Category: Business

Book Update

Lately, Matthew Baldwin of Defective Yeti is posting like crazy, and he’s been pulling a few ideas from my book, No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog. Here’s my favorite 100 Ideas-inspired post so far. Never underestimate the power of acid wash jeans and red suspenders to make your heart go pitter-pat.

Meanwhile, Jeff Veen, user experience guru for Google, mentioned my book in a discussion of how the web is turning amateurs into experts, and tools like Vox and my book are helping on that front.

Blogging expert Leah Peterson is playing along by asking readers to submit something via mail for inclusion in a group painting. She has a P.O. box for submissions, so send something her way.

Finally David Beach, formerly of Yahoo Shopping and now with Wink, is still hard at work whittling his body down and upping his health quotient at Die Old. I mentioned Beach in the book because I’m pretty inspired by what he’s doing. Go on over and lend a helpful comment. It would be great to see him build a community around the idea of dying old.

That’s it for now. If you haven’t bought the book, I hope you do, as I think you’ll like it. If you have, please link to your 100 Ideas posts in the comments. I can’t wait to read them.

Business Lessons

The most compelling parts of The Big Moo, edited by Seth Godin:

(Thanks for the loan, Evan!)

Name something.
“If it has a name, your peers can measure it. If it has a name, they can alter it. If it has a name, they can talk about it. And if it has a name, they can eliminate it.”

Finish with something remarkable.
“Those last five minutes make it easy for your customers to find the difference between you and everyone else.
“It takes 99 percent of the time you spend just to be average.”

Question yourself.
“What if we did things the way our competition did them?
What if we could charge ten times as much for this?
What if we had to charge one tenth as much?
If we were on Oprah, what would she say about us?
Is it generous?”

Ask your customers.
“He loves his customers, and his customers love him.”
“What am I doing right?
What am I doing wrong?
what can I do better?
What else do you wish I would do?
Tell them your biggest ideas about your company’s future.”

Learn from new hires.
“Make it a habit to sit down with your new hires at about the three-month point. But don’t give them a performance review—ask them to give your operation a performance review. After three months, their eyes are still fresh enough that they’ll be able to see things you’re missing. And they’ll have been on the job long enough to know how things really work. Chances are good that they’ll have great ideas to contribute.”

Reach out.
“Make a list of people you know whose minds you genuinely respect. Make it a point to call them on a regular basis for a conversation. All you have to ask is, ‘What’s new?’ Then listen and take notes. Journalists do it all the time; it’s called developing sources.”

Ignore critics, embrace criticism.
“Online critics are motivated by a need for attention… So ignore the harshest ones. But don’t ignore what they say. This is valuable feedback. It’s free, and it’s quick, and it’s useful.”

Know what the customer expects.
A product isn’t for everyone, it’s for someone.

Care.
It’s the essence of good customer service. Caring goes a long way. Caring shows up in your tone of voice, your interactions, and your policies.

Smaller can be better.
“A group of two people needs only one meeting to exchange information. Fifty people, on the other hand, need 1,225 one-on-one meetings to have a similar exchange… If you want to do something really extraordinary, take a colleague and set up your office in the Kinko’s across the street. Come back to headquarters when you’re done.”

Have fun.
Your attitude should say, ‘I’m prototyping, playing, and palling around.’

Blogher

Blogher knocked me flat. I have been asleep for thirty of the last forty-eight hours. If I’d been allowed to drink, I probably would have slipped into a coma.

This year’s Blogher was a lot like SxSW, but with better shoes and a shameful dearth of free booze. Also, an inhumanly long line for the bathroom between sessions. This is how I discovered that the public men’s rooms were blissfully empty, with stall after stall of sparkly clean toilets.

The overabundance of hip moms made me feel smug. There wasn’t a pair of sweatpants or an unpedicured toe for miles. And if you find yourself “calling Ralph on the big white phone” in the bathroom of a greasy spoon, no one will make you feel more dignified than five other women who’ve been through the morning sickness routine.

My panel went better than I ever could have expected, thanks to an amazing group of speakers who really knew their stuff. Again, many thanks to Marnie MacLean, Gayla Trail, Andrea Scher, and Pim Techamuanvivit. I’ll post a podcast as soon as it’s up.

Blogher

It’s July, and that means Blogher in San Jose. Are you coming? If so, I’m moderating a panel on Saturday, July 29. It’s called “Is the Next Martha Stewart a Blogger?” and I’ll be talking to designer Andrea Scher of Superhero Designs, gardener and author Gayla Trail of You Grow Girl, foodie Pim Techamuanvivit of Chez Pim, and knitter Marnie MacLean of MarnieMacLean.com. If you’ll be there, come introduce yourself and join in the conversation.

Shiny and New

Look everybody, it’s a new design! I’m so excited, I even pulled from my precious store of exclamation points. I realized a few weeks ago, that I haven’t touched the design since 2001. Apparently, I fear change.

As you can see, the new site has photos, and comments (on occasion), and a recent photo of me in which I’m not wearing the glasses that I sat on in 2002. It also has ads, which I hope will not annoy you, and which will definitely not annoy you if you use an RSS reader. Many thanks to Thor of Rubyred Labs, who spent much more time on the redesign than he should have, because he’s committed that way.

I hope you like it, because I love it. If you don’t like it, I suspect you’ll have the decency to pretend that you do. You’re good to me like that.

Blogher

At Blogher, I did what I do at every other conference. I skipped every session my friends weren’t presenting and used the down time to seal shiny-new friendships with liquor. These are the women I met whose labor stories have convinced me to stop having sex immediately:

Mrs. Kennedy of Fussy

Melissa of Suburban Bliss

Jen of Jen and Tonic

Alice of Finslippy

Tracey of Sweetney

Amanda of Mandajuice

I’ve never met a wittier, more engaging group of women. It was like stepping into a sitcom, and when you add Heather to that mix everyone is shooting tequila out their noses in no time. (That burns by the way. Ow.)

Bryan and I have been talking about baby timing for a while now, and my biggest concern — aside from the possibility of ending up with stitches in unmentionable places — was that we be completely settled somewhere first. I want to have a strong support group that can talk me down when I’d rather scratch out my own eyes than watch another episode of Boobah.

The connection these girls have with each other made me realize that I can have that kind of support system wherever I go. They have each other’s backs, and though I’m just beginning to get to know them, I hope that one day they’ll have mine too.

(Photos)

Superior Schwag

After blogging for more than three years, I finally made some T-shirts. I made them mostly because I wanted one for myself and figured you might want one too. They’re risque, but you’re no milquetoast. So, without further ado…

Maybe you run like a girl, throw like a girl, catch like a girl. But there’s one more thing you do like a girl, and no one’s complaining about that.

In the Running

Hey! I got nominated for a Bloggie for best tagline. I found out when I read it on Josh’s website. Anyway, a big thank you to whoever nominated me. Sally forth, my tens and tens of readers; vote like people who enjoy my tagline! I heart winning things.

Hey, Thanks

Evan has taken a lot of shit over the years for keeping Blogger alive on his own after the original Pyras had, quite reasonably, given up hope. In fact, he’s still taking some shit from people who really should have risen above by now. I’d just like to take this opportunity to say thanks, Ev. You done good. No matter how nasty things got, you were right to keep going. I owe a lot to Blogger, and I’m glad you didn’t let it die. Here’s to regular paychecks, paid vacation, and all the bandwidth your little heart desires. Wishing you and yours a long and healthy corporate life in your new partnership with Google.