WhyHire.me Release 3 going live March 22nd!

Just in time for Fresh Meet, WhyHire.me release 3 is coming out over the weekend. I wanted to share some of the major elements and bug fixes that are going in. I have every believe you will enjoy the experience.

1) Skills and Talents – you can add your own skill and talent definitions on the fly!

2) Native blogging support, tied to your profile. You can now start authoring up blog entries that you can elect to publish, or keep within the confines of your account or contacts. The blog entries you post can be directly attached to your profile. What better way to demonstrate applied learning in action. Learn something interesting in a project? Blog it! Looking for project feedback from a 3rd party that was involved? Blog it! and ask for comments. All these elements will show up in your profile.

3) Twitter Feeds – you can pipe your Twitter updates directly into your profile. Why not share your views, redirects or retweets with the world? Its out there anyway – keep it fun and professional!

4) Other RSS Feed support – thanks to open standards, you can now insert any RSS feed into your WhyHire.me profile. Have an interesting Google Alert Feed? Pop it in. Want to track a key idea discussion forum you started? Pop it in. You can now actively profile any digital content on the planet, provided it supports RSS feeds. You can even bring in a blog feed from another blog site.

5) Sundry bug fixes – lost password support and no more state management issues. You log in and voila, your content is there. No more back button or refresh.

Please keep the feedback coming! In the new release, I am setting up a group where you can post feedback, and write on the wall.

Daily Rant: Banking Service not always an Oxymoron

Well, we thought it high time to follow a basic tenet of small business finance – open a separate bank account for ones corporate affairs. Done!

The two of us headed off to a local mall that has three chartered banks. Selection! Choice! Which do we go with..orange, burgundy or blue? A wise friend suggested they are all about the same…in his experience, it was all about the relationship with the branch manager…yes the people were key to selecting a good bank.

Scotiabank was our first stop. One thing we forgot to bring was our third director. We were told that Scotiabank could not start processing our new account unless all three corporate directors were there, signing paperwork and watching a banking representative enter information into a computer screen. Since our directors are busy people, it is a challenge to get all three people in a room at once.

Fresh Meet 2009 – Algonquin Business Marketing Grads

The Algonquin College Business Administration Marketing Graduates (soon to be) are hosting a local networking event, Fresh Meet, on April 2nd.

Daily Rant: Daily case studies for marketers entering the workforce!

I wonder if the team at iContact have put a measurement system in place to monitor their results against their desired objectives. This iContact advertisement placed on the Huffington Post today, left me scratching my head.

The Huffington Post is a great site with lots of traffic from C-level and director level managers across North America. What got my attention was the underlying message. For those of you studying communications and marketing, I would like to point out the following issues that I hope iContact will respond to. This will make for a great live case study in online marketing.

1) The message is not authentic. Making an over the top, unsubstantiated claim simply invites cynicism and distrust right out of the gate

2) The message and supporting imagery are commodity components – I could swap in a new brand name from any industry and voila..I have a new add for the best toothpaste, deodorant or anti-virus software.

3) When it comes to selecting tools be it in small or large businesses, a more effective way to generate leads is to conduct multi-channel outreach and engagement to the actual doers – you know, the people responsible for email marketing.

4) Final rant. If this was in fact all about branding, I really can’t see why a C-level exec would click through on this add, let alone remember it the next time one of her staff members recommends they purchase iContact. Can you imagine the response from the executive? “Yes, I approve! I read that iContact is the world’s best email marketing tool!”

If you believe this is how decisions really unfold, please see point #1 again and try, really try to think of another word that starts with B:) Hint…its not Best!

Comments?

MKT2382 Students – Business Card Artwork

For those students that are starting to get ready for Fresh Meet, I thought I would provide the artwork for our logo if you want to put it on your business cards.

A lesson from industry – think about your objectives before choosing your tools!

For all you soon to be marketers, think about your sales objectives before you launch into what was tried and true in the past. In this case, I refer to a recent spam I got from a prominent social media thought leader.

Social Media Discussion Continued

I really enjoyed this weeks class.

Interview with Sarah Ormon – Switched On!

I interviewed Sarah Ormon, a student from our Transition to Marketing Professional course last Friday.

Blogging, Twitter & More

Last week in class,

Version 2.0 is LIVE!!!!

Version 2.0 of WhyHire.me is live for our 47 students at Algonquin College and they can actually do some fun things with it!