Increase Conversions and Reduce Cart Abandonment by moving to Magento Cloud Hosting (Webinar)

Key business drivers for moving to cloud-based Magento Hosting

The Magento Commerce team recently hosted a webinar discussing the key business drivers for moving to cloud-based hosting for your site.

The short version is that EVERY SINGLE SECOND of page load time costs your site money.  The presentation started with a great overview of exactly how:

• You can increase conversions (read Sales) by 7% for every 1 second you reduce your site's latency
• Lowering load times by 3 seconds results in 40% fewer carts being abandoned before checkout completion.
• Maintaining the much sought-after 5 9's (99.999%) of availability will reduce customer churn by roughly 28%
• Migrating to cloud hosting can save your IT budget an average of 15% vs. traditional server-based hosting

I found the webinar well produced and complete with insightful information and anecdotes to help make the business case for moving to a cloud hosting system for your e-commerce store.  Although it was targeted towards Magento, the broader themes are applicable to every e-commerce platform.

The full webinar is embedded as a Vimeo below, but you can find it, along with a lot of other great webinar content on the Magento Commerce Webinar Portal.

Why Cloud? Why Now? from Magento on Vimeo.

The Social Media Breakfast Club - Via The Comit Developers Blog

The Social Media Breakfast Club (Shanna Perkins via The Comit Developers Blog)

Shanna Perkins, SEO & Internet Marketing Specialist at Comit Developers, wrote a great post on the different strengths and weaknesses of the most popular social media platforms last week.

Given that I'm old enough to remember watching The Breakfast Club in the movie theaters, I was particularly fond of her use of the characters from the movie to describe the traits of each social media platform.  It's a great way to offer a perspective that everyone can relate to - even if you didn't watch the movie ;)

Birthday Wishes to Jennifer Kendrick & Joining the Comit Developers Team!

Are you talking to me?

So I've been contracting now at Comit Developers (and it's sister e-commerce company Ameda Direct / ACA Ventures) for almost a year, but I've recently decided to join the team as a full time employee.

I'm excited about the vision of our leadership team over at Comit Developers and I've been honored to have the opportunity to be a part of such an AMAZING group of individuals in the design, development, engineering, and internet marketing / SEO divisions within this keiretsu (i've always wanted to work that term into a blog post...).

One of the main reasons I decided to join the team at Comit Developers and Ameda Direct is their genuinely open culture and their commitment to assembling the best team possible from a diverse mix of people.  

It's that diversity and the distinct personalities and perspectives of all the members of our organization that allows us to attack problems from many different angles simultaneously and that same diversity helps us to develop truly innovative solutions to the challenges our customers face every day.

Follow Up to Paul Jay's Knowledge Centered Support (KCS) - Key to Great Service

A short while back I posted about the webinar hosted by the ICMI & Paul Jay on Knowledge Centered Support and it's role in delivering the best possible customer experience.  Whether you had a chance to participate in the live webinar or have watched the saved recording, you probably noticed that there were a TREMENDOUS number of really great questions posed by the participants.

Fortunately for all of us, Paul is a fantastic contributor to the KCS community and has taken time out of his busy schedule to respond to many of the questions that couldn't be covered during the initial webinar.

You can see the responses to the top 21 questions posed during the webinar over at the ICMI blog:

Watch the Best Video Introduction to Gamification & Explanation of its Pros & Cons from Penny Arcade

It's a funny and informative introduction to gamification and I guarantee you will laugh out loud at least once :)

This may actually be the first simple explanation I've ever seen of any of the potential positives AND pitfalls of using gamification as a strategy.  Clocking in at around 6 minutes, it's a great introduction to share with people who are interested in learning about the basics of gamification.

The fantastic work done on this particular episode deserves to be called out:

Living Social Hacked: security breach leaves 50 million users compromised

Living Social Hacked: security breach leaves
50 million users compromised

I'm not sure how much we have in common, but I'm pretty sure neither of us would want to receive this email at 7:16 PM on a Friday evening.

But sadly, I did.  Right before I dropped some delicious BBQ onto the grill to celebrate the kick off of Festival International de Louisiane, I heard a little ding from my email client notifying me of an important message (you may have gotten one too).

It would seem I am one of the 50 million or so LivingSocial registered users whose account information was compromised in an cyber-attack on their computer systems in which attackers gained access to sensitive personal information about LivingSocial's customers (namely, me).

The breach appears to have been contained, though there are only scant details about the attack being released from LinkedIn at this time.

The information that was accessed includes (but note they do not say "is limited to," which means additional information may have been accessed) Customer Names, User email addresses, Birthdates (only for some users, not all 50 million, WHEW), and encrypted passwords.

LinkedIn transforms Contacts section into super-powered personal assistant that integrates with EVERYTHING

Image Courtesy of  TechChrunch

Today, LinkedIn released a few important new features for members that really turbo-charges their Connections section of the site.  In addition, they released a new mobile app called Contacts for Apple devices (with other platforms slated for future release dates).

If you're like me, you have probably already imported some of your Contacts into LinkedIn from your gMail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc accounts.  Which was great...except of course, that it was a one-time affair.  If you have added any contacts since your original import, those won't appear on your LinkedIn Connections because the import is a one-way process.

Well, go back and do it again, because now LinkedIn creates a permanent connection to your mail system's contacts and will keep your contacts synchronized between those systems (should you choose to permit it) and your LinkedIn profile.  Unbelievably, LinkedIn also now supports synching your mobile device's contact lists with your LinkedIn profile if you also install the mobile application.

Free Event: Fiber for Breakfast :: Fueling Healthcare - See how Lafayette, LA is using innovative fiber-powered technologies to deliver new experiences in patient care.

Screen Capture - The Louisiana Immersive Technologies Enterprise (LITE) Center's Home Page

One of the reasons Sam and I were excited to move back to Lafayette from Austin, TX was the innovative things the community was doing around Fiber To The Home.

That's why I'm delighted to share this wonderful free event with you that is being held at the LITE Center in Lafayette, LA : Fiber for Breakfast: Fueling Healthcare.

During the event, there will be brief presentations from representatives from

• Lafayette General Medical Center
• Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center
• Acadian Companies
• Schumacher Group

I can assure you this is not an event you are going to want to miss....Plus if you're one of the first 25 there, you get a free lunch.

Free Online Course: Gamification by Kevin Werbach via Coursera

Free Coursera Course: Gamification

This free online course from Coursera is taught by Kevin Werbach, an Associate Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics at the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania.

After hearing about the class online I decided to sign up myself!  Although I've downloaded a few class lectures from iTunes, I haven't yet registered for a Coursera class, so this one was my first class.

There's a video introduction for the class from Kevin Werbach himself and quite a few other resources I put together below.  If you're new to Gamification, the following graphic provides a basic introduction to the concept, but I've also posted an introduction here on the blog that's a quick read.

Free Webinar & White Paper: IBM Social Analytics: The Science behind Social Media Marketing & Putting the Science into Social Business

As I have been working on Inbound Marketing & Content Marketing Strategies with clients I have noticed that as we begin to master measuring and managing the metrics that have been traditionally associated with Social Media Marketing (likes, reach, shares, etc...) they quickly discover that these metrics are disconnected from the way we manage the rest of our Marketing, particularly around tracking Sales Conversions and assigning cash values to metrics.

The truth is that even though Social Media offers marketers a wealth of data that almost no other marketing channel provides about our customers, the tools we have to analyze, report, and act on that data have not kept up with the pace of development of the various social media platforms.

IBM has recently released a fantastic set of resources that help to illuminate how you can use a scientific & quantifiable approach to tracking these Social Media Metrics.  They are based on IBM's new approach to Social Business & Analytics and outline steps you can begin working on today to develop and execute a Social Media Strategy that is based on HARD DATA instead of the guesswork we're so used to in this space.

Grand Opening of The University of Louisiana at Lafayette's Moody School of Business and Northwestern Mutual's Professional Sales and Research Program Lab

Images - B. I. Moody III College of Business Administration

A few weeks ago I was invited to judge at a Sales Competition for the Marketing & Hospitality School of the B. I. Moody III College of Business Administration of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

Dr. Gwen Fontenot, Head of the Department, and Dr. Duleep Delpechitre, Head of the Sales Competition Team, invited me down to help select two students to represent the University at their next Sales Competition.

Free Webinar: Adopting Best Practices in Gamification for Enterprise Collaboration and Knowledge Management with Calvin Cheng of Deloitte's Postdigital Enterprise

It is really no surprise that mobile, social, analytics, cloud, and cyber-security are impacting just about all organizations - from the way they design and market products and services to the expectations that employees have around collaborating to deliver the best business results.

Although I cover a few different topics that cater to my professional interests and personal passions, but it is rare that I get a chance to write about the intersection of three of my favorite topics at once:

1. Knowledge Management
2. Gamification
3. Enterprise Collaboration

These three areas are converging faster every day for businesses and you can learn how to identify and take advantage of these trends at the APQC FREE webinar on April's KM Community Call featuring Calvin Cheng from Deloitte’s Postdigital Enterprise.  (Details & Registration links after the jump...)

Bill Gates & Paul Allen Reunite to Reprise Classic Early Microsoft Photograph - You've got to see this!

Photo of Bill Gates & Paul Allen of Microsoft (1981) From GeekWire

Paul Allen was at his Living Computer Museum, in Seattle two days ago and it appears he ran into his old business partner and Harvard drop-out pal, Bill Gates.

It seems Bill Gates and Paul Allen decided to do a reprise of the classic photo of the two of them in the early hay-days of Microsoft (see photo after the jump...) :

Free Webinar: Knowledge Centered Support (KCS) as the Key to Great Service

From The Consortium for Service Innovation

Paul Jay, Founder & President, The Center for Client Retention, ICMI is teaming up with Nav Chakravarti, Vice President, Oracle Knowledge Product Management and Monique Cadena, Knowledge Centered Support (KCS) Manager, Avaya to host a free Webinar on April 25, 2013 at 10:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time.

Join me and Paul as he introduces the keys to a successful Knowledge initiative. We'll walk through important concepts from the first video, Knowledge Centered Support (KCS): Knowledge Management Framework, including tips to keep agents engaged and committed to continual knowledgebase improvements and updates. You will hear real-life best practices from Paul’s videos, and he will also demonstrate why the entire organization, the team, and the agent scorecards should all include Knowledge metrics.

FREE APQC Webinar: Protecting Your Knowledge and Expertise

Although I am a strong advocate of the Consortium for Service Innovation's Knowledge Centered Support (KCS) Methodology for Knowledge Management, especially in Service Organizations within larger Enterprises, there are a few other organizations that have contributed greatly to the study and practice of Knowledge Management.

One organization I'm a member of is the APQC (from their website):

"APQC (American Productivity & Quality Center) is a member-based nonprofit and one of the world’s leading proponents of business benchmarking, best practices, and knowledge management research...

Revolutionary Multi-Touch User Interface / User Experience Innovations from Ideum

Ideum has done it again - creating the world's largest multi-touch interactive table in production to date - the Pano, a 110" Multi-Touch Interactive Table.

For an unbelievale product demonstration, check out Ideum's latest VimeoPro upload after the jump...

KCS Consortium Presentation: Success & Challenges with Dell's Global Knowledge Centered Support (KCS) Programs

KCS - Lessons Learned from Application Support

This is a presentation delivered to the Consortium for Service Innovation during a workshop held in September of 2007 in Dallas, TX with ATG (now Oracle). It highlighted the early successes and challenges encountered by the early adopters in Application Support & Services while implementing Knowledge Centered Support (KCS) and the lessons learned and shared as adoption of KCS grew throughout Dell.

Interesting perspective on customer acquisition, conversion, and "growth hacking"

I thought this was a really interesting way of conceptualizing the two fundamental extremes of using marketing / growth hacking to grow your customer base.  The most interesting thing is that there seems to be some really good support for navigating the middle ground.  Check it out for yourself and let me know what you think in the comments: Two ways to look at growth | Aaron Ginn's Thoughts

Check out "Knowledge Centred Support (KCS) & ITIL integration - 8 year case studty - Amazing Empirical Results

The Vimeo is amazingly detailed and although it clocks in at 21 minutes, I feel like pretty much every organization can draw at least one lesson from their empirical results to help you in your KCS & ITIL / ITSM integration efforts.

Knowledge Centred Support (KCS) & ITIL integration - 8 year case study - Amazing Results from Paul Jay on Vimeo.

Knowledge management strategy helps gas company retain worker know-how

Knowledge management strategy helps gas company retain worker know-how - notes from PG&E Field Studies & Case Notes.