Franchise Whale just BIG ideas!

Bing and Facebook together what happens to Yahoo?

chad@bigexports.com (Chad Harris Franchise and Marketing fanatic) — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 03:32:00 +0000

As a health care entrepreneur living outside the valley. I can only watch from the sideline what is happening in the search social media world. That being said, I think Bing is a huge sleeper with fangs the size of Mr. Geithner's printing press.

Mr. Softy buys 1.6% of facebook in October of 07 for 240 million. Giving the facebook franchise a valuation at the time of 15 billion. This summer The Russians investment valued the company between 5-10 billion. We can not value the deals Apples to Apples, but both in the same food group. Microsoft had an advertising component and the Digital Sky deal had preferred and common. In the secondary market, they value facebook common at around 5 billion so we are in the same ballpark.

So on the surface it appears that Microsoft bought high and was diluted lower on both a valuation and percentage basis by their Siberian cousins. To some the very idea that anyone, even Russians skinning the un-skinable for so many years of domination, makes anyone under the age of 70 practically wet themselves with glee. (I live in Arizona, the sunbelt loves Explorer and you should just default it to large font down here Redmond.) Our grey crowd thinks Modzilla is still revenging the attack of pearl harbor, and they love their Fox on TV not in a fire.

Surprise! Microsoft will look brilliant in the next 6-12 months however and its investment in facebook will pay off in spades when they announce a major deal with facebook and Bing.

MSFT has been outperforming GOOG since early June and I think it has nothing to do with BING alone. The market is looking into 2010. The head guy of search Harry Shum outlines some key distinctions that almost scream of an embedded Facebook Connect tie up from an interview with Seattle's http://www.xconomy.com

Shum draws a distinction between a search engine, where the goal is to serve up a website and get out of the way as fast as possible, and a decision engine, where the goal is to fulfill the user’s intent and help them explore the results within the search page.

As he explains, the technology under Bing’s hood boils down to three issues. The first is relevance, the familiar notion of matching a search query to the appropriate URLs. The second is performance—processing the query and sending the results back in a fraction of a second. And the third, which seems to be Bing’s main differentiator, is user experience. That’s everything from the user interface and site design to the analysis of billions of queries and documents for understanding what a particular search query means—and what the user actually wants.

To this end, the Bing team has been developing a “user interaction model.” That screams facebook to me. This is a mathematical approach to understanding how best to narrow down a search query to determine a user’s intent, or help the user expand the query to help it make sense to Bing.

If you know a person's facebook profile, their conversation style, which friends they interact with...says a lot about "intent". Does Google's auction platform fit facebook's intent data? The real time auction model is almost the opposite, it is the intent of the advertiser, not the intent of the user.

In my mind all paths lead to Bing and facebook being the new unstoppable force that our kids will say "I was born before the Bing and facebook deal", just like we tell our kids, "we were born before Google." It will be that historic.

If I was Yahoo I would sprint, not walk to Redmond and fall on my sword. Google is not going anywhere. Google is Walmart, Bing/Facebook is Target and Yahoo is Kmart (pre Martha Stewart in the pen. They just won't be relevant anymore.

Healthcare for all Americans

chad@bigexports.com (Chad Harris Franchise and Marketing fanatic) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:12:00 +0000

So I am doing a little light reading right. Check this out,

On page 16 of the 1,000+ page "Healthcare for all Americans" hurl fest, under the header, "Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage," the "Limitation On New Enrollment" section of the bill clearly states:

"Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day of the year the legislation becomes law."

That means on January 1st of the year the 2009, (Yes retroactive) if it passes this year under the proposed formula, you can keep your private insurance but if you ever drop it, change jobs...the public option is the only one. It will be illegal to enroll new policy holders in private insurance, all under the guise of "Protecting The Choice To Keep CURRENT Coverage."

Guess what I am reading by the pool this weekend?! I better bring a barf bag. This is historic people. The government is limiting the rights of two PRIVATE parties to enter a PRIVATE contract. All under the guise of more choice!? Come to think of it, I better send barf bags to my Insurance company CEO's too. "Hey it was good while it lasted right fellas." The hang over low is always worse than the party high and it seems as if the keg has run dry for the private insurance party.

Hey America you wanted change! Makes you long for the good old days of let's play "hide the WMD's" and trillion dollar crazy dictator scavenger hunts. Even brings back a nostalgic sigh over those wacky intern scandals.

Why I Love Obama

chad@bigexports.com (Chad Harris Franchise and Marketing fanatic) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:37:00 +0000

That is not a typo. I know, I didn’t vote for you, I am a registered Libertarian in search of an extreme fiscal conservative and social liberal with a strong national voice.

That loud sound you heard was probably my Father’s head hitting the key board that his Son has sold out to the left! Hey Dad, we know your dirty little secret, you voted for Kennedy! So how does a guy like me, who's favorite family vacation spot is the Reagan Library have the stomach to type that four letter word “WILO”?

It was actually something I learned from my Mother. As a kid I was hell on wheels, and that was before I learned to drive! I remember my Mother saying many times, “Chad I still love you, I don’t love what you did, but I love you.” Just typing that brought back a flood of fond “patch things up” memories.

So what happened? A guy that was so far right he was left, decided that Obama is worthy of his admiration?

I just finished a conference, “Driving the adoption of health IT through innovations in social media.” By the way thanks, Joel for the heads up, you can tweet him at @jvbrill if you want a Quant-MD-social media cyborg on your team, good guy to know.

During the conference as I am taking notes faster than my first wedding vows. “kristalicious you know I love you forever!” My palms started too sweat as I heard from the line up. The heads of new media communications for the FDA, CDC, HHS were all fully loaded young minds, clear thinkers, and visionaries within their domains. As they discussed the emerging technologies of Semantic heathcare Twitter mashups, EMR integration feedback loops, social physician networks…I caught myself thinking, “Obama, if you put this team together, I love you man!”

Now I am sticking to my Libertarian roots. I will never register Democrat, but will the proposed healthcare bill pass? Yep. Will it bankrupt America? Hello we are already bankrupt! We bring in 2.5 Trillion in tax receipts each year and have unfunded liabilities TODAY of almost 100 trillion.Why will it pass? Look at how the markets are taking the news this week. Stocks up, Dollar steady, bonds shockingly strong. (I know CIT news has some fear factor this week but come on 1 trillion plus more in dead president printing for healthcare and you know, that estimate is low).

My thoughts, the market actually believes that this new debt will reverse the recession and the treasury is smart enough to monetize the paper back into some Chinese central banker’s mattress. 7-10 year time frame, we all have a rail position on the titanic for an economic iceberg the world has never seen. Short term, let’s be more tolerant and take our beating like a man. Hey, I am glad I am not the only hell on wheels and I love what I heard this morning. If that means I need to be more of a social tolerant, Ghandi it is! Give up my fiscal roots? Not until you pry it from my cold stiff hands.

Health care geeks unite! It's time to flash those geek gang signs because the healthcare market is going to be a fantastic space to be in the next 10 years, grab a life vest and hang on.

United Guitar Hero?

chad@bigexports.com (Chad Harris Franchise and Marketing fanatic) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:36:00 +0000

After 72 hours on the web, Dave Carroll's guitar heart breaking video story of United bungled customer service ends. United calls CNN and announces:

"We want to use this unique opportunity to make things right and use this video internally to insure better customer service."

Once again people are more important than policies and this just shows the power and speed new media can turn the dinosaurs on their heads. One short video that goes viral and hits the main stream media can get faster results than a long year of letters, calls and no,no, no.

What ideas does this give you for better customer service or a way to facilitate human conversation between old and new worlds and bridge the CS gap that exist today?

Personally, I was surprises at the speed of the response. I wanted to track it and do a follow up story in 30 days. That was like so 1995 time when you have the right message. I called Dave this morning, left him a message that I could get his money back and wanted to interview him on the Whale. I had more than enough takers for such a fun project to be the "Un-masked Avenger".

Business lessons to be learned from Dave's misfortune on how to create viral videos:

(1) People love David and Goliath stories.
(2) The video was well produced.
(3) Music is a very large butter knife when it comes to spreading a message.

Dave! You are probably still cleaning out our voice mail but if you get to mine, I still want that interview Dave! Your new fan, Chad.

United breaks guitars

chad@bigexports.com (Chad Harris Franchise and Marketing fanatic) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:58:00 +0000

Very creative response to a customer service problem. Saw this one when it had 425 views. In 30 days I will post a new story how many views this video will have and if United will help this guy after one year of hell, favorite guitar broken and then to end in "Sorry, we can't help you!"

The large airline franchisees are just not equipped to act in a human rational way because of their size. Small is the new big.

Power to video. Enjoy.

Healthcare collaboration in virtual worlds.

chad@bigexports.com (Chad Harris Franchise and Marketing fanatic) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:46:00 +0000

At a healthcare new media conference in Arizona this week, I found a great young mind deeply embedded in Patricia Anderson’s new age soul. As she put on a headset and communicated to a virtual audience and real world audience simultaneously, she proceeded to blow the doors off both realities. Back to Patricia in a moment.

The exciting part of the conference for me, wasn’t just the presenters, but the crowd. As I looked around while Patricia was presenting and Lee, the head of Mayo’s Social Media and Shahid, CEO of hitsphere.com, Netperspective and prolific healthcare blogger, I noticed something that gave me goose bumps.

Only 20% of the audience were really listening.

This was 100 of the top marketing and advertising people that controlled Billions of dollars a year in healthcare revenues paying a lot of money to come and learn from the best. Blackberries buzzing, laptop surfing, glazed eyes glazing…you get the point. I likened it to putting a onesie on your grandmother. Something just didn’t fit.

The average age in the audience was probably 50, that wasn’t the problem the problem was they have just been doing things a different way for so long, it was maybe too late in the game to change things now. “If we let in the spiked hair and tattoo’s, what’s next, nipple piercings for Bob in Accounting?! “It’s just not the way we do things!”

The goose bumps I had were, lumps of opportunity. We have a 10 trillion dollar a year market that is ripe for a Thanksgiving carve because so many people are happy the way things are. I confirmed my thesis in the lunch line. I commented to a guy wearing a salmon colored shirt that was branded as “a golfer color.” He said, “I know, we cannot wear these at work, it has a logo.” I looked and there it was very subtle but I could see it now. “Why can’t you wear logos to work?” He had a look on his face like I just took a dump on the desert tray, “Because we can only wear non-marked or logos that are from-------------------. (Insert large bay area health organization). He went on to tell me about some young kid last week, came to work with a 49ers sweatshirt and he was taken aside before the CEO saw him. I told him; “maybe it’s time to hire a CEO who likes the niners?” He said, “Yea right, before you know it, people will be wearing their favorite teams to work.” Exactly! “That’s the whole point isn’t it?” From the look on his face it did not appear that our conversation would be anywhere near the employee suggestion box. (Note in Moleskin, make sure no stock in that company exists in the Harris family tree.)

Which leads me back to Patricia. Her grey hair covered a beautiful young mind. After her presentation I caught her in the hall and said to her, Patricia, “you have a wonderful young mind!” With a grin she said in an almost conspiratorial whisper, “I really do, I can’t turn it off.”

Maybe things are easier to market in second life because just the idea of building a virtual island opens one’s mind to infinite possibilities and nothing seems too ”outrageous” in a virtual world. I get the feeling that dress codes are not a big deal in the virtual world.

Health Care Collaboration & Community in Virtual Worlds & Second Life

View more OpenOffice presentations from Health sciences Libraries.

One man’s struggle to market on the web leads to 1,500 franchisees.

chad@bigexports.com (Chad Harris Franchise and Marketing fanatic) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:22:00 +0000

I caught up with Ron McArthur the President of WSI as he was heading out to Mexico for a conference. He is building an international franchise system that focuses on how to market products over the internet.

I asked Ron, “What would you avoid if you went back in a time machine to help you build your company faster, better, stronger from the start?” His number one answer might surprise you.

What I learned from Ron, and keep in mind he has 14 years of data to back this up. In the early stages of building a company you tend to give concessions to the early adopters. Those concessions can come back to haunt you because you end up creating two sets of rules to nurture growth, you can create a culture of “pioneer” rules and “late stage” franchisee rules. You are better off sticking with one set of conditions throughout your growth because early adopters tend to also take up the highest amount of your time. Try and build your franchising system with one set of standards and you will find it will be better in the end.

He also gives us valuable insight about how to build an effective conference program.

Embed ongoing training as a mandatory component in the franchise agreement to keep your network up to speed.

Case study model, supplier driven market that will deliver your product or service may be more powerful than a direct delivery model.

Entrepreneur Magazine (January 2008) has recognized WSI as the #1 Internet and Technology Franchise for 7 consecutive years.

Invest 13 minutes and listen to Ron’s take on how to build a global franchising system. Thanks for sharing Ron.

www.wsicorporate.com

Listen Here:

The complete Idiot’s guide to financial crisis.

chad@bigexports.com (Chad Harris Franchise and Marketing fanatic) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:23:00 +0000

I had a great chat with Tom Gorman, NYU MBA that has done the corporate rounds over the years and decided to shed some clarity on economics for the non academic.

The “rise of the nomad” and why the freelancer created by the recession will only gain strength going forward was very interesting stuff. Tom also offers job search tips, ways of getting out of debt and obtaining health insurance.

Tom, leaving the corporate chicken farm over a decade ago, illuminates why the jobs are not coming back and shows where the growth is ahead. I agree, we have entered, free agent nation feeding a new entrepreneurial boom that lies ahead. All of the little functions your accounting department, IT guy, HR, Operations, Finance did for you unnoticed as you worked in a large corporation become areas you need to outsource if you are an entrepreneur. Pods on niches can flourish as people need to get stuff done but do not have the bandwidth to do it on their own. Licensing your idea to someone else or franchising someone else’s idea may become the new, new thing in the years ahead.

I love big cycle books like this. Check out the short 9 minute overview and jump to www.idiotsguides.com and search Tom Gorman to see all of Tom’s books.

Why marketing your bathroom is a clean idea.

chad@bigexports.com (Chad Harris Franchise and Marketing fanatic) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 17:08:00 +0000

Awhile back I wrote a post about marketing an interstate gas station franchise by focusing on its bathrooms. I just felt, “food, gas, beer” might be a horse called platitude that was ridden way too hard.

A different approach.

“Forget the gas, you should see our bathrooms! Everyone welcome!” Or “Bathrooms so clean, you will forget to buy gas!”

This would force me to pull over or my wife would kill me.

Anyway, if you want to read the entire post and what prompted my marketing the crapper first idea here is the entire post:

http://franchisewhale.com/2008/01/gas-station-food-fuel-and-beer-blah.html

Now I have bathroom on the brain again, this time at restaurants. About 2 miles from my home sits a wonderful seventies style farmhouse that was converted into a restaurant. Joes Farmhouse Grill .The grounds are as impressive as the menu but the real show stopper, the one you bring guests from out of town is the bathroom. Anyone can make bacon tacos packed with fresh avocado, carne asada, cilantro and jalapeno mayo right? But the real show stopper is when you go into the bathroom and have a TV running kitchy GI Joe, Barbie videos with plastic spaceships and trucks propelled by a sticks. The voiceover alone will make you forget where you are.

While you are at the urinal, the idea of “How did they shoot this footage or where would one buy a video like this just makes the place absolutely unforgettable.

By the sink they even have encased dolls in their own displays staring back at you to make sure you washed your hands. As you exit the spotless bathroom, the outdoor soda fountain with tables under giant trees doesn’t hurt either.

Can you obsess on the commode to much?

Apparently one Chinese entrepreneur does not think so; he has opened a restaurant called “Modern Toilet” that has grown to a six location franchise. You actually sit on toilets while you eat out of toilets, yummy! Not sure if I would eat there but you can guarantee I would go there and isn’t that what marketing is all about?

Red Mango CEO Dan Kim Interview how to brand yourself.

chad@bigexports.com (Chad Harris Franchise and Marketing fanatic) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 15:20:00 +0000

In Phoenix, nobody told the soft serve yogurt market a recession has been in the works for awhile. As I travel, it does not seem to be limited to desert dweller taste buds and wallets.

The franchising team at TCBY might feel vindicated that their soft serve fortunes are looking up as of late, but in my opinion, companies that trade up the consumer price band, not down will be the winners in the end. Fast, fresh and healthy aside, all business is the show business. The alchemy behind one brand, Red Mango should make any retailer still mixing its product on a board very nervous. After having a chat with Dan Kim their CEO, you know he understands clearly the difference between selling a product and selling an experience.

If you would like a 10 minute branding lesson taught first hand by someone who is growing his yogurt cult following out of 50 stores, listen to this 10 minute audio.

To find what territories are still available for development, Dan and his team can be found at Redmangofranchising.com

Or jump out to redmangousa.com to see what you are missing.

Listen Here:

Why medical insurance is not really insurance.

chad@bigexports.com (Chad Harris Franchise and Marketing fanatic) — Sat, 30 May 2009 00:28:00 +0000

Have you ever thought of how the insurance world is completely different when it comes to medical insurance? What I am about to show you will change your thinking when you are selling your daughter on future son-in-law picks. Forget good golfer, attorney or engineer. A CEO of a medical insurance company should be on your "Son-in-law shortlist" when it comes to your retirement account.

Here is why:

If your roof caves in, you can stop paying the premium on your home owners insurance and the insurance company still NEEDS TO PAY OFF the claim. If you switch to a new insurance company on your home, they are NOT obligated to pay for your roof, your old insurance company is, because you have been paying premiums for so many years.

That's insurance.

Medical insurance is a completely different animal. If you get hospitalized and stop paying your premium, the insurance company will NOT PAY OFF your claim. If you try and switch to a new insurance company, the new company needs to pay off your old claim. This makes it almost impossible for a new insurance company to insure the sick. The years you have paid premiums does not guarantee your claim will be paid, when you are busted up in the hospital. How long can you really keep paying the premiums?

That's not insurance.

What's the alternative? Pay the doctor directly to save him from hiring billers, coders and collectors and get preventative and routine visits for a knockout price. Then take your HSA and buy a catastrophic policy for the big stuff, saving you 80% on monthly premiums, co-pays and deductibles.

The market is ripe for entrepreneurs to bundle and re-price labs, mammograms, C-Scans, emergency room and specialist visits, all on a direct cash basis. When your insurance bill shows you were charged $400 to hang an IV bag that costs $1.20, Clubs like the No Insurance Club will go through the medical food chain like Pac Man.

No Insurance Club, has a creative, market based solution to the health care crisis. Check out the intro video I loaded below and let me know what you think.

One legged man leads to marketing epiphany.

chad@bigexports.com (Chad Harris Franchise and Marketing fanatic) — Tue, 26 May 2009 20:45:00 +0000

I was jogging this morning as a backlash to my Memorial Day pool fest. At the particular clubhouse we were at, my wife and I noticed that an inordinate amount of skinny, fit, tan people in our same age bracket were there.

It was packed full of families, we had a great cabana, great DJ, events… good times, but the thinness of our pool mates seemed to have cast a storm cloud over my waistline. “I need to get in shape!” Fat, red and happy makes a great bumper sticker, but poor tombstone copy.

So I am out running this morning, fantastic desert air on a fabulous dirt trail, trees, water, “why am I not doing this every morning” when it happened. I get passed by a guy with one leg! He looked great, even his fat, black lab looked at me in scorn. What the crap was he feeding his prosthetic anyway! I turned off and cut through a commercial plaza to hide my shame and it hit me like a ton of bricks, “look at all this prime retail commercial glass with nothing on it, why not advertise!” Thanks one legged man!

Now this might not be a new novel idea, but it was to me. The depth of my running depression was exceeded by my Everest of marketing brilliance. I Googled later and Manhattan alone has 16 million sqft of space open in just 68 major properties. Think of the virgin glass waiting to have someone organize an advertising company around. The lag of rentals would assure advertisers in prime spots for months at a time splitting revenues between the owner and advertising company with a built in sales force of realtors to sell the ads.

Well there you are, hope you become fabulously rich. Meanwhile, I am planning a different route to run tomorrow.

Seesmic funny name, not so funny anymore

chad@bigexports.com (Chad Harris Franchise and Marketing fanatic) — Fri, 22 May 2009 19:32:00 +0000

Seesmic is on a tear! Every two weeks as of late it seems as if they have a fantastic list of upgrades and flawless roll outs so far that is just incredible. Their latest attacks the growing problem of Twitter spam head on!

The reason I am so excited about Friend Feed is the ability to block followers and it automatically will block them from your search pool as well, very cleaver. Still the tethered feeling can not equal the Feed Friend experience but if I was tied to one desktop all day, Seesmic would be one of my good buds, can't wait to see what comes next. Bye bye TweetDeck, Loic you rock!

.Ability to view and enter comments into Facebook
.Added spellcheck feature with the ability to enable and disable
.Now supporting pikchur and yfrog to share images on Twitter
.Added spam reporting feature to help send spam warnings to Twitter's @spam account
.Ability to block users who are following you on Twitter
.Ability to use Tweetshrink before sending messages (see http://tweetshrink.com/about)
.Access to view favorites within your Twitter account timeline
.Improved profile enhancements (added follow/unfollow within a profile along with the ability to reply and direct message)
.Option to start Seesmic Desktop at login
.Verification dialog box upon deletions of Userlists, Searches
.For OSX: Added standard buttons for OSX and improved idle CPU usage
.Displayed version information in update tab

Bug fixes

.Fix posting to Facebook with non-US characters
.Issues with same usernames showing multiple times - solved
.Issues with not removing messages when account is removed - solved

Why I get up in the morning

chad@bigexports.com (Chad Harris Franchise and Marketing fanatic) — Thu, 21 May 2009 02:06:00 +0000

I was on the phone with an investor today. He asked me "how do you keep all the details together?" The short answer, the details seem to be as obedient as an ant colony on a food patrol, when we show people the big piece of cake that is waiting at the end of the long march. If you surround your big idea with smart, nice people and draw the unique talents that everyone has, the cake will arrive on your front door before you know it.

Beyond details, I guess the real answer that drives me everyday can be found in this video.

We are all entrepreneurs, you just might not know it yet.

I would like to hear your big idea.

The madness of crowds rides again.

chad@bigexports.com (Chad Harris Franchise and Marketing fanatic) — Thu, 14 May 2009 22:19:00 +0000

I was reading about Rutherford Hayes elected President by a one vote margin in 1876 and went on to open up the markets to the great “robber baron age”. The players in that era would make the characters in an Ann Rand novel look like preschool teachers! In 1876 they needed a new leader to pull them out of a long three year international banking collapse. The decline worldwide was caused by the European banks getting themselves into a mortgage squeeze and not knowing which US banks could be trusted to bail out, the interbank lending rates shot through the roof and wholesale bank failures ensued. Now remember I am talking about something that happened over 130 years ago. Hum… Insert “Popular delusions and the madness of crowds”. It is a must read for historians, entrepreneurs and CEO’s. You will learn that we just never change as humans when it comes to boom bust cycles. Getting skinned has been around since the serpent slipped Eve a rotten apple.

The Libor rate shooting up to historic levels in 2008 is just the same old boom bust with different characters. This should give you peace of mind, not restless nights knowing the future really is predictable on a broad scale because human nature never changes. Predictability however in the short run is a quick trip to the “Its different this time” poor house. Lesson learned.

Collectively we are getting smarter but we never change our behavior when it comes to the boom bust cycles. We are too human.

What makes us sleep well is the fact that the bust our great grandfather went through in 1876 led to Edison starting a little company that became General Electric with 50,000 patents and millions employed over the years.

The bust our grandparents went through in 1929 led to breakneck innovation we have never seen before.

The bust we are experiencing will also lead to another boom and eventual bust. We are not entering a new road to socialism but a temporary cul-de-sac of alliance building so the big boys can engineer the next big bubble. By the way, with 17% of our GDP going to healthcare today, it already smells like we have found our next bubble candidate. Healthcare 2.0 entrepreneurs get ready to pull the rip cord as billions of dollars are throw at the market to make it “more efficient”. When you hear the words “Its different this time” it might be too late.

Best Blackberry Twitter application

chad@bigexports.com (Chad Harris Franchise and Marketing fanatic) — Thu, 07 May 2009 10:39:00 +0000

For diehard Blackberry fans like me who would not be caught dead without a keyboard, finding a new application we love is a big deal. Our fetish for tactility seems to feed off of a nice app and not some cross dressing poser like the Blackberry Storm. You might as well switch hit and go all the way with an iPhone!

No this blog is directed to the diehards, the Blackberry keyboard lovers who held on to that old 7200 made out of football helmet plastic far too long. You know who you are, carpal thumb and all.

Today I am reviewing The Blackberry client TweetGenius to see how it compares to TwitterBerry. The hardware control group is a Blackberry Bold on the AT and T 3G network.

I downloaded the software yesterday at thetweetgenius.com and it went through without a hitch. You will need your hardware PIN number. Go to settings, options and then scroll down to the PIN number. You will need that twice so write it down. You will be warned that you need a TCP or BES server connection. If it does not load, you will need your carriers TCP CAN settings and username and password, ouch! Guys this is Blackberry, we do not deal with config issues the rest of the world faces! I went ahead anyway and it downloaded without any issues, whew!

Next I took it out for a spin. The interface is first class. So this is what a trip to the Apple app store must be like! Rollovers, transitions, fast, smooth and elegant, check. My first tweet, oh oh. It had keyboard lag, bad! You know you are typing away and it is like some B horror movie when you stop typing the letters appear 5 seconds later as if a secret warning was being sent you. I tell you this was scary stuff. Not the delay, the idea the interface was so good, I actually thought I might put up with the delay! Blackberry users are just too easy. Give us a nice interface and for 5 bucks we will put up with a lot of crap.

I have good news, you can have your cake and eat it to. After I sent the first tweet out I loaded another one and it completely went away. The delay vanished. I (am not sure why, I did not turn off the phone, dump any other resource hogging apps, I just sent another tweet, perfect!)

From here on out it was a blast. First the home page has 3 really big buttons, FRIENDS, REPLIES, DIRECT. Fast loads, better graphics than Twitterberry and the interface has folds and fades that are elegant and functional. Very easy to drive. Next, the menu has three must have features now that I cannot live without. These are three feature Twitterberry just does not have and make it look as outdated as a Blackberry 7200.

Search

I have the software defaulted to show 20 results. I entered the term “Dolphins” to see what would come up. It took almost a full minute but worth the wait. The 20 latest results appeared and I read the grips about how bad the team will get beat this year, someone who loves dolphins and fairy’s and someone that is attending a “Save the dolphin” benefit. Next I ran a new search with 2 terms, Gilbert Arizona. It is where I live, not a movie title. What came back was spot on, I even got the top result from someone who was in line at Joes Barbeque for the free dinner promo and updated how long the line was. I DM’d them back but he must have been up to his elbows in Que, no reply but I was hooked.

Go To User

Just enter a users Twitter name and bang! Within 5 seconds their profile, follower and update summary fills up your screen.

Location

Once you have a Tweet ready to send, you can click “Add location” it will push a short url with a Google map of your exact location.

How about sending pictures, yep, got it. They have this cool pop bubble accessible from any screen that handles the GPS, and photos. This is one very nice Blackberry client, well worth the $5 bucks. Not a beta. Fast, elegant and smart. I recommend it highly.

Twitter makes my email inbox look lonely

chad@bigexports.com (Chad Harris Franchise and Marketing fanatic) — Tue, 05 May 2009 02:36:00 +0000

With the recent news that 60% of the people who try Twitter in their first month drop out, it might send the word “fad” through the main stream media. WRONG! All disruptive technologies start out messy. Remember how many service outages AOL had before they shot to the moon and then crashed because they did not adapt quick enough for the 2nd disruptive phase?

If Twitter goes ballistic or crashes and burns from here is largely dependent on how they license their IP. For right now, I think they are hitting the ball out of the park by totally opening up the API to everyone with a brain, mouse and keyboard, an open source free for all. It really has spawned a gold rush for developers to land grab before the major players are defined.

Robert Scoble said it best in his piece “Facebook still a data roach motel” http://bit.ly/FHXgy. he says "Twitter has done something really remarkable: they have made the entire database of Tweets available to other companies."

Facebook is defaulted to private setting probably a backlash to one up MySpace which was a very successful strategy at the time. Now that default is biting them as Twitter users are defaulted to public setting.

I have always liked public setting on everything. I know Ben Franklin would curse me to think that Silence DoGood was a bad idea but we are not living in a complete imperialistic society, yet! We should all be held accountable for what we say and do and make it public who we are and what we stand for.

I believe having this feature alone will reduce spammers in the end, open the developer gateways and be a marketer’s dream once we have software to organize all the niches of our respective followers. Twitter today is still overwhelming for newbies. Once someone aggregates all the features into one desktop app, it will be like having your own social media Bloomberg terminal.

As a reminder our good Mayor of NY Michael B, made billions from doing the same thing with financial data. I am sure billions more will be made by whomever organizes social data.

Twitter inventor’s remorse

chad@bigexports.com (Chad Harris Franchise and Marketing fanatic) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 06:45:00 +0000

"I'm not rich because I invented VisiCalc, but I feel that I've made a change in the world. That's a satisfaction money can't buy." - Dan Bricklin

That sounds like a guy that did not get his invention patented. Money can’t buy happiness! Try telling that to your x-wife and see how hard she laughs. It may not buy it, but it can sure rent it for awhile. Unfortunately for Dan, the Supreme Court did not allow software patents until 1981. Lotus Notes 1-2-3, Excel…someone made a wad of cash in the spreadsheet biz, not the inventors.

Who invented Twitter?

In 1935 a coin operated machine called the “notificator” (Not a typo, those Brits have a flair for English) appeared on the streets of London.

“To aid persons who wish to make or cancel appointments or inform friends of their whereabouts, a robot message carrier has been introduced in London, England. Known as the “notificator,” the new machine is installed in streets, stores, railroad stations or other public places where individuals may leave messages for friends.

The user walks up on a small platform in front of the machine, writes a brief message on a continuous strip of paper and drops a coin in the slot. The inscription moves up behind a glass panel where it remains in public view for at least two hours so that the person for whom it is intended may have sufficient time to observe the note at the appointed place. The machine is similar in appearance to a candy-vending device.”

Fast forward to 2002

Dave Winer invents a product called “Instant Outliner.”

“When you subscribe to someone’s outline, expect to see time-based notes on what they’re doing right now. I like to start each session with a top-level headline, and put a time-stamp in the headline (Control-4 on Windows, Cmd-4 on Macintosh). Then from that point, I narrate what I’m doing. When I start a new session, I start a new top-level time stamped headline. Sometimes I carry forward notes from previous sessions. We can and probably will implement fancier notification routines, we’re ready to do it, but first we want to bootstrap with this brain-dead simple technology. It’s designed so that other outlining software can easily fit into the network of Instant Outliners."

To our friends at the helm of Twitter, “money can’t buy happiness!” yea right, try telling that to Dan and Dave.

Build a massive company with one million difficult steps.

chad@bigexports.com (Chad Harris Franchise and Marketing fanatic) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 19:53:00 +0000

I want you to follow me as I build a company that will change the world, or you will have a 50 yard line seat to the biggest business train wreak you can ever imagine.

If you are going to start a company in the worst economy since the great depression, just accept the fact that you are either a fool or a dreamer. The next key is to not delude yourself by “Three easy steps” systems.

If you are crazy enough to get started, even in a good economy, at least you can be honest with what lies ahead.

I have been up to my eyeballs in building company that will change the world. I want you to follow my exploits. The hits and misses as we take off down the long dark path together.

I loved everything about the book “The PayPal Wars” except one thing. Not being there as it was built. As I read the best seller “The Google Story” I imagined myself there and what choices would I have made along the way. Could I have pulled it off if I just had that one big idea? Do I have the energy, brains, talent, skills to put it altogether in a very big way? I have been blogging about marketing, branding, licensing and business building for a year and a half. I love interviewing CEO’s about their big ideas.

You may have noticed a sever drought of keystrokes on Franchise Whale. I have been buried building this little baby and watched it peak out of the birth canal January 1st 2009. A friend hit me up on Twitter, that it would be a way to get out of the writing slump. I thought why not couple that and bring you along for the ride to watch an actual business build click by click, brick by brick.

Hang on I am as excited to see how this turns out as you are. Hope you subscribe and would love to hear from you. More to follow.

What we are building.

www.noinsuranceclub.com

Follow me on Twitter.
http://twitter.com/franchisewhale

Entrepreneurship rite of passage

chad@bigexports.com (Chad Harris Franchise and Marketing fanatic) — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 07:27:00 +0000

I had such a great call with Leo Rivera of Bishops Barbershop in October I had to have Leo back to teach us how you can take your best shot, fail and come back stronger. I asked Leo to give us an insider’s look at how he went for a high end concept above his brand comfort zone, crashed and burned, turned on a dime and had a record day after he bit the bullet and went back to his core brand concept.

Leo had an exit plan going into the new test and he stuck to his guns. He had eight long painful months before he realized his mistake. Leo closed the shop for one month to regroup, apologized to his brand groupies for the mistake and the press rewarded him with some good brand candy that resulted in a record month when they reopened.

I won’t give anything else away. Of all the interviews I have done, I think you could learn more in this 10 minutes than any other interview I have done. A rookie or veteran entrepreneur will learn so much in this one interview they will replay it again and again.

Thanks for sharing Leo!

Click to learn:

Hop over to Bishops

http://bishopsbs.com/

You might be standing on a big recession idea.

chad@bigexports.com (Chad Harris Franchise and Marketing fanatic) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 01:54:00 +0000

Basements are cool in many ways. Living in Arizona, they are a real summer luxury. I found a 50 year old company that is the 2nd largest remodeler in the USA. They have a basement business that is new to franchising.

Historically finishing a basement is one of the best recapture investments you can have. Basements remodeling also has a huge push during recessions versus buying a new home.

Connect with Tom Rothruaff if you are interested in franchise opportunities in the basement space. If you have been burned by franchise start ups long on promise and short on track record, Basement Living Systems has a 50 year old background, new franchise opportunities and a very unique “Acousti-soft” system which is mold resistant and a noise eliminator.

Tune into this 10 minute interview with Tom:

http://basementlivingsystems.com/

Is your data recession friendly?

chad@bigexports.com (Chad Harris Franchise and Marketing fanatic) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 08:02:00 +0000

Working longer and harder is usually a faster way to the poor house. Making the difficult decisions one time and executing relentlessly on that big idea is a winner during good and tough times, especially during rough times.

Why does my bank still ask me what language I want when I swipe my ATM card? You would think with a million+ customers, they would know what I like and remember me. Maybe that is why Wamu got eaten by the Chase whale.

The greater a company’s revenues, the heavier the data is to lift.

This is a common problem across all industries. I had a great chat with Anne Beitel of Executives Online. They have solved the same problem for executive recruitment. This has been a common problem where you have large national firms but none of the offices work with each other because commission systems were created by non sales people and IT systems were created by people thinking about their jobs and not if the project would be a winner long term.

The result, you have millions, billions of dollars in data and relationships locked up in data silos just waiting to get picked off by competitors because they are not able to knock down the personal and digital firewalls to make the right choice.

One platform, global access, local offices.

I love this opportunity. They have pulled off a much larger stunt than many people have realized. They are just opening up their North American franchising and I think they have a real winner. Big recruiting companies need to gut their entire systems because it is based on data, not transactions. If you are thinking of opening a recruiting firm and want the right platform, you must check out this team.

Listen to Anne discuss their North America expansion and their IT proposition.

How to get franchise funding during a recession.

chad@bigexports.com (Chad Harris Franchise and Marketing fanatic) — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 18:55:00 +0000

When banks tighten their lending standards, businesses with cash to lend really become kingpins. Brian Birnbaum is the CEO of Liquid Capital, a multinational factoring company. During our chat I found out their existing franchisees have never been busier as you can imagine.

Many existing franchise operators from a variety of industries are getting the squeeze from their traditional banks and are turning to a local Liquid Capital franchise to help them fund receivables.

Yes a franchise that helps another franchises cash flow.

They have even built new relationships with traditional banks that want to keep clients but are not able to loan them the money.

This is a completely counter cyclical franchise that will thrive as things continue to tighten up. Each franchisee in their system will receive the training, technology and capital to tap into their local markets. Liquid Capital will extend up to 6 times the local franchisees capital to make loans in their local market place.

Click over to http://liquidcapitalcorp.com and check out the 6 figure lines they have extended local businesses across the country.

Click here for 5 minute interview with Brian:

Why some businesses are recession proof.

chad@bigexports.com (Chad Harris Franchise and Marketing fanatic) — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 19:42:00 +0000

When Leo Rivera was growing up he saw this entire “street” generation in the 80’s that he wanted to stay connected with. He realized he wanted to do something cool that could make a big impact on the local community. He also knew he wanted to control his destiny by the time he was 30.

Like a street culture alchemist, his idea was to create an environment people could disappear into great music, new trends and get their hair cut all at the same time. Leo knew nothing about cutting hair, but he had an innate feel for what his crowd wanted to experience. He literally flew the corporate chicken coup and now we have Bishops Barbershop as his big idea.

If this economic downturn sweeps away Gen X, Y and Z from planet earth, then I am sorry Leo, I do not see the shuffleboard crowd getting a buzz at your joint. I am betting they will be around for a very long time however and find the culture and value a refreshing break from the corporate clip market.

We had a great chat with Leo the CEO (Chief Entertainment Officer)on Franchise Whale about his hits and misses, branding and never underestimating the power of free. Imagine the neighborhood barbershop, providing high-end cuts at standard prices all while chilling to great tunes, trends and free beer! You can see how the hair strip mall franchising herd would fold like a pair of deuces if this brand rolled into any college town across America.

Listen in and please jump out to the site to grab the next big thing in a Multibillion dollar market:

Got to Bishops Barbershop http://bishopsbs.com

Don’t take yourself too serious.

chad@bigexports.com (Chad Harris Franchise and Marketing fanatic) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 20:53:00 +0000

I think when most people go out to eat; they want to have a good time. That basic assumption must drive all your business decisions building an eatery franchise. During an economic squeeze, people will go out less, but spend more money on places they know deliver the right experience. They stick with what works for them. The results, the marginal players get the big squeeze.

Ever notice how concepts that have been around for many recessions tend to make the Food Channel hot list. Is it a taste for nostalgia or are these places just that good? A pattern of always having the same family running the show or the new owners “Doing it just like Jack would” seems to be the right formula.

If I lived in Indianapolis I would love to go to Hot Box Pizza. This is a place that you can really have a good time eating out I can tell. After interviewing Gabe Connell the owner, you get the sense that he would not have it any other way. If the fare is any reflection of how their website speaks to us, I bet their pies are as tasty as the cleaver PR and marketing ideas I found on their site.

Franchise Whale’s interview with Gabe covers building a brand during tough times and maintaining the right culture. Priceless for entrepreneurs and anyone in the franchising community.

No corporate stiffs need apply for this franchise. Go to gethotboxpizza.com and see if Gabe’s culture is right for you.