Leslie Nielsen, Farting and Eye-Popping Comedian, RIP

Image via Wikipedia In his blog, my friend, Mike Kurtz, shares a personal story about the late, great comedian, Leslie Nielsen. I think you will enjoy it.

Many people only remember him as a comedy actor but he started in TV back in the late 1940's as a very serious leading man. One of his famous films from the 1950's is a science fiction move called the "Forbidden Planet". He played a leading role as a crew member of space ship on a rescue mission. The movie is also famous for creating "Robbie the Robot."

To read the rest of Mike's story and check out a video outtake of Leslie, click on Mike's blog:




DP Mike's Blog

Carpet Cleaners With An Attitude - by Patty Kay Mooney

After hosting our umpteenth annual Halloween costume party, our carpets were sorely in need of some attention. So we called up a local carpet cleaning company called One Source Carpet & Tile Care, and Shaun arrived with an assistant and some heavy-duty equipment. They proceeded to make short work of the white Berber carpeting in our living room where just a few days earlier, revelers had danced to the music of a very good band called "Stone the Giant."

There was this nasty stain that we'd been dueling with for a decade, ever since the year we had first installed the carpet, when someone had spilled soy sauce next to the sofa. The question of why anyone would bring soy sauce into somebody's white-Berber-carpeted living room has nagged us to this day. (No one ever "fessed up.") We have had other carpet cleaners attempt to dispel the "damned spot" but this time, with the help of Shaun, it seems to be gone.

Shaun also cleaned the grout in our tiled kitchen which is the stage for dozens of parties and gatherings every year. Everybody knows that the kitchen is today's version of the hearth of yore and people plus food will naturally put wear and tear on a kitchen floor. The tiled floor now looks so good that maybe it's time to celebrate with a party!

What we appreciated about the One Source crew was their attitude. They arrived on time, and they performed their work with a smile. Shaun said that he really enjoys cleaning carpets, and it shows in his results. This made me realize that it is a good idea to always hire or work with people who have good attitudes. Life is so short; why waste your time with people who aren't enjoying what they do in life?

Ali & Roberto Furnish Their Love Nest - An Extra Video

Mark Schulze, Director of Photography, and Patty Mooney, Producer, interviewed Ali Fedotowsky and Roberto Martinez, the newest Bachelorette couple, about how they furnished their new apartment, for this piece now appearing on Extra:

Extra TV - Ali & Roberto's Love Nest

Ten Powerful Marketing Tips For Small Business - by Ann Marie Rubertone

Image by cleopatra69 via Flickr 1. Print your best small ad on a postcard and mail it to prospects in your targeted market. People read postcards when the message is brief. A small ad on a postcard can drive a high volume of traffic to your web site and generate a flood of sales leads for a very small cost.

2. No single marketing effort works all the time for every business, so rotate several marketing tactics and vary your approach. Your customers tune out after awhile if you toot only one note. Not only that, YOU get bored. Marketing can be fun, so take advantage of the thousands of opportunities available for communicating your value to customers. But don't be arbitrary about your selection of a variety of marketing ploys. Plan carefully. Get feedback from customers and adapt your efforts accordingly.

3. Use buddy marketing to promote your business. For example, if you send out brochures, you could include a leaflet and/or business card of another business, which had agreed to do the same for you. This gives you the chance to reach a whole new pool of potential customers.

4. Answer Your Phone Differently. Try announcing a special offer when you answer the phone. For example you could say, "Good morning, this is Ann Marie with Check It Out; ask me about my special marketing offer." The caller is compelled to ask about the offer. Sure, many companies have recorded messages that play when you're tied up in a queue, but who do you know that has a live message? I certainly haven't heard of anyone. Make sure your offer is aggressive and increase your caller's urgency by including a not-so-distant expiration date.

5. Stick It! Use stickers, stamps and handwritten notes on all of your direct mail efforts and day-to-day business mail. Remember, when you put a sticker or handwritten message on the outside of an envelope, it has the impact of a miniature billboard. People read it first; however, the message should be short and concise so it can be read in less than 10 seconds.

6. Send A Second Offer To Your Customers Immediately After They've Purchased
Your customer just purchased a sweater from your clothing shop. Send a handwritten note to your customer thanking them for their business and informing them that upon their return with "this note" they may take advantage of a private offer, such as 20% off their next purchase. To create urgency, remember to include an expiration date.

7. Newsletters - Did you know it costs six times more to make a sale to a new customer than to an existing one? You can use newsletters to focus your marketing on past customers. Keep costs down by sacrificing frequency and high production values. If printed newsletters are too expensive, consider an e-mail newsletter sent to people who subscribe at your Web site.

8. Seminars/ open house - Hosting an event is a great way to gain face time with key customers and prospects as well as get your company name circulating. With the right programming, you'll be rewarded with a nice turnout and media coverage. If it's a seminar, limit the attendance and charge a fee. A fee gives the impression of value. Free often connotes, whether intended or not, that attendees will have to endure a sales pitch.

9. Bartering - This is an excellent tool to promote your business and get others to use your product and services. You can trade your product for advertising space or for another company's product or service. This is especially helpful when two companies on limited budgets can exchange their services.

10. Mail Outs - Enclose your brochure, ad, flyer etc. in all your outgoing mail. It doesn't cost any additional postage and you'll be surprised at who could use what you're offering.

Tips provided by Ann Marie Rubertone

The Cost of Money - by Patty K Mooney

Image via Wikipedia

Today I would like to talk about the cost of money. It has been said that "Money is the root of all evil" but money is merely a medium of exchange. It's the lust to acquire money at all costs that becomes problematic.

Anyone of us in business is in it to make money, to provide food and shelter for ourselves and our families, to buy a romantic dinner from time to time, to vacation in Yosemite, Cozumel or Tuscany, perhaps, as a reward for our hard work, and to maintain a good standard of living.

Anyone who has seen the film, "The Corporation," is privy to the conclusions presented to the viewer; namely, that if a corporation, which enjoys the status of an individual, were actually a person, that person would be a psychopath because its one main goal is to generate income without caring who gets hurt in the process.

We all see the proof of this in the latest ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico which makes British Petroleum look like a Tim Burton version of the Cat in the Hat. BP wanted to cut corners here and there and failed to include the kind of technology that would have nipped this tragedy in the bud. Their rig exploded, taking eleven people with it. Now it appears that BP has prevented activists from saving endangered sea turtles prior to burning huge oceanscapes filled with burgeoning oil.

The sea turtle most affected by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is the Kemp's Ridley which is listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. Parties responsible for killing the endangered turtles are liable for criminal penalties that include prison and civil fines of up to $25,000 per violation.

As a result, BP perversely has a financial incentive to let the endangered turtles be incinerated rather than to allow rescue crews to cull them from the burn boxes before the containment fires are lit.

"They ran us out of there and then they shut us down, they would not let us get back in there," said turtle rescuer Mike Ellis in an interview with conservation biologist Catherine Craig that was posted on YouTube.com. (Source - MyFoxTampaBay.com)

Clearly the actions of BP leading up to the tragedy, and in handling their spilt oil, reveal to any thinking person that they care more about money than people (or endangered animals) and just want their life back.

I have a feeling that over the ensuing months, and years, we are ALL going to want our lives back, but the people feeling it the most are those in the Gulf who had livelihoods that are now destroyed.

Not ALL corporations are psychopathic. Case in point. Our company, Crystal Pyramid Inc., is a corporation. As one of its principals, I decided to use my super powers for good, and recently collaborated on a music video that the songwriter, Katherine Archer, of St. Augustine, Florida, and I hope will bring more awareness, and aid, to the disaster in the Gulf. It's called "Black Black Blood."

I wrote about my collaboration with Katherine in a recent blog in "A Diary Left Open" in an entry called "Black Black Blood."

Here is the video. Please share it with all your friends so that we can all get on the same page regarding our shared future. I think we all realize by now that it is not about money. It's about love.

Radio Interview 101 - by Bryan Farrish

Why Smaller Stations Can Be Better

People who are trying to get interviews for the first time invariably want to start out on the "biggest" stations in the biggest cities. You can't blame these folks, because from the outside it does look as if that's the way to make the most things happen for them (since these stations "reach the most people"). But it's not. Making things "happen", meaning sales, web hits, speaking engagements, etc. is not just a function of how many people you reach; it's also a function of how many TIMES you reach them, and how much you SPEND reaching them. Take a look at the market (city) sizes here...


The situation can be compared to the opening of a new restaurant: The amount of food you sell is not just a function of how many people walk or drive by your location; it's also a function of how many TIMES they drive by (staying open for just one day would yield little sales,) and how much you spend to put your restaurant there in the first place. And so the idea of radio interviews is that you want to hit as many people as possible, several times, and do so for the least amount of money as possible. This leads us to smaller stations. Smaller stations/markets have advantages because:

o They are more likely to ask you back for additional interviews; most listeners need to hear something several times before they act... and this is how you make that happen.

o They are more likely to ask you to become a regular, i.e., every Tuesday at 2pm. This sort of makes you a weekly guest, and many listeners will think you actually work at the station.

o They are more likely to have the receptionist give out your phone number to callers. Larger stations just have too much going on, and, their receptionist (many times they are temps) are in constant change.

o They are more likely to put you on their website. Talk about a free plug!
This would never happen at a big station.

o They are more likely to announce your website repeatedly during your interview. This is crucial to getting traffic to your site. Larger stations/shows (on average) will simply resist doing this.

o They will more readily post their opinions of you in the radio discussion groups. Think radio people don't talk to each other?

o You'll stand out more as a pro speaker, since larger stations in larger cities are already saturated with established speakers. You want to be the biggest fish possible... that is, if you want to be hired.

o You'll reach a wider demographic of listeners, since smaller cities have fewer stations, and thus each station has a broader group of people listening to each one.

o Their advertising rates are less; bigger station ad rates are so high you probably would not be able to buy even a single commercial, much less the
20+ you would need every week to sell your offering properly.

o They may offer to continue give-aways of your product (i.e., free on-air
promotion) for several days after your interview. This will NEVER happen on a large station.

o They are far more likely to take a syndicated show from you, should you ever promote one to them. You only stand a chance of starting syndication in smaller markets, anyway.

o And finally, they are FAR easier to book interviews with in the first place, because they get FAR fewer people trying to do book them. So you (or the person/firm you hire for booking) is going to have a much easier and less costly time setting up your interview schedule.

------------------------------------------------------------
Bryan Farrish Promotion is an independent promotion company handling radio interviews on talk and music radio stations.
310-998-8305 - interviews@radio-media.com

When Social Media Goes Wrong - by Mike Clough

Image by webtreats via Flickr

I have been dabbling in many of the social networks now open to us all. LinkedIn proves to be ever more valuable in many aspects. Through one of the groups to which I belong, I became acquainted with the work of Mike Clough, someone who has written many articles on his blog about the benefits of social media in marketing. Isn't this something that is important to all of us?

I came across one of his latest articles which really resonated with me, and I think that it will with you, too, about scenarios where "social media goes wrong."

Mike says, "I believe that social media has leveled the playing field to some degree between big business and small business. Nonetheless, as with many great things, it can sometimes go wrong. A recent experience of mine illustrates this point..."

If your curiosity is piqued, as was mine, go check out the rest of Mike's article here: When Social Media Goes Wrong. I am not the only person who was curious about the topic. You'll find comments from several other bloggers who weigh in with their thoughts, as well.

Why Do Salesmen Need Laptops? - by James Mowery

Image by Arbron via Flickr

Why do salesmen need laptops?

Business people were once confined to their offices. They had to tolerate annoying coworkers because there was just no other way. On trips, they had to rely on hotel televisions and pay-per-view movies. Meetings on the road had to be conducted by phone in order to get everyone on the same page. With the advent of laptop computing, those are things of the past.

Laptops used to be the ball and chain that salesmen carried around. Those computers were slower and more awkward than the desktop computers, so they were the piece of hardware that people loved to hate. Technology caught up, and now laptops are replacing the desktop as the computers of choice for many users.

Those same salespeople can now get out of their offices without needing to worry about being effective. They can hang out at the coffee shops and type their reports, avoiding distractions in the workplace. They can manage time more efficiently because a follow-up report can be written in the parking lot right after a client visit.

Relaxing is a lot easier for those with laptops. Where these individuals once had to rely on hotel movies, the technology is available to stream movies right to the businessman's desktop. They can play a few hands of online poker and win the world.

The laptop's size makes it a perfect tool to carry anywhere. Worries about communication have been reduced, as the laptop's power allows users to talk anywhere. In general, laptops are a boon to society.

About the author: James Mowery is a computer geek who writes about technology and related topics. To read more blog posts by him, go to Led TV.

Social Media and Video Production - by Fred Ashman

Image by cleopatra69 via Flickr

The production business is, in my opinion, one where the use of social media can be quite helpful when used judiciously. The amount of time consumed with social media needs to be balanced. Also the content of the blog or tweet is very important as business people are so barraged with media that unnecessary or unwanted communications can make the sender into an irritant rather than helpful.

The company vs a producer vs the director or editor or talent each have different needs in communication. Part of the idea is to keep yourself top of mind to customers and potential customers, without being a pest.

Like most of life, the best solution is finding the right balance.

45 Lessons of Life - by Regina Brett

Image by cleopatra69 via Flickr

Written By Regina Brett, 53 years old, of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio

"To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me...
It is the most-requested column I've ever written. My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:

1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone...
4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.
9. Save for retirement starting with your first pay check.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.
12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.
16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.
19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.
24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words 'In five years, will this matter?'
27. Always choose life.
28. Forgive everyone everything.
29. What other people think of you is none of your business.
30. Time heals almost everything. Give it time.
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
32. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
33. Believe in miracles.
35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
36. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.
37. Your children get only one childhood.
38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.
41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
42. The best is yet to come.
43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
44. Yield.
45. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift.

A Tale of Two Restaurateurs - by Patty Mooney

Image via Wikipedia

Subtitle: If the Customer Is Wrong, Then You Don't Need My Business

Long ago, my husband and I used to frequent a local Vietnamese restaurant - the first one established in San Diego. It wasn't in the greatest location, but the cuisine was fantastic. Mark and I would go there once or twice every week. Then Long, the owner, decided to move his family and business into the ritzier section of town, and sold the place to another restaurateur.

With trepidation, Mark and I continued frequenting the restaurant, but the food and service began to decline until one evening, when we had invited four people to join us, I did not get served my Pho (noodle soup) until everyone else had finished eating. To say the least, I was quite upset and left there telling Mark that I never wanted to return and as far as I was concerned, that restaurant could just disappear. Within a few months, we passed by the place and noticed that it had been vacated.

I often wondered whether that eatery had imploded due to the energy of my wrath. But I'm sure it boiled down to the lack of good customer service.

Fast forward to a recent excursion to the Sonoma wine country where amazing restaurants abound. Our wine broker, Alan, took Mark and me to a Sonoma bistro called "The Girl and the Fig" where they serve "country food with a French passion." Alan often takes his clients to the local wine-country restaurants and brings his wines along so that clients can enjoy the food-wine pairing, and he can then sell his wines. He and his partner produce the Abstract wines which are quite good. You may have read Alan's piece that I published earlier this year called "Rocking the Vineyards of Sonoma."

Alan told us he had called ahead to make sure that he would be able to bring his own wines, and that the woman to whom he had spoken assured him that the corkage fee would be $10 per bottle. He had already shared two bottles of wine with us during our dinner and had opened the third so that it could breathe. Now this is when the owner, a guy named Michael, walked over, not to see how we were enjoying our meal, but to vilify Alan for having opened the third bottle, and then to chastise all of us about it. He grabbed up our wine glasses and would not allow Alan to pour that third bottle of wine. I felt as if my fingers had just been rapped with a ruler by a nun in a black habit.

And yet, when the bill arrived, there was a corkage fee of $15 per bottle (despite what the woman on the phone had told Alan) and the third bottle was included - even though the owner had not allowed us to consume it. Nobody likes conflict, and Alan was trying to entertain us, his visiting guests, sans any negativity. But what's right is right - right? So we told Michael that Alan had called prior to coming and was told the corkage fee would be $10. And a corkage fee of $10 is reasonable in these economic times, the three of us believed. If we had known that the rug would be yanked out from under our feet and we would be charged $45 for three bottles (one of which we didn't even drink), perhaps we might never have gone to that restaurant at all. Michael said, "Nobody here would have told you $10 per bottle." Then he turned on his heel and walked away.

In 1908 César Ritz (1850-1918), the celebrated French hotelier is credited with saying 'Le client n'a jamais tort' - 'The customer is never wrong'. "The customer is always right" is widely thought to have evolved from Ritz's quote. Hasn't everyone heard of the Ritz? The place is celebrated in song (Irving Berlin's "Puttin' on the Ritz.") It's even a word in the dictionary - "We went to this really ritzy joint." And who has not eaten Ritz crackers?

I do not believe that The Girl & The Fig will enjoy a hundred plus years of notoriety as Ritz has. They may serve food with a French passion, but Ritz's concept of the customer never being wrong has not resonated with Michael the owner of The Girl & The Fig. It's not advised to go through the work and constant challenges of establishing and running a restaurant, only to piss your customers off.

I have waited a month since our little soiree to write this, so I feel dispassionate about it now, and am sharing it as a lesson to all of us.

There was one good thing that came out of it though. Alan, Mark and I coined an entirely new word which you, too, are free to use. "Douche-baggery" - as in, "What douche-baggery is this!" Or, "There seems to be a high level of douche-baggery afoot." It's vocabulary with a French passion. Use it, share it, and recognize it when you see it, because the customer is never wrong.

How to pick a password that's secure and easy to remember - By Chris Gaylord

Image by Zellaby via Flickr

Try to pick a lengthy string of characters that's easy to remember, but gibberish to others.

The man accused of one of the juicier hacking cases of the past few years is no Internet mastermind. On June 24, a French citizen who goes by the pseudonym "Hacker Croll" will face charges that he broke into Facebook pages, e-mail accounts, and the Twitter feeds of then-Sen. Barack Obama, singer Britney Spears, and other celebrities.

How did he break in? Police say that he's just a good guesser. By cruising through blogs and social-networking pages posted online by his victims, he allegedly dug up enough information to guess people's passwords and security questions.

This trick is pretty easy to pull off. Try combinations of family names, graduation dates, birthdays, favorite bands or sports teams -- all information that many of us share willingly online.

This isn't a call to scrub down your Face book profile until it's pointless. But Hacker Croll's story is the latest of many (often-ignored) reasons to improve your online passwords. But since doing so is such a nuisance, here's a simple, easy-to-remember way to craft secure passwords for all the websites that you visit.

Before we roll out the grand plan, let's walk through why most passwords stink.
First, do not use common words or patterns. The most frequent password on the Internet is "123456" -- nearly 1 in every 100 people uses it. It's simple, can be typed quickly, and is the first thing hackers will try. Throw in the next 4,999 most popular terms and they make up 20 percent of all passwords used online.

These numbers come from computer security firm Imperva in Redwood Shores, Calif. The company stumbled upon a list of 32 million passwords posted by a bragging hacker who had recently snatched the data from RockYou, which designs software for Facebook and MySpace.

This rare look into people's password habits showed how lax or at least unoriginal people can be, says Rob Rachwald, who helped write Imperva's report.

Hacker Croll's tactic works well when targeting specific people, but Mr. Rach wald says that most online thieves cast wide nets.

"It's not me trying to guess individual passwords," he says. "Hackers use so-called 'dictionaries,' " lists of common terms and phrases that a computer tries one after another until it finds a match.

Since 1 in 5 accounts draws from the same pool of 5,000 passwords, an automated program has pretty good odds -- especially since Imperva estimates that modern PCs can race through 110 tries each second.

That leads to the second rule: The longer a password, the better. Eight to 10 characters work best. Why? Even if you avoid common terms, some hackers could still attempt to "brute force" their way into your account. This means telling a computer to try every permutation that it can think of until it busts in. On average, a five-character password will last a couple of hours against such a barrage, according to John Pozadzides, CEO of software company iFusion Labs. Eight characters will hold up for centuries.

This also explains why sticking to lower-case letters is a bad idea. "Adding just one capital letter and one asterisk," Mr. Pozadzides says in his report, "would change the processing time for an eight-character password from 2.4 days to 2.1 centuries." (While he calculates hacker speeds differently from Imperva, the scale is what's impressive.)

The solution? To pick a lengthy string that's easy to remember, but gibberish to others, think of a phrase. For example, Hamlet's line: "To be, or not to be: that is the question." Boil this down to an initialism: TbontbTitq. Now swap in some numbers and special characters: Maybe "2" instead of "to" and "?" to replace "question". (Zeroes make nice "O's" and "3" works as an "E".) You've now got 2bon2bTit? -- a 10-character chain with all the fixings.

Add another layer of security by extending it for each website. That way, if someone figures out one of your passwords, they don't gain access to all of your accounts. Attach Fk to your Facebook password or maybe Hm to Hotmail. Better yet, reverse the order of these additional letters to further obscure their meaning.

Five Essentials Steps to Success - by Angela Newman, Pink Ladders

Image by marcof via Flickr

W Work Ethic
O Optimistic Attitude
M Manage Tasks and Set Goals
A Affirmations
N Never Give Up

When you hear the word 'success', what do you think of? Some people define it in terms of financial success; making a certain amount of money or what their net worth is. For others success is being happy in their career and personal life; enjoying what they do for a living, having family and friends that contribute to their life's happiness and making a difference in the lives they touch.

But regardless of your definition, when you climb your 'pink ladder' there are five essential steps I recommend you take that will help you achieve success in your career and personal life. I have spelled them out in an easy format for all women to remember.

W Work Ethic
Work ethic is so important to the success of your career but unfortunately not at the top of everyone's list. Having high work ethic is simply how you do your job. It's about being self directed, taking pride in the output of the work you submit, doing what needs to be done (and more) without complaining and looking out for the company's best interest in all the decisions you make on its behalf.

O Optimistic Attitude
What is your general attitude? Make sure it's a positive, optimistic one as attitude will play a big part in your climb up the pink ladder. Managers will be less than enthusiastic to promote someone that constantly complains about their job, the people they work for and with and always sees the glass half empty.

M Manage Tasks and Set Goals
Everyday whether its work related or personal, we have many tasks to accomplish and each goal we set has several tasks within it before the goal is complete. I use the Pink Ladders Task Manager to write down my personal and work related tasks. It is nearly impossible to remember all the things that must get done so having a system to keep you focused and on track is essential. There is nothing worse than forgetting about a critical deadline for a project or customer.

A Affirmations
Affirmations are positive statements based on the present tense as though it has already occurred even though it has not. By doing so, it reinforces to your subconscious that it is so. Remember the saying, ''If you believe it, you can achieve it"? Saying affirmations frequently reminds you and tells your subconscious that you can achieve your goal and before long you will start believing it even if you didn't to begin with.

N Never Give Up
Having a 'never give up' attitude is critical in achieving success. There will be times when you may feel like giving up hope or giving in to the pressure but don't. It's important to keep moving forward on your goals in order to live the life you want. Climb your pink ladder as high as you want to go; it's entirely up to you.

Check out Pink Ladders

Don't Think Outside the Box - by Penny C. Sansevieri

Cover of Working Girl

We hear it over and over: "think outside the box," but what does it mean - and does it really work?

I was inspired to write this piece after reading a book called You, Inc.: The Art of Selling Yourself (by Harry Beckwith and Christine Clifford Beckwith/Business Plus). They address this in the book, but I'd like to take this a step further. First off, if the box you're in works, well, it works for you. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? But here's a twist. Don't go outside the box, enhance it, add to it and infuse it with influences you wouldn't normally have been exposed to.

Have you ever noticed that the minute you step outside of your "space," like going on vacation or traveling a different way to work, that something pops? A creative solution emerges to a long-term problem, or you suddenly hit on a new story twist for your next book.

As authors, publishers, entrepreneurs, speakers, we are called upon to be creative. We want unique ideas to write about and unique messages to sell them. So we try and get creative and move out of our comfort zone. Now, while I'm all about moving out of your comfort zone, the out-of-the-box thinking that marketers love to tout isn't really that effective or, for that matter, even possible.

If you're struggling to be creative or to problem solve, you might want to take some time to add some new influences to your day. Sometimes if I need to flex my creative muscle I will try and find a correlation between something totally opposite what I am working on. Meaning I'll try to find the common thread. It's a fantastic exercise and again, it'll help to stretch you and bring more influences into your box.

Do you remember the movie "Working Girl"? In it Melanie Griffith was trying to climb the corporate ladder but part of her never really fit in. She read all the wrong magazines, didn't really dress the part, but in the end she came up with an idea that was the center story of the movie. A New York executive asked her where she came up with it and she said, "Reading W." "W?" the exec questioned. "Yes," Melanie's character said, "you never know where the good ideas will come from." And that's my point exactly. You never know where and when inspiration will strike, but if you're sticking to the same routine, it'll be a lot tougher to find inspiration than if you shake up your day. Here are some ideas to help you get there. Consider one or all of them. You'll be surprised what you learn!

1) Read a magazine you wouldn't normally read: If you are in business and you read Business Week or Entrepreneur that's great, but the likelihood of either of these magazines expanding your horizons is minimal. Why? Because they're really telling you more of what you already know. I travel a good deal and whenever I'm in an airport I try and pick up a magazine I wouldn't normally read. Try this, you'll be surprised what you learn, and something outside of your normal scope of reading can trigger new ideas.

2) Watch a movie you would never normally watch: If you're a western junkie, try watching a chick-flick or vice-versa. I know for you die-hard thriller watchers this might make your skin crawl, but trust me, a change of pace is always good to trigger the creative juices.

3) Listen to a different radio station: This is really fun, and even better, why not try listening to a station outside of your area? I grew up in Belgium and will sometimes listen to Belgian radio. I also love digging into the podcasts on NPR and other talk radio shows.

4) Go to a tractor pull instead of the opera: OK, maybe not exactly, but the idea here is to expose yourself to something new and again, try and find a creative way that it ties into your book or area of expertise. One year after watching the Tour de France I was inspired to write an article called, "Biking and Book Marketing: what the Tour de France can teach us about marketing our books." Odd as it seems, this article got a lot of traction. We ran it in our newsletter and many bike-fan sites ran it too, no surprise because authors are everywhere.

5) Change your work surroundings: I'm not talking about moving offices, just try working somewhere else. Sometimes if I'm buried in minutia and struggling to be creative, I'll pack up my netbook and go hang at my local Starbucks for an afternoon. Working on a plane does this for me, too, and knowing this, I save all my creative challenges for my next flight (fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, I've been flying a lot these days). The point being, sometimes sitting at your same desk and same chair doesn't do anything for your creativity; in fact, often it stagnates it. Just like standing water, every once in a while you have to drain your mind of the usual, input the unusual and see what happens.

The idea of "thinking outside the box" was coined by an advertising firm eons ago, and we've used it, and in many cases overused it. Yes, it means be creative, but as I pointed out earlier, if you're doing well then clearly your box works for you. Instead of trying to move outside of it, try bringing new influences into it instead. You'll not only find that your creativity is moving again, but the ideas, which before had seemed stuck behind a roadblock, are now more like free flowing traffic.

Where will your journey take you?

Reprinted from "The Book Marketing Expert newsletter," a free ezine offering book promotion and publicity tips and techniques.

Anaheim Wants to Take Over San Diego Comic Con

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After 40 years in its San Diego home, Comic-Con International is being courted by Anaheim tourism officials interested in its 125,000-plus attendees, reported the Union-Tribune.

Officials hope the lure of greater event space and cheaper lodging will be enough to rend the decades-long relationship between San Diego and Comic-Con, but San Diego Convention Center officials hope to have expanded their own space by the end of Comic-Con's contract in 2012.

This news is not surprising, because it is many years coming. As an elite broadcast video crew that has collected interviews and B-roll at the San Diego Comic Con over the last decade, we have observed that it is getting too big for its britches.

But there's a Catch 22 or two. It's a convention that was born and raised in San Diego. Convention attendees enjoy the amenities, beauty and moderate weather of San Diego. They like going to the beach, Zoo, Wild Animal Park and SeaWorld when they've had enough of walking the floors at the Comic Con. They enjoy the fact that there are so many great restaurants within walking distance of the San Diego Convention Center. And did I mention the great weather?

So, if you take the SDCC away from San Diego, then it's no longer considered the San Diego Comic Con. Anaheim is okay, but it's no San Diego. Anaheim's got Disneyland. In the middle of summer, when Comic Con is scheduled, who wants to go to Disneyland at the hottest time of summer when all the kids are out of school and - at Disneyland. Um, not me. And can you name any great restaurants in Anaheim?

So Las Vegas? Plenty of room for large conventions? Yes. Good eats? Of course. Except, again, middle of summer, hotter than Hades, yada yada.

I believe that if the San Diego Comic Con move sout of San Diego, there will not be as many attendees. It's like trying to move a palm tree to Michigan. I just don't think it will survive the move.

There are several options on the table. They include enlarging the San Diego Convention Center, spreading out the Comic Con panels and events to outerlying hotels, extending the length of time of the Comic Con, etc. It's all up in the air right now. It's a real quandary. San Diego has until 2012 to think of something. In the meantime, if you haven't gotten your passes for the 2010 Con already, you're too late. Here it is, late March, and snoozers are already losers.

Qualities of a Leader - by David C. Baker

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Qualities of a Leader
What are the characteristics of a leader that others want to follow? As you’ll soon see, this list is a very personal one. In other words, we’d all come up with different elements when building the list. What I’ve tried to do, though, is to think of a complete leader. So I’ve asked myself this question: can I imagine a leader who isn't fair, for instance. The answer is obviously no. Each one of these, then, describes a leader’s characteristics, any one of which might hinder their effectiveness if missing in any significant proportion. What I’d encourage you to do--maybe even before you read this list--is to first make up your own list and compare it with mine. (These are not presented in any particular order.)

Approachable
A leader (which is really nothing more than the ideal form of a manager) is approachable, even with bad news. There’s an evenness and steadiness that gives those who must approach him or her a confidence that they won’t be yelled at or blamed unnecessarily. At the heart of approachability is simply a willingness to listen, first, before reacting to a particular piece of news.

Articulate
A leader doesn’t need to be some master spokesperson or have a Ph.D. in English, but they need to be able to articulate what they are thinking and feeling. A vision is not that useful unless it can be imparted to the others who will join along in that journey. It’s not just the words, either, but the tone and the speech patterns and the actual words that are chosen. You might say that a leader doesn’t have to be articulate, but they do need to articulate.

Authentic
A leader needs to be the same person on the surface as they are in reality, deep inside. Employees can smell a rat, and that rat often takes the form of a leader who dons a suit when at work, trying to be somebody they aren’t. The opposite of authentic is fake, and that fakeness can be manifested in the form of fake friendship, fake listening, fake humor, fake caring, etc. Real leaders are the same person at work as they might be if you bump into them at the grocery store.

Communicative
Not only are leaders able to articulate their vision, they actually do so. That’s what I mean by communicative. They frequently impact the environment by speaking to it. They are present and involved and know what they want, communicating that in ways that make a favorable impression on those they depend on to get the work done.

Competent at a Basic Level
Leaders need a basic level of competence. Just enough to understand the issues and be able to evaluate talent. They should not, however, be the most technically competent of the group. If they are, that may be a sign that they have hired helpers instead of experts. It could also mean that they were promoted for the wrong reasons (the best doer rather than the best manager). Let’s face it: all over the world you can find well-run companies whose leaders are managing others who are far more competent than they are.

Confident
Leaders are confident, but this is a tough characteristic to describe with balance. That’s because there’s always a fair measure of self-doubt with leadership. On that other end of the spectrum, too little confidence makes for ineffective leadership. So there’s a balance: enough confidence to inspire those following a leader, but not so much confidence that it leads them astray.

Decision Makers
Leaders who take too long to make decisions, or don’t make them decisively enough, are bound to struggle. To be an effective leader you must be a risk taker. In chaos and ambiguity, you must defy momentum and decide about direction and speed. It is fine--and even desirable--to tolerate ambiguity, but that analog environment cannot prevent digital decisions from being made.

Direct
Leaders are direct. Not rude, but direct. The difference lies in the intent and result. Being direct is motivated by a desire to truly communicate in a means whereby everything that’s necessary is included without any ancillary information or clutter. Hurting someone with directness is an example of poor leadership because it gets in the way of good, honest communication. Leaders are direct so that there’s no confusion about what’s being said or what’s behind it.

Disciplined
Leaders are disciplined. That means that they get things done, do what they say, plan and execute. They can set goals, control their actions, and systematically work toward a set of accomplishments. It’s not one unmet promise after another but real accomplishment, little by little.

Fair
A leader’s fairness will most likely show up when he or she is alone with someone else, talking about a third party who isn’t there. Will they represent the facts accurately? Will they provide an appropriate benefit of the doubt? Are they free from bias and dishonesty? Impartial and unprejudiced might be the best ways to describe a leader who is fair.

Grateful
I’ve noted elsewhere that curiosity and gratefulness are high up on the list of characteristics I’m looking for in a leader. Gratefulness puts things in perspective because, first off, there’s no false pride that something has really be earned. Grateful people understand that luck and circumstances are part of success, and they don’t get too full of themselves.

Honest
What sort of list would this be if we were describing a leader and didn’t include honest. And how could you work well for someone you didn’t trust and respect. It’s impossible. The last thing you need is a leader who says different things to different people, either because they’re afraid of conflict or because they are trying to amass power.

Hopeful
Great leaders are hopeful, even when they know all the facts about the circumstances. That’s not to say they’re optimistic, which can mean that they’re living in denial. Hopefulness is a founded belief in success. Follow the reasonable plan and find predictable results at the outset.

Accepting of a Minority Position
The group, however you define that, is often wrong. The supposed safety in numbers is elusive. In fact, nearly every moment of truth in the collective knowledge of a civilization has been characterized by a very small minority arguing their point until the masses climb aboard the idea. This means that a leader will often look wrong to the majority of those that he or she manages, and they will have to be comfortable with that position in the minority. Caution is called for, of course, because being in the minority doesn’t mean you’re right, either!

Merciful from Significant Personal Failure
Leaders are flawed, and they know it. They are plagued by some consistently surfacing weakness and/or some significant failure in the past. Maybe they’ve been fired, had personal financial difficulties, or were at the helm of a department that failed spectacularly. In any case, their personal failures haunt them to some extent, keeping them humble and merciful.

Pattern Matcher/Critical Thinker
The essence of intelligence is the ability to notice and categorize patterns. Leaders have that critical thinking skill and use it to analyze business problems. They see the possibilities and the outcomes like few others do, and therefore can set an appropriate course of action.

Curious
There are many words I could have used for this component of a leader, but curiosity is critical. Closely aligned with this would be perceptive, observant, and inquiring. All these attributes are utilized with a view towards the possibility that the leader is wrong. He or she holds a belief, but is always testing it against new information in new situations to further refine their learning and thus their convictions. They are always on the hunt for new perspectives that can be brought to bear on their management.

Predictable
By suggesting that a leader needs to be predictable, I’m not meaning to imply (negatively) that they always act the same way regardless of the circumstances. No, it’s more about those they lead being able to anticipate how a leader might think and or act. Leaders are purpose-driven and their actions arise from an observable belief system.

Purposeful
A purposeful leader is one who does things with a purpose. They have a plan, can articulate it, and then see to it that the seemingly random activities of a typical day are actually contributing to the execution of the plan. They aren’t willy-nilly in all sorts of fits and starts. No, they see how the small parts contribute to the larger picture and they execute with that in mind.

Self-Aware
Good leaders are self-aware. They know their own tendencies, and they know how their actions affect others. They understand that their great strength, if overused, can be their greatest weakness, and they attempt greater balance and understanding. Good leaders can step outside themselves and make a relatively honest assessment of who they are and how they are conducting themselves.

Stimulation Primarily from Outside Work
You’d think that any leader who throws himself entirely at work would be good to work for, but that’s not the case. Leaders like that expect too much of others, too. No, you want a leader who lives a more balanced life, understanding the role of work and the role of life outside work. A leader with an interesting life outside work is better at work/life balance issues.

Visionary
A leader must have a vision of the future. Otherwise, there’s very little likelihood that individual initiatives will be purpose driven. Why does this department or firm exist? How could it be better? What role could we play in the larger picture that would bring greater enjoyment and impact?

Finally
How do you measure up against this list? Are there some things to work on? Do you see any patterns that hold you back? Make you very effective? It’s something to think about, anyway. Great leaders instigate and nurture great culture, and great culture can really make a difference at your firm.



David C. Baker's company, ReCourses, Inc. ReCourses, Inc., provides individual consulting, seminars, speaking, and writing exclusively for firms in the marketing industry (design, advertising, public relations, interactive, and in-house).



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Perform Your Own Performance Appraisal - by CJ Westrick

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Prepare for your next performance appraisal by reviewing these key issues:

Quality of work. Do you avoid errors and consistently meet required standards?

Quantity of work. Do you manage your workload well and accomplish all assigned tasks?

Accomplishments. What are you most proud of achieving?

Performance goals. Did you meet or exceed the goals set in your last performance appraisal? Do you have new goals for the next review period?

Time management. Do you keep up with production schedules and meet deadlines?

Safety. Do you work safely and avoid accidents and near misses?

Behavior and attitude. Do you work well with others, follow directions, take initiative, etc.?

Attendance and tardiness. Are you at work on time every day? Do you give adequate notice when you have to miss work?

Being well prepared for a performance appraisal will make it more meaningful.

Remember, one of the major reasons for conducting performance appraisals is to help you improve your performance and achieve your career goals. Always be ready for your review.

CJ Westrick is a Human Resources expert and runs the San Diego company HR Jungle.

A Letter From Twitter

Image via Wikipedia

Hi there,

In the early days of Twitter, I used to send out short updates just to keep everyone in the loop since so much was happening. It's been a while, but you signed up for short, monthly updates from Twitter so we thought it was time to start sharing more information. We've had quite a year. If you haven't visited in a while, we'd like to invite you to come have a look at http://twitter.com -- we've been busy!

Growing Up
In the course of a year, registered Twitter accounts have grown more than 1,500% and our team has grown 500%. Recently, we hired our 140th employee! His name is Aaron and he's an engineer focused on building internal tools to help promote productivity, communication, and support within our company. We celebrated with a little dance party.

Features of Note
Some features of note that we released over the course of a year include the ability to create lists, quickly spread information with a retweet button, and an easier way to activate your mobile phone to work with Twitter over SMS. We also built a new mobile web site that looks and works much better on smart phones.

Feeling Inspired
By working together during critical times when others needed help, sharing important information that otherwise might not make the news, and inventing new and interesting ways to use Twitter, you've shown us that Twitter is more than a triumph of technology -- it is a triumph of humanity. Projects like Fledgling and Hope140 were inspired by you.

Chirp!
While there may only be 140 full-time employees working at the Twitter offices, there are thousands of dedicated platform developers who have now created more than 70,000 registered Twitter applications creating variety and utility for all of us. We'll be gathering this spring at Chirp, our first ever official Twitter developer conference.

Thanks,
Biz Stone, Co-founder (@Biz)
Twitter, Inc.

Five Golden Rules of Facebook - by Patty Mooney

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According to the latest statistics at Facebook's "Press Room," there are more than 400 million active users as we speak. More than 35 million of them update their status each day. There are now more than 1.5 million local businesses with active pages on Facebook.

As an entrepreneur and business owner, I knew that Facebook would be as useful to me as my membership in our local San Diego Chamber of Commerce for many of the same reasons. It's a way of keeping myself and my "status" in front of many pairs of eyes. I rarely talk about business at my personal site, but I recently started a Fan page for Crystal Pyramid Inc. and am starting to accrue fans. And there I can share pieces of advice about business, photos from interesting video production gigs, and other tidbits that will be of interest to our fans. Just as one finds when attending local networking events, you will probably not reap any immediate benefits, but your database of people interested in your business will grow, and if nothing else, it's a great tool to keep track of friends and associates.



Here are five Golden Rules of Facebook for the business person who wants to use Facebook as a way to enhance and acquire business.

1. Keep your personal page separate from your business or fan page. I have been known to indulge in a game of Bowling on my personal site, but it's critical to keep your business page "businessy." Friends and colleagues who are really into Mafia Wars, Farmland and all kinds of other applications will try and woo you, but these apps will rob you of your precious time. Any post that does not pertain to your business should be summarily deleted.


2. Keep It Positive. As many times as I have felt lured to post scathing reviews of restaurants, companies, or people, I have not gone down that road. Why? Those kinds of negative rants only reflect on you. Also, as they say, "Any P.R. is good P.R." So why give any press to people who don't deserve kudos or recognition? My mom always used to tell us, "If you can't say anything positive, don't say anything at all." This rule has held me in good stead for five decades, and for good reason. To attract the positive in life, you must emanate positivity.


3. Make positive comments on people's status updates. Not every status update needs or deserves a response, but when someone wins an award or achieves recognition, add a congratulatory comment. You never know who may read and appreciate what you have said, and become a friend, a fan, or even a client.


5. Post at least twice a week. Make sure you share stories, quotes, photos and videos that will be of use to others and not a running commercial about yourself. Be the good-hearted person you are, and have a consistent presence on your site. When people are ready to use your services, they will come to you because you are one of their Facebook friends.

"The Invisible Ones Homeless Combat Veterans" Garners Three More Honors

I am pleased to report that our documentary, "The Invisible Ones: Homeless Combat Veterans" has been making its rounds in the awards circuit and we've just learned that it has won a very prestigious award called the "Golden Reel." It's a high honor in that the judges are all people who work in the media industry and so, where any normal person would not hear the sound of an air conditioner during an interview, this panel of judges would react as though it were fingernails on a chalkboard. If THEY appreciated the documentary, it's almost as good as receiving an Oscar, to us!

"The Invisible Ones" has also been accepted into two more film festivals, The Riverside Film Festival and the Fallbrook Film Festival. Both Riverside and Fallbrook are within driving distance for us, and so we look forward to attending and watching our show on the big screen.

Now, with Kathryn Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker" winning Best Picture and Best Director in the latest go-round, the attention of the film-viewing audience appears to be focused on our troops and the psychological damages caused by war. That adds up to good news for "The Invisible Ones." Stay tuned for further updates.

Constructive Criticism - by C.J. Westrick

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When you must criticize, here is how to do so in a constructive way that gets your message across without offending.

Critique in private. Do not embarrass a co-worker by discussing his or her shortcomings in public.

Begin with a positive statement. Praise something about the co-worker’s performance. This sets a positive tone for the conversation.

Use objective feedback. Focus on the situation, not the person.

Explain what you believe went wrong and talk about how, together, you can rectify the situation.

Set clear expectations. Be specific about the changes you think need to be made.

End on a positive note. Stress how the changes you’ve suggested can help both of you perform better.

CJ Westrick owns and operates a human resources firm called HR Jungle in San Diego.

Google Case in Italy Has Serious Implications for the Web - by Chris Crum

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A judge in Milan, Italy has convicted three Google executives over a video uploaded to YouTube in a case, which could have serious implications for social media and ultimately, the web in general, at least in Italy. The video, uploaded back in 2006, featured a group of school kids bullying an autistic child. Google says it worked with Italian authorities to help ID the person responsible for uploading it, and the uploader and other participants from the video were sentenced to community service.

Now, in 2010, Google executives David Drummond, Peter Fleischer and George Reyes (3 out of 4 defendants) have been convicted for "failure to comply with the Italian privacy code." They were all found not guilty of criminal defamation.

Should these Google execs be held accountable?

"In essence this ruling means that employees of hosting platforms like Google Video are criminally responsible for content that users upload," writes Matt Sucherman, VP and Deputy General Counsel - Europe, Middle East and Africa on the Google Blog. "We will appeal this astonishing decision because the Google employees on trial had nothing to do with the video in question."

This is a case of a business being held accountable for user-generated content. Isn't the entire web generated by users? What if Google's search engine (algorithmically) indexed something illegal. Should company execs be penalized, even if they comply with authorities' requests for removal of such content? Ask yourself these questions:

- What if YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc. had to shut down because it couldn't control the things users post?

- What if every blogging platform had to do the same?

- What if you went to jail for comments posted on your blog?

You're invited to become a Facebook fan of WebProNews!

You're not likely going to go to jail for comments posted on your blog, but the point is, that by allowing people to post comments on your blog, you are allowing user-generated content, that you can't necessarily control until after it's been posted, unless you don't let them go live until approving them. Google is being held accountable for content that users uploaded, which was not in their control until after the fact. YouTube users upload 20 hours of video every minute, according to Google.

You can see why this case is much bigger than just the specific instance it involves. The case is subject to appeal, but if it is not overturned, what will this mean for the web?

"The video was totally reprehensible and we took it down within hours of being notified by the Italian police," says Sucherman.

"To be clear, none of the four Googlers charged had anything to do with this video," he says. "They did not appear in it, film it, upload it or review it. None of them know the people involved or were even aware of the video's existence until after it was removed."

He goes on to talk about how the case "attacks the very principles of freedom on which the Internet is built," also mentioning that European Union law dictates that hosting providers have a safe harbor from liability as long as they remove illegal content once they are notified of its existence. "If that principle is swept aside and sites like Blogger, YouTube and indeed every social network and any community bulletin board, are held responsible for vetting every single piece of content that is uploaded to them — every piece of text, every photo, every file, every video — then the Web as we know it will cease to exist, and many of the economic, social, political and technological benefits it brings could disappear," Sucherman says.

If rulings such as the one against these Google execs were to become commonplace, how much do you think that would affect the social media industry? Companies like Google, Facebook, MySpace, etc. couldn't let users upload content, which essentially means social media couldn't exist. User-generated content couldn't exist. How could you blog? How could you leave a status update on Facebook, or upload a family photo to Picasa? There is always the possibility that some user could make a death threat or upload a murder video, so if the companies behind the services that were used to commit these crimes were held accountable, how could their businesses continue?

That's why Google is not only upset about the ruling against its executives, but calls it a "serious threat to the web."

Should Google (or any other site) be held responsible for content that users upload (even when said content is removed)? Share your thoughts.




About the Author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237