bootcamp

  • Main
  • RSS 2.0

Moving Forward

We've got a whole host of new initiatives going on.

Sections:

Topics:

I've been buried with work and obligations. There is much to report. Expect to hear more here soon about veg-o-matic, blogging bootcamps, and new initiatives.

Bud posted this on March 26, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

How much Internet can small businesses digest?

A problem that most Internet cognoscente face is that they don't realize the difficulties others have in keeping up.

Sections:

Topics:

With limited resources, small businesses seriously need to harness the Internet. The web gives small businesses more bang for their buck. As is the point with this particular teleseminar, the Internet can provide a system to help small businesses be more efficient, productive, and strategic with their time. Definitely worth the investment.

Ken Yarmosh - TECHNOSIGHT ยป Small Businesses Need to Harness the Internet

At first blush, it's hard not to agree with this sentiment. But, if you deal with real small businesses where owners are time-constrained and chasing to make a buck, you start to wonder.

Continue reading "How much Internet can small businesses digest?"

Bud posted this on January 26, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Safari U: Great Idea, Right Way to Market?

I wonder if Safari U's Web 2.0 business model can really outproduce the storefront copy center, the traditional channel for custom books. In the latter, publishing and delivery are integrated. O'Reilly's Safari U decouples publishing and delivery, making the process more complex and less certain for customers.

Sections:

Topics:

I'm building a text book for the next rendition of the High Octane Blogging Bootcamp using O'Reilly's Safari U. The main advantages I see are:

  • Good corpus of material.
  • (Potentially) Convenient web interface.

But, I wonder how they are bringing this thing to market. In many ways, they are tied to their book publishing model. A lot of the recent content is not really available because it has not been converted for custom publication. Also, the custom book has to be ordered in quantity, no one-offs. This requirement essentially dictates that the book be pushed through traditional marketing channels. You can't really offer it to small client groups over the web. Finally, any access to the book is only available online for a fee. Why not provide a preview as in their regular Safari offering? Frankly, such previews would just provide more reason to purchase a Safari subscription.

I'm having some frustrations getting the material I want out of this service. I may resort to a last minute coursepack from a local copy center. The copy center will call O'Reilly for permissions, and the book should be done in time for the January class. Ironically, although the bootcamp is about Web 2.0, we are likely going to have to resort to pre-web methods to get the textbook produced.

Local copy centers integrate publishing and delivery, simplifying up the process of creating custom books for customers, and providing more certainty. Oddly, O'Reilly decouples these two processes making the process more complex and less certain, all under the veneer of advanced web technology.

Bud posted this on December 7, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

MBA High Octane Blogging Bootcamp 2.0

In the High Octane Blogging Bootcamp, we teach MBAs blogging as an interactive business process. MBAs, create blogs, find conversation partners, execute blogging strategies, and measure success.

Sections:

Topics:

Over the past couple of months, I've been developing a new rendition of the high octane blogging bootcamp. We ran the original at The University of Michigan's Ross School of Business last Spring. In that bootcamp, 33 MBAs were able to alter the search landscape in Southeast Michigan for queries on the cleaning and restoration industry with 6 weeks of blogging effort.

This rendition will be offered at University of Michigan's Ross School of Busines starting in January and at Quinnipiac University starting in March. In the bootcamp, we treat blogging as an introduction to the interactive web. Teams of participants will have as their project to create a family of blogs around a partner business or their own business. The projects will be judged on the extent to which they follow strategies that build search visibility and traffic.

The bootcamp is broken into a set of seven modules that build on each other. Each module includes an overview, some practical examples, and exercises for participants to complete in service of their project. Here are the modules:

Continue reading "MBA High Octane Blogging Bootcamp 2.0"

Bud posted this on December 5, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

MBA Bootcamp Changes Local Web Search Landscape

Over seventy percent of households in the U.S. use Internet search to find local products and services. We ran a bootcamp where Michigan MBAs used Web 2.0 technologies to compete with a prominent local business for searches on its targeted keywords. Bootcamp sites beat the local company in just under half of the searches and placed on the first page of search results over half the time.

Sections:

Topics:

From May 10 through June 23, 2005, we ran the first High Octane Blogging Bootcamp for 33 MBAs at University of Michigan's Ross School of Business. Our client for the bootcamp, Coach's, served the Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, Michigan market for disaster cleaning and restoration services. Recent surveys indicate that over seventy percent of households search the web when shopping locally for services such as Coach's. We wanted the bootcamp to demonstrate how Web 2.0 technologies like weblogs and RSS could help better establish a company's search presence to take advantage of this channel. To really push the idea, we informally set a goal that bootcamp participants' team weblogs outperform Coach's site on searches for its own keywords.

Continue reading "MBA Bootcamp Changes Local Web Search Landscape"

Bud posted this on August 11, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (1)

High Octane Blogging — Susie Gardner weighs in

Susie Gardner has given great, detailed, and constructive feedback to the High Octane teams. She focuses on effective communication strategies, the key to succeeding in an essentially textual enterprise.

Sections:

Topics:

Susie Gardner has provided some impressive feedback to the High Octane Blogging teams. She really emphasizes getting all the small points right that when summed together lead to effective communication. You can see in both her criticisms and her praise that she sat down and took the time to read the posts and let them speak to her. Here are her remarks as she applied them to each group:

Continue reading "High Octane Blogging — Susie Gardner weighs in"

Bud posted this on June 2, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)