Member since: May 21, 2005
Last activity: 14 hours ago
Head's up Biznik: here's the names of the entrepreneurs who we'll hear from in the first official SHINE trailer, which we'll be releasing tonight at midnight at http://biznik.com/shine/trailers:
John Trivedi
Edward Hlavacek
Bethany Mooradian
Tiffany Nash
Ruth Hartmann
Ksenia Oustiougova
David Muller
Josh Johnson
Mike Whitmore
Houston White
I'd like to send a shout out to all the awesome people in this community who are throwing their support into raising the $50,000 we need to complete Shine.
Today, film co-director Ben Medina is cutting the first official trailer, which will include a taste of some of the stories that will appear in the film. I'll be posting that on the film page late this evening at http://biznik.com/shine, where I invite you to visit to learn about three great incentives we've created to get you involved in supporting this important and timely film.
Ben and I are flying to Cleveland next week to interview Scott Shane, a professor of entrepreneurial studies at Case Western Reserve University, who is the foremost expert on the real numbers about entrepreneurship. He'll be adding an authoritative voice to the film with answer to questions like: what are the odds of success or failure that entrepreneurs face? How much money does average entrepreneur make? Why do most people start businesses? What is the economic contribution of entrepreneurs to the economy?
Everyone who has contributed $40 or more will get their photo in the banner on the Biznik homepage, and a very cool, animated version of that banner will become the title frame of the film.
Here's my A-list - thank you! Add your name.
Alana Nelson
Amy C. Darling, LAc
Andrew Lippert
Bethany Mooradian
Bob Strong
Bob Dunn
Clem Head
Danny Bronski
Dennis Dilday
Diane Head
Elizabeth Van Moppes
Gretchen Krampf
Hazel Grace Dircksen
Jacob Sayles
Jen Duchene
Jim Dickeson
John Trivedi
Joy Stephens
Judy Dunn
Kelli Standish
Kristine Proctor
Ksenia Oustiougova
Laila Atallah
Leif Hansen
Libby Higgins
Lori Richardson
Lynn Colwell
Margaret Ryan
mary ann dujardin
Michael Carpenter
Paul Kyriazi
Randy Lind
Ruth Hartmann
Shane McSimov
Sherri Schultz
Susan Rolfe
Susan Evans
Tammy Redmon
Toya Turner
Tresa Leftenant
Tyler Dow
Biznik is thrilled to announce a new series of lectures by noteworthy authors, which we're doing in partnership with Seattle literary guru (and Biznik member) Kim Ricketts.
I'd like to throw out the names we're considering for September to take the community pulse on which events YOU would be most likely to attend. Here's what we're considering for September. Please rank this list in order of which lecture you'd be MOST likely to attend, from top to bottom (bottom is least likely you'd attend). Post your list in the comments below. Thanks for your help!
M.J. Ryan and Adaptability: How to Survive Change You Didn’t Ask For Layoffs and restructuring, foreclosures, bankruptcy: wherever you look these days something is changing. So how can we adapt quickly to these tidal waves of transformation? Accept, adapt, expand and ac —executive coach, entrepreneur, and columnist Ryan will show us how.
Chris Brogan and Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputations and Earn Trust Brogan is one of the leaders on social networking today—and here shows how to tap into social networks to build your brand’s influence, reputation and profits. This book combines high level theory with real life examples of what to do/what not to do in the ever changing social media universe.
David Kord Murray and Borrowing Brilliance: The Six Steps to Business Innovation Former aerospace engineer, Fortune 500 Exec, inventor and software entrepreneur Murray reveals good news: creativity isn’t the gift of a few, but an attainable goal for all. Here he redefines the creative process and lets us in on a secret: there is no such thing as a truly original idea. Ideas are born out of other ideas, and here he outlines his own successful six-step creative process. And along the way he gives examples of “borrowed brilliance” from Facebook to Coco Chanel to Steve Jobs and George Lucas.
Susan Scott and Fierce Leadership: A Bold Alternative to the Worst “Best” Practices of Business Today Susan is a bestselling author and leadership coach, recently awarded the Stevie Award for Entrepreneur of the Year, 2008. Her first book, Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and Life, One Conversation at a Time is an international bestseller and considered a classic in the field. The goal of this new book is to question the “best practices” of businesses working today—many of them are ineffective, and cost companies billions of dollars. Susan encourages us her readers to replace them with new practices that will change everything. In a phase: “Human connectivity is the next frontier for exponential growth.”
Warren Berger and Glimmer: How Design Can Transform Business, Everyday Life and Even the World Design has moved far beyond million dollar interiors and cool new typefaces: today it is about optimism, action and unlimited possibilities. Here, we outline ten principles of design and shown in action-collected from the world’s top designers in many fields. Principles that guide good design include: Ask stupid questions, make hope visible, work the metaphor, embrace constraints and “begin anywhere”. Berger is an award winning journalist and the current editor of national magazine ONE; and is the author of Advertising Today and co author of No Opportunity Wasted and Nextville.
OK everyone, here's your chance to weigh in on an important issue: how Biznik can continue to grow and generate revenue in a way that works for everyone. We tried an advertising experiment more than a year ago that taught us an important lesson: advertising doesn’t work on social networks. At least not on this one (MySpace, which just laid off 400 people, is another luminous example).
We’ve been thinking about this, and have decided that on articles, many of you may be interested in further exploring the topics of articles that get your attention. So yesterday we deployed an experiment - we’ve added a list of books that are relevant to the topics covered in the articles. These link you to Amazon, and if you purchase the book, Biznik collects a 4-6 percent commission.
We don’t want to clutter up the interface unnecessarily, especially for something that simply doesn’t work. So we’ll be listening to your feedback, as well as watching closely to see whether members like you are actually following the links and completing purchases, which of course, is the only way it will be worthwhile to us to continue. Check out an article or two and let me know what you think. Intrusive? Helpful? Relevant?
Share it with the rest of us, of course! Here's how:
Download your SHINE video clip from your Biznik profile. If you participated in SHINE, you'll find your clip waiting for you to download on your profile page. You must be logged in to your profile to see the link to download. NOTE: Make sure you download it before July 31, as we'll be removing the download link at that time. To download: Mac users can CTRL-Click on the link, and you'll be prompted to save the file to your system. Windows users can right-click on the file to do same.
Be patient - it's a big file, which can take a long time to download. Once you've got the file, it's time to publish it to one of the video sharing sites that Biznik supports. If you don't have a preference, I'd suggest using YouTube - it's the most popular service. Here's specific instructions for each:
How to publish your video on YouTube.
How to publish your video on Viddler.
How to publish your video on Vimeo.
How to publish your video on Facebook.
How to publish your video on Blip.tv.
Once your file is successfully uploaded to one of the above services, it's time to spread the word. Here's how:
Post a comment on Biznik's Facebook fan page that your video is available, with a link to your video. That'll alert me, and I'll post it so that all the other fans (which number about 1,800 now) will have a chance to see your video.
Post it to your Biznik page (if you are an Active or Supporting member). To do that, click the "share" link on your video's page, and copy the resulting embed code. Then, open your profile on Biznik, and select the service you're using from the popup menu. Paste the code into the field, and save. Your video will appear on your Biznik profile.
Common problems:
I've had a few people complain that the file is corrupted after downloading (an error message appears when you try to play it, or the sound is missing). If that happens, delete the file, and try downloading again. It's likely that it was someone corrupted in the download, so re-downloading will fix that. Repeat until you get a good copy of the file.
File takes forever to download - this means you have a slow internet connection. Because the file is huge, you'll need to either start the download when you go to bed, OR go to a coffee shop that has a high-speed connection to retrieve the file.
If you're still having problems, drop me a note and I'll be happy to help.
Finally, if you'd like to take your video to the next level, have a chat with one of the awesomely talented and truly helpful videographers who volunteered their time to create the clip for you in the first place. Here's a list:
As many of you already know, we began posting your SHINE video clips on Friday. If you participated in SHINE, your clip is likely waiting for you near the top center column of your Biznik profile. If yours isn't there, it's because we're still working on it - and we're planning to have it posted by the end of the day today.
If you DO have your SHINE clip, share it with the rest of us! You can do that on Facebook's fan page, where I'm posting each and every one of the member clips as fast as I know about it. So, be sure to visit the fan page and post a link to your clip as soon as you've got it posted.
A question I've been asking in many Shine followup interviews is: Do you have any heros? I'd like to ask a variant of that here - to hear your answer - to this question:
What entrepreneur most inspires you?
I'll start by giving you my answer: Steve Jobs. Predictable answer? Maybe. Steve Jobs is, after all, among one of the most recognizable icons of tech entrepreneurship today (along with Bill Gates).
But Steve Jobs inspires me for the following reasons:
Some things that DON'T inspire me about Jobs:
Who inspires YOU, and why?
Can't attend SHINE on May 6? You can still participate! Grab your camcorder and grab a friend, and tell us your story. Better yet, set up a Biznik event in your area and team up with a videographer who can bring a good camera, and tell your story. Then, post your story to the SHINE YouTube group:
http://www.youtube.com/group/shinestories
Rate your favorites from among the other stories that have been submitted. The top-rated and most-viewed stories will have a shot at being included in SHINE: A Big Film About Small Business.
I got an email from a former client of mine the other day, a woman who works at a large organization who is responsible for hiring web designers and developers to work on their projects. She had a project she was trying to find a developer for, and she had contacted several Biznik members via their profiles, with requests for information about their services. Unfortunately none of the members had bothered to respond to her. Here's what she wrote me:
"It's my first choice to work with one of the many fine folks I read about on Biznik. As a staff member at a big bureaucracy I am actively seeking a compatible contractor virtually. So it's confusing when I don't get a response. It makes me feel that Biznik is just a social networking site...a place to make friends. And I wind up with an agency--exactly what I was trying to avoid--because they return interest quickly...."
Maybe all the web developers she contacted were just so busy they simply didn't need the work. Or maybe they (mistakenly) decided she wasn't a "serious" client and simply ignored her. What a shame.
You've no doubt noticed more video on the Biznik site in recent days, and you're about to see a LOT more. We're working with filmmaker Ben Medina to produce a whole series called "I'm a Biznik" in which we interview members and post the videos on the home page of Biznik.
Watch for the first video to appear on the home page later this evening. If you can't wait that long, you can get a first-look here: http://www.vimeo.com/4035535
The first Mac I ever owned myself was an Apple Power Macintosh 7200 (which I bought shortly after they were released in April, 1996).
However, my love affair with Macs began much earlier, when I was in college at the University of Montana School of Journalism. We had a lab that was filled with the original Macs, which were already getting fairly old by the time I was using them in the early 90s (I graduated in 1993).
Within nearly 140 groups and counting, it's time to begin collecting tips and tricks for successfully growing a Biznik group. What's your favorite tip?
Until now, we've simply displayed the group with the most recent activity at the top of the list. That's been problematic, because as soon as someone posts anything, it skips their group to the top, or as soon as someone joins, they skip to top, etc.
We've been thinking about how best to display groups on the group home page. Our goal is to show the most active groups. So we've deployed a way to display them that weighs how active they are similar to how members are sorted, which each different type of activity being assigned a weight. The result is what you see on the groups home page now - the most active group at the top.
I attended Shop 09 yesterday and was fortunate to hear Hazel Grace speak about how to get the most from Facebook for business. I've sometimes wondered whether there was a compelling business use for Facebook. But after hearing her speak, it's a no-brainer: not only should YOU be using Facebook, but Biznik should be, too.
In fact, we're planning to add a new feature on Biznik that will allow you to share what you're doing on Biznik with your Facebook friends. For example, if you RSVP for an event, you can have that appear on your Facebook feed. If you create a group on Biznik, that could also appear on Facebook. It'll be a huge win-win-win: you win because it draws wider attention to what you're doing, Biznik wins because it helps spread the word about the amazing business people here and what they're doing, and Facebook wins because we help drive additional attention to their users and make their service more valuable with more quality content.
And that's what I call successful networking.
For a long time, I've felt somewhat alone in my opinion that advertising on the internet is a horrible business model for most websites. We even experimented with advertising for a month last April, and it was a horrible failure: members all but ignored the ads we ran in partnership with Intuit (the "most admired software company in America" according to Forbes). A survey we conducted before and after the experiment showed Intuit actually lost a smidgen of credibility with this community as a result. That settled it for us - no more advertising on Biznik, and we've instead focused on supporting this community via a subscription model (which I'm happy to report IS working).
Today on Techcrunch, Wharton professor Eric Clemons has published an extraordinary article, Why Advertising Is Failing On The Internet.
"Pushing a message at a potential customer when it has not been requested and when the consumer is in the midst of something else on the net, will fail as a major revenue source for most internet sites," he says.
His premise: "the internet is not replacing advertising but shattering it, and all the king’s horses, all the king’s men, and all the creative talent of Madison Avenue cannot put it together again."
What do you think? What are viable alternatives to advertising?
I interviewed Dominic for a couple hours this morning with my trusty flipcam ... will be editing that tomorrow and will post a link in the comments to the video on YouTube when it's up.
Oh and quick question: how many of you would like to be able to embed YouTube into your groups?
Seth Godin blogged about The Blue Sweater, so I grabbed a copy. It's perhaps not what you'd expect to read about in a book club about entrepreneurship 2.0 - it's about how an entrepreneurial approach can help solve inequality and poverty. To my way of thinking, that's why I'm an entrepreneur - to solve pain with innovations that disrupt the status quo and make the world a better place. Wouldn't it be cool if more 2.0 entrepreneurs talked about that more than the latest cool technology tool that lets us twitter about ourselves and how great we are?
Hi Debbie, I'm guessing you'd probably like a tool that allows you to provide a direct link to http://www.ishopsnohomish.com on this group, yes? Kind of like the associations you already have on your profile? Let me know if that would be useful on your group, and we can add it.
You've probably noticed that, when a discussion contains too many replies to fit on one page, you can't get to the second page by clicking on the "next" or "2" link.
We're aware of the problem and will have it fixed as soon as possible.
I find myself wanting to start new topics from the group home page, rather than having to go hunting for it under the Discussions tab. Just me? Anyone else?
Another thing: I'm having a hell of a time keeping track of what's new since I last visited a group. The latest comments are buried under each of the respective topics. Seems like there should be a way to show new comments since you last logged in? I'm finding that newness is what I'm coming back for in the groups, so I want a way to see what's new at a glance of the group home page.
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