On Sunday, I ran 10 miles without stopping, save for a quick pee on the bushes surrounding the Kennedy Center (more on that later). Yes, this Michael James Barber and all 235 pounds of me ran an average pace of 10:45 per mile for almost two solid hours in the Cherry Blossom 10 Mi Race.

If you know me at all, this was a monumental task. I have never, ever been remotely athletic minus a few years of collegiate rugby. Even then, getting through 90 minutes of play was a feat unto itself. The idea of running 10 miles was simply daunting. Even three days later, I’m still figuring out how exactly this all went down. So, I figured I would impart a little knowledge gained over the last few months.

1. Pee Where You Must

WARNING: TMI forthcoming. If you know me well, you have likely heard my nervous-induced need to pee. No matter how many client pitches, conference panels, or presentations, I always have a ridiculous urge to piss my pants for at least the first couple slides of any presentation. This run was no different. To make matters worse, I drank gallons of water during the days preceding the race. Come mile three, I was frantically looking for a port-o-potty and none were to be found.

My face must have given me away because my sister asked me what was wrong. I told her. In true marathoner style, she very simply stated, “At the next water station, just throw water all over yourself and pee.” Well, we all know that was never going to happen. Thankfully I was saved by a mass of bushes surrounding the Kennedy Center.

My point here is this: Stuff is bound to happen when you are doing something that scares the bejesus out of you. Figure out how to solve the problem and keep moving.

2. The Training Is the Hard Part

From the beginning, my sister and other friends who are runners told me the same thing. The training will be the hardest part. If you stick to your training schedule, the run is the reward and should be the easiest part of the whole journey. Today, I couldn’t agree with them more.

The last three months I’ve logged some 150 miles of training. Between those miles, I’ve been on the road for 52+ days, visited 18 cities, and flown more than 30,000 miles. Without a doubt, I can tell you the hardest part of this entire experience has been lugging around running clothes and shoes – size 13 running shoes take up a ton of bag space – and figuring out when to train between client meetings and dinners.

Some people are born with the innate ability to be able to do amazing things, but most aren’t. In my case, running has never been my forte and probably never will no matter how much more I train. But, and this is is the big “BUT”, you have to succeed in your every day battles to win the war. For me, the battles were training, and the war was the run. In life, I think this scenario couldn’t be more true. You get out, what you put in.

Put in crap, you get crap. Put in the work, and you’ll be rewarded.

4. “You can do anything you set your mind to.”

For years, I told myself I couldn’t run more than a mile or two or that I couldn’t lose weight or that I couldn’t get {insert whatever here} done. If there is anything this run and some other recent accomplishments have reinforced for me, is that you can do anything you set your mind to and probably more. The key is to figure out what motivates you and why.

For me, that motivation came from a few places. My Dad has Multiple Sclerosis and can’t run.  So, I ran for him. I’ve been overweight most of my life, have crazy allergies and asthema, and you could never call me an athlete. So, it was time to figure out a way to lose a few pounds, stop making excuses as to why I couldn’t work out, and find my inner athlete, even if that was only a 10:45 minute/mile athlete.

5. It Takes a Village

I would be remiss not to thank a few people who helped me get through those 20,000+ steps . To my sister, Dr. Barber, who challenged me to do something I didn’t think was possible and, above all, ran every step of the way with me. To our Mum for travelling across the country to cheer us on. To my running partner and brother-in-law, Mikey, for running countless “slow” miles with me even though we both know you wanted to run faster. To my Dad for being the motivation to put one step in front of the other every day. Thanks to the Barry’s ladies and my trainer, Storm, for helping me get into running shape and always being there to cheer me on. To my family of coworkers at Cohn, thanks for the countless emails and texts of tips and support.

Last and most importantly, thanks to the Mrs. for always putting up with my crazy training/travel schedule the last few months and loving me for me every moment of the last eight years.

I realize some people won’t have the support system that I have, but you’ve gotta find it. There are countless training groups associated with most official runs/bikes/hikes etc. Find something, someone, or a group of people that will help you along the way.

So, what’s next? Maybe a half-marathon? Time will tell, but at least I don’t have any more excuses.

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Delta Dental of Missouri (DDMO) was struggling to understand the impact of mobile on their business and how they could leverage it to increase their value story. After intensive research, we developed a presentation that provided mobile stats and trends, the technology driving mobile, the effects of mobile on the healthcare industry, and a short and long-term mobile roadmap for their business.

Role
Research and strategy
Presentation development

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National Harbor’s website was stuck in a mid-2000′s funk. It was 100% Flash, music played in the background, and their marketing team had to turn to developers to make even the slightest change. Beyond that, their team needed to bring a 350-acre mixed-use property to life, digitally. Not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination.

We developed a website that serves consumers just as much as their markting team.  Site visitors can explore the property without even leaving the homepage through an intuitive page-scroll functionality, engaging photography, and callouts that lead users to discover all National Harbor has to offer. They can even plan their National Harbor visit with a robust calendar and reservations tool. Their marketing team scored an easy to use content management system that allows them to make changes across the website without engaging development resources.

Within the first 90 days after launch, site traffic was up over 40%, time on site increased 68%, and bounce rate dropped 50%, changes we can attribute to the new site’s user experience, search engine amenability, and targeted content.

Role
Planning/IA
UX
Project management
Search engine optimization

Image credit
COHN

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I (re)married my parents this past week. It was an experience I will never forget.

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Red Hawk Casino needed a complete overhaul of their website architecture. The team consulted with over 20 business stakeholders working through requirements from marketing, loyalty, HR, and numerous other business groups, ultimately delivering a website that could educate consumers about the casino’s activities and amenities.

Role
New business pitch team
Planning/IA
Digital marketing strategy

Image credit
Defero

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DDR presented its agency, Cohn Marketing, with a challenge; Develop an innovative, consumer-facing platform that supports current retail tenants, drives consumer preference of DDR-owned shopping centers, supports business development efforts, and doesn’t need to be actively managed on-site given the limited local resources. Working with the Cohn team and our technology partner, Placecast, I helped concept and bring to life ValuText, a real-time, location-based text messaging program.

Initially launched at 27 of DDR’s 500+ shopping centers (additional rollouts are scheduled for 2012), the ValuText platform allows consumers to opt-in via a text message or register via a mobile website for deals, promotions, or coupons from their favorite “mom and pop” and big-box retailers, alike. The beauty of the program is its simplicity. For consumers, there is no app to download, no smartphone needed, and they only receive offers when they are at or near a ValuText-powered center. For retailers, the program costs them nothing other than the time and energy to develop their offers and gives them another touchpoint to deliver relevant, location-based offers, and tailor those offers to specific demographic segments.

To create momentum around the new program, shopping center collateral was developed like in-store signage and out-of-home executions including sidewalk clings and banners. DDR also partnered with local schools and non-profit organizations to create an incentive based contest centered on opt-ins from their organization. In addition, Cohn conducted media outreach to garner press attention. On December 5, The New York Times ran a story titled “Text Messages to Woo Customers“.

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“If I want to get hired to do something, I should already be doing it. People can’t always see potential energy. Instead of allowing a current job description to stand in the way, turn off the Scrubs re-runs and start a side-project. Draw a picture, code a site, or write something and share it with the internet.”

Trent Walton(You Are What You Eat)

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Having officially separated themselves from the Arizona Heart Hospital, the Arizona Heart Foundation was seeking a new site that would express their new brand, be the central hub of for event and research content, and drive donations.

Role
New business pitch team
Planning/IA
Content strategy 

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5 Reasons Why You Should Care About Mobile

1. Massive opportunity now, as in this very second.

If you’re an agency (or brand alike), take note. Forrester Research estimated 2010 mobile spending to be $534 million back in 2009. Not a bad estimate considering there was no way they could have expected the meteoric growth of tablets (even Apple didn’t). However, it turns out brands actually invested just north of a billion dollars in mobile initiatives last year. Surprised?

If you’re an agency, you should be looking at those numbers like a kid in a candy store. They represent multiple additional revenue opportunities (given the right talent) including acting as a strategic adviser amid the highly fragmented mobile environment (more on that later) or helping your clients develop mobile apps, sites or campaigns.

If you’re a brand and you haven’t thought about or invested in mobile initiatives, you might want to think about kicking yourself first, then reading the rest of this post.

2. Consumption patterns are changing, dramatically.

Digital consumption patterns are dramatically shifting given the rise of smartphone platforms and tablet devices.  Some food for thought:

• By 2013, 50% of web traffic will come through mobile  devices.
• Year over year, daily email consumption via a mobile browser increased a full 40%. You think consumers will continue to read your lame email campaigns. Wrong. Timely, targeted and relevant becomes even more important within a mobile environment.
• 91% of mobile users report they consume social media on their device; 71% use their desktop.
• Almost the same amount of US households access the internet via a smartphone as do those via their home internet connection.

3. Smartphone domination

Bye, bye feature phones. The most recent published stats on mobile phone sales tell the whole story. 45% of phones purchased in December 2010 were smartphones and by that time 63.2 million Americans owned a smartphone; a 60% increase when compared to the previous December.

What do these numbers mean? More and more US consumers are ditching the flip phones for an iPhone, Android or Blackberry device. The more smartphone users, the more likely they will leverage the fancy smartphone features to interact with their favorite brands.

4. Mobile now affects all channels

Pre iPhone, mobile barely affected other digital channels such as search, web and email. Sure, we had a miniscule amount of early adopters ferociously using their Blackberry’s, but marketers didn’t have a reason to care. There simply wasn’t enough consumer usage in the marketplace.

That has changed.

Mobile now affects every digital channel. From paid to organic search, to mobile banners and email consumption on mobile phones, the effects of mobile are far reaching.

5. Mobile is changing in-store behavior

If you think that just because your business operates within four walls that you are safe, think again. Smartphones give consumers easy ways to research products (including your competitor’s) and find better prices elsewhere.

On the bright side of things, mobile gives retail an opportunity to be sexy again. QR codes, apps with in-store integrations and augmented reality could all give consumers a reason to open the door.

7 Steps to Integrate Mobile into Your Current Marketing Plan

1. Determine your goals.

Mobile marketing can help brands do a lot of things. Taking the time to set your goals and objectives for your mobile initiative(s) and integrate those into your current marketing, or better yet your organization’s goals. It will not only help you sell your mobile plan to internal stakeholders, but it will provide a method to gauge the performance of that plan.

2. Understand where your customers (not your CEO) are & what they want.

Just because your CEO wants an app doesn’t mean your customers do. Chances are you already know who your customers are. Your job as a mobile marketer is to determine where you can start conversations with those customers within a mobile environment. Figure out where they are and then integrate appropriate mobile tactics.

3. Audit your content

Yeah, I know we all hate the word “audit”, but it may help you do less work in this case. You’ll want to audit your current digital content and figure out if it’s mobile friendly, what needs changing and how it can be optimized for mobile.

4. Perform a competitive analysis

This is marketing 101, but it’s worth a mention. Take a look at the competitive landscape and answer three important questions:

1. What are my competitors doing?
2. What aren’t my competitors doing?
3. What opportunities exist to differentiate ourselves?

You may just find an insight or competitive advantage that could drive your mobile decision-making process.

5. Determine budget

Mobile can be expensive. You not only have to develop your mobile initiatives, but you must also support them over the long-haul. So, think about what you have, not what it will cost to build or do something, and work within those constraints.

Also, front load your budget. Costs associated with mobile tend to decrease once you’ve made the initial effort.

6. Decide on engagement channels

The mobile environment is highly fragmented. Unless you have deep pockets, you will not be able leverage every mobile opportunity. Figure out what you can afford and where you can play that will impact your consumers most.

7. Determine success metrics

Determine the metrics or KPIs that you are trying to move. Ensure by moving the needle within those metrics your efforts will help achieve the organization’s marketing or business goals.

8. Promote, promote, promote

The isn’t a Field of Dreams scenario. The single largest downfall of any mobile initiative is lack of awareness. Make sure you build a promotional plan as a part of your mobile initiatives.

What other reasons should give marketers pause & make them think again about integrating mobile? What other steps would you recommended for integrating mobile into the mix?

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Five years ago I moved to Phoenix. It seems like only yesterday when I packed my bags at UofA, loaded up my car and drove 100 miles north to a city I had never visited, save for the few job interviews the month or two previous.

I didn’t ever expect to feel like I was a part of this city. After all I had no roots here and Phoenix has a severe lack of that community feeling that I’d grown to love in Tucson and San Diego. I saw Phoenix as an easy place to start my life and save myself from having to crawl back to the comforts of my Mum and Dad in Southern California.

But something happened. I grew to love this city, and I hope in some small way it grew to love me.

Next week I’ll be calling Los Angeles my home for the most part (more on that later). It has been an incredible few years filled with not only enormous personal growth, but success for many of my friends, family, colleagues and employers. I would be remiss to not take a second and thank some of those people for their friendship and guidance.

Employers and Colleagues

My Sitewire Family – Bret Giles, Margie Traylor and the entire team at Sitewire were the best thing to happen to me in the early days of my Internet marketing career. I learned some of the most important life and business-related lessons there, and made lifetime friendships with many of my colleagues. For that, I am eternally grateful.

Emarketing/Nomadic/PrizeLogic – While I worked some of the longest hours in my career at Emk/Nomadic/PrizeLogic, I enjoyed every minute it. The team there are some of the smartest & most creative brains I’ve ever encountered, and I’m also lucky enough to still call many of them friends.

Mighty Interactive/Off Madison Ave – Jay Baer and the folks over at Mighty/OMA gave me my first marketing internship. I talked about that internship experience in a previous post. It was a tremendous opportunity to learn from the ground up from many of the smartest digital minds in the space including Jay, Chris Sietsema, Chris Book, Maggie Young, Jenna Broadbent, Megan Sandidge and many more. Again, many of my colleagues there are still close friends and mentors in the own right.

Mentors

I am forever indebted to my mentors including Bret Giles, Scott Kaufmann and Jay Feitlinger. These men were always there to point me in the right direction, lend a helping hand or tell me when I was flat out wrong. Many of them not only were sources of sage advice, but employed me and gave me the financial means to enjoy life.

The Ignite Phoenix Team

No words can describe my admiration for my fellow Ignite Phoenix Team members including Jeff Moriarty, Oden Hughes, Matthew Petro, Jana Knapp, Dannie Moriarty, Erika Delemarre, Alan Dayley, Brian Carson and Andy Woodward. This team has worked the butts off to bring one of the best community building programs the Valley has ever seen. I simply love the team and the platform we have helped to build.

Friends

Last, but by no means least. I am immensely lucky to have an incredible circle of great friends. You all know who you are, and I look forward to more laughs, beers, glasses of wine and dinners in the near future.

Thanks again, Phoenix. The last five years have been a great run, and I look forward to the next five.

Cheers,
Michael

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