Let that sink in. After you’ve made it through several rounds of interviews (half of them evaluating your resume, the other half evaluating your cultural fit), they offer $2,000 to give you one last chance to jump ship. They’ll even pay the full salary of the five week training period if you quit before it ends.

The people who work at Zappos WANT to be there. The Zappos you see is the genuine Zappos.

Tony Hsieh, founder and CEO of Zappos, is more comfortable talking “culture” than “social media” (he doesn’t even like the term “social media”). In the online marketing world, we love Zappos because it’s a social media darling – one of a handful of firms to run a blockbuster social campaign. We look at them for clues on how to run our own successful campaigns. In fact, that’s the primary reason I attended the DMNews Marketer of the Month interview with Tony this past Monday.

But Tony wasn’t there to share his social media marketing wisdom. He didn’t specifically point to the answer and say, “This is why Zappos is able Tweet effectively…” but he gave us a big clue.

The clue is culture.

Tony’s top three priorities for the company are:
1. Culture
2. Customer Service
3. Clothing

The product, or “what it does,” is third on the list. Can you say that about your company? Should everyone be able to say that about their companies? Is it a good business model? Is it a better business model?
It’s a model that works well for social marketing.

I feel like it’s becoming cliché to say it, but social media isn’t what you do, it’s who you are. Your company is a profile in the online world. Nobody wants to be friends with a company. Nobody wants to be a fan of a company. People gravitate to personality. They want to associate themselves with people and things on the internet that reflect their own values.

You can have that kind of relationship with Zappos. The clue is culture. That might not be the explanation for every successful social media campaign, but it sure works for Zappos.

What has been the reaction? People love it. They eat it up. Zappos.com has some of the most avid corporate groupies in the social media space. So I paid close attention when Tony Hsieh, founder and CEO of Zappos, was recently asked the question, “Other than Twitter, what are you currently doing from a social media perspective?”

His answer sounded disappointed, almost offended. “I don’t like the term ‘social media.’” To Tony, his company’s Twitter account is a reflection of the company culture. He never had to force it. He didn’t consider the ROI and pronounce the program “worthy of investment.” It was just something that made sense. Zappos was the type of company that had a Twitter-type relationship with its customers.

This point received further clarification in his response to the follow up question about company guidelines and policies around Twitter.

“Be real. Use your best judgment.”

Tony doesn’t try to mandate some form of corporate PR quality control, he just lets the employees be themselves. He hires the right people for his company and he lets them be themselves.

How novel.

And how frightening.

But if we’re going to keep moving forward as marketers in the present age, we’re going to have to learn to be comfortable around novel things. And we’re going to have to get used to being frightened.

At least we can take solace in the fact that our most valuable social tool (and Tony agrees with this 100%) is still the good, old-fashioned telephone.

All I have to say, is … it was worth it.

FaceTime is pretty amazing, yes you have to be on an active WiFi connection, but do it once and suddenly you don’t mind restrictions. I keep hearing complaints regarding service interruption based on the way you hold the phone (which to me is sort of like saying “it hurts when I do this”… Well? DON’T DO THAT!). Sheesh people. Steve Jobs is smart and controls many things, but he cannot control the way you hold your phone, caveman.

The clear screen is a huge improvement over the previous models. It reminds me of the day I first saw HD TV. Some of you kids don’t remember analog sets, but what an improvement it was. There are many cool features, but I’ve yet to discover them all. You know, I have to make up for the work time I missed while standing in line in the Texas heat with a bunch of high school kids who were out for the summer.

Thanks to all the friends who brought Doritos and sat with us and kept us company.

It was a great experience.

Now, if I could only figure out how to turn this thing on …

So, it was with interest that I read this article by AP writer Martha Irvine about the youngest up-and-coming generation. Referred to as Generation Z or the “Homelanders” by various researchers, this is a group of kids who fully understand the technology we are only beginning to embrace, are free thinking by nature, and are taking Gen Y’s traits to a whole new level of multi-tasking and acceptance. These kids were raised with an African American president in office, are hearing their parents discuss environmental issues and watching them recycle (at least at our house) and would never… Not ever… Watch a commercial during Dora. (That’s what DVRs are for, and they know no different.)

Now, I’ll need to update this post at some point, because, I’m sorry but “Generation Z” or “The Homelanders” just do not do it for me. We are talking about the most highly technology-evolved generation in history and a group that has full expectations of having their “15 minutes of fame.” There has to be a more compelling moniker, and I’m on a mission to find it.

This isn’t to say that luxury didn’t go through a bit of a rough time, just look at the financial statements for Saks, Neimans, LVMH, or many other luxury brands of the past year, but not one of those companies died nor did they go back and completely reinvent the wheel. Instead, luxury did exactly what every good brand does when times change: they adapted. They cut back on excess inventory, they refined their product offering to focus on items core to their brand and they continued to focus on the customer. Not every brand was as successful as others, but in just the past month, Hermes reported an 8.5% rise in sales year over year (09 v. 08), Burberry share prices have increased faster than any member of the 13-member Bloomberg European Fashion Index (up 29% in the past 6 months) and even Saks, who many thought was on its deathbed, trimmed its 4th quarter losses and is planning to “go on the offensive” in 2010.

I’m not saying that everything is fine and dandy – we still have a lot of progress we need to make before we fully pull out of this recession – but if I start to see the same analysts releasing “Nothing Can Stop Luxury Growth!” articles, I will be forced to treat them the same way I treat Glenn Beck (which something like a cross between completely ignoring him and a running a full out campaign against his entire existence).

I have an affinity for technology and gadgets. When I was hired at Range in 2005, there was a technology shift occurring. The entire office was transitioning from desktops to laptops. Everyone was placing their old CRT monitors on the floor next to their desks. I was given a desktop PC. When I saw all those beautiful 17-inch CRT monitors on the floor, my mission became clear: grab 3 of them and hook them up to my PC! (Note: My desk was not big enough for 4 CRT’s. So that’s why I stopped at 3.)

At the time, my job centered on time-consuming reporting, tagging and copywriting. Switching back and forth between Excel and IE6 was not the most efficient method of updating a product feed. A triple monitor setup would make my life so much easier, so I did what no one else had done. I went eBay and bought 2 video cards that would allow me to have 3 monitors. (Note: Due to the basic quality of my fantastic eMachines computer, I had to get 2 graphics cards to make this work.)

3 CRT Monitors attached to a desktop PC (not my actual setup)

The video cards arrived a few days later, and I was all set for multiple monitor nirvana. It was an exciting time indeed. People in the office would walk by my room and say, “Hey, who is the new guy with the monitors?” or “Hey NASA, got enough monitors?” But I knew deep down that I was onto something, and a couple of months later I read a newspaper article that detailed the rise in productivity that occurs from adding another monitor. I felt vindicated because there were business managers who had outfitted their entire offices with dual monitor setups, and they sang the praises of productivity increases.

About a year later, one of my coworkers asked me if it was possible to hook up another monitor to his laptop. “Why, of course it is,” I replied. Over the next 2 years or so, all of my colleagues switched to a dual monitor setup. And our company practically doubled in size. Clients were amazed by our work and productivity. And in 2008, Range Online Media was acquired by iProspect. I’m not going to take credit for all of that, but it is clear that my affinity for multiple monitors played a role in our company’s growth and success. Right? :)

3 Monitors Hooked Up to My Laptop via the Matrox TripleHead2Go

Today, I have a laptop computer with 3 external monitors. In order to accomplish this feat of technological wonder, I had to purchase a piece of hardware called the Matrox TripleHead2Go (link). Using this device, I can output my laptop’s display to 3 external monitors. Effectively, I have 4 displays for one laptop. I use the laptop screen for email. One monitor is for Microsoft Excel. One monitor is for the interwebs. And one monitor is for IM, twitter clients, etc… It really is a fantastic setup!

Even though this is an awesome setup, there is another frontier of multiple monitor greatness. I think it is the next frontier for us. Allow me to introduce you to the idea of rotating your widescreen monitors:

This is amazing. 4 monitors: vertical, side-by-side.

These 4 widescreen monitors have been rotated 90 degrees. Isn’t that awesome?!?! I love it. I am jealous of this setup. Why? Well, I’m glad I asked.

Most website widths are not set to utilize the full width of our widescreen monitors. Most websites have a width of 960px or less, but the widescreen monitors display a width of 1400px. Coders, graphics designers and other people who stare at monitors all day long have found that rotating your monitors allows them to see more of the code, graphics or website page. By doing this, you can see more of the page below the fold. If you are reading code or reading a website, you should think about rotating your monitors. It’s amazing. You don’t have to scroll as often. Will scrolling become obsolete? I don’t think so.

Now, even if you think this is really cool, you must consider that most monitors are not set up to rotate. There are monitors that are built to rotate. They are expensive. And you also have to take into account the capabilities of your graphics card. It’s likely that your laptop does not allow you to rotate the image on your secondary monitor.

However, if you find this idea really cool and your laptop enables you to rotate the image of your external monitors, you have reason to rejoice. But then you are brought back down to earth when you realize that purchasing a stand for this type of setup can cost a few hundred dollars. My advice: save up, pay cash and get those monitors and the stand. It’ll be worth it. Good luck!

Each day, the iPhone app features a new designer style, available for purchase for 24 hours exclusively through the app or in Bergdorf’s New York City store. The app is free, and for every download through March 31, Bergdorf Goodman will donate $5 to City Harvest. The app is user-friendly with a quick and easy checkout process.

See the app here.

The Shoe Salon - an iPhone App from Bergdorf Goodman

If you have not heard about Social Search, it is a product that GoogleLabs launched back in Oct-2009. For the past few months, you have had the opportunity to opt in to Social Search. If you have not opted in, oh well. It does not really matter because in a few days Google will begin displaying Social Search results for anyone who is logged into the Google account while they are performing searches on Google. How about that?!

But what exactly is Social Search?

As the internet has grown, our level of connectedness has grown, and today there is an unprecedented number of social networking sites. You probably have an account on a few of them. Personally, I love Facebook and Twitter. It’s just so fun to get real-time updates about my friends, family and colleagues. With social search, we will be able to see results from your social circle in the Google SERPs. That’s where this is heading.

Based on links and content from your Google profile, Google will be able to determine your social circle. And from that social circle, Google will find content to display in a section of the search results. In order to see social search results, follow these tips from Google:

You can create a rich social circle and start seeing social search results by following a few simple steps:

• Add new people to your social circle by adding them to the “Friends”, “Family” or “Coworkers” group in your Google contacts
• Create a Google profile and add links to services where your friends create content
• If you would like to see more content from your Google contacts, encourage them to create a Google profile and add links to their content there

You can find out more about the content for Social Search here. For now, check out this video from Google:

So there you have it: Google Social Search. What do you think about Social Search?

Ugg Boots for the 32-year-old woman?

It’s bad enough that I know I’m 32, but now you know too and are just throwing it in my face! All in the name of some sort of commerce?! Tacky.

I’m wondering if you can explain how my being 32 connects me to your product? I would think the fact that I’m 32 would automatically remove me from your horribly built list. I’m soooo over you. I thought you were kind of cool 8 years ago, but times have changed. I’ve moved on. My daughter likes you now; somehow, you don’t make her feet feel claustrophobic and sweaty like you do mine. Also, I’m a strong believer that moms’ and daughters’ fashion should not overlap, which means you’re now going against the grain of my good upbringing.

And let’s not forget your terrible use of a call to action. I saw this exact same offer yesterday and the day before that. Perhaps you live in an alternate universe where time means completely different things, but here on earth, within the hallowed halls of Facebook, 3 minutes means exactly 180 seconds. Otherwise, I’d still be 19 years old, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation!

I won’t belabor this, but simply put, your advertising has elicited the opposite reaction of what it intends. Targeting done right is great. This, done poorly to the point of pathetic, is counterproductive at best and offensive at worst.

Here is a sampling of the results:

Sprint Navigation for the BlackBerry Pearl 8130

I was desperate, so I decided to scroll through the results. Not one of the results on the page is for Sprint’s standard GPS navigation software, but it got me thinking of some of the ways that good search experiences have completely spoiled me:

• I constantly look for search kiosks in grocery stores.
• I get mad when I do a local search and it doesn’t bring up a OneBox result.
• I refuse to click next page if I don’t find what I want.
• I only type in a few letters to most search boxes and anxiously wait for suggestions.
• The first thing I look for on a complex page is a search box.
• I suffer anxiety at the thought of having to browse through a directory.
• I have become very, very bad at finding anything in the Yellow Pages.

I’m a little extreme, but I’m also part of a very valuable segment online for all kinds of businesses. There are a lot of us, and there is a lot of bad search. As a retailer, I’d want to know exactly how that segment felt about the experience I was providing, and optimize it as effectively as I could.

How much money do you think Sprint loses to bad search?

(I know, I know. Buy an iPhone. On it.)