4th & Walnut

How to Spend a Quality Afternoon in Louisville, Kentucky

I spent last weekend in Louisville, Kentucky at the North American Handbuilt Bike Show (NAHBS) – a gathering of folks who are absolutely obsessive about their bicycles and all the parts and pieces that go into making a truly unique ride. In addition to the incredible bikes, oddball accessories, and perfect products being produced by companies like Boyd and Silca, the show has become a bi-annual chance for me and my dad to unplug from our daily worlds, catch up, and remind ourselves about this shared love of bicycles. I flew into Louisville from Chicago on Friday afternoon, my dad drove from Cincinnati, bringing a bike that he built (from tubes) over the winter which I rode along the carpeted halls of the hotel later that evening.

On the way into town from the airport, I noticed that we passed “Thomas Merton Square” and I remembered the story about Thomas Merton – I first read about it in Fr. Greg Boyle’s book “Tattoos on the Heart” – at the the corner of 4th and Walnut in Louisville in 1958, in the middle of March. Merton was trappist monk at nearby Gethsemani abbey, running afternoon errands in the city on a normal day when he was interrupted with a revelation about the nature of the people surrounding him. To paraphrase, without doing justice to the nuance and depth of Merton’s own words, Merton was allowed to see a vision of people that removed much of superficial clutter that acts to divide us and more plainly recognize his unity with others. It must have hit him like a bolt; he wrote about it later in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander with a clarity that allowed it resonate: a profound moment on a simple afternoon that went on to affect a lot of people. Today it’s memorialized with a plaque.

After we spent about five hours at the bike show – remember the bike show? – I took a walk over to 4th and Walnut (now Muhammad Ali Drive) to see if I could find what Merton had encountered at that corner and snap a few photos. I read the plaque and I stood there for three or four minutes trying to find the angle in the surrounding architecture that unlocked the revelation for Merton.

As I walked away, back through Louisville’s revitalized entertainment district, a woman paused and politely asked if I wanted my picture taken against the backdrop of the buildings. She saw the camera in my hand. And, this thought hit me:

Some places are, indeed, special. You can’t drop a nickel on the floor of Sun Studio in Memphis – where Elvis made his first record – and have the clink sound anything but perfect. 4th and Walnut was no different.

And, while these kind of places might sit directly beneath perfectly aligned stars, they don’t get to be truly remarkable without first being imbued with a sense of purpose. That’s what has happened at 4th and Walnut and, also, might happen at an intersection near you. Today, if you stop and reflect at Thomas Merton Square in Louisville you won't only validate Merton’s experience; you'll get to validate the goodwill of countless folks who have stopped to consider an improved existence since.

– Jon Roketenetz

Jon is the CEO of GimmeAnother and founder of 3VERB.

*N.B. I've used the historic reference to "4th and Walnut" rather than the current intersection ("4th and Muhammad Ali Drive") out of respect for Merton's original text, though I acknowledge that Muhammad Ali was the greatest.

Technori Hits a Home Run

It's Good to See Someone Good at their Job

About this time each year, I inevitably start to miss baseball. It’s a function, of course, of the grey snow, the arctic blasts of cold air that whoosh their way through the train when the doors open at Clark/Lake, and the lack of sun. I await the first hint of spring training, though, not only for the reminder of warm weather, but also for the opportunity to see the skill and craft of the game again after six months. A dropped fly ball or two aside, baseball has always offered me the opportunity to see a sincere effort towards developing fine-tuned teamwork and individual dedication toward improved performance. Not always, of course, but a lot of the time.

Our company, GimmeAnother, had the chance to pitch at Technori just over a year ago when we launched our ‘Save to Mobile’ functionality and our iOS app on the same day. For us, it was a nerve-wracking, fun, exciting time and event… and somehow the experience itself felt like it was designed with those emotions and elements in mind. The collection and diversity of start-ups we pitched with that night (including DonorPath, BadgeCert, and AmStatz) helped to create a vibrant dialogue and pace, keep us (and the crowd) on our toes, and fire up good exchange of ideas at our company even the next day.

So, when I learned that Technori Pitch had changed to be theme-based – rather than a simple and crazy collection of interesting start-ups – I was somewhat suspicious of the move. As an interdisciplinary devotee I'm inclined against too much over-specialization and the tendency toward group-think it can sometimes produce. Start-ups, in particular, need – I still believe – to be shaken out of their silos. But, I think what I found with the new theme-based Technori Pitch was, simply, a more coherent and better organized event that still retained the depth, dynamics, and vibrant display of really clever business ideas that I had seen in the past. Given the success of the event, both in press coverage and attendance, over the past few years, this initiative toward an updated format is really pretty commendable as far as I’m concerned. It's easy to not change.

The event looked and felt like a professional team, honing their game, getting better, and feeling confident in the direction. It felt like a satisfying game of baseball without the booziness or disappointment of a ninth inning dropped fly. The keynote at this most recent Technori event (@Properties founder, Thaddeus Wong) provided a really nice, appropriate foundation for the pitches that followed, many of the presenting founders referencing the keynote itself as a legitimate guidepost for the logic and usefulness of their businesses and direction. That alone makes a ton of sense.

There’s something satisfying, of course, in the excitement of a start-up and the initial chaos that ensues. Lots of entrepreneurs are attracted to that. There’s also something to be said for the discipline it takes to step back, reassess, then dig into the hard work necessary to improve an already good product, making it more cohesive and useful. Technori Pitch has done that. It’s a good lesson for me, too.

Do yourself a favor – ignore the theme if it doesn’t match your specific industry or vertical – when the next Technori Pitch rolls around, go for the ideas.

-- Jon Roketenetz

Jon is the CEO of GimmeAnother and founder of 3VERB. He blogs at unclumsy.com

P.S. Technori has good set of their pitch and keynote videos available online. You should check ‘em out.

The Weather at Fruit Hill

New Sincerity Drops The Pretense

44, the excellent new album by the guys and gal in New Sincerity Works, has had it's share of glowing reviews and accolades. A look-no-hands-barred open letter documenting a raft of heartbreak and written big as a billboard, 44 shoves songwriter Mike Tittel out from behind the kit for the first time in a long time.

I won't drag you through a full review – because I don't know how to write one – and because you'd do better to own it and judge for yourself. If you live in Southern Ohio, it's already required listening or been duly banned by your local municipality anyhow.

Here's the true low-down on three important tunes:

1. "I'm Not The Problem" is as good as any problem-based song I've ever run into and that includes a fairly heavy emotional connection to Jackson Browne's "My Problem is You" as well as The Replacement's "My Little Problem," which I've witnessed performed live as a duet between Paul Westerberg and Dan Baird.
That's how good.

2. "As If We Are 24" features lyrics intricate enough I'm still somewhat afraid to unpack it fully. The second guitar on the chorus doesn't sound like Keith Richards, it sounds like Ron Wood.

3. "Less Me, Less You" – the sleeper – drops us in a room filled with "shiny pants" (favorite line: "hey, best friend with the hillbilly dance") but reminds us how easy it is to plug the pinholes of our lives with criticism of others. It's not me, it's you. Wait, I mean it's me, not you.

Mike Tittel, the engineer behind this entire episode, lives on Fruit Hill and spent the first part of his career as a photographer, so you'd not be surprised to learn that the graphic elements shine on the packaging, too. The cover sings. It's the San Francisco you should know, not the one you do. And, the typography sings, as well, though certainly the two 4s should face away from each other. If you buy the record, Tittel promises to lob other visual elements at you via text message.

And he delivers.

In the band's promo poster below, half of the message is absolutely plain to see: The bass player looks like a keyboard player. The drummer insists on wearing a hat indoors. One guitar player won't put down his soda, the other won't tell us what's so funny. Tittel can't even look you in the eye.

The the other half ain't so obvious, though, leaving the curious wanna-be fan with more uncomfortable questions than not. Who is this group? Are they knowable? Do I want to know them? Are the broken aparts alone ever greater than a sadly tethered sum? Can they put down their Kinks covers long enough to make another record?

We'll find out well before 55 if the weather at Fruit Hill holds.

Cue the handclaps right after O'Callaghan's solo. If you haven't heard this album yet, go hear it. Or, go watch the video about the making of the record. Or, go find fifteen songs you never knew you had in you.

– Jon Roketenetz

Jon is the CEO of GimmeAnother, founder of 3VERB, and occasional musician.

Right Image: A Zippo Lighter

Finding the Real Meaning of Utility and Reliability

About a year or so ago I got wise to the toll that constant (often well-meaning) external opinion into my creative world was taking and I set out to reset my bearings with purpose. At the time we were starting to be responsible for more product photography at 3VERB and the studio was set up and ready to go.

My idea was to assemble and shoot a quick collection of daily items that represented my world but, more specifically, also represented a stack of conceptual ideas – reliability, utility, and goodwill – which I hope define my approach at 3VERB. The watch, the notebook, the knife shown in the picture were all easy choices. I rely on each, in some regard, every day and certainly expect each item to be 'on-board' as I walk out the door each morning. They are my 'Every Day Carry.'

More complex, though, was another item I wanted, for sure, in the picture: my grandfather's Zippo. Having given up cigarettes a dozen years ago, I no longer needed access to quick, pocket-able fire. What I needed access to, at that time and now, is the reminder of my grandfather's way, his goodwill, his nature and demeanor. For me, these provide the groundwork for an honest shot at the reliability and utility I'm searching for around the corner of so many marketing and product corners. I needed his name stamped in metal.

The end result, a printed marketing piece, wound up being one of my favorite 3VERB outreach cards, crisp and kinda poignant, and an important reminder that my responsibilities go beyond production. I was proud that it felt sincere and not cynical or ironic. I've included front and back (magnified, clickable) images below.

For the purpose of this blog and my renewed commitment to writing on a regular basis, the title "Right Image" will serve as a searchable tag (at right) and excuse to find (and write about) other images and strong visuals that resonate with me. Look out for more soon.

– Jon Roketenetz

Jon is the CEO of Chicago-based tech innovator GimmeAnother and founder of 3VERB.

Making Sense of The King

The Best Business Book You'll Read All Year

I'm unsure if this is a book review, but I know this much: I'm still thinking about Dave Eggers' book "A Hologram for the King" a full two years after initially reading it. Why? Good question. Part of the reason, I suppose, is that I could hit the old Schwinn bicycle factory – the book focuses on the travails of a failed Schwinn ex-executive – with a brisk slingshot from our home here in Chicago. Another reason is we still do a bit of work at 3VERB for the bicycle industry. But, the last and most important reason is that Eggers has mapped out an awkward intersection of a fleeting domestic manufacturing base, late career instability, and the crush of dreams against the realities of an expensive college tuition and our sense of purpose and dignity in our working lives. That's a lot of ground to cover in one single book. But, this book felt worth it and valuable to me for every minute I spent with it two summers ago.

Here's my thought:

Pressed for time and meaningful information, many business men and women opt for non-fiction books or, more specifically, they opt-out of novels and literature where the real depth of story is often told. In the case of "A Hologram for the King" – and I won't give away the fine details of plot or the unsatisfying arch for the main character – the lessons are about occasionally finding yourself in a desert, trying to sell the next best thing to thin air, and still emerging on the other side, worse for wear, your dreams deferred. That's part of business often, too.

Here's my humble advice:

Set aside the next business guide or 'how-to' book and pick up a novel. Peter Thiel's book is excellent, but it can wait. Instead, take the opportunity to find the true human story inside a quality work of fiction. Let it re-center and inform your thinking about people, the consumers who will buy your products, their dreams and hopes. You might even stumble upon a character or two that looks like you. You might find the reason you are lost or lose the sense that you're all alone. It might be the best business book you read all year.

Have a great holiday season.

– Jon Roketenetz

Jon is the CEO of Chicago-based tech innovator GimmeAnother and founder of 3VERB.

Note: Eggers' book ("A Hologram for the King") was turned into a screenplay, then filmed with Tom Hanks in the lead role; it will be released in late 2015. The photo of Eggers' book (above) is from the publisher, McSweeneys. You can buy the book at their website.

Learning to Write

A Watchmaker's Precision Build Leads to More Questions

In a day and age when lines of code are often the base of new technology, is it still worth understanding how a pure, moving mechanism is supposed to work? I think about that a lot. Watch this video then ask yourself: If you had to un-assemble then re-assemble a simple mechanism, could you?

I've seen billboards in Chicago recently encouraging an "Hour of Code" for kids and adults alike. And, it's a good challenge: try coding, you might be good at it. Where's the challenge, though, to understand the moving pieces of the physical world? What's the construct to understand the interaction between a formed sentence in our brain and the act to affect it in a concrete manner on the page, in a deliberate way?

– Jon Roketenetz

Jon is the CEO of Chicago-based tech innovator GimmeAnother and founder of 3VERB.

I Love Your Product; I'll Never Buy it Again

Retailers Forget Upside of Retention Amid Customer Acquisition Strategies

Our family is the proud owner of a brand-new washing machine. We took a bit of time to choose it and it's a good one, assembled here in the USA, and loaded with a lot of features. Like many of our durable goods purchases, I intend to take care of it and hope to own it for a long time. I suspect our family—a puppy and our 1.5 year old boy, in particular—will give it a run for its money in the next few years.

When the new washing machine arrived at our home, it was packed with new hoses, documentation, and a product called "Affresh," which I hadn't heard of before. The manufacturer recommended the use of Affresh specifically to clean out any grease and oil residue from the manufacturing process. That seemed like a good idea, of course, and as I read the instructions for the product I also noticed that it could help ward off the occasional musty/mildew-ish odor that we'd experienced with our old washing machine. Maybe the rest of the world was already clued into Affresh, but, for me, it seemed novel and smart and it solved a problem. Good start.

I hopped online and ordered a pack of it from Bed Bath & Beyond; it was a relatively typical online ordering experience. I'm certain I got a fair price. It arrived just a few days later.

What's odd about the overall experience, though, is that while Affresh is a product designed to be used repeatedly, I'll probably never order it again after this package runs out, even if I find it effective and useful. Why? Because, like Brita water filters and countless other "recurrable" products that are impossible to remember to re-order, my life is too busy to "manage inventory" for the consumables in our home. And—very weirdly—though it's generally accepted among marketing professionals that it costs six to seven times more to acquire a new customer [1], retailers of these types of products haven't taken the time to develop a simple, friendly re-order process conducive to the mobile-activated world of their current customers.

Indeed, it would appear that many of these retailers have conceded the 48% of consumers who start at search engines as shopping engines [2], rather than provide simple and clear direction back into the purchase path at their own site. Google's ad revenue arc proves the point, of course, with retailers spending 25% more on paid search in Q1 of 2014 than during the same period in 2013 [3]. Retailers increasingly rely on Google to drive traffic and they lean on new customer acquisition to drive growth.

These same retailers, of course, will take your money for another pack of Affresh if you sit down at your laptop and repeat the same exact order process as six months ago, but they haven't improved the process based on your previous purchase: In many cases, it's the same three-minute website checkout process, designed for a full-size computer, they've offered for the last decade. In fact, according to a 2013 study of 1800 respondents in the US and UK, only 6% of small businesses have mobile sites [4], at all, let alone a smoother mobile checkout process or ability to access previously purchased products with ease. A whopping 44% of Fortune 100 companies have neither a dedicated mobile app or mobile-optimized site [5].

So, good luck if you intend to repeat your order for Affresh on a small-screen mobile device because, though 72% of consumers want mobile-friendly sites [6], the underlying structure of the accepted checkout workflow itself remains so clunky and flawed that upwards of 90% abandon mobile carts [7]. Moreover, having learned from Zappos' incredibly successful return policy, many retailers will pack the box with a pre-addressed return tag so the customer has a clear-cut way to return your product.

Here's the bottom line if you're a manufacturer of "recurrable" products like Affresh: Your retailer, Bed Bath & Beyond (in this case) has given your customer a super-simple way to RETURN your product, but no real good way to get more of it. They certainly haven't reminded me of my need for more Affresh on occasion (or at all) and they haven't provided a convenient way for me to quickly access that product again. I simply can't believe this approach makes sense as a way to build a loyal customer base for the product or to drive sales for the retailer.

All this despite a growing group of statistics that point directly at the importance of re-engaging loyal customers rather than simply expecting them to re-locate your brand at the homepage of a search engine: First, reducing customer churn by 5% can result in increased profits of 25% to 95% [8]. That's huge. Second, 55% of customers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience [9]. This means your conversation with consumers can move beyond a pure price-point dynamic. And, last, giving consumers the option to have a delightful, "totally satisfied" experience means they will bring 2.6 times more revenue to your company than the "somewhat satisfied" customer [10]. In short, customer retention—and responding to your customers' buying expectations as a means to that end—counts.

Because of these things, our company, GimmeAnother, started with a simple goal that we haven't let out of our sight: Allow consumers—who increasingly value their time over hunting for another deal—to save the products they love and trust to one single spot on their mobile phone, then complete a re-order for any product in less than 10 seconds. Bed Bath & Beyond, for example, could pop our "Save to Mobile" button onto their website and offer the convenience of a 10-second re-order of Affresh. It'd earn them an additional order from me at the very least.

If you're an internet retailer, you should consider the same: Evaluate your data—see where the possibility for re-engagement with current customers lies—then commit to building or buying into a technology that recognizes and rewards the contribution of those repeat buyers. Take a chance with this group of loyal consumers and you might find a crowd who was eager to buy all along.

-- Jon Roketenetz

Jon is the CEO of Chicago-based tech innovator GimmeAnother and founder of 3VERB.

'Add to Cart' for the Entire Internet? Yes, Please

Save To Mobile Turns Online Shopping Inside Out

Save to Mobile is GimmeAnother’s plug-in technology that allows consumers to save their favorite products to their mobile phones for convenient ordering or re-ordering (in less than 10 seconds) whenever they desire. First and foremost, Save to Mobile puts the power back in the customer’s hands—right where it belongs. Essentially, the new technology allows customers to take a unique collection of products with them wherever they go. It fosters customer loyalty and retention for retailers. And for consumers, it provides them (you) the opportunity to make quick purchases via their smartphones when they think about the products they need and want.

How Does it Work? Let’s take an avid cyclist, for example. She might be browsing for nutrition products on her favorite site, braaapnutrition.com. She knows she’s running low on her favorite bars, but she’s not out quite yet. She sees the Save to Mobile button next to the item she wants to buy, she clicks it, and bam! A 12 pack of her favorite flavor of bars is now saved to her “My Products” list in the free GimmeAnother app. It’s that simple. She can re-order the bars with just a few taps on her Apple or Android smartphone whenever she wants. Her life remains just as it has been—fast and convenient. She gets what she wants when she wants it.

GimmeAnother Provides Valuable Mobile Real Estate For Retailers GimmeAnother, which Forbes calls a “customer’s mini mobile marketplace,” stores a retailer’s products alongside other great items customers know, trust and love. Cyclist gal is pretty busy. So it’s no surprise that she rarely thinks about changing her furnace filter. She’s got long training rides to tackle; she doesn’t have time to run to the hardware store, where she’ll undoubtedly forget which size filter she needs when she’s there. Plus, buying a furnace filter is nowhere near fun. The GimmeAnother app—available in the App Store or on Google Play—let’s her take care of that chore, as well. Next time she opens the app to order her Braaap Bars, she’ll be pleased to see that she can also order her furnace filter from DiscountFilters.com, using the same quick and easy process. Done! And now DiscountFilters.com has a new, loyal customer! The GimmeAnother app isn’t just convenient for one thing. It’s convenient for your entire crazy life.

Customer Retention & Loyalty Retailers appreciate GimmeAnother, because it fosters customer loyalty and retention. Before using GimmeAnother, cyclist gal probably wasn’t all that loyal to a furnace filter provider. Likely, she simply grabbed the cheapest filter at the store or selected the first one she came across online after Googling the right size. Now she’s loyal to DiscountFilters.com, thanks to the convenience of re-ordering with just a few taps on her smartphone. Cyclist gal might have always been pretty loyal to Braaap Nutrition, but now with the convenience of Save to Mobile technology, she’ll definitely never waver. In fact, she’ll probably buy more bars now than she ever did before, just because it’s so easy.

Finally a Powerful, Universal Alternative to Subscriptions The Save to Mobile functionality and the GimmeAnother app provide a handy alternative to calendar-based subscription models from which consumers tend to drop within three months. Why? Well with subscriptions, often customers end up with too little or too much of a product. Cyclist gal lives in an apartment with a small pantry. She doesn’t have room for oodles of bars and stacks of furnace filters. Most of her extra storage space is dedicated to gear. And, understandably, she just can’t live without her favorite nutrition item.

The Save to Mobile Button GimmeAnother works with retailers who sell recurrable products, items customers tend to order again and again. Once a retailer signs up with GimmeAnother through an easy onboarding process, our tech team assists the retailer with adding a teeny bit of code to their website that places the Save to Mobile button near those recurrable products. That way a customer can click it, enter his or her email address and easily create an account with GimmeAnother. If the customer already has an account, the product is automatically saved to his or her products list within the app. The product is then always available to order or re-order on the customer’s most intimate mobile device, his or smartphone. GimmeAnother and its Save to Mobile functionality integrates with more than 30 payment gateways and a variety of cart and fulfillment systems. We offer a Rapid Integration Program for our Enterprise retailers. Save to Mobile technology is PCI-compliant, uses token-based security and is compatible with Google product feeds.

Bottom line If you’re a retailer, eliminate the chance for your customer to shop elsewhere. Have a presence in her pocket. If you’re a consumer, stop wasting your time on clunky websites purchasing what you already know you want. Use Save to Mobile technology, and spend 10 seconds shopping with GimmeAnother.