Archives / May, 2007

Book Short: Blogging Alone?

Book Short:  Blogging Alone? I usually only blog about business books, but since I read Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, by Robert Putnam, because of its connection to the topic of Internet community and social media, I’ll record some thoughts about and from it here. It’s an interesting read, although a little long.  Putnam’s basic thesis is that America’s social capital — the things that have brought us physically and emotionally together as a country throughout much of the 20th century such as church, voting, and participation in civic organizations like the PTA or the Elks Club — are all severely on the decline.  The reasons in Putnam’s view are television (you knew all those re-runs…

How to Impress Your Boss

How to Impress Your Boss No matter what area of the company, non-profit, or public sector you work in, ask yourself these three questions every time you are about to review something you did with your boss: What am I trying to accomplish with this piece of work? Is this the best/only way to accomplish that mission? Is this my best work? I guarantee you two things if you get into this habit.  First, you will frequently stop and do more work on something before handing it into your manager.  Second, you will get a raise and a promotion sooner than your friends.  And yes, it really is that simple.

A Thankful Moment

A Thankful Moment While there are certainly some aspects of being a CEO that are full of those proverbial thankless tasks…there are some moments that are just the opposite.  And boy are those rewarding. I had one this morning.  While I frequently get nice emails or handwritten cards from employees after they interview or start or get a promotion or raise — and those are all great — this is one I can easily blog about because it’s online. Yesterday was the first official day of work for Neil Schwartzman, who actually joined us many months ago as a consultant running compliance for our Sender Score Certified whitelist but just finally became a full-time employee as we set up a…

Brilliant Client Service: It’s Not Just for Peaceful Revolutionaries Any More!

Brilliant Client Service:  It’s Not Just for Peaceful Revolutionaries Any More! I just read this quote, attributed to an unlikely source, Mahatma Gandhi, in an annual report from InfoUSA, one of the biggest public companies in our industry: A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us.  We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work.  He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so. This quote is widely believed to actually be from Gandhi,…

Why Exactly Does Anyone Use WebEx?

Why Exactly Does Anyone Use WebEx? We had a terrible experience with WebEx a couple years back, which I blogged about here.  Since then, we’ve happily been using Ready Talk with nary a problem. WebEx’s sales reps spam me all the time, and no matter how many times I try to get off their list, I keep getting the spam.  It’s embarrassing that an e-company is in flagrant violation of CAN-SPAM, the most permissive anti-spam law around. But I’ve been on two or three WebEx calls lately where, sometime in the middle of the call, an automated voice comes on and says “thank you, your conference call is now over,” and closes down the call.  Sometimes, dialing back in works,…

Email Marketing Blog

Email Marketing Blog One of my readers just emailed me: You’ve done a good job talking about first-time CEO experience but not explaining step by step what makes a good email vendor and why returnpath is, thus, the company we should use.  Subtly, over the years, I should have come to know exactly why I’d want to use returnpath… As I wrote back to him, I’ve deliberately kept my blog away from being a promotional vehicle for Return Path, although I do periodically write about the company in one way or another.  My plan is generally to keep it like that. In any event, the reader’s note reminded me that I may have a bunch of other readers who don’t…

It Never Goes Without Saying

It Never Goes Without Saying Remember that old adage, "It goes without saying…"?  That saying shouldn’t exist inside a well-run company.  Communication — real communication, not implied communication — is the foundation for a successful business. We human beings live for "moments."  We mark time by observing regular occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays.  While religions and cultures differ on the details, we mark the cycle of life with things like baby namings, bar mitzvahs, confirmations, first communions, weddings, and funerals.  There’s no reason the workplace should be any different.  Think about these few examples where it could "go without saying," but where you’re so much better off creating that "moment" by: – Publicly acknowledging a member of your team…

In the Land of Too Many Conferences, This is a Good One

In the Land of Too Many Conferences, This is a Good One It’s rare that I’m sad to leave a conference — usually I can’t leave fast enough.  But such is my mood today leaving Mediapost’s third Email Insider Summit. Our industry is way over-conferenced in general.  I’m guessing that our company’s full conference calendar has 40+ events on it over the course of a year.  It’s more than we can afford to exhibit at, participate in, speak at, attend.  We do our best, and what money we spend is much more carefully monitored and measured than it used to be, but usually it’s with that sick feeling in the pit of our collective marketing stomach that we’re throwing money…

Blogiversary, Part III

Blogiversary, Part III OnlyOnce turns three today.  While year 1 was exciting and year 2 was still a build, this year has been more about maintenance.  I don’t mean that in a bad way — I still enjoy writing it, but I am finding it a little tougher to make time for it (probably more a function of other things going on in life).  Also, I periodically catch myself starting some post or other and realizing that I wrote it, or something much like it, sometime in the past! I think in honor of the third blogiversary, I’ll reinvigorate today by posting three times!

Feeling Less Like a Luddite: Welcome, Lijit!

Feeling Less Like a Luddite:  Welcome, Lijit! As I’ve written about a few times (here, here, and here), it’s easy to feel like a Luddite with the rapid pace of change of the web these days. Anyway, I’m feeling slightly less like one today with the addition of Lijit to my blog. You’ll notice that I changed the search box from Google to Lijit on the right hand side of the page on OnlyOnce.  Lijit seems like it’s a better way to search a blog, and maybe other things as well.  Using Lijit, you can search not just the text of the blog itself (which is what Google allowed), but Lijit also goes out and searches a few other buckets…

Old and Young Alike?

Old and Young Alike? Fred has a couple good posts today about the age of entrepreneurs (here, here).  His evidence is that most entrepreneurs are in their late 20s or early 30s — in a very non-judgmental way. I have a slightly different take on it.  I heard from someone once that entrepreneurs are either late 20s/early 30s or in their 50s or even 60s.  So basically, the young entrepreneurs have nothing to lose because they’re so early in their careers…and the older ones can afford to take risk because they have already made their money elsewhere. Not sure how much universal truth there is to that, but one thing I’m certain of is that using the Internet as a…