Twitter power for the little guys
Twitter has taken the internet and ‘social community’ by storm over the past few years. Take a look at the Google Trends and you’ll see that its popularity started growing in late 2008 to where it now has 75 Million Twitter accounts.
All that aside, what’s the point and what’s in it for the little guys?
What’s your brand worth to you?
Is it just me or do some companies not understand how important their brand is?
Let me paint you a picture. Company ABC is falling behind in the ‘social media’ race. All of their competitors have active Facebook and Twitter accounts and blog on a regular basis. Their customers love and appreciate the business to consumer interaction.
Company ABC has decided that instead of asking themselves why social media is working for their competitors, they’re going to take a reactionary approach and hire someone to ‘build their own position’ and ‘take care of all the online stuff’. Better yet, their going to give this new position a swanky title and post it on all the online job boards.
Open Data And Edmonton Public Schools
Times are changing. Every day people are getting increasingly more involved in their communities. Here in Edmonton, there are many people and companies that are working together to improve the way that the cities data is used and distributed. As part of an initiative to improve the accessibility, transparency, and accountability of City government, the city of Edmonton Data Catalogue provides access to City managed data sets in machine-readable formats. Open Data is a philosophy and practice requiring that certain data are freely available to everyone, without restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control. This data can then be manipulated and used to develop things like maps, software applications and even iPhone apps among other things.
Creating Opportunity In a Growing City
As a young professional with high hopes and dreams to one day become a CEO, Partner or Executive Director for an international company, I am beginning to learn that there is one thing that if done correctly, can get me there in half the time of my predecessors. This isn’t a new concept or something that I have taken and re-invented. In fact, there are thousands of books on this topic and countless startups, inventions and joint venture business deals have come from this very source.
Tribal Leadership and Leveraging Natural Groups
In the book Tribal Leadership, [Collins Business 2008] researchers Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright found that tribes are not only powerful, but that tribal dynamics can be mapped. Once understood, the dynamics of tribal leadership can be made accessible. Leaders are encouraged to learn to read the map, so that they can leverage the synergy created by smoothly functioning groups.
A “tribe.” is a network of 20 to 150 people. Everyone knows each other, or of everyone else within a collegiality.
40 Days of Entrepreneurialism
Over the past 5 years I have jumped from venture to job, back to a new venture and now back to a 9-5 job. Most of this time was spent gaining experience in different sectors, going to school and learning as I fall down over and over again. But, as you also know that’s all part of being an Entrepreneur.
It’s not easy. It’s actually really hard and that’s why so many people decide to stick with their 9-5 and 50-80k /year day jobs. Don’t get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that but it’s also not for everyone.
Now, in saying that I also have the best supervisor I have ever had. He’s honest, open and very forward with me when it comes to what is expected of me and how I can make my position the best for me. So much so that every time we get a chance to talk he reminds me to follow my passions and use my entrepreneurial spirit in everything I do at work. To me, that’s rare and I have no doubt that he will one day change the way many organizations function, act and communicate with the world.
40 Days of Entrepreneurialism is simply that. 40 days of completing at minimum one task that gets me to become a full fledged Entrepreneur doing what I love every day. Making a difference.
It’s not going to be easy and by no means do I expect to quit my job and be making money hand over fist in 40 days. No, I’ve fallen on my face way too many times to think that will happen. The next 40 days are meant to help change habits and implement new ones that help me get to the greater me. It’s the first few stones n a very long brick road that I will hopefully continue on after the 40 days of work and 40 nights of little sleep.
Well, for those of you that have been raised a Catholic home you’ll know that Easter is fast approaching and the 40 days before Easter are commonly known as Lent. Lent, as far as Wikipedia is concerned is…
“The forty days represent the time that, according to the Bible, Jesus spent in the desert before the beginning of his public ministry, where he endured temptation by Satan.[1]”
Basically, we’re taught that during this time we are either supposed to give something up for the 40 days, most people choose chocolate or something small, or do something to improve yourself. No, I won’t be talking and referencing religion but I will be talking about the things I do to move myself forward for the next 40 days.
Here’s my commitment. For 40 days I will actively work on becoming a better Entrepreneur. This means networking, developing business, marketing and website plans, creating my own marketing materials and more or less getting my name out there.
It’s going to be interesting…
How Google Analytics Can Change Your Business Forever
Small business is the mother of all invention and some of the best things have come out of small businesses. For instance, in a small business you are probably going to hear this when you present a solution “how much does it cost?” I have been a long time user, developer, tester and advocate of web analytics and using web analytics in business. Ever since Google Analytics came out what I’ve noticed is how businesses use it, especially small companies. It’s probably got something to do with the “FREE!” price tag and the fact that it has a pretty simple learning curve but with that said if your small business runs a website and you are not currently collecting statistics about your website than the real question should be “Why aren’t we using this?”
Management Isn’t Just For Managers
In a cube farm, you typically hear the word manage when the boss comes around. The boss talks about needing to manage projects or employees or whatever else needs managing that day.
In many cases, you only see your boss when you fail to meet expectations, or they know that there is some deadline approaching. This also inspires fear in many employees because your manager only appears when something is wrong.
About Paul
| I’ve held a lot of titles over the years. Paperboy, photographer, chicken farmer, graphic designer, Internet strategist, community relation’s coordinator, web developer, business analyst, strategic business consultant and online... [Read More] |  |
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