Below is part II of Zappos’ Tony Hsieh’s talk on Sustainable Happiness from the VatorSplash event in San Francisco Thursday night. Part I can be found here.

Zappos’ Tony Hsieh spoke at the VatorSplash event in San Francisco last night, recapping some of Zappos’ history, lessons learned, as well as some of the highlights from his new book: Delivering Happiness. I got an early copy at SXSW so will post a book review on it soon.

He asks us: how do you create stories and memorable experiences for your customers? Remember that Zappos’ corporate culture is centered around customer service and their employees walk, talk and breathe outstanding customer service – a 365 day return policy and a commitment to the phone regardless of how long it takes when the majority of their sales are from the web, are just two examples.

“The telephone is one of the most powerful branding tools,” says Tony. And for most of us who used to sell, pitch and engage on the phone, we don’t anymore. We now use social media tools, such as Twitter, IM, email and Facebook to get in touch with people we already know or need to know. If you can get someone on the phone however, you have their undivided attention. Most call centers have scripts but Zappos doesn’t believe in scripts, since it’s more important for them to let their employees’ personalities shine. Ask yourself – what do customers expect from you AND what do they actually experience?

“If you get the culture right,” adds Tony, “branding and customer service will naturally happen on its own. Customer service shouldn’t be about a department, it should translate to the whole company.”

People often say he’s lucky but he’s quick to remind that they had uphill battles along the way and Zappos’ success didn’t happen overnight. Ten years later, they may be a household name, but it didn’t start that way. As for luck, Tony says its about ‘looking for opportunities beyond what you naturally see.’

They also have a commitment to transparency, a core trait of a great company versus a ‘good one.’ He refers to Jim Collins’ book Good to Great, where he pulls out some of the qualities that create greatness. He encourages entrepreneurs to figure out what your core values are, commit to them, and get aligned with them. And, don’t just stop there – make sure you hire people who fit with those core values, whether it’s great customer service, simple product design or experiencing ‘fun.’

“Don’t chase the paper,” he echoes. “Chase the vision, chase your dream….and money will naturally follow. There’s a big difference between motivation and inspiration. Make sure you have a higher purpose.” He says that his only regret if he had to do it all over again was not having a core set of values in place for the company earlier. If you have passion, you’re following your vision and your dream AND your company has alignment with those core values, all of it WILL extend to your employees, your partners and your customers.

Types of Happiness:

a – Rock Star happiness (chasing the high). This is obviously the shortest lived.

b – Flow (engagement – time flies – being in the zone). This is the second longest lasting form of happiness.

c – Meaning & Higher Purpose (being part of something bigger than yourself). This obviously is the most sustainable form of happiness.

Below is Part I of the video I shot of Tony’s talk from last night’s event.

At last night’s VatorSplash event at San Francisco’s Cafe du Nord, Fotobabble’s Kamal Shah demos the talking photo iPhone app to the crew at Ask Your Target Market, showing them how easy it is not just to create a talking photo, but how to use it to build some awareness, buzz and customer engagement around your brand.

At last night’s VatorSplash event in San Francisco, ten companies made it to the stage to present in front of Splash Box judges, which included Howard Hartenbaum, Jeff Clavier, Jeremy Liew, Ezra Roizen, Dave McClure and Charles Moldow.

Of the ten who presented to the judges and audience – Arkayne, Mindbloom, Udemy, MyToopi, YouHaveIWant, Pana.ma, Hey!Your Up There!, DormNoise, iChange and Envolve, Udemy won the vote hands down.

Udemy is a site that enables anyone to create an online course. Their goal is to provide their teachers with everything they could possibly need to create a great learning experience over the Internet.

Why the need? Currently, educators are constrained by the physicality of their course. Whether an SAT tutor or an IT education company, instructors can only teach those in proximity to their location. Online education breaks down those barriers, but publishing an online education course is time-consuming and expensive. Online education is dominated by large businesses that have spent millions on developing the infrastructure necessary to create, distribute and monetize their content. A video clip of their ‘win’ below.

Preview the video below from this year’s International Conference on Robotics & Automation in Anchorage, Alaska.

Vancouver Canuck defenseman Sami Salo blocked a slapshot with his crotch in a playoff game against the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday night.

Salo is recovering and taking inventory at a Chicago hospital.  In lieu of flowers, please send your thoughts to his testicle's Facebook fan page.

The announcer said Salo "took that one in a bad spot." Well, sure, now it is.

It is amusing the care that was taken to prevent the camera from intruding as Salo was loaded onto the ambulance, only to have his testicle splattered all over the internet in a matter of hours.

Looks like a scene from Wagner…

Unconferences are really great because you can create a session about something you know a lot about on-the-fly, or sit in on a topic where you don’t, but still contribute from your own perspective and world, which is often more valuable to the group than you might think. I’ve been to quite a few over the last couple of years and always find something of interest and have AHA moments, largely because it’s so organic. All the sessions are created in real-time. What you create may change after you see the flow of the event, learn about who’s there and who can contribute what value along the way.

ReadWriteWeb’s second unconference — focused on Mobile — was held yesterday at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. Their first one — the Real-Time Web Summit — was held last October.

They had two main tracks at their Mobile Summit: Development and Business. The list below is taken from ReadWriteWeb’s summary of some of the tracks they explored….bear in mind that it was an unconference, so people randomly put up topics they wanted to learn more about and/or lead.

*Geo-location Services – what can you do using location as a platform?

*Commerce & Marketing – as more and more consumers use smartphones, how can businesses utilize this channel?

*Content, Publishing & Recommendations – the technologies and best practices.

*Mobile Social Networking – how to tap into communities on mobile devices.

*Internet of Things – the emerging opportunities from sensor and RFID data.

*Augmented Reality – the technology and business applications of AR.

*Native App vs. Browser Based – Including iPhone, Android, RIM, Palm, Windows Mobile and Symbian.

Below is a video I shot of ReadWriteWeb’s founder Richard MacManus talking about unconferences, general trends in mobile and what’s on the horizon.

At the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit yesterday at the Computer History Museum, they had a session on “Speed Geeking” led by Marshall Kirkpatrick and Kaliya Hamlin.

Each company did their ‘pitch’ in five minutes and people chose which session to attend based on their own interests and expertise. The companies on the list included: CallFire, WorldMate, My City Way, IPEVO, Google Goggles, Burn, Micello, Newsy, Mixmobi, Stalqer, Mogotix, Blog Talk Radio’s Cinch, Justin.tv (which was broadcasting on-site btw), Geodellic, and Yapper.

Below is a video explaining how Speed Geeking works in its very own unconference style.

Six winners of iPads at ReadWriteWeb’s Mobile Summit yesterday in Mountain View, CA. Also check out ReadWriteWeb’s post announcing its kick-off.

Six winners of iPads at ReadWriteWeb’s Mobile Summit yesterday in Mountain View, CA. Also check out ReadWriteWeb’s post announcing its kick-off.