Name: Steve
Email:
Web Site: http://expertaccess.cincom.com
Bio: Steve Kayser is a seasoned Media Relations Director and an award-winning business writer. His unique approach to PR, Marketing and Media Relations has been documented in a marketing best practices case study by MarketingSherpa, profiled as a “Purple Cow,” by author Seth Godin, and featured in the best-selling books, The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott and Tuned In: Uncover the Extraordinary Opportunities That Lead to Business Breakthroughs by Craig Stull, Phil Myers, and David Meerman Scott. Steve has also been featured in the following publications: A Marketer’s Guide to e-Newsletter Publishing, Credibility Branding, Innovation Quarterly, B2B Marketing Trends, PRWEEK, Faces of E-Content and The Ragan Report. Emmy-award winning former CBS Journalist and author, David Henderson, named Steve one of the new “Changing Faces of PR” for 2009 and also included Steve in his 2010 book “Making News in the Digital Era.“ Steve’s writings have appeared in Corporate Finance Magazine, CEO Refresher, Entrepreneur Magazine, Business 2.0, and Fast Company Magazine – among many others. Steve can be contacted at skayser@cincom.com
Posts by skayser:
- Challenge
- Description
- Why it’s painful and
- How it might be resolved.
In These Tough Times Here’s a Way to Print Your Own Currency Legally … with Content
August 25th, 2010
Flickr photo courtesy of H.Kopp Delaney
Cincom has Your Ticket to College Football Action!
August 24th, 2010Welcome to the Football Experts Club Game!
The 2010 football season is heating up, and now is your chance to get in on the action with all the members of the Football Experts Club game. Register now to compete for valuable prizes
How Do I Get Started?
August 24th, 2010Click on Coach Liz!
Step #1: Create an Account
Head over to the Registration page and complete the information to create your own account. Why do we collect all that info? So we can contact you if and when you win a prize. Don’t worry, we don’t give out your information to anyone!
What Can I Win?
August 24th, 2010Cincom Football Experts Club Prizes
Lots of prizes. And more prizes.
Cincom – 30:1
August 24th, 2010
For every dollar invested in Cincom software and services our clients typically reap $30 in return – sometimes more.
Marketing Secrets of the Grateful Dead – How to Crib a Great Name?
August 24th, 2010
Did the Grateful Dead steal their iconic name from another band? Forensic investigation reveals one of history’s great mysteries.
By Steve Kayser with David Meerman Scott, and Brian Halligan, authors of “The Marketing Secrets of the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History”
Accidental Creative Problem-Solving … on Purpose
August 24th, 2010
I was working on a story when I ran into a perplexing problem. A total roadblock. How to simplify a complex story – one that involved quantum physics, cancer, depression, hope against all odds and the ephemeral topic of “making miracles?”
Photo courtesy of Stuck in Customs
Featured Interview: Titanic, Forrest Gump, Roger Rabbit, Twister, Now …
August 24th, 2010
He framed “Roger Rabbit,” helped sink the “Titanic,” summoned the tornadoes in “Twister.” He’s worked on some of the highest revenue-producing movies in history, including; “Deep Impact,” “Back to the Future parts II and III,” “The Mummy,” and “Forrest Gump,” among many others. Who is he and what’s next?
Cincom Launches 2010 College Football Experts Club
August 24th, 2010Are You a College Football Expert ?
Are you glued to the TV every Saturday in the Fall, yelling yourself hoarse in the stands at your favorite university? Do your friends get tired of you arguing with sports analysts’ predictions each week?
If you answered yes to the above questions, Cincom Systems, Inc. invites you to join our Cincom 2010 College Football Experts Club.
The Cincom 2010 College Football Experts Club is a fun, 14-week competition following the schedule of the NCAA football season. Each week, players will log into the Experts Club website (http://www.cincom.com/football), created in conjunction with Athlon Sports, and attempt to accurately predict the winner of each week’s most competitive games.
Points are won for each correct guess, and those players at the top of the leader board are eligible for weekly prizes.
Cincom is also hosting a Bowl Championship Series contest starting in December. A winner will be chosen based solely on outcome of the BCS bowl games.
Chances are that even if you answered “no” to our above football fanatic questions, there’s a sports fan in your life who wouldn’t mind owning some memorabilia from their favorite athlete. Plus, you can even donate your prize to a charity of your choice if you choose! So why not join us?
Catch up with Coach Liz
You can join in on the fun and keep up to date with what’s going on in the game and the college football universe by catching up with Cincom’s Coach Liz on Twitter (@CincomFBGal) and on Facebook.
The Prizes
All prizes are gift certificates to the Athlon Sports online store. Athlon has memorabilia from ALL sports, so winners are NOT locked into a college football related prize.
Regular season competition (2 weekly winners)
First place: $175
Second place: $75
GRAND PRIZE (based on 14-weeks of results): $1000
Bowl Championship Series competition: $300
DON’T FORGET …
Invite to National Innovation Conference
August 23rd, 2010
Join us and learn from the folks at the NASA Space Center, Innocentive, SolutionPeople, Eureka Ranch, P&G, the Air Force Research Lab … and more
Hi, my name is Tom Hortel, founder of Zenovate.Us (we rock) and I’d like to personally invite you all to attend our National Innovation Conference at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base October 7-8, 2010.
We’re really honored to be part of bringing The National Innovation Conference event to the Ohio. It features keynotes by NASA and Innocentive, plus dozens of world-class experts presenting the latest thinking in innovation theory. There are going to be some amazing speakers from the Air Force Research Lab, P&G, Intel, Planet Eureka, Basadur Applied Creativity and TRIZ Masters from around the world.
I‘ve been an inventor and problem-solver my entire life and have always been fascinated by the creative process of bringing new products and ideas into existence. There’s something very magical and cathartic about starting with a problem or frustration and reshaping it into an elegantly simple solution that transforms the whole idea and reshapes your paradigms. Game-changing ideas that redefine all the rules are my favorites.
Yet I never set out to become an inventor per se, I simply had a knack for solving tough puzzles, for slicing through all the fog and clutter to find those simple solutions. In part I attribute that knack to growing up poor in rural Appalachia, where being creative and adaptive was more of a necessary survival skill. The rules were fairly simple, when something broke and you couldn’t afford a new one, you took the broken one apart and figured out how to fix what you had. So I developed an early fascination for mechanical gizmos and found I could fix broken toasters and TV’s by age seven. My curiosity would occasionally get me into trouble like when I’d disassemble my parent’s alarm clock just to see what made that tick-tock sound. My father was also a consummate tinkerer and craftsman who taught us all to see the possibilities within life’s challenges. Dad always kept a little workshed where he endlessly tinkered and created things. He loved competing in archery and would even craft his own bows, taught us how to build bow strings and craft our own arrows, right down to fletching the hawk feathers and painting our signature designs on the shafts, even tooling the leather guards and quivers. He taught us the innate creativity to create something wondrous out of nothing and the inner calm to hit a bullseye at 50 yards.
It was years before we ever realized what important life lessons those would become.
Finding that inner calm within opposing tensions is one of the greatest teachings one can ever learn.
It allows you to hit any target you choose in life, to see new possibility beyond the current adversity. Fortunately I inherited his tinkering gene. And so my knack for solving puzzles became a long career in product development and now a passion to teach others the secrets of inventive problem-solving.
So … with that note, once again I personally invite you to join us the National Innovation Conference at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base on October 7-8, 2010.
Feel free to email me with any questions or you can register for the event online at http://tinyurl.com/trizcon. You can also download the agenda brochure or go to our website at www.zenovte.us
You won’t want to miss this event. Feel free to share this invitation with any of your fellow colleagues you believe would have an interest or pass it along to your other networks.
CONTACT:
Tom Hortel
Zenovate Ltd
513-317-0149
Info@Zenovate.us
How to Cost Justify a Social Media Newsroom to Your Boss
August 8th, 2010Creating or re-designing your current news room into a social news room to keep up with today’s business requirements means you will have to justify the costs to the CFO.
Be prepared. Your presentation will have to have a hook so powerful you can hang a hat on it.
They will ask questions. Many. Then many more. Each question will have money attached.
What They’re Not Looking For
Let me give you a powerful hint. The answers they’re looking for are not impressions, views, comments, links, feeds or community building. They won’t care how cool it is or how the features or functions are “killer.”
CFO’s are easy to neuro-linguistically read. They’ll usually give you a visceral indication of how you’re presentation is faring.
Presentational Logic (Make it Up Math)
You’re going to have to be “creative,” in a “make it up math for the better of all humanity” type of way. I used a straightforward and fairly simple presentation to my CFO. I hammered and yammered about the value, payback, and powerful possibilities of the Social Media News Room. Of course, being a CFO, they will expect to see the numbers. The math. So, I presented the SMNR ROI (quite effectively I might add, if I do say so myself) with this instructional video.
28/7=13
Yeah – you guessed it.
He suggested I fund it myself through …. personal payroll deductions.
END:
The Perfect Customer Experience
July 16th, 2010The Business of Business Writing
July 9th, 2010Business writing is a skill that all business people need. It’s the ability to write about complex concepts in a clear and concise manner.
BusinessWeek’s Business Exchange covers the latest trends on business writing.
If you’re looking for a diverse source of clear-cut and easy-to-understand stories on the how to write with clarity visit BusinessWeek’s BX “BUSINESS WRITING.”
The Acorn and the Challenges of the Social Technology Industry
July 9th, 2010
“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
If you’ve followed the ever-evolving rapidly disrupting social media technologies in marketing and PR, you know who Jeremiah Owyang is. If not, you need to check him out. He’s the best social media, web communication strategist analyst out there. Jeremiah provides in-depth thinking and advice. He delivers it in a helpful, courteous way and has made tremendous contributions to the social media technology sector.
Jeremiah’s “Matrix: Challenges of the Social Technology Industry,“ July 2010 edition, lays out the challenges of the social technology industry. But it also lays out some of the communication hurdles to overcome when representing your business. Whether it be PR, Marketing, Sales, Pre-Sales, or customer service, you will have to deal with these social technology issues because they directly relate to business communication challenges.
Jeremiah breaks down his matrix with four simple headings.
His matrix is easy-to-read and understand. Of particular relevance to business communicators in the Matrix are:
Noise overwhelms signal: So much noise out there – how do you connect through the chaos? We covered that in “The Explosive New Reality Show … Content.”
Amateurism threatens expertise: This one I have a slightly different take on then Jeremiah. Mine is driven by an autodidact personality. What’s that mean? I love to see amateurs with the guts, gumption and persistence teach themselves to be better than the experts and pro’s. It’s a pure joy to see. Better to experience. But check out his description of the issue. Jeremiah’s experience is probably the same as yours and 99% of everyone else. It is a difficult issue because it erodes credibility and trust in the potential of these technologies to effect serious change.
Fast-moving moving industry creates confusion: A bit understated. How can you keep up with the speed – especially if you’re in business communications? For example, there are about 1,000,000 blog posts per day now. How do you monitor, absorb relevant information and keep an attitude of constant learning? Hard work. But hard work isn’t enough anymore - filtering is paramount.
Culture shift creates an internal rift inside institutions: Change. Change and power shifts are always difficult. But with the current economic environment and stress of delivering measurable results, it’s even more difficult today. Change is needed, demanded, imperative – but social media change is looked at with a big ole stink-eye unless it delivers immediate measurable results. Some ideas, like seeds need incubating to grow … no?
“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Read Jeremiah Owyang’s “Matrix: Challenges of the Social Technology Industry,
The Explosive New Business Reality Show … of Content
June 16th, 2010
How Ideas Breakthrough in a Hyper-Connected World
June 16th, 2010
Cincom Expert Access contributor Bill Schley, author of the bestselling and award-winning marketing book “Why Johnny Can’t Brand,” has a new book coming out in late 2010 called “The Micro-Script Rules: How Ideas Breakthrough in a Hyper-Connected World.”
WHAT ARE MICRO-SCRIPTS?
Micro-scripts are magic words and phrases that kick gluteus-maximus in any battle of ideas. Simple. Clear. Repeatable. Memorable. Easy to instantly memorize. Short. Did I say Short?
LET ME REPEAT
Let me say it again. Short. Usually 3-8 words. Micro-scripts work because people love to repeat them as much as hear them. And if they repeat them … they spreading your idea or promoting your business for you.
WHAT THEY’RE NOT
Sound bites.
WHAT THEY ARE
Idea-bites.
Here’s a couple. Can you finish them?
EXAMPLES:
Pork, it’s the other ____
If it does not fit, you must ____
Friends don’t let friends _____ _____
What happens in Vegas _____
What happens in Cincinnati _____ (Trick question – can you guess it? The answer at end of article)
The milk chocolate that melts ______
Dr. Scholls Shoes … are you _____?
WHY DO THEY WORK?
According to Bill,
“Cognitive psychologists say that people love micro-scripts because our brains love to simplify, and we love communicators who help us simplify. We evolved this way for survival. We zip up whole stories and impressions into compact files and make short “rules of thumb’’ for quick retrieval at the moment of need.
“Marketers will tell you this is a big reason why we like brands so much. They help us simplify, too.”
SURVIVAL OF THE SIMPLEST
Simply put, our brains are wired to simplify to survive. When push comes to shove, when danger threatens — we humans get real good at simplifying. Typically in moments of great crisis you would never hear any corporate gobbledygook like …
“We deliver an award-winning, seamlessly melded-and-welded customer experience which provides value through a multiplatform multiparticle solution to create an explosive charge activated when a leveraged, finely-crafted and tuned metallic hook of the greatest of tensile strength is provided optimum motive energy, causing an exquisitely engineered cylindrical object filled with world class lead to immobilize (most of the time) a charging Loxodonta africana.”
Which is translated in time of great stress as …
“FIRE the &$#&# Gun at the $*&’ing Elephant!”
(note that rough Darwinian Micro-Script summarizes with great clarity the value and utility of the product known as a “gun.”)
In politics, just 2 weeks ago, I heard a great Micro-Script from the President of the United States.
“Just Plug the D$#m Hole!”
But this is not a political venue. So if you want to get a sneak preview of “The Micros-Script Rules” and want to learn the Three Big Rules and how to apply them to create communications magic read, Bill Schley’s e-Book.
“The Micro-Script Rules: How Ideas Breakthrough in the Hyper-Connected World.”###
What happens in Cincinnati … answer?
Really?
You actually fell for that one?
What happens in Cincinnati _______?
Nothing. Of course.
Is Your Product Launch Doomed?
June 16th, 2010The product launch. A hard planned for, long-awaited celebratory affair. Big dreams – hopes for success. But the reality?
THE IMPLOSION
Some products launch and promptly explode or implode on the launchpad – wasting company time, money and sorely taxed resources.
THE BLACK HOLE
Some products launch and disappear into a black hole – never to be seen or heard from again – wasting company time, money and sorely taxed resources.
THE OOZE
Some products never really launch – they sort of ooze – like an infected wound, wasting more company time, money and resources.
THE WINNER
Some products launch into space and are all-around winners. They solve a problem that people are willing to pay to have solved.
What’s the difference between the product launches? How to figure out if you’re riding a winner or are about to be blown to smithereens? Well, David Daniels and the Pragmatic Marketing folks have published a great e-book resource called “Is Your Product Launch Doomed?” It identifies 10 ways to know if your product launch is heading towards an impending disaster.
It’s true and it’s funny. But it’s mostly funny because it’s true.
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