If you haven’t heard of Quirky before, let me introduce you to one of the most dynamic and creative companies out there. There approach to product development is pretty unique in that they take a crowd sourced approach in inventing new products.

Here’s their official manifesto to get you inspired and start creating!

Quirky Manifesto from Quirky on Vimeo.

Google+ introduced “Pages” for brands and businesses earlier this week, making what many predicted as Google’s version of Facebook Pages.

The verdict is still out on how effective Google Pages will be for brands and businesses, but I’d imagine many companies will soon adopt their own Google Page. Especially with the valuable SEO value that will come of this. It’s a Google product directed at businesses and brands, so I’d imagine it would carry a nice amount of SEO weight.

I’ll be creating a few product pages in the next few days and be sure to report on my experience. In the meantime check out this cool post by Sean Percival on an early Google Brand Concept Page he created a few months back.

“You’re the most dressed up piece of shit that I’ve ever seen. You’re trying to fit into the “writing” scene and doing such a great job of failing. You’ve also done such a great job of making an ass out of yourself by writing about things you have no experience with. Learn a little bit of psychology, a little bit of statistics, and maybe stick to what you know; That way, you”ll look like less of an idiot that’s just trying to make a dollar from internet traffic.”

P.S: You’re worse than those Tumblr bloggers who post pictures all day.

Thanks Jared of Rocklin, CA!

In its simplest terms, Klout.com is the the first ever “street cred” authoritarian online. Using social network activity on sites like Twitter and Facebook, Klout acts as a barometer, granting users a “Klout Score” based on their own algorithm. There are a lot more features, but that is the gist of the site. Check out the video below by WSJ for a better understanding:

As an “OG” member of Klout (I actually have the badge to prove it), I’ve seen the site grow into what is now a fairly legit social analytics site that appeals to everyday users. Since I use the site more as a brand strategist, than a personal activity, I can’t exactly say how popular Klout is amongst the general public. But compared to most social analytics sites, it definitely wins in UI/UX and easy-to-understand terms.

The best part of Klout and I think most users would agree is their Perks system. Still in its infancy, Klout Perks awards social influencers with review products ranging in AXE Bodyspray to a Chevy Volt for the weekend. Some perks are directly through the site and others are directly from brands, who used Klout to determine which social influencers to award.

Today Klout introduced a new algorithm that claims to be more accurate with scores and how they calculate user activity across social networks. Many “Klouters” (not sure if that’s the correct term) were angry about dropped scores after this update and let it be know on the corporate blog. I myself dropped quite a few points with the new update, but am not too surprised by that. I believe it’s all in the secret sauce of Klout’s success.

The narcissistic nature of all users on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and every other major network is what powers Klout. If they can keep users coming back to their site, day after day, checking on whether their score went up or down, they’ve ultimately succeeded in their goal of being The Standard “Score” of Influence online.

The concept of Guerrilla Marketing has always been of interest to me. To be able to spread an idea or message through creative expressions in everyday life is simply amazing. After doing some thorough research online, I still haven’t found any obvious patterns. The only commonalities I’ve seen through various Guerrilla Marketing tactics is the magic balance between authenticity, entertaining content and relevant timeliness. These three very different elements seem to harness the soul of Guerrilla Marketing.

In my latest entrepreneurial venture, Fizzm (currently a stealth Web/Mobile app), I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out unique marketing tactics that utilize the essence of my message. It’s a lot a more difficult than I could’ve ever imagined, but at the same time allowed me to push the limits on how I see Fizzm being accepted. What I’ve come to realize through this process is that, like most marketing campaigns, an interesting story must be told through whatever message I put out. The message must be relevant to my brand and interesting enough for strangers to share with their friends.

Some of my favorite examples of Guerilla Marketing, are the Improv Everywhere videos on YouTube that showcase professional actors in public settings, performing chorogrephed musicals and dance numbers. Flash mobs as their popularly called, are almost instantly recongnized by notable news outlets, publications and the general public through social networks. They surprise, entertain, inform and showcase their creativity through thoughtful execution.

The real reason I’m writing about Guerilla Marketing is to cover two points that have been become of interest to me:
1. To flesh out the importance and meaning of Guerilla Marketing
2. To try and understand what makes some GM campaigns successful and others go virtually unnoticed.

The answer to the 2nd point can be varied and extremely unpredictable. Yes, adding a celebrity to a viral video about your company may increase the number of views to your site. Or creating a contest of sorts may incentivize your audience, but in my 3-4 years of experience in Internet Marketing, it’s hard come up with the magic formula that will essentially blowup your brand to Rebecca Black proportions.

In the end, I don’t believe that there is one secret to making your Guerilla Marketing campaign a success. But rather a sequence of events, articles, videos, conversations on Twitter etc.. all encompassing of your brand identity.

But I’ve finally realized in my 25 years of life that life will consistently offer distractions, opportunities, false-promises etc…, but it shouldn’t take me off my block (figuratively speaking). In the next few weeks, I’ll be redesigning my site, logo and overall brand to reflect my brand new IMAGE. Since most of my work and life activities are interconnected, there will be a lot of crossover and I figure I might as well keep everything on one site so that it’s not too confusing. I look forward to the next phase in my career and can’t wait to start sharing more!

For more information, I’ve posted the official press release below:

Leading Web and Social Game Platform Expands Into Mobile, Adds Game Development Studio, and Increases Distribution

San Francisco, CA—April 19, 2011—MindJolt today announced the acquisitions of SGN, a leading developer and publisher of social mobile games and Hallpass Media, a popular free online game network. With these acquisitions, MindJolt becomes one of the few multi-platform game developers and publishers with successful mobile, social and web offerings.

About MindJolt
MindJolt is one of the largest cross-platform game developers and publishers with over 30 million mobile downloads and reaching over 25 million users across the web. MindJolt was acquired in March of 2010 by the team that founded MySpace in partnership with Austin Ventures. For more information, please visit: www.mindjolt.com.

First off I’d like to thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to do this interview with me. Here are a few questions I’ve always wondered about as an entrepreneur and interested in hearing your thoughts:

Y: What would you say is the most important thing you’ve learned as an Entrepreneur?

P: Realizing that safety and security are a superstition when taking risks, most would think that when they have a job, that checks the security box on their list – but you could be laid off tomorrow. Being part of the labor force is not safer than actually doing what you LOVE to do – except you are in control. However, to think that you don’t have anyone to answer to is false too; at the end of the day, you still have a boss – the customer. Entrepreneurship is the ability to innovate, and do what you love to do. As entrepreneurs we try to predict the market but we are bound by its temperament and we must be able to evolve at its request. Adaptation is probably the most important thing.

Y: For many entrepreneurs, ideas seem to come a dime a dozen. How do you know when to act on an idea and/or pass on one?

P: I visualize the idea through every obstacle it might encounter along the way from the point of conception. Risk is inevitable, but that does not mean it should not be an educated risk. Finding a balance between emotional and logical reason to pursue an idea is key. It’s hard to sell something you are not emotionally invested in. Consumers can see right through gimmicks. If you want any idea to have a healthy life span beyond concept, you must be emotionally involved. Logic is uncertain as it is. True market research can only occur once a product exists. Any research prior to bringing a product to market is welcome, but does not guarantee anything. Since you cannot fully control how the market is going to react, concentrating on selecting the right team to manage is the most important thing when it comes to deciding if an idea becomes more than just that. I strongly believe that it is not the product or idea, but the team and the marketing efforts behind it that truly matters! Through EFG people have come to us with sometimes the silliest ideas and products, yet we have made them hugely successful through the marketing effort and the team that was behind the product/idea.

Y: The future of technology is always uncertain, but if there were 3 new revelations you could predict in the next 10 years, what would they be?

P: Mobile, mobile, mobile – the ratio of demand for mobile data exchange platforms exceeds the current infrastructure by the thousands, even the expansion of platforms is not enough to keep up with the growth expected in the next few years. AT&T’s data traffic has grown 8,000% since it started selling the iPhone four years ago. A technology that has the capacity to streamline this disruption will be king in the years to come.

Y: Many believe that a start-up or a business is only successful if they: A) Sell for a lot more than what they started with. B) Go public (IPO). Or C) When their revenue has comfortably passed their costs. What would you define as a successful company?

Although this is not true for everyone, I think that the goal of any entrepreneur cannot be measured by monetary gain or a popular IPO. These things can go down as quickly as they go up. The feeling of accomplishment that the execution of one’s idea could change the way of life or create a market or disrupt one, would be the true definition of success. If you can’t be the next Google, being able to pay your bills while being your own boss and making sure you, and your staff are having fun, is second best!

Y: What’s the best advice you can think of off the top of your head in 140 characters to everyday entrepreneurs out there?

P: In the words of Mark Twain: “The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.”

It’s been a while since I’ve last updated this blog. I don’t like to make excuses, but I’ve been fairly busy with a handful of projects that will soon reveal themselves to the world. All I can say is that 2011 has definitely been an exciting year. From getting funding for my first startup project to working as consultant on some cool projects. At the end of the day, I’ve come to one conclusion. No sleep in 2011. It’s my new mantra. I’m exaggerating, but that’s how I’m feeling. I look at sleep as a waste of time. Sometimes, I wish I could just close my eyes for 15 minutes and get a full night’s rest. Hopefully that’ll be my next invention.

I’ve also been fortunate enough to interview successful entrepreneurs in the field I work in. It’s really great to hear stories from individuals who were able to flip their own ideas into multi-million dollar businesses. I don’t watch Shark Tank, but I think my experiences interviewing entrepreneurs plays on the same interest that America has taken a liking to. I have some really interesting interviews coming up and look forward to sharing them all with you.

The startup projects I’m working on have taken up a bulk of my free time, but I’ve learned so much and am really excited for what lies ahead. I can’t speak too much about the projects I’m working on, since we’re still in stealth mode. But, I’ll definitely have more information in the next few weeks (and hopefully some press!).

It’s crazy how it’s already March. Back when I was in school, time moved a lot slower. Now I’m trying to squeeze every hour possible out of each day. Sleep is definitely a luxury I’m glad to have, but I’m forecasting a lot more 18 hour+ days in the next couple of months. It should be exciting and I’ll for sure be blogging about my experiences.

In the past week, I had the great pleasure of interviewing successful Entrepreneur Jerry McLaughlin, CEO of Branders.com. To give you a quick background, Branders.com was the world’s first online promotional items company and is currently the largest online.

Before co-founding Branders.com in May 1999, Mr. McLaughlin was with Altos Ventures; a venture capital firm focused on making early stage investments in companies and entrepreneurs.

Y: What would you say is the most important thing you’ve learned as an Entrepreneur?

J: Entrepreneurs are creative in a particular sense. They don’t necessarily invent anything, in the sense that Thomas Edison invented. They conceive of new ways to rearrange existing resources—and they do it before anybody else.

For example, Reed Hastings at Netflix looked at the DVD movie rental business, the U.S. Postal Service, and customers’ desire to save time and money, and rearranged those pieces—at first, only in his mind—to create value by giving people a different way to rent DVDs. In the process, he made life a little better for millions of customers, forced a national DVD movie rental chain to revise its predatory late fee policy, and built a company worth more than $10 billion. Executing the idea wasn’t easy, of course, but the rearrangement Reed saw was in its essence very simple.

Andrew Mason and his co-founders at Groupon have done their own rearranging and created a business that will hit $3 billion in sales in its 3rd year of existence. To the best of my knowledge, Groupon is the fastest growing company ever—but they didn’t invent, they rearranged.

Entrepreneurs see new, valuable combinations before those combinations become apparent to others.

Y: The new buzz word for entrepreneurs and start-ups is “Pivot.” Where do you think you had to “Pivot” or change the direction of an idea and why?

J: The only things worse than buzz words are new buzz words; rather than illuminate, they obscure. “Pivot” is particularly bad because it implies a crisp point of inflection, which rarely describes how businesses actually adopt a new direction.

For example, Branders.com was founded on the belief that the inherent conveniences of buying online would cause a high percentage of customers to shift their purchasing of promotional items to online vendors. But that didn’t happen. More than 10 years after Branders launched the first website selling promotional items, only about 3% of all promotional items purchases were being made through online vendors. By contrast, in the United States, over 80% of all airline tickets were being purchased online.

Over two years of introspection and analysis, Branders re-thought its entire reason to exist and decided to retool itself to deliver the lowest prices for promotional items anywhere in the United States and to maintain high service levels while doing it. We followed through with another 10 months of massive internal change, before unveiling our new prices—which are now, on average, 20% lower than our closest competitor. So, Branders made a defining “pivot” from focusing on convenience to focusing on price. But completing that signatre change of direction took us about three years.

Y: If you could start the process over, is there anything you would change?

J: Absolutely. In starting any business today, the first thing I’d do is find the fastest, cheapest, most reliable way to test my innovation. I wouldn’t even print business cards for my new venture without having first demonstrated the idea will work.

If I had followed my own hard-earned wisdom in this regard, I would have saved myself at least five years and $35 million in arriving at the place I am today. If you do not have a lot of money to finance a long research and development period and your idea cannot be subjected to a definitive test quickly and cheaply, then find a different idea.

Y: Do you ever want to retire?

J: I don’t think of retirement as a period of idleness or excessive leisure. I think of retirement as a period in my life when I can spend my money and all of my time without regard to what I will get in return—and yes, I look forward to living like that.

Y: What do you think are the biggest trends to look out for in Branding and Strategy in 2011?

J: I read more than anyone I know, but I don’t read newspapers or Internet news. The cycle times for big changes are much longer than the news cycle. For example, the role of the brand manager has been almost completely rewritten by the Internet and social media, but it will be some years before this becomes obvious.

A brand has meaning to the extent that customers believe it represents a solution to a particular problem in a particular way—“melts in your mouth, not in your hand.” Traditionally, brand managers told customers what the brand meant. But increasingly, customers tell each other directly what a brand is good for and not good for. More and more, the brand manager’s job is to tell the company what the brand means, based on customers’ published judgments. The brand manager is still the information intermediary, but the information flow has reversed.

Going forward, brand managers will become less like advertisers and more like product developers. As this shift becomes more apparent, the perceived value of communication skills in that role will recede and listening and discernment skills will become most prized.