Tag: AIMS

February 7, 2006

  • AIMS Discussion List Is No More

    AIMS General Manager Dave Forde just sent out the word that the ADL (AIMS Discussion List) has ceased publication.

    For years, many of you have enjoyed the ADL (AIMS Discussion List), a bi-weekly newsletter full of great discussion and debate on various Internet marketing topics. It gave marketers a chance to connect and pose questions to one another with answers in the following issue. Over the last year we’ve seen a dramatic shift, or decrease in the amount of discussion for reasons such as inboxes being overloaded, work loads increased, etc. Therefore, I now think that it is time we say good-bye to the ADL and retire her at issue number #622.

    I think the big unspoken reason content on the ADL has been thin lately is that there are so darn many real-time sources of news and opinion. Blogs (like One Degree) and the feeds they push out have made it much easier to stay on top of industry happenings without the need of a weekly moderated discussion list.

    So, fellow ADL readers, if you are looking for:

    • Commentary from industry insiders
    • A spot to contribute your opinions
    • A place to have Internet marketing conversations, or
    • A way to get job and event listings in front of the net shakers in Canada then I humbly suggest One Degree is your new best friend.

    I hope the best for AIMS — as one of the founders I wish it nothing but continued success, even without the ADL I used to moderate. I know from conversations with many others over the years that the ADL was considered the primary value they saw in AIMS so it will be interesting to see how AIMS keeps its connections with the members without this important channel.

    A special note of thanks to our own June Macdonald who I convinced to take on the incredible challenge of moderating the ADL when it first launched. June was the best moderator the ADL ever knew and I don’t think it was the same after she stepped down years ago.

    Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on February 7, 2006.

July 11, 2003

  • Thought

    Since I’ve been poking around in search since the AIMS event earlier this week, I thought I’d point you to this CNET article called “Microsoft brains take on Google”

    “Speaking here at the Fifth International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM), professor Jennifer Tour Chayes said Microsoft is patenting new search algorithms with the goal of replacing the Inktomi technology currently powering MSN’s search with Microsoft’s own.

    “Since Yahoo acquired Inktomi, Bill (Gates) has decided we need our own capacity,” she said, adding that the company is already patenting new algorithms it believes have the potential to power a new search engine.”

March 6, 2003

  • Thought

    Here is the brief article Chris Daniels wrote for Marketing Magazine wrote about my resignation from AIMS:

    “Schafer Resigns As AIMS President”

    March 5, 2003

    After just a year as the first paid president of the Association of Internet Marketing & Sales (AIMS) Ken Schafer has stepped down from the organization he helped create.

    Schafer says he wants to return to his roots of “creating great online ventures,” such as he did when he started his career spearheading the first online initiative for Sony Music Canada. He has no immediate plans, but says he will consider his options over the next several weeks.

    Schafer was made the organization’s first paid employee about a year ago. His move to a paid position from a volunteer one was part of a larger initiative to move the non-profit organization to a paid membership model, which was implemented this past September. Schafer co-founded AIMS-which now boasts over 4,500 members across the country-in 1996.

    AIMS will continue to be operated by its five-person board of directors. A new president is expected to be hired in the coming months.

    Thanks to Chris and Marketing for allowing me to reprint this.

March 4, 2003

  • Stepping Down From AIMS

    Given the AIMS Announcement that is going Tuesday morning, there will most likely be a few more visitors here than usual. If you’re new — welcome! Take a moment and subscribe to A Piece Of My Mind while you’re here.

    Right now there is a mad dash to get everything in place for the Tuesday event and to put the finishing touches on transition work, so I don’t have much time to post right now, but I promise that, starting March 10th, I’ll be posting here regularly as I have in the past.

    AIMS has been a major rush and I’m very proud of what we’ve accomplished, but it has also been an incredible drain on me personally and professionally. AIMS became a 24 hour non-stop whirlwind over the last year and it hasn’t left me much time or energy for other important things I’ve been meaning to get to — like this blog.

September 10, 2002

  • Thought

    I rather sheepishly did something today in the AIMS ADL that I don’t normally do — point people to my own site.

    In general I’ve preferred to keep my personal opinions out of my moderation of the ADL as much as is possible (which is not entirely of course). But I included a post about blogs in this issue and I felt that my blog was a good example because it IS NOT the perfect blog. I don’t get to it nearly as much as I should to make it a really vibrant and living thing. And I don’t feel I’ve found a definitive “voice” for it (although you may hear it when you read my /opinions).

    In any case, if you got here from the ADL, thanks for following my humble link. And if you didn’t get here from the ADL, here are the links I provided in my post:

    Articles on Weblogs

    http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/javascript/2002/06/13/megnut.html

    http://www.macromedia.com/desdev/logged_in/ekrimen_blogs.html

    Weblog Examples:

    Glenn Fleishman

    Megnut

    oddblog

    Dan Bricklin

    AIMS Newsblog

    For those of you now hooked, you can read Chapter 8 (Weblogs in Business) from the book “We Blog” here:

    My questions to the ADLerati out there:

    Do you Weblog? If so, why? Business or personal?

    Do you see business advantages to Weblogs?

    Do weblogs replace or supplement other communications?

October 18, 2001

  • Thought

    Word of mouth is a powerful tool.

    Last week I posted my “Big Red Fez homework” comments on the AIMS Discussion List (see below for BRF details). I included an Amazon.com associate link so that I could track the effectiveness of my recommendation.

    Here is how we did in the three days after the posting was published:

    1. ADL sent to 3200 AIMS members includes link to Godin book.

    2. 49 people clicked on the link (5 people clicked more than once).

    3. 21 people bought the book and downloaded it.

    4. To date no one has sent me their homework.

    That means I had a 1.7% clickthrough, and a 43% buy/browse ratio. Not bad I’d say. I made US$2.02 in referral fees by the way.

August 3, 2001

  • Thought

    The Globe & Mail was nice enough to let people know about the results of the recent AIMS poll in this article: “AIMS Poll Finds Optimism Amidst Dot-com Gloom.”

    If I sound pleasantly surprised in the article, it’s because I was. The poll shows that the “meltdown” is not quite as bad as it seems. The Net ain’t goin’ anywhere folks, so let’s just get back to making it an amazing thing and not worry about the doom and gloom.

August 1, 2001

  • Thought

    The AIMS event yesterday was well attended and I was happy to see that we had an active and vocal crowd.

    As moderator of the panel it was pretty hard for me to get an accurate read on the overall value of the session and I’d like some input on what we can do better for the next panel. If you have thoughts, please drop me a line.

    Thanks to Farhan, Kevin and Nancy Lee for making the panel a pleasurable experience for me.

July 20, 2001

  • Thought

    I’m looking forward to moderating the “Permission Panel” at the AIMS event on July 31st (if you’re an AIMS member you should have received your e-mail invite by now).

    The panel looks great:

    Nancy Lee Jobin

    President & Founder, Graffiti Direct & Interactive

    Kevin Krossing

    Managing Partner, Net Perceptions

    Farhan Merchant

    CEO, PointSite

    I’ve got a bunch of questions I want to ask, but if you’ve got some burning questions about permission-based marketing, personalization and building loyalty online, drop me an e-mail and I’ll try to get them to respond.