Can an introvert working in solitude survive in today’s connected-24/7, share-everything social world?

Author Susan Cain contends in her recent New York Times opinion piece, “The Rise of the New Groupthink,” that can be the way to go even as today’s culture overlooks “the quiet part of the creative process.” According to Cain, the New Groupthink – continually collaborating in teams to think, learn, work and socialize without time to be alone – is transforming business, education, religious institutions and other areas to the detriment of creativity and innovation.

I’m a newbie at Canyon Communications but have more than 20 years’ experience in PR and journalism.

Even in my short time, I’m already impressed by the work environment that my fellow Canyonites have created here. It’s an ideal mix of having the room to work autonomously and develop top-flight B2B marketing communications resources coupled with the ability to have fun, exchange ideas and collaborate effectively within a team environment.

What that means for our clients is that they’re receiving the best of both worlds: talented individuals thinking and working on their own piece of the puzzle and then putting their collective expertise and creativity together to devise marcom solutions that deliver results.

Interestingly, Cain claims that brainstorming sessions are one of the worst possible ways to stimulate creativity. What’s your experience?

Whether it’s for B2B or B2C communication, an app is a powerful tool that, if used properly, can help you to promote your business, services, products and solutions to your customers.

As a consumer myself, I use an app that provides great value to me and leads me down the purchasing path every time, which can be dangerous! I have the passion for fashion, and I happened to find an app online that is geared specifically towards men. It’s from Valet, the modern men’s magazine, and best of all, it’s free to download on your Apple^® products.

Here are different ways Valet helps to promote and market fashion labels, vendors, etc., to consumers:

• Features the latest designers and previews of their clothing
• Features a daily morning report on a style of clothing, accessory, etc.
• Directs the consumer to website links where previewed clothing can be purchased
• Provides daily tips related to fashion, grooming and culture, and directs customers to the vendors being promoted
• Delivers concierge-like service for tailoring services, dry cleaners, etc., in nearly 100 cities

This app is at my fingertips and provides me with access to the latest and greatest in men’s fashion. Without it, I wouldn’t have a simple way to purchase unique clothing/services/accessories from these non-traditional designers, who don’t offer their lines at major retailers such as Nordstrom or Macy’s.

To access this free app, go to the Apple App Store, type ‘Valet’ in the search field, and then simply download. In addition to the iPad^® version, an iPhone^®/iPod touch^® version is also available for free.

I recently attended the GIE+EXPO and wanted to share with you some exciting news! We just launched GetGreenTurf.com, a new online resource and social site for turf professionals, with a client and I’m ecstatic.

The GIE+EXPO gave us the perfect opportunity to get in front of one of the audiences of the site – lawn care professionals – and create a buzz. Isn’t that what tradeshows are about?

Even though we tried to make a splash with our booth (green shoes, green iPads, green graphics, green green candy, carpet, etc.), we did have a goal for the show — to capture new users for the site and create a good first impression.

This rings true to all B2B marketers. There were two big things I learned from this show that I wanted to delve deeper into:

Engage at the booth and your brand image will gain.
Differentiation. We all struggle with it, but at a tradeshow, it’s crucial that you stand out even more. You don’t have to do this with just your booth activities, graphics or displays (although it helps); you can differentiate by taking your brand to the next level by engaging in conversation and personalization.

Regardless of the market you’re in, companies attending tradeshows are looking for information, and they want it from someone friendly and informative. Perfect opportunity! At the GetGreenTurf.com booth, I made it a point to give my spiel but also ask questions to engage my audience.

I wanted to hear more about them and their challenges. I turned it around on them in hopes of tying in our product to their needs.  I tried with all my little heart to make a good impression and make their experience at our booth well worth the visit. Your brand will shine even brighter if you’ve taken on the task of extending the company image personally.

Take your leads seriously and you’ll earn back what you spent.
When I think about all the planning and money that goes into a tradeshow booth, I get a little light-headed. B2B marketers more than ever need to start thinking about how they’re going recover those costs and more. Consider lead retrieval technology, website enrollment or paper forms to get their contact info down.

The majority of the time, more will disclose their information if they have a chance at winning something. You can capture some great lead data but how you flip those is what counts. Even more, you need to nourish those leads immediately, no later than the week right after the tradeshow.

Our team was quick to get an email follow up to the attendees of the show that stopped by our booth and we thanked them for stopping by, and empowered them with CTAs to take the next step for information.

Capturing, nuturing and converting those leads into customers will ultimately drive the sales that will recover your costs, which is the obvious point here.  The ROI game is possible if your marketing and sales teams work together to engage, follow up and deliver.

Tradeshows are only as successful as you make them. Set yourself up for greatness by having the right people in the booth to extend your brand image and the right lead gen strategy.

Consider calling a Canyonite to help you with your next tradeshow and we’ll help you build a pre- and post-show strategy.

I have no shame in admitting that I am an avid gamer. I enjoy spending several hours of my free time delving into a digital world as my source of entertainment. Even if you don’t play video games, I would be willing bet that you have at least heard of the major game franchise Call of Duty, which is one of my favorites. If not, all you need to know is that it is a warfare based shooter type game that as sold millions of copies world-wide.

With the recent record-setting release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, the game’s developer Activision, also released a web site/program that lets players login and track and analyze their in-game statistics—and users are flocking to it. That’s right; there is a high demand, for the viewing and tracking of analytics in the gaming world. Now as a big fan of both analytics and video games, I was impressed to see such a program developed.

Just as you would go into Google Analytics, or your Mailchimp campaign reports and view you total clicks, visits, bounce rates, etc., gamers can now track in-depth game statistics such as their total kills, deaths, assists, headshots, and any sort of statistic relating to the game you could think of (there is more statistics revolving around this game than you would think).

One of the main goals of this site is to allow players to track their progress and analyze potential weaknesses or strengths in their gameplay. This may sound silly, but many people (myself included) take it seriously, just like people take any other hobby seriously. For example (I will try and reduce the video game jargon here but bear with me), a player might realize that he gets killed by grenades, or claymore mines A LOT.

He may not have thought much about it before, but the numbers don’t lie, and he decides to start using a selectable ability that grants you a stronger resistance to such explosives. Voilà, an analytic exposed a weakness, and the user was able to alter his strategy to better counter it, just like they’re meant to do.

Now if you lost me and my video game talk, the analogy was simple: analytics are helpful. Not to mention, they are incredibly easy to use and understand if you spend some time figuring out the basics.

Having analytics for any web-based project is crucial. The information and focus you gain from it is unparalleled in helping to develop further strategy and improvements. So don’t be afraid to dive into some numbers and acronyms, after all, if it gets confusing, chances are there is a tutorial or explanation built in.

What are your favorite uses for analytics?