Cesar Millan and LandRolllers, roller-blades, and why they've missed the boat

I've been a fan of Dog Whisper and Cesar Millan for years. I credit him for my having a fairly obedient German Shepherd. Realizing that I may not have an hour a day to walk him, after reading Cesar's new book which tells me I better walk my dog twice a day for a half hour, it made sense to speed up my dog's level of exercise. How? By getting those cool roller blades, called LandRollers, that Cesar Millan uses on the show.

So I started with a search and found the official makers of the LandRollers. My expectation was that I'd find a retail store nearby and get my hands on a pair. The problem is there are only five retail stores in the country and none withing 500 miles from my house. The next option is to buy them online. That's fairly simple, until you realize that not all shoes or skates or whatever fit the same or have the same size. My Adidas are sized 9 and my Nikes are 9.5. My Cole Haan shoes are 9. While my skis are size 10. Different manufacturing companies produce different sized shoes.

So what size do I pick?

This leaves a lost opportunity for LandRoller. If it were me I'd tell the user if you wear a size 9.5 Nike sneaker you'd wear a sized X LandRoller. Or Adidas, etc. This doesn't just go for Land Blades, but all shoes. I remember going to the mall to try on a pair of Adidas which were on sale online. The problem is that I had to go to the mall then home to buy them online to save $20. By the time I drove to the mall and wasted all that time it probably cost me more than $20. But I had to figure out what size to wear. Adidas could have told me on their web site that if I wore a sized 9.5 Nike than I'd wear a 9 Adidas.

Long story short, I won't be buying LandRollers. Bummer for me, joy for my wife.

The other issue is that LandRoller isn't capitalizing enough on the publicity Cesar Millan brings them. You couldn't get better product placement--because Millan isn't forcing the product into the show. He genuinely loves LandRollers and uses them as part of his training. LandRoller should have put together a deal with Dicks, REI or some retail stores to get Land Rollers out nationally. Then get the retailer to help pay Millan to promote their product. LandRollers could/should be on the feet of a million Americans. LandRollers missed the boat because if I could have gone to REI or Sears and tried these on and rolled around the store than I would have dropped $200 today. Not to mention the extra cash I'd have to spend on a helmet and elbow pads.

Moral of the story, I should been skating around the neighborhood on my shiny new LandRollers right now rather than complaining about them.

Thesis crowdsourcing experiment

I'm working on my thesis and thought it might be a cool social experiment to try to crowdsource for help. Its not about helping me write my thesis, but helping me find studies, articles, opinions and books. I've found a lot of books and studies (I'll list those this weekend) but of course there is now way I could find everything.

I'm not sure if Nebraska will let me do this yet.. crossing my fingers. But it would certainly be a cool experiment. It would also allow me to enlist news readers to vote whether they thought my thesis was correct and answer survey questions. I'll update you on whether I get a yes or no.

Tell Comcast its 2009

Comcast Cares right? So they say. But just because your customer service people seem nice doesn't fix other issues--like poor quality products.

My wife ordered "Twilight" on OnDemand. Halfway through the movie the DVR errored out. We went to saved programs and hit play. It errored out again. The second time we went there it was gone. Ten minutes waiting on a Saturday night for someone to answer customer service and we found out we had to purchase it again. Sure, we won't get charged twice. It was annoying enough to go through this, but what was even worse is how glaringly bad Comcast's DVR is compared to TiVo.

Why doesn't Comcast allow users to fast-forward more than one speed (which is ultra slow fast forward) when in OnDemand instead of four different speeds like it does for regular shows? TiVo lets you jump ahead at different time intervals and fast-forward. It did this 9 years ago!

I've been begging my wife to allow us to go back to DirecTV (we don't have it now because basic Comcast comes with our HOA). But this was the last straw. All I can say is: Thank you Comcast for having such a bad product and proving yourself once again. You just gave me a great gift, my wife finally agreed to DirecTV.

Remember. It's not about how nice your customer service people are. It's still about your product. And an average product doesn't cut it.

How Amazon got smart

Yesterday I downloaded a book to my iTouch via Amazon. It's the same as if you purchased it on your Kindle. It's quite a wonderful addition to the iTouch and frankly anyone who loves reading and wants their books instantly. Even though the iPhone and iTouch are competitors, Amazon just insured itself more and more purchases of ebooks. They just opened their potential buyers on a massive scale. And they did it without worrying about being fully proprietary and protecting their product.

I look at it this way. Google's philosophy is that they do things better than everyone else. And if they don't you'll go use the other companies products. That keeps them pushing innovation. It seems to me that Amazon is smartly thinking the same way. If the Kindle is the best people will still buy it, and if not then they will at least purchase books from them because no one can deliver books better. I only wish Apple would do the same with iTunes.

So why is this so smart? Because it means Amazon just shipped one less book to me while making nearly the same amount of money. Its a simple, but brilliant strategy. They cut out the warehouse, U.S. Post Office and the delay between getting the product into my hands.

I don't buy books for the sake of owning paper. I buy books for the sake of gaining knowledge. Now it just got faster and cheaper.

Fear of crowds

If a crowd is swarming do you run to it or run away from it? I guess the answer depends on whether they are carrying rocks and torches. But I have to wonder why companies often seem to run away from crowds who are carrying cash.

The crowds aren't carrying physical money to your door--but they are potential customers. If you own a company and are on Twitter or some other social network but don't respond to questions or replies you are running from the crowd. If you don't have some form of feedback on your website and respond to that feedback, all the feedback good or bad, you are running from the crowd. And if you aren't innovating based upon feedback then you are running away from the crowd.

You are a lucky company if you have a customer who cares enough to leave a complaint or compliment. Both are good. Why? Because it gives you a chance to interact with someone who is passionate enough to help. How can you ever learn anything if you are always running?

Cinemark off the mark

Nothing is worse than when you want to purchase something online and its hard. Buying anything should be made as easy as possible.. but if you try to use a gift card online through Cinemark good luck.

I went in to use a gift card and then got an error. They didn't have my email on record. Right, because I didn't register and didn't really want to. I just wanted to use my gift card to get movie tickets for my daughter and I. So I'm forced to register and do so. So I go back through the process and submit my information. Opps, another error. My gift card wasn't registered to my email address ahead of time. What? I was putting in the gift card information and they had my registered email--they couldn't do that all in one form? So now I have to go back to my profile and register my gift card with a name. So I registered the user "Charlie." I should have registered it under something silly just to see if it mattered, but I was already losing patience.

So I finally get in and fill out all the information and guess what? I'm told that I have to "You must bring your confirmation number to the theater to pick up your tickets!" which is 13 digits. What year is this? I have a Blackberry so this is easy, but what If I didn't? Does this make any sense? Most theaters you just go and swipe the gift card and get your tickets. This might be the case with Cinemark too but then why does the confirmation email open with the following: "Your Confirmation Number is: and tell me "You must bring your confirmation number to the theater to pick up your tickets!" if it isn't true? This is a fast way to lose business.

The bad news for Cinemark is that I've not used their theaters in Utah but was going to give them a try and if you compare their experience with the other theater there is no comparison. I'm glad I have other theaters in my area so I can avoid this again.

Show that you care

I've had something wrong with my foot for about a week. It felt broken for a few days and then over time its slowly felt better. But I'd have avoided the doctor for as long as possible because doctor's visits are often as agonizing as the issue that brought you there.

But this visit was different. Not only did I not wait a long time, but the doctor spent time with me without feeling rushed. He also asked me to call him back the day that I felt better so he could make note of it and better treat me in the future. Huh? That's never happened to me before, maybe I've just had bad doctors all my life. The fact that he cared about me and what would help future patients was great and wasn't just trying to make a buck off a follow-up visit. I just wish my general practitioner cared this much.

My doctor didn't do this to get me to spread word-of-mouth about his practice, he did it because he cared. But by wanting to go above and beyond he got something better than a happy patient--he'll get future patients. By the way, I found out about him through a referral.

The death of newspapers

Time ran an article recently entitled "How to save your newspaper." It should have been entitled "How to kill your newspaper." Walter Isaacson is under the false impression that all newspaper content is worth buying. He is wrong. Even the great New York Times couldn't make enough money selling their premium content. And don't even give me the Wall Street Journal argument. They make money because those who read it make money by reading it.

Newspapers are desperate to make money any way they can and the only person who is on the right track is Jeff Jarvis with his new book "What Would Google Do?" Some of his ideas are off and they aren't completely original, but they are condensed in a way that even the least web savvy newspaper editor can read it and grasp the concepts.

I work at a newspaper and my goal is to keep it making money. At the same time I'm working on my Masters' thesis which is on the death (or rebirth) of newspapers. The one thing that doesn't seem to sink into the minds of newspapers are the following:

1. If you can do four things great (local, sports, photos, niche) then do it. Don't do 12 things mediocre. The content needs to be great.

2. The content needs to be local. Really local. Hyper local. Micro local. You get the picture. Don't think just because one county has only two new stories no one is going to notice--because they notice. And traffic will suffer. There are always other sources of news. Don't get arrogant. Just remember the Encyclopedia Britannica. That is if you can remember them.

3. You need to own the niches. If you own a newspaper in NYC then you better be printing a lot on tourism. If you own a newspaper in Utah you better be doing an outdoors product. If you own a newspaper in Buffalo you better do a lot of stories on hunting, fishing and the Buffalo Bills.

4. You need to think out to the edges. And example of this would be: if you don't have a staff writer to go to a city council meeting post the agenda online and ask those who attended to work out the details like a wiki article. The same could go for high school sports--supplemented with photos and video from readers. Also, why not allow readers to microblog live from games via their mobile phones onto your site?

5. The lines between the Publisher and Editor should be demolished. It should matter if no one ever reads a writer's stories. If you had an employee who was in the bottom 10% of production at a plant they wouldn't have a job very long. Why is that okay with journalists? The days of guessing are gone. Everyone should write every day as if it is to save their jobs. Those who are on the business end work like that every day--why not everyone else?

6. Reporters should all be plugged in equally that means they:
-know how to shoot video/photos in a pinch
-know how to use twitter and other social network tools
-are willing to do extra things like blogging
-understand web statistics
-think web first
-get breaking news online fast and iterate quickly

7. Newspaper companies need to realize that money follows greatness. Facebook is valued at $15 billion and is free to all of us. We don't even need to bring up how much Google is worth. Why are they worth so much? Because they have great products. Newspapers are in trouble financially but they made their beds by cutting necessary staff while taking more and more wire stories which brings them closer and closer to average.

Newspapers don't have Craig to blame--they have themselves to blame for losing classifieds. They have themselves to blame for losing to Monster. They have themselves to blame for losing to Yelp. This could go on and on. Newspapers need to stop complaining and start creating. And not just in new media. Everyone can get in on the reconstruction of newspapers. I hope that "Take Risks" becomes a daily mantra at newspapers.

Talking a good game

A funny thing happened to me at Target yesterday. There was a cashier who talked a lot. Talked to the point of being a little weird. But he talked about wanting to make people happy in hopes that they would come back again--which he said would keep him employed. True enough.

So even as weird as this guy's incessant talking was he also seemed to care about customer service and quality service. The problem is with all his talking he didn't pay attention to the finer details of his job--like not charging me multiple times for the same product.

When you talk a good game make sure you can back it up--because you will be called on it. If only this young man did his entire job my conversations about this incident would have been different. Rather than talking about the guy who talked to much and overcharged me at Target I would have told them about the guy who talked a lot but cared a ton. Sadly its a fine line that can make or break your image.

How to spread great word of mouth about your product/service

Recently on vacation my wife and I took a Kayak tour in Kauai, Hawaii. Not only was the guide extremely nice, but he was amazingly knowledgeable. We were served well at an amazing price and educated along the way.

By the time we left Kauai we told at least a dozen people we met along the way about the kayaking company. I don't know how many used the company for kayaking after we told them, but imagine if they all did. We just increased our value to the company 12 fold.

And during our tour our guide shared some dried Mango with us. Guess what everyone asked: where did you get this from? I can tell you that we bought some from the store and shared it the next day on another hiking trail with a couple who wanted to know where we bought it from.

Marketing doesn't have to be hard. You just have to be great. And if you are great your business will thrive.

Rated the best... huh?

How many times have you read or heard something was rated the best? While on vacation in Kauai our hotel's island guide said the golf course at our hotel was rated the best in Hawaii. My question was "by who?" I wasn't surprised to find out they had no idea who rated it. But even if they had known it wouldn't have mattered. I'd rather have a handful of friends, or people with similar interests, tell me something was great rather than some expert. What is great for an expert doesn't make it great for me.

This is what makes the social aspects of the web so great and growing in vitality. I'd love to see a website that rates everything from restaurants to hotels to golf courses to food and as I build my profile it starts to recommend things based on interests, taste and skill level. If I like to hike, but its obvious my skill level is for easier trails than it could recommend similar trails, but if I select my desire to take it up a notch it could figure that out as well.

This website could take the Netflix "Movies you'll love" to a whole new level. This would help lead to reviews that matter to me. And help me avoid foods and services that use marketing slogans that sound like recommendations--like my soy sauce that claims its "used by great chefs".

I screwed up

President Obama admitted recently that he "Screwed up" with the nomination of Tom Daschle. It's refreshing. I hope companies take President Obama's lead and allow their employees to screw up more. If they did we'd be a lot more innovative as a whole. That's why Google has been so successful.

If you've read Clayton M. Christensen's "The Innovator's Dilemma" about disruptive technology you'll find out why its so important to make mistakes. Mistakes can lead to innovation in unexpected ways. Companies can't afford to blow it numerous times, however the fear of error, that will occur when risks are taken, will only hurt your company.

Why I love to love/hate Consumer Reports

I love Consumer Reports because I believe they are unbiased.

I hate Consumer Reports because they are always way behind everyone else to review products. It appears they never want to trump their printed release of reviews--huge mistake. If I'm wrong about this please someone correct me because I'm a loyal subscriber--for now.

The issue is that I don't have time to wait for a review of a car for the April issue.

I remember looking at their reviews of tires, before their recent update, and they were at least one year behind on reviews for current products. All the tires they recommended were no longer being sold. And if they review HD televisions they wait until everything is out and then do one big comprehensive report. I just want to know if I should buy the 42" Panasonic.

So I find myself looking at Consumer Reports as an afterthought. Consumer Reports has become the last place to look if I'm on the fence between a few different products. There was a time when Consumer Reports was the first place. Now its the last resort.

A service from Twitter I'd pay to use

Running a newspaper's online department offers some opportunities to try many new and interesting technologies. One that has been a constant issue however has been chat programs. They are server intensive and don't always provide much ROI.

The ROI issue is simple. Everyone has heard of the fax machine example.. where the first fax machine was worthless but as everyone else purchased one they became more valuable. The same goes for a chat program. If one or two people are the only people on it then its worthless and never gains traction.

How do you fix this? Find a product that already has a large user base and incorporate that into your site. I'd love to see a Twitter API that allowed us to drop a live Twitter chat feed into our website. I want a full app to do more than a mashup using their search function. It would allow our readers to drop micro-bursts of information about news and information. This is an app I'd pay for from Twitter because it solves a problem and would certainly make my life easier. Better yet, if no one cares I have a small investment of money rather than a large investment in development time.

Social shopping

There are two reasons I never buy clothes online: I don't know how they will fit or look on me.

I'd love to be able to upload an image and then body dimensions and do a virtual fitting. I could then show my wife or friends what it looked like and get their opinions.

A great additional feature would be the marketing aspect. If I was trying on Brooks Brothers pants and showing friends I'd be advertising the brand. Then you have Facebook apps and more. Harness your customers--they are by far your best marketers.

Keep it simple... you know the rest

I thought I was the only one who couldn't figure out in a pinch which button opens the elevator doors, but I've observed a few people with the same level of indecision. I think I'm fairly smart and yet when someone comes running for the elevator at work there is always a hesitation trying to figure out which button to push. The issue being that the symbols aren't obvious when you are trying to make a quick decision.

The point? Can't it just say "Open" or "Close" under the buttons? Just make it simple. That's exactly the way your marketing message should be. Want someone to buy your tires. Tell them why you have great tires. Want someone to donate money to your cause? Tell them where their money goes. Keep it simple.

All you need is love

The best marketing is when a company provides a service that you didn't know you needed.

I went to the local grocery store and my receipt noted in big, bold letters that we purchased a peanut product on the recall list. I had no idea about the product because my wife bought it--but the store knew because of my store card.

I also got a letter in the mail from Costco which pointed out that some of the Clif Bars we bought were recalled. Their quick work didn't save my life, after all I had already eaten most of them and lived to talk about it, but it was nice to know they were doing something to help others who might not be so lucky.

Marketing doesn't have to be about commercials and the usual marketing propaganda. Sometimes the simplest things keep customers loyal.

How not to do a how to video

My son needed a science fair project. So we searched the web. We didn't actually know what we were searching for, we were just searching. But I remembered that a cool site existed that I always admired simply because it would be cool to create things like a solar powered hot water heater.

That's when I rediscovered Instructables.com. It's a great DIY website with videos or instructions on how to build just about anything. Even carve cool pumpkins!

So my son and I settled on building a levitation device out of magnets, which sounded really easy. We watched the video a dozen time, even though it seemed unbelievably easy. Once we got all the necessary parts we started putting it together.

Well it didn't work.

So we continued to tinker and tinker and tinker and realized we actually started to learn about magnets and polarity, etc. That was good news for my son, bad news for the frustrated dad. But the video wasn't for science fair projects or teaching you anything--it was to show you how to build something. If this were a chair you'd have to realize that nails were important on your own.

So you can understand what that the video left out some important things. One example is that the magnets polarity aren't going to be the same as his. He put his in sideways--that wouldn't work for us. He never told us how to keep our magnets on the stick without shoot towards each other and constantly locking up. Nor did he mention how the magnets are anchored because they end up pulling the magnets in the styrofoam out of the styrofoam.

Moral of the story: if you want someone to learn how to do something--you better teach them. Leaving things ambiguous is not a move in the right direction. The same goes for wacky commercials that never tell you about the product or why you should care. The one commercial that comes to mind during the Super Bowl was the Hulu.com commercial.

I love Hulu.com. I watch television shows on there all the time. That ad didn't convince me that its nearly as cool of a website as it is. Sell the features not Alec Baldwin goofing off as Jack Donaghy. And thanks to the bad commercial many viewers don't even know who Jack Donaghy is or that they can watch him on "30 Rock" anytime they want. Oops.

Marketing dumb

I love this video--it's of two crooks in New Zealand who run into a pole. After thinking about it a bit it reminded me of some companies and how they do their advertising and marketing. Too often a marketing campaign says one thing, but the reality of the what the company does is completely different. Why do companies continue to make such fundamental mistakes? Because the two halves aren't talking to each other... like in this video.

See the result:

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Another reason movie studio executives hurt themselves

I know, some of you are my friends.. but some movie studio executives are morons.

Someone at a movie studio--they will remain nameless--made YouTube yank down a video from blogger Kevin Lee because it had copyrighted material in it. Here is the irony, he was doing a movie review on video. Yeah, he was reviewing the movie and used clips. You know, like the guy on your late night news channel does.

Everyone gets away with it because its fair use. And because this wasn't first time someone complained about Kevin Lee, yes there are two other moronic movie studios out there, he got dropped from YouTube completely. All 70 of his videos. YouTube was put in a bad position--but there is no way Lee would be convicted.

Does anyone know what bad PR is anymore? This is as bad a PR move as you'll see. The big bad corporate giant going after someone promote their product. What's next--some movie exec trying to sue me for libel while bashing "Bride Wars" to my friends?

Why I love to hate movies

I love movies. I love to see new movies. I'd love to see all of them every single weekend. But do you know what I hate about movies?

- Getting into my car and driving a minimum of 20 minutes to the theater
- Waiting in line to buy tickets (although I'm glad I can buy some online to save this grief)
- Shuffling across dozens of feet down the aisles and shuffling back out to go to the bathroom.
- Listening to crying babies, people talking, people shuffling across my feet to go to the bathroom and phones ringing.
- The cost of popcorn, pop, and snacks.
- Dirty bathrooms.
- Walking ten minutes to my car when its 20 degrees or worse snowing or raining?

Here are the facts. I can avoid movie theaters and wait for the DVD version. But I'm impatient. I want new movies now. But I have options. I could steal them from BitTorrents or drag myself and family to a movie theater.

It costs me at least forty bucks to go to the theater with the family and that's with going cheap on popcorn, etc. (If I smuggle in water and a snack or two). A date night is probably between $23-30 with my wife.

Why isn't there a third option? If I want to see a UFC fight or some other pay-per-view event I must pay a premium to watch it. Why not offer that option for newly released movies? Not everyone is going to pay that price but someone like me, who likes to complain and hates leaving his warm house and snacks, might. And that might also mean I watch a more movies a month than the one I see now.

Who's to blame for the newspaper business?

That's easy to answer. Newspapers are to blame. Elitism is to blame. Arrogance is to blame. I could go on but I won't.

This is a sore that has been festering for a while. And no, his name isn't Craig, well it is, sort of. Newspapers keep crying that classifieds are killing them--taking away up to 40% of their profits. Newspapers, which once had dozens of pages of classified ads, now have only one or two pages of classifieds. So is it Craig's fault or the newspaper industry's fault?

Same answer as before. If someone handed me the keys to the kingdom I'd give away my classified ads. I know, you are saying 'so what, that is being done.' But what newspapers aren't doing is to print them for free, too.

Why?

1. Printed newspapers don't matter at all in job searches anymore. Why? Multiple reasons. First, no one looks at classifieds in newspapers because there are no classifieds. The second reason is all the job sites that exist. So how do you solve that?

2. Get dozens of pages of classifieds again. And thousands upon thousands of classifieds on your website. Then you become the go to place for that city or region or state. Instead newspapers are being nitched to death by Craig and his list, Ebay, Monster, Career Builder, The Ladders and more.

3. Everyone can give classifieds away online for free. Almost no one but a newspaper can print them. Did someone forget business 101 and the power of the good old strategic competitive advantage? Craig, Ebay, etc. aren't going to be buying printing presses any time soon.

4. The more eyeballs you bring, the more advertising you can sell. It's that simple.