Austin, Texas Rocks!!
Jan 8 2011

Check out the CBS evening news last night, January 7, 2011 on how Austin is growing jobs.  The video is embedded below.  They interviewed people from BazaarVoice, a really hot start-up in town.  I know the CEO and he’s really great and focused on building a company with a strong culture with big value.  They also interviewed my boss, Isaac Barchas, at the Austin Technology Incubator and featured how we help companies grow and create jobs.  Check it out here: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7224282n or below in the embedded video.

Happy New Year – It’s Gonna Be Grand!
Jan 1 2011

2011 will be a great year.  It will be.  It has to be.  I say it proudly and loudly, so it must be so!  The economy seems to be getting a bit better (at least here in Texas) and many people are excited about the new year of the Rabbit (starting Feb 3, 2011 to Jan 22, 2012) and us leaving the hard Chinese year of the Tiger behind us.

My resolutions this year are to believe/trust in myself, believe in my kids, believe in the kindness and beauty in others, smile/laugh more, make others smile/laugh more, create songs and sing a song (Carpenter’s lyrics link).

Sing, sing a song
Sing out loud, sing out strong
Sing of good things not bad
Sing of happy not sad

Sing, sing a song
Make it simple to last your whole life long
Don’t worry that it’s not good enough
For anyone else to hear
Just sing, sing a song .

Oh and LOVE more!  As Hugh McLeod (@gapingvoid) cartoons Love, regardless of cost.  For those curious folks, here is what I wrote for Resolutions Past:

Once In A Blue Moon – It’s Complicated – 2010
Resolutions Anyone? – 2009
One Entrepreneur’s 2008 Goals – 2008

Happy New Year to all of you my loyal readers and everyone else who happens upon my blog when searching for something to help them with their life, their posts, their kids, or their businesses.  May you find the courage to follow your dreams…in other words your heart! <3  <— that’s a heart symbol for those of you who didn’t know that.

We’ve all heard the saying “You only live once,” so may you conquer your fear just a little bit at a time to live life (at least next year) grandly and to it’s fullest.  It’s not easy but it’s worth it…even if you get what “it” means for a few short minutes…you will never forget, can never go back, and will never compromise to the point that you lose yourself again.

Donate to Wikipedia – I Just Did
Dec 31 2010

I link to Wikipedia often in my posts.  My guess is 70% or greater of my posts I link to a page on Wikipedia because I find it to be accurate and unbiased, so I just donated.  I also use it often as a reference guide (new age encyclopedia) when trying to find out information for personal or work related projects as well as for my kids’ school projects.  So, please consider donating now.  If you go to any page, you’ll notice the founder’s statement that if everyone who visited donated just $5, they would reach their goal to help keep it free.  I donated $50 because I believe it’s a great resource.  It’s amazing how many people volunteer their time to make this non-profit company and site reliable and work.  This is from the donation site:

From Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales:

Cleaning House – Purging
Dec 30 2010

Today I spent most of the day just getting rid of stuff.  Shipping clothes to relatives with younger kids, giving toys and other sundries to Goodwill, and moving things around.  I took bags of stuff to Goodwill.  I have boxes of stuff to take to the kids’ school.  I threw bags of (ugh) plastic little useless toys away that can’t be recycled, and I dread the thought of them being in a landfill like in Toy Story 3, but it had to be done.  The house feels lighter.  I feel lighter.  The kids were about 25% helpful but mostly got caught up playing with toys they didn’t want to get rid of.  They were good helpers when I gave them instructions and didn’t argue too much when I told them to throw certain things away or put something in a certain pile, but they would find excuses to play hide and seek, scream and laugh up a storm, work on puzzles, try to play the iPhone, etc. which made me frustrated but smile at the same time.  I’m so glad they get along so well.  I know the day is coming when they won’t get along so I’m savoring it now.  I was too exhausted to cook anything for dinner after a busy day of cleaning so we went to Kerbey Lane Cafe for dinner and the waitress even commented on how well they got along.  [I’m knocking on wood right now!]  My son even encouraged my daughter to play Mario Kart (that he got for Christmas from Grandma) on the Wii with him and made sure she was making enough progress to keep her interested in continuing to play with him.  He’s smart like that…anything to play the Wii!  She’s not much into playing video games but there are a few sports games and things like Mario Kart she likes.

I like an organized house and my house hasn’t been as organized as I’d like in the past couple of years, but I just decided I had to give in to the “lived in” look and the chaos of two kids for my sanity.  Some things are just not worth getting that upset about (i.e., clothes/jackets hanging on chairs/sofas, toys in various places in the house, etc.).  As long as I’m not tripping on something, it’s all good and the kids are pretty good about keeping things out of the way.  My daughter seems to enjoy helping me or being next to me most of the time, but my son would rather play the Wii or the iPhone and it’s hit or miss on his attitude about taking his socks he left on the floor to his dirty clothes bin.  But if it’s night time, then mom has to be close by so he can go to sleep!

I still have the garage, my office, my bathroom, and the kitchen drawers to get through.  Sigh! 

Zhu Zhu pet

It’s good to get rid of stuff, baggage, old ways of doing things even in an entrepreneurial endeavor.  If you don’t get rid of the old ways of thinking and doing things, you can’t make room for the new and I’ve seen many a start-up fail because they get stuck in the ‘well, it’s always been like this‘ attitude and they don’t take time to make room for some fresh thinking and of course new gadgets.  Who couldn’t use a room full of new Zhu Zhu or Kung Zhu pets and their paraphernalia to get the entrepreneurial juices flowing! 😀

Merry Christmas To All
Dec 25 2010

I hope you are all having a great Christmas Day.  Ours was full of presents and things in our stockings…well at least the kid’s stockings.  They already tangled up their slinky’s that I got from the dollar bins at Michael’s.  Even mom got a gift from Santa (from a very talented cousin) and from the kids (a camera and a tool kit!). 🙂  They got some gift cards from Grandma so they will get to buy even more presents!

The kids are surprised that Santa came and gave them more than one gift and ate the cookies/sweet breads we left for him overnight.  My 8 year old kind of knows but wants to believe anyway because he knows if he believes he’ll get presents…smart kid.

The kids got more than they needed/wanted and are already playing with their gifts.  One required some C batteries, which I don’t have.  Most toys don’t seem to use C batteries these days.  The Husky Powertek screwdriver has come in handy to open all these battery compartments!  Now, I have to find some tweezers to get something out that my son got stuck in his new soccer ball that he gets to decorate!

So Merry Christmas to you all.  No matter what religion you might follow, ’tis the season to be jolly, giving, and take some time to enjoy the excitement generated by the children in your lives.  Oh and eat some Japanese food since all the other restaurants are closed.  Our favorite is Kobe steakhouse so we’ll be there later today.  Ho, Ho, Ho!

Husky Powertek Precision Screwdriver – Easy To Use
Dec 24 2010

Sometimes I get requests to review products on my blog.  A while back, I was asked if I would blog about an Epson Artison 800 printer, which I still have and it works well most of the time.  Although I had trouble printing some postcards for my holiday cards this year.  I had to resort to regular paper and hand cutting for many of them which was frustrating, but otherwise it has worked well for me.

I ignore or decline many offers to blog about items because either a) I don’t get the need for or usefulness of the product, b) I don’t need or want it, or c) I know my readers won’t care.  But recently, I was asked if I would like to review the Husky 13-Piece Powertek Precision Screwdriver Set available at Home Depot (retails for $9.88), and I said “heck yes!” I need a power screw driver.  I had an old set of screwdrivers my dad gave me when I first came to college umpteen years ago that I have used often, but it’s manual. I responded within a few hours and they were already out, but then she emailed me a few days later and said she was given more samples to give to bloggers so I said “send it on!”

So last night I used it to hang up some new pictures (in frames) I had of the kids with the help of my long time friends (they have put up with me and my craziness for 20+ years) who were visiting from Dallas.  Between the 3 of us with the 4 kids making tons of noise on the piano and with their zhu zhu pets and kung zhu pets behind us,we hung 3 pictures up.  Thankfully, one of us was close to 6 feet tall (and that wasn’t me or his wife) because we hung the pictures high above the TV set.

I used the screwdriver, which had a head that was small enough, to screw in the little thingamabobs that go on the back of the frame that look like they have little teeth that you hang on top of a nail with.  It was quick and easy although I messed up the angle on one of them.  I think the tool is going to come in handy after opening Christmas presents tomorrow that might need some batteries inside battery compartments that require to be unscrewed before inserting batteries!

My only suggestions would be improvement on packaging because it is hard to handle and seems flimsy.  I dropped the bottom section which holds the heads (or mini bits as they call them) when walking to the room where we were going to hang the pictures and two of the bits fell out.  Fortunately, I found one quickly but the other one took some hunting for to find.  And the plastic cover is a bit loose/flimsy but for $9.88, you can beat the quick power screwing ability (hey, keep your mind clean – it is after all Christmas tomorrow).  I wish I had this tool when I had to manually screw in all the knobs in my daughter’s new dresser I bought her a few months ago.  My hand/arm was sore after screwing in 14 or so knobs.  I’ll be curious to see how much power and longevity it has and if the bits are hard enough to not wear down and hold their fit for some items that require pressure screwing.

All in all, I had a good first experience using it.  I think I’ll still have to keep my other screwdriver kit because the bits are bigger for bigger screws, but I can easily stick this one in a drawer in the house and pull it out quickly when I need it.

I’m appreciative of the opportunity to review such a practical, useful item and so far would recommend it!  Check out the Husky site for the other tool kits they sell.

Trees Are Planted – Hope They Grow
Dec 24 2010

Baby Oak Tree

Thanks to the generous help of my neighbor, the trees I mentioned in my Planting Trees post have now been planted this Christmas Eve morning.  It took almost a couple of hours to plant both.  It was the first time my kids and I had ever really planted trees and it was a fun experience.  And as if to say the timing was right, it rained for about an hour a couple of hours after we finished to give those tries a nice drink.

I think it’s a good skill to have to learn how to work with the earth.  I used to mow our lawn when I was a kid and lived in Lubbock, Texas when I say about 11-13 years old until I accidentally ran over the power cord a couple of times.  I think my mom decided it was safer to hire someone to mow the lawn then.  Although, I drove her crazy as a teenager, I think she still wanted me to live. 🙂  I like to have plants around the house…even though they are in the background. It’s nice to have green living things (with no pollen) in the house.

I told my kids that when they were older they could drive by the house in the neighborhood and tell their kids that they helped plant those big Oak and Elm trees because my guess is we probably won’t be living in this house by the time the trees we planted are as big as the other trees in our neighborhood.  The process got me wanting to plant another tree where the one we had rotted/fell down a few years ago. There are deer in our neighborhood so it will have to be a tree (maybe a flowering one like a crepe myrtle) that they don’t like to eat.

Merry Christmas everyone.  Here’s to planting of new things and growing of new businesses in the New Year!  (Yeah, I know that was an entrepreneurial stretch!)

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence
Dec 21 2010

I mentioned I had a post brewing in my head about this fortune cookie “statement” (i.e., not a fortune) in a prior post.  I actually did see a real fortune the other day that said something like “The love of your life is just around the corner,” but sadly I did not open that cookie, our office manager (who has been married almost 20 years) at work did, so maybe she is re-discovering the love of her life. 🙂

Love is a strange emotion or thing or state of being.  It can be like a drug just like in the movie Love and Other Drugs I just saw.  It doesn’t often make sense.  People love Apple’s iPhone but if you did the practical analysis, the Google Android phone might be better.  In other words people’s imagination of the iPhone triumphs over hard data (i.e., intelligence).  Or there might even be a better phone option than that.  But people fall in love seemingly all of a sudden and sometimes there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to why but some people like Steve Jobs seem to know how to push the buttons of a significant enough portion of the population and get them to fall in love with his ideas/products.  Selling to consumers is a tough job because we are fickle.  We can fall in and out of love (or is that “like”) of products pretty easily.   Probably because society doesn’t look kindly on us falling in and out of love with people, so we project that piece of our humanity onto objects.  No one will judge you or make you feel guilty for falling in and out of love with certain products.  I just came up with that piece of philosophy/wisdom so take it for what it’s worth!

Hugh McLeod (@gapingvoid) loves to cartoon about LOVE and I love the poignancy of his love cartoons.  Jeffrey Fry sent out a quote recently: “The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.” –Mother Teresa.

When people fall in love (infatuation), they certainly overlook the practical/potentially annoying things about something or someone (e.g., you have to keep re-booting the phone, but it looks pretty, it gives you good info on how to get places, and it gives you games to play or if it’s a person for some period of time you don’t see their flaws because he or she makes you feel special/noticed or it seems like they really see or understand you.).

The very few times I’ve fallen in romantic love in my life, I’ve been completely blind sided by it.  Knocked over like a ton of bricks.  Silly and stupid.  And on some occasions, I never even had a relationship with the guy – guess I’m just a romantic at heart and they somehow happened to connect with the combination of my mind/heart, which is very hard to do.  When I’ve fallen out of love, it seems to have happened over time and not suddenly after disappointment, disconnection, pain, and just the exhaustion that comes along with daily living.  I’m not trying to say I believe in ‘love at first site’ because I don’t, but that moment when you realize you love someone or ‘something’ seems to just happen without any warning.  One day you don’t have much feeling toward someone or you don’t know what you feel and the next you find you are in love with them.  Which has led me to the conclusion that we are not meant to love just one person (romantically) our entire lives.  I can see Jeffrey Fry reading this and thinking that I don’t know what true love is yet because he has studied it and apparently knows what it is.  He’s probably right, I don’t know.

There are people in ‘arranged marriages’ who grow to love each other and there are people who had ‘love marriages’ that didn’t work out.  It’s all that stuff that happens (and doesn’t happen) in between the years, the kids, the jobs, behind closed doors, etc. that I guess makes some marriages “work” and others don’t.  The same is true for business start-ups but currently the odds of a marriage making it to “death do us part” is higher (4o to 50%) than a small business making it 50 years (< 10%).  Plus, more people change their jobs and companies they work for now than they did 30+ years ago.  Go figure.

But the closest I’ve come to experiencing true love is the love I feel for my children, and yes the intensity of my love for them did surprise me at first.  And although they sometimes annoy the heck out of me (any parent who says their kids have not annoyed them at some point is a liar), I cannot even imagine a day where I would fall out of love with them.  I can see a day I may not like them sometimes, especially if they do something naughty or talk back to me, but I believe that I will always love them and do my best to support them.

I wonder if it’s harder to fall in or out of love?  That is the question.

Planting Trees
Dec 19 2010

broken tree

The good folks at Tree Folks decided that we (the neighborhood) could benefit from planting more trees in our front yard.  I’m fortunate enough to live in an older neighborhood with great big trees everywhere but there is an effort to add more shade to the street area for energy conservation and other environmental reasons.  So, I got to select up to two trees (Elm and an Oak) for the front yard for “free” which doesn’t have as many trees in it as other houses in our neighborhood.  I have to plan them between 3 and 12 feet from the street.  Our back yard has 5 really big trees.  I thought I only selected one but out of the blue the other day 2 trees in pots showed up laying down in my yard.  I didn’t expect them until the spring time, but there they were and now I have to deal with getting them planted during the Holidays.  Guess it’s a good a time as any.

Long time readers of my blog may remember (won’t blame you if you didn’t because I just remembered I blogged about it) we lost a tree back in July 2008 that was near the front of the house because it decided to fall on our roof.  It was rotting from the inside and if you click that previous link you’ll see the pictures.  I miss that tree and we never got around to planting another one in that location and unfortunately it’s too far back from the street to put one of the Tree Folks trees there.  I just re-read the post and saw that I wrote “What I found really interesting is that although on the outside we noticed one dead limb the other trunks/limbs (even the one leaning on our roof) was full of leaves and looked healthy.  I guess it goes to show you that something can look healthy on the outside but be sick, diseased, and dying on the inside.  That’s really kind of a sad, yet eye-opening thing to think about.”  The same is true of people and animals…you just never know, but that’s a topic of another post or probably PhD research thesis.  Sigh.

I’ve never planted trees before so my neighbor, who is good in the garden, has kindly agreed to help me plant them.  I think it’s a great program these Tree Folks, Austin Energy and Austin Parks and Recreation are sponsoring, but it’s proving to be more of an effort than I thought.  I had to notify them so they could call all the organizations (e.g., cable, electricity, etc.) who might have put some wire down anywhere near where we are considering planting the trees to come mark up the place.  I have a bag of mulch, soil, liquid transplant solution, and tree stakes ready to go.

I have pretty good luck with the plants inside my house but I’m not sure if my green thumb extends to outside of the house, so we’ll see what happens.  Special thanks to my generous neighbor who is going to help me and the kids plant these trees!

If any of you have any tree planting advice for an Elm and an Oak tree (which are sitting out in pots in my front yard right now), please let me know.  I probably won’t be living in this house when they are nice and big, but some future resident will benefit from their beauty and shade.

Black Swan – Psycho Thriller
Dec 18 2010

I saw Black Swan with a friend tonight and I’m still reeling.  It really shook us.  Natalie Portman will probably win something for her performance.  It was recommended to me by a friend/business mentor who during a difficult transition point in my life suggested I participate in a weekend workshop he and his wife have been involved with for years called The Search Within at the Search for Truth center.  I took the course back in August of 2009 (seems forever ago) and was on the support team two weekends ago.  It knocks your emotional socks off whether you are taking it or serving on the support team and it’s about getting in touch with your heart and living from authenticity versus fear.  So I took the recommendation seriously.

The acting was superb and you never really knew what was real and what wasn’t….a true psychological thriller.  For any of us who have striven for perfection only to realize it’s unattainable until ironically, you really let go to who you are, it’s a perfect but scary movie.  If we can’t blend the parts of ourselves together as many of us have trouble doing because we were told we had to be a certain way that we equated to perfect, in some it results in a mental mess where we can’t tell the difference between reality and imagination.  Driven to madness.

Fortunately, we went to PF Chang’s for dinner after the movie and after waiting 25+ minutes for our table, because most restaurants are really busy on a Saturday night in Austin, we got a great waitress named Summer who helped take the deep edge off the surreality of the movie.  She was funny, light hearted and made us laugh.  My head hurt literally for about 20 minutes after seeing the movie as it was so intense.  Thankfully Summer and some wine helped us move on to more interesting topics of discussion.

Our fortunes (nay statements) in our cookies were “A great man never ignores the simplicity of a child.” and “Your smile is a curve that can get a lot of things straight.”  Guess which one was mine? 🙂

Thinking About Transitions
Dec 13 2010

I’ve been thinking about transitions.  Some people transition quickly and some slowly or shall we say not as quickly.  But those who transition quickly sometimes pay later because they act too fast which can result in suboptimal decisions.  Some act too slowly which also result in suboptimal decisions where they have to pay the piper painfully in pickled peppers.

In the world of entrepreneurship, you have to make quick decisions as though you had the time to make a well thought out one, while at the same time having very limited data.  In larger companies, you have more time to research, prepare, and analyze before making a decision which could end up not working anyway.  Larger companies can spend millions of dollars on a bad product/idea and still survive.  Entrepreneurs/small businesses can’t.  They will lose people, money and time.

So how companies handle transitions depends on their culture.  It has been demonstrated that some of the most successful businesses transitioned many times during their existence and their starting business plans looked very different than the one that proved successful.

Think about how you handle transitions in your personal, parenting, and professional lives.  Are they similar or different?  Does it depend on the people you have around you and the strengths and weaknesses they evoke?  I’ve noticed that I’m strongly effected by the people around me during times of transition, and I try to move towards those who have a positive effect on me but am sometimes seemingly demonically pulled towards those who make the transition harder, but fortunately my inner core is more attracted to positive people. 😀

Ah, transitions…one of the things in life you can always expect to happen!

Giving Thanks And Being Grateful And Rapunzel
Nov 28 2010

This past year has been one of my most challenging personally, and I am so thankful for many things including my friends, family, my kids, my kid’s teachers, and the fact that I managed not to jump off the Entrepreneurial Ledge. 🙂 [Check out Fred Wilson’s post: Thanks for the Entrepreneurs.  I’m thankful for them too since they are the main motivation for me to go to work everyday…other than my neat co-workers!]  There were times that some people certainly pushed me to the limit (some intentionally and others unintentionally) but somehow by the grace of God, I kept it mostly together and didn’t completely fall apart. I’m not out of the woods yet, but I have started to see some light in the green and inviting clearing ahead.

I wonder if there is a handsome man on a white horse waiting to understand me, connect with me, make me laugh, and take me away to an easier life waiting in that clearing.  But that sort of stuff just happens in fairy tales like Tangled (based on Rapunzel), which the kids, their cousins, my cousin and I saw over the break.  It was a great movie, but I left wondering why we perpetuate this ‘night in shining armor’ fairly tales to our kids when no one falls in love in 3 days and princesses (women) don’t get rescued from evil parents/mothers by handsome thieves who turn good to get the girl.  Everyone always lives “happily ever after” in these fairy tales, and they leave out the part where Rapunzel will eventually need loads of therapy to get over the fact some evil old lady kidnapped her, used her for her powers, locked her up in a tower for 17 years, and pretended to be her mother. During that time she also made her feel not worthy to live her own life and made her doubt her survival skills.  Talk about ‘trust issues!’  Prince Charming (a.k.a. Robin Hood type) won’t know what hit him after their kids are born. 🙂

Anyway, I digress.  I really enjoyed this Thanksgiving as I had time with family, and the kids and I were able to just be and relax.  We ate a wonderful tasting brined turkey with mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, and sweet potatoes.  We also had three fabulous pies and my favorite was the berry/strawberry/raspberry one.  Yummy!  I was in charge of the sweet potatoes and they turned out fairly well…especially with the marshmallows on top.  Oh and a family tradition is crab curry. It was delicious and very meaty for crab!  We even did (first time ever) the classic singing of Christmas music around the piano and the kids were fascinated to see the grownups behave so musically.  I think it surprised them.  My son even played us some songs on the piano he had learned.  All in all, the trip was short, the conversation enlightening, the feeling peaceful which made it a wonderful Thanksgiving trip.  It made me wish I lived closer to my family.

I hope all of you out there had a nice Thanksgiving and that you had an opportunity to think about all the things you have to be thankful for…not just during this time of year but always!

Interesting Links and Fortunes
Nov 21 2010

These two links are interesting because I wrote the posts…well not just that, they also have some great entrepreneurial content related to my job at the Austin Technology Incubator.

IBM and ATI Announce Partnership On Novel Summer Internship Program
It took us a while to be able to talk about the above partnership that I helped coordinate, but just last week we were finally able to talk about the unique intern program we set up.  It’s pretty exciting news since we helped create three internships that wouldn’t have existed otherwise.  Click the link to read the full story including quotes from our executive director, Isaac Barchas, and a vice president at IBM, Manoj Saxena.

Human Resources Best Practices – Lunch & Learn
One of the many things I do at ATI is organize periodic Lunch & Learn’s with relevant topics/speakers for our companies.  The last one we did was on HR and we had some fantastic speakers (see below).  Check out the post for key questions asked and key takeaways from their talk as well as their full bios.

• Lori Knowlton, Vice President, Human Resources at HomeAway, Inc.
• Alise Mullins, Vice President of Human Resources at LifeSize
• Beth Ruffing, SPHR, Team Manager, Service Operations, Administaff, Inc.
• Kay Stroman, Owner of The Stroman Group, LLC

Fortune Cookies

It’s been almost six months since I’ve done a post on fortune cookies but I got one recently that seemed appropriate.  I was having lunch with Laura Benold, a former ATI marketing associate extraordinaire, last week and got the following fortune: “Impatience may be appropriate at this time.”  We both laughed and thought it was relevant given our conversation at the time.  Although I like to get things done and get them done quickly, I have been more than patient about some things (contrary to some people’s beliefs about me) in the last few years mostly because I was dealing with a personal tsunami of my own, but my patience on certain things has about run out.  So maybe I should be more visible with my impatience for a while. 🙂

Another fortune (i.e., a statement, which seem to be the trend in fortune cookies these days) I got in the last couple of months is something like “Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.”  That is so true about people, products, markets, etc.  I have a blog post brewing in my head about that one.  I think entrepreneurs have an even greater imagination than most.  I can’t imagine living life without an active imagination.  Entrepreneurs (business people, scientists, writers, etc.) are sometimes crazy enough to attempt to try and make what they imagine real!

10 Questions to Answer as You Work to Build Your Blog Brand
Nov 17 2010

This post is a stop along Tanya Peterson’s Blog Tour 2010.  Tanya is the blogger behind Blogelina, where she writes about blogging your way to success.  Be sure to check out all the other stops along the tour and enter to win $100 to use in improving your own blog!

10 Questions to Answer as You Work to Build Your Blog Brand

As you seek to make your blog known, there are several important questions to consider and answer:

What is the end purpose you want to accomplish?

First and foremost, when considering how to build your blog name and brand, you need to answer the why question.  Why are you blogging?  Having a clear idea – for yourself – of what you are seeking to achieve through all your hard work will focus your branding efforts and make your work more effective.  Define your vision and all the other questions below will fall in line to make your branding efforts a success.

What are your goals to get to that purpose?

Now that you know more specifically what your vision is for you blog, decide on two or three goals for your blog.  Make them as specific as possible.  Where do you see your blog being in 5 years?  Dream big.  Is there a blog that you admire and want to emulate?  Decide what goals would help you do just that.

What steps will you take to reach those goals?

Now that you have a couple of overarching goals, what steps are you going to take to reach those goals?  Determine what you want to accomplish on your blog this year, this month, this week, and so on.  Write down your goals. Revisit them often and revise them as needed.

Who is your target audience?

Now it’s time to do a little research and determine who exactly it is that you want to reach with your blog.  Who are you seeking to benefit?  Try to be as specific as possible.  Instead of just wanting to reach moms, decide to reach stay-at-home moms who blog.  The more focused and specific that your niche is, the more success you will have in marketing to your reader.

Who are your competitors?

Do a little more research to answer this question.  Look at the other blogs reaching your target market.  What are they doing that works?  What doesn’t seem to be working?  If the occasion arises, ask the bloggers in your niche about their success.  How did they get to be where they are?

What do you have to offer above and beyond your competition?

Again, take a look at the other blogs in your niche.  What are some things that you can offer to your readers that isn’t already being offered?  What about your blog will make readers visit it instead of the hundreds of others out there?  Be sure to determine the answer to this question – and then use it in your advertising.  Let people know why your blog is different… and why they’ll love it!

When people think of you, what do you want them to think of?

When someone remembers your blog, what do you want to come to mind?  Do you want them to think of how informative it was, how fun it was to read, how beautiful your design is, etc.?  Pick one or two specific things to focus on and put your efforts into standing out in those ways.

How will you market your brand?

Will you use a recognizable image?  Do you want people to know your face?  What will be your elevator pitch?

Where will you market your brand?

You can have the best blog that features the most helpful content out there – but if you can’t get it in front of the people who want to read it, it’s going nowhere.  Think about your target audience.  Where are they hanging out?  Where can you get in touch with them?  Do some research and brainstorming to find out – and then get there and start talking about your blog.

Have you considered doing a Blog Tour?

Guest posting is a great way to get the word out about your blog – and to build your brand!  If you’re interested in going on your own guest posting tour around the blogosphere, you can find more information at my Blog Tour homepage.

Taking the time to answer each of these questions clearly in your own mind will focus your efforts in marketing your blog.  More focus will then result in more success.

Treat Yourself Like Your Own Best Friend
Nov 13 2010

The title of this post was one of 4 pieces of advice that Coach Augie Garrido (wikipedia) gave during his talk last week at the Austin chapter of the Technology Entrepreneur’s Exchange (Texchange).  I have attended several Texchange events and I was a table moderator for this event.  My great neighbor, who sits on the board of Texchange, and who also happens to be a long time reader of my blog :-), invited me to be a table moderator.  He knew I might enjoy it and have some words of wisdom to contribute since the topic was “Facing Adversity.”

Coach Garrido coaches the University of Texas at Austin baseball team and is the “all time winningest coach in the NCAA Division 1 Baseball.”  He is a six-time National Coach of the Year and has won five national championships.  Now, I don’t follow most sports and least of all baseball, but he had several gems of advice and motivation to share.  The one that stuck out  most to me was “Treat yourself like your own best friend.”  He said that often players will encourage/support/forgive others on their team that messed up, but judge themselves harshly which can really throw them off their game.  He also said something like “baseball is a game of failure.”  It’s hard to get all the way around and get someone through home plate so that means to me, you have to deal with more than a few screw-ups.

Here are a few other things he said that resonated with me:

• Teamwork is about trust.  It starts with trust and from trust comes respect and from respect comes teamwork.
• Remove the winning from the process.
• You can’t control the things around you, but you can control your response.
• We all need a purpose individually and as a team.
• You are only as strong as your weakest link.  (We’ve all heard that one before and oh, how true it is.  The weakest link can bring down your strongest links and cause them to take their eyes off the proverbial ball.)

I think team sports are important for kids to participate in.  Being a part of a team really helps you in life and in business.  You win some you lose some and on really good teams it’s not just about one or two superstars, it’s about how the team performs together.  I see this on my son’s soccer team.  The team wins when the players pass well and make goals.  The person making the goal can’t make the goal if his team mates don’t pass the ball to him at the opportune time.  They aren’t out there worrying about who takes credit.  They just want their team to win.  Just like in a good sports team, a good team shares ideas and doesn’t feel threatened by other people contributing to the success of the team or helping others.  Some get recognition for visibly making business goals, some for passing on information/connections to those who need it, some for making sure things get done.

Great coaches/bosses know how to coordinate it day after week after month after year.   And sometimes, you have an off year like our poor UT Austin Longhorn football team is having this year.  That’s life! Personally, I’m hoping my off years are behind me and there are only good/winning years ahead since I’m my own mom and business coach (with a lot of help from some fabulous friends, family, and co-workers of course!).  One has to have hope… 😀