Launching Shortly IgniteHQ
IgniteHQ is a company started by Josh Bruni and Myself that currently does business as Latitude Interactive. We have a few clients where we offer social media services - from private online communities, to social media campaigns on the web (we even manage clients brands on other social sites like MySpace or Facebook for clients). We are re-branding the company as IgniteHQ mainly becauase L A T I T U D E I N T E R A C T I V E is waaayyyy to long and people were struggling with the spelling ( I hated telling people to email me at chad at latitude interactive - that’s like 9 syllables).
The new logo above is an attempt to demonstrate our forward thinking, and creative offering. The word ingite itself gives a feeling of fl ames. We went with a green color as a sign of “growth and nature” to avoid the usual orange and yellowish colors of fire (which give out a negative feeling). The green has softened the concept and is more organic, which is similar to our message of grass roots marketing, word of mouth marketing, social media marketing, and natural traffic flow from good content.
Some feedback we’vre received is that it looks like a logo for an “Energy Drink” company or a skateboarding company. My answer is…so. Our services are not traditional marketing and are better understood by a younger demographic (which marketers are always trying to reach), so I think it fits. But what you do think?
Leave a comment and let me know.
GEW Utah Entrepreneur Conference
I attended the GEW Utah Entreprenerial Conference today, since this week is Global Entrepreneur week. I was very glad I attended and came away with some very helpful points.
I was most impressed, however, with the organizers of the event. Greg Warnock, Alan Hall, Craig Bott and others are truly “giving back” to their communities. They have been very successful financially and are at a stage in their lives where their contribution is truly selfless.
It is people like this that change communities. That create an intangible spirit of success for the people around them. Without men like this to give back our communities would fall back again, reinventing ideals, with each generation.
Here are some of the kernals I recieved from the conference. They are just notes and deserve more attention in a later post…
- Funding: Will this transaction help the company in both the short and long run? Do I want to do business with these types of people (specific investors you are dealing with)? Will they add more value then money? (Do your due diligence on them). Is the transaction fair for both sides?
- Funding: Trade points in bulk and not one at a time. You win by making your business grow, not by negotiating a point
- The biggest enemy of success is complacency
It was great to see some of the friends I’ve made in the entrepreneural community again - and to meet others. I’m looking forward to attending again next year.
Social Backlash for the Motrin Brand
One of the great results from a more open and social internet is the power that becomes vested in the people. It allows them to get the things they need - information, products, negotiation power, support, ideas - from each other instead of having to rely on companies.
This is great for us, and can be troubling for businesses. Many companies have learned to adapt and to harness the listening and speaking power that is found in a more social internet. They adopt their strategies and engage with their customers effectively. These companies get it and are benefiting from it.
Occationally there are uprising within the social web that cause headache and trouble that companies are not used to. Recently
Johnson and Johnson pulled an online advertisement for its over-the-counter pain pill Motrin after it triggered protest on the Internet from consumers who thought the ad was an insensitive portrayal of women’s pain.
The incident illustrates how quickly consumer response on so-called social-media sites can influence corporate behavior.
Johnson & Johnson are one of the companies that “get it” and I beleive responded well to the uprising. Their response helps keep loyalty to their brand and, I imagine, spared them additional costs in marketing and in brand repair.
With my new company, Latitude Interactive, we have begun helping businesses thrive in the social media space by helping them create and monitor communities. We are targeting certain industry’s right now and will roll our services out to other industrys soon.
Chad’s Top 10 Reasons to Vote YES on Prop 8
With just a couple of weeks until we vote I thought I would share with you why I would vote yes on prop 8. From the various thoughts and opinions that have been published, these are the 10 that resonate most with me. If you would like to read more articles that have been well researched and very well written visit WhatIsTheHarm.org.
- Voice of the People: Our founders fought for certain principles of government that would protect the people and make us truly free. One of those principles, self-government, which means that the government shall operate by the consent of the governed, was grossly violated by 4 judges. They took on a kingly role by imposing values on the people of California. They took our rights away when they discounted our right to vote and the results of that vote in 2000. Since when do judges define our values? They don’t. The people do. Voting “Yes” on prop 8 restores that vote and sends a message to abusers of power that the government is only a steward to the people.
Small Business Credit Crunch
Credit is essencial to running a business, especially a small business that can’t raise funds in a public offering. I have a $60k line of credit for my businesses that I use frequently in the operations of my businesses.
About two weeks ago I received a letter from my bank that stated they were lowering my line of credit from $60k to $50k. They said the reason for this reduction was “the stresses facing the economy.” As a customer, I was very upset - but, realizing that I typically only use about $20k, I let it go.
I’m hoping that with our current situation, I won’t regret the fight that I didn’t put up.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke spelled out the implications of this credit crisis earlier this week in front of Congress.
He talked of how small businesses would not be able to get the credit they need to operate, grow and hire workers.
“Credit is the mother’s milk of the modern economy. The tighter the credit spigot closes, the worse the economy is going to be,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Economy.com. “Businesses operate on credit. If they can’t raise money, then very soon they won’t be making payroll.”
I am lucky enough to not absolutley need a lot of credit to opperate my businesses, most of them can function with little credit. However, most businesses are not that lucky and can put the rest of us in a bad position.
One of my worries about the current bailout plan is the fact the main beneficiaries have obligations to other nations.
But other experts say that credit was already tight before this month’s Wall Street meltdown and that pumping $700 billion into the banking system isn’t going to necessarily spur the economy.
Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of the Economic Cycle Research Institute, said the banks and Wall Street firms that will be the main beneficiaries of the bailout are going to take the money and prepare to deal with growing defaults in Europe and Asia as those economies slow.
He added that smaller banks will be more likely to repair their battered balance sheets than lend more aggressively.
If that is the case, then the credit crunch we are in won’t be solved by the proposed bailout and help the small businesses get the credit they need to keep payroll alive.
What do you think? What would be the best solution?
Who still has landlines?
Lets see, my parents, my grandma, the old couple across the street and…probably McCain. That is about it.
Honestly, I was surprised to see that only 17% of US households are cord-cutters. I am also surprised when my direct TV wanted to activate my account by using a land line. I sarcastically told them that our landline was next to my typewriter.
This study says that smaller, low income families are the ones cutting the cord, while those with money or large families keep the cord going strong. In my opinion it isn’t about money or family size as much as efficientcy and convienience.
I currently use skype, vonage and AT&T for my business lines and personal calls, however, I’m looking into services like Number Garage to just forward my business calls straight to my cell phone. I would love to get into Google’s Grand Central, but they are not allowing sign ups right now.
Do you still have a land line? What does it cost you? Is it weird have two numbers? Do you want my old typewriter?
The Federal Bailout….
While I am a proponent of free markets and allowing businesses to suffer for bad investments and poor decisions, I’m not totally sold on the Ron Paul solution of “do nothing” in our current situation.
I believe limited bailouts are needed in extreme cases (like AIG) simply because allowing them to fail threatens bankruptcies and job losses in otherwise sound sectors.
Simply put, there is a role that government should play. Albeit a limited role.
There is a good article that goes into details about our current situation and the role of government. The following are a few of the takeaways that I agree with…
1. As a general principle the government should not bail out failing firms. Bailing out firms that have miscalculated in the market shoulders taxpayers with costs that should be borne instead by those who made the mistakes.
2. There can be rare situations in which a wave of bad decisions in one sector has such dire consequences for the most basic operations of the economy that other sectors are threatened, jeopardizing the functioning of the entire economy. In these rare cases another principle comes into play: Government institutions have a critical role in helping to assure the integrity of the market’s infrastructure, from the sanctity of contracts to the liquidity of the financial markets. When government fails to carry out this role in critical times, such as its failure to maintain liquidity after the stock market crash of 1929, the results can be catastrophic. As economist Milton Friedman explained, the failure of the Federal Reserve to maintain liquidity and functioning credit markets helped trigger and deepen the Great Depression.
3. The government should not try to support prices. Policymakers should not attempt to keep stocks or housing prices from falling to their proper market-determined levels. The role of the federal government is not to ensure that prices do not drop.
4. Strictly limit legislation to the immediate need to stabilize the financial situation. Within hours of the announcement of a financial rescue plan, there were media reports that congressional leaders were considering adding in provisions on a host of other issues, including unemployment benefits, food stamps, and infrastructure and Medicaid funding. Lawmakers should oppose any and all attempts to expand the legislation being proposed.
5. Carefully define the Fed’s role. The Federal Reserve should exercise its “lender of last resort” responsibilities to ensure liquidity but avoid the unwarranted mission creep of those responsibilities to new fields.
To read the entire article click here.
What do you think?
Lost my Old Blog Entries
Always follow directions
In my attempt to be server admin or programmer, I thought “I can upgrade my old version of wordpress to the newest version, no problem.”
In the process of the upgrade, I, like a putz, ignored all the “make a back up of your blog contents” warnings. Classic. To be honest, part of the reason I ignored them was because (1) I wasn’t totally sure how to make a backup, and (2) I had the cocky attitude of “what can go wrong in a simple software upgrade?”
Needless to say, I lost it all. Now, I was never a frequent blogger, but I did have entries as old as 2004. Here’s to following directions…
