We started this blog last January when our new baby, marketingyoursmallbiz.com,was born. He was a contentious kid, kept us up at night. A needy child was he. We were thrilled when he took his first steps at nine months. But then came more work: following him everywhere, cleaning up after him, slapping band-aids on his knee when he […]
Misc
All I Am SAYin’, Is Give Print a Chance
Just like peace, print deserves a chance, too. Last week, I proposed the death of print as we know it, just to see if I could get some kind of reaction. I did. In the black hole of advertising, where a gazillion dollars disappear each day, Mr. Who-Do-You-Think-You-Are, the 4-color brochure, was a star. We used them for […]
The Brochure Graveyard Part I: Is Print Dead?
Remember the first time you saw your name in print? For me, it didn’t happen until 10th grade. (I always related to the main character in that children’s book, Leo the Late Bloomer). That year, when I was 15, one of my poems was published in a national anthology. There’s just something about seeing it on the page, […]
Blog Action Day 2008: Abadou’s Birthday
This is Abadou’s story, in celebration of Blog Action Day, and this year’s goal, to start a global conversation on poverty: In 1988, I left a classroom of 24 well-fed, intellectually gifted fourth graders in Spokane, Washington for— well, I wasn’t sure what for. I didn’t know where I was headed, just that I was […]
Blogging Fears: 5 Tips for Pulling Your Readers in with Snappy Content
Is blogging just too darned much work? (Sorry. The “darned” just slipped out. Been listening to Sarah Palin too much lately.) And what if, after all that sweat, you invite people to come, but when you open the door, no one is there? Bob and I are teaching our second Biznik Savvy Blogging workshop next […]
Walking with My Eyes Closed: Lessons in Entrepreneurship
Your parents drove you nuts. Come on now, you know they did. All their weird little rules. Moms can be way too practical. Mine got mad when I announced—at age seven—that I had walked all the way home from my friend Evie’s house with my eyes closed. Her eyebrows made a big V, her mouth […]
A September 11 Story
September 11, 2001. I know it was a Tuesday because the next day I swung into the parking lot of an elementary school not far from Seattle. Wednesday was my mentoring day. My friend was a smart, but troubled 8-year-old, I’ll call her Bella. She was in the gifted class. Bella loved to read. I […]
A Photo Worth Far More Than a Thousand Words
What is great about digital photography is we can take tons and tons of photos, delete what we don’t want and archive the gems. But what should we keep or not keep? To be honest, whether I’m taking photos for pleasure, or the occasional photo client, I have the habit of hoarding them, filling DVD’s […]