2010: New Learnings at the End of the Year

2010 has been an interesting and fruitful year for yours truly, as it involved a lot of changes, personally & professionally speaking.

We started redesigning TheNewlead website which we're aiming to launch by the first quarter of the next year. I got to dabble in user interface & web design in general which was quite a challenge because we had to think like our  users and to generally think of three kinds of users:

1. our active, registered members

2. frequent visitors who are mostly doing   

    research and

3. the lurkers who are new visitors who either 

   are just curious or have accidentally landed on 

   our page

Hopefully, the newly revamped TheNewLead website would be a delight to use as we aimed it to be more user-friendly, easily understandable and pleasing to the eye. We also changed the logo and the layout of our website, so even though we retained some functions from the old, current site, everything will come off as new, highly improved and a whole lot better with the new website.

Of course, the same services apply to the new website:

1. Find B2B Leads

2. CRM Data Cleaning

3. Custom Data Request

Plus a new feature which we hope would encourage other TheNewLead members to become more active in the website. It involves getting a whole lot of fresh, new contacts.

This has also been a starting year for us in social media marketing. It might seem easy for constant users of Facebook, Twitter, Blogger and other social media sites but using it for marketing can be quite tricky, compared to just using it casually. Social media marketing is forever changing and there's always a new thing to discover everyday. I've started getting active in  Linked in  and it's such a continuous, enlightening experience as not only do you get to connect with people all around the globe, you also get to discuss with them your professional issues, the topics you're interested in, as well as learn from so many people of different races, culture and designations. But most importantly, you get to find prospects, interact and learn more about your existing clients.

This past year has been a tremendously educational year for me and I hope to discover and learn new things from all sorts of people. Hopefully, 2011 would bring more challenging and fruitful endeavors that would lead to more genuine connections, more awesome clients and most importantly, more success to our professional and personal lives.

I hope everyone had a joyous holiday and lets welcome the New Year with a confident , optimistic stance, an honest smile on our faces and a light, happy heart. And everyone who knows Black Eyed Peas, sing with me! "I got a feeling, that tonight's gonna be a good night!"

Happy New Year Everyone! Lets all have a great year ahead!

TheNewLead Year End Party

It was the day before Christmas and everyone was pretending to be busy

Thinking of their work and the holidays was making them dizzy

The work ended and the gathering finally started

To the bowling lanes of the East Coast, everyone headed

The bashful, semi-shy team that landed

 Turned out to be a loud and playful crowd that easily bonded

Some were decent with bowling, that we have to admit,

others kept throwing the balls like a basketball

which we believe the clueless management won't permit.

Others had grace and style on the lane,

while some still kept pretending it was still a basketball game.

Then we headed for a restaurant and took a break

That's where things got more interesting

I can't tell all for someone's sake

Lets just say we played a game of "Truth or Dare"

 

 

where shame & dignity, were of little care.

The night ended with just a few drunks

 

No one seemed shy and no one was in a funk.

It was a night of bonding, where friendships were encouraged

and work was set aside.

 

And everyone was happy and left all in smiles

Malcolm Gladwell: What we can learn from spaghetti sauce

The author of  "The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference," (2000) , "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking" (2005), and "Outliers: The Story of Success" (2008) in the TED Conference, talking about choices and happiness. How does spaghetti sauce figure out in this, watch & find out.