Businesses have been taking advantage of many online tools not originally created for business purposes such as blogs, feeds, wikis, forums and more. These help businesses create a community, build relationships and gain trust and credibility. Would you buy a book on this topic? If so, what do you want from the book that you’re … Read more
Businesses neglect simple strategies when building their Web sites. They often make the site about the company instead of about the customer. Customers can see through the marketing-speak. The following six easy-to-do features help businesses ensure they make the most of out of visitor’s time: Focus on the customer: A site tends to pump up … Read more
I bought my first portable mouse when it was on sale for very cheap. At first, I thought it was a bad investment because I didn’t use it for a long time. However, I started using my laptop for all work for a specific client and needed to use a regular mouse instead of the … Read more
I look forward to reading Mary Roach’s humorous Reader Digest column in every issue. The column reflects on things she runs into in life that many of us can relate. In the June 2007, she shares her experience in calling tech support regarding the Windows setup CD. Her computer crashed and it needed the setup … Read more
Taking cue from The One Minute Manager, Zapp!, Fish! and Who Moved My Cheese?, The Hamster Revolution uses a parable to show how to better manage and organize e-mail and information. The hamster represents people endlessly running on the wheel of e-mail. Right away, I start using concepts from the 90-minute book. Considering I’m an … Read more
Every new release of an application adds more features, but not always for the better. Get ten tips for getting feature frenzy under control. In writing an article about social network sites, I looked at over two dozen sites like MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Sermo, TravBuddy, MyCreativeCommunity. Wikipedia provides a list of many social networking … Read more
Smashing Magazine provided a wealth of expert tips, advice and suggestions in its popular and valuable 35 designers x 5 questions article. To celebrate its one year anniversary, the magazine found more experts and asked new questions. The result is 50 designers x 6 questions, which contains over 170 new tips answering the following six … Read more
Samantha Krieger of Just Say Yes asked if editors prefer to receive press releases by e-mail or by mail. The following is my response: It depends on the editor. My recommendation is to create a column in your editor contact list for “Preference” or something like a “Notes” column. Then go to their Web sites … Read more
Writer Mama provided a great discussion topic in asking readers if they are rule breakers or rule followers in terms of working as writers. Plus, my family ran into an issue where someone who may have broken rules that affected an entire team. Breaking a rule can be a minor thing that only affects the … Read more
The previous post discussed the value of saying, “Thank you.” But it’s possible to overdo it especially when it comes to e-mail. “Here’s your weekly report.” “Thank you,” said the reply. Add up all the thank you e-mails for things like that and it makes for a cluttered inbox. Sometimes a thank you e-mail has … Read more