Archive for October 2007

• Put an Office in Your Pocket: What portable applications to load on a USB drive for easy portability.
• Knowmore is an online database that uses color-coding — a great visual tool — to rate companies.
• Effective filing
• Search for people with Spock — no pointy ears or MD required for use.
• Cool business card designs [via Smashing Magazine]
• 10 awesome math tricks

Don’t expect “how to” type of advice from Dov Seidman’s How. The “how to” doesn’t help you get ahead of competitors. You could lower prices, do things faster, and customize the product to the customer’s exact specifications. The competition can easily turn around and lower prices, do things faster, and customize more. It turns into a cycle that focuses on time and cost. The real value comes in building relationships with people.

GE’s CEO Jack Welch response to a question about why GE would disclose its secrets for competitors to copy — the “whats” — best sums the book. Welch said, “There’s no secret to the what; the secret is in how. They can know our model, but they cannot do it. They can’t copy our hows.” Businesses that stand out pay great attention to the “way” to reach their business goals. The journey is how a business can differentiate itself from the competition.

High quality still matters even with a great “how” in place. Companies who succeed in the “how” already know that must produce or provide high quality products and services. That’s a given. Seidman explains “how” vs. “what” with the following questions:

How

• How can I best delight my client?
• How can I bring the company greater repute?
• How can I make the meeting more successful?

What

• What does the manual say to do?
• What is my job description?
• What is on the agenda?

Notice the difference? “How” focuses on values and taking a proactive stance in building relationships with others. “What” is more about compliance and passive interactions. This means changing the thinking from “can” to “should.” Sure, you “can” work to make a meeting more successful, but you don’t have to as no rule says you must. But someone with high values and interest in building relationships thinks this “should” happen.

For example, a customer asks an employee in bakery that sells sandwiches to cut a roll in half and butter it. A knife sits on the counter near the rolls. The employee’s reply? They can’t do that and hands the customer a plastic knife and butter. This example of dissonance shows how a bakery takes action that doesn’t support its goal to provide high quality customer service.

Many companies have a disconnect between their business goals and how they run their businesses. Seidman explains dissonance and how to move toward consonance. This example is what the book is about — covering the problems and how to address them for different facets divided into three parts: HOW we think, HOW we behave, and HOW we govern.

The book isn’t a fast and easy read. But it isn’t as complicated as a college textbook. Thankfully, it contains many examples to help readers comprehend the HOW concepts and apply them.

Unlike other business books, How isn’t a manual with step-by-step instructions, rules, processes or anything to study. Rather, it changes the way you think and that affects how you approach anything in business and even in life. Instead of being like the bakery that won’t cut bread, become the bakery that goes the extra mile to cut bread AND add a surprise cookie.

• Title: How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything…in Business (and in Life)
• Author: Dov Seidman
• Publisher: Wiley
• ISBN: 0471751227
• Date: June 2007
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 352
• Cover Price: USD: $27.95; Amazon: $18.45

Pro Blog Design offers five great tips for working with a designer [via Freelance Folder]. In reading the comments, I am not surprised to see that the client not knowing what he wants as one of the designer’s biggest frustrations. I plead guilty. Unlike the comment, however, I spend a lot of time online and don’t use Outlook Express. In fact, Outlook isn’t even my primary e-mail application (the irony!).

I’ve always said that designing your own Web site is the hardest. In a similar manner, coming up with the best colors, slogan, and style for my business has always been a challenge. I believe it’s finally come together between the creativity of Blue Flavor and Logo Design Works.

Before working with a designer — like the article suggests — search for examples of what you like and note them. If you’re hiring for a new site design, then look at other sites and note what you like and dislike about them. For a new logo, look for logos.

Also convey how you want your business to come across upon first sight. For meryl.net, I want to make a professional yet friendly impression. In other words, this place and the business shouldn’t look and feel formal. While I conduct business in a professional manner, I also care about the client’s success and make an effort to know them beyond their business. One client flew in from Minnesota to attend a big family celebration.

Since we’re on the topic of design and making others happy — I’m concerned the right sidebar over there is too busy. Any thoughts? What do you find useful and not useful?

I asked friends and colleagues a question regarding a book topic. Quite a few people told me to write what I want to write about. But I want to provide something people need, not satisfy a personal desire.

In the October 2007 of Sam Horn‘s “Take Action” Newsletter, best-selling author Scott Turow (Presumed Innocent and Burden of Proof) shared a lesson he learned:

… an attendee asked, “What’s been your biggest lesson as a writer?”

Turow thought about it for a moment and then smiled and said, “I once spent 6 months writing a book that was centered around a legal precedent called the ‘Law of Inhabitability.’

“I turned my finished manuscript into my editor who got back to me a week later with some bad news, ‘Scott, you may think this topic is fascinating – but nobody else does.’”

Argghh. Scott had to scrap the project because he had violated the cardinal rule of writing and speaking, “We may care about a topic, but the more important question is will our audience care about the topic?”

This isn’t suggesting that you shouldn’t write about a topic that fascinates you. Do it. Maybe you’ll find a market. Maybe you won’t. Just be prepared for a long road in finding an interested publisher and don’t expect it to sell many copies.

I’m interested in many things, but would much rather write a book that inspires, informs, or both. Scott Turow and Sam Horn continue:

Over the years, many people have consulted with me to craft a presentation or develop a book. One of the first questions I ask is, “Why are you writing or speaking on this subject?”

Reasons frequently given range from “I want to:

• Leave a legacy
• Make a lot of money
• Establish myself as a nationally-known topic expert
• Catapult my visibility and media coverage
• Drive consulting business and attract clients

These are all decent reasons. But they’re not enough.

The more important question is, “Why will people find your information and approach interesting, useful, and worth their valuable time, attention, and money?”

Will your material:

• Save them time or make them money?
• Motivate them or inspire them to take action on a priority progect or goal?
• Prevent trial-and-terror learning and provide a short cut to success and better results?
• Connect them with people experiencing the same challenge so they know they’re not alone?
• Teach them how to acquire a needed skill?
• Point out how they’re doing something wrong and show them how to prevent it, change it or improve it?
• Expand their horizons and give them experiences they’d never have otherwise?

All of the above are valid reasons for writing and speaking on a topic because they focus on how your audiences and readers will benefit, not just you.

Clarify up front why your information will serve people and keep that in mind as you produce pages or present ideas. Your intent to serve will be self-evident and people will care about what you’re saying and feel connected to you because they’ll sense this is not an exercise in ego.

We must admit that having a book in your portfolio impresses people and can help your business. But the key reason should be to provide value to the reader.

Years ago, I had Backgammon on my Palm Pilot and it hooked me. Then more original games came along and I forgot about it. Astraware knows these games are a mainstay for a reason… they’re good games. Astraware Boardgames comes with eight games:

• Chess
• Checkers
• Snakes and Ladders (aka Chutes and Ladders)
• Reversi
• Ludo (similar to Trouble and Parcheesi)
• Tic Tac Toe
• Nine Men’s Morris

Users can customize the rules and level of difficulty (three levels) for each game. Boardgames supports Palm OS devices, Windows Mobile (both touchscreen and non) 2003, 5 and 6.

Participating in the Community

Reading other blogs or feeds is a great way to learn how to carry a discussion. Find other blogs covering topics similar to yours and check them out. Disagree with their opinions? Write about it and explain your reasons. Cross-blog discussions are common, and that’s where trackback comes in handy.

Trackback is a blog feature. If you decide to comment on another blog posting in your blog instead of in that blog’s comments page, then you link to the conversation through the trackback link. Trackback is similar to the permalink, the permanent URL for the blog entry, but it has a different URL for copying and pasting in your blog’s trackback box.

Aside from the technical aspects of operating a blog on a daily basis, subscriber list size and Web site traffic are good indicators of what kind of reaction you’ll get when opening a blog. Starting from scratch with little traffic means you have a long road ahead and lots of work to do. There is no magic formula anyone can sell you for $97 to make your blog an overnight success. But with some perseverance and ingenuity, your blog can engage many prospects and clients.

Pick a Topic… Any Topic…

Considering there are numerous blogs out there, pick a niche topic when starting a blog for a better shot at attracting and keeping an audience. meryl’s notes focuses on three areas: webby, geeky and wordy. In reality, this is too much. What I should do for my readers is create three separate blog entry points, so those interested in writing, newsletters and Internet marketing get nothing but the wordy entries. Those interested in Web design get the webby stuff and the technophiles receive the geeky content.

I also manage a personal blog separate from meryl’s notes. Bionic Ear about cochlear implants and deafness. This could fall under the geeky category, but it’s a personal blog and doesn’t belong in meryl’s notes. This blog is written for a different audience.

Blogs as Tools

The blogging tools for both of my blogs come with syndication capabilities so those using feed readers or aggregators can read the content through the software. When sending a new issue of a newsletter, comment on it or link to it in the blog, that way the blog and feed readers will get the goods, so all three bases are covered.

Blogging tools aren’t just for, well, blogging. Such tools are an excellent way to help you update your Web site more often than you otherwise would. I use it to manage the list of tableless Web sites. Using blogging tools is much easier than the way I managed it before, updating the HTML files by hand. Though using a blog tool, it isn’t a blog. In this case, the blog tool has become a content management system (CMS).

Small business owners don’t have a need for the fancy and pricey CMSes out there. They find it easier to use blogging software to manage their sites or hire someone to adapt the tool for their site.

Blogs have found a place in businesses and people are finding creative ways to use them. Some companies have a blog on the intranet for communicating project status, jeopardies and metrics. Some use them for knowledge management. With information pouring in, blog applications provide a way to share, organize and process the information.

Being a follower can be good or bad. No one wants to walk off a cliff with the lemmings, but everyone wants to succeed. Best practices won’t help, since the decision to blog depends on the organization’s mission, needs and goals along with its target market’s desires and needs. A blog about lemmings? There is one, sort of. Or maybe you’d like to start your own and talk about dumb business moves.

Part I of article is here.

Lemmings are cute, but dumb. If you tell them to jump off a cliff, they will. Just like the people who start blogs because everyone is doing it. After a little while, the blogs die. While cleaning a list of blogs, I deleted countless sites because the sites and blogs no longer existed. The people ran out of steam or had no reason to start them in the first place.

How do you know when a blog is right for your business? Learn why people start blogs, how they find their niche and how blogging tools do more than just hold blog entries.

Some people like to read blogs, others like to read newsletters, still others like to rely on feeds and some read a few or all of them. No matter the method the information is distributed, each medium has one thing in common: content. Having a blog connects your newsletter, your Web site and your business with all of these readers and delivers important content in a particular style.

Blogging Topics

I’ve been blogging since June 2000. If you review my early blog entries in meryl’s notes, you’ll notice they’re more personal. When blogs first hit the scene in the late ’90s, they were personal diaries and journals. Like the blog business, my blog has transformed from personal to business speak, although I still add personal notes here and there.

A few bloggers tend to talk about their work, their products and their little world. That might work for celebrities where fans want to know everything about them, but it doesn’t work for the average business person.

Other business people want information on how to succeed and when a blog spends time hawking products offering information of no value, few people will return. The people whose products sell well are the ones who provide valuable information. Readers already know what kind of information they’re getting, so they trust that when they buy something, it will be of the same or better quality. They reflect this value in their blogs.

Questions to Ask

No one wants to be a lemming (I would hope). How do you decide whether or not to set up a blog? The answer isn’t black or white (what did you expect?). Ask these questions:

• Can you regularly update it — at least a couple of times a week?
• Do you have something to say other than just linking to others?
• Do you read other blogs or feeds?
• Can you provide information of value to others not just to yourself?
• How large is your newsletter subscriber list?
• How many unique visitors do you get on an average day, week or month?

The big decider is whether you can write in the blog almost daily. The people behind the high traffic blogs post multiple times a day. Though resourceful, merely linking to other sites doesn’t give visitors much reason to read yours.

Read Is a Blog Right for Your Business? Part 2

Maybe because of my hearing loss, I tend to notice the slightest changes in facial expressions. I never thought anything of it until a friend mentioned it. She invited me to stay for dinner and I accepted. About 20 minutes later, I noticed her facial expression changed slightly.

I told my friend that I changed my mind about staying for dinner as I forgot about something the family needed to do at home. She was stunned because she knew I had figured out that her husband wasn’t happy with the dinner invitation. Reading body language and facial expressions help with business situations.

Learn about the 8 body language killers [Thanks, CEO Consultant]. The article says words count for only 7% of a presentation. The rest comes from voice and visuals.

The warnings take the perspective of a person giving a presentation. Recognizing these will help you adjust your presentation or interview to avert disaster as it’s never too late to try to turn things around.

One of the more challenging aspects of freelancer’s life is determining how much to charge. Projects vary greatly in size, scope, type, and so on. Quoting is a challenge because the client might not have enough information to help you calculate the quote. For example, new content for a Web site.

• How many pages is the Web site?
• How much content on each page?
• How much content can the client provide (brochures, company information, etc.)?

The writer might decide on the number of pages, but that won’t happen until the project begins not before. Not all clients want an hourly quote, which is the easiest way. I’ve wanted to do research on the Web writing process. Most Web writing articles and books talk about the actual content and formatting — not the work around it.

The following sites discuss what to charge for writing-related work:

Maybe It’s Time to Increase Writing Fees

Rates for Canadian freelancers

Lori Widmer’s post on Writer’s Rates

Writer’s Market 2008 (Writer’s Market) has a how much to charge article in every edition that lists rates (hourly and project)

About Freelance Writing Forum Discussion

I’ve provided quotes on Web-related content only to hear from the client that my rates were the highest. Steve Slaunwhite suggests “Do value quoting.” This means listing out what you would do in the project so the focus isn’t only on the price.

Let’s say someone requests a quote for editing a paper. This could be a quick job or it could take a full day depending on how the person edits. If it’s just looking for grammar and punctuation errors — then it would be a lower quote than someone who rewrites sentences to change them from passive voice to active voice as well as ensuring the paper follows a specific style guide (AP Style, APA, Harvard, and Chicago don’t do things the same way.).

The quoting process is what I struggle with the most as a freelancer. Difficult clients, deadlines, getting paid — all those I can handle. Have you found a quoting process that works?

Renegades usually don’t follow rules because that is what makes them renegades. Rules for Renegades aims to share Christine Comaford-Lynch’s experiences. She states that she started with no special advantages and that 10 life lessons — the rules — she shares will help readers gain confidence and self-esteem, build strong relationships, and become financially independent.

The book oozes Comaford-Lynch’s fiery style and rivets. This is a woman whose history consists of running away to New York to try modeling, becoming a Buddhist monk, inventing several products earning millions of dollars, and making a mistake that cost $8 million. She tells fascinating stories while interweaving advice on funding and starting a company. Reading the book is akin to reading People Magazine and getting the inside scoop on celebrities from a business perspective. Instead of reading about actors, read about an executive who meets celebrities and attempts to motivate.

What are the chances any of us will experience such meetings? Very little. The celebs with the biggest parts are Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, and an anonymous billionaire. She drops plenty of names of people she meet along the way including Connie Chung, Maury Povich, Jane Fonda, and Barbara Walters. This book qualifies more the autobiography section than for the self-help section.

The author’s writing feels loud and she sounds like she bounces off the walls. Few successful people have a personality resembling Comaford-Lynch’s maniacal and hyperactive style. Thus, her experiences aren’t something many of us can do or make happen even if we tried. Her advice seems more kitschy than insightful.

In talking about what it takes to be success, she believes a person’s GSD (Gets Stuff Done) is more important than an MBA. She doesn’t mean to slam education, but tells readers that the real world experience is what matters instead of the pile of degrees. A GSD means you know how to get your foot in the door, set goals, listening to the voice in your head, and avoiding pushiness. If you want to earn a GSD-style degree, David Allen’s GTD (Getting Things Done) is better.

The most interesting thing in the “Work Your Money Mojo” chapter is its title. The advice on raising money from outside the company doesn’t offer anything new: Prove you have a viable product, set measurable goals to track progress, and report to management. However, she does a valuable service in providing resources for getting funding. This information, though, feels out of place in the disjointed book.

Comaford-Lynch deserves congratulations for making millions, working as a CEO for multiple companies, and learning from her mistakes. Her path to all of money, career, and happiness isn’t one most people would want to take to grow and prosper. In sum, Rules for Renegades proves an entertaining read with too much emphasis on things that are bigger than they really are.

• Title: Rules for Renegades: How to Make More Money, Rock Your Career, and Revel in Your Individuality
• Author: Christine Comaford-Lynch
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill
• ISBN: 0071489754
• Date: August 2007
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 256
• Cover Price: USD: $24.95 – Amazon: $16.47