Digital Frontiers

We live in a society where we stress knowledge, but spend very little time learning how to be successful. We spend nearly a quarter of our lives filling our heads with information that we could just as easily access on demand. While facts can be helpful, it is most often experience that teaches us the most. Digital Frontiers is different from most courses in that it doesn’t teach facts, but instead it imparts success strategies through experience.

Instead of teaching us what marketing is, we instead learned how to market. We learned that it is social interaction, not one sided advertisements, that drive consumer choice and that most often, when it comes to marketing, our customers are our best employees. We learned how to leverage sites like Facebook, YouTub, and Twitter to foster conversation and used tools like Google Analytics to monitor trends and adjust our approach. We stood on the shoulders of giants like Scott Brady and learned from their experiences and teamed up with Gainesville businesses to gain experience of our own.

Further, the course taught valuable success strategies like the importance of goal setting and exposed the class to one of the most powerful books ever written, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. In the end, we learned far more then any business course could ever teach and are all better off for our experience.

Popularity: 1% [?]

The internet has transformed the way in which we live and work by providing us with easy access to an almost infinite supply of information. Complex topics are often found in summary form, saving us hours of research and reviews allow us to benefit from the experiences of others. For example, Yelp allows guests to rate and describe their experience with local businesses, so others can make an informed decision. The same is true for sites like Amazon and Newegg, which allow users to rate products they have purchases so that fellow shoppers can feel comfortable with a purchase decision. Further, sites like Wikipedia allow guests to benefit from the collective knowledge of others.

While these technologies have the ability to simplify our lives, they can also lead to laziness. When the answer to almost any question is readily available, not much effort is required to obtain it. Instead of attempting to works things out for ourselves, we turn to the web by default. In the past, we would learn through experience and develop a working knowledge of a topic. Now, the tendency is merely to search out a solution and stop once it has been found, acquiring only a surface level understanding of the topic at hand. For example, novice programmers will often copy code snips into their programs to get the functionality they desire, without fully understanding how it is implemented. If they instead chose to read through documentation and fully implemented the desired functionality from scratch, they would surely become more proficient programmers in the long term.

While society is becoming more dependent on the internet, there is no need to panic. We do not need to become experts on every problem we encounter and often simply finding a credible answer is enough.  In the end is up to the individual to determine whether exploring a topic further will add value to their life and be disciplined enough to follow through on that decision.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Word of mouth is a business’ most valuable asset. The recommendation of a friend carries more weight than any message we could possibly create. Therefore, businesses must create marketing and products that encourage conversation.

In the case of the Master’s Entrepreneurship program at UF, we will create a WordPress site representative of the program’s innovative nature. We will get business professionals, professors, and successful alumni to blog about entrepreneurship related topics. By constantly providing fresh information, we will create a valuable resource that encourages repeat visits and indirectly draws attention to the program.

Further, we will link to the work of other experts in the field, hoping they in turn tell their audience about us. By becoming part of the greater entrepreneurship community, we will gain a much larger audience then we could ever hope to generate on our own.

Once the site is in place, we will take advantage of the viral nature of sites like Facebook by inviting our friends and hoping they will tell theirs. Whenever anyone becomes a fan of our page, they will in effect be endorsing our site and their friends who see it will be more likely to check our site out.

By promoting entrepreneurship in general, instead of a specific degree program, we will build brand awareness. We will create an informational resource that appeals to all interested in entrepreneurship in an effort to draw attention to a valuable, but largely unknown, degree option.

Popularity: 2% [?]

The internet is a global network of computers linked together by a backbone of fiber optic lines. These lines are controlled by companies like AT&T, Level3, Verizon, and Quest which sell access to regional internet service providers. Since its beginnings the internet has practiced “net neutrality,” giving all packets the same priority. Unfortunately, there are a number of providers that wish to capitalize on their pipelines by charging large companies for preferential treatment. If they have their way, the internet will be transformed into a pay to play environment, where the businesses with the most money get the most bandwidth.

By giving preferential treatment to large firms, small businesses will be unable to compete for your attention. Soon the freedom of information that we have grown to love will be no more. The internet will no longer be a place where everyone has a voice, but a place where your bank account dictates how much you are allowed to contribute to the conversation.

As corporate interests begin to take over, the objectivity of information will soon become tainted. Instead of hearing both sides of an issue, we will only hear the side most able to afford our attention. The internet will turn into a large auction with firms trying to outbid each other for preferential treatment.

Fortunately, there are a number of organizations fighting for your right to freely share information. One such organization, Save the Internet, is a coalition that is fighting to protect openness of the internet. So far over 1.7 million individuals have signed a petition on their site urging congress and the FCC protect net neutrality.

If you value your freedom, you are encouraged to visit savetheinternet.org and sign the petition. From their site, you can also make a donation, become a fan on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter.

Popularity: 2% [?]

As marketers, one of the best ways we can promote ourselves is though the use of user-generated content. Every time a user adds to the conversation, it not only attracts attention to our brand, but provides us with valuable feedback on how we can improve our product or service.

Our customers may see things differently than we do and can provide us with new prospective and ideas on how to improve our offerings. This gives users a sense of ownership in the brand and makes them more likely to become or remain loyal customers.

Further, prospective customers may be more inclined to trust their peers. We can tell them all we want that our product is great, it doesn’t mean it really is. By reading customer reviews, visitors can gauge the quality of your products and services. On the downside, not all content will be positive and there is always a possibility of user bias. As such, it is important that companies respond promptly to negative content and show users that they are listening and do care. Otherwise, the negative will quickly outweigh the good.

One organization that is effectively using user-generated content is Purdue, which has created a new application called Hotseat that integrates with Facebook, Twitter, and text messaging systems. Students can comment on content, bring up questions, and share new ideas at once with the class, with all students and the professor having access. Students at Purdue are leveraging social media to improve the quality of their courses and drive discussion. How can you apply these same principles to your business?

Popularity: 2% [?]

Many businesses invest considerable time and resources into getting people to their sites, but ignore the equally important task of monitoring their visitor’s actions. By understanding how visitors interact with a site, marketers can gain an understanding of their customer’s preferences and better engage them.

All too often marketers make the mistake of assuming their homepage is the most critical page on their site. In most cases, this could not be furthest from the truth. Instead visitors often land on inner pages of interest to them, which they find through search engines and links on other sites. With analytics, webmasters can determine which pages are the most popular and invest their time and resources where they will make a difference. They can also pinpoint areas that are in need of improvement and adjust their approach. By looking at a page’s bounce rate, which shows how many users leave a page immediately after arriving, they can determine how effective their page and the marketing strategies which led the user to it really are.

In effect, a website can be come a laboratory where different approaches can be tried, to determine which are the most effective. You can try different colors and graphics on different pages of your site and see in almost real time how your visitors respond to them.

Further, by using services like PostRank, an analytic tool tailored for blogs, you can determine not only how engaged your visitors are with your site, but how they arrived there in the first place. You can then determine which forms of advertising where the most effective and which are simply wasting your hard earned money.

So, now that you understand the importance of analytics, you are probably wondering how you can go about capturing all of this statistical information. Fortunately for you, there are a number of free tools which will automate this process for you. Once of the most popular, is Google Analytics, which serves as a free complement to Google’s paid advertising service, AdWords. The service can be setup in a matter of minutes and only requires adding a small portion of code to the pages of your site, both for verification and trending purposes. Once in place, you will be able to see detailed information, such as what region your guests are located in, what pages referred them, and what browsers they are using.

The possibilities of how this information can be used to reshape a site are endless and analytics should be embraced by all serious website owners. If you are not already using analytics, you could be wasting thousands without even realizing it. Adopt analytics today and realize the infinite possibilities.

Popularity: 3% [?]

For most, a website is often the first thing that comes to mind when they think of internet marketing. All too often, companies create websites without first considering how they will generate traffic and keep it there. Instead of focusing on the user and what they will get out of the experience, they focus on themselves and the message they wish to get out. They hold on tightly to their branding and fail to realize their website can be something more than just an online version of the business cards and brochures.

As we began to explore the online presence of our client, the MSE program, we soon realized they too had made many of these typical mistakes. For starters, they often refer to the program as the “MSE program,” short for Master’s Entrepreneurship. While they may know what this means, most students, including our group when we first saw it, mistake them for the Material Science and Engineering program. As a result, their intended audience may be ignoring their site, simply because they assume it offers nothing of interest to them. Even worse, once prospective students arrive there is nothing to keep them there. The site simply explains the program, offers application materials, and does nothing to excite or engage visitors.

In light of these problems, we have proposed the creation of an informal site. The new site, InnovateUF.com, will contain posts from faculty, former students, and successful business owners. Visitors will be able to interact and learn from the advice and experiences of others. Since they site will always be fresh and changing, students will be more likely to bookmark it and often return. Further, our articles may draw in people who didn’t even realize they were looking for our program. Once they come to our site, they may realize the value of our program and, even if they don’t enroll themselves, they may tell a friend.

In addition to the articles, the site will also allow visitors a forum to design their ultimate entrepreneurship program. By listening to the ideas of our visitors, we will be able to better target the program for their needs. In many cases, customer suggestions may reveal common problem hindering the program. For example, when Star Bucks launched the site MyStarBucksIdea.com, many of the suggestions involved ways to improve the speed of service. While no one came out and said the service was slow, the suggestions made it clear speed was an issue. By letting visitors share their ideas, we can not only identify weaknesses, but provide them with a sense of ownership.

By re-branding the MSE program, opening it up visitor input, and continually providing articles of interest, we will help visitors to discover a great, but largely unknown, program. Now it’s your turn. How can you apply these same concepts to your business?

Popularity: 1% [?]

The internet is transforming the way in which we interact and do business. No longer must executives travel halfway around the world, or even around the corner, to meet. Now their meeting is as close as the nearest laptop. Technologies like GoToMeeting and DimDim, its open source equivalent, enable users to interact across the net. They can share files, do presentations, and even see their remote counterpart. Companies with multiple jobsites can now interact across the web, reducing travel time and increasing the amount of time employees actually work.

A more advanced technology, telepresence, takes remote meetings to the next level. Through the use of high resolution cameras and displays, this technology makes it seem as if the remote users are present in the meeting. This allows businesses the face to face interactions they have grown accustom to.

One such product, Cisco TelePresence, was released in 2006 and through a series of high resolution screens and audio effects, gives the allusion that the remote users are really present. Sound waves are widened to provide a more natural conversation and screens can be synced to make the conference tables in different locations look like one continuous table. While high definition telepresence rooms provide for the best experience, individual users with web cameras can also be added to the mix, allowing for interaction with off-site personal.

Just as the internet is transforming the way in which people meet, it is also transforming the way in which information is stored and the ease with which it is accessed. Many companies are now using web based applications, which allow users to log on from anywhere. With such software, employees can work from home with nothing but a browser.

Many of these web based applications, which were once hosted on-site, are now being moved to cloud based solutions. This trend is decreasing the costs and physical assets of businesses and making enterprise grade technologies available to small business and individual users.

Further, Virtual Private Networks allow users to securely access information on their company’s private network and remote desktop technologies, like Microsoft’s Terminal Services, allow users to remotely access and control systems from anywhere. System administrators can manage servers from the comfort of their living rooms, reducing the amount of time they spend rushing back to work for emergencies. With Remote KVM technologies, which allow hardware level access to a device, they can even remotely reinstall an operating system or restart a frozen system

By freeing users from the physical location of their work, these innovations serve to decentralize business, reduce cost, and increase communication. As technology continues to evolve it is likely that we will see this move toward decentralization grow, as one’s physical location becomes irrelevant. We are heading toward an age of specialization where large mega corporations will be replaced by a web of individuals, all providing services to one another over the internet. To be successful in this new age, you must embrace new technologies as they arise and ask yourself how you can capitalize upon them.

Popularity: 2% [?]

If you are like most, you are probably wondering how a post-it note can fight hate speak. Often it is not the medium that matters, but rather how you use it. That is the lesson our group learned last Wednesday, when we were give one hour to “create value” using post-it notes. For most of us, it was the first time we had ever been given such a task and we struggled to understand our objective.

As we set out on campus, cameras in hand, we still no idea what we were going to do. We considered making a flip book, but that would take hours. We even considered selling the post-it notes, but surely that’s not what our instructors wanted. Besides, who would buy three packets of post-it notes? Finally we realized it wasn’t about making or selling something, but rather using our new found tools, the post-its, as a medium to promote awareness.

At first, one of our teammates proposed we creating a walling wall for Haiti, but we soon noticed almost every other group we past was already exploiting that tragedy. If we wanted to standout, our idea had to be fresh. Then we noticed the Writing On The Wall project, and an idea hit us. We would help them spread their message using our post-it notes. Our goal was to get students to either pledge to avoid hate speak or write something they found hurtful, with the ultimate goal of causing students to stop and consider the power and impact of their words.

We posted the notes on a wall and began to approach students, hoping they would be receptive to our mission. We were turned down many times in the beginning, but did not become discouraged. After many unsuccessful pitches, we altered our approach and the wall began to fill. As students saw their peers writing on our wall, others came over to see what was going on and this furthered the conversation.

Through this experience, we learned that you do not have a huge marketing budget, lots of technology, or even a physical product to create value. You can attract attention with something as basic and inexpensive as a post-it note.

Popularity: -0% [?]

Meet Joseph, a young entrepreneur and information systems major at the University of Florida. For Joseph, technology is more than just a passion; it’s a way of life that first began in Elementary school. Throughout much of his youth, Joseph spent his free time helping others with their computing issues and volunteering in the community. In High School he assisted the school’s technology specialist. He also volunteered at his old elementary school and church and fixed the computers of numerous family members and friends.

Over the years his passion grew and he realized it was time to take things to the next level. In 2007, Joseph founded Gator I.T., a technology services firm. At first his business catered primarily to residential customers, who he assisted remotely over the internet. He soon expanded to businesses, introducing a variety of managed services and eventually web development services.

Through his experience, Joseph soon learned that building static websites for his clients was not enough. He needed a way to drive traffic to them, or else they would not create value. He needed a way to differentiate himself from the competition, so he began to search the web. He learned the basics of SEO, but was still unsatisfied. He understood the importance of social media sites, like Twitter and Facebook, but found himself still unable to generate the excitement and enthusiasm he knew was necessary.

Seeking to find meaning and fill this void in his life, Joseph enrolled in Digital Frontiers, an honors elective focusing on social media marketing. While the semester just started, Joseph has already learned a considerable amount, such as the importance of making his blogs fun. While Joseph is a strong writer, he has always had a tendency to be a little starched, which does not lend itself well to marketing. Throughout this semester, Joseph will be fine tuning his creative writing skills, so that he can more effectively excite others to share the stories of his customers.

One company that is consistently able to generate customer enthusiasm is Apple. Unlike many of their competitors, they realize that customer evangelism is far more valuable than one sided marketing messages. For example, when Apple first introduced the MacBook Air, at Macworld, Steve Jobs generated excitement by entering the stage carrying an envelope. Many wondered what the envelope concealed and were amazed when he reached inside and pulled out a laptop. For weeks following the conference, everyone was talking about it. For their ability to generate excitement, Apple is one of his favorite companies.

Popularity: 1% [?]