I understand why people are angry but it’s misdirected. Instead of attacking the symptom (Carolla), try to help solve the cause. It’s easy to create a facebook page and ask people to sign petitions. Where is the same outrage when there’s a kidnapping? They fail to look at the root of the issue. Why does Carolla think these things of the Philippines? He must have got his info from somewhere. He receives his info where most of us get ours…..headlines and conversations. You can’t expect him to know all the great things about the country just like we are not expected to know the great things about other 3rd world countries. I’m sure Ghana has the equivalent of a Philippine Boracay (paradise beach) or Fort Bonifacio (high society area in Metro Manila) but we don’t know. The images in our head are Africans living in poverty wearing American donated clothes from the 80’s.

The Philippine government has to do two things any smart business would do.

#1 – Do a root cause analysis and fix the issue or lessen the impact. The presidential spokesman said that “Pacquiao is a national treasure in the impoverished Philippines, where even Muslim extremists and soldiers silence their guns during his fights.” A guy who punches people in the face is doing the job the government is supposed to do. Why not have him fight every week to stop the war that’s been going on for hundreds of years?

#2 – Once you sold the root cause or even make progress, the government has to do a better job at managing it’s reputation. How do you get counteract Imelda Marcos shoes, poverty and kidnapping? Just google Filipino or Philippines and see what comes up.

If the Philippines was on Yelp, how many stars would it get?

Hmmm, I wonder why people look down on the Philippines?

While read an article on the Huffington Post, a google ad for Filipinas came up. Duh!

Transactions by day
- This one made sense but I didn’t think it would be so drastic. The best day is Monday and tails off by Thursday. Weekends were typically blah. This data tells me that I should launch my marketing early Monday morning. My feeling is that most of that activity is late afternoon/evening.

Transactions by month
- The tattoo season is Spring/Summer but last year, I had a big spike in September and November. I can see why September being big because students might want to get inked before going back to school. I have no idea why November was so big. Maybe new ink for Xmas?

Facebook demographics
Every company should have a Facebook page. Besides presence in a site that recently had more page views than the mighty Google, you also get a free basic analytics tool to give you some insight about your fans.  Since I added a Facebook widget for my fan page, it has grown to nearly 4,000 fans organically. It’s pretty tough to get this kind of data for your website if accurate at all.

Two days before Xmas last year, I was contacted by the woredrobe stylist for Black Eyed Peas who was looking for a Filipino design for Apl. I believe it was for the Grammys. The dude was pretty persistant but without going through the usual process of a proposal. He wanted something futuristic tribal that was going to be patterned with shiny material on a black tight shirt.

Here’s the quick sketch of my idea. In the end, things fell apart because 1) He wanted me to incorporate some generic flash tribal tattoo he found and 2) Wanted all the lines cleaned up, meaning he wanted vector files. All without talking about payment. After that, I stopped emailing. The guy was 100% legit but was probably expecting me, as a “desperate” artist do to spec work and not seek $ because of the great opportunity.

If I did go forward with the project, would something else come out of it? I assumed not. I didn’t want to work over Xmas for a freebie for the “potential” for greater things. I had to take a minute and stop daydreaming about getting paid to design for Hollywood stars.

The lesson? Value your work.

You wouldn’t allow someone to mess up your store, then why allow it on Facebook?

Why should you take time to maintain your page?

1) Traffic – With Facebook getting so much traffic, it’s become an important extension of your business. For small businesses, it’s your best bet for valuable feedback and market research.

2) Story – When someone visits your page and the 1st thing they see a bunch of Pillow hits or Mafia Wars posts, they don’t get to the important content right away. People have a short attention span and you only have the top 2 posts to get their interest. Due to Facebooks currently poor archiving, your best content can get burried fast. You may find yourself posting the same content multiple times.

3) Response – you should respond to every wall inquiry. With your wall cluttered, it will take you longer to respond and even harder for visitor to read them. This may cause redundant questions wasting your time.

So why is it important to be the 1st result in Google?

Google is the most used search engine (for now). They control about 70-80% of all internet searches. With new products on the horizon like the phones, netbooks, operating system, partnerships with the iPhone and etc, it’s projected to grow. If your future customers cannot find you on Google or any other search engine within the 1st few results, you DO NOT EXIST.

Being #1 on Google means that your the authority on that subject keyword. Why that may not be the reality, the #1 online authority says so. In my example for the subject Baybayin (a writing system in the Philippines that predates the Spanish arrival), I know I’m not the most knowledgeable on the subject. There are people out that that know more than I do but because of my web and real-word presence, I’m appearing as the #1 authority on the subject in the world. This has lead to an increase on translation consultations, art commissions, invitations to speak and media features.

Most people do not go beyond the 1st page – A study shows that about 93% of people do not go beyond the 1st result page. Eye tracking studies show a big difference in heat between the 1st and 2nd result. If your the 8-10th result, making it to #1 would mean about a 1,400% increase in traffic.

To do by the end of the year….

1. Launch a store on Baybayin.com
2. Develop a new webapp for PinoyTattoos.com
3. Expand SendPera.com
4. Launch a clothing line
5. Start a new book

BTW, I have a full-time demanding day job and a family. What’s your excuse? Get off your ass and do something

It interrupts the purchase process
Once they reach this step in the order, the customer has pretty much committed to buy the item.

Can cause the user to leave your site
The promo box tells them to google a promo code and try their luck finding one that works. While searching, they may get distracted and abandon the cart.

Loss of $
If the customer does find an online coupon, you as the retailer will loose $ on something that most likely would’ve been sold as list price.

Zappos does a great job dealing with this. The ultimate killer is that they don’t offer coupons. They also made a page (with a great title) explaining why they don’t do so. This of course is the #1 result when searching google for “Zappos coupons”.

Welcome to Zappos.com. Many other sites out there may claim to have Zappos coupons, but the truth is Zappos does not offer coupons. Zappos.com is based on service and selection, not price.

From Zappos coupon page. If you do offer coupons you can get rid of the box and just stick the promo info in the url or add an email form next to it so you can capture addresses. Say something like, “Enter your email to receive promos”.

The buzz this year was:
· Cloud computing
· Enterprise mashups
· Enterprise social networking with productivity/collaboration features (again)
· Customer social networking

A list of presentation PDF’s, PPT’s and video can be found here.

My favorite keynote was Open Source Administration – John Maeda (Rhode Island School of Design)

Video after the jump….

I really wanted to attend this one but didn’t have the time:
Smart Work: Embrace Change & Empower Your Teams to Drive Growth and Innovation – A Panel Discussion

It was a good event considering I got a free Expo pass. I still have to go through my notes to see if there’s anything that can benefit my businesses.

Ad-Tech in 2 weeks!

Once I “X” out of the advertisement, I’m taking to an under construction site. No photos of their products. Nothing! What a wasted opportunity. I’m sure it wasn’t cheap to sponsor two UFC fighters. People are perhaps looking to buy your products. There’s no excuse for not being prepared after a major media campaign.

Here are some basic things Tokyo Five Jeans should have done to better prepare even if they would still be under construction.

• A special landing page or microsite for visitors coming to the site with UFC, Pete Sell, or Gabriel Gonzaga in the keywords.
• Have some photos of your products or a fashion editorial to tease the customer.
• Have contact info and a mailform.
• Have an about us section.
• Have a Youtube video showing a commercial
• Have a blog. They are easy to setup.
• Link to your myspace, facebook, or twitter page.
• Most importantly, a newsletter to collect email address and other basic information so that you can notify them once the site is launched.

While attending college in the Philippines, I did some part-time modeling. It was probably my most eye-opening experience to date. Being a freelance model also meant that I was my own CEO, CFO, CMO, and CIO.

1) Perception rules

Modeling: As a model, it was all about how people perceived you. Casting directors didn’t care how nice of a person you were (for the most part). If you looked good, you got the job.

Business: In business, it’s how people perceive you is what matters. If you site is ugly but has great products, they may not stick around long enough to find out.

Lesson: Make a great 1st impression. Don’t release a product that’s not extraordinary.

2) Be prepared for rejection

Modeling: The industry is about rejection and I had had my fair share it. I remember attending countless commercial VTRs (Video Tape Recordings) without landing a major role. I was told I didn’t look right, too skinny, too short, too tall….I heard it all.

Business: Not everyone is going to like your products or services. Be prepared for haters out there. Focus on your core expertise and market.

Lesson: Rejection and failure is part of the game, it’s how you react to it is what ultimately matters.

3) Knowing the right people helps

Modeling: I used to get frustrated when I 1st started. I would get many calls for gigs. I was a new guy and didn’t socialize much. This was before we had Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter. The internet was still a baby. All we had was SMS. I only started to get more projects when I did the real-life social networking. Back in the day, we actually had to make friends…not just add them on some website That meant I had to go to numerous parties after a gig even if I was dead tired.

Business: Your 1st customers are usually your family and friends and then their family and friends. If you have a great product/service, it will organically spread to the right people. If it doesn’t, then you have to figure out a way to get them to notice. That means being at your industry events. That means being part of the online community for your industry. It’s a lot easier now with the internet.

Lesson: Be a social butterfly on and offline.

4) Keep track of your non-working hours

Modeling: I used to be happy when I got paid for a gig. At that time, $75-$100 for a fashion show was good money. Then I thought about how many taxis I took, how many meals I bought, how many hours I sat in traffic, and how many  hours I spend during rehearsals/fittings.  When I added up all that time, I would be lucky to break even.

Business: I used to think that just because I used opensource software to make websites, it didn’t cost me anything. I could spend 15 hours a day working on a project. Looking back, my hourly rate was at least $25 an hour.

Lesson: Keep track of your time and know your hourly rate.

5) Like what you do

Modeling: I eventually quit modeling because it wasn’t stimulating enough. I didn’t like waiting for hours doing nothing. I’m sure things are better now (including compensation) but when I was active, it was a brain numbing day everytime I had to wait backstage. After modeling I transitioned to music and the web.

Business: When I first learned about making money on the web, I tried almost every trick out there. I obsessed learning what were the latest search trends and making websites with related ads/affiliate links. I did make some money but was not satisfied.  I didn’t care about the topics I was writing about.

Lesson: Be passionate about what you do or get out.