David Hill, Lenovo’s VP of design, just sent me a link to Brandtags.net: cool site that associates the first thing that pops into your head when you see a brand logo. This is from Lacoste — the tennis shirt company with the little alligator logo. See the logo, what do you think of? I think “preppy.” Register and you can see what other people have tagged the brand as. This is a cool thing.
Yesterday one of my colleagues told me I’m in the top five highest users of the company’s employee purchase program — essentially the discount I get for buying PCs from Lenovo.
There is a limit to the number of times one can hit this program. It is meant for “family and friends” which I take liberally to mean anyone I see sitting on an airplane, train, park bench, or alone on a couch at a birthday party. Mac vs. PC? Here’s my discount code. Sick of the virus infested rowboat anchor your cat wouldn’t use as a litter box? Here’s my discount code.
My first year at the company I moved maybe 15 PCs. Now? Who knows. But I once won a monitor for my efforts and free is good. I don’t suspect there are any internal contests running right now, but as a naughty experiment I tweeted my passcode yesterday in front of my colleague and boasted I would be the Man in a week.
Hmm. Now doubt and remorse have set in. We had an employee discount code go viral – and hosed the system so badly that the affected orders were known by his last name as we worked through the backlog. I hope not to become public enemy number one of the Employee Purchase Program team, but hey, a sale is a good thing. Right?
No. I won’t post the code here. This is a test of twitter — not blogs. Posting the code here would be an automatic discount for anybody lazy enough to search for the info. I deleted the tweet as well. So let’s see if 16 hours of visibility among my 270 followers (I have followers, I can summon them with a dog whistle which is inaudible to human ears and they come staggering out of the corn fields, arms outstretched, moaning) is enough to get me in trouble with the EPP lords.
Smart move by JetBlue and fairly simple. Search for twitters who mention the brand and follow them. As a JetBlue lover, it’s an easy decision for me in turn to follow them.
I project they will:
Now to do the same for Lenovo. Right now there is no Twitter account — per se — devoted to Lenovo. I monitor our terms, but the question is how much capacity is needed to do a capable job of monitoring.
Aaron Pressman is an occasional commenter here and reporter at Businessweek up in and around Boston. His blog is a fine thing. Some good gadget geekery and nice photography here and there. Nothing like a pro’s writing to make you appreciate the difference from an average blahg:
“I’m Aaron Pressman, a professional journalist, but this is my personal blog. Hopefully, it’s a bit better organized than my home office. I’m also a gadget hound, a dad, a step-dad and a no-longer-suffering Red Sox fan (but, I guess, a now-painfully-suffering Patriots fan). You can see some of the paid writing I’ve done over the years, mainly about tech and finance, on my personal site. “
I looked at this from my yard all weekend. (That’s my place in the back ground.) It’s a big old sail that an artist, Michael Marisi Orenstein painted.
“This fully functional sail is close to 100 feet long. It will be installed and exhibited this weekend as part of ArtAgua in Cotuit, Ma.”
Tuesday – 5.27 Cotuit (pushed RTP trip ahead a day so I can vote in the local elections. Churbuck.com endorses Peter D. Field (Cousin Pete) for Fire Commissioner. Cotusions — get out and vote from 4 to 8 pm.
Wednesday – Thursday 5.28-5.29 – RTP, workshops, performance review (mine), visit to the CrossFit Carolina gym in Raleigh (I am on my way to pulling a legit pull-up)
Friday – Monday 5.30-6.2 – Cotuit (boat painting)
I got tired of the discussion, tired of the comments. Nice lady from Honda sent an apology. She’s got her hands tied. Took them a month to figure out how to respond to me. I don’;t care anymore. Didn’t get what I wanted. Too tired to wage a campaign for a machine that shortens grass.