As posted on the FreshBooks blog:

Something I have taken an interest in over the last couple of years is product reinvention. I’ve been thinking about this lately because of something Triscuits has done. I grew up in a Triscuits household. Two things we ALWAYS had in stock when I was growing up were granola and Triscuits. Don’t ask…my friends used to tease me about this because it was something that never failed. Anyway…take a look at Triscuits. All they have done over the last ten years is change the amount of salt and sodium in their product – that’s incredible boring if you ask me. But look at Triscuits now…

Just recently I have come across two new ingenious variations of their crackers: Rosemary and Olive Oil (which is awesome), and Cracked Pepper and Olive Oil (which is even better…I can’t believe how good these taste).

These new offerings have totally reinvigorated how Triscuits are positioned in my mind. Sadly I went to their website to learn more and find links to point to in this post and was utterly disappointed by the uselessness of their marketing collateral…no dedicated pages for each new product, links that are confusing, hard to find and, in some cases, barely work. Classic flash driven advertising agency approach to usability…no wonder ad agencies are in trouble these days. And to top it off, Nabisco has not domain-proofed their brand by buying Triscuits.com. But I digress…

Despite all that, if you are a Triscuits fan, it’s time to go shopping. And may I recommend some Brie cheese with the Cracked Pepper and Olive Oil for your delight? Happy snacking.

As posted on the FreshBooks blog: 

Here’s some more food for thought from “Founders at Work” for those of you who are tracking Web 2.0. While it’s a little out of context because Joe Kraus – founder of Excite and Jotspot (a wiki service recently sold to Google) – was answering the question, “What important lessons did you learn at Excite that you carried over to Jotspot?”, I think it’s also a good indication of how much different this boom is than the first internet bubble:

“Get the legs of the business underneath it before you run terribly fast. We were always playing catch-up at Excite and I never liked the feeling.”

He also said:

“The hardest part in a start-up is you wake up one morning and you feel great about the day, and you think, “We’re kicking ass.” And then you wake up the next morning , and you think, “We’re dead.” And literally nothing has changed.

If you’ve ever been there you know that’s funny because it’s true.

Posts have been few and far between these past few weeks…things are very busy at FreshBooks and I’ve been away for three of the last four weeks then down with the flu.  Anyway, I wanted to let you know that we’re doing another mesh meet-up geared at the politics stream of mesh content.  Here’s what Rob had to say on the mesh blog:

Come out with the mesh guys and get your political blog on, Toronto!

We had a great time at the first mesh meetup, but there are still a few weeks left to mesh ‘07 and we’d like to get together again. And this time, it’s political.

Blogger and National Post columnist Andrew Coyne, blogging M.P. Garth Turner, former Paul Martin speechwriter (and of late writer, humourist and blogger) Scott Feschuk and Phil de Vellis, the creator of the “Vote Different” Hillary ‘08 YouTube sensation, will be doing a panel at mesh ‘07 on what’s happening now with Politics and the Web, but let’s get the conversation started early!

Whether you’re a political blogger, party stalwart, consultant or media observer, or like us just plain fascinated by the impact that the Web is having on the way we discuss, organize and create political change, come on out and join us and folks from the Toronto Web 2.0 community on May 9 for snacks and libations at The Charlotte Room – details and signup at the Upcoming site, and please help to get the word out by forwarding this post to someone you can beat at eight-ball. Worst case, you can settle your political differences the way we were meant to – over libations and pool tables.

I love the fact that mesh brings such a well rounded ecosystem of participants together…people interested in the impact the web is having on media, politics and society, marketing and business.  The mix of people is one of the truly special aspects of the event.  So come on out and join us for drinks on May the 9th and get a taste of how things will be at mesh this May 30/31.