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Social Networking

December 18, 2008 By

Alora Chistiakoff  at The Pragmatic Contextualist has a great discussion on the values of social networking.

I have recently become a huge fan of Twitter and its ability to let you connect with groups of people with common interests (that’s how I found the Pragmatic Contextualist).

Facebook on the other hand is a different story.  As Alora points out in her article, you need to carefully walk the line between your work life and your home life and with Facebook, and it is very hard to keep these separate.  When I joined Facebook, I accepted invites from everyone I knew and before I realized what was happening, filled up my friend list with fewer friends and more associates.  Now I have to think before I a make a post whether I want John in accounting to know what happened over the weekend.  I am sure there is a way to fix this by cutting back my friend list but it seems like the easier choice is to just stop using the site.  Isn’t it about time for the next Facebook anyway?

Read Alora’s full post here.

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How Many Blogs Have You Been With?

December 17, 2008 By

According to Technorati’s “State of the Blogsphere 2008″, 184 million people WW have started a blog (even more impressive “77% of active Internet users read blogs”).

To tell you the truth, this is actually my third blog.  The first two didn’t go that well so I usually don’t like to mention them (it is always a bit awkward at the end).   But for the sake of openness, I will divulge.

My first blog was a family blog.  I started it on Blogger back before they were bought by Google.  It was fun and great for keeping the family up on the latest but eventually, the novelty wore off and it just became a site for photo updates.

The second blog started when we moved to Texas as a way for us to help keep family and friends up-to-date on all the new things we were discovering in Texas (rodeos, scorpions, breakfast tacos, monster trucks, BBQ, etc).  As hilarious as this was, after a year it started to get old and hard to keep it entertaining.

So, this brings us to blog number three (the one you are currently reading).  I am still working on my overall goals for this blog but the one that sticks out the most right now, is to be part of the conversation on a topic that I am very excited and passionate about.

Will this one last?  Will anyone care?   If not, maybe blog number two will take me back……

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Genghis Khan GTD?

December 14, 2008 By

The January edition of Real Simple has a hilarious article poking fun of to do lists.  This parody includes lists of Khan, Annie Oakley, Mozart, and Bill Gates.

A few of my favorites:

Khan

  • Pillage
  • Plunder
  • Have shirt taken in
  • Pillage

Mozart

  • Powder wig
  • Powder face
  • Compose symphony
  • lunch

The article is not online yet but should be shortly.  Check back and I will post the direct link.

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More on Bill Miller

December 11, 2008 By

Still thinking about Bill Miller and found several blog posts with thoughts on what can be learned from his mistakes.  So, if you are in the mood for more, read on here:

FinanceProfessor.com :

It is fascinating that the big collapses (he financial debacles that are studied years later as well as the crushing military defeats) often happen after a long period of wins. Why? Because the decision makers fall in love with their ability (over confidence) and believe that just because it worked in the past, it will work again.

Random Roger’s Big Picture:

It seems pretty clear that he really believes (maybe now it would be believed) in buying more as they went down. This was a contributing factor to his success, and make no mistake he was wildly successful for a long time, and also a contributing factor in his..what should we say..fall from grace or whatever.

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No Plan, No Profits?

December 3, 2008 By

I just finished reading “10 critical elements to a profitable blog” and realized that I don’t have a plan at all for this blog.  Is that a bad thing?

My idea for starting this blog was to keep track of my progress trying to bootstrap a business together and hopefully pick up some advice on the way.  This does relate to point 8, “Community Involvement”, but not from the stand point of trying to build traffic for income.

So why am I not talking more about my business plan if I am seeking advice?  The best answer I have right now is that I need a bit more time to refine the idea and get a prototype up and running.  My thought is that if I have something concrete, it will be much easier for readers to see what my thoughts are and to provide feedback.

Just need to find a bit more time to dedicate to working on the business plan.

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Cool Names

November 24, 2008 By

Ok, still working on names here.  Relevance of your name is huge when naming a site (A defining moment for your branding strategy).

During my search, I have have come across a few new cool sites that have great names that don’t take much of a guess to tell you what the site is about:

The search is still on.

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What’s in a Name?

November 23, 2008 By

In summary, everything.

When we were coming up with names of our first child, one of my main criteria was that there was absolutely no possibility of the name being used to as a joke or a tease.  This rule made it easy to rule out some of the obviously bad choices (such as Pilot Inspektor and Zelda) but it still didn’t make picking a name easier.

As Guy talks about in his book, coming up with an original name for your web site makes all the difference in the world.  Coming up with something original is tough and making it work as a web site name is next to impossible.  Usually the rule is keep is simple, but tell that to the “Go Tahoe” folks at www.gotahoe.com.

There is absolutely nothing worse then coming up with the prefect name that not only fits your business plan and is really, really, really cool only to find out someone beat you there first.  Even worse, is to find out they are not doing anything with the site but are willing to sell it to you for only 10k!  No problem if you got some cash to get things started, but when you are on a shoe string budget, it really hurts.

Nevertheless, thanks to my amazing wife and several friends, we have a couple of  great ideas to chose from.  Now all we have to do is pick one.

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