#i keep going back and forth between whether the lead guy in the campaign should be jjk or kth

[springvaletales]

((Session 41 is wrapped!))

Most of the party started off with the reading homework (re: written exposition that had to happen but that I didn’t want to use up session time to work through) bc nobody read it before class. I did the same thing all through high school so I can’t be mad.

Bagelby’s PC had to let go of their dog this past week, so we spent half an hour sharing beloved pet stories to help cheer them up.

“It’s, like, three pages long!”

“Listen, listen, I was on a roll.”

We waffled back and forth for a minute on whether Bagelby would be a wizard or a warlock, but ultimately settled on a wizard.

“Bagel is very much a cash up front kind of guy.”

“I don’t think Bagel even knows what cash is.”

Ena’s Player, to Lex’s Player, to catch her up: “Velenna and the Taker are about to have a custody argument over Michael.”

“Bagel is tripping on slugs while trying to read a book about magic.”

Sir Carl Jaeger moved to sit between Velenna and the Taker to prevent them from fighting.

Ena, just wanting answers: “WHY AM I PURPLE?!”

Velenna, unimpressed: “Because I fucked someone millennia ago and you’re related to them.”

The party, collectively: *gasps in horror*

Ena, sputtering: “Wh-. Why the FUCK did you do that?”

Velenna, glaring: “I’ve often asked myself the same thing.”

Ena went off on Michael, screaming that he had NO right to be throwing a pity party because he didn’t even remember the person whose ghost he was crying over, or her, OR their father, OR their home-. Aaaaand now Ena’s crying, too. Ena’s hair began to flare up more and more as she lost control of her emotions, prompting the Taker to lean back from her on instinct. No-one else in the party knows what to do to calm her down.

“You’ve gone full Ghibli!”

After unloading like a shotgun and leaving Michael speechless, Ena stormed off from the group and tried to leave, but the spell Velenna used to lock off her property won’t let her cross it, so she slumped down against it and cried some more.

The Taker - torn between his two upset children - sent a flower to comfort Ena

“Which crying child needs his attention?”

“This should be an easy answer - there’s only two of them this time.”

Asahi decided to take the lead and asked the two powerful arcane beings if they knew about the “crazy chaos tree growing out of a portal” in the basement of Skaadi’s lost temple.

Both of them grew immediately tense, but not with each other - whatever the “crazy chaos tree” is, it appears to be something they both have heard about.

Thiori is slowly moving away from the party in search of a tree to sit under. He won’t explain why.

Me, to Ena’s Player: “There’s not a single important rock I’ve put in this campaign that you haven’t licked.”

Bagelby spent half an hour showing Velenna his rock collection, and she sat there at listened to him talk the entire time.

Asahi: “You’d be amazed what kind of- THIORI HE’S WANDERING.”

Thiori: *sprints up and tackles Bagelby*

??

Bagelby, listing off all the things he’s stolen in life: “…and the sack I was found in!”

The Party: Excuse me what?

Instead of growing grey hairs when his children worry him, the Taker sheds leaves from his cloak.

Things Sir Carl has done in the last week:

Joined an adventuring party

Lost his squire

Survived a coup

Ridden a dragon

Become a father x2

Stopped a fight between an ancient dragon and an Archfey

Bagelby finally discovered the fate of the lighthouse from the Blackstone City harbor (demolished when the harbor roof caved in) and was utterly distraught.

Bagelby: “Who’s my dad?”

Velenna: .......

Bagelby: …….

Asahi: Are you actually honoring that request?!

Bagelby has not learned who his father is today. Some mysteries, Velenna says, are best solved first-hand.

Bagelby: “I don’t know how to answer that question, so I won’t!”

Asahi’s Player has an actual checklist of questions to ask and I’m struggling to keep all my lore straight.

“Don’t try me - I’ll make your favorite show canon.”

Thiori has finally named his mimic friend - Saoirse - and ransacked the picnic spread for some jerky.

“Everyone else roll perception to see if you notice Thiori feeding his mimic at the picnic.”

The Taker of the Lost can masquerade as a Korok to ‘blend in’.

“Michael and Asahi understand money but think of it on different scales.”

Thiori and Asahi decide to race back to the tavern to ask Bethany Herself for a ride to the palace, and Lex - remembering that she has magical speed candies - jumps up, downs two candies, and does Sonic the Hedgehog proud.

Lex’s speed candies are like Benadryl - you really should only take the recommended dose.

Lex - of course - won the race, and asked Bethany if the ‘Group with Too Many Names’ could have a ride to the palace.

Bethany begrudgingly agreed to ferry the party to the palace on her own way there, provided Velenna agree to supply her with another shipment of Shorthalt’s Classics songbooks for a local bard club in town.

[timeagainreviews]

Shock and Awe with Tesla

Within the previous week, I have had three people tell me that they were not aware that Hyp3n from "Orphan 55," was a furry. It wasn’t so much that they disagreed, they simply hadn’t reached the same conclusion as me. They thought she was just another naff Doctor Who alien. Compare her to the Menoptra or the fish people from "The Underwater Menace," and I can see your point. But I’m doubling down on it, I still think she’s a furry. Her tail had an elastic band keeping it on. And also, the Doctor comments on it like it’s something she’s wearing. You know what I am not doubling down on? That baddie from this week’s Doctor Who was not a Racnoss! I was so sure too!

Why did I want to see a Racnoss? Because the one we met in "The Runaway Bride," is a scenery-chewing Villain with a capital V. Instead, we get a scorpion alien called Skithra. Thankfully, she’s just as ridiculous. There’s a Palpatine level of fiendishness with both Skithra and the Racnoss. There’s a lot of moustache-twirling and hand wringing for a couple of creatures who possess neither. I kept waiting for the Doctor to say "They’re distant cousins of the Racnoss." There’s a precedent for such things, like the Silurians and the Sea Devils, or the Ood and the Sensorites, or even the Nimon and the Minotaur from "The God Complex." You know what? I’m doubling down. They’re distant cousins!

So enough about the creature, let’s get to the feature. Unlike previous episodes, I was fully aware that Nikola Tesla was going to be in this episode. My wife is a bit of a geek for Nikola Tesla. His portrait hangs in our living room next to My Little Pony and Doctor Who. If you were to ask my wife how she feels about Thomas Edison, you will hear great ire from her. Knowing this, I prefaced the episode by asking her not to "go there," if the episode starts praising Thomas Edison. She’s likely to yell at the screen. She gave no promises. Evidently, my wife has some sort of soul bond with writer Nina Metivier, as much of the narrative of tonight's episode framed Edison as a bit of an antagonist. Which was not far from the truth. Even in his more heroic moments, Edison is a true capitalist.

Much of the opening montage of this episode paints an accurate depiction of Tesla’s career. We open with Niagra Falls dominating the horizon as the inventor describes hydroelectricity to a group of potential investors. Tesla’s brilliant inventions dazzle as sparks of CGI electricity crackle above his head like a mad Walt Disney.  His hope is to secure the funds to complete his Wardenclyffe Tower, a device meant to transfer electricity wirelessly. Despite Nikola’s best efforts, no one is interested. They’ve been reading the papers, buying into Edison’s smear campaign. Tesla’s alternating current electricity has been demonised in favour of Edison’s direct current electricity. Things are further soured when Tesla admits to the investors that he believes in men from Mars.

Right away this episode sends strong Hinchcliffe era vibes. Tesla being asked to investigate a dead body only to be chased through his laboratory by a man in period-appropriate clothing and glowing red eyes was pure Jago and Litefoot. I absolutely loved the tone they go for in the episode. It’s dark, it’s strange, and it’s a bit creepy. My only real problem with the scene was the music. Usually, Segun Akinola kills it with the score, but I found it’s minimalism failing to fit the atmosphere. A lot of tonight’s incidental music reminded me of a simplified version of Jeff Beal’s work on HBO’s "Carnivàle." While not bad, it was just a bit lacking.

Oddly enough, a lot of my biggest issues were with the production side of things. Some of the cinematography was odd for no reason. While it wasn’t as bad as the giant closeups of heads that dominated series eleven, there were some framing issues on occasion. One of the more egregious examples was aboard the Skithra’s ship. Unlike her distant cousins, the Racnoss (double down, baby), we never get a very good look at Skithra’s body. The one establishing shot we get of her is almost obscured. She’s either in extreme closeup or obfuscated from view, which is a shame because she looks awesome. Either the CGI or the prosthetic didn’t work, but her body did not look balanced at all.

During his laboratory chase, Tesla finds a floating orb. Small floating shapes are Doctor Who’s jam. The Toclafane, the cubes from "The Power of Three," the Time Lord hypercube, all classic examples. As soon as it appeared, I let out an audible laugh. It wasn’t that it was bad, I was delighted by how silly it looked. It was like something from Power Rangers. I’m not saying the CGI was bad, I’m just saying that if Christopher Eccleston had run by, I wouldn’t have batted an eye. Tesla decides to keep this orb to himself, to learn its secrets.  So when the Doctor comes booming in looking for "anything weird," he neglects to mention a floating orb.

The Doctor and her two new friends, Nikola and his assistant Dorothy give chase to a hooded, laser wielding assassin. This leads them to a train where we see Yaz, Graham and Ryan looking their best in their own period-appropriate clothing. I absolutely love how much this series has been playing with the companion’s clothing. It’s more of that Hinchcliffe era peeking in. We’re treated to a train car chase where the Doctor apprehends the assassin’s weapon- a Silurian gun. I really loved this bit as I’m a big fan of action scenes involving trains. Tosin Cole had said in an interview that they were going a lot bigger in series twelve, and I have to admit, yes, yes they have.

However, the train ride is soon spoiled by the Doctor discovering that she’s on a train with Nikola Tesla. I had said how I hoped they continue the trend of the Doctor meeting famous people throughout history. Tesla and Edison mark the fourth and fifth historical figures in series twelve, so far. My problem is the gooey way in which the Doctor talks about the achievements of these people. There’s a drippy sentimentality that feels fake to me. I keep going back and forth between whether it’s Jodie’s delivery or the hollowness of the edutainment style dialogue. I would say it’s Jodie, as she delivers the same speech about each famous person they meet, with the same level of wonderous enthusiasm that it makes me wish she would give it more depth. But then I think about how much more depth she’s given us this year, and I go back to thinking it’s the writing. Like I said last week- nobody talks like this.

I don’t know if it was a memo from the BBC that Doctor Who should also be educational, but I wish they could find a more natural way of disseminating information. "The Unquiet Dead," does a wonderful job of educating us about Charles Dickens without also beating us about the head with the information. It’s one of those quirks that we’ll look back on about Whittaker’s era as the Doctor as one of her eccentricities. Long monologues of idealistic hero worship. Honestly, I’d love to see her meet Aleister Crowley just to see them try and find something nice to say about him. "His words went on to inspire generations of sex magick perverts! People in countless worlds will continue to use his books… to um… roll joints on."

The Doctor and the crew look into the tech. Since it’s Edison’s men coming after them, it’s automatically assumed that he’s behind it. Ryan even gets a cool guy moment when he flashes the Silurian gun tucked in his jacket like a gangster with a Tommy gun. But Edison just wants to see the gun in case it’s something he can patent and sell. He’s not sent out any men after Tesla, in fact, he loses his entire lab team at the hands of these red-eyed assassins. It turns out, they aren’t after the technology, they want Tesla’s mind. I liked this moment as Tesla doesn’t immediately sacrifice himself for the greater good of humanity. He kind of chickens out a bit. 

Tesla and Yaz get transported aboard a ship hanging just above New York City, hidden by cloaking devices. The Queen Skithra stands vaguely behind things with a tail too heavy for what looks like her little kid body to balance. What looks like hundreds of scorpion soldiers writhe around on the ceiling as the Queen demands Tesla fix her ship and weapons system. I was a little confused at this point by the scorpion soldiers. I couldn’t tell if they were robots or creatures, or both. Either way, they were able to shapeshift, a fact which has very little bearing on the plot, which is fine. You’d just kind of think that if you’re going to introduce shapeshifters, one of them should pose as a good guy at some point. Oh well, at least we can’t accuse them of using a cliche.

The Doctor makes a little teleportation bracelet like something you would see Harry Sullivan, Sarah Jane, and the Fourth Doctor holding onto as they float through chromakey space. After discovering the green orb is a recording device, she’s able to trace it back to its source- the Queen’s ship. She beams her way up to the ship where she deduces that the Queen is a scavenger. The Silurian gun is just one of many pilfered objects littering the filthy ship. I loved the line “Nice place you’ve got here, probably. If you cleaned up a bit. I mean, I’m messy, but this?” It was some classic Fourth Doctor rudeness (Happy Birthday, Tom), and I’m there for it!  The Doctor teleports everyone to safety but the scorpions aren’t far behind. Aboard the TARDIS we’re given a really lovely little scene between Dorothy and Ryan as they both compare what it’s like to live in the shadow of a mad genius. It was a great bit of dialogue that was closer to what I was talking about when I said "a more natural way."

Yaz and Edison are tasked with clearing the street, which is good because the companions haven’t had a whole lot to do this episode. Which is fine, they’re free to take the backseat on occasion. Though I will say I love Graham’s ribbing Thomas Edison about his work practices. Graham got a few zingers throughout the episode. I wondered if Graham saying “This ain’t our first rodeo,” wasn’t a reference to Bradley Walsh’s real-life back injury at a rodeo. Probably not. Most of the focus in this story is on Tesla’s character arc. Edison manages to clear the streets and best his competition by telling everyone Tesla is going to fire up his Wardenclyffe Tower, so they’d better run for their lives! The plan is to use the tower to take out the Skithra ship before it can destroy the world. However, the Skithra have no plans of going down without a fight.

As the scorpion soldiers take to the streets of New York I was oddly reminded of my childhood neighbour Anne’s dog- Bud Light. Bud Light was a miniature pinscher that my sister and I used to chase around the garden. And no matter how hard we chased her, she was always too fast. This little dog was no bigger than a foot and a half long and yet we still couldn’t keep up with those four little legs. Now imagine you’re running from Bud Light, only she has more than four legs, and she’s a giant scorpion. Do you get where I am going with this? It’s movie car logic. In a movie, a character can sometimes outrun a car while being pursued by bad guys. The thrill of the chase outweighs the logic. Their way around how fast these scorpions would actually be was to make them incredibly clumsy. These things do more skidding into turns than the entire cast of "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift." My theory is that their feet are made of really slick plastic and there was oil on the pavement. They were doing better in human form. Regardless, they look pretty cool. At least we now know where the CGI budget of this episode went.

The Doctor and Tesla work to connect the tower to the TARDIS controls. Meanwhile, everyone else is tasked with fending off the scorps until they can take out the ship. Only when the scorpions come knocking, they seem almost tame. Queen Skithra has left the safety of her ship, much to the Doctor’s surprise. With her not there, they can’t flip the switch. It’s an interesting position as it shows the Doctor fully planning to kill someone, a bit of moral ambiguity we don’t often see with her. I’ve really been enjoying the darker side of Jodie we’ve been seeing lately. For me, it’s really rounding out her Doctor in a way I had hoped to see. Speaking of dark sides, how great was that shot of the Queen standing in front of her army? The drudgy murkiness of the lighting made her look like a demon.

The Doctor tricks the Queen into thinking she has a weapon behind her back, knowing she would confiscate whatever it was. Unfortunately for the queen, this weapon was actually a harmless teleportation bracelet. The Doctor is able to beam her back to her ship and take out the brain of the hive mind, thus taking the scorpion soldiers with her. So I guess they were like drones? I suppose that scans. The Doctor parts ways with Edison and Tesla. Yet unlike in Spyfall Part 2, she doesn’t wipe their minds, because why would she? Since when has the Doctor even taken to wiping the minds of historical figures? Sure, Ten wiped Donna’s mind, but with very good reason. You could make the argument that neither Edison nor Tesla saw their own future. Clearly, travelling in an alien’s spacecraft that’s bigger on the inside is small potatoes compared to knowing the word computer.

Tesla and Edison part ways how they began, as competitors. But now we’re given the idea that perhaps Edison admires him a little. He’s got that "You magnificent son of a bitch," look guys give each other in lieu of emotions. Edison would go on to explore these feelings in his bizarre relationship with Henry Ford. I don’t know much about a real-life Dorothy Skerrit or if she even existed. I feel like the romantic vibes between the two of them were possibly added on to counter Tesla’s even weirder relationship with his pet pigeon. I was really a bit disappointed they never once mentioned his pigeon.

That being said, my disappointments were few and far between. I didn’t know who this Nina Metivier was before tonight’s episode, but she can write some Doctor Who! Evidently, she served as script editor in series eleven, so she’s cut her teeth on it a bit already, but for a debut episode, I had a great time. Nikola Tesla is a figure I feel deserves a well-told episode full of strangeness and a bit of whimsy. They definitely do not waste Tesla on a weak script. Though for a story about electricity, the foley department could have given us some more visceral sounding crackles. The overall tone of the episode was a mixture of Hammer horror meets Power Rangers, which is something I didn’t think could work, but here we are. Regardless of whether you found Queen Skithra scary or campy, you can’t deny her effectiveness. Four episodes in, and we’ve had some solid baddies, which is an obvious improvement on series eleven. Once again, my biggest issue is the wooden edutainment dialogue that seems inserted to meet some sort of quota.

These last two episodes have acted as great follow-ups to Spyfall Parts one and two. We needed a bit of classic feeling Doctor Who to counterbalance the larger ideas like Gallifrey being destroyed, or the Master returning. A good old fashioned base in peril followed by an alien invasion is right where the show needs to be right now. That being said, I’ve yet to watch an episode so far this season that has left me truly ecstatic. You know me though, I like the weird ones. For all of its flashiness and big reveals, I’m still waiting for series twelve to show me something of substance. It will be nice when everything has aired to look at series twelve as a whole. With episodes like "Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror," thrown into the mix, we’re looking at what is shaping up to be a very enjoyable series.

Well friends, thank you for joining me once more. I wanted to take a quick bit to mention some things on the horizon. Those of you who are fans of "The Dark Crystal," will be interested to know that I will be attending the first ever Dark Crystal fan convention in February. It takes place in London at Elstree Studios, where the original movie was filmed. I plan to take lots of pictures and write an article about the convention. I've been so excited for this event, that all I can think of lately is Dark Crystal (sorry Doctor). Along with the convention, I also have a couple of guest writers working on pieces for the blog. I've never had guest writers, but I think you'll like what's coming! See you soon!

[chirotus]

The 3 Steps To Marketing Like The Big Dogs From Home As An Independent Loan Officer

Youre an independent loan officer that works from home, but you still want to sell like youre backed up by the Big Dogs. That is not so hard when you know how to market. Sure, if you could market with XYZs big-time budget, then you could get more leads and close more loans. But, what if you dont have that kind of marketing budget? There is still a way to get those leads; you just have to get smart about it – like the Big Dogs.

It all comes down to RESEARCH. The hardest part is figuring out what to sell to whom. A one-man band with 30 different products to sell needs to know HOW to promote, WHAT to promote and WHO to promote to.

1) Research which product you need to market.

When you start researching, you cannot go off of assumptions because you know what they say about a-s-s-u-m-e (makes an ass out of u and me). What you have to do is go through your client list and tabulate what product you sell the most of. First calculate what product you sell the most of and then calculate what product you make the most money on. Those are the two products that you start with. However , if what you sell the most of is what you make the most amount of money on, then that is pretty fantastic but not likely. Youll probably find two products. Usually, you really have to do a sincere survey. You are looking to market the product that makes you the most income the quickest FIRST. Thinking it is a particular product rather than doing an empirical study is not marketing smart – because you may be wrong – believe it or not. When you are operating from home, you need to be twice as smart for your marketing.

How you do it?

Create a spreadsheet and go through all of your past closes over the last few years. List them out: Product A, B, C, D get every close you made over the past few years and mark down what the product was and what you earned off of it.

Example:

Product A earned 1% Product B earned $900 Product C earned % Product D earned 1500. 00

You will be able to see exactly what product you are selling the most of and what product you are making the most money on. Then you can start marketing to your bread and butter first. Once you have consistently marketed that product for a while, then you can supplement your marketing strategy and market the other product, the one paying the biggest commission while keeping the campaign continuing on your bread and butter. Marketing smart means marketing first what you sell the most of, the fastest. That is an important datum it sums it all up.

Now that you know which product to start with, you have to know who is going to buy it, which comes to our next step.

2) Research to find who the audience is that you are going to sell to.

Not all audiences are the same. Take for example the Will and Grace Show. Not everyone would want to watch that. Just like there is a totally different target audience for The Lawrence Welk Show. (If you never heard of these, then more than likely you arent their audience. ) Case in point: you have to determine who your audience is, which is called a market. A market is a type of audience, a type of user. So, figure out everything you can about that particular market that buys your bread-and-butter product. And you already have access to all their data age ranges, credit scores, credit rating, income, etc . Tip: do another spread sheet.

Once you have the demographics of the people that buy your easiest-to-sell product, then get a list of that particular type of audience. You can go to a list company that you feel good about and have gotten recommendations for, and buy a list of people within that criteria.

The reason you want to do such a thorough job of actually finding away who you are marketing to is the fact that 40% of your marketing strategies success (success meaning whether you get a good response) depends on your list. Apart from, it is your listing and the postage that are going to become the most expensive parts of your normal mail campaign. We cannot stress enough the significance of a good make a list makes all the distinction between marketing smart andwell, if you are not targeting your public, you arent really marketing at all.

Once you research away who your target market is,

3) Determine what to say to them.

The one thing about people in a certain profession or a certain industry is that they are typically in their industry for such a long time and know so much of their profession that they learn to think that individuals know just as much as they do or should know just as much as they do. Most people are not educated in your particular product. Many people do not know there are all types of rates and products that are available to them depending on the credit, income, etc. That people are not always illiterate hicks from Country-Bumpkinville! They may be educated people, nevertheless they have lots of other things they deal with everyday that occupy all their time, e. gary the gadget guy., picking up the kids from school, dealing with the boss at the office, and so on. Not everyone is viewing Alan Greenspan every day!

Another thing you need to know, before you decide what it is you need to say in your message, is it is very hard in order to educate folks they do not want to be informed necessarily. You need to learn the actual button is that will folks will respond in order to, that will get all of them to can be found for financial loans or refinancing or what-have-you. A button is really a term, phrase, picture, and so forth that will elicits emotional response. Individuals may well not understand No PROJECT MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE, nevertheless they understand fast money. What is it regarding them that could make your own message mean something?

This is all analysis. To determine what you want in order to say, you have in order to determine what folks will certainly react to. You dont actually want to say, I am the best broker actually that can match upward any product with any kind of customer! although that might appear like a wise decision. First of all, the lot of men and women dont actually know very well what a mortgage agent does!! So dont declare. You have to marketplace differently in order to types associated with people.

People have various agreements and fixed suggestions and experiences. For instance: Someone that has purchased several homes has a lot more experience on that collection than someone who offers never purchased a house. If you found the product you sold the most of was to first-time home buyers, then you know they have little or no experience with mortgages. But everybody wants to own their own home; so what you want to say to them is You CAN own your own home its EASY!, or something of the sort. Look at it from a different angle. One person, who is really into boats and is reading Nova Online Speed Machines, would understand a jet hydroplane with a lightweight composite hull and a jet engine that could deliver 5, 500 horsepower with the afterburner lit. But another guy, who have never ever owned a boat just before, may just think that is definitely another fast motorboat and hes looking to be able to buy is a quickly boat – without each of the engineering details. You have got to get a message around to your marketplace of which is going to talk to them. Put simply, they will are going to know it and RESPOND.

Functioning out of your residence, you dont have accessibility to the Big Mortgage loan Banks Marketing Department. Once you dont have a marketing and advertising expert hinting what to be able to do, you may continue to need that authorities aid. From the tender again, do analysis to get that aid or assistance. Continue typically the internet to find typically the biggest lenders web internet sites. Get on their email list. Look at their marketing and advertising materials to help you see just what they send you not necessarily you as broker, however you as a potential consumer. Not only have you been exploring how you are generating one of the most money, but likewise research how a Big Puppies are bringing in typically the clients. What are typically the materials these are sending to the end-user? There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Find out what is working and do that. A lot of those Big Dogs are doing postcards.

Heres your assignment:

Now that you know, 1) which product you sell the most of, 2) which product you make the most money on and 3) what the successful big lenders are doing; start by mailing postcards (repetitively) to the first audience that buys Product (1). And you will start producing the kind of leads that buy the product that sells the easiest. Then, while still marketing Product (1), start mailing postcards (repetitively) for Product (2) and you will start getting leads that will buy the product that will pay you the highest commission. You will first get leads from the most-volume product and then while you are still getting those and closing them fast, you will get leads that pay the highest commission. Make sense?

To recap:

Research

Pick your marketing media I recommend postcards. You will get a lot of bang for your buck with that type of media.

Find a resource for mailing lists.

Get inside that publics mind and BE them and figure out what they would want to know. This, by the way, is a trade secret. If you can get inside your publics head and look at it from their viewpoint, then you can be a genius in your message. It is actually BEING them and looking at things from their viewpoint. Consider Joe Blow who provides never refinanced. Someone together with average credit could possibly end up being interested in a reduced cost equity personal credit line thus he can get funds out of his residence. Getting money communicates to be able to people.

Distribute postcards consistently getting a specific concept across to your customers that communicates their key.

If you want to be able to sell like the Key players, then learn some marketing and advertising; get yourself educated. In fact, this will likely make you endure out instead of working with the pack regarding inexperienced, uneducated marketers (youre competition). Good Luck!

[mmahi-blog]

My Life On Mobile

Day 1

Baseball is a Simple Game

So, I've embarked on my journey to be totally dependent on my mobile phone and iPad mini for the next five days. It shouldn’t be too hard since I’m constantly on my phone tweeting, posting social and checking a million notifications from news feeds to sports scores.

It will be interesting to see how reliant I am on the desktop, laptop and my 75-inch screen tv (I love that thing).

For this journey, I’ll be using my Samsung Galaxy S8 Andriod version 7.0, my trusty iPhone 6s Plus IOS11.4 and my mini iPad IOS 11.4.

I’ll be using these devices to watch TV, check my email and manage my social media campaigns at work as well as everything else I need to do digitally. 

I’m a huge college baseball fan. Love my Titans and am seriously bummed that we didn’t go to Omaha this year. That’s another story. So I thought I would see how well ESPN covered the College World Series and how they keep fans connected via mobile.

I would have to say that ESPN does mobile well. They have an incredible app which pushes notifications for scores, upcoming games, and news (Does anyone think LeBron will come to LA?) UPDATE: HE IS A LAKER, WOW

ESPN is truly a global company. 

ESPN uses a mix of geographic and demographic segmentation strategies to address the various factions of the sports world. They basically selectively target and focus on different sets of customer groups. Since ESPN was founded in 1979 it has emerged as a world leader in the sports media/entertainment network and broadcasting business. 

I love their commercials and marketing campaigns because they appeal directly to the sports-minded viewer and they reflect the tone of the broadcast giant which is informative, entertaining and at times very funny.

ESPN, like many other media companies, is up against the emergence of online streaming sites, social media, and other digital platforms all vying for ESPN’s customers.

ESPN has a fantastic mobile presence but to view their premium content you are tied to a cable subscription or some streaming platform. They have been slow to embrace the cord-cutting features like offering a premium site that you can subscribe to and not have to be tied to a cable subscription, They recently added ESPN + but I’m not sure it is enough and that the company needs to get in the business of mobile platforms that are used by their demographic which is 10- to 45-year-old, males. They are losing revenue and laying off staff just like other media companies so I suspect this technologic disruption is top of mind in their marketing strategy. The problem is they are tied to contracts with sports leagues and cable companies.

Back to Baseball

Oregon State defeated a feisty Arkansas team that ultimately lost the series with a blown play in the bottom of the ninth inning. I know this because even though I was at a concert at the park I used my Samsung phone and the ESPN app to watch the game and listen to the smooth sounds of a Carlos Santana tribute band (I also started following the band on Facebook after they announced they had a site). 

I was also able to check my emails, text messages and stay connected with friends, family and work while at a park with hundreds of music fans.

It was a great way to end a long day.

DAY 2

@CSUF is #MyTopCollege

Spending the day disconnected from a desktop computer is tricky business for a guy who makes a living doing social media and online engagement. But it has forced me to pay more attention to my mobile experience and whether I am  getting everything I want and or need from it.

Today, I planned to purchase a few items on Amazon via my mobile app. I tend to do this kind of buying on my desktop because for some strange reason it feels more secure. 

 But Amazon’s success is because of its mobile marketing strategy. It’s as easy as picking the item and hitting the one-click option. 

The beauty of Amazon is that its mobile site is truly mobile. Way too many retailers have really bad sites which lead to poor customer experiences. I went to check out Old Navy for a few items and to compare it to Amazon. The web page is mobile responsive and you have a good menu setup but what I found annoying was after a few seconds on the site a window popped up asking for my opinion about the website. I don’t have an opinion after a couple of minutes. Perhaps that comes after the purchase? 

Amazon, on the other hand, does several things right including great big Calls To Action and a consistent design between mobile and the app which means either way you go it’s familiar and easy to navigate. They also highlight other items people have purchased similar to what you are picking.

I finally ended up not buying anything but my searches led me to a few things I want to get later so I’ll definitely be back.

@CSUF Social Media Campaign

Today, I also spent a significant amount of time checking on our official Twitter and Instagram sites. The ForbesEDU #MyTopCollege social media contest which we are leading in the large college division. I was waiting for the week 2 results so I needed to routinely check in as well as continue encouraging our followers to post why they love @csuf and why it is their #MyTopCollege. 

If I’m in the office, I typically do this all on the desktop with several tabs open so I can bounce back and forth between platforms and the Forbes site. Being restricted to just my mobile device was a little funky but it all worked out and gave me some insights about the platforms.

Twitter

Twitter is a fantastic mobile app and it does what it supposed to do, just ask President Trump. 

Twitter has been in a slump but recently there has been some growth and I believe that the strategy of increasing the number of characters from 140 to 280 is a reason for that growth. They listened to their customers and it has made a huge difference.

The big keys with Twitter are the public nature of Twitter and its advanced search features. 

Twitter marketing expert Mark Schaefer illustrated this well in a recent Social Media Examiner podcast:

“To demonstrate, Mark did an experiment with a local pizza place, which had tried Facebook ads without any success. Mark suggested the owner use advanced Twitter search - Mark showed him how to set up a stream with every conversation that was within five miles of the zip code that mentioned the words “pizza,” “restaurant,” “dining out,” or anything like that.

On average, someone in the area mentioned pizza every 20 minutes. The tweets might have been silly things like, “Oh, I can’t believe how stupid I am. I just dropped my pizza face-down on the floor.” Mark suggested tweeting the person back, “We’re going to deliver you a new pizza.” It doesn’t matter if the customer didn’t buy the dropped pizza from you. You become a legend. Another person complained about slow delivery from a competitor. Mark suggested the pizza place owner respond with, “Next time, try us.”

I love Twitter for all these reasons and they need to continue developing and marketing these features that set them apart from Facebook and Instagram.

Engagement is the key to winning #MyTopCollege and our loyal Twitter followers are a reason we have won the past four years.

Forbes mobile website

My second observation from today’s check-ins with the Forbes website had some negatives. 

The website is mobile friendly with a stacked theme. Great menu and pretty intuitive. So, it’s easy enough to navigate and get around.

But what was frustrating was how Forbes released the results. They have all the right elements for the contest such as a landing page which highlights the posts from schools around the country, a map showing the leaders and a results list.

They updated the list around noon which put us in first place for week 2, but they didn’t have a story up so there was nothing to verify or link to share with our followers. That came an hour later. Maybe not a big deal but it should have been done at the same time. 

The other and bigger marketing fail is how they actually do the contest. #MyTopCollege is a great summer engagement contest but how they pick posts is spotty and they never spelled out when they start counting new post from week to week.

I believe this lack of transparency and detail is why participation from year-to-year has declined significantly. 

The smart things ForbesEDU Twitter account does is engage by retweeting and liking the post from around the nation. A classic Twitter marketing strategy and keeps people engaged. 

Lastly, they tweet reminders and challenges to specific schools to get involved. Calling out specific schools is a great way to target an audience and make it feel like they are special.

So, we ended the day finding out @csuf is still in first place. I posted on Twitter and Facebook to update our followers and also used some words from Forbes to fire up our followers to not let up because Long Beach is chasing us.

DAY 3

Weekends are for Leisure

Saturday on mobile started out like most of my days. 

6 a.m. Rise and shine. Checking email, text messages and ripping through our social media notifications to see if I received any comments or questions from our followers that need to be handled.

7 a.m. At the gym watching the knock out game between France and Argentina on my iPad mini while cruising along on the treadmill. Again, ESPN’s mobile app is a lifesaver for sports junkies and their update notifications are the best.

I use a couple different mobile fitness apps. The beauty of these is that they are recording your progress in real-time. MyFitness app is the one I use and it does what it is marketed to do. Notifications to remind you to eat, walk, sleep, workout or just get off your butt. What I love about these types of apps is that they do all the work for you. I don’t have to log all my hours by hand although I do manually insert my food choices. in a fitness crazed society mobilizing health is a win-win.

8:30 a.m. Back home, checking emails and sports updates on the soccer match. Made a healthy breakfast from a recipe I found on my health app while at the gym this morning. Mobile once again making my life easier.

I’m a huge news junkie. I was in the newspaper business for 30 years so reading the morning paper and news notifications is in my DNA. Mobile makes that part of my life a lot easier but at times frustrating. 

The Feel of News Print

The great part of having your news delivered via mobile is that it’s right in your hand and available wherever you are at. The worst part for my generation is that I miss the feel of newsprint in my hands and the opportunity to sit down and take a break with a good read. I get frustrated that papers still try to hold on to the legacy design of a printed newspaper in their e-editions. Millenials and Gen Z don’t care if it looks like a newspaper. They don’t have that expectation and eventually boomers will be replaced and the newspaper consumer will demand and expect a mobile, multi-media digital package. 

Papers like the LA Times and OC Register have true mobile sites that are easy to navigate and give unique content like video, interactive graphics, and forums to talk about the article or issue. Papers really need to kick the newsprint model to the curb and embrace a digital look. The key is figuring how to make money at it. The industry’s failure to get in the mobile/internet/digital business years ago is why it is failing. They were disrupted by Craig’s list and citizen bloggers who they dismissed as a fad when in reality they were the future.

Got a mobile update from ESPN as well but nothing from OC Register or LAT. 

CNN Breaking News: France knocks superstar Lionel Messi and Argentina out of the World Cup, beating them 4-3 in the first game of the Round of 16.

Writing on a mini iPad is fun. Right?

2 p.m. Took a trip to Costco and did some weekend shopping before heading out to friend’s house for dinner so I used my mobile devices to get around, check prices and reviews of a couple products I was buying.

Costco’s website is optimized for mobile. Not the greatest design but functional. The bummer was the mobile app. It’s the same as the website and hard to navigate as a first time user. They key in on member only savings but don’t you have to be a member to get savings anyways? That’s the point, right?

Costco Mobile Optimized Website

Costco Mobile App

A few things wrapping up Day 3.

 -- Google Maps. Not sure how I ever managed before this app but I’m lost without it. I used the Waze app as well to see which worked better. I preferred Google because it’s pretty straightforward and gives you voice directions. 

WAZE

Waze is unique in that it highlights traffic, accidents, road hazards etc inputted by users. It’s a little distracting and kind of a lot of work. But it has a great design and lot and lots of people love it.

HQ Addicted

Once at our friends’ home, I really didn’t engage with my mobile devices until right before 6 p.m. when our friends received a mobile alert that HQ was about to start.

Ok, I was hooked. What a blast and it’s all about mobile engagement, socializing and just having fun. The marketing strategy is pretty cool. At a certain time of day the trivia contest is on, it last 15 minutes and you ultimately have a few thousand winners at a very low payout. The key is that people are talking about the brand and that’s money. Will it last longer than Pokemon Go? We’ll see.

We wrapped up our evening with creme brûlée and a wonderful strawberry cake and most importantly conversation. (Photo shot with iPhone)

Day 4 

Sunday is Funday

The one thing I have noticed through this process is that I have a routine. 

Up at 6 a.m. checking emails, text messages, overnight news and sports scores all on my iPhone or Samsung Galaxy.

I read my newspapers on mobile apps and watched one of the most exciting World Cup games I’ve seen so far. Russia takes out Spain with penalty kicks.

While I was watching the games on my ESPN app I was thinking how cool it is to be connected via mobile. This week’s video points out that mobile use is growing at a rapid rate and will eventually outpace the desktop. 

I listened to a lot of music on my mobile this weekend. 

So are you a Spotify or Pandora person? Here are my reasons for Team Spotify

Pandora simply can’t keep up with Spotify’s versatility and usability. Pandora came first but Spotify made it better and even beats out Apple

Sure they have Pandora Premium which means users can finally listen to a massive collection of specific songs and albums at their pleasure, but Pandora is playing catch-up at this point, and it’s pretty far behind. 

Spotify has better social features, better apps, and more value for your dollar. 

Pandora simply fell into a trap and didn’t continue to innovate at a fast enough rate. Lesson is never get too comfortable in this new frontier.

Take a Moment

Otherwise, I didn’t do much on my phone or other mobile devices today except crank up Spotify and hang out at the pool with the grandkids, bbq and try to unplug. 

UPDATE: LEBRON IS A LAKER!!

My phone went off later that evening with alerts about King James. It just kept ping ping ping ping ping ping ping ping ping ping ping ping ping ping ping !!!! Mobile at its best or worst if you are a Clippers Fan!

Day 5

Mondays Always Make Me Happy

Not sure what it is about Monday but it gives me the feeling that I have a whole new fresh start on life and this time I’m going to get it right.

Today is the start of a holiday week. The Fourth of July is in the middle of the week and I have a ton of stuff to get to before heading out for what I hope will be an extended weekend. We will see.

So, back to my mobile journey. 

6 a.m. Up and first thing in my hand before even a cup of coffee is my iPhone. Checking and answering emails, text messages and reviewing the news that Los Angeles is now the center of the universe or one would think with the coming of The King. 

7 a.m. I’m getting ready and I get a mobile notification that Forbes #MyTopCollege third week theme is up. So, I craft a tweet and let our followers know to tweet or post on Instagram about the impact study abroad has had on their lives all the while wondering will anyone post on a holiday weekend. Will they? I sent out a distribution list email to about 75 people on campus helping with the contest and crafted a post for Facebook using my iPad mini. 

8ish: Read as many of the breaking news reports in my stream and glanced at top stories in my OCR and LAT apps. By now I have been bombarded with news stimuli from several sources all via mobile. That would never have had happened 30 years ago when I was in the news business. You would check a few newspapers, listen to KNX and watch the local broadcast channels ABC, NBC, and KTLA. That’s no longer the norm. It’s all in the palm of our hand.

A quick breakfast while watching the Today Show on my iPad mini. I hate it when going into a holiday they have a segment on dieting. Really? Dude, I’m eating hot dogs, ribs, burgers and a few adult beverages. But that segment reminded that maybe I should have all that fun in moderation. Sucks getting old.

Work: Kind of the same routine. checking emails, text messages and notifications on my phone and tweeting about #MyTopCollege.

Instagram is an app I use a lot for personal pleasure and work. Today was no exception. Went out and grabbed a photo, posted and in four-plus hours I have more than 900 likes. It’s the beauty of having over 20,000 followers and knowing what types of images my audience likes and the captioning.

So why is Instagram so good?

• Instagram is easy to use, great for in-the-moment experiences, you can edit on the fly and it is highly visual. People love photos. It’s different from apps like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, mostly because of its simplicity. My student audience loves simple. It’s also not limited to one function like LinkedIn which is for professional networking. It’s kind of the people’s app. 

It’s not perfect

• You can’t publish links in your Instagram posts, so it’s harder to lead people back to your site. There are ways around this which also include an app called Link Tree but it’s not ideal. The upside is limited spamming. Not meant for text and conversations are limited so no flaming Tweet wars which actually may be a good thing. 

At the end of the day its simplicity and visual impact is what is important about Instagram and is the No. 1 reason it is our fastest growing platform with huge engagement numbers.

My Mobile Life Summary or Kind of Day 6

This really isn’t Day 6. It’s actually Day 5 since I started a little behind so forgive me for taking a little liberty with the assignment

This weekend was also kind of crazy. Our main sewer drain was clogged and we knew this time it was going to need a little more than a snake and some hot water.

I was on my mobile device a lot getting in touch with the plumber, texting back and forth and trying to see how much a sewer line repair would be running me. The cool thing is I was able to do all that and still go swimming with the grandkids because of mobile. All that was handled with a call, text or a quick check of local plumbers on Yelp and Angie’s List.

Reflecting on the five days using mobile.

I miss my desktop and laptop. I’m kind of old school but very tech savvy and use mobile more than most. I grew up pounding a typewriter, struggling with an old Radio Shack TRS 80s, putting change in a public phone and taking notes on a notepad. The desktop is my connection to those days and it just feels right.

That said I am extremely mobile. I noticed my routine and it centers around checking in on my email, text, social posts and Googling stuff I don’t know or need to research. It’s amazing how dependent I am on digital and mobile.

I have a million apps on my iPhone, Samsung, and mini iPad. I use email, text, camera, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, a few other social media platforms, and tools like iMovie as well as some productivity apps like Word, Google maps, and a calculator. The other zillion apps basically sit there and one or two may be used once or twice a year.

Here are a few things I learned about mobile sites.

Keep calls to action front and center. 

Keep menus short and sweet but let them do some heavy lifting.

Keep getting back to the home page easy.

Keep in mind people are there for what they want so keep promotions simple and don’t let them steal the show.

Keep your search front and center. People use the search function a lot and they need to know where it is on your mobile site. Make the searches relevant to what your customer wants.

Keep customer engagement top priority. If they have a question, don’t leave them hanging. Customer service is key on mobile.

Keep the purchasing function as easy as possible. Don’t make them work too hard to check out. 

For me, sites like Amazon and Home Depot (I’m a DIY kind of guy or more like take parts back until I get the right one) check off a lot of these bullet points. 

So, all in all, it was an interesting week. I am now aware that I am totally addicted to my phone or in reality, it is part of who I am and what I do. I embrace the new technology and understand that eventually mobile will be how the majority of consumers do business each and every day. The same is true for education and many of the same principals can be applied to higher education websites that are too stuffy and not mobile.

But at the end of the day, I know that it’s time to take that phone and capture a moment in time that is just for me. 

Aloha

[pettyartist]

Noteable highlights of tonight’s D&D game:

The group defeated my begourder (beholder pumpkin creature of my creation) with it only managing to land a SINGLE ray and it was just the telekinetic one.  Spotswood (halfling cleric) got the HDYWTDT? on it and exploded it with radiant energy causing mooshy pumpkin to get smeared all over everything.

Spotswood also acted like a walking bug zapper as twig and needle blights kept running through the radius of his spirit guardians spell and getting vaporized on contact (I didn’t roll a single successful WIS save)

During this fight, Ferari (half-elf rogue) rolled a nat 1 on an attack with his bow.  He lied down prone on his back on the roof he was on “I’d like to use my bonus action to hide my shame.”

Bug (half-orc monk) had turned into wererat last session but was able to control it.  The party now knows he’s a furry.

Bug: Oh yeah it’s SOOO COOOL to hate lycanthropes UNTIL YOU MEET ONE, HUH?

The party waited no less than 10 seconds after the battle to foist the plans for a statues the town should build in their honor on the town leader and his UNCONCIOUS WIFE

Spotswood used thaumaturgy AT JUST AFTER MIDNIGHT to make his voice 3 times louder and yell “WE SAVED YOUR TOWN.... YOU’RE WELCOME!!!” after the fight

The party proceeds to dunk on the town leader and the town’s location, again, maybe only 10 minutes after the fight was won.  Also they improve on their town statue plans by adding a plan for a secret compartment to put the ritual scroll in.

We have a heated debate over pineapple on pizza during the break.

Ferari tries to convince Spotswood, a man who is older than him and who’s only known him about 10 days, to pose as his son.  They look nothing alike.  Spotswood points this out.  Ferari says they can workshop the idea. (Me: You basically just asked this guy to call you daddy what the HECK)

Ferari and Titan (human fighter) have a heated whisper-conversation about Bug’s SECRET LYCANTHROPHY IN FRONT OF EVERYONE.  Luckily everyone rolled SUPER LOW to notice.

The town scraped together 150 gp to thank the group and Spotswood proceeded to dump the contents out onto the table immediately after getting the pouch and right in front of the guy who gave it to him (He played it off like he was just pouring it out to split between the party but OH MY GOD)

Ferari got to hold the baby he attempted to steal four session ago.  He melted into a puddle of cute goo inside at this because the baby was so goshdarn cute.

Rhogar(copper dragonborn bard) made a bunch of “lik the bread”-like poems about the party.  It was beautiful.

Spotswood’s favored spell is quickly becoming calm emotions and his favored target for this spell is quickly becoming HIS OWN PARTY.

The group pondered whether stuffing the chicken pot (magic pot that can pull forth live chickens) full of seasoning or water would allow the live chickens to come out pre-seasoned or boiled.  They decided it was a bad idea.

Also all the chickens they have pulled out of the pot this day have had a bell tied to a leg.  Weird.

Also Ferari just nonchalantly broke all 7 chickens’ necks as they were pulled from the pot.

Spotswood being asked to burn a 3rd level create food and water spell to make food seasoning.  (this spell created 45 lbs of food and 30 gallons of water).  They ended up creating 5 lbs of spices and the rest was bread and cheese and the water turned to weak-ass ale because Ferari kept changing his mind on what Spotswood should make as he’s casting it.

Spotswood (about the weak ale): My goddess said no to the alcohol.

Ferari attempting to attach small bells to a creepy undead hand he named Wizard he’s trying to keep as a pet.  The hand attacked him and they almost had a fight.

The group trying to coax Mary into talking about her gf.  Mary is SUPER flustered by this.

Spotswood contemplates using thaumaturgy to yell “GOODBYE AND YOU’RE WELCOME” at the town before they leave... only to walk outside to the village all waiting to say goodbye to them already.

After the party does a quick check-in to tie up some loose plot ends with sending just outside the town, Spotswood DOES used thaumaturgy to yell “THANKYOUBYEEEEE”

Mary the barmaid rolls a nat 20 survival check to help lead the group to the next big town.  She basically becomes GPS.

Rhogar’s past comes up as they approach the next town and everyone notices, but only Spotswood rolls high enough insight to try and ask Rhogar about it.  They play go fish instead because Rhogar keeps deflecting.  We find out Spotswood doesn’t have a super detailed backstory he was just super unlikable and ended up wandering around on his own when his church kicked him out.

Ferari and Titan go to see a smith to get some manacles silvered.  My players are only mildly impressed that I spent time researching how to silver something without electricity.  (Me: I hope you’re happy I did a bunch of research on silvering-- @saltpix : Oh wow that must have taken you 20 minutes!  Me: Hey, it took a LONG TIME to find stuff on silvering that WASN’T electroplating!  @saltpix : So 30 minutes?  Me: A bird poops on Spotswood)

Ferari is accidentally racist for the second time this campaign.

Titan buys 2 daggers, 5 hand axes and a glaive.  The party is worried.

Bug and Mary find a mapmaker who tries to sell them some Very Fine Vellum Maps~.  Bug immediately declines, buys a cheap paper print version and crushes the man’s dreams.

Bug impersonates Ferari when going to rent horses.  He does well on the impression but doesn’t know if he did well on the rental.

The group is led by a very nervous Rhogar to a cheap inn, where Mary feels unsafe and Bug makes a friend with the bartender.  There’s only one tiny two-bed room available so Spotswood sleeps in the chest at the foot of the bed.