AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Why I Disagree with Chris Brogan on the 100 Comments Project STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 06/23/2007 08:04:01 AM ----- BODY: From "this post at chrisbrogan.com":http://grasshopperfactory.com/cbc/100-comments-mojo-for-video/ bq. 100 Comments Project- Someone starts a post, we fill up 100 meaningful comments. End result: an e-book on a topic. OK I am going to weigh in on this 100 comments thing. I think the law of declining returns definitely is in play on this. I actually think it is very difficult to (one) take the time to read through all the previous comments and have something thoughtful to add and (two) expect that people won't do a variation of "me too" just so they be part of the party. It builds more of a bully pulpit and "comments for comments sake" rather than in-depth, meaningful conversation. Or enough documentation to justify an e-book. Though I really like the idea of an e-book built on collaboration from many authors. I just don't think a blog post with comments is the ideal mechanism for creating it.
100 Comments is like a huge cocktail party. I'd rather have dinner with eight new friends.

I'd also rather spread the love and the conversation by encouraging people to go find a new voice they haven't /heard/watched before, and leave them a thoughtful comment! You can find these bright minds by reading the comments on the A-list blogs. Here are a few that I read (in addition to the above-mentioned Mr. Brogan) that get a lot of comments, many of them thoughtful. It's a great place to go mining for the bright, unsung voices of the internet: http://www.scobleizer.com - Robert Scoble for geeks and tech http://bloombergmarketing.blogs.com/ - Toby Bloomberg on marketing http://blog.guykawasaki.com/ - Guy Kawasaki on startups and business in general http://headrush.typepad.com/ - Kathy Sierra creating passionate users Then, go one step further if you like and add them to your "Twitter":http://www.twitter.com/roxannedarling friends and/or add a link to them in one of your blog posts. I did that earlier today for "Bryan Person":http://www.bryper.com, an active member of the Boston new media community and with "Rupert Howe":http://twittervlog.blogspot.com/ who I met online through videoblogging. h3. Rox's Summer Project #1: Share the Link Love Go out and spread the link love: * The love of giving your attention to someone new; * The love of talking directly to them; * The super love of telling someone else about them! What do you think? Leave a short comment here - "me too's" are perfect in this situation I think! I'd love to know your opinion and, I want you to spend your quality time connecting with others. No need to craft anything special here. For anyone new here, I love Chris Brogan and he loves me. We just have a different approach on this one! roxanne's signature , , , , , , , , , ,

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jim Long URL: http://www.vergenewmedia.com DATE: 06/23/2007 09:24:03 AM Chris always raises thought-provoking questions. And he really has the leadership skills to rally people to his blog. Rox, you raise an interesting point here, and it takes a bit of courage and integrity to tell a friend.. "hang on here" and express dissent. Kudos to you! Having said that, I played along anyway wink ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Chris Brogan... URL: http://chrisbrogan.com DATE: 06/23/2007 09:26:23 AM It's a good point. And I'm not sure where it will lead. I wanted to try the concept and see what came from it. Could comments form enough meat to make a useful e-book. Beats me. Not from what I've seen so far. But instead, what I've discovered is that the thoughts and opinions of people in the comment space have led me to find new bloggers I wasn't reading before. Some of them do video or new media, and some of them are text-based bloggers whose stuff I wasn't into just yet. So maybe it's more a cocktail and apps party than a dinner. BTW, I'd love to come to your dinner party some time. : ) Thanks for your insights. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Roxanne Darling URL: http://www.barefeetstudios.com DATE: 06/23/2007 09:49:45 AM Thanks for your comments Jim and Chris. Yes - Chris does (you do!) have great, thought-provoking questions. And I think it's partly bc I am a "Z-list" blogger that i see things from this perspective. The fact Chris that you've already found some new voices? Very cool. But maybe in this case bigger isn't better. Maybe a little tweak: see if you can get 100 people to go out and find at least one new voice. It's a way to merge your reach with my idea of discovery and intimacy. I'll leave this idea on your site too. Aloha, Rox ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Chris Brogan... URL: http://chrisbrogan.com DATE: 06/23/2007 11:19:51 AM Discovery and intimacy is certainly a much better goal. Finding more voices and building relationships with them. Perhaps that will be project 2 or 3 in the summer series. Perhaps that will be yours to lead, and I'll just direct others here to pick up the starting point. : ) --Chris… ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ann URL: http://twitteringontheedge.blogspot.com/ DATE: 06/23/2007 11:36:20 AM BT--Before Twitter, I had no clue what was new media or old media. I have since learned a lot from a variety of Twitter pals. I love the debate and thought provoking posts from both you and Chris. Usually I sit on the sidelines and sort of take it all in, not usually posting a comment. From my start at Twitter I have always felt it was a cocktail party and I enjoy moving from group to group of people. I definitely have an intersting list of friends--but there are a few that really make me think. Chris Brogan is one of those people and so are you Roxanne. This definitely blows the whole "Twitter is for kids" idea out the window. Off to read four new blogs and keep the wheels turning. Ann P.S. You really are making me regret that I wasn't able to connect when I was in Hawaii...next trip for sure. :o) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Toby URL: http://www.divamarketingblog.com DATE: 06/23/2007 06:35:18 PM Roxanne - thanks for your kind words. Chris' 100 comments is an interesting concept; seems like a sort of meme and one is likely to find a new idea or a new person to read. However, I'm not sure about the purpose. Is it to write a series of ebooks? Is it to discover new bloggers? It is to drive traffic? What feels uncomfortable to me is this game seems rather limiting. IF the goal is to discover new blogs or drive traffic. Unlike traditional memes that move quickly from blog-to-blog, this stays within the same blog until 100 comments are reached. Then someONE is tagged and the process begins again. I wonder how many people will have the opportunity to become a "host" of 100 comments? How is that determined? Where do bloggers with limited readerships fit in? If it's to build a body of knowledge on specific topics 100 comments makes more sense, especially if as John Moore did with his Starbucks question, the ebook mentions the blogger and links back to her (or his) site. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Chris Brogan... URL: http://chrisbrogan.com DATE: 06/24/2007 01:27:36 AM Toby- good point. It certainly doesn't travel virally or too fast. Maybe that's a downfall of the project. The idea originally was to see if we could concoct ebooks from comments. Why? No reason. I'm just trying new things to see if they work. Have you tried something like it? Not me. So I have no measure of success or failure on it. Blog tag, which Jeff Pulver moved forward a lot several months ago, moves things at the pace you recommend. This wasn't intended for that. Side effect of the 100 comments would be that it shows us new blogs to check and learn about. Thanks for your thoughts. --Chris… ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: June 26: The day the web goes silent STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 06/23/2007 07:28:01 AM ----- BODY: SaveNetRadio.orgI am quoting in this post directly from the "Save Internet Radio":http://www.savenetradio.org/ web site. "On March 2, 2007 the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB), which oversees sound recording royalties paid by Internet radio services, *increased Internet radio's royalty burden between 300 and 1200 percent* and thereby jeopardized the industry's future. At the request of the Recording Industry Association of America, the CRB ignored the fact that *Internet radio royalties were already double what satellite radio pays*, and multiplied the royalties even further. The 2005 royalty rate was 7/100 of a penny per song streamed; the 2010 rate will be 19/100 of a penny per song streamed. And for small webcasters that were able to calculate royalties as a percentage of revenue in 2005 – that option was quashed by the CRB, so small webcasters' royalties will grow exponentially!"
The internet is here to stay. People are speaking and listening to each other, _as well as_ to your mass-produced content. Come join us at this amazing party, or be left behind.

When arbitrary and clearly biased fees such as these are imposed on the marketplace, the marketplace resembles more of a feudalistic system controlled by a few dinosaurs who don't know how to grow their businesses with the times than "may the best company win." Yes, this action has been spurred by the large traditional radio station owners who are seeing declining listenership due to the Internet. Calling all traditional media and traditional content producers: You no longer control the conversation all by yourselves. Calling YOU: You and Congress can stop this heinous fee hike that is designed to drive Internet Radio out of business. "This link makes it easy to contact your representatives.":http://www3.capwiz.com/saveinternetradio/issues/alert/?alertid=9738601 "View the list of participating stations here.":http://www.kurthanson.com/dos/ Meanwhile go explore internet radio if you haven't already! Here are some places to start: http://www.daveslounge.com http://somafm.com http://www.kcrw.org http://www.doctortrey.com http://www.live365.com roxanne's signature , , ,

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: In Praise of Wishy-Washy STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 06/20/2007 06:34:00 AM ----- BODY:
I attended the very first workshop they ever held (they used my testimonial for years), on web usability, and am a very enthusiastic user of their "Basecamp":http://basecamphq.com/?referrer=bfs project management software. If you haven't tried it, I heartily recommend it! Though if Jason (or many other internet literati) were writing this, the advice would be more like, "You MUST try this software!" In fact, today's post is inspired by "this post":http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/416-achieving-emptiness-with-bit-literacy on Jason's blog, from which I quote: bq. It's nice to read someone who says "do it this way" instead of being wishy-washy. He was referring to the book, "Bit Literacy":http://www.barefeetshop.com/book-1000-0979368103-Bit_Literacy_Productivity_in_the_Age_of_Information_and_E_mail_Overload.html by Mark Hurst. Mark recommends, for example, getting your Inbox down to zero messages at least once a day. (I am not even going to go there.) However reading through the comments, it is plain to see the pros and cons of Mark's method, and the people for whom it is brilliant all the way to out-dated. It's great the book takes a stand and I love it when people Do take a stand, it's just problematic when people think their stand applies to everyone else. That's where I come in, just like the commenters, and de-construct the actual topic to help determine if "just doing it this way" is going to be more useful or more irritating to YOU. There is plenty of advice on the internet. Being willing and able to filter it while seeing both sides may be called wishy-washy in some circles, but to me, is %(hilight )simply personalization%. I also this type of engagement is more adult, more peer to peer, whereas just telling people what to do is rather parental, top-down style of thinking. We are all free to be bossy; in fact many of us like being told what to do once we have signed on to your ideas. It seems easier, for a moment or two, until more people, more facts, start pouring in. Where do you fall along this spectrum? Do you like absolutes and being told what to do? Or do you see the value in sorting through something to get to the specifics, the case-by-case-ness of it? In one sense, it's like having a blog with comments turned off - you just issue your opinions, versus having comments open, where people are encouraged to submit their own perspectives. And in fairness to Jason, Basecamp would not be the fantastic tool it is if they hadn't regularly listened to their very opinionated users. Which really closes this post for me: even when you try to be really "just do it this way" it's hard to actually get away with it. And that's my opinion! What is yours? roxanne's signature Tags: , , , , , , ,

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Key Ingredient for Social Media Marketing Success STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 06/19/2007 01:09:00 PM ----- BODY: Today, my friend and colleague Mike McAllen over at "Grass Shack Road":http://www.grassshackroad.com/ queried a few of us on "LinkedIn":http://www.linkedin.com/in/roxannedarling about what elements we consider to be essential in a new media marketing plan. Here's what I offered to him, and now to you: %(hilight)The main point I would put on the table is that though the tools may be free/cheap, the real investment is in time and leadership. It takes a dedicated person who is outgoing and creative, and willing to talk into the ether for a measurable period of time before expecting results. The more you, as the host or sponsor, nurture and support this person, the better are your chances for a thriving community. Can they get a big head after a while? Yes, the risk is there. But first, let's get this thing off the ground.% *Checklist for the Ideal New Media Ringleader* * outgoing personality * technologically inclined (though this is the most trainable piece) * willing and happy to work independently * able to reach out to others without expectations * creative in a very conversational way * curious and able to learn by watching others and adapting (this takes a mindset where you can observe the underlying structures, not be distracted by the content of the discussion) * it really helps if the person is literate in the underlying topic that is the raison d'etre for the SN group. * ability to work with conflict and ability to be ignored without taking it personally. (This involves understanding web user psychology - 95% plus are lurkers and people can be much harsher and more reactionary than in face to face encounters.) In my experience, the best intentions and set up often fail if there is not a pied piper committed for the long haul to make it happen. Mike also pointed me to this series underway over at Spark Media: "The 12 Principles of New Media":http://www.sparkmediasolutions.com. Mahalo Mike! UPDATE 07-06-23: On "Twitter":http://www.twitter.com/roxannedarling I discovered this quote from "Mitch Joel":http://www.twistimage.com/blog/ "social networks have nothing to do with technology" that was posted by "Bryan Person":http://Bryper.com/. I so agree! roxanne's signature , , , , , , , P.S. Here is the archived site about my work in Indian Country. "Healthy Tribes":http://www.healthytribes.com

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Case Study: Pretty But Powerless STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 06/15/2007 02:49:00 PM ----- BODY: h3. Overview I received a beautiful postcard invitation to a NM@F public event scheduled for next Tuesday, June 19th. My partner Shane is actually working in Santa Fe for two weeks, so I mentioned it to him. He said, "Send me the link." Hmmm, and that's where the story begins.
People are really good at helping themselves, if you give them the tools.

To save time and cut to the chase, there are several barriers to attending this event. Here's what is missing, from an online and offline point of view. *OFFLINE: Missing Ingredients* The postcard invitation is over-sized and attractively designed to get my attention. However, someone forgot the basic checklist, so I'll provide them here: * No price or RSVP instructions. * No name or phone number to contact. * No web site address. * No street address, only the name of the venue. _Bottom Line: There is no easy way for me to contact them. At first, I think, OK, no problem, I will search on Google for their web site._ *ONLINE: Missing Ingredients* Good news! I found the site easily. Unfortunately that leads me to the Online problems: * There is no mention of the upcoming event on the home page. * There is no mention of the event in the News & Events page or on the Calendar page. * There is not Contact link on the site. * There is no contact information on the home page. Screenshot of the New Mexico Ad Federation home page Here's a screenshot of the Home Page. No mention of the event or any contact information. (Click the thumbnail to see full size.)
Screenshot of the New Mexico Ad Federation news pageHere's a screen shot of the News & Announcements Page. Wow. Look at all that white space that could be helping people who want to attend an event. (Click the thumbnail to see full size.)
To be fair, on my final run through the site, I did finally find a phone and email address as text on an inside page. But as a busy person with a goal in mind, I was looking for "CONTACT." I was not wanting to stop and read the text on individual inside pages. I strongly recommend having a prominent "Contact" link on every page of your site, especially the home page. I did call the phone number, but alas, it is 6:30 pm in NM so I got the voice mail. It did include the event pricing (yeah!) and said I could RSVP by leaving a message. Cynical me, I don't trust people to leave clear messages about how to spell their names or remember to include a phone or email in case I want to follow up. A nice form on your web site does that very well though! h3. Big Bottom Line Here are a few of the opportunities being missed, that could be substantial if only there was integration of offline and online activities, combined with a checklist for basic standards for each: * Difficult for NM@F to plan this event. I have no clue how they are getting RSVPs and what number will be provided to the hotel for a meal count. (It's a luncheon.) * Shane can't easily RSVP; not likely to invest two hours of driving to take his chances. People online don't want to pick up the phone (high chance of getting voice mail) just get basics like the price of an event. * He was going to take our Lead Programmer. Now that's two seats that are lost. * We would love to blog about this and help spread the news digitally. Unfortunately, they didn't provide any way for us to tell our friends about it. * The most concerning thing to me, is that NM@F represents the best and brightest advertising minds in New Mexico. There is a serious credibility gap here. You can put an "at symbol" in your name, but that doesn't mean you understand how to do business online. In case you want to take your chances, I'm typing up the details for you. I don't know many people who would bother to do that, do you? h3. NMAF Upcoming Event Mary Nick - Honoring, Inspiring, and Unleashing Vision "Pierre Barbeau":http://www.linkedin.com/in/pbarbeau - The Birth of a New Media Mary and Pierre worked together previously at Sprint Nextel (where they helped shape the future of mobile marketing) and will tell us what advertisers should be doing with this technology to market more effectively to their customers. *Date:* Tuesday, June 19th, 2007. *Time:* 11:30 am *Place:* The Embassy Suites Hotel, 1000 Woodward Place NE, Albuquerque, NM, 87102 (505) 245-7100, "Google Map Link":http://urltea.com/s38 *Fee:* Free to members; $30 to guests. *RSVP:* 505-265-1286 or try *Web:* http://www.nmadfed.org/ *Please feel free to email this page's link to anyone you know who may want to attend!* Short URL already prepped for you: http://urltea.com/s3h h3. Takeaway * Include your website address on every printed piece! * Tell people how to attend the events you are promoting. (Date, Time, Place, Price, RSVP Details) * Have a prominent "Contact" link on every page of your website. * Use the Events section of your website to post your upcoming events. * Give us some spice about the speakers. I found Pierre's page on "LinkedIn":http://www.linkedin.com but was not so lucky with Mary. roxanne's signature , ,,, , , ,

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: How to Create Special Effects for Online Video STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 06/10/2007 10:52:00 AM ----- BODY: *Key Points* * Storyboard before you shoot. It will save you time and help you film complex-looking scenes bu using perspective and lines of motion to create the effect. It will make the shooting go so much faster too. * Get a little bit of cheap lighting to help light your scene. Good lighting will make it easier to apply special effects in the editing process. Household lighting can be used! * Search craft stores and garage sales to assemble stuff for making props. A little bit of spray paint can really create a realistic looking item. *Links* "Rudy & Casey's Galacticast":http://www.galacticast.com "Rudy & Casey's Production Company":http://www.8bitbrownies.com/ "Eric of IndyMogul.com":http://www.indymogul.com *Source Material* "Detonation Films":http://www.detonationfilms.com/ - free footage of "SpinExpress":http://www.spinxpress.com - Search for creative commons media "Free Sound Project":http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/ "The Force":http://www.theforce.net/ - star wars fan site and tutorials "Rebel's Guide":http://rebelsguide.com/DV%20Rebel%27s%20Guide/The%20Guide.html - best book ever! Fast Track USB - device for capturing live instrument sound and remixing "GarageBand":http://www.apple.com/ilife/garageband/ - sound effects and make your own music "Pixelodeon":http://www.pixelodeonfest.com

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ryanne Hodson URL: http://ryanishungry.com DATE: 06/11/2007 07:30:02 AM i hope someone took some video of this! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Roxanne Darling URL: http://www.barefeetstudios.com DATE: 06/11/2007 10:56:39 AM There was someone filming - I don't know who! You can ask if you send out any post-conference emails. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Shane TITLE: Not Enough Time for a Blog Post? Just Tumblr Instead. STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 06/04/2007 09:12:00 AM ----- BODY:
If blogs are journals, tumblelogs are scrapbooks.
Tumblr (totally Free) is what's referred to as a "tumblelog." According to the "Tumblr FAQ":http://www.tumblr.com/faqs : "To make a simple analogy: If blogs are journals, tumblelogs are scrapbooks. You can also look at tumblelogs as slightly more structured blogs that make it easier, faster, and more fun to post and share stuff you find or create." There's even a Wikipedia "entry on Tumblelogs":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumblelog that describes a "definition by Jason Kottke":http://www.kottke.org/05/10/tumblelogs dating back to 2005. You could also describe a Tumblelog as a "Micro-blogging platform":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro-blogging. Perfect for dumping in quick notes, thought, ideas, quotes, pictures, videos, etc. Anything that you might come across in your Web travels that you find interesting but that don't require a full blog posting. So you can use a Tumblelog right along side your blog and not instead of your blog. If you don't yet have a blog, a Tumblelog may be a great way to get started. Tumblr is one of the better known tumblelogs and has a list of great features that make it actually fun to use. Once you've created your free Tumbler account you can login to your Dashboard where you're greeted with a very attractive and sleek interface. A row of six easily identifiable button across the top of the page allow you to select which type of Tumblr entry you'd like to create. Selecting "Text" or "Quote" produces a simple text entry field into which you can type whatever's on your mind. Selecting "Photo" presents you with a button that allows you to upload a photo from your computer. "Video" allow you to easily paste in code to display a video from YouTube or your favorite video sharing site. One of my favorite Tumblr options is the "Chat" type. By simply entering text in the following format your page displays a chat or IM (instant messenger) type of dialog: "Here's an actual Tumblr Chat":http://tumblr.shanerobinson.com/post/2933577 from "my own Tumblr page":http://tumblr.shanerobinson.com. So if you haven't started blogging yet and you'd like to dip your toes in the water without setting up your own blog, Tumblr might be perfect for you. And even if you already have a blog or consider yourself a power blogger, Tumblr might be perfect for posting those little gems you find while surfing that you'd like to share but don't necessarily want to post them to your regular blog. If you have a Tumblr or tumblelog please leave a comment with a link. We'd love to see it! ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ryan URL: http://www.hawaiigeek.tv DATE: 06/04/2007 10:47:18 AM I'm warming up to tumblelogs. It is indeed ‘micro blogging,' a scrapbook of thoughtful things found on the web (or in our digital wandering). Sure, folks post links to Twitter, but I think those apps works better for presence ("What are you doing? Where?") than blogging. I'd follow your Twitter stream to keep up with you. I'd follow your tumblelog because you have a knack for finding things that I also like on the web. Take a service like Jaiku, and throw in your blog feed, Twitter feed, tumblelog, Flickr feed, Last.fm feed, and all those other feeds you deliberately or passively create out there, and you've got a "lifestream." A surprisingly rich, running log of your life. I find it exciting. Many understandably find it a little troubling. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Shane Robinson URL: http://www.barefeetstudios.com DATE: 06/04/2007 11:27:56 AM I like your "lifestream" framing, Ryan. I've checked out Jaiku a while back (http://shanerobinson.jaiku.com) and thought it was trying to be everything to everyone. I preferred the simplicity of Twitter. It does one thing, almost perfectly. But in your framing, one can continue to use all the other services to do what they do best, and use Jaiku to assemble your "lifestream" as a central place for anyone interested in that level/amount of data. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: File Links: How to Be Nice to Your Website Visitors STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 05/31/2007 01:41:00 PM ----- BODY: I practice politeness so I won't link to the offender; it's just their bad luck today that I decided to blog about this topic after visiting their site a few minutes ago. They have a lot of company out there on the internet and I don't believe in singling one person out unfairly. Let it be known however this web site belongs to a "communications professional." This is a tip for communicating _online_ as a professional. *Here's the Web Usability Tip from Rox:* When linking to a file on a web page, please append the title of the link with some indication that it is a _file_ and not another _web page_ assigned to that link. Although savvy web surfers can hover over a link and look down to the bottom of the browser window at the _status bar_ to see where a link is pointing, you as the site owner shouldn't require that of users to have a positive experience on your site. Instead, simply add a nice friendly note in or immediately after link, indicating what the link is all about. Here are two links that show what I mean: "Hot Stuff at Bare Feet Studios":http://www.barefeetstudios.com "Bare Feet Webmail Pricing":http://www.barefeetstudios.com/media/pdf/barefeet-webmail-pricing.pdf (PDF; 88 KB) Even nicer, add the file icon graphic: Download the PDF: Webmail Info & Pricing Sheet to learn more about our professional email service and pricing plans. (88KB) In the second example, the visitor knows without any effort that the link is to a PDF file, and even nicer, the size of the file so the visitor can decide if s/he wants to take the time to download it. Similarly, if it is a spreadsheet, add (XLS; 55 KB) or if it is a Word doc, you can add (DOC; 23 KB) — adding the correct file sizes if you know them. (Right-click on the file and look for Properties on a PC or Get Info on a Mac to learn the file size.) Without this nice little note, the unsuspecting visitor clicks on the first link expecting a nice quick jump over to a new web page but instead triggers a completely different and most like more time-consuming process. That creates irritation for many surfers and outright confusion for less-experienced web surfers. Professional web developers will do this automatically. If your web manager doesn't, be proactive with your web site and check your links. If you edit your site yourself (the ideal situation IMO, then you can take care of this straight away. You don't want your site visitors to experience either of those, now do you? roxanne's signature , , , , , , ,

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Beach Walks Featured at Pixelodeon! STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 05/28/2007 02:03:00 PM ----- BODY: pixelodeon festival featured show graphicHere's what this event is about, straight from Pixelodeon: "Pixelodeon is an annual independent video festival recognizing innovation, inspiration, and community in global online video. This is our inaugural year! Over 300 videos, four keynote speakers, two dozen curators, and several hundred people interested in independent media will get together in one weekend to celebrate the diversity and talent of online video content. If you want to see what's happening online and meet the people who are making it happen, this is the place to be." Doing a show like "Beach Walks with Rox":http://www.beachwalks.tv delivers so many unintended consequences. In our case, they have been universally positive. We continue to make connections and receive recognition from the most unexpected and amazing people and places! Here's a recent viewer comment we received a few days ago: bq. I work as a crisis management consultant in Washington, D.C.—in other words, the polar opposite of BeachWalks in both geography and stress level. The show has become a daily breath of fresh air and calm feeling. You'll be pleased to hear that I'm passing the link around to some friends and colleagues inside the Beltway here. Most are as pleasantly impressed as I am — so you're gaining a small cult following in DC. *Event Details:* "American Film Institute":http://www.afi.com 2021 N. Western Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90027 So many wonderful people are doing so much work on this event. I hope you will consider attending. It will open your eyes to an entirely new world that is alive and well, yet still not in the mainstream of media and communication. We are also pulling together a Best Practices document for content aggregators, so please "email me":mailto:roxanne@barefeetstudios.com if you are interested in that. *We want to thank the sponsors who are supporting this event:* DivX SpinXpress Blip.tv Blogger Wordpress Revver MyWaves *A Special Shout Out to All of the Organizers:* Jay Dedman—A former journalist at CNN and educator at MNN, Jay has orchestrated a number of online videoblog projects. Zadi Diaz—New media producer and principal at Smashface Productions, LLC. Co-creator and host of Webby Award and Vloggie Award winner JETSET. Ryanne Hodson—Co-author of Secrets of Videoblogging, co-founder of Freevlog and Node101. Projects include Swajana and Ryan Is Hungry. Irina Slutsky—Co-founder and host of Geek Entertainment Television and founder of the Vloggies, an online video awards show. Steve Woolf—Co-creator and producer of the Webby Award and Vloggie Award winning JETSET show and principal at Smashface Productions, LLC. *And to the Video Editors* Lan Bui — A photographer by trade, Lan has been teaching video blogging since 2006 after co-founding OCvideoBlogging. He is also Co-creator and producer of Noodle Scar, a popular daily show. Vu Bui — Vu is a professional photographer, videographer, video editor living in Orange County, California. He is also a producer and editor for Noodle Scar. Bill Cammack — Bill is an Emmy Award-winning broadcast televison editor in New York City as well as a National and International Emmy Awards judge. Cheryl Colan — Cheryl teaches Digital Multimedia courses at Scottsdale Community College and at Phoenix College. She also founded Node101 Phoenix in 2006 to bring on-demand vlogging workshops to her local community. Eric Rey — Eric is a budding young video blogger from Los Angeles, California. You can watch him on his personal website ericrey.net. He also frequently collaborates with his brother, Rick. Rick Rey — Rick is a video blogging enthusiast and community proponent. His technical skills include web development, videography, video editing, and mad Guitar Hero skillZ. *And to the Support Team:* Travel: Gena Haskett — outonthestoop.blogspot.com Animations: Ryan Junell — junell.net Website: Rick Rey — rickrey.com roxanne's signature
View Roxanne Darling's LinkedIn profileView my profile on LinkedIn Follow me on Twitter , , , , , ,

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: How to be happy paying for stuff STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 05/19/2007 08:30:00 AM ----- BODY: Inspired by a discussion over at JetSetShow, asking "How will producers and studios get paid?":http://mix.jetsetshow.com/forum/topic/show?id=699622%3ATopic%3A8421. Here's a snapshot: "Kyle":http://mix.jetsetshow.com/profile/wolfoftheair said: bq. "Zadi":http://www.zadidiaz.com brought up a fairly common question in her response to Steve's question about THE CODE, and I don't really think it truly belongs there, in a response. It really belongs to be a centerpiece topic, one that can't be shirked away from, one that really has good minds attacking it. That question: "how do producers and studios make money if people can just "take" it without paying"? There's an inherent assumption in this question: it assumes that people will simply "take" it if they can take it without paying for it. "Rick Rey":http://www.rickrey.com said: bq. Cut out the middle men and create a system where artists can easily produce and distribute their own material. Educate artists before they sign deals and make it big. I think as more people become creators and not just consumers, and as ugc competes with msm, each side gets insight into each other's challenges. Sitting on the sidelines are the consumers (which we are all a member of, depending on the situation). Being able to "walk a mile in each others' shoes" is incredibly valuable in mediating the hostility that has developed where companies resent and don't understand their customers and customers resent and rebel against the manufacturers. It's why companies who blog and tell their side of the story, can only help themselves. Information. It's power. If people understand that you put that door on the right instead of the left for these 5 reasons, they will be much more willing to adjust to the change than if you just impose it on them. Better still, if you can set it up for them to choose whether they have the door on the left or the right, you've just made a better product and a better sales transaction! Organizations like the "RIAA":http://www.riaa.com/ still won't cop to the fact they have problems inside (be it processes, excessive executive pay, poor treatment of artists, etc.) and they still don't grok the deep resentment their customers have for them. Fighting a legal-eze nitpick battle is only inspiring more people to steal music, as that is the easiest, fastest way to vote for disapproval of the RIAA practices. I believe in time, once we get over the initial "high" of "free" that people will want to pay for (aka _support_) people and things they love. But it will be a much more organic, case-specific transaction based on so many factors - how much you like/love something, how much discretionary $ you think you have, and a whole slew of other more subtle factors. When we can give and receive in a genuine flow of energy, (as happens on "twitter":http://www.twitter.com/roxannedarling for example, with ideas) it will be an "enriching" experience for both of us as you share your music with my wallet. It's just gonna take some time, that's all. What is brewing now is a wonderfully exciting mix of rebel behavior, do-it-yourself creators, curious, even ravenous consumers, and a bunch of geeks building stuff to enable it all to happen. How cool is that? Any bets on when this will go from Roxy's idealistic brain into a SOP in the marketplace? roxanne's signature , , , , ,

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Video Podcast Work Flow STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 05/15/2007 09:41:02 PM ----- BODY: Please check out: "Chris Brogan":http://www.chrisbrogan.com "Christopher Penn":http://www.christopherspenn.com/ "Podcamp":http://podcamp.pbwiki.com/SharedToolsAndCommonKnowledge We produce the daily video podcast, "Beach Walks with Rox":http://www.beachwalks.tv. We have to keep things pretty tight to make this work in our daily schedule. It helps that the nature of our show is straightforward most days. All bets are off though when we want to do something out of the usual! # Always keep the camera bag loaded with charged batteries and extra tapes, all lenses and filters. # Shoot the episode; one take is all we get. Our template (in "iMovie":http://www.apple.com/imovie) requires an 8+ second clip for the opening title sequence and about 10 seconds for the credit roll. We could use the same footage day after day to save on this, but we prefer a completely fresh new episode each day. Gearing up (and then down) and the shoot take about 15 minutes. (Not counting drive time as we would be going to the beach anyway!) # Import the footage from camera into computer; this takes place in real time. If we have a lot of clips, we take notes along the way and do a mental version of the "first cut." Figure this takes 5-10 minutes. # Our template in iMovie has the opening and closing music already laid in, and the closing copyright notice too. (Thanks to "Eric Rice":http://www.ericrice.com who pointed us this direction waaaay back when.) We add in transitions, add overlays with links, etc. sometimes drop in other graphics or footage. Editing takes 15-30 minutes for a typical show. Special episodes can take several hours. # Once edited, we export as a full quality DV file. That takes a little longer than real time, let's say 8 mins for a 5 min show. # Next, encoding. We have a little script that we drop the DV onto and it creates our Quicktime mov and the iPod m4v versions. This will take about 20 minutes. # While we are doing this, we open the graphic template in "Fireworks":http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.adobe.com%2Fproducts%2Ffireworks%2F&ei=77lKRsOGEp34hAPH16ijBg&usg=AFrqEzf2BM_cDlA2HKCuxDbXPJ7GsBPjTw&sig2=YfymrxBsfpayTK0Oim2G5A, and create our custom show graphics. We used to make four (4) images of various sizes but have reduced this to two; a 480x360 for the main show graphic which also gets added to the iPod (.m4v) format as the ID3 show graphic; and a 240x180 for the "Akimbo service":http://my.akimbo.com/browse_category.aspx?cid=9ee61a620644f0b4 that we upload via FTP to our media server from which Akimbo then pulls every morning along with our WMV media file. # We also start the blog post, writing the show notes, adding the tags, and selecting the categories. # After the mov and m4v are done, we make a high quality Windows Media (WMV) version using "Quicktime Pro":http://www.apple.com/quicktime, and then a Flash (FLV) version using Visual Hub. Add on another 10-15 minutes. # Files are then batch uploaded to "blip.tv":http://www.blip.tv/users/view/beachwalks. For a 5 minute episode, this one process can take about an hour. During this time we finish working on the show notes and reply to viewer emails. If it's Tuesday, we start watching Boston Legal. grin Total Average Time for a 5-minute Episode: 2-3 hours, assuming the work is done on the G5 quad processor tower and a broadband connection. Working from our Intel MacBookPro and various internet connections can add considerable time to the process. The nice thing is that Secret Cameraman and I get to share the editing and encoding tasks, which really helps. Check out the camera gear we use here: "http://www.beachwalks.tv/behind-the-scenes/":http://www.beachwalks.tv/behind-the-scenes/. roxanne's signature , , , , , ,

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Loving my new EVDO card for Mobile Internet STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 05/11/2007 06:06:02 AM ----- BODY: All I do is pop open the laptop, insert the card, click the little "connect" icon in my dock, and within about 20 seconds I am on the internet. The "Sprint service":http://powervision.sprint.com/mobilebroadband/ costs about $80 per month. At first glance that seems high. But when I think of the 15 minutes here and 15 minutes there that I can actually work—like right now sitting on a plane before takeoff —and then calculate the total and realize that when I get home, I may have an hour or more of free time! And that is for only one day. Multiply that but 10-20 days, and I'm reaping a lot of "extra" time that used to be filled with doing things that were not important, simply because I was hostage to the limits of my location. Obviously, the math works for me. It's a classic small business mindset to be penny wise and pound foolish, and I say I fall for it all too often. Playing out the math in terms of looking at where I can add small efficiencies to make my overall multi-tasked day more effective, I realize that it's worth far more than what it costs each month. As compared to price-shopping for the cheapest internet service that dictates when and where I can use it. It's Friday. I just posted this in 10 minutes, using time that otherwise was spent with listening to announcements for the 1000th time! P.S. "EVDO":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution-Data_Optimized stands for Evolution-Data Optimized.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: A Newbie Guide to Business Blogging STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 04/30/2007 11:13:00 PM ----- BODY: # Find a co-author or two if possible. The age-old buddy system works great on a business blog, as you can share the tasks as well as provide motivation and support fro each other. Very often, the diversity of voices makes both the style and the topics more interesting. Having a peer you trust also makes the accountability energy available to support you both. "Drawn! The Illustration & Cartooning Blog":http://drawn.ca/ "Tom Peters and associates":http://www.tompeters.com # Set low threshold goals, so you'll be able to meet them. Starting a new blog is not the best place to be as macho as possible, or tack on one of those typical competitive, corporate goal-setting challenges. Blogging really seems to come in part from your soul, and I find souls are incredibly resistant to being treated like your average deliverables. It's probably going to take some time to find your voice and your comfort, and adding pressure just for the sport of it I think is counter-productive. "Your Blog Voice by Toby Bloomberg":http://bloombergmarketing.blogs.com/bloomberg_marketing/2005/02/another_quotama.html # Write twice as casually as you would imagine. Blogging is a conversation among friends. No need to put on airs, be formal, try to impress, or otherwise intimidate your readers. I find most of our clients who start blogging find this challenging. When fingers hit the keyboard, certain neural pathways are triggered and out comes memo-speak. I have the most wonderful, warm conversations on the phone, then I read an email and I seriously wonder "Is this the same person?? Why did you go all stiff on me? Did I do something to offend?" Writing a few posts first in longhand may help break this auto-response that is better suited to the legal department than the blogging desk. In other words, don't keep how nice you are, a secret. "Dennis Mahoney Gives Great Examples here":http://alistapart.com/articles/writebetter # Don't keep how smart you are, a secret. Stop laughing! It's true. Every businessperson - and I almost never use that word "every" - has knowledge about his/her products and services that potential buyers would love to know about. You have anecdotes about how things were developed. You have stories about how people have creatively used the stuff you make and sell. (See #3 above.) Please don't think it is boring or inconsequential or insignificant. Your readers get to decide that, and so far, the jury overwhelmingly has proven it will enjoy reading just about anything! Please contact me directly if you are struggling with this and I will give you 5 blog post ideas in 5 minutes based on your industry/experience, guaranteed. Boasting is allowed. It's good business and a lot faster (and cheaper) than a formal press release to post news about your recent accomplishments. "Dated and long and still a worthy summary of the PR benefits to blogging":http://blogbusinessworld.blogspot.com/2004/10/blogs-and-public-relations.html # And a few more Bare Feet B's of Business Blogging: ** Brevity is your friend. A single paragraph is plenty for a blog post. One little brief idea and you're done. You can write long posts, but it's not necessary or expected. ** Bullet points are easy on the eyes and the brain. Write a paragraph first if you like, then crunch it down to a list. They are much more digestible and I find they also me organize my thoughts to prevent repeating myself in a blog post. ** Bold titles are best for busy people. Tell it straight up, in the title of your post, and consider using a keyword or popular search term when appropriate to help new readers find you.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Toby URL: http://www.divamarketingblog.com DATE: 05/03/2007 05:36:04 PM Roxanne - wonderful list. Thanks for including the post about finding your voice from Diva Marketing. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: People Are Put Off by Advertising STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 03/22/2007 07:22:00 AM ----- BODY: On the one hand, "NBC is testing viewers brains":http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/news/e3i4b9ba971311ed450e5b0a67e8a6ab870 to see if ads can still register even when TV viewers fast-forward past them. bq. NBC is testing hearts and minds in its quest to track the habits of today's elusive media consumer. The network last week received the results of its first dip into the world of neurophysiology—examining brain waves, galvanic skin response and eye movement of TV viewers. NBC used an episode of "Heroes" to find out what viewers comprehend of ads when they fast-forward past them on DVRs. And "Business 2.0 reports":http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2007/03/01/8401043/index.htm?postversion=2007022615 that "Ogilvy":http://www.ogilvy.com and "Yahoo":http://www.yahoo.com both are using cookies and math to track online behavior and change the content of what is displayed to us in real time. bq. Red isn't working on a particular banner? The background will be blue the next time you see it - and the software will even swap the ad copy. No one's happier about that than advertisers: Optimized ads perform 15 to 30 percent better than their standard-issue counterparts. "We've reached a point of instantaneous feedback," Hendra says. That's forced the business to become brutally Darwinian. Meanwhile Toby at "Diva Marketing Blog":http://bloombergmarketing.blogs.com/bloomberg_marketing/2007/03/the_pulse_of_he.html covered the "ESRC Report on healthcare marketing":http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/PO/releases/2007/march/health.aspx?ComponentId=18643&SourcePageId=96 that I quoted in the title of this post. bq. One thing that really put people off was advertising, so people clicked off drug company websites straight away. Generally, the medical information on drug company sites is very accurate but people question the authors' motivation and agenda. The issue of impartiality is quite crucial in building trust. In the latter report, they did find positive results from people reading trusted friends and _blogs_. It's my opinion that people are done with being tracked, tricked, tempted, and targeted into buying stuff they don't want or need. They are more curious than ever, however, about learning new things that will help them live happier and healthier lives. What side are you on? The "trick ‘em til they drop" or the "here's my experience"? Which one gets your money and your love?

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Jeff Pulver Walks My Talk STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 03/08/2007 09:03:00 PM ----- BODY: "Video on the Net":http://www.videoonthenet.com/ He's actually putting money to bridge one of the many "digital divides" - in this case between the large media and IT companies who have revenues in the hundreds of thousands per employee and the small independent content producers whose work is fueling the likes of "YouTube":http://www.youtube.com, "blip.tv":http://www.blip.tv, and "Podtech":http://www.podtech.net. The bottom line is that the cost to attend is normally around $2K. The fact that Jeff realizes we independent producers don't have the big budgets, yet values our contributions and is making room for us to be there, is quite huge. It's a shift in thinking, that it's not just about the money. It's also about the conversations, and Jeff is bringing these two normally disparate groups together. We don't normally travel in the same circles, but we'll be able to schmooze together at VON. Historically we might have had little in common, but now our futures are closely entwined as IPTV aka video on the internet changes our world. I also had a great meeting today with Dick Jones who is leading the iptv innovations at "Hawaiian Tel":http://www.hawaiiantel.com. Part of our conversation boiled down to the discrepancy between the [excessively?] high programming fees charged by channels like ESPN at one end and the expectation that shows like "Beach Walks with Rox":http://www.beachwalks.tv can be had for free on the other end. We're working to bridge this gap too. So mahalo nui to both of you gentlemen for inviting us to the table. And especially to "Chris Brogan":http://www.chrisbrogan.com who is really helping make these ideas a reality. Chris is one fine messenger. roxanne's signature

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Finding the Right Fit with Your Web Developer STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 03/01/2007 12:34:00 AM ----- BODY: I read a short post on Matt Mullenweg's blog today titled "Disconnect":http://photomatt.net/2007/01/09/disconnect/. It's so short, I'll quote the whole piece: bq. One thing I've found in the past year is there is sometimes a huge disconnect between people who make noise on blogs, or might have impressive blogs themselves, and productivity in the real world. It's unfortunate, because it makes it that much harder to find good folks. I really do feel for clients who get suckered in by a sales pitch. With "Web 2.0":http://www.barefeetstudios.com/bfs/bizzycast/detail/web-2-what-does-it-mean-for-your-business/, the web is both an increasingly technical place as well increasingly extrovert place. I must admit I also have tried to engage aka sell people into getting involved in the web more proactively with their businesses. But blogging is an opportunity to actually tell your truth, warts and roses all. I've learned that no matter how much potential I see, it's really irrelevant if the client isn't interested. I've learned that no matter how brilliant I think we may be, plenty of people don't want state of the art, they just want average. So I am using this blog, my "public speaking":/bfs/about/, and our show "Beach Walks with Rox":http://www.beachwalks.tv to put forth my opinions as well as my enthusiasm, to own my bias, to show the downsides as well as the upsides of working with us, or other developers. To help people find the right fit, considering price, skill, attitude, creativity, friendliness, etc. As you all know, someone may be very smart, but a PITA to work with, and vice versa - really nice but somewhat incompetent at the end of the day. People preach a lot of rules. "You have to have a web site." "You have to update it regularly." While I agree you can benefit from doing those things, I also don't believe in pressuring people. I'd rather tell people, "The web, especially Web 2.0, is not for everyone." I'd rather "make ‘em beg" than force feed ‘em medicine for an condition that to them, is asymptomatic. I'd rather attract people to us who really want to leverage our extensive skill set than proselytize those who are not yet believers. This goes against many tenets of basic selling. And my little monkey mind frequently tries to convince me that if I only were a better salesperson, I could convert more of the masses. Why? I hate it when people come to my door pushing their religion. That's really the same thing as people pushing their top 10 ways to be a success. What's the solution? More discussion and more research. The better we get to know each other, the easier it is to grok who's on the same page as you are. 

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Roxanne Speaks at IABC Hawaii (Links & Notes) STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 02/15/2007 01:44:00 PM ----- BODY: I had such a great time! Having the "live case study" featuring Mighty J and Dr. Trey was the icing on the cake. I'll be creating a few video podcasts of the actual talk in the next few days. As a reminder, here were the goals I presented for the talk: # Realize that just because your kids can do something and there is a lot of free software, that it isn't likely that easy to do it for your business. Here are some places to start. # Shed some light on the current phenomenon of online video, social networking sites, and user-generated content. Discuss some real examples of how innovators are using the tools and tapping into the "attention economy." *Slide Show Presentation* *Technology + Communication: The Return on Influence* Here is a Quicktime movie of the slide show I delivered. (I'll be posting a video podcast of the actual presentation in a few days.) It will require the "most current version":http://www.barefeetstudios.com/bfs/blog/detail/how-to-know-when-to-update-your-software/ of the free "Quicktime":http://www.apple.com/quicktime software. Or, you can download the free "iTunes":http://www.apple.com.itunes software and keep a copy to watch whenever you like. To download a copy, right-click on the link and "Save" to your local computer. Click your back button when you are done and you will come back to this page. "View the slideshow in a new window":http://www.barefeetmedia.com/media/podcasts/iabc-070214-barefeetstudios.mov. *Links We Discussed:* "Go learn more about Mighty J & leave a comment":http://www.mightyjmusic.com! "Mighty J on KHNL":http://www.khnl.com/Global/story.asp?s=5697692 "Dr. Trey is the brains behind this Web 2.0 music strategy":http://www.doctortrey.com. "Beach Walks with Rox has a new episode every single day":http://www.beachwalks.tv. "Get the free, fast, safe Firefox web browser":http://www.getfirefox.com. "Save and tag your bookmarks at del.icio.us":http://del.icio.us. "Get a free gmail account and set up Google Alerts":http://www.gmail.com. "Learn more at the Hawaii Assoc. of Podcasters":http://www.hawaiipodcasting.com. "Attention Economy by Georg Franck":http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/5/5567/1.html "Learn more about the IABC in Honolulu & submit your work for their upcoming awards":http://iabchawaii.com/events.php. "Get a USB thumb drive to keep in your purse or pocket for fun or emergencies":http://www.barefeetshop.com/shop.php?k=usb+flash+drive&c=elec "Get an iPod - it's not too late":http://www.barefeetshop.com/shop.php?k=ipod&c=elec! *Beach Walks Audience Survey & Impact on Hawai'i Tourism* If you would like to review the audience survey results from Beach Walks with Rox, please "email me":mailto:aloha@barefeetstudios.com?subject=Beach%20Walks%20Audience%20Survey%20Results for the link. It has some very interesting data related to Hawai'i tourism. And while I have your attention. Beach Walks has several sponsorship opportunities available. Please "email me":mailto:aloha@barefeetstudios.com?subject=Beach%20Walks%20Sponsorship%20Inquiry if your company might be interested in having access to our outstanding audience and award-winning daily internet tv show. roxanne's signature "Your presentation on Wednesday at the IABC Luncheon was great. I learned about and absorbed meaningful information that I can use now. That is the way presentations should impact an audience and your speech did just that. Thank you." - Anthony M. , , , , , , , , , ,

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Checklist for Business Video Podcasters STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 02/12/2007 01:31:00 PM ----- BODY: Video podcasting is a great example of one of the internet's most confusing aspects: very technical things can appear to be both simple and complex. Simple, in that all kinds of "regular" people are doing it using their home computers and (mostly) free software. Complex, in that it takes a fair amount of software and technical understanding to create the video files, encode them, post them on a web server, and then enable people to actually subscribe to them! Here's a beginning checklist to have in hand as you start thinking about delivering your company message and/or assets via podcasting. This post focuses on the technical criteria. # Where will you host your movie files? ** Some server configurations restrict the delivery of movie files. ** What are your bandwidth limits there? It is likely that adding video feeds will push the limits of your current contract as video puts exponentially more demand on a server, especially if you are successful. ** How are you tracking site stats? ** What backup procedures do you have for your raw video projects and your hosted files? # What CMS or blog software are you currently using to manage the pages that deliver video? ** Does it generate the RSS feed for you automatically? ** Can you edit the RSS feed so it is iTunes-compatible? ** What plug-ins are you using to manage the enclosures? # What file formats do you intend to provide for subscribers? ** Most people can view Quicktime files, but in our experience, about 10-20% prefer Windows Media versions. ** If more than one format, will your software handle multiple enclosures? # Do you intend to charge for your subscription? ** How do you intend to manage the private pages and RSS feed for paid subscribers? ** How do you manage contact/communication with your subscribers? ** How and where are you going to manage customer support issues "I can't see the movie." and training follow-up? # What copyright license do you intend to attach to your movie? ** Do you intend to share or license your movies for use by other organizations? ** Are you concerned about copyright infringement? It most likely will occur. # How do you intend to brand and polish your movies? ** Consider a custom iMovie template, show graphics, company brand embedded, royalty-free music, pre-post roll messaging, etc.) ** How and where do you intend to post your free feed for marketing purposes? ** Have you started a list of video aggregator sites that you may wish to use to market your podcast? I think that's enough for now! If this all sounds like too much tech and you still want to pursue video podcasting, consider "contacting us":/bfs/contact/ or check out "Freevlog":http://www.freevlog.org or "IzzyVideo Tutorials":http://www.izzyvideo.com/ for more information.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: How to Know When to Update Your Software STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 01/05/2007 06:28:00 PM ----- BODY: I frequently hear people complaining about the so-called costly updates to the Mac operating system software, the "OS." Apple has been on a good run, and so there have been fee-based "version upgrades":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X#Versions about once a year since 2000. By comparison, Windows has "not had an upgrade":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Microsoft_Windows_versions since 2001 (unless you are a business user and have purchased the recently released "Vista":http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsvista/aa905106.aspx. Where is the good news in here? Personally, I'd rather pay the nominal fee and get the terrific upgrade than wait for years and deal with a leaky, low performance OS. The cost of OS upgrades are so small, compared to the other expenses of your business. Each version upgrade for the Mac OS for example, is about $129 or "$199 for a pack of 5":http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wa/RSLID?mco=405B1455&nplm=MA453Z%2FA. This is so cheap! But each new version does so much more, not least of which is add security to your computer. As we all know, the virus writers just love looking for holes. Keeping your OS (and your virus definitions) up to date is essential for a smooth running business.
We use a really simple formula for determining how often to upgrade software: the more you use it, the more valuable it is _to you_ to have the most current version.

h3. How Often to Upgrade? That naturally means we start with the operating system on your computer. This is the brain that runs the rest of your computer and supervises your other software applications. It can extend or limit your capacity in a web browser, in an email program, and in virtually every other software tool you use. So it goes without saying that if you are on a Mac, and you look under the blue apple logo in the menu, when you click "About this Mac" ideally it will say "Mac OS X Version 10.4.8." If you are on a PC go to Start > Control Panel and then double-click on System. Ideally it will say Windows XP for Home use o Vista for enterprise business customers. h3. Web Browser and Email After the OS, most people use email and a web browser next most frequently. Using "Firefox":http://www.getfirefox.com or "Safari":http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/safari/ are great because they update themselves in the background for you and have so many features that are not available in Internet Explorer, even the most recent version 7. (As a sidebar, you might be interested to know that we spend an additional 10% of time when launching a new web site just getting it to work in IE, because this browser does not support "web standards":http://www.wc3.org.) Next in line is your email software. If you are on a PC, we recommend the "Thunderbird":http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/ application. It is open-source, free, and frequently updated, It has countless extensions that add functionality to it. If you are on a Mac, you can use Thunderbird, but we are actually switching back to Apple Mail. It has improved dramatically since first released a few years ago and its integration with other applications on your computer is amazing. Check out "Hawk Wings blog":http://www.hawkwings.net/ for more Apple Mail tips. *Caveat:* If you have custom applications or doubts about the newest version of a piece of software, it's a good idea to wait a few weeks or months and read the reports from others before deciding to upgrade. In my next post I'll give you some real life examples where having upgraded software pays off for your business, especially if you want to play successfully on the internet. roxanne's signature , , ,

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: New Site Launch: Here Comes the Guide STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 12/16/2006 12:52:01 PM ----- BODY: Here is the new site. (Click thumbnail to view full size.)Hopscotch Press originally came to us to create and manage an online database of wedding sites and services for California, http://www.herecomestheguide.com. Their site was database enabled with "Filemaker":http://www.filemaker.com since 1996, and they have changed their business dramatically over the decade. Originally a book publisher, the web site now drives the overwhelming majority of their business. It has grown many fold over the years, as we have continued to build custom applications within their site. Here is the before site. (Click thumbnail to view full size.) Their new web site is now upgraded for "Web 2.0" and includes a full Content Management System, site wide search as well as custom searches within the Locations and Services areas, and of course the activity tracker. This includes a much lighter design that is fully CSS-based. The home page features a rotation of specially-selected companies (an upsell opportunity for HP) and most all pages internally include the use of "touts" or small banners that can allow HP to push special messages to visitors site wide. (More upsell opportunities.) We've got lots of additional upgrades to roll out over the next few months, so like most births, this is just the beginning. On the surface the site is for brides and event planners. But what makes it work is the ability to search for well-recommended vendors who provide services to the wedding industry. These companies pay to be on the site. We have built a number of tracking tools that allow the HP staff to know 24-7 how many people have clicked on a company's detail page at http://www.herecomestheguide.com as well as how many then clicked on through to the company's own web site. HP's ability to edit all of their site content and to provide real-time, accurate activity reports on a per company basis are key elements of their success. We'd also like to thank designer Ryan Nichols of "Apples to Oranges":http://applestooranges.com/blog/post/grids-show-em-if-you-got-em/ whose insights can be felt throughout the site. And yes, we used grids to develop this site. Click on the image at your left to see a sample of what I mean, and what Ryan has been discussing on his blog.
Check it out and tell me know what you think! *UPDATE* I know, the site has only been live for five days, but here's one stat we love! Pageviews have more than doubled compared to the old site, which is a great indication of a much more engaging _user experience._ "Contact us":/bfs/contact/ if you'd like to improve the user experience on your web site! *UPDATE 2* It's been just under a month since site launch. Page views are up by 389% - almost a fourfold increase. Session duration (the average amount of time a visitor spends on the site) has more than doubled. roxanne's signature , , , , ,

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Rox Interviewed on Network2.tv STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 11/17/2006 06:32:00 PM ----- BODY: Network2 was founded by Jeff Pulver, of the Voice on the Net fame. Jeff was a pioneer in internet telephony technology and now is immersed in internet tv aka online video technology. "Watch Roxanne's interview on Network2.tv":http://focus.blip.tv/file/102437/. "Learn more about Network2 here":http://network2.tv/. "Jeff Jarvis talks about the Pulver-organized onine video conference in March 2007":http://www.buzzmachine.com/index.php/2006/11/15/the-future-of-whose-tv/.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Shane TITLE: Beach Walks with Rox is Featured on iTunes STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 11/08/2006 11:16:01 PM ----- BODY: The iTMS has dedicated an entire feature block to all the winners of the First Annual Vloggie Awards that took place this past weekend in San Francisco. We were fortunate enough to "win three vloggies":http://www.barefeetstudios.com/bfs/blog/detail/our-video-podcast-wins-three-vloggie-awards/ and are now just as fortunate to join the other amazing video blogs that are also being featured. You can "download iTunes for free":http://www.apple.com/itunes/ for both Macs and PCs and subscribe to audio and videos on thousands of topics. They'll be automatically delivered to to your computer every time a new episode is available. If you already have iTunes you can "add Beach Walks with Rox to your iTunes":http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=128301404 and automatically receive a new episode every day.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Our Video Podcast Wins Three Vloggie Awards! STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 11/06/2006 08:15:00 AM ----- BODY: Robert Scoble maintains his A-list blogger status by posting the winners within minutes! "People's Choice Winners":http://scobleizer.com/2006/11/04/best-videobloggers-list-from-the-vloggies-the-peoples-choices/ "Judges' Favorites":http://scobleizer.com/2006/11/04/best-videobloggers-list-from-the-vloggies/ Here are links to photos from the event, or just do a search on "Flickr":http://www.flickr.com for "vloggies." "Laughing Squid on Flickr":http://flickr.com/photos/laughingsquid/tags/vloggies/ and Laughing Squid's "personal post":http://laughingsquid.com/2006/11/05/the-vloggies-wrap-up/. "JD Lasica":http://www.newmediamusings.com/blog/2006/11/httpwwwourmedia.html has video of Dina Kaplan from "blip.tv":http://www.blip.tv and comments. (Thanks JD.) Andreas has a "judge's report":http://www.solitude.dk/archives/20061105-1442/ from inside the process. A reminder that "perfectly reasonable people disagree about everything." Hugs to my fellow winner in the Best Entertainment - Nonfiction Vlog Category, Bill Streeter of "LoFi St Louis":.http://lofistl.com/. grin *Update: More Vloggies Coverage:* "IPTV Evangelist Interviews Roxanne":http://www.iptvevangelist.com/2006/11/roxanne_darling_beach_walks_wi.html "The Clip Show":http://theclipshow.com/index.php?post_id=149028 "PodTech's own video from the event. Roxanne interviewed near the end.":http://www.podtech.net/home/technology/1439/vloggies-awards-show-party-video "Zen.Seesaa.Net coverage in Japan":http://zen.seesaa.net/article/26891797.html Many mahalos and thank you's to "Irina Slutsky":http://www.geekentertainment.tv (the fellow blonde behind this idea), to "Podtech":http://www.podtech.net as the official sponsor, and to the sponsors of the event for helping us continue to get this new media on the map: Yahoo Video Blip.TV GUBA Revver Webex Dabble Pandora Intel Cafe Nord And if you want to see my mini report from the evening, "it's here":http://www.beachwalks.tv/2006/11/04/beach-walk-255-otr-vloggies-come-in-threes/. You can see the over 500 nominees for "Vloggies here":http://www.vloggiessf.com/. Now go take the day off and get caught up with the online video revolution. roxanne's signature , , , , , ,

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Podcast Sponsorships Part 2 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 10/23/2006 10:56:00 AM ----- BODY: "Here's the link to Scobleizer.":http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2006/10/22/great-advice-for-new-media-sponsors/ # Business collaborations work best IMO when there are open negotiations and each party is clear what they want to get out of it. # Nobody can know everything these days so it's good to have as many smart people on your team as you can afford. # Sponsorships can and should create a value add for all concerned. *Business collaborations work best...* It's each party's responsibility to both understand what it is s/he brings to the table as well as what it is s/he wants to take away. With that information, the negotiation of a deal can be productive.
A producer may not have an eye for business so…

*Nobody can know everything...* Content producers can't possibly understand a sponsor's business as well as the sponsor. (On this Mr. Coulter, you and I could agree.) However the sponsor also does not have access to the same information that a producer does, whether it is the implementation of the new media technology or the nuances of a producer's audience. It's the producer's responsibility to keep the audience in mind, and to select potential sponsors who will enhance the show's experience, not be some unrelated bunch of high-paying noise tossed in because the sponsor feels desperate to get his/her product in front of said audience. (Yes, this is why it is an uphill battle for "Edelman to help Walmart":http://www.businessblogconsulting.com/2006/10/will-the-edelman-wal-mart-saga-ever-end-two-more-flogs-outed.html get cool.) A smart sponsor will understand this. A producer may not have an eye for business so I think it makes sense to hire people like us who can translate the goals and expertise of the various parties into a useful strategy. *Sponsorships can and should create...* Otherwise, why bother? It is a short-lived, possibly expensive whimsy. I believe in sustainable business relationships (and sustainable environment practices.) It's business 101 that it's easier to keep selling a current customer than to try to go out and acquire new customers. A sponsor may not understand the psychology of the internet, so I think it makes sense to hire people like us who can translate the goals and expertise of the various parties into a useful strategy. *Let's Continue the "Amanda Across America":http://www.amandaacrossamerica.com Case Study* Here are few more things I would do differently: _From the Producer's Point of View:_ * Being a competitive person, and having screened each of the sponsors for being compatible with my project, I would want to see how much value I could deliver them so they'll have no doubts about supporting my next project. * In the case of Ford: I would plan to stop at every dealer along the way, and see how many Hybrids we could sell. I would use my role as media personality to attract my audience into the store, to have that great personal connection, and to have an open (yes probably and hopefully controversial) discussion about hybrid vehicles. Are they too little too late? Maybe. Want to test drive one? Sure. Are they better than your 5-year old stinkpot? You bet. But that's why I video blog - to have stimulating conversations with interesting people about new ideas without being afraid of commercial transactions supporting the process. * I would be delighted to challenge my audience to see what kind of difference we can make on this cross country trip. Add pages to the wiki to tally how many people turned off lights when they left the room (or switched to fluorescent), how many miles were walked or peddled instead of driven? The possibilities are endless. This is truly walking my talk, and getting my audience to do the same. _From the Sponsor's Point of View:_ * This is going to require more work on my (Ford's) part to get the dealer network involved and coordinate the logistics. But I'd be thrilled to have Amanda in our stores surrounded by her fans - a perfect demographic for the cars we are selling. * This also helps me support/pressure the dealer to take advantage of a great opportunity. "This price today only. It returns to normal by 25% a day so if you don't act within 4 days, you lose the benefit. And the first person who buys today goes to dinner with Amanda, we pick up the tab. We have sales people eager to answer your questions and let you take a test drive." [And dealers, you better be able to back this one up or it will backfire!] _From the Audience Point of View:_ * Hey, I'm getting great stories for free. Yes, I hate advertising, but I love Amanda and also like learning about things other people think are cool. And I trust my friends and the video blogs I watch much more than MSM. (Main stream media) * I've got ideas for the show; let me submit them. * I'd like to meet Amanda. Where is she gonna be? * Ok, I have been reading about Hybrids. I don't think they're the solution. I want to give Ford a piece of my mind, but I bet they won't dare to show up. They probably just tossed some money to try and look cool, without really caring about me. In my mind, this just proves they are clueless and don't really care. * I would listen to Amanda about this issue because I trust her and because this whole trip is to promote environmental awareness. So, if you are a producer and want to know how to make sense to a sponsor, contact us. If you are a sponsor who wants real ROI from your money, contact us. We see things differently and we love adding our plays to your game. roxanne's signature 808-384-5554 -10 GMT) "Check the current time in Honolulu":http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/city.html?n=103 , , , , ,

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Christopher Penn, Financial Aid Podcast URL: http://www.financialaidpodcast.com DATE: 10/25/2006 07:21:05 AM The thing is, if advertising is done RIGHT - meaning it's educational and entertaining, your audience won't hate it. Quite the contrary - they may love it. Even though they're 30 second spots, the PC/Mac ads from Apple are so entertaining, people share them without compensation. The same is true of podcasts and blogs - if the sponsor is truly a good fit for the show, then not only will the sponsor integrate into the content, but the audience may even welcome them. Christopher S. Penn, The Financial Aid Podcast A Publication of the Student Loan Network On-demand financial aid internet radio, no iPod required http://www.FinancialAidPodcast.com http://www.StudentLoanNetwork.com ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Fortune 500 Companies: Read this before sponsoring a podcast STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 10/22/2006 02:32:01 PM ----- BODY: The news this week was that "NBC to cut 700 jobs":http://www.breitbart.com/news/na/cp_X101902AU.xml.html as a direct result of *people's attention move from the TV to the internet*. Breitbart also reported that chief executive Jeff Zucker "told the newspaper that scripted shows cost too much given the lack of advertiser interest." I know advertisers are scrambling to put their money somewhere, especially online, in hopes of finding customers. Robert Scoble laments the "Internet Video Business Challenges":http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2006/10/20/internet-video-business-challenges/trackback/. "Jeff Pulver":http://pulverblog.pulver.com/archives/005819.html is zooming forward with his "Video on the Net":http://www.videoonthenet.com/ conferences. I just wonder why companies squander so much on edgy projects and leaps of faith, when there are simple ways to extend both positive results and the measurement of those results. Let's look at "Amanda Across America":http://www.amandaacrossamerica.com as a case study. Amanda Congden, original host of the ground-breaking videoblog "Rocketboom":http://www.rocketboom.com, has re-launched her career with a cross-country road trip in a "Ford hybrid vehicle":http://www.fordvehicles.com/suvs/escapehybrid/ to highlight environmental awareness. Good idea. But I think there is considerable opportunity being left on the table. Part 1 is just about good manners. Part 2 is understanding the more pedestrian aspects of the internet. *Part 1: It's Just Good Manners* I actually think content producers and paid sponsors could help each other and themselves more if they would actually hold hands in public instead of sitting on opposite sides of the ballroom. It's partly my upbringing, but if someone is going to give me a bunch of money so I can do what I love, then I think graciousness as well as good business suggests that you do more than create a popup window called "thanks" where users have to actually scroll to see all of the sponsors. Only to find just a logo or a text link to the sponsor's main web site. So utterly impersonal. And cumbersome to track. *Part 2: Pedestrian Use of the Internet* Sponsors and producers could far extend the ROI of the partnership, without spending any more money, just by using the internet for the little things it is really good for. Like adding a page here and there, a real face and a real name, and remembering it's about the conversation. *If I were managing this project:* * I would _insist_ that each sponsor's logo be visible without scrolling. * I would _insist_ that each link take users to a custom page just for that sponsor. * I would _insist_ that the sponsor not just give me money, but also tell me why and what my users ought to know about their products, and I would add this message to the custom page. * I would _insist_ on integrating some of that message into my content. (Amanda did visit a Hybrid plant in MO.) * I would _insist_ that the sponsor give me a name, email address, and phone number of at least one real person inside the company who will talk to my viewers when they are ready to know more. * I would _insist_ that questions viewers post on the "wiki":http://amanda.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ get answered daily and that "daily updates" be added daily. (It's such a neat idea to have the wiki! Too bad it seems only minimally inhabited.) * And speaking of the wiki, I would _insist_ that the sponsors participate. What a great way to start a dialog with your customers. I sure was looking for the voice of Ford in there to answer questions about hybrids, and Ford, and the environment, etc. Remember, web 2.0 (regardless of your opinion on the jargon) is about people having conversations with people they previously could not. It's me talking to a big wig at Ford just as much as it is Ford talking to us customers online. *Why would I be such an insisting b/witch?* Because I would only take people's money whose products or services I think are relevant and valuable to my viewers. There's nothing to hide about that. And because I would want more of that sponsorship money to keep flowing in, so I can keep doing what I love. And because it's just good manners that when someone gives you something of value, you don't just say "thanks." And finally, because even if a big large company doesn't know _how_ to use the internet in these mundane yet powerful ways, I would feel honored to show the way. "Job Interview Thank you letters by Yana Parker":http://www.damngood.com/ready/exmpl/thank-you.html "BrownieLocks Tips for Writing Thank You Notes":http://www.brownielocks.com/notes.html And be sure to visit "Beach Walks with Rox":http://www.beachwalks.tv and watch our video blog. We've got sponsorship ideas like grains of sand for the right fit! roxanne's signature , ,, , , , ,

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: David Kowarsky URL: http://focus.blip.tv DATE: 10/23/2006 04:45:47 AM Astute thoughts on the ways in which companies can/should leverage the medium. V Cool. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Roxanne Darling URL: http://www.barefeetstudios.com DATE: 10/23/2006 12:01:47 PM Thanks David. You may be interested in today's post, Podcast Sponsorships Part 2 on this topic. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Write Your Own Patent! STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 10/08/2006 06:37:01 PM ----- BODY: Sounds like perfect fun to me to grow your business! Courtesy of an email announcement from "Technology Ventures Corporation":http://www.techventures.org: *TVC-Sponsored Workshop on Patent Writing* Santa Fe Business Incubator 3900 Paseo del Sol, Santa Fe, NM October 25th, 2006 Albuquerque, NM Technology Ventures Corporation will be hosting a workshop entitled "Writing Your Own Patent" on Wednesday, October 25th, 2006 from 8 am to 12 noon at the UNM Science and Technology Park Auditorium at 800 Bradbury SE. The workshop will be lead by Bruce Winchell, who is a registered patent attorney with extensive experience in writing, submitting and defending patents in the United States and Canada. The workshop will outline the requirements for a US patent application, discuss what constitutes patentable subject matter, and provide instruction on writing patent claims. This workshop is provided free of charge but a reservation is required. Please email us your intent to attend to: or call Margaret Speer at (505) 843-4202. "Or just RSVP here.":http://www.123signup.com/register?id=qcfrk

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Why (text-audio-video) blog? A sample of one. STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 09/19/2006 06:03:01 PM ----- BODY: Whether it's people pushing iPods or Bibles, the urge to evangelize is one powerful urge! "Jeff Pulver responded to Dina Kaplan's suggestion":http://pulverblog.pulver.com/archives/005606.html to "Do a Video Blog" with a sober and IMO realistic perspective: bq. This all said, working with video does require some level of full-time commitment and care and is more "work" than just putting together one's thoughts for a text blog on any given Saturday afternoon. And "Robert Scoble has a useful list of video blog considerations":http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2006/09/16/to-videoblog-or-not-to-videoblog/ that is both inspiring (no, it doesn't have to be perfect) and yet practical (good sound matters). "Devlon at Loaded Pun also weighs in":http://loadedpun.com/2006/09/17/why-videoblog-a-question-to-bloggers.html, pointing out the grass roots power of this medium. It feels like something we the people are just not going to let go of! Video is so much more compelling. Remember all those arguments you've had, wishing someone had documented it with video, to "prove" your version of reality?? Well, now you can. h2. A Study of One: Here is my history with (text/audio/video) blogging. Even though I love to write, I so far haven't become a great blogger. I don't have much of the snoop and gossip genes that I think help make a great blogger. I've had many blogs, starting back in 2001, but none really stirred my pot. Then I got excited about audio podcasting, because heaven knows I love to talk to people. But that didn't really stick either, tho not for lack of ideas. It seemed cumbersome and I wanted to write it out first, but didn't want to take/have the time. Me alone with my microphone in my office where I already spend too much time? Nahh. Then along comes videoblogging, and I have truly found my home. It feels so natural to me. I love it, though it is considerably more difficult and more time-consuming than blogging or audio-podcasting. Especially since I choose to do my "Beach Walks with Rox":http://www.beachwalks.tv outside in the elements, every single day, generating content from my my own little heart and mind. Go figure! As a consumer, I often prefer to read as I can get so much more in, in a short period of time. I love it when a/v podcasters have show notes as that helps me decide whether or not to go further. Even if I don't have time to listen/watch, I can still engage in a relationship. I am very loyal to the podcasters who "speak to me" - something I cannot yet define. But I won't wait for an ad that most MSM requires before it will show me their video. Especially when I have to wait several seconds for anything at all to begin to play - as all the ad-click tracking makes its database calls to report on my behavior. But back to my original point, seems to me there are plenty of us who are seriously inspired by video on the internet and we can back off everyone else. I like that old AA practice: attraction not promotion. If it's as powerful as many of us think, it's only going to get bigger. You've got plenty of time to jump on this bandwagon. As for me, I have so many show ideas I can't sleep at night! roxanne's signature ,, , , ,

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Looking for CoWorkers in Honolulu STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 09/11/2006 09:16:00 PM ----- BODY: Coworking was conceived by "Brad Neuberg":http://codinginparadise.org/ and revolves around the concept of an open space work environment, where expenses are shared by "anchors" and "day trippers." Anchors pay a fixed amount per month to cover rent and utilities. It's basic math: take the total amount due, divide by the number of anchors. Day trippers pay a low, daily rate, and use as little or as much as they please. Their fees go back to the anchors to cover the fixed expenses. The whole point is for self-employed modernistas to be able to leave the home office and its crying baby next door, the non-stop lawn services, the low ceilings, and the cramped space, in favor of a "real office" with few traditional barriers. Coworking spaces are popping up "all over the mainland":http://coworking.pbwiki.com/FrontPage, and Honolulu seems like a natural fit. Are you interested? If so, let's talk! 384-5554 Aloha, roxanne's signature , ,

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Brad Neuberg URL: http://codinginparadise.org DATE: 09/11/2006 11:12:46 PM Hi Roxanne! How cool would that be to have a coworking space in Honolulu. What kinds of stuff do you hack on? Best, Brad Neuberg ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Roxanne Darling URL: http://www.barefeetstudios.com DATE: 09/12/2006 09:39:05 AM Aloha Brad, My partner and I have a web development company and we are hooked on video blogging. In addition to our sporadic posts here, we do a daily show at beachwalks.tv. It started as a test of the technology but it is producing ideas all over the place! And yes, having a place in HNL would be groovy indeed. Then our fellow coworkers on the mainland can have a place to hang during vacations here. grin Mahalo for stopping by! Roxanne ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Roxanne Darling URL: http://www.barefeetstudios.com DATE: 06/18/2007 11:42:12 AM Here's another group doing this for reference. They are in Denver. http://hivecoop.pbwiki.com/Residents ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Shane Robinson URL: http://www.barefeetstudios.com DATE: 06/18/2007 12:21:13 PM Found this great centralized site: http://coworking.pbwiki.com/ ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: What's Dunn Got to Do With It? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 09/09/2006 04:36:01 PM ----- BODY: In light of the realization that HP hired investigators who allegedly used illegal tactics to spy on board members and journalists, "many are calling for Ms. Dunn's resignation":http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/07/technology/fastforward_hp.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2006090811. # A "publlic" company means that you are responsible to the public. From the fiduciary point of view, the publlic shareholders are your _raison d'etre_. From a marketing point of view, "everyone else" is a potential customer, and business acumen sugggests "those customers care about your corporate practices":http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2006/09/08/hp-has-major-ethical-problem-day-3/. # The internet has become the supreme "outing":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outing entity. Secrets are only relevant to those who are irrelevant. Radar is so sensitive with the interconnected news hounds of the web that you have to be under the radar to hide your stuff. But even there, time is eroding your cloak of anonymity. # Small business owners do not have boards and layers of management to hide behind. Sure, there are crooks at the corner store too, but they get caught sooner as customers look at their receipts and talk to each other. # Most large companies would love us to think that Enron and WorldCom are deviant minorities. Thanks to Ms. Dunn, we continue to realize that even companies like HP have big problems behind closed doors, in addition to the leaking board members. My rule of thumb: the larger the company, the more money is at stake and the more incentive there is to go crooked and slimy. Small businesses are closer to their customers; they get found out sooner. And the market responds harshly. I'd like to inject neighborhood incentives into secretive corporate board rooms. Concentrating too much power into the hands of a few is bound to cultivate greed. The internet continues to level the playground and expose the bully tactics of a few that affect the many. roxanne's signature , , , ,

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Collaboration: Is it gender or position? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 08/02/2006 06:51:00 AM ----- BODY: Lynne d Johnson had this to say over at the Fast Company blog: bq. Huffington made the statement after announcing that she'd soon launch a new section on her site called "Politics Aside" that would feature topics that were not politics, such as mothering, sex, relationships, and cooking.... In my experience such a call for sharing of content is not common practice at male conferences — at least not in this context or without some sort of business deal being discussed. I tend to agree with Lynne that the average woman's view of collaboration is different from the average man. But does "Arianna Huffington":http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ fit into the averages? I don't know. I was not at Blogher, but I wonder did her offer to come on over and cross post on her blog come with any compensation? Would she be willing to cross-post over on other women's blogs too? After all, AH gets a lot of traffic. I think we are talking about spreading the wealth of influence and cash around, not concentrating it into the already dominant URL's. Yes, blogging is WONDERFUL because it has created dialog and mindshare amoung those at very different locations on the internet, the globe, the org chart, etc. But many of us see an old model slowly forming: concentration into the hands of a few rather than a truly distributed model. Internet software can handle that, but I think our brainware is struggling to keep up. But technology has frequently developed faster than psychology.
Gender may influence our gut reactions or choices, but experience and consciousness can trump those any day of the week.

One big issue in the videoblogging community is the huge outgrowth of video hosting sites. "Cross post your videos here for free!" But very few are discussing the revenue aspects, or if they are, it is tiny and speculative, and as most of us with some business experience realize, there still ain't very many free lunches. Greed is still a dominant force in business, and the challenge for the average woman I think is to navigate the balance between knowing that greed exists and yet still operating with an arms wide open stance. I think Robert Scoble is trying to change this game. How do we fairly compensate not only those who are bulding out the infrastructure but also those who are building the content? Molly E. Holzschlag got a lot of support when she decided not to speak at a conference for free. UPDATE: I incorrectly stated "SXSW":http://www.technorati.com/tags/sxsw. Thanks for the note Molly. Women may be more generous collaborators, but "they also tend to be left out of the big deals":http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2006/06/21/PM200606218.html. Still, "women owned businesses are growing at twice the rate of all privately-held firms":http://www.womensbusinessresearch.org/topfacts.html. *Bottom Line?* Gender may influence our gut reactions or choices, but "experience and consciousness":http://www.beachwalks.tv/2006/07/20/beach-walk-148-size-matters-in-football/ can trump those any day of the week. roxanne's signature , , , , , , ,

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Molly E. Holzschlag URL: http://molly.com/ DATE: 08/02/2006 09:45:10 AM Very interesting article, and thanks for it. One important correction if you'll be so kind, it wasn't SXSW I wouldn't speak at for free. I never named which conference. SXSW remains a special case for me, but I'm sure others in the field disagree with that as well. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: I am woman, hear me. STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 08/01/2006 09:42:00 PM ----- BODY: Steve Safran suggests over at Lost Remote that a TV station hire a woman anchor just because she has a strong voice. This type of thinking is just what I focus on over at "Beach Walks with Rox":http://www.beachwalks.tv/2006/05/18/beach-walk-87-sorting-saves-energy-but/. Yes, we all still have that old back brain that runs purely on instinct and fight or flight syndrome. But that doesn't mean we have to use it! Part of what consciousness is about is learning to think — and act — with the frontal cortex. That ability to set aside things we know to be silly (like women can't lead or manage authority) and act different! This is precisely what Joan Baker (successful voice-over talent) suggests in her article called "Challenging the Voice of God":http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6350082.html. Counter Point: I have to add since we are talking about voices, I don't know where the young girls of today get those squeaky whiny voices. I find _that_ incredibly irritating. Alongside the very old prejudice against women's authority, is females adopting speaking behaviors that sound childish and powerless. It takes both sides to effectively change a power structure. C'mon girls! Drop those energy-draining twangs; they don't score you any points except perhaps with your own peers. Or better yet, develop a versatile voice that can come and go with ease. grin

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Steve Safran URL: http://lostremote.com DATE: 08/02/2006 03:36:09 AM Roxanne: Thank you so much for the shoutout. One note - I'm not suggesting a female anchor so much as a female voice of the whole station. As in - the announcements for the promos, the voice-over for the intro to the newscasts, etc. Couldn't agree more about the squeaky voices. But there are plenty of guys with bad voices, too. A search for a strong female voice would lead to an excellent choice. Thank you again for the link. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: How Blogs Work 4 U STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 07/27/2006 09:35:01 AM ----- BODY: To me, blogs are like "tofu":http://www.webmediajournal.com/jessica_burruss/archives/2006/06/the_first_step_in_conquering_y_1.shtml. A lot of people say they don't like it for various reasons even though they have never actually experienced it. Or certainly haven't understand all of its benefits. Blogs are powerful in two ways: # Blog software enables cross-linking and networking as if your site is on steroids. # Blog content is where the action is these days on the internet. In my opinion, if you want to be successful online, you must understand how blogs work. If you want to "control your message" as many companies do, your best move is to be proactive with your own blog, or as Realty Objectives says, "Sunlight is the Best Disinfectant":http://realtyobjectives.com/blog/2006/04/13/sunlight-is-the-best-disinfectant/. Remember, anyone can start a blog and say just about anything they want about you. Are you ready and able to respond? Are you willing to talk candidly to your customers? Can you make the time to share some of your enormous wisdom and satisfy the deep hunger people have to know before they buy? Here is a short primer on how blogs work. h3. Add a comment on a blog add a comment to a blogThis is the easiest way to get your feet wet with blogging. You do not need a blog to so this! And your site will benefit immediately because your comment will create a link back to your site. (AKA "backlink" or "in bound link - IBL)
h3. Trackback to another blog trackback to another blogOnce you have a blog, you can trackback to another blog. This means, you add a link on your site, to someone else's blog. If their blog is configured correctly (not all blogs are equal!) then a link to your article will show up on their site. "Robert Scoble":http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/ gets a lot of comments and trackbacks on his blog. The trackbacks can be distinguished from the comments as they start with a bracket "[...]". Click on the "Comments" link for any article to see the details.
h3. Gain an In Bound Link from the Trackbacked Article imageAgain, if the other blog is configured correctly, your trackback will create a link on their site back to your site! Then all of the people reading that person's blog, will be able to click on over to your site and read your blog as well.
h3. Ping the Main Blog Directories ping technoratiNew directory sites track the activity on millions of blogs. This is where people can go to find the most recent blog discussion on virtually any topic. If your blog software enables it (not all blogs are created equal) then when you post a new blog article, you can "ping" or contact these directories to say, "Hey! I just posted a new article on my blog, and it's called "Five reasons Why Blogs Can Save Your Business." This is done automatically for you, in the background, by the software.
h3. Gain an In Bound Link from Each Directory inbound link from technoratiOnce you ping the directory, your link then shows up at the top of the list at each site. This generates more IBL going to your site, on very specific, keyword-dense topics. It also exposes you to millions of people looking there for articles just like yours.
h3. The Results inbound links to your siteWhere to begin? There are so many! * Increase in bound links to your site, from quality web sites, means better Google rankings for you. * You have more of your expert content on the web, positioning you as leader in your business space. * Customers flock to you as a knowledge provider. * Customers pre-qualify themselves by learning about you and your business. * You make it easy for others to link to you and collaborate online. * You have a tool to respond quickly and forcefully should others be discussing you and your business.
We'll talk about tagging and RSS later. roxanne's signature , , , , , ,

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Gliffy is Glorious! STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 07/24/2006 06:40:01 PM ----- BODY: I love "Gliffy":http://www.gliffy.com/. We are developing a new site and Gliffy creates a process that is light years ahead of me having to make the initial site plan diagrams in "OmniGraffle":http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnigraffle/, then convert to PDF, then distribute via email or "BaseCamp":http://basecamphq.com/?referrer=bfs, then get revisions by fax or in email as people try to say, "Can you move that blue box in About over to the left of Contact?" It takes collaboration from concept to reality when it comes to software like "Visio":http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX010857981033.aspx. It is a great use of web-based functionality. It makes my life easier as now I am not the only one who can update these maps, or test different strategies, or track versions. And for now (it's in Beta) it is free. I'd be happy to pay for it. It is a Flash-based app that has a very clean, intuitive interface. It acts just like a desktop application. Since it is based in your web browser, it is Mac-PC compatible. Mahalos to Alison, the "Click Chick":http://www.click-chick.com/ for turning me onto this terrific new business tool. roxanne's signature , , , ,

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Business Leaders Respond to Market STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 07/11/2006 09:45:01 AM ----- BODY: It's no coincidence that my Dad and I now agree on a lot of things. As Bob Dylan reminded us many years ago, "the times, they are a changing":http://www.barefeetshop.com/music-301668-B00000J7SM-Bob_Dylans_Greatest_Hits.html. And how could they not? Dad agrees that "CEO salaries have gotten out of control":http://www.beachwalks.tv/2006/07/01/beach-walk-129-math-with-rox/. He agrees that employees at all levels of the org chart perform better when compensated fairly and with a stake in the the success of the company. He still thinks I am too idealistic, but heh! Someone's got to be out front exploring what could be possible. "Here's how Fortune sees the shift.":http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/10/magazines/fortune/rules.fortune/index.htm What's your take? Does your company manage money and soul? My friend Richard Whiteley wrote "The Corporate Shaman":http://barefeetshop.com/shop.php?k=The+Corporate+Shaman&c=book "way" back in 2002. For those of us who can see possibilities, the future tends to arrive slowly. But nonetheless, it does manage to get here eventually. roxanne's signature Tags:

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 05/23/2006 07:07:01 AM ----- BODY: So let;s tackle each of these. The first is simply from one of the many smart, successful adults who are not early adopters of technology. And fornow, blogging is still much more popular in that community, and not adopted by the mainstream business community. I don't see this as a problem, as the internet itself was the same way. I can still recall the oft-received question, "What's email?" when I would offer to email someone a proposal or some information. The latter issus though, "the fear of blogging":http://blog.marketingprofs.com/mt-tb.cgi/845 is more troublesome to me. In this case the woman runs property management associations for various upscale developments. Her job is to enforce the covenants. If you've ever lived anywhere governed by covenants, you know they can be challenging as there are almost always those who want to push the limit. I've been one myself. Really liked the house, really liked the neighborhood, but indeed thought some of the rules were rather unnecessary. So rather than be "at effect" of the complaining bloggers, I suggested she start her own! Information can be such a tonic to people who are confused and it stops the escalation before it gets to angry. It also gives people who don't want to side with the angry blogger, facts and figures to use in developing their own _informed_ opinions on the matter. *Not only do you get to manage the messages that affect you and your business. It is your reponsibility to do so.* But only if you are willing to put in the time to do so. And that's one of the nice things about blogging. It doesn''t take a lot of time. I just read the headlines of three blog subscriptions, found one that motivated a response in me, and wrote this post — all in 27 minutes. (And I tend to write way more than is necessary! Just count the paragraphs.) Yes, it does take practice learning to look for and sort through information, formulating your opinions, and knowing how to use blog technology. That's why we sell "two hours of phone coaching":http://www.barefeetstudios.com/bfs/websites/ every month with our web sites because we want our clients to be successful technology users. Nothing you buy is all that valuable, if you don't know how to use it. Homage to Susan Jeffers for the title of her book, "Feal the Fear and Do It Anyway":http://www.barefeetshop.com/book-1000-0449902927-Feel_the_Fear_and_Do_It_Anyway.html. roxanne's signature , , , , ,

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Roxanne Darling URL: http://www.barefeetstudios.com DATE: 05/23/2006 07:41:35 AM For anyone who wants to check out my personal video blog, here is the link to it that I forgot to include in the post. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Save the Internet and Your Privacy STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 05/17/2006 12:02:01 PM ----- BODY: This is a heinous burden on business and a gross violation of our privacy. I believe it is time to remember that we have a participatory democracy here in the U.S. and we are responsible for how we get treated. "Legislation Would Require ISPs to Store Users' Activities":http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6072601.html bq. A prominent Republican on Capitol Hill has prepared legislation that would rewrite Internet privacy rules by requiring that logs of Americans' online activities be stored, CNET News.com has learned. The proposal comes just weeks after Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Internet service providers should retain records of user activities for a "reasonable amount of time," a move that represented a dramatic shift in the Bush administration's views on privacy. *What if you got bumped to the back of the bus on the way to the internet?* There is legislation pending to give telcos increased control over access to the internet. You can "watch this short video we made":http://www.beachwalks.tv/2006/05/02/beach-walk-71-save-the-internet/ on the topic. You can also visit "Save the Internet":http://www.savetheinternet.com/ to learn more. May 24th there will be a national day of protest against this pending legislation. I know it is easy to assume that bad things won't happen, but they do. The internet has given each citizen a voice like never before. Let's use it to promote open communication and private lives. roxanne's signature , ,

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Roxanne Darling URL: http://www.barefeetstudios.com DATE: 05/18/2006 12:48:23 PM More notes for those who want to act: Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Efficiency Act of 2006 COPE = HR 5252 Full text here as PDF: http://elfurl.com/p9twg Wikipedia page on Net Neutrality (it's long): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality To contact your congresspeople: http://www.savetheinternet.com/ Beware of http://handsoff.org and http://www.dontregulate.org/ - backed by the telcos. "Astroturf - fake grassroots organization." As one person stated, the net neutrality legislation is regulation like the Bill of Rights is regulation - they both exist to protect freedoms not take them away, as the Hands Off people would have you believe. Marianne Granoff - thanks for your updates. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Introducing Beach Walks.tv STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 05/12/2006 10:44:00 AM ----- BODY: "Beach Walks with Rox":http://www.beachwalks.tv h2. What is Beach Walks with Rox? It is a daily video blog, aka vlog, aka video podcast, aka internet tv show - take your pick. This is an emerging tool and the labels haven't quite sorted themselves out yet. h2. What is the point? There are several! * Play with the technology - video, RSS, viral marketing, etc. * Share the many wonderful aspects of living and working in Hawai'i. * Attempt to grow a new business in our spare time. h2. What sort of things are on the show? A little slice of daily life in Hawaii, with me and our adorable dog Lexi. It's free, and you are all invited to join us. We've done 80 shows and covered all sorts of things like the dangers of sunscreen, Nata Village in Botswana fighting AIDS, "live dangerously - wear a bikini", Lei Day, and even had a guest director from "Lost" - the TV show that is filmed in Hawaii. In other words, sometimes serious, sometimes frivolous, always Aloha. h2. Who is watching? People in 58 countries! You can read the comments on the site and watch the shows to hear the calls on the conch shell line, to see that we have a very wide mix of women and men, all ages, and it's kid safe too. Out of over 700 video podcasts on the leading tracking site, "Podcast Alley":http://www.podcastalley.com/podcast_details.php?pod_id=22805 we usually rank around 12-14. (We'll rank higher if you vote for us!) We are currently #225 out of over 19,000 total podcasts (audio and video)! h2. What's Next? We are planning our 100th show and will be having a contest for viewers to submit their feedback (text, audio, and video) and win hundreds of dollars worth of dakine Hawaiian gifts. Stop by the site to learn more. "Beach Walks with Rox":http://www.beachwalks.tv roxanne's signature , , , , , , ,

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: The Business Value of Blogging, #356 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 04/19/2006 07:35:00 PM ----- BODY: I found this topic over at "GigaOM":http://gigaom.com/2006/04/19/alan-meckler-versus-jason-calacanis/. Really, the whole point of this debate was something of a canard I think because there are basic fundamentals that can predict the answer. Duh. Take any activity or enterprise, and for now, there is a predictable response curve aka pyramid: a few will make it to the very top by whatever measure you choose to use, and the rest will be happy or miserable at various steps down below, depending on their nature and their goals. Leave it to traditional media to pick a blatantly silly and almost irrelevant topic to engage two influential thinkers. However! It highlights something I think about almost every day. The digital divide between those who are embracing the internet and those who are either ignoring it or dismissing it. I don't want to be an agist, but I think older people who were raised on last century business practices are really having a hard time "getting it." To get it means, in my mind, not having any guaranteed idea where the internet is taking us and how it is transforming our lives, not to mention the business landscape. That is one of the subtle and striking observations I notice when reading "these sorts of articles":http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB114502394663826104.html as well as talking to clients. And mind you, I am 53 so I have the tendency towards status quo too. But as I rebelled against it then, I am reveling in the potential of the internet now. If you get it, you don't have to predict it. You are just open to the possibilities and you are in on the game. The jock is no longer the shoe-in; the nerd may win by sheer force of personality. If you don't get it, you dismiss the game as temporary and insignificant. Read this "dismissive comment":http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB114502394663826104.html from Alan Meckler, CEO at "Jupitermedia":http://weblogs.jupitermedia.com/meckler/, "an Internet media research and marketing firm:": "Blogs are really the "diaries" of yesteryear." No actually they are the opposite. Diaries were highly guarded caches of personal secrets and gossip. Blogs are highly public fonts of (mis)informed (both) opinions backed by supporting citations with the power to "affect elections":http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/3/10/132234/308 among other things. Not to mention direct revenue generators of various proportions. To which "Jason":http://www.calacanis.com/ replied: "You are correct that the majority of folks are not going to make a living from blogs, but that's because they choose not to try, not because they couldn't. If folks focus in on a niche and own it there is a good chance they could make half a living from blogging." The internet truly does bring more power to the people. If you're a person, you too can enjoy more power by participating on the internet. My bottom line is that it's not life threatening if you don't get it. One of the most powerful aspects of the internet is that it has allowed us to bare our souls and insecurities and come out stronger on the other side. You're actually on the road to getting it by admitting you don't get it. And that's altogether different than thinking you get it, and then dismissing it. You got that?

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mary Schmidt URL: http://www.maryschmidt.com DATE: 04/20/2006 02:32:02 PM Um, I think I got it. Or, at least I know that I don't got it, but I know what it is. Or, something like that. I agree that it could be partly a matter of age (and I'm 48, so I'm not age-bashing here.) I was talking to an older colleague this week about blogging and the Web, and while she said she wanted to learn more, she then said "I'm amazed when you tell me about all you do on the Internet. I just don't have the time to play on the computer all day." Of course, I called her on the "play" and she quickly backtracked, said she didn't mean it that way. Freudian slip there, methinks. But, we all have to find our own level - in life, business and technology, don't we? ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Business Web Sites: Think Glocally, Act Locally STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 04/11/2006 01:43:00 PM ----- BODY: h3. #1: I'm here. Are you there? People (that's you and me) are in front of our computers several hours each day. I go to a search engine to look for information, not the phone book. I am often frustrated by web sites (especially in the retail sector) that don't have the basic information a local customer wants: * Phone number * Address with nearby cross streets (or a link to a Google map!) * Hours of operation * Current sales or in-store specials that might get me stop in * Details about merchandise and services available, so I'll know if you are likely to carry what I want. This can all be provided virtually free of charge on a web page, while costing thousands of dollars a year in the phone book. Or should I say books, as there are so many competing publications. As a side note, if you are a "local only" company who has been putting off getting a web site, now is the time to re-think that decision. h3. #2: Local Search. Close and Convenient on Your Computer One the hot internet business buzzwords this year is "local search." Google now allows you to search locally, and also will display "local" links on many of its searches. Try This: Go to Google and search for "dry cleaners albuquerque". At the top of the page, you will see a master link for dry cleaners. If you click on that, it will take you to a listing of the dry cleaners, adjacent to a map that shows you where each one of them is located! Sometimes I can even find hours of operation, if Google has been able to "scrape" it from other web sources. That's not all though. If you click on one of them, a little graphic displays on the map showing the address and phone number to that location. Plus, you can send the info to your phone, or get driving directions. Of course you can print the map as well and take it with you in the car as you go out on your errands run. h3. #3: Local Search Ads. Follow the Money. As local search gets so refined and useful, local search ads are following right along. Borrell Associates reports that local ad spending is apt to double in 2006, reaching $1 billion. Get details here. This is coming at the expense of traditional ad media (think radio and TV). As more and more people look online for local products and services (see point number 1) then more and more companies will be advertising locally online. BTW, did you know you can buy adwords that are displayed only in certain zip codes? (BTW = By the way) So the next time you are updating your company web site, be sure it's just as informative and friendly to your local customers as it is to those billions out there in cyberspace! Bonus Tip! If you have customers who call in from other areas and don't seem to understand time zones, you can create a custom link on your site that will display the current time in any specific location. Here's a link to the current time in Honolulu. This is great for home-office professionals who get those East Coast power brokers calling you before you've had time to let the dog out. Thanks for stopping by SmallBizAmerica! Roxanne's signature Internet Literacy for Business Bare Feet Studios

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Lannan is Podcasting STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 04/02/2006 11:55:00 PM ----- BODY: In many cases, the Lannan recording is one of the only live recordings made by an individual. The majority of the programs that are being released were recorded live in Santa Fe, New Mexico at the Lensic Theatre. One of the things we love about working with Lannan is their willingness to push the envelope in so many ways. They support those individuals who are out speaking against the mainstream babble and they have embraced the internet (and their own web site) with the same determination and curiosity. It has been our challenge and our pleasure to work for them over the past six years and to help them dramatically extend the reach of their work. Please visit their main site: "Lannan Foundation":http://www.lannan.org and the new "Lannan Podcasting":http://podcast.lannan.org.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Shane TITLE: Apple Safari Browser Automatically Executes Shell Scripts STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 02/21/2006 11:17:00 AM ----- BODY: imageWell, "here's another little hole":http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/69862 in the Safari browser that can be potentially *very very dangerous*. Easy to fix, and you should disable it right this very minute. If you want the gory details you can click on the link above. Otherwise you should stop reading this right now, open Safari's preferences, and on the *General* tab you should uncheck the checkbox that says "Open ‘safe' files after downloading. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Shane TITLE: Mac Virus/Trojan: Don't open latestpics.tgz STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 02/16/2006 11:01:33 AM ----- BODY: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Turning Technology into a Commodity STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 02/08/2006 01:35:33 PM ----- BODY: In the past 10+ years, we've seen several of our colleagues go out of business. We rarely win RFPs, as we typically come in as the highest bidder. I remember talking to one associate several years back, whose company had grown considerably. She described her company as a shark; it had to keep getting new clients to underwrite the cost of the existing clients. That's not a sustainable business model. They are no longer in business. That's a small business story that relates to "Corporate Canaries":http://barefeetshop.com/book-1000-078521299X-Corporate_Canaries_Avoid_Business_Disasters_with_a_Coal_Miners_Secrets.html. This is my favorite excerpt from Tom's review of the book: bq. There are parables and such, but the bedrock notions are simple, profound, frequently ignored—and use-able starting today. There are just 5 key ideas. The first, "You can't outgrow losses." E.g.: "New business is a great thing, an important thing, and critical for success. But trying to sell your way out of profit problems only magnifies the trouble. Fix profits first. Then add business." Margin (profit) problems won't be solved by selling more low-margin, no-margin stuff. The malaise, "trying to sell your way out of losses," Sutton claims, "is the most common cause of business failure." (Yikes, does that strike—again and again—close to home.) Living and working in such a price-sensitive culture does make it really hard to hold the line on prices. High prices that is. Most customers really believe they will be better off if they pay less. This is often not the case, but at least it seems to protect people from thinking they got screwed. Only problem is, they may be getting screwed on the other end! What if your vendor goes out of business? What if your vendor does not have the margins to invest in training to stay ahead of the curve in helping you protect your assets? What are you saving by having a smart vendor, "on your team but not on your payroll" as we say about us here at Bare Feet Studios? Large companies are now setting up software escrow accounts to essentially bank a vendor's code, to access should the vendor go out of business. We all depend on software and the internet to function minute by minute. It makes sense to be proactive in this way from the customer point of view. From the vendor point of view, it makes sense to keep prices set at a sustainable level while educating customers on all the aspects of the value proposition. We have kept our prices above many (though not all) of our competitors, and are in our 11th year of business. We are also deeply appreciative of our clients, several of whom have been with us for nearly a decade. Lowering prices on services (unless there is some aggregation component to the price restructuring) usually ends up being a lose-lose proposition IMO. So for any service vendors out there reading this blog, and especially small businesses, know that I've got your back and encourage you to find a way to let your pricing strategies keep you in business as a more competent professional, rather than being bullied out of business by well-meaning customers who just haven't _yet_ learned the intrinsic value of your skills. And to all of the investors and support professionals who advise start-ups and entrepreneurs, beware of the "penny saved, pound lost" approach to hiring professional services. Knowing when and were to bootstrap is a key decision. Knowing what is a commodity purchase and what is a value purchase is not the most obvious thing in today's marketplace.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mary Schmidt URL: http://www.maryschmidt.com DATE: 02/10/2006 05:57:06 AM As you know, I'm a huge fan of Peters. It's unfortunate that more people don't truly listen to him. As he titled one of his posts, "If I'm so smart" So, even he gets frustrated. The challenge for any size company is to have the guts to be different, to not only talk but to act, and to recognize that you have to spend money to make money (a hoary old maxim, but oh so true, particularly when it comes to technology.) One of the things I constantly hear from small businesses is that they desperately want and need more help with marketing. And, yet, they are very reluctant to pay for it. Of course, I can understand, it's tough carving out the budget for the seemingly "out there" and "soft" stuff (such as web sites and advice) when you've got to pay the light bill and employees. But, it really all comes down to: Do you want to be mediocre, constantly trying to "make it up in volume" or do you do want to be great (which isn't necessarily the same as big) and have terrific margins, loyal customers and an infrastructure (people, processes and technology) that enable to anticipate new opportunities and - yes - even create them? If you think small, you'll be small. And, cheap looks cheap. P.S. I highly recommend "Good to Great" as additional reading. One key point: Being good at something doesn't necessarily mean you can become great at it. Recognizing this hard cold reality means a company may well have to move out of its comfort zone to be great. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Mac OSX: Strong and Beautiful! STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 02/01/2006 11:12:27 AM ----- BODY: It is set to attack Windows (or as we affectionately say, "Windoze," as in doze, as in asleep at the wheel when it comes to security, ease of use, etc.) computers on Friday. You can "read more about it here.":http://app.e2ma.net/app/view:CampaignPublic/id:2920.192115214/rid:4bfeab808e3096c5f70ddee833416e62 We just launched a new web site yesterday, "San Pedro Overlook":http://www.sanpedrooverlook.com and as with every web site we build, there is about 5-10% added to the programming costs, just to make it work right on Windows computers and the Internet Explorer web browser. IE in particular does not play well with others, or to state it more bluntly, does not adhere to the "W3C web standards":http://www.w3.org/. Whats the W3C? To quote them: "The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international consortium where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop Web standards. W3C primarily pursues its mission through the creation of Web standards and guidelines designed to ensure long-term growth for the Web. Over 400 organizations are Members of the Consortium. W3C is jointly run by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the USA, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France, Keio University in Japan, and has additional Offices worldwide." In some ways it boils down to one of those "so last century" concepts that I like to talk about here in the blog. Having a proprietary system that creates barriers for others (like IE) is so last century! Having consortiums supported by loads of really smart people most of whom volunteer their time to help us all have a better web surfing experience, well that is very here and now! If you want a better web surfing experience, "get Firefox":http://www.getfirefox.com or as the bumper sticker says, "Friends don't let friends use IE!" roxanne's signature , , , , If you really want to immerse yourself in this topic, check out any of the headlines on this page over at "eWeek":http://www.eweek.com/category2/0,1874,1476468,00.asp.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Would you like cheese with that whine? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 01/27/2006 11:51:16 AM ----- BODY: I got started on this post after reading a post by Melissa Reinert over at "Kirsten Osolind's Reinventioninc blog":http://reinventioninc.blogspot.com/archives/2006_01_01_reinventioninc_archive.html#113824471061519633 this morning. (Jeez! What a list of resources and links she and her colleagues have put together over there. A great resource.) Melissa provides a good summary of some of the recent research into blogging habits and numbers comparing men and women. I do however disagree that we should altogether "stop whining." Like most things in life and in business, there is plenty ‘o nuance to be had on the topic. I agree with Melissa that women have a bad reputation for whining on the job. It's inaccurate in my experience, as I've met some world-class male whiners! Who cares, though, for now women shoulder the blame as a gender. I think the secret to erasing this bad rap though, is for all of us whiners to know when to whine. And when to show up with a smile. It's easy to pontificate about things like "are you part of the problem or are you part of the solution?" but what I've learned is that it can be hard to get unstuck. Hard to put on the smile, authentically, and not just cram more s*** down the throat. That is after all, so last century. grin
Real women do whine; they just know the when, why, and how of it!

So here's my tip on the the topic: Whine to your heart's content — *in private*. Get the frustrations out of your system. Business is tough, it's fast, it's as competitive as ever. Pretending you're not frustrated when you are is no better than whining in public. Taking the either-or approach rarely works over the long term in my experience. Knowing when to whine and with whom, well, that's a useful business skill for women and men! h3. Roxanne's Tips for Productive Whining # Pick a time to whine when you are offline and it won't interefere with your professional and personal responsibilities. Yes, that time does exist even though it may not be staring you in the face. # Pick a place that is private. Your whining really is no one else's business, unless #3 applies. Think closet, shower, car, underwater in the pool or ocean. There are lots of private spaces that may still be in close proximity. # Optional: Pick a person who will listen to your whine, without piling on. In other words, affirms your frustration but does not add to it with all sorts of "Yeah, you are totally right and that other person was totally screwed up!" # Pour your heart and soul into it! Be brash, extreme, detailed, and over the top. Get it out of your system! Cry, rant, and rave if necessary. (Remember, you're doing this _in private_.) # Place a time limit. This will help you focus and be successful at #4. If you don't feel done, schedule another whining appointment with yourself. I was a guest presenter at "Rancho La Puerta Spa":http://www.rancholapuerta.com/ several years ago, when I first taught this method. Back then I called it, "How and Why to Have a Meltdown." The female power execs in my classes ate the stuff up! The real key to all this for me is realizing there is nothing wrong with getting utterly frustrated to the point of tears. It's knowing what gets me to that point, applying some preventive medicine (productive whining is one cool pill) and being able to get back to my positive and successful self asap. Goodness knows that's where I prefer to be, not to mention what the people around me want! I know I'm there when mom (or biz partner) can say, "Would you like some cheese with that wine?", and I can laugh right back and say "Yes!" "Here's my mom's latest challenge.":http://www.flickr.com/photos/miss-darling/sets/1481159/ "Here's my mom walking her talk.":http://www.flickr.com/photos/miss-darling/24420015/in/set-558423/ Hey, Aloha Friday to you! roxanne's signature , , , , ,

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Who Pays for Technology Failures? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 01/21/2006 03:20:07 PM ----- BODY: *Note:* We're providing this information as video, audio, and as text over in our blog. What's your preference? Leave a comment and let us know! You can now subscribe to any or all of the feeds: blog, audio podcast, or video podcast. "Go here for audio and video.":/bfs/bizzycast/detail/when-technology-fails-who-pays We work in computer networks all day every day. Our business depends on technology. When a machine crashes, when a drive fails, when software gets a bug, time is lost. For us, that time is also money. As a small company, we're still learning how to build in the accurate level of overhead to cover these unexpected failures in software and hardware. They are a real fact of business. Yet they are not anyone's fault most of the time. So until we can say, "Computer, run diagnostic program" (and it does!), who should bear the burden of the expense? Here's a real example that happened just this week. h3. Client Document Received in Corrupted Form A client recently sent me a large Word doc with content for a new project in development. When I went to open it, my Microsoft application told me — one at a time — that every single font on my computer was corrupt and should be removed. I then had the same error when trying to open excel and powerpoint files, though not in any other non-Microsoft applications. This indicated a bug of some sort has temporarily wrecked my Microsoft apps. Normally I would just re-install the software and get back to work with about a 30 minute detour for troubleshooting. But I am traveling, and don't have my software CD with me. For many people, that would have caused a complete work stoppage. But being a geek girl, I was able to open the file in BBEdit, a plain text editor. Of course that meant I lost all formatting but I can handle that. The problem is I also inherited about 25 pages of gobbledy goop code that was wrapped around the real content, and that I had to strip away before I could do anything useful with the content. We're now looking at easily another hour or more of lost productivity. h3. So Who Pays? Who pays for this? Do I bill the client 2 hours for a task that could have taken 15 minutes if everything were working as intended? It's probably not her fault, though it's possible her machine had a virus. However, it's not my fault either, as my Microsoft worked prior to receiving her file. If I were not working the extra two hours on her project, I could have been out walking in the mountains or swimming in the ocean. grin h3. Bill Bill? Do I bill Bill Gates for the software failure? Although his company makes the software that crapped out on me, the file could have been corrupted in email transport. This is actually a fairly common occurrence. (Hint: zip your files before sending them via email attachments. It seems to help.) h3. Shane's Got It I love my partner Shane's perspective. If we were on staff (not under contract) and software or a server goes down, we would continue to be paid while we troubleshoot the problem. Our salary is not suddenly suspended until the technical problems are solved. In fact, our greatest value comes into play when we set about making inexplicably broken things work again. That's a skill that most technology users do not possess. As "Bart Cleveland":http://amiga.adage.com/blogs/?p=42 said so well, people just want things to work. h3. Local Clues I like to look for clues in my environment and in the here and now when I am confused. Since I am on an airplane, I immediately hear in the back of my head, "In the case of a loss of cabin pressure, please secure your oxygen mask before assisting others." Of course! I want to be sure I can take care of my needs so I can then be of help to you. We are in this together. It's my responsiblity to keep my company strong and solvent. When technology fails, most likely it's going to be our job to fix it. h3. Typically, No One Wants to Pay Clients sometimes don't want to pay for this, because in most cases it is not their fault either. Inexplicable stuff happens. Considering how many points of failure there are between each user and a given web site, I am amazed the internet and software and hardware works as well as it does. But that doesn't mean I am any less desirous of *technology that just works*. As a fulltime technology user, I am intimately affected when it works as well as when it doesn't. However I'm of the belief that the end recipient is primarily responsible for paying when technology fails. If we're working on your job, and technology fails, we'll bill you for fixing the problem. We hope you'll be glad to have a smart technologist on your team when these unpredictable failures occur! h3. What's the Bottom Line for Your Business When IT fails, everyone pays. We're on this mothership together! If we both can let that weigh in, we can get problems solved faster and cheaper for everyone. # If you are an IT service provider, we think it's important to build in to your overhead or directly bill for the time when IT is acting up. Otherwise, your business is not financially sustainable. # If you're an IT user and buyer, you'll save by having the best people on your support team. The faster they can solve your problems, the faster you can return to productivity and the less it will cost you. # If we see that our success is mutually interdependent, it creates an incentive to have open communication. We have found that open communication creates the best environment for preventive medicine as well as a quick return to happy machines. h3. Links Bart Cleveland Perspectives of running a small ad agency. Bose Headphones I won't travel without them! Foti Filter Another great traveler's aide; it moisturizes the air as it filters out pollutants and germs. I find it really helps maintain my health while traveling. Where Did The Money Go: Easy Accounting Basics for the Business Owner Who Hates Numbers iPod Nano Yum yum! My own little world inside my own little head. Great sound scape when traveling in crowded, noisy environments. roxanne's signature *Technorati Tags:* , . , , , , , , , , ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Mary TITLE: I = i STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 01/17/2006 07:06:32 AM ----- BODY: In talking about the impact of Apple (iPod, iTunes, etc.) on traditional commercial media, I respectfully suggest that many of my fellow marketers are missing the point. Sure, the most evident (and readily understandable) impact is such things as the good ol' fashioned bump in t.v. ratings, thanks to iTunes. And, that sort of data certainly makes any marketer sit up and pay attention (regardless of what we're selling.) However, I believe there is a far greater force at work. Virtually overnight, we're becoming a world of pod people. As in one of my favorite movies, Invasion of the Body Snatchers — by the time the "normal" humans notice, it's too late. Of course, in this case I think it's a good thing. The i factor is changing the very essence of human communication and interaction. People can now, if they choose, access (and increasingly interact with) information and entertainment from all around the globe. And, they can do it with a device that will fit into their pocket. This will help us appreciate each other's differences, which will lead to respect, which in turn will encourage business/political/religious discourse that gets beyond knee-jerk name calling and moves into working on problems. Of course, all this goodness comes with a bad side. When we have so many choices, how do we choose? How do we separate the dreck from the wisdom? I don't have the magic answer (if I were that brilliant, I'd be wealthier than Gates and Jobs combined.) However, I am sure that old-style dead-tree journalism and interruption advertising is rapidly going the way of the do-do bird and the artic ice cap. So, what does all this mean to your business (big or small)? Recognize the i factor is something much more than your kid's gift shopping list. Look around, start thinking how you can talk to your markets in new and different ways. And, if your old-style advertising (and/or cold calling, and/or Web 1.0 web site) isn't working, don't throw more money at it. Isn't the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? apple

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Mary TITLE: The Top Ten Blogger Lies STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 01/13/2006 06:24:44 AM ----- BODY: Hugh Macleod at gapingvoid has written the marvelously pithy Top Ten Blogger Lies. I've posted the entire list for your convenience (with a couple of my own points at the end.) 1. I don't consider myself an A-Lister. No, but I turn up for speaking gigs at all the big conferences anyway. Uh-huh. 2. I don't care about traffic. Of course I don't. Even though I'm a freelance consultant, and my blog is my primary way of marketing myself. Rock on. 3. I've read your blog. Yeah, well I read the "Musings of an unemployed tech consultant" bit on the title bar, before clicking off. That counts. 4. I started blogging back in 1999. Of course, back in 1999 a Flash-animated, brochureware homepage was considered a blog. Kinda sorta. 5. My blog has no commercial agenda. I'm far too sexy to care about money. Exactly. 6. I only have advertising on my blog as an experiment. That explains why the adstrip is right under the "Musings of an unemployed tech consultant" bit. Indeed. 7. I've never liked the unegalitarian term, "A-Lister". Even though I am one. Oh, the irony. 8. I'm proud to be a D-Lister. Even though I spend 7 hours a day writing the thing. Right. 9. He's a big hero of mine. He's got more traffic than downtown Mexico City and I'm hoping to God he links to me one day. 10. I really admire what she's doing for the blogosphere. I've noticed that she's currently single. Personally, I readily admit that I started blogging for commercial motives. I also admit I was thrilled when Tom Peters used my name in a post and then I made it onto his blogroll. He probably gets more traffic that the entire country of Mexico. (I also think he's brilliant, so there.) The more people that know me, know how I think and, yes, like me — the better it is for my business. I also enjoy writing and people tell me I'm good at it. So, blogging is a key part of my virtual marketing strategy. This all started when I received a phone call after I had a guest column in the local "paper of record." The caller said he had a very hard time finding me (and he became a client.) So, I got to work on developing my brand me. Today, if you enter "Mary Schmidt" in Google, I'm right there at the top. Oh, and I'm single …but cranky, two cats own me, and I hate for others to load my dishwasher … wink

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Thanks for Inviting Me to The NMAWC Workshop STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 01/11/2006 04:36:00 PM ----- BODY: You can practice leaving a comment on this article and it will automatically create a link to your web site! That will help your Google rankings, and I would love to hear from you. (Be sure to enter your full web address starting with "http://". Download My Presentation Notes (PDF; 336K) Internet Marketing in the Age of Google h3. From Dave Meurer Comments: Here is a book I love for finding your voice using pen and paper writing as compared to computer drafts: Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, a Taos writer and writer's coach. I worked with her many years ago and still value the exercises. h3. From Pat Wallwork's Comments: Check out the blog by Pat Wallwork's partner: Bart Cleveland's Blog for Ad Age You may also be interested in listening to my talk last spring about the "Long Tail." It's related to Pat's discussion of paying more for less in terms of ad dollars. Except that out on the long tail, ROI is incredible due to the loyalty and specificity of the highly targeted audience. This is what I was discussing with Adam Curry's Podcast and the Senseo sales he makes without a sponsorship deal. photo of Kathy Lovin and Melanie Rubin
Kathy Lovin, The Vineyard Express and Melanie Rubin Coaching h3. Links I Mentioned Remember to right-click if you want to open these links in a new window or a new tab. Blogs Will Change Your Business Business Week, May, 2005 IABC Presentation Panel I was on in Honolulu last June Corporations Entering Brave New World of Blogs Get Firefox Web Browser It's faster, safer, and much friendlier than IE. Basecamp Online project management tool Adam Curry Senseo Coffee Machine Duke City Fix Albuquerque's Best Community Blog I think The MommyCast They got $100K sponsorship from Dixie. Dave Meurer Zoom Strategies Pat Wallwork McKee Wallwork Cleveland

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: bill URL: http://www.coffeekids.org DATE: 01/12/2006 08:14:04 AM Great idea, I'm going to try it myself. Thanks. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Kathy Lovin URL: http://www.thevineyardexpress.net DATE: 01/13/2006 11:19:47 AM Dear Roxanne~ Thanks for your dynamic and very informative presentation to NMAWC this week. I left the presentation thinking, "Wow, thank goodness for people like you who keep abreast of the speed-of-light changes taking place on, and morphing, the internet." As a single proprietor of a new business I am wearing all the hats. It is a challenge to keep the momentum and still find time to make necessary changes and updates to our website. Your tele-coaching concept is great and I'm sure it will benefit many! Kathy Lovin, Owner, The Vineyard Express, ABQ, NM ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Technology Goes to the Dentist STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 01/10/2006 08:56:33 PM ----- BODY: First of all, the hygenist no longer works at the dentist's office, but instead out of a separate (read: outsourced) facility. Lots of hygenists running around using all sorts of computers and tools and technology. Lovely office; a tight ship for sure. At first I was a little irritated. I am thinking, "This is going to take more than 20 minutes." Then I thought, "That means it is going to cost more than sixty bucks." But the lovely Lucy wore down my objections, as she inventoried my teeth and the mm that each one is receding, logged it into my computer record, cleaned off the plaque, and zapped me with sonic something or other. Oh, and she did get around to flossing and cleaning the teeth too. It wasn't last century's teeth treatment to be sure, and some would say, "Who needs all this new-fangled stuff?" In the process I was also mildly irritated with the specialists who spent time inventing all the little gadgets, "just because they could" though I would be stuck paying for the use of them. But by the end I realized that better care for my teeth is a good thing for me, plus, who am I to frown on new technology? As a postcript, I felt smugly satisfied when Lucy asked if I used a tongue scraper. "Well yes I do!" It's a very ancient piece of Ayurvedic technology that's been on the hippie health food circuit for decades. Seem modern mainstream dentistry has discovered its many benefits. Get yours at the Bare Feet Shop. roxanne's signature

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: I Wanna Be #1 on Google! STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 01/09/2006 01:44:17 PM ----- BODY: h3. Preliminary Note: You don't have to go through Google to get places on the internet. We've observed a lot of people go to Google, then type in their own web site and wait for Google to bring it up. Then they click through to go the web site. Some newbie web users think you have to go through Google to get anywhere on the Internet. Others have not grown comfortable with the address bar in the web browser window. Sometimes we audaciously suggest typing in the web site address directly and saving it as favorite for a one-click visit in the future. More than once we've heard, "No, I like going to Google." I must say we don't understand this, but we've observed it too many times to pretend it is not a real behavior.
Having valid, quality links to your site is the most important thing you can do to get good rankings on Google.

h3. Search Engine Primer: How do I get in a search engine? Each search engine has robots and spiders that are software programs crawling the web. They follow links from web page to web page and then index or file what they find into massive databases. You want to build your site so that it is accessible to these automated programs. And you want to build your private web areas so they are not accessible to these programs. There are over 8 billion pages on the internet. A July 2000 Cyveillance' study estimates that the Internet is growing at a rate of more than 7 million pages per day. It takes time after your site has launched before the bots and spiders will find you and store you in their databases. Be patient! Or go directly to Google to submit your site. h3. First: How do you want to be found on Google? Google is a search engine. You type one or more words into the search bar and Google returns any number of guesses for what it thinks you want. Those words you type in are called "search terms" and/or "keywords." Some search terms are incredibly competitive, as there are many businesses who want to be number one for that phrase. Think about "home mortgage." Then think about how many web sites are in the business of selling home mortgages. Then think about the budget some of them have to pay to get top rankings on Google. Depending on your search term and the size of your business, it may not be realistic to expect top rankings for very generic, very competitive search terms. h3. Second: What search terms are within your reach for top rankings? All is not lost! You can aim to be found by your company name, especially when combined with a local search. Let's say "ABC Home Mortgage" and "Albuquerque." Those are more specific, and would be a much better search query if say, someone heard you speak at Rotary and wanted to check you out, but did not have a business card or did not know your web site address. You'll want to have your company name mentioned in real text on your home page and you'll want to have your City and State and/or geographic service area also listed in the home page text. h3. Third: What if that still isn't working? Google is an incredibly competitive space. Even when you do things "right," you may not make it on the first few pages. It may be you have a common name in a crowded space. It may mean your site is too small to get noticed. It may mean the structure of your site prevents Google from easily finding you. It may mean your site is too new for Google to have found you yet and placed you in its database. h3. Fourth: What are the most important things for you to do to get on Google? * Make sure your site structure is inviting to the search engines. You can listen to our podcast on the topic here. * Aim for at least 50 pages on your site. Content is king and the more you have, the more the search engines will pay attention to you. The more current the content, the better. The more specific the content, the better. * Be sure to list your company name, your keywords, and your geographic location on the home page. * Look at your site statistics and see what search terms people are using at Google to get to your site. Then be sure to add those phrases to your web site content. Obviously, you have to get some history on your site before this tip will be useful. * Generate high quality links to your site from other sites. This is easy of you start commenting on related blogs and web sites, write articles about your specialty for other web sites, and ask others in your industry to mention you on their web sites. *Having valid, quality links to your site is the most important thing you can do to get good rankings on Google.* If enough people link to you, you can have very few pages and break a lot of the other rules because Google looks at what other people value when deciding how to rank you. * Update your site so it is using the newest Web 2.0 software, enabling your site to "ping" other sites when you post new content. You can learn more in this podcast. * Register your site with Technorati and consider adding Technorati tags to your pages, as I have done at the end of this post. h3. When You're Ready For Professional Help We've helped many companies get top 3 listings on Google and Yahoo for very competitive search terms. You can read more here about our services. roxanne's signature ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mary URL: DATE: 01/10/2006 06:23:31 AM Rox, great post (as I always expect from the Geek Queen.) I'd add that it's also not enough to just "open" a web site and expect revenues from it. Marketing tactics (including the web site, PR, etc.) must be integrated to have a real impact (and ROI). We can't just throw out a site, ad, or one-time promotion and expect results. Marketing is much more than looking purty and soundin' nice. It's inherent to everything a company does. Further, specifically re web sites. Even if you are popular and pretty, is there anything on the site that will interest the visitor (and get them coming back for more?) One of my Web 1.0 friends tells me she gets lots of click throughs from her Google ads - but nobody stays, darn it (or calls her). I've now given up repeating (yet again) my list for web success (integration of tactics, quality, relevance of content, ease of navigation, freshness). (Hmmm...gotta go check my Google rankings! And, get crackin' on finishing my new site content.wink) ----- -------- AUTHOR: Mary TITLE: Marketing ROI - Good? Bad? Huh? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 01/03/2006 06:16:10 AM ----- BODY: In marketing these days, we increasingly run the risk of dropping terrific ideas because we can't measure results in hard numbers - or the initial numbers are not what we'd like. (This disappointment in results is unfortunately all too common with web sites. Folks want to increase traffic and/or online sales but don't do enough thinking about what kind of traffic they want or what that traffic will find once they"hit" the site.) As Francois notes over at Emergence Marketing, "While counter-intuitive at first, the increasing trend for companies to hold marketing departments accountable for ROI's and other quantitative program measurements can potentially have very negative effects – not only on marketing integration, but on its overall potential for success." The bottom line: By all means put measurements in place to enable proactive improvements and find accidental successes (new opportunities). And, always leave a little (head and budget) room for "let's try it" wild ideas. Five years ago, who woulda thunk little ol' blogging could double wine sales? (I can hear the accountants now, "But, what's the payback period?" "Where's the breakeven analysis?" and so on...) And, the old saying, "No guts, no glory" will always apply when it comes to standing out from the crowd (regardless of the marketing tactic or program.)

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: PayPal Login Issue with Safari Web Browser STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 01/01/2006 08:27:54 AM ----- BODY: Strangely enough, I got a strange error when I tested it, however Shane did not. We did a little more investigation and it appears to be an issue with Safari mis-storing old PayPal data. The problem seems to affect people who have logged in to PayPal previously. Here are two workarounds. Either one should work for you. # Use Firefox web browser. www.getfirefox.com It's free, downloads and installs in minutes, and will import your bookmarks. With the web still a "work in progress," it's a good practice to have more than one web browser on your computer for the occasional site that likes one more than another. # To use Safari, you will need to clear out whatever little glitch got in there. Go to the Safari menu, and choose "Reset Safari." You will lose your history, but this does seem to clear out the confusion. As a side note, if you use Safari, consider getting a "Dot Mac" account. It will let you sync your Safari bookmarks, your address book, your calendar, and all of your passwords online, nad between multiple computers. Thanks to Victoria for reporting the problem to us, so we could investigate it and provide the fix. roxanne's signature

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Mary TITLE: The It Disconnect STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 12/27/2005 07:12:21 AM ----- BODY: DoubleClick's recent survey reports that "email has become an integral part of the consumer lifestyle." Of course, DoubleClick sells "email solutions" so they're very bullish on such. However, here's two stats that caught my eye: - 78% of the respondents have made a purchase as a result of an email. - 74% of respondents point to a "brand I know and trust" as the element most likely to drive a response to an email. Which comes back to we can't separate the person (and relationship) from the sale, regardless of how sophisticated communication methods and technologies are becoming. It's not enough to push information out in emails (or any other marketing medium). Folks have got to know and trust us (or at least be very curious) or they won't read it (Whatever "it" is. email, e-letter, postcard, ad, etc.) And, if they don't read "it" they're certainly never going to buy "it." Marketers often suffer this "it" disconnect. They personally ignore (or have no interest in) all kinds of information on the Web (and elsewhere). Yet, they assume that the entire world is breathlessly awaiting their pitch. They cold call at all hours; spend tons of money on "creative" advertising that doesn't give us a reason to buy; and blast out emails to thousands at a time (going to great lengths to get around the spam laws and filters). When they don't get results - they do more of the same. (Isn't this one definition of insanity?) So, before you write your next email, ad, letter, brochure or web site copy to promote your "it" - think how you feel when strangers barge in and demand attention.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Mary TITLE: Busy isn't always better! STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 12/20/2005 06:33:28 AM ----- BODY: We've all seen the stats about the decline and fall of traditional interruption "Oh, Oh, Pick Me, Pick ME, Mr. Kotter!!" advertising. And, the busier the ads (or web sites) the more likely we are to ignore the very things the advertisers are trying so desperately to get us to buy. Now, I'm not always opposed to advertising and I admit - I love Google (even if they do show signs of getting too big and going to the dark side.) But, today's announcement that AOL wants Google to get busy with ads makes me (almost) want to rip my eyeballs out. If one could say to like advertising, I like the spare subject-matter google ads on sites. And, I love that when I go to Google, I don't have to slog through a bunch of clutter about Brit & Kev's latest brawl, Tom & Katie's scripted PDAs and other world-shaking events. Sadly, that looks as if that's coming to an end. (It's a slippery slope once they start - a few ads here, a few ads there, hey, let's add some "cool" content...oops, there we go again! We've trashed our site.) Good thing I've got desktop search, I suppose.

"As part of their deal, which is expected to be announced this afternoon, Google is providing AOL with $300 million in advertising on Google's Web sites, intended to use to draw Google search users to related content on AOL's sites, the executives said. That sum is on top of the $1 billion in cash that Google is to invest to buy a 5 percent stake in AOL."

A moment of silence, please. Now, here's hoping that with Google's smarts and money, they can find time to buy a clue. I'd suggest they start by reading up at blogs such as Adrants and Brand Autopsy for inside scoop on branding and ads (or give me a call!) ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Roxanne URL: DATE: 12/28/2005 02:33:43 PM Re: another aspect of busy, is the day to day work process. I have been compared to a squirrel in a cage - spinning those wheels for sure but not always getting anywhere. Sometimes, it is a meditation that indeed produces non-linear and uinexpected results, other times it is just busy-ness. These notions of staying busy and over-advertising seem somehow related. It reminds me of a mail list I am subscribed on — people express much more interest in sending out their notices to everyone else than reading others' notices coming in. It's like bosses who just want you at the desk, regardless if you are getting any real done, as you mentioned today in your post Have you done your homework?. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Mary TITLE: The Google Ad Game STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 12/14/2005 09:15:02 AM ----- BODY: I'm obviously not opposed to Google ads - you'll see a couple above this post. However, it's like any kind of advertising - it's as good or bad as the thought you put into it (and the substance you put behind it.) Of course, the free exposure (since nobody is clicking) Chris is getting shows one of Google's weaknesses. But it also highlights one of the inherent weaknesses of advertising in general, both traditional main stream and on the Web. You can show up all over the place, but if what you're showing is badly written/designed, it's a waste of money and can even hurt you. "Bad" can (and often does) apply to some of the most creative ad campaigns. Studies have shown that in some cases revenues actually went down for companies after winning all kinds of awards for creative marketing (Nissan for example.) Creative isn't the same as relevant or engaging. Truly awful (this is usually the cheap and/or "I'll do it myself") ads can really hurt your brand. You can't do "Crazy Eddy" marketing if you're trying to sell to a "Prince Edward" crowd. As for the effectiveness of "pay per click" - some people swear by it. Having done it myself for another company, I was underwhelmed. We got clicks - but they didn't translate into dollars. To be fair, it could have been (likely was) our web site content and/or what we were selling. Which brings me to another point about advertising. If your steak doesn't live up to the sizzle, people won't buy (at least not more than once.) Also, unfortunately, there's been more than one case of someone's competitors merrily clicking away to burn up the budget (Google has worked hard to stop that.) I'm not saying never do web advertising - it can be effective, properly planned and designed. However, it pays (literally) to know your audience and what clicks their mental buy buttons. (Full disclosure: In addition to Google ads here, I'm a member of the Corante marketing hub, with my Mary's blog - and Corante sells advertising.)

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Mary TITLE: Curb appeal - just as important in virtual real estate STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 12/12/2005 08:53:43 AM ----- BODY: I grew up with 7-11s and have stopped at many in my travels. But this one's parking lot is full of pot holes, the sidewalk is filthy and the storefront is cluttered with tons of faded, clashing signs about belly-busting hot dogs and such. Definitely not where a Starbucks kinda girl is going to make a stop. And, 7-11's core customer base probably doesn't want or care about "exquisite" and "exotic." They're there to grab a Big Gulp and that belly-buster dog. Here in the virtual marketplace, we often see the same marketing disconnect between target perspectives/buying behaviors and web sites. Sites have too many target market messages (which confuses everyone), clashing colors and fonts, and way too much information (forcing you to keep clicking and scrolling for what seems forever to find that one thing you're looking for.) So, before you start your new site (or renovate your old one) - take a step back and think like your customer. Curb appeal is just as important out here in the Web World.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Mary TITLE: Free has no value. STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 12/06/2005 07:30:42 AM ----- BODY: Via Seth Godin - some intriguing statistics re selling (or not selling in this case) on the web. In this case, they're talking about bands being very popular at MySpace and selling zip, nada, nothing.

One of the band members posted the numbers: - number of times their music was played: around 20,000 - number of MySpace friend requests: 1200 - number of mailing list signups: over 100 - number of CDs sold: ZERO

Of course, people go to MySpace expecting to get everything for free. so why should they attribute value to any of it? But, this also speaks to a larger marketing challenge across all industries (not just music) in both the brick & mortar "real world" and the virtual marketplace. Popularity/visibility doesn't automatically translate into revenues. For example, getting hits on your web site or a large number of links doesn't ultimately mean anything if it's not quality visitors (who stay a while and don't just "hit") and quality, complementary links. And, even then, once you get people's attention, you've got to their interest. Both before they ever click that "buy now" button on your site, or put their signature on your contract. So, some questions for you to keep in mind as you develop/grow your business: 1. Am I going after the right target markets? Will they (easily) understand and value what I'm offering? 2. Am I positioning my product/service as a value offering? One of the common client mistakes I see in my consulting practice is pricing too low or - yes - even offering things for "free" to attract customers. This kills the value proposition and reduces them to competing on price, which is a no-win proposition for just about any type or size of company. (Wal-Mart and handful of others being the exception to this rule and there are many reasons they can do this - not just marketing positioning.) 3. Am I using the right sales methods & channels to attract and keep quality (revenue/profit generating) customers? In this case, MySpace isn't the place for bands to make money, as evidenced by the results quoted above. Same is true of any potential "channel" If you're selling a high-end, high quality product - you don't want to offer in low-end, mass market stores or web sites. Example: I (and many others) would never buy Land's End clothing at K-Mart.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Google Drinking Its Own Koolaid? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 11/28/2005 03:28:46 PM ----- BODY: An editorial in today's NY Times, "What Google Should Roll Out Next: A Privacy Upgrade":http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/28/opinion/28mon4.html by Adam Cohen is one of the few voices willing to challenge the cloak of godliness that most people still see Google wearing. But I would like to go one step further. What happens when Serge and Brin no longer run the company with their iron wills? Let's give them every benefit of a doubt with these totally made up assumptions: * They still are committed to "Don't do evil." * They still have near absolute power to run the company and are willing to buck Wall Street whenever necessary. * They plan to distribute their shared $30 billion in net worth back to the people in some uniquely clever and Google way. * They will defend their principles to their deaths. And therein lies the elephant in the room that no one is discussing. What happens after Serge and Brin are no longer at the helm of Google? It's one thing to keep believing (pretending?) that we are "safe" with Serge & Brin running Google. But they are human. They will die, even if they never retire. Frankly, I don't trust them at this point, much less their successors, to being able to avoid doing evil — a concept which is in the mind of the beholder. Once a company goes public, it belongs to the shareholders and the board. How many of Google's shareholders/board members are in it for the money versus in it for the dream of making the world a better place? Umm, I venture to guess many more the former. The privacy concerns mentioned in Adam Cohen's article hit the nail squarely: bq. The biggest area where Google's principles are likely to conflict is privacy. Google has been aggressive about collecting information about its users' activities online. It stores their search data, possibly forever, and puts "cookies" on their computers that make it possible to track those searches in a personally identifiable way - cookies that do not expire until 2038. Its e-mail system, Gmail, scans the content of e-mail messages so relevant ads can be posted. Google's written privacy policy reserves the right to pool what it learns about users from their searches with what it learns from their e-mail messages, *though Google says it won't do so*. It also warns that users' personal information may be processed on computers located in other countries. Why don't we, as Google lovers, act similarly principled (instead of being blinded by adoration) and demand that they stop collecting the personal information that is not relevant? They really don't need it. Why don't they LET US determine how much to give them and how to use it? Who can envision a world where money can be made and more than just a few benefit? That is the idealistic view of the future that I want to live in, where individuals are as willing to call out their own as well as the oppostion's misdeeds. Yes, I am a 1974 graduate of UC Berkeley, the same school that brought us the anti-war student protests of the early 70's, "People's Park":http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/parks/parkspages/PeoplesPark.html, and all sorts of idealism for how to make the world a more equitable place. I'd like to think we've matured a lot in our methods, while going one step beyond "don't do evil" to actually "doing some good." Anyone with me on this? roxanne's signature
tags technorati :

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Mary TITLE: Search Engine Snake Oil STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 11/28/2005 09:20:38 AM ----- BODY: In looking at the site, I got to thinking about web marketing - and the all important visibility (after all, people have to know you exist before they can buy from you.) Which brings me to "Search Engine Optimization," or SEO. SEO remains a buzzy term for many people, particularly those who are just learning the ways of the Web. Sad to say, there's a lot of bad and/or outdated "expert" advice as well as outright scams in the virtual marketplace. A few things to watch for: 1. "We'll submit to over 50,000 Search Engines!" Save your money. The top four search engines are: Google, Yahoo, MSN, and (a very distant 4th), Ask Jeeves. They're all constantly searching and indexing the web anyway - for free. And, even if you do pay a fee, they'll only commit to including your page(s) in their search - you could still end up on page 5 of the results. 2. "Buy links!" Avoid this like the bird flu. Part of the search engines' algorithms is ranking your popularity by number of incoming links, but the search engines look for quality in the quantity. You could end up blacklisted if it looks like you're "link farming." 3. "Guaranteed Top 10!" Read the fine print on these pitches. Red Flag #1: The SEO company insists on gaining and retaining control of the URL to be promoted. Red Flag #2: Focuses on lengthy and obscure search strings. Of course, there are ways to increase your visibility on the web - keeping your content fresh, using key words, quality links - but visibility is just one piece of your web marketing success. You've also got to give visitors a reason to stay a while (and come back often).

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Mary TITLE: Is Email Obsolete? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 11/21/2005 07:20:25 AM ----- BODY: Biz Week notes that email is being replaced by software for real-time collaboration - and, according to Postini, legitimate e-mail will drop to 8% this year, down from 12% last year. And, then there's the "blow-off factor."
...Indeed, the onetime productivity wonder has turned into a maddening time waster. Despite the brawniest corporate filters, more than 60% of what swarms into corporate in-boxes is spam. Since so much of what's received involves scams about millions languishing in nonexistent bank accounts, interoffice status contests, and people plopping unwanted meetings onto Outlook calendars, the e-mail blow-off factor is rising. That's imperiling the medium's former dependability. In the long run, perhaps the biggest death knell for e-mail is the anthropological shift occurring among tomorrow's captains of industry, the text-messaging Netgens (16-to-24-year-olds), for whom e-mail is so "ovr," "dn," "w/e (over, done, whatever)."

But, does this mean that email is really passe? I say no, and here's why: 1. It's still much more effective (properly used) than playing phone tag. You can have a complete set of questions, answers, points, etc. - all available for future reference and use in other documents. 2. It's easy to use. (and abuse, but more about that in a minute.) Collaboration software is terrific, properly implemented and used. But, any software is only a tool - and that tool is only as good as its users. I've seen companies spend literally millions on such - and the employees never learned how to use it or just flat refused to do so. Just about everybody, however, can and do use email - and some communications is (almost) always better than none. 3. It saves time and money. Remember the "good old days" when you had to Fed Ex RFP proposals and contracts? (Or as I had to do in one instance, years ago, fly to Birmingham Alabama to personally deliver a response in order to meet the deadline. A very, very expensive day for my employer.) Now, most companies send RFPs and accept responses by email. 4. It leaves a trail (which admittedly can also - ahem - can be a bad thing, as both Oliver North and Bill Gates learned.) IMing can be a great time saver and we use it here at Bare Feet. I can be having separate, simultaneous sessions with Shane in Hawaii and Roxanne in Detroit. The down side is that it's - well -instant and sometimes I forget important points discussed in a past session, and there's no way to go back and check. Also - I'm showing my age, but it's easier for me - speed typing demon that I am - to type a full sentence or word than try to remember the abbreviations (and the whole "thumb" thing is totally beyond me.) So, why does email get such a bad rap? 1. Lack of email etiquette. We really don't need to tell everybody everything. And, we should all stop and think before hitting "send" - particularly if it's an emotional issue. Way too many of us hit "reply all" without thinking. (One of my pet peeves - as I've noted in a previous blog entry.) 2. Spam. I'm amazed at the number of people who still don't have spam filters! Here at Bare Feet we use Postini in combination with Web Mail, making spam very rare indeed. In fact, I'm surprised when I get any. And, there's lots more - but that's a blog post for another day. The Bottom Line: Despite the confusion and frustration caused by the myriad technologies, communication is getting easier than ever before - and effective communications is critical to any business or life success. The trick is figuring out what combinations (email, IM, etc.) work best for you and your business.
...Though the likeliest scenario is that e-mail will remain the prime tool for notification and one-to-one communication, "a huge percentage of collaboration will occur outside of e-mail, with a continued rise in these other tools," says Clay Shirky, associate teacher in the interactive telecommunications program at New York University. "There's an enormous untapped value to be gotten by getting collaboration right."

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Mary TITLE: Bridging the Digital Divide & Doing Good STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 11/14/2005 06:20:26 AM ----- BODY: Some days, trying to keep up with new technological developments is overwhelming for me. Sure, it's tremendously exciting out here in the virtual marketplace, but it's also exhausting. That's why it's encouraging to read how people can use technologies to make truly important differences. Via Wired: Narrowing the Digital Divide. The Digital Solidarity Fund is an African-led initiative that will use high-speed internet connections to treat AIDS patients in Burundi and Burkina Faso, and that's just for starters.
"Its great promise lies in its linking of technology spending with existing campaigns to extinguish poverty, diseases and illiteracy, averting the need to choose one over the other...The first $1 million is committed to bringing high-speed internet access to about two dozen AIDS clinics in Burundi and Burkina Faso. Satellite and other communications equipment will go to nine cities in the African nations, and an emerging wireless technology called WiMax will extend access to more remote sites. The clinics are getting videoconferencing units, with serial ports to attach stethoscopes and other medical equipment, so specialists can examine patients from afar. Lab technicians can remotely analyze blood samples and quickly determine the need for antiretroviral drugs; before, samples had to be sent by mail or messenger. Each site will also get 20 to 30 computers so medical workers can store records for follow-up care and keep up on the latest treatment and prevention techniques."

After they take care of the health needs, the plan is to provide computers to the rest of the community. Of course as with any worthy effort, the challenge is getting the funding. But, at least it's a step in the right direction. So, the next time you're feeling overwhelmed by technology - or find yourself wondering why in the world we need all this "techie stuff" - remember technology (and communication), done right, can solve many inter-related problems, in business and in life.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Shane TITLE: Core Differences: Apple, Microsoft and Why Design Matters STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 11/10/2005 07:00:58 PM ----- BODY: Obviously this goes much deeper than how to properly use PowerPoint. It really speaks to the core differences in these two companies: how they operate; what is important to them; and serves as a perfect example of how company leadership affects every aspect of a company's products, services, and message. People love great design. A sexy, fast car. The fit of a well made suit or prefect drape of a designer dress. The simplicity, elegance, and intuitive interface of an iPod. It all matters. So why does Microsoft own 90%+ of the computer operating system market? Obviously a lot of people are not paying attention when it comes to the design of their computer software/hardware and operating system. But that's beginning to change. The iPod Halo Effect is real. New iPod owners are discovering the joy of owning and using a device that just works. A very technical device that doesn't require a user manual. A device so elegant in design and execution that they begin to wonder if using a Mac might provide a similar experience. And they're switching by the millions. Design matters. Communication matters. Security matters. Getting your work done and your message out as easily and effectively as possible matters. Do your technology partners and service providers understand and appreciate good design? Do they communicate technical concepts in sentences that make sense and clarify? Do you get excited about their capabilities and experience and how they can help you with your website/technology/company? If not, you might want to go get yourself an iPod. 

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Shane TITLE: Connection Speed: Are You Getting What You Pay For? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 11/10/2005 07:20:06 AM ----- BODY: When we moved to Hawaii and got hooked up with Oceanic/TimeWarner's digital cable and Road Runner broadband service. Oceanic has *the* best customer service I have ever experienced. And we were very happy with the speed and ease of use of our cable modem compared to what we had gone through to get DSL up and running. Remember, this was over 5 years ago and I'm sure the technology has improved since then. So when Comcast came to Santa Fe and we were able to dump satellite (TV used to drop out during snow and rain storms for hours at a time) and switch to Comcast cable for both TV and internet. Comcast used/uses outside contractors to install new cable/internet accounts. I had already wired the office with cable and hight speed cat5 cable to every outlet. So the Comcast outside contractor just dropped the cable modem in the data closet and called it a day. It's been an OK connection since then but it does drop out from time to time. Lately it's gotten worse and during this trip I've been without an internet connection for hours at a time. A call to Comcast very late on Tuesday night secured an appointment this morning with a Comcast field tech. He glanced at the data closet and asked me if I wired everything myself. "Yes!" I proclaimed proudly. "Well there are some serious problems here with the splitters and connectors and I have to replace them." he replied. Upon further discussion and reflection, I remembered that the Comcast outside contractor just popped the cable modem into my pre-existing wiring setup. He *should have* replaced all the cheap connectors and splitters. Seems the cheap splitters and cable connectors I had picked up at Home Depot were causing feedback and "leaking" signal. Unknown to me, when connected and split with cheap components cables can "leak" a signal so bad that he was able to detect it with a device in his truck when he pulled up. We're on the second floor and he parked across the driveway! He swapped out the cheap parts and we headed over to the speakeasy speed test to see if that helped. Boy did it!! Results are shown below. results of our speakeasy speed test *The moral of this story:* Even if you don't fully understand what the cable guy/gal is doing, and even if you do, make sure they are installing brand new components. Ask them questions about "signal leaking." And before they leave, have them prove to you on your own computer that you're actually getting the connection speed you're paying for.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Judy URL: DATE: 12/27/2005 03:47:32 AM Shane, This is very interesting. A few months ago I had a problem with our cable service and wish I had know this then. IT certainly is something everyone with cable service should know! Thanks for information. Mahalo. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Shane TITLE: Apple did NOT invent Podcasting STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 11/07/2005 11:47:05 AM ----- BODY: For all of the wonderful things that Apple has created, Podcasting is not one of them. And while they did arrive at the party about 8 months late, they were smart enough to have already developed the infrastructure, ITMS (iTunes Music Store), that gave them the ability to easily and quickly develop support for downloading and subscribing to Podcasts. Apple has never claimed they invented Podcasting. But as the mainstream media is finally coming to the party, now over a year after the first podcasts were launched (I have the proud distinction of being among the first 30 podcasters in the world when I launched my personal podcast in October of 2004), they (mainstream media) are starting to rewrite history. This from a story today in the Sacramento Business Journal:

"Podcasting began to catch on about a year ago. Apple invented the medium to give its multiplied millions of iPod users something to listen to besides their favorite music." Sacramento Business Journal: Pondering podcasts' potential

Come on! Even a minimum amount of research will turn up the true origin of Podcasting. It's one thing to misquote a source. If you've ever been featured in a newspaper or magazine article you know how some reporters can set out to write *their* story rather than *the* story. But to just make something up out of thin air? Enough already. A lot (thousands) of people have worked long and hard and have put in very late nights to get Podcasting to where it is today. I beg of you, mainstream media, do a little research—heck, maybe even subscribe to a few Podcasts so you really understand the technology—before you start rewriting history and adding untruths to what is already a confusing technology for most people.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Mary TITLE: Google is "scaring" businesses. STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 11/07/2005 11:15:14 AM ----- BODY: From this Sunday's NY Times: Just Googling It Is Striking Fear into Companies.
In Google, Wal-Mart sees both a technology pioneer and the seed of a threat, said Mr. Breyer, who is also a partner in a venture capital firm. The worry is that by making information available everywhere, Google might soon be able to tell Wal-Mart shoppers if better bargains are available nearby. Wal-Mart is scarcely alone in its concern. As Google increasingly becomes the starting point for finding information and buying products and services, companies that even a year ago did not see themselves as competing with Google are beginning to view the company with some angst - mixed with admiration. Google's recent moves have stirred concern in industries from book publishing to telecommunications. Businesses already feeling the Google effect include advertising, software and the news media. Apart from retailing, Google's disruptive presence may soon be felt in real estate and auto sales.

So, if you don't think the Web impacts your business - I'd suggest you take another look.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Shane TITLE: How much does your PC REALLY cost your company? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 11/02/2005 06:42:27 AM ----- BODY: As a programmer and system administrator, I prefer to have things just work. When I write a bit of code or a small shell script it's a joy and brings great satisfaction to have it work the first time. The same holds for the computer on which I am doing the work. When I fire up one of my trusty Macs first thing in the morning, it's a very odd day when something goes awry. On the other hand, when I fire up my PC laptop, I'm thrilled if I *DON'T* get a message that something didn't load or there was some kind of problem or some file couldn't be found. And this is a very nice Dell laptop running the latest version of XP with a ton of RAM. I'm in our Santa Fe office this week and we have a new color printer in the office since the last time I was here. Naturally I needed to print something and happened to be on my PC laptop at the time. So I decided to plug the printer directly into the USB port and print. Not so fast?!? First, while Windoze did recognize that I had indeed plugged in a new hardware device (congratulations Windoze on that extraordinary piece of detective work) and wanted to know if I wanted to have it automatically get the drivers and such. Well of course I did, why thank you very much for asking. Well, you know how that went. Couldn't find the software online that it needed even though it had correctly identified the printer when I plugged it in. So off I go to the big software cabinet to search for the CD that came with the printer those many months ago when it was purchased. Yeee Hawww! I found the CD. This will make it easier. Well, you know how that went. "There was a problem installing the software from the CD. Your hardware may not function properly." My hardware? A couple minutes ago we were on a first name basis with "My hardware." Windoze knew what it was when I plugged it in and now it's just "My hardware?" I restart the printer. I restart the PC. I repeat. Here's a guy, me, who really knows his way around computers and pretty much all devices digital, and I am now 47 minutes into what should be a simple task of getting a fancy new printer/scanner/copier working with Windoze XP. Finally something just starts to work (don't you hate it when after doing the same thing 6 times it just starts to work on the 7th time?) After 54 minutes I'm greeted by the "Print a test page" window and we're done! Or so I thought. Once the test page is printed I have to "Please restart your computer in order to take advantage of your new hardware." What?!? I just took advantage of my new hardware. We printed a test page and the world was bright and shiny and new again. Why Windoze, why do I have to restart all the time?!? So I thought, let's see how difficult it would be to use this printer/scanner/copier and the brand new iMac G5 I picked up last week. Well, while Windoze was restarting, yet again, I plugged the printer into the iMac, hit Apple-P (shortcut keys to Print) and lo-and-behold, the printer selected by default was the brand new printer I just plugged into the back of this brand new iMac. No drivers to install. No restarts required. IT....JUST....WORKED… Meanwhile, Windoze is still restarting. Oh yea, and by the way, I haven't even printed my document yet. So I fired up Apple Mail on the iMac, checked my IMAP account for the message that contained the document I wanted to print, hit Apple-P, and ta-daaaa, my document is printing from the iMac at the same time Windoze is asking me for my login. For those of you at home keeping score: Windows time to get a new printer working: *57 minutes* _and I still never printed the document_ iMac time to get a new printer working: *0.5 minutes* How much are PCs running Windoze *really* costing your company? ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mary Schmidt URL: http://www.barefeestudios.com DATE: 11/02/2005 07:51:05 AM Shane, I'm sure many of us can relate to this one. And it makes me feel MUCH better than even you have such issues! I'm still beating Windoze and XP into submission on a daily basis. Sometimes Windummy decides it can't find the printer to which it's been attached for going on - oh let's see - 3 1/2 years. I can only surmise they had a lovers spat during the night. If after restarting a couple of times, it still doesn't work - I take that as a sign from the Universe I'm supposed to go do something else. Come back a bit later...and it fires right up. And, still people are trying to tell me how innovative Microstuff is...hmmm...yes, and their basic code is still - sorry - terrible. (Funny - those people touting MS are also MS resellers and "service partners"...hmmmm.) ----- -------- AUTHOR: Mary TITLE: Owning a hammer doesn't make me a carpenter. STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 10/31/2005 08:30:32 AM ----- BODY: I love all the things I can do with my workhorse computer and the many web technologies. But, I also know I'm not an expert at - say - web site back office database design. I leave that to the Bare Feet super geek team (although I'm learning, I'm learning...) In talking to people about building strategies, marketing plans and - yes - web sites, it brings to mind Habitat for Humanity builds in which I've participated. Hordes of us well-meaning amateurs with little to no construction experience, swarming all over the site on a Saturday. Don't know what else to do? When in doubt, hammer in another nail! By golly, this wall isn't going to fall down! What the kindly old pros don't tell us newbies is that during the week, when we're not there, they often quietly tear out those gazillion nails, repair a bunch of holes in things like electrical wiring and start all over. And so it goes with any type of tool - high-tech or no-tech.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Mary TITLE: Shocking News! Men & Women Think (Compute) Differently STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 09/29/2005 05:06:18 AM ----- BODY: Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. Men are from Cnet, Women are from iVillage. Don't we all (sometimes) wish it was that simple? Yes, we do think differently and ain't that great! Otherwise, the world would be very boring. But, there's infinite variety within each sex - depending on age, sexual orientation, education, religion, culture and personality - something many so-called marketing experts forget or choose to ignore. All that said, based on my experience, I wasn't surprised by the findings of a Ball University study (via Andrea Learned - Learned on Women):

"When it comes to the sexes, both men and women spend about the same amount of time in front of a computer, but they do different things. Men used software (79.4 percent versus 67.8 percent) and instant messaging (12.6 percent versus 6 percent) more than women. Women used the Web (70.8 percent versus 63.9 percent) and e-mail (53.6 percent versus 39.2 percent) more."

So, once again it isn't whether we use technology - it's how we use it. Women are much more "get in, find it, get it done" Men spend more time surfing (some things never change!) While we femmes may notice ads and enjoy some glitz here and there - we really like (good, concise) info, probably due to our age-old "hunter gatherer" bio-programming - when having sufficient and accurate data meant the difference between a good mushroom and a bad one, life and death. All things to keep in mind if you're marketing to women on the web. (And, if you're not, you should be. We make over 80% of the purchase decisions, including for things like computers, televisions and lawn mowers.)

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Mary TITLE: Dumb or Dumber? IQ & the Internet STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 09/19/2005 02:53:21 PM ----- BODY: From CNET: Intelligence in the Internet Age. At BFS, we all love the Internet, natch. Couldn't do business without it. But, is it really enabling us to be smarter? Or just dumber in more ways? As noted in the CNET article, "A few thousand years ago, a Greek philosopher, as he snacked on dates on a bench in downtown Athens, may have wondered if the written language folks were starting to use was allowing them to avoid thinking for themselves." And, the obscene graffiti on the walls of Pompeii looks awfully familar … and ancient Romans complained the new generation was going to Hades in a handbasket. So, how are we evolving in this age of instant information, constant communication, and increasingly realistic video games? Well, some research says the kids today are learning in a whole new way, with brain speeds increasing, thanks to IMing and those darned video games. (They lost me back at Space Invaders). For those of us who do biz on the web, I believe the basics haven't changed, just the methods. We still need to build personal relationships with customers and colleagues (blogs are key to that); know how to separate PR spin from reality; know how to reason, not just answer a rote SAT-type question; and understand that data is only the first step toward wisdom. Internet technologies are like power tools in that they offer terrific capabilities; however, it's up to the users to learn how to effectively wield them.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Lori Bravo URL: http://www.loribravo.com DATE: 09/30/2005 07:48:48 PM It seems that there will always be information consumers - people who absorb information and do nothing with it. There's a whole bunch of "kids" - the twenty-somthing's that I thought would be creating web at breakneck speed and using it as the new communication and business medium - who are simply consuming the information. It's like we created a pencil factory so they could write and they've decided to use the wood for picture frames. I don't know - they seem to be using the web a lot, but have very little interest in doing the things with it that they can do once they get to a certain skill level. They get that skill, and then don't apply it. Sad. (Sorry for the rambling.) ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mary Schmidt URL: http://www.barefeestudios.com DATE: 10/03/2005 05:30:08 AM Lori, Spot on with your comment on picture frames. I believe it's like any other "info technology" - starting with cave paintings to the Gutenberg press and so on. Can lead a horse - can't make it drink. All that said, I believe we're still collectively evolving on how we use Web technologies to gather information, communicate and learn. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Idea: Stop Trying to Be All Things to All People. STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 09/18/2005 01:34:17 PM ----- BODY: bq. "If a blog is interesting," Mr. Evensky said, "chances are you're saying something that's potentially controversial." As I write about often, the new millennium is marching towards increasing autonomy for all of us — individuals, companies, nations. We are less dependent on any aspect of "tribal consciousness" and can exist with considerably more self-reliance than ever before. Alas, companies can build their own web sites in-house, reducing the need for web developers like us.
The truth, as it turns out though, can be very good for business

But our business is as hot as ever. Being able to blog about who we are — and who we are not — has enabled potential customers to get to know us before plunking down any money. There is a good chance we are "losing" as many as we are gaining, but the advantage is that people can screen us for themselves, with far less investment of time and money. The truth, as it turns out though, can be very good for business, even if it's also a bit scary or controversial to put into practice. Successful businesses no longer need to be scared of transparency or truth-telling. You can survive and even thrive by choosing your preferences and letting others know what they are. There is so much diversity in the marketplace — why not make it easy for like-minded customers to find you without having to wade through big piles of generic sales doo doo? And if your "true nature" is being a rude, crude, ill-bred know-it-all? Well, then the whole reality TV marketplace may just be a ton of fun for you! roxanne's signature -- Mr. Evensky's quote is from an article in the NY Times, Psst: Want to Know My Net Worth? From the Sunday NY Times; though since they start their pay-for-content program tomorrow, it's probably not worth following the link. You'll have to pay $49.95 to read the article as a subscriber. I do still believe in giving credit whenever possible though.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: I Love the Internet But It's Not Exactly a First Responder STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 09/09/2005 06:13:37 PM ----- BODY: Anyone who knows me knows I love the internet. But please. It is not anywhere near ubiquitous, nor is it completely reliable or easy for non-techies. And as free as much of it is, you still need a computer, electricity, and an account with an ISP to get on it. How people who have lost everything (literally) are supposed to just go hop online — especially in the poor and devastated South — is beyond me. And even if they do, the FEMA web site is a tumor of Microsoft, that is only usable on a PC with Internet Explorer 6.0. That's about half of the current U.S. internet users. Why does our government spend money on a web platform that not only half of us can't use, but is based on the MOST insecure and unsafe web browser currently available? Surfing the web with IE is the fastest and most reliable way to fill your computer with spyware and viruses. And that is what our government has chosen to run its emergency management web operations. (Looking at our Bare Feet web stats, only 18% visit our site with a PC and IE 6.0.) "In Houston, local officials complained that FEMA's computer system kept crashing. In Ocean Springs, Miss., officials started turning people away from a FEMA disaster recovery center three hours before closing time, saying they were overwhelmed." So it's good news people and the government are considering the internet as a key tool in managing operations, but let's not pretend it is more developed than it truly is. And by all means, let's make sure that Section 508 accessiblity rules (issued by the Feds) are also obeyed by the Feds. One of these days Microsoft might actually decide to play with the rest of us, instead of creating monopolies of products that not only don't work, but are harmful as well. NY Times: FEMA Reporting, Quoted Material Above Free registration may be required to read the full article. eWeek discussing FEMA and Microsoft Real Stories About This Situation on BoingBoing Blog plus a few user tips for ways to get around the FEMA web site limitations (minimum geek IQ of 130 may be required). roxanne's signature

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Mary TITLE: Email Etiquette for the 3rd Millennium STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 09/07/2005 09:01:42 AM ----- BODY: I'm showing my age…I remember using carbon copies, on a manual typewriter no less. Thus, the term "blind carbon copy" or "bcc." Originally, people used it when they didn't want one recipient to know that someone else received the same message. These days, doing business in the third millennium, email has become a vital tool. And, in addition to the original purpose, "bcc" should also be used as a common courtesy, so people don't have to worry that everybody in the world has their email address. Also, some people (me included) tend to automatically delete an email unread when they see it's gone to a large group. I assume it's junk. Such things aren't just "nice to have" as pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly found out the hard way back in 2001. They sent out an announcement that it was discontinuing its Medi-Messenger service, an email sent to Prozac users reminding them to take their dose. Sounds pretty simple, doesn't it? The "oops" was that they also circulated the e-mail addresses of the more than 660 recipients, for all to see. Lots of very unhappy customers.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Mary TITLE: Your Brand on the Web - What and Why? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 09/01/2005 11:15:24 AM ----- BODY: Branding has been around as long as human history. Our brains catalogue things as symbols (Fire Hurt. Fire Red. Red Bad.); we remember best when told stories; and our perceptions are as individual as we are. To paraphrase Alan Kay, we're all just cavemen and cavewomen with PDAs and cute cellphones, looking for wise people to tell us stories. (Ugga and Ugho love those iPods too. Pretty sounds make us feel good!) So, what does this mean to you, your web site, and most importantly your customers? Well, no magic answers here, but always remember your brand is only as good as your story and your customers' perception of you. And, those perceptions can change daily, depending on how well you walk your talk. Four questions for you: 1. Do you have a contact number on every page of your site, with a live person answering calls within three rings, ready and able to help (and talk storytime, i.e. real language, not marketing speak)? Congrats - that's a great brand. 2. Is your web site easy to find, easy to read, and easy to navigate? Hey, cool brand; and, the visitor may well send a link to their friends, who'll send to theirs, and so on. Viral marketing in action! 3. Does your site content tell a story? Yep, that's a good brand. Of course, data such as features, availability and pricing are necessary - but your difference is created and/or the sale is made when you tell a good story (and I don't mean a lie.) 4. Have you done all the necessary back-end planning to ensure you can deliver your product or service consistently and in the way you promise? Is that planning reflected in your site's programming and databases? It's one thing to have a wonderful design (we love that too), but if you want a site that gives business results, you need a site that's developed from the start with that as the goal. Otherwise, you end up with all flash and no cash. (Sorry, I just couldn't resist a slight pun.)

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: There is a lot more to this business than meets the eye. STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 08/30/2005 12:31:35 PM ----- BODY: Read the interview with Amy Matthews in the ABQ Tribune UPDATE: The Tribune has removed this article from public viewing. :-( "A lot of people think you can buy some vehicles and stick them out for sale and make a million bucks. Well, it's not that way. There's a lot more to this business than meets the eye." It seems just about anyone who owns a business could make this statement. On the one hand is the frustration that professionals experience where potential customers try to "do it themselves" to the whole industries built around "do-it-yourselfers." As web developers, we know first hand how things can look easy from a distance yet be considerably more complex upon the actual execution. Being an armchair psychologist and geek girl though, I see how business blogging is bridging this divide. Business owners have a great opportunity to both share knowledge tips in small bite-sized pieces, as well as fill in the blanks and explain why certain things are done certain ways. I see the first really helping small businesses get new clients, and I see the latter helping larger corp's save their brand from bad corporate policy and too much reliance on PR speak. Many think that Bob Lutz and his FastLane Blog are doing some terrific heavy lifting for the GM brand. The comments are not always kind, but the willingness to take on the critics — well, those tough car guys are getting a good use for their macho! Bottom line, most things done well involve more information not less, and the internet is a great place to give and get information. Like traditional information gathering though, "consider the source" before relying too much on any one opinion. roxanne's signature

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Mary TITLE: On-Line Advertising - Good, Bad…Yawn? STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 08/29/2005 07:23:06 AM ----- BODY: I wouldn't go _that_ far, but on-line marketing tactics, including advertising, require a whole different mindset — a mindset that is still evolving. Google ads? Haven't most of us _already_ learned to ignore those? Banners? Sorry, invisible. "Pop-ups?" Barred by my Firefox software. Affiliate programs? Yawn - cheesy "multi-level" marketing. (Full disclosure: I actually like and recommend affiliate programs, if done properly.) So, what's an on-line marketer to do? Hmmm…maybe something radical — like tell the truth? (Bloggers will catch lies soon enough as it is.) And, maybe it should be more about telling a story, versus blaring headlines. Here's some food for thought re on-line advertising from Jaime Gottlieb, via Seth Godin.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Roxanne URL: DATE: 08/29/2005 05:45:37 PM Like most things on the internet, there are pros and cons. Many people are making enough money off Google AdWords to cover their hosting costs, and Google is making a lot of money selling the pay per click service. I hardly ever read about companies getting converted leads from their purchase of AdWords though. More often, I read about click fraud. There is nothing to keep a competitor or prankster from clicking away at your paid-for-placement links and costing you — the customer — a lot of money. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Microsoft and the Cost to You of Constant Patching STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 08/18/2005 06:14:56 AM ----- BODY: Windows 2000 bug starts virus war A new security hole in the Windows 2000 operating system was unveiled this week and now the hackers are actually competing amongst themselves to see who can cause the most damage! Viruses and worms with Windows is certainly not a new story. But it is an ongoing — and for many unaddressed — expense for businesses large and small. How does a company (Microsoft) increase value for itself or its customers when it is continuously distracted by products that are a) several years old and b) it no longer sells? We recently pitched a job for a Los Alamos company that has a lot of high security government contracts. They told us that a lot of the work stations at government facilities using their software are actually running Windows 95! For a moment I feel sorry for Microsoft, having to deal with these old systems they would like to pretend don't exist. Just as I feel sorry for the Los Alamos company that has to support that dinosaur too. But it doesn't last long. Microsoft created this monster of high-priced operating systems in a monopoly marketplace with no incentive for them or their customers to explore better options. It is clearly hurting Microsoft, as they continue to delay the release of Longhorn aka Vista aka their new and improved OS. I mean it's got to be hard to get anything done when there is constant work fixing and shoring up the current product line. I wonder when the stockholders will notice that this is not the most leveragable business model. For small business owners, it is yet another opportunity to consider switching to the Mac platform. 99.9% virus and worm free. Networking built-in by default. Word, Excel, PowerPoint are all seamlessly usable on Mac and PC, regardless of where it was created or is being read. For small business owners who can't afford a full-time IT staff to apply the constant security patches, it really is far more cost effective to own a Mac. They are not more expensive out of the box anymore and feature for feature are often less expensive! You don't get those flickering monitors that come with cheap PCs and you do get an amazing user experience. Yes, of course you can transfer your files to your new mac, and you can even start with a Mac Mini and continue to use your current PC monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Aloha, roxanne's signature

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Roxanne URL: http://www.barefeetstudios.com DATE: 08/22/2005 06:44:46 PM More on the same topic - 35% of business users polled blame Microsoft and 40% blame the actual virus writers. It's a sad variant on that cliche: "If you build it sloppy (Microsoft), they (the virus writers) will come. http://news.com.com/2100-7349_3-5838512.html ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Albuquerque Biz Owners Explore Blogosphere STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 08/09/2005 06:49:34 AM ----- BODY: h3. Key Discussion Points # Though half the country still does not know what a blog is, blogging is rapidly being employed as a powerful business communication and marketing tool. # Blogging, from our point of view, is not just about the communication, it's also about the software advantages. Blog-based sites have better search engine rankings, for example. # Blogging is a great way to collect valuable market data and to really have a personal dialog with your customers. # Blogging creates peer-to-peer relationships among all sorts of previously isolated people. How about you and Tom Peters, or you and Boeing engineers, or you and the Vice-Chairman of GM. h3. How to Get Started # Start reading blogs. Go to Google, and enter a search for something of interest, and include "blog" in your search string. # Start commenting on blogs. Get engaged with the blog community. Each comment automatically creates a link back to your site. You can benefit from blog technology even if you don't have a blog! # Experiment with blogging by setting up an account at our new service, BizzyCast. You can have a free, 30-day trial that is easily and affordably extended. # Let us help you strategize and implement a blog site to give your business the advantage. Aloha, roxanne's signature

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Getting More Out of Your Web Site STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 07/29/2005 03:27:50 PM ----- BODY:

PIzza Hut: Missed Call Costs $5.40

So according to a report The Cost of a Missed Call, they have established a policy to return 97% of all calls. (Not sure how they arrived at that number, but they did set a goal.) From the same article: "Ford dealers who responded (or auto-responded) to e-mail inquiries within 15 minutes were able to achieve an 18 percent closing rate whereas e-mails that were answered more than two hours later yielded a 10 percent closing rate. The closing rate is nearly two times higher in the first instance; imagine what it could realistically be in the case of dealers who don't respond at all." So people put up a web site, it has an email link, and they want to get leads. People go to the site, people email them, and then they don't respond! Go figure. (And that's a worst case scenario of course, but all too common.)

So, Does This Affect You?

One of our guiding principles at Bare Feet Studios is to look at each client and each situation as being case-specific. Clearly, this kind of data is more relevant to people in the retail end of the business spectrum. When a customer is out looking to buy something, they want a response and they want it now. At least, that is how I am when I want to buy something. I can wait a little while. But not very long. What about you? How long are you willing to wait for an email response? How do you interpret a slow or nonexistent response from a web business? How much of your stuff is bought by women?

Women Buyers on the Internet Depend on Speed and Email

According to an article in Wired, "Another reason is women seem more inclined to use the Internet as a time-saving device, flipping to sites to do shopping or research as opposed to seeking entertainment, said Linda Meyers-Tierney, president of the e-commerce consulting firm Meyers-Tierney and Associates." And women are checking their mail three to four times a day. The same article reports that "almost three quarters say that email influences their buying decisions."

How Will I Use This Info?

We at Bare Feet are facing a challenge. Historically, we've been committed to responding fast to emails. We've spoiled many of our clients. But in a recent customer survey, "fast response" was nowhere near the top of the values they expressed. And, we find that we are not getting our work done as efficiently as we would like, as the volume of email has become a significant interruption throughout the work day. So we're using this info to launch a re-evaluation of our SLA (service level agreement). For our current clients, we think they want us to be as efficient as fast, as that lowers the actual cost of the job. When it comes to new leads though, I am still inclined to reply within a half day, so they know we are on the job and paying attention. Our long term clients know that already. roxanne's signature

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: More Executives Are Blogging STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 07/23/2005 05:24:48 PM ----- BODY: Blogging Bosses h3. Candid Corporate Communication: What a Concept! Although many are still standing on the sidelines shaking their heads in disbelief, the business climate has changed. Customers can tell *when the corporation is talking* versus the living, breathing individuals who make the decisions for the corporation.
Be the customer for a moment: do you want to talk with the corporation or a real person?

Information is no longer "precious" — instead it can be found everywhere — albeit in various forms of accuracy. If you want to be in charge of public perceptions - aka *your brand*, then best for you to be proactive. Talk to us directly, so we won't have to rely on hearing things (modified) by others. "Blog readers are a small but very influential group of people," says Mark Hass, CEO of public-relations firm Manning Selvage & Lee. The firm's BlogWorks unit launched and maintains the technical aspects of FastLane, GM's executive blog where Lutz and other executives post their Web journals. - US News & World Report h3. Breaking News: Blogging Eliminates Multiple Personality Disorder! People are no longer willing to maintain two separate personas — work and personal. That doesn't mean full disclosure all the time about every last detail of your life. A successful blog is one that navigates the extremes of all or nothing, and provide snippets that are engaging and entertaining. Shane and I each maintain separate, personal blogs that are unrelated to our company. But that doesn't mean we have to hide our opinions here or pretend we are merely working machines. In fact, as our business develops, one consistent thread has been our ever more candid communication with our clients. We also have a somewhat quirky blog here - tightly integrated into our main site. (Some might say it's buried.) We know our audience does not read many blogs yet, so we thought having our blog "inside" might give it more exposure to non-bloggers. What do you think? Is it too hard to find? Do you like the convenience of being able to jump around the blog and the podcasts and the main site, rather seamlessly? Have you noticed that the newest blog post can always be seen on the home page? We'd like to know what you think. Aloha, roxanne's signature

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Bare Feet Studios Welcomes Mary Schmidt! STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 07/22/2005 09:34:58 AM ----- BODY: We think it's a great story actually. Mary and I met through one of New Mexico's top networkers — Randy Burge — which led to her becoming our client. Working with us, she got bitten by the technology bug and has been developing her communication tools and collateral around web technology with no limits in sight!
Mary brings enormous depth to our abilty to work with you strategically in growing your business with technology.

Working with her, we realized there was a lot of knowledge in her brain we wanted to download into our business. So we became her customer. Our business has seen measurable growth as a result, and as important, we are enjoying our work more. It was probably inevitable that we would eventualy collaborate. We agree that internet technology is the central organizing principle for business growth today, and we each want to deliver our knowledge and attention efficiently and cost-effectively to our clients. We are launching the relationship with a lunchtime session in *Albuquerque on Friday, August 5th*: *Business Blogs - Why and How You can Use Them to Your Advantage* We'll discuss not only the what and how, but will examine the pros and cons of several live blogs during this very interactive and topical discussion. Lunch will be provided, and the cost is only $20. More info coming soon, but please email me if you'd like to attend. Visit Mary online Read Mary's blog Aloha, roxanne's signature

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Still Doubt Blogging? IBM is in the Game STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 07/15/2005 10:54:42 AM ----- BODY: h3. What's a small business owner to do? # Keep focused on your business and what IS working for you. That is always good advice. # Give yourself a gold start - you are reading the Bare Feet Blog! # Remember that the internet is not going anywhere. You don't have to be the first adopter. But if you are, there is some good press to be had and some possible "first mover" advantages. # Set aside an hour or two a week to read up on technology. You can find information in the mainstream press, and you can start googling things like "blog home repair" - if you are intersted in home repair for example - and go from there. # Attend meetings and seminars (many of which are free) to learn more about blogging, podcasting, and how to use the internet for your business. # Hire someone to give in-house seminars to you and your staff on technology and how to use it more efficiently. # Make sure you have a technology partner who doesn't go blank when you ask questions about the latest business tools for technology. And yes, that's where we come in. We provide knowledge, support, and training - and blogs of course too. h3. Links IBM and Blogging "Business Tips for the Third Millennium":/bfs/bizzycast/detail/business-tips-for-the-third-millennium/ Study Shows Confusion with Blogging What's your biggest technology challenge? Leave us a comment - and we'll address it here in our blog. You'll also be able to get over any reluctance to using the tool, and you'll be adding a link back to your web site — which will help your search engine rankings. That's what we call peership in action, or what used to be called a "win-win." Aloha, roxanne's signature

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: We'd Like to Hear from Business Owners by July 18 STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 07/06/2005 06:10:02 PM ----- BODY: h3. Internet Technology: Not Just for Techies Anymore, It's a Business Essential _Roxanne Speaks at NAWBO July 20, 2005_ www.nawbonm.org Please join us if you would like to network with other business owners and managers and/or are interested in seeing the latest internet tools for business. We think of it as the internet, version 2.0, as so much has changed in the past 2-3 years. To help me prepare my talk though, I am looking for feedback from other business owners and managers. I think presentations are more interesting when: * They are based on real data not just speculation; * They are more conversational than lecturing; * They are current and not recycled ideas or info.
I hope you'll fill out the brief questionnaire. You can be completely anonymous, unless you want to provide your web info for possible follow-up. I am especially looking for two (2) companies who would like to get some free professional advice on how to improve their web sites. Do consider submitting your web address if you would like me to mention it in my talk. Thanks in advance for stopping by. We know you are probably as busy as we are. roxanne's signature

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Roxanne URL: http://www.barefeetstudios.com DATE: 07/09/2005 08:04:46 PM The responses have been pouring in! Thanks to all of you who have shared a minute of your time and experience. I look forward to many more. I am still hoping to have a few people who may want some web site attention. Please feel free to email me directly instead of using the questionnaire if you prefer. roxanne at barefeetstudios dot com ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Web IQ Quiz (v1): Answers STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 06/11/2005 11:04:44 AM ----- BODY: Q1. What does "above the fold" mean? This is the top part of a web page that can be viewed before any scrolling is necessary. It is a term borrowed from the newspaper industry, where important headlines are placed "above the fold." Q2. What setting does the typical pc office computer use, "8 by 6" or "10 by 7"? 8x6. This refers to 800 by 600 screen resolution, which is commonly found on the smaller office screens, and is the default setting for many pc's. If the resolution is changed to something higher, the print will be smaller but you will be able to see larger formatted web pages. Bonus points: why does this matter to your web site? If most of your users are on office pc's keep the content width of your web site to fit! It's hard enough for some people to scroll vertically to see everything on a page. We certainly don't want them to also have to scroll sideways too! Q3. What is RSS and what is one of the main features it adds to modern web sites that is not available on older web sites? RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It is software that is built in to the web site and allows people to subscribe to your site. Then they are notified anytime you post new content, without having to come back to your site all the time and hunt around for the new content. Static sites do not have this ability. It's a powerful and dynamic way to get your message out to others. If you use the Firefox web browser, you will see a little orange icon in the lower right corner of this page. Click on it, and Firefox will subscribe to the Bare Feet Blog, enabling you to view headlines without coming back here. You will also be able to click on the headline to come and read the full article if you are interested. To get Firefox, click on the button in the right column that says, "The browser you can trust." Q4. Are you reading blogs weekly or more often? Hope so! This is where the action is on the internet. Q5. How can you tell how many other web sites are linking to your site? That's an easy one. Go to Google and in the search bar, type: link:www.yoursite.com Adjusted per comment from Jennifer. the "linkto:" phrase used to wrok for me on google and other search engines, but it does not now. Thanks Jenn!

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Jennifer URL: http://www.herecomestheguide.com DATE: 06/16/2005 11:25:41 AM Re Q5: actually, it should be link:www.yoursite.com, not linkto. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Calling a Few Business Communicators STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 06/05/2005 10:58:41 PM ----- BODY: Peter Kay (panel moderator) organized a brown bag lunch with me and my fellow panelists this past Friday. We met at gorgeous Kakaako Park, mildy distracted by the sweet south swell tempting our inner body surfers to come out and play. Surf aside, we had a rousing discussion while developing our list of questions and panel topics. Being rather voluminous communicators all, it's amazing we actually managed to eat our plate lunches. It raised one of my favorite points—more minds are better than one, no matter how brilliant that one may be. On several topics, we had a wide variety of opinions, though all were well made and well supported.
We talked about changing the world as people share their unique perspectives on a foundation of peership.

The common thread running through the discussion though was how and why companies "should" be blogging and podcasting, and why many are so reluctant. (Standard Caveat: I don't much support use of the word "should." There are good reasons to blog or not - and we can help you sort them quickly without pressure or angst.) I addressed one aspect of this a while ago on my personal site, when talking about the Digital Divide. It's happening right under our noses. Really smart and successful people are missing out on one of the most fundamental (IMO) course changes in communication in history! It's partly due to technophobia, but there is also a more generic fear of the unknown. So if you are a company looking to get over blog-phobia, and would prefer to be out there on the vanguard of communicators (the views are terrific!) then please join us at the IABC meeting or get in touch for a chat. We have several tonics for calming concerns. Then we can serve you up just as much knowledge as you want. And we are committed to making sure the process supports you and your business, regardless of your decision to blog or not, podcast or not. IABC Hawaii Peter Kay - Your Computer Minute Ryan Ozawa - Hawaii UP Burt Lum - ByteMarks

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mary Schmidt URL: http://www.maryschmidtassociates.com DATE: 06/08/2005 01:30:43 PM Rox, In addition to techno phobia, fear of the unknown and resistance to change - there's also many people's social programming to be modest and polite. Blogs are often perceived as ego trips by the writers. That's changing...but then we run into what's "business" and what's "personal." The line continues to blur due to changes in our society as well the ever-increasing communications capabilities enables by technology. People are still figuring out what's "professional." ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Roxanne URL: DATE: 06/08/2005 03:02:18 PM Good points Mary. And follows on one of the points from teh talk today - that "posts need not be precious." Professional communicators are trained to spend considerable time "crafting the message." With blogging, there is the opportunity to put out little nuggets, to share the wealth of information that resides within an individual (such as you are doing) or within a company. Plus, as several people mentioned, there is a lot less vetting to be done with sharing knowledge as compared to opinions. People want to know, and be in the know. Blogging makes it easier to do that, especially once we get how short and sweet a blog post can be. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Roxanne URL: http://www.barefeetstudios.com DATE: 07/14/2005 11:13:28 AM New study on how confusing blogs are for users: http://www.publish.com/article2/0,1895,1836818,00.asp?kc=ewnws071405dtx1k0000599 The digital divide continues to grow… ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Web IQ Quiz for Business Owners (v1) STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 05/28/2005 01:11:02 PM ----- BODY: Q1. What does "above the fold" mean? Q2. What setting does the typical pc office computer use, "8 by 6" or "10 by 7"? (Bonus points: why does this matter to your web site?) Q3. What is RSS and what is one of the main features it adds to modern web sites that is not available on older web sites? Q4. Are you reading blogs weekly or more often? Q5. How can you tell how many other web sites are linking to your site? 2 pts for each correct answer. Guess all five and earn a perfect 10! *UPDATE:* I'd like to provide a little more incentive for those of you who know more about your business than the web. If these questions look like a foreign language, be one of the first three (3) business owners to submit "I don't know!" comments here, and we'll give you a *free BizzyCast blog* for six months. We're here to help you use the web successfully as a business tool.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: ThinkTech Radio in Honolulu STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 05/25/2005 07:30:42 AM ----- BODY: We were interviewed by Ron Dennis - a notable who is also pursuing an interview with Donald Trump regarding his purported move into the Hawaii real estate development arena. I must say I find it curious to potentially be one degree of separation from the Donald. But back to podcasting, I'm not sure if our little piece (we were told about one minute) will be front or back, so tune in early! The next ThinkTech Radio Show is on Wednesday, May 25, 2005. David Levy, Martin Dunsmuir and Brian Richardson will discuss "ThinkTech tackles the meaning of life, in a world of ever-expanding technology." KIPO 89.3 FM Wednesdays at 5-6 p.m We also had lunch with the above-mentioned Martin Dunsmuir at our recent Podcasting seminar with the University of Phoenix. He's working on several interesting "big think" projects, so this looks to be a very entertaining show! ThinkTech Radio in Honolulu ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Roxanne URL: DATE: 05/28/2005 01:11:10 PM You can listen to the show here: http://thinktechhawaii.com/playshow.aspx?base=Broadcasts&ID;=197 Mahalo nui loa to Ron Dennis and Jay Fidel of Hawaii Public Radio. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Learn How to Podcast STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 05/21/2005 11:59:40 AM ----- BODY: Todd is an amazing geek - one who has a great sense of tech, a work ethic that astounds even his fellow workaholics, and a business mind that is not based on greed. In my experience, a rare and refreshing mix of humanity.
I am talking about using this medium combined with weblogs to create true changes in society, and how we feed our brains with information on a daily basis.—Todd Cochrane

Based here in Hawaii, he has been producing the popular podcast, Geek News Central, for several months. He was approached by a publisher to write the book on podcasting, and so he took on yet another major task - and kept it private! (Add that to his list of stellar qualities.) You can pre-order Todd's book now at Amazon.com Aloha e Todd!

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: R2R: A New Business Mind Set STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 04/17/2005 07:32:44 PM ----- BODY: I am not inclined to want to crush anyone. I believe there is plenty of market share available in our industry and therefore plenty of room to be successful without destroying anyone else in the process. So I was intrigued to read in the March issue of Inc. Magazine that research out of the University of Texas, Austin (of all places!) demonstrates that "rival CEOs who form friendships are at a distinct advantage over those who go it alone." So I am coining "R2R" - rival to rival - as a new way to approach business management. The internet brought us B2B and B2C. The internet is bringing us increasingly customer-dominated purchasing and selling patterns. The internet is developing previously unthinkable markets and services. If you want to serve your customers, then being on good terms with your competition can help achieve that goal. It's difficult to be all things to all people. When we can refer someone to a colleague who offers something we don't (including lower prices) we earn respect and potential future referrals. We also convey confidence instead of neediness, professionalism instead of pettiness. People who used to be considered our rivals are now working with us because we have each learned to identify our core skills and have realized we can be more successful collaborating. It's difficult to know everything. What a joy it is to do business when I know I can ask or answer a question with a colleague. I love that there are so many ways to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace; nuance can now be communicated powerfully and with relatively minimal effort. Viva the blog and the podcast for encouraging this R2R dialog among peers.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mary Schmidt URL: http://www.maryschmidtassociates.com DATE: 04/23/2005 01:05:18 PM Absolutely! It's an increasingly small world - and the person you're beating the heck out of today - you might want to work with tomorrow. Brings to mind a old General's comment about war "There are no winners in war, only victors." ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Roxanne URL: DATE: 06/09/2005 05:11:54 PM Update! BlogBusinessWorld has more to say about this: http://blogbusinessworld.blogspot.com/2005/05/cooperation-or-competition-choosing.html ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Use Google Alerts to Protect Company Assets STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 04/07/2005 07:49:54 AM ----- BODY: It really helps to have a Scorpio on staff. In the case of Bare Feet Studios, that would be Shane Robinson. For those of you not up to date on your astrology, Scorpios are great spies and trackers. When applied to technology, that means great trouble-shooting abilities as well as making it really hard for people to sneak things past him. One of his tools is Google Alerts. Google will be your very own research assistant and send you news once a day, as it happens, or once a week on the topics ("keywords") you specifiy. It integrates automatically with your gmail account. Don't have a gmail account yet? Contact us for an invitation. They are free, but currently are available by invitation only. Last night Shane received an alert about one of our BizzyCasts. He followed the link, and low and behold, there was one of our business podcasts re-purposed without attribution on the home page of another web site. He sent off an email alerting the site to copyright infringement, and requesting A) that we be given attribution and a link or B) removal of the audio file. This morning, we revisit the site, and there is a lovely paragraph and link to us, along with the audio file. We consider this a great internet networking response. Our thanks to Internet Marketing Radio and Google Alerts. You can check it out yourself here: Internet Marketing Radio In case you miss it, here are the before and after screen shots: Bizzycast without attribution BizzyCast with attribution ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Ryan URL: http://www.hawaiiup.com DATE: 04/07/2005 09:49:37 AM Oh, man, that guy? He's spamming all the podcasting lists and some of us by e-mail. Seems he may mean well, but his tactics are so brazen it's annoying. Glad he made the tweak for you. ----- -------- AUTHOR: Shane TITLE: Google Buys Urchin STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 03/30/2005 04:19:55 PM ----- BODY: Here's one of my favorite articles on the purchase. Over the years, we at Bare Feet Studios have tried many web site traffic analysis packages. They've run the gammut from free packages like Webalizer that are provided or installed by most hosting providers, up to the true enterprise-level packages such as WebTrends and Urchin. In the early days, packages such as WebTrends required that you add code to each and every page on which you wanted to gather statistical information. While that in itself was quite a pain, the real problem came when the WebTrends servers were down or responding slowly. See, the way it worked was that each time a user requested one of the pages on your site, the code that you had to paste into each page actually had to connect to the WebTrends servers and "log" a hit as well as gather additional information about the visitor, their browser, what page or site they had previously visited, etc. Much like the same problems with ad tracking sites like DoubleClick, when the servers that tracked these hits were busy or down, your web page would fail to load. This never really made any sense to us. The web server software, Apache is our web server of choice, keeps a very detailed log of all access and activity. Other packages on the market at that time, like Urchin and FunnelWeb (it was an early stats package that ran on Macintosh servers) instead were installed on the server, or on a server in your local network, and would read the contents of these server logs into memory once a day (or as many times as you want to configure them to) and then spit out a very detailed and expansive series of reports that could be sorted and viewed in almost any way imaginable. Very early on we decided to go this route and to not leave our client's websites at the mercy of some other server out there and just hope that it wasn't too busy at the moment to deal with our hits. WebTrends did see the problem and moved to create a series of packages that could be purchased and that will run on your local network. But we found their products to be very unfriendly, unweildly, and expensive for what you actually got. So, for the past 5-6 years we have been offering enterprise-level Urchin statistical website traffic reporting FREE to our clients who host with us. We feel that understanding the traffic patterns on your site are just as important as getting good placement on the search engines. It doesn't matter if you have a top 10 or top 5 placement on Google if your visitors can't find what they are looking for when they get to your site. Helping our clients understand the traffic patterns that develop on their sites is one of the important and surprisingly educational services we offer. You might know how many hits or sessions your site registered yesterday. Do you know if your site visitors found what they were looking for?

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Use Site Structure for Better Search Engine Results STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 03/27/2005 04:43:53 PM ----- BODY: *Solutions:* # Have a descriptive page title that starts with your company name and can then be followed with other key descriptors, such as location, industry, and/or key services. This title is the one that shows up in the title bar at the top of your browser window. You will need access to the "code" of your pages to change the page title information. It's good practice to pay attention to your page titles. Plus, the title is what shows up in a visitor's Favorites list - so make it easy for them to know who you are. # Have at least 100 words of HTML text as high up on the page as possible. Listen to how we helped our client, www.herecomestheguide.com get a consistent top 3 position for a very competitive search term, "California wedding locations." Be sure to include your company name and your geographical location. Local search is becoming hotter and hotter...but we'll discuss that in a future BizzyCast! # Use the title tag and the alt tag if you have a lot of flash or images on your web pages. Be sure to include your company name! Don't just say title="company logo" but instead say title="My Company logo." Or go even further with something like title="My Company logo call us for professional web services in Hawaii, New Mexico, and California." It's invisible unless the user rolls over the image, so it's a great way to extend your messaging. Want help? We offer you at least two choices. One, we recommend hiring us for a "Web Site Analysis":/bfs/services/web-site-analysis/. We'll look at your rankings and your site structure to see how you can improve your search results. Two, you can hire us for "Online Marketing":/bfs/services/marketing-online/ services. It takes more time to write useful title tags for every image and search engine-friendly page content, but that's one of the things we think you should expect when hiring a professional web developer. To %(hilight)hear more% on this topic, listen to our "BizzyCast!":/bfs/bizzycast/detail/bizzycast-050327/

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Using Gmail as a File Server STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 03/04/2005 10:05:31 PM ----- BODY: Because the account is essentially a beloved first child of Google, it has inherited Google's search abilities. In fact, Google suggests, don't even bother with folders and filing — just let Google find it for you when you want something! To those who hate filing and tolerate clutter well, it's a "neat" solution. (Like how I snuck that in there?) So how do we use it? We send emails and files to it as an added level of back up protection. Not a great solution for your primary or even secondary backup procedures, but a really good one for snips of this and that you really think you can't live without. On long message threads, such as news group subscriptions, it will allow you to "collapse" or "show" the message thread contents. That comes in handy.. The story goes that to support this currently free account, there will be ads inserted into emails that are sent. This already happens with other free email accounts, such as hotmail and yahoo. So far, I have not seen a single ad. Maybe they want us dependent on it so we won't turn away when the ads come marching in. Unlike the other free email accounts, there are as yet no ads on the log in pages. And there is a built-in spam filter that works so-so, so far, for me. How do you get one? Well, you have to get a Gmail invitation. How do you get an invitation? Just ask us. The longer you have an account, the more invitations you can accrue. If you want a gmail account, just email us. We'll get one right out to you!

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Mary Schmidt URL: http://www.maryschmidtassociates.com DATE: 04/23/2005 03:33:51 PM Perfect for me - so much of the work I do is quickly outdated anyway (customer deliverables, proposals) that I can just send to my Gmail account for quick access in case of catastrophe - and for access from client sites. I can travel light and still be professional and productive. (You should send out as a member listserv message to NAWBO and other association members.) Great "whack in the side of the head" tip! ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Click Fraud & the Search Engines STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 03/01/2005 01:34:06 PM ----- BODY: Unfortunately, as of yet there is no way to prevent strangers from clicking on your pay-per-click links. The problem is gaining more attention though, as the size of the industry increases. You can read more in this AP articel dated February 15, 2005: Click Fraud Looms as Search-Engine Threat h3. Key points: Click fraud may represent as much as 10-20% of pay-per-click transactions, which is a multi-billion dollar industry. Search engines themselves are getting scammed. Seen all those blogs and sites with Google AdSense on them? Google delivers text ads to match the content on the page. The site gets paid for the clicks that come from it. But at least Google has the technical and financial resources to detect the fraud and bring charges. Your typical small business does not. Click fraud is even being outsourced! Some companies are hiring overseas workers to sit at computers and click their competitors' paid links. The price of keywords has only gone up. The article reports that the current rate for what you might think is a very obscure term—mesothelioma—is $51 per click. What is mesothelioma? The type of cancer that is related to asbestos contamination. h3. Our Position We have generally stayed away from pay-per-click advertising, due to the uncertainty, and our general skepticism of untargeted advertising. We love the internet, but that doesn't mean we love everything about it. We'd rather see your effort go into quality content, a well-designed site, and generating substantial cross-linking.

----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- -------- AUTHOR: Roxanne TITLE: Homage to the Difficulty of Building a Web Site STATUS: Publish ALLOW COMMENTS: 1 CONVERT BREAKS: br DATE: 01/19/2005 04:33:54 PM ----- BODY: Small businesses face an unusual challenge that large businesses are immune to, by simple virtue of their size: guilt feelings about putting yourself first. In the bigco, there are so many layers of culpability and rarely is the decision-maker the one who looks the client straight in the eye and says, "No, I am sorry we can't do it for that price." Or, I wish we could, but this week we are working on our site, which is four years old and embarrassingly out of date, considering what we are capable of doing. We had plans to close shop between Christmas and New Year's, and just work on our own company collateral. Alas, we stayed busy with little requests here and there, and just trying to catch up on the backlog of filing, book-keeping, planning that frequently gets pushed aside to meet the monthly billables. The good news in our case, is how much we appreciate our clients. We've got a great group of business owners who value us for what we do for them, and who themselves are successful, nice people too. Now if only we could treat our own web site as well as we treat our clients' sites! It's worse somehow, too, because we think of so many business-savvy things we could do with our web site. If only we had the time. So here is the 2005 boost to get a new site. The software we use allows us to set up the structure first. The style and design can be added later, changed as often as we like, independent of the content and navigation. Wish us luck and aloha! P.S. For any of our clients reading this in the future...yes we DO know how hard it is to get the web site built and put together. You can remind us anytime.

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