Google AdWords Day 4; Holy Crap it worked!

Ok, yesterday I had some down luck followed by finally getting my ads approved. That was a good feeling but not quite as good as the feeling I got when I checked today!

So, upon checking my account this afternoon I notice some pretty serious activity. Between all three of my ads I had received a grand total of 114 clicks! I honestly never really expected this kind of response.

Now, I understand that these numbers are not really amazing, but as far as this little experiment is concerned they're pretty impressive. The thing that makes it even more impressive is that I've also made approximately $20. I'm about $10 shy of making back my initial investment in less than 24 hours. Hopefully the sales will continue; should they keep up this pace I will definitely start some new campaigns.

There a part of me thinking about trying to advertise my blog in this fashion. Maybe that way I can actually start to generate some readers and invoke some discussions. Self promotion is not something I've ever been a big fan of, but hey, someone other than me should be reading these things too; right?

Ok, well that's all I have to report for now. Hopefully tomorrow will bring some more exciting news.

Heck, maybe tomorrow I'll be rich!

... don't worry, I'm still dreaming.

Google AdWords Day 3; Shot down again

So we left off yesterday with the recreation of two ads and one that was seemingly high performance. Well, today everything has changed.

The two ads I resubmitted for approval came back disapproved again. Apparently I had some link issues that needed to be resolved. I took quick action, repaired the alleged problems, and then re-resubmitted the ads for approval. Hopefully these things will get approved soon so they can get out into circulation.

The third high performance ad had zero hits over the last 24 hours. That's a little less than exciting, but hey, it's the weekend and people probably have other things to do; right?

Well, all excuses aside, I don't really have any major news to report. I don't want to create any more campaigns until I can get the ones that I have moving. I hope that tomorrow I don't receive anymore rejection emails and that Google will finally decide that my ads are brilliant.

That seems likely doesn't it?

QUICK REVISION:

About 30 minutes after this posting all three ads got the re-approval and have already started to receive some clicks.

It looks like it's game time after all!

Google AdWords: Day 2

Day 1 of my Google AdWords experiment went relatively well. Finding products, building ads, and determining placement was far less difficult than one might expect. When I logged off last night I was only waiting for the approval of my ads; Google reviews all ads to make sure they fit their predetermined requirements.

Enter today.

I checked my information to find that one of my ads had been rejected. As it should turn out I made some mistakes during the initial setup and tried to place two different ads using the same space. Because of this, Google only posted one of the two ads. It was a little difficult finding out what I had to do to correct the ads, but after a few minutes browsing the site I was able to find the location to make edits to the preexisting information. One there I made my edits and went straight for resubmission.

Of the ads that did make it; one was a flop and one preformed well above my expectations.

OK; so I haven't made any money yet, however one of the ads received 17 hits in its first twenty-four hours of existence. Not too shabby. The other ad had produced only one hit. I have to say I wasn't too surprised because it was the one I was most unsure about. I decided to immediately stop putting money into something I was not sure of and that produced no results. Maybe a hasty decision but I'm sure it was the right thing to do. I instead found a new product with a massive commission that I fully support.

If whenever you can; advertise for things you know and are passionate about. That's the principle I will try to follow from this point on.

Again, I am left waiting for approval on two ads and I have one ad that seems to be attracting at least a bit of attention. Hopefully I'll get quick approval and all three ads will start making the big bucks.

Tomorrow brings another day!

Google AdWords; Day 1 of a Venture into Online Marketing/Advertising

Today I made an epic leap forward into the age of digital marketing. I started my own Google AdWords campaign. It is my intent to follow my progress through this blog as a sort of introspective into the world of independent online marketing.

Truth be told, this adventure truly started several months ago. I don't recall how I was introduced to the idea of e-marketing in the form of Google software but I do know that the only reason I decided to investigate is because I know and trust Google. I felt that we had a good working relationship up until that point so why not; it's what I want to do anyway (marketing and advertising that is). So, lead into this with the promise of riches beyond my wildest dreams; I studied.

First thing I did was to acquire some software that gave me a free trail introduction to the Google AdWords system and how you could use it to earn money. After about twenty minutes I realized the system was extremely simple and since they had already pointed me in the right direction, I canceled the subscription. We all know that get rich quick software is nothing more than a cheap gimmick and it truly was. Honestly, I probably could have found the information floating around on the internet somewhere with minimal effort; but what the heck, what's done is done right?

After realizing that no matter how you sliced it, the Google AdWords system was going to require at least some type of initial investment I put the operation on hold. I'm a full time college student; I don't have funds to just throw around all crazy like.

Bring us up to now.

I had a few extra bucks and the urge was settling back in. I decided to go for it. Using a free site called Click Bank I located a few products that I thought might actually produce some hits. One of the products was for some information on how to become a travel agent; the other two were both cookbooks. I figured with the slowly recovering economy what two things do people want; new jobs and cheap food. It seemed like as safe a first investment as any.

After scrounging my email account for my Google AdWords account info, I discovered an old email they sent me to try and further entice me into using their program. It allowed me $100 worth of free advertising. So with that I threw down an additional $30 and created three ads. In order to place ads you must compete in a bidding war against others who would also like their ads placed where you want yours to go. You choose a max bid price that you are willing to pay; ebay style. The higher you bid the more likely and more often your ads will placed.

Those ads are currently under review by the Google staff to see if they are in fact internet appropriate. Sine I am confident that they are, we'll just have to see how things go tomorrow.

Does Quality Inhibit Innovation

Quality Vs. Innovation

In the video “Enemies of Innovation,” Judith Estrin, CEO of Packet Design, LLC discusses how she believes that quality has become the enemy of innovation (The & Estrin). She claims that processes put in place to help ensure quality limit the intricacies of the business process that once led to innovative new methodologies. In an article in The Irish Times, the author states that, “There is at least a 200-year history behind manufacturing innovation. It's an area surrounded by university labs, R&D budgets, EU research projects and nationally-funded prototyping facilities. Service innovation has none of these” (Shaughnessy, 12/10/2007). I believe that Estrin is trying to get at this point; most managers seem to discount the fact that innovation can be initiated outside of an R&D lab.

I do agree with some of the things that Judith Estrin said about quality being the enemy of innovation but furthermore I would take the side of the gentleman from Google, who unfortunately remains unnamed. He brings up a great idea in regard to identifying the culture of your business environment in order to decide how to manage innovation within your organization. He makes a really great point in that different organizations are going to require different methods, there is no uniform way to do it as much as that may be an issue for the rest of corporate America.

Having had the benefit (if you want to call it that) of working for an organization that went through a massive culture shock I can easily relay an example of two different scenarios that describe how culture can breed or inhibit innovation. Many years back, before the organization I worked for was purchased by a behemoth, I had come up with an easy carry pricing grid that could be readily used by any team member to help give quick quotes to customers. The rest of the company loved the idea and it was soon launched throughout the region; and possibly released nationally, I was never told how far it went. I had an idea that the company enjoyed and then they dispersed it throughout the organization. The company didn’t care where the idea had come from but they saw the direct benefits and ran with it. This is how the man from Google claims innovation works for them.

Currently, after the culture switch, our organization has a staunch uniformity policy. There is a monthly guidebook that all centers receive; it is at least 200 pages long and describes all merchandising decisions for the month and center arrangement. As far as things like marketing signage and product placement; every month we are told what to do as to make sure customers can go from center to center and not have any troubles recognizing how things function. This is a quality approach that does make some sense. The trick to this is that every retail space they own is shaped differently. This causes a great deal of issue as to the placement of certain items in each center. The company cares very little and as a manager you are expected to make it look the way they have the layout in the book. The company tries to adhere to a quality standard that is unreasonable and thereby inhibits innovation much in the way that Estrin suggests.

The Creosote Phenomenon

Estrin also brings up something called the Creosote Phenomenon. This results when a company becomes successful to the point of negligence and the over amount of confidence let’s innovation pass them by. At my current organization the behemoth that purchased our original company was a master at what they do. Their core product and our core products made us valuable business partners but because they do what it is they do so well, they never have been able to figure out what it was we did that made us as good as we were. Now, years later, there’s a whole new crop of employees that are just confused and don’t fully understand our product lines because their training is haphazardly divided and the full side of either organization is not fully explored. It’s sad because I have tried on numerous occasions to discuss this with upper management and have been met with a brush off of the corporate shoulder.

Skill sets and Innovation

I would say that managing innovation does not require a different set of skills than does that of a quality oriented manager; as innovation is found in all areas of an organization I would say that being able to manage innovation successfully should be included in a successful manager’s skill set. Whether it be in finance, accounting, human resources, or research and development innovation is there. It’s in the hands of the organizations employees and it is the manager’s job to recognize this and improve upon it to help more efficiently and effectively achieve the goals of the organization.

Works Cited

Lewis, P. S., Goodman, S. H., Fandt, P. M., & Michlitsch, J. F. (2007). Management: Challenges for Tomorrow's Leaders. Mason: Thomson South-Western.

Shaughnessy, H. (12/10/2007). Serving Up Some Real Innovation. The Irish Times , 47.

T. W., & Estrin, J. L. (n.d.). Enemies of Innovation. Retrieved 02 25, 2010, from bing.com: http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/enemies-of-innovation/3xgdnmg1

Change Assessment

On the "Are you good at change?" self assessment I scored a massive 36 points! According to the test I, “welcome every change that comes into your life—even the tough ones—believing that each one serves a purpose and will eventually lead to good,” (Bonvoisin). I would say that I agree with this score as I generally view change as something exciting and different; however my current manager tried to tell me the other day that I feared change.

The situation goes back to several years ago where the company I work for experienced a buyout. Initially I was ecstatic about the merger however after about a year it became abundantly clear that the acquisitioning firm had no idea as how to utilize us, market us, or support us aside from their already pre-existing product line. Since then I have been lobbying extensively for the upper echelons of management to re-evaluate how they are going about their efforts as year after year we have been experiencing substantial negative growth. The new management tells me that I am too attached to the old ways and that I need to look to the future. My response is always, “I am not attached to the old ways, we can come up with a brand new way, but the way you’re doing it is a substantial failure and if you’d take the time to ask your employees, they’d tell you the same thing.”

In an article from the Academy of Management Proceedings about organizational change the authors write, “the ways things are framed and talked about plays a significant role in shaping how change agents, impacted employees and other stakeholders, think about and respond to an organizational change related issue or situation” (Grant & Marshak, 2009). This was the overall problem with change in management at my organization. There was much talk of how things would work and the next week that would change. The following week it would change again. The week after that would bring another set of brand new policies and procedures that replaced the ones from the week prior. This has been an ongoing theme over the course of the past five years. In order to implement successful change it is the responsibility of the management team to construct a broad based plan and adhere to it firmly. If the employees in the face of change can’t find anything structurally sound to grasp onto, they become disenfranchised and lose all positive motivation that had gained momentum before the change was initiated.

As my assessment results clearly show, I am not adverse to change. I tend to get excited and embrace it just as I did in the case of my own company, but the chaos that erupted on the management level ripped through the organization and has yet to redeem itself. Every day I find myself in talks with management about alternative ways we could do things to help re-empower and re-motivate our employees. I come up with new ideas as well as suggest old ones that had previously been very successful. All these suggestions are met with opposition. I would in fact say that it is management who is afraid of change; however they seem to like constant change. As big of a change supporter as I am, I do believe that changes on the part of management need to be well thought out as they affect all aspects of the company and can have disastrous results if not implemented in a secure fashion. I definitely look forward to the day management figures out what it is they want to do and dig their heels into the dirt. That will be one change I will be ecstatic to see.

Works Cited

Bonvoisin, A. d. (n.d.). Change Quiz. Retrieved 02 04, 2010, from Barnes and Noble: http://images.barnesandnoble.com/pimages/resources/pdf/Change_Quiz.pdf

Grant, D., & Marshak, R. J. (2009). A Discourse-Based Theory of Organizational Change. Academy of Managment Proceedings , 1(6) 02/04/2010.

Wikipedia: A Case Study

Wikipedia

Wikipedia; a company dedicated to the accessibility of information, but at what cost does accessibility come. Wikipedia has been under much scrutiny as the open source information website allows its users to make edits to its content to ensure the information is constantly evolving and relevant. The controversy comes in light of making sure the information is accurate and unbiased which has plagued Wikipedia since its inception. College professors across the globe are forbidding students from using it as a valid research tool stating the website is not to be trusted (Maslanka, 2006). In a Wikipedia search under “Reliability of Wikipedia” the site states that the reliability of the site, “is assessed in several ways, including statistically, comparative review, analysis of the historical patterns, and strengths and weaknesses inherent in the writing process” (Reliability of Wikipedia).

Wikipedia understands that its content may not contain fully accurate information or even biased information; it is the idea that the demand for accuracy will eventually overcome and through debate and discussion will create for a more factual representation of information (About - Wikipedia). Fundamentally speaking this is a sound approach as the supply and demand model tends to shape the world we live in. It seems reasonable, yet possibly unconventional, to apply this concept to knowledge. It involves taking a leap of faith and using more than one source for your information; which from personal experience, most professors have you do anyway.

Controlling Information

Wikipedia uses a variety of methods to try and control their content. Of course is their principle philosophy of the user being the fundamental control over the information provided. Other methods of control used by Wikipedia are, “peer review, good article assessment, and the featured article,” (About - Wikipedia). The good article assessment is something that Wikipedia assigns an article after it has been reviewed; this allows the reader to understand that the content is of good, reviewed quality. The featured article also puts articles out in a very visible sense to ensure that people are reading it and hopefully, review the content for accuracy.

Also, an article on unethical editing practices taking place at Wikipedia mentions a new source of control called the WikiScanner. The WikiScanner, “consists of a publicly searchable database that links millions of anonymous Wikipedia edits to the organizations where those edits apparently originated,” (WikiScanner). This can help to track down bias or self serving edits which is intended to lead to a more honest level of wiki editing.

Wikipedia searches the three modes of control in the sense that the initial information input into the wiki serves as the input. The input is then subject to the process which involves peer review, professional review, and information sourcing. The output comes in the form of the final results of the reviewed and corrected information.

Evaluation

Whereas many make the argument for Wikipedia’s relevance as a research tool the argument could be made that Wikipedia is the best place to start your research. Wikipedia does not at any point make the claim that the information on their site is valid, but because it is subject to constant peer review it is an excellent place to springboard ideas from.

The primary argument that gets left out of the Wikipedia debate is that when conducting research, your factual information needs to come from more than one source anyway; regardless of whether it’s been the subject of a peer or professional review. I think this argument is exemplified in the article titled “Academics question Wikipedia’s credibility”.

In the article an English professor talks about his experience with Wikipedia and how he came across “factual” errors in a post. He would make the changes but the original author would just change it right back. This professor now advises his students not to use Wikipedia as a resource (Maslanka, 2006).

The problem with this debate is that the professor is assuming he has the correct information, as does the original author. Since there is an obvious stalemate further research needs to be conducted to hopefully uncover the realities of the information and students should use Wikipedia in this sense. I often use Wikipedia as a starting point for my research but because professors will not allow it I wind up not being able to use it as a citation reference. The reality of the situation is that I’m not quoting or using information directly from Wikipedia, but I’m finding information to help develop my research.

To not allow Wikipedia as a reference source is to do a great discredit to the act of research. Research is the act of sorting through information in the pursuit of a conclusion. Many well researched conclusions have been discredited but the discredited information is what allowed for the actual conclusion to be reached. Wikipedia is at its core, this process in action.

Room for improvement

One proactive measure Wikipedia could take would be to enhance their “good article” label and take it a step further into a full blown grading system. Articles would be graded based upon the level of review of their content and edits should be allowed based upon the grade. Any edits made to an article with an A+ grade would have to come with full source information and be subject to a professional review before inclusion into the article. An article with the grade of F would allow for greater flexibility in the editing process but would indicate to the reader that the article has not been professionally reviewed. This measure allows Wikipedia to continue on functioning as they do yet provides a higher level of transparency into the quality of the content to the reader.

Resources

Works Cited:

About - Wikipedia. (n.d.). Retrieved 02 20, 2010, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About#Using_Wikipedia_as_a_research_tool

Haas, E. (2007, 10 26). Will Unethical Editing Destroy Wikipedia's Credibility? Retrieved 02 20, 2010, from AlterNet: http://www.alternet.org/media/61365

Hubbard, B. (2010, 02 14). Wikipedia edits warp candidates by the minute. The Denver Post , pp. A-01.

Lewis, P. S., Goodman, S. H., Fandt, P. M., & Michlitsch, J. F. (2007). Management: Challenges for Tomorrow's Leaders. Mason: Thomson South-Western.

Maslanka, K. (2006, 04 20). Academics Question Wikipedia's Credibility. Retrieved 02 20, 2010, from The Ithican: http://www.ithaca.edu/ithacan/articles/0604/20/news/6academics.htm

Pallaris, C., & Costigan, S. S. (2007). Shared Knowledge, Join Pursuits; International Relations Beyond the Age of Information. Chicago, IL.

Reliability of Wikipedia. (n.d.). Retrieved 02 20, 2010, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_wikipedia

WikiScanner. (n.d.). Retrieved 02 20, 2010, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiscanner