Thank You Anita
It’s been that kind of week - lot’s of people to thank. That’s a good week in my book.
Yesterday (12/9/08) I was a guest expert on Anita Campbell’s Small Business Trends Radio program. The entire process, from working on the topic and questions with Anita, the scheduling and logistics with Staci, and the actual program with my facilitator Steve Rucinski, was nothing but professional. It’s no wonder Anita’s blog is subscribed to by over 220,000 people!
My topic was advice for Manufacturing start-ups. In a half hour, we covered quite a wide range of questions, from what’s changed in the manufacturing space, the three most critical aspects to consider in starting a manufacturing company, to one tip on how manufacturing entrepreneurs are avoiding most start-up costs all together.
If you’d like to read an overview of the show, or listen to a recording of the interview, here are some links:
You can also order transcripts off the Small Business Trends Radio website. It’s acting a bit slow right now, so I can’t get to the transcripts page to see if there is a charge or not.
UPDATE - The transcripts are $10 to cover transcriptions, printing and shipping costs. I didn’t see mine in the list yet, but I would guess it takes a while to get the show transcribed.
I’ll put a plug in for Anita here also. If you haven’t stumbled upon her radio site, then you may want to take a look around. Every week, she has a different small business expert on the show talking on a variety of issues. Looking over some of the most recent and popular shows, I see titles like: Building a Successful Community Giving Program, Using Facebook to Market Your Business, and How to Start a Business with No Money.
So once again - Thank You Anita! I look forward to working together again in the future.
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Thank You Simon
Much like reading the local paper over your morning coffee, one of my first activities at work is to fire up my RSS reader and scan through my topics to see if anything of interest pops out. This morning I rather unexpectedly saw my name in a post title. Huh??!!??
Simon Stapleton is a IT professional who blogs about personal development and career management issues. I’ve linked to his blog a few times in the past in my Weekend Readers. Regardless of whether you’re in the IT field or not, Simon’s blog is a great read for anyone wanting to pay extra attention to their career.
So it was a pleasant surprise to see that it was Simon who had not just linked to my blog, but written an entire post about the recent entrepreneurial qualities survey I ran. So show Simon some blogging love and take a visit to his site. (And for those DCO readers who like shortcuts, check out Simon’s Brilliant Basics section - articles he considers some of his best.)
Simon - just one question. Was it absolutely necessary to include my head shot in the post? 
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Next Week on Small Business Radio
As anyone who knows me will attest to, self-promotion is not one of my strong suits. So don’t look for this post to be much longer than a couple short sentences. I actually came close to forgetting to post it at all. However, I’m quite excited to have been invited to be a guest expert on Anita Campbell’s Small Business Radio show. Anita is Editor in Chief of a her own little media empire which includes a hugely popular blog and radio program. The best part is she’s right in my backyard, Akron, Ohio. Even better is she’s a darn nice person.
The show is scheduled for next Tuesday, the 9th at 1:30 EST. The headline for the show is:
Our featured guest is, David Crain, Director of Entrepreneurial Services, Magnet. With ever-advancing technology, cheap outsourced labor, and globalized logistics providers it should be easy to startup a manufacturing company. But the challenges have become greater. Manufacturing requires a highly skilled workforce; capital intensive equipment; customers demanding ever-changing products and focus on internal procedures to stay competitive. Dave discusses the challenges, several ways to increase your odds for success and one shortcut many entrepreneurs are using to avoid startup issues all together.
You can listen to the show live via the web, at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/smallbiztrends.
And please… no hecklers!
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The Quarter in Review - 2008/Q3
Many of the blogs I read have quarterly, or even monthly recaps. Some of these blogs are personal some are professional, and the information in their recap generally reflects their orientation.
Personal blogs tend to focus on their best content, what keywords seem most relevant in their space, comments or discussions of interest, etc. The professional blogs definitely highlight their best content (that is after all their bread and butter), and many also go so far as to talk about their site metrics and income for the period represented.
As October gets underway, it dawned on me that I started this blog around mid-July, so it is almost a quarter of a year old. I’m not trying to make this into something more than it is, but taking some time every three months or so to reflect on a couple high points seems like a good thing.
Most popular content
- By far the most popular post was the Personal Branding Primer. Started somewhat on a whim, this article turned into a full-length discussion on personal branding: what it is, different tactics for two different categories of people, and some pragmatic next steps for all of us.
- 5 steps to sustained personal change was fairly popular also. Drawing from some immediate personal experiences, this was a brief post capturing some thoughts of mine on what it takes not only to change, but to sustain the change.
- Lastly, in response to a question from a reader, we had a short discussion on good recruiting gifts for future leaders. If you are involved in college recruiting, then you should read this article for some interesting, and thought-provoking, giveaways.
- The DCO Weekly Readers settled into their weekly routine after a couple different schedules. From a few E-Mails I have received, this feature looks like it is of value to you. I appreciate any and all comments on the Weekly Readers to make them as useful as possible. They sure are interesting to put together.
- Personally, my favorite post to write was Progress?, in response to something I read on a colleague’s blog. Entrepreneurship and personal excellence notwithstanding, it’s always good to remind ourselves of what’s really important in our lives.
Visitors
In addition to the few friends I recruited from the start, we did pick up some new visitors and subscribers to the site. It’s always good to get a wide variety of thoughts and comments. While much of the traffic is “direct”, meaning it came directly to the site, there was quite a bit of traffic that hit the site based on keyword searches around “qualities of entrepreneurship”; more reinforcement that this is a topic of great interest and we should pick it back up. I have some initial content ready to go in that regard, and will definitely be looking for you participation.
What’s New?
I’ve added the “Share This” button to the blog at the end of each post (it’s a small green button and says Share This next to it). Share This is a really easy way to share an individual blog post with others via your social bookmarking network, E-Mail or on your own blog. Clicking the Share This button or link brings up a small window where you can E-Mail a post to a friend, add it to your favorite bookmarking site like Digg or Reddit, or add it to your own blog. The button only shows while directly on the site, so you folks using an RSS reader or getting posts by E-Mail will need to click through to the actual blog post if you’d like to use this feature.
Once again - thanks for dropping by (and hopefully subscribing). We’re getting a few more comments here and there, which I appreciate. I hope you all had a fantastic summer. We’re entering the “holiday season”, the best time of the year for many folks. Here’s wishing you “excellent” holidays, full of family, friends and happiness.
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Please pardon that small interruption…
If you tried to read an article by clicking on it under the “Recent Posts” sidebar, or the “Read more…” link within a post on the home page the last few days, you probably received a page with just the name of the post but with no text.
Let’s file this one under IT mistakes. The problem has been corrected.
Please… keep clicking and reading.
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The basis for our conversations
With this post, I plan on writing a three post series providing the basic foundation for our conversations here:
- DCO Basics
- Core qualities of entreprenreuship
- Supporting qualities of entrepreneurship
These three introductory posts have been rumbling around in my head ever since I made the decision to start this blog; many of the concepts and biases I had formed even earlier. I had planned on building the subscriber base for the blog a bit more before writing these posts, but for those who know me, you know I can be somewhat impatient. As I say throughout this site, I am very interested in a two-way dialogue on this topic, and with more subscribers comes more comments. That said, just like great conversation makes for great parties, my hope is that subscribers to this site will follow from getting to the point.
So, without further ado, let’s get started.
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Don’t miss out on the good stuff!
In my last post, I answered a question that had been left via comment to a previous post. Then reader Carol commented on my comments adding even more value to the conversation (Lauren - it’s a good one, be sure to check it out).
Confused? Didn’t see any of those comments?
It’s been my experience that many times the comments left by blog readers can be even more valuable than the posts themselves. I subscribe to the theory that the group is smarter than the individual, so this is no surprise to me. However, I have also found that a large majority of people who read blogs find it difficult to stay up to date on the comments left, especially if they are only interested in a couple posts.
DCO has two ways to stay informed when comments are left on this blog.
Subscribe to all comments
Just like the new post feed you added to your RSS reader, you can add a feed for comments left on this site. At the very top of any page of this blog, towards the right, you will see links to my two feeds: “RSS FEED” and “COMMENTS”. Follow the same process you used to subscribe to our main feed for the comments feed, and whenever a comment is left on a post it will show up in your reader. This is the simplest way to stay up to date on all comments left, and requires a one-time setup only.
Subscribe to comments for a single post
For those of you who don’t want to see all comments left, but from time to time would like to follow the comments for a post that you find particularly interesting, there is another option. At the bottom of each post, underneath the comment box, you will find the following option:
Clicking the checkbox will tell the blog to send you an E-mail anytime someone posts a comment to this particular post. You are required to leave a comment for this to work, that’s where this service gets your E-mail address. This is not my design, this functionality is provided via a Wordpress plug-in and that’s just the way it works.
So to follow comments for a particular post, simply fill in the fields to leave a comment, click the “Notify me of…” checkbox at the bottom, then click the “Submit Comment” button.
Should you want to manage your notifications, links to all your options are included with each E-Mail you receive. Also, returning to this blog and scrolling down to the comments section of a post you are currently being notified about, should display a link allowing you to “Manage your subscriptions”. Click that link and you’ll get a page that will show you all the posts you signed up for, along with some other options.
Want more information?
If you’d like more information on this Wordpress plugin, or would like to add it to your Wordpress blog, it’s here in the Wordpress plugin directory.
Whatever method you choose to stay in touch, I invite you to actively comment on the posts here, and stay in touch with other comments left. I’m out of town for a few days, but when I get back, I’m going to start my foundational series of post examining Leadership and Entrepreneurship, and I look forward to your active participation.
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“About” page up
Any good blog should have a succinct About page to describe the what they blog is all about and what it is trying to accomplish; maybe even something to address the always valid “why should I care” question.
Having a few minutes over lunch, I put together mine. Short and, hopefully, to the point.
Let me know if you’d like to see anything else.