I chose to do it because I believe that today’s consumers want transparency; they want to know what they are going to pay and what they are going to get for what they spend. Despite having this desire as a consumer myself, I kept my business rates clouded and a little bit confusing up until a few months ago.

It’s interesting: at a restaurant, they will put their prices right up front, but they will keep their recipes secret. In a retail store, each item is marked, but they may not tell you from where the item came. In a marketing firm, they usually keep both their pricing and their methods somewhat secret.

There is a great video about this concept that you might want to check out: The Benefits of Radical Transparency. Let me know what you think!

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Transparency in Marketing

Peter presents Why Self Awareness is Fundamental to Personal Growth (& How to Cultivate It) posted at The Change Blog. “The more doors we open the more doors we discover there are to be opened. Self awareness is the very beginning of personal development. It may very well be the ultimate end.”

Stephen says, “Hi Chandra, There are many tools out there that will help you get the most out of the Law of Attraction. The Law of Attraction is always working and running in the background - whether you use the tools or not. The fastest way that I know to manifest with the Law of Attraction is to use the ‘Appreciation Sob’. It has produced miracles for me out of thin air and it puts the Law of Attraction into over drive. See the article to learn more.”

Stephen Martile presents Accelerating the Law of Attraction (Appreciation Sob) posted at FreedomEducation.ca by Stephen Martile.

Surfer Sam says, “Do you truly know yourself? Do you like the person you see? Would you like to become a better person? Self-esteem is the value you place on yourself. It is your sense of personal worth, along with your confidence and your respect for yourself. You have hopes and dreams for yourself, but you don’t know how to reach them. There is a gap between wanting and having, a gap between desiring and realizing your desires. Take heart. You can make changes in your own life, real and lasting changes.”

Surfer Sam presents Building Self Esteem. Skills for Self Improvement and Self Help ! Surfer Sam posted at Surfer Sam and Friends.

MBB presents How To Become A Self Made Millionaire posted at Money Blue Book.   The Process Of Becoming A Millionaire Is Not A Get Rich Quick Scheme, But A Patient and Systematic Approach To Earning, Saving, and Investing Money.

Zhenren presents What is your motivation? posted at Seeing. Knowing. Doing.  He says, ” When your motives first formed, you were a different person, in different circumstances. Recognise this, and you may find that your motive evaporates in the light of your awareness.”

Kelly Turner presents Appetites: Why We Supress Them and Why We Should Stop posted at Grounded Fitness.  Kelly says,  “Women have so many more opportunites than we did 100 years ago. We can vote, go to college, hold jobs- more doors are open to us than ever before. We are equal; we are entitled; we are human. Why do we continue to be ashamed of and supress our most human desires?”

Jeff presents Core advice lasting you a lifetime posted at Gobs Health.     “Here is an article on a book I have high esteem for. It’s a summary of core principles created by Dale Carnegie and my reaction on how they can improve relationships with almost anyone.”  

Chris Edgar says, “Many of us, rationally or otherwise, get nervous in social situations because we worry that others are going to verbally attack us and we’ll be unable to “defend” ourselves.   How do we overcome this fear and regain a sense of composure in our interactions? In this article, I describe three approaches I’ve used myself and in working with others.” 

Chris Edgar presents Calling A Truce In The “War Of Words” posted at Purpose Power Coaching.

Mike Salara presents HOW TO MAKE PATIENCE WORK FOR YOU posted at Mike Salara.

Pearl mattenson presents What do you think of me? chameleon qualities - strengths - handwriting | Carrie and Danielle posted at Carrie and Danielle.     Pearl says, “I believe we are infinitely complex and there is no end to the ways in which we can surprise ourselves.”

Louis Burns presents Crafting Mental Movies For Others posted at NLP Marketing Blog.  This article is about not only visualizing your own goals but the experience you want other people to have as well.

In a national competition, Chandra Alexander, MSW, was selected by THE OPRAH MAGAZINE as the Life Coach to deliver a series of coaching sessions to the grand prize winner of their prestigious Toyota Moving Forward contest. She also spent five years on NBC/TV “DAYTIME” giving a weekly “Reality Check”. Chandra has been living and teaching authenticity for the last 30 years and is the founder of Coaching for Authenticity, a place to explore and discover the essence of who you really are.

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A for Authenticity Blog Roundup

1. Do Not Send E-mail: This seems obvious, but it’s not. We’re so used to being able to type off a quick response to someone that we forget sometimes that e-mail should never, ever be used to express anger or frustration. It is simply not a good tool for such severe emotions. Now, sometimes it can be a helpful form of venting in the heat of the moment to DRAFT an e-mail in Microsoft Word (so that there’s no chance of it being sent), but never, ever send it!

2. Do Not Approach Facebook: In today’s world, it seems as if everyone is jotting down thoughts and activities. “Just got back from Starbucks,” “Waiting for the train,” and “Loving my new haircut!” are all appropriate things to mention on Facebook, Twitter, and the many other social networking sites that we enjoy. Not so appropriate are notes like “I hate you Jimmy!” or “Jane is a b*tch.” When you feel that way, it’s probably better to write it on the bathroom wall than on a social networking site - the consequences will be much worse online.

3. Do Not Blog: Sometimes a blog is a wonderful place to be “real” and let the world know what’s going on in your world. When you are angry though, it might be good to write what you feel in a more physical medium (say, a journal or a Word document) and then sleep on it for 24 hours before posting it online for the world to see. It’s amazing how a little bit of time can make a huge difference in how we see things, and while all feelings are valid in the moment, you might not want to remember them for prosperity.

In short, when anger gets the best of you, perhaps it is best to avoid the computer alltogether. Go outside, take a walk, write the old-fashioned way. After all, most anger is (thankfully) fleeting, and can be replaced by more manageable emotions with some thought and time.

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3 Things You Should NOT Do When Angry

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In a recession, should you settle?

This morning I received an email from Marbig. The stationary supplier…  I’m not sure if I should delete this one because they’ve got some pretty great competitions:

100 x FREE Marbig Correction Tape up for grabs!
Throw out that old liquid correction pen and discover correcting your work with tape!  No need to wait, tape goes on dry so you can make your corrections immediately.

Unsubscribing is a lot like breaking up with someone.

Some companies adopt the bandaid approach. Click ‘unsubscribe’ once and you’re redirected to a page that tells you that you’ve successfully unsubscribed. “If that’s what you want, fine. Never call me again.”

Some companies have trouble letting go. Click ‘unsubscribe’ and you’re redirected to a page asking you, “are you sure this is what you want?”

Some companies respect your wishes, but want to know what they did wrong. “We’re sorry to see you unsubscribe, tell us in 250 characters or less why you’re leaving us”.

Some send the ‘closure’ email. Once you click unsubscribe you receive an email in your inbox reminding you of the break up. “We got your request to unsubscribe, and will respect that, but there are just a few more things I want to get off my chest…”

Then there’s the strangest tactic, the “I will confuse you into staying with me”. This is when clicking ‘unsubscribe’ redirects you to the company’s website with a million things going on all over the page so you can’t find the button to confirm your request.  I think this is the break up equivalent of when someone with good debating skills challenges the break up with clever arguments. “Ah yes, I knew you would say that because you have commitment issues. I’d like to remind you of November 2004 when we were in the park and you said that thing…Yeah, well I guess that kinda proves my point. OK, so where do you want to go for dinner?”

Amazon was by far the most difficult break up. I clicked ‘unsubscribe’, was redirected to a busy page full of options, found an ‘unsubscribe’ button buried somewhere, received an email to confirm the break up and then another email reminding me that it was actually only a partial breakup. I would no longer receive general notices, but I would still receive recommendations for books based on previous purchases, special announcements and legal notices (”OK, so we’ll stop hanging out on the weekends, but I’m still going to call you every day, and hey, let’s spend Christmas together”). So I went back to step one and clicked ‘unsubscribe’ again (”no really, I don’t want to see you anymore”). Was redirected to the busy page again, and noticed this time that I had to select each mailing list I wanted to be removed from. No, I do not want to receive recommendations based on previous purchases; no, I don’t want to receive special announcements; no I don’t want to receive legal notices. (”No, you can’t call me! No, I will not come with you to your sister’s wedding!”)

One constant with every mailing list break up is that when you finally do get to the “You have successfully been removed from our mailing list” page, it’s written in tiny font, cowering in the top left hand corner of the page, like a defeated, beaten, sad shell of a mailing list.

This post was submitted to BizzyWomen by a great blog, Where is Sarah?, written by Sarah Fortuna, an Australian writing for her friends and family while she is living abroad.

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Unsubscribing is Hard to Do

1. Facebook: I like Facebook - it’s fun! I just can’t figure out why so many businesses use it for shameless self-promotion. There seem to be two ways to use it: for genuine friendship reconnection and for yucky, over-the-top marketing promotion. There must be a way to find a blance, but so far the only people using it for marketing purposes are just kind of yucky.

2. Podcasts: I read “Podcasting for Dummies,” and I get the concept, but what I can’t find is anyone who listens to podcasts - other than podcasters themselves. Is there a true marketing opportunity here? I really don’t know.

3. Site Conversion: It seems like we need to re-vamp our sites into more targeted sales machines, but, as with Facebook, it feels to me like the people who are doing this are cheezy and a little yucky. There has to be a way to be an authentic, transparent marketer online without being perceived as “yucky,” right?

I’m working on solutions for all of these, but would love to hear comments and ideas if you have any!

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3 Things I Can’t Figure Out

I used to be a lurker.

You know who they are: those surfers of the web who revel in dark, unknown corners.  Who consume but don’t reciprocate. Whose existence is known to none but themselves, whose presence we are never aware of as anything more than a number on our blog stats that might pique our curiosity. They lurk and disappear back into cyberspace, and no one ever has to know; no trace of them is left behind.

I knew the ups and downs of Penelope’s divorce, Ryan’s workaholism; but until recently I had never so much as left a single comment on any of their blogs. Your first reaction might be: creep! But something like 90% of blog readers are equally creepy lurkers. Chances are, you are lurking right now and will read, digest, and move along without ever saying a thing to me (including you, email subscribers - I know who you are!). You’ll never voice your opinion. So before you call me a creep, don’t forget what you’re doing right now: creeping.

Daring to commit your opinions and your intellectual thoughts down in words, permanently etched into pixels in cyberspace, is unnerving. It takes balls that most people don’t have, and that is why the vast majority of users of the Web are what we so affectionately refer to as lurkers. They’re afraid to voice their opinion and let anyone who Googles them find them; afraid that someone will disagree and criticize them.

I was one of those, and I was hiding. And for a long time that was a theme in my life: hiding. I have about 4 drafts of blog posts I have written over the years, saved in my archives, about how I hide different parts of my life from everyone. But, in my typical fashion, I never posted one of them. Because it takes courage to even blog in the first place. It makes you an outlier, it makes you different, and that opens you up to a whole new level of scrutiny.

Blogging is at once intensely personal, yet unnervingly public. And it connects people in the most individual, human, personal way. Of my college-age friends, I have very few who have blogs. And when one of them first started her blog, she proceeded to get mocked and made fun of behind her back, constantly. Her blog is a joke to the rest of them, constantly bantered about; every new post is gossip fodder, eagerly devoured. Spending so much time around people like that had left me paralyzed, afraid to just be who I am; and prancing around in that living charade was exceptionally tiring. Why did I care about these people again? It was illogical and irrational.

The difference between me pre-blog and me post-blog is simple: I went from an invisible, hiding lurker to a real person, and an outlier. Seems simple, but that transformation is empowering in a way you’d never expect. I went from letting others define me to defining myself. Instead of always having to hide what I do from people, I can just…be. I have something to say that is worth saying, and I actively contribute to the conversation.

It’s no longer a simple matter of writing a blog and hoping someone reads: it overflows into every other area of my life. Now, I want to have more conversations and put out my opinion on everything. I want to seek out new people and new perspectives and constantly learn from everyone around me. I want to explore new ideas, challenge them, and be challenged. I want to do something worth doing, instead of just what everyone else is doing. And sadly, though perhaps not surprisingly, most people aren’t willing to do that. But blogger are.

The mockers matter less and less, because, really, I’d rather drop them from my life now. When one of my favorite writers, who is far, far more successful than me, emailed me out of the blue and told me she loved a piece I wrote, the game changed a little. When my work started to get noticed by some others, the game changed a little. I no longer care to be just one of millions of college kids that are exactly the same. Who wants to blend in?

I realized I am different from them, but instead of continuing to try to hide it I started to reluctantly embrace it. I constantly strive to be an outlier, to be above and beyond, to put myself out there and be someone who challenges the status quo — and not someone who maintains it. I no longer want to be part of the norm. As one blogger said, that’s fifth place, when I know I want first. But if your presence is never known, how will you make an impact? How will you leave your mark? The simple act of voicing your opinion and expressing yourself means you are challenging the status quo, however insignificant you feel. But if you aren’t visible, to the world you don’t exist. If you’re just lurking and not participating, you’re outdated, obsolete, last year’s season. That’s not even fifth place; that’s invisibility.

Now, I’m no longer letting things happen to me. I don’t let others tell me what to do. I don’t believe in destiny; I just go out and make things happen. And I tend to brazenly defy everyone who doesn’t believe me. I realized that the way I defined myself and my life had to change. And in doing so, I won the inner battle that has been raging inside of me for twenty years. I killed the inner critic, the voice that stops so many people from doing great things. I stopped living for what other people think, and started living solely to create an impact and a difference.

And blogging, and everything and everyone that came with it, are what forced that change.

So when I sat down to write a post about how blogging has changed my life, many things came to mind. I wanted to write something as flawless as Andrew Sullivan’s brilliant essay, “Why I Blog.” But I am not Andrew Sullivan, so I can’t. Instead I thought of all the things I had learned, the advice I had gained, the opportunities I’ve received, the people I had interviewed and the late night discussions I’ve had when I could have been studying. And those have all been amazing things. But to this day, nothing compares to the surprising rush of empowerment that comes in that moment when you hold your breath and hit the ‘Publish’ button. It’s your blog, and no one can fuck with you there.

It’s something those legions of lurkers will never understand.

—–

(Hat tip to BC - what a challenge. This is probably the hardest thing I have ever written!)

Nisha Chittal is a writer and journalist who currently serves as Associate Editor of CitizenJanePolitics.com and is a political columnist for UniversityChic.com. Her personal blog is Politicoholic, where she offers commentary on a range of topics, including but not limited to politics, technology, and the changing role of women and Generation Y in politics today.

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Forget careers. Blogging changes lives

I cam accross a very informatove post from mominisrael. She gives a list of tips that have helped her become successful.  Among her tips she writes: ” I started by commenting on other blogs that address similar topics. If a blogger begins posting here, I usually add that blog to my reader. (A reader is a web page that lets you know when the blogs you like have been updated. I use Netvibes, but Bloglines and Google Reader are more popular.) Lately I comment less (I hope temporarily), but I still read. ”

Doshdosh asks, ” So what’s the secret to building a large blog readership? Content dissemination and the development of a supportive core audience. And that’s really the key. It’s not just about the quality of your content. It’s about having broad distribution channels.

Once again, readership growth doesn’t only depend on the merit of your blog posts, but rather their circulation reach. It’s about how much attention your content receives.”

Finally, Positivityblog has a long list of tips to help you be a better blogger. Here is just one of the tips: ” Learn from more experienced people. This is so key - in any area of life really - and can really help you to improve quickly and avoid wasting time. I recommend not only subscribing to the two excellent resources called Problogger (about blogging) and Copyblogger (about communicating better and more persuasively). I also recommend delving into the archives of these two blogs. When I started blogging I spent two or three weeks reading lots and lots from the massive archives of Problogger. I learned a lot about blogging, marketing, monetization and what you should and should not do. Before I started this blog I knew very little about blogging. After those weeks I at least had a basic education that was very helpful. If you are thinking about creating your own blog or have just started one I recommend reading the big series Blogging Tips for Beginnersover at Problogger.”

Happy blogging.

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3 Tips on How To Build a Successful Blog

********************************

This post is one in a series of three about the phenomenon we call Twitter. Many people in The Mom Entrepreneur Support Group I run, and clients, have been asking about this form of micro-blogging. What is it? Why should I care? How do I use it? My goal is to answer these questions and more.

“New to Twitter - not quite sure how this works but I am sure I can figure it out. Love this social networking stuff.”

“I am here, now what?”

Start by posting some practice tweets, which are limited to 140 characters. My second tweet was:

“Working on my blogging clinic, which will be offered for four sessions in April in Barrington, NH.”

When the blogging clinic write up was ready on my website, I tweeted again about it and included a link to the page on my site. Now remember, you are limited to 140 characters. This can easily be used up with one URL; especially a blog URL. Visit http://www.tinyurl.com/ and turn your long URL into a short URL. You can even customize your URL so it is easy to remember.

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Twit, Tweet, Twitter….Diary of a Twitterholic Wannabe

If you check out Apple’s chart (sorry wordpress.com doesn’t allow posting of javascript) and click on ‘B’, you’ll see that on June 10th, Apple reported a new iPhone with GPS and 3G capabilities, better battery life and improved audio quality.

Or, on Amgen’s chart, you can click on ‘L’ and see someone’s explanation for a continued slide in the stock price (which he/she attributed to a potential safety risk for Aranesp)

Google Finance has charts that attempt to pair up news events with movements in the stock price.  While it’s a really interesting cause-effect, Google Finance unfortunately doesn’t capture the news or information that is affecting stock price movement.  I attribute this to 2 reasons: 1) Sometimes it’s just impossible to explain price movement (sorry, financial commentators) 2) Google’s news set is in some cases unexplicable weird and picks up stories that seemingly have little impact.

Anyway, these charts powered by wikinvest are interesting for financial bloggers and may ultimately do a good job of providing numerous opinions as to what’s affecting individualk stocks at any given moment.  It would be very interesting for someone to look into the accuracy of wikinvest’s annotated charts and provide some metrics at some point (if this is possible to track).  If anything, these charts improve on Google’s charts (which I happen to like) by overlaying wiki-like UGC on top of stock charts.

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Wikinvest makes everyone into a chartist

edginess.

Salmon’s belief for all those running a web business (or a business that utilizes the web channel) is that it is extremely important to turn web content into an email product.

Says Salmon:

It’s also an important reminder: if you want to make money from a website, put a lot of effort into turning your blog(s) into some kind of email product. Email reaches millions of people who never read blogs, and advertisers often adore it.

When thinking about utilizing the web to tap the power of social networks or using Sales 2.0 techniques to quickly scale your online business, email still remains one of the most powerful tools for reaching customers, selling advertising, and as we see with DailyCandy’s recently announced sale, monetizing your equity value.

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DailyCandy gets sold: the importance of email newsletters

However, that type of web presence is quickly becoming outdated…it’s so 1999. The typical corporate website has become irrelevant, and today it’s all about creating a “web presence.” A web presence means that you have a home base, i.e. a website and/or blog, but your brand can also be found in other places on the web, like social networks.

People are spending so much time on social networks, that they expect to find you and your business there:

“a recent Universal McCann report stat[es] that content consumption outside of websites has increased 153% in the last 9 months. Overall, 53% of online users are consuming content outside of a publisher’s site - through the use of widgets, RSS readers, social networks and mobile devices.” (from ReadWriteWeb)

Four steps to a successful social media strategy

I often meet people who understand that they need to expand and diversify their web presence, but don’t know how. Some people feel lost, while others are sure that the way to being part of the social web is to…create a facebook group.

I created a facebook group. So why am I all alone?

Creating a facebook group, or even writing a blog or microblogging on twitter, are not strategies; they are tools for implementing strategeis. They may be the right tools for some businesses or organizations, but they also be the wrong place to invest time and energy for others. Choosing the tools or technologies that you will use to implement your social media strategy is actually the LAST step in the process.

Here’s an outline of the general steps needed to create a successful web presence:

1. Identify your goals: what do we want to achieve? Who are we trying to target?
   Part of this stage is benchmarking: analyzing current statistics; identifying what you hope will be different as a result of your social media efforts; defining parameters that you want to change most and least.
2. Next, work out the strategy: how are we going to achieve these goals? Where do we need to be to reach our target audience, i.e. based on their demographics, where are they hanging out on the web? What type of content will they like? What manpower considerations do we need to be aware of (i.e. the need to hire a Community Manager, etc.)? Do we have legal considerations?
3. Once all of that has been prepared, then and only then can you choose tools and technologies. A facebook group may not be the best strategy for your goals, or it may be appropriate, but maybe it won’t work on its own. Tools and technologies are just the medium, not the message (sorry McLuhan). For example, in the world of print marketing, you know a rollup is exactly what you need to get your message across at the upcoming trade show, but you’d look mighty strange schlepping it to pitch a new client at their office.
4. Implementation. Now you get to have fun with your shiny tools, because they’re the right ones.

I need to build a house. I hear these tools are good so I think I’ll use them.

Forrester has laid out a similar approach to creating an effective social media strategy by putting technology last, which they coined as POST: People, Objectives, Strategy, Technology. (Here’s a link to the original blog post, but it looks like Forrester is trying to wipe out any memory of Charlene Li since she left, so you can only access the cached version on Google.)

Like most things in life and business, you need to know what you want to achieve before you decide how you are going to achieve them. And that is why a facebook group is most definitely not a strategy.

Lonely girl image from willgame on flickr

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A facebook group is not a social media strategy