•November 12, 2009 • Leave a Comment
•November 7, 2009 • Leave a Comment
How do you combat bad reviews?
•October 27, 2009 • Leave a Commenthttp://ping.fm/0tyoo
Most of us have used the opinions of strangers to guide us. Maybe we
crossed a movie off a list because we saw a bad review on television or
went to a new restaurant based on a review we read in the newspaper.
The Internet lets us all be reviewers and almost anything can be
reviewed. You can rate books on amazon.com, local businesses on
yelp.com and DUI attorneys at gotdui.com. And you can use those sites,
and countless others to help you chose a book, a restaurant, or a
lawyer.
Of course, any review is subjective. For example, The Lost Symbol, Dan
Brown’s latest book, has over 1400 reviews, almost 500 of which are
positive and about 650 are negative. Also, the quality of service at
any business can vary. So before trusting a review, read carefully.
If you own a business, you need to understand that your next customer
might review his or her experience on the Internet. Just as bad reviews
in the New York press can doom a Broadway show, then a bad report can
seriously hurt a business.
How do you combat the bad reviews? The first thing to do is to try to
not get them. Be on top of game as much as possible. If you see that a
customer is dissatisfied, try to find out why and do something to
satisfy them. Be honest in your advertising so that customers don’t
expect one thing and get another.
The second thing is to try to get good reviews. Encourage your
satisfied customers. Publicize your good reviews and their sources.
Google Becomes Franck’s New Virtual Executive Assistant
•October 24, 2009 • Leave a Comment
Do you remember Steve Martin in “Father of the Bride?” Certainly you
remember Martin Short who played Franck Eggelhoffer, the wedding
planner. But wait a minute; this movie is now 19 years old, so maybe
you don’t remember it or the characters. Yes, it is Saturday morning
and I thought I would share some personal news and show you how if your
planning a wedding your wedding planner no longer needs to hire an
executive assistant, as we are discovering that the “Father of the
Bride” role of Howard Weinstein can be replaced with Google, Franck’s
New Virtual Executive Assistant.
But first things first…Dennis’ and my oldest son, Aaron, became
engaged to Allison (Alli) Gubanich on October 15, 2009. Dan and I were
in Las Vegas when all the excitement happened. As I understand it,
Aaron set up the Scrabble board (both of his Grandmas would be proud)
to welcome Alli home from class/work and the words spelled out “Will
you marry me?” (Of course, I questioned how those words could ever
really come together on a Scrabble board- to which Aaron rolled his
eyes and shook his head – he is really a romantic!)
Aaron and Alli, the A Team, have known each other for quite a few
years, but started dating in the Summer of 2007, at the time they both
worked at Bluepoint. Alli is from the Philadelphia area. Her parents
are Kathy and Chris Gubanich. She has two sisters, Nikki and Jessica.
Dennis and I had fun meeting the Gubanich family when Alli graduated
from the University of Arizona in May 2008. And of course since we
moved to Tucson in March 2008 we have really enjoyed spending more time
with Aaron and Alli.
Ok, so now you know the engagement happened October 15, 2009, and by
the morning of October 17, 2009, Nikki Gubanich was sharing a Google
document with members of both sides of the family! Nikki is Alli’s
older sister and she just finished her MBA this past Summer
(congratulations by the way) so she volunteered to be the Project
Manager. What is funny is that Alli said to me “I had never heard of
Google documents and how you can share them!” So now we can all
participate real time and keep each other informed.
This morning it occurred to me that this past week has been so crazy
with returning from Las Vegas, catching up on work, that we (Dennis and
I) really have not taken time to call and congratulate Kathy and Chris!
I haven’t even sent them a Gmail or written on their Facebook walls! I
promise to do that today; however, I also decided to create a Picasa
Album (Google Product) and share it with the family members. This album
will allow us to enjoy old memories and chronicle the new memories over
the next year. Google (AKA Howard Weinstein) will assist with Blogger,
Gmail, Google Documents, and Picasa Web Albums. And that is just for
starters.
So here’s to the A Team (Aaron and Alli), Chris, Kathy, Nikki, Jessica,
Dennis and Dan…congratulations one and all!
Celebrating Aaron and Alli ~ Their Engagement
P.S. The picture on the Photo Album cover was taken Halloween 2008!
Judy’s Experience At BWE09
•October 21, 2009 • Leave a CommentThis year I had the opportunity to attend BWE09, better known as Blog
World and New Media Expo 2009. This event took place from October 15-17
in Las Vegas, Nevada. Unlike many of the 2500 attendees this was my
year participating. And unlike many attendees I did not spend my days
there blogging, tweeting, or otherwise updating my friends and
followers. I just tried to take in the process, that is I tried to
listen and learn. And hopefully, I will be able to care for and serve
some, if not all, of Webconsuls clients. I actually thought about
writing this post as soon as I returned home or even while I waited in
the Las Vegas Airport, but then it occurred to me that it would be
better to really write about BWE09 looking in the rear view mirror. So
here are some of my “bytes” on BWE09.
- While I have been participating in blogging for about two years and I
am on Facebook and have a Twitter account, I would not rate myself as
someone that knows everyone in the blogging and new media world;
therefore, attending this event was not about hooking up with old
friends, but meeting new people and learning from the “experts.”
- The exibitors were varied and engaging. I enjoyed talking to people
from all over the world, like the Zemanta team from Slovania (and, yes,
I intend to learn more about their product). The ArmyStrongStories.com
team was engaging and they had a great display. And then of course, I
enjoyed speaking to Robby Berthyme who was representing
wheretogetengaged.com (timely, insofar as Aaron and Alli became engaged
on October 15, 2009!).
- Brian Solis moderated a good keynote discussion about the “New
Celebrity” with Anthony Edwards, Jermaine Dupri and Robin Antin. All of
these participants made it very clear that if you are using Twitter,
Facebook, etc…you need to be yourself, engage with people, and manage
your own accounts (don’t hire a staff to do this). Write about yourself
or your cause, don’t just keep re-tweeting!
- One “outtake” from this keynote discussion is that I found it
incredible how rude 70% of the audience appeared to be behaving. This
was an hour long presentation and it was beyond me why people could not
just sit and “listen”, as opposed to working on their laptops, running
their fingers over their iPhones or thumbing it on their Blackberry.
This behavior was annoying and to top it off, even though they were
really not paying attention, they would join in the intermittent
applause like robots or dummies.
- Dave Peck of LSF Interactive was interesting and provocative in his
conference “How to Socialize Your Content”. I just discovered that he
posted many of his “rules” here for the small business owner. His
advice I intend to try to incorporate into Webconsuls and to share with
our clients.
- I really enjoyed the conference “How Twits Lay Golden Eggs – The Art
of Social Engagement for Business”…Chris Brogan and Laura Fitten had
a lot to offer and they did not make the audience feel inept, but
offered real guidance.
- Dan Helfand attended this conference for Webconsuls also. It was
interesting to watch Dan, who had not been to Las Vegas since he was
13! It was great to attend the conferences and then share what we had
learned.
- Las Vegas is an aging city and I don’t think it is aging gracefully.
As we rode the marvelous monorail I noticed that many of the buildings
look dated and dirty on the outside, almost as if the original
architectural plan did not allow for majestic aging. Many strange and
vacant lots can be seen as you ride “behind” the strip.
- I don’t think I am the only BWE09 participant that questioned the
parties that BWE09 sponsored. As one person said on Twitter: “bwe09
parties are a lot like Twitter – noisy, loud, dark, and ineffective at
organizing communication”. I couldn’t agree more! Imagine being at the
Mirages’ Jet Night Club with many of the same people who could not put
down their laptops and iPhones during the keynotes, only it was too
dark to read their nametags and the music was too loud for
introductions. Another person echoed these sentiments: “The parties
at #bwe09 remind me of college. How old are we? Where are the real
parties?”
- Flying Southwest Airlines will be a subject for another post.
- Finally, I would like to thank the three ladies that shared a Hilton
Limo with Dan and me. We were attempting to get a taxi to go to the
airport and we found ourselves sharing a limo with Kim Rowley and
Joanne Dinslage of Key Internet Marketing and Maarika Neudorf of
Enterprise Estonia. We had a fun ride and got to meet three more BWE09
attendees.
Ok, that is it for today. I am going to get busy learning how to apply
all that I learned – stay tuned. In the meantime enjoy the photo of Dan
with the BWE09 “Change Girl” as he wins the iPod Shuffle.
5 Most Interesting Bits of Information
•October 9, 2009 • Leave a CommentThe last few weeks your Webconsuls’ team has been busy and our blog has
been quiet. I don’t know about you, but it is amazing what you can
learn in a month’s time. Here are this month’s five most interesting
bits of information that I learned and I want to share with you:
1. Did you know that Gmail has a send limit? About a week ago we
received a call from our client saying that she was sending out an
email broadcast to her customers asking them to participate in a
fundraiser for the victims of the earthquake/tsunami. All of a sudden
she noticed that she could not send any email or receive any email. She
called us and here is what I learned:
“In an effort to fight spam and prevent abuse, Google will temporarily
disable your account if you send a message to more than 500 recipients
or if you send a large number of undeliverable messages. If you use a
POP or IMAP client (Microsoft Outlook or Apple Mail, e.g.), you may
only send a message to 100 people at a time. Your account should be
re-enabled within 24 hours.” (Go here to learn more and keep in mind
that many email services have a send limit, this is why some clients
like to stay in contact with their clients by a newsletter service like
or similar to Constant Contact.)
2. Twitter 2.0 seems to be just around the corner. Rather than have me
rehash what someon else has discussed so eloquently, I will point you
to the article. “Are We Ready for Twitter 2.0?”
3. Blogger does provide great on-line support. The other day I was on
their site and I saw a section called “Recommended Articles and
Discussion.” One of the discussions was entitled “Too Many Good
Bloggers are Giving Up” . Now, this caught my eye!!! So I clicked on it
and enjoyed the conversation. If you have a blog and you have given up
or you are thinking about giving up, I invite you to read the posts and
join in the discussion. You might just refresh yourself enough to keep
on BLOGGING!
4. During the past few weeks our team has been discussing the nature of
our Webconsuls’ blog. The questions raised are these: Should it be more
technical? Or, do our readers want to learn more about the team as
people and read anecdotal stories, as well? I will tell you that the
team was split on this, but today I read an interesting article on an
SEO/SMO newsletter. The article had to do with Social Networking
pitfalls the 4th pitfall to avoid was this: “It’s not about sell, sell,
sell! If all you’re doing when you visit the various sites and post
your updates is pitch your latest program, product or service then it’s
no wonder you’re not seeing results. Share information with your
network, whether that’s your own information or you’re passing along
information from clients and colleagues. The more you share, the
greater your results will be. Whichever social networking arena you’re
active in (and it may be more than one) remember the “social” in social
networking – it’s to build relationships, make new contacts, and
socialize. Inform your network, not sell to them.” I think based on
this guidance and our own practical experience from being part of
Social Networking sites, new clients may come to you naturally.
5. Finally, as this Columbus Day Weekend gets underway, I know that our
New England innkeeper, hotelier, restaurateur, livery, and
entertainment clients will be busy beyond belief as the autumn brides
and mountains blush and foliage season peaks; but won’t they be
surprised to learn that Tucson, AZ has its own foliage season! And yes,
Mt Lemmon is 2869 ft taller than Mt. Washington!
This week’s photos are from my days in New Hampshire. The one of the
children is of Aaron and Dan enjoying a “Tom Sawyer” moment with
children who were guests at the inn. Aaron and Dan were “teaching” them
how to rake the autumn leaves and make Leaf People!
“Teach Us to Delight in the Simple Things”…Rudyard Kipling
Let me know what you think of Judy’s “bytes”…see you next week.
Back Woods Maine Mule Train
•August 30, 2009 • Leave a Comment
http://www.webconsuls.com/blog/2009/08/back-woods-maine-mule-train.html
Life in Maine is a little bit slower than the rest of the country.
People pride them self on doing things by hand and using out of date
technology – so-to-speak. My friend G.W. martin believes in using
animal power as opposed to gas powered engines to get things done
around the farm. “The trick isn’t getting them to pull, thats easy -
it’s gettn’ them to stand still”. This morning as the sun was rising in
Montville, Maine I was apart of the Back Woods Maine Mule Train. The
log that you see in the pictures weights approximately 2000 pounds, and
the two Mules Bonnie and Olivia move it with no problem.
Everyone else in the area use a machine called a Skidder, it’s
basically a bulldozer with wheels and a claw. G.W. has used a Skidder
before to haul wood, but he would rather use animals to get the job
done. There is a lot to be said for doing things the old fashion way.
Enjoy the photos:
California is Hitting Up to 111 Degrees
•August 29, 2009 • Leave a Commenthttp://cli.gs/Malik
Los Angeles is hitting the mid 90’s and some parts in Southern
California is hitting up to 111 degrees.
How’s it in your neck of the woods?
