Sunday Morning Goodness - July 6 2008

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This week I’m bringing back our Sunday Morning Goodness feature that’s been on hiatus for nearly a year.

You see there is so much good stuff being published out there. And some of the things I find in my feed reader are simply worth sharing.

So grab yourself a cup of coffee, click through the links and enjoy your a great start to your Sunday.

Let’s start with a quote from an author who never fails to amuse me, Douglas Adams.

“He attacked everything in life with a mix of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence, and it was often difficult to tell which was which.”

Now on to some good blog postage…

• If you’re having trouble getting your blogging groove on check out Chris Brogan’s Sample Blogging Workflow. Not only does Chris address some good blogging strategy ideas, but he then goes on to share some critical tasks, and some tools to make blogging easier. Then he ends with some ways to get your creative juices flowing when you run short of post ideas.
• David Bullock give us a social media explanation using a senator, Twitter & you. David takes a look at how the radically different approaches of the Obama and Clinton campaigns towards social media in general, and Twitter in particular, produced an Obama victory. David’s spot on. Back in February I pionted out that Hillary’s approach to social media killed her campaign not realizing then that she’d hang on as long as she eventually did. Wonder if things might have gone differently for her if she’d changed strategies then?
• Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s Webspam team, takes it offline for a bit analog advice with some great tips on How to Stop Junk Mail. Tired of a mail box stuffed  full of unwanted catalogs, direct mail pieces, and a flood of credit card offers? Matt gives has some great suggestions on how you can some headway towards reducing the junk.
• Finally there’s a fun post from Christine Kane called 22 Sparkly Ways to Shine Your Inner Bling. I had to include this one because the dog photo made Goregous laugh out loud when she read the post. (Click through and you’ll see what I mean.) And despite the, um, less than manly sounding title, there’s some good advice in there from Christine for all of us.

Have a wonderful Sunday. Enjoy!

Photo Credit: Konaboy

Popularity: 17% [?]

Tags: Sunday Morning Goodness, Chris Brogan, Christine Kane, David Bullock, Douglass Adams, Matt Cutts, Social Media

Sunday Morning Goodness - 15 July 2007

Wall Street Journal Edition

Just poking around my feed reader this morning and there is so much great stuff out there you oughtta see. This morning I found some good reading in the Wall Street Journal. For example,

• Have you ever wondered what it is like aboard one of our aircraft carriers? Check out Naval Gazing - A Top Gun fantasy comes true. Bret Stephens is spot on when it comes to his assessment of the people on that carrier. The world may think that America’s military edge is just about technology. But our true military edge is found in our people who choose to don a uniform.
  
  I deployed with the last two cruises of the USS Saratoga before she was decommissioned in the mid 90’s. I was shocked when I got out to the fleet and found the planes I was flying in at the tip of the lance were nearly as old as I was. The avionics packages in the fleet planes I flew were not as modern as some of the training aircraft I flew in had. Yet we did the job because of the quality of motivated people that surrounded us.
  
  Stephens is right to point out that is something the Chinese will have a hard time duplicating.
• As long as we are on the subject of China, take a moment to read through the Chinese Fake Out - Beijing gets a lesson in brands and quality control. The recent spate of significant quality control issues and brand knock offs coming out of China is creating concerns for importers. When we are faced with everything from poisoned pet food, antifreeze in counterfeit toothpaste, tainted fish, and salmonella in snack foods,
  

  Brand protection will become more important than ever. Witness Colgate’s extensive efforts to warn consumers about tainted toothpaste bearing counterfeit Colgate labels. Brand protection is a bigger concern for smaller companies than for huge multinationals like Tylenol and Pepsi that have weathered safety scares in the past. Smaller companies may get only one chance with consumers.

  Which is more important to you - Quality or Price?

• Finally, some large corporations are finding themselves Caught in a Web of Comment - How corporate marketers can reach out to blogs. Had you heard how Sony got caught?
  
  Apparently they secretly put a program on their music CD’s that would automatically down load into your computer, hide itself in your Windows operating system by making some changes that opened it up to viruses, and secretly transmitted what music you listened to back via the internet to a Sony Database.
  
  It was a blogger who broke that story and exposed what they were doing and got them to take corrective action. Power to the bloggisphere!

Grab yourself a cup of coffee and enjoy!

Popularity: 4% [?]

Tags: Misc, Sunday Morning Goodness, Aircraft Carrier, Bloggers, China, Navy, Sony CDs, SuccessCREEations, trade, Wall Street Journal

Sunday Morning Goodness - 1 July 2007

Just poking around my feed reader this morning and there is so much great stuff out there you oughtta see. For example,

• First off, Simplerich is on vacation right now. But before he left he celebrated 2 Years Smober/Smoke Free. And he shares some of the benefits and challenges that go along with kicking that particular habit.
• Yaro Starak has posted a great article this morning asking (and answering) the question Will Blog Marketing Replace Email Marketing? Yaro is a highly accomplished internet marketer and his answer to the question is very thought provoking. And not quite what I expected.
• Tom Vander Well shares a little humor about a call center employee who says, “Our system is not set up for death.” I could totally see that happening.
• Finally, Zillowblog, the corporate blog of Zillow.com, has seen the light and made the conversion to WordPress. Go check it out to find out why they found WordPress to be a better solution than their previous blogging platform.

Grab yourself a cup of coffee and enjoy!

Popularity: 2% [?]

Tags: Misc, Sunday Morning Goodness, SuccessCREEations

Sunday Morning Goodness - 24 June 2007

Just poking around my feed reader this morning and there is so much great stuff out there you oughtta see. For example,

• First off, Seth Godin thinks you should be blogging, even in you only feel like you have one post in you.
• Steve Farber pulls up an old article of his about a Kit-Kat Tale that talks about stupid things we sometimes do while traveling. You’ll want to read all the way down to the end to get the most out of this one.
• Aaron Brazell is getting fed up with bogus Twitter marketing practices. And he’s right. When you use social media sites to promote your business, make sure you are building relationships with people first. And don’t just shove links at them!
• Finally, Mike Sigers shares with us a real world example of a simple way to turn a business that’s failing horribly into a huge success. Go check it out to find out how.

Grab yourself a cup of coffee and enjoy!

Popularity: 4% [?]

Tags: Misc, Sunday Morning Goodness, Aaron Brazell, Mike Sigers, Seth Godin, Steve Farber, SuccessCREEations

Sunday Morning Goodness - 10 June 2007

Just poking around my feed reader this morning and there is so much great stuff out there you oughtta see. For example,

• First off, have you ever had Déjà vu? Well here’s an interesting article on the origins of Déjà vu. I found it in the wonderful business blog belonging to Fast Lane Transport Ltd. of Canada
• Staying on the Canadian theme, Sean Howard asks if Branding is Dead, at least in the form that it seems to be presently. Sean asks a wonderful question

  Wouldn’t it be amazing if we were moving back to creating quality products with true differentiation again?

  Amazing. Wonderful. Beneficial. It would be all that.

• Then for your viewing entertainment I wan to know, Are You Blogging This? I found that little gem thanks to Doc Searls, who asks if he’s the last person to link there. Not even close to last, Doc.
• As long as we are being entertained, HolyMoma! discovered her husband has some Nice Pants. I guess Texas is a long way from France, eh?
• Finally, have you ever had Déjà vu? Well here’s an interesting article on the origins of Déjà vu. I found it in the wonderful business blog belonging to Fast Lane Transport Ltd. of Canada (Funny. I have the strange feeling I’ve been here before. Hmmm…)

Grab yourself a cup of coffee and enjoy!

Popularity: 7% [?]

Tags: Misc, Sunday Morning Goodness, Deja vu, Doc Searls, Fast Lane Transport, HolyMoma!, Sean Howard, SuccessCREEations

Sunday Morning Goodness - 3 June 2007

Just poking around my feed reader this morning and there is so much great stuff out there you oughtta see. For example,

• Jim Walton shares some lessons he learned when faced with the challenge of Building a Team for the first time.
• Claire Raikes shares a great video tutorial about a simple way to re-size photos for your blog.
• Tony Clark give us some good advice when he tells us to Add a Product Line to Your Services to Increase Profit
• Brent Leary shares 5 Things to Consider Before Plunging into Podcasting and provides some food for thought in that direction I hadn’t considered before.

Grab yourself a cup of coffee and enjoy!

Popularity: 2% [?]

Tags: Misc, Sunday Morning Goodness, Brent Leary, Claire Raikes, Jim Walton, SuccessCREEations, Tony Clark

Sunday Morning Goodness - 1 April 2007

Just poking around my feed reader this morning and there is so much great stuff out there you oughtta see. For example,

The Real Estate Tomato dissects a corporate business blogging debacle in Coldwell Banker Just Threw Up All Over The Real Estate Blogosphere. Check out the basics of what it takes for business blogging to be successful that is so completely missing from the Coldwell Banker site.

Over at Wisdump, Scrivs points out that In The Future, Everyone Is A Social Network. Remember, the internet is full of people and we want to interact with other people.

Rajesh Setty gives a perfect example of how NOT to ask for help in I don’t need anything… on his blog, Life Beyond Code. Be honest with folks and you’ll get a lot further.

Grab yourself a cup of coffee and enjoy!

Popularity: 3% [?]

Tags: Blogging, Sunday Morning Goodness, Business Blogging, Coldwell Banker, Life Beyond Code, Rajesh Setty, Real Estate Tomato, Scrives, Wisdump

Sunday Morning Goodness - 18 March 2007

Just poking around my feed reader this morning and there is so much great stuff out there you oughtta see. For example,

Ben Yoskovitz is helping out folks just getting started with blogging with his pair of posts, 10 Questions To Ask Before Launching Your Blog and 10 Things To Do After You Launch Your Blog. Great tips for those in the beginning stages of business blogging.

Tom Vander Well celebrated his first blogaversary this week. Check out his take on his first year of business blogging at QAQNA. The results speak for themselves. Tom is officially a fan of business blogging.

Terry Starbucker shares a Classic Case Study in the Ripple Effect. Very timely stuff for us here with all our talk about quality.

Grab yourself a cup of coffee and enjoy!

Popularity: 5% [?]

Tags: Sunday Morning Goodness, Ben Yoskovitz, Instigator Blog, QAQNA, Ramblings From A Glass Half Full, Terry Starbucker, Tom Vander Well