The cat’s out of the bag — I’ve got a new gig.

If you’ve noticed I haven’t been quite as prolific here, on Twitter, or elsewhere recently, it’s with good reason. In the beginning of this month, I started a new position as Interactive Marketing Coordinator with the Detroit Regional Chamber, and I’ve been commuting 60+ miles (an hour or more, depending on traffic) every morning and evening, running myself (and my car) ragged.

I’ve explicitly tried to keep the news offline until I got a little more settled into the job and until I told a few certain folks about it in person, but I guess it’s safe to “come out” and break the news to the web as a whole.

In July I mentioned in the post about graduating the FastTrac entrepreneurship program that I realized I’d rather not work for myself, and well — I still am, but now have a “big girl job” too. I’ve had to whittle down my clients and give referrals on projects I otherwise would have loved to tackle, but I need to sleep, too, ya know.

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind, to say the least, and I’m still getting acclimated — I grew up being involved in chambers of commerce but have been catapulted from my small, hometown chamber to the biggest one in the country in the blink of an eye. Needless to say, I’m a little overwhelmed, but I like it.

If you’re wondering how I found the gig, it shouldn’t surprise you that I found it via social media, specifically Twitter. A long time ago, I was followed by (and followed back) a certain Sarah Hubbard, who happens to be the Vice President of Government Relations for the Detroit Chamber. She and I had exchanged tweets periodically; in fact I think my first direct message to her was after she started following me and I said something like, “Hey, cool! I grew up in chambers!”

Fast forward to whenever it was (I don’t remember when, exactly, everything’s a blur) I almost signed off for the night but I saw her tweet that the chamber had a position open, so I followed the link, read the description, and thought, “Wow, I fit that description pretty well!” So I DM’d her and told her I was interested and to tell her people I was going to try to send them my résumé and stuff by the following Monday.

Well, things got in the way and they didn’t get my stuff until the following Thursday, and I thought I was too late. But Sarah told them she already gave them a head’s up and pointed them towards here and my other stuff online. Yada yada yada, long story short, I’m now four weeks into the job and I’m still going through orientation stuff, and I still have a lot to learn about the whole place before I get in turbo-mode, but I’m looking forward to the challenge.

Of course, this is the impetus for me moving back to Metro Detroit (where I belong), but it’s probably going to be a couple months before I make the move. I’ve got a lot on my plate right now with this, plus my own clients, plus things I’m keeping offline, but somehow I’ll find a way to balance it all. I’ve already gotten by with a little help from my friends, and for that I am grateful.

So there ya go. That’s why I’ve been tweeting at insane hours of the morning, about traffic jams and getting gas in the ghetto and sending pictures of Detroit landmarks from my phone, in case you hadn’t figured it out. I’m back in the Motor City, for the most part, and I couldn’t be happier. (Well, I could be happier, and I will be, once I’m officially relocated.)

How NOT to market your stuff via email

This wonderful gem showed up in my Gmail box the other day:

What’s wrong with this picture?

Well, what isn’t?

For starters: “selukasavitz” is not my name. It’s my Gmail ID, which is the combination of my first two initials plus my last name.

Secondly, WHAT KIND OF A SUBJECT LINE IS THAT?! “Hello ___, buy some products” … um, what kind of products? Peanut products? Electronics? Rolex watches? Your subject line must not be a command (“buy my stuff” is equivalent to “click my junk“) and should be at least somewhat descriptive as to what you’re talking about. The only reason I opened it was because I thought, “Who has the audacity to send such a P.O.S. marketing piece?”

Thirdly, the copy made me suspicious that it was a phishing scam, malware, or something equally skeezy. The lack of punctuation, poor grammar and sentence structure, and lack of any real description or even graphics does not make me want to buy from them at all.  I was hesitant to even click the link but I took my chances, and yes, it looks like a legit company trying (desperately) to sell their hard drive disk recovery software. I don’t know if it is legit because I didn’t click anywhere on the site, which is why I just said it looks like it. That’s one reason why I’m not linking them here. The other is that they just don’t deserve the traffic. (If you want to check it out, type it in your address bar yourself.)

Fourthly, the signature. I can’t decide which is worse — that “peter miles” didn’t capitalize his own name, that there’s no real information about the company, or that it says he’s with the HR department. Is he trying to sell products or recruit employees? Maybe “peter miles” is attempting to be the e e cummings of the email marketing world, I have no idea. But this crap doesn’t work. None of it does. I’m surprised this didn’t fall in my spam folder, truthfully.

If your email marketing pieces look like this, it’s time for a real intervention. Chances are, they’re not being opened because they are falling in the spam folder. Even if they’re evading it, “Hi screenname, buy some products” is not a way to get people to open your messages.

I’m not really a “how to” blogger (enough people cover that kind of thing), but I do subscribe to a very informative newsletter from eMarketing and Commerce magazine that I highly recommend if you want to know more about that.

I can honestly say that this is one of the worst pieces of eMarketing I’ve ever seen. What I want to know is if you guys have seen worse. Do you get any gawd-awful attempts at eMarketing in your inbox that is just so bad you have to share? Air out that laundry in the comments, it’s time to play show and tell.

25 Words of Social Media Wisdom Project: COMPLETE!

Wondering what that post with the Gonzo picture was all about? Liz Strauss did a “25 Words” project with a bunch of us SOBs, collected them all, and put them into a wonderful presentation. Enjoy!

Many thanks to Liz for putting this together and to all the contributors who made it so interesting!

Will the real rockstars please stand up?

I’ve noticed that these days, the word “rockstar” is thrown about pretty darn freely. There are social media rockstars, rockstar scientists, rockstar entrepreneurs, even rockstar baristas. Essentially, anybody who is popular and good at what they do is anointed the title of “rockstar” by consensus of others in their field. I encounter this in my world of geekery so much that it’s obvious that the true meaning of “rockstar” is completely lost.

This bothers me.

Why? Because I have friends who really are rockstars. Award-winning, touring, genuine rockstars. Who play music. In bands.

And now I don’t know what to call them.

Someone in my geek world asked me not long ago what I did the past weekend, so I said I was “hanging out with my rockstar friends.” They responded with, “Really, what do they do?” So I had to clarify, “They’re musicians. In bands. You know, rockstars. Literally.” The person I was speaking with seemed absolutely astounded that I could say “rockstar” and actually be meaning rockstar in its original context.

This entire situation seems so ironic, especially since the majority of the time I hear “rockstar” it’s referring to somebody who is good with computers or social media or something along those geeky lines.

I’m not suggesting that people change their lexicon and not use the term “rockstar” for people admired in their field. That would be impossible. What I would like, however, is another term to call my real, literally rockstar friends so as to clear up confusion.

So, what should we call real, genuine rockstars now? Nerds?

Photo of Dana Forrester by Michael Spleet.

Verizon, I hope you’re listening.

Recently on Facebook, I posted the story about how Michael Arrington over at TechCruch quit the iPhone. In a nutshell, Arrington loves Google Voice but doesn’t like having two numbers, which is understandable because changing your number is a pain when everybody already has one for you. Soon Google will be introducing number portability, meaning that you can keep your number and transfer it to Google Voice. Well, it turns out that Apple and AT&T are blocking the iPhone app that makes using your one Google Voice number much more seamless between the two.  Says Arrington:

Why? Because they absolutely don’t want people doing exactly what I’m doing – moving their phone number to Google and using the carrier as a dumb pipe.

So I have to choose between the iPhone and Google Voice. It’s not an easy decision. Except, it sort of is. Google isn’t forcing the decision on me, Apple and AT&T are. So I choose to work with the company that isn’t forcing me to do things their way. And in this case, that’s Google.

I have Google Voice now and so far I like it, but I’ll admit that yes, having two numbers is inconvenient.  However, I do not have an iPhone, because my brand loyalty was with Verizon long before it was with Apple. When I posted the story on Facebook, I prefaced it with my own commentary, which was:

I won’t get an iPhone because I refuse to leave Verizon, and I knew that a LOT of iPhone users weren’t happy with AT&T, but whoah … had no idea people were all-out abandoning theirs. I have Google Voice, a different number than my usual one, and now I’m wondering how long it’ll be before I can just transfer my usual number to it.

I had no idea that that little post on Facebook would spark such a conversation among my friends. I know a lot of people who share the same I-love-Apple-but-I-love-Verizon-you-can’t-make-me-switch sentiment as me, but I wasn’t prepared for the comments of some of my friends. Here’s a sampling:

I know, my husband and I just recently had this conversation, and iPhone is cool but I know I cannot beat Verizon! They have proved over and over and over again that they take care of the customers, not to mention the service is great! - Leah McChesney

[My fiancé] & I both have Verizon (LGenV2′s) and we LOVE it. He’s been working in NYC for about 5 years & in that time, we had tried at least 3 different carriers. Verizon is the ONLY company that we didn’t get dropped calls with every five minutes (or less!) I’m sorry, but AT&T SUCKS. I have several friends with iPhones — our calls drop randomly — it’s always THEIR phones dropping the calls, not mine! Even out here in the Poconos, we have friends come to visit & the only company that has a signal consistently out here is Verizon. I’m with them for the long run … I have my iPod Touch … it’s the best of all worlds w/o the pain in the ass service you HAVE to take with the iPhone… – Marilyn

Will have to pry my Verizon service from my cold clammy hands. ATT is the worst. – Michael Spleet

Verizon, are you listening to all this? People love you. People are refusing to get the “Jesus Phone” because they don’t want to give up your service. What are you doing with your marketing to tout this?

I had to Google what Verizon was doing as far as social media. Whaddya know, they have a social media hub that links to their presences elsewhere. Except, I had no idea any of it existed, and I keep up on this kind of stuff. So I decided to take a look at what Verizon was doing on the social web.

The Good News

Verizon has an active community forum where staff and consumers help each other out and discuss things like FAQ, plans, devices, and other products and services. That’s great.

Also, Verizon is blogging. Every day on their PolicyBlog, and at their Verizon At Home blog. Entries look pretty interesting and helpful.

The Bad News

Most entries on the PolicyBlog have zero comments, and they were almost as sparse on the At Home blog. One entry I saw had 24 comments, but the next most popular one had 5, and it went downhill from there.

Nobody is reading them, because nobody knows about them. Here’s why:

Read more