As the Dialogue team ramps up for SXSW (the Super Bowl of Social Media Conferences) we’re still interviewing some great marketers out there. Mike Volpe is our featured Social Marketer today. If you haven’t already, take 30 minutes on a Friday afternoon to watch Mike and Karen Rubin talk Inbound Marketing on their weekly television show/podcast/live-streaming event, Hubspot TV
About Mike
I’m Mike Volpe, and I love Marketing! I work as VP Inbound Marketing at HubSpot, where I get to lead a team of marketers as well as create a lot of content on our blog, for our TV show, and by speaking a lot too.
1. What one trait or habit got you to where you are today?
Passion! You need to find a job that allows you to leverage your passion. I mean it’s late at night right now, but I’m having fun writing about marketing because I love it. Focusing on your passion makes everything else a lot easier.
2. Your work day just started, what’s the FIRST thing you do and why?
Read. I read my email. I read blogs and news in my RSS reader. I read Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. I read my reports in HubSpot analytics. You need to know what is going on before you can do something productive.
3. What makes you efficient with your day?
Seclusion time. I need at least 1 hour a day where I have zero interruptions and I just crank through all my inboxes and tasks. If not, it starts to back up and the problem gets worse. I tend to really focus in on things, and if I get distracted, I have a lot of trouble refocusing, so I need to comepletely uninterrupted time to be super productive. I actually book this time in my calendar, and if I am in the office, I will go hide someplace so no one can bother me.
4. Your Favorite Business book of all time?
New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott. He recently rewrote a lot of it to update it for a new addition. The month that book came out, I sent him and email with the subject line “Our company (HubSpot) was based on your book”. While HubSpot was founded before the book came out, it was a true statement. We had lunch the next week and David and I are friends now, and he’s been a great advisor. I should also mention that “Inbound Marketing” by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah (the foreword is by David Meerman Scott) is another take ont he same subject, with probably more “how to” examples.
5. 3 things on your desk right now/3 things you can’t live without
iPhone – Not because I am in love with Apple (I don’t like them much) but because it makes me a lot more productive, I’ll replace it the second something better is available (please Google… help!)
Google Apps - I used Outlook for years, but once I converted and got used to Gmail/Gcal, I am faster and more efficient
DropBox – Having all my important files available anywhere, and collaborating with my team more easily is great
With the combination of these 3 things, I have stopped carrying a laptop and a bag except when I travel on planes. I just walk out of the office. I have a laptop that mostly stays in the office, a desktop in my house, and also a netbook for around the house and sometimes travel.
6. Habit you want to kick in 2010
Checking Twitter too much! It is usually pretty distracting, and can be addictive. And to be honest, most of the super important stuff there ends up getting to me through other channels. But, I do need to make time for it, just in a few 10 minutes chunks during the day (TweetDeck on the iPhone helps a lot with this).
7. Habit you want to form for 2010
Inbox Zero. I have been getting better… around 100 messages in my inbox on average the past few months, rather than 300-ish – but I want to really try to keep it under 10-20, and maybe even hit zero. We’ll see… I mean, I just got rid of this message!
To end the week in our “7 Habits Series” , let’s have a chat with Phil Johnson, one of the best creative minds out there. When he’s not jetting around the country with clients, friends and other marketing luminaries he’s at home in his Cambridge office, just steps away from Harvard Square. And if you have the time on a Thursday afternoon, take a moment to listen to his agency’s weekly radio show on Social Media with Mike O’Toole and Hugh Kennedy – There’s alway something interesting happening over there.
About Phil
I’m the CEO of PJA Advertising + Marketing. We call ourselves an ad agency, but we’re really interested in all the ways that people communicate with each other, and especially how new technologies are changing our experiences and behaviors.
1. What one trait or habit got you to where you are today?
I’m a talent groupie. Nothing gets me excited like meeting someone with a great mind, a wonderful imagination, and better ideas than me. Sometimes I can’t sleep until I recruit them.
2. Your work day just started, what’s the FIRST thing you do?
Well at PJA, we all punch a time clock. Just kidding. I don’t know exactly when the workday starts. After I drop my son at school, I start thinking about business. But once I get to the office, I’ve got to check to see if there are any donuts in the kitchen, then put on some music, and play around with Tweet Deck. Next thing I know I’m writing stuff, going to meetings, and talking on the phone. I think that’s work.
3. What makes you efficient with your day?
It’s sad, but I’m just not efficient, but I’ve learned a couple of tricks. Every day, I jot down three things I absolutely want to get done. I’m always happy if I do two of them.
4. Your Favorite Business book of all time?
I’m not a huge fan of traditional business books, but here are three books that I really like, and they are kind of about business:
Fast Company, How Six Master Gamblers Defy the Odds – and Always Win, by Jon Bradshaw. These stories reveal tons about entrepreneurship and human nature.
Stumbling On Happiness, by Daniel Gilbert. Understanding how we pursue happiness is very helpful if you’re in the business of influencing people.
Here Comes Everybody, by Clay Shirky. This book helps explain how all these cool web 2.0 technologies that we love are redefining society.
5. 3 things on your desk right now/ 3 things you can’t live without
Diet Dr Pepper
PJA note pads
My tiny Bose speakers.
Those things, and my MacBook, are all I need.
6. Habit you want to kick in 2010
I think I’ll start with trans fats and then move on to butter, sugar, excessive amounts of empty carbohydrates, and alcohol.
7. Habit you’d like to form for 2010
I wish that all of us at PJA would connect to each other on a delicious network and get disciplined about tagging the content that fires up our imaginations. We’ve got a collection of really interesting people, and their collective knowledge is very powerful. I’d like to do a better job of harnessing it.
Colin Browning- Photo Credit Jim Storer
He’s # 15 in your scorecards, and number one in your hearts, ladies and gentleman, THE Colin Browning…..
About Colin
Colin had recently left New Marketing Labs to join IDG. He now designs marketing programs for leading technology brands as a part of IDG’s Strategic Marketing Services team.
1. What one trait or habit got you to where you are today?
I started as a photographer. I learned from the beginning that to stand out, I needed to see things differently and to make others see things differently.
2. Your work day just started, what’s the FIRST thing you do and why?
My work day starts when my eyes first open in the morning. I do some of my best creative thinking as I make my cup of coffee and take those first sips as I am thinking about the day ahead. My morning coffee ritual and day mapping is a critical part of my successful days.
3. What makes you efficient with your day?
Getting a solid 8 hours of sleep the night before, followed by a morning workout – then no matter what the day throws at me – I am can take it head on!
4. Your Favorite Business book of all time?
I have to say, I have been much more inspired by reading the bios of great artists lately like Arthur Danto’s bio of Robert Mapplethorpe or a biography of Andrew Wyeth (can’t recall the author). These have inspired me with their singularity of focus, dedication, and talent.
5. 3 things on your desk right now/3 things you can’t live without
I am going to cheat and write things in multiples (I hate rules):
Photos of my family & friends (iRoadtrip!)
iPhone
notepad & pen
6. Habit you want to kick in 2010
Evening TV – like many, I do tend to get sucked in.
7. Habit you want to form for 2010
Spending more of my evenings playing with the kids and then reading a wider range of material: fiction, non-fiction (not just the social media stuff) and biographies.
