Washington Post Announces Influence/Access Menu & Price List;

NOW EVEN MORE WAYS TO LEVERAGE THE POST FOR YOUR OWN GAIN!

Due to the tremendous number of inquiries received in the past week about our new, flexible access programs, The Washington Post is pleased to present a menu of customer-driven ways our readers can leverage the Post’s brand to gain invaluable influence and exposure. That’s right, we’re throwing out all of the rules of good journalism, separation of publishing/editorial and all good decorum with a wider-than-ever menu of options!

Washington Post Influence/Access Menu & Price List

- Attend salon at Katherine Weymouth’s house with WaPo reporters, editors and other assorted DC movers/shakers: $50K per person per event or $250K for package of 6 salons. Ask about category exclusivity for health care, energy and telecommunications!

- Tour of Katherine Weymouth’s house during Salon “bio break”: $2,500 per person.

- Sponsor “bio breaks” during Salon: $1,000 each or 3 for $2,500.

- Your logo on toilet paper rolls in 3 of K. Weymouth’s bathrooms: $750 per roll; $1,000 for two-sided printing on two-ply tissue.

- Disguise yourself as a parking valet and we’ll guarantee you get to park Mitt Romney’s car: $2,500 per event.

- Positive mention in Al Kamen’s “In the Loop” column: $ 10,000. (Plus you’ll get a free mention in George Will’s column.); Negative mention in Al Kamen’s column: $7,500.

- Mention in Dan Steinberg’s “DC Sports Bog”: $5,000.

- Mention in Kim Hart’s Tech “Download” Column: $25,000.

- No negative coverage for you or one of your clients for 12 months: $250,000.

- Flattering blurb in Reliable Source: $5,000; w/flattering photo: $10,000. Neutral “sighting” in Reliable Source: $2,500.

- Your name integrated into our innovative Masthead Hologram, so that the WaPo logo will morph into your logo/message when readers look at it from just the right angles: $50,000 for 7 days in print only; $100,000 for print and online.

To order now, please contact Charles Pelton in the Washington Post’s marketing department.

NOTE: This is a draft by the Post’s marketing department and has not been vetted by the Publisher. Or at least that’s the story we’re sticking with.

How to Blame Your Predecessor

(Or the art of throwing the previous regime under the bus.)

By Bob London

We all know about the so-called honeymoon period in business: the time at the beginning of a new job when an executive can sit back and absorb and assess the way things work, who the power players are and where the bodies are buried–without being expected to make any great decisions or pronouncements. It’s a no-fault grace period which can last as long as several months depending on the role and company.

But there’s another less-talked about phase executives can leverage to their advantage: the Blame Window.  This is the period during which you can hold your predecessor responsible for the challenges you are now facing.

One might naturally ask, as I did, how long after you’ve assumed a new role can you blame your predecessor?  And how would one go about throwing him or her under the bus?

My research yielded no credible answers to these questions, so I developed the following handy formula (Fig. 1) to help executives calculate their available Blame Window:

Here is a fictitious example to show how the formula works.  Let’s say Bill S. takes over as CFO of a venture-backed start-up which has already raised two rounds of funding and is burning $75,000 per month with profitability two years away, soonest. After 6.5 weeks on the job, Bill discovers a serious flaw in the company’s pricing model that requires redoing the model–and therefore the business plan–from scratch. Bill’s predecessor held the CFO post for 2.5 years.

Q: Can Bill blame his predecessor?
A: Absolutely! Using the former CFO’s tenure of 30 months, divided by 2 equals 15, which is then divided by the 6.5 weeks of Bill’s tenure and multiplied by a Problem Magnitude Rating of 5. The result is a Blame Window of 11.4 weeks. Since Bill discovered the error in under seven weeks, he can throw the former CFO right under the old Greyhound.

Caution: this formula can be dangerous if not used judiciously.  Here are some important tips to remember:

First, make sure you get the math right.  There is nothing more embarrassing than miscalculating the Blame Window and having the whole situation blow up in your face.  Set some reminders in Outlook 90, 60, 30 and 7 days prior to the expiration of the Blame Window so you will know when to stop blaming your predecessor.

Second, do your homework before you start laying on the criticism.  Was your predecessor revered or scorned? Respected or tolerated?  Make sure to get these and other data points before you start spraying around accusations.  The last thing you want to do is tear into someone who is a company legend or, worse, someone who is deceased.

Third, make sure to select the right way of broaching the subject with your superiors.  Here are some preambles to get you started:

• Jocular: “Gee, if I’d known all this before I would have asked for a lot more money, ha-ha-ha!”
• Nothing Personal, Just Business: “I’m sure <name of predecessor> was a good guy, but…”
• Delicate but Direct: “I don’t want to cast aspersions on anyone, but now that I’ve gotten my feet wet…”
• Mildly Annoyed: “I have to tell you I’m not sure what I’ve gotten myself into here…”
• Threatening: “If you think I’m going to take the fall for any of this, you can just find yourself another CFO.”

Is the Blog Replacing the Tombstone? 

(Why Would Investment Bankers Embrace Social Media During a Downturn?)

By Brad Fleisher, Managing Director, Focus Enterprises

The recession has hit nearly all industries across the economy and investment banking, leading the pack, has certainly not escaped the grief. What used to be the largest and most profitable group of investment banks on Wall Street, commonly referred to as the bulge bracket,  is now the busted bracket, consisting of just two bank holding companies - Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

Although the consensus among mainstream economists is that we’re in the trough and will see positive growth in Q1-2009, albeit probably mild, M&A (a lagging indicator)  is still weak because of ongoing discrepancies in middle market valuations Buyers are fishing for distressed deals, and sellers still have the misconception that an offer should start at 8x EBITDA (and be increased for average performance) rather than 5x, which is the long-term, broad economy historical average.

Taking a page from Rahm Emanuel’s book, and not wanting to waste a good crisis, a few partners and I took advantage of the slow down to re-think and execute a new business strategy. We’re seeking to capitalize on three long term trends in the economy.

Social Media Marketing v. Traditional Media Marketing. While there is still no more effective way to reach 90 million potential customers in 30 seconds than through a Super Bowl advertisement, there is no better way to communicate an esoteric point on intellectual property valuation to 140 professionals who are seeking this information than through LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.  You don’t have to “tweet” every hour to take advantage of social networks. And the trend has just begun. Social networks are becoming platforms to distribute customized services to highly fragmented communities rather than just a vehicle for information exchange.

Applying these trends to investment banking, the hypothesis for our practice group at Focus is that we can build our brand and grow our business quicker by leveraging the Internet and social media than through placing traditional tombstone advertisements in industry magazines and attending industry and networking meetings.

That’s why, earlier this year we launched Intangible Insights (www.intangibleinsights.com), which is our online Community of Practice where we blog, podcast, conduct surveys, publish research, and otherwise communicate with and expand our target market.  We’re even discussing strategies for streaming video to micro-niche audiences through a branded Internet TV channel, which may be a number of years out, but is certainly on its way.

Intangible v. Tangible Assets. There currently is an enthusiastic debate within the Intangible Asset professional community whether intangible assets compose “upwards of 80% of listed companies’ values” (according to a Brookings Institute report), or just under 50%.  For us, the point is this: Intangible property accounts for a significant amount of a company’s valuation.

This is a long term trend, if not a permanent change,that will accelerate in the post-recession economy as developing countries use labor advantages and decreasing communication costs to offshore commoditized tasks, both manufacturing and informational.  In order to compete, the U.S. will have to enhance its intangible asset capabilities through R&D, workforce productivity, distribution networks, and stretch its tangible resources, which will further diminish the reliance and value of hard assets

Intangible assets compose the largest share of value, by far, in Internet-reliant companies. Of course, there is significant value in the intellectual property assets of the knowledge economy company — the patents, copyrights trademarks, and trade secrets — but the real value resides at the next layer, in the methodologies that convert the intangible assets into revenue — culturally-ingrained process to attract and retain talent, strategic measurement and execution processes, brands, databases, social networks. Our group is working on a valuation rating system for these intangible assets so our clients can better understand the intrinsic value of their company and their acquisition targets. Just identifying and analyzing these assets, not to mention exploiting them, will help our clients with post-transaction integration plans or accelerated growth, which is the arbiter of a successful corporate transaction.

Generalist vs. Specialist.  Since its inception in 1982, FOCUS Bankers has been a middle market, generalist investment bank and has long debated the generalist v. specialist strategy. There are benefits and drawbacks to each, but it’s difficult to toe the middle line.  During my five year tenure at the firm, I’ve worked on deals in industries ranging from highly-engineered manufactured products, transportation and logistics, and electronic parts distribution to the information industries, including software, Internet, IT, and digital media, which is where most of my career experience has been.

The recession gave us the opportunity to transition into one carefully defined market: the Internet-Reliant Industry with a focus on intangible assets, and start a practice group within the firm. The key was to define the space large enough to have an active and growing marketplace, but small enough to have end-to-end domain expertise. That it’s highly dynamic, indispensable to information industries, full of cutting-edge growth opportunities, and just a lot of fun, doesn’t hurt our commitment.

The silver lining in this recession for us is that we took the opportunity for introspection and execution. Our strategy is fluid, but our practice group has staked its future on these trends, which we believe will shape future markets and US competitiveness.

About Brad Fleisher

Brad Fleisher is a Managing Director at FOCUS Investment Banking in Washington, DC and publisher of Intangible Insights. Brad is an experienced investment banker, entrepreneur and attorney with over 15 years M&A, corporate finance, and business development and advisory experience in the Internet, software & information technology, media, and education industries. Contact Brad at Brad.Fleisher@focusbankers.com.

Or link to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldrRMRDbaG8

Older gentleman sues Facebook and LinkedIn for age discrimination, calling them “too confusing for some of us older folk.”

Broomville, CO–A 58-year old accounting manager has filed suit against two of the most popular networking sites, accusing Facebook and LinkedIn of discriminating against him and millions of older people who find social networking sites and technologies too intimidating and complicated to use.

“It’s tough enough getting older every single day, but its downright degrading when you run into a zillion people a day asking if you’re using LinkedIn or Facebook, as though they’re some sort of panacea,” said the complainant, Frank Sawyer. “I’ve tried to use those newfangled things and have spoken to a lot of my peers who’ve tried also. It just isn’t in our genetics, and it isn’t fair.”

Added Sawyer’s attorney, Barney Simonton, “You can’t teach an old dog new technologies. We’ve tried to contact both LinkedIn and Facebook to make the case that older folk need a simpler process for signing up and using these sites–and it took us literally a month to find a phone number where we could reach a live person. Ultimately, our complaints have fallen on deaf ears, which has forced us to take legal action.”

“I had one older friend who actually figured out how to start using Facebook,” said Jennette Porteax, a 61-year old home maker. “Just when he got comfortable using it they changed the whole darn site around–the way it looks, the way it works, everything. He just couldn’t keep up–he pitched the whole social networking thing and took up woodworking.”

Marketing expert and self-proclaimed ‘thought leading social media demi-guru,’ Bob London of marketing firm London, Ink predicted the social networking trend may in fact leave the older generation behind. “Age is a state of mind–on the Internet no one knows you’re old, unless you forget to suppress your year of birth on Facebook,” said the forty-something London.

“Old people just need to take a deep breath and try harder. It ain’t rocket science, and if you need proof of that, just check out some of the younger crowd’s atrocious profiles. They’re full of bad grammar, misspellings and illiterate-sounding corporate jargon.”

Both LinkedIn and Facebook declined to comment for this story.

© 2009, Bob London

Firms Take to The Tweetable Business Model

 

By Kim Hart

Monday, March 9, 2009; Page D01 The Twitterverse is expanding.

Twitter, that microblogging tool that caught on with teens and twentysomethings using it to tell loyal followers what they’re doing at any given time — in 140 characters or less — is now becoming part of the business strategy for a wide range of brands, from Skittles to Fairfax County.

Read full article at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/08/AR2009030801531. html

London, Ink is proud to sponsor an exciting event on March 27 - 28: Government 2.0 Camp (http://gov20camp.eventbrite.com/).  Here’s a brief description of the event and the “camp” concept:

What is Government 2.0 Camp?

Government 2.0 Camp is the unconference about using social technologies (aka web 2.0/social media tools) to create a more effective, efficient and collaborative U.S. government on all levels (local, state and federal).

Government 2.0 Camp will bring together the leading thinkers from government, academia and industry to share Government 2.0 initiatives that are already in process and collaborate about Government 2.0 ideas that are currently just visions.

There is also a wiki for the event where attendees and other can discuss topics and other themes: http://www.barcamp.org/Government20Camp

Why is London, Ink sponsoring this event?

1. I’m very dissatisfied–to the point of taking action–with the lack of efficiency and abundance of waste in government and am a big believer that new Web technologies, Web 2.0 applications and social media/networking applications can help.  Trimming the Federal budget by a quarter of one percent over the next five years could pay for a lot of fixes (long-term) to our educational system or seed the nascent but promising field of alternative energy.
2. I fully support transparency in government, particularly government spending–it’s our money after all–and again believe that Web 2.0 technologies and social media/networking apps can enable this.
3. I believe the Gov 2.0 arena will yield good business opportunities for London, Ink, long-term.
4. Sounds like a great event!  (I like the participatory BarCamp approach.)

Hope to see you there.

For Immediate Release

FEBRUARY 7, 2009–POTOMAC, MD  London, Ink, a full-service marketing and communications consulting firm based outside of Washington, DC, announced today a major initiative intended to demonstrate its commitment to ‘green’ practices that are highly visible and high impact.  Effective immediately, the letter “k” at the end of the London, Ink logo will change to a compelling shade of green from the original basic black.

“London, Ink didn’t just want to jump on the green bandwagon and announce another green initiative,” said London, Ink president Bob London, who is also known as the DC region’s Virtual VP of Marketing for providing marketing expertise on demand.  “Changing the letter ‘k’ in our logo to green represents a major commitment, as it is the letter most people focus on since they are expecting a ‘c’ after the ‘In.’”

Old Logo:

New Logo:

Taking this initiative a step further, London, Ink is issuing a challenge to other Washington, DC area marketing, communications, PR and design firms to make similar commitments towards ‘greening’ their businesses.

Continued Bob London, “I’d like to see some of the more traditional service providers, including ad agencies, public relations firms, Web design and digital marketing agencies follow London, Ink’s lead.  After all, there’s always room for each of us to be ‘greener.’  Take it from me, it feels great doing something good,”

About London, Ink

London, Ink is a full-service marketing and communications consulting firm based just outside of Washington, DC.  London, Ink’s unique Virtual VP of Marketing model differs from other traditional marketing and communications service providers such as ad agencies, PR firms and Web design firms in that (a) the client receives independent guidance on when and how to prioritize, execute and measure a wide range of marketing initiatives, from PR to SEO to lead generation to channel marketing; and (b) all services are provided on an on-demand basis, providing clients with budget predictability and flexibility.

London, Ink’s low overhead, client-focused model eliminates the common conflicts between agencies’ profitability goals and creative philosophies versus the client’s requirements. Please visit www.londonink.com for more information or contact London, Ink president Bob London at info@londonk.com or +1 240.994.7644.

Great info from destinationCRM.com and supports why companies should consider solutions like e.SSENTIALS from London, Ink, a fixed-price bundle of online/social marketing programs.  See e.ssentials.net for more info.

Given the state of the economy, Lamba writes that social networking is a relatively low cost solution that could help in fostering, “steady communication with existing partners, and clients as well as incubating new relationships” — a function both desired by consumers networking with friends and with employees in the workplace. The aforementioned IDC social networking survey, in fact, indicates that the majority of social networking users list communication as their number one reason for usage of such sites.

http://www.destinationcrm.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=51944

Announcing e.SSENTIALS, from London, Ink: A new, fixed-price online marketing program including development of five essential initiatives: marketing database, e-newsletter, Google AdWords, search engine optimization & social marketing presence.

Potomac, MD, December 11, 2008-London, Ink, (www.londonink.com) a full-service, on-demand marketing and communications firm, today launched e.SSENTIALS, a fixed-price program of online marketing services for small- and mid-size businesses and non-profit organizations.

Designed to meet the budgeting predictability requirements of small- and mid-size organizations, the London, Ink e.SSENTIALS program includes the development and execution of five essential online marketing deliverables for one fixed price.

The London, Ink e.SSENTIALS Program Includes:

• Marketing Database: Compilation of an organization’s key contacts, including prospective, nurture (long-term), and existing customers/clients and partners. Regularly communicating to a house list can be the most cost-effective way to for an organization to maintain or increase mindshare-a critical step towards being “short-listed” when prospects are ready to buy.
• E-Newsletter: Development of a web-based newsletter template that will be emailed to one or more segments of the Marketing Database, plus execution of one prototype e-newsletter.
• Google AdWords/Analytics Test: Development of a test of the Google AdWords pay-per-click online advertising program, the world’s leading online advertising platform.
• Web Site Search Engine Optimization Audit: Assessment of content, page titles and other factors for search engine “friendliness” and recommendations for immediate enhancements.
• Introductory Social Marketing Program: Development and implementation of a program that leverages free distribution of an organization’s message, via at least one of the following tactics: company/product blog or leading social networking sites.

“Running any business today without online marketing tools such as database marketing, search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising and basic social marketing, is like making an omelet without eggs,” said London, Ink president, Bob London.  “These tools are lower cost and easier to measure than traditional marketing tactics, but too often they fall off the priority list due to a lack of resources and expertise to properly plan, implement and maintain them.”

“Now with e.SSENTIALS, London, Ink provides small- and mid-size organizations with a practical, cost-effective and low-risk way to implement these fundamental programs as they enter 2009.”

What about Content?

The e.SSENTIALS program leverages an organization’s existing content, such as news releases, white papers, articles and other subject matter or thought leadership content.  New or additional content can be created for an additional fee.

How is the e.SSENTIALS Program Priced?

The fixed-price, all-inclusive cost of the London, Ink e.SSENTIALS program is based on the size of the organization by annual revenue.  Please contact London, Ink at essentials@londonink.com or 240 994 7644 for more details.  The cost of the program is billed monthly in five equal amounts.

“Teaching Organizations to Fish”

In addition to the development and execution of the above programs, for an additional fee London, Ink will provide training for managers and staff on how to continue to leverage and maximize the above tools.

Additional details are available at e.ssentials.net.  To sign up for this program or to learn more, please contact Bob London, president of London, Ink at essentials@londonink.com or 240.994.7644.

About London, Ink

London, Ink is a full-service, on-demand marketing and communications firm based in the Washington, DC metro area, that develops and implements marketing and communications programs for mid-size and growing businesses and non-profit organizations.

Bob London, president of London, Ink, serves as a Virtual VP of Marketing for organizations that need hands-on, interim leadership in marketing strategy, planning and execution.  For more on London, Ink please visit www.londonink.com or contact Bob London at 240 994 7644 or essentials@londonink.com.