#LOSTCHAT

Have you ever been on Twitter on a Monday night and seen the hashtag for #journchat go by a zillion times?? How about a Thursday and seen #smallbizchat?

What these are are large groups of people all talking about a single topic. #journchat is a bunch of journalists and people who interact with journalists (such as PR folk) talking. #smallbizchat is for... you guessed it, small business people.

I had an idea the other day to start a chat of my own. Perhaps it will be a one time thing, perhaps it will be ongoing. We'll have to wait and see how it goes.

So, here's my idea...

Because this Wednesday (May 20th) will be the first without a new LOST since the season is over, I thought it would be fun to have a #LOSTCHAT. This will be a forum on Twitter where everyone across the world can come together and discuss just WTF is going on. There's millions of theories out there about what's happening in LOST, and I'm sure your theories are different from mine, so let's discuss them together.

Please pass this on to all of your Twitter friends who also enjoy LOST.

We will start at @ 9pm EST on Wednesday May 20th (the time when LOST should be on for the east coast), and using the hashtag #LOSTCHAT.

This should be fun. See you there!

40deuce

Trying Something New & Interesting

Weird looking picture above, right??

If you follow me on Twitter than you would have seen that this picture is also my avatar there.

I changed it to try out something. The picture above is actually called a QR Code, and basically it's a super fancy barcode. You need to get a special application to be able to read the code, and then something will happen. I use an app for my iPhone called 2D Sense to read the codes.

My code will automatically take you too my other blog once the program has decoded the code, but companies are starting to use these codes to get content to their customers such as websites, coupons, plain text, whatever.

I just thought it would be something fun to try, so go download a QR Code reader and try it out for yourself.

A special shout-out to @doctorjones for giving me the idea.

40deuce

I Think I understand the Hipster Trend

So, today I was on a walk around Toronto and as usual, saw a lot of hipsters along my journey. While looking at a semi-cute hipster girl I had an epiphany; I finally understood this hipster trend thing.

A little while ago the hot trend was to look like you just came out of a pop video. Girls dressed like pop princesses and guys looked like they wanted to be in N'Sync. The problem with this was you actually had to be a semi-good looking person to really pull off the look. Girls could buy the clothes, cut and dye their hair the right way, wear a lot of make up, but if you weren't a good looking person anyways it wouldn't help.

Hipster style is different though. It's kind of about looking frumpy and like you're not trying even though you are. I think it's caught on though because it's leveled the playing field. Hot girls can wear the style and still be hot. But, on the flip side the not-as-attractive people can also wear the style and the "I'm not trying to look good" look helps bump them up a bit. Like I see girls who are only semi-cute but the look they have going sometimes helps to bump them up a bit.

However, for the record, I still don't support the hipster movement.

Now, here's some hipster music I can stand:

40deuce

Building My Personal Brand

In my last post I mentioned that I was starting a new book called "Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success", and I'd like to explain why.

As you may have deduced with your superior intellect, my real name isn't "40deuce", although it's a possibility for my child (kidding). I came up with the name a long time ago. It comes from my lucky number 42 (and yes, it was my lucky number before I read "The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy" although that was a fantastic stroke of fate), and I just though changing the 2 to "deuce" made it sound cooler.

At first, I was just going to use it as a business name. I was going to have a 40deuce empire! 40deuce Media, 40deuce Records, 40deuce Films, 40deuce Clothing, 40deuce whatever, etc. A little while after that I decided to use it in an email address just because I couldn't think of anything else and didn't want to go with just my real name (how boring). Later it just became a screen name for me so I could log into all kinds of websites and not really worry about forgetting what name I came up with for this site.

At first I never really considered anything about using the alias, but then people on Twitter (where of course it's my handle) started addressing me with lines like "hey deuce" as if it was my real name. I thought it was a little strange, but I understood why they were doing it. It didn't quite click in my head yet that I had started building a personal brand.

A little while after that I decided to get some business cards made up for networking purposes. I put all the usual title, contact and website info on one side, but had to think of something to put on the other side. I decided that I should just put a big 40deuce on the back side. That way I could also tell people that they can find me on Twitter with that name, but I also figured it worked since I plan on calling any business I start 40deuce.

While at a networking party for young business minded people here in Toronto known as #GenYTO, I was mingling around and introducing myself to the people there with my real name. We would chat for a while and eventually the person I was talking with and me would exchange business cards. It was at this point when a few people throughout the night would look at my card and say, "Oh! You're 40deuce?? I've seen/follow you on Twitter." This is when I started to realize that I was becoming this 40deuce brand.

The next week in school one of my classmates asked to see my business card. When I showed it to her she asked, "What's with the 40deuce?" I didn't even think about my response and somehow the words "I'm building a personal brand" came out of my mouth.

That was the first time I even thought about it in those terms. I didn't mean to say that, it's just what came out. It did howevr make me realize that it's true. 40deuce is now my brand. My personal brand, and I think that I've started to establish it enough that it's now time to build that brand and really make it known.

And that my friends is what lead me to pick up this new book. I'll let you know how it goes when I finish reading it.

40deuce

Learning "The New Rules"

I know, I know. I've fallen off the posting wagon again. In my defense, my last month of school was hectic, but I'M DONE NOW!!!

During my last couple months of school though, I managed to read this great book in little 45min increments on my public transit commutes.

The book is David Meerman Scott's "The New Rules of Marketing and PR" and is a fantastic read. I highly recommend this book to not just anyone in marketing or public relations, but to anyone that does any kind of business now or wants to in the future.

This book takes a look at how the world of business has shifted thanks to the internet and how people are staying connected to their consumers through it. The best part about it is how Meerman writes the book like he does his blog. It's very easy to read and simple to understand. As well, there are tons of real life examples (or case studies) that make all the material he writes about easy to understand through actual stories.

The book is broken up into three distinct sections. The first talks about why the internet has changed how marketing and PR is done. The second section then talks about different tactics that are currently being implemented on the web and gives a nice overview of each. The final section then helps readers to make an action plan to harness all these new techniques and use them for their benefit.

The section I got the most out of (possibly because I was supposed to, as he reiterated it throughout the book) was about creating buyer personas. The chapter talks about how every business has to know their audience, and sometimes that could be more than one audience at a time, and make sure that you think like those people when creating your content. For example, words are very important. You need to make sure that the content on your website or blog is written in words that your target demographics would use in their everyday speech. It also talks about moving past just the basic demographics like age, sex, location, etc., and breaking it down even further into micro categories like "males in northern Canada from 14-30 years old that ride bikes, are heavy into music, love chocolate ice cream and walk their dogs without leashes" (that example isn't actually from the book).

This book was a great extension to "The Cluetrain Manifesto" which I blogged about earlier in the year.

Again, if you do business of any sort now or plan on it in the future, I highly recommend you read this book.

Next on my reading list: "Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success" by Dan Schwable and I'll explain why I chose this one in my next blog post which I'll hopefully have up in the next couple days.

Till then, enjoy this tune:

40deuce