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Well, the hotels are filling up, the restaurateurs are looking a bit frazzled, and the traffic is getting a bit worse so it must be that time of year - the Kentucky Derby. While I realize Derby Parties will be happening all over the world, I thought I’d provide a little bit of help to make those parties a bit more successful and authentic. Thanks to Jason for this link, and be sure to check out his Eastern Kentucky Mint Julep video.

I post this today because Julep Bourbon takes 2-3 days to marinade in the freezer. So do this TODAY!!!

Here’s the Maker’s Mark Mint Julep. After having some pretty badly made Juleps, this may just be the one to take home the roses this year. We have been going to derby parties as long as I can remember and hopefully some of you will check this out. And good luck on your horse.

Here are some others posting about this famous cocktail.

Mint Julep Roundup: Kentucky Derby Edition from Jeffrey Morgenthaler
Looking for a Mint Julep in Orange County?
The Perfect Mint Julep on Drink of the Week uses Maker’s Mark recipe too.
Got money to burn?  Check out the world’s most expensive Mint Julep Cup

Ok, it’s the middle of the night and I’m sitting in a rock hard airport chair, but my mind is on the takeaways that I have from the SMX Social Media conference. Much of this I knew, but it was heavily re-enforced.

The bigest benefit, as with most of these small shows, is the contacts and friendships I have started or continued. I think the best in the world were at the show, and for clients who seek out these people, huge success awaits.

While I think the overall presentation quality was high, my favorites were Randy Woods‘ well-grounded discussion and Rob Key’s insightful discussion about tribal culture and Second Life. I was also impressed by Brent Csutoras’ discussion about link building.

But the client-marketer relationship was the one thing that bugged me most. Nobody seemed keen on sharing information about this essential element of the SMM profession, yet I could definitely sense lots of folks were seeking it. I often wonder if conference organizers should think more about the harsh, real-world realities of getting programs like these in place. Or perhaps there’s just no way to wrap that up into a single presentation.

20 Take-Aways:

1. Social Media Marketing (SMM) is terrific for link building, not for conversions. This is a major change for many marketers to internalize and incorporate into their offering.
2. It takes a special kind of client/consultant relationship to make SMM work. It’s closer to organic SEO work than any other web marketing in the “grind-it-out” nature.
3. SMM cannot be sold as a one-off service or “by the campaign.” Too many external variables mean you have to execute many campaigns over time to hedge your bets. To sell as a one-off service is to invite failure and client ill-will.
4. SMM requires incredible organization on the part of the marketer. Both to keep track of a campaign and to make sure not to break out of acceptable tribal ‘participation.’
5. SMM link building requires a keen eye for linkbait that relates to your marketing goals and finesse to make sure it’s not overtly sales-like in presentation.
6. Vertical social networks should be an important part of any campaign. Smaller numbers of highly enthusiastic players are using these sites.
7. Explaining SMM to clients is going to be very, very difficult. But those who have an inherent curiosity and willingness to participate will earn a strong competitive advantage.
8. Having a strong network of friends is essential to SMM, and that network requires daily nurturing.
9. Wikipedia makes Digg look like a baby traffic wise, and there are opportunities…but…
10. Wikipedia sessions feel a lot like COBOL classes. Even if the people are smart, that whole thing requires a really strong level of patience and persistence. But 5m+ page views daily makes marketers salivate.
11. People need to create policies to outline who owns SMM profiles, what happens when there is a change of hands.
12. To succeed in social network marketing, plugged-in individuals who know the “tribe’s habits” will win. 20-year PR veterans need not apply if they are still in the mindset of the press release or are unwilling to spend time participating before promoting. Plenty of people have got in trouble.
13. There are a lot of really smart people in SMM. Compared to other forms of marketing, the growth and opportunity aligns with trends towards authenticity, word-of-mouth, and making up for short consumer attention spans.
14. One of my greatest worries is that clients will write off SMM while their competition runs with it. I worry because catch-up is a tough game to play in SMM and you can’t rush it.
15. Even one SPAM slip-up in a social network can ruin an entire branding or SMM effort. Social networks have zero tolerance for screw-ups. Re-building a profile can take 6 months or more of hard work.
16. SMM is risky if your brand is fragile or an easy target - putting your brand out in the public eye requires awareness of the cost-benefits. Almost always it’s worth it - that is if you sell a decent product, but you will need to weather the storm of negatives that will come your way with skill.
17. Advertising agencies don’t get it, for the most part.
18. SEO/SMM are joined at the hip for many things and a link building effort can stack up dozens if not hundreds of authority links…but direct-click traffic itself, independent of the SEO/link advantages, can be significant.
19. Participation in social networks - real participation - is a requirement, and is very time consuming. I left wondering who will pay for this time.
20. Red-eyes suck.

A few other places to get SMX social-media related information. Add more to comments and I’ll add to this list with ‘follow’

Coverage of the Jason Calacanis and Jimmy Wales panel
More coverage of the Social Search: The Human Challengers
Social Media Marketing Essentials
Linkbait - Chumming for Traffic on Social Media Sites
Extra! Extra! The Social News Sites
A Marketer’s Guide to Social Bookmarking

At Great Wolf Lodge today with the kids. A nice place to get away, close to home, and I’ve no complaints about the room or the waterpark.

By the time we got into the restaurant we were starving, and noticed that they were carrying around Thrasher’s-style buckets of french fries. We thought we’d get a couple buckets to share with our burgers, sandwiches and such. It would be fun to eat fries from a bucket, kind of like it’s fun to drink tea from a mason jar.

But as in many things today, all is not what it seems. Our buckets arrived, and before we could get two people set with fries, we hit bottom - a false bottom lined with bowls. We can’t complain about the price of the fries - but they were deliberately deceptive.

It was a lie. It made us think about what other corners they were cutting just beyond the kitchen door. The burgers were fine and the waitress did a good job, but this silly little lie stuck with me. The labor is the major cost of any restaurant and it would have cost very little to fill the bucket and keep the promise. Perhaps they’ve determined there was much waste? But in that case, they should just stop using the buckets completely and just put the fries in a standard container. Then they would have kept the promise for a little container of fries.

Everything you do is part of your marketing.  Even tiny promises can’t be broken.

As much as the decor, logo design, uniforms, and clean tables contribute to it, so does your little lie that saved $0.20 worth of french fries.

I had the pleasure of attending the dinner for Dr. Abdul Kalam, 11th President of India last night, organized by the Bluegrass Indo-American Civic Society. It was a night filled with messages for the leaders of the world, and for the hearts of individuals. The room was filled with Kentucky’s most influential people, mixed with some of the region’s diverse Indian community with their families…a spectral array of native dress and beaming smiles. Standing in the Marriott vestibule, it was easy to imagine I was at a celebration in Hyderabad or Jaipur, and it was intoxicating.

Kalam, who served India as president from 2002-2007, moved India forward and set up an ambitious plan to create a fully developed nation by 2020 (see Technology Vision 2020 plan.)

Dr. Lee Todd of UK did a nice job of talking about diversity on campus and in Lexington, which I think is critical to the future of our community. During the presentation, a gift of $1M was given to the Gatton School of Business by Melappalayam S. and Sowmya Vijayaraghavan of Lexington to support professorships and research in India business studies. There was a commitment made to increase the ties between UK and universities within India. (more…)

I just installed Folding@home today on my two quad-core machines. These are some high-power machines essentially sleep after hours. It does not decrease the in-use performance of your computer since it runs at the lowest priority available under Windows.

Join My Team… it’s #117081.

Folding@home is a distributed computing project, that very simply stated, studies protein folding and misfolding. Protein folding is explained in more detail in the scientific background section.

Folding@home does not rely on powerful supercomputers for its data processing; instead, the primary contributors to the Folding@home project are many hundreds of thousands of personal computer users who have installed a small client program. The client will, at the user’s choice, run in the background, utilizing otherwise unused CPU power, or run as a screensaver only while the user is away. In most modern personal computers, the CPU is rarely used to its full capacity at all times; the Folding@home client takes advantage of this unused processing power.

The Folding@home client periodically connects to a server to retrieve “work units,” which are packets of data upon which to perform calculations. Each completed work unit is then sent back to the server. As data integrity is a major concern for all distributed computing projects, all work units are validated through the use of a 2048 bit digital signature.

Contributors to Folding@home may have user names used to keep track of their contributions. Each user may be running the client on one or more CPUs; for example, a user with two computers could run the client on both of them. Users may also contribute under one or more team names; many different users may join together to form a team. Contributors are assigned a score indicating the number and difficulty of completed work units. Rankings and other statistics are posted to the Folding@home website.

Taken in Lexington KY, here are some Lunar Eclipse Photos (300mm, Canon EOS 40, ISO 200, f11, 1 sec)

Showing Planets in orientation…

From Images Above… Rings of Saturn


Mars

Click for more on my Flickr Feed

The first day was easy, selling to mom, dad, grandmas and grandpa. A new word enters her vocabulary on the 2nd day - “low hanging fruit.”

I find it interesting that the Girl Scouts prevent sales over the Internet (but people can take their kids’ order forms to work.) I guess such isn’t as enriching as going door-to-door, meeting people in the community.  But I think if people contact me we can act as a cookie consultant to get you some.

I’d like to teach her a lesson about interruption marketing, but I think the puppy dog look will go a long way for now.

Antonio Ojeda and his Daughter Susanah both have a smile that reels you in. Antonio, an ex-Mining Engineer (Guanajuato is a silver and gold mining mecca) knows every inch of the rural backcountry in and around Guanajuato, Mexico in his company named Cacomixtle Group. They offer tours of Guanajuato Mexico and the surrounding area. Both speak excellent English or Spanish and their vehicles were clean and well maintained. We visited terrific overlooks and beautiful little villages. I would have not seen this stuff without his help. Most tourists stay in town their whole trip. But that, I’ve learned is a mistake.

There are large wetlands for the observation of aquatic birds , such as the dams of the region : La Esperanza, La Soledad; Mata, La Purísima and others . As a cultural manifestation , Guanajuato as a famous national and international mining center has historic mining towns in the same mountain range like : La luz , El Monte de San Nicolas , El Cubo , Pere grina , Calderones , ect. Without exception , the [most] famous one [is] Veta Madre which gave life to big emporiums like : Valenciana , Cata , Mellado, Tepeyac , Sirena , etc, just to name a few , which will invite you to meditate about the greatness of our Mexico and why Guanajuato was named a “ World Heritage Zone “ Our Mexico nature tours coexist with the locals and their customs, discovering beautiful spots , abandoned towns and mines , animals , birds , vegetation and mineral.

While we took a 4-wheel variety of vehicle, the “fire roads” we traveled were incredible mountain biking routes and I found myself wishing I had my Cannondale with me. You’ll want to bring water but you can go from village to village and there will be food available at just about any of them in small storefronts - Antonio can also give you a map showing where you can find meals along the way. I’m told that September is the greenest time to go, but Antonio says that every season has good qualities. (more…)

A black and white photo essay I did during my holiday visit to Guanajuato and outings into Rural Central Mexico. What a mind-clearing place this is. I hope you enjoy the photos. (want to see full size? click here)

While walking through an area above Guanajuato Mexico today I came across the sign you see at the right. It caught my eye as the sign said “Casa el purgatoria - conosca algo diferente” (House of Torture - something different) and the sign showed a poor chap having himself dunked for some unknown insurrection.  It appeared to be a form of waterboarding - the controversial form of torture now at issue in the US and probably for the next presidential election. Given international (UN) conventions on this, I’m hoping at least one candidate takes a stand on the issue.

20 Pesos later and I’m walking amidst all forms of implements you see below.

While chatting this up, I learned the only way acceptable in the 17th-18th century to convict someone was to have at least 2 witnesses or to get a confession. And so, people became very creative in extracting such confessions for all manner of crimes both serious and minor.   Some of those methods are pictured below

I found the sewing machine pedal-powered wrist-breaker to be the oddest of them all.

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