Calliope, LLC.

A UK guy took it upon himself to compile a whole lot of great info on branding, marketing, advertising from some of the thought leaders on same.

Link is here: http://www.spotlightideas.co.uk/?p=677

Happy reading.

Wondering who is creating content in your space? Trying to figure out what blogs you should be reading? Check out http://alltop.com/

This is a new company from Guy Kawasaki and friends that is being described as an online magazine rack.

Awesome uncluttered design on the first page. Check it out.

To all our friends who are involved with non-profits or development. The mp3 link below will take you to a 30 minute or so presentation by Seth Godin. (Just click on it to get it started.) There's some dead space/introductions on the front of the mp3 - the talk starts at about the 4 minute mark. The meat of it involves fund-raising and how you can use Web 2.0 tools to do it differently in today's interruption filled environment.

It should definitely get you thinking.

http://www.fundraising123.org/files/NFG091608.mp3

Old world - Nice guys finish last
New world - Nice guys finish first.

TechCrunch 50 was happening this week. It hosted the launch of start up Akoha
-- it's a game based on the pay it forward principle. Basically you get a deck of "mission cards" like "buy someone coffee", "give someone a book" and you go around doing what you probably do for your friends anyway. Then you pass the card to them and they do it for someone else. The game adds some structure to the act, positive feedback, and links you to a community of other nice people.

It's a little like geo-cacheing for good deeds.

I like it. I think in today's world we need to be reminded of how many nice people are out there doing good things for others. It think it might inspire me to reach out a little more often. And maybe something I do will inspire more good deeds and like the old Clariol commercial "and so on and so on and so on."

Would it inspire you too?

1. If you want a magnetic brand you can't be everything to everybody. You can't market yourself as high end, DIY, one-of-a-kind, eco-friendly, off-the-wall, uber responsible, and a value provider all at the same time. Otherwise you can't have insiders and outsiders. [And it's the insiders who come back again and again and bring friends.]

2. Everything you do has to reflect the brand. Every product. Every communication. Every employee interaction. Otherwise people will be confused. [And it's hard to commit when you're confused.]

3. It doesn't do much good for your brand to be the same or even sort of the same as everyone else in your niche. Figure out how to be different or find another niche. Otherwise people won't talk about you. [And trust me, you want to be the topic of conversation.]

Here are a couple of the brand gurus who inspire me. See if they inspire you too:

Seth Godin

Marty Neumeier

If you're not hooked in to social networking, if you're dismissing it as kid stuff, if you think Twitter, Linked In, and blogging are too far out for you, please let me urge you to think again. You are missing out big time.

I'm riffing off today's Share Share post from Chris Brogan. Bottom line is there's a generation of us that graduated from college before the web had a graphic interface (you know who you are). It was a time when business success was dependent on who you knew and what you knew before anyone else knew it. And it was relatively easy to put up barriers to keep information exclusive.

Not so easy today. Business success is now built on sharing information. On widening the circle of those in the know to include people you don't actually know. On co-producing great ideas and then throwing them wide to see who's with you.

Guess what? To everyone out there who still believes success is tied to keeping information to yourselves......I'm telling you the cheese has already moved.

So what do we do now? I'll share with you as I try to figure it out. Feel free to ask me to follow you on Twitter [I'm LauraZavelson] and share back.

At Calliope, we are fortunate enough to work with many experts -- leaders of industry associations, businesses, travel and tourism organizations, publishers.... We are also lucky to work with many wonderful journalists and PR people. Here's a link to an organization that you all should know about:

Give your PR buddies this link:
www.helpareporter.com ,and give your reporter/editor/journalism
buddies this link: www.helpareporter.com/press -

Basically, the guy who runs this - Peter Shankman - sends out emails with queries from reporters looking for experts to quote in their articles. It also works the other way - reporters can send him requests. I think it's pretty cool. Let me know if it any of you use it.