We watch American Idol in our house. You often hear the judges say, “make it your own,”  meaning you can’t just sing a song like someone else– at best it’s good karaoke, at worst a cheap imitation. You need to bring your own unique voice and personality to the song to make it unique, interesting and believable.

I think the same is true for the sales pitch.

Make it your own.

Dog Food

Apparently, Foursquare is testing NFC check in’s at it’s headquarters.  Two things strike me about this:

1. Foursquare realizes that GPS alone is not enough to comfort merchants with the check in.
2. Consumer-oriented technology companies need to “eat their own dog food” much more than they probably do.  Everyone in the company should be immersed in and obsessed with the consumer experience.  Everyone in the company should be a power user of their own app.

It can be easy to let our daily responsibilities and areas of focus take us away from the holistic user experience.  Nothing is more important.

Those who won our independence believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty.

Louis D. Brandeis.

People don’t buy what you do.   They buy why you do it.

Bungled the last post (12 words and I still got the key one wrong)  deleted and re-posted.

This video is worth 10 minutes of your life.  Thanks to Robert Scoble for pointing it out.  

If you are a Georgia entrepreneur, angel inventor, or just care about innovation and entrepreneurship in the state, you need to voice support for Georgia House Bill 1001. For more info on the bill, Lance Weatherby has a good post on the topic.

To make it easy to send an email, here is my version of talking points I took from Knox Massey.

I’m writing to voice my support for House Bill 1001, The Angel Investor Tax Credit. Georgia needs this economic development tool.

Many promising start-up companies in Georgia, most of which have been created by graduates of Georgia colleges and universities, are at risk in today’s challenging economic environment.  A leading source of capital for these businesses is  angel investment.  Angel investors are private individuals who take personal financial risk to enhance business and job creation in the state.

I believe that HB 1001 will incent angel investors to help promising young companies get started and create jobs in our state.  Twenty-two (22) other states have used similar investment incentives for years.  Those states have seen increased new business creation, new jobs and new revenue as a result.  Without this incentive, competing states are reaping the rewards of Georgia education and innovation; a significant number of entrepreneur-graduates of our schools have left our state in pursuit of capital elsewhere.  HB 1001 will help to address this.

I encourage you to support HB 1001.

And here is a list of emails I also took from Knox’s site – I just thought it wold be easier to cut and paste them in this format.  Just select the entire section and paste into the to: section of your email then hit tab.  It will accept them all at once (at least in Outlook).

dralston1@etcmail.com

spiro.amburn@house.ga.gov

ginny.mckinney@house.ga.gov

jan.jones@house.ga.gov

beth.green@house.ga.gov

jerry.keen@house.ga.gov

clelia.davis@house.ga.gov

misty.crockett@house.ga.gov

edward.lindsey@house.ga.gov

Debbie.lynn@house.ga.gov

donna.sheldon@house.ga.gov

lynda.nations@house.ga.gov

jeff.may@house.ga.gov

bill.hembree@house.ga.gov

donna.woodham@house.ga.gov

Hopefully, this makes it easy for you to voice your support with a quick copy and paste or two.

Foursquare Introduces New Tools for Business. This is a more in-depth article on the new Foursquare dashboard.   Think Google Analytics for Foursquare data related to my business.

Target Stores to Bring Mobile Coupons Mainstream.

Andreessen Horowitz-backed Burbn bets location is more than a check-in.

Facebook to launch one of its many geolocation projects next month.

SXSWi: Let the geolocation games begin.

OK, I admit I’ve been slack during the last month about my blog posts.   So, to get things jump started, I thought I would at least share links to recent articles I’ve found interesting.   I’m a bit obsessed with location-based services lately and believe that early adopter retail and restaurant companies will be able to leverage these to competitive advantage.

Are You a Foodspotter Yet? Foodspotting is a new application that helps you find good food.

Location Privacy Goes to Washington. Do we have a right to control what location-based advertisers do with our info once they have it? Do we have a right to ensure that law enforcement and government agencies don’t abuse our easily obtained mobile data streams? Are our children safe? What does social science research say about all these changes?

CauseWorld’s Checkin For Charity Gets More Citi Money. CauseWorld’s Checkin for Charity is a mobile app that lets users check in to retail shops for credits that can be donated to charity.

Blippy.com.  Sharing What You’re Buying. Blippy.com is a social networking site that encourages people to see and discuss what their friends and others are buying on services such as iTunes, Netflix, eBay, Amazon, and more.

Gowalla Follows Foursquare’s Lead with Real-Life Incentives. The first content integration will focus on the new series, Food Wars, a new Travel Channel offering where blindfolded participants choose sides to determine “Who Makes The Best Dish In Town.”

Foursquare Confirms Restaurant Dashboard Alpha Testing. 30 hand-picked restaurants are alpha-testing, “an analytics dashboard for Foursquare, where [restaurant] owners can pay to create custom offers and badges.”

Photo by:  dpstyles

Congrats to Jerry Bell and the crew at Atlanta’s ZeeWise on the release of CARS Premier Edition.  

From the release:  ”CARS Premier Edition (CARS PE) is a Web-based software tool designed for use with Intuit Inc.’s QuickBooks® to provide franchisors with insight into their franchisees, or “Zees”, financial and operational performance.

ZeeWise is an Atlanta-based technology company providing innovative business intelligence solutions to franchise organizations.