Get More Done Online (and Offline)

So what determines how much important stuff you get done, stuff that matters, that moves you towards your goals be they business, personal, or whatever?

Is it your intelligence, your drive, your skills, your personality, or something else?

Or maybe it's not your strengths -- perhaps they simply determine potential? Maybe your success (actual success, not potential) is determined by your constraints, NOT your strengths?

So what worthwhile did you accomplish yesterday, or the day before, or the day before that?

I found a free report that has helped me already, in the last two days, accomplish more than in the previous two weeks! And I've fished a lot in the last two days as well :)

It's Operation: Uncertainly Syndrome, The Entreprenurial Emergency by Rich Schefren.

Here are some of my takeaways, which will/have already reduce my constraints and make me more successful in the end:

• Prime project days -- this is a big one. Entire days focused on completing a prime project. For example, today I finished my free ebooklet version of Secrets of Successful Blogging: 101+ Tips for Blogging more Effectively, Efficiently, and Effectively. It only took 3 hours, but would you believe I had this project crawling forward for about two months with no end in sight!
• I move too slowly because of fear of making mistakes. Mistakes can be fixed, but tortoises will always be slow. In fact some mistakes are absolutely OK!
• I have an inefficient workstyle, over-multitask, and emphasizing the wrong tasks. Instead of doing 10 things simultaneously, I try to do one or two at a time, concentrating on what's most important. For example, email is NOT usually most important, certainly not important enough to interrupt revenue producing tasks several times each hour!
• Similarly, I have too many ongoing projects, many of which I may never complete. I need to work on projects to completion before going on to the next project, rather than endless juggling (although some task/project juggling is no doubt necessary).

Great report from Rich Schefren, and I'm a big fan of his. I've gotten lots of value from his free reports over the past few years.

Click here for your copy, and I'd love your feedback!

The Fresh Air Fund

Just a quick plea for The Fresh Air Fund, which has been providing free summer vacations to New York City children from disadvantaged communities since 1877.

Wow, that's a looong time, and I remember them from my youth quite well. These guys and gals do a great job.

But they need another 200 host families to help for August.

Check them out here

10 Ludicrous Ways To Increase Your Web Traffic

From C-E-O, 10 ridiculous ways to increase traffic.

Starting with:

Cell Phone Bluetooth:

Change your cell phone Bluetooth user name to your url. People always use the bluetooth search option on on their phone.

Well, I don't use Blouetooth, but I do use restrooms, so  my favorite is:

Post It

Here is a technique that a friend taught me. Write your domain name on a stack of post it's, then go around and stick them in restrooms, stores, people's doors, etc.

Actually I prefer spray paint, although unfortunately with BloggingForBusinessBook.com I can usually only get a couple of restroom walls per can of spray paint.

Full list here
Thanks to Robyn TIppins for the heads up.

Motivated to S.W.O.T. my Brand…

As blogging is a significant part of your personal brand, we have the following guest post by Karen P. Katz, a Credentialed Career Manager at the Career Acceleration Network. Karen blogs at Career Acceleration Notes and can also be found at the Career Management Alliance Blog.

The 2007 Career Masters Conference (CMI), recently held in Louisville, KY, has set off a flurry of activity in the world of career professionals.  The flurry is about personal branding, a concept that Tom Peters fleshed-out in a Fast Company article nearly10 years ago. Career professionals are adding value to their work with job seekers and those in career transition by working with clients to identify their personal brand.

Those who attended this gathering are entrepreneurs, writers, and coaches whose mission is to help others realize their goals through employment and business.  As with most tools, we don’t invent them, but rather adapt them to suit our needs and abilities.  Before embarking on the path to personal branding, borrow a familiar strategic planning tool:  perform a S.W.O.T. analysis on yourself, and if relevant, on your business:

Identify the “S” (strengths). What are your personal strengths? What are some of your notable accomplishments?  To what do you attribute your success thus far? 

Identify the “W” (weaknesses). Are there aspects of your personal style that negatively affect your work performance and business outcomes? With honest self-reflection, can you identify the personal gremlins that may be a barrier to your success?

Identify the “O” (opportunities). What opportunities exist for you? What is the state of the art in your area of expertise?  How will upcoming changes in your field affect your career?  Explore opportunities through connections with a mentor, work in a related field, through building and nurturing a network

Identify the “T” (threats). What are the external barriers to the achievement of your goals?  Consider the state of the economy, technological changes, work-life balance pressures and others.

Once you’ve completed an internal S.W.O.T. analysis, consider looking to your environment for feedback. Assessment tools such as the 360°Reach are designed to give you insight into the perceptions of others. 

Once you are clear about the Brand called YOU, Inc., you can employ the S.W.O.T. analysis to your target organizations.  The intersection of your brand and a company you’ve vetted through S.W.O.T. is likely to be a good fit.

Thanks Karen. I WILL S.W.O.T. my Brand, and even might get motivated to post it!

Some great free resources

Thank to Todd Defren for both mentioning my free ebook Effective Internet Presence and a list of great online resources (I'll ignore the minor name misspelling, it's pretty common!)

Some great stuff here, and I'm still working through the list, but it's time to say "Thank you Todd."
An excerpt below. Check out Todd's entire post Everything You Ever Needed To Know Can Be Found In Free e-Books

Thanks, David Meerman Scott, for your recent e-book on Viral Marketing.

Thanks, Ted Demopoulous, for your e-book on Effective Internet Presence.

Thanks, Brian Solis, for your e-books on Social Media & Community Relations; on Blogger Relations and on PR Tips for Start-Ups.

Thanks, Brainstorm, for your e-book on the Mediasphere.

Thanks, Contagious, for all the best case studies from 2007.

Thanks, Greg Verdino, for the cool slides about Social Media.

Thanks, John Moore, for all the great recipes.

Thanks to Edelman’s Jonny Brentwood for the white paper on Social Media Measurement.

Thanks, Patrick Hanlon, for the thought-provoking slides on Branding.

Student Scholarship ebook

As a public service announcement, as I know I have lots of students here:

Free Scholarship Guide for College Students!

I say it's great because not only did I read it and review it, but Christopher Penn of The Student Loan network wrote it.

It's not entirely off topic at all, as it discusses things such as RSS and how to effective use Google. I love the way Christopher describes and explains many of the concepts, and probably worth a read for many non-students as well.

7 Rules Of Effective Email

The Seven Rules of Effective Email

1) Email will consume all your time and life if you let it -- so don't let it.

Always place time limits on email. For example, you may choose to read email from ten to ten thirty, four to four thirty, and then a quick check after dinner. If you read email constantly, you'll get very little done except for reading email!

You don't have to answer all your email; no such law nor moral obligation exists. I ignore all spam and semi-spam. Even somewhat legit email will usually get ignored by me if I don't know the sender and they couldn't be bothered with visiting my site to figure out my name.

Then again, I get several emails from people I've never met who have read my books or read my blogs. I do respond, although sometimes briefly.

I answer a lot of email by telephone. Yes, the telephone still works. Sometimes I'll reply to emails via my cell phone while driving home. Sometimes I'll answer email in person, such as when my wife emails me and I can walk to the next room to see her. I'll also deal with some email with responses like "Ask me when me meet Fri."

Never respond to short emails with long answers. For example a one line question should not elicit a five page answer; the medium is not designed for exchanges of that sort. I often send one and two word responses, such as "excellent" and "yes" as appropriate.

(now if you're procrastinating anyways, it's OK to read email as it comes in, as well as to respond with long soliloquies if you'd like)

2) Your Inbox is not a storage area. Move email out quickly.

Click here to continue reading

Personal Branding Summit audio available (free)

Blogs are a very significant part of your online personal brand, and your online brand is of course a major part of your brand.

How many people Google you before meetings? Answer: most. And they find your blog(s) if you blog, among other things. I recently asked a group of a few hundred people at a keynote I was giving how many had Googled me before attending -- almost all hands went up.

The awesome Personal Branding Summit recordings are available online (and free).

So far, I've listened to the following today:

• Phil Gerbyshak -- awesome man. Errr, I mean GREAT.
• Jason Alba -- impressive, I learned a lot. More from Jason soon.
• David Meerman Scott -- OK David, you convinced me. I'm writing a viral ebook (soonish)

I have learned concrete actionable things! Not theory, but easy things I can do that will matter. OK, writing the ebook may take a while, but it shouldn't be hard.

Going to listen to Guy Kawasaki, Debbie Weil, and Neville Hobson next. And I'll add that Krishna De (imagine competing with a god for search engine rankings) and Kirsten Dixson did a great job running the show.

Anatomy of a Blog Hack - true story

Anatomy of a Blog Hack - a true story

I noticed an odd link in his Web stats: http://hairybeast.wordpress.com/wp-login.php,
I clicked and arriving at the wordpress.com login screen.

I typed in hairybeast, the name of the blog, as the login name and guessed at the password. WordPress.com told me the login name was correct, but the password was wrong. Stupid WordPress -- it should NOT have given me any information other than my login failed.

You can see the Hairy Beast in the picture. He's bald. Was bald his password? Maybe hairy?

I know! I tried another password -- my guess. I've known the HairyBeast for decades -- guessing his password was easy. NEVER choose an easy to guess password, anything personally connected to you, like your dog's name or favorite sports team. My guess was right.

Many blogs get hacked because of easily guessable passwords -- you've been warned!

So I'm in -- what to do? I'm not malicious; the Hairy One is a friend.

His previous post was on Paris Hilton, that blonde who recently did jail time probably because of impersonating a European Capitol, I don't remember the details.

So I named my post "Paris Hilton and <insert name of strange guy from our distant past> slept here" and posted a picture of a real sexy dromedary (well, OK, maybe only to other dromedaries). Merely a prank

Click here to see my post.

The Hairy One instantly knew it was me. He called and we laughed. He changed his password. Maybe I'll go and try to guess it again, but probably not.

Cleaning Up "Blogging for Business"

I mentioned before that November is "Clean Up Your Blog Month."

I've continued with the following changes:

• Finished cleaning up my Blog Roll, my list of blogs I like in the lower left hand sidebar. I got rid of some dead links, added a couple new ones, and trimmed some great blogs that are unfortunately off topic. I still have a few great miscellaneous blogs at the bottom though.
• Added a "Feedcount chicklet" showing how many RSS readers I have: It's in the left hand sidebar above the fold, and my thoughts are that more people will subscribe if they see I already have quite a few readers (we are herd animals after all!). I increase by a few readers every week.
• Reordered some stuff in my sidebars.
• Continued work of my Websites -- yeah, lots needs doing here!

So, what have you done?
I have MUCH more to do!

Here's what I did previously: