Mike Abasov

Always have an opinion. Ask yourself what your gut feeling is saying, what you think about this and that, if it is good or bad. Then analyze. Then answer.

Don’t brag about your decision just yet, because you might be wrong, and you don’t want to show that to everyone. But reevaluate and review your opinion later, when more information becomes available.

Some times, you will be completely wrong. Some times, you will be right. But what is more important is that through this process you will train yourself, learn and improve your cognitive skills, as well as intuition.

Later, when you get experience, more knowledge, and access to inside information, your judgements will improve dramatically. And this is crucial for any of your decisions.

So is Blackberry Playbook going to kill Apple iPad? What do you think?

Social media influence your business. No matter what industry you’re in.

It’s easy to say that “my business doesn’t need this,” but it’s not true anymore. Any brand, any product, any idea are now influenced by social media. To make a good example, lets look at things that don’t even need branding — commodities.

Commodities used to be unbranded for the longest time, but this changed too. Here are 2 examples.

1. Diamonds. A complete commodity on the wholesale level. But suddenly, the word spreads about blood diamonds, and our perception shifts. Suddenly, Canadian diamonds are better than African. Surprisingly, a commodity turns into a brand and generates more revenues than ever before. All through word of mouth communications, which in essence are social media.

2. Oil. You though you couldn’t care less where it comes from. But suddenly, the word “spill” rings the bell in a much different way than before. Influence from social media? Tremendous! BP failed big time on this particular arena.

So yes, in the world where even commodities can be greatly influenced by social media, you consumer (or B2B, or personal) brand is even more affected. And there is no more time left for hesitations.

In Canada, there are Disaster Response Routes, roads that will be used by emergency vehicles in case of a disaster, such as an earthquake. These will save time of getting to the injured people, evacuating the city or other important missions. These routs will save lives. You can read more about them at the government website.

But this blog is not about transportation system. This blog is about marketing. And in your personal or corporate marketing, you gotta have Disaster Response Routes too.

What are you going to do, if something goes wrong? if you lose your job? if you get a lot of negative PR? What steps are you going to make? What road are you going to go?

Ask yourself these questions and think about the answers. Having your Disaster Response Routes can save you time and efforts of getting back on track, when something unpredictable happens.

A newbie designer is amazed by snowflakes falling from the top of a website. An amateur webmaster loves songs playing out loud and flashy intros. A teenage boy gets impressed when he sees big… well, you got the point.

The fact is that we are easily fascinated with things when we are new to the field and have no experience. As we spend time discovering new and better alternatives, we learn, and our expectations change. In order for a business to keep customers excited, it has to come up with new products, new marketing tools, new blog posts.

Well, everyone knows that. The critical point here is that all these things have to be not only new but also better, geekier, richer, more awesome, more gourmet, etc. Businesses have to follow customers’ expectations as their experience and knowledge keep improving.

This is why Starbucks introduced Dark Cherry Mocha. This is why Apple makes Magic TrackPad. This is why, if you can’t improve yourself as fast as your customers evolve, you will loose them.