Why it’s important to blog everyday – or not at all

June 25, 2011 by

If you are going blog than do it. I have dabbled with blogging for a long time but never really took it serious – like a job. This approach is fine, but it will never turn in to anything. I have watched my web analytics rise and fall with my own activity and know how important it is to continuously post new content. So I’m going to try an experiment: a post a day, everyday – for 30 days.

It all starts now so if there are any questions that you would like to ask me, tell me in the comments. I would be glad to talk about anything from web design to world history.

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Contact me on Skype

February 19, 2011 by

Skype is my preferred method of communication these days. I use it more than the phone, more than email, more than real-life. If you need to get in touch with me, this is by far the fastest, most synchronous real-time way to do it. If you are on skype already great – just add me as a friend. If not, download the free app – they have it for windows, mac, iphone, ipad, android, etc.

My skype id is: ben.shoemate

Skype Me™!Add me to SkypeSend me a file

Base22 team hard at "work" on Base22 Day (the 22nd of every month at 2:22pm we do some team building, in this case a Rubix Cube competition).

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Hey Technorati – I own this blog!

December 22, 2010 by

Here is the proof you asked for: token Z4D6T6VT3RHJ

For the humans in the audience not familiar with Technorati:

“Technorati was founded to help bloggers succeed by collecting, highlighting, and distributing the global online conversation. Founded as the first blog search engine, Technorati has expanded to a full service media company providing services to the blogs and social media sites and connecting them with advertisers who want to join the conversation, and whose online properties introduce blog content to millions of consumers.

The leading blog search engine and directory, Technorati.com indexes more than a million blogs. The site has become the definitive source for the top stories, opinions, photos and videos emerging across news, entertainment, technology, lifestyle, sports, politics and business. Technorati.com tracks not only the authority and influence of blogs, but also the most comprehensive and current index of who and what is most popular in the Blogosphere.

Technorati now publishes high quality, fully edited, original content daily on a wide range of topics, written by hundreds of member writers.

Read more: http://technorati.com/about-technorati/#ixzz18rwdzUf1

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Skype is offline – for those who were not signed in

December 22, 2010 by

If you were already signed in this morning, stay that way. But if you had to reboot you computer last night like me, then you might not be able to get back in. They are reporting the status here: http://heartbeat.skype.com/2010/12/problems_signing_in_to_skype.html

But even though it says all is well as of 12:20 CST I’m still not able to sign in. You just don’t realize how much you need something till it’s gone. Now I have to rely on the phone, or email, or twitter, or my blog, or facebook to communicate…it’s like the dark ages..or google talk (but I stopped using that a long time ago). Truth is, Skype has become a mission critical tool for our company and has so few problems (other than a slow decent into unusability with each interface iteration – especially on the Mac).

Get it together guys.

Update (12:30pm): I forget sometimes that Skype is a peer-to-peer network. Apparently an update to the software took out some of the “super-nodes” (users that are online a lot – heck, I might be one of them). When those nodes failed, the network came down, at least for me.. http://blogs.skype.com/en/2010/12/skype_downtime_today.html?cm_mmc=PXTW|0700_B6-_-downtime-20101222

Update 2 (6:34pm) : A full day of yelling a Skype on Twitter yielded nothing but some mild comic relief. If you enjoyed this post – you’ll really like my twitter diatribe: http://twitter.com/#!/benshoemate

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The Power of Words

December 5, 2010 by

We all know that it is important to choose your words wisely in the business world. Below are a few of the more important word choices you can make. I bookmarked this a few years ago and thought I would share it.

Think about these two words: spend and invest. Would you like your bank to spend your money or invest it? Since spending implies the money is gone, you probably want a bank that invests. Now apply these same words to corporate budgets and see how that influences thinking. Early in my career, I saw budgets as allocated company money I had permission to spend. And I did spend it. I never thought of budgets as investing in the company’s future until I was given profit and loss accountability for a new department and discovered my flawed thinking. I learned that in order to grow the department, I needed to budget with an investment mentality. Shifting words shifted my thinking and my results.

Try these words: problem and challenge. Would you rather a boss see your mistake as a problem or as a challenge? It’s more than semantics. Problems are fixed; challenges are met. Different words evoke different feelings. I have a more positive frame of mind meeting a challenge than fixing a problem. But a word of caution. I’m not suggesting you play the buzz-word game like a colleague of mine who walked into my office saying, “Do I have an opportunity for you.” We both knew differently.

Here are two favorites: bodies and people. As a young manager, I was jolted every time I heard another manager talking about how many “bodies” they needed, or putting “butts in seats.” Later, I learned many of those managers struggled with departmental morale problems. I could understand why if they saw people as interchangeable pieces to a puzzle rather than individuals playing an important role in their departments.

I realized the words I use to think and talk about my workload, my goals, my projects and the people I worked with influenced my thoughts and actions about them. So, I changed my words. If I say I work “for” someone I have a different vision about my work-life than if I work “with” them; same with my staff working with, not for me.

Poorly chosen words can kill enthusiasm, impact self-esteem, lower expectations and hold people back. Well chosen ones can motivate, offer hope, create vision, impact thinking and alter results. I learned in twenty years in management my words have power over my thoughts and actions. They also impact and influence people I speak them to.

via The Power of Words.

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