Say your bank emails you and stating that they found someone using your debit card for a large online purchase but in order to stop the purchase they need to confirm your pin number.   You might question the authenticity, but if it’s from someone you know at your bank, you may not think twice and provide highly confidential information.

Phishing is when someone pretends to be someone else, so that they can gather personal data from you.   They may try to use that information to try to hack into your account or pretend to be you to gain access to your friends and family.

Be careful. Phishing may appear to be innocuous but when in fact it is a form of identity theft.

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Do I select a booklet or catalog style envelope?

If you’re mailing a few personal or full rate letters, the type of envelope does not effect the cost of mail services or postage because you’ll likely assemble the mail piece yourself.  If you are managing a project over 1,000 pieces, you’ll want to consider automating insertion.

A booklet envelope open on the long side and inserts can be automated,  while a booklet style envelope, opens on the short side and can not. Typical insertion equipment runs anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 pieces an hour depending on the system and specific of the application.   Hand insertion typically runs from 250 – 500 pieces an hour.

Time = Money, so if you’re planning a mailing over 1,000 pieces you’ll want considering selecting a booklet style envelope.   You’ll see loads of savings in the cost of mail services, which can run in the thousands of dollars based on the size of the campaign.

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iPhones store more information than users may realize and some of it could be used against you if you’re ever charged with a crime.  Law enforcement officials have long used phone records, and more recently, emails and text messages to help solve crimes.  Now a field of forensic study is emerging that deals with iPhones specifically, targeting GPS data, brower history and other potentially incriminating information.

“Very, very few people have any idea how to actually remove data from their phones,” says Sam Brothers, a cellphone forensic researcher with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection who teaches investigators how to retrieve iPhone data.

According to Jonathan Zdziarski, Blackberry devices are harder to pull data from.   Data that iPhone store, include:

• screen shots after mapping applications are closed
• geo tags and identifying information with photos posted online
• user brower history

Adam Gershowitz, a profession at the University of Houston Law Center, says the new technology brings concerns about whether investigators have the right to search someone’s iPhone.   So far, the courts have treated it as a within reach container, such as a glove box or cigarette pack.

We’ll see how the courts decide to handle.   Currently, warrantless searching of cellphone data is being challenged in the Ohio Supreme Court.

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Feel like you’re on a treadmill?  Many of us have developed 24/7 lifestyles that are overbooked and overcommitted, feeling like we never have enough time to do the things that we really want to do or just have enough down time.

As a kid, summers meant freedom; freedom to sleep-in, play tag until 10p with the neighbors or tee-pee a boy’s house with the girls.  Summers these days are quite different.  Everything is scheduled and overbooked with many families finding their summers even busier.  Yikes, what are we doing?   Creating stepford kids?

Technology can be the beast, thrusting us into even higher levels of obligation and commitment.  Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, MySpace, LinkedIn, Four Square, Pandora…ok, Pandora is pretty cool…and so are the rest, if we use them to connect and do the things that we really want versus filling our lives 24/7/365 with just more stuff.

I’ve challenged myself to pull the plug on Sundays, of course, not literally.  I am however going to make it 100% a day of rest, reflection and time with the family.   Yesterday was my first day and it was wonderful, a little stressful but wonderful.   Now to mastery…I want the taste of freedom, once again.

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Internet use via mobile skews young: 50% of respondents age 18-34 have used it, while only 15% of those 55 and older have tried it.  Among respondents who access the Web via mobile, 43% use it at least once per day.  51% say they have used mobile Web to gather information about a business, and one in five have a text to an SMS code to receive business information.

Consumers are using mobile to save money to make smart shopping decisions:

22% of smartphone owners said they had used a mobile bar code reader while shopping to do product research.

7% of all respondents had used a mobile coupon to make a purchase.  Of those: 65% had used them one to three times. 24% had used them four to six times; and 12% used a mobile coupon seven times or more.

Marketing News’ Exclusive Research with Lightspeed Research

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If you close your eyes for a minute, you’ll miss the latest changes in our marketing industry. Just last week, while working on a client website, my programmer asked me if the PINC (Printing Industry of Northern California) changed their name to the Visual Media Alliance. While looking for their logo on the web, we were directed to the VMA. The PINC is an 80 year-old association, primarily serving the printing industry in NorCal.

Printers everywhere are grasping at straws to try to stay relevant. With the exception of the census, the days of large blanket direct mail campaigns have gone the way of the Dodo. Just this last week, long time Sacramento printer Graphic Center closed their doors and auctioned their equipment.   This is an addition to Herald Printing, Colour Press and American Mail.  Even long time printer Alonzo Printing tried changing their business model to green, but still closed their doors.

Those that are surviving are scrambling to add services they otherwise would not have considered, such as mail services for printers and printing for mail services.  Up to this point most companies, focused on their area of expertise and took great pride in their trade.  Although it appears to be more efficient to bundle these processes, the nature of these disciplines are different, which can lead to mistakes that can go unchecked by the customer.  I’ve seen this first hand and it seems to be a common occurrence.

So the leading printing association in Northern California is redefining themselves. Throughout their history, they have focus on printing and companion services and because of market dynamics, they are targeting public relations and marketing communications companies, publishers, graphic design firms and web developers.   What does this mean? There is certainly little stability in the market and many are forced to recreate themselves. They are also losing their focus and are trying to become all things to all people, which makes them experts as nothing.

Be careful, it’s hard to be a jack of all trades and what you don’t know and your provider doesn’t know, can be very costly.  I think that’s called ignorance, which can be bliss, but not when it comes to your business.

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With the hopes of a repeat success of paid Internet searches, veteran tech developer, Bill Gross of Tweetup.com, launched a new start-up venture this week, called Chirp. Like paid internet searches, Gross is out to build a better search engine by filtering tweets with a combination of paid bids and expertise factors.  For a penny or two, Twitter members who want to get noticed can bid on keywords that will help distinguish their tweets from the pack.

Twitter says that it currently supports 50,000,000 tweets per day, with an average of 600 per second, pushing even the biggest and best tweets out of this universe.  So Bill and his team have developed an algorithm that will rank tweets according to their tweet level of expertise on a particular subject and how many times followers re-tweet original messages.

“Anyone who is an expert at some subject…this is going to allow them to find their audience extremely cost effectively.” Bill Gross, tech entrepreneur behind Tweetup Inc.

San Francisco Chronicle, April 12, 2010

Bill Gross launches new service to help Twitter ranking

ZOOMology Twitter Rule #1 = define your area of expertise and stick-to-it!

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For much of my early career, I had the wonderful pleasure of working in fashion, including work for a well-known New York apparel manufacturer, Jones Apparel Group.  From Ralph Lauren to Jones New York, and Evan Picone, I was given an $8,000 clothing allowance and was charged to wear only regularly priced clothes when visiting one of our retail outlets.   Oh my, what a challenge for a young woman…

O.k., so I’m an x-fashionista and Project Runway is one of my guilty pleasures.  Last week, Heidi Klum announced the challenge, which included designing a print fabric and then incorporate that fabric in a complete fashion assemble.   I wasn’t sure how that would be accomplished.  A few moments later, each design contestant was given their own computer with a touchscreen program, which allowed them to touch or draw directly onto the screen. The design was printed and then given to a fabric mill to digitally print onto fabric.  Within a few hours, each designer was given their custom fabric and was off and running with the rest of the challenge.

Most of us print professionals, think digital print as short runs or highly personalized message for print collateral only.  Step aside, digital print has evolved and now includes applications in many forms, including home design and decorating use, in addition to fabric design, and even personalized and eatable cake decorating.

We live in an amazing period of technology of all types, with limitless possibilities.  Don’t let technology intimidate you, but rather inspire you to knew levels.   Now get busy!  If you don’t, someone else will inspire your clients.

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social media that works~

The following are social media tips that I read in this weeks Marketing News, written by Sima Dahl.   It’s always good to get back to the basics:

1. Think SEO

Keywords matter, especially on LinkedIn.  Your profile is not only searchable within LinkedIn but indexed by Google, too.  If you are a researcher trying to make a name for yourself in neuroscience, be sure that the word neuroscience and all related terms appear with a high propensity in your profile.  Start at the very top with your headline, summary, and specialities.

2.  Think Share

Sharing information is a powerful way to attract targeted attention to your profile.  You can share information in any number of ways: your LinkedIn or Facebook status, your Tweets, your Facebook wall and so on.  Any place you have the opportunity to contribute content or share information is an opportunity to reinforce your personal brand position.

3.  Think Subtle (I love this one~)

Remember that a little self-promotion goes a long way.   Braggers are equally if not more annoying online than they are in person, perhaps because it is difficult to read humor or intention in short posts and status updates.  If you view social networking as a pulpit to promote yourself or your business, you’re missing out. Savvy networkers know that conversation precedes conversion. Aim to chat, not sell.

Happy SM!

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Many of us think that the recession and recent changes in consumer behavior is temporary. Don’t get fouled, check out the following findings from our top researchers:

• 86% believe price is an important consideration in making a purchase this year
• 87% expect to cut back on “non essential groceries” in 2010
• 56% will spend less dining out his year
• 50% compare prices on most grocery trips
• 30% of grocery items are purchased at a discount
• 26% will never again spend as much as they did before the recession
• 39% read consumer-generated reviews of stores or products online
• 34% have buying decisions influenced more by online consumer reviews and ratings than advertising. ZOOMology:  good reason to be in a meaningful SM effort

Information Resources Inc., December 2009, Mintel International Group, January 2010, Nielson Co., December 2009, Deloitte LLP, November 2009

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