Limitless Email, In an Email-less World

If you get the reference, I like you already.

Last week I killed the QR code. Now I have email in my sites. Rather, in my opinion, Google has email in their sites.

I’ve lived in my inbox for far too long. I am Pavlov’s dog , or this guy (from Crank Yankers “You’ve Got Mail” video).

For my generation it was ‘cool’ as much as it was a business tool. That’s right, we walked uphill both ways to school in the snow and checked our email and we liked it! If you get that Dana Carvey reference, I like you even more.

What’s the point? I’d like to thank Google for killing Gmail off and weaning me off my addiction with Google+. Even the base URL is cool www.google.com/+

Yes, replacing an addiction with an addiction isn’t really a help. BUT, it’s such an improvement in the opportunity to communicate regardless of the message or audience, that I’m happy to wake up with a G+ hangover.

Email has  tone (which is left to interpretation and can be dangerous).

For example, if you asked me what I think of the new Justin Bieber album and I said to you, “I like it,” in email, would you pick up my sarcasm? Or would you run off and tell your friends that I think the new Justin Bieber album is muy caliente!

G+ has mindset and context. It takes a conversation, whether business or personal and puts it in an environment designed to deal with personality and tone, aka a social setting. I can throw a photo in front of someone and know they see it vs. worrying about what their inbox is going to do with the attachment.

Mike Handy is probably smiling and saying, “It’s Enterprise 2.0.”

Well for me, it’s an addiction and one I’m happy to try and get others hooked on.

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Josh Jordan is the president and founder of Make Me Social, a marketing agency that combines traditional and new strategies to enhance an organization’s online presence and importance. Having held leadership positions with several Fortune 500 firms in industries including marketing, advertising, technology and media, Josh has developed new tactics and processes for improving outreach, sharing information and demonstrating subject matter expertise. As a difference-maker in a constantly evolving industry, he has combined the components of his background to create a communications philosophy that can assist non-profit and for-profit clients develop campaigns that deliver measurable results.

Sorry QR Codes, I Think You’re Done

 “The Future” … It’s better than today, full of promise and nobody’s wrong …

“The Future” – who can’t get behind that? And who doesn’t love Mark Hamill from those Comcast Ads?

In the mid-90’s “The Future” for me was what these guys were doing: Lernout & Hauspie. Who didn’t want to stop typing? Who didn’t want to just ask a question and have the answer fed back to them by a robot voice?

In “The Future” we were going to add the word “uber” to the word “access” and skip the whole bandwidth thing.  We could buy concert tickets, book flights, get stock quotes, improve customer service, cut costs and jump to production of flying cars through phones that didn’t need fancy displays, or apps, or widgets, or video! Better still, no more buttons like you had to use with those pesky IVR systems. Who wanted to have to push buttons?!

A little optimistic?

Maybe? In the last 15 years, Nuance swept up the assets of L&H along with some other small players and is trading around $25/share. You may be most familiar with Dragon and probably have it on a work station, laptop, or mobile device…

The space has also gotten more crowded with some patents and service offerings residing with some ‘small’ players like IBM, Microsoft, and Google …

What’s this have to do with QR Codes?

Well it’s Back to “The Future” thanks to this device  from Apple. Once again, they packaged up a feature (voice search) in a nice, neat little bundle and gave hipsters a reason to stop typing and start talking … I’m still waiting for my Twitter integrated speech-to-text function because I’m pretty sure birds don’t type when they Tweet, and after all, it’s really about evolutionary regression and that dinosaurs became modern day birds and who doesn’t want to be a dinosaur! Sorry, QR codes…

So, Mr., or Ms. Marketer that decided to put a QR code on the TV screen, or billboard (should have been a #hashtag to begin with, but that’s another conversation) … guess what … turn that funny square into a search term and “let’s get the conversation started” … with Black Eyed Peas music playing in the background. You’re welcome. #songnowstuckinmyheadallday

And somebody get Mark Hamill back in TV ads talking about “The Future!”

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Josh Jordan is the president and founder of Make Me Social, a marketing agency that combines traditional and new strategies to enhance an organization’s online presence and importance. Having held leadership positions with several Fortune 500 firms in industries including marketing, advertising, technology and media, Josh has developed new tactics and processes for improving outreach, sharing information and demonstrating subject matter expertise. As a difference-maker in a constantly evolving industry, he has combined the components of his background to create a communications philosophy that can assist non-profit and for-profit clients develop campaigns that deliver measurable results.

Just One Thing…: A Message from Our President

Years ago a friend described to me his perfect business: An ice cream stand in an amusement park selling vanilla ice cream….one scoop….for a dollar.

You want sprinkles? Can’t help.

Want an extra scoop? No problem, it just comes with an extra cone.

As consumer preferences and decision-making information becomes more real-time, the methods of attracting and closing  buyers -  whether they are consumers or business professionals – demands new and different marketing solutions, sometimes just to get the same result.

Doesn’t seem fair does it? Well, we think it is fair.

Consumers should have more control. Good or bad, a lack of consumer control has created bigger problems that we face together today – high unemployment, low available credit and compressed margins.

Make Me Social’s objectives are clear. From planning to launch (and beyond), we work with clients to further develop and strengthen their brand positioning and product positioning in order to drive awareness, loyalty and results – all at a reduced cost.

There might be a few other little details here and there to make that as simple as it sounds, but it certainly gives you a reason to get out of bed – we found our vanilla ice cream, one-scoop, one dollar. Give us a call if you’re hungry.

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Josh Jordan is the president and founder of Make Me Social, a marketing agency that combines traditional and new strategies to enhance an organization’s online presence and importance. Having held leadership positions with several Fortune 500 firms in industries including marketing, advertising, technology and media, Josh has developed new tactics and processes for improving outreach, sharing information and demonstrating subject matter expertise. As a difference-maker in a constantly evolving industry, he has combined the components of his background to create a communications philosophy that can assist non-profit and for-profit clients develop campaigns that deliver measurable results.