Danny's Biz Talk posts

WANTED: Someone to Design Fillable PDFs

This is one of those projects that is too small to hire somebody given the market value of these services, so I thought I wold post here.

I am looking for someone who is available for 3-5 hours over the next few months to do work on fillable PDFs that I value at $15-20 per hour. Wondering if anybody knew a good candidate (high school or college student perhaps)?

Specifics: when I need information from clients for certain specific tasks (trademark search, copyright filing, business formation), I have them fill out fillable PDFs that are usually 2-5 pages -- this streamlines my communication with clients on routine information gathering tasks.

I have created and am using three of these already. I am thinking about adding a couple forms, and on at least one of them, I need to add a question or two (i.e. there will be small ongoing maintenance).

This project requires someone who has access to Adobe Acrobat or is willing to come to my office to use my copy. If this person has a decent sense of design and might suggest improvements to my forms, that would be valuable too.

Any suggestions?

Will this make a difference in my website? A question to web-savvy promoters...

I have a random question I want to ask the community.

I have written a number of articles related to legal topics, and many are on my website. If I may eschew humility, people seem to enjoy them, and I would like a wider audience. When I created the html for these pages, I named them awkwardly, and am wondering if more intuitive naming would make them more likely to come up in google searches. If so, what works?

For example, I have a simple article that explains the difference between a trade name and a trademark.

I named it article_tradename.html. Which of the following (if any) is likely to help it catch fire on google, since a lot of people want to know the difference...

TrademarksVersusTradeNames.html

trademarksversustradenames.html

trademarks-versus-tradenames.html

Does anybody know if naming conventions matter here?

You can't afford not to!

I wanted to alert you all to a great class on Thursday with a few spots open.

The class is intro to patent law. It would be a tragedy if this didn't fill up, in my opinion, because this will be one of the most valuable Biznik events yet. Hundreds of thousands of dollars can swing in the balance of getting the right patent. Patents are one of the few things that level the playing field between small and larger businesses, and Jim Ruttler is really good at simplifying this area of law to help entrepreneurs and businesses think more strategically about what and whether to patent.

Please consider it; I will also be there.

Danny Bronski

PS You may have seen a different version of this message yesterday, but it was swallowed up by the hardware failure.

Dental Insurance in Seattle?

Since many on this group are self-employed...

does anybody have a suggestion for solo dental insurance plans(in Seattle)? I have at least a couple of crowns I need taken care of and was wondering if I can shave a significant amount off the app. $1,000 per by getting insurance.

What is a Biznik...from a tagline perspective?

Is it...

a) Radical self promotion b) An urban tribe c) A business networking group that doesn't suck d) A supportive business network that encourages creativity, radical thinking, and community.

Some of you might be saying all of these things, but when you try to be everything to everybody, you end up nothing to anybody.

As a trademark attorney with a routinely vested interest in the marketing/branding efforts of small businesses, one of the principles that I operate by is "tell people what you do". Especially if your name is "suggestive", as Biznik is ... which is preferable for a trademark (http://veritrademark.com/article_fivetrademarkcategories.html) , any supporting marketing should be "descriptive", so people know immediately what they are getting into when Biznik hits their radar screen.

So what is Biznik? In my opinion, Biznik is a networking group that seeks to build community amongst independent businesses run by progressive people.

Even though we aren't corporate, and we aren't stodgy, and most of us don't like George Bush, let's leave that implicit, and let's leave room for an open interpretation of "progressive". So I say ditch the "urban tribe" and other pithy sayings and cliches...

Since Biznik is also in it's infancy and struggling with identity, I would love other peoples' ideas on how to improve upon my conception of Biznik.

Ideas?