Practice What You Preach
by Tom Anthony on Apr.30, 2012, under Media, Personal
I am involved with a number of professional projects concurrently… and a pretty wide array of client types … everything from a local church to a family medical practice. Part of what I do for my clients is social media management – and part of what I neglect for my own self is … you guessed it… social media.
So recently I started up a Facebook group called Chevy’s Belair Café Alum. 25 plus years ago I walked in the Long Island night club because I could not find a media job in Manhattan. I got the gig as a one-night-a-week fill in and soon became my alter-ego; Tom “Rock and Roll” Anthony – the wild DJ/MC who performed to the music at the oldies club.
Over the next eight years I lived what felt like two or three lifetimes – and not because it was always fun. Eventually I was the Club Manager although I still did the MC work while DJ Pauly-P did beat mixes like no one else. Many times it was fun… if you are logged into Facebook you can get to the group and see a lot of cook pictures here.
If you are not on Facebook you can see a series of videos from the old days below. Enjoy. Like.
online communities
by Tom Anthony on Jan.17, 2012, under Internet Marketing
A friend of mine was talking about “online communities” in an email this week – he was quoting from a Webinar in which he heard two top professionals say “Oh god, not one more online community”!
My 2 cents is that most “online communities” fall under the category of some group or another reaching for a low cost or free way to attract attention to themselves and do not really constitute a “community”. I think most consumers – business or retail – are feeling that keeping up with various social media ( including “online communities” ) is a burden and not a natural, rewarding, or even fun activity. So the gold would be actually creating a “community” and the fool’s gold (unrewarded labor) would be creating some kind of online presence that is inaccurately called an “online community”.
Merry Christmas
by Tom Anthony on Dec.21, 2011, under Personal, Political
I know Scott Rigell professionally from doing business with him well before he entered politics – and my girlfriend worked for Scott for years and knows him quite well. I can tell you in business and in his public life he is a “genuine” person – and by “genuine” I mean he is not pathologically full of crap. I live in Chesapeake, Virginia which is the neighboring district so I could not vote for him but I was actually glad when Scott won the election to the House of Representatives. This video makes me proud to know him… and Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, and a better New Year from my family and me…
Twas the Night Before Christmas
by Tom Anthony on Dec.10, 2011, under Internet Marketing, Personal
‘Twas the Night Before Christmas and some kids need your help. . .
My friend and client Joe Cipriano did a noble thing this Christmas Season… he and 30 other of the nation’s top voice over artists got together to create a unique reading of the traditional Christmas Poem ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.
Calling the project Prime Time Voices for Children, 100% of the proceeds benefit Chase Child Life Program at Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA. Joe also got help from Canadian Producer John Masecar, Killer Tracks – the L.A. based Production Music house, and yours truly.
I created en email marketing campaign to reach the US broadcast industry with the aim of offering the cut for airplay and call attention to the availability of the track to the public. Anyone who plunks down the 99 cents on iTunes (or outlets including CDBaby.com and Amazon.com) helps very sick children in need.
Starting with my partners at Constant Contact we sent out around four thousand emails to various broadcasters already in our database from previous campaigns for Joe Cipriano. But even at that number we were only reaching a small number of the nations Radio Programmers and Music Directors.
My challenge was to contact the largest number of broadcasters, and not send a bunch of duplicate emails to the same people we already reached through the previous campaign. I have a master list of opted in broadcasters from a company that specializes in just that market and went to work on cleaning the database.
I whittled down the master from around 100,000 to 17,000 – ran a program to eliminate the existing list and anyone who had opted out along the way. I came out with a final of 11,000 contacts. Next I needed to send the emails out quickly and although the list was legit we could not wait for Contact Contact’s vetting process. So I found software to do this all manually. Even at premium cable speed the email broadcast was scheduled over a three hour period.
It felt good personally to be able to help Prime Time Voices for Children, and it was gratifying professionally to be able to design, launch, and manage a national marketing campaign in just 48 hours. Whew! Happy Holidays! To see a copy of that email click here.
Google Still Gaining Market Share
by Tom Anthony on Oct.17, 2011, under Internet
Unlike most other technologies introduced in the past 20 years it seems that Google wants to defy the Diffusion of Innovations adoption curve. The What? It’s the theorem by Everett Rogers that says any idea or technology is accepted slowly at first, then takes off for a while, and finally is slowly adopted by the remaining group. For a little better explanation see the Wikipedia page here
Apparently that does not include Google since the most recent stats show an increase in usage. You would think everybody who is going to use Google is already there – but according to the firm comScore – Google’s Market Share went up by a half percent in September 2011.
Search engine rankings for September 2011, according to comScore were:
| Site | Aug-11 | Sep-11 | Point Change |
| Google Sites | 64.8% | 65.3% | 0.5 |
| Yahoo! Sites | 16.3% | 15.5% | -0.8 |
| Microsoft Sites | 14.7% | 14.7% | 0.0 |
| Ask Network | 3.0% | 3.0% | 0.0 |
| AOL, Inc. | 1.3% | 1.5% | 0.2 |
Other interesting stats from comScore are in this press release
Big Brother
by Tom Anthony on Oct.13, 2011, under Internet, Media, Political
I have an Attorney client who was rightfully disturbed by the news of a case before the Virginia State Bar regarding Richmond Lawyer Horace Hunter. Basically the Bar is arguing a complaint that Hunters writing on the firm website blog constitutes advertising and should be accompanied by some sort of disclaimer identifying it as such.
By the way I looked it up and do not find a current link to any blog so apparently Mr. Hunter is seeking a lower profile these days. At first it seemed to me like a case of David and Goliath. A two man law practice in Richmond standing up for their First Amendment right to free speech… Imagine – posting your thoughts as a blog comment and because you are in a certain business “The Man” makes you say it’s advertising because you may get some business out of it… (I use the archaic 60′s term “The Man” because while it’s not actually a demand of Bureaucrats as much as it is a Judicial Branch regulatory agency forcing an action – it’s still well… “The Man”.)
Watch out for "The Man"
I had a similar issue come up with a client in the financial consultation industry some time back – there the perceived and equally bogus issue was “Insider Information” – in both cases I believe it is too much a burden to determine the merits of each and every comment. In the case of my clients who were senior worker bee level in the local office of a national investment and insurance firm – they decided it was going to be more of a drain on their time with their internal compliance group then the potential PR value to be worth the effort so they canceled plans for an email newsletter. Of course in the case of Horace Hunter and any other Attorney out there it’s an even more slippery slope than regulation compliance. The nature of each comment being evaluated for intent? Who is going to regulate? Big Brother?
That would have been the end of my two cents worth UNTIL I looked old Horace Hunter up on the internet to see if his blog was still active. Amazingly there were 737,000 results in Google under the search phrase “virginia attorney horace hunter”. Horace must really get around! The truth is that a lot of Attorneys are watching this situation closely – and the irony is – a lot of them are blogging about it!
The other truth – and this is just an aside – is that I found thousands of “law blogs” who were just picking up a story originally published in the Washington Post. What I found were a lot of scam sites headlined with some variation of “find an attorney” and automatically posting news items relating to law.
Back to the point – we’ll be watching the Virginia State Bar and let you know what happens.
Don’t answer the door
by Tom Anthony on Aug.22, 2011, under Political
Normally I write about business and stay away from things political – it’s so easy to be misunderstood. At this point it’s become too important an issue to remain mute. My friend Chandler Turner forwarded me a link to this video and I thought I would share it with you too. It’s called “Doorbell” and it comes from the political blog powerlineblog.com
Americans and Their Cell Phones
by Tom Anthony on Aug.19, 2011, under Internet
Mobile phones have become a near-ubiquitous tool for information seeking and communicating–83% of American adults own some kind of cell phone–and these devices have an impact on many aspects of their owners’ daily lives. In a nationally representative telephone survey, the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project found that, during the 30 days preceding the interview:
Cell phones are useful for quick information retrieval (so much so that their absence can cause problems) – Half of all adult cell owners (51%) had used their phone at least once to get information they needed right away. One quarter (27%) said that they experienced a situation in the previous month in which they had trouble doing something because they did not have their phone at hand.
- Cell phones are an important tool in emergency situations – 40% of cell owners said they found themselves in an emergency situation in which having their phone with them helped.
- Cell phones can help stave off boredom – 42% of cell owners used their phone for entertainment when they were bored.
- Despite their advantages, some cell phone owners just need an occasional break – 29% of cell owners turned their phone off for a period of time just to get a break from using it.
- With advantages comes frustration – 20% of cell owners experienced frustration because their phone was taking too long to download something; 16% had difficulty reading something on their phone because the screen was too small; and 10% had difficulty entering a lot of text on their phone.
- Cell phones can help prevent unwanted personal interactions – 13% of cell owners pretended to be using their phone in order to avoid interacting with the people around them.
The report cited has a lot more information on how we are using cell phone, and you may view it free Here: http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Cell-Phones.aspx
from
Americans and Their Cell Phones
by Aaron Smith
Aug 15, 2011
Evelyn’s Wildlife Refuge
by Tom Anthony on Apr.25, 2011, under Internet Marketing, Personal
Meet Evelyn Flengas, founder of Evelyn’s Wildlife Refuge in Virginia Beach, Virginia. One of my clients is also an animal lover and after hearing about the great work Evelyn and Jim Flengas do at the refuge I went out to meet them both. It was a moving experience based on the pure conviction Evelyn and Jim have for their work. I hope you enjoy this interview with Evelyn. I asked three questions, she did the rest.
Georgia Guidestones
by Tom Anthony on Mar.19, 2011, under Personal
The TV show Brad Meltzer’s Decoded on the History Channel featured a bizarre granite monument called the Georgia Guidestones. On a recent trip to Atlanta I decided to see it for myself.
Also called America’s Stonehenge, the monument is located on a remote hilltop near the tiny hamlet of Dewy Rose, Georgia – about two hours north of Atlanta.
Since I was going to be near Atlanta visiting my brother Steve – and would be driving back – I decided to do my own field trip to the Georgia Guidestones.
Here is a video of that journey.
here’s what we know about it:
In June 1979, an unknown person or persons under the pseudonym R.C. Christian hired Elberton Granite Finishing Company to build the structure.
A message comprising ten guides is inscribed on the structure in eight modern languages, and a shorter message is inscribed at the top of the structure in four ancient languages’ scripts: Babylonian, Classical Greek, Sanskrit, and Egyptian hieroglyphs.
The monument is almost 20 feet tall if the buried support stones are included, and made from six granite slabs weighing more than 240,000 pounds in all.
One slab stands in the center, with four arranged around it. A capstone lies on top of the five slabs, which are astronomically aligned. An additional stone tablet, which is set in the ground a short distance to the west of the structure, provides some notes on the history and purpose of the Guidestones.
One popular hypothesis is that the patron’s pseudonym may be a tribute to the legendary 17th-century founder of Rosicrucianism, Christian Rosenkreuz.
The main message consists of a set of ten guidelines or principles engraved in eight different languages, one language on each face of the four large upright stones.
Moving clockwise around the structure from due north, these languages are: English, Spanish, Swahili, Hindi, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, and Russian.
The message reads:
- Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
- Guide reproduction wisely – improving fitness and diversity.
- Unite humanity with a living new language.
- Rule passion – faith – tradition – and all things with tempered reason.
- Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
- Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
- Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
- Balance personal rights with social duties.
- Prize truth – beauty – love – seeking harmony with the infinite.
- Be not a cancer on the earth – Leave room for nature – Leave room for nature.
What does it all mean? I think it’s safe to say no one really knows.
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