Fireworx Digital
Home      Who We Are      What We Do      Our Approach      Blog      Contact
Blog

JJ Abrams’ Mystery Box

on February 14, 2009 in Business Life

I absolutely love this talk by JJ Abrams at TED. Now I know why I am so drawn to all of Abrams’ work, Lost, Alias, Cloverfield, Mission Impossible. It has to do with Abrams’ mastery of mystery.

He talks about buying a Mystery Box at a little magic shop in NYC. It was decades ago that he went there with his Grandfather and bought the box for $15, completely sealed with a big question mark on the front. I can’t imagine the discipline it took to leave the box unopened on a shelf in his office! But a few things he said really rang true for me. Here are a few highlights if you don’t have the 18 minutes to watch his talk…

• To Abrams, the unopened mystery box represents infinite possibility, infinite hope, infinite potential.

• Mystery is the catalyst to imagination, it’s more important than knowledge, and mystery boxes are in everything.

• He is an Apple fanatic (as am I) and when he sits down at his PowerBook laptop, he feels inspired by the technology in front of him. His Mac asks him “what are you going to write worthy of me?”

• The blank page is a mystery box, waiting to be filled with spirit, thought, and emotion.

• Going to the movies, watching the lights go down is a mystery box.

I love what he implies about technology inspiring creative people to be creative, which inspires technology people, an endless look of inspiration.

Check out the video for yourself and be inspired!

Comments { 0 }
Check Out Flock

Check Out Flock

on February 7, 2009 in Apps

Flock Home

I’ve been a Firefox fan for quite a while now but I think I may have found a browser that is perfect for the new social web.  Check out Flock if you’re at all into social media.  It combines all the features of Firefox 3 with all your favorite social networking tools integrated into the left side bar.  I’m brand new to it but already impressed!

 

Blogged with the Flock Browser
Comments { 0 }
Technology and Losing Weight

Technology and Losing Weight

on February 6, 2009 in Apps


OK, so I am actually losing weight and excited about it. What did it take? My wife’s gentle promptings? My frustration with tighter and tighter fitting jeans? My desire to look better and more fit again? Maybe all of the above. But as a tech lover and iPhone fan, it took a little app called Lose It! to get me committed.

It’s pretty hard to believe but the process of goal setting it took me through and applying an actual date, coupled with the forced accountability of knowing I am entering everything I eat into the app, along with my exercise for the day, has actually made it fun to lose weight. And I love the little downward line chart showing my weight progress! I’m a fan of this cool little app and it’s free!

Comments { 0 }

Facebook is here to stay

on January 23, 2009 in Social Media

Interesting…
A few months ago I connected to an old friend 3,000 miles away on Facebook that I hadn’t seen for over 10 years. He is 50 years old. But what was really amazing is that his mother, a grandmother with 10 grandkids, asked me to be her friend. I’d say Facebook has hit Gladwell’s proverbial tipping point.

According to Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, Facebook is now nearly twice the size of MySpace worldwide!

In November 2008 Facebook drew 200 million unique worldwide visitors; more than 1 in 5 people who accessed the Internet that month visited the site. When sites are that big growth generally stagnates, but in Facebook’s case it’s still skyrocketing. In December, 222 million people visited the site says newly released Comscore stats, a 10.8% month over month growth rate. 22% of the total Internet audience went to Facebook in December.

Facebook now has nearly 100 million more worldwide users than MySpace, which added 4 million new users in December to 125 million total. The page view difference is more dramatic – Facebook had 80 billion monthly page views in December v. 43 billion for MySpace. Just six months ago the sites were about the same size.

With Facebook’s micro-targeting capabilities and massive growing audience, it can’t be ignored in any serious marketer’s media mix.

Comments { 0 }
Start the New Year Right

Start the New Year Right

on January 3, 2009 in Business Life, Organization

I guess I’m a creature of habit, for good or for bad. One good habit I’ve developed is my New Year goal setting exercise. I love the opportunity to “reset” my life for the new year, throwing out old habits and starting on some new ones.

My favorite book to read this time of year is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. He’s an undisputed authority on leadership and success principles and gives us 7 things that can improve every area of our lives in 2009. I’ve also come to realize these principles apply brilliantly when it comes to the marketing of your business. Consider reading this timeless book and follow his suggestions:

1. Be proactive.
I don’t think you can be proactively reactive. And yet much of our daily lives are spent in a reactive state, reacting to emails, reacting to interruptions, reacting to our circumstances, the weather, the news, other people’s opinions. As humans, we have the freedom to choose before we respond to stimulus. Covey suggests a thirty-day test of proactivity and see how it affects your circle of influence. Let’s act on it in 2009.

2. Begin with the end in mind.
One of the most effective ways to begin with the end in mind is to develop a personal mission statement. I’ve used and was very pleased with the Mission Statement Builder at www.franklincovey.com. It’s a great tool that I highly recommend using to start your new year right.

3. Put first things first.
This is one of the hardest things for me to do consisently. I think I have a bit of a self-destruct mechanism that pulls me easily off my best intentions. This one chapter alone is worth the cost of the book as it outlines the Four Quadrants: 1) Important, Urgent, 2) Important, Not Urgent, 3) Not Important, Urgent, 4) Not Important, Not Urgent. The goal is to live your life in Quadrant 2 which is close to impossible if you are not in control of your time management.

4. Think Win/Win.
Is it really possible to create win/win situations in every interaction and relationship in your life? Covey believes the answer is yes. The problem is that many of us have Win/Lose scripting deeply embedded in our internal code. How can you seek mutual benefit in each of your relationships in 2009?

5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood.
First I always laugh now when I hear this statement, ever since watching Mystery Men where one of the “Super Heroes” uses this statement and others like it ad nauseum in his comical admonishment of Ben Stiller who calls him Captain Conundrum. In all seriousness though, I believe life would be much easier if we took the time to learn and practice the art of “empathetic communication.

6. Synergize.
Covey believes that valuing the differences is the essence of synergy–the mental, the emotional, the psychological differences between people. Think about people who typically see things differently than you do. Look for ways to synergize (the highest level of communication) with those people, instead of being defensive (lowest level of communication), or even respectful (compromising level of communication).

7. Sharpen the saw.
The seventh habit is about renewing the four dimensions of your nature–physical, spiritual, mental, and social/emotional. What steps do you take to renew each of these dimensions? Exercise, prayer and meditation, reading good books or taking a course, taking time for friends, family and community…these are just a few things you can consider in your goals for 2009.

Good luck with your 2009 goal setting and Happy New Year!

Comments { 0 }
Are the Four P’s of Marketing Dead?

Are the Four P’s of Marketing Dead?

on December 30, 2008 in Marketing

There is no question that marketing as a whole is going through a major paradigm shift. Many long-held principles and practices that worked even five to ten years ago are now quickly becoming outdated as the world around us changes through technology and morphing behavior patterns of consumers.

But having said that, is it possible that the very foundation of modern marketing principles, The Four P’s are now outdated as well? They are, according to Denise Shiffman in her very enlightening book, The Age of Engage: Reinventing Marketing for Today’s Connected, Collaborative, and Hyperinteractive Culture . The Four P’s; Product, Price, Place, and Promotion have been the basis for all marketing strategy for the past 50 years, ever since E. Jerome McCarthy invented them in his 1960 book, Basic Marketing.

It could be argued that each of the Four P’s are in fact still viable as each one still exists albeit in a more complex selling environment. But I do find Shiffman’s proposal of the Six V’s very intriguing, though slightly contrived to make the acrostic memorable. They are: Venture–the deep integration of product, service and channel of distribution, Value–Creating inherent “marketingness” through unique, defendable, sustainable and engaging value, Voice–The perception created and the followers gained through vision and story, Verification–Developing credibility through proof, truth and transparency, Vicinity–Harnessing the communities and myriad voices of the live web, and Vehicle–Incorporating Marketing 2.0 strategies to attract and delight customers.

I’m convinced enough to introduce these guiding principles into my clients’ marketing strategies and will be interested to see how mainstream her Six V’s become in the marketing community.

Comments { 0 }
Instantly create a custom page with the latest buzz on any topic

Instantly create a custom page with the latest buzz on any topic

on December 27, 2008 in Cool Sites


Addictomatic searches the best live sites on the web for the latest news, blog posts, videos and images. It’s the perfect tool to keep up with the hottest topics, perform ego searches and feed your addiction for what’s up, what’s now or what other people are feeding on.

This is a great useful site!

Comments { 0 }

Email – Friend or Foe?

on December 16, 2008 in Email, Productivity

Without a doubt, the single most destructive weapon to my time management, and hence my true productivity, is email. No matter how disciplined I try to be, planning my day the day before, listing and prioritizing my to-do list, allocating my time to each task in advance, one little action of opening my email inbox can instantly derail my best laid plans and intentions.

The psychology behind email management is an interesting study. The best organizers say to never check your email before 10AM, and Timothy Ferris, writer of The 4-Hour Workweek suggests checking it just once a day or less and letting your business associates know that in your email signature. I’m beginning to see the light, realizing I’m an email addict, (the first step in any 12 step program). I recently turned off the automatic function for checking my email, opting instead to manually press the receive button when I’m ready to read email. But I have a long way to go. I catch myself hitting the receive button every several minutes, and realize I am using it as a crutch to subconsciously (or consciously) avoid doing what is really important at the time.

The biggest challenge with email is remaining proactive and operating my day in a purposeful and meaningful way. Email has the mesmorizing power of turning me into a Pavlovic trained canine, responding instinctively to the bell announcing the receipt of email, carrying with it the promise of new opportunities, certainly, I must believe, changing my life for the better.

If our time was just stolen by the sole act of reading our email we might be ok. But the reality is, most emails lead to additional required actions; a quick reply, forwarding to a friend, visiting a website, which leads us to another website, which leads to another…(how many hours has that alone taken from our productive time?)

I believe that our ability to conquer this phenomenon in our business lives will have a great bearing on our ultimate success. Let’s get a handle on this amazingly powerful productivity tool before it has the opposite effect of what we expected, robbing us of time we could be spending with family and friends, and replacing true productivity with a false sense of being busy and getting things done.

Comments { 0 }

Why Another Marketing Blog?

on December 15, 2008 in Business Life, Marketing

In an online world filled with blogs and online articles by self-proclaimed marketing gurus, is there really room for one more? I believe so, since so much of what I see is either marketing industry techno-babble or online marketing-specific information, neither of which does much for the average business owner trying to cost-effectively promote their business in a hurting economy.

My blog will hopefully shed some light on tips, techniques and strategies that really help in a practical, affordable way. I’ll do my best to keep it simple enough for the layman to understand, yet cutting edge enough to keep you coming back for more.

As I see it, there is no shortage of good information out there. It just needs some filtering to bring the gems to the surface. That is what this blog is all about. I hope you enjoy it and find it helpful!

Here’s to your success,

Paul McQuade

Comments { 0 }
home
who we are
what we do
our approach
blog
privacy policy
contact



All Content Copyright 2011 Fireworx Digital, Inc.
let's connect!

Twitter
LinkedIn
RSS Feed Delicious