What a week. Last Friday morning my grandmother took her last breaths and the following week, as I rushed to finish her funeral program, Steve Jobs passes away. My grandmother was 93 and the hardest moment of my life thus far was watching that casket slowly descend into the ground.

I have to chuckle though at the thought of Steve Jobs and Phoebe chatting while waiting at the gates. He’d say something courteous like hello ma’am and then strike up a conversation with a question like what did u do with your life? My gran would say something like well, I raised my children, and was a foster parent to over 140 children. I worked for UNICEF, and traveled extensively teaching and learning. I opened the first SDA church in Sanniquellie, Liberia and I also ran a 300 acre farm that was primarily rubber and cocoa but also grew other things like pineapples.

I’m sure Steve would have the generational sensitivity to understand that Gran was 93 and had no idea what a iPod was but I imagine he’d tell her about his family and that he co-founded a company that changed the way we use and see computers.

This odd pair share some real commonalities though.

1. very strong personalities.
Phoebe stood at a maybe four feet, six inches but she had a 6’7″ personality. They were both demanding, aggressive, and sometimes forceful. I think that sometimes it was intentional because they knew people needed to be pushed.

2. pioneers to lead the way
Phoebe Amanda Reeves Logan was born in 1917 in Liberia, West Africa. How common do you think it was that an African woman would and could lead a 300 acre farm and have a career as an educator, traveling to foreign companies? Steve left Apple, started over and ended up having his old company (Apple) buy his new company (NeXT) for a pretty penny. The whole time, he was clear on his objective and comfortable in the low moments that came along with his vision.

3: the void they leave:
Not sure if the death of a 93 year-old should be shocking but there’s really no other way to explain it. She’d always been here. At the funeral I heard my dad say “I never thought my mother would die.” We didn’t know life without her.

When I heard about Mr. Jobs i paused in disbelief. How could they let this brilliant guy die? I was disappointed that we couldn’t keep him longer and I wondered how Apple would continue to innovate without their not so secret weapon. They both expected greatness, showed fearless leadership and lived with conviction

- and they will both be missed.

madia

Hey friends – a new blog is in the works. I’m going to focus on a broader scope of topics. If you know me well, you probably know how many things I work on.

I am feverishly writing my third album and thanks to life, I have a lot to write about.

I’m also working hard on the digital marketing front. There are lots of innovations happening and I want to talk a little more about that stuff in detail.

more to come.

Metrics are all the rage now.  Get on board.   As demand for understanding the impact of all this web stuff meets expanded capability in tracking web activity, we find ourselves a little measurement happy.  It’s tempting to create report after report about where people are clicking, who’s tweeting what, and on and on and on.

I’m not going to lecture long because, well that’s not my style.  I’m a bullets and more resources kinda girl, so here goes:

• Meaningful measurement takes time.  If you develop the metrics based on your goals, you will better understand the progress you’re making.
• I believe that measuring also allows you to test different types of content and content delivery.  Don’t be afraid to experiment.
• When we’re thinking about websites, we don’t just want to know how many people went there but did they do what you wanted them to do?  Did they make the purchase, sign up for the newsletter, forward the article?

I’ve been going through a self-paced certificate program on web metrics.  Okay fine I’ve been reading books and blogs and that’s more than a lot of certificate programs.  So there.  Let me share some of my great reads so far:

• Avinash Kaushik is Analytics Evangelist for Google.  He’s written two books, both worth reading:  Web Analytics: An Hour a Day and Web Analytics 2.0.  He also has an awesome blog:  http://www.kaushik.net and you can find him on twitter @avinash
• If you need site analytics, Google Analytics is pretty great, and free.
• Klout.com – Free twitter analytics tool.  Pretty interesting…

Remember, focused measurement can be a powerful tool in helping your organization achieve it’s goals!

If you’re a marketer, you should probably be joining some professional development organizations.  This helps get you networked, stay in touch with industry practices, and up to date on new trends.  Here’s the list of organizations I know about.  Did I miss any?

• Social Media Club |   http://www.socialmediaclub.org/ – My local branch in DC is pretty active: Shout to http://smcdc.wordpress.com.  They do many events around the DC area where digital marketing professionals can meet up to discuss best practices.  It feels a little less stuffy than the more developed associations but it depends on what you’re into.  I paid the membership fee immediately, because I could pay from PayPal!  You also get good discounts to events.  I’m not sure if I’m attending the online marketing summit, but it is one example of how joining the SMC could be a good thing.  http://www.onlinemarketingsummit.com/2010-washington-dc/
• American Marketing Association | http://www.marketingpower.com – I joined the AMA in 2006 and have been off and on with my membership.  They produce a quarterly journal that can be helpful.  They also have a great job board that is open to site visitors.
• Society of Digital Agencies | http://www.societyofdigitalagencies.org – I joined SoDA the earlier part of this year.  There was no membership fee, though I would have paid something for all the value I got.  They manage the site through a Ning network and did a awesome digital marketing outlook document.  Some people want to know that SoDA began as an Adobe venture but I don’t have a position on that.  It’s a great org that gives you access to great resources and allows you to contribute meaningfully. I cross post marketing blog posts on their site and check out the other contributors.

Are you:

• A marketing professional?
• Curious about why Americans are such consumers?
• Curious about how the masses bought in to democracy?
• In PR or any related field, (like marketing or communications)?
• Just curious about what I’m talking about now?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you need to watch a documentary that I’m watching.  It’s called – Century of the Self.  It was a British documentary that focused on the “engineering of consent” and the influence of the masses.

The eye-opening film shows how powerful people found ways to influence and in most cases manipulate the American people.

“Bernays had manipulated the American people, but he had done so because he, like many others at the time, believed that the interest of business and the interest of America were indivisible… but Bernays was convinced that to explain this rationally to the American people was impossible because they were not rational.  Instead one had to touch on their inner fears and manipulate them in the interest of a higher truth.”

The origins of this influence came from studies Sigmund Freud did in psychotherapy.  There was a focus on how to work of Sigmund Freud, his nephew Edward Bernays, and his daughter Anna Freud.  You can find the clips on YouTube and I’m going to do more posts about the marketing focused parts.  Stay tuned!

madia