October 2009 Archives

Winning industry awards can be a great way to get recognition for your company and, perhaps more importantly, your personal contributions. Who pays the most attention to them? Your bosses. That's why industry awards are important, even if no one outside your field gives a poop.

I have a pretty good track record of winning industry awards. For example, this year I submitted five entries to the Mutual Fund Education Alliance's STAR Awards and won all five. While I certainly stand by the accomplishments the submissions represent, I think at least 50% of the reason we won is the submissions themselves. Here are some steps you can take to improve your chances.

1. Choose the award carefully.

Most of us will never win an Academy Award—or even a Webby, for that matter. Choose awards you have a realistic chance of winning, but that are still meaningful to people within your industry. Within the mutual fund industry, everyone has heard of the MFEA. There were enough entrants to make it a legitimate competition, but not so many that we'd get creamed by bigger players with more resources. (It especially helped that entrants were grouped according to assets under management, so we competed against other mid-size companies.)

2. Follow the rules.

It's amazing how many awards submissions get discarded because people can't follow the rules of the competition. If you're asked for a one-sentence summary, keep your summary to one sentence. If they want quantitative evidence, include quantitative evidence. If they want eleventeen copies of each submission, bound together with masticated Zebra Stripe gum and airplane glue... you get the idea. However, following the rules is no excuse to be boring. (See steps #3 and #4).  


3. Know your audience.

You are writing for the judges—and no one else. Judges have to sift through dozens, maybe even hundreds or thousands, of identical-seeming submissions. They're tired. Their eyes look like chewed grapes. They kinda wish they had never volunteered for this gig. (I once judged an independent film contest and the experience nearly put me down for a dirt nap.) So you need to make your submission stand out. Which leads to...  

4. Treat your award submission as a marketing opportunity.

Because you are marketing to the judges, and no one else, there is no need to be stodgy. No need to employ industry jargon that most of us hate. Write succinctly and confidently. Don't be afraid to be a little edgy, too. And above all, BE BRIEF! (I pared the communications objective of one submission down to one sentence, something like: "The goal of this web page is to provide financial advisors immediate access to the most salient information with the lowest possible barrier to entry." Boom!) You are not being judged on how many synonyms you can find for "synergy" and "leverage." You are being judged on how well you can paint a picture for the judges, without wasting a moment of their time. As Strunk and White wrote, "Omit needless words."

My most recent experience is in the financial services industry. But these tactics apply to all industries that are big enough to celebrate their own, which is most of 'em. I hope you find this useful. Let me know if you do. Good luck! 

Ever run across a piece of writing that seems only vaguely familiar until you realize that you wrote it? I found these Amazon reviews from 2000 that I (apparently) penned. The millennial Noah was cleverer—and had more spare time—than the modern Noah. Enjoy.

				Music Price: $6.99 Availability: In Stock
1 of 4 people found the following review helpful: Better Than Patsy Cline!, November 12, 2000 On this disc, Madonna--the most diversely talented human since the late Steve Allen--explores her heretofore unexplored country/western side with phenomenal results. The opener, "Music," carries the listener on a delightful magic carpet ride to a smoky honky-tonk, complete with sawdust on the floor and bottles a-flyin' through the air. She out Patsy Clines Patsy Cline when she pulls aching low notes from her diaphragm. "Impressive Instant" explores the fleeting nature of love: a star struck female rodeo clown is impressed by a swaggering bull rider -- but only for an instant. The twang of a distant lap steel only adds to the heartbreak. "I Deserve It" is about good love gone bad, as a trailer resident with low self-esteem cries herself to sleep at night after her nightly beating by her truck-driving husband. Willie Nelson ably acts the part of the hubby in this soul-wrenching duet. "What it Feels Like for a Girl" answers an age-old question: why do girls like horseback riding so much? Finally, "Gone" is a chicken-fried tribute to Greg Ginn's post-Black Flag days in the band by the same name. Merle Haggard lends his voice to this a cappela number; Madonna and Merle conjure memories of old-stlye barbershop quartets. Bravo! Five Stars! Buy it Now!

Back in July, I posited that favorable customer reviews led to a considerable spike in Amazon sales of the book I co-published with my wife, DC BABY. This seems pretty obvious, but several articles on this subject have been recently published in major media.

For example:

Web Shoppers Trust Customer Reviews More Than Friends (Adweek)

Companies are learning to make the most out of customers' online reviews of their products (WSJ)

I figured it was a good time for an update. Since my initial post, sales have continued to rise:

I think what makes our story unique is that all we had to do was ask our customers for the reviews. It was that simple.

My brother, John, and his business partner, Steven, have been running the web-hosting company Modwest for nearly 10 years. In 2006 they launched Grupthink, a free-for-all discussion platform, and just recently Grupthinkpowered.com, the professional version of Grupthink that allows businesses to create their own branded feedback communities.

It's been interesting to sit on the sidelines all these years watching my brother grow from rudderless grad student to big-time entrepreneur and business-owner. He's not only gainfully employed, but he gainfully employs other people—and that's really something. (I'm sure he's been just as amused by my career arc from punk rocker to financial dude.)

Now that we're older and more settled, our professional interests have converged and it's become apparent that the timing is good for me to do a little consulting for Modwest/Grupthink. It's all very pro-bono-loosey-goosey right now, but I really like what I am seeing in both business lines.

Modwest began in 2000 as a scrappy startup in Missoula, Montana, positioning themselves as a lean, open-source-supporting alternative to the bloated juggernauts then ruling the industry. When others crashed and burned, Modwest rose from the ashes. By 2002 they had tripled their customer base and have been on an upward trajectory ever since, upgrading office space every few years. (They now own space in the historic Wilma building in downtown Missoula.)

I'm consulting for Modwest to figure out how to grow their business to the next level in an increasingly competitive field. The biggest thing Modwest has going for it is its unparelleled customer service—which makes my job pretty easy, because empires can be built on that alone. (*cough* *Zappos* *cough*)

Grupthink began in 2006 as an offshoot of Modwest (all social networks need a web host, after all) with its highly addictive and fun feedback community at Grupthink.com. At Grupthink, you can create a "topic" in the form of an open-ended question (e.g. "What is the greatest love story of all time?", "If you could make anything illegal, what would it be?") and then the community takes over to provide their answers. Answers can then be ranked, commented on, flagged for being particularly funny, insightful, obscene, etc. The best topics take on lives of their own, inspiring more topics, comments, links and so on. It's crazy and fun and like the wild west of social networks—the platform is so flexible that literally anything goes, with the community itself responsible for most of its own moderation.

Early on it became evident that Grupthink had the potential to become a powerful tool for businesses. In 2007, co-founder Steven Sundheim was invited to speak at an MIT innovation lab where he caught the interest of an innovation leader from a well-known consumer-products company. (Name withheld by request.) They began working with that company in 2007, creating a private, customized version of Grupthink that powered online focus groups. That collaboration led to further refinement of Grupthink's business applications, and now any company can start their own, Grupthink-powered communities at grupthinkpowered.com.

The challenge for me and for Grupthink is that it's such a great product, with so many potential uses, it's hard to know where to begin. Their current clients range from the aforementioned consumer-products company using Grupthink for online focus groups to a site for hardcore gamers, GuildWarsIdeas.com, where fans of the Guild Wars videogame can make their voices heard. I see opportunity for Grupthink in the SaaS space—small to mid-size businesses with a large, decentralized customer base. Once Grupthink builds a little steam there will be no stopping it. So we're looking at where to focus our energies first, where to spend ad dollars, and so on.

Exciting times, and I'm thankful John and Steven are allowing me to be part of it.