Today, I sat down at my computer and this article caught my attention. (Please read article before reading on). If you find yourself discussing what the future of the Internet should look like, read this article to prepare yourself to debate the ramifications.

The goals and purposes of the future internet are vastly different from several perspectives. What I want to see happen as a human is different from what I want to see as an American, which is also different from what I want to see as a business owner.

The rights I believe I have and want to have are vastly different and the protection I have and want to have are vastly different as well.

It makes me think of the struggles the Founding Fathers must have had determining how to best build a new nation, dividing our rights and responsibilities to several levels of entities and people.

The internet needs a collection of Founding Fathers to take us from the equivalent of the short-lived US Continental Congress to the United State of America that has survived and thrived for centuries. We need brave pioneers who will lead the way and pave a new path. Our future security depends on it.

If you could shape the future Internet, what would you do? How would you go about it? What unalienable rights would you provide and what governmental structures should support it?

UPDATE:

We’ve started receiving feedback already! Here is a snippet from a great submission by Andrew Herkert.

“I would propose a round table, even within the next month or two… and maybe keep something rolling that could increase the collective consciousness a bit.” – Andrew Herkert

Oops! We could not locate your form.

The post The Internet of Tomorrow appeared first on SMCPros.

me: “Good morning sunshine!”

Andrew Herkert: “It’s a beautiful day in paradise, Tyler!”

me: “It is. Blue Sky. Warm. Life is good”

Andrew Herkert: “You know, we should go jump in Lake Calhoun to celebrate this great December day”

me: “That sounds awesome, Andrew. Let’s do it!”

Andrew Herkert: “Great, how about after lunch?”

me: “Done.”

After this call, I immediately sent an e-mail to our whole team to invite them along. Matt (http://smcpros.com/matt-mudra/) , Dan (http://smcpros.com/about/dan-antonson/), and Nisha (http://smcpros.com/nisha-adamietz/) chose to make time in their full schedules for an hour-long adventure. That adventure was recorded and ended up in the news. We now have a story of us swimming in December in Minnesota on a whim that we can enjoy forever, and there’s proof. 

The busier you are and the harder you work, the more important it is to invest time into taking adventures and doing things that excite you.  It makes the night and weekend hours worthwhile. It creates stronger connections with friends, co-workers, and clients. All things considered, it keeps us human. 

If you ever have an opportunity and need somebody to join on short notice.. I’ll usually say yes

Feel free to save my number (952-232-5172) for when that day comes.. and maybe we’ll have the opportunity to invite local news stations we have connections with like this time. 

The post The Importance of Making Time for Adventures appeared first on SMCPros.

1. Kik Messenger

 Kik allows business professionals to stay connected via text messaging. Kik arrived on the app market in October 2010 as a rival to the regular text message boasting all-new features: 

-Group chats

-Delivery notifications every step of the way: “S” for sent, “D” for delivered to recipient, “R” for read.

-Free Kik-to-Kik communication

-Emoticon Library

-Super-fast delivery system

-Push notifications

Today, many of these features come standard on the iPhone and Android devices. However, there’s a reason why Kik reached #1 in free social apps in iTunes this July: everyone using Kik has the same features. No longer do we need to fight over Android vs. iPhone. Kik erases the disparities and allows individuals to communicate in harmony.

 2. Mint.com Personal Finance

Mint is a free way to manage your money wherever you are. You can track where you’re spending, where you can save and you can categorize all of your transactions for easy budgeting.

Mint allows you to view all of your accounts in once place, and every transaction you make is automatically pulled into the app and categorized. Not to mention, you’ll know how much you have left to spend – Mint creates a customized budget based on your account expenditures.

 3. BashPal

Great business begins with REAL networking. SMCpros developed BashPal for a Minneapolis media event that was full of industry thought-leaders.

We’ve all made a solid connection at an event like this and forgotten important talking points, last names, even a business card. BashPal eliminates those missed opportunities.

At the event, each attendee inputted his or her contact information on BashPal’s Facebook page and wore a QR code that could be scanned by other attendees when they met. From there, the attendee could type a few notes and go back and review his or her new contacts, and reconnect accordingly.

BashPal lets you keep and remember all of your valuable connections in one place. That new golden business opportunity? It’s yours.

The post 3 Apps That Help Professionals appeared first on SMCPros.

I sit on the Minneapolis Workforce Advisory Council and, at this morning’s council meeting, we discussed the current trends in the local workforce environment. Talent gaps exist in the manufacturing, construction, and healthcare industries. Incidentally, there has also been a shift in marketing talent over the last decade. This topic surprised nearly everybody (except for me).

While visiting the offices of marketing agencies in recent years, walls have moved a lot. The design, creative, packaging, and other “right-brain” departments have massively shrunk while development, analytics, and other “left-brain” departments and businesses have flourished. If you add up the numbers of developers that some of the fastest growing development shops in town, (MentorMate, The Nerdery, etc.) you’ll see they are collectively are adding hundreds of developers to their staff each year.

The agencies that are not transitioning from “right-brain” marketing to “left-brain” marketing are struggling. A few of the largest marketing agencies in town have gone under in recent years and others are on the brink. I’m concerned about the marketing industry in the Twin Cities because there simply are not enough developers and analysts in town to meet the demands of Fortune 500’s and other businesses.

Educators, industry leaders, government officials, the marketing industry need your help. We need more people passionate about technology and the science of marketing. If we don’t see an immediate and long-term shift in our educational and training programs, we’re going to have to start outsourcing jobs outside of our communities in order to meet the demand of our clients.

The reason SMCpros is on pace to triple this year, and we’re budgeting to triple our business yet again next year, is because our company is predicated on “left-brain” marketing and case studies that showcase the results we build. If you haven’t seen our case studies, feel free to peruse our website to find them. Check back soon because we have another 10 or so case studies in the works we hope to have live in the next month.

Lastly (warning: soft pitch approaching), SMCpros is committed to training our marketing community on “left-brain” marketing. If you’d like to support us in that endeavor and work with us to produce results for your marketing efforts, you can reach me at 952-232-5172.

Thanks,

Tyler

The post Marketing: An art or a science? appeared first on SMCPros.

As Gary Stockert, our business development manager, now mentions in every interview of new prospective team members, SMCpros is a very intimidating place to work. I only hire the best of the best people I can find. I look for extraordinary talent… and when I find it, I’ll usually hire that person faster than I should. With such an incredibly strong team, I have learned that I need to continuously learn and adapt at an accelerating rate.

As an extraordinarily competitive person, it’s important to me to always try to stay ahead of everybody and be on the front lines of all of the latest changes to social media. As our time gets larger, faster, more efficient, and our skillsets broaden… I’m realizing that I have to eventually give in. I have to give in that our team will be faster and better than me and no matter how many hours I work, I will not be able to keep up with them. Ironically, this creates both a sense of deep pride and a sense of deep humbleness.

Every day, I’m excited to wake up and help our team grow both personally and professionally as well as help our clients make money through social marketing. And I couldn’t be happier about it – or more humbled.

What is the latest thing you have learned?

The post Tyler Olson: Learning to be confidently humble appeared first on SMCPros.

-          Nothing has changed.
-          Relationships still matter.
-          They will always matter.

For many thousands of years, communication has always been a dialogue. For the last 50 years, Marketing Agencies converted communication to a one way street. The technology is finally here to truly have that communication, that dialogue. Are you there?

We are a new paradigm

We exist:
-          To open people’s eyes
-          To push borders and boundaries
-          To experience this new world where anything is possible

Where we go from here is a choice we leave to you

- SMCpros

The post What we stand for appeared first on SMCPros.

Yes, I am a biased opinion. I am convinced though that social media is one of the most effective ways of reaching a large audience. Additionally, social media represents a new twist in Marketing, everything said on social media is permanently archived forever in an easy to search manner. Talk about what a PR nightmare it could turn into! Every piece of content said is permanently attached to your brand image.

When I hear people say they are excited that they found an unpaid intern or low-paid intern to manage their social media and help them get into the 21^st century, I know it is already too late to educate them on the dangers this provides their business. The primary question I wish I had the opportunity to ask them point-blank one month prior:

When you think about your company brand that you’ve worked so hard to establish, how do you want to continue it? In a concentrated professional manner, or in a haphazard way that might occur with a low paid (or free) intern who might leave you in a few weeks. Most companies say they want consistency of message and of delivery. They want to be confident that the words that go out about their company are well-thought out. Because social media is quite new to a lot of companies, many don’t know that there is no “undo button” in social media?

How much do YOU want to risk? With SMCPros you can be confident every move is planned and focused on making you look good to your customers and prospects. Our methods are tried and proven successful. We are way past guessing what works. So I ask again: How much do you want to risk?

Having said this, please, be careful.

The post Taking on a Social Media intern appeared first on SMCPros.

Robert Stephens, founder of Geek Squad, spoke at an EO event this past week at the James J Hill library on the topic of Social Media. He also stressed the importance and power of the web. As technology evolution continues to accelerate, more and more of what we do is going to be digitally recorded and archived. In the near future, life will be video-recorded and broadcasted everywhere we go (as it already can be). What does this mean in the privacy debates, speed of life issues, the ADD surge in young people? I don’t know. But technology is quickly and gracefully macro-evolving the way life works.

I am very interested to know your thoughts on whether these things concern you, excite you, and what you plan on doing with this.

The post The Digital Age appeared first on SMCPros.

How does one talk about the demographics of the global population? It’s almost useless information when trying to talk about its utility as a marketing tool.

Here’s my take on the importance of Social Media demographics to business:
- There are approximately 6.8 billion people on earth (1)
- There are approximately 1.7 billion people on earth with access to the internet (2)
- There are approximately 350 million registered members on Facebook (3)
- There are approximately 175 million registered members on Facebook who are on Facebook every single day (4)

In short, that means that 10% of all internet users in the world login to Facebook every single day. And, if you only are interested in marketing in the United States, the number is far higher than that.

In sum, the answer to the question typically is, “Yes, your target market is on social media, they use it, and they use it frequently!”

*Statistics based on Wikipedia

The post Facebook Demographics appeared first on SMCPros.

On Sunday Evening, I was up late finally taking action to meet that goal.

There is always more with Social Media I want to accomplish, however, it’s about the amount of time I want to spend, what should happen in what order, and thinking through what my goals of a campaign are going to be ahead of time.

For this campaign, my objective was to see how many people I could get interested in what SMCpros has to offer within one day. I spent around 45 minutes planning and implementing the campaign.

We will know more about how the final web traffic count turned out tomorrow. However, Sunday had a significant spike and I didn’t start the campaign until 10:51pm.

By the end of the evening, I had 12 emails that I can directly attribute to this LinkedIn campaign and 3 phone calls, one of which I almost closed a deal.

I always remind people that they should not expect to break-even on their first day working with us – but even I am amazed at how often we can achieve such extraordinary results in a short amount of time.

What’s your most recent Social Media success story? We’d love to hear from you.

The post 100 LinkedIn Connections in 24 hours appeared first on SMCPros.