Swift Kick Central

The Developing Business Model

We didn't start this company to become speakers.  The vision of the company is much bigger: "A world in which individuals find their own potential while helping others explore theirs."  (We'll smooth that sentence one day, but the idea still gets across : )

We see education as facilitation of potential.  We aim to make education better.  Speaking is a small part of that - just a place to start.

While we were getting into the college speaking market, we've been working hard on the technology back end to survey, segment, and deliver content all year long.  We have been building a "platform" to deliver relevant content.  It's technology to deliver x+1 education (for those that have seen DFT). 

It's taken all year, but the system almost works.  It is not automatic yet, or without quirks, but it nearly works. 

At the last APCA conference, we had a sit down with Eric Lambert (owner of APCA) to discuss a partnership where we would provide our technology to his conferences to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the education component.  It was great fun.  Eric is unapologetically not technical, which left the challenge of communicating up to us.  We had to  figure out a way to explain techie things (that we are just starting to understand) in completely non-technical language.  Just like "Dance Floor Theory", we turned to metaphors: the knowledge is like minerals in the ground.  We provide the tools to mine, refine and deliver that mineral to just the people that need it.  Eric got it and took his understanding further by switching metaphors to chickens: "Oh I see, we don't own the chickens - anyone can kill chickens - but we have the special recipe and the deep fryer." 

Eric is hilarious, sincere, and, to use his word,  "righteous".  During the meeting he kept coming back to the basics.  "I want to make sure all the information is protected."  "I want to make sure that you guys aren't going to partner up with alcohol, or tobacco or any company that is shady." "I want to make sure you take some of your profits and give back to a charity."  Tom and I were really excited by the whole conversation - it's really nice to do business with people that worry about the "basics".  We are looking forward to building the relationship with Eric and APCA. 

Which brings me back around to the point of this post: the evolving business model.  Our only source of revenue is speaking, and our cost structure on that side of things is fine.  If we were only doing that we would have made some money this year and been on our way in year two.  It's the extra vision of the company - this whole technological enabled x+1 thing - that throws our cost structure out of whack.  We need new sources of revenue so that system can pay for itself.  APCA is part of that solution - finding partners that need the solution that we have and working out deals. If all goes well, APCA will provide some monetary support, and just as importantly, the relationships with activities departments everywhere.  Our system will give APCA a huge leap forward in their education and further strengthen their relationships with all their stakeholders.

There needs to be a tremendous amount of trust in these early deals.  Our ideas our new and unproven.  So is the technology.  We are confident the ideas are sound.  We are confident we can make the technology work - duct tape and late nights if need be.  We just need partners who share some of that confidence.  APCA seems like a great start.

The First NACA Flashmob Ever!

For the past 6 months Kevin and I talked about the idea pulling off a Flashmob at NACA or APCA. Up to this point it was just talk, but we changed that at a recent NACA West conference.

It started with finding the technology. The company we found allows a person to text "swiftkick" to a number and by doing so they enroll in the flashmob group. It costs us very little and costs the user nothing (unless they have to pay for text messages).

We can then login into our account and see how many people are "in" and with the click of one button send a mass text message to the entire group all at once.

That's the technology side. Now on to the human side.

Kevin did a DFT ed session and at the end he talked about flashmobs as another way to connect people together on a dance floor and college campus. The students LOVED the idea and everyone pulled out their cell phones and texted "swiftkick."

We started with 25 people "in". We needed more, so we sent out our first mass text saying we needed 90 and told each person to tell 2 other people. Within 15 minutes we were up to 60! K and I were really excited, but we still didn't know what the flashmob was going to be.

After a long discussion, we decided and texted the group: (on a side note, we are only allowed 160 characters for the text)

"NACA Flashmob! @ dnner sum 1 will stand and yell 1,2,3. On 3 Stand on your chair and sing "ur my sunshine" when finished, yell "Free Hugs!" and give 15 ppl hugs and sit dwn."

Going into dinner Kevin and I were nervous and excited. What if the trigger guy is too quiet? What if no one does it? What if we get kicked out of NACA?

Finally the time came and the trigger guy stood proud on his chair and yelled "1,2,3!" .... There was a pause...

Then 70 other students and advisors stood on their chairs and sang "You Are My Sunshine."

Afterwards the room's atmosphere changed. I could feel the energy rise as schools did cheers and people smiled. It was a success. We were successful at creating new habits for this group. New habits that having fun was ok and "dancing" was ok.

P.S. We filmed the whole thing, so stay tuned for a YouTube video soon.

The Blogger / Feedburner Move

I did an ed session at NACA and APCA about cool marketing uses of facebook / myspace. 

A number of people wanted to know how to do photo streaming into profiles.

Here's the quick version (sorry to be brief, I'm at NACA again and it's always a little crazy).

Setup a Activities board blog on www.blogger.com

Setup an account on www.flickr.com

export your flickr.com stream to the blogger account.

Then have all your student leaders import the blogger feed into their facebook notes acount.

All this might sound complicated if you haven't done feeds before, but it is really really easy...

I will upload screen shots later to show you.

(Oh, forgot to mention, the reason for doing it through flickr is so that anyone on student gov / activities / what ev can upload pictures to one account.  The reason for going through blogger is two fold, one so that there is a filter between flickr and blogger (a student or advisor can choose the good pics / not the pics of someone's butt) and that all the student leaders can then have the one commone activities picture feed!)

It's very cool - post questions in the comments field, I'm sure there will be new ways to do this.

How Important Is Social Networking?

Lots of people, including myself, often think of hours spent on an online community as "wasted". 

Why is it so important then?