This blog is now officially active again!  I’ll be giving a talk in a few weeks on some very practical – and very fun – ways to improve the usability of a website, storefront, or product.  I’ll be sharing some practical “how to” steps on implementing usability testing for zero dollars and just a few hours.  If you’re in the SF Bay Area, you’re invited!

Whether for your product, website or storefront, conducting usability tests and audits often seems prohibitively expensive and time consuming. But did you know that effective user experience testing can essentially be had for free? Join Mike Angiletta, President of Online Marketing Connect, as he walks you through a real-world case study and offers you a first-hand view of how he was able to effectively transform the culture and product roadmap for a leading global electronics manufacturer. You’ll walk away from this session with a checklist of action items that you can begin to implement immediately. Importantly, these user experience lessons apply to ALL types and sizes of companies.

Details here: http://norcalbma.org/programs/emarketing_html

On February 21, I will be speaking at the Online Marketing Summit about an extremely white hot topic, social media.  While I believe this category is over-hyped (sort of like anything with the word “green” in it),  I have little doubt that social media can provide substantive value for consumers and businesses.  In my session, I plan on talking about how you go about planning a social media initiative.  A few of the topics I’ll be discussing include:

• - Things you can’t afford to skip: setting business objectives, user profile definition, and use case development to name a few
• - Shortcuts you can take if you have to:  this is for the vast majority of us who never seem to have enough time, budget or resources.  
• - Best practices in social media: are there any? What are they?
• - Case studies: review the real-world successes and failures that marketers have faced entering the Wild West of Social Media.
• - Build vs. Buy considerations

I’m told that the session will be videotaped so I’ll share what I can when it becomes available.

I will be sitting on yet another panel this week.  This time it’s the Direct Marketing Association’s Email Evolution Conference on February 13th.  My panel topic: “Introducing SAM: Search and Email – Who Cares and How Does it Work? More Importantly, Why Does It Work?”.   The blend of email and search marketing doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me so the questions should be surprising (hopefully, pleasantly so!).

I will be sitting on a panel at the upcoming Social Networking Conference in Miami, Florida.  The panel’s topic is “The Business of Social Media – How Global Brands are succeeding Beyond Blogs”. I will be sharing my experiences running a variety of consumer focused social media campaigns for some major consumer brands including Boston Acoustics, Denon, and Denon DJ.