Aug 302011
 
HubSpot Scores with Twitter Press Release

Recently HubSpot made some news in social media circles with their acquisition of the Twitter boutique firm oneforty.  They attracted attention to this acquisition in a very clever way — via a press release consisting of 13 distinct tweets. Kudos to them for the creativity. It no doubt helped them secure placements in the Wall […]

Aug 292011
 

Saturday night Gabriele and I had dinner at Geranio in Old Town Alexandria. We’d spent the day preparing our house as best we could for Hurricane Irene. Our backyard has drainage issues during any heavy storm, so we were concerned about water getting into our basement. However we had made reservations at Geranio partly due […]

Aug 252011
 
Changing How Government Market Research is Done

One of the fun things about agency work is being involved in multiple client initiatives. Strategic Communications Group has a philosophy of great work for great clients, and great clients offer the chance to work on big, exciting projects. A good example is our work on behalf of Deltek, founder of the GovWin social network. […]

Aug 232011
 
The Confusing World of Performance Tires

If you’re in the market for new tires for your BMW or another kind of performance car , you might be a bit confused right now. The proliferation of categories — Extreme performance, Max performance, Ultra High performance – can make selecting the right tires very difficult. I’m researching right now because my 1999 M3 […]

Aug 172011
 
Explaining Google's Purchase of Motorola

You can’t help seeing the huge amount of coverage around Google’s purchase of Motorola, announced this Monday. Depending on who you read, Google really stuck it to Apple and Microsoft, Motorola had Google over a barrel and made them pay through the nose, and/or  Google is smartly protecting the Android ecosystem while increasing its mobile […]

Aug 152011
 
Repairing After Market Hella Headlights

This Saturday I repaired the angel eye ring in one of my Hella headlights. As you can see in the graphic above, the thing just flat fell off a couple of weeks ago and was loose inside the headlight assembly. Before I took this headlight apart, I tried to get some direction from the manufacturer. […]

Aug 092011
 
Can You Automate and Still Keep Social Media Real?

Today I read an interesting blog post about social media automation on Shonali Burke’s Waxing UnLyrical blog. As a busy communications professional, I’ve thought about this topic before and enjoyed seeing it debated. So of course I jumped into the comment thread. When I first read the post by guest author Thom Holland, my mind […]

Aug 042011
 
Does 'Branded Journalism' Work?

I wrote earlier this year about the move towards sponsored content, also known branded journalism or content marketing. Whatever  you call it, it’s a powerful concept. Companies publish interesting and informative content to cultivate an audience and connect with influencers, all without going through the media filter. That’s the strategy, but does it really work? […]

Aug 022011
 
Rear Shock Mount Replacement on an E36 M3

This past weekend I tackled a known weakness of the BMW E36 3 series, the rear shock mounts (RSMs). (It’s also an issue to a lesser degree for the E46 model). These mounts connect the rear shocks to the car frame, and can prematurely fail. In the worst cases the top of the shock can […]

Jul 282011
 
Should Uncle Sam Mess with the DNS?

There’s a debate going on right now in governmental and technical circles on how best to combat copyright and patent infringement online. A bill called the PROTECT IP Act would allow the government to secure a court order and then force an ISP to stop resolving the offending domain name to its corresponding I.P. address. […]

Jul 252011
 
The Best Place to Eat in Boone, North Carolina

Earlier this year Gabriele and I rented a cabin in the high country of North Carolina, in the northwest corner of the state. It’s beautiful country down there and we had a fun and relaxing time. For dining out the most promising option was Boone, about 20 miles from where we were staying. Boone is […]