After having dug to a depth of 1000 meters last year, Scottish scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 1000 years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than a millennium ago.

Not to be outdone by the Scots, in the weeks that followed, English scientists dug to a depth of 2000 meters and shortly after headlines in the UK newspapers read:

    "English archaeologists have found traces of 2000 year-old copper
    wire and have concluded that their ancestors already had an
    advanced high-tech communications network a thousand years
    earlier than the Scots."

One week later, Texas newspapers reported the following:

    "After digging as deep as 5000 meters in West
    Texas, scientists have found absolutely nothing. They have
    therefore concluded that 5000 years ago Texas inhabitants
    were already using wireless technology."

"Life is too important to be taken seriously." -- Oscar Wilde

Happy New Year!
Team Jaduka

Like some 11,000 other people, I spent the early part of last week at ad:tech New York.  Evidenced by the standing-room-only conference sessions and shoulder-to-shoulder exhibition hall aisles, interactive marketing is back.  And back it may be, but it certainly hasn’t gotten any easier for the marketer.

More companies have jumped into the fray all vying for a sliver of the advertising budget.  As you might expect at a marketing conference, vendors and presenters were all promoting their latest tools and techniques for agency or “client” customers, including:

• Pay-for-performance advertising programs
• Affiliate marketing networks/systems
• Social media/social commerce
• Viral and word-of-mouth marketing
• User-generated media/content
• Email marketing
• Emerging rich media, mobile, video, and gaming
• Performance metrics, analytics, and optimization

The Irony

Monday morning, prior to heading over to the show, I participated in Entrepreneur Magazine’s eBiz Radio Show, hosted by Chris Malta & Rob Cowie.  During the on-air interview, I described how the Internet, especially Web2.0 (including Jaduka’s products), has delivered tools that provide real value to small businesses by enabling them to effectively compete with larger organizations in ways that were previously unattainable.

After two days at the conference, with sore feet, a pounding headache and internal conflict, I kept asking myself, “How is the small business owner ever going to keep up and manage all this stuff?” 

It wasn’t until the third and final day of the show that I found some resolution.  I heard a couple speakers that put it all back in perspective for me. 

First was Kevin P. Ryan (the founder and ex-CEO of DoubleClick and now the same at ShopWiki) who said that, “marketing is less important than it used to be.”  He later clarified his message to mean that marketing needs to shift its emphasis toward the customer and the product itself and away from traditional advertising and promotion.  His take is that, with the abundance of information afforded by the Internet, markets have become economically transparent and therefore immune to traditional advertising and promotional strategies.  Thus, the only way to win is to provide greater value in terms of either price or product advantage.

The other insight I gained that rainy Wednesday morning was from David Herscott, who in his workshop titled, “Carpenters First,” reminded me to, “measure twice and cut once.”   David suggested that in this “Age of Consumer Control” marketing’s job is to clarify its message so that it provides relevancy and value to customers.  He observes that, many talk about this strategy because it is so intuitive, but that few actually practice it.  He also underscored product importance by pointing out that "you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig and today's consumers see right through the mascara."    

So, the Net-Net for small businesses is to:
a) ensure that your product or service is the very best it can be;
b) make sure that your customers can easily find your products (including information that differentiates your products); and
c) make it convenient to transact with you, including great customer service

I’ve worked for both large and small companies.  Jaduka, although owned by an established telecommunications company, definitely operates as a small start-up business.  One of the differences in working for a smaller organization is the amount and variety of work that I have to do myself.  This is euphemistically called “wearing a lot of different hats” and all things considered, I prefer it that way. 

Take, for example, the protection of intellectual property.  In a large company, if I were to create a new product or brand, I would turn to a team of lawyers and request that they file for registration of a new trademark.  At Jaduka, I go online to the United States Patent and Trademark Office website (www.uspto.gov) and file myself. 

The experience has taught me two important lessons: a) there are a lot of things that self-serving “specialists” in large organizations would have me believe are difficult which, with a little guidance, I can easily accomplish myself; and b) the Internet enables small companies to behave like big business. 

There's a certain amount of symmetry in this for me because, in much the same way, Jaduka enables small businesses to compete effectively with larger companies by empowering them the voice-enabled Web tools and technology that previously was affordable or accessible to only very large enterprises.

To file for a trademark registration for a new company name, product or brand, the USPTO website is a wealth of information.  The first step is to do a search on competing prior or existing registrations.  This is easily accomplished with the sites Boolean search function.  If the name or phrase is unclaimed, the next step is to file for registration.  Although registration is not required, it’s a good idea to provide a formal public notice of your intent to use and claim ownership of the mark. 

Interestingly, you can use the ‘TM’ or ‘SM’ for a trademark or service mark without filing for registration with the USPTO, but you may not legitimately use the ‘circle R’ without successfully completing the registration process.  Once you’ve properly filed the registration forms online, the USPTO reviews the application to determine whether the applicant meets the requirements for federal registration.  The entire process from filing to registration usually takes from nine months to over a year. 

Here’s an example of the prosecution history from one of the trademarks that I successfully registered:

2006-09-05 - Registered - Principal Register

2006-07-18 - Law Office Registration Review Completed

2006-06-30 - Assigned To LIE

2006-06-27 - Allowed for Registration - Principal Register (SOU accepted)

2006-05-31 - Statement of use processing complete

2006-05-18 - Amendment to Use filed

2006-05-18 - TEAS Statement of Use Received

2006-04-18 - Notice of allowance - mailed

2006-01-24 - Published for opposition

2006-01-04 - Notice of publication

2005-12-14 - Law Office Publication Review Completed

2005-12-14 - Assigned To LIE

2005-12-02 - Assigned To LIE

2005-11-29 - Approved for Pub - Principal Register (Initial exam)

2005-11-29 - EXAMINERS AMENDMENT E-MAILED

2005-11-29 - Examiners Amendment -Written

2005-11-29 - Previous allowance count withdrawn

2005-11-15 - Withdrawn From Pub - Og Review Query

2005-10-13 - Law Office Publication Review Completed

2005-10-07 - Assigned To LIE

2005-09-30 - Approved for Pub - Principal Register (Initial exam)

2005-09-29 - TEAS Change Of Correspondence Received

2005-09-29 - EXAMINERS AMENDMENT E-MAILED

2005-09-29 - Examiners Amendment -Written

2005-09-08 - Teas/Email Correspondence Entered

2005-08-25 - Communication received from applicant

2005-08-25 - TEAS Response to Office Action Received

2005-07-15 - Non-final action e-mailed

2005-07-15 - Non-Final Action Written

2005-07-15 - Assigned To Examiner

2004-12-22 - New Application Entered In Tram

For the past couple of days, I have been in our Austin office talking about our technology and how we make it relevant and useful.  Today, the conversation has centered around the new realities of communicating our value proposition and joining the worldwide conversation, aka "the blogosphere."

What we've realized today is that we're probably like many companies who are trying to figure out the rules of engagement.  There are no best practices.  We're all just trying to figure it out by trial and error.  So, what it comes down to for us is everything you need to know about blogging, you learned in kindergarten:

a) Share (the Blogosphere is about sharing ideas and commenting on others ideas)
b) Play fair (this is a community)
c) Be honest (never lie and be transparent about your company affiliation)
d) Be supportive of others (link and promote others)
e) Be yourself (lose the tie)

For more information check out postings from the Business Blog Summit (Lessons from the Business Blog Summit or Small Business Blogging or Searching & RSS).