June 18, 2009 By Leave a Comment

National Vinegar Day at SageRock

Fun fact: SageRock, Inc. is of the mind that its employees deserve a holiday each month.  Paid.  Why?  Because they’ll never forget the Hog-Tying Riot of ’99, when they delicately asked us to work a Saturday.

Ironically, not every month has that ‘given’ holiday, like your Christmas, or Thanksgiving, or Hanukkah, or St. Patrick’s Day.  So how can we validate holidays?

Oh, there are ways.

In January, we had Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

In February, Presidents’ Day.

In March, Day Light Savings Day.

In April, Good Friday.

In May, Memorial Day.

And June?  Are you ready for this?

SageRock will be closed Friday, June 19th, in observation of National Vinegar Day.  Seriously.

We feel that vinegar is an integral part to our history and modern society, and we will each be taking this time to personally reflect on the wonder that is vinegar.  Oh, ye of little vinegar faith, this handy condiment is more than a French fry drizzle, more than something you may mix with oil, MORE THAN A POOR MAN’S WINDEX!

Were you aware that the use of vinegar dates back 10,000 years, or that it may treat athlete’s foot, hiccups, and dandruff?  Did you realize Germans make it from beer, or that it has the power to melt pearls.  No, because you didn’t ask.  Well shame on you.  Shame. On. You.

At 2:00 this afternoon, the whole of SageRock converged in the kitchen.  Before us stood several mighty bottles of vinegar.

White Wine Vinegar (for the sophisticated)

Balsamic Vinegar (for the exotic)

Apple Cider Vinegar (autumnal and cozy)

White Distilled Vinegar (used this once after my dog was skunked, so must taste great!)

Beside these bottles were shot glasses.  Can you guess where this is going?  That’s right; in order to qualify to have National Vinegar Day off, we had to do a shot of it.  We did it.  And may I say: there is no chaser known to man to get the hearty taste of vinegar out of the deepest recesses of your mouth.  Needless to say, we EARNED this one, and (bonus!) we get to spend our day off suppressing the waves of nausea.

Cheers!

Filed Under: Featured, Life, SageRock Tagged With: vinegar day
May 29, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Google Trademark Update

I wanted to add an update to a past blog post I wrote, Trademark Infringement in PPC.  Last week, Google updated their trademark policy in the US.  More ads will be allowed to use trademarks in their ad text with these new criteria.

This change will be mostly helpful to AdWords advertisers that are resellers or informational sites.  You can now use a trademark in your ad text if you are using the term in a descriptive way, reselling the trademarked product, selling components for the trademarked product, or providing non-competitive information on the trademark.  Your landing page will have to back this up, too.

If you are advertising your site on Google AdWords for any of these reasons, and have run into problems with declined ads in the past because of trademark policies, you should edit your ads now.  You can resubmit these ads with the trademark terms and they could start running as soon as June 15.  This is only the US, but pertains to both the Search and Content networks.

This is a big change for Google, as this has been a problem that many advertisers have run into the past.  Fortunately, I think this should allow for the proper sites to use trademarked terms appropriately, without their use being abused.

Photo courtesy of gurms.

Filed Under: Featured, Life, Paid Search, Social Media Tagged With: Ads, Google AdWords, Paid Search, Pay per click, ppc
May 28, 2009 By Leave a Comment

The Future Of SageRock

One of the added benefits of doing all these videos is that I sometimes review what I’ve said in the past.

I just came across this video about what SageRock means to me. I made it in April of 2008.

I’ve recently been disheartened by the Natural Selection core that exists in 21st century American business. There isn’t a lot of room for idealism. And honestly, I’ve recently questioned if anyone even wants idealism.

I often think of Thoreau’s quiet desperation:

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.”

Unfortunately, I think most people resign themselves to lives they would rather not live.

This video reminded me of an idealism that has been faint within me in the last several months.

It reminded me of a greater pursuit than I’ve had recently.

It also reminded me that the “mass of men” is not all men. There are a few that have dreams they are actively pursuing.

The Sage of April 13, 2008 is making the Sage of May 28, 2009 think.

Filed Under: Featured, Life, SageRock, Videos
May 25, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Memorial Day on Favrd

It’s Memorial Day and I know that most of the world is off enjoying bar-b-que and beer and celebrating their day off. In the world of digital marketing it’s a pretty slow day.  The news is full of things like Obama spending his day at Arlington National Cemetery and the various fluff pieces on how the average Joe is having a party on what has turned into the day we’re we as a nation welcome summer. Online, there’s not much else. If you dig you might find a comparison of logos commemorating the day from across the search engines or various people acting holier than tho and belittling most for not respecting this day for it’s original intent. Here at my house, I can’t deny that I’m glad to have the day off, thinking of how I might fire up the grill for some food, painting a room and wondering how it would feel to be in Arlington on today of all days.

My point is, that there is no one point. Holidays are created, usually out of an evolution of a single purpose, but every holiday means something different to every person who participates. It’s my day to post here at SageRock and I’ve felt bad about not knowing what to put up. So in lieu of the standard post you might find if you were looking for something on Memorial Day, I’ve decided to post up the best of the standard posts you might find if you weren’t looking and just happened to be hanging out on Twitter today.

So here are a sort of random assortment of Favorite Tweets from Favrd:

Favrd Memorial Day 2009 -1

Photo “kiddie as evil glitter bush (performace dedicated to katrina victims)” from Irina Slutsky via Flickr.

Filed Under: Featured, Life, Social Media Tagged With: FAVRD, memorial day
May 1, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Sage Runs for Reading

If you happened to read my last post, you would know that I’ve recently been struggling with having some sort of meaningful purpose in my life. I’ve been wanting to contribute to the world in a way that has meaning and purpose.

I’ve found something that can help in that pursuit in a small way.

You may also know that I running the Chicago Marathon on October 11, 2009.  When you register for the marathon you can register in a traditional way or you can register through a charity.

I decided I would run for a charity.

If I had to pick one issue that means something to me, it’s the poor and underprivileged in my community. I feel that they often get left behind for more sexy causes like Rwanda, deforestation and global warming.

I have always seen myself as a bit of an underdog. Consequently I have a special place in my heart for other underdogs.

I feel the poor in my local community are often the underdogs of underdogs.

How to help them is a whole other issue.

In thinking about it, I feel that the biggest impact you can make in a community is with young children. If you can help them get a good start then they have a foundation that will help give them an opportunity to succeed the rest of their life.

I believe that if more kids from lower socioeconomic communities had more access to books before kindergarten they would be significantly better off.

Check out this report:

Reading Report Says: Books In, Kindle Out | Used Books Blog

The U.S. Department of Education’s Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS), which tracks the progress of more than 20,000 American schoolchildren from kindergarten through the fifth grade, showed a correlation between the number of books in a child’s home and their test scores.

The crux of the report was this finding:

* A child with at least 50 kids’ books in his home, for instance, scores roughly 5 percentile points higher than a child with no books, and a child with 100 books scores another 5 percentile points higher than a child with 50 books.

This finding has been a big driver for my motivation to help kids get access to more books.

So with all that said, I’ve very excited to be supporting:

Rock For Reading – Creating a nation of readers!

The program seeks to combat rising youth illiteracy rates in the United States through the recruitment of book donations from publishers and distribution of donated books to literacy organizations.

From their vision statement, they write:

Literacy opens doors of opportunity and understanding that no other skill can provide. The ability to read, write and understand stimulates communications that impact every life. Rock For Reading’s vision is to inspire a community of readers and to create a community of dreamers.

I’m really excited about all of this.

I get to accomplish something I’ve been talking about doing for a very long time… running a marathon. And I get to help a cause I truly believe in.

But here’s the thing. I need your help.

I am looking for people to help support my Chicago Marathon run by donating to Rock for Reading.

It’s really easy to do and you can donate any amount. Click here’s for my Rock for Reading Donation Page.

But here is where it gets good!

If you donate to Rock for Reading from my donation page I’ll personally give you the equivalent in private Web marketing consultation.

This is based on a $200/hour rate and I’ll divide it into half hour increments.

So, if you donate $100 to Rock for Reading, I’ll give you a 1/2 hour of Web marketing consultation.

I’m willing to do this for a total of up to 10 hours of private one-on-one Web marketing consultation from yours truly. So, you could get the entire 10 hours for $2000, if you wanted.

Here’s why this is interesting:

  • My baseline rate is $2000 for non-clients. That’s how much it costs to get me in the door. That’s usually for 3 hours or less.
  • I don’t do anything for less than a $1000 ever… for anyone. So, getting me for a half hour for $100 never happens anymore.
  • A large part of my job these days is studying external conditions in my industry. I read, absorb and process Web marketing information at a deeper level than I ever have anytime in my Web marketing career. I do this to help keep the SageRock team the most educated Web marketing team in the industry. I no longer do “tasks” within SageRock. I’m constantly working “on” the business. This makes me sharper than ever.
    • This means I am more studied and educated than anytime before. I’ll be an open book for you for as little as $100.
  • All the money goes to the charity. In fact, you have to donate it through the donation page. So, you are getting some of the best Web marketing consultation anywhere ever and all the money is going to a great cause.
  • You could use the time for things like:
    • A Social Media and your business… how you should be using this space most effectively
    • The key factors in making a successful SEO campaign
    • Getting the most out of your analytics
    • Competitive analysis… using the latest tools to determine how you are stacking up to your competition.
    • Online reputation management. Know what it being said about you and develop a strategy to address it.
    • Or let me know if you have other topics you might like to discuss.
  • Here’s how it works:
    • Donate a minimum of $100 on my donation page
    • Each $100 increment is worth 1/2 hour of consultation directly with me. So, as an example, a $500 donation would get you 2.5 hours of consultation.
    • Then contact me here letting me know how much you donated and what you might like to consult about.
    • Consultations will be either on the phone (using GotoMeeting) or in the SageRock Institute here at SageRock. (If you buy 5 or more hours worth of consulting I will be willing to come to your office, if you are in Northeast Ohio.)
    • It’s a Win, Win, Win: You are giving to a good cause. You are getting something in return. And I get to feel like I’m doing something purposeful with my life. How can you beat that!

So please consider making a donation. It would mean a lot to me and you’ll get a lot out of it too.

If you aren’t interested in the Web marketing consultation that’s fine too. Any donation of any size would be incredibly kind and helpful.

Filed Under: Featured, Life Tagged With: Chicago Marathon, Rock For Reading
April 30, 2009 By 1 Comment

A Unicorn and a Porpoise

When my kid, Indy, was 2 or 3 I had the idea of telling him fantasy stories. I’ve since abandon that idea because it was surprisingly hard to come up with entertaining adventures every single night. He would often repeat sections of the story from a previous night after I had just given my best shot at being brilliantly creative.

As if to say, “Sorry pop. Tonight didn’t really cut it. But do you remember when Princess Sarkozy was trapped in that snake snack hole!?”

Who knows. Maybe someday I’ll come back to them.

I wanted to tell you about one story.

It took place in a world of animals. All animals were neatly divided by species in their particular towns.

Meow Town, ruled by Princess Sarkozy, was in disarray. All the cats of Meow Town were lethargic and uninspired. Meow Town was on a severe downward spiral.

The princess felt she had to do something. There were many nights of adventure and travel. But eventually she arrived at Swine Village with a pack of guard dogs from Bow-Wowerton in tow.

You see, the elder pigs of Swine Village were known for their mystic abilities and great wisdom.

Princess Sarkozy wanted to get guidance from the pigs as how to turn Meow Town around.

She met alone with the elder swine at the top of a tall tower.

They told her that in order to turn Meow Town around she needed to find a Uniform Purpose for her loyal subjects.

Well, she misheard the pigs and thought they said she needed to find a Unicorn and a Porpoise.

Much of the rest of the story was her, and her party out to find a Unicorn and a Porpoise and then bring them back to Meow Town.

To make a very long story short, Princess Sarkozy ended up saving Meow Town all based on the obsessive pursuit of a misheard directive.

I thought of this story today because I woke up, as I do many mornings, having a strong desire to do the most useful, effective, purposeful work possible.

I have this strong desire to have a “Uniform Purpose.”

The problem I have is that I often feel like I am not purposeful enough. …that I’m not being useful enough.

I feel like I could do more… to be more. More as in more meaningful. To have a purpose driven life.

And that’s when it all falls down for me. “Meaningful” is a spiraling black hole for me.

Any kind of inherit value in anything quickly dissolves from my point of view.

The word “Meaningful” literally has no meaning for me.

So, I wonder, does it matter what I do any given day? Is it good enough if I just try not to cause suffering and further the happiness of others and myself. That’s what the Buddhists tell me to do.

The problem is, there is a strong drive to achieve within me. I’m sure it comes from an unconscious desire to try to fill something missing within me.

So I continually fight with an innate drive to achieve matched with a complete lack of inherent purpose.

I don’t have my pursuit of a Unicorn and Porpoise that was handed down to me by mystic leaders that will ultimately lead to my salvation.

I heard the elder swine just fine. All I need to do is find my “uniform purpose” and I’ll be all set. I wish I had heard them tell me to blindly and absolutely pursue a Unicorn and a Porpoise.

Picture from: Finless black porpoise on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

Filed Under: Featured, Life
April 3, 2009 By 1 Comment

Social Media Becomes Cora’s Playground

We encourage our clients to get involved in social media.  It’s an emerging means of communication to a large audience.  I enjoy hearing stories where social media has worked wonders, especially on a more personal level for people.

Recently, I was reading my cousin’s blog.  Since they live in Colorado, it is my way to keep up with their new baby.  In a recent post, they mentioned a blog of another family, the McClenahans; otherwise known as the Macs.  They started their blog in August of 2008 to talk about their new baby girl, and probably did this for the same reason my cousin did: it’s a great way to keep in touch with friends and family.  They began tracking their little baby girl Cora’s life and documenting with adorable pictures.  They are a cute, young couple with a precious little girl.  Their blog posts seemed to take a different tone this past January, however, when they found out that Cora had cancer.  After taking her in for a check up on her ear infections, they were told that she may have cancer and by the next day they were starting surgery.  By the following week, the chemotherapy was starting.  This all came as such a shock to them.  They continued to blog about their experience even through the toughest times, and other family members also contributed to the writing.  The site’s visibility dramatically increased, in fact, “Since Cora was diagnosed, the McClenahans’ blog has had 800,000 hits from people in 50 states and 17 countries.”¹

By early February, Cora passed away.  Her family established another page for monetary donations to go towards building a playground in Cora’s memory.  Not only did this page attract outreach from family and friends, but strangers from all over the map, too.

Meanwhile, a seller on Etsy.com (a site to buy and sell all things hand-made) began blogging about sellers donating to raise money for Cora’s Playground and it caught on.  They launched the Cora Playground Etsy Project and it took off with about 50 sellers donating items.  Cora’s mom began working on crafting and opened her own shop on Etsy, too.  Every time I checked their shop, everything was sold out!  People were buying like crazy in order to help such a good cause!  They have had 176 sales so far and, when I checked this morning, they were sold out again.  Many sellers on Etsy would only dream of having 176 sales in this short amount of time.  Their story was also picked up by the news media.

While the McClenahans’s story may be slightly different than a company trying social media to reach out to their customers, I think stories like this show the amount of people that are using social media as their means to communicate.  It is simple and effective and has a very large reach.  Also important, people use social media as a personal means of communication.  So throwing ads in their face won’t always work here.  Be personal and be a voice for the company.

¹http://www.thekansan.com/news/x1683630990/Newton-couple-wants-to-erect-playground-to-honor-daughter

Photo “Blogging Research Wordle” by Kristina B.

Filed Under: Featured, Life, Social Media Tagged With: blog, Social Media
March 18, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Making A Difference

Have you seen these reports Brian Williams has been doing at NBC? He has been focusing on people who are taking special steps to help people during this downturned economy in his Making a Difference segment.

I’ve watched each of these segments over the last couple weeks with great interest. Some of the stories are about

  • Business owners who are having employees work on projects in the community because the company itself doesn’t have any work for them.
  • Restaurants giving food to people who can’t afford it otherwise.
  • Giving money to employees to spend in the community.

There are a ton of these stories.

I’m rapt by them because I know what these business owners are feeling. On one hand they see suffering within their community. But on the other hand they are wondering how far this whole recession is going to go.

What if, by giving back during a downturn, they actually run out of money too quickly and they lose their whole business.

I’m fixated by the sheer courage of these business owners.

Also, I question my existence continually. Why am I here? What is the point? The answers to those questions never resolve in a comforting way for me.

But Brian Williams has made me think that maybe I should take this opportunity to help my community in some way.

This isn’t an email of some grand declaration. I don’t have a plan yet as to what I could do. But I am seriously thinking about it.

Photo by: Flickr: srcurran’s Photostream

Filed Under: Featured, Life
March 1, 2009 By 4 Comments

700 Mile Trek Across Antarctica

I always read these kinds of stories with longing.

The protagonist, Todd Carmichael, tells of his harrowing 700 mile walk to the South Pole.

If there was ever an aspect of my life that seemed missing, it’s the adventure. I read stories of Pamplona, K2, Everest all with regret and envy.

When I was 12 a friend’s dad took us to Scotland on a cross-country bike ride. I think that’s what got me hooked. That trip changed me.

And while I have traveled a decent amount since then I have done nothing as daring and bold.

Starting SageRock was the most bold thing I have done since. However, starting a business didn’t seem particularly daring at the time. And even in economic turmoil the issues feel more annoying (like nats) than challenging, like Antarctica.

As I think about SageRock, the time when I felt most alive, excited and useful was when it was starting up. The startup phase of a business is always life or death. One wrong decision and you are likely out of the game.

I can, and do, now make plenty of mistakes that result in little to no significant consequence.

Because of this I have committed to running the Chicago Marathon on October 11, 2009.

I’ve decided on the Chicago Marathon because I hear it’s pretty flat. That’s a plus for a guy just starting out. I also picked Chicago because it makes it more of a “thing”. Akron has a marathon. But my concern with starting with my hometown marathon is that I could just as easily wake up that morning and decide I didn’t feel up to it. With Chicago I’ll have gone to an entire different city for the express purpose of running a marathon. If I don’t do it, I’ll feel like a total wanker.

I think a marathon is a good, not-likely-to-die, adventure. I have a 4 year old son who would likely not forgive his dad for running off to Nepal only to be killed in an avalanche. If my adverturing goes well from here, I’ll begin my death defying activities after he graduates high school. I think I should be free to risk my life any way I please at that point.

It’s amusing I tell you this today because I only ran one day last week. I’ve come down with a horrendous cold that has now settled rather severely into my throat. But my official 26 week training schedule doesn’t officially start until April. I should be able to get back to running by Tuesday or Wednesday.

My goal right now is to get to 3-5 miles without stopping before April. That will put me in a good position to knock out my official training.

So, here’s to starting my adventuring life.

Photo from: Lonely Planet on Flickr (Todd Carmichael’s Flickr account)

Filed Under: Featured, Life Tagged With: marathon, success
February 28, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Climbing Success Mountain

That pile of snow probably looks nothing like a mountain to you.

But that’s all about perspective.

The picture was taken from a friend of mine, Jon Mullender, for this blog post: Don’t let the Mountains Slow Your Success.

Jon owns Summit Fence Supply. He sells aluminum, vinyl and chain link fence.

Jon also happens to be in a wheelchair.

That blog post is all about Jon trying to get to a client’s office to collect on overdue money. That pile of snow completely hung him up.

His blog is interesting on many levels. But one particularly interesting aspect to his blog is seeing the perspective of a person who runs into hurdle after hurdle because people don’t think of others in wheelchairs.

Another interesting perspective to the blog is his endless fortitude and determination.

He tells an inspirational story.

If you are looking for someone to lift your spirits and inspire you or if you are looking for fence, I recommend you check out Jon’s blog: The Fence Guy on Wheels.

Filed Under: Featured, Life Tagged With: jon mullender, success, summit fence supply
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