By Al Morel

I can’t remember the last time I used the Yellow Pages.  How about you?

By Al Morel

It goes without saying that if you’re in the web development field, you feel that you don’t make payroll by working on your own site. But you do. All organizations do. The website has become the primary reflection of who you are to the world.

It’s the cobbler’s kids shoes and the greenskeeper’s lawn syndrome.

I had a meeting yesterday with a guy who is running a company that is doing ‘rockstar’ work for their clients but their website has gone to seed. It’s painful, but we have to rope off time to get it done.

For that matter, it’s OK to tell all our clients that they’ll probably have to give the site a facelift every few years. It’s sort of like lapels on suits or the width of ties (remember those?) they change every few years.

Here’s our April Fools site we did a few years back.  I no longer  have the courage to put it up as our home page on April 1.  Based on some of the websites out there, people might not know we’re kidding!

By Al Morel

Before I got into the web biz, a friend of mine hired his next-door-neighbor’s-boyfriend’s-cousin’s-roomate to design a new website for his company. Although he got a great price, it ended up costing him over $50,000 in legal fees and compensation. His web guy copied content off of another website.

We’ve all heard the current mantra, “Content is king” and to that end companies and individuals need to protect their assets.

One of my favorite websites is Mediashift at PBS. There was a recent article that speaks to the new tools out there for identifying sites that rip content.

Here’s the article: Attributor Helps Media Companies Crack Down on Web Scofflaws

By Al Morel

These days, when I go to the movies and plunk down 20 or so dollars, my expectation is that this event will change my life somehow.  I can’t say that James Cameron’s Avatar did that for me. It seemed somewhat trite and frankly, I was bored after the first two hours of special effects.

With that said, I’m always interested in leadership so this blog post on the Harvard Business Review website caught my eye. Firing Is Too Merciful: How James Cameron Leads is a synopsis of a new book by the author Rebecca Keegan, who wrote,  The Futurist: The Life and Films of James Cameron.

Here are some of the primary take aways:

• Break New Ground

• Firing Is Too Merciful

• Lead from the Front

• Good Enough Isn’t

• Hire People People

By Al Morel

If you are in the world of business, marketing, website design, etc. you are probably fielding some array questions about social media and what it’s all about.

This is one of the best resources I’ve found out there for explaining all this linkedinfacebooktwitterblogmyspace drama. I use it as a starting point when someone asks me about the subject.

This is a presentation that David Meerman Scott gave to the Business Marketing Association last year. It’s targeted for business-to-business applications but can be easily transferred for all types of uses.

Enjoy!

David Meerman Scott is the author of several NYT best selling business/marketing books including, The New Rules of Marketing and PR, and The Word Wide Rave.