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It’s the most wonderful time of the year…for the media to publish a million holiday tech gift guides.  There are no surprises when it comes to the big tech gifts this year, which consist mostly of smart phones, tablets and digital cameras.  However, you’re probably not planning on buying those gadgets for most of the people on your checklist.  Below is a list of our favorite tech accessories that would make great gifts for your friends, family and coworkers, ranging in price from $0 to $100:

1. DIY Charging Station

Steal:  Free

Strapped for cash this holiday season?  Instead of buying a holiday gadget as a gift, you can make one!  Follow this tutorial to convert pre-made boxes into a giftable padded charging station.

 

2.  Belkin Conserve Socket Energy-Saving Outlet

Steal:  $10

This earth-friendly gift is perfect for your “green” friends, concerned with conversing energy consumption.  The socket has an easy on-off switch and a programmable timer so you can run your coffee maker, TV, or curling iron for a specified amount of time.

 

3.  Joby GorillaPod Micro

Steal:  $20

The Joby GorillaPod Micro is for the photographer on the go.  Small and portable, the tripod helps you steady your digital camera at the perfect angle, no matter what the environment.  It screws into a point-and-shoot camera’s tripod mount and props the camera on a flat surface for shake-free shooting.

 

4.  J5 Create Wormhole KM Switch

Spend:  $30

Featured on the “Inc. 2011 Holiday Gift Guide: Editor’s Picks”, this gadget allows you to share files and interact between two devices, including computers, tablets and smartphones.  The USB cable even allows you to control the two devices with the same keyboard and mouse.

 

5.  Marmot Connect Gloves

Spend:  $30

Have tech-obsessed friends who hate the cold?  Marmot Connect gloves protects your hands from the cold while interacting with touch screen devices.  The gloves are designed specifically to work with smartphones and tablets without taking them off.

 

6.  Roku Internet TV Players

Splurge:  $50

According to Time Techland’s “Tech Buyers’ Guide 2011”, Roku’s Internet streaming-video players are among the best boxes you can hook up to your HDTV.  They are easy to set up and provide a wide selection of content, from Netflix, to Hulu, Amazon and HBO GO.

 

7.  Griffin Beacon Universal Remote

Splurge:  $70

Home entertainment systems have evolved immensely over the past few years, while TV remotes have remained annoying pieces of plastic.  Griffin’s Beacon, the remote of the 21^st century, lets you use your smartphone as a net-connected touch screen universal remote, making it easier to find the programs you want to watch.

 

8.  Fitbit Ultra

Splurge:  $100

There are a variety of tech gadgets available for a fitness fanatic, but the Fitbit Ultra provides the most useful features.  Not only can the device track hours slept, meals eaten, activities completed and calories burned throughout the day, it can also wirelessly transmit that data to a computer, making it much more convenient to use.  After clipping the flash drive-sized device to your waistband or sleeve, you can log into the Fitbit website to see a breakdown of your activity.

 

“A picture is worth a thousand words” is absolutely true, especially in marketing. Visuals provide impact much more quickly than text, and smart Photoshop editing can go a long way to increase effect.

In our example, we have a photograph of a man in a captain’s uniform. The picture is taken on an overcast day on land, which doesn’t lend much in the way of meaning. By adding a blue sky, a view of the ocean and a small glimpse of boat railings, the image is given a new life. Not only are colors more vibrant, but context is provided that didn’t previously exist.

Whether it’s something as complex as changing a background, or something as simple as color enhancement and detail cleanup, using Photoshop to enhance your images can add both new meaning and professionalism to your campaign.

We’ve all seen it. The dead Facebook page. An inactive Twitter account. An attempt at B2B social media marketing gone wrong.

With 81 percent of B2B companies maintaining company-related profiles on social networks (source: Business.com’s 2009 Business Social Media Benchmarking Study), it’s clear that social media is no longer uncharted territory for B2B marketers. So why is it that so many make the leap into new media without the strategy to back it up?

It’s critical to have a larger strategy to guide social media tactics or you may quickly find that you never see a return on the time you invest (unless you just need an excuse to learn how to tweet).

For a company with a miniscule marketing budget and not enough staff to carry out a full-fledged new media campaign, developing a strategy before creating your Twitter or Facebook may seem daunting. John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing developed a social media hierarchy for businesses to follow as they deploy social media tactics. Here are some of the highlights:

• Blogs: Blogging should be the foundation of your social media strategy. Keep up with relevant blogs, stay in-the-know about hot issues and develop content that inspires real engagement.
• Social Search: A social search provides a more personal experience for consumers than traditional advertising. Make use of social search engines such as Yelp to increase and manage your reputation online.
• Facebook: Once you have the content and digital reputation nailed down, take advantage of the potential business prospects on Facebook. Create a dialogue with the surrounding community and keep them coming back to your page with fresh content and ideas. After all, nothing is more disappointing to consumers than a dead Facebook page.
• Twitter: The ultimate tool in the social media marketing mix, Twitter allows for quick tracking and engagement. However, Twitter is at the top of the hierarchy because without the groundwork laid by blogging, social search techniques and Facebook, you may quickly run out of new and appealing tweets.

If social media strategic plans are thoughtfully developed, B2B companies have the potential to build the kind of lasting relationships they want with their clients, jump-starting word-of-mouth and increasing brand loyalty. If you jump on the social media bandwagon without a sound strategy to back it up, you’ll end up with a Twitter account but nothing to tweet, or a Facebook page that no one “likes.” Nobody likes that.

 

You know the story. Toss a frog into a pot of boiling water, and he’ll jump right out. But put him in a pot of cold water and turn on the heat. He’ll sit in the slowly warming bath until it’s bubbling merrily and all hope of jumping out has truly boiled away.

We’ve been hit with the “ubiquitous convergence” line for the last ten years. While it lost a little ground during the dotcom bust, it never really went away. Ask ten different people what it means and you’ll get ten different answers. Seems like it will never happen. Yet here’s the funny thing. Right now I can type this blog post, adjust the volume and select the music source in the room I am in as well as in any other room in my house, change the thermostat setting, check my email – all via different applications on the same appliance, which is the one I travel with, navigate with in my airplane, and use for presentations upon arrival. Oh, and at more and more retailers every day, I can even check out (or “queue bust”) on the same type of device.

All of a sudden, the waters of convergence are boiling and we’re all in the pot together and like the frog there will be a few unsuspecting casualties. I was an early adopter of a Flip video camera, and enjoyed the cool editing and posting application, Flipshare, that came with the camera. But the iPhone 4 that I currently have includes a video camera just as good and as easy to use. Clearly I’m not the only one with these behavior patterns as Cisco announced their flip of Flip just yesterday, a victim of convergence. And speaking of smartphones – smartphone operating systems, something nobody cared about even two years ago, all of a sudden have gained a huge relevance. Android or iOS? What near-field communication protocol will prevail? Is this convergence device-independent or device centric?

For Koroberi, assessing the impact of convergence on business-to-business marketing is hugely important. On the opportunity side we have clients developing and rolling out products and applications on the leading edge of converged technologies. On the challenge side we need to stay on top of where decision-makers are getting their information, and what and where our messaging needs to be for greatest impact. Is that website that just went live optimized for mobile? Are the social media links in the right place? Where does the QR tag link to?

The upside of all this simmering convergence? We get to play with the latest cool toys. The downside? It’s awfully hot in here. But as they say, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Now, try telling that to the frog….

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Over the past decade or so, we have witnessed more and more of our clients bemoaning the commoditization of their business – their complex goods and professional services reduced from highly nuanced, value-added client relationships  to little more than upfront cost and concessions presented to purchasing professionals who were buying toilet paper yesterday and will be buying office chairs tomorrow. Between, of course, “purchasing” accounting software and building controls. We offered wise words and a shoulder to cry on, but little else other than observing as this trend expanded from major global entities to solid proliferation at even medium sized national companies. Well, newsflash. It has not stopped there. In a recent article, it has been observed that purchasing of even mainstream professions, such as IT, advertising, legal services, accounting and PR, are now going under the purchasing professionals bailiwick.

“But we really can’t be categorized so easily,” you say. “We are all about industry knowledge and experience. We provide a complex service, purchasing would never understand what we do. No one has our industry contacts. We’re specialists. We just don’t fit an RFP mold….”

Well, think again. In fact, entire procurement professional meetings, retreats, seminars and even trade shows are being devoted to the purchase of professional services. Spend any time at all with procurement professionals, and you will soon realize that professional services are seen as a gold mine – full of opportunity to control cost and quality while at the same time full of risk of the unknown and the unfamiliar. Fellow professionals, welcome to the supply chain….

So what’s the best tactic for those of us being “requested to propose” provision of our services to a large corporation via their purchasing group? It’s actually quite simple.

Start with a rate card, and keep it current. Ensure that your list of services is comprehensive and up-to-date. If you are a private company, make sure you have current financial statements, or other acceptable evidence of financial stability. Don’t worry about the nuance, because it doesn’t matter. Sure, you’ll need to foster a relationship with the ultimate user of your services, but the important thing during procurement is to meet all the purchasing criteria. Stop presenting as an attorney and present as a roll of toilet paper, the most functional, cost-effective toilet paper the purchasing department has ever seen. The fact that corporate counsel has gone apoplectic waiting for purchasing to approve your appointment will make the eventual assignment all the sweeter. Because the funny thing is, they don’t like it any more than you do.

Why is it that all bottles have a neck anyway? The Non Object design group decided to break the rule and design a vodka bottle with out a neck. The result is the Vertikal Vodka in a neckless bottle – with an afterlife as an elegant vase.

Now all they need to do is open a Teleflora-like Vertikal Flower Service and we’re good to go.

How many times has a client balked at a project price or the deliverables associated with a project and wanted to negotiate? You presented good solid pricing that represented the scope of the job well, and they just didn’t accept it. Do you stand firm or lower the price to get the work? It is always a challenge when dealing with clients who always haggle. Sometimes you just shake your head and wonder if they act that way in real life situations.