The Big Zeros
5 Ways to Add Fresh Content to Your Web Site

How to Compose a Voice Mail Greeting (A seldom analyzed necessity of life)

Top 10 Problems for Small Biz Web Sites

Can a Salesperson Be Too Organized?

How to Prosper in a Slumping Economy (My early forecast turned out right)

Sales Power Lost in Translation (Humor with a point)

Try (Best title)

Use Online Press Releases to Jump Start Your Business

This is not an official “tag”, but I’d love to see lists from Joanna Young, Bob Hruzek, Robyn McMaster, and Jeanne Dininni… along with anyone else who wants to dig into their past!

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Why do you think adaptation is slow? Why aren’t all companies blogging? Why aren’t more firms creating dynamic Web pages that encourage customer conversation? These are a few things I’ve noticed.

• Limited internal resources — nobody to spearhead a new marketing effort
• Distrust of outside experts — entrepreneurs like to be hands-on
• My own inability to convey the benefits of engaging in new marketing methods (I’m always trying to improve, though!)
• Bad economy — people tend to hunker down, stick with what they know, when profits are squeezed
• Good economy — people are too busy in the trenches to start something new
• Total sales orientation — no direct and immediate impact on sales automatically devalues any idea

So what do you think? Will corporate blogs be as pervasive as copy machines or will they be concentrated in particular industries or business models?

(Susan Quandt and Phil Gerbyshak may be interested to know this cartoon was done for Bill Welter not long ago!)

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Twitter. That’s just what I need. It’s like IM for grown-ups. I have enough distractions without hearing about what everybody is eating for breakfast …

But then Joanna tells me Twitter is driving tons of traffic to her blog. My ears perk up. “Tell me more!” I say. So Joanna gives me the rundown on Twitter in her usual pithy and irrefutable way, so I figure I’ll give it a try.

Now I’ve been Twitting for about a week. I still haven’t figured it out — the art of conversation has always eluded me, which may seem ironic considering this is about my 600th blog post … Anyway, the first thing that blows me away about Twitter is that an entire subculture of enthusiasts, widgets, theories, blog posts, and plug-ins has mushroomed up, seemingly overnight. Anything that grows that fast in popularity among bloggers must have value. I should have spotted the opportunity earlier. (Come to think of it Joanna was trying to get me to Twit months earlier.)

Twitter fills a conversational void between blog comments and e-mail. Blog comments. Things people are saying on Twitter are not well developed ideas, like you’d hope for on a blog comment. Maybe Twitter will reduce the volume of well intended but insubstantial blog comments? Wouldn’t that be a good thing? E-mail. Sending group e-mails is clumsy and impersonal. Sending group updates on Twitter is slick and very personal.

Are you worried commercialism will overrun Twitter? That’s what happened to Facebook and it drove a lot of college kids away. As a medium, Twitter has incredible marketing potential, but is that where Twitter ought to go? Can it be used for commercial and social purposes in varying degrees and still appeal to all? I think probably so.

Do you think Twitter will lead bloggers to reduce the frequency of their blog posts? One reason I like to post daily is it makes me feel connected to other bloggers. Now I’m thinking, fewer, better, longer posts. (Maybe that’s a good idea anyway.)

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The Saturday New York Times crossword puzzle is a tough test, some say the toughest. Word nerd that I am, my favorite part of Saturday morning is sitting down with a cup of tea and taking a crack at it. About 90% of the time, I can solve or mostly solve it, but it can take me anywhere from an hour to several hours. I spent a couple days working on the puzzle above, using a wide a variety of writing implements!

Here are a few tips for crossword lovers looking to take their game to the next level …

Strategy

1. Use a pencil. As you can see from the photo, pens may backfire.

2. What makes the Saturday New York Times crossword puzzle so difficult is not the answers, but the clues. In fact, the answers are often simple words. But you have to open your mind to interpret clues in multiple and unusual ways. For example, in last week’s puzzle, we had the clue, “Like anchors”. I was thinking about barnacles, submerged, etc. The answer was “ON CAMERA”. It took me a while to think of “anchors” as in TV anchors. Which brings up a second strategic point.

3. The Saturday puzzle doesn’t tell you how many words are in the answer. Could be one, two, three, or more. So be careful about sticking an “S” at the end of a word if the clue suggests a plural answer. Worse, some really devilish puzzles have multiple letters or even symbols within particular squares. Or have certain answers filled in backwards. I even remember one where some of the letters went outside the frame of the puzzle. So if you’re convinced you have the answer but it doesn’t fit … think again.

4. If you are completely blocked, walk away. Mow the lawn, prune a tree, clear your head somehow. Sometimes I’ll be totally stumped and come back after resting my brain and boom! Answers pop into my head right away. Perhaps Robyn McMaster or Dr. Ellen Weber can explain why!

Tactics

1. Start by going straight through all the Across and Down clues. Don’t spend too much time pondering any one clue, and don’t freak out if you only solve one, or maybe don’t solve any. You’re looking for one or two anchor answers to build on. Last week, I could only come up with one answer on my first pass. The clue was “Big numismatic news” and the solution was “MISPRINT”.

2. Next step — go through the entire puzzle again and fill in any “-s” and “-ed” endings that seem appropriate based on the clue. Like I said earlier, you have to be careful. Last week, we had a clue, “Some pointers”, with a six-letter answer. I thought it was safe to put an “s” in box 6 because two three-letter words or a four-two combination seemed improbable. On the other hand, for the clue “Nurses, say”, a two-word answer was possible, since it had eight-letters. No “s”. (The answer was “CARES FOR”.)

3. Now take a very hard look at the clues around any squares you have letters filled in. Once I had “MISPRINT”, an intersecting clue, “Legendary brothers in law”, became easy — “EARPS”. Another intersecting clue, “Some DVR’s”, had to be something like “RCAS” or “NECS”, so I thought about which of those sets of letters, if either, looked more appropriate for the unsolved, intersecting words. In this case, “RCA” looked good, so I went with it.

4. If you hit a dead end, start from the top and take another, more thoughtful pass at all the Across and Down clues. By now you’ve gotten into the game and you may be surprised at how many possible solutions start coming to mind.

5. Try to identify a fit between two intersecting clues. If you find one, that may be all you need to solve or partially solve both clues. For the Across clue “Zebralike” and the intersecting Down clue “Alternative to a water ski”, I was stumped until I thought “Q”. A “Q” in “EQUINE” aligned with an answer starting “AQUA”. A good fit — too good to be coincidental — so I wrote it in, leaving the last five letters of “AQUA” open because I didn’t know aqua-what. (It turned out to be “AQUAPLANE”.)

That’s about it. Do you have any tips for the New York Times crossword? Tell us your secrets!

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This post is part of Robert Hruzek’s latest What I Learned From … group project. This month’s topic is Mashing It Up, and I decided to take it literally.

The Preliminaries
When I was in high school, our family lived in Colorado. So let’s begin by talking a little about school, relatives, and recreation. When it came to learning, my best lessons took place outside the classroom. School felt like being trapped in a box with no air. I’m lucky my parents valued family and recreation as much as they did. They’d pile me, my brother, my sister, and our faithful and gentle pet Doberman, Shadow, into our Jeep Wagoneer and tote us all over creation hiking, skiing, exploring for artifacts, or just driving through the Rocky Mountains. At the time, I’m not sure we kids knew how much fun we were having, or how much we were learning.

The Story
One day we were packed in the Jeep driving up a mountain pass; I can’t remember where, but we were high, well above the tree line. As we came through a hairpin, we saw a steep jeep trail off to the right heading straight up the side of the mountain, finally turning sharply to the left maybe 500 feet up. Man, I was excited. Getting off the main roads and driving the jeep trails through the rugged terrain was the kind of adventure we all loved. (As I understand it, many of the jeep trails in Colorado have been closed off because of accidents. Makes sense when I think about all the close calls we had. But then, as you will see, I had enough problems just walking.)

We parked at the base of the trail. I couldn’t wait to drive up there! My parents weren’t quite as enthusiastic. They suggested I take a walk up and see where the trail went after it turned. Here were my parents being parentally prudent. The trail was steep and very narrow, barely wide enough for the Jeep, with a sheer drop of (what seemed like) 1000 feet all along the right side. If the trail became too rugged or disappeared altogether, it would be no easy matter to turn the Jeep around and get back down.

I didn’t walk up — I ran. Tough climb. When I finally reached the turn, I was thrilled — a piece of cake. The trail widened and leveled out, but the views would be incredible. I yelled down to my family with the good news, but they couldn’t hear me. They looked like dots. So I started down, still full of excitement. My quick walk became a jog.

That’s when I learned my lesson about mountains.

When you’re jogging down a steep mountain trail, you learn that gravity is more than a theory. In short order, my jog became a run. I started feeling a little out of control, so I decided to slow down. I couldn’t. My pace got faster and faster. My head was bouncing up and down and everything looked blurry, like an out of focus chase sequence from an action film. Even so, I could see my family at the base, still far off, looking up anxiously.

Now I was scared. My legs were pumping as fast as they could, paying no attention to my brain, which was telling them to STOP! I was hurtling toward the precipice like a rocket. What was I going to do? If I couldn’t stop, I would run right past my family and off the side of the mountain. That was a sheer drop of several hundred feet, maybe more. Space and time had become precious commodities. I was running out of both, and quickly.

Even though I was scared out of my wits, I gathered them at the last second. I tripped myself, bounced across a bunch of rocks, flipped, somersaulted, and slammed shoulder-first into the side of the Jeep. I thought I had broken every bone in my body. Luckily, I was quite muscular at the time, so I escaped without even one broken bone, although I was black and blue and sore everywhere for weeks. Had the accident happened today, I’d be dead without question.

The Musing
I don’t know which was worse — the pain, the embarrassment of doing something so stupid, or not getting to drive up the trail. Today, I think the worst of it was subjecting my parents to the horror. (My poor mother watched me slip off a diving tower years earlier and come inches from hitting the concrete instead of the water.)

As we all know, the younger we are, the faster we learn. Or do we? In this case, experience was a slow teacher. I continued to look for the most challenging Jeep trails I could and do other things I shouldn’t have done. High school kids consider themselves indestructible. You would think after this episode, I would have become older and wiser. But no. The rest of my high school career more closely resembled The Dumb and the Reckless as opposed to The Young and the Restless.

So although falling down a mountain didn’t necessarily teach me to use better judgment at the time, over the years I’ve recalled the incident on occasions where it most definitely helped me make better decisions. Time and space are funny things. Not having enough of them, like when you’re falling down a mountain, can be frightening. But having space and time to digest such a lesson can be enlightening. Have you ever had a delayed-reaction learning experience? One that took months or years?

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Now that the Yahoo - Microsoft deal appears dead, is this good or bad for Microsoft? And considering the non-deal solidifies Google’s monopoly on search and search advertising, is the non-deal good or bad for the public?

Here is the list of SOBCon08 attendees -

• Cliff Atkinson
• Shashi Bellamkonda
• JJ Betts
• Chris Brown
• Chris Brogan
• Anita Bruzzese
• Dave Bullock
• Mark Carter
• Brian Clark
• Tom Clifford
• Clay Collins
• Valerie Combs
• Chris Cree
• Lisa Cree
• Thomas Croghan
• Donna Cutting
• David Dalka
• Kevin Dixie
• Tim Draayer
• Andrew Dubber
• Easton Ellsworth
• Kevin Ferrasci O’Malley
• Chantelle Flannery
• Sarah Filipiak
• Mary-Lynn Foster
• Annie Galvin Teich
• Brian Gardner
• Chris Garrett
• Jon Gatrell
• Phil Gerbyshak
• Jared Goralnick
• Karen Hanrahan
• Joseph Hauckes
• Vicky Hennegan
• Scot Herrick
• John Hong
• Stephen Hopson
• Robert Hruzek
• Timothy Johnson
• Sara
• Pete Jones
• Todd Jordan
• Bob Kakoliris
• Christine Kane
• Adam Kayce
• Kristen King
• Scott Kolbe
• Jen Knoedl
• Thomas Knoll
• Stephen Koernig
• Bryan Kress
• George Krueger
• Amy L
• Tammy Lenski
• James G. Lindberg
• Eli Litscher
• Rick Mahn
• Sim Margolis
• Michael Martine
• Becky McCray
• Maria Meadows
• Cory Miller
• Ann Michael
• Dawud Miracle
• Debra Moorhead
• Matthew Murphy
• Paul O’Flaherty
• Tim Padar
• Jesse Petersen
• Melissa Pierce
• Wendy Piersall
• Sandra Ponce de Leon
• J. Erik Potter
• Karen Putz
• Susan R Quandt
• Levy Rivers
• Barbara Rozgonyi
• Jeff Sable
• Sheila Scarborough
• Mary Schmidt
• Derek Semmler
• Maria Sharon
• David Sherbow
• Steve Sherlock
• Brad Shorr
• Louise Silberman
• Sonia Simone-Rossney
• Julien Smith
• Stephen Smith
• Michael Snell
• Derrick Sorles
• Terry Starbucker
• Liz Strauss
• Jon Swanson
• Ruth M Sylte
• Michelle Vandepas
• Lorelle VanFossen
• Colleen Wainwright
• Denise Wakeman
• James D. Walton
• Randy Windsor
• Joanna Young

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In print media, prepositions, conjunctions, and articles are not capitalized in headlines unless they are the first word. Some bloggers follow these rules, but many capitalize every word. Does it matter? Joanna Young seemed to think there might be some SEO impact one way or the other.

I wonder if someone like Deb or Kristen could clear this up.

This is a problem when I do link posts. For my anchor text, I like to use the title of the original post. Should the titles be reprinted with the original punctuation, or, for consistency, should they be changed to one capitalization style?

Emerson was right — a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. But is the cap/post title issue foolish or fundamental?

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Don’t just close the loop on leads that pan out. Those are the most fun to talk about, but your lead source needs to know about leads that went badly. In fact, it’s more important to report back on leads that go bad, because the lead source may need to contact the lead to keep that relationship intact. On top of that, if the lead source knows what happened, he or she may be able to help you turn things around.

When you give feedback quickly and honestly, you’re telling the lead source you are professional, responsible, efficient, and thankful. You’re the kind of sales person people want to help. You’re the kind of sales person people want to introduce to their most trusted friends and colleagues.

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Lots of other folks I wish I had met and talked to more … Liz Strauss, Terry Starbucker, and company have done a great job of pulling this together. Unfortunately, I have to miss the rest of the convo, but today my daughter is graduating from college and truthfully, there’s no place I’d rather be than that. I hope everyone has a wonderful time and unlocks all the secrets of business blogging.

Picture courtesy of Joanna Young. Joanna, Bob, and I have been blogging buddies for a long, long time. Can’t tell you how much fun it was to meet LIVE, but I guess you can figure it out from the picture!

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