The article below is reposted from EmroyPost.com.au Prediction No. 1: Lead Nurturing – Lead nurturing is certainly an activity marketers are aware they should be doing but in a lot of cases they have not yet taken this route to improve their marketing effectiveness. Now more than ever bringing that lead to fruition will be heavily dependent on [...]

Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) this week added several new Elite designations for HP resellers in its PartnerOne program while consolidating some others and adding several more sales tools for its channel partners. The new designations for HP business partners with leading practices in specific product and service categories are Virtualization Elite, Data Center Elite and Store Solutions Elite, [...]

One of the hottest concepts in technology news today is “cloud computing.” Simply put, cloud computing is the next generation of software-as-a-service (SaaS.) Instead of maintaining a full IT structure with updated software and other expenses within your company, you keep your technology infrastructure remotely hosted on a web-based central server farm sharing software but [...]

In the world of marketing automation, there are few vendors that really deliver for channel programs. Heather Margolis (formerly of EMC and Dell) gives a good overview of how SharedVue’s cloud marketing solutions improve channel messaging to drive leads. Syndication allows relevant content to be pulled from a vendor’s website and displayed on the channel partners’ [...]

The more encounters I have with them, the more I see that partner portals are EXTREMELY inefficient. I have had first hand experience with some of the best ones out there, and they are still a complete mess to navigate. It can be almost impossible for partners to find the information they’re looking for. From [...]

How New Internet Marketing Techniques Can Help You Stretch Your Budget and Increase Leads Budgets are down and stress is up. You need marketing techniques to help you survive and thrive in today’s economy. Now’s the time to focus on your sales channel relationships – helping your channel partners and your inside sales team become better [...]

As I help with the pseudo rebranding and complete repositioning of SharedVue, it makes me realize just how important it is to keep a consistent brand message. It is hard enough to make sure you keep the same language and jargon across one website, let alone a whole partner channel. It seems mind blowing to [...]

Thursday, December 18, has officially been deemed Free Shipping Day. Retailers from Apple to Toys R Us are offering online shoppers free shipping by Christmas Eve on all purchases. What’s the catch? You have to order today. From what I can tell, there are no restrictions as to what types of businesses can join in on [...]

The current state of the economy is something to be gawked at. How did we fall this low? There is no clear answer. All we can do is adjust and hope to make the best decisions when it comes to forming a marketing strategy that will help us weather the storm. However, there are a [...]

Cloud Marketing is where traditional marketing meets Software as a Service. It consists of migrating all marketing assets to exist online in customized consoles. Placing these assets online makes them easy for all parties involved to create, modify, use and share. No one has to have experience or training with the technology that supports them. [...]

If you like Google Wave's real-time collaboration but not the interface or registration, check out TypeWith.me. It's a solid, simple, as-you-type document collaboration webapp with no sign-up required.

A quick background: Google recently bought previously mentioned EtherPad with goals of integrating it into Wave, then closed the service. Then, after some backlash, they open-sourced the entire app. TypeWith.me took that code and put it on a new server that, unlike EtherPad, won't be closing down any time soon.

Getting started with this free app is as simple as clicking the New Document button on the site's home page. You're instantly dropped into an edit-ready page where you can start typing right away, or import an HTML, plain text, RTF, or Word document.

Each online document has its own unique URL you can share with others for real-time co-editing, and there's a small window for chatting on your edits. TypeWith.me helpfully assigns different colors to each author so you can easily track who's typed what, and the app instantly synchronizes as you type so changes appear in real time. When you're done, export your work to one of six file formats, including Word, PDF, and HTML.

Google Wave users will see a lot of similarities between it and TypeWith.me, but this simple app has an easier learning curve.

Windows/Linux: Sleeping your computer is a useful way to save energy, but free utility SonarPM takes power management an awesome step further: It puts your computer to sleep automatically when you walk away from your desk—using sonar.

Almost any computer with speakers and a microphone can take advantage of this software, so most laptops are good to go. It works by emitting an inaudible frequency from your speakers, and detecting echoes with your microphone, determining whether you are sitting at your desk or not. If you get up, your computer will see that you have done so and automatically put your computer to sleep. Sure, you could always just use a hotkey, but this requires literally no energy on your part—and it's sure to be a heck of a conversation starter.

The program is open source, so if you've got some tinkering skills, you can make it do all sorts of things when you walk away (as described in the video above by Tinkernut). If you just want the sleep functionality, you can still download and install the package and use it as-is (if you're a Windows user, that is—Linux users need to compile from source—check the instructions on the site if you need help doing this). It doesn't necessarily work with every microphone and speaker equipped computer, so test it out to see if it does with yours—you may need to calibrate it a few times before it works well (it took me a few tries and a little bit of waiting afterward before it started working in Windows on my MacBook Pro).

Sonar Power Manager is a free download for Windows and Linux systems. Sleeping your computer whenever you walk away seems a little heavy handed (do I really want to put my computer to sleep when I'm going to get a glass of water?), but the possibilities are endless, and if you are interested in bending it to your will, Tinkernut's guide is an excellent place to start.

Android 2.0: Do you desperately miss the handwriting recognition of Palms and Newtons gone by? Google's created a Gesture Search app that pulls up apps, contacts, bookmarks, and other phone data using your finger-point chicken scratch.

Draw in a letter, and Gesture Search instantly narrows down the field of choices, letter by letter. A nice feature, though, is that in the case of letters that are somewhat ambiguous—like my terrible cursive "a" that might be a rounded, trailing "o"—Gesture Search keeps both possibilities in the results, letting you draw in another letter to narrow the options down. There's a "pad" at the bottom showing your letters, and you swipe it to knock down individual letters (right to left) or restart entirely (left to right). It's a stand-alone app that begs for integration into contact search or browser bookmarks, but it's also a "Labs" release that Google wants to test more.

Gesture Search is a free download for Android handsets running 2.0 and later.

Ever since I installed a barcode-scanning app on my phone, I see QR codes everywhere—so naturally I wanted one of my own. If you're a barcode-scanning fool, the QR code to the left links to my personal web site. Fun!

A QR ("quick response") code is a square barcode that makes getting URLs, location coordinates, any text or contact information onto a phone fast. With a barcode scanner app installed, you just point your phone's camera at the code to read its contents. Here's what reading this QR code looks like on my Android phone, using an app simply called "Barcode Scanner."

To find a scanner application, Google "QR Reader" and the model of your phone. (If you've got a favorite scanner app that you're using, let us know in the comments.)

Encoding a regular URL is a fine use of QR codes—especially lengthy and complicated URLs on movie and event flyers—but one of my favorite uses of QR codes is swapping mobile app recommendations with your friends. Since you can't search the Android Market on the web or in desktop software, you're always stuck tapping in search terms by hand. The App Referer app generates QR codes for every one of your applications. So if you want to "give" that app to a friend, you call up the QR code, and your pal can scan your phone's screen.

You'll also see QR codes on web pages, in store windows, on business cards, and on conference badges. You can generate your own QR code with the information you want others to be able to read onto their phones quickly too. This QR code generator can embed a URL, text, a phone number, or an addressed and ready-to-send SMS message into a QR code.

If you Google "QR code generator" you'll find others, but beware of generators that force a redirect through their site when someone scans the resulting code and gets a URL. (For example, this generator has options to encode Google Maps coordinates, social network information, and Vcards and can print t-shirts and stickers from the codes it generates, but if you enter a simple web site URL it creates a redirect through the qrstuff.com site.)

Speaking of stickers, now I just need to print a few with my code to stick on my laptop, phone, and conference badges.

Smarterware is Lifehacker editor emeritus Gina Trapani's new home away from 'hacker. To get all of the latest from Smarterware, be sure to subscribe to the Smarterware RSS feed. For more, check out Gina's weekly Smarterware feature here on Lifehacker.

Republished from smarterware.org

HandBrake 0.9.4 offers improved speed, a helpful preview window, subtitles you can switch off, and constant encoding. What's not to like?

Android's been around for more than a year, and in that time developers have whipped up some great apps. Whether you're a new Android owner or a pro looking for new tools, these 10 great and free apps belong in your arsenal.

Photo by lwallenstein.

We're going to skip right over the apps that are just so common, universal, and well replicated on the iPhone or other mobile platforms that a user with a need will probably hunt them down—Facebook, Yelp, Evernote, Remember the Milk, and endless Twitter clients, widgets, and apps. We've also skipped over Google's own neat apps, like Google Voice, Navigation, and Goggles, that are (or will be) included standard on new Android phones. Instead, we're aiming to shine a little light on apps that quietly offer excellent functionality for those who download them.

10. Layar

In some ways, this is a vote for the potential of Layar as much as the practical application. Walking around with your phone and seeing Wikipedia subjects, apartments for sale, and what Twitter users have raved about through your phone is a pretty neat thing, and potentially helpful when you're looking for things to do in a new city. But as Layar continues to add new layers, and as camera and mobile processing power continue to improve, Layar could become a lot more interesting than it already is. One thing worth mentioning is that if you don't like the 3-D camera view, or like the looks of yourself while using it, Layar can just show you points of interest on a Google-type map. Either way you use it, it's an intriguing look at what's happening just around the corner. (Original post)

9. Listen

Until the latest upgrade, we couldn't have really called Listen a king among podcast apps—it had a few irksome bugs, one of them being the loss of episodes and, sometimes, subscriptions. Now, however, Google's own app does a great job not only of finding audio content, but it exports your subscriptions to be managed in Google Reader, ensuring a full feed backup and easier retrieval of past episodes you want to head back and hear. If you need more fine-grained podcast control, try ACast, but Listen will work for most. (Original post)

8. AnyCut

You can drop a lot of neat things on your Android home screen, but you can't quite get one-click access to everything in your phone's settings and extras. AnyCut doesn't have a great interface, and it might take some trial and error before you get to exactly what you're looking for. Soon enough, though, you'll have access to the deepest guts of your settings, so switching 3G on and off, enabling location services, and other tricks are easy to pull off. (Original post)

7. Secrets

There's no browser syncing on the Android—yet (c'mon, Mozilla, get on that Firefox Mobile!). In the meantime, there's Secrets, a secure, KeePass-compatible, master-password-locked vault for all your passwords. It's not that hard to export your passwords from your desktop or laptop onto your SD card, and with full-text search finally implemented, Secrets is a lot more convenient for those oh-shoot-what's-that-username-again moments. (Original post)

6. SlideScreen

You use your Android smartphone differently than your desktop computer. You don't work with files and shortcuts, so much as you check in on the streams of data you care about—email, text messages, Facebook and Twitter, chat, and the like. SlideScreen replaces, or just augments, if you'd like, your phone's home screen, creating row after row of messages and feeds. Slide the center info bar up and down to look at more or less of your items, swipe to the right to dismiss items as read, and revel in having all your data on hand at once. SlideScreen also replaces the standard application tray, giving you 8 slots to put your most frequently accessed apps, and tucking all the others into a rolling deck below. It's a total makeover for your phone, in other words—one that might just make you fall in love all over again with the concept of mobile data. (Original post)

5. Shopper

Okay, at first we were pretty skeptical of Google's Shopper app, since it seemed like just a mashup of Google's own Goggles and barcode-smart apps likes ShopSavvy. Then we actually used Shopper, and were amazed at both how accurately it picked up both barcodes and simple cover shots, and at how very fast it worked. Turns out, according to one developer who appeared on This Week in Google, Shopper is actually uploading image data to Google's servers as it captures it, and decodes barcodes right on the phone. Speed for speed's sake is nice, sure, but it's pretty nice not to have to stand in front of a book display for a whole two minutes, waving your phone around a bunch of books you're trying to competitively price. Shopper answers the "Can I buy this cheaper" question, and answers it quickly.

4. PDANet

PDANet is the easiest way to use your phone's cellular net connection as a makeshift internet access point, for those hard-up situations when you just need to get online somehow, anyhow. The free version always offers basic internet access, but restricts secure site connections after a trial period. The paid version isn't cheap ($30), but it is the easiest of the three ways we know how to tether an Android phone. For the cost of nothing, we'll take some basic web site browsing—because, hey, can't you get to Gmail on your phone if you really need it? (Original post)

3. TasKiller Free

Like your regular computer, your Android phone runs more slowly and bogs down more often if it has a multitude of apps running constantly in the background. Few apps provide a direct, easy "Quit" option, though, and the phone's own process manager is a pain. Enter TasKiller, a free multi-app closer that works from its standard icon, or as one of a number of widgets you can add to your home screen for one-click streamlining. The free version serves up ads and lacks a few advanced features, but generally serves the needs of anyone who's sick of needing to actually reset their phone just to clear up space for, you know, phone calls and such.

2. WaveSecure

This one's only free until March 31, so be sure to jump on it if you think there's even a remote chance you'll want some killer security tools available to you. WaveSecure not only backs up your contacts, SMS messages, photos and videos, and other files to the developer's cloud for later restoring if your phone gets lost, but can lock down a phone when you're stashing it for a while, locate a phone with GPS or text message triangulation (seriously), and, as a final option, pull off a total and complete remote wipe if you fear all is lost. Powerful peace of mind, especially for the price. (Original post)

1. ASTRO File Manager

This is one of those apps you hope gets some attention, if only to be bought by Google or otherwise integrated into the basic phone software. ASTRO File Manager does a great job of letting you navigate files on your SD card and accessible internal memory, sure, but it also has its own built-in task killer, backs up applications, can send files as email attachments (not all that easy or intuitive from the mail client, for some reason), and much more. It's the Leatherman of Android utilities, and a must-have on any serious geek's phone.

---

To each their own, of course, but we'd love to hear what Android apps you consider crucial to your own phone in the comments. We tend toward free, but if you've found a cheap app that's worth a few bucks, our Android-loving readers, and developers, would likely be glad for the referral.

Sometimes I have lots of tabs open all in the same Firefox window. Clicking on each one to find the right tab can take up a lot of time or be irritating if there are more tabs than there is room for on the screen.

You can navigate around Firefox tabs with the below keyboard shorcuts:

• Press Ctrl+Tab to go to the next tab (or rotate forward).

• Press Ctrl+Shift+Tab to go to the previous tab (or rotate backwards).

• Go to a specific tab by pressing Ctrl+the tab number. e.g. Ctrl+7 to go to the seventh tab.

• Press Ctrl+T to open a new tab.

• Press Ctrl+W to close the tab.

• Restore Previously Closed tab by Ctrl+Shift+T.

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Ever find yourself needing to create a quick reminder but can’t justify creating an iCal or Outlook event? Quickly pop open a browser window and type a reminder right into the URL bar using online timers like TheTinyTimer.

Simply type in “thetinytimer.com/” and then an increment of time. You can type anything from 2m (for 2 minutes) to 3days2hrs20mins15sec. It is very intuitive. Just don’t include any spaces.

You can also do dates: thetinytimer.com/Nov3.

I often find myself needing to create a reminder for a short period of time to remind myself to do something. For example, I may be surfing the internet and really want some hot pockets. If I am reading something rather involved, I may forget to go check on them.

To avoid any forgetful mishaps, I type thetinytimer.com/15min into my browser window. A timer is automatically created with a visual countdown and sound alarm. When the time is up, a notification appears on the screen and an alarm sounds. You’re even presented with a fun fact or literary quote (see screenshot below).

If it is a reoccurring event, you can save the URL to your browser’s bookmarks. This will allow you to quickly access them any time you want.

Other features include the ability to customize the alarm sound and interval, change the fun fact message genre, upload your own alarm sound, and change the display of the timer. Also, you don’t have to worry about accidentally closing the window as TheTinyTimer will give you an alert message asking if you really want to close the window.

Have a tip for reminders? Leave a comment and tell everyone.

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A few weeks ago, I wrote up a case study around the perplexing case of designing user experiences for lead generation pages. I’m going to cover the results of our test shortly, but in the meantime I wanted to share part of the conversion funnel that has forever changed the way I’m going to design for sign-ups.

Designers do a lot of work engineering the experience of creating compelling sign-up forms for a variety of reasons (joining communities, requesting more information, age-gating verification, etc.). I’d like to take a closer look at how the Thank You page of the conversion flow can be leveraged more effectively for experiences that aren’t necessarily tied to joining a social network.

That said, social networking sites are full of awesome examples where the Thank You jumpstarts the user’s uptake, so if you’re:

• Tumblr, you have your user create her first blog post
• Twitter, you have your user find cool people to follow
• LinkedIn, you connect with your email address book
• Meetup, you have your user join a group

But, let’s say you’re a more traditional (perception = less fun) business like a university, can you do more than guide your user towards more descriptive content about the program or services offered (where bounce rate will be high)? How can you make the most of that transaction? How can you parlay the validation “Thank You” into action that can be both inspiring and measurable?

Thank You messaging is not supposed to feel like the awkward end of a first date “Do I kiss him?” moment.

The user has shared her information with you, triggering a response and follow up campaign. She’s staring at the Thank You page, confirming she submitted her information correctly. This is a powerful moment to turn your Thank You into more than:

• a data verification step
• a reiteration of your brand’s identity and tagline
• a jumping off into content (where the bound rate will be high and not super effective in terms of engagement, relationship development, etc.)

Social marketing channels have helped turn Thank You pages into opportunities for secondary levels of conversion where you can experiment with Facebook Fan Page and/or Twitter acquisition.

This brings me back to the use case at hand, while our lead gen page had a number of design constraints, we found that we had a lot of artistic leeway in creating a Thank You page, so we decided to make the number one goal of the page to excite the user to join our Facebook Fan page.

First, let’s look at the original Thank You page, which did include Facebook & Twitter opportunities:

(Note: I apologize for striking through the brand name, my client is a major university and getting approval to share the brand is a bit of a juggernaut.)

Now, let’s look at the redesign of the Thank You page, which puts primary focus on Facebook Fan acquisition v. promoting both Twitter and Facebook equally:

The design:

• Inspired by the idea of the excitement around an “acceptance letter”
• Focused on the fun of university life and community
• Featured access to current students, faculty, and admissions through Facebook

The results:

• Increased Fan Page uptake from 28 fans per week (a consistent rate for one year) to 300+ fans per week (2+ weeks of ongoing data)
• Increased the quality of interactions on the Fan Page, where we were encouraged to see prospects asking questions that were fielded by students, admissions, and faculty
• Increased interaction with blog content, driving traffic to the parent site and making better use of all editorial collateral

As You Design Conversion Experiences Thank You Messaging is:

• Integral—A necessary part of the conversion experience, it’s no longer just a simple hello/goodbye world
• Instantly Gratifying—If you’re testing a conversion experience the results are ongoing and take time. Adding a secondary conversion exercise like Facebook Fan acquisition is an immediate way to leverage (in real time) effects of your messaging
• Social—Leverages warm fuzzies in innovative ways and gets users connecting with one another
• Sticky—The last thing the user will remember about your brand, and can have the added possibility of taking the conversation even deeper into her personal network

Perhaps, the biggest takeaway from designing a great Thank You experience is that the more you can leverage the Thank You, they more you can get your users to connect with your app and with each other the less money you’ll need to spend on post conversion campaigns, marketing, and more. I’d love to hear your experiences around the “Thank You” in your designs, examples, etc.

Thank you!

*Design by my brilliant partners at jjomedia.com

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This is stupid.

The blue bag halter dress must have inspired some to put the scissors to the hardy bag. Here's a raincoat featured on the Ikeahacks group on Instructables. (We have some amazing projects there, don't forget to check it out.) And now, we have snow boots!

Megan faced over two feet of snow in Pittsburgh and no snow boots for Superboy. That's when Ikea hacking creativity kicked in. The boots are not what you'll wear on a regular basis but for the little emergency, it did the trick.

"Unfortunately, my son's snow boots and pants were left at his nursery school.  My husband created waterproof snow boots/leggings out of an ikea bag and packing tape.  The key was using the bottom corner of the bag for the toe (these are over my son's sneakers) then wrapping around his legs and securing with tape."

This is stupid.

Matthijs, inspired by the simplicity of the LackRack(.org) hack, decides to create something a bit more practical for everyday office use, made by three stock Ikea products plus some regular stuff from the local hardware shop.


For instructions please click here. The page is in Dutch but it is pretty self-explanatory.

Long time readers of our blog will note that we occasionally throw in links to crazy, interesting, and fun items in our posts. You may be wondering, “How can I find such interesting content to share?” Today we’re launching two new features that are designed to help you do just that:

• Recommended items get personal - When we launched Popular items many of you wanted to see even more personalized recommendations. With the latest round of improvements, we’ve started inserting items selected just for you inside the Recommended items section. This is great if you’ve got interests that are less mainstream. If you love Lego robots, for example, then you should start to notice more of them in your Recommended items.

  

• Even more related feeds - If you’ve ever discovered a cool blog on, say, underwater basket-weaving and wanted to find more on the same topic, we’ve added a few easy ways to find related feeds. Hover over any of your subscriptions, click the menu and check out “More like this...” to see related feeds.

  

  We’ll also show you related feeds when looking at the preview of any feed.

  

We hope these new features will help you find more content that interests you, whether that’s LOLcats or cooking.

As always, feel free to come visit our help forums or Twitter to leave us some feedback.

Once again, the blog over at Boagworld.com has posted an excellent article that has me thinking. I highly recommend reading the entire piece, particularly since it deals in great detail over the importance of the designer’s roll of proper communication through the phases of a project.

While it may slow down the process at the start to make sure every phase of the project is explained thoroughly, it can save a project from going south due to assumptions and misconceptions made when clients need to “fill in the blanks” as to what happens next. Most importantly, communication is an essential tool to make sure we are providing the best experience during the project, and the best solution when it is complete.

So often, those on the designer end of the relationship assume the process is second nature to both ourselves and our clients. Some clients may be ones we have had a long-standing relationship with; some may have recently turned to us after working with another agency; others may be brand-new startups who are new to the process altogether. No matter which category a client fits in, they ALL benefit from clearly outlining each step the project will work through, AND explaining why we are asking the questions we are during each phase.

The next time you feel a client has reduced your roll to pixel pushing, review the communication you’ve had up to that point. Instead of just sighing and obliging, ask questions and get further feedback. Often times, a client’s desire to take over the roll of the designer is because there has been an assumption along the way, instead of an open dialogue.

Jennifer Soloway [follow me on Twitter] // Art Director // Strategic Insights

Most of us are more than happy to forget a screwup at work, a project that didn't pan out, or even a bad experience at a restaurant. Remembering your mistakes, screwups, and bad experiences, however, can keep future ones at bay.

Over at the organization blog Unclutterer, they found these "I'll Never [ ] This Again" filing folders. While they didn't think it was worth spending a premium for such a folder—although it would certainly be fun as a goofy gift—they did see the utility of creating a "Never Again" folder.

The actual paper folders are unnecessary, but the fundamental idea behind them are brilliant. After seeing them, I created a folder on my computer called "Never Again." Then, inside that folder, I made a series of plain text documents: Restaurants, Books, Websites, Ideas, Hotels, Vacations, Wines, and Gifts. In these documents I recorded important notes to myself about mistakes I've made in the past.

In the folder, or master text document, you can record anything you want to remember. I could have, as an example, recorded "Never use XYZ cellular provider." after a friend had warned me about the absolutely horrible experiences he had with them. I completely forgot about his very animated warning and ended up using that provider years later, resulting in me having the exact same experience he had. Even when things work out, it's worth recording what didn't work so that you don't end up using a flaky vendor for a future project, reusing a similar line of argumentation with your boss, or buying a gift for a friend that was terribly received.

Would you keep a standing record of past mistakes and failures to help ward off the future ones? Sound off about it in the comments.

Last year, Gina switched to Yahoo for her search because she felt Google already had enough of her data. Over at our gadget-obsessed sibling site Gizmodo, blogger John Herrman discusses taking things a little further, ditching all of Google's apps. He explains:

You don't have to be ready to commit to a full overhaul of your online lifestyle to understand why someone might want to yank their data from Google's servers, and hand it off to someone else: You've got Google's CEO deafly rehashing fallacious arguments about privacy—"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place"—and hesitating on a drawback; you've got contextual advertising that seems just a little too closely tuned to that sexxxy love letter your girlfriend sent you while you were on that business trip; you've got that violently insane ex husband who now knows where you are because of Google's clumsy Buzz rollout. Most of all, you've got reasons, and you're ready for change.

Herman walks through some of Google's most popular offerings, then proposes switching to what he considers to be the best alternative to each. He suggests using Bing instead of Google search, Yahoo Mail instead of Gmail (he even details how to get all your email out of Gmail first), Windows Live Calendar rather than GCal, Flickr over Picasa, and Zoho instead of Google Docs. (That is, most of the runner-up favorites in each category.)

Hit up the full post for more details, then let us know whether you'd consider dropping Google to enjoy a little less data monopoly in the comments.

SharedVue’s cloud marketing solutions team is proud to add Billy Pomarico to its Web marketing and channel support group, called Facilit8.  As part of the Facilit8 team, Billy works with clients to develop innovative ways to share enterprise content with clients’ customers and provides technical support to the channel marketers of SharedVue clients.

“Billy’s strong project management skills and customer service orientation are key assets for the clients he serves, including EMC, Salesforce.com and VMware,” said SharedVue CEO Reid Overcash.

Billy holds a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Billy’s additional responsibilities include consulting SharedVue’s clients’ channel resellers on cloud marketing and lead generation techniques to help  maximize their sales. By combining traditional marketing techniques with the technology of software-as-a-service, Billy and the rest of SharedVue’s marketing team enable channel partners to become better marketers of enterprise companies’ products. SharedVue’s unique Web content syndication and automated marketing campaign tools are at the center of all client cloud marketing initiatives.

Ever find yourself out and about and need to take a quick note, but don’t want to lug around a notepad all the time? Just stick a post-it note or two to the inside of your wallet.  Then you will always have the ability to jot down a quick note no matter where you are.

You can even layer post-it notes on top of each other to create a traveling post-it pad right inside your wallet.

And yes, girls, if you don’t want to carry around a purse all the time, you can do this, too.

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I’m using a blog to vent about social media. Can you handle the irony? Are you LOL? Perhaps ROFL? You would think that with the rise in computer-based communication over the last 10+ years that people would become better typists, more aware of grammar, more conscious of spelling. After all, in conversation, these things don’t matter, but when they’re written down, all your ignorance is on display. But here’s the catch–social media has trained us to think that all communication is disposable, and errors inevitable and forgivable. Everyone’s in such a hurry to “push out content” that the accuracy–indeed, the basic structure–of the content is secondary. The internet–and blogging in particular–has turned everyone into writers. This is not necessarily a good thing. Like being a parent, there’s no test one takes to “qualify” for blogging, much less tweeting. If you can enter a username and password, you’ve earned the right to spout off to the world. Don’t worry about proofing, just get it out there! So what happens when those standards infiltrate huge ad agencies and venerated literary magazines? This, which appeared in the New Yorker late last year–on the inside cover, no less. I doubt anyone got fired or even yelled at. After all, it happens every day.

Bill Cokas
Creative Director
Strategic Insights

ShrinkIt is a free utility that uses OS X's built-in PDF-processing functionality to reduce the size of many PDF files with no loss in quality.