When we tell people about Movember, the men’s cancer research charity founded by Adam Garone and a bunch of friends who, over beers, decided to both give back and revive the moustache, we usually hear a couple of standard things:

• I can’t grow a moustache
• My wife won’t let me grow a moustache

Movember is not really not about growing a moustache. The good ones are cherished and so are the bad ones. Movember is about giving and it is about bonding. Movember is a community of people who are passionate about the destruction of cancer. That’s right. Movember is a global community of men and women in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, Europe and the United States. Movember is about stories of friends and loved ones who have been affected by this terrible disease, raising awareness, making research possible and celebrating the efforts of those who are involved. But it is not all warm and fuzzy, Movember is also a little competitive.

Graham Nelson told me about Movember. I remember the day he told me informed me that I would have to shave my beard in order to grow a moustache to raise money for cancer research and treatment. It took some convincing. I like my beard. Graham talked about challenging our friends in Austin to raise more money than us and that we could use any means necessary to spread the word. The Movember Digital Challenge was born. Last year Team Boston devastated Team Austin by raising near $25,000 dollars to Austin’s 20,000+. The components of the challenge were events, videos, photos and good old fashioned smack talk!

As a participant last year, I felt the need to step up my own involvement in the organization. I recently appointed myself Digital Challenge “Chief of Global Team Expansion”, a promotion from my last week’s title, VP Director of Expansion. The beauty of Movember is that people feel passionate about the cause. It’s easy to do. It’s rewarding. It’s impactful and yes, it’s fun. You can pretty much decide to just do stuff and it happens.

I am happy to announce the 2010 Movember Digital Challenge to kick off on October 31, 2010 with the annual “shaving of the facial hair”. Is it a #MoUp? Nope. Its a #MoDown [I want to remind all participants that a beard is not a moustache. Shave down to nothing and no "connecting" for the month of November.]

Teams from across the globe will be competing for the title of Grand Champion. The idea is to use any legal, means necessary to raise money for the cause. This means holding events, creating content via twitter, youtube, facebook… hell even dribbble – whatever it takes. This year’s Movember site will have a Digital Challenge leaderboard which will show team progress as well as individual leaders.

Teams captains are being named now and can be found on the official Digital Challenge Movember Team Captains list.

Last year teams made videos, created flickr albums, got corporate sponsors, had events and even made calendars. There was trashed talking alsoside camaraderie. There was showmanship, particularly when David Armano and Team Austin leapfrogged Team Boston with a generous donation from The Art of Shaving. This year people have been promising to go bigger. Last year we started planning in late September. This year? Well as of today, it’s still April.

Here is the official list of team captains as of now. Talk to them about joining their team. The official team site is not open yet, so we are suggestion that team captains keep a list (perhaps an email newsletter, twitter list or a Facebook group) of people who are interested in joining. More details about the challenge will be released as they arise.

The Original 2
Team Austin : #TeamAUS : Aaron Strout
Team Boston : #TeamBOS : Graham Nelson

Expansion Teams
Team Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill : #TeamRDU : Gregory Ng
Team Toronto: #TeamTOR : Sean Moffitt
Team New York City : #TeamNYC : Lisa Kolodny
Team Charleston : #TeamCHS : Chad Norman*
Team Salt Lake City : #TeamSLC : DJ Waldow
Team Seattle : #TeamSEA: Damon Cortesi*

* = mostly committed

TBD:
United States
Team San Francisco : #TeamSFO
Team Denver: #TeamDEN
Team Chicago: #TeamORD
Your City

Global
Team Melbourne: #TeamMEL
Team Sydney : #TeamSYD
Team Dublin : #TeamDUB
Team London : #TeamLHR
Team Aukland : #TeamAKL
Your City

TeamBOS News

#TeamBOS (This year we are shortening and standardizing the hashtags) has already had several major developments: Jim Storer has named himself Director of Recruiting. Derek Peplau on the very same day told Jim that he would be sharing the job! Karen “Pumpkin Spice” Costa aka. VanillaBean45 appointed herself Director of Corporate Relationships.

I like clothes. I like colors. I like designs. I think the clothes a person wears tells a story about the person, so I try to make the things I wear represent who I want people to think I am. Gary Greenberg, Executive Creative Director at Allen & Gerritsen (my employer) and clothing afficionado and I often compare notes about our favorite designers. The other thing we like? Bargains. We both want to change it up a lot so we are looking to make our resources go as far as possible. These are two extremely disparate philosophies for guys who like designers like John Varvatos, Hugo Boss, Robert Graham, Ted Baker, Paul Smith and (angelic music) Barker Black.

So sure. I have passion for clothing. I like brand names. I know what colors match and I have an eye for shoes, but I also know what I don’t know.

I’m not always sure what fits. I don’t know squat about knits. I am not that strong in accessorizing or making sure that the stuff I buy is mix and match. So when I was approached to participate in the Men of Social Media Makeover, I didn’t look at it as an insult, I looked at it as a chance to learn a thing or two and hopefully kick my game up a notch.

Here’s video of me shopping with Emmi.

Shopping with a Style Consultant from Schneider Mike on Vimeo.

My thoughts on Zara

Enter Emmi Sorokin whose passion is fashion- or so I thought. Emmi actually is about putting men in clothes that make them feel comfortable. She believes that clothing is important, but she also wants to make sure that she understands your needs, your budget and your life objectives. OK, this is making it sound like Emmi is all business. She has a lot of energy and she knows the stores she will take you to cold. That means when you go in, she has already seen just about everything in the store – or, in my case, has pulled a good deal of the clothing in advance so you can just dive right in. I think part of the reason we got along was that I was upfront about my objectives.

Talk about your goals and your budget

Be frank about what your goals are in life and in business. Letting Emmi know a little about my lifestyle made it easier for her to recommend clothes that are not only cool, but make the statement that I want to make. I also told her that I was not willing to break the bank and that as much as I would like to buy a ton of clothes, I had to stick to a certain amount. Emmi knew how to make the most of the money I was comfortable parting with. That said, be realistic. Don’t expect Emmi to be able to clothe you for the season on $50

If you don’t like it, don’t buy it, but be open minded

I tried on a lot of clothes. We liked some and we didn’t like others. We agreed on most things but there was a sweater that she liked that I nixed. I tried on everything that she asked me to try on. I kept open to any idea that she brought out. As a result I learned a lot about how to wear sweaters, which I had no clue about how to do properly and I learned about a store that I never would have considered going into.

Have fun

Go in with an attitude that going shopping doesn’t need to be a chore. Emmi brings a lot of energy to the situation and she knows what she’s doing. She is great for fashion beginners and also for people who are fashion clueless. Either way, she will treat you like you are the most important person, she will make sure you have a good time, she will respect your budget and your goals and I guarantee that when she’s done, you will look great and feel great about your wardrobe.

Emmi did not approve of this.

Come Out During Fashion Week

Oh, and if you want to see what Emmi did for Mike Lewis, CC Chapman, Stuart Foster and I, come to the Men of Social Media Makeover!

Guy Kawasaki was hanging out in the blogger’s lounge early one morning at SXSW. He had a coy smile and announced that he had something cool that we would all love. As a result, I got to try Starbucks VIA! Thanks Guy!

I pay attention to the people that I’ve met in person. I’ve met a lot of people initially through twitter online, and then I’ll run into them at a  conference or when I travel to another city. Once you’re able to put a face to the name, all their tweets become a lot more interesting!

“I’ve always thought that customer service was important, even at my previous company LinkExchange that I co-founded. The difference with Zappos is that during the first few years, we shifted from thinking that customer service was important to really wanting to make customer service what the Zappos brand is all about. I think my passion for customer service comes from being annoyed when I receive bad customer service, which happens on a daily basis.”

Zappos is full of innovative ideas. Gregory Ng of Contagious wanted to know whose idea it was to pay people to quit.

All our ideas at Zappos come from either our employees or our customers.  For us, company culture is our #1 priority, so it seemed pretty obvious that we should be willing to pay people to quite in order to protect our culture. We’ve actually been doing it for several years.  I don’t remember how it hatched, it was probably like most other ideas where there was a group discussion and it came out of that.

Corporate culture is everything to Zappos. They are the kind of company that attributes big wins to the entire organization. This became evident when I asked Tony about his best day at the office.

I wanted to know if there was some kind of secret formula to Zappos success, so I asked Tony about Zappos analytics practices. If they do start using analytics, watch out!

We probably don’t do as much analytics as we should. We really just try to provide the best service to everyone across the board. The problem with trying to do analytics on an individual customer level as it relates to profitability is that you’re not taking into account the word of mouth that an individual customer might generate, which is usually worth much more than the direct profits from any individual customer.

I’d probably be involved with another consumer company. The idea of building a consumer brand that people are passionate about is exciting to me! It’s kind of like having the good parts of fame without the bad parts.

Who is your mentor? Where or to whom do you look for inspiration?

I don’t have a single mentor. My belief is that there’s something to learn from anyone no matter what their position or background, and that anyone can be inspiring somehow. I’ve been told that I have a diverse group of friends. I think that’s helped me in the business world, even if they aren’t all from the business world.

Do you ever disconnect?

Yes, I love watching movies. I turn off my phone and can get immersed into another world for 2 hours!

Complete: If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me ___________________ .

How is it possible to buy shoes online without trying them on? (Answer: it’s free shipping both ways, so it’s easy to try on different sizes in the comfort of your living room.)

What question did I forget to ask you that I should have?

I’ve talked about the importance of company culture, but it’s really hard to actually understand what I’m talking about until you visit our offices.  We give tours on weekdays, and we invite all of your readers to come visit our offices for a tour next time they’re in Vegas. They can just email tours@zappos.com to schedule one (a tour takes about 45 minute to an hour).

Tony, thanks for the opportunity to interview you. Thanks for being accessible to your customers and for making Zappos a social culture.

I forgot to ask you why there are no loafers for adults with blinking LED lights in them. Maybe next time. Hope to meet you in person in the near future.

Goats

Johnathan Rosenberg’s Goats is a comic about Johnathan Rosenberg, Phillip, beer, Satan, monkeys, beer, aliens, popes, chickens, Hitler, robots, goats and programming. If that’s not a formula for success, I don’t know what is.

Questionable Content

Jeph Jacques masterpiece is a look at the crunchy world of indie rock with occasional forays into death metal. The characters embody an Amherst collegesque lifestyle, which I suspect comes directly from the author. Jeph’s strips are always accompanied by a transparent and somewhat ego centric look into his mind in the right sidebar. His protagonist, Martin is a nice guy – indie rocker with nearly no aspirations except to play in his band. The hook is Martin’s wierd relationships with a handful of women with social issues that they wear like badges of honor. The tech side of indie is represented by Martin’s small, robotic sidekick, an Anthro PC called Pintsize. Jeph isn’t afraid to mock his own formula through Pintsize, or any of his characters for that matter. The complexity of the relationships alone are good for a belly laugh a week, but don’t stop there. Jeph also has a recommended listening section that is worthy of its OWN site.

Scary Go Round

If I had to rank them, this would probably be my favorite. John Allison fully utilizes the power of his cheeky British utility belt. He writes women better than anybody. Shelley Winters antics, including frequent resurrection, make her one of the most interesting women on the web. Shelley’s interests include adventuring, writing fan fiction including “The Saddest Wookie”, pushing the limits of expense accounts, judge fearing and fair judging. The comic is full of delicious political and corporate satire including insight into how the Tackleford Mayor’s office “works” and its diplomatic relations with Robotania. Shelley’s friends are interesting and range from the King of the Vagabonds to a young inventor with Indiana Jones meets Back to the Future sensibilities. John also periodically changes between analog and digital means of creation which both astound and annoy the pants off of me. I put him on a short list of web personalities that I would like to have a beer with.

Wigu

Wigu is the story of a young boy’s adventures with his family and the characters of a cartoon show that actually exists in a parallel universe. The family is beyond dysfunctional and hilarity ensures. Wigu himself is a genius and creates a spaceship called the Googel Maverick which allows him to meet Topato Potato and his colleague, Sheriff Pony. You can’t explain shit like this. Jeffrey Rowland is ridiculously brilliant, but I suspect he is one of those people who could justify cutting his own ear off and mailing it to a love interest. I pro actively filed a preemptive restraining order against him even though we have never met. In fact, I got the template from his website.

For each of these, I recommend starting at the beginning and reading a week’s worth each day. If you have read any of these, what is your take?

Trader Joe’s specializes in being an affordable gourmet store. They eliminate the middle man by producing their own foods with vendor partners. If the food does not meet their quality standards, they have no problem with axing it or making it unavailable until they find a new partner. They carry very few brand names and will often carry a brand name until they can clone it to their standards (like Nutella). The shocking thing is that the industry average for product development is 9 months. Zara is rumored to be able to develop a product and get it to market in 2 weeks. When I first read about Zara, I thought not only is this a fantastic model, but it is a lot like Trader Joe’s.

Zara’s founder, Armancio Ortega, had a dream. He wanted to knock the fashion world on its ear with the idea of “instant fashions”. In retail, attempting to predict what consumers will buy is a difficult road that often leads to unsold inventory. Ortega wanted to spot the trend, get it to his design team and have it distributed to his stores. This way he would always be sure to have the things in his store that would be appealing and sell. Trade Joe’s keeps people coming back by carrying the foods that people demand at reasonable prices. They do not bloat their inventory with products that they are not interested in carrying. Zara is similar. They only carry what they think they can sell. Mark-downs account for a very low percentage of their sales.

Zara uses technology to gain a competitive edge. They track daily quantitative metrics such as orders and sales trends and use qualitative methods to uncover product buzz. The headquarters, which is the home of the designers, is in constant contact with the stores to keep in touch with what is hot so that they know what is working and what they should be producing next. Technology and analytics in action! Delicious!

It is one thing to read about Zara, it is another to experience. After reading case studies, blog posts and even a Harvard Business Review article, I was excited to learn that there are now two newly-opened stores in my area. I went to one over the weekend. I immediately thought that it felt like a combination of Nordstrom and H&M. They have both business and casual attire and there is a certain attention to detail without making any of the fashion over-the-top. Sizes run a size smaller for Americans and feature primarily athletic cuts. I did run into a problem with a shirt that I liked not being available in my size, but I found enough things there to keep me busy. Also, I expected the prices to be ridiculous, but they were incredibly reasonable. I felt like it was a place that I could keep coming back to to keep my wardrobe current. I’m sure that’s exactly what Armancio Ortega had in mind.

What is your experience with Zara?

Google introduced a new line of googlevative designs for their iGoogle personal portal. They assembled some of the best known designers, artists and musicians to build a series of trendy skins as part of Google’s global effort to allow its users a way to make their experience unique. Bonus they can also express their love for some of their favorite artists.

First movers include hip-hop designer and baseball asterixer Mark Ecko, Oscar de la Renta, world-famous Australian baby photographer, Anne Geddes, global lifestyle brand and female power advocate, Dianne von Furstenberg, Dolce&Gabbanna, Chilean painter, Coldplay, Mario Toal and Korean illustrator 스노우캣, aka Snowcat.

But why stop at iGoogle? These are some of the top creatives in the world. Imagine a combination of their eye (or ear) catching design sensibilities combined with the user experience ninjitsu err barbarianism The Barbarian Group; or … the sky is the limit.