If you’ve had a look at the Tampa Bay Beaches Chamber of Commerce website in the last couple of years, you’re well aware that a change was definately in order. I’m happy to report that we’ve launched a new Tampa Bay Beaches Chamber of Commerce website today. After many months of hard work, we’ve gone live with the new look, feel and some new functionality.

Although most of the major changes in the website are behind the scenes features that will save the Chamber staff time so that they can serve the membership better, here are some new things you’ll notice:

1) The chamber membership is listed in random order. Now, the members who are “alphabetically challenged” will have their share of the spotligiht. The first listing in the business directory is randomly determined each time someone visits the page. Don’t worry. If you already know what you’re looking for, you can browse businesses by alphabet, or use the handy search engine.

2) Members can now access member to member discounts and update their own discounts whenever they want. All you have to do is enter a name, and a brief description. All member to member discounts are subject to Chamber staff approval before being posted to the website.

3) It just looks better. We think the new look and feel of the website reflects the Chamber’s relaxed attitude. After all, we’re all working and playing on the beach. We hope visitors and residents alike will enjoy the whimsical theme.

If you haven’t already, check out the new Tampa Bay Beaches Chamber of Commerce website today. If you have any comments, leave them here, I’d love to hear what you think.

I’m feeling like a bit of a slacker right now. I’m at the Pubcon convention in Las Vegas and there are loads of people who are instantly blogging about the sessions after they happen. There are already full reports on the web about sessions that ended 5 minutes ago, and here I am writing about something that happened yesterday morning. That being said, I think this one was pretty inspiring compared to some others I’ve seen.

The session was a keynote address by Guy Kawasaki, the software evangelist on the original Mac team back in the 80s. He spoke of 10 aspects of innovation:

1) Make meaning. Make something people want and need. Don’t just make stuff for the sake of making stuff. Take something bad and make it good.

2) Make mantra. This is your guiding principle. It’s simple. Some examples: Wendys = “Healthy Fast Food”, Nike = “Authentic Athletic Performance”.

3) Jump to the next curve. This is best illustrated through Guy’s fabulous example: There was an industry in the northeast in the 1800’s that harvested ice. People literally cut blocks of ice from frozen lakes and delivered it to consumers so those consumers could keep things cold. This industry was obliterated by ice factories, who froze water in their factories and delivered the ice to consumers. Later, the ice factories were put out of business by refrigerators. The point of the example is that none of the ice harvesters opened ice factories and none of the ice factories became refrigerator companies. They were all comfortable with the way they were doing things, and none of them thought to jump to the next level.

4) Roll the DICEE. DICEE is an acronym for “Depth”, “Intelligence”, “Completeness”, “Elegance” and “Emotiveness”.

5) Don’t worry, be crappy. Don’t wait for perfection. Launch your imperfect products and constantly modify them. If you wait for perfection, you’ll never launch anything.

6) Don’t be afraid to polarize people. Some people may hate your idea and others will love it. If you try to please everyone, you’ve got a recipe for mediocrity.

7) Let a hundred flowers blossom. Don’t be afraid to sow many seeds and see what materializes. In Guy’s experience as software evangelist for the Mac, he thought he had to get a lot of office based applications on the Mac for it to compete with the PC. It turned out that it was graphic design software that brought the Mac its niche market.

Churn Baby Churn. Keep working on your ideas. Don’t stop and let things become stagnant. Don’t ever become complacent with what you have.

9) Niche Thyself. Find a niche market, and deliver exactly what they want.

10) Follow the 10/20/30 rule. No more than 10 powerpoint slides, no more than 20 minutes proposinig your idea, and no less than 30 point font for your presentation.

11) Don’t let the bozos get you down (bonus). Plenty of people will say it can’t be done. Don’t listen to them. Do your own research and reach your own conclusions.