Book Review: Do The Work
This weekend I read “Do The Work” (affiliate link) by Steven Pressfield. It was recommended to me by Josh Brammer who told me I should read it right now… seriously. With a warning like that, I couldn’t resist. I had already snagged it on Kindle previously so I clicked and dove in. This is my kind of book. It’s short, direct, irreverent, and bold. It’s kind of a kick in the pants for creative people. If that’s you, and you need a kick in the pants, I think you’ll like it. Here’s what I enjoyed most: it addresses the dark, nagging, lonely...
Read MoreCourse correcting as a professional speaker
Yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking at Blog Indiana. If you’re not familiar with it, Blog Indiana is a popular blogging and social media conference in Indianapolis and is very well attended and includes some great content. So I gave a presentation called “Internet Marketing in 90 Minutes a Week” during the afternoon slot. Now normally, I am pretty confident in my speaking. I usually get great feedback, I spend hours and hours tweaking my content to be very high value, and I genuinely love connecting with the audience. However, at Blog Indiana I did not have an...
Read MoreAugment data collection with LinkedIn Polls
A lot of organizations are interested in gathering data in order to make better decisions. Whether it’s marketing, sales, recruiting, HR, or other functions, good data can help us make better decisions. While there are plenty of enterprise solutions for surveying employees and constituents (such as solutions provided by Chris Woolard at Walker in Indianapolis), what if your needs are more modest and you want to do some quick and dirty data collection? For this task, I absolutely love LinkedIn Polls. With a LinkedIn poll, you can set up a single question, create multiple choice...
Read MoreBook Review: Ignore Everybody
I just finished “Ignore Everybody” (affiliate link) by Hugh MacLeod and loved it. Hugh is the guy who does those Gapingvoid cartoons on the backs of business cards. I’ll admit, I don’t really get or even like those cartoons, but I loved Hugh’s blunt essay on creativity and gained lots of insight and inspiration from it. So who should read this book? Anybody who creates things. I’m guessing this includes a lot of people. Artists, writers, entrepreneurs, developers, designers, etc. will all probably enjoy this book. The style is short, bold, and irreverent...
Read MoreQR codes on postcards? Stop the madness!
Ok, so I think everyone knows my take on QR codes by now. I think they have very useful applications in some contexts, but I am frustrated to see so many marketers acting like they should be used to push more marketing at people. Just to prove that I’m not a QR-hater, here is an interesting story of how the Wall Street Journal got it right. This is an outstanding use of QR because they identified the context as appropriate for QR (someone sitting down with a newspaper) and they encouraged sharing, rather than pushing more marketing. Brilliant! However, for every great example of QR...
Read MoreBook Michael to Speak
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