Our Chief Digital Officer Mike Rosenfeld of Web Connection tells Nestor the basics of modern day web needs for business and how it powers the world of commerce.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
week, game, people, ravens, run, talking, play, watched, friends, lamar, years, baltimore, football, long, business, win, part, cincinnati, sports, team
W n s t Towson Baltimore and Baltimore positive we are positively into the holiday season here and of course Marilyn crabcake toward never stops. We’re going to be at Bally’s on Friday morning with my pal Dan Rodricks, who had a show in Baltimore. You have no idea how he brings it back. I’m going to beg him to do that. So other friends of mine who love Baltimore can be a part of that next Thursday, my love of Baltimore will come through. We are doing the 31st anniversary of this year radio program. And we’re doing it over Costas and Dundalk in my homeland with a lot of friends. I am a part of a hammer Jack’s documentary that we filmed earlier this year. And a lot of rock and rollers are stopping by Jeanne shock from the Go Go’s the Dundalk resident Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and drummer and we’re gonna get to know her a little bit better next Thursday as well. So played on the 15th you want to come out we’ll be there from two until five or there abouts. Probably eating crabs, crab cakes, maybe even drink some eggnog before it’s all over. I’m gonna be invite my pal, Mike Rosenfeld. He is the chief digital officer for all things here at Baltimore positive as we grow and go and you seen this week we’ve offered some honor transcriptions for conversations just like this. And he can help you make your website better or your business better at web connection. He outsourced Chief Digital Officer What’s going on man? You gotta play quarterback for the Ravens this week or you don’t have the speed on the edges.
05:19
Now I was a I was a an average cornerback and tight end but that was for the mighty mighty Pikesville Panthers. So we’re triple I remember that we were we were and was it the Dundalk house.
05:35
Oh the mighty house. Absolutely. Kelly green and gold. Absolutely remember the
05:39
Dundalk house they were on the they were on the you know my my year we were we were typically a What am I kids say defeated? The opposite of undefeated. We were so we were a zero win team. Maybe a one win team. But my senior year we we did. We won four we were in four and six which was a major cost bowl eligible. That’s right. One game one game short of bowl eligibility. It’s
06:09
crazy as they talk about the Ravens coming to town and how it would affect children. Right. So the Ravens come in 1996 There weren’t a whole lot of football programs. In Dundalk. I played football for the Longhorns. John Rolla, there’s pictures of it all in the 70s, early 80s. And there weren’t like football traveling around town on Saturdays. You wouldn’t see it as much as baseball right? We’re basketball right? It was a shoe huge basketball city with Dunbar and all that and we had kids to play baseball right? But football was one of those things that like you know it because we didn’t have a team for those 13 years. You didn’t have a Ray Lewis you didn’t have Lamar Jackson. You didn’t have somebody you wanted to be. It is amazing all these years later because my football team in the 80s Don’t you know we weren’t very good. We were really good at baseball, which they champion baseball. In 83. But football no good the last like 10 years. There’s a football program it’s on the we were in the in the semifinals almost went to the States last week. We were in the state championship last week and had a lead over Morocco. So I mean, my team has actually gotten decent so you know, I am not I’m about to sing the lead each fellow join our chorus echo far and near. So I’ll do all that in the web space. And you and I talk about this all the time. What’s the primary thing people call you about and web connection?
07:23
So I think we’ve talked about this in the past the the concept of a Chief Digital Officer, much less than outsource to digital officer is very new and foreign to people. So it’s really once they have an aha moment and they’re like, You know what? I I know enough to know that I’m not competing, or I know enough to know that I keep hearing or seeing one searches online my competitors. I have no presence we’re doing the best we can we post to Facebook, we post to LinkedIn, but nothing’s happening. That’s when they have they have a moment where like, we need help. We just don’t have the know how in house to be able to grow our business, gain some market share, and we need some some help but we’re not going to hire someone full time. So that’s kind of my sweet spot. So really takes a it’s not really a a question because they don’t know enough to ask the question. Other than, can you help me get to another level? And, and when they’re open minded and they’re and they’re willing to admit that they are doing right. That’s that’s kind of the conversation starter for me.
08:39
Well, you know, the amazing thing for me is in the modern era, I’m sort of old school right? I’m still the guy that will call this if I go to call pizza John’s I call them right and I’ll say I want to you know pizza with pineapple ham and pepperoni and you know, give me cheesesteak and I come and get it right? But it is amazing. In the last 1015 years especially with with this thing coming on and Oh 809 10 in that range. How every Chinese carry out has to have a really sophisticated way for me to order egg foo young and maybe take the onions out of it or you know, whatever it would be and a lot of times with with with immigrants and there’s a communication barrier when you call a Chinese place sometimes about what you want. And it’s amazing online now like when I go to exhibition, there is no one to call. You can’t call you. You have to do it online. If I want my tempura broccoli from Ecobuild I have to do it that way. And I think to myself, every single business has had to take their business online no matter what I mean, you just have to and and how neophyte most people are when and including myself. I mean, I have a web company I don’t know radio station and I don’t even know the tower works or how the things float and it gets to your car understanding it’s not important. It’s really about can I order the food I want? Can I order the thing I want? I ordered clothing on Black Friday. I’ll give you an example. I were clothing. I had this company up in Canada that I ordered undergarments from they keep me warm. I’m not going to ask them but they’re French first. I didn’t realize that even though they have sort of an American name. When you call their number. Everything’s in French. It’s in Montreal, right? So they sent me an email. And this is just poor. I mean, I’m giving you a poor example. I spent 148 bucks on Black Friday ordering six pieces of garments, turtlenecks, you know, long, long johns, that kind of thing. And I got an email from them that said call us there’s a problem with your order. And here’s the extension number and I called and I got French and I did it three times over three days. Trying to stock down a guy named Don, in Canada to confirm an order and I’m thinking to myself, kind of company you people running you. You sent me an email telling me to call you they called me eight different times 514 area code and I’m not answering the phone. I’m talking to Mike on the air. You know what I mean? And I’m thinking to myself, then they canceled my order. They gave me my money back. And I’m like, let a company you’re running, who’s running your plant gave you money for something I really want and you’re jacking me around and and I’m thinking to myself, this is this is a this is a business that needs something better than they have online for sure.
11:25
So, you know, as consumers, I think we’ve come to an you know, we’ve come to a point where we judge the businesses that we deal with based upon how tech savvy they are. And now I
11:40
got thrown off at Twitter this week and I can’t figure out how to get back on. There’s no one to call. There’s no one to go you fill out a form. And it’s people are asking me why did you throw a I don’t know b There’s nobody I can call C it’s Twitter and it’s run by a Nazi. And I’m off now and you know what? It’s been the most productive week of my year.
11:59
Right? So I’ll give you two examples of and they’re totally just different, but two examples of things that are that I did this week that are a Tech experience and a non tech experience. So the Tech experience which ties into sports was Friday night. I’m out with some friends, having a couple cocktails and gambling.
12:23
You’re gambling. I was not I was okay. All right.
12:29
I just decided at that moment that at 9am The next morning. I was going to host a couple of friends for bloodies and bagels. I called it to watch the US World Cup. So I made the commitment. I got commitment from for four guys to come over at 9am. And I’m like oh, I have to wake up early to get the bagels and oh, I went home I didn’t have vodka and and I didn’t have the Bloody Mary mix. I’m like how am I going to get all this stuff? I would an idiot now I gotta hustle. I gotta hope I don’t wake up with a slight little hangover. I gotta get a good night’s sleep. So I get home and I open my iPad I order bagels to be ready to be picked up at 7am so that I don’t have to worry about a lie and I can just go in and I I marked all the things I had to do figured out how long it would take with enough time by the time I was done and had everything set up ding dong the first person’s here. Everyone had a great time except for the game of course that’s scenario one like leveraging technology to make a plan to and this is not unusual in my experience people who are in the the home improvement. Service Technician industry are always the slowest to adopt technology. So now I get home that from that night and I realized one of my two zones of heat doesn’t work. So I have someone come out here they’re like, yep, you need a part. We’re gonna have to order the part. So that’s ones on Saturday. We’re sitting here now on Wednesday. They said it should be here right away, no part so now I’m five days of gutting into my fifth day without having heat in my home. Thank God it’s not below, you know, freezing outside. And I’m like, Well, did they send you the part? Yes. Do you have a tracking number so I can get a sense of when it’s no they don’t have a tracking number that’s me.
14:34
I buy these belt buckles on eBay every single one of them and I’m not obsessed with it. But the mailing out the In Transit the expected delivery date, the tracking number. I mean, and that’s that’s the world today. i It’s it overwhelms me to be right. It’s it’s an amazing thing, seeing these Amazon trucks running up and down here and delivering stuff in holidays, right? It’s like
14:57
it’s almost 2023 Are you telling me now I happen to my company happens to be working from home offices. But if I’m someone who is you know, my house is empty during the day and I have to plan to take a day off to meet someone and you’re not telling you’re telling me there’s no tracking number there’s no this Come on now. Yeah, cable
15:18
guy. He’ll be there this week when sometime this week, sometime between eight and 11pm. Monday, Tuesday Wednesday, you know, like narrows down for me here a little bit, you know,
15:28
exactly. So you know, and then and then you’re like, Okay, anyone can open up and find that there’s a circuit board and my thing that needs to be replaced. I’m not going to use this company. Again. I’m not going to I’m making an educated decision. That and a mental note that next time do not call this company and call another one who seems to be on top of their game that can communicate a little better way I can also relate to what you’re saying about twittering again, trying to figure that out. One of the things you asked me that a lot of my clients call about sometimes I get a lot of calls about when you google meet when you Google My Business. I have multiple addresses that come up like I used to be here, but then I moved to there. And now I have both of those profiles are showing up on Google. And one of them has like three reviews and the other one has 50 but the one that has three reviews has one one star review and it looks really really bad. How do I get rid of that one? Like you got to call Google. And unfortunately,
16:35
Google why you told me to call Google I’d say three no Google there. I don’t like calling.
16:41
Now here’s what’s worse, that office that manages that. Google has outsourced to India. And literally since the virus, that office has not reopened, so you have to struggle to try to figure out and this is a technology giant Of course. I know they have money. Yeah, that’s it’s just insane. So it’s all over the place.
17:05
My brush belts here he is my dude at web connection. They’re outsourced Chief Digital Officers. He helps us run our website. If you’ve seen we started transcribing conversations and on the front, for your reading pleasure as well as our Google crawl pleasure. Football and sports you know hey John Martin on for the Maryland lottery. We’re talking about wagering and sports wagering and mobile wagering. I was at a friend of mines office on Tuesday night, and his son he’s not a young son. He’s a 30 year old son, so he’s not like you’d like your kids or my kid right? Old enough to wager. You’ll talk a little World Cup with him and I’m like, Hey, man, he’s like I made some money on Morocco today. And I’m like, I’d have to get bad bad bad, bad bad. But more than that, the World Cup. I mean, I’m gonna miss it when it’s gone. And I didn’t really think I wanted the World Cup in November, December. I prefer June and July right and sort of the soccer players all over the world as well. And it’ll be here now less than four years from now, right? Because they’re playing this at the end of the year. So it’s three and a half years now that this is going to come here. The World Cup even if you’re not the biggest World Cup fan or soccer fan or sportsman, it has been a part of vernacular for people that I never knew. We’re sorry. I mean, I didn’t know this guy was a soccer fan at all. He’s like, Yeah, I figured, you know, 5050 chance and Piquet’s I guess I got the 130 on Morocco and I figured they’re playing well. They might win. I won $13 I bet 10 And I’m thinking sports has become something completely different. Right before my very eyes, my 31st anniversary next week on Tuesday. I’m doing this every day on my life talking to sports fans every day in my life, talking to gamblers wagers people to purple flamingos on their lawn. But the sports wagering in the mobile thing from a tech standpoint, this is opened up an incredible can of worms for possibilities, even for a guy like me that I’m not a gambler, but like, I know England’s not going to win. You know, I mean, there’s a part of this real like, alright, you know, I’ll bet on Brazil or whatever, make it a little more fun for 10 or 20 bucks, which feels even, I don’t know even different than doing it on football for me because for so many years I’ve watched football and never really gambled on football. Most weeks. I didn’t even know the line The line on ravens games over the last 15 years people would say hey, nasty, the Ravens favorite I’m like, I really don’t know. I don’t gamble on this stuff. You know?
19:34
Yeah. So interesting. You say that. Because around the time that the World Cup started, Maryland was able to now start using DraftKings and whatever. Other mobile apps that are that are out there. And interestingly, both of my children are like, because their generation is totally into sports, gambling. i Well, they’re
19:57
into something different than you and I, you and I were in Baltimore always Baltimore a long way down there. They’re more into like, oh, it’s fantasy sports. And it’s just, it’s just entertainment in them and has no civic value to them. I don’t think to anyone under the age of 35. They see it for the mercenaries in the chats, deals that are behind all of this. I have
20:16
a very tough time imagining and I’m not look I’m not against it. This is just my own thing. But But participating in fantasy football and hoping members of the Steelers have good game but the Steelers lose. You know I mean, I don’t know how to justify that I
20:33
never got into it. I never want people would say you should do a fantasy show and like nobody cares what running back. I’m starting. Not really they don’t I mean that people come to me for years and years and I’m like if you’re into it, you’re into it. God bless you go when your $500 pot at the end of the year, they do these playoff games in the middle of like the games that don’t matter the next three weeks when the Eagles arresting guys or whatever. Like I’ve never understood fantasy football, never played it never had any interest. In it. But there is an interest in me this week that I’d say you know if the chiefs are six point favorites one way or another What I bet 10 or $20 to have action or whatever. I’m way more inclined to do it now than I’ve ever been. Because I didn’t want to have to find Louis the bookmaker. You know what I mean? Like calling my games in and like all the stuff that I quite frankly, I had the genuine employees here for years that did this stuff. And I’m like, the hell’s wrong with you guys. Now that it’s on your phone, it feels a little bit more like buying a flight or something or ordering Devorah
21:30
it does I you know, look my kids or my kids or adults but they’re still my kids. So I kind of check them I even asked one of my sons. I said, Have you won or lost more than five figures in a year like now? And I’m like, Okay, so basically you can afford to do what you’re doing, because I know that for some people, it’s a legitimate disease, but both of my kids are trying to get put me in a position to see if I can resist being diseased because they both said hey, DraftKings now has gives you $50 for free. You have to you have to gamble it but if you get it, I also get $50 And like, Oh, I see what’s going on here. You know,
22:13
it’s a Ponzi scheme.
22:14
That’s right. So so um, you know, but but they, but everyone who I hear says look, if you can control yourself and pet 10 bucks like you buy a movie ticket, it really does change how you look at sports and you’re on the edge of your seat till the end where under normal circumstances like yesterday go to bed. Yeah, I was flipping back and forth to watch the Illinois Texas Game hoping the team that the Terps just be will be the number two team in the country that’ll help help us. But if I had 10 bucks on it, I would have probably watched it from the beginning to the end so I get that part of the appeal on that entertainment. As long as you can control yourself.
22:53
Well, it’s tis the season micros felts here. We’re doing the Maryland crab cakes. We’re going to be a fade leaves this week, as well as next Thursday. It cost us you’re invited out for the Rock and Roll action. It’s all brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery conjunction with our friends at Goodwill and when donation big offer from when donation is 0% financing and you buy to you get to free 866 90 nation is the way to do that. I let’s get on to the field for a minute because I do want to do a little bit of sports with you. While I have you here. The Lamar injury, the Lamar, you know, eat what he checks last week, you know, Lamar is gonna have a back seat here for a couple of weeks. I looked that way and this is this is a dour sort of prescription for the Ravens right now to be playing four out of five games against division teams when the schedule came out. It looked like a benefit that Cleveland Pittsburgh will be mailed in by then we’re going to be sailing and it certainly doesn’t feel good in the purple kingdom right now that this team can win a Super Bowl. Can they make the playoffs weekend? Sure. I watched Kansas City play this week. I watched Cincinnati play last week I watched buffalo play last week, the Ravens as comprised and certainly with the backup quarterback. They’re not in the same world as these other teams right now. They’re a mediocre football team right now at best.
24:09
Yeah. So try not to put my Homer hat on but I was in Austin, Texas flying there during the bills. Game, so I didn’t see it. But I Oh, I know that we were within striking distance of winning that game. And that’s when they were killing other teams and all that. So there’s part of me that says and I also remember the two Super Bowl runs where no one expected us to you know, we kind of snuck in that we were wildcard teams, and we just stacked wins. So there’s part of me that it’s like if you’re playing your best football at the end of the year and you grow that’s it well when your starting quarterback is out in December. The you know this feels very familiar like last year where you know as as as well as humbly Did you know there was just something different. So the hope of putting your best foot forward playing your best football game, everything gelling, like you know for weeks, even you know like the defense has been looking better and better and better. The offense, not so much. So I agree with you. I watched begging the chiefs to beat the Bengals because I want to win the division. I want to have a home game. And I looked at the Bengals and I’m like how can I just don’t feel like we’re a better team. I feel like we have to be one game ahead. of them going into Cincinnati and having the division record tiebreaker in our favor if we split against Cincinnati. So that’s why I keep looking at I keep looking at Cincinnati still has the bills on their schedule. So it’ll be very interesting to see. I mean I think we can eke out a win against the Steelers but the Steelers are playing better. But I like our defense against their offense but don’t like our offense against their defense. So this will be very telling I have no idea how long Lamar is out. I you know, I know they that’s a
26:02
well they’re lying about it anyway. I mean, that’s, that’s part of the game part of the gig is you go out there and then press conference Luke goes out there asking questions gonna lie to him. This is why I’m gonna write a little bit about this this week. I think it columnists which is and I kind of got on this this bent earlier I was talking to Mike Flynn earlier in the week just about you draft this kid. You know he’s gonna run into linebackers, you know, you can’t coach it out of him. And I’m wondering out loud and this is all part of given him $250 million or not. Is there ever going to be a healthy version of him in December or January in any way when he’s taken on 152 under 250 hits in September, October, November. And this is an intellectual question as much as anything. I’ve watched a lot, a lot a lot of football. And the reason nobody drafted him isn’t because they didn’t like him or think he’s a running back or think that he couldn’t throw the ball or he wouldn’t be a decent puck. I’ll hear all the complaints about Lamar. But Lamar runs into linebackers and at some point that made me nervous in the beginning. It made me nervous in the middle. And now that we’re five years into this, and he was way less than healthy in October, November two years ago, during the plague I’m talking about the plague season where nobody was at the stadium. Go back and watch those October I was up in Philadelphia for that Eagles game. He didn’t want to run the ball. He was unhealthy in the middle of the year. Last year, it ended right. It just ended. He had a sickness. He didn’t play in Chicago. He came back he played in Cleveland was all over with thanksgiving, and he’s gone. Now here we are in December and they’re lying about his injury right so like, whatever they’re saying they’re not telling you the truth. So however long he’s gonna be out, but I know he’s not available. He wasn’t available last week. He’s not available this week, probably won’t be available next week. And then you have to save yourself. How healthy is he really going to be on January the eighth to play Cincinnati to get into the playoffs? And then once you get there, because if he’s not healthy, I don’t say he’s worthless, but he’s not a great passer. He’s not a great commander or the game. He’s not like, if he’s going to stand back in the pocket and act like a normal quarterback. I’m gonna lose. You know, he can’t win that way. Part of the game for him is he can’t have 80% of his wheels or 90% of his wheels. He has to have 101% of his wheels for this particular offense and what they want to do, which they want to run him 810 1214 16 times a game when they’re behind in the third and fourth quarter. There’s been nothing about this and again, I don’t want to piss on him too, but they’re eight and four right? They’re eight and four and people want to fire the coach they want to fire to Costa they’re yelling at Roman and I’m thinking was the rain for? I mean, I’m not but the question is you can be eight and four with a beaten up quarterback every December. Who would want that? Who would want that?
28:47
Yeah. So this is where it gets tricky, because I mean, you’re in the business, but everyone has their opinion. Right? I would begin by saying I think Lamar is great for the game. I think he’s been a solid guy and a solid leader, and is unbelievably talented and bring something unique to the game. So I’m going to start with that. But you asked some really solid questions. The first is he’s representing himself and he wants a deal that surpasses a ridiculous deal that everyone thinks is over the top that the Browns did which is a losing organization for Deshaun Watson so that’s number one. Number two is I try to look objectively at teams that put a lot of money into their quarterbacks to see how, how competitive they are over the years when they have so much money tied up into one position. And if you look at the numbers, I don’t think that you’ll see that there’s a lot of teams that that go and win multiple Super Bowls or even go to multiple Super Bowls when they when they have that so that’s that’s something else. And the last thing I’d say to your point is forget about what Lamar is gonna look like in in January of this year. Think about if he signed by any team and he continues to play the way he plays in January of 2025 in January of 2026 with all the the abuse over the years based upon his running style, and would he be worth that Max contract at that point that you’ve tied up in him? And I fear that the answer would be no to that, you know, so you have to pivot the way he plays or protect himself or slide but that’s just my opinion.
30:36 I think when they’re down six points in the third quarter and stuffs not working. I’ve seen this too much. He runs he runs. He runs some more. It’s RPO run RPO run. I guess I have doubts. I really do have to ask my browser fellows here. I have no doubt about him as our chief digital officer. He is web connection the outsourced Chief Digital Officers. You can find him out on the front of Baltimore positive.com as well, you can find me at Faith. He’s on Friday back at Costas on next Thursday during the holiday version and 31 years of the Maryland crab cake Tour presented by the Maryland lottery conjunction with our friends at Goodwill and window nation I am Nestor we are wn st am 1570 Luke is in Owings Mills all week long brought to you by Royal farms get ready for Pittsburgh week. We are Baltimore positive.com
