Then, there's the even more ridiculous: the Silver Diner chain in the Delmarva states (actually, Marva & Jersey, but close enough) has a "vote-by-menu-choice" promotion going on. That's right: they have a Barack Obama omelette and a John McCain omelet. Granted, I don't think that they're actually saying a preference for a barbecue-themed omelet (and here's a question: what the hell does Arizona or John McCain have to do with barbecue? Strom Thurmond is barbecue, Jesse Helms is barbecue, Max Cleland is barbecue, even John Edwards is barbecue, but there is no barbecue worthy of the name west of the Appalachians!) versus a Chicago-pizza themed omelet an actually indicator of people's preferences for, say, Iraq War Policy, and how they'll actually vote. So I imagine the bit about how they'll make a "Presidential prediction" based on the sale of these limited-time menu items is tongue-in-cheek for "We might keep the one yall buy and eat more of". Still, I think it's a pretty dumb marketing tie-in.

However, many companies just don't seem to understand this and continue to produce White Papers that truly don't meet this criteria. Lets examine the reasons why a company would engage in the creation of a White Paper.

1. The intention to position their company as Subject Matter Experts with regard to a particular service, product or technology
2. To differentiate themselves from their competitors by sharing knowledge
3. To drive traffic and/or leads to their website
4. To reinforce or create an impression with prospects and clients that they are a trusted voice in their industry
5. To introduce a new concept, solution or technology to the market

These are not by any means the only reason why a company would seek to publish a White Paper but they certainly constitute the most popular reasons. Now given that a company is going to commit time, money and resources to this endeavor with the hopes of meeting at least one, if not more of the aims above then it would seem reasonable that some consideration of the readership, both intended and unintended would be considered.

However, that seems to be the last thing that companies consider when setting out on this path. They start and end with a focus on selling their product and in doing so hamstring their endeavor before it has even started.

Lets examine a typical White Paper from cover to cover and review how so many companies are producing them and make suggestions about how they can do them better.

The cover - Often produced as an after thought, this is where the trouble starts. A large Logo emblazoned on the front of the White Paper, immediately announcing that this is the product of a particular company. Then a title that also includes the company name, e.g. "ABC's Solution to your Problem". A reader seeing this has already put up their anti-sales barriers, that's if they even bother to go any further. Given that most companies ask you to complete a short info form before you can download a White Paper, the reader is now feeling cheated, they have given out their email address and name and possibly other information on the pretext of being given some valuable information, only to find that they are in fact going to be sold to.

• The Alternative - Move your logo - if you must in fact include your logo on the front page, and I am by no means supporting that, to a greatly reduced size to the bottom of the front page, precede it with "Sponsored by" or "Provided by". In place of the Logo put a title that fairly represents the content of the paper, it doesn't have to be bland, it can be catchy but it must most importantly be relevant and should not under any circumstances include the company name. Make sure that the author(s) names are on the front page so that people have some sense of who wrote the paper, include their position or expertise.

The content - Having opened the White Paper the reader is then told how they are going to read in this paper that ABC's solution is the only one they need to consider. They are told how not considering ABC's solution will in fact lead them into dire straits, financial ruin, or end their career. That everyone who is anyone in the industry is already using this solution and that only buyers who truly lack vision would be considering anything else. This may seem extreme but I can honestly say I have seen just these tactics used in what was supposed to be a White Paper. Using fear or other "sales" tactics in a White Paper not only doesn't work, its completely inappropriate for the medium. Using unsupported claims is also pointless, again these leave the reader feeling that they have downloaded a sales brochure and are unlikely to get any useful information from this paper.

• The Alternative - Make the content compelling. Tell a story, that doesn't mean fictionalize it, it means have a narrative thread that runs throughout the paper. Lead the reader through your arguments with facts that support your position. Where possible cite studies or quote industry figures that agree with and support your position. Use images where appropriate, but not so many that the paper becomes more like a graphic novel than a White Paper. Leave out any mention of your company. This is the hardest pill for most companies to swallow. "How will the reader know about us", they ask. We'll get to the part where you get to pitch, but it isn't in the body of the White Paper. Provide some proprietary information, give the reader something that they would have to have paid for to get normally. Perhaps its from a study that is only available by subscription (be sure to source it properly) or perhaps its from the companies own data. Many companies fear doing this - "what if our competitors get this information?", what if they do? Obviously don't include something that would remove your competitive edge, but revealing some information, even if it goes to your competitors is more likely to strengthen your position than weaken it. So where does the pitch go ? At the very back of the paper, separate page, separate heading, so that it is clearly not part of the paper. A heading like "About the Sponsors" gives the reader a clear indication that this is the pitch part, it gives them the opportunity to read it or not, but it also allows them to clearly delineate in their minds the meat of the paper and the sales pitch, which is more likely to have them read the pitch because after all, you have given them something useful, now they are more likely to give you something back - their time.

The Readership - just because the paper was written with a specific reader in mind, new prospects, existing customers etc. doesn't mean that is who will read it. White Papers are used by a variety of sources, competitors, market researchers, journalists, and yes new prospects and existing customers. If a White Paper reads like a sales brochure, provides no new information, doesn't offer a genuine insight and relevant data to a reader how does this meet the defined objectives? Will a company be seen as an industry subject matter expert, will it drive new prospects to a website, will existing customers think of the company as a trusted industry voice, will journalists or market researchers think of them when they next need a quote about the industry?

As a recap, avoid selling in a white paper at all costs, make the body engaging, provide facts that the reader can use, be subtle about the branding of white papers and keep in mind the wider audience that you might reach however unintentionally.

Over the weekend when not lying in the park or dining with friends I was working on my latest (overdue) column for Marketing Magazine. It will be out in their December/January issue and I was talking about brands finding their voice online, which I'm quite excited about, I look forward to hearing everyone's thoughts when it comes out.

I feel though like that's the running part, and we're struggling to get the walking right; we're doing that because the fundamentals of success in business and marketing are shifting and we're not keeping pace with it. I harp on about it, but only because I think it is important enough to do so: intent. Intent, intent, intent, intent, intent, intent, intent, intent.

While you're at your desk this week, in each situation I want you to ask yourself "What's my intent here?". We make sales calls under the guise of building relationships, we dump on other agencies under the guise of offering advice. We put energy into things that distract us from our main purpose in the hopes that people won't really get what we're on about.

And then we go do it with the brands we're supposed to be building.

Let's all agree, week beginning Monday October 13th, 2008 to gut-check what the intent is in the work we do this week. Let's not discuss "new ways to talk to our customers" when the reality is we need email addresses added to a database. By stripping away the stuff we cloak our actions with, we get to the heart of the matter much faster.

And I promise, the campaigns you run are going to be all the more effective for it.

--

Image courtesy of The Alieness Gisela Giardino, with thanks to compfight.

Conference Description listed on their site:

"M2Moms® is a two-day conference featuring a series of general sessions, keynotes, workshops, and roundtable discussions. Breakfast, lunch and breaks on both days, as well as receptions on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, add to the collegial ambiance and will help you maximize your networking and peer-to-peer learning opportunities."

Some of the speakers listed are:

• Tanya Van Court -SVP, Preschool & Parents Online for Nickelodeon and MTVN Kids and Family Group
• Aimee Gerry - West Coast Director of Sales for SheKnows
• Stacy DeBroff - Founder & CEO of Mom Central Consulting
• Kara Forney - Founder of The Bump Media, Inc. and Vice President and Publishing Director of The Bump

Conference Fee: $1895.00

Fee Includes: Research, general sessions, workshops, clinics, continental breakfasts, keynotes, luncheons, on-going refreshments, receptions, and complete conference documentation.

Who should attend: Anyone looking to market their product to moms.

Have you attended this conference? Are you planning on attending this conference? If so, please let use know the following: is it worth the fee, how many people attended, how were the workshops, how were the speakers, what was the thing you liked most about the conference, what was the thing you liked least, were you a sponsor and/or speaker if so how did you get that opportunity, would you attend the conference again? We appreciate your time and feedback....it will help others make educated decisions.

Know of a conference not listed please send me an email sdavis@beyondmotherhood.com

Wishing you continued success with your business!

Secret Affiliate code 2:

Here are a few steps that will keep you on track on your quest for affiliate marketing success.

1. Make it your business to learn as much as you can about affiliate marketing. Take a few days to read as much as you can about getting started, making money, and sustaining a business model. But once you have accumulated enough information, it is time to move on and put it to good use.

2. Determine early on what type of products you want to sell. Remember, you can become an affiliate for everything from a sporting goods store to a computer retailer. The choice is yours, and you should base your decision on your interests and what you have the most chance of success with.

3. Set up a website or blog that will give you a platform for becoming a successful affiliate marketer. Remember, you need to be able to sell in some way, shape, or form. For most successful affiliate marketers, this is done online. As your business grows, you can start more websites as a way to increase your profits.

Overall, these three basic steps should help you if you want to start a career in affiliate marketing. Of course, you will run into details along the way that will drive you off course. It is important that you are always looking forward, while still learning as you go along. This will help you to make your first sale in no time!

Twitter is a social networking or "micro-blogging" site where you have 140 characters to answer the question, "What are you doing?".  You can expand this question along the lines of "What new thing have you discovered?",  "What is interesting about your business?", "What advice can you give to help others?". There are many options. 

Here is a short list of some things to tweet about:

1. Talk about non-business related topics. Share your interests, ideas, humor, philosophy, etc. Include a link whenever possible.  (Change long URL's to tiny urls: http://tinyurl.com ) Share a picture.

2. Ask questions. This is a great way to build a community among your followers.

3. Retweet.  Start your post with: Retweeting@username and paste in original post when you find a post of someone you would like to pass along.

4. Reply to other tweets. Be helpful. Give feedback about blog posts and articles.

5. Share links to events in your community.

6. Run contests. This is a great idea! Add a link to your blog and create an interesting contest.

And a few things to remember:

1. It is a social networking site. Don't bombard your followers with your website link, links to what you are selling, etc. It is okay to post these links, but within reason. Or include the link within an interesting post about your process of creating the item.

2. Do try to make your posts interesting. Taking the question "What are you doing?" too literally could cause you to lose followers! If you want to post about doing your laundry, try to make it interesting, funny, or helpful! (Ignore this tip if you are only using Twitter to keep up with your friends! )

3. Use direct messages for conversations that do not need to be shared with the rest of the Twitter community.

4. Remember that there is no way to erase your posts, so be cautious about what you write.

Some ways to increase your followers/following:

1. Follow interesting people. Twintro follows interesting people and retweets their posts.

2. Balance out some of your self promotion by promoting others!

3. Search for your target market: http://search.twitter.com  and follow those people. I would start my search with "silk scarf" and see what comes up and go from there. If you have a lot of customers in a certain field, search for those.

And one tip to decrease your followers: http://www.lessfriends.com  You can occasionally weed out those who are not following you back.

And finally, a few interesting or helpful links:

Twittad to advertise on a twitter user's profile page (some consider this a bad idea, check it out for yourself)

TwitHire Job listings

Twitterholic Twitter users to watch

Twitter Fan Wiki

Twitter Blog

“HAVE YOU SEEN THE STARS TONITE” has landed and

the 2 CD Special set Have You Seen The Circus Tent Tonite

with over 900 rock and roll photos and the Cathy Richardson 70 minute interview, has landed too!

http://www.takemetoacircustent.net

http://www.amazon.com (The books are proudly featured here)

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE- JEFFERSON STARSHIP-

Great Society- Take Me To A Circus Tent

Have You Seen The Stars Tonite

Have You Seen The Circus Tent Tonite

Quality Rock & Roll Airplane

style.

Welcome to Rock Island:

How was the weekend? Did you do anything nice?  Saturday I found the Red Sox/Rays playoff game fascinating.  The season has been a living fantasy for Tampa Bay and a loss on Saturday would have made any hope for further advancement slim and non.  They won in extra innings and are now tied one game apiece in the best four out of seven.  Good for them and cool for baseball.  Yes, it is hard to watch without the Yankees being involved.

Thanks for all the airmails already how much you liked the version of J.P.P. McStep B. Blues that we played on Sunday's flight.  You can look to the right side of the page and check that out if you missed it as well as a myriad of other rock and roll treats.  Always cool to catch up on everything Jefferson, Beatles, Cream, etc.

Today we have the Jefferson Starship on tour in 2008 and they take an Airplane song and give it the rock and roll treatment you would expect.

Here we go:

Jefferson Starship

Live on tour 2008

When The Earth Moves Again

Enjoy it!  Got to go rock and roll.

*****

Please spread the

word:

The 2 new Jefferson projects have arrived!

Thanks as always!

Relax and have fun!

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE-

JEFFERSON STARSHIP- Great Society-

Take Me To A Circus Tent

I look forward to hearing you later!

The book is Take Me To A Circus Tent (The Jefferson Airplane Flight Manual) W/93 photos, 32 interviews, 543 pages, and a myriad of 5 star reviews!

Please remember at any moment on an Aircast it can be a rare memory from the Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, KBC, Wooden Ships, Marty Balin, Paul Kantner to name several.  Maybe another picture previously unseen from the Rock Tent Vault sees daylight from Herb Greene or Don Aters.

Please fly the rock plane here for Jefferson's moving the earth:

http://www.takemetoacircustent.net/media/JeffersonAirplaneTakeMeToACircusTentAircast64somethingismovingtoday.mp3

Wishing you a great day,

craig

Perchè il nostro obiettivo non è solamente quello di formarti attraverso ebook specifici, ma darti anche la possibilità di iniziare la tua attività online rivendendo i prodotti in maniera professionale, ovvero darti la possibilità di distinguerti dai tanti marketer "Amatoriali" presenti in rete. Ecco perchè Guadagnare-Soldi.org offre insieme ai suoi ebook ( e altri prodotti) i diritti di rivendita! Perchè grazie a questi diritti puoi iniziare un Tuo Business e guadagnare il 100% su ogni copia venduta! Proprio per questo motivo è nato Infoprodotti-Premium che oltre a contenere l'intero catalogo di ebook, ti da la possibilità di scaricare pacchetti grafici e software per il tuo Business.

Ecco perchè abbiamo deciso di inserire in catalogo i pacchetti Grafici e Software, proprio per permettere a chi vuole iniziare magari solamente con qualche ebook acquistato da noi a vendere in rete con un suo sito web. E' importante che un sito abbia una grafica professionale e anche una semplice pagina di vendita deve avere un aspetto professionale per distinguersi in rete. Grazie ai pacchetti grafici questo è possibile! Quindi, coloro che non sono iscritti ad Infoprodotti-Premium e per ora non intendono farlo, non perdono la possibilità di avere a disposizione uno strumento così indispensabile come un pacchetto grafico professionale oppure un software e possono iniziare il loro business anche con 1 o 2 ebook acquistati con diritti di rivendita.

Per gli stessi motivi, nei mesi prossimi saranno lanciati nuovi servizi "moooolto" interessanti (Per ora non vi posso dire nulla...!) adatti a quelle persone che preferiscono avere "Tutto Pronto" senza fare praticamente nulla (creare un sito web, grafica ecc...). Insomma se questo Bum del Marketing continua ad essere molto promettente, Guadagnare-Soldi.org continua con la propria missione: Miglioramento Continuo, a beneficio di tutti coloro che vogliono iniziare a guadagnare da casa tramite internet.

Le sorprese continueranno ad arrivare! ;-)

Continuate a Seguirci ;-)

New Coke was the unofficial name of the sweeter formulation introduced in 1985 by The Coca-Cola Company to replace its flagship soft drink, Coca-Cola or Coke. Properly speaking, it had no separate name of its own, but was simply known as "the new taste of Coca-Cola", until 1992 when it was renamed Coca-Cola II.

Public reaction to the change was poor, and the new cola was a major marketing failure. The subsequent reintroduction of Coke's original formula led to a significant gain in sales.

History

Background

Coca-Cola's original drinks market share had been shrinking, from 60% just after World War II to under 24% in 1983, in the face of competition from Pepsi-Cola. When Roberto Goizueta took over as CEO in 1980, he pointedly told employees there would be no sacred cows in how the company did its business, including how it formulated its drinks.Newsweek, 22 July 1985: 39. Not long afterwards, the company bought Columbia Pictures, the company's first major diversification away from the drinks industry.

He also made his point when Diet Coke broke a longstanding company tradition that the brand would not be diluted and that no other product would also be called Coca-Cola. Instead of simply putting out Coke with an alternative sweetener, Coca-Cola developed a new formula to go with the aspartame-sweetened drink. Diet Coke was a success, quickly becoming the fourth most popular soft drink in America, and eventually displacing 7-Up as the third.

However, this change in the industry created an adverse effect on the Coca-Cola Company. Part of Diet Coke's success came at the expense of regular Coke, as more consumers showed a preference for sweeter drinks, whether sugar-sweetened or not. Foremost among them was Pepsi, which was trailing within a couple of percentage points of Coke. In the wake of its late 1970s "Pepsi Challenge" campaign, in which blind taste tests in public locations had shown an overwhelming preference for Pepsi, Pepsi began to outsell Coke in supermarkets. Coke maintained its edge only through fountain sales.

Market analysts believed baby boomers were likely to purchase more diet drinks as they aged and remained health- and weight-conscious. Therefore, any future growth in the full-calorie segment had to come from younger drinkers, who at that time favored Pepsi and its sweetness by even more overwhelming margins than the market as a whole.;Ibid., 40

Market research

Coca-Cola's most senior executives commissioned a secret effort named "Project Kansas", headed by marketing vice president Sergio Zyman and Brian Dyson, president of Coca-Cola USA, to test and perfect the new flavor for Coke itself. It took its name from a famous photo of that state's renowned journalist William Allen White drinking a Coke that had been used extensively in its advertising and hung on several executives' walls.Hays, Constance; The Real Thing:Truth and Power at the Coca-Cola Company, Random House, 2004, ISBN 0-8129-7364-X, 114 The company's marketing department again went out into the field, this time armed with samples of the possible new drink for taste tests, focus groups, and surveys.

The results of that were strong — the high fructose corn syrup mixture overwhelmingly beat both regular Coke and Pepsi. Then tasters were asked if they would buy and drink it if it were Coca-Cola. Most said yes, they would, although it would take some getting used to. A small minority, about 10-12%, felt angry and alienated at the very thought, saying that they might stop drinking Coke altogether. Their presence in focus groups tended to skew results in a more negative direction as they exerted indirect peer pressure on other participants.Prendergast, Mark; For God, Country and Coca-Cola: The Definitive History of the Great American Soft Drink and the Company that Makes It, Basic Books, 1994, ISBN 0-465-05468-4, 355
The surveys, which were given more significance by standard marketing procedures of the era, were less negative and were key in convincing management to move forward with a change in the formula for 1985, to coincide with the drink's centenary. But the focus groups had provided a clue as to how the change would play out in a public context, a data point that the company downplayed but which was to prove important later.Schindler, Robert M. "The Real Lesson of New Coke: The Value of Focus Groups for Predicting the Effects of Social Influence," Marketing Research, December 1992:27
Management also considered, but quickly rejected, an idea to simply make and sell the new flavor as yet another Coke variety. The company's bottlers were already complaining about absorbing other recent additions into the product line in the wake of Diet Coke. Many of them had sued over the company's syrup pricing policies. A new variety of Coke in competition with the main variety could, if successful, also dilute Coke’s existing sales and increase the proportion of Pepsi drinkers relative to Coke drinkers.

Early in his career with Coca-Cola, Goizueta had been in charge of the company's Bahamian subsidiary. In that capacity, he had improved sales by tweaking the drink's flavor slightly, so he was receptive to the idea that changes to the taste of Coke could lead to increased profits. He believed it would be "New Coke or no Coke",Hays, op. cit., 106 and the change must take place openly. He insisted that the containers carry the "NEW!" label, which gave the drink its popular name.Prendergast, op. cit., 358
Goizueta also made a visit to his mentor and predecessor as the company's chief executive, the ailing Robert W. Woodruff, who had built Coke into an international brand following World War II. He claimed he had secured Woodruff's blessing for the reformulation, but even many of Goizueta's closest friends within the company doubt that Woodruff truly understood what Goizueta intended.Prendergast, op. cit., 356Hays, op. cit., 115. Goizueta always said he had.

Rollout

Many of New Coke's problems developed during the rollout. Archrival Pepsi was able to undermine the public relations push, and Coke's own executives, particularly Goizueta, did not impress the media.

Marketing Response By Pepsi

Coke let the media know on April 19, 1985 that a major announcement was planned for the following Tuesday, April 23, concerning a change in the product. While its press release did not explicitly say so, many recipients correctly guessed it meant a change in the flagship brand's formulation. So, too, did officials at PepsiCo, who had expected a major move but not something so drastic.
Despite a negative reaction by top Pepsi executives to a smuggled preview six-pack of the new flavor, they nevertheless concluded it was a serious threat. Roger Enrico, then director of North American operations, wasted no time taunting Pepsi's older rival. He declared a companywide holiday and took out a full-page ad in The New York Times proclaiming that Pepsi had won the long-running "cola wars".Hays, op. cit., 117Prendergast, op. cit., 359 Since Coke officials were preoccupied over the weekend with preparations for the big day, their Pepsi counterparts had time to cultivate skepticism among reporters, sounding themes that would later come into play in the public discourse over the changed drink.Oliver, Thomas; The Real Coke, The Real Story, Penguin, 1986; ISBN 0-14-010408-9; 125

Official launch

New Coke was introduced on April 23, 1985. Production of the original formulation ended that same week.

The press conference at New York City's Lincoln Center to introduce the new formula did not go over very well. Reporters present had already been fed questions by Pepsi,Oliver, op. cit., 125 which was extremely worried that New Coke would erase all its gains. The press did not give Goizueta easy questions as he changed a century of tradition. His stumbling description of the new taste, given his background as one of the company's flavor chemists, was widely ridiculed:
Goizueta defended the change by pointing out that the drink's secret formula was not sacrosanct and inviolable. (At the request of an Atlanta rabbi, Woodruff had also changed the formula so that the glycerine in it came not from hog fat but vegetable sources, so the drink could be certified kosher and, incidentally, halal and vegetarian.)

But Goizueta also refused to admit that taste tests had in any way led the company to make the change (which he called "one of the easiest decisions we have ever made") to avoid giving Pepsi any credit,To this day the company's refuses to name Pepsi, referring instead to its "chief competitor". yet gave no other real reason for the change, further alienating reporters who had already heard from Pepsi representatives in advance on this very issue. Many were taken aback by Goizueta's apparent arrogance when, following a reporter's question about whether Diet Coke would be reformulated "if this is a success," he curtly replied, "This is a success."

The emphasis on the sweeter taste of the new flavor also ran contrary to previous Coke advertising, in which spokesman Bill Cosby had touted its less-sweet taste as a reason to prefer Coke over Pepsi.Oliver, op. cit., 136
Nevertheless, the company's stock went up on the announcement,Hays, op. cit., 119 and market research showed that 80% of the American public was aware of the change within 48 hours.Matthews, Blair; Spring 2005; Soda Pop Dreams, retrieved June 16, 2006

Early acceptance

While it is widely believed today that the new drink failed almost instantly, this was not the case. The company, as it had planned, introduced the new formula with big marketing pushes in New York (workers renovating the Statue of Liberty were symbolically the first Americans given cans to take home) and Washington, D.C. (where thousands of free cans were given away in Lafayette Park). Sales figures from those cities, and other regions where it had been introduced, showed a reaction that went as the market research had predicted. In fact, Coke's sales were up 8% over the same period the year before.Demott, John; June 24, 1985; ; Time.
Most Coke drinkers resumed buying the new drink at much the same level as they had the old one. Surveys indicated, in fact, that a majority liked the new flavoring.Oliver, op. cit., 153 Three-quarters of the respondents said they would buy New Coke again. The big test, however, remained in the Southeast, where Coke was first bottled and tasted and has always been such a market leader and cultural institution that "coke" is a colloquialism for all colas, or even, in some areas of the South, for all soft drinks, regardless of flavor.

Backlash

Despite New Coke's acceptance with a large number of Coca-Cola drinkers, a vocal minority of them resented the change in formula and was not shy about making that known — again just as had happened in the focus groups.Oliver, op.cit., 149-51
Many of these drinkers were Southerners, some of whom considered the drink a fundamental part of regional identity. They viewed the company's decision to change the formula through the prism of the Civil War, as another surrender to the "Yankees" (although Pepsi was invented in New Bern, North Carolina, PepsiCo has located its headquarters in New York State since its 1965 establishment, PepsiCo.com, retrieved October 7, 2006. See under 1970).

Company headquarters in Atlanta started receiving angry letters expressing deep disappointment and anger at executives. Over 400,000 calls and letters were received by the company.Hays, op.cit., 121 A psychiatrist Coke hired to listen in on phone calls to the company hotline, 1-800-GET-COKE, told executives some people sounded as if they were discussing the death of a family member.Oliver, op. cit., 163.
They were, nonetheless, joined by some voices from outside the region. Chicago Tribune columnist Bob Greene wrote some widely reprinted pieces ridiculing the new flavor and damning Coke's executives for having changed it. Talk show hosts and comedians made light of the switch. Ads for New Coke were booed heavily when they appeared on the scoreboard at the Houston Astrodome. Even Fidel Castro, a longtime Coke drinker, contributed to the backlash, calling New Coke a sign of American capitalist decadence.Prendergast, op. cit., 362 Goizueta's own father expressed similar misgivings towards his son; the only time the younger man recalled him ever agreeing with Castro, the man whose revolution had driven him and his son, nearly penniless, to America a quarter-century before.Hays, op. cit., 118
Pepsi took advantage of the situation, running ads in which a first-time Pepsi drinker exclaimed "Now I know why Coke did it!"Oliver,op. cit., 148-49. However, Pepsi actually gained very few converts over Coke's switch, despite claiming a 14% sales increase over the same month the previous year, the largest sales growth in the company's history. The most alienated customers simply refused to buy New Coke rather than switch to Pepsi.In a frequently retold story (see Matthews), an elderly woman at a Marietta, Georgia supermarket confronts the Coca-Cola deliveryman as he restocks the shelves. As he attempts to put New Coke bottles on it, she hits him with her umbrella, yelling "It tastes like shit!" A nearby counterpart from Pepsi begins to snicker, only to be told in turn, "You stay out of it! This is family business! Your stuff tastes worse than shit!" Coca-Cola's director of corporate communications, Carlton Curtis, realized over time that they were more upset about the withdrawal of the old formula than the taste of the new one.Oliver, op.cit., 175
Gay Mullins, a Seattle retiree looking to start a public relations firm with $120,000 of borrowed money, formed the organization Old Cola Drinkers of America on May 28 to lobby Coca-Cola to either reintroduce the old formula or sell it to someone else. His organization eventually received over 60,000 phone calls. He also filed a class action lawsuit against the company (which was quickly dismissed by a judge who said he preferred the taste of PepsiJune 21, 1985; ; UPI.), while nevertheless expressing interest in landing Coca-Cola Company as a client of his new firm should it reintroduce the old formula.Oliver, op. cit., 160. In two informal blind taste tests, Mullins either failed to distinguish New Coke from old or expressed a preference for New Coke.Oliver, op. cit., 162
Still, despite ongoing resistance in the South, New Coke continued to do well in the rest of the country. But executives were uncertain of how overseas markets would react. Sergio Zyman, the company's chief marketing officer, heard doubts and skepticism from his relatives in Mexico, where New Coke was slated to be introduced later that summer, when he went there on vacation.

Goizueta publicly voiced a complaint many company executives had been making in private as they shared letters the company had received thanking them for the change in formula, that bashing it had become "chic" and that, as had happened in the focus groups, peer pressure was keeping those who liked it from speaking up in its favor as vociferously as its critics were against it. Donald Keough, the company's president and chief operating officer, reported overhearing this exchange at his country club outside Atlanta:

"Have you tried it?"
"Yes."
"Did you like it?"
"Yes, but I'll be damned if I'll let Coca-Cola know that."Oliver, op. cit., 154

Company dissatisfaction

Some Coca-Cola executives had quietly been arguing for a reintroduction of the old formula as early as May.Oliver, op. cit., 157. By June, when soft drink sales usually start to rise, the numbers showed the new formula was leveling among consumers. Executives feared social peer pressure was now affecting their bottom line. Some consumers began trying to obtain old Coke from overseas, where the new formula had not yet been introduced, as domestic stocks of the old drink were finally liquidated.Oliver, op. cit., 158 Over the course of the month, Coca-Cola's chemists also quietly reduced the acidity level of the new drink, hoping to assuage complaints about the flavor and allow its sweetness to be better perceived (ads pointing to this change were prepared, but never used).Prendergast, op. cit., 364
In addition to the noisier public protests, boycotts and bottles being emptied into the streets of southern cities, the company had more serious reasons to be concerned. Its bottlers, and not just the ones still suing the company over syrup pricing policies, were expressing concern. While they had given Goizueta a standing ovation when he announced the change at an April 22 bottlers' meeting at Atlanta's Woodruff Arts Center, glad the company had finally taken some initiative in the face of Pepsi's advances, they were less enthusiastic about the taste.Hays, op. cit., 106, 116Prendergast, op. cit., 360 Most of them saw great difficulty having to promote and sell a drink that had long been marketed as "The Real Thing", constant and unchanging, now that it had been changed.

The twenty bottlers still suing Coca-Cola had even more sport with the change in their legal arguments. Coca-Cola had argued in its defense when the suit was originally filed that the formula's uniqueness and difference from Diet Coke justified different pricing policies from the latter - but if the new formula was simply an HFCS-sweetened Diet Coke, Coca-Cola could not argue the formula was unique. Bottlers, particularly in the South, were also tired of facing personal opprobrium over the change. Many reported that some acquaintances had stopped speaking to them, or had expressed displeasure in other emotionally hurtful ways. On June 23, several of the bottlers took these complaints to Coca-Cola executives in a private meeting. With the company now fearing boycotts not only from its consumers but its bottlers, talks about reintroducing the old formula moved from "if" to "when."

Reversal

Coca-Cola executives announced the return of the original formula on July 10, less than three months after New Coke's introduction. ABC News' Peter Jennings interrupted regular programming to share the news with viewers. On the floor of the U.S. Senate, David Pryor called the reintroduction "a meaningful moment in U.S. history".
The new product continued to be sold and retained the name Coca-Cola (until 1992, when it was officially renamed Coca-Cola II), so the old product was named Coca-Cola Classic, more commonly Coke Classic and later just Coke. Many who tasted the reintroduced formula were not convinced that the first batches really were the same formula that had supposedly been retired that spring. This is partially true because Coca-Cola Classic differed from the original formula as all bottlers who hadn't already done so were using high fructose corn syrup instead of cane sugar to sweeten the drink.Oliver, op.cit. 183
"There is a twist to this story which will please every humanist and will probably keep Harvard professors puzzled for years," said Keough at a press conference. "The simple fact is that all the time and money and skill poured into consumer research on the new Coca-Cola could not measure or reveal the deep and abiding emotional attachment to original Coca-Cola felt by so many people."

The company gave Mullins the first case of Coke Classic.

Aftermath

By the end of the year, Coke Classic was substantially outselling both New Coke and Pepsi, putting the company back into the number-one position it has enjoyed ever since. Six months after the rollout, Coke's sales had increased at more than twice the rate of Pepsi's.The New York Times; October 23, 1985; ; retrieved November 19, 2006.
New Coke's sales dwindled to a three percent share of the market, although it was doing quite well in Los Angeles and some other key markets. It sold better in its first year on the market than the entire Nantucket Nectars product line would in its first five years.Bhidé, Amar; The Origin and Evolution of New Businesses, Oxford University Press, 2000, 136. Later research, however, suggested that it was not the reintroduction of Classic Coke, but instead the less-heralded rollout of Cherry Coke, that can be credited with the company's success that year.Oliver, op. cit., 187.
Coke spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out where it had made a mistake, ultimately concluding that it had underestimated the public impact of the portion of the customer base that would be alienated by the switch. This would not emerge for several years afterward, however, and in the meantime the public simply concluded that the company had, as Keough suggested, failed to consider the public's attachment to the idea of what Coke's old formula represented. While that has become conventional wisdom in the ensuing years, some analyses have suggested otherwise.

This populist version of the story served Coke's interests, however, as the whole episode did more to position and define Coca-Cola as a brand embodying values distinct from Pepsi than any deliberate effort to do so probably could have done. Allowing itself to be portrayed as a somewhat clueless large corporation forced to back off a big change by overwhelming public pressure flattered customers (as Keough put it, "We love any retreat which has us rushing toward our best customers with the product they love the most."). The bottles and cans continue to bear the "Coca-Cola Classic" title even though it has long since displaced its erstwhile usurper as the main brand.

While in the short term the fiasco led Cosby to end his advertising for Coke, saying his commercials that praised the superiority of the new formula had hurt his credibility, no one at Coca-Cola was fired or otherwise held responsible for what is still widely perceived as a misstep, for the simple reason that it ultimately wasn't (in contrast with Schlitz beer's disastrous change to a cheaper formula in the early 1970s, which was also based on market research into product taste yet unquestionably detrimental to the company in the long term). When Goizueta died in 1997, the company's share price was at a level well above what it was when he had taken over 16 years earlier and its position as market leader even more firmly established. At the time Roger Enrico, then head of Pepsi's American operations, likened New Coke to the Edsel.Time; July 22, 1985; 48 Later, when he was himself PepsiCo's CEO, he modified his assessment of the situation, saying that had people been fired or demoted over New Coke, it would have sent a message that risk-taking was strongly discouraged at the company.Enrico, Roger and Kornbluth, Jesse; The Other Guy Blinked: How Pepsi Won the Cola Wars, Bantam Books, New York, NY, 240. ISBN 0-553-26632-2.
In the late 1990s, Zyman summed up the New Coke experience thus:

New Coke continued to do what it had originally been designed to do: win taste tests. In 1987, The Wall Street Journal surveyed 100 randomly selected cola drinkers, the majority of whom indicated a preference for Pepsi, with Classic Coke accounting for all save two New Coke loyalists. Given a chance to try all three in a blind test, New Coke slightly edged out Pepsi - yet many drinkers reacted angrily to finding they had chosen a brand other than their favorite.Cited in Smith, Gary; Introduction to Statistical Reasoning, McGraw Hill 1998, 186-87, excerpt retrieved October 15, 2006.
Goizueta never once regretted the decision, even throwing an anniversary party for New Coke in 1995, and continued to have it produced for his personal consumption until shortly before his own death.

New Coke after Coke Classic

In the short run, the reintroduction of old Coke saved Coke's sales numbers and brought it back in the good graces of many customers and bottlers. Phone calls and letters to the company were as joyful and thankful as they had been angry and depressed ("You would have thought we'd cured cancer", said one executive.Oliver, op. cit., 181.).

But confusion reigned at the company's marketing department, which had to come up with a plan to market two Cokes where such plans had been completely off the table mere months before. Classic Coke didn't need much help, with a "Red, White and You" campaign showcasing the American/Canadian virtues many of those who had clamored for its reintroduction had pointedly reminded the company it embodied. But the company was at a loss to sell what was now just Coke. "The Best Just Got Better" could no longer be used. Marketers fumbled for a strategy for the rest of the year.Prendergast, op. cit., 366 Matters were not helped when McDonald's announced shortly after the reintroduction that it was switching over to Classic Coke at every store across the country.Prendergast, op. cit., 369.

At the beginning of 1986, however, Coke's marketing team found a strategy by returning to their original motives for changing the drink — the youth market so beholden to Pepsi. Max Headroom, the purportedly computer-generated British media personality played by Matt Frewer, was chosen to replace Cosby as the spokesman (of sorts) for Coke's new "Catch the Wave" campaign. A very stylish figure in his jacket and sunglasses, he was already known to much of the U.S. youth audience through appearances on MTV, where he had first appeared in the Art of Noise's "Paranoimia" video, and Cinemax. The campaign was launched with a memorable television commercial, produced by McCann-Erickson New York, with Max saying in his trademark stutter, "C-c-c-catch the wave!" and referring to his fellow "Cokeologists". In a riposte to Pepsi's televisual teasings, one showed Headroom asking a Pepsi can he was "interviewing" how it felt about more drinkers preferring the new Coke to it and then cut to the condensation forming on the can. "Sweating?" he asked.

It was a huge success, and surveys likewise showed that more than three-quarters of the target market were aware of the ads within two days. Coke's corporate hotline received more calls about Max than any previous spokesperson, some even asking if he had a girlfriend.Library of Congress, , retrieved June 22, 2006 The ads and campaign continued throughout the year and were chosen as best of 1986 by Video Storyboard of New York.
However, some stutterers and advocates for them complained that the ads were insulting. Some viewers found them annoying, and ultimately Coke itself found that some viewers thought they were Pepsi ads.

Coke II

In 1985, New Coke was sold only in Canada, the United States, and United States territories, while the original formula continued to be sold in the rest of the world (had the new version been a success it would presumably have been introduced worldwide). New Coke was eventually returned to the company's product portfolio; it was test-marketed in certain U.S. cities under the name Coke II in 1990 and officially renamed Coke II in 1992. So, having determined not to make it a second brand, the company ultimately did exactly that.

However, Coca-Cola did little to promote or otherwise distinguish it. In a market already offering far more choice of drinks calling themselves "Coke" in some fashion or another, the public saw little reason to embrace a product they had firmly rejected seven years earlier, and within about a year, Coke II was largely off the American shelves again. By 1998, it could only be found in some scattered Midwestern markets, and sometime in 2002, New Coke was discontinued entirely. On August 16 of that year, Coke announced a change of the label in which the word "Classic" was no longer so prominent, leading to speculation that it would eventually be removed and the last legacy of New Coke eliminated from the company's packaging.John H. McConnell; How to Design, Implement and Interpret an Employee Survey, AMACOM Division of the American Management Association, ISBN 0-8144-0709-9, 2003, 3. As of late 2006, however, "Classic" remains on the label, albeit in slightly smaller type, and below the name of the drink. The production of Coke II is, however, still theoretically possible; comparatively few brands have been cancelled by Coca-Cola outright, and the decision is usually left to semi-independent bottling companies to decide what they will bottle.

It has found acceptance in some foreign markets. As of 2006, it was still selling in Yap (one of the four Federated States of Micronesia), along with Coca-Cola C2. It is also still very popular in the U.S. Territory American Samoa, where it is still sold in most Coke vending machines.

Commercial legacy

New Coke had the spotlight for only three months but casts a long shadow, in both the business world and popular culture, that can be seen today. It is most frequently mentioned as a cautionary tale among businesses against tampering too extensively with a well-established and successful brand.

"For a product so widely despised," noted AdWeek blogger Tim Nudd in 2006, more than two decades later, "New Coke (aka Coke II) still gets an admirable amount of ink." He noted Blink and another recent book that dealt with it at some length, as well as two recent mentions in Forbes and Sports Illustrated.Nudd, Tim; February 24, 2006; ; AdWeek; retrieved June 26, 2006
Within Coca-Cola, the role the company's bottlers had played in forcing its hand led executives to create a new subsidiary, Coca-Cola Enterprises, which bought out several of the larger bottlers and placed distribution and marketing efforts more tightly under its control.

Conspiracy theories

Coca-Cola's sudden reversal on New Coke led to several rumors and conspiracy theories that have circulated in the years since to explain how a company with the resources and experience of Coca-Cola could have made such an apparently colossal blunder.

The simplest was that the company had planned all along to reintroduce the old formula as a ploy to reinvigorate interest in the product. The company denies the accusations.

Other explanations that have been proffered:

• The putative switch was planned all along to cover the change from sugar-sweetened Coke to much less expensive high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), a theory that was supposedly given credence by the apparently different taste of Coke Classic when it first hit the market (the U.S. sugar trade association took out a full-page ad lambasting Coke for using HFCS in all bottling of the old formula when it was reintroduced).

• It provided cover for the final removal of all coca derivatives from the product to placate the Drug Enforcement Administration, which was trying to eradicate the plant worldwide to combat an increase in cocaine trafficking and consumption. While Coke's executives were indeed relieved that the new formula contained no coca, and concerned about the long-term future of the Peruvian government-owned coca fields that supplied it in the face of increasing DEA pressure to end cultivation of the crop, there was no direct pressure from the DEA on Coca-Cola to do so.

• Yet another theory agrees that the switch was meant to ultimately fail, but that it was not about providing cover for any substantive change in the product, instead a sort of pre-emptive flanking maneuver. Pepsi, this theory holds, had been developing and considering marketing a product called Pepsi Supreme which was to have tasted more like Coke as a way to increase its market share and attract yet more Coke drinkers to its product line. By pulling a similar move themselves, Coke guaranteed, it is believed, that any move by Pepsi would look like mere imitation and thus headed off a challenge to its flagship drink. (Pepsi supposedly had such a product in development at the time, and was going to introduce it if the combination of New Coke and Coke Classic had successfully cut into its market share; but since that never happened Pepsi Supreme never saw the light of day.)

• A final theory suggests that the company was attempting to increase the amount of shelf space for its products in supermarkets in order to make Pepsi look smaller by comparison. This is a common reason for line extension, as the introduction of Cherry Coke and more recent variations illustrates.

Keough answered all speculation by saying "We're not that dumb, and we're not that smart", as Coke Classic was reintroduced.

Was it really necessary?

Taste-test issues

In talks, and his book Blink, author Malcolm Gladwell relates his conversations with market researchers in the food industry who put most of the blame for the failure of New Coke on the flawed nature of taste tests. They claim most are subject to systematic biases.

Tests such as the Pepsi Challenge were what are called in the industry "sip tests," meaning that drinkers were given small samples (less than a can or bottle's worth) to try out. Gladwell contends that what people say they like in these tests may not reflect what they will actually buy to sit at home and drink over a week or so. Gladwell, Malcolm; Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Little, Brown, New York, NY 2005. 155-166. ISBN 0-316-17232-4. Carol Dollard, who once worked in new product development for Pepsi, told Gladwell, "I've seen many times where the sip test will give you one result and the home-use test will give you the exact opposite."Gladwell, op. cit., 159. For example, although many consumers react positively to the sweeter taste of Pepsi when drinking it in small volumes, it may become unattractively sickly when drunk in quantity. Coke, on the other hand, may be more attractive for drinking in volume, precisely because it is less sweet. A more comprehensive testing regime could possibly have revealed this, Gladwell's sources believe.
Gladwell reports that other market researchers have criticized Coke for not realizing that much of its success as a brand came from what they call sensation transference, a phenomenon first described by marketer Louis Cheskin in the late 1940s: tasters unconsciously add their reactions to the drink's packaging into their assessment of the taste.Cheskin, Louis and Ward, L.B.; September 1948; "Indirect Approach to Market Reactions," ;Harvard Business Review, referenced by Gladwell. For example, one of the researchers told Gladwell that his firm's research had found 7-Up drinkers offered a sample from a bottle with a distinctly more yellowish label believe the flavor to be more lemony, although it wasn't.Gladwell, op. cit., 163.
In Coke's case, it is alleged that buyers, subject to sensation transference, were "tasting" the red color of the container and distinctive Coca-Cola script as much as the drink itself. It was thus, in their opinion, a mistake to focus solely on the product and its taste. "The mistake Coke made," said Darrel Rhea, an executive with the firm Cheskin founded, "was in attributing their loss in share entirely to the product". He points to Pepsi's work in establishing a youth-oriented brand identity from the 1960s onwardFor general background on this see Frank, Thomas, The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture and the Rise of Hip Consumerism, University of Chicago Press, 1997, 168-183 ("Carnival and Cola: Hip vs. Square in the Cola wars"). as having more bearing on its success.

Coke considered but rejected gradually changing the drink's flavor incrementally, without announcing that they were doing so. Executives feared that the public would notice and exaggerate slight differences in taste. in 1998, Joel Dubow, a professor of food marketing at St. Joseph's University, tested this "flavor balance hypothesis" and argued that it was not true. He and fellow researcher Nancy Childs tested mixtures of classic Coke and Coca-Cola II and found that the gradual changes of taste were not noticed by a significant number of tasters. Coke, he said, would have succeeded had it chosen this strategy.J. Dubow and N. Childs (1998). "". Journal of Business Research 43 (3): 147-155.

(source : http://reference.findtarget.com/search/New%20Coke/ )

Sobre o Brasil de hoje

Nenhuma crise é igual à outra. Essa que chegou com toda a força, agora, certamente é a mais diferente de todas. Porque o Brasil não tem um pingo de responsabilidade sobre o que está ocorrendo e porque o Brasil está no seu melhor momento economicamente falando. O Brasil nunca esteve tão em dia com as suas obrigações, o dever de casa feito, com um mercado interno tão forte, com empresas tão sólidas, modernas e competitivas e com as suas instituições tão garantidas, para encará-la.

Sobre empreendedores e sobre marketing

O intuito deste anúncio é despertar o empreendedorismo que sempre caracterizou o empresariado brasileiro,a coragem que sempre foi a marca registrada das nossas empresas, a capacidade inesgotável de reinvenção que sempre foi o norte dos vencedores neste nosso país.

E também é o intuito deste anúncio demonstra que um marketing original é a mais poderosa fonte de energia, capaz de gerar as transformações que uma empresas precisa num momento de crise.

Sobre inovação

Acreditamos que se esse não é o momento de inovar, que outro será? Acreditamos que se esse não é o momento de ser e parecer diferente dos seus concorrentes, que outro haverá de ser?

Sobre coragem e otimisto

Na crise, já disseram muitos, é que se separam os homens dos meninos. Ou seja, crise, pode ser café pequeno para os homens. Nós gostamos com açúcar.

Fábio também cita Nizan Guanaes:

Sobre crise, Nizan Guanaes certa vez disse: "No mundo existem os que choram e os que vendem lenços; eu vendo lenços".

Gostei muito. Assino embaixo. Vale a pena ler na íntegra.

The ways and means of your doing that lie in three simple steps — the Three S's of Cool Negotiation. These tell you that you need to:

• Spot what's happening
• Step away from the anger
• Speak assertively.

Let's look at these one by one:

Spotting what's happening

You should be able to do this easily. You won't find it a new experience. Being with someone who's getting annoyed or beginning to feel annoyed yourself is a situation that we've all been in. When it happens, when the 'temperature' of their (_or your) words starts to rise, you'll be able to recognize that they (or you) start to do things like:

• express opinions as facts — 'that won't work', 'that's a useless idea', 'that's stupid'
• use 'I' sentences a lot — 'I think ...', 'I don't believe what you're saying', 'I don't agree'
• push opinions at the other person — 'You should do it this way', 'You shouldn't have done that'.

Body language will also enable you to recognize that risin_g`temperature' when your (or their):

• speech becomes fluent with few hesitations and a hard, sharp, sometimes sarcastic, tone
• gaze becomes hard and dominant trying to stare the other down
• gestures start to be dominated by finger pointing or even fist thumping.

When the stress level of your negotiation rises, when you feel that you are beginning to lose your detachment or when you see that the other person is getting angry, then you need to take the next step — to step away, to pause.

Stepping away

It takes skill and courage to be able to step away from a rising conflict. Most of your difficulty in doing so will come about because you'll feel that you'll 'lose face' or look stupid if you do it. But that's not all. For you'll also feel, in a very real way, the influence of the rising tide of chemicals that your body is generating in response to your feelings — feelings about being attacked, embarrassed, hurt or frightened. But if you're going to move forward then it must be done.

Every experienced negotiator has their own way of handling this — mine is to take a good deep breath and tell myself that it isn't me he or she's getting angry with, it's somebody or something in their past. Yours may be different — but finding it isn't just important, it is key to you being assertively effective in these conflicts. Once you've found it then you're ready for the next S of Cool Negotiation — that of responding, constructively and effectively, to the aggression that you face.

Speaking assertively

There are a number of ways that you can do this. You can, for example, respond to someone who's getting angry by being _empathic, by saying things like 'I can see how angry that makes you feel' or 'It sounds like you're pretty upset about that. How can I help?' Alternatively you might want to count to four (to yourself, of course) and then respond. Whatever way you do it, it is essential that early in your response you ask for more detail or facts. This, of course, is easier said than done. It takes a brave man or woman to limit their response to an aggressively critical statement like: `This is typical of your department — always cocking it up!' to that of a calmly said: 'What makes you say that?' This sort of response — asking for facts or clarification — usually works. But if it doesn't, even after several tries, then you might have to face the fact that your negotiation is breaking down. If that is what's happening then the best way is to cut off the discussion — but leave the door open to come back at a later date.

"...Geen academische hoogdraverij, geen dure internationale voorbeelden, maar praktijkvoorbeelden gegeven door marketingspecialisten die zelf weten wat het is om KMO te zijn. ..." zoals de site vermeld. En tips hebben we gekregen!!! Alle sprekers kwamen met verschillende bruikbare tips op de proppen die ik vandaag al onmiddellijk kan toepassen én die toepasbaar zijn op praktisch alle KMO's.

Ook de interactie van de sprekers onderling en met de aanwezigen in de zaal was volop aanwezig. Al na 10 minuten had ik contact gelegd met een collega-KMOer in de zaal... van netwerken gesproken! En aangezien hiermee de trent was gezet voor de rest van de dag, kan ik wel zeggen dat ik een aantal zeer nuttige contacten heb kunnen leggen.

In de ontvangstruimte stonden ook een aantal standhouders waar voor mij een potentiële leverancier tussen zat, een mogelijke klant én heb ik een afspraak gemaakt om de infrastructuur van mijn internet-telefonie netwerk te bekijken en te optimaliseren. Networking op alle mogelijke manieren dus.

Chapeau voor de organisatoren Peter Desmyttere en Ine van Dongen!

Op het einde van het congres werd de datum voor volgend jaar ook reeds meedegedeeld... dus als je me volgend jaar zoekt op vrijdag 9 oktober 2009 dan weten jullie me te vinden!

We gave a presentation at the net working meeting the other day on how " opposites attract " when it comes to marke