Today the House Small Business Committee held a hearing titled “U.S. Trade Strategy: What’s Next for Small Business Exporters?” The first panel of the hearing included testimony from Deputy USTR Miriam Sapiro discussing the status of current trade negotiations and the overall strategy to help small businesses reach new markets.

Also testifying at the hearing was Thermcraft, Inc. President Thomas Crafton from Winston Salem, North Carolina. Mr. Crafton was there to share with the members of the committee some recommendations to help increase exports to create manufacturing jobs.

Thermcraft, Inc. President Thomas Crafton testifies before the House Small Business Committee.

Mr. Crafton discussed during his testimony the obstacles that Thermcraft still faces when exporting, such as obtaining consistent and reliable information and help from federal government representatives stationed overseas:

On the flipside, we have export issues that arise on a daily basis and continue to be an ongoing struggle. For example, it can be difficult to get consistent and reliable information and help from the local representatives stationed abroad. Commercial Officers seem to see only the big picture and often fail to address the details and help small businesses through the ongoing process of exporting. Regulatory changes are constant, and the burden lies on us to keep up with those changes and decide on classifications for specific products. There is a lack of a single source for info regarding export embargoes. They are listed across multiple websites that take countless hours to research, and it is difficult to know if all requirements have been addressed.

He also mentioned the importance of fee trade agreements and the need to continue to reach new markets for manufacturers as well as the opportunities the Russian market presents:

Small businesses can also benefit from improved access to new markets abroad. Manufacturers were pleased to see the recent implementation of new trade agreements with Korea and Colombia, and I hope the Administration will redouble their efforts to pursue more FTAs. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, for example, will lead to critical new market openings in key economies like Malaysia, New Zealand and Vietnam. Furthermore, the TPP model could form the basis of new initiatives. Economies like Brazil, Argentina and others are key growing markets and by removing their tariff and non-tariff barriers for U.S. exports, we will tap into important new avenues of growth.

Another potential market for increased U.S. exports is Russia. Russia offers an excellent opportunity for U.S. manufacturers, and the President’s Export Council has estimated that U.S. exports to the country could double over the next five years to $12 billion. This will create manufacturing jobs in a wide variety of industries and boost economic growth, if Congress establishes Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) with Russia.

With their fluffiness, big trusting eyes and adorable attempts to learn how to operate their oversized paws, kittens and puppies are the essence of the word squee. But take that fluffy kitty or puppy and multiply it by six. Now, you need to provide a load of living creatures with veterinary care, food and water, love and attention, space—and let's not even talk about the number of litter boxes or walks in the park necessary to corral the byproducts of six adorable poop machines. The solution, for many, is a pit stop at the local overcrowded animal shelter—or worse, alongside a highway.
     Most people do spay or neuter their pets. Utah-based Best Friends Animal Society says more than 80 percent of pet owners jump on the snipping bandwagon. But Best Friends says there's still a lot of confusion about when animals should be sterilized (at 4 months old). So, with the help of TM Advertising and MRM in Salt Lake City, it launched the Fix at Four campaign. The creative features furry friends as they face the daunting task of parenting much too soon. The campaign, created with a bare-bones budget, spans video, TV spots, online ads, merch, posters and screensavers, all housed within a website centerpiece that utilizes a cutting-edge continuous scrolling navigation technology called Parallax.

     "Given the fact there was very little money involved, there was a tremendous number of resources and offices and production companies, artists, illustrators, editors, musicians and artists helping with this," says Bill Oakley, TM's chief creative officer. "We told them we had very little money; it was pretty remarkable how many people said yes. Lots of expensive talent gave up their time and effort for these."
     Among the stars of the PSAs are Modern Family's Eric Stonestreet, Oscar-winning actress Linda Hunt and musician Paula Cole. The spots are lighthearted—not a single crying puppy behind jail bars to be seen. For example, one of the "Fix at Four" PSAs uses a plot twist to make it appear as if a harried father is trying to keep a bunch of horny local boys from impregnating his young daughter.
     "We purposely made them lighter," Oakley said. "When I see those Sarah McLachlan commercials, I turn them off. I can't even watch them."

Come January, Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s career in Congress will end.

Ever since losing a member-vs-member primary against Rep. Marcy Kaptur, the Ohio Democrat has been considering a bid in Washington state. Today, he announced that he would step down instead.

The Club for Growth, Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R-S.C.) Senate Conservatives Fund, the Tea Party Express and FreedomWorks all backed losing candidates in Tuesday’s Senate primary in Nebraska.

But one outside group emerged victorious, and you should expect to hear more from it.

Walmart's "Get on the Shelf" contest, which saw more than 4,000 inventors and small businesses compete for the chance to get their product into Walmart stores, has wrapped up, and the winners have been announced. They are: HumanKind Water, PlateTopper and SnapIt Eyeglass Repair Kit. Wait, really? Huh. Well, at least two of the three are ethical companies. HumanKind gives 100 percent of its net profits to organizations that provide access to clean drinking water in underdeveloped communities worldwide. And PlateTopper—a plastic gizmo that covers food on plates, replacing plastic wrap—donates to the anti-bullying campaign Jaylen's Challenge. SnapIt offers no such pretensions, but that also means they'll spend less time talking around their decision to work with retailers as unethical as Walmart. See ads for all three products after the jump.

Manufacturers are leading the way in implementing successful sustainability programs, according to testimony from several witnesses at a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Subcommittee hearing on “Growing Long-Term Value: Corporate Environmental Responsibility and Innovation.” Executives from four companies – Intel Corporation, Procter & Gamble (P&G), Eastman Chemical Company, and FedEx Corporation – testified before Subcommittee Chair Tom Udall (D-NM) and Ranking Member Lamar Alexander (R-TN) on the ways in which each company is fostering innovation, reducing waste and air emissions, and creating more sustainable products through voluntary initiatives.

All four witnesses noted that the programs have helped improve their company’s bottom line, even though many of the projects require up-front investment. For example,

• Intel has invested $100 million in water conservation initiatives that have yielded over 40 billion gallons of water savings;
• Procter & Gamble stated in its written testimony that its energy savings will be greater than the per-site energy consumption at 80% of its facilities worldwide;
• Eastman has utilized a Department of Energy (DOE) program called Save Energy Now and has found $3 million in savings opportunities so far; and,
• FedEx has significantly reduced its greenhouse gas emissions and improved the mileage of its FedEx vehicles. It recently purchased six solar energy facilities as well.

Dr. Len Sauers, Vice President of Global Sustainability at Procter & Gamble, testifies at the hearing.

Sen. Alexander expressed concern that some costly and overly-burdensome federal regulations, such as the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Boiler MACT proposal, can often hurt manufacturers’ sustainability efforts by diverting resources towards unnecessary equipment retrofits. Sen. Udall (D-NM) stressed the importance of public-private partnerships between the federal government and businesses in continuing to drive innovation and environmental responsibility. Manufacturers are encouraged by the Senate Subcommittee’s focus on sustainability and acknowledgement that many companies are making significant environmental improvements through voluntary initiatives.

More information on the hearing and the written testimony can be found here.

Search is a lot about discovery—the basic human need to learn and broaden your horizons. But searching still requires a lot of hard work by you, the user. So today I’m really excited to launch the Knowledge Graph, which will help you discover new information quickly and easily.

Take a query like [taj mahal]. For more than four decades, search has essentially been about matching keywords to queries. To a search engine the words [taj mahal] have been just that—two words.

But we all know that [taj mahal] has a much richer meaning. You might think of one of the world’s most beautiful monuments, or a Grammy Award-winning musician, or possibly even a casino in Atlantic City, NJ. Or, depending on when you last ate, the nearest Indian restaurant. It’s why we’ve been working on an intelligent model—in geek-speak, a “graph”—that understands real-world entities and their relationships to one another: things, not strings.

The Knowledge Graph enables you to search for things, people or places that Google knows about—landmarks, celebrities, cities, sports teams, buildings, geographical features, movies, celestial objects, works of art and more—and instantly get information that’s relevant to your query. This is a critical first step towards building the next generation of search, which taps into the collective intelligence of the web and understands the world a bit more like people do.

Google’s Knowledge Graph isn’t just rooted in public sources such as Freebase, Wikipedia and the CIA World Factbook. It’s also augmented at a much larger scale—because we’re focused on comprehensive breadth and depth. It currently contains more than 500 million objects, as well as more than 3.5 billion facts about and relationships between these different objects. And it’s tuned based on what people search for, and what we find out on the web.

The Knowledge Graph enhances Google Search in three main ways to start:

1. Find the right thing
Language can be ambiguous—do you mean Taj Mahal the monument, or Taj Mahal the musician? Now Google understands the difference, and can narrow your search results just to the one you mean—just click on one of the links to see that particular slice of results:

This is one way the Knowledge Graph makes Google Search more intelligent—your results are more relevant because we understand these entities, and the nuances in their meaning, the way you do.

2. Get the best summary
With the Knowledge Graph, Google can better understand your query, so we can summarize relevant content around that topic, including key facts you’re likely to need for that particular thing. For example, if you’re looking for Marie Curie, you’ll see when she was born and died, but you’ll also get details on her education and scientific discoveries:

How do we know which facts are most likely to be needed for each item? For that, we go back to our users and study in aggregate what they’ve been asking Google about each item. For example, people are interested in knowing what books Charles Dickens wrote, whereas they’re less interested in what books Frank Lloyd Wright wrote, and more in what buildings he designed.

The Knowledge Graph also helps us understand the relationships between things. Marie Curie is a person in the Knowledge Graph, and she had two children, one of whom also won a Nobel Prize, as well as a husband, Pierre Curie, who claimed a third Nobel Prize for the family. All of these are linked in our graph. It’s not just a catalog of objects; it also models all these inter-relationships. It’s the intelligence between these different entities that’s the key.

3. Go deeper and broader
Finally, the part that’s the most fun of all—the Knowledge Graph can help you make some unexpected discoveries. You might learn a new fact or new connection that prompts a whole new line of inquiry. Do you know where Matt Groening, the creator of the Simpsons (one of my all-time favorite shows), got the idea for Homer, Marge and Lisa’s names? It’s a bit of a surprise:

We’ve always believed that the perfect search engine should understand exactly what you mean and give you back exactly what you want. And we can now sometimes help answer your next question before you’ve asked it, because the facts we show are informed by what other people have searched for. For example, the information we show for Tom Cruise answers 37 percent of next queries that people ask about him. In fact, some of the most serendipitous discoveries I’ve made using the Knowledge Graph are through the magical “People also search for” feature. One my favorite books is The White Tiger, the debut novel by Aravind Adiga, which won the prestigious Man Booker Prize. Using the Knowledge Graph, I discovered three other books that had won the same prize and one that won the Pulitzer. I can tell you, this suggestion was spot on!

We’ve begun to gradually roll out this view of the Knowledge Graph to U.S. English users. It’s also going to be available on smartphones and tablets—read more about how we’ve tailored this to mobile devices. And watch our video (also available on our site about the Knowledge Graph) that gives a deeper dive into the details and technology, in the words of people who've worked on this project:

We hope this added intelligence will give you a more complete picture of your interest, provide smarter search results, and pique your curiosity on new topics. We’re proud of our first baby step—the Knowledge Graph—which will enable us to make search more intelligent, moving us closer to the "Star Trek computer" that I've always dreamt of building. Enjoy your lifelong journey of discovery, made easier by Google Search, so you can spend less time searching and more time doing what you love.

Posted by Amit Singhal, SVP, Engineering

Gov. Scott Walker (R) is up six points over Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett (D) in a new Wisconsin gubernatorial recall poll from Marquette Law School.

Walker leads Barrett 50 to 44 among 600 likely voters in the school’s first survey since the May 8 Democratic primary. Their last poll, released May 2, showed a dead heat.

Years ago, the political philosopher Leo Strauss wrote an essay entitled, “Persecution and the Art of Writing,” in which he advocated reading some philosophers “between the lines.” For a host of reasons, the philosopher felt that the truth he had to speak could only be spoken surreptitiously or “by means of brief indication.”

Of course, one can run into a lot of trouble scholastically when arguing that a philosopher meant to say something other than what he explicitly stated. I mean, how are you supposed to prove that?

Strauss insists that a “between the lines” reading is at least plausible if you find cases where the thinker has subtly contradicted orthodox beliefs (or the ruling beliefs of the time) and is absolutely necessary when you find “explicit evidence” (such as correspondence or journal entries) indicating that the philosopher has chosen to express his views in this esoteric manner.

Why am I bringing up Strauss? I was thinking a lot about secret messages when I read The Go-Giver, by Bob Burg and John David Mann, in preparation for Bob’s appearance as a guest on our podcast, Marketing Smarts. (If you’d like to hear my entire interview with Bob, you may do so here.)

The book is a business parable about a young everyman, Joe, who finds himself in a jam at work and seeks the advice of an older gentleman, Pindar, who teaches him “The Five Laws of Stratospheric Success.” Joe puts the laws into practice and finds the success he was seeking.

On the surface, the message of the book is fairly straightforward: If you focus on how providing value for others and serving them, then you will ultimately succeed in business and in life. The idea that those lessons are not just business lessons but also life lessons is highlighted towards the end of the book when a character tells Joe, “The point is not what you do. Not what you accomplish. It’s who you are.” [Emphasis in original.]

What made me wonder if there might be something beneath this surface, however, were Pindar’s repeated admonitions that, “Appearances can be deceiving… In fact, they nearly always are.” He tells Joe that in their first meeting, repeats it when they meet the character Ernesto (here replacing “In fact” with “Truth is”), and then towards the end when he says, “Just to keep things interesting, things are always a bit the opposite of what they seem.”

Believing this sentiment to be a strong indication that we should read the book between the lines, I asked Burg about it. He laughed, saying that there was no secret message, just the simple but profound truth of what leads to success.

Not satisfied with that answer (I’m somewhat paranoid by nature—studying German philosophy will do that to you!) I asked Burg if the secret message might have something to do with his political beliefs. His beliefs are not a secret; he states in his bio, “Bob is an advocate, supporter and defender of the Free Enterprise system, believing that the amount of money one makes is directly proportional to how many people they serve.” (That last part is a paraphrase of The Go-Giver’s “Law of Compensation,” which states, “Your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them.”) However, his book is not overtly political in any way.

While Burg didn’t go so far as to say that I had uncovered a “secret message,” he did point out the laws of success described by John and himself “would not hold true within a communist system.” We also spent the last segment of the interview discussing the portrayal of the wealthy in the mass media (“Society as it is makes money the enemy,” he said) and the proper role of government in a society distinguished by “free minds and free markets.”

Have you read The Go-Giver? Did you uncover any secret messages?

More importantly, do you think it is effective to create interest in your products or your brand by suggesting that “there’s more to it than meets the eye”?

(Photo courtesy of Bigstock: Young Man Reading)

Last month, I highlighted some benchmarks in both social media and email marketing that were released in recent reports so that you could see how your nonprofit stacked up. Today, we are going to look at online fundraising.

Using the 2012 Online Marketing Nonprofit Benchmark Index Study by Convio and the 2012 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study published by M+R and NTEN, we see that online fundraising continues to grow in importance, especially to smaller nonprofits.

Here are the key findings from each report:

• The impact of online fundraising continues with the median growth rate at 15.8%. This compares unfavorably to the 20% growth rate achieved in 2010, but is up from the 14% achieved in 2008 and 2009. The disaster in Haiti is a part of that decline as well as a slower growth of event fundraising. When excluding special events, overall online fundraising comes in at 19.7 %.
• Online giving continues to grow fastest for smaller organizations. Organizations with 10,000 or fewer email addresses grew by 26.7% in median revenue, similar to 2010’s growth rate.
• First time online gifts represented 37 % of total median online revenue at $136,625 of a total $366,572.
• The average online monthly gift amount was $31.96, with Performing Arts orgs receiving an average monthly gift of $63.22 and Public Broadcasting Stations averaging only $14.56.
• The percentage of online advocates also making an online donation grew from 6.4 % in 2010 to 11.9 % in 2011. Get people involved and they give more!

• On average, nonprofits increased their dollars raised online by 19% from 2010 to 2011.
• The number of gifts rose by 20%, with the typical gift size remaining roughly the same, falling by 2% between 2010 and 2011.
• Between 2009 and 2010, the international sector saw a huge 163% increase in the total raised online, likely due to two major emergencies – the earthquake in Haiti and massive flooding in Pakistan – that received substantial media attention and resonated strongly with donors.
• Between 2010 and 2011, rights groups had the highest increase, with the total revenue online jumping by 56% and the number of gifts by 63%.
• For organizations with a monthly giving program, while one-time gifts remain the largest source of online revenue, online revenue from monthly giving has grown at a much faster rate over the past few years. On average, online monthly giving accounted for 8% of total online revenue in 2011, up from 5% in 2010.
• On average, 35% of online revenue was sourced to direct email appeals. The remaining 65% came from other sources, such as unsolicited web giving and peer referrals.

In addition, Network for Good has released first quarter stats for 2012 on their Quarterly Digital Giving Index. Here are some highlights from that:

• Overall giving, excluding disaster relief donations for Japan in March 2011, was up across all channels in Q1 2012 vs. Q1 2011, increasing by 16%.
• Charity websites continued to comprise the bulk—over 60%—of digital donations. Following charity websites, social giving (19%) overtook portal giving (10%) for the second most used form of digital giving.
• Average gift size on social networks increased 90% in Q1 2012 vs. Q1 2011.

Other sources for online fundraising trends:

Netwits Think Tank by Blackbaud
The Blackbaud Index
April 2012 Nonprofit Blog Carnival: Social Fundraising Tips and Best Practices

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It's only the middle of May, but already we've had some runaway viral hits in advertising this year. Unruly Media, which runs the global Viral Video Chart, has just released a list of the most-shared ads of 2012 (so far). We've posted the top 20 below. It's a varied group of spots—with dancing and singing, cursing and fainting, running and good old-fashioned pitching. President Obama even makes an appearance. Check out the full list after the jump. And don't resist the urge to share.

20. Finnair
    Snobby ad people largely despise flash mobs and/or spontaneous dancing as a way of driving video views. But the public continues to eat it up. This insufferable Finnair spot captures footage of some extremely energetic people congratulating India on Republic Day in January—by dancing like maniacs.
    
21. DollarShaveClub.com
    DollarShaveClub CEO Michael Dubin starred alongside warehouse sidekick Alejandra and a guy in a bear suit in this infectious spot from March that quickly became a sensation. The ad, like the razors, was pretty f***ing great.
    
22. Nike Running
    There was something mildly nauseating about this Nike Running spot from April featuring the woman who runs across America, singing all the way, for the love of her poor, weak man (who ends up in hospital long before meeting her in the middle). But online, the spot sure had legs.
    
23. Tic Tac
    Oh look, a flash mob. In this French spot from April, scores of actors pretended to pass out when confronted with people who had "the worst breath in the world." Tic Tacs eventually came to the rescue.
    
24. Mercedes-Benz
    Using an elaborate LED costume, the automaker built an "invisible" car in March to promote its zero-emission technology. One of the year's better tech stunts.
    
25. Tipp-Ex
    The Tipp-Ex hunter and bear, stars of a viral smash in 2010, returned with a bang in April. To help the pair escape a flying meteor, viewers were urged to change the year in the interactive YouTube interface to more than 40 hilarious scenarios. A sequel for the ages—quite literally.
    
26. Cartier
    In March, the French jeweler stormed three major networks in prime time with an audacious media buy—presenting this fantastical three-and-a-half minute spot that reimagined the brand's 165-year history as a diamond jungle cat's adventures through space and time. An absurd and lavish treasure, beautifully crafted—even if, you know, it made no sense.
    
27. Honda
    The first of three Super Bowl spots on this list (to go along with one Super Bowl teaser), this Honda spot famously featured Matthew Broderick reprising his classic Ferris Bueller character in a pitch for the CR-V. What did viewers think? They bought it.
    
28. Volkswagen
    Another 2012 Super Bowl spot, this was Volkswagen's highly anticipated follow-up to "The Force," its universe-conquering ad from 2011. "The Dog Strikes Back" was cute, even if it didn't quite match the subtle storytelling and clever payoff that made "The Force" (the most-shared commercial of all time) such a delight.
    
29. Coca-Cola
    With post-revolution Tunisia competing in the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations soccer tournament, Coca-Cola crafted this anthem in January with the help of musical group Sli Lemhaf. The song—about forgetting the fear of oppression—became the Tunisian team's official anthem.
    

1. Type Books
   Sean Ohlenkamp, an associate creative director at Lowe Roche, and his wife created this lovely little ode to paper books—specifically, to the Type Books bookstore in Toronto. The clip, posted in January, got amazing traction for an amateur effort.
   
2. Barack Obama
   Oh yes, it's an election year. As Republicans battered each other through the winter and spring, it was President Obama who in March delivered the most-shared political ad of the season—this look back at the past three and a half years.
   
3. Nike
   Casey Neistat was given a budget to shoot a Nike ad, but instead used the money to travel around the world with his buddy Max. The resulting video, from April, embodied the tagline, "Make it count," more than a typical fabricated ad would have.
   
4. Google Maps
   One of two Google clips in the top 10, this was also the only April Fools' joke video to make the list. It ludicrously introduced Google Maps in an 8-bit version for Nintendo Entertainment Systems.
   
5. M&Ms
   Sorry, Doritos, Chevrolet and Bud Light. In terms of broad comedy, nothing could touch this M&M's spot on Super Bowl Sunday.
   
6. Volkswagen
   One of the big Super Bowl ad stories this year was the sheer volume of teaser and preview clips leading up to the game. Volkswagen's "The Bark Side," with dogs barking the "Imperial March," ruled them all—and indeed, turned out to be more viral than anything that aired on the game itself.
   
7. Google
   In this concept video from April, Google showed off a pair of augmented reality glasses that would work like a smartphone—but instead of interacting with the device in your hand, you wear it on your face. Impressive and somewhat scary.
   
8. Procter & Gamble
   Originally launched for the 2010 Winter Olympics, P&G's "Thank you, Mom" campaign was dramatically reborn in April—for London 2012—with this emotional, cinematic anthem from Babel director Alejandro González Iñárritu.
   
9. Dancesport Studio
   This video, promoting a dance studio in Germany, featured insane footage of a 2-year-old dancing the jive. It wasn't so much that people wanted to watch—they just couldn't look away.
   
10. TNT
    To promote its launch in Belgium, TNT placed a big red button "on an average Flemish square of an average Flemish town," and goaded people to push it. When they did, the square erupted in chaos, as actors appeared out of nowhere and flung themselves into scenes ripped from medical and legal dramas (and melodramas). At the end, a giant banner was unfurled on a building side that read: "Your daily dose of drama. TNT." The clip has been a stunning success, and has become the second-most-shared ad of all time, behind Volkswagen's "The Force."
    

Attorney General Jon Bruning was supposed to win the Nebraska Republican Senate primary — unless he was upset by state Treasurer Don Stenberg, who had the support of national conservatives.

Neither man won. Instead, Nebraska’s GOP nominee this fall will be state Rep. Deb Fischer, who surged in the past few weeks with little money or help. She’ll be the one to take on former senator Bob Kerrey (D).

House Speaker John Boehner gave the political world a dose of deja vu on Tuesday when he said Republicans would again hold their ground when the debt limit again comes to a vote in 2013.

“We shouldn’t dread the debt limit,” Boehner said at the Peter G. Peterson Fiscal Summit. “We should welcome it. It’s an action-forcing event in a town that has become infamous for inaction.”

<em>Stories live forever.
Slogans live until the ad agency gets tired of them.

Stories are part of who we are. After all, you don’t share slogans about your grandfather, how your parents met or even how you were treated at a restaurant.

Brains on Fire Book, page 32

The proof is in the pudding story…