An Bui, Spelled An With 1 N

When your body just won’t fall asleep and you have TV, it’s quite possible that you end up having infomercials on while doing other things. 

And so it happened that I had infomercials on in the background at 1am last night.

As the infomercial droned on, a realization permeated the recesses of my mind - 

THEY WERE SHOUTY.

Ok, to be fair, the actor(s) in the infomercial were shouty, using outdoor voices the whole time. 

Even worse, I can’t remember what it was that they were selling - knives? workout equipment? - my only takeaway was how they delivered the message.

Social media’s most successful case studies (see @comcastcares, @RichardatDell, @zappos, @TimJackson to name a few… ) demonstrate a high level of engagement.

Are you listening or are you shouting?

Apologies for not blogging as much here - I’m hip-deep (knee-deep for normal heighted peoples) in a transition that keeps me hopping.

The Rumors Are True

I’m gallivanting off to Boulder. To that end, Kyle Mulka (who’s off to Ann Arbor) and I are hosting a party at The Garage in Cap Hill tomorrow night.

Date: 5/9
Start: 7:30 pm
Location: The Garage 

We hope to see you there. 

Why am I heading to Boulder? For many reasons. No 60-second soundbite (or even an 8 bit soundbyte) can explain it. Believe me, I’ve tried. 

I’ve done quantitative and qualitative analysis, made pro/con lists, and slept on it. In my reasoning and thought process, I applied a totality of the circumstances standard and decided that Boulder is where I want to be based. Going into deeper detail would result in a document about as exciting to read as a brief, so I won’t subject you to that. 

I feel incredibly blessed to be part of the Seattle Tech community. Seattle 2.0 Awards last night exemplified the strength and depth of the Seattle startup community. Dave Schappell of TeachStreet kept us laughing, Marcelo Calbucci and the rest of Seattle 2.0 kept things running smoothly. I’ll continue my work with electronic signature and contract execution service provider DocuSign & online scheduling/billing tool Divvy. 

I’ll be back and forth between Boulder and Seattle. I’ve a bit of travel planned for the rest of the summer - my brother’s graduation in Minnesota, time on the East Coast and in the Southwest reconnecting with college classmates and celebrating their life transitions, and of course, time here in Seattle. 

An heading off to Boulder is just a change. In the mean time, here’s a picture of a pony: 

via flickr user welmo

My favorite memories of college were cross country and track practice. While XC and track both increase your fitness by running, the approaches were quite different. 

Cross country was more freeform. You’d go out on long runs and just run. You could run hills, through creeks, deal with trails. You adjusted on the fly and the key is going long and hard. Try running five miles at an average pace of eight minute miles. Interval training on varied terrain for 1 or 1.5k happened every week, and much of the work happened on the trails. 

via flickr user nocklebeast

In contrast, track workouts were interval based on a track. 100, 200, 400, 800 and 1000 meter repeats. Run, time, record. Try and hit consistent splits with every interval. 

Over time, your times get better. This was true in both XC and track. 

However, times in XC had more variance. Why? Courses were different. Some had more hills, turns, tree roots, rain, streams, hay bales than others. These factors affect your time.

Track times tended to be more consistent because a track is a more controlled racing environment. It’s 400m, outdoors. The surface may be cinder, rubber, or gravel. The turns’ tightness may vary, but it’s basically some form of oval.

Now what does this have to do with Social Media and PPC?

Social Media and PPC both help you reach your online marketing goals in different ways. 

Think of social media as XC. The landscape varies. Twitter, Facebook, blogs are all different. The interaction paradigms vary in part because of the content that is share and in part because of the people you can connect with. You can show up, listen and share information with people you connect with. It’s a long term marketing strategy.  

Think of PPC as track. You have the search engines. You buy your ads and keywords and you can calculate your PPC ROI and adjust over time. You try to hit your click through rates and lead gen goals. 

With both XC and track you get fit. Fitness from XC and track complement each other - you run better times for running both. 

Think that’s true for Social Media and PPC as well?