Over at Seth Godin's always-insightful blog, there's this great list of attributes essential to a successful marketer (now, how many of these are applicable to the leaders of N-GEN?):

The marketer's attitude

Traditional job requirements: show up, sober. Listen to the boss, lift heavy objects.

Here's what I'd want if I were hiring a marketer:

• You're relentlessly positive. You can visualize complex projects and imagine alternative possible outcomes. It's one thing to talk about thinking outside the box, it's quite another to have a long history of doing it successfully. You can ride a unicycle, or can read ancient Greek.
• Show me that you've taken on and completed audacious projects, and run them as the lead, not as a hanger on. I'm interested in whether you've become the best in the world at something, and completely unimpressed that you are good at following instructions (playing Little League baseball is worth far less than organizing a non-profit organization).
• You have charisma in that you easily engage with strangers and actually enjoy selling ideas to others. You are comfortable with ambiguity, and rarely ask for detail or permission. Test, measure, repeat and go work just fine for you.
• You like to tell stories and you're good at it. You're good at listening to stories, and using them to change your mind.
• I'd prefer to hire someone who is largely self-motivated, who finds satisfaction in reaching self-imposed goals, and is willing to regularly raise the bar on those goals.
• You're intellectually restless. You care enough about new ideas to read plenty of blogs and books, and you're curious enough about your own ideas that you blog or publish your thoughts for others to react to. You're an engaging writer and speaker and you can demonstrate how the right visuals can change your story.
• And you understand that the system is intertwined, that your actions have side effects and you not only care about them but work to make those side effects good ones.

The cool thing about this list is that it's not dependent on what you were born with or who you know. Or how much you can lift.

Link

Guy Kawasaki has an interview with Nancy Duarte here.

Excerpt:

Question: Why do most presentations suck?

Answer: Most presentations suck because:

• The presenter has not given the audience any idea why they are there or what the content means to them; messages are disorganized and there’s no unifying story line.
• The presenter uses the slides as a document or teleprompter and reads their slides with his/her back to the audience. This makes the audience feel like the presenter is slow or not very smart.
• The presenter is not passionate or inspired and has not connected to the audience in a uniquely human way.

Did you notice that presentations suck solely because of the presenter? Great speakers like you can get by without much visual support. Emotive qualities are the greatest assets in a live performance.

Guy's Article

Duarte Design

And Guy Kawasaki's post about it:
http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2008/09/winners-of-worl.html

Of course, they avoid saying "snail mail" - but these folks offer to turn your email into an actual (physical, like you can hold in your hand) letter.

It wasn't that long ago that "mail" meant the physical kind by default, instead of the other way 'round...

Anyhow, cloud-computing (i.e. having your data and services reside somewhere "out there" rather than on your desk) gives birth to its antidote here - a service that pulls stuff (correspondence in this case) out of the cloud and delivers it into the hands of non-cloud-connected recipients.

The truly mind-bending part is that firing up a lot of technology at both ends and the middle is perceived as easier than getting out a pen, paper, stamp and envelope (where'd I put those stamps...?)
Link

Guy Kawasaki has a Q&A with Presentation Zen's Garr Reynolds here.
Definintely a good intro to the PZ approach, if a little light for regular followers of the PZ site.

Here's a sample:

Question: How did we get to this place where most presentations suck?

Answer: There are many reasons. First of all, presenting exceptionally well isn’t easy. In fact it’s hard. That’s why we find great presenters—and great communicators in general—so remarkable. They are all too rare. Many professionals simply have never had much practice and just follow conventional wisdom and do it “like everyone else” instead of doing it effectively.

PowerPoint and Keynote are both pretty simple tools, but there has been too much focus on the tools themselves. If people want to learn how to make better slides they should study good books on graphic design and visual communication to improve their visual literacy.

When it comes to designing appropriate visuals, there is a hole in our education. Concerning quantitative displays, for example, very few people have had proper training in how to design graphs and charts, etc. The great master Edward Tufte has written many useful books in this regard.
Link

The new Presentation Zen book

The ever-interesting site Presentation Zen has some presentation tips culled from Steve's latest;
Briefly:

1. Develop rapport with the audience.
2. Give them an idea of where you're going.
3. Show your enthusiasm.
4. It's not about numbers, it's about what the numbers mean.
5. Make it visual.
6. Save the best for last.

Worth heading over to read the full article, for sure.
Link

Here's a brief primer on the surprisingly effective handwritten thank-you note:

1. Spell the recipient's name correctly (doh!).
2. Thank the person for choosing your business. If they shared a specific reason why they choose your business of why they like it, reaffirm it. For heaven's sake, though, don't turn it into a sales pitch.
3. Include a personal detail about the recipient that you picked up on. Prove that you were listening. Humanity is a good thing in the antiseptic world of business.
4. Open the door to feedback. Whether the recipient provides it isn't the point; it's the idea that you're passionate about creating a recommendable experience.
5. Be authentic: Include your full name and contact info -- email and/or phone. Or a business card.

(Slightly) more here

Since we're running a new business that esentially has no sales force, I thought this article from Seth Godin was appropriate.

Quote:

A great idea isn't a great idea unless you can pay someone to help you spread it, to help you overcome our natural inclination to ignore you or to say "no," purely out of habit.

Rest of (short!) article here