Orangejack LLC

Text messaging has grown from 17 million to almost 2 trillion this decade.

I’m not shocked by this. In Asia, Europe, and Africa, texting is perhaps the most common use for a cell phone.

Do you use your mobile phone for texting?  If so, why?

Chart from Anne Jackson

My online presence has shifted and changed over time.  It seems to always be changing — and that’s not necessarily a bad thing either.  Let me walk you through how I’ve been online (my personal brand) and the changes that have taken place.  I’ve observed some fundamental shifts and I think it’s worth sharing.

August 2001 - Created a Website

It was time to venture onto the web full-time.  I had been online in chat rooms and discussion boards, but not my own brand anywhere.  So in August I registered this domain name - orangejack.com.  The short version of why that name was that my name was already taken so I needed to get creative.  I picked my favorite color (orange) then the first inanimate object I could think of.  I thought of a jack.  A new brand was born.

At this time I wanted a website that I could play with, learn more about design and technology, and see if I could use it to connect with others by publishing articles and asking for an email reply.  Connection and communication was my goal from the begging.

July 2004 - Began to Blog

I began to learn about a new technology and way of communicating.  It was called a blog and so I created an account with blogger.com (later to be purchased by Google and co-named Blogspot).  I kept the branding the same by getting orangejack.blogspot.com and made a commitment to write something every day for a month.  I found the concept of blogging a very interesting way to connect.  A blog made it faster to publish articles and allowed engagement right on the site! Doing it every day got me into the habit of publishing.  I also did a lot of reading of other people’s blogs to learn more.  I asked other bloggers questions and just kept on going.

It all started with this little post on July 6, 2004 called “Red Trucks”:

This weekend I went to the local Lowe’s hardware store. My wife and I have a running joke that “the truck goes to Home Depot”. This weekend, it was Lowe’s instead. Oh, my truck? It’s a ‘96 Nissan Pickup…and it’s red!

So anyway, I went to Lowe’s this weekend. I pulled up into the parking lot and parked. And what to my wandering eyes should appear? 5 other red pickup trucks! And they were all parked together. I found it quite humorous. I parked beside a red Ford. Across from me was a red Dodge. On the other side of me was a red Toyota. There were two other red pickups that I couldn’t tell what they were.

So I guess others feel the same way…the truck goes to the hardware store!

August 2004 - Live Blogging/Crisis Blogging

Things changed fast only one month later when the summer of hurricanes began in Florida.  I decided on a whim to blog straight through Hurricane Charley as it came right over our house.  It was crazy!  We were on wifi but it kept going in and out when we’d have a power blip.  So I composed emails offline in Outlook and mailed them on dialup to ensure it being posted.  You can actually go through the hurricane archives on the old blog.  They are still there.  Maybe my all-time favorite comment came from an anonymous man:

Hi there… My family and I live in Texas and are in no danger of Frances, but we have been glued to your Blog - that we came across by going to random blogs - since this frances started rearing her ugly head… Just thought we’d throw out a random thanks for a more human side of the picture… even as we sat on the edge of our seats and even argued as to what the thump was outside the boarded up window…. anytway, thanks for the coverage.

September 2004 - Sequential Series/2nd Blog

I was really getting the hang of blogging so I created Orangejack Blogging University, a series of posts interlinked to help someone begin blogging.  It became quite popular and I’ve thought about doing it again someday.

Also in September I began a new blog that changed the way I thought about creating posts.  At the time I would occasionally write about online marketing and how it effects ministry (I was a missionary at the time).  When I posted something on my blog I would put it into a category.  However, I began to realize that if I spun the “marketing” category out into a new blog, I would serve two audiences better.  My friends visiting my personal blog didn’t necessarily care about marketing.  My marketing friends didn’t necessarily care about my personal ramblings.  The way I thought about it was if I were to write something and put it in the “marketing” category, I would instead go to that blog and post it there instead.

March 2005 - Building a Conference Blog

One of the projects I was working on at the time was an International conference to be held in Budapest.  I thought it would be interesting to try and create a conference website all on blogspot.com.  It went a bit against what a blog is usually about, but realizing that each post has it’s own unique web address, I realized with a little manipulation and hard coding I could turn it into a regular conference website!  It was a fun tool to use to build and get some excitement from others who were going to attend.  People “met” each other before they got there!

June 2005 - No More DreamWeaver

I finally changed all of my sites into blogs powered by the free software from Wordpress.org.  It was a great move as I gained much more flexibility in what the sites could look like, but also easier to communicate.  I was now running three blogs off of Wordpress: my personal blog (rob.orangejack.com), my family blog (orangejack.com), and my work blog.

January 2006 - Joined Flickr

Flickr.com was the first social network I joined not counting blogging.  In fact, Flickr is really a photo blog and that’s how I use Flickr - that and to archive or show photos from a trip.  What was interesting here is that I was not just having a way to deposit content online, but I was connecting with people and associating myself with others as connections.

May 2006 - Created Flickr Groups

In Flickr one can join different groups.  I found one called “Orlando, FL” which was for photos of Orlando.  I thought, “what about the people in Orlando?”  So I created a group called “Central Florida Flickrs“.  About 2 years later we have 600+ members, 12,000+ photos shared, and almost 200 discussion posts.  What was so interesting about this was how we as members started to play games in the group by posting photos that related to another photo.  Then people started organizing meetups to go shooting together.  I really began to see something that was just a “group” turn into a “community”.

June 2006 - Joined Facebook

Facebook was the first community website I joined that worked.  I got on MySpace long before but didn’t find it to be a great place for me to connect.  Facebook was different.  It was clean and provided all the tools I needed to connect and communicate with others.  However, the thing I didn’t and still don’t like is that in order to participate you have to join.  I like the openness of having blogs so anyone can stop by and interact, not just members.  However Facebook has recently updated their design bringing huge improvements to communication there.  I’ll post about this later.

July 2006 - Joined Twitter

I didn’t know what to make of Twitter at first.  Microblogging was a strange concept - to communicate in less than 140 characters?  When I could write a blog post and host the conversation?  After using Twitter a while I realized that the conversation still took place and it was so much faster than creating a blog.  I could get short thoughts published in an instant.  What I’ve taken away from the microblog concept is that conversations can be faster and happen in bursts, not initiated by an “article”.

February 2008 - Share Blog

One of the things I love to do on my personal blog is share things I find online interesting.  In fact, this is one of the concepts I have for starting a blog.  Instead of forwarding silly emails to a bunch of people, I’d publish them on a blog and let the visitors find it if they wanted to.  I began to play with Tumblr and its ability to automatically import items and post items there fast.  But a few months later Google Reader, a tool I use to keep up with websites, made sharing my favorite items more robust.  The only trouble with a share blog is that it doesn’t really host a conversation.  It’s more of a “FYI” or “Hey, check this out” kind of site.

March 2008 - FriendFeed

Now a new site is available that has the potential to turn everything back around.  Friendfeed will take all of my online presence sites and aggregate it into one place.  That is very convenient.  In addition, each item brought into my Friendfeed allows comments and conversation.  And even more, I can just post something directly to Friendfeed.  In this sense, it’s like a message board where I post new items to it (directly or imported from other sites) and others can comment.

August 2008 - Analyzing the Trends

I actually started writing this long post a month ago then sat on it.  I knew it wasn’t done.  Yesterday I finally wrote about some of the evolution of online communication on my personal blog.   This is an on-going stroy but I find it facinating.

In honor of today being Independence Day in the US, I decided to “rewrite” or update the Declaration of Independence. It was a great and eye-opening experience to dig into that document deeper and try and update it for today. I really learned a lot about it. I tried to keep the document true to it’s nature and tone, just a little more modernized in its language. It’s over on my personal blog. Enjoy.

When we were looking for a bank to do business with when opening up Orangejack LLC, I stopped by a few local banks to inquire about their services. Let me tell you about how I visited three banks and because of one factor my decision was simple.

On the second day of checking out banks (I’ll get to the first day in a moment) I had two local banks within very short driving distances I wanted to visit. I went to the first bank and met a customer service representative who I suppose is there to help people go where they need to. I told her I wanted to learn about their offerings for a small business account. She handed me a folder with a lot of information in it and told me a few things but I wasn’t sure if she was talking to me as her head was on a swivel and I’m sure a few sentences that I thought were meant for me were actually for someone else. I thanked her and walked out. She never even asked me what my name is.

The second bank was a bit better as they politely connected me with a rep in an office. He went over some of their options and they didn’t sound fine. I wanted him to not just go over the numbers with me but to talk to me and help me in my decision making process. He didn’t so after about 10 minutes of him talking and asking little questions about me I finally thanked him and stood up. He stood, held out his hand to shake and asked me my name. Oops! Too late!

I was done in 30 minutes including drive time with 2 banks. I mention these first to show you what NOT to do. Now let me go back to the first day of looking.

There is a local bank that is at least 5 banks further from my house but it’s in a town center that we frequent. I stopped in Washington Mutual Bank (or WaMu as they call themselves now) and met Cathy. The first thing she did was extend her hand to shake mine, tell me her name, and ask me for mine. We sat down at her desk, she was personable and friendly. We talked for about 45 minutes not because it took that long to go over the banking options, but because she valued me as a person. Needless to say after my other banking experiences we went with WaMu and I couldn’t be happier.

When we went to open our account I told Cathy that I chose WaMu because she asked me my name from the start. That communicated more than anything else. Obviously if their service was not as good as others we wouldn’t go there, but when faced with a choice of comparable products and services we went with the one who cared about us as people.

I guarantee these principles apply to your online marketing and interaction.

What do you do when you are trying to decide between two similar products or services? I would suspect you are like me and you’ll put the options side by side to compare the features and price. We place value on each feature and if you’re lucky, you can even try them out for free to see what you think.

I found myself in this process evaluating two different free time tracking websites to help me stay organized when working on several different projects. SlimTimer.com offers a great, free, and simple time tracking with a web interface. It works great. Does what I want it to do. And it’s come recommended to me before.

Then a couple weeks ago I ran across another site that met my same requirements at Paymo.biz. It does everything SlimTimer does but it at least seemed better. Then I ran into a slight problem so I emailed the Paymo team late on a Tuesday afternoon. First thing Wednesday morning I had a prompt reply from a person (not an auto-generated reply) who actually read my email and answered it personally with solutions and tips!

It turns out that Paymo offers a download that works with the site that I liked better. But that wasn’t the point. I loved that they replied reasonably fast (within 2 business hours though it was overnight) and dealt with me as a person. That is why customer service is important. With both services being relatively equal, I’m going with the one that gave me a great human interaction — a social relationship.

To be fair, I have not tried to contact SlimTimer so I’m not saying they do not have good customer service. What I am saying is that when everything seemed rather equal, I went with the one that treated me well.

When you are thinking about your online presence be sure to place a high level of importance on customer service. In fact, I don’t even like calling it that. I prefer to think of it as relationship building, social engagement, or just treating people like people. With the social media tools we have available today there is no reason you can’t stay engaged with people and it’s bound to help your business.

When my wife and I were thinking through a tag line for our small business, Orangejack LLC, we had several options that didn’t stick.  In case you weren’t aware, this is the tag line we are currently using:

• Improving your business online

A few that didn’t pass were:

• Improving your online business
• Helping you use the web well
• Web Strategy for small businesses
• Consulting & Training for Internet Strategy , Marketing, & Blogging

The last one actually is the title of the homepage as it’s a bit more descriptive than the others.  The first one is interesting because the order of the last two words changes everything.  The other two, though true, didn’t feel complete.

But the one that I’ve since thought about that I’m sure wouldn’t work well is:

• We do webby things

It’s funny enough, but I don’t think it fully communicates.  Or maybe it does.  What do you think?  Did we land on the right one?

The following is taken from an email I recently wrote and I liked it so much I wanted to share it with you too:

In basic economy, the role of marketing is to connect a service or product with a person who needs or wants that offering. Over time the way marketers share the offerings has changed.

The best example of this is with television commercials. In the 1940s and 50s the actors on the show would talk to the viewing audience to pitch a product. Soon marketers decided they’d rather control the message with more creative aspects. Today, TiVo has given the ability for viewers to completely skip the commercials. So how are marketers to respond to the changes in technology?

It takes a creative strategy to know how to reach your intended audience. Today people are connecting with each other online, creating social networks where they share their lives, thoughts, and opinions. So I believe the question is now about strategically creating a plan to reach them. They, in turn, will share with their networks. Internet technology has caught up in allowing people to return to word-of-mouth marketing.

I have six years of Internet marketing experience. Starting with traditional search engine optimization, I continued by moving down the social media path. I followed the principle of “go where your market is”. I learned by getting heavily involved in social networks such as Blogging, Facebook, LinkedIN, Flickr, and Twitter among others. Additionally I have created online communities for niche-oriented people. During this time I have traveled the world to train others about these opportunities.

I would love the opportunity to talk with you further about how the web has changed and the direction it is going. Leave a comment or feel free to connect with me.

Today I had the privilege of being invited back to my previous employer to participate in a training session for some new online community owners. While I was still working at CCCI, our office released a community-based intranet (for a lack of better terms) and I’ve had several years experience running, planning, and testing communities in this environment. I was invited to share my experiences with a few new community owners.

Instead of doing a full power-point presentation I tried something a little different and risky — I just put this photo up on the screen and then interacted with the group for the next 20 minutes.

I chose this photo because it sets the tone for how to run an effective online community. In this photo are two guys, one from Spain, the other from Germany, sitting over coffee and cake having a conversation in England. Among a few of the questions I asked the group were “what do these guys have in common” and “how did these two meet in the place to have this conversation?”

It was a conference several of us attended for our European staff to learn how to be more effective using the Internet. The context was something familiar to us - coffee, conversation, and a conference. I then started asking them how would one go about creating the same thing in a new context online?

Then one person nailed it! She said, “I would think that planning a conference and planning a community would be about the same. You need a purpose, you need to find the right people, and you need a good place to have it”.

And that was the point. Taking conversations and interactions online still requires the same underlying principles we already know. It’s different online a bit to be sure, but at it’s root, it’s still the same.

A friend of mine told me about an article he read talking about how the youth of today aren’t using email, but using mobile phones for text messaging instead. He was pondering if I thought that email could be dying out.

I say no. In fact, I see an even bigger role for email as social networks expand.

Here’s some of what I wrote back:

The more we build our personal networks the more scattered we become. I can go to Facebook and interact. I can go to Twitter and interact. I can go to LinkedIN and interact. And other people’s blogs. And Flickr. And I wonder what websites my friends Digg or StumbleUpon or save in del.icio.us.

Oh, and some of my friends in my network aren’t on any of those places (read: my dad). Oh, hi dad.

So how am I going to tie my network together? My inbox. It’s been our social netowking hub since the early days of the interwebs and I think we’re going to go back to it even more. It’s the one place that I can get a notification from every service I’m a part of and notifications from people not in those social networks. It’s the hub for communicating and notification. Just about every social network, including blogs, can send email to my specified account.

Sure we can use SMS or blogs or Facebook or others as our hub, but that limits the network. And some people don’t have a hub. They just manage everything in other ways.
So if the inbox is the hub, then the real trick is keeping it organized by filtering out spam, sorting email by topic and response, and keeping the inbox clean.

A cleanly managed inbox will be a topic for another day on 170spoons.com — you can count on that!