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Ebb and Flow, Me, DDO, Random

Posted by admin | Posted on 16-04-2010

Tags: Attractive, content producer, DDO, Naming Conventions

I love it when a plan comes together – Colonel John “Hannibal” Smith

While I was feeling up against a wall last post, since then, things have started to click into place. I’m connecting with fourteen of our Hoteliers for one project next week and one of our local arts and culture partners. All good things and mostly items I can’t yet mention publicly yet.

I have to admit, the art and culture groups and people I meet are always a very positive affair. Perhaps it’s why I am so fond of those facilities and organizations.

That said I’ve come across a new thorn in my side, one of the city’s conservatism that as a direct result of their political stance causes both the organization I work for and the city itself to lose out on what could have been a great opportunity.

Way to go city lap dogs.

But back to the positive, oh wait, no I don’t have much positive still, but rather than turn this post into a complete bitchfest I’ll change topics.

I’m not attractive. I found this out as I was sitting at the Tanq bar and a lady who is involved with the hair stylist conference this week comes up and tells the bar tender that she’ll pay him to be in the show as she is looking for attractive men to get their hair cut on stage. This shouldn’t really come as a surprise to me as I’m about 20lbs over weight and have recently cut my hair very short.

Besides having to deal with this stab to my ego, I find myself dateless for the Singing in the Rain Musical tomorrow night. Wife is busy and I have literally no one I can bring with me. Sigh, center, center solo…
In other news I began playing DDO, Dungeons and Dragons Online, as I’ve had no MMO to waste my time with, and found myself somewhat liking it. The micro-transactions I have ignored as they are geared towards players who want a quick push ahead of others, but they ultimately won’t matter later in the game (congrats on getting to level 4 before me or having a different looking character model).

I did do the first three quests, which unlocked the “hard” mode for each and allowed me to do them again on “hard” which as a Cleric War Priest doesn’t mean shit (I couldn’t go all the way easy mode with a human or elf cleric, so I did make it a Halfling, but still…). This weekend I should hit level 2…

I should mention that while this game is very control and graphically inferior to most other recent MMO’s like WoW and STO, it’s still manageable, fun, though since its DnD leveling actually means something. You don’t have 80 levels of grinding, but the difference between a level 1 and a level 2, or even 20 characters, much like in PnP DnD is drastically different. If you’ve ever played a D20 based game, you’ll know that at level 20 is when you enter “epic” levels and are somewhat of a demigod.

Only real gripe I have right now is that all my names were either not allowed or taken…

Taken: Diamond Greyus, Diamon Greyus, Cake Pony, Pony Cake

Not Allowed: Moist (either as a first or last name), Muffin (either as a first or last name)

I ended up on Thelanis as Moyst Mufin

Fuck you Turbine naming blockers.

The Wall

Posted by admin | Posted on 12-04-2010

Category : Content Producer, Marketing

Tags: FourSquare, hotels, Marketing, shops, walls

In my attempts to come up with new ways for our city to promote its businesses and ultimately bring in sources of revenue I’ve recently felt as if I’ve been hitting a wall. Not walls with my ideas mind you, but rather a wall with what the city and the organizations that surround me are willing to do.

One idea I recently had was to partner with a hotel who would be interested in reaching out to local or foreign businesses that could set up mini “shops” within the rooms of the hotel instead of in a meeting facility. Essentially businesses could set up a bar in a hotel room for people walking by or another place could be selling clothes and another novelty items.

This would on one hand create immediate revenue for the hotel given its rooms would be filling quickly, but it would also give them a lasting exposure with the foot traffic and word of mouth that would spread with such an event.

We could do an event like this once a year, once a quarter, or maybe even once a month and keep moving it from hotel to hotel, rotating through all those who would participate.

Unfortunately, I have lots of people who would like this to happen, but we don’t have anyone who can make it happen, and to top it off it’s something that falls outside of the model of the company I work for.

And to reference my previous post I still can’t get a hold of anyone at Foursquare to set up a special badge for people who have checked in at all of our venues or to talk with about working on a promotion no matter how many times either myself or my boss fill out the forms on their website or post on Foursquare’s GetSatisfaction.

Marketing with no money

Posted by admin | Posted on 05-04-2010

Category : Content Producer, Marketing

Tags: content producer, content sharing, cross promotions, Marketing, no money

With budget cuts and everyone trying to keep a buck in their hand I’ve been looking at various ways to promote businesses with little to no money involved.

Now the easiest thing is always going with the social media angle, a reTweet here for a mention or a cross post amongst Facebook pages, but I needed something that was going to draw in foot traffic to our downtown core. While social media can do this, our pages, and our partner pages, don’t have enough draw right now to really make a large movement happen yet. So what was I to do? I decided to try applying my same cross promoting social media plans to business scenarios and came up with the following two promotions.

The first promotion I had, which is still yet to be determined if it’s worked out or not, is a cross promotion I set up between Cryptic Studios, makers of the Star Trek Online game, and our Tech Museum, which has been featuring a Star Trek Exhibit. I started approaching the marketing department at Cryptic back in December, and our office heads here at Team San Jose. Through a long series of events it took until just a few weeks ago before I could get all of the decision makers together on a conference call. In the end Cryptic agreed to mention the Star Trek Exhibit to their player base in exchange for us letting them distribute STO game time flyers at the exhibit.

Hopefully we’ll see if we can’t drum up some business for the Tech, and maybe the MMO as well.

The second promotion isn’t so much a marketing promotion, but rather an opportunity for the city. We were recently approached by a company called Hear Planet, who has developed a phone application that allows users to listen to descriptions of places via their phone. Don’t know what something is, open the app and listen to the narrator tell you what the museum, club or store are all about. We’ve set it a partnership with them so that our entire database of businesses is being uploaded to them. While this doesn’t bring in a monetary value for us, it allows us to be one of the main providers of information for the city of San Jose, as well as make sure all of our venues and partners are getting listed.

I’m currently working on trying to get a city-wide event planned with Foursquare, but it’s yet to be seen if this will happen and I have a few other ideas I’d like to implement before the end of June. I’m hoping at some point during the next few months I’ll be able to follow up with this with some good news.

Are you Hot or Not?

Posted by admin | Posted on 24-03-2010

Category : Content Producer

Tags: content producer, hot or not, reviews

So in preparation for the new website I’m working on for TSJ, I’ve been asked to come up with a list of the four “Hot & Happening” places for Dining, Nightlife, Arts & Culture, Shopping, etc. They’ll ideally rotate every 30 days or so.

My first thought was that I needed to come up with a system to rank places. While I could go to Yelp and pick out the four highest rated places, I needed to experience each one for myself, as well as I need to see how the owners or managers interaction with us would be.

I start with pulling a list of the ten top places in each category from Yelp and as long as they have over 50 reviews. Anything under 50 makes me leery, though if it’s a new place, like six months old I’ll consider it. I then visit each one of these places as a patron, and I don’t mention who I am or what I am doing. I then go back about a week later on a different day and mention that I am, what I am doing and if I could meet with the manager or owner. It’s relevant to note that my reception is usually different once people know that I’m more than just a typical visitor.

I find the first time it’s very beneficial to ask other patrons or even the venues staff “so what’s been really popular downtown lately, it’s been a while since I’ve visited?” this question will give a lot of useful insight the first anonymous visit, though the second visit when I introduce myself will only give me a rundown of the current places activities and events. So it’s useless to ask this any other time, but on the first visit before you introduce yourself.

I then talk to the owner/manager and discuss cross promotion opportunities with them, as a non-profit everything we do is a free service, so I’m not selling anything to them, simply just offering an exchange of promoting them on our site in exchange for a link back to us or a onetime shout out on their social media feed. This part here is a bit interesting because it wouldn’t actually matter if these companies wanted nothing to do with us as it is TSJ’s job to promote the city of San Jose and therefore, you’re a sure in, even if you don’t want to work with us, we’ll list your business on our website and repost your events on our social media pages.

Now it’s time to pick the places for Hot & Happening…If a place gets three check marks I put them in the slot. If I have more than four places then I put which one I liked more in and save the other one for next month’s list. So how do my check marks work?

Check Mark 1: You have an average of 3.5+ Stars on Yelp. I find this to be very generous.

Check Mark 2: When I visited your venue the first time anonymously patrons were telling me they come here often or like the place rather than telling me “eh, it’s ok, it’s close by” or “I just came in and I don’t know if I’d come back” or, and I have heard this, “I don’t know why I come here, I hate this place, my friends make me go” – note: this goes the same for how the staff at the venue like or dislike the place too.

Check Mark 3: Did the manager/owner blow me off, not follow up or did he call me back, meet with me and listen to what I had to offer him?

Check Mark 4: Personal and Professional Bias. Ultimately the decision is mine alone to list a place on our website, and while I consider myself fair, if we have a business owner who is good friends with our CEO, or my boss, or even myself, I’ll probably nudge them in first before anyone else, provided they pass the first two Check Marks. At the same time, if a business has been bashing our company or has had an altercation with an employee, they may get bumped down, though honestly this hasn’t happened with anyone who has passed the Yelp and Visit marks.

So what now? We’re still a few months away, so all the ones I picked for this Hot & Happening may change shortly, but it at least gives me a good list to keep an eye on as I funnel in new or additional places to check out as we get closer to launch.

Six for Legally Blonde

Posted by admin | Posted on 17-03-2010

Category : Adventures

Tags: Center for Performing Arts, Legally Blonde, San Jose CPA

So last night I met my wife at the Tanq along with some friends including Mindy and Abigail B. who came with us to the opening of Legally Blonde.

I was a little hesitant of the show at first, as I like musicals, but the movie wasn’t exactly my cup of tea. This coupled with the fact that it is a musical based on a movie, instead of how many movies are based on musicals or theatre shows also made me pause. However, this whole issue was moot as my two special guests enjoyed the movie, like musicals and were excited for the show.

Opening nights at the San Jose Center of Performing Arts are always packed, and this was no exception as people were still pouring in packs at five minutes to curtain. While I will say that the CPA really needs to tear out some seats and create a center isle, we had great seats in the center middle of the theatre, though it was a pain to pass through all of the people to get in and out during intermission.

The show progresses pretty much spot as to the dialogue and events in the movie, with a few updated references to celebrities and current events. The acting was all spot on, though I can honestly say that I’ve never seen a bad show at the CPA. The two dogs who were in the show were cute and obviously trained very well, though the show stealer in my opinion was the UPS Delivery guy. He had everyone in the audience laughing out loud to the point of tears; by far the most memorable though his parts are two five minute bits.

Overall I enjoyed myself and was relieved that everyone of my guests, as well as others I could overhear, had all enjoyed the show.

Sunshine Day Adventure with a Hindu

Posted by admin | Posted on 11-03-2010

Category : Adventures

Tags: Adventures, baba, hindu, I have no clue

So while walking outside in the sun today along San Carlos a Hindu man stopped me and told me that I was a very lucky man while pointing with his thumb to his forehead. I assume this was a reference to his third eye perhaps.

He then introduces himself as Baba, a Hindu from India, and asked me where I am from. When I told him the states he didn’t seem to believe me and asked where my parents were from. I told him how I’m a mutt and lived many places. He tells me that I look Middle Eastern and then asks me how many countries I have been too.

I told him I’m not sure, but at least six off the top of my head. He then starts writing down something on a small yellow sheet of paper. He crumples it up and asks me to hold it in the palm of my hand.

He then tells me that I will have good luck in April and May, but that two people, a man and a woman who I know are conspiring against me and to be careful. He then tells me he can confirm this if I tell him what my favorite color is, besides black.

I tell him pink, which is true. He then asks me to pick a number between 1 and 10. I pick 7.

He tells me to open my hand and unwrap the paper he crumpled up. Written on it are the number 7 and the word Pink.

I was very impressed with the trick/reading and I’d have given him some change to thank him for the show, but unfortunately I am totally broke at the moment and didn’t have anything for him.

He seemed a little bothered by the fact I couldn’t help him out, but in the end we shook hands and parted our ways. I told him I’d plug him on my website, which I don’t think he believed, but apparently I am doing it now.

Update: I forgot to add that before we parted he told me that he never knows where he’ll be next and that I would be traveling myself for a long while very soon.