Justice Mitchell - Social Media Marketing Blog Professional

Friday

Aug282009

Recruit me for San Serif

Friday, August 28, 2009 at 9:53PM |

Font whores (like me) live for these moments – so embrace them!

Font Uproar!

Anarchy,

Design |

Thursday

Aug202009

If You Don't Know Them You Should: Dwain DeVille

Thursday, August 20, 2009 at 8:03PM |

Position Title:
Author, The Biker's Guide to Business
Navigator of entrepreneurial companies

<and pro "Bad Ass">

Define your business role:
Simply put, I help successful entrepreneurs get to the next stage of business and life…whatever that is. It’s personal and unique to each.

What do you see as your responsibilities to your clients?
I am their ‘trusted advisor’. As such, I am in a position to challenge their ideas, their drive and their focus. We subscribe to a code that says “if the two of us agree all of the time, one of us is useless.”

How did “The Biker’s Guide To Business” come to be?
About a year after successful cancer surgery to remove my left kidney, I was talking with a business associate about how to combine my two passions, business and biking. She reminded me of a workshop I do for the local university that takes business leaders through my Navigation Process and she suggested I do that for those leaders who ride. I half jokingly said, “Yes! And I’ll call it The Biker's Guide to Business!

The rest is history.

Give me a timeline. How did Dwain DeVille come to be?
Born in Opelousas Louisiana in the mid 50’s and grew up as a latch key kid where both parents worked. Left home at 17 just after graduating high school and moved to New Orleans for six wonderful years…my period of enlightenment. From there I moved to a small town where I broke into banking and eventually moved to Orlando in 1986 and have been here ever since.

I left banking in 1994 to start my consulting company and began writing my book in 2007.

So being a biker, what do you ride? How many bikes have you owned?
I currently ride a Harley, Road King Custom. It’s my fourth bike, with my first being a 1973 Honda 100 when I was 16 years old.

What makes a biker different from John Q. Public?
Bikers crave the open road. We’re bold, independent, strong-willed, adventurous and intolerant of ‘fences’ of all kinds. We chart our own course because we have a better idea and go where others don’t because we not only understand risk, we embrace it.

There's word Devil in your last name; coincidence?
There’s more than a little in me as I have a dark side and embrace it regularly.

You have a book coming out correct? When is it being released?
Just came out this month, 8/09.

Talk to me about releasing a book. What was that like? Any surprises?
It’s one of the most interesting processes I’ve been a part of. This book has allowed me to speak to and ride with some of the top CEOs in America. Bob Parsons of GoDaddy.Com, John Paul DeJoria of Paul Mitchell Systems and Patron Tequila and it won’t end there. I’m looking forward to meeting and riding with more.

My biggest surprise is how dropping ‘Author’ at the end of your name changes the way people receiving you. It’s something everyone wants to do but few actually make happen.

That said, at the end of the day it’s all about people and your ability to communicate with them whether on the pages of your book, via Social Media or in person.

I know that you’re a professional speaker. Who do you admire in these circles and what makes a great speaker?
There are a ton of great speakers out there and go back into history like Zig Ziglar, Tony Robbins, Wayne Dyer. But of my contemporaries, I have to say James Malinchak, Brendon Burchard and Jonathan Sprinkles really know how to communicate from a stage.

I must know! Given that someone stumps you with some question you just have no idea, what do you do? Besides giving him a beat down after to keynote –naturally.
Ha ha…well, after the fists have flown I usually thank them because it gives me something new to learn.

How has what you tell CEO’s and entrepreneurs differed since to collapse of the economy?
My advice is the same as I’d have given two years ago because no matter the overall economy, most businesses are one catastrophe from struggling and going under. How you survive depends on your approach…and in times like these, you need to make sure your day to day activities, or as I like to call it, ‘the in-between’ match the path to your destination.

It’s all about laser focus and if you’re off just a little bit you’ll end up wasting precious energy and resources. We all work hard, but the greater the focus, the straighter your path to success. It’s all in my book.

What technologies are exciting you currently?
Nano technology, everything’s getting smaller and putting more and more power at our finger tips.

<Yes, I read “Prey” on audio book – spooky.>

What trends are you keeping an eye on for your clientele? And Why?
Without a doubt, Social Media and the way it’s changing the whole buyer/seller conversation. It’s bringing us back to the small town principals of who you know and what your reputation is among them.

Have you ever been in a rumble, knife fight or ‘shived’ a punk-ass?
Nope.

<Too bad, I say!>

What is the number one problem/challenge you see with your clients that they are trying to overcome? Why do you think this is?
Holding onto the past. Thanks to the economic times, the landscape is changing rapidly and in some cases, the fundamental way they are doing business needs to change in order to respond to the market.

Unfortunately, over time we become creatures of habit and our muscle memory makes it difficult to change. We all need to stop, go quiet and take stock of where we are and what’s it going to take from this point forward. It’s like the early explorers who when topping a mountain went from lush greenery to a desert environment. You have to shift.

Is business ‘broken’ right now? If so what advice do you give freely?
Business is by no means broken, instead it’s evolving. And by its very nature, in order for something to evolve, parts of it must die in order for there to be new growth. So my advice is to clear your head enough to ensure you recognize which are dying and in which direction you need to grow.

You talk about the new CEO and entrepreneur. How can the aging CEO get back in the game?
That’s the great thing about this game of business as opposed to other more physical games. The older we get the better we become through experience.

Therefore the key for the aging CEO is to find ways to continuously re-kindle their passion. Find those new challenges that stoke your fires and then go for it.

What are the potholes for the CEO?

There are many. I’ll just cover three:
Losing sight of the original goal – often CEOs forget why they began their companies in the first place – to fulfill their dreams and build a great life. Unfortunately over time the business can take over and they begin working for it instead of it working for them.

Their team doesn’t/can’t keep pace – the most difficult thing for a CEO is to recognize when a key team member is no longer pulling his/her weight in the organization. Indeed there needs to be loyalty both ways, but at the end of the day, decisions need to be made for the good of the company.

Not taking enough time off – I fully believe that if the leader of the organization doesn’t take a minimum of 30 days off a year he is hurting the company. As leader, you must take time away in order to clear your head and get a better view of what’s going on. Nothing is worse than running headlong into a ditch that could have been avoided with a different perspective.

I read in Fortune that more than 60% of millionaire CEO’s and entrepreneurs got there in less than four years. Why do you think that is?
I think it was a product of the go-go times and you’ll probably see that time frame grow as the new normal for the economy takes hold. There’s less money around so the pace of success will stretch a bit as a result.

Create in your mind what the future renaissance; what do they need to be?
I think that those successful in the future will value incremental growth over the big hit. Drucker once wrote that ‘size doesn’t equal significance’

What are you most proud of in your career?
Probably the impact I’ve had on my clients and other businessmen and women whom I’ve mentored. A successful career is about waking up every day and doing it right. To try, stumble and try again until you get where you’re going.

If I wasn't here, I'd be doing?
Riding across country…most any country will do.

Create a new superpower for yourself.
The ability to seamlessly go through solid objects so I’d not have to worry about crazy cagers pulling out in front of me while riding.

Bio and Social Media Links you wish people to connect to at:
www.BikersGuideToBusiness.com
www.BikerBusinessPosters.com
Follow me on Twitter - BusinessBiker
http://www.linkedin.com/in/dwaindeville

Dwain DeVille combined his two passions -- business and motorcycles -- into The Biker’s Guide to Business.
Biker’s Guide to Business is both a book and a series of principles that Dwain uses to guide business leaders through difficult times and onto success. In seminars and during his Retreat on Wheels course, business leaders achieve the type of breakthrough thinking that comes while riding through dazzling countryside.

DeVille is the founder and CEO of WaterMark International, Inc., a Florida based consulting firm that serves business leaders. He helps entrepreneurs and business leaders achieve top performance in both business and life.

DeVille spent 15 years in the banking industry, working his way up from the loan department to branch manager to turn around management, before leaving to form his own consulting business.

Born and raised in Opelousas, Louisiana, DeVille got his first start at business working in his father’s cotton gin. He later worked as a hand in the Louisiana oil fields before moving into the “front office” of the business world.

DeVille has been riding motorcycles since he was in high school. He currently rides a Harley Davidson Road King, is a H.O.G. member, and most recently rode to New Orleans for their first annual Bike Week.

DeVille is a cancer survivor, having successfully battle kidney cancer. He has been cancer-free since 2004.

DeVille is 53 and lives in Orlando, Florida. He has a grown son.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Business,

Interview,

Management |

Monday

Aug172009

I'm An XL If You're Shopping For One.

Monday, August 17, 2009 at 12:12PM |

I love t-shirts. I MEAN I LOVE THEM! My wife hates most of the t-shirts I own but tolerates them for the most part. The rest of my life would be perfect if the professional community would just hang up their suits and dawn some cargo shorts, a t-shirt and some Chuck Taylors. The thing about the new age of t-shirts is just like in design; they have trends, spikes and dips. Here are just a few that I can think of that we’ve lived, loved and loathed over the past twenty or so years:

The iron-on – (http://transfernation.com/)
This little bundle of crackingly’ joy looked great for about three washes until Mom’s dryer made the thing breakdown like an acidic fresco. You may recall the word "Foxy" being used more than once during this genre.

The airbrush – Mr. T, county fairground couples on their second date and bad rip-offs of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth blanketed the streets for several years. If one of these lil' gems didn't get you laid then you were doing something wrong.

The single-color – Cheap bosses everywhere can attest that this is the best bang for the buck but it usually looks like what it is. Did I fail to mention every local cover band – ever?

The text only – Dominate this decade as been the clever spin on words. From finding Jesus “behind the couch” to Florida being a “tropical depression”, these little masterpieces of the pen are quite fun.

The fake product – This genre I think was single-handedly inspired by the rave counter culture of the early nineties (yes, that means if you’re blowin’ up right now you’re dated and sad). Such as the classic “ONEXX” that was done to replicate the Exxon logo, funny but sad. Don’t laugh pot-heads there’s a 1,000 designs out there for you too.

The Concert Shirt – In high school this was more a uniform for me. I had a heavy-metal concert shirt for each day for a month without rotation. Ah, the need to express youth induced hormone personal angst!

The bad silkscreen – This movement that came from designers such as AFFLICTION and others is hugely popular right now. I say that when I see any design style end up in Target that was once $120 a t-shirt.

Saturday Morning Cartoon –
Need I say more?

The Bomb-Diggity Designers:

Great T-shirt blogs:

Roll your own:

Red Bubble (Great for photographers needing large prints too)
Cafe Press (Givin' some props to the old timer in the room)
Zazzle

Design,

Soapbox |

Friday

Aug142009

If You Don't Know Them You Should: Michael McSunas

Friday, August 14, 2009 at 2:52PM |

Company name:
The esteemed law firm of Chambliss, Bahner & Stophel

A discription of your company:
Law firm

Responsibilities at your company:
I am the partner in the law firm. I also chair our firm's innovation committee, which is in charge of finding new ways of doing things that are both cost and time efficient and sometimes common sense. What can we do differently to better serve our clients, to make our jobs attorney easier, to market ourselves differently, etc.

What legal issues are more typically overlooked in today's advertising?
What isn't overlooked? Typically, I think people think they can use images of famous people or politicians without consent, they think they can do parodies of famous movies without consent, etc. I also think that claim substantiation can be overlooked. Do you have the substantiation to back up the claims you are making? Another really big thing that often can get overlooked in the excitement of winning a new client is the agency agreement - What are you agreeing to? What are responsible for? What do you own and what does the client own? Same with production agreements - have you secured all ownership rights for your client or does the production company retain some of the copyright?

What legal resources are available for creative professionals that you would recommend? Websites?
You can follow me on Twitter!!! http://twitter.com/AdLawGuy and read my always informative tweets or ask me questions. Some other good resources are http://www.adlawbyrequest.com, and http://www.manatt.com (has some good forms). Advertising Age and Ad Week also have some great articles on current legal issues.

Talk to me about "Brand Protection." What can one do legal in this respect to protect a brand?
You should always use your brand name as an adjective and never as a noun (this relates to trademark protection). Think of how people use Xerox generically as a verb to mean "photocopy." Xerox actually writes to publications to tell them not to use the term as a verb. Once a trademark becomes generecized through misuse, it can lose trademark protection and anyone can use it.

You should never allow anyone to use your brand name without permission either; that can lead to loss oftrademark protection as well. You have vigorously protect the mark. This includes people using your brand in a disparaging manner - for instance, McDonalds would not allow someone to portray Ronald McDonald drunk or littering.

<unless Crispin gets the account I think to myself>

What are the legal checklist that advertisers should go through when starting a campaign?
Trademark search (e.g., for the tagline), no copyright infringement (e.g. not copying someone else's work - movie, photography, music, etc.), have releases from everyone in the campaign and location releases from everyplace in the campaign, claim substantiation (can I prove all the claims I am making?)

What are the legal checklist a client should go through once recieving the work?
Make sure the agency has contracts with all the talent (and make sure the P&W with SAG is computed in a reasonable manner), make sure the agency has proper contracts with vendors/production houses the ensure that the client has ownership of the work. Most important, make sure you have a good indemnity provision in your contract with the agency so the agency is responsible for any mistakes, errors ,etc and make sure your agency had the money (or insurance) to back up that indemnity obligation.

Talk to me about using social media. What should one consider legally?
Advertising is advertising, whether it is on tv, print or in social media. The same laws apply. You probably have some leeway with social media if you areinteracting with your consumers (e.g. via Twitter). For instance, if an advertiser mentioned Angelina Jolie in tv ad without getting her consent, the advertiser most likely would be sued. If an advertiser mentioned Angelina Jolieon Twitter in a nonadvertising context (e.g., "She is a great actress and humanitarian."), the advertiser will probably be fine.

How are you using social media?
As mentioned above, I use Twitter religiously. You learn a lot of what is going on in the advertising world. I have also gained a few clients out of Twitter. One in particular is Red Square Agency, an amazing ad agency out of Mobile. Twitter has also led to interviews by Advertising Age and some other publications.

When you watch TV what makes you say "OMG, they could get sued for that!"
Lack of disclosures - you know the fine print you see at the bottom of print ads and tv commercials. I used to be in house counsel for GM's ad agency, so I am really attuned to that. I also shudder every time I see an ad with a lookalike of a famous person or politician. There were a series of ads by Acceptance Insurance that have a George Bush impersonator - that could have put them in a lot of hot water. But I guess sometimes you just have to weigh the risks versus rewards, and sometimes the rewards win out!

What aspect of advertising do you see as broken? Why and is it beyond repair?
I think it iscan be difficult for traditional advertisers to creatively compete with the new, innovative agencies who are willing to try anything and that embrace new technologies and mediums (e.g., social media, mobile). Some of the agencies owned by the holding companies are dedicated to just traditional media. One company does print/tv/media, another does digital, another doespublic relations, etc.They don't have the capability to do everything (or if they do, they still have to hand over the digital part to their digital agency brother. I have been excited and impressed that some traditional production houses (if that is even the right word) that are digital experts have branched out and now do creative themselves. They deal directly with the advertisers themselves, instead of being subcontractors. FirstBorn (http://www.firstbornmultimedia.com/) is a great example of this - they do incredible work.

The whole compensation model seems a bit broken too. Advertisers keep trying to lower fees and squeezing the agencies. The advertisers are basically saying, "Accept this lower fee or consider this our notice of termination." There has been some movement toward performance-based compensation, but that can be hard to measure.

I don't think anything is beyond repair. You will always find an agency with a new way of doing things. I think the days of summer fridays may be over though!

Copyright laws: Grey areas? Online and in print, where do you see the pitfalls? How best should one protect themselves?
My general rule of thumb is that the work is over 100 years old then it is in the "public domain", which means you can use it. But just because the original creation is in the public domain does not mean the all iterations of that creation are in the public domain. For instance, the book "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley is in the public domain and those characters can be used in advertising but the Frankenstein character featured in Hollywood movies is not in the public domain - the green monster, with bolts coming out of his neck. One pitfall is that people mistakenly believe that if you are parodying something, it is not copyright infringement, Legally, "parody" does not mean a funny take off. Stay away from parodies, they almost always end in a lawsuit.

Creative copyrighting – how can someone do due diligence to insure against plagiarism?
If you are a creative and submitting work for consideration, you should put copyright notice on the work. This won't prevent someone from stealing your idea, but at least it puts people on notice that you are indeed claiming copyrights in your creation. Ideally, you would want to have a confidentiality and nondisclosure agreement with whoever is going to look at your creative, but realistically that is not going to happen. Obviously, the better records you keep, the easier it is for you to prove that someone has infringed your copyright.

Do you feel there are essential insurance types for agencies to carry in order to legally protect their business? If so which one(s)?
Professional Liability insurance and Errors and Omissions insurance are must haves!!! These would cover copyright infringement, invasion of privacy, trade libel, etc.

Talk to me about contracts. RFP's, scopes, creative briefs, gantt charts – where do agencies go wrong?
In my experience, the client can sometimes have unreasonable expectations and the agency can overpromise. With regard to contracts though, I think the biggest mistake is that agencies don't thoroughly read them. Theyget so excited about getting a new client that I often hear "Make as a few changes as possible" or sometimes they justsign them without completely understanding whatthey could be liable for. Then, with the relationship goes south, they realize that they did notprotect themselves at all.

Thoughts on mobile advertising?
I think the most impressive and creative advertising agency from Mobile is Red Square Agency http://www.redsquareagency.com/ (tee-hee). I am fascinated with mobile advertising, especially with the advent of applications for the iPhone. The one knock against some mobile advertising is that often the consumer is required to pay for it through fees charged by his provider (although there are many programs out there where such cost is paid by the sender) and that the consumer has to "opt in" (or agree to receive) such advertisements. But you cannot deny the growth and potential. Mobile advertising is subject to a whole different set of advertising rules (TCPA, CAN-SPAM Act) in addition to the traditional laws. More regulation means more work for us lawyers so I guess I should be grateful about that.

If and when obtaining legal representation what should an agency look/ask for?
An attorney that has both in house experience at an advertising agency and private practice experience - in short, me! Seriously, you need someone who understands the business. Someone who understands what it is like to be at an agency and have a client breathing down your neck. You need an attorney who will help you get to "yes" instead of one that immediately says "no." You need someone is pragmatic.

What's the best thing the freelancer/consultant can do to legally protect themselves?
Keep copious and detailed records of your work and correspondence. Read whatever an agency asks you to sign. Most likely you will be signing a document that says anything you create will be a work made for hire, which means the agency owns it, not you.

If I wasn't here, I'd be doing?
I would be a Bollywood star (you should see some of my dance moves)

Create a new superpower for yourself.
I have often thought about this. I want the power to decide who can drive and who can't. If someone is driving slow in the fast lane, I want the power to be able to say that that person is no longer allowed to drive. I would be fair but firm; I would probably remove about 20% of the drivers out there. I think I would be a hero to the whole country.

<certainly in my book!>

Bio and Social Media Links you wish people to connect to at.
https://twitter.com/AdLawGuy
http://www.cbslawfirm.com
email: MMcSunas@cbslawfirm.com

Thanks Michael, you're my Bollywood hero.

Advertising,

Interview,

Mobile |