Internet users are more educated to SPAMMING legislations nowadays and more frustrated then ever with the amount marketing material hitting their inbox.  The problem for those of us who use ethical means of email promotion is that we become sitting ducks for those rightfully angry Internet users who cannot vent their anger on spammers that apparently cannot be caught.

If you are deploying email marketing strategies, it is a must to be well versed in the laws, legislations, and the proper strategies to use when using email as a marketing tool.  As early as 2003, as a Program Manager with RealNetwroks, Inc., I was tasked with overcoming the challenges of, and discovering alternative solutions for using email as a marketing tool within our existing customer base.  At that time, we were only able to leverage opt-in and relevancy strategies because social science unfortunately did not exist yet, and if they had, my job would have been a lot easier.  Well I’m here to tell you that it’s only gotten more difficult, but we do have access to the social tools today!

There are several email marketing tools available, but none that are smart enough to tightly integrate the social tools available to an email campaign manger and subscribers until MailChimp.   MailChimp is a fun email marketing service designed with simplicity, ease of use, and social media strategies in mind. The interface is bright and welcoming with a smiling cartoon chimp as their mascot. This is not your stuffy old bosses email marketing service. This service was designed for people of the Google generation and to be honest with you, I absolutely love it, and wish the tools and technologies existed during the time I was tasked to navigate the early email marketing challenges.

MailChimp Pros

Has an easy-to-use system for adding and managing contacts.
Offers comprehensive reports analyzing subscriber actions.
Allows unsubscribers to fill out feedback form.
Allows you to create an A/B test campaign.
Pricing by number of emails and by number of contacts is available or pay-as-you-go plans.
Offers nearly 20 integration opportunities with external services to extend functionality.
Free SocialPro addon until March 2011. Valuable information and experience can be gained.
Amazing Email template library, tools, and resources.

MailChimp Cons

Does not have telephone customer support
Free SocialPro data will be removed from list after March 2011 if you decide to discontinue usage.

MailChimp Conclusion

MailChimp has one of the most intuitive Contact Management and Reporting tools that meets every single Market Standard.  With the presence of integrating with a plethora of social properties and leveraging their provided tools makes MailChimp one of the most attractive email marketing tools to date.

From a email template designer’s perspective, MailChimp’s Email Creation tools are extremely flexible, but creating email templates are a science of it’s own and can certainly be done improperly by the inexperienced or untrained. If you are serious about your email marketing efforts, I recommend  employing someone with at least the knowledge of creating email templates, and specifically for MailChimp.

MailChimp’s Customer Support was found to be direct and courteous through email and live chat services, but they do not offer phone support.  Not to worry because I found that their Knowledgebase is extremely educational, chalked full with video tutorials and educational materials.

Notable MailChimp Features

MailChimp: Socially Integrating

To date, MailChimp offers in many fashions the ability to leverage existing social media efforts such as Twitter and Facebook while at the same time you have the ability to integrate with other applications like Google: Analytics, Contacts, Docs, Eventbrite, SurveyGizmo, FreshBooks, SalesForce, and many others.

MailChimp: SocialPro

An new feature introduced by MailChimp that others in this market do not offer is SocailPro.  SocialPro layers your mailing list with publicly available social data, so you can see what your subscribers look like. Find out who’s most connected, and send targeted campaigns to those subscribers.  SocialPro is free until March of 2011 and if you choose not to use it after March of 2011, data collected will be removed from your list.  This does not concern me too much because those that have properly planned the purpose and usages of their email marketing strategies should discover the benefits or lack of with a financial analysis whether continuing past this date is beneficial or not.  They are simply separating the recreation players from the serious email marketers.

MailChimp: RSS to Campaign

The simplest of features can prove to be some of the most under-rated ones as well.   MailChimp’s RSS to Email campaign type allows you to automatically send your subscribers a newsletter whenever you update your blog, or any RSS feed for that matter.

MailChimp: Pricing

In lieu of a limited time free trial, MailChimp also offers a free subscriber list of up to 1000 contacts and allows you to send 6,000 emails per month for as long as you wish. Their pricing is both contact and email based, meaning you can pay by number of contacts you have or by the number of emails you send per month. Among a few of their plans, a user can pay a monthly fee of $15 per month for 500 to 1000 contacts with an unlimited number of emails and $30 a month for 1001 to 2500 contacts or $30 for 1000 emails and $60 for 2000 emails.  They also offer a pay-as-you-go plan are design for people who send less frequently than once a month. You purchase credits, which work like stamps. You only buy them when you need them, and yes—unused credits rollover.

the Gaboink! network Website

Because of decisons based on role, purpose, and maintenance, we’ve migrated the core Gaboink! network website from Joomla! to the amazing WordPress 3.0.x platform, and gave it a sporty new custom look.  One of the key driving factors in this decision was the desire and need to blog about the things and technologies that excite us and may be useful to a broader audience, and what better platform to blog on than WordPress.

the Gaboinked! Labs

The Gaboinked! Labs has been redesigned to server as the systems and development notification platform for the Gaboink! network.  Clients and visitors alike can get hosting server status announcements as well as custom web application availability updates as delivered from the development core.  The Gaboinked! Labs is also powered by WordPress 3.0.x and a custom theme to support it purpose.

Client Support Tools

the Gaboinked! AccountCenter

We’re extremely excited about the early stages of our our custom AccountCenter which allows us to manage clients in an automated fashion from license management, billing, and new service acquisitions.  Existing and new clients alike will enjoy the benefits of being able to manage their individual account requirements and details from a single point.

the Gaboink! network Helpdesk is a traditional online ticketing system available for qualified clients or individuals in the early stages of project prospecting.  The Helpdesk is now integrated as a part of the AccountCenter making even easier for clients to receive the targeted, qualified support they deserve.

The AccountCenter is in BETA and we are working on completing the features we’ve planned and specified.

1. Recognize subject matter blindness

Non-Profit organizations are full of motivated individuals accustomed to stepping up and owning tasks that they may not be the best subject matter expert to perform. A copy of a Seth Goodin Best Seller, photoshop and Dreamweaver is not going to produce an overnight subject matter expert and it may be easy to fall into subject matter blindness. Not unlike any other company solicit, hire, and empower the appropriate resources to manage, develop, and deploy your communication efforts effectively.

2. Share a “vision” and a mission

A quick tagline to sum up what the charity (or charitable event) is about is definitely important and typically serves as a mission statement, but sharing the vision of this mission is typically forgotten.

If you think about strategy (the “how”) too early, it will actually inhibit your vision (the “what”) and block you from thinking as big as you need to think. What you need is a vision that is so big that it is compelling, not only to others, but to you. If it’s not compelling, you won’t have the motivation to stay the course and you won’t be able to recruit others to help you. Take some time to understand, compile, and communicate a vision statement, and support it with a mission statement.

3. Clearly share how can people help

Donating money is the obvious way people can help, but make it clear they can help in other ways. Communicate volunteer opportunities, suggest fundraising ideas, and advise how users can help promote the website and charity via other social networking sites.

4. Share how volunteers, sponsors, and donors will be helping

Let your visitors know how their time or money is going to help you reach your goals when they volunteer time or donate financially. Giving individuals want to know how they’re impacting change or making a difference in someone’s life.

5. Share photos and videos of the cause you are supporting

Help users identify and visualize the people they’ll be helping.

6. Have a well thought out donation strategy

The donate button is most likely the most important asset of a charity website so it should be prominent and obvious. This is the ultimate end goal for users.

7. Share your funding goals

Did I mention that it’s important to share your funding goals. People are target driven. Having a goal gives them something to aim for, something that offers satisfaction or disappointment.

8. Always communicate your donations to date

If the website is for a specific charitable purpose, show how much has been raised to date. Current sponsors get to see how useful they’ve been while possible donors can see that there are other people already helping and the campaigns are active. This is important for communicating credibility in cause.

9. Build a community environment online

Sponsors will want you to keep in touch as they now have a vested interested, so make sure they can. Let people sign up and send them an occasional newsletter about what the charity is up to. This will also be helpful when it comes to looking for future donations.

10. Stay in touch

Sponsors will want you to keep in touch as they now have a vested interested, so make sure they can. Let people sign up and send them an occasional newsletter about what the charity is up to. This will also be helpful when it comes to looking for future donations.

New design

You will now find @mentions, retweets, searches, and lists just above your timeline – creating a single, streamlined view on the left of the screen. On the right, you can see the features you’re familiar with, including whom you recently followed and who recently followed you, favorites, and Trending Topics.

View photos, videos, and other media content

Now, it’s easy to see embedded photos and videos directly on Twitter, thanks to partnerships with DailyBooth, DeviantART, Etsy, Flickr, Justin.TV, Kickstarter, Kiva, Photozou, Plixi, Twitgoo, TwitPic, TwitVid, USTREAM, Vimeo, yfrog, and YouTube.

Discover related content

When you click a Tweet, the details pane shows additional information related to the author or subject. Depending on the Tweet’s content, you may see: @replies, other Tweets by that same user, a map of where a geotagged Tweet was sent from, and more.

Mini profiles

You can click a @username to see a mini profile without navigating from the page, which provides quick access to account information, including bio and recent Tweets.

Rollout timing

These changes will roll out as a preview over the next several weeks. During the preview, you’ll be able to switch back and forth so you have time to grow accustomed to the way things work. Eventually, everyone will have the updated version of Twitter.com.

You too can test drive the new Twitter.com by choosing to do so on your Twitter page and provide feedback by adding #NewTwitter to your tweets.

I just started using Versions which was advertised as a pleasant way to work with Subversion (CVS) on your Mac and they weren’t kidding. I definitely recommend this mac application whether you’re a hardcore Subversion user or new to version control systems, as it will definitely help streamline your workflow.

Who’s It For?

Regardless if you’re a designer, developer, editor, or project manager, Versions will save you the hassles of working with CVS repositories. Thanks to Versions’ clear-cut approach to Subversion, novices and power users alike will enjoy using it. And if you haven’t moved to Subversion yet, this application will inspire you to.

A Few Features I Really Like

• Supports all SVN protocols: http://, https://, svn://, svn+ssh:// and file://.
• All the latest major release of SVN, 1.4, 1.5, and 1.6 are built in
• Use Kaleidoscope, FileMerge, Changes, Araxis Merge, BBEdit or TextWrangler and other tools to view diffs, or create your own custom diff scripts.
• See which folders contain changes and view all files or only changed files.
• A totally awesome Mac user interface.

Conclusion

It should be noted that Sofa recently acquired all assets of Versions from Pico, making Sofa the sole owner of Versions. Sofa claims to be committed to supporting all Versions users and to continuing the development of Versions, reassuring a great future for the product.  Sofa also develops Kaleidoscope and I’m certain that integration support with both products will only benefit.

I have tried several CVS clients in my lifetime, and actually found it easier to stick with the command line environment until I stumbled across Versions.  I downloaded the 21 day free trial, gave it a spin, and have loved every moment of it.

Although I haven’t used it’s integration features with Kaleidoscope, I’ve taken a look at Kaleidoscope’s feature set and it blows me away.  It can actually manage differences in images as well as text.  Versions usage of BBedit is simple enough and I’ve been a BBedit user for more than 9 years now, but I do plan on purchasing Kaleidoscope as my diff specific application in the near future.

If you own an Intel- or PowerPC- based Mac running Mac OS X 10.4.9 and higher (10.5 & 10.6 recommended), and need to manage files or creative assets I’d definitely give it a spin.  Sorry Windows users.

I was recently contacted by and executive from Packt Publishing, a company that specializes in technical and IT texts. Because of my early development efforts and community involvements with the JomSocial social networking component for Joomla!, he asked if I would write a review one of their new books titled, Joomla! Social Networking with JomSocial by Batrice A. Boateng and Kwaski Boateng.  I try to allocate a few hours per month for opportunities like this, so I accepted.

Before I get started, I want to be fair to the authors by making this statement. JomSocial is packed with a bunch of eye-candy feature sets that the developers assume to be useful out of the box. After reading this book, I’ve determined that it is not a developer’s guide, nor did the author’s intend it to be. It is solely for those individuals desiring to create a social network on the Joomla! content management system using the default JomSocial features. Over 99% of the sites you may have seen that are powered by JomSocial are heavily customized websites and their owners have invested and considerable amount of time and/or finances to produce desired results.

Joomla! Social Networking with JomSocial is one of Packt Publishing’s newest releases of 2010. This 167 page guide takes you through 9 chapters beginning with an overview of Social Networking.

Cons

• The book is really nothing more than a JomSocial reference guide and concludes with “how to manage a Social Network’ tutorial.  It does not cover the in depth or advanced topics that may tend to leave the reader a bit frustrated if expecting more.

Cons Overall: I only have one primary con of the book, in reality this information should be provided with JomSocial at time of purchase.

Pros

• This book fills a void where Slashes & Dots Sdn. Bhd. dropped the ball.

Pros Overall: Kudos to the authors for recognizing this and their time and efforts to provide documentation for JomSocial.

The book begins by by literally stepping you through downloading and installing Joomla! and configuring a local server on a Windows based system.  Unfortunately for us that use Mac OS X or Linux flavors, the local server dialogue is of no use, but it may be safe to assume that users of these operating systems may be advanced enough to understand how to accomplish this as a task if required.

Chapters 2 – 4 are solely dedicated to the setup and configuration of JomSocial and it’s component features.  As of me writing this, Slashes & Dots Sdn. Bhd., the developers of JomSocial, is endorsing the efforts of the Author in this book on the JomSocial website, and why not, it’s another out of pocket expense for a more comprehensive set of documentation than what is provided for JomSocial when purchased and one less focus for them.  I credit the authors for at least accomplishing this task which may prove valuable for a beginner to Joomla! and JomSocial.

In Chapters 5 – 6 it appears that the authors are trying offer a few recommendations of complimenting components that may be used and how to build a community with JomSocial.  They share a few random social sites as examples, but I’m not sure I would have chosen these sites as my examples to drive the points of these chapters home.  The only 2 out of the 14 shared I would have in my list would be idealist.org, a site that I follow on my personal Twitter account, and sixdegrees.org, a site that can be considered by most as the evolution of the Kevin Bacon project which is the foundation for all social networking strategies in use today.

Chapter 7 is a the chapter closest to home for me.  It attempts to cover customizing the JomSocial template or how your community is going to look and interact with the enduser.  At no fault to the author, they could only provide the most of basics which in many cases are not necessary to template customizations.  Unfortunately, there is no clear focus from Slashes & Dots development team to provide support for  the API’s that would be required to allow JomSocial to be “easily” customized like other social networking applications serving similar purposes like BuddyPress for WordPress as an example.  The majority of my JomSocial development efforts have been spent in the area of template customization and many of the features available today have been migrated from my efforts, but are included in core builds vs. an open API which would allow usage anywhere.  One theory I share is that the only difference between the Pro and Basic version of JomSocial is the availability of 3 additional templates and offering an open template API would compete with their Professional and new Unlimited marketing strategies.  This chapter is a necessary chapter, but don’t fault the author or set you expectations too high.  A complete book could be written on this advanced subject alone.

Chapter 8 covers a few Tips and Tricks.  I certainly took note to the tip regarding JomSocial’s integrated custom Joomla! module positions within the template.  This is definitely a feature I pioneered and the Slashes & Dots developers even thought it wise to use the exact naming convention and spelling of the module positions I deployed in the templates I created within my efforts.  To this day, I have not been told that they were going to do so, nor have I received any recognition directly from them for such a feature.  Such is life I guess.

Conclusion:

This is a perfect companion book for anyone that has purchased JomSocial and at some point realize that the available documentation does not meet their requirements or answer the questions they may have.  If you are wishing to push past the out of the box features of JomSocial, this is not the book for you.  I would certainly recommend this book to my clients that have purchased JomSocial licenses as it is the missing documentation that many of you have communicated your frustrations as missing.  This book really provides a better leg to stand on in support of your new purchase.

If everything you want to do is a priority, it’s no different than not having any priorities at all. Everything can be important, but it can’t all be the most important.

While there are a host of theories about how to best prioritize projects (and I have my own opinions about how work should be prioritized) the first step is at least understanding that you do indeed have to come up with your priorities. Without prioritization, everything gets a little attention, but almost nothing is actually completed. Even worse, you’re probably losing a lot of momentum on almost everything and expending a great amount of energy with very little return.

This seems sort of obvious, but a lot of companies still struggle tremendously with this concept, and it’s understandable. It’s really hard taking what may very well be a great idea and pushing it off until later. It’s tempting to try and take on that one additional thing without having to give up anything. The problem is, it almost never works out that way – something always has to give.

If you’re finding that you aren’t getting as much done as you think you should, or if you feel really busy but don’t have as much to show for your work as you would expect, you may simply need to take a step back and prioritize your work.

Sometimes pausing everything and figuring out your priorities is the best action you can take.