Check Out These Interesting Articles

Are You Ready for a Crisis? : John Mariotti speaks from experience.  The big message here is “Be Prepared”, Find the facts, fix it and whatever you do, tell the truth! 

One thing John didn’t mention is his article is the fact that social media has created a lot of “grassroots” experts that can really undermine your message and mission.  Make sure that you have set a “Google Alert” for your company name, executive names and any brand names associated with your organization.  Don’t ignore what’s being written, “be prepared,” as John says to comment and defend your brand.

Mark Anderson from “Andertoons” brings a smile to my face with this cartoon of a line chart morphing into a pie chart.  It reminds me of a couple of presentation tips that will keep you out of executive hot water AND also persuade your audience to give you what you want.

• Give your charts titles that describe what the chart is trying to say.  For example “2008 Sales Highest in Company History”  If your title is something lame like “2008 Sales” this makes people want to look at numbers and analyze them.  Just tell them what it means and what to think.  Your audience will love you for it.
• Make charts out of ordinary objects.  If you’re talking about sports, then use a ball graphic as your pie chart.  If you’re doing a bar chart – think about using happy faces as the filling for the bars. 
• Focus on what the data means.  Ask yourself, what does the data mean?  What do I want my audience to think or do?  Then use those elements to create a chart.

Get Testimonials!  I love this article on how to creatively get testimonials from your customers.  Have an event, have a contest to pick the best e-mail or video testimonial.  People buy from people who are like them and whom they like.  Show your customers what happy customers look like and your ideal customer will have another reason to choose you.

What can we learn from the HUMMER brand? I really love “Neuromarketing Blog” and don’t get to spend as much time there as I would like.  In this article Roger Dooley comments on why a Chinese manufacturer might want to purchase the Hummer brand.  Roger talks about how some Americans have a mindless hate for the Hummer brand – mainly because it’s a gas guzzler.  They conveniently ignore what kind of energy it takes to get a Prius stateside.  Interesting, but the first thing I thought of is the stereotypical Hummer driver.  Driving a HUMMER says something about the driver.  And I wonder what we think of when we think of HUMMER drivers.  So ask yourself the question – it’s not just what the brand stands for as the product, but what the brand says about the person.

So, that’s all for todays edition of what’s on my dashboard.  What interesting articles are you reading?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Buy an S.U.V., Save the Planet (freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Toyota Prius earns Best Value ranking from Consumer Reports, American brands fail to make the grade (autoblog.com)
• General Motors To Sell Hummer To Chinese Firm (news.sky.com)
• Will China Build a Fuel-Efficient Hummer? (time.com)
• REPORT: Hummer’s fate to be decided by Tuesday (autoblog.com)
• Reputation Management – Protect Your Company Online (smtusa.com)
• Create Charts and Graphs Online With Easy Web-Based Tool (rotorblog.com)
• Monitoring and Measuring Social Media (ducttapemarketing.com)
• Kyle Lacy: 5 Quick Tools for Listening in on Social Media (kylelacy.com)
• I’m Your Customer and I Can’t Hear You (slideshare.net)
• Tools for Internet-Centered Reputation Management (mediabullseye.com)
• Twilert – twitter search alerts via email (twi5.com)
• How to Monitor Your Social Media Presence in 10 Minutes a Day (hubspot.com)
• 7 Reasons Why the Business World Hates Social Media (futurelab.net)