iZack.com

Coming up next week, 27 homes in the Triangle area will be auctioned off by the auction company Hudson & Marshall. The auction is going to be held on June 27 at 1 pm so head over to the Hilton North Raleigh (3415 Wake Forest Road) and bring your certified deposit check for $2,500

Thanks to Triangle Business Journal for the info, check out the link for more!

Lucky likes that idea!

I was walking Lucky down to Hillsborough Street today and I realized that there aren’t that many Dog Friendly restaurants around Raleigh right now. Off the top of my head, only Raleigh Times and East Village come to mind when I think of places I can take her around here. I’m sure there are probably plenty of others, but I still think there is a lot of opportunity out there to cater to dog owners.

If I had a restaurant with a really nice outdoor seating area, I’d add a Dog Menu. I’m not talking about just having a few stale milkbones to pull out when a customer/canine combo stroll up to the bar. I am talking about the real deal. It’d be a great idea to have a menu with various dog entrees on it for the customer.

When someone walks up to your deck with their dog, bring them the Dog Menu in addition to the Wine List.  Have a variety of dishes on there, from rawhide chews to luxury-brand Dog Food. If I heard a restaurant was not just pet friendly but actually ENCOURAGED me to bring Lucky, I’d definitely be stopping by at least once to check out the place. And who could say no to some reasonably priced doggie tapas?

In the end, it’s a simple way to cater to your customers, and make a couple of extra bucks in the process!

Thumbs up wine

So, like many trendy twenty-somethings, I have been known to sample a range of wines and cheeses on a regular basis. I often find myself cruising down the aisle at Harris Teeter looking for the perfect bottle of wine to complement my evening, or the ideal block of cheese to snack on before my dinner. The problem is that the wide variety of wine and cheese on the market make it tough for me to keep track of what I like.

Me: “Hey, we had that one with the blue label a few months ago!”

Her: “Do you remember if we liked it?”

Me: “… no.”

(30 minutes later, after buying and sampling the wine)

Me: “Oh yeah, that one tasted like feet.”

How about a mobile application that combines the functions of recommendations with personal reviews?

Lets make an application that will help me track the wine/cheese/ANYTHING I’ve tried, my own personal review of that delicacy, and maybe make some recommendations for my next purchase. That way I can try a new wine when I’m feeling adventurous but pick up an old favorite I’d almost forgotten about when I’m having company over.

Lets add some more features besides just reviews and recommendations. Maybe the application will tweet about my purchase for me so I can spread the love and the review. How about I take a picture of the bar code on my wine and the application loads the facts for me into my personal review database. You could even link in a little mini-social network through the applications website.

Me: “Hey, you hated that foot wine too?”
Online friend: “Yeah I did. We took it back and got a nice Chateau de Medford instead. 10x better! You can only find it at Trader Joe’s”
Me: “Nice, that’s my last name! I’ll pick up a bottle of it next time I’m out”

If I actually had started (and finished) taking those Web Application Development courses I’ve been talking about for the last year, maybe I’d write the application myself.

Zack

Here’s one for Jeff Jarvis, author of “What Would Google Do“.

I go to Redbox once a week or so to rent movies for a dollar and I love it. The price is so cheap, I wouldn’t really even notice I paid it, which is why half the time I wind up keeping them for 3 or 4 days longer than I meant to. Redbox knows that it’s human nature to avoid going out of one’s way to return the movie on time if all it’s going to cost is another dollar for one more day. They make money off me, and I don’t feel cheated at all. It’s a win-win.

Last night as I returned my DVD to my local Redbox at Harris Teeter in Cameron Village, a thought occured to me. Why doesn’t Redbox take a cue from Google, Amazon, and NetFlix?

My biggest problem with Redbox is that there are pages and pages of movies I’ve never heard of before. When I get done renting the new releases I wanted to see, I have no choice but to wait a few weeks for the next set of releases. I’ve tried to rent a few of the movies I’d never heard of before, but there was no real way for me to know ahead of time that they were crap. The only time I’ve felt cheated by Redbox was that dollar I spent on ‘Surfer Dude’.

So here’s a suggestion Redbox: when I turn in my movie, how about displaying 5 stars on the touchscreen display and asking me to rate the movie? I wouldn’t mind giving you the information free and just think of how you can use it to grow your sales!

If Redbox had everyone who turned in a movie review it, they can do a lot of things. They can put star ratings below each movie to help guide people to some great movies that they’ve never heard of  before. They can help me avoid renting a movie like Surfer Dude and get it out of their rotation as quickly as possible once they see that people hate it. They can even take my reviews, compare them to people with similar opinions and help point me to some recommendations!

If Redbox offered me a little guidance each time I came to rent another movie, I can GUARANTEE I’d wind up renting more often each month. They already track our email addresses, why not put that information into play!

Welcome to iZack.com, home of the Zack Medford brand. It took me a long time to figure out just what I want the Zack Medford brand to be, but I think I have finally settled on it.

iZack.com is about innovation, new ways of thinking, and a focus on being intricately connected to the community.

It’s tricky to try to limit to scope of your online presence when you’re interested in a lot of things. I could probably write hundreds of articles each about the latest cell phone craze, how hard it is to find healthy food these days, or how frustrating it is to deal with stupid people. But if you really want to brand yourself, you need to have a little more focus than that.

I realized that I love finding new ways to address the problems we face every day. I love new ideas, whether they’re my own or someone a lot smarter than me. I think the internet is moving our society along at lightspeed (having a hard time remembering what it was like not to have a cell phone? I can barely believe I managed to keep in touch with the world around without an internet surfing blackberry only 2 years ago)

The thing that I am most passionate about is being an active part of my community here in Raleigh, NC. The internet makes this easier and easier every day, and I am a true believer in social media, social networking, and engaging in my local community both in real world but also online.

So this is my blog, thanks for reading it! I’ll try to keep shining my small spotlight on the big ideas and creative innovations I come across going forward.

I hope you come back from time to time and see what I’ve got for you!

- Zack

RALEIGH, NC

ZACK MEDFORD, author and blogger at iZack.com, writes about innovation, and new ways of thinking with a focus on being intricately connected to the community. He is an Account Executive at Bandwidth.com and director of social media for Goonight’s Comedy Club in Raleigh, NC.  He has a background in sales and technology, and has strong ties to the restaurant & hospitality industry. He has written many articles that have appeared in various publications including Washington Week, UWire.com, and the North Carolina State Technician . He consults for local start-ups and established restaurants. He attended North Carolina State University from 2001 to 2005.

This is a personal website and not associated with any of the above organizations.