blog@SchmartBoard

Are you my friend?

Are you social networking?   I am on LinkedIn, Facebook, Biznik, Plaxo, Meetup, and I'm sure many others that I have forgotten about.   it is hard to keep track!  SchmartBoard is working on some of these features for a future website.  I have been playing around on many of these sites to learn as much as I can about the features, technologies, and some of the strange things people are willing to do or tell...just a few million of their closest friends.   This current revolution may soon dwarf the web 1.0 phenonmenon that we have very recently lived through.  With this in mind, I'd like to invite you all to become a fan of our humble SchmartBoard fan page on Facebook.   In addition, if you are on LinkedIn and if you feel so inclined, link up with me as a client of SchmartBoard. 

Social networking is kind of a paradox when you think about it.  It creates a lot more noise in our already crazy tethered internet experience...but at the same time, it allows us to know people that we could not otherwise. 

However,  you Twitter people, I may never understand though!

You Know Your Not Schmart if.....

  This month's Professor Schmart cartoon was inspired by my many evenings and the San Jose Improv.  I love stand up comedy.   The last comedian I saw there was SNL alumn, Norm McDonald.  He was great.  I saw Charlie Murphy on New Years Eve and many others over the past few years.

Here is Professor Schmart telling us "when your aren't Schmart" in this months wallpaper. 

We invite pithy ideas from our users for future cartoons.   If we use them, we'll give you a great gift for your help. 

Light At The End Of The Tunnel?

How many of you have started a company?  How many on a shoe string?   You can be selling the "Fountain of Youth" and have limited success or fail altogether if you do not have the right branding or marketing.  Unfortunately, branding and marketing take, time and money.  The less money you have to speond on it, the more time it generally takes to get your message of eternal youth above all the other noise.  SchmartBoard fought long and hard to find good quality distributors.  It was a war, because we did not have full page color ads in the electronics publications.

Lately, we have been solicited from distributors who want to carry our product.   Have we passed the tipping point?  I'm not sure, but it is a better feeling to pass on a potential distributor than it is to be passed over as a manufacturer.  We still will sign new distributors when we feel they can add value to an underserved  geographic market or demographic user.   

Arctan is a new online reseller of SchmartBoards.  We like them because they have only a few items for sale.  This may not always be the case for them...but now it is certainly easy tofind SchmartBoard on their website.  They are based in BC Canada, and stock our full line of products.   If you are one of out neighbors to the north, check them out.   They also have a line of digital microscopes that look kind of cool as well.