Since then a lot has happened and since I missed providing a 3 year birthday update this year I thought a post was due. If you want to catch up on previous milestones see Year 1 and Year 2.

What prompted this post is that I had the pleasure of attending Lee’s wedding a few weeks ago where Lee Jones and Eliza Funston had a beautiful ceremony up in Sudbury, MA. Lee and I caught up about our journey so far, and I thought sharing this picture and our brief story was worth a post. Below is a picture of us at his wedding in the backyard of Eliza’s house where the ceremony took place.

I have not told this story on the blog before, but told many people in person and thought I would finally get it down in writing.

Lee and I started Marketing.fm while we were both working at Grey Advertising in NY. Specifically, we both worked at MediaCom with Lee doing TV buying and me working on traditional Media Planning. We collaborated on the inaugural MediaCom University class where the goal was to learn about the media business. From there we went on to work together on a few client projects all the while becoming good friends. Having a background and interest in technology and all things Internet related I soon worked for Beyond Interactive, working on many of the Grey brands and coming up with digital strategies.

We both were at the absolute bottom of the pecking order, getting paid next to nothing, and had a lot to say.

We also both talked a big game about articles in our field, conferences we were not attending, and a slew of other things related to marketing and technology.

It was not long before the entrepreneur in me broached the subject of writing a blog. Lee had a background in teaching and writing English, and I thought we had collaborated well together so we took the plunge in March of 2006.

At first, we blogged anonymously because we thought we would lose our jobs if Grey found out. I know this sounds crazy in hindsight, but this was at a time where corporations had not exactly embraced blogging, let alone employees blogging about their industries.

We knew we had a niche topic, but the goal was to provide ourselves with the soap box we did not get elsewhere. Emails and notes sent into AdAge went unanswered, conference organizers ignored our pleas, and anyone above our level wanted nothing to do with two entry level worker bees.

Thus Marketing.fm was born and we joined the conversation.

We soon attracted a following of marketing and advertising professionals and knew we were onto something when comments and emails came in from others like ourselves.

Our thirst to add value to the blogosphere was quenched, but this put the focus back on our day jobs. We both knew it was time to make moves.

In the next chapter of my career I joined a Search Marketing startup called Reprise Media. I joined the account management side of the business working with direct clients and agencies on SEM, SEO, and Social Media campaigns. I stayed for a few years, learned many lessons and gains a few mentors, and rode through an acquisition by IPG. This was certainly one of the most influential jobs I have ever had, but I will save that for another post.

A few months later Lee also left MediaCom and joined a startup called Reviewed.com.

As you can see we are both inherently entrepreneurs and working at a large corporation just didn’t seem like a good fit.

Fast forward a bit and I found myself wanting to work more with startup companies and get even more entrenched in the web. Largely through this blog I got my next job at Union Square Ventures, which I described here.

Lee also left his next startup stepping stone, and with polished sales skills joined an awesome team at ValueClick.

Rather than providing links to posts from year 3, I thought I would provide a history of the Marketing.fm founders. We have certainly come a long way since we decided to start an anonymous marketing blog. It may not be the biggest and most subscribed to blog on the Internet, but that was never the goal.

We continue to use this platform as a catalyst of conversation and a test bed for new ideas. Doing it all in public has been a learning experience, constructive, and certainly a lot of fun – so thank you!

Post from: Eric Friedman
You should follow me on Twitter here
Marketing.fm is growing up (or year 3)

Image courtesy of ShutterStock

I am not sure there is any particular strategy for current employees to do things differently but below are my thoughts on what Condé or other publishers should do TODAY without any delay. This could apply to almost any print conglomerate right now going through a dip, and the right team can turn things around.

I am writing this as a marketing, technology, and startup VC person and it should be looked at as a manifesto to fix what is currently going on within these organizations. I did not touch on the writing or publishing departments as I am not as well versed in those, and they could probably be left as is with the right digital team behind them. (perhaps even hire back some of that lost writing talent let go in the past)

From now on hire Net Natives – these are people that live and breathe the Internet and understand the underlying platforms, accountability, and plumbing of the connected web.

Take control of your web properties – now. The web needs to be embraced first and foremost and the physical products (read: magazines) need to be seen as a part of this new ecosystem.

Hire someone that is net native to handle and run all the hiring of Sales, Business Development, Engineering, Designers, and Project Managers. This is most likely a major role that would have each digital head reporting to her. Reproduce this role where appropriate with each property you have – some overlap or multiple properties can go to one person. Have this new team meet with folks like UnderCurrent and Reprise Media immediately.

Reorganize the sales force
Everyone should be selling strategic ideas not full page print ads with added value banner spots on the web properties. This means your sales force has to be net native too, and has an understanding of brand needs, engagement, conversations, and accountability back to their customers and who they serve. They need to understand how to use Business Intelligence systems, tracking pixels, and ad delivery networks all work together. Demographic and psycho-graphic targeting should be a walk in the park.

Have IN HOUSE developers
Working with the best digital team of developers\designers in NYC? Great – hire them all and have them work 100% on your properties. Take their entire team, a well oiled machine that is used to cranking out projects on time and under budget, and have them start working in tandem with the sales team to get amazing things accomplished.

Don’t have a team in mind? Hire net native engineers and designers that have shipped completed projects.

Let them have 10%-20% time to work with new technologies, the latest startups API’s, and other cool projects as long as they touch your properties. Give them a sandbox of your data and previous assets to play with and they will come up with interesting things.

Expose their work to your more adventurous readers. This is a virtuous cycle that will pay off.

Hire agile business development people
BD guy for 20 years? Probably a bad candidate. You want people who EMBRACE the latest technology, and can work with your new in-house developers to integrate the latest and greatest solutions to make your lives and your visitors lives easier. This means taking risks. You are going through a dip right now and the way out of it is not to continue the status quo and get blinded by FUD.

Cap the deal cycle process. Cut it to 1/3 of whatever it is today. 90 days from meeting to SLA? Do it 30 days next time.

No more wasting your own companies time, or the time of the other companies.

No more brain sucking meetings to get strategy, synergy, and strategic partnerships done.

Boil it all down; Does this BD initiative create a better experience? Yes – continue. No – move on.

Have great project managers
These are folks that can run and produce a project with a competent team of designers and programmers at their disposal. They are tightly integrated into the sales process – TALKING TO CLIENTS – and then translating their needs back to their team that trusts them.

Gone are the days of micro-sites that disappear after the brand promotion is over.

SEO is now your friend and you build on the foundation layered from each project that comes before it.

But how do we integrate all these people together?

Make up small teams of people that each own a project within the organization. Every project has a specific lead and small team behind it.

A flat organization with small teams working on solving problems allows you to comprise each team with one of the following described above;

1. Digital Manager would have the following direct reports:
a. Sales person
b. Project manager
c. Engineer
d. Designer

With this system in place every initiative and business line is accounted for. The organization can scale, as well as provide growth opportunities to go from smaller groups to larger groups with bigger projects. Leadership roles will emerge, and promoting executives from within as well as outside the company would become more viable.

Small groups would own projects, yet be contributing to the great family of products they would be a part of. Accountability and healthy competition would be in place and hopefully lead to a productive and great new culture.

Post from: Eric Friedman
You should follow me on Twitter here
What Publishers Could Do (Condé Nast)