A look at business, law and life from a technophile.
Business
Shoreline Web – A Business Plan
0How many of you have visited shoreline ridge’s website within the past weeks? Despite our difference in space and time, I can tell that the answer is 0. The reason is that someone had a few “good ideas” and put up a website without a plan. Unless you’re lucky and stumble upon the right idea, you need a reason, a mission to get the job done.
That means that you need to start with purpose and an idea of the “squishy” words of how you want your users to feel. For shoreline, the answers are “community,” “fun,” and “friendship.” Everything that we put on that page should be relevant to those words. So if I have a widget, let’s say a calendar, I need to make sure that my calendar has the capability of forming community, fun and/or friendship. If my calendar events relvove around when rent is due and fees go up, I’ve probably missed the boat.
So where do the ideas of what we need come from? The target market! If you are connected, you can run ideas past them, and get an initial impression. For instance, the Shoreline community wants a classified section. People are not only motivated to get rid of stuff they don’t have room for or don’t want to move (especially the international students), but also residents that are looking for cheap stuff.
Keep an eye on shoreline.utah.edu. You’ll be able to judge how well I follow my own advice and target my market.
Marketing – Its not what you sell, its what they want
017 years
Its fun to have a boss that is willing to brainstorm and expand outside the zone of comfort. Bateman IP is doing just that with its marketing presence.
For those of you who saw the title and said, “duh, fundamental principle.” You’re right. And yet, new businesses don’t seem to get it. Even old ones put on the stupid – see Johnson & Johnson suing the Red Cross (if you don’t see how selling products that heal people and suing healers conflicts in terms of marketing, ponder awhile).
Business fulfills unmet needs. Those needs are latent or active, which means that either people seek you out or you have to convince them to seek you out.
If consumers seek out your product category, then you have to convince them that your best attributes are the most important attributes. Remember that Charmin toiletpaper is cuddly soft.
If your consumers don’t know that they need you, you have to convince them that life is better as your partner. Pessimists call this creating a need. Optimists call this discovering a need. Its probably somewhere in between. Think about anything that gets “buzz.” Remember the need to watch American Idol, Survivor or Harry Potter? Its sure not a need we just have at the forefront of our brain.
Pretty fundamental, eh? Well what happens if you mix it up? You fall flat on your face. Sending consumers info about how your washer/dryer/toaster combo has all the great features and long-lasting does nothing to create the need (I’m not sure I want my carbs tasting like laundered underwear). On the other hand, if you convince more people to buy toiletpaper instead of using bidets, then you’ve just worked hard to increase the market without helping your bottom line.
Take some time to notice the ads around you. Ask yourself if they are activating a need or steering me to their attributes. Then ask yourself if that is the correct strategy for you. The more you think about it, the more you’ll be able to leverage it in your own life.
Bateman IP Rocks: Sponsoring Seth Godin
117 years
There are times when I really like my job and others, when I just love working at my job. Bateman IP Law Group (a group of Utah Patent Lawyers and where I work) is on to be a sponsor of Seth Godin’s speech. If you haven’t registered, go immediately to registration and pay $50 to get a ticket and 5 books. If you feel like you need more information, go to wordmob and pick out the press release.
Seth Godin is speaking at the Salt Palace on May 24th from 1 to 4 pm. He’ll be speaking about his new book “The Dip“.
The Blog to Read: Who I’m reading
1I’m always interested in discovering new blogs that other people consider crucial. Here’s my short list with descriptions:
- ConnectBlogs.com – They aggregate the content from leading Utah minds, mostly from blogs.
- Marketing VOX – Describes cutting edge developments in marketing
- Patently-O – Latest Developments and some humor in patent law.
- IP Thoughts – Thoughts from an attorney on business, entrepreneurialism and life (note: he’s also my boss, but I don’t hold that against him).
- Consumerist – Very biased, but it gives real consumer experiences which let me know which pitfalls to avoid (take it with some salt)
- Paul Allen – Utah internet marketing guru – I’m actually taking a class from him
- SEOmoz – Gives a pulse and techniques in the Search Engine Optimization industry
- Chris Holt’s Blog – My Brother the serial entrepreneur’s new blog … normally I’m nervous about promoting someone so close, but his advice has helped me a lot. If he posts anything similar to what he’s said to me, I’d listen.
Let me know what you’re reading. I’m always interested in a fresh perspective and new ideas.
Job Search — Panel of Success
0Perhaps one of the big stressors of school is how to seek and find employment. I was asked to be part of a five student panel on strategies on finding a job. The following are what I thought were good take-aways from the panel.
Network – Unless you’re the best of your class, most people don’t get picked up without being recommended or known to the hiring person. You can do this through pro bono (volunteer) work, trade events, temporary jobs, friends and classmates. Go, attend, and mix! Check out linkedin, where you can use your friends and colleages to get you places you didn’t know you could get.
Do something different – It’s all about making yourself stand out, whether its through a recommendation or activites. If you want to do business law, take a finance class. If you want to do entertainment law, take a flim class. If you want to work in high tech, take an IT or Engineering class. John (a member of the panel) said that he went to Guatamala for the summer to improve his Spanish. The point is that you need to be more than school. Also, be aware that your answer about why you chose to do your something different can imply that your interviewer isn’t as competent as they should be (ie — answering that an MBA really understands business implies that your interviewer might not understand business — a better answer is to say that you can acquire that knowledge through experience or class, and you chose the class route).
Do the important standard stuff – If you’re in law school, that means to try and get on a journal. It means that you should attempt to have decent grades. Excelling in the common gives your interviewer ways to compare you to the pack. Often times the standard stuff is just a cutoff and not a deal-maker (ie you might need only good grades, and stellar grades doesn’t buy much).
Get experience – This can be through a job or volunteer work or unpaid internships. Your interviewer would generally rather hire someone that has an idea of what’s going on rather than someone at ground zero. It also says that someone else trusted you enough to accept your work, even if unpaid.
Be professional – Dress for the part. It is almost always easier to dress down than up. Do your research on the company. Ask questions about their goals and where they want to be in five years. You want to look available but not desperate for the job. Don’t brown-nose. Be confident in your answers (when asked what you want to do, don’t say that you might want to do something or something else … your mind can change).
Work differently – If your school has on campus interviews, do them. But, also discover who is not on that list and go see if you can interview with them. Your chances are better with those you discover because you’re not competing with everyone in your class. Go to out of state job fairs. See if your career services can connect you with out of state career fairs. You will be inherently different than the other applicants because you will be from somewhere else. Let diversity work in your favor.
I heard a funny saying about law school: Law school is like a pie eating contest with the winner getting more pie. Big Firms and Corporations are not for everyone. Sometimes the intangible benefits of working at a small firm are better suited to you.