Last Saturday, I attended an “unconference” here in Columbus called PodCamp Ohio. Billy, Marcie and I had a great time. We learned a lot about viral marketing, podcasting and blogging and we got to talk to some really smart and interesting people. If we have time soon to review our notes, maybe we’ll share some of the more exciting things we learned.

But I’m sitting here five days after the event and one quote is stuck in my head. I was speaking to a fellow PodCamp attendee during the lunch break (yummy Qdoba) and he was telling me a news story. I think I said something like, “wow, where’d you hear about this?”

Here is his response. Drumroll please……. “Now I’m going to show my age. It was in the newspaper.” And he was being completely serious. In the presence of all the tech savvies, he was embarrassed to admit he still reads the newspaper.

Yes, the Internet has created a somewhat uncertain future for print news, but to think that today there are people who don’t feel comfortable admitting they read the newspaper is really thought provoking. I’m not sure how I feel about this, but I can’t get it out of my head.

How is Marcie faring you ask? As of yesterday she still had $13…

She has been eating things she bought grocery shopping and planning her meals, I am so proud and a tiny bit envious of her homemade food (which has been suplemented with office food laying around).

The keeping busy strategy seems to be working. If you don’t have time to buy things, you won’t!

Her plan was slightly foiled by an automatic payment she had previously set up to deduct directly from her checking account. We won’t penalize her for sort of breaking the rules, as it was out of her control.

Working off-site today (near vending machines) could have thrown a wrench in things…I know all two of you reading this will anxiously await tomorrow’s report.

I just read an article on CNN.com about fake speed bumps. The basic idea is that rather than building real speed bumps on roads, optical illusion speed bumps are being tested that are intended to trick drivers into slowing down, only to find that there was no bump after all.

I’m all for great new ideas, but this one seems very flawed. So maybe an optical illusion bump would trick me once, but wouldn’t I learn pretty quickly where these fake bumps are located?

If anything, I can see people in the near future beginning to ignore real speed bumps thinking they are illusions, only to hit the bumps at 35 mph and getting a little unintended air.

What do you think?

Fellow co-worker Marcie Mutters has declared a personal challenge this week. Live on the $13 cash she has in her little red coach purse until Friday. No atm’s. No credit cards.

Frivalous purchases we make add up to an embarrasing about of money spent every month.
A self-monitoring task could be good for all of us, whether the object is to save money, an effort to consume less (which I’m sure many American’s would agree we seriously need to do anyways - it’s so hard when you’re in the habit to change that mindset) or just to see where the pennies go when added up.

While writing this, Marcie steps out of the office to get Starbucks…but is using a gift card so it’s technically allowed.

Daily posts will be made to monitor $ spent.

Any tips to share? (i.e. cut out buying a pastry with your morning coffee, get a sugardaddy, etc.)

My best friend is spending the next year or so working as the ‘Chief Stew’ on a private, commercial yacht bound for various, exotic European destinations. Upon reaching their first destination in the south of France, they will charter parties for the uber-wealthy, catering dinners with full silver service and spending their twenty-hour days at the beck and call of their privileged guests. Fun right? But before you pity them, know that on their days off they have the whole of these postcard-perfect settings in which to explore and immerse themselves; the advantage of serving these rich folk all night and day is that you get to tag along to wherever they’re headed.

But before all that, they had to make the crossing from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to the Azores and from there on to Spain. On a recent phone call I had with her (thank you, Skype), they had reached Spain after several weeks at sea. Aside from being the only woman on a crew of six-plus guys, the constant motion of the boat and twenty-five foot waves and biblical rains and wind, I asked her what the most interesting thing about being at sea was.

Sidenote: While the boat was tracked off-shore by GPS, there was a period of time where the crew had no access to email. That being said, imagine your only, ONLY, interactions for two weeks being with the same half-dozen people on a 200-foot boat literally in the middle of the Atlantic.

The most interesting/exciting moment of those two weeks: A plane flew over them one afternoon; the first sign of non-marine life in many, many days.

What other mundane things could seem wondrous, given the inability to live amidst our constant points of contact with one another?

I came across an interesting series of quotes via Digg that I found extremely inspiring. It was from a site Null Hypothesis in the UK. Some of my favorites:

Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.
- Darryl F. Zanuck, Head of 20th Century-Fox, 1946.

This `telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a practical form of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.
- Western Union internal memo, 1878

I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
- Thomas J. Watson Snr., IBM Chairman, 1943

It is an idle dream to imagine that automobiles will take the place of railways in the long distance movement of passengers.
- American Railroad Congress, 1913

Your cigarettes will never become popular.
- F. G. Alton, 1870
cigar maker, turning down Mr. John Player

I wonder what types of things people are discounting today that will in the end change the way we live. Maybe it’s a wiki, electric cars or Twitter. Reading these have reminded me to stay open minded and dream a little.

I’m curious about what software or sites everyone is using to track web site activity, visits, etc.

Google Analytics has always been a popular choice because it offers the basics and it’s free. Lately, I’ve been having some fun with Woopra, which I believe is still in a beta stage. It has a fun graphic layout and it’s fun to have the ability to see who’s on a site in real time.

But there are also plenty of softwares out there, some free and some pay, that track the mouse’s movement through sites. This can be helpful to find whether site visitors are actually rolling over regions of the site you think they are.

But I’m asking you. What else is out there? What do you use? What do you recommend?

Ideas for Your Next Brainstorm

Okay, so you’re ready to brainstorm. You gather everyone in a room. You’ve read the Rules in the second blog post in our series. Now what? Getting a brainstorm off the ground can be the hardest part of the meeting. It sounds silly, but you need some parlor tricks to break the ice of your brainstorm and get people playing. Here are some to consider:

1. The mini assignment. Give each participant a special assignment prior to the meeting. They need to bring ideas for their assignment only. Example: for a client’s tradeshow, I asked one person to bring ideas for booth themes, one to bring ideas for giveaways, one to bring ideas for advertising in the public areas outside the exhibit hall. This simple assignment gave everyone a way to “play” in the brainstorm and made it fun and productive.

2. The worst idea possible. I love this one. Start off your brainstorm by asking everyone to throw out the worst possible ideas they can think of for the problem at hand. This works wonders for engaging people and getting them talking. Plus, sometimes the ideas that initially sound awful end up being the most inventive creative.

3. The challenge. Break your meeting into two teams, set a timer and start a competition between the two teams to come up with the best ideas. It helps if the moderator can move between both groups to ramp up the competitive edge. When time is up, both teams return to a central place to share their best ideas.

4. The bowl. Say you need to translate a campaign, theme or idea across several media. One way to tackle this in a brainstorm is to put all the possible media (print, TV, radio, billboard, HTML email, web, text messages, etc) on strips of paper in a bowl. As the brainstorm progresses, draw out one item from the bowl and focus the group on that particular medium. The key is to only allow ideas for a brief period of time (say two minutes) on each one. The fast pace of this meeting makes it fun for people to play.

5. The anonymous brainstorm. Give everyone a pad of paper and a pen. Set a timer for five minutes. Tell everyone to write down ideas — one idea per piece of paper — and put them in a central bag or box. As the moderator, you’ll draw out the ideas and read them anonymously. The idea here is to encourage people to expand, add on or elaborate on the ideas of others. This works particularly well if you have people who are new to brainstorming or are notoriously shy.

Part 2: The Rules of Brainstorming

It sounds contradictory that a freewheeling exercise like brainstorming should have rules, but trust me, establishing a few simple ground rules are essential to a successful brainstorm.

Brainstorm Rule 1: Have a Leader
The leader’s role is to moderate the brainstorm, focus the group on a specific problem at hand only, and prevent the two terrible E’s (Ego and Evaluation) from rearing their heads. The leader should set the rules at the beginning of the brainstorm, make sure everyone is on board, then prevent anyone from jumping ship.

Brainstorm Rule 2: Make it Fun
Brainstorming is its most productive when it involves an element of play. This can be elaborate (we once gave brainstormers a bag of supplies they had to use to turn themselves into a superhero and then pretend to be that person throughout the meeting), or simple (hold the meeting in the kitchen or over lunch). An element of play breaks the ice of any brainstorm and loosens people up to start sharing ideas.

Brainstorm Rule 3: Give a Headstart
I know it’s hard, but if you can give people a chance to ruminate on the brainstorm topic before your meeting, they’re likely to bring better ideas. The research I found indicated that most people tend to do their best thinking in isolation (it’s no coincidence that genius often strikes while you’re in the shower). Pre-meditation on the problem at hand also helps ease the anxieties of sharing ideas in a group setting.

Brainstorm Rule 4: No Ego, No Evaluation
The death of a brainstorm is criticism. No matter how stupid the idea (yes, there is such a thing as a stupid idea), you can’t allow anyone to evaluate or criticize it. If you follow no other rules, follow this one. Evaluation and criticism should be shelved for later and the leader must make that rule clear to all involved and enforce it. Dealing with ego is much trickier. A strong ego can overwhelm every other player in the room and worse, can intimidate them from playing. My best advice for this situation: stop the meeting and regroup later without the ego.

Brainstorm Rule 5: Know When to Stop
The research I uncovered indicated that 25 minutes is the maximum time a brainstorm should last. After that point, minds begin to wander, people begin to stress out about deadlines and other meetings and you generally lose all control of the group. There are plenty of times when the meeting hits its sweetspot and you can go for an hour or more, but don’t force it if the magic isn’t happening.

Brainstorm Rule 6: Invite Freewheeling
Nothing stimulates ideas and encourages participation like piggybacking on the ideas of others. The leader should encourage people to combine and expand on the ideas that have been thrown out. Quantity is desirable and if you’re doing a good job of eliminating criticism and evaluation, you should be getting quantity.

Next week in the third and final discussion of this series, we’ll cover some ideas and tips to use in running your own brainstorms.