Sound Startup Advice

Whether we like it or not, as startup founders, business owners, CEO's, leaders; we sometimes get all caught up in the day-to-day tasks and forget about the basic business details that keep us afloat. After reading the following posts, I was reminded how important these things are on a daily basis. From managing your financials to customer service to ritualizing the workplace environment. These posts have some great little gold nuggets, enjoy.

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  10 Things MBA Schools Won’t Teach You About Managing Your Agency 

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  Eight Business Processes Every Startup Must Have

   

Power of Customer Service and Reviews

So today I went to my favorite acai bowl spot here in San Diego called The Big Squeeze. Like any local business the people are always nice, their product is consistent and you feel good about giving your money to a small business owner as opposed to some chain. Well today was a bit different because what went from waiting 15 minutes lead me to Yelp to write a very authentic, unhappy review. So how did I get there?

• Waiting Time - 15 to 20 minutes is ridiculous for an acai bowl
• Unaware Employees - I not only waited, but the girl who was supposed to be making my acai bowl, continued to look over at me as she made 4 items for people who weren't even there.
• Incorrect Order - As she wrapped up my bowl, she forgot the blueberries that I now have to pay extra for.
• Cost - It's almost $8 for a large bowl now and they still charge you $0.30 for credit card transactions.
• Not Environmentally Friendly - They still use styrofoam bowls/cups on top of wasting 4-5 sheets of aluminum foil to try to wrap up my overflowing, soupy acai bowl

So would I have gone and made a positive review on Yelp if everything went fine? Most likely not and here's why. I've been going here for 6 years and I have expectations, not just because I'm a loyal customer, but because I'm a part of a generation that expects things done right and if not, for someone to at least be accountable and aware. So when I left I was empowered by this poor customer service experience and driven to log into my Yelp account. I read a few other posts which validated what I was feeling and decided to write up my own review, giving them 3 stars and explaining what went wrong.

Here are a couple tips for small business owners:

• Customer Service is King right now
• Be aware of the online review websites
• Engage your customers online
• Actively seek feedback to improve business operations
• Monitor your online reputation
• Think about the current economy and how you can ensure your loyal customers keep coming back

Our Agency nominated as Agency of the Year

It's been awhile since I last posted, but for anyone who's been following me throughout my career, this is a great honor in the community of San Diego. Digital Operative was nominated as Agency of the Year in the influenceSD awards. It's based on teams that have been innovative in the space of social media over the past year. I'd love to show you some of the things we've done and if you think they're unique, please click on the link here to vote: http://bit.ly/vote-for-DO  (We're #34 Doodles)

Gaki Attack - This was a minisite that integrates with Twitter that we packaged to introduce this JApanese TV network's video content on Hulu to the US market. The result was hundreds of attacks, 200,000 views and over 65 blog posts about the campaign plus a featured post on Hulu.com.

Holiday Cardr - This was a Facebook App we built that connects to your Facebook account, extracts photos and creates a custom holiday card colage that you can then send to friends on Facebook and Twitter.

#DOStream - This hashtag has collected the tweets of our team for over 1.5 yrs now and we share it directly on our homepage of our agency's website.

Social Media Breakfast San Diego - This is a San Diego monthly series that we took over after its second event and grew from 90 to 290 members and are now on event #13. We've installed a solid structure that offers real case studies, news from around social media landscape, an active project where the group donates its time to a nonprofit and a feedback section for anyone who has challenges. Last month, we did a session on social media and hospitality featuring JPR, Hard Rock Hotel and Croce's Restaurant and Jazz Bar.

There's actually a lot more than that and a social mobile game on the rise. IF you ike what you see, love to get your vote:  http://bit.ly/vote-for-DO  (We're #34 Doodles)

Vote for Top 100 Online Marketers 2009

Recently I found out I was nominated (BJ Cook - @bj) to Invesp’s Top 100 Online Marketers of 2009. I feel honored to be on this list of people as some of them have helped shape my own thoughts and approached to marketing over the years. So like any good marketer, I’m starting my campaign trail here. Head over to the list and if I’ve contributed to your marketing insights over the year, please cast a vote for me. Hopefully all of my readers here have enjoyed my posts over the years. I'd also love to hear some feedback if you have 2 minutes.

cheers!
BJ

SEO Tactic - Subdomains vs. Subfolders

We're working on a project right now that brought up this question, which is both a technical and a business decision. Over at Digital Operative we use a subdomain for our blog in order to keep our content closer to the root domain, but also earn the SEO benefits in linking and saturating the organic listings. I was doing a little light research and stumbled upon this post from Rand Fishkin over at SEOMoz and the thread is not only informative, but there are so many scenarios that I felt it was valuable to share to see if any of you were also having the same questions.

SEOMoz post on Subdomains vs. Subfolders

Enjoy and hopefully this helps some of you readers out there!

$417 a week can get you Digital Marketing Mastery

Recently, Boulder Digital Works was born at University of Colorado at Boulder. It's described as "a project-based and accredited learning initiative focused on developing today and tomorrow's digital leaders and entrepreneurs." Just like the firms it is hoping to feed up and coming students into; it has its own three letter acronym ... BDW. I explored their website a little bit and found some interesting information, some good and some that might raise some red flags.

• Areas of Study: Interaction Design, Mobile, Gaming, Apps, Strategy, Social Media, Creative Thinking


• Specialization in Web 2.0 - Will this even be relevant in a year's time? Hopefully they update to web 3.0 or whatever seems to be next.


• Courses like Improvisation in Business - "All business is show business."


• Workshops that take the "digital" approach to basic areas like brand development, campaigns, projects, media, etc.


• Supported by some well known larger interactive/digital agencies


• Good coverage of digital landscape - web, mobile, social, search, gaming

Boulder Digital Works is as much as you'll make in your first year within any digital agency if you start in a junior role. Hopefully that $20,000 investment has a decent ROI and doesn't take you as long to pay back.

What do you think of this type of digital program?

Customer Feedback Is Here To Stay

So as many of you know or should know, one of my previous roles was as CMO for SuggestionBox.com and in that role I was able to watch a market start to form around customers. These select group of companies like Starbucks, Dell, Zappos, Comcast and a few others were paving a path for others on how to leverage customer feedback in the areas of customer service, conversational marketing and innovation. Now if you look at blogs like Customers Rock or Experience Matters; you'd think ... "Why isn't everyone adopting these best practices?" or "How can I capture customer feedback and improve my customer relationships?" I'd say the answer is as simple as installing some type of customer feedback widget (there are tons) and then responding to every single one, but you have other things to do like run your business, pay invoices, interview employees, attend events, etc. For the purpose of efficiency, I want to make a recommendation to take 15-20 minutes out of your day and explore what Uservoice is doing in this space. Their recent funding news in WSJ shows that they are on the right track and will be around for awhile.

Japanese Variety Show Comes To US via Hulu and Joost

If you've seen "I Survived A Japanese Game Show" and "Wipeout" you've probably been exposed to some good ole Americanized reality shows that put their contestants through ridiculous experiments and challenges. But all these are merely ripoffs of the authentic Japanese Game Shows that have existed for years. One of the ones we've been exposed to recently was Gaki No Tsukai. This group of comedians seem like the Japanese version of Jackass, a group of young guys out of West Chester, PA that push their bodies and friends to the limit everyday. Gaki No Tsukai has now been part of recent US launch on Hulu.com and Joost.com. Both video sites have picked up the the episodes and created channels to show off this hilarious japanese video content. In addition to the Hulu and Joost channels (this is only available in the US), there is Gaki Attack, where with your Twitter.com account, you can experience the weapons used in the Gaki episodes and send attacks to your friends on Twitter. What better way to celebrate your love for your friends than slapping them with some Yamasaki or a wonton noodle?

Here are the links to each website:

Hulu - Gaki Channel
Joost - Owarai - Japanese Variety Show
Gaki Attack Twitter App - Join the battle and show your inner ninja

Final Open Web Awards Update - The Winners Announcement

The Open Web Awards Winners Are Here!!
You can read about the news over at Mashable.com as well.

Mainstream & Large Scale Social Networks

Winner: Netlog
Runner-up: Platinum Lounge

Embeddable Widgets

Winner: Qoof
Runner-up: Sprout

Blog Plugins

Winner: ShareThis
Runner-up: AddThis

Social News

Winner: Help a Reporter Out
Runner-up: Hubdub

Social Networking Applications

Winner: Aritition
Runner-up: Digsby

Social Bookmarking

Winner: Diigo
Runner-up: ShareThis

Search & Social Search

Winner: Scour
Runner-up: Artiklz

Sports & Fitness

Winner: Gyminee
Runner-up: FitFiend

Photo Sharing

Winner: ipernity
Runner-up: TinyPic

Video Sharing

Winner: ffwd
Runner-up: YouTube

Start Pages

Winner: Google
Runner-up: iGoogle

Places & Events

Winner: Doodle
Runner-up: Muchmor

Travel

Winner: SpottedByLocals
Runner-up: GeckoGo

Music

Winner: Noisetrade
Runner-up: Last.fm

Social Shopping

Winner: Pikaba
Runner-up: A Full Cup

Fashion

Winner: Coolspotters
Runner-up: Polyvore

Celebrity & Gossip

Winner: Oh No They Didn’t
Runner-up: BollyScoops

Mobile Applications

Winner: Evernote
Runner-up: MocoSpace

Dating & Romance

Winner: Zoosk
Runner-up: DateHookup

Wiki

Winner: Encyclopedia Dramatica
Runner-up: WikiHow

Politics

Winner: Politics4All
Runner-up: CreateDebate

How-to

Winner: A Full Cup
Runner-up: College Cram

Environmental

Winner: Ecomii
Runner-up: Gazelle

Non-Profit Causes

Winner: Stop Political Calls
Runner-up: SocialVibe

Online Games

Winner: Playfish
Runner-up: Power Pets

Niche Social Networks

Winner: The Star Tracker
Runner-up: Wadja

Vote For Your Favorite Nominees - Mashable's 2nd Annual Open Web Awards

I decided to donate my blog to help support Mashable's 2nd Annual Open Web Awards. When you sign up to do something like this you don't think, eh I'm not really going to make a difference. Then I thought, if I don't do this it's like not showing up to vote 2 weeks ago. I've got a lot of colleagues and friends who are nominees this year and I'd like to think I can help support their efforts and the web community by asking my blog readers to take 2 minutes, choose a category and pick your favorite company. To make it even easier for you, here is the voting widget!