I have to admit, I had the Playbook sitting on my shelf for the past 4 months. I would only take it out when one of my daughters was with me on the weekend so they could play the driving game.

This recent release of 2.0 for the Playbook has finally got me excited again. I managed to synchronize my calendar through Google apps so it runs native on the playbook. I tried the native e-mail program, however I believe the bridge is still much more powerful to use for e-mail. The contacts are very cool on the native platform as they truly link with social media specifically with Linked In and with Facebook. I can’t get over how Facebook e-mail and linked In the e-mail works so seamlessly.

I’ve already read a lot of negative reviews on the Playbook, it’s interesting that they are already bashing something that hasn’t had a chance for the public to be able to use and truly comment on.  I want to really push the fact that the Playbook is a “tool” not a “toy”. It fits perfectly inside my suit pocket, however the battery on it still has not been improved and it seems to take forever to charge.  Yes, there are not that many “apps” out there for it.  However, other than games, most of my ‘BUSINESS’ dealings can be done through the browser fairly quickly.  Including banking, online trading and working with other facets of dealing in business.

My immediate thoughts excite me in how this can become finally a business tool  for us to use. I’ll advise in the coming month after I have a chance to put it into action. The biggest issue is now I have to try and carry 2 tablets, my iPad and my playbook as I still need a toy

Adam Oldfield, President of FPM3 Marketing and Design, was the MC of the Business After Hours Event for the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce on Monday February 13, 2012.  Hosted by the Galt Country Club, several local businesses attended.  Manulife Financial introduced their new RRSP program, and another 42” LCD TV was given away.  Also – to prove that the draw is completely random – the same person won the TV, again!  What luck.

Looking forward to the next event!

I got an email recently and I can’t agree more with this statement.   I don’t know who this professor is, or what school this was conducted at.   However, it rings SO true!

A economics professor said that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class.    That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and  No one would be rich, a great equalizer. 

The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism”. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A… (substituting grades for dollars – something closer to home and more readily understood by all).

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B.  The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. 

As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. 

It could not be any simpler than that. 

Read the following:

These are 5 sentences applicable to this experiment:
 1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

Dalton McGuilty once gave the holiday of Family Day in February to spend with family.   I don’t get it.   We need this holiday like a whole in the head.  It makes no sense at all.  We just have to give people a day off with pay and have to like it.

I want to again thank the Liberal Government for their ingenious ideas to raise taxes and give holidays where they are not needed.   So i say to you all, happy Family day.   Enjoy hanging with your loved ones, with the lights off….as it’s 3 times the cost during the day!   See I knew he had some plan up his Ontario Liberal sleeve!

You never win with the Ontario Liberals….Never!

Happy Valentines Day from all of us at FPM3.  Hope your have a wonderful loving day with someone.   Love is a powerful thing.

Nothing says love like a NEW website!  If you want to love your website again, feel free to call us!   Nothing like a sales pitch!

Adam Oldfield, President of FPM Marketing & Design Inc., and Andre O’Bonsawin of FPM3 North were in attendance at the President’s Round Table Presentation for the BDC, in North Bay, Ontario, on February 9, 2012. The topics discussed at the presentation were, the methods of incorporating social media into small businesses, as well as creating social markets for their customers.

When you start to look and RIM and wonder why they’re failing, you come to one simple conclusion: smart phones became less about communication and more about consuming media. RIM’s biggest strength has always been communication.  Originally, it was the ability to send and receive email. BlackBerry then came out with BlackBerry Messenger, which allowed for a more casual communication experience and Bang! BlackBerry is dominating the cell phone industry.  However, once Apple entered the market with the iPhone, it began to focus the abilities of a smart phone on non-business consumers and opened up a new market.  Apple changed the smart phone from a tool into a toy and left BlackBerry – with all of its investors complaining, it’s management fumbling, and products failing – behind.  And, coming out with Siri, Apple is leading the way again.

We learned to type, we learned to touch, and now we are learning to talk.  Voice recognition technology has been around for quite some time, but it hasn’t been perfected yet.  Siri had developed into a pretty decent voice recognition system, which Apple bought and further improved.  Unlike a desktop, which can understand almost 95% of our speech, the Siri system on the iPhone is still pretty basic.  It only allows for short, coherent questions and demands that must be pronounced with a learned clarity for the recognitions to work.  Having spent some time with it, Siri is starting to recognize my voice and speech patterns and the process is improving.  It uses a central server to calculate possible statements and send back the most accurate response.

With more and more iPhone users, this software will constantly be upgrading and improving it’s accuracy and efficiency.  Eventually, typing will become obsolete.  And, typing is essentially an extension of our thought – a slower version of our extremely well adapted voices.

For more information on this topic, please visit the links below to TECH TALK videos.  TECH TALK TECH TALK with Greg Durocher, Cambridge Chamber and Adam Oldfield, FPM Marketing (FPM3) is presented by AML Communications presents.

http://www.youtube.com/user/fpmmarketing?feature=mhee

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqtYJ8mym6M&list=PL81BBFDEA97EF8A5E&index=10&feature=plpp_video

I don’t like to be corrected. In fact, it downright frustrates me.  But in this case, I have to apologize to Facebook. I recall her coming out around the time that I had just started this agency. And I thought, “This thing will never fly”. Boy do I stand corrected.  Not only was this the foundation of communication of a viral effect across North America but all over the world.  It’s amazing how much consumers embraced it. Maybe I’m a little gun shy in giving my information to the public. I don’t mind talking professionally what it is I do and have offered. But I’m a little reserved in sharing my family, what I do on my personal time, and my personal likes and dislikes outside of the office. It would seem I am the 1% minority in this case.

Well congratulations Facebook. This IPO that is coming out is expected to raise $5 billion, which means several Facebook employees will probably be leaving with a lot of money in their back pocket. And, further, will have the funds to acquire startups and small businesses to merge within their network (remember Google). I believe this is healthy, not the swallowing of small businesses, but the injection of funds for small businesses and those little companies trying to keep their heads above water to be something bigger.

We all know banks are no longer capable of helping small businesses get startup anymore. They’re more into the Asset/real estate market, and after 2008, who could blame them. I believe the only last remaining bank supporting small business in Canada is the BDC. The United States needs some positive energy and small business, and I believe that this is just enough of a kick in the small business market to do it.

This doesn’t mean that I’m all about getting into the Facebook world and sharing my entire life. I just believe it’s a great means to communicate, and sell your message to people.

The main foundation of Facebook is the advertising revenue.  Advertising revenue that is now taking a little bit more of the pie from traditional media. It obviously appears that with Facebook/Google making their foundation on advertising revenue to support and satisfy the shareholders media in this day and age is a whole new ballgame to be played.

There are a lot of advantages to having a retainer versus a quote. The challenge of having a retainer is the feeling that you’re paying for something in advance but not receiving the service. At FPM3 we understand that time is everything when it comes to your marketing, whether it’s updating your website, or getting that news ad out on time, deadlines are critical in today’s social world.

The key advantage to having a retainer is the time saved. It removes the administrative process required to prepare a quote and wait for approval, therefore your work gets done sooner.

Let me explain the benefits of having a retainer, you:

• Receive to the minute billing

• Are billed at a discounted rate

• Are always a priority and are moved to the top of the list when requests are made

• Don’t receive the bill if we don’t do any work.

• Receive immediate response to requests by both account coordinators and by our creative/Web team within 24 hours of your original request.

• Work directly with a dedicated account coordinator, and one of our dedicated web/creative teams on your project.

• Will receive discounted rates on other services FPM3 has to offer.

If your business is spending more than $500 per month in quotes for regular updates or ad management, consider a retainer for your business and see the benefits as well as the savings. Call us today and set up an appointment on how we can help your business.

Announcing the launch of the new website for Waterford Group!

Since 1958, the Waterford Group has serviced Southern Ontario’s industrial manufacturing and construction industries by safely providing high-quality aggregate products and innovative services.

The Waterford Group is continuing to grow. They offer custom crushing and screening, stock piling, material handling, slag processing, ready-mix concrete, equipment services, and a variety of aggregate products.

For more information, please visit www.waterfordgroup.ca.