The seminar was terrific. While I was already familiar with Dr. Tufte’s work, I learned a lot which I am planning to incorporate in my work in the future. You can expect to see more about my thoughts in upcoming posts on my blog.

If you’re interested in the subject, I strongly recommend Dr. Tufte. His books are terrific: thought-provoking, full of excellent research and examples, and absolutely beautiful. He also has an excellent web site: I particularly recommend its online forums.

• This enviroment is making it very difficult to plan ahead. Revenues in particular are hard to project. They are prone to sudden changes and forward “visibility” is limited: sometimes as little as a week or two. It is critically important to keep an eye on your revenue pipeline.
• The most critical challenge for businesses today is maintaining liquidity. Revenues are unpredictable, customers are slow to pay, and credit is limited or even unavailable.
• You should be preparing contingency plans: Plan A, plan B, and the “break the glass” plan in case of extreme emergency. Why? Because when the time comes to use any of these plans, it will be too late to make them up.
• You should communicate with your investors and your lenders. The good will in those relationships will help you in hard times.
• If you believe you have issues, confront them directly and quickly.
• Because of all the turmoil, it’s a great time to be building your brand and increasing your market share.

These are all great pieces of advice. Most importantly, there is plenty of help available. I met a lot of great folks who can help.

• ACG Capital Connection, February 10. This is the pre-eminent gathering of deal-makers in the Southeast, sponsored by the Atlanta chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG). Over ___ people attended this year. Corporate business development folks, private equity investors, investment bankers, service professionals and entrepreneurs were all well-represented. It’s an annual event, and I strongly recommend it. I also recommend the ACG, which meets monthly and is always a great place to meet interesting people who are making things happen in the Atlanta business community.
• Startup Riot, February 18. About 50 companies presented startup plans to over 300 attendees. A lot of great plans and a lot of potentially very interesting new businesses were presented, ranging from safety equipment to web services. It’s hard to draw too many conclusions from a three-minute pitch, but I’m hopeful that some of these companies will turn into real and substantial businesses. That would be good for everyone in Atlanta.

I met a lot of great people at these events. I look forward to seeing them again, and hope I’ll see you at an event like this in the future.

• How do these new media change marketing? How will their growth affect the effectiveness of traditional sales and marketing strategies? What strategies are most effective for promoting your products among social network users?
• How do social networks affect business strategies? Where do they represent new opportunities, and where do they present new competitive challenges?

So I was intrigued to attend the recent SoCon09 Social Networking Conference at Kennesaw State University, earlier this month. I met some very interesting folks and heard a lot about how social networks are changing traditional media, advertising, marketing and brand-building. There’s a lot going on, and some of it is going to change the world in ways you might not expect:

• These networks are growing fast. Twitter was founded in May 2007 and now has over 4 million active users. Facebook had over 200 million unique visitors last year.
• Who is on these networks may surprise you. Last year, the 35-54 year old age group was the fastest growing demographic on Facebook.
• People are using these media for making buying decisions. For example, Dell has over $1 million in sales from Twitter, and many mainstream companies are marketing on Facebook and MySpace.
• Old promotional and advertising models are dwindling in power as traditional mass media shrink, go online, or close up shop. The future lies in new media.
• The old ways of advertising and promoting don’t work in the new media. New ways of reaching consumers are needed.

If you aren’t thinking about how to incorporate these new networks in your sales and marketing efforts, you should be. For more thoughts and commentary, see my EarthquakeSurfer blog.