MIO/BJ: Resourcefulness - And the 3 words driving success

Many times my personal and work lives collide. That's when the best blog posts come to life. Wednesday was a standard "Jeanniey" day. Wake up at 3:30 am. Check email, workout, get showered/dressed (this is important to note). Got dressed in a nice green suit, went downstairs at the hotel and had breakfast. Went back to the room and had a conference call with Germany. Started a call with Spain while I walked to the elevator, downstairs and got in a cab. Got out of the cab at convention center- Walked upstairs; Met with a good friend and fellow presenter and spent about an hour getting ready for an upcoming presentation.

When my co-presenter got up for a few minutes I decided to plug in my pc to charge. THANK GOD I decided to do this when i did- because as i stood up and took one step- jzzzzzooooop - my suit skirt fell off! Ummmm. yeah.... in the middle of the Direct Marketing Association conference at the San Diego convention center my skirt falls down to my ankles.


How the heck can this happen? (Re-read the top section and see ALL of the things I did without my skirt falling off) It appears the zipper broke :-(

I grabbed a bag and a garbage can and recomposed myself. Not sure if there were video cameras - pretty sure this is the only documented sighting. Thankfully only 3 people were walking in the hallway. The resourceful side of me thought fast and I felt pretty good about minimal damage.

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The lesson learned for this "adventure" is that resourcefulness is the key to success many times. And when you are resourceful it makes you feel better about yourself and decisions you make.

What does this have to do with email marketing, branding or publishing? It's a perfect segway for a lesson ALL marketers should hear.


On Wednesday, after the skirt thing, Jim Taylor, PhD and I gave a great presentation to an overpacked room of people titled: "Keeping the Interest of your Online Visitors." In it, we unveiled the behaviors of consumers in the current economic climate. It was pretty eye opening.


We shared our research and case studies indicating how the days of banners and flashing buttons are over. That effective online advertising and marketing is occurring inside venues that are considered to contain, trust and reputable content. Aka: Search, emails, digital magazines and digital newspapers.


In a down economy, 76% of people surveyed in a recent Wealth study by the Harrison Group said they take pride in their shopping skills. 88% say they have done a good job in making their household more fiscally responsible.


Three keys words to keep in mind when you are planning your online marketing in this economy are: Intelligent, Loyal and Self-Sufficient - if your marketing does not come across appealing to those characteristics- it will fail.


This poses a significant opportunity for all of us in the advertising, marketing and publishing industries. The "fluff" of online marketing is finally going away and the real successful companies are breaking through with smart, resourceful efforts.


Another key topic we covered was that fact that websites are dying, standard banners are dead- and online is expanding: outside of the computer monitor and into a world of potable devices - like smartphones, web enabled TV"s, gaming devices, e-readers etc.

And finally, we shared a decision matrix showing where people turn to make decisions at each step of the buying process. Resourcefulness, again, plays a key role here.

After our presentation we received positive comments and lots of requests for some great followup conversation. We felt good about speaking to the group, and when I look back on the day I feel even better about it knowing that I was resourceful enough to fix my skirt so that the presentation could go off without a hitch.

Guess those three words really do make a difference after all.

BJ: O.M.G. THEY HATCHED

OK... For those of you who don't really know me outside of work - weird things just happen to me. My house is haunted, I have a few stalkers, I'm pretty lucky at poker and the list goes on. Adding to this list is some weird fascination I now have with Mexican Jumping Beans - and why in the H%^&* we allowed them into the country.

So I travel a ton (and that is an understatement). And the agreement at home is that I ALWAYS bring back the girls something from where I have been. They now could each open an airport store filled with all the crazy stuff you buy 5 min. before the plane takes off.

The last long trip I had, I wanted to buy something very cool for them. At the counter as I was buying my FIJI water and Emergen-C (which i cannot live without) I saw Mexican Jumping Beans.

Now... I am not old enough to actually remember when they first came out as gifts (that's my mom's era I think) but I do remember having them in the 70's and thinking they were fun. And so, as a cool retro gift I bought 2 of them. Took them home and we had a blast having bean races on the living room table.

The next day my 11 year old asks my why they jump. I have no clue. So I turn to Eric (for those of you who don't know, I call anything Google "Eric" at this point because if he is going to take over control of our lives, he might as well be recognized by his first name). Eric sent me some of the most HORRIFYING photo's I have ever seen.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT IS IN A MEXICAN JUMPING BEAN?

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It's a BABY WORM who will become a moth.... yeah... and that jumping is the baby trying to crack the shell and get out!

Are you kidding me? Me and GG looked at these photos in horror. And all of the sudden the LAST thing we wanted was those worms cracking out of their shell at night and attacking us as they turn to killer moths.

We immediately took them outside - and screamed when we noticed one of the shells was already cracking.

So that was a few weeks ago. Little did I know that the beans were put in a spot where we could watch them. Today-we noticed they had hatched. All I can say is O.M.G. and be grossed out at the same time.

Am I a good mother? I seriously question who in the world would give their kids worms trying to break free and laugh as they jump and cant get out of their shells. This whole thing is just beyond comprehension for me.

Digital publishing, email marketing, brand advertising, starting companies... those things are simple. I get it.... freak bugs stuck in shells wanting to turn into moths from another country - just makes me shake my head.

This totally tops last years adventure when we set the empty aquarium outside and saw lots of little things swimming in it and thought were growing frogs until someone at work showed me that we were really growing mosquito's.