Search Engine Strategies Expo (Chicago)

Watch the video presentations of some exhibitors at the recent Search Engine Strategies Expo in Chicago and learn more about their services.

Mind Mapping strategies and tools (Organize all the scattered ideas in your mind)

I have so many ideas in my head that I am trying to link and organize on paper related to my new book "Marketing the Future". I thought that it would be helpful to use traditional Concept Mapping technique, which lists the main concept and its sub-ideas and then hierarchy break down each idea to different sections or sub-sections using tree structures. However, my book is still in its initial stage and I don't have all my ideas and objectives clear in my head. Instead, I started using Mind mapping to help me create a diagram that represents my ideas, examples, case studies, quotes and other items and arrange them around my central idea in a very effective and visual way.
To get a better understanding of mind mapping, check out these useful videos and books:

- What is Mind Mapping (Video)
- Power to Create Profits - Mind Mapping (Video)

While there are many mind mapping websites and software programs, here are some of the websites and programs that I like:
• Mindjet Catalyst is a very interesting product with many advanced features. Such as, integrated chat, full-featured web conferencing, and mind manager compatibility.
• Mind42.com offers collaborative and browser-based mind mapping service for free.
• Mindmeister.com is my favorite. It offers so many useful tools. Such as search in maps, history view, mobile access through iPhone and additional desktop gadgets.

Think like Alexander the Great

"I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion". Alexander the Great

Imagine that you are a leader of an army of 40,000 Macedonians in 331 BC and you are on your way to fight the Persian Empire's army of more than 100,000 men. You know for sure that the odds of winning the battle are not in your favor. However, all your soldiers believe in your strategic thinking and ability to maneuver in battles. You reach to the edge of the hills where your enemy is waiting for you. What would you do? Do you think they have a more powerful position than you? What is your strategic plan? What rules do you follow to win the game?
Well, Alexander the Great was once in your position leading his army against the Persian army which was led by Darius. Alexander was famous for his hammer and anvil strategy, where the center of the army engages with the enemy while the cavalry on each side moves behind the enemy and pushes them forward.


Alexander knew that the same strategies he had used in past wars were not going to be effective in winning this battle because the enemy's army outnumbered him 3 to 1 and spread horizontally in the battle field to overlap his army. Knowing the Persians can't move without Darius' command and that Darius must have guessed his hammer and anvil plan, Alexander thought about an alternative counter-tactic. He attacked the Persians on the left side, drawing as much of the Persian cavalry as possible to the left side and creating a gap within the enemy line where he could then break through the center in order to kill or capture Darius. When Darius saw his left line crumbling and Alexander advancing toward him, he fled and the Persians retreated. The Persians lost tens of thousands of men in the battle, and the Macedonians lost only a few hundreds.




Alexander wasn't playing by the rules. Instead he was able to understand the advantages of his position and created weakness in the lines of his enemy. He didn't focus on how much power he had but rather on how to position his power strategically in a way that conquered his opponent and allowed him to turn the odds to his favor. Marketing is all about strategic thinking and understanding the market place, along with your competitors' strategies and the market rules. Taking all of these elements into account can allow you to think like Alexander and make your products breakthrough and dominate the market. This can be done not only by taking advantage of your company's strength but also by analyzing your competitor's weaknesses as well as changing the rules of the game in the market.

Google Analytics (Powerful, Flexible, Intelligent)

Watch the presentation of Dai Pham, Senior Google Product Manager, at the recent SEMPO Chicago event and learn how to use Google Analytics to monitor and measure the traffic and conversion rate of your website.

Building Social Web Applications on Facebook

Watch the presentation of David Recordon & Luke Shepard from Facebook at the recent SocialDevCamp Chicago and learn how to integrate your website and social web application with Facebook.

What's your Cultural Intelligence (CQ)?

I got the chance recently to meet Dr. David Livermore, a global expert in Cultural Intelligence "CQ", and attend his keynote presentation related to his new Book "Leading with Cultural Intelligence: The New Secret to Success". He explained why global leaders need a cultural map to lead across cultures not just across continents and how they can use his Four-Step Cycle of Cultural Intelligence to navigate throughout their global journey.

Please enjoy watching Dr. Livermore's insights in this video and definitely take the CQ test to get your report.

Marketing Keurig's Brewing Machines to Train Commuters

During the second week of October 2009, Keurig promoted its brewing system to the commuters of Chicago Union Station, which has one of the worst commutes in the country according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Keurig offered them free coffee cups during the morning rush hours. However, Keurig didn't provide clear directions on the coffee cups to help commuters figure out how to get or brew their coffee. As such, many of them got confused and threw their coffee cups away. Here is how I got involved in this story.

When I passed by my boss in the morning, I found him trying to figure out how to use a Keurig's coffee cup to get his coffee (the picture on the right). He asked me, "Do I need a machine to get my coffee from this cup". I took a look at it and I said. "For sure. Unless there is a new way that I don't know about". He looked back at the cup, read the directions on the top and then after a short pause, threw it in the trash and said, "Why the hell did they give this to me if I don't have the machine. It took me 5 minutes to find out that I can't get my coffee. They wasted my time".

I left him feeling frustrated and angry and went to the kitchen to get my coffee just to find 5 more coffee cups on the kitchen counter placed by people who figured out in the same way that they are useless without the machine. I took one of them and decided to do some research to find out what was going on. I examined the coffee cup and noticed that they said "Take this cup to the nearest Keurig brewer". So I visited Keurig's website and did some research online but there was nothing on the website to help me find the nearness brewing location. However, I noticed that Keurig is one of the leading coffee brewing brands and customers wrote great reviews about Keurig's brewing system.

While I was thinking about Keurig's marketing campaign on my way home, I noticed many of Keurig's ads posted inside the train without any reference to their marketing campaign at Union station. So I decided to stop next day by Union Station and try to solve this puzzle.

The next day, I noticed that about half of the people, who were getting out of the Union station, were carrying their Keurig's coffee cups. However, their cups were empty. In addition, I noticed that trash cans next to station entrance were full with unused coffee cups. Close by the entrances of the train gates inside the station there were Keurig's employees handing out the coffee cups to the commuters who just got off the train and shouting "Free Coffee in the Grand Hall" (See the video below). Because commuters where passing very quickly, grabbing the coffee cups and heading directly to their offices, they didn't have the time to stop, listen and understand that they needed to go to the Grand Hall to brew their coffee, or perhaps they didn't have the time or energy to walk to the Grand Hall.

I went to the Grand Hall to get my coffee and I was surprised that about half of the people, who were visiting the Keurig's booth, didn't have their coffee cups with them. The more surprising thing was that the people who got their coffee cups were stopping by Keurig's booth to switch the coffee flavor to Tea or other coffee flavor.

I went to the Keurig's machines to get my coffee and told one of the managers in the booth that there not having clear directions on the coffee cups confused some commuters who are trying to get their free coffee. The manager replied, "Sure, I understand. It is human nature, we can't do anything about it". I disagree with him, I think that if Keurig understood the behaviors of the commuters, they would understand that commuting to work is one of the most stressful activates that people do during the day and morning commuters have hectic schedules that leave little room for variation. Even though commuters would love a free cup of coffee they need to have very clear understanding on how and where they can get it as fast as they can or they will just go to closest coffee shop and get their own.

I used Keurig's machine to brew my Hazelnut coffee. It was very fast and easy to use and the coffee itself was very good. Of course, I didn't forget to grab an extra cup of coffee for my boss to help him overcome his bad experience and thank him for inspiring me to write this blog post.

Marketing the Future

Download my presentation at the SocialDevCamp Chicago.

Twitter Cookies (Twitter Marketing Strategy)

If you work in a big department or organization, you are familiar with the birthday cookies’ emails coming from your co-workers to let you know that someone got a big box of delicious cookies and you are welcome to stop by and grab one. Well, in the digital world, people are looking for free cookies and you can implement smart twitter marketing strategies to motivate your customers to follow you on Twitter and drive traffic to your website by benefiting from your followers’ influence and social networks. Here is the recipe:


INGREDIENTS:

- 1 Marketing objective
- 1 Twitter Account (Twitter.com)
- 1 webpage
- 25 -100 free offers or special promotions

DIRECTIONS:

1. Identify the marketing objective that you are trying to achieve (drive traffic to your website, inform your customers of new products, or collect customers’ emails, etc…).


2. Create a webpage on your website. Add to it a call to action related to your marketing objective (fill this form, vote on new products, or view this ad) and rewards (free products, samples, discounts) that customers will get if they follow the action. Limit the number of rewards to first 100 customers or 25 customers (Depending on your appetite) and create a descending counter on your webpage that shows how many rewards left for customers to get.


3. Send a tweet to the customers who are following you on Twitter informing them that they can get the rewards (free cookie) if they are among the first 25 to 100 customers to do the required action and motivate them to retweet and forward your tweet to their friends.


4. Monitor on twitter and Google alerts how your message is spreading, who is spreading your message, and who is taking advantage of the offer.


5. When you run out of rewards, update the webpage immediately with link to your Twitter account and ask visitors to follow you for future promotions.


6. Bake Twitter cookies by repeating the above directions as needed.
   

Let me know how your Twitter cookies taste like by leaving a comment or sending me an email to iyad.mourtada@gmail.com.

How to motivate like an Egyptian king?

When Khufu, the king of Egypt around 2560 B.C., decided to build his Egyptian pyramid, he knew that turning thousands of men into an effective coherent workforce was more difficult than building the pyramid itself.Khufu understood the importance of motivation in working on such a big project. For that, he decided not to hire war prisoners to build his pyramid because these workers may not have any motives to do their jobs other than the fear of punishment. Instead, he convinced Egyptian farmers to work on his establishment and in return he would not forget them after his death and he would bless them forever. Also, he compensated them and their families with plenty of food, shelter next to the construction site, and time to go back to their farms in the plantation and harvest season.

Khufu built an effective organization structure by dividing the 25,000 workers into teams of ten men. Each team has been assigned to work on specific task of the construction, had a supervisor to monitor its performance, and was motivated to work hard by completing against other teams for prizes.Khufu was able to align the rewards with the goals and design an effective organizational structure based on group work and ongoing supervision which resulted of one of largest Ancient wonders that is standing still until these days.

There is a freak inside each one of them (RVAFreaks)

“They live in their tiny houses, drive their tiny cars, and work in their tiny cubes” This is how Xine Bouthillier (“Xgirl”), one of the Co-conspirator of RVAFreaks.com, described many of the ordinary boring people who live without a unique lifestyle and embrace the main stream culture. For RVAFreaks it is all about “connecting the subversive cultures of Virginia together and offering them the chance to express themselves and be who they really are without limitations or restrictions of the society”. Yesterday, RVAFreaks.com had launched its unique website targeting alternative lifestyles in Virginia to express a bold statement about who they are. This brave venture allowed them to stand out in a conservative society like the one in Virginia. Freaks are not crazy. They just see the world from different perspective and like to live it their own way. Many of us are living a life that we had rejected deep inside our hearts but everyday we fight through it and ignore our anger. We are afraid to stand out and oppose the conventional wisdom and the main stream culture. We just want to be cool and fit in. There is always a freak inside each one of us waiting a special magical touch to appear. I have found out how to let mine it out. Have you?

Diversity in Corporate America

Even though the pieces of the puzzle have different shapes, they match with each other and create the whole picture.
In the last 10 year, diversity has become one of the most important subjects in the workforce. Nowadays, it is essential for any American company to implement diversity program within the workforce at every level, from the mailroom to the boardroom.

Managing Diversity is a critical issue that most American companies are trying to master. An effective diversity program should reduce ethnicity, racial and gender inequality and integrate the corporation-wide diversity plan into the business plan. Strategic diversity recruitment and retention programs help achieve this goal.

“If the diversity program is not effective in producing a diverse racial, gender, ethnic workforce, then it’s not worth the paper it’s written on.”
Bernard Anderson, Leading Diversity Expert

Companies who ignored the importance of diversity and didn’t monitor discrimination activities had to pay millions of dollars in discrimination settlements.

However, most American companies have demonstrated a strong commitment to diversity and provided minorities with equally opportunities for growth and development.

Reference:

Diversity in Corporate America: Still a Work in Progress:

Published: March 16, 2006 in Knowledge@Wharton

Red Parrot

From behind the dirty window, she looked up to the cloudy sky wondering if one day she will be able to escape. Her green eyes where reflecting buried dreams of freedom and love. She questioned herself “Do I belong here? … Where is the end of my journey?”. Her thoughts were scattered around like a puzzle and her body was tried from facing the wind. She looked into the corner of the room where the open cage is and cried. Her parrot landed on her shoulder and started playing with her hair. She grasped the parrot and hugged it while she was singing her old song about life. It is wonderful how we can engage with other creatures and transform some of our feelings into the relationships. For the second, she felt like the parrot understood her and tried to huge her back. She opened her hands and let the parrot fly around her in the room. It seems to her like the parrot was repeating her song in its own way. For her, it was a nice and quiet moment that is going to last forever. She looked at the parrot and though that it will be nice if she can open the window and let the parrot out. What an amazing adventure is awaiting the parrot out there. But for her it is going to be the final cut and her life is not going to be the same again. She can’t let the parrot fly out because she can’t afford to feel lonely again. She is like a parrot. A red one.