With so much going on these days on Facebook (Yes, we know you want Mark Zuckerberg to quit tinkering) it can be difficult to draw the attention of users to your business and its fan page. One way to cut through the noise is with a contest.



Giving potential customers/fans…

In little old Albuquerque, where I reside when not on the road, we’re fortunate to have a very good business and economics writer named Winthrop Quigley; he recently wrote a column which began “Steve Jobs killed my employer”, about the cycle of destruction and rebirth in the tech industry.  Here’s a link if you’d like to read his piece:…

While Yogi Berra didn't originate the quote "numbers are clearly important to those who count on them", he could have.

1,460 days is exactly 4 years, assuming the 365-day calendar is the one we all share. Four years is equal to 32 dog years. One can almost earn a college degree in four years. The world cup happens every four years as does the Olympics,…

Monday was the first annual Food Day. Food Day is a day devoted to awareness and celebration of consuming local and healthy food. Proclaimed by over 30 governors and mayors, this day was observed in one form or another in all 50 states with over 20,000 organized events. The buzz in the social sphere was also booming. Use of the #FoodDay hashtag generated 2,328,052 impressions reaching an audience of 1,368,352 people and while conversations continue to unfold on twitter, that…

By Celeste Edman, Marketing Expert

Can you text me my schedule?

There it waits faithfully in the hallway, between your employees' lockers and your desk piled high with to-dos from the last three months, soberly displaying employee policies and regulations, schedules, new positions, and best wishes to those who are moving on. Its cork background is shredded from years of thumb tacks hastily pulled and re-tacked while ripped and aging corners of paper remain from past…

When the chef is out, you are it. You are the main guy that everyone, cooks, dishwashers, bartenders, and servers look to for all the answers. The minute you panic, they all panic. Keep a cool head and split your problems up. Delegate: Delegate with authority and confidence. Never place blame: On equipment or persons. If you are the IT guy, you…

It's Always about Butts in Seats

Owning or managing a restaurant is tough stuff.  For all the things that you are responsible for: the menu, prep, inventory, safety aspects, health aspects, constant cleanliness, temperature monitoring, dining room ambiance, staff…there’s so much stuff.  The bottom line is -it’s really all about butts in the seats: if customers come, you are successful…

Culinary and hospitality schools afford me the privilege of lecturing to future leaders on the finer points of interviewing skills, résumé writing, business correspondence and job hunting.  I spend a good portion of the résumé-writing time discussing the importance of using “impact” language to describe career experience.

But you really can’t use impact terms if you’re not an impact player!

The Encarta Dictionary cites one definition of impact as “the powerful or dramatic…

Strolling along a country path with a meditative mind, I observed how many different colors canvassed the landscape I tread upon.  As I listened to the sounds of the earth and watched the falcon soaring trough the winds strategically above me, I stumbled upon a young pensive man sitting on the pier ahead.

With his feet dangling from the worn fishing pier, his toes simply…

Static FBML V.S. Dynamic HTML

Several months ago I created a video on how to give your restaurant Facebook page a facelift. Today I created…

Last week, I discussed how the NLRB’s August, 2011 report on social media investigations has ushered in a a new age of corporate social media policies. We find little solace in the recent administrative law judge ruling that Knauz BMW had fired properly an employee because some of his Facebook posts were not protected (others were). The same ruling also declared the employer’s policy overly broad and ordered the dealer to post a notice…

Some big, and not-so-big, parts of the restaurant industry’s history have been in the press lately.  A&W (probably my favorite restaurant as a child, back in the Paleolithic Era) has been sold -- again -- after experiencing little or no visible change or updating in the past decade or so; Friendly Ice Cream, which was restaurant of the town square for a couple of generations of small-town New…

We came up with this title after viewing two very different YouTube videos, from two very different win

emakers, showcasing their most recent harvest. Although both showed grapes being picked, they each told a very different story.



One video from Benziger Family Winery, was simple and shot in the vineyard. It was authentic, and captured the heartfelt excitement and enthusiasm of a new harvest. It highlighted happy family members, to include a new granddaughter. It…

John Wanamaker said it to illustrate how difficult it is to reach potential customers using traditional advertising: "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." 

What I think he was looking for was Closed-Loop Marketing, but the idea was not presented…

“The importance of putting recipes together establishes a consistent high mark in terms of cooking standards… teaching someone that recipe is even greater”  

- Chef Gordon Ramsay

My family and I went out to dinner last night to one of our favorite restaurants; unfortunately, my son and I were disappointed with our dishes. We both had steak and it was overwhelmingly under seasoned.

After drowning it with…

Even though I expected this news, it felt like a big punch in the stomach when I heard that Steve had died yesterday. The words "Steve Jobs just died" on a text message gave me chills. It gives me chills just writing this.

I bought my first Mac in 1984 and taught myself to use it. I never read the…

True to Herself

We’ve heard them all: “The customer is the #1 concern.”  “We care about the customer.”   “The customer comes first.”  “The customer is always right.” -They have all become clichés; they have become all but meaningless words.  “Thank you,” more often than not means “sign on the dotted line and move along so I can go do my next task.”  “Care” is handed out as…

I have been reading a lot of articles and blogs about the great responsibility that a restaurant assumes when serving a diner with special dietary needs.  I remember a time a when it was quite rare to encounter someone with a food allergy, especially a life threatening one; nowadays we serve tons of people with specific food intolerances and sensitivities, or just intense preferences.  It’s kind of a lot for the restaurant/hospitality industry to handle; not all servers and line cooks have a…

My Brain Hurts in a Good Way!