This is a fascinating post in which CPA Scot Justice (The Virtual CFO) talks about his blog and Twitter usage as marketing tools stating that 75% of his business comes from these efforts.  Bill Seaver of Nashville-based MicroExplosion Media made this cool video and great to see this type of thing coming from Nashville (where I was born and mostly grew up). 

The true test of any technology or innovation is its application to the mainstream or practical users.  Scot is definitely on the front end of the curve but the adoption of these tools by a CPA who is himself a small business is an indication of things to come.

The rules of marketing are definitely changing as are the costs to reach and engage customers.  The bar is much higher so if you don't have the expertise or lack authenticity you'll be found out quickly and treated without mercy.

I just finished using Crowdspring for the first time and am very impressed.  I needed a logo for one of the projects I am working on and decided to give it a shot after reading a few positive pieces on it.

It is pretty straight forward.  Post a project, set a price ($200 minimum, I believe) and designers submit ideas.  There is a forum for feedback and guidance as well as a really simple way to approve and pay the creative.  I posted a basic logo project for just over the minimum and received well over 50 submissions including many original concepts as well as iterations of the same ones.

A clean logo can go along way to project your company's brand and Crowdspring offers a great way to add professional design to any project – so please, no more Powerpoint drawn logos…