Five years ago, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I entered the corporate work force on a marketing communications team filled with experienced professionals.

In addition to countless side-conversations with my fellow intern at work, I used the internet to read and learn more about how other young professionals have dealt with a variety of situations.

With five years experience and thousands of M&M’s under my belt, literally, I thought I would share some the characteristics and advice that I have found to be most useful.

1. Ask questions. Be curious.
2. Keep your eye on the prize and always work to meet your business objectives.
3. Google everything that you don’t understand.
4. Don’t over complicate marketing communications. (Message – Audience – Channel) Work to optimize each part of the equation and remember to listen as well.
5. Ask intelligent questions to your managers. Pick their brain and learn how they approach their work.
6. Have confidence about what you know, especially when working with people outside of your department.
7. Marketing campaigns are launching daily. Look and learn from them.
8. Share your ideas in a manner that show they are well thought out.
9. Look at the big picture, but manage the small projects like they all matter.
10. Manage quality vs. quantity. Limit uncharacteristic mistakes.

I hope these little tidbits of advice helped you out. If you feel comfortable sharing a few of your own, please do.

It’s unpleasant for most marketing or any professionals for that matter to think about how many hours they are spending reading and sifting through emails.

In 2010, one of my (many) points of focused personal improvement is on my overall work efficiency. Not that I don’t enjoy getting my mind going a little later in the evening, but at some point, being married and a home owner must rule the day.

I asked my wife, a public relations professional, how she manages her email and she enlightened me about the four D’s of managing email overload.

1. Delete it
2. Do it
3. Delegate it
4. Defer it

I should mention that neither of us can take credit for this clever wordplay. Upon further review I found it actually came from a Microsoft blog of all places.

To look at the four D’s a little bit closer: If it’s unimportant delete it. If you can do it in less than 2 minutes, do it. If you can delegate it to someone else, forward it and if it is a little bit bigger than that, defer it to a folder in your email reader.

And finally a word to all my Gen-Y friends on the bottom of the totem pole feeling overwhelmed. When starting out at a new job, you will most likely be delegated some unglamorous time consuming tasks. My simple word of advice is to handle it and learn from it as best you can. If you work hard enough one day, you too will be able to delegate more freely.

The driver behind successful social media campaigns is no different from the driver behind successful traditional marketing campaigns.

Success in social media marketing starts with product differentiation. Companies must first examine what makes their product or service better than the competition. Hopefully this should come easy. Examples of product differentiations could be the features and functionality, it could be an interesting story about how a product was developed or it could be simply the price.

Either way, when entering the social media stratosphere, it is important to take note of what sets you apart from the competition.

People on the Internet – bloggers in particular – are interested in discussing product ideas and solution approaches that are new and different.

A current example would be the new Driod Phone. In this case, bloggers who write about new technology tend focus on the product differentiations. This article on Mashable illustrates just how important this is, as they displayed in a large chart showing differences among different types of phones. Social media marketing specialists should be prepared with this type of information.

To close, before you suggest social media marketing as a realistic marketing tactic – think about how is your product or service different from the completion? Who are the early adopters or major influencers? And where do they hang out on the Internet?

If you haven’t seen the Google Chrome OS Video below, please watch it before reading my response.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QRO3gKj3qw]

Google is right – most young people I know spend 90% of their time on their home computers on the Internet.

But what about the other 10% of the time?

Most likely people are writing a paper, editing a video, cropping some photos, putting together a power point presentation.

Even though I am still required to use them at work, does Google expect me to do away with Microsoft Word and Powerpoint?

And even though uploading files could take a considerable amount of time, does Google expect me to rely on free internet software to edit video?

I’m not trying to say that Google doesn’t have a pretty cool idea, but they definitely have some questions to answer. And until they do, don’t expect any changes from me.

We as consumers are not used to losing anything. Getting on the internet 35 seconds faster doesn’t make up for lost features and functionality like video editing.

It has been said that most of Generation-Y thinks they know everything about computers and technology. And although I don’t work in a technology role, I am often called upon by different colleagues to help them solve a computer problem. In most cases, I either know how to solve the problem, or I am able to trouble shoot my way to a solution.

In a way these situations make me feel pretty good. But I had to ask myself today, is my generation full of technology gurus? Or are we smart asses who think we know everything about technology because we know how to do a couple of cool things on a PC?

To answer my own questions, let’s first look at my technological background (which I would imagine is pretty similar to most college graduates my age):

• 19 years experience working with computers and software applications
• 8 years experience managing web-based applications
• 12 years experience working with Microsoft Office
• 7 years experience managing my own personal web site
• 100’s of hours experience managing my reputation online (yes, Facebook counts)

But are we as special as we think we are? My answer would be no, not really. And while others might consider parts of my job very technical (web sites and graphic design), I do not. Each generation coming after us will have at least the same technical understand of computers and software as we do. It comes with growing up and being educated in the era that we did. It is our responsibility to understand technologies and bring them to the workforce. It will help our country improve efficiency.

I had a basketball coach once say that if he were able to find a younger player who could do what I could do, as good as I could do it, that he would go with the younger player because he had a greater upside.

But is this true in business? No. You can’t possibly learn everything about business without experience beyond technology.

We should be weary of believing our upside is so strong that we should be allowed to check Facebook four times a day. We have a lot to learn and gain in experience in terms how to manage relations and how to work with a diverse team with varying size egos.

I hope that Generation-Y professionals learn to embrace their computer skills with some humility. (And yes, we are all very talented.) But we must not forget that before long we will be asking our even younger professional colleagues for help with new technologies.

Marketing over the last five to ten years has become extremely focused on consumers; what they want and what they need. When I heard the first sentence of a new Hyundai commercial promoting the Hyundai Assurance program, I was drawn to the simplicity by which they described their latest consumer-focus commercial.

“This is a car commercial, but it’s not about the cars, it’s about the people who buy them.” Said Hyundai’s car commercial seen below.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVAWviuVmK4]

The consumer-first, product-second approach works well in just about any industry. People want to know how a new product or service will do for them, not what has changed since the last underachiving product was released.

Amidst the inauguration, the release of Facebook Grader, and again more inauguration coverage – Google announced yesterday that they were discontinuing their Print Ads program.

Google started Print Ads in November 2006 and had relationships with over 800 newspapers. The program allowed Google’s ad clients to place offline ads.

About the continued demise of newspapers, Google said “We believe fair and accurate journalism and timely news are critical ingredients to a healthy democracy. We remain dedicated to working with publishers to develop new ways for them to earn money, distribute and aggregate content and attract new readers online.”

From a business standpoint, Google is a publicly traded company and must seek to make as much money as they can for investors. On the Print Ads blog yesterday they said “… as we grow, it is important that we focus on products that can benefit the most people and solve the most important problems. By moving resources away from projects that aren’t having the impact we want, we can refocus our efforts on those that will delight millions of users.”

Google said they would continue to place ads through the end of March.

From a local (Minneapolis) standpoint, the move comes just a week after the Star Tribune filed for bankruptcy. The revenue of the newspaper fell from $119 million in ’04 to $28 million in ’08. As much as I love the Internet, it’s tough to watch newspapers continue to fall.

Companies choose to brand and rebrand themselves for a variety of reasons. A new logo is good for telling the world that something significant about your company has changed. Perhaps you’re opening a new building, acquiring another company or adding new services, whatever the reason a new logo will grab the attention of your current client base and communicate to them a change. If you are considering a new logo design, below are a few recommendations for designing a new logo.

Logo Design Recommendations

• Have a clear objective. Do you want your logo to trigger an emotion? Trigger a memory? Convey a message? Does the logo need to represent your core business?
• Keep it simple. Keep in mind all of the various places your logo may be displayed – on letter head, online, on business cards, in advertisements, on the side of your building, ect. Logos that are too complex are expensive to reproduce across various mediums and are often times screwed up when manipulated by partners, customers, employees and vendors. Gradients can be especially difficult to print and reproduce. Your logo must also look good in black & white.
• Carefully consider shape and color. Don’t pick colors that could in anyway trigger a negative emotion or thought. Brighter more vibrant colors and sans serif fonts are often better fitted for trendy, progressive companies (retail and technology). More conservative colors and serif fonts are often better for suited for companies that want to show stability and prestige (banks, churches and schools).

Best Logo Breakdowns

Nike: The Nike logo is one of the simplest, most recognizable logos in any industry. The logo is stamped on anything produced and has been placed on the jerseys and shoes of championship teams and athletes.

McDonalds: The McDonald’s logo is simple, yet works on multiple levels. At the time a consumer tastes a McDonald’s burger they are surrounded by the golden arches on their tray cover, on their french fries, on their drink, on their burger wrapper, on the tables, on the workers shirts, on the menu, everything. You better believe the sight of golden arches while driving down the interstate will trigger the memory of a time they satisfied their hunger at McDonald’s.

Coca-Cola: The same principles with McDonalds apply with Coca-Cola. At the time of thirst satisfaction, the consumer sees the red color and the coke logo on the coke bottle. The next time the consumer goes to the grocery store, Coke hopes that the red and the logo in the store will trigger a positive memory and prompt the consumer to buy more Coke.

If you are looking for a great place to design a logo for cheap, checkout CrowdSPRING.com. A site that connects designers with people in need of a new logo.

Steps to getting design bids on CrowdSPRING.com.

1. Post the creative project you want. Let the designers know what you want, what you like, when you need it and how much you’re willing to pay for a logo design. Make sure to ask for your logo in an .eps format so that it can be used on anything.
2. Watch the world submit ideas. After watching the designs come in, you can review, sort, rate, give feedback and collaborate with the logo designers until you find ‘the one.’ This part of process allows you get what you want.
3. Pick the logo you want. Pick the logo you want and implement it all over.

Please let me know if you think I left out any important recommendations for designing a logo. Good luck!

Obama's Blackberry, Photo courtesy of Jae C. Hong.

The following are a few stories from my feed readers that I am following or found interesting over the last couple of days.

Google Disputes Harvard Fellow’s Pollution Estimate – CIO
Interesting new study released by a Harvard physicist that says Google is responsible for high levels of pollution. Of course when you boil it down, the study includes emissions from personal computers used during search, which in that case it wouldn’t matter who is the search provider. Google maintains they are the greenest major search engine.

Useful Tech at CES ‘09 – MSN
CES stands for consumer electronics show. Check out some of the hottest gadgets in this issue.

Web Making You Sick? Help for ‘Cyberchondriacs’ – MSN
One in four people use the Internet to look up health information. This article reviews the strikingly high number of people that actually misdiagnose themselves.

Obama’s big idea: Digital health records – CNN
EMR, short for Electronic Medical Records is part of Barack Obama’s plan to improve healthcare and decrease costs. Healthcare Administrators worry about the ability to find qualified staff to implement universal EMR systems.

Tax Cuts for Teachers – New York Times
Thomas Friedman offers a spectacular idea for boosting the economy, finding better teachers and investing in our future. He suggests eliminating federal taxes for teachers as a means of attracting new talent. He also suggests double the salary of highly qualified math and science teachers, as well as offering green cards to exchange students with whom we help subsidize their education.

I hoped you like these, if you have any feeds worth checking out, please let me know.

Moving from a position as an Internet marketer to a healthcare marketer, I’ve seen how different successful social media marketing can be depending on the industry.

Specifically within healthcare, patients are looking online for information about conditions, treatment options and physicians. A recent study however showed that their decisions about which physician they want to see still comes down to word-of-mouth suggestions from primary care physicians, friends and family members; not necessarily from something they read on the Internet.

Look no further than Minneapolis-based Carol.com to see that online word-of-mouth and price comparisons factor very little into decision making about which physician patients go to see.

Carol.com was social healthcare web site that wanted to do for healthcare what Travelocity did for the travel industry. The site allowed patients to rate service and compare pricing among competitors.

Since going live with the site in January, the company has decided to shift the focus of their company to software and consulting. Their sites for the Minneapolis and Seattle area’s will remain live, perhaps to be redeveloped when more consumers are ready.

With that said, the Internet is an important place to reinforce suggestions made by friends and family members. Search engine optimization and web design are critical parts of reinforcing image and reputation. A well designed web site with good content might help raise the level the perceived care a potential patient thinks they will receive.

Another note about Carol.com 
The concept behind the site was perhaps a bit too ahead of the times. Pricing for consumers may become more important as more people switch to high deductible insurance plans.

The underlying  issue behind the lack of success may have been that most people don’t want to think about healthcare until they have to and at that point, pricing is not always on the top of their minds. 

Additionally from a healthcare providers perspective, providers had to pay for a listing on the site while many of the individual services listed were rarely offered and priced individually. And while many physicians still in practice were taught to never advertise it is tough for marketers and administrators to justify costs.