MindBlazer, Inc.

     Remember your Marketing 101 class in college?  Me either and based on the comments from MindBlazer President Bill Whitley, it is a whole new world out there in marketing to your clients and prospects utilizing the Web! Bill is a successful entrepreneur who, in 1998, with partner Patrick Thean, founded MindBlazer, a privately held, eleven-employee business that provides corporate webcasting to Fortune 1000 companies. Education Based Marketing (EBM) is a technique that has been around for a long time that businesses use to position their firms as industry leaders, build trust and hopefully increase market share. We all have attended a seminar put on by a service provider that has our business or would like to get some of it.  The leader will provide helpful information, good ideas through a "soft sell approach", and hopefully the attendee comes away feeling like it was time well spent.  If trust was developed, perhaps when the attendee decides to buy, he will think of the leader of the seminar to purchase his benefit.  There are many ways/channels to deliver EBM such as written material, advertising, seminars, newsletters and videotapes.  MindBlazer has chosen to use the Internet (webcasting) as its vehicle to deliver EBM for its clients.  To succeed in business, a company must know who its target market is, develop strategies to communicate the right messages to that audience and deliver the right benefit or product to the client.  This is where MindBlazer comes into the picture by introducing its “5 Step Content Optimization Process”. Bill used his client Purina Dog Chow as an example for us. Step 1: the initial research where you discover who the audience is and what is the need. Purina was loosing market share in the “pet fanatic” category, which is a huge spender on high quality pet food. Step 2: identify strategies and tactics. Step 3: introduce the desired outcome and begin the webcast production. Step 4: interview/identify the heroes (audience), luminaries (disinterested 3^rd party) and experts (company rep) and Step 5: client reviews the production and MindBlazer puts it in front of the target!  Bills’ confidence and ease of delivery signified to me he has mastered the art of EBM and its little wonder MindBlazer has attracted some of the world’s top businesses (Big ticket, Sweaty and Passionate) as clients! Stay tuned to continuing developments as the TV we know merges closer to the internet…….

     Bill was right, be sure and check out hobby-lobby.com for the latest in cool remote control airplane demonstrations and see how close the merger is becoming a reality!  For you dog lovers looking to keep your pet healthy, the Purina clip may be seen at purina.mindblazer.com.

     Head Table: David Anderson, Mary Rinehart, Smith Foushee, Suzanne Bledsoe, Rufus Allison, Tony Lathrop; Invocation: Dale LeCount.

     Visiting Rotarians & Guests: Bob Knight; Health & Happiness: John Rogers; Song: Jeff Wise; Club Education: Andy Zoutewelle.

*    *   *

Rotary Scholarship

     The Rotary Scholarship Endowment Fund, administered by the Foundation for the Carolinas, is this clubs oldest service project.  It was originally known as the Student Loan Fund, founded during the administration of President Norman Pease in 1922.  The initial program provided loans to boys and girls wanting to attend college, with as many as 28 loans made in the aftermath of WWII.  Scholarships based on need, merit, and service, are awarded to graduates from CPCC who are interested in earning baccalaureate degrees at a 4-year North Carolina college or university (primarily UNCC).  The Club enjoyed a success story from scholarship recipient Kanspasha Wilson, who is a first generation college attendee from a single-parent home, where education was clearly a top priority.  She promised to keep us posted as she endeavors to achieve in entrepreneurship at UNCC.  Her outstanding effort exemplifies the purpose and goals of Charlotte Rotary’s scholarship program.

*    *   *

In Memory

Joseph D. Moore
September 16, 1915 – February 27, 2003

     Joseph Daniel Moore died February 27, 2003.  Funeral services were held at Edenton Street United Methodist Church in Raleigh.  Entombment was at Sharon Memorial Park Mausoleum in Charlotte.  Mr. Moore served the textile industry throughout his professional career, having retired as Chairman of the Board and CEO of Reeves Brothers, Inc.   He was very active in his church, Rotary and NC State University.

     Joe, father-in-law to Fred Lowrance, and a Rotarian for 44 years, was a member of the Charlotte Rotary in the 1980’s and served as District Governor in 1986-1987.

*    *   *

Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road

AL GORE: I invented the chicken.  I invented the road.  Therefore, the chicken crossing the road represented the application of these two different functions of government in a new reinvented way designed to bring greater services to the American people.

RALPH NADER: The chicken’s habitat on the original side of the road had been polluted by unchecked industrialist greed.  The chicken did not reach the unspoiled habitat on the other side of the road because it was crushed by the wheels of a gas-guzzling SUV.

PAT BUCHANAN: To steal a job from a decent, hard-working American.

JERRY FALWELL: Because the chicken was gay!  Isn’t it obvious?  Can’t you people see the plain truth in front of your face?  The chicken was going to the “other side.”  That’s what they call it – the other side.  Yes, my friends, that chicken is gay.  And, if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too.  I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like “the other side.”

RUSH LIMBAUGH: I don’t know why the chicken crossed the road, but I’ll bet it was getting a government grant to cross the road, and I’ll bet someone out there is already forming a support group to help chickens with crossing the road syndrome.  Can you believe this?  How much more of this can real Americans take?  Chickens crossing the road paid for by their tax dollars, and when I say tax dollars, I’m talking about your money, money the government took from you to build roads for chickens to cross.

MARTHA STEWART: No one called to warm me which way that chicken was going.  I had a standing order at the farmer’s market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level.   No little bird gave me any insider information.

DR. SEUSS: Did the chicken cross the road?  Did he cross it with a toad?  Yes! The chicken crossed the road.  But why it crossed, I’ve never knowed.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die.  In the rain.  Alone.

SADDAM HUSSEIN: This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were quite justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it.

COLONEL SANDERS: I missed one?

                                     Courtesy of John Rogers

*    *   *

Click here for photos of this Meeting