Thanks,

/Colin

For your information I am providing a few resources below.  First, here is the most often quoted portion of the regulations that bloggers are concerned with:

The Federal Trade Commission is taking a tougher line on bloggers who accept cash or gifts to tout a company’s products or services. Under revised rules announced Monday, the FTC will require bloggers and celebrities to clearly state when they receive cash or “payment in kind” for endorsing a company’s products or services.The changes, adopted on a 4-0 vote, are the first revisions to federal guidelines on endorsements and testimonial advertising since 1980 and the first to target bloggers.

Connections between advertisers and endorsers must be disclosed once the revised guidelines take effect on Dec. 1. The FTC said the stricter disclosure requirement will apply to comments on talk shows, blog posts and on social media as well as in traditional advertisements.

****
Advertisers and endorsers who fail to disclose material connections, or who make false, misleading or unsubstantiated claims may be subject to fines of $11,000 per violation. The FTC didn’t set a specific dollar threshold; instead, it called for disclosure whenever a reward is large enough that it might affect the credibility of the endorsement itself.

Link to FTC press release and full FTC regulations

Smart posts on the topic worth reading:

• OverLawyered: Breadth of FTC Blogger Regs
• Snowflakes in Hell: New FTC Rules have Serious Impact on Bloggers
• FastCompany: FTC Sticks as Blogger Backlash Builds
• BuzzMachine: FTC Regulates Our Speech

For more information/help – please feel free to contact me or any of the great people mentioned here!

/colin

/colin

Here is the video from Matthew and myself.

/colin

SOCIAL MEDIA ROI RESOURCES

• Dell’s $3million on Twitter and other Twitter ROI Examples: Great specific examples on Twitter ROI from Dell, Cisco, Pandora – focus on sales and customer support (Read Write Web June 2009)
• Using Cost Per Click For Social Media ROI: Interesting model to calculate some hard numbers for your project – take a hard look at this one! (The Page Wonders, June 2009)

GENERAL SOCIAL MEDIA STATS

• Twitter Just a Blip So Far: Great data from Harris Interactive on Twitter adoption and usage by gender and age (5/2009)
• Women and Social Media Study: Incredibly detailed study on all social media activity of women across all ages – great data on attitudes and motivations.  (BlogHer / Compass April 2009)
• Pew Internet Project Data Memo: Great data on social networking usage by age category (1/2009)
• General Social Media Stats: Nice, clear compilation of stats across blogosphere, Twitter, google and more (Adam Singer, 1/2009)
• Lithium Open vs Closed Community: Great post with stats on participation rates of open vs. closed community (Lithium, 1/2009)
• Jeremiah Owyang’s Stat Collection: Jeremiah does a good job compiling data resources here – great for general use (1/2009)

Again, these are just the recent updates – for the whole list please go to the Planning tab.

/colin

Intel Touch Glass planel display

The Intel booth totally rocked at so many different levels – I was really impressed.  From the touch glass panel display (now, that is really a remarkable feat of engineering), to the remote controlled robots, to the home multi-media player (showing off the most incredible CGI movie).  Intel was really showing off all their guns at so many levels and I didn’t even see everything in their massive booth!  When talking to my cabby last night I told him if you had one booth to visit at CES, this is the one.

I was also impressed by the S1 Audio Neckphones that will be coming out in April for about $150.  I have a horrible habit of listening to podcasts in the car on my headphones (yes, I know, please don’t lecture me).  I thought these would be perfect, and since they have a microphone for my iPhone, I am right!

NBC Universal really held my attention (and aching feet) by giving booth visitors a very small 2Gig sim card (sorry, need to add a photo).  But as if that was not enough… they gave that to every visitor in a matchbook like case and had you drop it on a Microsoft Surface table to see if you qualified for an additional drawing.  THEN, you could place the Sim card into a computer to load with NBC programing of your choice.  Fantastic idea!

Finally, my Dad for years has been really impressed with Microvision.  When he heard that I was coming to CES, he really wanted me to stop by the booth.  Now, I can see why.  While there are others in the mini-projector market, the Microvision projector is really powerful.  The projector that will be available later this year is a little smaller than a deck of cards and provides an incredibly clear and bright picture (even in the CES environoment). Unfortunately the photo I took does not do it justice, but you can see the size of the projector and that the image is displayed on the paper below.

That is it for now, a bit more exploring and meetings before heading home tomorrow.

/colin

To be honest, I was not on any sort of aggressive job search in any way. In fact, what I was trying to do was help a dear friend get a job and I Chris was the second person that I was introducing her to. In the coarse of making the email introductions, I innocently wrote in my message:

“Chris, if I had an opening, I would hire Betzi in an instant.

Betzi, if Chris had the need, I would work for him in an instant.”

I nearly crashed my car when I saw his one word response not long later that said, ‘Really?’ The rest is history.

I go out of my way to help my friends who have been displaced to try to land quickly. This has happened too often to me in the past, I don’t like to see it happen to my friends. One of my greatest moments last year was to have a part in helping another friend land a new job after he was laid off from a large agency. The big lesson here is to help your friends network because you never know how it will help you.

Now, back to my original mission. I have a friend in the Boston area who is currently looking for her next great opportunity. She is a fantastic marketer, great writer, incredibly organized, tireless worker, and probably the nicest person you will ever meet. Ideally, she would love a marketing job in at a Boston area non-profit – if you know of something, please let me know and I can put you in touch.

Thanks,

/Colin

In parting, I wanted to share with all of you a few of my most treasured moments with the people that make Mzinga and I think you will see why Mzinga will always have a special place in my heart:

• So many times turning to Rusty Williams and sharing great news of a new client and joking that we needed to work harder on our sales prevention skills.
• Jon Bourne’s homebrew on a Friday was occasional a special treat.
• The early Prospero staff meetings that Dan Bruns would run were great – he was the master of keeping things short and to the point.
• Trading soccer stories with Mike Millet has been a blast.
• Hanging out with Jim Storer and Aaron Strout at SXSW!
• Rick Faulk, a CEO who listens and cares and not afraid to roll up his sleeves.  It was great to see him flipping burgers at our BBQs!
• Chip Matthes has endless information on our platform.  It has been amazing to listen to him on countless sales calls.
• The meeting Brian Harris and I had at DC Comics – talk about two kids in a candy store!
• Cyndi Morawiak can make the Mzinga templates dance and sing!  She and Brian encouraged my crazy ideas.
• Dancing with Eve Sangenito, Randy Saari, Jen Chambers and Kim Beckhart at The Abby was such a blast!
• Having Gene Amoroso’s son’s band play at our holiday party last year was great!  I can’t wait until they are signed!
• Tadd Ruddell’s holiday rum cake that I swear we all got drunk on.
• Finally, it was great in the early Prospero days to all sit as a team and sign the holiday cards to our clients.

Thank you Prospero and Mzinga for 3.5 wonderful years.  I know you will continue to do great things and I look forward to hearing them!

/Colin

/colin

Social Media Consultants:

• Jason Baer: Convince & Convert: Social media and advanced email consulting for corporations and public relations firms across North America. 
• Michael Gass Consulting: Michael works with marketing communications firms to create a more clearly defined focus and differentiating new business strategy that will give them a competitive advantage for new business, utilizing social media. 
• Inner Media Coaching & Consulting: We help biz owners define dreams, develop plans and deliver potential. 
• Stephanie Agresta: 10+ yrs Online marketing Experience . Social Media Strategy. Co-Founder of The Tech Set 
• Ari Herzog; Advising business leaders on social media and online marketing 
• B2WE: Social Media Marketing
• Monica Hamberg: Speaker, Writer, Social Media Consultant, Researcher 
• PiKE: Consulting, speaking, teaching 
• Ray Schiel: Offering Ideas & Insights on growing a business using Social Media 
• Creative Agency Secrects: We help you find more customers
• Kevin Dykes: New Marketing Strategist