With 2009 just hours away, there’s hope, expectation, and reservation in the air.

A few thoughts: 2009 will be the year of…

The self-employed

There is one key attribute to success that most do not realize.  Everyone is self-employed.  Whether you work for a corporation or have your own freelance company…you are essentially self-employed.

If you work for a company as an employee and get a W2 at the end of the year, you are still in theory a one person company and your product is…you.  Your time, your creativity, and your talent…that’s what you get paid for.

In 2009, I believe we will see people take more responsibility for their own progress and careers.  Instead of leaning on job security - which is a mind game anyway - we will lean towards independently looking towards progressing ourselves.  You are your own boss…even if you have to answer to someone.

Through this realization, we will see people branch out into other areas.  You no longer have 1 job…you may open up a side business selling info products, freelancing, blogging - who knows.

2009 will be the year of the self-employed.

Shifting priorities

As retirement accounts dry up, loans are called, and credit lines are reduced we need to optimize and adapt for the better.  What were priorities in 2007 and 2008 will change this year.

From families and businesses paying off their debt and re-structuring their expenses to save more to real estate investors going crazy over bargains to be had.

From workaholics spending more time with their families to students finding new ways to pay for school so they don’t have to borrow.

From parents taking back control of their retirement by not relying on extremely leveraged institutions for help to college savings accounts being started for new born babies.

2009 will be the year of shifting priorities.

Inbound Marketing

As marketing morphs into consumer interaction and corporate execs become transparent a new way of reaching your audience is taking hold.  Inbound Marketing is the process of building your brand and evoking consumer loyalty through communication, relationships, and an equally satisfying need to make our world a better place.

Utilizing Search Engine Optimization, Brand Marketing, Social Media, and overall Reputation management; start-ups will compete with giants by creating communities for niche markets and taking over market share through quality products/services and Inbound Marketing.  If you build it correctly, they will come.

2009 will be the year of Inbound Marketing.

Personal Branding

In line with being self-employed, the personal brand comes into play.  No longer do consumers only care about the product or service, they now care about the people behind the curtain.  With so many companies faltering in 2008 it becomes increasingly important to put your money towards the leadership behind a cause.

With the transparency that social media networks bring to executives, personal brand will play a big role in consumer confidence.  This is extremely apparent when you look at Apple and Steve Jobs…then the challenge is how do you pass on “your brand” to the company yet still take it with you when the time comes.

2009 will be the year of Personal Branding

Twitter Emergence

Many people are confused by how to monetize or even utilize social media networks.  Whether it’s Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, or twitter, they are confused.  And rightly so…these applications have a feature set but it’s up to the users to determine how that feature set is used.

In 2009, I see twitter emerging to a mass audience.  Whether they know how to use it or not, twitter offers something the other networks are not geared towards..the ability to find and connect with strangers of like mind.  Networking and building, this is where I see twitter exploding.

2009 will be the year of twitter emergence.

On a side note, if you are interested in a really cool twitter showcase coming in January ‘09 - follow me @arifgan - details to come early Jan…seriously, you don’t want to miss this one.

Now, on to you…our readers are clever, creative, and determined so let’s hear it…

2009 will be the year of?

Social media provides new tools for business to interact directly with their customer base.  This may be a good thing or a bad thing - that depends on your business and how good your product is.

The fear from businesses may be that they receive some bad reviews on their product or services.  This is a fear of all businesses. In most cases you are trying to provide the best product or service possible and even though you care what your customers think, you don’t want your potential customers to view any negative feedback.

This poses a dilema, to have the best product you must solicite feedback.  You can do this privately through e-Survey software such as ratepoint.com. Social Media now provides a tool and people will use it whether or not you decide to listen.  With blogs, Facebook, and other mediums to rate your product or just chat about your product, some may already be providing useful nuggets of information; yet you aren’t listening.

I encourage you to take heed of these networks and watch your brand and your customer base, they are out there and they can provide you with valuable feedback.  Feedback that will ultimately increase the quality of your product, if you choose to listen.

Social Media allows you to interact with your customers as well.  If someone posts a negative comment, use that same medium to post any changes or updates that others reading the post may be interested in.

For example:

If someone posts a message stating that your Support department is taking too long to respond back to email, even though in your auto-responder you qualify that they will hear back within 24 hours (for example).  You could first contact that client and make sure their needs are taken care of - win them back.  And then post a message stating that you have changed the email auto-responder to give a more accurate response time (or you removed the time altogether).  In addition, you have implemented a Forum that will allow customers to post their questions, your support team to respond to their questions, and everything is archived for future users who may have the same answer.

Here is an article in regards to replacing that un-godly plastic clam-shell packaging that is almost impossible to open without scissors, and then once you have it open the edges become fatal weapons.

Listen to your customers, they are talking about your product.  Don’t fear feedback, embrace it and use the Internet to communicate with your clients.

Congratulations David Plouffe (Campaign Manager for Barack Obama’s Presidential Election Campaign)…

Your campaign was quite slick.  You utilized technology, you utilized manpower, you have created a new template for Presidential elections.  All future election campaigns will be held to a new standard and level of utilizing technology…long gone is the old way of campaigning.

Between the Obama Girl, Facebook ads, and an iPhone application, you took advantage of the Internet as a communication tool and you captured a generation and communicated with them at their level.  And yes, I know Obama Girl was not part of your campgain strategy, or was she?

People-Press.org provides the following statistics…

The internet is living up to its potential as a major source for news about the presidential campaign. Nearly a quarter of Americans (24%) say they regularly learn something about the campaign from the internet, almost double the percentage from a comparable point in the 2004 campaign (13%).

Moreover, the internet has now become a leading source of campaign news for young people and the role of social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook is a notable part of the story. Fully 42% of those ages 18 to 29 say they regularly learn about the campaign from the internet, the highest percentage for any news source. In January 2004, just 20% of young people said they routinely got campaign news from the internet.

Once again, congratulations…see you on Facebook.

So, here’s an interesting case.  When Technology finds significance in humanity, it usually serves a need of great measure. When Technology is forced into humanity, most of the time it is a gadget and ends up being a fad…it’s not sustainable.

Here is an example of technology that is bound to never make any impact on someone’s life:

A sneaker with a Wi-Fi detector built in…as if you’ll just want to walk around and stare at your feet for connectivity.

And here is an example of technology as it strives to serve a purpose:

One Laptop Per child

Mission Statement: To create educational opportunities for the world’s poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning.

So, I went to Barack Obama’s web site today around 1:00pm MST (8/18/2008) to check out their web site layout - what can I say…we are truly web geeks!  Anyway, here’s what we found:

Fatal PHP Errors on Barack Obama's web site.

http://www.barackobama.com

Warning: main(header_items.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /usr/www/users/obamech0/bo/includes/top.php on line 75

Fatal error: main(): Failed opening required ‘header_items.php’ (include_path=’.:/usr/local/lib/php’) in /usr/www/users/obamech0/bo/includes/top.php on line 75

Someone messed up!

Okay, so this blog will be extremely varied in the type of information presented.  We willd discuss new technologies, the business of technologies, as well as just cool use of new or old technology.

Why is this blog any different than the hundreds of thousands of technology blogs?  I guess we’ll find out.  Truthfully, as we discuss the various facets of technology the goal and focus of this blog will become very apparent.

Neon Rain is a Denver, CO based web development, web design, application development, and Internet Marketing company (SEO, SMO).  That obviously creates a bias on the topics we will be discussing.

Please join us as we converse and please share your opinions, we’d love you have you take part.