About Joe Hage

Why I’m psyched today

February 21, 2011 By Joe Hage 7 Comments

Too many good things coming together for my soon-to-launch consultancy.

BlueHost. The company hosting this website rocks. They spent 45 minutes on the phone with me to clear up why emails weren’t routing properly to my Google Apps account. I pay BlueHost $84 a year to host my site. I got two times that value today on that one phone call. [Read more...]

November 14, 2009 By Joe Hage

Thanks for visiting my Web site.

I’m Joe Hage, a senior marketer, AED advocate, blogger, husband, and dad. I’m a good guy to know for marketing strategy, marketing communications, online brand building, and new ideas.

I love marketing. (Click here for my resume, partial portfolio, or endorsements). I’ve marketed Jell-O and Kool-Aid, Campbell’s and flowers, brokerage and insurance, and now, medical devices. Rebranding my company, building its Web site, and its social media presence (with a blog, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube) has been hugely satisfying for me.

Now that you’re here, let me give you a few reasons to stay.

• If you’re a marketer, The First Three Questions is “the most important” marketing piece on the site. I recommend you have solid answers to these three questions before you spend a dime on marketing.
• If you’re a parent, A New School Supply is “the most important” video for parents and those responsible for others’ safety.
• If you’re a friend, My Wife, My Life for stories about Beth, and Hage family photos for pictures of my kids.
• If you want a laugh: Those Other Joe Hages and 28 Random Facts About Me.

Thanks for visiting, and continue on to read my FAQs.

…

JDH FAQs

How do you pronounce your last name?
Rhymes with page.

What’s the D in “JDH” stand for?
You’ll never guess. It was my grandfather’s name.

What do you do for a living?
I’m the Director of Marketing Communications for Cardiac Science, a publicly traded medical devices company on the Nasdaq (CSCX). We focus exclusively on noninvasive ways to manage heart disease.

Do you like it there?
The job’s perfect for me. I get to raise overall awareness of Cardiac Science, its unique offerings, and increase sales and goodwill through clear communications and a new, more approachable brand.

Hey Joe, where are you going with that gun in your hand?
I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?

Why do you keep a blog?
I used to get this question often. I wrote “Why Do You Keep a Blog?” in reply. More than anything, I’m entertained when I’m learning. And I’m learning how to build an online brand with my blog.

Why do you have a 917 cell phone number?
It’s my own little way of saying, “Hey, I’m a New Yorker.”

Where in New York?
Born and raised in Brooklyn, youngest of three and the only boy. We moved into our house on my third birthday. Mom and Dad sold the house when I turned 40. Now we live outside Seattle, Washington.

How do you like living in Washington?
It’s a great place to raise the kids. We have a backyard, the dog can run around, and Beth is happier than any time since she met me back in 1995.

A pretty big change from living on the Upper East Side of Manhattan!
It was bigger to go from a NYC apartment hallway to a swing set in the backyard. What was important then (Broadway, traveling) isn’t what’s important to us now (Zach, Luke, their development, our family).

Are you still acting?
No. But I joined my church choir. My priorities:
• My kids and family.
• My work.
• Social media, reading, and learning. I like to follow the market and subscribe to RealMoney and Investors.com.
• Spirituality. I teach Zach’s catechism and belong to The Art of Living.
• Giving back.

What kind of “giving back”?
I joined a Board of Directors member for a not-for-profit but it wasn’t for me. Then I stumbled upon Biznik, a business networking site for small business owners. I learned some stuff, met and hired some great people, and began giving some marketing strategy time and advice to some who could otherwise not afford me. I see it as a public service and it keeps me sharp.

For example, I talked more than 20 Biznik members through their positioning statements. Sometimes I do one-on-one consultations. It can be very gratifying.

What do you do for fun?
I relax with my boys, with a book, and online. I write.

I am a Dadomatic contributing author. I co-wrote Barack Lobster. I did a silly little video to support my friend Joe who “ran for office” on the MSN original “Republicrats” ticket. It was shown at the New York Television Festival, Joe tells me. They laughed. It made me happy.

I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that I uploaded my favorite Wharton Follies clips onto YouTube. But clearly not so embarrassed that I don’t want you to see them anyhow!

How did you like Wharton?
Loved it. Two of the best years of my life. I keep in touch with a number of my classmates and report back quarterly for the Wharton Alumni Magazine.

Poke around the site, leave comments, and ask questions. Thanks for visiting.

Joe

P.S. Keep in touch. And subscribe if you’d like an email when I post new content.

What’s on my mind

April 3, 2009 By Joe Hage 3 Comments

Having launched cardiacscience.com last month and maintaining a blog (and Twitter account) for it, I find that keeping up with my own blog to be a bit of a challenge. I have a lot of ideas floating around in my head. Maybe you’ll find the detritus interesting.

1. Cancun: I’m sitting poolside in Cancun. With a computer, you scoff?

Yes, I am the only one with a computer at the pool and the glare makes it very difficult to see the screen. But my kids are in the Kids Camp and Beth is reading her book right beside me.

Typing relaxes me. On vacation, I typically read and come up with ideas. I write them down and think, “When I get home I’ll act on these.” Then life catches up with me and I have 700 emails and three things past due.

The memories of the vacation and the ideas fade: I never get around to them. Perhaps with my computer I can act on them right away.

Get your copy: Profits to Susan G. Komen for the Cure

2. Author: I contributed to a book called “Connect: Marketing in the Social Media Era.” It just went on sale and all profits go to Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

I met the book’s creator, Jeff Caswell, virtually. We met at one site and started to follow one another on Twitter. I enjoy projects like the book because it keeps me limber and gives me the chance to know other marketers.

3. Blurb.com: Months ago I blogged from a Biznik event about publishing a book using lulu.com. I discovered blurb.com (a competitive Web site) when I purchased a copy of Connect.

I asked Jeff and the Twitter community why blurb over lulu. Jeff said,

Blurb.com gives you the software to format your book for free. Your cost is entirely variable. They determine the cost per book and you set how much profit (if any) you choose per book.

If no books sell, you have no expense.

You can buy your own inventory and bundle it with a speaking engagement. Or promote the book on your Web site.

I’m intrigued.

4. PHP scripts: I took Robert Plank and Jason Fladlien’s online seminar called PHP copywriting. I learned how to write dynamic HTML pages.

Most Web pages are static: you write the content and it stays as is until you change it. With PHP, you can create scarcity with a countdown clock (how much time before the sale is over) or how many units are left or give a special offer for the first 10 buyers, for example.

I’m going to use some of my downtime here to write my first dynamic page.

5. AdWords campaign: I’m testing my way through my first AdWords campaign. It’s a bit of a trial-and-error game to find out what works.

It reminds me of Mark Strat – my favorite class at Wharton and the one that pushed me into marketing for a career. That class changed my life.

6. 61 flags: Maybe I’m the last one to use this outlook feature, but I recently started “flagging” those emails that require my follow up. It’s a sad state when I feel good to just have 61 flags. I worked last weekend to winnow the list down from 87.

Sadder still is that I don’t bother to flag the “really important things” – the big projects I have to complete. The flags are for the little things I otherwise would forget.

7. 10 comments: Robert and Jason (see #3) conclude each blog post with a request (plea?) for at least 10 comments.

It’s worth a try. What on my list interested you most? Let’s get up to 10 comments.
…

Well, nice to be back in touch.

28 random facts about me

March 8, 2009 By Joe Hage 1 Comment

I was tagged on Facebook by a few friends on the topic, “25 random things about me.” Here are the rules.

Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a post with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose five more people to be tagged. You also have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you. To do this, you simply link to their blogs so that they know you responded to their tag. (You may include the above rules in your post so that the person being tagged knows them, too. You may also want to tweet your post to notify them on Twitter, too.)

OK, here goes:

I hate capers. I don’t do blackened, smoked, spicy, peppered, or char-broiled.
#3 W/Grandma (in red)
I’m much more likely to order an entree that features mashed potatoes, apple sauce, cranberry sauce, and mango chutney. I can guess what my wife Beth will order with 80% accuracy.
I associate my paternal grandmother with “unconditional love.”
I didn’t see my first Broadway play until I was 18. It was Noises Off by Michael Frayn.
I wish I “knew then” what I know now.
I had to bring a corpse to the hospital morgue on my first day as a volunteer. On my last day a woman died on the geriatric ward.

#7 W/Harvey Fierstein

I met a number of celebrities for having raised more than $100,000 in one year for AIDS Walk New York. It was fun chatting with Charles Grodin at Phil Donohue & Marlo Thomas’ house.
I never smoked a cigarette or experimented with drugs.
I thought I wanted to be an investment banker in 1988 for all the wrong reasons. It was the highest paying, most glamorous job at the time.
I’ve been a bus boy, switchboard operator, ice cream clerk, dietary assistant, financial associate, cold-caller, stock broker, and marketer. I’ve sold books, cereal, bagels, Jell-O, Kool-Aid, flowers, day-trading services, a ridiculous Internet concept, Dannon yogurt, advertising, Campbell’s Soup, personal insurance, and now, medical devices. I worked in the World Trade Center at Marine Midland Bank in 1990.
#11 As Scrooge
I tried out for the role of Scrooge in fifth grade because I thought it would be easier to memorize all the words and “just talk after anyone says anything.”
Despite living on the Upper East Side of Manhattan at the time, I didn’t know about the 9/11 attacks until 1:00 in the afternoon. I was in a Wharton library cramming for an interview, Beth couldn’t reach me on my cell, and to “stay in the zone” I didn’t listen to the radio on the way to the interview. The VP of Campbell’s HR told me “the towers don’t exist anymore.”
My life is about my boys.
I’m amused at the prospect of being on Joe Narciso‘s yet-to-be-produced sitcom one day.
I’ve dreamt in Spanish. The sentence I remember best from high school is “Quienes son los tres que van delante” because Ted Baus amused me with it.
#16 W/Bernadette Peters
I won an auction and got a walk-on role on Broadway’s Annie Get Your Gun with Bernadette Peters. Got to stay backstage the whole time. Beth too. Joined the curtain call. Of my performance, Tom Wopat said, “Wow! That was amazing!”
I don’t ski. But my first attempt was in the French Alps. (Beth forbids me to ski ever again. She doesn’t want the children to be fatherless.)
I don’t play golf. But my first attempt was at St. Andrews.
In my dreams I can fly, stay in the house I grew up in, and get a second Wharton MBA for some reason. In that dream I’m concerned about what to say on the interview about why I got a second MBA.
My favorite pizzeria is Pete’s on 76th and 3rd in Brooklyn.
I didn’t like to read until age 30, when Beth pointed out that non-fiction counted.
I get seasick.
I loved the sitcom ‘Soap’ so much in 1979 that I considered Thursdays at 9:30 the beginning and the end of the week. Friday morning was spent with Paul Karpowich and Timothy McEntee saying, “Did you see Soap last night?!”

#28 My life partner

24 is my favorite number because it is divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, and itself.
I once got a standing ovation for a joke I told at a Speech contest.
Having my tibia and fibula reset in 1983 was the most physical pain I’ve ever experienced.
I was an expert Defender player. I think 380,000 was my high score. I used to line up quarters on the machine and let the other kids know those quarters were mine too so they’d leave.
My wife is the perfect partner for me.