Ian Lurie is Chief Marketing Curmudgeon and President at Portent Interactive, a firm he started in 1995. Portent is a full-service internet marketing company whose services include SEO, SEM and strategic consulting.

Ian’s built his firm, his blog and his career around the idea that the internet is a fantastic marketing medium, but that it hasn’t fundamentally changed the rules of successful marketing: A great product, a great message, well-crafted content and careful analysis will always win out.

Ian recently co-published the Web Marketing for Dummies All In One Desk Reference. In it, he wrote the sections on SEO, blogging, social media and web analytics. He’s the author of Conversation Marketing, the internet marketing blog and the book by the same name.

What are you working on right now?

I’m working on an internet marketing resource guide called the Fat Free Guide. It’s a massive project that I’ll be releasing a little bit at a time – I’ll be announcing it on Conversation Marketing. I’m always studying and learning more about SEO, and working on perfecting the tools that help my team and I do our jobs.

Out of the office, I’m trying to get back into decent cycling shape after 3 years off the bike. I’m also trying to get my kids to take their dishes to the dishwasher after meals. I’m more optimistic about the former.

3 Trends that excite you?

First, the steady merging of mobile devices and the internet. It drives me nuts to hear folks talk about ‘mobile marketing’. Soon, it won’t be possible for agencies to assert that mobile is a different kind of marketing. Yes, there are some special requirements, just like doing an ad in a magazine has special requirements. But the message and essential story should be the same on a handheld device or a desktop or a TV.

Of course, the continued growth of the internet is pretty exciting, too. This isn’t really news. But we’ve just barely scraped the surface. It’s a hell of a lot of fun being involved in all of this from the start.

Finally, the rising importance of trending content and real time search is a huge opportunity for agile businesses and people. Portent’s spent a lot of time studying how to best ‘surf’ a topic that’s trending in social media, search, news or offline. This may be the biggest opportunity out there right now.

How do you bring ideas to life?

I’m all about simplifying as much as possible. If I have a big idea, I try to divide it into things I can do in a week or two. I build the first part, launch it, and then see how it goes. Then I go to the next part. Sometimes it’s an ugly process. It’s hard to not keep tweaking something until it’s perfect. But the idea that never gets out there has no chance for success, and I’ve seen countless teams and people plan and perfect themselves to death.

What is one mistake that you’ve made that our readers can learn from?

You don’t need to take on every project. I’ve sometimes taken on clients and projects that were a poor fit from the start, and ended up with an unhappy team and client.

What is one idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

Someone really needs to build search engine that can give Google an honest run for its money. That should be an easy one. Cough. Or, take a crack at this one: A CMS that is 100% HTML5 compliant. It’s gotta happen soon.

How can I tell if the internet marketer/SEO I’m talking to is legit?

So many professionals seem to abdicate responsibility when they hire an internet marketer. Something about the fact that this stuff runs on top of technology makes everyone freeze up.

The same way you choose anyone in a highly specialized profession. Meet them. Talk to them. Get a feel for who they are, their expertise, and their ability to talk to you about their work. Definitely do NOT work with anyone who suggests they have a magic formula or secret sauce.

Definitely DO work with folks who are good communicators.

Connect

Ian Lurie on Twitter

Ian Lurie on LinkedIn

Portent Interactive

Conversation Marketing

Nick Vivion is a 27 year-old traveler and filmmaker currently based in Seattle. Thanks to an ex-Army brat father, Nick has been traveling since he was very young. He was born in Kansas City, Missouri, where his parents enrolled him in a French magnet school because it happened to be the closest elementary school. The French proved useful when his father left the UMKC English department for a job in the private sector, and moved the family to Basel, Switzerland, via London, when Nick was 9 years old.

He went to high school in Switzerland, learning German and starting two businesses. Nick was accepted to Duke University, but deferred for one year as he wrapped up the second of the two businesses. The business was selling alcoholic ice pops called Freaky ice all over Switzerland, doing business in three languages.

After graduating from Duke in 2006 with a degree in Literature, Business and Film, Nick knew that he wanted to tell stories. He bought a video camera and a laptop and traveled around the world. This coinciding with the growth of YouTube and user generated content. Nick shot and uploaded countless videos, eventually becoming a regular contributor to the early days of Current TV. By selling a video a month to Current, Nick funded his travel around the world. During this time, YouTube exploded and Lonely Planet TV launched their online video site. Inadvertently, Nick had become an independent travel filmmaker.

Today, Nick has a YouTube partner channel with over one million views and a growing base of 3,000+ subscribers. Travel is an essential part of his being, as he believes in the transformative nature of travel. By sharing the joys of the world with his audience, Nick hopes to inspire and infect others with his passion for experiencing the world in all its diversity.

Nick is also an idea-hound, and at any given time has a dozen start-up ideas brewing in his head. He looks forward to those moments in time when one particular idea bubbles to the top and becomes a tangible thing. This satisfaction of creation is perhaps one of the most intoxicating things in the universe.

What are you working on right now?

I recently co-founded Unicorn Booty, an online community that connects consumers with gay-friendly businesses in a fun and unique way. We believe that by spotlighting diversity-minded businesses, we can effect change faster than any politician. Consumers want to know about businesses that reflect their values, and are willing to be fiercely loyal to such brands. And as the gay market is estimated to be at $825 billion by 2011, there is a huge opportunity to get in front of this largely underserved market.

Unicorn Booty is a daily giveaway site targeted to the $825 billion LGBT/gay market, where a different company sponsors each day of the year. We then give away a product or service from that day’s sponsor to one lucky user. Users simply comment on that day’s product for an entry to win. They can also share it with their social networks (viral!) for extra chances to win. Each day’s product/service will be shared via blog, a custom video, photos and many tweets and Facebook posts. It is a completely integrated social media campaign for each day’s company, allowing them to be inserted into the roughly 1.37 billion online influence impressions happening each day. To date, Unicorn Booty already has over 5,700 Facebook fans and followers – and we just launched on April 15!

People are passionate about free stuff, as well as learning about gay-friendly brands, and businesses get a targeted, active, engaged and loyal consumer base interacting with their product on their sponsored day. Businesses benefit from this new migration to social consumer marketing that is more sticky and memorable than traditional one-way advertising. They get the interaction and engagement with potential customers, while their potential customers are rewarded with a chance to win a free product.

By targeting a community with shared interests, we are able to cultivate a much more involved, engaged and loyal community that is more valuable to sponsors. Users spend an average of 5.5 minutes on our site, leading to an average of 25 hours of pure brand engagement for the day’s sponsor. The best part is that we give 10% to a different non-profit every quarter! We truly believe in creating a holistic system that benefits our community, the businesses that sponsor a day and society at large.

For a video about how our site works:
http://www.unicornbooty.com/how#business.

2 Trends that excite you?

Interactive Marketing.

Interactive is essential. I firmly believe that by 2015, it will be virtually impossible to engage with customers in any other way. Why would you pay $50k for a static one page magazine ad when you could pay a fraction of that and get a completely integrated and interactive campaign that immerses your customer completely? Delivering engagement is always far more valuable than impressions, and this is only going to become more and more true in the next few years. My business revolves around this concept, because as consumers ourselves, we know how we want to be approached. And a static ad is far less attractive to us than a dynamic campaign.

Tablets and such.

I fantasize about the day that we all have thin, foldable e-readers that we can put in our pockets. These aren’t the rigid iPads, these are completely malleable OLEDs that can be bent in any which way. This is going to bring newspapers back into the fold, and is going to provide an endless market for content. As a content creator, this makes me giddy. As an interactive marketer, this is a goldmine. The endless appetite for content will be coupled with a more sophisticated approach to content consumption, which gives me great latitude to be a creative marketer.

Basically, by 2015, we will be at the point where we can do anything we can imagine!

How do you bring ideas to life?

Bringing ideas to life is the most difficult thing for an idea-person. You have this constant flow of ideas, and you are almost paralyzed with indecision. How can you choose just one? How do you determine if this is an idea that you want to spend months or years of your life on? It can be impossible, and it prevents many intelligent people from taking the leap.

I am a firm believer in manifestation and the law of attraction. I don’t force anything, and I just put my ideas out there and let them exist. I try not to pressure myself to pick one or to make something happen, because I find that patience will bring you the resources you need. For example, my current venture was not something I had really expected to do. It presented itself and the timing was right. I was able to gather the resources to make it happen. It was mostly unplanned, but once it had the momentum I committed 110%.

Some say that ideas pick you. I just say that you have to be in tune with what is going on in the world around you. If you are paying attention to the signs, you will find the tools you need to bring your idea into reality.

What is one mistake that you’ve made that our readers can learn from?

When I was 17, when I was living in Switzerland, I started a company called Freaky ice. It was from the Netherlands, and it was basically a Mr. Freeze with alcohol. It came in five flavors. At the time, Smirnoff Ice was huge in Europe. Everyone loved alcopops, and I just knew that hot party people were going to love a frozen alcopop.

When the Dutch distributor came to visit me in Basel, she told me that each pallet of product had 7,128 ice pops on it. So to get one of each flavor, I would have to buy 35,640 Freaky ice. But if I wanted exclusive rights to the territory of Switzerland, I had to buy a minimum of 10 pallets of product – 71,280 ice pops at a cost of around $30,000.

I knew this was going to be the Next Big Thing, and I had to have exclusive rights. I didn’t want Bacardi or anything huge alcohol company to swoop in and steal my idea. So I convinced my investors that I had to buy 71,280 Freaky ice in order to secure the investment.

That left me with very little marketing cash, and very little cushion for contingencies. Which was a huge mistake, because the Swiss government actually shut me down 6 months in because I had not properly labeled my packaging. They were cracking down on alcopops being sold to people under 18 (the legal hard liquor age in Switzerland), and I was their first target. I had to pay to have the product analyzed and re-labeled, at a cost of nearly $5,000 – or half my remaining capital.

So the lesson is never spend more than you have to at the start of your business. Be capital efficient. Negotiate. And always remember that people are selling you things – their only goal is to move product. This oftentimes means that they do not have your best interests in mind. Follow your gut, and prove your concept with as little upfront cost as possible.

What is one book and one tool  that helps you bring ideas to life?

Wraeththu by Constantine Storm.

It is a novel about a new kind of human race that takes over the world. It reminds me that there is magic in every one of us, and that every challenge, failure and success is just an opportunity to learn more about yourself.

Evernote is essential to my humanity. I would go insane if I did not have this software! It allows me to keep my notes centralized across devices, and it makes it very easy for me to discover an idea I might have had a long time ago. It also is a fertile ground to cross-pollinate ideas, as you can see relationships between subjects that you might never have seen before.

What is one idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

I’d like to solve the problem of carbon visualization. I think this is a huge-picture idea, but I’d like to find a way to visualize my individual carbon footprint, by tying into all the available public data our there: Facebook usage, TripIt trips, credit card purchases, etc. There is so much data out there! You could build an algorithm to estimate a person’s total life carbon footprint. It would be an estimation, but I know that a visualization of your impact is always more effective at getting reductions. You could also build in a revenue model that offers specific reduction recommendations for a fee.

Why did you start Unicorn Booty?

My partner and I didn’t see any marketing out there that was holistic and that was approaching us in ways that we wanted to be approached. We also grew tired of the empty promises for LGBT rights in Washington. One day we read that the gay market was estimated at $825 billion in 2011, and it dawned on us that harnessing the purchasing power of this demographic could have huge implications. If we could build a site that allows diversity-minded companies to get in front of interested consumers, we knew that we could effect change on the micro level. Small-to-midsize companies who wanted to be gay-friendly could then have an outlet to demonstrate their diversity commitment. We knew that many Fortune 500 companies advertised to the LGBT market – but what about smaller companies?

We also wanted to create a place where consumers, businesses and non-profits could co-exist. We wanted to demonstrate that you can and should build a successful company by building philanthropy into the fabric of your company culture. And whether you call it triple-bottom-line thinking or socially conscious capitalism, we simply believe that modern capitalism has to be about serving the community in as many ways as possible. We want to show that you can provide immense value to multiple stakeholders and still make a decent living.

What has been the most memorable place you have filmed around the world?

As a traveler, it can be painfully difficult to choose favorite places, because you don’t want to diminish the impact of any place over another. However, the one place that always stick with me is Mongolia. I shot a couple of short films there for Current TV, one about Mongolian Throat Singing and one about eating in local yurts/gers (Mongolian-style tents). The Mongolian Throat Singing film was actually my sister’s idea, and before shooting the film I had no idea what it was about. The power of the voice shook me to my core – I had never heard anything like it before, and I got a private performance from one of the best in Ulanbaatar. It was an unforgettable moment, and the film is still one of the most popular on my YouTube channel.

http://www.youtube.com/worldli

Connect:

direct mail: nick@unicornbooty.com
site: www.unicornbooty.com
Nick Vivion’s blog: www.nickvivion.com
film: www.worldlifilm.com
Nick Vivion on Twitter: www.twitter.com/worldli
Nick Vivion on Facebook: www.facebook.com/nickvivion

Steve Markwell is the founder and mensch behind the Olympic Animal Sanctuary in Forks, Washington. Long story short the Olympic Animal Sanctuary takes care of dogs. Not just any dogs, but rather the the worst of the worst who have been turned down by all other shelters and organizations. Pit bulls, guard dogs, wolf dogs, cat-killers  – animals that simply aren’t welcome in our society anymore. Steve Markwell is also an interview like no other we have ever done on this site, and I have decided to run this on Christmas. Hopefully it can help spread the word about the Sanctuary and generate some financial contributions for the animals in Forks, Washington.Whether you agree with Steve’s work or not; one should admire the passion and vigor with which he brought this idea to life. Personally, I have much gratitude for Steve’s work (which you’re about to learn lots about) and have decided to make a small donation myself. Animals have played a huge part in my life, albeit mostly cats, and I have always been maddened about the neglect that has met the animals who don’t fit our behavioral or physical ideals anymore. Steve Markwell has dedicated his life to helping just those animals – the ones who nobody wants to help.

Thank you Steve.

And merry Christmas to all.

-Mario

Please tell us a little bit about the Olympic Animal Sanctuary?

Olympic Animal Sanctuary is a nonprofit animal welfare organization and animal rescue in Forks, Washington.  We work primarily with dogs that are not good candidates for adoption due to behavioral issues, including biting, fighting, and killing other animals.  We also work with wolf-dogs and coyote hybrids, which by their very nature are inappropriate household pets. We are a no-kill organization and we believe that it is unethical and irresponsible to kill a companion animal for any reason other than legitimate euthanasia to relieve an untreatable and unbearable medical condition, or in rare instances where an animal poses a direct and immediate threat to the life of a human being or other domestic animal.

How did you get the idea for this?

As a kid I was bitten by dogs.  I thought nothing of it.  My neighbor’s dog bit me, my friend’s dog bit me, my own dog bit me, and it never once occurred to me that there was anything wrong with that — dogs bite.  When I realized that dogs were often killed after biting a human being, I was horrified.  I never stopped being horrified.  When I first set out to create an animal sanctuary, I was originally planning to work only with wildlife, but as I developed my plan, I began running across street dogs, fighting dogs, etc. with no other options, and I realized I needed to address the problem right under my nose before I started scouring the country for tigers and wolves to rescue.

Tell us about the beginnings of your sanctuary? Did it start with just one dog?

Sort of; I adopted a puppy from a pretty substandard shelter in Colorado in 2003, who turned out to be a coyote hybrid.  I had experience with wildlife rescue so I was equipped to care for him, and he grew into a fabulous dog, but I still had no plans to become a dog rescuer.  After we moved to Washington,  I took in a beach dog from the Neah Bay area, which is extreme northwest Washington, after she had been getting in trouble for killing the neighbor’s ducks and knocking over trash cans.  She was just a pet dog for me, though — I wasn’t taking her in because she wasn’t adoptable, I took her in because she belonged to a heroin dealer who’d stopped feeding her in the middle of winter and the neighbor was threatening to shoot her (which happens a lot in this area).  But then I found Abbie, a fighting dog that had been dumped at a truck stop north of Los Angeles with shotgun pellets in her chest.  I new she’d be immediately killed in a shelter, so the dog rescue effort became official.

How many dogs does your sanctuary host right now? Can you tell us some of their stories?

We have 57, and that’s about as many as we’re going to take.  Even at the next property we move to, I don’t want to take many more.  Some of them include Snaps, the dog that was forced to attack two women in SeaTac, WA in June, Rogue, a husky who killed a smaller dog and who we fought to save because his autistic owner tried to kill himself when the dog was confiscated, Max, a miniature pinscher who bit off a woman’s lip, Phoenix, an old Lab/pit bull mix with perhaps 20 serious bites to his name, including one that broke my hand a few months ago, Moose, a dog who lived with a meth cook for 10 years and was so ravaged by the toxins that it took over a year and tens of thousands of dollars in veterinary procedures (donated, thankfully) to get him somewhat healthy.  There are so many stories — you’re going to have to wait for my book to come out.

You only accept dogs that have no other options left available to them. Can you explain what that means and why you’ve established that rule?

Traditional sheltering models involve the killing of any animals that aren’t quickly adopted; no-kill shelters may not kill healthy animals, but they usually do kill any animal that fails a temperament assessment.  Some of those dogs find their way to rescue groups, but for the truly severe cases, even experienced rescuers may struggle to provide care for the animals, and placing them in a traditional home environment would be reckless.  We take those dogs because no one else will, and we don’t think they deserve to die simply because, whether by abuse or by genetics, they pose an inordinate danger to people or to other animals.  We can handle them, so we save them, and we love them as much as anyone else loves his or her dog.  We think animal rescuers need to take on these difficult dogs, and leave the easier ones to the general public.

Do you have any advice for dog owners on how they can be better owners when it comes to dogs that have shown signs of aggression?

First, I don’t call it aggression.  I reject the very notion of canine aggression, because it implies that there’s some kind of deliberate, immoral act taking place.  Dogs bite, fight, and kill for two reasons, the primary one being a natural reaction to something they perceive as a threat, and the other being prey drive — the dog’s natural instinct to hunt and kill.  I want to emphasize the word ‘natural’ — we’re not talking about abnormal, twisted behaviors here.  Dogs are predatory mammals of the order Carnivora, and fighting, biting, and killing is what they are designed to do.  Those teeth are there for a reason.  So my first bit of advice is to get over the idea that these behaviors are out of the ordinary — they’re not.  Second, behavior management first, behavior modification second.  What that means is that if a dog bites strangers in your home, don’t let the dog near your guests.  If he kills cats, keep him away from cats.  Take whatever measures you have to to ensure the safety of yourself and your family, your neighbors, other animals, and the dog itself.  Then, if the dog’s behavior is lowering its quality of life or making the animal unsafe, address the behavior using reward-based conditioning.  Reward what you like, ignore what you don’t like.  Never, ever punish the animal, dominate or intimidate the animal, or make demands of the animal.  These ‘dog whisperer’ techniques ruin dogs and make problem behaviors worse.  If you do decide to consult a dog trainer or behaviorist, be very careful and make sure the person only uses reward-based conditioning.  Another thing I suggest is that you adopt the mindset that you are the dog’s guardian, not the other way around.  There’s no actual technique here, just a frame of mind to inform your decisions.  Your job is to protect your dog and keep that animal safe; when the dog realizes that, many of the problems you encounter will simply disappear.

How do you deal with these animals?

I use my magical affinity for animals and my mystical connection to them to reach into their souls and become one with their spirits.  Don’t believe me?  OK, here’s the deal: every dog is different, so I deal with every dog differently.  Some dogs want to be with other dogs most of the time, so I let them.  Others need more human companionship, so that’s what they get.  Some are dangerous around food, so they get fed in a safe area where they won’t hurt anyone.  Some are dangerous around other dogs, so socialization is limited and highly structured.  There is no one size fits all solution; apart from sound nutrition, patience, and routine, there’s quite a bit of variation in each dog’s management.  It also helps that I don’t mid taking a bite from time to time.  I don’t enjoy it, but I don’t mind it.  Besides, I’ve been told that girls like scars, and there’s a chance that might be true.  I don’t really know, because I’m always working.

How do you utilize the Internet to market your efforts?

We have a website, an email newsletter that we’re still streamlining, and we’ve recently been running ads on Facebook. I’m excited about the possibilities with Facebook; our fan page is growing rapidly, and the ads have brought a high return on a very small investment — it’s not a ton of money, but in terms of percentage it’s huge.  We get nearly a 1% click-through rate on our Facebook ads, which is insane. I believe the Internet is a vital tool for marketing this organization to my generation and the one that came up after we did.  Marketing to a younger demographic is something few charities try to do, but it’s a big part of our marketing philosophy.  I want to bring people my own age into the philanthropic process, and I’d rather get a hundred, ten dollar donations than a single, thousand dollar one because it extends the privilege of donating to more people.  That said, a hundred, $1000 donations would be even better, but it’s not what we’re going for.  We never ask for more than a dollar.  We’ll be doing even more online in the future; I don’t think we’ll ever do traditional direct mail marketing; it uses a tremendous amount of resources, the return on investment is low (these programs usually lose money for year before they become profitable), and waiting around for elderly people to die and leave their bequests is pretty creepy in my opinion.

How can people help the Sanctuary?

Not to be crass, but send money.  Send a dollar or more.  If you don’t have a dollar to spare, ask someone for a dollar and send it to us.  Stand on the corner and hold out a cup, play crappy guitar ballads at the train station, do whatever you need to do to get an extra buck, and send it our way. It will go directly into animal care and facility improvements.  At this time I don’t even take a salary; it all goes to the animals.  After you’ve sent your dollar, spread the word about Olympic Animal Sanctuary; share this interview with people, become our fan on Facebook.  If you live in our area and want to volunteer, get in touch and we may be able to work something out.  If you have something unique to offer that you think will help us to grow and reach more people, let us know.  And if you have a special gift with animals and you think you can really turn our program around and put us on the map, please don’t contact us directly — we will detect your spiritual energy and contact you psychically.  If you don’t hear from us right away, meditate harder.

Olympic Sanctuary Website

Olympic Sanctuary Facebook Group

Steve Markwell on Twitter

Donate

Pictures

[View with PicLens]