted my status letting all of their friends know to avoid the place. In a matter of minutes over 1000+ local residents of the Salt Lake Metro area knew that this dealership was terrible. I personally can account for 3 referrals that didn’t buy their new car from this dealership. So, was I an idiot? Or the dealership, who wanted to harass me over a $25 tire-alignment, the idiot? Social Media has a broad reach, and if you don’t use it… be aware of it.

Enjoy! DRM2

[tweetmeme]

Growing up I have known a lot of self employed people, especially in my family. I often found myself thinking that it would be great to be self employed, and to work at my own time on things that I love. These thoughts came to me quite a bit more when I was working retail and would get frustrated with management and corporate bureaucrats messing things up. My wife would often hear me say, “the only way I am going to find a business that will work the way I want it to, is to start my own.”

But yet after a number of years, I have yet to start a business, and for many reasons. A few of the big ones are I don’t know where to start, and I don’t know what kind of business I want to do. “Starting a business is a big risk,” especially when you have a wife and two kids that depend on you. But the thought of becoming an entrepreneur and trying to find that million dollar niche still intrigues me, even to this day.

Entrepreneurs are risk takers, “gamblers” I have even heard. In order to make it big you have to take a big leap of faith. I am not going to argue that point, but I came across an awesome article/book review that kind of made me think a bit; changing my perspective on the risk involved. I started looking into the self employed people I know, and realized that there is truth in the point this blog post was making.

The article is a book review of “The Leap” and entitled “How Well do You Know Bill Gates? The Myth of Entrepreneurs as Risk-Takers.” Bill Gates – the Ultimate Entrepreneur – is used as a perfect example of how successful self starters work. How many times have we heard the story that Bill Gates is a college drop-out who started some multi-billion dollar software company? I know I have heard it a number of times, and though it might be true, sort of, the author of the book sheds some light on the the little know things that happened to bring about Microsoft. I’m not going to repeat the story here so I recommend reading it.

The fact of the matter is that entrepreneurs aren’t necessarily involved is massive risk taking. Better stated they are placed in a moment of opportunity and they cease their chance. Sure, some risk is involved in actually taking the leap and making the right move to succeed. But the example of Bill Gates’ massive risk was not in starting the company Microsoft. He never really dropped out of Harvard to take a chance on a software company. Instead he made sure that he had a great opportunity and then took a leave of absence from school, so re-admittance was easy if things turned south. Starting the company wasn’t the risk. His risky move was calling up the company, MITS, and blatantly lying about being able to program their machine. But even then how risky was that? He was competent in is skills, and his ability to program. Furthermore, Bill was surrounded by the right people and had the right experience to make the leap successful.

So to answer the question of why I have not started a company, or have taken on my own business is really because I haven’t been presented with the right opportunity to become an entrepreneur. Like I said, as I started looking around at the people I know who run own their own business, the risk did not really come at starting the business.

I really enjoyed the article to the point I plan on picking up the book. When I do I’ll give you a full book review.

Please feel free to comment and let me know what you think, wether you agree or disagree. Also if you have read the book give me your thoughts.

Enjoy! -DRM2

Ok, so my sense of humor is a bit dry, but I like it. I am writing my first post of my great new blog and website, it is a bit scary, or intimidating, or cataclysmic! I pretty much want to explain why I have decided to write this blog and what I hope to get out from it. I really don’t think that I am an authoritative source on any particular subject, so I don’t expect people to be flocking here for information on how to properly clean an oven toaster. Not to say that I couldn’t have a great post on how to do it, but I am sure that info is already out there by someone who knows more about it than me.

I am a big fan of learning about people (in general) and how business works, and marketing a business to other people. Once again, at this stage of my life, I can’t say that I am a master at running a business, cause I am not, I have never really done it on my own. On the other hand, I am a mighty fine “people watcher” (not in a creepy way), I really enjoy watching mannerisms and interactions people have with each other. But getting back to the goal of this blog, I really want a place for me to write down my ideas, express them in written form (you get more thought into them that way) and let any of you who are willing to participate give me feed back. Once a month I plan on having a “dilemma” where I don’t really write much but but present a dilemma, or issue people are having and then leave it open for comment discussion (more detail will come with my first dilemma, later). Once again this blog is mainly for me to learn and figure out what other people’s take might be on business, and other social issues.

Wait There’s More

I have also but a few resources on this site for your viewing pleasure. This site is more than just my blog, but it is the official source of all things me. So I have added My Marketing Portfolio, I have highlighted other blogs it participate in, and my resume (just for the record, I am NOT pandering for a new job by having my resume on the site, just to be clear I love my Job, Dave, Nelson, Ash and Albert are awesome people to work for, FYI). I have all this info so that people can get a better sense of what I have done, and what I am currently doing.

I really don’t plan on bringing my family into this blog, but since they are a big part of my life you just might hear about them. This will also be the case with religion, politics and geeky shiny toys (for that you’ll need to visit Simplified Geek. Once again this blog won’t be aimed toward those topics, but don’t kill me if it does come up.

If you have any suggestions for me on how to make this blog better and more interesting please feel free to let me know. I will consider all suggestions and then toss all the bad ones out the window. Thanks for visiting.

Enjoy!

En Guard!

Museum Replicas has been a fun site for me to work on. I have managed the SEO of the site, and tried to get it to show up with highly competitive keywords like swords, and armor. I didn’t realize how competitive a market Museum Replicas was involved in. LARPing (participating in Live Action Role Play) is a big deal, and having the right gear is important. Not only do they manufacture swords for renaissance fairs accessories, but they also manufacture historical, and movie replicas. In the short period of working with this site, my team was able to increase organic traffic from Google by 16%, and non-branded keywords like swords and armor, saw increases of 700-3000% from Google. That is a big increase when talking about thousands of visitors.