Personal Productivity & “Making Ideas Happen”

I recently re-read Scott Belsky’s great book “Making Ideas Happen” and thought I would share some thoughts on personal productivity tools that I have been using lately. As a testament to it’s teachings, its been a while since I have seen a book loosely categorized under “self-improvement” have over 4.5 stars from 89 reviews on Amazon. That being said, I wanted to share some thoughts and tools that I have been using to help me with my productivity and to make sure that I continue to iterate and execute on my ideas, rather than just sit on them and wait for something to happen.

RememberTheMilkRemember The Milk
While they have been around since 2005, I recently heard about this app through a friend and read more about it on the app store (I have an iPhone). Within about 20 minutes of using the app, I was sold and paid up front for 2 years of “support” for the product (I believe their pricing model is a freemium version that then unlocks a pro version with additional syncing features across devices once you have donated some money to them). Realistically, there isn’t much difference between Remember The Milk and the built-in iOS to-do list app, but there are simple differences that set it apart: the ability to add multiple notes under a single task and the capability to sync across both mobile devices as well as have access to your lists on the web (a big one for me). I do a lot on the road and on my phone or iPad, but there are plenty of times where I am sitting at my desk and need to reference my to-do items. Being able to open a new tab in a browser and access those to-dos while having them sync to my other devices was a key factor in me supporting the app.

EvernoteEvernote
At first glance, Evernote really isn’t that special. Or so I thought when I first started to use it. I am one of those people who have ideas about every 5 minutes; many of them are not worth writing down but others could lead to something in the future. My first system for taking down notes was to always just have a pen and paper ready on my person in case some idea popped into my head that I wanted to remember. Then came the advent of Gmail and the ability to access email from my mobile, in which case I would just compose a new email and save the email as a draft, being able to then reference it later. The key here, and something that I think Evernote picked up on but may not have realized it, is that I used Gmail not because it was an email client, but because Gmail has an incredibly powerful search filter. This then helped me find old drafts/ideas/emails that I had written, as I would “tag” those “ideas” with strong keywords to make sure I could find those ideas down the line. Evernote effectively takes care of all of that. I have organized numerous “notebooks” and all of my ideas include tags that I can then easily reference down the line. It’s simply a great way to jot down notes, remember items that you may like, and perhaps even provide inspiration for new ideas down the line. Their mobile app integration is great as well.

PenultimatePenultimate
I recently bought a stylus for my iPad specifically because of this app. Interestingly enough Evernote recently purchased Penultimate because it was such a great note taking app for the iPad. I think it’s a great app to use when you want to draw out a diagram or remember a specific concept or idea, and having a stylus for the iPad definitely helps when making sure you want to have crisp and clean images, drawings or sketches to reference later.

BasecampBasecamp
I have been using Basecamp for almost 7 years now. As a project management tool, I believe it provides the amount of flexibility needed to manage various projects within a small organization, while also still providing enough necessary structure so that you are not presented with a blank canvas. The team at 37Signals have done a really great job to iterate on their base product, staying true to it’s original form while also ensuring that the product changes with the needs of it’s customers. It’s a great product for small teams who need to have some structure to their project management, but don’t need a massive project management suite.

Zoho CRMZoho CRM
This may sound odd that I use a CRM suite to manage my personal life, but I do. I quickly found that, while the iPhone’s address book is great for keeping static contact details, it’s really not good at making sure you manage your network and keep up with the contacts that you want to keep up with. I believe Apple has a huge opportunity with the address book, to make it the center of everyone’s life in terms of managing their network of friends, colleagues, coworkers, prospects, etc. but it still hasn’t fulfilled that promise (hint to Apple: integrate with LinkedIn somehow, directly, please…I know I can do a data dump via the LinkedIn iOS app, but I want an integration akin to Twitter in iOS). Their recent integration with Twitter in the iPhone and the use of iCloud to now sync your contact data between iPhone, iPad and Macbook is absolutely awesome, but I still think it represents just the tip of the iceberg. I specifically use Zoho CRM because it is free and simple to setup; their base package even allows you to have a few users under a single account and up to 100,000 contacts/leads within it. I do a number of small projects through my small design firm for various small business clients, so it’s also great to track progress and work there as well.

Any questions or comments about the products above? Feel free to leave a note in the comments section below and let me know if there are other tools that you use that I could potentially take a look at.

Thanks,
Raj

Monetizing Mobile Audiences: A Publisher’s Perspective

Eli Portnoy wrote a great article in TechCrunch recently discussing the possibilities for advertisers to attract and target mobile audiences. This post followed on the heels of KPCB Partner Mary Meeker’s great presentation on the state of the web and the move towards mobile recently.

I wanted to cover some thoughts on mobile monetization, specifically from the publisher’s perspective. Eli’s comments are focused obviously on the advertiser: they recognize the power and potential that mobile can have especially given the inherent segmentation and localization that only mobile can provide at the moment (read: segmenting an ad message to a user based on where they are, what they checked in to, what time of day it is, etc.)

The issue at hand isn’t necessarily on the demand side as savvy advertisers are already launching some very successful mobile campaigns that take advantage of the segmentation capabilities inherent with mobile. The real issue in finding enough publishers at scale to make the campaigns worthwhile. And even more specific, finding a single outlet on the supply side that can truly provide reach for a campaign.

Many publishers are still working on optimizing for mobile as they are still slow to update their sites for the mobile interface. In this regard, many publishers can’t service mobile campaigns since the scale to serve enough impressions is lacking. You now have a problem in the market where the supply of ad inventory falls way below the demand; simple economics would dictate that the publisher would stand to benefit from such a market imbalance but unfortunately mobile CPM prices are still way below their true potential.

How do publishers stand to gain? Eyeballs are moving to mobile: a recent statistic pointed out that almost 50% of individuals in the US now have a smartphone. Given this, no publisher should be asking whether or not to focus on mobile, but rather, whether or not they should pursue a specific mobile strategy over another. Since many medium-tier publishers don’t necessarily have the scale to service a large branded advertiser’s campaign, it may be important for publishers to band together and provide a larger pool of available inventory. This would help the entire ecosystem by providing more revenue opportunities for publishers while giving advertisers the true scale they need to pull off their campaigns (further reinforcing the importance of mobile as a new medium to target audiences and therefore encouraging more ad spend and budget to flow into mobile).

For now, the real key for a publisher is to ensure that they are mobile-ready. Advertisers will notice and monetization opportunities should increase.

aap_logo_banner_rajamatage

American Academic Prep Identity

While I am still in the middle of re-designing Raj Design Group, I decided I would post an update here regarding a new client of mine. American Academic Prep is a small tutoring company based in Santa Barbara, CA, with a focus on consulting for high school students who would like to gain admission to a college, and college students who require tutoring in college-level course work. We decided to go with a classic color scheme of burgundy, gold and white. The identity was a take on common historical references to banners for schools with a modern edge. Included in the identity is a key, as the company’s slogan will be “the key to success”.

I’ve gone ahead and posted the final identity work to my Behance.net profile and will be posting some additional updates once the site gets up and running, and once we have their marketing materials and internal collateral complete. This will be the first full-service client I have worked on a while so I am excited to get this project rolling.

Ad House Reference

I own a number of domains, many of which I have not developed for lack of time and also for lack of formally conceptualizing how I will use the domain, but I recently purchased a domain adhousref.com. As the name would suggest, I want to create a website that provides simple and basic details about the online advertising world, such as which agency is owned by another, what advertisers work with said agencies, etc. Really the idea was born out of the fact that I have found it extremely difficult to find even basic information with regards to agencies and the online advertising world (especially since I am very new to the industry and also don’t have much knowledge about the ins-and-outs of the industry). The idea for the site was inspired by a great website that an adviser pointed me to called sellercrowd.com (and, for those of you who are already in the industry and know the ups-and-downs, ins-and-outs, check out this great Tumblr blog).

Over time I am hoping that the site will evolve and become a trusted source to learn about up-to-date news within the online advertising world. It is definitely conceived of as a resource to help the sell side of the advertising industry, but I definitely see some uses in the future for the buy side as well (for example, since campaign RFPs are still very much so used, perhaps buyers can post their RFPs direct and manage them via the site). While I recognize there are plenty of other sites out there that have this information (and even on some ad agency sites they have very specific information about their offices, their work and specialties), most of those sites are built behind pay or login firewalls that add (in my opinion) an unnecessary layer to an already massively layered process.

More details to come as the concept for the site gets finalized and slowly built. I think between the redesign of Raj Design Group, work being done for American Academic Prep, and the update of the MAUA website, this is going to be a pretty busy summer.

The Fragmented World of Online Media Sales

The Beginning
Recently I have been working on building an in-house premium online display ad sales unit within PeekYou. We’re slowly approaching 10mm monthly visits, and as a result, are looking towards new channels to monetize our traffic beyond simple Google display ads and direct text link deal partnerships. Whereas just a few years ago, major brand name advertisers were content spending big ad budgets for pure volume-based CPM campaigns, many advertisers are now looking for very specific audience buys and targeted display campaigns. It is for this reason that we integrated our DFP ad server with Quantcast’s Audience Segment API.

I have the space, you bring the campaign
As we have learned the hard way, getting in touch with advertisers in order to sell our inventory direct to them is proving to be extremely difficult. There are numerous websites out there (such as sellercrowd.com) that help online ad sales reps by anonymously connecting them within a forum-style Q&A site, in order to make sure that the sell side is able to monetize their inventory. Gone are the days where a publisher can simply integrate audience data, and sell premium display.

Next steps
I am 100% sure everyone on the sell side (and buy side for that matter) has had the exact same feeling towards the entire industry and the fragmented nature of advertising online. I recently came across a great article that focused on bringing small businesses online and into the display advertising world (most small businesses focus on products like Google AdWords/SEM to market their wares online since they don’t always have the resources to create an effective display ad campaign like some of the bigger advertisers out there). Perhaps publishers within our tier of traffic (anywhere between 5mm to 15mm monthly visits) should be looking to target these mid-level advertisers to better monetize their inventory, rather than going after the agency-supported advertising clients? Until publishers can get a fair shot at pitching their inventory direct, online media sales will continue to be a fragmented, disjointed marketplace.

New Objectives & Content

It would appear that my old WordPress DB somehow failed and I lost a few of my older posts. Not a problem. I’ve gone ahead and updated the site to included the latest version of WordPress software. I’ll be writing about some of my thoughts regarding entrepreneurship, online advertising, the startup world at large, and general business ideas. Over the next few weeks I hope this site will start to take on a character of its own.

In the meantime please come back and check out the site in a few weeks once it is fully up and running.

Thanks,
Raj