Every day in business, I wear two hats (metaphorically of course).  The first hat is in the agency world as the Chief Marketing Officer at Rockfish.  The second hat is in the start-up investor world, both as the co-founder of The Brandery and as a partner at Brand Ventures.  While these two professions have more differences than similarities, I know I am better at both jobs because of the other.

On the agency side, each day is spent uncovering the marketing and business pain points of our clients.  These pain points create opportunities which start up companies can capitalize on by providing the solution.  As an investor, I often have one of the first opportunities to evaluate the start-ups that are looking to provide that solution.  Well before they hit the pages of Mashable or the New York Times, many of these start-ups are pitching investors.  In the investment world, venture firms often talk about “proprietary deal flow” where they get a first look at investment opportunities.  In much the same way, being involved directly in the start-up investment space gives Rockfish proprietary deal flow to bring digital innovation to our clients.

Being a practitioner in the world of marketing helps me be a subject matter expert when it comes to brand marketing.  In turn, I become more valuable as an investor because of the subject matter expertise I can bring to start-ups.  And ultimately, the value comes full circle as I can better help the digital innovation strategy of my clients to identify opportunities.

Wearing two hats in your professional life definitely requires double the work.  But at the same time, the return you get for both jobs clearly proves the old saying of “one plus one equals three.”

Sometimes you come across a brand experience that was just so amazing, you have to tell people about.  For me, that experience came this weekend from an unlikely place – a baby monitor manufacturer.

One of my tasks on my to do list was to set up our two newly purchased baby monitors at the house.  Being the geek that I am, we had purchased cameras from WiFi Baby that would be viewable on the iPhone, iPad and Android.  Initial set-up was a breeze but I ended up running into some pretty technical problems with the dynamic IP’s on the cameras.   After wasting a few hours trying to solve it myself, I decided to drop an email to WiFi Baby to see if they would be able to help.

Since their website clearly said that customer service was only available during the weekday, I didn’t expect to hear anything from them till Monday.  But in the first of many pleasant surprises, it only took them about 30 minutes to get a response on Saturday afternoon from Gary, the WiFi Baby Technical Supervisor.  While the speed of response was impressive, its really what came next that set WiFi Baby apart.  In their email back to me, Gary offered to set up a time over the weekend at any point that I would be available.  Once we had a time, he followed up with a simple program to install for screen sharing so he can help me with the problem I was facing.

Once the appointed time rolled around, Gary called my cell phone and we got to work.  He immediately took the control of my computer and walked me step by step through everything that needed done.  It took about 15 minutes and everything was running perfectly.  He even tweaked a few of the settings on the camera that would make for a better experience (changing the date stamp and fixing the lighting).  If that wasn’t enough, he even helped me get the app set up on my iPhone, which was impressive since it was third party software.  Almost any other company would have claimed to not be able to help due to it not being their program.  But WiFi Baby recognized that customer service was the ultimate goal and that meant helping at each step of the process.  And I almost forgot the best part.  Gary followed up about 30 minutes after our call with an email detailing every single step he took so I could fix it myself at a later date.  And it wasn’t just a generic note but a detailed email with every personalized step.  Wow.

Everyone knows of the great customer service from companies like Zappos or Apple.  But it is really amazing when you have a chance to run across equally stellar service from a small business.  WiFi Baby clearly recognizes the value of going above and beyond for their customers.   Needless to say, they have won me over as a loyal customer.

Last week I got a fun invitation from the crew over at Klout asking me to participate in Agency Insanity, their version of March Madness.  Instead of college hoops though, this bracket is a match-up of marketers from different agencies.  In Agency Insanity, marketers compete head-to-head in a bracket on who has more influence. The bracket has 6 rounds of competition and people are seeded based on their Klout Scores.

Klout gets credit for some solid B2B marketing on this one for sure.  Agencies are a key target audience for them and what better way to get their attention than to throw a little competition into the mix.  After all, which agency wouldn’t want to be able to take home the title of Klout’s Most Influential Social Media Marketer?

I’m always up for a little competition and I could use your help.  In the first round of the Agency Insanity Tournament, I’m up against Maggie Ratigan, a Media Planner at AKQA.  My team name is ROC-DK.  You can help me advance to the 2nd Round by visiting the bracket matchup and giving me +K.  Our CEO/Founder of Rockfish, Kenny Tomlin, is also in the bracket as ROC-KT.  He’s faced with a tough first round match-up, going against my fellow VCU BrandCenter Board Member, Gareth Kay.

The tournament is taking place over the next two weeks with Round 1 today, Round 2 on March 21, Sweet 16 on March 22, Elite 8 on March 23 and then Final Four on March 26.    You can log-in daily to ”Give +K’s”.  I appreciate the help!

One of our key partners for both Rockfish and The Brandery is Miami University’s Interactive Media Studies Program.   They are really teaching the next generation of business leaders to combine business and technology in their approach to brand building.  Along those very lines, the program recently presented ”Brand As API”, a conceptual framework for understanding new opportunities in branding. This model was unveiled at SXSW Interactive in March 2012 and the presentation is embedded below.

Brand As API – SXSW 2012 Presentation

I recently had the opportunity to provide a guest post for GraphEffect, a startup that I’m honored to be an adviser for.  You can read the post on their Edges & Nodes blog or take a read below:

When the tech industry tried to come up with a new term to describe Friendster, MySpace and other social networking platforms, “social media” emerged as the industry standard.  However, the term has always been a bit of a contradiction, at least for the marketing and advertising industry.  In the traditional definition of media, marketers have always “bought” media in the form of advertisements on TV or print.  Traditionally these ads either interrupted or surrounded the content that had been professionally produced.  Consumers accepted this interruption because the advertisements subsidized the cost of producing the content.

That relationship was flipped on its head with social media.  Suddenly on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, there was content that cost nearly zero to produce and was created by consumers themselves. The content was social, but the media was not.  Marketers were able to buy ads on these social media platforms, but the media itself was not social – it was just plain old media.  The social aspect of social media remained distinctly separated from the media aspect.

However, over the last few months, social media has started to live up to its billing as both social and media with the emergence of things like Promoted Tweets.  The latest offering from GraphEffect goes a step further to put the media back into social media.  Through GraphEffect’s StoryBoost, brands can quickly and easily identify the most engaging content on their Wall and seed this content into paid ads. This allows brands to amplify the stories and conversations that resonate most with consumers into Sponsored Stories. GraphEffect’s StoryRank algorithm taps into the Facebook Insights API to analyze which of the brand’s stories would be best suited to a paid ad and ranks them accordingly.

This opens a real door for Brand Marketers to finally bring together their social media efforts and their digital media budget.  In fact, it creates the opportunity for truly holistic marketing where the content from social media increases the effectiveness of paid media. Thanks to innovations like StoryBoost, Brand Marketers will put increasing importance on creating engaging content through social channels that will in turn be amplified across their entire marketing mix.

February 29th might be known as Leap Day every 4 years, but today it takes on another meaning with the launch of Leap for the iPhone.  As a graduate of The Brandery in 2011, Leap is a pretty remarkable company.  They entered the program as Wellthy, but ended up pivoting midway through.  Today that pivot comes to life and I couldn’t be more excited for what the team has accomplished.

So what is Leap exactly?

Leap lets you create challenges with your friends and compete by snapping photos and earning points.  Whatever your interests are, there is a challenge that you can create on Leap to help you reach your goals, motivate your friends to try new things, eat healthier meals, or get the most out of your Friday night.  Leap comes with filled with fun challenges from Hipster Hunt, where you compete by snapping photos of hipsters in your city, to Breakfast Champion, a simple challenge to make sure you eat the most important meal of the day.

Congrats to James Dickerson, Ryan Tinker and Nick Cramer, the three co-founders of Leap.  Be sure to head over to the App Store to download Leap and wish them a happy #leapday on Twitter.

Ever since Twitter received a much needed boost in visibility at the festival, SXSW Interactive has become an annual launching pad for aspiring startups.  This year, The Brandery has decided to join in the fun as we host our first-ever “Office Hours” at this year’s SXSW.  At Office Hours, we wanted to give potential applicants the opportunity to meet many of the folks that make The Brandery a top 10 startup accelerator.  Since our mentors and partners are from across the country, SXSW is the perfect venue to come together in one place and host this type of event.

Thus on Sunday Afternoon of SXSW Interactive, we are going to host Office Hours at the #SxCincyHaus.  This is a chance for us to meet face to face with the companies who are applying to The Brandery.  Last year over three quarters of our companies relocated to Cincinnati for The Brandery so we know how important it is for founders to feel comfortable with the program.  To help with that, we will have our mentors, as well as past graduates at Office Hours to answer any and all questions that founders might have.  We will also share some of the things that make The Brandery unique, especially our thematic approach around design and marketing, as well as our corporate partnerships with leading marketers like Procter & Gamble.

We hope to see you there.

• WHO:  Startup Founders & Entrepreneurs who want to apply to The Brandery
• WHEN: Sunday, March 11 from 2 – 4 PM CST
• WHERE: #SxCincyHaus at 711 San Antonio St, Austin TX
• WHAT: Register at http://branderysxsw.eventbrite.com/

As I sit here at our region’s first Startup Weekend, it is clear that there’s something happening here when it comes to Cincinnati’s entrepreneurial scene.  That magic is in the air as we watch over 100 people work on launching a startup in just 54 hours.  The success of this event builds on the momentum of the last 12 months that includes:

• Venture for America announced that Cincinnati is going to be part of their inaugural class of 4 cities starting Summer 2012.
• The Brandery had a busy year as we moved into our new home into Over the Rhine and the Kauffman Fellows named us one of the Top 10 Startup Accelerators in the country.  Demo Day for our 2011 class also exceeded expectations as 350 people gathered to watch the pitches of our 8 companies.  These attendees included Venture Capitalists nationwide who traveled to town from New York City, Boston, Austin and Chicago.
• Cincinnati born Share This was named by Forbes as one of America’s Most Promising Companies.  And Cincinnati based Spark People reached 11.5 million members.
• Cincinnati took the title of Most Social City for Mashable’s Social Media Day.  And fittingly, Twitter opened up their Cincinnati office.
• Several Cincinnati startups closed significant fundraising rounds including ThinkVine’s $8MM Series C and AssureRX’s $8MMSeries B from Claremont and Sequoia.  CincyTech also added 11 companies to their portfolio, bringing the total to 30 since 2007.
• The region also saw a major exit in 2011, with CincyTech and Queen City Angels portfolio company Blue Ash Therapeutics sold to Forest Labs.
• Driven by Laura Baverman, Cincinnati.com launched Enter Change to cover great ideas in our region.
• Cincinnati is #1 in the country in voting for StartupBus at this year’s SXSW with over 500 votes

“Everybody look what’s going down…“

I just finished reading Mark Cuban’s new ebook How to Win at the Sport of Business: If I Can Do It, You Can Do It. Considering it only costs $2.99, there is no reason for you not to go buy it right this minute.

While the entire thing is a great read, I particularly enjoyed a chapter at the end entitled “12 Cuban Rules for Startups.”. They include:

1. Don’t start a company unless it’s an obsession and something you love.
2. If you have an exit strategy, it’s not an obsession.
3. Hire people who you think will love working there.
4. Sales Cure All. Know how your company will make money and how you will actually make sales.
5. Know your core competencies and focus on being great at them. Pay up for people in your core competencies. Get the best. Outside the core competencies, hire people that fit your culture but are cheap.
6. An espresso machine? Are you kidding me? Shoot yourself before you spend money on an espresso machine. Coffee is for closers. Sodas are free. Lunch is a chance to get out of the office and talk. There are 24 hours in a day, and if people like their jobs, they will find ways to use as much of it as possible to do their jobs.
7. No offices. Open offices keep everyone in tune with what is going on and keep the energy up. If an employee is about privacy, show them how to use the lock on the john. There is nothing private in a startup. This is also a good way to keep from hiring execs who cannot operate successfully in a startup. My biggest fear was always hiring someone who wanted to build an empire. If the person demands to fly first class or to bring over a personal secretary, run away. If an exec won’t go on sales calls, run away. They are empire builders and will pollute your company.
8. As far as technology, go with what you know. That is always the cheapest way. If you know Apple, use it. If you know Vista … ask yourself why, then use it. It’s a startup, there are just a few employees. Let people use what they know.
9. Keep the organization flat. If you have managers reporting to managers in a startup, you will fail. Once you get beyond startup, if you have managers reporting to managers, you will create politics.
10. NEVER EVER EVER buy swag. A sure sign of failure for a startup is when someone sends me logo-embroidered polo shirts. If your people are at shows and in public, it’s okay to buy for your own folks, but if you really think someone is going to wear your YoBaby.com polo when they’re out and about, you are mistaken and have no idea how to spend your money.
11. NEVER EVER EVER hire a PR firm. A PR firm will call or email people in the publications you already read, on the shows you already watch and at the websites you already surf. Those people publish their emails. Whenever you consume any information related to your field, get the email of the person publishing it and send them a message introducing yourself and the company. Their job is to find new stuff. They will welcome hearing from the founder instead of some PR flack. Once you establish communication with that person, make yourself available to answer their questions about the industry and be a source for them. If you are smart, they will use you.
12. Make the job fun for employees. Keep a pulse on the stress levels and accomplishments of your people and reward them. My first company, MicroSolutions, when we had a record sales month, or someone did something special, I would walk around handing out $100 bills to salespeople. At Broadcast.com and MicroSolutions, we had a company shot. The Kamikaze. We would take people to a bar every now and then and buy one or ten for everyone. At MicroSolutions, more often than not we had vendors cover the tab. Vendors always love a good party.

Tonight I received the great news that Rockfish is one of ten finalist for the inaugural iMedia Agency of the Year Awards.  With iMedia being one of the leading sources of digital marketing news and insight, this is quite the honor.  But being nominated doesn’t mean that we are the winner.  That title will go to the agency that receives the most votes between now and Friday, November 18th.

I am not one to ask for a favor, but this is one of those cases where I will go out on a limb and ask for help.   If you have been impressed with the work we are doing at Rockfish, please take the time to vote for us at the iMedia Agency Awards.  I’d really appreciate your support.  And if you really like us, it would be great if you encouraged folks to vote for @Rockfish in all of your social channels as well (Twitter, Facebook, etc)

Also, our friends at Empower MediaMarketing are up for two awards (Out-of-Home and Integrated Marketing) so please lend your support to them as well.

Thank you for your help.  This will now end the commercial message.  I appreciate you listening.