“You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.” Annie Dillard

I didn’t want to hurtle toward the ground face first from 191 feet up, strapped into a roller coaster called Aftershock. The problem was, I did.

As I stood staring up at the two towers of the coaster last week, straddling the fine line between desire and fear, it was my 12-year old son who pushed me over the edge. “C’mon, Dad! Are you a man or a mouse?!” Until his challenge, I was definitely the gray, furry little creature.

Yes, of course I went on it. Twice. What a ride! See, my knees whack together when it comes to heights, so anything of an Aftershock nature really gets my adrenaline pumping. (I’m a bit of a thrill seeker and love the rush.)

My point? I probably wouldn’t have taken the ride without my son pushing me. (And I’m pumped he did.)The application? You have to find people who will push you. There’s encouragement and there’s pushing. We all need friends who encourage, but we also need friends who will get in our face and challenge us.

Whether it’s starting a blog, marketing a product, changing something in your business, trying for a new relationship, or getting on a silly theme park ride, we need those who love us deeply enough to push us toward our full potential.

Now go find someone who will take you to the edge.

Tags: going to the edge, Risk, who will challenge you?

Student athletes at universities around the U.S. will think twice before posting questionable material to their Facebook and MySpace accounts. Many universities are monitoring their athletes’ use of social networking sites.

At the University of Iowa, for instance, a monitoring program goes into effect Friday. Student leaders will monitor the profiles for members of their team. Other schools allow administrators or coaches to monitor sites.

Why the need to monitor? Because students are students; some of them post pictures of themselves and their teammates drinking, they put down their coaches and/or programs, and they gossip about their teammates.

Social networking is huge among the college-age crowd, but some students haven’t learned to put appropriate boundaries around what they post online. Failing to realize the long-term ramifications of posting potentially damaging material to a public forum, they publish anything and everything.

To lessen the possibility of students living to regret a momentary lapse in judgment, university administrators are stepping in, taking a more active role in monitoring content that could damage not only the students, but the university’s image (and thus recruiting, and thus, a winning season, and thus, more cash donations from happy alumni…you get the picture).

Some students cry “CENSORSHIP” at these monitoring policies. I’m a former journalism instructor and a proponent of freedom of the press, but I don’t view these monitoring policies as censorship. Rather, I agree with North Carolina athletics director Dick Baddour, who says:

“What people do now affects their lives forever, and what they do affects us, so we want to make sure that’s done in the right way.”

Social networking policies protect athletes from themselves.

What do you think, readers?

Source:
“Schools make rules for social networking,” by Kyle Oppenhuizen, USA TODAY, July 28, 2008

Tags: HeBlogsSheBlogs.com, social network monitoring at universities, Social Networking, student athletes, USA TODAY

So you’re selling some of your product, there’s finally a little coin of the realm leftover, what should you spend it on? Yes, of course! That big screen TV you’ve … wait, that’s wrong.

You’d be surprised how many entrepreneurs make the mistake of going on a spending spree the first time they pay for the groceries and have a little more cash at the end of the month. Sometimes it takes years before they make any extra money, so the moment they do it’s play-time.

It’s tempting. Don’t give in.

Marketing Lesson # 9 is simple. Take the extra money and invest it back into your business like Daniel is doing.

That idea doesn’t necessarily blow the leaves off your tree does it? But it’s the right choice.

Where to invest will be dictated by your circumstance, your business and your vision, but often books are one of the wisest choices.

If you’re great at crunching numbers, buy a book on marketing. If you’re a marketing guru, reverse that. I don’t believe in wasting time doing something someone else can do better, but a working knowledge in every area of your business is vital.

Gotta go, I’m looking at a Costco e-mail full of big screens … and trying to resist.

Also in this series:

• 10 Marketing Lessons from a 12-year-old Entrepreneur
• What’s Your Passion?
• 5 Tips for Becoming an Expert at Your Craft
• 5 Ways to Stay Motivated
• Get Them in Your Gravity Well
• Grass Roots Marketing
• What is Your Product Worth?
• How to Market Your Product
• Business Card Marketing
• Make It Easy for Customers to Purchase Your Product
• Yellow Page Advertising: Waste? Or Found Wanting?
• Yellow Pages, Revisited
• The Law of Line Extension
• When Line Extension Works

Tags: HeBlogsSheBlogs.com, investing profits, Law of Line extension, Marketing 101, marketing lessons

For the past few weeks we’ve been experimenting with Twitter, the micro-blogging service that gives you 140 characters per entry to tell the world what you’re doing.

We decided to limit our tweets to work-related updates and to our blog feed, as a means of branding HeBlogsSheBlogs.com. So if you read our tweets, it’ll sound like all we do is work, work, work.

Although we’re going to continue tinkering with Twitter, I remain skeptical about its usefulness. I read an article by Daniel Scocco on Daily Blog Tips that helped me solidify my opinion that blogging is better than tweeting.

Here’s why:
Bloggers who have something useful or insightful to share have begun giving Twitter priority over their blog. They should be giving their blog priority, because, after all, who owns the blog? You do!

Who owns Twitter? Not you.

“Every time you Twitter instead of blogging something interesting you are risking to lose visitors and backlinks,” writes Daniel.

I agree with Daniel – your tweets should be a way to draw visitors to your blog/Web site, not the other way around.

I don’t mind sharing a tidbit on Twitter when I have a free minute (and all it takes is a minute, literally). It’s a fun challenge to communicate a message in 140 characters, and it’s a kick to look back at my tweets and see what I got accomplished (or didn’t get accomplished) that day.

But as for using Twitter as a primary blogging forum? Nope, I don’t recommend that.

Tags: Blogging, Daniel Scocco, HeBlogsSheBlogs.com, Twitter

Came across a post called “NxE’s Fifty Most Influential ‘Female’ Bloggers.”

I assume the people who created this list are men because there are quote marks around the word ‘Female’ in the headline (what does that mean… does the blogger think some of the ‘female’ bloggers are transgender? Or perhaps they’re male bloggers disguised as women?).

The blogger also notes that “blogging can seem like a boys’ club to many.” I agree that the stereotypical blogger profile is a single male, 20-something techno-geek who lives in the U.S.

But blogging statistics prove otherwise. The breakdown between men and women bloggers is as follows:

• Men – 54%
• Women – 46%

The majority of all bloggers are hobbyists, doing it in their spare time. About 13 percent are devoted bloggers who post new material every day (Pew Internet & American Life Project November-December 2005 survey).

The “influential” list, understandably, focuses on women whose blogs rank high on Technorati and who likely comprise the 13 percent of die-hard bloggers who blog diligently.

The list gives a “30 Second Rundown” of each blogger, and explains “why she matters.”

In browsing the list, I loosely organized the topics each blogger focuses on into categories.

Here’s what I came up with:

• Technology – 19
• Life & lifestyles – 6
• Blogging and blogging for bucks – 6
• Marketing – 4
• Politics – 4
• Business issues – 3
• Fashion – 2
• Gossip – 2
• Food – 1
• Social Issues – 1
• Crafts – 1
• Self-Help -1

The list-makers ignore niche bloggers (except for one knitting blogger) and largely ignore mommy bloggers, who constitute the vast majority of the blogs written by and for women.

While I’m delighted to see women bloggers get a nod (despite the fact that the list-makers seem most impressed by tech bloggers), I think we need to expand the list.

Who are your favorite female bloggers and why? (Yes, you can nominate yourself; I know you want to!). What topics do your fave females cover?

Tags: Blogging, female bloggers, HeBlogsSheBlogs.com, influential bloggers

Every published writer I know (and I’m acquainted with my fair share) is a voracious reader. We drown in books, simply because it brings us joy to read them.

We are our local public library’s best friend. Bookshelves are tucked into every crevice of our homes. We lovingly stare at those good friends—the books on our shelves—doing so elicit fond memories of a particular character, a particular author, or a life-changing tidbit.

Although my two published books are non-fiction, I’m a fiction reader, mostly. Lately I’ve been learning more about the craft of writing fiction by listening to CDs I purchased from a writers’ conference. As I jot notes about how to write fiction, I mentally dissect each novel I read to learn how the author creates rich characters, intriguing plot lines, and compelling dialogue.

I’m also learning the craft of fiction writing through what I call author binging. I’ll select an author who is new to me (usually someone recommended by another writer) and read every book written by that author, one after another. Author binging not only helps me get to know the author and his/her unique style, but it shows me specific techniques that author uses.

My fiction author binges include:

Binges in Progress

• Steve Martini – Contemporary courtroom drama/suspense starring the Perry Masonish Paul Madriani.
• Alexander McCall Smith – I adore The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Series, am working my way through The Isabel Dalhousie series, and plan to start The Portuguese Irregular Verbs series and The 44 Scotland Street series later this summer. You gotta love his intriguing titles!
• Tracy Chevalier – Just finished binging on Tracy’s historical romances. My faves: Girl with a Pearl Earring and Burning Bright.
• Anita Shreve– Not my favorite, but elegantly-written enough to entice me to keep going.
• Sharon Hinck – I’m amazed at the way Sharon’s mind works. In The Sword of Lyric series, she creates everyday, 21st century moms who get transported to alternate realities.
• Elizabeth George – I’ve been binging on her for years and recently finished A Traitor to Memory. Next on my list: Careless in Red: A Novel.
• Camy Tang – It’s easy to binge on Camy because she has three published novels (to date). The Sushi Series (Christian chick-lit with a dash of wasabi) is delightfully entertaining. Camy, who’s a friend, blogs about books at Camy’s Loft.

Planned Binges

• Mary DeMuth – The Maranatha Series is exceptional. Mary is also a prolific blogger. Find her at Relevant Blog.
• Tricia Goyer – A Valley of Betrayal (Chronicles of the Spanish Civil War, Book 1) sold me on Tricia’s writing.
• Angela Hunt – Enjoyed The Note (Women of Faith Fiction), am listening to her fiction-writing workshops, and am itching to read more of her work.
• Brandilyn Collins – I’m a sucker for suspense, and Brandilyn’s Kanner Lake Series is packed what she calls “seatbelt suspense.”
• Susan Meissner – A Window to the World sucked me in. I must read more of her beautifully-written novels.

Past Binges

• Jan Karon – The Mitford Series is my favorite series, bar none.
• Randall (Randy) Ingermanson – Randy consults with He Blogs, She Blogs quite often, so of course, I had to read his books! He writes historical, speculative Christian suspense. Enjoyed his City of God series. The Oxygen series, co-authored with John Olson, had me gasping for breath.
• John Grisham – Who hasn’t binged on him?
• Mary Higgins Clark – Ditto.
• Maeve Binchy – One of my absolute favorite authors. I’ve read most of her books, and will probably re-read them all.
• Lisa Samson – Loved The Church Ladies but wasn’t impressed with Women’s Intuition or The Living End.
• Sue Grafton – I’ve read every book (so far) in The Kinsey Millhone Alphabet Mysteries.
• Sophie Kinsella – My guilty pleasure chick-lit. Her Shopaholic series tickles me.
• Kristin Billerbeck – A Christian chick-lit alternative to Sophie Kinsella. Kristin’s Ashley Stockingdale Series is laugh-out-loud funny.
• Bryan Davis – I read aloud the entire Dragons in Our Midst series and the lengthy Oracles of Fire series to my 11-year-old son. Whew. If you can make it through all the painful similes in “Dragons” book 1, keep going. Your child will love you for it.

Classics Binges (my all-time favorites):

• Jane Austen – I never tire of Pride and Prejudice, no matter how many times I read it.
• Richard Llewellyn – It took me 10 years to collect the entire How Green Was My Valley series, but I own ‘em all. And love ‘em.
• Thomas Hardy – Dark, intriguing, tragic love stories.
• Charlotte Bronte – Ditto.

Tags: author binging, authors, fiction, novelists, Writing

You’ve drafted a blog post, magazine article, non-fiction book, or novel. Now it’s time to weed out the “illegal” words – vague, filler words that clutter your story.

Here’s an exercise to help you cut the wordiness from your piece:

Choose an “illegal” word or phrase from the following list:

• very
• really
• rather
• just
• simply
• it
• that
• there was
• began to
• started to
• -ing words (when they’re the first word in a sentence)

Using your word processor’s “Find and Replace” function, change every instance of the “illegal” word to ALL CAPS.

Example:

Find “very” and replace it with VERY

When you change the word to ALL CAPS, it will jump out at you. If you prefer not to change the word to CAPS, do a “Find.” Each time your computer finds very, ask yourself, “Do I need to use very in this sentence? Ninety-nine percent of the time, you can axe very.

Four more words you can almost always chop are really, rather, just, and simply. They’re just filler. Did you notice my illegal use of just in the previous sentence? I can just delete just and the sentence will be stronger: They’re filler.

One of the most common illegal words is really. Experiment with this sentence:

The basketball player is really tall.

How tall is really tall? 5 feet? 6 feet? 7 feet?

Instead of the vague really tall, show us how tall the player is: The NBA player dunked the ball while standing flat-footed.

Now that’s tall! You can visualize the player in the revision, whereas in the original sentence, the player’s height is anyone’s guess.

The illegal word that plagues me is that. That mysteriously appears in far too many of my sentences. Of course, not every instance of that can be removed, but most of them can disappear and no one will be the wiser.

What illegal words and phrases invade your writing most often?

Related article:

• Good Writing is Tight Writing. Great Writing is Tighter.

Tags: editing, HeBlogsSheBlogs.com, self-editing, tight writing, wordiness, Writing

In marketing lesson #8  I commented that line extension—expanding from your core business into other lines—often fails, but sometimes seems to work.

Xerox selling computers? Failure. Amazon expanding from books into everything? Success.

But was Amazon really a book seller in the early days, or were they a pioneer of on-line retail? The latter of course. The difference is subtle, but important. Yes, they were known for selling books, but the real question surrounding them in the early days was, could an on-line retailer with no brick or mortar to back them up, survive?

They got into the mind of the consumer primarily as an experimental way to sell products, not as a book seller. When they expanded into other products it was a natural extension.

For Daniel to succeed in expanding from selling his pens into corkscrews and bottle stops, ornaments, and confetti lights—which he’s already doing—as well as expand into bowls, vases, walking sticks, and pepper mills, he needs to be thought of as an artist first.

If Daniel brands himself as an artist, and these are the products he sells, then his expansion plans will work. But if he is in the mind first as a manufacturer of gorgeous pens, it will be tough sledding to get into the mind of his customers with other products.

You might think a Mount Blanc pen is the most exquisite example tool of writing in the world, but I doubt you’d think of buying a corkscrew from them.

Also in this series:

• 10 Marketing Lessons from a 12-year-old Entrepreneur
• What’s Your Passion?
• 5 Tips for Becoming an Expert at Your Craft
• 5 Ways to Stay Motivated
• Get Them in Your Gravity Well
• Grass Roots Marketing
• What is Your Product Worth?
• How to Market Your Product
• Business Card Marketing
• Make It Easy for Customers to Purchase Your Product
• Yellow Page Advertising: Waste? Or Found Wanting?
• Yellow Pages, Revisited
• The Law of Line Extension
• Invest Your Business Profits Wisely

Tags: expansion, line extension, Marketing

Do you own a .com, .net, or .org domain name? You’ll soon have the opportunity to buy .blog, .author, .fabulouscompany, or .whateveryouwant.

The group that controls Internet addresses, ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), decided that any company, organization, or country will be able to apply for a new Web address extension in early 2009.

Will this new development create mass chaos in cyberspace, as Web surfers struggle to remember what comes after the dot when they’re searching for a particular site? Or do most people already Google everything they’re searching for, so the .whatever doesn’t really matter?

Will it result in an onslaught of lawsuits, as companies that own trademarks scramble to be the first to snap up their trademarked name? Could be; although ICANN officials say that companies will have first priority at claiming their own brand names. Applications will go through an independent review process, and multiple parties who want the same domain can bid for it in an auction.

And finally, third parties will be able to challenge particular extension names on the grounds that they could threaten “morality and public order.” Ahem. We certainly wouldn’t want to encounter any disorder or immorality in cyberspace.

As you probably suspected, there are a few caveats to this new system. First: cost. The new top-level domains will likely start in the low six figures. That means a minimum of $100,000, if I’m counting on my fingers correctly. Yikes! I don’t think I’ll be in the market for a new address extension anytime soon.
It seems as if two entities, in particular, stand to line their pockets with solid gold next year:

1. The people who buy tons of domain names and resell them for astronomical profit.
2. Companies that sell domain names (does GoDaddy.com sell stock? If so, I’m buying some!)

So, what does your gut say about this new development? Thumbs up or thumbs down? Cast your vote!

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Tags: domain names, HeBlogsSheBlogs.com, ICANN, top-level domains, Web address extension

Renewable. Recyclable. Biodegradeable. Sustainable. Compostable. Natural. Fair Trade. Healthy. Environmental Stewardship. Green.

They’re marketing’s top buzz words. Sales of organic products were expected to top $20 billion last year, up from $10 billion in 2003.

Convinced that green is here to stay, marketers are scrambling to find attention-grabbing ways to get the environmentally conscious to buy green and only green—and to convert those who haven’t yet joined the eco-chic bandwagon.

Marketers are discovering that “Save the Planet” doesn’t work as a tactic for convincing people to buy green. Most people’s brains can’t encompass the idea of saving the entire planet—we think, “I’m just one person. Will switching from bottled water to filtered tap water really make a difference, in the large scheme of things?

Instead, marketers are relying on the tried-and-true tactics they’ve always used: they’re appealing to the consumer’s self-interest.

I’ll use one of our clients, Washington Tree & Lawn Care, as an example of how this works. Washington Tree & Lawn Care professionally applies fertilizer and disease/insect control sprays to their customers’ lawns, trees, shrubs, and home perimeters. They are the front-runners in developing and perfecting applications that use either conventional products, organic products, or a combination of both.

They don’t tell their customers: “Switch to organic and save the earth.” That’s because many of their customers prefer to use the same conventional insecticides they’ve always used. Many of their new customers, however, request the “natural” program. And some prefer a blend of traditional and organic applications.

Instead, they appeal to their customers’ self-interest by tailoring their services to each individual’s needs:

• They conduct a free analysis of your yard and make recommendations based on the type of vegetation you have.
• They don’t require you to sign up for a program; you can mix-and-match applications to your heart’s content.
• Once you become a customer, their technicians will stop by at your request to troubleshoot problems…again, for free.
• They’ve been in business since 1948 and know pretty much everything there is to know about fertilizer, weed ’n feed, and insecticides.

Those qualities—not the fact that I will be doing my part to save the earth—are what motivate me to consider trying their services.

What about you? What motivates you to buy green?

How Do I Know It’s Green?

Check out these helpful sites:

Greenwashing Index
www.greenwashingindex.com
An interactive forum that allows you to evaluate advertisements that make environmental claims.

Environmental Working Group
www.ewg.org/
Evaluates consumer products and recommends ones to avoid, based on chemicals & other unhealthy ingredients.

EcoLogo
www.ecologo.org
Certifies “green” products in more than 120 categories.

Green Seal
www.greenseal.org
Promotes the manufacture, purchase, and use of environmentally responsible products and services.

Energy Star
www.energystar.gov
A joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy that promotes energy-efficient products and practices.

Terra Choice
www.terrachoice.com/files/wallet_card/E-S.pdf
“Six Sins of Greenwashing” Wallet Card – download the PDF, fold it, and take it with you everywhere for inspiration!

Tags: Biodegradeable, Compostable, eco-chic, Environmental Stewardship, Fair Trade, Green, Green Marketing, Natural, Recyclable, Renewable, Sustainable