After befriending children with no shoes in Argentina, Blake Mycoskie decided he wanted to help. He started TOMS Shoes in 2006 with a simple idea: With every pair you purchase, TOMS will give a pair of new shoes to a child in need. One for One.” The shoes were designed after the Argentine “alpargata” and 10,000 pairs were sold in the first year. The company has given away over 150,000 pairs of shoes to kids all over the world.

At the young age of 33, Blake has not only created an admirable brand, but he has also built a platform that allows anyone to provide a basic need to those that are often forgotten and ignored.

1. I love your quote: “I don’t want to be remembered for what I did, but what I gave away.” Have you always had this philosophy or did it develop over time?

As you grow and have different experiences, you learn what you want out of your life and what direction you will pursue. The things I have learned and people I have met over time have shaped my philosophy and have guided me to where I am now.

2. Designing a new type of shoe, starting a non-profit and building a brand that incorporates both seems like a lot to take on, did you ever consider partnering with a brand that already existed?

TOMS was such a unique model from the start, and we broke the mold in some respects of how most businesses operate, so we wanted to show others that this idea of incorporating giving could work on its own. It’s great now to be at a point where we can do some amazing collaborations with other brands like Ralph Lauren, Element Skateboards and even Dave Matthews Band. (more…)

Facebook has finally done it. The company not only reached the 300 million user mark but it also achieved its positive cash-flow milestone last quarter (ahead of schedule), according to Mark Zuckerberg’s blog posting on Tuesday. Here’s a look at five smart things they did right  to get to where they are today.

1. Opening Up to Everyone

Facebook started as a social network for Harvard students in 2004. After signing up over half of the Harvard undergraduate population in one month, the site opened up to other Boston and Ivy League universities. The site continued to spread through schools around the nation (including my very own SMU) and opened up to High School students by 2005. Today, Facebook is not only open to anyone around the world, but it has also opened itself so that its users are searchable by nonmembers. More importantly, Facebook grew in both features and popularity by opening itself to others. Mobile web sites and apps are available on all major mobile OS platforms. Developers have created apps like iLike, Scrabulous and Fan Check. Companies like Apple and Microsoft have leveraged Facebook’s API to connect to the site through products like iTunes and the Xbox 360. Thousands of web sites like Hulu and blogs like Mashable have allowed users to leave comments using their Facebook accounts via the now multilingual log-in system that we’ve come to know as Facebook Connect. And let’s not forget that it was Facebook Connect that enabled the last push for Facebook to surpass MySpace’s traffic in the U.S.

2. Becoming the Anti-MySpace that Doesn’t Sell Itself Short

Michael Arrington once said that Facebook had become the “Anti-MySpace” by deciding to open itself up. Just as Facebook didn’t follow in MySpace’s paranoid footsteps (remember how MySpace was so threatened by PhotoBucket that it acquired it in 2007?), it also did not flirt with large corporation that would swallow it. With rumors of Friendster being interested to pay upwards of $10 million, the News Corp. acquisition of MySpace in 2005, and Yahoo!’s offer of up to $1 billion in 2006, Facebook must have felt a little tempted. Still, Facebook focused on its site and its users and Zuckerberg’s words on July 17, 2007 have been proven to be true: “We’re not really looking to sell the company… We’re not looking to IPO anytime soon. It’s just not the core focus of the company.” With 1000 employees and a predicted $500 million in revenue for 2009, it is clear that MySpace is history. (more…)

Gord Weisflock is a Marketing and Business Development Manager for Kodak in Asia Pacific. Working on the B2B side of Kodak, Gord focuses on demand generation and building relationships in the largest market on Earth. I was able to speak with him on The Social Nerdia Show! and you can listen to it below, on blogtalkradio, or as a downloadable podcast on iTunes).

I was excited about this conversation because China is going through an incredible shift from manufacturer to creator and designer, and because Kodak is a great example of a company that is thriving in social media. Gord, who called in through Skype from Shanghai, told me about doing business in China and about his role within Kodak. While most of us know Kodak for its cameras, film, and printers, the fact that 75% of the world’s newspapers use Kodak products is only one example of the impact that this company has from a commercial point of view.

Gord explained that “a lot of companies see China as a huge market, a huge opportunity, but there are definitely some unique challenges. You have to understand the market, you have to understand what it’s like to walk in the shoes of people that live and work in this country… The Olympics were a great experience for the world to see how China operates and also a great opportunity for China to show how they do things themselves.” (more…)

These are scary times for old media. The Internet has forced them to change or die or both. The media decline is probably most obvious in newspapers. The New York Times is not yet “a print newsletter for the elite and the elderly,” as the EPIC 2014 video put it in 2004, but it is definitely not what it used to be. The Wall Street Journal’s gloomy financial results are not getting any better. You don’t have to be a finance guru to know that the rest of the newspapers are also struggling.

Similarly, magazines are barely making it. Book sales are great, but only if you are JK Rowling. Hollywood movies are downloadable, sometimes even reviewed, before they are released. Marketers and consumers continuously wonder if TV is overpriced. Record labels and the music industry are running out of dumb ideas and Radiohead’s good ideas make their dumb ideas seem even dumber. And AM/FM radio… well, I can’t remember the last time I listened to it, but I’ve heard several podcasts and Pandora stations in the last few days.

And while MySpace continues to slide downhill from social web darling to shady poster child for uncoolness, its less than proud papa News Corp. is trying to change the way we consume news by announcing that it will charge for news content. Yes, charging, as in asking you to pay money for it.

Last time I checked, the news were free. The news are available to all and shared via links. The clicks on those links are what keeps advertisers paying for ads and what should make them pay much more in the future.

Everyone knows that The Wall Street Journal is one of the best newspapers in the world and that its writers are exceptional. I subscribed to it once (several years ago) and then canceled shortly after because I simply didn’t know what to do with such a huge pile of unread paper. (more…)

By now most people know that Microsoft has finally scored the deal it’s been wanting for quite a while. I’m guessing CEO Steve Ballmer still gets a little annoyed when thinking about all the trouble and time he wasted trying to get Yahoo! to give in. Then again, maybe things would’ve gone horribly wrong if Yahoo! had accepted what now sounds like a crazy initial offer.

The fact is that Yahoo! was so concerned with how much they could get out of Microsoft (or maybe how cool they would be by playing difficult) that they lost track of their purpose.

Yes, Yahoo!’s purpose in life was search. That’s how I know about them. That’s how you found out about them. Ok, to be fair, maybe some folks that still use Yahoo! Mail don’t realize this, but they probably only recently made the switch from AOL, so that doesn’t really count.

For most people on this Earth of ours, Yahoo! used to be a synonym for search engine.

Well, no longer. And with that, Yahoo! proves that they not only lost the #1 position many years ago, but that they also didn’t realize just how important search was. I mean, if they cared about search, they would’ve done something about it, right?

Wrong. Yahoo! was so concerned with becoming a portal, becoming the source for movie information (I admit it, Yahoo! movies is pretty good), capturing screenshots of Geocities and Flickr (instead of enhancing them), and wondering if red or purple is cuter, etc. that they totally forgot about the reason for their very existence. (more…)

I had the great pleasure of talking with Loic Le Meur, a French blogger, serial entrepreneur, and founder / CEO of Seesmic for The Social Nerdia Show! last night.

I didn’t only get to ask Loic a few questions, but I also got to do it on his 37th birthday and Le Quatorze Juillet so I am very grateful for the time he took to chat with me. I had no idea that it was Loic’s birthday (or Bastille Day for that matter), but I quickly found out through Twitter.

If you’ve ever used Twitter, chances are that you’ve heard of Seesmic and its very popular Seesmic Desktop (or its Twhirl predecessor), which is not only a fantastic Twitter and Facebook client/app, but also “a tool to manage your community,” as Loic explained to me. Seesmic has been working hard to launch a brand new web-based in-browser app called Seesmic Web that is not yet as good as its Adobe Air brother, but is catching up (in terms of features) and will do so probably sooner than later.

Loic told me about the importance of “not rushing things” and the value of Team Seesmic, a group of 52,000 members that provides Seesmic with feedback. “We build as much as we can, obviously based on demand.. but we have a lot of surprises coming that no one suggested.”

A Seesmic iPhone app is coming soon (and Loic said it has surprises as well) so I asked him about a potential Palm Pre app. Loic didn’t give me a clear yes or no, but he did say they are “doing other platforms.”

(more…)

For the 3rd episode of The Social Nerdia Show! I interviewed Cameron Strang, founder and CEO of RELEVANT Magazine, a magazine that has become a leading voice among 18-34 year old, faith motivated individuals.

I have been a big fan of Relevant for many years so it was more than awesome to chat with Cameron to learn more about him and the company. You can stream the conversation on the BTR player below or download the podcast on iTunes, and read some of my thoughts below.

When asked about why he started the magazine, Cameron said that he wanted “to make a difference” and that at the time ”there was no magazine that blended life issues, faith, and culture.” The foundation of it all was Relevant Media Group, which still provides media and web consulting services, followed by the release of relevantmagazine.com, and finally the first issue of RELEVANT Magazine in 2003. Cameron and Relevant have been able to create creative, fun and thought-provoking media that has spread through word of mouth, a strong online community, and grassroot efforts. (more…)