WHEATON, IL, January 1, 2001 - Doug Elwell, Inc., a client-focused communications consulting company,
officially begins operations today. Founder Doug Elwell, seeing a strong need for comprehensive, customized
communications solutions for clients, including corporate identity development, print and web design, applications
development, advertising, and related needs, has founded Doug Elwell, Inc. as a general communications
consulting company designed to serve all of these needs in a comprehensive and coordinated fashion.
Doug Elwell, Inc.'s business model is unique in that its operations do not all take place in one physical
location. Seeking to realize the full potential of the New Economy, Doug Elwell, Inc. is embracing the
decentralized, virtual nature of the web by adopting the principle of a decentralized, virtual workplace.
This approach will allow Doug Elwell, Inc. to maintain a substantial workforce without the overhead costs
typical of Old Economy companies. The advantage to their employees is the flexibility of being able to work
from a location of their choosing with tools of their choosing, even while working for one or more other
employers, allowing them to develop a more flexible, financially stable, and ultimately more fulfilling
lifestyle. The advantage to their clients will be quality of service equal to or better to than large Old
Economy companies at a substantially lower price. Also unique about their business model is their adoption
of a sales-based rather than a VC-based approach, allowing them to retain a stable base of operations
minimally affected by industry microtrends.
Doug Elwell, Inc. is also positioning itself as an incubator for both B2B and B2C web-based businesses in
such areas as sports, travel, and faith-based organizations. By creating communities conducive to specific
industry verticals instead of lumping all clients into a "one size fits all" approach, Doug Elwell, Inc.
seeks to enhance its ability to serve its clients, as well as enhance the likelihood of their clients' success.
By avoiding the mistakes of its predecessors, Doug Elwell, Inc. seeks to be not only a beneficial partner
with the IT community, but also to be a beneficial presence in the Chicago area.
Brand Warfare: 10 Rules for Building the Killer Brand
David F. D'Alessandro
Rating:
Powerful lessons on how to build and sustain your own "killer brand".
Creating and sustaining a good brand is the most complex and perilous task any business will ever face, yet nothing is as misunderstood. Under the direction of marketing wizard David D'Alessandro, John Hancock transformed itself from a sleepy old life insurer into a leading financial services giant, with a sustained 20% annual rate of growth. In Brand Warfare, D'Alessandro draws on his personal experience as a brand-builder and examples from America's smartest and most foolish corporations, developing principles that you can use in any market. At the same time, he creates an entertaining picture of the marketing business with anecdotes that convey a keen sense of the absurdities of corporate life, balanced by a tremendous respect for the consumer.
This tough-minded, funny, and refreshingly candid book gives you a proven roadmap for marketing success as you learn:
Why every business needs a good brand to compete
Why consumers need good brands as much as good brands need them
Why sycophancy from the agency and meddling from inside the company will sink your campaign every time
About sponsorship: how to avoid being taken, and how to make the investment pay for your brand
Why it's as important to market your brand to your employees as it is to your customers
Why every business decision should be filtered through the prism of the brand
Gonzo Marketing: Winning Through Worst Practices
Christopher Locke
Rating:
The coauthor of the no-more-business-as-usual blockbuster
The Cluetrain Manifesto — which basically told Net-age marketers to stop talking at their markets and start conversing with them — follows up with a book that's more a highly entertaining, nimbly erudite screed against our current mass-market, mass-media culture than it is a recipe book for e-commerce marketing success in the post-cyberboom era. Writing in a paler imitation of the profanely irreverent, freely associative "gonzo" journalism style pioneered by his obvious idol
Hunter S. Thompson,
Locke starts with the by-now-familiar idea that old-style mass-marketing "broadcast" advertising just won't work on the Web. Indeed, he says, conventional print-ad tactics as embodied online by banners and pop-ups might actually generate more ill will than sales, and that's why companies must use the Web to somehow enjoin their products and services to the quirky niche interests of the gazillion individual cybercommunities (or "micromarkets") whose greatest advantage for marketers is how freely and speedily their members talk among themselves, touting a brand when and if it's truly deserved.
The Virtue of Prosperity:
Finding Values In An Age Of Techno-Affluence
Dinesh D'Souza
Rating:
In The Virtue of Prosperity, former White House policy analyst Dinesh D'Souza offers the first
in-depth analysis of the spiritual and social crisis that has been spawned by the New Economy and
new technologies.
The chief problem societies have faced "since the time of the Babylonians," writes Dinesh D'Souza,
has been the problem of scarcity. "But now that age has passed, and America has a new problem: coping
with prosperity." It's a good problem to have, but also a serious, even debilitating, one. "The moral
conundrum of success," the author continues, means that all too often, "the body is flourishing, but
somehow the soul still feels malnourished." D'Souza is well known for his bestselling conservative
books
Illiberal Education,
The End of Racism,
and
Ronald Reagan.
On these pages, however, he seems to
set politics aside to ask deep questions about the meaning of life in a world of material abundance.
(Review by Amazon.com)
The Monk and the Riddle:
The Education of a Silicon Valley Entrepreneur
Randy Komisar, Kent L. Lineback (Contributor)
Rating:
Prospective entrepreneurs may think they know everything there is to know about starting a business in Silicon Valley. They can draw up business plans, have meetings with venture capitalists, maybe even get funded and actually launch a start-up. However, in The Monk and the Riddle, Silicon Valley sage Randy Komisar reasons that's only half the equation for success. And it may not be the important half. Komisar has worked with a number of companies — Apple, LucasArts Entertainment (the gaming division of George Lucas's empire), and WebTV among them — and has come to a rather startling conclusion: if you can't see yourself doing this business for the rest of your life, don't start it. In other words, he wants to see passion and purpose in business, not just spreadsheets and a by-the-numbers business model.
To illustrate, Komisar takes the reader through a hypothetical Silicon Valley start-up, with an eager entrepreneur named Lenny trying to get funding for an online casket-selling business. As Komisar helps Lenny find the real purpose of the business, the passion behind the revenue projections, he reflects back on his life as an entrepreneur. Komisar emerges as a master storyteller, the kind of guy you'd feel honored to share a bottle of wine with. And you believe his conclusion: "When all is said and done, the journey is the reward." It's great if you've made billions on the journey, but the important thing is that you do something you can truly throw yourself into.
(Review by Amazon.com)
Burn Rate
Michael Wolff
Journalist Michael Wolff is a recognized pioneer in the business of cyberspace, meaning he has been developing products and services for the online world since the dark ages of 1994. During the intervening years, however, not all the activities he engaged in, nor all the people he dealt with, left a pleasant taste in his mouth - although, to be sure, his cumulative adventures certainly have been very lucrative.
In Burn Rate: How I Survived the Gold Rush Years on the Internet, Wolff pulls few punches as he candidly and methodically recounts the single steps forward and multiple steps back that marked his experiences while trying to transform a fledgling print media enterprise into a towering New Media colossus. After developing a series of
"NetGuide"
books that proved hugely successful, he attempted to transfer the concept to a variety of online offshoots and in so doing connected with
Wired
magazine, Time-Warner's Pathfinder, the late Robert Maxwell's media empire,
AOL
, assorted venture capitalists, sundry competitors, and numerous would-be partners. Burn Rate is a fascinating tale
that might best be characterized by the old adage that warns us to "be careful what we wish for, for we just might get it."
(Review by Amazon.com)
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Brand Warfare: 10 Rules for Building the Killer Brand
Gonzo Marketing: Winning Through Worst Practices
The Virtue of Prosperity:
The Monk and the Riddle:
Burn Rate
