This week a piece of Syracuse University notepad paper hosted the eclectic list of things I learned throughout the last 7 days. Special thanks to my cousin Fedora for the notepad, and away we go.

• Clearly I am not the only one having problems with the Cardmunch app from LinkedIn. This is evident from blog posts like this one and numerous threads in their support forum.
• Though Ron May may no longer be of this mortal coil, his eponymous Chicago tech news site The May Report lives on, now under the guidance of his brother Paul. And they have an RSS feed.
• Last week I mentioned about Jason Jacobsohn’s Chicagoland Entrepreneur Events newsletter, which is a bonus for signing up for his main newsletter. Follow the preceding link and you can subscribe to it directly, though you really will want to read both of them.
• Living in Chicago made it hard to not hear about the story of Vivian Mayer, whose amazing talent for photography was only found after she defaulted on payments for a storage unit and her subsequent death. That being said, I had never really experienced her work up until that past weekend when I saw an exhibit on her at the Chicago History Museum - simply amazing.
• There are a number of blogs who could benefit from having a CentUp button on their site. And when I say benefit, I mean earn money from readers.
• Though past performance may be the best indicator of future performance, there is certainly no guarantee of it. This I learned the hard way when my New England Patriots lost the AFC Championship game and will not be going to the Super Bowl next week. Thanks for an awesome season, though.
• I was talking with a colleague about hard drive storage and the accompanying picture of a magazine cover from PhotoMedia Magazine from Spring, 2006 came to mind. As she hadn’t heard about it, I searched it down – I did not recall the name of the publication only the photo itself – and found it, and thought someone may have missed it too.
• Sears is closing its State Street, Chicago store. As someone who lives so close to it, the store was not a regular shopping trip, but we made many household purchases there, had some awesome photos taken of our kids before the portrait studio was shuddered, and bought the outfits my kids wore home from the hospital after they were born. Sears was also upfront on Twitter when I tweeted about the closing, kudos on this.
• The Commonwealth of Massachusetts – my home state – blocked the sale of Apple stock to its residents when they went public. I learned this from Jonathan Hoenig when I included him on a tweet thread about crowdfunding and risk with Len and Griffin.
• If the windshield of your 2013 Honda Odyssey is covered with snow, make sure to close the driver’s side door before you turn on the wipers.
• In keeping with a new closing video theme… I learned that as many times as you see the Too Hot To Handel concert it never gets old, and this past weekend was my 7th time. What is it? Watch this video on YouTube or watch it embedded below.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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There has been a lot of talk and activity about encouraging more young women to enter the technology fields, whether engineering or software or any technical role. Much of the reason for the outside effort is that girls and young women are not typically encouraged to enter these fields.

When I first started hearing about these kind of efforts, I was initially surprised, namely as I have had the good fortune to work with many women over the years in software development and Web technology. Where when many think of the traditional “geek” it is a guy, there have been many women I would also consider geeks, and if I told them to their face, they would probably agree with me!

Perhaps maybe I am an anomaly, for as I pull back and see the big picture, I do see there are many more men in tech, whether it’s in the leadership within a company or within the industry overall. I haven’t studied this area in great detail as to statistics or even why there may be people discouraging women from getting into technology. For the more I think about it, I am not surprised that teachers, guidance counselors or even parents or family may discourage someone from taking classes in a subject area, as this was something I encountered myself.

I Don’t Know How to Touch Type

All that you are reading here, including the infrastructure and front-end code that presents my writings here on The Hot Iron, were entered into a keyboard with just my index fingers, plus my thumbs on the spacebar. Seriously, I don’t know how to touch type, and not only did I never take a class in high school to learn how to, but I was encouraged not to.

Though I was using computers back in junior high school, had my own computer at home and even did my first consulting gig for the assistant superintendent of my school system plus it was overall no secret I was into computers, the fact I should probably learn to touch type did not come naturally to my guidance counselors in high school. Their reasoning? As I was on the “college track” in high school, this was not a recommended course to take, and typing – which was offered in school – was encouraged for those not going into college and rather right into the workforce. Seriously, that was the thinking in the early 1980’s. I never did fight this, for by that point I had been typing this way for several years now.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not anything that has ever haunted me as a decision. I have managed to get by with just 40% of my digits on the keyboard and I am actually quite quick at typing this way. The reason why I remember this is because people, upon watching me type, will always ask me why I don’t touch type. As the question comes up almost as frequently as to why I sign my email messages as I do, it is a story that is readily accessible. Over the years I could have taken a typing class but never even made an effort to do so, as I am not sure how much different it would have made. Of course I am not saying this “guidance” led me down a different path, but it is a small example of the types of influences that are out there.

Expose To Most All, Let Them Decide

The more I think of this effort, the more I believe in it. As a parent, I don’t want to purposely hold back my kids from any career or activity decision, providing I can afford it. Though this is nothing I am worried about now, for right now my oldest first needs to learn to read, and my youngest needs to finish potty training! But by the time they are older, hopefully there won’t be a need for organizations like Ms. Tech and the many others, for opportunities will be chosen based on your interest, not negative outside influences.

I welcome you to share any stories – positive or negative or even anecdotal – on this subject in the comments to this post.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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So that I wouldn’t forget anything, I decided to carry around a piece of paper with me, or rather a leftover envelope from our over-order of Christmas cards. Looking back on the week, I picked up a few useful pieces of knowledge, as well as some random information. So here goes.

• You can get Hood Dairy coffee creamers in the Midwest. Hood is a New England brand I grew up with and have never seen them outside of that area.
• I took my very first-ever yoga class this week, and I don’t know why I never did it before. It was awesome for my mind and my body. The class is an introduction to yoga offered by Tejas Yoga in Chicago’s South Loop, and where I can’t make it next week, this is something I want to make a regular part of my week.
• If you sign-up for Jason Jacobsohn’s Networking Insight newsletter, a great resource for networking tips, he will also put you on his Chicagoland Entrepreneur Events newsletter, listing the latest events for tech start-ups in the area.
• The 2014 Liver Life Walk to support the American Liver Foundation’s Great Lakes Chapter will be on SATURDAY, June 14, and The “A” Team is already registered.
• The days when neighbors who are having a party invite you as a courtesy, whether they want you to really come or you yourself want to go, are apparently over.
• I found the perfect Valentine’s Day gift for my wife, or at least I hope it is. As she reads The Hot Iron I will not mention what it is, but if you ask me, and promise not to tell her, I will share.
• In a conversation with Nan this week she said something we were talking about was not anything she would “die on the hill” over. I had never heard of that before, but I plan to use it.
• I had been seeing these winter coats with a small circle emblem and I had no idea what it says or what brand it was. Then one day at Mariano’s someone at the checkout in front of me had one and I was able to read it was Canada Goose. I had never heard of them, and where it may be a nice coat and all, I am sticking with my LL Bean which is about a quarter of the cost.
• Try calling a health insurance company and tell them they have been sending insurance materials, including insurance cards and statements, to someone at your home address who has never lived there. Not to mention they have been doing this for over a year and you have marked everything “return to sender, no such addressee” and put it back in the mail. You guessed it, they had no idea what to do with my call.
• There are politics of work, politics of play and even politics of choirs, but I’ll take The Politics of Dancing any day – enjoy this 80’s video below or watch it on YouTube and have a nice weekend!

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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If a day goes by where you don’t learn something new, what good is it really? Sometimes that new nugget of knowledge is welcomed and cherished, and sometimes it is scary as all hell and you wished you didn’t know it. Nonetheless, learning is what we do on this journey of life, whether we like it or not.

As this is the first “normal” Friday of the 2014, I have decided to start writing what I have learned in the previous week. As it is already 10 days into January, I will also include what I learned since New Year’s, and maybe a thing or 2 from the holidays.

So here goes:

• You know those latches that you put on your hotel room door at night? Do you think they are completely foolproof and nobody can get by them? I learned the hard way that you can, with a few pieces of paper and this creepy video on YouTube.
• There is a Village of Lakemoor, Illinois and they have red light cameras.
• While everybody is talking about how fast food employees don’t make enough money, do you know how much – or little – your child’s daycare teachers make? Or the person flying the airplane you are on now? As I have no links for this, it was based on personal conversations.
• I was not the only person waiting for the Hug Train when it pulled into Chicago last week. It was great meeting Molly and of course great seeing Arie again.
• I have always said you shouldn’t get used to a desk (and have thought of writing about that fact here at The Hot Iron) but I got a lot of work done this week back at OfficePort Chicago. Thanks to James, Shaul and Mike for allowing me to come back every so often to be productive and social! And if you are looking for co-working space in Chicago, you must check out OfficePort for yourself.
• With all of the problems Southwest Airlines had over the last week with snowstorms, delays and baggage handlers, one area where they really shined was with social media. I was able to rebook flights for family via Twitter direct messages. Seriously, and direct messages only! Thanks to Verity at Southwest for your help.
• Underground nuclear tests were done in Mississippi.
• There is something called krav maga and it is good for you.
• Recent start-ups in Chicago can allow me to: get my dry cleaning picked up and delivered within an hour of requesting it with Dryv, donate clothing and other items to Goodwill via UPS with Give Back Box, listen to the local news in a podcast-like format with Rivet News Radio, and if I had a store with ever-changing inventory I could easily maintain a Web site of it with Live Storefronts. I am exploring all of these services more and hope to write up more on them.

Maybe you learned something new yourself? Please share your thoughts in the comments of this post.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Editor’s Note – This is a guest post from CT Moore, a recovering agency hack who helps brand leverage search and social media to meet their business goals online. By day, he heads up Search and Social at Publikit, a boutique web dev agency in Montreal, and also runs Socialed, a digital consultancy that provides digital strategy to both start-ups and multinational brands alike. You can find out more about him through his personal blog.

Aha! Another year is about to come to close and a new one will soon begin. And if you’re any kind of marketer (or business person for that matter), you’ve probably started thinking about what you could start doing in 2014, or at least do better in 2014 than you did in 2013.

Well, if that’s the mind frame you’ve been in, I’d like to suggest 3 potential New Year’s Resolutions that you should probably apply toward your upcoming marketing efforts. I have to warn you, though: if you’ve already made up your mind on how to tackle things in 2014 and aren’t open to feedback, you should probably read no further — I’ll just end up saying “I told you so” ;)

#1 OWN Your Media

Paid media is the placement you pay for: ads, commercials, etc. Earned media is the PR and social media wins you get from doing awesome stuff and providing great customer service.

Owned media, however, is the stuff you produce that people actually care about. In fact, what kinda of makes it “media” is that people actually pay attention to it (unlike ads). It can be anything from just really helpful how-to’s to outright entertaining viral stuff, but the point is that it gets you exposure with the right target market, just like PR or advertising would.

The only difference is that you made it. And right now, 78% of CMOs believe that branded content is the future of marketing, with 25% of budgets going to content. So in 2014, start thinking about how to own your media.

In fact, start investing in media worth owning. Because, at the end of the day, content is a lot like tattoos: it can be either cheap or good, but not both.

Good content costs money to make, and you have to keep at it for a while before it pays-off; but when it pays-off, it really pays-off. From branding to public relations to SEO, it’s one of the few channels that also contributes something to all the other channels.

#2 Get Serious About Mobile

Yeah, I know: a lot of you think you’re serious about mobile? But are you really? I mean, are you anywhere near the companies whose marketing you admire/envy, and/or can you actually implement the kind of strategies they have going on??

Now, I could dig up a bunch of stats and quote them to create urgency and make you sympathetic to my point. But, instead, I’ll just guess (i.e. “assume”) that enough of you reading this have smart phones (and are sufficiently attached to them) that I don’t need to do that kinda thing. So let me leave you with a kind of barometer / checklist to figure out just how the eff you’re supposed to tackle mobile in 2014:

• Mobile Sites: I’m still shocked by just how many top-tier companies/sites/portals fail at this. If you don’t have a mobile site, get one. And if you already have one, make sure that I’m redirect to it if I visit your site from a mobile device.
• Mobile App: If your business is driven by user-experience (e.g. commerce) or content, release that App already! No repeat customer or returning user wants to deal with your mobile site. And even here I can think of a few content portals who have an otherwise great mobile engagement strategy but no mobile app…
• Mobile Campaigns: If you’re already investing in display ads, PPC, and/or SEO, start looking at how you can divert some of that toward targeting mobile users; there are enough of them using mobile apps and searching via mobile devices that you can’t afford no to.

Okay, so you get the point? Good! Let’s move on….

#3 Start Listening to Your Customers

So maybe you’re already doing the mobile and content thing, or may you’re not but (hopefully) are gonna start. Either way, you’re going to have to measure your progress. And, of course, you’re going to be measuring and monitoring what user actually do once they engage with your brand.

But are you being proactive in that measurement? In other words, are you actually trying to gage how your users specifically and the market at large feel about your industry?

For starters, start looking at what people are already saying about both you and your competitors. Tools like Salesforce Marketing Cloud are great for this kind of thing. They let you monitor not only your brand name but what people are saying about your industry and competitors, in general.

Step it up a notch, though, by finding what your actual user and site visitor think. There are a few service providers that can help you do this, but the (ubiquitous) one that comes to mind is iPerceptions. You’ve probably come across them in the form of their 4Q survey, which is a free tool. But they also offer a bunch of voice of customer measurement tools you can upgrade to to make sense of the data that you collect via the 4Q survey.

The point is (1) stop assuming you think you know better than your (potential) customers, and (2) stop looking at what your users might’ve done and start considering what they’re actually looking for. Because that’s the kind of insight that’s not only gonna help you step up your marketing game, but develop better products and services, the likes of which you might’ve not otherwise considered…

New Year, New Start

If you’ve read this far, I want to make one thing clear: I’m not saying you have to follow my advice. I’m just saying you should.

You’re free, of course, to disregard my advice, but I’m confident enough that you’d be wrong to do so that I wrote this blog post and put my name on it. So give it some thought; sleep on it; and do whatever it is that you have to do to “tear sh*t up” in 2014 that you’ll be too busy either optimizing some version of your site or developing new product/service that you won’t give this post another thought ;)

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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