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Less Than Six Degrees Of Separation

Thursday, June 28th, 2007

Are any of you familiar with the term, “Six Degrees of Separation?”  What it means is that any one person is less than six people away from you.  For example, if I want to meet Michael Jordan, the famous basketball player, I am within six contacts of actually meeting him.

Think about it.  That is a pretty powerful idea.  No matter who the person is, or where they are, I have a shot at making that contact.

Take it one step further and apply it to Web 2.0 and blogging.  Keep in mind, this is just my personal theory, and I haven’t seen it published anywhere else – so I might as well do it.

Web 2.0 and blogging reduces the “Six Degrees of Separation” to something much less.  It might be two, or even one.  The idea between the new Web is that everything is connected through the network.  People, places, things, ideas, and events.  Which means that in order for you to get in touch with any of the above, it might only take one or two contacts in between.

For example, I might want to meet Guy Kawasaki.  In order to get in front of him, I need only to visit his blog and comment.  He might respond, he might not – but I communicated with him with nobody in between facilitating that connection.

That is why I think blogging and social networks and this whole new Internet are so powerful.  Six Degrees of Separation no longer exists.  In reality it is something more akin to “Single Degree of Separation” with the connector being a network.

28.06.2007 young entrepreneur Comments

Still Around The Corner

Tuesday, June 26th, 2007

One of my favorite quotes of all time is written by JRR Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings.  You might be wondering, “What does this mean for business or startups?”  Well, read on…

Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate,
And though we pass them by today,
Tomorrow we may come this way
And take the hidden paths that run

- JRR Tolkien

The moral is this:  every decision you make, leads you in a different direction.  If you are planning on starting a business that offers free geonavigational plotting on all handheld computing devices, it is going to make a difference what software you use to build it, what your features are, and so on.

In the same breath, if you tweak that idea every so slightly to include special tools for law enforcement or emergency personnel, the end product will be different.  You might perhaps offer those services as something additional or spin off a whole new product because of it.

I know it is common sense, but think of it this way.  The more you broaden your own horizons, the more you will be able to completely understand the world around you and develop your products and services with that increased knowledge.

Hell, I just signed up to be a volunteer firefighter which is way out in left field for me.  Challenge yourself to something new, and you might be surprised at what new roads you come across…

26.06.2007 entrepreneur tip Comments

A Trick To Shorten Meetings

Monday, June 25th, 2007

I hate meetings.  I always have.  Here’s a trick to shorten them.

“Remove all chairs from the conference room, lower the temperature to approximately 62 degrees, and don’t allow the air to get stale.  You will see that standup meetings take about half the time as sit down meetings.”

And they are more productive…

Taken from The Entrepreneur’s Manual by Chilton.

25.06.2007 entrepreneur tip Comments

Hurdles and Roadblocks

Tuesday, June 19th, 2007

Quick SEO - SEO Video Tutorials For Small BusinessesEvery once in a while, you hit a roadblock.  Something is thrown in your face that you just weren’t prepared for.  Be it a financial burden, something going wrong at the office, or maybe even a client that just isn’t acting the way they should.  What do you do?  Ignore it?  Deal with it in time?  Or attack the problem head on?

When I first started Tech Solution, I was doing computer training for business professionals.  But as we talked before, I was creating a job, and time was directly related to money.  The more I trained people how to use Excel, the more I made.  It was that simple.

Then I took the company into web design.  And let me tell you – dealing with Content Management System Support sucks.  Something that may seem trivial to you is definitely not to a lot of individuals.   People expect that all the features of Microsoft Word be apparent in the editing section of a CMS.

The next step?  SEO and SEM which has proven very beneficial.  That is what spurred the launch of Quick SEO.  A complete video tutorial and ebook for small businesses who can’t afford the $500-$5000 a month for professional services.  To me, it is a godsend to businesses who don’t have a lot of throw away capital or web experience.

The next product launch?  Quick SEM – Getting traffic to small business websites and product pages using Adwords, Yahoo, and such.  It might sound trivial, but there is so much untapped functionality there, it is ridiculous.

The next time you are thinking about launching a business or division or product, think about ways that are maybe a little less obvious to achieve the same result.  For us, the SEO book has already been done, there are countless SEO consultants in the world, so what better to give the power back to the webmasters?  Launch a complete do it yourself product, and call us if your stumped…

This is by no means a sales letter – Just a thought point.  Oftentimes, the best avenue to take is the indirect route.  You will find that support starts coming out of the woodwork!

19.06.2007 business building 101 Comments

Podcast #20 – Generating Traffic To A Startup

Friday, June 15th, 2007

One issue which everyone has when starting a company is getting the word out. That much is true for traditional bricks and mortar stores and websites. It doesn’t matter how spectacular your service or product is… If no one knows you exist then you won’t be making any money.

This podcast deals with those issues. It is by no means all inclusive, but I do give my opinion about some of the best ways to get the word out about your business, traditional or web oriented.

Shownotes:

  1. Generating Traffic through marketing
  2. Bricks and Mortar establishements need to pursue traditional channels
    1. magazines
    2. newspapers
    3. mailings
    4. sales people
    5. location
  3. Websites and online businesses
    1. Pay per click campaigns
    2. Search engine optimization
    3. paid reviews
    4. online public relations releases
  4. Marketing makes you money

Enjoy!

icon for podpress  Getting Traffic To A Startup [14:14m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

15.06.2007 podcasts Comments

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