Martha Mihaly

I logged into my Linkedin profile yesterday to see what’s up, make a couple of updates to my profile and for a minute I thought that I had logged into the wrong website.  I thought I was on Facebook.

Not sure whether I like the new format…as with any changes to something familiar it will take a while to figure out where everything went, and to assess whether the changes are in improvement, or just changes to format.  What I don’t understand though is why there seems to be a need to emulate Facebook so closely.  Don’t get me wrong, I understand FB is wildly successful but copying the format isn’t going to make Linkedin more successful - or is it?  We’ll see.  I hope that we don’t end up loosing too much originality in the rush to homogenize format…

The Ernst wrote a good piece on the Next web blog yesterday about this.

I read this article today in the National Post about  Pauly Unstoppable who decided to tattoo his eyeballs.  It took over 40 pokes.  Now generally, I have to say that I belong to the “Whatever floats your boat” category of people.  I don’t much care about other people’s idiosyncrasies, orientations, preferences

BUT THIS GUY IS NUTS.

I read today on the CBC homepage that serial murderer Robert Willie Pickton likely won’t be going to trial on the 20 counts of first degree murder that are outstanding against him.  It appears the $100 million price tag for a second trial is the reason.

At this point the despicable creature is locked away for 25 years, and I suspect he’ll never be out of prison BUT the families of his victims deserve justice.  

My friend Ceeque who has a lovely (albeit sparse…nudge nudge) blog has tagged me in a reading meme.  The rules are as follow:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

So then, here it goes.  I’ll start by confessing that I didn’t pick the nearest book, that is one on the conjugation of French verbs and concise grammar (I am brushing up *sigh*).  So instead I wandered a little further to the book I read just before Christmas.  It is A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini.  He also crafted the wonderful story The Kite Runner.

Sentences 1-3:

“Why don’t you go upstairs, Laila.  Go on.”  As she moved toward the steps, Laila heard the visitor say to Babi that he had news from Panjshir.

I highly recommend both of the books to anyone who loves to read. Now it’s back to conjugation….

I was asked to take on a new project this week.  One that in theory sounds really interesting.  It would have been an opportunity for real career growth and advancement, and would have made me more marketable.  It sounded exciting.  It was a job that would have given me the autonomy that I love, and freedom to execute things and strategize at a meaningful level. 

I gave the offer very serious consideration and spoke at great length with Tim about it.  I respect his opinion, and his perspective is often different than mine.  In the end I realized that as exciting as the opportunity would have been, the actual nature of the work was very unappealing to me.  I would be broadening my skill set, but in a direction that I had no real interest. 

I know myself quite well, and I know that I would embrace and attack the parts of the project that appeal to me, and put off, or ignore those that didn’t.  Unfortunately, that would do the client a great disservice in the end.  On the job training…cutting my teeth at their expense, would likely have been just that.  Had it not been a high profile project I might have considered doing it, but as we all know first impressions are of paramount importance in the 2.0 biz.  I cannot presume to play with other’s livlihoods.

I hope something else exciting comes along soon!

My favourite cousin Matt Mihaly had some absolutely fantastic news today.  He is the founder and CEO of Sparkplay Media and Iron Realms Entertainment. His company has been around for a decade or so, and has been a leader in the development of online text-based role playing games like Achaea .  He also pioneered the sales of virtual goods for real money (you can see what he has to say on that topic here).

He and his company have been developing their first graphics based game, and were looking to raise some capital for the project.  Today he announced that he closed Series A funding in the amount of $4.25 million.

Good work Matt.  I am proud of you, and your hard work.

Well it’s a sad day here … a childhood memory is no longer.  I read today that Polaroid announced that it is going to stop making the instant camera and the film to go with it.  The Boston Globe reports that there is film to supply next year’s demands and that’s it.

For all of us who remember the ‘magic’ of photos appearing before our eyes, we will see the end of an era.  On the other hand, the last time I actually used a polaroid must have been in the 1980’s, so I suppose I don’t have any right to crab about it.  I still have one in the basement somewhere with my first Apple computer, and a manual typewriter….

I had just a fantastic day today.  I was ’supervising’ my daughter’s class trip to the local ski hill Chicopee today, and spent the day skiing and looking like I wasn’t actually with a group of 13 and 14 year old kids. There were about 150 of them.  I’d forgotten how funny that age is.  Not children anymore, but not yet adults.  It was really funny watching them ski and chat, and just be goofy.

While I skiied alone (because I guess I’m just not cool anymore) I bumped into a woman who is a custom bra maker.  I hadn’t ever considered that to be a line of work, much less a business opportunity.  She’s redesigning her website and I am wondering about trading services. I’ll have to get in touch with her early next week.

The next person I met is a former sales guy.  He was telling me how this was the first time in 35 years that he wasn’t working.  He got tired of sales, sold his book to the company, and is taking 6 months to plan his future.  What struck me was that he said,

“this is the first time in my life I am planning the future without being pushed by the past”.

Such a great idea.  I hadn’t ever stopped to consider how often we make decisions not based on the merit of the situation, but based on all of the other things in life ‘pushing’ us to make a decision.  It’s a great idea.

The three of us rode up a few times together, when the salesman asked the bra fitter if she’s ever fitter men.  She said that in fact she has a male client, who has implants, and is in entertainment.  There’s probably a really good story to be had there, but the chair got to the top and we parted ways.

Who would have thought that I’d have such a great time on the chair lifts?

We had a fantastic time ice fishing … that is if catching fish isn’t an integral part of the experience! 

We were out last year on this lake with Bob Izumi.  For those of you who don’t know him, he’s a professional fisherman, and all around genuinely nice man.  We were at a friend’s cottage on the day that Bob was scouting an ice fishing episode for his tv show.  I have rarely met anyone as genereous with his time, equipment or praise as Bob was with the group of 7 or 8 kids that were there.  The day we fished with Bob everyone caught lots of fish and had a great time. 

Bob and Ruth

Ruth and the Black Crappie (1 of 7 fish for her that day)

This year we didn’t catch a single one, but we still had fun out on the ice together.  For those of you who are curious the ice was about 20 cm thick which is considered well withing the standards for safety.  The hockey stick was for safety, the toboggan to keep little bums warm and dry!

So I have had some time to put my web 2.0 experience as the primary researcher, writer (Respectance Blog), and host of Respectance- a Silicon Valley venture capital funded social networking site into perspective.  Here are some of my thoughts on the development, marketing and monetization of such a site.

 As much as the internet pundits hate to acknowledge it, social networking is within the context of the general population, still a niche activity.  General use of social networks is growing daily as broad band and viral penetration continues.  Within the realm of Social Networking there are many ‘flavours‘. There are the big boys FaceBook and myspace, and then there are the myriad of niche sites such as Respectance.  There is something for everyone, but how does any one company find the customers that they need?

Through honest and frank web evangelism I brought our first thousands of members on board.  It was not easy, death and grieving is a taboo subject, to reach out and convince people to share their visceral feelings in order to produce (for our purposes) genuine high value content.  Market research was extensive, design and feel of the site crucial to attracting the target demographic (women 25-50), and of course writing things that people are interested in hearing about in a concise and easy manner.

I ran our SEM campaigns and found that SEM was a great way to bring people in.  Unfortuantely for a startup it’s also a great way to ’send money out’.  The cost/benefit of any SEM campaign must be constantly analysed and CTRs aren’t necessarily the way to measure success.  It may allow you to count the people in the door, but did they stay long enough to have the ‘cup of coffee’?

While I was there we tried many marketing campaigns based on good will agreements with non-profits, attempting penetration of chat rooms, and forums.  Some of the campaigns were successful, many weren’t.  Time lines were tight, budget tight, staffing few.  New people came and brought ideas.  There isn’t a marketing ‘how to’ manual out there yet for this kind of marketing.  What people like, what catches on, it’s all still a very elusive target. 

There is a critical mass of members that any social networking site must have in order to use any of the ‘no fee for service’ monetization models.  Even then it seems making money is not at all easy. (more…)