Oh yeah, crayon got acquired...

It's probably testiment only good things, but I've been too busy to focus on the acquisition/roll-up announcement since the day it happened.

I still haven't gotten around to telling about 90% of the people I'd like to tell...including family members! I've had to fend off several friends and family members who snarled the following words: "...this I had to find out from a BLOG???!!!!!!!"

Shortly after everything got announced, all of Powered's NEW executive team from crayon, Drillteam, StepChange and of course Powered, were locked into planning sessions which spanned Monday and Tuesday.

News coverage was pretty encouraging. We pretty much got coverage from every major marketing/media outlet (thank you Agency Spy for this rotten photo of me at CES last year 50 pounds heavier and clearly inebriated), with the exception of Ad Age (I live in hope...) We also got a mention in the New York Times. Twitter coverage (as you can imagine) was extensive. On a personal note (and as someone who once launched a company called crayon), I found that there was considerably less hype from the fishbowl this time round. Normally you'll see these kinds of blog posts with pages upon pages of "congrats" from social media cronies in blind support. This time it appears that people really get how significant this move may prove to be....and so there was either genuine encouragement or badly veiled bitterness.

Either way, it's all good.

We did however get time to do an episode of Jaffe Juice - the New Marketing Podcast and you can listen to the raw MP3 here or the slightly branded one here (as in with JJ bumpers).

It's quite a unique opportunity to hear from the principals of all 3 companies, including crayonista Greg Verdino, Powered CMO Aaron Strout AND even an ex-crayonista and current social media marketer muckety-muck, Scott Monty...so give it a listen if you'd like to hear more about the acquisition, motivations for selling, vision we're buying into and thoughts about whether the industry needs a social media agency (hint: yes)

We also launched a white paper with consolidated predictions from the principals of the 4 companies. I think this speaks to the diversity of the individual offerings as specific pieces of what would be considered to be a holistic/end-to-end social media solution/service. The predictions are:

1. Social Media Gets Down to Business by GREG VERDINO, VP Strategy and Solutions
2. Mobile Becomes the First Screen by JOSEPH JAFFE, Chief Interruptor Powered, Inc.
3. Real-Time Converges with Geolocation by JEN van der MEER, Principal Drillteam, A Powered Company
4. Facebook Connect by AARON STROUT, Chief Marketing Officer Powered, Inc.
5. Local Goes Loco by KEVIN TATE, Principal StepChange, A Powered Company
6. Branded Online Communities by AARON STROUT, Chief Marketing Officer Powered, Inc.
7. Facebook Turns Inside-Out by KEVIN TATE, Principal StepChange, A Powered Company
8. Marketing to the Pack by JEN van der MEER, Principal Drillteam, A Powered Company
9. Rise of Customer Service as THE Strategic Differentiator by JOSEPH JAFFE, Chief Interruptor Powered, Inc.

You can download the entire document for free right here.

I then headed to Fort Worth to present to the amazing folks at Southwest Airlines. I met Christi Day who runs their Twitter account, @southwestair. In fact, just that day, they announced 1 million followers, which is a pretty significant number in terms of being able to acknowledge, dialogue, incent and activate on a daily basis (hint: Flip the Funnel) I also met their CMO and CEO.

Southwest - through Herb Kelleher - is definitely one of the brands which has helped guide, mould and inspire me to be a better marketer.

I then moved on to Miami and got to present to another great brand, that conjures up incredible memories of growing up in South Africa. More on that soon...

And now I'm back for a few days, but gearing up to officially launch my new book, "Flip the Funnel" (which you'll notice I *still* have not promoted or mentioned in any standalone capacity) at MarketingSherpa's e-mail conference in Miami.

And the weather will be great, so I'm hoping for 1 hour of beach time (if schedule allows)

Which brings me back to "Flip the Funnel". Schedule allowing, I'm going to write a complete post on the new book this week. It's officially out (as in, in stores) around February 8th, so there's still time to share with you some thoughts, insights and high level vision behind the book. In a nutshell, I've been overwhelmed with how positively this book has been received by/from marketers. It's NOT a social media book, nor a digital book per se....in fact it's a far cry (thankfully) from all the books telling you to get on Twitter and the like. The book takes me back to my marketing roots and if I can get Philip Kotler to tell me he's proud of me, I'll be a happy camper.

So now it's off to upload the latest episodes of Jaffe Juice TV and then get back to my keynote at MarketingSherpa's e-mail conference.

PS Don't forget that I'm auctioning off a keynote presentation with 100% of the proceeds going to Haiti Earthquake relief. Current bidding is at $10,000 and I can tell you that it's still pretty significantly under my rate card. Find more here.