Barry's Biz Talk posts

Learn = No Conversation?

Has anyone else noticed a severe drop off of communication on the biz talk area since the addition of the learn section? It also appears to some extent that the same is true of attendance to a lesser extent, some of the smaller events seem to be less frequented.

Are members too preoccupied with writing how-to guides to chat on a daily basis? Give your cents on the matter...

So what else do you do?

Now everyone chats about this and talks about that. As business owners we all wear 73.2 different hats (I think that 74 is right around the corner)

So what else do you do? What other hobbies do you have and enjoy? Do you mix and mingle your personal talents or do you keep them hidden and secure?

I do a lot of online marketing and writing, but write personally as well. One of the reasons I started blogging many years ago is that I am interested in many fields and like to combine my artistic skills whenever possible (writing, photography, graphics, etc)

One of my "other" sites is a poetry blog that I have on and off promoted over the years. I have also maintained graphic blogs and stores selling my graphic design work.

I find the act of writing out questions I have asked my friends to be very illuminating as an experience, often presenting me with personal and professional questions that I would not have encountered myself.

Here is one I wrote today.

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Wounds of War, a declaration of being unfit.

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(This was written for a friend, who shall remain nameless.)

In a private conversation, I declared that I was unfit for duty. I told my friend that I could no longer wear a badge of honor. Somehow, I found that the shadow of bravery crept over my soul, and fell upon the silent ears of those who were defined valiant, or criminal.

I was not a hero. I was not even someone who cast forth a reflection worth seeing. The way I found myself, was a haunting memory of distant declarations, words that could never be understood by someone as simple as myself. Yet the wound I felt, brutalized my soul more than any harm could.

I saw myself as having fallen, upon the fine, sharp sword of victory. My chest was covered with fine treasures of respectful ignorance, yet my hands and body were as unclean as I have ever felt. I do not know how to cleanse my life of such indiscriminate stains.

I return home, to a family who loves, friends who adore, and none of them understand. I am not the person they love, no, I am the person they fear in distant nights. The hand of god holding the life of innocence, of illicit personal ending. My choice, to disbelieve, that my hands act with ignorant cruelty.

I sit with those I love and wonder, how many brethren no longer sit at a table I emptied? That as I, a human soul, cared for disregard so deeply that I acted, again and again, I acted. To take away that which was not mine. I was the fool played as both pawn and king, to which I gave away control.

I am asking for redemption, begging for a sweet mercy I never gave, trying to forget the moments of unsettled fear as I closed my eyes, and forced myself to hear screams that will never go away. Simply, I am not fit for duty.

http://www.trueloveofcoffee.com

So what else do you do?

I am twice the expert you are... LoL!

Okay... while the egotistical side of my personality would love to be two experts in one, I just noticed that my profile has two "expert" badges under my photo.

While I know I shouldn't complain that I have achieved some higher plateau... somehow I think it is just a technical error.

I'm now going to return to my Pinky and the Brain episodes so that I can figure out how to rule the world.

Biznik jobs? Looking for net savvy apprentice

I was wondering if there is any interest in having an area looking for jobs/employees/consultants/etc for Biznik?

Right now I am looking to bring on a paid intern and apprentice (10+ hours a week, working into full-time). Our team is growing and growing: I would like to find someone who has an high aptitude with the web and wants to learn search engine optimization, social media marketing (blogging, podcasting, vidcasting) and has a fast learning curve. The more web savvy the better.

I would consider an experienced person- but 99% of what we do will be taught to the right candidate which is the reason I am looking for an intern/apprentice.

In Westport CT, in a pool, in a snowstorm.

I'm in a swimming pool with my handheld computer, in a Connecticut snowstorm. I was doing a consulting job, but ten inches of snow closed the office. So we went out and had an awesome lunch and beer to laugh about our weather woe.

Need venues for larger group

I need to find a laid back venue in Seattle that has room for 30-50 people for a networking event.

Needs to have food services, prefer having a bar in the room or drink availability as well.

Also needs to be a single room, as part of the meeting includes a presentation from several of the members in the group.

Thought I would start a thread here, any information would probably be useful for the other Bizniks too. (If you prefer, you can contact me privately with info too!)

Social Media - Blogging, Vlogging, Podcasting, Social Networking

How do you network using social media? That is a question I receive over and over.

In January I'm starting a new site to cover more of the social media realm than blogging: which will cover vblogging, general techniques, business networking through social media, and provide homework information on various niche topics. It will also have an area with how to setup an online presence.

I've been watching various threads and conversations in the small business communities and wanted to inquire what people thought would be useful.

The point of the site will be to create weekly action items, and will include several live options for communication amongst staff and community members.

A guy who was perhaps the "Ultimate Indie"

My brother runs a site that covers motorcycle events and news in the Northwest called www.biker-events.com.

Even though I love motorcycles, many of his articles are not in my niche, but one struck me as I hadn’t heard the news Evel Knievel died last night at the age of 69.

This was a guy who, whether he was an entertainer or just an insance motorcycle rider, touched and inspired millions of people who sat in the audience and witnesses a man that redefined the limits every day of his life.

In all my efforts, I can only hope that in some strange way my life interacts and influences so many people. To have a talent to inspire the crowd, to leave them in awe, and to believe that something impossible really is possible.

As my brother says “Check out his website www.evelknievel.com and take a moment to send a thought to him and his family on this sad weekend.”

Community- Helping a family in need.

So Wednesday morning I was one of three guys who found a house in Marysville going up in flames. Having your morning cup of coffee interrupted by slamming your brakes on and calling 911 is a way to wake you up.

The good point, no one was home. No injuries.

The bad point. The home was gutted. Two adults and five kids (3 HS, 2 Younger) are left without a home for the holidays. They were renting and did not have renters insurance.

If anyone has the giving spirit this holiday season, here is a family who needs it.

http://www.king5.com/localnews/stories/NW112807WABmarysvillehousefireSW.49b0c160.html

I wanted to bring it up here on Biznik, as there is an exceptional community of people here with a lot of brainpower, talent, and resources who can help people in our area. If you would like to assist in some way, I'm more than happy to coordinate. Any ideas and comments are welcome.

Helping a family in need.

So Wednesday morning I was one of three guys who found a house in Marysville going up in flames. Having your morning cup of coffee interrupted by slamming your brakes on and calling 911 is a way to wake you up.

The good point, no one was home. No injuries.

The bad point. The home was gutted. Two adults and five kids (3 HS, 2 Younger) are left without a home for the holidays. They were renting and did not have renters insurance.

If anyone has the giving spirit this holiday season, here is a family who needs it.

http://www.king5.com/localnews/stories/NW_112807WAB_marysville_housefire_SW.49b0c160.html

I wanted to bring it up here on Biznik, as there is an exceptional community of people here with a lot of brainpower, talent, and resources who can help people in our area. If you would like to assist in some way, I'm more than happy to coordinate. Any ideas and comments are welcome.

King of the Hill competition...

Well not really one for Biznik, or is it?

I remember when I was a kid how I always tried to work my way to the top of the hill... even when there was a kid there three times my size. As an adult, for a short while, some of society's training kicked in and I stopped fighting to be king.

Then crap happened. Life, the Universe, and all that is eViL in life seemed to rain on my proverbial life parade (well not really everything, just the things that I cared about.)

Today I'm back to fighting for king of the hill, just like when I was a kid.

Anyone else ever get that feeling?

Coffee and Lunch Networking?

I have a personal mission to have lunch and coffee at least once a week with someone I've never met before. For the past three months I've averaged three such meetings a week.

For being a professional consultant in a niche field of online marketing, most of what I know transfers very well to people since I usually know how to communicate at different skill levels.

Admittedly, 80-90% of the members here on Biznik are not really in my client demographic. However 99.9% of the community does have a pretty significant benefit from understanding different aspects of what I know.

Sharing a meal or casual conversation is a good way for me to share some of that information and educate them into what services I can bring to an ideal business client. It also gives me a wonderful opportunity to make a new friend and find someone I can share some personal interests with in the future.

How many other Bizniks make it a point of networking on a constant basis? Do you find that selling yourself is hard, or have you found a way to share your own viewpoints with other people to leverage your communication?

In any case... hit me up for coffee or lunch. I'm generally bouncing around the north end of Seattle or moving around the Bellevue area.

Blogging, Podcasting, Videocasting, Social Media Marketing

I am currently working to launch a new social media 101 site to support a course of social media marketing and the steps needed to make a successful online presence. It is a personal/professional project that I've had in the works for some time now.

I will be having both an entry level 101 section and a more robust professional version for more savvy internet users.

I am looking for businesses of all types that are looking to develop more robust online plans who are willing to trade for services. Depending on the exact nature of the trade, a lot of the development will include some project reviews and benchmarks that will be included in my book.

This project site will work on the entire range of social media budgets, from smaller individuals to corporate users. The basic building blocks for an initial campaign are very similar, but can have a multiplied effect with a larger budget.

If you have a business that is interested in trading some service or product for involvement/consultation, please drop me a line and we can have coffee.

Social Media Sites 101

There was a LinkedIn thread that finally spurred me into "blasting out" a list of very basic Social Media sites for people here on Biznik to look at. Here is my five minutes of social media thought, please feel free to add and comment.

Tracking all of these social networking sites is a fairly painful task... last I checked I had over five hundred of them that had fairly well-developed communities. Once you start examining communities in the 100 to 1000 range, literally thousands and thousands of them.

For someone who wants to show up for when people search for a your actual name: Ideally you need to focus on high impact sites for name management: Biznik, Jobster, LinkedIn, Ziggs, and Meetup are all good.

Secondary sites for business that are more local are often the local newspapers (Seattle PI has blog accounts that show up pretty well). Industry specific ones exists: such as ActiveRain, RISMedia, RealTownBlogs for real estate. Avvo is a new upcoming one for lawyers. Yelp is good for local businesses (sometimes shows up in search).

Google has a free local listing any business can have (highly recommended). So does Yahoo. CitySearch has a variety of listings, Superpages.com and Yellowpages.com also has free listings (beware the follow-up sales call!)

FaceBook is good to have as a general development point. So is Myspace. Reserve your name today... before someone else does. Large community sites tend to have evolutions in the user community over time (Myspace and FaceBook have both had radical changes in 12 months... and you never know where they will go next)

Too many sites... my head will explode.

How Big is Your Dream?

I am wondering how many indie professionals here on Biznik are planning to make their dream "BIGGER" than themselves?

How many of you are looking at making your business 5, 10, 50, or 500 employees strong?

How many of you are trying to reach a point so that you can find investors in the Angel or Venture groups?

How many of you have an exit plan for selling the business in five years? do you have an exit plan at all?

Over the time I've been with Biznik, I have interacted with a wide variety of business owners who all have different plans and ideas for where they are going.

Where does your plan take you?

If you don't have a plan, what things are you looking for to help create one?

Open Social for Biznik?

Since I've received about fifteen phones calls on the new Open Social standard API that Google managed to establish with other sites like MySpace and LinkedIn.... is the Open Social going to find it's way into Biznik as a development set? I saw that there was a brief FaceBook thread where that widget was on the tentative drawing board, but on the bottom of the list.

I'm already working on widgets using the API for several other sites to work with my company's platform.

I'm throwing the gauntlet at USAToday.

I'm sitting at my computer watching one of my articles cause a stir in the world of news journalism and blogging. One of my clients (and a friend) was attacked by a major newspaper (USAToday) and I've been watching the aftermath for the past two weeks.

Over the weekend I wrote on how reputation can be affected by one poorly written article at a major news outlet. In this instance, the article was about a client at SocialMediaSystems that I took a personal interest in. I am a firm supporter of the under-dog.

Unlike many other forms of media, social media has an unlimited shelf-life and a very detailed distribution of readers... thousands of people were misled by one article and a series of biased viewpoints. To my knowledge, this is the first time anyone in the social media space has analyzed and tracked an article that has gone from traditional media (USAToday) to Social Media (Blogging, Commentary, Etc) back to Traditional Media (Inside Edition)

I am happy that I could detail the course of the article and it's impact. I believe the world of social media has the ability to create a better way of dealing with real journalism, and I invite you all to read the full article and participate below.

"Working diligently through the week, contributing reporter Greg Farrell from USAToday probably never realized that his actions would send an impact around the world. In a hurried rush of editorial confusion, Greg succumbed to the pressure of sending along a message that should have been double-checked. This however, is not your typical bomb. It is the one of the first social media bombs to explode. A social media crisis that spread around the world through major media syndicators, news outlets that didn’t check facts or investigate and disclose all of the information. READ MORE""

When is Indie, not indie?

So I've been pondering this question for a while. At what point does being an "indie" stop?

I've been adding a few crew members to my own company in the past few months, slowly and surely running the numbers up into three digits. I wonder at what point does the idea stop being "indie?"

I did my stint in corporate America and now I find that my small business is now tossing me onto the jet plane again and again zipping around the country with a team of six people to man a conference booth.

Is there a magical metamorphosis period?

Biznik competition thread....

Okay... so we need some good competitions for Biznik growth.

Since I have only seen one or two others, this one will be:

How far have you traveled to attend a Biznik event?

Last night, I came from Denver Colorado to attend an Everret Biznik event and while I was feverishly blitzing my way through a four hour plane delay.

Unfortunately I didn't make it until 8:30 and everyone had left... but I gave an effort. I don't know if it counts as longest distance for a Biznik event, since I had to come home anyways. ;)

Blogging Class?

I've been requested to hold a Social Media 101 class to help get individuals "up to speed" on blogging, syndication, linking, social communication, podcasting, vcasting, seo work, graphics, online communities, viral marketing, and learning to be "at ease" with your virtual self.

I am starting a thread here to see here interests and start a "top ten" questions thread that I'll address at the class. I can find space for groups as small as 5 and as large as 100.

I will look to do the class in the 2nd or 3rd week of August, and would come up with a work for 2 hours or so of brain-stretching.

Anyone who is interested... please post a comment here with a list of questions you have or e-mail me directly. Don't be afraid to ask very basic questions, as I'll be creating the curriculum for the audience who signs up. For those of you who have asked at a Biznik happy hour, please comment here again so that I can include you in the planning.