This image from the creative team at Vistaprint showcase some additional creative ways that businesses can utilize their business cards beyond the contact data.

Some of my favorites include:

• using the reverse as an appointment reminder (my dentist does this and I love it)
• showcasing customer testimonials
• leveraging the reverse for coupons

How do you use your business cards?

I am a huge fan of Hugh MacLeod in both of his mediums. On one hand, I’ve got a few prints up of his (including the one below) and on the other, I love his writing style. So when I heard that book #3 was coming out, I preordered it quickly.

I am glad I did.

In Freedom is Blogging in Your Underwear (Amazon affiliate link), MacLeod penned up a thought-provoking book that you can read in a sitting or before your flight touches down at your final destination. The book is also a great mix of Hugh’s two mediums as the chapters open with a quick hit thought and is closed out with 3-4 cartoons that hammer home the point.

You should read this book if:

• you like to think
• you are looking for a reason to push yourself
• you have ever kicked yourself for not acting on a killer idea

Hopefully this week’s edition of Five for Friday makes it through your clutter in all of this social space on the day of Facebook’s soon-to-be historic IPO. I wish nothing but the best to friends Megan and Xenia over
there, enjoy the day ladies. While many folks will be reading story after story about the book, I will be taking measurements of the soon-to-be casa la Espo that we move into next week. So yes that means I will not be glued to a computer screen and will peep out recaps later in the day. So enjoy and have a great weekend.

Brand Takes a Tweeting – this is a very good read focusing on the ever-present Shakespearean question To Tweet or Not to Tweet… something that all of us have pondered either on a personal or professional level.

Danger: Community/Social Strategist Shortage Ahead – I love when Jim Storer cranks out a thought provoking post. In this article on the Community Roundtable, Jim looks at the social landscape via conversations that he had with community managers feeling a burn, while also looking at the budding community management space. All of this lends the question: Will there be viable bodies to fill all these upcoming openings?

Guinness QR Cup Reveals Scannable Code When Full – Now I am not going to lie, I am not a giant fan of QR codes. This is due mostly to the sub-par experience that I have had with them overall. However my opinion may change if I ever get to sample a Guinness in one of these cups… hell it might even make it into my glassware collection (just don’t tell my wife).

Facebook’s biggest problem is that it’s a media company – I would be negligent in my role as content curator if I excluded an article about Facebook in my roundup on the day of their IPO.  This article from Gigaom takes a look at the ad platform and some of the issues companies have had with it.

Comcast will start charging data hogs extra – do you use the Internet? Do you use it more than the average human? If you do, and you have Comcast as your Internet provider, you may want to read this.

This post contains video, click here if you are having trouble viewing.

Earlier this week WFAN’s Mike Francesa had an awesome rant on Twitter. Some of the top sound bites include Twitter should be illegal, one of these days someone will monetize it and Twitter cuts the middle man out of sports journalism.

Now sports radio is known for dumb things being said, but this may take the cake. I guess we can just chalk this one up to old media not wanting to admit that media is changing.

Would you want to be the grandkid or production assistant who has to educate Francesa on Twitter?

This post contains video, click here if you are having trouble viewing.

When I heard that friends Gini Dietrich and Geoff Livingston were writing a book together, I was happy for them. Throughout the process, I knew that Marketing in the Round would be good, but did not think that it was going to be something that would take readers out of their comfort zone.

Now don’t think that means that they are going all controversial. Rather the duo pushes readers to step back and look at their marketing in a more holistic manner. Sure social media may be the cat’s meow right now, but that does not mean that marketers should drop everything for it. Traditional methods still work.

The book itself takes you through the steps of getting a more rounded marketing structure and outlines some of the work that needs to be done. The tail end of each chapter offers worksheets for the reader to fill out, so it can be a learn while you read tool as well.

This book should be read if you…

• work in marketing
• hate silos
• are looking to up-level your marketing game
• don’t want to be left behind

If you want to pick up a copy of the book and save a few bucks, click here for my Amazon affiliate discount.

At the end of last week I heard my boss, Jason Keith, laughing hysterically at his desk. When I asked him what was so funny, he passed me the video above. It took me a while to get around to watching it, but when I did, I had to watch it a few times.

After I got over the initial humor of this 4-year old girl breaking down the tactics of toy marketers, I found myself nodding along with what she was saying. Marketers are fond of the keep it simple stupid, or KISS method, when building up a campaign. While it sounds simple, we often over think ourselves and we become desensitized by the marketing messages.

So it is interesting to see a simple mind see right through the tactics that were probably drafted up in a Madison Avenue boardroom with a multi-million dollar budget.

While this girl may be four, she still leaves marketers some key things to consider:

• How are your customers using your products? There may be opportunities to capitalize on.
• Are you being too predictable? Who says pink is just for girls and blue is just for boys?
• Is your sales hook too predictable?
• Is it time to change up your tactics or methodology?

And hell, we all love super heroes, so why should they be just for boys?

Move over Zuck, Abraham Lincoln filed a patent for Facebook in 1845 – this is one awesome piece of FAKE news from this week. Despite its false nature, it cracks me up how much detail went into the ruse.

Facebook page admins beware! What you CANNOT do on Facebook – do you manage a Facebook fan page? If you answered yes, be sure to peep out this good list of things you can’t do in Zuck’s sandbox.

Justice Served: Hateful Bruins Tweeters Punished For Racial Slurs Against Capitals’ Joel Ward – Last week I posted about the hatetweets that quickly rolled out after the Capitals knocked off the Bruins. At the time of the post, no punishments had been doled out to the folks Tweeting. Well that all changed when the city of Gloucester suspended five from sports.

We’re So Quick to Crown Social-Media Successes That We Forget What They’re Actually Based On – this article takes a look at social media and successes in the space. Sometimes it makes sense to stop and smell the roses a bit before getting caught up in the hype.

The Social Networking Rub – good read, err rant, on social networks and scaling for the human network.