Entitled “Social Media, Not Just for Kids Any More,” check it out on The JAR Group’s Blog

We’ve been tossing around the idea of offering reputation management services at the JAR Group for a while now. I recently started putting together the offering and marketing collateral, and the program is now in beta with a few test clients.

The main idea is that there are a lot of people who can benefit greatly from having a positive online presence but they don’t have the time or knowhow to create it. I think this service could do wonders for the careers of lawyers, doctors, executives, etc.

Here is the service offering page, and a blog post I wrote for JAR explaining a little bit more about the service.

One of my best friends, Bryan Mcgovern is back on the air on Sirius radio after being completely out of commission for over a year with Guillian-Barre Syndrome. B-mac offers a good explanation tribulations and triumphs in his blog.

Basically, he went from being a healthy guy, to being completely paralyzed in the course of a few days. Visiting him in the hospital during those months was scary – he couldn’t speak, couldn’t even move a finger, lost a lot of weight, couldn’t breathe on his own, was in a ton of pain.

Bryan is such a strong person though, and he fought through it. He slowly was able to move a finger, then a hand, then was able to sit upright. Each little step I saw made me immensely hopeful for a recovery. When he was able to whisper his first words he used to talk about how great it’s going to be when he can get back on the air. Well you did it buddy! Soon enough you’ll be back in the city and we’ll be rockin and rollin   Your hard work has been such an inspiration to me, and now that you are back on the air you are inspiring so many more. Case in point:

Bmac was named NY Daily News’ Dude of the Week

New York Post Honors B-mac

You can listen to Bryan on his Sirius Radio show, Late Hits, or read his new blog, The Takeover.

Here is the anti-climactic ending to my most recent saga, entitled “The Ride from Hell / The Schwinn and Target Customer Service Test.” In a nutshell, the gears on my brand new 2 day old bike broke, requiring a $40 repair. I emailed both Schwinn and Target to see what they can do for me. Their responses:

Target responded saying they apologize wholeheartedly and I should call their customer service with the provided case number to take care of it. I called, got bounced around to several people who said their hands were tied before getting sent to a voicemail. I was then called back and told there is absolutely nothing they can do – no repair cost compensation, not even a stinkin Target coupon.

Schwinn never even responded to me.

Maybe it’s a sign of the times. Maybe it’s a sign that Schwinn and Target both need to improve their customer service before they are washed away in the rising tide of economic crapola.

This ain’t over Schwinn, not by a longshot.

Last week I decided that since the weather’s getting warmer my newest hobby will be biking. I went up to Target in Westchester with my gf this weekend and bought me a shiny new schwinn along with all the cool (admittedly geeky) accessories – helmet, rear view mirror, lock, front and rear lights, pump, etc, etc. The whole shabang. Yesterday I suited up and rode the bike for the first time from my place in the East Village to work in Dumbo, BK. Went off without a hitch. Then I rode back home, in what I now refer to as “The Ride from Hell” Riding up the first half of the Manhattan Bride I hear some grinding gear noises. Then the chain pops off. I put it back on, but it promptly falls back off. Put it on again, falls off. At this point a friendly veteran bridge biker named Dave pulls over to help this distressed newbie. We flip the bike over, turn the pedals, and I notice that the back gears, which are supposed to be tight and flush on the wheel, are now loose and flopping around. Another biker sees the commotion and says, “you’re in luck, I have tools.” He takes one look at the 2 day old bike and says, “oh s**t, you need special tools for that, you’re screwed!”

you can't look much tougher than this

So now I’m on the midde of the Manhattan Bridge with a bike that doesn’t pedal. I managed to roll down the second half of the bridge basically with my legs pointing upward in a V so as not to touch the pedals so the gear doesn’t fall off again. People laughed and pointed. I was traumatized, but at least I could use the hill and I didn’t have to walk it on the bridge. Then came the bikewalk of shame through Chinatown, and up to the East Vil. I saw people riding 30 year old bikes by me without a care in the world as I walked my beautiful 2 day old bike with my shiny new helmet on my head. I walked all the way to the bike shop on 3rd and 1st to get the bike fixed (I wasn’t about to walk it to Grand Central to take a train back to Target in Westchester to exchange it). So now I’m going to prepare a nice email to Schwinn and Target’s customer service to see how they will remedy this situation. If they care at all about their customers they would at least pay for my repair bill. A little kickback for pain, suffering, and embarassment on the bridge would be nice, but I won’t hold my breath. I’ll post their response when I get it.

I went to BO Concept’s free wine and pretzels party last week and my words of wisdom made it onto their promo video (fast forward to 1:50).

They cut out my line before that one where I said “I feel like I can make most of this stuff myself”. Can’t blame them I guess.

Instead of posting funny/cool/intersting links as I come across them online, I’ll just post this link. Greg Rutter’s You Should Have Seen This is a great list of 99 things that, well, you should have seen. Some are weird but pretty much all are worth seeing. Check it out next time you’re bored

So I found two new hobbies recently that have been keeping me entertained: Claymation and Photography. I guess I needed a small break from music to get back to the arts and crafts. Here’s a few samples for you:

Rooftop BBQs

stop animation photography of jeff on our rooftop in the east village:

HDR picture of Julie at Esperanto, Alphabet City:

Picture of an old guy soaking up the Chinese New Year, Chinatown, NYC:

Chinese Dragon on New Years:

Claymation Pink Elephant, w a DJ Chima beat, made with Jeff Campbell

Brands are always dying to know what customers think of them. I came across a site that tells them just that – brandtags.net. It shows you a brand logo and you respond with a word or phrase that pops into your head. You can then see what other people said in a “tag cloud” format, ie. more popular terms are displayed in a larger font. A very simple idea, but its simplicity is its value to marketers.

Many of the brands show what you’d expect – for Wallgreens I thought “drugs” and sure enough the majority also thought this, along with “drug store,” “pharmacy,” and “cheap.” If Walgreens is trying to position themselves as cheap then they are doing a good job. If not, then their Brandtags should tell them that they are off course.

For Jack in the Box I noted “fat”, which based on the font size was an average response. I would love to see the responses trended over time, ie. do less people think “fat” now than 6 months ago; is JIB’s health initiatives paying off?

Then there are the brands like Midevil Times – I immediately thought about that scene in Cable Guy where Jim Carrey jousts Matthew Broderick. Sure enough I wasn’t the only one. Based on the font size, “Cable Guy” is the most popular term to come to mind when thinking about Midevil Times. Not to say that their marketing people weren’t aware of this phenomenon in the past, but they should definitely understand how big of an impact this has been on their brand.

The results are interesting and sometimes entertaining, and I’d venture to say a lot of brands would really value the results. As opposed to focus groups where people say what they think they should say, you can infer that these results are honest because of the anonymity of the process. And much like search engine keyword research, the results can give you an unobstructed lens into the minds of your customers.