The Fundamental Nature of Blogging

November 20, 2009 in recommendations with 1 Comment
Tags: blogging, social networks

Haven't you always wanted a monKEY?

What people currently think: that bloggers are self-absorbed, believing we hang on their every word, however mundane and narcissistic.

This is partly true. Examples are suppressed here to protect the rest of us from becoming accidental readers.

No, newsprint ain’t dead yet. Who says?

November 17, 2009 in admin with Leave a Comment
Tags: competition, marketing

Tim Edgar, an Akron Beacon Journal regional sales trainer, explained the science of recruiting new newspaper customers to me. He told me how newspapers aren’t done being vital to Americans yet. Sure, people get their information off the Internet these days. And many social media players are convinced that this tendency is the reason we know newsprint is doomed.

Thing is, it’s not.

Laura Stamps: Life Out Loud

November 17, 2009 in Author's Choice with 7 Comments
Tags: case studies, online marketing

Laura Stamps posing for her Facebook

All right, never having known the first thing about the “erotica” genre of literature, imagine my surprise in making friends with “Magickal Sex Goddess” Laura Stamps, who captured my interest by building what’s amounting to a small literary empire with just her and an agent. Here’s how she describes herself:

Prelude to a Marketing Plan

November 10, 2009 in philosophy with 1 Comment
Tags: business plans, marketing

I see six things we have to understand about ourselves before we can effectively market ourselves. These answers define us; they also define our relationships with our customers. And they are more fundamental even than the celebrated Four Ps of Marketing, because they are based on a self-knowledge that even MIT assumes we have, when many of us, well, don’t.

Getting Paid!

November 10, 2009 in lessons learned with Leave a Comment
Tags: funding, the life

I’ve got a delinquent customer. And the reasons are just what you’d expect: the economy is bad, work’s not coming in, pay you as soon as we can, etc. etc. Thing is, this customer is a friend of mine; I’d like to stay friends, but each day it gets harder and harder.

The unsolicited recommendation

October 27, 2009 in philosophy with Leave a Comment
Tags: Facebook, networking

To me, this is the most valuable thing a small business can have.

The Ideal Business Meeting

October 23, 2009 in lessons learned with 4 Comments
Tags: ideas, management

The Waverley, home of the Slow Helen's Steak

I’ve been working with Kelly Karius for the last six weeks on a series of projects, and the trip to Melville, SK is nearly at an end. So we met a couple nights ago at the Waverley here, and she urged me to have the steak, renowned throughout these parts.

The Unsung Hero of “Jerry Maguire”

October 21, 2009 in Author's Choice with Leave a Comment
Tags: customer service, sales

The Great Dicky Fox

You might think that Cuba Gooding Jr. was the hero of “Jerry Maguire.” He did win an Academy Award for the job, after all. You might even think that Tom Cruise was the hero, though Gooding Jr. outshone Cruise’s title character.

The Two Most Critical Weeks

October 12, 2009 in recommendations with 1 Comment
Tags: education, management, staffing

My first job out of college, on my first day of work, I arrived to a desk empty save for a foot-high stack of manuals and a note from the man who was to be my mentor, saying he would be on vacation the next two weeks, and that I was to try to familiarize myself with the material in the manuals. I guess you’d say I was a bit put out, given how green I was – but I wasn’t going to complain, no sirree. I was there to do the job. And I was afraid of complaining. LOL

Understanding the “Facebook Like”

October 8, 2009 in recommendations with 2 Comments
Tags: etiquette, Facebook

I’ve been watching the Facebook Like for months now, trying to get a handle on exactly what it means, because it’s not very good at being a one-size-fits-all. In short, there’s a whole bunch of ways to interpret the “like.”