Swami Starts the Week : April 30th 2012

Every Monday (usually) I meet with Bob London at the Panera Bread  in Fallsgrove, Rockville MD and the result of this meeting is usually a video we call  "Marketing Confessional". Occasionally others will stop by and have a conversation. We welcome small business owners who want to get some questions answered to stop by.

This week I am going to be speaking at the Washington Business Journal Offices with Elizabeth Shea on "Make Social Media Work for Your Business" followed by Happy Hour at Cafe Asia in Arlington. Hope to see you there RSVP http://dcsocialmadness.eventbrite.com

I am also excited by my trip to Chicago at the end of the week for SOBCON . Sobcon is a must attend event and I learn a lot from it and meet old friends and make new ones. It is not a big conference and the organizers Liz Strauss and Terri Starbucker want to keep it that way to maintain the involvement and engagement. You should consider attending.

Here is the latest edition of Marketing Confessional:

How to be Great at Word of Mouth Conference Austin May 10th

Andy Sernovitz of Word of Mouth Marketing.org puts on some great events albeit not very often. On May 10th Sernovitz is organizing the Word of Mouth Crash Course a one day course with 12 How-to classes and 12 Real-world case studies and 6 Brilliant Authors.

Details of the crash course are at http://wordofmouth.org/crashcourse/#details. Here is a special offer to readers of this blog - you get 33% off if you use the code shashiismyfriend for the Word of Mouth Crash Course at http://wordofmouth.org/cc.

Please check the conference out.

[PHOTOS] Mid-Atlantic Marketing Summit April 2012 #mamsummit

The Mid-Atlantic Marketing Summit was help on Friday April 20th. The agenda was filled with content from speakers from the region and others who flew in for the event. Here are some pictures that I took. Are you in them?

[VIDEO] Is this intern qualified ? #DCSocialMadness

Have you checked out http://socialmadness.com? The Biz Journals group is organizing a competition for businesses based on their engagement and it will be interesting to see the contest between companies in the 43 markets where the Biz Journals has a presence. See this funny video and have a few minutes of fun. Couple of actions for you : Register your company or client for the SocialMadness contest at http://socialmadness.com Come to the Happy Hour at Asia Café, 1550 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA May 2nd from 5 to 7 p.m. RSVP for the Happy Hour at http://dcsocialmadness.eventbrite.com/

Marketing Confessional: Is Marketing a Dark Art? Lessons from Mad Men that don't involve Martinis

Last week was awesome and being the eternal optimist I will probably say this every Monday morning. BTW every Monday morning and probably as you are reading this I am doing my Monday morning " Marketing Confessional" with Bob London at the Panera In Fallsgrove, Rockville. See the Marketing Confessional video starring me and talking about the dark art of marketing.
Confessional.

Last week another highlight was the Mid-Atlantic Marketing Summit In the picture below is a panel moderated by my friend Geoff Livingston.I was in  a panel on the "Changing Media Landscape" and the details on the panel are on the Network Solutions Blog

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I wrote a post for Smallbiztrends.com on 5 Small Business Lessons From Mad Men, check it out and let me know what you think. HAve a great week ahead.

Tech Cocktail Comes to Baltimore May 2nd 2012

TechCocktail is having it's Baltimore start-up mixer event on May 2 at the Venue: Mother's 1113 South Charles Street ,Baltimore, MD, United States, 21230 Register for the Techcocktail event. I usually don't miss any TechCocktail event but I am scheduled to speak at Washington Business Journal Make Social Media Work for Your Business and organized the #DCSocialMadness Happy Hour later so I am going to miss this event. If you are a start-up in the MD-Baltimore area please consider going to the TechCocktail event.

See the pictures I took at a previous Techcocktail Baltimore.

[PREVIEW] Small Business #TheLittleCouple : Bill & Jen finally open up their pet store, Rocky & Maggies in Houston, Texas!

Did you open a business because you loved the employee discount? Bill jokes about that in tonight's episode of The Little Couple that airs tonight  at 10 & 10:30PM ET/PT. A small business starting albeit on a Tv show is still a cause for celebration. Thought you may like this preview Discovery folks sent me and is on their website.
This Season's Description

The Little Couple follows Bill and Jen as they continue their exciting life together in Houston, Texas.  They’ll finally move in to their dream home, make big strides toward starting a family, and juggle their flourishing careers – starting a new family business, traveling, and enjoying quality time together along the way!"

Local News has strong support : Most adults are local news consumers : Pew Internet Research

Image credit: 2012 PEW INTERNET & AMERICAN LIFE PROJECT

 

This is good news for most local publications.  I read these local media publications  avidly  :

• Washington Business Journal
• Washington Post
• North Potomac Patch

I was happy to see the latest research from Pew Internet Research on the topic of local news

 

• Nearly three quarters (72%) of adults said  local newspapers are by far the source they rely on for much of the local information they need
• One-third of local news enthusiasts (32%) say it would have a major impact on them if their local newspaper no longer existed
• Local news consumers are more connected to their communities than others
• Local news enthusiasts use the internet, cell phones, social networking sites and other technology about as much as those who follow local news less closely

Are you a local news enthusiast? Maybe we should have our own Facebook Group. What do you think? Read the rest of the report and more details at http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Local-news-enthusiasts/Summary-of-Findings.aspx