Three Important Websites for Business Planning, Back Log Full Sail discussion board post

From (http://abc.go.com/shows/shark-tank/tips) can many great ideas. One of those ideas is to stay informed. In this sense, there are two types of information. The first being the information you need in order to run a business (i.e. laws, tax breaks, new laws, etc.). The second type is development (i.e. market news, new markets, and tech, etc.)

What are some other types of information available on these sites that may be helpful?

From (http://abc.go.com/shows/shark-tank/tips) can many great ideas. One of those ideas is to stay informed. In this sense, there are two types of information. The first being the information you need in order to run a business (i.e. laws, tax breaks, new laws, etc.). The second type is development (i.e. market news, new markets, and tech, etc. In this sense, http://www.sba.gov/, leans more to information about how to fund a business and what legal laws effect taxes and registration.

Although it has many articles on starting business similar to SBA; Inc.com on the other hand, helps with more of the general information to news that effects business in relation to tech; moreover, it give articles that show what investors and markets are thinking as far as trends. Here, I can also find how to pitch to angle investors or venture capitalists.

http://www.nvca.org/, on the other hand, focuses more on venture capitalism and new and trends that effect larger scale businesses. Even a small business would benefit more from this site when it is consider seeking larger investors for a larger operation. Upon my searches, I did not find “Angel Investors”. This would be a third stop after viewing SBA and Inc.com and having gathered enough rescores for VCs to take a plan seriously.   

How might the information on these sites help you in obtaining financing for your business?

The idea is that these three sites should be treated in an order. SBA, Inc.com, then NVCA because it makes the most logical sense. The SBA would be what you would need to get the basis of what laws and grants could help you. One should also research the city, count, and state grants that link to the SBA as mention in previous classes. Inc.com is a great for “How to articles”, but I find other news sites like This Week in Start-Ups and other site can help spot trends. Still Inc.com can help shape how a person uses news to their advantage by showing how to structure it into a plan. Finally, after both the SBA, INC, and initial resources from additional sources like Angle Investors, NVCA is the last stop to convince adventure capitalists to move forwards with additional resources.

http://www.sba.gov/category/navigation-structure/starting-managing-business/starting-business/loans-grants-funding/finding-loans-grants

http://www.inc.com/financing-a-small-business

http://www.nvca.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=330&Itemid=582

Full Sail Worth It?: "Swan Song" Course Reflection

Okay, so here’s the break down of my coursework from Full Sail. Noted the program just changed, but as Alumni you can always audit a course to keep up.

           I.     Media Literacy and Research Methodologies

I knew how to do Academic research, but as far as business is concerned information that is vital for change may not be on the academic databases before a person can make a great decision on that new piece of information.

Twitter: For business reasons, this really made sense, but I needed this class to learn how it was effective for business purposes. Twitter is a quick message system that send messages to your team and can be used as a public relations service.  

Linkedin: I had tried it before, but again did not know how it could be used to find jobs or get people on board a team to develop a project.

Diigo: This helped to link to groups that were finding different types of links that were focused on specific research focuses from topics related to the energy crisis to Japanese Anime.

Blogs: These helped me to start to develop an understanding of web presence. Blogs would continue to be a topic of discussion through the rest of the academic year. 

Continued development of media literacy means to look out for websites that can help get a person closer to their goals. In this regard, sites to look out for are “Google +” and “Klout” because these two new service could change social networking in the coming years.

         II.     Executive Leadership

This was a great class that talked about the use and abuse of power. Unlike other leadership courses I had before, we studied the book the “48 Laws of Power” to look at the historical mistakes and successes of people such as Tesla, and how in our cotemporary society people can rise to power by getting others to reach their potential.

This class helped me develop and realize my leadership abilities. By working with people who work with or under me, we can get a desired shared goal by amplifying our skills. Given my time working with Diane Hyppolite, my assistant, and others, I have full confidence that whatever the job is I can build a team with the right people to get it done.

        III.     Project and Team Management

The overall goal here was to create timelines to reach realistic goals when dealing with a team. If that meant to create a project or event, the process was very similar. The most important assignment in this class was the idea of putting together an event. This involved developing a budget, a team, an event then getting funding for that event. After those steps, the final step was working with others in that budget. Unfortunately, this class only gave the skills to run an event team under a budget, pitch an event, and develop a sleek event business plan. The rest of the classes I needed came further in the program in regards to starting a business.

       IV.     Business Storytelling and Brand Development

This class real developed Guy Kawasaki’s ideal of make “meaning” or “mantra over mission statement”. In other words, how do you get people to understand what your brand does?  Full Sail’s adopted the solution was to develop a brand’s story, a narrative that conveyed the history and reason why a brand should be supported.

Similar to inception, I learned in this class was not just how to sell an idea or concept but to get people to come to the decision why they should support an idea or concept. This skill I use almost every day with the business I am developing, and with others who need help developing their own ideas or concepts.

         V.     Entertainment Business Finance

An extension of Project and Team Management, This class got into the more meat and potatoes of business planning when it came to money. The Pro-Forma assignment help define costs, profits, and responsible spending. Now I can use Excel to create spreadsheets that show a proposed budget and how that money will be spent.

       VI.     Negotiation and Deal-Making

With reading on psychology of deal making from Harvard, Role-play assignments had us take different roles with different interests. These interests represented clients based on case studies who had psychological and practical fears. For example, in one assignment, I played a new director trying to get a former movie star who feared her age was factor and so demanded more money than what she was currently worth; moreover, she had gotten negative media attention related to drug chargers that caused her career to stop. At the same time, I had to get her on board within a proposed production budget. 


The compromise that was made was helping the former movie star with her social networking in correlation to the film’s release. This compromise would help her get positive press for TV show appearances and bolster support for the independent film documentary. In other assignments, the role was switched and I was the talent who feared something, but wanted something else. These role-plays help me understand peoples need and wants, and how to create a deal that best represented all parties. 

In application, this really helped me consider how to empathize and negotiate with people who could have irrational and rational fears caked into wanting something I could offer. However, I find myself getting people to realize the benefits of working with us, and they usually agree. When we actually get results we confirm it was a smart decision and build trust with our strategic partners, sponsors, fans, etc.

      VII.     Product and Artist Management

Unlike “Project and Team Management”, this dealt with a specific event for a single product or artist. The major difference is that unlike an event, something or someone would be the highlight of the entire show. This was about developing a philosophy for real world situations. For example, a new starting out artist’s manager could demand a bigger cut of the ticket and music sales, but later as the artist becomes more successful the manager could ask for less of a percentage based on a larger profit margin. In this example, charging a starving artist more seems cruel, but the manager needs the money to be able to operate. Still it would make sense to most people to charge the successful artist more, but if the manager is not greedy, he can operate on a smaller percentage because the artist’s profit is higher.

Explaining the above example to a client before representing them is exactly what the class was about and a skill I picked up. I find these situations come up every so often with the business I started when it comes to contracts, taxes, and explaining why we charge X for something and Y for another.

    VIII.     Advanced Entertainment Law

I was no novice to trademarks and patents, but this class gave me a great free resource to look up case studies and lead me to find the actually document that describes natural trademarks in today’s internet. Now, if someone asks me about natural trademark on the net, I can point them to a government site and document, explaining the documents, and cite a case as an example.

Key resources from project:

Lanham (Trademark) Act (15 U.S.C.) Index (n.d.) BitLaw. Retrieved on April 19th, 2011 from http://www.bitlaw.com/source/15usc/

Marcus (2008) Natural Answers Inc v. Smithkline Beecham Corporation

April 9th, 2011 from: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-11th-circuit/1206578.html

       IX.     Entertainment Media Publishing and Distribution

This class gave me the ability to develop traditional and non-traditional plans to market and sell different types of works. This added to my knowledge from such podcasts as “Webcomics Weekly” that explored similar topics related to free to paid content marketing.

         X.     Digital Marketing

Search engine optimality, social networking, email newsletters, and press releases were key concepts in relation to marketing budgets; however, “Conversions” was really the focus to this class because it helped create realistic goals to what wanted to be accomplish through the varying forms of internet media. For example, we learned to breakdown the cost of a digital marketing campaign and then measure how effective that campaign was in a certain time frame. The basic conversion was leads to sales, then other conversion could breakdown ways to measure these various successes such as emails to leads and so forth.

I now have the ability to develop an Internet marketing camping and correspond with a team to pull data to make decisions and implement a dynamic online marketing campaign based on trends. Also, I now can develop reports for clients, peers, or employers to make decisions on the success and fails of the campaign.

       XI.     Business Plan Development

This class started a reflection process and review of the ten courses and how in combination they could help us create a business plan. It helped developed the first half of a business plan draft. It developed a three-year budget plan in accordance to all the needs a business would need to be successful such as marketing and so forth.

In the class, I was able to consider weaknesses in my plan that needed to be addressed before showing it to investors.

     XII.     Final Project: Business Plan

A follow up to the Business Plan Development class, this class finalized a business plan draft, and covered applications of what we learned and how this applied to the jobs market. Other supplement topics of choice were personal finance and seeking investors. The course was a reflection and affirmation of the entire Full Sail Master of Science Program. 

As a follow-up, I was realized the weaknesses in my plan needed more focus on the fine tuning the market research, developing more leads, and finalizing planned payouts to investors. 

Full Sail Blog What Going Green really Means

What Going Green really Means

A trend is as powerful as nature; left on check we get the build up to the 2008 crash. The worse thing is people often as a mass have hard time accepting a trend, or is to careful to see is and has become reality. The few that realize what is really going on take different actions: some try to control it, some profit from it, and some just accept it and go as if they don’t want to know (End of Suburbia, 2004 and Collapse, 2009). In any case, if you accept my analysis of our energy will effect the economy as it relates to entertainment, the I promise you will be in a better place to decide which of three categories you want to lean towards.

Many experts believe that peak oil has already happened, probably around 2006 (End of Suburbia). This means that our economy won’t be able to grow, it will shrink. We will go through more recessions, and the 2000-2006 Bush endorsed deregulations, and war in the Iraq were efforts to control the situation (Collapse).

People may have forgotten the plot of "Mad Max the Road Warrior", where it states an energy crisis caused the eventual collapse of the civilized governments. That movie was a 1980’s flick, but what really is scary is the source material.

Even Jimmy Carter warned about the situation.

However, Ronald Reagan's answers were more favored and won him the oval office over carter reflections and reactions to the situation.

Reagan just wanted to burn more oil and secure more oil, which was a short term solve (End of Suburbia). His plan worked for the first year to bring the USA out off recession, but it was a short term plan (I Want Your Money, 2010).

If we except this argument that the trend is we are past peak oil, then we will be entering phase 2 of collapse. The major cities will do better economically as the smaller cities and towns will start to hurt more. Supporting the thesis of Collapse, go to craigslist and check census data, and anyone can see that there are lot more jobs in major cities with lower rates of unemployment that there are in small towns in most states. If this is the case, then focuses on major cities will be a profitability venture for any business because people will have money and can spend on it in these zones.

The media does not focus much on the energy crisis we are in because it’s not a pretty picture; however, the positive aspects of knowing what phase we are in, is that can see what going green really means. For entertainment this can be increased movie ticket sales because instead of people being able to leave their city for a vacation they more than will opt to stay home and save money. Thus, recording artists can go on tour and probably make more money because people will be less likely to travel out of state to go to shows. I have been hearing remarks also from gamers in the 20 to 40 age range who spend their vacation time just playing video games like World of Warcraft. 

What Going Green really means today to me is that major cities will need entertainment that is local whither it’s physical or digital. Plan then to localize businesses within these areas. Here’s a freebie, “LARP” in Denver is huge only in the Denver area.  I would say the rest but I am in one those no-disclosure agreements.


Oh and here's a version of "End of Suburbia", enjoy:)

Fulls Post Week 3 for BDP

From: http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/tips/archives/2006/03/what_leadership.html

"What Leadership Style Fits Your Company?"

Start by answering the following questions:

1. Where’s the company going in the next five to 10 years?

2. What kind of a leader can take us there?

3. What are the important skill sets of that leader?

4. Who in the next generation has those skills?

5. If we’re objective, is the best leader for the company in the family or do we      need to look outside the family?

6. What’s our road map for the succession process?

I posted the top article's questions because I think most of us fail to ask how these three types of leadership inter-connect and are used over time. When considering the class that talked about leadership styles we agreed that not one type of leadership style answers all our needs or fits every given situation.

When considering starting a start-up we have to realize that the leadership structure differs in comparison to a major cooperation. Consider, today’s common success story starts first with leadership that needs to be “Delegative” because every ones input is needed to make the company a success; moreover, these first people on board have to process skills, talents, and a shared decision to help a start-up grow. These initial people become the heads of new departments often or leave for projects as the company grows. The next step is "Participative" because now a democratize model to represent each departments input has to be made, but a CEO has to have the final say to carry out the shared vision.

The finally phase is "Authoritarian", because decisions have to be made quickly in order to carry them out in a big organization. In this sense, a start-up becomes so big that higher ups have to make these decisions fast in order to take effect over hundreds of employees and over thousands of consumers. I have heard many entrepreneurs sell out their shares and move to another start-up because they do not like this type of management structure. The major fall back, is when a company gets this big and uses this style of leadership, new ideas are a lot harder to develop and produce; not to mention, it is a lot harder to get a large percent of the profits when a company can automatically make claim to what you make (i.e. look up the founder of AMD chips and why he left Intel).

Full Sail Business Website Reviews

Alternative Funding sites from Full Sails MS in Business Entertainment Program…

“…these disadvantages don't mean that these teenagers can't be competent workers, superlative contributors, and successful learners. It doesn't mean that these teenagers are any less valuable to the St. Louis Science Center or society as a whole than others. But it does mean that they need different scaffolds and support mechanisms to succeed.”

From:
http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/2010/07/what-does-it-really-mean-to-serve.html

I cited this quote because a common word kept popping up called “underserved people.” This idea seems to relate to people of low social economic abilities. Some of these institutions’ seems to be applying this term to those the find financing for.


http://www.opportunityfinance.net/

Conference Opportunity Finance Network Conference November 14-17 2011 Minneapolis Hilton, MN.

From their about page…

“OFN’s Core Purpose & Vision
OFN exists to align capital with social, economic, and political justice. This is OFN’s purpose. OFN will pursue this purpose for as long as it takes to achieve. When capital and justice are aligned, all people will have the resources and opportunities to act in the best interests of their communities, themselves, and future generations. This is OFN’s vision.”

“Knowledge Sharing Knowledge Sharing delivers knowledge sharing services, including our Annual Conference (the premier opportunity finance industry event attracting more than 700 attendees); regional meetings; consulting services; publications; informal technical assistance; and Member Staying Connected conference calls.”

I say this is a 4 out of 5. I am not much for the overall design interface because it does not seem to clearly show what this organization can do. It seems to have great sample documents for business planning. The Who Are you button seems confusing unless you fall under member, investor, or donor. Plus after clicking many links to look into joining the group, it is unclear how to join or actually get funds. I bumped up the rating because the conference seems to be a place where all these answers could be found.

http://www.microenterpriseworks.org


From their about page…

“Mission: AEO supports the development of strong and effective U.S. microenterprise initiatives to assist underserved entrepreneurs in starting, stabilizing, and expanding businesses.
”

“Vision: Every individual in the U.S. has access to resources and services for creating wealth, assets and healthy communities.”

I love the “For Entrepreneur option” clearly labels in the top over bars. The “Find an AEO Member in Your Community” leads to a quick survey that can help you find members that rank from banking instruction to consultants. I am also very excited because that they clearly have a easy way to join the organization, but still unclear how they actually help businesses even tough They seem to have great initiatives relate to things like “Green Tech”.

Their events are webinars which I really like.
http://www.aeoworks.org/index.php/site/page/category/events/

However, There don’t seem to be many AEO members in states I want to try and develop a business. Plus, I was really interesting in the find a mentor page, but depressed with the coming soon part. Not to mention, I do not see their fees for membership.

I give this a 4 out of 5,

http://www.cdfi.org/

From their about page…

“The CDFI Coalition is the unified national voice of community development financial institutions. Our mission is to encourage fair access to financial resources for America's underserved people and communities.”

This CDFI seems to be a more political group of business and community leaders working towards maintaining rights and laws that protect people of low economic backgrounds from losing rights and access to resources that can make them financially independent.

Given their successful grant awards the program seems to do what is set out to do http://cdfi.org/index.php?page=advocacy-3a-3.

Memberships dues are also clearly shown with a free newsletter. So overall I give this site a 4 out of 5.

http://cfed.org/

5 reason I feel this site is pretty awesome…
# 1, use of social media such as twitter.

# 2, http://cfed.org/programs/admf/ program like the American Dream Match Fund, and how to join them.

# 3 http://cfed.org/about/features/ success stories in way they help.

#4 http://cfed.org/newsroom/video/ An amazing newsroom.

# 5 http://cfed.org/about/team/careers/ Jobs

5 out of 5


http://www.cdvca.org/


From their about page…

"CDVCA promotes the field by combining advocacy, education, communications, and best-practice dissemination through conferences and workshops. CDVCA makes its expertise available to CDVC funds by providing consulting services and technical assistance."

The good…

1. Events and a Conference
2. Workshops and Training
3. Ways to get Funding
4. Have clear membership page.
5. “Fund and Consulting Services”

The Bad…

1. Interface makes it hard to navigate between text and information.
2. Hard to find success stories related to funds.

4 out of 5

http://www.ncif.org/

NCIF Social Performance Metrics is an amazing tool to look at lending trends.
They do have a conference http://www.ncif.org/index.php/comms/conference-main/. However, it seems this institution seems more about helping keep business open through their funds.

So 2 out of 5 if you are looking for start-up funds, but 4 out of 5 if you are a an established business looking for money.



http://www.natfed.org/

2 out of 5, issues with loading screens. Unclear to how their information helps because the design interfered with my ability to access their network. It’s clear they use credit unions to help people, but I am having a hard time seeing the interest or how these credit unions could help in financing an business Their news about credit union seems valid, but I having hard time shifting through all the information.

http://www.eda.gov/

Useses social media to develop it’s contenct over servie like twitter and Youtube. However, the video seemsed uncaler about what EDA really does.

“WINNING THE FUTURE:

Promoting Rural Small Business Development”

From About Page:

“A bureau within the U.S. Department of Commerce, EDA's mission is to lead the federal economic development agenda by promoting innovation and competitiveness, preparing American regions for growth and success in the worldwide economy.”

They seem to offer some interesting tools and services; for example,
Economic Development Project Evaluation Tool which helps run the likelihood of a plans success. However, you have to have a certain version of Microsoft Office to run the program that allows for macros to run to run it. Sigh my MAC version of Office 2008 wont’ run it.

Also their does not seem to be a clean cut path to grant money related to stating a business, but more in investing in programs that can certain jobs quickly such as building roads. Even though it has use of social networks, the un clarity of the site leads me to a 2 out of 5 rating.

http://www.firstnations.org/

This seems mainly to be about Native American funding. So I am not going to rate this because I don’t feel it something everyone has access too. There are tones of great workshops and information to be had, but again I am Native American enough.

http://www.oweesta.org/

Sigh, this site represents a subsidiary of the last institutions. I feel if I understood the needs of Native Americans more, and came up with a good idea to develop these site could be very helpful. The papers and research are really good for looking at small community living as far as developing a small economy that is self sustaining. I guess I could use the research to propose “green” programs for non-Native Americans.

Posting Changes

My apologies for the last couple of weeks, but I have felt there was not anything really worth blogging about. With one more classes until graduation, I decided it’s better to blog with friends than to blog alone. icandevents.blogspot.com will be the new landing page for the types of blogs I want to do. Of course, the subjects will range from entertainment business and popular tech trends, but there will be more of fun stuff I want to blog about such as toys, comics, and games.

For now as I finish my program, their will only be blogs in relation to my school. After September 7th 2011, feel free to use this blog as a reference, as the updates will be sparse. And please check out the new blog with my friends @ icandevents.blogspot.com.

Thanks so Much_ Zon

Blog 2 Assignment for BPD

Blog 2 Assignment for BPD

Here’s a link to blog 1…

Full Sail Instructor Steven Burhoe has comprised an great list of investors comparing their like and dislikes when it comes to business plans on his blog http://bpexpertviews.blogspot.com/.


Questions for this assignment…
1.)Describe how you intend to incorporate what you have learned from your own research on the experts profiled in the first posting into your own plan. What specific changes to your plan have you made based on the information provided by the experts.

2.)Which sections of your plan do you consider to be the most important to the investor reading your plan?


Answer for 1
I think the biggest thing we can learn from the Johnny Cupcakes' story is do not undersell a way to make money (http://shop.johnnycupcakes.com/story/). Of course, he had a band he was touring with, but in any case selling shirts out of a van doesn’t sound like the most common way to break in for aspiring fashion designers.


Moreover when considering Guy Kawasaki’s “focus on making meaning not money” and his related blogs, we can see that what sold Jonny Cupcakes was not simply t-shirts, but the idea that t-shirts meant something. (http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/04/the_art_of_the_.html#ixzz1R6nwHMBi)
For Johnny Cupcake’s that meaning may simply be categorized as form of expression.

“Our society relies on fashion as a form of expression; this is why designer clothing is so popular nowadays.”_Nigel M.

(http://www.fibre2fashion.com/industry-article/2/153/designer-clothing-makes-you-look-and-feel-confident1.asp)

In this sense, Johnny Cupcake took advantage of a normal trend, people want to express them selves. This being a need of a large demographic lead to sales. If the focus had been on money instead, I don’t think the brand itself would be as popular as it is today.

Expression is the base for all things related to art. To understand this is to understand why people buy art. Because of the Internet, “Art” is the easiest to disturb and build leads on. The Johnny Cupcake story will always leave me with this moral, “start small go big.




Answer for 2...

Well when I was fortunate to split a Cab with an entrepreneur from www.avantibp.com, I talked to about a month ago, stressed the importance of a SWOT analysis. Interested in what we were doing, he wanted to know more about the business. However, without a solid SWOT, we could not further the relationship. On the other hand, it showed having a SWOT ready at all times is more important than having a business card because it can send a clear message of what your trying to do and get you funding.

If not a SWOT, you should have at least a 3-4 page skeleton showing what your start-up can do and what you have to offer. In this sense, you can show off the idea, but not all the parts of the plan for someone else to just take.

The most important thing for our angel investor is the financials. In our initial talks it’s not how much, but more how will it be spent.

Re: New Copyright laws

I'm so happy. I contacted Adam Warren creator and owner of "Empowered" if I could create fan art on my DeviantArt account.

I am re-blogging, but this is good show to note for myself.

I am re-blogging
"jassomccabecalacanis"
, but this is good show to note.

New Proposed Ittelctual Property Bill

After hearing about this from friends and reading somethings on the net from DeviantArt and Cnet I decided to post what I find from the official white house pdf to be of interest.


I contend, this isn't about just busting Americans at home, but this may have implications with trading partners like China who have a tone of IP and copyright violations.

Increase Intellectual Property Statutory Maxima
Increase the Statutory Maximum for Economic Espionage: Economic espionage is one of the most serious intellectual property crimes. A defendant committing that offense, however, faces a statutory maximum sentence of only 15 years in prison. 18 U.S.C. § 1831(a). We recommend that Congress raise that statutory maximum given the severity of the conduct inherent in the offense. Other non-intellectual property offenses that have higher statutory maxima include mail fraud (20 years; 18 U.S.C. § 1341), bank fraud (30 years; 18 U.S.C. § 1344), smuggling goods into the U.S. (20 years; 18 U.S.C. § 545), and coun- terfeit U.S. currency offenses (20 years; 18 U.S.C. §§ 471, 472, 473). Moreover, under the U.S. Sentencing Guideline that applies to economic espionage, U.S. Sentencing Guideline (USSG) § 2B1.1, an offense with a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years or more in prison triggers a base offense level of seven, as opposed to the base offense level of six triggered by an offense with a statutory maximum sentence of less than 20 years in prison. USSG §§ 2B1.1(a)(1),(a)(2). Increasing the statutory maximum to at least 20 years in prison, thereby triggering the higher base offense level, is appropriate for this serious offense.

Providing Enforcement Agencies the Tools They Need to Discover and Combat Infringement
Ensure Felony Penalties for Infringement By Streaming and by Means of Other New Technology: It is imperative that our laws account for changes in technology used by infringers. One recent technological change is the illegal streaming of content. Existing law provides felony penalties for willful copyright infringement, but felony penalties are predicated on the defendant either illegally reproducing or distributing the copyrighted work.2 Questions have arisen about whether streaming constitutes the distribution of copyrighted works (and thereby is a felony) and/or performance of those works (and thereby is a not a felony). These questions have impaired the criminal enforcement of copyright laws. To ensure that Federal copyright law keeps pace with infringers, and to ensure that DOJ and U.S. law enforcement agencies are able to effectively combat infringement involving new technology, the Administration recommends that Congress clarify that infringement by streaming, or by means of other similar new technology, is a felony in appropriate circumstances.

Give Wiretap Authority for Criminal Copyright and Trademark Offenses: The Joint Strategic Plan committed Federal agencies to identify gaps in current intellectual property laws and ways that the U.S. Government could enhance enforcement. One such gap involves wiretapping authority (that is, authority to intercept wire, electronic, and/or oral communications). Title 18, United States Code, Section 2516 contains an extensive list of offenses for which the U.S. Government is authorized to seek wiretap authority from a court to obtain evidence of those offenses, including for economic espionage (18 U.S.C. § 1831) and theft of trade secrets (18 U.S.C. § 1832). See 18 U.S.C. § 2516(1)(a) (listing offenses under chapter 90). Omitted from this list are criminal copyright (17 U.S.C. § 506(a)(1), 18 U.S.C. § 2319) and criminal trademark offenses (18 U.S.C. § 2320). Wiretap authority for these intellectual property crimes, subject to the existing legal protections that apply to wiretaps for other types of crimes, would assist U.S. law enforcement agencies to effectively investigate those offenses, including targeting organized crime and the leaders and organizers of criminal enterprises.

Enhance Information Sharing About Enforcement Activity
Ordinarily, DHS is able to inform rightholders after infringing goods have been seized, which can help rightholders to enforce their own rights, including bringing a civil suit, if appropriate. The Administration has identified two areas in which DHS is not expressly authorized to share information post-seizure.

Sigh the Unused Art Contest Form...

Sadly my partner and I agree that it was too late implement this wonder form. So I wanted to still show the world my awesome from and kept it in our Google Doc.

Week #1: First Blog Posting/ First LP Assignment

@ All, well getting closer to graduation and this is my Week #1: First Blog Posting/ First LP assignment were I have to find two experts related to business planning and my plan.


Objectives...

Brief biographical information / background on the ‘experts’ you have chosen.

What are the critical & key components that investors are looking for in a plan?

Why are these considered key?

One day in 2001 John Earle aka (Johnny Cupcakes) went to work with one of his own home made T-Shirts. Little did he know that he would hit the designer T-shirt market at the right time.

“Supply and demand! I ordered a couple dozen Johnny Cupcakes shirts and sold out of them the day I took them off the press! One person would tell ten people and ten people would tell one hundred people.”

In 2002, he started touring in a van and selling his t-shirts from a van. In 2004, he decided to do his first tradeshow bringing friends on board to where chief outfits and help him sell more shirts. In 2005, he decided to expand the business from his garage to offices and a warehouse. By 2006 he open his first store "Boston's Rodeo drive"-- 279 Newbury Street. By 2009 he had expended to online orders more store locations and different type of clothes.

“I turned down investors and took countless risks like keeping my shirts out of chain stores.”

from: http://shop.johnnycupcakes.com/story/

Okay, maybe Jonny Cupcakes isn't the best to look at dealing with investors; however, I picked him because his simple business plan of selling T-shirts in a van to millionaire clothes designer seems to be close to my plan (i.e. small to large). Also of course, we can see that his success and art work attracted investors and department store chains; however, he took risks and by not selling out has success and freedom.

However, let me find an expert that is closer to the assignment...

Make a great pitch


Guy Kawasaki was born in Hawaii in 1954. In 1972 he graduated Iolani 1972. After college at Stanford and UC Davis he worked at apple helping develop the products and company unit 1987. Recently, Guy Kawasaki has the co-founded Alltop.com, an virtual “online magazine rack” of popular topics on the web, and is a founding partner at Garage Technology Ventures. He is a successful author of many great books about start up companies but is better known for his book series the “Art of Start”.

"The executive summary is often your initial face to a potential investor, so it is critically important that you create the right first impression. Contrary to the advice in articles on the topic, you do not need to explain the entire business plan in 250 words. You need to convey its essence, and its energy. You have about 30 seconds to grab an investor’s interest. You want to be clear and compelling".

the top qoute comes from Guy's 2006 blog "The Art of the Executive Summary". He continues to list ten things investors want...

1. The Grab:
2. The Problem:
3. The Solution:
4. The Opportunity:.
5. Your Competitive Advantage:
6. The Model:
7. The Team:
8. The Promise ($$):
9. The Ask:

In the end, what Kawasaki is saying about investors that is most important to note is that they want to know is... who runs the company, why they can answer a problem, and how they can make money from it. Second to that, Kawasaki seems to focus on investors and companies that seem to have the same morality as the companies founders similar to a social entrepreneurship.

Comparing the Two

If we compare Johnny Cupcakes to Guy Kawasaki we see two business plans. Cupcake's plan seems organic, and planned not in years but moment to moment; moreover, by not bringing on on investors right away, he managed to have more control over the company in developing its brand and infrastructure. On the other hand, Kawaski's planning seems to attract initial investors who will believe in what a start-up company can do and be less likely to impose control over a start-up because the investors would not only understand what the company is doing, but believe in what the company stands for in that initial read of the plan.

Where the two seem very convergent is that they are both "Mensches"; meaning, there are people that seem kind and have the ability to make the right decision at the right time. So another huge part of the business plan after the initial flip thorough will be presentation, and in this, the presenter must be a Mench.


Be a Mensch






Read more: http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/04/the_art_of_the_.html#ixzz1R6nwHMBi

KPI is like the Force

Okay, it took me awhile and will take me some more time to fully understand SEO. However, with the changes that have happened on the Internet from Facebook to Google, SEO has become like the Force in the Star War's Galaxy.

Yes, I contend "SEO is an all knowing power that effects the success and failure of most websites".

This being the case Google was kind enough not only to give us access to SEO tools for free but is also given us a free University to go to.

Just keep in mind... understanding KPI and Conversions will lead down the path of Jedi like web prowess… (wow, I’ve used some awesome verbage this blog). It won't be easy, but remember there is no try only do and do not.

Below are some links and videos to help you on your path...

Google Conversion University
http://www.google.com/support/conversionuniversity/bin/request.py?hl=en&contact_type=indexSplash&rd=1

Google Conversion Basics


Google Conversion University First Day

Looking for a Simple Trend

When you look at your Google Analytics_ in a month find "the amount of unique views". If you sell "any products" place that number over the number of unique views.

It should look this

(1 Month) Sales/Unique views.

If you want to get more specific_ look at "loyals" or other pieces of data.

Hope this helps_ Zon

Net Marketing and Objective Setting

This week I had to take a break from SEO for my assignment. Something I noticed in webcomics and other related sites is a lack of goal setting. Of course the common goal is often more readership or in my case just finishing my first 60 in color, but once I get web comic up, finding someone to read it is the most important.

However, how do you measure success when you plan your web marketing campaign? Wither readership (i.e. brand awareness) or monetary reward (i.e. selling stuff) is creators goal, Key Performance Indicators can help access, change, and plan great marketing campaigns.



The idea being if a creator is going to go out and post more on forums for example, how can they measure the total amount of their posts to the number of hits on their sites.

Another example is an email campaign where you can attribute the amount of emails opened to new views on the site or sales.

So when we consider objective setting we have to set measures to figure out success or fail. These measures are referred to KPIs (Key Performance Indicator)s. This is away figure out by conversations.

For example “[TIME] Outcome(s)/ Unique Visitors” is a conversation rate that can measure what happens in relation to the amount of visits. In plug in some values such as “{1 Month}1 Downloaded book/ 100 Visitors” . In this conversation we realize that in average every 100 visits I will sell one digital book. Thus, know I can assume that if I get 1,000 visitors I will sell 10 books, and so forth.

This helps create goals for short or long term internet marketing campaigns. Moreover, a person can access the success of what tools they are using on the Internet; which ones are working and which ones are not. For example, an email campaign may not be generating the amount of visitors you want; for example, [(2 months) 1000 emails/ 2 visitors] .

A reassessment then happens: Graphics, Message and so forth are looked at. It is then decided a newsletter that is emailed every month offering teaser articles and better graphics may help get more visits to the site. In the newsletter, there are backlinks to the website with full articles and better graphics. Now the conversation looks like [(2 Months) 1000 emails/ 700 visitors] and looks to be a success.

Considerinh analytics in part in loyal uniques and new uniques . If there are more loyal uniques tan new uniques for long periods of time, then a creaot has a good fan base, but is not growing. This where a internet marketing campiegn with KPIs and new targets may help if the creator has not reached their entire niche audience.

If there are more new uniques than loyal, than the content fails to hold readers and the entire site's content should be looked over.

Surveys like the one I had to create, can also help get a feel for how people view a site or campaign. In the prior example, people could have filled out a survey that made the creator realized a newsletter makes more sense than just an email campaign.

In any case, before you try a campaign understand your niche, this last thing you would want to be considers is a spammer or a fake. If you plan to use KPI for your objectives research how to use conversations to make realistic goals and targets.






Happy Father’s day_ Zon



Additional Resources





http://www.ehow.com/how_5875354_calculate-kpi.html

Need help with Full Sail Survey Assignment

Hey all, I just need ten people to fill out this survey for class.




Note: this is anonymous survey, so please just be honest.

A Good Read For Later: SEO and Google Changes

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20071058-17/google-announces-host-of-search-improvements/?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

This was posted on the Full Sail student portal. This is very key to share because in class we talked about "the third net movement to portable devices". Unfortunately, I have no time right now to read it, so I'm calling these type of posts, A Good Read for Later.

Discussion Post Video

This video describes how people not businesses shape the form of media on the net.

SEO: My Experience with Google Ad Planner

It’s an awesome tool for planning primary and secondary marketing on a budget.

A primary market is the consumer who chooses to buy or read your product. The secondary market consists of people who may want to buy your product but don’t know about it. Of course the secondary market is what many people interested in SEO want to know more about because these are the people that probably care about what you are doing on the net, but they just don't know about you. So, here’s an exercise recreated from a Full Sail Assignment to help anyone interested in this stuff.

Step One: Go to https://www.google.com/adplanner

Step Two: Type or copy and paste an Url to a website you want to see as far as their demographics.

Step Three: Look at all the data and pull your own conclusions.

Hint: Look at people's interests, related keywords, and what other sites they visit.

For Example:
In my use, I looked at kidrobot forums and found a correlation between people who visit “kidrobot” and “DeviantArt”. I then found many Vinyl Toy Designers selling art on DeviantArt.


Lesson Learned
I didn't know about the correlation. I thought DeviantArt was a great place where artists started careers, but didn't know it had a similar following to kidrobot. This means using DeviantArt could help someone interested in getting into toy design; of course, duh, but there is data that supports this claim.

See what you can find.



Have Fun and Pay It Forward _ Zon

SEO Topics Still in the works…
Sitemaps
Better Back Linking

SEO Basics Part One: Key Concepts and Terms

SEO Basics

Hey All,

So finally started the Digital Marketing Class in my Full Sail Program. I’m planning for related blogs that are part of the coursework and some things that are out of the course work such as “Effective Back Linking”. Of course, there are plenty of blogs and free websites that can train people in the use of effective SEO, but this will be a more self-discovery blog of my progress and understanding. I also will be including video tutorials from my assignments so you can hopefully pick up some things from that. The first video tutorial shows how to set up Google Analytics.



What is SEO?

My understanding from my readings and my course studies is Search Engine Optimality (SEO) just means how is your web site ranked when people type in either keywords or the website’s specific name. Because there are so many similar websites offering similar products or services, SEO as an industry has grown because businesses want to be ranked number 1 on organic searches conducted on services like Google.


SEO Terms to Know


Ranking
This refers to how one site ranks from a similar site in keyword organic searches on services like Google.

Long Keywords
More then one term that goes into a search such as “Monster Rat Webcomic”.

Back links
Links on other websites from forum posts to journal articles that one increases the ranking of the site or leads people to the site. (http://netwebclick.com/BacklinksBuilder/)

Popularity
This relates to the keyword search and the amount of people who click on a website after that keyword search.

Timing
This relates to how new the websites post is and how it relates to the popularity. For example, game reviews for games like “Hunted: The Demon’s Forge” had lesser known game review companies pop up before the major game review companies such “IGN and Gamespot” started showing at the top. Meaning, because the lesser-known companies beat the majors to a game review that showed up first, they could have brought potential new readers in that small time frame.


Coding
Here’s a good link to understand some of the basic coding related to SEO such as meta-tags.

http://www.stonetemple.com/articles/metatags-and-seo.shtml?

Does SEO work for Webcomics?

Below is an article that shows how SEO works for webcomics…
http://warofwinds.com/winged-wolf-studio/does-webcomic-seo-work/

This article shows clearly how using these tools has given War of Wind new readers.




SEO Basics Part 2: SEO for Webcomics?

Simply put SEO tools help people find your product or service. However, the industry of web comics may not have a need for SEO. After researching SEO and hearing about Matthew Inman’s use of SEO in relation to webcomics from Webcomics Weekly, I was wondering if SEO has actually impacted the webcomics industry. The answer seems to be a yes and no depending on the intent of use.

Yes it has because SEO is about a person finding something new and related to a organic search. Three years ago I was looking for “adult sci-fi webcomic”, and never found “Curvy”. Now, Curvy a “Erotic Adult Sci-Fi Adventure Comic”, pops up as three on my organic search on Google. This is important because I never heard of this comic before than, and it fits exactly what I wanted to read at that time. I had discovered the comic on another website hub for webcomics before it’s ranking got higher on Google.

No it hasn’t because it seems readers have to type in a specific title to sometimes find it. Meaning most times because “Curvy” did not appear in the first two to three pages of my search, I had to type the title itself, which sadly still made the webcomic appear fifth on the listings at the time. This means that as long as there are other ways to get the word out (i.e. conventions, online hubs, articles, podcasts, forums, etc ), new readers don’t necessarily need SEO help to find new webcomics to read.



Moreover, SEO in the purest sense would not make sense with simple keyword searchs such as “Webcomic” because their are just so many webcomics out there.
However, “Sci-Fi Rock and Roll Webcomics “ could favor the creator who has the only “Sci-Fi Rock and Roll Webcomic”. The difference in SEO use stems from good and bad practices.

Bad SEO

Simply put, for a creator to say they have a “Erotic Sci-Fi Comic” when in fact the webcomic is a “family oriented strip with unicorns”. Meaning if “Unicorn Love MadeUp Example” posed itself as adult entertainment, and it is not; it will not retain the readers it attracts.

Over use of meta-tags is another example because people could put unrelated keywords just to get more hits on their site.

Although his action can be considered tactical, Oatmeal webcartoonist, Matthew Inman, falls under spamming for his manipulation of SEO (http://www.seobook.com/to-google-you-are-a-spammer).



Good SEO
Seems to be using long keywords such as “Rat Monster Webcomics” which Ironically brought me to Doug TenNapel’s (Creator of Earth Worm Jim) new web comic “Rat Fist” which I had no clue existed before this assignment. This means that creators should use these phrases based on descriptions of their webcomic to attract the readers they want.


However, I first found “Rat Fist” from my organic search on Google lead me to a back link on www.fuelyourillustration.com.




Next Blog:

How to create embedded coding for surveys on your website?

Full Sail Reponse 07052011

Using AdPlanner and Keywords



@ Shannon,

I agree that the twitter phenomena was based on people wanting to do something on both the developer and user end. I think in today’s age, giving something that people want is more important than before because with all this tech we live in a consumer propelled market. With Twitter in effect, all industries are under more scrutiny to provide better products because I feel twitter can create waves of positive of negative branding faster than TV and to a much larger network of people.


I Choose to use Google’s “AdPlanner” because I couldn’t find keyword searches on “Quantcast’s” service. With the keywords shown most frequent I suggest these keywords to find this TED Talk

Keywords Suggestions

1.) ted talks twitter

2.) daily show twitter

3.) NPR Twitter

To Register or not to Register: The Lanham Act and Basic Natural Trademark Laws

Below is a copy of my paper for Full Sail's last class. I found the Lanham Act which is the key document that describes all US trademark laws.

To Register or not to Register: The Lanham Act and Basic Natural Trademark Laws

Zon D. Petilla

Full Sail University

Many people consider if they should register their intellectual property (IP) with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) when other successful independents have not (Scott, Straub, Kellett, and Guigar, 2008). For example, before becoming a TV show on AMC, Robert Kirkman protected “The Walking Dead” as a “TM” and not a “®” for register trademark (Kirkman, 2005 and Pennington, 2010). Thus, this paper is not to question the decision to register a trademark or not, but instead to explore how the Lanham Act protects natural trademarks through analysis of a court case. The case of Natural Answers Inc. versus Smithkline Beecham Corporation (d.b.a. GSK) explores how natural trademarks are protected under the Lanham act (Marcus, 2008). This paper will review this case in regards to trademark law then explore the implications as it relates to NeoGlow Entertainment’s future IP practices.

Summary of Facts from Court Case

Natural Answers from 2000 to 2002 developed, produced, and marketed herbal supplements such as “HerbaQuit Lozenges”. Without Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, this product was marketed and produced to help people stop smoking by satisfying their physical and psychological cravings for Tobacco. Natural Answers filed trademark applications for both “HerbaQuit” on April 12, 1994 and “HerbaQuit Lonzenges” on May 27, 1995 with the USPTO. Unfortunately, both were rejected; nonetheless, in 2000, Natural Answers marketed and sold HerbaQuit Lozenges in drugstores, supermarkets, convenience stores, and over the Internet (Marcus, 2008). Thus, Natural Answers placed their product for public consumption and used their natural trademark rights under the Lanham Act (“Lanham (Trademark) Act (15 U.S.C.) Index,” n.d.).

Under the Lanham Act, Natural Answers’ unregistered trademark for HerbaQuit was protected because the product was being marketed and offered to the public (Marcus, 2008 and “Lanham (Trademark) Act (15 U.S.C.) Index,” n.d.). From March to April 2001, GSK showed interest in an agreement with Natural Answers but never established an official deal to distribute HerbaQuit. After 50,000 packages were produced, Natural Answers off-shelved HerbaQuit March 2002 and discontinued production November 2002. In 2003, after a failed attempt to solicit to the Philip Morris USA Inc., Natural Answers seemed to stop production and sales of HerbaQuit in open markets (Marcus, 2008).

GSK, seven months after HerbaQuit was not visible on store shelves in 2002, decided to launch an FDA approved anti-tobacco product called “Commit Lozenges”. GSK advertised this motto with their product, “the first and only stop smoking lozenge”, which discredited HerbaQuit being on the market first or at all. GSK had started development of their product in 1998 about four years after HerbaQuit; however, they had FDA approval in 2002 after applying for product approval in 2000. Moreover, GSK had a registered trademark as of 2003 for Commit Lozenges. By 2005, Natural Answers pursued a ten-count complaint against GSK with the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida and later appealed the court’s decision in 2008 in the United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit, (Marcus, 2008).

The Legal Issue

Did GSK violate Natural Answers’ trademark? Although Natural Answers filed a ten-count complaint related to GSK, for the purposes of this paper, the counts defined and listed in this section are more related to a potential direct violation of the Lanham Act. Also note, if the Lanham Act had been violated, then GSK would also more than likely be guilty of violating local state common laws as well (Marcus, 2008).

The following list defines the trademark infringements that Natural Answers accused GSK in relation to the Lanham Act and other related common laws:

• “Federal Trademark Infringement under 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a)”: This relates to laws that protect both registered and well-known unregistered marks from other companies to market and sell similar products (USPTO, 2010). For example, Natural Answers held no registered trademark of their product; however, when their product was advertised and sold in stores, it was protected (Marcus, 2008).

• “Federal Trademark Infringement Based on Reverse Confusion under 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a)”: This relates to an infringement that happens when a product is marketed in a way that causes consumers to mistakenly connect one brand to another (“Reverse Confusion,” n.d.). For example, GSK had advertised the Commit motto as, “the first and only stop smoking lozenge”; thus, Customers who were aware of HerbaQuit before of Commit might have thought the name had changed because to them HerbaQuit was the “first” and “only”; in turn, consumers may confuse HerbaQuit with GSK’s product (Marcus, 2008).

• “Common Law Trademark Disparagement”: This relates to misleading claims caused by a competitor of a similar product on the same market (“Trademark Infringement and Product Disparagement,” n.d.). For example, GSK stated, “…only stop smoking lozenge”, to describe their Commit Lozenges, which could make people think that there are no other similar products on the market such as HerbaQuit (Marcus, 2008).

• “Common Law Trademark Infringement”: This would be a violation of local state trademark laws (i.e. distribution issues affected by the marketing and selling of either product) (Marcus, 2008 and “Common Law Trademark Rights, ”n.d.).

The Original and Appeals Courts’ Analyses

Given the facts, the original court found that GSK was not guilty of the claims made by Natural Answers because Natural Answers abandoned their product; thus, any infringements or accusations of harm that happened to Natural Answers or their product “HerbaQuit” was void. Upon a United States Court of Appeals review, Marcus (2008) noted: “Under the Lanham Act, a trademark is deemed abandoned, and, thus no longer valid, ‘[w]hen its use has been discontinued with intent not to resume such use.’” The United States Court of Appeals reviewed the evidence from the original case in these terms.

Marcus (2008) cites as precedent “Cumulus Media, Inc. v. Clear Channel [Commc'ns], Inc., 304 F.3d 1167, 1173 (11th Cir.2002)”; meaning, if GSK proved that Natural Answers abandoned their product on the market, then GSK is not guilty of causing any harm to Natural Answers. As of 2002, the fact was Natural Answers showed no public intent to continue pursuit of their brand and had pulled their product off the public market. According to the Lanham Act, even though Natural Answers could argue they had a natural established trademark through various media forms such as the Internet, they no longer continued to market and offer their product for sale; in turn, they lost trademark protection under the Lanham Act (Marcus, 2008).
The Original and Appeals Court’s Final Decisions

By 2005, the original court’s decision sided on behalf of GSK not with Natural Answers because Natural Answers did not have FDA approval, a registered patent or trademark, or a product that was currently on the market. Thus, GSK was cleared against all claims made by Natural Answers because no apparent trademark violations were made. Natural Answers, feeling they still had a valid case, contested the original court’s decision and appealed (Marcus, 2008).

Upon a 2008 review by United States Court of Appeals, Judge Marcus (2008) had affirmed the original court’s decision based on the evidence that was presented and the state of Natural Answers’ HerbaQuit Lozenges’ production and market presence while GSK’s Commit Lozenges was on the market (Marcus, 2008). In regards to the sprit of the Lanham act and new precedent, Marcus (2008) did not feel this was a landmark case nor that any new exceptions should be made because Natural Answers was at the time not protected under the Lanham Act in anyway after the product was off the shelves in 2002.

Discussion

In hindsight, this case shows a company losing their trademark rights because they stopped marketing and selling their product to the general public. Simply put, before securing what was needed for a successful run, Natural Answers started product production and marketing. In regards to GSK negotiations, it seems Natural Answers feels they gave GSK an idea before GSK had filed for both FDA approval and a USPTO Trademark for their Commit Lozenges (Marcus, 2008).

In regards to their solicitations, Natural Answers went into production before exploring different options that could bring more credibility to their product. Before the case began, NeoGlow Entertainment (NE) believes that if there was more evidence (i.e. scientific studies) for Natural Answers’ claims of what HerbaQuit could do, then more sponsors and investors would have been more interested in investing in the production and marketing of the product prior to 1998.

For the 2003 Philip Morris USA Inc. Deal, Natural Answers simply needed money to continue, and approaching Philip Morris seemed a desperate attempt by Natural Answers to keep their product running because by that time GSK’s product was on the market with FDA approval (Marcus, 2008). How can NE avoid a similar issue related to its products? When we put a product out, we see it through; meaning, before fully committing to production, we will secure partnership agreements and necessary resources needed for successful product launches.

Considering applications of this case, NE has a better understanding of how registered and natural trademarks work under the Lanham Act. According to the Lanham Act and this case, “Web-presence” is not enough to maintain a natural trademark. The purpose of a trademark is to help consumers identify one brand over the other; in regards to products, a business must attempt to sell a product not only market it in order to maintain their natural trademark rights under the Lanham Act (USPTO, 2010 and “Lanham (Trademark) Act (15 U.S.C.) Index,” n.d.).

In conclusion, NE’s practices remain unchanged in our product and service development. We continue to develop strategic partners, sponsors, and investors in relationship to our projects, products, and services. Of course, studying this case has filled in many grey areas of what we should trademark and why. For example, the “popularity” or “well-known” argument in the Lanham Act directly corresponds to our web-presence because the “popularity” of NE or it’s products and services could be brought into question in relation to trademark and common law disputes (“Lanham (Trademark) Act (15 U.S.C.) Index,” n.d.). Pending our filling date, NE or a name related to NE will be a registered trademark sometime in 2012; on the other hand, our related products will more than likely fall under natural trademarks. As mentioned before, Kirkman’s “The Walking Dead” is not a registered trademark, but the company that publishes his products, “Image Comics”, has a registered trademark with USPTO (Kirkman, 2005 and Scott, Straub, Kellett, and Guigar, 2008). Future NE research will be more directed to Internet trademark law and common laws in regions that NE will market or sell products in. As laws change, our education must continue (Finnegan, 2011).

References:
Common Law Trademark Rights (n.d.) (Trademark) Act (15 U.S.C.) BitLaw. Retrieved on April 19th, 2011 from http://www.bitlaw.com/trademark/common.html

Finnegan (2011) Internet Trademark Case Summaries. Retrieved on April 20th from http://www.finnegan.com/publications/updatenewsletters/itcs/

Kirkman, R, (2005). The Walking Dead. Berkley: Image Comics

Lanham (Trademark) Act (15 U.S.C.) Index (n.d.) BitLaw. Retrieved on April 19th, 2011 from http://www.bitlaw.com/source/15usc/

Marcus (2008) Natural Answers Inc v. Smithkline Beecham Corporation

April 9th, 2011 from: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-11th-circuit/1206578.html

Pennington, G. (2010) AMC picks up 'Walking Dead' for Season 2 Retrived on April 18th 2011 from http://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/television/gail-pennington/article_38e970f8-eb7f-11df-a05c-0017a4a78c22.html

Reverse Confusion (n.d.) Reverse Confusion. Retrieved on April 19th, , 2011 from http://definitions.Reverse Confusion.com/r/reverse-confusion-trademark/
United States Patent and Trademark Office (2010). Office of the Administrator for Policy and

External Affairs: Well-known Marks [Webpage]. Retrieved on April 20th, 2011 from http://www.uspto.gov/ip/global/trademarks/ir_tm_marks.jsp

Scott, K, Straub, K, Kellett, D, and Guigar, B. (2008) How to Make Webcomics. Berkley: Image Comics

Trademark Infringement and Product Disparagement (n.d.) The Business Litigators Retrieved on April 20th from http://www.thebusinesslitigators.com/lawyer-attorney-1404046.html