Seattle PUG

Tonight we met up at Me Ra Koh's house for the last PUG of the tour. Me Ra and Brian showed me some true hospitality and everyone that came to the PUG was great! Some familiar faces including Ron Storer, who I spoke often with when I was at Pictage.

Me Ra took some images, so I will have to ask her to send them soon. I know she is busy though...

The PUG Tour has been a terrific experience and I certainly thank Pictage or the opportunity to speak to their community. So many places to go in one month, but in the end it was worth it to see all the familiar faces and meet so many more. Looking forward to seeing everyone in Vegas at the end of March!

Portland PUG

Tonight we met at the studio of The Photographers The PUG turnout was minimal but the group was great and we all went out afterwards. We ended up playing bingo at a local bar---you never know what your going to get into on the road!

Thanks to Kevin Meyers for showing me around Portland and leading the PUG!

Portland...OR

In Portland to speak at the PUG on Monday evening. Tonight I spent with some old friends who have a successful business here in dog snacks.

San Francisco!

San Francisco has to be one of my favorite cities! So much to do, eat and see...

Today, I had the pleasure of meeting in person Gene Higa and Ann Hamilton. We grabbed a quick lunch and chatted about the industry. Gene has some great insights on marketing, the value of search engines and destination weddings. Really like Gene's slogan: Dare to be Different!

Thanks to Ann for grabbing this shot of Jon Lucich(liveBooks), Gene and I!

Hijack! -- Storytelling

February 21, 2007

Tell OUR story to make your point

In the game of life and the biz of business, story telling is the key to being understood. When someone is able to relate a story to you in the context of a conversation, you get engaged. This can lead to a breakthrough understanding on your part and maybe even empathy.

Even stickier, when someone can recollect a story from their life, it gets more engaging. There is a hierarchy of stories that progressively increase engagement. Check out this clip (never before seen online or anywhere else) of my faculty appearance at the 2001 Think About conference on this subject of strategic story telling.

This is helpful when you think about internal presentations where there is an abundance of shared stories to recollect and tell. It is also helpful to hone your story telling skills if you want ANY of your ideas to be sticky.

Recommended read: Made To Stick by Dan and Chip Heath (a runaway best seller and must read for anyone who loved The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.

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Posted at 08:06 AM in Business Effectiveness, Leadership, Marketing, Public Speaking | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

I Hijacked this post from Tim's blog...

LA PUG

The LA photography community was well represented last night at this PUG. Jules Bianchi is the leader of this PUG and had us all into her home. Thanks Jules and thanks for the images!




The furthest traveled award for tonight was Mellany Miller! Mellany traveled from Palm Springs and we certainly appreciate her time.

OC PUG and a quick Hijack!

Tonight I met with some terrific photographers in Orange County. Great to see some familiar faces, like Rick Rosen and Lauren Hillary. As well as meet some people I have been speaking with for years but never has the pleasure of meeting, thanks for bringing us into your studio Blake!

Tonight I am also going to feature another Hijack! There is a group of photographers meeting in Texas this week to hone the art of photojournalism...now there is a lofty goal and with the talent involved, well...wish I was there!

Wednesday, February 21, 2007 ---Check it...they are even a day ahead of us...

Sparkly Glasses

A glorious shot of Mark Adams by the talented Emilie Sommer

Posted by Mark Adams | LaCour at 12:48 AM 1 comments

Foundation Workship 5

Hijack! Destination Portrait Weekend

Found this on Holcombe Photography's Blog

What a unique idea for their brides and grooms booked for the next year. Gives the B&G a great reason for a fun getaway, with Peter and Kathy getting some terrific images for their session. This is what we talk about when we say the difference is the difference(borrowed from David Ziser). Unique ideas like this will show your clients that you are indeed ahead of the curve!

The fourth annual destination portrait weekend in Redstone, Colorado.

October 3rd, 2006

I am going to have to get a new and improved thinking cap to improve on the results of this year’s images. We had a great time with Jen and Dave and Julie and Nick. The fall color was at its peak, the weather was perfect. We used the amazing color in the mornings and then had fun running around Redstone in the afternoons. It is great getting to do two sessions in one day and achieve so much variety.

We borrowed these great cruiser bikes from Changing Gears in Redstone - thanks Joan!

This destination weekend will be on the first weekend of October next year unless we are booked for a wedding. We already have interest from a few couples who couldn’t make it this year. Call ASAP to book this great get away and chance to make some very unique images.

-Peter

Posted in Weddings, Engagement, Portraits, News

Thanks Peter and Kathy!

2007 Wedding Statistics

Knowing your industry is key to making your business successful. Recently I subscribed to The Wedding Report, which gives you some great insights into the industry as a whole and specific information for your city.

Here are a few statistics that may be of interest to you:

2,290,578 :: Number of estimated weddings in 2007
$14,250 :: Average budget for weddings in 2007
$27,690 :: Average estimated consumer spending for 2007 weddings
17 Months :: Average time the couple will be engaged
81% :: Say they will use the use the internet to help plan their wedding

The online wedding market worth over $7.9 billion.

How much of that is going to be yours and how will you market to get the brides that you do get?

Make sure you website is up to date with your freshest work!


Statistics taken from The Wedding Report


I am finally back home after a trying week of traveling from Denver to Portland ME!

Stuck in Denver

Or watch it on Simple Photo TV



Have to say that I have always flown and enjoyed Jet Blue...but this time they really let us down! The final straw was last night when they had a plane sitting at the gate and still had to cancel the flight because they didn't have a crew...I had them book me on another airline. Blogging still from DIA but now with United and there is a plane here at the gate, so looks like I will get home today...

Hijack --fun with widgets

Thursday, February 15, 2007
fun with widgets
Click on the photo to check out this cool widget from goodwidgets.com

Labels: tidbits

posted by emilie at 8:26 PM 0 comments

This post was Hijack'd from http://www.emilieinc.com/blog/ I may be biased but she is my favorite photographer by far! Check out Emilie's blog and site.

Valentines Day!

Make sure your website is up to date!!! 10's of thousands of engagements will take place today!

I am currently stuck in Denver, with the snow on the east coast grounding most flights to NY.

Happy Valentines Day Sweets!
Image found at www.kate.net

Denver PUG

We had a great time this evening in Denver! Katie Van Buren is the PUG leader and was so kind to have us all to her studio. It was great to see some familiar faces, including the great Travis Broxton. Thanks so much for coming out on such a cold winter evening.



Found this today on SimplePhoto.tv :


Erin of LaCour Photography gives us a great marketing idea! These guys have built a terrific business in Atlanta.

Chicago PUG

Freezing temps and a call for snow, caused the photographers of Chicago to stay home. Tonight we had 8 studios represented at the PUG. The group was small but the discussion was not. Everyone contributed including Jeff Wros the Pictage PRO Consultant for the region and Dave Wittig a terrific Chicago Photographer.

Hijack! Quiet Minds - Miksang Photography

Today I happened upon http://beautyandhappiness.com/ which is Kevin Reed's blog. I don't know Kevin personally but will be Hijacking his recent post!

Thanks Dane!

Philly...

I spoke this evening at Philly's PUG. There was about 15 photographers from Philadelphia and New Jersey. We meet at Drexler College and I enjoyed hearing the stories about everyone's businesses, especially Josh Gardner's...who I consulted with when I was at Pictage. This is a growing group headed by Heather Fowler.

Thanks to Em at emilieinc.com/blog for the great pictures!

Today was also a BIG day for liveBooks on SPM! Dane did a terrific segment on his new liveBooks site: CHECK IT OUT HERE...
OR:

The big apple!

Last night I visited the NYC PUG hosted by Shari Silk at Phil Mantas and Dasha Wright's studio in the financial district. About 30 photographers attended, as did my LiveBooks colleague Corey Miller.

The group

David Salomone


Chloe the dog


Thanks to Emilie of emilieinc.com for taking some fun shots of the evening!

Boston PUG at Doyle's

Tonight we met up at Doyle's in Boston with a fun group of Pictage clients. Enna Grazier led the meeting and we had a great showing for how cold it was there!

Hijack

http://www.julesbianchi.com/blog/2007/01/pump-cups.html

Once in a while I come across a post on another blog and will post it here...a hijack!

Jules Bianchi is a friend of mine in Los Angeles and a great photographer!
Stop by her blog and she what she is up to today: http://www.julesbianchi.com/blog

Colts are Champs!

This was not the best game of the season,
but sometimes just doing enough...is enough!

Go Horse!

Have to say that I am really excited about the Superbowl! I have been a big fan of the Colts for years and we have finally made it to the big game.

OPPORTUNITY AT HAND












This one is for you!













Images were taken from: http://mirror.colts.com/defaultplayoff.cfm

Nashville PUG

Tonight I was in Nashville to speak to the Pictage User Group there. They had the largest showing for their PUG tonight and everyone was excited to hear about how to keep their most important marketing tool...their website, fresh!

It was great to see some friends who drove up from Chattanooga-- Nathan and Amber Holritz! Amber took some fun images of the night below. Thanks Amber!

Thanks also to Allison Bynum who is the Nashville PUG leader.