Tune in for a great LeapCast as Mike is joined by Terry McWilliams, President of Mozaic Investor Relations and Chairman of InvestKY. Please visit www.investky.com for more information.

 

 LeapCast - Interactive In Action: 10.30.07 - A Visit With InvestKY: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Join Katina and Mike as they journey through the interactive landscape - this show discusses trends in online video and email providers dabbling in social features.

 

 LeapCast - LFI Trends: 10.22.07 - Email Goes Social: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

“You can’t buy homegrown tomatoes,” as the old saying goes. You also can’t buy a “brand evangelist.” To understand why, you have to go back to the word “evangelist” and its ecclesiastical roots. The word comes from the Greek words eu and angellus, meaning “messenger with good news.”

At the most basic level, that’s what a brand evangelist is: someone who’s discovered something truly great, and is so excited that he or she is compelled to share it with the world. That’s why you can’t “hire” a brand evangelist. But you can find them, empower them, and reward them.

The first step is being legitimately great news to your customers, clients or patrons. If you don’t offer something truly exceptional, you simply can’t expect to pay people to pretend that you are. That kind of thinking goes directly against the principles of authenticity and genuine word-of-mouth value that brand evangelism embodies.

Paid endorsement is not brand evangelism, no matter how hard some marketers may try to spin it that way. Have businesses used paid endorsement models successfully to promote their brands in the past? Absolutely. In that sense, it’s no different than paying an athlete to star in your commercial, or doing product placement in a movie. Paid endorsement still has a place in 21st century marketing (although I personally believe its power is waning in favor of updated forms of word-of-mouth from ordinary consumers).

That said, paid endorsement is still traditional advertising. The jury is still out on whether or not paying bloggers to endorse your business has demonstrable value. But calling that “brand evangelism” is like spray-painting a horse and buggy and calling it an automobile.

Join Katina and Mike as they discuss recent trends for big brands and the use of social media to take their brands to a more upscale position.

 

 LeapCast - LFI University: 10.9.07 - Big Brand Love: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I’ve recently gotten the opportunity to teach an IT class at the school where I got my own start in IT:  Brown Mackie College.  I’m grateful for the opportunity to give back to an organization that helped me break into a field I really enjoy.  As of October of this year, I’ll be an official Adjunct Professor.  I report to Dr. Peter Ifeacho, Department Chair of Technology.

The class I’ll be teaching is one that has a lot of benefit to businesses: Installing, Configuring, and Administering Microsoft Windows XP Professional.  It’s part of this program: Computer Networking and Applications.   To give you a little more background, here’s a snippet from Microsoft about the program:  ”Candidates for this exam operate in medium to very large computing environments that use Microsoft Windows XP Professional as a desktop operating system. They have a minimum of one year of experience implementing and administering any desktop operating system in a network environment.”

Teaching is something I have always been interested in.  The benefit of teaching is that it really is a learning experience in itself.  It encourages you to delve deeper into a particular subject; especially if you’re teaching something that you’re already passionate about.  I look forward to learning from the experience, and hopefully helping the next batch of great IT professionals get their start.