MarketingSherpa is offering a free download, Dirty Dozen: Email Newsletter Mistakes Nearly Everyone Makes. Find it under Email Marketing Resources on this page, along with other free downloads.

My favorite mistakes (which I see all the time): Lame 'Welcome' Messages [see my ClickZ article from October 2001: Leveraging Your Confirmation Emails] and Ignoring Your Blackberry and Mobile Readers.

The free guide is but a small taste of what they

MarketingSherpa is offering a free download, Dirty Dozen: Email Newsletter Mistakes Nearly Everyone Makes. Find it under Email Marketing Resources on this page, along with other free downloads.

My favorite mistakes (which I see all the time): Lame 'Welcome' Messages [see my ClickZ article from October 2001: Leveraging Your Confirmation Emails] and Ignoring Your Blackberry and Mobile Readers.

The free guide is but a small taste of what they offer in their annual door-stopper (328 pages): MarketingSherpa Email Marketing 2008 Benchmark Guide. I've reviewed these annual mega guides in the past (see 2006 review). They're chock full of charts and stats and really helpful if…

Had a great lunch yesterday with Russell Stalters, CTO of a system and software engineering firm and author of BetterECM (stands for enterprise content management).

He works nearby and a mutual friend suggested we get together. When I asked Russ what his blogging ROI is, he responded with a slight wince that "no" he couldn't pull a dollar figure out of the air and yes the blog does take time.

But he thinks the benefits are tangible.

Had a great lunch yesterday with Russell Stalters, CTO of a system and software engineering firm and author of BetterECM (stands for enterprise content management).

He works nearby and a mutual friend suggested we get together. When I asked Russ what his blogging ROI is, he responded with a slight wince that "no" he couldn't pull a dollar figure out of the air and yes the blog does take time.

But he thinks the benefits are tangible. Namely:

1. Lead generation for his company, Applied Information Sciences.

2. Name recognition for him (he gets invited to speak at events like Gilbane's content conferences).

3. He meets interesting people (they leave comments on his blog or he discovers them on other blogs).

4. Writing the blog helps him gather and articulate…

For months now, my Web designer Sarah Lewis and I have been pondering how to make the production of my e-newsletter, WordBiz Report, more efficient, more powerful and more blog-like. Why?

Too much time

For the past five years I have created each HTML issue myself using a Dreamweaver template. Publishing an HTML newsletter this way takes hours. I compose or write the articles as I'm creating the issue. This takes even more time.

I fuss

For months now, my Web designer Sarah Lewis and I have been pondering how to make the production of my e-newsletter, WordBiz Report, more efficient, more powerful and more blog-like. Why?

Too much time

For the past five years I have created each HTML issue myself using a Dreamweaver template. Publishing an HTML newsletter this way takes hours. I compose or write the articles as I'm creating the issue. This takes even more time.

I fuss with the lay-out; change headlines and sub-heads; revise the copy, etc. Tsk, tsk. I can't help it. That's the way I write (and I know just enough HTML coding to be dangerous). 

An email is not interactive

In addition, the old email-only version of my e-newsletter is…

WOMMA CEO Andy Sernovitz is up to more of his tricks (jeesh, does this guy know how to create buzz) but this time* I think he's got it spot on.

"Smart companies like Dell know that ethics isn't optional - it's the first priority in the consumer-generated environment," said Andy Sernovitz.
- from a Dell press release (Nov. 9, 2006)

Andy has gotten two top execs at Dell to publicly announce that the company - a relatively new player in the

WOMMA CEO Andy Sernovitz is up to more of his tricks (jeesh, does this guy know how to create buzz) but this time* I think he's got it spot on.

"Smart companies like Dell know that ethics isn't optional - it's the first priority in the consumer-generated environment," said Andy Sernovitz.
- from a Dell press release (Nov. 9, 2006)

Andy has gotten two top execs at Dell to publicly announce that the company - a relatively new player in the Fortune 500 corner of the blogosphere - is incorporating WOMMA's Ethics Adoption Toolkit into its blog policy. The principal ingredients of the Ethics Toolkit are:

- transparency of origin

- accuracy

- ethical conduct

- protection of confidential information

-…

As I noodle around with a number of presentations** I've got coming up (I've finally figured out Keynote for the Mac), I want to take a stand.

It's the end of marketing, advertising and corporate communications "as usual"

It's not enough to say that blogging is important or that social media tools are going mainstream.

Here's my little manifesto

I'm still noodling with it. Feel free to jump in and add something, help me clarify my

As I noodle around with a number of presentations** I've got coming up (I've finally figured out Keynote for the Mac), I want to take a stand.

It's the end of marketing, advertising and corporate communications "as usual"

It's not enough to say that blogging is important or that social media tools are going mainstream.

Here's my little manifesto

I'm still noodling with it. Feel free to jump in and add something, help me clarify my thoughts or tell me to stuff it:

The Inflection Point of Corporate Blogging

- Blogs and other social media tools are here to stay

- Blogs are just next-generation Web sites

- Social media tools (RSS, blogs, podcasts, video, wikis, etc.) can be used by any company, large or small, B2C or B2B

- They symbolize community, conversation, mutual respect between users and…