connecting people,opportunities and ideas

First a couple of bits of news from SIG founder, Dan Beeman:

• SIG – The Agency! is relaunching under the leadership of David Rachell.  Soon you will see many new clients, services, alliance partners and a re-vamped website with a new logo!  To learn more about David, see his information as featured member in the link to the newsletter below.
• We have added alliances with TheList and WorkInSports.  They are both offering our members exclusive discounts and will be adding great content and promotion.  See newsletter link below for more detail.
• We are co-sponsoring our first, two day sponsorship workshop with Kim Skildum-Reid of PowerSponsorship this May in Los Angeles.  One day is for sellers and another for buyers.  See more detail in newsletter.  Yes – exclusive member discounts for this as well.

It has been a pleasure to serve you over the past few years and build our group into the largest social media community for sponsorship and marketing professionals.  Keep this community growing and thriving through your participation.  Click here for the latest newsletter.

Best,

Dan Beeman

As always, your feedback is much appreciated!

Get the latest newsletter information from SIG here

Jobs, featured articles, great blogs, upcoming conferences and more.  Please let us know if you have something to add and you want shared with our readers/members.  We are now over 4,700 sponsorship professionals from more than 30 countries!

For more information about me and our services, please click on the links below.

We are a global networking group and sponsorship consulting/sales agency. We connect properties with brands.  We help buyers and sellers increase efficiency and profitability.  How can we help you?

For more information, please click on:

Sponsorship Insights Group

www.cbress.com

LinkedIn Profile, Join my LinkedIn Group on Sponsorship, Twitter, Facebook Profile

We had some fun with the Iphone video camera today and we are sending you our Holiday Greetings via video blog. Last year at this time, I pledged to learn to blog, now I have posted more than 200 blogs and am doing a video blog/card for the holidays!

It was another interesting year, filled with all the emotions that life brings – joy, sorrow, victory and defeat. We are so grateful to have health, friends and family. We learn every day how much we don’t know and pledge to Embrace Change as it is the Constant. What will 2010 bring? We hope prosperity, health and happiness. “some pursue joy, while others create it.” I hope to create.

Wishing you all the very best for this holiday season and 2010. Click the link below to view the video.

christmas-video-card-007

For more information about me and our services, please click on the links below.

Regards,

Dan Beeman

Sponsorship Insights Group

Phone: 818.433.4239

Skype: danbeeman1

We are a global networking group and sponsorship consulting/sales agency. We connect properties with brands. We help buyers and sellers increase efficiency and profitability. How can we help you?

For more information, please click on:

Sponsorship Insights Group

LinkedIn Profile,
Join my LinkedIn Group on Sponsorship, Twitter, Facebook Profile

With Halloween nearly upon us, I was thinking about the risk/reward of the major Halloween activity – Trick or Treating and thought of its application to use of social media. Some offer tricks (gimmicks) and other provide treats (value).  Do you dress up, participate, connect with others and have fun or sit back and watch or hope it will end soon?

I am pleased that we have built the most dynamic, interactive, objective forum for sponsorship professionals via our LinkedIN Group – Sponsorship Insights.  The keys to success in social media are simple:  interact, provide value and don’t be overly self-promotional (provide a treat for readers/subscribers).  As you’ll see from my blog postings and group discussions, we promote good ideas and people and question bad ones.  We try to stay positive and be helpful.  We encourage you to use our tools and information to connect and become more efficient.  We encourage you to share resources and challenge each other to think deeper and be more productive.  Here’s a challenge, read this blog by Kim Skildum-Reid and share your thoughts.  I shared mine.

So, when reading/writing blogs and participating in social media, ask yourself, am I a tricker/being tricked (sold to or selling), or treater by participating, learning, growing and sharing.

Think about it and join in the fun!

Click here to read our latest newsletter To subscribe, please go to www.sponsorshipinsights.com/blog

I developed a sponsorship program for a real estate developer who provided “aspirational luxury” stores at his retail properties for consumers who “aspired” to a luxury lifestyle.

It worked in retail as consumers shop to feel better, using consumption as therapy.  We sold sponsorships leveraging access to the consumers when their guard was down (while shopping) from being inundated by brand messages that were sent through traditional media channels.

I found an interesting organization that is offering partnerships by rewarding future behavior – and inspiring that behavior.

What is an X PRIZE?

An X PRIZE is a $10 million+ award given to the first team to achieve a specific goal, set by the X PRIZE Foundation, which has the potential to benefit humanity. Rather than awarding money to honor past achievements or directly funding research, an X PRIZE incites innovation by tapping into our competitive and entrepreneurial spirits.

How enlightened.  Why be aspirational if you can be inspirational?

We hope you like it and it helps you connect with others, find new ideas and become more effective in your job.

Click here to read it

The buzz on the blog in this space yesterday has picked up a lot of conversation and debate.  My surfing analogy remains, but I want to be sure to acknowledge the thought-leadership of what IEG has done, and continues to do, through their series of educational services and conferences.  They have brought the sponsorship community together and inspired me to become a sponsorship professional dating back to my first conference in 1988. I have attended many of their conferences and always came away with a few new contacts, friends and ideas.

While I like to think of this space as a source for valuable information relating to sponsorship and occasional pop-psychology, my intent is to be thought-provoking and provide and interesting read on many subjects – not attacking anyone or thing.   You should note that this blog and comments are unfiltered and that criticisms of my work and blog are published in this very space.  With each post, I encourage your feedback and often ask questions that may seem tough or controversial.  I do it on purpose to foster discussion and debate.

It certainly is newsworthy that IEG is entering the social media space in a big way, especially as this blog a is dedicated to commenting on social media and sponsorship and exists solely in the social media space.

I have tremendous respect for the folks at IEG and hope to Share the Wave and be acknowledged as someone who provided some early leadership in social media and sponsorship networking online though our groups/following on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, totaling more than 5,000 sponsorship professionals.

Will my efforts to build an online community now be irrelevant or redundant?  Is this an apology or an obituary for SIG?  We’ll see.  What do you think?

Today, I received the following invitation from IEG to become a part of their social media community.  I’d like to say thanks and we welcome you too!

Since it is summer and I am in California, it may be appropriate for a surfing analogy:  Welcome to our wave and please recognize those of us that have been working to maintain the beach and share in the community aspect by supporting one another.  We celebrate the love of what we do and recognize the uniqueness of what we do as not being the most mainstream (advertising vs sponsorship).  We collaborate, share success and failure while trying to get better.  We cheer for each other after a good ride and help each other out after a wipe out.  We never jump in on someone else wave if they have already taken it.

While many of the IEG staff are members of our group, to this point they have remained silent on our discussion groups, yet ours is the biggest forum on the internet for sponsorship professionals.

As you know through this blog and on my sponsorship groups LinkedIn, our coverage includes news from IEG and often praises their work .  However, the question should be asked, is this initiative of theirs to sell more products and services (advisory, valuation, conferences, SER Report, Sourcebook, Webinars etcetera) or to serve the sponsorship community objectively?  Why have they chosen not to participate in other communications online before deciding to launch their own?  Does their launch and membership of 600 or so make ours eventually obsolete?

we have done our best to lead the way online via social media and share valuable information and foster a dynamic, interactive, virtual community.  Our objective for our group is to help you enhance your career, knowledge and efficiency.  We have never charged anything for our work (and it is a lot of work!) in providing you with this group, blog postings and newsletters.  We will continue to feature their work, promote their conferences and educational programs.  The question is, will they reciprocate or even acknowledge us in their education and media?  Should we charge for advertising or subscriptions and will that compromise out objectivity?  How do we all ride the wave together in harmony?

Here is their invitation:

You’re invited to join the sponsorship conversation through IEG’s just-launched social media initiatives.

We are excited to provide our industry colleagues with (more…)