Here’s what we did.

I got the team together, including our designer who is a shared resource for other parts of the organization. Each person got a stack of index cards in a particular color (mine are pink, how fitting:). We spent 5 minutes writing down all of the projects we are each working on and then we organized them on a tackboard by person. Once that was done, we started running down the list person by person and prioritizing the work. Quickly, we recognized the benefit of doing this as a priority for our designer was not on his list because he was waiting for info from another team member. A new index card was added to the designer’s list and he now had his top priority for the week. We worked together to identify what is hot fiyah and what is not and gained alignment on the priorities for the week.

In the world of Scrum, it’s the Scrum Leader’s job to ensure there are no roadblocks and to minimize distractions. Sounds like a good job for me. The new process will give my CEO full visibility into everything we are working on and he will need to work with me to reprioritize or add/change requirements (I’m on to you, Dave). We spent about 45 minutes going through each project to make sure everyone understood the requirements and then we prioritized and aligned priorities across the team given high interdependence on other resources to get stuff done.

Another benefit – you quickly see who is over tasked and who has capacity. Our brandy new intern had just two things on his list. (Poor kid started on Friday!) Man, that changed fast. We were able to reprioritize projects on other team members’ lists and give those to the intern, thus freeing up other resources to complete the higher priority projects.

So, overall, a great start to Day 1.

Time spent scrumming: 60 minutes

Projects prioritized: 35

Number of index cards used: 64

Number of lives saved by having a process that creates organization and priority: 5

Stay tuned as I’ll give you an update next week to see what else we’ve uncovered as efficiencies and how we are using Scrum to make our team more effective. Are you using a Scrum process in your Marketing department? Would love to hear your experience!

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I put babes in videos and babes in a trade show booth and I don’t regret it for one minute.

Great, now we’ve got that over with, let me explain.

There are times in the life of a brand where you’ve gotta get scrappy. You know – no budget, no one knows who the heck you are, you have to spell your company’s name s l o w l y and fight the uphill battle of spending on brand awareness versus spending on lead gen/conversion. In this scenario, most marketers are willing to do one of two things.

Thing One: Wait it out. Use the traditional means of marketing, advertising, PR and whatever other tools they have in that fancy bag of tricks. Then, cross their fingers that the marketing programs will eventually work and people will start to know the brand and buy something.

Thing Two: Take a risk. This is where I add the “don’t try this at home” disclaimer as this isn’t for everyone. Taking a risk is just that – a calculated bet that the aggressive programs you run will leapfrog the wait it out approach. It does not always happen this way. In my case it did and here’s why.

The risk I took was to feature beautiful women in a variety of settings for a marketing campaign before we launched our product. I took the Take A Risk approach, if you didn’t catch that. My friends and marketing cohorts said, “How can you exploit women like that? You’re a chick?!” But, I am a Marketing Chick and maniacally focused on programs that will grow our business. And sometimes you need to pull out all the stops to make it happen. My company was in a cluttered space – big big companies with deep deep pockets all around us gobbling up every eyeball I so desperately tried to capture. I couldn’t buy enough advertising to tell our story or enough paid programs to make a difference. Our target audience was male and, let’s face it, guys like hot chicks. Hey, even I appreciate hot chicks. I thought that because our brand was different than all the other muckety mucks with the deep pockets, we should do something they would never do – use hot chicks to promote our brand. Different.

The critics might say, what does some randomly cast hot chick know about your product? The answer: nothing. But that’s not the point. I recently read an article by Christine Crandell about the ROI of booth babes and it spurred me to write this post. I agree with Christine’s position that dressing your product in a french maid’s outfit and sending it off to ‘sell’ is rather outrageous and, in my opinion, tasteless and a waste of marketing dollars. But, I do think that there’s a time and place for some brand sauce – you know a way to shake things up a bit, give the potential buyer something unexpected and do it in a tasteful way. The ‘butt-shaker’ videos, as they have been coined, did exactly what I needed them to do. They created a buzz. They created an aspiration for our potential customer (99.9% male) to achieve. They explained the product in a simple way and with a clever, unexpected hook. They caused a bit of a commotion that resulted in over a half a million views on You Tube for just one of the videos in the series. They were conceived with a strategy, a pithy pitch, a catchy hook, a top-notch video production crew and stellar execution. The result was a home run in breaking through the clutter and appealing to our audience. The video series increased leads, brand name recognition and credibility – believe it or not, customers loved that we were willing to do something different.

Now, the booth babes. So, we go to Vegas and it’s our ‘break-out’ show. I put two lovely girls – twins in fact – in jeans and a custom-made tank top. No boobs hanging out. No glitter bikinis. Fun yet tasteful. They knew enough about the product to attract peoples’ attention and did an excellent job mingling with our booth traffic.

Would I do it again then: yes.

Would I do it now: no.

Why? It played a very particular role for a particular time in our brand’s evolution. I go to these shows every few months and see the same companies with the same shtick. Booth babes and give aways and I think…really? Is that all you’ve got?

Part of being a good marketer is transforming your brand little by little. Innovating. Creating. Differentiating. The same old same old is too predictable. People like being surprised and delighted. I believe that brands and babes can live together in harmony if, and only if, they serve a very specific purpose. I also believe that it gets played out fast, so if that’s all you’ve got in your bag of tricks, you better stop at the trick store for some new ideas.

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I remembered meeting Leah Busque, founder of RunMyErrands, a while back at a TweetUp and went their website, which is now TaskRabbit. So, I tweeted for some recommendations on cheap, good errand-running services because I hadn’t used one before. Several people recommended TaskRabbit so I decided to give it a whirl. TaskRabbit’s website was super easy to use and worked great from my iPhone (there was an app for that but the web interface was so easy I didn’t realize it till after!) Simply put in the task, name your price and off you go. My task was published to the TaskRabbit runners and within about 5 minutes, Joe was ready to fulfill my task and named a price lower than my price ceiling, which was great. He sent me an email, I gave him the details and 45 minutes later, my task was done. The best $22 I ever spent!

Come to find out the runners have all been background-checked by TaskRabbit and will do pretty much everything from mow your lawn to pack your house to pick up a dog and deliver it to you (true story). Until I have my own little guy in a grey suit, TaskRabbit will fit the bill. Highly recommend.

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I spent most of my career in the financial services industry. Back in the day, when I was working at one of the “big guys”, we were truly innovative. New products, new technologies, first to market on many fronts but then something changed. The big guys got big and when you get big, you get hung up in meetings, politics, reorgs, red tape, managing up, reforcasting budgets and, voila, all the big innovation gets pushed aside for making the numbers and keeping the beast steady as she goes.

When I took the leap into the land of startups I never imagined a financial services vertical for startups. I wondered what there was to innovate in a place so layered in compliance, risk, security and privacy hangups? Well, first I discovered Currensee, and was charmed and delighted by the innovation and technology in the space. Then, most recently, I came across Finovate.

For those of you who know TechCruch50 or DEMO, Finovate is the financial services equivalent. A Spring and Fall yearly event (NYC, Sept 29) that “showcases the best new financial and banking technology innovations from established leading companies and hot young startups.” The Finovate judges hand-pick the companies that get their 7 minutes of fame on stage to show (live demos only, no slideware) their latest and greatest to an audience filled with VCs, big financial services companies looking for ideas and other startups watching the competition.

After checking out several of the companies, I was pretty impressed. I loved Smarty Pig – simple, smart savings plans and accounts you can create with your family and friends. And, BrightScope – transparent information and ratings for your 401k plan. Then there’s my favorite, Bill Shrink – where Dave in Witchita found a cell phone provider that will save him $500 a year. Now, that’s smart.

The best news in reviewing all the Finovate finalists is that they are all in the same business – making life simpler and better. That’s where the big guys often miss the boat. When you connect to the real goal of the average investor it is, quite simply, to have a damn, good life. I am loving the fact that financial services startups are connecting to this reality, cooking up unique products and services and serving up a solid dose of innovation. We’re happy to share the financial services startup space with these exciting companies and putting Finovate on our horizon for 2010.

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I remember my 9-to-5, big company, go in, go to a bunch of meetings, go home days. Sure, the pay, the benefits, the hours, the resources, the budget – all great. But, what was the joy in telling people I was employee #80, 685? Well, that is just kind of depressing and, if you look at it that way, how much of an impact can employee #80, 685 really make?

Now, let’s talk about being employee #10. That’s a number with a story.

What does it mean to be the 10th employee at a start-up? Well, I can tell you this – there are a whole bunch of things you love and a whole host of other things that you wish you had the budget, the people or the time to do. For example, at Currensee, I have the opportunity to build our community from the ground-floor. Doesn’t get much more exciting than that. At the same time, I’ll be helping out with a search for new office space, scripting a product tour and spending a good deal of time getting to know the website FAQs. Glamorous? Not so much but it must be done. Then there’s the stuff that employee #80,685 would probably never have to worry about – things like installing print drivers, walking to Staples for office supplies, filling out FedEx forms and all that other administrivia. Long past are the days when I had someone to do those things for me. Luckily, I grew up as an admin and can organize my schedule and make a damn good cup of coffee.

People ask me, “A start-up – isn’t that a ton of work? Don’t you work till, like, midnight every night? Why do you do it?” My answers are, yes, no-not every night and well, it’s now in my blood. As employee #11 at matchmine (R.I.P.) and as employee #10 at Currensee, I don’t think I could go back to being employee #80, 685. There’s something to be said for being a part of something from the beginning. Sure, you work your tail off and, let’s face it, they don’t always hit the jackpot. But, if you have a burning passion in your soul to make a difference and build something from nothing, there is no better place to be than in a start-up.

So, what are your start-up stories? And, if you are employee #80,685, how are you making a difference in your company?

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