Have you ever wanted to attend a conference but couldn’t break away from where you are to attend? Last year at this time, I shared the first ever Pixelated Conference That Changed My Life.  This conference let’s you attend from the comfort of your computer whenever you want. The only cost is your time and attention.

In this post I present Pixelated Conference II: Targeting, Positioning, and Brand Strategy. I’ve been teaching a Marketing class at Antonelli College this term, and we’ve been talking about these concepts recently. Grab a pen and paper, and get ready to take some notes. Let’s join the conference, already in progress…

Derek Sivers: Obvious to you. Amazing to others.

Organizations must evaluate market segments to see if it’s worth doing business in those areas. This involves not only getting a qualitative understanding of what makes this market segment attractive but understanding the organization’s capabilities for meeting the needs of that market segments.

It can often be easy to diminish what you have to offer because you’re so close to it. It helps to have those on the outside look at what you do. What’s obvious to you can be amazing to others.

Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action

People don’t buy WHAT you do – they buy WHY you do it. When evaluating  a market segment, you must consider how it aligns with your mission and values. When people understand WHY you do WHAT you do, and they believe in that themselves, then you’ll have little problem marketing to them. Simon uses many examples in this video, including some failures as well as some successes.

1983 Apple Keynote – The “1984″ Ad Introduction

Steve Jobs does a fantastic job in describing the landscape of the personal computer market and IBM as a competitor. Notice how he positions IBM in comparison to its competitors over the years. Notice also how he positions Apple and the Mackintosh as he introduces the “1984″ ad.

Steve Jobs talks about the Crazy Ones – who think different.

This talk came many years later, after Steve Jobs had just come back to Apple. Notice how he again describes WHY Apple does WHAT it does and how’s he describes Apple’s brand position in the market.

Your Turn

Now it’s your turn. What videos would you add to this Pixelated Conference about Targeting, Positioning, and Brand Strategy? Share the links in the comments. And if you’d like, create your own Pixelated conference, and share the link in the comments.

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Welcome to Dump Go Daddy Day.

I’ve moved my domain registrations over to Namecheap. Today only, for every domain transfer, they’re donating $1 to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and their fight against SOPA.  If you’re interested in becoming one of their customers, I’d love if you’d use the following affiliate link:

Background

I think it was 2006 when a couple of other podcasters contacted me to say they had bought domain names for me. At that time, my blog websites were hosted at Blogger, and this allowed me to be able to give my audience a simpler name. And it’s more professional.

I’d heard of Go Daddy‘s endorsement of podcasting through their various agreements with other networks, as many of the shows I’d listen to became affiliates. I’ve used coupon codes to register and renew domains over the years.

Sleaze Happens

Then they started to get sleazy.  By that I mean that their online and Super Bowl ads told me that they were targeting a market that I really had no interest in being a part of.  What’s ironic is that Bob Parsons, who founded Go Daddy, also had a company called Parsons Technology, which made the QuickVerse Bible software, which we bought with our first home computer 12 years ago.

I began moving my domain registrations elsewhere. I had some domains coming up for renewal next month and had planned to move them when they were closer to expiring.

The SOPA/PIPA Thing

I’m not even going to claim I know enough about it to be an expert (I’ve included links to related stories below, however.). The US Congress has been discussing legislation to further deal with online piracy. I don’t believe that piracy is good, but I think that the way Congress is trying to deal with it through this new legislation is a bad solution.

Among those businesses to have come out in support of SOPA/PIPA, Go Daddy was one of them.  This led to many of its customers deciding to leave them in mass exodus. Today, December 29, 2011, is being known in many circles as “Dump Go Daddy Day”. (Go Daddy has since removed their explicit support in response to all the outcry to try to save some face.)

This was the rest of the motivation I needed to leave them.

So I’ve now moved my domain registrations over to Namecheap and have become an affiliate myself. And, as I said earlier, today only, for every domain transfer, they’re donating $1 to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and their fight against SOPA.  So if you’re interested in becoming one of their customers, I’d love if you’d use the following link:

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• Stupid GoDaddy Deserves Boycott (forbes.com)
• Namecheap to Donate $1 to EFF for Every Domain Transfer on December 29 (elliotsblog.com)
• December 29 is ‘Dump GoDaddy Day’ (digitaltrends.com)
• Angry geeks fire back at SOPA supporters (rt.com)
• Anti-SOPA activists find ways to keep the Internet free (promoteliberty.wordpress.com)

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… they buy WHY you do it.

That’s one of the main points I’m getting as I’ve started reading Simon Sinek’s book Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action.

Most businesses, organizations, and people start with WHAT they do, then they *might* get to HOW they do it, but few really can communicate WHY they do it.

Sinek says that many businesses have no idea why their customers are their customers and why their employees are their employees. There are two ways to influence human behavior: you can manipulate it or inspire it.

The transactional mindset of manipulations include the following: “dropping price; running a promotion; using fear, peer pressure or aspirational messages, and promising innovation to influence behavior – be it a purchase, a vote, or support” (p. 17).

These manipulations are not necessarily bad, as long as you understand they only work for the short-term, though. For example, while shopping, if I’m in transaction mode, all things considered, I’ll probably look at price. Then I may think about quality.

The other, more effective way, Simon argues, is to inspire behavior by starting with WHY.

What makes you different?

One challenge that we as individuals or businesses have is how we differentiate ourselves from others. Seth Godin wrote about this years ago in his book Purple Cow and last year in “Linchpin” (video review here).

What makes one .NET programmer different from another?
What makes one customer service representative different from another?
What makes one marketer different from another?

How can someone in a job search effectively communicate this difference? People don’t buy WHAT you do. They buy WHY you do it.

Back to Calling

Simon’s points here echo what Dan Miller talks about in “No More Mondays” with respect to job, career, and vocation. Vocation correlates to WHY you do what you do. Career can correlate to HOW you fulfill that calling (the root word for vocation means “to call out”).  A job could be WHAT you do.

It’s worth repeating:

VOCATION connects to WHY
CAREER connects to HOW
JOB connects to WHAT

At any professional gathering, someone asks, “WHAT do you do?” The response is typically what our current job is with an employer. Rarely do we mention WHY.

Check out Simon’s TED talk. (Click here to watch the embedded video.)

Some links above go to affiliate links. If you like what you’ve read here, please use them when you decide to purchase.

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Remember the movie “Grease 2“? Michelle Pfeiffer, Adrian Zmed, etc.? I remember several months that it was being played nonstop on cable (oy!). I developed a huge crush on Michelle Pfeiffer. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about. Sort of.

“You got a rep to protect.”

I remember a recurring line in the movie from the T-Birds: “I got a rep to protect.“

At the time I thought is was silly for people in the early 1960′s (or even the 1980′s) to be so concerned about their reputations – how others viewed them. Granted, I myself was going through an insecure phase where I had stopped caring so much about what others thought (even though, deep down, I still did!).

There is something to be said, though, about “protecting your rep.”

Emotional Aftertaste

Wasn’t it Ze Frank who said that a personal brand is the emotional aftertaste we get from a set of experiences with someone? In other words, when we leave our interactions with one another, we take that set of emotional experiences with us.

This got me to thinking:

Every day, throughout the day, based on what we do and how we do it, as we share our thoughts and ideas — we are interviewing each other.

You’re consciously or unconsciously thinking about whether I’d be someone you’d like to work with. And I’m doing the same thing with you. Maybe you and I don’t have jobs we’re looking to fill, but in the back of our minds, we evaluate one another as to whether we’d like to work together. As Mitch Joel says in his book, Six Pixels of Separation, “I Google you, and you Google me.”

This is okay.

Protect your rep

But this is yet another reason why we need to be careful what we share publicly. Even if you have your privacy settings ratcheted down so that only your friends can see what you post, they still are the ones who can see what you’re posting. Sounds redundant, but it needs to be said again.

Recently someone I know posted a picture on Facebook as a way to vent some emotions this person had been feeling. When I next spoke to that person, I asked what they thought if I were to share it publicly – outside of social media – in front of one of the common circles of friends we share. They said they would be embarrassed. Then I pointed out that by posting what they posted, it’s the same thing, since many of their friends are in that same group.

Note: Some links in the above text are affiliate links.

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If you’re a douchebag in real life, guess what? You’re an even bigger douchebag online because social media amplifies who you are.

You could be a real, genuine human being making an effort to be useful to others.

Or you could be an anonymous troll whose only purpose appears to suck air and tear others down.

Same is true from a business perspective. A lot of businesses are not ready for what social media can do because at their core, they are not ready for what social media will do.

As you think about how you might use social media, don’t forget your people skills.  Dale Carnegie was one of the best social networkers, even though he was around long before the internet. If you haven’t read How To Win Friends and Influence People lately (or ever), it might be time to pick it up. Use my affiliate link if you’d like or get it somewhere else.

inspired from my morning uncaffeinated buzz

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This coming Wednesday, January 27, 2010, I will be giving a free workshop as part of the Northern Kentucky One Stop‘s Career Achievement Network (CAN) monthly series.  The title of the session is “Activate Your Super Powers: The Social Media Utility Belt”.  Sign up here.

Some basic themes we’ll probably cover:

• What are your super powers?
• Every hero has an origin story. What’s yours?
• As a hero, having been given super powers, what will you use them for?
• What tools are useful for you in carrying out your mission?
• How do you know you’re using the right tool for the right task?
• How does all of this apply to your job search and career development?

When: Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Agenda:
8:30am – Structured Networking
9-11am – Program

Location: Northern KY Government Building, 8100 Ewing Blvd. Florence, KY (map).

Facilitators:
Daniel Johnson Jr.
Bob Pautke

The only investment is your attendance & participation. Free to attend, but reservations are required. Sign up here.

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I’ve been a part of an interesting discussion on Facebook recently about where to draw the line between personal and business use of social media, and it prompted me to share these thoughts about strategies for managing an online presence.

You are a brand

Everyone who comes in contact with you in-person or online leaves with an idea of who you are as a result of the experience.  While what happens in real-life might be fleeting or temporary, what happens online sticks around.  Many of us have camera phones that can take pictures or video and upload them with ease to the internet.  Did you just get tagged in a career-limiting photo on Facebook? Or did someone capture that great picture of you helping someone out in your community?

Is what you do online adding to or detracting from your personal brand?

Some points to keep in mind:

• Everyone’s use of social media will vary, and that’s okay. It’s a free world.
• Know your goals in developing and maintaining an online presence. These will dictate how you use the tools.
• Your goals may and probably will change over time. So will your use of the tools.
• Don’t expect to stay on top of everything. You’re only able to sample a bit of information at a time. You can set up monitoring stations, for sure. That’s a topic for another blog post.

Strategies

With these points in mind, here are six strategies you can employ to develop and manage an online presence:

1. Dump it. There are times when you no longer need or want to have that blog, account, etc. It might be worthwhile to just delete the account altogether.
2. Shelve it. Maybe you’ve lost that lovin’ feeling with your blog, account, etc., but you’re not quite ready to delete it. Maybe you’ll get back to it sometime; maybe you won’t. So you leave it alone for another day. Over the past 7 years or so, I’ve created over 10 blogs. Most of them lie dormant now or have moved to another space.
3. Anonymize it. There are advantages and disadvantages of setting up an anonymous online presence. On one hand, you have virtual free reign in what you can say and do without having it come back against you. Some folks opt for this strategy by using a pseudonym or nickname. On the other hand, you aren’t able to transfer the equity in your online brand into your offline career. But maybe that’s not your goal in the first place. Maybe you want to have one account for everyone and another, more private account where you can say whatever you want to say.  I started off using a nickname on some social networks but later opted to use a more distinct form of my real name.
4. Merge them. If you have multiple accounts, blogs, etc., maybe they’ve become overwhelming for you. Maybe you want to present a clearer message across one social networking presence. In this case, it might be worthwhile to merge.
5. Link them. If you still want to keep multiple online identities, then consider linking them to one another, so that others can know where you are. I do that with blogs and in my Virtual Business Card.  Something like this is useful if you’ve signed up with different usernames on different platforms. It’s also useful, for example, if you leave one blogging platform, for another, to cross-link the two.
6. Aggregate them. Similar to linking, another strategy is to aggregate your multiple presences using a tool like FriendFeed. This place becomes a one-stop shop for everything you put online.

So remember that what you do online says a lot about who you are – or who we think you are.  How you decide to use social networking tools is completely up to you, and your goals should dictate how you use them, and there are different strategies you can employ.

Agree? Disagree? Did I miss anything? What other strategies have you found useful?

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Part 1 of… several, maybe.

So, if you’ve read this blog via danieljohnsonjr.com or have noticed these articles posted elsewhere, you know I spend a lot of time on Twitter.  I thought I’d drop in here directly to share how I’ve been using Twitter on this blog.

I use a WordPress plug-in called Twitter Tools to create a daily digest of “Things I’ve Said“.  I often find it more efficient to post to Twitter, even though I share things that could very well be compiled in a blog post.  It does, after all, take some time to craft a blog post – at least from my point of view.

I signed up for Twitter back in August 2006, and  I wish I could go back to some of those earlier posts.  Unfortunately, Twitter only keeps the most recent posts online, so these posts, unless archived elsewhere, are gone forever. I cannot go back to August 2006 and read some of those earlier posts.

I use Twitter to share about projects I’m working on not only in my paid work as a developer and business intelligence professional, but also as a new media professional in Cincinnati, Dayton, and elsewhere.  You might say I’m building and contributing to my personal brand through Twitter.

I like using Twitter Tools to archive my posts here on danieljohnsonjr.com, therefore, because this blog serves as an archive and vehicle to showcase what I’m doing.  Interesting, isn’t it, that this question is what Twitter asks?  I guess I still like to answer that question.

I could go further, and perhaps I will in the future, about how else I’m using social media tools.

What do you think? What ways are you using social media tools to complement and showcase your activities? Please leave your thoughts in the comments below at http://danieljohnsonjr.com to continue the conversation.

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On my way into work this morning, I heard a podcasted interview David Bowman from LUCRUM had with Pat Crowley from the Enquirer. They talked about some of the ways an “old media” organization like the Enquirer is adapting to changes in how people are getting their news.

Pat talked about why the Enquirer changed their comment system recently for their online pages, and it made more sense than it did when I’d first heard about it. I’ll try to explain it in my own words, based on what I heard.

Like it or not, the Enquirer is known as a reputable news source in our community. We expect them to provide accurate content.  That is how it views its brand.

An anonymous source dropping off photos in a brown envelope is akin in the digital world to an anonymous commenter on a blog post or story.  There is no way to check out the source to see if the tip or statements made in a comment are true.

Making sure that commenters are registered users helps the Enquirer to better source their stories, according to Crowley.

That’s how I understand it. What do you think? Do you agree with them, or do you see this as The Enquirer’s way of controlling the conversation?

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This post originates from http://danieljohnsonjr.com

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Here is the presentation I gave at Podcamp Ohio, entitled “Managing Multiple Online Identities“, and the folks from Coefficient Media recorded the audio and have posted it to the Podcamp Ohio Podcast.

UPDATE: I found a link to the video for this presentation at Viddler: Daniel Johnson, Jr. at Podcamp Ohio 2008

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Thank you to everyone who attended the session! I feel like I learned at least as much from you as you may have learned from me.

The presentation has been getting some buzz from others in the blogosphere:

• PodCampOhio – Daniel Johnson Jr. – Managing Your Online Identities
• Introduction to Pod Camp…
• Managing Multiple Online Identities (Podcamp Ohio)
• So you think you can blog

Some folks mentioned the presentation on Twitter:

• RobRutkowski: Attending Managing Multiple Online Identities presented by @danieljohnsonjr.
• sMoRTy71: @danieljohnsonjr is having everyone introduce themselves. Nice mix of people in this session.

• shannanb: @podcampohio Just met the man- @danieljohnsonjr He’s presenting a session on managing online identities.
• theRamenNoodle: pod @danieljohnsonjr has a packed out house for his talk on managing multiple identities. I better go see what my other ones are doing.
• Argon52: My friend @danieljohnsonjr is looking hot during his talk right now! Boo yeah!
• sMoRTy71: http://twitpic.com/2w4m – @danieljohnsonjr just showed the Profilactic home page during his session.
• shannanb: @danieljohnsonjr presentation on managing multiple online identities. Great presentation. Learned a lot.
• tw3nty3ight: Great session from @danieljohnsonjr It was a good time!
• kilodelta: @danieljohnsonjr Good luck with your talk! Wish I could be there, but knowing you, there will be a recording!
• ays: really enjoyed @danieljohnsonjr preso!

I also set up an RSS feed for the PodCampOhio Social Media Firehose, in case you want to track all the social media conversation related to PodCamp Ohio.

Also, if I’ve missed your link and you’d like me to include it, please leave it in the comments. Thanks again!

[IMG] “Startin’ the day with @DanielJohnsonJr” by AnnOhio

—–
Check out my other blogs:
Daniel Johnson, Jr.
Get That Job!
Journey Inside My Mind Blog
HowI Got My Job
QuotesBlog
Twitter.com/danieljohnsonjr
Connect on LinkedIn
Interesting Things I’ve Read

Related tags: daniel+johnson+jr podcampohio social+media presentation public+speaking

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