| Sam Young Newsletter |
Issue 188, August 2010
Hi guys,
Do you have a planned approach to media releases? Check out Planning Media Releases below.
Smart appliances were once only Science Fiction, but I think at last we are getting real Energy Creating Devices.
Don't forget, if you want to be taken off my mailing list, click here to send me a reply e-mail and I will remove your name.
| Planning Media Releases |
How many businesses out there have a media release plan, so that you can periodically get pieces into the media (any media that your target audience reads)?
Think widely about this. Media channels for you to consider includes professional organisations you are a member of, supplier newsletters, partner newsletters, your own newsletter, the local community papers, the local paper, or picked up as a story on local radio. Have you run a joint campaign with a complementary business and put something in the paper about it? Have you sponsored something, someone and then written a story about it?
If you haven't, you are bound to have missed a good story telling opportunity, and your audience has missed hearing good news from you. This is not being cheesy, or about in-your-face self-promotion. It is about communicating the good news with your customers about what your company does.
Writing on a wall chart your company's plan of the big events that you have coming up in the year is all you need to do. Then think what kind of story might you be able to release around those events.
If your staff are entering a team in a sporting event, get a team action photo and write up why your company has supported your staff in entering the event, and how important fitness and health is to your company. In amongst that you can tell the readers a little about what expertise each of these people bring to the company. Some quotes from the players, and you have conveyed a strong impression about your company's fitness without advertising.
When you go to a TradeShow somewhere different, send an article to the local media with some local-flavour photos about your company and staff's experience in that place. If staff regularly travel, think about the possibility of doing a series - "Out in the Provinces" works just as well as "International Update".
If you always send in an action photo of someone doing something interesting, you have a caption, and you have a story with a good hook that people who read the publication would be interested in, then the media organisation you are sending it to is FAR more likely to pick it up.
And if you don't think your writing or composition skills are up to scratch, you can easily hire some expertise to put a story together.
Get started with a list, and give me a call if you get stuck.
| Energy Creating Devices |
In a recent issue of Trendwatching by Dutch marketing gurus trendwatching.com, they ran the following pieces with a similar theme:
- Finnish Powerkiss has developed an approach that imbues everyday furniture with wireless charging capabilities. Powerkiss's technology consists of two parts: a charging transmitter that gets integrated into furniture, and a charging receiver that gets plugged into the electronic device. To charge a phone, users simply attach the small receiver stick to their phone and place it on the surface of the enabled object. http://www.powerkiss.fi/
- Orange Power Wellies use the heat in wearers' feet to charge their mobile phones. Created by Orange in collaboration with GotWind, Orange Power Wellies target Glastonbury Festival-goers with a power-generating sole that converts heat from the wearer's feet into an electrical current that can be used to charge a mobile phone. http://www.gotwind.org/orange_power_wellies.htm
- Smart Energy Glass is an innovation from Dutch firm Peer+, turning windows into solar energy collectors with a customisable appearance. Available in several colours, the windows can switch between three modes: dark, bright and privacy (which scatters the light passing through). The glass also serves to collect solar energy, which can then be used directly or fed back to the grid. http://www.peerplus.nl/default/index/smart-energy-glass/language/2
- San Francisco-based company, One Block Off the Grid, or 1BOG, facilitates the group purchase of residential solar installations. 1BOG launches campaigns in various cities, each lasting a few months, during which they negotiate group discounts with carefully selected solar installers and offer local consumers access to the discounted rates via the 1BOG website. Homeowners can enter their address online to view detailed information on costs, leasing options, local rebates and how long the panels will take to pay for themselves. http://1bog.org/
Fantastic ideas!
| Create a Word 2003 Full Screen View |
Below in the shortcut key section I have posted a shortcut for Word 2007 Full Screen view. Unfortunately, Word 2003 doesn't appear to have such a view, but if you want to create one, you can do so through Word's customize function.
To create your shortcut:
- On the Tools menu, select Customize | Commands.
- On the Commands tab, select "Keyboard" at the bottom of the page.
- Under Categories (left-hand pane), select the "View" option, and under Commands (right-hand pane), select "ToggleFull"
- Click in the "Press new shortcut key" field.
- Press the shortcut key you want to use - eg Alt & 0 (zero, not the letter)
- Click "Assign" | Close | Close
You can now toggle Full Screen on and off using Alt & 0.
| TLAs for SMEs |
Here are this newsletter's TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) for you:
- TLA, Teaching, Learning and Assessment! Now how's that for a new TLA meaning?
Please feel free to email me with any TLAs that you want to get the bottom (meaning!) of.
| Tips, Short+Hot Keys |
In this newsletter, we are going to look at a shortcut key combo to get you a full screen view of a Word 2007 doc (this doesn't work in Word 2003 or earlier):
- Word "Full Screen" - Alt & V, then U
- Word "Return to normal view from Full Screen" - Esc
| Hot Linx |
IRD has a "What's New" list that can be a useful place to visit. Go to http://www.ird.govt.nz/about-this-site/whats-new/
In Memoriam: Merata Mita, the creator of the 1981 Springbok Tour protest film "Patu!" (1983) died recently. However, her film can be viewed online at http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/patu-1983
Check out marketing guru & writer Seth Godin's blog at http://sethgodin.typepad.com/. Author of All Marketers Are Liars, the Big Moo, Tribes & The Dip
A clever idea in the UK - a mobile bottling company in a truck for micro brewers to use. Check it out at http://www.tom-wood.com/brewery/bottle.php
Catch you again soon!! E-mail your suggestions to me here
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