Now my Mom isn't the only one who thinks I am a genius.

Most people know that I am a HUGE fan of cool Word of Mouth marketing.

There are bunch of people who do it very well and a big chunk of them will be speaking (with myself) at the World of Mouth Supergenius event in Chicago on December 16.

Shameless plug aside this post isn't bout the conference and more about what the organizers did to promote the event...you see they mailed a t-shirt to all the speakers with a customized discount code as an incentive to promote your appearance. I love this idea, I love free t-shirts and I love offering discounts to people who read my blog and perhaps like to follow what I am up to.

It makes perfect sense that a conference about Word of Mouth marketing would do something Word of Mouth worthy so for that I am getting on the bandwagon and joining folks like Jason Falls and writing a post about my shirt...but unlike Jason I can't show you a photo cause my shirt is being held at Canadian Customs or something so I just made my own :)

Here is a video of Andy Sernovitz explaining the idea behind the shirts and if you are interesting in attending please use the discount code SAULISMYHERO for a $101 off the cost of the conference.

Product design is all about knowing when to add a Vagina.

Disclaimer: As always the ideas expressed here are mine alone and do not reflect those of my friends, family or employer.

I was very excited to see in the most recent issue of Toronto Life Magazine an article about interesting ideas coming out of local innovators. The reason I was excited was because two people I respect a great deal (Catherine MacIntosh from Zerobaggage.com was idea #19 and Aynsley Deluce from Parkingspots.com was idea #11) were featured in the magazine for their ideas and achievements and while they are both women their inclusion in this post has no relation to the title.

Idea #17 on the other hand is what the title refers to so here goes.

Le Trung, a 34 year old engineer has developed the first robot with feelings and while this achievement is amazing I found his story interesting because of how he made this discovery. Le began building his lady robot in his parents basement with the goal of her to help his parents with basic household chores like make coffee etc. After some time he thought (and I am putting words in his wordballoon here) it would be better to add some lady parts and forget the whole coffee making tasks.

Aiko, the ladybot is the first robot able to react to physical stimuli (yes even in her robotic vagina...ok mostly in her robotic vagina) and can also imitate a pain response. All the jokes aside (and I wrote 54 of them around the fact that his fly is open in the photo to the fact that he keeps his robot lady in his parents basement) I found this interesting because I have always believed that great product design (physical or software) starts with someone filling a need for themselves and over time molding the product or service to the needs of the people using it and/or paying for it.

But in this case Aiko was created initially to fill a need for others and ended up with the sole purpose of being filled with the needs of her inventor. (that is a funny joke no matter what language you speak)

I still firmly believe that putting your customers needs first in product design is the absolute best thing to take in to consideration and to be honest I only wrote this post because I saw an opportunity to make a real business case example with the word vagina in it....because that word makes me giggle.

Takeaway for people who don't feel like reading the whole post : Don't screw your products...it will only distract you from your actual goals...and you might just end up in a magazine saying you screw your products.

Ted Williams, Frozen Heads, Colt45 Malt Liquor, My Speaking Tour. Confused? You wont be after reading this...

When I was much younger I used to live and breath all things baseball. I connected with baseball because I loved the stories and the personalities of the game and now as I get older I realize I have a lot in common with Ted Williams.

Ted hit over .400 for the Red Sox, I hit over .400 for my High School Baseball Team

Ted wore #9, I wore #45 (still wondering why I never got a Colt45 endorsement deal)

Ted has been decapitated and cryogenically frozen somewhere in Arizona....OK so maybe we are not that alike except for one thing.

I always loved the story about Ted Williams and his lifelong dream to have people say to themselves as he left any room....

"There goes the greatest hitter in the world"

I feel the same way as Teddy Ballgame on this one but my years of playing professional baseball are behind me so instead of that I am hoping people will come see me speak and say to themselves as I leave the room

"There goes the best speaker on the topics of Maketing, Social Media, Customer Service, Entrepreneurship and Community Building in the world and I don't mind if he was looking at me from the stage like I was a plate of delicious BBQ because I got so much information from his talk that I am now inspired to do something great"

But to make this happen you are going to have to come and see me speak....and lucky for you I am going to be in the following cities between now and the end of the year. Montreal, Toronto, New York, Boston and Chicago. See below for more info and please please please support the fine people who have invited me to come and be with all of you!


Sproutup Montreal
November 17th at Brutopia in Montreal

The amazing folks at Sprouter.com have invited me to speak in three cities with them in the next month with the first being in Montreal. If you are not familiar with Sprouter.com you should take a look as they are doing events geared to helping entrepreneurs as well as thier online collaberative tool that was just written up on Mashable.com Please RSVP if you can come out!



Impact National Conference

November 20-21st at the Westin Harbour Castle Hilton (Toronto)

I am super excited to speak at this conference as the majority of the attendees will be students either finishing up college/university or entering their last years. I will be speaking about Entrepreneurship and ask the students to look inside themselves and see if they have entrepreneurship characteristics in them and if they do I will advise them to drop out of school and start a company. Should be an interesting day!

Canadian Women in Communications

November 25th, 2009 - Webcast

Details on this are still being worked out as far as content of my talk but I said yes without hesitation because I thing this will be an interesting group of folks to pal around with.

Media Bistro Panel - Social Media and the Customer: Focus on Community Management
December 8th at Comix in New York City

Exactly a year (and a day) earlier than this talk I had the pleasure of speaking for MediaBistro on a Social Media panel with Tony Hsieh, Craig Newmark, Lynn Johnson, Jeff Howe and Thor Muller and I am overjoyed to be invited back for the sequel to that original talk. This time around the all female panel will be made up of myself, Valeria Maltoni, Amber Nasland and Shirley Bradley and I guarantee it will be informative and talked about to till at least the end of the year!
Rsvp to attend here!


Word of Mouth Supergenius Conference

December 16 - Chicago

I will be talking to a group of Supergenius' to be on how to create offline chatter and unlike many talks I give where I rely on my good looks and charm and speak about how wonderful I am and what I have done in the past I have been asked to speak here about the future and create a step by step formula that people will take away with them so there can be a "little Saul" in a whole new group of offices all over America. This is going to be a great event and if you are interested in coming you can use the secret code "Saulismyhero" to get a $101 discount on the cost of the course and a hug and kiss from me on the day of the event. For more information on this event please click here

I hope to see some of you at these events and as always I appreciate you sharing your time to read my blog.

"I am not quitting, I am just planning my comeback"

I was thumbing through Canadian Business Magazine two months ago and found a quote that stuck with me. The quote was from Michael Lee-Chin talking about selling his "baby", the investment company AIC. When asked how he could walk away from his dream he simply said:

"I am not quitting, I am just planning my comeback."

I love this quote and have been thinking about this for a while since I started a new role at my job. I haven't spoken about this publicly yet so I guess this is an announcement of sorts but I am no longer part of the day to day operations of Zoocasa.com and have moved to a larger role as Evangelist/Strategist within Rogers Ventures (an investor in Zoocasa.com) and will be adding what I can across all the porfolio companies as needed.

For the next little while I will be focusing most of my attention on Thoora.com but like everything I do I will never beat you over the head with messaging and such. I am always going to be me and I hope you all watch what I am up to in this very exciting time in my life.

One that like Micheal Lee-Chin, I am treating like my comeback opportunity.

Super Quick StartUp Advice

Here is another installment in my series of super quick [possibly tweetable] Business Startup Advice.

"The best entrepreneurs have a combination of a desire to create amazing things coupled with the unwillingness to compromise in anyway to achieve this."

Do you have this?

Can a loyalty program actually make you less loyal?

I don't have many rules when it comes to my blog posts. I occasionally talk about inappropriate nudity and share too much about the views and opinions I have but one thing I never do (and this is really my only rule) is that I don't take cheap shots at brands....or really ever say anything negative about brands because as someone who represents brands myself I know what it is like to get dumped on and just don't feel like being "that guy".

That being typed I am going to share an experience I have been living through for more then 8 months and it got me asking "Can a loyalty program actually make you less loyal?"

So I travel a lot and doing such I joined an airline loyalty program because, well I like free travel and all the things that come from special attention.

Much to my surprise and delight last February I received in my mailbox 6 upgrade certificates to fly the friendly sky from the front of the plane where I can only imagine is similar to the Playboy Mansion. This excited me and instantly began looking forward to my next trip.

You see by sending me these certificates the airline is hoping I get so used to the pampering and private bathroom in business class that I will not be able to return to the commoners of the back of the plane and from that point forward I would pay the extra fees associated with the higher lever of service.

This might have worked because I am impressionable and all, except for the fact that since February (when I got these) I have flown 10+ times and have never been able to redeem these certificates because the I purchased discounted seats and not the full fare ticket (does anyone pay full fare ever?) and on top of it all these certificates will expire at the end of November.

This was an enormous missed opportunity for the airline because not only am I a chatty girl who would have encouraged others to upgrade so they could experience the airplane grotto for themselves but beyond that they have actually made me care less about who I fly with.

So I ask you...how effective was this surprise and delight?

Takeaway for people who don't feel like reading the whole post : If you want to give something away for free...give it away for free. Don't make people work to give you money.