BlogHer goes business
A welcome addition to the BlogHer lineup for next year is BlogHer Business in New York on March 22-23. As I mentioned in my wrapup post about the recent BlogHer in San Jose, I don’t want to diss mommy bloggers and craft bloggers, I just don’t have much in common with them. Of course, I [...]
Small business blogging
I often find myself explaining to people (sometimes complete strangers) about why I have a business blog, often describing it as an “online portfolio”. A marketing type at BlogHer used the phrase “to establish yourself as a thought leader”, which is probably accurate although I really hate that term. Then I saw this description by [...]
Having a plan for passion
My friend Pat, the photographer, has a plan to quit her current well-paying job as a technical writer and strike out on her own as a professional photographer. I jokingly asked her at lunch the other day when she planned to do this, and she said “On my 50th birthday, I’m going to go into [...]
I need a new job!
My angst-ridden post yesterday really highlighted to me that my midlife crisis continues: I’m quite successful at what I do and am fairly well-known in my field (an IT specialization), but I think that I’m bored with what I’m doing. This entire contract negotiation process was so indicative of what I waste too much time [...]
Multi-tasking
My life has become increasingly multi-tasking, mostly due to me allowing it to be interrupt-driven, and not distinguishing between the urgent and the important. An example: since I am dedicated to my electric toothbrush and go for the full two-minute cycle, I keep a supply of magazines close to the sink so that I can [...]
The joy of new customers
I spent 30 minutes on the phone this morning with a new customer — actually a new contact at an existing, happy customer — who seems to be the alpha-male sort that needs to make vendors and consultants cringe at his feet and kiss his ass before he will listen to them (and then probably [...]
How to screw a supplier, slowly
I’ve been negotiating a contract with a customer for the last two months. That’s a bit of a problem because even though a piece of the work was due last week, I didn’t receive a signed contract until the day before the original due date, mostly due to delays by their legal department. Now, their [...]
Lazaridis ponies up another few million
The founder of RIM has given another $17.2M to the University of Waterloo, my alma mater as well as his. I feel like such an underachieving alumnus! Seriously, though, it’s great to see someone with scads of money roll it back into the institution that he credits, in part, for his success.
Blogspotting nonsense
If you use Bell Sympatico for your DSL service and you want to post a comment on BusinessWeek’s new (faux?) blog, beware that it may not work. I read their post “Case study of a marketing blog: Nokia’s 7700″ and wanted to post the following comment: In what way is this a “slick marketing effort”, [...]
Important Insurance Documents
I just received an envelope in the mail from my home/auto insurance company, a company that regularly sends me all sorts of flyers, offers to upgrade and other trash. On the outside of the envelope was printed: Important Insurance Document Please Open Just how much junk mail do you have to send to your customers [...]
