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I come at this issue differently as a trademark attorney. Sometimes filing for a trademark can be a decent short term publicity stunt to keep your name in the lights but have little economic impact in the long run. The reason for both of these stems from the public's misunderstanding of trademarks and trademark law. The public tends to associate trademark law with "ownership" (usually with a particular phrase), and it presumes economic value from this ownership, but trademark law mostly just protects brands from competing brands that want to siphon goodwill. So registering a trademark does not create value unless there is already value in the goods or services. Is there reason to believe Octomom is going to be any good at manufacturing and distributing diapers, for example? I find it hard to believe that Proctor & Gamble executives are turning in their sleep fearing that the public (which is almost universally horrified with Ocotomom, by the way) is going to buy Octomom branded diapers over Pampers!

Too much texture can be just as damning as not enough. Sometimes we need "freedom from choice"

Here we need a system that: 1) stops rewarding freeloaders at the expense of members 2) doesn't stop rewarding good content 3) encourages broader participation from members (as opposed to freeloaders) 4) uses a few but not too many ways (three is ideal, eight is way too many) to allow people to sift through the content simply so that people will actually read more articles and benefit more from the wealth of perspectives * 5) doesn't punish unorthodox good content

I may be missing something, but if this comment was too long, just remember the "freedom from choice" part

Wow, there have been so many great points on this important topic, it's tough to add anything original, but I do want to make the following general points:

• 1) I think the benefits of Biznik's articles features (SEO and other exposure) should skew heavily to reward good content from certain members (namely, those who invest in Biznik through paid membership and who also invest in the community that makes up Biznik). There is no reason a random person should be permitted to get a PR windfall just by signing up for Biznik as a non-paid member and submitting an article while not contributing anything else to the community; that totally undermines the idea of community and that turns Biznik into nothing more but another garbage dump for content that already litters the landscape of the internet.
• 2) Barry is absolutely right - online ratings suck by nature, and will always be imperfect and subject to manipulation.
• 3) Karrie's point of adding texture to the rating system is absolutely critical to improving it, in my opinion

• 4) Negative feedback should be limited to the comments. People abuse the ability to provide negative feedback, especially when there are no checks in place (transparency, earning the right, etc.).
  

• Something to explore is to make transparent positive feedback from your network, i.e. person X, who is in my network and who I greatly respect, rated article A positively as fun and article B positively as useful, and thus I will be more likely to check out article A when I am the mood for fun, light reading and article B if I want to learn about something more in depth.

Anyway, I have probably benefited from the "popularity bias" mentioned above, as my articles are very highly rated, but regardless I still can't wait to do away with the numerical rating system. Any system that will make Biznik a stronger community gets me very excited.

To numerical ratings, I say...off with it's head!

I hate to use the term touches -- it's dehumanizing. Applying Karrie's (brilliant and elegant, as usual) framework to my own experience as a lawyer, I find it's dead on:

1) one authentic conversation with the right prospect usually results in a new client

2) when I spend time with someone and don't end up working with them, it's usually because they weren't a good prospect in the first place (but over time I've gotten much better at prequalifying before spending time)

3) I almost never lose a good prospect...and historically just about every instance I lost business that I might have wanted occurred as a result of failing to follow up quickly enough (and this problem is legion with lawyers, not that it is an excuse!)

By the way, I don't believe that marketing restrictions are an impediment to building my practice at all.

Not to be contrarian (actually, i love being contrarian), but "authors" are more admired than "salespeople" because creativity applied artistically (as is ascribed to certain authors) has social cachet while most people would abstractly categorize a "salesperson" as having chosen a profession that focuses on making money at the expense of anything with social value.

Is "sales" really such a crass profession? Well, on the one hand...sales skills are critical to the success of almost anything in life (whether it be dating, the practice of law, professional writing, etc.) but characterizing someone as a "salesperson" may not imply good sales skills, but rather the absence of non-sales skills.

Anyway, I am just rambling.

I liked your incorporation of the pennywise concept. A good business attorney can make really subtle and seemingly simple changes to your approach to a business problem that can occasionally be worth 100x or more what they cost to make.

Almost every business problem is in part a legal problem. Furthermore, almost all legal disputes in business spring from imprecision and ambiguity, two things that a great business attorney will help you reduce dramatically!

LM, you sure have tough standards! As someone who spends a good chunk of my professional life resolving expensive disputes borne of poor naming choices (I am a trademark attorney), I believe that most small businesses really need to brush up on naming 101, and I thought Laura's article was full of useful information, including some subtle points surely well beyond the "marketing 101" stage.

If you believe that this is in any way "common sense", it' much more common for businesses to businesses to hit one of the pitfalls mentioned above than to avoid them.

I enjoyed the article, but I'm not quite sure what a sliding scale is in this context? Is it charging different rates for the same work or is it basically allowing the client to pay what he or she thinks the service is worth?

To the former, I say adopt the following philosophy when clients whine for a discount -- just tell them that to do this is basically stealing from your other (read:good) clients.

To the latter, I say -- sophisticated clients actually tend to overpay if you give them an option of paying you what they think you are worth. This is a complex topic, but shifting risk from a client to you should (i.e. if you execute it right) be profitable for a service provider.

Excellent article...I like the way you think.

Well, since you can always delete somebody from your network later, I like Keith's idea. It's an annoying extra step to have to invite someone and then add them to your network.

Sorry folks, as pleasant as it is to note that we have at least one admirer, sometimes attorneys just need to talk to other attorneys.

As a trademark attorney, I can only whet your appetite by saying...if you are Bizi Bee, you are Busy Bee. The most common test a court would use is likelihood of confusion, which is a term of art only as meaningful as the nuances of case law, best understood by an attorney who actually pays attention to this...

I loved these three "graceful exit" templates. I am printing this out prior to my next networking event. ..lol It's so hard to be graceful in such a socially awkward situation -- I end up stuck in conversations for much longer than I want more often than not. I will admit -- when I witness someone exiting a conversation in a less than graceful manner, I hold it against him or her. And of course, so much is in the delivery

Karrie, like Aretha, knows that peeps will remember your message a lot more easily if you entertain them. Next time somebody tries to persuade me of something using corporate jargon, I think I'll just belt out "Who's zoomin' who?"

This succinctly written article contains very practical advice for small businesses. PR builds brands and advertising merely maintains them (this is a bastardization of a truism from marketing genius Al Ries), so basically PR is much more important for new businesses than advertising, but few small businesses think this way.

Entertaining and provocative -- what else would you expect from Chris Haddad?

I'm trying my hardest to eliminate all hourly work from my business. I believe that the dishonesty and inefficency it encourages is one of the main reasons people hate lawyers.

Your issue is really a trademark issue ("licensing" a trade name does not give you an trademark rights)

Here are a couple of articles that you might find useful:

The difference between a trade name and trademark: http://veritrademark.com/tradenames-versus-trademarks.html

How to think about trademarks for your small business: http://veritrademark.com/sensible-approach-to-trademark-protection.html

Good luck! Danny Bronski, VeriTrademark

Thanks to Biznik, you no longer have to be the "efficient and effective" sanitized corporate version of yourself to be successful. I hate that guy.

I was always a fan of making people make some sort of commitment to be a member (even if it as simple as making them add a picture). That would mitigate the problem of non-really-members.

Thomas Paine "That which we obtain to easily, we esteem too lightly"...or something like that.

To me, the best testimonials (and the only ones I care about) are dynamic, i.e. the person continues to talk about my services, in a very specific manner.

To your point, Annie (and merely a subtle addition to what's been said so far), the service provider will likely appreciate honest and specific feedback, even if it's negative. Even if they don't, you'll probably feel better after articulating your displeasure. So tell them how you feel.

You can't go wrong with HighRise for contact management (by 37Signals, who also has the best project management web-based software I've seen called BaseCamp)

www.BaseCampHQ.com

It's web-based and based on a subscription model (nominal monthly fee and totally worth it).

I too really like the name Sandbox Suites. There are so many positive and distinct branding connotations for a concept like sandbox, and there are only 30 live registered trademarks that use it (which is a lot fewer than I expected). Yes...I just checked. I'm a trademark nerd.

Also, the idea for shared space for indies is ripe with possibility. Social isolation is perhaps the biggest drawback for choosing the indie professional lifestyle.

Anyway, welcome to Biznik (which if named Bizfire probably wouldn't be such a smashing success today).

Great thoughts, Linda!

I have a couple of things to add:

1) trademarks are jurisdictional, so the law in Sydney is different from the law in the US, and a trademark that functions in both place would have to be protected in both places (and is often subject to different rules and formalities)

2) i have written a pretty good article on when to consider protecting a logo: http://veritrademark.com/article_trademarklogo.html

3) i've written another article that explains the difference between a trade name and a trademark, and explains that while it is simple to get a trade name, it doesn't protect you when you use it as a source identifier of your goods and services: http://veritrademark.com/article_tradename.html

The takeaway (that I always appreciate someone else making!) is that protecting your intellectual property properly (both doing it and timing it right) can add a lot of economic value to your company - value that can be tangibly measured in real $$$ terms. Sometimes the difference is as dramatic as Linda points out. Intellectual property is perhaps the greatest equalizer between smaller and larger businesses.

I just signed up for this event and see that there are a few spots left. 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. Jim is really good at simplifying this area of law to help entrepreneurs and businesses think more strategically about what and whether to patent.

With about a decade of experience in business advisory roles, and having reviewed tons of business plans, I have come to the conclusion that most of them are worthless exercises. Most people approach this task like homework in high school, emphasizing form over function, in this case with the obligatory pie-in-the-sky market assessments and hockey stick revenue projections.

I am actually not a big fan of the written business plan, especially for small businesses, because misexecution often betrays the benefit. The important thing is to be continually thinking strategically about the market you are competing in and your place in it. Are you competing in a market (whether goods or services) that people are willing to pay for? What is your unique niche? How are you adding value over what already exists in this market? This is a dynamic process (because the market is constantly adapting) so the worst thing you can do is "finish your homework" and forget about it.

My "business plan" as a lawyer basically consists of three principles. First, focus on a narrow niche (that I enjoy) and get really good at it. Second, continually assess the shortcomings in the market for my particular brand of services (for instance...what people hate about lawyers, which I learn by discussing the myriad horrible experiences people have had with them) and avoid falling into those traps. With those two under control, I now know that I have a business...I can add more value than most or all of my competition, so the next step is figuring out who I want to grant the "pleasure" of benefitting from this value. I don't want to be all things to all people. I don't want to work with just anyone who walks in the door. I identify my profitable and pleasurable clients and try to get more work from them; I also actively pursue similar businesses to these existing successful relationships, with the emphasis always overtly on "relationship building".

So my advice is...don't feel the need to complete some sort of lengthy exercise. What's important is the "process", which should be continual. There are only a few truly important factors that will determine whether you succeed or fail and you should always be reassessing them.

-- Danny Bronski