Dr. Appointment

She was wearing a pink toy stethoscope around her neck as she looked straight at me with her blue eyes and said, "Don't call me Hannah, call me Dr. Appointment."

SXSW Interactive: Day One

Well I left work around 12:30 and had to deposit my paycheck and then headed downtown to the Austin Convention Center (ACC). It took me awhile to find a place to park, and walk to the ACC. I walked and chatted with two guys who flew in from Australia, and would of stuck around with them if it wasn't for the fact that I still needed to check in and get my badge. So there was this HUGE virtually endless line that I had to get into. Two hours later I had my badge and my bag of swag and was on my way to my very first panel (what should of been my second) "Oooh, That's Clever! (Unnatural Experiments in Web Design)" by Paul Annett of Clearleft Ltd.
Paul gave a very entertaining and inspirational presentation. He started out by showing a video he made and posted on YouTube (as seen below)

He froze paused it and showed a clip that caught a lot of peoples attention of a part in the trick where it appears that he is holding two cards in one hand (when he should be holding one). So people began to feel like they figured out the trick and knew this little secreat.

He then compared that to little secrets in design such as "the arrow" in the "FedEx" logo (in the white space created in between the "E" & "X").
His next example was how his company Clear Left threw up this landing page for an idea they had for some software called Silverback. If you resize your browser window on their site, you will notice an interesting 3-D effect with the vines. This small little detail (that most people would never noticed) caught the attention of a few web designers who twittered about it and in one day their site received over 20,000 hits and half of the people signed up to receive updates. All this happened before they even had an actual product.

He then went on to show a ton of other examples of small little hidden gems people place on their websites that when found become these little secrets that people can't help but brag about knowing and spread the word.

My second and last panel of the day was AWESOME! It was a panel by Alex Bogusky of Crispin Porter+Bogusky (they are the advertising firm behind such things as "The Truth" campaign, Burger King ads, Volkswagen, & Mini) called, "Plan B: Can an Ad Guy Bring Bike Sharing to America?" It was kicked off with a FREE red or blue T-shirt that were passed out right before he grabbed the mic.
So he started out by talking about his company and how they are different from other advertising companies. how many offices & employees they have, and went through different solutions they came up with for companies. He started with "The Truth" campaign and how up until that point whenever people would market or advertise to kids negatively about cigarettes they would focus on 2 things, "They are un healthy" and "Gross." After questioning their target market they started to realize taht the youth didn't care if cigarrettes can kill you, and they didn't think they were gross. So they had to had to convince these people to take a different approach without actually proving to them that their idea would REALLY work. The main theme of his presentation was, "Sticking your nose where it doesn't belong."

The meat of his panel consisted of him telling us how the idea of bringing "Bike Sharing" to the US came about, and how it was very humble beginnings, and how after just talking and throwing out ideas with different people, that lead to getting in contact with someone else who lead to another person and now they have started the program in 4-6 cities as B-Cycle.

Two of the more interesting things Alex Bogusky said came in the question & answer portion after he was done with his presentation. Someone asked where he felt marketing was headed in the future. He then candidly said, "I have no clue." He went on to say that back in the day people were telling him that in 5-10 years there would be NO MAGAZINES (something I still here today) and that VHS was going to take over, because people would much rather watch something that read it. Here we are in 2009 and although magazine subscriptions are declining, they are still very much around, with brand new magazines still popping up all the time. Anyways he then said something that was right in line with my personal philosophy not only on marketing/advertising but also life which is, "I only look 15 minutes into the future."

Because in all reality it is virtually impossible to try and predict what is going to be happening in 5-10 years. There are far too many variables involved in these types of things. I mean for all we know Global Warming is going to swallow us all up in 5 years and there won't be ANY marketing at all...

Anyways I always try to stay grounded in the present. I don't want to spend my life looking in the past at, "what could of been." Nor do I want to look too far into the future at, "what could be waiting for me in the future." But rather I would like to just enjoy TODAY (I could go on and on with this subject so I will stop now).

The other thing he said was an interesting quote,

"Be the change you want to see in the world."

So that was day one of SXSWi (south by southwest interactive). I'm looking forward to a full day tomorrow jam packed with some potentially inspiring panels as well.

Why Mormons Build Temples

"Throughout history, the Lord has commanded His people to build temples. Temples are literally houses of the Lord. They are holy places of worship where individuals make sacred promises with God."

Comcast Goes Juno

Comcast went all Juno on us in their newest advertsing campaign, by singing parodies of a quirky little song by Kimya Dawson called "Loose Lips" (I was going to post the song here, but the last verse isn't very family friendly. They edited the song in the movie, and I really wish I could find THAT version somewhere, but click on the link and it will send you to the song if you want to hear it.) from the movie Juno and I like it. Not like it matters since we live in Time Warner land and don't have the option of having Comcast, I do enjoy watching their commercials, BUT I sure do miss The Slowskys.

The Dr. Sees a Penis!

Well the doctor is saying she is able to see two testicles and a penis in this very photo above. I never saw it, but I'll take her word for it. Besides I have already had an overwhelming feeling that it was a boy the entire time.

In this picture is where you can actually see a 3-D modeling of the entire little baby!

Proud

When I first got hired on as a designer with the wonderful team over at Practice Cafe I'm not even sure their website showed up in a "Google Search" for anything BUT a search for "Practice Cafe." Well a little short into a year of working their I was privledged to be able to take on the hefty job of redesigning their website. Well two more redesigns later and it is the beautiful site that I LOVE to inform people that I was a part of producing is now on the infinite abyss we all call the interweb (or is that just me?).

Well it quickly became a business goal to get ourselves ranked as high as possible in Google for a number of relevant searches. The main one being "Dental Marketing." So we set out a little over a year ago to improve our ranking in "Dental Marketing." So I dove in head first at researching "Search Engine Optimization" (SEO), and best practices in improving your ranking in Google. I quickly realized this was a very tricky little task. There is no solid formula or solid answer. Infact the more time went on it was almost as if, right when I got to the point where I was saying, "Hey I think I got a handle on this SEO business" I would quickly get a reality check of how much I DIDN'T know.

However with the help of a WONDERFUL team of copywriters in Angie Liddiard & Amanda Fuller, and some helpful hints and tricks from my good friend Noel Datko, we have successfully been able to implement a lot of tender love and care over the months and successfully reached page one in google in a handful of relevant and very competitive searches. In fact our visitors to our site per day has doubled if not tripled since I started working back in November of 2006.

So as you can see from the beautiful screen capture above we are currently residing in the NUMBER 5 out of 9,120,000 in a Google Search for the term "Dental Marketing."

Click the picture above for an enlarged image, or you can just go ahead and do a quick Google Search yourself right now for "Dental Marketing" and take a VERY short scroll on down to "Practice Cafe" and go ahead and click your way over to Practice Cafe to see how we are VERY capable at handling any and all of your Dental Marketing needs (ZING!)

Although I still feel like an amateur when it comes to SEO, I am also very happy and proud that all of our work over the year has REALLY paid off. So I am anxious to continue to learn, grow, and develop these skills and to continue to improve both Practice Cafe's website and the websites of all our clients. Each and every year the internet is becoming more and more important when it comes to a marketing budget, and how people want to market their company or business, and search engine optimization will continue to play a HUGE roll in the future of marketing in the world. So we are happy to be a part of this.

Keywords and Terms Practice Cafe ranks well in:

Dental Marketing: Page 1 – #5
Dental Practice Marketing: Page 1 – #10
Dental Marketing Services: Page 1 – #3
Dental Marketing Companies: Page 1 – #2
Dental Marketing for Less: Page 1 – #5
Professional Dental Marketing: Page 1 – #10
Dental Marketing Firms: Page 1 – #5
Dental Marketing Postcards: Page 1 – #5
Custom Dental Marketing: Page 1 – #2
Affordable Dental Marketing: Page 1 – #1
Dental Office Marketing Budget: Page 2 – #5
Dental Marketing Campaign: Page 2 – #1
Dental Logos: Page 2 – #7

Howm I Gon Get Clean!

Heather was gone at church for a youth activity. Hannah and I were watching "The Wonder Pets" when Hannah jumped up and said, "I need to take a bath!"

So I told her to hold on a second, so then she said, "I'm dirty..."

Then that turned into, "I'm dirty, dirty, dirty! Howm I gon get clean..." Over and over again bouncing around the house dancing.

So I grabbed the camera and I said, "Ok, if you sing your song for me into the camera then I will let you take a bath."

The song changed a little but it was still cute! Once the camera got turned on she forgot the, "Howm I gon get clean" part so she just hummed that part and decided to add on a few more words as she ran around the table and room.

Sincere Sounds for the Soul

Lately I've been tickling my eardrums with the sincere sounds of Jason Mraz. One of my favorite songs of the album is "I'm Yours" take it for a spin with the music player below. Let me know what you think by leaving a comment.