I have friends in New Zealand. They were hit by a massive earthquake . One of my newer friends, Shaun O’Neill , asked me to mention the crisis and to solicit help. Here’s how you can get involved: To donate to the Red Cross Canterbury Earthquake Appeal: – Phone 0900 33 200 to make an automatic $20 donation – Donate online at redcross.org.nz – Donate in person at any branch of …  Read More →

Somewhere along the line, our language shifted meaning slightly. “Looking for work” used to mean, “I’m capable and I’m looking for a place to apply what I know how to do.” Now, it means “I’m unemployed and hoping to find an employer to nestle me into their machine.” These are two very different things. You see, the frontier is all around us (thank you, Levi’s ), and by this, I also... 

My point, and I will make one, is that it doesn’t matter if you’ve got great social media presence if you don’t fix the basics. I’m so frustrated right now, for something very simple. I received my first Comcast bill for my business Internet service. Oh, I noticed that it’s sending the bill to the service address, not my business address. I’ll just run in and change that on the account via their website. So... 

I just completed a small series of blog posts that were somewhat related in substance and topic set. I did it as a way to get a lot of posts out while I was away in Newfoundland visiting relatives. You see, just because I go away, I never want you to have to wait, and I never want there to be a break in the action, so I put together a series of posts. Here were the posts in my series: How to Put Your Small Business On the Web Your Avatar on... 

The best compliment I ever receive about my blog is that my posts are short, simple, and actionable. Any time I get that response, I feel that I’ve hit the mark. When I get a lot of comments about uncertainty or when people seek clarity, or when I find myself defending parts of the post that didn’t mean anything, or when I get comments about the analogy and not the meat of the post, that’s when I know that I rushed it, or that... 

Almost every time I use the word “secret” when writing a blog post, I really mean “common sense that most people don’t do.” Shhhh.  Read More →

There’s a lot to be said about packaging. Have you seen Field Notes ? (I wrote about them before , I admit.) They’re notebooks (and stuff). And yet, they’re so cool! Have you seen Artisanal Pencil Sharpening ? He’s not kidding. Well, he might have started out kidding, but it’s a full on business. In both cases, it’s masterful packaging. Packaging Ideas is a …  Read More →

Beyond the content, there are a lot of things I like about Jason Falls’s Social Media Explorer . First, I like his very thin header bar. It gives me lots more “top of the fold” for his site. I like his choice of navigation at the top. (That’s number one.) The Top Right I like the top right area where Jason makes it clear that he’d love to further connect and extend the relationship. The entire sidebar is full of... 

The other day, someone told me they were a bit down because their score on a social media site was low. I was quick to point out that the number had no bearing on the outside world. It was just something a site had decided about game dynamics within a single social network. It got me thinking about the numbers that matter, from a business perspective, but then even out into other areas. Here were some numbers I thought might matter …  Read More →

I’ve written a lot in the last few posts about business. That was the goal: to help people better understand some of these tools and their impact on doing business. However, I should be really clear that business isn’t all work. Business, especially human business , can be relationship-minded, can be sustainable, and can even be fun. Sure, transactions have to happen and value has to…  Read More →

In my last post, how to grow traffic to your blog , I gave you some ideas on how to up your traffic. But if you’re hoping to turn this into a sale, you might want to take some preparations into account. Simple Call to Action If you’re bringing people back to your blog, make sure the thing you most want them to do is …  Read More →

Of all topics, this is one of the perennials. People want more traffic, more attention, more awareness to their blog. It’s fair. We work hard on our blogs. We want more attention and traffic. If your business depends on volume, this is especially important (for instance, if you’re using ads). Getting traffic is a tricky business, and it requires a lot of experimentation. I’ll tell you what’s worked for…  Read More →

I am a huge fan of Om Malik. I just read his post on Apple’s Ping service , and have a difference of opinion. Om points out that it’s great that Apple is finally adding a social layer to their iTunes store. He goes on to mention that it’s about time, because Amazon has done a great job with this, and has enabled…  Read More →

I had a strange dream last night, but oddly, it had a lesson in it. I dreamed that I went to a place to sell wool. There was one buyer. They decided whether my product was worth buying. Then, they turned it into yarn. They carded it, they dyed it, they put it on different spools and sold it to…  Read More →

In a previous post, I talked about how to put your small business on the web . Before you go out and start looking for business, you might want to take a look around your site to see if it’s easy to understand what business you hope to accomplish. There’s a lot your blog does or doesn’t do to help you sell you or your product. Let’s look at it. Obvious Call to Action When someone lands on your site for the first time,...