One of the best ad’s I have ever seen. No seriously, it’s unlike any other.

Here is a 2007 ad made for renewable energy company, EPURON. The ad itself was made by famous German-based ad agency Nordpol Hamburg which is regarded as one of the most creative agencies worldwide. The ad was shown to EPURON’S international B-2-B customers, on TV (business and news-channel) and on-line. It’s a clever ad. In fact, it’s one of the best I have ever seen! The ad, titled “Power of Wind” won tons of awards, which are listed below.

But don’t take my word for it, watch the Ad yourself and let me know what you think.

“Epuron invests in alternative forms of energy like wind energy. The wind has got enormous potential. Someone’s just got to detect it.”

Did you get it? If not, it’s ok. Watch it again. It’s well worth the eye-opener. The Spot cleverly demonstrates in a very charming and poetic way the strength of the wind – when used intelligently – everyone benefits. The main character, “Mr. W.” is the wind. It’s a brilliant pice that engages the viewer with a sense of curiosity, humor and personality that I’ve never seen before. They took an intangible thing like wind and made it into an odd-looking character who yearns for belonging and purpose. Not to mention that it’s clever and funny.  I love it.

This project also drew the support of the German Federal Ministry of the Environment, Sigmar Gabriel – “when I saw ‘Power of Wind’ for the first time I was drawn by the motive and the humor of it. The Nordpol team did a great job in interpreting the meaning of wind energy into image and sound. It was an excellent ad for the future of renewable energies.”

I wish I saw more intelligent ads like this one.

Ad Information

Agency: Nordpol Hamburg
Production Company: Paranoid Projects
Advertiser: Epuron/BMU
Brand: Epuron/German Ministry for the Environment
Product Name: Wind Energy Initiative
Date of First Publication 4/30/2007
Country of Production: Germany
Creative Director: Lars Ruhmann
Art Director: Björn Rühmann, Joakim Reveman
Copywriter: Matthew Branning
Director: Les Viking

Awards:

Epica Awards 2007, Meribel Ad Festival Winners, Eurobest 2007, Eurobest 2007 Grand Prix, Eurobest 2007 Gold, Cannes Lions 2007 Winners, Epica 2007 Film Gold, London Awards 2007 TV Direction Visual Gold, Cannes Lions 2007 Film Gold, Andy Awards 2008 Television Gold, Andy Awards 2008, ADC Awards 2008, TV Gold, ADC Awards 2008 Craft Gold, ADC Awards 2008 Craft Silver, One Show 2008 Awards TV Gold, Clio 2008 TV Gold, Clio 2008 TV Silver, Golden Awards Of Montreux 2008 TV, ADCE Awards 2008 Film Gold, ADCE Awards 2008 Grand Prix, The Cresta Awards 2008 TV/Cinema/Digital Grand Prix, The Cresta Awards 2008 TV/Cinema/Digital Winner, The CUP Awards 2008 Winner.

Make your organization more effective by implementing “systematic, focused and purposeful self-training.”

Peter F. Drucker, "The Father of Modern Management"

Yesterday morning, I went for a walk in The Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Gardens in Claremont. The Gardens are located right next to the Claremont Colleges and are a great place for reading, reflection and relaxation. As I was walking yesteray, I saw a garden bench dedicated to Peter Drucker, the famous writer, consultant and great business thinker of the 20th century. His bench is quietly hidden in the 86 acre natural setting and on it is inscribed a phrase describing how Peter often enjoyed walking and thinking in the Botanic Gardens.

I’ve always known Drucker as being an influential thought leader and as “The Father of Modern Management” but yesterday I was left wanting to know more. I guess you could say I had a personal experience while in the Botanic Gardens – thinking in the very same place the great Peter Drucker once roamed free in thought and curiosity. And having written 38 books on business, government and the nonprofit sectors of society, I have my work set out for me. I plan to read all his books to get a real understanding of the mind of Peter Drucker. And so starting now, here is a quick review on one of Ducker’s books I’ve recently read titled: The Effective Executive.

The book rests on two main premises: One, that the executive’s job is to be effective and two, that effectiveness can be learned. To Drucker, the effective executive is a knowledge-worker who can successfully manage oneself, one’s performance and one’s organization. It draws some parallels to  what Hill mentions about time management, communication and setting proprieties in The Principles of Self-Mastery. Being effective challenges directions, goals, and purposes of the organization. It raises the eyes of its people from preoccupation with problems to a vision of opportunity, from concern with weakness to exploitation of strengths.[1] But to apply effectiveness to your organization, it must be learned.

And when it comes to learning to be effective, just like anything else, it takes time, practice and commitment. Its something that can be taught and mastered, but it must be made a habit. Drucker lays out the blueprint to becoming effective. It starts with managing oneself followed by managing others and finally an organization.  Organizations are not more effective because they have better people. They have better people because the are motivated to improving the self-development of their employees through positive habit and environment. Drucker explains that effectiveness is the result from “systematic, focused and purposeful self-training.” It’s so simple yet overlooked.

Just as character cannot be taught but learned, so the same is with effectiveness. Effectiveness is not a “subject” but rather a self-disipline; it’s a way of life. It’s crucial to man’s self-development; to organizational development; and to the fulfillment and viability of modern society. All in all, the effective executive tries to be himself; he does not pretend to be someone else. He looks at his own performance and at his own results and tries to discern a pattern.[2]

About Peter Drucker

Peter Drucker taught at New York University as a Professor of Management from 1950 to 1971 and then came to California in 1971, where he developed one of the country’s first executive MBA programs for working professionals at Claremont Graduate University. From 1971 to his death he was the Clarke Professor of Social Science and Management at Claremont Graduate University. The university’s management school was named the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management in his honor in 1987. He taught his last class at the school in 2002 at age 92.

Watch the “Charlie Rose” of entrepreneurship interview the leading expert on marketing!

If you haven’t heard of Andrew Warner by now, now is the time! Andrew Warner is the founder of Mixergy – a place where successful people teach ambitious upstarts. With having interviewed nearly 250 successful tech entrepreneurs, Andrew is known as the “Charlie Rose” for tech start-ups. Andrew has interviewed some amazing people such as Robert Scoble, Neil Patel, Jimmy Wales and renowned marketing expert Seth Godin. Just last week, Andrew Warner interviewed Seth Godin about the release of Seth’s new book: “Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?”

A Linchpin, as Seth describes it, is someone in a company who is indispensable and who is extremely valuable. So valuable because they are true artists deep down inside. The message that is revealed in his book is that everyone is an artist. He describes an “artist” as being someone who does “emotional work” which essentially is work that matters. It’s work that allows you to become a true artist in a desired field of work. Linchpins are non-conformists but rather true artists that lead the way. Seth encourages his readers to make the leap from normality to indispensable artistry.

I was really, really impressed with Andrew’s latest interview with Seth Godin in his Mixergy video blog. I highly encourage everyone to watch! In order to watch the full interview, you have to register your e-mail. I would highly encourage it as I gained so much insight into the mind of Seth Godin. I really enjoy Andrew’s interviews and will continue to watch to gain more insight into some of the greatest minds in business.

You can register for free and watch the full interview here.

An Entrepreneurs Showcase with some of the biggest names in Tech.

Leaving San Diego right now to go to the 007 Twiistup event in Los Angeles. Twiistup is The Entrepreneurs Showcase where venture capitalists and entrepreneurs come to find the next big thing. Can’t wait for an amazing day.

Here is a video from the 2005 Twiistup:

Here’s just a sample of the top 30 people we’ll meet at Twiistup:

Michael Jones, COO of MySpace
Dan Benyamin, co-founder and CEO CitizenNet
Rahul Sonnad, founder and CEO Geodelic
Chamillionaire, Grammy winning and Platinum selling artist
Peter Guber, Chairman and CEO of Mandalay Entertainment, former Chairman of Sony Pictures
Kevin Pereira, co-host Attack of The Show, G4 TV
Dave Waldman, CEO of Bccthis
Peter Lee, Partner Baroda Ventures
Loren Bendele, CEO of Savings.com
Ralph Barbagallo, CEO, FLARB LLC
Ezra Roizen, Investment banker, co-host Vator Box on VatorNews, Ackrell Capital
Richard Rosenblatt, founder, Chairman and CEO of Demand Media
Anurag Jain, CEO, Gigzee
Christopher Macho, Founder and CEO, WeFridge
Babette Pepaj, founder/CEO, BakeSpace
Ben Parr, co-editor, Mashable
Steve Raymond, VP Product/Strategy, Comcast Digital Entertainment
Paul Graham, founder and Partner Y-Combinator
Mark Suster, Partner / VC, GRP Partners
Brian Deagon, Reporter, Investors Business Daily
Tyler Crowley, Dir of Corp Dev and Strategy, Mahalo
Neil Patel, Co-founder, Crazy Egg / KISSmetrics
Justin Kan, Founder/President, Justin.tv
Rick Heitzmann, Managing Director, FirstMark Capital
Jolie O’Dell, Writer / Community Manager, Read Write Web
Brian Newton, Managing Member, Aurum Ventures
Gilad Elbaz, CEO, Factual Inc
Jason Nazar, Founder & CEO, DocStoc
Clark Landry, Co-Founder, Top Level Domain Holdings
Dmitry Shapiro, CEO, Veoh

Going to be an exciting day!!

Bill George, Former CEO and Chairman of Medtronic

Learn why networking is a prerequisite for Authentic leadership!

Great networkers are not born, they are created. And it need not be a complex process. Many people think that networking is something that you do, rather than a way that you live. It is quite the opposite. Networking is a life skill that can be learned over time, but it must be mastered by creating simple systems that enable you to connect with other key players.

And not surprisingly, great networkers make great leaders because they utilize and expand their circle of influence onto others. Day in and day out, they gain momentum within their contacts and render useful service to create reconance. The process sounds so simple, yet it is an all too overlooked skill. The great networkers are great because they have uncompromising character. They understand that people, at a very humanistic level, deserve to be treated with respect and integrity.

And what makes a great leader? There are a great number of definitions out there. Personally, I find value in what Bill George, former CEO and Chairman of Medtronic says about it – “I can summarize leadership in a single word: authenticity.” And Its true! Authenticity is a forerunner to all the other great traits that build character. Authentic Leaders, as George describes, ”are guided by qualities of the heart, by passion and compassion, as they are by qualities of the mind and who lead with purpose, meaning and values.”[1]

When it all comes down to it, true networking is a prerequisite to authentic leadership and both are concerned in building enduring, meaningful relationships with people.

We respond to the latest questions from the mailbag.

This post is part of our Mailbag Q&A series where we answer reader-submitted questions related to web design, development and online marketing.

If you would like to submit your own web design, development and online marketing questions to be answered, please email us at:

Question:

-Rafael, San Diego, CA

Answer:

Hi Rafael,
Thanks for emailing us. I think it’s great that you have taken an interest in web design. I started over 10 years ago with nothing but a browser, text editor and dial up modem, and have progressed over the years to designing and developing rich internet apps, mobile apps and websites of all types. It has been a great ride and a very prosperous career.

You have a few options: web design, web development or both. The Art Institute is a great place to study web design. I am sure you are familiar with the standard tools: Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, etc. Take web design courses and start designing as much as possible. Have your professors or others with web design experience critique your work so that you know where to improve. Remember that you are designing both a user interface and also visually communicating. Take a look at the best sites on the web (www.apple.com is pretty damn good) and also read up on web usability (Jacob Nielsen is a great author).

For web development, you can start with simple HTML and gradually progress into your language of choice (PHP, Ruby, Python, etc) as you go. A great way to learn is online by following tutorials. WordPress is a great content management system and blogging platform written in PHP. It is open source, so you can modify or add onto it in any way you wish. Start by following the installation guide, and then put together your first site. As you go, you’ll learn more and more about PHP, especially when you start to modify it beyond the default.

You can also go for a degree in computer science. I majored in computer science at UCSD. My only concern is that in the computer science department, they did not emphasize web programming languages. Instead, we programmed in C, C++ and Java for a majority of the courses. This gave me a very strong foundation in computer science, algorithm design and building software. I do use it for developing on the web, but it was definitely not a requirement for becoming a web developer.

You can get by just by taking a few web programming courses at the local community college and polishing your skills through projects and work experience. I recommend getting involved in open source software projects. The people you will work with can teach you some amazing things and you’ll get the chance to work on a large project.

I hope this is helpful in your quest.

Sincerely,

Daryl Auclair
Web Developer / SEO Guru
Rio Online Development, Inc.

I’ve been working on several Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaigns lately and started to wonder how I ever did anything without the great reporting tools that are out there today. Keeping regular reports of your SEO efforts is not only great for sending to clients, but is also essential for tracking your progress on do-it-yourself campaigns.

Here are my top 5 SEO reporting tools and a brief review of each to help you get your feet wet:

Google Adwords Keyword Tool

As the first step in your SEO campaign, you’ll need to compile a list of targeted keyword phrases to optimize your site for. Using the Google Adwords Keyword Tool, you can input a general keyword phrase and it will very quickly return a list of related keyword phrases along with their estimated monthly search volumes.

This tool is intended for Adwords campaigns, but the data it delivers is very relevant to your SEO efforts. In just a few minutes, you can export (txt, excel, csv) a list of keyword phrases for your niche and then sort by search volume to decide which keyword phrases you want to try and tackle.

Link Diagnosis Backlink Reporter

I’ve used Link Diagnosis since it was first announced 2 years ago, and I must say that I have never been disappointed. Enter your website’s domain name and click start. You are returned a breakdown of all links pointing back to your site from other websites. Check the PageRank, anchor text and no-follow status of your backlinks on one screen.

This tool has evolved very much since its first release, and you can now create an account to save your reports and even group and track progress on individual projects. Export your reports to CSV to further analyze or format your data. You can also try their Site Diagnosis tool, where you enter your XML Sitemap address and discover what pages on your site are actually indexed.

Rank Checker Firefox Extension

Another lifesaver from Aaron Wall, author of SEO Book. This tool installs directly into Firefox as an extension so that you can run ranking reports while you’re browsing. Enter your website’s domain name, then paste in your list of keywords to add them to the queue. Click start and Rank Checker will begin fetching your rankings for Google, Yahoo! and Live.

Export your findings to a CSV file for further analysis, and save your queue for 1 click reporting next time. You can save multiple jobs, complete with historical data reporting, and even schedule regular scans for no hassle reporting. Also be sure to check out Aaron’s other SEO tools.

Website Grader

Hubspot’s Website Grader was referred to me by Suzanne Willis a few years ago, and I have been using it regularly ever since. Just enter your website’s domain name and click generate. It is great for evaluating a website’s SEO status at the start of a project, as well as at regularly scheduled increments during project execution.

You can get a quick glance at SEO vitals like: metadata and alt description usage, domain age & expiration, number of indexed pages, last crawl date and more. I include these stats with my monthly SEO reports to make sure everything is in order and to keep an eye on progress.

Google Analytics

We can’t forget about the bottom line: traffic. Google Analytics allows you to analyze your website’s traffic to see where visitors are coming from. Traffic sources are clearly broken into search engines, referring sites (links) and direct traffic. You can quickly see how you are doing at any point in your campaign, and this data is vital for your SEO efforts.

Simply add the Google Analytics tracking code to your site and it will start tracking your traffic sources, average time on site, bounce rate, pages per visit, most popular pages, referring keyword phrases and more. Then, add your goal conversion pages and track your conversion rate.

Conclusion

I hope you find these free SEO reporting tools to be as useful as I have. If you need further help, each tool provides ample documentation to help you get started. Best of luck with your SEO endeavors!

What SEO reporting tools do you use? Comment below.

How do I make my blog into a top blog?

“I don’t have a secret, but I have a single piece of advice that I like to give to people who are starting blogging. One, simple, important thing that people who are blogging rarely do, and can make a huge difference in how widely read your blog is, and particularly how widely read your blog is by people who don’t know it exists, who find it through RSS feeds and through Google, and that’s to write headlines as though you are a wire service writer,” Cory Doctorow explains.

Your blog titles and opening lines are used by readers to help them decide whether they want to take the time to read your article or not. Cory suggests that these elements should contain all the information you need to know to completely skip the article. It sounds counter-intuitive, but in the long term, your readers are happier and more likely to trust your articles in the future.

Take a look at the video, which is dated back in 2007, yet is even more relevant than ever:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I think Cory’s underlying philosophy is to do everything you can to gain your reader’s trust.

In The Blogger’s Guide to SEO, Aaron Wall suggests, “Descriptive headlines help put your story in context, and make people more likely to click on your site when it appears in search results.” He also references Brian Clark’s series on Magnetic Headlines.

What’s your #1 tip for improving blog headlines and readership? Comment below.

As a web consultant, I interact with business owners every day. The questions I am asked most are usually about SEO, with some very widely (and wildly) misunderstood concepts. Here are my top 5 SEO myths:

5) SEO is some sort of black magic or voodoo

SEO is not black magic or voodoo, though it can sometimes seem like it. The reason is because Google and other major search engines do not fully disclose their complex search ranking algorithms. In addition, sometimes they update their algorithms, and you can see an unexpected shift in rankings. This is obviously not black magic, and you can keep up on all of Google’s algorithm updates by subscribing to the blog over at Search Engine Roundtable.

4) You have to submit your website to 100’s of search engines to get ranked

In the old days of search, it was recommended to submit your site to hundreds or even thousands of search engines. However, things have changed, and sometimes it is not necessary at all (and it definitely wont have any effect on rankings). To get crawled and (hopefully) indexed by the search engines, you simply need a popular site linking to you. I say popular because if your link is on an unpopular site, it takes Google and the other engines longer to find your link, as they visit more popular sites more often. You can still add your URL at Google, however there is no guarantee that it will ever get crawled.

3) The more domain names you own, the better you will rank

Somewhere, someone started a rumor that by creating mass amounts of mini-sites or having multiple forwarded domains will help your rankings. The concept makes sense, but in reality I feel that your efforts are better spent building one large, authoritative, content rich site than spreading your resources over multiple smaller sites. What about building a great site and copying it over and over? It’s spam, and Google has a rule against it called Duplicate Content. Regarding forwarded domains, Google will only index the final domain where the forwarding finally resolves. Nice try!

2) Solely participating on social media sites will get you ranked

Don’t get me wrong, social media is great for SEO. However, it is not simply the act of participating in social media that helps you rank. It takes a bit of creativity, building of trust and know-how to truly boost rankings using social media. The concept is that through social media, you have the opportunity to network and acquire inbound links from other sites, which will definitely improve your rankings. It is usually not the profile links on the social networks that achieve this (as most profiles, walls and time-lines are either not indexed or use no-follow), but it is the individual site owners you build relationships with and kindly help your bottom line by linking to you.

and finally, my number one SEO myth is:

1) Meta keyword tags will get you ranking at the top

Ahhh, finally, my arch-nemesis, the ol’ meta keywords tag. This actually did work for awhile! It is a hidden tag in the HEAD section of every web page (in your browser click: View > Source to see it) that lists all of the keywords that you would like to rank for. Simple, right? Wrong! It was abused time and time again, so the engines dropped it completely. What? You just viewed the source on this page and you can see that I’m still using it? Well, you’ll still see some of the smaller engines and site search functions use the tag for indexing. In addition, some people believe that since it does not necessarily hurt your rankings, its a good idea to include them for good measure. I find that it is best not to stuff the tag though. Stick with, perhaps, 5-6 of your most relevant keywords for that page.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed my top 5 SEO myths. If you did not understand some of the concepts, I recommend reading up on Search Engine Optimization over at Arron Wall’s SEOBook. Also, be sure to subscribe to our feed to receive my upcoming SEO Crash Course.

What are some of the most outrageous SEO myths you have heard? Comment below.

The information economy is global in scope and quick by nature. In the current online marketplace, productivity and competitiveness of firms depend mainly on their capability to generate, process, and apply efficiently knowledge‐based information to their clients and consumers. Today, the global economy has the capacity to work as a unit in real time on a planetary scale though strategic online developmental systems.[1] Companies who fail to successfully adapt to current market and technological standards within the present online developmental culture will fail to achieve full market potential and thus cause constraints and inefficiencies in business operations and marketability.

The information and communication technology (ICT) revolution has transformed how people respond to information. The internet and the ICT revolution has created “sovereign individuals” who now feel more empowered in making decisions based on value‐added information over the internet. Moving away from traditional out‐bound marketing techniques, the knowledge‐based worker has taken heed to In‐bound marketing practices where decisions are made based on fast, reliable and simple information presented over the World Wide Web.

Websites have always been an ideal organizing tool due to their inherent flexibility and adaptability as their evolutionary nature is asserted.[2] A successful online presence allows for growth in effective marketability and sustainability in strategic business‐to‐business (B2B) and business‐to‐government (B2G) e‐commerce sales. More precisely, an online presence allows for businesses to create, transform and redefine the business relationship into a rewarding experience of professionalism and personality.

Business is no longer strictly business. People are now concerned with the social and personal nuisances involved within the strategic business unit and the holistic web site experience. As internet users are increasingly impatient and intolerable, new methods of web development technology must be implemented to satisfy the present needs of a specific market niche.

Rio Online Development, Inc. can make your business thrive. Contact us today.

[2] Manuel Castells, The Internet Galaxy (Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 1‐2.