Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on August 18th, 2009
Tagged as: Projects, Social Media
The more you put on your plate, the bigger the belly ache.
Here’s a short, macro-list of the things I have to do before December. Let’s not forget that each of these has its own sub-set of impossible obstacles to overcome…
Set up a Limited liability company to handle the following:
1. Expand my professional relationship with my largest client which will help me cope with the sheer amount of work and of course help finance the projects below.
2. Finish and launch the Social Starter initiative.
3. Transfer all domains and online activities over to the new company.
4. Rework The Acer Guy to include officially-sanctioned reviews and charitable causes.
5. Re-commission the Runaway Parents series of sites (starting with Italian). The first time around was a disaster.
6. Start the ball rolling with Language Is Free.
As you can see, there isn’t so much a plan, more like five and right now I’m struggling with #1 and #3. They are quite distinct ideas and activities but represent everything I’ve learned these past years online and practically everything I’m able to offer.
In Italy, you can’t (quite) start in a garage and get lucky, you have to plan for it, build it, bear the impossible fiscal burden and of course finance it virtually from scratch. That’s why it’s taking so long to get going and why it’s so frustrating working here at times.
By way of example, I’m planning on trying to raise money through The Acer Guy to buy computers for schools in the world’s poorest regions but in order to do so, I have to open what’s called an ONLUS (Nonprofit organization) otherwise I’ll be taxed on the donations. For the modest administration cost of approx. €3K-€4K per year.
Now I don’t mind organizing, but would someone explain how you’re supposed to promote micro-donations for specific projects AND then give that much money to the accountants/state just because the law requires you to do so?
Still looking into it and of course ways around it. Suggestions welcome…
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on August 18th, 2009
Tagged as: Projects, Social Media
I’m writing this post in a kinda-unofficial way right now. Think of it as an electronic sounding board amongst friends.
I’ll get straight to the point: The Acer Education Technology Initiative got me thinking about ways of using social media for worthy causes and I’d like to make a few changes on the direction TAG is heading.
There are two fundamental changes I’m going to introduce.
1) Having Acer recognize TAG as a authoritative resource for its product reviews. This will allow me to get far more people and enthusiasts from the “Acer community” involved in reviewing upcoming and new models directly.
2) Use the traction TAG has earned to adopt “causes”. Basically ask the community to Chip In (that’s the name of the widget) and fund the purchase of new or refurbished Acer PCs through a specific PayPal account that will then be sent to designated schools/charities in some of the world’s poorest areas. Naturally all this is done with maximum transparency and, at least to start with through reputable non-profit organizations like this.
This second initiative might not start there though, as I recently received a wonderful letter from the Operations Manager from the Earthrace initiative asking whether Acer would be interested in sponsoring her with a new computer (her four-year-old TravelMate 8100 is running out of puff). I’ve forwarded it on to the worldwide marcoms manager asking for help and there’s a slim chance he might even agree but if not Earthrace will be the first TAG “cause”…
Like I said I’m still working on the details of how this is going to play out but any suggestions you might have at this point would be very welcome indeed.
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on June 17th, 2009
Tagged as: Asides
I’m about to go to the Milan Politecnico to follow a congress on Publicity, creativity, marketing and new media with Philip Kotler.
I really wish I could summon up the excitement to learn - that state of mind that comes when you’re on the pulse and ready to expand your mind as I could do with a serious dose of inspiration right now. No offence to Kotler, but no matter how intellectually lofty and well intentional, I really need to see more social media action from the people I’m going there with.
Show me they’re up to speed, and I’ll move on.
Silence must be one of the most frequently used words of this blog. It seems to crop up time and time again and I’m beginning to wonder whether, given a bit of effort, I could rank on the first page of Google for it.
My silence isn’t distance. It’s a sign that I’m still not free from the clutches of the needs of others which in turn means I’m not free to decide how much time I can dedicate to this site.
My silence isn’t empty. My days are full of challenges and miracles and, professionally speaking at least, I meet every single one of them.
My silence isn’t ignorance. I’m constantly pushing my knowledge, understanding and direct experience of social media.
Silence is a cloaking device. It takes you off the radar, which is pretty good for productivity, but sadly very bad for publicity.
So what’s cooking? Actually quite a lot.
First of all, and more or less in line with the McLeod Principles I’m putting in the hours. Lots of them. Second of all, and perhaps most importantly of all, I’m keeping my day job as a) it pays the bills while Plan B gains traction and b) it’s actually a pretty amazing experience.
So what’s Plan B? I’ve discovered that the hardest part of starting anything worthwhile isn’t the cost of the object itself, it’s my cost. The time needed to get something off the ground is, frankly, far more than you have available and this is the single biggest hurdle to moving the game on.
Plan B is focused on freeing up time by aligning what I do in my day job with what I’m planning to do. And that’s where Social Starter comes into being.
Social Starter is, quite simply, The Acer Guy success story replicated for other clients. Call it a Social Media Starter Kit (hence the name).
Social Starter is also one of the reasons I’m finding it hard to summon up any form of excitement about today’s congress, as I’m tired of witnessing Social Media torn apart and analyzed by professionals when I’d rather be forging another relationship with another client.
Still, you can’t win them all and as Hugh correctly points out, “everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb”.
See you after the conference.
Update, I Twittered about the meeting but have to admit I was expecting to get much more from it.
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on April 20th, 2009
Tagged as: Me, Projects
I guess this has been in the works for a while.
I’ve been looking at various strategies to get this company off the ground. Finance, loans, partners – they all have their pro’s and con’s.
The hard part isn’t so much the money itself, it’s convincing people that your idea is worth investing in and then giving up a piece of it when you know they don’t believe even half as much as you do. There’s nothing worse than knowing in your heart that you’re on to something and that what you’re trying to get started is actually worth doing and then having to waste so much energy on doubters.
Of course, there are Andy Bechtolsheim’s and forward-thinking VC firms like North Venture Partners out there; it’s just that none of them live in my neighborhood.
I did have a the weirdest meeting with a millionaire property investor who gave me exactly 5 minutes to convince him of both projects during a walk from one business meeting to lunch. To be perfectly honest, I gave up after just 2 as I’m pretty sure he had a minute and a half earlier.
So what’s a guy with two brilliant ideas during a recession in Italy to do?
Well the first thing is to figure out just how much you want this thing to work, convince yourself that your determination is a living, breathing entity and treat it with the respect it deserves, plan it all out and then sell the family silver.
Tough call that last one but the success Gods always demand a humongous sacrifice.
So here’s Plan A:
We get Genitori In Fuga up and running first, including everything from blog entries to the Advertisement section, along with associated sites and services (Flickr account, YouTube page and Facebook group for starters) and then hit the sponsors.
The first one we have lined up might catch you off guard. The Italian Ministry for Culture. That’s right. In Italy, this Ministry also handles tourism, which is where we want to go. If we can convince them that a) we’re promoting strong family values and b) helping tourism on a national scale and c) this Italian idea will then be exported, then we might get that all important seal of approval and assistance at Regional level which is when it starts getting interesting.
Once the Italian site starts gaining traction, then we can roll out other countries.
Tomorrow I have a meeting with a local web agency to see what needs to be done to get this first site finished and I’ve also asked those wonderful people at The Blog Studio who did this site for their thoughts. I’ll let you know how we get on.
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on April 15th, 2009
Tagged as: Projects
How is it when you put a plan together, something big and wonderful that could well change your life, if not the world around you, and bring true value to your existence, obstacles and reasons “why not” simply fall out of the sky?
As I wrote this morning on my Italian blog, how do you get back on track when you’ve spent the past few months assiduously following someone else’s?
Well nothing gets done without a bit of effort so now’s the time to roll up my sleeves and find my own to follow.
Breathe in the future, breathe out the past
Recently, I had lunch with a very good friend who works for a huge TV network. I was absolutely shattered over lunch, having a really hard time stringing sentences together that were anything other than loosely concealed cries for help.
At a certain point, my friend said: “You know what your problem is? You occupy a really important role in a small company, which is why they expect blood whereas I occupy a medium role in a large company - our different blood pressures can be explained right there.”
What he was saying wasn’t that I should look for anonymity in a huge corporation, rather I should get out of the shadows and show the world what I do.
So without further ado, here’s the deal:
I am the de facto senior copywriter for Acer Group inasmuch as I work for the Ad Agency with the worldwide exclusive on Acer’s PR, corporate and product communications. If that doesn’t sound like a big deal, how about I tell you that there are in essence just five of us creating strategies and content for everything from product naming to corporate events? Still not enough? Well that we do this for Acer Group, Acer Inc., Packard Bell and Gateway?
Oh and I haven’t mentioned that I created and run single-handedly the unofficial Acer blog which alone has more than 60 thousand visitors / month.
In any ordinary company, there would be hordes of us, or at the very least a strategy which went beyond “getting it done”.
I won’t hide it - I’m tired. There’s got to be something more.
Bring on change - please!
I’m convinced that the current financial crisis, the general downturn needs to be taken by the horns. I mean if there’s a general sense of gloom, it’s because society is behaving like a herd, following the lead of the next guy who’s just another follower of mainstream depression.
I’m not saying we can just will our way out; what I’m saying is that we’ve forgotten how to offer - or worse - communicate anything of real value, so that when the bubble bursts, the superficiality of the way the world works and what it has to offer inevitably floats to the surface and people simply turn away in the search for something that goes a little deeper.
What’s needed right now is a profound sense of humanity in the things we do, not blind resistance to change coupled with faith in worn-out models that are obviously dying. I personally am sick of hearing exhausted messages that do nothing to add to my sense of well being. On TV networks, radio and web ads, the clutter all seems to follow the same script, no matter what the segment and who the customer is, the thrity-second sound byte has been rinsed and repeated so many times it’s impossible to tell what the original colour really was.
And when I stop and look in the hope of finding things to prove I’m wrong, there’s very little that does, apart from Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter and a bunch of Social Media sites that bring that all-too-rare value into my life as they’re not selling stuff/ideas/fashions/dreams I don’t need, they’re giving.
So value is where I’m heading.
In absence of any real contenders for true value propositions (no-one I know is seriously considering social media as a means to talk with customers), it’s time I started my own, and this site is where I intend to share how I get on.
Welcome back then, and keep up the good work.
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on December 25th, 2008
Tagged as: Gab Gab Gab
‘Twas the night of Christmas
and the world was at one.
The few still online
Are there just for fun.
Computers unwrapped exploring the ‘Net,
Leaving a path we no longer forget.
The Social Network I joined a few weeks ago
Is telling me things I’d rather not know.
People I knew a lifetime before
Think that I’m there to settle a score.
Something not said in the distant past,
But now we’re connected, our friendship can last!
Just what is the point of using these sites
To rekindle a memory we now perhaps dislike?
“Click with respect” is my motto online
Use 2.0 like it was the very first time.
The connections we make are as real as they get
Some more than others, a few you never forget,
So Merry Christmas to you, if our paths now collide
Your friendship means more than a blog post can possibly describe.
And to those out there I have yet to encounter,
Let’s hope the New Year brings more humorous banter.
Happy New Year!
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