LivingRoomCEO

I saw a report on my local news station that San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is in trouble. They may raise the already high prices. Over the past few years, Bart has been getting over-crowded and dirty. There are times where I don’t even get to sit during my commute both ways. I pay full price, yet I’m uncomfortable. One can spend 1-2 hours a day on Bart. I view my time as valuable. I want to either relax or work. I could probabaly bust out a blog post M-F if I could sit down both ways.

So what can Bart do to raise prices yet keep customers happy? Find out what your customers do using your product and make it better for them. It’s a simple idea. People who ride Bart do the following:

• Sleep

• Read books or newspapers

• Work on laptops

• Watch movies or listen to music on their portable device

• Some even sneak a bite to eat or drink

Everyone who gets on Bart pays the same amount if your either standing, sitting in a dirty seat, leaned on by some smelly guy, or sleeping comfortably. Unfair for those inconvenienced. Bart should take a bite out of web services. Provide a basic service for a base price and charge more for a premium service. Airlines do this, why can’t BART? What would these premium services?

1. A guaranteed seat - This is a given. Guarantee seats and people will pay extra without any issues.
2. Individual seats that lean back so that one can sleep - People are tired. Think of an airline 1st class seat in BART. ZZZZZZZZZZZZ
3. WiFi - BART has already toyed with it but they should do it on a bigger scale. The price I’ve seen were $10 a day. Too expensive.
4. Outlets for laptops and other electronics
5. Small screens for FREE or paid TV shows and movies - Strike a deal with Netflix where users can watch their library on the train or new users can rent ala carte
6. Touch-screen computers that come out of the seats
7. Free newspapers
8. An electronic library

Would all these premium services be worth a few extra dollars? I think so. If BART is going to go all the way down to San Jose, they have to be more work friendly.

Obama won the presidency not only because of his message but how it was marketed. There was a clear difference between the Obama brand and the McCain brand. Here are some business ideas we can use in our businesses.

1) Use technology the right way
When Obama launched my.BarackObama.com, it was an instant hit. It allowed people to be part of the campaign by phone banking, donating, blogging, and etc. Obama had an iPhone app, YouTube channel, Facebook, MySpace, TXT, Twitter, and the list goes on. While the BarackObama.com probably cost loads of $$$, the rest is pretty much free. McCain launched McCainSpace late in the game. Additionaly, the name is so dated and out of touch.

Spend what you need to get your main website going but also work as hard enhancing your MySpace page. If you check Obama’s MySpace, you will notice how it’s themed the same way his site is. Think of these other sites as an extension of your main one. Use them to drive traffic.

2) Be consistent
Obama’s message stayed consistent since he 1st gained attention from his 2004 speach. He was disipline enough to keep that message through the primaries and the presedential race. This gave the voters a sense of dedication know how. McCain had a different theme every week confusing voters and distracting his “customers” from the real prize.

If your business has a clear and consistent message, your brand has a better chance against the competition.

3) Stay positive
Once thing that turned me off with the McCain & Clinton teams was the negativity. I believe all the terrorist talk turned off many voters. Most people are not that stupid.

Be positive about your products, industry, and competitors. People generally want to be around happy people. If you have a blog for your business, talk about the highs and lows but always try to leave it at a high note. Depressions doesn’t sell products.

4) Crowdsource
Obama started grassroots and ended grassroots. Starting with little money, he was able to raise record breaking funds. The Obama team was able to people to work for him for free because they believed in him. People were making their own campaign videos, exposing the competition, creating banners, calling undecided voters, registering new voters…..you saw them in the streets and online.

Your business should be trying to create passionate customers. These folks will work for you for free and bring more benefits than any paid employee could.

5) Be transparent
Obama ran an honest campaign. It was great to hear him say that he didn’t know everything and would need help. That was a stark contrast to McCain wanted us to believe that he had all the answers due to his time in the senate. Sarah Palin pretending she knew wha tthe Bush doctrine was. If you don’t know, admit it.

If you have a product defect and it’s been called out in the comments or forum of your site, admit it and tell your customers what you will do about it.

The Obama campaign manager should write a book on his experience. Look out Seth Goodin!

My tattoo site sells Baybayin translation so that people can get inked. Summer is the hottest season for tattoos for obvious reasons. Right now, I’m feeling the impact. I estimate translation orders are down about 40% (alsodue to the economy). Traffic is still strong but conversion is lower. Some of my ideas jumpstart the site:

Education - Getting a fresh tattoo in the summer/spring is bad for your skin and tattoo. Sun is the worst enemy for tattoos. I’ll educate my visitors and urge them to get inked in the winter so that the will be fully healed and the ink has settled in the skin by beach time. This is a similar tactic of gyms and diet companies. Work hard during the off-season and relax in the summer.

Create a non seasonal product - The most obvious one. I have a few that I’m developing. It should hit with a bang. More on my strategy later.

I’m finally starting my fashion project after months of lagging. The goal is to create a portal where I can sell my clothing line. Simple as that. While I don’t have a lot of products, I can make the right ones. My competition has a budget and is able to manufacture many products while I’m primarily a one man team. My advantage is the web and the audience I’ve built on PinoyTattoos.com. More on the strategy later….

Just installed a new open source software - Sweetcron on ChristianCabuay.com. My initial impressions are that it’s good. However, I’m a spoiled Wordpress user. While I realize that Sweetcron is still on beta 1.06, I’m anxious to get all the bugs axed and basic functionality in place.

I’ve been looking for an alternative place to host my videos. I will still post on youtube because they are still the king of online video. Vimeo stands out from the competition but they only accept non-commercial work. As expected, there’s a great debate as to what is commercial and what isn’t.

Vimeo responds:

As long as the content is not commercial in intent (actively selling a product) then you are welcome to upload commercials you have made to Vimeo. We just don’t allow companies like Nike to upload commercials that are trying to sell a product.

But if you make a Nike commercial, you can post it. Big contradiction….

I posted this as I want to show off my screencasts:

After reading every post in this thread, I still don’t get it. I see “actively selling” is a no go but reviewing products vimeo.com/1574928 is cool? I know they are not selling the product but there’s an indirect commercial intent there. They review goods and get paid via traffic on their site, sponsorships, etc.

If I develop a new feature on my site and post a screencast, I believe that it will be accepted based on your guidelines I am showing off/selling my skills/site. Although the feature is free, I will probably make some $ via people clicking on my ads.

I post a video of my dog and post it on my dog lovers site, that is commercial.

Looks like as long as I don’t say “Buy this”, I’m good….or am I?

Anyway, I hope to use their service as the interface and quality is slick. Below is a video of my favorite web celebs - Meghan Asha (gee, I wonder why).

Gadget Geekout - USB Drumkit from Meghan Asha on Vimeo.

This caught my eye today at the store. As you can see they are $3.99 and Mint Chocolate. It reminded me about a lot of online business models of having a low-cost or free version of their product and have a “premium” version.

I experimented with this Free and Premium business model on PinoyTattoos.com where I offered free Baybayin translations for names and charged for non-names. I think it was pretty successful as I was able to do away with the free product. With the only free product being the blog, I think I need another free product to give back to the community.

I’m in the market for a tablet UMPC. I already have an HP Pavillion tx1308nr tablet notebook that’s pretty good after I upgraded the ram to 2GB. I need something like my HP but portable. I was thinking of the Sony UX but I don’t want to pay $2000. I’m leaning towards the Fujitsu U810. I would mainly use it to answer emails and design Baybayin while on Bart. I just read that a U820 is coming out soon but I don’t know when. I bet it will be $$$$. Too bad the Asus EEE PC does not have a tablet…..yet.