As a writer, I hate to see this, since many of those losing jobs will be writers. As an avid reader, I’m torn. I check out the LAT online from time to time. While I like the paper, I have to admit I haven’t bought ANY newspaper in some time. It’s so much easier just to enter the URL and search the headlines for the stories that interest me.

Even so, it’s sad to think about the possibility of a paper shelving its entire print operation…which is why this recent news about the WSJ is so encouraging: online hits AND print subscriptions are both showing healthy growth.

Add that in with the announcement of the development of MagCloud, an HP-partner print-on-demand project that lets people create complete magazines just by uploading PDF files, and then lets the publisher or individuals order a copy right from the site. No overstock to deal with. No guessing how many mags you’ll need to oder for this print run. And your archives of back issues stay open forever.

This is a much more economical model that considerably cuts back on waste. It may not be the “future of the biz,” but it’s a step that shows that there are other alternatives to the traditional model that might be worth exploring.

(of course, it also gives everyone the power to publish their own magazine with almost the same ease as publishing a blog…but that’s a topic for another day).

So, is print dead? I don’t think so. I think the full-page ad will be with us for a long time to come. The medium, however, is going to be going through some serious growing pains as it works out exactly how it’s going co-exist with the digital media.

The one thing it has on its side is stability. Digital media is in a constant state of flux, with new avenues of expression opening every day. But people know what to expect when they open a magazine.

I will say the future looks less certain for newspapers than for magazines. Newspapers are a medium filled with tons of information on many, many topics. They are generalists. Magazines, by contrast, are specialists. The delve in some depth into a particular topic.

More and more people are turning to online media for their general information…even if it’s the website of that same newspaper. They can find what they’re looking for without having to wade through all the stuff they aren’t interested in.

It will interesting to see what’s left after the shakeup, which will probably continue for the next 10 or 15 years. In the meantime, we need to be paying attention and thinking hard about how we’re going to adapt.

“So?”

So…if supply is scarce and you can’t control production…then the only alternative is to control demand. If you try to restrict the supply further (there are no tires, so we’re going to limit the number of tires you can buy), then you’re simply going to create a run on the market…if not a black market itself. You need look no further than the Sam’s Club/Costco rice fiasco just weeks ago for proof.

Rationing gas was a brilliant tactic. At worst, you create a run on gas. Gas prices rise…making people less likely to drive due to the increased expense. At best, people feel patriotic and limit the amount of gas they consume…and drive less, accordingly. Either way, there’s less wear on the tires.

Right now, chances are your expenses are on the rise. Maybe it’s the gas prices. Maybe it’s corn or rice. You could raise prices to stay afloat…justifying the supply. Or you could find a way to reduce the demand, offering an alternative instead. That way you’re passing the savings onto your customers AND you’re no longer competing head-to-head with others over who can survive with the lowest possible profit margin.

The cost of rice affecting your sushi bar? You could absorb or pass on the cost. Or you could offer an true “Japanese Sushi Salad” as a new, authentic experience for sushi lovers. The price of gas cutting into your lawncare business? Invest in new electric equipment that doesn’t require gas and offer clients a discount if they’ll let you “plug and play” instead of making a trip to the pump (plus, they’re usually quieter and more eco friendly).

Playing by the rules is silly if the rules no longer make providing a valuable service profitable. If supply is scarce and you can’t affect production, circumvent it by killing the demand instead.

Seriously. How can we raise your prices by 100% over a two year period, and have people continue to increase consumption?

How did the oil companies do it? New markets opened up as several nations entered an economic boom. So where is the new money…and how can you position your product/service (or a variant of it) to these emerging markets?

Stay at Home Moms are turning spare-time, bread-money sidelines into million-dollar-a-year enterprises. Nanotech research is going mainstream. Genetics already have. Personalization is hot in everything from MySpace pages to Clothing to Furniture. The real estate market is reeling, so anything you can do to help sellers squeeze a few more bucks out of their property has huge potential.

What can you do to serve a completely new market in the next three months?

Stonehenge is an incredible feat of human engineering. 40-ton stones from various places in England and Wales dragged to Salisbury and erected into a massive structure using stone-age technologies. It’s perfectly aligned with the Solstice sunrise. Awe-inspiring.

But that’s not the true power of Stonehenge. The true power is that, since we don’t know anything about the people who actually built it, we have no idea what it’s purpose is. We get to impose our own conjecture about those people onto this dumbfounding structure…it’s story carries a small seed of ourselves in it.

Theories have ranged from a temple to Apollo, to a place of healing, to a place of revelry, to a place of sacrifice. It has been speculated to be a UFO landing platform, a marker for the intersection of harmonic energy lines of the earth, a fortress, the round table and even a cemetery.

It has been supposed to have been build by giants, Celts, druids, Merlin and an anonymous civilization, since displaced by the Celts and subsequent peoples.

We just don’t know and we probably never will. Which means the power of Stonehenge will live on indefinitely.

What doest his have to do with marketing? Two things. First, if you don’t define an aspect of your business, people will fill in the missing pieces with their own imaginings and assumptions. Second, if you leave blanks in just the right places, you can allow your customers to own a small piece of your story. They become a part of it, and it a part of them.

The challenge is to fill in the right blanks and leave the right ones empty.

But more on that later. Right now what concerns me is the music I’ve seen in some commercials lately. The latest is in the new “teaser” commercials for Gatorade’s new G2.

It’s a short little fifteen second spot…a closeup of feet moving down the street. As he goes, floor tiles from a basketball court appear under his feet, disappearing again each time the foot leaves the ground.  “Coming soon,” fades onto the screen “G2…Gatorade”

It’s an entertaining mix of slick and gritty…all very intriguing. And yet…in the background is playing the intro strains of Lou Reed’s “Take a Walk on the Wild Side.”

Really? Take a Walk on the Wilde Side? For your edgy new sports drink?

Look, I like the song. And sure the opening riff has a cool feel to it. But this is the song with lyrics like

Holly came from miami f.l.a.
Hitch-hiked her way across the u.s.a.

Plucked her eyebrows on the way
Shaved her leg and then he was a she…

I’ve always wondered just what Lou Reed was thinking when he wrote this song. Now I’m wondering what the folks at Element 79 were thinking when they wrote this.

More importantly, I’m wondering just what is in G2?

Here are a few ways;

1. Mount a good PR campaign.
Now in order to accomplish this, you need to know how to create a winning press release. First, understand that a press release IS NOT a marketing tool. You are not selling anything. In fact, it would be best if your company wasn’t in the first two or three sentences. In a press release, you are selling an idea to a journalist. What does the journalist care about? Does this information matter to my readers.

So, ask yourself what problem does my product or service solve for my customers? Once you have the answer to that, ask yourself what is the scenario if that problem is left unanswered? That scenario could be a solid idea to pitch in your press release. The more pressing the problem and the more novel your solution, the more likely you are to get a writer to bite on the idea and write your story.

(Alternatively, this could be a great topic for you to write an article and submit it to a trade publication as a way to bump up your profile as an expert in the industry.)

2. Be An Expert.
People seek out help from experts. And building you image as an expert can be done pretty quickly.

Offer to give a seminar or teach a workshop at a local university, community college or community center. Then present yourself to the local media as an expert. List your education, experience, your workshop, and any other credentials that would bolster your image as an expert. Once you’ve done that, contact them with your take on any current events where you have something worth saying. The morning talk shows or other local interest media venues are a great way to get your name out in front of your market.

3. Ask For Referrals
Nothing you ever say will convince the masses about you quite like hearing it from someone they trust. You should be capturing your customers’ contact information for your customer retention program (turning one-off customers into regular customers). But once every quarter or so, you should send out a campaign asking them to refer you to their friends if their satisfied with your product or service. A good way to do this is to send out a brief customer satisfaction surveys. Instead of giving an incentive for completing the survey, give an incentive for referring you to friends and/or colleagues.

4. Team Up
Get in touch with someone who offers a complimentary product or service. Explore the possibilities of creating packages, splitting the cost of sales and marketing collateral, and going in together for prospecting lists. Swap out Point-Of-Sale materials, too. Promote their offerings at your register, and let them promote you at theirs. It’s an added benefit for your customers, and a whole new group of potential customers learning about you.

5. Create Something Worth Their Interest
This is the most obvious way (but also the most difficult way) to get the interest of potential customers. If your product or service earns their interest by virtue of its inherent features and benefits, then people will talk about it without being prompted. Sure, you can create a product, and then find a way to sell it. Entire industries exist on that very M.O., much less companies. But if you can find an unmet need, and not simply meet it, but exceeds people’s expectations, then you win. Sad as it is, customers are impressed when you simply meet their expectations. Surpass them, and you become instantly noteworthy.

Since 1022, we’ve been doing stuff, giving us an edge. We know more about doing stuff than anyone else around; you can trust us when we say we know our stuff. And we back up our strong history of doing stuff with exceptional customer service, and an attention to detail that makes our stuff much stuffier than any of our competitors.

We’re Stuff Doers, your number 1 source for Doing Stuff.

Guess what? Your customer doesn’t care about the stuff you do, or how long you’ve been doing it. You know what else? Your competition talks about their exceptional customer service when they talk about doing stuff, too. And like you, they aren’t giving any examples, which means that they are probably lying.

Not that you’re lying…I mean, you’ve said it there in black and white. Exceptional Customer Service. What’s not to understand?

Right now, your audience wants to tell you where to stuff it. Which is a shame, because you and both I know you’ve got great stuff! Your stuff can change your customer’s life! You do stuff they never imagined. And your employees will bend over backwards to make sure their stuff gets done right. They’ll chase you down in the street if you forget your stuff. They’ll check up to ensure you have enough stuff. If you don’t, they’ll deliver it right to your door.

Wait—why aren’t you telling your audience about that??? Don’t tell them that you do good stuff…give them examples that show how good your stuff is…more importantly, show how you made a difference in someone else’s business! Bite onto something that you can claim as your own, and chew the hell out of it!

The sentiments are the same: thanks to everyone who made my year such a great one. I still love what I do, and I am grateful for everyone who has let me (and continues to let me) make this a successful venture.

And a special thanks to Jim and David, for giving me such a wonderful start all those years ago, and for teaching me so much.

I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving, however and wherever you choose to spend it.

What makes you, your company, your industry so important? Why in the world would anyone create a holiday to honor the sacrifices you have made? If they wouldn’t, why not? What are you NOT doing that you could be to make life better for the rest of us. Not for the PR and the associated goodwill, but for the greater good?

Teachers, doctors (perhaps nurses even more so), soldiers, policemen, firefighters…people in public service sort of have this sense of sacrifice built in. They aren’t paid enough for the work they do. I don’t know that they CAN be paid enough for the work they do.

Others among us make gestures of varying degrees of effectiveness. I enjoy doing Create-A-Thon each year, an exhaustive, often emotionally draining experience due, thanks to the clients we choose. But that’s just one day (one incredibly long day) each year. I’m not pretending that I deserve a medal.

The oil companies are all patting themselves on the back for “exploring” energy alternatives. But Citgo is the only one I know of that actually provided heating oil free to people who couldn’t afford it during the cold snap a while back.

I’m not being judgmental. I’m just using the holiday to prompt an introspective look into my own business in a fashion that doesn’t focus solely on growth and profits. That will come. But in an age on interconnectedness where consumers spread news and reviews faster than damage control can work to contain a situation, it is important to remember that growth comes from a focus on improving the customers world.

So what are you going to do about it?

If you are like most businesses, you’ll circle the wagons and start looking for ways to cut costs, or pass them along to the customer. Businesses tend to use downward trends as an excuse to justify decisions made in fear. And many businesses struggle through the lean times to fight another day in this fashion.

Other businesses…the ones who will most likely come out on top when the cycle comes back around…use them as a way to engage customers in a conversation. As an excuse to innovate. An excuse to try something risky. I saw an ad today by Chevron, touting their efforts at harnessing geothermal energy sources. I get, on average, 10-15 letters per week from lenders offering to help me refinance my home, even though I don’t have an ARM, and my interest rate is pretty good, thank you very much.

All challenge is opportunity, if you take a moment to look a little closer before reacting to it. I’ve known people who have been laid off who looked for a while and then started collecting unemployment, and some who turned right around, called themselves consultants and went to work for the same company, making three times as much for doing the same work.

I hate to boil the difference between success and failure down to something as simple as a half-empty/half-full outlook on life…but that’s what it is. It’s the difference between the person at the bottom of the hill dreading the long slow trudge to the top, and the one who can’t wait to see the view at the top.

What’s your challenge, and are you looking for the opportunity it offers? Not the opportunity to “streamline your workforce,” but to look your customer in the eye and say “hey, I’ve got an idea…do you have a second?”

Of course, first you have to have the idea…