Well I sort of fell off the Twitter map for awhile and wanted to make this post to catch up.

I took a 3 month consulting gig to help a TV Network start up in Little Rock. It was a dream job, I was doing everything from setting up satellite dishes and building studios to brand development and business planning. I was meeting some great industry professionals and we were all putting our hearts into it. As do with many start ups they were under capitalized and so ended the dream gig.

In the middle of all this Station X was offered the opportunity to help with marketing for The Capital Hotel and we took over the AV contract for the meeting spaces. Also Heather has come outboard full time and is busy shooting amazing video for our clients.

Station X is in full force and ready to serve so stop by our site and say hi. www.stationx.tv

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More to come on this story…

68 Honda CB 350 from Brant Collins on Vimeo.

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I knew when the iPad came out the uses were endless. And in the world of video production gear is expensive. One of the things I wish I had was a teleprompter but they are usually expensive and bulky. I am lucky to me married to a woman that has a passion for video gear as big as mine.( follow her on twitter @hbrcollins) She sent me this link and I was so excited on just what an iPad could do for production.

NAB ’10 – ProPrompter HDi from Hand Held Hollywood on Vimeo.

I do not have an iPad yet but will soon, and I will be getting the ProPrompter.

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I have always loved design. I also am fascinated with gear bags, backpacks etc. Designing my own laptop bag is something I’ve always wanted to do, so I was intrigued when I saw a friend on Twitter, @kerrijack, asking for help picking a laptop bag.  I understood exactly what her problem was, as a creative professional you need something that is appropriate for a client meeting, but still says I have a style.  I decided at that point I was going to try designing a laptop bag. My wife Heather (@hbrcollins  on Twitter) is great with a sewing machine and has a great sense of style. One of the first things she sewed was a beauty pageant dress for my daughter, so I know she has the skills to help me. Needless to say I only had to ask once if she wanted to go to the fabric store. I started thinking about a men’s bag, but that would be too easy. So after talking with  Heather we decided to try a women’s bag first. We wanted something classic, with a touch of style.  We looked at many colors and came up with some great ideas but finally settled on the fabrics in the attached picture. Think of this as the little black dress of laptop bags.

Some may say why a bag? I ran across this on the INC.com website 2 days after I decided to start this project.

Handbag maker Vera Bradley, which sold quilted handbags and accessories valued at $289 million last year, hopes to pull in $175 million more through its stock sale, it said in document filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission…
Within the first year, the company made $10,000 – and in five years, sales topped $3 million. Recently, the company has grown even more dramatically. Sales stood at $58.4 million in 2002, $120.7 million in 2005 – and $289 million last year, for growth of 21.1 percent over the previous year “despite the continuing economic recession,” the company noted. Vera Bradley began selling online in 2006, and opened its first stand-alone shop in 2007. (full story here)

We will keep you posted along the way. If all goes well and we are happy with the product we will move on to  a man’s laptop bag.

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I spent 5 years in the Navy and love the sea. When I was stationed in Charleston , S.C. I saw the movie Wind. The next day a friend and I brought an 18ft Hobie Cat and learned to sail. I loved that boat but when I got out of the Navy I sold my half to my friend and headed back to Arkansas. Once I got back I bought a used Vanguard 470 sailboat and was ready to race, but having kids, going to college  and starting a life after the military I could never find the time and there the boat sat for 15 some odd years. I have decided I spend all my time in front of a computer and need a hobby besides work, so I pulled my old boat out of the brush pile it was under. I was surprised it was still in great shape. Here are some pics and videos of the project. Hope to sail by fall in Lake Maumelle.

Vanguard 470 project from Brant Collins on Vimeo.

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I am always trying new web products that hopefully will make my life easier or more productive. The first web tool I really starting using about 2 years ago is FreshBooks. FreshBooks is used for tracking time and invoicing clients. It is a great tool and has really saved me time and keeps the money coming in.

I have tried Basecamp, Highrise and plenty of other services but today I found a CRM tool that is amazing, BatchBook. Like a typical CRM it tracks contacts, leads and deals, what makes it great is it integrates with my FreshBooks and Mailchimp accounts. What makes if amazing is the “Search Social Network” button. Yes it searches out and monitors your contacts Social feeds.

Watch the video and see just how cool this is. Video here

You can get a free account to try here like I did. But soon after creating my account I upgraded to the $9 plan which allowed the integration with FreshBooks and Mailchimp. One of the other integration partners is a product called Shoeboxed so get this,you mail receipts and business cards using pre-paid envelopes, email, or your mobile phone, and Shoeboxed will scan, data enter, and organize them for you. I will be checking this out next. Stay tuned.

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I know we need to be in Social Media, Blogs and Youtube, but how do I convince my boss? I get this question every time I speak to groups about Social Media. We talk engagement, content, SEO and a list of other lingo to try and convince our clients or bosses to get into this wild west world of Social Media.

The words we should be using on the decision makers are Leads, Prospects, Opportunities, and Sales. You start using these words and funny…they start listening. I am a visual person so I made a Map for how all of this digital media flows into the sales funnel. I also use this to show how important your website is and how content increases SEO (Search Engine Optimization). There are many services and solutions but for my map I referenced WordPress, Mailchimp, Salesforce, etc. The great thing about the web today is just about any tool you want to use has an API or plug in to fit into your companies work flow. Note: This is an evolving project. No mobile, mobile apps, iPap, etc. in this map yet, but working on it.

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This is one of the best interviews on web video I have seen.  It’s just video..

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We have a great Social Media community here in Little Rock and it is great to trade ideas. Everyone talks about how great it is, and even I travel and preach the gospel of Social Media, but I want more. I had a little Twitter discussion with @Tsudo from Knowthenetwork.com about geo location services like Gowalla and 4square and their “value”.@Tsudo wrote a great blog post on the topic:

Last Friday night I was at the local ballpark when I received a twitter mention that an acquaintance had checked in to the same venue via Foursquare. I discovered he was with another friend and I decided to walk across to say Hi.

Although I’d never met either of them in real life (IRL) we were familiar to one another because of our online intersections.

What happened? Familiarity turned into friendship…(full article here)

So I argued about “value”, @Tsudo sees value for him in meeting new people, great so do I, but if these services are to survive they need to make money and enter the “main stream”.(Moving beyond early adopters) All of these services are either selling ads, collecting data, or both. They use game play to get us to give them that data for free. That data is then sold or used by marketers. Real money is exchanging hands and you make nothing. Sure I don’t mind playing the game but I need more than a badge, “Show me the money”, or at least a free beer or 20% off for giving you my time and effort for checking in. Now as a business owner give me access to that data, make it easy and I will pay you real money.

Foursquare is starting to do this

Gowalla is trying too

In my perfect world of geo location the ball park would have known @Tsudo was at the game and noticed so were his Twitter friends. The app then would have offered him and his friends a coupon and suggest they get together and meet for a beer. The ball park could then look at the stats the next day and see they all used their coupons and send them a thank you emails, reminder of the next game and offered another coupon.  The ball park could also go in and look at the data and ask who has not been to the park in the last 15 days and offer them a reminder coupon to come back again. All of this with out @Tsudo ever “checking in”. So like in said in my Twitter post “@Tsudo there is no real value yet in social location, it is the first step towards something bigger but not there yet”. The future is geo location combined with social that I agree. I just want more.

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So I started Station X out of a desire to do something different and since I did not have a job I made my own. I did the business plans, pitched to VC funds and even got paid to drink beer at the Great American Beer Fest. All of this was because I had an idea, an idea that you did not have to live on the coast to start an innovative company. Well then the recession hit and I found out that VC funds in Arkansas lack vision, but more on that later. So we took on client work to pay the bills and let me tell you it is tough to start a business from scratch with no money.

I want to take this chance to publicly thank my wife and best friend Heather Collins. See you may not know but I have 3 kids from a previous marriage and together Heather and I have 2 making a grand total of 5 kids, and I would not chance that for the world. Heather is a wonderful mom to all my kids and together we have been through a lot. See I am thanking her because she has supported us while I was chasing this dream. That is a big burden to take on but through it all she never lost faith in me. So Heather I love you very much and thank you for everything you do.

With that, I am announcing that I have accepted a job as marketing director for a local software company Lindsey Software. I am so very excited about the position and the company. Stay tuned for more on that front. As for Station X, if you are a current client do not fear as we are still in business, but going forward we will be changing a few things, I am not giving up only making some changes. I still believe Little Rock can be the next “Silicon Valley” of the south, but I know now it will take years of hard work, relationship building and money. I am up for the challenge are you?

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