Stroop describes the tendency of our minds to give more weight (technically “directed attention”) to words than to colors. For example, when we see the word ‘blue’ written in green ink, the anterior cingulate part of our brain kicks in and we quickly read ‘blue’ without stumbling. John Ridley Stroop reported this finding as part of a Ph.D. thesis in 1935 and his search of a region that lies between the right and left halves of the frontal portion of the brain. In college it helped us laser onto the word ‘beer’ despite unappetizing color palettes and gaudily cluttered downtown storefronts. Ultimately, humans are involuntary readers, constrained by evolution to put more and faster weight on meaning than presentation.

So why worry about this stuff as 2012 approaches? It’s a combination of business and politics – perennial year-end antagonists along with the Super Bowl. It’s a business focus for us because PR is a labor of words – meaning, context, syntax, and nuance. With successful clients across New England and the U.S. engaged in “clean coal,” “socially responsible development,” and “sustainable environmental practices” – not to mention a bevy of companies boasting products as “revolutionary,” “innovative,” and “value focused” – we’re strong proponents of the power of messaging. And we’re not surprised by Stroop; just challenged on behalf of Calypso’s graphic design and interactive marketing team to keep up.

Politics is another Stroop natural, with the presidential debates an example. Do red ties, flag pins, and starched white shirts gloss over drawled nonsense, memory lapses, or swirling confusion? Not likely. We heard what we heard, didn’t hear, or wanted to hear. This makes me wonder if the Stroop effect extends to reading and listening skills, and our ability to sort words from wrapping. Do words compete with each other when they’re the same color but assault the brain with moral conflict? If so, Stroop may be what helps most of us quickly sort out the non sequitur in “President Trump” or, to be bipartisan, “President Kucinich.”

Calypso has always believed that words always win and the message is key, so the Stroop task is welcome science. As 2011 closes and business and politics both struggle to keep our attention, don’t let the visual absence of snow or the gray sky backdrops of winter dampen your spirit.

Just read, “Eat, Drink, and Be Merry,” in any color, and follow your frontal lobes to seasonal cheer.

I’m as guilty as anyone. Mindlessly attaching a mind-numbing “FYI” to an article and blasting it to friends. I almost always regret it after the fact. It’s the writing equivalent of muttering, “Have a nice day,” to someone whose day you largely ignore and for who ‘nice’ is an improbable result. The (fortunately) fading parallel to the annoying “Whassup?” – tossed to friends when “Wassdown?” was what we really wanted to know. The precursor, perhaps, to some futuristic electronic slang that vibrates from implanted chips in a synthetic prosthesis and computes, after centuries of elaborate science and evolution, to “Zorn… dude, take a look at this…”

Here’s why FYI should be stricken from use.

First, it’s selfish. It’s a clear sign that you didn’t really read whatever you’re sending. Instead, it’s become a fast way to infer familiarity, suggest collegial concern with the topic, propose a modicum of relevance and importance to the matter, and be the first one in the day to offer breaking news. If it’s Earth shattering to your friend on the other end, you get credit. If it’s irrelevant, well, it was “just FYI.” Either way you’re safe without having had to invest any real time. Much less having to actually have read the stuff. Erudition sans effort.

Second, it’s insulting, implying you don’t care enough about the information or the reader to make a more poignant comment, one that saves your colleague time and interpretation. Such as “This would be helpful to you in selling your company,” or “You might want to see what your ex-wife posted on Facebook,” or even, “Here’s why Rick Perry’s memory is better than Herman Cain’s.”

The goal of every cold call is heat, the purpose of every personal or business communication the warm respect of a reply and, better yet, a thoughtful thank you. Unlike the even, hot burn of chestnut logs on a campfire, “FYI” is just a poker in the coals, pine needles on the flame, sparks that add little heat and less warmth. And sometimes, an unread sent to the wrong person, it can be a bucket of cold water, prompting a feared, “What’s so interesting about this?” Now you’ll have to read it and dance.

So if you have good news to share, read and understand it first; comment on its importance second; identify any next steps or follow up suggestions; and then share. If you’re forwarding bad news, scandal, or anything to do with Saturday Night Live, sometimes less is needed, but there’s always room for commentary that proves you have your recipient’s best interests in mind. Even if you send a clip of a high-profile political implosion, add a little something that clarifies your position.

Like, “Just FYI. LOL. RIP.”

News last month about a public relations crisis at McDonald’s and the chain’s Twitter response suggests two unwavering truths.

1. Social media is a critical part of the communications arsenal for any business crisis.

2. It’s equally important to know when not to use it.

An online hoax, claiming McDonald’s was charging African-American customers $1.50 extra “as an insurance measure due in part to a recent string of robberies” was circulated on the Internet in June. Disbelieved by most and clearly tied to an anti-McDonald’s blog, the company should have ignored the hoax altogether. Instead, it issued several defensive tweets, likely extending the debate.

Companies of every size struggle with the concept of social media and how to use it. But social media adds immediate strengths in two critical areas for every business: competitive strategy and crisis management, one often leading to the other. It can help outdistance competing products and services. And it can provide a ready system to help inform, influence, and measure unexpected or unwanted events.

McDonald’s, for example, has defended its burger empire for decades, historically with traditional print and broadcast strategies. In the first half of 1985, the company increased its TV ad budget by 40 percent, responding in part to Wendy’s popular Clara Peller-voiced “Where’s the Beef?” offensive. With today’s social media arsenal, they might have aimed far less money with greater impact, possibly creating pop up “Here’s MY Beef” videos, featuring consumers and fueling Web traffic. We can only imagine the digital campaigns that would enliven the ’80s burger wars today.

On a darker note, McDonald’s may have welcomed a social media-enabled crisis management plan in 1984, when a gunman killed 21 customers in a San Ysidro, Calif., restaurant. Company management, ultimately praised for its handling of the crisis, likely learned of the 77-minute attack from reporters calling from the scene, prompting the question, “How long did it take for McDonald’s other stores to hear what happened and prepare responses for customers?”

What social media now offers companies is a precise and diverse suite of communications tools that, with proactive planning and training, can effectively promote a brand — while also carefully protecting it — in the best and the worst of times.

Earlier this year, a Taco Bell class action suit challenged the contents of the food chain’s “meat filling” and highlighted social media’s modern role in protecting a company’s reputation. It also warned of potential mistakes. The debate was quickly viral, and Taco Bell was forced to respond on its Facebook page and Twitter account. The company also uploaded a YouTube video of its president, who thought he would close out the controversy by publicly disclosing the 12 percent non-beef portion of the company’s beef recipe as 3 percent water, 4 percent Mexican spices, and the remaining 5 percent oats, caramelized sugar and yeast. Probably not what most TB fans wanted to hear. The decision to use an executive on YouTube, which received low attention, instead of focusing on Taco Bell’s 45,000-strong Twitter following, was questionable.

In 2009, Domino’s faced a similar crisis with far better results, institutionalizing the role of a company president’s mea culpa for poor performance. Today, with just 10 people handling all of its social media activity, Domino’s has amassed 3 million Facebook fans and 40,000 Twitter followers. Merging an intuition for both competition and crisis management, the mea culpa warts-and-all strategy has surged behind the horsepower of social media technologies, most recently with the chairmen of Toyota and Cisco. Even at Google, Eric Schmidt apologized just last month to investors for failing to act sooner on, of all things, social networking.

Every industry is different, of course, but fundamental tools exist to help prepare for and engage the inevitable crisis. These include Google alerts for tracking warning signs and trends, along with Twitter search and news platforms such as SocialRep. Fast pipelines to stakeholders and directions to a response page are critical; Twitter is probably the best around. Online dialogue channels such as FriendFeed and Facebook, also linked to a response page, help extend active networks, along with LinkedIn, which excels at reaching traditional colleagues, subject matter experts, and corporate groups. Finally, integrated strategies for video messaging during a crisis, utilizing channels such as YouTube and Seesmic, are often effective. Remember, above all, that social media is only a small part of the complete marketing mix.

In any industry, from food service to industrial products to professional service firms, social media will play an increasingly crucial role in anticipating, addressing, and communicating crisis issues and events. Today, when your customers ask, “Where’s (or What’s in) the beef?” you may have only minutes to answer.

The meaning of “brand” is still debated by those who teach its theories, practically defined in industry practice, and often overlooked by the thousands of small businesses for which it would be most valuable.  Marking the boundaries of the debate, though, most businesses today understand what brand is not. It is not a logo, a name, or a look. Some say it represents the “promise” of an experience. The best definition I know aligns brand with the sum total of a consumer’s experiences with a given product, service, or company. This works for Apple and the IRS, not so much for politicians and entertainers.Companies that rely on their brands to compel customers and clients need to have deliberate programs that measure, protect, and enhance them. Usually, the size and nature of your business will determine the scope of such a policy. For example, large retailers spend huge sums on consumer survey metrics that match their brands to competitors while local shops might focus on positioning identity with select events or causes – carving out a customer experience that is unique in its “promise.”

The concept of a consumer brand was, once, entangled with advertising. Fans of AMC’s Mad Men appreciate the insidious power of Madison Avenue, at least in the 1960s. Today it’s more complicated, the potential for success more viral, and the risk of failure more public. Companies are empowered to drive their brands to global audiences through the Internet and social media. And they’re capable of witnessing a brand implode overnight through, well, the Internet and social media.

So while brand may not be any more important now than it was in the 60s, it is, arguably, more complex to manage. Consider just a few of the marketing trends now driving businesses, large and small:

Social Media:  The opportunities presented by blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter – and their inherent promises of new and greater revenue for companies – will drive businesses to leverage new value. They will also equip managers with rapid crisis management response, employee communications tools, and immediate investor access.

A Diverse Global Consumer Base: Today’s brands must appeal to an increasingly far-flung and diverse population, building and enhancing a buying experience for new customers who, although new to your brand, will make up lost time quickly with 24/7 access and technology.

Customer Retention Programs: Business owners know that it’s easier to keep than to find a customer, so owners are investing heavily in relationship management, hoping to drive customer lifetime value, or CLV, results.

Mobile and High-tech Marketing: Mobile phones and other devices are displacing random browsing and coupon clipping as shoppers go from websites directly to online and in-store deals. QR, or Quick Response, codes – two-dimensional matrix barcodes that can hold thousands of alphanumeric characters of information – are becoming increasingly practical for small businesses. Already used for more than a decade in Japan, consumers can scan or read a QR code with an iPhone, Android, or other camera-enabled Smartphone and link to digital content on the web, activate email, IM, and SMS, or connect to a Web browser.

So, in the wake of all that’s happening in the world of marketing, carefully managing your brand is more important than ever. But while the temptation exists to adopt some of these new technologies and take off, the best place to start managing your brand is with a simple brand audit.

A brand audit compares your current brand position to that of your competitors and examines its effectiveness by typically addressing several key questions:

1. How well is your brand strategy working?
2. What are your internal strengths and weaknesses; external opportunities and threats?
3. How competitive are your prices and costs?
4. What is your competitive position?
5. What strategic issues are facing the business?

To accomplish this, the audit examines trends in your market share, profit margins, return on existing investments, and established economic value, as well as overall financial strength and credit rating.  It assesses your image and reputation with customers and measures your business or sector leadership in service, technology, innovation, or other metrics that your industry’s customers use in making consumer decisions. Most important, a comprehensive brand audit will assess your strengths, especially your expertise, human assets, achievements, and competitive attributes.

Mad Men dramatizes the ways we were told to buy products a half-century ago while our shopping habits in another 50 years will follow technologies not yet invented. Today, a brand audit is the first step in moving your business in a different or faster direction.

For decades industrial companies have sponsored formal media trainings to prepare employees for fast-paced, on-camera interviews with sessions mostly focused on uncomfortable issues and unexpected events. High-profile companies that benefited from these courses often managed to limit news exposure. The rest — AIG, BP, and Massey Energy, to name just a few — were headliners for months.The trainings usually anticipate (sometimes too late) on-site accidents, environmental scares, epidemic threats or labor problems. Tragedies over the past century faced by Union Carbide in Bhopal, India; Exxon in Alaska; Hooker Chemical at Love Canal; and Three Mile Island paralleled a rapidly growing global media network. Companies and their investors felt the pinch of bad press and the need for formal media training emerged.

Crisis media management is a thriving global business fueled by politics, economics, and human nature; organizations such as IMF and Tokyo Electric have probably set aside new budgets for this purpose and the 2012 presidential campaign already has consultants on high alert.

But why is this process important to small businesses?

The growing influence of social media like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter is undoubtedly changing the role of traditional print and broadcast news. In order to maintain its value and effectiveness, traditional media training must evolve as well, and learning to prepare a company’s messages and promote its brand is more important than ever. Today you’re better off training employees to understand, articulate, and share positive brand messaging proactively and on a regular basis. Once equipped with the right tools and techniques, as well as the familiarity with brand advocacy that only comes with consistent practice, you’ll be well prepared when the news media follows trouble in the door.

Defending and promoting brand integrity should be an aligned, if not overlapping, process for any type or size business. Hospitals, manufacturers, distribution centers, real estate developers, and hotels all know the potential for controversy, but shouldn’t have to change playbooks when it hits. Likewise, retail stores, restaurants, sports organizations, and service firms — unaccustomed to crisis — should be trained to manage it, seamlessly, as part of an ongoing and positive communications strategy, not as an outlying defensive posture.

When your team is down, a defense-heavy game plan seldom works very well and should be balanced with an offensive strategy. Think BP right after the Horizon oil spill. Continuous offense, however, with players peripherally trained to recover fumbles and cover for other mistakes, is the only way to consistently put points on the brand scoreboard or revenue on the bottom line.

The game has changed. And while some basic media training techniques still apply, preparing for crisis in response to a daily newspaper cycle is not enough anymore. Instead, we all face a 24/7 audience and need messaging and tactics aimed at building brand reputation in times both good and bad.

In a new media training session, attendees still learn effective tips for creating core messages, re-directing unwanted questions to branded answers, refining verbal and non-verbal tactics, and artfully managing differences between print, broadcast, and online media. To benchmark tendencies and habits, they may be video taped under questioning.

Then we often analyze clips from famous PR faux pas — Exxon CEO Lawrence Rawl defending the Valdez oil spill to CBS’ Kathleen Sullivan is classic. Even more current are recent implosions such as BP’s Tony Hayward, —»There’s no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back,” and, proving that even the media establishment isn’t insulated from idiotic lapses, Rush Limbaugh’s taped comment, “What better way to head off more oil drilling, nuclear plants, than by blowing up a rig?” Nonpartisan gaffes are balanced with polished experts, and seminar attendees apply their newly acquired tips and tactics in a second video audition.

Throughout such training, relevant case studies that feature current issues, daily situations, and likely scenarios for your company are dissected. These include both positive and negative situations, but the training is focused on the consistent delivery of high-level brand communications. In the end, the approaches to diffusing a customer confrontation and welcoming a new strategic partner should sound remarkably alike.

Today’s media training, like today’s news, needs to be continuous, contemporary, and grass roots. It is training that embeds company values and core messages from the beginning, rather than waiting for slacking sales or protesting workers. It is training that adopts modern social media, Web networks, blogs, digital strategies, and other channels for employee, customer, and stakeholder interaction. And it is training that enables and empowers your employees to manage any situation with pride, confidence, and competence.

Twenty years ago, media training tried to help politicians and CEOs put the toothpaste back into the tube before the next morning’s edition. There’s not enough time for that anymore. The competitive advantages of a regularly well-trained, well-spoken team far outweigh the need for playing sudden defense.

Kevin Stickney is founder of Calypso Communications (www.calypsocom.com), a public relations firm that develops and delivers comprehensive media training programs for numerous industries across the country.

The road from invention and basic research to commercial status can be long and tedious for startup companies. In technology, the so-called Valley of Death chasm is deep and wide. Those fortunate enough to get public funding lavish it on early basic science only to thirst for more resources at the applied science stages, where commercial success actually starts.

Searching for these resources, investors and policy makers then turn to private capital to bridge the gap between creative technology and mature commerce. And while public agencies will champion raw innovation, equity firms save their cheers for surging, sustainable revenues. Many race-weary players drop before the finish line.

Those that make it to the other side of the valley aren’t yet in the clear. Entrepreneurs must continue to meet key development milestones and satisfy early company valuations. When new CEOs overprice their ventures, investors will often expect greater management performance. Missed milestones lead to a loss of confidence in the leadership and, if capital is still needed, lower prices that dilute shares held by founders (and management), crippling the startup’s launch.

The consulting firm Gartner Group defines “Hype Cycle Indicators” for companies passing through this valley. At its lowest point, the so-called Trough of Disillusionment, Gartner claims that less than five percent of a startup company’s potential audience has fully adopted the product or service. This rises along the Slope of Enlightenment to 20 or 30 percent and on to the High Growth Adoption Phase. The labels seem to fit technology companies, in particular, which have sacrificed their fair share to the valley.

But what does it mean for us small and medium-sized businesses already up and running? How can we stay out of the troughs and off the slopes of financial hardship? How can we all remain on what Gartner calls the Plateau of Productivity?

The same fundamentals that help start a business will serve you well in sustaining one. The practices that demonstrated your passion for entrepreneurship can now prove your passion for long-term success. We mentioned many of these channels earlier as ways to attract funding, engage investors, and prepare for the challenges of commercializing a new entity; they work even better once your business is up and running.

First, continue to develop the human, intellectual, and social capital that will grow your brand and strengthen your leadership. Profile your people and communicate news of new hires, promotions, and local involvement on a regular basis.

The most compelling tales for your business are often told behind closed doors and should be released. So keep telling the story of your brand, reinventing perspective, re-fashioning players, and re-interpreting your role and contributions in a changing market.

As you grow, continue to seek, assume, and convey thought leadership in your business circles – speaking, networking, and writing, utilizing social media, and deploying other new communications strategies that will influence important audiences and convey your company’s creative energy.

Routinely remove yourself from the details of day-to-day business and reexamine the bigger picture for unique opportunities to position your company in creative new ways.

Openly share news, milestones, and industry information through blogs, Twitter, and Facebook – these are dynamic and significant demographic pipelines for your expertise that are beneficial not only to getting the word out about a startup but also apply to keeping an established company current and top of mind. Of course, a highly functional website, properly search-engine optimized and regularly refreshed with relevant and useful content, will be indispensable for years to come. Don’t allow your site to drop its guard as the steward of your brand or defer its role as your lead new business developer.

Finally, anticipate, prepare for, and manage crisis as thoroughly as you would any positive opportunity. Know your risks and exposures, understand your messages under fire, and strategically plan to handle problems before they handle you. This applies to every business, from food retailers to nuclear power plants.

Surviving any valley, whether a major funding round for technology, the launch of a new retail product, or the bootstrapping of a small professional services firm, requires strategically focused and tactically executed marketing skill. Once your firm is sustainable, this is a skill set that will serve you well for years to come.

New entrepreneurs and small business owners know the dilemma all too well: the early financial (and mental) rush of capital quickly encounters a chasm – sometimes labeled the Valley of Death. Borrowed from Tennyson’s 1854 poem about British brigadiers under poor command and worse odds, it symbolizes the long trek ahead from initial funding to commercial success.

The valley can be a desert expanse that spells the end for technology companies unable to balance 1) the simultaneous demands of servicing initial debt, 2) developing a new product or service, 3) managing human resource and infrastructure issues, and 4) successfully marketing to new customers, investors, and employees. Of course, for some well-heeled startups and lucky dot.com ventures, the valley becomes the Bonneville Salt Flats on a perfect race day. Unfortunately, that’s the exception.

For technology ventures, the stage can look more like something out of a spaghetti western. The entrepreneur refuses nourishment, doggedly focused on perfecting his science. The once free-flowing public funding for technology creation and innovation dries up. Disciplined private venture firms hold off to control risks until initial sales reflect a pending and promising upturn. Starved to replace spent seed funds with sums that dwarf personal resources, owners turn to (silently circling) equity sources. Even Clint Eastwood can’t save us now.

For smaller, local businesses the model can be very similar, as expanding companies race to jumpstart sales before they exhaust loans or lines of credit. A retail store, for example, may add a new product line with borrowed funds and then work tirelessly to service the burdening debt with new revenue. A home improvement provider may finance new equipment or staffing and then have to focus every working minute on finding new customers and applications. A professional services company, saddled with a new branch office or acquisition, struggles to convert these investments into an enhanced image that, in turn, will drive more business. In each case, the journey has the same objective: convert debt to revenue quickly enough to reach the oasis on the other side of the valley, where rising sales and maturing markets for your products or services can sustain commercial promise.

Both small business owners and technology entrepreneurs, however, tend to see this process as a race against time – a reality show that pits unprepared people against insidious obstacles and disappearing incentives. It’s Wipeout on steroids and without all the padding. While time is of the essence and can’t be discounted, there are some general approaches to crossing the valley – no matter the distance or climate – that can help in reaching that commercial watering hole.

Remember that you know far more about your technology, products, services, or core values than any potential investor or strategic partner. This makes it critical that you openly and creatively share information along the way, and don’t just keep your head down in search of funding. Blogging, tweeting, speaking opportunities, guest editorials – all are convenient and dynamic pipelines for your expertise that may help investors accelerate their due diligence on your industry or motivate customers to anticipate your new offerings.

If you don’t yet have real products, your service is unfamiliar, or your new geographic presence remains unexplained to investors and customers, these stakeholders aren’t likely to be waiting at the other side of the valley. New technology, unique products, and planned growth need to be explained – and you do it best. Take the time to describe your vision for a future market in ways that appeal to future customers. Profile credible financial opportunities for investors; portray real lifestyle enhancements for consumers; tell business clients how and why your new location will better serve their growth. Thoughtful and informed messaging, conveyed in the right media to reach the right stakeholders, will prepare the stage for your commercial arrival. The Web, of course, is critical to this effort, ensuring that those who watch your valley trek (even those ominously perched above) will be fulfilled with ever new and informative content on your site.

Finally, a familiar warning to most technology entrepreneurs: anticipate crisis. While positive and uplifting messages on the future of your business are mandatory to your success, the words and strategies that predict and manage inevitable crises are mandatory to just staying in the game (think Wipeout again, without all the second chances).

At the end of the day the proverbial Valley of Death is a money game for entrepreneurs, one that will usually defeat poor technology, weak services, and ill-conceived business strategies. For the rest, artfully and openly telling the story of your venture along the way can help business owners find friendlier, more fertile markets.

Officers and men of the 13th Light Dragoons, who were the survivors of the charge, and are often used as a business metaphor for the dangers facing startup companies.

In helping early stage clients with investor marketing strategies, the term “Valley of Death” has been a common reference for years. The phrase, which rapidly earned its vernacular rank as credit markets weakened, is especially audible in energy and cleantech circles, although it can be heard from any sector in search of funding.

The reference likely comes from Lord Alfred Tennyson’s 1854 poem, “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” in which the death of hundreds of British cavalrymen in the Crimean War was attributed to inept commanders and impossible odds. More than 150 years later, our own business world, similarly ambushed by political and economic forces, has repurposed the morbid metaphor. According to the online site Investopedia, “Death Valley” acknowledges the high probability that a startup firm will fail before it can establish a steady revenue stream. Investopedia describes an ominous Death Valley Curve that traces declining cash flows and balance sheets from the high points of initial funding.

Experts argue incessantly about where, why, and even whether the “Valley” actually exists for startup companies, but all seem to agree that entrepreneurs and funded entities alike at some point have to transition from small, creative teams to solvent, robust entities. And while some new business ideas will perish, many will survive — indeed more than half of Tennyson’s 600 brigadiers “Came thro’ the jaws of Death, Back from the mouth of Hell …;”

The poem has some relevance to real world startups — the need for strong leadership (“Some one had blunder’d” in the brigade elite) and qualified employees who are accountable and engaged (unlike those who marched, “Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do & die …)” In addition to leadership and employee commitment, of course, a viable product and ability to attract knowledgeable investors are also critical. Yet every industry points down a different path to commercial success.

The cleantech industry, for example, is well known for pushing startups through a harrowing commercialization gauntlet. Already battling restrictive credit markets, these initiatives can face debilitating demands by regulatory, political, community, and advocacy forces. While investor support for a visionary new system destined to boost national energy independence might seem invincible, a local politician or watchdog environmental group may have committed to its defeat. Compared to the relative ease of commercialization for software developers, for example, venture capital firms and other early-stage investors are suddenly facing much larger capital investments, more complex technology concepts, and an (often painfully) engaged public. Advancing a promising new idea is far from just a financial exercise in market demand and investor returns.

Calypso has worked for a decade with dozens of such cleantech startups — including a funded but failed biodiesel venture, a tidal energy innovator now successfully pioneering the U.S. industry, a thin-film solar launch in Greece, a fledgling cellulosic ethanol startup, and a D.C.-based methane hydrate alliance. From this experience, we’ve identified some simple marketing strategies that can help entrepreneurs — and possibly business owners of any size and in any industry — proactively prepare for the journey ahead as they stand on the precipice of the metaphorical “Valley.”

1. Devote time to growing your business, not just raising money. Invest in developing the human, intellectual, and social capital you’ll need to succeed. The money, when it comes, can’t help you if your leadership isn’t in place.

2. While respecting confidential process and products, document and illustrate the story of your funding search. The most compelling tales for your eventual customer, media, and investor base are often told behind the closed doors of a road show or demonstrated daily in research labs and pilot projects; build the content for your commercial brand before you open the doors to business.

3. Learn to look, feel, and sound like a commercial success. If your market moves as fast as most, you can’t afford to stay under the radar until you’re funded. Leverage your vision, passion, and investor messages into industry thought leadership; empower your team to add their knowledge and discourse through social media venues; build a Web presence that reflects your global reach and sophistication; or develop and execute a public relations strategy to influence financial and business media. These are just some of the efforts that will help you assemble and sustain a viable offering that projects the success you deserve and expect.

The Light Brigade entered the Valley of Death without the benefits of thoughtful leadership, strong internal communications, and empowered team members. Companies, whether brand new and in search of financing or already viable and looking to grow, can easily avoid doing the same thing.

Kevin Stickney is founder of Calypso Communications (www.calypsocom.com), a strategic marketing, corporate communications and business development consultancy for energy, environmental, health care and technology clients.

Though it’s meant to reconnect us with friends and family, some of us agonize over the annual tradition of holiday greeting cards. Before we can spread a little cheer, share children’s photos and update family health and happenings, we’re faced with updating our holiday card list — a time consuming yet valuable effort.

If your company is anything like Calypso, you also spend time worrying about the value of your customer mailing list. Will a holiday card from our company result in unbridled cheer, the circular file, a cashier’s check for late receivables? More important, you wonder if the list is robust enough for a new year of productive sales and relationship building. Is it current and complete? Do we have the right names, titles, and offices? Is this company even still in business?

These clerical “cleanings” are important, but what can really boost the efficacy of a customer database is more strategic thinking about who really belongs there. What are you selling and who should care? What’s happening in the world that might increase interest by new customers for your products or services? How can you leverage news about local or regional trends to build a more targeted and effective database?

If you delivered any coal this Christmas (not the stocking variety) maybe Bill Gates and Warren Buffett should have been be included. (The billionaires traveled in a fleet of jets to Gillette, Wyoming last month to tour Arch Coal’s Black Thunder Mine, driving the company’s stock up 30 percent in three weeks). Neither man was on Calypso’s list this year, but with our public relations work for coal power plants, who knows about 2011?

If kids’ electronics better fit your customer profile, Nielsen reports that 31 percent of U.S. children ages 6 to 12 want an iPad over any other electronic device this year, followed by a computer (29 percent), and iPod touch (29 percent). And if you’re a local restaurateur you may want to know that food pundits have promised increased popularity in 2011 for pie, street food, and meatballs. Hospitality destinations will be interested in a recent Deloitte study that predicts corporate travel will rise next year, with high-speed Internet and free parking becoming the key attractions for business people.

We all get the point. A little regular research can help refine a customer database with news that leads to more relevant segmenting and more effective content for mailings — news that’s readily available online, especially in end-of-year reviews and popular forecasts for consumer trends, political shifts, and industry change. It’s a busy time for all those people who tell us how we lived our lives this past year, and what we can expect for the next 12 months. So while we’re already thinking about, and following, our own holiday lists, the season can be a perfect time to prepare our businesses for 2011.

Some obvious general guidelines for list management include:

• Start, build, and keep your file clean; use reliable sources for contacts and check the list often to ensure it’s accurate.
• Dedicate one person in your company or organization to be responsible for additions, revisions, and deletions to the database, but ensure that you have a system for everyone to contribute information.
• In some cases, you’ll need to create security levels within your firm for different levels of database use. In addition, you may want to put in place a written policy defining how you protect customer confidentiality.
• Manage the content, organizing names by relevant segments, geography, age group, and other important demographic criteria.
• You can also manage content by more subjective measures, such as customer loyalty, longevity, responsiveness, and spending habits.
• Take the time to remove dead soldiers — weeding out unresponsive names, lost subscribers, or duplicate contacts; your response rates will improve and outreach time and costs will decline.
• Establish a system to track information for your contacts, but first understand how the list will be used for different colleagues and types of outreach; sales, marketing, fundraising, and management co-workers all have different information needs.
• Technology can be your friend. In the age of smartphones and web service Web sites you can enlist a variety of new technologies to make growing, editing, and automating your list even easier for the entire company.
• You can even consider skipping the traditional business card exchange altogether with an application like Bump that shares contact information from device to device.
• Also be sure to leverage your Web site. Adding an e-mail sign up contact form is another easy way to grow your list of contacts.
• Finally, don’t forget to set up a process for backup and recovery of your database — a valuable investment of your company’s human and financial resources.

Building, editing, and reformulating a customer database is hard work that needs careful thought, vigilance, and constant attention. It may not be on your holiday schedule but it should definitely become part of your regular business calendar.

After a long wait, the first volume autobiography of humorist and author Samuel Clemens reached bookshelves last week, courtesy of the Mark Twain Papers and Project at the University of California, Berkeley. Twain’s musings benchmarked 19th century social commentary and popular literature. It’s likely his delayed thoughts will be equally relevant to all of us. Even to small businesses. Insight and humor, after all, are what keep most of us both solvent and sane.

The author ordered this content held private for a century after his death, reportedly to save the targets of his criticism, as well as heirs and friends, from anticipated sting and unwelcome stigma. According to the editors, Clemens feared being shunned, quoting him as saying, “I am human, and nothing could persuade me to do any bad deed — or any good one — that would bring that punishment upon me.” Thus the embargo.

A vocal critic of war, politics, and religion, Twain’s posthumous book tour ironically coincides with today’s cultural, economic, and political upheaval. Imagine his fertile mind fueled by America’s two foreign conflicts, an African American president, Bernie Madoff, and consumer obsession with viral news, instant chat, and online exposé. It’s hard to say if Twain would Tweet, or blog, or text in today’s world; a writing limit of 140 characters may have been painful in the 1900s. But he would likely still find a highly public way to puzzle over the puerile bickering in his American Congress. Or question, for instance, why a still-Democratic White House, Democratic Senate, and a fiercely independent Tea Party makes Republicans so giddy. Who knows if he would enjoin celebrity humorists in a rally for political sanity or anchor Fox News? Perhaps he would be a cautious independent, as he hinted in his 1898 Notebook: “The radical of one century is the conservative of the next.” And six years later: “Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”

Clemens is timeless in today’s business, too, with words-turned-sound bites that reject hubris, define the high road and, above all, demand a persistent sense of humor. “For business reasons,” he wrote in an 1890 letter, “I must preserve the outward sign of sanity…;”. Ultimately, he noted, and who doesn’t believe this in our current economy, “The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.”

Consider just a few other observations that business people would do well to adopt or, in some cases, avoid:

For bankers, nonprofits, and politicians, “The holy passion of friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.”

Patent attorneys could raise fees with, “Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.” Their divorce lawyer colleagues and marriage counselors could use the same words for opposite means, “To get the full value of joy, you must have someone to divide it with.”

In Innocents Abroad, Twain inspired eloquence in future entrepreneurs with this calling, “What is it that confers the noblest delight? What is that which swells a man’s breast with pride above that which any other experience can bring to him? Discovery! To know that you are walking where none others have walked; that you are beholding what human eye has not seen before; that you are breathing a virgin atmosphere. To give birth to an idea — to discover a great thought.” Inspiring stuff.

For self-help gurus, personal trainers, and executive coaches, try: “Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.” Just substitute your vice of choice and you have a mantra.

Politically correct retailers of global foods should avoid, “You can tell German wine from vinegar by the label.” Physicians could boost appointments with, “Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.”

The list goes on and, as Twain’s own Pudd’nhead Wilson said, “Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.” Suffice it to say that one could do worse in business than follow Twain’s tenets and channel his spirit. At the very least they point us to humor, uphold (generally) moral values, and excoriate those that drag us all down.

For businesses small and large, local and global, perhaps the most encouraging quote is from a Twain speech in 1887 that answered the question, “What is the most rigorous law of our being?”

His answer: “Growth. No smallest atom of our moral, mental, or physical structure can stand still a year. It grows — it must grow; nothing can prevent it.”

And all in less than 140 characters.