Well put, Hale! Thanks for your comment!

Great startup advice, Kyle! Definitely a lesson that has enlightened how I look at entrepreneurship!

Thanks C.J. -- I hope you find it useful!

The Entrepreneur's Dilemma!

I like the idea of asking customers how they felt about the authenticity of a campaign!

There seem to be more qualitative returns on cause marketing than quantitative, don't you think? Brand equity, affinity, loyalty, etc. Something my marketing team was talking about the other day is how marketing these days doesn't seem to have an immediate impact -- it is more about planting the seed in the back of somebody's mind so that when it comes time to make a decision, your brand comes to mind. What do you think?

Rohit, thanks for the comment! I must say, I think about this concept now in just about everything I do -- whether I execute successfully is a whole other story! Thanks for this inspiring and sharing this idea, and I look forward to getting your thoughts and insights on future posts here as well! Cheers!

Ian, you're absolutely right and I've made the following clarification in the post:

Clarification: I need to apologize and clarify, because as Ian rightly points out in the comments, Seth did speak at the event. It was partly my fault I missed what he had to say because I got into conversations immediately after we broke from our big introduction circle, and for that I'll admit I'm slightly embarrassed.

However, I will add that several people at the event did in fact comment they also missed the opportunity to hear Seth and I still think there is a TON of value in kindly asking Seth to share part of his story and experience with the broader audience that was unable to attend the evening.

I'm not sure why we broke up the group after our introductory circle, but I admit that I bare blame for not making it back to the kitchen. I deeply apologize if the post misrepresented the event!

No worries! Ron actually reached out to me back in December! We had a great chat! Thanks!

It's a great list, and some ideas I think I will try to incorporate into my own blogging! I would suggest taking a look at Feedera (http://feedera.com), as it helps curate your twitter feed and rank posts based on RTs, clicks, etc. It's not a substitute, but it helps make sure you don't miss something big if you're not on continuously! Happy New Years -- looking forward to reading more in 2010!